visibility

  

you can carry whatever you want in it
All round visibility


Fiat 128 Brochures and Magazine articles via things

revolutionary

So far you know it in such a way:
Kitchen work-with ways like a marathoner.
This belongs now to the past!
You don't need to walk to the stove the stove comes to you

Views of the Circular Kitchen

via J walk

halfway

Cities' characters accompany their advances as shadows attend the footsteps of man. An ordinary citizen knows but little of the poetry or the prose of his city's life. For example, there is the pleasure-loving watering-place, half-mermaid and half-siren, that lures man to lotus eating.
Then there is the city where industry is on the move like the flying shuttle of a weaving machine. That is the city of action. Within its walls are men with strong arms, brows damp with sweat, faces and hands grimed. Such a city is the embodiment of industrial manhood. Prahran is halfway between those two types of city.

The History of Prahran From its first settlement to a city. Compiled (1912) and revised (1924) by order of the Prahran Council. By John Butler Cooper

John Butler Cooper Online

100 bars

- and speaking of cricket...
Johnny Cash Ring of Fire

One Hundred Bars

A collective blog dedicated to short pieces of writing inspired by pop songs. Edited in Mexico City with contributors from all over the world.

The power of this song to make tough men sing has got me thinking of other examples. I did witness a whole pub of trivia-heads break into song once when The Proclaimers 500 miles was played. It's true. Everyone started singing. Not as much cred as Cash there I guess, but then what would I know. I've been singing If You Could Read My Mind plaintively since I heard it on morning radio today.

too much

click for a better view

I arranged this sequence from a Google Image Search Too Much Cricket.
As you do. As you do when you see a link to a Live World Cricket Map. (via things)
The world cricket map is also available as a Google Hompage Module.

(Of course, this is not so timely now that the cricket calendar has finally eased. Now there's too much football... but that's another story)

morris qotd

The years 1976-82 were absolute heaven for Morris dancers in Australia *

maypole

singing as they dance

I was inspired by the photo at wood s lot to find some local maypole pics.
The European Spring/fertility ritual was quite popular in the Antipodean mid Autumn.

I like this photo where the Gum is framed.

oi

some found oz content from the past week around the traps:

Dame Edna Tribe at Scrapiteria

A knitted room from Tasmania
Imagine a room with 50s decor where everything's made from wool.
via I like

and Melbourne: great baking from Australia
I've been trying to think "just why is the bread so good in Victoria?" and that epicentre of a good crust, Melbourne.
via as above, kevan

lists and mowers

Oh good just what we all need..............zzzzzzzz.... another Top 50..........zzzzzzzzzzz....Best......Top 50.........Lists....of the Top 50 listzzzzzzzz......zzzzzzzz.......Top 50 Lawnmower experiences........zzzzzzzzz
Top 50 paint drying moments.................

A comment at: Culture Vulture Top 50 adaptations: what do you think?

Film of the book: top 50 adaptations revealed
via a media dragon



(Actually, a couple of months ago I found my way to a lawnmowing forum and think this would make the cut at a top 50 lawnmower experiences list)

...I broke the pull rope. :eek: It parted at the knot on the starter pulley. So I pulled the top off. Cleaned out a couple of centuries worth of dried grass, then lost a screw. Found the screw and had a long, hard worry about replacing said pull rope. Couldn't see how it would work so tied it on as I thought best and reassembled.
The flamin' pull rope won't retract. It'll spring back a little but only by one turn of the flywheel.

I managed to get the old girl started by leaving the top cover off and rewinding the rope by hand. Got her hot. Refitted the top cover, and started her, then mowed the lawn with the rope hanging loose (coz it won't retract). So, of course, I managed to get the rope under the mower whereupon it chopped a good foot off the rope and destroyed that nifty little plastic handle...

proto blog

I cannot remember anything outstanding at my twenty-first birthday party held at number seven.

From Some Bods Move On

Oddbooks I like via Pk and Plep

e ship

...where the absence of the sharing of a physical dimension for the friendship may be seen as invalidating its essential currency, rendering it somehow artificial, it can also be seen as providing the conditions for a peculiar purity & intensity of communication

Dick Jones: Hello Goodbye - on the nature of ‘e-friendship’ between bloggers.
 

a peek

A recent searcher arrived here with the question who is peacay . I don't know, but I did get to meet the RL pk recently to talk tags over a quiet glass of white (of a quality that caused the barman to apologise). After a third glass maybe I could have been as lyrical about blogging as this recent rave about BibliOdyssey - translated from the Korean:

Oh. Oh. Oh. Once see certainly. Image one or two thing to scratch and with pwass there will not be also anyone use sleep and well! it is same. I so the eye disease shoes like this one especially the place where it is not, the electricity ccwak flowed in the body ... Oh my the absurd waste, picks to the world and the up luxury transfers to the world... But that with the sheep of absurd work, it lives and it dies ... Possibly magnificently tragedy it is same the weight quality where the outdoors and laugh are distant it is not... That way the picture the example bedspread. That way the pictures. That way highly many pictures. It loads patterns. Long the images which forget an end before... Neither the what kind of matter that sees is same a stronger thing. It is reduced with the system end and it does not do to sleep, Oh chi pu it is to, that Oh chi pu it is a ramyon end, but truth the good bedspread. we Right we right we.

MD

Post MD

1500 ft above

animal commands

and speaking of conversational grunts - or on matters onomatopoeic, I may try some of these animal commands in languages other than English when walking Flo. I like the sound of Fot! for Walk behind me!, although it's not so different from the sound of my native dog-walking dialect.

via making light

grunts

after some talk on the merits of goats versus llamas as pack animals in the context of the T being skeptical about the value of goats on a trek
Sound component: breathy voice

Sound Component: creaky voice
discussing who is likely to be at the party

Conversational grunts in English

pop

- because Bang! was what all the 4 year old boys said at the local Fireworks the other night, calling the display like seasoned football commentators. Bang! and Pop!

The singer battled the cold valiantly in skimpy dress and stole
which fell over her head when she took her final bow to the hip crowd decked out in parkas and beanies.

bang!

Batman sound effect cards Las onomatopeyas o Batsigns
via Incoming signals

niche enough

I have found some regularly updated websites that cater to my niche interests, but fortunately for me my niches are still niche enough and focused on relatively "uncool" old things that I dont have much worry that they will die of overexposure...

A comment on Why the Schadenfreude Dailies are "ruining" culture via things


(I think my niches may be getting niche-ier. Maybe this blog with it. If you can't stand the heat, link to a cardigan or something)

indignity

As longtime readers might know
walking with Flo regularly involves indignity
I haven't dog-whispered sufficiently to subdue her herder madness
of e.g. suddenly lurching onto a ricketty fence where a cat sits
witnessed by its family who until this moment could have been an ad for Insurance or Ford such was the sedate suburban tableau where blue uniforms exclude the feral,
or a madness that makes strapping young concreters cower as we pass
all down to the the power of a bark

but I was quite taken aback yesterday walking home from the park
when a couple of strangers go:
- Your Dog is SO FAT!!! He's SO FAT!!! poor thing hahaha So FAT!!!
He's a beautiful dog though
- Yes-thank-you, I snarl.


So now I'm looking at her trying to see if she is as fat as they say...
I don't know.
Relative to a labrador, which is the old diehard standard, she is svelte.



(of course some readers might not agree)

hostess

Some enchanted evening


Is it something to do with the lights?

