Positively Puzzled

Play , originally uploaded by Julia Skobeleva .

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Thunderball (1965) You Only Live Twice (1967) A Cock and Bull Story (Tristram Shandy) (2005) The Mikado (1982) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) Manhattan Melodrama (1934) Diamonds Are Forever (1971) Karakter (1997) Slumdog Millionaire (2008) Two scenes from Karakter (Dutch 1997) Publicity shot for Manhattan Melodrama (1934) : This last batch resulted in an update to my Vintage Shorts Index . Vintage Shorts ( Medieval Underwear )

Tacit defense of gay marriage, notice how very deftly Liberace chooses his words: Edward R. Murrow: Have you given much thought to getting married and eventually settling down? Liberace: Well, actually I have. Ed. I've given a lot of thought to marriage, but I don't believe in getting married just for the sake of getting married. I want to someday find the perfect mate and settle down to what I hope will be a marriage that will be blessed by faith and will be a lasting union. In fact, I was reading about lovely young Princess Margaret, and she's looking for her dream man, too. I hope she finds him some day. Liberace on Edward R. Murrow's television show Person to Person January 6, 1956 Later in the interview Liberace makes some flirty comments about the young, pretty, and single Princess Margaret, implying that he might want to marry her. Royal glam and glitter enough to make him switch teams? This DVD set is a remarkable 3-disc collection of historic 1950s material. ...

The Cat Returns (2002) Look Back in Anger (1958) Swept Away by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August (Travolti da un insolito destino nell'azzurro mare d'agosto) (1974) Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) Phffft (1954) Wall Street (1987) Ponyo (2008) Goldfinger (1964) From Russia with Love (1963) Dr. No (1962) Sandy Dennis, Cher, and Karen Black in Robert Altman's Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean And for good measure, a book I actually finished reading... Sams Teach Yourself Visual Basic 2008 in 24 Hours , James Foxall Very useful.

Wow, when Julian told me his best friend JJ (Jason) got to meet Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, I thought that was pretty cool. But what I didn't know was that JJ actually got invited up on stage with Green Day and led the crowd in a synchronized wave! And it's on YouTube! Check it out. Green Day - HP Pavilion San Jose, CA 18/08/2009

The Thin Man (1934) Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen) (1929, silent) About Schmidt (2002) Venus (2006) The Terminator (1984) Withnail and I (1987) Mata Hari (1931) Howl's Moving Castle (2004) What's Up, Doc? (1972) The Night of the Iguana (1964) Scene from Diary of a Lost Girl

250 mercer , originally uploaded by kelco .

A scene from Jacques Tati's amazing Play Time (1967) About a Boy (2002) Driving Lessons (2006) Rififi (Du rififi chez les hommes) (1955) The Lady Eve (1941) On the Riviera (1951) The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) Bottle Shock (2008) Play Time (1967) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009) O Lucky Man! (1973) Jules Dassin's remarkable "Du Rififi chez les hommes" (1955)

the edge of the abyss , originally uploaded by lemurdillo . lemurdillo writes: There's a finger of the monterey submarine canyon that sticks into Carmel Bay, and you can reach it on a shore dive .... but I never had until yesterday. B & I swam out to the "edge of the finger of kelp" like we did a few months ago, but I had neglected to take into account that the kelp had probably grown a bit since then. I was expecting to drop down into about 50' of water, but when we got to around 60' with no bottom in sight, I realized we were probably a bit too far out... We swam back to towards end of the kelp bed and hit the empty sand at about 75' deep. To one side, the kelp forest towering above us... to the other, a gentle slope of sand which then suddenly dropped off, maybe 50 feet away from us. "Dude! it's the trench!!!" B signaled that we really ought to go over and take a look over the side. So we did :) We even went about 30' down over the e...

Say hello to my little friends , originally uploaded by Jordan Kiley . Group Description: Slices and cross-sections of onions that resemble faces. Only minimal image manipulation please. Manipulated onions are just fine. How's that for an esoteric topic?

