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Review: The Lighthouse Is a Hilarious and Grotesque Genre Pastiche
Robert Eggers loosens the noose of veracity just enough to allow for so much absurdism to peek through.3
Willem Dafoe farts and Robert Pattinson masturbates vigorously in Robert Eggers's creepy and unexpectedly, if grotesquely, hilarious follow-up to The Witch. Set in 1890s New England, The Lighthouse finds Eggers again mining the past for an air of mythic portent but loosening the noose of veracity that choked his meticulously researched yet painfully self-serious debut just enough to allow for so much absurdism to peek through.
From the moment that lighthouse keepers Thomas Wake (Dafoe), an experienced old "wickie" with a shuffling gait and a hair-trigger temper, and Ephraim Winslow (Pattinson), his handlebar mustache-sporting assistant, set foot on the tiny island where they're to spend the next four weeks, they start to get on each other's nerves. Wake is a slave driver who's said to have made his last assistant go crazy, and who ignores any and all regulations, while Winslow, who's on his first assignment as a lighthouse keeper, refuses to drink and be merry with Wake, which causes its own problems. Before long, the two men kick into motion a game of one-upmanship, a raising of the stakes to see who will be the first to drive the other to madness—with flatulence and horniness among the many, many factors fueling that pursuit.
Eggers's willingness to get goofy, and to not worry about humor defusing his narrative's macabre horror—as in, say, the cartoonish pummeling that a devious seagull receives—makes The Lighthouse something of a breakthrough for the filmmaker. Diverging from the formula of coiled tension followed by sudden and jolting release that's favored by so many contemporary arthouse horror films, Eggers parcels out the action in the film, steadily and methodically building toward the psychological breaking point of his characters.
Dafoe and Pattinson are crucial to selling that trajectory, ensuring that every moment here bristles with performative bluster. Dafoe's surly former sea captain is a blowhard who's given to sentimental reverie whenever he gets hammered, while his foil is played by Pattinson with slyly vacillating docile subservience and scheming spitefulness. The veteran character actor and dressed-down movie star play off each other exceptionally well, especially when, as is often the case in a two-hander, they have to pull-off a tricky role reversal.
Taking advantage of a bigger budget than The Witch, Eggers shot The Lighthouse on 35mm film. He's also utilized the 1.19:1 Movietone aspect ratio, which was briefly standardized in the 1920s and is tighter than the already boxy 1.37:1 academy ratio, as a means of emphasizing his vertical compositions and the at times literally stratified relationship between his main characters. At one point, Dafoe's old codger refuses to share lantern duty, while Winslow toils down below, swabbing decks and maintaining the dilapidated station.
Eggers successfully approximates F.W. Murnau's stark and dynamic use of light and shadow in images that ensconce his characters in darkness and place them in geometrically unbalanced positions within the frame. But the quirkiest influence on this film is Night Tide, Curtis Harrington's 1961 supernatural farce of a noir, which Eggers cribs from blatantly in a surreal sequence where Pattinson's character has an erotic fantasy about a mermaid, and in a delirious body-horror montage—realized through largely practical effects—that co-opts Harrington's hybridization of Roger Corman and Kenneth Ager's stylings.
And like Night Tide, a send-up of beach-party movies and cheap '50s sci-fi, The Lighthouse aims for self-aware pastiche and pulls it off without smugness. Unlike Harrington's film, though, it doesn't register much affection for the forms it's working with, and can come off like a calculated exercise. Still, Eggers's ability to take the piss out of his inflated genre movie pastiche, without lapsing into parody, is an impressive and an entertaining feat.
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karaman Director: Robert Eggers Screenwriter: Robert Eggers, Max Eggers Distributor: A24 Running Time: 110 min Rating: NR Year: 2019 Buy: Video, Soundtrack
Review: Tommaso Both Rues and Relishes the Power of the Artist
Abel Ferrara's film is about that precise feeling of living with an itch unscratched.3
Many films have dealt with the highs and lows of addiction, even the challenges of recovery. Less common are films about living at length with sobriety, about the peace it can bring and the lingering absence that an addict in recovery must learn to accept. To live in recovery is to live with a kind of death: of your warped sense of normalcy for the sake of functionality. A quote from Peter Schjeldahl's New Yorker piece "The Art of Dying" sums this tension up beautifully and painfully: "If you're a real alcoholic, you will never feel quite right. Whatever you want will be a little bit out of reach. Can't handle that? Get the fuck out of here and get drunk." Abel Ferrara's Tommaso is about that precise feeling of living with an itch unscratched, which the protagonist manages with a life of fetishistic interiority.
Here, Willem Dafoe again plays a surrogate of Ferrara: a filmmaker, Tommaso, living in Rome, where he can readily finance his arty productions. Early passages linger attentively on the everyday textures of Tommaso's existence. He sips espresso served to him by a barista who asks him for updates on his life; studies Italian; shops for fresh produce at a nearby market; makes pasta for his much younger wife, Nikki (Cristina Chiriac), and their daughter; works on a script that will eventually turn into Ferrara's Siberia; and coaches young and attractive actors on the art of feeling pure feelings for a role, without self-consciousness. For a while, Tommaso serves as a straight male aesthete's dream of the successful artist's way of being, as the protagonist is a good-looking, authoritative older man who enjoys financial freedom as well as the attention of young women. And he appears to be sensitive and thoughtful to boot.
This lovely idyll serves several purposes for Ferrara. Simply, this atmosphere offers a fulfillment of wishes, as it's an act of masturbation and perhaps of self-congratulation, an impression that's affirmed by the several excuses that are made for young female nudity. Yet Ferrara, a significant artist and a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, also understands that Tommaso's open sensitivity and sensuality are ironically evasive.
After a while, we notice that we don't see Nikki and their daughter that often. Gradually, we learn that Tommaso is a recovering addict, going to N.A. meetings that are populated by a few striking characters who offer realistic testimonials to the struggles of dependency. Evocatively, Tommaso talks of once trying to remake La Dolce Vita in Miami with an actor who was also an addict, and he shares a heartbreaking story of a daughter from a previous marriage asking if he was leaving the house, drunk, because of her. Tommaso's tranquil rhythms are misleading, as we see that the protagonist has insulated himself not only from temptation but connection; his very fear of losing his family is what threatens to drive them away. Underneath his manners, Tommaso feels the alienation, the missing-ness, of living sober as an addict.
Tommaso has a glancing, sketchbook-like quality. Through elegant long takes and stately pace, the audience becomes privy to the entire spectrum of Tomasso's daily physical and emotional experience. Certain episodes in the film occur with so little context that they don't seem to be literally believable, yet they aren't quite visually coded as fantasy, as many scenes in Siberia are. For one, when Nikki is seen making out with a man in a park where Tommaso is playing with their daughter, we can't tell if this moment is real or a paranoid projection. But the distinction barely matters, as we're confronting Tommaso's emotional reality.
Another episode is even more strikingly specific: Tommaso is insulted that Nikki didn't wake him for a family lunch. In the moment, one is sympathetic toward Tommaso, though Ferrara establishes just how often Tommaso is in his own world, whether he's teaching classes, surveying Rome, or honing his script; he presents as courtly and empathetic in public, and to himself, while casually thinking mostly of himself, a resonance that Ferrara allows us to gradually discern. Nikki doesn't check on him because it doesn't occur to her that it would matter, an instinct that signifies her immaturity as well as his essential selfishness.
Ferrara has mastered a type of scene in which the ecstatic intersects with the ordinary. In Welcome to New York, a rapist's prolonged physical humiliation upon his arrest and processing became a casual indictment of the legal system—complicated morally by the fact that he deserved it. In 4:44 Last Day on Earth, Ferrara stages an essay on the comforts of rarefied life upon its impending demise. In Tommaso, we're allowed to feel both the comfort and limitation of prescribed rituals. In Tommaso's case, said rituals, which include meditation in addition to his other daily activities, stave off and replace more damaging hungers. Late in the film, a shockingly violent encounter, potentially imaginary, embodies the fear addicts have of reverting to their worst and most impulsive tendencies.
Ferrara's collaborations with Dafoe, including the extraordinary Pasolini, are studies of privilege, power, fantasy, and loneliness. They're also surveys of Dafoe's remarkably suggestive presence and physicality, as well as flirtations with European artiness. Tommaso is erotic in a manner that's unusual for American films, suggesting that Ferrara has truly gotten Italy into his bloodstream. Almost every encounter here is freighted with the promise of sex—the kind that's understood to be possible primarily because of Tommaso's success and station. These wandering, episodic films are politically conscious, yet they're also about the lurid pleasure of being a man with a certain degree of reputation. In Tommaso, Ferrara both rues and enjoys his protagonist's power and insularity, which scans less as hypocrisy than as an honest admission of the difficulty of navigating the divide between accountability and temptation.
Cast: Willem Dafoe, Cristina Chiriac, Anna Ferrara, Stella Mastrantonio, Alessandra Scarci Director: Abel Ferrara Screenwriter: Abel Ferrara Distributor: Kino Lorber Running Time: 115 min Rating: NR Year: 2019
Review: Shirley Is an Astonishingly Frenzied Portrait of Creation and Madness
Every scene in Josephine Decker's film operates at a maximum frenzy fraught with subtext.3
Even the most daring or imaginative films can get bogged down by moments of unnecessary exposition. By contrast, Josephine Decker's Shirley doesn't take any encounter as a given, as every scene operates at a maximum frenzy fraught with subtext—with sexual tension, bitterness, class and gender resentment, and acidic comedy that springs from the intersection of all of the aforementioned pressures. At any moment in this astonishing, frustrating film, we're alternately in and out of the characters' wavelengths, and continually forced to reorient our perceptions of the various relationships driving the narrative. Next to Decker's films, the rigid staging of most cinematic conversations feels prim.
