Black Butterflies

You won't know where this is going at first. But by the end of the first episode, you'll say "wow," and look forward to watching the other five.

Yes, there are only six episodes. A couple forty five minutes, but the rest an hour or so.

So it's not a huge commitment. But if I were honest, I'd tell you to watch it all in one sitting. Because when a night or more goes by you have trouble keeping track of some of the plot lines. A week by week drip would be an utter disaster. "Black Butterflies" is really one long movie. And it's French. And it plays that way.

"Black Butterflies" would not have the same impact if it were American. You see in America the stars dominate the story, cinematography is key, and the end result is something fake. You don't get wholly engrossed, you don't wholly believe it. And even though a couple of plot twists in the fourth episode might make you wince, "Black Butterflies" feels strangely real.

So if you're a fan of French film...

I'm not talking "Mr. Hulot" here. I'm talking about something grittier, more cerebral. That reflects the human condition, and makes you think.

Adrien is a writer. Past his peak. Although married, he doesn't really fit in. Then again, a writer does not have regular hours, unlike Adrien's scientist wife Nora.

I don't want to put all the pieces together, but let's just say Albert, the old man, is very believable. Someone who has lived his life, and is now just biding time until it is over. He looks experienced, he's lumpy, got lines in his face, but he's still sharp.

As for Catherine... She was a babe once, but she's not desperately holding on to her youth like so many Americans, she's not trying to compete with the twenty-year-olds. She's not caking on makeup, but she's also not let herself go. This is a French archetype, and you're drawn to it.

So when the series gets going, they flash back to the past. And the strange thing is you lived through it. At least me. And you reflect back on what you were doing then, and compare (and contrast!) yourself to the characters.

And there are multiple characters and multiple plot lines and you know they'll converge, but you're not exactly sure how. Which keeps you watching.

Not that "Black Butterflies" is a hard watch. It's all there, what happens is easily digested, but what does happen is constantly unanticipated. I won't say it's a thrill ride, because unlike an American production it's not screamingly fast-paced. Not that it's slow, it moves at the pace of life. There's an intellectual element. Life is being left alone with your thoughts. It's the essence, it's what we do most. But that's not what we tend to see in American art. Unless it has that "look-at-me!" quality, begging for attention. Most of us don't get attention, we're flying solo, as many friends or relations we might possess. We want to feel integrated, but it's a constant challenge, and the isolation can kill you. Never mind that you can be alone together.

"Black Butterflies" is not a comedy. I hear that from people all the time, they want something light, to take them away from the detritus of everyday life.

Now I'm not inherently against light, but I will say it's hard to do right. I will also say I prefer gritty, edgy, that's what I want from my entertainment. I don't want to be taken away, I want to see myself, question my behavior, go inside. I want insight into the human condition, I don't want to feel so alone.

Not that I could connect with the characters. That's another cliché that drives me wild, when people say there was no one they could root for, no one they could identify with, that they dislike all the characters. Well, that's how life is, why should art be any different!

Life is about making choices. And you're constantly searching for information and also constantly finding out you don't know much, or you're surprised by something key. You want to grab hold, you want to eliminate the risk, plan it all out, but no life is like this, and the more you try to attempt this the more you squeeze the life out of life. What I mean is placidity yields little. It's when you're a pinball, when you're the main character in an evolving movie, that life gets interesting.

I don't want to overhype "Black Butterflies." It's not "The Bureau," or "Happy Valley," or even "Broadchurch." But it's well worth your time.

If you're watching French shows I'd start with "A French Village." Forget "Call My Agent," that's light fodder akin to "Mr. Hulot." The French can do that, but it's earthy and human they specialize in. And, of course, watch the police show "Spiral."

But as French as "Spiral" is it's akin to an American series, "Black Butterflies" is not. It's got the essence of the country in the pacing, the plot twists, the characterizations, it's the other, and therefore much more the real thing, as in the characters are real people, whose choices...you can evaluate them as opposed to laughing and discarding them, wondering what you'd do in the situations.

