Anybody who knows the Workhouse Marketing meeting room, will be aware that it has it’s own micro climate. Whether it’s sunny, foggy, rainy or snowy outside it is always freezing in our meeting room, (a 300 year old room I might add). Just come out of a meet with a new (frozen) client who pointed at the old wood burning stove in the corner…and said…”that’s an original Esse manufactured at Barnoldswick in Lancashire, they give out a superb heat and would make this room lovely and warm”. So, after occupying this building for nearly 10 years, the time has finally come to light a fire in our meeting room. Just need to add to somebody’s job description,” collect coal and logs and light fire in the morning”. We’d be able to present some really hot creative in our meeting room then!

Apparently both the log burning stoves in the building (pictured below)……

Esse Wood Burning Stove in our meeting room

Jotul wood burning stove in our creative studio

…are worth a few quid, so if we get behind budget we might turn to the second-hand log burning stove market for help. Esse were the company who made the original ranges before Aga was a twinkle in it’s makers eye. Check out the Esse website. They’re not a client so I might just give them a ring…http://www.esse.com/stoves/index.html

By contrast our photography studio has underfloor heating, and is now lovely and warm. We’ve been doing quite a few people shots of late, some against a black backdrop, some against the large infinity cove,  here are some children and a girlfriend of  Workhouse staff…photographed at Workhouse Studios.

My son Tom

Angeline's daughter Betty

Campo's girlfriend Clare

If you want to see more of our pictures, or hire the studio, or hire our photographer, you can get all the details on our photographic studio at the Workhouse Studios website, here is the link…http://www.workhousestudios.co.uk/

Was the Live Desk a bit too live for Martha MacCallum today? As she and co-anchor Trace Gallagher covered the liftoff of space shuttle Atlantis, they interviewed former NASA astronaut Tom Jones. With regard to the administration’s active review of the NASA program Martha asked, “Any sense of how that evaluation is going and whether or not we’re going to see more extraordinary travels into space and beyond?”

Out of the blue, an unknown and “unshown” woman was heard, saying, “That sounded like Bud [sic] Lightyear right there.”* Not directly acknowledging the probable producer whose “whisper” was apparently inadvertently aired, Martha responded with a hearty laugh. Ignoring or not hearing the interjection, Jones simply answered the question and co-host Trace uttered not a word.

Martha, did your producer mean Bud Lite Year or Buzz Lightyear?

*Live Desk – 11/16/09 (@2:36 p.m. ET)

Faz tempo que eu não vejo mais episódios desse seriado…eu adorava, e uma das constantes desse seriado, era a “dancinha” do Carlton…nesse vídeo, tem uma coletânea, com participação especial do tom jones…vale a pena!!!

I’m not quite sure what happened this evening. I can’t decide if I’ve had a great night or simply one that will take a while to recover from. I think I’m in shock.

The last time I saw Sir Tom in the flesh, as it were, he was strutting his stuff on stage in the RDS in Ireland back in the early 1980s.  Girls my age were losing track of their grannies as the old dears rushed the stage to cast their knickers at the King. His trousers were painted on him. And when his oversized rhinestone beltbuckle caught the light, you could have seen it glitter from Mars. Women older than my mother seemed to have lost their reason. I distinctly remember a group of women from the Irish Countrywomen’s Association flinging a pair of enormous bloomers onto the stage embroidered with ‘We love you, Tom’. I was fascinated. The music was great; the entertainment value was excellent; and when I got over the bout of prudishness brought on by the gyrations, I kinda fell for him… in an I’ll-keep-my-eyes-shut-and-you-just-sing-to- me  kind of way.

De Wimmen bought me tickets for tonight’s gig in Budapest .(Yes, I know the photo says Prague but had I seen this photo before mentioning that I wanted to go, I wouldn’t have gone. The Budapest PR posters were a lot kinder. To say that he’s had a nip and a tuck here and there goes no where near the truth. It is scary. Really scary. Really, really scary to see what a 69-year-old man can look like, if he has money.) Anyway, we all headed off to Papp László (KG and her lovely new boots and me) and were in our seats just before 8pm for the warm-up act: Felicity Rawlings. Great voice. Nice girl But no Delilah. And I was there for Delilah.

Sir Tom took his own sweet time coming on stage. And I was getting a tad fed up. It was 9.10pm before the band arrived and then another five minutes of strobe lights and SFX before the man himself appeared singing Sugar Daddy, a song penned for him by Bono and The Edge. It was downhill from there. Six modern, poppy songs later (all from his new album 24 Hours) we finally get Delilah. And this is where my confusion started.