There are no ordinary images in Shirley. Decker and cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen give the film a hazy look that suggests an act of recollection, in which autumnal colors bleed together while certain objects and portions of settings and actors pristinely peek through the frame. Meanwhile, the camera is often moving, as in Decker's previous films, switching between point-of-view shots and compositions in which characters look directly at us, or homing in on close-ups that allow for other characters to enter scenes unnoticed, paving the way for jarring surprises. Individually, none of these devices is original to Decker, but she's united them with a fluidity and a sensual puckishness that's all her own.
Shirley and Decker's prior film, Madeline's Madeline, both concern the porous boundaries separating creativity from madness and collaboration from exploitation. Adapted by screenwriter Sarah Gubbins from the 2014 novel of the same name by Susan Scarf Merrell, Shirley focuses on iconic short story author and novelist Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss) and her life with her husband, professor and critic Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), in North Bennington, Vermont. Hyman is tenured at Bennington College, and he's invited a newlywed couple, Fred (Logan Lerman) and Rose (Odessa Young), to live with him and Shirley for a period of time. Over several months, the two couples play escalating mind games as Shirley attempts to write a novel about the disappearance of a local college girl.
Shirley and Stanley and Rose and Fred often suggest the same couple from two different periods of time (before and after success), and Decker's hallucinatory style occasionally leaves us wondering if the film is building toward this revelation. After all, Shirley and Stanley have what Fred at the very least wants: acclaim and status. Fred thinks he's going to be Stanley's apprentice and eventual successor, while Stanley seems to regard him as an errand boy. (Stanley also smugly recruits Rose as the housekeeper, or Shirley's minder.)
Rose's motivations are murkier: She's pregnant and initially seems to enjoy playing housewife, until we learn that she quit college for Fred and the baby. It gradually comes to light that Shirley, already legendary for "The Lottery," and who carries far more weight with Stanley than Rose appears to with Fred, also has something that Rose longs: respect. On the other hand, the romance between Rose and Fred feels kinder, more idealized, than the manipulative parlor games played by Shirley and Stanley, though this juxtaposition is ironic as well. Stanley and Shirley's overt cruelty toward one another suggests truthfulness, a willingness to honor one another's eccentricities, while Rose and Fred play into courtly tropes.
Shirley recalls Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Phantom Thread. Like the former, it features elaborate, self-consciously performative scenes of drunk and talented characters airing their resentments, turning their outbursts into a kind of weird and potentially cathartic poetry. And like the latter, it's concerned with the atmosphere that a potentially disturbed artist must cultivate in order to create. The comparison to the Paul Thomas Anderson film may be particularly instructive, as Shirley also derives its emotional suspense by gradually revealing to viewers the "rules of the house." In Phantom Thread, we learn that a young innocent is capable of ruthless adaptation that benefits her artist-lover's need for domination while bettering her own station. In Shirley, we learn the extent to which each couple is manipulating the other, and how Shirley's creative drive is also fueled by a form of role play.
The notion of role play is affirmed by the film's stylized performances. Moss and Stuhlbarg deliver their lines as if they were stanzas, and the actors' vocal precision is complemented by piercing physical gestures that suggest periods and commas. Stuhlbarg has never before been this gloriously full of himself, and he has a particularly evocative moment in which Stanley disparages Fred's dissertation, stretching the word "derivative" out as if it were taffy. In another scene, Stanley coaxes the agoraphobic, alcoholic Shirley out of bed with a cigarette, tossing it to her like a snack. In such moments, we're allowed to feel the intimacy as well as the cruelty of this relationship, qualities which are essentially inseparable. (Shirley needs Stanley to be a jerk so she can rebel against him, as this is the source of her inspiration—a notion that's also reminiscent of Phantom Thread.)
However, Moss also underscores the potential limitations of Decker's florid excess, rendering Shirley climactically unhinged from the outset, riding high on the character's flamboyant oddness, as she did with her roles in Her Smell and The Invisible Man. The former film had tonal contrast, allowing Moss to eventually ease up on the melodramatics and offer moments of delicate beauty. In The Invisible Man and Shirley, Moss puts on a hell of a show, but you're conscious of the work behind her performance. Shirley's always "on," either drunk, enraged, manipulative, stumbling, glinting, castigating whoever's around, or all of the above, allowing Moss to continually run at fever pitch; she's the mad hatter as master of ceremonies, and she grows rather repetitive as the film itself comes to spin in circles. This self-consciousness is justified by the film's final reveal, and by this conception of Shirley as a character, but it grows stifling nevertheless. Moss, like Shirley in general, is always in your face.
As with Madeline's Madeline, there's sentimentality running underneath Shirley's bravura, as this is another film that glorifies madness as a tool of an artist's trade—a way-too-common notion in cinema that cheapens the pain of madness itself. Decker implicitly presents Shirley's neuroses as a weapon against sexism, as a refusal to merely be an administrator's wife, which means that we're introduced to the usual clichés of hypocritical women who bought into the system that Shirley fights. Shirley also, of course, serves as a warning to Rose, whom she conflates with the woman driving her novel, another person dashed by patriarchy.
Jackson's writing isn't this tidy. Eleanor, the lonely heart at the center of The Haunting of Hill House, isn't a thesis marker, but a miserable, uncertain, talented, and intelligent person who's potentially without a purpose, at least to herself; her pain is wrenching, while Moss renders Shirley's craziness powerful and affirming. If there was more than just a hint of Eleanor's vulnerability in Moss's Shirley, this might have been an unruly classic. Decker is too mighty an artist to go in for trendy girl power. In fact, Decker, with her ferocious subjective poetry, could probably make a brilliant adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House.
Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Logan Lerman, Odessa Young, Molly Fahey, Adelind Horan, Allen McCullough, Edward O'Blenis Director: Josephine Decker Screenwriter: Sarah Gubbins Distributor: Neon Running Time: 107 min Rating: R Year: 2020
Review: The Infiltrators Uneasily Marries the Real and the Performed
The film is never more compelling than when relying on footage of the real NIYA DREAMers.2
At the start of Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera's The Infiltrators, photo-negative infrared shots conjure the imposing nature of border enforcement. The miles of fencing along the United States border with Mexico come through as a flickering whiteness, with the migrants walking across the desert suggesting truly alien forms. In voiceover, 22-year-old Marco Saavedra (Maynor Alvarado) discusses being undocumented and the intense fear that young immigrants and second-generation Americas have for their parents. Documentary footage depicts ICE and CBP agents arresting people like Marco in front of their families, tearful children giving press conferences, and the menacing detention facilities where undocumented persons are held in limbo. Then, Marco relates that as much as any immigrant would do to stay out of such a place, he hatched a plan to deliberately be placed in one.
Blending archival footage, interviews with real people, and dramatized reenactments, Ibarra and Rivera's film traces the efforts of Marco and the group of radical DREAMers to which he belongs, the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, to assist detainees to prevent their deportation. The dramatizations frame the film as a thriller, one in which detainees have to constantly slip papers to each other and visit lawyers under the noses of guards who seethe with resentment. More than once, detainees are surprised with news of their sudden deportation, forcing Marco and his comrades on the outside to scramble to save them. Yet the most troubling aspect depicted here is how detention facilities, in which people are deliberately kept without being charged to limit their legal rights to attorneys, are designed to induce hopelessness. It isn't the abruptness with which guards summon detainees to get on planes that causes the most stress here, but the purgatorial waiting that precedes it.
The juxtaposition of real and fictionalized elements, complete with chyrons identifying individuals and the actors playing them, isn't exactly new to nonfiction filmmaking, and several documentarians have compellingly used such techniques to unpack the lines between performance and reality. At times in The Infiltrators, the real people involved in the story talk about how they approached their attempts to infiltrate detention facilities as actors, finding ways to look sufficiently guilty to officers who're understandably quick to suspect why undocumented immigrants would volunteer to be deported. This dimension to the young adults' actions is intriguing but left dangling by the film, which mostly sticks to unsuspenseful reenactments of Marco's mildly clandestine activities within one detention center.
The film is never more compelling than when relying on footage of the real NIYA DREAMers, teenagers and twentysomethings who put themselves at severe risk by publicly protesting for their rights and those of their families and others like them. There's far more urgency in watching Mohammed, a gay Iranian youth, confront politicians while at risk for deportation to a country he's never known and is openly hostile to his sexual identity than there is in shots of Marco and others strategically handing off manila folders set to suspenseful music. The young people's ability to create and exploit media for outreach likewise feels like an exciting subject that The Infiltrators fails to deeply explore, where it could have illuminated just how well activists can mobilize modern technology and media with minimal resources.
Cast: Maynor Alvarado, Chelsea Rendon, Manuel Uriza, Juan Gabriel Pareja, Vik Sahay Director: Cristina Ibarra, Alex Rivera Screenwriter: Alex Rivera, Aldo Velasco Distributor: Oscilloscope Laboratories Running Time: 95 min Rating: NR Year: 2019
Review: Aya Koretzky's Around the World When You Were My Age
Across the film, the most idiosyncratic reactions of an ordinary human become real documents of human history.3.5
Jiro Koretzky left his native Japan in 1979 for a year-long trip around the world, from Moscow all the way to Beirut, mostly traveling in his white Ford Taunus. Jiro spent time in Scandinavia, Yugoslavia, North Africa, and Syria, and by the time he was ready to fly back home, the young man had discovered the one thing missing from the hyper-organization of Japanese cities: passion. Almost four decades later, his daughter, filmmaker Aya Koretzky, happened upon a metallic box full of photographic slides and detailed diary entries that Jiro amassed during his journey and decided to make a film about it. The result is Around the World When You Were My Age, and it's a beautiful tribute to her father's passion.
