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Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian director whose chilly depictions of alienation were cornerstones of international filmmaking in the 1960s, inspiring intense measures of admiration, denunciation and confusion, died on Monday at his home in Rome, Italian news media reported today. He was 94. He died on the same day as Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish filmmaker who died at his home in Sweden earlier Monday..
"With Antonioni, not only has one of the greatest living directors been lost, but also a master of the modern screen," said the mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni. His office said it was making plans for Mr. Antonioni's body to lie in state on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Tall, cerebral and resolutely serious, Mr. Antonioni harkens back to a time in the middle of the last century when cinema-going was an intellectual pursuit, when purposely opaque passages in famously difficult films spurred long nights of smoky argument at sidewalk cafes, and when fashionable directors like Mr. Antonioni, Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godard were chased down the Cannes waterfront by camera-wielding cinephiles demanding to know what on earth they meant by their latest outrage.
Mr. Antonioni is probably best known for "Blowup," a 1966 drama set in Swinging London about a fashion photographer who comes to believe that a photograph he took of two lovers in a public park also shows, hidden in the background, evidence of a murder. But his true, lasting contribution to cinema resides in an earlier trilogy — "L'Avventura" in 1959, "La Notte" in 1960 and "L'Eclisse" in 1962 — which explores the filmmaker's tormented central vision that people had become emotionally unglued from one another.
This vision of the apartness of people was expressed near the end of "La Notte," when his star Monica Vitti observes, "Each time I have tried to communicate with someone, love has disappeared."Continue reading the main story
In a generation of rule-breakers, Mr. Antonioni was one of the most subversive and venerated. He challenged moviegoers with an intense focus on intentionally vague characters and a disdain for such mainstream conventions as plot, pacing and clarity. He would raise questions and never answer them, have his characters act in self-destructive ways and fail to explain why, and hold his shots so long that the actors sometimes slipped out of character.
It was all part of the director's design. As Mr. Antonioni explained, "The after-effects of an emotion scene, it had occurred to me, might have meaning, too, both on the actor and on the psychological advancement of the character."
Mr. Antonioni broke other conventions, too. Many of his cuts, scene lengths and camera movements were highly idiosyncratic, and he frequently posed his characters in a highly formalized way. He employed point-of-view shots only rarely, a practice that helped erect an emotional shield between the audience and his puzzling characters.
"What is impressive about Antonioni's films is not that they are good," the film scholar Seymour Chatman wrote. "But that they have been made at all."
Perhaps the defining moment in Mr. Antonioni's career came on the night "LAvventura" was screened at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival. Many in the audience walked out and there were numerous boos, catcalls and whistles. The director and Monica Vitti thought their careers were over.
But later that night, Roberto Rossellini and a group of other influential filmmakers and critics drafted a statement which they released the following morning. "Aware of the exceptional importance of Michelangelo Antonioni's film, 'L'Avventura,' and appalled by the displays of hostility it has aroused, the undersigned critics and members of the profession are anxious to express their admiration for the maker of this film," they wrote.
One of the great legends of iconoclastic filmmaking — how being booed at Cannes could become a badge of honor — was born.
"L'Avventura" went on to win the festival's Special Jury Prize and become an international box-office hit, spurring furious debate. Some found the film pointless; others read reams of meaning into its languid predicaments. Mr. Antonioni's international reputation was made.
The next year, Sight and Sound, the influential British film magazine, polled 70 leading critics from around the world and they not only endorsed "L'Avventura," but they also chose it as the second-greatest film ever made, just behind "Citizen Kane.'
After burnishing his reputation in the early 1960s, Mr. Antonioni surprised many by trying to make movies with Hollywood's backing. More surprising, perhaps, was that he then had his greatest commercial success with "Blowup" in 1966.
"My subjects are, in a very general sense, autobiographical," he once wrote. "The story is first built through discussions with a collaborator. In the case of "L'Eclisse," the discussions went on for four months. The writing was then done, by myself, taking perhaps fifteen days. My scripts are not formal screenplays, but rather dialogue for the actors and a series of notes to the director. When shooting begins, there is invariably a great amount of changing. When I go on the set of a scene, I insist on remaining alone for at least twenty minutes. I have no preconceived ideas of how the scene should be done, but wait instead for the ideas to come that will tell me how to begin."
The world of an Antonioni film "is a world of people alienated from one another," wrote Andrew Turner in his book "World Film Directors" (1968). "Their actions have no meaning or coherence, and even the most fundamental of emotions, love, seems unsustainable.'
Interviewers also found Mr. Antonioni to be a cool, combative subject. "Even when he is telling stories about himself, Antonioni's face remains set in its habitually serious expression," Melton S. Davis wrote in a 1964 profile for The New York Times Magazine. "Precise in manner, conservative in dress and quiet in speech, he could be taken for a banker or art dealer recounting an unfortunate business deal."
But Mr. Antonioni could also be graciously charming. Sometimes, interviewers said, the director's shrewd green eyes would soften and his lips would curl into a smile that some described as ironic, others as chilly.
Michaelangelo Antonioni was born on September 29,1912 into a well-to-do family of landowners in Ferrara, in northern Italy, a town that he described as a "marvelous little city on the Paduan plain, antique and silent." Around the age of ten, his family remembered, Michelangelo began to design puppets and to build model sets for them. Later, as a teenager, he became interested in oil painting, favoring portraits to landscapes.
He attended the University of Bologna and earned a degree in economics and commerce in 1935. But it was at the university that he also began to write stories and plays and to direct some of them. He was a founder of the university's theatrical troupe and one of the its leading tennis champions. He also wrote scathing reviews of both American and Italian genre films for the local paper, and decided to try his own hand at filmmaking.
Mr. Antonioni wanted to make a realistic documentary about the local insane asylum. The patients helped him set up the equipment. Then, he turned on the bright floodlights.
The patients went berserk, he later wrote, "and their faces — which before had been calm — became convulsed and devastated. And then it was our turn to be petrified. The cameraman did not even have the strength to stop his machine, nor was I capable of giving any orders whatever. It was the director of the asylum who finally cried, "Stop! Lights out!" And in the half-darkened room we could see a swarm of bodies twisting as if in the last throes of a death agony."
Mr. Antonioni decided to give up filmmaking.
In 1940, at the age of 27, he moved to Rome to work as a secretary to Count Vittori Cini. The job didn't last long. He worked as a bank teller and joined the staff of Cinema magazine, edited by Benito Mussolini's son, Vittorio. During this period, Mr. Antonioni dropped his aversion to filmmaking and took classes at the Institute of Experimental Filmmaking. His wrote some screenplays, including "Un Pilota Ritorna" (The Return of the Pilot) in 1942 in collaboration with another budding director, Roberto Rossellini.
In 1943, Mr. Antonioni returned to Ferrara and found a local merchant willing to bankroll his first film, a documentary called "Gente del Po" (People of the Po Valley), about the wretched lives of local fishermen. The German occupying forces destroyed much of the footage, though a few scraps survived and became a nine-minute curtain-raiser at the 1947 Venice Film Festival for Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound."
After the war, Mr. Antonioni wrote more film criticism and continued making short documentaries. All the while he became increasingly skeptical about the neo-realist movement, which dominated Italian filmmaking, and its relentless focus on substandard social conditions. He yearned to look beyond such things and into the hearts of individuals. "His films were about street sweepers, not street sweeping," is the way the film critic Robert Haller put it. But no one would let him make the kind of films he wanted to make.
"For ten years, the movies forced me not to use ideas but empty words, cleverness, business sense, patience, stratagems," Mr. Antonioni wrote in an introduction to a 1963 collection of his screenplays. "I am so scantily blessed with such gifts that I recall that period as being the most painful one in my life.'
At age 38, Mr. Antonioni found backing for his most ambitious, non-documentary project, "Cronaca di un Amore" (Story of a Love). Ostensibly about a man and woman plotting to kill her husband, it turned out to be the earliest example of Mr. Antonioni's approach. In the film, the husband dies, but it is unclear whether he was murdered, committed suicide or died by accident. This whole plot line vanishes and the film, instead, focuses on the lover's emotions.
As with later Antonioni films, the settings were stark, the scenes fussily composed, the shots held a few beats longer than necessary. The film won the Grand Prix International at the Festival of Punta del Este in 1951.
In 1954, his 12-year marriage to the former Letizia Balboni fell apart. She later told interviewers that the director had become increasingly remote. "We lived in silence," she said. "We reached the point where we communicated with each other only through the characters he created and about whom he wanted my advice. He has only one way of expressing himself: His work. What he does is have his actors live out emotional crises in his films, by proxy living out the crises in his own life.'
Mr. Antonioni sank into a deep depression. His insomnia worsened. Often he spent the early morning hours writing screenplays.
In 1955, at the height of this crisis, Mr. Antonioni had his first important artistic triumph. "Le Amiche" (The Girlfriends)" was about the mundane, loveless lives of a group of middle-class women in Turin. It won a Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Mr. Antonioni began experimenting more with improvisation on the set. "It's only when I press my eye against the camera and begin to move the actors that I get an exact idea of the scene," he wrote. He used this technique extensively in "Il Grido (The Outcry)" in 1957, probably the grimmest of his films.
It was while shooting "Il Grido" that Mr. Antonioni met a young stage actress named Monica Vitti, who would become his greatest and most enduring star, and his almost constant companion during much of the "60s.
For two years, Mr. Antonioni could not find a producer to back him. Finally, in 1959, he found someone and finished a screenplay that had been burning in the back of his mind for a long time. But "L'Avventura" almost died before it was born. Chronically short of money, his producer eventually pulled out of the project just as Mr. Antonioni and the actors were working on a craggy island near Sicily.
"It had gotten to the point where there was no food," Mr. Antonioni remembered. "One crew deserted us. We got hold of another crew and they, too, left. I had 20,000 meters of film and the actors stayed, so I carried the camera on my back and continued shooting." Eventually, a new producer appeared.
"L'Avventura" proved to be the turning point in his career and is widely regarded as Mr. Antonioni's masterpiece.
As with most of Mr. Antonioni's films, it focuses on the comfortable, enervated lives of well-to-do Italians, in this case a group of friends on a yachting trip. Without warning, during a visit to a wave-thrashed atoll, one of them, an emotionally distraught woman named Anna, simply vanishes. Had she drowned herself because her lover, Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), seemed in no hurry to marry her? Had she hurled herself off a cliff in a fit of ennui? Had she been swallowed by the shark she claimed to have seen? Or had she fled on another boat?
The small island is searched. It rains. Police arrive. Then, gradually, Sandro develops an attraction to Anna's best friend, Claudia (Ms. Vitti). She resists, then warms to him. Eventually, they stop mentioning Anna at all. The search is forgotten. Sandro betrays Claudia, for no apparent reason. We never discover what happened to Anna.
In "L'Avventura," Mr. Antonioni's singular technique can be seen in full flower. "The overwhelming sense of estrangement conveyed by "L'Avventura" is as much a product of the style of the movie as of its events or dialogue," Mr. Turner wrote.
The director rapidly found backing for his next two films, which further explored the themes of alienation he introduced in "L'Avventura" and which he later said were meant to be seen as a trilogy.
In "La Notte" (The Night)," Marcello Mastroianni plays an author with writer's block suffering through his loveless marriage to Jeanne Moreau. He meets a young woman at a party, played by Ms. Vitti, who he believes personifies the creativity that has abandoned him. The film won the Golden Bear at the 1961 Berlin Film Festival.
"L'Eclisse" (The Eclipse)" most directly addressed the alienating effects of material wealth, following the love affair of a young woman of simple tastes, Ms. Vitti again, and a money-hungry stockbroker (Alain Delon).
The film's ending is much discussed. Abandoning the principal characters, the film closes with a montage several minutes long composed of 58 shots, most of them on or near a street corner where the lovers used to meet. Water seeps from a barrel. The brakes on a bus screech. A fountain is turned off. An airplane zooms overhead. Finally, with the street corner dark and empty, the camera zooms in on the white, annihilating glare of a streetlight. The end.
Mr. Antonioni said he intended the ending to show "the eclipse of all feelings," and saw it as a coda both to the film and to the entire trilogy. But he also wanted different people to read different meanings into his work. "There may be meanings, but they are different for all of us," he told an interviewer.
In 1964, Mr. Antonioni made his first color film, "Il Deserto Rosso (Red Desert)" with Richard Harris. It, too, starred Ms. Vitti, as a woman coming gradually unhinged. To mirror her mental state, the director used color in very unusual ways, having houses and even trees painted bright colors and then changing those colors from scene to scene.
By the mid-'60s, Mr. Antonioni was one of the most famous and controversial film directors in the world; his movies were screened regularly on the global festival circuit and the auteur was the subject of countless essays and magazine articles. Inevitably, a Hollywood studio, in this case MGM, came calling. Not so inevitably, Mr. Antonioni welcomed them, signing a three-picture deal.
"Blow-Up" was his first effort for the studio. Filmed in English, with the British stars David Hemmings and Vanessa Redgrave in the hip milieu of the swinging London fashion scene, "Blow-Up" became the director's biggest hit. It was also, stylistically, different from his previous films, more conventionally plotted and faster-paced, though still fundamentally ambiguous.
Following its commercial and critical success, Mr. Antonioni came to America to make his first big-budget film, and chose the student protest movement as his subject. "Zabriskie Point" (1970) was the result and it was a disaster.
Though some foreign critics praised the film, it was almost universally panned in the United States. "To many critics, it seemed as if the director, who had begun the decade in absolute control of his medium, was ending it in something approaching total confusion," Mr. Turner wrote.
"Zabriskie Point" was a box-office flop for MGM, one of the biggest financial failures of its day. Mr. Antonioni was devastated and, in many ways, his career never recovered. Certainly, his most fertile creative period was over. He had made six films in the 1960s, many of them regarded as masterpieces, but would make only three more films in the ensuing quarter-century.
But Mr. Antonioni recaptured some of his previous critical respect with 1975's "The Passenger," starring Jack Nicholson as a reporter in North Africa who assumes the identity of a gun-runner. The film closes with a famous, 10-minute continuous tracking shot in which Mr. Nicholson is seen in his hotel room, waiting to be killed. The camera pulls out of the room and meanders through the courtyard. People and objects move in and out of the seamless shot before the camera comes full circle and re-enters the hotel room to find Mr. Nicholson dead. " 'The Passenger' leaves no doubt about Antonioni's mastery," wrote the film critic David Thomson, who called it "one of the great films of the '70s."
Following "The Passenger," Mr. Antonioni announced he wanted to take some time to study new technologies and spent five years doing so, before Ms. Vitti asked him to return to directing with a 1980 Italian television film called "Il Mistery di Oberwald" (The Mystery of Oberwald)." Shot on videotape and transferred to film, it was substantially lighter than his previous works. This, he said, allowed him to "escape from the difficulty of moral and esthetic commitment, from the obsessive desire to express oneself." It was awarded a silver ribbon for visual effects at the 1980 Venice Film Festival, but made little international impact.
Mr. Antonioni made his final commercial film, "Identificazione di una donna" (Identification of a Woman) in 1982, about a man who has affairs with two women following the death of his wife. It won a Grand Prix at the Cannes festival that year.
In 1985, while working on a film adaptation of a short story he had written in 1976, Mr. Antonioni suffered a stroke and the project was put aside. He married the next year for the second time, to the former Enrica Fico, and they lived quietly in an apartment in Rome. She was at his side when he died, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. He had no children, The Associated Press reported.
After the stroke, Mr. Antonioni worked on an Italian television documentary built around the 1990 World Cup soccer championship, but did not work on a feature film again until 1995 when Italian producers lured him out of retirement to make "Beyond the Clouds," based on a book of his stories. Because of Mr. Antonioni's infirmity, though, German director Wim Wenders was brought in to help and is listed as its co-director.
Since his stroke, Mr. Antonioni had difficulty speaking more than a few words at a time, so much of the work was done by his wife, Enrica, who energetically interpreted the director's demands. The film starred Jeanne Moreau and John Malkovich. The reemergence of Mr. Antonioni spurred the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences to present him with a Lifetime Achievment Award in 1995.
Mr. Antonioni began directing again in his 90s. He collaborated with Steven Soderbergh and Wong Kar-wai, the Hong Kong director, on a trilogy about love and sexuality called Eros, which was released in 2004. He also made a short film called Lo Sguardo di Michelangelo. To his champions, like David Thomson, "the predicament of the world's greatest living filmmaker unable to work is a fit subject for one of his mediations."
For Mr. Thomson, "The enigmas in Antonioni's work are as subject to time as monuments are to erosion, and the achievements of some films can offset or explain the apparent, or early, limits of others. For example, 'The Passenger' helped us to see the longing for escape and space in 'L'Avventura' and illuminated the persistence of life at the end of 'L'EcLisse.' I suspect that Antonioni's best films will continue to grow and shift, like dunes in the centuries of desert. In that process, if there are eyes left to look, he will become a standard for beauty."
But for others Mr. Antonioni remained not only enigmatic, but also unreachable to the end.
One interviewer asked him to look back over his life. "In a world without film, what would you have made?" he was asked.
Mr. Antonioni replied: "Film."
Continue reading the main story


