I Left My Heart in San Francisco

Air America Radio finally comes to the Bay Area and in a moment of supreme irony, it is Clear Channel that brings them here. Always seemed odd that Air America couldn't find a home in one of the biggest liberal bastions in the country.

They can be heard on 960 on your AM dial, KQKE, the Quake.

Read the whole story here.

"This is My Happening and it Freaks Me Out"

I normally wouldn't do a cut and paste of an entire article, and I probably shouldn't do it this time, but there is some odd redirect at the Chicago Sun Times site. When I go to this link, I'm getting redirected to Roger Ebert's site, and a search of that site does not bring up this essay.

A quick hand on the Stop button in my browser and a cut and paste later, I offer you Roger Ebert's essay following the passing of his friend Russ Meyers.

King of the funny skin flicks

September 22, 2004

BY ROGER EBERT

Russ Meyer is dead. The legendary independent director, who made exploitation films but was honored as an auteur, died Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills. He was 82, and had been suffering from dementia. The immediate cause of death was pneumonia, said Janice Cowart, a friend who supervised his care during his last years. She announced his death Tuesday.

Such bare facts hardly capture the zest of a colorful man who became a Hollywood icon. Meyer’s “The Immoral Mr. Teas” (1959), hailed by the highbrow critic Leslie Fiedler as the funniest comedy of the year, created the skin flick genre, and after the box office success of his “Vixen” (1968) he was crowned “King of the Nudies” in a front-page profile in the Wall Street Journal. His “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” (1970), for which I wrote the screenplay, represented the first foray into sexploitation by a major studio (20th Century Fox).

His films were X-rated but not pornographic. Meyer told me he had two reasons for avoiding hard-core: (1) “I want to play in regular theaters and keep the profits, instead of playing in porn theaters and doing business with the mob.” (2) “Frankly, what goes on below the waist is visually not that entertaining.” For Meyer, what went on above the waist was a lifelong fascination; he cheerfully affirmed his obsession with big breasts.

Meyer was the ultimate auteur. He not only directed his films, but could and often did write, photograph, edit and distribute them, and carried his own camera. In a genre known for sleazy sets and murky photography, Meyer’s films were often shot outdoors in scenic desert and mountain locations, and his images were bright and crisp. He said his inspiration was Al Capp’s “L’il Abner” comic strip, and his films were not erotic so much as funny, combining slapstick and parody. He once told me there was no such thing as a sex scene that couldn’t be improved by cutaways to Demolition Derby or rocket launches.

Meyer was born March 21, 1922 in San Leandro, Ca., and raised in the Oakland area by a mother who gave him his first 8-mm movie camera. He enlisted at 18 in the U. S. Army Signal Corps, learned motion picture photography in an Army school at MGM, and found World War II “the greatest experience of my life.”

He was often assigned to Gen. George Patton, and told of being taken along one night late in the war, to shoot the newsreel footage when Patton assembled a strike force to dart across the lines and capture Hitler - who was believed to be visiting the front. The report was false, Hitler was not captured, Patton issued dire warnings to anyone who spoke of the raid, and Meyer was denied the greatest newsreel scoop in history.

On another assignment, he filmed the original Dirty Dozen before they were parachuted into France, and E. M. Nathanson’s best-selling novel credits Meyer as its source. “In the real story,” Meyer said, “they disappeared and were never heard of again.”

In peacetime Meyer and other Signal Corps cameramen found themselves frozen out of the cinematographer’s union. He made industrial and educational films, and then drifted into cheesecake. More than half of the first year’s Playboy Playmates were photographed by Meyer. Observing Hugh Hefner’s success at retailing nude images of young, wholesome-looking women, Meyer tried the same approach in “Mr. Teas.” Films exploiting nudity had been consigned to marginal theaters and burlesque houses, but “Teas” won mainstream distribution, played for a year in some of its first engagements, and defined the rest of Meyer’s career.

He made one film after another, all of them involving unlikely plots, incongruous settings and abundantly voluptuous actresses. “Where do you find those women?” I asked him. “After they reach a certain bra size,” he said, “they find me.” He disapproved of silicone implants: “They miss the whole point.”

Meyer’s titles were entertaining in themselves: “Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!” and “Mud Honey,” both made in 1965, were taken as names by 1990s rock bands, and director John Waters said “Pussycat” was the greatest film of all time. Other directors who praised his work included Jonathan Demme, who always uses Meyer’s favorite actor Charles Napier in his movies, and John Landis. Mike Meyers used music and dialog from “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” in his “Austin Powers” pictures.

Other titles included “Motor Psycho” (1965-a busy year), “Common Law Cabin” and “Good Morning…and Goodbye!” (both 1967), “Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!” (1968), “Vixen” (1968), “Cherry, Harry and Raquel” (1970), “Blacksnake” (1973), “Supervixens” (1975), “Up!” (1976), and “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens” (1979), which I co-wrote. In the 1980s he announced an epic film to be called “The Breast of Russ Meyer,” but it was never completed. He did publish a massive three-volume, 17-pound, 1210-page, $199 autobiography, (ital) A Clean Breast (unital) (2000). “It keeps you turning the pages even when you can’t lift the book,” wrote Time magazine film critic Richard Corliss, who called “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” one of the 10 best films of the 1970s.

After I wrote a letter to the Wall Street Journal praising Meyer’s work we met and became friends, and when he was summoned by Fox to make “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls” he asked me to write the screenplay. We produced it in six weeks, making it up as we went along, laughing aloud, although in directing it Meyer urged the actors to perform with complete seriousness. The film cost $900,000, grossed $40 million, and became a cult favorite; the Sex Pistols punk rock band saw it in London in the late 1970s and hired Meyer to direct and me to write a film for them. “Who Killed Bambi?” (1978) shot for only one day before the Pistols’ production company went bankrupt.

Russ Meyer made X-rated movies, but he was not a dirty old man. He didn’t use the casting couch, prohibited sex on his sets (“save it for the camera”), and was a serial monogamist. He married Eve Meyer in 1955, and later photographed her as a Playmate; they had a friendly divorce in 1970 and continued to work together until her death in an airplane crash. His 1970 marriage to starlet Edy Williams was not so happy, and inspired a scene in “Supervixens” where the hero’s wife attacks his pickup with an axe. In later years his most frequent companion was Kitten Natividad, who starred in “Ultra-Vixens.”

He was a loyal friend. He stayed in lifelong contact with his Signal Corps comrades, organizing local and national reunions and sending tickets to those who needed them. He worked with the same crew members again and again. In a field known for devaluing women, he treated the actresses in his movies with affection and respect. Haji, Uschi Digard, Tura Satana, Kitten Natividad and the “BVD” stars Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, Marcia McBroom and Erica Gavin stayed in contact and attended reunions.

His films were unique in that the women were always the strong characters, and men were the mindless sex objects. The film critic B. Ruby Rich called him “the first feminist American director.” Meyer took praise with a grain of salt. After “The Seven Minutes” (1971), an attempt at a serious mainstream big studio picture, flopped at the box office, he told me: “I made the mistake of reading my reviews. What the public wants are big laughs and big tits and lots of ‘em. Lucky for me that’s what I like, too.”

Avedon

An excellent obit of the recently deceased Richard Avedon, over at Slate.