I’d been slowly seething, like an auld wan, about not getting what I’d paid for (even though technically I hadn’t paid for anything). I’d expected a trip down memory lane, to drop in and see if the old home town looked the same and to learn all about never falling in love again, maybe even see what was new with pussycat. Instead, I was watching some ould lad in leather strutting his stuff on stage as if he was 29, not 69, and Mick Jagger he ain’t.  Tom’s wiggle was a very poor imitation of a bad waggle. Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for doing as much as you can for as long as you can but honestly… this was embarrassing. The man has a fantastic voice -  still as good as it ever was (the eyes-shut trick still works). He was certainly on form and when, an hour later, I finally got a sniff of the green, green grass of home, I started to relax a bit. It seemed as if the modern stuff was over and he was back to the fellah I met all those years ago.

But as we flipped back and forth between old and new and detoured through the southern United States (I had to open my eyes at this stage to make sure it was still him on stage), I lost myself in an internal debate about concerts. Ticketgoers pay to see a performance and have expectations. Performers are in it for the money and to promote their new stuff. You’d imagine that it was all about satisfying the punters’ needs. So why then, when the crowd was on its feet, in rapturous applause for an oldie, why didn’t he stick with the tried and true instead of all this flash?

I’ve been to four really great concerts in my time: BB King many many years ago in Dublin; Kris Kristoffersen in Dublin a few years back; and both Leonard Concerts, this year (Budapest) and last (Amsterdam). All were low-key with minimal, if any, SFX or lighting effects. Tonight was electric…literally. Louder than loud.  Why? Why? Why? …. Delilah. 

The Knighthood didn’t make the crassness disappear and the women love him all the more. The crowd was on fire. They wanted more and more and more (oops, that’s Joe Dolan, isn’t it? I’m getting my shapers mixed up!) But I really didn’t know what to make of it all. Yes, of course, plug the new album (and respect to the man for still putting it out there), but a little more of the good stuff would have been nice. Actually, in fairness, the title track 24 Hours has a hint of Johnny Cash about it… and had I heard it at home, I might have been rightly impressed. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just too old for anything but the unplugged version. Bitching aside though, he did actually play all his big hits… it’s just that he didn’t have that many!

Robbie Williams is set to receive the Outstanding Contribution To Music Award at next year’s BRIT Awards.

The star is also set to perform live at the ceremony at London’s Earls Court on February 16, 2010.

The singer has already picked up more prizes at the ceremony than any other solo artist, with 11 gongs to his name so far. Previous winners of the award include  David Bowie ,  Paul McCartney ,  Pet Shop Boys ,  Oasis  and U2 .

Ged Doherty, chairman of the BRITs committee, said in a statement: “Robbie is one of the outstanding artists and performers of his generation. It will be an absolute thrill to have him at the BRITS 30th anniversary show receiving the Outstanding Contribution Award. We are delighted.”

Williams won his first Brit award as a member of Take That, when ‘Could It Be Magic’ was named Best Single in 1993. The group went on to scoop three more trophies before he quit in 1995.

He was awarded his first BRIT as a solo artist in 1999 for Best British Male Artist and went on to win at least one category for another five years running.

In 2005 he performed his biggest hit ‘Angels’ live onstage alongside Joss Stone, and at an earlier BRITs, in 1998, he performed a duet with Tom Jones.

Earlier this week, Williams made his live comeback at the BBC Electric Proms, performing tracks from his forthcoming new album ‘Reality Killed The Video Star’ at his first live show in three years.

I can honestly say without hyperbole that I have seen the face of a Goddess in the form of Raquel Welch, whose 1970 TV special, RAQUEL! must be considered the pinnacle of the musical variety oeuvre. Yes, yes, we all knew about her dynamic thespic graces and feral full-bodiness, but did you know she could sing and dance too? Leave it to the multi-faceted Welch to interpret “California Dreaming” amid the gray streets of Paris with thoughtful new lyrics (“I looked into a church/I passed along the way/Oh my mind was so at ease/And I recalled the day.”) and an unthought of space-age performance dance a’ go-go in NASA-realistic Bob Mackie outfits.

