TV eps + bird photos. I am the worst titler.
Okay, Glee: so can anyone think of any possible explanation for the outfits they were wearing for the performance of Sing? Because lololol, what the fuck. My Chemical Romance make me think of a great many things, but lumberjacks is not usually at the top of the list.
...seriously WHAT.
More importantly though, oh my GOD The Good Wife. I feel like this episode was relevants to many people's interest, like say people who are interested in The Social Network or transformative works or Aaron Sorkin or, like, RPF, lolol. I mean, this is actually what happens in the episode: Will and Diane take on a defamation case from a young Internet billionaire, who is suing the film studio for depicting him in a negative light.
So Rita Wilson (cameo ftw!) calls up Diane and asks her to take this case which is totally going to lose because defamation, there's no way Zuckerberg Eidelberg, internet billionaire, can win with that; they establish early on that despite him not wanting to be one, he is a public figure, which means the first amendment defends quite a lot of what is said about him. The guy who plays Zuckerberg does a spot on impersonation of the way Jesse Eisenberg played Zuckerberg in TSN, which is all kinds of delightful, including his very Sorkinesque dialogue. He's suing because the film is the sole depiction of him to the world basically and it shows him in a negative light, as if he built his internet fortune to get back at girls, as if he betrayed his friends, completely ignoring the fact that in real life he's been in a relationship and engaged for years and half those friends were invented. LOL FAMILIAR.
Since the defense (with an awesome casting choice of F. Murray Abraham) establish that Zuckerberg is a public figure, Will and Diane's next strategy is to argue that there was reckless disregard for the truth, or actual malice. The studio dodges this easily (I'm not actually a legal expert so sorry if I'm not remembering this correctly), it was fiction, no harm intended, so then the firm decides to switch tactics again: go after the screenwriter instead of the studio.
ENTER SORKIN "Ran Blaylock". So now we have a deposition scene where DAN RYDELL is grilling Aaron Sorkin, I could NOT STOP GRINNING. And Sorkin is such a bitch here, lol. Dan -- uh, Will -- asks Sorkin where he got his inspiration for the scenes in the movie. "Up here," Sorkin points to his brain, "Oh I'm sorry, is imagination a dirty word?". The prosecution's tactic hinges on the idea that the screenwriter has an ego and he wants to get credit for the story, for being the mastermind behind the film -- which a blog post somewhere reminded me was a throwback to the prosecution's strategy in Sorkin's A Few Good Men, which makes it even more perfect.
Sorkin insists that he doesn't care about facts, he cares about TRUTH. Truth of CHARACTER and truth of NARRATIVE, but no, there was no malice, at which point Will blames him for writing this entire movie to get back at the internet for blogging about his drug habits, lolol.
When they see they're not going to get anywhere with defamation, they switch to Right of Publicity, claiming that the studio made money off of Zuckerberg that should have gone to/split with him. The studio argues that the movie is a transformative work of art -- I think I'm familiar with that phrase -- but the prosecution ultimately win when they bring out all the movie's product placement deals as evidence that the movie made money directly because of the depiction of Zuckerberg.
Basically this episode was about how RPF (living people) is cool if you don't make money off of it or if you find/replace the real names with fake names, like, say, Zuckerberg with Eidelberg. I'm not overly concerned with the real boundaries of what should and shouldn't be legal with RPF, but I do enjoy seeing it discussed on TV.
SO YEAH. That was the episode, and I enjoyed it greatly :D Also Alicia and Owen's scenes were so, so great, and Kalinda and Cary were great and Kalinda and Donna were cool but a little weird, and Kalinda and Jason Street whatshisname were creepy but still it was pretty satisfying seeing her hit him with a baseball bat. THE END.
And okay. I am probably sticking way too many different things in the same post but I had time today. Sorry if you only wanted to click on the TGW summary; this is about to get image heavy.
Pics from this weekend there are a lot and they're kind of enormous (roughly 60 pics, ~700x400):
The Carmel mountains after the forest fire a few months ago. I believe they call this disaster zone tourism, uh.
