First, there was hell, The hell of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Devil’s Eye”
In hell was “Don Juan“.
He took me to Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell”
That took me to Shaw’s “Man and Superman” (A comedy and a Philosophy, as Shaw says!)
(He also almost made me watch an opera on youtube … but it was in Italian…so I did not!)
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Next, there was a Magic performance. The performance of Ingmar Bergman’s “The Magician” (aka “The Face”)
It took me to G.K.Chesterton’s play “The Magic” (a real fantastic comedy!)
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Now, I am with “George Bernard Shaw” by G.K.Chesterton :P… As if the paths this journey is taking are not enough, Chesterton now says:
Any ordinary leader-writer (let us say) might write swiftly and smoothly something like this: “The element of religion in the Puritan rebellion, if hostile to art, yet saved the movement from some of the evils in which the French Revolution involved morality.” Now a man like Mr. Shaw, who has his own views on everything, would be forced to make the sentence long and broken instead of swift and smooth. He would say something like: “The element of religion, as I explain religion, in the Puritan rebellion (which you wholly misunderstand) if hostile to art—that is what I mean by art—may have saved it from some evils (remember my definition of evil) in which the French Revolution—of which I have my own opinion—involved morality, which I will define for you in a minute.” That is the worst of being a really universal sceptic and philosopher; it is such slow work. The very forest of the man’s thoughts chokes up his thoroughfare.
Ah…and the list keeps getting incremented!
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