text:
Lichman & Rizov "Live" at Grassroots Tavern: Episode 18, "This Podcast Gets a 48" with Mike D'Angelo
This is our first season finale, so we go out in style with Mike D'Angelo.
Hello, Wisconsin!
18 episodes in and we're as shocked as anyone that we're still around. This is our first season finale, so we go out in style with Mike D'Angelo who explained to us, on the eve of The Dark Knight's release, why Christopher Nolan may be the best director alive. Of course, Keith would later dislike the film and many others would hop on the whole "omg so serious?! why!!" bandwagon. Personally, I found TDK to be better than the Watchmen trailer.
But we also delve into the world of super secret film chat groups, the Levels of Film Criticism, the many wonders of Meet Dave, and more—ok, not much more—in Episode 18: "This Podcast Gets a 48."
And with that, we're out until early September! Vadim is going to take up knitting; Keith has begun working on showtunes about Mulder/Scully slash-fiction; and I've decided to make bacon for dinner. Join us when we come back for Ep. 19 in season two, which'll be our super-massive, overly gigantic look back at the summer that was.
Special thanks again to Mike D'Angelo for coming out, and remember, if you ever see Vadim or myself at the bar, buy us a drink! Or else hire us to be your ghost-writers. We're new media certified. John Lichman
If you have trouble streaming the above podcast, click here to download it.
John Lichman is a freelance writer who contributes to The Reeler, Primetime A&E and anyone with cash. He works odd jobs to afford his vices, sleeps on couches and can drink Vadim Rizov under a table.
Vadim Rizov is a New York-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Reeler, Nerve, and, oddly enough, Salt Lake City Weekly.
Japan Cuts 2019: Demolition Girl, And Your Bird Can Sing, & Being Natural
Japan Cuts has established itself as the definitive Japanese film festival in the United States, thanks to the scope of its programming.
Japan Cuts has established itself as the definitive Japanese film festival in the United States, thanks to the scope of its programming. The 2019 edition is no exception, with over 30 events over 10 days, among them talks, screenings, and Q&A sessions with filmmakers as diverse as Macoto Tezka (The Legend of the Stardust Brothers) and Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man), the latter of whom is this year's recipient of the festival's Cut Above award, which is given to a defining figure of Japan's cinema, and will be awarded before the East Coast premiere of his latest film, the samurai action-drama Killing.
Lest you think Japan Cuts is only a showcase for genre exercises, the festival abounds in works that explore the struggles that erupt from the Japanese capitalist system, and are felt in different ways across generations. Demolition Girl, Genta Matsugami's feature debut, is among the strongest of recent films to bluntly speak about class difference. It follows 17-year-old Cocoa (Aya Kitai), who, in the wake of her mother's death, has decided to forgo a university education and get a job. But as her shifts at a local amusement park only pay so much, she starts to perform in adult fetish videos that see her stomping on cans, trash, and balloons.
At his best, the film taps into the heightened experience of the poorest of the people living on the edge. For one, whenever Cocoa's father (Yota Kawase) has some money on hand, he yearns for instant satisfaction, spending it on expensive sushi. As for Cocoa, who's isolation is emphasized through shots that see her alone in corridors, or studying late at night in her room, it's almost as if she's destined to fail. And, indeed, when her school finds out about the adult videos she's been making, and just as she was beginning to realize her promise of going to a Tokyo university, her life falls apart. When confronted by friends about why she made the videos, all she can do is yell at them: "You wouldn't understand, you're rich, you wouldn't know. Will you pay for my expenses?" In this moment, Kitai's triumph is making her character's wail against a cruel economic system feel as if it could be our own.
And Your Bird Can Sing, directed by Sho Miyake, is focused on two late-twentysomething slackers: the unnamed protagonist (Tasuku Emoto) and his roommate, Shizo (Himizu and Parasyte star Shōta Sometani). Both work crappy jobs, and they try to stay sane through copious amounts of drinking and pointed mockery of the economically fraught lot they've been handed in life. The protagonist's attitude could be summed up by one early sequence, when he meets a co-worker and convinces her to go on a date, only to later miss the date, fall asleep, wake up, and decide to spend his night drinking with Shizo.
A love triangle between the roomies and one of the protagonist's co-workers, Sachiko (Shizuka Ishibashi), brings some solace to the men's lives. There's redundancy to the way that Miyake frames these characters, showing their faces up close rather than the screens they peer at as they text each other, but his wide shots speak to how they all work to fill empty spaces. Miyake's style is relaxed, almost as if his camera has absorbed everyone's slacker vibes. Especially of note is a sequence that lingers at length on Sachiko paying for groceries while the two men in her life try to hold their laughter, saying to each other that she's going to regret her purchase. Miyake's gaze is empathetic, and there's truth in his understanding that you have to sometimes laugh at your underprivilege in order to prevent yourself from screaming.
More tonally varied, and operating on a larger scale, director Tadashi Nagayama's satirical Being Natural broaches the subject of gentrification as it immerses viewers in the daily routines of a middle-aged man, Taka (Yota Kawase), who lives in a small town in the countryside of Japan and works with his cousin, Mitsuaki (Shoichiro Tanigawa), and their friend, Sho (Tadahiro Tsuru), at a fishpond inherited from his deceased uncle. Everything starts to derail for the three men when a family arrives on the scene from Tokyo with the hopes of opening up an old-style café that will only sell natural and locally grown products. At the start of the film, the still-grieving Taka doesn't fully understand what he has until someone tries to take it away from him, and by the end, a spectacular show of violence will see him finally realizing the nature of the economic system he's trapped within.
The film's style is initially sweet and mellow, with the softest of songs dotting the soundtrack. Taka plays bongos, and the sounds of the instrument are also heard throughout. At first, this sound creates a calm atmosphere that's in sync with the bright cinematography. But as the film introduces a series of sinister twists, those bongos come to take on an almost murderous bent. The sounds of the instrument point to the encroachment of a capitalist economy on a place relatively untouched by it. In its final minutes, Being Natural takes a turn toward the supernatural, and it's satisfying for giving the main characters the reprisal they want, but also poignant for the way it has us understand that it only occurs in the realm of fantasy. The film, in the end, acknowledges that it's difficult to go against the system, and that to stay sane means finding a little pocket of happiness in the world and enjoying it while it lasts.
Japan Cuts runs from July 19—28.
Review: David Crosby: Remember My Name Sees a Legend Carrying On
The film captures a man haunted by his past mistakes and nearly certain that he doesn't have the time left to begin making up for them.2.5
One gets the sense when hearing David Cosby perform that, like many naturally gifted vocalists, he was born to express himself through song, and given his tumultuous personal and professional life, the act of singing may be the only means through which Crosby can briefly maintain an equilibrium amid so much chaos. Womanizing, drug abuse, and band breakups are certainly par for the course for countless musicians, especially those who came up in the late 1960s, but Crosby is an extreme case even by those standards. It's difficult to think of another living musician more strongly and uniformly despised by his former bandmates and collaborators and, aside from Keith Richards, another whose continued survival is more shocking in light of what he's put his body through.
Aided by Cameron Crowe, who, as a Rolling Stone writer, interviewed Crosby various times and is on hand here to again pick the musician's brain, A.J. Eaton's David Crosby: Remember My Name opens with a fairly standard music-doc overview that traces Crosby's productive early years with the Byrds and his ascent to fame with both iterations of Crosby, Stills & Nash. There's no effort made to hide Crosby's thorny personality or the chaos he brought to each of these early projects, but Eaton and Crowe seem initially content to butter Crosby up, joining him in waxing rhapsodic about his widespread influence and lasting importance as a musician.
The hagiographic tone slowly fades as the film moves past the perfunctory career retrospective and begins delving into the nitty-gritty details of Crosby's bumpy road to stardom and his rapid descent into disgrace, spurred on by his decades-long battle with drug addiction. While Crosby often proves a tough nut to crack, rarely willing to linger too long on the painful moments of a life eventful enough to fill several documentaries, Crowe and Eaton eventually disarm him enough to tap into the frustrated, damaged, and regretful man hiding all those years beneath his patented walrus mustache and wispy, long hair. As Crosby discusses the petulance and rage he often unfairly directed at fellow bandmates and his mistreatment of many of his girlfriends, several of whom he got hooked on cocaine and heroin, one can sense not only the depth of his remorse and anguish, but also the resigned helplessness that little can be done in his twilight years to repair the many bridges he's permanently scorched.
Throughout Remember My Name, archival interviews with Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, and Neil Young make it abundantly clear that Crosby has alienated each of his former bandmates to such a degree that none of them will talk to him again. Only former Byrds frontman Roger McGuinn appears in a newly recorded interview for the film, and he does so presumably only to describe how "insufferable" Crosby was as a fellow bandmate.
At nearly 80 years old, Crosby is happily married and in the midst of a creative resurgence with a string of acclaimed solo albums, but even these small joys are mitigated by his admission that he's only touring, and thus often away from his wife, because he needs the money. During a leisurely drive with Crowe, Crosby visits his old stomping grounds in Laurel Canyon and the Sunset Strip and recounts those halcyon days when he lived with Joni Mitchell and sang his first song with Nash and Stills. But the magic of these locales has long since faded, leaving Crosby in an uncharacteristically introspective state and all too aware of how close he is to the end of his life. As he wistfully tells Crowe that he already has eight stents in his heart and will likely die in the next couple of years, the film captures a man haunted by his past mistakes and nearly certain that he doesn't have the time left to begin making up for them.
Director: A.J. Eaton Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics Running Time: 95 min Rating: R Year: 2019
Review: Cassandro, the Exotico! Shoulders the Strange Burden of Empathy
Marie Losier's empathy, if not love, for Cassandro hinders her from examining his wounds with much depth.2.5
Queerness isn't just about the relationship between bodies: the ones we desire, the ones that will never desire us back, the ones we wished we possessed. It's also very much a matter of cloth, color, and adornment. Many a pop-cultural figure has manifested this queer sartorial drama, from Liberace to David Bowie, from Leigh Bowery to early Lady Gaga, from Pepper LaBeija to Shangela Laquifa Wadley. And with her new documentary, Cassandro, the Exotico!, Marie Losier introduces us to a lesser-known, yet just as subversive, purveyor of that drama: Mexican luchador Cassandro, a Universal Wrestling Association winner and former junkie with a penchant for gaudy garments.
Ridiculous stage wear is, of course, fundamentally associated with professional wrestling, but Cassandro's textile-informed camp isn't compensated by violent machismo or a heterosexist mise-en-scène. Instead, this exótico is unapologetic about the seamless kinship between his queerness and that of the clothes he wears. And the continuum between queer sexuality and fashion places him simultaneously as the exceptional gay figure in a supposedly macho sport, the Mexican lucha libre, and as the element that outs wrestling writ large as an already queer affair. Cassandro, né Saúl Armendáriz, is, then, a ready-made cinematic character, bearing the contradictions of his world from the inside—a world where, much like ours, heterosexual male violence is performed through patently homoerotic means.
Although skin, bones, and fabric are all—to various degrees of visible and invisible discomfort—stitched into the gendered body, the film is precisely concerned with the moment when these connections come apart at the seams. After decades of fighting for a living, Cassandro's body is giving out. This is a moment of desperation for someone who turned to wrestling as something between religion and therapy. We see him literally hanging his flamboyant costumes to dry on a clotheslines as he speaks about retirement, about how quitting would appease his body but demolish his ego. As the film progresses, his dislocated chin, limited hand movements, and multiple head concussions will seem like the belated embodiment, if not the psychosomatic scream, of a childhood marked by molestation and sexual abuse. A history of spectacular violence catching up to years of a much less visible brutality.
Cassandro, the Exotico! is largely observational, with occasional interventions from Losier. It wouldn't be fair to call the film hagiographic, but the director's empathy, if not love, for her subject hinders her from examining Cassandro's wounds with much depth. When faced with Cassandro's misery, Losier's response is to console him as if wanting to change the subject. She cuts one moment of candidness short, when Cassandro is addressing his fears via Skype, by telling him, "I wish I could give you a kiss." It would have served the documentary better had Losier granted her subject the possibility to work through his pain in front of the camera.
Visually, the documentary, which is shot on 16mm film stock, recalls canonical diaristic works that expose people's troublesome feelings in raw and unbridled fashion (think Jonas Mekas, Sadie Benning, and Su Friedrich). Which makes the juxtaposition of Losier's visual language and her reluctance to examine Cassandro's frailties feel particularly displeasing. Perhaps afraid that scrutiny would shatter Cassandro, Losier fails to realize that it's precisely through such shattering that redemption can emerge, maybe even reparation.
Director: Marie Losier Screenwriter: Marie Losier, Antoine Barraud Distributor: Film Movement Running Time: 73 min Rating: NR Year: 2018
Interview: Marc Maron on Sword of Truth, WTF, and the Possibility of Change
Maron discusses modern media discourse, the communicative bridge linking his acting with his podcast, and how he likes to be directed.
