text:
Happy Halloween...
These two mugs are hiding out, on the lam with Dillinger from this post. A jack-o-lantern can make even desperate criminals seem somehow cute.
Posted by Jacqueline T. Lynch at 9:02 AM No comments: Links to this post
Labels: Dillinger
Split Second - 1953
Split Second (1953) straddles the portal from 1940s film noir to 1950s paranoia genre, and we can see an era turning before our eyes.
It almost aspires to a horror movie, but there are no giant insects or Martians. Just one atom bomb ready to explode at dawn, marking the end of this hellish night, with no new day to follow.
This movie marks the directorial debut of actor Dick Powell. His work here is strong, fast-paced, and solid. Note the alarm clock on the table in many scenes, reminding us that time is precious and slipping away from us. The script by William Bowers and Irving Wallace keeps the story moving briskly, with unexpected touches of macabre humor. This keeps us and the characters on an even keel and brings us down to earth when our skin begins to crawl.
Keith Andes is a reporter assigned to cover the latest atom bomb test blast in the Nevada desert, but he gets taken off the story when a bigger one (if you've seen one atom bomb go off, you've seen them all) occurs. Murderer Stephen McNally and his partner Paul Kelly have broken out of prison and are on the loose.
Somewhere in the restricted test blast area.
Mr. Andes stops at a lonely desert diner and meets up with Jan Sterling, a night club dancer down on her luck, on her way to Reno. He comes up with the 50 cents for her pie and coffee. Yeah, we've seen this before. This part of the film, with the lone car driving on the dusty highway, the run-down diner, the gas pumps, looks like we're about to enter a 1940s film noir nightmare. All the usual suspects start to show up.
McNally, one of the very best bad men in movies, whose handsome, rugged charm and wry, funny delivery to his lines, is offset by his suddenly volatile personality. We don't dare take our eyes off him. He's exciting.
Paul Kelly is his older sidekick, and he's been shot in the stomach. McNally won't ditch his friend. They meet up with a pal called Dummy played by Frank DeKova. Frank doesn't say much, but he reads comic books constantly, and the subject matter -- atomic super heroes, is our first clue that we're about to enter a weird new world.
Alexis Smith and Robert Paige drive up to the gas pump. She's in the driver's seat. For now. It will be the last time she has control in this movie. Her fur stole is over the back of the seat between them. He's not her husband.
Alexis, who we lamented in this recent post about not getting very good roles during her contract with Warner Bros., gets a good role here. She's the restless, well-to-do wife of a doctor back in California. She's run off with family friend Mr. Paige, who sells insurance.
Which, forgive me insurance brokers, cracks me up. Funny how insurance salesmen always end up being the fall guy in the old movies. Think of poor sap Fred MacMurray in our favorite insurance movie, Double Indemnity (1944) which we covered here.
Mr. Paige is likewise behind the 8-ball because of some very bad choices and a very bad dame.
Eventually, all seven unlikely travelers end up packed together in Mr. Andes' big woody station wagon with the leaky radiator, driving through the desert like a Bizzaro World field trip. Mr. McNally, smart enough to work an ace up his sleeve, calls Alexis' doctor husband, played by Richard Egan. McNally threatens to kill Alexis unless Mr. Egan comes to their hideout and takes the bullet out of his pal Paul Kelly.
Their hideout, until they can hook up with the rest of the gang, is an abandoned saloon in a ghost town.
In the atom bomb test range.
We've been well warned that the bomb will go off at dawn, so the alarm clock is ticking. Stephen McNally, with the bravado of a psychopath, is willing to play "chicken" with the bomb, until his friend gets medical help. The ensemble cast suffers agonies -- over the bomb, over their own past and present mistakes, and must submit to the brutality of their captor.
They are joined suddenly by Arthur Hunnicutt, who plays a folksy lone prospector on his way out of town. Mr. Hunnicutt, full of long-winded tall tales, brings humor to the script in his ability to annoy the others, but he's also a safety value in his own homespun way. He's a hoot.
They are a collection of interesting contrasts. Andes, the reporter, is not your typical cynical tough guy with rapid fire speech. He is quiet, easy going, charming, but passive. He's willing to watch and bide his time.
Jan Sterling has some of the best lines, which she delivers with her blasé pout. Her character does not grow or change much, but she is a tough cookie with a heart and a conscience. When the doc shows up, she's the one who helps with the operation.
At one point, McNally orders her to the kitchen of this old saloon "with that other dame to fix us something to eat."
Being women, Alexis and Jan are naturally in charge of meals though they have nothing to cook. I am likewise, by virtue of my gender, able to put together a four-course meal with nothing but a can of beans, two soda crackers (Crown Pilots, ayah) and a teaspoon of Crisco. It's a gift. Any woman can do it.
We never do get to see what they've had for supper, but afterwards they all settle down to listen to the portable radio and smoke. Just a relaxing evening at home.
