Recorded at 3 p.m. local time Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013 by Chad Blakely
Abisko National Park, Sweden
Sweden's Northern Lights
Recorded at 3 p.m. local time Wednesday, Dec. 25, 2013 by Chad Blakely
Abisko National Park, Sweden
A Christmas Card In Sound From San Francisco With Herb Caen
Uploaded on Dec 25, 2011 by Scot Hampton
A Christmas Card In Sound
From San Francisco With Herb Caen
"Bringing you best wishes for the holiday season"
"Merry Christmas from San Francisco....the magic city of soaring hills and bridges that leap across the Bay...A city of many voices you can hear nowhere else. So what better way to bring you season's greetings from Baghdad-by-the-Bay than to let the city speak for itself. Here then is a Christmas card in sound from San Francisco." -Herb Caen
Side 1: The chimes of Saints Peter & Paul Church in North Beach...Street-corner Santa Claus...Salvation Army band...Christmas shopping traffic on market Street...A ride on a Powell Street cable car up Nob Hill (with "Jingle Bells").
Side 2: Holiday celebration in Chinatown...Sounds of the Bay itself: boat whistles, Bay water lapping against a pier, the pounding surf...Wind singing through the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge...Seagulls and sea lions...And the many voices of the foghorns in their own Christmas carol.
Tape recorded on location in San Francisco, using a two-channel Berlant 93 recorder (with portable power supply). Microphones: Electro-Voice 666 and Telefunken U-47 on location; Bang & Olufsen 50 in studio. Acetate masters by Jack Hawkins. RIAA curve. Album design by Kiyo Tomo.
Produced & edited by R.W. Emerson
Audio Card 1451
Circa 1950
7" Vinyl. 33 RPM. Mono.
Snowflakes
How to Make Borax Crystal Snowflakes | Holiday Science Project
By Mary Bagley, LiveScience Contributor | December 02, 2013 07:00pm ET
A crystal is a solid formed by a repeating 3D arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules. Nature’s snowflakes form when tiny droplets of water freeze in clouds at temperatures below 31 F (0 C). These beautiful, unique shapes would be great for holiday decorations if they were larger; and if they didn’t melt. In this science project, you will grow crystal shapes that you can use to decorate your Christmas tree indoors.
What you will need:
Pipe cleaner
Strong scissors or wire snips
Borax powder (such as 20 Mule Team Borax found with the laundry soap aisle in the grocery store. Make sure it is the type that is NOT mixed with detergent.)
Mixing bowl
Measuring cup and spoons
Water
Disposable pie plate
Wide mouth jar big enough to hold the snowflake shape
Pencil or rod long enough to rest across the jar mouth without falling in
String
What to do:
Use the scissors or snips to cut the pipe cleaner into 3 equal pieces. Twist 2 pipe cleaners around each other at their middles to form a cross shape then add the other piece of pipe cleaner to form a six-pointed snowflake. Bend the top point into a loop for a hanger.
In the mixing bowl dissolve 3 tablespoons of Borax into 1 cup of water
Pour enough solution to cover the bottom of the pie plate. Dip your pipe cleaner snowflake in the solution so that the pipe cleaners are completely dampened.
Tie a short piece of string through the top loop and tie the other end of the string around the pencil. Suspend the snowflake inside the jar. Leave the jar undisturbed.
You should start to see crystals forming on your snowflake after 1 to 3 hours and your crystal snowflake should be complete after 24 hours. DO NOT EAT THE SNOWFLAKE.
What else to try:
Try using food coloring in the Borax solution
Try different snowflake shapes
Try painting the pipe cleaners with glow-in-the –dark paint before dipping them in the Borax solution. Make sure you allow the paint to completely dry before dipping.
Instead of using pipe cleaners, cut a Christmas tree shape out of a sponge and put the sponge in a pie plate with the Borax solution
Try making rock candy:
Make a saturated sugar solution by adding sugar to boiling water and stirring. Keep adding sugar until the sugar won’t dissolve any more but just falls to the bottom of the pot. (Young scientists need adult supervision for this — hot sugar water can burn your skin!)
Pour enough liquid into a clean jar to cover the bottom to a depth of about half an inch
Tie a piece of clean cotton string to the pencil and suspend it inside the jar so that the bottom of the string is below the surface of the liquid.
Sugar crystals grow more slowly than Borax crystals. Be patient and leave the set up undisturbed for at least a week.
After observation you may eat your sugar crystals.
Snowflake Gallery
by LiveScience.com, staff | December 20, 2011 12:00pm ET
Photographs of real snowflakes
Credit: Kenneth Libbrecht, Caltech www.snowcrystals.com
Pope Francis
"Who am I to judge?" With those five words, Pope Francis "stepped away from the disapproving tone, the explicit moralizing typical of popes and bishops," writes columnist James Carroll. Francis made that statement in July, in response to a reporter's question about the status of gay priests in the Church. In a new article about Francis in The New Yorker, Carroll describes the pope as having "unilaterally declared a kind of truce in the culture wars that have divided the Vatican and much of the world."
Carroll was a seminarian and a priest during another great period of change — Vatican II, which, under the leadership of Pope John XXIII, led to reforms that modernized the church. As a priest from 1969 to 1974, he served as Boston University's Catholic chaplain. He left the priesthood in part over his disagreements with the leadership after the death of Pope John and the beginning of what Carroll describes as a counterrevolution. He's now an author and a columnist for The Boston Globe. His New Yorker article is called "Who Am I to Judge? A Radical Pope's First Year."
"It's not new for popes to be critical of the free market economy, and it's not new for popes to be concerned about the plight of the poor," Carroll tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "But with Pope Francis there's a centrality, a passion and an urgent insistence that's unique that we haven't seen before."
