Classic. I need me some ironic wallpaper.
New Apple Friend Bar Gives Customers Someone To Talk At About Mac Products
30 December, 2010
Black Swan
If Werner Herzog were to make a horror film today, I suspect it would not be totally unlike Black Swan. Director Darren Aaronofsky likes to obsess over obsessive characters just like the legendary German auteur. In Pi Max Cohen was preoccupied with numbers, there were addicts and their drugs in Requiem for a Dream, Hugh Jackman's character in The Fountain was obsessed with making love eternal, and The Wrestler's Randy sacrificed his personal life at the altar of his job. And here in Black Swan we have Nina Sayers, as played by Natalie Portman, whose obsession is being the perfect ballerina.
The film begins will a rather menacing dream of Nina's in which she is dancing the lead in Swan Lake. Upon waking we learn more about her. She lives in a fairly cramped apartment with her mother, Erica (Barbara Hershey), whom she occasionally (and disturbingly) calls "Mommy". Erica is doting to the point of smothering as she treats Nina like a child. When not crying while painting self-portraits, mom acts on her conviction that she must do everything for Nina instead of letting her daughter assume some control over her own life. Nina is very shy – almost to the point of being afraid of her own shadow. And she is in the early stages of a psychotic break with reality.
She has developed an inexplicable rash on her back and she develops lesions on her fingers. In one scene Nina picks at one of them and pulls a lengthy piece of skin off only to blink and see that her hand is perfectly fine. In other scenes she sees her doppelgänger who has a preference for wearing black. The film does a nice job of escalating the creepiness by using various sounds, such as the wings of a bird flapping, when Nina brushes past this darker incarnation of herself.
As her dream indicates, Nina wants to land the lead role in a new production of Swan Lake. The ballet company's director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), recognizes Nina's talent and tells her that she'd make a fantastic White Swan. However he is casting the same dancer to be both the White and Black Swans and Nina is just not passionate enough to let herself go for the role of the latter which is more sensual and sexual. Our protagonist is all Apollo and no Dionysus.
Indeed, Nina is asexual. We are led to believe that she is still a virgin. When she gets the lead part, Thomas announces her homework assignment by saying, "Go home and touch you yourself. Live a little." She takes his advice to heart the next morning but her attempt at ecstasy is interrupted by the presence of her mother. But her divergence from this path doesn't last long. A new member of the company, Lily (Mila Kunis), tries to befriend her. Lily is the Black Swan. Whereas Nina is constantly seen with her hair up looking all prim and proper, Lily lets her beautiful mane free. She is very sensual and likes to indulge her Dionysian side as we see in a scene where Lily takes Nina out to a bar. After popping some ecstasy, Lily offers some to Nina but she refuses. A bit later, however, Nina spies Lily spiking her drink with the drug and decides to take the trip. Upon returning home with Lily, Nina bars her bedroom door and she and Lily have a Sapphic fling.
Having an orgasm helps Nina crawl out of her shell but when it is revealed that it was all done without Lily, who was not there, our dancer reaches her breaking point. She becomes paranoid that Lily is out to get the lead role. The final break with reality comes during the opening night of the performance in a wonderfully disturbing scene in which Nina is fully transformed into the Black Swan.
In addition to the use of non-diagetic sounds that I mentioned above, the dark mood of the film is established well with the grainy look achieved by cinematographer Matthew Libatique who utilized 16mm. Using this format allowed for the extensive handheld work here. The dance sequences are disorientating almost to the point of making me dizzy. Aaronofsky and Libatique also opt for a lot of close-ups. Portman's face often takes up the whole screen and I think she mostly pulls it off with her expressions of timidity and fear which morph into anger later in the movie.
One thing that annoyed me that that Aaronofsky and company overplayed the sudden jolt card. Black Swan worked really well when Nina's breakdown slowly unfolded. The sound of a wing here and the appearance of a doppelgänger there created true suspense. Unfortunately the writers felt compelled to build up the tension incrementally by splitting the progression of Nina's madness into sections most of which climax with someone suddenly thrust into the frame to scare us with appropriately jolting music on the soundtrack. I thought this was a cheesy ploy worthy of a Saw movie. Sure, one or two at the most of these would have been fine but they quickly got old and predictable. It is Nina's interior state that is most horrific here so we don't need a nurse to quietly walk behind her for a cheap thrill.
I purposefully avoided reading any reviews of the film until after I'd seen it. One that I read this morning said that the movie linked sex to madness which I found odd considering that there are other characters, Lily among them, who are sexual yet they don't go mad. What I gleaned from it was that sexuality was positively linked to creativity. It was Nina's frigidity that the film linked to her inability to dance the part of the Black Swan. To be sure, she completely loses it after discovering her sexuality, if you will, but it's too late for her sanity by that point. She's too far gone and no amount of masturbation can help.
Sexuality seems to be at the heart of Black Swan. For Lily it is something that drives her art and I think that the same could be said of Thomas. It's uncertain whether or not Nina's sexuality or lack thereof is at the heart of her mental problems but it is an exacerbating element at the least. I find the idea that pressure to succeed can sometimes cause things to go awry to be a wholly unsatisfactory theme. OK, I guess I can buy the notion that a helicopter parent trying to live a dream of success in a highly competitive field through her daughter can cause said daughter to lose her mind. I'll buy that. But I still find Nina's condition a bit of a mystery. Why is she so asexual? That she is that way makes for a contrast to other characters and allows the film to comment on the role of sexuality and passion in art. But I think there's more to be told to explain how a woman would get to that point.
That we never find out who Nina's father was and that most of the men in the film are after casual sex is interesting. Thomas is surely passionate about ballet but he also likes to fuck his leads. Nina meets an old man on the subway car grabbing his crotch and using his tongue salaciously. The two young men that Lily and Nina meet at the bar are presented to us as only wanting to get into the pants of the young ladies. In other words, male characters that are the focus of a scene essentially just want to get a piece of ass. While it may not be fair to see this state of affairs and then make assumptions about Nina's father, it is tempting to link her asexuality to him in some way. I just wish that we'd spent a little more time getting to know her and to know what drove her to a breakdown. I can accept the premise that it was her obsession with being a perfect ballerina and the pressure brought to bear by her mother that is responsible but I feel cheated and that there should be more to explain such a terrible fate. Perhaps Nina is a lesbian and the prospect of coming out of the closet contributed to her mental decline.
Or perhaps I just need to watch Black Swan again. And I would. Despite some misgivings it is a fun movie. I love the mood that it creates and Nina's descent into her own personal hell, for the most part, a thrilling ride.
Bill Rogers Must Be in Mourning
Bill Rogers, owner of The Malt House and Belgian beer fanatic, must be in mourning today as a fire broke out at Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy yesterday. The monks at the abbey there brew Rochefort beers.
According to beernews.org "approximately 231 barrels were destroyed in the fire" although the brewery itself escaped mostly unscathed.
I just have this vision of Bill reading the news on the Web and doing one of those slow motion "Nooooooooooooooooo!" bits.
According to beernews.org "approximately 231 barrels were destroyed in the fire" although the brewery itself escaped mostly unscathed.
I just have this vision of Bill reading the news on the Web and doing one of those slow motion "Nooooooooooooooooo!" bits.
29 December, 2010
OK, You Can Buy 2001 On Blu-ray Now
Those nice, pristine negatives of 2001: A Space Odyssey's deleted scenes are, unfortunately, not going to be made public anytime soon. Warner Brothers is keeping the footage in the vault. Bummer.
Who knows when we'll get to see the material that Kubrick exorcised such as this scene featuring Dave Bowman getting it on with a hot blond aboard the Discovery.
Wait. I mean this one of a children's painting class on the moonbase.
Who knows when we'll get to see the material that Kubrick exorcised such as this scene featuring Dave Bowman getting it on with a hot blond aboard the Discovery.
Wait. I mean this one of a children's painting class on the moonbase.
28 December, 2010
Yes, Mom, Wisconsonians Ride Trains
Over the weekend I was in Chicago spending time with family. "So what's new in Madison?" I was asked. Blah blah blah. A couple relatives were very dismayed that Feingold was booted out of office. And of course the news that the extension of Amtrak's Hiawatha line to Madison had been 86'd came up. My mother chimed in saying that she wasn't sure the train was such a good idea. "People in Wisconsin don't ride trains," was her opinion after having lived in west central Wisconsin for 3 years back in the 1980s. Here are two things to consider about this statement:
1) No most don't because the vast majority of people in Wisconsin live in an area not served by rail.
2) People in Wisconsin do ride trains, i.e. – those who have some rail service. The most current numbers I have from the WI DOT show things going well for the Hiawatha line.
Ridership totaled 67,900 – a record high for the month of October during the entire history of the service. Through the first 10 months of this year, 654,483 passengers have utilized the Hiawatha Service – an increase of over 7% compared to the same period last year. Hiawatha ridership for 2010 is on pace to set a new calendar year ridership record of around 800,000 passengers
Given a rail service that runs with some frequency and that maintains a nearly 90% on-time rating, people from southeastern Wisconsin quite unsurprisingly ride the train.
The other Amtrak route that serves Wisconsin is the Empire Builder. More people ride that route than any other of Amtrak's long distance runs.
So yes, mom, people in Wisconsin do ride trains.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On a train-related note, I saw a comment by "Bill Richardson" at one of David Blaska's recent blog posts. I presume this is the same Bill Richardson who has lobbied against rail here in Madison. Regarding the news that Jonathan Barry will not be running for Dane County Executive, Richardson wrote of Barry:
He, got the County a AAA bond rating during stagflation times, Falk screwed the pooch on that, dealt with the unions fairly when he was County Exec, He has been a UW Regent, runs a Fresh start program for troubled youth, Matc board member, has run many SUCCESSFUL biz as opposed to the above Quintet of Trough feeders.
Let me get this straight. A retired professor of music at the UW is labeling some politicos "trough feeders". As if he didn't have his gaping maw in the public trough during his tenure at a public university. Hey, didn't John Galt teach trombone too? This is the same guy who endorses using black people as the boogeyman when going after the RTA and rail. ("we don't want Cabrini Green!") He's a real class act.
1) No most don't because the vast majority of people in Wisconsin live in an area not served by rail.
2) People in Wisconsin do ride trains, i.e. – those who have some rail service. The most current numbers I have from the WI DOT show things going well for the Hiawatha line.
Ridership totaled 67,900 – a record high for the month of October during the entire history of the service. Through the first 10 months of this year, 654,483 passengers have utilized the Hiawatha Service – an increase of over 7% compared to the same period last year. Hiawatha ridership for 2010 is on pace to set a new calendar year ridership record of around 800,000 passengers
Given a rail service that runs with some frequency and that maintains a nearly 90% on-time rating, people from southeastern Wisconsin quite unsurprisingly ride the train.
The other Amtrak route that serves Wisconsin is the Empire Builder. More people ride that route than any other of Amtrak's long distance runs.