The soft dance music and melodious ballads are interrupted by the radio announcer gleefully telling them, "We'll try to give you ample warning so that you can get to your roofs and watch the flash from the explosion."
Were we ever so innocent? I recall some comment singer/actress Kitty Carlisle made in her autobiography about watching a bomb blast from a hotel terrace, I think, in Las Vegas, a momentary distraction from a party. Like Alexis Smith in this movie, dressed to the nines.
These are strange days. McNally jokes about DeKova's comic book, "In the next chapter, the Martians invade."
The old prospector is fascinated by the bomb. A veteran of World War I, he marvels, "Just think what we could have done with a couple of them things at the Marne."
Jan Sterling quips about their predicament, "Quite a spot. Between the devil and the bright red bomb."
They are waiting for Richard Egan to show up, driving all the way from California into the restricted area here in Nevada. I'm not sure how he makes it through security checkpoints, but he's Richard Egan. We trust him to do the job.
Alexis doubts he will come, knows that a cheating wife need not expect such devotion.
"He wouldn't cross the street for me, much less risk his life."
She tries to hedge her bets by urging her Insurance Man lover to do something. Still, she is a little fascinated by the brute with the gun. Her Insurance Man looks less dashing in this dim light. He is careful, perhaps regretting taking this trip, but when a leering McNally orders Alexis to go with him to the kitchen, Mr. Paige challenges McNally to a fight.
Mr. McNally, with a coolness that belies his own anxieties this evening, calmly shoots him dead. And drags Alexis off to the kitchen.
With a tear-streaked face she begs him not to kill her, but then the penny drops and she realizes he's got another use for her just now. Hedging her bets again, she lets him kiss her. She's not being clever or calculating, she's just in a dead panic, like a drowning person ready to cling to anything floating by. If he wants a woman, by gorry, she'll be his woman with everything she's got.
Here's where the subtlety of many classic films in addressing scenes of extreme violence or sexual situations is intriguing. We are taken back to the main room where the others sit and wait or sleep, or talk in whispered conversations. We get a tale from Jan Sterling about her miserable childhood and rotten parents. Time passes, but we don't know how much time. Our attention is diverted to what is happening in the main room.
But we keep thinking about the sexual assault in the kitchen.
A funny paradox. An explicit scene of violence that hammers the message home tends to make us draw back. Here instead, lured into imaging the worst, we are drawn ever closer emotionally to the assault precisely because we have the safety of being voyeurs in our imaginations.
Alexis is eventually released from the kitchen like a skittish heifer after being branded -- self-conscious, shaky, nervously swiping her hair from her eyes. Jan Sterling sidles up to her, not to comfort, but to ask for a drink from Alexis' hip flask and get the dirt.
Alexis, tense as a cat, fumbles with yet another cigarette, and masks degredation with another application lipstick, "Why don't you just ask me what you want to know?"
"Do I have to?" Jan fires back, with a sarcastic smile. No, she doesn't, and neither do we.
Richard Egan finally shows up to dig the bullet out of Paul Kelly. McNally needles Mr. Egan about his wife. "She decided not to depend on you entirely." Alexis slinks away. The evening for her is a string of bad choices, panic, and humiliation. For everyone, a night of confidences, threats, secrets, and compromises.
McNally has had Alexis, so now he pursues Jan, who is smarter and better at pretending. She can handle McNally. She's known men like him before.
Alexis, meanwhile, is baffled at Egan's heroism.
"Are you still in love with me?" It's a fine moment; she's genuinely struggling to understand, perhaps even hoping that he does still love her. She does not know, and even before this night is over, will never learn unselfishness and compassion. Her life has been ruled by her immediate desires, and she assumes that is everyone's motive.
Mr. Egan is the stalwart, dependable man, a disappointed husband who's been hurt enough and is more than willing to cut Alexis loose, (similar to his role in A Summer Place - 1959) but he's genetically programmed to do the right thing and sticks his neck out for her, the room full of strangers, and his patient.
When the operation begins, Paul Kelly gets religion and wants a verse read from the Bible. The prospector has one in his gunny sack, right next to his gun.
His gun? Why he did not reveal to his fellow captives when he first arrived that he had a gun is a mystery and can only be chalked up to his maddeningly independent personality. He gets around to things when he gets around to them.
Nice, ironic scene where McNally reads to his pal in a flat voice, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth" as the Sodium Pentothal is being injected.
But the gun comes out during the operation when Mr. Andes makes a play for it. McNally beats him to a pulp, and even slaps around Jan Sterling for trying to interfere. This cements the bond between Andes and Miss Sterling, and in a cozy moment when they become resigned to the fact that they are probably going to die, he jokes, "Sooner or later one of us has got to learn to fight."
"We'll take up judo in the next world," she replies. If there was more time there would be a romance, but touching their sore heads together is the best they can do now.
