The Week in Entertainment

Film: A Separation which was quite a bit different what I expected (which was the wife's point of view, and about the divorce) but was intense, filled with escalating tension, ultimately devastating, and quite, quite beautiful. It's an emotional wallop, and the final credits roll over a scene that grips you with surprisingly visceral emotion. Highly recommended.

DVD: Murder by Decree, an ... interesting ... Sherlock Holmes with Christopher Plummer and James Mason, in which we discover that Jack the Ripper was a Masonic cabal defending Prince Eddy from the follies of his marriage to a (gasp!) French Catholic woman. Also a couple of Indian films: Bhoothnath (Lord of Ghosts), a remake of The Canterbury Ghost with Amitabh Bachchan as the titular ghost, which was a lot of fun and succeeded in making me teary at the end; and Paheli (Riddle), with Shahrukh Khan as a ghost (theme night!) who falls in love with a human woman (played by the exquisite Rani Mukerji, so who can blame him?) and impersonates her husband when that one takes off on a five-year business trip immediately after the wedding. (Yes; this is Bollywood. Immediately after the wedding.) He confesses who he is to her and asks her to decide if he should stay. It's the first time in her life anyone has actually asked her what she wants, and she decides she wants him (it's Shahrukh saying he loves her madly, so who can blame her?) The trouble starts when the husband comes home... Enjoyable fairy tale of a story, and simply beautiful to look at it.

TV: Once Upon A Time had a bit of intrigue developing - who's the writer? Does he have to be a fairy-tale person? Caught up on Downton Abbey's second season; they're plunged into the slaughterhouse of WWI, new characters and such. No real character development, and since it's now 1916, i.e. 2 years later than the end of season 1, that's a bit disappointing. There's just some "oh, Matthew is engaged now" stuff, but he - and everyone else - are exactly the same as they were. This, of course, is probably by design - and I'll watch the rest of the season, so I guess they're doing something right.

Read: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (after seeing the brilliant movie), and then I reread The Spy Who Came In From The Cold which I didn't really remember very well. I picked up an omnibus for Kindle of all three Karla novels; I haven't ever read the other two.

Happy Birthday, Anton Pavlovich

Today in 1860 Антон Павлович Чехов (Anton Pavlovich Chekhov) was born. He was a doctor throughout his life, and probably contracted the tuberculosis that killed him while practicing medicine in the labor camps of Siberia - not as a prisoner, but as a volunteer medic, a logical conclusion to a career that began with free clinics and sliding-scale fees for Russia's working poor and included building schools and a fire station.

But if medicine was his lawful wife, literature, as he said once to Alexei Suvorin, was his mistress (Медицина — моя законная жена, а литература — любовница), and he wrote four classic plays (Three Sisters, Uncle Vanya, The Seagull, and The Cherry Orchard) and many short stories - his masterpiece "The Lady with the Dog" was written in Yalta, where he'd gone to battle his tuberculosis. (The picture is Chekhov with a dog, in Yalta...) Many consider him the father of the modern short story, many of whose forms he pioneered. He also formulated what's often called "Chekhov's Law" of "economy in narrative": "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." Or, in a more famous formulation, often called Chekhov's Gun: Если в первом акте на стене висит ружье, то в последнем оно обязательно выстрелит - "If there's a gun on the wall in the first act, it has to be fired by the end of the third act."

In May 1904 he became so ill that he went to a German health spa, where he died two months later.

All 201 of his stories, in the Constance Garnett translations and in chronological order, can be found here, with notes. And here they are in Russian.


«Если ты кричишь "Вперед!", ты должен принять безошибочное решение, в каком направлении нужно идти. Разве ты не понимаешь, что, не сделав этого, ты взываешь как к монаху, так и к революционеру, и они будут двигаться в противоположных направлениях?»

"If you cry 'Forward!' you must make it absolutely plain which direction to go. Don't you see that if, without doing so, you call out the word to both a monk and a revolutionary, they will go in precisely opposite directions?"

Regret

Went to A Separation this evening, followed by dinner at Mon Ami Gabi. Both were wonderful.

But the theater was pretty full, and my friend and I moved over to open up two seats for a couple. I don't know what it is, but every time I've done that in the last four or five years I've ended up regretting it. This time, the woman had somehow, best as I can tell, managed not to realize that this was a foreign film. Or at least, that it had a Farsi soundtrack with English subtitles.

How do you manage that? And why must you read so many of the subtitles aloud to yourself?

