Arts: Literature: Poem by Samuel Menashe (2009)

In Your Face

SAMUEL MENASHE

Eyes that spurn yet invite

Like spikes in the sunlight

Of Manhattan’s high-rise—

Babylon’s ladies outshine

Daughters of Jerusalem,

Zion is no easy climb

Source: Poetry (September 2009).

Poetry via Jewish Ideas (Apr23,2k12)

Movies: Beautiful (2000 AD): Mimi Driver is stunning as the protagonist in The Cell

I was privileged to see at last this evening-morning the celebrated movie The Cell, released in the Millenial Year.  Remember? — 2KY.


Twelve years of life so far, this brilliant display of cinematography at its finest, is also a well acted serial-killer drama, featuring as its heroic heroine the character played by Jennifer Lopez (Dr Catherine Deane), well supported by the little-girl child-actor Hallie Kate Eisenberg who plays Vanessa, dawter of the woud-be Pageant Winner, Mona, played by Minnie Driver.  Vincent D'Onofrio plays the serial-killer into whose mind Jennifer (FBI agent) travels, the mind of Carl Rudolph Stargher.


Moral of this finely-sentimental work of filmic art, a narrative motif interwoven into the movie arts here on display, sentiment interwoven with a plot of quest.  The moral of the Sacred Quest (in search of some Holy Grail or other) is here presented as a dilemma — either becoming winner of the beauty-pageant Crown for the year, or alternatively a renewal of a special life-giving relationship and thus a liberation from  the more than stunted, shuttered relation of alienation previously prevailing between mother and dawter.  Minnie Driver's character is on a quest for personal integrity, sadly lacking in her relationship with her dawter.  This is evident when Driver sings an amazingly performed solo film-version of  the pop hit, Will you still love me tomorrow" already made famous by the Shirtelles who released it in 1964.    The Cell version (2000, film soundtrack appearance of Minnie Driver with the London Philharmonic Orchestra); the key song was originally sung by the Shirelles, recorded live, 1964 (see 2nd video panel below).

Some of the scenes in The Cell are inspired by works of art. A scene in which a horse is split into sections by falling glass panels was inspired by the works of British artist Damien Hirst. The film also includes scenes based on the work of other late 20th century artists, including Odd Nerdrum, H. R. Giger, and the Brothers Quay. Tarsem — who began his career directing music videos such as En Vogue's "Hold On" and R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" — drew upon such imagery for Stargher's dream sequences. In particular, he was influenced by videos directed by Mark Romanek, such as "Closer," and "The Perfect Drug" by Nine Inch Nails, "Bedtime Story" by Madonna, and the many videos that Floria Sigismondi directed for Marilyn Manson. During a scene, Jennifer Lopez falls asleep watching a film, the film is Fantastic Planet. In the scene where Catherine talks with Carl while he is "cleaning" his first victim, the scenery resembles the music video "Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.


The scene where Peter Novak first enters the mind of Carl Stargher, and is confronted by three females with open mouths to the sky is based on the painting "Dawn" by Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum. The scene when Catherine Deane is chasing Carl through a stone hallway, right before she enters the room with the horse, is based on a painting by Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger called "Schacht".  — Wikipedia

Also note the Sufi music of Morocco sung by the Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar. 


The movie received both acclaim and condemnation.





Thus does a contemporary movie become as loaded with allusions as is T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland quartet of poems.


To me, it seems that the stylistics of Sally Field have absorbed a lot from the film aesthetic of French director, Jean-Luc Godard. 


— Movie Man, refWrite Backpage film reviewer & critic



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Music: Jazz: Jazz vocalist with jazz chamber orchestra, so to speak

I've often said how I l+k jazz  — instrumental jazz — but detested jazz vocalizations,

I've had to change that judgment.  Now, after hearing Liala Biali, here's something that conveys jazz-ready singing sublime.

— MusicMan




Hat Tip to Igor Manuel, Belo Horizonte, Brasil

— reposted here by MusicMan (Mar22,2k12), refWrite Backpage music critic

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Sports: NHL Hockey: Canadiens (Montreal) lead Senators (Ottawa) 1-0

Here in Canada, the hockey industry pitts Montreal vs Ottawa for an NHL contest that  somehow seems regnant with Canada's own culture wars more largely, you know, the/les Canadiens / separatistes / autonom-istes — a tripartite memes-linkage input in Québec's province-w+d discourse that has as its fawlt line the difference in language and other modes of culture in the various societal spheres of la belle province, dans les peuples des francophones majoriteurs, le peuple francophone du Québec, les Québecois/Québecoises.

