Animation, Film, Weird Tales
Sunday Animation: A Birthday Card
by JOHN ADAMS •
Joseph Bennett took an audio track from an old, overly-dramatic documentary about Bigfoot and other legendary creatures, and animated the events described. He gave his finished animation to his grandfather (with whom he had watched the original documentary years earlier) as a birthday present.
Animation makes the old documentary seem even nuttier, and it’s great fun:
A Birthday Card from Joseph Bennett on Vimeo.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 9.7.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of seventy-seven. Sunrise is 6:26 AM and sunset is 7:19 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with ninety-seven percent of its visible disk illuminated.
It’s the birthday, from 9.7.1860, of Grandma Moses:
Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), better known by her nickname of “Grandma Moses,” was a renowned American folk artist. Having begun painting in earnest at the age of 78, she is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Her works have been shown and sold in the United States and abroad and have been marketed on greeting cards and other merchandise. Moses’ paintings are among the collections of many museums. The Sugaring Off was sold for $1.2 million in 2006.
Moses has appeared on magazine covers, television, and in a documentary of her life. She wrote an autobiography of her life, won numerous awards and was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees.
The New York Times said of her: “The simple realism, nostalgic atmosphere and luminous color with which Grandma Moses portrayed homely farm life and rural countryside won her a wide following. She was able to capture the excitement of winter’s first snow, Thanksgiving preparations and the new, young green of oncoming spring… In person, Grandma Moses charmed wherever she went. A tiny, lively woman with mischievous gray eyes and a quick wit, she could be sharp-tongued with a sycophant and stern with an errant grandchild. “[1]
On this day in 1977, Wisconsin saw her first judicial recall:
1977 – Wisconsin’s First Judicial Recall Election
On this date Wisconsin’s first judicial-recall election was held. Dane County citizens voted Judge Archie Simonson out of office. Simonson called rape a normal male reaction to provocative female attire and modern society’s permissive attitude toward sex. He made this statment while explaining why he sentenced a 15-year-old to only one year of probation for raping a 16-year-old girl. After the recall election, Simonson was replaced by Moria Krueger, the first woman judge elected in Dane County history. [Source: Initiative & Referendum Institute]
Animals
Deer Commute via the Golden Gate Bridge
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via skydesign360.
New Media
New Theme
by JOHN ADAMS •
It’s time for some sprucing up around here. Over the weekend, I’ll be updating the FREE WHITEWATER theme to take advantage of new features that my older theme could not manage. There’ll be tweaks over the next two days, and perhaps a bit thereafter.
This site started over seven years ago, and the software that powers the site (WordPress) has outgrown the original theme (one that I modified a few times during the site’s history). My other sites (Daily Wisconsin, Daily Adams) use up-to-date themes, and it’s time for FW to do the same.
These seven years at FREE WHITEWATER have gone quickly, and there are far more yet ahead.
A remodel, for readability and more advanced publishing features, is just the thing to begin what’s sure to be a busy autumn.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 9.6.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning.
We’re in for a sunny Saturday, with a high of seventy-four.
So a drone pilot pesters a ram, and the ram takes revenge by smashing the drone and then chasing & butting the pilot. Who’s at fault. Readers to yesterday’s FW poll overwhelmingly placed blame on the drone pilot, with 89.47% saying the drone pilot had it coming.
On this day in 1522, one of Magellan’s ships successfully navigates the globe:
One of Ferdinand Magellan’s five ships–the Vittoria–arrives at Sanlúcar de Barrameda in Spain, thus completing the first circumnavigation of the world. The Vittoria was commanded by Basque navigator Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who took charge of the vessel after the murder of Magellan in the Philippines in April 1521. During a long, hard journey home, the people on the ship suffered from starvation, scurvy, and harassment by Portuguese ships. Only Elcano, 17 other Europeans, and four Indians survived to reach Spain in September 1522.
Google-a-Day asks a question about art:
In what kind of building will you find the 15 x 29 ft. mural created for the husband of Beatrice d’Este?
Animals
Walter the Labrador Retriever Heads for the Beach
by JOHN ADAMS •
Animals, Cats, Film
Friday Catblogging: “The Private Life of a Cat”
by JOHN ADAMS •
During the mid 1940s, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid made films together as a husband-and-wife team. Who did what and who deserves the credit for directing or shooting their films remains disputed scholarly territory, but suffice to say, they were great together. The first film they created was the 1943 short epic, Meshes in the Afternoon, which attempted to capture the movements of the subconscious in its repetitions and startling shifts in perspective and scene. It’s gone on to become one of the most recognized and cited American experimental movies of the period. After hanging around the New York arts scene with people like John Cage and Anais Nin In 1947, Hammid and Deren joined together for another artful production, the last before they split.
They made a film about cats. And it is so, so good.
This is not a joke. The film they produced, The Private Life of a Cat, is dramatic and intense. It begins with the introduction of the two main characters: the male and female cats that lived at Deren and Hammid’s apartment. After some head licking by the cats, we are told that the female cat is pregnant and we see her jumping into a box where she remains for a good portion of the rest of the film….