The literal peak of the special must be Raquel! as a sacrificial Goddess leading a troupe of costumed Zodiac figures in an epic rendition of “Aquarius” set on the steps of an actual Aztec pyramid in Teotihuacan. You’ll wonder who or what was sacrificed to produce this spectacular pop desecration. I can almost see the virgin blood spilling down the stone ruins as Raquel! guides us through the astrological spirit world as only someone of her mystic power could. The Aztec dance number threatens to achieve almost 30 seconds of artful subtly as the camera pulls back from the pyramid lined with colorful zodiac characters, flying away from Raquel!’s distant Goddess frame overlooking the sacred temple until the entire ancient landscape spreads out in windy silence. Aquarius.

And if that’s not enough to alter the history of song interpretation, how about Raquel! schlussing like George Lazenby’s stunt double through blankets of powdery Aspen snow as she sings Helen Reddy’s “Peaceful”? She then launches her own brand of fabulous vocal earnestness on “The Sounds Of Silence,” “Here Comes The Sun,” and “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head.” That’s not all folks. You’ll know you have approached the lip of Valhalla once John Wayne saunters out to teach Raquel! how to properly shoot and kill using stock footage before we cut to our dynamic duo visiting a Mexican orphanage, dispensing their own brand of Amurrican charity, Movie Star style. She genuflects for a daringly humble moment as all these brave children must have found a home in her heart.

Oh and did I mention Tom Jones? Perhaps I shouldn’t because only he manages to douse Raquel!’s talent bonfire — she doesn’t need HIM. Especially in a duet of  “Tutti Frutti.”

This is not all fun and wonder though. As Raquel! savors her version of “Everybody’s Talkin’” we get a rarified glimpse into her fish-bowl existence of press and flesh huggers as she dispenses the fruits of her wisdom tree, even dissing Hugh Hefner with a pithy, succinct, “I don’t agree with his philosophy, but the paper it’s printed on is very good.” This is a wonderful introspective glance at her mad-cap, pell-mell, jet-set, famous-person life-style. And she eschews the phrase “sex-symbol” since to her mind, that’s what they call a bosomy star who doesn’t fit into easily quantifiable categories. Did the Duke and those orphans know that the same year Raquel! was delivering her cosmic message to the masses, she would also play the title role of the X-rated, MYRA BRECKENRIDGE, featuring a scene with her in a Miss America bikini as she woops it up anally raping a male actor with a strap-on dildo? Perhaps it best they didn’t know; the turbulent 1970 universe could only handle so much cultural schizophrenia.

Speaking of climaxes, RAQUEL! winds up to her special’s penultimate number as she sings and shimmies with Bob Hope in a Western duet massacre of “Rocky Racoon” replete with Welch as Mae West and Hope as…Bob Hope. Did television audiences know that Mae West herself was also in MYRA BRECKENRIDGE? The synchronicity is astounding. But not as glorious as the close-ups of Hope’s comedic grace in full bloom — all he has to do is mug and swallow with iconic nose in profile and the laugh machine responds like opening night at The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. The Beatles must have been awed by this teaming of two celebrity giants warbling “Rocky Racoon” and I sense the subtle genius of Bruce Villanch behind these bits of comedy revue gold.

But what the Goddess giveth, she taketh awayth. And as Raquel! and Hope strolled off together into the back-lot sunset, I wanted to follow them — nay, HER, this complex multi-media babe on all her global spanning adventures through time and space. And I won’t be sated until every man, woman and child on planet Earth has witnessed this 1970 Lost Ark of the Pop Covenant…O’ Raquel!

Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!, sobre este tema y sobre el cantante poco que hablar.

Se supone (ah, pero es que, a pesar de lo que ciertos y ciertas imbeciles mentales dicen sobre mi) que, al gustarme tanto el rock, no me puede gustar otro tipo de música.

Y no es así, ESTE TEMA ES UN TEMAZO, INDEPENDIENTEMENTE ADEMÁS DE LO QUE…..JEJEJEJEJE……”INSINUA”.

Este tipo es un gran cantante y tiene unos magníficos temas y resulta que, con este, demostró a MUCHO IMBECIL que, SI SE ES BUENO…SE VA SER SIEMPRE BUENO (eeeeh….que no estoy hablando de cuerpos, aunque, sin ir mas lejos, una de las amantes de “Rompetechod-Rovira” suele aprovechar estas cosas PARA MANIPULAR A SU ANTOJO. Claro que no es mas que una ASQUEROSA BRUJA).