Read: Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man - The long career of Richard Avedon.

Faces of Frustration

The Democratic National Committee has a little video posted from last night's debate. Oh so amusing.

Click here.

Steeeeee-Rike!

Al Franken challenges O'Reilly to a bowling match.

Got Mooned

Yesterday evening did not work out quite as I planned. My shooting partner was taken ill, so I went scouting on my own through the hills south of San Jose, but did not find an unobstructed location to catch the moonrise. So to the Lake I went, where I got this shot of a kid's playground at dusk.


I'm always intrigued by these kinds of kidz play apparatuses. They would make a great set for a Planet of the Apes movie.

Finally I ended up at the city park on the corner of my block and on my own street. Here is a composite of a few shots of the harvest moon.

Shine On Harvest Moon

Tonight is the Harvest Moon, so I thought I'd share a couple of useful links on photographing the Moon.

Check out this one or this one for some useful instructional material and exposure charts.

For the SF Bay area, Sunset and Moonrise times can be found here.

Or plug your own local info into the Old Farmer's Almanac Rise and Set calculator.

The basic rule is 1/ISO at f11.

Now go shoot the moon!

Quote of the Day

James Carville: “Back in 2000 a Republican friend warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true!"

[Via: Altercation]

Futurballa, Raw

Why RAW you ask? OK, you didn't, but I'll tell you anyways. The RAW format for digital images is akin to a photographic negative, allowing archiving of an unprocessed image, and giving the artist the maximum amount of control over their image processing.

One of the great advantages is that you have about 2 stops exposure latitude in the RAW image, giving the photographer a bit of room to make up for the limited latitude inherent in the digital format.

As Alan Little argues (link via the Blowhards), "Digital can deal with a similar contrast range to colour slide film. It has nowhere near the range of colour negative film or, especially, black & white film." Which is true, but does not take in to account what can be done to recover detail in both Raw conversion and in Photoshop. Alan also makes the "absolute resolution" argument, which compares the potential megapixel resolution of scanned film vs. digital. But the argument must also take into account the ability of the lens to resolve that much resolution as well as the scan. Digital is indeed behind film in a couple of areas, but they are less extreme than one would think and the gap is shrinking constantly.

All of this, by way of saying that Adobe has upgraded their Camera Raw plug-in to version 2.3, which includes "unofficial" support for the Canon 20D. Also new from Adobe is the DNG Converter, a free software application that allows you to convert RAW files from different camera manufacturers to a Digital Negative Format, which Adobe hopes will become a single standard for archival purposes.

Read more about the DNG Converter and Digital Negative Format here.

Yosemite

Back from Yosemite with Photos. Just click here to see a Gallery.


Halfdome

Off to Yosemite

That's me for the next 3 days. I'll be back Friday, certainly with pictures to share and the Canon 20D should get a proper workout. In the meantime visit our friends over in the blogroll and enjoy this piece by the master.

Friday Phlogging


Blank Frank?

First Shot

My Canon 20D arrived at my local retailer last Tuesday and I promptly went down to pick it up. Of course at 8 megapixels the images are not really for web use, but resized to a reasonable photoblogging format, here is one of my first images.



Here is a 100% crop of the same image shot with camera defaults.



So far, first impressions are excellent. It has virtually immediate startup, the shutterlag is almost nonexistant. With my 17-40L lens the images are sharp and detail is amazing.

A short midweek trip to Yosemite is planned for next week, which should present the perfect opportunity to run it through its paces, and hopefully post a higher resolution web gallery to share with you, gentle reader.

Rosh Hoshanna Humor

THOUGHTS OF A JEWISH BUDDHIST

Let your mind be as a floating cloud. Let your stillness be as the wooded glen. And sit up straight. You’ll never meet the Buddha with posture like that.

There is no escaping karma. In a previous life, you never called, you never wrote, you never visited. And whose fault was that?

Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story.

To practice Zen and the art of Jewish motorcycle maintenance, do the following: get rid of the motorcycle. What were you thinking?

Be aware of your body. Be aware of your perceptions. Keep in mind that not every physical sensation is a symptom of a terminal illness. If there is no self, whose arthritis is this?

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

The Tao has no expectations. The Tao demands nothing of others. The Tao does not speak. The Tao does not blame. The Tao does not take sides. The Tao is not Jewish.

Drink tea and nourish life. With the first sip, joy. With the second, satisfaction. With the third, danish.

The Buddha taught that one should practice loving kindness to all sentient beings. Still, would it kill you to find a nice sentient being who happens to be Jewish?

Be patient and achieve all things. Be impatient and achieve all things faster.

To find the Buddha, look within. Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to see a specialist.

Be here now. Be someplace else later. Is that so complicated?

Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis…

[Via Eszter at Crooked Timber]

Shana Tova

Origins of the Snapsot Aesthetic

Slate features an article on Jacques Henri Lartigue, who was a sort of photographic prodigy in the early part of the 20th century. The piece is titled The Lartigue Hoax, but that is a bit overblown. The hoax, if it could be called that is merely a disagreement between scholars over whether Lartigue was a sort of child prodigy savant who could be seen as a forerunner to the snapshot aesthetic of Robert Frank and Gary Winogrand, or was he a shrewd artist with an eye for irony?

MoMa has chosen to display his work under the former theory.

Lartigue presented his work as the innocent expression of a wonderstruck boy amateur, and MoMA was happy to promote it as such. It was just the sort of thing they were looking for. Szarkowski, a curator of unequalled influence, was trying to establish a new style of photography, based on an aesthetic of spontaneity, contingency, intimacy, and autobiography. Robert Frank was the progenitor of this kind of work, and Gary Winogrand was the heir apparent, but the style needed roots in the origins of the medium if it was really going to stick. It had to be presented in a way that made it seem both completely unexpected and entirely inevitable; that's what museums do, and Szarkowski was unusually good at it. Lartigue was the photographic equivalent of the missing link, the bridge that connected prehistory to our modern selves.

But other scholars describe him as, "the photographic equivalent of Piltdown Man: a hoax foisted upon a credulous public." Claiming that he was, "probing, observant, sophisticated, and mocking - …out to prove his insider knowledge - —to show that he knew what was in fashion, that he noticed how people scrutinized each other, that he understood the humor of personal vanity."

Looking at his work, he certainly had an artist's eye, but his age, seeing as how much of his work was completed before his 20th birthday, belies an overly calculating spirit. But little is known about this young artist and his work will have to speak for itself.

Read the whole article here.

Baseball Blogging - Clear the Benches

Baseball dustups have always been notorious for appearing worse than they actually are. Over the years I've seen Giants and Dodgers players rushing the mound, clearing the benches, bumping chests and throwing wild punches and rarely have I seen even a drop of blood.

But when Oakland fans get involved things change, as yesterday's A's v. Ranger's game showed when Ranger's pitcher Frank Francisco decided he couldn't take the Oakland fan's taunting anymore, and threw a chair into the crowd.

The object hit a fan (not sure if it was the intended target or not) and bounced off of him to hit a woman across the head and break her nose.

Also on the subject of America's pastime, King Kaufman at Salon (subscription or daypass required) has a fine series going on why Barry Bonds is the more than obvious choice for this year's NL MVP.