Marc Maron is presently enjoying one of the most unlikely and inspiring success stories in Hollywood. Once known as a bitter "comic's comic" who was eclipsed in success by contemporaries such as Louis C.K. and Jon Stewart, Maron has been reborn into a poster boy for empathy, starting with his blockbuster podcast, "WTF," and continuing with roles in the hit television series Maron, Easy, and GLOW. With each role, Maron has rapidly evolved from a "comic who acts" into a first-rate character actor capable of subtly altering his charisma to fit a variety of oddballs who, like himself, struggle with self-doubt while attempting to walk a straight and sober path.
Now, with Sword of Truth, Maron makes his debut as a cinematic lead, playing Mel, a pawnshop owner who ends up on a road trip that stirs long-festering feelings of estrangement, which parallels the forms of isolation gripping a variety of other characters, and which the film's director, Lynn Shelton, links to the reactionary myths and politics currently gripping this country. The role marks another career high point for Maron, who talked to me last week about the communicative bridge linking his acting with his podcast, how he likes to be directed, and the "mind-fuckery" currently gripping modern media discourse.
Given that you've previously worked with Lynn Shelton on Maron and GLOW, did you two have a kind of collaborative shorthand going into Sword of Trust?
Well, I'm generally filled with anxiety and resistance. I don't know if there's a shorthand, but Lynn knows how to get the best out of me and works with me pretty well. I like directors who're hands on with me and guide me.
Do you like to receive a lot of explicit direction, or is your process more intuitive?
Well, I do what I do. I definitely welcome suggestions, because I'm certainly not going to think of all the possibilities of a scene. Most of my choices are not necessarily correct. I usually come in pretty intense and hot, and there's subtleties that can be coaxed out with minor tweaks. And I like working like that. I wouldn't have the confidence to assume that my take is the "right" one necessarily.
There's a stillness to you in Sword of Trust that I'm not sure we've seen before.
Your weight as a performer is really felt here, especially in that scene when Mel first see Lynn's character in his shop. I love how you enter the room from the closet, and how one can feel the emotion bubbling up in Mel.
Thanks, man. I think this is a heavy-hearted guy who's sort of surrendered to his lot in life. He also has a certain amount invested in his own. I don't know if it's heartache, but he's definitely a broken dude who's making the best of whatever time he has left. I don't know if the other characters are really like that. They are always in forward motion.
You also inform Mel's appraising of objects with all these lovely emotional textures. He's not only talking about a sword.
The guitar too. As I act more, I try to take some of the space that you're talking about. With acting I feel that I've been learning on the job in a way, and over time I've started to explore different possibilities with owning whatever my space is, whether it's a movie or on stage. Certainly, over decades of doing stand-up, I've figured out my space on a stage, but being on a set and pacing yourself and taking the time to engage with what's around you I think makes a lot of difference in how a performance comes off. It's about being present in an environment.
Has your ascending acting career changed how you relate to actors on your podcast?
Over the last few years, since I've started acting more, I've had more actors on. I tend to try to pull a nice acting class out of that. I think a lot of what my guests say makes sense. Once again, a lot of acting is about listening and being present. In another time in my life, I saw certain actors as mythic. Now that I've talked to so many of them, I've started to realize, not in a disappointing way, that…what's the word I want? That these are people doing a job, all in their own way. Once you get upset with people, you realize, "Well, that's how they're approaching this job," and when you get into the ring or the scene, you're in it.
That inside knowledge gives "WTF" an edge too. For many interviewers, like myself, art-making is basically theory. But you have your feet on the ground so to speak.
I think that happens over time. I don't think I ever set out to interview. I've framed what happens on my podcast as conversations, and they either go somewhere or they don't. There's a few points I may get hung up on, and there are places I go to fairly regularly in interviews, but I generally don't see these conversations as question-and-answer situations. I don't have any expectations really other than to feel a connection or to sort of be enlightened. I think those of you who have a job to interview, for an outlet, for the content and the word count and everything else, might have more restrictions. I don't have to answer to anybody and I don't know what I'm looking for half the time.
Yeah, and a challenge I've found with interviews is that one doesn't always entirely know what is and isn't in bounds, which can lead to an impersonal vibe. By contrast, your podcast has such an intimate layer throughout.
You have to feel that stuff out, you know I'm not necessarily intuitive about that. I'm not really in the business of sandbagging anybody.
Usually you get somebody comfortable and things come out. If people are comfortable and engaged it doesn't really matter what they're talking about. Audiences will say, "Oh, wow, I didn't know that." These conversations don't require information, but an emotional connection. I'm so happy about that, especially considering the never-ending torrent of garbage that we have to move through every day.
I think about politics. Politics online are rarely civil, but when you get someone in person, and start slowly, and are willing to have a conversation, you can normally get farther than you might expect.
Online culture isn't civil and there's a momentum to everything that's based on mind-fuckery. I know for myself—as somebody who was relatively disinterested and uninformed about the functions of government and why politics and leadership make a difference—that people are perfectly willing to volunteer their brains to these strange flashpoint reactors that trigger them emotionally. People live by these black-and-white decisions. It's not good. We need to consider what we really know and how we know it and what we're telling other people.
People are so empowered by garbage information that's being related in a relatively shallow way, which doesn't take into consideration the influence and context of the rest of our lives. It's sort of a disaster. I try to stay away from that stuff in terms of the conversations that I'm having. I'm trying to deal with something more human and experiential. Most people are regurgitating talking points on both sides without thinking of how someone feels and how to affect change. I got an interview with Geena Davis [who stars in the new season of GLOW] coming up, about her work with her foundation and her work in this documentary about women in show business. It's called This Changes Everything. I tell you man, when someone's that personally invested in something they believe in, and it's righteous, and they lay it out for you and it makes sense, that's what heartens my belief in this possibility for change.
To change gears a bit, is it cathartic for you, as someone who's long been in recovery, to play characters who're either reformed or have drug issues?
Yeah, sure. Most obviously there's the last season of Maron, where my character has a relapse, which frankly didn't happen in real life. When you really understand the nature of addiction, and you've seen it from the inside, and know the powerlessness and the struggle to live a life that's not in the throes of it—I mean, it's such a common struggle. And what's amazing to me is how many people don't find a way out of that or don't seek help. Or are ashamed of it or don't know how to get the help. I never set out to do this, but I'm thrilled and humbled by the effect my work has on people who're isolated by this sickness. It's really one of the more satisfying results of the podcast: how much mail I get from people who're struggling and who want advice, or who feel less alone from what I've said. The great thing about recovery, and about playing these parts, is that it gives you a context that's very specific—a way to legitimately help people that can change their entire lives.
American Demons: Martin Bell's Streetwise and Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell
Bell proves uncannily adept at capturing moments that seem to encapsulate a subject's entire emotional temperature.
Decades after its original release, Martin Bell's Streetwise remains a boldly empathetic work of vérité portraiture. Throughout the 1984 documentary, Bell, photographer Mary Ellen Mark, and journalist Cheryl McCall follow a motley group of kids on the streets of Seattle as they panhandle, dig food out of dumpsters, and prostitute themselves to much older men. These scenes are accompanied by voiceovers from the young subjects, who describe their actions with a heartbreaking casualness that communicates two almost contradictory meanings: that they're seasoned hustlers, having bypassed childhood for an everyday form of hell, and that they're desperate to be seen precisely as said hustlers. To show emotion is to be vulnerable, and these subjects can't afford to be seen as weak, yet the filmmakers capture more here than the street children may have suspected. Streetwise is charged by a deep, subterranean yearning to be loved, or even merely felt.
A plot hasn't been imposed on Streetwise, as the audience is allowed to feel the numbing monotony of life on the fringes. People swing in and out of prison, crash in and out of secret hovels, most notably an abandoned hotel, and practice their grifts, while struggling with overlapping tides of addiction and depression. We also learn, startlingly, that not all these children are homeless. Streetwise's most famous subject, Erin Blackwell, a.k.a. "Tiny," lives with her mother, a waitress and alcoholic who rationalizes her daughter's prostitution as a phase and who seems to be impressed with Erin's ability to make a few hundred dollars on a good day. It's little wonder that Erin captured and continued to command the filmmakers' attention for decades after filming Streetwise ended. She has a squinty yet expressive glare that suggests both a deep reservoir of pain as well as intense fierceness.
Bell, Mark, and McCall take Erin and her cohorts, most vividly a skinny boy with potential tonsillitis named DeWayne Pomeroy, at face value. Streetwise is pointedly devoid of the sermonizing that might allow audiences to comfortably distance themselves from these people, regarding them simply as elements of a civics lesson. The film forces us to confront the obviousness of these children's circumstances, as people walk by them just as we all walk by the homeless on a daily basis. This sense of culpability informs Streetwise with an uncomfortable texture that's familiar to documentaries concerned with poor or mentally and emotionally challenged people, so you may wonder how the filmmakers shot what we're seeing without stepping in and helping these people. Particularly disturbing is when Erin, 13 years old at the start of filming, is seen getting into a car with an old man who's obviously a john.
If Streetwise was just a portrait of damnation and delusion, it would be an important document. But the film is also haunting for Bell, Mark, and McCall's attention to the transcendence than can be felt even in such extreme circumstances. After Erin has gotten into trouble, DeWayne tells her of how he will rescue her, and his attempt at gallantry is poignant as well as devastating. When DeWayne visits his father in prison, the old man lectures the boy about keeping his smoking down and laying off the hard drugs, commanding DeWayne to roll up his shirt sleeves for a track-mark inspection. As brutally sad as this confrontation is, one feels this father's love and wonders if DeWayne, clearly a sensitive and lonely boy, can feel it too. Retrospectively, it hardly matters: DeWayne hung himself not long after this visit.
Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell, a 2016 sequel to Streetwise that's been in the works for thirtysomething years, offers a variety of unmooring contrasts from its predecessor. Erin is no longer the slim spitfire of Streetwise, but an overweight fortysomething mother of 10 who understandably appears to always be on the verge of exhaustion, and who takes methadone in an attempt to keep her drug addictions at bay while wrangling with her children's own skirmishes with the law. Looking at Erin now, one sees the scars and weariness left by a hard life, part of which was documented by Streetwise, and one can implicitly feel Erin's need for atonement. Though Erin's gotten off the streets, living in a large home with her partner, Will, and several of her children, the streets have never left her.
Formally, Tiny is much different from Streetwise. The 1984 film abounds in seamy noises and textures, with roving camerawork that seems to be uncovering a new lurid discovery every few seconds; it feels palpably dangerous, and probably inspired films such as Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho and Larry's Clark's Kids. Set predominantly in Erin's home, Tiny is slower and more polished, reflecting the (comparative) stability that Erin has achieved since appearing in Streetwise. Tiny also has a fancier structure than Streetwise, with a framing device in which Erin watches footage of herself over the years, including unused outtakes from the first film, with Mary Ellen Mark. An autumnal tone seeps into the new film, which offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of the unending legacies of crime and addiction.
As in Streetwise, Bell proves uncannily adept at capturing moments that seem to encapsulate a subject's entire emotional temperature. There are frequent shots in Tiny of Erin sleeping with a little dog close to her face, which suggest rare moments of repose for a woman who's used to running her chaotic family like a hostage negotiator. Erin frequently calls the cops on her own children, especially the headstrong teenager Rayshon, which Bell unforgettably rhymes with footage of a younger Erin visiting two of her children in foster care. One of the foster care children, Keanna, is now a mother herself, and resents Erin for abandoning her and for continuing to struggle with drug use.
Which is to say that Tiny is as charged with turmoil as Streetwise, and Bell proves equally capable here of rendering full relationships with only a few images or seconds of running time. As in Streetwise, our sympathies are rarely overtly directed, as Tiny is somehow on every character's contradictory wavelength at once, illustrating how difficult understanding can be to achieve, most notably in the face of disaster. Though it runs a trim 87 minutes, Tiny offers an epic and piercing portrait of a large biracial family that's plagued by essentially every demon known to American society. Erin escaped the streets only to fashion a home that's rife with the very issues that drove her away from her own mother. Like most people, regardless of social stature, Erin is stuck in the temporal loop of her own inherent nature.