En fin, tras una gran tarde de futbol y esperando que tomorr….oupss!!, craso error, tomorrow ya no es tomorrow, ya es hoy, que son las 03:29 hora de Madrid City, ciudad de “El Zanjas” Tutangallardón, me despido dejando el temazo de este tio del  -en español- País de Gales, es decir, “Wales” que tiene un pedazo de marcha que te cagas y que, además, efectivamente, es de lo mas “sugerente”.

Pero, sobre todo, BRITÁNICO.

Y al que no le guste (tanto la canción como el que sea británico) ES SU PROBLEMA, JUAS JUAS JUAS JUAS.

Lo de siempre, clicar en la segunda imágen (en este caso la del colega Tom con la barba) o en el link que siempre pongo por si acaso y la traducción al español a cargo de “Uncle Google”, también como de costumbre, aunque en este caso casi ni haria falta, es “argot”, se queda casi todo en inglés pero….la cosa está muy clara, jajajajajajajaja.

Post de lo mas chorra, pero….¡¡¿Y LO BIEN QUE  ME LO PASO, QUE?!!…¡¡¡pues eso!!!! y el tema…¡¡¡ES UN TEMAZO!!!, magnífica orquestación, basada sobre todo en el buen uso de los instrumentos de viento (los instrumentos he dicho, ¡¡cojonan!!, no he hablado de los pedos de “la Sazatornil” y la “Licecharquilla”) que suenan de puta madre.

http://www.goear.com/listen/36616a8/sexbomb-tom-jones

TOM JONES – ” SEXBOMB”

Aw, Aw baby, Yeah, ooh Yeak, huh, listen to this
Spy on me baby use satellite
Infrared to see me move through the night
Aim gonna fire shoot me right
Aim gonna like the way you fight
And I love the way you fight

Now you found the secret code
I use to wash away my lonely blues well
So I can’t deny or lie cause you’re a
Sexbomb sexbomb you’re a sexbomb uh, huh
You can give it to me when I need to come along give it to me
Sexbomb sexbomb you’re my sexbomb
And baby you can turn me on baby you can turn me on
You know what you’re doing to me don’t you. ha ha,
I know you do

No don’t get me wrong ain’t gonna do you no harm no
This bomb’s made for lovin’ and you can shoot it far
I’m your main target come and help me ignite ow
Love struck holding you tight hold me tight darlin’

Make me explode although you know the route to go to sex me slow slow baby
And yes
I must react to claims of those who say that you are not all that huh, huh,
huh

Sexbomb sexbomb you’re a sexbomb
You can give it to me when I need to come along
Sexbomb sexbomb you’re my sexbomb
And baby you can turn me on turn me on darlin’
Sexbomb sexbomb you’re my sexbomb sexbomb
You can give it to me when I need to come along
Sexbomb sexbomb your’re my sexbomb
And baby you can turn me on

You can give me more and more counting up the score
Yeah
You can turn me upside down inside out
You can make me feel the real deal uh uh
I can give it to you any time because you’re mine
Ouch, Sexbomb, aw baby

Sexbomb sexbomb you’re my sexbomb
And you can give it to me when I need to be turned on
no, no
Sexbomb sexbomb you’re my sexbomb
And baby you can turn me on turn me on
And baby you can turn me on turn me on
Baby you can turn me on turn me on
Ooh baby you can turn me on turn me on
Baby you can turn me on oh
Baby you can turn me on oh
Baby you can turn me on
Well baby you can turn me on

Oh, Oh baby, yeah, ooh Yeak, ¿verdad, escucha esto
Espiarme satélite usado por un bebé
Infrarrojos para ver que me mueva por la noche
Objetivo de fuego va a matarme derecho
Objetivo que va como la forma en que la lucha
Y me encanta la forma en que la lucha

Ahora ha encontrado el código secreto
Que uso para lavar mi soledad y blues
Así que no puedo negar o mentir porque usted es un
Sexbomb Sexbomb eres Sexbomb eh, eh
Usted puede dar a mí cuando tengo que venir a lo largo de Give it to me
Sexbomb Sexbomb eres mi Sexbomb
Y el bebé puede Turn Me On bebé puede Turn Me On
¿Sabes lo que estás haciendo a mí qué no. , ja, ja,
Ya lo sé

No, no me malinterpreten, no es que va a hacer ningún daño no
Esta bomba Made for Lovin ‘y se puede disparar hasta
Soy tu objetivo principal me ayude encender ow
Love Struck holding you tight hold me tight Darlin ‘

