Vicsmuse: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The Food Timeline by Lynne Oliver

Lynne Oliver

Lynne Oliver's Food Timeline Library

Link to The Food Timeline:

http://www.foodtimeline.org/

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Bread and Tulips - Starring Lucia Maglietta

Trailer

Bread and Tulips

Pane E Tulipani

2000 PG-13 116 minutes

Summary from Rotten Tomatoes:

Silvio Soldino directs this gentle comedy about a housewife who temporarily flees from the grinding tedium of her household duties and drifts into a world of amicable weirdos. When Rosalba (Licia Maglietta) is accidentally forgotten by her tour bus at a roadside restaurant, she does not wait there as instructed. She decides to hitchhike home, but on a whim, she ends up in Venice instead. Quietly exhilarated at the prospect of being alone for a spell, she checks into an inn run by a kindly yet eccentric Icelander (Bruno Ganz). Her plans to return the next day are thwarted when she misses her train and does not have enough money to buy another ticket. Soon she is gainfully employed at a flower shop run by an irascible old anarchist. Though her teenaged sons do not seem all that bothered by their mom's absence, Rosalba's husband grows increasing agitated at the interruption in his routine, so he hires a bumbling detective to track her down. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi

View for free on Hulu (with limited interruptions) at
http://www.hulu.com/watch/206416/bread-and-tulips
Also available online at Netflix:
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Bread_and_Tulips/60020983?trkid=2361637

Glenn Gould Plays Bach Fugue in E Major

Glenn Gould

Fugue in E Major from The Well Tempered Clavier Book 2 - BWV 878

More at:
http://www.glenngould.com/

Betty Carter - How High the Moon

Betty Carter

How High the Moon

From Carnegie Hall Salutes The Jazz Masters 1994

More at::

http://www.bettycarter.org/

Angela Zhang - What Kids Are Up to These Days

Angela Zhand

17 year old Angela Zhang may have found a cure for cancer.

Also see:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086763/Cancer-cure-High-school-student-Angela-Zhang-devised-cure-cancer.html

Friday, January 27, 2012

Jorge Luis Borges - Three Poems

Jorge Luis Borges

To a Cat
Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.

Shinto
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.

Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us--
touch us and move on.

History of the Night
Throughout the course of the generations
men constructed the night.
At first she was blindness;
thorns raking bare feet,
fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word
for the interval of shadow
dividing the two twilights;
we shall never know in what age it came to mean
the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny,
they sacrificed black ewes to her, and the cock
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to her twelve houses;
to Zeno, infinite words.
She took shape from Latin hexameters
and the terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland
of his stricken soul.
Now we feel her to be inexhaustible
like an ancient wine
and no one can gaze on her without vertigo
and time has charged her with eternity.

And to think that she wouldn't exist
except for those fragile instruments, the eyes.

More at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4331/the-art-of-fiction-no-39-jorge-luis-borges

http://www.borges.pitt.edu/

http://amigos-de-borges.net/site/english/main/

Richard Hamilton - Father of Pop Art

Richard Hamilton (1922 - 2011)

"Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business"

(Hamilton's definition of Pop Art from a letter to Alison and Peter Smithson dated 16 January 1957)

Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?

Swingeing London

Hommage à Chrysler Corp.

The Beatles White Album & poster

My Marilyn

The Annunciation

Shock and Awe

Treatment Room (Installation)

More at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hamilton_(artist)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_what_is_it_that_makes_today's_homes_so_different,_so_appealing%3F

http://observatory.designobserver.com/feature/remembering-richard-hamilton-as-design-critic/30208/

http://www.serpentinegallery.org/Richard%20Hamilton%20Teachers%20Notes%20Final%20l.pdf

http://www.newleftreview.org/A2434

http://obits.cleveland.com/obituaries/cleveland/obituary.aspx?n=richard-hamilton&pid=153622181

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/sep/13/richard-hamilton-obituary

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Code Green by Stephanie McMillan

Stephanie McMillan

More at:

http://www.stephaniemcmillan.org/codegreen/

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Favorites from Indexed by Jessica Hagy

Jessica Hagy

More at:

http://thisisindexed.com/

http://jessicahagy.info/

Friday, January 13, 2012

Samantha Garvey Semifinalists in the National Intel Science Search

Samantha Garvey

By Greg Cergol

NBCNewYork.com

The family of a Long Island homeless teen recently named one of the top science students in the nation will now have a home to call their own.

