Albert Nobbs

Glenn Close plays a woman pretending to be a man so that she could get a job and then just kind of never stopped pretending.  Like Yentl, this is a story set in the bad old days when a woman couldn’t expect much out of life.  And, also like Yentl, this was a film that didn’t make much sense. Our hero/heroine is a small man working as a waiter at a residence hotel in Dublin in around 1918 or so.  This story was actually written in 1918, which makes me wonder, how common was this whole transvestite thing to get…

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The Silva Method of Mind Control

About thirty years ago I went through a phase where I read all these wonderfully odd little books meant to change your life and your worldview.  Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Dianetics, books on Alexander Technique and Rolfing, the Feldenkrais Method, Super Learning, and The Silva Method of Mind Control.  All of these things promise the impossible, but wrap it up in a nice semi-logical sounding package.  I recently re-read The Silva Method of Mind Control. Silva starts off with advising that everyone should meditate, morning and night and add the Émile Coué affirmation Everyday, in Every way, I’m getting better and…

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