Vitro Nasu

3 dogs
Spike, Daisy and Monty sunbathing in the backyard.

“I found him”
This is a true story of how a stray dog found us and chose us to be his family.

On Oct 1, 2010 a cute worn out dirty stray dog charmed our granddaughter in front of our house.
She came running and told us about the dog with no family. He was determined to be adopted by us. We had to take him in. I don’t know how many days he spent on his own. He had bruises, ticks and fleas and he was skin and bones.
We called him Monty and our granddaughter who is four wanted to call him Socrates (she learned from the children’s book about an orphan dog looking for a new home).

Socrates by Rascal & Gert Bogearts

Our two dogs accepted him . He seemed to experience separation anxiety whenever he was alone. Ten days later while we were away for two hours, Monty Socrates managed to squeeze through the front gate and took off. Probably thinking he was chasing us. He never came back.
We learned about the County animal control facilities where, by law, all stray dogs must be sent. They have two facilities, Phoenix and Mesa.
The first facility, Phoenix, we went was very far away and had 600 dogs. Many of them look ferocious, boxer types. (very depressing place).
We found him at the second facility, Mesa, unbelievable. According to animal control he has caught in Mesa, over ten miles and three freeway crossings away from home. Monty went crazy when he saw us and convinced the handler that he was our dog.

Monty listening to Monty Socrates – (Film still of Monty from ‘I Confess” directed by Hitchcock – a youtube clip here.)

I did check the I Ching when I lost him. I got Peace changing to Returning. I did not want to trust the oracle at the time, for once the I Ching made the right predictions.

Monty & Monty Socrates

Monty Clift in Search on youtube, his film debut.

Clift’s first movie was opposite John Wayne in the 1948 film Red River which was shot in 1946 and released in 1948. Clift’s second movie was The Search. Clift was unhappy with the quality of the script, and rewrote most of it himself. The movie was nominated for a screenwriting Academy Award, but the original writers were credited. Clift’s performance saw him nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. His naturalistic performance led to director Fred Zinnemann being asked, “where did you find a soldier who can act so well?” (via wiki)

Fred Zinnemann who directed “the Men” also made the “The Search” and “From Here to Eternity”.
Fred introduced Marlon Brando and Monty Clift to the world via Hollywood movies. The two great pioneer actors were both trained stage actors.
(Both Marlon and Monty were born in Omaha, Nebraska – M & M from Omaha.)

Happy New Year!

Denis Dutton of Aldaily passed away.
(9 February 1944 – 28 December 2010)

LA tmes obit

Denis Dutton, the author, academic and philosopher who saw the Web as a place where intelligent ideas could flourish, has died in New Zealand at the age of 66, according to New Zealand news sources. Dutton was raised in Los Angeles and was the brother of booksellers Doug and Dave Dutton of the legendary Dutton’s Bookstores in Los Angeles.

His homepage

He was a master of tweets and an Universal Connoisseur

Cartoon via

Denis Dutton is a philosophy professor and the editor of Arts & Letters Daily. In his book The Art Instinct, he suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty. (Ted)

Ted talk

Edge

He has defended a universal definition of art—something that many theorists assumed was simply impossible. And he has advanced a theory that aesthetics have a universal basis in human psychology, ultimately to be illuminated by the processes of evolution. His ideas in this area are not meant to be the last word, but they lay out testable hypotheses, and point to many fields that can be brought to bear on our understanding of art.

‎”He saw that pompous and empty prose in the humanities had become an impediment to thinking, and initiated the Bad Academic Writing contest to expose it. ”
Steven Pinker from Edge.

Update: Slate obit

Denis was a very sly, very funny, supereducated, and widely allusive lunch companion. He struck me as a natural bon viveur, someone who delighted in talking smack about those not present. His eye gleamed differently from other humanities professors I’d known, his shoulders lacked the obligatory apologetic slump.

What I love—Heidegger, organic food, government overreach—Denis clearly detested. I don’t care. What I learned from Denis, and at exactly the most precarious moment, is the lesson that’s on display every day at ALDaily.com: that one can be precise and brisk, and nuanced and weird, at no cost to either camp; and that the distinction, between the ivory tower and the real world is not only a false, but a callow one. To a new technology, Denis Dutton brought an ancient and enduring grace—the belief in a free and contentious marketplace in ideas. He is sorely missed.