I picked up my ex-roommate at her place, which I must never have been in during the day because surely I'd have realized that the view from her balcony was of the ocean *__*.
Druze pita with labane, nom. We drove up to one of the burned forests and saw the Druze pita stand that I was assured had never been there before, indicating that we were not the only tourists in the area.
Not too much commentary for this pic set:
It was kind of amazing to see bare trees with all these pinecones hanging from treetops. Pines are evergreens, so there's never actually a time where you can see all the pinecones clustered together like you do here.
(This reminds me: the sight of barren trees might not be strange to some of you who live in places where barren trees are normal for winter! But I assure you, it is not normal here. All our forests are evergreens, so like. Things looking like this is wrong
Ex-roomie's dog! LOL she is hilarious, and not just because she looks like a polar bear here. She's a 5-month-old lab and is three times my dog's size and has ALL THE ENERGY OF A PUPPY, oh my god, she's so awkward and fumbly and SUPER EXCITED ALL THE TIME. They only get to have her for a year; they're part of an adopt-a-guide-dog program, which means you get the dog as a puppy and train them to be a guide dog and give them back after a year. A kind of perfect practice baby for young couples, lol; these dogs are very, very high maintenance.
Okay, cont:
Baby pine; this must have been planted in Tu Bishvat. You can also see the very beginnings of green plantation around; there were a handful of weeds, and here on the right, a clump of cyclamen leaves. Yay for bulbs that hide underground and apparently withstand forest fires.
It's kind of amazing how parts of the forest burned down completely (bottom left) and parts escaped unscathed (the forest across the valley).
A little kid next to us was super excited that he could see the moon in the middle of the day, and there it was. Hi moon hi! :D
We ordered the Crane Tour for 4:30PM, to correspond with the crane's feeding time and sunset, so we had to leave the Carmel forest early to return the dog home and start the drive up north (-er. Even norther than where we were.)
Craaaanes:
A few intro facts:
1. The Hula Valley used to be a swamp, until it was drained by Jewish pioneers in the late 19th century in the hopes of making it agricultural farmland. The ground there was eventually deemed unsuitable for most farmwork, but at least there was no more malaria.
2. Israel is located at the direct meeting point between three continents -- Europe, Asia and Africa -- and is on the direct aerial migration path between continents. Approximately half a billion birds migrate between Europe and Africa over Israel every year. (Sorry for linking to the map! I do not mean to underestimate your geographical knowledge, but just to illustrate visually.)
3. Cranes are considered pests in many places the world over because of the way they harm agricultural growths. Sometimes they are driven away or killed. In Israel, the solution was to reflood parts of the Hula, creating an artificial lake where the cranes can rest, and where they are fed every day. Give them that safe space, and they have no reason to travel to neighboring fields.
So this is the Hula Valley! Hi valley.
Our tour-wagon -- this awesome open-sided wagon with three rows of bleachers that was hitched to a tractor, driven by the guide.
A single crane in the sky! Not too shabby.
And on the ground! This is what they look like up close.
lol birds
lol mallards
All of a sudden though, the ducks flapped up and flew away! Who could be coming, do you think?
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN
BIRDS
HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I THINK THERE'S CORN IN HERE LET ME SEE
COOOOOOOOORN
HOLY HITCHCOCK, BATMAN
it's just a jump to the left
and then a step to the riiiiight
So anyway, yeah. It's crazy. Crazy AWESOME.
lol and then they all ran a few meters to the right for some reason except for this random dude who was like, you know what, I think I'll just stay here and keep pecking. Did you hear about the corn?
(in the background you can see another tour-wagon.)
So yeah, there were, uh, a lot.
...a lot. This flock was roughly 31 thousand birds, said the guide.
la la la reflections
I am a sucker for them.
By the way, it turns out cranes are monogamous! Our guide pointed out a few families, like two parents and two... uh, baby!cranes, walking in a row. It's kind of amazing, staying a family while while traveling in that kind of flock. HOW DO THEY TELL EACH OTHER APART.