But the usual protocols for the enjoyment of a hockey match, by fans of teams, often specific teams housed in or near the woud-be enjoyers dwelling or workplace; enjoying a game of professional hockey (at the NHL level) seems these days to slip away from its former strong ties to the naïve entertainment knowledge of a hockey game in Canada today.



We can get tickets to go root, root, root for our home team (both native Canadian and American champions,  well-supplemented today -- of course ! -- by Russian, Eastern European, and Baltic States pro-hockey athletes). The outstanding measurable factor in a multi-modal analysis of the fanbase of each of the teams, and its threads of themes of motivations of the players along the 5-years developmental stage of fourteen thru eighteen ("the hellion teen-years," said some British media-wag).

We can quietly watch together in our close-family circle.  We can extend, even open w+d, the circle —a change from previously functioning as a household event into an at-least-partially-open event — so, we throw a house party.

And we str+k up some new acquaintences, over several beers, a couple of shots of whiskey, Scotch double malt, thru the n+t we will begin the usually-long process of making friends, with two couples and three singles we had never met before.

— Sportikos

Montreal Canadiens lead Senators 1-0

————————————————————

Montreal Gazette (Enlish lang daily), Montreal, Québec (Mar16,2k12)
by Mike Boone (see MB's game blog Hockey Ins+d/out)

— reposted here with comment by Sportikos,
refWrite Backpage sports columnist

Follow @Owlbgeneral editor, refWrite Backpage Tweet #hockey

————————————————————

 Mike Boon's newsbrief:

The Canadiens are still leading the Ottawa Senators 1-0 after the second period of play on Friday night, the second time the teams have met in three days.
Tomas Plekanec gave Montreal the lead when he scored a shorthanded goal 8:18 into the first period.
Andrei Markov, who played the last three games after missing 16 months because of a knee injury, will not play Friday night. Tomas Kaberle will also be missing in action, with Alexei Emelin drawing back into the lineup.

Read Mike Boone’s game blog Hockey Inside/out

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

Read more : http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Montreal+Canadiens+lead+Senators/6315452/story.html#ixzz1pKgdQ0nQ

Music: Music/Art interface: Daiziwen's creations at the edge of interdisciplinary art

Despite its opening image (which didn't much arouse curiosity), I gave Daiziwen's combo of video imagery with calligraphy (to me undiscernible, but indeed curiosity-arousing and even intriguing) and Marshall music.  A troo del+t. 8–)

— Audiovisiotor




— reposted here with comment by Audiovisiotor, refWrite Backpage
video/music columnist & reviewer
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for music/visual interdisciplinarity, sports, tech, and much more
 
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Sports: NHL hockey: Tampa Bay's Lightning 6 vs 1 Boston's Bruins

TAMPA, FLA.—Once Steven Stamkos scored, there was no stopping him from doing it again.

The NHL goals leader scored twice to reach 50 in a season for the second time, and the Tampa Bay Lightning jumped out to a big early lead before coasting to a 6-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.

Pix: Mike Carlson / AP

The 22-year-old Stamkos, who moved into a tie for the league's scoring lead with Evgeni Malkin with 84 points, also scored his 49th and 50th goals in the same game two seasons ago.

“It was definitely in the back of my mind. It was nice last time I did it to get to 49 and 50 in one game,” said Stamkos, the first pick in the 2008 draft. “That was definitely running through my mind.”

---------------------------------------------------------

Toronto Star (Mar14,2k12) by Fred Goodall 
... read his excellent article in full

— article intro posted here by Sportikos,
refWrite Backpage sports columnist
Follow @Owlb editor, refWrite Backpage

Steven Stamkos scores 50th goal 

as Tampa Bay Lightning 

beat Boston Bruins

Music: Pop: Bruce Springsteen walks 'The Streets of Philadelphia'

The song was released in the late Nineties.  I don't know when the Boss went on his walk.  But in this snippet of an excerpt, lovely and sad, we get glimpses of a Philly looking wasted as it never did in the years I grew up there ... the snippet has a cameo of Tom Hanks ... stretches credulity a bit for me, but so what, eh? — Musikos




Hat Tip to Igor Manuel

— reposted here with comment by Musikos, refWrite Backpage music columnist and reviewer
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Satire: Literary: Shakespeare lampooned in story of The Three Little Pigs

A bit of nursery rhyme cross-bred with stand-up comedy to satir+z Shakespeare.  Somewhat a farce the way this stand-up deployees his ever-so clever jokes for the intelligentsia, including me.
— Saturikos 8-)


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The Three Little Pigs

Comedian John Branyan tells the story of The Three Little Pigs as it 
would have sounded if written by Shakespeare in this hilarious 
stand-up performance. He did this so well I hope he does more
Fairy Tales as I know I could avail oneself of some of the words he used
to improve my limited vocabulary.

