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Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:44:17 GMT

Where am I?

Does anyone know where this is? I sure don’t. The image came from my camera, and I assume it is in the woods at Roundrock, but I don’t remember taking the shot or where it might be.

I’m guessing that I wanted to capture the fate of the poor sapling on the left that has been held down by the fallen tree on the right.

Sometimes there are photos in my collection that I don’t immediately recognize, but I look at the shots immediately before and after them (they load into the program in sequence), and I am able to place the stray. Not so with this one. The shot before it was taken near our campsite, but the shot after it is of a fallen snag, and their are hundreds of those at Roundrock.

Well, the shot is a lot like this post, I guess. Pointless, aimless, meaningless.

Missouri calendar:

• Canvasback, redhead, scaup, merganser and ringneck duck populations at peak.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:54:58 GMT

Coens

"Though they are habitually described as snotty formalists with nothing on their minds but cinematic gamesmanship, the Coens'' body of work is one of the most sneakily moralistic in recent American cinema," writes Matt Zoller Seitz at the House Next Door. "The Coens aren''t nihilists. There may or may not be a God in their imagination.... but the lack of theological clarity doesn''t necessarily mean that the Coens endorse their characters'' decision to be indecent or cruel. Quite the contrary, the Coens'' movies strongly endorse the notion that one should honor certain bedrock principles for their inherent rightness (or, barring that, for the benefits such a life might confer). Decency is the Coens'' version of piety."

"There is a reason why the Coen Brothers'' The Big Lebowski is one of the great cult films of all time," writes DK Holm for the Vancouver Voice. "It''s because it is one of the great films of all time..... Now comes I''m a Lebowski, You''re a Lebowski: Life, The Big Lebowski, and What Have You, written by four guys just as obsessed and ticked by the film as I am and everyone I know."

Updated through 11/19. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:46:47 GMT

Stephane Halleux's Curious Creations

Curious vehicles, chairs, engines and robots by French sculptor Stephane Halleux. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:39:48 GMT

Argyroxiphium sandwicense

Thank you to newsflash66@UBC Botanical Garden Forums for sharing this image via the Botany Photo of the Day Submissions forum. It''s handy to have a species where I don''t have to dig to find an interesting story, since this is a member of a group of plants that represent a classic case-study in botany about adaptive radiation, hybridization and evolution.

The origin of this silversword species and approximately thirty to fifty other close relatives in Hawaii, collectively known as “the silversword alliance”, dates back to roughly five or six million years ago, when diaspores (an agent of dispersal, e.g., a seed) of an ancestral Californian tarweed species established on one of the Hawaiian islands (begging the question of how the diaspores arrived there, but that is a one for the biogeographers). Over the next five or six million years, the descendants of those few first-to-establish individual plants evolved into the thirty (fifty) present-day species with a diversity of forms and preferred environments. This rapid burst of evolution is termed adaptive radiation. The modern day species of the silversword alliance include members of the genera Argyroxiphium, Wilkesia and Dubautia, and these species occur in the habits of cushions, mat-forming perennials, shrubs, trees and climbing woody vines. Species in the alliance can be found in dry sites (less than 25cm of precipitation per year) to the purported “wettest spot on Earth”, where precipitation can exceed 1000cm in a year. Furthermore, they are found at almost all elevations in the Hawaiian islands, from 75m above to 3750m (see ecological and physical adaptations of the silversword alliance for more).

The question may have arisen in your mind as to how it is known that these plants evolved from an ancestral California tarweed. There are several ways to verify this. The strategy in most cases today would be to determine the relationships of the species by comparing the number of changes in certain molecules. This was done in this case (and it indeed bolstered these facts), but a more traditional method was also used. Artificial hybridization experiments between modern-day Californian tarweed species and members of the silversword alliance were undertaken, with the idea being that if the species could successfully cross, more evidence would be added to the pile (and again, yes, this is the case). More than incidentally, the hybridization experiments also help make inferences as to how this rapid evolution took place, suggesting mechanisms such as autopolyploidy and allopolyploidy (i.e., chromosome doubling within a cross of a single species or a cross between two species).

I''ve already referenced this site a few times, but here''s the main page: read Adaptive Radiation and Hybridization in the Hawaiian Silversword Alliance by Dr. Gerald Carr for more on the science behind the silversword alliance, including this page specifically on today''s species, Argyroxiphium sandwicense subsp. sandwicense, or Mauna Kea silversword. To read more about the genus, visit Wikipedia''s page on Argyroxiphium. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 15:08:35 GMT

Dan in Real Life

"Dan in Real Life isn't crap, but it's about as pleasant as a movie can get without actually being any good," writes Sean Burns in the Philadelphia Weekly. "The movie is so warm and cozy it might as well be wearing a big, fuzzy sweater."

"Steve Carell's pursed-lipped awkwardness and sweet buffoonery are both in fine form in Dan in Real Life, but those endearing qualities aren't nearly enough to salvage Peter Hedges's incorrigibly hackneyed film," writes Nick Schager in Slant.