Happy Birthday, Jose

José Martí was born today in Havana, Cuba, in 1853. He was exiled to ASpain at 17, later moving to Mexico, Guatemala, and back to Cuba, from which he was again deported to Spain; he fled to France and then the US, living in New York and working for Cuban independence. He joined the war in 1895 and died shortly after the invasion.

Por Tus Ojos Encendidos... (Verso XIX)

Por tus ojos encendidos
Y lo mal puesto de un broche,
Pensé que estuviste anoche
Jugando a juegos prohibidos.

Te odié por vil y alevosa:
Te odié con odio de muerte:
Náusea me daba de verte
Tan villana y tan hermosa.

Y por la esquela que vi
Sin saber cómo ni cuándo,
Sé que estuviste llorando
Toda la noche por mí.


translation by Manuel A. Tellechea:

Because your eyes were two flames
And your brooch wasn't pinned right,
I thought you had spent the night
In playing forbidden games.

Because you were vile and devious
Such deadly hatred I bore you:
To see you was to abhor you
So lovely and yet so villainous.

Because a note came to light,
I know now where you had been,
And what you had done unseen —
Cried for me all the long night.


(More of his poems in Spanish and in English here)

Bananas!

It's true: you can learn something every day. I had no idea that O. Henry coined the term "banana republic" - and possibly less that it originally referred to Honduras having only one export.

Happy Birthday, Charles

Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll, was born today in 1832, near Daresbury, Cheshire, England.

Four years ago you got The Mad Gardener's Song; three years ago Bessie's Song to Her Doll, two years ago Tema Con Varizioni, last year A Sea Dirge, and this year A Valentine:

Sent to a friend who had complained that I was glad enough to see him when he came, but didn't seem to miss him if he stayed away.

And cannot pleasures, while they last,
Be actual unless, when past,
They leave us shuddering and aghast,
With anguish smarting?
And cannot friends be firm and fast,
And yet bear parting?

And must I then, at Friendship's call,
Calmly resign the little all
(Trifling, I grant, it is and small)
I have of gladness,
And lend my being to the thrall
Of gloom and sadness?

And think you that I should be dumb,
And full DOLORUM OMNIUM,
Excepting when YOU choose to come
And share my dinner?
At other times be sour and glum
And daily thinner?

Must he then only live to weep,
Who'd prove his friendship true and deep
By day a lonely shadow creep,
At night-time languish,
Oft raising in his broken sleep
The moan of anguish?

The lover, if for certain days
His fair one be denied his gaze,
Sinks not in grief and wild amaze,
But, wiser wooer,
He spends the time in writing lays,
And posts them to her.

And if the verse flow free and fast,
Till even the poet is aghast,
A touching Valentine at last
The post shall carry,
When thirteen days are gone and past
Of February.

Farewell, dear friend, and when we meet,
In desert waste or crowded street,
Perhaps before this week shall fleet,
Perhaps to-morrow.
I trust to find YOUR heart the seat
Of wasting sorrow.

Happy Birthday, Thomas

Today in 1621 Thomas Willis was born - the father of modern neurology. He discovered much about the way the brain is put together - nerves and cranial anatomy, including the Circle of Willis, and the circulation of the blood into and through the brain.

Carl Zimmer has written a (typically) brilliant book, Soul Made Flesh, that tells his story - and others (did you know Christopher Wren was more famous in his lifetime for his anatomical drawings than his architecture?) - highly recommended. I happened to read it shortly before visiting London, and it made me hunt out Willis's tomb in St Paul's.

Happy Birthday, Wolfgang

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born today in 1756 in Salzburg.

Symphony No 40

"fraudsters who dubiously perpetrated fraudulent acts with first degree ulterior motives against you"

OMG. I wish I'd seen this one before I posted Major Steve's effort. This one puts that one to shame. (I particularly like the signature.)

Office of the British Secret Intelligence Service Mi6 P.O Box 1300,Vauxhall - London SE1 1BD - United Kingdom.
Website: http: //www.sis.gov.uk/output/sis-home-welcome.html S.I.S
Ref: LN/mi6/SIS/XX027

Dear Beneficiary, BRITISH JURISDICTIONAL FUND LETTER: As Britain's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) also known as Mi6, SIS provides the British Government with a global covert capability to promote and defend the national security and economic well-being of the United Kingdom. Regional instability, Financial Frauds, terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and illegal narcotics are among the major challenges of the 21st century. SIS assists the government to meet these challenges. To do this effectively SIS must protect the secrets of its sources and methods.

