Ali Plumb

Ali Plumb is hands down the best interviewer of film and Television actors working today. We state this assessment, as a matter of fact, sans hyperbole.  Disagree with our Ali Plumb evaluation, please do so only after watching a minimum of 32 interviews.  Binging on Ali Plumb is required, as it takes at least five consecutive interviews with different celebrities to appreciate Ali’s insight and enthusiasm. 32 is the number our experts need before listening to any disagreement or counteroffer to our Ali Plumb critique. Proof that any bravado truly watched 32 Ali Plumb interviews will be proven by sharing your YouTube watch history with our experts.  We know that you share our tastes as you read this and other articles in this fantastic online magazine.  Many of you have been with us for the entire 10.5 years. We did not check any other sources before writing this brief introduction.  You know our policy of avoiding retelling bios and additional pertinent information you can quickly discover on Wiki and other sources.

“Star Wars means so much!” Diego Luna and the Andor cast on auditions, tricky lines and falling over


 

Understanding Memory: Explaining the Psychology of Memory through Movies

Welcome to Understanding Memory. Someone once said that memory is fascinating because sometimes we forget what we want to remember, and sometimes we remember what we want to forget. Sometimes we remember events that never happened or never happened the way we remember them. I want to show you how memory works, why it sometimes fails, and what we can do to enhance it. Based on my recent book – Memory and Movies: What Films Can Teach Us About Memory (MIT Press, 2015) – I will introduce the scientific study of human memory by focusing on a select group of topics with widespread appeal.

To facilitate your understanding, I will use clips from numerous films to illustrate different aspects of memory – describing what has been learned about memory in a nontechnical way for people with no prior background in psychology. Many of us love watching movies because they offer an unparalleled opportunity for entertainment, even if entertaining films are not always scientifically accurate. Still, I believe we can learn much about memory from popular films if we watch them with an educated eye. Welcome once more.
I look forward to showing you what movies can teach us about memory.

mikhail-vasilyev-Persian cat -unsplash

 

 

Is the world real, or is it just an Illusion? This talk addresses a common misconception about the nature of reality: Many classic Advaita texts say that the world is an illusion, but does that mean that it is not real?

Rupert says that the only reason we have problems with this is that, in our culture, we believe that reality means physical things. The question is not whether the world is real or not. It is absolutely real. The war in Ukraine is real. The Caribbean beach we dream of is real. The suffering we feel is real. The question is, what is its reality? What does that question mean? It means not how it appears to be — it means what is it really, despite the way it appears?

Yes, the world is an illusion — that is, it is not what it appears to be. But all illusions have a reality, and that reality is absolutely real. Moreover, there is nothing to an illusion other than its reality. All there is to the world is an infinite being.

As the Sufis say: Wherever you look, there is only the face of God.

This clip is from Rupert’s retreat at the Mercy Center (March 18-25, 2022).