"Dan in Real Life is neither wildly farcical nor mockingly cruel, but rather, for the most part, winningly gentle and observant," writes AO Scott in the New York Times. "Yes, there is the maudlin back story of Dan's widowhood, and the familiar scenario of all that quirky kin stuffed into one house for a few days. But Mr Hedges, a seasoned screenwriter, showed in his directing debut, Pieces of April, that he could infuse tired conventions of domestic comedy with fresh life and real intelligence. And here, working in a less self-consciously eccentric mode, he does it again." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:54:10 GMT

Interviews: 10-25.

With Hannah Takes the Stairs set to open in Austin, Spencer Parsons has a few points to make before getting his Chronicle interview started: "'Improv' has often been too often invoked in discussions of independent filmmaking since Cassavetes put that prankish title card at the end of Shadows, but no other American filmmaker I know, mumbling or not, engages in such radical and rigorous improvisation on every level. It's a dangerous sort of process to discuss, sure to be used as ammunition by detractors or to become the downfall of would-be disciples who think it can be easily imitated..... So I talked with Joe [Swanberg] and some of his chief collaborators about how they wouldn't have it any other way."

Meanwhile, dave at chained to the cinemathèque: "Hannah Takes the Stairs is one of the finest American independent films I've seen." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:09:53 GMT

Are you at OMD 2007?

Just confirmed finally that I will be at the Creative Weblogging booth at OMD in Duesseldorf in September 25th/26th this year.

Two days in the heat - I hope my vocal cords will hold up as Michael has scheduled so many meetings for me already :)

I look forward to it and if you are at OMD - drop me a note and we can squeeze it in :)

Cu There.

TJ Posted by: tj      Read more     Source

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 01:55:53 GMT

Press The Space Bar

How fast can you tap your spacebar? Select a time frame: 5, 10, or 20 seconds. The countdown starts upon pressing the spacebar for the first time.

I'm not very good at this. I could only tap the spacebar 52 times within 5 seconds. Posted by: Gerard      Read more     Source

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:42:06 GMT

NYFF: The Last Mistress.

"Catherine Breillat's reputation preceded her and along with the very positive reviews that came out of Cannes I couldn't wait to see Une vielle maîtresse (The Last Mistress)," wrote Jesse Ataide at DVD Verdict when he caught the film in Toronto. "The film, much to my relief, was everything that I had hoped for. Visually sumptuous (Breillet had mentioned that she had been particularly inspired by the paintings of Manet and Delacroix), the film never lets the sheer beauty of the period Parisian locations or opulent costumes weigh down the story or shield the sexual heat."

"By the midpoint of Une vieille maîtresse I already knew that Catherine Breillat would be my next project," writes Darren Hughes. "It probably goes without saying that Asia Argento steals every scene, but Breillat's staging of their bodies, more than anything else, is what has provoked my curiosity about her work." Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 21:39:10 GMT

Sunday frosting

Look at the petals on this flower. Aren’t they just about perfect? I wonder if they’re edible and if they taste good. I won’t get to know until next summer when the tickseed coreopsis come back in the pecan plantation.

I didn’t mow these when I chased that brush cutter around part of the acre, mostly because the area where they grow is wet. But part of me just didn’t want to cut the pretty flowers.

When we were last at Roundrock, all of these flowers were gone. I don’t think we had a frost that would have blighted them, but maybe the air grew cool enuf one or two nights to do the job. Now, of course, the seeds are profuse, and when I walked through the scrub taking the pecan census, my pants and socks were loaded with the pointy little things.

Are we frightened yet? Windywillow is hosting the next Festival of the Trees, and she’s looking for spooky, tree-related posts and links (but she’ll consider other submissions). Go here to see her post of invitation. Note that her deadline is a little earlier than normal. She wants to have her edition up on Halloween.


Our trip to Roundrock last weekend was short of perfect because …

We forgot to bring the ’smores fixins! I don’t know how we did that since we spent a lot of time at the grocery store getting the meals figured out. Plus we had a perfect fire Saturday evening for the toasting job. Let’s hope this never happens again!


Back when we first started staggering into the lake to swim, the sharp rocks on the bottom were hard on our tender feet. I chatted about it at length here. So we began wearing old sneakers. On our latest dip in the waters, I found that the bottom of the lake to be oozy with a thick layer of silt. It was only about an inch deep — not the thigh-deep loathsome goo that lurks in the bottom of the small pond — but it has obviously been building over the years. The dam builder told me that this will help seal some of the leaks, but he also told me that when the water level is high, I should open the drain valve and wash some of this silt out so that it doesn’t eventually engulf the drain. I failed to remember that advice earlier in the summer when the lake was full (twice), and now I want to keep whatever water I have so the fish will survive the winter. Such dilemmas!

On Friday and Saturday I watched the weather maps as substantial storms pounded their way across Kansas and Missouri. Yet, as I expected, when the clouds grew close to the county where Roundrock is, they parted or dissipated or turned to the north or south. I see this phenomenon all the time. Some force is preventing rain from falling and filling my diminished lake. I think it is the meteor.

Missouri calendar:

• Average day of first frost in northern Missouri.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source