September 6th, 2010 by Max
I just saw a commercial for the new Hawaii Five-0. The background music was filled with brass and drums instead of that reedy thin electronic synthesized guitar that they demonstrated on Youtube.
Yay!
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August 22nd, 2010 by Max
Uh oh.
Watch out. I feel another indulgence coming on and its e.e. cummings
if i
or anybody don’t
know where it her his
my next meal’s coming from
i say to hell with that
that doesn’t matter (and if
he she it or everybody gets a
bellyful without
lifting my finger i say to hell
with that i
say that doesn’t matter) but
if somebody
or you are beautiful or
deep or generous what
i say is
whistle that
sing that yell that spell
that out big (bigger than cosmic
rays war earthquakes famine or the ex
prince of whoses diving into
a whatses to rescue miss nobody’s
probably handbag) because i say that’s not
swell (get me) babe not (understand me) lousy
kid that’s something else my sweet (i feel that’s
true)
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August 21st, 2010 by Max
Last week Jen PO and I went looking for Osprey and all the natives of my favorite swamp. Ethel and Albert were, for the first time this summer, not at home. The kid has flown and maybe they were taking a break.
We never got real close to any of the big birds, but we got a few shots. We did see an eagle or two.
The nice thing was that the Egrets are back and that timing isn’t always easy to make. They pass through. Next time they might be gone.
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August 13th, 2010 by Max
This is just too funny. From Twitter:
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August 11th, 2010 by Max
I need to see it again. 4 of 5 Smiling Maxes
Dom Cobb is an extractor. Industrial espionage. He goes in to get secrets out of the minds of sleeping executives. This time is different. This time the job is to plant one. But his life is somewhere else and this is his last chance to redeem himself.
The cast is first rate. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Third Rock From The Sun) is eminently watchable as he takes himself all the way from tv sitcom to action star with his role. Ellen Page is always watchable in everything she does. Even DiCaprio, and this reporter has never been a DiCaprio fan, is near perfect as he leads his crew into a world where nothing is real except imagination. The further and deeper they go into the subconscious the greater their chance for success and the greater the danger for Cobb and from Cobb himself and his own demons.
The entire ensemble is stylish and slick and subtle as they move through varying degrees of non reality to plant a real thought. Marion Cotillard is especially good as the haunted and haunting “Mal”.
Dirctor Nolan’s dialogue is expository, but that is necessary and it is handled cleanly and stylishly as everything is revealed to you. But come early and pay attention because while it is all there, it isn’t easy.
I need to see it again.
George Hrab (The Geologic Podcast) said go see it. He said it is the smartest most internally logically consistent movie he’s seen in a while and he’s right. But George LOVED it. I just couldn’t get to that place. Its smart and quick and complicated and well acted, but by the end I didn’t feel like that was the best movie I’ve seen in a long while, so I can’t give it 5 of 5 Smiling Maxes. But it was smart and quick and compelling, so on his recommendation alone I am giving it 4 of 5 Smiling Maxes. I want to see it again.
Maturish children can handle the violence as it is no worse than what they see on their tv everyday. Sexuality is minimal, but the story takes concentration. A man said to me as we walked out of the theater. That was the third time I’ve seen it and I still don’t get it. I think I got it. Maybe I missed something. I should see it again.
Christopher Nolan
Writer (WGA):
Christopher Nolan (written by)
Release Date:
16 July 2010 (USA) See more ยป
Genre:
Action | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller
Cast
Leonardo DiCaprio … Cobb
Joseph Gordon-Levitt … Arthur
Ellen Page … Ariadne
Tom Hardy … Eames
Ken Watanabe … Saito
Dileep Rao … Yusuf
Cillian Murphy … Robert Fischer
Tom Berenger … Peter Browning
Marion Cotillard … Mal
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August 11th, 2010 by Max
Ok. All summer I’ve seen commercials for the new Hawaii Five-0. I’m psyched. I was a big fan a million years ago, and I’ll probably watch it recast hipster style.