The last image from Mock Duck
A Delicious Assortment of Thrift Shop Cookbooks

(via mod*mom as recommended by pk)

clock back

Good to see the computer clock has adjusted now that the extra week of Daylight Saving is over and we've turned back clocks, (without a Patch or registry hack for the overlap)*

Elsewhere, The Guardian got it wrong:

It is to be hoped that no readers took the advice given in the Guide, page 57, March 25, and put their clocks back at the start of summertime.

via Hooting Yard via Plep

acrobat

Acrobat in frog costume

see album page 3 Item 21

 

On Lawn Tennis In The Modern Cinema

tennis...

A Few Observations On Lawn Tennis In The Modern Cinema
By Major L. R.“Reggie” Pettifinger-Nabakov (rtd) - The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.

First of all, I wish to cordially thank Miss Boynton for letting me use her URL blog net site to advance a certain proposition that’s been preying on my mind of late. I don’t mind saying it’s actually damned sporting of the gel, given our recent little contremps over access to the “special” files of the Club’s photographic archives.

Now, I suppose I should cut to the chase. I often take the opportunity when the good lady is out for her bridge night to get an old chum or two over, open a few decent bottles of Beaujolais and the Cockburn’s, rustle up something from the pantry, crumble a bit of that dried herbal material I often confiscate off the ballboys into my pipe, and settle back to enjoy a good sporting film on the Digital Versatile Disc Player.

However something has struck me of late during these evenings. Why is it that it’s the Yanks who make all the good sporting flicks nowadays? For example, we were watching “Any Given Sunday” just the other night. Still couldn’t make head or tail of how the bloody game is played but by crackey that Stone chappie made it all look awfully exciting.

So I said to myself “Reggie, why the blazes aren’t we seeing films like that about lawn tennis.” I mean the game has so much there for dramatic and cinematic purposes. It is full of great personalities dueling in a small and clearly defined arena. It throws lithe sweaty men and women together on and off the court. And there’s simply oodles of money, glamorous locations and positive acres of tanned flesh on display.

Not to mention the fashion. If only my old oppo Teddy Tinling was still around. Queer as a coot of course but bags of fun and with a real eye for how the ladies could be becomingly clad. He would have reveled, absolutely reveled in the opportunities afforded by the modern game to dress one of those Williams lasses or this new crop of nubile young Smashanovas.

(Ahem…the bowl of my pipe appears to have caught on fire. Excuse me for a just a tick.)

That’s better. Where were we? Ah yes. Why are there no decent films about lawn tennis? Damnit, if you can make golf sexy on screen then why not the only game where love is a score! Heh, heh. Good one! Even if I say so m’self.

Yes, yes, there have been a few attempts like “Players” with Dean Sinatra’s son and that recent “Wimbledon” movie which was downright namby-pamby. That Miss Dunst is no Gussy Moran. And Mr Bettany is no Navratilova either let me tell you. I also understand Mr Allen has just made a film called “Match Point.” But let’s face it, his earlier motion pictures are always funnier.

Look, I’ve thought about this conundrum and jotted down a few notes I’d like to share with you. Basically it’s all about stroke production and ball control. (Yes, very bloody droll Archie. Now belt up and open another bottle, there’s a good chap. I’m trying to type on the Personal Computer here and it’s thirsty work I can tell you.)

You see, in sports like baseball, golf or American Football, it is the ball that is in motion and not the player. Yes, they run around an awful lot in the Gridiron game but they are carrying the pigball almost all the time. Except when the quarter wallah throws or kicks it. But only when he’s stationery.

Stationery! That’s the secret. Oops, I meant stationary. Y’see, you can get any old bod to look convincing on film if they’re just hitting or throwing from an immobile position. Just matter of coaching, posing, appropriate body language and editing.

But when both the ball and player are in rapid motion, it gets much trickier. The human brain is an absolutely superb computer, far superior to any gunnery calculator that I’ve been warned away from playing with. It can instantly assess velocity, vector and temporal and spatial awareness, fit that data into tactical and strategic appreciations of the situation and respond in milliseconds while also keeping the sponsors’ shirt-borne logo in frame. But this takes years and years of hard won skill based on relentless practice. Or if you are an Australian, apparently being raised in a paddock or on an antbed.

And we see such skills in action on the box so often. All the ball and net cams, slow motion replays and zooming cameras have made us intimately familiar with how a good tennis player goes about their job of work. Or a cricketer for that matter, another sporting type sadly absent from the modern cinema. Which is noteworthy too in the context of my argument, given that the subcontinent alone is home to over a billion people whose main passions are cricket and the flicks.

(Archie, watch it. You’re treading stilton into the carpet. Clean it up now or Lucinda will have my guts for garters.)

Look basically I think it boils down to this. No strolling player or Hollywood mummer is going to be able to produce a convincing service action, a deftly flicked half volley, a backpedaling smash or a whipped crosscourt forehand on the run unless they have actually spent at least a decade practicing this kind of thing.

Yes indeed I agree they can do amazing things with computers on screen these days. Why only recently I watched some of those Matrix productions that seem to be all the rage among my nephew’s set and I could swear it seemed Mr Reeve was actually acting at times.

But with an extremely mobile sporting discipline like tennis, utterly dependent on sequences of highly complex physical actions performed very fast on the run, and where we are so often exposed to the real thing, I do think that any discernable false move on court immediately undercuts your character’s raison d’etre for appearing as the central figure in a lawn tennis-oriented photoplay in the first place.

But look here chaps, this is just a theory and I would be happy to enter into any correspondence about the matter.

Now I really must return to the box as Archie says he has a new sporting Digital Versatile Disc I really should see, called behind “Behind The Green Door”. It sounds like it must be about billiards or some such.



tennis...

incommunicado

Indeed, this was a good image to view just before my communication crashed.

My monitor is on the blink and now is not even talking to the computer.

Blogging where and when I can...

word for word

What is the word for a word which is another word spelt backwards?

One of the AskOxford FAQ via J walk

(I liked the sound of that lyrical frequent question)

boot cup

Lord Byron, with his love of the bizarre, was also the possessor of a black leather boot which he used as a drinking vessel.

One among the caudle, fastening and fuddling cups at

Drinking Vessels of Bygone Days
Some time ago, while rummaging through my usual group of second hand bookshops I stumbled across a book on the history of drinking vessels, titled "Drinking Vessels of Bygone Days"... The book is long out of print, and presents a great insight into the cups and glasses that we all drink out of, but never think of how they originated. After considerable effort we have re-assembled this distinguished work for your education and enjoyment.

daily life

Seated women with men standing while watching the presentation of a Ruton vacuum cleaner at the Home show in the Rai.
Amsterdam - March 30, 1958

From Collection Algemeen Hollands Fotopersbureau / Ben van Meerendonk

This presentation is comprised of digitized images of over 150 photographs - organised under seven topics: Amsterdam, Daily Life, Famous Dutchmen, Royal Family, International, Sports, and, Flood Disaster 1953...
It was founded by photographer Ben van Meerendonk (born July 20, 1913) in 1945. Although the agency started with several employees, by the fifties it was a one-man business of Van Meerendonk and some assistants.

(I found via this photo of Brigitte Bardot lookalikes...
Because apparently I look 66% like BB according to the face recognition thing as seen on crazybrave and toph. When actually I look maybe 22% like 10% of the hopefuls in that shot. Or 11% on an average St Patrick's Day.)

empire games

Opening Empire Games, Sydney 1938

32 hours out from the opening of the Commonwealth Games.
One night last week I strolled along the Yarra and viewed the fish from Princes Bridge to Swan Street as Swan Lake played over the PA and the river and Melbourne looked beautiful. A group of casual strollers out walking their dog stopped and applauded - I'm not sure if it was for the fish or Tchaikovsky, but the vista was certainly festive.



