Righting qualia: A momentary occlusion of the light

The words of Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquino, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mills are unleashed from their exclusive, leather bound, Victorian-book-shelves tumbling into our homes via the impressive printerless, pressless, Gutenberg-like Internet worlds of full-text-online versions open to all Internet users. Their language is infinitely more readable than their 20th century counterparts. Web 2.0 tools such as Gnosis ClearForest, provide readers with hot links sprinkled throughout their essays, contributing to making their arguments even more accessible.

But it is in the language of novelists gifted in putting words to varied, shape-shifting, complex, unconscious states, qualia who are able to weave philosophy into fiction, to describe not only material culture through time and space but succinctly provide words when we ourselves are speechless.

From my local library I have free access to the entire series of West Wing. So with my morning coffee I watched as the fictional US President Bartlett with his fictional Nobel Peace Prize and the West Wing staff attempted to articulate specific words for a state of the economy that was not a recession − since the word was forbidden as a bad omen in the West Wing ─ but a state that encompasses a bit of moderate, albeit divergent economic viewpoints, in other words a lexicon of economics within a highly, textured, nuanced dialogue.

I watched as they tried to stretch the meaning of freedom so it could encompass the 18th century Founding Fathers right through to negotiations with North Korea in the 21st century and all that is in between. I also learned from the episode that the word Han in North Korean ─ the name of the 22-year-old North Korean protegé ─ pianist who chose to return to his own country rather than defecting, to protect a higher state of freedom,means a state of profound sorrow with a touch of hope.

Before I turn to my PC and my blogs, I read a paragraph from the new stack of library books recommended on-line by the New York Times, this one entitled Eclipse by John Banville. This sentence evoked a multi-layered state of synethesia with a full orchestra of fragrances, textures, images and sounds reminding me of my own experiences like this one described in the opening paragraph,

“Then a slight thickening in the air, a momentary occlusion of the light, as if something had plummeted past the sun, a winged boy perhaps, or falling angel.”

The entire book seemed condensed into this one phrase revealing the extent to which the speaking, writing and reading of words can also be experiencing. These are the things we do with words.

Number of Words:

457

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. A momentary occlusion of the light: a Review of Banville, John. 2000. Eclipse. London: Macmillan Publishers.

Amapedia for Amazon Insiders

From Rembrandt to Spinoza, the Golden Age of the Netherlands casts its long shadow into the 21st century. Candle light flickered and the sand in the timer flowed silently but he barely noticed, he was so engrossed in his reading. With his left hand he held unto the globe while all around him in the darkness others slept deeply. The work of these candle-light-scientists continues to be honoured today. Indeed their century, the 17th century is now recognised as one that was crowded with genius.

I would like to have this review in Amapedia, another pioneering moment on Web 2.0 brought to me through ReadWriteWeb but I am not an Amazon member since I have not purchased online so I am excluded.

Flynn-Burhoe. 2007. Review of Damasio, Antonio. 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. New York: Harcourt.

Damasio chose a reproduction of this painting by Dutch artist and Rembrandt (1606–1669) student from 1627 to 1628, Gerrit Dou (1613 – 1675) entitled Astronomer by Candlelight (c.1665) for the cover of his splendid, insightful book in which he combines his own research as head of neurology at the University of Iowa Medical Center with the writings of Spinoza, a contemporary of Rembrandt.

Among the renowned Dutch artists, scientists and merchants who were part of the Golden Age in Holland were the philosopher Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677), Nicolaes Tulp (1593-1674) Doctor, Magistrate, and Mayor of Amsterdam, wrote a book on diseases and human & animal anatomy,Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) laid the foundations for international law, René Descartes French philosopher lived in Leiden from 1628 till 1649 and Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), a famous mathematician, physicist and astronomer. See wikipedia.
In Chapter 6, “A Visit to Spinoza,” Damasio revisited the historical period which he calls a century of genius in which Spinoza’s life unfolded. He noted that it was in the Netherlands in the 17th century that the makings of contemporary justice through such enlightened minds as that of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) who introduced modern concepts of international law (1625). It was also during this period that modern capitalism emerged in the Netherlands (2003:231).
While he lived in the most tolerant country of the 17th century Spinoza’s iconoclastic ideas regarding truth claims and legitimization of truth were too radical even for Holland.

