Ozark Folk Center

This morning we went to the Ozark Folk Center. Having planned to spend the whole day there we were done by lunch time. I was impressed by their herb gardens and am inspired to make a container herb garden on our patio next summer. The instrument maker, the herbalists, the broom maker and the spinners were particularly informative and were respectful of visitors, but some of the other crafters were not so much. We were running from a couple of them, tired of the bad jokes and condescension. They could learn a lot from the attitudes of the demonstration crafters at the local annual Pink Palace Crafts Fair. We had lunch in their Skillet Restaurant and headed back to Mountain View.

In Mountain View The Husband and I got something to drink and looked at the clock shop while The Younger Son showed The Daughter some of what we had done yesterday. We went back to the fudge shop, because who can resist more fudge?

We kicked back at the hotel later and watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, where Tuvalu is competing for the first time.

The photo at the top of the post is from JD Treat's Flickr page.

Online Tutorials

Want to learn how to do something? There's a list of links to 15 online tutorials here, some of which are videos and all but one of which are free.

Mountain View, Arkansas

It rained this morning and was overcast all day. While The Daughter was spelunking on the Blanchard Springs Caverns Wild Cave Tour (with a reporter) The Husband, The Younger Son and I decided to do Mountain View. We had fun wandering around checking out the shops, eating at a local cafe, and discovering the fudge shop. When we picked up The Daughter, who survived her death-defying adventure, we went to see the spring, a beautiful sight:

Later, we headed back down to the square for supper and folk and gospel music at the park:

Dear Mr. President

by Jen Cass

Blanchard Springs Caverns

We got checked into our hotel room in Mountain View yesterday and took it easy last night. This morning we went on the 1 1/2 hour Discovery Tour at Blanchard Springs Caverns. We watched an orientation video and went through the exhibit hall before it was time for our tour to start.

Our tour guide was almost single-mindedly focused on the stairs. Before we got on the elevator to go down to start the tour she gave us a lecture on the difficulty the stairs posed and encouraged anyone with doubts about their ability to complete the tour to get a refund now. Fair enough. When we got to the tour start she did it again. Sigh. We went down some stairs and heard the lecture yet again, with her explaining that we could still get a refund if we left at that point. Honestly, I could hear the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz movie reading that sign in the forest: "I'd turn back if I were you!" Sheesh. At the end of the tour was another set of stairs that she warned us would be difficult. She said it would be fine to stop and catch our breath if we needed to. I have to wonder what kinds of folks she's used to taking on these tours. Our group was fairly diverse in age and none of us seemed to be in great training, but not a one of us had any trouble at all with the Dreaded Stairs of Doom.

The tour itself was a nice walk through the cave. Although she said the other tour was where the "pretty" things were, there was plenty to get excited about here. This formation, for example:

This is a picture The Daughter took of one of the natural entrances up above us:

We saw a lot of bats but no other animals.

I found a slide show someone took of their trip here:

There are lots of wonderful pictures at Flickr that folks have taken of the place.

During the afternoon we swam in the creek with the tadpoles and fishes. That was wonderful. It was something I remember really enjoying a lot when my family went there when I was little.

There is more information and lots of great pictures here, here and here.

Fun and Games Time

Click here and make the most wonderful designs.

William J. Clinton Presidential Library

We woke up in Little Rock, had continental breakfast in the hotel lobby, checked out and went in search of the William J. Clinton Presidential Library. It wasn't hard to find. There was an audio tour, so we each got one of those. There are photos of the inside of the building here.

The picture above is of the right side of the building. There is supposedly a putting green up on the roof where President Clinton hangs out some. On the way back from the gift shop, a man on our shuttle bus pointed out a man in a yellow shirt up there and claimed it was President Clinton. The rest of my skeptical family has chosen not to buy that story, but I'm embracing the idea that I've seen a president in person. Or at least his shirt. From a distance.

After you go through the security station and buy tickets there's a presidential limousine and an exhibit on the Secret Service. The escalator to the 2nd level takes you to a orientation film which gives a bit of a Clinton introduction. The displays outside the theater cover the elections. From there you can see a replica of the cabinet room and an extensive year-by-year overview of his 2 terms with time lines to put events in context. Alcoves along each side cover aspects of his presidency such as health care, education, foreign policy... There's some coverage of the impeachment.

Upstairs there are examples of gifts given by foreign heads of state, displays of holiday celebrations at the White House, information on how foreign dignitaries are entertained at the White House, some mementos of the Clintons' childhoods, a video the kids liked of roasts and comedy routines.... The model of the Oval Office, with its careful reproductions of the furnishings, is on this level. There is a changing exhibit space on that level, too. When we went the exhibit offered was Breaking the Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic World, which we didn't spend much time in.