However, the thing about Hawaii Five-0 is the theme song. Its the theme song. You may have missed that, its the theme song! Well, yes, and the opening credits.
So I happen on the new Hawaii Five-0 opening credits all excited to hear this great song and see the new sequence, and well … its just plain thin. I’ve heard people complain about how opening credits are getting shorter and its true but its change. Change is ok. I liked the opening for LOST which was as short as it gets. But the open of the original Hawaii Five-0 was just perfect. It can’t be improved. You can’t improve it. Sorry. You can’t improve it. Its the only show I can think of where you had to be seated before the show started.
The new one? What is that a midi generated guitar? Its so thin! Give me the brass. I know the images have to change some, but … well, maybe they should have just left it alone.
This may sound like old folks bitching about the past again … so here. Just watch and compare:
Hopefully there’s still time to change the new one.
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August 7th, 2010 by Max
Just go out where there’s a shallow pond, a riverbank or any place where water stands, and you’re likely to see life. This river overflow floodplane pond down in Deposit, NY has seen its share of Herons and Kingfishers but a surprising lack of ducks.
I stopped by the other day and got hit with a Mallard.
Posted in Arts, My New York, Photos, Science | 2 Comments »
August 5th, 2010 by Max
Last month I went to Montezuma, I know, rare trip to the wildlife refuge. And Drove about a mile and a half up the +4 mile main pool drive and had to turn around, the main trail was closed. But on my way back I saw out the drivers window a Great Blue Heron that I had missed on the way up. He was down a 5 ft embankment, but real close. So I got out of the car and took a hand ful of pictures before he flew off. [They have this amazing way of knowing when you're changing the camera settings, and so ... no flying pictures.]
So, though people have seen a million GBH pictures on my blog before, here are two of the better ones I’ve ever made.
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July 28th, 2010 by Max
I’m a big Yankee fan. I couldn’t watch them last night. Not on in my neighborhood, so I was looking forward to watching them tonight.
As always I looked around for my backup channel, to switch to while the commercials were on. That finished my Yankees watching for a couple hours, for there on PBS was the concert at the White House to honor Paul McCartney with the Gershwin award.
I was transfixed. Couldn’t look away.
First, as the Obamas walked in, I felt pride. I was so glad they were in the White House. I haven’t always cheered everything my President has done, but I couldn’t help but feel better about where my country is, despite the raft of tragedies and seemingly insurmountable problems facing it.
Then they introduced Paul McCartney. Sir Paul (an honor I’d never cared about before) and an eclectic variety of performers from Faith Hill to Elvis Costello and some I’d never heard of including a classical pianist each of whom took turns providing their renditions of McCartney tunes after an opening song by Paul of “Got To Get You Into My Life”.
Elvis played “Penny Lane”. Faith Hill sang “The Long And Winding Road” during which Paul could be seen nodding and smiling.
Somewhere in there it occurred to me that Beatles songs, McCartney songs, singing them in the car, listening to them on the record player and the radio, were like Dr Seuss books had been to me probably 6 or 8 years earlier. Something wonderful that would pop up to add a little joy and wonder to my life while I was growing up.
Its cliche’ now to say that Paul McCartney’s songs were the soundtrack of my life, but its true. So many songs. So often they can bring me back to a special and particular time in my life. Its strange to say but Paul reminds me of me. Never more pointedly than New Years Eve 1969 when I lay there in bed when the countdown to #1 (NUMBER 1,! number 1!) was playing on the radio and I had a reel to reel tape deck ready to record “good songs” for my brother, as the DJ played his way down the list. I was surprised my brother trusted me with, not the tape deck which probably was my sister’s, but with the choices. I knew when I thought about it, which song would be number one. And it was, and I recorded “Hey Jude”. Who knows where the tape is now. Tom has probably long forgotten that night, but I remember it.
So as I watched Paul McCartney, Sir Paul, playing “Hey Jude” for the first family, I realized that Paul McCartney’s time, was my time.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Posted in Arts, Changes in the World In My Lifetime, Other People's Theories | 1 Comment »
July 26th, 2010 by Max
“You know that bastard hates America!”
