December 2009
O! Grace
Magnolia Electric Co
Magnolia Electric Co. - O! Grace
E’ stato un anno lungo un giorno, ma siamo ancora indietro di un mattino.
Strike another match, go start a-new. Now that the past is gone.
“Kafka could never have written as he did had he lived in a house. His writing is that of someone whose whole life was spent in apartments, with lifts, stairwells, muffled voices behind closed doors, and sounds through walls. Put him in a nice detached villa and he’d never have written a word.”
—[Alan Bennett]
Sospensione
Resto sospesa. Mi guardo poco attorno. Le persone passano, mi parlano… chissà cosa dicono.
Le mie comunicazioni col mondo sono interrotte, danneggiate, disturbate. Ogni tanto ci si spiega, a gesti.
Dopotutto qua dentro non si sta poi così male.
[Millimetrica]
We have lost one of our great ones.
Michael Stipe
“I flew around a little room once.” A line from Supernatural.
He was just that. He possessed an unearthly energy and
yet was humanistic with the common man in mind. He was
entirely present and entirely somewhere else. A mystical
somewhere else. A child and an old guy as he called himself.
Before he made an album he said he was a bum. Now he
is in flight bumming round beyond the little room. With his
angel voice.
Patti Smith
[R.E.M. HQ]
I liked it because it sounds like exactly what we set out to be: An ’80s buddy cop movie, without sounding like Loaded Weapon, or some such s—. But more importantly, to me, the title tells the story of what happened to our other title. I think it’s kind of ironic. It’s win-win. For 100 percent of the potential audience for this movie, I would say 0.5 percent knows that we were once called A Couple of Dicks. After they read this article, maybe you could bump it up to 0.75 percent. The rest of the potential audience, they have no idea what this movie used to be called. For them it will always be Cop Out. They’ll just never know that there was that one magical moment where it was called A Couple of Dicks. We were making up sequel titles in our heads, dude. Like, you know, Two Bigger Dicks. Or Dicks 2: It Just Got Harder.
Kevin Smith on why “A Couple of Dicks” became “Cop Out” | EW.com
Studio Ghibli made the official announcement of their new full length feature film titled Karigurashi no Arrietty (The Borrower Arrietty). The film will be an adaptation of Mary Norton’s Carnegie Medal winning novel The Borrowers and, as hinted earlier on GhibliWorld, will be directed by Yonebayashi Hiromasa.
Unlike the original novel, which tells a story about tiny people who “borrow” things from normal humans during the 1950’s in England, Studio Ghibli have transferred their version to Tokyo Koganei in 2010 (Koganei is where Studio Ghibli is settled) and tell the story of 14-year-old little Arrietty (Chiisana Arriety was the films original title).
Yonebayashi earlier worked as a key animator on previous Ghibli works like Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and Spirited Away and was animation director for Miyazaki Goro’s Gedo Senki. Karigurashi no Arrietty will be his directing debut which is something he did not expect to happen (as told by Ghibli producer Suzuki Toshio earlier this week). Nowadays Yonebayashi is encouraged by Miyazaki Hayao every single day, who also happens to be the one handling the planning of the film. Production, as always, will be handled by Suzuki Toshio.
[GhibliWorld]
Look at that. There’s a quarter of the world’s bleach allocation, in that room alone. Thousands of pounds went into maintaining every crumpled trouser. Each rolled-sleeve blazer might as well have had shoulder pads made of rolled-up bills. And yet, there they were, doing what they could to help people. By singing. Together. While pulling extravagantly caring faces. And that’s what makes this a classic Christmas charity single. And giving so generously (of their time). Those crazy selfless fools.
Tonight, thank God it’s them instead of you.
Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Listen
Curtis Mayfield - Make Me Believe In You
Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville - did not. The Grinch hated Christmas - the whole Christmas season. Now, please don’t ask why; no one quite knows the reason. It could be, perhaps, that his shoes were too tight. Or it could be that his head wasn’t screwed on just right. But I think that the most likely reason of all may have been that his heart was two sizes too small.
[How the Grinch Stole Christmas!]
Christmas Day Feast, Italian Style
Trade your mashed potatoes for pasta, your turkey for capon. (And along the way, learn what capon is.) We’ve created a Christmas Day feast inspired by some of our favorite regional Italian traditions. This multicourse extravaganza will look impressive on the table - and will taste amazing - but won’t require outlandish feats in the kitchen.
Listen
Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock
Merry Christmas from Amazon.com
Hit the link for a nice little Christmas present from Amazon. They have listed 1,298 mp3s of all types for free.
If you ever wanted to fill out your music collection here is your chance. Holiday Music, Rap, Rock, Alternative, Classical, Jazz, Country, and more…
Thank you Amazon.
[via]
“Nella vita non esiste il pareggio.”
—[L’uomo in più]
Peter Jackson is bringing Mortal Engines to the big screen?
Stuff.co.nz (via SlashFilm) is reporting a scoop that Jackson is secretly working on adapting the Mortal Engines series of fantasy novels written by Philip Reeve. There are four books in the series and Jackson is said to be working on adapting the first one. The paper wasn’t able to get in touch with Jackson for confirmation, but they do say he’s had the rights to the books for some time, so it’s possible this is true.
Read more
Winter solstice at Stonehenge →
guardian.co.uk
Pagans and druids gathered for a foggy sunrise ceremony
Ritorno al Barocco - Da Caravaggio a Vanvitelli
Una rassegna che intende raccontare il barocco come passione per la vita, il barocco come passione per l´arte. È un evento che coinvolge Napoli e il territorio circostante attraverso un ricco programma di mostre presentate in sei musei cittadini e varie altre iniziative che includono arte e architettura, musica e teatro.
12 dicembre 2009 - 11 aprile 2010
Nel nuovo film di Sofia Coppola ci saranno Laura Chiatti, Simona Ventura, Valeria Marini e Nino Frassica.
[Non ci posso credere.]
Listen
Tori Amos - Winter
Track 09
Billie Holiday - It Had to Be You
Gli anni di Grace Kelly
Principessa di Monaco
Roma, Palazzo Ruspoli - Fondazione Memmo
16 ottobre 2009 - 28 febbraio 2010
“Everybody loves you when you’re six feet in the ground.”
—[John Lennon]
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (2002)
A story written in floridly broken English - the narrator is Ukrainian student Alex Perchov - is interleaved with the author’s own imagining of his grandfather’s origins. Moving, fantastical, ultra-ambitious.
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami (2005)
The stories of this Japanese master are sometimes little more than glimpses of a single image, a single moment - but so loaded with meaning that it speaks volumes.