I took longer than anybody else to take this tour, which was a bit frustrating for me. I missed a lot, I know, but I did get to see the correspondence with Mister Rogers. That was fun. My favorite part of the museum was the section on books from his personal library. I think the gift shop would have been much improved by a couple of books favored by Clinton and specifically mentioned in the tour -T.S. Eliot and Ralph Ellison, maybe. The gift shop seemed heavily aimed at school groups and we didn't end up buying anything, though we were tempted by the mugs that had all the presidential signatures on them.

The cafe prices were a bit steep for us, so we decided to eat on the road and, as luck would have it, found a Western Sizzlin' before we'd gotten too far.

What do you love?

We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.

- Francis de Sales

from God's Politics

The Dark Knight

We decided to go see The Dark Knight tonight, having arrived in Little Rock planning to go to the Clinton Library tomorrow but having no particular plans for tonight. The Younger Son had already seen it but The Daughter, The Husband and I had not. We all liked it.

The movie theater is the first one in years where we bought tickets from the outside window. The inside of the theater reminded us of the local Ridgeway 4, where we recently saw Mongol.

trailer:


reviews:
Roger Ebert
NewYorkTimes
Rolling Stone
Time
Variety
EW
CNN


GreenCineDaily has lots of links.
Strange Culture
Cinematical here, here, here and here
SFScope
Slant Magazine
The House Next Door
Positive Liberty
Ferdy on Films
Lou Anders
/film here and here
Only the Cinema here and here
Evolving Thoughts
Kaedrin Weblog
NPR
Tor
Ben Witherington
Culture Snob
FilmSquish
A Candid World
Cinepassion
Critical Culture
Claw of the Conciliator

Summer Puffins

This is a short video -about 8 1/2 minutes- from the BBC. Lotsa clear close-ups -swimming, flying, fishing... There is even video of baby puffins. It's no wonder we love 'em.

R.I.P. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died. I first saw the news at GreenCine Daily. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Time.com called him a hero.

Obits:
AFP
BBC
The Telegraph
Forbes
Reuters
MSNBC


The photo at the top of the post is from Wikipedia.

Last Bus to Woodstock

Last Bus to Woodstock is the first in Colin Dexter's Inspector Morse series, and I found myself making Morse and Lewis look like the actors in the PBS Mystery series. I liked this book and particularly enjoyed some of the conversational interchanges, which I read aloud to innocent family members. I went along quite easily until quite close to the end of the book, and then I just didn't get it. I didn't get the guilty party's whole persona. It seemed to me that all of a sudden a whole new person had been grafted onto the person that had been. I have another in the series, but I won't seek out the rest.

from the back of the book:

Beautiful Sylvia Kaye and another young woman had been seen hitching a ride not long before Sylvia's bludgeoned body is found outside a pub in Woodstock, near Oxford. Morse is sure the other hitchhiker can tell him much of what he needs to know. But his confidence is shaken by the cool inscrutability of the girl he's certain was Sylvia's companion on that ill-fated September evening. Shrewd as Morse is, he's also distracted by the complex scenarios that the murder set in motion among Sylvia's girlfriends and their Oxford playmates. To grasp the painful truth, and act upon it, requires from Morse the last atom of his professional discipline.

Sunday Psalm

Psalm 145

A psalm of praise. Of David.

1 I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.

2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.

3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.

4 One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.

5 They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works.

6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.

7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.

8 The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

9 The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.

10 All you have made will praise you, O LORD;
your saints will extol you.

11 They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,

12 so that all men may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made.

14 The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.

15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.

16 You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.

17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.

18 The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.

19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.

20 The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.

21 My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.

KJV

Fritz Lang

Today is the anniversary of the death in 1976 of Expressionist film director Fritz Lang. I have seen Destiny; Metropolis, which has been in the news lately after lost footage was discovered; and M, after having tried to watch it for years before.

Senses of Cinema has an article. The British Film Institute has a short bit and links to other resources here. FilmReference.com closes its article by saying,

All through his life, Lang adjusted his talent to meet the changes in his environment, and in so doing produced a body of creative work of unquestionable importance in the development of the history of cinema.

Metropolis, M and Destiny are available for viewing online at those links.

Woman in the Moon (1929 silent):


Scarlet Street (1945):

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha is a historically inaccurate and culturally controversial film, but pretty enough to watch. It felt to me like a group of Asian actors imposed on a Western fairy tale. I always felt outside the film, as if I were watching it from above and at a distance. It didn't engage me at all.

