Pumzi

Pumzi is a 2009 South African/Kenyan science fiction film short. Wikipedia describes the plot:

Set in a post-apocalyptic world in which water scarcity has extinguished life above ground, the short follows one scientist's quest to investigate the possibility of germinating seeds beyond the confines of her repressive subterranean Nairobi culture.

... Asha lives and works as a museum curator in one of the indoor communities set up by the Maitu Council. When she receives a box in the mail containing soil, she plants an old seed in it and the seed immediately starts germinating.

I like the look of this, and I like what the director did with the idea.

via youtube:



Wired interviewed the director. Bitch Magazine calls it, "a poetic, imaginative and assured film". African Screens calls it "a robust film and one I will certainly recommend to all". Clutch says, "There is little doubt that [director] Kahiu is poised to be a trailblazer in the film industry. She is definitely one to keep an eye out for!"

Another Science Fiction Book List

I've decided there are as many of these lists on the internet as there are people on the internet, and yet I still love them. Here (via SF Signal) is a list from Flavorwire of "50 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels That Everyone Should Read":

Ubik, Philip K. Dick
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
The Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
A Song of Ice and Fire, George R.R. Martin (I've read the first 2.)
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
The Gormenghast series, Mervyn Peake
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein
Kindred, Octavia Butler
The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
Nine Princes in Amber, Roger Zelazny
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
The City & The City, China Miéville
The Once and Future King, T.H. White
The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
Zone One, Colson Whitehead
The Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling
The Time Quartet, Madeleine L’Engle
The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
The Female Man, Joanna Russ
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson
Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
The Dune Chronicles, Frank Herbert
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
Neuromancer, William Gibson
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
The Foundation series, Isaac Asimov
Discworld, Terry Pratchett (I haven't read all of them, but I'm working on it.)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Among Others, Jo Walton
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle
The Drowned World, J.G. Ballard
Witch World, Andre Norton
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
The Time Machine, H.G. Wells
Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
Little, Big, John Crowley
The Dragonriders of Pern series, Anne McCaffrey
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, Charles Yu
The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia C. Wrede
The Castle trilogy, Diana Wynne Jones
The Giver, Lois Lowry

Ones I've read are in bold print. I'm so glad I started reading science fiction as early as I did.

Cemetery Without Crosses

Cemetery Without Crosses (The Rope and the Colt) is a 1969 French/Italian Spaghetti Western. Robert Hossein directs. Dialog is sparse, but I like that. Some films are so talky that this is a breath of fresh air. The look of the film is also spare. There's nothing extra here. Every scene advances the revenge plot.

via youtube:



Spaghetti-Western.net says it's "not your average spaghetti;" calls it "refreshing" and "a thoughtful action film; with genuine drama" and says it "sits among some of the genre's best". Fistful of Pasta says, "the cinematography in this film is exceptional" and calls it "an original".

Sumo Books

The Husband asked me some questions about Sumo recently, and I couldn't answer them. I'm not versed on the finer points, or -to be honest- even knowledgeable about all the basics. Soon afterwards, he gave me 2 books on the subject. Isn't he a Good Husband!

One of them is The Big Book of Sumo: History, Practice, Ritual, Fight, by Mina Hall. It's an oversized paperback and combines text, drawings, diagrams and photos. You can view parts of it at Amazon.com, where reviews are positive. Here are a couple of examples of the drawings:

from the back of the book:

In a dirt ring, two giant men perform the age-old ritual, stomping and clapping to alert the gods. Then, in a great burst of energy, they charge forward and grapple each other to determine who will be champion... The Big Book of Sumo is an illustrated guide to Japan's ancient ritual sport that today is winning new fans around the world. Super sumo fan Mina Hall covers all aspects of sumo, including history, traditions, training, stable life, rankings, fighting strategies, and judging. She goes inside the "stables" to show the rigorous, disciplined life of a sumo wrestler. She also gives advice on how you can visit a stable yourself and where to eat and stay near the main sumo arena in Tokyo. Of special interest are a collection of belly-busting "sumo stew" recipes and a revealing look at the Hawaiian power-houses who have helped make sumo a truly international sport. Whimisical line drawings make The Big Book of Sumo the most user friendly sumo guide book available -fun to browse through and filled with amazing facts about the giant wrestlers of Japan.