So yes, mom, people in Wisconsin do ride trains.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On a train-related note, I saw a comment by "Bill Richardson" at one of David Blaska's recent blog posts. I presume this is the same Bill Richardson who has lobbied against rail here in Madison. Regarding the news that Jonathan Barry will not be running for Dane County Executive, Richardson wrote of Barry:
He, got the County a AAA bond rating during stagflation times, Falk screwed the pooch on that, dealt with the unions fairly when he was County Exec, He has been a UW Regent, runs a Fresh start program for troubled youth, Matc board member, has run many SUCCESSFUL biz as opposed to the above Quintet of Trough feeders.
Let me get this straight. A retired professor of music at the UW is labeling some politicos "trough feeders". As if he didn't have his gaping maw in the public trough during his tenure at a public university. Hey, didn't John Galt teach trombone too? This is the same guy who endorses using black people as the boogeyman when going after the RTA and rail. ("we don't want Cabrini Green!") He's a real class act.
20 December, 2010
Not Quite the Siebel Institute
But still.
Yesterday I went over to the brewhouse of Joe Walts (a.k.a. – his home) in order to fulfill my request for a schwarzbier. Walts nearly opened a brewpub and now works for a local brewery while contributing the geekiest material to Madison Beer Reivew.
The first thing to do when brewing beer is to get all of your equipment out of the basement. Here's the brew kettle, mash tun, lauter tun, and what have you.
I think the reason I love Grape Nuts cereal so much is because of its barley content. It smells just like it. Here's the grain bill.
And here I am running it through the mill.
We wanted lots of surface of the inside of the grain exposed. The husk, not so much.
Joe gave me the water hardness/pH lecture. His life on Easy Street in Michigan where the water was soft came to a screeching halt here in Madison where every gallon of tap water has the equivalent of about a stalagmite's worth of suspended solids. He treated the water prior to my arrival and so, when I drained one of those big Gatorade thingies, the bottom was covered in a thick layer of calcium that had dropped out of suspension. That's one of the reasons I love Joe. While I get all fired up about the use of long takes and wide angle lenses in movies, he gets all intense and excited about water hardness. I suspect that his wife would have abandoned him long ago were it not for his ability to satiate her beer desires.
As Joe said, brewing beer is simple. All you're doing is converting starch into sugars which yeast can eat and turn into alcohol. So yeah, when you step back far enough and look at the really big picture, brewing is pretty simple. But spend some time with him or read his posts at MBR and you won't think it simple. If you don't boil long enough your beer will taste like cream corn because the dimethyl sulfides remain. Did you fuck up the fermentation process? Well, that explains why your pale ale tastes like bananas instead of hops.
We let the mash steep in one of those Gatorade coolers. Mashing is when your malty enzymes break down starches into sugars and yeast loves itself some sugar. I used the special long plastic brewing spatula to give it a good stir. I presume this is to keep the temperature uniform. When the steeping was done, we separated our beer-to-be from the grain. I believe it was when the level of the liquid got to within an inch or so of the top of the grain that the cooler went from being a mash tun to a lauter tun. And so the sparging began.
Sparging is basically rinsing. You slowly add water to the mash so the sugars are set free to be eaten by the yeast later. Your pre-beer concoction is wort.
My precious…
It was at this point that Joe introduced me to a drink that is unique the brewing arena – the Hot Scotchie. I'm not sure where it came from but the idea is that you take some of your wort freshly drawn from the kettle and add a bit of scotch. In our case it received bourbon so I guess it technically wasn’t a Hot Scotchie but who cares. It was very tasty. The way I tasted it was that the sweet malt came through first followed by the bourbon. Although the booze became the predominant flavor, the malt was always there in the background tempering its sharpness. Good stuff.
Joe then cleared a spot on his patio and busted out a propane tank and burner. The wort was then boiled.
This is Joe using his super-secret brewing tongs. (I hope he doesn't mind me revealing his secret here.) You put one on the volume gradations marked on the outside of the kettle and you can compare that to the liquid level inside.
After about 35 minutes or so, I added the hops on schedule.
First it was Magnum hops followed by a slightly lesser amount of Hallertau. I really love the aroma of Hallertau. (No offense, Magnum.) It's on the spicy/piney side of things as opposed to U.S. hops that begin with the letter "C" which tend to me more floral and grapefruity. Joe noted that hops thrown in at the beginning of the boil add to the flavor while hops towards the end of the boil contribute more to aroma.
Here's some of our wort being carefully tested by a hydrometer which measure the specific gravity.
Basically you're measuring how much sugar is in the liquid. Your reading is a ratio of the density of the wort to the density of water at a certain temperature which was 60 degrees Fahrenheit, if I recall correctly. We were shooting for 1.049 and we ended up with a SG of 1.051. I think that you take the SG again after the yeast has chowed down on those sugars and then you apply a formula with the two readings to determine how much alcohol your beer has.
With the boil done our precious was cooled and then siphoned off into a fermentation vessel which was brought back in the house where our rehydrated yeast was pitched into it.
We aerated the proto-beer the old fashioned way: by shaking it. Before the yeast start snacking on sugar, I guess they need oxygen to grow to full strength and reproduce. Then you have a full army ready to make your alcohol.
Lastly Joe checked the seal, got the overflow tube in place, and we bid our tank farewell. For a while. Until February, my precious…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Schwarzbier" simply means "black beer" in German. I can't honestly say I've drank dozens of examples of the style but there are a couple versions I absolutely love. From Germany comes Köstritzer Schwarzbier. Just love the stuff. From these shores, a favorite is Sprecher Black Bavarian. BB is maltier than the Köstritzer and has more alcohol. When I'm in the mood for a bigger schwarzbier, I go with Sprecher. Köstritzer is a bit hoppier to my palate and has a cleaner taste. It's flavor is more of what you traditionally think of lagers as tasting like. (Anyone have any schwarzbier recommendations?)
At one point Joe asked, "Have you ever tasted wort before?" I don't think I had so he poured out a couple shots worth of the stuff. It was a bit lighter than we had anticipated but still a deep, dark brown. I was surprised at how little dark malt is required to make a dark beer. Look again at the photo of the grain above. It is mostly pale malt with a few specks of the dark stuff sprinkled in. For whatever reason I always thought that dark beers required a fairly hefty portion of the grain bill to be dark malts. Whodathunk?
Now, as for the taste of the wort. It was like…like…like an Old Scotchie without the liquor. Sweet water with malt flavor. It's amazing what those wee yeasties can do.
Lastly, since Joe's most recent blog post is about brewhouse efficiency, I want to note that we achieved a 92.9% rating. (I think that's what it was anyway.) BE is a measurement of how well you converted the starches into sugar. We were a bit above Joe's average and I attribute this to my professional stirring abilities and nascent sparging technique.
Yesterday I went over to the brewhouse of Joe Walts (a.k.a. – his home) in order to fulfill my request for a schwarzbier. Walts nearly opened a brewpub and now works for a local brewery while contributing the geekiest material to Madison Beer Reivew.
The first thing to do when brewing beer is to get all of your equipment out of the basement. Here's the brew kettle, mash tun, lauter tun, and what have you.
I think the reason I love Grape Nuts cereal so much is because of its barley content. It smells just like it. Here's the grain bill.
And here I am running it through the mill.
We wanted lots of surface of the inside of the grain exposed. The husk, not so much.
Joe gave me the water hardness/pH lecture. His life on Easy Street in Michigan where the water was soft came to a screeching halt here in Madison where every gallon of tap water has the equivalent of about a stalagmite's worth of suspended solids. He treated the water prior to my arrival and so, when I drained one of those big Gatorade thingies, the bottom was covered in a thick layer of calcium that had dropped out of suspension. That's one of the reasons I love Joe. While I get all fired up about the use of long takes and wide angle lenses in movies, he gets all intense and excited about water hardness. I suspect that his wife would have abandoned him long ago were it not for his ability to satiate her beer desires.
As Joe said, brewing beer is simple. All you're doing is converting starch into sugars which yeast can eat and turn into alcohol. So yeah, when you step back far enough and look at the really big picture, brewing is pretty simple. But spend some time with him or read his posts at MBR and you won't think it simple. If you don't boil long enough your beer will taste like cream corn because the dimethyl sulfides remain. Did you fuck up the fermentation process? Well, that explains why your pale ale tastes like bananas instead of hops.
We let the mash steep in one of those Gatorade coolers. Mashing is when your malty enzymes break down starches into sugars and yeast loves itself some sugar. I used the special long plastic brewing spatula to give it a good stir. I presume this is to keep the temperature uniform. When the steeping was done, we separated our beer-to-be from the grain. I believe it was when the level of the liquid got to within an inch or so of the top of the grain that the cooler went from being a mash tun to a lauter tun. And so the sparging began.
Sparging is basically rinsing. You slowly add water to the mash so the sugars are set free to be eaten by the yeast later. Your pre-beer concoction is wort.
My precious…
It was at this point that Joe introduced me to a drink that is unique the brewing arena – the Hot Scotchie. I'm not sure where it came from but the idea is that you take some of your wort freshly drawn from the kettle and add a bit of scotch. In our case it received bourbon so I guess it technically wasn’t a Hot Scotchie but who cares. It was very tasty. The way I tasted it was that the sweet malt came through first followed by the bourbon. Although the booze became the predominant flavor, the malt was always there in the background tempering its sharpness. Good stuff.
Joe then cleared a spot on his patio and busted out a propane tank and burner. The wort was then boiled.
This is Joe using his super-secret brewing tongs. (I hope he doesn't mind me revealing his secret here.) You put one on the volume gradations marked on the outside of the kettle and you can compare that to the liquid level inside.
After about 35 minutes or so, I added the hops on schedule.
First it was Magnum hops followed by a slightly lesser amount of Hallertau. I really love the aroma of Hallertau. (No offense, Magnum.) It's on the spicy/piney side of things as opposed to U.S. hops that begin with the letter "C" which tend to me more floral and grapefruity. Joe noted that hops thrown in at the beginning of the boil add to the flavor while hops towards the end of the boil contribute more to aroma.
Here's some of our wort being carefully tested by a hydrometer which measure the specific gravity.
Basically you're measuring how much sugar is in the liquid. Your reading is a ratio of the density of the wort to the density of water at a certain temperature which was 60 degrees Fahrenheit, if I recall correctly. We were shooting for 1.049 and we ended up with a SG of 1.051. I think that you take the SG again after the yeast has chowed down on those sugars and then you apply a formula with the two readings to determine how much alcohol your beer has.
With the boil done our precious was cooled and then siphoned off into a fermentation vessel which was brought back in the house where our rehydrated yeast was pitched into it.
We aerated the proto-beer the old fashioned way: by shaking it. Before the yeast start snacking on sugar, I guess they need oxygen to grow to full strength and reproduce. Then you have a full army ready to make your alcohol.
