…this and that.
Odd thing, the local high school football field was right next door so I woke to the sound of the marching band trying to figure out Eleanor Rigby.
Rental car review
Dinner with Chris and Mona.
The Last Command is the 1928 silent movie staring Emil Jannings as the Grand Duke of the Tsar’s army and tells the story of his last battle, his capture, escape, and eventual demise in Hollywood as an extra in a film close to his own life.
It is the best silent movie I’ve seen - I genuinely enjoyed it, and I rarely connect to older films, let alone silent ones.
Part of the magic was the performance of the Alloy Orchestra - they are really exceptional and it was a treat to hear their score.
A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema is not as promising as the title would suggest. It is a wonderful collection of clips of various movies that are far more effectively tied to together cinematically than they are philosophically. Slavoj Zizek narrates a discussion of his apparent discomfort with sex, shame at being male, and hatred of his parents as if they were universal neurosis somehow illuminated by cinema. I found his critiques and comments on the films and directors generally interesting and compelling. His generalizations about the motivations for sex, arousal, libido, etc were pretty silly. Comparing the marx brothers to the Id, the Ego, and the Superego… hmm… I found Bataille’s Erotism: Death And Sensuality better thought out, if equally inapplicable to people not plagued with some serious issues.
(Friday, Aug 29 2008 Telluride Film Festival)
Tulpan is about a young naval officer who joins his sister’s family on the steppe’s of Kazakhstan to start his life as a shepherd and fulfill his dreams of living under the stars in a yurt with 900 channels of satellite TV.
He seeks the hand of the mysterious and unseen eponymous “Tulip” the only marriageable woman on the steppe for 500 miles, and either she finds his ears too large (though they are less prominent than Prince Charles’) or her mom is blocking the proceedings. Either way, he is thwarted in his dream and is driven to consider leaving the steppe for the city with his regge loving tractor driving friend who delivers water and essentials to shepherds.
Along the way we witness the birth of a sheep, a protective camel, and a pretty amusing collection of pretty amazing animal moments. It’s funny and cute but perhaps not as engaging as the Cannes prize would suggest.
Glago’s Guest (short) Tulpan was preceded by Glago’s Guest, a Disney short about the minder of Station 7 who’s uneventful days fill piles of logs until one day a something very unusual visits in an act of charity.
Friday, Aug 29 2008 Telluride Film Festival
The Canadian version is pretty much the same as the US version.
I got a pair of Seth Thomas WBL-714-FS-SETH clocks out of a factory salvage; no instructions of course. They seemed simple enough, but I couldn’t get them to sync. There are the typical (for a radio sync clock) time zone buttons which make the hands move to the appropriate relative position by time zone. There is a big button that makes the hands move and a small button that seems to do nothing. They were not synced. I let them sit for a few days and they still were not synced.
I looked up the company’s web site and wrote a little note on their form, expecting nothing:
"I have two WBL-714-FS-SETH clocks. They do not seem to set themselves to the time signal. After a couple of days, they are not synchronized. Any hints?"
A day later I got this from Donna at the company:
"Dear David: It sounds like they are not receiving the signal. Have you tried moving them to a different location and see if they receive the signal? If not, try that. If you have tried different locations, then try taking the battery out for about 5 min, then put it back in, hit your time zone and if should advance to 4, 8 or 12. It will stay there till it receives the signal. You may just have to move them. Let me know how you make out."
It worked perfectly and now both clocks are synced. It was such a pleasant, prompt, and above all accurate response that it made me wonder if I’d ever received such good service before and as far as I can remember only McMaster Carr compares.
Rental car review: Chevy Uplander
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