Paul Walker's last film.
Column from Ebert website
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
You are here
He's the astronaut that did the great version of Space Oddity
by Chris Hadfield, astronaut. Saw him on TV week 0f 11/10/14
by Chris Hadfield, astronaut. Saw him on TV week 0f 11/10/14
Story of the Jews: Schama
heard about book from Phil Ritzenberg on Sunday 3/30/14, at Susan di Sciora's retirement dinner. He said it'd been reviewed in the Sunday Times.
Also made into a film, or TV program.
Also made into a film, or TV program.
Ben Bradlee
ncludes lines:
Mr. Bradlee’s tactics were also simple: “Hire people smarter than you are” and encourage them to bloom. His energy and his mystique were infectious.
Mr. Bradlee had a notoriously short attention span. He rarely dug into the details of an issue himself, leaving that to the people he had hired. He managed The Post newsroom with a combination of viscera and intellect, often judging people by his personal reaction to them. He or she “makes me laugh” was perhaps Mr. Bradlee’s greatest compliment. He never enjoyed the minutiae of management and spent as little time on administrative work as he could get away with.
Although he graduated from St. Mark’s School and Harvard University, the Navy left as much of a mark on Mr. Bradlee as did his early life among Boston’s WASP aristocracy. The Navy taught him to swear, as well as to respect talent wherever it appeared.
Mrs. Graham had said as much herself. In one of the end-of-year letters she and Mr. Bradlee came to exchange annually — warm, intimate notes of mutual appreciation — she wrote: “Over the years, I have been spoiled by you and I hope most of the time, it’s been reciprocated, in sharing the best, most productive, rewarding working combo that I’ve had or even know of. And best of all, it’s been fun.”
Mr. Bradlee’s tactics were also simple: “Hire people smarter than you are” and encourage them to bloom. His energy and his mystique were infectious.
Mr. Bradlee had a notoriously short attention span. He rarely dug into the details of an issue himself, leaving that to the people he had hired. He managed The Post newsroom with a combination of viscera and intellect, often judging people by his personal reaction to them. He or she “makes me laugh” was perhaps Mr. Bradlee’s greatest compliment. He never enjoyed the minutiae of management and spent as little time on administrative work as he could get away with.
Although he graduated from St. Mark’s School and Harvard University, the Navy left as much of a mark on Mr. Bradlee as did his early life among Boston’s WASP aristocracy. The Navy taught him to swear, as well as to respect talent wherever it appeared.
Mrs. Graham had said as much herself. In one of the end-of-year letters she and Mr. Bradlee came to exchange annually — warm, intimate notes of mutual appreciation — she wrote: “Over the years, I have been spoiled by you and I hope most of the time, it’s been reciprocated, in sharing the best, most productive, rewarding working combo that I’ve had or even know of. And best of all, it’s been fun.”
Sosúa
http://goo.gl/3rzLjy
* read email from Forum on Migration (http://goo.gl/a69gxT). Tried to recall whom I had contacted (just remembered: José Moya: https://barnard.edu/profiles/jose-moya).
* searched my gmail for forum, and came up with https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#label/Forum+on+Migration/127876818b889453
* mentions boom "Dominican Haven," which 2 libraries own; it has subject heading of Jews -- Dominican Republic -- Sosúa.
* and right below it is a subject heading: Jews -- Dominican Republic -- Sosúa -- Fiction. : Sidransky, A. J.
* which is this book
* read email from Forum on Migration (http://goo.gl/a69gxT). Tried to recall whom I had contacted (just remembered: José Moya: https://barnard.edu/profiles/jose-moya).
* searched my gmail for forum, and came up with https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#label/Forum+on+Migration/127876818b889453
* mentions boom "Dominican Haven," which 2 libraries own; it has subject heading of Jews -- Dominican Republic -- Sosúa.
* and right below it is a subject heading: Jews -- Dominican Republic -- Sosúa -- Fiction. : Sidransky, A. J.