The boxy format of Koretzky's Bolex camera mimics the proportions of her father's original 16mm and 35mm slides. This may give the impression of a filmmaker who's merely stitching old swatches together, but Around the World When You Were My Age isn't a found-footage film. Koretzky's poetic interventions, through reenactment and narration, attest to a self-ethnography bearing the freshest of fruits. This is a case of cinematic intimacy that renders visible old transmissions between father and daughter as much as it yields new ones.
Here, Koretzky's opening of her father's box, where Jiro's memories lay dormant for so long, is a kind of cracking of her symbolic DNA—the one that carries the key to the generational transmission of emotions instead of genetic material. Or, perhaps, the filmmaker's unearthing of what the father once buried is something like the reading of a father's will before his demise. Except the inheritance here has already been distributed throughout Koretzky's upbringing: her artistic sensibility, her fondness for silence, and her peripatetic urge. As the unconscious and the ineffable are made tangible through the cinematic image in a delicate father-daughter duet, she now knows where her own passions came from.
Koretzky performs her excavations gently and respectfully, refusing the position of the filmmaker offspring hellbent on settling old scores or demystifying the presumable bliss of family albums. Instead, she performs the humble contemplation of those who are genuinely curious—the ones we would trust to peruse our most special private collections. Koretzy is open to whatever the archive happens to bring without hoping to impose order in what is, by design, volatile and loose, like the most inextinguishable of sensations. Around the World When You Were My Age, then, is much closer to a series of lyrical vignettes (shades of Jonas Mekas and Michel de Montaigne) than to what we have come to expect from filmmakers who utilize their own relatives to (re-)write family narratives.
Across the film, the most idiosyncratic reactions of an ordinary human become real documents of human history. We see what the world looked like in 1979 and what it felt like to exist in it as a foreign flaneur. We learn that Moscow felt so large that it was as if there was "no human scale," that the comforts of Helsinki were only rivaled by its monotony and absence of human presence, that everything in Stockholm was expensive except for milk, and that in the south of Italy one could sense "the whole of Europe condensed" in one little instant, while eating spaghetti to the sound of an accordion played by the homeless.
The film's voiceover, by father and daughter, mostly consists of readings from Jiro's diary. But Koretzky also knows exactly when narration, no matter how pretty, must go quiet—so that the objects in the frame can speak for themselves. Some of the most memorable sequences in the film are when all we hear are the noises made by scissors, a broom, an analog camera, the waiving of a polaroid, a finger retracing a journey on a paper map, or a slug slithering on a globe. Sudden moments of complete silence also remind us that the filmmaker's commitment isn't necessarily to information or knowledge, but to the poetics of feeling.
Director: Aya Koretzky Running Time: 110 min Rating: NR Year: 2018
Review: The Vast of Night Is a Wistful Riff on the Intimacy of Radio Dramas
The filmmakers patiently savor the great thrill of genre stories: anticipation.3
Early in The Vast of Night, there's a striking tracking shot through the gymnasium of a high school in the fictional 1950s-era town of Cayuga, New Mexico. The gym is being prepared for the big basketball game that night, and we're shown how various students and professionals work together to complete this task, talking over one another with a propulsive snappiness that evokes a Howard Hawks comedy. The sequence is exhilarating, especially because one doesn't normally encounter such verbal and visual intricacy in a genre film. But it's also misleading, as it suggests that The Vast of Night will involve a wide cast of characters, though it's closer to a two-hander between a local radio DJ, Everett (Jake Horowitz), and a high school student, Fay (Sierra McCormick), who works the town switchboard and shares Everett's fascination with radios, recorders, and the like.
As Everett and Fay converge inside the gym, director Andrew Patterson has the wit to allow us to believe that we're discovering these characters for ourselves as the camera just happens to land on them. Right away, they radiate their intelligence in contrasting fashions: Everett is confident yet sarcastic, on the border of being a know-it-all, while Faye is earnest and attentive. They exist somewhat apart from the Cayuga community at large, and they quickly shunt off to their respective offices, the churches of their obsessions. The Vast of Night is a homage to genre shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, even featuring its own faux credits montage, but it's truly a riff on the intimacy of radio dramas.
Patterson's tracking shots and big, soft, beautiful Scope images are clearly indebted to John Carpenter's films. Yet Patterson has absorbed more than Carpenter's pyrotechnical style, as he understands the melancholy soulfulness of the legend's best work. With its obsession with radio callers, who gradually reveal a potential alien invasion, The Vast of Night most explicitly suggests the radio station-set scenes from The Fog if they were to be expanded to compose an entire film. Talking to people in radio land who recognize an eerie droning sound that comes through on a phone line, Everett and Faye clearly relish the collaboration of solving a mystery and of symbolically assembling their own radio thriller. And Patterson and screenwriters James Montague and Craig W. Sanger never break the incantatory spell with pointless freneticism, patiently savoring the great thrill of genre stories: anticipation.
The Vast of Night features several long monologues in which older people tell Everett and Faye of their experiences with clandestine military projects. Informed with a hushed intensity, these monologues allow various political resonances to seep into the narrative. For example, one caller (Bruce Davis) to Everett's radio show doesn't expect anyone to believe him because he's black and elderly, a suspicion that he acknowledges with a poignant matter-of-factness. And as Everett and Faye hear increasingly odd stories, you may find yourself reconsidering that tracking shot at the start of the film, which captured a breadth of community from which Everett and Faye largely exclude themselves. They're uncovering the sadness lurking under a small town—the racism, communist paranoia, and heartbreaks that cause people to yearn for a supernatural explanation as a way of evading their sense of helplessness.
Late into The Vast of Night, Patterson springs another tracking shot that reveals the proximity of Cayuga High School, the town's switchboard, and the radio station to each other. They're all close to one another but separated at night by gulfs of darkness and emptiness. The film doesn't offer much in the way of a payoff, lacking the kinetic savagery of Bruce McDonald's similarly themed Pontypool, but that's the point. The lovely, wistful The Vast of Night pivots instead on a decidedly friendlier vision of localized culture, decades before corporations would unify most radio into a detached, impersonal stream of advertisements.
Cast: Sierra McCormick, Jake Horowitz, Gail Cronauer, Bruce Davis, Cheyenne Barton, Gregory Peyton, Mallorie Rodak, Mollie Milligan, Ingrid Fease, Pam Dougherty Director: Andrew Patterson Screenwriter: James Montague, Craig W. Sanger Distributor: Amazon Studios Running Time: 91 min Rating: PG-13 Year: 2019
Review: On the Record Is a Richly Contextualized Look at Rape Culture
On the Record implicates nothing less than the entirety of American culture in hip-hop's sins.3
Misogyny has been a sticking point for critics of hip-hop ever since the genre became a cultural phenomenon in the late 1980s and '90s. For those who not only value the artistry of hip-hop, but also recognize it as the defiant aesthetic expression of an oppressed population, calling out systemic sexism within that culture is a fraught undertaking. The accusation that rappers perpetuate demeaning ideas about women can also serve as ammunition for conservatives uncomfortable with black self-expression—and, moreover, can feed into historical representations of black men as inherently sexually aggressive.
As Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering's documentary On The Record stresses, a fear of betraying black America as a whole has led to a culture of silence among black women involved in the music industry that may be even more pervasive than that in the white Hollywood circles where the Me Too movement has been the most visible. When they do come forward, these women are inevitably speaking against the backdrop of the sordid, shameful role black sexuality has played in America's oppression of its black population—to the lynchings of black men on accusations of sexual transgression, to the Senate's steamrolling of Anita Hill in 1992.
The film focuses on the sexual assault allegations that led to hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons's 2017 fall from grace, and in particular on former Def Jam executive Drew Dixon's mindset as she brings herself to tell her story to the New York Times. But thanks to dips into history that show the roots of black misogyny in the abuses and iniquities of a racist society, as well as a critical mass of testimonies from activists and academics that provide a contextual framework, On the Record implicates nothing less than the entirety of American culture in hip-hop's sins. At the origin of black women's reticence stands nothing other than slavery, the U.S.'s original sin, which began the dehumanizing tradition of treating black women as disposable sexual objects and viewing black men as potentially dangerous sexual predators.
Simmons' victims' sense of their own complex relations to such historical power structures emerges from the film's lucid recounting of the sexual assault allegations against him. "I didn't want to let the culture down," Dixon explains of her decision to keep the fact that Simmons raped her in 1995 private for more than two decades. As a black woman, she felt she faced additional pressure to stay quiet and limit her—and Simmons's—exposure. Beyond her concern about detonating the career of an important black figure, she recalls watching Hill's testimony during Clarence Thomas's confirmation hearings and realizing that when a woman publicly accuses a man of serious sexual violations, the perverse result is that the perpetrator is able to align his reaction with that of the public, affecting disgust and outrage. As the accuser, she says, "you are defiled again because you have to tell people, and it's on your lips."
There's a tragic irony here that a more literary-minded documentary might bring to the fore: that a musical form focused so intently on the power of the spoken word—and on the black voice in particular—gives rise, in its thoroughly capitalized form, to a culture that denies the voices of black women. Hip-hop attained mass appeal in part by leaning hard into hypermasculine display and "explicit" lyrics, but now, like the old boys' club of the 1991 U.S. Senate, institutional hip-hop stands aghast at the words on the lips of abused women. Simmons has persisted in his denial of any wrongdoing whatsoever, and as with so many powerful men, the chorus that sprung up to defend him was only slightly tempered by the accelerating accumulation of accusers. (Dixon was among the first four accusers; there have been 16 more, many of whom appear in the documentary.)