Lastly Joe checked the seal, got the overflow tube in place, and we bid our tank farewell. For a while. Until February, my precious…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Schwarzbier" simply means "black beer" in German. I can't honestly say I've drank dozens of examples of the style but there are a couple versions I absolutely love. From Germany comes Köstritzer Schwarzbier. Just love the stuff. From these shores, a favorite is Sprecher Black Bavarian. BB is maltier than the Köstritzer and has more alcohol. When I'm in the mood for a bigger schwarzbier, I go with Sprecher. Köstritzer is a bit hoppier to my palate and has a cleaner taste. It's flavor is more of what you traditionally think of lagers as tasting like. (Anyone have any schwarzbier recommendations?)
At one point Joe asked, "Have you ever tasted wort before?" I don't think I had so he poured out a couple shots worth of the stuff. It was a bit lighter than we had anticipated but still a deep, dark brown. I was surprised at how little dark malt is required to make a dark beer. Look again at the photo of the grain above. It is mostly pale malt with a few specks of the dark stuff sprinkled in. For whatever reason I always thought that dark beers required a fairly hefty portion of the grain bill to be dark malts. Whodathunk?
Now, as for the taste of the wort. It was like…like…like an Old Scotchie without the liquor. Sweet water with malt flavor. It's amazing what those wee yeasties can do.
Lastly, since Joe's most recent blog post is about brewhouse efficiency, I want to note that we achieved a 92.9% rating. (I think that's what it was anyway.) BE is a measurement of how well you converted the starches into sugar. We were a bit above Joe's average and I attribute this to my professional stirring abilities and nascent sparging technique.
17 December, 2010
Cinema News to Round Out the Year
I got a kick out of Fake Criterions, a site with covers for fake Criterion DVD releases.
I wonder if this release would include the version dubbed into Spanish that I saw at Antojitos el Toril…?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't buy that 2001: A Space Odyssey Blu-Ray just yet.
Visual effects guru Douglas Trumbull has said "that the 17 minutes that Kubrick cut from 2001 shortly after the film’s release have been found by Warners in their vault in a salt mine in Kansas. These cut scenes are perfectly preserved in CMY component negatives. Trumbull has no idea of what Warners plans to do with them."
From IMDB, the footage consists of:
Some shots from the "Dawn of Man" sequence were removed and a new scene was inserted where an ape pauses with the bone it is about to use as a tool. The new scene was a low angle shot of the monolith, done in order to portray and clarify the connection between the ape using the tool and the monolith.
Some shots of Frank Poole jogging in the centrifuge were removed.
An entire sequence of several shots in which Dave Bowman searches for the replacement antenna part in storage was removed.
A scene where HAL severs radio communication between Discovery and Poole's pod before killing him was removed. This scene explains a line which stayed in the film in which Bowman addresses HAL on the subject.
Some shots of Poole's space walk before he is killed were removed.
Bummer about the documentary being 86'd, though.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A trailer for John Sayles' latest film, Amigo, has been released. It takes us back to 1900 and the Philippine–American War.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I never thought I'd live to see the day when a trailer for Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life was released but here it is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sundance roadshow will stop in Madison again this year. We'll be getting Like Crazy on 27 January. Hopefully it'll be better than last year's entry, The Runaways. Jennifer Lawrence stars and she was fantastic in Winter's Bone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lastly, I see that Vision - from the Life of Hildegard von Bingen opens at the Orpheum here in Madison on 28 January for a 2-week run.
Too bad Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale won't be playing here. It's a Finnish black comedy about some archaeologists unearthing the "real" Santa. Sounds like some holiday fare that I could enjoy.
I wonder if this release would include the version dubbed into Spanish that I saw at Antojitos el Toril…?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Don't buy that 2001: A Space Odyssey Blu-Ray just yet.
Visual effects guru Douglas Trumbull has said "that the 17 minutes that Kubrick cut from 2001 shortly after the film’s release have been found by Warners in their vault in a salt mine in Kansas. These cut scenes are perfectly preserved in CMY component negatives. Trumbull has no idea of what Warners plans to do with them."
From IMDB, the footage consists of:
Some shots from the "Dawn of Man" sequence were removed and a new scene was inserted where an ape pauses with the bone it is about to use as a tool. The new scene was a low angle shot of the monolith, done in order to portray and clarify the connection between the ape using the tool and the monolith.
Some shots of Frank Poole jogging in the centrifuge were removed.
An entire sequence of several shots in which Dave Bowman searches for the replacement antenna part in storage was removed.
A scene where HAL severs radio communication between Discovery and Poole's pod before killing him was removed. This scene explains a line which stayed in the film in which Bowman addresses HAL on the subject.
Some shots of Poole's space walk before he is killed were removed.
Bummer about the documentary being 86'd, though.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A trailer for John Sayles' latest film, Amigo, has been released. It takes us back to 1900 and the Philippine–American War.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I never thought I'd live to see the day when a trailer for Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life was released but here it is.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sundance roadshow will stop in Madison again this year. We'll be getting Like Crazy on 27 January. Hopefully it'll be better than last year's entry, The Runaways. Jennifer Lawrence stars and she was fantastic in Winter's Bone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lastly, I see that Vision - from the Life of Hildegard von Bingen opens at the Orpheum here in Madison on 28 January for a 2-week run.
Too bad Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale won't be playing here. It's a Finnish black comedy about some archaeologists unearthing the "real" Santa. Sounds like some holiday fare that I could enjoy.
10 December, 2010
On the Road Again
Well, passenger rail service to Madison went from being immanent to a pipe dream. Perhaps in another 40 years we'll see this again.
One part of the article linked to above which I didn't understand was this:
Walker said he talked with LaHood on Thursday morning and was assured that Wisconsin would not have to repay money already spent.
Why not? Hopefully it's because the money was used to improve track for Canadian Pacific or Wisconsin & Southern freight trains or for track used by the Hiawatha line currently. But if it was just to get people to design stations, hell, we should give that money back so it can be used for its intended purpose…in California, Florida, Washington, Illinois, New York, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, Missouri, Oregon, North Carolina, Iowa, or Indiana.
It's a real shame. This past summer, a cousin of mine was in town for a conference. With him were a couple friends who are married and live in downstate Illinois. They were both of retirement age and have visited Madison frequently over the years. Indeed, they used to bring their daughter here every year and take her photo in front of the carousel at Ella's Deli. They love Madison and were looking forward to taking the train here instead of driving but, alas, it is not to be. My mother is now in her 70s and I'm sure that, as she gets older, she'll be driving less and a train to Madison would have been great.
And now I read that Talgo, the Spanish train manufacturer that recently setup shop in Milwaukee will be leaving town in about a year.
Nora Friend, a spokeswoman for the train manufacturing company Talgo, called the loss of funds “terrible news” for Wisconsin, for the company and its Milwaukee manufacturing plant, and for vendors and workers throughout the state.
“It sends a terrible message to businesses that are considering coming to Wisconsin,” Friend said.
She added Talgo will close its Milwaukee plant, probably in early 2012, and likely will lay off more than half of the 125 workers it expects to have on its payroll at that time. She said she doesn’t know where the plant will relocate.
“We’ll go where there’s business,” Friend said.
Mission accomplished.
It's Nice To See the Men in Blue Doing Their Part
Remember how Wisconsin has the most drunk drivers? Well, it's nice to know that police officers are doing their part and it's not just us normal citizens.
A Milwaukee police sergeant has been reassigned after his arrest on charges of drinking and driving.
A Fond Du Lac deputy said he pulled over John Corbett's truck after watching it drive erratically on a dark county road. Inside, she found a driver who appeared intoxicated, two men passed out in the back seat, covered in vomit and in the front passenger seat, Corbett's 13-year-old daughter.
What a class act. I mean, as long as you're going to drive drunk, bring your child along for the ride.
A Milwaukee police sergeant has been reassigned after his arrest on charges of drinking and driving.
A Fond Du Lac deputy said he pulled over John Corbett's truck after watching it drive erratically on a dark county road. Inside, she found a driver who appeared intoxicated, two men passed out in the back seat, covered in vomit and in the front passenger seat, Corbett's 13-year-old daughter.
What a class act. I mean, as long as you're going to drive drunk, bring your child along for the ride.
DADT Continues
A bill to end the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy was defeated in the Senate.
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked the legislation, which would have lifted the military's 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops. The measure was tucked into a broader defense policy bill and had passed the House last spring.
It failed in a 57-40 test vote, falling three votes short of the 60 needed to advance.
Check out Steve Chapman's "Up From Homophobia" up at Reason.com. It's a great piece about how he overcame his own homophobia by (gasp!) simply getting to know people who happen to be gay.
Familiarity, in this case, doesn't breed contempt. It breeds acceptance. Heterosexuals have always lived and worked with gays, but without knowing it. Once they find out, most learn they have more similarities than differences.
If the military's ban on open gays is repealed, a lot of people in uniform will soon come to the same realization. Many already have. The Pentagon's new report on "don't ask, don't tell" says that when it surveyed military personnel, two out of three said they've served alongside colleagues they believed to be gay.
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked the legislation, which would have lifted the military's 17-year-old ban on openly gay troops. The measure was tucked into a broader defense policy bill and had passed the House last spring.
It failed in a 57-40 test vote, falling three votes short of the 60 needed to advance.
Check out Steve Chapman's "Up From Homophobia" up at Reason.com. It's a great piece about how he overcame his own homophobia by (gasp!) simply getting to know people who happen to be gay.
Familiarity, in this case, doesn't breed contempt. It breeds acceptance. Heterosexuals have always lived and worked with gays, but without knowing it. Once they find out, most learn they have more similarities than differences.
If the military's ban on open gays is repealed, a lot of people in uniform will soon come to the same realization. Many already have. The Pentagon's new report on "don't ask, don't tell" says that when it surveyed military personnel, two out of three said they've served alongside colleagues they believed to be gay.
Doe, A Deer, A Tasty Deer
Sofya up by Viroqua shows how to butcher a deer at home. And check out the rest of The Girl's Guide to Guns and Butter too. Sofya is from Azerbaijan so she throws in some recipes with a touch of her homeland in addition to more standard fare.
Echoes From My Days at the Ivory Tower
Some interesting tidbits relating to a couple of my former professors.
First is a review of The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973 by Tino Balio. I took two or three classes with Prof. Balio and wrote a lengthy paper about the reception of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films in America for one of them.
Here's a pretty amazing statistic that I'm sure I learned in class but forgot: "Through the 1950s, foreign films accounted for about 7 percent of total box office—a staggeringly high number that has never been duplicated." I'm sure that that percentage is downright minuscule these days but I wonder what percentage of total money spent on movies foreign films get. (Rentals and Netflix in addition to box office.) Anywhere near 7%?
