Filed under: science
This time, the canary in the coal-mine is a bee.
Bee populations are plummeting across the US. Scientists are unsure as to why this is happening; what’s not in doubt is how much we depend on these kindly bugs:
From the NY Times article, Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril:
Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food,” said Zac Browning,
vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.
So hug a bee today (but not too tightly)
Filed under: movies
Now THIS would have dazzled on the Red Carpet…
As several comments have noted, we need more fashion daring at the Oscars. The dress pictured above, on the other hand, is unafraid to say “Someone please help me!”
I am tired of those Grecian yawns everyone had on – you know, tasteful, peachy folds, lime green chiffon and on and on…But the media have jumped on the Joan Rivers (and her minion daughter Melissa) bandwagon. Actresses live in terror of the Worst Dressed Oscar List, so everybody stays in the slow lane, nice and safe. Blah.
Next year I hope Cher gets nominated for Lifetime Achievement or Irving Thalburg award or something.
Filed under: movies
Ok, Helen Mirren rocks.! Her silvery lace matches her lovley hair. That’s how to do it ladies, young or old. Confidence, mystery, intelligence, and a bit of who-the-fuck-cares.
Sherry Lansing gets the humanitarian award…a long-time Hollywood big-wig, she ran Paramount for 12 years. Tom Crusie introduced her. He scares me.
Gwynyth Paltrow. Cream of tomato is the dress color. Do I like it? Guess so.
I’m in the pool and so far I am tanking with my choices. Pan’s Labyrynth is doing well – I loved the film just di not think it would do so well.
Jennifer Hudson is wearing a Romulan Cloaking Device on he rdress – and it has pockets. Bad gowns happen to good people.
And Cameron Diaz? What’s with her hair? I call it “dumpity Do” cuz didn’t she just break up with Justin Timberlake?
The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel is my most recent read. As Rick Moody says in his introduction to this collection, “It’s all about the sentences.” Boy can she write.
David Weich at Powells.com interviewed Hempel and here’s what she says about how hard it can be to write the “truth.”
And Later in the interview:
Filed under: politics
Last weekend The Washington Post ran an expose of horrific conditions at Walter Reed Hospital, which is supposed to treat wounded US soldiers. It’s great investigative journalism. Subscription is required for the Post, but it’s free.
An excerpt:
Filed under: cute dogs
Cross-posted from www.chestersdad.wordpress.com
Filed under: writing
Hi kids! Stu the scribbling gerbil here (or mouse? Hamster maybe? No clue). Anyhoo, I’ll be your host of “ScribbleTalk” here at my 99 cents. It’s the cozy spot where we meet now and then to drop our pencils and chitchat about writin’.
As a small rodent of some sort, I can’t say I read much. But I like pencils. Did you know that if you gnaw lightly on a pencil you’ll soon have enough shavings to construct a soft tiny nest?
But I digest.
Have a peek below at the first paragraph of Ms. Ohlin’s story. Good example of how to set the mood:
“It was a summer of disasters. I was sixteen and just starting to relax fully into my vacation when my father took my mother and me out to dinner at the New Chinatown and told us over the Kung Pao chicken that he had fallen in love with his law partner, Margaret, and the two of them were “going away for a while” to “sort things out.” While he was talking, he twisted a corner of the tablecloth into a ring in his right hand. My mother, leaning back in the corner of the booth, said, “Oh, for crying out loud.” She sounded annoyed. She was drinking a Mai Tai, as usual, and she had given me the umbrella, also as usual. Tonight’s was blue and I twirled it between my fingers. I was always pleasantly surprised that it really opened and closed, just like a real umbrella. I stuck it into a piece of my chicken and moved some baby carrots and water chestnuts into an arrangement around it, like small, edible patio furniture. No one said anything. I stared at the couple at the table next to us, who were sharing a Volcano, holding hands over the blue flame in the center of it. They saw me looking and loosed their hands as if they were embarrassed.”
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Till next time – keep scribblin!
Stu.
Filed under: movies
Pan’s Labyrinth is a film for anyone who preferred the older, scarier versions of fairy tales. You know, where Cinderalla’s step-sisters slice their feet up to make the glass slipper fit (and how does the Prince know they’re frauds? Why, the gushing blood of course!) . Or the version where Hansel and Gretel, turned out of their home to starve in the woods, barely escape the old woman’s oven.
Only feral, vaguely menacing woodland creatures and weird insect-fairies properly reflect the bewildering world of this beautiful, disturbing film, which looks at the horrors of fascist Spain in 1944 from a child’s perspective.
The young actress Ivana Baquero plays Ofelia, a little girl whose widowed mother has married a military Captain in Franco’s army. The (pregnant) mother and daughter find themselves re-settled in an abandoned mill converted into an anti-guerrilla outpost, with Ofelia’s new, brutal step-father in charge.
While this is a story about a child, it is not a movie for kids. The film is unsparing in its depiction of violence. An early scene where the Captain suspects two local farmers of subversion will have you squirming. This terrorism informs Ofelia’s dreamworld, filling it with wild, demanding and powerful spirits who she can just barely control. These imaginary bug-sprites, fauns and frog-demons allow her to overlay chaos and powerlessness with her own parallel narrative of heroism and adventure and possible escape. The movie also reveals how limited this defense is.
The best images? A mandrake root that squeels like a baby and which Ofelia uses in a spell to try and ease her mother’s dangerous pregnancy; a faun, stranger than anything this side of Jean Cocteau; the enormous, clicking dragon-fly that seems to follow Ofelia on her travels into the forest. A naked, nightmare figure who sits alone in a vast room, head down, waiting for children (this one will definately show up in my sleep).
See this movie, though I really mean it about the violence. The grave, dreamy Ofelia is wonderful, and its a fascinating exploration of the mysterious ways people re-imagine the world in order to survive it.
Next time on my 99 cents: My Oscar picks n pans (no labyrinths).
Don’t miss live-oscar-blogging from right here in my star-crossed apt on Sunday Feb 25th!
The biggest celebs will once again show for our infamous “99 cent after-party” (choke on that Vanity Fair)! The Shmoos will be here (score!). Even Britney can’t out-bald these…thingie blobs. And once they get drinkin? It’s cell-phone limo shots of panty-less Shmoos all over the tabloids, for sure.
I love Las Vegas and American Idol and lots of other trash TV.
But what is the deal with ‘24′? Why is it a hit? The episode I saw had that flat, fake-tough dialogue that makes every character sound the same. Kiefer Sutherland is a snore. Plot twists pile up but I didn’t see any moral complexity or irony in the show.
Also, the show depicts torture as something the good guys do often, and well.
I liked what James Wolcott of Vanity Fair had to say:
And really interesting New Yorker piece on ‘24′ by Jane Mayer here:
Any 24 fans who want to weigh in?
Does it matter what a TV show shows?