Review: Radu Jude's I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
Jude's film is a bitterly comic essay on nationalist mythologies and historical amnesia.3.5
Prime minister of Romania during most of World War II, Ion Antonescu is one of the era's supreme villains: a virulent anti-Semite, Nazi collaborator, and authoritarian dictator whose troops murdered Jews with such velocity and enthusiasm that even Hitler was shocked by their actions. Upon ordering the forced expulsion—and, if necessary, genocide—of the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina, Antonescu proclaimed, "I do not care if we go down in history as Barbarians." Radu Jude borrows that declaration, so haunting in its cruelty and disarming in its blitheness, for the title of his latest film, a bitterly comic essay on nationalist mythologies and historical amnesia that locates the seeds of Romania's currently resurgent ethno-nationalism in the nation's collective failure to truly confront its own past.
For while Antonescu was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to death by firing squad shortly after the war, there have been repeated attempts to rehabilitate his image in Romania since the fall of Nicolae Ceaușescu. Take Sergiu Nicolaescu's 1994 film The Mirror, a hagiographic treatment of Antonescu's rule that portrays the leader as a defiant protector of his people. Jude inserts a substantial clip of that film into I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians, having it play on a small TV set positioned in the exact center of the frame as we hear the off-screen voice of Jude's protagonist, Mariana (Ioana Iacob), providing sardonic, outraged commentary on the film's distorted presentation of Antonescu as a misunderstood hero. There's an element of desperation in the scene: While Mariana offers an incontestable rebuttal, no one but her boyfriend (Alex Bogdan) is there to hear it. Meanwhile, The Mirror's comforting nationalist lies are being beamed into homes all across Romania.
A headstrong theater director attempting to stage a public reenactment of the Odessa Massacre of 1941, in which Romanian troops slaughtered thousands of Ukrainian Jews, Mariana is obsessed with bringing the full weight of historical reality to her fellow countrymen. She obsessively reads histories of the period and drops quotations from philosophers and historical figures into everyday conversation. The film is consumed by lengthy, probing conversations—mostly shot by a statically mounted 16mm camera that pans back and forth to cover the actors' movements—in which Mariana discusses art, philosophy, history, and politics with her various collaborators and friends.
Her most persistent interlocutor is Movilă (Alexandru Dabija), a local official tasked with overseeing the publicly funded production, who constantly pleads with Mariana to tone down her work's unvarnished depiction of anti-Semitic violence. Movilă is a relativist, content in the knowledge that all memory is willfully selective, while Mariana truly believes in the power of stark historical truth. Though at times didactic and overloaded with quotations from the likes of Wittgenstein and Arendt, Jude's dialogue nevertheless manages to feel remarkably naturalistic. That's thanks in no small part to the powerfully unaffected performances of a cast that finds the subtle humor and neurotic character details embedded in Jude's dense screenplay. Iacob captures Mariana's unrelenting passion while also finding moments of vulnerability and self-doubt in the role, including moments of hesitation and anxiety borne of the fact that she's a petite, cosmopolitan woman attempting to exert control over a large cast of rugged men, many of whom are diametrically opposed to the vision of her project.
Jude's heavy themes are leavened by a self-effacing sense of modesty. Jude isn't attempting to make grand pronouncements about the nature of memory and truth. Rather, I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians finds the director constantly interrogating his own perspective, questioning Mariana's relationship to the wider public. That theme comes to a head in the film's climactic presentation of the artist's reenactment. Here, Jude switches from the warm dreaminess of 16mm to the harsh hyper-realism of digital video. The scene has the feel of a simple documentation of a live public event, but it isn't clear that it's actually any more "real" than the rest of the film. In particular, whether and to what extent the crowd of onlookers' reactions are coached remains one of the film's most intriguing enigmas.
Ultimately, Mariana finds herself perplexed and deflated by the public's response to her work. One senses this reaction may be autobiographical for Jude, whose film Aferim! attempted to challenge Romanian audiences about the nation's historical treatment of Roma people. As one of the few directors of the so-called Romanian New Wave whose work explores the country's unsavory pre-Soviet past, Jude is swimming against the popular tide of revisionism and historical moral blindness. The anti-Semitic violence and hatred laid out in his latest is truly chilling, as is the contemporary tendency to diminish and obscure that dark past. But perhaps most disturbing of all is the idea put forth in the film's conclusion: that one could present the truth to the public in all its brutality and horror, and it wouldn't make a bit of difference.
Cast: Ioana Iacob, Alexandru Dabija, Alex Bogdan, Ilinca Manolache, Serban Pavlu, Ion Rizea, Claudia Ieremia Director: Radu Jude Screenwriter: Radu Jude Distributor: Big World Pictures Running Time: 140 min Rating: NR Year: 2018
Interview: Lynn Shelton on Honing Her Process for Sword of Trust
The filmmaker discusses how she wants viewers to feel like they're paratrooping into her characters' lives.
Lynn Shelton has amassed a formidable body of work between her eight features and countless television episodes. Her latest outing, the comic adventure Sword of Trust, represents her most topical work to date. After pawn shop owner Mel (played by Marc Maron) purchases an old sword, he gets plunged into world of conspiracy culture as the relic attracts legions of online prowlers convinced that the weapon represents proof that the Confederacy won the Civil War. The logline might be Shelton's wildest yet, but the elements that have made her work indelible for over a decade remain intact: realistic conversations, emotional authenticity, and a commitment to multi-dimensional characters.
I chatted with Shelton on Sword of Trust's opening day, which saw the director, writer, producer, editor, and occasional actress in great spirits. Our conversation covered her pursuit of Maron for this specific project, how she developed her unique script-development process, and why she wants viewers to feel like they're paratrooping into her characters' lives.
Last year on Marc Maron's podcast, you mentioned that you liked exploring relationships between people who wouldn't normally interact. Sword of Trust continues in that tradition for you. What keeps bringing you back to these dynamics?
Have you heard of this theory of multiple intelligences, like different types of intelligences we have? I can't remember the names that [Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner] came up with, I think there's eight. I know I'm not the brightest bulb on all of these scales, but one way that I think I'm pretty high is in emotional intelligence. I like to think I am, anyway. I've always been that close observer of human behavior. I also really love humans. I feel like the thing that makes humans human are their flaws. So, on screen, I don't like to see people who are too smoothed out, all good or all bad. I'm interested in characters who are essentially good people, but they may be total fuck-ups and well-meaning who may sabotage themselves. Individual fucking up often happens in relation to other people. We may have a pre-determined need to connect to other people, but we're constantly sabotaging ourselves.
Sometimes, like I said on the podcast, I'm much more interested in unlikely combinations of people because it's not a prewritten script we're handed. It's not like, "This is who would be appropriate for you as a friend. This is the way you should act. This is the box we've already determined for you." Any kind of out-of-the-box way of living one's life or being surprised by a connection you feel to a human being, all those little happy accidents in life are the things I like to explore. To inspire people, not to just go through life in this sort of "this is what someone else had in mind for me, and I should follow that plan"—that feels very depressing to me. It's more interesting to open your heart and your life up to other experiences.
To explore relationships in that way makes the everyday more interesting and exciting.
Yeah, exactly. It gives you a reason to stick around.
Having been a guest of Marc's on his podcast twice, do you see any of his interviewer "persona" having an impact on the person you film on screen? Does training himself to listen and be present have any effect on making him a better screen partner?
Absolutely! The first time I directed Marc was on his TV show Maron, and I was so fascinated by his process. He's raw and a really natural actor. He steps in front of the camera, and he's looking at his scene partner and really knows how to listen and engage. A lot of that comes from sitting across from people and staring into their eyes. That's why he's such a good interviewer and has the top interview podcast, because he has a genuine conversation with people. And that's all acting really is too. He also has this weird ability to let the camera and crew and other extraneous details just fade away for him, and a lot of people find all that really distracting and difficult to shut out. He doesn't know where the camera is half the time. He said to me, "The next thing I want to do as an actor is figure out when the camera is on me." I said, "What?! That camera's right there!" He's like, "I don't see it. I'm not aware of it. I'm just in this scene with the person." I'm like, "That is a gift, my friend. That is incredible that you're able to not see the lights and craziness, just be in the scene." He's really able to do it. I think that definitely comes from that same skill set he's drawing on.
Where does the genesis of your films occur? They usually have some kind of strong conceptual selling point or hook, but they're often like a Trojan horse to get to deep conversations between the characters about something else.
It is, and the genesis of the vast majority of my films is an actor as a muse that I want to work with. Humpday was Mark Duplass, Outside In was his brother, Jay Duplass, this movie was Marc Maron, who I've been really wanting to make a movie with for three and a half years. Then there's other things, like a territory I want to explore or an element I want to return to, like improvisation, which I haven't done since Your Sister's Sister. I've done several movies in between that have been scripted, but I wanted to allow myself a new genre. I knew I wanted to laugh because the last movie was a drama, and I was ready to laugh—and let myself really laugh by going into the outlandish and ridiculous, plot-wise. Go into some comedy-caper territory, which I've never let myself do before. I've been totally real in every moment, and this time I was like, "What if I have real characters who go to a crazy place?" I wanted to make a culturally relevant movie that didn't make you want to slit your wrists. It referred to what was going on and some of the problematic elements of what we're dealing with in society. We're having this peak moment in conspiracy theories. They've always been around, but this is definitely where they've achieved a peak moment that I find very disturbing. So, it's usually a territory I want to explore and an actor I want to work with.
How do you research or prepare to authentically treat conspiracy culture?
Well, there's this thing called a computer and a thing called the internet, and boy, is it all in there! [laughs] We went down a rabbit hole with Mike O'Brien, my co-writer. It's so fascinating because there's little in-fighting. They really bonded over Pizzagate and the Twin Towers being an inside job, but then when it comes to hollow earth versus the earth is on fire, they're at odds and frenemies for life. It's insane, the shit you find.
How do you approach shooting improvisational dialogue? There's a very naturalistic feel to it, but there are hardly any vocal fillers like "um" or "you know."
Well, you get the right cast, so that really helps. I'll tell you, you can do a lot in the editing room. You'll see it on screen, there are these runs of incredible monologues. But if I'm cutting away to another actor for a reaction shot, it's often because I'm slicing out an "um" or an "ah" or a little bauble. The edit room is the most redemptive place in the universe. It's incredible what you can do and how you can carve out the right story. Especially with improvisation, it really is where the actual script is written. Our first cut—it didn't feel fat, it was funny throughout—was two and a half hours long. I was like, "How am I going to cut out five to seven minutes, much less an hour?" And for me, a comedy has to be 90 minutes, so I knew I needed an hour out of there. It was like, "This is hysterical, this is gold, but it's not serving the story. Ultimately, what is the story? It could be this, or it could include this, but let's just hone it down to Mel's emotional arc and make sure we can track it through the craziness." We want to care about these people just enough and balance it. There was so much work in the edit room.
Sword of Trust is definitely a comedy, but the scene I found most striking was Mel explaining his history to your character, Deidre, and in such a matter-of-fact, serious fashion, in the back of the truck. Did you always intend to set off this important part of the story with such a stark tonal contrast?
No, it wasn't. When Mike O'Brien really insisted that I be in the movie, I finally relented and thought I was going to be a random customer who came in for five seconds. But then, I realized she could be a device that helps us track Mel's arc. I was really panicking for a long time because I couldn't figure out how to make her funny. I can be comedic, but she wasn't comedic. She was so desperate and tragic. Then I finally realized that I wasn't going to worry about it. I wasn't going to try to turn her into some kind of laughing-stock. I was just going to be what she feels like she needs to be. That was an indication that this movie is going to have that real element of heaviness to it, but it happened really organically. I wanted you to care about these people, but I didn't realize there was going to be that much depth to one of them, so much poignant heart and humanity. That was a nice surprise.
You've described your writing process as being "upside-down," where the script develops alongside the characters. How did you develop this writing style?
I never went to traditional film school. I had this long, circuitous route to get to what I'm doing. I started as a theater actor, then I went to photography and started doing experimental work, but everything as a solo artist. The most important work of the film, making the process of the acting, is obstructed at every turn by the process of making it. You're out of order. In theater, you at least get to play a story from beginning to end and feel it out. You're at scene 35 on the first day and like, "What's happened before this? Where am I emotionally?" And then you've got to do it 40 times with the camera in different positions and act like nobody else is there. The whole thing is so hard, unless you're Meryl Streep! But if you're not working with Meryl Streep, what do you do as a director? I need real people on screen.