Spinoza was born into a prosperous family of Sephardic Jewish merchants who had fled Portugal during the Inquisition shortly before Spinoza was born. Their acquired wealth from trade in sugar, spices, dried fruit and Brazilian wood was Spinoza’s inheritance. But he valued his intellectual independence more than money and learned to live frugally even refusing professorial positions so as not to have his time or thinking compromised. He never owned his own home preferring to occupy only a bedroom and study. In that bedroom was the one object upon which Spinoza fixated. This was the four-poster, canopied and curtained bed where he was conceived, birthed and in which he finally died. It is called a ledikant and contrasted sharply with the armoire or cupboard bed that was more common in Amsterdam homes of the 17th century (to be continued p.229). Other than that he only needed paper, ink, glass, tobacco and money for room and board. He reminds me in some ways of our contemporary Russian mathematician Perelman who learned to live on $100 a month to devote himself solely to the elevated apolitical study of pure mathematics.

Please note that permission for use of this image on this blog under the Creative Commons is pending.

Appendix

 

List of those labeled as a 17th century genius:

Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) laid the foundations for international law. Publications mentioned 1604, 1605, 1632.
Nicolaes Tulp (1593-1674) Doctor, Magistrate, and Mayor of Amsterdam, wrote a book on diseases and human & animal anatomy.
Rembrandt (1606–1669)

Gerrit Dou (1613 – 1675)

Baruch de Spinoza (1632-1677),

René Descartes French philosopher lived in Leiden from 1628 till 1649

Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), a famous mathematician, physicist and astronomer

Selected bibliography and webliography

Damasio, Antonio. 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. New York: Harcourt.

Flynn-Burhoe. 2007. Review of Damasio, Antonio. 2003. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. New York: Harcourt.

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. A Social History Timeline Related to Damasio’s Looking for Spinoza (2003).

Grotius, Hugo. 1604-5. 1950. De Jure Praedae (Commentary on the Law of Prize and Booty) Original Publishing: 1868 (actually written in the end of 1604 and the beginning of 1605); English Translation: Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1950.

Grotius, Hugo. 1623 [1971] True Religion Explained and Defended against the Archenemies Thereof in the Times (The Truth of the Christian Religion) Original Publishing: 1632; English Translation: New York: DaCapo, 1971.

Grotius, Hugo. 1625. [1975] Prolegomena to the Law of War and Peace. Original publishing: 1625 English Translation: Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril, 1975.

Uzgalis, Bill. 1997-2003. “Hugo Grotius“. in “Great Voyages: the History of Western Philosophy from 1492-1776″. wuzgalis@orst.edu. Oregon.

Grotius, Hugo. 1625. [1853] De Jure Belli ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) Original Publishing: 1625; English Translation: Cambridge: John W. Parker, 1853.

Kiss Me, I’m Irish

She shook with laughter as she held up a pair of men’s boxer shorts with the Kiss Me I’m Irish logo. Strands of her thick black wavy hair shoulder-length hair fell across her honey-coloured cheeks and she pushed them back as she lifted her face. “I love it!”she exclaimed. “I want it!” It reminded me of a family story that I wanted to tell her. Ever since she became a member of our Irish-English family she has made us all even more aware of our genealogy.

My linguist son is looking into the (Gaelic) Goidelic languages which according to wikipedia have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland. They are one of two major divisions of modern-day Insular Celtic languages and Brythonic Goidelic is generally divided into: Irish Gaeilge, Scottish Gaelic Gàidhlig and Manx Gaelg.

I’m uploading my oral and archival family history so my grandchildren present and future will know from where they have come.

Meanwhile my youngest son and his beautiful French wife have sent us the most emotionally-charged images I could imagine. Inter-uterine photography may not evoke wonder and awe in everyone, but when the grandson (we now know it is a boy) is visible thanks to technology and sharable (thanks to email attachments) I am enraptured. But it’s not just the still .jpg images where he looks like a sculpture cast in pure gold, we can see his movements thanks to .avi even though is is only 15 weeks old. I approach him with such reverence and in speechless wonderment because these images are rare images from a world within worlds. There is no comparison between the jolting experience of sketching at Body Worlds 3 in December and the experience of these images on my screen. These are situated somewhere between 13 weeks and 21 weeks but this is so much more real, related and therefore relevant to my own existence. This child will be in our hearts, minds and souls through all the worlds of God.