Another former professor-related thing pertains to this guy:
That's Charles Anderson, one of my favorite profs from my time at the UW. That lone poli sci class I took with him left a profound impression on me. The UW Alumni Association has posted recordings of some of Anderson's lectures. They are from the 1980s and were broadcasted on the radio at the time but are now available at iTunes. These recordings are of Prof. Anderson's lectures for the Integrated Liberal Studies 205-206 classes. The topic is the history of Western thought as seen through political, social, and economic lenses.
I'm only on the third lecture (of 54) so I can't relate a whole lot on the substance other than to say that Greece is where it all started for us. I will note that A) it is weird to think a college lecture was ever put on the radio and B) it's funny to hear him say that listeners can write the station or the department for copies of the syllabus instead of going to a webpage.
First is a review of The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973 by Tino Balio. I took two or three classes with Prof. Balio and wrote a lengthy paper about the reception of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's films in America for one of them.
Here's a pretty amazing statistic that I'm sure I learned in class but forgot: "Through the 1950s, foreign films accounted for about 7 percent of total box office—a staggeringly high number that has never been duplicated." I'm sure that that percentage is downright minuscule these days but I wonder what percentage of total money spent on movies foreign films get. (Rentals and Netflix in addition to box office.) Anywhere near 7%?
Another former professor-related thing pertains to this guy:
That's Charles Anderson, one of my favorite profs from my time at the UW. That lone poli sci class I took with him left a profound impression on me. The UW Alumni Association has posted recordings of some of Anderson's lectures. They are from the 1980s and were broadcasted on the radio at the time but are now available at iTunes. These recordings are of Prof. Anderson's lectures for the Integrated Liberal Studies 205-206 classes. The topic is the history of Western thought as seen through political, social, and economic lenses.
I'm only on the third lecture (of 54) so I can't relate a whole lot on the substance other than to say that Greece is where it all started for us. I will note that A) it is weird to think a college lecture was ever put on the radio and B) it's funny to hear him say that listeners can write the station or the department for copies of the syllabus instead of going to a webpage.
Hic Sunt Feles
Some eldritch prints in the snow on our porch...
...were traced to this creature, our cat Grabby.
Unfortunately she is not satisfied with merely sitting underneath our tannenbaum and feels the need to actually perch herself on its branches.
She's not toppled it over. Yet. When she does, the salt dough ornaments that Miles and The Dulcinea have made will surely crack into pieces. I'd hate to see that because they've put a lot of work into them - making the dough, cutting out the shapes, baking them, and painting them.
My contribution to decorating the tannenbaum consisted of taking advantage of the holiday sale at Wisconsin Historical Society Museum and buying myself an nice ornament cheap.
Head on over for some good deals. They've got the multi-volume History of Wisconsin set dirt cheap - $10/book, if memory serves - and cheese curd t-shirts are only $7 apiece.
...were traced to this creature, our cat Grabby.
Unfortunately she is not satisfied with merely sitting underneath our tannenbaum and feels the need to actually perch herself on its branches.
She's not toppled it over. Yet. When she does, the salt dough ornaments that Miles and The Dulcinea have made will surely crack into pieces. I'd hate to see that because they've put a lot of work into them - making the dough, cutting out the shapes, baking them, and painting them.
My contribution to decorating the tannenbaum consisted of taking advantage of the holiday sale at Wisconsin Historical Society Museum and buying myself an nice ornament cheap.
Head on over for some good deals. They've got the multi-volume History of Wisconsin set dirt cheap - $10/book, if memory serves - and cheese curd t-shirts are only $7 apiece.
A Modest Proposal to Address Our Drunk Driving Problem
Wisconsin has retained its title as having the drunkest drivers. This being the case, I have come up with an ad campaign. To wit:
If you drink and drive, you will be ass-raped by a scary looking black man. I mean, we do have lots of black men in our prisons so it fits perfectly.
If you drink and drive, you will be ass-raped by a scary looking black man. I mean, we do have lots of black men in our prisons so it fits perfectly.
07 December, 2010
Far Out Man, Far Out
This is some intensely psychedelic fractal work. From the author, Chris Korda:
This is an extremely deep dive into the Mandelbrot set, to 2^316 (binary). In decimal that's 1E+95, or 1 with 95 zeros after it. The coordinates are identical to a similar deep zoom movie posted to YouTube by user metafis, but my version has higher resolution (648x480), and was rendered with 2x antialiasing (four pixels computed for every output pixel). It also has an improved palette, similar to the one used by the Wikipedia Mandelbrot page. The uncompressed version looks better of course--fractals are close to the worst case for video compression--but H.264 does surprisingly well.
There is no audio but I highly recommend queuing up Ligti's Requiem as the soundtrack.
This is an extremely deep dive into the Mandelbrot set, to 2^316 (binary). In decimal that's 1E+95, or 1 with 95 zeros after it. The coordinates are identical to a similar deep zoom movie posted to YouTube by user metafis, but my version has higher resolution (648x480), and was rendered with 2x antialiasing (four pixels computed for every output pixel). It also has an improved palette, similar to the one used by the Wikipedia Mandelbrot page. The uncompressed version looks better of course--fractals are close to the worst case for video compression--but H.264 does surprisingly well.
There is no audio but I highly recommend queuing up Ligti's Requiem as the soundtrack.
Fractice Mandelbrot deep zoom to 2^316 (bigger than the universe!) from Chris Korda on Vimeo.
Taste of Tibet: Now With More Yak
When Taste of Tibet first opened, either the menu or some sign in the restaurant apologized for the lack of yak meat. Well, a few days ago I walked by to discover a sign in the window indicating that this situation has been rectified. There were yak meatballs to be had as well as other dishes with the popular flesh of the Himalayas.
Has anyone had tasted it yet?
(Photo from Project Himalaya.)
Has anyone had tasted it yet?
(Photo from Project Himalaya.)
06 December, 2010
Where Are All These Kölsches? (And Other Beer Happenings)
Wisconsin has another brewery - Big Bay Brewing Company. Jeff over at Madison Beer Review has the skinny (on their press release only).
Their first two beers are an amber ale and a Kölsch-style beer. This prompts Jeff to write "But I have to ask, does Wisconsin really need another Kolsch and Amber?"
So who brews a Kölsch besides Sand Creek (Groovy Brew) and now Big Bay? And I mean breweries and not brewpubs. (E.g. - Vintage has a Kölsch called Sister Golden Ale.)
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I see that the Capital Tap Haus now has Tett Dopplebock on tap. I thought this was going to be bottled...?
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I was in Woodman's over the weekend and noticed some bottles from the Northwoods Brewpub in Eau Claire. Among the brews was the recreated Walter's. That night I saw a friend of mine who attended UW-Eau Claire and whose fraternity was sponsored by Walter's back in the day. I told him about how I'd seen the stuff at the store and he replied, "Some things are better left dead."
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Has anyone been watching Brew Masters? Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head is the host and we watch as he scours the globe for exotic ingredients to put into beer.
I watched the first episode and it was OK. Calagione is a bit annoying in a frat boy kind of way but I can overlook that as he loves beer and loves to be creative with the brewing process. The problem I have with the show is the videography. Is there some rule that says your show can't be on the Discovery Channel or TLC if you use a tripod? In addition, no shot last for more than 2 seconds and every 5 minutes they just have to put something into fast motion. Hint: you don't need to pull out all the stops in order to try to make a meeting come across as exhilarating as an extreme sport.
My second gripe is the music. It is for shite. Did they hire Skid Row to do the soundtrack?
When you get a bunch of hotties with E cups in dirndls shaking their jugs around, go for it. Move that camera around, use canted angles, and play crappy metal music. But when you're simply showing beer in a tank for a couple weeks to ferment, there's no need to shoot it like a scene from The Bourne Ultimatum.
02 December, 2010
Chicago TARDIS 2010
This past weekend The Dulcinea and I descended upon suburban Chicago for Chicago TARDIS. It was fun but I learned my lesson: I need a new camera. The batteries don't hold a charge very well any longer, it performs poorly in low light conditions, blah blah blah. And, honestly, I didn't really feel like taking snaps all the time anyway.
None of the actors who have played The Doctor were in attendance but we got Louise Jameson and Frazier Hines who played companions Leela and Jamie, respectively. Ian McNeice, who played Winston Churchill in DW last season was also there. Tommy Knight from The Sarah Jane Adventures was on-hand as were Kai Owen and Gareth David-Lloyd from Torchwood. The Big Finish gang were there as was Terrance Dicks who was script editor and producer of DW in the 1970s. Lots of great tales were told. And the Torchwood guys even did a rap. To wit:
Louise Jameson said that "The Sunmakers" was one of her favorite DW episodes as it parodied England's government and tax codes so well. Since she was in attendance, there were a few gals in Leela outfits. I managed to get a snap of this lovely young woman in costume.
I mean, what would a con be without pulchritudinous young women in skimpy outfits? This young lady took my rhetorical question to heart and dressed as the Cyberwoman from Torchwood.
(I didn't take this photo. It can be found here.)
I suppose if I have a gripe, it's that only 1 or 2 of the people who wore costumes actually did any posing after the masquerade show. Everyone else seemed to have headed back to their rooms to change into normal clothing right away.
Listening to Terrance Dicks talk was really great. He reminisced about writing "The War Games", the Second Doctor's final story, working with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and hanging out at the BBC tavern. I wanted to get a book or something autographed by him but the line filled up right away and th ETA to meet him was well over an hour. His stories really brought back memories. Dicks also had high praise for David Tennant. He described him as being born for the part unlike some of the other actors who've played the role.
And so did a panel on DW fandom in the 1980s before the new series, pre-Big Finish, and pre-Internet. The panelists talked about how DW slowly gained fans starting in the late 1970s before it became a real cash cow for PBS in the 1980s. I started watching in 1981 or '82 on Chicago's PBS station. Almost 30 bloody years! My long standing fandom (i.e. – my aging) was thrown into sharp relief whilst waiting in the autograph line to get the Big Finish gang to sign a poster. Behind me was a young man dressed at the Seventh Doctor. We started chatting and I told him that I saw Sylvester McCoy back in 1987 in either Green Bay or La Crosse at a stop on his tour to promote his episodes which would begin airing on PBS stations shortly. So the kid (sorry!) says to me, "I was born in 1988 just as 'The Happiness Patrol' was airing." D'oh!
To be honest, I'm proud of myself. I think there are many older fans who grew up or got into the show back in the day and look down upon younger fans for whom David Tennant is their Doctor. Luckily I haven't fallen into that trap. It's all DW and I don't give a tinker's cuss how old you are or how you got into the show. Sure, we can argue whether or not "Timelash" is the single worst DW story ever or ever will be but we're all fans celebrating the show and our fandom. (However, that Colin Baker's outfit is the single coolest piece of haberdashery ever conceived by mankind is not up for debate.)
The gents in Mysterious Theatre 337 were there as well and they did Tom Baker's first episode "Robot", which was written by Terrance Dicks and, since he was on hand, he answered questions about it. The show was funny and I can't even recall the last time I watched that story.