Pulp Politicians

What do they call a quarter pounder with cheese in Iraq?

Hilarious!

Describe This

Saturday was the anniversary of September 11th, it being of course, September 11th. But it was also my wedding anniversary. We have had it slightly longer than the terrorists, it being our 5th (note the lack of a superscript "th" when writing in HTML).

On the actual wedding day, we spent a night in the California Central valley, near my Mother-in-Law's house, which was the site of our wedding, and then drove down to Pacific Grove, in between Monterey and Carmel, where we had a very pleasant honeymoon in a quaint cottage by the sea, and ate much seafood in and around Pacific Grove.

On our second anniversary, memory fails me as to what we did, but it would not surprise me if it was the same as we did in subsequent years. On our third anniversary, it was the 9-11 that the rest of you memorialize and I remember that evening quite distinctly. We went ahead with our plans to go out to dinner at San Jose's Fish Market restaurant, where we sat in the large dining hall with one or two other silent couples. We ate our food and spoke in hushed tones, feeling that it was inappropriate to celebrate our wedding while the rest of the country mourned.

Since then we have returned each of the last 3 years to the Fish Market, and each year it has been progressively more celebratory. 9-11 remaining ever present, but the wife and I taking back the day, bit by bit.

So last Saturday we sat in the usual surroundings, not thinking for the moment about destruction and terrorists. I sipped a decent Sauvignon Blanc (Geyser Creek), the wife savoring her usual diet Coke. The Fish Market features an Oyster Bar and I thought at 45 years of age it was perhaps time I tried a raw oyster.

The wife is less adventuresome than I so I tackled a whole dish of miyagis on my own as an appetizer. After asking instructions of the waiter, I doctored the shimmering shellfish with lemon juice, horseradish and cocktail sauce. I then slurped up my first raw oyster. First impression was that the flavor was actually quite pleasant, but the texture was all I thought it might be. Most likely this delight will join escargot on the list of things I have no regrets having tried but am unlikely to order again.

Try as I might I couldn't get the wife to try one. But the capper was when she asked me to describe the texture. The only thing that came to mind was that it was reminiscent of snot. After that I gave up trying to convince her.

Not Alexander

As usual, the best things to read are recommended by a good friend, and so it is with James Wolcott's new blog. Writing on pop culture, with a healthy dose of left leaning commentary, Wolcott definitely earns a spot on Futurballa's blogroll.

Friend George compares his writing chops to Lileks. I would agree but add happily without the reactionary tilt and the ever too cute by half child.

That Was Then

Rowboat Veterans for Truth

There ain't no Sanity Clause

After a disappointing release earlier this year of the Marx Brothers Collection, which included a couple of good to middlin' films (Night at the Opera, Day at the Races) and a whole selection of their weakest films (A Night in Casblanca, Room Service, At the Circus, Go West and The Big Store), I see that a better compendium is slated for release later this fall.

The Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection is a much more interesting grouping consisting of; The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup. The first two are good, the latter two are must haves.

Expected release date is November 9.

Feel The Love

Indeed!

[Via Atrios]

Conspiracy Theory

I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, and this one is pretty good.

It seems that the thing that Condi Rice said that she didn't "think anybody could have predicted that...they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," had been predicted six months earlier in the Pilot epsiode to Fox's failed X-Files spinoff, The Lone Gunmen.

The truth is out there!

Night Gallery

Canon has an in depth guide to Astrophotography available. As well as the usual marketing stuff, there is a wealth of useful information.

Makes you want to stay up late.

The Dark Side

Buzzflash does me one better in the photo department...

"Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side!"

The New Face of the Republican Party

I seem to be getting a number of hits today because I have in the past made a passing mention of both Chris Matthews and Zell Miller. Well that train collided last night in a very entertaining dustup on Matthew's Hardball, which included ol' Zell, sounding oddly like Foghorn Leghorn, challenging Matthews to a duel.

Via Tony Pierce, here is a link to MSNBC's convention blog, which contain's a link to the video if you scroll down to the picture of Chris and Zell.

Hate to disappoint.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Star Trek's Scotty, James Doohan, received his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame Tuesday. The 84 year old actor is suffering from multiple ailments and was recently diagosed with Alzheimer's, so this may be his final public appearance.

In typical fashion, George Takei (Sulu) was quoted as saying, "This is a galactic day in this town full of stars." (Really trying not to be snarky here, but he's not making it easy.)

Geeks Take the Streets

Via the inimitable Tony Pierce...

this photo from the streets of New York.

Who said geeks didn't have a sense of humor?

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

I stand at the forefront of the digital revolution in my professional life and my artistic endeavors. But I also embrace the traditional techniques of photography and see their place as a specialty niche into the future. Economics, however often dictate other necessities and hard times have hit a number of companies that are specialized in film photography.

Recently there have been reports of Kodak stopping production of reusable film cameras and their film division has also been hard hit. Now it looks as if Ilford, the venerable maker of Black and White film and photographic papers will likely have to close their film division, though their Swiss division which produces inkjet papers appears viable and will survive the restructuring.

I have long been a fan of Ilford products and am particularly fond of some of their Black and White emulsions, particularly the FP4 and HP5 films. But this was inevitable. The digital revolution is here and more and more photographers, both professional and amateur are making the switch to a 100% digital workflow. I hope that traditional materials will continue to be produced, but I can't see any one company that can build their entire business around them. Before too many years it will be a niche market, providing materials to students, traditionalists, experimental artists and a few Luddites.

It is with a sense of inevitability and sadness that I write this, seeing as how I do my fair share to promote digital photography, but the magic of mixing up chemicals and seeing an image appear under the safe lights as they swirl around in the developer bath is a wondrous thing that budding photographers of the future may never know.

Read the UK Guardian:
Digital revolution threatens Ilford jobs.

The Passion of the Clerks

Kevin Smith is planning a Clerks sequel. Original cast is signed on. Jay and Silent Bob live!!!

Late to the (Surrealist's) Party

I am reminded by a certain Fool that August 27 was the birthday of one of our patron saints in the Futurballa pantheon of photographic and artistic heroes.

Happy Birthday Man Ray!

wood s lot has some fine images, a few quotes and a useful link or two. Take a gander.

Back in August of 2003, when we were but a newly minted blog, Futurballa had a short biography of the artist.


Violin d'ingres

"More human than human" is our motto

I would have to concur. They are after all Scientists.

Mind of it's own

This article from the New York Times raises an interesting question. Does your iPod have a brain, and does it express personal preferences.

Most of the day, either on my iPod or on my iBook, I have the Party Shuffle randomly playing songs from my music library in the background. With a mere 2000 or so songs in my library, from artists wide ranging, I seem to hear an inordinate amount of Patti Smith and Brian Eno. Could be worse.

The writer also mentions the hazard of shuffle,when a long forgotten, inappropiate, Mothers of Invention tune might come on in mixed company. Naming that tune in 3 notes followed by a quick finger to the next button can be your only hope.

The Facts of Life

Under the heading Fast Facts: Swift Boat Ads Fox News has reproduced, not a fact checker on the mis-truths of the Swift Boat ads, not even an attack on any Kerry misstatements, but instead, their idea of "facts" is to reproduce a transcript of the ads.