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A while ago I was invited to the KISS Products Fall/Holiday 2016 Preview event, where I got to see a bunch of the new nail and lash products that Kiss has out now or for the Holiday season. I also got a great goodie bag full of fun products, and I wanted to show you what I received, and give you my thoughts on some of the products I've already had the chance to try out!
As always, while I was given these products for my consideration, this post is not sponsored, and no one even asked me for my reviews. I just want to share my honest opinions about some of these things and show you some of the fun things Kiss has in store.
First, let's take a look at the new KISS lashes that are out. These are their "Blooming Lashes," and I've been surprised at how much I like them and how easy they are to work with.
These lashes are supposed to have a very natural look to them because of the multiple layers of lashes, instead of most other strip lashes which all come out at the same level... something your lashes do not do.
Lily, probably the first ones I tried, and very pretty. Light enough for my face, even with my hooded lids, because the lashes are long but thin and fluttery.
I've tried about 3 or 4 of the styles I received so far, and I really do like them. I'm not a pro at lash application, but I can get these on at least passably well pretty much every time, as they are pretty easy to work with. The ones with the lighter, more feathery lashes are a bit easier than the denser ones, I found, since the lash band seems to bend easier on those ones. A clear band is always easier to use, in my experience.
Jasmine: probably the boldest lashes I recieved, since they are as thick as Lily (below), but also long and fluttery.
That said, one of my favourites for my faces was Tulip, since the shorter lashes fit my hooded eyes much better, without overwhelming my eye or eyeshadow as much as the longer options. Tulip is a great option for anyone with small lids who still wants really bold lashes!
Above: Tulip. To see close ups of the other lashes, click on any image in this post. You should be taken to an album with all the pictures of the KISS products, including the other lashes.
I also recieved a black tinted lash glue (which I will probably never use, because I am not skilled enough to mess around with black glue) and a pack of Trio lashes, which are great for customizing your lashes to be as bold or subtle as you want. But I find they take way more practise than a lash strip, because the placement is very finnicky. I've never successfully applied this type of lashes...
One more eye-related thing that I recieved from KISS were these cool eye tattoos:
I'm not sure when I will get around to using this, since it doesn't fit into my Halloween makeup this year, but maybe I can fit it into a Halloween tutorial? They're really cool for someone lazy about Halloween, or who just doesn't have the skill to do a bunch of Halloween makeup. This one in particular would be really cool either as a lazy costume itself, or as part of something like a witch costume!
It sounds like these tattoos apply just like those water tattoos you used to wear as a kid (or maybe you still wear them, no judgement here!), and come off with baby oil or face cleanser.
That's all the lash and face products now, so let's have a look at the various types of press on nails and other nail products available from KISS that they were showing off and giving out at the event.
First, here are the most currently relevant things: the Broadway Halloween press-on nails. These come in a bunch of adorable and cool patterns for Halloween. I received two sets, but there is at least one more with a very cute candy corn print. The two I was given glow in the dark, as well, which makes them even cooler.
These are very similar (if not exactly the same) as the usual KISS ImPress nails that I've tried many times before. They already have an adhesive tab applied to the back of each nail, you just pick out your sizes, peel off the plastic backs, and press them on. They're really quick and easy to use and last about a week—I've worn them up to 10 days in the past.
They're also really easy to remove; if you wear them for a full week, they may pop off on their own, or at least start to loosen, but if you only want them for a couple days they're still easy to pop back off with minimum effort or nail damage, and you can try to get a little hot water or nail polish remover under the nail if you need help loosening them.
And since we're already talking about the ImPress nails, above are 4 of the new sets hey have out for either the Fall or Holiday season. I love that these aren't super long, so they don't get in the way of your everyday life. It can be pretty hard going from naturally short nails like mine to long, glamourous nails in minutes. You have no time to adapt!
Back to Halloween...
If you don't want or need fake nails, KISS also has some really cool nail stickers, as well as some fun Halloween nail wraps. I love that KISS gets so into the Halloween fun!
Also pictured above at the polish pop stickers and nail wraps wish are meant for creating accent nails. There isn't enough of any pattern to create a full manicure from, but you can use bits and pieces to dress up your manicure (or even patch up an existing one!)
Continuing on the nail art theme, these waterless nail tattoos are also a fun way to create accent nails, or patch up chips. Or you could use them on every nail for a fun, feathery manicure that looks like you have some mad nailart painting skillz.
KISS also put out two really cool gift sets that would be great for this Christmas for any nail or beauty lover. The first is a great little manicure set with all the tools you need for home manicures:
The second is a nail art kit with brushes, stickers, glitters, foil tape, and a mini topcoat/nail art sealer.:
This is a great little kit, and I've already used some of the glitter from it to create accent nails. I think anyone looking to get into nail art would really enjoy this kit because it has lots to play with, whether you want glitter, dots, or just good brushes to draw your own art. The long, thin striper brush and the fan brush are great for getting cool effects.
Finally, KISS has put out some beautiful Gel Fantasy press-on nail styles for the Holidays, including these two glittery beauties:
As you can see from the picture, these come in a few different lengths, so you can pick the one that is best for your life style comfort level, or existing nails (if you don't want to have to cut down your nails to fit under the fake one, for example). I will point out, also, that these are very different from the ImPress and Broadway nails that I was talking about earlier. Those pop on easily and pop back off whenever you want. But where those are temporary, these seem semi-permanent.
These do come with adhesive tabs, which may act more like the imPress nails, though I haven't tried them, and cannot confirm or deny this theory. The way they were applied to my nails at the event was with a liquid adhesive that is included in each package. The glue is applied to the inside of the nail, as well as your natural nail, and it really sticks these nails on!
The upside to that is that it feels much more natural to use the nails for everyday things like typing, scratching an itch, or playing with your hair. The ImPress nails can move a bit with pressure applied, and never adhere at the edges, so I find hairs can easily stick underneath and get tugged or broken. The Gel Fantasy nails don't allow those annoying things to happen, but they are also much more difficult to remove, and I do feel that they damaged my nails when I took mine off.
You've supposed to file off the shine and they soak your nails in acetone/nail polish remover to get these ones off, and I'll admit I'm a bit impatient, and did that to an extent, but also kinda just pulled them off as soon as I could, which too the top layer of nail with the fake in some places. It took my nails a couple of weeks to grow out and recover from this damage. But that said, I can still definitely see myself using them again. You just need to be careful and/or accept the consequences!
Finally, I also recieved these pretty, simple French manicure style "acrylic" nail press-ons that look to apply the same way as the Gel Fantasy nails. I haven't tested them yet, but I imagine they act the same, or at least very similarly, and really stick to your nails in the same way.
One more thing to point out about the press-on nails: part of the reason they only last about a week—whether we're talking about the ImPress, Broadway Nails, Gel Fantasy, or Acrylic Nudes—is that your nails are going to grow out in about a week to a point where it becomes less attractive and less comfortable to wear the fake nails because of the new gap at the base of your nails. I found this made my nails feel more bendy as they grew out with the Gel Fantasies, probably because more weight and stiffness was at the tip of my nail than the new growth was prepared to handle.
All in all, while I've said some negative things about some of the products that KISS presented and provided me with, I really do think that this brand has a lot of great things available. I'm particularly partial to their fake nails because they are so much cooler, faster, and more durable than anything I can do to my own nails. They aren't an all-the-time thing, but they are fun to play with!
You should be able to find various KISS products at WalMart, London Drugs, Target, Well.ca, and various other places that sell drugstore nail products.
Thanks for reading!