But more than that . . . he is also related to these Irish, British, French ancestors in Europe, the United Kingdom and Canada. If my father were alive he would be including this lad in his gathering of the clover. Each summer my Irish father would find by his own magic a four-leafed clover — the Irish good-luck symbol — for each of his six children. He only looked in areas surrounding our cottage at Rocky Point, Prince Edward Island. I think of him as I think of this new generation for I have seen his abilities and strengths in my own sons.

How are we measured in the larger scheme of things? If it is by our material possessions then we have not fared well, but if it has anything to do with our children and grandchildren, we are fortunate, deeply grateful . . .

Faith or skepticism: black snow and the evidence of things not seen

Larry looked up, waiting for C. J. to complete her sentence. She smiled with her tired — perhaps even jaded — eyes, ever so slightly, and completed the quote from St. Paul. She explained that she maintained her calm in the Press Room while being shot at because of her faith in “[t]he substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” She wasn’t referring to faith in God but to this team of highly trained West Wing staff from President Bartlett, Toby and Will, to the Secret Service. This mise en scene against a backdrop of an insider’s poker game, is one of the many ways in which the popular TV drama portrayed the idealistic, behind-the-scenes, everyday life of the American presidency in the West Wing of the White House. Now that the entire series (2000-2005?) is available on DVD through video store outlets, public libraries, etc., the audience has probably expanded beyond the “loyal audience that desperately want[ed] to believe in the nobility of the American dream (Amazon).”Jack Beatty in his article (2004) published in The Atlantic online suggested that the West Wing under the presidency of George W. Bush should have St. Paul’s definition of faith as its motto, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).” Beatty argued that while we might question “Bush’s veracity, his grip on reality, and the rationality of his policies,” we cannot question his faith.

By the end of the 20th century, the word faith had become politically charged. Faith and skepticism held in tension by everyday life events are part of the same lifelong dialogue. They are not on opposing teams. The terms faith and ideology have been used as if they meant the same thing in reference to various kinds of truth claims, religious (atheism, theism, deism, shamanism, etc.), politics (democracy, communism, socialism, monarchy), science (quantitative, that is statistical or qualitative methods that is qualia) or art forms (Greek helenistic, French Neo-Classical, German Romanticism, Inuit, Italian Baroque). I am not convinced that belief has the same negative correlation as ideology. The first may be blinded by passion, the second by politics. The first is associated with ignorance and niaivity, the second with jaded realism. The skepticism is a form of reflexivity in which a researcher remains open to the possibility that his/her own axiology, methodology, ontology may indeed be only partial. The need to be able to predict future events based on certain knowledge claims, that are always partial, is obvious. Belief in your own team (discipline, department, office) helps maintain an energy flow to get things done within a time/space continuum where there is a political need for expediency. However, knowledge claims for the future are more productive when faith is that which keeps a researcher engaged in her efforts to better understand regardless of political expediency.

The same quote from St. Paul over a century ago, was used by a Reverend MacDonald (1882). “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).” Reverend MacDonald cautioned those in his congregation who judged atheists and agnostics harshly. He instead acknowledged the anguish of those who had lost their faith when they saw only the of the late 19th century and deduced that there was no hope, no light. They lost faith because the evidence around them led to despair or even worse apathy. At the same time Reverend MacDonald expressed his gratitude for the more recent translation of the Bible which clarified for him the difference between the spirit and the letter of statements such as, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).”Perhaps then for the 21st century we need to look at psychology, cultural studies, political philosophy and why not religion as part of a similar conversation.

Bertrand Russell, British analytic philosopher, logician and mathematician (1872-1970) once argued that mankind “is a curious accident in a backwater (1961).” He contributed to the dethroning of man, or the marginalization of man in the materialist point of view (Russell 1961 cited by Barr 2003:68). But Russell changed his opinion as he advanced in years. He went from embracing atheism to embracing Faith in the possibility of the existence of God.