Now the morning dawns, and McNally gets ready to make tracks. Alexis hangs on to him, begging him to take her with him, but he responds, "You're a real bad dame…nobody can count on you for ten seconds." He is sickened by her. She has fallen so low that a murderer won't dirty his hands with her.
We get taken from the ghost town for a moment to some government file footage on preparation for the test in the command bunker. A voice announces, "At thirty seconds the master robot will take over."
I think that's the scariest line in the movie. We are no longer able to make choices for ourselves, not once we've gone past a certain point. Then we are all slaves of the Master Robot.
Spoilers coming up, so head to the fallout shelter if you don't want to know.
Last minute fisticuffs, last minute choices, and only two of the cons get away, with Alexis, who practically dives into the passenger's seat. They drive in the wrong direction.
"The bomb!"
She needs to be with them because otherwise we wouldn't care if they drove off into the bomb blast. As flawed a person as she is, she is still the most interesting character there (except for McNally, but we already have him figured out) -- I think mainly because of the complex and layered way she plays it rather than the way it's written. We really don't know which way she's going to go, because neither does she.
In one of his last-minute confounding ruminations, the prospector announces there is an abandoned mine nearby where they can shield themselves from the atomic blast.
Now, why in the name of Aunt Mary's knickers did he not say that before? That would have given everybody another interesting choice to mull over. Do they tell the bad guys? Or, do they play God and keep the cave for themselves? They already played God with poor DeKova, who gets knocked out and left to die. They could have dragged him to the mine with them. They just leave him there with the corpse of the insurance man.
What if Alexis, fairly crazed by the end of the movie, was given the chance to hide in the mine? What if McNally had gone through with plugging Paul Kelly with a bullet when Kelly betrayed him at the last minute?
"The master robot is now taking over" is the next announcement as McNally's car spins its tires in the desert sand, and the other captives rush for the abandoned mine. All our choices are gone.
The blast, with its white light and nuclear wind demolishing the ghost town is similar to declassified test bomb blast footage you may have seen.
"Let's take a look at the world of tomorrow," Richard Egan grimly says as the survivors crawl from the mine. In ten years they will probably all get cancer, but that's another story. For today, it's a flatter, whiter desert, and a giant mushroom cloud in the distance with the words "The End" written in script over it.
No monsters. Nothing is ever scarier than a bad reality. Especially when we've caused it ourselves.
Labels: Alexis Smith, Arthur Hunnicutt, Dick Powell, Frank DeKova, Jan Sterling, Keith Andes, Paul Kelly, Richard Egan, Robert Paige, Split Second, Stephen McNally
The Unknown - 1927
Obsession. Sadism. Phobia. Panic. We're going to slide into Halloween this week with some monsters. With all due respect to fans of movies about zombies, vampires, and werewolves, those creatures aren't real. (The Easter Bunny is real. So is the Tooth Fairy. And leprechauns, they're real.)
When the ancient Celts marked the Samhain, it was as a kind of Twilight Zone portal into the Other World. How it got to be about gory movies and snack-size Snickers bars these days is a matter for someone else to tackle. I'm more interested in that portal, psychologically speaking, and the two films we cover this week are rife with human beings on the edge of madness. Being human is what causes their madness. This is what is most terrifying about it.
Today we have The Unknown (1927), a silent Lon Chaney masterpiece where "The Man of a Thousand Faces" uses only his own magnificent, weathered, sensitive face to show us the very picture of a man morphed into a monster by his obsession.
On Thursday, the portal to another world leads us into desert ghost town, a killer terrorizing his unlucky captives, while an atomic bomb is about to be tested just outside the tumbleweed-strewn main street in Split Second (1953).
Both scenarios are every bit as weird and grotesque as a "monster" movie, but what distinguishes them is that humanity (even more than the lack of it) is the focus, yet these films have the funhouse mirror effect of distorted reality. The acting, writing, and directing is superior.
The Unknown, directed by Tod Browning, takes us to a Gypsy circus in Spain. They are outcasts from the start, by virtue of their being Gypsies and by being circus performers. Some, however, are more outcast than others.
Lon Chaney is Alonzo the Armless. Director Browning would later explore sideshow performers in his famous Freaks (1932). Here, Chaney and his assistant played by John George, a little person who appeared in many films, represent the physical freaks in the circus. Mr. Chaney has a knife-throwing act. He clutches the knives in his bare toes and flings them at the target.
Joan Crawford is his target. She is the circus owner's daughter. Only 22 years old, Miss Crawford had already made a slew of silent films in the previous two years and was well on her way to stardom. She later credited her work with Lon Chaney in this film for teaching her a lot about acting.
Lon Chaney was undoubtedly a great example for young actors in silent film. He is mesmerizing in this role, not merely what he does physically -- which as always is remarkable, but what he conveys with his facial expressions is so riveting. He is compelling, heartbreaking, and frightening.
