A friend sent these and I took great delight in them:
1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence (n.) emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
The Cinema
I absolutely love film. I still have a Korvette's 8mm left behind from my grandfather when he first came to this country from Lithuania. It sits in a box in my closet, begging me to free it and roam about with it in an inspired trance.
I was thinking about the shame of the Oscars, how it, like everything else, has become tarnished by commercialism and banality.
That is not to say that some of the films/actors up for consideration this year are not worthy of praise. To give an Oscar, however, is pretty meaningless anymore. I am sure most agree that this once most prestigious honor has really been soiled by the fact that trustees or bankers or someone other than one who truly understands, supports, and/or is involved with the art is choosing "a winner". In fact, there are so many wonderful movies, the idea of only honoring one as "the best" of the year falls suit with anything Americanized (number one, first place, competition, etc.)
I'd like to see a show that honors all the great films that were released in a single year, showcased via a sleek montage as they do for fallen actors/ directors/ filmmakers/ designers.
Some of the films that I saw this past year (2006) (not necessarily from this year, and some are older films) that I found notable:
1. The Science Of Sleep
2. Zizek
3. My Life As A Dog
4. Breakfast On Pluto
5. Fando y Lis
6. Grey Gardens (finally per request of CS and CC)
7. The Lost City
8. Junebug
9. The Man Who Laughs
10. Everything Is Illuminated
11. The Phantom Of Liberty
12. Veronika Voss
13. The Squid And The Whale
14. El Topo
15. David Lynch's Short Films
16. Goodbye Lenin
17. Children of Men
I was thinking about the shame of the Oscars, how it, like everything else, has become tarnished by commercialism and banality.
That is not to say that some of the films/actors up for consideration this year are not worthy of praise. To give an Oscar, however, is pretty meaningless anymore. I am sure most agree that this once most prestigious honor has really been soiled by the fact that trustees or bankers or someone other than one who truly understands, supports, and/or is involved with the art is choosing "a winner". In fact, there are so many wonderful movies, the idea of only honoring one as "the best" of the year falls suit with anything Americanized (number one, first place, competition, etc.)
I'd like to see a show that honors all the great films that were released in a single year, showcased via a sleek montage as they do for fallen actors/ directors/ filmmakers/ designers.
Some of the films that I saw this past year (2006) (not necessarily from this year, and some are older films) that I found notable:
1. The Science Of Sleep
2. Zizek
3. My Life As A Dog
4. Breakfast On Pluto
5. Fando y Lis
6. Grey Gardens (finally per request of CS and CC)
7. The Lost City
8. Junebug
9. The Man Who Laughs
10. Everything Is Illuminated
11. The Phantom Of Liberty
12. Veronika Voss
13. The Squid And The Whale
14. El Topo
15. David Lynch's Short Films
16. Goodbye Lenin
17. Children of Men
Saturday, February 17, 2007
"El Topo": A Synopsis Thus Far
Midnight movie at The Music Box:
The movie takes place in two parts. The first half, in an unnamed desert, begins with the title character, accompanied by his naked son, hunting down and killing a band of outlaws who have butchered the inhabitants of a town. After leaving his son with monks he has rescued from the outlaws, he rides off with a woman the outlaws had kept captive to defeat the four great masters of pistol duelling. As El Topo encounters each of the first three masters, the master teaches El Topo a lesson and they then duel, in which El Topo cheats every time. The final master kills himself, in a demonstration of the unimportance of life. The first half ends with El Topo's betrayal and near-murder by the woman and an unnamed informant.
The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts, saving him from death. The outcasts take El Topo to their underground community, where he, comatose, meditates on the four lessons for many years. When he awakes, he is 'born again' with the help of the outcasts, and goes on a quest to free them from their subterranean prison.
With the help of his dwarf girlfriend and his full-grown son, now a priest, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave, only to see the others of his community murdered by cultists from a nearby town. In a rage, El Topo kills them all, then pours oil on himself and sets himself on fire, as he has learned all he can about life.
El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the ordeal and make a grave for his remains, which becomes a beehive full of honey.
The movie takes place in two parts. The first half, in an unnamed desert, begins with the title character, accompanied by his naked son, hunting down and killing a band of outlaws who have butchered the inhabitants of a town. After leaving his son with monks he has rescued from the outlaws, he rides off with a woman the outlaws had kept captive to defeat the four great masters of pistol duelling. As El Topo encounters each of the first three masters, the master teaches El Topo a lesson and they then duel, in which El Topo cheats every time. The final master kills himself, in a demonstration of the unimportance of life. The first half ends with El Topo's betrayal and near-murder by the woman and an unnamed informant.
The second half of the movie takes place years later, after El Topo is rescued by a band of deformed outcasts, saving him from death. The outcasts take El Topo to their underground community, where he, comatose, meditates on the four lessons for many years. When he awakes, he is 'born again' with the help of the outcasts, and goes on a quest to free them from their subterranean prison.
With the help of his dwarf girlfriend and his full-grown son, now a priest, El Topo digs an exit out of the cave, only to see the others of his community murdered by cultists from a nearby town. In a rage, El Topo kills them all, then pours oil on himself and sets himself on fire, as he has learned all he can about life.
El Topo's son and girlfriend survive the ordeal and make a grave for his remains, which becomes a beehive full of honey.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Mercury: I Have A Love-Hate Relationship With That Metal
"The people desire their ways to be
looked into but won't come up
with any names."
