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Post by Kapitan on May 7, 2020 13:52:35 GMT
1. The writer, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, inserts herself and her friend into the feature to what I find an annoying degree. Her recollections of Kilmer's earlier work, OK, that's to be expected, I suppose. Her friend's bout with cancer (with the tie-in being Kilmer's previous bout with cancer) ... okay ... the obligatory "this was hard because coronavirus" angle? Kill me now. Come on.
2. The writing. It surprises me, although maybe it shouldn't, that New York Times Magazine's editors allow for a style this colloquial.
"...later that day, literally seriously that day, he was inspired to call his agent..."
"And I thought: Right?"
After several mentions of his being a method actor, "Maybe he was burned out already from all that Methoding."
"See what he did there?"
"...that he perhaps definitely did."
I know there were others but I don't want to mine the whole, lengthy thing in more detail just now. My problem, though, is that it feels very much like an informal, personal blog. Or maybe a message board post. It just doesn't feel remotely like journalism, even celebrity journalism (which is only a distant cousin to journalism to begin with). It reminds me that the Washington Post recently had a series called something like "How to Adult," another egregious violation of the language. That the country's leading institutions have (as I see it) pandered to the people with this level of informality, this kind of purportedly trendy slang, really annoys me.
So there, NYT. Now you know.
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Post by Kapitan on May 11, 2020 16:07:23 GMT
Interesting story of a fossil find that our species, Homo Sapiens, entered Europe several thousand years prior to what the previously oldest fossils showed. They indicate that homo sapiens had entered Europe around 47,000 years ago, where they shared the region with the already present Neanderthals before the latter died out.
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Post by Kapitan on May 15, 2020 12:28:14 GMT
In different times, one suspects this might be a bigger story. But the U.S. Navy released documents about eight different encounters with UFOs--and yes, they are definitely UFOs (in that they are Unidentified Flying Objects), although not necessarily extraterrestrial--over just under six years (2013-19). Among them are some videos the Defense Department has authenticated, initially reported as early as 2017.
We have legitimate video footage of U.S. military aircraft encountering UFOs. It is barely reported, not because of some censorship or conspiracy theories, but because our media is myopic toward the pandemic. What a world.
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Post by kds on May 15, 2020 12:32:04 GMT
I didn't want to start a thread about this, but just a random pop culture observation.
I've noticed a popular trope in biopics - the foreboding / foreshadowing cough of doom. For three examples that come to mind are The Babe (Babe Ruth), Man on the Moon (Andy Kaufman), and Bohemian Rhapsody (Freddie Mercury). Going in the movies, we all know that the subject died young. But, I've noticed there's a point, usually around the middle of the film, and usually well before either subject would've known they are sick, they let out a nasty cough, almost as a signal to the audience to go "uh oh, he's dying."
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Post by Kapitan on May 15, 2020 12:37:33 GMT
But, I've noticed there's a point, usually around the middle of the film, and usually well before either subject would've known they are sick, they let out a nasty cough, almost as a signal to the audience to go "uh oh, he's dying." That's a really astute catch, KDS. There are tons of tricks in literature (and I consider movies in that same ballpark, if not quite literally literature) to help signal to the audience, or break the "fourth wall," without explicitly doing it (because to explicitly do it can hurt the experience of escapism).
For example, in the old Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. Watson exists mostly so Sherlock Holmes can explain what's in his mind--because otherwise we wouldn't have much occasion to know how he solved the case. People don't go around explaining their thinking process. But if you've got a partner who seems never to understand, and always asks, "how did you figure it out!?"...
In the death-cough situation it isn't quite so necessary to advance the plot, but it does foreshadow (and thus, later, reinforce) the narrative.
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Post by kds on May 15, 2020 12:50:50 GMT
But, I've noticed there's a point, usually around the middle of the film, and usually well before either subject would've known they are sick, they let out a nasty cough, almost as a signal to the audience to go "uh oh, he's dying." That's a really astute catch, KDS. There are tons of tricks in literature (and I consider movies in that same ballpark, if not quite literally literature) to help signal to the audience, or break the "fourth wall," without explicitly doing it (because to explicitly do it can hurt the experience of escapism).
For example, in the old Sherlock Holmes stories, Dr. Watson exists mostly so Sherlock Holmes can explain what's in his mind--because otherwise we wouldn't have much occasion to know how he solved the case. People don't go around explaining their thinking process. But if you've got a partner who seems never to understand, and always asks, "how did you figure it out!?"...