On the Record lets such abstract themes as who gets a voice in hip-hop remain mostly implicit. As in Dick's The Hunting Ground, which Ziering produced and documented the prevalence of rape on college campuses, the filmmakers approach their subject with journalistic rigor, leaving the interpretation to Dixon and the other interviewees. "We all lose when brilliant women go away," rues former Source writer Kiera Mayo toward the end of the film, reflecting on how, despite her successes, Dixon left the industry after continued harassment by Simmons and Arista chief L.A. Reid. It's a melancholy realization. While the culture of '90s hip-hop has become an object of nostalgic longing akin to boomers' beloved classic rock (as evidenced by films like Straight Outta Compton), On the Record suggests a different vision of the era—one that longs more for what could have been than what was.
Director: Kirby Dick, Amy Ziering Distributor: HBO Max Running Time: 97 min Rating: NR Year: 2020
Review: As Melodrama, The High Note Barely Strikes a Chord
Everything here wraps up as tidily as it does in your average Hallmark Channel movie.1.5
Nisha Ganatra's The High Note is ostensibly about the virtues of taking risks in art-making, of sacrificing the comforts of coasting on past successes for the hard-won rewards of creating something new. And yet the film itself is as formulaic as they come, an agglomeration of soap-operatic story beats and music-industry clichés whose low-key tone may be an attempt at channeling the naturalism of Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born but comes off instead as tentative, as if Ganatra were afraid of really leaning into the big, unruly emotions simmering beneath The High Note's placid surface.
At the heart of the film is the ambition and self-doubt of Maggie Sherwood (Dakota Johnson), a personal assistant who dreams of producing records, and her boss, Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross), a Diana Ross-like diva facing a crossroads in her career. Grace is deciding whether she wants to risk her legacy by releasing a new album or take the easy road by accepting an offer to headline her own show at Caesars Palace. Her longtime manager (Ice Cube) presses her to cash out with the Vegas residency, but Maggie encourages her—as much as she can, given her relatively junior position—to make some new music. Meanwhile, Maggie covertly produces her own mixes of Grace's live recordings in the hopes that she can convince Grace to hire her instead of a slick EDM producer (Diplo, playing an air-headed version of himself) who wants to bury her soulful pipes under layers of Auto-Tune and pounding beats.
Flora Greeson's screenplay is peppered with some clear-eyed wisdom about the entertainment world, such as its observations about the way that so much of the music industry is based around managing artists' deep-seated insecurities. The characters' occasional speechifying about the difficult position that women in music often face is on point, if a bit perfunctory, but more incisively, it's used to subtly suggest the way that these very real obstacles can be used as scapegoats by people, like Grace, who are afraid to simply put themselves out there. But these brief moments of insight are largely overridden by the film's weak-kneed plotting, repetitiveness, and corny contrivances. Practically every conflict the film raises is resolved just a few scenes later. The film never allows its characters to do anything cruel or mean or misguided without almost immediately absolving them of responsibility.
Nowhere is this tendency more prevalent than in a subplot involving Maggie's relationship with a talented but self-doubting musician, David Cliff (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Everything comes to a head when Maggie attempts to orchestrate a plan to get the opening act (Eddie Izzard) for Grace's live-album release party to drop out, which will give David the opportunity to perform in front of a bunch of industry big wigs, not to mention Grace herself. While in a different film, this scheme might have served as a big hokey climax, here the whole thing summarily blows up in Maggie's face, causing her to get fired by Grace and get dumped by David. But while that semi-subversion of our expectations is certainly welcome, The High Note simply trades one unconvincing plot contrivance for another when, just a few scenes later, a major revelation precipitates a rapid succession of reconciliations between characters.
Everything wraps up as tidily as it does in your average Hallmark Channel movie, with no character being forced to sacrifice anything or make a truly difficult decision. Maggie, Grace, and David all make up and record an album together (Maggie naturally produces), and the film closes with Grace and David performing a triumphant concert for a huge crowd of screaming fans as Maggie watches adoringly from backstage. The characters in The High Note talk a lot about the unfair challenges of the music world, but the film ultimately reaffirms what the audience already knows: that success has a lot more to do with who you know—and who you're related to—than it does about hard work or artistic integrity.
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Zoë Chao, Ice Cube, June Diane Raphael, Deniz Akdeniz, Bill Pullman, Eddie Izzard, Diplo Director: Nisha Ganatra Screenwriter: Flora Greeson Distributor: Focus Features Running Time: 113 min Rating: PG-13 Year: 2020
Review: In Darya Zhuk's Crystal Swan, Touching Is Dreaming
Throughout the film, it's as if mundane objects hold the remedies for the wretchedness of everyday life.3
Darya Zhuk's 1990s-set Crystal Swan centers around Velya (Alina Nasibullina), a young woman who refuses to conform to the provincial miserabilism of Belarusian life. Being a DJ, house music provides her with some much-needed escapism, but she dreams of fleeing to America—or, at least, a fantasy of America where every kid has their own bedroom and parents knock before they come in. That's the antithesis of Velya's life in Minsk, where her mother (Svetlana Anikey) spends her days chastising Velya and mourning the troubles caused by the collapse of communism: no money, no pension, no rules.
In order to obtain a tourist visa, Velya needs to show the American embassy that she has strong links to her place of residence. The jobless young woman pretends, then, that she's a manager at a crystal-making factory, putting down a fake number for the workplace on the application form. But when she's told that the embassy will call her back in the next few days, Velya rushes to find the home associated with the random number she made up.
Eventually, Velya discovers that the number belongs to a family in the countryside who are in the midst of making preparations for the wedding of their eldest son, Stepan (Ivan Mulin), a bitter young man traumatized by his days in the army and resigned to marrying a woman he doesn't love. Velya ends up spending the next two days with the dysfunctional family as she tries to convince them to lie for her when the embassy calls. The presence of a weird girl from Minsk trying to use the supposed simpletons so she can flee to America makes some in the family resent her and others to question their previously held truths, as if Velya brought with her from the big city the prickly reminder that resignation is not all there is to life.
Zhuk crafts an exquisite tale of doom and gloom colored by a farcical ethos, from Velya's no-holds-barred audacity and kookiness (shades of Madonna in Desperately Seeking Susan) to the physical comedy-derived drunkenness as the lingua franca of family get-togethers. But the film's most remarkable quality is perhaps the way Zhuk so delicately arranges these two currents—namely, the more absurd elements that initiate the film and the progressively visceral sequences where Velya might as well be the little girl with the dead cat in Sátántangó, a much more nihilistic take on post-Soviet desolation. In the latter moments, Velya assumes the position of the terrified child watching the pathetic theater of her elders through the window, and the desolate future that awaits her if she doesn't run for the hills.
Crystal Swan is also rich in analogical pleasures, which are rooted in the film's narrative premise and rife with metaphorical possibilities, as in the way Zhuk pays special attention to the materiality of '90s objects and the sounds they make. The entire plot revolves around a telephone that will supposedly ring. But when and if it does, will Velya be there to answer it? Will anyone be around to hear it? Bulky phonebooths, posters on teenager's walls, the mechanical clicking of a photo camera—none of it feels like anodyne technological kinks.
When a VHS tape gets stuck in a VCR, people are forced to go outside and play. Cassette tapes appear as a potentially radical archive passed on to Stepan's younger brother, Kostya (Ilya Kapanets), who may think twice—thanks to the liberating power of house music—about the naturalization of violence. It's as if mundane objects hold the remedies for the wretchedness of everyday life. How they work and how they break appear as opportunities for daring to seize the possibility of going elsewhere and for debunking supposedly irreversible things.
Cast: Alina Nasibullina, Ivan Mulin, Yuriy Borisov, Svetlana Anikey, Ilya Kapanets, Anastasia Garvey, Lyudmila Razumova Director: Darya Zhuk Screenwriter: Helga Landauer, Darya Zhuk Running Time: 94 min Rating: NR Year: 2018
Review: The Lovebirds Is Weighed Down by Plot Incident and Silly Twists
Once the film shifts into a broader comedic register, it no longer capitalizes on Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae's gift for gab.2
Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) and Leilani (Issa Rae) are past the honeymoon phase depicted in the brief prologue to The Lovebirds. When we pick up with them four years later, they're in the midst of a heated argument that, after some time, reveals itself to be about something far more petty than it first appears: whether they can win The Amazing Race.
At its best, Michael Showalter's film revels in loose, digressive humor, as in a scene where Jibran and Leilani discuss the differences between a gangbang and an orgy. The couple is playful and clever in equal measure, yet every fight between them confirms that their relationship is past its due date. That is, until an encounter with a killer cop (Paul Sparks) on their way to a friend's party that makes them realize that they're better off together—at least until they can exonerate themselves for the crime that will likely be pinned on them.
The film's opening act banks heavily on the chemistry between Nanjiani and Rae, who effortlessly bounce witty, seemingly improvised lines off one another. Throughout, you don't doubt that their characters are still very much in love, even as you understand that they've grown tired of dealing with each other's shortcomings. When the film rests primarily on Nanjiani and Rae's verbal riffing, it's quite winning and consistent in delivering jokes that are not only funny, but also speak to the root causes of Jibran and Leilani's personality clashes.
While it's initially content to keep its focus on the bickering duo as they continue to drive each other mad while trying to solve the murder they witnessed, The Lovebirds regrettably becomes weighed down by plot incident and silly twists. The film foists the couple into a bizarre underworld of political corruption, widespread blackmail, and sex cults, shifting into a significantly broader comedic register that no longer capitalizes on its stars' gift for gab. As Jibran and Leilani's relationship woes progressively take a back seat to the formulaic unfolding of a needlessly convoluted, and rather dull, mystery, The Lovebirds slowly derails as it settles into the predictable patterns of many of the action rom-coms that have come before it.