On the significance of "Who am I to judge?"
[The Pope said] "Who am I to judge?" in response to a question about gay members of the Catholic priesthood in an airplane on his way back from World Youth Day in Brazil last summer. He was asked about gay priests and his response was, "Who am I to judge?" A resounding repudiation of a basic assumption of Catholic life, which is: The pope is there to judge.
"Who am I to judge?" You're the pope! That's who you are! It was an astonishing stepping away from the judgmental, authoritarian, imperative-tone-of-voice way in which authority has been exercised by popes — with one exception — going back a couple of hundred years. The exception, of course, is John XXIII, who was pope only from 1958 to 1963. But apart from John XXIII, popes have exercised authority by command.
On the lifestyle Francis has chosen during his first year as pope
Pope Francis ... in that wonderful phrase "Who am I to judge?" is exercising authority by invitation, by words of welcome and by inviting people to imitate the way he lives and the way he behaves. So, his choices of lifestyle — the fact that he doesn't live in the apostolic palace, the traditional residence of popes. He lives in a small, two-room apartment, effectively in the hostel in which the Vatican welcomes visitors. He has turned away from the regalia, the Renaissance style of the papacy. He declines to wear the traditional red slip-ons and wears his old, somewhat worn black shoes.
All of this has touched the imaginations of Catholics and many other people, clearly, and the thing that is moving about it is he initiates change at this level without attacking anybody. He has not named antagonists, he has not criticized other bishops who live like princes. He is basically making changes with a spirit of humility and welcome to other people, and that has touched people very, very deeply, I would say.
On communion as a "barrier"
Communion has been treated as food for those who are not hungry: food for the well-fed, food for the well-behaved. Popes and bishops have used the sacrament of the Eucharist, the mass, as a kind of boundary marker. You're in if you obey all the rules, and you're out if you don't. If you're not a Catholic, if you're a Protestant not in communion with the papacy, if you're a divorced and remarried Catholic, if you're using birth control, if you've committed any of the long list of sins that have been emphasized over the years, don't go to communion. ...
The word excommunication refers to being outside of communion. Pope Francis speaks in a very different way. He said, quite explicitly, the Church is not a toll house; we're not interested in having a barrier here that has to be raised only for those who are worthy. No, communion is for people who are hungry. ... It's for those who are not whole so that they can become whole.
On the tendency to oversimplify "conservative" and "liberal" Catholics
There's a cultural divide between the developing world and what we call "the West," or northern countries, but we shouldn't be too categorical when we say that, for example, Catholics of Africa or Latin America or Asia are conservative as opposed to the liberal or more secular Catholics of Europe or North America. I think that's really oversimple. Basic matters of human life are quite alike.
There are plenty of gay people throughout the developing world. If they're put upon and made to feel judged and at risk — and we know in some countries they're gravely at risk ... their problem isn't going to go away just because it's ordered to go away. So if the church broadly changes its stance on gay people, looks at gay people as Pope Francis invited us to do, the way God would — what does God see? — that will have an effect on other matters of sexuality.
On the church's stance on contraceptives
Nobody has been more vigorous in wishing for a change in the Church's position on contraception, namely the use of condoms, than leaders of the church in Africa, where AIDS has been such a savage killer of men and women. The AIDS crisis alone in Africa alone has been made worse, far worse, by those Catholics who have insisted on the immorality of condom use. You can bet that there are vast numbers of Catholics in Africa who would welcome a change in the church's position on that.
On Francis' commitment to the poor
Just this week, according to the Times and other places, [he] has replaced some very conservative senior figures in the curia with more moderate figures. His intervention seems to be the occasion for the resignation of the German bishop who was living a very lavish lifestyle, spending millions of dollars on his place of residence and the way he lived and so forth. ...
He has made it clear that he's going to measure his behavior as pope and his preaching and teaching as pope against the real effect on the lives of the poorest of the poor.
On the way the pope has handled the authority crisis in the church
The authority structure of the Catholic Church has been crumbling around all of us Catholics for a solid decade and a half. I'm thinking, of course, about the priestly sex abuse scandal. I'm thinking of, in Rome, the way the Vatican itself has been exposed as complicit in crimes of money laundering, perhaps in collusion with criminal elements; the way in which the authority structure of the church itself has been in radical collapse in relationship to some basic teachings like contraception, divorce and remarriage and so on. ...
So when this man became pope, he looked around and saw, in an image of his own, something he warned of, a house of cards that was shaken and maybe in a state of collapse. So it's not only that his conservative, traditional assertions of Catholic positions on hot-button issues has been in some way left behind; it's also that he has been, as I see it, responding to the actuality of the life of the church.
After all, thousands and thousands of Catholic priests, we know now, around the world have been abusing children in the most grotesque of ways in violation of trust and of the meaning of the Gospel that is impossible to articulate fully and appropriately. We know that almost all of the bishops of the world supported them instead of the children. This has led to a catastrophic moral situation for Roman Catholicism. This pope has responded to it, in my view. That's the most important element of his "radical" character is that he's responding to a crisis that preceded him in papacy.
A young man gives a Catholic skullcap to Pope Francis as he greets the crowd before his general audience at St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Oct. 16.
Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
In A Church Built On Tradition, The Pope Likes Spontaneity
by SYLVIA POGGIOLI
November 01, 2013 4:40 PM
In the seven months since he was elected, Pope Francis has shaken up the Catholic world and beyond with off-the-cuff homilies, phone calls to ordinary folk and unscripted interviews. His Twitter followers now exceed 10 million. Described by the Vatican as "conversational," the new papal style is drawing praise from large numbers of Catholics and nonbelievers alike.