subset: commoncrawl


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Alissa Polan
Alissa Polan
Lighting reflects his love of materials (San Pietro Pendant and Mariposa Grove), 1973/2015
25 x 25 inches framed, collage on postcard
New York based artist Alissa Polan utilizes collage, photography and sculpture to examine society's fetishistic relationship with nature and luxury. In this series, Polan juxtaposes the use of text and surrealistic imagery to exploit photography's ability to mimic ownership, examining the mechanics of capitalism, escapism, desire and ambivalence.
Polan received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has exhibited works throughout the US including, Klowden Mann, Culver City, CA; Sonoma Valley Museum, Sonoma, CA and Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, New Orleans, LA. Polan lives and works in Brooklyn.
Heather Marx Art Advisory will be in touch about shipping arrangements immediately. For a quote before purchasing, please email us at email@example.com for rates and timing.


text: Theatre Please note this event has already taken place and you are viewing an archived page of the Lakeside website.For a list of current events, exhibitions and workshops, please click on 'What's On' in the menu above Craft Club Join the Crafts Council's team of enthusiastic local volunteers to enjoy the pleasures of making, using wool, textiles and various other materials and craft forms. This is a great opportunity for adults and children to view Lakeside's exhibitions together and then get absorbed in some hands-on creativity. For all Workshops please book in advance at Box Office 0115 846 7777


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A Slavic Holiday.. Day 3 ends..
Heading off to the old town, we passed by another historical monument, the St. Michael's gate, that acted as an entrance to the city. Dating back to nearly the 13th century, the gates at the time were the only way of entering the city walls. The smallest amongst the four gates of the city, the gate was named after St. Michael and the Church that stood in front of it.
The old town was as in many cases, like taking a step back in time. Narrow lanes, old style shops, merging with the brand new fast food joints and burgers, combined with brick layered streets, one could simply walk these lanes for hours. The one interesting element of the old town was the market that we so much heard about. Expecting an array of shops, this one was interesting in that these were rather cart driven stalls that were all in a small place, forming an array of shops and lo behold that was the main market.
What was also interesting as we passed by the town and also in many other places were the number of fountains that we went through. Many were works of art, many as we learnt were constructed to provide a drinking water supply to the people of the city and commissioned by the Kings of the day and going back centuries. It was indeed impressive to state that most of these were still functional, with the architecture intact and an absolute blessing on a hot day, with the water ice cold.
Another beautiful city or town that we passed by, with the streets filled with gems of various kinds. Statues of kings gone long back, of war heroes, every stone / metal figure had a story to tell. Be it Napoleon standing next to a chair or another Japanese guard at the other end, each one had a history behind it. It was simply a wonder that I was able to gather the different bits and pieces that were on offer by the guide, and making me regret that I was not paying that much attention to the guide but more on the photographs, but then hey, this was a city that was a surprise every few steps.
From the cobbled streets with impressions of the castle impressed upon them to the crown images on the street showing the way to the Castle to the sandstone fountain statue of the lady with the lamb, we headed off to our next stop, Lunch !!
Lunch turned out to be an interesting twist, as it was not only at an Indian Restaurant, but it happened to be on a boat. Not a cruise, but lunch on a Hotel Boat. It was not one of those that we had grown up watching in the movies, but fairly good, with Hotel rooms on the lower level and the Lunch stateroom on the top. The weather not being too brilliant, and the boat bereft of an Air Conditioner, not one what one would call a cool lunch, but still pleasant overall. The surprise of the Lunch was the Birthday treat that the wife got (being her Birthday) and it was indeed an awesome feeling to have a cake arranged so far off from home and celebrating it with near and dear ones.
Lunch over, it was time to head of the Czech republic, Prague, where in as normal a packed itenary lay in store for us. However as luck would have it and as the saying goes, Man proposes, God disposes, we encountered one of the best traffic jams seen in a long time (per our driver, it was the worst he had ever seen in his life, and that coming from a person who did cross country driving daily). A journey that was expected to take a little over 3 hours, took nearly 7 hours to complete with the cars stuck for miles on end as far as the eyes could see. What did not help was the fact that the return road to Budapest was clean, it seemed the entire country of Hungary was joining us to Prague on our tour. And as with all major traffic jams, five and a half hours into the jam, as we reached a particular point, the jam simply disappeared as if it never existed. Oh well, such is life.
Prague in, considering the time spent on the road, not many takers for a late night, post a quick Dinner at the Indian Restaurant, which amazingly served some excellent Pasta and Jeera Aloo, the beds were the only thing in our minds as the decks were hit.
Day 4 would see the Prague tour commence…