Cast: Kumail Nanjiani, Issa Rae, Paul Sparks, Anna Camp, Kyle Bornheimer, Catherine Cohen, Barry Rothbart, Andrene Ward-Hammond, Moses Storm Director: Michael Showalter Screenwriter: Aaron Abrams, Brendan Gall Distributor: Netflix Running Time: 87 min Rating: R Year: 2020
Review: The Painter and the Thief Suggests an Intimate Hall of Mirrors
Throughout the documentary, Benjamin Ree upsets conventions, offering a moving portrait of two lost souls.3
For The Painter and the Thief, director Benjamin Ree filmed Oslo-based painter Barbora Kysilkova for three years as she befriended Karl-Bertil Nordland, a drug addict who was convicted of stealing two of her paintings from a museum. The documentary initially thrives on forms of misdirection, as Ree allows us to believe that we're watching a traditional study of contrasts: between an established professional woman and a tormented bad boy. We're also led to assume, potentially by our own prejudices, that Kysilkova will be the film's central consciousness, with Nordland as an intimidating and remote "other." Through skillful chronological scrambling that consistently redefines moments, underscoring the subjectivity of each person, Ree upsets these conventions, offering a moving portrait of two lost souls.
The Painter and the Thief suggests an intimate hall of mirrors, in which artistic creation parallels addiction. Kysilkova responds to Nordland's life force, basing several drawings on him, while Ree utilizes them both for his cinema, while Nordland at times consumes drugs, particularly during a painful relapse. No person is singularly understood as being "used" here, as the various relationships are symbiotic, with Nordland's addiction suggesting a substitute for the intoxication that Kysilkova and Ree achieve through art-making. Nordland has the soul of an artist as well, as he's sensitive, observant, and given to poetic observations, suggesting a vessel who's looking for a purpose, which Ree and Kysilkova each provide. (You may wish that Ree had brought himself more into his own frames, adding another mirror and deepening the film's auto-critical texture in the tradition of, say, Robert Greene's work, but Ree probably, and understandably, didn't wish to distract from his commanding subjects.)
In a primordially powerful moment, Nordland weeps when he sees the first photoreal canvas that Kysilkova has rendered of him, as she's turned him into an elegant man in a white hoodie swishing a glass of red wine. In her lifelike yet slightly stylized paintings, Kysilkova physicalizes Nordland's dreams of stability and respectability, granting him the gift of her attention. The paintings allow Nordland to enter a world he felt beyond him, symbolically rejoining community after years of the semi-isolation that's fostered by addiction. Little of these impressions are directly expressed, which would dilute the spell, but Ree's intimate compositions allow us to feel as if we can read the stirrings of Kysilkova and Nordland's souls.
We first see the thief through the painter's eyes. Tall, with a lean, tatted-up frame, Nordland is charismatic and sexy, suggesting an outlaw version of actor Timothy Olyphant. There's something else about Nordland that perhaps only people with experience with addiction will be especially alive to: His visceral emotional pain suggests a perpetual atonement for his wrongdoings, and this atonement suggest the potential for transcendence, which appeals to artists and people with savior complexes, such as Kysilkova.
Transcendence arrives much later when Nordland goes to prison for another crime, after a lengthy stay in a hospital for a car accident that nearly killed him, and gradually cleans up, grows out a beard, and puts flesh as well as muscle on his body. Nordland is a stubborn survivor who's willing to suffer for the camera and canvas alike; he's volatile, profoundly lucky, and seems to achieve a hard-won grace. Drinking coffee with Kysilkova near the end of The Painter and the Thief, he's softer, cuddlier, and less threatening that he was before prison, and, rediscovering carpentry, he's even becoming an artist. At a certain point in the film, Nordland resembles less a subject of Kysilkova's than an old coconspirator.
The viewer also sees the painter through the thief's eyes, though these alternating perspectives harmonize as Ree continues to hopscotch around in time, offering more context and allowing us to grow to love both people equally. While Kysilkova sees Nordland, Ree sees both of them, to whom he has astonishing access. Meanwhile, Nordland also sees more of Kysilkova than she probably knows, as Ree has an acute understanding of how people can damn near smell one another's pain, finding their own emotional water level. Kysilkova was once abused by a boyfriend and fled to Oslo to escape him. Devastated, she gave up painting for a while until a new boyfriend helped to rehabilitate her self-confidence. And the first painting she created upon her rebirth, "Swan Song," is one of the ones that Nordland stole with an accomplice who wasn't caught. This resonance is almost too good to be true, as Nordland almost literally accessed the secret heart of Kysilkova's torment.
One of the film's most palpable tensions is pointedly undiscussed. Kysilkova and Nordland appear to be attracted to one another, and they touch and converse with the sort of casual sureness that usually arises from sustained romance. Perhaps Ree believes that the distinction between a sexual and artistic union is unimportant or none of our business, though Kysilkova's boyfriend is clearly concerned at times. And maybe the distinction doesn't matter, as Kysilkova and Nordland have enjoyed a relationship that seems to have healed them, allowing them to face their gnawing hatred of themselves. Whatever labels are applied and whatever other additional actions were taken, Ree has caught a love story in a bottle.
Regardless of their romantic status, The Painter and the Thief ends with an unmistakable consummation: on a medium shot of Kysilkova's painting of the pair laying intimately on a couch together, Kysilkova's face replacing that of Nordland's ex-girlfriend, the actual model for the painting. This is a projection of Kysilkova's, perhaps of a desire she won't or can't actualize, which she instead utilizes to fashion a beguiling, idealized communion. In this canvas, the various social distinctions between Kysilkova and Nordland have been obliterated. Ree has enabled two people to broker a connection on camera in front of us. To capture such a birth, or to at least appear to, is to perform a kind of magic act.
Director: Benjamin Ree Distributor: Neon Running Time: 102 min Rating: NR Year: 2020
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GermanWineInstitute necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 98 diseños de 35 diseñadores freelance.
Höhepunkt der Weinkultur
The German Wine Institute (Deutsches Weininstitut) is the national promotion board for all German wines with offices in 13 countries. Our aim is to improve the knowledge about and the image of German wines at home and world wide. Riesling and Pinot Noir (Spätburgunder) are our "dream team".
Wine tourism has become more and more important and we want to draw the attention of wine interested tourists to our spectacular wine-growing regions by singling out 52 landmarks they HAVE TO visit when they come to Germany.
For any further information please contact Steffen Schindler at firstname.lastname@example.com (English, French, German welcome).
Tourists who visit Germany's 13 wine-growing regions and who need guidance on what to visit.
Next year, the German Wine Institute will launch its project "Höhepunkte der Weinkultur" (Landmarks of Wine Culture). The aim is to choose 52 sights in Germany's wine-growing regions and to promote them as landmarks for Germany's viticulture and as favourite destinations for wine-tourists. These 52 wine-highlights will all receive the title "Höhepunkt der Weinkultur" and they will be allowed to use the official logo in all their printing material and ideally even at the landmark itself in the form of a plaque. The logo will also be used in wine-guides, brochures, on the internet, in the German wine atlas, etc.
The logo has to bear the term "Höhepunkt der Weinkultur" and has to allude to (German) wine, to wine-culture and ideally (optional) also to Germany as a country. The logo should have a very modern appeal and should not be overly traditional when it comes to wine-imagery (old-fashioned wine glasses and the like).
Ideally the logo also works in a very small printed version, e.g. in an atlas or a map, and it could even be used on a rubber stamp.
For any further information please contact Steffen Schindler at firstname.lastname@example.com (English, German, French welcome).
We need a logo in colour and B/W versions. The logo has to be finalized by the end of the year 2009.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
When Chris Paton came to Toronto last year to speaker at a full day workshop, my plans didn't allow me to attend the meeting, but I will be at the British Isles Family History Society of Greater Ottawa in Ottawa at their conference this fall because Chris will be the featured speaker!
I can hardly wait since my maiden name is BARCLAY from Cleish, Kinrossshire, Scotland, and I have been doing research on the Barclay's in the area for 20 years.
I must say a few words about the BIFHSGO conference – I believe it is the best Anglo-Celtic conference held in North America today.
I have attended every conference for the past 6 years, and I have come away from every conference with a new way to look at doing research on a particular subject, I have had delightful talks with fellow genealogists, and the size, and variety in their marketplace is outstanding!
If you are able to come to the conference, it will be held from Sept 14 to the 16 of September, 2012 at the Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa.
Go to http://bifhsgo.ca/


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Moderator: gmattson
A focus is a bit like a rudder ,but it only takes on that rudder like effect when mind body and spirit work as one ,a aim of sanchin
"To be aware is to watch your bodily activity, the way you walk, the way you sit, the movements of your hands; it is to hear the words you use, to observe all your thoughts, all your emotions, all your reactions. It includes awareness of the unconscious, with its traditions, its instinctual knowledge, and the immense sorrow it has accumulated – not only personal sorrow, but the sorrow of man. You have to be aware of all that; and you cannot be aware of it if you are merely judging, evaluating, saying, "This is good and that is bad, this I will keep and that I will reject," all of which only makes the mind dull, insensitive.
From awareness comes attention. Attention flows from awareness when in that awareness there is no choice, no personal choosing, no experiencing … but merely observing. And to observe you must have in the mind a great deal of space. A mind that is caught in ambition, greed, envy, in the pursuit of pleasure and self-fulfillment, with its inevitable sorrow, pain, despair, anguish, such a mind has no space in which to observe, to attend. It is crowded with its own desires, going round and round in its own backwaters of reaction. You cannot attend if your mind is not highly sensitive, sharp, reasonable, logical, sane, healthy, without the slightest shadow of neuroticism. The mind has to explore every corner of itself, leaving no spot uncovered, because if there is a single dark corner of one's mind which one is afraid to explore, from that springs illusion …
It is only in the state of attention that you can be a light unto yourself, and then every action of your daily life springs from that light – every action – whether you are doing your job, cooking, going for a walk, mending clothes, or what you will. This whole process is meditation …"
J. Krishnamurti
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text:
Q: How long have you been involved in martial arts?