Me hacen explotar, aunque usted sabe la ruta para ir al sexo del bebé me lento lento
Y sí
Debo responder a las reclamaciones de aquellos que dicen que no son todo lo que eh, eh,
eh

Sexbomb Sexbomb eres Sexbomb
Usted puede dar a mí cuando tengo que venir a lo largo
Sexbomb Sexbomb eres mi Sexbomb
Y el bebé puede turn me on turn me on darlin ‘
Sexbomb Sexbomb eres mi Sexbomb Sexbomb
Usted puede dar a mí cuando tengo que venir a lo largo
Sexbomb Sexbomb your’re mi Sexbomb
Y el bebé puede Turn Me On

Usted me puede dar más y más el recuento de los puntajes
Sí
Usted puede darme vuelta del revés del revés
Usted me puede hacer sentir el verdadero negocio uh uh
Puedo darle a usted en cualquier momento, porque eres mío
¡Ay, Sexbomb, aw bebé

Sexbomb Sexbomb eres mi Sexbomb
Y usted puede dar a mí cuando tengo que estar encendido
no, no
Sexbomb Sexbomb eres mi Sexbomb
Y el bebé puede turn me on turn me on
Y el bebé puede turn me on turn me on
Baby puede Turn Me On Turn Me On
Ooh baby puede turn me on turn me on
Baby puede turn me on oh
Baby puede turn me on oh
Baby puede Turn Me On
Bueno bebé puede Turn Me On

if you attend Maplewood’s Halloween Party TOMORROW NIGHT and use my bathroom, you will here the following recording on loop.  if you do not attend Maplewood’s Halloween Party TOMORROW NIGHT you will not experience the visual accompaniment to this piece.  BUT you’re welcome to download this and use it as a loop in your own bathroom(s) anytime.

happy halloween

for an excerpt visit www.jonsteinmeier.com

for the entire track click here:  BATMAN (mp3)

The slow motion duel from Barry Lyndon

Dear Friends,

I’ve been meaning to make a blog on Stanley Kubrick’s remarkable film adaptation of Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon (1975). I was so charmed by it when I watched it last year that I made a huge album of stills from the movie and put it in an album on Eighteenth Century Worlds. This week on Trollope19CStudies @ Yahoo we somehow began to discuss it, and I put a little of my original thoughts on the list and people liked it, so I put them here too.

The curious power of this film lies in its insistence on the importance of the slow-moving pictures:

The men gambling

It’s a highly original landmark film for its aesthetics. It’s beautiful. There are continual frames of scenes that are picturesque and evocation of the 18tn century as it’s often imagined in high art. The allure of this includes the salacious and lurid and in context the ironic narrative undercuts and works well with them.

The crowd gambling

Kubrick has the insight and daring to make a central part of his film his instinct that to see this earlier world set up as a neoclassic symmetrical dream vision and the visual pleasure of this is a very real part of the art of such films.

Marisa Berenson looks like a Gainsborough portrait and her hats
make my mouth water: this is a throw back to the Gainsborough studio costume drama films of the 40s, so Kubrick took what he could of the older modes of costume drama too.

The way to view is is to savour it in slow motion — as it is filmed. slow motion and that’s saying something since it moves so slowly.

Of course a film must have thematic meaning and this one has a hard one appropriate to Thackeray’s book. The ending said it all: a devastating bitter close whose final ethical point is close to Thackeray’s (indictment of a corrupt society, the product of human nature generally or its worst aspects for power, its coldness and egoistic appetite for where else can it come from?), though the means and methods are utterly disparate.

Thackeray’s novel (which I looked and dipped into after watching the film) has a narrator like that of Henry Fielding’s Jonathan Wilde: like Fielding’s hard satire, Thackeray’s Lyndon is a crude amoral presence and would be a dangerous sociopath if we read the book realistically. We don’t. We know it’s satire. By contrast, Kubrick’s Barry is a noble young man, with a good heart and many illusions about honor and love, just about all of which are utterly out of kilter which the society which professes them (so he’s more like Fielding’s Tom Jones). The movie is not a satire on upward mobility in the Victorian era) but rather an elegy for the destruction of the low-born hero and a poignant evocation of a beautiful world, the ancien regime which paradoxically arose on the miseries and backs of the many. A comment on the 19th century here too. The continual bad things everyone is doing to everyone else amid the domesticity of the later part of the film, how so many end up crippled.