* which is this book
August: Osage County
from "New Yorker" January 13, 2014 issue:
The director John Wells’s adaptation of Tracy Letts’s play sits awkwardly on the screen. Set in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in 2007, the main body of the movie takes place after Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard), a onetime poet and full-time alcoholic, has committed suicide. His widow, Violet Weston (Meryl Streep), a malevolent and witty pill-head, zonked half the time but devastating when she’s in focus, remains in the house, triumphant that she has survived her husband. Violet is joined by her three daughters—an unhappy cynic (Julia Roberts), a bland saint (Julianne Nicholson), and a ditz with dreadful taste in men (Juliette Lewis)—and a variety of husbands and children. The structural lines of the play remain clear. Boy, are they clear—virtually every scene cries, “This is a play!” The characters are boxed in by the fixed setting, by closeups and reaction shots, and by the inexorable pace of the editing; Streep, hardening her voice, shouting, and speaking some lines with whacking emphasis, gives a rare bad performance. Roberts is first-rate as the unhappy daughter who is horrified to find herself turning into her mother.—David Denby (1/6/14) (In limited release.)
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone likes it better: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/august-osage-county-20131224
The director John Wells’s adaptation of Tracy Letts’s play sits awkwardly on the screen. Set in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, in 2007, the main body of the movie takes place after Beverly Weston (Sam Shepard), a onetime poet and full-time alcoholic, has committed suicide. His widow, Violet Weston (Meryl Streep), a malevolent and witty pill-head, zonked half the time but devastating when she’s in focus, remains in the house, triumphant that she has survived her husband. Violet is joined by her three daughters—an unhappy cynic (Julia Roberts), a bland saint (Julianne Nicholson), and a ditz with dreadful taste in men (Juliette Lewis)—and a variety of husbands and children. The structural lines of the play remain clear. Boy, are they clear—virtually every scene cries, “This is a play!” The characters are boxed in by the fixed setting, by closeups and reaction shots, and by the inexorable pace of the editing; Streep, hardening her voice, shouting, and speaking some lines with whacking emphasis, gives a rare bad performance. Roberts is first-rate as the unhappy daughter who is horrified to find herself turning into her mother.—David Denby (1/6/14) (In limited release.)
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone likes it better: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/august-osage-county-20131224
Berlin: Portrait of a City Through the Centuries
from https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=cm&pli=1#inbox/14aa9d9b1b912dca
All the Light in the Sky
Still not in OPAC. The name Swanberg suddenly popped out at me: I saw an interview with him an his wife, also an indie film maker, recently on TV. He does have other foms that are in the system.
Richard Brody New Yorker review, 23 & 30 December 2013 issue:
The director Joe Swanberg draws magic from a magical location—an oceanfront enclave of homes perched alluringly above the lapping waters of the Pacific and doomed by erosion. There, Marie (Jane Adams), a forty-five-year-old actress, serenely floats on the passing time as she does, in a wetsuit, on the shimmering sea below. Awaiting roles that have more or less stopped coming, dreaming of love that never clicks, she hosts her niece from New York, Faye (Sophia Takal), a young actress. In flowing days and evenings of lunches and parties with friends and neighbors, Marie and Faye talk through and play out shudderingly big questions—the prospect of marriage and children, the artistic calling, the weight of family history. Adams (one of the secret heroines of the recent cinema) and Takal—aided by nimble cohorts, including Larry Fessenden, Kent Osborne, Lindsay Burdge, and Ti West—bring a calm, focussed urgency to every chat and tussle. With his solar measurements and celestial allusions, the real-life environmental entrepreneur David Siskind gives the drama a cosmic context, and Swanberg, who is also the cinematographer, makes luminous images to match.—Richard Brody (In limited release and video on demand.)
/Nowhere to be found:/ 4/17/14.
Richard Brody New Yorker review, 23 & 30 December 2013 issue:
The director Joe Swanberg draws magic from a magical location—an oceanfront enclave of homes perched alluringly above the lapping waters of the Pacific and doomed by erosion. There, Marie (Jane Adams), a forty-five-year-old actress, serenely floats on the passing time as she does, in a wetsuit, on the shimmering sea below. Awaiting roles that have more or less stopped coming, dreaming of love that never clicks, she hosts her niece from New York, Faye (Sophia Takal), a young actress. In flowing days and evenings of lunches and parties with friends and neighbors, Marie and Faye talk through and play out shudderingly big questions—the prospect of marriage and children, the artistic calling, the weight of family history. Adams (one of the secret heroines of the recent cinema) and Takal—aided by nimble cohorts, including Larry Fessenden, Kent Osborne, Lindsay Burdge, and Ti West—bring a calm, focussed urgency to every chat and tussle. With his solar measurements and celestial allusions, the real-life environmental entrepreneur David Siskind gives the drama a cosmic context, and Swanberg, who is also the cinematographer, makes luminous images to match.—Richard Brody (In limited release and video on demand.)