Perth 1962 from a State Library of WA exhibition How We're portayed
host city
meet us in Perth


At the Games' official site, the logos from the past flash by, but it was Auckland 1950 that caught my eye.
rowing



Empire Games Representatives 1938
the lion

miss australia

Miss Australia 1954 Shirley Bliss and the Australian Empire and Commonwealth Games Team leave on a Canadian Pacific flight for Vancouver, Mascot

Miss Australia ... and the Australian Empire and Commonwealth Games Team

Miss Bliss...

uber

Seems ubersportingpundit has gone...

Thanks again to Scott for hosting many fine blogs on his domain including Troppo, Hot Buttered Death - and (very briefly) She Sells Sanctuary...

Meanwhile -esque is sitting at around page 30 of a boynton Google search, so things may be a bit quiet round these parts for a while.
And we'll always have wayback

verily

Random Fortune
The New Testament offers the basis for modern computer coding theory,
in the form of an affirmation of the binary number system.

But let your communication be Yea, yea; nay, nay: for
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
-- Matthew

was my first Random Fortune via Tiny Bubbles

Meanwhile I found this random sign through googling Yarck




(I like any sign that says Yea Melbourne in this time of naysayers)

reading mail

Reading mail on verandah


Thanks to barista for exploring the Trundle path ...

toasting fork

For those following The Enchanted Toasting Fork, Episode Eight is now up at CattyRox.

Episode 7 and links to previous entries.

gilligan's meter

Actually that last link was found when I was googling around the general theme of poetry you can sing to to the tune of Gilligan's Island, as you do. Apparently that mid-century TV earworm is quite versatile in the ballad stakes. I had heard of singing Advance Australia Fair to it, but not, for instance, The Rime of the Ancient Marriner or Stairway to Heaven

Making Light: Yankee Internationale via Incoming Signals

ain't me, babe

Who's the greatest 19th century poet and why?
Bob Dylan

Because he sang about and still sings about real life felings and things that happen to us all.

drawn vehicles

It was coincidental that dirty beloved featured the turkey drawn when I was looking at some local goat-drawn varieties.

"When he got tired he used to stand on his back legs and tip us out".

listen herder

After watching The Dog Listener I've adopted the basic alpha technique of walking through the door ahead of the mad bluey - (ie: listening to a herder, or herder listening)

And when I saw the link to a Dog-powered scooter via cynical-c something about it appealed:

The dog is always in the same location and can only go strait ahead. And with your weight on the scooter and the brakes applied the dog cannot go anywhere.

but I'm not sure if Flo is up for a quick scooter around the block yet.

Perhaps the alpha relationship seems more defined in traditional dog carts



yap yap

intermediary

Just when I was thinking bunnies, a friend sent me a link to the Cellular Squirrel from last year which also has a Bunny prototype

The user can whisper and listen to her squirrel, receiving and replying to voice instant messages. If the user wishes, she can also bypass the Intermediary altogether and get into a synchronous voice communication with the caller by simply talking to the embodiment.

Autonomous interactive intermediaries circa 1937 and 1954
 

signature

the signature of a previous owner (via see also)



DNA 'could predict your surname'

It follows that men with the same surname might have very similar Y chromosomes. But adoptions, infidelity, name changes and multiple founders for just one surname complicate the picture.

(via as above, kevan)

condensation

Of course it will not do for the ordinary, person to attempt the extreme condensation practiced for example by foreign correspondents of the larger newspapers who, because their cable tolls are high and words are precious, make use of a variety of ingenious combinations which are interesting merely as phenomena peculiar to the handling of cable dispatches for newspapers.

For example, a press correspondent might ,first write this dispatch:

"The enemy has not yet been met or even seen on account of the entanglements thrown up during the night," etc.

Revised for the cable, this dispatch might read:

"Enemy unmet unseen account entanglements upthrown night."

Needless to say, this form is unsuited to the ordinary business or social telegram.

Eliminating Small Words -- HOW TO WRITE TELEGRAMS PROPERLY
A Small Booklet by Nelson E. Ross, 1928

via daily jive

mascot

This is firming as one of my favourite images from the State Library of NSW ...

Mascot arrivals greeted by Philips' Diplomat Philishave promotion for their electric shavers

new home

The old home and the new house ...


After some two-and-a-half years of enjoying free space at Upersportingpundit courtesy of the generous Scott Wickstein, boynton heads back to Blogger - at least for a short time.



relaxing...


Not that I think the old template is wonderful, but I've tried to achieve a sense of continuity with the old white space and Haloscan Blue happening.
All the old ubersporting comments can be seen in their rawness and stripped of html by clicking on "Uber comments" at the end of the archived posts.

In the meantime, please partake of some savouries and party like it's Popular Mechanics

crunch time

Crunch time: TypePad or back to Blogger?

The latter has improved vastly since I last posted, but does that je ne sais cachet of subscription count?

---

Comments: crunch time

You'd have to get lots of people to move links over; you being around the blogosphere a little while I guess you probably have hundreds of linkers.

I get tempted from time to time to leave blogger, mostly for the better layout on other sites. But that's increasingly becoming redundant with feeds.

But that fancy french stuff sounded good, so that may sway you!
Posted by armaniac at February 22, 2006 02:54 PM

Well, armaniac, you sprung this deleted post out of the closet via bloglines ;)
(Thought it fell into the musing-to-myself genre, so deleted it. Temporarily)

Alas, I have to move, so it's either/or, but probably not to the most blog-cred move: mydomain with wordpress...

From what I've seen I like TP - but am wondering if it's that relatively superficial thing of layout (which can be tweaked in blogger fairly simply) that makes people pay for alternatives?
There is the Blogger commenting thing - but most people have adjusted to the registration process...
apart from that Blogger looks smooth to me.
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 03:22 PM

Typepad, Blogger, I like the free-ness of Blogger. I like it very, very much.

It does everything I want it to do. Actually no, that's not quite true - I can't ban particular IP addresses. Maybe that's a good thing.
Posted by Laura at February 22, 2006 03:47 PM

Ah - I was wondering about that last point, Laura.

I have done that only once. No regrets.

Everything but categories and some spiffy comment coding, but we await the hacks...
(And if I go that way I might try the deli-ci-ous/category route - if I'm as clever as you and can figure it out )

Blogger circa 02 was a different fish to the googleblogger of 06 I think. I like the dashboard.
I like the wysiwyg editing. Yes I like the Free
(although I must say I've had Free here due to the ongoing generosity of Scott Wickstein)

It's a perception thing mainly isn't it - I don't think many Go Back To Blogger...
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 03:57 PM

Free is good. (at last a post I can understand-I think.)
Posted by Link at February 22, 2006 11:18 PM

Please not Blogger! It takes my dial-up a bloody long time to load the comments, and half the time it doesn't work. Incidentally, Laura, that's why I never comment at Sill's Bend any more :-(

Need I say that Wordpress is pretty good and hosting rather easy and cheap(er than Typepad)?
Posted by Kent at February 23, 2006 05:29 PM

Oh dear - today I'm leaning back to Blogger and all...
I was surprised that there wasn't that great a difference in the hosting/wp alternative and TP's medium plan. So this and something about the "pre-fab" (thks Gummo) appeals to me.
Posted by boynton at February 23, 2006 06:13 PM

I was thinking of changing to WP, but it seems much easier and free! to find one of the squillions of free templates out there and play with it.