It's a wonderful guide to understanding all aspects of the sport.

The other book he gave me is The Joy of Sumo: A Fan's Notes, by David Benjamin:

This book has more text, fewer and less helpful illustrations, more details about certain things but less general information... In the introduction the author says, "Herein, then, is freedom from expert opinion! I will guide the casual but astute fan through the stages of sumophilia."

from the back of the book:

Just what is sumo? Is it a sport, a religion, an aesthetic feast, living traditional culture, or a battle of titans? The simple answer is Yes! For the first time ever, David Benjamin's The Joy of Sumo strips away the veneer of culture and looks at Japan's national sport through the eyes of a true aficionado. Learn what makes a sumo exciting. Read what makes individual wrestlers tick. Understand why there are no weight divisions. Find out how to remember names. Memorize tactics. But most of all grasp why such a plethora of descriptions of the sport can all be true. Sumo, like any sport, has its heroes, horrors, and hilarity, and The Joy of Sumo has something for everyone. Guaranteed to provide invaluable information for everyone form the novice fan to the expert, The Joy of Sumo also is the first book to do it with the same humor normally associated more with football, basketball, or baseball. In fact, after he's read this book, the sportslover's world will never be quite the same-just broader and more fun!

You have to be willing to actually read this one to get anything out of it, which makes it much less useful to me if -for example- I just want to know what just happened in a bout. It's more filled with anecdotes about past wrestlers and answers fewer Why? and What happened? questions.

Together they make a wonderful resource as I try to learn more.

Life Is Like Coffee

Life is like coffee:

I do get their point, but I agree with Psychology Today when they explain why the cup does matter in some important ways:

The cup from which we drink matters, perhaps not as much as the coffee itself, but it can certainly add significantly to, or detract significantly from, our enjoyment of the coffee.

Granted, we shouldn't focus on the superficial aspects of an experience at the expense of the primary experience itself, but I don't see anything wrong in trying to enhance the coffee-drinking experience with a cup that suits you.

Join the friendly exchange at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's, where there are wild sunflowers.

Nang Nak

Nang Nak is a 1999 Thai ghost story. A man returning from war moves back into his home with his wife and child and won't believe his friends when they tell him his wife and baby died months ago. It's supposedly based on a true story. I tend to like ghost stories, and I like this one. Eerie. Sad.

trailer:

Moria gives it a good review and notes: "And it is a legend that is believed to be true by many –before commencing filming, for example, director Nonzee Nimibutr toured Thai temples conducting ceremonies to appease Nang Nak’s spirit and obtain good luck for the production." Time Out calls this "the definitive treatment" of the story. Ferdy on Films has a positive review that ends with this: "While some Thai fear the legend of Nang Nak, Jaroenpura restores the emotional core of the story with power, beauty, and sympathy." DVD Talk calls it "a decent, but not too suspenseful horror film". Rotten Tomatoes has no critics score but an audience score of 73%.

Must Be in Memphis

Must Be in Memphis:



by Harlan T. Bobo.

Heard recently on WEVL.

lyric excerpts:

"I'm feeling my best and acting my worst, Lord, I must be in Memphis tonight."

"I've been kicked out of Sweden, I've been busted in Spain, and New York I don't care to discuss.
But the things that I find fit to do in this town would turn my poor mammy to dust.
I must be in Memphis."

More Money Than Sense

If you are willing to pay $2000 for a pair of shoes, then yes, I think you have more money than sense. Brooks Brothers has the pair shown above for the bargain price of $1225. That's over a thousand dollars for a pair of shoes. Wow!

The photo came from the Brooks Brothers site.

Jerry's Sno Cones

Jerry's Sno Cones is a Memphis institution, but it's well off my beaten track and I had never been. The Daughter insisted I remedy this, and we went recently and had pink lemonade sno cones.

It wasn't really what I was expecting. I was thinking I'd be having what I used to get at the Sno Cream Castle when I was little. That treat was crushed ice in a paper cone with flavored syrup on it. The Kids remember getting these at the zoo when they were little. They looked like this:

photo from Sky High Party Rentals

What we were served at Jerry's:

seemed to me to be more like a slushy. It was good even though it wasn't what I expected. I've been told there's almost always a line -a long line- so we were fortunate to go on a day when the traffic was steady but there were never more than 3 in the line.