—William Fuller, "The Same" from Watchword
molecules said this:
a distinct place:
a ruling planet.
Mutability.
looked into but won't come up
with any names."
—William Fuller, "The Same" from Watchword
molecules said this:
a distinct place:
a ruling planet.
Mutability.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Lithuanian Independence Day Commoration, Feb. 16
Today I went to Maria High School in the old neighborhood, Marquette Park. I saw three speakers and Senator Dick Durbin speak about Lithuanian Independence.
David Satter
Former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow for six years during which time he sought out Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the nature of Soviet society for posterity.
After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal, contributing to the paper’s editorial page. In 1990, he was named a Thornton Hooper fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and then a senior fellow at the Institute.
Satter has written two books about Russia, Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Knopf, 1996; paperback, Yale) and Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale, 2003). His books have been translated into Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Portugese, and Vietnamese. Age of Delirium is also being made into a documentary film by the Russian director, Andrei Nekrasov, in a U.S.-German- Ukrainian joint production. The film is to appear on the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. He is presently working on a new book about the Russian attitude toward the communist past.
Publications and Media Exposure
Satter has written extensively for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. His articles and op-ed pieces have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, National Review, National Review Online, The New Republic, The New York Sun, The New York Review of Books, Reader’s Digest and the Washington Times. He is frequently interviewed in both Russian and English by Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and the BBC and has appeared on Fox News, C-Span, the Charlie Rose Show and other television programs.
Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko? 11/28/2006
Dr. Darius Furmonavicius
MA in International Relations (University of Nottingham, 1996), PhD in European Studies (University of Bradford, 2002), was awarded a 2002 Bernadette E. Schmidt grant for research in European history of the American Historical Association to complete his research for a monograph ‘Lithuania Rejoins Europe’ (forthcoming by the East European Monographs Series of the Columbia University Press in 2006) as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Languages and European Studies, University of Bradford. His main research interests are the international relations of the Baltic States, international aspects of Lithuania’s politics, history, and economy, European security (particularly of the Baltic Sea region), NATO & EU enlargements, and European-American relations. He is also Acting Chairman of the Lithuanian Research & Studies Fund, 16 Hound Rd., West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 6AH, UK.
Andrei Nekrasov, Russian filmmaker
Andrei Nekrasov
David Satter
Former Moscow correspondent, is a long time observer of Russia and the former Soviet Union. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
Satter was born in Chicago in 1947 and graduated from the University of Chicago and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar and earned a B.Litt degree in political philosophy. He worked for four years as a police reporter for the Chicago Tribune and, in 1976, he was named Moscow correspondent of the London Financial Times. He worked in Moscow for six years during which time he sought out Soviet citizens with the intention of preserving their accounts of the nature of Soviet society for posterity.
After completing his term in Moscow, Satter became a special correspondent on Soviet affairs for The Wall Street Journal, contributing to the paper’s editorial page. In 1990, he was named a Thornton Hooper fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia and then a senior fellow at the Institute.
Satter has written two books about Russia, Age of Delirium: the Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union (Knopf, 1996; paperback, Yale) and Darkness at Dawn: the Rise of the Russian Criminal State (Yale, 2003). His books have been translated into Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Portugese, and Vietnamese. Age of Delirium is also being made into a documentary film by the Russian director, Andrei Nekrasov, in a U.S.-German- Ukrainian joint production. The film is to appear on the 15th anniversary of the fall of the Soviet Union. He is presently working on a new book about the Russian attitude toward the communist past.
Publications and Media Exposure
Satter has written extensively for the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. His articles and op-ed pieces have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, National Review, National Review Online, The New Republic, The New York Sun, The New York Review of Books, Reader’s Digest and the Washington Times. He is frequently interviewed in both Russian and English by Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and the BBC and has appeared on Fox News, C-Span, the Charlie Rose Show and other television programs.
Who Killed Alexander Litvinenko? 11/28/2006
Dr. Darius Furmonavicius
MA in International Relations (University of Nottingham, 1996), PhD in European Studies (University of Bradford, 2002), was awarded a 2002 Bernadette E. Schmidt grant for research in European history of the American Historical Association to complete his research for a monograph ‘Lithuania Rejoins Europe’ (forthcoming by the East European Monographs Series of the Columbia University Press in 2006) as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Languages and European Studies, University of Bradford. His main research interests are the international relations of the Baltic States, international aspects of Lithuania’s politics, history, and economy, European security (particularly of the Baltic Sea region), NATO & EU enlargements, and European-American relations. He is also Acting Chairman of the Lithuanian Research & Studies Fund, 16 Hound Rd., West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 6AH, UK.
Andrei Nekrasov, Russian filmmaker
Friday, February 09, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Re-Fall
Someone dragged out "trip" and "fall". What happens if you do not utilize this correct sequence, that is, if one should fall and then trip?
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
The Real Nature
A tiny fox attacks
in the bath and dreams
of grapes of the mind,
salvages Western gear.
He is living, after all,
in clouded kisses of bloody.
Novel forest, nomad, barnacle,
he is writing a word for you.
Generous strobe,
you bring happiness.
in the bath and dreams
of grapes of the mind,
salvages Western gear.
He is living, after all,
in clouded kisses of bloody.
Novel forest, nomad, barnacle,
he is writing a word for you.
Generous strobe,
you bring happiness.
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