Auto Originally uploaded by Inferis home movie minimalism

The Italian The Italian (Итальянец) (2005) Chariots of Fire (1981) Gallipoli (1981) Best in Show (2000) Quantum of Solace (2008) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 2010 (1984) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Lost in America (1985) The Bridges of Toko-Ri (1954)

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, June 18, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) It was an (almost) all-Bach program, as sometimes happens. I start with Bach, and then just can't pull myself away. Must be those sunglasses. J.S. Bach in shades, artist unknown . Bach did not specify the instrumentation for the Art of the Fugue. The show begins with an arrangement for harpsichord, four hands, Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot sharing the bench. The last of the four selections is the famous unfinished fugue, played as it often is,in its uncompleted form, the voices dropping out one by one, until the last one stops in the middle...eerie. Evidently Bach became too ill to finish it and died some months later. It was the only piece where he used the musical letters of his name as a theme. (In German notation, B-flat A C B-natural is rendered as B A C H) This tidbit fro...

My friend and colleague Gypsy Flores asked me to fill in for her on Saturday to do her world music radio show Musical Migrations , KUSP FM, Santa Cruz. Gypsy is leaving the area, and we wish her well. She and her great show will be greatly missed. The playlist for Saturday's show is here , and can currently be heard on demand via The KUSP Music Show Player in the Global category. It will only be available till next Saturday (June 13, 2009). I started with a duet between Ry Cooder, playing bottleneck guitar, and V.M. Bhatt on vina, a plucked string instrument of India, from an album called A Meeting by the River . This led me to mine KUSP's dusty LP archives in search of my old classical Indian favorites from when I hosted the world music shows, Ringing True and Sound in Time in the early 80s. Hariprasad Chaurasia, classical bamboo flute master In fact, Hariprasad Chaurasia's performance of "Raga Madhuvanti" was something of an epiphany for me. It was pla...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, June 4, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) The program focused on the music of Johann Pachelbel, beginning with a delicate clavichord performance by E. Power Biggs of the chorale partita: “Werde Munter, Mein Gemüte” (00:00 on the KUSP Music Player counter). Next, a vibrant recording of J.S. Bach's first orchestral suite, arranged for four guitars and performed by Quarteto Brasileiro de Violões (09:00), a name I did not try to pronounce on the air, going instead with Brazilian Guitar Quartet, as it was billed on the CD. I'll feature the other three suites on future shows. Quarteto Brasileiro de Violões (Brazilian Guitar Quartet) Their arrangement of Bach's Orchestral Suites is fantastic. Find it on Delos. I returned to Pachelbel with several organ compositions (32:55), played on various or...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, May 21, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) In my mother's day they called the kind of music I play on the show "funeral music". Well, in this case, it's literally true. A good chunk of the program was devoted to, quoting the liner notes: The complete music for Queen Mary's funeral, newly assembled and edited, and performed in Westminster Abbey by the Abbey Choir for the first time since 1695. Comprised of compositions by Henry Purcell, Thomas Tollet, John Paisible, Thomas Morley, Purcell's contribution is best known; his funeral march provided the theme, in a synthesized treatment by Wendy Carlos, for Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange . I'm also very fond of the trumpet canzona he wrote for the occasion. Alas, Purcell himself was to die the year following the queen's funeral. Though h...

Darjeeling Limited (2007) The Front (1976) Sleeper (1973) Bananas (1971) Casino Royale (2006) The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939) Nausicaa (1984) The Divorcee (1930) One Night with the King (2006) Kilomètre zéro (2005) Also, a rare event, I finished reading two whole books... The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism , Ron Suskind Moab is My Washpot: An Autobiography , Stephen Fry Both books I highly recommend for entirely different reasons. Ron Suskind, by describing the lives of various people, offers a positive approach to solving the world's most daunting and difficult problems associated with the so-called "War on Terror", and basically, his conclusion, with guarded optimism, comes down to humanity and understanding. Stephen Fry writes with candor and wit about his early life and education, when he grappled with sexuality, infatuation, and obsession, and fell into misadventures of petty theft that led to felonious credi...

The latest Musica della sera show is now up on the Internet to enjoy on demand; see below for locating the link. This program will be available until Thursday, May 7, 2009 (Get it while it lasts!) After creating a baroque diversion with two keyboard works by Bach (played on 20th Century pianos), the show took a distinctly modern turn, beginning with the tuneful Starry Night for flute, harp, and xylophone, by Alan Hovhaness. Next, a performance by Tashi and friends of Toru Takemitsu's Water-Ways, a captivating atonal combination of timbral textures scored for clarinet, two harps, piano, violin and two vibraphones. Next, the Sibelius String Quartet in D Minor, Op.56, completed in 1909 and subtitled by him "Voces Intimae", a wonderful new discovery for me...my thought was, hey, why didn't anyone tell me Sibelius wrote a wonderful string quartet? He wrote much chamber music in youth, but most of it was never published. This is the only string quartet he deemed worthy...