Here's the menu:

The I Love Memphis blog lists it as one of the reasons to love Memphis. Urban Spoon gives Jerry's a 97% rating. Yelp has good reviews.

Best Car in the Known Universe

I followed this car down Poplar until it pulled into a parking lot.

This made my day!

11 Most Important Political Science Fiction Movies

io9 has a list of "11 Most Important Political Science Fiction Movies":

1. Metropolis (1927)
2) The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
3) Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
4) Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)
5) A Clockwork Orange (1971)
6) Robocop (1987)
7) Akira (1988)
8) Demolition Man (1993)
9) The Matrix (1999)
10. Avatar (2009)
11. The Hunger Games (2012)

They explain why each is influential and what the political message is. I've seen the ones in bold print. I have a Clockwork Orange DVD on the shelf but haven't gotten to it yet. Alphaville looks like the least well-known of these, at least with people I know. io9 calls it "a pop-art noir masterpiece that still gets listed as one of the all-time great movies".

HT: SF Signal

Ali: Fears Eat The Soul

Ali: Fear Eats The Soul is a 1974 West German Film. It won 2 prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. It's an intergenerational, inter-racial love story.

Here's one scene from the film:

Senses of Cinema has an article examining this film which says, "Littered with characters like Emmy and Ali existing on the margins of society, Fassbinder’s cinema is a struggle for the search for identity and place in a world (his, pointedly, being a post Second World War German one) demanding conformism." Slant Magazine gives it 4 out of 4 stars. DVD Talk concludes, "If you are a Fassbinder fan it is a must. If you are curious to discover him and his style, there is probably no better introduction than this film." Roger Ebert considers it a "great movie" and says, "The reason it gathers so much power, I think, is that Fassbinder [the director] knew exactly what was meant by the title, and made the film so quickly he only had time to tell the truth." Rotten Tomatoes gives it a critics score of 100%.

Harry Brown

Harry Brown is a 2009 revenge film starring Michael Caine as a man who decides to take action against the thugs who have taken over his neighborhood. And he does. Like all Michael Caine films, this one is worth seeing, but I think you need to like Caine. Of course, who doesn't!

via Crackle:

From Crackle: Harry Brown

Empire Online gives it 4 out of 5 stars and concludes with this: "Verdict: Essential stuff, even by the big man’s considerable standards." Time Out gives it 2 out of 5 stars and comments on "the sick ideology of the film, in which ill-informed pessimism is bolstered by childish ideas of revenge." TwitchFilm says, "Harry Brown has two big trump cards to bust itself out of the cluttered subgenre: The iconic Michael Caine giving a knock-out performance, and an overall dizzying sense of style -This may be the most craft-level handsome revenge movie ever made." Slant Magazine gves it just 1 star out of 4 and closes by saying,

The war abroad has escaped from the confines of the news and into what could be but likely isn't your backyard (when was the last time the target audience for Harry Brown was anywhere remotely near a project complex?) and nobody can stop it but an old man with a gun and a warped sense of ethics. God help us all.

The Guardian gives it 3 out of 5 stars and says it's "a tremendous role for Caine". Roger Ebert praises Caine and says, "We are all so desperately weary of CGI that replaces drama. With movies like this, humans creep back into crime stories." Rotten Tomatoes critics give it 64%.

New Nam King

I used to go to New Nam King a lot, but then I moved and found another Chinese buffet that was closer. The Daughter and I were in the area recently and decided to go for old time's sake.

It was ok, I guess, but the broccoli, for example, managed to be both tough and mushy, and there were no green beans, no white rice, none of several items we usually see on Chinese buffets. There was a lot more of things like french fries, and macaroni and cheese, and fried okra than there used to be years ago. I think I'll be happy to stick with the buffet that is closer to where I live now.

The score at Urban Spoon is 74%. Yelp gives it 2 1/2 out of 4 stars with 4 reviews.

Invisible Cities

I could've sworn I had read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, but I couldn't find any note of it anywhere. I decided to read it, and, sure enough, I remembered having read it before. I love this author, and this is a fascinating read.

favorite quote:

When a man rides a long time through wild regions he feels the desire for a city.

