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At the Edge of the Screen: Greil Marcus Interviews David Thomson
November 14, 2012
FOR THE SEASONED LARB READER — or indeed, for almost any contemporary reader — neither Greil Marcus nor David Thomson should need an introduction. Marcus, the author of such books as Lipstick Traces: A Secret History of the 20th Century and Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, is one of our most flexible and surprising interrogators of the American grain. Thomson, author of more than 20 books, including The New Biographical Dictionary of Film and Try to Tell The Story, may be our greatest living film historian. Recently, Marcus and Thomson sat down to discuss matters ranging from the origins and complexities of Thomson's new book, The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies, to our predilection for vile protagonists. A heavily edited version of this conversation ran recently in Sight & Sound, but LARB is pleased to present their rich and engaging dialogue in full.
GREIL MARCUS: Let's start with your new book, The Big Screen. I'm a very slow reader, but I tried to just roar through it, and it was completely impossible. It's a ruminating book, full of echoes. The ideas, the references, the words in the sentences, the construction of the sentences, they continue echoing throughout. So if you just read for information or read for plot, you're not watching the movie. It's 525 pages long not counting notes and texts, and no pictures.
DAVID THOMSON: Well there are pictures to come. There are two photographic insets.
GM: All right, there are pictures. But I haven't seen them, and didn't miss them. And I think in fact, if you show a picture of the ending of Bonnie and Clyde, where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are being ripped to pieces, which is a moment you come back to many times in the book — do you show a picture of that?
DT: No.
GM: Good — because you don't need it. It would just take away from the reverberation that's already there. I found the greatest thrill in this book to be its sentences. You bring something into such perfect focus, something that's so right and so swift that you'd completely miss it if you didn't read it all. You've got an argument throughout about the nature of the screen in relationship to a human being, to the human eye, human memory. Starting with Muybridge, going to video games and past that to wherever past that will be. You raise any number of issues outside of cinema proper, having to do with social life, with cultural and individual memory, having to do with community, with the whole idea of communication and what it means to live in a democracy. What kind of culture does democracy produce? What kind of culture does democracy depend on? But that's not how the book reads. The book reads like floating down a very, very long river. And the boat doesn't change, the occupant of the boat doesn't change. But the weather changes, the terrain changes. The people you pass who you meet on the river, who you see on the shore are continually changing. In other words, to me, regardless of the other arguments you seem to be making that might seem to be of greater import, this is a self-referential book in the richest way. About The Passion of Joan of Arc (another film that you come back to again) and Un Chien Andalou, you say:
What these two films demonstrate is the cinema's short and ready fuse for insult and offense (for those open to it) and the uncanny subterranean power of association — so much more valuable and delightful than the montage theories pounded out by the Soviets — that everything cuts together, that on the screen all images and ideas are playing or resting (like data in a computer). For the first time, a film whispers to us — you could play this film [Un Chien Andalou] with The Passion of the Joan of Arc, not just in a double bill, but at the same time, overlapping images, a perpetual dissolve. Because the screen is a place where all films live anyway. And they are fucking each other all the time. Just think of a movie where Bogart's Dixon Steele from In a Lonely Place is being pursued by his Phillip Marlowe from The Big Sleep. No wonder he's so worried; no wonder he's so cocksure. No wonder he's dead. But see how lifelike he is. The movies are about this deep ontological riddle, and they are only modestly contingent on art, entertainment or money.
And that is echoed very dramatically at the very end of the book, with your Dartmouth experience.
DT: Well, I'm touched and flattered and I'm pleased that you have divined the essential thing about the book, which is that it should be appreciated as a movie. One of the things about the screen that has interested me for a long time but really came into focus in this book, is that the screen is this impersonal, essentially dead, blank space. It's there for us at our bidding. We have to turn on the machine for it to come to life. But the screen has carried, let us say, every film there ever was. And I have become more and more interested in the way different movies are like the water in a river. They're constantly flowing into each other. Indeed, it's a form that you can't actually think of or describe as separate items. It's the flow, it's the sequence. And I think that we're at a point in history where it's not really as significant who makes what particular movies, it's the constant flow. And like any flow of that kind, you say it's like being carried down a river, and a lot of time perhaps you feel it's on a sunny day and it's very pleasant, but you can drown in a river. It seems that a lot of the culture, elements that I would hope to see maintained, are in danger of being drowned. The screen is a technology that we let loose upon ourselves and we've been through all manner of different stages of trying to define it and limit it. So we said for instance, "Oh, it's a business!" It's very clear what you do. You make a film. It costs a certain amount of money. You offer it to the world and the public and a year later, or a day later, you have a fortune! There are people in film who still take that attitude to it. Then there were people who said, "Well, no, it's an art form, with artists." And usually the artists are the directors, they could be someone else, but it's simpler and it will fit into the academic structure of teaching film much more easily if we say, "It's the directors."
GM: And our hierarchical, utterly bourgeoisie notion of what art is in any form.
DT: Absolutely. Then there's a notion that it's all about one of a series of personal but also infinite and almost abstract things. It's about memory, it's about time, it's about place, it's about the face, it's about violence, cruelty, romance, sex, all of those things. And that you can see those as fish, if you like, that are swimming in the river, shoals of fish, and it's very interesting just to look at film history in terms of that. And then there comes along gradually this notion that what seemed for all intents and purposes to be a cinematic medium, in fact became something that people felt they did not have to look at with concentration. They could turn it on and they could then do something else. You can talk to friends, you can take a phone call, you can eat a meal, you can have a domestic argument, you can fall asleep. A whole range of things, and when you wake up or when you come back out of whatever interlude it is, it's still going on. And when you look again it's a different story, but all the stories are alike. They have a storiness to them that's repetitive and ritualistic so that you aren't lost.
GM: It's like the surrealist practice of going into a movie in the middle, just walking in. As soon as they got it, as soon as they figured out whatever was happening, they left. In the forties and fifties, people didn't go to movies when they started. They just showed up at the theatre and walked in, and that's where the phrase "this is where we came in" comes from. You watch the movie, say it's an hour into the movie. It's over, you wait 10 minutes, it starts again, then after an hour you leave. And you didn't think of this as some ontological experiment, you didn't think "Isn't this a strange way to do things?" You knew that within a few minutes you'd catch on. Good guy, bad guy, wants her, mother's in the way.
DT: That's right. And now people increasingly tend not to watch movies. They watch scenes, they watch bits and bites.
GM: And yet — when you read Manny Farber, he talks about negative space and about things happening at the edge of the screen, and he suggests that to focus on the action, to focus on the faces of the stars, can often be to miss what will in fact stay with you and bring you back. Or what will lodge in your memory, in a way that maybe you can't even identify as something you saw in a movie, let alone which movie. But it will be an emblem of loss, of possibility, of desire, of intelligence; whatever it might be, it will stay with you. And you say at one point, "It's less the visual that we notice than the human gesture in the human existence." The human gesture contains the human existence. It's that sense of gesture as opposed to action, as opposed to argument.
DT: And moment. It teaches you a new way of looking at life, which is to see it as moments. And you know that some of those moments are going to stick in your mind like film stills.
GM: So, getting away from people looking at bites: what you're saying throughout this book is that we watch movies that way anyway. Or let's say movies watch us that way. We may think we're interested in the plot but the movie knows we're not.
DT: I think there's a great deal of truth in that — although I'm at pains to stress that there was a period of real narrative sophistication and coherence in the movies, when movies did something that novels had done. There are still some movies made like that. I think what influenced this book is seeing the ways young people are using screens now and the whole idea that attention deficit, which is this huge phrase that seems to cover so many holes in our life now, had almost become the new model for consciousness. Yes, very mysterious things were happening to people watching film from the beginning. But critical writing (not that there was an enormous amount of it) didn't really get onto that for a long time. And the way a film like Un Chien Andalou works is sort of fulfilled by the remote control device with television, the almost automatic editing device. The surrealists talked about putting images together absolutely at random. It's very difficult for people to do that because they are exercising choice all the time. But the remote control button introduces true randomness. I'm sure you've seen some of the people who have made extraordinary films just going through the channels for two or three seconds a channel, that kind of thing. And kids have watched television that way since the remote control arrived. Getting up to change the channel, which we had to do for a couple of decades, was a terrible bore. But being able to alter it…
GM: On the other hand we only had about three channels to choose from.
DT: There got to be so many channels that you needed some kind of automation that would help you do it. But to get back to the main point, and this is what really drove the book, you used the metaphor of a river, you could call it a dream space, you could call it an underground, but I think it's there for all of us and I think it's very hard to tell whether it has been for the good or for bad.
GM: One of the things that is so distinctive about this book is that it radiates pleasure. The pleasure of watching and remembering and having memories not be in the past but just become immediately present. But at the same time, almost any pleasure, particularly if it's strong enough, if it's distinct enough, is immediately questioned, by you, the writer. And you're saying "Well, what about this?" You just said you didn't know whether this whole cinematic experience of the last 120 years was for good or bad. And you're constantly saying, "What are the implications of this, what does it mean to be moved by this, what does it mean to become complicit in this thing that's happening on the screen: this terrible crime, this act of cruelty, this blankness where suddenly no one is feeling anything. And so the energy of the book is both that of pleasure without morals and also a constant intellectual inquiry. In other words, it is an argument. You are arguing with yourself and with cinema and with any reader who is bringing his or her own experiences into the book, because the book is so seductive. "I felt that way too," the reader will say about a completely different movie than the one you're talking about. And I wondered if you constructed the book that way intentionally.
DT: More than with most books, this was a book that I did not have control of for a long time. I felt very uneasy about it. I was daunted by the amount I had to cover. I was thrown by the fact that in the contract, the book had a certain length which was I think 120,000 words. Long before the end I realized that it was likely to be closer to twice that. All of this was very confusing and I was also in bad shape personally a lot of the time. So I started the book in the middle and there were certain places I thought I knew what I wanted to say, like, say, about Renoir, and about Welles and a few other places like that. So I started there and then began to think about how I was going to frame it. The book was described in the contract as a history. I knew it had to have that sort of ongoing momentum, but I equally knew I had to bring together my disquiet over movies with a similar sort of uneasiness and regret over the state of the world. I didn't know whether I could do it, but I had to try to say something about the history of movies and screens that was enlightening or provocative in terms of what has happened to the world.
As the world's population begins to swell amazingly, it is a chance to make us all feel that we are in the same world and going through the same thing, what has been called "the global village." Whereas I feel that what the screen does is say to you, "This is reality if you want to believe it, but it's a trick." And in fact what it's doing, in so profound a way that nobody needs to understand this, is giving you a screen on which you can tell yourself that you are dealing with and seeing reality whereas in fact what it teaches you is that you don't have to bother. That the old connections of sympathy, anger, questioning, doubt, political involvement and action that through the nineteenth-century and the early twentieth-century we more or less believed in — it's a myth. You actually now live in a world where most intelligent young people are confident that it's going to end, and are assured of the futility of any of the kinds of action or response that would have come from sympathy and anger and protest. So that if you look at, say, Fukushima on the screen, the essential reaction is, "Oh, that's extraordinary, it's not me this time, but it will be." We have issues and we have problems of enormous scale. We know that we're dancing on the brink and we have the most useless, futile political system we have ever had. I'm talking about this country [the U.S.] but there are many other countries too where everyone actually says, "Well, yes, I'm the president, I've got the job, but we can't do anything about it, we know that." And it's just a question of time, just a question of waiting for it. So in many respects, what has come from this immersion in images, is to teach us that we need have nothing to do with reality; it's pointless.
