[joe-frank-list] 'Predator'

[russellbell at gmail.com]

	'Predator' begins with Larry's account of a friend of his
daughter staying with them in New York, her encounter with a suspect
movie director.  That lasts 33 minutes; the rest is re-used material
from 8 different shows.

	Zoe is 17.  She's at a private school for dance in Washington
DC, taught by Russian ballerinas.  Larry and Jolly let her
dancer-friend Rebecca (also 17) stay in Zoe's room while Zoe's out.
Rebecca meets a suspect film director (allegedly James Toback
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0864812/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Toback) who, the Blocks think, is
inappropriately interested in her.  They object to Rebecca meeting
him.  Larry talks to the director, finds him charming, still has
reservations about him.  Larry talks to Rebecca's mother, Mary, who
thinks Rebecca's meeting the director is a good idea; she thinks the
director wants to sniff her up because she's a young girl, but it
would be a valuable lesson for her.  Jolly continues to object.
Rebecca is unhappy about this.
	On a visit to Zoe in Washington Rebecca is so cold to her Zoe
no longer wants Rebecca staying in her room, so Rebecca moves out when
her father visits on Thanksgiving.  The families are irreparably
riven.
	33:50: Joe talks about power, how it has clarity, does what it
wants, never asks permission, never apologizes; power rules the
natural world.  (originally aired in 'The dictator, part 1')
	36:50: Joe quotes Dostoyevsky, 'If god didn't exist everything
would be possible.' ('Brothers Karamazov'), then about Camus's opinion
of the Nazis.  (I'm pretty sure the letter of Camus to which Joe
refers doesn't exist.)  Joe quotes Nietzsche, 'God doesn't exist.',
says he was arrested as an accessory after the fact for god's murder,
put under the care of Jung.  He then says Freud said, 'The past
determines the future.', but now we know it's the reverse.
(originally aired in 'Five part dissonance')
	39:20: Joe says Hegel wrote that our ideas are shaped by the
time they are formed, which makes them invalid.  Then Joe asks if we
have ever felt a movement underneath our feet, points out the the
Earth moves, that gravity holds us to the Earth.  (originally aired in
'Questions')
	41:10: 'if you put an empty frame against a blank wall you
suddenly notice the patterns of the wallpaper the color the cracks in
the plaster...'  (originally aired in 'Case studies')
	41:50: 'We all hunger for meaning...' we look for it by
researching our ancestries.  Joe points out that the number of
ancestors increases exponentially, 1,024 after 10 generations,
1,048,576 after 20, 1,073,641,624 after 40 (it's really 30), more than
the population of the Earth that long ago.  (originally aired in 'At
the border')
	43:40: 'The ambiguities of life are infinite - life is
impenetrable, it's opaque...'  (originally aired in 'At the border')
	44:30: 'Some people can't believe that the world is the result
of an explosion that took place billions of years ago...' (Joe says
the same, but in first person, in 'Thank you, you're beautiful')
	45:30: 'The discovery that you have you lost your way in life
can come upon you relatively quickly...' - but that it's easy to lose
your way.  (originally aired in 'In the dark - part 2')
	46:30: A psychologist (a Black man?) talks to someone whom
police officers allege threatened to kill his wife and children.  He
ends up praying that he not do anything crazy. (originally aired in
'Nightride')
	50:50: 'I have danced spinning madly among the sacred
cowgirls...' Joe tells all the dancing he has done, then a number of
other amazing things.  (originally aired in 'Blues singer')
	52:10: 'I have drunk gallons of Chablis...' - Joe lists
accomplishments.  (originally aired in 'Stories for nothing')

http://jfwiki.org/index.php?title=Predator

russell bell