In regards to Legislation and accountability, SIS like other British intelligence and security agencies, is subject to parliamentary, ministerial, judicial and financial oversight. Oversight is based on two pieces of UK legislation, the intelligence services Act 1994 (I.S.A) and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (R.I.P.A). With notice, SIS has litigated a group of apprehended UK-based multimillionaire financial fraudsters who dubiously perpetrated fraudulent acts with first degree ulterior motives against you through your e-mail over the internet in the United Kingdom. By court order, prior to 12 years prison sentence charged upon them by the Lord Chief Justice and President of the Courts of England and Wales (R.H, The Lord Judge: Igor Judge, Baron Judge), the culprits were placed on a bail by way of compensation to you in a sum of 2,350,000 (Two million, three hundred and fifty thousand British Pounds Sterling) in lieu of British International Fundamental Human Rights Ordinances of 1997, of which your benefited fund has been brought in cash to our Head Office by the culprits' Legal councils prior to their inception of jail term.

Click on johnsawers56@yahoo.co.uk to contact the British Secret Intelligence (MI6) Chief of Operations indicating your names, phone contact, age, current residential address & a valid identity card. Caution: Do not recopy this letter or publicize the above Britain's secret agent or the secret email identity above. For SIS diligence & effectiveness, it must protect the secrets of its sources & methods.

The Management, British Secret Intelligence Service London, United Kingdom.

He's baaaaack

Amy Goodman writes:

In his State of the Union address, many heard echoes of the Barack Obama of old, the presidential aspirant of 2007 and 2008.

Indeed.

And why is this?

It's because he's now the presidential aspirant of 2012.

Look, I'm probably going to vote for him. Bad as he is, he's better than whichever Republican emerges from this dog-fight. But he's not a populist. He's not a progressive. He's not even a liberal, let alone a socialist.

I'm not falling for that again.

Happy Birthday, Jules

Today in the Bronx in 1929 Jules Feiffer was born.


Here's my annual offering of a classic... still (unfortunately) relevant.

Some verbs just aren't intransitive

This morning I spotted this local news item

Driver crashes, kills fleeing police

The salient bits of the article are:

Baltimore County Police say Aaron McCoy, 20, of the 4000 block of Cedardale Rd. in Baltimore, was driving a Honda Accord while he was trying to flee police.

Five minutes later, at Dulaney Valley Rd. and Ivy Church Rd., police say McCoy crashed into the two other vehicles.

He was transported to Shock Trauma, where he died.

So he didn't actually kill any police, fleeing or otherwise.

Parallelism is all well and good, but especially in headlinese you can't say "driver kills" without providing a direct object. Even moving "fleeing police" away from the DO slot (fleeing police, driver crashes, kills) doesn't work (and please note you need that comma! "Fleeing police driver crashes, kills" is all other kinds of bad.).

In fact, even if you convert "kills" into the participle, if you write this in headline syntax (as they have now changed the headline to read) you get a bad reading:

Driver crashes, killed fleeing police

The whole point is, he didn't kill any police, fleeing or otherwise; in fact, he didn't kill anyone, except himself.

Why the heck not "dies fleeing police"? Fev?

Major Steve, do you know Major Tom?

I got this email today. Being "the bad type" I'm going to disregard the major's request and not just delete it, but share it with you... it's just too good not to.

Greetings,

My name is Major Steve ,, I am an British soldier in peace keeping force in Afghanistan, I am serving in the 16 Air Assault Brigade in Afghanistan,as you know insurgents everyday and car bombs are attacking us. On the other hand I want to inform you that I have in my possession the sum of US$7.3Million dollars in cash, which was recovered from one of our raids on terrorists here in Afghanistan, because they keep most of their money at home for evil activities which they normally get through illegal deals on crude oil.

Based on the suffering we undergo here some of us do meet such luck.It happened that I went for this raid with the men in my unit and I decided to take it as my share for my stress here in this evil land filled with suicide bombers.

I deposited this money with a red cross agent informing him that we are making contact for the real owner of the money.It is under my power to approve whoever comes forth for this money. I wish to use this money and invest anywhere in world because that is where i intend to move over with my family at my retirement.

i am a uniformed man and I cannot be parading such an amount so I need to present someone as the beneficiary, and i need somebody i can trust and it would be wise working with somebody like you.If you accept,I will move the money out where you will be the beneficiary

I am British soldier and an intelligence officer at that so I have 100% authentic means of transferring the money through diplomatic means. I just need your acceptance and all is done. Please if you are interested in this transaction, get back to me so that i will give to you the complete details you need for us to carry out this transaction successfully.

Where we are now we can only communicate through our military communication facilities which is secured so nobody can monitor our emails.I will only reach you through email,because our calls might be monitored.

