Archive for the ‘Arts & Letters’ Category
Posted on March 7, 2010 - by deCadmus
Oscar 2010 Blind Picks
Having watched none of tonight’s contenders for the little golden man — that’s right… of all of the nominations I’ve seen not a single one — I figure I’m still about as qualified as the next guy to pick the winners. Which, honestly, says more about the next guy who thinks he has a *reason* to support his picks. As if. So, without further ado:
- Best Picture: Avatar. Of course I’m pulling for the revolutionary, epic Sci-Fi flick here; I’ve got some geek cred to maintain. Above and beyond that, however, I’d really like to see this one on the big screen in 3D and I suspect that if it gets a bucket-full of awards it’s more likely to run long enough I can do that. Besides which, the folks who spend the most money creating a film should win, right? Amiright?
- Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow. Because if you wanna make sure the guy who just won Best Picture for the second time with yet another gazillion-dollar epic doesn’t let it all go to his head, you could do worse than award his ex-wife Best Director. Neener.
- Best Actor: Jeff Bridges. Because the dude has abided long enough now, don’t ya think?
- Best Actress: Sandra Bullock. And not just because I harbor a not-so-secret crush on Sandy. Well, mostly not because of that.
- Best Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique. ‘Cause the girl is all that. But please, let’s hope she’s shaved her legs for the red carpet this time?
- Best Supporting Actor: Cristoph Waltz. Because the academy like it’s Nazis nutty.
- Animated Feature: Up. Okay, so I lied… I saw one nominated film — Up — but only because somebody gave me the DVD for Christmas. And so, because I saw it I presume it should be the winner. Though, truth be told, I’d prefer they awarded only the first 10-15 minutes of the film. But that would make it an animated short film, wouldn’t it? So, on a technicality, I’ll choose Neil Gaiman’s Coraline to take this home, though I don’t think it’s going to happen.
As to the rest… beats the hell out of me. Tell me who won tomorrow, ’cause much as I didn’t have time get my tucus to a theater to see these, I’m not gonna take the time for a five hour long awards show. And, anyway, I’ve got coffee needs roasting.
Posted on March 2, 2010 - by deCadmus
Repost: Town Meeting Day
Reposted in honor of Vermont’s annual tradition… today is Town Meeting Day!
Town Meeting Day — the first Tuesday in March — is an institution in Vermont, and throughout much of New England. It’s notable for being a hands-on, participatory style of democracy. In this story, the citizens of one small town in Vermont have their hands full…
Now in a handy ePub format, too!
Town Meeting Day
“I object!”
“Mr. Dunhill, this isn’t a trial. You may not object. Not that I can make heads or tails of what you’re objecting to.”
“I object to this venue!”
“Gabe, this is a town meeting, not a court room. These are your neighbors, they’re not a jury. Now kindly sit down and stop being an ass.”
Harvey Tuttle — large-animal veterinarian of Cold Hollow, Vermont, and just forty-five minutes ago elected moderator of Town Meeting — eyeballed Dunhill from his seat at the raised table at the north end of village hall. This morning he’d helped to set up the old wooden platform that came out just once a year, special for Town Meeting day. Old Ben Isham, the senior village selectman, had specifically asked for Harvey’s assistance in raising the dais. Harvey was, of course, happy to help. But in the intervening hours — and especially in the last few minutes — he’d begun to suspect the old wooden platform wasn’t all that had been set-up this morning.
Harvey could think of a dozen things he might rather be doing just now… getting kicked by a horse was near the top of his list. Right up there with getting stepped on by a pregnant heifer. That was always good for a grin. Buck up, Harv… just do the job in front of you.
Harvey stared down Dunhill, who — finally — took his seat. For good measure, Harvey eyeballed the rest of the gathering, too, to stifle the sniggering among the assembled.
The hall was packed… 250, maybe 300 folks had turned out, easily a quarter of the village, and a good many more than the room could seat comfortably. There were more — dozens more — standing behind the ranks of folding chairs and leaning against the whitewashed walls in the back. It looked like the sheriff was one of the leaners in back — Harvey could easily see Andy Barrow’s Stetson hat above the crowd — and Andy was a man who tended to get places early.
A high turnout at Town Meeting wasn’t unusual — folks here took their democracy seriously, thank-you-very-much — but still. Something was up. And, as usual, it seemed Harvey was the last to know about it.
Posted on February 23, 2010 - by deCadmus
Would Poe Approve?
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some visitor,’ I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more.’
Even as I thrilled at the exquisite juxtaposition of browsing and reading Poe’s gothic masterwork on my Nook’s ‘lectronic paper display, I thought I sensed a certain sinister susurration behind the dusty glass of my battle-scarred bookcase, a distinct and exaggerated looming quality to the weighty stack of books near my reading chair. . .
Do they know, I wonder? These dusty tomes Poe spoke of yonder,
That I’ve carted by the carton, shipped and carried by the score,
These weighty tomes of wooden marrow, that I’ve borne by the barrow,
Their words, themselves, a sparrow could convey unto my door.
`With this device,’ I marveled, `delivered to my waiting door -
Only words, and nothing more.’
Posted on May 11, 2009 - by deCadmus
Various & Sundry
Firstly, to all who’ve kindly expressed their well-wishes about Jessie, online and offline and in real space, thank-you. And while, yes, I *did* consider (for about 0.002 seconds) writing an, “All I Need to Know About Life I Learned From My Dog” styled memoir, no… I don’t think so. Besides, somebody already wrote Marley & Me
Meanwhile, on with the show.
Mother’s Day has just slipped by, and it appears that Amazon and ProFlowers aren’t keeping promises… the lovely flowers pictured here have *not* arrived. So Mom: here’s what you were *supposed* to have had delivered over the week-end. Sorry ’bout that.