/Nowhere to be found:/ 4/17/14.
Visible City
Read article by her in February 2014Kirkus: This dark, witty, if slightly overstructured comedy about deceptive appearances evolves into a moving examination of intimacy's limitations
Friday, January 23, 2015
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Sunday, November 23, 2014
from New Yorker 24 November 2014
Birdman (maybe): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/birdman_2014/
Foxcatcher (sounds good): http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/foxcatcher/
Fury (WW2; sounds good):http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fury_2015/
Goodbye to language (Jean-Luc Godard: sounds good; rotten tomatoes audience: 50%)
http://bit.ly/1uXubHc
Homesman (Western, with a twist; sounds interesting): http://bit.ly/1vCrIoo
Tuesday, May 20, 2014
China’s Second Continent
French, H. (2014). China's second continent : how a million migrants are building a new empire in Africa. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Publishers Weekly review:
Since Jiang Zemin’s state visit to Africa in 1996 and his subsequent call to Chinese businesses to “go out” in search of opportunities abroad, China’s trade with Africa has grown dramatically, today surpassing its trade with either Europe or the U.S. But China’s investments, including massive building projects, are less significant for this rapidly evolving relationship, according to this 15-country survey by veteran African correspondent French (A Continent for the Taking), than the significant flow of new Chinese immigrants—often pushed out by the pressure and oppression back home as much as lured by opportunity. In vivid first-person reportage, French explores this momentous phenomenon, while challenging assumptions about China and Chinese immigrants. Lively interviews with Chinese entrepreneurs, African workers, politicians, and others reveal an already advanced socioeconomic and political landscape. Casual racism, strife between Chinese employers and native African workers, grassroots protests against Chinese inroads into markets, and political demagoguery exist side by side. Contrary to China’s official disclaimers, this relationship — based on acquisition of resources but also the securing of new markets for Chinese goods — bears a striking resemblance to Western colonialism. The book will appeal to students of China and Africa, and anyone interested in the shifting contours of the global economy and its geopolitical consequences.
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Though bad things happen, and Boswell conjures menace with ease, the conclusion of the story will frustrate or please, depending upon your feelings about literary conceits; conceits Boswell handles masterfully. Boswell displays immense talent for characterization and observation, the narrator moving seamlessly among more than a dozen named characters, all with some connection to the haunted and impulsive Candler. Time is elastic, the fate of one character suspended while Boswell moves his attention back to follow a different character through the same few days, hours or minutes. Boswell makes only one misstep in a novel that seems guaranteed to deliver pleasure: Karly Hopper, a client at the rehab center, is drop-dead gorgeous and developmentally disabled, but only enough to make her laugh at everything and flirt with everyone. She's less a character than a waking wet dream, and her redemption--and whom she redeems--is too pat. Boswell (The Heyday of Insensitive Bastards, 2009, etc.), recipient of two NEA Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and a PEN West Award for Fiction, shares the Cullen Chair in Creative Writing at the University of Houston with his wife, writer Antonya Nelson. An impressive work. +
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Free Spirit
Safran, Joshua. Free spirit: growing up on the road and off the grid New York : Hyperion, 2013.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Art of hearing heartbeats
Recommended by a Hewlett patron.
Kirkus: German journalist Sendker's first novel, originally published in German in 2002, is a love story set in Burma and imbued with Eastern spirituality and fairy-tale romanticism. Fans of Nicholas Sparks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert should eat this up.