But it's also making some conservative Catholics deeply uncomfortable.
Greg Burke, the Vatican's communications strategist, says that with Francis' election — after a papacy plagued by crises — attitudes toward the Roman Catholic Church changed overnight.
"I don't know of any other institution in the world where things could have changed so much and so quickly in terms of communications and public relations and moral authority," Burke says.
Surprising Spontaneity
Francis stunned the world in July with an impromptu airborne press conference, where he said, "Who am I to judge gays?"
That was followed by a long interview with a Jesuit journal in which he said Catholics should stop being obsessed with abortion, contraception and homosexuality. Then came an interview with an atheist journalist.
Eugenio Scalfari, founder of the left-leaning daily La Repubblica, describes how their encounter came about.
"I was stunned when all of a sudden my phone rang and Pope Francis was on the line. He was answering my open letter asking him to join in a conversation," Scalfari recalls. "I could hear him leafing through his calendar as he set the time for us to meet."
The journalist met the pope in the small hotel on Vatican grounds that Francis has chosen as his modest residence, forsaking the palatial papal apartment. And Francis made some sensational statements, including: "Proselytism is solemn nonsense" and "The world's most serious afflictions today are youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old."
He also complained about a "Vatican-centric" view that "neglects the world around us."
If that were not enough, Francis has also emerged as the "cold-call pope," often picking up the phone and chatting with ordinary people.
This poses challenges for his handlers, who don't learn about some conversations until after the fact. And in an organization where papal pronouncements had always been prepared ahead of time and carefully vetted, the press staff now has to keep up with a pope who constantly goes off script.
"We are dealing with the unexpected, with spontaneity," says the Rev. Tom Rosica, who often pitches in as Vatican spokesman. "The pope is teaching us the art of communicating."
"The most vivid example of the new evangelization is not a book, not an apostolic exhortation, it's Pope Francis," Rosica says. "The pope is becoming the message."
For Developed World, 'A Lot Of Tough Love'
But not everybody is comfortable with that message. In Italy, several articles have appeared that reflect the growing unease of unnamed sources within the Vatican bureaucracy over the direction of the new papacy.
And in the U.S., many conservative Catholics feel like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, as Pope Francis preaches the message of mercy, reaching out to gays, women, nonbelievers and the secular world. That leaves more traditionalist Catholics feeling left out, says Robert Mickens, Vatican correspondent for The Tablet, a British Catholic weekly.
"People who live in a black-and-white kind of world are not satisfied at all with this kind of more elastic or pastoral path that the pope has taken, by giving these interviews and using the type of language that he does," he says.
Mickens describes the pope's language as both easily understandable and enticing. But he adds that Francis' message is also deeply challenging.
"His strong admonitions against greed, not to be greedy, not to hurt the environment ... these are not just nice things people want to hear; they are strong gospel, prophetic means of talking to people but in a language that is contemporary," Mickens says.
Burke, the Vatican communications strategist, acknowledges that for some Catholics living in the U.S. and other parts of the developed world, the pope's emphasis on a church for the poor and his sharp criticism of globalization and laissez-faire capitalism could be very disturbing.
"Mercy is the main message," Burke says. "But in the wealthy comfortable world, there's going to be a lot of tough love."
Pope Francis' Ramadan Greetings For Id Al-Fitr Sets Interfaith Example
The Huffington Post | By Yasmine Hafiz
Pope Francis explained that he wanted to personally write this year's message as a mark of his "esteem and friendship" for all Muslims, citing the example of his namesake Saint Francis, who "loved every human being deeply."
Addressed "To Muslims throughout the World," the message is an important call to action for peace and tolerance as he proposed reflection on the theme, "Promoting Mutual Respect through Education." As sectarian and religious tensions continue worldwide, the pope emphasized the importance of respect and need to educate Muslim and Christian youth in a tolerant and loving manner. He said, "We all know that mutual respect is fundamental in any human relationship, especially among people who profess religious belief. In this way, sincere and lasting friendship can grow."
The pope also offered good wishes to Muslims at the beginning of Ramadan during a visit to the island of Lampedusa in Italy on July 8, saying in a speech, "I also think with affection of those Muslim immigrants who this evening begin the fast of Ramadan, which I trust will bear abundant spiritual fruit. The church is at your side as you seek a more dignified life for yourselves and your families."
His sincere and friendly greetings will hopefully be warmly received by leaders of the Muslim community, many of whom felt uneasy with the last pontiff, Pope Benedict XVI, after he quoted an anti-Islamic remark in his 2006 Regensburg lecture and sparked worldwide outrage.
"In issuing a personal, heartfelt and meaningful message to Muslims around the world at the end of Ramadan, we see a genuine effort on behalf of Pope Francis to send a message of good will and compassion. Focusing on youth and 'mutual respect through education,' Pope Francis underscores the critical components of cohesiveness -– that people of all faiths should respect the other and learn about 'the other,'" said Farah Pandith, the U.S. Department of State's Special Representative to Muslim Communities. "His important message of mutual respect will no doubt have a powerful impact on how the next generation of Muslim and Christian youth view and interact with each other."
Francis is being called "the People's Pope" for his outreach to many marginalized groups.
Full text is here:
To Muslims throughout the World
It gives me great pleasure to greet you as you celebrate Id al-Fitr, so concluding the month of Ramadan, dedicated mainly to fasting, prayer and almsgiving.
It is a tradition by now that, on this occasion, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue sends you a message of good wishes, together with a proposed theme for common reflection. This year, the first of my Pontificate, I have decided to sign this traditional message myself and to send it to you, dear friends, as an expression of esteem and friendship for all Muslims, especially those who are religious leaders.