Finished Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book
My to-do list is taking an ugly turn. Where normally it would have a bunch of simple tasks to be done and scratched off, now it has entries that read, “Convince you-know-who to do whatsit *this way* and not that way,” and “Arm-twist so-and-so to agree to thus-and-such.” Oh, here’s a simple one: “Create canonical list of origin attributes.” Yeah. And it’s all in need of clearing before I can fly away to vacation-land in June.
On the plus side, it’s warm enough to roast coffee in the garage, again… and I think I will.
Posted on April 23, 2009 - by deCadmus
Science Rules
Just in case there was any doubt in your mind, science rules.
Case in point, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. After completing its original four-year mission, Cassini is now a year into a secondary, extended mission, and still sending back mind-bending images that stretch the imagination.
What’s the big deal, you say… you, who map the way to far-flung coffee shops on your iPhone, while tweeting with your third-graders in the back-seat watching video-on-demand in your minivan.
Try this on for size: Cassini was launched in 1997 (that’s 8 years before Youtube was launched) and is currently operating in various orbits around Saturn and its moons, some 3.5 billion kilometers away. The spacecraft gets by with a mere 885 watts of power for its on-board sensors and camera equipment; it manages its transportation feats by fantastic, gravity-assisted orbital loops… essentially leaching power from the gravity of the heavenly bodies it orbits. And those wondrous crazy photos it takes? Those are the result of two, one-megapixel cameras.
For more of those fantastical photos, see Boston.com’s Big Picture.
Posted on January 20, 2009 - by deCadmus
At Last
So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:
“Let it be told to the future world…that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive…that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.
– President Barack Obama, January 20, 2009
I feel as if I’ve been holding my breath since… oh, the first week in November or so. As if I were only dreaming that change — real change, historical change — had *actually* happened. That if I were less than careful, if I misspoke or misstepped or mistyped, then that dream would unravel like so much glittery, gossamer star-stuff.
Today, finally, it seems solid and real and I feel I can breathe again. And write again.
Happy New Year. How ya been?
Posted on October 13, 2008 - by deCadmus
Scripta Est Fabula, Plaudite
As someone who *also* translated Ceaser’s Battle for Gaul in high school I’m rather smitten with Maureen Dowd’s Lipstick-on-a-Pig-Latin send-up — The Battle of Gall — in Saturday’s NYTimes.
A sampler:
Cum Quirites Americani ad rallias Republicanas audiunt nomen Baraci Husseini Obamae, clamant “Mortem!” “Amator terroris!” “Socialiste!” “Bomba Obamam!” “Obama est Arabus!” “Caput excidi!” tempus sit rabble-rouseribus desistere “Smear Talk Express,” ut Stephanus Colbertus dixit. Obama demonatus est tamquam Musulmanus-Manchurianus candidatus — civis “collo-cerviciliaris” ad ralliam Floridianam Palinae exhabet mascum Obamae ut Luciferis.
Obama non queretur high-tech lynching. Sed secreto-serventes agentes nervosissmi sunt.
Vix quisque audivit nomen “Palinae” ante lunibus paucis. Surgivit ex suo tanning bed ad silvas in Terram Eskimorum, rogans quis sit traitorosus, ominosus, scurrilosus, periculosus amator LXs terroris criminalisque Chicagoani? Tu betchus!
Don’t miss a moment of the adventures of Sara Palina, barracuda borealis.
Posted on October 10, 2008 - by deCadmus
The Reason for the Season
Caught a snatch of this on our local public radio station… and was delighted to find that Phil has posted the whole schmear at VDB:
…once we’ve scammed everything conceivable from everybody conceivable, we return home, the girls dump their bags of individually-wrapped emulsified chocolate out on the floor, and then, after fighting over any full-sized candy bars, they eat enough to feel queasy and go to bed early.
Which gives my wife and me a chance to graze their half-melted candy piles, fight over any Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, eat enough to feel queasy and go to bed early ourselves.
It’s a beautiful thing.
But the last few years, something about it has begun to bother me. It’s come to feel like something crucial is missing. Maybe it’s the fact that the candy and the plastic pumpkins appear so early in the stores.
Whatever the reason, it’s begun to seem to me that in our rush to buy and sell and hype Halloween, we’ve forgotten what I call the reason for the season.
And the true reason for the Halloween season is not to fatten our kids with Gummy Worms or to dress them up like My Little Pony – it’s to scare the living bejeebers out of them.
[Image: Troy B. Thompson]
Posted on October 1, 2008 - by deCadmus
In so many words…
Giuliani: A noun, a verb and Nine-Eleven.
McCain: A noun, a verb and P.O.W.
Palin: A noun, a verb, a pause… an exclamation, an adverb, a folksy gesture and a blank stare.
Update: Slate bravely goes where most grammarians fear to tread, tackling the task of diagramming Sarah Palin’s sentences.
Posted on September 28, 2008 - by deCadmus
Solsticity
If Autumn weren’t so lovely, we’d complain bitterly about her theft of Summer’s golden days.
Her touch is, however, so subtle… and besides, she brings such an endearing dowry — jewel-ripe, gold and ruby apples; crimson sugar maples, drunk on their own sweet sap; the pungent fragrance of woodsmoke and smoldering leaves — it’s easy to forgive Winter’s blushing, youthful bride her trespass.
Which is all a florid way to note that I’ve started posting my Autumn 2008 photos on Flickr.
Hello.
Bloggle is the online playground of Doug Cadmus, a usability guy, writer, photographer and sometime dramatist who moved to Vermont for the coffee. When not writing, reading or walking his old, blind golden retriever, he roasts coffee in his garage and is the Web Guy for Green Mountain Coffee in Waterbury, VT.Flickr Photos
