Word: myths
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...speak out on issues about which she feels strongly, like the British government's announcement last week that marijuana will be downgraded to a low-risk drug whose use or possession is not an arrestable offense. Greenfield thinks that moves to decriminalize the drug are based on "the greatest myth of all" - the belief that cannabis is essentially harmless. "Having studied the effects of so-called soft drugs on the brain, I'm convinced that pot smokers are literally blowing their minds," she says. "We're starting to live in a drug culture, where instead of having fulfilled and interesting...
Mendes waxes even more poetic about the U.S.--it's no coincidence both of his films revolve around American archetypes like gangsters and suburban teenagers. "This is the country of myth in the 20th century," he says. "There are very few others that can bear the weight of a big story. It's one of the reasons The Godfather, the closest we've come to Shakespeare in the 20th century, wouldn't work in any other country in the world." The America of his films may be troubled, but Mendes talks like an immigrant for whom Hollywood...
...Mayan millennial stories. Usually the fables dwell in the back of the mind, or not at all, since we go about our lives conditioned to think that however bad things get, it's not you know what. But there are times in human history when instinct, faith, myth and current events work together to create a perfect storm of preoccupation. Visions of an end point lodge in people's minds in many forms, ranging from entertainment to superstitious fascination to earnest belief. Now seems to be one of those times...
Today mobsters need Hollywood more than Hollywood needs them. Like the western, the Mafia myth is outlasting its subject. TV's The Sopranos may indulge our power fantasies, but the series is really about the end of empire. (Boss Tony Soprano constantly escapes his woes by losing himself in Mob flicks like Public Enemy.) And the Sopranos' counterparts? They're counting down their twilight days, like the New Jersey DeCavalcantes, caught on tape debating the show's merits and looking for signs that its characters are based on them. "It's not me," one says pitiably. "I'm not even...
...tribal traditions." That process begins at Mandalay University, where he studies his first love, English literature, and meets his second, a feisty student called Moe. Instinctively, they keep their affair secret. She is a Burman, the nation's dominant ethnic group, some of whose members believe the government- propagated myth that "backward" tribes like the Padaung are cannibals. His family would have been equally shocked at his interest in a woman from "the land of green ghosts"?the Padaung name for the spirit-haunted Burmese lowlands...