New one for mine should be ready about mid 2007 at the current rate. I've taken over Haloscan comments, but only because I don't want to lose the ones already made that I cherish. If I was starting now, I'd keep the blogger comments, which have improved tremendously from 18 months ago.
Posted by Zoe at February 24, 2006 09:36 AM

crazy and sillsy alone do a lot for the cachet of Blogger, Zoe.
Yeah I lost all my Haloscan comments from Blogspot days...I try not to think about it.


(btw I had put "state-us" instead of 'cachet', but ubersporting-comment-bot rejected that spammy word correctly spelt. I will certainly miss the creative spelling tasks required to beat the bot)
Posted by boynton at February 24, 2006 12:13 PM

If I hadn't moved about a gazillion times already, I would move back to typepad. I love the option of messing with templates. :)

Posted by: michelle at February 26, 2006 09:21 AM
- but Blogger seems pretty good, and fairly easy to mess with...?
(well I've certainly messed up my template I think)

I've decided to go back to Blogger and see how it goes...

Posted by: boynton at February 26, 2006 04:26 PM

delay ill

Anagrammed Tube Map
(via As Above, Kevan)

With due acknowledgment to the creator of the London (Non Old?) map, I tried my hand at the local Lilydale line, a section of railway much traversed in childhood and in dreams.

---

Comments: delay ill

The forecast for sidecar month is an echidna storm.
Posted by Tony.T at February 20, 2006 04:06 PM

not Monash Direct?

Matron Chides as Medics Thrown for not directing them to Modern Switch instead.
Posted by boynton at February 20, 2006 04:22 PM

Two reflection on the London Underground map: what a strange & haunting world it conjures up; somebody must have spent many, many hours composing it. Hmm...
Posted by Dick at February 20, 2006 11:19 PM

I suspect many Australian train stations of being anagrams already.
Posted by Kevan at February 21, 2006 03:34 AM

Yes, there's a kind of urban narrative there.

Actually some of the names read like good blog names. "Swearword & Ethanol" "Dully Hubris"...


You mean all the -gongs and - nongs, Kevan? ;)
Interesting that "Mooroolbark" didn't yield as many choices as the prosaic, English "Ringwood East"
I had to discard "Gradient Woos" and "Sweating Odor" before settling on "Organised Tow"...
Posted by boynton at February 21, 2006 02:29 PM

Craigieburn/ Broadmeadows Line:

Nice Air Burg
Dead Swab Moor
Can A.J.A.*
Long Rye
a.k.a. Pork
A love space
Homer's tart
Be reveling
Eden's son
No poems done
A lost cave
Newt-maker
Kong in nest
Let hormone burn*

(*Gummo T. contributions)
Posted by Zeppo Bakunin at February 21, 2006 06:58 PM

Wonderful.
Eddie should have said: "We have a saying in Dead Swab Moor..."
You always have to go to the end of the line to get the nice air, but I think "a.k.a Pork" is my fave.
Posted by boynton at February 22, 2006 10:01 AM

big tv

Big Picture Television 1949 Crosley Spectator

Vintage Television Ads


Flashmatic the first wireless remote
A flash of magic light from across the room...and you remain in your easy chair...


(after this site on the flashmatic via bifurcated rivets)

---

Comments: big tv

There's no way to verify it now but I'm pretty sure this is my TV that once was.
http://tinyurl.com/9t3wm
It's a Stromberg-Carlson.
http://tinyurl.com/9bzpx
There's a metaphorical springboard in that woman's eyes, with the telephone on the demo in the ad.
They're historical.
http://tinyurl.com/ae48r
They made many other models.
http://tinyurl.com/79dhh
To get the full nuance you'd need to have been in a State-side world where there were only maybe four or five kinds of popular TV mfrs.
And S-C was not one of them. They were a sort of hobbyist's choice, something the TV-cognoscenti recognized. And then only mainly in the 50's and early 60's.
It was for sale on Craig'sList, a less-crass ebay thingie we have here in the US, I mean the image is from that, via Google.
I found it at a garage sale, a near-antique, many years ago now.
And sold it so also, long ago.
Posted by rollo at February 18, 2006 01:23 PM

The metaphorical springboard jumped out at me.
Tecnhology.
Busy.
Look at me.

I love that 9bzpx S-C. Showing window box. Could have been the best thing on the televsion sometimes.

One of my biggest regrets of this ilk is not grabbing a beautiful vintage TV off the nature strip when in a hard rubbish collection once.
Probably didn't work, but would always work as a table.
Posted by boynton at February 18, 2006 02:17 PM

re the crosley Spectator: Crosley made cars and gave their refrigerator a great name - The Crosley Shelvador.
Posted by Brownie at February 18, 2006 11:36 PM

Yes, a great name. Like Roll-a-door, they could have set a jingle to the Toreador song?

- and they also made the "Icy Ball"
http://www.refresearch.com/m-icyball.html
Posted by boynton at February 20, 2006 01:50 PM

beat repeat

I have had cause to revisit the archives over the last week.

This is a memorable image, once lost in the links*, good for today.

valentine

valentine

onlookers

---

Comments: valentine

Hope you got lots of valentines greetings today Boynton ?
Is a good day for love.
Posted by A Romantic at February 14, 2006 06:49 PM

Oh - is it Valentine's Day...
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 07:28 PM

Oh.....how sad !
Posted by A Romantic at February 14, 2006 08:29 PM

No...I was joking.
Just forgot to ;)
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 09:51 PM

Surely, it must have been a thrilling sight on Valentine's Day 1908, to watch a barquentine loaded to the gunwales with soft toys, heart-shaped balloons and long-stemmed roses bringing her cargo into port.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at February 15, 2006 02:16 PM

They watched her sinking...

As wonderful as the image is, Gummo, I must confess to a distortion of history by placing these two images together. They are unrelated. Well at least superficially.

"On the 4th August 1908, the Falls of Halladale left New York bound for Melbourne. Captain Thompson, who was in command of the ship, was pleased with the general cargo he had secured for the journey. Valued at £35,000, it included 500 sewing machines, plumbing iron, 6,500 gallons of oil, 14,400 gallons of benzine, glassware and 56,763 beautiful American slate tiles."
http://heritage.vic.gov.au/page.asp?ID=243


"Spectators were apparently disappointed to find that the cargo (or booty) consisted only of rock salt"
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Victoria/Peterborough/2005/02/17/1108500207155.html


The spectators may have been hoping for a sewing machine, only to end up with rock salt.
Ain't love grand.
Posted by boynton at February 15, 2006 02:43 PM

;)
Posted by boynton at February 15, 2006 02:48 PM

songs for dogs

• 87% want to hear a song about a toy

PETA informally tested the CD on dogs who accompany PETA staffers to work and found that "Squeaky Deaky," a song about, you guessed it, squeaky toys, piqued dogs' interest while "You're a Good Dog" caused them to relax and close their eyes. But they quickly became alert again when they heard the barking dogs at the beginning of "Adventure Dog."

Songs to Make Dogs Happy via the Presurfer

Update: Hear samples at NPR


Portrait of Harry Bormann and his dog Bobby

---

Comments: songs for dogs

'..renowned animal "medium" Dr. Kim Ogden..'