Kepler Opera (youtube in German)
A review from last year (NYtimes)

Johannes Kepler was born on December 27, 1571, he was the first strong supporter of the heliocentric theory of Copernicus and the discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion.
Kepler Nasa homepage

The chart drawn by Kepler.
(Recently discovered horoscope calculated by Kepler for an Austrian nobleman named Hans Hannibal Hütter von Hütterhofen, who was born in 1586.)

Arthur Koestler and Kepler (previous post – one year ago)

Koestler and Kepler; the perfect fusion.

Elsewhere:
David Foster Wallace and Wittgenstein.

Philosophical Sweep
To understand the fiction of David Foster Wallace, it helps to have a little Wittgenstein.
By James Ryerson

David Foster Wallace (previous post)

An interview of DFW (Boston Phoenix)

The Structuralist
A biography explores Claude Lévi-Strauss’ fascination with what makes cultures tick

In Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory (Penguin Press, $29.95), Patrick Wilcken has written the biography not just of a man, but of an intoxicating intellectual moment.

Claude Lévi-Strauss (previous post)

(The Cop and the Anthem from Full House)
O. Henry’s Full Hose.

is an anthology film made by 20th Century Fox, consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was produced by André Hakim and directed by five separate directors from five separate screenplays. The music score was composed by Alfred Newman. The film is narrated by author John Steinbeck, who made a rare on-camera appearance to introduce each story.

Merry Christmas!

With two arrows the same self here.

Update: R.I.P Janine Pommy Vega

Snow by Carol Ann Duffy

Martin Wong

Did you look up the sky? and in two years we will have 2012 Phenomenon.

The 2012 phenomenon comprises a range of eschatological beliefs that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur on December 21, 2012

The SUn DIRECTED & PHOTOGRAPHED BY ALEXANDER SOKUROV (Filmforum)

J G Ballard applauds Alexander Sokurov’s remarkable film portrait of Hirohito. But why did the war ever begin? Ballard asked. (Secrets of the emperor’s bunker – Guardian)

Ostrov part I (youtube)

The Island

The film’s director Pavel Lungin, speaking of the central character’s self-awareness, said he doesn’t regard him as being clever or spiritual, but blessed “in the sense that he is an exposed nerve, which connects to the pains of this world. His absolute power is a reaction to the pain of those people who come to it;” while “typically, when the miracle happens, the lay people asking for a miracle are always dissatisfied” because “the world does not tolerate domestic miracles.”

Ostrov.

Previous post JG Ballard

From Name these children album : Costume and Sand <> <> Three Kings

Finally saw this great film. Very intense and moving.

Steve McQueen talks about his film on youtube. (Steve McQueen at Marian Goodman Gallery)

See Alice Neel and Edward Hopper at A Depression Gallery.

The photos above were taken in front of my bank. My husband and I were told by our bank that we’re dead and we must
come to prove that we are still alive.

Arizona and Nevada sue Bank of America

Inside Mortgage Monster (Truthout)

An Irishman abroad tells it like it is !!

Bank of america Cuts Off Wikileaks

High Cost of Credit Sends a Growing Number of Britons into Poverty

Criminal Bankers and Global Fraud

What good is wall street? (Newyorker)

All gone to look for America

American Psycho

History of violence in Arizona or burning cars and fence.

(direct link)

(image via)

Happy birthday Armin Mueller Stahl 17 December 1930!

He appeared in such films as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Lola (trailer) (1981),
Veronika Voss (1982),

Andrzej Wajda’s A Love in Germany (1984),
Angry Harvest (Agnieszka Holland)
Shine (trailer) and
Eastern Promises (trailer)

Armin directed Conversation with the Beast and we found out that he is in Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks. (via Arts 21 clip above)

Berlin film honors him

Celebrating the 50-year career of the Oscar-nominated star, the Berlinale, which ranks among the top three European film festivals, hailed Mueller-Stahl as an “extraordinary artist.”
“Today Armin Mueller-Stahl is celebrating his 80th birthday. We wish him the very best and are delighted we’ll be awarding this extraordinary artist the Honorary Golden Bear … in February,” said festival director Dieter Kosslick.