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Project Guide
How to Measure for Roller and Solar Shades
Time Required: Under 2 hours
Difficulty: Beginner
Roller and solar shades are particularly useful when it comes to protecting your furniture and carpet from harmful UV radiation, and can be paired with many additional liner options to perfectly customize your light control needs. When measuring to fit any of these shades to your windows, it is important to remember a few key things:
- A steel tape measure is much more accurate than cloth measuring tape.
- Always measure to the nearest 1/8 inch. Don't round to a half or whole inch.
- Be careful about transposing measurements. Be sure to always have width and height clearly marked. And remember: always put your width measurement first, and height last (W x H).
- When measuring for an inside mount - always record the actual window opening size when you order. The factory will make the necessary adjustments for your product to fit into the window frame.
- When measuring for an outside mount, add at least 3 inches to every side of the window to make sure your room is private and that you are blocking the most light.
Tip: Are your windows uneven? Don't worry, as this is fairly typical when measuring windows. However, if your measurements seem significantly out of square, it might be good to choose an outside mount, which helps to hide uneven windows.
This project guide highlights the process for choosing an inside or outside mount, measuring for an inside mount and measuring for an outside mount.
- It's important to decide whether you want your window treatment mounted inside the window frame or outside of the window frame, above and around the window, before you do any measuring. At The Home Depot, we typically recommend an inside mount because it makes for a simple, clean appearance. One thing to keep in mind is that inside mounted products require a minimum amount of depth to install correctly.
- Outside mounts have many benefits, such as hiding an unattractive window, or making a window seem even larger than it actually is. When figuring out where to place an outside mounted window treatment, please account for the height of the product's head rail when you make your measurements. Please take time to double check your measurements, as these blinds will be made for your exact window.
- Measuring for horizontal blinds is simple. It's just two easy steps. In this short video, you will see just how easy it is to measure for an inside mount. Inside mount refers to a blind that is mounted to the inside of your window frame. This type of mount is by far the most common choice, and is highly recommended.
- An outside mount is typically used in only two situations: if there are obstructions inside your window frame, such as an alarm sensor, or if your window frame lacks sufficient mounting depth to hold your blind.
- Our web site provides details on how much depth is required to install your blinds with an inside mount. In most cases, the depth that you will need is only a few inches.
- When measuring for any window covering, it is important to use a steel measuring tape and round to the nearest 1/8-inch increment.
- The first step is to measure the inside width of your window. rounding down to the nearest 1/8-inch increment after taking each measurement. Begin by measuring the inside width of your window opening in three places: top, middle and bottom.
- After recording your three measurements, select the narrowest one. This will be the width that you order. Please do not make any deductions to this measurement. The factory will make your blinds slightly narrower so that it can properly move up and down within your window.
- The second step is to measure the exact height of your window in three places: left, middle and right. Choose the tallest measurement. This is the height you will order.
- Now that you have completed these few simple steps, you are ready to place your order. It's that easy.
- Measuring for horizontal blinds is simple. It's just two easy steps. In this short video, you will see just how easy it is to measure for an outside mount. Outside mount blinds are a good choice if an inside mount is not possible due to little or no window depth. Outside mount blinds are mounted outside the window opening, on either the wood trim frame or adjacent flat surface area.
- The product details page on our web site provides information on how much flat space is required around your window to install your blinds. When you specify an outside mount, we will not take any size deductions. Your blinds will be made at the exact size you specify.
- When measuring for any window covering, it is important to use a steel measuring tape and round to the nearest 1/8-inch increment.
- Your first step is to determine the width of the blind you will order. If you have trim around your window, simply measure to the far edges of your trim from left to right. If your window has no trim around it, measure a distance from point A to point B that includes any extra width you may desire for light gap coverage and privacy. We recommend adding 2 to 3 inches to each side.
- Your second step is to determine the height of the blind you will order. If your window has a protruding sill, start from the sill and measure 3 inches beyond the top of your window opening to accommodate for mounting hardware. If your window sill does not protrude, we suggest you begin your measurement 2 to 3 inches below the sill for maximum coverage, and then measure 3 inches beyond the top of your window opening to accommodate your hardware.
- Record your measurement to the nearest 1/8-inch increment. This is the height you will order. We will not take any size deductions or additions. Your blind will be made the exact size you specify.
- Now that you have completed these two simple steps, you're ready to place your order. It's that easy.


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Maps for quests in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion plugin Knights of the Nine Revelation.
The First Era land of Cyrod, although fairly extensive, does not cover the entirety of modern Cyrodiil. There are a number of Ayleid cities marked on the map that cannot be entered, and some that are not marked that also cannot be visited. There are some standard monsters and animals in the wilderness, as well as Ayleid Soldiers patrolling in pairs on the roads.
Ayleid Wells, which are no longer ruined, and at least some of the various Magical Stones can also be found in the same places that they are in modern Cyrodiil. There are naturally no Imperial cities or ruins, although there are several dungeons and caverns.
Credit: Lanceor/Bethesda Softworks/eGDC Ltd(1) An Ayleid Statue
This is where you appear in First Era Cyrod at the end of the quest Raid on Castle Relleis. Nearby are Ovidius, who will start the quest Liberate Vindasel, and the damaged Crusader's Relics, which will start the quest Recovering the Crusader's Relics.
(2) Nisin[1]
A single zone cavern that appears to be unchanged.
(3) Vindasel
Visited during the quest Liberate Vindasel, this is an Ayleid city that is currently under attack by Alessian forces. Outside the entrance are a dead Alessian Soldier and a dead Ayleid Soldier.
(4) Felgageldt Cave[2]
A two zone dungeon consisting of Felgageldt Cave and Felgageldt Wishbone Vault, this looks to be identical except that the Bandits are no longer present and instead there are five Ayleid Soldiers and two Aurorans in Felgageldt Cave and by two Ayleid Soldiers in Felgageldt Wishbone Vault.
(5) Greenmead Cave[3]
A three zone dungeon which consists of Greenmead Cave, Greenmead Soggy Hollows and Greenmead Inky Grottos, this appears to be identical to the standard cavern.
(6) Fanacasecul
A former Ayleid city now occupied by Alessian forces, this is visited during the quests The Slave Queen, Reforging the Crusader's Relics, The Spirit Barrier, The Song of Pelinal and The Covenant.
(7) Haynote Cave[4]
The three zones of this catacomb are Haynote Cave, Haynote Basin Galleries and Haynote Winding Sump, which all appear to be identical to the Third Era place.
(8) Yellow Tick Cave[5]
The two zone dungeon consisting of Yellow Tick Cave and Yellow Tick Hollows is the same except the Conjurers in the first zone are no longer there and instead there are eight Ayleid Sorcerers and those in the second by seven Ayleid Sorcerers.
(9) Sercen
Sercen is an Alessian occupied former Ayleid city that is entered during the quest Reforging the Crusader's Relics.
(10) Wellspring Cave[6]
Wellspring Cave is visited during the quest The Arrow of Time. The Necromancers are no longer present and instead there are Ayleid Soldiers, although the latter may be missing, making the area completely deserted.
(11) Memorial Cave[7]
As it is in the present day, Memorial Cave is a Vampire lair.
(12) Upper Vanua
Upper Vanua is a two zone abandoned Ayleid city that is visited during the quest The Covenant.
(13) Lower Vanua
A single zone abandoned Ayleid city with an underwater entrance in Lake Rumare that is visited during the quest Little Brother.
(14) Shinbone Cave[8]
A two zone catacomb which consists of Shinbone Cave and Shinbone Galleries, this appears to be an unchanged Goblin lair.
(15) Mingo Cave[9]
This is a single zone cavern that appears to be identical to the one in the present.
(16) Charcoal Cave[10]
This is a three zone dungeon that consists of Charcoal Cave, Charcoal Cave - Abandoned Tunnels and Charcoal Cave - Inner Lair. This largely seems to be identical to the normal one except that in Charcoal Cave the two Bandits have been replaced with Ayleid Soldiers and in Charcoal Cave - Inner Lair - the Bandits have been replaced by 5 Ayleid Soldiers and 2 Aurorans.
(17) (Waterfall Cave) Shrine of the Eight
The shrine is visited in the quest Shrine of the Eight.
(18) Pothole Caverns[11]
A single zone complex whose Necromancer inhabitants have been replaced by an Auroran and eleven Ayleid Soldiers, but which otherwise appears to be unchanged.
(19) Horn Cave[12]
Consisting of three zones, Horn Cave, Horn Cave Still Pools and Horn Cave Grottoes, the only difference here would seem to be that the Bandits in Horn Cave have been replaced by an Auroran and four Ayleid Soldiers.
(20) Nenyond Twyll
This is a two zone Ayleid city visited in the quest The Spirit Barrier. Prior to this the door will not open.
(21) Fatback[13]
This is a three zone lair consisting of Fatback Cave, Fatback Great Chamber and Fatback Deep Basins. Apart from a couple of dead Ayleids this appears to be identical to the Third Era goblin lair.
(22) Dzonot[14]
Dzonot is a two zone dungeon consisting of Dzonot Cave and Dzonot Main Cavern. In Dzonot Cave the Bandits have been replaced by 2 Aurorans and a 3 Ayleid Soldiers; in Dzonot Main Cavern they have been replaced by an Auroran and an Ayleid Soldier. The areas otherwise appear identical.
(23) The Tower of White Gold
The Tower is surrounded by a barrier that prevents access, until it is visited in the quest The Song of Pelinal. There are Ayleid Soldiers and Aurorans surrounding and inside the Tower, but by the time they are reached, they are mostly all dead with the exception of some in the central chamber. The Tower of White Gold Basement can be reached using the Glass of Time in the Lord's Quarters of the Castle of the Nine in the present.
(24) Sinkhole Cave[15]
This is a two zone complex consisting of Sinkhole Cave and Sinkhole Great Hall. The Bandits in Sinkhole Cave have been removed and are now four Ayleid Soldiers and two Aurorans, but the remainder appears to be the same apart from the fact that one of the doors between the two areas is missing, resulting in a bottomless drop in the second zone.
(25) Meteorite Fissure
This underwater fissure at the bottom of Lake Rumare is entered during the quest Reforging the Crusader's Relics. Outside the entrance are 2 Titanite Crystals.
(26) Wellspring Island
The island is reached from Wellspring Cave and is visited during the quest The Arrow of Time. On the island are five Ayleid Soldiers and two Aurorans.
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(price as of Apr 23, 2016)