A: I've been studying martial arts for over the last 30 years. I started teaching in the Emerald Coast when I moved here in 2000, and opened my full-time academy Centerline Martial Arts in Miramar Beach in 2007.
Q: What types of programs do you offer?
A: We offer Wing Chun Kung Fu, Kickboxing, Jiu-Jitsu, Youth Defense, Bi Monthly Free Women's Self Defense, and annual training trips to Hong Kong and China. We have a great staff teaching classes and private lessons six days a week on both practicing and competitive levels.
Q: Did you say trips to Hong Kong?
A: Yes every year I take students with me to Hong Kong and China to train with my colleagues and my teacher Ip Ching. There's actually a movie out in theaters now about my teacher�s father Ip Man, called "The Grandmaster." I haven't seen it yet. But I hear wonderful things.
Q: Can you tell me about any awards or accomplishments you have have achieved?
A: Sure. In 2002 I was invited as a U.S. representative for the opening of the Ip Man Tong in Foshan, China, and my name was entered into the museum. Shinja Martial Arts University awarded me Wing Chun Instructor of the Year for 2011 and 2012. Action Martial Magazine awarded me in 2012 for my contributions to martial arts. And this year I was entered in the Black Belt Hall of Fame 2013 through Eastern International Martial Arts Association.
Q: What would a potential student expect from your teaching style.
A: I teach all walks of life, so I try to teach each student as an individual based on their personality. I strive hard to get the information to people in an easy to understand method so they see results quickly. Although that is down to how hard the student practices. And I'm big on putting the work in. I'm also very big on family. There are different martial arts styles taught here, but everyone is one big family. We spend a lot of time together outside of the gym as we do in the gym. This is very important to building relationships with your classmates. Another thing they can expect is giving back to the community. We just finished a food drive for Harvest House of Destin last month. There's a lot more to martial arts than punching and kicking. I tell my youth class a Shaolin saying all the time. "Weak mind, weak fist. Strong mind, no need fist." The study of martial arts should ultimately teach how to be a better person.
Q: How would people contact you if they wanted more information
A: They can visit my website and www.centerlinewingchun.com. Or they can come by the academy at 10859 Emerald Coast Pkwy. Suite 403. Behind the IHOP in Miramar Beach.


text:
From GENE LOGSDON
Relax, fellow farmers and gardeners. From now on everything is going to come up roses and sunshine. A magical and mysterious soil has been discovered deep in the Amazon (roll of drums, please) that will double and triple your yields and grow tomatoes as big as basketballs. Not only that but this soil will sequester enough carbon to keep us warm through the entire coming ice age. Lean your ear close while I whisper to you the magic phrase. Shhhhh. Terra preta. Dark earth. In the ancient cities of El Dorado days, it meant salvation. For awhile.
And now you can have some for your very own garden.
I am sort of making fun of terra preta because of the money-mongers who would like to make a fortune selling the stuff to gullible Americans, but the story of this miracle soil really is amazing. Deep in the South American rain forest area there really are deposits of a mysterious soil as much as six feet deep in some places spread over thousands of acres. That of itself might not be remarkable, but anthropologists are almost certain that all of it, or at least most of it, was created by human beings in the centuries before Columbus blundered upon the American continent.
Actually there's nothing much magical about terra preta beyond the fact that it was man-made. Archaeologists reason that it is the burned, or charred municipal wastes of lost civilizations whose populations numbered in the millions and who are now thought to have been very advanced. The black, sometimes brown, soil was made by burning food wastes, human and animal excrement, and a whole lot of wood. It is full of broken pottery shards which lends credence to the idea that it was originally municipal waste. Farmers who own deposits of it today still grow good crops on it.
Deposits of terra preta stand in stark contrast to the normal rain forest soil around them. The latter is shallow and of low fertility. Evidently, far back in history, humans figured out how to supplant these natural soils with terra preta, composting and burning their own wastes to do it. In that way they were able to meet the food demands of rising populations.
This magic soil is mostly charcoal, and scientists and entrepreneurs are making a new version of it which they call bio-char. You can find some for sale on the Internet. You can make your own by adding activated charcoal to compost or potting soil. The charcoal does make the soil more porous so that it will hold more nutrients and keep the soil more stable. It also will sequester carbon if you don't subtract all the carbon emission created by burning wood to make charcoal. Soil scientists tell me not to get too excited about terra preta because while it is much richer than the rain forest soils of the Amazon region, our soils, especially our rich cornbelt soils, don't need charcoal, or bio-char, at least not yet. In fact, the hot temperatures necessary for making bio-char volatilizes all the nitrogen out of it and so nitrogen fertilizer has to be added to it, sort of like when you use wood ashes for fertilizer. It is really more practical, soil scientists say, to make one's own terra preta by composting organic wastes into humus in the usual way. Do it for ten thousand years and you will end up with deposits of mysteriously rich terra preta six feet deep.
So what happened to those marvelous farmers of the past who figured out how to make soil that could support high human populations? Many historians say it all ended because of the diseases that Spanish explorers brought to the American continent. But that is disputed because civilizations rose and fell several times before any Europeans arrived. It seems more probably that population growth kept outrunning the society's ability to make more terra preta fast enough to keep up. The population crashed, then slowly increased again, with a new civilization adding more terra preta before it too over-populated, and that process repeating itself unto death do us part.
The Chinese with their careful utilization of all organic wastes were able to sustain a very high population density for something like forty centuries. But eventually they felt forced to make laws limiting family size to one child.
Terra preta does lead to all kinds of speculation. Maybe we should start char-burning our landfills to make fertilizer. Some municipal waste burning is being tried to generate energy. Maybe in 15 centuries our mountains of trash will be rich deposits of terra preta type soils. And all those humanoid creatures from other planets will be poking through them and wondering how our lost civilization could have been so smart as to create something so wonderfully fertile.


text:
Web Development
Associated article: Building RIAs on J2EE Foundations
Tags: Web Development Tools JVM Languages Design
Published source code accompanying the article by Joe Rinehart in which he uses ColdFusion 8 to build a RIA app called "TaskList". Also see TASKLIST.ZIP.
Building RIAs on J2EE Foundations by Joe Rinehart Listing One package com.firemoss.tasks.model { import mx.utils.UIDUtil; // Alias'd to server-side class / component [RemoteClass(alias="com.firemoss.tasks.model.Task")] // Bindable makes this class a subject ...


text:
Print all environment variables, including hidden ones
for _a in {A..Z} {a..z};do _z=${!${_a}*};for _i in `eval echo "${_z}"`;do echo -e "$_i: ${!_i}";done;done|cat -Tsv
This uses some tricks I found while reading the bash man page to enumerate and display all the current environment variables, including those not listed by the 'env' command which according to the bash docs are more for internal use by BASH. The main trick is the way bash will list all environment variable names when performing expansion on ${!A*}. Then the eval builtin makes it work in a loop.
I created a function for this and use it instead of env. (by aliasing env).
This is the function that given any parameters lists the variables that start with it. So 'aae B' would list all env variables starting wit B. And 'aae {A..Z} {a..z}' would list all variables starting with any letter of the alphabet. And 'aae TERM' would list all variables starting with TERM.
aae(){ local __a __i __z;for __a in "$@";do __z=${!${__a}*};for __i in `eval echo "${__z}"`;do echo -e "$__i: ${!__i}";done;done; }
And my printenv replacement is:
alias env='aae {A..Z} {a..z} "_"|sort|cat -v 2>&1 | sed "s/\^\[/\ ?33/g"'
From: http://www.askapache.com/linux-unix/bash_profile-functions-advanced-shell.html
* View this command to comment, vote or add to favourites * View all commands by AskApache
by David Winterbottom (codeinthehole.com)
URL: http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/view/6899/print-all-environment-variables-including-hidden-ones
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text:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, is airing a television advertisement that claims Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., has voted to continue a government shutdown to secure himself a "special subsidy" under the federal health care law.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Dardanelle, is airing a television advertisement that claims Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., has voted to continue a government shutdown to secure himself a "special subsidy" under the federal health care law.
Cotton for Senate said it has spent $67,845 for the 30-second television advertisement to run this week on broadcast and cable networks in Little Rock.
The television spot highlights two votes cast by Pryor. He was one of 60 Democrats to approve the Affordable Care Act in 2009 — all the votes were needed to pass. Also, last month Pryor voted to "table" a House-approved resolution to temporarily fund the government and strip members of Congress and staff of federal employee health subsidies.
Jeff Weaver, campaign manager for Pryor, pointed to a PolitiFact.com analysis that called it a false claim to say Congress is receiving a special deal.
"Only Congressman Cotton is arrogant enough to think that Arkansans won't see his blatantly false political attack for what it is: a weak attempt to distract from his irresponsible votes to gut Social Security and Medicare, kill the Farm Bill and end affordable student loans on behalf of his Washington special interest handlers," Weaver said.
Cotton is challenging Pryor's bid for a third term in the Senate.
In a press release announcing the ad campaign, the Cotton for Senate campaign said that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is "already wreaking havoc on Arkansas" even as Pryor praises it as "an amazing success story."
"What he won't tell you is that while he was the deciding vote for Obamacare and has forced that flawed law on Arkansans, he supported a special subsidy and exemption for Congress. Now he has gone so far as to vote for a government shut down in order to keep his special Obamacare subsidy."
The PolitiFact "Truth-o-meter" said that in reality Congress and their staff are the only Americans required to obtain health insurance by the government exchanges. And, the "sweetheart deal" is simply to have the government — as employer — pick up its share of the cost of health insurance, as it does for other federal workers.