As you all know, when the Cardinals elected me as Bishop of Rome and Universal Pastor of the Catholic Church, I chose the name of “Francis”, a very famous saint who loved God and every human being deeply, to the point of being called “universal brother”. He loved, helped and served the needy, the sick and the poor; he also cared greatly for creation.
I am aware that family and social dimensions enjoy a particular prominence for Muslims during this period, and it is worth noting that there are certain parallels in each of these areas with Christian faith and practice.
This year, the theme on which I would like to reflect with you and with all who will read this message is one that concerns both Muslims and Christians: Promoting Mutual Respect through Education.
This year’s theme is intended to underline the importance of education in the way we understand each other, built upon the foundation of mutual respect. “Respect” means an attitude of kindness towards people for whom we have consideration and esteem. “Mutual” means that this is not a one-way process, but something shared by both sides.
What we are called to respect in each person is first of all his life, his physical integrity, his dignity and the rights deriving from that dignity, his reputation, his property, his ethnic and cultural identity, his ideas and his political choices. We are therefore called to think, speak and write respectfully of the other, not only in his presence, but always and everywhere, avoiding unfair criticism or defamation. Families, schools, religious teaching and all forms of media have a role to play in achieving this goal.
Turning to mutual respect in interreligious relations, especially between Christians and Muslims, we are called to respect the religion of the other, its teachings, its symbols, its values. Particular respect is due to religious leaders and to places of worship. How painful are attacks on one or other of these!
It is clear that, when we show respect for the religion of our neighbours or when we offer them our good wishes on the occasion of a religious celebration, we simply seek to share their joy, without making reference to the content of their religious convictions.
Regarding the education of Muslim and Christian youth, we have to bring up our young people to think and speak respectfully of other religions and their followers, and to avoid ridiculing or denigrating their convictions and practices.
We all know that mutual respect is fundamental in any human relationship, especially among people who profess religious belief. In this way, sincere and lasting friendship can grow.
When I received the Diplomatic Corps accredited to the Holy See on 22 March 2013, I said: “It is not possible to establish true links with God, while ignoring other people. Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam. At the Mass marking the beginning of my ministry, I greatly appreciated the presence of so many civil and religious leaders from the Islamic world.” With these words, I wished to emphasize once more the great importance of dialogue and cooperation among believers, in particular Christians and Muslims, and the need for it to be enhanced.
With these sentiments, I reiterate my hope that all Christians and Muslims may be true promoters of mutual respect and friendship, in particular through education.
Finally, I send you my prayerful good wishes, that your lives may glorify the Almighty and give joy to those around you.
Happy Feast to you all!
From the Vatican, 10 July 2013
The Coen Brothers
25 Things You Didn't Know About The Coen Brothers' Classic Comedy
Posted March 4th, 2012 11:30AM by Gary Susman
"Son, you got a panty on your head." Not a month goes by when I don't find some excuse to quote that line, or "As in, 'to swing'?", or some other randomly uproarious line from "Raising Arizona." The classic Coen Brothers comedy, the source of so much endlessly quotable bizarre but hilarious lines, turns 25 this month. Released on March 6, 1987 in one theater in New York, the film spent the rest of March 1987 opening slowly across the country, gradually becoming a cult favorite before being recognized as a cinematic landmark.
It was the movie that launched Joel and Ethan Coen into the wider consciousness of filmgoers, it gave Nicolas Cage his first real adult leading role, it gave early career breaks to John Goodman and William Forsythe, and it helped make Holly Hunter an overnight sensation. Plus, it gave us the immortal, iconic image of Cage, as feckless baby-napper and convenience store stick-up man H.I. McDunnough, running down a suburban street at night, carrying an armload of Huggies, with that famous pair of pantyhose on his head.
What went on behind the camera was nearly as boisterous. Here, then, are the untold tales of mirth and mayhem behind "Raising Arizona."
1. Getting the Coens to explain the deeper motivations behind their work is generally a fruitless task. Often, they'll say they did something just because it seemed like a cool idea, or they just wanted to see if it would work. In the case of "Raising Arizona," they just wanted to try to make a commercial comedy after their first film, 1984's "Blood Simple," had established their ability to make a thriller with gory horror touches. Thus, a comedy about an adorable baby. "It's like a real cheap and shameless bid at making a commercial movie," Ethan Coen told American Film magazine. "We decided to sell out, and that was the first decision."
2. Holly Hunter and Frances McDormand had been roommates in New York when they were both struggling actresses. In 1984, McDormand landed the lead role in "Blood Simple," while Hunter was heard in the film as a voice on an answering machine. For "Arizona," the Coens wrote the cameo role of brood mother Dot for McDormand (who, by now, was Joel Coen's live-in girlfriend, soon to be his wife). But they wrote the lead role of cop-turned-babynapper Edwina "Ed" McDunnough for Hunter. It was her first lead role in a movie.
3. Cast as H.I. "Hi" McDunnough, Nicolas Cage came to the set with numerous ideas for his character, as he typically does, but almost all of them were rejected by the Coens, who demanded he stick to the script. As Cage explained later, "Joel and Ethan have a very strong vision and I've learned how difficult it is to accept another artist's vision. They have an autocratic nature." Cage does takes credit, however, for Hi's unruly sideways hairdo, however. "That was just me," he told James Lipton on an episode of "Inside the Actors Studio."
4. The "Arizona" screenplay is full of unlikely literary references. Gale and Evelle Snoats, the jailbreakers played by John Goodman and William Forsythe, evoke the lowlife Snopes family from William Faulkner's stories. In John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men," Lennie Small is an unwittingly destructive giant with a fondness for rabbits; in "Arizona," Leonard Smalls is giant mercenary who blows up rabbits with hand grenades.
