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If you haven’t read any of Alan Furst’s fine works of espionage starting with his latest will not be a bad move. Or save it for later and read any of the others in any order (with one exception.) Those who have read one or more of them will know what to expect, a completely plausible, minutely researched situation where an ambivalent (that’s not to say insensitve) main character is caught up in a critical episode leading up to or during World War II. In this case the time is 1938 and the place is the doomed city of Warsaw. Your hero is a French military attaché who finds love, as Furst’s characters usually do, while risking his neck for some possibly valuable bit of information about German intentions, at a time when the world was pretty confident that Nazi ambitions could be contained.

Once you read one of these gems you’ll want to read them all. That they are structually similar should not put one off. This one differs a bit in that the hero is not quite as ambivalent as most of the others. Our only recommendeation, repeated from an earlier post, is that you either read Furst’s Night Soldiers first, or preferably save it for last. It has more of an epic quality, and gives a definitive top-to-bottom look at communist recruiting techniques during the period. It does differ from the others in its scope, and may be regarded as close kin to the recent film, The Lives of Others.

Tags: Alan Furst, Espionage, Uncategorized, fiction // Add Comment »

Documentarian extraordinaire Errol Morris explores the subversive and increasingly widespread phenomenon of fauxtography. Issues like this have always been a primary consideration in the art of documentary filmmaking so there’s no one better to take a whack at it than Morris. Take it from a film school grad.

What does it say, though, that the Big Questions have become so diminished in this intellectually watered-down post-modern world? You can’t address “What is Life?” anymore without getting into an argument about the unfortunate fate of pre-born children sacrificed on the altar of “choice.” You can’t ask “Is There a God?” without an accusation that you’re a religious nut who must believe in the 5,000-year-old Earth.

No, the Big Questions have been reduced to this: “What is real?”

Unfortunately Morris’ first interviewee fits the expected New York Times-style of expert template, chattering a lot of insight-free psycho-blather you’ve probably heard before.

He even starts off with the caveat: “The short answer is: I don’t know.” Well then why the hell should we continue reading? Does he really need a middle school teacher to tell him that there are different types of learning? We thought he was the expert.

Morris’s second interviewee, however, coined of the term fauxtography. And Charles Johnson offers some hard information about how he goes about spotting a manipulated image.

As a bonus, buried in that second interview he also puts forth what might be termed “Johnson’s Razor:”

You should never attribute to cleverness what can be easily explained by stupidity.

What is real? We know one thing that’s real. Here’s an answer in this video:

Russian armor rolling by you on the highway. That, my friends, is real. 

Tags: Charles Johnson, Errol Morris, Russo-Georgia War, Uncategorized, fauxtography // Add Comment »

Where did they find that perfect Maxine Waters look-a-like?  Hot Air posts The Onion’s “In The Know” panel’s wise ruminations on the real meaning of the Chinese Olympics.

Tags: 2008 Olympics, The Onion // Add Comment »

US Presidential candidate John McCain gets as close as you can get to an endorsement from the Dalai Lama as reported in James Taranto’s Life imitates Caddychack item. More importantly, Taranto gets Greenskeeper Carl’s famous speech - perhaps the most zen-perfect marriage of character, performance and dialog in comedy - back out front of the culture where it belongs:

Life Imitates ‘Caddyshack’

• ”So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfthson of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald–striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one–big hitter, the Lama–long, into a 10,000-foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? ‘Gunga galunga, gunga, gunga-galunga.’ So we finish the 18th and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know.’ And he says, ‘Oh, uh, there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.”–Carl Spackler (Bill Murray), “Caddyshack,” 1980
 
• ” ’I urge the Chinese government to release Tibetan political prisoners, account for Tibetans who have, quote, “disappeared” since protests in March, and engage in meaningful dialogue on genuine autonomy for Tibet,’ McCain said. The Dalai Lama praised McCain for his concern–while emphasizing he wasn’t endorsing McCain’s presidential bid.”–Associated Press, July 25, 2008

 

Tags: Caddyshack, Dalai Lama, John McCain, Tibet, movies // Add Comment »

A first rate online resource on James Bond by the London Times. So it looks like the mainstream is finally getting into the spirit of this web stuff. 