So the underlying meaning is alive; but not brought out by the acting which we could scarcely appreciate as long shots were preferred and iconic and archetypal moments. The best and most memorable moments have little to do with the original story or plot-design or even moral. It moves so slowly, and Kubrick recreates idyllic art of the 18th century — not the real one, and not even the typical, but of a subgenre of picture that after this film many of these costume dramas picked up.

This picnic was recently repeated in the BBC (later 1990s) mini-series, Aristocrats (based on Stella Tillyard’s book, film by David Caffrey and Harriet O’Carroll; it’s a domestic variant, appropriate for the age of sensibility we might say:

Tom Jones and Barry Lyndon are set in the earlier part of the century.

Sumptuous romance had been the key in the 1930s and 40s but no attempt at surface realisms (like old fashioned light), no attention to surface historical accuracies. Kubrick was apparently the first to do this consistently, even manically. Conversation pieces and genre scenes abound:

The musical Lyndon family

Kubrick’s scenes sometimes are shot for more than 90 seconds. It’s as if he asked himself how much strangeness will the audience tolerate? and dared them to complain We love to watch the gambling — that holds us. The second duel between the step-son and Lydnon is a masterpiece of nerve, especially when Barry’s nobility boomerangs back on him and he loses his lower leg and all his money.

The excess of the costume and scenes exceeds all else. Really this show that Brideshead Revisited is simply a repeat, a televisual bringing to mini-series what Kubrick did several years before in the moviehouse.

I read about Kubrick’s career too. While he is famous for a couple I couldn’t stand (the pornographic Lolita, and another frighteningly lurid one whose title I mercifully have blocked out), he also made Dr Strangelove. He is one of these directors who knows how to present himself as sole auteur — as in this film. But you have to look for in some cases another person has written the script or produced and it’s someone who does does the cinematography even if directed by Kubrick.

The next night I watched Tony Richardson’s 1963 Tom Jones to compare. While the earlier film is still charming, amusing, and yes offers a variety of filmic techniques which succeed in conveying the tone and attitudes of the book towards the characters, somehow it is also more dated than Barry Lyndon.

I think for me it was partly the movie’s content or thematizing of Fielding’s novel: Richardson told the same joke over and over: see how sweet, good, innocent, chivalrous, generous is Tom even though he is in bed with this and that and the other women. It’s that all these women want him so; they are the aggressor again and again. Then he is extricated by highjinks and we are to laugh again as he escapes — until near the end he is almost hung. I tired of it, over and over. Endless exposure of women’s breasts was part of the treat. Not much for Susannah York to do but look loving and accepting, and the sexy women to slither and slide and look CHFM.

Tom and Molly

Sophia and her Aunt Western

That’s what is the film’s repeating incident. I don’t find this all that amusing (at least on the third time and yet more of this to come) nor am I inclined to revel in this sort of “innocence” in the first place.

A pastoral

Like Kubrick, Richardson used a narrator throughout (defying what I gather still is the wisdom of film people and their scorn against non-cinematic techniques like spoken words). This provided the soft comforting ironies. Instead of a slow pace, we had speed, and the stylization kept us at a distance too.

Like Kubrick too, a genuine attempt is made to recreate something of the 18th century world: here it’s rough and ready, rural. The actor doing Mr Weston was superb, as also Partridge.

Finney as Tom setting out in the world, just before he’s diverted into the hunt

The famous long hunt is well done and its coda in a sweet chivalric scene punctuates and turns it into something conventional. Indeed as the man who gave a paper on the music of the film at the ASECS argued, it quickly repeatedly became a conventional complacent film.

Paradoxically because of its aesthetics Barry Lyndon is the graver film and Tom Jones froth in comparison. I don’t say I didn’t enjoy it in a way, but it was very mild enjoyment. A landmark film because it refuses to invite us to be snobs and uses costume drama differently for farcical comedy. It gives us something of Fielding’s quality but (as is not uncommon) leaves us the bite and what is hard about the book.

It’s my view that only is fidelity not a useful criteria, it’s impossible. What is important is to look into and at the movie as a work of art in its own right (as we do an opera many of which are adaptations from stories and novels), with many precursor texts and allusions, only one of which (if major) is its literary
source text. A movie (or opera) is not a window through which we see another text though it may interpret it. One looks at the major source to compare and understand and then appreciate the art and meaning of the new text or film (or opera)

Ellen

Detta är excellens!

