Yesterday, I saw the movie Atonement. For those of you curious about the movie and who also want a vocabulary work out, take a read through the Washington Post’s review by Ann Hornaday. Now, though I still have yet to decide if I liked the movie or was merely enchanted by the cinematography, there is one flat-out great shot in the movie which I can not forget.
While the accomplished Seamus McGarvey uses blown out sunlight highlights, SteadiCam-stabilized 4+ minute long takes, and other beautiful techniques to help tell the story, the scene I have in mind employees none of these technical methods. During a verdant evening on the hottest day of the year, the romantic hero of the movie walks to a party, back to the camera. Clad in an exquisite tuxedo, he fluidly vaults a split rail fence. In this simple act, in this simple setting, the viewer experiences the bravado and physical prowess of youth and the fervent hope of young romance all encapsulated in an elegant, beautiful motion. Perfect.
I’ve learned a new word today: perspicacious; “having keen mental perception and understanding; discerning: to exhibit perspicacious judgment.” Now, if I can only master the pronunciation of such an unfamiliar word.
I always thought that dead reckoning was a complete guess about distance traveled. Turns out, it is based on an estimation of important factors like speed and time, not just looking back over the distance covered and making a visual guess thereof:
Dead Reckoning is the process of estimating your position by advancing a known position using course, speed, time and distance to be traveled. In other words, figuring out where you will be at a certain time if you hold the speed, time and course you plan to travel.
Well, I guess this will about do it for 2007. Mykala and I are baking a cake and watching Comcast channel 107 “CURNT,” which is broadcasting the entire Radiohead In Rainbows album, entitled “Scotch_Mist: a film with Radiohead in it”. It’s really fun to see them (Radiohead) record in these video vignettes. Right now, they are performing “Faust Arp” on a hill in front of a sunset. It’s cooler than my adjective-poor description would have you imagine.
Anyhow.
It’s been a quite a year. Didn’t get into school, graduated, studied for the DAT during a rather relaxing summer (lots of 10 mile runs this summer), took the DAT, got a job at 3M, moved into an awesome apartment in Saint Paul, got into school, and tried to tease out the meaning of life as it relates to my puny existence. High five to 2007. High hopes for 2008.
Now is as good a time as any to share my future plans for tumbledry. Dental school = four years of not very much free time to work on tumbledry. Therefore, in the next sixth months I have to work towards something to stabilize the site re:hosting, code, etc. I simply will not have time to move the site to another server in the middle of school, so I need to take steps now to ensure that tumble service continues uninterrupted throughout my professional education. Regardless, the feature set of tumbledry is such that it can go into low maintenance mode where comments are all turned off… however, since we don’t usually get a lot of comments here from random people, I may not turn off all comments. Besides, the feedback from you guys is one of my favorite parts about tumbledry. Also, with regard to pictures… I don’t think I’ll be able to continue a daily picture. It’s looking as though the pictures will be posted on a weekly basis instead. Special events, holidays, etc. will get more pictures… but I think the photographic component I so cherish will have to go into a low-power mode for a while. Furthermore, the ratio of links to posts (such as this one) will change — I expect to focus solely on documenting humorous anecdotes, life situations, life events, and so on, instead of the endless “hey look at this cool thing” that is so common on the site right now.
Originally intended to be simply a link, this little piece has evolved into an account of a typical internet browsing pattern of mine… which has somehow been incorporated with an attempt at art commentary. Here it is:
A microcosm of my web-browsing experience reveals my natural curiosity about many things. You see, I browsed from kottke.org to I Did Not Know That Yesterday! via random clicking. At this (quite interesting, actually) website, I saw a post about the real estate value of Central Park in New York (for the curious, it is over 528 billion dollars). I then looked up Central Park on Google Maps, and noticed that one building interrupted the park’s solid green border. That building is the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I then visited the Wikipedia page about the Met in order to learn when such a building had managed to negotiate with the city of New York to build on the precious grounds of Central Park (turns out it opened at its current location in the year 1880). After this, I began reading about the museum’s deaccessioning policy, intended to allow the museum to acquire “world class” art objects.
Finally, I found what I originally meant to link in this space — a painting by Marie-Denise Villers entitled “Young Woman Drawing.” I’m no art critic, but I think it’s a very interesting piece of art/painting for a variety of reasons. First, it may not be true for all viewers, but there’s an intensity in the image that speaks to me; you know how some pictures just jump out at you? Also, the unadorned background seems more akin to something you would find in the 20th century than in 1801, when the painting was made. Furthermore, the glow around the figure really highlights the attention paid to the sunlight. Rembrandt, an artist so famous he apparently only needs one name, used and advanced this lighting technique known by the Italian word chiaroscuro. I find myself drawn to the glowing, elevated reality in these types of paintings. I wonder if they sell this painting on a poster website.
So, what was a seemingly random walk around Internet-town left me with a slightly tenuous, certainly interesting, culturally enriching thread of connections… simply because I started randomly clicking. How can you not love the internet?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
— C. S. Lewis
With blizzard-like conditions, sub-zero windchills, 1/4 mile visibility, and 2-4 inches of snow forecast, we’ve got the recipe for a tasty pre-winter weather treat! Unfortunately, the weather outside is frightful because some people still have some place to go. For example: Mykala is alone in Saint Paul waiting to pick her parents up from the airport. They’ve been delayed and rerouted to Iowa — I hope everything works out A-O.K. In the meantime, I’ll be here wrapping presents, thinking about taking an indoor run, and eagerly anticipating Christmas tomorrow. Perhaps Mykala and I will even play a digital game of Scrabble in which she’ll spell auditors on a triple word score with a 50 point bonus for using all 7 letters. We will see.
Merry day before Christmas, everyone! I hope your plans for the holiday involve metric tons of fun and eggnog.