ae's box.

"The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at..."

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:59:05 -0400

“The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart.”

- Alan Alda

“The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to...

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:23:59 -0400

“The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all.”

-John Cassavetes (1959)

There’s always been a debate about it—here it is. Films...

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 15:57:25 -0400

There’s always been a debate about it—here it is. Films directors talking pan vs. scan.

As Scorsese points out, it is much like “re-directing a movie”.

via kottke.org

Nostalgic future. From Metropolis (1927)

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:15:31 -0400

Nostalgic future. From Metropolis (1927)

"Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending."

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:02:04 -0400

“Time is the best author. It always writes the perfect ending.”

- Calvero, says. Limelight (1952)

I believe I have finally found my one true job interview dress...

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:04:31 -0400

I believe I have finally found my one true job interview dress suit.

Apollo 11 - or how I learned to put my foot elsewhere.

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 23:00:06 -0400

Apollo 11 - or how I learned to put my foot elsewhere.

Ô journée des mectons. Although, this picture’s...

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:27:06 -0400

Ô journée des mectons. Although, this picture’s about something else, Happy Bastille Day, people—or whatever.

Photo

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:28:18 -0400

Sound Advice

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:54:00 -0400

This week’s f-words come from Charles Harrington elster’s Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations (1999). While my own strong opinions about Orthoepy vacillate between yes! and who-cares?, I have found this book to be (if nothing else) 1—a valuable bet settler and 2—a great way to show your barbarous buddies how much a pedant you can be.

feral: FEER-ul. this pronunciation is favored by all 4 major american dictionaries.
fifth: FIFTH or FITH. if you can pronounce the second f, good for you. but there’s nothing slovenly about dropping it… it is biestly however, to drop the h and say FIFT or drop the th and say FIF.
finis: FIN-is (occasionally, FY-nis). the popular variant fee-NEE is wrong. finis is not french for “finished,” as many apparently imagine. it comes through middle english from the latin word meaning “the end, conclusion.”
flaccid: FLAK-sid, not FLAS-id. apparently the flabby FLAS-id has been limping around in educated circles for most of the 20th century. webster 3 was the first dictionary to recognize FLAS-id, labeling it with its esoteric symbol of disrepute, the obelus [÷]. flaccid is a book-learned word which may explain why so many educated speakers have swallowed the beastly FLAS-id without giving a second thought to the pronunciation of analogous words. consider: accident, succeed, eccentric, etc.
forbade: fur-BAD. in 1961, webster 3, in opposition to all previous authority, arbitrarily indicated that forbade should be pronounced fur-BAYD. the controversy may soon be academic: the evidence of my ears says that forbid is fast replacing forbade as the past tense of forbid.
formulae: FORM-yul-LEE, not -LY. as any science savvy person knows,antennae, larvae, papillae, and so on have a long i sound at the end, right? wrong. words borrowed from latin that form their plurals in -aeproperly have a long e sound at the end. that’s why, for example we say AL-jee for algae.
forte (strong point): properly FORT, now usually FOR-tay.
fracas: FRAY-kis. the first a is properly long. when you enter the fray,you enter a fracas.
fungi: FUN-jy (j as in judge), never FUN-gy (g as in gout).

And for another look at how everything that you are saying, you are saying wrong, there is this and this.

via ragbag

Re-

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:19:00 -0400

We spend our lives rereading and rewatching and relistening and relearning. We eat the same things over and over. We end up loving people who remind us of other people. We perform these rituals, this spacetime origami, because the basic fact of our n-dimensional existence is this: Most things can be recalled and some things can be revisited but precious little can be relived.

via lowindustrial

What a rig.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:58:00 -0400

What a rig.

"You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move..."

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:53:51 -0400

“You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it’s really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.”

- Stanley Kubrick.

Woody Allen’s appearance on The Dick Cavett Show — circa...

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:04:00 -0400

Woody Allen’s appearance on The Dick Cavett Show — circa 1971.
Pithy. Two toes up. And the swish.

"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept..."

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:11:00 -0400

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”

- Thich Nhat Hanh.

I admire this quote. And I admire its essence in every way.

Paris — When It Sizzles (1964) In frame: Audrey Hepburn, William...

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:59:51 -0400

Paris — When It Sizzles (1964)

In frame: Audrey Hepburn, William Holden.

Compelling plot. Meticulously well shot. And yes, sizzlingly sizzling.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:59:59 -0400

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

- Marcel Proust.

lonelysandwich: Two pictures tell a story of...

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:54:00 -0400

lonelysandwich:

Two pictures tell a story of valor.

via Greg Knauss

“Chaplin after the set of The Circus was ravaged by a...

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:20:00 -0500

“Chaplin after the set of The Circus was ravaged by a fire.”

"Don’t say what you’re doing, say why you’re doing it."

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:12:00 -0500

“Don’t say what you’re doing, say why you’re doing it.”

- Michael Lopp on the Art of the Tweet.

Every now and again, when pressed to talk about Twitter and why it’s not as tarded as you’ve been told, I’ll puff up my chest and say the following as though I’ve just now thought of it: I don’t mind if you tweet that you’re eating a sandwich as long as you say how it tastes.