I guess in a perverted way, if the fact you wanted to check was "what is the content of the ad," then this is factual.

Meanwhile back here on (Non-Bizzaro) Earth...

Elsewhere

In the category of "First kill all the lawyers..." Wired news reports that This Land really does belong to you and me.

Rob Galbraith has an in depth review of the Canon 20D. If you hadn't guessed, that is my next camera. Rob notes that the 20D is more camera than first glance might indicate.

While the initial selling price of the 20D will be roughly the same as the EOS 10D when it first shipped in 2003 (about US$1500 in the US), and the 20D sure looks like the 10D too, in almost every other way the specifications of Canon's latest digital SLR suggest it's targeted at newspaper photographers in smaller markets, up-and-coming wedding shooters and others who need both a responsive, versatile camera and a high-quality, high-resolution image file. It looks like Canon set out to build the EOS-1D Mark II's little brother.

George of Fool in the Forest commented yesterday on the theft of The Scream. George is overly fond of wordplay, but the Daily Show took the prize for the best pun on this subject. Their report was entitled, Felonious Munch. We also shared this take on The Scream.

Sounds and Fury offer two posts on photography. First Adam's Remembered is well worth your time. And secondly, ACD picks up the subject of Color Landscape Photography not passing the Jabberwocky Test. AC and I had a brief exchange on this subject some time back. I maintained that Color Landscape photography could be art, but when we managed to clarify our terminology to include the word "straight", I relented. The point being that Black and White is by nature abstract, while Color requires some intentional manipulation to achieve abstraction.


Caption contest. Winner gets a signed print by your's truly.

Sidewalk Chalk Guy

Some fun with chalk, an airbrush and perspective.

Take a look at some cool Sidewalk Chalk Art.

Canon Announces the EOS 20D

Canon announced today the release of the 20D digital SLR camera. The early review is in over at DPReview.com, and it looks very nice.

Read Phil Askey's first look review of the Canon EOS 20D.

SSDD

Thought a new look was in order. Also moved over to Blogger's commenting tool, so the old comments are lost to posterity. Poor, poor, pitiful posterity.

Futurballa Blog!

And don't forget to visit Futurballa Photography.

Here, There and Everywhere

A few good posts to be found in the political blogosphere this morning that are setting the record straight on a couple of issues.

First of All, Kevin Drum explains MOE (Margin of Error) and debunks the myth of Statistical Tie. He even provides the Excel spreadsheet to prove it.

A worthwhile debate on the Swift Boat Veteran's ad, between Will Saletan and Jacob Weisberg over at Slate.

And finally, Josh Marshall deconstructs said debate in excellent fashion.

Canon 20D

For months DPReview.com's forums have been rampant with rumors of Canon's expected replacement for their midrange digital SLR, the 10D. Well it is semi-official. Pictures from Canon's website have leaked and an announcement is expected by end of week.

It appears that it will be more of an incremental upgrade to the existing 10D, not a revolutionary jump forward. The 1.6 crop factor will be retained but augmented by a couple of new EF-S lenses that will allow better wide angle coverage with the smaller sized sensor.

Also expect 8.2 megapixels (up from 6), faster startup, bigger buffer and frame rate and more focusing points. It should be slightly lighter in weight as well.

Bob Atkins has kindly collected the rumors and known specs into a single article at his website. Read it here.

Great Moments in Technology

The invention of Photoshop.

[Courtesty of George]

What Have You Done For Me Lately?

If I'd only read this a month ago... Oh the headaches I could have avoided.

Slate.com reports on the fact that "Realty Bites". Explaining why the model for real estate transactions and agent's commissions is sadly outdated.

A worthwhile read and a valid reminder of the axiom, caveat emptor.

Bush Turns Corner on Turning the Corner

CNN reports that amid Democratic criticism and accusations of sounding "Hooverian", President Bush will stop using the phrase, "we have turned a corner" in his stump speeches.

With news like this, who needs the Daily Show?

Think Different

Via BoingBoing and Heeb Magazine...
The Guilt Pod.

Be sure to download the latest guiltTunes including, Who Told You to Paint it Black? and Let It Be (See If I Care)

Futurballa Goes to Hell

Via AC Douglas at Sounds & Fury, the Dante's Inferno test. We here at Futurballa are pretty darn virtuous for an agnostic Jew, and are merely sentenced to a prolonged stay in Limbo. How low can you go?

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Moderate
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

Elsewhere

Over at Wired.com, Professor Lawrence Lessig has an interesting piece on Fair Use of the President.

Two Terabytes of storage, I don't think even HAL had that kind of memory.

To lovers of Zombie movies, and you know who you are, this was inevitable.

Kevin Drum has a good roundup of the reporters who (may) have been subpoenaed in the Plame case. Kevin's hypothesis, the dark lord squealed like a baby. Only time will tell.

Vertigo

In the DVD player last night... Hitchcock's Vertigo. Watching again after several years, I was struck by how leisurely movies were paced back then and could still be called a "thriller". The San Juan Bautista and San Francisco scenery is beautiful and surprisingly much of it unchanged in almost 50 years, with the exception of the tower at the mission that plays such a pivotal roll, but that didn't even exist in Hitchcock's day. He added it. I was also struck by the fact that Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak seem to never have left the studio in Hollywood. The scenery all seems to be projected behind them.


As Hitch saw it


As I see it


More of my stuff


One more from me


Hitchcock and Novak


Vertigo

Henri Cartier-Bresson 1908-2004

One of the greats of 20th century photography has passed away, and the BBC online has some very good links in the righthand sidebar. I'm afraid to say that upon reading of his passing I was surprised to find out that he was still alive.

Bresson pioneered what today would be termed street photography and is said to have coined the phrase decisive moment. He was among the first photographers to be called a photojournalist.

Read:Cartier-Bresson dies at 95.

I'm George W. Bush and I approved this message...

Watch the video, featuring the always funny, Will Ferrell.

[Link via Josh Marshall]

Noir and Noir Again

Michael Blowhard offers up a primer in Film Noir, or as he calls it Film Noir 101. If you are unfamiliar with the genre or in need of a short refresher course, it is well worth your time.

I would only differ from him in his dismissal of Polanski's Chinatown, which is in a completely different league from the rest of the "neo noir" knockoffs that he mentions, such as L.A. Confidential and Body Heat. And in the category of neo noir, I will admit a soft spot for The Big Easy. But that is mainly for the fantastic soundtrack.

His acknowledgement of Cyber Punk and Graphic Novels by the likes of Frank Miller as being offshoots of Noir is a well taken point, though he glosses over the Noir influences on many of the Nouvelle Vague films of the sixties. And I must bring into question the ordering of his list of notable Noirs. Putting Kubrick's The Killing above Out of the Past, well that seems plain old contrarian to me. And I must also fault him slightly for the sin of omission. While it can be categorized as the first Neo Noir, in that it is a self conscious Noir styling, Orson Welles' Noir, A Touch of Evil is certainly worth a mention (along with Lady From Shanghai). And I might have given an honorable mention to Robert Aldrich's filming of Mickey Spillane's Kiss Me Deadly.

Warner Home Video's Film Noir Boxset can be purchased here.