Will you be satisfied when it starts to all play out?

Well, maybe not as much as you were in the first half of the series.

Just one warning, really a tip, stay to the very end of the last episode, don't turn the show off during the credits, which is de rigueur in streaming, hang in there.

__________________________________________

Subject: Trust me on this

We have the exact same taste in shows. Here's one for you:

     Black Butterflies.  Netflix.

Judie Gregg Rosenman


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Winter Songs-SiriusXM This Week

My voice is back and we're going to try this again.

Tune in tomorrow, Saturday January 7th, to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

Phone #: 844-686-5863 

Twitter: @lefsetz

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz 


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Marshall Chess-This Week's Podcast

Come for the Chess Records stories, stay for the Rolling Stones stories!

https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-30806836/episode/marshall-chess-106833029/

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marshall-chess/id1316200737?i=1000592614468

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0SZuO0EUCz0vB5NtcTEEqM?si=lzUByAoPQluepbi91oVbVQ

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/3edcbbcd-2b09-4e5b-a787-18826f3dbd16/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-marshall-chess

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/marshall-chess-210520688


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Shopping

1

I'm never going to a brick and mortar store again!

Well, unless there is service. Like at the ski shop in Vail. But you pay for that service, more than MAP (Minimum Advertised Price). But the employees have been at it for years, unlike at Vail Sports, where the seasonal employees mounted all the demo skis incorrectly.

But no one wants to pay for service. That's the conundrum. People want a rock bottom price for their flight. They want every last penny squeezed out of the deal. As a result, the few people who are working retail are untrained and inexperienced and therefore unhelpful.

So I had to go to Santa Monica for a medical appointment. Are you aware we're in the midst of an "atmospheric river"? This is what people don't understand about Southern California, yes, it barely rains but when it does...it's either very wimpy or it pours. I mean think of your heaviest day of rain out of state, it's like that, but even more so. I left the house and a tsunami of water was pouring down the street. As for the freeway... No matter what time of day, there are people on the freeway in L.A.

Not that I can see much. I've got the wipers up front on full speed, and the rear wiper cranking... Rear wipers, what a great idea, how come it took decades and decades for them to be installed? I remember living in Utah, driving down the canyon during a dump. The defroster wires did a good job, but still...there was snow on the rear window. And ultimately one of the wires conked out. That's the change between yesterday and today, now everything just works. Until it doesn't. But it's so cheap you just throw it out and get a new one.

And my day is brightened by Howard. He's got a caller with genital warts. He got them from a stripper, how is he going to tell his wife? And an MD weighs in from Indiana and I think how entertaining this is, because it's real life.

When I'm done in Santa Monica...

Yesterday my reading glasses broke. I guess everything has an expiration date. Furthermore, they're not strong enough. But my eye doctor is so popular you have to schedule a year in advance, and he's worth it. So I call his office and get my old prescription, which I wasn't sure of, and they said they'd put me on the waiting list, in case something came up before my appointment in May.

So...

I know I need 1.75, but Microvision doesn't make them! Couldn't find them on their site.

So...

I've got a $95 gift card for Warby Parker, from a dinner at Troy Carter's place with the founders. That sounds like a good idea.

So I'm back on the freeway and Howard is talking about his years in 'Nam. Only trumped by when he talks about and imitates his parents. It was priceless. And it's raining and...

Stunningly, I find a spot not far from the Warby Parker store. But when I go to insert my credit card in the meter... It's unreadable! Half of the screen is blacked-out. Ultimately I just pay for two hours and move on. (I could see the first digit, but if I only wanted minutes it was impossible.)

And I stroll down to the Warby Parker store, which I know will be empty, because of the velocity and volume of the rain, and immediately a Gen-Z employee comes up to me and asks if he can help. I tell him I'm looking for reading glasses. He says "You came to the right place!" And just when I'm starting to feel good, he says they can be made up and delivered in two weeks. Nothing shorter? No. I leave the place.

