23 December 2010

O to be an Arabian Babbler


"Babblers dance and take baths together, offer themselves gifts, clean themselves, and sometimes enter into conflict with each other for the privilege of helping another babbler. They may also feed their counterparts. This peculiar behaviour made them a privileged examples for ethological theories concerning altruism among animals."


04 December 2010

Kim Jong-Il looking at things

This site called "Kim Jong-Il looking at things" made me laugh for 10 minutes straight, and confirmed to all my absolute insanity.

 { looking at the kitchen cabinet }

{ looking at a radish }

 { Looking at metal }

{ looking at girls }

03 December 2010

Talkin' world war III blues


So, a while ago, when Josephine was my beautiful housemate in West End, we'd sit on our front deck and philosophise. Haha. La di da.

We came up with our own theory of communication, and the different levels.  The friends you're closest with are at level 5, while some friends you're really stuck at level 3 with.  (Hah, well, honestly, the reason I'm posting this here to clear up my dashboard of random stuff!)

levels      of       communication
  1. Intoxicated (base level)
  2. Frivolities (the weather etc)
  3. Circumstantial (domestic, study)
  4. Decisions
  5. Ideas

02 December 2010

Matter over mind


"Be who you are, and say what you feel, because those that mind don’t matter and those that matter don’t mind."

 -Dr. Seuss

14 August 2010

Help me Charles Manson


In the late ’90s, pop-culture historian Bill Geerhart had a little too much time on his hands and a surfeit of stamps. So, for his own entertainment, the then-unemployed thirtysomething launched a letter-writing campaign to some of the most powerful and infamous figures in the country, posing as a curious 10-year-old named Billy.

Above is a letter he sent to Charles Manson. Have a peak at Manson’s response, and see more Little Billy letters.

13 August 2010

02 August 2010

Photographers in Film

   BLOW UP   

   CITY OF GOD   

   CLOSER   

   EYES OF LAURA MARS   

   FUNNY FACE   

   BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY   

   HARD CANDY   

via FashionIndie

31 July 2010

The best of Charlotte Rampling

Charlotte Rampling, so effing cool






30 July 2010

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy & Existentialism?

Matthew Hutson writes in Psychology Today:

"I've recently come to the conclusion that cognitive behavioral therapy, the empirically-demonstrated gold standard for treating depression and a host of other problems, necessitates a belief in existentialism, a philosophy holding that we live in a meaningless universe.

How can happiness derive from appreciating the fundamental pointlessness of existence?

Existentialism (at least atheistic existentialism) does not argue that meaning does not exist, only that it does not exist out there in the real world. All meaning is human-constructed. You have complete freedom to interpret events however you like (a freedom that some find nauseating.)

CBT similarly places interpretive control in the hands of the individual. The premise is that thoughts lead to emotions (which lead to behaviors), and we can learn to control our thoughts--even if they've become habit. We're not at the mercy of an emotional system automatically placing valuation on experiences."

Read the complete article.

{ Claire suddenly realized that existence precedes essence
and she was free to kill all the old gods }

29 July 2010

Shopping | Urban Outfitters

Some favourites...

{ Wildflower Scarf US$28 }

{ SAT words shower curtain US$28 }

{ Framed Animal Prints by Ryan Berkley US$38 each }

{ Atlas Tapestry US$36 }

{ Ruffled Duvet Cover US$148 }

{ Fuji Instax Instant Camera US$130 }

27 July 2010

Film | Sunset Boulevard

1950 | 110m | BW | USA | Showbiz Drama, Satire | TSPDT #31

A hack screenwriter writes a screenplay for a former silent-film star who has faded into Hollywood obscurity.

   DIRECTOR    
Billy Wilder

   SCREENPLAY    
Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman, Jr

   OSCAR    
Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman, Jr (screenplay)
Hans Dreier, John Meehan, Sam Comer, Ray Moyer (art direction)
Franz Waxman (music)

   OSCAR NOMINATION   
Charles Brackett (producer)
Billy Wilder (director)
William Holden (actor)
Gloria Swanson (actress)
Erich von Stoheim (actor is supporting role)
Nancy Olson (actress in supporting role)
John F. Seitz (photography)
Doane Harrison, Arthur P. Schmidt (editing)

  CAST   
William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich Von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Franklin Farnum, Larry Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille



   IMPRESSIONS   
Full of ostentatious visual, usual for Wilder, and compositions that evoked the air of Phantom of the Opera, and Kane's Xanadu.

It's rather negative, and this is probably the reason I'd never seen the film - my father was a huge Billy Wilder fan but never introduced me to this film as he found it too depressing.

I love the huge close up of the white gloved hands as they play Beethoven on the wheezy pipe organ as the trapped gigolo flutters in the background.  Wilder's acidic, yet nostalgic, traipse through the film industry's haunted house could certainly be re-watched endlessly.

You can't help but feel sorry for Norma (Gloria Swanson), the megalomanic silent movie queen, whose attempts to stay youthful into her fifties paradoxically make her seem a thousand years old.  Norma lives in a decaying mansion on Sunset Boulevard, holding a midnight funeral for her pet monkey, scrawling an unproducable script, and dreaming of an impossible comeback ("I hate that word!  This will be a return!").

Even Wilder gives strange affection to the has-been Norma, and the never-was Joe, with a somewhat sadistic use of such ravaged and frozen silent era faces as Buster Keaton, H. B. Warner and Anna Q Nilsson.  I love Norma's line: "I'm big, it's the pictures that got small!"

The dialogue is beautiful and often poetic, especially Joe's narration of the story.  There are some great one liners too, and I almost feel that this film in some ways will be just an enjoyable to read.
NO. 1
Sure we believe you, only now we
want you to believe us. That car
better be back here by noon tomorrow,
or there's going to be fireworks.

GILLIS
You say the cutest things.
As a side note to remember, for myself: I like the narration at the beginning "you've come to the right party" - another alternative would be an off screen monologue as the narrator tells another character - although this wasn't the case in this film.

   SHOTS   


GILLIS
Come to think of it, the whole place seemed
to have been stricken with a kind of
creeping paralysis, out of beat with the
rest of the world, crumbling apart in slow
motion ...

More screen shots below: See more...



NORMA
Thank you, Jonesy.  And teach
your friend some manners.  Tell
him without me he wouldn't have
any job, because without me there
wouldn't be any Paramount Studio.

DEMILLE
Of course you didn't.  You didn't
know Norma Desmond as a plucky
little girl of seventeen, with
more courage and wit and heart
than ever came together in one
youngster.

1ST ASSISTANT
I hear she was a terror to
work with.

DEMILLE
She got to be.  A dozen press
agents working overtime can
do terrible things to the human
spirit.
                (to the set)
Hold everything.



GILLIS
That's the trouble with you
readers. You know all the plots.

GILLIS
May I say you smell real special.

BETTY
It must be my new shampoo.

GILLIS
That's no shampoo. It'smore like
a pile of freehly laundred hand-
kerchiefs, like a brand new auto-
mobile. How old are you anyway?

BETTY
Twenty-two.

GILLIS
That's it -- there's nothing like
being twenty-two. Now may I suggest
that if we're ever to finish this
story you keep at least two feet
away from me ... Now back to the
typewriter.