*blink*
Posted by peacay at February 13, 2006 02:16 PM

Don't know about dogs, but cats seem to be more attentive to Baroque than twelve-tone.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at February 13, 2006 03:54 PM

"214 dogs were queried as to their preferences in lyrical content and music type"

"My Rottweiler Virgil loves the music so much that we had to get two CDs; one for the house and one for the car.
http://www.kimogden.com/id5.html


Don't know about all dogs, but this Jack Russell would be very attentive to baroque as long as it was squea-que.
(Should be a new CD: Squeaky Barokey)
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 07:03 PM

Ok - so this is embarrassing.
(After finding the link to the songs on NPR:)

"My Jack Russell loves the track Squeaky Deaky so much that she ran to the back of the computer, struck a classic HMV pose, and will not move"

This could well rival "Song about the Jay" (with its twin themes of Adventure and Toy) in her affections.
http://boynton.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/009141.html
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 07:19 PM

This sentence from
http://www.kimogden.com/id5.html
has been making me laugh:

"214 dogs were queried as to their preferences in lyrical content and music type"

(especially combined with
"• 87% want to hear a song about a toy")
Posted by boynton at February 14, 2006 06:01 PM

light blogging

I have a few geo-technical issues to resolve, so blogging will be light for a while.

 

(As if blogging was ever dark or heavy round these parts...)

---

Comments: light blogging

Have already seen the fillum of the situation to which you circuitously and cryptically allude, "The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging". A phyllum which Kundera afficondos will be well aware starred the gratuitously and somewhat clumsilly hyphenated Juliette of the Spirit-Boynton-Binoche.
Posted by Sedgwick at February 3, 2006 06:06 PM

I should probably read the famous airport novel "Blogging and Nothingness" too, while I'm in a sort of blog transit lounge.
Posted by boynton at February 6, 2006 12:37 PM

There's also that famous poem "Blogging Toward Bethlehem".
Finnegan's Blog.
The House of Seven Blogs.
The Blog in The Willows.
A Blog of Two Cities.
The Blog of La Mancha.
From Blog To Eternity.
Wuthering Blogs.
The Old Man and the Blog.
I have to stop now.
Posted by Juke Moran at February 7, 2006 06:28 AM

Wuthering Blogs sounds like a good name for a ...


Posted by boynton at February 7, 2006 01:41 PM

If Wuthering had a blog, would it from the sizes blow?
Posted by Gummo Trrotsky at February 8, 2006 05:57 PM

whither bluster
Posted by boynton at February 9, 2006 12:06 AM

Angela's Ashes the author was blog Irish.
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at February 9, 2006 12:09 AM

and what's the difference between blog Irish and 'lace curtain' Irish?
Posted by Brownie at February 9, 2006 10:34 PM

Barely a whisker if you're browsing in Windows...

Nothing to write home about anyway.
Posted by boynton at February 10, 2006 02:29 PM

Shifting sands? Tectonic disruptions (in Melbourne??)
Posted by Link at February 10, 2006 11:36 PM

Any of you punsters coming on Friday? If you let rip there and I feel overwhelmed, I can just secretly turn my hearings aids off.

Mr Holden, sadly, will be stuck in Bordertown with a car full of kids, trying to bribe them with bundy and coke to let him back in.
Posted by david tiley at February 12, 2006 03:08 PM

Shifting cybersands, Link.

Hope to be there at Lane Sedge, David.
Posted by boynton at February 13, 2006 09:55 AM

cartoonify

ChatFu: Cartoonify... your ... Chat

or Cartoonify your blog comments

(This thread was chosen at random, but cartoonifying might work well with more earnest dialogue, or bitter bouts of comment stoushing. Perhaps cartoonifying is a better alternative to disemvowelling or banning when things turn nasty.)

via the presurfer

---

Comments: cartoonify

Excellent work as always ... I really want Captain Caveman as an option
Posted by Russell Allen at January 30, 2006 08:00 PM

Bender I recognised, but who be the guy with the black robe and glasses?
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at January 30, 2006 09:28 PM

I'm waiting to be enlightened.
I be dumb at these things.

I was hoping James Russell might tell me ;)
Posted by boynton at January 31, 2006 01:59 PM

disemvowelled. oh oh! beautiful. xxx
Posted by Kitty Brown at February 3, 2006 10:01 PM

Yes - is Teresa Nelson's word/idea at "Making Light".
I have never seen it in action, but it sounds like a good way to deal with trlls.
Posted by boynton at February 6, 2006 12:39 PM

radio style

Apostrophe

is going the way of the skylark, but should still be treasured. It has disappeared from Regents Park, Kings Road, Barclays, but should be protected in Lord's (the cricket ground). It is not needed in MPs, QCs; and is unwanted in the possessive "its". But it is essential in place of the missing letter in "it's". Thus: "It's a damn shame that its (the skylark's) future is so uncertain".


Black box
"The black box flight recorder" is permissible. "Black box" on its own is not. Many of them are in fact orange.

Sports people
it makes more sense to continue to refer to them by surname when they stray beyond the sporting arena.

BBC radio Style Guide via making light

---

Comments: radio style

"exhortations in the style guide had no effect on the number of mistakes; the level of mistakes was not affected by exhortations in the style guide; we hope to effect a change in this"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,5817,184844,00.html
Posted by Kent at January 31, 2006 06:48 AM

That's very effecting, Kent.

The things you learn in one 20 minute session:

"there is no such thing as a bicep"

"wines are lower case"

and:

"car bomb
two words"
Posted by boynton at January 31, 2006 02:05 PM

aquatic

Seu Jorge - The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions

---

Comments: aquatic

Cool! Well-spotted. The music played a big part in the flick's weird charm.

If I find a copy in Melbourne's CBD, I'll let you you where (It's too nice to burn pirate CD s thereof). But I suspect it's gonna be another Amazon job.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:10 PM

Forget to add that if you like Seu, you could well enjoy Nouvelle Vague as well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A2875520
They do the best bossa nova version of "Too Drunk To Fuck" I've heard in quite a while.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:16 PM

Forget to add that if you like Seu, you could well enjoy Nouvelle Vague as well.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A2875520
They do the best bossa nova version of "Too Drunk To Fuck" I've heard in quite a while.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:17 PM

Opps.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:19 PM

Opps. Again.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:20 PM

I was listening to the Amazon TLA_with_SZ soundtrack samples before I found that link, having watched the film 3 times. Yeah I really like Seu, and Nouvelle Vague is great too.
(I'm still waiting to buy a Joao Gilberto CD after about 3 years of thinking about it!)
Posted by boynton at January 24, 2006 02:53 PM

Those musical links are a good idea, and are a big part of Andersons fillums. Mark Mothersbaugh (ex Devo) also does fantastic soundtracks for Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums.
Posted by Tony.T at January 24, 2006 05:06 PM

I've been listening to Mothersbaugh track 16 (16 times)
Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0006JMLI4/103-8688997-1202213?v=glance&n=5174
Posted by boynton at January 24, 2006 05:10 PM

"Ping Island/Lightning Strike Rescue Op"

Yes, that was so bloody cute when Bill started slyly grooving to it and then the jump cut to them paddling along to the beat underwater.

It really is a lovely little film isn't it? Like a home movie where you'd wish you could've have been in frame yourself. Even the one bit of gratitious dog cruelty is funny.
Posted by Nabakov at January 25, 2006 02:15 AM

I counted two bits..?
(on the first viewing mind)

never funny but yeah forgiven.
So many funny lines - I was laughing the whole way through.

I would be quite happy to live in the Belafonte for the decor alone.
Posted by boynton at January 25, 2006 11:07 AM

books

The Book Bar
- a bar made of condemned library books rescued from the skip.
via cynical-c


Bed Books

It came to me while on a motor home vacation, when I just didn’t have the head room to sit up in bed. There was literally no comfortable position to be in – and that’s when it hit me! If the book was printed so that I could lie on my side, I could read for hours!

via the presurfer

 

Update: some bookshelves from This Into That

thanks to peacay via bookLust, *

---

Comments: books

And not to be outdone: some bookshelves
http://www.thisintothat.com/secondeditions.html
I can't decide if it's sacrilige or ultrarecycling.
[via booklust]
Posted by peacay at January 26, 2006 07:25 PM

I love the way that the Bed Books people try to keep "reading on your side" a secret, in the page of hilarious reading positions.
Posted by Kevan at January 26, 2006 09:14 PM

Great link, peacay, so I placed it in the post.