My second feature, My Effortless Brilliance, was a total experiment. I came up with these characters in my head and tried to cast them from a pretty small pool of actors. They were nothing like the characters. I realized, "What if you did it the other way? What if you had a person you wanted to work with…" That was where I started with that idea, and all I cared about was to make it feel like a documentary. I wanted you to turn the TV on and be like, "What am I watching? Am I in these people's lives?" And people have said they've had that experience where they'll turn it on in the middle of Showtime and have no idea what they're watching but that it feels like a documentary. Which is like, "Yes! That's what I meant."
And then I honed it with Humpday. Once I knew I could work in that way, I upped the stakes. I'll bring in a few lights. I had said, "No lights! Me and another camera operator with tiny cameras, a boom op, that's it." I eliminated the crew. But that was where I came up with that initial impulse, to make it feel really real. If the character fits the actor like a glove because it's half them or three-quarters them and they've developed it with me…I want real humans.
I actually had that experience of picking up one of your movies and not missing a beat. I was late to my showtime of Your Sister's Sister in the theater, but I didn't feel like I was lost. Then a few years later I watched it at home from the beginning, which helped it make a little more sense. But I felt I had easily intuited what I had missed.
It's funny because I want my movies to feel like you're paratrooping into somebody's life. We're taking a little journey down the river of their life for a while, and then we leave again. I don't like to tie things up too neatly at the end because I want you to get the sense that they're continuing to live their lives, and who knows what's going to happen in the future. But you just sort of paratrooped in a little bit later! [laughs]
On that note, there's a line toward the end of the film where Jillian Bell's character, Cynthia, takes a deep breath and says, "What a strange experience." Is that line improvised or scripted? In a lot of ways, the line feels like it sums up where characters often net out at the end of your films.
That was all improvised! It's all ordinary people going into crazy land, but yeah, ordinary people having weird dramas in their everyday lives. I mean, it can happen. I've heard stories of shit happening to random people that feel like…you couldn't write that shit!
Review: Into the Ashes Brings Nothing New to the Country Noir Genre
Aaron Harvey is prone to pulling back from any moment that might give greater depth to his revenge tale.2
Aaron Harvey's Into the Ashes is the latest in an increasing string of so-called country noirs set in the dilapidated backwoods of rural America, places ravaged by the opioid crisis and populated by jobless people long ago abandoned by politicians. It has little to distinguish itself, narratively or thematically, from similarly dour films, and it lets generic images of its rundown Alabama locale (rusted trucks, cramped houses, landlines in a wireless world) stand in as symbols of national decline without truly seeping into the complex social rot of the place. Its plot, of a reformed criminal forced to contend with his old gang leader over some stolen loot, is similarly superficial, hitting the typical beats of its genre.
Where Into the Ashes gets a boost is in its excellent cast of grizzled character actors, all of whom vibrantly express varying degrees of weariness and rage. Luke Grimes plays the erstwhile ne'er-do-well and ex-con Nick Brenner with the nervousness of a man who's just learning to let go of his past and give in to hope. The man's gruff, taciturn nature is leavened by his tender relationship with his wife, Tara (Marguerite Moreau), and he projects his faith in normalcy onto her. Nick relies so heavily on Tara for his emotional wellbeing that he anxiously calls home while on an overnight hunting trip just so he can hear her voice.
Equally human beneath a hard exterior is Nick's father-in-law, Frank (Robert Taylor), the local sheriff whose intimidating Tom Waits-esque voice and stiff demeanor belie his fumbling, masculine attempts to welcome Nick into his family. Strongest of all, though, is Frank Grillo as Sloan, Nick's recently paroled and vengeful boss. Grillo is at home playing big-fish-in-small-pond villains, and the actor makes the most of Sloan's thin characterization, exuding psychopathic menace when Sloan confronts Nick in the latter's home, drawing out every oblique threat as he circles the subject of the money that Nick stole from the crew's last job before Sloan was sent to prison. Grillo expertly inflects even the silliest moments of sub-Tarantino dialogue with a disarming venom, such as an extended riff on pie and ice cream.
But if the actors are primed to explore the contours around a basic premise, Henry constantly pulls back from any moment that might give greater depth to his revenge tale. Women exist to be supportive and to become victims, while character-driven conversations between Nick and Frank devolve into asinine ethics debates over justifiable violence. Worst of all, there's just no sense that the film is saying or revealing much of anything. There's one moment where Into the Ashes achieves a touch of bleak grace akin to the work of Cormac McCarthy by skipping over the events leading to a shootout and focusing only on its grisly aftermath: bodies strewn about in puddles of blood that look like reflective pools of black ice in the pale moonlight. Then, not five minutes later, we get a flashback showing the lead-up to that carnage. As with so much else in the film, a haunting moment of elision is negated by literal representation.
Cast: Luke Grimes, Frank Grillo, Marguerite Moreau, James Badge Dale, Robert Taylor, Brady Smith, Jeff Pope, Andrea Frankle Director: Aaron Harvey Screenwriter: Aaron Harvey Distributor: RLJE Films Running Time: 97 min Rating: NR Year: 2019
Review: Stéphane Brizé's At War Is Politically Charged but Artistically Inert
The film is content to bluntly affirm that corporate attempts at compassion are always secondary to providing profit to shareholders.2
Seven months after the first flare-up of France's Gilets Jaunes, the nascent populist movement shows no signs of ceasing. Combined with the country's ongoing Telecom scandal, in which several executives have been charged with "moral harassment" after 35 workers were allegedly hounded into committing suicide, it's evident that what's simmering there is an extension of the same unease escalating around much of Europe, and the world at large. It's a state of affairs that makes At War seem especially of the moment, and which leaves its eventual failure to offer any special insight so disappointing. Provided with a prime opportunity to animate the zeitgeist, Stéphane Brizé's labor-focused drama instead uses this timeliness to prod along the most obvious of points, its nuts-and-bolts, process-oriented approach never amounting to more than a surface look at the issues it purports to confront.
The film in some ways functions as an unofficial prelude to Brizé's prior The Measure of a Man, in which an unemployed machinist played by Vincent Lindon finds a new career as a hyper-market security guard, where he's eventually forced to choose between serving as a traitorous management lackey and losing his job. Here, Lindon's Laurent Amédéo is still in possession of his original occupation, though things are hanging by a thread, as a last-ditch organizing effort attempts to halt the closure of a manufacturing plant in Agen. Surrounded by a cast of convincing non-professionals, Laurent leads the picket line, refusing to waver from the straight and narrow, an intense figure of principle whose scruples are never in doubt.
At War is largely notable for its steadfast devotion to a kind of mechanistic aesthetic, which unfortunately lines up with its cheerless didacticism, the two qualities cohering in a scene-by-scene summation of a strike action that repeatedly hammers home the same general points. The scenes themselves evince heft, fluidity, and an impressive sense of improvisation, but the staging is static and the eventual outcome is always clear. The game is given away by Lindon's stoic face and the gradual unraveling of the plot, which envisions internal disintegration—leveraged by outside pressure—as the insidious method by which solidarity is smashed. Despite some genuine drama in this dissolution, it's always clear who's right and who's wrong, which material interests each is representing, and who's lying and who's telling the truth.
This didn't have to be the case, as proven by David France's procedure-focused documentary How to Survive a Plague, which balanced a similarly diagrammatic narrative with extensive character detail, expanding the stakes while affixing a deeper subtext about the ways the victory of a marginalized group eventually diminishes its radical standing. Intent on emphasizing the connections between callous corporate greed and populist unrest, Brizé's film is bluntly focused on the bottom line. There's a certain dramatic function to this technique, as it examines the individual human actions that allow such interests to put their will into practice, but it doesn't justify the flat, exhortative style of address.
As another example of how well this kind of economic criticism can be carried off, there are the dazzling docu-essays of German filmmaker Harun Farocki, who routinely found surprising intricacies in the cold façade of modern capitalism, while offering empathetic alignment with workers as a matter of course. At War, on the other hand, merely summarizes what its audience already knows, affirming that corporate attempts at compassion are always secondary to providing profit to shareholders, and that genuine humanity and integrity are liabilities when confronting such an unfeeling monolith. Like Ken Loach's recent Palme d'Or winner I, Daniel Blake, it's a film whose political principles are hard to disagree with, yet which leans so heavily on this moral certitude as to render itself entirely inert.
Cast: Vincent Lindon, Melanie Rover, Jacques Borderie, David Rey, Olivier Lemaire Director: Stéphane Brizé Screenwriter: Stéphane Brizé, Olivier Gorce Distributor: Cinema Libre Studio Running Time: 115 min Rating: NR Year: 2019
Review: Bottom of the 9th Strikes Out with Too Much Plot Incident
Raymond De Felitta's film offers a sampler course of formulas, which creates a strangely unfulfilling tension.1.5
Raymond De Felitta's Bottom of the 9th offers a sampler course of formulas, which creates a strangely unfulfilling tension. Just when you expect the film to go in a certain direction, it goes in another, only for it to again switch routes, though there's never a sense of expectations being deliberately challenged or tweaked. Rather, the filmmakers merely seem to be indulging a variety of passing fancies, which is a shame because the actors here are game and occasionally imbue the shopworn scenes with liveliness.
Sonny Stano (Joe Manganiello) is the perfect hero for either a noir or a redemptive sports film, a man approaching middle age who just served a 19-year sentence for manslaughter. Famous in his Bronx neighborhood for being drafted by the Yankees, only to flush his life down the toilet, Sonny is attempting to patch his life together while doing a perpetual apology tour on behalf of friends and strangers alike. He's initially hired by an old friend, Joey (James Madio), to work in a fish market that seems to be a front for something. Joey has a cagey energy, and this narrative isn't without intrigue, but De Felitta and screenwriter Robert Bruzio unceremoniously lose sight of it in succumbing to a number of clichés.
Of course, Sonny is revealed to have a woman who got away, Angela (Sofia Vergara), who one day runs into her old beau at a market. They clearly have chemistry, as do the actors playing them, but their dialogue is composed of nothing but redemptive platitudes. In these scenes, Manganiello and Vergara are stuck in a worst-of-all-worlds situation. Their characters are relentlessly mousey, which is appropriate to the awkward context of Sonny and Angela's reunion, but which also robs these sexy actors of the opportunity to enjoy playing off one another. Meanwhile, said mousiness isn't poignant either, as the characters haven't been imagined beyond the respective stereotypes of the fallen man and jilted woman.
Bottom of the 9th then flirts with a narrative similar to that of Bull Durham and Major League, in which Sonny is hired by a local minor league ball team to rein in the fiery, egotistical talents of a rookie named Manny (Xavier Scott Evans). Evans is ferociously charismatic, suggesting a young Wesley Snipes and giving Manganiello a kinetic vibe to play off of, and so the film finally begins to come to life, with great character actors like Michael Rispoli and Burt Young riffing on the sidelines. However, this conceit is also left hanging, as the film shifts into a story of the unlikely comeback, with Sonny's own talents taking center ring.
De Felitta might've gotten by with these contrivances if he were a natural showman, but the filmmaker displays little interest in the Bronx setting in which his characters live, or in rendering their experiences in a fashion that refutes screenwriterly index-card portraiture. For instance, a prison flashback in which Sonny gets into a fight during a ball game is reduced to trite and melodramatic close-ups, while much of the remainder of the film is composed of medium shots designed to accentuate only the largely uninteresting dialogue. There's truly nothing in Bottom of the 9th but plot incident, and the leisurely, impersonal one-thing-after-another-ness of the film's construction is stifling.
Cast: Joe Manganiello, Sofía Vergara, Denis O'Hare, Burt Young, James Madio, Yancey Arias, Michael Rispoli, Vincent Pastore, Dominik García-Lorido, Michael Maize, Kevin William Paul Director: Raymond De Felitta Screenwriter: Robert Bruzio Distributor: Saban Films Running Time: 111 min Rating: R Year: 2019
Review: Thom Yorke's Anima Finds the Singer Raging Against the Apocalypse
Review: Banks's III Comes on Strong but Falls Short of Pushing the Limits
Review: Sum 41's Order in Decline Presents a Band in Total Control
Review: Bottom of the 9th Strikes Out with Too Much Plot Incident
Review: Radu Jude's I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians
Review: The Boys Is a Bleakly Cynical Take on the Superhero Genre
Review: Season Three of GLOW Offers a Multifaceted Vision of the '80s
Review: Ealing Studios's Dead of Night Horror Anthology on Kino Lorber Blu-ray
Interview: Kate Burton on Coriolanus in Central Park and Her Path to Success
Japan Cuts 2019: Demolition Girl, And Your Bird Can Sing, & Being Natural
- Music7 days ago
Review: Thom Yorke's Anima Finds the Singer Raging Against the Apocalypse
- Music7 days ago
Review: Banks's III Comes on Strong but Falls Short of Pushing the Limits
- Music3 days ago
Review: Sum 41's Order in Decline Presents a Band in Total Control
- Film7 days ago
Review: Bottom of the 9th Strikes Out with Too Much Plot Incident