GM: To put it another way, maybe, you're saying that the movies and their attendant other media have proved a great machine for erasing empathy. But are you saying that was really what was going on from the beginning, that that was the secret purpose of the screen?
DT: I'm not saying that it was the secret purpose in the sense that anybody in a controlling position was aware of it.
GM: No, I'm ascribing it to the devil.
DT: Oh, well, I don't believe in the devil.
GM: I meant inherent in the artifact, in the process, that's what I'm talking about.
DT: Yes, I think so. I think a lot of it has to do with the terrifying ways in which the world changes imaginatively between about 1800 and 1950. The way in which population begins to take on a progression that is unstoppable and full of implications that we can hardly face up to. We try to deal with it, with things like universal education and with democracy. We try to deal with the equalization of the sexes and a whole lot of other things. We got through a century of the most dire wars that have been fought, not just in terms of the number of people lost but in terms of casual wickedness and it culminates —
GM: — in the nihilism the putative purposes behind all of this. Ultimately you're dealing with a nihilistic impulse.
DT: Absolutely. By 1945 we had produced a stage in technology whereby we could obliterate the world in a matter of a few seconds. For a few decades people lived in terror of that. What I think is so interesting is that that terror has passed. The age in which people worried about nuclear testing and did drills and all that kind of thing, and the campaign for nuclear disarmament, absolutely passed. It's now taken almost as the best way to go because it would be quick and it would be a great equalizer. So ours is a very broken-down culture and civilization and community, and it seems to me that in a lot of ways, the stress upon fantasy and a sort of privileged loneliness that is inherent in film has to do with this.
Sooner or later, I would suggest in this country at least, the fear of the chaos, and possibly the immediate pain and damage from some sort of disaster, is going to inspire a fascist government, and that would be an incredible crushing of American hope. Which, speaking as someone who was not American once, I see as really one of the great ideals in the world. And of course it was an ideal that, for a while at least, was embodied by American movies because American movies and American television did more than anything else to make this American idealism seem appealing.
GM: We're talking on July 20th, 2012. If you were finishing your book today, it would be the day after someone turned up at a late screening of the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, and shot to death 12 people and shot some 60 other people. I've already read a completely mindless glib essay about how this is going to change the experience of movie-going forever, it will never be the same. If you were finishing your book today, would you have alluded to this event?
DT: I'm not sure that I would, because it would mean that I'd have to write something very quickly and there's always a great danger that if you do that you say silly things that won't stand up even a few months later. Also, there are things already in the book that get at it. The moment when my son Zachary saw the second of the Twin Towers go down and said, "What movie is that from, Dad?" It's the same kind of confusion of forms. I think probably I could resist drawing that in.
And although the book will be out in three months, God knows what could happen in that span, so this could already look very dated. The fact of the matter is that, if you ask the general public — and this is not a means to trap you at all — what's the name of the man who shot Gabrielle Gifford? I can't remember it myself. Now there was a month, let's say, where you probably read everything you could about it, the event, and you were following what was happening to her.
GM: I don't know if it's a question of age or if it's a question of the age, but certainly the signal murderers of the 1950s and 1960s, particularly the sixties, Charles Whitman, Richard Speck, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley, we remember them because they didn't just seem part of a wave, and they didn't — I don't know — it could be the fact that these contemporary killers seem so blank, so uninteresting...
DT: It's so interesting that within 24 hours you had read that foreboding piece about how movie going will never be the same again. Nothing has ever stopped movie going. This is a country where you can take a two year-old or three year-old to see The Silence of the Lambs or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So long as they are with you they are regarded as being all right.
GM: You just never know. We took our daughter Emily to see Phil Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers when she was seven or eight and it was a big mistake. The movie completely tortured her, gave her nightmares, made her nervous. Tom Luddy was a good friend who was around all the time, and after she saw that movie, in which Tom played the leader of the pod people who never say anything — whenever he would come to the house she would go hide in her room. One day we were walking down the street in Berkeley, and Emily suddenly screamed and took off the other way, running hysterically down the street. And I caught up with her and said, "What's the matter?" And she just kept pointing, pointing, pointing. It was Donald Sutherland on the street. It was that betrayal at the end of Phil's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when you think that Donald Sutherland is passing among the pod people, but at the end he turns and points his finger. There he was, in the flesh, on the street, and she just —
DT: It's too much.
GM: I've talked to other people who saw the movie when they were the same age, students, and they had very similar reactions.
DT: But a lot of kids are so anxious to see frightening movies. The challenge of the movies nowadays, I think, is that whereas once upon a time, there was a real sense of excitement in going to see the next step in the sexual revelation. Now I think sex is almost dropped out of regular movies in that way. The question is, are you brave enough to look at this, can you take this.
GM: You mean Saw and Human Centipede?
DT: Yeah, how horrific can it be and can you take it. I talk about dread in the book quite a lot, because I think it's always been there; it's part of going into the dark.
GM: I agree, but I think when people are testing themselves or testing each other in a kind of circle-jerk manner over that, it's less about dread then just playing an internalized videogame called sensation. There's no dread attached to it, I don't think.
DT: I don't know. I watched my own kid, who is now 17, and he put great store by whether he could look at things. Both our boys were very interested in things that were clearly setting out to be frightening, and whether you could take it, whether you could deal with it. It was a sort of initiation rite for them.
GM: I want to go to a moment in The Big Screen that I really like. There are so many: there's the passage where you are talking about Louise Brooks and you say that she was someone who "didn't give a fuck" about the kind of careerism that motivated Mary Pickford — just putting Louise Brooks and the phrase "didn't give a fuck" together tells you 90 percent of what you need to know about Louise Brooks in four words. But one of the things that struck me very powerfully is this line, which maybe to you is a signal moment in the book, maybe it was just a transitional sentence: you're talking about two films by Kurosawa, Living and The Seven Samurai, and you say "It's hard to believe the same man made both." Ok, that's a perfectly ordinary and reasonable critical comment, followed by, "But it's hard to believe anyone made either." That's an argument of a completely different order. (And it's also a much better sentence. It has cadence, it goes bump, bump, bump.) That's a particular experience in the face of art — whether it's music, whether it's a painting, whether it's a movie, a novel. You simply don't believe that it could be the product of will and intent or planning or even desire. That sense of awe and that sense of surrender I find, as a reader and a critic, extraordinarily valuable and more rare then ever. And I wonder, if that put you in the great club of nice critics all over the world today, if it separates you, if it makes you feel connected with other people or separate from them?
DT: I'm not sure if I quite understand.
GM: Well, do you find other critics speaking that language? That language of awe, that language of surrender, that language of, there are certain things that really can't be accounted for.
DT: No. I don't read the great range of stuff written on film thoroughly or religiously. There are people writing today whom I value. I think they are very intelligent, they're very sensible, but for me, one of the huge reasons to write about film was to try to convey what it felt like when you saw it and heard it. The visceral, direct emotional experience of that moment; I don't think too many people take that on now. Whether it's the quality of the writers or it's an expectation in the readers or editors, I don't know, but I mean clearly, it was something Pauline Kael did. I feel she had the same urge to do it, as a basic reason for writing about film.
GM: Like her piece on Shoeshine.
DT: Yes. Her life, her career as a critic seems to me to be devoted to that. I think Manny Farber had a feeling for it, but there's something very odd about Manny Farber if you read him now. I think he was very daring, but he craved a kind of respectability. More and more the thing I value in Pauline Kael is a refusal to be embarrassed. For instance, I make a point in the book about what she said when Last Tango in Paris opened. Time has not been kind to that film. I don't know whether if she were alive she would say the same thing now, but the passion in her writing, and the quality in the prose that you are kind enough to see in what I wrote, it forgives anything that you might be embarrassed by in the piece. Perhaps it's mistaken, doesn't matter — you know what I mean? And I value that a great deal.
I just taught a term at Stanford and I have not taught for a long time. The kids at Stanford are smart kids. They can write a critical paper, but I guess they don't know themselves well enough to express their own emotion of looking at the film. They're too cool in a way to feel the emotion. Film for me was the key to emotional life, I felt, more than reading fiction — although that was very good too — film was really the key to feeling things. And therefore it seemed to me that one wanted to describe what happened on the screen as closely, as accurately but as emotionally as possible. It was also for me at the start an alternative to making films. I wanted to make films. I went to film school. I've made some films. And I know that when I started to write about films in a really serious way, I was using a sort of disappointed energy that had not been able to make them. So a book like Suspects, say — it's literally, in part, a remaking of these films, an extension of them. It's imagining a life not just beyond the frame, but beyond the time confines of the film. That's always been there for me.
GM: You talk about film as being the key to emotional life, for you.
DT: As a teenager, that's what I felt.
GM: And you say that, for so many people today, film is the key to not feeling things. Which makes me wonder if that's not too grand or sociological a view. I can't believe that people today still don't make that same kind of emotional connection when they watch movies.
DT: There are great films being made, maybe as great as films have ever been. What I feel, though, is that those films are now seen by a minority. They have been hived off into a sort of academic, avant-garde area and pursuit. The mainstream is where the trouble is. We have got people who can make, and we have got audience members who can respond to, special films. I mean David Lynch's career is an example of that.
GM: Michael Haneke.
DT: Yes, and there are several others. But not in the mainstream anymore. And part of the reason for that is that, and I may be stretching this point too far, but it's my belief that young people are not as moved by films as they were.
GM: I've always been fascinated by the title of your memoir, Try To Tell the Story. It always struck me as somebody talking to himself. But it immediately put a burden of difficulty and doubt and uncertainty on the whole enterprise, suggesting that no matter what you said, no matter how far you went, no matter how much you revealed, that it was a hopeless enterprise. The story was not really going to get told. I wonder where that title came from for you.
DT: As a child I stammered so much that it was affecting my education, not to mention my life. So my school sent me to speech therapy classes, for four or five years. It was very interesting, because we played with words and sounds and breathing, but there was psychotherapy too. The woman who was the speech therapist wanted me to talk about my relationship with my father and it was clear that I was having difficulties, not just because I stammered, but emotional, psychological difficulties with that issue. And she said, "Try to tell the story," and it helped me a little bit in that I felt that if I could look on it as a story, then it was something that I might be able to tell. Whereas if you were to say to me, "Tell me what you felt about your father," I could not begin to do it. And indeed, later on in life I actually used the same phrase to my father, I said, "Try to tell the story." This was late in his life, and he had never told me the crucial things about himself. There had never been an emotional bond between us, and I said to him, "Try to tell the story," and he got up and left the room, which had been all my life his standard response to situations where he got into serious argument or conflict, he would just leave. So that's what it comes from.
I was still a stammerer until the age of 40 or so, but storytelling set in much earlier. I'm very interested in the concept of story — just as I was finishing this book, along came an extraordinary documentary film which hasn't been released yet, from Sarah Polley, the Canadian filmmaker, called We Tell Stories. It's a little bit like the Joan Didion remark, "We tell ourselves stories — in order to live." And this meant a lot to me. I wouldn't say that it's healed the wounds and the problems in life, but I think to be a storyteller is a noble profession. I think there's something profoundly useful in it.
GM: In Suspects you are more of a storyteller in the classic sense than you are anywhere else. Taking these various characters in specific films, all of them film noir by your very expansive definition of it, and imagining the lives of these characters before they appear in the story, and then their lives after the film part of the story ends. And in terms of storytelling — when I read the book the first time, I was having a great time, it was a game. What would Rick have been before Casablanca? And you gave him a left-wing period. And what would his life have been after? As soon as you said he and Claude Rains are a couple, I said, of course! It's just right there, it's on a plate for us. But there comes a certain point in the book — and it depends on the reader, the reader might figure this out after 30 pages, or might figure it out after 250, as I did — that something else is going on. It's not just a game; in fact this is all one story, and these people are all part of it. When I came to that realization, it was completely frightening. This wasn't what I had bargained for, and clearly it wasn't going to work out very well. This is, after all, a film noir.