Indeed.
Also, "Unhappy Chest Rester" raises broader questions about the effect of one's mental state on ease of reading.
Posted by boynton at January 26, 2006 09:42 PM

burning

When Laura created her (all) extraordinary Christmas post assembling gifts for bloggers, I dashed off an attempt to show a place which had reminded me of the Girls Crystal landscape in question - and the crystal mindscape in general. (nb: This is not the one in the Strzeleckis - but on the other side of the Valley)

Up until a few years ago it had a distinctly 50's feel, with non-descript (ancient concrete) picnic tables and toilet blocks, ideologically and environmentally unsound trees, and river gums with their mighty, litigious limbs in tact and shading the white gravel road where you could count on your hand the number of cars and tractors that circled round the weir in an afternoon. Despite the recent upgrading, it is still a beautiful, peaceful place, gippsland-green and off the beaten tree-change track.

I ended up not posting it in December, but was thinking of the region as fires rage across the hills at Moondarra. The vista of distant hills winding up along the Thompson is the type of country that's burning.

---

Comments: burning

"ideologically and environmentally unsound trees". Gorgeous phrase... I've always wondered what to call them.
Posted by Kent at January 26, 2006 06:37 PM

willows? ;)

Well - willows are in the second camp and their eradication is obviously nec. for river health.
But some of the old exotics planted in shady ignorance may get the chop for less sound reasoning?
Posted by boynton at January 26, 2006 06:46 PM

Deciduous is the word I was after. It's a different kind of un-Australian, but there's only so much gum I can take.
Posted by Kent at January 26, 2006 07:05 PM

I heard a firefighter refer to "Eucys" (sp?)the other day.
Re: plantantion timber, but I've never heard that contraction before.
Posted by boynton at January 27, 2006 11:46 AM

The oiliness of eucalypts is of course the reason we (and Californians ) have bushfires and England does not.
Plant English trees around your house if you live in the bush.
Posted by Brownie at February 3, 2006 10:07 PM

fires

Bushfires are burning around the state...
We sweltered sleepless through the 2nd hottest January night on record and today sat out the 42 degrees waiting for the cool change, checking into the weather bureau's current observations every 10 minutes and listening intently to ABC emergency service radio with sirens replacing the call of the cricket.

Meanwhile in the city, in the loungeroom, films featuring oceans or snow are the way to go.

---

Comments: fires

Perhaps you should get out "Downhill Racer".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064253/
Imagine if Polanski had directed it. The mind boggles and hits a mogul the wrong way. As I suspect Roman would have done.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:23 PM

Take top sheet to bathroom basin. Hold sheet under cold tap till wet. Wring. Take wet, wrung sheet back to bed. On bed, lie face up suspending cool, damp, sheet over near naked bod holding aloft with upturned toes. Slowly relax erect feet and allow wet sheet to drape over (nearly) naked bod. This could inititally be excruciating but its worth it believe me - anything to feel moementarily f r e e z i n g. If heat persists night after night, try something else-like not sleeping, as I'm not sure that this is entirely good for old ducks over the long term. Not that your and old duck!
Posted by Link at January 23, 2006 09:48 PM

ahem sorry, should read, not that you're an old duck.
Posted by Link at January 23, 2006 09:50 PM

almost funny to enter house after the cool change, and find it like a convection oven.

not funny to see dark blue car covered in fine grey ash wafted into Ballarat from fires west.
Posted by Kitty Brown at January 24, 2006 12:49 PM

Hmm - might wander up the hill and look for Downhill racer now - seeing it's 2 free movies-tuesday.

as an old duck I might try that Green method, Link, thanks.

The house is still set on "warm", Brownie.

It's the deliberately lit fire in Gippsland that gets to me...
Posted by boynton at January 24, 2006 03:12 PM

Inconceivable over here. I've just put on a jumper in spite of the fact that we've had the heating on all day. Global warming has yet to make it up Offley Hill.
Posted by Dick at January 30, 2006 09:41 AM

I've just put on a jumper too this morning ;)
That's Melbourne.
(And loving it at the moment)
One night last week I was wearing a parka (as you do) while walking dogs at night - the next day it was mid 30's!
It always seems that the worst two weeks of Summer coincide with the Australian Open tennis. Though maybe I'm being optimistic - there's still Feb to go.
Posted by boynton at January 30, 2006 12:06 PM

storm light

 

Flo contemplating the weird light after the weather broke last night.
The back garden went fully technocolor and possibly the possums were psychedelic too.

---

Comments: storm light

Todd-AO Widescreen Dog-O-Vision.
Posted by Tony.T at January 21, 2006 04:02 PM

128 degree possum-eye lens.

Posted by boynton at January 21, 2006 04:47 PM

So the dog is actually really skinny?
Posted by David Tiley at January 21, 2006 07:11 PM

Oh - is this a case of "I never realised my muscle looked like that"?...

Guess it might be an unflattering angle for Flo - who is 'stocky' but not fat.
Posted by boynton at January 21, 2006 08:21 PM

It was very weird light, but it didn't last long enough for my liking. Copped a baker's dozen of mozzie bites standing in the yard but it was well worth the pain.

Wish the heavens would bloody well open right now.
Posted by Laura at January 21, 2006 11:12 PM

Maybe a caption contest is in order?
Posted by Link at January 22, 2006 09:58 AM

I wandered out to the street to view the strangeness wishing I had a camera. Last night's light had bushfires in it - deep red sky to the west.

Good idea Link, but your line from last time would take some beating: "Oh Lordy I hate headspace to(night)" ;)
Posted by boynton at January 22, 2006 10:55 AM

My dog loathes rolling thunder and wants to climb on my head for safety.
Flo is supposed to be 'stocky' - she's a stock dog!
Posted by Kitty Brown at January 23, 2006 12:00 AM

Flo hates the thunder too - makes her roll around nervously ;)

Guess the cinerama might have made her look
S t o c k i e R...
Posted by boynton at January 23, 2006 12:05 AM

Y'know, her bum does look big in that light.
Whereas mine's perfect during a eclipse of the full moon.
Posted by Nabakov at January 23, 2006 09:24 PM

The dog next door
barks
all
night

Apparently only when the moon is full, say the owners.

I
don't
believe
it
Posted by boynton at January 24, 2006 02:57 PM

Fantastic pic. Love the tree. Though forget her bum, the tail looks like she is sitting next to a molehill.
Posted by another outspoken female at January 26, 2006 12:16 PM

a sting in the tale?...

Alas, a.o.f, something good was lost in the downsizing. The tree in full does look rather good and less nocturnal - and of course that light can never be caught by the hapless shutterbug.
Posted by boynton at January 26, 2006 05:48 PM

crazy

At a timely point in my blogging ennui of jannui, Kent sent a link which I think made as much sense as anything else I chanced upon.


Also - via toph, I sampled the Google Story Creator by submitting My January Ennui a couple of times:

24 hours a day.

The vault will have metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete and will be protected behind two airlocks and high-security blast-proof doors.

w00t.

Thank you to everyone who delurked and said hello last week (and thanks also to everyone who did not have to delurk to say hello).

But absent an ark, one takes comfort, paradoxically enough, in the charms of the music of anguish.

By the time we got home though I could hear her screaming before I even opened the car door.

