Snippets:
~~~~~~~
Mythology: Galatea und Polyphemus. Famous painting by Raphael in the Villa Farnesina in Rome. Story here, also told in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'.
~~~~~~~
CD: Beth Gibbons: Out of Season (2003). Solo album of the voice of Portishead. Sad and quiet.
~~~~~~~
CD: Alice Ripley: Everything's Fine (2001). Pop. Voice okay. Some country touch.
~~~~~~~
Web: KartOO: Visual Meta Search Engine. Search engine that presents the results in form of a 'mind map'.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). 142 min. w/ Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter), Emma Watson (Hermione Granger), Rupert Grint (Ron Weasley). Directed by Alfonso Cuaron, after the novel by J.K. Rowling. Harry's third year at Hogwarts, discovering more of his own personal history. The teenagers start to become serious actors. Plot contains an interesting sequence of time travel. Overall rating 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Sg: 'Breaking a habit' by Linkin Park from the CD 'Meteora'
~~~~~~~
Video: Paris, Texas (1984). 145 min. Directed by Wim Wenders. w/ Harry Dean Stanton (Travis), Nastassja Kinski (Jane), Dean Stockwell (Walt), Hunter Carson (Hunter). Long thought dead man shows up in a desert in Texas, and is picked up by his brother. After getting some rest, and accompanied by his son, he makes his way to Texas to find his wife. Pretty slow plot. Only the last 30 min are really worth watching, the rest is a sleeper. Overall rating: 5 out of 10. HDS played Lyle Straight, Alvin's Brother, in The Straight Story.
~~~~~~~
Video: Julius Caesar (2002, TV mini series). 176 min. Epic about life and death of the great Roman leader. w/ Jeremy Sisto (Julius Caesar), Richard Harris (Lucius Sulla), Christopher Walken (Marcus Cato), Chris Noth (Pompey). Directed by Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn). Epic about life and death of the great Roman leader. Don't know how historically accurate it is, but it's entertaining. Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
~~~~~~~

I do not understand how an instructor for a 'safe driving course' can weigh 250 lbs: Doesn't he know that while in 2003 a total of 42,643 people in the United States died in traffic crashes, it was estimated in 1999 that the number of annual deaths attributable to obesity among US adults is approximately 280,000? [Allison DB et al., JAMA. 1999 Oct 27;282(16):1530-8. Annual deaths attributable to obesity in the United States]. Over six times as many!


Snippets:
~~~~~~~
DVD: Sex and Lucia (Lucia y el sexo, 2001). Spanish w/ English subtitles. Directed by Julio Medem. w/ Paz Vega (Lucía), Tristan Ulloa (Lorenzo), Najwa Nimri (Elena). The film is exactly about what the title says: about Lucia, a young woman who tries to find her boy friend, and about sex, occasionally quite explict. First hour is rather sluggish. However, later in the movie, more of a story actually unravels, and the line between fiction and reality disappears. Some great under water shots. Najwa Nimri is remarkable. Overall Rating: 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Chaos (Kaosu, Japan, 1999). Japanese w/ English subtitles. Directed by Hideo Nakata. w/ Masato Hagiwara, Miki Nakatani, Ken Mitsuishi. Wife fakes her own kidnapping, with unexpected consequences. Film is not chronological. Sometimes confusing, but idea is good. Overall rating 6 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Art: Christo (Javacheff) and his wife Jeanne-Claude opened 'The Gates' in Central Park, NYC, on February 12, 2005. 7500, by releasing the panels of saffron-colored fabric from atop the 7,500 16-foot-tall gates, along 23 miles of footpaths. What a spectacle! Will be on display until February 28, 2005.
~~~~~~~
Humor: "We have normality. I repeat, we have normality. Anything you still can't cope with is therefore your own problem." Douglas Adams (British comic writer, 1952-2001)
~~~~~~~
History: The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. I - V (Vol. I, II, III online).
~~~~~~~
Video: The Ring (2002). Directed by Gore Verbinski. w/ Naomi Watts. After the novel by Koji Suzuki and the movie Ringu (aka Ring; directed by Hideo Nakata, see above: 'Chaos'). People who watch a certain video tape get a phone call and die within a week. A Seattle journalist (Watts) joins the club, and her time is running out. Neat idea for a horror flick. Gripping. Great special effects. Mysterious. Overall rating: 7 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Life: Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS). Statistics of motorvehicle and traffic related fatalites and injuries.
~~~~~~~

Snippets:
~~~~~~~
DVD: Sylvia (2003). w/ Gwenneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig. About the life of famous American poet Sylivia Plath, the relationship with her husband, Ted Hughes, her jealousy, her depresseion, and her longing to become an acclaimed writer. Film is not a historically accurate portrayal. Depressing, sad, slow at times. Lacks the 'magic' of a good movie. Paltrows acting is good in this difficult role. Overall rating 5 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
Language: Islamism: 1.) from Merriam-Websters: the faith, doctrine, or cause of Islam. 2.) from Wikipedia: Islamism is a political ideology derived from the conservative religious views of Muslim fundamentalism. It holds Islam is not only a religion, but a political system that also governs the legal, economic and social imperatives of the state. [...] In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Islamism, along with other political movements inspired by Islam, gained increased attention in the Western media. The media often confuses the term Islamism with related terms such as Islam, fundamentalism, militant Islam, and Wahhabism. Although the groups and individuals representing these are not mutually exclusive, within academia, each term does have a distinct definition. Some Islamist groups have been implicated in terrorism and have become targets in the War on Terrorism.
~~~~~~~
DVD: Pather Panchali (Song of the Road, 1955). Bengali w/ English subtitles. 126 min. Directed by Satyajit Ray. First part of the 'Apu Trilogy', along with 'Aparajito (The Unvanquished, 1957)' and 'Apur Sansar (The World of Apu, 1959)'. Everyday life of a poor family close to starvation. Father Hari is a dreamer and poet, while his hardworking wife struggles to feed the family. Their daughter Durgha is free-spirited and petty thief. And her younger brother Apu is watching the world with his eyes wide open. Exotic, very different cultural background is interesting to study. But slow plot. Much redundancy. Overall rating: 4 out of 10.
~~~~~~~
DVD: A Clockwork Orange (1971). Directed by Stanley Kubrick, after a novel by Anthony Burgess; w/ Malcolm McDowell (Star Trek Generations). Members of gang in near-future Britain entertainthemselves by raping and murdering innocent victims. One of them, Alex, gets caught and imprisoned, and volunteers to subject to an experimental aversion condition method to cure him from his preverse desires by losing his ability to choose. After he is released, he becomes as defenseless as his former victims, but finds his own way to manage. Movie was initially X-rated. Plenty of sex and violence, to the point of disgust. Kubrik has built in several subtle, but deliberate inconsistencies (e.g. filling height of glasses in subsequent scenes) to generate additional confusion. Overall rating 7 out of 10. Anthony Burgess (1917-1993) did reportedly not authorize the movie, and later wrote a play based on the book. As to the title, Burgess wrote it came from an old Cockney expression "As queer [i.e. strange] as a clockwork orange", but other interpretations have also been found, including the 'mechanically responsive (clockwork) non-human (orang, Malay for "person")'. Alex is now "good" after his treatment, but his ability to choose this has been taken away from him. His "goodness" is as artificial as the clockwork orange of the title, and this might be much worse than having the freedom of choice to be 'bad'. More info about book and movie at Wikipedia.