Though the timeline includes at least one non-Saltzman/Boccolli production, it does not include the “original” Casino Royale film. Sure it was a spoof but, hey, it also wasn’t chopped liver.

Tags: 007, Casino Royale, James Bond, Uncategorized // Add Comment »

Every art has its aesthetic moments. Even rock music. Every great rock act has the ability to grab you with a down-tempo song. If not then they are not a great act. It’s that simple. Think about all the superstars of rock, and you won’t find one that doesn’t have a soft number with artful lyrics.

James Taylor has many of those and with this one grabs onto every man’s boyhood sense of place. We all had those places our mothers would have fainted if they knew about. Our fathers would have understood. For us in South Philly it was hunting rats at the Pipelines or swimming in the greasy abandoned industrial canal called the Highlines, walking the tracks down past the Jungles or diving into the Delaware off the Coal Pier. For James Taylor it was a spot that “no one knew why they called like they do.”

A later incarnation of Lynyrd Skynrd puts forth their 1973 hit with all the simplicity and power of the song’s advice, to be a “Simple Man.” There’s no telling how many men this song could have diverted from some more complex path.

The sentiments of Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Someday Never Comes” are so universal that they easily cross borders, or oceans. So since there’s no Credence You Tube of the song at the moment, the most sincere cover of this great song is about a 65 percent effective try by a coupla dudes at something called Fogerty Fest in Finland last year. Swamp Duo’s version may not be the best and they may have used their shoe money to buy Credence CDs, but this only proves the strength of the song.

Tags: Credence Clearwater Revival, James Tayor, Lynyrd Skynyrd, music // Add Comment »

Behold the power of beer, on this interesting page about Houdini. Seems the non-drinking Houdini tried one of his standard tricks, getting locked in a milk can filled with water, and used beer instead.

He had to be rescued.

Mrs. Shears and I just watched Houdini last night, the innaccurate but-touches-on-all-the-main-points, less-than-completely-engaging movie about the performer’s life starring Jamie Lee Curtis’s mom and dad. A movie bio that had to be made. It could easily be made again.

Tags: Houdini, beer // Add Comment »

To paraphrase Woody Allen in Annie Hall, everything they say is bad for us may actually be good for us. Or at least not so bad for the people in the same room.

Here’s a study that lays the out the science of second hand smoke, hinting also at the politics of it. The US Surgeon General being, after all, a political appointment. Bottom line: second hand smoke cannot be used as a moral bludgeon to ban smoking.

And how about this? The benefits of psychoactive mushrooms? Apparently users feel more centered afterwards. Hm.

And demon alcohol gets an undeserved bad rap, especially our the yeasty brewed kind. George Will outlines here how civilization would have been, well, nowhere without the water purifying and genetic weeding-out benefits of the ultimate carb…beer!

And finally, drinking AND smoking may be your best defense against rheumatoid arthritis, depending. But you don’t have to take my word for it, here’s the story from some hot shot researchers in Stockholm. That’s in Europe, you know.

So essentially in spite of all the anti-smoking and growing anti-alcohol brainwashing going on out there it looks like in some ways you are actually wrecking your health if you DON’T smoke and drink. Anyway, that’s how Mrs. Shears and I now rationalize our occasional puff. We’re taking our anti-rheumatoid arthritis treatment. And when we drink beer (and Mrs. Shears can drink some beer) we are actually doing our bit for advancing civilization.

Now for the whole centering business.

Tags: alcohol, tobacco // Add Comment »

A great resource for info on the Space Shuttle, a seventies technology mercifully going out of service in 2010. Except for the disasters, some significant achiements, and a heckuva lot of great photos: Nasa Shuttle Missions Archive

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Never before or since did Disney get any hipper than when they recruited legend Louis Prima to sing and voice King Louis in The Jungle Book. Here’s a clip with some footage of the recording session:

A first hand account from animator Floyd Norman.

And the finished product, with Phil Harris (Baloo), Sebastian Cabot (Bagheera) and Bruce Reitherman (Mowgli):

Prima with the lovely and talented Keely Smith, giving as good as she gets:

Tags: Keely Smith, Louis Prima, movies // Add Comment »