During debate on the Affordable Care Act in 2009, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, proposed an amendment to require Congress to get its health insurance through the government exchanges.
While his idea was to have Congress experience the law, it was not his intent to have members lose the employer subsidy. Grassley blamed staff for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for improperly drafting his proposal.
The text of the law is silent about the employer subsidy and has been interpreted by Republicans to mean that it should not be available. The Office of Personnel Management, however, has issued a rule that would allow the employer subsidy to be made.
Democrats used the "Grassley amendment" to slam some Republicans during the 2012 campaign who voted to repeal Obamacare. They claimed, at the time, that a vote to repeal the law was a vote to give members of Congress "taxpayer-funded health care for life."


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Course Information
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Admission Process
Students who wish to obtain admission should apply in the prescribed form, which can be obtained from the college office against payment. Application forms may also be downloaded from the website.
Completed applications will marks duly entered and attested should be handed over in person to the college office and a registration receipt could be obtained.
Students residing outside the city may send the completed application by post duly affixing Rs. 6/- postage stamp on each card attached to the application for sending the registration receipt.
The last date for receipt of application from the U G Courses is the 10th day after the publication of the Higher Secondary School examination results of Government of Tamil Nadu and for the PG. Course the 10th day after the publication of B.A/B.Sc./B.Com results of the University of Madras.
An Applicant provisionally selected for admission will be called for an interview with the Principal. The parent or guardian should be present at the time of interview. A call for the interview does not necessarily ensure admission. At the time of interview the candidate should produce all the relevant certificates in original as mentioned in the interview card.
Selected students are advised to keep with them sufficient number of true copies of their original certificates. The original certificates will not be returned to them before the completion of their course of study.
Foreign students should provide a regular, long term student visa issued by respective Indian Embassy.
All admissions provisional and are subject to the approval of the University of Madras. Every Selected student should follow the code of conduct, prescribed by the college and the Government.


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In her biweekly vlog, lesbian shamanic healer and witch Giana Cicchelli examines different aspects of shamanism and fields your questions about spirituality.
In this episode, Giana discusses how magick works and shares some ideas about how to use it to help you talk to women.
A psychic, healer, artist, and professor, Giana Cicchelli is constantly looking to learn new modalities of spiritual practice and to weave them all into her mystical understanding of the Universe. Currently residing in the Valley of Los Angeles, you can find her at The Green Man Store in North Hollywood for readings, healings, or classes in Peruvian shamanism. When school is in session, she is a Sociology professor at Fullerton and Santa Ana College, in Orange County. Follow her her on Twitter @MysticGiana, Facebook, YouTube and visit her website at gianacicchelli.com. Please leave your suggestions for future episodes topics in the comments below!


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As the closing minutes of the Chicago Bears' latest loss ticked away, Jay Cutler was long gone, having missed most of the final three quarters with a groin injury.
Linebacker Lance Briggs and cornerback Charles Tillman stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the sideline, arms crossed and helmets off. Also hurt, they were able only to watch -- and not help -- as teammates tried to stop Robert Griffin III and the rest of the Washington Redskins' offense.
While Josh McCown did yeoman's work substituting for Cutler, Chicago's defense was too tired and in tatters to really stand much of a chance, and the Bears lost to the Redskins 45-41 Sunday. The most pressing question afterward was how long Cutler will be out, and coach Marc Trestman wasn't sure.
Asked how seriously Cutler was injured, Trestman replied: "I don't have any sense at all. I'm just going to wait and see what the doctors say."
Cutler is scheduled to have an MRI exam Monday.
"He'll be evaluated when we get back and we'll know more in the next couple days," Trestman said.
The Bears (4-3) have lost three of the past four games, and their bye week could hardly be coming at a better time. In addition to Cutler, key defensive players Briggs (shoulder) and Tillman (knee) left in the second half.
"You can't make excuses, but it's going to help. We're going to be a fresher team, certainly, when we come out of this break," Trestman said.
Cutler was sacked by 333-pound nose tackle Chris Baker with about 10 minutes left in the first half. Cutler stayed down for a few minutes, clutching at the top of his left leg.
Eventually, Cutler got up and limped off. He soon was walking gingerly toward the visitors' locker room and didn't return.
"When you're close to somebody, and they get hurt, man, your heart just kind of sinks, but at the same time, you've got to process that emotion and move on and get ready to play," McCown said. "So I was bummed, said a prayer, grabbed a helmet, got some throws and got ready to play."
It was McCown's first appearance in a regular-season NFL game since the final week of the 2011 season, and he did it without the benefit of any first-team practice reps since this season began.
"He's been around the game a lot in this league," Trestman said. "He functioned like a starting quarterback when he stepped in there."
McCown was 14 for 20 for 204 yards, with one touchdown pass and zero interceptions.
"Josh took over the huddle, moved the football team. ... I didn't ask him what he liked; what he didn't like. I just called the plays according to the plan we had put together," Trestman said. "I thought he functioned very well in the offense."
McCown's 7-yard touchdown toss to tight end Martellus Bennett put Chicago ahead 41-38 with a little under four minutes remaining in the game. Robert Griffin III then led Washington on a drive capped by a 3-yard TD run by Roy Helu Jr. for the go-ahead points.
McCown also ran four times for 33 yards.
That scrambling did make some teammates nervous: The Bears do not have a third quarterback on the roster. If McCown had needed to leave the game, Bennett would have been the next option, Trestman said.
"You see them talking to Earl and kind of getting him ready, and I'm like, 'Oh, yeah, there's nobody else,'" McCown said.
He and Trestman said the quick-strike passing game that worked well for McCown was part of the game plan against the Redskins all along, and was not an adjustment made when the backup QB went in.
"I have to give him credit," Redskins coach Mike Shanahan said. "He made some good plays when guys were covered."
Still, the change affected things.
"When your starting quarterback goes down, and you are used to him playing, it kind of does something mentally to you," Bears running back Matt Forte said.
Before leaving, Cutler was 3 for 8 for 28 yards and an interception that was returned for a touchdown by linebacker Brian Orakpo.
"Actually, when you knock a starter out in this league, you expect to dominate the backup, not vice versa — knock the starter out and the backup comes in and lights you up," Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall said.
McCown was asked what differences there are between his skills and Cutler's.
"Have you seen him throw?" McCown said with a grin. "Obviously, there's a difference with the velocity at which the ball travels when Jay throws it and when I throw it. We have to play the game in different ways."
Notes: Tillman intercepted Griffin in the first half. ... Redskins S Reed Doughty got a concussion. ... Bears KR Devin Hester tied Hall of Famer Deion Sanders' NFL record with his 19th return for a touchdown, bringing back a punt 81 yards in the second quarter. Hester hadn't scored on a return since Nov. 13, 2011. ... Bears PK Robbie Gould missed a 34-yard field-goal attempt in the third quarter.


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A mystery! Saints sorrowing and Jesus glad!
'Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe; nevertheless let us go unto him.' John 11:14–15
Suggested Further Reading: 2 Thessalonians 1:1–4
Jesus is talking of the death of his friend; let us listen to his words; perhaps we may find the key to his actions in the words of his lips. How surprising! He does not say, 'I regret that I have tarried so long.' He does not say, 'I ought to have hastened, but even now it is not too late.' Hear and marvel! Wonder of wonders, he says, 'I am glad that I was not there.' Glad? The word is out of place. Lazarus, by this time, is stinking in his tomb, and here is the Saviour glad! Martha and Mary are weeping their eyes out for sorrow, and yet their friend Jesus is glad. It is strange, it is passing strange. However, we may rest assured that Jesus knows better than we do, and our faith may therefore sit still and try to spell out his meaning, where our reason cannot find it at the first glance. 'I am glad,' says he, 'for your sakes that I was not there, to the intent ye may believe.' We see it now: Christ is not glad because of sorrow, but only on account of the result of it. He knew that this temporary trial would help his disciples to a greater faith, and he so prizes their growth in faith that he is even glad of the sorrow which occasions it. He does as good as say, 'I am glad for your sakes that I was not there to prevent the trouble, for now that it is come, it will teach you to believe in me, and this shall be much better for you than to have been spared the affliction.' We have thus plainly before us the principle, that our Lord in his infinite wisdom and superabundant love, sets so high a value upon his people's faith, that he will not screen them from those trials by which faith is strengthened.
For meditation: While we may find the individual ingredients which test our faith distasteful, we also should learn to rejoice in the hope of tasting the finished product (Romans 5:2–5; Hebrews 12:11;James 1:2–4; 1 Peter 1:5–7).
Sermon no. 585 7 August (1864)
All the rights belong to the collections of Charles Spurgeon(C)


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Rate : Euro 550/person
Participant : Minimum 2 person
Duration : 05 Days 04 Nights
Flores Overland Adventure Tours 05 Days 04 Nights
Day LABUANBAJO-RUTENG (-/L/D)
After lunch a local restaurant for lunch. Then drive to Ruteng with stops in Cancar to view the spider web style rice terraces and Ruteng Puu traditional village. Late afternoon arriving in Rueng and check in at Dahlia Hotel for dinner and ovenight.