Right, I know you're sick of cranes. But there were also other animals!
Like this creepy thing.
While officially being called a coypu, I believe Rat of Unusual Size is a better term.
They also swim D: They are not native to the country; they were imported many years ago from South America, with the idea that their fur was worth money. Entrepreneur!fail, because guess what: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE MONEY TRYING TO SELL FUR HATS AND COATS IN ISRAEL. But good try, good try.
So here was the lake. See the flock resting in its center? Every evening the flocks start making their way from the fields to the center of the lake, where it's safer to sleep at night.
Look at them fly!
Also the lake had some other birds, like these two pelicans (sorry for crappy picture, they were really far away)
or this completely RANDOM FLAMINGO that must have separated from its flock and wound up in Israel, lol
sorry, the flamingo cracks me up so much. It's so TALL and AWKWARD like Ryan Ross DAMN IT I swore to myself this would be a non-Bandom post
and this avocet
and these coots (lol WHO comes up with these names?)
and these seagulls.
And then there was this guy, where the guide explained, "Kids, see that injured crane standing alone with the crooked wing and the limp? Don't be sad. It serves a purpose too. For the LOCAL PREDATORS. It's the circle of life :D"
And the guide. I'm actually adding this pic just because he was so very very much what you imagine when you think post-military/student/kibbutznik from the north, it's THIS GUY.
More cranes flying to the lake! And I am done.
Just one more thing about traveling there, actually -- I cannot tell you what a relief it was, how freeing it felt, to travel on territory that is thoroughly undisputed, and was never populate. Half the time of the time when I post photos here, it's in places where there is always some kind of remnant of who was here before us, always the ghost of villages that were and are now gone, Arabs who'd lived there and ran or were driven away by war, Arabs who live here now but as second class citizens, and I walk around markets and travel among ruins and take photos and feel privilege like a burden, even in places that I do consider rightfully Israeli, the feeling of who-this-belonged-to-once always lingers. And here, I could just... really and truly appreciate the nature without any associated guilt, and I only realized it after we'd already left, but it felt good.
comments on Dreamwidth.
...seriously WHAT.
More importantly though, oh my GOD The Good Wife. I feel like this episode was relevants to many people's interest, like say people who are interested in The Social Network or transformative works or Aaron Sorkin or, like, RPF, lolol. I mean, this is actually what happens in the episode: Will and Diane take on a defamation case from a young Internet billionaire, who is suing the film studio for depicting him in a negative light.
So Rita Wilson (cameo ftw!) calls up Diane and asks her to take this case which is totally going to lose because defamation, there's no way Zuckerberg Eidelberg, internet billionaire, can win with that; they establish early on that despite him not wanting to be one, he is a public figure, which means the first amendment defends quite a lot of what is said about him. The guy who plays Zuckerberg does a spot on impersonation of the way Jesse Eisenberg played Zuckerberg in TSN, which is all kinds of delightful, including his very Sorkinesque dialogue. He's suing because the film is the sole depiction of him to the world basically and it shows him in a negative light, as if he built his internet fortune to get back at girls, as if he betrayed his friends, completely ignoring the fact that in real life he's been in a relationship and engaged for years and half those friends were invented. LOL FAMILIAR.
Since the defense (with an awesome casting choice of F. Murray Abraham) establish that Zuckerberg is a public figure, Will and Diane's next strategy is to argue that there was reckless disregard for the truth, or actual malice. The studio dodges this easily (I'm not actually a legal expert so sorry if I'm not remembering this correctly), it was fiction, no harm intended, so then the firm decides to switch tactics again: go after the screenwriter instead of the studio.
ENTER SORKIN "Ran Blaylock". So now we have a deposition scene where DAN RYDELL is grilling Aaron Sorkin, I could NOT STOP GRINNING. And Sorkin is such a bitch here, lol. Dan -- uh, Will -- asks Sorkin where he got his inspiration for the scenes in the movie. "Up here," Sorkin points to his brain, "Oh I'm sorry, is imagination a dirty word?". The prosecution's tactic hinges on the idea that the screenwriter has an ego and he wants to get credit for the story, for being the mastermind behind the film -- which a blog post somewhere reminded me was a throwback to the prosecution's strategy in Sorkin's A Few Good Men, which makes it even more perfect.