So there you are, telling the small stories with great glee and pleasure and plotting something much more diabolical over all of them. I wonder was that your most satisfying book for you to write, personally?
DT: It was the hardest, I think, in that once I got this crazy idea that some of these characters had met others, there was a kind of family structure to it. Working that out, for me was like mathematics. I had diagrams of the book and things like that. I was having to look back and check stuff, look at the films too, to make sure it reasonably fitted together. So it was very difficult. I know I was very tired when it was done and I felt that I'd done something no one had really done before. One or two people who read it were very kind about that and flattering, so it seemed to be important to me at the time. Whether it offered the most satisfaction, I'm not sure.
GM: The Big Screen starts with David Selznick saying, late in his life, "We blew it. We wasted the opportunity.'
DT: Early fifties, walking around a film studio where nothing's happening.
GM: And saying, this was the greatest opportunity ever handed to human beings, to tell the story, and all we did was build a mountain of trash, maybe ten good films.
DT: Which is silly, of course.
GM: But that's how the book begins.
DT: One part of the book begins like that.
GM: It begins with this portent, and you return to it at the end. By the end you've established that there are countless films that should be available for people to discover forever, part of the human patrimony. And yet you say, "Does it matter?" You say that too. The baton is passed from Selznick to you in that sense.
DT: The critical experiences for me have been leaving Britain and going to America, going into academia and leaving academia. In both cases they've really been somewhat risky decisions, to try to take on a large enterprise. Suspects and Silver Light for me were very important in terms of learning about America and learning to write American rather than English. The sense that I had, once, that I wrote English, that in America it sounded rather prim and stuffy, that I wanted to write American, has been a big issue in my working life. I've wanted to try to deal with the largest things, and for me The Big Screen is probably — you tend always to say that the latest book is the most important and it means the most to you — but again it was a very difficult book for the reasons that we talked about earlier. I had a severe depression during the course of writing the book and thought I would not finish it, thought I would not finish anything.
GM: And thought it wasn't really worth finishing.
DT: Yes. There was a time when I hated the book — it's been a real battle, this one, and it means a lot to me. Suspects does mean a lot to me. I often say to people that Silver Light is my favorite book because it was about discovering a certain landscape that I fell in love with.
GM: There's an interesting line in The Big Screen, talking about Fritz Lang, talking about M. "Lang's big lie was in denying his own appetite for murderousness and film's impassive but mounting ease with it." So I'd like to talk a little bit about your murder book.
DT: I haven't written a word of it yet but it's probably the book at the moment I'm most excited about. Its working title is Red Rum-Murder in Our Minds. It's an attempt to track the ways in which murder became increasingly acceptable and even a subject fit for connoisseurs. It's about movies, obviously, it's about books, painting to a degree too. I know that an incident in life had a lot to do with it. I'm not going to name the person who it's about, but I think some people could guess. Years ago, someone said to me, "Do you think about death a lot?" and I said, "Well, it's there all the time, but I don't really think about it very much." And he said, "Would you be able to murder someone?" I said, "Do you mean, just kill someone? If someone came in and attacked me could I just kill them?" And he said, "No, no, no, I don't mean that — I mean could you, in cold blood, decide to murder someone. And survive in the sense that — "
GM: — psychically you'd remain a whole person?
DT: Yes. Not that you wouldn't be caught, but that you could live with it. And I didn't know the answer. This person said, "I have a great idea for a movie." Which has since come to pass in various forms — this happened a long time ago. He said, "It's about a man who is told that he has a year to live and he goes through the various stages in regard to death, the whole Kubler-Ross pattern." And then he decides, "Well, this is a terrible world and if I'm going to die, I'm going to do some good. I've never done good in the world, really, I've never made an impact. I'm going to pick five people who deserve to die. I'm going to murder them." Now, as I say, this idea has cropped up a little bit in various places. But I began to notice that we were in a very strange way falling in love with murderers. Now clearly we've lived through an age where murder has been practiced in the most appalling ways. The concentration camps would be the greatest example of that, but there's a lot of competition. Why is it that we've become more attracted to murder? Why is it that we treasure the actors that play villains and actually nowadays I think identify with them more than we did with heroes?
GM: When you say that, you mean people who are presented strictly as villains? Not Tony Soprano who is our hero who does bad things?
DT: It's a bit of both. Tony Soprano is a very interesting case in point because I would say that he's actually not really a very interesting character until you realize that David Chase is going to spend five years just looking at him, and you're going to accumulate so much detail about him that he will become, not sympathetic, although he has things about his life that might prompt sympathy, but he's just going to become maybe the most fully drawn person in modern fiction. And he's a killer. I think Chase has actually been kind to him in that he's dressed him up in a kind of psychological pain and agony that I'm not sure that guy would have in real life, but that's legitimate. It was a very compelling story in fiction. But Hannibal Lecter is another great case. Silence of the Lambs was a sensational film. Lecter is hideous in the sense of what he does and the film makes clear what he does. But there is a bond between him and Clarice that by the time the next film comes along —
GM: You see the same thing in Homeland, where Claire Danes is having her affair with a marine who she initially is convinced is a terrorist in disguise. As she's having this affair with him, it's not that her sexual attraction to him obviates her suspicion. It intensifies it, which makes it all that much worse.
DT: It's very interesting that you should say that, because you've touched upon something that I think is very important to The Big Screen and to what we do. Television is so much better than the movies now. Homeland is a major work.
GM: It was always on knifepoint, in a different way than 24. With 24, for the first two, three seasons, that clock is ticking away, and when it gets to about seven or eight minutes left in the episode I can't wait for it to be over because the state of tension has been so extreme that it's all I can take. Like, Oh my God, thank God this hour is over.
DT: But I can't wait for the next one!
GM: It's like someone putting a needle in your arm and taking it out an hour later. With Homeland the tension is not of that sort. It is in wondering whether this woman that you make an instant connection with is going to shatter before your eyes or hold herself together with Scotch tape.
DM: And really, in the end, one of the greatest mad scenes ever done. You care much more about the people in Homeland. There's something about Kiefer Sutherland that resists our caring. But Homeland is full of vulnerable people, interesting people.
GM: Oh, I never cared about Kiefer Sutherland. I was just scared to death.
DT: It was a wonderful suspense machine. You used that image just now about putting the needle in yourself, and the sort of self-abusive, self-destructive element in our culture is a part of all these things. I think drug-taking in a way is an equivalent, or an extension, of the fantasizing in movies. It's part of the encouragement to seek a very private, calm world. That notion that if the world is going to end, we'll all need a drug. I am not a drug-taker, but I am a medication-taker, and it changed my life. I think more and more our loneliness is being assuaged by addictions of one kind or another and it will be a big part of the end of the world.
GM: It's all there in "Heroin," in the Velvet Underground song. It refers to heroin as "my wife," and it's so clear that the act of shooting up is a symbolic acting out of the end of the world. Not suicide, the end of the world.
DT: But this is very personal, and very damaging, and it's clearly sexual in some ways too. It's gloomy stuff. I think the thing that you raise is very important. There are still moments of awe at the movies and it's very important to stress that. I knew that this book was headed towards a dark ending. I'm not sure I can write a book that isn't headed towards a dark ending but I wanted there to be as much light as possible along the way. That really was a joyous experience at Dartmouth when I projected The Clock, in that bizarre way. It really returned the people who saw it to a kind of innocence and sheer delight at movement, where in so many ways they have become jaded now.
GM: You divided The Clock, Minnelli's Clock, into two reels, and you projected the first reel forward, the second reel in reverse. You projected them on the screen and they ran side by side.
DT: I don't know that I've ever seen an audience so excited. People were literally bouncing up and down in their seats. It made us all children again. This was a class of bright kids at Dartmouth. Everyone could see some of the implications and the consequences in it; could see what it was teaching us about narrative and shots because all films are certain shots.
GM: And yet, as you describe the event at Dartmouth, you revel in it and you put the reader in that room and the reader is thrilled to be there. When I read that, I thought, if you made this into a pedagogical tool and you did it three times a semester or something, it wouldn't happen. It would just die. It would be a trick, and this wasn't trick.
DT: No, it was a fairly spontaneous thing. I hadn't pre-meditated it. It didn't just happen, but I don't think more than a couple of hours went into thinking about it. You're right.
GM: The book starts with movement, starts with Muybridge, starts with a primitive movement that produces the same sense of confusion and awe, but a delicious confusion. It ends in the same way, in a way that doesn't seem the slightest bit contrived or like a set-up. It ends as if when you got to the end of the book, what you were doing reminded you that you had an ending. As opposed to when you had started writing and said, "Well, I'll start with this and end with that."
DT: That's right. It was only really very late in the writing of this book that I began to feel good about it. It just wasn't working for me for a long time, and then, I don't know how, it fell into place.
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Exploring the World with Your iPad
- Arranging Travel Using the Kayak App
- Using the AARP App
- Finding Your Way Using the iPad Maps App
- SeatGuru by TripAdvisor
- Communicating in a Foreign Country Is Easy When You Use Talking Translator
- Getting Travel Advice from Others Using TripAdvisor
- Exchanging Homes Is a Great Way to See the World
- Understanding Foreign Currency Exchange Using XE Currency Converter
In this chapter:
- → Use Kayak to create and manage your next trip.
- → Find interesting locations to visit using the AARP app.
- → Use SeatGuru to make your in flight time as comfortable as possible.
- → Let Talking Translator help you communicate while traveling abroad.
- → Find your way using the Maps app.
- → Take advantage of other's travel experiences using TripAdvisor.
- → Travel the world living like a local using the Intervac Home Exchange app.
- → Find like-minded seniors to exchange homes with.
- → Use XE Currency to keep track of what you spend in a foreign country.
The iPad makes traveling easier and more enjoyable. Not only can you book your flight from your easy chair, you can plan your itinerary, scope out amazing restaurants and markets, and find key things to do and sights not to be missed so that you take full advantage of your destination. And the great news is that most of the best iPad apps for travel are free!
Arranging Travel Using the Kayak App
Kayak has the ideal app to help you find the best way to travel to your next destination. Through Kayak's app, you can book flights and hotels, reserve cars, and maintain your travel details all in one place. Kayak searches the travel options of many airlines and then refers you directly to the airline to make the purchase. A notable exception is Southwest, which doesn't participate in any of these apps. If you want to fly Southwest, you need to use its website to search for flights.
Search the App Store for Kayak. Tap Free and then tap Install to download it. Open Kayak by tapping its icon on your screen.
- The example in this task shows searching for a round-trip flight from New York's JFK airport to San Francisco, departing April 10 and returning May 10. There are several easy ways to modify your search. You can choose different dates, locations, and cabin options.
- One option is to choose seating other than economy. Your choices range from economy to first class; tap CABIN line to access other seating options.
After you make all your choices, tap Search to find your outbound flight.
- This search yields round-trip flights starting at $647 (US Airways).
- The time for the least expensive option to San Francisco is 9 1/2 hours. However, looking at the other results it appears that Delta has a flight with a duration of 6 3/4 hours, at a cost of $661. The $14 additional cost per ticket is well worth the shorter flight.
In this example, the second Delta flight, departing JFK at 3:30 p.m. on April 10, was chosen along with the return flight departing San Francisco at 4:00 p.m. on May 10. You can see that each flight is nonstop and travels across the country in the shortest time.
The next screen contains a summary of your flight choice. The summary has two options for next steps: You can either tap the upper-right corner to email the information to yourself or fellow travelers, or tap the arrow after Delta to go to the airline website to buy the tickets.
- For this example, tap the arrow after Delta to buy the tickets. At this point, you leave the Kayak app and go directly to Delta's website. When at the Delta website, you can proceed to buy your tickets, choose seat assignments, complete passenger information, as well as add on other optional items such as baggage fees and other extras.
You can use this same process to search for hotels and car rentals to add to your itinerary, or you can book only hotels and a car rental if you don't need flights. Kayak also has a My Trips option that enables you to save your travel itinerary in one place. Time to pick a destination, book your flight, and start exploring!