The back of the book just quotes from Gore Vidal's article in The New York Review of Books. Here's the Wikipedia description:

The book explores imagination and the imaginable through the descriptions of cities by an explorer, Marco Polo. The book is framed as a conversation between the aging and busy emperor Kublai Khan, who constantly has merchants coming to describe the state of his expanding and vast empire, and Polo. The majority of the book consists of brief prose poems describing 55 cities, apparently narrated by Polo. Short dialogues between the two characters are interspersed every five to ten cities and are used to discuss various ideas presented by the cities on a wide range of topics including linguistics and human nature. The book is structured around an interlocking pattern of numbered sections, while the length of each section's title graphically outlines a continuously oscillating sine wave, or perhaps a city skyline. The interludes between Khan and Polo are no less poetically constructed than the cities, and form a framing device, a story within a story, that plays with the natural complexity of language and stories.

Marco Polo and Kublai Khan do not speak the same language. When Polo is explaining the various cities, he uses objects from the city to tell the story. The implication is that that each character understands the other through their own interpretation of what they are saying. They literally are not speaking the same language, which leaves many decisions for the individual reader.

The book, because of its approach to the imaginative potentialities of cities, has been used by architects and artists to visualize how cities can be, their secret folds, where the human imagination is not necessarily limited by the laws of physics or the limitations of modern urban theory. It offers an alternative approach to thinking about cities, how they are formed and how they function.

The NPR reviewer says, "The question that Calvino seems to be asking is a big one: How should we live?" and, "There is so much there there. It's best, I think, to read Invisible Cities like a traveler — slowly, luxuriously, as if you have all the time in the world." The New York Times calls it an "ineffably lovely book". Kirkus Reviews says, "The assumption of the invisible cities is that we will, no matter what, always have recognitions to share in common and that they may be essential ones." The Guardian says,

Invisible Cities is a metafictional guide to Venice, an elegy to a succession of exotic and remote cities that are all versions of Venice, according to the Venetian traveller Marco Polo – who in Calvino's book describes them to the emperor Kublai Khan. He never mentions Venice, instead he describes all the other fantastic places he claims to have visited. But when Khan asks him to speak of Venice he replies: "What else do you believe I have been talking to you about?"

Sun Studio

The Daughter and I had neither one been to Sun Studio, so we recently decided to play tourist and go. We went on a weekday morning for the 10:30 tour. We weren't expecting much of a crowd. Death Week is over, after all. Wow, were we surprised! Our tour group was big, and the group scheduled to start as we were leaving looked even bigger.

We even had an Elvis impersonator on our tour, although he didn't show off. Can you spot him in this picture?

There were 2 sections of the tour. In the first part everything was in display cases, and flash photography wasn't permitted. In the second part, which is still used some for recording, there were no photo restrictions:

On the very spot marked with an "x" below, Elvis Presley stood. He used that very microphone, and we were encouraged to stand there and pose. The microphone was so much too tall for me it looked like I was going to have to stretch it out across the floor to get it low enough for the pose. But I did it!

Our tour guide was enthusiastic and fun. The Daughter and I were the only Memphians on the tour.

Youtube has several relevant videos. Here's a short overview:

and another:

The Drifter

The Drifter is a 1932 Western film starring William Farnum and Noah Beery, Sr. Here's the plot from the imdb:

A man known as The Drifter returns home to his cabin in the woods and winds up getting involved with an escaped convict, a gunfighter, lumber company rivals, mysterious family ties and murder.

I'm not overly fond of Westerns from the '30s, and there's nothing here to convert me. It was interesting enough, and the acting was fine. If you like this kind of thing or this era of Western, I'm sure you'll like this. What's that saying again? "Them that likes it speaks well of it."

via youtube:



TCM has an overview. Reviews are scarce.

