Tokoro’s Reviews > The Greek > Status Update

Kallenberg is a dirty player indeed; though I understand his sense of self-preservation (everyone has secrets the dirty are willing to use for blackmail) and his professional shrewdness, I'd be telling that if he seeks "an ally" he should manage his crude methods differently, point out his inconsistencies.

"...not a single time had he ever had a client who was preoccupied with anyone but himself [in readings]..."

And now it's turned into Alfred Hitchock's The Birds!

Kallenberg is not the next gen paragon against his corporate rival Satrapoulos that he thinks he is. What is this reckless mania in anxiety he explodes into? Although, on a lighter note, Satrapoulos' mother, escaping from the media scheme he has set for her, into the zoo and hiding out overnight, in what is also quasi-manic mirroring of Kallenberg is something out Charlie Chaplin. First fight from her, then flight.

The rivalry games for control and influence continue and it's an interesting tinge to observe after getting back into the same continue on legal grounds, as well as the interconnected relationships, in the Showtime series, Billions. Reading and watching all this played out is fascinating, but not business I'd want to get caught up in professionally in life. Good thing I have plenty of complementary media for it.

"He was suddenly aware of the chasm which existed between the two expressions 'to take' and 'to be taken'...Thus it is, Socrates reflected, that love dies while friendship endures. In friendship, a man does not satisfy all his desires; something is always withheld. In love, one is too quickly sated."

'They are great men only so long as they are not in power. Then they become demagogues so as to be reelected to office. How can greatness survive such a system?'
'My word! In the old days your rulers made courtiers out of the people. Now the people make demagogues out of your rulers. It would seem that corruption is merely shifted from one side to the other.'

Of course Kallenberg leaks the story in the global papers, but what the public doesn't know is his mother was kidnapped in pettiness.
'How unbecoming!'
Except for an occasional glass of ale, his only pleasure in life was to outrage his wife.
'Surely, every man is free to do whatever he wishes with his mother. I meant that it is most unbecoming for a newspaper to publish gossip about an individual's private life.'

Power magnate character demands:

"Kallenberg, who had long regarded himself as possessing a monopoly on violence, was stunned to discover that the Greek as willing as he to make use of it...With so much at stake, this little bastard could think of nothing but sleep. 'Mr. Dun, if I occupy the position that I do today, it is because, whenever necessary, I have been willing to ignore my personal needs.' "

lol, Kallenberg's premeditated blackmailing "friendly collegial warning" meeting with Satropoulos in his feigned concern, shock was written as being poorly played; he should've known better. He accuses Satropoulos of ungainly passive reaction to the "news" when he himself shows outbursts of greater emotional reactivity to the situation. Reminds me of INTJ vs. ENTP, really, except the strategy fell flat & reversed.

Quite the setting and characters for the Kallenberg annual plutocrat Christmas party on August the 13th! Paid actors in party crashers, Hollywood scenes of mobs of spectators, headstrong escorts with character wishing aloud to their hosts of the day when they'll get their just deserts and making the rich playboys toe the line instead, a harsh and sly gay opera singer, an obese woman as laughingstock to the crowds.