text:
Cabin in the Woods 5 Piece Canvas
The Cabin in the Woods fans! Grab this HIGH QUALITY print and wow your visitors!
IMPORTANT: Prints come either framed (stretched over wood) or unframed! The product image you see is framed and ready to hang. If you order them unframed you'll just get the rolled up canvas prints with 1-2" of space around them so you can frame them yourself if you want.
Small: 2 pieces in 8x14in, 2 pieces in 8x18in, 1 piece in 8x21in
Medium: 2 pieces in 12x16 in, 2 pieces in 12x24in, 1 piece in 12x32in
Large: 2 pieces in 16x24in, 2 pieces in 16x32in, 1 piece in 16x40in
Prints take 3-5 weeks to arrive.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Videos 1 - 11 of 11 Tagged With: colleg
<< < 1 > >>
|TubeGay #1 for tube gay porn videos, watch tube gay sex videos for free.
Make sure you visit us every week to view new tube gay hardcore sex videos! If you don't already have an account, sign up now - its free! Bookmark us and cum daily with our gay tube videos.
NEWS: We are now updating with new gay porn tube videos every day! We bring you 100% legal & safe gay tube videos, please support us by visiting our gay porn sponsors by clicking on the banners on our gay tube site or by clicking on the "CLICK HERE TO WATCH THIS FULL VIDEO!" link under every clip.
NEWS:Now anyone can rate videos!