The Good Apprentice

The Good Apprentice is a 1985 novel by Iris Murdoch, an author whose name on a book cover is enough for me to buy the book. This is yet another that makes me continue to feel that way. This was her 22nd novel, and she wrote 4 more novels after this. She died in 1999 at 79 years of age after suffering from Alzheimer's for several years.

from the dust jacket:

Stuart Cuno has decided to become good. Not believing in God, he invents his own methods, which include celibacy, chastity and the abandonment of a promising academic career. Interfering friends and relations question his sincerity, his sanity and his motives. Stuart’s step-brother Edward Baltram is tormented by guilt because he has, he believes, killed his best friend. He dreams sometimes of redemption, sometimes of suicide. Edward is sent on a "journey to the underworld" to find his natural father, the painter Jesse Baltram, whom he has not seen since childhood. He discovers a father strangely different from his expectations, and succumbs to an enchantment quite unlike the redemptive cure for which he has been seeking; and meets perhaps the one person in the world who has the power to forgive him. Meanwhile Stuart’s moral apprenticeship is causing nothing but trouble. Coming to rescue Edward, Stuart provokes a final catastrophic clash of forces. Funny, compelling and extremely moving, Iris Murdoch's new novel is about obsessive guilt-ridden despair, and the difficult problem of how to try to be good -and the various magical devices which console those who are sensible enough not to try.

favorite quotes:

How does one live after total wickedness, total failure, total disgrace?

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow?"
"No."

So little needed to be changed for it all to be different.

I'm not mentally ill I'm spiritually ill. I never knew what that meant before. It's the fact, the fact I have to live with, what happened, what I did. People say, "you have to live with something", but I can't live with this, I can only die with it, except that I don't die.

We practice dying through a continual destruction of our self-images, inspired not by the self-hatred which seems to be within, but by the truth that seems to be without; such suffering is normal, it goes on all the time, it must go on.

Some memories are like lucky charms, talismans, one shouldn't tell about them or they'll lose their power.

One thing I think I've learnt is how to learn.

We all have horrors in our lives that have to be lived with. We must all harden our hearts about the harm we have done to others, forgive ourselves and forget our deeds as the victims of them would do if they were righteous.

I think religion is about good and evil and the distance between them.

There's a reference to a painting by Botticelli of angels embracing repentant sinners, but I can't figure out which painting that would be.

Harold Bloom in The New York Times says,

no other contemporary British novelist seems to me of her eminence. Her formidable combination of intellectual drive and storytelling exuberance may never fuse into a great novel, but she has earned now the tribute she made to Sartre more than 30 years ago. She too has the style of the age.

There is a Center for Iris Murdoch Studies.

Swedish Tea

On the package it says: "Påtår på gotländskt vis. Ett svart te med inslag av fläder och jordgubb. Så gott att du inte kan motså en andra kopp." Google translate says it means, "Second cup on Gotland manner -[hmmm, got no idea what that might mean]. A black tea with hints of elderflower and strawberry. So good that you cannot resist a second cup." This appears to be the company's website, and here's a link for this particular blend. The Daughter bought this tea for us at Skona Gertruds in Sweden on a recent trip to visit an old friend. How thoughtful! I like it and have had several cups, but The Husband doesn't care for it. Fruit flavorings just aren't his cup of tea. ;)

The cup and saucer is the survivor of a pair we bought in the J. Peterman store in Chattanooga many years ago. It's the Chanticleer pattern from Burleigh. That was a fun vacation. We stayed at the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel, went to the Tennessee Aquarium and the Tow Truck Museum, saw Rock City and Ruby Falls, toured Civil War sites, and more. There's plenty to do there.

Join the T party over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

Frost Bake Shop

It has taken me a while to get this posted, but we actually went to the Frost Bake Shop just a few days after they opened last month. They are located in Laurelwood Shopping Center, across from Turkoyz and next to James Davis. Here's a map.

You might think this wouldn't be the best place to have breakfast, but I beg to differ. Just look at this lemon cupcake and coffee!

What a wonderful breakfast! The Daughter got 2 cookies and some Mississippi Mud, and we were treated by the staff to a banana walnut cupcake, which was wonderful. The cupcakes are dense, rich and flavorful with natural ingredients and real icing. I want to try the Memphis Cream cake, the coconut cake, the orange dream cake, the pecan pie, the cheesecake, the caramel ... i guess I'd like to try one of everything.

The Memphis Flyer covered their opening. Memphis Magazine has some photos. I Love Memphis blog has a review. Yelp didn't have reviews when we went. They are on Urban Spoon here. They have a Facebook page.