Samantha Garvey, 17, is among 61 Long Island teens designated as semifinalists in the National Intel Science Search.

The Garvey family was evicted from their home in December after the teen's parents were injured in a car crash. Samantha, along with her mom, dad and two siblings, moved into a homeless shelter in Bay Shore two weeks ago.

"My dad has always said, 'Pick your head up and keep on going,'" the Brentwood High School teen told NBC New York. "That's the mentality."

Local government officials and members of the community have rallied to help the family, and during a Friday news conference, Suffolk County officials offered the family a rent-subsidized home. County Executive Steve Bellone said Garvey and her family could move into the house in about 10 days.

Garvey said this was the second time the family had to move to a shelter. Being homeless "has always been a motivator for me," she said.

That motivation has driven Garvey to become an honors student applying for admission to Brown University, among others, even as she struggled to find the cash to pay for her application.

"You can sit around and mope, but what's that going to get you?" Garvey said.

The teen found relief in the 2½-year scientific study that culminated in her Intel entry.

The study focused on the effects of predators on mussels, and the work took her to a Long Island salt marsh and a research lab at Stony Brook University — all as she faced obstacles at home.

"Sam has the ability to focus amidst all of her troubles," said teacher Rebecca Grella. "Even in the darkness, she sees the light."

"I tell all my customers about her," said dad Leo Garvey, now working as a cab driver.

"We are so proud of her," said mom Olga Garvey, now working at a local hospital.

Samantha Garvey aspires to be a marine biologist. She hopes for more good news later this month, when Intel names its finalists for the competition's top prize of $100,000.

This report was updated by msnbc.com

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Also see

http://www.newsday.com/opinion/samantha-garvey-s-amazing-grit-1.3448636

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Two Works by Artist Katie Paterson

Katie Paterson

Streetlight Storm - Deal Pier

For one month on Deal Pier in Kent, during the hours of darkness, the pier lamps flicker in time with lightning strikes happening live in different parts of the world. Lightning signals from as far away as the North Pole or North Africa are received by an antenna on the pier and translated into light. As the pattern of lightning strikes changes, so the pier lights oscillate correspondingly.

"Standing on Deal Pier, sound of the sea crashing on the beach, pier lights flicker, sudden pools of light, messages from elsewhere. Katie Paterson has made another great work - strange, connected, beautiful and timeless." Andrew Nairne

http://katiepaterson.org/streetlightstorm/

Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)

http://katiepaterson.org/eme/

More at:

http://katiepaterson.org/

Last Interview of Ken Saro-Wiwa

Ken Saro-Wiwa

Last interview - part one

Last interview - part two

Nigeria & Oil

More at:

http://remembersarowiwa.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Saro-Wiwa

http://platformlondon.org/nigeria/Counting_the_Cost.pdf

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Seven Quotes by Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson

“Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of the birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty of bird song.”

“As crude a weapon as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the fabric of life.”

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder without any such gift from the fairies, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.”

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life.”

“In every out-thrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.”

“For the first time in the history of the world, every human being is now subjected to contact with dangerous chemicals, from the moment of conception until death.”

“In an age when man has forgotten his origins and is blind even to his most essential needs for survival, water along with other resources has become the victim of his indifference.”

More at:
http://www.rachelcarson.org/

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Eleven Folk Songs for the Accordion

Dark Eyes

Yablochka (Little Apple) Russian Sailor's Dance

Kalina Krasnaya

Uma Linda Valsa (A Beautiful Waltz)

Bella Ciao (The song Bella Ciao was sung by the left-wing anti-fascist resistance movement in Italy.)

O Emigrante

Valenki (traditional Russian felt winter boots)

"Mon Amant de St Jean"

Scottish (Le Canal en Octobre)

A Rosinha dos Limões

Milaya - A Russian Gypsy song

Friday, January 6, 2012

Maurice Ravel -Three Minuets

Maurice Ravel

Menuet sur le nom de Haydn (Composed 1909). Werner Haas, piano. Music is set to a scene from Girl Shy (1924), a silent film starring Harold Lloyd and Jobyna Ralston.