French New Wave directory Eric Rohmer made this 1964 short film about a woman who is a student in Paris and likes to walk around exploring the city and herself. Incredible simplicity.
Part 2:
Author Archives: Editor
My Plug Idea for the BP Oil Spill
Plug the hole with a big… you know… plug. There are no ideas coming out of the U.S. government or its bosses at British Petroleum, so why not offer some of our own. I’m pretty good at offering lots of dumb ideas while trying to find a single good one. So here’s my latest dumb idea.
To modify my idea in the film slightly, I would guess that instead of dropping the plug from chains, you would set the thing down on short legs at the ocean floor and then, when it was aligned with the hole, blow the legs out from under it to drop it into the hole.
I wonder if there are lots of ideas like this for solving the disaster in the Gulf. I’d be very curious to see what other people are coming up with.
Update:
After posting my doomsday hole plug idea last night, Scot Monette wrote me a note to point me to this video for his oil spill cleanup product, Petronet. It’s a biodegradable cellulose fiber made from ground up garbage. It’s environmentally friendly and it absorbs huge amounts of oil. When a country gets into a situation where it can only elect intellectual midgets to the highest federal offices (yes, I’m referring to our dimwitted President), you need people like this who are thinking on their feet and use their ingenuity to actually make things that help. Look at this video and ask yourself why the Coast Guard is not on the phone with Mr. Monette at this very moment:
Audio Podcast Novel: Robinson Crusoe (Part 11)
DOWNLOAD ROBINSON CRUSOE – PART 11
Crusoe makes another shocking discovery and sets himself on a course of action that leads him to one of the book’s most interesting passages. It is here, in Crusoe’s struggle with his own outrage and his ideas about what makes for civilized behavior, that Defoe begins to turn the novel in a new direction. He is examining the underpinnings of Western civilization. What makes a person civilized? What does the right of self defense really mean? This kind of thinking and questioning is perhaps somewhat lacking in certain countries today. Notice also how religion, for Crusoe, seems to have a moderating, calming influence. He resists using it to justify himself or his actions.
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Read by Alessandro Cima
Illustration is by NC Wyeth (1920)
Crusoe watches the ocean for boats
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Artificial Life Created for the First Time
Scientists announced today that they have created the first artificial life form in human history.
The J. Craig Venter Institute has informed the White House of the incredible achievement and the possible environmental and military repercussions are already being debated.
Researchers used computers to create an artificial sequence of DNA. Then they inserted that DNA into hollowed-out cells which began to grow and replicate.
That’s a new form of life created by human beings. This may be a far more important development than going to the moon.
Trailer for Metropolis with Restored Lost Footage
Hey! I thought I had the darned movie already! But now there’s yet another ‘restored’ version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science fiction masterpiece, Metropolis. Boy is that a gorgeous trailer though! Wow! And the music is far better than what’s on my DVD. This is the movie that just keeps making itself over and over and over.
I want to make a feature film and I’ll release the 2-hour version, but there will be 17 hours of ‘lost footage’ hidden in various places around the globe so that the movie can recompile itself over the decades into an ‘official version’ which bears absolutely no resemblance to the original movie. Or better yet, I’m going to start shooting fake Metropolis footage and then discover it in the broom closet of an old bus depot in the middle of Kansas. So the movie will suddenly expand to 4 and a half hours.
President Obama Using Military to Threaten Journalists Covering Gulf Oil Spill
The President of the United States is actively using United States military forces to threaten journalists who are trying to document the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. Coast Guard officers working with BP officials threatened CBS reporters with arrest for photographing an oil-fouled shoreline. A Coast Guard officer says, ‘These are BP’s rules. These are not our rules.’
This is simply horrifying. The Obama presidency has ended. I’m a lifelong Democrat and I’m frightened of this guy. I want him out and out fast. Any president who uses the U.S. military to threaten and harass journalists needs to be removed from office instantly. It’s criminal behavior. Our military is now apparently answering to British Petroleum in the Gulf region.
There are increasing reports coming out of Louisiana that cell phones and cameras are being confiscated and that scientists and research equipment are being turned away from trying to investigate the spill in public lands.
It is beginning to look as if the Obama administration, along with BP, is engaged in a massive cover-up of Gulf oil spill information.