It is stunning and gorgeous.  The fastest men in the world.  A new world record.  

So Tyson Gay didn't make it; Osafa Powell took fifth.  

A poor-quality version on YouTube, but take a look:

Hey, folks!  Did you know the Olympics starts on Friday?  Yes, I know they are commercialized out the wazoo, and there are really serious political issues with the current location, and I am furious at Bush for putting his stamp of approval (and thus our stamp of approval) on the totalitarian regime hosting them.  But...

There was a nice essay on Salon's website (either watch a commercial or you have to be a subscriber) by Gary Kamiya.  He talks about how the politics kinda drops away at moments, even though it is an overwhelmingly nationalistic event.  

There was an avalanche in the Karakorum on August 1st, killing at least 9, probably 11 climbers, including Korean, Pakistani, Nepali, and Italian climbers.  Reports are still coming in, but it will undoubtedly be the worst single day in K2 climbing history.  This is the world's second highest mountain at 8,611 metres/28,251 ft., and one of its most dangerous.    

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Missouri primary is Tuesday and all week (all month, really) I have been getting phone calls from campaigns.  I know they won't listen to me but I finally have to scream at this and provide some advice to ANYONE who organizes this kind of thing.

Youssef Chahine, age 82, the Egyptian filmmaker whose films span six decades and is the first person to have cast Omar Sharif in a movie, died over the weekend (July 27th).  He was a director, writer, and actor, film innovator and one of those responsible for making Egypt film the center of Arab film production, and well-respected around the world (he won a lifetime achievement award at the 50th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival in 1997).  His politics were liberal and nationalist (he was a great admirer of Nasser) and antifundamentalist; he understood and featured the struggles of the lower classes (see some of the comments below the fold); and in his latest years he was an outspoken critic of Mubarak.  His was a life well-lived, and if you have never seen his work, here are some of the essential films -- take a look at some of the great productions of Arab film.  They should be available in the US (maybe through netflicks? or  arabfilm.com).

Everyone else seems to be whooping it up in Austin, so it is my turn tonight to open the FNatM lair, pop the popcorn, set out the milkduds and red licorice, and turn down the lights.  Trying to figure out what to write about when the movie room is a bit empty is tough.  Why do movies?  Maybe we should instead sneak into everyone's empty apartments and go through their trash and download the luds off their landlines.  What?  The feds have done it already?  Okay, then let's talk about the international secret service -- you know, the CIA/Mossad/MI-6/KGB kind of thing.  Remember, it is just fiction...

Tonight is one of those summer nights I love.  It is warm, with a slight breeze, and humid and hazy.  You have a feeling when you look at the sky that you are looking up through a swimming pool and in a way you are.  This is a beautiful earth, with a beautiful moon.  We have beautiful stars and I love the night.  I have a new digital camera and haven't really figured it out yet.  I took a few pictures tonight out in the backyard and I wanted to share one with you, along with memories about the night.  

As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous
The wind changes at night and the dreams come

Archibald Macleish

One of my very favourite movies, very favourite stage plays, very favourite musicals, is "1776".  It is stylish, intelligent, funny, and the music is gorgeous.  While simplifying the history, I don't find it dumbing down the issues that were involved.  It honours those who made this earth-shattering decision to break with the fatherland (motherland?) with which they were so close, as well as those who didn't make that choice.  It also allows the words of a great declaration of principles to ring out on stage, and if it doesn't ring a little bit in the center of your soul...  You are a tougher person than I am if you don't have tears in your eyes by the end of the play.  

I love listening to Seymour Hersh.  His voice is calm and reasonable.  But the things he says, and the people who clearly are talking to him, make him absolutely riveting, just like Al Gore at his most involving (I learn things from him when he talks).  

He is talking today about his article in the New Yorker about the US covert operations in Iran.  His implication is the US Congress has rolled over and played dead (or almost dead) to allow Cheney (whom someone in Congress -- don't know if he gave the name or not) called "Out of Control."

N.B. There may be factual errors here.  It is based on memory, and the details are less important to the narrative than you would like them to be.  In other words, feel free to correct mistakes, but please don't freak out about them.

In the autumn of 1975 NBC's Saturday Night debuted (it was not called Saturday Night Live, as Howard Cosell's show that debuted that same year was called "Saturday Night Live").  I was too young to stay up that late -- I had just turned 13 that summer.  But I happened to turn on the tv in my room three weeks after the debut and saw the end of the local news, and the opening of the show with Candice Bergen -- that was the Land Shark.  I was in awe.  

Meteor Blades' promised diary on Native Americans has been postponed, so please accept this as a humble replacement.  Honest to G-d, it isn't my fault!  You just try living with these three for more than ten minutes, and tell me that your brain hasn't gone to mush!