5. Everyone calls H.I. McDunnough "Hi," the acronym made by his initials, but sharp-eyed viewers will note that his first name is actually Herbert, which is how he signs his letter to Ed late in the movie.
6. Some 15 babies were required to play the five Arizona quintuplets. Talking to American Film, Joel Coen explained, "We kept firing babies when they wouldn't behave. And they didn't even know they were being fired, that's what was so pathetic about it."
7. What sort of misbehavior got a baby fired? Learning to walk, for one thing, since the babies were supposed to be crawling toddlers. According to Joel Coen, one mother even put her baby's shoes on backwards to keep him from walking.
8. All the primary adult characters break into tears at some point during the film. The only character who never cries is baby Nathan Jr.
9. The film contains a handful of references to cult horror classic "The Evil Dead," on which Joel Coen had one of his first film industry jobs, as assistant editor. The zoom on Florence Arizona's face when she discovers the kidnapping echoes a similar shot in the demonic-possession film. The McDunnoughs drive an early-'70s vintage Oldsmobile Delta 88, just like "Evil Dead" hero Ash.
10. And then there's the low-to-the-ground, hurtling, tracking shot, an innovation from "The Evil Dead" that became a signature shot for Coen cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld. He made extensive use of it in "Blood Simple" and in "Raising Arizona," where it's often used to represent the point of view of a scampering baby.
11. Cast as Leonard Smalls was the formidable Randall "Tex" Cobb, in the role he is probably best remembered for. A kickboxer-turned-boxer-turned-character actor, Cobb specialized in villains. Like Smalls, he seemed a force of nature to the Coens, who found him hard to control.
12. One issue with Cobb, for example: Even though he was cast as the marauding Lone Biker of the Apocalypse from H.I.'s dream, Cobb didn't actually know how to ride a motorcycle before he landed the role. At one point, driving up to examine the hole marking the tunnel opening where the Snoatses had escaped from prison, he couldn't stop his bike and fell in.
13. Composer Carter Burwell scored the movie, as he has all the Coens' pictures. The distinctive cowboy yodeling in the score was performed by John R. Crowder.
14. More stuff the Coens did just because they thought it would be cool: "In 'Raising Arizona,' we blow up a car," Ethan recalled. "And to be incredibly crude about it, it's just so cool to sit there and watch a car blow up. That was a peak. It gave us a deep, warm feeling of inner satisfaction."
15. According to the end credits, the movie was "filmed on location in Valley of the Sun, Arizona -- a great place to raise your kids."
16. The Coens spent about $5 million making "Raising Arizona," or four times the budget of "Blood Simple." The movie was a minor hit, grossing $22.8 million in North America and another $6.3 million overseas.
17. Many critics praised the film's verve and originality. Others found it an empty exercise of style over substance. The Chicago Tribune's Dave Kehr described it as "an episode of 'Hee Haw' directed by an amphetamine-crazed Orson Welles." Probably not a compliment.
18. "Raising Arizona" marked Hunter's breakthrough. Her stardom was proved no fluke later that same year with the release of "Broadcast News." In 1989, she starred in Steven Spielberg's "Always," which reunited her with John Goodman, and "Miss Firecracker," which reteamed her with Trey Wilson (Nathan Arizona Sr.). A decade later, Hunter re-upped with the Coens in "O Brother, Where Art Thou," also featuring Goodman.
19. 1987 was a breakthrough year for Cage, too. It started with "Raising Arizona" and ended with him confirming his adult leading man status in "Moonstruck."
20. "Raising Arzona" marked a career breakthrough for Trey Wilson, who followed Nathan Arizona with similar hard-nosed authority figures in "Bull Durham," "Married to the Mob," and "Great Balls of Fire." He was supposed to play crime boss Leo in the Coens' third movie, gangster saga "Miller's Crossing," but in 1989, two days before shooting was to start, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The Coens scrambled and were able to hire Albert Finney on short notice. Wilson was only 40.
21. Before "Arizona," Goodman's most prominent film roles had been as the football coach in "Revenge of the Nerds" and cuddly bachelor Louis Fyne in "True Stories." Soon after "Arizona," Goodman landed the defining role of his career, as blue-collar husband Dan Conner on TV's "Roseanne." "Arizona" was the first of five movies he's made to date with the Coens (including "Barton Fink" and "The Big Lebowski"), generally playing blustery, volatile men of action.
22. "Raising Arizona" was the first memorable role for William Forsythe, who thereafter tended to be cast as villains and tough guys, sometimes fearsome ("Dick Tracy"), sometimes comical ("Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo"). In 2011, he played butcher/gangster Manny Horvitz on HBO's "Boardwalk Empire."
23. Sonnenfeld shot one more movie for the Coens ("Miller's Crossing") before striking out on his own as a director with the hit "Addams Family" and "Men in Black" franchises. Still likes to use that scurrying, tot's-eye-view tracking shot.
24. The influence of "Raising Arizona" is vast and far-flung. Echoes can be seen in such divergent films as "Napoleon Dynamite" (Kip seems to be quoting H.I.'s marital vows when he says "You know I do" at his own nuptials), "Shrek the Third" (in a dream, Shrek chases a gaggle of babies, just like in the "Arizona" kidnap scene), "Kill Bill Vol. 2" (the knock-down, drag-out fight inside the cramped trailer), and Cage's own "Ghost Rider" (as he bikes through the desert, past a lizard on a rock, the lizard bursts into flames).