“I think, the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology….Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called ‘education.’ Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part…. It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment. The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship…. The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray. Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

—Bertrand Russell, The Impact of Science on Society (1951)

Footnotes

Rollins and O’Connor’s publication (2003) entitled West Wing: The American Presidency As Television Drama (The Television Series) critically analyzed the series. See also (Things Unseen).

Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2007. “Evidence of Things Not Seen: Media and Black and White Snow”

Selected Webliograhy and Bibliography

Misiano, Christopher. 2003. “Evidence of Things Not Seen.” West Wing. April 23. No. 420.

Beatty, Jack. 2004. “The Faith-Based Presidency.” Atlantic Unbound. March 25.

Hebrews 11:1

MacDonald, George. 1882. “Faith, the Proof of the Unseen.” Sermon. Brixton Congregational Church. June.

Rollins, Peter C., O’Connor, John E. Eds. 2003. The

West Wing: The American Presidency As Television Drama (The Television Series). Syracuse University Press. ISBN-10: 081563031X, ISBN-13: 978-0815630319. 272 pp.

“Informed by historical scholarship and media analysis, this book takes a critical look at this award-winning show from a wide range of perspectives. Eminent scholars Peter C. Rollins and John O’Connor make an important contribution to the field with an eclectic mix of essays, which translate visual language into on-screen politics. While the series may be criticized as “idealistic,” its clever techniques of camera work, lighting, editing, and mise en scene reflect America’s best image of itself, and entertains a loyal audience that desperately wants to believe in the nobility of the American dream. This collection introduces readers to the sensibilities to appreciate the show’s nuances and the necessary knowledge to avoid any misreadings. It will be of interest to students of politics, popular culture, fans and critics alike.”Amazon book reviews.

Russell, Bertrand. 1961. Religion and Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 

Tag Clouds WordPress Featured Blog

With the unfolding of Web 2.0 technologies, software developers such as authors/technicians are constantly improving their products. WordPress for bloggers, has a Featured Blogs element which uses the user’s tag clouds with an algorithm to generate clusters of tags. This is one of the clusters for my entries categorized under tag clouds itself.

Using the liquify tool in Adobe Photoshop I digitally manipulated text tags chosen by WordPress, maintaining WordPress generated proportions by using larger or bold fonts to visually demarcate tags that were used more often in this tag cloud.

I wanted the shapes of the words to take flight, to mimic the movement of the clouds.

I took this photo when I was on a First Air flight from Ottawa to Iqaluit, Nunavut in 2003. I think I used to ask for Row 21, a window seat so I could take aerial photos.

Luc Bianca and Terragen

ReadWriteWeb catches me off-guard before I have had my second cup of coffee. Maybe I should wait until later in the day before visiting their suggested sites. Today I was blown away by a new software called Terragen that generates landscapes in the Romantic tradition based on Google-like technology ramped up to a painterly, detailed image. I will have to read about them again because I think it said ‘free’ but I find this hard to imagine. Terragen is photo realistic scenic rendering software.

So this is it: If I embed images in my webpages or blogs by pointing to someone else’s .jpg file directly this causes their images to load from their webserver everytime somebody looks at my page, which really costs them money because I would be consuming their bandwidth by doing so. Thanks for clarifying this Fred Basinki.

I still don’t see how I get the free image concept yet. I guess I could save this image to my PC then upload it to my own Free WordPress blog? Hoever this may a model I would like to use for my own high resolution images. What is the size of a poster-sized image? a 70×50 cm (30×30 inch), 300 dpi. With my Adobe Photoshop one of my .jpg images of that size would be 231.7 Megabytes. My free Flckr account accepts 5 M. images at a time.  I’ve been uploading high resolution images. Frankly I can’t afford to print them myself and I like the idea they are being used under the Creative Commons License 2.5 BY-NC-SA. I would like to investigate the Paypal potential for my images however.

See their Terragen 2 gallery here. See also individual artists use of the software: Luc Bianco’s Paysages Virtuel, or Fred Basinki’s site New World Digital Art here.