Lon is in love with Joan, is obsessed by her. She is drawn to him because of his passivity and gentleness, represented for her by his having no arms. She is afraid of other men, and being in the position of the beautiful young Gypsy girl, has the unfortunate problem of always getting pawed over by them. She cuddles up to Lon, comfortable in the knowledge he cannot grab her. It's an interesting way to illustrate she is afraid of sex and he is okay because he is sexless.
Though part of his act is to undress her every performance by shooting her clothes off with a gun.
Norman Kerry, who plays the circus strongman, is also in love with Joan, but he lacks the gentleness and moreover, the cleverness of Chaney to get very far with her. Besides, he has these two strong hands that are always reaching for her, which creeps her out.
In a brutal scene, Joan's circus owner father beats up Lon, because he wants his daughter to get over her phobia and stop hanging around with circus freaks. He doesn't want Lon encouraging her friendship. Lon cannot fight back. Norman Kerry comes to his rescue. Lon's duplicitous expression here, smiling through gritted teeth, is really something. He hates Kerry, his romantic rival, with a passion, but acts the humble, grateful, helpless victim.
Norman Kerry is one of the most handsome men in silents. My gosh, that smile.
When the others have left, Lon's helper Mr. George undresses him. With Lon's back to the camera, we see…
Oh, by the way, there's spoilers coming up. Go outside and sit in the car if you don't want to know. But don't play with the radio. It's right at the station I want.
Now then, with Lon's back to the camera, his shirt lifted, we see he is wearing an enormous leather corset. John George begins to unlace it. When the cumbersome cocoon is pulled away, we see two, white, snake-like appendages emerge, writhing, from Chaney's torso.
Oh, lord, they're arms.
He's not armless. Only Lon Chaney could make something as completely normal as having arms look grotesque and sickening.
After the initial surprise, this begs the question, why does he hide his arms? It's a bit much to go through for a circus act gimmick. But, there is more to Lon than the passive, pitiful deformed man. He is not passive, but a manipulative schemer. He is a thief, who hides in the circus that travels from town to town. The police are not searching for a man with no arms.
But Lon is not without a physical deformity. On his left hand, he has a double thumb. Taking his revenge on the mean circus owner, and to clear his way to get Joan for himself, Lon strangles her father. She sees the figure of a man with two thumbs on his left hand committing the horrid act, but she never gets to see Lon's face.
Now the police are looking for a killer with two thumbs. More than ever, Lon needs to continue his armless act.
Norman Kerry is becoming more amorous, and Joan is clinging to Lon as a safe haven. It is Mr. George who warns Lon that he must never let Joan get close to him, for she eventually will, in the intimacy he hopes for, discover his arms, his thumbs, and who he really is.
Lon is crushed, and struggles with this problem. A terrific scene where he sits smoking a cigarette held in his toes, even though his arms are free. John George kids him about being so accustomed to using his feet that he sometimes forgets he has arms.
How much of Chaney's work in this film grasping objects, wiping his face with a handkerchief -- all done with his feet is done by his own ability to contort his body and how much is done with the help of a stunt double I'm not sure. A double was indeed used to help, but I don't know in which scenes that occurs.
Then the solution comes to Lon, and we see in his expressive dark eyes the obsession has turned to madness.
He blackmails a disreputable doctor to amputate his arms.
While he is away having this little bit of cosmetic surgery, Norman Kerry has learned that patience is a virtue. His respectful, not to say hands-off, treatment of Joan has won her heart. She is over her fear of men, and they welcome Lon back to the circus with the good news that they are going to be married. Kerry's arms are wrapped around Joan. She holds one of his hands against her chest and kisses it.
This is the scene you want to see. Lon's frozen-faced reaction, his ghastly forced grin, his tearing eyes, and a gasping, howling (yeah, I know it's silent) descent into psychological hell. It's as fine a few minutes of pantomime as ever was filmed.
But, wait, there's more.
Mr. Kerry has a new act where he shows his strongman stuff pulling two horses made to run in opposite directions. He shows Lon how it works in rehearsal. Lon plans to rig it so that Norman Kerry's arms get ripped off. Will it work? Here's a link to the movie, now in public domain, on YouTube (in five parts). Go watch this creepy portal into the Other World where cherished dreams are entrapped by filthy nightmares. Very human stuff.
Come back Thursday for this post on Split Second and a terrific ensemble cast of brutal killers, unlucky misfits, adulterous schemers, a dame down on her luck, and a reporter looking for the story of the century all trapped in a portal to Armageddon one evil night.
Labels: Joan Crawford, John George, Lon Chaney, Norman Kerry, The Unknown, Tod Browning
John Huston - Biography by Jeffrey Meyers
"John Huston - Courage and Art" is a new biography of the larger-than-life Hollywood director (and writer, and sometimes actor) by Jeffrey Meyers.
