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The Suspension of Belief

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“There's no use trying,” she said: “one CAN'T believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll ; Alice Through the Looking Glass This haughty youth, He speaks the truth Whenever he finds it pays! And in this case It all took place Exactly as he says! W.S. Gilbert ; The Mikado In 1986, the English National Opera raised the eyebrows of a few opera purists when they commissioned Jonathan Miller to direct a new production of The Mikado ; Gilbert & Sullivan's Japanese-adjacent skewering of all things British. Leslie Garrett, Bonaventura Bottone and Eric Idle in Jonathan Miller's production of The Mikado . Quite apart from the cultural whiplash of a G&S operetta at the ENO, Miller also had the sheer gall to strip The Mikado of its faux-Japanese window dressing; settin...
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O Brave New Words [sic]...

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All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. William Shakespeare; As You Like It " When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. " The Wachowski Siblings; The Matrix The Matrix may have been released 27 years ago, but it stands today as probably the most iconic "World-as-Simulation" narratives in popular culture. Its story - about a lowly computer hacker who comes to realise that his entire Reality is nothing but a vast computer simulation - has become a genre trope unto itself, begetting countless other films; television episodes and fringe conspiracy theories. The Matrix may not have invented the concept, but it doubtless introduced it into the general cultural vocabulary for the next two decades. The problem is that the plot of The Matrix really doesn'...
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Life's But a Walking Shadow

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Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing. Have you ever been tempted to wield total, absolute power over everyone ? Come on, be honest... have you? Maybe just a little bit? Forget for a moment about all the paperwork that might entail or the money it would cost; right now I'm just talking about the power . All those annoying people out there who are so chaotic and disruptive: all thinking their own thoughts and disagreeing with each other; all those radicals and extremists who worship the wrong gods or vote for the wrong politicians or go to the wrong movies... wouldn't life be so much easier if you could make their decisions for them? If you could decide what they should think; who they should love; how they should live... wouldn't that make the world so much better...? Okay, okay, I'm being silly. Obviously no one would ever be so arrogant as to think that they alone should get to dictate the worldviews and mindsets of every other person in existence. What kind of s...
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