If you are interested please send me your personal mobile number so I can call you for further inquiries when I am out of our military network.I am writing from a fresh email account so if you are not interested do not reply to this email and please delete this message. I am doing this on trust,you should understand and you should know that as a trained military expert I will always play safe in case you are the bad type,but I pray you are not.

I wait for your response so we can go on. I will give to you 30% of the sum and 70% is for me. Reply to(stevebill81 @hotmail.com) Regard s,

Major Steve,

Ah, Politifact... you used to be good

Paul Krugman asks how to tell if a fact isn't a fact:

The criterion, according to Politifact, seems to be that a fact isn’t a fact if it helps a Democratic narrative.

Jared Bernstein watches the train wreck. Obama said:

In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005.

which is just true. Period.

But Politifact rated it as only “half true” because he was “essentially taking credit for job growth”. He didn’t actually take credit — and even if he had, a fact is still a fact.

I do not think that word means what Politifact thinks it means.

Now, it seems they've revised this to "Mostly True". But it also seems that Politifact is so vested in balancing Right vs Left in the Truth Ratings that they're really stretching to find ways to say things aren't true when they are - as in labelling the Democrat statement that RyanCare would destroy Medicare as "Lie of the Year".

Happy Birthday, Rabbie!

Robert Burns was born today in 1759, two miles (3 km) south of Ayr, in Alloway, South Ayrshire, Scotland.

The Highland Widow's Lament

Oh I am come to the low Countrie,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Without a penny in my purse.
To buy a meal to me.

It was na sae in the Highland hills,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Nae woman in the Country wide
Sae happy was as me.

For then I had a score o' kye
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Feeding on you nill sae high,
And giving milk to me.

And there I had three score o' yowes,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Skipping on ou bonie knowes,
And casting woo to me.

I was the happiest of a' the Clan,
Sair, sair may I repine;
For Donald was the brawest man,
And Donald he was mine.

Till Charlie Stewart cam at last,
Sae far to set us free;
My Donald's arm was wanted then,
For Scotland and for me.

Their waefu' fate what need I tell,
Right to wrang did yield;
My Donald and his Country fell
Upon Culloden field.

Ochon! O Donald, oh!
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Nae woman in the warld wide,
Sae wretched now as me.

Right on cue

At 9:30 am today, Paul Krugman wrote:

Meanwhile, the Romney campaign is signalling that it’s going to try to spin this as “he pays lots of taxes”! How stupid do they think we are? Actually, don’t answer that.

No kidding. The shuttle driver at 8 this morning was listening to some talk-show where the host told us it sounded like "a lot of taxes" to him.

Happy Birthday, Vasily

Born today in 1848 in Krasnoyarsk, Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (Василий Иванович Суриков).

He is probably the foremost Russian painter of large-scale historical subjects, which often focused on events that resonated with the ordinary person, though he also painted smaller events and portraits. His major pieces are among the best-known paintings in Russia.

Four years ago I showed you his portrait of the Bronze Horseman - Peter I (the Great) in St Petersburg - and depiction of the arrest of the Boyarina Feodosia Morozova, three years ago it was a light-hearted game, Taking of the Snow Fort, and one of his more intimate works, a portrait of Menshikov and his daughters in exile; two years ago, a moody picture of Stenka Razin in his boat, and a portrait of an old man in his vegetable garden, and last year, two of his landscapes, a herd of horses on the Barabin steppe and a seasonally-apt watercolor of the Kremlin. This year, a water-color church in Dyakovo, and the Yenisey river.






You can find more of his pictures at this Russian-language site if you're interested.)

Officially an adjective? Not quite

So, over on Twitter this is going around (for a limited definition of "going around", to be sure):

"Pete Caroll" is officially an adjective. As in "Chip Kelly just Pete Carroll'd his way out of town"

Errrrr - that's a verb, guys. An adjective would be

Chip Kelly is very Pete Carroll today, isn't he?

Happy Birthday, Sergei

Born today in Riga, Latvia, in the then Russian Empire, Sergei Eisenstein (Сергей Михайлович Эйзенштейн), one of the great pioneers of film directing, often called the "Father of Montage." He directed some of the early great movies - the silent films Strike [Стачка](1924), Battleship Potemkin [Броненосец Потёмкин] (1925) and October - Ten Days That Shook the World [Октябрь «Десять дней, которые потрясли мир»](1927), and the historical epic Alexander Nevsky [Александр Невский] (1938). Potemkin has some of the most famous sequences (or montages) in film - particularly the utterly brilliant Odessa Gates steps sequence.