Monday, August 31, 2020

Vanishing act

 

Here's another fun thing. I got a copy of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes from the library. As it turned out, the disc that actually held the movie on it was damaged and wouldn't play on my VCR. But I found the movie on Dailymotion so was still able to watch it.

The main story is pretty exciting and clever. Not only, per the title, is someone kidnapped. She disappears, and no one but the heroine will even credit that she was there. One interesting factor is that most people aren't in on the conspiracy. They just don't want to get involved.

The side characters of Charters and Caldicott were so popular that, even though Hitchcock never used them again, they got their own film series. You can see why.

Saturday, August 29, 2020

Ah, kids

 


Syndicated comics are in a sorry state. Newspapers will only give them a postage stamp worth of space for art. Bill Watterson fought against the trend, of course, but he's long gone. Most strips are done by faceless interns, the original creators being retired or expired. Anyone creative would prefer to be their own boss by putting a PayPal link under their webcomic.

Luckily, Will Henry, the artist and writer of Wallace the Brave, seems not to have heard about any of this. He creates beautiful, off-kilter artwork for his strip, apparently in the faith that somebody somewhere will appreciate it. And while Wallace isn't as fascinating a character as young Calvin, it's really more of an ensemble piece.

Plus, the strip takes place in South County, where Henry is from, so it's another bit of Rhode Island pride.

Thursday, August 27, 2020

More voices in the choir

 While I could maybe address this in the comments, I thought it might be worth exploring why I posted a particular guest from Penn and Teller: Fool Us a few days ago. A female guest, as it happens. And that's significant because, well, how many female stage magicians do you hear about, anyway? The field seems to be heavily slanted towards the wand, with the top hat hardly getting a chance to shine at all.[/Freud] Women are free to do the kind of magic that gets you burned at the stake, but otherwise...I don't know, is it considered cheating to have boobs when you do sleight of hand?

Samuel Johnson, wise in most cases, is reported to have said, "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." While the apparent sexism isn't in fashion now, the tenet that certain things can be dismissed as novelty for novelty's sake still gets a lot of play. But I don't entirely agree. And for certain, I think it's worth paying attention to when people do something or create something that they're not really expected to on a demographic basis. Like when black musicians play in genres that tend to be considered "white." (country, heavy metal, punk, etc) It's interesting to see how they do things differently, or don't do them differently for that matter.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Perro y gato

So there's a dog and a cat in this Spanish short. Their hipster owners smoke half a joint, then go out without roaching it. The dog and cat get high and then...

Well, I doubt that second hand cannabis smoke would have much of an effect unless they were really close. Certainly not the hallucinations seen here, not without some strong additives. In general, though, don't leave stuff burning in your apartment when you go out.

Sunday, August 23, 2020

Guessing game

 Not sure if Penn in this clip actually has the answer right as to what this British magician did to get the right answer in her mentalist act. His hypothesis is kind of wordy. Well, that's to be expected. What he seems to be saying is that she listened to the crowd response, which could work but could also lead her astray. I was thinking that each block maybe was filed a certain way so as to make a certain identifiable sound?

Friday, August 21, 2020

The drift


Tokyo Drifter, directed by Seijun Suzuki, is a 1967 Japanese gangster movie. Actually, though, it's a Western. 

Phoenix Tetsu is an ex-Yakuza. The "ex" is because his boss has gone straight, and he's gone along straight with him and is trying to honor that. Rival Yakuza want to take over the nightclub that they run, but really what they seem to want is to make Tetsu fall.

It's not really a plot-heavy movie. The colors are more the point. There are a lot of them, and hairpin edits, weird visual touches. Revolving around a discotheque, it takes a certain infectious pride in its artificiality.