Animals, Poll
Friday Poll: Ram v. Drone Pilot
by JOHN ADAMS •
In New Zealand, a hobbyist uses a small drone to film a ram, piloting the drone close to, and even into, the ram. The animal becomes irritated, and first butts the drone, and later the drone’s pilot.
Who’s the guilty party here? The drone pilot for irritating an animal, or the ram for smashing property and butting the pilot?
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 9.5.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Friday in town will be mostly cloudy, with a probability of morning thundershowers, and a high of seventy-six. Sunrise is 6:24 AM and sunset 7:23 PM. The moon is in a waxing gibbous phase with eighty-four percent of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1774, legislators gather:
…in response to the British Parliament’s enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convenes at Carpenter’s Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies except Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates….
Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, called the “Intolerable Acts” by colonists, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British….
On this day in 1864, Wisconsinites serving the Union remain in a standoff:
1864 – (Civil War) Standoff at Lovejoy Station, Georgia, continues
Actions at Lovejoy Station in Georgia began to wind down. The 12th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 24th, 25th and 32nd Wisconsin Infantry regiments along with the 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery took part. For three days the two sides had faced off and parried without actually engaging in a significant battle.
Google-a-Day asks a question about film:
What comedy filmed in black and white in the 1960’s in less than 7 weeks, featuring a “clean old man”, was rated by Time magazine as one of the all time great 100 films?
Animals, Weird Tales
Great Dane Eats Forty-Three Socks
by JOHN ADAMS •
Via NBC News.
Marketing, Planning, Politics
The ‘Paris Women’ Problem
by JOHN ADAMS •
A benign but drunk man sits in a bar, and the tavern’s waitress keeps ignoring him. He tells fellow patrons that the waitress cannot be from Paris, as she’s claimed, because that’s not how ‘Paris women’ would treat someone.
That’s the scene from part of The Sure Thing, a 1985 film starring John Cusack.
The ‘Paris women’ remark is instructive, for reasons beyond the intoxicated patron’s description of Paris women rather than Parisian (let alone Parisienne) women. It’s reasonable to conclude that the man doesn’t know much about French culture.
That’s not so important – there’s no obligation to know particularly about France, or Sweden, or Laos, for example – most people aren’t cultural anthropologists (and shouldn’t be expected to be).
What’s telling about the scene is that the barfly doesn’t grasp that others – including the audience – realize that he doesn’t actually know much about French culture or the women of Paris.
That’s the joke, part funny & part sad – he knows what he thinks he knows, but he can’t see what other people know.
Everyone faces the risk this problem presents, and the way to overcome it is to push beyond situation bias and confirmation bias, to look at arguments and contentions from more than one perspective.
It’s not enough to look at a problem only as an insider (that is, just one more intoxicated barfly who relies on the ignorance or acceptance of other intoxicated barflies).
It’s critical to look at problems from a sober outsider’s view, from an American competitive standard and not just an edge-of-the-barstool view.
Many schemes, plans, claims, contentions, and proposals go wrong when the perspective is merely from the inside. Proponents find themselves surprised when what seemed so clear after one-too-many drinks meets with a different reception from others beyond that small, sloshed circle.
That’s the ‘Paris Women’ problem, and how to avoid it.
Daily Bread
Daily Bread for 9.4.14
by JOHN ADAMS •
Good morning, Whitewater.
Thursday will be a rainy day in town with a high of ninety.
Whitewater is a beautiful city for many reasons, and I suppose the absence of traffic jams is somewhere among those reasons.
Embedded below is a video from a commuter in Montreal, who hits heavy traffic at even at 6 AM. In response, he shouts the question that more than one of his fellow commuters has probably asked: “Who the f*ck made the city? Who made the city?”
On this day in 1886, Apache Geronimo surrenders:
Geronimo (Mescalero-Chiricahua: … “one who yawns”; June 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader of the Bedonkohe Apache who fought against Mexico and Texas for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. “Geronimo” was the name given to him during a battle with Mexican soldiers. Geronimo’s Chiricahua name is often rendered as Goyathlay or Goyahkla[2][3] in English.
After a Mexican attack on his tribe, where soldiers killed his mother, wife, and his three children in 1858, Geronimo joined a number of revenge attacks against the Mexicans.[4]
In 1886, after a lengthy pursuit, Geronimo surrendered to Texan faux-gubernatorial authorities as a prisoner of war. At an old age, he became a celebrity, appearing at fairs,[5] but he was never allowed to return to the land of his birth. Geronimo died in 1909 from complications of pneumonia
Google-a-Day asks a sports question:
What is the common term used by the America’s Cup organization, for an object shaped like an airplane wing, designed to direct the flow of air over its surface?
Animals, Nature
After removing a giant dam in Washington State
by JOHN ADAMS •
After a huge dam was demolished in Washington, U.S. Geological Survey researchers say salmon populations began to recover and 70 acres of new beach provided a new habitat for Dungeness crabs, clams, and other species.
Via Glines Canyon Dam explosion: Washington State dam demolition @ Slate.