Recommended Indie Films

By

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January 22, 2024

I haven’t watched commercial television since 2009 (cable television since 2013). I won’t pay money to watch commercials.

What I like the most about Indie films is that the writers and directors all seem to still have some semblance of talent. They seem to hold themselves to a higher standard and present a closer to real life experience in their work.

Here are two Indie films that I’ve seen recently that I thought to share. I looked at some of the other reviews online and I’m afraid to say that NPR especially, got it wrong in it’s interpretation of these films — neither of these films pushed any sort of narrative or ideology in any way.

Both of these Indie films are presented in the setting of a big city, and they both touched base on the realities of life. You can’t put a label on the human condition and both of these films did an excellent job of helping us to understand that.

Detachment

Director Tony Kaye’s (AMERICAN HISTORY X) long-awaited film DETACHMENT stars Academy Award(R) winner Adrien Brody as Henry Barthes, a substitute teacher who conveniently avoids any emotional connections by never staying anywhere long enough to form a bond with either his students or colleagues. A lost soul grappling with a troubled past, Henry finds himself at a public school where an apathetic student body has created a frustrated, burned-out administration. In finding an emotional connection to the students but also to fellow teachers and a runaway teen, he finds that he’s not alone in a life and death struggle to find beauty in a seemingly vicious and loveless world. Kaye has molded a contemporary vision of people who become increasingly distant from others while still feeling the need to connect. DETACHMENT features a stellar ensemble cast, including Academy Award(R) winner Marcia Gay Harden, Christina Hendricks, William Petersen, Bryan Cranston, Tim Blake Nelson, Lucy Liu, Blythe Danner, Academy Award(R) nominees James Caan, and newcomers Sami Gayle and Betty Kaye.

It’s an excellent view:

The Visitor

Walter Vale is a widowed Connecticut College economics professor who lives a fairly solitary existence. He fills his days by sometimes taking piano lessons in an effort to emulate his late wife, a classical concert pianist, and infrequently works on a new book. When he is asked to present a paper at an academic conference at New York University, he is not enthusiastic to make the trip, given he is only the nominal co-author and has never even read the complete work. Charles, his department head, insists and Walter is forced to attend.

When he arrives in his old apartment in Manhattan, Walter is startled to find a young unmarried couple living there, having rented it from a swindler who claimed it was his. Tarek is an immigrant from Syria, a Palestinian-Syrian djembe player, and Zainab is a Senegalese designer of ethnic jewelry. He later discovers both are illegal immigrants. Although they have no place to go, they hastily pack and leave, but Walter decides to let them stay.

Cast: Dania Gurira, Haaz Slieman, Richard Jenkins, Hiam Abbass, and Marian Seldes

You can watch both of these independent films for free over on Tubi.

Ancient Lights

By

Alan

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January 22, 2024

‘Ancient Lights’ is an English property law giving house owners the right to receive natural light through a window – if that particular window has been receiving light uninterrupted for 20 years.

Once a window wins the right to ancient lights, adjoining land owners cannot obscure them by erecting a building, raising a wall, planting trees, etc.

In England, the rights to ancient lights are most usually acquired under the Prescription Act 1832.

In American common law the doctrine died out during the 19th century, and is generally no longer recognized in the United States.

Japanese law provides for a comparable concept known as nisshōken (literally “right to sunshine”).

In our modern times we can still find what one might consider a hybrid concept of the Ancient Lights rule.

For instance:

In 1984, voters in San Francisco passed Proposition K, which prevents construction of any building over 40 feet that casts a shadow on a public park, unless the Planning Commission decides the shadow is insignificant.

Massachusetts has similar laws against the casting of shadows on Boston Common, the Public Garden, and other important public open spaces.

Also:

In 2016, the Eneref Institute launched the Right To Daylight campaign to promote the idea that daylight is a natural right.

A word from Malcolm Muggeridge

By

Alan

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January 21, 2024

“So the final conclusion would surely be that whereas other civilizations have been brought down by attacks of barbarians from without, ours had the unique distinction of training its own destroyers at its own educational institutions, and then providing them with facilities for propagating their destructive ideology far and wide, all at the public expense.

Thus did Western Man decide to abolish himself, creating his own boredom out of his own affluence, his own vulnerability out of his own strength, his own impotence out of his own erotomania, himself blowing the trumpet that brought the walls of his own city tumbling down, and having convinced himself that he was too numerous, labored with pill and scalpel and syringe to make himself fewer.

Until at last, having educated himself into imbecility, and polluted and drugged himself into stupefaction, he keeled over — a weary, battered old brontosaurus — and became extinct.”