The Dead

Filling out the disclosures on our condo last night I was struck by an odd question. After the usual list of questions about earthquake, flood, and hurricane. After disclosing every water stain, chipped tile and crack in the walls. And after informing the prospective buyer of chirping birds, traffic noise, and cat feces. Near the end of the document the question was posed, "has anyone ever died on the premises, to the best of your knowledge".

Now I can get behind asking, has anyone ever died and not been discovered for more than a week on the premises. Or if someone died of a highly contagious disease. But the fact that someone has died by itself should be something that one needs to disclose seems odd to me. Has anyone given birth on the premises? I don't see that question anywhere. Seems like both are normal events that happen to us at least once in each lifetime (depending on your beliefs about reincarnation or being born again, etc.).

I lived in Holland for 11 years, and saw that in other countries it is fairly normal that both birth and death occur in the home. In America we have made an effort to hide both events behind the doors of hospitals. And now, that someone might have peacefully passed away in their sleep, while residing at your address, must be disclosed to warn the unsuspecting purchaser that, wait, don't buy this house, it has been visited by the grim reaper himself, is disturbing to me.

But What Does Arlo Think?

As linked previously on this blog, the This Land parody at JibJab.com has taken the world by storm. Both Left (here) and Right (there) have embraced it as 'good humor'. But not all lawyers have a sense of humor, and the age old tradition of song parody is wasted on them.

Where have you gone Alan Sherman?

Or in Guthrie's own (alleged) words...

"This song is copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

Read:This Song Is Our Song.

Photography Almanac

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see. ~Dorothea Lange

If you are not familiar with the work of Lange, by all means follow this link. She is most famous for her work documenting migrant workers in the depression. In later years she joined with Ansel Adams in photographing the internees at Manzanar and worked with Pirkle Jones to record the changing California landscape.

This is arguably her most famous work.


Migrant Mother

The Game is Afoot

AC Douglas discusses his general distaste for genre fiction and his surprising love of the Sherlock Holmes canon. I am perhaps the wrong person to comment, as I am relatively fond of genre fiction, be it in lit or film. However, I am capable of (in most cases) separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to the stuff, and I happily acknowledge that Holmes and Watson are a cut above the pack.

But the question remains, what sets the best apart from the rest? Douglas writes...

The best I can muster as explanation -- and I'm fully cognizant my best is thoroughly inadequate -- is that the Holmes-Watson stories, even though technically detective fiction, each have the quality of being a chapter of a great and heroic if urbane saga; tales told orally around a pre-literate communal campfire which tell of a time when a man's individual actions had comprehensible, direct and immediate effect on his environment and those populating it, without mediation, mitigation or intensification by technologies the workings of which are comprehensible only to experts; a time when one could "learn at a glance to distinguish the history of [a] man, and the trade or profession to which he belongs"; a time when "by a man's fingernails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser-knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs...a man's calling is plainly revealed."

I think he is on to something here. Genre fiction when it works harks back to the tales of old told over and over around the campfire. In some ways, what is Gilgamesh or Homer but genre fiction. Tales of adventure and derring-do told to excite the masses.

Doyle belongs to the same tradition as Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne. His tales are adventures for boys and boys-at-heart. He creates a world so complete that it is possible to immerse one's self completely into it. Burroughs' Tarzan or Mars tales can have a similar fascination. Comic books also can offer a similar pleasure. Perhaps it is the extended canon, where a character or group of characters become so familiar and, dare I say, archetypical.

I am currently hooked on Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels. Again, it is the fully realized character, where his life and world become real to us. His life and relationships and personality quirks are as much a part of the stories as the detective stories upon which they hang. The same could be said for Sam Raimi's two Spiderman movies. If it was simply reduced to the action set pieces they would be just another Hollywood spectacle, but it is the character of Spiderman and his hapless alter ego Peter Parker that we return to see.

The best of genre fiction has an epic quality that we can return to time and time again. These are stories that can be told over and over for a lifetime. As a young boy or as an old man, we will return to these stories and they will be familiar and comforting.

In the words of Holmes, "These are much deeper waters than I had thought."

Read A Mystery Elusive Of Solution.

Cuts Like a Knife

Normally I shoot 35mm transparencies, mostly Ektachrome, and scan using a Minolta slide scanner, and then retouch in Photoshop, lastly printing on an Epson 2200. I plan to purchase a digital SLR shortly, but am waiting for Photokina in September to see if Canon makes any new announcements. More than you needed to know.

Not having space for a darkroom, I occasionally take classes at a local junior college, mainly to have access to the schools darkroom facilities. But also I often find being given assignments forces me to attempt subjects and styles that are outside my normal tendencies. My typical subjects are landscape or urban/architectural, but having to do an abstraction or a still life can be an interesting challenge.

Now to digress a bit... I, as I suspect many of you, am not just obsessed with my blogs referrer logs, but will, on occasion, Google my own name. Ego, curiosity, or slacking. All of the above, perhaps.

Yesterday I came across one of my pieces that my college instuctor had posted on the student gallery. Always nice to have someone appreciate your work.

In his own words

SFMoma has kindly left their Ansel Adams at 100 website up. Well worth spending some time watching the Quicktime videos of Adams discussing his work.

Enjoy.

Elsewhere

What sounds like an interesting biography of folk legend, Woody Guthrie. A certain 'wish list' addition.

An entertaining Krugman that asks the question who is the real Arabian Candidate.

What did they expect? Blue Bayou!

Lileks experiences the great equalizer. Waiting for the satellite guy.

Could corporate mergers benefit Hobbits?

You Got Served

It's getting kind of hectic up in this piece.

The Lotus Eaters

Weekend viewing was a bit limited by other committments, but I managed to see Bernardo Bertolucci's The Dreamers, and enjoyed it immensely.

It is a bit of an anocronysm in movie-making. In some ways an homage to classic European cinema of the Sixties, and a commentary on the same. Reminiscent of Bertolucci's own Last Tango in Paris, and with hints of Bunuel, Godard and Truffaut. The age old argument of Keaton vs. Chaplin is fought out with appropriate passion, and documentary footage and film clips are seamlessly interspersed.

In addition to the cinephile kool-aid, there is an intriguing story of a young American abroad who becomes (sexually) entangled with a pair of French twins. The story had the feel of an Isherwood tale, though more graphic in its sexuality and updated from between the wars to the Sixties.

The Soundtrack was also excellent.

Great Quotes in Photography (with commentary)

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.
~Henri Cartier-Bresson

This particular quote hit so close to home. I had taken a hiatus from serious photography for a couple of years, and it was only about 2 years ago that I got the inspiration to resume this particular passion.

I hadn't been in the darkroom for some years and decided to take a college course in black and white photography, as a refresher. Having purchased a new SLR, my last having been destroyed in Europe some time previously, I set out to shoot my first roll for class. A minor darkroom mishap resulted in part of the roll being fogged. Looking through a loupe on a light table I found a few pictures worth salvaging. Among them the wooden door at Mission San Juan Bautista that graces the portal to my website.

A few months ago I returned to the same spot. Thinking to take a color slide of the same object, with the intention of doing a better scan. The shots I got were good enough. If anything, my technical skills had improved. Yet they weren't the same. Even shooting an inanimate object, time of year was different. Surrounding foliage was less lush. Time of day was not quite the same. I was changed.

