As I have already written in the former post, the plot is just another version of the sempiternal story of Cinderella.
But there is an important detail in which, maybe, we might find the reason of the success of the film, which is shown on TV in many countries so many times a
year…
In the  original fairy-tale,  and  in all its derivations, it’s the Prince Charming who saves the poor girl from her  miserable fate and make a princess of her, with all the advantages which might derivate.
In “Pretty Woman” it’s the opposite…It’s Cinderella who saves the Prince.
Of course she has not any richness, any status symbol, but she has the energy of life, the positivity of a curious spirit, while the Prince is passive, bored, without enthusiasm and without motivations.
Cinderella gives him what he lacks of, what he needs to see the colours of life. This is the secret of this little film: the overturning of the fairy-tale roles.
And it’s doesn’t matter if all is equally totally unreal.


Happy New Year!
I wish you fancy, creativity and the free use of your mind

One of the features of Christmas is the repetition of certain rituals, which are always the same, year after year. Many might find them reassuring.
I prefer to not express my own opinion too openly.
I might mention in casual order the overdose of red Santa’s hat, which are not only worn by consenting people, but are often imposed on the unaware heads of innocent creatures, like babies and pets.
The procedure is the following: you put the hat on the head of a baby
(preferably babies who cannot walk that much yet, to prevent them from running
away)  or  on the head of your patient and resigned dog ( in alternative also false
reindeer antlers can be suitable), you might also try with your cat, if he’s
sleeping, but be ready to face his reaction; the hat won’t stay on place for a
long time , when he wakes up. Then you take pictures of your victims and you
show them to friends and relatives, who are supposed to giggle and to
exclaim: “How cute!”.
What else? …ah yes, the old films on TV. They are a classic of Christmas Eve and Christmas afternoon. They are usually rather old and must overflow with good feelings and all the clichés of Christmas moods. Some of them are like those distant friends whom we meet only once a year so we find them pleasant, while if we had to meet more frequently, we could not bear them at all. An overdose of moving characters, smiling children, grumpy old men who at the end are touched by the magic of Christmas and become generous and caring. You know the old story, so it’s useless I repeat it.
I fell in this trap too. In a kind of lazy boredom I switched on TV  and I stumbled upon the last film directed by Frank Capra starring Beth Davis and Glenn Ford. A Christmas comedy of 1961, old stuff, of course, but Frank Capra was Frank Capra,
the master of sophisticated Hollywood comedy and then Beth Davis and Glenn Ford, well…they were actors with a big “A”
I watched it. Then at the end I came to the conclusion that it was really old fashioned and the only amusing thing was recognizing the actors who played second roles and were still so young then, as the one who became famous playing the role of “Columbo” in a series of telefilm and the Swedish American Ann-Margret , in her first role in a film, I think.
But what made me think over were the presumed good feelings that the film was supposedto convey. It was all based on lies, people pretending to be different from what they are. A mother who deceives her daughter pretending to be a lady from high society, so the girl can get married to an improbable Spanish count. Of course it was just a kind of fairy-tale. Nevertheless the moral of the tale is that pretending to be rich and to show off is a good thing, so helping an alcoholic old street peddler who sells apples to cheat a rather  naïve and equally presumptuous Spanish aristocratic is definitely a good deed. So the merry bunch, the daughter, her aristocratic fiancé and his father go back to Spain, while the false lady of New York high society, immediately becomes again the leader of her band of beggars.
I spare you the rest. But this is the essential plot.
Luckily I can remember Frank Capra as director of the delightfully "politically incorrect" film "Arsenic and Old Lace"

This winter journal is a little bit secluded. Few people arrive until this page in their casual peregrination over the innumerable paths of the Web. But at least one visitor has left kind trace of his passage, which I have deeply appreciated.
So I ideally keep on selling my soap bubbles to him for free. He comes from Australia, so it’s a very long journey he took from their summer to our winter and I hope he will find something refreshing
here.
I love snow. I have always declared proudly to be a winter person and I’m coherent in my liking.
There is something in winter which favours the delicate art of meditation; there is a different dimension of time, a prevailing role of slowness. There is more silence in winter and the colours are not flashy and overwhelming.
I have adopted this particular slowness which allows me to enhance the importance of meaningful details.

The winter solstice was today at 11:12 (UTC). It means days are getting a little longer now, and night a little shorter, imperceptibly but regularly.
At the same time, our friends of the other hemisphere are at the top of their daylight empire, which is slightly declining.

December 20 and December 23 solstices occur less frequently than December 21 or December 22 solstices in the Gregorian calendar. It confirms once again that we measure time with rather relative parameters, while our earth simply doesn’t care for dates we have fixed, but keeps on with its regular movement to be always back to the same place at the due moment.

Only the natural phenomena are common for all the inhabitants of this little planet, and if there is ever any absolute value, it can be found only in them,
From the origin of their story, which is ours of course, human beings have always been scared by darkness and have worshipped light, as force of life and source of  renewed natural energy.
So we find in all ancient culture ritual celebrations to welcome the return of light, leading slowly but securely to the next spring and, as a consequence, to the next promising harvest.
I have always enjoyed the symbolism of lights in the heart of winter. In many North European countries, where  winter lights is even more reduced, people have the habit to light a candle on the windowsill when they come back home from work .
I liked that moment of the day when I was in Estonia. We lit up candles and we sat comfortably drinking something before dinner, while outdoors even the fields covered with snow looked dark in the total obscurity.

I take good care not to speak of anything even only vaguely related with Maya.
Maya the Bee included. Even though the gentle, hard-working insect has not any responsibility for the recurrent catastrophism which has affected the fragile psyche of mankind since we have learnt to walk straight.
Sometimes, when we dislike something or we feel totally against a certain principle, a certain theory, we seem to become slightly obsessed by that in a negative way. We keep on speaking of what we dislike, because of a strong need to display our dissent. Maybe it’s only a way to exorcize ideally what we cannot get rid of practically.
I sufferwith this kind a flaws as well, even though I try to recover.