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July 25th, 2010 by Max
A couple of many years ago my friends and my friends did me the honor of asking me to be the godfather to their children. This weekend those children, two of my favorite people, [no disrespect to their siblings or others of my favorite people] and now grown up, or nearly so, were doing their own artistic things at a couple of sites in my Great Green State of New York.
I had the occasion to watch both of my god-children perform this weekend, and I couldn’t have been more proud.
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July 21st, 2010 by Max
Borrowed from the Astronomy Picture of the Day
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July 19th, 2010 by Max
Tourists and artists hang out in Windham deep in the heart of Delaware County, NY. Not exactly a sleepy little town Windham is a smaller eastern version of what I imagine Aspen to be. A destination for skiers and in the summer a destination for vacationers with a standing thriving artists community.
Stamford. A little less rural, but still rural, no regional ski center right up the hill, but a vacationers paradise anyway and another home for rural artists.
The Catskills, like the Finger Lakes and the Adirondacks, also are among the green and blue beautiful upstate vacation destinations that so many people can’t imagine are part of New York. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.
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July 17th, 2010 by Max
Check out the flying green heron. And the dinosaur headdress spike thing.
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July 15th, 2010 by Max
The Guinea Hens live just down the road … and seemingly IN the road. Sometimes at their own peril according to the woman who owns them where they lived on the other of the street.
The Blue Jay was in my back yard eating my blueberries. Do you suppose there is some connection?
I’m pretty happy with the stop action shots.
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July 10th, 2010 by Max
Here are the rest of the houses I photographed in Sharon Springs. Note the size of the hotels and how many of the houses are tucked in among trees. The place was at once bucolic and grand. And its making a comeback.
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July 10th, 2010 by Max
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July 8th, 2010 by Max
The next week or so will be my NY houses and such from a couple trips around upstate I recently took.
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July 7th, 2010 by Max
Nestled at the base of the Catskill mountains, Stamford, NY, verdant and lively, holds the dreams of vacationers and adventurers alike, summer and winter, and oh God especially the fall.
Nurtured in a brightly lit studio in Stamford (as well as many other locations in the region) art is growing wildly. If you happen down the main drag in this bucolic little village any time in the summer however, you just might see Tim Touhey pounding on his bongos, soaking up the green and the scenery and opening his life to his experience of life.
You’ll need to get over the romantic notion that he’s sitting here watching the cars, stuck like so many creative souls, art blocked and desperate, for Tim lives his life with passion.
Step inside, the artist will gladly take you on a tour of his paintings, his sculpture, and his passion. And the passion is there. Tim’s art is high energy, brightly colored, electric stuff that jumps off the walls of his long and open feeling studio. Angular lines vibrate like the heads of the bongos pulsing with a wildness that affirms live and nearly bursts off his canvasses.
Post modern? Who knows? Expressionistic probably. But who cares about labels. Just stand in the white bright studio and let your eye wander over wild pastels and passionate oils. A year ago a friend and I stood there talking with Tim and feeling the art, each with our own favorites. Mine, sadly perhaps, were the more composed, controlled and defined sheets. Her’s the wild abandon more random choices. All colorful and lively. There were more than enough to make us wish we could buy that one and that one and that one!
The thing, well a thing, that makes the artist unique is that he’s persevered. He’s done the thing. Making a living creating art is difficult. Its easy to give up. Look down the hall in any magazine’s creative department, any manufacturer’s [for as an art teacher once told me "Anything that has been made, has been drawn first."] and you’ll see artists. All of them artists, and nearly all of them doing what they’re doing to make a living, and doing what they love in their soul in the after times.
Tim does what he loves every day. And he’s making a living at it. Its still a quiet living, in that quiet town at the edge of the Catskills. So go see Tim. Go feel the life in his paintings. And if you’re lucky he may even play something for you on his grand piano!
A man with this much talent, who does what he loves, must be appreciated. If you can … make an investment in art. You’ll appreciate it later.
http://www.touhey.com/index.html
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Countless Screaming Argonauts