Cyberworld Nomad, FreeMemory and Invaders

To: WordPress feedback

I have been receiving spam comments over the last few weeks. I am automatically sent their urls and IDs which seem to be either non-existent, new commercial sites or one claiming to be some form of experimentation to inflate figures artificially. Since my free site is purely non-profit, I am not even able to add Adsense for example, I wonder why they target them? Inflated figures for me are counter-productive. I pay attention to the searches used because I really want to know why my content is of interest, to whom and how can it be of more efficient use in terms of my own objectives which are content/connectivity related. The spam messages vary from compliments of my site, ambiguous but deceptively intriguing comments or just initials. I have left them on my sites so you could investigate. Is there a way to prevent them?

I have been developing a small village of sites in the cyberworld using free Web 2.0 technologies in order to upload content that I found useful to my many years of teaching, my research . WordPress offers features that are invaluable and incomparable and are not available on other sites.

The success of your Featured Tag event, the efficient targeting of links between Google search engines and WordPress tags, the seamless interface between WordPress widgets and Flickr are unbelievable. This new mouse-over feature which allows a thumbnail of hotlinks is but one example of many of the features I enjoy. My one concern with WordPress is that I use up my available memory as a free site on my Speechless account. It is the one that gets most visits so I have been building it most in response to those visits.

Thank you, Maureen Flynn-Burhoe

Fireplace with Easel and Artist Reflecting

Fireplace with Artist and Easel ReflectingFlynn-Burhoe. 1999. “Fireplace with Easel and Artist Reflecting.” Acrylic. 12″ x 14.” Creative Commons License 2.5 BY-NC-SA..

Moving Pictures History: the Monterey Bay Aquarium and H4X0R

This is a test: Jason Paterson hosts this live web cam of a tank of fish in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Jason’s email is mobtuff+robotsarewaycool@gmail.comand he describes the site as follows: “Monterey Bay Aquarium live web cam of the outer bay display. This web cam is live from 7am to 7pm. Feeding times are at 11am Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Keep an eye out for the Great White Shark! Please visit the Monterey Bay Aquariums website to learn more.” Jason’s photo is @ http://jpaterson.googlepages.com/ninjachild70×100.png and he describes himself as “I’m pretty much the coolest guy I know. People call me the H4X0R, Captain, Commander, WastedYeti, etc. What ever you prefer really. I mean I’m just a simple code crackin’, sword swingin’, ninja star throwin’ etc. Shoot me an email if you would like to converse with the most ultimate person ever.”

I read somewhere that one of the earliest moving pictures was of fish in an aquarium. I can’t find the source and I am beginning to question it now but I did find some interesting links to aquariums and the history of moving pictures.

Watching this tank full-screen from this site is oddly soothing. I have the .rss feed on my customized google home page. I’m going to email Jason to thank him and find out if this is a legitimate link! This is his url http://jpaterson.googlepages.com.

I am fascinated by social histories including histories of popular culture. According to David Curtis in his presentation which is now online entitled “Which History?” presented at the Tate International Council Conference on June 1st 2001, the Lumiere brother’s cameraman Alexander Promio who filmed the general section of the ‘Panorama of Liverpool docks taken from the electric railway’ in 1897 was Britain’s first film-artist.

This is Curtis’ full list of his nominations for a moving pictures history: Alexander Premio – ‘Liverpool Docks’ 1897
Chris Newby – ‘Stromboli’ 1990 -1997
Guy Sherwin – ‘Bicycle’ from ‘Short Film Series’ 1980
William Raban – ‘Thames Film’ 1984
Kenneth Macpherson – ‘Borderline’ 1930
Isaac Julien – ‘Long Road to Mazatlan’ 2000
Ian Bourn / Helen Chadwick – ‘End of the World’ 1982
Jayne Parker – ‘Crystal Aquarium’ 1989
Mark Wallinger – ‘Angel’ 1997
Rose Finn-Kelcey – ‘Glory’ 1982
David Lamelas – ‘To Pour Milk Into a Glass’ 1972
Peter Gidal – ‘Upside Down Feature’ 1972
Oswell Blakestone & Francis Bruguiere – ‘Light Rhythms’ 1930
Lis Rhodes – ‘Light Music’ 1975

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This is a history of moving pictures in Brighton which lists the “Aquarium Kinema, Madeira Drive, Brighton Film shows were given at the Aquarium before the turn of the century. The Winter Garden at the Aquarium was known as the Aquarium Kinema for a short time during the First World War. After remodelling in 1927-1929, it reopened on 12 June 1929. During the 1930s it was called the Princes Hall (Cinema); occasional film performances, as well as concerts and live theatre, were held here until 1939. During the Second World War it was requisitioned by the RAF. It was used for various purposes thereafter, including the Florida Nights dance hall and Montagu Motor Museum, but none of them including film.”