Kirkus: German journalist Sendker's first novel, originally published in German in 2002, is a love story set in Burma and imbued with Eastern spirituality and fairy-tale romanticism. Fans of Nicholas Sparks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert should eat this up.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Rules of the game
Looking for Jean Renoir's film, I found this book written by Ted Allbeury. Kirkus gives it quite a review:
Superbly crafted thriller set during the Cold War, about which it is now possible to feel nostalgic.Ursula Jaeger is remarkable not just for her beauty, intelligence, and gentleness. She also has second sight: show her a picture of Ronald Reagan, for instance, let her study it, and she can tell you much of what occupies his mind. This ability quite naturally has big-time spying organizations salivating. At the moment, the KGB has her, the CIA wants her, and England's SIS thinks it knows how to steal her. David Fisher, a top-flight agent stationed in Germany, draws the assignment to kidnap Ursula as she visits her father in East Berlin. Being the clever, resourceful professional that he is, Fisher carries it off without a hitch. But naive, duped Ursula is anything but a professional. She's terrified, and it unavoidably becomes part of Fisher's job to reassure and calm her sufficiently so that she can be as productive for the West as she was for her former masters. He brings that off too, but in the process an unexpected thing happens to icy, self-sufficient Fisher. For the first time in his life, he falls in love. Meanwhile, the Americans have soured on "Operation Aeolus." They want the mission aborted and the package (read: Ursula) returned. Fisher, of course, understands that to do so is tantamount to consigning his beloved to Lubyanka and the far-from-tender mercies of a vengeful KGB. Carefully, guilefully, he plans an escape for them both, but as all veteran readers know full well, the cold is a hard place to come in from.Literate, intricately plotted, full of believable and appealing characters: Rules of the Game shows the impressive and still-underrated Allbeury (Show Me a Hero, 1994, etc.) at the top of his game
Superbly crafted thriller set during the Cold War, about which it is now possible to feel nostalgic.Ursula Jaeger is remarkable not just for her beauty, intelligence, and gentleness. She also has second sight: show her a picture of Ronald Reagan, for instance, let her study it, and she can tell you much of what occupies his mind. This ability quite naturally has big-time spying organizations salivating. At the moment, the KGB has her, the CIA wants her, and England's SIS thinks it knows how to steal her. David Fisher, a top-flight agent stationed in Germany, draws the assignment to kidnap Ursula as she visits her father in East Berlin. Being the clever, resourceful professional that he is, Fisher carries it off without a hitch. But naive, duped Ursula is anything but a professional. She's terrified, and it unavoidably becomes part of Fisher's job to reassure and calm her sufficiently so that she can be as productive for the West as she was for her former masters. He brings that off too, but in the process an unexpected thing happens to icy, self-sufficient Fisher. For the first time in his life, he falls in love. Meanwhile, the Americans have soured on "Operation Aeolus." They want the mission aborted and the package (read: Ursula) returned. Fisher, of course, understands that to do so is tantamount to consigning his beloved to Lubyanka and the far-from-tender mercies of a vengeful KGB. Carefully, guilefully, he plans an escape for them both, but as all veteran readers know full well, the cold is a hard place to come in from.Literate, intricately plotted, full of believable and appealing characters: Rules of the Game shows the impressive and still-underrated Allbeury (Show Me a Hero, 1994, etc.) at the top of his game
Jean Renoir
Having read about a Clifford Odets play being staged, I read his Wiki biography, wherein Jean Renoir is cited: Renoir dedicated a chapter of his autobiography to his friendship with Odets.[54]
That led me to look up Renoir, and read about him; I took his memoirs off the shelf, and read that chapter referred to above. I also read about his films. These are three of his works:
The Rules of the game (1939): A comedy drama set on the eve of World War II. It contrasts the affairs of the French aristocracy and the working class at a weekend house party. Masters and their servants are involved in an immoral erotic charade that builds to a shattering climax.
Grand illusion (1938): A classic tale of adventure. Duty and honor conflict in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, when an aristocratic French officer becomes friends with the commandant yet must cooperate with his comrades in a daring escape.
Boudu saved from drowning Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932): A well-off bookseller rescues a tramp from a suicidal plunge into the Seine and his family dedicates itself to reforming him. He shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound principles of his hosts.
That led me to look up Renoir, and read about him; I took his memoirs off the shelf, and read that chapter referred to above. I also read about his films. These are three of his works:
The Rules of the game (1939): A comedy drama set on the eve of World War II. It contrasts the affairs of the French aristocracy and the working class at a weekend house party. Masters and their servants are involved in an immoral erotic charade that builds to a shattering climax.
Grand illusion (1938): A classic tale of adventure. Duty and honor conflict in a German prisoner of war camp during World War I, when an aristocratic French officer becomes friends with the commandant yet must cooperate with his comrades in a daring escape.