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The Kanger KBOX 120W TC Mod is the upgraded version of Kanger's original KBOX mod. With this edition to the KBOX series comes many major improvements, including a huge expansion in power output now ranging from 7W-120W and temperature control modes that can support nickel, titanium, stainless steel and ni-chrome coil builds. This device can support atomizers as low as 0.05Ω for nickel, titanium and stainless steel wire or as low as 0.1Ω for Ni-chrome wired coils giving you many options when it comes to choosing what atomizer to use with this mod. The Kanger KBOX 120 mod also features an LCD display, a temperature range of 200°F-600°F, a magnetic battery door cover and an advanced PCB that regulates the temperature at 1000 times per second to ensure the utmost accuracy, guaranteeing you will get the absolute highest quality of flavor out of this device.
1 x Kanger KBOX 120W TC Mod
Sold Separately:
Please note the Kanger KBOX 120W TC Mod requires two 18650 batteries and an 18650 charger that do no come included with the mod. If you need to purchase these items you can do so by selecting the Add 2 x 18650 Batteries option above, if you have any questions about these products please contact our customer service line during normal business hours.


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It looks like Darren McFadden will not play again. Terrelle Pryor has been activated. He played so well in the preseason and was exciting to watch. I hope you see some action.
When the offence offline fails to protect scrambling make a play. Is threat to run really keeps the defenses honest
This game day dresses going crazy
My cell phone is repeating things I don't get it
This was probably our last chance to win a game this year and it looks bleak,,,,well Al jr errrr Mark,,,who you gonna fire?
I am beginning to think spending 40 years rooting for this team may be enough


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B Impact Report
Overall B Impact Scoreinfo_outline
The B Impact Scores are being compared against all businesses that have completed the B Impact Assessment
KiMSO's mission is to support purpose driven organizations to increase their positive impact on society. They help nonprofits, foundations, enterprises and public institutions understand, assess and improve the impact of their actions on their stakeholders.
Their multidisciplinary and research-oriented team has developed an expertise in consulting and assessment in order to support purpose driven projects in every steps of their development: launching, monitoring, assessment and scaling.
Since its creation in 2014, KiMSO has undertaken more than 120 missions in 8 fields of expertise: education, employment, health, inclusion, tech, culture, environment and impact finance.
They are now a team of 8 consultants convinced that social impact must be a key driver for organizations' decision-making!


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Muslims barred from picture at Obama event
Shimaa Abdelfadeel's story was different. She'd waited in line outside the Joe Louis Arena for three hours in the sun and was walking through the giant hall when a volunteer approached two of her non-Muslim friends, a few steps ahead of her, and asked if they'd like to sit in "special seating" behind the stage, said one friend, Brittany Marino, who, like Abdelfadeel, is a recent University of Michigan graduate who works for the university.
When they said they were with Abdelfadeel, the volunteer told them their friend would have to take off the headscarf or stay out of the special section, Marino said. They declined the seats.
After recovering from the shock of the incident, Abdelfadeel went to look for the volunteer and confronted her minutes later, she said in an e-mail interview with Politico.
"We're not letting anyone with anything on their heads like baseball [caps] or scarves sit behind the stage," she paraphrased the volunteer as saying, an account Marino confirmed. "It has nothing to do with your religion!"
In most work and school settings, religious dress — such as Jewish yarmulkes, Sikh turbans and Muslim hijabs — is permitted where secular clothing, such as baseball caps, is not.
"The scarf is not just something she can take off — it's part of her identity," said Marino.
Photographs of the event also show men with hats in the section behind Obama and former Vice President Al Gore, though not directly behind the candidate.
Abdelfadeel, like Aref, felt "disappointed, angry and let down," she later wrote.
She said she was "let down that the Obama campaign continuously perpetuates this attitude towards Muslims and Arabs — as if being merely associated [with] one is a sin."
The two women's friends who witnessed the incidents were disappointed, too. Aref's friend Miller said he was "shocked" by the contrast between Obama's message and their experience.
"He was the one candidate who you would expect to stand up for something like that — and behind the scenes, you have something completely contrary to what he was running on," said Koussan, Aref's other friend.
Aref and her friends complained to the campaign, and after those complaints and an inquiry from Politico, Obama's director of advance, Emmett S. Beliveau, called her to apologize.
An Obama aide also noted that the campaign has no policy against the candidate's appearing with women in headscarves: The next morning at Wayne State University, Obama posed for a picture with a student wearing a hijab.
Photographs from a Seattle rally earlier this year also clearly show a couple in Muslim garb behind the candidate.
The administrator of the Muslims4Obama group on Obama's website, which is not a formal part of the campaign, also said she had "not heard anything regarding Muslim supporters being steered away from sitting behind Sen. Obama at the event" and noted that he had Muslim supporters present at events in Minnesota, including one at which he stood with a Muslim member of Congress, Keith Ellison.
Aref said she was glad Obama had apologized, but she was not entirely satisfied.
"I think this is a much bigger deal than maybe they're perceiving it as," she said, noting that Obama had placed a personal call to a television reporter he'd dismissively called "Sweetie."
"An apology from him personally would be better," she said, then reconsidered. "If they are true to their word, I think it would suffice to have an invitation to their next rally and have seats behind him and show up on TV."


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LONDON -(MarketWatch)- Natural gas firm Centrica PLC (CNA.LN) said Tuesday its North American subsidiary Direct Energy has acquired the Indiana-based natural gas retailer Vectren Source from Vectren Corporation VVC, -14.29% for $39 million in cash, plus additional working capital.
-Vectren Source has more than 146,000 residential and small commercial customer accounts, together with an additional 134,000 aggregation customer accounts.
-Shares at 1300 GMT up 3 pence, or 1%, at 292.2 pence valuing the company at GBP14.97 billion.


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We know who runs Hollywood .....
Friends of the USS Liberty,
At long last, the book "What I Saw That Day…Israel's 1967 Holocaust of American Servicemen Aboard The USS Liberty And Its Aftermath" by USS Liberty Survivor Phil Tourney is finished and available to the public in electronic media format.
Excerpts from the book–
"How could we have known any better? It was, after all, only about twenty years since WWII was over, and growing up in America, we had all gotten a heavy dose of how badly these people had been treated. How could we not root for poor, seemingly defenseless Israel?…"
–Ch 1–The Trail of Tears
"General Quarters alarm was sounded. I made my way to my duty station, which was one deck above the mess decks. After going down the ladder, I slipped and fell and found myself under the trampling feet of sailors as they made their way to their stations. I rolled over to my right side to get out of their way, got on my feet and joined the stampede to get to my station as well. I got into battle-dress and got my gear ready. "
"On my way back to the deck, I saw the passageways were littered with wounded men. All were bloody and moaning. My shipmates would call out to me and ask me for help. Some of them would ask me, as if I were a doctor, "Hey, man, can you do something about this?" I got to the bridge and saw that Captain McGonagle was badly wounded in the leg but still in command. Rocket and cannon holes were everywhere. Burning napalm was dripping through the holes and into the bridge compartment. I tried hitting the napalm with the Co2 canisters I had, but the fire was so intense, that the Co2 was basically useless. I requested a fire team with water hoses. In hindsight, I realize this was just a waste of time, since the hoses had been shot up like a snake hit with birdshot from a shotgun."
"Before I left, I looked at my good friend, Francis Brown – a Third-Class Quartermaster, who was steering the ship. We were good friends. We drank beer together, played cards and whatnot. We stood there for a moment, not saying a word but simply locking eyes.
I went to find more Co2 canisters. As soon as I got a hold of one, I flew back up the port ladder to get to the bridge. When I got to the top, I stepped in something wet, causing me to slip and fall on my back violently. The Co2 canister flew out of my hands and came crashing down with a bang that caused everyone, including McGonagle, to look in my direction.
As soon as I got up, I saw what it was that had caused me to slip and fall. My good friend, Francis Brown had caught a machine gun bullet or a piece of shrapnel in the back of the head and his blood was everywhere. His eyes were closed but his face was swelled up like a balloon. It was something that no human being should ever have to see and especially when it is your good friend.
My first thought when seeing this was "Those Arab bastards, they just blew my friend to pieces…"
–Chapter 2–Those Arab Bastards
"At last, the jets realized they would not succeed in sinking us. They called off their attack and left. Before we could breathe a sigh of relief however, the voice of Captain McGonagle came over the intercom, ordering the ship's crew to prepare for torpedo hit, starboard side.
I looked out to see the torpedo boats coming at us at a high rate of speed. Unlike the jets, the torpedo boats were proudly flying their flag, a Star of David. When I saw the flag and the high rate of speed they were coming at us, I breathed a sigh of relief. Foolishly, I assumed that our beloved ally had scared off the jets and were coming to our rescue.
The delusion lasted for only a minute until I saw the splash of several torpedoes being dropped in the water as they headed towards us. Unable to find a big enough vein during the first time with the air assault, the vampire now moved to a different part of our neck, searching out the jugular."
–Chapter 2–Rude Awakening
"As the helicopter hovered over us at about fifty feet above the deck, I could see that my worst suspicions had been proven correct. This was not a rescue helicopter. Instead, there were commandos, special forces, armed with sub-machineguns used for close-quarter combat.
I knew immediately they were not here to give us help. They were here to finish what their fellow assassins had been unable to accomplish. They were going to murder the entire crew of the USS Liberty. Then, once we were all dead and they were free to move about as they pleased, they would place explosives in strategic areas of the ship, detonate them and sink us all. The perfect crime, leaving no witnesses.
As the helicopter hovered for a moment, I saw that the troops inside were preparing to board the ship. From no more than 75 feet away, I stood like a dumb-ass in an open doorway where they had a clear shot at me. I locked eyes with one of my would-be assassins who was sitting on the floor of the helicopter. His legs were hanging out, and he had one foot on the skid below as he waited for the order to repel down to the ship's deck and finish us all off."
Ch 4–Staring Into The Eyes Of The Devil
"Despite the fact it had not saved us from being attacked the day before, the crew of the Liberty was excited to see the red, white and blue flag of our beloved homeland being displayed on the other ships as they approached. Someone's voice, (I don't know whose) came over the ship's intercom announcing that a destroyer was coming alongside the Liberty. The water was like a sheet of smooth glass – not a ripple to be found. The USS Davis came up alongside us until we were separated only by inches. They threw over about half a dozen lines. We caught them and tied the two ships together. As soon as the ships were wed, a plank was put in place and the men of the Davis started boarding our ship. There were about thirty or forty of them, to my guess.
The emotions of the Davis crew ranged from fury to devastation. Men cursed like sailors and cried like babies. Over and over we heard from them the apologies; that they would have given their family jewels to have been here to stop the carnage. Some of the Davis crew ran their hands over the holes in the ship's surface, shaking their heads in disgust and outrage."
–Chapter 6, Eighteen Hours of Hell
To call it an important book may be the greatest understatement of the century, as Phil Tourney's story literally carries the keys to understanding why America finds itself paralyzed by one tiny nation thousands of miles away.
The electronic media version of "What I Saw That Day…Israel's 1967 Holocaust of American Servicemen Aboard The USS Liberty And Its Aftermath" by USS Liberty Survivor Phil Tourney can be purchased online for $10.00 by going to http://thelibertyhour.podbean.com and clicking on the donations icon towards the right side of the homepage. The hardcopy version, soon to be made available and the audio version can be had for $20.00. Those purchasing the electronic media version can use their purchase as credit towards the whole package once available.
Those wanting to order the electronic version but don't want to use online payment methods can send a check to
Liberty Publications
Box 27 Careywood, Idaho 83809
source: USS Liberty blog