Rate : Euro 600/person
Participant : Minimum 2 person
Duration : 06 Days 05 Nights
Flores Adventure Overland Tours 06 Days 05 Nights
On arrival at Airport of Labuan Bajo, our guide will meet you then transfer to explore the distinct tribes in Flores Island (Mangarai, Bajawa, Lio, Sikka etc.), Drive overland to Ruteng – a cool and small town as the capital city of Manggarai Regency where major Mangarainese tribe dwelt. On the way stops will be made at Lembor and Cancar where you can enjoy the beautiful panorama of rice fields with lush and dry hills as the back ground, and other places according to local happenings. On arrival direct check-in at HOTEL DAHLIA or similar. Onto Ruteng Puu – Manggarainese traditional village to see their unique slander-shaped houses and be with local people. Return to hotel. (B,L,D)
Rate : Euro 650/person
Participant : Minimum 2 person
Duration : 07 Days 06 Nights
Flores Island Overland Adventure Tours 07 Days 06 Nights
On arrival at Airport of Labuan Bajo, our guide will meet you then transfer to GOLO HILLTOP HOTEL for accommodation. Afternoon half-day tour in down town of Labuan Bajo. (L,D)
Rate : Euro 850/person
Participant : Minimum 2 person
Duration : 08 Days 07 Nights
Komodo Dragons and Flores Exotic Tours 08 Days 07 Nights
Tour Itineraries:
Day 01. Denpasar – Labuan Bajo-Rinca Island
On arrival at Komodo Airport in Labuan Bajo west Flores, you will be met by our guide and direct transfer to the pier of Labuan Bajo for Rinca Island. Lunch will be provided on board, it takes about 2 hours to get the island of Komodo Dragon Rinca, start your trekking, walking through the typical dry forest, on the way, you will find not just the Dragons but also many wild animals like, Timor deers, wildbuffalo, long-tailed macaque and wild Boar also numerous of birds. A local ranger will lead you through this natural preservation. Dinner and Overnight on the boat.
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Some people call us 100% crazy about digital production. Could be. What we do know, is that we invented the digital LED-based technology and production process, and that our sole focus is to develop it in such a way that we can help your business become futureproof.
You'll find more about our products and services on our website. But in "Catch Up" we're sharing our insights, experience, data and forecasts. Just another way in which we want to help you deal with your challenges in labels, commercial and folding carton printing.
Is there an issue you'd like us to address here? Do let us know on
It will do this by showcasing high-quality large-format coffee table book cover and dust jacket production with the Xeikon CX500 five colours roll to roll configuration.
We all judge books by their covers – literally, that is. This article gives an overview of the binding and finishing options most commonly used today.
Meanwhile @Xeikon
The #fleXflow process is the corner stone of Xeikon's solution for pouch production delivering unique benefits.… https://t.co/PlCA9CLLrV
The perfect gift: 5 coffee table books to cherish forever
Want your next direct mail to be a hit with the crowd? We've lined up a top 5 of direct mail ideas that are bound to inspire you.
Not everyone is eager to adopt digital book printing technology. Are you torn by the offset versus digital dilemma? Let's settle this once and for all.
The e-book bubble pricked: print book sales are up!
While their purpose has often been questioned, dust jackets still adorn most hardcovers today.
While e-books did experience a surge in popularity around 2011, sales have been declining for several years in a row now. What made the e-book bubble burst?
The best thing about direct mail? If done right, it's fridge-worthy: recipients are so sold on the mail's graphic design or, even better, its call to action, that they stick the mailing on their fridge to remind themselves about it every day.
Direct mailing campaigns are still very much alive and kicking. More and more businesses are (re)introducing direct mailing into their marketing strategy, having noticed that the format's ROI is on the rise.


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Use our price match guarantee to obtain a lower price on any of our products. Contact Us to learn more! All our prices are in USD.
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Typically one could start looking with an oscilloscope to see what the Vcc voltage looks like and possibly how you have the arduino and motor ground wires routed to the negative terminal of the power source, they should not share the same conductor anywhere and be connected together only at the power supply. It can be solved but you have to have good tools to see what you are up against and what effect any changes you make have on the situation.Lefty
Chances are you have a common ground wire or ground loop or similar issue. Post a photo of your setup.
Can the motor supply drive the motor at full speed (ie directly connected, no transistor) without thevoltage falling below the nominal value? (ie is the power source up to the job?)Have you ensured _both_ power and ground wires to the motor circuit branch off before the 7805, that the 7805has suitable decoupling right next to it?


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Last Look - Summer 2014
"We are what we remember, and even when we invent, we write what we remember. Every line is a fragment of something else; that is the great collective project that we call culture. "
—Liner note on Granta magazine, issue 126
One balmy night, CC photographer/managing editor Don Green and I drove deep into William Andrew Robinson III's neighborhood. We were hot on a story about scrape racing and to get the goods we'd need to be right where that stuff usually unreeled. I don't know if this aberration is still in practice today, but then it was a compelling though obscure sub-stratum of the Kalifornia Kar Kulture.
An extension of the ever-popular low-rider technology, a scrape car was fitted with hydraulics rather than conventional suspension. Magnesium pads maybe half the thickness of a cigarette pack were stuck to the frame just behind the front wheels. At a predetermined moment, the driver would release the hydraulic pressure and bring the car to its knees. The front end flopped down and the pads kissed the tarmac, creating a furious shower of sparks, and so the best car produced the longest trail of white fire. Just a harmless, innocent goof, really, but a novel and spectacularly effective way of saying "we are here, can you see us now?" Currently, the infamous tagger continues this expression in a completely different way, but the message has not changed.
Don and I needed entre to this phenomenon, but that wasn't something two skinny, long-haired gremmies would be able to pick up outside the door on 8490 Sunset Boulevard. Green had had many encounters with Willie at a gas station owned by Ernie Nicholson (who raced a trick A/GS Barracuda) and had even shot his car for an American Racing advert because that's what hoops Big had on his undeniable Daytona. Don had attended USC so he knew the landscape fairly well, but we were also acutely aware that we'd be crossing an invisible line.
When I met Big Willie, it wasn't at a street race or at the sanctioned Terminal Island facility; it was at his "house" deep in South Central, the work-out room where he maintained his commanding physical presence. Robinson placed Sixth in the tall class in the Amateur Athletic Union's Mr. America contest in 1976. Quitters do not follow such a path. Willie was no quitter.
As you know, Willie wisely promoted organized drag racing as a way to unite people of all persuasions—African-American, white cats, Asians, Mexicans, skinheads, Nazis, and Muslims. Perhaps the most astounding aspect was persuading hard-core gang rivals to drop their gats and take aggression out on tarmac instead. On Friday and Saturday nights, he'd join dozens of others who had gathered at a lot on Crenshaw Boulevard before racing on deserted streets and deserted alleys as the L.A. County Street Racers. The cops, and soon Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, realized that the throng naturally gravitated to Willie. Eventually, his dream became sanitary and then acceptable—the National and International Brotherhood of Street Racers. Willie and his partner, Tomiko, left us way too soon, but the legacy endures.
So the gray boys came through his door unannounced, as if by fluke. When Willie saw us, he sat up from the bench, rolling his bull shoulders and neck. "How'd you get here," he asked calmly but incredulously. "You shouldn't be here. You really need an escort to get in here, you know?"
That's the only conversation that I can remember. Don Green told me that he has no memory of it at all. Obviously, we found out where the cars would be dropping that evening and headed out. I don't know if we had an escort in the car with us, if we were following his lead, or if we had none at all. I don't remember any of the action, but I can still feel the heat from that white-hot shower of disintegrating magnesium. We are what we remember.
—Ro McGonegal


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People who doubt evolution tend to have one main argument: "If evolution is true, why do we still see monkeys running around today, all chimp-like? Where are all the monkey-men I was promised?"
Well, if you or someone you know refuses to believe that organisms change over time without proof on a monkey-man level, here are a buttload of animals in the middle of getting their evolve on. Well, seven anyway.
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The mesmerizing 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo | Rear HD Pictures photograph below, is other parts of 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo editorial which is grouped within Nissan, Nissan Pulsar Nismo and posted at November 11, 2018.
2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo : 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo | Rear HD Pictures
The 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo is a hot compact hatchback with a sensational exterior style and is likewise performance-boosted. The Pulsar model began its production back in 2014 and is primarily offered in Europe where the hatchback sector is flowering. It is a cost effective car that is powered by a fuel-efficient drivetrain.
Nevertheless, after developing this model, Nissan selected a Nismo variation of a Pulsar model. Comparable to the Ford's "ST" and "RS" versions, Nismo model will see a great deal of premium features, sharper and muscular body-style and it will get a more effective engine too. The idea is currently showcased in Paris and quickly, the 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo will strike the dealers.
Here is foremost chapter on Nissan, Nissan Pulsar Nismo. We have the world class method for Nissan, Nissan Pulsar Nismo. Check it out for yourself! You can discover 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo | Rear HD Pictures guide and read the latest 2019 Nissan Pulsar Nismo.
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What does one do after taking a leave of absence from Google to incite a popular revolution in the Middle East?
Write a memoir about the experience of course.
Wael Ghonim, the Google executive who became the face of the Egyptian revolution in the west, said he wanted to write a book about his experiences during the popular uprising and now he has seen that dream come true.
The head of Google's marketing in the Middle East and Africa has signed a deal to publish "Revolution 2.0" with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The publisher announced the book is scheduled to come out next January.
Ghonim became one of the spokesman of the Egyptian uprising after he was detained by government authorities for his role in inciting the protests.
Mysterious tweets he sent sparked Google's interest enough to push for Ghonim's release, who became a media star after he was freed from jail.
Ghonim was credited with be one of the main founders of the revolution when he started a Facebook page in honor of a 28-year-old Egyptian man who was reportedly killed by Egyptian authorities.
Revolution 2.0 Gets a Publisher
What does one do after taking a leave of absence from Google to incite a popular revolution in the Middle East?


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Karastan's Manifesto collection exemplifies elegance with a stunning combinations of several Persian designs. Manifesto is timeless, with soft color pallets of creams, greys, and several neutrals mixed with accents of blues, mochas, and rusts. Machine-woven of pure wool in the USA, the designs are as practical as they are beautiful, with looks that are both comfortable and durable.
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