---

Comments: crazy

Here's what I got when I put my name into the Story creator:

And therefore funny. All Rights Reserved.
An “absolute gas,” as we used to say in high school.
In the New Oxford Note “Ms. Pray tell what should you call firefighters if both men and women are wearing bunker suits? You could always say firemen and firewomen, but that’s awkward.
I say police officer.
Feaster.
Posted by Helen at January 30, 2006 01:24 PM

That's impressive.

"And therefore Funny" - would be a good blog name for bloggers or humourists lacking "confidence"*?
(see John Birmingham)
Posted by boynton at January 30, 2006 02:16 PM

commentary

Bogart was propped up on pillows to make him taller to match Bergman's height...

More Trivia Tips about Casablanca - this time via the DVD audio commentary by Roger Ebert.


(I'm starting to like the commentary genre, after sampling the tangential appearing statements from director and cast of The Haunting)

Yet, some big name directors also can put aside ego-stroking to provide insights. The commentaries that Francis Ford Copolla provides for ‘The Godfather’ Trilogy is justly praised, but the commentary he provides for the great little film he made between #s 1 & 2- ‘The Conversation’- may be the best filmmaker on filmmaking commentary around- from anecdotes about star Gene Hackman’s reluctance to submerge his machismo, to the technical hurdles involved in the famed opening bugging scene Dan Schneider

The Commentary for Eurotrip has members of the cast and crew playing a drinking game to their own film, while giving a commentary Wikipedia

---

Comments: commentary

Oh, the shame of the shortarse movie star! Bogart's stat-ure is, of course, a function of qualities other than mere distance from the ground. Ditto Cagney & even little Alan Ladd. I'm kinda glad that Tom Cruise is never likely to stretch any higher, though...
Posted by Dick Jones at January 19, 2006 09:56 AM

Regarding the above comment - is the following a joke?

'Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:

Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: tatoo*

Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.'

*Spell this word with a 'u' replacing the double-o & there's the explanation for the censorship.

Wha..?!
Posted by Dick Jones at January 19, 2006 09:59 AM

Strange...
Maybe the uberbot is sensitive/zero tolerant of short stat.ure jokes?

I did know Te.x.as was banned...

I'm a big fan of Bogey's qualities.
Posted by boynton at January 19, 2006 03:08 PM

song tapper

The Song Tapper - Search for music by tapping the rhythm of the song's melody

via the presurfer

I tapped in a tune freshly heard on the radio. It wasn't there, but I was suprised to see the songs that matched...I wonder if this a way to find partner songs
Who knew Yesterday sounded like Eine Kleine Nachtmusic or that Yellow Sub and O Holy Night might tap into each other?

---

Comments: song tapper

I just pounded out any old jibberish and came up with the following (I think the last one was an accurate assessment of my tapping.):

Bang! - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

London Calling - The Clash

Build Me Up - Fountains Of Wayne

Zelda - Nintendo

Whistling In The Dark - They Might Be Giants

Three Blind Mice

Skid Row - Little Shop Of Horros

I'll Be Here A While - 311

Common People - Pulp

Bad - Michael Jackson
Posted by Tony.T at January 17, 2006 10:11 PM

three deaf mice?
Posted by boynton at January 18, 2006 12:45 PM

big screen qotd

AUDIENCE QUESTION: The enduring beauty of CASABLANCA has forever changed my view of film. Have you compared the richness of the work on the big screen with that on the video recorder? It is stunning to see Bogart & Bergman full screen....
JULIUS EPSTEIN: I see very few pictures on the small screen...the full appreciation for a film has to take place on the big screen

"Howard Koch, Julius Epstein, Frank Miller Interview" May, 1995

 

also seen on the big screen

---

Comments: big screen qotd

It's a nice idea and I don't disagree with it, but it does presuppose that 1) the film is available to be seen on the big screen in the first place and 2) the available print is of adequate quality to be appreciated. Frankly I'll take my nice, clean, sharp-looking and legibly-subtitled DVD of Ugetsu monogatari over the worn out, hard to read, apparently 16mm print of the film I saw on the big screen at Cinematheque last year.
Posted by James Russell at January 15, 2006 10:13 PM

I can see your point re sharpness of DVD - funny this isn't so sharp but it's BIG.
And even within the grab bag of hired flicks, it's easy to see which *needs* the big screen, and Casablanca was one of them. Like that audience member I was quite stunned. Hadn't seen the film for years but gets better. One of my top 10.14159265 now, fwiw.
Chaplin and Keaton have been great too.
Posted by boynton at January 15, 2006 10:39 PM

Oh yeah, obviously some films absolutely require a cinema-sized screen for full effect, not to mention an audience. I love Keaton, but he goes down even better in a cinema with other people. And I think I shall always be glad I first saw "Bridge on the River Kwai" at the cinema rather than on TV.

Going purely on my own experience, I generally find I prefer films *without* large clumps of people around me. I suspect part of this comes from when I was studying film at university and was surrounded by people whose automatic response to films was to laugh at them at the least appropriate points, but part of it probably also stems from the fact that the biggest majority of the films I see (and have seen) are on the small screen by myself at home. I don't really do films as a social event (except for Mu-Meson Archives).

I must say that, having invested in a widescreen TV for Xmas, I can completely understand what they say about people not going to the cinema any more if they've got a perfectly good home theatre set-up. I don't even have that big a set (76cm), and I don't have surround sound, but I know totally what they mean. If I didn't have Celluloid Dreams to force me to keep in touch with new films at the cinema, I could probably quite comfortably live off DVD rentals.

As for "Casablanca", I should probably be embarrassed to admit I never saw it until last year. It was probably the biggest gap in my classic Hollywood knowledge. Luckily it was worth the wait.
Posted by James Russell at January 16, 2006 12:12 AM

I almost never (2 or 3 times a year) watch a film at home. I don't enjoy it. Cinema is the place for watching films.

I don't think there are many films coming out at all that can be appreciated the same on a small screen.

I suppose if you've spent thousands of $$ on a 'home theatre' then it's different.
Posted by wbb at January 16, 2006 04:16 PM

Would concur about the audience factor.
Some films definitely need it.
Have to say though - sometimes the concentration factor intensifies in this privileged mode of viewing.
Luckily we forked out zero - the projector is borrowed, the magnificent isolation is temporary.

Think I will avoid watching films on Tv now though.
Posted by boynton at January 16, 2006 04:44 PM

contrivium

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Casablanca !

1. Neil Armstrong first stepped on casablanca with his left foot.


2. While performing her duties as queen, Cleopatra sometimes dressed up as casablanca .


3. Half a cup of casablanca contains only seventeen calories.


4. Casablanca cannot jump.


5. Casablanca was first grown in America by the grandmother Maria Ann Smith, from whom her name comes!


6. Contrary to popular belief, casablanca is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases she may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.


7. Edinburgh imports three thousand kilograms of casablanca every year!


8. There are more than two hundred different kinds of casablanca !


9. Ostriches stick their heads in casablanca not to hide but to look for water.


10. Casablanca is the only one of the original Seven Wonders of the World that still survives.

I am interested in - do tell me about
herhimitthem

via as above

---

Comments: contrivium

I see I get to be first to do the obvious:

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Boynton!

1. The risk of being struck by boynton is one occurence every 9,300 years.
2. Cats use their boynton to test whether a space is large enough for them to fit through.
3. Boynton was declared extinct in 1902.
4. If you lace boynton from the inside to the outside, the fit will be snugger around your big toe.
5. Lightning strikes boynton over seven times every hour.
6. The smelly fluid secreted by skunks is colloquially known as boynton.
7. South Australia was the first place to allow boynton to stand for parliament.
8. Boynton is the sacred animal of Thailand.
9. Boyntonicide is the killing of boynton.
10. Long ago, the people of Nicaragua believed that if they threw boynton into a volcano it would stop erupting.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at January 16, 2006 02:31 PM

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Gummo!