The dealer room was full of DW goodies and, remarkably, I didn't buy a whole lot. Just one BF audio drama this time around. I grabbed a David Tennant action figure for a friend's daughter and some DW novels. Why I don't know but I found myself confronted with shelves full of the Virgin and BBC novels and suddenly decided to buy some under the impression that I needed to have them all for my collection. I walked away with only a couple but it was the first time I have ever really thought that I ought to have them on my shelf. They were all Sixth Doctor stories because I'm collecting every story with him. Now, I had a couple other BBC novels already but I bought them mainly to just see how they are and I've not yet read them. But now I am bound and determined to do so. I don't know how to explain it. Just one of those Road to Damascus moments where I went from being quite indifferent about the novels to being very enthusiastic.
Author Simon Guerrier was in attendance and he seemed to be a really nice and funny guy. I bought a copy of his DW novel The Pirate Loop and had him autograph it for Miles. I'd love to bring the kid to Chicago TARDIS but I think he'd be bored. He loves the new series but there isn't much new series-related stuff. To my knowledge, Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith can't actually do DW cons. Neither can new companions. (Is this correct? I can't recall where I heard this but I heard that their contracts forbid them from doing fan conventions until further notice.) Besides, Eccleston has said he would never to a con. (But, as was pointed out last weekend, Paul McGann once said the same thing.) Miles watched some classic series DW once but he didn't care for it. He doesn't listen to the audio dramas nor does he read the comic books. So I thought I'd try to get him into another DW realm with a novel. We'll see how my little experiment turns out.
Other cool things at the con were the K-9 unit buzzing around and some Mad Norwegian Press books which I now want to own. Plus the folks who run Mad Norwegian Press are really nice. Rob Shearman was very funny. The D bought a couple books of his and she had him sign them. On one he drew a Dalek. I discovered that Lisa Bowerman is a much bigger dork than I thought. And I mean that in a good way. I am angling to check out the Bernice Summerfield audios now. Ciara Janson and Laura Doddington were both really friendly. I guess cons tend to be self-selecting as far as guests go. If you're a big asshole who doesn't want to be bothered to deal with fans, you don't go to them. Hence the guests at Chicago TARDIS are always really friendly (and patient). And it's also great that most of the guests are simply fan geeks of the show. I mean, the people behind the new series and Big Finish all grew up watching it and now they help create it so, while they may be a guest up on stage, they're still all fanboys and fangirls geeking out to DW. Gary Russell was especially forthcoming about his fandom.
Ooh! And I can't forget Toby Hadoke doing his one-man routine "Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf". It was very funny and touching at the same time. I can only imagine how his kid is going to turn out.
The registration forms for next year said that writer Ben Aaronovitch was already confirmed. Since he wrote two stories for the Seventh Doctor ("Remembrance of the Daleks" and "Battlefield") I suspect the organizers are looking to get Sylvester McCoy to be a guest. Besides, he hasn't been there since 2006. Maybe I'll even bring my scarf.
01 December, 2010
Amtrak's Hiawatha Line Doing Well
While it doesn't look like Madison will be getting Amtrak service during my lifetime, plenty of people are riding the Hiawatha. According to the DOT:
The numbers for October are in and show ridership remains strong aboard Amtrak Hiawatha Service trains between Milwaukee and Chicago. Ridership totaled 67,900 – a record high for the month of October during the entire history of the service. Through the first 10 months of this year, 654,483 passengers have utilized the Hiawatha Service – an increase of over 7% compared to the same period last year. Hiawatha ridership for 2010 is on pace to set a new calendar year ridership record of around 800,000 passengers.
Here's a video which looks like it's from a local Milwaukee TV station about people who ride the train.
The numbers for October are in and show ridership remains strong aboard Amtrak Hiawatha Service trains between Milwaukee and Chicago. Ridership totaled 67,900 – a record high for the month of October during the entire history of the service. Through the first 10 months of this year, 654,483 passengers have utilized the Hiawatha Service – an increase of over 7% compared to the same period last year. Hiawatha ridership for 2010 is on pace to set a new calendar year ridership record of around 800,000 passengers.
Here's a video which looks like it's from a local Milwaukee TV station about people who ride the train.
Unmanned Wikileaks Drone Destroys Afghan Village
Classic.
WIKILEAKS was last night accused of putting lives at risk after destroying an Afghan village with an unmanned drone.
Important secret experts said the attack by the online whistleblower was its most devastating since it killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the search for weapons of mass destruction that it secretly knew were all made up.
The slaughter came just hours after the website, popular with paedophiles and smokers, published 250,000 secret documents that revealed, for only the 78 millionth time in human history, that governments are run by the sort of utter tosspots you wouldn't have in your house.
WIKILEAKS was last night accused of putting lives at risk after destroying an Afghan village with an unmanned drone.
Important secret experts said the attack by the online whistleblower was its most devastating since it killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the search for weapons of mass destruction that it secretly knew were all made up.
The slaughter came just hours after the website, popular with paedophiles and smokers, published 250,000 secret documents that revealed, for only the 78 millionth time in human history, that governments are run by the sort of utter tosspots you wouldn't have in your house.
Football Player Blames Yahweh For Own Fuck-Up
Buffalo Bills receiver Steve Johnson blames his god on Twitter for dropping a pass:
"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!!" he tweeted late Sunday afternoon. "YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."
It's about time Yahweh gets the blame.
"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!!" he tweeted late Sunday afternoon. "YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!!! THX THO..."
It's about time Yahweh gets the blame.
Capital Tap Haus Now Open
I see that the Capital Tap Haus opened last week. Right off of the Square on State Street, it serves food and carries Capital's brews. Unfortunately their webpage is pretty bare at the moment. No menu or tap list.
30 November, 2010
Waiting On a Train by James McCommons
With our governor-elect vowing to deny Madison intercity passenger rail service, something we haven't had in decades, I thought I’d finally read James McCommons’ Waiting On a Train which I’d bought this past spring when he was here in Madison speaking at the library.
While McCommons makes no bones about his desire to see passenger rail in this country flourish once again, the book isn’t a simple screed inveighing against the likes of Scott Walker. It is part travelogue and part investigation into exactly how Amtrak came to be what it is and what its future may hold.
Over the course of eight parts McCommons travels the rails to cover the entire country. Well, as much as Amtrak allows. Each journey begins with an overnight bus ride from his home in the UP down to Milwaukee where he catches a Hiawatha to Chicago’s Union Station. And from there he travels to a different part of the country. On board he meets the people who use Amtrak and those who serve the passengers. At his destinations McCommons interviews government officials, heads of citizen groups that promote rail, and the heads of some freight rail companies.
It is almost a mantra of the people McCommons talks to that Amtrak was created to fail. In 1971 the federal government came up with the service to relieve the railroad companies of the burden of passenger service which, for the most part, was a losing proposition in the post-war era. It has limped along ever since its inception struggling to get funding from Congress. At its birth Amtrak was seen by many as an intermediate step in ending passenger rail in this country completely burdened, as it was, by the mandate to become profitable, an albatross never hung around the necks of roads and airports which are government subsidized to nary a complaint.
For the most part, Amtrak’s trains run on rail owned by freight rail companies and we learn that the performance of any given route has a lot to do with Amtrak’s relationship with the freight carrier. In Longview, Texas McCommons meets up with an Amtrak employee named Griff Hubbard. They discuss why the Texas Eagle has such poor on-time performance. The train runs on track owned by Union Pacific and Hubbard relates a tale of speaking to a UP executive about cooperating to improve the train’s record. The exec said, “You know, Griff, you just don’t get it. And maybe you guys will never get it, but we just don’t care.” UP certainly comes across as the villain here. They wouldn’t even talk to McCommons.
Other freight carriers were more willing to both talk to McCommons and work with Amtrak and the states. D.J. Mitchell of Burlington Northern Santa Fe met McCommons and told him that his company cares. Passenger trains on his rails are customers just like someone paying to have tons of coal shipped by them. BNSF is a good partner with passenger rail in California and Washington because it’s good business for them. Such partnerships, especially in states willing to put money on the table, lead to routes with frequency of service as well as on-time performance.
Perhaps the saddest chapter for me was the one about Madison. McCommons detrained in Milwaukee and first stopped in Waukesha to chat with Matt Van Hattem, an editor of Trains magazine. (See, there are pro-rail people in the Republican stronghold of Waukesha.) From there he went to Madison. Here he spoke with state rail chief Randy Wade and, via conference call, Frank Busalacchi, Secretary of the DOT. They paint a very positive picture for passenger rail here in Wisconsin with plans to get service to Madison and, in general, resurrecting passenger rail in the country. But, with Scott Walker set to move into the Governor’s mansion, any plans to expand passenger rail here in Wisconsin are all but dead.
On his journeys McCommons meets and describes the people who use Amtrak. There's a student from Milwaukee who took the Hiawatha to Chicago for a job interview and a university professor from Japan heading from Denver to Boston to do research; there are commuters who ride the train instead of driving or flying as well as people who are out on vacation or going to visit family. All kinds of people use Amtrak. In a few decades this country will have countless more people like those McCommons encounters and our current transportation infrastructure won't be able to handle them all. Instead of having the government subsidize the construction of ever more roads and airports, he suggests we invest in rail.
Waiting On a Train has many lessons for people who are serious about contemplating whether they want their tax money to be invested in rail. All too often anti-rail advocates refer to trains as "choo-choos" and say that no one will ride them. Such people might be surprised to see who does in fact ride them today and what Amtrak lines are successful and why. (Hint: frequency of service is very important in attracting ridership.) Plus there are stories of how passenger rail service has helped communities around the country. Pro-rail advocates would do well to read about the success stories in the book that are public-private partnerships. Everyone needs to come together to make rail work. Another take-away here is a quote from John Robert Smith, mayor of Meridian, Mississippi and a Republican: "Most politicians use the verb 'invest' when they discuss highways and airports, but when it comes to passenger rail, the verb of choice is 'subsidize'."
As I said above, Waiting On a Train is a good look at Amtrak's history and its present. No matter which side you're on in the rail debate, the book provides a lot of great information and dispels many rumors that are being bandied about today.
23 November, 2010
Madison Polish Film Festival 2010: Lullaby (Kołysanka)
The second and unfortunately last film I saw at this year's Polish Film Festival here in Madison was Juliusz Machulski's Lullaby (Kołysanka). Like War of Love, it starred Robert Więckiewicz. Here he is Michał, the head of the Makarewicz family who just happen to be vampires who merely seeking a home. He and his wife Bożena are parents to four small children with another on the way. Living with them is Michał's father. The family arrives at a farm one night which is occupied by a lone man who earns his living by making ceramics. The next thing we know it is the following day and our vampires are the new residents.