So I cross the street to the CVS. My sneaker getting soaked in the process, the water was just that deep. And by this time I've got to pee. But the stock person tells me the bathroom is out of order. I tell him I'm going to buy something, is it really out of order? And he says yes. And to go to Vons (a supermarket for those not SoCal savvy).

So he steers me to the eyeglass section, but it's for women only, and then a woman points me to the reader section and there's a plethora of product. But not a single pair in 1.75! Just like Microvision, they jump from 1.50 to 2.00. So I try on the 2.00, maybe those will work. But then I finally find a pair, with a case, that are 1.75. And I test and realize that that's my correct prescription, 1.75. But these are three times the price of everything else, but just as I'm thinking of biting the bullet I read the details and they're trifocals, that won't work.

So...

I'm in search of a bathroom. Vons is not close, so I decide to go to Chipotle. Chipotle has got bathrooms, but you need a code to get in. And they give me the wrong code. But I see a guy enter one and figure I'll wait, but he never comes out. So guiltily, I go back to the service worker who tells me a different code, and I get in, and the bathroom is pretty clean, kudos.

So...

I get in my car, turn around and start driving to the CVS near our house. Oh, did I say Felice needed Mucinex? That was another reason for my journey. I didn't even bother to look for it at the previous CVS, because you can get Mucinex everywhere. Right?

And I come by Poquito Mas. And I'm starving. So I go in. But first I want to wash my hands. So I ask for the bathroom code, these loos are locked too, and I'm given it and it doesn't work. So I ask again, same deal. Then I ask a different person, who tells me that bathroom is broken, and I need to go to the other one, which is occupied.

So I wash my hands under the iced water tank. I think it freaked them out, but...

I scarf my tostada, which was excellent by the way, hit the spot, and now I wanted to go back to the bathroom, the one that worked. But I couldn't unlock it. So I go back to the cashier and ask for the code, which is the same one she gave me before. But then someone says that the bathroom is occupied, even though I banged on the door and asked if there was someone in there. Turned out to be an employee. And the door locked behind her when she exited. But then she entered a completely different code than the one I'd been told previously, to let me in.

Back in the car going west to the other CVS.

It's empty, like every other establishment. I ask for the reading glasses and am pointed to an aisle... That looks like a crime scene. They've got the same racks as the other CVS, but almost no inventory. And what's there is strewn loose around the base of the fixture. I comb through the detritus, but there's nothing close to my prescription.

So finally, I go to buy the Mucinex.

The cold remedy aisle is completely wiped out, I mean completely!

Well, more than half of it anyway. On the other end there are medications behind locked doors. And I'm not talking about cocaine, these are standard meds, but not the one I'm looking for.

Ultimately I find a bottle of Mucinex. But there's a generic with the same ingredients right next to it. All good except that the Mucinex is a liquid and the generic is pills. Does it make a difference?

So I whip out my phone and research and it turns out Mucinex makes pills too, but of course there's no inventory. I end up buying the expensive brand name, because Felice's health is important to me.

And of course I've got to pay by myself. We pump our own gas, soon we'll be asked to refine it.

But there are no bags and I don't need a bag and the machine won't let me go to the next step. So the majordomo comes over and helps me and...

Three hours later I'm home and have accomplished almost nothing.

2

I'm sick and tired of all this anti-internet hogwash, purveyed primarily by my boomer brethren. We've got to get off our phones, go back to the way it used to be, in the last century.

No!

I haven't been to a retail establishment in years, other than the aforementioned ski shop. Because they never have what I'm looking for, there's no inventory! Whereas online, it's all there and I can get it overnight, sometimes even the same day!

Stop hating on Amazon. Except for their ridiculous ads. I was trying to buy a tire pressure gauge yesterday, a ten dollar item, and it took me half an hour. I couldn't find what my research told me was good, and that that was there was impossible to find, because of the clutter of ads.

However, what is good about Amazon is you can search your order history, and most times you're buying the same damn thing over and over.