Så njutbart att se en mästare i arbete. Man kan bara ana vilka uppoffringar som finns bakom. Arbete, slit, möda. Sagan om den fattige pojken som togs om hand av Mishin, tränaren som var tuff och hård, men såg talangen. 1999 såg jag honom första gången. Då såg han ut så här:

Efter Turin har Plushky inte jobbat längre. Han ska visst vara i träning inför Vancouver. Jag känner mig lite tveksam inför det. Kommer det bli en avdankad gammal (Då endast 27 år) Matti Nykänen – aktig parodi på honom själv? Ska inte en mästare sluta när han är som störst? Vad har han gjort under de tre-fyra senaste åren då han inte tävlat? Den inte längre så fattige pojken har blivit stor stjärna, agerat bakgrundsisdansare på melodifestival, gift sig, fått barn, skilt sig, gift sig igen med melodifestivalstjärnans skivproducent. Har berömmelsen och all beundran stigit honom åt huvudet?

Vi vet inte. Kanske har han behållt greppet om sig, om skridskona, artisteriet, om isen. Evgenij Plushenko kanske kommer triumfera – igen. Jag hoppas det. För jag vill bli hänförd, se honom – inte bara tävla – men agera. Jag vill se när en människa visar vad denne kan göra när han är som bäst. Jag vill bli meddragen när han excellerar, överträffar sig och mig och alla andra.

Det är något med dessa stjärnor. Vi behöver dem. Jag behöver dem för att kunna sätta egna mål. Det ger mig tro på att det inom oss finns kapacitet, något vackert, utöver det vanliga. Det kanske inte finns just i mig, men om jag ger mig hän och dyrkar Evgenij, kanske jag kan sno åt mig en liten bit av hans glans och leva en bit på väg i min vardag med hjälp av det. Här ett klipp där han dansar till sin kompis, violinisten Edvin Martons musik. Godfather.

Today tweeters joined us at NASA Headquarters in Washington DC to chat with Space Station crewmates @astro_Jeff Williams and @astro_Nicole Stott live onorbit. So nice to meet you all!

Former astronaut Tom Jones helped MC the event and answer questions. When the master alarm sounded on Station ending our live interview, Tom stepped in to explain the onorbit process Jeff and Nicole would be following to check out the cause of the alarm. (All is well on Station. Rest assured.)

Our tweeters had great fun with Tom’s name and tweeted names of songs made famous by singer Tom Jones. (I really didn’t get the reference until later. I was busy tweeting on my iPhone. I saw a few strange references flow down the twitterfall screen at the front, but had no idea what they meant. I guess I need a life.)

Adorable astronaut Mike Fincke, veteran of two Station missions, joined us from Houston (via NASA TV feed) to answer questions from tweeters. He absolutely twinkles. Gotta love him. We also heard from NASA Deputy Lori Garver, Space Operations Deputy Lynn Cline, and Space Operations Jacob Keaton. Jacob shared some anecdotes about the node naming contest and our interaction with U2.

Oh, and BTW, we played Star Girl by McFly in space during the downlink. Yay. So excited to engage an enthusiastic new demographic of music fans who may now perk their ears when NASA missions occur. Star Girl and ThankYouNASA both climbed the Twitter Trending chart after the Tweet-Up. Tom Fletcher, mastermind of the #StarGirlinSpace campaign, thanks NASA.

Let’s now talk a bit about the master alarm episode. Quite unsettling. My first thought, how horrific if something were to happen to Station while our Twitter guests sat and watched. My second thought, confirmation, once again, that:

Space is an unforgiving business. What we do is hard.

We make it look easy.

Our astronauts who live and work in space onboard Space Station put their lives on the line EVERY SINGLE DAY. Watching Jeff and Nicole calmly excuse themselves to go check out the source of the alarm, demonstrates our professionalism. Chances were the alarm registered a false reading. Had the reverse occurred, the worst case scenario would send the crew to the Russian Soyuz escape vehicles to abandon ship.

None of this happened. Whew! Our tweeters went home happy. No traumatic scars from that day at NASA Headquarters when “the alarm” sounded. Yay. Hurray. On with the show.

Here are my iPhone pics from the day. Yes, they’re a bit fuzzy. Work with me. (I’ll caption them properly when I’m not sleepy.)

Note: Just so you know, the spacesuit on the stage is “headless” because the helmets are out being refurbished. It’s really not a Halloween statement, as some thought.