One by one people come to the house - a social worker, a postman, a priest and his acolyte, a German investor and his translator – and one by one these people disappear. Even a reporter and her cameraman sent out to the area to investigate the previous disappearances go missing. The local constabulary takes up the case but they're a bit on the Mayberry side of things. The police chief is an older gentleman who has a large model of the area populated by handmade figures of those missing. His female officer is a bit bumbling while the other officer, a man, is a real no-nonsense fellow.
While it all sounds like a typical horror film, Lullaby is a comedy. The family may be vampires but Michał has all the same problems as head of a household that we non-vampires do. His wife wants to move to the city and start a new life there. His eldest son doesn't look much like his father and so he falls into a depression thinking he's adopted. And there's the youngest who screams and cries unless the feet of the priest are available for getting a good drink of blood from. You see, all the victims are trapped in a root cellar their feet exposed so that the veins can be tapped.
Lullaby begins with some ominous overtones but it isn't long before the fact that it's a comedy is revealed. It's all a rather light-hearted affair. The authority figures are ruthlessly poked fun at, not unlike The Simpsons, and Michał is a fairly archetypal father on the hen-pecked side with a great dry sense of humor. Michał Lorenc's score is really fantastic with its gothic overtones rubbing elbows with classical and folk. You will think the music was by Danny Elfman.
Hopefully this will get a DVD release here in the States because I'd really like to see it again.
R.I.P. Hamann Charcuterie
A friend of mine who lives on the north side tells me that Hamann Charcuterie has closed its doors. It's just not been a good year for sausage makers.
Perhaps he'll reopen with a new business plan.
Perhaps he'll reopen with a new business plan.
22 November, 2010
R.I.P. Chalmers Johnson
Chalmers Johnson has died. This obit does a nice job of summarizing his career. I never knew he was at the center of such a shitstorm regarding the Japanese economy. For me, he really opened my eyes to the extent of the American "empire", such as it is.
Polish Film Festival: War of Love (Śluby panieńskie)
The first film I saw at this year's Madison Polish Film Festival was Filip Bajon's War of Love (Śluby panieńskie). Bajon himself was to have been in attendance but fell ill at the last minute and so spent the evening at his hotel room. A real disappointment but kudos must still go out to Sebastian Jankowski and the rest of the crew who put the festival together for even getting a director to agree to come to Madison.
War of Love is based on Aleksander Fredro's 19th century comedic play Śluby panieńskie or Maiden's Vows. I have seen bits of Andrzej Wajda's Revenge which was also based on a work by Fredro so I kinda sorta knew what to expect.
As it turns out, War of Love is reminiscent of Shakespeare's Love’s Labor’s Lost. It's Poland in 1825 and two young women, Klara and Aniela are being spirited away by their families to seal their fates in marriage. Aniela looks out from her carriage joyously while her cousin Klara looks angry. A beautiful and somewhat retiring blonde, Aniela is bequeathed to Gustav while the headstrong and feisty Klara is promised to Albin who is a bit dimwitted but otherwise an earnest suitor. Klara inveigles Aniela into a blood oath to hate men and never be married.
Gustav is pretty blasé about the whole affair. He is bored with country life and isn't quite ready to give up his status as a libertine, much to his uncle Radost's chagrin. Albin is just the opposite. He longs for a wife and domesticity to temper his ways. (Luckily there always seems to be someone on hand to throw a bucket of water on him and provide a face for him to slap to calm him down.) When word of Klara and Aniela's pact reaches then, Gustav comes up with a bit of subterfuge to change the women's minds.
It is all rather standard romantic comedy stuff. Until you see a cell phone for the first time. Radost comes upon the ladies bathing naked in a local lake. He lies on the ground by their horses and we see that one of them has a tramp stamp, the first sign that something is amiss. Then Radost pulls out a cell phone and calls Klara. This odd scene is compounded by others showing the actors sitting around a table ostensibly between takes. There is this subplot which goes all meta about how Marta Żmuda-Trzebiatowska, the actress who plays Klara gets between Robert Więckiewicz (Radost) and his sweetie on the set.
This bit with the actors' lives intruding on the story of the film was absurdist-lite in a Monty Python kind of way. It was amusing in its own right and certainly not completely distracting but I suspect that if I knew a bit more about contemporary Polish cinema/actors, it would have made more sense.
Metropolitan Brewing and Other Chicago Beer News
A neat video about Metropolitan Brewing whose beer I find quite tasty. I think they go a bit hyperbolic by saying that they are the only craft brewery in the country that doesn't brew an IPA but their point is well taken. Metropolitan basically brews German-style beers, although they did do a small batch of India Pale Lager. And so I give them credit for going against the grain, so to speak. I had the chance to speak with co-owner Tracy Hurst at this year's Great Taste and she was really nice to talk to.
Also, Crain's Chicago Business has an interesting article about pay-to-play infecting Chicago's beer market. Craft brewers are getting the shaft by distributors who pay to have the beers they distribute carried at bars, restaurants, and stores.
Deb Carey of New Glarus is quoted in the article:
“Brewers call Chicago a whores' market,” says Deb Carey, co-owner of New Glarus Brewing Co., of New Glarus, Wis., which sold draft beer in Chicago for two years in the mid-1990s. New Glarus pulled out, Ms. Carey says, because it didn't want to participate in illegal business practices such as giving away beer to get bars to carry its products.
Ms. Carey says Illinoisans constantly are urging her to sell her Spotted Cow ale here again, but she's not interested. “Everyone has a hand out and everyone wants some cash, (free) beer or a discount,” she says. “As far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the graft and hassle.”
“Small brewers can't afford to pay to play,” she adds. “I really blame the big domestic brewers for creating this mess.”
I don't doubt that this happens in Wisconsin as well but surely not on anywhere near the scale of Chicagoland.
Also, Crain's Chicago Business has an interesting article about pay-to-play infecting Chicago's beer market. Craft brewers are getting the shaft by distributors who pay to have the beers they distribute carried at bars, restaurants, and stores.
Deb Carey of New Glarus is quoted in the article:
“Brewers call Chicago a whores' market,” says Deb Carey, co-owner of New Glarus Brewing Co., of New Glarus, Wis., which sold draft beer in Chicago for two years in the mid-1990s. New Glarus pulled out, Ms. Carey says, because it didn't want to participate in illegal business practices such as giving away beer to get bars to carry its products.
Ms. Carey says Illinoisans constantly are urging her to sell her Spotted Cow ale here again, but she's not interested. “Everyone has a hand out and everyone wants some cash, (free) beer or a discount,” she says. “As far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the graft and hassle.”
“Small brewers can't afford to pay to play,” she adds. “I really blame the big domestic brewers for creating this mess.”
I don't doubt that this happens in Wisconsin as well but surely not on anywhere near the scale of Chicagoland.
Westfield Comics Opens On Willy Street
My lady pointed out to me this weekend that Westfield Comics opened a new store recently in the Third Lake Market at Willy and Brearly. This saves me from having to drive out to the far west side to get the new issue of Powers.
More Stories from TSA Security Theatre
These kinds of stories will no doubt be reported for years to come.
"TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast".
Cathy Bossi, who works for U.S. Airways, said she received the pat-down after declining to do the full-body scan because of radiation concerns.
The TSA screener "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told the station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.'"
And then we have "TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine".
Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach.
“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”
The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”
I have a lot of empathy for the TSA screeners. They get a lot of crap for policies that they had no hand in making. But it is tested when they announce the arrival of an 18 year-old woman to be groped within earshot of her father. And how can anyone in the course of their job screw up someone's urostomy bag, see a man's clothes soak with urine, and just (ahem) wash their hands of it? If I had been responsible for that, I'd be worried that the guy is going to get an infection or something and die. But whoever it was that groped Mr. Sawyer apparently didn't give a rat's ass.
Perhaps when someone dies as a result of a groping at the hands of the TSA something will be done to ensure screeners treat people appropriately. Until such an incident we're stuck with "security theatre".
"TSA forces cancer survivor to show prosthetic breast".
Cathy Bossi, who works for U.S. Airways, said she received the pat-down after declining to do the full-body scan because of radiation concerns.
The TSA screener "put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?' " Bossi told the station. "And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that.'"
And then we have "TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine".
Sawyer is a bladder cancer survivor who now wears a urostomy bag, which collects his urine from a stoma, or opening in his stomach.
“One agent watched as the other used his flat hand to go slowly down my chest. I tried to warn him that he would hit the bag and break the seal on my bag, but he ignored me. Sure enough, the seal was broken and urine started dribbling down my shirt and my leg and into my pants.”
The security officer finished the pat-down, tested the gloves for any trace of explosives and then, Sawyer said, “He told me I could go. They never apologized. They never offered to help. They acted like they hadn’t seen what happened. But I know they saw it because I had a wet mark.”
I have a lot of empathy for the TSA screeners. They get a lot of crap for policies that they had no hand in making. But it is tested when they announce the arrival of an 18 year-old woman to be groped within earshot of her father. And how can anyone in the course of their job screw up someone's urostomy bag, see a man's clothes soak with urine, and just (ahem) wash their hands of it? If I had been responsible for that, I'd be worried that the guy is going to get an infection or something and die. But whoever it was that groped Mr. Sawyer apparently didn't give a rat's ass.
Perhaps when someone dies as a result of a groping at the hands of the TSA something will be done to ensure screeners treat people appropriately. Until such an incident we're stuck with "security theatre".
21 November, 2010
Anthony Bourdain: Have Some Courtesy, Have Some Sympathy, And Some Taste
After a round of welcoming applause died down, the first thing Anthony Bourdain said was there was to be no Rachel Ray jokes. However Sandra Lee did come in for a drubbing as he described her as “pure evil” a few times. The first third or so of his routine consisted mostly of invective directed at various hosts of Food Network shows. However, he did offer some praise as well. Julia Child changed things for the better and people such as Ina Garten, who can actually cook in Bourdain’s estimation, make for good TV as viewers come away having seen honest to goodness skill on parade.
To be perfectly honest, most of this was lost on me as I don’t have cable and consequently don’t watch any Food Channel programming. I recognized some of the names but really have no idea what these people are known for or what their gimmicks are. To the question of whether Sandra Lee can cook or not, all I can say is: who is Sandra Lee?
Once he moved away from food celebrities I began to laugh more. He admitted to making fun of foodies but he’ll be damned if his daughter eats anything other than organic produce. Furthermore his wife is a co-conspirator in luring their daughter away from fast food by hook or by crook. One plot involves putting the girl to bed and two of them standing just outside her door talking just loudly enough to be heard on the other side. “Another boy who went to MacDonald’s disappeared tonight?” Despite this, Bourdain admitted to having an unseemly affection for the mac & cheese at KFC.
The final part of his 90-minute monologue was dedicated to his tips for traveling abroad. He repeated many times throughout the night that he felt incredibly lucky to be able to travel around the globe, eat food, meet people, and get paid for it. It’s a dream come true. Likewise, he said that, if we the audience members go abroad, we should feel lucky to have an American passport and a few grand to spend. So don’t drop all that money just to have your picture taken in front of a Starbucks thousands of miles from home.