The topic for tonight is pooties in the movies.

What are the most famous pooties in the movies?  
What are the most memorable ones?
Come and play with the kittens and offer your suggestions below the fold.

I just wanted to express my joy at an incident that just happened.  I live in a small, relatively isolated small town in NE Missouri, ninety miles from any city of any size (we are 17,000 here and by far the largest in this part of the state, until you get to the Mississippi, and Hannibal is only slightly larger than we are).  I do a lot of my shopping on the internet (books, electronics, etc.), and I often don't even think of shopping locally for such things because I have been so often disappointed.  But I thought about it today, and I am glad.  I heard an interview with an author of a book about climbing Everest (Michael Kodas; the book is High Crimes: The Fate of Everest in an Age of Greed) and I wanted to read it.  Instead of automatically going for Amazon, I thought I would check the local Hastings, and they had it on the shelf so I will go in and pick it up this afternoon.  A good experience like that will encourage me to think about them next time I need a book.

This got me to thinking about other things I can buy locally (not necessarily produced locally, but at least not mail-ordered).  Even in a small town, I can buy...

In the North Atlantic we have our first named storm.  It is no more than a Tropical Depression at the moment, and rather ironically got itself together by pulling moisture off the sea, but it never got over water completely to form.  Oh well, welcome Tropical Storm Arthur!  Sadly the rest of the season (predicted to be above average, but not 2004 or 2005 levels) will probably not be as calm.

Today is the first day of the season.  Last year I wrote a diary recommendiong several books on hurricanes prior to 1945 (I ended with a book on the 1938 "Long Island Express" one).  I planned to write one to bring it up to date, then got distracted.  But here are a few recommendations for you to get yourselves in the seasonal spirit!

Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd books feature prominently in my father's journals from 1939 through 1944.  Sinclair's protagonist, the illegitimate son of a wealthy man and a courtesan (named "Beauty" and a happy pleasant woman in spite of what might have been considered her shocking morals), grew up in Europe and met many of the movers and shakers of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s.  I read the first book, World's End and took much from it (on my summer reading list is Dragon's Teeth, which won a Pulitzer, and is about the rise of the Nazis in Germany.  

When I saw the first couple of episodes of "The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" I saw that what Lucas was doing was much the same type of thing.  Presenting history and events to educate kids, but also to entertain them (adults too, of course).  On this Memorial Day, I wanted to note the fine work he did with WWI.

Yay! The Phoenix has landed, the Indiana Jones movie has not gotten as horrid reviews as I had feared (I am going on Tuesday night), and we don't seem (so far) to be getting horrific storms tonight here in Missouri.  We have caught up on any rain deficit in a big way, however, and it is time for all of the farmers to hope for dry weather to get back into the fields.

I spent a lot of time this afternoon trying to explain why, even if I didn't believe Hillary meant that she hoped Obama was going to be killed, I was offended at what she did say, and no, I wasn't taking it out of context.  And then I came home to this:

In honour of the upcoming Memorial Day holiday and the start of summer movie season and the impending Father's Day holiday, I wanted to post this update to my Friday Night at the Movies diary of last night, which focused on movies of the 1940s.  My father (born in 1926) loved going to the movies when he was growing up, and he communicated this love to us when my brother and I were little.  He taught at the University of Kansas and he took us to the Union to see films there many many evenings.  I saw Birth of a Nation, The Goldrush, and Singin' in the Rain and all sorts of other classics there.  In last night's diary, I posted some comments from his journal about movies that he saw.  I had asked him for his thoughts on the films which he mailed to me, and I didn't get them in time to include them in last night's diary.  But they came in the mail today, and I thought you folks might be interested in them as an addendum and an interesting contribution to the discussion.  They are after the break.

Author’s note:  I apologize for the length of this diary.  It is the longest diary I have ever written!  I get very excited by this decade in film.  I hope the clips will help offset the verbiage.

The 1940s began with the war in Europe and within two years of course the United States had been brought into the war with the rest of the world.  Certainly the war dominated the decade, in film as well as life (remember, Britain rationed sugar up through 1953 and the final rationing ended in 1954).  But there were also other things that went on in film throughout the decade – some of the greatest films ever made came from the 1940s.  

It finally has warmed a bit here in the wilds of Missouri.  The cardinals are busy singing on the wires, and the sun is actually warm.  Last night we had a strong thunderstorm, with hail even!  And each day I am planting one or three of the plants I have bought at various places around town.  

But in the depths of winter, when you can't be outside enjoying the warming weather, or in spring when you wish you were outside, but everytime you set foot outside the door you sneeze mercilessly, you might want to experience a theatrical celebration of spring.  That is the theme of this evening's film musings.