The director of "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), "Key Largo" (1948), "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), "The African Queen" (1951), "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" (1948) and "The Misfits" (1961), these titles alone would ensure him a place among the finest directors in classic films, along with his two Oscars, but he was also as famous for his bold, freewheeling lust for life, adventure, and women.
Mr. Meyers is no stranger either to biography or the Hollywood or literary greats. His numerous books include works on Humphrey Bogart and Ernest Hemingway, who the author notes figure prominently in John Huston's life and work. To some extent this new book and his previous biographies dovetail in themes and certainly in research. The book is fast-paced, very readable, although sometimes repetitious. It is a good introduction into the psyche of John Huston, but the catalogue of his passions, which were many, and his attention span, which was brief, don't leave as much room for a detailed analysis of his films, which is what appeals most to film buffs.
John Huston, son of the famous stage and film actor Walter Huston, was estranged from his parents in childhood, and also suffered from poor health such that he was made to understand he would die young. From that point, he lived a live as full and daring as anyone possibly could, which left him at the end of his (actually) long life with a string of accomplishments, and with a line of wives and lovers, and children with whom he could or would not connect emotionally.
Nevertheless, they, as others did, found him a charismatic man whose bravest act of all was perhaps just daring to tell stories no one else told in a spare, artist's manner no one else tried.
"John Huston - Courage and Art" by Jeffrey Meyers is published by Crown Archetype.
NOTE: A free copy of "John Huston - Courage and Art" by Jeffrey Meyers was provided to me by the publisher for review purposes.
Labels: book review, John Huston
This is the 111th anniversary of the birth of Jean Arthur. The clips below might help to illustrate her unique quality of preoccupied self knowledge, comic pathos, and that ability, elusive-to-description, to be Everywoman and at the same time like nobody you ever knew. She brought depth and empathy to screwball comedy. She brought sly silliness to sober drama. Humanity was something she understood and conveyed easily, but crowds unnerved her and she preferred the silence of her own contemplation.
Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and mute the music so you can hear the videos.
In 1942, she visited Fred Allen's radio show for a couple of comic skits, and this unabashed duet of "In My Merry Oldsmobile".
Here in "A Lady Takes a Chance" (1943) she tried to cozy up to a resisting John Wayne. He should have done more comedy. Look at his antsy reaction to her having beer foam on her lip. It drives him nuts. She blithely prattles on, unaware how clownish she looks. She never played the clown. She played the social faux pas and the recovery from embarrassment. That was her spin. Notice at the end how she's floundering in an agony of jealousy and frustration, and shouts "More beer!" to retaliate for his ignoring her.
She understood so much, instinctively, and yet explained very little. It required a light touch, and that was her genius.
Labels: A Lady Takes a Chance, Fred Allen, Jean Arthur, John Wayne, radio shows
Alexis Smith had a rare opportunity to stretch her acting muscles in "The Constant Nymph" (1943), discussed here in Monday's post. She remains for me a mystery, a particularly interesting actress both for her ability, which I suspect was far greater than she was usually allowed to demonstrate; and especially for that very fact that she wasn't allowed to demonstrate it very often.
Odd, when you consider she was plucked out of college to be fashioned into "The Dynamite Girl" by Warner Bros., subjected to the usual flurry of sexy publicity photos, and was soon paired with greats such as Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn, Cary Grant, Charles Boyer, Clark Gable, and Fredric March. (We've covered "Conflict" -1945 here, and "Any Number Can Play" - 1949, here.)
Both 5'9", Charles Boyer and Alexis Smith see eye-to-eye in "The Constant Nymph" even if their characters do not.
Despite easily being able, whether the material was good or not, to shine in her roles, sometimes steal scenes outright just by the force of her own splendid magnetism, she was often relegated to parts where she played little more than a type: a clothes horse, an ice princess, an elegant but haughty love interest.
In the 1950s, when her contract at Warners ended, she had fewer roles if a bit more variety in them. Also, time was catching up and she endured a series of those older repressed woman roles, the typical leavings of that era for aging actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. Aging? She was only in her 30s at the time.
But, despite sometimes having very little to work with, she made the most of them. In "The Young Philadelphians" (1959), she plays the lonely, stifled trophy wife of an elderly man. Paul Newman is his young assistant. From the moment they meet, Alexis and Mr. Newman are intrigued by each other, leading to, but not quite reaching, a love affair. Though Paul Newman is quite good in this movie, (actually so is Robert Vaughn in a minor role), much of the drama is pretty flat. Alexis Smith stole the film, what few minutes she had in it, and would have been a far more exciting partner for Newman than the rather predictable debutante played by Barbara Rush.
So, what seems strange about her career is not so much missed opportunities of roles she never got, but that she was chronically under-used. The characters she played never went far enough or deep enough. It takes a special kind of actress to enhance what is not on the page.