Sorkin insists that he doesn't care about facts, he cares about TRUTH. Truth of CHARACTER and truth of NARRATIVE, but no, there was no malice, at which point Will blames him for writing this entire movie to get back at the internet for blogging about his drug habits, lolol.
When they see they're not going to get anywhere with defamation, they switch to Right of Publicity, claiming that the studio made money off of Zuckerberg that should have gone to/split with him. The studio argues that the movie is a transformative work of art -- I think I'm familiar with that phrase -- but the prosecution ultimately win when they bring out all the movie's product placement deals as evidence that the movie made money directly because of the depiction of Zuckerberg.
Basically this episode was about how RPF (living people) is cool if you don't make money off of it or if you find/replace the real names with fake names, like, say, Zuckerberg with Eidelberg. I'm not overly concerned with the real boundaries of what should and shouldn't be legal with RPF, but I do enjoy seeing it discussed on TV.
SO YEAH. That was the episode, and I enjoyed it greatly :D Also Alicia and Owen's scenes were so, so great, and Kalinda and Cary were great and Kalinda and Donna were cool but a little weird, and Kalinda and Jason Street whatshisname were creepy but still it was pretty satisfying seeing her hit him with a baseball bat. THE END.
And okay. I am probably sticking way too many different things in the same post but I had time today. Sorry if you only wanted to click on the TGW summary; this is about to get image heavy.
Pics from this weekend there are a lot and they're kind of enormous (roughly 60 pics, ~700x400):
The Carmel mountains after the forest fire a few months ago. I believe they call this disaster zone tourism, uh.
I picked up my ex-roommate at her place, which I must never have been in during the day because surely I'd have realized that the view from her balcony was of the ocean *__*.
Druze pita with labane, nom. We drove up to one of the burned forests and saw the Druze pita stand that I was assured had never been there before, indicating that we were not the only tourists in the area.
Not too much commentary for this pic set:
It was kind of amazing to see bare trees with all these pinecones hanging from treetops. Pines are evergreens, so there's never actually a time where you can see all the pinecones clustered together like you do here.
(This reminds me: the sight of barren trees might not be strange to some of you who live in places where barren trees are normal for winter! But I assure you, it is not normal here. All our forests are evergreens, so like. Things looking like this is wrong
Ex-roomie's dog! LOL she is hilarious, and not just because she looks like a polar bear here. She's a 5-month-old lab and is three times my dog's size and has ALL THE ENERGY OF A PUPPY, oh my god, she's so awkward and fumbly and SUPER EXCITED ALL THE TIME. They only get to have her for a year; they're part of an adopt-a-guide-dog program, which means you get the dog as a puppy and train them to be a guide dog and give them back after a year. A kind of perfect practice baby for young couples, lol; these dogs are very, very high maintenance.
Okay, cont:
Baby pine; this must have been planted in Tu Bishvat. You can also see the very beginnings of green plantation around; there were a handful of weeds, and here on the right, a clump of cyclamen leaves. Yay for bulbs that hide underground and apparently withstand forest fires.
It's kind of amazing how parts of the forest burned down completely (bottom left) and parts escaped unscathed (the forest across the valley).
A little kid next to us was super excited that he could see the moon in the middle of the day, and there it was. Hi moon hi! :D
We ordered the Crane Tour for 4:30PM, to correspond with the crane's feeding time and sunset, so we had to leave the Carmel forest early to return the dog home and start the drive up north (-er. Even norther than where we were.)
Craaaanes:
A few intro facts:
1. The Hula Valley used to be a swamp, until it was drained by Jewish pioneers in the late 19th century in the hopes of making it agricultural farmland. The ground there was eventually deemed unsuitable for most farmwork, but at least there was no more malaria.