subset: commoncrawl


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The cover art for Davido's much anticipated project 'Son Of Mercy' has been unveiled by Sony Music.
The superstar shared the cover art on Instagram a few minutes ago with a message saying – "Whoever Tried To Count Me Out Cant Count.. Pre-Order S.O.M September 30th, Thanks To All My Fans & Family That Have Been Patient! I WILL NEVER TAKE A BREAK LIKE THAT AGAIN!! OBO"
Who ever tried to count me out CANT count … PRE ORDER #SOM September 30th .. Thanks to my fans and family that have been patient! OBO!! pic.twitter.com/VAATL110lH
— Davido (@iam_Davido) September 28, 2016
The 5 track EP would be available for Pre-Order on iTunes this Friday – September 30th, It features production credits from Shizzi, Kiddominant, Spellz & more..
This is coming after Davido's debut album – OBO (The Genesis) was released in 2012. Davido since followed up with smashing records like GOBE, SKELEWU, AYE, TCHELETE, THE MONEY & more.
Mark Your Calendars.. Its Finally 'GAME TIME'


text: The Spanish DJ/Producers that is recognized for his Strength, wit, freshness, fun and quality is OSCAR L and he is well known within the national and international house scene. Oscar L has a very long experience & has remixed & released for the best labels such as: Leader of the new school, Toolroom Records, Harem, Baroque, Spinnin, Nervous, NY Love, Joia, Yoshitoshi, La Factoria, Stereo Productions, Beatfreak, TUSOM, Vendetta, Pacha Records, Shinshy just to name a few.Oscar has remixed many artists & and has his tracks supported by world's most famous DJs like John Acquaviva, Michel The Hey, Geoge Morel, Roger Sanchez, D-Formation, Sharam (Deep Dish), Sergio Fernandez, Dj Chus, Richie Santana, John Creamer, DJ Vibe, Thomas Gold, Amo & Navas, Dario Nunez, Wally Lopez, Peter Gelderblom, Hernan Cattaneo .His latest tracks have been positioned within the top 100 sales in Beatport, each week, its is easy to find a track for Oscar somewhere on the charts making him one of the most recognized DJs. OSCAR L is one of the most requested most influential artist, in 2010 he has been to 4 of the 5 continents, like Jakarta (Indonesia), Sao Paulo (Brazil)Miami (USA), Pereira (Colombia), Moscow (Russia), Tetuan (Morocco), New York (USA), Ibiza (Spain).


text: This movie is a 'found-footage' film about the Benson family who move in to the infamous house where the DeFeo family were murdered in the 1970s over 30 years earlier. Things start happening to anyone who visits this house, and whoever lives there. This is the footage retrieved from the camera.