Even an object, exists in a moment in time. And you can never step in the same river twice.

Randomness

The wife and I are house shopping. Lord help us. Last night we saw something reminiscent of a landfill. Note to home hunters, if the square footage and the price don't seem in line, there is probably a catch.

Teachout shares a delightful Calvin Trillin poem on the subject of changing culinary fashions. As a lover of Coq au Vin and Trout Almandine, I say amen!

The UK Guardian reports on the Dubya that Garry Trudeau knew at Yale. Doesn't sound like he has changed much.

This is funny and bipartisan. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out.

Elsewhere

Mr. Lileks has an interesting retrospective on Mort Drucker and the hey day of Mad Magazine. I read these faithfully as a child. Later moving on to the best years of National Lampoon. Gosh, I was born at a good time. I was young for all of the things that were good to be young for. Pity the kids today. SNL ain't what it used to be.

Bucky is getting his own stamp. Too bad it will be flat and 2 dimensional. Geodesic postage, sounds like something for Star Trek.

A long overdue welcome back to AC Douglas. After a lengthy hiatus ACD has returned to the blogosphere with a new site. Be sure to update your bookmarks. The aptly named Sound and Fury.

Weezy has moved on up for the last time. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Weekend Viewing

Couple of films came our way via Netflix this past weekend that I thought worth sharing.

The Last of Sheila was an early seventies murder mystery / puzzle movie, with an all star - "b" list cast, featuring, James Coburn, Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, Raquel Welch, James Mason, Joan Hackett, and Ian McShane. The basic setup is that Coburn's wife, the aforementioned Sheila, was killed in a hit and run accident one night following a party. Coburn, gamer extraordinaire, invites the party guests to his yacht in the Mediterranean to spend a week playing mind games. What ensues is a game of cat and mouse with some worthwhile twists and turns. But what really ensues is a satire of Hollywood morals and a lot of insider gossip. The script is penned by Steven Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, so it's no wonder they get the Hollywood stuff right.

Trembling Before G-d is a documentary about Hassidic gays coming to terms with their religion and their sexuality. It is a frank portrait of some very damaged people who want to continue believing in their faith and would like to live in the communities of their birth, but are shunned at every turn. One gay man was sent to a therapist who told him to eat figs and to snap himself with a rubberband every time he had thoughts about other men as a way to cure himself.

Getting it Wrong

New York Post front-page scoops.

[via Altercation]

A Spreading Meme

Terry Teachout's Cultural Index continues to spread. It is even made it to USA Today and crossed over to Political Bloggers. Washington Monthly's own Political Animal, Kevin Drum takes the test.

Now this makes Aaron Haspel's suggestion of cross-correlating interests across participants even more interesting. Do political bloggers choose Election over Ghost World? One would think so. And does anyone besides a hardcore culture blogger care about "The New Yorker under Ross over Shawn?" Hard to imagine.

Fast Foward

In the random thoughts category. The next big SciFi movie claiming to be based on a Philip K. Dick novel. It could be called Fast Foward, and be about a TIVO that doesn't just let you pause Live TV, but also lets you speed ahead.

Futurballa's Very Own Index

Yes the FVOI. A good gimmick usually has legs, so I will put up some of my personal cultural indicators. Column "A" being my personal preference.

1. Marx Brothers or Three Stooges
2. Eno or Ferry
3. Italian Futurism or Russian Futurism
4. Grateful Dead or Phish
5. Edward Weston or Ansel Adams
6. Errol Flynn or Clark Gable
7. Canon or Nikon
8. William Gibson or Neal Stephenson
9. Salon or Slate
10. Godfather 1 or Godfather 2
11. Roadtrips or Flying
12. Trivial Pursuit or Scrabble
13. Nimoy or Shatner
14. Netflix or Blockbuster
15. Beatles or Stones
16. Baseball or Football
17. Lakers or Kings
18. Star Trek or Star Wars
19. Man Ray or Dali
20. Luis Bunuel or Jean Renoir
21. Gilligan or The Skipper
22. Raymond Chandler or James M. Cain
23. Asian Food or Mexican Food (this one is close)
24. San Francisco or Los Angeles
25. Coast or Mountains

Being only about one quarter the culture maven that Terry is, and having real work to do, I will stop there.

Feel free to play along.

Have you taken the TCCI?

Terry Teachout has come up with the Teachout Cultural Concurrence Index, which as lists go, seems to be quite instructive. He seems to lean towards the first choices (aka column "A"). I'm a bit more of a mixed bag myself. Draw your own conclusions.

I've edited down, from the original 100 options, to ones I both know and atually have an opinion about.

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Kelly
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? Gatsby
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Ellington
4. Matisse or Picasso? Picasso
5. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot
6. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Keaton
7. Flannery O'Connor or John Updike? O'Connor
8. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? Casablanca
9. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? de Kooning
10. The Who or the Stones? Stones
11. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Billie Holiday
12. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky
13. Hot dogs or hamburgers? Hamburgers
14. Letterman or Leno? Letterman
15. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi
16. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? Kelly
17. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Can't choose
18. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Brando
19. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Vermeer
20. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Tchaikovsky
21. Red wine or white? Red
22. Noël Coward or Oscar Wilde? Wilde
23. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? High Fidelity
24. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? Nureyev
25. Constable or Turner? Toss up
26. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? The Searchers -best ever is best ever!
27. Comedy or tragedy? Comedy
28. Fall or spring? Fall
29. Manet or Monet? Manet
30. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? Simpsons
31. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwin
32. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Conrad
33. Sunset or sunrise? Sunrise
34. Mac or PC? Mac
35. New York or Los Angeles? LA
36. Stax or Motown? Motown
37. Van Gogh or Gauguin? van Gogh
38. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? Elvis
39. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? Blogs
40. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Gielgud
41. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? Chinatown
42. Ghost World or Election? Election
43. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? Bugs
44. Modernism or postmodernism? Modernism
45. Batman or Spider-Man? Spidey
46. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? Emmylou Harris
47. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Dick Van Dyke
48. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? Double Indemnity
49. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? Don Giovanni
50. Blue or green? Green
51. A Midsummer Night's Dream or As You Like It? As You Like It
52. Ballet or opera? Opera
53. Film or live theater? Film
54. Acoustic or electric? Electric
55. North by Northwest or Vertigo? Vertigo
56. The Music Man or Oklahoma? Neither!
57. Sushi, yes or no? No
58. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Williams
59. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? Diana Krall
60. Watercolor or pastel? Watercolor
61. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? Smooth
62. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart
63. The Fifties or the Twenties? Fifties
64. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Huck
65. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Lincoln
66. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? Liz Phair
67. Italian or French cooking? Italian
68. Anchovies, yes or no? Yes
69. Short novels or long ones? Long
70. Swing or bebop? Bebop

Update: Terry has challenged me to post my score. It is but 47% in agreement with him, which can be seen as paltry or stellar, depending on your viewpoint.

He Was a Contender

Very sad to hear this.

Marlon Brando dies at 80.

I would have to say that he was one of the greatest actors of his time, and he starred in two of my all time favorite films. The Godfather, and Apocalypse Now.

Elsewhere

Paul Krugman on F911: Moore's Public Service.

I've made the switch. How about you? Mozilla.

