Category Archives: arts

items from elsewhere

Ron Paul’s remarks on the war, to the House useful spam-handling plugin for WordPress 1.5 a gag about clashing jargons Sheldon Richman on the “Minuteman Project”: . . . this “citizens’ neighborhood watch along our border” looks for foreigners who, … Continue reading

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unAmerican

Movielens invites you to rate movies you’ve seen and offers recommendations according to your ratings. To my amusement, most of the top fifteen titles suggested to me are foreign: six Japanese (all by Miyazaki), four Chinese and one German.

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gravitas

I called a locksmith today and he said he recognized my voice’s “heavy tone” from a previous job. I wonder whether that’s a translation of a Chinese idiom. Perhaps my voice was gravelly, as it sometimes is in the early … Continue reading

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“I am damn unsatisfied . . .”

Novel digital effects (interesting though somewhat crude by current standards) and slapstick mitigate the pointlessness of Kung Fu Hustle but detract from the fight scenes. Would I like it better if I understood the language?

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cinema 1963

天国と地獄 High and Low. Kurosawa does not disappoint in this policier, from a novel by Ed McBain (King’s Ransom). As in 野良犬 Stray Dog, it’s weird to see Mifune with a modern haircut and mustache; I could not be sure … Continue reading

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it just hit me

In The War of the Worlds, the Martians’ principal weapon is a heat-ray. In Robinson’s RGB Mars, at one point the badguys use a heat-ray against Martians.

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fontoma

The latest issue of The Freeman shows a complete redesign, with a curious choice of typefaces. The body is Goudy. Main titles and pull-quotes are Times Roman. Running heads and the titles of reviewed books are in Myriad. By-lines and … Continue reading

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