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Wood Thrush Photo: Kelly Colganazar / FlickrCC
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See the benefits of Audubon membership.
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From membership & monthly giving to legacy gifts, you can give to the national office, a regional office, or even a specific program. With company matches you could double your gift.


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Sometimes while using the System.Data.Sqlite .Net library I noticed that when db access was finished with and the method doing the access had returned, there were still open file handles to the database file. Every subsequent access created a new perpetual file handle. I have found a way that fixes this, that works for me anyway ;-) ...
You can view a list of file handles on the database by installing the WhoLockMe explorer plugin, right click on the database file and click "WhoLockMe..." Download for free: http://www.dr-hoiby.com/WhoLockMe/. You may see your application executable in the list or w3wp.exe if its a web application (IIS web server process, although a multithreaded host app like IIS will create file handles for each thread accessing the data).
I have even seen System.Data.Sqlite lock data files on one machine, but not lock it on another while both were running the exact same code.
//Declare sql and connection string
string sqlStr = "SELECT * FROM table";
string connStr = "Data Source=datafilename;Version=3;";
//Problem code:SqliteConnection sqlCon = new SqliteConnection(connStr);
//do stuff
Even after Close() is called, the database may still be locked and prevent data updates, deletions etc. Check with WhoLockMe.
This code seems to avoid the locking problem:
using (SqliteConnection sqlCon = new SqliteConnection(connStr))
using(SqliteCommand sqlCom = new SqliteCommand(sqlCon, sqlStr))
using(SqliteCommand sqlCom = new SqliteCommand(sqlCon, sqlStr))
using(SqliteDataReader rdr = sqlCom.ExecuteReader())
//do data stuff
sqlCon.Close(); //CLOSE sqlCon BEFORE sqlCom IS DESTROYED!}


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The Roma Conundrum Looking for Clues in a Romanian Village
Part 2: Last on the List
But how likely is it that Roma children will return to a country that is poor and where they are "last on the list," as an adviser to Romania's prime minister puts it?
That adviser is sitting at a conference table in Bucharest. Water is served in plastic bottles here and two iPhones rest on the table in front of him. The man has closely cropped hair, wears a suit and speaks English well. He himself is Roma and used to travel through the country making music. Romania has a Roma strategy, he says, but only because the European Commission, the EU's executive, requires one, and it's only on paper. "If you marry a woman knowing she's an alcoholic, you can't complain about it afterward," he says. In this analogy, Romania is the drunken wife and the EU the naïve husband.
He keeps asking: "Do you understand, Franziska?" If she has a problem, he says, he's glad to help. If too many Roma from Fântânele are going to Berlin, he suggests, he can initiate some projects in the village -- Giffey only needs to say the word. She laughs, and he laughs, when she tells him the child benefits that families can receive in Berlin are 20 times what they are in Bucharest. "Bullshit," he says over and over again, and rants about his country.
That evening, Giffey sips a glass of water at a reception on the 18th floor of a modern skyscraper in Bucharest, where she has come at the invitation of the German embassy. There are hors d'oeuvres of cream cheese and salmon, and men in suits are drinking sparkling wine. A foundation representative explains that mayors in Romania are glad to see their Roma residents go.
Shortly before flying back to Germany, Giffey meets with a diplomats' working group on Roma issues in Bucharest. The representative from Switzerland says his country has no problems with integration: Roma come over during the day to beg, then travel back to France to sleep. From the French representatives, Giffey learns that their country has quietly ceased its program of returning Roma to their home countries. There is no point, the representatives say, since the Roma always come back again and in fact are glad to have been sent away (with money from the French government), saying: "Thank you, (former French President) Sarkozy, for paying for my vacation trip home." Giffey notes all of this down in her black notebook. Outside, it's raining. She heads to the airport and back to Germany.
A Growing Number of Children
Five days after her return from Romania, Giffey is attending a district council meeting on the second floor of Neukölln's district town hall. It's early evening and some women are relaxing on the town hall steps, knitting pink sweaters. These are the long-established immigrants, but Neukölln's newest arrivals are here as well, represented by a Roma woman breastfeeding her child on the steps.
The topic before the district council today is school meals. There are sausages and slices of cheesecake in the lobby, where Heinz Buschkowsky, perhaps Germany's most famous mayor of a city district, is sitting by the counter. Buschkowsky, Neukölln's mayor, was recently re-elected by the district council for a term lasting until 2016. He's eating potato salad from a paper plate and looks tired.
Giffey, waiting at the next table, says that when she returned to Berlin she requested a list of new arrivals and learned that since the beginning of this year, 68 new children have entered the local school system from Romania and Bulgaria alone.
Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein.
- Part 1: Looking for Clues in a Romanian Village
- Part 2: Last on the List


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Emily here! For more Camino photos you can follow Lindsay, Ron, Lauren, and Gabriela on Instagram, and check out #travelightfilm as well while you're there! Now onto Lindsay: Hey everybody! Sorry that I haven't updated you yet on days 23 through 27 on the Camino. They've been full days, good days (with their tough moments of course) and I have so much I could write about now, it's daunting to know where to start.
I'm going to try to catch up and share at least one story from each day, so there might be double posts for a few days in a row. In the meantime, here's a photo of the team at Cruz de Fierro (minus Gabriela... we need to get a photo with her at our next checkpoint) and some photos of me jumping in the river at Cacabelos in an attempt to get over my writer's block yesterday.