That's all I've got for now. Have a happy 4th of July.

Great Quotes in Photography

I hate cameras. They are so much more sure than I am about everything. ~John Steinbeck

See For Yourself

Having recently commented on the comments (here)I did the right thing and went to see for myself.

I stand by what I said earlier, Hitchens, O'Reilly and Isikoff do a pretty good job of nitpicking the facts and ignoring the truths. Fahrenheit 911 is not perfect. Parts are over the top, parts are a bit slow, parts may hit below the belt. But what is important about this movie is not that Moore peppers the audience with a list of facts, some slightly out of context, and then draws his own conclusions. Some of those conclusions are reasonable, some are fair questions, others are a stretch that border on conspiracy theories.

The important part of the movie comes in the second half of the film when Moore stops drawing conclusions and switches tactics by simply showing the results of war on human beings. This is the stuff that the nightly news ought to be showing us. I grew up during Vietnam and I remember Walter Cronkite, and body bags coming home, and Life Magazine showing a picture of a naked child running in fear and panic. F911, at its best, is in that category. It does not blink or turn away from shattered limbs and shattered lives.

America needs to see this. And if the evening news won't do it, I'm glad Michael Moore will. There are times that war is necessary, and there are just causes that are worth dying for. I don't believe that the Iraq war is one of those, I believe that it is an unjust war fought for the wrong reasons. But even if it were a war of necessity, the American people should be able to see the truth of war. That is the truth that Moore presents.

So who you gonna believe? Me or your own lying eyes. Go see for yourself.

Teachout Nails It

Quoting James Lileks at length, Terry Teachout sums up my own feelings on the subject.

He's all wet and a yard wide about bossa nova, much less so about Groucho. But right or not, who cares? I still wish I could write like that.

On so many subjects I deeply disagree with Lileks, but lordy can the man write.

Falls


Taken at the Japanese Friendship Garden in San Jose

Great Quotes in Photography

Sometimes I do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter. ~Ansel Adams

North Coast

Sadly for me, taking a weekday off of work to avoid the crowds doesn't really work during the vacation season. As my trip to Muir Woods last friday proved. But after a bit of snapping in the Woods, we moved on to Point Reyes which had more of the wide open spaces, sans tourists.

Here are some digital snaps, some taken from a moving car.


Tomales Point


The Historic H Ranch (they all have letter names, H, I, J)


Driving by the Ranch


Point Reyes


Elk Grazing at Point Reyes

Spartan Talent

Not everyone can do David Mamet dialog. People, in his movies, don't speak like you or I. They speak in rhythms and use odd syntax and cliches that only Mamet knows.

Val Kilmer is one of those people who should not speak mimetic dialog.

Happily, Ed O'Neill and (of course) William H. Macy are quite suited to the task.

An otherwise entertaining movie, full of mimetic usual twists, albeit some of them a twist too many, and pessimistic worldview. Unfortunately the lead actor was not up to it.

Spartan

Off to the Woods of Muir

Sounds like a Led Zeppelin song.

I'll be off on Photo Safari today, so light blogging. Be sure to visit our friends, conveniently located in the blogrolls to the right.

And don't forget to visit Futurballa.com.

Mooring your boat to a Hitching post

Christopher Hitchen's piece on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 at Slate (which has garnered comment here and here), following his vivisection of Ronald Reagan, is the perfect attack piece. Finding some flaws in Moore's arguments and by taking those to their extremes, dismissing the rest of the film.

It is not to me to defend Moore. And if the argument is that his methods of stretching a point to bolster his case, actually gives ammo to his opponents and can weaken his argument, well, I agree. I wish Mike would stick to the facts, and nothing but the facts, because he has them on his side. But as SFGate and Salon both show this morning, some of Mike's critics are distorting his claims and using those distortions to brand him a liar.

Referring to the Michael Isikoff piece in Newsweek, Salon writes,

Isikoff also mischaracterizes what Unger says in the film about FBI interviews of the fleeing bin Ladens. This one is easy to check. In the movie, Moore sums up the Saudi evacuation process by saying: "So a little interview, check the passport, what else?" he asks. "Nothing," Unger replied.

Unger tells War Room, "I never say they were not interviewed. What I do say is this: Given that 48 hours earlier, 3,000 people had just been murdered, this was a time for a serious massive criminal investigation to begin and it didn't happen. Instead, relatively speaking, Saudis were given privileges Americans were not allowed."

I mention the Isikoff piece because Hitchens makes the same point about the interviews, but from this quote it appears that Moore indicated that the interviews were cursory, not non-existent. "...a little interview..., what else?"..."nothing".

Hitchen's states, "he makes heavy innuendoes about the flights that took members of the Bin Laden family out of the country after Sept. 11." However the SFGate and Salon pieces seem to present a more nuanced assessment of whether those innuendoes have any grounding in fact.

This is not to say that Moore doesn't draw conclusions that may not always be grounded in reality, but they are questions worth asking, and the truth is often closer to his view than not. One of the things he has been most criticized for was staging the "open a bank account, get a gun" scene in Bowling for Columbine. It is true that he gave the impression that you could walk into the bank, open an account and walk out with a gun, which was not true, and many have used that to discredit the movie and Moore. But the larger point was true. This bank was offering a gun (albeit with the normal waiting periods) to people who opened a bank account.

By all means, call Moore on his inaccuracies, and if you disagree with his argument, so be it. But, be cautious of allowing Hitchens or O'Reilly to be your standard of veracity.

Bryce Canyon


Still recycling vacation shots. Planning a trip to Muir Woods this Friday.
Mmmmm, new fodder.

Great Quotes in Photography


No photographer is as good as the simplest camera. ~Edward Steichen

Paycheck, or why we should let Philip K. Dick rest in peace

What a mess. Take a Philip K. Dick short story, hand it to John Woo, muddle up the story with a lot of wacky pseudo science and product-placed motorcycle chases, and cast the animatronic acting device known as Ben Afleck in the lead, this is what you get. Paycheck.

The only thing it has going for it is Uma Thurman's uncanny ability to deliver stilted dialog in the most matter of fact way (see Kill Bill). And it is kind of amusing in a "Mystery Science Theater" kind of way.

By the way, I've seen a lot of John Woo movies, and I still don't get the white doves. What's up with that?

Great Quotes in Photography

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. ~Robert Adams, Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques

Along the Waterside

Yabba Dabba Doo

This rock in Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah is known as Fred Flintstone Rock.

Nooooobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition

Terry Jones, has a Pythonesque take on the torture scandals.

Read This won't hurt much.

[Link via Altercation]

Blogrules

Tony Pierce of Busblog has a list of rules for Bloggers. While most of what Tony writes can be of questionable veracity, his analysis is usually spot on. And this list rocks!

My personal favorite, number 18.

before you hit Save as Draft or Publish Post, select all and copy your masterpiece. you are using a computer and the internet, shit can happen. no need to lose a good post.

I'm sure I break a number of the rules, but of course, that is what rules are for.

Great Quotes in Photography

The camera cannot lie, but it can be an accessory to untruth. ~Harold Evans, "Pictures on a Page"

Great Quotes in Photography ~ First in a series

Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. ~Ansel Adams

The Dilithium Crystals Won't Take It, Cap'n

Leaving Politics aside for a moment, Kevin Drum laments Hollywood's unwillingness to provide us with better fake science.

