If you read the comments on yesterday's post, you'll know that today leaves the bonobos in the dust for VOLES!
Voles are a small rodent and are often confused with mice, moles, and rats, and are only found in the northern hemisphere. There are 155 species of voles (although these guys say 124), including pine, water, mountain, etc. They will eat a wide variety of food, from bark to dead animals and insects. They are quite fond of roots and bulbs, often killing the plant before the gardener realizes the animals are even there.
And hey, voles even have their own website! I think they should send one of their own out to design classes, though, to spruce the page up a bit. They're small, they could sneak into class in someone's backpack.
Apparently voles deserve more attention. Purdue University states that they are the fastest evolving mammal and are a bit of a genetic enigma.
Today's final vole lesson is taught in pictures:
English title: Grand Illusion
part two of a doubleheader. part one was yesterday, and today is Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion: a war movie with no battle scenes, where friendships go across enemy sides, where the futility of war (any war) is noted, and the coming social changes in all of Europe are presaged.
is going to sound awfully familiar if you've been following this series-of-movies-I-like, but whatevs. 'tis all true
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For many years, the original nitrate film negative was thought to have been lost in an Allied air raid in 1942 that destroyed a leading laboratory outside Paris. Prints of the film were rediscovered in 1958 and restored and re-released during the early 1960s. Then, it was revealed that the original negative had been shipped back to Berlin by Dr. Frank Hensel to be stored in the Reichsfilmarchiv vaults. In the Allied occupation of Berlin in 1945, the Reichsfilmarchiv by chance was in the Russian zone and consequently shipped along with many other films back to be the basis of the Soviet Gosfilmofond film archive in Moscow. The negative was returned to France in the 1960s, but sat unidentified in storage in Toulouse Cinémathèque for over 30 years, as no one suspected it had survived. It was rediscovered in the early 1990s as the Cinémathèque's nitrate collection was slowly being transferred to the French Film Archives at Bois d'Arcy. It was restored and released as the inaugural DVD of the Criterion Collection.
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from the always helpful wiki , full of details, linkage, synopsa, and I hope you already knew, *spoilers*. so be careful
I can talk about the movie, but rather do so after y'all watch it. I am unable to discuss a plot without giving the movie away; the secret of being a good writer-about-films. but I will mention some movies you may have watched that are very influenced by La Grande Illusion:
- The Great Escape
- Casablanca
- Stalag Seven
clipparinos:
this first one is Renoir himself introducing the Criterion Collection DVD.
Renoir is adorable, self-effacing, and I want to hug him. he also reminds me of someone...
in this scene, POWs of several nationalities come together during a talent show in a German camp
When Michelle & I went to the Outer Banks of NC in September, we stopped by a really nice store called Sandy Bay Gallery. After making our jewelry purchases and chatting with the owner, we walked back outside and stopped to admire the hippo pottery. But oh look! Hippo Mouth has a resident!
Is that the blurpiest little frog ever? The shop owner saw us looking and came out and said he lives in there, and that sometimes there is another one that hangs out close by. But before I could get more photos inside the hippo, she coaxed him out onto the wall:
and that is about half of my vacation photos right there....
Hope to have some personal content up later today, but in case I don't, here's Bad Reporter making fun of the GOP, people who text, and the media's coverage of Obama. Not as LOL as the last one, but okay.
And life in a comic strip can be dangerous, as we learn from our little ghoulish pal
(I love Lio -- he's like I imagine Kirk S. was as a kid)
Today's MUTTS is also good, esp. for those who have tuxies, but it's not online yet.
Yep..it's another perfect day.
And what am I going to do about it?
I am going to wash a few windows, change a few critter cages and go for a Bike Ride!! I can't wait on the bike ride...but I'll wait until this afternoon when the temps get out of the 40s!
Have a good one, y'all!
English title: The Rules of the Game, though a literal translation would be The rule of the game
I love this movie so much I don't even know how to begin to talk about it. is it a comedy? yep. a drama? indeed. a 'dramedy'? thankfully not. a comedy of manners? absolutely. an allegory, an analysis, a critique? yes. yes. yes.
a perfect snapshot of a moment in time? very much so. set between the wars at a time when an aristocracy on its way down was meeting a bourgeoisie on it way up; when the servant class was morphing into the working class.
that we even have La règle du jeu to watch is little short of a miracle. its remarkable story, lifted straight from imdb:
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Despite now being considered one of the best films made by many historians, the picture almost became a lost art. Claiming that it was bad for the morale of the country (due to impending war), the French government banned the film about a month after its original release. When Germany took over France the following year, it was banned by the Nazi party as well, who also burnt many of the prints. Allied planes then accidentally destroyed the original negatives. It was thought to be a lost picture. In 1956, some followers of director Jean Renoir found enough pieces of the film scattered throughout France to reconstitute it with Renoir's help. Renoir claimed only one minor scene was missing from the original cut.
trailer
...Everyone has their reasons
NOTE: many think, me amongst them, that the scene below is crucial, a moment where several themes of the movie come together. it is also EXTREMELY DISTURBING. excruciating to watch.
it is a "country hunt" of the kind the guests at a chateau or a country manor of the time would participate in. it features the slaughter of woodland animals, including <gulp> bunnies.
the 'hunt'
it thrills me that this movie, who could have so easily being lost forever, is available to us. it is a gift. Jean Renoir was a great director, a great filmmaker, and a great humanist. we are lucky to have his work.
The big debate in teaching primates, among other animals, is that while some say they are learning language, others insist it is merely communication, generally for a reward like food, that the primate has learned. In other words, simply a learned response, no different from a dog learning to sit or roll over for a treat. Are primates just a more trainable subjects?
There's a specific notation that I can't copy the first article I want to point out, so here is the link. It is an opinion piece on an online freelance site. I do not know anything about the author so I can't tell you what her background is.
The next article is long and I don't want to clog up anyone's Neighbourhood view, so here is a link from the New York Times, June 6, 1995 edition. The article is titled "Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?"
Additional interesting link:
Here's the first video of the kitties investigating the passion fruit and passion fruit rinds. It's shakier and not as well-lit, but the cats are cute.
at least that was my conclusion after reading the excellent series of articles on dental health by June Thomas of Slate
it is long, enlightening and I can't recommend it enough.
some key points:
- why ist dental care separated from health care? there is ample evidence that dental health (lack of) correlates to serious chronic conditions including heart disease, diabetes, digestive problems, etc,
- dentists are doctors but not "really doctor doctors". the significant differences between medical and dental practices
- dental insurance 'separate and unequal' from health insurance
- the prevention model has been very successful in dentistry yet not in medicine
- the appalling lack of dental care to large numbers of individuals
- dental care hasn't gotten barely any mention in the current health care reform debate
South Mountain Park has thousands of miles of trails. It's one of the largest municipal parks in the US.
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