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The World Was Too Much With Them All
I just finished reading Susan Orlean‘s Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. Aside from the heart (and I mean heart) of the main story itself, after something like ten years of borderline-obsessive research Orlean managed to weave into the book dozens of little stray details about the lives and personalities of the many [...]
Sleepwaking, Blindsighted, and a Little Bit of Movies in the Night
[Video: one of the best cinematic commentaries on ignoring (and paying attention to) the wrong things turned 71 the other day. Above, its trailer -- complete with telephone commentary not actually in the film... and not showing its title character for even a single second.] From whiskey river: Solar On a gray day, when the [...]
Laughing, Refreshed, in Its Face
[Video: scene from The Princess Bride -- the Man in Black faces off against his cleverest adversary, Vizzini the nearly-inconceivable Sicilian. You can find a transcript (among other Vizzini-isms) at this IMDB page.] From whiskey river: To get through this life and see it realistically poses a problem. There is a dark, evil, hopeless side to life [...]
What L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries Saw Out His Window (Three-Minute Version)
A time-lapse film of the view outside James Stewart’s rear window, in Alfred Hitchcock’s film of that name: Very, very cool! (See the creator’s own site for additional details. And if you don’t know the film at all, you could do worse than to start with Roger Ebert’s looking-back review from 2000. Of course you [...]
Better Fictions, Lesser Truths
[Image: one of various digital collages in the "Fictions" series by Flemish photographer/artist Filip Dujardin. (Click to enlarge.) These buildings and landscapes do not actually exist (although he starts with images of buildings in and around Ghent, Belgium).] From whiskey river: While I was sitting one night with a poet friend watching a great opera [...]
The Fifteen Movie Meme
In yesterday’s post ruminating about questions whose answers (at least in theory) may be more obvious than they first seem, I included a fifteen-point “meme” about movies; I didn’t actually respond to the meme there. In a comment, Jules asked what my choices would have been. Here y’go.
Answers in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear
[Image: xkcd #936, on password strength. Click image to enlarge; see xkcd itself for the full six panels and the punchline.] From whiskey river: This accidental meeting of possibilities calls itself I. I ask: what am I doing here? And, at once, this I becomes unreal. (Dag Hammarskjöld [source]) …and: Ch’ui the draftsman Could draw more [...]
The Kindness of Every Split-Second
[Image: display window of "mini-prints" taken with the Fujifilm Instax camera (originally from the Photojojo store). See note at bottom of post for more.] From whiskey river: You know what I believe? I remember in college I was taking this math class, this really great math class taught by this tiny old woman. She was [...]
Swept Away by (and for) Books
My Old Kentucky Blog recently highlighted two of the films nominated for this year’s Oscar in the short-animations category. One of them really struck me, and I think it will really strike you as well — if you are someone who’s ever had a little jolt of excitement at opening a new book… or dreamt of adding [...]
Seasonal Prospects
[Image found accompanying the "Christmas Snow" (December 25, 2010) post at John Bedell's bensozia blog] From whiskey river: Snow Walking through a field with my little brother Seth I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow. For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels had been shot [...]