 

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

One state over

 Kate was lucky, as far as servants go. Her master and mistress were wealthy., and she lived a comfortable life working for them. The last thing she would want would be to jeopardize her job with them and be cast out on the streets for some bizarre ailment she'd become afflicted with that couldn't be explained. Rather than risk losing her job and the life she'd grown accustomed to, and realizing that the attacks were increasing in intensity and frequency and could no longer be hidden, Kate may have consciously chosen to blame it on a couple of women she knew her masters didn't get along with. Or maybe she truly believed she was bewitched; it didn't take much to make one believe such a thing in those days. At any rate, Elizabeth Clawson and Mercy Disborough were brought to trial, and the entire community became involved in the outcome.

Preceding is a passage from Haunted Connecticut: Ghosts and Strange Phenomena of the Constitution State.

The Stamford Witch Trials of 1692 have very much been overshadowed by those occurring in Salem, Massachusetts to the north in the same year. In terms of inherent drama, this is understandable. Still, the Connecticut trials were pretty fascinating in themselves. What distinguishes them is the relatively happy ending that resulted. Innocent people were accused and convicted, but they weren't put to death. In fact the people of Stanford, or at least enough of them to make a difference, seem to have concluded that this system of accusation and punishment was no longer right for the society they wanted to build. Witch trials were discontinued.

Monday, August 17, 2020

Backwards and forwards

 I was just thinking about Etruscan writing. Okay, you'll just have to go with me on this one. Etruscan was not closely related to any surviving European languages, falling outside the Indo-European family. But the alphabet was similar to the Romans', which we use in modified form today. Similar, but they wrote from right to left, as in the Hebrew language.

Left to right seems more intuitive for right handed people, as most people are. So I wonder whether there are any larger cultural differences between those whose language is written one way or the other.

Saturday, August 15, 2020

Cool & grey

 Today for a long time it felt like it was going to rain, the skies being overcast and there being some moisture in the air. The clouds did spit a little, but it never really opened up. Which was admittedly handy for me, as I still had errands to do.

But it did cool things off. Especially after sunset. I had my ceiling fan going, it's usually on its highest setting these days. But I had to turn it off tonight, and I haven't turned it back on since. Also I changed into long pants and have a sweater nearby. It's an odd feeling, but not necessarily a bad one.

Thursday, August 13, 2020

Why I am likely to vote for Joe Biden this November

 You've most likely heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect. The term "imaginary superiority" arises very quickly, and that's key. If you think you know everything, that gives you little reason to learn more, or even think.

The problem with having Donald Trump as President is that there's nothing to figure out. A handsy real estate grifter who looks like Barney Rubble gone to seed doesn't have a very large bag of tricks, and it doesn't take a lot of vision to see through him. Yet anti-Trumpists often act like they're at the height of savvy.

I'm not optimistic about how successful a President Joe Biden would be, or even if he has goals I'd want him to succeed at. He's been running for the top office for most of my life, seemingly just for the sake of it. But at least if voters start to hate him after he's been elected, they might have to exercise some critical thinking in order to do so.

Luckily he didn't pick Gretchen Whitmer as his running mate. After the way she's been governing Michigan under COVID-19, that would have made it hard for me to pull the lever.

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Go fish

 I've seen a clip of a seahorse giving birth. It was a little unnerving. Not because it was a male, as happens to be the case in that corner of the animal kingdom. You can't really tell the gender. It's just because it goes on so long, and so many embryonic fish come out at once.

But that's how it is among a lot of creatures. In fact for the most part parenting, the personal raising of young that you get to know, is limited to the higher vertebrates (i.e. mammals, birds, and reptiles.) To us, nature itself can be scary.

Sunday, August 9, 2020

In the pages

The library is still not a place to spend time. Like literally, you can't. You can go in to return things you've taken out and are done reading, watching, etc. You can pick new items up. But once you're done with that there's nothing to do but leave.

One consequence of that is that I forgot their scheduling quirks. With a lot of holiday Mondays they close on Saturday as well to make it a three day weekend. Over the past year or so I had finally started thinking ahead to the next big holiday that might effect the schedule so I could plan around the closings. But when they close for a few weeks and then when they reopen their schedule is still mostly non-functioning, that makes it harder to orient yourself. 

