I recently [re]discovered the Soviet Filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. An eternity ago, I had tried to watch his films and had not had the patience to appreciate his slow paced style of lingering, surreal and cryptic film making. I have now watched all his films
The Film that resonated most was Stalker.
Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker (1979) @sjmay92
We were the ones who introduced the English word “stalker” into the Russian language. Stalker—pronounced “stullker” in Russian—is one of the few words we “coined” that came into common use. Stalker spread far and wide, although I’d guess that this was mainly because of the 1979 film of that name, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky and based on our book Roadside Picnic said Boris Strugatsky [He continues] even Tarkovsky latched on to it for a reason—our word must really have turned out precise, resonant, and full of meaning. It would have been more correct to say “stawker” instead of “stullker,” but the thing is, we didn’t take it from a dictionary at all—we took it from one of Rudyard Kipling’s novels, the old prerevolutionary translation of which was called The Reckless Bunch (or something like that)—about rambunctious English schoolkids from the end of the nineteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century and their ringleader, a crafty and mischievous kid nicknamed Stalky. In his tender years Arkady, while still a student at the Military Institute for Foreign Languages, received from me a copy of Kipling’s Stalky & Co. that I happened to pick up at a flea market; he read it, was delighted, and right then made a rough translation called Stullky and Company, which became one of the favorite books of my school and college years. So when we were thinking of the word “stalker,” we undoubtedly had in mind the streetwise Stullky, a tough and even ruthless youth, who, however, was by no means without a certain boyish chivalry and generosity. And at the time it didn’t even cross our minds that his name wasn’t Stullky at all, but was actually pronounced “stawky.”
Summary: “Red Schuhart is a stalker, one of those young rebels who are compelled, in spite of the extreme danger, to venture illegally into the Zone to collect the mysterious artifacts that the alien visitors left scattered around. His life is dominated by the place and the thriving black market in the alien products. But when he and his friend Kirill go into the Zone together to pick up a “full empty,” something goes wrong. And the news he gets from his girlfriend upon his return makes it inevitable that he’ll keep going back to the Zone, again and again, until he finds the answer to all his problems.”--
Watching the Film, I could not help but feel that the Stalker is like a [Macro] Trader who each day sets out to venture into the markets [''the Zone''] and make sense of the World.
Lets start with trying to make sense of the World.
Balloons are being popped, Pipelines blown up, war is raging on the Eastern boundary of Europe, an earthquake struck the Turkiye/Syria borderlands, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in Palestine Ohio.
It feels like a moment of "semiotic arousal" when everything is a sign, a harbinger of some future radical disjuncture or cataclysmic upheaval.
And then like the Cestrum nocturmum [The lady of the Night - the night blooming Jasmine] which is planted at my Front door and sometimes when i come home at night, I am enveloped in its scent which is just so sensual, the Photo of Baby Aliye Dagli [who was pulled alive from the rubble of her home in Antakya almost six days after the devastating February 6 earthquakes] flashes across my screen.
And then I remember the Photo of Zelensky and Rishi wearing Fighter Pilot helmets and it all feels just so vaudevillian.
I cannot imagine Winston Churchill or president Truman dressing up like clowns at a time of War. Its all very disconcerting.
More disturbingly is the Media's representation of just about everything. Narratives have been spun and when reality intrudes, other narratives are spun.
We were told
Mar 5, 2022 I try not to make too many predictions. I think given all the problems in the Russian campaign, delusional assumptions, an unworkable concept of operations, little prepared for a sustained war like this, I give it ~3 more weeks before this is an exhausted force. @KofmanMichael
Mar 25, 2022·Let me stick out my neck: @anders_aslund
1. I think Ukraine will win this war.
2. I don't think it will be a long war of months, but perhaps one more month.
3. I think the demoralized Russians will start running home, or abroad.
4. I don't think Putin can survive this madness politically.
Mar 4, 2022 Bellingcat investigator Christo Grozev says that #Russia has resources left for the war until Sunday, after which they will collapse. @nexta_tv
Anyone seeking to do some dispassionate analysis is dismissed as a Putin Apologist by the glorified Sloganeers. I was always taught if you cannot understand and dissect an issue dispassionately, how are you going to arrive at an optimal solution?
A Geopolitical Imbecile could tell you that Putin would not blow up his Pipeline but yet this is the Narrative that was pushed. When a serious Journalist like Seymour Hersh makes the case that the Pipeline was blown up bu Biden's order [which it self evidently was], we have a Lady called Mia Jankowicz who leads an article in Yahoo News
This level of infantilization of the public discourse is simply unprecedented in my lifetime. I keep coming back to Francis Fukuyama
The democratization of authority spurred by the digital revolution has flattened cognitive hierarchies along with other hierarchies, and political decision-making is now driven by often weaponized babble.