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The Texas Underground
A Guide to the Graves of Texans Past
August 25, 2015
George Krause Kitchen
George K. Kitchen, Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, on October 5, 1844, son of George Kitchen. Both of his parents were born in England. Kitchen married a woman named Annie, who died in 1915, and later a second wife named Emma. Sgt. George K. Kitchen was in Texas with Company H, Sixth United States Cavalry, on the upper Washita River on September 9, 1874, with Lyman's wagon train, attempting to reach Gen. Nelson A. Miles's forces on the Washita River, when the company was attacked by a large force of Indians. They engaged the enemy from September 9 to 14 under very difficult conditions. Kitchen was awarded the Medal of Honor for "gallantry in action." After leaving the army he lived in San Antonio for seventeen years and worked in the United States Post Office there. He died at Kelly Field No. 2 on November 22, 1922, and is buried in St. Mary's Cemetery, San Antonio.
Gallantry in action.
29° 25.016, -098° 27.832
St. Mary's Cemetery
San Antonio
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Medal of Honor Recipients
August 18, 2015
Benjamin Brigham
The son of Asa and Elizabeth Brigham, Benjamin arrived in Texas from Louisiana in April 1830, with his parents and brother Samuel. They made their home in Brazoria Municipality as a part of Austin's Third Colony on November 30, 1830. In early 1836, he enlisted as an orderly sergeant in Captain Robert J. Calder's Company of Brazoria Volunteers. Benjamin Brigham was mortally wounded at the Battle of San Jacinto, dying on the night of April 22nd.
Note: In 1881, a decision was made to place permanent memorials at the graves of those men who had been killed in the Battle of San Jacinto and buried on the battlefield. It was discovered, however, that all of the original wooden grave markers, except for Benjamin Brigham's, had rotted away and no one could remember exactly where the others rested. As a compromise, since the soldiers had been buried closely together, it was decided to place a cenotaph over Brigham's grave as a memorial to all of them.
29° 45.232, -095° 05.363
San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site
La Porte
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The Soldiers of San Jacinto
August 11, 2015
Robert Francis Catterson
Robert Francis Catterson was born in 1835 on a farm near Beech Grove in Marion County, Indiana. He was the son of an Irish immigrant, but his father died in 1840 when Robert was only five years old. Catterson's education began at Adrian College in Michigan, and then he attended Cincinnati Medical College in Ohio, precursor to the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center. After completing his medical studies, Catterson established a medical practice in Rockville, Indiana, just prior to the start of the American Civil War.
When the American Civil War began in 1861, Catterson chose to follow the Union cause. He gave up his medical practice and volunteered to serve in the Union Army, enlisting in the 14th Indiana Infantry Regiment. On April 23 Catterson was mustered in as a private into Company A of the 14th, and on June 7 was promoted to first sergeant. Catterson was then elected as an officer, and he was commissioned a second lieutenant on July 5. The following year he was promoted to first lieutenant on March 15, 1862. In 1862 Catterson saw his first battle during the Valley Campaign, participating in the First Battle of Kernstown on March 23, and was promoted to captain on May 4. Catterson next fought during the Maryland Campaign and the Battle of Antietam on September 17, where he was wounded. Upon recovering, Catterson was appointed lieutenant colonel in the 97th Regiment Indiana Infantry on October 18, and its commander as colonel on November 25. Catterson and the 97th Indiana served the Battle of Memphis in Tennessee on June 6, 1862, and the subsequent occupation of the city, until late in 1862. He then took part in the Siege of Vicksburg in the spring of 1863 and the Tullahoma Campaign that summer. Catterson and his command participated in the Third Battle of Chattanooga on November 23-25, and the Atlanta Campaign throughout the summer of 1864.
During Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's March to the Sea in the winter of 1864, Catterson was part of the Army of the Tennessee, heading a brigade in its XV Corps beginning on November 22, 1864. He fought in the Carolinas Campaign of 1865, participating in the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina on March 19-21, the fight considered the last major engagement of the American Civil War. Also during the Carolinas Campaign, Catterson served very briefly as chief of staff to Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the commander of the XV Corps. He then returned to his brigade, leading it for the rest of the campaign and to the end of the war. Catterson was brevetted to brigadier general in the Union Army on May 31, 1865, and was mustered out of the volunteer service on January 15, 1866.
After the war, Catterson chose not to return to practicing medicine; he moved to Arkansas, where he tried and failed at cotton speculation. He then became commander of the Arkansas Negro militia under Governor Powell Clayton, engaged in fighting against the Ku Klux Klan members operating there, and also as a United States Marshal. During Clayton's successful political run for the U.S. Senate, Catterson was removed as marshal when he lost the favor of Clayton, and replaced by Isaac Mills. He would later command the Brooks forces, during the Brooks-Baxter War. Catterson was the mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1872 to 1874. After serving as mayor, he moved to Minnesota, where he was unsuccessful as both a farmer and a farm implement merchant. He died at the age of 79 at the Veterans' Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, after suffering from a stroke and buried in the San Antonio National Cemetery at Section A, Grave 176/177.
29° 25.290, -098° 27.997
Section A
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio
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Soldiers and Commanders
August 4, 2015
Andrew Jackson Houston
Andrew Jackson Houston, politician, son of Sam and Margaret (Lea) Houston, was born at Independence, Texas, on June 21, 1854. In 1874, after attending various military academies and colleges including Baylor, he mustered the Travis Rifles to protect the new post-Reconstruction Democratic legislature. He was admitted to the bar at Tyler in 1876 and was United States district court clerk from 1879 to 1889. In 1892 he accepted the "Lily-white" Republican nomination for governor, though the party was split and had no chance of winning. In 1898 Houston gathered a troop of Rough Riders for Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1902 he accepted President Roosevelt's appointment as United States marshal in East Texas, a post in which he served until 1910. In 1910 and 1912 Houston again accepted futile nominations for the governorship, this time on the prohibition slate. He then returned to his legal practice in Beaumont. He was awarded several honors in the 1930s, including the post of honorary superintendent of San Jacinto State Park (now San Jacinto Battleground State Park). In 1938 he published
Texas Independence
, a book about his father's role in the Texas Revolution.
After the death of United States senator Morris Sheppard on April 9, 1941, Governor W. Lee O'Daniel wanted to replace Sheppard as senator himself, but was required to appoint an interim senator to serve until election time. He had to find someone of some prominence who would like to be senator but would not run against him in the special election. O'Daniel selected Houston, who was two months short of his eighty-eighth birthday and disabled by illness. At that time Houston was the oldest person ever to serve in the United States Senate. There was some doubt that he would even enter the Senate chamber, since his daughters did not want him to risk the long trip. He did, however, travel to Washington a few weeks after his appointment. There he died after attending one committee meeting. On June 26, 1941, Houston's body was returned to Texas and buried at the State Cemetery in Austin. He had been married twice-to Carrie G. Purnell, who died in 1884, and to Elizabeth Hart Good, who died in 1907. Three daughters survived him.
30° 43.596, -095° 32.839
Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
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When a serial lands in problems or the story needs to be elongated, there are some traditional measures that can be adopted such as amnesia, plastic surgery, etc. All of them are great for changing not only the person playing the character, but also help in adding a few weeks to the serial. And so it proved in Kasturi; just when the confrontation between Kasturi and Raunaq seemed to reaching a peak and Robbie would become totally aware of the truth of Raunaq, things changed. So what did happen ?
Well, Kasturi decided that she needed to strike back, so she pretended to behave madly. In the midst of this, Raunaq and Anita decided that they really do need to end the life of Kasturi, and they can drop her off a cliff after drugging her; she however is prepared and tries to turn the tables on them. However, in the end, she is the one who gets shot and falls off the cliff, and her mother blames Robbie for this happening.
And then, the final shocker (but you must have expected it); the elder mausi (Sudha Chandran), the do-gooder who had helped Kasturi till now was actually deeply envious of her sister and will do anything to break her sister and her wealth. She convinces them to keep Robbie under guard, and handles the accusations by Kasturi's mother and the police. And then wonders of wonders, they find Kasturi in a destitute women's home (just when they discover that they need Kasturi's signature to get the wealth transferred to Raunaq); however, because of the trauma and the injuries she suffered, she is now just like a child with amnesia. However, is this a ploy by Kasturi to get her revenge ?
Updated videos of Kasturi on Youtube (link)
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Monday, June 30, 2008
Kasturi - the traditional amnesia tactic
When a serial lands in problems or the story needs to be elongated, there are some traditional measures that can be adopted such as amnesia, plastic surgery, etc. All of them are great for changing not only the person playing the character, but also help in adding a few weeks to the serial. And so it proved in Kasturi; just when the confrontation between Kasturi and Raunaq seemed to reaching a peak and Robbie would become totally aware of the truth of Raunaq, things changed. So what did happen ?
Posted by Ashish Agarwal at 6/30/2008 10:13:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: Character, Daughter, Debut, family, Hindi, Serial, Star, Transformation, TV, Values, Video, Videos
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Kumkum - Ek Pyaara Sa Bandhan
In the rebirth of the serial, Kumkum and Sumit land up in families far away from each other. Their life moves through at fast speed, and soon they reach their adulthood (after all, if they are shown as children for a long time, what happens to Hussain and Juhi Parmar - they would tend to get mighty impatient!). So, soon they reach at a point where the come into contact with each other; but totally opposite; their fathers are in conflict with each other.
And then suddenly you are witness to an extraordinary sight - Kumkum gets stuck in a spot while helping Mini, and had to cook up a story such that she is actually married and was with her husband (and this was asked by neighbors apparently, and then imagine that she could cool up a story that she was married without telling her strict father); you can imagine the rest - in a mistake, Sumit is acknowledged to be her husband, and she is not able to deny this. Her father is horrified at her selection of a husband, but is slowly coming around to accept this. Sumit is away from home after a misunderstanding with his father. He accepts this arrangement of being a false husband since Kumkum convinces him that she has the information that he is looking for.
Kumkum's chachi smells a rat and is very suspicious that Kumkum is lying, and tries various gambits to find out the truth. Imagine this, Kumkum is forced to spend several nights with Sumit in a closed room, and even though nothing happens during this time between them, just the fact that she spent the night with him means that she cannot retrieve her reputation now. Sumit is stuck in his own problem, trying to accept that his cousin Ratan is trying to kill him to get him out of the way. Ratan is under the influence of his mother Ramola. Kumkum in the meantime leaves her home and goes to Sumit's home where Ratan sees in her an opportunity to control Sumit.
Posted by Ashish Agarwal at 6/21/2008 11:03:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Character, family, Hindi, Serial, Star, Time-leap, Transformation, TV, Values
Raja Ki Aayegi Baarat - the strange story
Raja Ki Baarat is a serial that appears on Star Plus at 8 PM weekdays (Mon to Thur). It is a show about a girl called Rani, only 17 years old. She is the support of her family after the passing away of her father, and works in the big mansion (who lives in this kind of lifestyle anymore). She is very good at what she does (and she essentially works as a servant in the house), in addition she is very dedicated and honest (although the senior Bhanumathi can't stand her). The other main character of the serial is the prince, Yudhistir, who is very aware of his status. He is not arrogant, but very much aware of his tradition and duties, and will act in the manner prescribed by tradition.
In this family, the Raja Surya Singh Rathore is the strongman of the family, the absolute patriarch; his word is law in the family and he believes in his elder son. In addition, there are the 2 sisters to whom he is married - the Badi Rani and the Choti Rani. The Badi Rani is bed ridden, and does not speak. The entire family cares for her; however, it turns out that the Choti Rani (her younger sister) wants to get rid of the Badi Rani and get the focus onto her son Ranbir rather than the elder son (Yudhistir), who is after all the son of the elder Rani.
Towards this end, she is trying to poison the Badi Rani (her own sister) and Rani is getting caught up in this game, since part of her duties is to attend to the Badi Rani and give her the medicine. Now the Badi Rani is poisoned, her life is saved but she is in a coma, and the blame starts getting put on Rani. How does she get out of this and prove her innocence ?
Here are a whole set of Videos from the serial (link)
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Update on Kayamath - so finally she can stop crying
It seemed like in every episode of Kayamath, Prachi does nothing but cry. So it was somewhat relieving to see that there was finally an episode in which she is happy. And why is she happy ? Because the inevitable finally happened. The long long (too long in my opinion) scene of Milind having lost his memory, and then ditching Prachi for Ayesha (with Ayesha doing a lot of manipulation, portraying herself as the perfect manipulative and ruthless person, and combined with getting half of the dialogues where she only speaks to herself) finally turns around.
Milind, even though he seems to have not regained his memory, cannot stay away from Prachi to the utter disgust of Ayesha who tries everything possible to threaten Prachi, and to plot against her (including manipulating a relationship between Sukriti and Alaap, only thwarted when Milind sees Prachi telling Alaap to stay away from Sukriti). In all this, nobody ever suspects that Ayesha is the one behind all this.
In the end, Milind refuses to marry Ayesha, getting up from the actual marriage place (just the night before, he had told Prachi that he loved her, but he was duty bound to marry Ayesha). Ayesha is devastated by this and cannot believe that Milind is rejecting her for Prachi. Further, right then a fire happens, and in the midst of this fire, Milind miraculously regains his memory (you just need to tap them on the head and they either lose their memory or regain it). And then of course, he recognizes that Prachi is the one that was with him, and they get ready to marry. And in the midst of all, they want Ayesha to attend (after rejecting her and humiliating her, they want her to attend !).
Videos of Kayamath on Youtube (link)
Posted by Ashish Agarwal at 6/17/2008 11:13:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Character, family, Hindi, Marriage, Serial, Star, Transformation, TV
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Ghar Ki Laxmi Betiyaan - The end of Bhavishya ?
Many months ago, Saraswati was shown as having got married to Bhavishya, the worst time of her life. He caused immense torture to her, and then tried to burn her. She finally got out this problem, and Bhavishya was diagnosed as being mentally ill and sent to a mental hospital.
And then the rule of the doubles came in; Durga met a young man who looked exactly like Bhavishya. The family was very suspicious of this new person, but slowly everybody (and hesitantly Sawaswati) got over the whole worry and accepted him. He married Durga, and things seemed to be fine. He was actually genuine, and then Bhavishya, having got out of the hospital in some way, kidnapped this guy and took his place. And then he started plotting again.
He started drugging Durga, and had more plans to cause problems to the rest of the family. He also caused immense tensions between Durga and Saraswati, and eventually for Saraswati to be declared as mad and sent off to a hospital. But now his game seemed to be up; both Karan and Lakshmi realized his truth and plotted as to how to expose him. And eventually, the sisters and Savitri cornered him, and burned him to death (not good, you should never show using murder for any kind of revenge; it is illegal and gives essentially wrong advice to people).
Video of scenes from the final confrontation:
Posted by Ashish Agarwal at 6/10/2008 07:31:00 AM 0 comments
Labels: Character, Daughter, Dead, family, Hindi, Serial, Star, Transformation, TV
Friday, June 6, 2008
Latest update on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi
Seems like the saga of the Smriti Irani based character, Tulsi is now in full flow. At some point in the past, there was a fall-out between Ekta Kapoor and Smriti (primarily based on the fact that Smriti started her own production house and was spending a lot of time on this effort). So, in an accident, Smriti got removed from the serial and in her place, Gautami was brought in (with plastic surgery to explain the face change from Smriti to Gautami). Gautami soon managed to get enough proof to convince everyone that she was the real Smriti, and also acted in ways that resembled the old Tulsi (I always get confused about this, given that she is going to be stepping into a marriage with a live husband - what happens when there is the expectation of intimacy between the 2?).
So anyhow, soon Smriti came back into the serial (with a lot of fanfare), and poor Gautami was suddenly shown as a conspiring fake person, in cahoots with Mandira in order to defraud the family of the entire property and then run away with all the money. And Mihit became the good person again, having gone to Mandira's side only for the purpose of trying to find the reality of Tulsi's reality; he soon discovers that his suspicions are correct, that she is indeed fake, being in reality Juhi Thakral.
Over a period of weeks, they show Smriti (having lost her memory) getting closer to ShantiNiketan without any of her children ever seeing her.
And now, Mihir wants to prevent the family from donating the property to Juhi, while the family does not believe either Mihir (or Shobha to whom Mihir has revealed the truth); they believe that Mihir is not worth believing anymore (imagine, they don't believe their own father). Juhi is happy since she believes that she will get the entire property, but fate has something else to say. When Juhi sees Mihir and Tulsi together, she panicks and tries to run them over with her car. They both survive, and finally reach ShantiNiketan to stop this property transaction from going through.
Posted by Ashish Agarwal at 6/06/2008 02:47:00 PM 0 comments
Labels: Character, family, Hindi, Replacement, Serial, Star, Transformation, Tulsi, TV


