Wednesday, February 3. 2010
Rohmer died on Jan. 11. From a summary of Rohmer's movies:
Claire's knee—and the consternation it arouses in the diplomat—is a painstakingly constructed symbol of rationalisation gone amok. It gives us something by which to measure the diplomat's drift from reason. It also underlines the odd humour of the "Moral Tales": in Rohmer's world, faces are symmetrical, bodies proportional, and words are perfectly measured. Everyone is beautiful, and everything is in its right place. Everything, that is, except the intentions of his heroes.
The trailer for Claire's Knee (1970) - in French - sorry, but you can get the gist of it:
It would apppear that it is from bone fire, a burning of human bones.
Tuesday, February 2. 2010
Down the mall from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, a new museum will open next November, the National Museum of American Jewish History. It tells the story of Jews in America, the many contributions from Nieuw Amsterdam to “God Bless America” to today in every walk of life, and the appreciation for the opportunities coming from being freer than elsewhere due to freer markets, speech and observance under the rule of law. It’s the same story for every immigrant group to America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBmglA-yCCk
Considering a trip to the Dolomites and the Veneto this August, with visits to Venice (not again!), Padua, Verona, Castelrotto (Kastelruth), etc. Apparently the people in the Dolomites do not really think of themselves as Italian (they had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until WW1, and Mussolini Italianized the names).
Found out there are many villages up there in the Dolomites where the people mostly speak Ladin (not to be confused with Ladino). Several million people in the Veneto speak Venetian, too. People in Castelrotto speak German.
Photos below of Castelrotto, which looks more alpine-German or Swiss than Italian. It's the south Tyrol:
The Complete Calvin and Hobbes.
I am sad to say that The Complete Pogo, Vol. 1, has not yet been released. It's a damn shame.
Monday, February 1. 2010
 During the 1700s and 1800s the Brits scoured the planet to find cool places to visit (or to make money). Amelia Edwards was one of them, and she wrote about it. It was the era when, if you saw a couple of ladies riding side-saddle in the desert or the mountains, the natives would think "They must be English."
From Amazon:
British writer and Egyptologist AMELIA EDWARDS (1831-1892) was a published writer by age seven. Among her books most beloved by readers past and present are the novels Barbara's History (1864) and Lord Brackenbury (1880), and the travelogue A Thousand Miles Up the Nile (1877).
She wrote mysteries too.
We have in hand her book about her trip to the Dolomites: Untrodden Peaks and Unfrequented Valleys.
Her other books here.
Sunday, January 31. 2010
Thanks for inventing the internet. You thought of everything. It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff you managed to put on there.
I just found out that I can buy opera tickets for the Arena di Verona (a vast Roman arena) for August online, now. Looks like a fun outing, but the arena seems to big for opera.
Good site for high quality farm toys: Carter and Gruenewald. What a great business to be in.
Saturday, January 30. 2010
 At NY Rev of Books. One quote:
The number of legal chess positions is 1040, the number of different possible games, 10120. Authors have attempted various ways to convey this immensity, usually based on one of the few fields to regularly employ such exponents, astronomy. In his book Chess Metaphors, Diego Rasskin-Gutman points out that a player looking eight moves ahead is already presented with as many possible games as there are stars in the galaxy. Another staple, a variation of which is also used by Rasskin-Gutman, is to say there are more possible chess games than the number of atoms in the universe. All of these comparisons impress upon the casual observer why brute-force computer calculation can't solve this ancient board game.
Friday, January 29. 2010
We would never, even for personal use, advise violating the incomprehensible American ban on Cuban tobacco by using Top Cubans.com. However, we do find their latest rankings interesting, if mundane:
 Dress shoes need to be shined regularly if you do not wish to look bedraggled, don't they?
A spit shine requires a little water (or spit). Here's the USMA method.
And from The Art of Manliness, here's How to Shine Shoes like a Soldier.
It takes a toothbrush to do it right and to get into the seams. People say 30-40 minutes per shoe for a definitive shine, less for a touch-up shine. Obsessionals like to top off a shine with a coat of clear polish.
I read that you are supposed to edge the sole too. News to me, but makes sense.
Photo is a good J. Press Oxford shoe - off the rack and not too fancy, but good enuf for government or academic work. Maybe when I win the lottery I'll have foot molds taken in London and Rome and have them make me custom shoes and loafers like my prosperous friends do.
Howard Zinn. America the Awful---Howard Zinn's History.
Old Stalinists never die, they just fade away.
How could anybody not love a guy who can write like this:
"The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets." From James Thurber, The 13 Clocks (New York, 1957)
Now for some Thurber dogs -
Thursday, January 28. 2010
Wednesday, January 27. 2010
After all I’ve counseled, my 9-year old son insists on doing it his way in tomorrow’s 4th grade elections to the student council.
His speech is about how he will tell the students what the council decides, rather than tell the council what the students want. Liberal.
And, he’s carrying in a bag of candy for the students, to get the students to elect him. Corrupt.
If he wins the election, will he bring home congrats letters from Pelosi and Obama?
Grrr!
I'll post the election results in the comments.
Meanwhile, this approach might have been better:
OK, OK, I've failed as a husband, too!
From Bowman at New Criterion's Ain't Gonna Study War No More:
In the media’s view, everything must be over-determined by circumstance — or the mistakes of the Bush administration — so that acts of terror become like acts of God, both in their causes and in the limited and ad hoc way they demand to be dealt with. Insofar as questions of war and peace arise, it is only by way of demonstrating that war must be thought of as a struggle to understand the other side — the unspoken assumption being that there is always a way to get the enemy to stop fighting by understanding and sympathizing with him and without having to defeat him in battle — as the old, unmentionable honor culture would once have insisted. Got that?
PC makes some hatreds privileged and deserving of "understanding," and others not so.
Tuesday, January 26. 2010
Snaps from my field trip to Costo Sunday. I'm sure it looks just like your Costco or Sam's, but American abundance - and its cheapness - must be a wonder to those from Cuba or Venezuela.
What I was thinking, though, was that I'd like to transport the whole store to Port au Prince today.
Readers know that we are great fans of Dubliner Cheese from Ireland:
More random Costo pics below the fold -
Continue reading "Abundance"
|