Boudu saved from drowning Boudu sauvé des eaux (1932): A well-off bookseller rescues a tramp from a suicidal plunge into the Seine and his family dedicates itself to reforming him. He shows his gratitude by shaking the household to its foundations, challenging the hidebound principles of his hosts.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
After reading The Stranger, by Albert Camus, I googled the term Camus, and got this result: http://goo.gl/ir4wz
Many critics have also noticed a striking resemblance between the film and Albert Camus' The Stranger. [3]
Many critics have also noticed a striking resemblance between the film and Albert Camus' The Stranger. [3]
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
On the road; Not fade away
from 21 January 2013 issue of New Yorker:
On the road: "Walter Salles's pleasant but undistinguished adaptation of Jack Kerouac's novel." David Denby
Not fade away: "the movie is a psalm to those who, far from pursuing the path of the Rolling Stones, stayed trapped under a rock." David Denby
On the road: "Walter Salles's pleasant but undistinguished adaptation of Jack Kerouac's novel." David Denby
Not fade away: "the movie is a psalm to those who, far from pursuing the path of the Rolling Stones, stayed trapped under a rock." David Denby
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Einstein's Jewish science
Judith Goldsmith, a favorite Hewlett Woodmere patron, asked for this book. She always has interesting questions and requests; always. O, for more such patrons.
Einstein's Jewish science : physics at the intersection of politics and religion
Einstein's Jewish science : physics at the intersection of politics and religion
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The Half-Life of Facts : Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date
Read brief review of bookin 10/29-11/5/12 issue of New Yorker.
http://goo.gl/RTkky
Some readers may lose interest as Arbesman discusses such esoteric topics as logistic curves, linked S-curve theory, semantic and associative data processing and actuarial escape velocity. But like a good college professor, Arbesman's enthusiasm and humor maintains our interest in subjects many readers may not have encountered before. Does what popular science should do--both engages and entertains. Copyright Kirkus 2012
http://goo.gl/RTkky
Some readers may lose interest as Arbesman discusses such esoteric topics as logistic curves, linked S-curve theory, semantic and associative data processing and actuarial escape velocity. But like a good college professor, Arbesman's enthusiasm and humor maintains our interest in subjects many readers may not have encountered before. Does what popular science should do--both engages and entertains. Copyright Kirkus 2012
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Calligraphy bible & photography
Had just seen "Hedgehog" DVD, and saw this book.
: a complete guide to more than 100 essential projects and techniques. Maryanne Grebenstein, consulting editor. New York: Watson Guptill. 2012.
745.61 C
And this one, Thinking photography was also new that very same day.
: a complete guide to more than 100 essential projects and techniques. Maryanne Grebenstein, consulting editor. New York: Watson Guptill. 2012.
745.61 C
And this one, Thinking photography was also new that very same day.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Escher
(1992). M.C. Escher: his life and complete graphic work ; with a fully illustrated catalogue. New York: Abradale Press/Harry N. Abrams.
Found a reference to an Escher work in Arellano, G. (2012). Taco USA : how Mexican food conquered America. New York: Scribner.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Mismatch
The Joy of X
When America first met China
Calligraphy bible
: a complete guide to more than 100 essential projects and techniques. Maryanne Grebenstein, consulting editor. New York: Watson Guptill. 2012.
745.61 C
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story
Baer, Robert. (2010). The company we keep. New York: Crown Publishers.
He appears on CNN often.
Kirkus: An intermittently engaging but not entirely satisfying tale of love and espionage.
He appears on CNN often.
Kirkus: An intermittently engaging but not entirely satisfying tale of love and espionage.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
The exegesis of Philip K. Dick
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Friday, June 8, 2012
Taken
A patron at Peninsula raved about Robert Crais, and said this is his latest work. Kirkus is not thrilled: For some reason, the normally reliable Crais (The Sentry, 2011, etc.)
doesn't trust his story, loaded with the promise of vigilante heroics
and nonstop violence, to deliver the goods. So he jazzes it by
pulverizing it into sections that leap back and forth in time and among
different points of view (e.g., "ELVIS COLE: four days before he is
taken"). The result is to loosen the logical links that connect one set
piece to another and recast the whole story as if it were a string of
trailers for a dozen hellacious summer movies.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
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