It’s time for the boys to shine.
Friday Night Cat Blogging: Tongue edition
A trip to Beautiful Saratoga, CA
Saratoga is located on the West side of Santa Clara County, due West of San Jose.
According to the Saratoga Historical Society:
Saratoga, it is said, is derived from an Iroquois word, Se-rach-to-que, literally, “floating scum upon the water,” a completely understandable interpretation to be put on the presence of mineral deposits showing up as vari-colored film on the surface of a pond.
We decided to take a trip there to see three different places. We visited Villa Montalvo, now called the Montalvo Arts Center. From there, we went to Hakone Gardens and then finished it off with a trip to Mountain Winery. Follow me below the fold for a bit of history and lots of pictures.
Jack LaLanne: An Icon is Gone
I don’t use the word “icon” very often. However, this man was a part of my life at a very young age. I’m going to celebrate a half century of life at the end of the year. This man was there for 49 years of it.
A lot of you won’t remember life withoutout color tv or cable or computers or cell phones. I remember all of that. Note for younger people: It doesn’t make me better…just older. This man…
was a part of my life for all of those years.
On a lazy Sunday, how about some golf?
Plenty of new and entertaining stuff from our blog friends listed under “Blogs and Forums”. Please go visit, hit the links, read and comment.
In the mean time, Kitsy’s bit o’ culture…
And the Boober in one of his favorite spots:
JBoD’s double matinee: “Animal Kingdom” and “Rampage”
“Animal Kingdom” – (2010, Australia, 113 minutes – rated R)
“Do you know what the Bush is about?”
A key question both asked answered by Melbourne detective Nathan Leckie (Guy Pierce) as he tries to turn Joshua ‘J’ Cody (James Frecheville) into a witness against his own family.
Continue reading “JBoD’s double matinee: “Animal Kingdom” and “Rampage””
Friday Night Cat Blogging: Pretty Eyes and a Ham
This is the time for the boys to shine.
Fun With Talking Cats
The first video speaks for itself…pun intended. I laughed a lot when I saw first saw it.
This second video is a Sphynx cat talking to the birds. Kitsy sounds like that whenever he is in the kitchen window.
The Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park: Part 3
This is part three. Parts one and two can be fund here.
One morning we woke up to rain. It’s the rainy season in San Francisco. It wasn’t a heavy rain, but it was enough. We had wanted to get out and walk and so we debated. We suddenly realized that we had not been to the Japanese Tea Garden In Golden Gate Park for quite a while and that the rain would keep the crowds down.
Continue reading “The Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park: Part 3”
Tuesday night cat vids
Looking for a bit of humor and silliness today, I decided to just post a couple of cat vids. These are two of my favorites.
This is An Engineer’s Guide to Cats. I’m quite the fan of these guys and their vids.
And now, for the Mean Kitty song.
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes
“The piano tuner of earthquakes” – (2005, Germany/United Kingdom/France)
“Tarkovsky for me is the greatest [director], the one who invented a new language, true to the nature of film, as it captures life as a reflection, life as a dream”.
This quote from Ingmar Bergman about Andrei Tarkovksy applies to few directors, whose films are like echoes which never fade, feeling of déjà vu from things you’ve never seen.
Can there be a more “controlled” medium than animation, I don’t know. But this may be the most interesting dichotomy (or seeming contradiction) about the Quay brothers, in that they will show you elaborate images for your imagination to use as canvass and subject.
They seem to shy away from the notion of script, well maybe not shy away, so much as discard. I think they see scripting as restrictive to the creative process of story telling: the characters as well as the decors are enabled to follow their own rhythm and narration.
This, of course, is how most of us dream.
The Quay brothers’ second film, as their shorts and previous feature, is not easily described. They themselves appear like 18th century automatons, speaking in the halting way of people born into a world of opinions, hostile to developing ideas.
Their literary, visual and musical references are just this side off mainstream, not obscure so much as… Uncommon yet surprisingly attainable, and are woven in loose tapestries which invite you to pull whichever string twitches tantalizingly, following yet another rabbit hole of sorts: the décor itself is an actor.
“The piano tuner of earthquakes” would I think appeal to anyone who truly enjoyed Cocteau’s “Beauty and the Beast”, Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth”, Tim Burton’s “nightmare before Christmas” or Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”.
To try and outline a synopsis, or post pictures or a trailer, in the case their movies would be restrictive and so I do not. Instead I would simply tell you that if you have read this far, you will likely want to continue this dialogue by watching the Quay brothers’ oeuvre.
“The piano tuner of earthquakes”… Such a title, and it is just the beginning.
This movie gets the five beans