text: For all goats under stress: A high potassium electrolyte for quick replacement. Quickly hydrates and promotes optimum electrolyte and fluid balance. Highly palatable and fortified to combat dehydration. Can be top-dressed on feed at 1/2 oz. per goat or dilute in water at 1 oz. per 4 gallons and allow goats free access. 2 lb. bag. 50 lb. bags are also available.


text:
This is a Children's Text-Braille book, which means that in addition to raised Braille, it has extra features.What is a Text-Braille Book?
This book for the blind is offered in Original or Unified English Braille.What is Original Braille?What is Unified English Braille
For ages 4 to 6.
(From the Hands-On Braille shelf.)


text:
The Original Artwork - $40
This artwork is 15.75"x5.25" on vellum 100lb bristol, sized 17"x7".
Shipping to all countries is included in the base price, so don't worry about it. The strip is as it appears above (no shading-film or anything), and also you will find that the blacks on the originals are not as "true" black as what you see on the screen, ink can be that way. On the early strips in 2004 I did not include my name and the date, but will add them before shipping.
|Return to:
|Main archive
|Week of July 12th, 2004


text:
You are here
French Lessons
Preparing the gastronomic specialties of Gascony
- « prev
- next »
- 1 of 16
Ariane Daguin's Manhattan kitchen is rich with food and family tradition. When her 20-year-old daughter Alix is home from Cornell University where she studies hotel administration, food science, architecture, and kitchen design, they indulge in an all-day, long-established ritual of cooking Sunday dinner together.
Ariane is the CEO of D'Artagnan, a pioneer company she founded 24 years ago to encourage American farmers to organically produce foie gras and to raise the beef, pork, and poultry native to Gascony, France, where she grew up. So notable is her contribution to French culinary heritage, the French government awarded her the Légion d'honneur (France's highest honor of merit) in 2006. Nonetheless, Ariane herself often answers phone calls to D'Artagnan's headquarters.
Photography: Quentin Bacon
Alix-charming, savvy, and down-to-earth-has grown up in the world of fine food and restaurants. She first tried oysters at Union Square Cafe at age 2 and often "helped" her mother at cooking demonstrations as a young girl, quietly bartering servings of foie gras for candy.
The pair relish their time together preparing the gastronomic specialties of Gascony. Alix's lessons include not just how to bake a tart, but they are also parables for getting on with daily life and enjoying its simple pleasures. "Anything you do together makes you learn together. It is so enriching," Ariane says.
The Daguin family history includes seven generations of restaurateurs and chefs. Alix's grandfather, André Daguin, was chef/owner of the famed Hôtel de France in Auch, the capital of Gascony. "Food and family are very important in our way of life," Ariane explains. "Everything evolves from there. Any single mother raising a daughter has very strong ties to family. Alix is culturally involved in her roots."
Grandfather "Papi" teaches Alix something new every time they are together. "Last winter he taught me three different sauces," she says. "He has also taught me pride, discipline, respect, attitude, and efficiency. He expresses love through teaching things he admires. When you cook, you need all of those qualities plus a respect for yourself and your ingredients. That's important to my mom as well."
Consequently, Alix knows about a chef's authority-she has interned at Daniel, Daniel Boulud's four-star New York restaurant, and at Restaurant Hélène Darroze in Paris. "At Daniel, I was 17 and the only girl in the kitchen," she says. "Papi's lessons about discipline and efficiency taught me a lot."
But let's get back home, to the Manhattan kitchen and those uncomplicated pleasures. Ariane's approach to cooking is a trifle more gentle than that of grandpère. "Something wonderful starts with something simple," Ariane advises. For a nibble to enjoy while cooking, she and Alix prepare Chicken Liver Paté.
Luxuriously smooth and rich but humble in its origins, this paté "is a way to create something sophisticated with a maligned ingredient," Ariane says. "Cooking livers with wine and combining them with lots of butter elevates them to something worthy without complicating them." The velvety paté gets a zesty accent with cornichons, olives, and a sprinkle of peppercorns.
For a spring dinner, the two might prepare Duck Breast with Fava Beans-featuring a sauté of fresh fava beans and ventrèche, a cured pork belly similar to bacon. "During a short period of spring in Gascony-about 10 days-new fava beans are so tender and delicate they can be picked and eaten raw, but you have to know the moment," Ariane says.
For something easy, Croque Monsieur au Jambon de Bayonne, a grilled sandwich with the sea-salted smoked ham of the Basque region and Gruyère cheese, might be in order. A dab of mustard and a bit of truffle butter enrich this everyday fare. "The best part of the sandwich is the aroma when it comes out of the oven," insists Ariane. "This sandwich is the sum of its parts. Make sure you experience each of the ingredients."
Ariane has taught Alix to balance risk with caution and to go with her instincts, as when they prepare Gascon Cherry Clafouti, a dish that doesn't require precise measurements but will always yield wonderful results. "You have to trust yourself when you cook, allow yourself to make a mistake, knowing you can fix it, and get on with it," Alix says.
"I didn't realize how much I'm like my mom until recently," Alix notes. "Of course, I don't want to admit it. But I have that itch to create and be my own boss," she adds, echoing her mother's sentiments at nearly the same age. "D'Artagnan is like my sister in many ways. I grew up with the company. But I need to achieve something on my own before I work there-not by default, but because I have the skills to be there."
Ariane is quiet but clearly proud. "I have tried to give Alix a choice, to recognize that she has different directions. She has all the tools. But it will make me tremendously happy the day she says she wants to work at D'Artagnan."
Poule au Pot with "Gros Sel" Sauce
Rustic Poule au Pot is a boiled chicken recipe passed from mother to daughter. The chicken broth is served as its own course, a tradition called "chabrot." The last ladles of broth are slurped directly from the bowl; adults stir in some red wine before drinking. "It's an 'elbows-on-the-table' dish," says Ariane. "It inspires conviviality."
- 8 cups chicken stock or reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 3-1/2- to 4-pound whole broiler-fryer chicken, trussed*
- 4 medium turnips, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
- 12 small carrots with tops
- 6 medium leeks, cut into 2-inch pieces
- 4 stalks celery, cut into 1-1/2 inch slices
- 1 head Savoy cabbage, cored and cut into quarters
- 1 recipe Gros Sel Sauce (see below)
- 1 1-pound loaf country French bread
In an 8- to 10-quart Dutch oven combine chicken stock, garlic, thyme, and bay leaves. Bring to boiling; add chicken. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, for 45 minutes. Add turnips, carrots, leeks, celery, and cabbage. Return to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10 to 15 minutes more or until chicken is done (170°F in the breast and 180°F in the thigh) and vegetables are tender.
Transfer vegetables to a large serving platter using a slotted spoon; cover to keep warm. Remove chicken to another platter; cover to keep warm. Pour broth through a fine mesh strainer set over a large bowl. Return broth to the Dutch oven (discard solids in strainer). Bring broth to boiling; reduce heat. Boil gently, uncovered, for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, cut chicken into quarters or six portions (discard back bone); cover to keep warm.
Prepare Gros Sel Sauce. Serve chicken with bread and vegetables and Gros Sel Sauce. Serve strained broth separately. If desired, spoon a little of the broth atop each serving. Makes: 4 to 6 servings
"Gros Sel" Sauce: In a blender combine 1/4 cup of the strained, reduced broth, 1/4 cup sherry vinegar; 1 tablespoon snipped fresh Italian (flat-leaf) parsley; 1 tablespoon snipped fresh tarragon, chives, and/or chervil; and 1 tablespoon coarse-grain Dijon-style mustard. Cover and blend until smooth. With the blender running, slowly add 1 cup grape seed oil or canola oil in a thin stream, blending until well combined (mixture will thicken and lighten in color as it blends). Transfer to a medium bowl. Stir in 2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and chopped. Season to taste with kosher, sea salt, or salt, and freshly ground black pepper. Makes about 2 cups.
* To truss the chicken, secure the legs, wings and front and back openings of the chicken with clean white kitchen string. If desired, tuck some of the herb sprigs under the string.
Escaoutoun, a creamy grits-like dish made with local Gascon sheep's milk cheese, tops fresh asparagus. Reserve some of the Poule au Pot broth to braise the asparagus.
Escaoutoun with Asparagus
- 1 14-ounce can reduced-sodium chicken broth
- 5 tablespoons coarse white or yellow cornmeal
- 9 ounces sheep's milk cheese, such as Petit Basque, Etorki, Brin d'Amour,
- manchego, or Monterey Jack, shredded
- 1 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 recipe Asparagus (see below)
Combine 1-1/2 cups chicken broth and cornmeal in saucepan. Bring just to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook and stir over medium heat 10 to 15 minutes or until most of liquid is absorbed and cornmeal is tender.
Add sheep's milk cheese and mascarpone cheese to cornmeal mixture. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until cheese is melted, adding remaining 2 tablespoons broth if mixture is too dry. Season with freshly ground black pepper. Serve escaoutoun with Asparagus. Makes 4 servings.
Asparagus: Snap off and discard woody bases from 1 pound fresh asparagus. If desired, scrape off scales. In large skillet bring a 1-inch depth of Poule au Pot broth or water to boiling. Add asparagus. Reduce heat; simmer, covered 3 to 5 minutes or until asparagus is crisp-tender. Drain well; transfer to serving platter.
Chicken Liver Pate
- 1-1/2 cups dry white wine
- 8- to 9-ounce chicken livers (6)
- 1/3 cup sliced shallots
- 1 tablespoon duck fat or olive oil
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 to 2 tablespoons dry white wine (optional)
- 6 slices country French bread, toasted
- 1 clove garlic, halved
- Cornichons, capers, cocktail onions, and/or olives
In medium saucepan bring wine to boiling; reduce heat. Add chicken livers. Cover; simmer 5 minutes or until tender. Remove chicken livers from wine and chill, covered, 5 minutes. Discard wine.
In medium skillet cook shallot in duck fat over medium heat until golden brown, about 7 to 9 minutes; set aside.
On cutting board, finely chop chicken livers. In medium bowl combine chicken livers and butter. Mash together with fork until well-combined. If necessary, stir in small amount of additional white wine until spread is smooth. Place mixture in serving crock.
Rub each slice of toasted bread with garlic. Serve chicken liver spread with toasted bread, shallot slices, cornichons, capers, cocktail onions, and/or olives. Makes 6 servings (1 cup spread).
Pipérade is simply a mèlange of slow-cooked tomatoes, peppers, and salty ham, served with an omelet. The natural sweetness of peppers and the saltiness of ham contrast beautifully. "Contrast can make a wonderfully unexpected combination," Ariane tells Alix.
- 2 medium onions, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 6 Roma tomatoes, cut into thin wedges
- 3 medium green and/or red sweet peppers, cut into bite-size strips
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, sea salt, or salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 8 ounces jambon de Bayonne, or other cooked ham, cut 1/4 inch thick
- 1 recipe Omelets (see below)
- Roasted garlic cloves*
In large skillet cook onion and garlic in hot oil over medium heat about 5 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Add tomatoes to skillet; bring to simmer. Simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes. Add sweet peppers, salt, and pepper. Cook and stir 5 minutes or until peppers are tender and liquid is evaporated.
Meanwhile, cut ham (jambon de Bayonne is available at dartagnan.com) into serving-size pieces; cook in skillet over medium-high heat about 5 minutes or until browned. Remove from skillet; drain on paper towel. Cover to keep warm.
Prepare Omelets, and serve alongside ham and sweet pepper mixture, and roasted garlic cloves. Makes 4 servings.
Omelets: Just before serving, prepare omelets. In medium bowl combine 4 eggs, 1 tablespoon water, dash salt, and dash ground black pepper. Beat with fork until combined but not frothy. Heat 8-inch nonstick skillet with flared sides over medium-high heat until skillet is hot. Add 1 teaspoon butter to skillet. When butter has melted, add one-fourth egg mixture to skillet; lower heat to medium. Immediately begin stirring eggs gently but continuously with wooden spoon or plastic spatula until mixture resembles small pieces of cooked egg surrounded by liquid egg. Stop stirring. Cook 20 to 30 seconds more or until egg is set but shiny. Remove from heat. With spatula, lift and fold omelet into desired shape. Place on serving plate. Prepare 3 more omelets with remaining egg mixture, adding 1 teaspoon of butter to skillet before cooking each omelet.
*To roast garlic cloves: Preheat oven to 425°F. Peel away dry outer layers of skin from 2 heads of garlic, leaving inner skins and cloves intact. Cut off pointed tops (about 1/4 inch), leaving bulb intact but exposing individual cloves. Place garlic heads, cut side up, in 10-ounce custard cups. Drizzle each with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Cover with foil. Bake 25 to 35 minutes or until cloves feel soft when pressed. Separate cloves to serve.
Croque Monsieur Au Jambon De Bayonne
- 1 loaf baguette-style French bread
- 4 tablespoons butter or truffle butter, softened
- 8 ounces jambon de Bayonne or prosciutto, thinly sliced
- 1 cup fresh arugula or spinach
- 4 ounces Comté or Gruyère cheese, sliced
Preheat oven to 425°F. Cut baguette in 4 equal sections. Slice each section in half horizontally. Spread butter on cut sides of bread. Top bottoms of bread with jambon de Bayonne, arugula, and half the cheese. Top with top halves of bread. Top bread with remaining cheese. Place sandwiches on baking sheet; bake 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and lightly browned. Makes 4 servings.
Duck Breast with Fava Beans
- 2 duck magrets (14 to 16 ounces each) or 4 boneless duck breasts (7 to 8 ounces each)
- Kosher salt , sea salt, or salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 2 ounces ventrèche, pancetta, or cooked ham, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 1-1/2 pounds fresh fava beans, peeled and cooked* or one 19-ounce can fava beans, rinsed and drained, or one 10-oz. pkg. frozen baby lima beans, cooked according to package
- 1 6.5-oz. container duck and veal demi-glace or 3/4 cup beef broth
Preheat oven to 400°F. Score duck breast skin at 1-inch intervals in diamond pattern. Preheat heavy large ovenproof skillet over medium heat.
Season duck breast with salt and pepper and place, skin side down, in hot pan. Cook 8 to 10 minutes or until skin is nicely browned and crispy.
Carefully pour off fat as it accumulates; reserve fat. Turn breasts over; cook 1 minute more. Transfer skillet to oven. Roast 8 to 10 minutes for duck magrets or 5 to 7 minutes for duck breasts or until an instant read-thermometer registers 155°F. Remove duck from skillet. Cover duck with foil; let stand 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, in skillet heat 1 tablespoon reserved fat and ventrèche over medium heat 1 to 2 minutes or until ham is browned and crispy. Add beans and demi-glace. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Boil gently, uncovered, about 5 minutes or until slightly reduced.
Cut duck into slices. To serve, spoon beans, ventrèche, and demi-glace into bowls. Top with duck. Makes 4 servings.
*If using fresh fava beans: Place beans in large saucepan. Cover with water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, covered, 15 to 30 minutes to soften skins. Let stand 1 hour. Drain and peel. To cook, combine peeled beans and 4 cups water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 45 to 50 minutes or until tender. Use cooked beans as directed in recipe.
Gascon Cherry Clafouti
- 2-1/2 cups milk
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/3 cup corn flour or yellow cornmeal
- 4 eggs, slightly beaten
- 2⁄3 cup sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons orange extract
- 1-1/2 cups pitted fresh dark sweet cherries or frozen dark sweet cherries, thawed and drained
- 1/3 cup orange marmalade
In medium saucepan combine milk, flour, and corn flour. Whisk over medium heat until thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat; cool 30 minutes.
In very large bowl stir together eggs, sugar, butter, and orange extract. Slowly whisk cooled milk mixture into egg mixture until combined. Sprinkle 1/3 of cherries evenly into greased 10-inch quiche dish. Pour batter over cherries. Top with remaining cherries.
Bake in 350ºF oven 45 to 50 minutes, or until center seems set when gently shaken. Remove from oven. Increase oven temperature to 400°F.
Meanwhile, in small saucepan heat marmalade just until melted. Lightly brush top of clafouti with warmed marmalade. Return to clafouti to oven; bake about 8 minutes until edges are nicely browned. Cool on wire rack at least 20 minutes. Serve warm. Makes 8 servings.