– Malcolm Muggeridge (1903 – 1990)

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Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist and satirist. His father, H. T. Muggeridge, was a socialist politician and one of the early Labour Party Members of Parliament. Muggeridge was attracted to communism and went to live in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and the experience turned him into an anti-communist.

Read more about Malcolm Muggeridge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_Muggeridge

What is Frostbite and how did I get it?

By

Alan

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January 21, 2024

Frostbite is a type of injury caused by freezing. It leads to a loss of feeling and color in the areas it affects, usually extremities such as the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, fingers, and toes. Frostbite can permanently damage the body, and severe cases can lead to amputation.

With the temps recently at right around -34° I had the opportunity to experience a mild case of frostbite. On January 11th it was -17° and I was helping a friend hurry up and finish a siding job on the west end of town. At the end of the day I discovered a finger and a couple of toes weren’t feeling just right and realized that I might have been hurrying just a little too hard on that day.

The last time I got frostbit was on my ears in December 2008 up at the Gates of the Mountains. You’d think I’d learn but sometimes I might get a little careless and I have to be reminded all over again. I know how I got Frostbite and you might think that with all of the years of living in Montana that I’d know better, but cold weather is what it is and here we are. Guess I’m just a little too used to it.

At any rate, all is well … at least in my case. There are those however that may not be as fortunate.

Frostbite is a form of thermal injury that can have devastating consequences for patients, including digit amputations and sometimes more proximal amputations.

The first order of business with regard to Frostbite is to —

Recognize the severity:

Frostnip (early stage):

Your skin changes color (depending on your natural skin tone, it may look red, purple, or lighter than normal).
Your skin may itch, sting, burn, or feel like “pins and needles”.
After rewarming your skin, you may get chilblains.

Superficial frostbite:

Your skin may sting or swell.
Your skin may become hard and may look shiny or waxy.
When your skin thaws, you may get painful patches that look like a bruise.
Your skin may also peel and hurt like a sunburn, and you may get blisters after 1-2 days.

Severe (deep) frostbite:

Your skin may be completely numb, and it may be difficult to move that area or move it normally.
You may lose all sensation in the frostbitten area, and your joints and muscles may stop working.
Your skin may become hard and black and may also fall off.
You may get large blisters 2-4 days after your skin thaws.

You may have a greater chance of developing frostbite if you have poor blood circulation or are not properly dressed for extremely cold temperatures.

How to prevent Frostbite:

The following measures can minimize the risk of frostbite:

Protecting skin from moisture, wind, and exposure to cold.
Avoiding perspiration or wet extremities.
Increasing insulation and skin protection (e.g., adding layers of clothing, wearing mitts instead of gloves).
Avoiding alcohol, illicit drugs, or medications that reduce perfusion.
Avoiding cold weather exposure during illness.
Using chemical or electric hand and foot warmers.
Avoiding the use of skin emollients, which do not protect against frostbite and may actually increase risk.
Maintaining adequate hydration and nutrition.
Minimizing blood flow constriction caused by tight clothing or footwear.
Minimizing duration of exposure to cold.
Frequently assessing for extremity numbness or pain and warming extremities as soon as possible if there is concern that frostbite is developing.
Recognizing frostnip or superficial frostbite before it becomes more serious.

sourced:

https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2020/0401/p440.html
https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/winter/staysafe/hypothermia.html
https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/frostbite-how-spot-treat-prevent
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29931369/

The finished overview of an Astronomical Mechanical Clock

By

Aimee

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January 21, 2024

You might never know it, but this thing weighs right around 1,200 pounds.
The video below shows the only recently finished masterpiece in operation.

It’s clock builder Mark Frank’s labor of love that includes 52 “complications,” including a 400-year perpetual calendar, tide clock, solar and lunar eclipse prediction, a planisphere to show the constellations, and even a thermometer. The clock also sports both a tellurion to keep track of the Sun-Earth-Moon system and a full orrery out to the orbit of Saturn, including all the major moons. The video below shows the only recently finished masterpiece in operation.

Mark Frank takes clock building to a whole other level.

You can catch up with Mark on his website (where there are other amazing clock builds) and over on his Youtube channel.

For those of you who may not know, an Astronomical clock is a clock with special mechanisms and dials to display astronomical information, such as the relative positions of the Sun, Moon, zodiacal constellations, and sometimes major planets.

According to Wikipedia, The Antikythera mechanism is the oldest known analog computer and a precursor to astronomical clocks. A complex arrangement of multiple gears and gear trains could perform functions such as determining the position of the sun, moon and planets, predict eclipses and other astronomical phenomena and tracking the dates of Olympic Games. Research in 2011 and 2012 led an expert group of researchers to posit that European astronomical clocks are descended from the technology of the Antikythera mechanism.