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The hacker group Anonymous is back at it again, raising online mayhem with government and law enforcement websites in what they referred to as a "day of action" on Friday. In one of the more embarrassing incidents, the FBI was on a phone call with Scotland Yard, discussing ways to combat the group. Anonymous responded by publishing a recording of the call.
Perpetual gadflies Anonymous released a recording between agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Scotland Yard on Friday in which the two agencies discuss anti-hacking operations.
The FBI issued a statement acknowledging that the call is valid, saying that a criminal investigation is underway, The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima reported.
In a statement to the Guardian, Scotland Yard also confirmed the call was real, saying that "no operational risks to the [Metropolitan Police Service] have been identified."
The "hactivists" were also up to their usual tricks in taking down web sites. When the Department of Justice announced they were going after them, they promptly hacked their web site. The Greek Ministry of Justice went down shortly after. And since they are apparently big supporters of the Occupy movement, when the Boston PD moved to evict the squatters, their web site was promptly replaced with some Twitter hash tags, a rap video, and the following message.
"Is that it? Hell no, there is plenty more mayhem to deliver for this #F—FBIFriday. Do you remember a few months ago when #antisec attaked the Boston Police and released hundred of passwords in retaliation for the brutality against Occupy Boston? They clearly ignored our warnings, because not only did they raid the camp again and kicked protesters off of public parks, but they also sent undercover TSA agents to assualt and attempt to steal from some organizers. So you get your kicks beating protesters? That's OK; we get kicks defacing and rm'n your websites – again. BDNNews.com, the "Boston Poice Department Virtual Community" also fell to the swift merciless veangeance of the hive. Do you really want to step to this??"
While government and law enforcement at all levels do an impressive job combating crime in the real world, it seems like they are perpetually a number of steps behind in the virtual one. Technology simply advances too fast, and the geeks around the globe are the ones on the cutting edge, leaving officials to play catch-up. And this isn't a problem with any easy or obvious solutions. Trying to hire the best and brightest in the computer world to come to work for the government is always going to be difficult since such positions don't tend to pay anywhere near the lucrative salaries they can earn in the private sector.
Unfortunately, this also highlights another danger facing us today. The pranks of these hackers seeking to make a political statement are a nuisance to be sure, but that's nothing compared to the damage which could come from a serious terrorist cyber-attack. Iran has already felt the sting of such operations – much to our benefit – but a successful strike against the United States could, in theory, take down large portions of the power grid, related infrastructure networks and even our national defense capabilities. This is one scenario which you can bet keeps people up at night in Washington.


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The Jesus Diet: How the Holy Spirit Coached Me to a 50-Pound Weight Loss
By Robin Merrill
About the Book:
In The Jesus Diet: How the Holy Spirit Coached Me to a 50-Pound Weight Loss, Author/Poet Robin Merrill shares her weight loss experiences through 30 Bible devotions designed to inspire others to join her on her journey toward improved spiritual, and physical, health.
LINK to KINDLE | LINK to PAPERBACK
Robin Merrill is the author of several books, including The Jesus Diet: How the Holy Spirit Coached Me to a 50-Pound Weight Loss (30 Devotions), two collections of poetry from Moon Pie Press, and five Scholastic Book Fair books.
Her poems, short stories, articles, and essays have appeared in hundreds of publications, including The Cafe Review, Ledge Magazine, Margie, Pearl, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Stolen Island Review. Three of her poems have been featured on The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor. She is a 2013 recipient of an Emerging Artist Award from St. Botolph Club Foundation of Boston.
Robin is also a performance/slam poet who has competed at the national level. She has her MFA from Stonecoast and frequently leads creative writing workshops for writers of all levels.
Follow Robin Merrill
Enter to Win a $50 Amazon Gift Card!
Enter below to enter a $50 amazon gift card, sponsored by author Robin Merrill!
This book blast is hosted by Crossreads.
We would like to send out a special THANK YOU to all of the CrossReads book blast bloggers!


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Digital Airpoints™ cards
Digital Airpoints cards are available on your Air NZ app.
There are two digital cards available - Retail and Travel.
Simply scan your digital Airpoints card when you shop with Airpoints partners to earn Airpoints Dollars™. Available to all Airpoints members.
Available to Silver, Gold and Elite members only, this digital card can be used as a form of identification while travelling with our Star Alliance partners to access Star Alliance tier benefits, such as entering lounges operated by Star Alliance partners.
How to view the digital Airpoints cards:
- Download/update the latest version of the Air NZ app
- Open the Air NZ app
- Tap 'Airpoints' at the bottom of the screen
- Tap the Airpoints card image to bring up your digital barcode. This can now be used at all Airpoints retail partners to earn Airpoints Dollars.
- If you're a Silver, Gold or Elite member, you will also see a Travel card image. Tap this to verify your Star Alliance status.


text: Growstone GS-2 Mix This!™ Soil Aerator is the ideal aeration component of soil mixes. Its highly porous aggregates act as air pockets significantly enhancing aeration and drainage of an sphagnum peat, coco coir or composted soil-based mix. As a result, it creates the ideal environment for your plants' root systems and leads to healthy, thriving plants. Ideal for growing a wide variety of plants including herbs, flowering and woody ornamentals, vegetables, tropical, trees and scrubs. Growstone GS-2 Mix This!™ Soil Aerator is a sustainable alternative to perlite and other soil amendments used to improve texture and structure of soil or soilless mixes. 100% Recycled. 100% American made.


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Florist Elermore Vale. Local Florist Elermore Vale flower delivery – 2287 – New South Wales | Prices Include Same Day Delivery
Send Flowers today Elermore Vale for same day flower delivery by a florist in Elermore Vale, delivery is $14 Australia-wide, the cut-off time is 2pm – Monday to Friday for all flower delivery to Elermore Vale and nearby areas including flower bouquets, roses and flower arrangements. Please order by 10am on Saturdays. We are sorry but our Elermore Vale Florists do not deliver flowers on a Sunday.
Popular occasions for Elermore Vale are birthday flowers and get well flower arrangements.
Order by 2pm (Monday to Friday) or 10am on Saturday.
Some Flower Ideas for Elermore Vale Flower Delivery
Florist Choice Flower Options
The florist choice option allows the florist to create a unique flower arrangement with their choice of flowers based on what's in season and available.
This option is a great way to receive a custom-made bouquet that is perfect for any occasion and ensures a beautiful and fresh arrangement every time.
Newcastle Florist Delivery - Best Selling Flowers
Newcastle Florist Delivery
Embrace the Beauty of Newcastle with Flowers Delivered
Welcome to FlowersSales.com.au, your premier Newcastle florist dedicated to bringing the beauty of floral arrangements to the heart of this vibrant city. With a passion for creating stunning designs, we strive to add elegance and joy to every occasion in Newcastle. Whether you're celebrating milestones, expressing love, or honouring cherished moments, our skilled florists are committed to crafting exquisite arrangements that capture the essence of Newcastle's spirit.
Extensive Selection of Fresh Flowers for Newcastle
At FlowersSales.com.au, we take pride in offering an extensive selection of fresh and vibrant flowers that perfectly complement the spirit of Newcastle. From classic roses and lilies to unique blooms that reflect the region's natural beauty, our carefully curated inventory ensures the highest quality and variety. Choose from our pre-designed bouquets or collaborate with our talented Newcastle florists to create a custom arrangement that showcases the essence of this remarkable city.
Convenient Newcastle Florist Delivery at Your Doorstep
We understand the importance of timely and reliable flower delivery in Newcastle. That's why FlowersSales.com.au offers convenient and efficient Newcastle florist delivery services, ensuring that your chosen floral creations arrive at your doorstep in pristine condition. Whether you're surprising loved ones or adorning special events, our dedicated delivery team takes care of every detail, guaranteeing that your flowers are delivered with utmost care and punctuality.
Embrace Newcastle's Spirit with Unparalleled Customer Service
At FlowersSales.com.au, we prioritise exceptional customer service to ensure that every interaction reflects the spirit of Newcastle. Our knowledgeable and friendly staff are always ready to assist you in selecting the perfect floral arrangement or addressing any inquiries you may have. We value your satisfaction and strive to exceed your expectations at every step, from ordering to delivery. Experience our personalised service that defines us as Newcastle's go-to florist.
Newcastle Florist & Flower Delivery FAQ's
Can I request a specific delivery time for my flower order in Newcastle?While we cannot guarantee specific delivery times, we do offer flexible delivery options. You can choose between our standard delivery window or opt for express delivery for an additional fee. Our dedicated delivery team will ensure that your flowers are delivered as close to your preferred time as possible, taking into account logistical factors to provide a seamless experience.
What areas in Newcastle do you offer flower delivery to?
We offer flower delivery services to a wide range of areas in Newcastle and its surrounding suburbs. From the city center to the outskirts, we strive to reach as many customers as possible. To check if we deliver to a specific area, simply enter the recipient's address during the ordering process. If delivery is unavailable for the area, our system will notify you.
Can I include a personalised message with my flowers across Newcastle?
Absolutely! We understand the importance of adding a personal touch to your gift. During the checkout process, you will have the option to include a personalised message along with your flower arrangement. Our team will ensure that your message is carefully hand-written or printed on a beautiful card and included with the delivery, conveying your heartfelt sentiments to the recipient.
What happens if the recipient is not available at the time of delivery in Newcastle?
If the recipient is not available at the specified delivery address in Newcastle, our delivery team will assess the situation. Depending on the circumstances, they may leave the flowers with a neighbor or in a safe place, ensuring that a delivery notification is left for the recipient. If neither option is feasible, we will contact you to arrange an alternative delivery time.
Can I make changes or cancel my flower order in Newcastle?
We understand that plans can change. If you need to make changes or cancel your flower order in Newcastle, please contact our customer service team as soon as possible. While we will do our best to accommodate your request, please note that changes or cancellations may not be possible if the order has already been prepared or dispatched for delivery.
What measures do you take to ensure the freshness and quality of your flowers in Newcastle?
At FlowersSales.com.au, we prioritise the freshness and quality of our flowers. We source our blooms from trusted growers and suppliers, ensuring that only the finest and freshest flowers are used in our arrangements. Our expert florists handle the flowers with care, employing professional techniques to maintain their freshness.
Find out the best times to order flowers from flowersales.com.au, your local trusted florist. Our flower delivery service makes sure your heartfelt messages get to your loved ones on time.
Celebrate birthdays with bright bouquets, show love on anniversaries and Valentine's Day with fancy roses, or honour Mother's Day with pretty carnations. Our florists pick the best flowers to show sympathy, send get-well wishes, or say congrats to someone on their achievements.
With flowers delivered right to the receiver's door, flowersales.com.au makes every event special and brings happiness to your loved ones, no matter how far apart you are.
Floral Care Tips from our florists
When you get a flower delivery, it's key to care for the flowers properly so they can stay fresh as long as possible.
- First, trim the stems diagonally and put them in a clean vase filled with fresh water.
- Add flower food to the water to give the flowers essential nutrients.
- Don't put flowers in direct sunlight or near sources of heat. Change the water and cut the stems again every two days to keep them fresh.
- Watch the water level and fill it up when needed.
- Lastly, enjoy your lovely bouquet! With the right care, your delivered flowers can stay fresh for up to a week.