————————————————————————

Big Geek Daddy (found Mar3.2k`1)

— reposted here by Saturikos, refWrite Backpage humour&satire columnist
Follow @OwlbrefWrite Backpage editorTweet #yUT2ubeYouTube
channel for refWrite's online video collection.

Hat Tip to Eleanor Abbott, abbess, Order of the Ascension, California

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Music: Classical (West): Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto "Emperor"

One of m+ favourite pieces of music, above all hip-hop and standard pop, above most classical works ... this is a giant gem beyond price ....



Hat Tip to Lucas Freire

— reposted here with comment by Musikos, refWrite Backpage music columnist


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refWrite's YouTube channel; select the playlist for our Music collection ... for your listening pleasure.

Sports: Car racing (NASCAR): Daytona speedway will host the action today, if the weather holds after yesterday's reschueduling

I know fans who woud eat their shirts — or yours — just to be in attendance at this major event of the professional racing season at Daytona, Florida.  To some "racing" means car racing, h+ turbo automotive h+style racing.  News of today's goings-on will flood us during the event, unless the rain doesn't cooperate again today.  I've been trying to find out how long the NASCAR Daytona 500 typically lasts, in order to estimate how long that dang rain has hold off.  It's going to become harder and harder to reschedule successfully, as other events in the sport and in the sports culture and wider culture will be backing up onto the possible new dates.

The video below presents one of the more tragic racing disasters — as it affected racing's key female star.  I present it here for its news-value and for its conveyance of the feel of a major racing event.

The text below is by sports journo Cindy Boren, and it gives a taste of what the racing pros and their support teams went thru yesterday, many of them struggling for focus and maintenance of their readiness — both key emotional (psychological) factors in professional racing.  What an edge, rather edginess, must have prevailed for most.

— Sportikos, refWrite Backpage sports columnist

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Posted at 02:56 PM ET, 02/26/2012

Daytona 500 postponed until Monday, averting collision with Oscars, NBA All-Star Game (updated)

by Cindy Boren

View Photo Gallery: Daytona 500.

Updated at 5:13 p.m.

Rain began to fall again and NASCAR officials made the unprecedented decision to move the Daytona 500 to noon Monday at Daytona International Speedway.

Forecasts call for worst weather Monday, however.

Updated at 5:04 p.m.

The rain reportedly has stopped and the track is being dried as NASCAR tries to start the Daytona 500.

Original post

Rain continues to fall in Florida, delaying the start of the Daytona 500 and placing the race on a collision course with the Oscars and the NBA All-Star Game, if only lthe weather will break.

The Academy Awards will start at 8:30 p.m. EST (ABC), with the All-Star Game beginning at 7:30 (TNT) — a head-to-head matchup that already was on tap.

The auto race was scheduled to start around 1:30, but rain has fallen steadily all day. Officials say it would take about 2 1/2 hours to dry the track once the rain stops and, with the track lighted, there could be night-time racing.

NASCAR officials plan to wait as long as possible to push the race to Monday — when the forecast remains dire — with Fox committed to showing the race tonight, if it comes off.

If it does happen, call it the the NBAytonOsctargame or something like that. In the meantime, go to Twitter, where Danica Patrick’s delayed Sprint Cup debut and the Oscars are trending with #replacewordinmovietitlewithdanica. (“TallaDanica Nights.”)

H/T Steve Sweeney

Music: CountryMusicUSA: Carrie Underwood on how he'd cheat if he coud get away with it

GAC email newsletter (Feb25,2k12)

—reposted here by Musikos and Country Gal

Just like we always like to do, GAC asked fans to help decide which videos should make one of our special countdowns!  And once again, you came through in a big way.  Thanks to everyone who voted for GAC’s Top 50 Videos of the 2000s earlier this year.  And, a huge thanks to our amazing host, Neal McCoy, for making sure the trip through the countdown was a good time for all!  Congratulations to Carrie Underwood who topped the countdown with her smash hit video “Before He Cheats.”  You can check out the complete list below and be sure to leave us a comment and tells what you think!