And for God’s sake do your best to adhere to local customs. He described being at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul when he noticed some tourists including a teenaged girls wearing Daisy Duke shorts. Teenagers are teenagers but why would the parents allow her to dress that way? “Would dad wear a Speedo to the Vatican?” Bourdain talked about how he adores Japan but he’ll always be considered a gaijin, an outsider. Despite this, he at least tries to keep their customs and they appreciate his efforts.
Courtesy was also the reason he couldn’t abide vegetarians. He said he’d met many poor people in his travels yet they opened their home to him and fed him. While he didn’t care what vegetarians ate at their own homes, when someone opens their door to you and gives of themselves through food, you should eat what is put before you.
The Q&A was amusing although I admit that I was left in the dark fairly often as people made references to various episodes of No Reservations of which I’ve only seen a handful of episodes. One woman asked how he stayed so thin (“I eat shit that tastes good.”) while a former serviceman pleaded with Bourdain to do a show on military chow to shed light on how god-awful it is so that it can be improved. And of course someone had to solicit his opinion on a strictly local matter - the train. Why Madison audiences invariably feel compelled to drag visitors into local politics that they likely know nothing nor care nothing about is beyond me.
One thing that I did find amusing was that his next season is slated to include a trip to Congo where he will attempt to retrace the steps of Charles Marlow, he of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Bourdain had arrived here in Madison just a couple hours prior to show time and was off to Florida the next day so there was no camera crew scouring the food scene here. However, he did have a Point Special brew with him onstage.
17 November, 2010
Save the Train and Partner With the Neighbors
The Sierra Club is sponsoring a Save the Train Rally here in Madison on Saturday. There will be others around the state as well including La Crosse and Eau Claire. So why are western Wisconsin cities so interested?
Here's your answer:
A Commerce Department report suggesting that Minneapolis-St. Paul is poised to overtake Detroit as the Midwest's second-largest metro economy didn't get much attention when it was released a year ago, perhaps because it told more about Detroit's decline than MSP's rise.
Wisconsin is between the two (or what will soon be) largest urban economies in the Midwest – Chicago and the Twin Cities. Making Madison the new terminus on Amtrak's Hiawatha line is about providing an alternative to driving to reduce highway traffic, pollution, wear and tear on the roads, and whatnot but it's also about strengthening Wisconsin's ties to our regional neighbors economically (and otherwise). Yeah, there will be commuters and there will be vactioners and people going on day trips. Great. I may be one of those too. But what concerns me the most is that rail is also going to connect, say, the folks at the UW Solar Energy Lab to investors and capital in Chicago.
To my ears, Scott Walker is saying, "All we need to do is get rid of corporate taxes, defund the UW system, and build more roads. Then businesses will be beating down our door to move here. Well, except stem cell research companies because I want to rid ourselves of embryonic stem cell research." To me, that's not a great way to foster growth in a global information economy.
Richard Longworth of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs writes about the Midwest and its place in the global economy at his blog The Midwesterner. His latest post is called "The Election's Impact on the Midwest" . He lists several examples of negative impacts for the Midwest and the incoming Republicans look to fulfill his prophecies.
* Tax cuts, which means both higher deficits in states that already are wallowing in debt and less money for these states to do what needs to be done. In other words:
"A complete list of Walker's previously-promised $3.8 tax breaks"
* Less government, which means less government investment to towns and cities that have relied on state and federal funds to pay the bills. Somewhere, these localities are going to have to find the money themselves or see their quality of life crumble.
* Less government spending on education. Not that the electees are necessarily hostile to schools. But in any budget squeeze, schools -- especially universities -- are the first to get cut. The fact that university research is a key to reviving the Midwestern economy cuts no ice, especially since universities are seen as part of the "elite" which the Tea Party has vowed to punish.
"Do more with less, Gov.-elect Walker tells regents"
* Less spending on infrastructure, like high-speed rail -- an investment that could link the Midwest's isolated towns and cities and enable them to leverage each other's strengths.
"we have been exploring all legal options to stop the train from moving forward"
* Hostility to immigration. In much of the Midwest, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are keeping declining populations afloat and injecting much-needed new ideas and money. No one denies that immigration reform is needed. But keeping immigrants out now could doom some declining areas.
"Republican in Wisconsin Assembly proposing iimmigration bill modeled after Arizona law"
* No help in fighting the recession. Federal government programs, like the stimulus, kept this recession from being worse than it is and literally rescued America's auto industry from bankruptcy. This help won't be available now if the recession dives into a second trough.
* Anti-globalization. The Midwest has always lived by trading. An open global economy is failing the region now, as industrial jobs get shipped overseas or are lost to labor-saving technology installed to meet global competition. The solution is a stronger safety net (plus stronger schools), not new trade barriers. But the anger at globalization, corporations and foreigners exhibited in the midterm election makes this balanced response unlikely or impossible.
At least we'll have some time before the Republicans hermetically seal Wisconsin in the 1950s. State Seantor Scott Fitzgerald's biggest concern at the moment is a bill mandating that voters show a photo ID at the polls. Only after that can we get down to the business of Walker paying back his donors in the road building industry.
Here's your answer:
A Commerce Department report suggesting that Minneapolis-St. Paul is poised to overtake Detroit as the Midwest's second-largest metro economy didn't get much attention when it was released a year ago, perhaps because it told more about Detroit's decline than MSP's rise.
Wisconsin is between the two (or what will soon be) largest urban economies in the Midwest – Chicago and the Twin Cities. Making Madison the new terminus on Amtrak's Hiawatha line is about providing an alternative to driving to reduce highway traffic, pollution, wear and tear on the roads, and whatnot but it's also about strengthening Wisconsin's ties to our regional neighbors economically (and otherwise). Yeah, there will be commuters and there will be vactioners and people going on day trips. Great. I may be one of those too. But what concerns me the most is that rail is also going to connect, say, the folks at the UW Solar Energy Lab to investors and capital in Chicago.
To my ears, Scott Walker is saying, "All we need to do is get rid of corporate taxes, defund the UW system, and build more roads. Then businesses will be beating down our door to move here. Well, except stem cell research companies because I want to rid ourselves of embryonic stem cell research." To me, that's not a great way to foster growth in a global information economy.
Richard Longworth of The Chicago Council on Global Affairs writes about the Midwest and its place in the global economy at his blog The Midwesterner. His latest post is called "The Election's Impact on the Midwest" . He lists several examples of negative impacts for the Midwest and the incoming Republicans look to fulfill his prophecies.
* Tax cuts, which means both higher deficits in states that already are wallowing in debt and less money for these states to do what needs to be done. In other words:
"A complete list of Walker's previously-promised $3.8 tax breaks"
* Less government, which means less government investment to towns and cities that have relied on state and federal funds to pay the bills. Somewhere, these localities are going to have to find the money themselves or see their quality of life crumble.
* Less government spending on education. Not that the electees are necessarily hostile to schools. But in any budget squeeze, schools -- especially universities -- are the first to get cut. The fact that university research is a key to reviving the Midwestern economy cuts no ice, especially since universities are seen as part of the "elite" which the Tea Party has vowed to punish.
"Do more with less, Gov.-elect Walker tells regents"
* Less spending on infrastructure, like high-speed rail -- an investment that could link the Midwest's isolated towns and cities and enable them to leverage each other's strengths.
"we have been exploring all legal options to stop the train from moving forward"
* Hostility to immigration. In much of the Midwest, immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, are keeping declining populations afloat and injecting much-needed new ideas and money. No one denies that immigration reform is needed. But keeping immigrants out now could doom some declining areas.
"Republican in Wisconsin Assembly proposing iimmigration bill modeled after Arizona law"
* No help in fighting the recession. Federal government programs, like the stimulus, kept this recession from being worse than it is and literally rescued America's auto industry from bankruptcy. This help won't be available now if the recession dives into a second trough.
* Anti-globalization. The Midwest has always lived by trading. An open global economy is failing the region now, as industrial jobs get shipped overseas or are lost to labor-saving technology installed to meet global competition. The solution is a stronger safety net (plus stronger schools), not new trade barriers. But the anger at globalization, corporations and foreigners exhibited in the midterm election makes this balanced response unlikely or impossible.
At least we'll have some time before the Republicans hermetically seal Wisconsin in the 1950s. State Seantor Scott Fitzgerald's biggest concern at the moment is a bill mandating that voters show a photo ID at the polls. Only after that can we get down to the business of Walker paying back his donors in the road building industry.
Dharma For One: Enter the Void by Gaspar Noé
Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void will likely split its audience into those who find it interminably boring and overwrought and those who are able to sit back and experience the journey. It's like a cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Tibetan Book of the Dead and is the best bit of mindfuck cinema since David Lynch's Inland Empire.
Oscar is a twenty-something American living in Tokyo with his sister, Linda. In the opening, they are out on the balcony of their cramped apartment as a plane flies overhead. The scene and, indeed, most of the rest of the film, is shot from Oscar's point-of-view with the camera acting as his eyes. The screen even goes black briefly at time to simulate his eye lids closing and opening. Oscar asks Linda whether she'd like to see the city from way high above. She wouldn't. She'd be scared of dying. In addition to the POV camerawork, Oscar's voice is a bit muffled while that of his sister is clear which adds to the weird sense of being inside the character.
Linda heads to work and this affords Oscar some time to smoke some DMT, a powerful hallucinogen. He sits on a couch and we see a pair of hands jut into view with one holding a lighter and the other a pipe. Oscar closes his eyes and the viewer is sent on a long journey through a world of colorful betentacled shapes that undulate in a hallucinogenic ballet. This is a long, gentle sequence – too long, no doubt for many – but one that lulls the audience into trance and prepares it for the rest of the film.
A phone call and a buzz at the door see Oscar leave with his friend Alex and head to a bar called The Void where our protagonist is meeting his buddy Victor to sell him some drugs. Alex has lent Oscar the Tibetan Book of the Dead and a lengthy descent down the stairs includes a conversation about the book. Out on street Alex warns Oscar, despite his protestations, that he has morphed into a drug dealer and that he ought to be careful. At The Void, Oscar sits down across from Victor and pulls out a bag of drugs which prompts the police to spring into action. Oscar runs into the bathroom and locks the door. He frantically tries to flush the drugs down the toilet. In his panic he warns the police that he's got a gun which prompts them to shoot him through the door. We hear mumbling incredulously as his body slumps to the floor.
This is when the real trip begins. Oscar's soul leaves his bodies and floats upwards. We see his corporeal remains curled around the toilet. It then wanders the city peeking in on his sister and friends with the camera looking straight down from above. Alex flees the scene once he discovers that Oscar has been shot. He calls Linda and leaves a voice mail telling her of the tragedy. Linda doesn't answer the phone because she is having sex with the owner of the club at which she works. But, once the coitus is over she hears the message and breaks down crying.
