Pages

▼

Sunday, April 12, 2020

The AFI Movie Club

“Literature, I tell aspiring writers, is a mug’s game. The author of Moby Dick died in his seventies utterly forgotten…Not one newspaper obituary noted his passing. Some thirty years after he died…the academic field of American literature was swamped by a tsunami of second thoughts about Melville…[who now is] right up there with Aristotle, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and Tolstoy in the University of Chicago’s Great Books of the Western World, #48 out of 54….A mug’s game, I say, a crapshoot, the stakes one’s heart’s blood.”


 “There was something terribly amiss with an institution that yoked two individuals for the rest of their lives. Monogamy was not a natural state for the human species, was his considered opinion. Love was a migratory phenomenon, not to be controlled by human laws, any more than a migratory bird might be controlled by borders and customs….”

 “Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I look back now and I think of…[the Toxleys] standing there on the platform at Thorpe Station [when I arrived] and I want to scream at them, I want to run and shake them, I want to look them squarely in their faces and say, you knew, you knew even then.  Why didn’t you warn me?”
—Eliza Caine


"Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.”
– Scott Adams on Karma ;-)
My tongue wrestles with new words
so why do I taste metal, like blood in the mouth? 
Why do I feel so alive, this close to death?



Edward Champion: A lot of people have been asking me about the second season of my audio drama, The Gray Area — namely, when in tarnation is it going to be released? Well, I’m pleased to report that after two and a half years of toiling on the second season — working seven days a week, often twelve hours at a time, recording more than 300 hours of audio, writing and coordinating 120 speaking roles on nearly 1,000 pages of scripts (yup, I wrote it all!) — the premiere, “Living Creatures,” has been released as of today. It’s a cheery tale set in a Wyoming chicken diner — one inspired by Patty Hearst and Pulp Fiction — that involves animal rights, truckers, and a lot of swagger. This is the first of nineteen new episodes. 

 The 16 best foreign language films & TV shows on Netflix to raise your self-isolation intelligence


16 Beautiful Movies That Will Give You a Virtual Dose of Nature Nature movies quarantine watch list

 HISTORY: 500-year-old manuscript contains earliest known use of the ‘F-word.’


Instagram strippers (NYT).  And Bret Stephens: our regulatory state is failing us (NYT)  




How To Suspend Live Events Without Wrecking The Human Talent?


Live events and entertainment are people-based businesses that rely on the creation of emotional experiences and human interactions. Shedding too many employees, or the wrong employees, may impede the ability to resume operations when the crisis ends. – The Conversation 


Ben : “In many of these productions, time seemed to be torn off its hinges, and the solid floor of what we think of as ‘normal life’ to have cracked open. Who knew how apt a preface such works would provide for the rudderless world we now inhabit?”

The Greatest Scam In Canadian Art History


“[It’s] the greatest art scam in Canadian history,” says art dealer Don Robinson, who suffered a stroke because of the stress he endured in his campaign against a market awash with forgeries. “The more you dive into a pool of garbage, the more you get to know the garbage within it,” says Ritchie Sinclair, Norval Morrisseau’s former assistant and another key figure in exposing the scandal. – The Art Newspaper
“Kindness begins with the understanding that we all struggle.”


Opinion: We should look after our mates, so they can look after us
ANDREW GILES: It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the Australian way.

Bomumil Hrabal–HARLEQUIN’S MILLIONS

“[Throughout the castle], music was coming from the rediffusion boxes …music for strings, and then suddenly one of the players, with great urgency, would play a solo, the theme…yes!  It was “Harlequin’s Millions,” those same millions that accompanied silent movies in the old days….[now filling and infusing] the hall and the corridor and the footpaths along the castle walls with the cotton candy of violins.”

 rbrault.blogspot.com "I have always enjoyed expressing myself through music. My instrument? My two hands applauding the band."



What is AFI Movie Club? – In this time when we are reminded “There’s no place like home,” AFI has created a global, virtual gathering of those who love the movies. Each day’s film – announced by a special guest – is accompanied by fun facts, family-friendly discussion points and material from the AFI Archive to enrich your viewing experience. FOR THE LOVE OF MOVIES – We hope the AFI Movie Club brings some inspiration and entertainment during this time when it’s needed more than ever. 
I baked a loaf of this white sandwich bread last week and it was delicious. Flour + yeast + water is an ancient magic – no wonder so many folks have gotten hooked on bread baking.


at