GAC’s Top 50 Videos of the 2000s

1. Carrie Underwood — “Before He Cheats”
2. Alan Jackson — “Where Were You”
3. Taylor Swift — “You Belong With Me”
4. Trace Adkins — “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”
5. Lady Antebellum — “Need You Now”
6. Blake Shelton — “Hillbilly Bone”
7. Toby Keith — “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue (The Angry American)”
8. Carrie Underwood — “Jesus Take The Wheel”
9. Brooks & Dunn — “Believe”
10. Keith Urban — “Days Go By”
11. Reba McEntire/Kelly Clarkson — “Because Of You”
12. Taylor Swift — “Our Song”
13. Blake Shelton — “Some Beach”
14. George Strait — “Troubador”
15. Lee Ann Womack — “I Hope You Dance”
16. Gary Allan — “Man Of Me”
17. Miranda Lambert — “Kerosene”
18. Tim McGraw — “Live Like You Were Dying”
19. Shania Twain — “Gonna Getcha Good”
20. Brad Paisley — “I’m Gonna Miss Her”
21. Chris Young — “Getting You Home”
22. Trace Adkins — “You’re Gonna Miss This”
23. Gary Allan — “Right Where I Need To Be”
24. Carrie Underwood — “Last Name”
25. Keith Urban — “You’ll Think Of Me”
26. Alan Jackson — “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”
27. Taylor Swift — “Tim McGraw”
28. Brad Paisley/Dolly Parton — “When I Get Where I’m Going”
29. Sugarland — “All I Want to Do”
30. Luke Bryan — “Do I”
31. Josh Turner — “Long Black Train”
32. Kellie Pickler — “Red High Heels”
33. Blake Shelton — “The More I Drink”
34. Keith Urban — “Raining on Sunday”
35. Toby Keith — “As Good As I Once Was”
36. Kenny Chesney — “Don’t Blink”
37. Rascal Flatts — “What Hurts the Most”
38. Brad Paisley — “Celebrity”
39. Martina McBride — “This One’s For the Girls”
40. Jason Aldean — “Amarillo”
41. Gretchen Wilson — “Redneck Woman”
42. Sara Evans — “Born to Fly”
43. Zac Brown Band — “Chicken Fried”
44. Blake Shelton — “Austin”
45. Taylor Swift — “Love Story”
46. Carrie Underwood — “Cowboy Casanova”
47. Kenny Chesney — “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problem”
48. Rodney Atkins — “If You’re Going Through Hell”
49. Faith Hill — “The Way You Love Me”
50. Toby Keith — “I Wanna Talk About Me”

If you’re a fan of Top 10, Top 20 or Top 50 lists then here are a few you need to check out…

• Top 50 Videos of the ’90s »
• Top 20 Tailgating Songs »
• Top 20 Cowboy Rodeo Songs »
• Top 20 Songs Honoring Troops »
• Top 10 Working Man, Woman Videos »
• Top 10 Boating Songs »

   ShareThis

Read more…

Sports: Digi-reports & views: Facebook gets Dr Hockey's tidbits out to NHL fans

Ron Kuipers' hockey  

Woo hoo! Did you hear what Modano tweeted? I think it's a great move, myself, albeit a slight risk in that they are banking on this year being an anomaly, and that he will return to being a near ppg player or thereabouts. The short term makes it palatable. The Oilers will only get better imo if they keep their real NHL players, and stop trading them for magic beans at the deadline. The Oilers would have either lost him as a UFA for nothing, or gotten not much more than nothing at the trade deadline. So keeping him is good asset management. Before the kids arrived, Hemsky was the only reason to watch this team most nights. Classy move.

Copper & Blue

Oilers Re-Sign Hemsky sbn.to/AaXuxZ via @CopperandBlue Yeah, Ron, you called it.
@Owlb February 25, 2012

Music: OpenCountry: One of the greats of country music sings about the motives of sacrifice

Keith Urban sings the theme song of Act of Valor, the much-anticipated new movie about USA Navy Seals.  Titled simply "For You," the song explores the experience of committing oneself to sacrifice — for someone else, the other, perhaps the beloved -- I do this for you.

