Bande à part (Band of Outsiders). I didn’t dig this one very much, but at least watch the dance scene. I stopped paying full attention about half-way into it. This Criterion essay covers it well.

This is the Question, Charles Darwin writes at the top of the page. Each half of the page is a list brainstorming his two options with Emma Wedgewood:

To Marry…

Children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — —better than a dog anyhow. — Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — Forced to visit & receive relations but terrible loss of time. —

My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all. — No, no won’t do. — Imagine living all one’s day solitarily in smoky dirty London House. — Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good fire, & books & music perhaps — Compare this vision with the dingy reality of Grt. Marlbro’ St.

or Not Marry?

No children, (no second life), no one to care for one in old age.— What is the use of working without sympathy from near & dear friends—who are near & dear friends to the old, except relatives

Freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health to work too much)

Perhaps my wife wont like London; then the sentence is banishment & degradation into indolent, idle fool —

The final result:

Marry — Marry — Marry. Q.E.D.

He also goes on to wrestle with the question of marrying sooner vs. later. (via)

See also: lay it all out where you can look at it.

funnelthru:

xkcd: University Website

austinkleon:

“Work,” by John Engman, from Temporary Help

I wanted to be a rain salesman…but…I am paid to make the screen of my computer glow

Mary Karr on John Engman (she excerpted “Work” in her great memoir, Lit):

In prosperous America, the poet’s economic reality usually involves working a crap job while scribbling nightly in a cheap apartment. Before my pal John Engman suffered a brain aneurysm in his 40s, he toiled in such obscurity. He lived in Minnesota, bussed tables, did standup comedy for a while, taught a class or two at a local community center, but only published two books. From his long-time job as an aide in an adolescent psych ward came poems rich in pathos, each tinged with his signature irony.

wehr:

If the Earth Stood Still

This idea makes me all tingly. Imagine exploring all that new territory…

Saying grace before the barbeque dinner at the New Mexico Fair. Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940. Reproduction from color slide. Photo by Russell Lee. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress. Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943. Amazing how much better off we are, just 70 years later. (via)

Raging Bull. I expected that boxing would be much more central to this film, but it’s more of a story of jealousy and self-loathing punctuated with fights professional and domestic. Maybe the coolest thing is the use of slow-motion every now and then to emphasize a particular moment or emotional state. Maybe the most annoying thing is Italian-American tough guy/gangster talk – which maybe I’ve just been saturated with before. I wasn’t blown away with this movie – but, then again, I’m really curious how I’d feel if I saw it a second time. Make of that what you will.

Inception. This is a good movie. Worth seeing? Sure. Superlative? No. Interesting ideas and there’s enough ambiguity to puzzle over ‘til the End of Days. Five Ways of Looking at Inception is probably just the tip of the iceberg. The trouble was that I didn’t care much. My first reaction was “Inception: all muscle and nerves, no heart. Interesting but probably at least 48 minutes too long.” It kinda reminded me of the situation where a writer has an awesome essay and then later writes a book on the same topic. This movie was a book where an essay (i.e. short film) might have been a tighter, more engaging experience. Other assorted observations:

• I think the dark, corporate angle is legit. The idea of executive-level extraction-resistance training is a nice scifi hypothetical.
• I liked the idea of different levels of dreams operating at different time-speeds. Pretty cool.
• Lots of explanatory dialogue…
• Mediocre score.
• I’d like to see more movies where not everyone is wealthy and skilled.
• I’d like to see action movies with fewer hordes of incompetent gunmen.
• Ski chase. Dead wife reappearing. Zero-gravity fights. Old man dying in a minimalist room. I don’t think this is a bad thing, btw.

Yasujirō Ozu Pillow Shot Images. (via)

Edgard Varèse does jazz. Cf. the score for Poème électronique. Also, there’s a Varèse blog and I didn’t know?!