(Soundtrack Chet Baker – Speak Low )

Part I (Greenich Village – 1960)

Kenneth Patchen December 13, 1911
Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972) was a major American experimental poet and novelist influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism.

His poems (Poem hunter)

Yes, I went to the city,
And there I did bitterly cry,
Men out of touch with the earth,
And with never a glance at the sky

Kenneth Patchen — Poetry and Jazz days, 1957–1959 Larry Smith

His black & white illustration

Picture Poetry Calendar

“There are so many little dyings that it does not matter which of them is death” Kenneth Patchen

“I am the world-crier and this is my dangerous career…I am the one to call your bluff, and this is my climate…”
Can you listen to an honest man? Are you strong enough?” Kenneth Patchen

For Kenneth Patchen by Alan Sondheim
when christ spoke on the mount
the winds were terrible
people couldn’t see ‘im
quite a distance, they said, later
quite a distance
and the winds and the clouds
the storms, too, the weather was furious
so they wrote what they thought they heard
and spoke what they thought they saw
and chances were pretty good
that he wasn’t there at all

Alan Sondheim via Netbehaviour Dec 13 2010

He was an early and continuing influence; I showed my
work at the Gotham Bookmart Gallery in New York right after his show in
the late 60s I think. An amazing writer; I used to have his records.
Between him and Lenny Bruce, my life was made. .

Henry Miller on Patchen

THE first thing one would remark on meeting Kenneth Patchen is that he is the living symbol of protest. I remember distinctly my first impression of him when we met in New York: it was that of a powerful, sensitive being who moved on velvet pads. A sort of sincere assassin, I thought to myself, as we shook hands. This impression has never left me. True or not, I feel that it would give him supreme joy to destroy with his own hands all the tyrants and sadists of this earth together with the art, the institutions and all the machinery of every day life which sustain and glorify them. He is a fizzing human bomb ever threatening to explode in our midst. Tender and ruthless at the same time, he has the faculty of estranging the very ones who wish to help him. He is inexorable: he has no manners, no tact, no grace. He gives no quarter. Like the gangster, he follows a code of his own. He gives you the chance to put up your hands before shooting you down. Most people however, are too terrified to throw up their hands. They get mowed down.

Miriam Patchen (thanks to Albert Geiser for this link)

For 15 years, Mrs. Patchen, the widow of the renowned poet Kenneth Patchen was a familiar rush- hour figure most Tuesday evenings on the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero in Palo Alto, where she rallied with other protesters against U.S. military interventions, waving placards that urged passing motorists to “honk for peace.”

Koji Moriyama is the dancer (via Masumi Mizoguch)

Taste of Tea is on youtube now with Eng. subtitle

See another delightful clip..Ya ya yama yama.. (repost)

Taste of Tea review here.

Get ready for a heavy dose of delightful Japanese whimsy. Clocking in at two hours and 15 minutes, The Taste of Tea is long, but it floats by easily, and it never slows down. The strange incidents, quirky characters, and weird non-sequiturs just keep coming. The imagination of writer/director Katsuhito Ishii seems limitless.

Mountain Song (Previous post)

December 10 birthday list
Emily Dickenson – (Reading by Bill Murray to construction workers – I Dwell in Possibility)

Rummer Godden – Black Narcissus & The River (Jean Renoir)

Ada Lovelace

Photograph by Ken Donald

Continuing the slide (Pasaudela) and this from Geert Lovink

Martin Wong

<> <> <> <> <> Sharp and Dottie <> <> <> <>

Robert Gardner

His glass studio
His new works opend Dec 3 2010, Bobo Gallery Asheville.

Previous post Robert Gardner

North Korean Soldier by Eric Lafforges (via)

Kim Jon-Il Looking at things

“Let Millions of soldiers and civilians be united in one mind around the brain of the revolution!”

Powerful Nation <> <> <> <> We are the winners

Old postcard with Japanese writing

Dandong in Old postcards

Kernbeisser’s photostream Korea –Flickr Collection

Traditional old Art of Korea