One of my favorite roles of hers is in "Here Comes the Groom" (1951), discussed here, where, as a second lead, she plays the awkward, lovelorn goof, too gangly and socially inept to get out of her own way. It's as if she's making fun of her earlier ice maiden roles. Bing Crosby teaches her how to be a hot tomato.
At one point he asks her why she wears ugly, sensible shoes.
"Because I'm too tall, if you must know!" she blurts out with building hysteria, which is endearing, as if it is her most embarrassing secret.
It seems too simple, but I can't help wondering if that was it all along. In a 1980 interview with the Los Angeles Times, she noted that, "At the time, only cute little girls did musicals…It doesn't work out so badly now, but when you're 5 feet 9 in high school, you'd give anything to be a cute little girl."
Did her height set her off as patrician and aloof, and austere? Did her striking appearance make her a square peg?
In the 1946 "Night and Day", which attempted, sort of, to present the life of Broadway composer Cole Porter, a cast including Eve Arden, Mary Martin, Jane Wyman, and Ginny Simms belted out a smashing array of Cole Porter hits. Alexis Smith played Mrs. Porter. Everybody with a studio tour pass that day got to sing and perform in this movie. Including Monty Woolley, gosh-all-hemlock. Not Alexis. She spent the entire movie smiling encouragingly at Cary Grant from the audience while he avoided her for his work.
What a waste.
Now the calendar pages flip furiously and we jump a few decades into the future. Have a look here at this cover from Time Magazine, May 3, 1971. Go ahead, I'll wait.
(Wipes her glasses on her shirt tail. Hums the first two acts of the score of "Rigoletto". Sharpens a couple of pencils.)
Back? Good. You have to pull that screen door or it won't shut.
That's Alexis, at 50 years old, svelte, sexy, and doing a chorus girl's high kick in the Broadway show "Follies" at the Winter Garden. Resurrecting a wobbly career that had died and given up the ghost. So people thought.
The cover of Time.
It's been called the biggest career comeback ever. (Here's the lead the article by Peter De Vries.)
"Follies", music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, directed by Hal Prince and Michael Bennett, was a remarkable production for many reasons. Since I'm not sure how many theatre buffs read this blog, I'll just say it was a groundbreaker and leave it at that. It is a complex show, where several aging "Follies" stars must revisit the aspirations, and mistakes, of their former selves (which are moving about the stage like ghosts). Alexis, similarly, may have been working out a lot of demons about her real former film career while on this gig.
This gig, for which Alexis Smith won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical.
Best actress in a musical. Hear that, Jack Warner?
Author Ted Chapin, who wrote "Everything Was Possible - The Birth of the Musical 'Follies'" (Alfred A. Knopf, NY, 2003), mentions Alexis Smith being overheard during rehearsal after reading another publicity article where she was inevitably and tiresomely pronounced "tall and striking".
"She remarked: 'I wish I could someday play someone short and fat.'" (pp. 56-57)
And here she is below, the tall girl, doing her big, flashy number from "Follies" in her now iconic red dress. Just having a clip, any clip, from a Broadway show is a treasure because it's so rare, especially in those days when people didn't have cell phones and tiny video recorders to sneak into the mezzanine and secretly tape stuff.
Michael Bennett's choreography from this show is fantastic (of course it was, it was by Michael Bennett), and you get a hint of it here, the inventive placement of male chorus dancers with their backs to the audience, navigating a multilevel raked set. It's not the best quality video or audio, but heaven bless the person who cleaned it up and shared it. Note how the tempo picks up as the song moves along. By the end of the song, the pace is frenetic. Alexis doesn't miss a beat.
She's 50 years old. She's hustling like a 20-year-old theatre gypsy.
Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Errol Flynn are dead. Cary Grant's retired.
Did not do her own singing in "San Antonio".
She's not being dubbed with someone else's voice, like she was in "San Antonio" (1945).
She is not wearing a body mic.
The director/producer was looking for old movie queen has-beens (Yvonne De Carlo also had a memorable minor role in the show) to push the drama and the pathos, and the angst of aging. What better people to illustrate faded dreams than by using performers whose careers were long behind them and never did live up to their potential?
The tall girl shoved it all down their throats.
Remember to scroll down to the bottom of the page and mute the music so you can hear the video.
After many script changes in the out of town tryouts, she was given this new number to learn at the 11th hour. Again, here from Ted Chapin's book: "Alexis Smith was quietly working away. No one was aware of it, but she was working harder and pushing herself further than anyone else." (p.63)
When given the football, she surprised everyone.
"…For the cold, regal woman who spit out acid remarks all night long to emerge in red fringe, revealing a terrific pair of legs, and dance up a storm -- well, that was revelatory. And it had turned out that Alexis was also a really good actress, well able to get laughs, be hard-edged when called upon…when it came to pure showbiz, it was the sexy movie lady in the red dress who won the day -- and stole the show." (p.283).
