Do you ever question the Law of Gravity’s legality? Have trouble understanding how friction interacts with skin, or the relationship between distance and velocity? Then Salt is for you. The film starts with a diplomatic extraction of Salt from the frying pan, placing her squarely into the fire. Followed by a lobster pot, a waffle iron, trust me, if it’s burning hot, she’s there. After all was said and done I just needed to know, whatever happened to her dog?
Yesterday, a Russian jet landed at Hilo International Airport.
Although Hilo is designated an international airport, it’s rare that planes from outside the US ever arrive here. With the APEC Summit in Honolulu beginning soon, some of the dignitaries decided to take a side trip to see the volcano before their scheduled events began. Fire trucks and police escorts greeted the Russians as they disembarked and boarded the buses and helicopters that waited for them.
Terrence Malick’s latest film is filled with stunning images, and at times it can seem like a two hour visit to a photography exhibit. This may not be not everyone’s idea of great movie however. When released in the theaters, word was that there were some walk-outs. When patrons bought a ticket for a Brad Pitt – Sean Penn movie, the pairing of those two stars might have implied to some in the audience an action packed, fight filled epic, possibly with a chainsaw providing an ironic counterpoint to the title. Instead, whole segments are passages of Silence, broken occasionally by a voice over, spoken in a whisper. Pitt and Penn play engrossing roles in the film, but they act within unfamiliar territory for a moviegoer who has never seen a Terrence Malick story unfold before. For example, when one scene shifts to a flashback, you really get your money’s worth. Malick takes you back to the beginning of time.
“Tell us a story from before we can remember.”
Much of the movie transpires in 1950′s Texas. For those of us who grew up during those years, it will immerse you in memories. Back then, who among us was not accused of being a bump on the log? Who didn’t drink cold water from the end of a rubber garden hose, to save a trip to the kitchen sink? On summer evenings when the DDT truck drove through town and dispensed a thick white fog for mosquito control, how could a young boy resist running into that spray, or riding behind the truck on a bike? After all, the radio station had only warned parents to keep their children from the billowing, opaque cloud so they wouldn’t get hit by a car. Breathing a thick mist of insecticide while running, heart pounding, breath quickened, didn’t deserve a mention in such simpler times.
You plant the tree of life.
You water it.
You watch the tree of life grow as you grow.
The Kanisza Triangle is an illusion that allows your mind to literally fill in the blanks:
Notice the outline of two triangles in the area between the three black disks? One is bounded (mostly) by black lines, with its tip pointed upward. What about the second triangle? It appears to exist above the disks, as an object brighter than the surrounding area. However, the shape of the triangle is only implied, and the white color “inside” the perceived triangle is exactly the same shade as it is “outside.” It’s your mind that creates and completes the visual pattern, and changes the drawing from a two dimensional object into a 3D image.
Here’s a photo of three orange slices that demonstrates the same effect:
Steve Jobs was simply ahead of his time.
Apple products characterized the difference between good technology, and technology that was really, incredibly great. And every time Steve introduced a new product he took us into the future with the things he made.
Good technology is always a little ahead of where we are now. A product when newly released gives us a glimpse into what life will be like a few months from now, or sometime next year.
Really great technology on the other hand, like a new iPod, iPhone, or iPad, lets us literally see and touch the Real Future. Steve made things that looked like, and worked like the kind of gear people would use several years from now. And that’s why we loved Apple products so much. When you pick up a new iPhone, what you get is the opportunity to enter into the future, today.
I had the first commercial mp3 player, a Korean ET Man. It was the late ’90′s, and mp3 files had become a fast way to download music on the internet, and then listen to the songs on your computer. The ET Man made mp3 music portable. It held an amazing (at the time) 32 songs. I gave the player to my son, as he seemed more likely to listen to music on the fly, and I thought he would like something every teenager wants, a cool new way to listen to tunes. After a few days I asked him what he thought of it, and his instant assessment was, “It’s a piece of junk!” Apparently the battery life only allowed you to listen to your 32 songs twice, maybe, and let’s face it, 32 songs isn’t a lot more than the 12 or 14 songs you could already carry around on a Walkman.
By the time Apple introduced the first iPod, the market was flooded with an assortment of mp3 gizmos. I thought, what could Steve Jobs build that’s any different than all these other devices? Then I saw the iPod, with it’s circular touch selector. And a memory that held thousands of songs. And the iTunes store. That’s what my son wanted. That’s what everybody wanted, but no one else had been able to figure it out, except Steve. There are still some other mp3 players on the market today, but quick, name one. One that you’ve seen recently.
Steve Jobs left us far too soon. And sadly, even in death, he was a man ahead of his time.
An elderly couple journey from their small hometown to visit a daughter, son, and daughter-in-law in Tokyo. The train ride is long and tiring, but at their age the parents realize they may not have many more opportunities to see their children again.
The movie takes place in post-war Japan, at a time when this extended
family, like many others, work long hours as the country rebuilds. Too often this interferes with plans the grown children have to show their mother and father around the big city, and spend time together.
On the surface, director Yasujiro Ozu presents these interactions between family members in 1950′s Japan as direct and simple, almost in a “Leave it to Beaver” or “Father Knows Best” manner. Then, he’ll steer the conversation down into a ravine, revealing serious conflicts the children encountered when they grew up at home.
Or as old friends discuss the old days, they concede their offspring may not have accomplished all that the parents had hoped for. Even the ever cheerful daughter-in-law finally expresses a sense of profound inadequacy as she struggles to live a life alone in the world, where so many men her age died in the war.
This is the second Ozu movie I have seen recently. The pace of the story is measured, the acting may be considered wooden by Western standards, although less so when compared to Hollywood movies of the same era. In contrast to Kurosawa’s samurai films this is a quieter approach to film making, but with no less impact.
Wired Magazine has a profile of movie projects (and completed movies), songs, and commercials that are nearly impossible to find:
Things we know about the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite:
1) It will re-enter earth’s atmosphere today or tomorrow, 9/23 or 9/24
2) Pieces could land anywhere
3) It is about the size of a bus
4) Recent orbital photo as it skims along the upper reaches of our atmosphere:
Sean Connery in… ZARDOZ-DOz-Doz-doz…
While I read some online history of our namesake this morning, I found this print of New Diggings in autumn (as well as other variations) by artist Paul Chase:
