...more recent posts
Cinefiles is up. Go crazy. Let me know what is broken.
I know there are some problems cropping up with our increase in usage. Particularly on the discussion pages. The way I am making the indentations to show the nesting of comments is not scaling. My guess is this is particularly apparent in Navigator (which doesn't like so many nested tables.) On the really long threads it might even seem like your computer crashed, but it's just thinking. (Remember, if you get into trouble on the mac - command-option-escape will force quit Navigator, and then you can start it right up again.) Anyway, I now see how to do it without nested tables (which aren't really a good idea, I now see why.) Hang in there. Help is on the way. One thing you can do in the meantime is to try to post comments from the top link on the comments page so that there aren't so many levels of nesting going on.
drat fink references a Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker piece about McDonalds, which I had seen earlier today via Arts & Letters Daily. I couldn't quite believe what I was reading: Gladwell's proposals for "better junk food" include using Olestra (of "anal leakage" fame) to make McDonalds fries, and reviving the McLean burger (the processed meat was good, he says, all it needed was better promotion). The piece reads like an advertorial for scientifically-enhanced food: it made me wonder who's paying the New Yorker's bills these days.
According to AOL, you northeasterners are "hunkering down" for the big storm. Is that true, and could I have an example?
So what's going on with the film page? Did we decide on a name? Bill, are you actually going to start going to movies?
ahhhhh. college days. i dont know whats funnier, the picture or the page itself.
I always wondered about Dave's business model. This shocking photo reveals the truth. Who'd have thought?
no time to kiss these 14 century old Buddhist statues goodbye
jimlouis - the weather man says you are experiencing "severe weather" - hope all is well. take cover.
Here's a fun one from Evhead: this day in music, a site which will tell you the number one song (both in England and the US) for any given day in history. My birthday had the Beatles in top spot on the U.K. charts with Get Back, while Aquarius / Let the Sunshine in by 5th Dimension was number one in the US of A.
as napster is put to sleep, will that just mean more for the hibernating bearshare? heres iNother one.
I was just thinking that since the cinema topic is suddenly well represented by the many people here who actually care about film and write/speak well on the subject that you (we) might start a new page catagory (like the food and art ones). Perhaps we could even post short original films (w/ special guests ?) made for the internet or that just happen to be short and adaptable to this site anyway. Feel free to shoot this idea right down. Names ?
I'm taking it upon myself to take this back to the main trunk of the tree house tree. The length of the thread is boggin' my computer down terribly.
"Plus, Soderberg is arty as hell. I find his use of alternating film stocks irritating. Oliver Stone started this trend, and now everyone's doing it. Did anyone else find the use of the piss-yellow, grainy stock for the "Mexico" scenes to be subtly racist/colonial? Imagine if it was inverted--if the Mexico footage was shot clear and bright and then every time he cut to Washington DC you were suddenly in a blurry miasma. (Might be more interesting, actually.)"
That bothered me too. I think in the case of the Wizard Of Oz the switching of film stock was inspired. But in Stones case it seemed to be a sort of arty crutch. With Traffic I chalk it up to cinematic short hand of the laziest variety as well as a hackneed attempt to seem cutting edge.
"Also, I found it ridiculously coincidental that Catherine Zeta-Jones would call Frankie Flores to do the hit, and even more ridiculous that he would accept the job from her. The last time we saw him he was a broken, weeping wreck. "Another job? Sure, I don't know you, but I'm your man!"
LOL! Right, rediculous. I didn't catch the portrait but even so it just doesn't wash.
I hated Traffic. What a phony crock! "
Right on brother!
"There are
hopeful signs about, not just Woodcocks,
but buds forming, catkins and days
lengthening, and maybe a mild spell has
you thinking we’ll cruise on in from here,
but no, it’s still Winter.
That’s Lent." Amen. Not sure I have the clearence to post this here, but amen.
I just saw "You Can Count On Me" again. For me It stood up to a second viewing.
There'd been some talk of a Thursday get-together. Where we at with that?
Just in time for spring training. Baseblog.
insomnia at 3:45 am and excited to discover that nice red UPDATED notice next to Rachael's page, only to find that the contents have been jumbled but not added to. Maybe it's just me, that is, my computer.....
Day 2 of jury duty begins in 7 hrs. I missed being called for a murder case today. Instead, I got a run of the mill burglery.
I may have misunderstood the judge as he addressed the panel, I thought I heard him say that the defence has to absolutely prove innocence for an acquittal but that the people only need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction. I raised my hand thinking I would ask him to repeat the statement and was excused and ushered back into the jurers waiting room.
Free dial-up internet connections in New York State. If anybody tries this, let us know what you think.
"Guitarist, Inventor, Engineer, Eternal Child"
Saw "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" last night. I get the feeling I'm the only person in the world who can't stand the Cohen Bro's. This one is even worse than "Fargo" One more big ethnic slur. These guys just love a good stereotype. I chuckled at the jokes at times and enjoyed a scene which was nearly identical to a frightning vision I had years ago on a mushroom trip. In this case it wasn't frightning or psychedelic, but it was cute. All their stuff is cute, I'll give them that. And they are usually decent craftsmen (yawn) but this time they don't even have that going for them. For what it's worth, I found this one to be another big stinker.
February 22, 2001
GUITAR INNOVATOR JOHN FAHEY DIES AT 61
"Guitarist John Fahey, whose eccentric acoustic stylings influenced a
generation of musicians, died this morning at Salem Hospital in Salem, OR
after undergoing a sextuple bypass operation 48 hours previously.
John Fahey was born on February 28, 1939 in Takoma Park, MD. His father
played popular songs on the piano and Irish harp, and his mother was also a
pianist. John spent his youth raising wood turtles and fishing in the
Susquehawa River and upper Chesapeake Bay. On Sundays the family went to the
New River Ranch in nearby Rising Sun, MD where they heard the top country
and hillbilly groups of the day, like Bill Monroe and The Stanley Brothers.
On a fishing trip in 1952 John met a black singer and guitarist named Frank
Hovington, whose fingerpicking style so intrigued John that he bought his
first guitar soon thereafter, a Sears Roebuck model that cost him $17.00,
and started teaching himself to play.
After getting a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from American University,
Fahey moved to Berkeley, CA in 1963, where he established his own label,
Takoma Records, and began his long recording career. The following year he
moved to Los Angeles, got an M.A. in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA, and
was instrumental in the rediscovery of blues artists Skip James and Bukka
White. He expanded the Takoma label to include fellow guitarists Leo Kottke
and Peter Lang, among many others, and New Age pioneer George Winston was
another whose early career was nourished by the quirky innovator. In recent
years the Takoma catalog has been purchased by Fantasy Records of Berkeley,
CA, and Fahey's Takoma LPs are now being systematically reissued on CD.
Fantasy Records executive Bill Belmont called Fahey "a true American musical
genius."
Although Fahey preferred to be known as an American primitivist, he was
widely acknowledged as the "godfather of the New Age guitar movement," and
his recordings (over thirty albums for a wide variety of labels) showcased
his ongoing musical explorations. Several were sonic explorations in the
alternative music vein, and all had exotic titles (a 19-minute excursion was
called "On the Death and Disembowelment of the New Age," while another was
called "Old Girlfriends and Other Disasters." At the same time, he never
lost his early love for traditional and roots music forms, and during the
early 1990s he formed another record label, Revenant, to reissue classic
recordings of early blues and old time music. At the time of his death he
was working on a new album, "Summertime and Other Sultry Songs."
For further information ,contact Mary Katherine Aldin or Mitch Greenhill via
email at info@folkloreproductions.com or by phone at (310) 451-0767."