It helps in understanding the film to read a bit about the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I looked it up at Wikipedia and it mentions the bardo or interval between death and being reincarnated. Enter the Void divides the bardo into three sections. First is the above wandering in the aftermath of death. This is followed by a lengthy series of flashbacks in which we learn that Oscar and Linda were orphaned at a young age when the car they were in with their parents rammed a truck in a head-on collision. The children made a pact to be together forever but were ripped apart when they were each put in separate foster homes. In addition to childhood memories, we also discover that Oscar arrived in Tokyo first and paid for Linda to come over. Past adventures with Alex and Victor are also explored as is an affair he had with Victor's mother.
This sequence is trippy in its own way. Instead of seeing everything from Oscar's POV we see events from over his shoulder. The back of his head is omnipresent in these scenes whether it is him as an adult or as a child. It is a bit disconcerting to see everything play out with the outline of his shoulders and head always front and center of the frame but it's also oddly comforting as well and it grounds the whole sequence stylistically.
The third bardo find Oscar's soul wandering again and we see more of the aftermath of his death. In one of the flashbacks we learn that Victor has a friend who has built a large scale model of a section of Tokyo. Fluorescent colors are all aglow under blacklight and the guy eagerly shows the crazy pattern of the wall of the Love Hotel. In the third bardo Linda and Alex make their way to a life-sized Love Hotel. Oscar's soul flies in and out of the rooms watching various couples having sex as their genitals pulse with bright light and emanates outwards in tentacles of procreative energy. This scene confused me until I read at Wikipedia that this period of the bardo "features karmically impelled hallucinations which eventually result in rebirth. (Typically imagery of men and women passionately entwined.)" Oscar eventually makes his way into a sperm…
I found myself sucked into the world of Enter the Void. It is absolutely hypnotic. The camera is almost always moving within long takes in graceful floating maneuvers. Bright colors assault the senses at nearly every turn. Using a solitary point-of-view keeps you focused on the scene instead of having your mind wander off into other areas of the story world. The film has a poetic and meditative quality to it that reminds of Andrei Tarkovsky. It's just that much of the meditation is done in cramped apartments, a strip club, and on the refulgent streets of Tokyo. Oscar's soul floats and observes until the camera descends into a hole or a light and emerges somewhere else. The screen goes black or to white and stays there for a while a number of times. There are Conversations about the Tibetan Book of the Dead don't serve as an exegesis but are instead signposts in the story. And the soundtrack is great as well. There are all the digetic sounds but I really appreciated the ambient sounds of the afterlife. As his soul wanders and acts the voyeur, there are stretches when there is just this hum on the soundtrack which works perfectly. People may be talking and cars honking in this realm but out in the void, there's just a little white noise.
Thematically the film is a very byzantine way of saying tempus fugit and lamenting the fragile nature of love, relationships, and existence. Oscar and/or his soul flashes back to the car accident which robbed him and Linda of their parents multiple times. So too with the scene of social workers tearing the children away from one another. Everything we love and cherish – our kith & kin and our lives – can be gone in a fleeting instant.
On the other hand, the film may be about these themes but in a less romantic way. Perhaps it is saying something about the absurdity of it all. Our lives and the people in them can be gone in a wink so why do we bother with such feelings and expend the energy to maintain them? The more I think about the film, the more uncertain I am about it. There is a good deal of nudity and sexuality here. Oscar and Linda's relationship is oddly tinted with the possibility of incestuous feelings. Their mother is shown several times breastfeeding, we see them as children together in the bath, and Linda nibbles at his neck and ear in one scene after they've been reunited in Tokyo. Shortly after dying, Oscar's soul enters Linda's vagina and watches a glans come and go. in the distance. Hell, maybe Oscar never died and his consciousness never roamed. Maybe the whole thing was just an oneiric flight of fancy.
16 November, 2010
The Terrorists Have Won
It's funny in a sad way that we've got a President who reserves the right to have American citizens assassinated without due process, the election which got him into office featured a paucity of talk about the two wars our country is engaged in, and we've been subject to warrantless wiretapping for years yet most people barely bat an eye at these things. But now some people are fighting back against the government's war on civil liberties, namely, the right of TSA agents to grope and take pictures of you and your children at the airport.
A lot of incidents are garnering national attention. First is this video, which I gather is a year or more old, of a TSA screener groping a three year-old girl.
A pilot named Michael Roberts refused to allow government lackeys take naked pictures of him or be groped. Now he's suing for breach of his Fourth Amendment rights.
The latest media story is about John Tyner who refused to be scanned and groped. But, when he tried to leave San Diego International Airport, he was told that he was not allowed to do so and threatened with a fine and jail time. You can read his version of the events and watch footage of his encounter with the TSA that he shot on his cell phone here.
I began to make my way to the stairs to exit the airport, when I was approached by another man in slacks and a sport coat. He was accompanied by the officer that had escorted me to the ticketing area and Mr. Silva. He informed me that I could not leave the airport. He said that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.
And to top it all off, there are worries about the safety of the scanners.
My money says that this wave of resentment will subside come the new year and most people will have come to accept being scanned and/or groped. And the same will happen when these scanners are on every street. I just don't see enough of a backlash for the scanners to go away. Besides, a lot of folks with influence in Washington are lobbying on behalf of the companies that make these things. Indeed, Bush's Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security is on the payroll of one of those companies.
Finally, check out this post by someone claiming to be a former TSA employee. A couple highlights:
The body scanners are just what they are called – body scanners. They will scan your entire body and produce a pretty detailed naked picture of you on the screen. Will some TSA employees point and laugh behind the scenes, YES! Will some call their buddies over for a really good looking or well-endowed male or female passenger they just screened, YES! Will some TSA employees make fun of any oddities they see, YES! Is it unprofessional, YES!
The new pat down procedure is nothing more than a tactic to get passengers to walk through the body scanner. It is not a necessity it is terror tactic. The majority of people do not want someone feeling all over them even for security purposes…I have talked to several current TSA employees and they are all in agreement that this new invasive technique has nothing to do with better detection and everything to do with making passengers walk through the full body scanner.
A lot of incidents are garnering national attention. First is this video, which I gather is a year or more old, of a TSA screener groping a three year-old girl.
A pilot named Michael Roberts refused to allow government lackeys take naked pictures of him or be groped. Now he's suing for breach of his Fourth Amendment rights.
The latest media story is about John Tyner who refused to be scanned and groped. But, when he tried to leave San Diego International Airport, he was told that he was not allowed to do so and threatened with a fine and jail time. You can read his version of the events and watch footage of his encounter with the TSA that he shot on his cell phone here.
I began to make my way to the stairs to exit the airport, when I was approached by another man in slacks and a sport coat. He was accompanied by the officer that had escorted me to the ticketing area and Mr. Silva. He informed me that I could not leave the airport. He said that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine.
And to top it all off, there are worries about the safety of the scanners.
My money says that this wave of resentment will subside come the new year and most people will have come to accept being scanned and/or groped. And the same will happen when these scanners are on every street. I just don't see enough of a backlash for the scanners to go away. Besides, a lot of folks with influence in Washington are lobbying on behalf of the companies that make these things. Indeed, Bush's Secretary at the Department of Homeland Security is on the payroll of one of those companies.
Finally, check out this post by someone claiming to be a former TSA employee. A couple highlights:
The body scanners are just what they are called – body scanners. They will scan your entire body and produce a pretty detailed naked picture of you on the screen. Will some TSA employees point and laugh behind the scenes, YES! Will some call their buddies over for a really good looking or well-endowed male or female passenger they just screened, YES! Will some TSA employees make fun of any oddities they see, YES! Is it unprofessional, YES!
The new pat down procedure is nothing more than a tactic to get passengers to walk through the body scanner. It is not a necessity it is terror tactic. The majority of people do not want someone feeling all over them even for security purposes…I have talked to several current TSA employees and they are all in agreement that this new invasive technique has nothing to do with better detection and everything to do with making passengers walk through the full body scanner.
Coolest. Library (Parking Garage). Ever.
I don't care what design proposal for our Central Library remodel gets the green light, none will be as cool as this fascade for the parking lot at a library in Kansas City.
From Mental Floss:
"Parking garages are usually eyesores, but this one’s beautiful. The garage for Kansas City’s Library is cleverly concealed behind what look like the bindings of 22 giant books. What’s really terrific is that local residents got to help pick what books would get the nod for 25-foot renderings on the side of the garage. Some of the tiles that made the cut: Catch-22, Invisible Man, The Lord of the Rings, Silent Spring, and Charlotte’s Web."
From Mental Floss:
"Parking garages are usually eyesores, but this one’s beautiful. The garage for Kansas City’s Library is cleverly concealed behind what look like the bindings of 22 giant books. What’s really terrific is that local residents got to help pick what books would get the nod for 25-foot renderings on the side of the garage. Some of the tiles that made the cut: Catch-22, Invisible Man, The Lord of the Rings, Silent Spring, and Charlotte’s Web."
14 November, 2010
A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop
In A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop director Zhang Yimou brings some of the ostentatious elements of his House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower to bear on a remake of the Coen Brothers’ Blood Simple.
The action has been transposed to a gorgeous striped Chinese desert in an unspecified time a few hundred years in the past where Wang’s Noodle House stands as a lone outpost. A band of traders led by a Persian man has stopped by to show off its wares. Wang’s wife, a hard-nosed woman, is enthralled with the flintlocks and buys ones. After her purchase she brags that she now owns the most powerful weapon in the world. The Persian laughs at this and demonstrates the power of a canon before heading on his way.
The canon blast draws the attention of the local constabulary. They arrive and we are treated to a wonderful choreographed scene of Wang’s wife, her secret lover Li, and their portly bucktoothed co-worker Zhao tossing noodle dough around.
In keeping with the source material, Wang decides to hire a police investigator to kill his wife after he learns from Zhao that she is cheating on him with cowardly Li who dresses all in pink. From here its double crosses and murder as everyone is running away from someone else or working at getting their hands on Wang’s fortune.
The big problem with the film is that the setup artful noodle making scene and some good humor but that’s all lost once Wang takes out the hit. The humor is drained away and we’re left with the steely-eyed assassin chasing three lame stooges. I didn’t mind, in fact I actually liked the fact that none of the characters are particularly likeable. Wang is an abusive old bastard with an annoying wife. Li is so cowardly it’s painful while Zhao is just pretty stupid and childish. But even unlikable characters can be funny. Instead about the only thing that passes for humor in the last two-thirds of the film is people falling down as they run. Characters seem to run away from one another more than they interact.
A Woman, A Gun, and a Noodle Shop starts off with promise. The costumes and scenery are colorful and the characters funny. But the humor dissipates and we’re left with situations that have their promise squandered. This isn’t a horrible movie but it wasted a lot of potential.
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