1. Without gummo, we would have to pollinate apple trees by hand!
2. Scientists have discovered that gummo can smell the presence of autism in children.
3. It takes more than 500 peanuts to make gummo!
4. Gummo can clean his ears with his tongue, which is over thirty-nine inches long!
5. The Australian billygoat plum contains a hundred times more Vitamin C than gummo.
6. Gummo has three eyelids.
7. The word 'samba' means 'to rub gummo'.
8. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching gummo.
9. If the Sun were the size of a beach ball then Jupiter would be the size of a golf ball and gummo would be as small as a pea!
10. It's bad luck to put gummo on a bed.


btw: I think boynton became extinct well before 1902
Posted by boynton at January 16, 2006 05:15 PM

I'd say that's probably the fault of those ancient Nicaraguans:

1. In Chinese, the sound 'Nicaragua' means 'bite the wax tadpole'.
2. The air around Nicaragua is superheated to about five times the temperature of the sun.
3. Twenty-eight percent of Microsoft's employees are Nicaragua.
4. If you drop Nicaragua from the top of the Empire State Building, it will be falling fast enough to kill before reaching the ground!
5. On stone temples in southern India, there are more than 30 million carved images of Nicaragua!
6. The risk of being struck by Nicaragua is one occurence every 9,300 years.
7. Nicaragua is the world's smallest mammal!
8. The water in oceans is four times less salty than the water in Nicaragua.
9. The Nicaragua-fighting market in the Philippines is huge - several thousand Nicaragua-fights take place there every day!
10. 68 percent of all UFO sightings are by Nicaragua.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at January 16, 2006 10:37 PM


3. A lump of microsoft the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court.
4. Grapes explode if you put them inside microsoft.
5. Ninety-six percent of all candles sold are purchased by microsoft.
6. If you keep a goldfish in a dark room, it will eventually turn into microsoft!
9. Wearing headphones for an hour will increase the amount of microsoft in your ear 700 times.

Posted by boynton at January 17, 2006 05:11 PM

It wouldn't surprise me in the least to discover that the one about candles is actually true.
Posted by Gummo Trotsky at January 17, 2006 05:23 PM

Number six is true?
Posted by boynton at January 17, 2006 06:00 PM

I checked out my 5 year old daughter, Nell:

6. Two grams of nell s provide enough energy to power a television for over twenty-three hours!

As if I didn't know.

(Only 12 more days till kinder resumes....)
Posted by wen at January 21, 2006 09:21 AM

go well, go nell...

- and as for the blue heeler:

1. Flo will become gaseous if her temperature rises above -42°C!
Posted by boynton at January 21, 2006 03:56 PM

sounds like

I've always liked Things We Said Today (see things we said last year*) so was interested to read the discussion on similarities in a later Bacharach song This Empty Place at
Early Burt Special Part 4 at Music You (Possibly) Won't Hear Anyplace Else

(Well, had me listening to Things... and singing along ... )

time and distance

To annihilate the twin obstructions of time and

distance, communicate your cheering message in

the MODERN, INEXPENSIVE and PERSONAL WAY

Telegram advertisements at The Telegram page

bewteen clerks

 

24. Any unnecessary use of the wires, by frivoulous messages between Clerks, is to be reported to the Superintendant.

Rules Respecting Messages 28/29
London And North Western Railway Telegraph Rules And Regulations, 1871

FTL via things

---

Comments: between clerks

Only this shortest of notes to say still here, accessing the air waves as it were in the public venues such as they are.
Beats the heck out of a telegraph send key though don't it?
Posted by Juke Moran etc. at January 12, 2006 10:52 AM

/ \/ / \ \\Posted by boynton at January 13, 2006 11:39 AM

Yes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Internet access is to be used for authorised work purposes only, etc, etc."

Nothing a decent lesson in good manners won't cure though.
http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/en/keys/games/game_0/
Posted by Nabakov at January 15, 2006 04:28 PM

And if wasn't for a few indiscretions at the card table and in the billard room, I'd have scored top points in the game I linked above.

And then playing it through while making all the obviously wrong choices reveals some great easter eggs.
Posted by Nabakov at January 15, 2006 04:47 PM

I made but one error of judgement concerning the dinner party - but felt vicarious victorian shame even as I committed the hostessing faux pas.

That's a good gilliam-graphics type game.

I tried to heed the advice on what to wear for a promenade as I took dogs for evening stroll, but me without a parasol and all...
Posted by boynton at January 15, 2006 09:07 PM

listings

You can spend hours browsing through this bumper collection of 2005 lists at Fimoculous
via incoming signals
 


footnote: trying to find some 2005 pics.au content could only find a year in football gallery. S'ok.

---

Comments: listing

I only looked at about ten, but I'm totally listed out.
Posted by Tony.T at January 4, 2006 06:32 PM

Maybe try: The Top Ten Lists?
(see Film)

I think I'll have to browse one category a day to prevent listing.
Posted by boynton at January 4, 2006 07:31 PM

big screen

Have you noticed; they spend all that time trying to get the exact effect of an orchestra actually playing in their sitting room. Personally, I can't think of anything I should hate more than an orchestra actually playing in my sitting room.
Flanders and Swann A Song of Reproduction


I don't know about orchestras but we've had a cinema actually playing in the sitting room here courtesy of a borrowed data projector. It can feel a little bizarre watching big screen cary grant gleam around your everyday furniture and blue heelers, but a bizarre you can get used to pretty quickly.

I am like an early twentieth century human gazing awe-struck at the magic of film, and would have been happy to watch trains arriving at a station for hours. Streetscapes get in the way of the story, and cars and the cut of a suit morph from mundane into metaphor when the data is so projected. In comparison television is nothing, almost the bare code of the medium, a storyboard zoomed out into a lounge room pocket of long shot.
So it's all 5-for-$10 marathons and renewing vows with classics and forswearing watching big movies on the small screen ever again.

---

Comments: big screen

And you can make rabbits with your hands in the light.

There must be some precise size at which the moving image becomes trans-naturale. Perhaps it's at the point of lifesize.

On a very hot day when the air con isn't working )(or non existent - same thing) an all day session at the (Pinewood) Waverley Cimemas is a good buy.

With 4 theatres, (or is it 3?) and cheap deals with card from $3:75 to $4:50 per fillum. Around $7 - $8 in peak days.

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~wcinema/program/bargains.htm
Posted by Francis Xavier Holden at January 4, 2006 03:32 PM

Must consult some web guides on hand shadows...
but the bluey cast herself as Bat Ears - which sent the Jack Russell running up to the screen to investigate (you had to be there)

Interesting, I would say Lifesize. Rhett B was certaintly trans-nat the other day as he kissed Scarlett on the road to Tara... Have noticed a BIG difference even b/w the Full screen (Lifesize) and the DVD (half-size), even though the latter beats TV any day. Only the former really effects a 'dreaming' mode.

I love Pinewood. Used to go there - only 20 mins from inner city. Must renew that habit. Except - would that mean...other people... ;)

btw - saw West Side Story' the other day - having never seen it at the cinema, and having avoided watching it on TV for reasons that beacame obvious during the BIG screen event.
Posted by boynton at January 4, 2006 03:47 PM

- a good guide to Hand Shadows:
http://boynton.ubersportingpundit.com/archives/006593.html
Posted by boynton at January 4, 2006 04:41 PM