text:
Different parts of your house require furniture of different styles and types to make the best use of both the area and the furniture. This is because each furniture piece plays a different role in your house, with the common feature being that each item should be comfortable and should go well with the surrounding structure and color scheme.
Sleeping the master bedroom usually has the master cot designed or picked up from a furniture store keeping in mind the space and requirements like side cabinets and shelves for storage; smaller children may use an adjoining room as their bedroom. Kids' rooms can toy with the idea of bunk beds to save on space and create extra storage for books, clothes and games
The design and color of your furniture need to be such that they blend in with the look, feel and the color scheme of your house or room. They must also make the most appropriate use of the available space, without making the room look overcrowded. Also, the members of the house should not face any discomfort while moving about in the house because of the furniture. You should even get specially designed pieces of furniture to allow you to utilize the spaces in the corners of rooms, which otherwise would go unused.
About Us
Serve you with pleasure, Wraise.com proudly presented its first inspiration in 2015. We're interior design and architecture enthusiasts, just like you. Today we're going to have more than 1,000 unique articles with more than 15,000 pictures ideas …so We are pretty sure that you can find everything you want here.
The primary focus of this interior ideas publication is to give you inspiration to make your home, your office, or your childrens space more beautiful, organized and healthy. We believe that a calm, healthy also beautiful home is a necessary foundation for happiness and success in the world.
In most people's vocabularies' design means veneer. It's interior decorating. It's the fabric of the curtains and the sofa. But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. by Steve Jobs
© 2005-2019 Wraise.com. Reproduction without explicit permission is prohibited. All Rights Reversed.


text:
That GS 4th qtr was weak. But I guess the Lakers game even it out! Dam was hoping for a dub! Let's get em tommorow KK
Originally Posted by SteelCash: Wow... your 1st three POD's went 2-1 and I see people on here that are disappointed that they didn't go 3-0. I'll take 2-1 every day and become a millionaire. Seriously people... 2-1 is a GREAT day.
I hear ya dude. I took a 2-1 from his picks. I'd take that everyday. Thanks again Kid.


text:
These Final Hours (2013)
Mail delivery
- approx. 7 – 9 days
- Unfortunately, this product cannot be collected.
If ordered immediately.
Information subject to change.
Third-party offer
This product is delivered by a third party supplier. The sales contract is concluded between you and the supplier.
Ex Libris CH


text:
"Weddings are not photoshoots. They are stories. Stories about two persons in love. And stories about their loved ones being blessed to witness their love come to one."
Hi, lovebirds!
Welcome to our own little world, where you can find out all about us and what we do. We're Nika and Grega and we're wedding photographers based in Slovenia, Europe.
"There are so many rewarding aspects of photography, but the best by far is when couples let us in. Into their little world where they can be themselves. And love, feel, be - without any hesitations or restrictions. There's nothing more rewarding then being part of someone's story, to give them precious memories and capture moments in time that are gone so quickly."
Read more about us.
It's so exciting that you're looking into getting married in Belfast in Ireland.
"We want you to be inspired by our work and feel the raw and pristine emotions we capture. Your love is our love. We want to connect with you and get to know you."
We're over the moon that our work has spoken to you and you are considering us to be your storytellers. No destination is too far for us and we'd love to chat a bit more about your day.
Feel free to scroll through our recent work.


text:
Call us at 888-697-7946
We're here to help give us a call Toll Free
We would like to thank all of our new and returning customers for their purchases and positive feedback Thank You!
If you don't see the item your looking for please email us and we will provide you a quote and create a listing for your item.
Thanks for Looking!


text:
Create your free account to use Collections
Saved to
Saved one filter
Removed from saved filters
We couldn't load this image at the moment. Please refresh and try again.
If the problem persists, let us know.
Sign up to browse over million images, video clips, and music tracks. Plus, get free weekly content and more.
(We only support JPG and PNG images under 5MB and no larger than 4000px on either side at this time.)
At this time we can only support English-language search queries. Please try searching again.