Roger Ebert has a review here. Variety's review is here. Slant Magazine closes its review by saying,

Given the film's thin social perspective and parade of cardboard villainy, after a while it all comes to strangely resemble a Walt Disney animation.

trailer:

Citizen Vince

Citizen Vince by Jess Walter won the Edgar Award in 2006. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Unlike anything I've read in a while, this book is politically aware and so personal about the main character that I felt I knew him. I mean I really want to know who he voted for.

from the back of the book:

Darkly hilarious and unexpectedly profound, Citizen Vince is an irresistible tale about the price of freedom and the mystery of salvation, by an emerging writer of boundless talent.

Eight days before the 1980 presidential election, Vince Camden wakes up at 1:59 A.M. in a quiet house in Spokane, Washington. Pocketing his stash of stolen credit cards, he drops by an all-night poker game before heading to his witness-protection job dusting crullers at Donut Make You Hungry. This is the sum of Vince's new life: donuts and forged credit cards—not to mention a neurotic hooker girlfriend.

But when a familiar face shows up in town, Vince realizes that his sordid past is still close behind him. During the next unforgettable week, on the run from Spokane to New York, Vince Camden will negotiate a maze of obsessive cops, eager politicians, and assorted mobsters, only to find that redemption might just exist—of all places—in the voting booth. Sharp and refreshing, Citizen Vince is the story of a charming crook chasing the biggest score of his life: a second chance.

There are discussions for reading groups here. The New York Times review calls it "refreshing". The International Herald Tribune says,

For readers who appreciate wry precision and expert timing, it may be enough to know that "Citizen Vince" arrives with sky-high praise from both Ken Bruen and Richard Russo, with whom Walters shares these qualities. For others, the book's fusion of humor, crime and politics may be recommendation enough.

Obama's Just Too Popular!

When I saw this McCain ad: my first thought was this: So I should not vote for Obama because he's too popular? What??? Since when is being popular considered a drawback in a presidential election?

And now I've seen this (at John Scalzi's blog via Egotistical Whining), which perfectly illustrates my initial reaction:



And now I'm not supposed to vote for Obama because he's Moses?

I'm laughing out loud at this ad. I can't believe McCain thinks this ad will convert anyone to his cause. It's fun to watch, though. BeliefNet is not amused, saying

And it is beyond offensive to suggest that Senator Obama is a false Messiah or the anti-Christ himself. How low can we go? It shows the McCain campaign is willing to make a mockery of our faith to feed people's fears. Christians need to reject this out of hand.

8/3/2008:
CBS News says McCain was the big celebrity before Obama was a politician:

He emerged as the most popular Republican in Hollywood following his 2000 presidential primary defeat, winning more screen time than the rest of Congress combined. McCain made cameos in “Wedding Crashers” and “24,” saw his memoir turned into a popular biopic on A&E, and appeared more than 30 times on late night comedy shows.

So this week, when McCain cast Obama’s celebrity as a disqualifier, it seemed like a curious turn.

Poul Anderson

Today is the anniversary of the death in 2001 of science fiction/fantasy author Poul Anderson. I currently have the following books by this prolific author on my shelf:

The Broken Sword
Ensign Flandry
The Guardians of Time
The High Crusade

The High Crusade is a special favorite of mine and great fun to read. There is a 1994 filmed version of this book starring John Rhys-Davies.

Locus has an interview from 1997. There is an overview of his career at The Templeton Gate.

As I have recently joined the Society for Creative Anachronism and have been tentatively attending some functions in the Barony of Grey Niche, it is of particular interest to me that Anderson was one of the founders of the SCA back in the 60's.


Literature Map suggests A.E. Van Vogt for those who like Poul Anderson.

10 Ways to Be a Better Film Critic

I'm not a film critic, but I do like to watch movies and read what the critics have to say. This 2-part article by Movie Zeal offers great suggestions on how to write about film. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. He takes the following basics, expands on them and gives illustrations from notable film critics.

His basic 10:

1. Expand Your Cinematic Vocabulary
2. Respect the Medium You Are Criticizing
3. Develop an Appreciation For All the Arts
4. Study Classic Film Criticism
5. Develop a Unique Voice
6. Don’t Be Dull
7. Invest Yourself in Other Pursuits
8. Become an Excellent Essayist
9. Avoid the Reviews of Others Before Writing…Study Them Afterwards
10. Develop a Philosophy of Trash

The article is exposing me to some critics I am not familiar with, and the comments lead to some bloggers that are new to me. I'd like to read some of the books he recommends. I think the suggestions are good for thinking critically about film for me and not just for critics who write "viewership".

I'm Roseanne Barr

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