Links for the Day (May 1st, 2008)

1. Condolences to fellow writer Brendon Bouzard, who's been going through a rough time of late. In the linked entry, he shares his thoughts and a particularly beautiful piece of writing on his father. Best wishes, Brendan.

["I apologize. At least part of this is my fault. I haven’t posted to this blog in a long time, an irresponsibly long time. I wouldn’t be surprised, if I bothered to check, to see that everyone who had ever included me in their blogrolls removed me by now. It’d be fair. Content has been sparse, and frankly, it hasn’t been that good (facebook gifts? wtf?) for a while now. I’m not going to roll out my litany of excuses and pretend that they’re acceptable reasons to stop even posting occasional blog entries (job, screenplay, awesome girlfriend), except perhaps for the last one: My father died."]

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2. Some news of the moment: "Hawaiian sovereignty seekers take over palace grounds" (an Associated Press report); "Hollywood rejects actors' demands" (Strike part deux?); "David Blaine Sets Breath-Holding Record" (and now he takes a breather).

["Native Hawaiian sovereignty advocates briefly chained shut the gates of a historic palace, saying they were reclaiming land of the Hawaiian monarchy that was stolen during the overthrow of the kingdom more than 100 years ago. Unarmed security guards from the Hawaiian Kingdom Government group allowed only Native Hawaiians, students and the media to enter the Iolani Palace on Wednesday. Tourists, employees and the general public were kept out for hours until the conflict was peacefully resolved and the palace grounds reopened. Hawaiian activists have long used the palace as the site for protests of what they call the United States' occupation of the islands, but never before had they physically taken control."]

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3. Blog Roll: At Forward to Yesterday, Bob Westal eulogizes Dr. Albert Hofmann; at Roger Ebert's Journal, Rog recalls his days as a teenage newshound; and at In the Company of Glenn, Glenn Kenny wants you to talk about the greatest films never made.

["In 1943, a chemist rode a bicycle in Switzerland and wound up changing a small chunk of the universe. That bicyclist who, having accidentally ingested through his fingertips a tiny amount of a new chemical he’d developed, was Dr. Albert Hofmann, who died today at age 102, just over 55 years after that fateful April 16th when the first LSD trip took place."]

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4. "The Greatest Film Ever Made?": Jonathan Rosenbaum reviews Last Year at Marienbad for the Chicago Reader.

["I saw this lush experimental movie at least three times the week it opened at the Carnegie Hall Cinema, when I was a college sophomore, and was as smitten as anyone. I still am. But I don’t think Marienbad’s effect on me would have been as powerful if I hadn’t spent most of my childhood soaking up commercial movies, just as Resnais did. Hollywood and its French counterparts are at the center of the movie’s glamour and beguilement, as well as its tricky mind games. If you watch closely you’ll catch a glimpse of a life-size blowup of Alfred Hitchcock, eavesdropping on hotel guests beside an elevator, shortly before X makes his first on-screen appearance."]

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5. "Rarely seen John Lennon video sparks copyright fight": From CNN.

["They are rare, intimate images of John Lennon just before the breakup of the Beatles: He's hunched over a piano writing songs, smoking pot, joking about putting LSD in President Nixon's tea. Almost four decades after the footage was shot at Lennon's estate in England, his widow is in court, fighting to keep the images private. World Wide Video LLC, a Lawrence, Mass.-based company, claims it owns the 10 hours of raw footage, but Yoko Ono claims she is the rightful owner. World Wide Video has filed a federal lawsuit against Ono, claiming Ono's attempts to stop the company from publicly showing the footage is a copyright infringement."]

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Quote of the Day: John Benfield

"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."

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Image of the Day (click to enlarge): That is one expensive pile of shit. (From CNN.)



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Clip of the Day: Theme Song Sondheim is back... "bad dates" in hand.

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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged. Suggestions for links are also welcome. Please send to keithuhlich@gmail.com.