25. Cobb, who had dropped out of college at 19 to become a kickboxer, finally earned a bachelor's degree from Temple University in 2008, at age 57, majoring in sport and recreation management. He noted that he was accustomed to wearing a robe in a packed arena and hearing cheers, but not for something other than boxing, and without having to worry about bleeding.
Space.com, December 17, 2013
Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-Hubble/Europe Collab
Celestial Holiday Wreath Shines in New Hubble Photo
By Megan Gannon, News Editor | December 17, 2013 05:39pm ET
With Christmas approaching, it's time again for eggnog and gift-giving and space photos of celestial ornaments, hanging thousands of light-years away.
The Hubble Space Telescope snapped this image, released by NASA Tuesday (Dec. 17), showing a huge star sending "light echoes" into the dust that surrounds it like a twinkling wreath.
The giant star at the center of the image is RS Puppis, which is 200 times larger than our sun and can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere sky. It belongs to a class of very luminous stars called Cepheid variables.
These types of stars are unstable because they have used up most of the hydrogen fuel at their core. Cepheid variable stars expand and shrink in a rhythmic pattern, growing brighter and then dimmer over a regular period of days or weeks, as this time-lapse video shows.
As RS Puppis brightens during its six-week cycle, its sends pulses of light that illuminate its dusty environment. The pulses appear to expand the gas that enshrouds the star, an optical illusion that scientists call a "light echo." Hubble snapped a series of photos of these light echoes rippling through the nebula, according to NASA.
"Even though light travels through space fast enough to span the gap between Earth and the moon in a little over a second, the nebula is so large that reflected light can actually be photographed traversing the nebula," a NASA description of the photo reads.
Observing these traveling light echoes can actually help astronomers determine the distance of faraway objects; RS Puppis was calculated to be 6,500 light-years from our sun, with a margin of error of 1 percent, NASA officials said.
The Hubble Space Telescope, a joint project between NASA and the European Space Agency, launched into orbit in 1990 and transmits about 120 gigabytes of science data every week.
Orion Nebula
Brian Davis took this photo of the Orion Nebula from a driveway in the suburbs of Sumter, S.C., over 3.5 hours on Jan. 1, 2012 using a QSI 583wsg camera, Stellarvue SVR105 4" APO Refractor telescope, mounted on a Celestron CGE. Davis sent the image in to SPACE.com on Oct. 8. The entire region of the sword of Orion can be seen in the photo. The Running Man Nebula, or NGC 1977, is visible to the left of the image.
Once thought to be part of the Orion nebula, the star cluster NGC 1980 is actually a separate entity, scientists say. It appears around the brightest star seen at the bottom of this image, iota Ori. The disks around the star are the result of internal light reflection in the camera optics.
Credit: Gemini Observatory/AURA
This image, obtained during the late commissioning phase of the GeMS adaptive optics system, with the Gemini South AO Imager (GSAOI) on the night of December 28, 2012, reveals exquisite details in the outskirts of the Orion Nebula.
Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Robberto (Space Telescope Science Institute/ESA) and the Hubble Space Telescope Orion Treasury Project Team
This new Hubble image of the Orion Nebula shows dense pillars of gas and dust that may be the homes of fledgling stars, and hot, young, massive stars that have emerged from their cocoons and are shaping the nebula with powerful ultraviolet light.
Credit: ESO and Igor Chekalin
This new image of the Orion Nebula was captured using the Wide Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile.
Credit: ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit
This wide-field view of the Orion Nebula (Messier 42), lying about 1350 light-years from Earth, was taken with the VISTA infrared survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The new telescope’s huge field of view allows the whole nebula and its surroundings to be imaged in a single picture and its infrared vision also means that it can peer deep into the normally hidden dusty regions and reveal the curious antics of the very active young stars buried there.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
A colony of hot, young stars is stirring up the cosmic scene in this new picture from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope released on April 1, 2010.
Credit: ESA/LFI & HFI Consortia
An active star-formation region in the Orion nebula, as seen by Planck. This image covers a region of 13x13 degrees. It is a three-color combination constructed from three of Planck's nine frequency channels: 30, 353 and 857 GHz.
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image of the Orion Nebula shows the spectacular region around an object known as Herbig-Haro 502, a very small part of the vast stellar nursery. The glow of the nebula fills the image and, just left of center, a star embedded in a pinkish glow can be also seen. This object, Herbig-Haro 502, is an example of a very young star surrounded by the cloud of gas from which it formed.
Credit: P-M Hedén/TWAN
Skywatcher Per-Magnus Heden wondered if the Vikings gazed at the same starry sky, which includes the constellation Orion at bottom, when he took this photo in Feb. 2011.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S.T. Megeaty (Univ. of Toledo,OH).
This infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Orion nebula, the closest massive star-making factory to Earth.
Credit: ESA/PACS/NASA/JPL-Caltech/IRAM
This new view of the Orion Nebula shows embryonic stars within extensive gas and dust clouds. Combining far-infrared observations from the Herschel Space Observatory and mid-infrared observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, the image shows newly forming stars surrounded by remnant gas and dust in the form of discs and larger envelopes. Image released Feb. 29, 2012
Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb
Ella Fitzgerald's Early Years Collected In A Chick Webb Box Set
by KEVIN WHITEHEAD
December 11, 2013 1:14 PM
In 1935, Linton helped draw a curtain over mannered singing like his when he brought scruffy 16-year-old Ella Fitzgerald to Chick Webb's attention. Her sound was streamlined and modern, about melody and rhythm more than emoting. Fitzgerald was unformed, but could read music and learn a song in a second. "This is it," Webb said. "I have a real singer now. That's what the public wants." Music publishers deluged the band with mostly forgettable medium-tempo swing tunes, but Fitzgerald could make something out of almost anything — such as "Sing Me a Swing Song (And Let Me Dance)." Her articulation was always precise, but, as in later years, a New York accent might slip out.
