Point of No Return

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scienceguy
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Point of No Return

#1 Post by scienceguy »

FADE IN: ("Flight", 2012, USA, Denzel Washington, as Captain Whip Whitaker, is in command of SouthJet 227 which takes off in bad weather from Orlando on a short flight to Atlanta.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnVNNR6CEOE

In air safety parlance, the "point of no return is the point beyond which one must continue on one's current course of action because turning back is dangerous, physically impossible, or prohibitively expensive." SouthJet 227 should have been a routine flight, but not today. Today, time, place and circumstance converged in a bad way, and fate took control, arriving suddenly, without notice. No escape, no way to rewind. The point of no return was reached and surpassed, changing all in an instant.

Sometimes, though, the point of no return can be driven by the passing of time alone, as we can plainly see in the following musical selection. Here, too, there is no escape, no rewind for playback. (Willie Nelson performs "September Song", "...an American pop standard composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Maxwell Anderson. It was introduced by Walter Huston in the 1938 Broadway musical production "Knickerbocker Holiday." After being used in the 1950 film "September Affair," the song has been recorded by numerous singers and instrumentalists. It was also used during screen credits in the British television series May to December, the name of which quotes the opening line of the song.") ["Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December/But the days grow short when you reach September/When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame/One hasn't got time for the waiting game..."] The lyrics of this version were written for Willie by ALI STATON, JOHN GREEN, and STEPHEN GRANVILLE for the album Stardust, which was released in 1978. Enjoy this video which is described as "gorgeous autumnal colours in this plattymedia video/slides interpretation."


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXXKP-Ip4z8

Before moving on, I'd like to share with you what I think the "point of no return" would look and sound like in an ambient situation, in particular leafless trees, zither, and long shot. This is the last scene of Carol Reed's "The Third Man" (1949). It is the Anna (Alida Valli) walk away scene. Writer of cowboy westerns, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), travels to post WWII Vienna, divided up by the Allies, to take a job offered by Harry Lime (Orson Wells), a college friend and Anna's lover. Instead, he finds only death and deceit. Trevor Howard, as Maj. Calloway, has been pursuing Lime, who finally is shot and killed by Martins, and in this scene, Lime is being buried. See what you think.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l64JIcG-O-k

Next, we find that the speaker has come face to face with the point of no return. We can imagine that some wrong turn was taken, maybe many missteps, that has/have brought him to this nowhere-to-go, no-way-to-turn-back dead end. Johnny Cash gives this live performance of Kris Kristofferson's "Sunday Morning Coming Down" (from the 2004 album Classic Cash: Hall of Fame Series) in 1972 at the "Beat Club" in Bremen, Germany. Or, live from Austin, Texas. ["...Then I headed back for home/ And somewhere far away/ A lonely bell was ringing/ And it echoed through the canyon like/The disappearing dreams of yesterday...."]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZN0JdJNvsU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja0X-ZGDFzs

Finally, we come to arguably one of the most inspired lyrics penned by Lowe and Tennant, "Being Boring", released in 1990 in the album Behavior. There is no shortage of critical interpretations of this song by various reviewers, but in the context of this post, I should let the songwriter speak for himself.

"Neil Tennant: 'This was just the period where Kylie Minogue made her best records, you know, like 'Better The Devil You Know.' To me, actually 'Being Boring' was also an attempt to do a Stock-Aitken-Waterman thing, believe it or not. We were always fascinated about the way Stock-Aitken-Waterman would change key for choruses. And so to be musical about it, the verse of 'Being Boring' was in A minor or D minor, maybe, after we went up a semitone into A flat for the chorus. Which we would never have done before. It wasn't an attempt to be mature, it was actually an attempt to be like Stock-Aitken-Waterman.

Maybe one reason the album being melancholy was my friend, Chris Dowell, dying as well. He died in 1989 and 'Being Boring' was kind of about him. I don't think he really cast the shadow on the whole album, maybe set a mood that we followed through.

'Being Boring' was about three phrases of our life. The first verse is all my friends in Newcastle, and this friend of mine was one of them. It just described that what we and our aspirations were. And then the second verse I moved to London with an idea to go to Polytechnic. And it describes an excitement of that. And then the third verse is looking back at what's happened and I'm doing what I'm doing, and he's dead. I mean, it's quite simple. When you got your best friend you just know he'll always be around, and that not being the case.'" ( https://www.songfacts.com/facts/pet-sho ... ing-boring )

"Now I sit with different faces
In rented rooms and foreign places
All the people I was kissing
Some are here and some are missing
In the nineteen-nineties
I never dreamt that I would get to be
The creature that I always meant to be
But I thought in spite of dreams
You'd be sitting somewhere here with me"

Beyond prospecting the soul for any nuggets of truth, a work like this tests character and courage. The sturdiness of vision survives, and we are the beneficiaries of the writers' chosen pathway right now, this moment. I chose A, the film by Bruce Weber, because I wanted to, because the spirit and sentiment of the film are right in line with the lyrics of the song, because it screams Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald ("She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring." and "Youth doesn't need friends - it only needs crowds."), and because the Dionysian affect of those filmed, in particular the pool scene, reminds me of Ian McKellen's (as James Whale) pool flashbacks, finally becoming hallucinations, in "Gods and Monsters" (1998, USA). And in what you're about to see, I sense just a touch of Federico Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" (1959, Anita Ekberg and Marcello Mastroianni. This is the L'esibizione di Adriano Celentano rock 'n' roll scene.)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLS_VNiXHNs

As the songwriter says, it's about the phases of life; the passing of each one signals a new point of no return. I should say that the more squeamish members and guests on the forum would be well served to choose B, the album version.