Dr. Zimmerman, to you

Honorary doctorate to the laureate of folk-rock, Bob Dylan.

Read about it here.

He is after all a Professional

Buzzflash chronicles how Drudge and the freepers have taken aim at Hunter S. Thompson. Somehow I doubt he will be intimidated.

Up and Coming

Went to see the new Harry Potter last night, and must concur with most who have seen it that . Alfonso Cuaron's direction adds subtlety and depth, where before it was an enjoyable but pedestrian retelling of the books.

We were treated to an amazing number of trailers, mostly for up and coming Christmas movies. Most were the usual lot, but there were a couple, based on the trailer, might be worthwhile.

A CGI rendering of The Polar Express. I like CGI animation of the Nemo, Shrek variety, but when they do people, it is kind of like watching shop window mannequins act. Not too sure about this one.

Jim Carrey in multiple roles in Lemony Snicket - A Series of Unfortunate Events. I don't know if Tim Burton is involved in this, but if he's not, he should sue for infringement of style.

For the grownup children, the trailer for Catwoman movie. Halle Berry looks great, and I may have to sneak out to see this. Fun trailer, but what did they do with Batman?
[Update: I hear the buzz on this is terrible. Too bad, nice trailer.]

And last of all, we saw the newest Spiderman trailer. A-Mazing!!! A trailer that practically gets you up out of your seat. Even the wife wants to see this one.

Bits and Pieces

After a short stint as a solo blogger, Michael Blowhard has found his own girl in Chicago, the pseudonymous, Vanessa del Blowhard. What is it with these Chicago girls; they just don't seem to like to give up too many personal details.

A very interesting Lileks today. Just get past the Gnat stuff, and there is a fascinating piece about The Black Dahlia murder case of the 1940's.

Some good entertainment consumption this weekend.
Mystic River: Sean Penn is our generations Al Pacino. Make of that what you will.
Ripley's Game: John Malkovitch is perfectly cast as Patricia Highsmith's sociopath anti-hero.
City of God: This will find itself on to my (and I suspect many other's) best movie lists. A must see. Inventively filmed, well written, riveting story.

Currently reading, Bruce Sterling's latest novel, The Zenith Angle.

Mea Culpa

Sorry for the light blogging this week. Paying work calls.

Mahalo

Oh Ye of Little Faith

That would be me, because with about a minute to go in last nights NBA finals game, I turned to the better half and said, "hon, the boys are going down, stick a fork in it, this one is done."

But Kobe's desperation 3-pointer, with seconds remaining, went in, and the Laker D managed to break up the inbound pass out of the time out, sending the game into overtime. And then with both Kobe and Shaq playing with 5 fouls, my Lakes (yes they are my lakes again) dominated the overtime period to win 99-91.

Why should I have ever doubted? I've been watching the Lakers do this sort of thing since Jerry West hit that 60 foot half court prayer shot to send game 3 of the 1970 finals into overtime against the Knicks. Didn't Derek Fisher do it just a couple of weeks ago with four tenths of a second on the clock. Horry did it a couple of years ago. These guys are stone cold killers, and you never have them beat until the clock flashes 0.00.

These guys obviously have a deal with the devil, but give Mr. Scratch his do, they will surprise you every time. And wo unto him who counts them out before the final buzzer.

Yours truly, eating crow, ever faithful. I'm sorry I ever doubted you. I'll never do it again.

Game note: what a fantastic performance by young Luke Walton, son of Bill. Watch out for this kid.

[Update: King Kaufman at Salon has a similar take, comparing the Lakers endless comebacks to Freddy Kreuger, Jason, and Rasputin. (daypass or subscription required)]

13

Over at BlogCritics, the Duke shares yet another list. This time it's the 13 best Horror Movies Ever. As a lover of both horror movies and lists, I could not resist but adding my own two cents.

Duke deserves props for some excellent inclusions, but clutters a good part of his list with some obscure zombie and cannibal films and relegates some of the best scares to his also rans. So, in my effort to rectify this, I present my best 13, in no particular order.

1. Suspiria - A very young Jessica Harper, a big brute with gingivitis, maggots falling from the ceiling boards (cuz one man's floor is another man's ceiling), and a ton of Italian style, grace Dario Argento's masterpiece.

2. Dementia 13 - Francis Ford Coppola's directorial debut. Lowest of budgets, but really scary.

3. Dawn of the Dead - Romero's follow up to Night of the Living Dead is more social satire than horror, but remains the standard by which all Zombie movies are rated.

4. Carnival of Souls - This one gave me nightmares as a child. Made for close to nothing, it is one of the great mood pieces of all time. Props to the Duke for including it in his list.

5. Dracula - Tod Browning's 1931 classic, starring Bela Lugosi remains the best of all Vampire movies. While not as faithful to Bram Stoker's novel as some versions, the atmosphere and mood are spot on. Lugosi was literally born to play this role.

6. Black Sunday - The film that introduced the great Mario Bavo to American audiences, along with horror maven, Barbara Steele. It is an atmospheric account of a witch who returns from the dead to terrorize the descendants of her executioners.

7. Alien - A classic horror movie - in space.

8. Army of Darkness - Some would pick Evil Dead II if you are a fan of Sam Raimi's trilogy, but Army of Darkness is the one that firmly establishes Ash as the hero he was born to be. Groovy!

9. Rosemary's Baby - Polanski's film of Ira Levin's novel is witty, scary, and intelligent.

10. Carrie - Brian De Palma at his best. The only film version of a Stephen King novel that is better than the book.

11. Poltergeist - Forget all the lousy sequels and try to remember how really scary this one was when it first came out.

12. The Haunting - Robert Wise's tale of psychological terror works because you never see the ghosts. Proving that the horror unseen is so much scarier than the one you can see.

13. The Exorcist - Here is where the Duke and I part company. I know I said that this list is in no particular order, but in this case, I lied. The Exorcist is the scariest movie ever made (so imagine this list is counting down). The slow pace and documentary feel, the normalness of it, makes you feel like this could happen to you. This is the only horror movie that I can honestly say after many repeated viewings, continues to give me chills.

Kill Bill, Reunited Again

QT has put together both volumes of Kill Bill into the coherent movie it should be and screened it for the first time at Cannes.

Here is a review from the UK website, Empire Online...

Kill Bill - complete.

I'm sure Aaron Haspel will hate it.

Weinsteins to the Rescue

While I don't always agree with everything Michael Moore says, I consider him an important voice and an entertaining filmmaker besides. Despite the flap with Disney, Bob and Harvey Weinstein have put down the bucks to insure that it can be seen. Slated for a June 25th release, American audiences will have the chance to see his latest pic, Fahrenheit 911. It has already won top honors at Cannes, and is sure to inspire controversy and debate.

See the trailer here.

[Hate to say it, but the QT link seems a bit flaky, so try the Windows Media Player.]

Barroom Bards and Bordello Brawlers

Via the Onion AV Club, a review of John Dullaghan's documentary on Charles Bukowski. Sounds like a worthwhile rental when it finds its way onto DVD, though the AV Club takes it to task for its uncritical approach.

Born Into This