Here's another clip, a song from that same show, but performed 14 years later in 1985 as part of the "Best of Broadway" TV special from the PBS "Great Performances" series. She was 63 years old here, still spitting her character's protective sarcasm borne of years of hurtful neglect. I expect she knew something about that, professionally speaking. There is a live studio audience, but since this is set up specifically for TV, she must obviously play to the cameras as well. Look how pointedly she hits her marks. That's a movie star.
And a Broadway star. She did some other shows. In 1979, the year after studio head Jack Warner died, she won another Tony nomination for her role in the musical "Platinum."
With the passing years she seemed to grow into that patrician elegance that the Warner Bros. studio decided she should have had at 20. It came more naturally to her now. She had fun with it sometimes, in regional theater, a few more films and TV guest spots. She was nominated for an Emmy for a guest role in 1990 on the NBC series "Cheers". She was 69 years old.
Then her natural evolution into a grand dame, in a small role in "The Age of Innocence" (1993). A graceful and dignified curtain call for her, it was released to theaters a few months after her death. She left behind her husband of 49 years, fellow actor Craig Stevens, best remembered for his "Peter Gunn" TV series, and with whom she sometimes appeared in stock.
She was said to be well-liked by movie crews back in the day, was a hard worker, and fanatically took lessons on various subjects most of her life, a disciplined, intelligent woman who followed her curiosity with passion. In middle age, she was still taking singing and dancing lessons.
Probably was also not responsible for this hat with the bobbing cherries on top from "San Antonio".
She once famously remarked that she never watched her movies on TV because they weren't that good when they were made and probably would not have improved with time. Still, she made her characters as interesting as she could from whatever lofty perspective she had on life at 22, at 30, at 39, at 69…
At 5-foot-9.
The Time Magazine article from 1971 mentioned above noted that she had, "unbeatable, unbeatable cool."
I suspect she always had; but we were allowed only glimpses -- if someone passed her the football.
Labels: Alexis Smith, Barbara Rush, Bing Crosby, Cary Grant, Craig Stevens, Here Comes the Groom, Jack Warner, Night and Day, Paul Newman, San Antonio, The Age of Innocence, The Young Philadelphians
The Constant Nymph - 1943
"The Constant Nymph" (1943) recently premiered on TCM. It would be interesting to get TV ratings data for that night. A film so long tangled up in legal limbo, it's a rare gem for classic film buffs, probably all of whom with access to TCM were watching or recording it or both.
"Legal limbo" has an otherworldly sound to it. It's not really a place. It's an imaginary existence -- or lack of one -- that suggests a challenge yet to be resolved. Those of us on the outside of this struggle, with little understanding of it, merely accept that there is such a plane of existence.
Accepting without understanding can be a kind of safety valve. At other times, it can be a gift we give to those whose feelings or actions are beyond our comprehension. "The Constant Nymph" shows us a musically creative family who need a great deal of understanding, but whose peculiar "insanity" is "of the most enchanting kind."
This, according to Charles Boyer, friend of the family and not a little insane himself.
The art of illusion plays a big role in this film, gently directed by Edmund Goulding. The dilapidated chalet in the Swiss alps, whose foothills hover just on the back cyclorama, are straight out of "Heidi". A storybook illusion. The mosses and ferns, and disparate branches and grasses on the furry mounds just beyond the house wave in the light breeze created by the unseen wind machine, and lift the errant strands of hair escaping from Joan Fontaine's tight, untidy braids.
Joan Fontaine is the biggest illusion in this film. She plays a teenager here, natural and unaffected, completely innocent yet possessed of wisdom beyond her years. She runs with a round-shouldered burst of exuberance, and throws her opinions around like any know-it-all kid. She is funny, and elfin, and tragic. I think it's one of the best performances I've ever seen from any film of that era. She was something like 25 years old at the time. Her skinny, awkward body is the least of the illusion; most of it comes from that hyperactive energy, the clear face with its constantly changing expressions. She is quite remarkably moving.
The way Boyer rustles his hand through her hair roughly and puts a gentle hammerlock on her, tucking her head under his arm. He doesn't quite get that she's in love with him, but the film avoids the sexual escapades of the book by putting her love and his misunderstanding of it on a higher plane.
Like legal limbo, I suppose.
Boyer's main trauma comes from not living up to his potential as a composer. "If he'd only cry," Joan Fontaine's dissolute composer papa, played by Montagu Love, declares. M. Boyer recoils from sentiment and tenderness, or maybe just hard work, preferring a lazy joke, or a romantic diversion, which here is played by Alexis Smith.
Alexis Smith, for once in her life, has a role she can sink her teeth into. She is the wealthy, upper class society debutante who is summoned to the storybook chalet to take charge of the girls after the death of Montagu Love (who actually did die a month before this film was released). She is the maternal cousin of Joan Fontaine. Her father, played with typical comic crankiness by Charles Coburn, is the brother of Fontaine's long-deceased mother.
