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I suppose it’s good to be reminded of the problems with the film as history.

I suppose it’s also good to be reminded of the problems of filet mignon as ice cream.

I identified with the Salieri character. THere are things I just can’t do. I could have started trying when I was three and worked hard until I was 60, and I still could never ever write music like Bach, or fight like Jackie Chan, or .... any number of things.

And yet, can there be a serious question that excellence is self-justifying or that beauty confronts meaninglessness and wins?

So how shall we deal with our many incapacities? What do they mean, if anything?

In one taxonomic scheme of sins, envy is seen as a defect, a falling-short, of love. If I loved you as I ought, I would rejoice in your gifts.

In any case, it was a fine tale, and lushly told. It never occurred to me to wonder how true it was, in some photographical or statistical sense. It was true every way I needed it to be true.