Fiction and reality-Bin Laden's death and a writer's imagination

Everyone is reading and reacting on the taking out of this person.

The longer I have been reading and enjoying the various titles of Tom Clancy, the more do I ask myself: does Clancy shape the future, or did the events follow his imagination?

Let us start with the heinous 9/11.

Airplanes smashing themselves in buildings.

In the last pages of his novel DEBT OF HONOR (written in 1994) an embittered Japanese Jumbo jet pilot, who has lost his son and his brother in the short war between Japan and the US, dives with his huge plane into the Capitol building, decapitating the whole American political establishment, President included.

In EXECUTIVE ORDERS (1996) the US President, Jack Ryan, during a television broadcast press conference, shows the destruction of the Iranian (fictitious) ruler Daryaei, who had previoulsy unleashed biological attacks on the US soil.

The arch-enemy is killed in a "live feed" missile attack, with the help of two special forces soldiers illuminating his house as target with laser beams.

Enough resemblance???

Does it mean that terrorists duly read political thrillers or that writers creep in the mind of these people, perhaps with suggestions by friends working in the intelligence services?

As a matter of fact, nowadays we live in a world where this kind of news very much resembles what we just like to read sitting on a beach.

A couple of days ago, I stepped into the bus on my way to the station, my mp3 player on and geared with my headphone.
Got seated near a bespectacled Chinese looking boy, he was reading a newspaper slightly protruded, as if he didn't want to let the newspaper fly away from his clasped hands.
I soon heard a forgotten sound.
On the other side of the bus, two little girls, one about 11 and the other about 9 years old, started laughing, the younger letting the older laugh more and more; their laugh..... unforgettable, a purity of the sound of their hilarity, I would qualify the sound as.... silverlike!
Either they laughed at the way the boy was reading, or they were laughing at this grey haired man with his headphone on, maybe.
Stiill remember their laugh....
Oh could we adults laugh like that.
No, we laugh histerically, or in a loud way, or we just do not dare to laugh and close our lips, or in any case never we do equal that pure laugh.
Can we try to let our inibitions loose and laugh like those two little girls?

Hallo, Mandrake, do you recognize my voice?

Yes sir, of course, I just talked to you a few minutes ago!

With these words, more or less, the movie begins.

For me, one of the best movies ever seen; every three or four months, when I am at home, preferably alone, I sit down at ease, switch the VHS recorder on (maybe I’ll buy a DVD version within short, without the boring translation) and sip every word and gesture of Dr. Strangelove.

I am terribly fond of the movie, but don’t fear, not because of the apocalyptic setting of a nuclear mayhem, oh no (not only, to be frank!).

It is a film fresco of the shortcomings of mankind, without any further ado.

This is a portrayal of our weaknesses, vices, secret and coveted aspirations, shortly, every other time I look at it, I discover some new aspects; much more that reading at school the (then) compulsory and therefore hated Divina Commedia!

Go, folks, and look at this darn good masterpiece, from the multi-faceted Peter Sellers to the earnest of Sterling Hayden as the general who unleashes world destruction.

How beautiful is a boat,
when approaching the quay,
it slowly veers and
slides a bit sideways.
Its shape changes
from a side to a front view,
to a side view again,
while the sailors stand
ready to throw
the mooring lines.

How beautiful is a boat when,
approaching the quay,
it slowly veers and slides
a bit, sideways.
Its shape changes,
from a side to a front view,
ans slowly again to a side view,
while the sailors on deck are ready
to throw the mooring lines.

But let us go back to business.
I read many a blog, and I have to say: I like them.
Open diaries, reveries, statements, all in freedom.
No big commercial organisation behind this, do you realise how good is this?
You will say: dear sir, we knew this already!!!!!
Allright, but it remains a great thing!
Enough.
Now I should really write something myself.
But.... I'm tired, will be done another day!
Maybe tomorrow, or another day, who cares???
Do you care???

Would like to start writing what I really feel like in this world, where so much human potential is being used in the wrong way, and humour is not seen as a moving factor.
Only big ideals, complicated theories.
Really, sometimes simple solutions, simple little shiftings may achieve big wonders.
Now to bed!

Hallo, this is my first attempt to write on Blogspot.
I would not really be inclined to share my views and thoughts with whomsoever on this (too) public place and space, but the temptation is great.......

So, I will first tell that I am fond of collecting books, preferably in English or Italian, on the topics of sailing ships and ship models, on the great drama of the American Civil War, and of surfing on the web for music, archeology and tales, and blogs of LIVING people.

In the ever growing turbulence of our day to day struggle for surviving (at least in Europe or maybe the US or Japan or various big cities elsewhere) in big urban concentrations, people tend to live by bits and pieces, and to seek refuge in own worlds for rest, nice friends, and well-being.

I am one of these.