A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8iKTvyA0IQ

B https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJUU274KTd0

FADE OUT: Frank Sinatra's interpretation of "It Was A Very Good Year" (songwriter Ervin Drake, 1961). The stills make this video a gem. ["When I was seventeen/It was a very good year/It was a very good year for small town girls/And soft summer nights/We'd hide from the lights/On the village green/When I was seventeen"]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7ur8VXAXv8
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Myself pictured in Silverlake, Los Angeles, June, 1986. Debut PSB album Please in March, 1986. Long live the 80s zeitgeist.

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York Minster
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Re: Point of No Return

#2 Post by York Minster »

OH GOD I OPENED ANOTHER ONE THINKING IT WAS A NORMAL THREAD
And tryin' to figure out what happened to 'Germaine Propaine'
"He couldn't have fell off that hard" Ain't no way
"What happened to the way you was rappin' when you was scandalous
That Canibus turned into a television evangelist"
Plus he raps with his regular voice [BOOSH! BOOSH!]
[BOOSH! BOOSH!] (What was that?) Pet Shop Boys

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Marie loves PSB
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Re: Point of No Return

#3 Post by Marie loves PSB »

York Minster wrote: Sun 02 Jun 2019, 3:18 am OH GOD I OPENED ANOTHER ONE THINKING IT WAS A NORMAL THREAD
Same here! :wall: :roll:

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y3potential
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Re: Point of No Return

#4 Post by y3potential »

Please, please, please STOP..!!!!!!!
There is beauty in ugliness and ugliness in beauty.

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tottenhammattspurs
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Re: Point of No Return

#5 Post by tottenhammattspurs »

Can we throw this person out of the forum? It’s gone way beyond a joke now.
is is and isnt isnt

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rashomon
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Re: Point of No Return

#6 Post by rashomon »

Point of No Return? ... Post of No Point is more like it if you ask me

Yes there is PSB content here but really these posts/personal essays should sit in the Off-Topic forum at best.
you could say conventional ... and I could claim intentional

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York Minster
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Re: Point of No Return

#7 Post by York Minster »

I agree with rashomon. I also don't think that this individual is trolling, I think they have a genuine interest, but are not good at expressing it in a way that is meaningful to anyone else. Certainly a lot of work went into these posts. I think off-topic is the correct place for them. Not that anyone will necessarily read them there either.
And tryin' to figure out what happened to 'Germaine Propaine'
"He couldn't have fell off that hard" Ain't no way
"What happened to the way you was rappin' when you was scandalous
That Canibus turned into a television evangelist"
Plus he raps with his regular voice [BOOSH! BOOSH!]
[BOOSH! BOOSH!] (What was that?) Pet Shop Boys

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Old Soak
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Re: Point of No Return

#8 Post by Old Soak »

This is getting bloody annoying now. Please move these demented witterings to off topic or delete them all together. It's not like there's any interaction with other forum users, it's just random bullshit.
And at the end/ Your funny Uncle staring / At all your friends / With military bearing

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Re: Point of No Return

#9 Post by Den »

:lol: :lol: Scienceguy what’s the story behind these posts? Can you explain how you can link this random stuff to PSB? Nobody is getting it?

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onzio
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Re: Point of No Return

#10 Post by onzio »

If asked, I'd vote for moving these posts to off-topic discussion.
The Onzio on Spotify
The Onzio on YouTube
Expressing passion, explaining pain
This is my kind of music

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Re: Point of No Return

#11 Post by y3potential »

Can the Administrators of the site not do anything about these ridiculous threads or move them..?
There is beauty in ugliness and ugliness in beauty.

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Re: Point of No Return

#12 Post by Old Soak »

You are Ignatius J.Reilly and I claim my prize...
And at the end/ Your funny Uncle staring / At all your friends / With military bearing

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Marie loves PSB
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Re: Point of No Return

#13 Post by Marie loves PSB »

York Minster wrote: Sun 02 Jun 2019, 3:04 pm I agree with rashomon. I also don't think that this individual is trolling, I think they have a genuine interest, but are not good at expressing it in a way that is meaningful to anyone else. Certainly a lot of work went into these posts. I think off-topic is the correct place for them. Not that anyone will necessarily read them there either.
I think it is a shame to be honest as like you mention "York Minster" - a lot or work went in to these posts. I would have taken me a long time to have typed them. I think they just need to be moved to the "Off-topic" part like a few of you have mentioned.

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