We live in a World of weaponized Babble [@Tate]
Thomas Pynchon wrote in Bleeding Edge
No matter how the official narrative of this turns out, these are the places we should be looking, not in newspapers or television but at the margins, graffiti, uncontrolled utterances, bad dreamers who sleep in public and scream in their sleep.
Today the serious thinking is submerged and deplatformed and in many respects voiceless, Its Seymour Hersh on Substack, its Fabio Vighi at The Philosophical Salon, Emmanuel Todd on Youtube, John Merscheimer and Zoltan Poszar.
THE 3RD WORLD WAR HAS BEGUN : ESCALATION IN UKRAINE WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING - Emmanuel Todd
Imbeciles are amplified and boosted.
And no doubt when the War in Ukraine is lost , we will be told it was won.
Living standards in the West are being eviscerated. We are witnessing the steepest fall in living standards for at least five decades. The typical response is its Putin's fault. Sure the War, our sanctions and Putin's response have been an accelerant but again You have to be an Infantilized Imbecile not to see what came before. We printed money like crazy, we did a Weimar Republic and thats why a little accelerant has created a conflagration.
Our Politicians are Fantasists in a Land of Fantasy economics who have now run out of [the Unipolar] road.
This is the ''Zone'' we now have to operate in and its complicated, multi-sided and dynamic and prone to seriously inorganic behaviour.
Lets start in the US because in terms of markets, it is the Elephant in the room.
The sanctioning of Russian FX $ reserves was a uniquely kneejerk and suboptimal move. It effectively signalled worldwide, that your reserves held in the US were ultimately subject to US whim and Diktat. Every Risk Manager from Beijing to Riyadh is now seeking some kind of mitigation trade. Obviously, You would not be keen to pop above the radar but to expect no ''posture'' change would be naive. The development towards a Petro Yuan, the increasing use of the UAE Dirham all point to an underlying Trend which does not favour the Dollar. We are not at a ''Regime Change'' moment in the Dollar but the ground is dynamic and shifting. Near term this shift was nullified by the BOJ QE but that too has an expiry date. Therefore, structurally, short term interest rates will have to some heavy lifting and therefore, I expect US Rates to head towards 6% and to stay above 5% for at least 24 months..The longer End of the US Curve has sniffed this out and will remain deeply inverted. The conundrum for the US is any sharp reduction in US rates will lead to a very sharp sell off in the Dollar and hence the US has to choose between short rates and the Dollar. I expect Inflation to remain sticky and that the downside shift is set to taper The Equity market has been bouyant but I think its behaving like an inflation hedge. Whether thats the correct position, we will discover in due course.
The Euro is currently giving Lagarde's hawkish rhetoric the benefit of the doubt but above 1.10 against the $ looks rich. However, I think an Aussie Dollar long [on the basis of commodity exposure] versus the Euro is a more optimal Trade.
The Yen is a conundrum and we will have to watch the incoming Governor of the BOJ for further directional clues.
FIAT versus Commodities.
I remind you of Zoltan Poszar's pithy take
‘’You can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat’’ wrote @CreditSuisse’s Zoltan Pozsar
What is crystal clear is that structurally Commodities trump FIAT. This process was accelerated by the Ukraine War and the sanction regime. Of course, the Trend is never linear and there will be inorganic moves. This is why its better to be a ''Stalker'' than an Investor.
Precious Metals have been taken down a few notches of late [Gold was at 1859.00 last having touched 1975.00 and Silver was last at 21.95]. I expect both to be seriously higher in 24 months. It might be worth buying long duration Call Options [24 months] during this retracement.
Energy is at the Bleeding Edge of this new uncertain World. Natural Gas touched 9.40 and was last at 2.494. 9.40 was reached when Europe was paying just about any price so its Politicians could announce that Storage was full. The Mild winter weather so far has meant there is a dearth of marginal Buyers. However, I can easily foresee a return to above 5.00 towards Q4 this year. WTI Crude Oil will trade a 100.00 sometime this year but then it might also trade below 70.00 as well.
My Favourite corner of the markets from the Long side is the Agricultural complex. We had a big Run higher last year as a ''war premium'' was priced in, then it was priced out and prices washed everyone out and now we have turned the corner.
I like Wheat, Coffee, Corn & Cotton, all of which I forecast have at least 20%-25% of upside from current levels. I expect that the FAO Food Index has also bottomed out. I suggest looking at PurePlay leveraged ETFs for this Asset Class.
@DDFalpha H23 KC #wheat lines are drawn. Close > 896'0 chart become more friendly. Structure & momentum remain bullish. < 877'0 could shift the mo...
