Scorsese has a fixed, frozen vision of life and human characters that has not evolved or deepened in more than three decades of filmmaking.
--David Walsh (quoted by Joanne LaurierThere is an overall understanding, in some cases perhaps only a strong intuition, within these well-heeled circles that their financial condition and creature comforts are ( Read more... )

Barack Obama has now, in just a year’s time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what’s more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It’s astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been ( Read more... )

Nevada Rep notes the play takes place in Verona and Mantua during a time of our own making. Indeed this Romeo and Juliet played all over time. Mercutio was really the most interesting character. When he was out it didn't really hold me in thrall. I guess the story is just too familiar anymore. There seems to have been a glitch with the set last ( Read more... )

If Obama taped a “kick me” sign to his back, he could hardly signal any better his ineptitude and his willingness to get rolled at every conceivable opportunity.
--David Michael Green

I never thought about it but the MK in MK-Ultra stands for Meinung Kontrolle (1 2)--not that anyone needs to know how to translate the German words but etymologies ( Read more... )

The weather remains hot, hot enough for some hiking and swimming, but I didn't return to Jamison Lake yesterday. I tried Feldendkrais. I don't know how else to say it, and I won't provide a link because it is a commercial enterprise and no links other than commercially oriented ones seem to exist. It involves learning to move parts of the body in ( Read more... )

Returned to Jamison Lake on my own and got an early start. Didn't quite beat the heat but beat the crowds. There was one group ahead of me. They kept getting confused, using their GPS, and I had to keep assuring them that they were on the right trail. There is no other, anyway. I led them across the stream and let them continue on. They still weren ( Read more... )

The ice rink opened at 11 am February 16. When it closed at 5 pm, it closed for the season. Perhaps the thinking is that trying to keep it open is a lost cause, even though this is the coldest February I've seen. Some decision has to be made on the rink. Exactly what time of the day is it possible to have it open? What is the purpose of the rink? ( Read more... )

The upcoming week just might prove to be eventful. Until then I just keep an eye on things:

( Blagojevich's discussions with various aides and political cronies, however embarrassing to his fellow politicians ... were not in themselves criminal acts. )

The idiom of popular music mainly is conversational and therefore the harmonic context of popular songs can be equated to the context of conversation between peers. In this respect the songs of the Beatles are no exception. Most of them are designed as conversations and dialogues. This makes it difficult to analyze them, because as elements of ( Read more... )

[W]hereas the reactionaries were beaten, and even discouraged, they were not at all reconciled to the liberal regime. Sullen and menacing, they lurked in the shadows of the liberal structure, watching and waiting for their opportunity to destroy it.
--J. Salwyn Schapiro[A]ny American citizen concerned with the influence of his or her country in the ( Read more... )