Contrary to press reports, Chick Webb never adopted Ella Fitzgerald, but there was some family feeling in the band — the belief that the success of one was good for all. Benny Goodman made some moves to steal her away, but Fitzgerald stayed put. She started writing a bit and had a hand in her mega-hit "A-Tisket A-Tasket," one of the band's several adapted children's songs. The first song Fitzgerald co-wrote, "You Showed Me the Way," could almost have been a love letter to Webb and the orchestra that gave her a home.
While Fitzgerald shone, the band's soloists still got a few chances to strut on record. Chick Webb, like other leaders, had a little band drawn from the big one, his Little Chicks, with its intertwined clarinet and flute.
Chick Webb suffered from tuberculosis of the spine and other ailments, and died in a Baltimore hospital in 1939. His ultra-cool last words were, "I'm sorry, but I gotta go." The orchestra continued under Fitzgerald's name, losing steam even as she matured. The last of their juvenile tunes, 1941's "Melindy, The Mouse," had a grown-up subtext. Ella Fitzgerald's light touch there showed the way to flip new singers like Anita O'Day.
This music is the subject of a typically mammoth, lovingly annotated 8-CD box from Mosaic, The Complete Chick Webb & Ella Fitzgerald Decca Sessions (1934-1941). (It actually warms up with a few earlier tracks.) Various budget anthologies skim the vocal or instrumental cream from these four dozen sessions. But the complete output shows how hits collections distort the historical record. When the old days look rosier to us, we're usually remembering the highlight reel. There are hidden gems here, but it's not all gems.
By 1941, Ella Fitzgerald had ripened enough to go solo, and the orchestra folded. Before long, singers like Frank Sinatra were eclipsing big bands as popular attractions. Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald had already showed 'em the way.
An Elegy for Mandela
The Black Pimpernel
This hour upon the horizon is its own song; a dirge
But this is not the hour of yesterday
This is not the time for tears
Nor celebration
We have our work to do.
And we have been shown:
Wind of life blown without roots
Into exile and iron fire grieving
Blood and shackled love
And those other things —
Those that remain undone
We have always been reaching
Before the smoke machines
And statues of bronze, and invention
Before martyr and metaphor
Before the truth, and the lies
Before ambiguous
And surface scraped clean
Of complexity
There were regular swoops on your Orlando home then.
There were the workman's blue overalls and the Mazzawati tea glasses
And there was you —
The Black Pimpernel.
The fearsome shadow of purposeful stride
An AK-47 grip on necessity
A chauffeur's hat and your pocketful of 'tickeys'
You have always had your way.
Black fist of words raised beyond the precipice
You bore the burden:
Hammer, rock and
The lime quarry in your eyes
They say it affected your sight.
'I am not a saint' you said.
A man who seeks the hands of children in the crowd.
The terrorist and the statesman
The paradox comes home here
Where we remain.
Where a daughter will remember how she could not touch you
Behind the glass
Behind your smile
Mortal, man, one amongst many
You led yourself and lead us to the same.
Of what you could not give
We will remember that you did not take.
We will make our own meaning.
This hope, it belongs
It is ours
We claim it.
This is the hour of tomorrow.
And if we have stood on the shoulders of giants,
We are giants still
And giants, we will come again
Because we are all Nelson Mandela
And because the struggle continues.
"The Black Pimpernel" by Mbali Vilakazi. Copyright 2013 by Mbali Vilakazi.
Sim Van der Ryn
Sim Van der Ryn on 'Empathetic Design'
Wed, Dec 11, 2013 -- 10:00 AM
Sim Van der Ryn
He's widely considered to be the grandfather of green architecture and sustainable design. Architect and UC Berkeley professor emeritus Sim Van der Ryn was championing innovations like solar roof panels and rainwater catchment systems before most people had even heard of them. The former state architect of California joins us to reflect on his career and his new book, "Design for an Empathic World: Reconnecting to People, Nature and Self."
Host: Michael Krasny
Guests: Sim Van der Ryn, former California state architect for Governor Jerry Brown in the 1970s, professor emeritus of architecture at UC Berkeley and author of eight books.
Sim Van der Ryn
The Discovery Dissipation
Ira interviews Sheldon and Leonard on the set of The Big Bang Theory. Art imitating science.
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Backstage at 'The Big Bang Theory'
BY IRA FLATOW
DEC. 05, 2013
"Hi. Want me to put your name on your dressing room?"
My what?
"The trailer over there. It's your dressing room. Here's a name tag. I can leave it off if you want. You never know who might show up."
That was the moment I realized that I had been formally welcomed into the gang at The Big Bang Theory. It was late November outside Studio 25 at Warner Brothers in Burbank, California. Working in New York, I've seen so many dressing rooom trailers lining the streets for actors in various films and TV shows shot on location—but this was the first one with my name on it.
Four years ago I had been an unseen guest on the program. In that episode the main character, Sheldon Cooper, explained in a staged telephone interview with me on a mock SciFri show the physics of magnetic monopoles. This time a note from executive producer Faye Oshima invited me to come to the set in California where they would build a mockup of our SciFri studio and control room on their own sound stage (same one where Casablanca was filmed!), and I would appear in the episode.
I was starstruck. Having hosted a televison show for six years on PBS (Newton's Apple) and having appeared on many TV news programs, getting in front of a camera was no big deal. But getting to work with professional Hollywood actors, with all of their Emmys and credits, and knowing that the biggest name in TV land—Chuck Lorre—had not only okayed my selection but would be on the set watching me "act" did make me a bit nervous.