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This 1885 photo of the original Brighton aquarium is hosted on the virtual museum’s site.

[To be summarized]Eugenius Birch’s original design incorporated a variety of styles. Grand archways, columns and elaborate stonework reflected the Pompeian and Gothic influence. Statues of Bath stone, green marble and red Edinburgh granite were used in its construction. The Aquarium’s foundations were dug deep into the ground as the building was not allowed to be taller than the neighbouring promenade, Marine Parade. The distinctive clock tower and gateway to the Aquarium were added in 1874. The four corners of the clock tower bore bronze statues symbolising the seasons. Images of mermaids and sea-nymphs were evident elsewhere in the structure. A frieze inscription at the entrance stated: ‘And God said, Let the water bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that hath life.’ Among those moving creatures were a number of specimens that inspired great interest. The Dublin Bay Prawn of 1874 attracted considerable excitement. In 1880 a manatee was displayed in a huge tank that enabled the viewer to witness the creature at eye level. Sea lions arrived in 1877 and were able to successfully breed. Rather drier attractions could be found elsewhere. The waterfall grotto proved a popular meeting place, and concerts were regularly held in the conservatory. By 1876 the roof terrace had been expanded to incorporate a roller-skating rink and smoking room. Film shows were increasingly common from the end of the nineteenth century, and the conservatory was briefly known as the Aquarium Kinema.

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A brief history of moving pictures in Randwick, Australia which included this section: “The Coogee Palace Aquarium had one of the earliest electric picture shows in about 1912. The first film shown was “The Defeat of the Spanish Armada”. Another cinema in Randwick, “The Orient Pictures” situated on the corner of Coogee Bay Road (opposite the Royal Hotel) was an open-air type, which provided “excellent up-to-date moving pictures” in 1911 and probably earlier.”

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Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, (1922) a record of Inuit Eskimo life, was the first feature film documentary or non-fictional narrative feature film. [The word "documentary" was reportedly first used in February, 1926, by John Grierson in his review of Flaherty's Moana (1926) for the New York Sun. The term may also have been used 12 years earlier by famed photographer Edward Curtis in a prospectus for his Seattle-based Continental Film Company, referring to his film In the Land of the Headhunters (1914).] Flaherty’s film helped to usher in the documentary film movement, although it raised some controversy because it ‘re-created’ or staged some of its hunting scenes, rather than being truly non-fictional. Film site milestones in film history.

This is an excellent site with concise information about the history of moving pictures. I still haven’t found the reference to early films of fish tanks. I remember learning of this through the work of a contemporary Canadian artist who built a makeshift film-making device in reference to this early film using an old wringer washing machine.This particular popular culture history intrigues me since its effect on shared communal memory is probably so profound. Nanook of the North was known worldwide.

Nihilist chewing gum

One of my daughters-in-law took me out for lunch, bought me clothes and sent me home with a surprise lobster for dinner. My new daughter-in-law phoned me last night and between guffaws of laughter told me she was sending me some nihilist chewing gum. It is black and has absolutely no flavour because we don’t believe in flavour.

Frankly I can’t wait until she calls me today to see what she will come up with next! We spent a week together over the holidays. The weather was bad, my son was sick with the flu. She kept us in stitches the whole time. She made us all do an online personality test. I almost matched her with the colour orange but she is really pure gold. That wasn’t one of the colours listed.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have told her I was a nihilist since it is not for everyone. She is at the opposite end of the spectrum! It’s hard to imagine someone who says they believe in God having anything in common with Nietszche.

If every nihilist had a golden daughter-in-law the world would be a better place, that is if there is a future . . .

Nietzschean diet: eat whatever you fear most

New Nietzschean Diet Lets You Eat Whatever You Fear Most

NEW YORK- By conquering your Fear and eating it in Heroic Portions, one can avoid the Eternal Occurrence of weight gain.