Positively Puzzled

Last night Meera, the boys, and I had the pleasure of hearing a glass armonica concert titled "Endangered Crystal" featuring William Zeitler , kicking off the 2011 season of The Santa Cruz Baroque Festival , Endangered Musics. Ethereal and enchanting. Previously I had only ever seen and heard glass armonica in the form of wine glasses filled with water. I'd seen photos of Ben Franklin's design , glass bowls lined up concentrically on a rotating cylinder, and was inclined to think perhaps it wasn't practical as far as resonance and amplitude. This concert demonstrated that to be a false assumption. Now I suspect wine glasses are just easier to acquire. The advantage of the Franklin design is that once the glass bells are made, no further tuning is required. Wine glasses with water must be kept in tune by keeping the water levels just so. Water is required to invoke the tone, and Mr. Zeitler claims that Arrowhead bottled water for some reason produces the bes...

A Boy and His Dog (1975) Valmont (1989) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) Pane e tulipani (2000) (Bread and Tulips) Top Hat (1936) Post Grad (2009) Over Her Dead Body (2008) Blossoms in the Dust (1941) First Men in the Moon (1964) It Happened on Fifth Avenue (1947) The Bells of St. Mary (1945) The Temptress (1926) (silent) The Mysterious Lady (1928) (silent) The Search for Santa Paws (2010) Holiday Affair (1949) It's a Wonderful Life (1946) A Christmas Carol (2009) Everything is Illuminated (2005) Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) After the death of Tony Curtis, many cited Some Like It Hot and Sweet Smell of Success as his greatest films. Longtime fan of the former, I had never seen the latter. This week I got my chance, and what a tremendous film. Powerful performances make for a powerfully well-told story. First Men in the Moon , based on the H.G. Wells novel, was a favorite from my childhood. Netflix said ...

Seemed like a good time to revive this one. This catchy ditty always cheers me up. Sing a long with Neal!

A View to a Kill (1985) Day of the Jackal (1973) The Living Daylights (1987) 21 Grams (2003) You Can't Take It with You (1938) The Libertine (2004) Little Children (2006) The Three Lives of Thomasina (1964) The Mikado (1939) Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) Flesh and the Devil (1926) (silent) Rocky Horror Picture Show (1974) The Time Traveler's Wife (2009) Toy Story 3 (2010) The Da Vinci Code (2006) The Freshman (1990) The Prince of Tides (1991) Happy Go Lovely (1951) State of Grace (1990) Marlon Brando, Penelope Ann Miller, Bruce Kirby, Matthew Broderick in The Freshman Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Grayson Russell in Diary of a Wimpy Kid Martyn Green as Ko-Ko in The Mikado (filmed in color) Greta Garbo and John Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil (silent) Edward Fox and Cyril Cusack in Day of the Jackal Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Donald Meeks, Edward Arnold, Spring Byi...

William Taft IV, Chief Legal Adviser to the State Department in the Bush Administration, and, incidentally, great-grandson of President William Howard Taft As George W. Bush admitted to the world unabashedly that he had signed off on waterboarding suspected high-value Al Qaeda operatives, adding that he'd do it again, William Taft IV , former Chief Legal Adviser to the State Department under Colin Powell, spoke frankly on the subject of waterboarding and torture last Friday on BBC 4's afternoon radio program, " The World at One ", condemning it unequivocally: I think it was most unfortunate, both in terms of the reputation of the United States for adhering to the Geneva Conventions , which it had always done and been a strong supporter of them. It put our soldiers at risk of not being treated consistent with them, and it was a breach of our responsibilities to the individual terrorists who, dreadful as they may be, are human beings and should be treated humanely. W...

Comedian (2002) Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2008) My Cousin Vinny (1992) A Single Man (2009) Octopussy (1983) The Blind Side (2009) Bee Movie (2007) The Reader (2008) The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) The Purchase Price (1932) Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny Colin Firth in A Single Man Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent in The Purchase Price My movie-watching log is the only thing I seem to be able to keep up with these days, and even that's cursory. Hi ho, Technorrhetic Age!. Not pleased with the redesign of the IMDB pages. Comedian, Bee Movie, and My Cousin Vinny are the only films I'd seen before.

Since Meera signed up for Netflix, I find my film-watching frequency has increased...the watch-it-or-lose it effect. Miller's Crossing (1990) Pornography (2009) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) Rachel Getting Married (2008) Planet of the Apes (2001) Stranger than Fiction (2006) The Shaggy Dog (2006) Other Men's Women (1931) Office Space (1999) Jabberwocky (1977) Grant Withers and Joan Blondell in Other Men's Women Pete Scherer in Pornography Anne Hathaway and Rosemarie DeWitt in Rachel Getting Married Nobody told me just how bad Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes was, but I probably would have watched it anyway. As clumsy as the pacing and tone of Other Men's Women , the kiss, a pivotal scene in the film, was done with passion, power, and sensitivity. From the Forbidden Hollywood DVD series of TCM, which I highly recommend. Miller's Crossing , an old favorite when I hadn't seen since it came out, still the stunning film I remembered. Pornograp...