07.24.04
Posted in Good Stuff at 10:53 pm by Thomas
Saw this in the newspaper today in the morning and it made me laugh. Here in San Francisco we have some of the most consistent and hilarious weather forecasts…
For two months in summer we get thick morning fog that is then getting replaced by the most glorious sunshine in early afternoon… every day like clock work. I don’t even know why they bother to print a forecast every day.
And… “Highs: 60s to 90s” – that is pretty funny (for us metric people that is a range of 16C to 30C!).
Permalink
07.06.04
Posted in PhotoBlog: Found Film at 11:58 pm by Thomas
Here a picture from my latest Found Film:
Hold on to your helmet – and secure those pants, too!
This image was one of about 4 usable shots on a roll of Kodak Verichrome Pan 620 film, all the others were double exposures or destroyed when the camera was inadvertently opened.
The film came together with a Kodak Brownie camera and several unopened boxes of film. These boxes had expiration dates between 1960 and 1962, so it is a save assumption that this picture was taken sometime in the late 1950s.
It is another beautiful family moment, slowly starting a theme together with the earlier found films.
I have been wondering – and indeed I have been asked – why I care about these old films that are bouncing around eBay, undeveloped and unseen. For me there are several reasons why this is interesting. These films are like an archaeological dig into our recent past, unearthing small pieces of what is already a different century.
And on a very personal level, there is a lot of nostalgia bottled up in these films. These pictures are very similiar to all the photos in our own family albums, and through their anonymity they turn into a generic family history, showing typical moments that we can all identify with.
Permalink
Posted in Rants at 3:13 am by Thomas
Freedom is the basic building block of the United States. Freedom is what many American soldiers died for in many, many wars. Freedom is how most Americans will define their country if asked.
For many people around the world, Freedom IS the United States.
And now this is what happened at President Bush’s Independence Day party in Charleston, West Virginia:
Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn’t be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.
Is that Freedom?
Why is it, that stories like this one are not even found noteworthy? This is one small paragraph in a long article, but for me this is exactly what is right now going wrong in the United States.
This country is slowly sliding down a slippery slope, so slow and gradual that only very few people seem to notice what is going on. Today it is the people in the anti-Bush t-shirts. Then it’s the weirdos doing their save-the-tree meetings. Then it’s the swarthy-looking muslims. Then it’s the ones voting for the wrong party.
And then Freedom Was.
Permalink
07.05.04
Posted in Media at 1:38 am by Thomas
If you are interested in Japanese movies, you may want to check out Midnight Eye. This site features regular reviews, features about current trends in Japanese movies, and a calendar with upcoming releases.
Especially the reviews are worth going to the site – they are very comprehensive and some of the best you will find about movies from Japan.
Permalink
07.04.04
Posted in Media at 1:18 am by Thomas
After several months of very little reading I’ve been getting back into reading every evening for at least an hour or so… Last week I finished The Confusion by Neal Stephenson, his second book in the three-part Baroque Cycle.
While the first book, Quicksilver, left me wondering if I really want to work my way through another two 900-page novels full of dense historical details, this second book was a lot easier to read – more adventure, more exotic locations, less philosophical talk. Now I’m actually looking forward to the third book, The System of the World, which will be published this October.
And as proof that my reading habit is back in full force, I read all of Isaac Adamson’s Pachinko Dreaming in the last couple of days and this was really a pleasant surprise of a book… It was my first experience of Mr. Adamson’s writing and I want more! I’ll have to go out and get his first two novels as soon as possible.
Pachinko Dreaming is a wild ride though modern-day Tokyo, a multiple-murder mystery full of young girls living dangerously, fashionable hotels full of ghosts, swirling neon lights, Pachinko parlors, Yakuza goons and summer heat. I don’t know how much time Adamson has spent in Tokyo, but is sounds like a lot, since I haven’t seen any other author bringing Tokyo to life in such a vivid, fascinating way… makes me want to go back.
And just to avoid getting bored, I’ve started reading something completely different – Little World of Don Camillo by Giovanni Guareschi. This book has been out of print for decades, but I found an edition from the early 1950s through Amazon.
Don Camillo is a phenomenon that has escaped the US public alltogether, but I’m sure that it is impossible to find a German, French or Italian who hasn’t at least seen – and liked – one of the old movies from the 50s with the amazing Fernandel in the title role.
Don Camillo – both in the movies and the books – is a compilation of short vignettes of the life in an Italian village after the second world war, where the catholic priest and the communist mayor duke it out over who is boss… while being fully dependent on each other in their daily lives. Each story overlaps with the others to weave a colorful portrait of the village and its inhabitants, full of love and humanity.
Permalink