But I didn't want to wait a day for reading glasses. I wanted them for tonight. Sucker!

So now I'll go online. Where all the choices are there and everything's available.

Well, maybe not absolutely everything, because of just-in-time inventory policies...

The whole nation is so damn lean... This is what got Southwest and Ticketmaster in trouble. Just think, if Ticketmaster had put more into technology Taylor Swift wouldn't have bitched and the company wouldn't pay a price, which it looks like it's going to, the government is rabid on this.

If you like to shop...

I hate to shop, what a waste of time.

Then again, the only way for most people to evidence their status is via clothes and accoutrements. Ain't that sad.

So before you decide to get in your car and go down to the corner to buy something... Stop! It probably won't be there, just go online. It's not only easier, your odds of success are way higher.


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Blondshell/"Sepsis"

"Spotify": https://spoti.fi/3QfgF1e

"YouTube": https://bit.ly/3Gju8QX

Did you buy that Modern Lovers album, with "Pablo Picasso"?

I certainly did. The entire album had an attitude, a sense of humor. These were intelligent people, not compromising for the audience, but on their own hejira.

And I continued to follow Jonathan Richman, I bought all the albums, went to see him. I mean "Rockin' Shopping Center"...talking about malls having flags, hilarious!

And then there were the Frank Zappa records. Don't let history be rewritten, the average person didn't hear Zappa until "Valley Girl" in '82. Or maybe "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" in '74. But those initial albums... "Freak Out" is a masterpiece. A double album on a lame label that most people never heard, they should listen to it today. And "Status Back Baby" on "Absolutely Free," a bouncy ditty about losing status at the high school, brilliant.

In other words there were special records, that you read about, that you heard about, that you sought out, bought and treasured. You were a fan of these acts which few knew, but meant everything to you.

This is the basis of rock and roll. Intelligence and insight. Just because it's simple doesn't mean it can't be intelligent. The Beatles were envelope-pushers. The vaunted Patti Smith too. But today...

The goal is to become a brand.

But even worse, there's so much product that almost everything gets lost. Whereas there used to be a threshold, a dividing line, between the relatively few who got record deals and distribution and those who did not. And if you did, there was a chance word could spread, you could become a cult favorite.

"I'm going back to him
I know my therapist's pissed
We both know he's a dick"

Wow, the difference between artists and everybody else, those who have something to say and those who don't. Just because you can string words together that does not mean you're worth listening to.

She's admitting going to a shrink. And admitting her boyfriend is a "dick," but she can't leave. There's a sense of humor, but underneath that is the truth. Forget the rap videos, most people just don't kick their significant other to the curb and move on, crawl from the wreckage into a brand new car. Most find it hard to extricate themselves from the train-wreck. Taylor Tomlinson has got a great joke about her years-long off and on relationship, how she can't be invited to holidays, because what is he going to say to his family?

"It should take a whole lot less
To turn me off, to turn me off"

Ain't that the truth. Once you're in it's so hard to get out.

"If I'm in love, nothing hurts
Give enough, make it work
Clarify what I deserve"

Ah, that's the power of love. And people think they have the power to make it work, to get what they want, if they just try harder, but it takes two to tango, and too often you can't fix what's broken, but that does not mean you exit the wreckage.

"He wears a front-facing cap
The sex is almost always bad
I don't care 'cause I'm in love
I don't know him well enough"

It's not like he's arm candy, someone who is going to impress her friends. He even turns her off. And saying the sex is bad...when did you hear this in a song recently? Never! But it's all trumped by her blind love for him. And she's got some self-knowledge, knows she's projecting, but she can't help herself.

"What am I projecting
He's gonna start infecting my life
It will hit all at once like sepsis
What if I'm down to let this kill me
Oh"

Oh, your significant other can bring you down, ruin your life. Believe me, I know from experience. That's how much influence one person has over another, and you've put time into the relationship, you're committed, this isn't really happening, is it?

Then it does.