Ira Flatow playing himself, interviews Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory.
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
But the entire cast and crew made me feel right at home. Faye, her crew, and the technical staff treated me like a welcome guest. Jim Parsons and John Galecki showed infinite patience. Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch offered pleasant coversation. John Ross Bowie, who plays Barry Kripke, came over to say hello and commented about how the name "IWA FWATOE," which is how he pronounced it in the first show, seemed to be written expressly for him, lol.
My greatest fault, among many I'm sure, was timing. As director Mark Cendrowsk said: "You're a radio person. You abhor the quiet moments. Here, we welcome them. We need time for the audience to laugh. So see if you can pause a bit after you say your lines and allow time for the laughter."
And so donning my signature TV clothing—sweater vest—and makeup, I settled into the SciFri studio set, which looked so aunthentic it gave me welcome comfort just sitting there.
When all was said and done, Cendrowski insisted I not worry about my acting. He had "gotten everything he needed," or else he "wouldn't have let me go home."
How well did I do? You be the judge . . . and please let me know. The episode—"The Discovery Dissipation"—premieres tonight (December 5th) at 8 p.m. ET on CBS. And forever in reruns.
Johnny Galecki, Ira Flatow, Jim Parsons
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Michael Yarish/Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
Gorgeous U.S. Air Force Band Flash Mob
Col. Larry H. Lang conducts the Band's first-ever flash mob
at the National Air and Space Museum on Dec. 3.
at the National Air and Space Museum on Dec. 3.
Credit: U.S. Air Force
Creatures of Inexistence
Canvas on Mixed Media by Jalal Maghout, Syria, 2012
Synopsis
Crows are more humane than we think. There are many logical reasons to explain why this creature is not a bad omen.
Today, even if we believe in the traditional superstition, in the midst of the surrounding destruction, we still beg for hope and salvation from this ominous creature.
Here, the crow no longer collects shiny things. Shiny things automatically make their way to a deserted place instead of hitting their targets. They travel to a dark spot far away so that life can continue.
Biography
Jalal Maghout, a Syrian animation filmmaker and visual artist, was born in Damascus in 1987. He graduated in 2010 from the Damascus University of Fine Arts. He became a teacher assistant in the same faculty in 2011 and 2012.
His first independent short film was Creatures of Inexistence and has been screened in many cultural spaces and festivals in Syria and Lebanon. His second film is Canvas on Mixed Media.
As well as animation, Jalal has worked on many other projects such as music videos, video art, photography, and painting.
"A creative powerful visual approach of Syria’s horror with a hint of dark humor."
Soudade Kaadan, MADE in MED jury member
Creatures of Inexistence
Plastic Wings
Wall Asks: Okay? by Ahmed Hermassi, Tunisia, 2012
Synopsis
Before and during the revolution, graffiti illustrates a page of the Tunisian history and belongs to every citizen's daily visual universe.
This three-minute film shows the evolution of a wall under an avalanche of contradictory messages from people bursting to express themselves after years of censorship.
Biography
Ahmed Hermassi started off as an amateur painter before starting studies in Visual Arts at the School of Fine Arts. His work has earned him many prestigious awards.
In 2007 he turned to Media Arts where he discovered a new passion for audiovisual arts. His many short films include Journal intime de Sousse which won the third prize at the Kelibia International Amateur Film Festival.
He currently works at sustainable development non-governmental organisation GDA Sidi Amor.
"A white wall reveals the story of a country. A simple and a witty film."
Soudade Kaadan, MADE in MED jury member
"I have always looked closely at the changes and the evolution of the society in which I live in so that I can reinterpret them with my own point of view. Sometimes people like it, sometimes they do not, but either way they never are indifferent, which I think is very funny.
After years of silence when the political landscape was covered up by censorship, a tsunami of debates and controversies flooded the Tunisian public space until people started to feel like it was too much and that they had enough.
Wandering in the streets of Tunis, I got the idea of putting together the most recurrent messages that are painted on the walls and reproduced them in a 3-minute video.
At first the video was made for a Tunisian audience that understands the context of these messages. First of all, the title "Walls Ask: Okay?" is a typical Tunisian joke. After meeting a huge success on Tunisian social networks, I had the idea of diffusing it abroad, and Euromed Audiovisual appeared as the best way to do so.
By participating to this competition, I was not after a prize, I just wanted the movie to be seen by the most people possible and I wanted some feedback too. And I received the first prize! This news comes just as I am launching a network for young Tunisian directors and producers… What a great coincidence!" ~Ahmed Hermassi
The House Game by Mohamad ElWassify, Egypt, 2012
Synopsis
Can Youssef continue his game without Yasmin? The House Game is based on a short story written by Youssef Idris.
Biography
Egyptian filmmaker Mohamad ElWassify graduated from the Egyptian Film Institute in 2011.
Living in the Nile, his first short documentary film and his graduation project, was selected for the Munich International Film Festival for film schools 2011, Skena up International Film Festival in Kosovo 2011, the Al Jazeera Documentary Film Festival 2012, and the AMAL Euro-Arab Film Festival in Spain 2012.
The film was awarded Best Short Documentary at Zayed University International film festival - UAE 2012.
The House Game was awarded Best Arabic Film in Cairo International Film Festival for Children 2012 and the second prize for Best Short Film in the same festival. The film also won the Euromed Audiovisual MADE in MED short film contest.
"A sweet story of a boy and a girl trying to negotiate the rules of ‘house game’"
Soudade Kaadan, MADE in MED jury member