2. Israel is located at the direct meeting point between three continents -- Europe, Asia and Africa -- and is on the direct aerial migration path between continents. Approximately half a billion birds migrate between Europe and Africa over Israel every year. (Sorry for linking to the map! I do not mean to underestimate your geographical knowledge, but just to illustrate visually.)
3. Cranes are considered pests in many places the world over because of the way they harm agricultural growths. Sometimes they are driven away or killed. In Israel, the solution was to reflood parts of the Hula, creating an artificial lake where the cranes can rest, and where they are fed every day. Give them that safe space, and they have no reason to travel to neighboring fields.
So this is the Hula Valley! Hi valley.
Our tour-wagon -- this awesome open-sided wagon with three rows of bleachers that was hitched to a tractor, driven by the guide.
A single crane in the sky! Not too shabby.
And on the ground! This is what they look like up close.
lol birds
lol mallards
All of a sudden though, the ducks flapped up and flew away! Who could be coming, do you think?
DUN DUN DUUUUUUN
DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN
BIRDS
HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS YOU GUYS I THINK THERE'S CORN IN HERE LET ME SEE
COOOOOOOOORN
HOLY HITCHCOCK, BATMAN
it's just a jump to the left
and then a step to the riiiiight
So anyway, yeah. It's crazy. Crazy AWESOME.
lol and then they all ran a few meters to the right for some reason except for this random dude who was like, you know what, I think I'll just stay here and keep pecking. Did you hear about the corn?
(in the background you can see another tour-wagon.)
So yeah, there were, uh, a lot.
...a lot. This flock was roughly 31 thousand birds, said the guide.
la la la reflections
I am a sucker for them.
By the way, it turns out cranes are monogamous! Our guide pointed out a few families, like two parents and two... uh, baby!cranes, walking in a row. It's kind of amazing, staying a family while while traveling in that kind of flock. HOW DO THEY TELL EACH OTHER APART.
Right, I know you're sick of cranes. But there were also other animals!
Like this creepy thing.
While officially being called a coypu, I believe Rat of Unusual Size is a better term.
They also swim D: They are not native to the country; they were imported many years ago from South America, with the idea that their fur was worth money. Entrepreneur!fail, because guess what: YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE MONEY TRYING TO SELL FUR HATS AND COATS IN ISRAEL. But good try, good try.
So here was the lake. See the flock resting in its center? Every evening the flocks start making their way from the fields to the center of the lake, where it's safer to sleep at night.
Look at them fly!
Also the lake had some other birds, like these two pelicans (sorry for crappy picture, they were really far away)
or this completely RANDOM FLAMINGO that must have separated from its flock and wound up in Israel, lol
sorry, the flamingo cracks me up so much. It's so TALL and AWKWARD like Ryan Ross DAMN IT I swore to myself this would be a non-Bandom post
and this avocet
and these coots (lol WHO comes up with these names?)
and these seagulls.
And then there was this guy, where the guide explained, "Kids, see that injured crane standing alone with the crooked wing and the limp? Don't be sad. It serves a purpose too. For the LOCAL PREDATORS. It's the circle of life :D"
And the guide. I'm actually adding this pic just because he was so very very much what you imagine when you think post-military/student/kibbutznik from the north, it's THIS GUY.
More cranes flying to the lake! And I am done.
Just one more thing about traveling there, actually -- I cannot tell you what a relief it was, how freeing it felt, to travel on territory that is thoroughly undisputed, and was never populate. Half the time of the time when I post photos here, it's in places where there is always some kind of remnant of who was here before us, always the ghost of villages that were and are now gone, Arabs who'd lived there and ran or were driven away by war, Arabs who live here now but as second class citizens, and I walk around markets and travel among ruins and take photos and feel privilege like a burden, even in places that I do consider rightfully Israeli, the feeling of who-this-belonged-to-once always lingers. And here, I could just... really and truly appreciate the nature without any associated guilt, and I only realized it after we'd already left, but it felt good.
comments on Dreamwidth.