"It should take a whole lot less
To turn me off, to turn me off"

It should, but it doesn't.

This is an honest song, with insight. Not by a beautiful winner with all the opportunities, but a regular person like you and me, like the rock stars of yore, before MTV put a premium on how you looked.

Now don't look at "Sepsis" through today's lens, that would be missing the point. Don't tell me it's not a hit single. Don't evaluate the singer's voice. That's the wrong way to look at it. But that's how far we've come, everybody's a cookie-cutter product, under the same delusions.

"Sepsis" is an honest statement with self-knowledge and humor. And humanity. It's something you want to tell people about. You know, your friends, not the internet at large. People you know, who share the same sensibility.

Now I've told you.


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The Escape Artist

"The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World": https://amzn.to/3IiORqL

The reason this book is so good is because it describes, in detail, day to day live in the concentration camp, i.e., Auschwitz.

You know I rarely read nonfiction. And I was regretting my choice until Walter Rosenberg was shipped off from Slovakia by train after trying to escape to England.

You see we already know what is going to happen, it's in the book's title. So it's a very different experience from fiction, where you're going down a rabbit hole and you feel at one with the book. In other words, nonfiction is just not personal. But you'll read "The Escape Artist" and have a lot of questions, especially if you're Jewish.

I thought I was overcharged. Could I go to the retail establishment and question the price or would I be labeled the cheap, conniving Jew?

Over the holidays I read a story about an American who decamped from the States, because of anti-Semitism. And now I'm judging myself in ways I never did previously. They call this a chilling effect. The term is used primarily in Constitutional law. In other words, there are effects of not only laws but other behaviors that cannot be easily measured, i.e. people refraining from action. Believe me I don't want to be seen as a loudmouthed Jew, especially when Dave Chappelle goes on SNL and talks about all the Jews in Hollywood.

So the war ends. And then what?

Walter Rosenberg, now named Rudolf Vrba, goes back to college, earning his degree at light speed, trying to catch up on all those years of education he missed. Would I have done that? Probably not. Maybe because education in my life was not seen as enriching and beneficial so much as a hurdle you had to jump. Did you see that article in the "Wall Street Journal" today questioning the need for college? There are fewer students and the institutions are fighting for them, in many cases by lowering prices, but if you get a job at Google are you better off than the person with the college degree?

And needless to say, if I was in a concentration camp, I'd be permanently demoralized. But Rudi bounced back, almost immediately. He went back to Poland, he visited Auschwitz, he kept on keeping on, what motivated him, I wish I could have some of that juice.

Not that there weren't consequences. He trusted absolutely no one. And his relationships were fraught. Both love and friendship. And then there was the argument over credit, did Fred, who escaped with Walter, deserve more attention? Meanwhile, Fred stays in communist Czechoslovakia and dies at a relatively young age, whereas Rudi Vrba died of cancer at 81, in Vancouver, Canada.

So Rudi is sharp, but his home life is...well let's just say his parents were divorced, his mother had a new relationship and Rudi was an independent, self-starter.

But he ends up in Auschwitz at age 18.

Yes, there are the stories of the gassing and burning of bodies, but that's not where the detail is. The detail is in what happened to the few who were chosen to live, who worked in the camps. Did you know Jews could work their way up the hierarchy to the point where they wore civilian clothes of their choice? And had better food? I certainly did not.

I don't want to glamorize it, especially in light of the Holocaust deniers...

You see it's eighty years ago. And there are very few who experienced it firsthand who are still around.

I grew up with people who had numbers tattooed on their arms. Benny the butcher. Everybody in the community knew he and his wife were in the camps. You saw the numbers and...that's an experience you never forget.

And you're reading the book and you wonder how Hitler and his inner circle even came up with the idea of eradicating the Jews. And you know they did a pretty good job of it. What was already a minority is even smaller now. As for anti-Semitism... You can't defend Israel anymore, because of the plight of the Palestinians. And now with the new government's support of Russia against Ukraine they're making it hard for me to support the country too. You see the goal of the Palestinians is to eradicate Israel, they believe it has no right to exist. Not radically different from Hitler's view, but somehow people have forgotten and side with them. Of course Israel is imperfect, but why does the Jewish state get all the hate when the surrounding countries are far from model democracies?