In the death-cough situation it isn't quite so necessary to advance the plot, but it does foreshadow (and thus, later, reinforce) the narrative.
Dan Akyroyd and Harold Ramis created the Winston Zeddemore character in Ghostbusters as a Dr. Watson figure also.
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Post by Kapitan on May 26, 2020 14:41:35 GMT
Somewhat buried in the there-is-no-news-but-pandemic news, tomorrow is a big day for science: SpaceX will send American astronauts from American soil to space. For the past decade or so, our astronauts have been hitching a ride on Russian spacecraft, which is hardly an ideal situation for many reasons.
Here's hoping the weather is good and everything goes safely for all involved. The launch is scheduled for 4:33 pm ET from Cape Kennedy in Florida.
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Post by Kapitan on May 28, 2020 17:59:37 GMT
Somewhat buried in the there-is-no-news-but-pandemic news, tomorrow is a big day for science: SpaceX will send American astronauts from American soil to space. For the past decade or so, our astronauts have been hitching a ride on Russian spacecraft, which is hardly an ideal situation for many reasons.
Here's hoping the weather is good and everything goes safely for all involved. The launch is scheduled for 4:33 pm ET from Cape Kennedy in Florida.
I'm bummed that this has been postponed a second time, now scheduled for Saturday. A triumph of human ingenuity would be a great pick-me-up.
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Post by Kapitan on May 31, 2020 2:40:43 GMT
We're back into space. This made me so happy today, you wouldn't believe it.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 16, 2020 11:55:50 GMT
Going largely unnoticed in the news lately are escalating tensions between North and South Korea, which had in recent years seemingly been improving relations.
Earlier today, the North blew up an "inter-Korean liaison office" just on their side of the border. The North has also said it would cut all government and military ties with the South and might leave their bilateral peace agreements.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 16, 2020 18:13:53 GMT
On the subject of terrible, under-reported news...
Indian and Chinese troops have reportedly clashed repeatedly in a disputed border that despite the dispute has remained largely peaceful. Twenty Indian soldiers have reportedly been killed, per the Indian army; they are the first since 1975.
These are two nuclear-armed countries.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Jun 18, 2020 21:37:20 GMT
Jean Kennedy Smith passed away on Wednesday at the age of 92. Why is that interesting? She was the youngest and the last surviving member of the Kennedy family. Just think of everything she lived through...
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 18, 2020 22:03:37 GMT
Jean Kennedy Smith passed away on Wednesday at the age of 92. Why is that interesting? She was the youngest and the last surviving member of the Kennedy family. Just think of everything she lived through...
I love the question you asked there, and the offer of speculation you gave. What I mean is, in some ways, a century is enormous. And in others, it's nothing at all. Some comedian, I forget who, said that when you consider the US is roughly 250 years old, you could argue it is about THREE PEOPLE old. Just imagine that!
One of my grandfathers was born in 1911 and lived to be 94. He could tell stories of when people he knew installed both gas and electric light, not knowing which would catch on. His childhood knew no cars: people used horses, wagons, and trains in his rural community north of Minneapolis. He sat through union meetings during which mobsters--old time mobsters--shot up the place to "convince" union members how to vote. (At a bar I later frequented, I might add...) I lived one school year with him and my grandma, my junior year of college. The least cool thing I could have possibly done, I would not trade it for anything.
The history a person can get from a single, long life, is an amazing, often wasted thing.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 21, 2020 15:18:05 GMT
The temperature in the Siberian town of Verkhoyansk reportedly hit a record 100.4 F (38 C) yesterday. The region is apparently undergoing a heat wave that is contributing to forest fires.
Verkhoyansk (population 1,300), located in the Arctic Circle, had already been recognized for the widest recorded temperature range: -90 F to 98.96 F. That range grew by another degree and a half.
And I complain about Minnesota's weather patterns...
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 26, 2020 14:16:58 GMT
One "surprise was the raw complexity of the deep seabed around the region’s 30 large coral atolls and banks. The expedition found submarine canyons, dune fields, submerged reefs and massive landslides."
"The team also found the deepest living hard corals in eastern Australian waters and identified as many as 10 new species of fish, snails and sponges."
Work continues on the now-completed expedition as scientists and students study the newly created maps and watch the days' worth of video captured.
Click the story to see images, animation, and video of some of the amazing finds.
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