Celebrating Pete Seeger on Democracy Now! Amy Goodman devoted today's show (May 4, 2009) to Pete Seeger and the 90th birthday tribute at Madison Square Gardens yesterday. Bruce Springsteen's opening comments were eloquent and moving. This is the transcript, but you can watch the video by clicking the link above. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: As Pete and I traveled to Washington for President Obama’s inaugural celebration, he told me the—he told me the entire story of “We Shall Overcome,” how it moved from a labor movement song and, with Pete’s inspiration, had been adopted by the civil rights movement. And that day, as we sang “This Land Is Your Land,” I looked at Pete. The first black president of the United States was seated to his right. And I thought of—I thought of the incredible journey that Pete had taken. You know, my own growing up in the ’60s, a town scarred by race rioting, made that moment nearly unbelievable. And Pete had thirty extra years of struggle and real act...

The Vintage Shorts Index on this blog gets updated occasionally. I just added a bunch of entries from the wonderful box set: Astaire and Rogers: The Complete Film Collection , an invaluable addition to any DVD collection, full of extra features, numerous documentaries, a music CD, posters, etc., but the pure multifaceted artistry and genius of these two entertainers is priceless. I didn't pay much attention to musicals when growing up, so these classics are new to me. I'm truly awestruck, and I fall in love with Ginger Rogers every time. Oh, and the vintage shorts are fun, too. Unique and quirky at times, they give a fascinating glimpse of the times. Vintage Shorts ( Medieval Underwear )

(These are program notes for an old show...I'm updating my playlist page to include links, but this one, posted on Facebook, never made it to my blog site.) My wife, Meera Collier-Mitchell , and I take turns hosting the classical radio program Musica della sera on Thursday evenings, 7-9:30 (PT). This week Meera hosted. KUSP Radio is now offering On Demand downloads of its music programs. Check out the calendar listing, with audio links, of The Shows Available . Click the one for Musica della sera Thursday night to hear our show. Each broadcast is available for download until it is replaced by the subsequent week's program. This being the last show for Meera before Christmas, she presents a wide range of holiday music, medieval to modern. Local artists Barry Phillips and Lars Johannesson are featured, from their album Colonial Christmas . Check out the playlist (originally broadcast 12/18/2008). You can also stream the station live of course. Next week's sho...

(These are program notes for an old show...I'm updating my playlist page to include links, but this one, posted on Facebook, never made it to my blog site.) The show is now up on the Internet to listen to on demand; see below for locating the link. This was my chance to play some of my favorite Christmas music. I'm very pleased with the show, but there are some spectacular technical snafus* in the first ten minutes of the program...listen for them, it's fun! (suspenseful dead air, colliding medieval choirs, oh my! not to mention the host's tryptophanically torpid tongue...I had just come from Christmas dinner at my folks' house.) ATTN: friends of Giselle Wyers, you can hear two of her compositions, "Ave Maria" and "Come, Come, Whoever You Are", about 1 hour and 36 minutes into the stream. Listen to the show while there's still some residual Christmas in the air! You can see what was played by referring to the playlist (originally broadcast...

(These are program notes for an old show...I'm updating my playlist page to include links, but this one, posted on Facebook, never made it to my blog site.) On New Year's Night it was Meera's turn to do the show, and it's now on-line and ready for your ears! (See below for how to link to it.) She played the Double Violin Concerto of Mark O'Connor, a lively piece, as the movement markings indicate: Swing, Midnight on the Dance Room Floor, and Dixieland. My favorite offering was Vladimir Godár's piece "Ecce Puer" (1997), a setting of James Joyce's poem, starting about an hour and 19 minutes into the audio stream, and we'd like to dedicate this to Christopher Vandendriessche, Sarah, and the birth of their son Leo, a name James Joyce would certainly have approved of. Congratulations! Ecce Puer Of the dark past A child is born; With joy and grief My heart is torn. Calm in his cradle The living lies. May love and mercy Unclose his eyes! Young ...