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In the final scene of "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," Alvin and his two brothers bed down for the night just a few feet away from three singing female chipmunks. Chipmunks are not exactly known for their restraint, which leads us to some depressing math.
The Eastern chipmunk can produce two litters a year, with up to five young each. Thus within a decade, since cartoon chipmunks never die, there will be thousands of talking, singing chipmunks running around the animation universe, far more than the ecosystem can tolerate. They will begin showing up everywhere: stampeding through "The Simpsons," mucking up Japanese anime, driving Clifford the Big Red Dog bonkers. Earplug sales will soar as they sing their electronically manipulated heads off.
Anyway, the latest adventures of Alvin, Simon and Theodore find them pursuing the rock-star careers they began in the 2007 "Alvin" film (which, like this one, mixes live action and computer-generated imagery). Their human handler, Dave, ends up in traction within the first minutes of the movie, which somehow results in the boys' being enrolled in school, which they inexplicably begin at the high school level. Or something like that.
The school's music program is about to be cut, so the boys enter a talent contest, planning to use the $25,000 prize to save the music department. Whichever of the writers credited here thinks $25,000 is enough to finance a high school music program needs to go to a few more school budget meetings. In any case, a girl chipmunk group, the Chipettes, is also in the hunt, providing the plot, such as it is.
The earlier "Alvin" movie made more than $217 million just in the United States. It's hard to imagine this somewhat confused sequel doing as well.
"Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested) for a small bit of rude humor.
The Squeakquel
Opens on Wednesday nationwide.
Directed by Betty Thomas; written by Jon Vitti, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger; director of photography, Anthony B. Richmond; animation supervisor, Chris Bailey; edited by Matthew Friedman; music by David Newman; production designer, Marcia Hinds; produced by Janice Karman and Ross Bagdasarian; released by 20th Century Fox. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes.Continue reading the main story
WITH: David Cross (Ian) and Jason Lee (Dave Seville).
WITH THE VOICES OF: Zachary Levi (Toby), Justin Long (Alvin), Matthew Gray Gubler (Simon), Jesse McCartney (Theodore), Amy Poehler (Eleanor), Anna Faris (Jeanette) and Christina Applegate (Brittany).Continue reading the main story


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Toddler-Approved Recipe Roundup
RecipesToddler Food November 17, 2013 Jessica Blumel 2
The other day, I received a comment from a reader saying it would be nice to see more recipes on North Shore Mama geared toward toddlers.
So, I thought it would be fun to reach out to my fellow blogging mommies and do a recipe roundup of all of our favourite family friendly recipes.
You could use this as your meal plan for next week! Just sayin'
Lazy Leftover Salmon Cakes by Chef Melissa – The Thirties Grind
Easy to Make Spinach Nuggets by Chef Angela – One Smiley Monkey
Spaghetti Squash Muffins by Chef Emily – Well Fed, Flat Broke
Fast and Easy Mac & Cheese by Chef Nadia – Mama and the City
Southwest Turkey Chili by Chef Jennifer – Mama Papa Bubba
Cheese-Stuffed Meatloaf Minis by Chef Bianca – Bits of Bee
Cheesy Broccoli Quinoa by Chef Jessica – North Shore Mama
Do you have a fool-proof Toddler Approved recipe? Send your recipe to firstname.lastname@example.com and I will share it!
More from my site
NadiaNovember 17, 2013 #1 Author
Thank you Jessica for featuring my recipe. This article shows a good selection and I must have it handy.
BTW: your cheesy broccoli quinoa might be tonight's option. I was just thinking about quinoa last night and how to use it with what I have at home.
LeslieNovember 19, 2013 #2 Author
Thanks for this one Jess! X


text: Ever wonder where are the best cars disappeared to? I still don't know what route they took to arrive here, but the city streets are filled with classic car beauty. What makes it even better, instead of sitting around,beautifully polished in the garage of a collector, the lime green and ocean blue colored vans live out the last of their days truly appreciated. Filled to the max as the antique cars turned into mini buses make their way through the countless neighborhoods in addis, the money collectors, often hanging half way out the sliding door, yell out their destination as if they were calling out winning lottery numbers. So, on my 7 am ride to the ER kindergarten school, I can't help but wear a huge smile on my face.