So nobody knew. Or maybe they did.

But the people sent to the concentration camps, they truly believed they were being resettled. They took clothing and valuables and as soon as they landed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, they were stripped of their belongings, 10% were allowed to live, and the other 90% were immediately trucked off to be killed, right then. Given a bar of soap to clean themselves while they were gassed. They ran a noisy vehicle to drown out the screaming.

And Walter's seeing this every day.

And judgments are willy-nilly. Who survives, who gets a better job, it's all at the whim of the SS. They don't study the facts, look at your CV, they just make instant judgments and that's it. And they'll whip you and kill you without thinking twice.

So first there's raw survival. Could I have handled the train, standing up for days, everybody crapping in an overflowing bucket?

And even if I was allowed to live, would I have been able to endure the hardship? Don't look like a perfectly healthy specimen and they kill you. You've got to fake it to make it, as they say on TV these days. Not only day after day, but year after year.

And Walter/Rudi's main goal in escaping is to warn the Hungarians, that they're next. But nobody he tells the story to is as freaked out as he is. They're calm. They doubt. And the Hungarians are shipped off to Birkenau, where there's a new rail line to make the killing easier, eradicating the need to move the soon to be murdered by truck.

But the worst thing is everybody knew. Churchill. Roosevelt. And they did nothing. Could they at least bomb these new rail lines? No.

On my birthday a few years back I went to the Holocaust Museum in L.A., and they had reproductions of the newspaper from that era. Oh, it was in the news, but nobody paid attention.

Not that the Germans wanted the story out. Their goal was to lock up or kill everybody who knew.

And those who knew...didn't believe it.

That's right, those who were exposed to Walter's words were convinced they couldn't be true.

So there are big events in life and how do you go on? Like if you were in Vietnam, or Iran... You came back, most people never went, life moves on, but does it for you?

Or more benign events. Like classic rock. Even rock music itself. It had a multi-decade heyday, but now it's over. Do you move on or just live forever in the land of nostalgia? I mean it's kind of creepy when you see old fat tattooed guys at the gig... They seem to have missed out on everything, life passed them by, all they've got is this music.

And everybody with a brain now knows music doesn't drive the culture, not the way it did back in the classic rock era, even the MTV era. Sure, the music affects people, but do we really listen to these nitwits tell us what to believe? Streaming television drives the culture, but no one in the music industry will admit this, even though when you get together that's all they want to talk about, streaming TV and politics.

Yes, politics is taboo... But hang with a promoter and it comes up instantly. It's a hell of a lot more interesting than the music.

Don't protest. That's just the point. We're all focused on different stuff.

We were all focused on the same things and the internet came along and blew that model to hell. Now what? How do you live your life?

And just like in World War II, disinformation is ever-present. I mean this vax stuff is insane. Yes, the reason Damar Hamlin had such grave consequences from the hit is because he was vaxxed. People were saying that on Twitter within minutes!

Do you have to read "The Escape Artist"? Are you missing out if you don't? Well, there are numerous people, especially boomers, who can't get over the Nazis and the Holocaust. I remember picking up the paper in the eighties when they broke the story that Mengele had been living in Brazil and died. The members of the SS didn't all go hide, most of them went on to work under their real names, findable...if society cared enough.

Man's inhumanity to man. That's what they call it.

Groupthink, obeying orders will get you nowhere. And that's what American education is all about. They don't want you to be able to think, because then maybe...

I mean how does a guy like Putin come up with this stuff, believe he's king and can negatively affect millions of people on a whim? Who are these tyrants?

They exist. And I'm not going to tell you this or that person is Hitler, but I am telling you if you think it can't happen again, here, you're absolutely wrong.

"Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too."

Heinrich Heine, 1822.


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