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Kevin Drum Claims "We" Haven't Learned Anything from Deepwater Horizon. What you mean, "we," Kemo Sabe?'
Kevin Drum claims that "we" haven't learned anything from the Deepwater Horizon disaster (the BP oil rig that exploded five years ago in the Gulf, killing a number of people and creating a large oil spill).
What is his evidence? Has he looked at oil company drilling practices and found them unchanged since the disaster? No, he does not mention any evidence based on observed drilling practices one way or another. His sole evidence that "we" have not learned anything is that the US Government has not shut down drilling in the Gulf and has not passed any new laws.
This is almost a caricature of progressive thinking -- nothing matters except what the government does. But presumably oil companies have been influenced by the cost of the disaster on BP. So far BP has paid out about $30 billion (billion with a B) in reparations and restoration expenses and may be facing another $20 or so billion in fines based on a 2014 court decision. All this ignores the loss of the platform itself, of access to the resource below the platform, and of BP's reputation.
One would presume that the prospect of losing $50+ billion would be enough to get the attention of private companies and cause them to make changes to their procedures. I suppose it is also possible that they completely ignored this, but Drum offers no evidence one way or another. To him, anything not done by the government is irrelevant.


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WASHINGTON — NASA on July 19 released a draft solicitation for the fourth and final development phase of its Commercial Crew Program, which is still expected to result in a crewed space launch to the International Space Station from U.S. soil by late 2017, according to the document.
The Commercial Crew Program is a NASA effort that subsidizes commercial development of systems to ferry astronauts to and from the space station. According to the draft solicitation, there would be two such flights per year, once NASA places its first task order for a crewed flight.
Before NASA releases the final solicitation this fall, the agency will host a pre-solicitation conference with industry at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Aug. 1 and 2, according to the draft. As expected, the contract will be a fixed-priced deal administered under the Federal Acquisition Regulations. So far, NASA has mostly relied on funded Space Act Agreements to subsidize development of commercially designed spacecraft.
While the competition is nominally free and open, it is generally believed that the companies with the best chance are those NASA is already funding as part of the third round of the Commercial Crew Program: Boeing Space Exploration Systems, Houston; Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Space Systems of Louisville, Colo.; and Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif.
Boeing and SpaceX are working on capsules, while Sierra Nevada has a lifting-body design. All three spacecraft could seat seven people. Boeing and Sierra Nevada plan to launch aboard United Launch Alliance's Atlas 5 rocket, while SpaceX plans to use whatever iteration of its own Falcon 9 rocket is in operation in 2017.
If the schedule and funding hold, the planned demo flight — part of what NASA is calling the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability Contract — would be the first crewed orbital spaceflight launched from the U.S. since 2011, when the space shuttle program ended.
NASA has repeatedly said it needs more than $800 million a year — hundreds of millions more than Congress has ever given the program — to meet the 2017 date and keep more than one company involved with the program.
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You can read the full Commercial Crew Program draft solicitation here.
This story was provided by Space News, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Published on SPACE.com.
Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: email@example.com.
Dan Leone is an editor and reporter for the ExchangeMonitor Publications covering the Department of Energy and Department of Defense nuclear weapons programs. From 2011 to 2016, Dan was the NASA reporter for the space industry publication SpaceNews, where he covered U.S. space agency policy, news and missions. He also produced the SpaceGeeks podcast showcasing interviews with space industry professionals. Dan earned a bachelor's degree in public communications from American University. You can find his latest project on Twitter at @leone_exm.


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Hamsa Hand Wax Seal Necklace
Dimensions: 13 mm diameter
Total length: 18 inches/ 16"+2" extender with a lobster clasp
Materials: plated brass
▶ US orders: We ship to US with USPS Tracking Numbers.
trackable on usps.com
Transit time is about 5-10 business days. This does NOT include production time.
- Standard Mail :5-10 business days / $6 / Free Shipping over $79
▶ US orders: EXPRESS MAIL / EMS via Korea Post
** Recipient's PHONE NUMBER REQUIRED.
trackable on usps.com
Signature Confirmation
Priority Shipping takes about 3-6 days and the shipping cost is $32.
▶ Non-US orders: STANDARD MAIL
Korea Post / International Registered Mail /Delivery or Signature Confirmation
Transit time is about 10-20 days.This does NOT include production time.
Occasionally packages can be SUBSTANTIALLY DELAYED, up to 45 days, but the usual transit time is 10-20 days.
Also, some country may take up to 6-8 weeks due to strict custom inspection.
(ex. Italy, South America, Russia and Eastern Europe, etc.)
▶ Non-US orders: EXPRESS MAIL
** Recipient's PHONE NUMBER REQUIRED.
You will have the option to choose your shipping method in the drop-down menu when you check out.
Transit time is about 3-6 days and you can check the shipping rate at checkout.
**Middle East, Italy, Russia, South America Customers: CONTACT US! :)
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It's easy to pine for a larger space when you are living in a teensy one, but big rooms present some of their own challenges, and that is what we will be tackling today. Whether you live in a loft, have a living room with extremely high ceilings or simply have a lot of space to fill, these 13 ideas can help you make your room feel balanced and comfortable.
1. Strategically place tall potted plants. Fill vertical height in rooms with tall ceilings or fill bare, lonely corners with potted trees. As long as your space gets enough light to support the plant's needs (check with your garden landscape store for instructions and recommendations), you really can't go wrong with adding a massive houseplant.
2. Paint two-tone walls. While tall potted plants are great for drawing the eye up and accentuating high ceilings, sometimes we crave the opposite effect. Painting color on your walls only part of the way up creates a cozier feeling, tricking the eye into thinking the ceilings are lower than they are.
Use wainscoting as a natural guide or simply tape off a line and paint everything below it.
Find home remodeling professionals, local residential architects, top home builders and decorating and interior design ideas
3. Swap your coffee tables for oversized ottomans. Large seating arrangements can feel a bit empty if there is too much distance between the sofa and coffee table. Choosing a big upholstered ottoman instead of a traditional coffee table will close that gap and add softness at the same time.
4. Round out a big seating plan with a pair of X-benches. Tucked in front of the fireplace or filling an empty spot across from a pair of armchairs, these versatile little seats can also fill in as footstools or side tables.
5. Use a daybed as a room divider. In a really large living room, you may wish to create two full seating areas. Mark the separation while keeping the flow between the two zones with furniture you can easily see over: a daybed, bench, or chaise is a good option.
More: Browse the latest bedroom ideas, from loft beds to decorative duvet covers
6. Define zones with a console table.Another option for sectioning off parts of a large living room is floating your sofa in the middle of the room and placing a console table behind it.
7. Add coziness with a screen. In a large, open space, you may want to create an area that feels more protected and intimate — decorative screens are your friend for this. Partially folded and placed behind your sofa, a screen will create the impression of a smaller room without stopping the flow of the room.
8. Comfortably fill a large space with an L-shaped sectional. Large, modern spaces are especially suited to accommodate a great big L-shaped sofa. This piece screams comfort!
9. Use an L-shaped sectional as a room divider. Another great place for your L-shaped sofa is between two seating areas or dividing the living and dining spaces in an open-plan space.
10. Fill dead wall space rather than letting it go bare. In a large space, it is nearly always best to pull furniture off the walls, creating cozy arrangements closer to the center of the space. The trouble is, this can leave a great deal of wall space bare — don't let it go to waste!
One foolproof combo is a console table placed against the bare wall with a pair of benches tucked beneath it and a neat grid of frames hung above.
11. Use occasional chairs. Another great use of surplus wall space is for housing a few extra chairs. A console table between a pair of chairs with a large mirror or artwork above always looks smart, and you can pull the chairs in closer when hosting a large group.
12. Create an intimate spot for two within a larger room. Don't forget to think about how you want to use the space. Especially with large living rooms that are well suited to entertaining large groups, it can be easy to overlook the fact that we are not always hosting parties!
Try tucking a small card table against a bare wall along with a pair of elegant chairs. You can use this space for reading, chatting or even a cozy dinner for two. Decorator trick: Frame out the wall with decorative trim to define the space.
Browse living room ideas, from sectional sofas to chandeliers and floor lamps, for your next interior design project
13. Create a second seating area or reading nook. In a large living room, even after filling out a main seating arrangement, there will likely be an odd corner that remains unfilled. If you put as much effort into this corner as into the "main" seating area, it may well become your favorite hangout spot. A few ideas for your spare corner: Install a window seat, make a small conversation group with a pair of slipper chairs or create a mini library with floor-to-ceiling shelves and a single fabulous armchair.