Still, I'm glad the library system is there to get stuff to read and watch. One book I just finished is Peter De Vries's <i>Mrs. Wallop</i>. It's kind of a clever little comedy. A landlady is excited to read her tenant's newly published novel, but is put out to find an unflattering portrayal in it of a landlady character. Except that when she discusses it with him later he tells her the character is really a disguised portrait of his own mother. In the same conversation, she proudly tells him that her own son has been working on a novel himself. As it turns out, the son has some uncomplimentary things to say about his own mother. This doesn't make Mrs. Wallop happy, but her response is not quite what you'd expect. 

Also been reading a book called <i>Mid-Century Modern: Furniture of the 1950s</i> by Cara Greenberg. Combining image and text, it tackles some of the same topics as Tom Wolfe's <i>From Bauhaus to Our House</i>, but Greenberg is more of a Bauhaus defender it seems. I'm neutral in the fight. Sharp design is a delight, of course, but everything gets complicated by real life.

Friday, August 7, 2020

Arachne


I don't know if I've highlighted the work of Sarah Sze on this blog before. She's a fascinating figure in contemporary art. Since she's talking about reinstalling a piece that was put away for nineteen years, I guess she's proven she's no flash in the pan.


One thing about her sculptures/installations is that a lot of them look ridiculously complex if you're taking count of each individual element. Look at the shadows that they cast and it's a different story. That must be one of the top things she thinks about, how everything will be lit.

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

You don't have the power

This morning I went to the laundromat and, despite the fact that this was most definitely within their hours of operation, they were closed. On the way I passed several traffic lights that were out, on foot and on the bus, but I when I got to the laundry I still didn't put it together. My first priority was finding another place to do the wash. After this was done I returned to the same neighborhood to wait for the bus home. That's when I saw the sign in an Asian restaurant door saying they were closed due to a power failure. Apparently this was quite widespread. Caused by a storm that happened yesterday. I lost power myself yesterday for like, a second, but otherwise was unaffected. So while the whole thing caused problems for me, I was quite lucky in another way.

Monday, August 3, 2020

The new view



As of today, apparently, when you log into blogger you see something like the above image. Which affords a kind of picture-book feel which I approve of. Better yet it appears that the formatting process has gone back to something much more intuitive. I'm not sure that I trust Google as far as I can throw it, mainly because just saying that is going to get me all sorts of weird search results. Still, I recognize these as positive changes.

Saturday, August 1, 2020

Give the scum a gun and let the bugger fight


While I've seen John Boorman's Hope and Glory it was a long time ago. I know it's an autobiographical film about his childhood during the Blitz and World War II in general, that's about it. So I can say with some authority that even though Queen and Country is a sequel to the earlier film, you don't need to have seen one to understand and enjoy the other.

This is also a film around war, specifically concerning a training camp in the British army during the Korean War. It's late in the war, as references to Eisenhower and the coronation of Elizabeth II attest. That means that the horrors of war don't come into play as much. Bill, the Boorman stand-in, apparently is never shipped off, nor is his closest friend on the base. There is some, due to other soldiers having to fight in Korea, and also some traumatic memories from WW2, but it's not like you really have to strap in.

Three performances really stand out. David Thewlis always meets pretty high standards, and exceeds them here as a brittle disciplinarian of an officer, moreso than he initially seems. Caleb Landry Jones plays Bill's friend Percy, who is epically unsuited to army life. I wasn't much familiar with Jones, and he does working class Brit so well that I was shocked to learn that he's Texas born and Bred. And the Welsh actress Aimee-Ffion Edwards brings life to all her scenes as a nurse who starts out with one of the young men but really has eyes for the other. If you don't know her now you will, if there's any justice in the world.

Odd note. Bill mentions in a lecture to junior cadets that Korea is bitter cold so have families send jumpers, long underwear, etc. I may have heard this before, but it's never penetrated. As with many people, my familiarity with the Korean War mainly comes from MASH, which was filmed in the sub-desert of Southern California and thus made the country look like just one big wave of dry heat.