text:
3 star live
Star Sports 3 live stream
3 star live
Star Sports 3 Live Streaming
Watch Live Cricket Streaming and score updates on Star Sports 3. Star Sports 3 live streaming for India, Pakistan, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and T20 World Cup matches Watch cricket, football, soccer, NFL, NHL, Rugby, NBA, MLB live streaming on CricHD. CricHD provide live cricket scores for every one. You can watch live sports from all over the world on internet tv channels. Watch all sports provided by Star Sports 3 Live Streaming on internet. Free and fast live streaming of Star Sports 3. You can watch 24/7 live streaming on our site. Watch cricket matches for ipl 10 2017, t20 world cup. Watch cricket online matches New Zealand vs Pakistan vs India vs Australia vs England vs Sri Lanka vs South Africa vs West Indies vs Bangladesh vs Zimbabwe, T20 Cricket World Cup 2018, Indian Premier League (IPL T20), Bigbash League (BBL T20), Champions League T20 (CLT20), Test Series, ODI Series and T20 Live Cricket. Full Cricket and football match streaming and schedule available. See schedule first in the menu and don't ask in chatroom for links. If u found Star Sports 3 Live Streaming is offline click on submit channel and write channel name and link. Watch Chelsea live streaming, FC Barcelona live football, Manchester United vs Manchester City vs Chelsea vs Liverpool vs Barcelona vs Juventus vs Real Madrid vs Atletico madrid Madrid vs Inter Milan, AC Milan live streaming.


text:
Changes related to "Meeting Minutes 14-Dec-2010"
This is a list of changes made recently to pages linked from a specified page (or to members of a specified category). Pages on your watchlist are bold.
No changes during the given period matching these criteria.
Copyright © Health Level Seven International ® ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The reproduction of this material in any form is strictly forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.


text:
The Office of Admissions is looking for a law student who
is available to work part-time (approximately five to ten
hours per week) during the Spring 2005 semester to assist
with admissions mailings, give tours of the law school,
and contact prospective students to answer their questions
about Chicago-Kent. Shifts may be scheduled in two-hour
time blocks, Monday through Friday, and can be tailored
to fit your class schedule. The position pays $9.00 per
hour. If you are hardworking, customer-service oriented
and would like to work in a friendly, high-energy office,
please stop by the Office of Admissions, Suite 230, to pick
up an application. Applications are also available online
and may be submitted via email to Erica Scott, Assistant
Director of Admissions, at email@example.com.
Throughout the year, the Office of Admissions seeks assistance
from current law students to help us in continuing to attract
an interesting and diverse student body to the law school. If
you would like to share your enthusiasm about Chicago-Kent
with prospective students, you should consider joining the
Chicago-Kent Advocates, a student group created to promote
Chicago-Kent to prospective students. Advocates help the
Office of Admissions with various on-campus events (such
as open houses and dean's programs) as well as with off-campus
recruiting. Participation is completely voluntary, and Advocates
only attend the events that work with their schedules.
For more information, please e-mail Julie Rosenberg, Associate
Director of Admissions, (email@example.com)
or drop by the Office of Admissions, Suite 230.
The Office of Admissions is open Monday through Friday
from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Main Chicago-Kent event
Academic calendar
CLE calendar
Alumnae/i event calendar
Admissions calendar


text:
Cocktails with Paul Scully
Purchase your tickets here!
PLEASE NOTE FOR DONATIONS TO NSW STATE MP's/MLC's/CANDIDATES: By submitting the form above, you confirm that the following statements are true and accurate:
1. I have not exceeded the donation cap of $2,000 to NSW Labor candidates or $5,800 to NSW Labor.
2. The funds I am donating are not being provided to me by another person or entity for the purpose of making this contribution.
3. This payment is not made by or on behalf of a 'prohibited donor' (being a 'property developer', 'tobacco industry business entity' or 'liquor or gambling industry business entity'), or a 'close associate' of a 'prohibited donor', as defined in Division 4A of Part 6 of the Election Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Act 1981 (NSW).
4. I declare that I am an individual on the Electoral Roll able to make this donation.
DONATIONS TO FEDERAL MP's/SENATOR's/CANDIDATES:
• Contributions up to $1500 are tax deductible.
• Donations over $13,000 are subject to disclosure under the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918. This is the reason we require your personal details when making a donation. However, the ALP has a policy of disclosing donations over $1,000.


text:
Emp3zws mp3lio Download
Free download Emp3zws mp3 lyrics. We have about 19 aiomp3 mp3lio files ready to lagu play and download. To start this download aiomp3 you need to click on [Download] Button. Remember that by downloading this song you accept our terms and conditions. Enjoy downloading Emp3zws.mp3 for free!


text:
Join our billboard contest! Enter by July 31st.
Looking for design inspiration? Browse our curated collections!
Shop our new kids collection!
Boundary: Bleed area may not be visible.
Click and drag to re-position the image, if desired.
The watermark at the lower right corner of the image will not appear on the final product.
Image Size
The image is near the edges of the product but doesn't cover the entire product. Some of the background color may appear around the outside edges of the image.
Background Color
Our shower curtains are made from 100% polyester fabric and include 12 holes at the top of the curtain for simple hanging from your own shower curtain rings. The total dimensions of each shower curtain are 71" wide x 74" tall.
Ships Within
2 - 3 business days
There are no comments for Water Lilies I. Click here to post the first comment.
Average Rating (4.85 Stars):
Evelyn DeJesus
July 13th, 2019
Tania Calderon
July 8th, 2019
Colorful water lilies at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, IL
In our day to day life, we unknowingly overlook, ignore and do not appreciate the little things. By focusing on, capturing and manipulating the minute textures, forms, distinctive shapes, underlying power and natural energy of objects, Nancy brings a whole new dimension to the viewer. She is determined to create an image that will resonate and linger in the viewer's memory, opening a whole new world to appreciate. The subject matter of many of Nancy's paintings and drawings are derived from her close-up photographs capturing the sometimes overlooked beauty and abstraction of nature, human anatomy/physiology and organic objects. Her popular Internalscape paintings depict a surrealistic network of internal organic forms, cells,...
Our return policy is very simple:
If you're not happy with a purchase that you made on Pixels.com, for any reason, you can return it to us within 30 days of the order date. As soon as it arrives, we'll issue a full refund for the entire purchase price. Please note - Pixels does not reimburse the outgoing or return shipping charges unless the return is due to a defect in quality.
Pixels sells thousands of pieces of artwork each month - all with a 100% money-back guarantee. We take great pride in the fact that hundreds of thousands of artists have chosen Pixels to fulfill their orders, and we look forward to helping you select your next piece!
All shower curtains ship from our production facility within 2 - 3 business days of your order.


text:
PDF) LAGOS STATE LAND USE ACT (TITLE DOCUMENTATION) (PDF) LAGOS STATE LAND USE ACT (TITLE DOCUMENTATION)How To Install Component Speakers To Amp User Manual - Lagos, sometimes referred to as Lagos State to distinguish it from Lagos Metropolitan Area, is a state in the southwestern geopolitical zone of Nigeria.The smallest in area of Nigeria's 36 states, Lagos State is arguably the most economically important state of the country, containing Lagos, the nation's largest urban area.It is a major financial centre and would be the fifth largest economy. Lagos (/ ˈ l eɪ ɡ ɒ s /; Yoruba: Èkó) is a city in the Nigerian state of Lagos.The city, with its adjoining conurbation, is the most populous in Nigeria, and the most populous on the African continent.It is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, and also one of the most populous urban agglomerations. Lagos is a major financial centre in Africa; the megacity has the highest GDP. The Independent Sharia Panel of Lagos State Abdul-Fatah Kola Makinde, Philip Ostien ∗ Abdul-Fatah Kola Makinde is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. He is also a member of the Independent Sharia Panel of Osun State. Philip Ostien taught for many years in the Faculty of Law, University of Jos, Plateau State..
Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review (OMAN Chapter) Vol. 1, No.9; April 201214 their jobs, and the subordinate status of permanent secretaries to their political bosses was reiterated.9 Another consequence of the purge, reinforced subsequently, was the destruction of the civil service tradition of security of. The Supreme Court of the United States blog. Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The "wholly groundless" exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.. FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY - ABUJA The seat of Government which was in Lagos was formerly relocated to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja on December 12, 1992..
Damini Ogulu, Nigerian Afro-fusion singer better known as Burna Boy, was the biggest winner at the Soundcity MVP awards. The award held on Sat. The Amalgamation Of Nigeria Was A Fraud . by . Richard Akinjide, QC, SAN . July 9, 2000. Holding: The Colorado Civil Rights Commission's actions in assessing a cakeshop owner's reasons for declining to make a cake for a same-sex couple's wedding celebration violated the free exercise clause. Judgment: Reversed, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy on June 4, 2018.Justice Kagan filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Breyer joined..
NIGERIA'S POST-CIVIL WAR RECONCILIATION: Imagine if the Israeli Prime Minister hired a former PLO fighter as his personal pilot. Or if the president of the United States allowed a Russian to be his personal chauffeur at the height of the Cold War.. Slavery was a form of dependent labour performed by a nonfamily member. The slave was deprived of personal liberty and the right to move about geographically as he desired. There were likely to be limits on his capacity to make choices with regard to his occupation and sexual partners as well.. The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, July 6, 1967 – January 13, 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. Created as a colonial entity by the British, Nigeria was divided between a mainly Muslim north and a mainly Christian and animist south..
PDF) Staff Recruitment and Selection Process in the Nigerian Public ... (PDF) Staff Recruitment and Selection Process in the Nigerian Public Service: What is to be done?
PDF) Work Ethics, Values, Attitudes and Performance In The Nigerian ... (PDF) Work Ethics, Values, Attitudes and Performance In The Nigerian Public Service: Issues, Challenges and The Way Forward
PDF) The Effect of Manpower Planning and Development in Lagos State ... (PDF) The Effect of Manpower Planning and Development in Lagos State ( Nigeria) Civil Service Performance
PDF) Transformative Empowerment in the Lagos State Civil Service: A ... (PDF) Transformative Empowerment in the Lagos State Civil Service: A Gender Policy Discourse