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The Ultimate (Social) Performance Review: Impact in India
By Bankers without Borders® Volunteer Dr. Marcela Gutierrez
My interest in microfinance started when I first heard about Kiva on National Public Radio. Next, my daughter, a sociology student, took a class on microfinance, visited programs in the Dominican Republic and Belize, and taught me a lot about how microfinance institutions (MFIs) operate. I started researching opportunities to work as a consultant in program monitoring and evaluation, but I wasn't getting much traction. But when I contacted Grameen Foundation, they told me about Bankers without Borders volunteer consulting opportunities and I signed up. I was later approached to help an MFI in West Bengal, India, develop a survey to understand the social impact of their loans to women borrowers.
I agreed to take on the project ... and then started to panic. I was skeptical that, in just five days, we could accomplish the goals we had set for ourselves. I had no idea what the evaluation capacity of an MFI based in India would be, and assumed it would not be very strong since their main focus was on making loans. In preparation for the assignment I searched for pre-existing tools we could adapt to the MFI's needs, and the week before I left for India I found a good match.
With the dedicated participation of the MFI's executive director, in the first two days of my visit, we drafted a 24-question survey using the template I brought. Next, we took the draft survey to a branch office and tested it with five clients – which involved a five-hour round-trip train ride to the village in the midst of the monsoon season! Once back in the office, we worked on strategy for the next phase – a quasi-experimental study that would ultimately involve 450 clients and non-clients. When I left Kolkata, we had a clear plan for finalizing and translating the survey, training data collectors, drawing randomized samples, and dealing with data entry and analysis. All of this was accomplished in just five days, with a little time left over to wet my feet in the Ganges River!
After returning home, I reflected on this phase of the project and realized that my original concerns about the MFI's evaluation capacity had been unfounded. That said, I had been wise to come prepared rather than re-inventing the wheel in the field. I found my work with the MFI very productive, rewarding and fun. Most important, I learned that people who work in microfinance – with the poorest clients – are dedicated, determined, selfless and will not take "no" for an answer. I am looking forward to finishing the project working with the team in Kolkata now that I know no matter how much I push them on something, their answer will always be, "No problem, Marcela!"
Dr. Marcela Gutierrez recently returned from India, where she completed a Bankers without Borders® volunteer assignment for a 10-branch microfinance organization. Dr. Gutierrez used her skills and expertise to help the organization evaluate how their program helps the poor.


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Updated December 31, 2022 at 2:16 PM ET
Barbara Walters, one of the most famous American broadcast journalists, has died at the age of 93 on Friday evening, according to ABC News, her former employer. A cause of death was not provided immediately.
Though a celebrity as much as anyone she covered, Walters pursued serious subjects as well. She was an unexpected pathbreaker. And if you remember Walters as a journalist who blurred the lines between news and entertainment, there is some truth to that.
She easily delivered lines like these to introduce Hollywood's "it" couple for her special, "The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2006" saying, "Those lips, those eyes, that body. When Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met on the set of 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith,' it set off Hollywood's hottest romance."
Whether she was interviewing celebrities or the first couple, her questions were often direct.
In a Thanksgiving special with President Barack Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama, Walters asked the first lady, "You love him very much, don't you?"
To which Mrs. Obama, replied, "I do," and the president quipped, "She's a little biased."
Yet over the decades, Walters posed plenty of tougher questions. She had the only joint interview of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin amid their peace talks in 1977. In 1999, she scored the first big interview with Monica Lewinsky.
In December 2011, she asked Syria's President Bashar al Assad about brutal reprisals against protesters.
"You have seen, I am certain, the pictures of Egypt from the President Mubarak in jail, pictures... in Libya of Moammar Gadhafi killed," Walters said during the interview. "Are you afraid that you might be next?"
"No, I'm afraid that the people won't support me, Syrian people," Assad responded.
The interview was the first Assad gave to an American journalistsince the uprising began in his country. It was not the first time Walters had interviewed a leader like Assad. She also spoke with Saddam Hussein and Moammar Gaddafi.
Barbara Walters was born on September 25, 1929, just a month before the Wall Street crash that kicked off the Great Depression. She later said that throughout her life she was driven by fear of financial collapse.
Walters' parents held her out of many social settings to stay with her older sister Jackie, who had a mental disability. Walters said she learned patience and empathy from Jackie, traits that proved handy.
Walters' father ran nightclubs and was often absent, as she told NPR's Steve Inskeep in 2008.
"You know, there was such a dichotomy because on the one hand here was this glamorous life of nightclubs and gorgeous showgirls and big stars — Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. And I'm sure it's a life that people would look at and envy and think, 'Oh, isn't that terrific?' I didn't want that," Walters said. "I wanted a normal life. I wanted a daddy who was home."
Her father's livelihood eroded as television ascended, but after graduating from Sarah Lawrence College, Walters joined TV as a writer and producer.
"She loved not only making serious news but she loved the lighter side ... [She] knew that people were interested in these things and she never felt that she should look down on them for that."
At NBC's "Today" Show, she contributed occasional on-air features as well, then developed into a hit as she expanded her role there. In 1974, she became the show's first female co-host.
Her friend Andrea Mitchell of NBC News says she was inspired as a teen by seeing a woman alongside the men of the "Today" show.
"She always had to wait to ask the fourth question, because the men in charge wouldn't let her ask first but she just pushed ahead and she always asked the smartest questions," Mitchell said.
In 1976, Walters left for ABC to become the first female evening news anchor and was spoofed by the late Gilda Radner on "Saturday Night Live."
That impression was the price of success. She was the first million dollars a year network anchor. Her ABC co-anchor, Harry Reasoner, could not have been less gracious.
"First of all, I don't think he wanted anyone to be an anchor with him. He wanted it all to himself," David Westin said, who later became Walter's boss as ABC News' president. "I think the idea of a woman, and particularly a woman who had already done not only done news, but fashion, and also, so called back then, women's issues, I think he found deeply offensive to him."
The pairing with Reasoner was quickly canceled, but Walters fought her way back, moderating two presidential debates. Yet she also displayed her instinct for show business, interviewing celebrities as well as world leaders and eventually devising an annual Oscar interview program, specials on the year's most fascinating people, and the daytime chatfest, "The View."
"She loved not only making serious news but she loved the lighter side. They reflected her interests and appetites," Westin said. "She also stood in for a lot of the audience and knew that people were interested in these things and she never felt that she should look down on them for that."
Walters' private life also revolved around celebrity. She was married four times to three men, had a rocky five-year affair with then Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, and dated other prominent figures. But none of the relationships stuck.
Walters focused on her career, a foot in entertainment and the other in news, and faced criticism for her style — unfounded, she felt.
After being widely mocked for asking actress Katherine Hepburn what kind of tree she would want to be, Walters defended herself by noting it was Hepburn who made the comparison. Walters simply asked, "What kind of tree?"
And Walters' competitiveness could not be underestimated.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell was in Havana for a planned interview with Fidel Castro — a network jet was on the way with a full crew — when the Cubans cancelled it because Walters had decided she would have one and insisted hers be exclusive. Walters' fame was that powerful.
"It was humiliating in the extreme but this was just the course of doing business with Barbara," Mitchell said.
They remained friends.
Over more than a half century, this driven celebrity journalist not only staved off financial disaster but built one of the most remarkable careers in TV news.
Barbara Walters is survived by her daughter Jackie, named for her older sister.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Disney's 1967 The Jungle Book was about a young orphan named Mowgli raised in the jungle who wants to go on living there, a responsible panther named Bagheera who wants to bring Mowgli to live among his own kind at the man-village, an avuncular bear named Baloo who wants Mowgli to stay with him, a sophisticated tiger named Shere Khan who wants to eat the little man-cub, and a python named Kaa who wants to beat Shere Khan to it.
And so is this sequel.
The voices are different, but the story is the same. Once again Bagheera (Bob Joles) and Baloo (John Goodman) argue about whether the man-cub (Haley Joel Osment) belongs at the man-village or in the jungle with his papa-bear. Once again Shere Khan (Tony Jay) squeezes Kaa (Jim Cummings) for information on the whereabouts of the little lost lamb while Kaa makes another abortive attempt to enthrall the redoubtable tiger.
Once again Colonel Hathi (Cummings again) and his elephantine Dawn Patrol stamp and crush through the underbrush in a military style, and the four mop-headed British buzzards come around to pluck you up when you are down. And once again — and again, and again — Baloo and Mowgli sing about the Bare Necessities, those simple bare necessities, forget about your worries and your strife.
There are a few minor casting adjustments. The four buzzards now have a fifth, Lucky (Phil Collins), who's wackier and less prudent than the original four. That king of the swingers, the jungle VIP himself, King Louie the orangutan, is splitsville (his beloved song "I Wanna Be Like You" gets a cover version over the end credits, a sort of ska-hardcore rendition by California band Smash Mouth).
Most significantly, that young village beauty who lured Mowgli out of the jungle with her batting eyes now has a name, Chanti (Mae Whitman), not to mention a boisterous baby brother named Ramjan (Connor Funk) and warm, loving parents. Like other lightweight Disney sequels such as Return to Never Land and Lady & the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, Jungle Book 2 is family-friendly, with none of the negative parental stereotypes or politically correct attitudes that marred so many Disney cartoons in the '90s.
Yet those sequels at least had new stories to tell, however slight, about their next-generation heroes, Wendy's whimsy-deprived daughter Jane and Lady and Tramp's scrappy pup Scamp. Jungle Book 2 is content to retell the same story about the same characters, throwing in a few new songs no one will remember the next day and erasing the poignancy of the original ending by trying to have its cake and eat it too.
There are a few nice touches. I liked the shadow-puppet prologue recapping the first film, and the way Mowgli, not yet fully adjusted to life in the man-village, still wears a loincloth, sleeps draped over a rafter like a substitute tree branch, and calls his foster father "Sir." Visually, brief sequences with Bagheera picking his way through a dense tangle of elephant parts and swimming under a water-treading Colonel Hathi show a little flair.
Mostly, though, the visuals are competent but no more, and there's no attempt to recapture the most distinctive visual touches of the original, such as the naturalistic movements of Mowgli and Bagheera.
The voicework is a mixed bag. Cummings, the new voice of Pooh, extends his creditable Sterling Holloway impression to Kaa, while Tony Jay, whom IMDb.com says is "sometimes credited as George Sanders," competently stands in for the original George Sanders as Shere Khan. Joles as Bagheera sounds enough like Sebastian Cabot to get by. Osment doesn't sound a lot like Bruce Reitherman's Mowgli, but he gets the inflection and tone right.
Most glaringly miscast is Goodman as Baloo, who doesn't even come close to the distinctive growly drawl that Phil Harris brought to a number of Disney characters of that period. My kids noticed long ago that the original Baloo sounded just like Thomas O'Malley from The Aristocats and Little John from Robin Hood; now he sounds just like Sulley from Monsters, Inc., which is not the same thing at all. (Perhaps it's just as well that they didn't even try to replace the inimitable Louis Prima as King Louie.)
Character-wise, fierce little Ranjan makes the best impression, while his older sister Chanti, alas, has lost the exotic air of mystery and self-possession that pervaded her cameo at the end of the original film, and makes a rather uninspired Disney heroine. She doesn't reprise her melodic serenade "My Own Home," and doesn't seem the type to sing it anyway. This Chanti can't even manage the stepping-stones across the river without looking awkward and clumsy, and has to be saved from Kaa by her kid brother.
Mowgli himself doesn't seem to know what he wants out of life any more. When he's in the village he pines for the jungle, but once he gets to the jungle it's not long before he's pining for the village. There's nothing wrong with internal conflict, of course; still, when Mowgli first orders Baloo to scare Shanti away, and then is upset when he actually does so, it's easy to sympathize with Baloo's frustration.
The climax in the original film had something of the feel of a rite of passage, with Mowgli taking his birthright as a man by using fire against Shere Khan. There's nothing so significant about the climactic showdown this time around, which bizarrely sidelines Bagheera, leaving Baloo, Mowgli, and Shanti to take on the tiger alone. In another inexplicable touch, the setting for the showdown includes a river of free-flowing lava, but the lava never actually comes into the story.
At a time when a movie as dicey as Kangaroo Jack can be fobbed off as family fare, there's something to be said for a harmless flick that will entertain kids and won't offend parents. Whether it's worth dropping thirty or forty bucks at the multiplex, or even half that amount for the DVD, is another question.
Copyright © 2000– Steven D. Greydanus. All rights reserved.