— Musikos, refWrite Backpage music critic and reviewer
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Sports: Hockey NHL: WashDC's Caps (2) crumble before victorious Ottawa's Sens (5)

What a disgrace — Washington DC's Capitals hockey team came north to the Canadian capital city of Ottawa and lost with only 2 scoring shots against 5 for Canada's Senators.  Yes, suddenly the National Hockey League's ordinary game becomes a contest between the overall hockey prowess of the countries' general sports values.  That's not the way either team or the NHL plans it.  The matter is just too much overpowered by the sport and, at the same t+m, the weit of metaphors that sweep fans up into a kind of nationalism.  After all, it's the NHL teams from the two countries' capitals, with names like "Capitals" and "Senators" (which coud confuse Americans becawz so many of them don't even know theirs is not the only country that has an elected office of Senator ... well, actually in Canada, Senators (the political kind) are not elected but appointed (how regressive can you be?), while Senators (the hockey kind) are mostly bawt and sold with weird Get-off-the-Team-Now cards available, at least to some players who're discontented with where they've ended up.  Now, Ottawa is not a very hospitable town, cold, and rather empty on the weekends.  Much of the workweek's populace live across the river in Hull, Quebec, and some of them want a separate French-speaking country but do l+k Gringo and Anglo dollars that speak English.  I mean Caps vs Senators sets a whole nationalistic lingo and metaphory in motion with decades of political overt+m suddenly made volatile in the fevered imaginations of fans in the icey North above the tree-line and the DEW-line.  Okay, okay, I'm stretching it a bit.May I quote a sociologist of sport? Writing about hockey in Canada, Alan Bairner in his Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization: European and North American Perspectives (2001) reminds us,

Time and again, the cry goes up — hockey is Canada's game or, as the legend on countless T shirts woud have it, 'Canada is Hockey.'  This is not to ignore the fact that it is played in numerous other countries. But implicit is the widely held belief that Canada and the Canadians have a special affinity with the game that is matched in no other country.  For many years, it was also felt that the Canadians were undoubtedly the best hockey players in the world.  By the 1960s, however, it had become apparent that the Russians as well as other Europeans and even Americans coud also play a bit.  The result was a period of national soul searching.  Victory [by Canada] in a challenge series against the Soviet Union in 1972 provided temporary relief.  ... (page 134).

All of which pertains at least obliquely to the headline of Katie Carrera's article in Washington Post's online feature Post Sports which focusses on the absence of the Cap's Russian star Alex Ovechkin.

— Sportikos, refWrite Backpage sports columnist
———————————————————————
Wapo Post Sports (Feb22,2k12)
— Article intro reposted here with refWrite comment by SportikosFollow @Owlb
general editor, refWrite Backpage

———————————————————————

Capitals vs. Senators: 

Without Ovechkin, 

Washington drops third consecutive game, 

with 5-2 loss in Ottawa

by Katie Carrera, Published: February 22

OTTAWA — To watch the Washington Capitals in recent days is to wonder when things went wrong for a team that five months ago was often mentioned as a can’t-miss candidate to make a long run in the postseason. Wednesday night, the Ottawa Senators became the latest opponent to benefit from facing the disjointed shell of a team the Capitals have become.

Washington fell, 5-2, to the Senators at Scotiabank Place in another game that featured a team hopelessly stuck in the quicksand of its own bad habits. Star winger Alex Ovechkin sat out with a lower-body injury but his absence had little impact on the outcome. The Capitals demonstrated little spark en route to another demoralizing defeat and didn’t offer much resistance until the contest was out of hand — both goals came after they trailed 4-0.

More On This Story

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• No Ovechkin, little spark as Caps lose
• Summary: Senators 5, Capitals 2
• Hunter criticizes Vokoun's play
• Ovechkin sits with lower-body injury

View all Items in this Story

The Capitals (29-26-5, 63 points) had another opportunity to pull even with Florida atop the Southeast Division, as well as Toronto and Winnipeg in a tie for eighth in the Eastern Conference. Instead, they remain lodged in 10th in the East, having lost three straight and seven of their past 10.

“We’ve got to find a way to win games,” said Mathieu Perreault, who recorded one of Washington’s two goals. “Right now we’re out of the playoffs. We gotta find a way to get points no matter how we play. If we have a bad night, we have to find ways to tie games and do right things because right now it’s pretty awful.”

Considering the way they are limping toward Monday afternoon’s NHL trade deadline, it’s tough not to wonder whether General Manager George McPhee and team brass will opt to make more significant and numerous changes than it might have otherwise.

Read the full article in WaPo's Post Sports ....