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The bankruptcy law regarding the scope of the chapter 13 discharge is complex and has recently undergone major changes. Therefore, debtors should consult competent legal counsel prior to filing regarding the scope of the chapter 13 discharge.
A chapter 13 debtor is entitled to a discharge upon completion of all payments under the chapter 13 plan so long as the debtor: (1) certifies (if applicable) that all domestic support obligations that came due prior to making such certification have been paid; (2) has not received a discharge in a prior case filed within a certain time frame (two years for prior chapter 13 cases and four years for prior chapter 7, 11 and 12 cases); and (3) has completed an approved course in financial management (if the U.S. trustee or bankruptcy administrator for the debtor's district has determined that such courses are available to the debtor). 11 U.S.C. § 1328. The court will not enter the discharge, however, until it determines, after notice and a hearing, that there is no reason to believe there is any pending proceeding that might give rise to a limitation on the debtor's homestead exemption. 11 U.S.C. § 1328(h).
The discharge releases the debtor from all debts provided for by the plan or disallowed (under section 502), with limited exceptions. Creditors provided for in full or in part under the chapter 13 plan may no longer initiate or continue any legal or other action against the debtor to collect the discharged obligations.
As a general rule, the discharge releases the debtor from all debts provided for by the plan or disallowed, with the exception of certain debts referenced in 11 U.S.C. § 1328. Debts not discharged in chapter 13 include certain long term obligations (such as a home mortgage), debts for alimony or child support, certain taxes, debts for most government funded or guaranteed educational loans or benefit overpayments, debts arising from death or personal injury caused by driving while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs, and debts for restitution or a criminal fine included in a sentence on the debtor's conviction of a crime. To the extent that they are not fully paid under the chapter 13 plan, the debtor will still be responsible for these debts after the bankruptcy case has concluded. Debts for money or property obtained by false pretenses, debts for fraud or defalcation while acting in a fiduciary capacity, and debts for restitution or damages awarded in a civil case for willful or malicious actions by the debtor that cause personal injury or death to a person will be discharged unless a creditor timely files and prevails in an action to have such debts declared nondischargeable. 11 U.S.C. §§ 1328, 523(c); Fed. R. Bankr. P. 4007(c).
The discharge in a chapter 13 case is somewhat broader than in a chapter 7 case. Debts dischargeable in a chapter 13, but not in chapter 7, include debts for willful and malicious injury to property (as opposed to a person), debts incurred to pay nondischargeable tax obligations, and debts arising from property settlements in divorce or separation proceedings. 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a).


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Autana (Remastered)
Synopsis: Adventure climber Leo Houlding and film maker Alastair Lee are back with another sumptuous production of truly epic proportions. Leo (UK) and fellow climbers Sean Leary (USA) and Jason Pickles (Salford) head deep into the Amazon in an attempt to make the first ascent of the east face of the remote tepuy; Cerro Autana.
Disguised as tourists, the clandestine climbers embark upon a covert journey, via military check-points and secret ports, traveling down the Orinoco River to the remote village of Ceguera where they make a traumatic psychotropic visit to the local Shaman to gain access to the sacred mountain.
Sweltering humidity, porter chaos and an assortment of jungle nastiness are just a part of this spectacular journey of self-discovery and big wall hunting. Finally on the tepuy, our team of redoubtable characters ascends the jungle infested rock face, amazed not only at the climbing, but at a luxury wall camp in the incredible Autana Cave system (the highest elevated cave system in the world) just below the tepuy summit.
Run Time
Sean Leary
Jason Pickles
Directed by
Prod. Company
Sponsor brands
Director's Statement
AUTANA is an adventure unlike any other – adventure film making takes another step into the unknown with superb results. Original, experimental, entertaining and visually stunning.
Director's Bio
Alastair Lee is a director and camera man specializing in the outdoor world. Twenty years in the industry he is a veteran of expeditions to the likes of Baffin Island, the Venezuelan jungle and Antarctica. Producing award winning films and TV commercials with stunning photography his special talent for combining the spectacular with the human have made him one of the leading forces in his industry with over 100 international awards to his name.
Not to be confused with the disposable 'adrenaline' fueled clips that dominate social media Alastair's work is born of a deeper understanding and respect for the mountain world where a genuine passion and will to preserve these extraordinary environments is at the heart of Alastair's work. Exploration, not only of the wild places to the furthest corners of the earth but also of the human condition. Delving into the complex psychology of the paradox of a modern person's desire to challenge themselves in the natural arena. The quest not just for the summit but the search for purpose and meaning amongst the ever-increasing western safety and comfort.
Alastair has embraced the full gambit of modern devices at the film makers disposal, from drones to jibs to Cineflex camera systems and 4k slow motion shooting. However Alastair is also acutely aware that the 'eye-candy' means nothing without a strong sense of narrative and human depth. Alastair's consistent success at combining world class cinematography with his trade-mark humor are testament to his true love of his art and dedication to always doing the best job possible and continually attempting to eclipse his own high standards.
In May of 2013 Alastair was awarded one of the top awards in his industry, The Grand Prize from the International Mountain Film Alliance at the Trento Film Festival.
His work has also been broadcast on Discovery UK, National Geographic US and featured on the Red Bull Explorers series.
Kendal Mountain Film Festival - UK - 2012
Best Mountain Adventure Film (Autana)
Torello Mountain Film Festival - Italy - 2012
Best Mountain Film (Autana)
Krakow Mountain Film Festival - Poland - 2012
The Grand Prize (Autana)
Teplice & Metui Film Festival - Czech Republic - 2013
Prize of Town (Autana)
Zakopane Mountain Film Festival - Poland - 2013
The Grand Prize (Autana)
Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival - Germany - 2013
Alpine Prize (Autana)
Official selection
Banff Mountain Film & Book Festival - Canada - 2012
Kendal Mountain Film Festival - UK - 2012
Torello Mountain Film Festival - Italy - 2012
Krakow Mountain Film Festival - Poland - 2012
Teplice & Metui Film Festival - Czech Republic - 2013
Zakopane Mountain Film Festival - Poland - 2013
Tegernsee Mountain Film Festival - Germany - 2013
Mountain & Adventure Film Festival - USA - 2015
"A beautifully filmed, nicely scored, thoroughly engaging and engrossing hour of adventure cinema that will knock your little climbing socks off." - outdoorsmagic.com
"A calculated mix of adventure and humour, all rolled into a feature length package of perfection." - ukclimbing.com


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While all of us at Microwaves & RF appreciate the passion Mssrs. Polivka and Monzello have brought to this debate, we must eventually free our "Feedback" section for other contributors. Hence, we invited both authors to contribute their final comments on the subject, which are printed above. We would like to thank both Mr. Polivka and Mr. Monzello for their input during this exchange.
Jack Browne
Technical Contributor