Rounding out the family we have a few more sisters and half-sisters, one of which is played by Brenda Marshall, who is pursued with middle-European angst by Peter Lorre.
Joyce Reynolds is charming as Fontaine's closest sister, who shares in her troubles and hijinks. Fontaine dumps Miss Reynolds from her bed onto the floor in our introduction to her character. In a sweet, melancholy scene, Reynolds comforts Joan Fontaine, who has fainted. Noticing a bruise and smudge of dirt on Joan's upper arm from when she fell like a sack of wet cement in the dirt, she licks the corner of the bedspread and daubs it lovingly on Joan's skin.
Joan took a dive when she heard that Boyer has suddenly proposed marriage to Alexis Smith. Afterward, whenever Smith and Boyer are around, Joyce Reynolds keeps a close watch on her sensitive sister. On another occasion we see her dark eyes dart from the happy couple to Joan, helpless to prevent the cold slap of reality that she's just a kid and Boyer is a grown man with a grown man's appetites.
But soon, it's Alexis Smith who needs comforting. She has perceived no warning from Joyce Reynold's alert glances. Miss Smith begins to sense, on her own, a bond between Boyer and Fontaine. She's almost sick with jealousy. It's a very good performance, and even at her most harsh and shrill we have to sympathize with an insecure woman who knows she's losing her handsome husband to a skinny little poor orphan with fainting spells.
"You're so real, so definite," Boyer says to Alexis, by way of a compliment, but he has no real interest in reality. It's much more fun to play in an ethereal existence. Not that he hasn't the ability to fit in wherever he goes. In a ballroom scene, he meets Dame May Whitty, more cranky than her pal Charles Coburn, and charms her to pieces. How they click immediately is irresistible.
I was a bit thrown by "Danny Boy" being played in the background. Not something I would expect in an upper class British ballroom.
But, Boyer chafes under his bride's social set, does not want to perform for them, and Alexis deals smoothly with his tantrums and fretfulness. It's Joan Fontaine that gets under her skin. Still, Alexis has agreed to become the girls' guardian, save them from poverty, and this may be her chief value to Boyer, though he has the tact not to say it. She even has looked into and learns the name of Joan's mysterious heart condition that gives her palpitations and fainting spells; Boyer shrugs it off as a bothersome detail, like school enrollment, which is also left to her.
It is the reality of his new everyday existence that perhaps irks Boyer most, with the girls sent to boarding school and Alexis so in love with him she shows him off to all and sundry, when she is not sending him to his studio to work. He needs a little illusion, or at least some self delusion, to buffer against the responsibilities of the everyday.
I think my favorite illusion in the film is the fact that in real life, Alexis Smith was nearly four years younger than Joan Fontaine.
Her height and elegance conveys that she's the grown up and Fontaine is the kid. Fontaine's school uniform helps, and the delightfully floppy way she carries herself completes the picture.
The film has a leisurely feel to it, and lightness, and gentleness that compliments the ethereal nature of the story. It takes a different tone from the book -- and has to, to pass muster of the Code, but this is part of the movie's charm. It could be such a heavy soap opera, and it's not. Think of other films like "All This and Heaven, Too" (1940) or "Now, Voyager" (1942), which hammer us with the illicitness of the love story. This fable, like Joan Fontaine's character, is beautifully natural and tenderly developed.
The tension builds with Alexis Smith's devotion to honesty, which is even stronger than her devotion to Boyer. The truth may set us free, but honesty is often the most callous and brutal road to freedom. Both Smith and Fontaine suffer this, and courageously face honest self appraisals of their shared reality. The two characters change the most, almost in tandem, through the film.
At the end, we have a conversion of sorts, when Alexis Smith, enraptured this time and no longer haunted by this embarrassing romantic triangle, experiences the same thrill of Boyer's music as Fontaine does, and at the same time. The music here is by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, which launches Fontaine into a dream sequence. It is one of the most imaginative scenes in the film where snippets of previous dialogue are strung together to create a kind of fractured memory effect -- the illusion that the words are familiar and yet completely new. An eerie déjà vu.
Smith is not part of Fontaine's dream sequence; we do not get to see her epiphany. We only see the ironic twist that Fontaine is roused from her reverie by the fear of death in the reprise of lines she earlier recited with an innocent lack of understanding of what they meant.
I like movies that give me something to think about after they end. What if we had been allowed inside Alexis Smith's head when she changed her mind about the love between Joan Fontaine and Charles Boyer? Her astonishing turnabout, her offer to release him is done without self-pity or bitterness, but with a heart full of love, a sense of excitement in accepting a situation that exists without understanding it. What went on in that theater box for her to do a 180 on wanting to boot Fontaine out of her house?
What if the ending was different? (I'm going to avoid a spoiler here, but you several million who watched the TCM premiere know what I'm talking about.) Would there still be a romantic triangle tinged with the rumor of pedophilia? Would Boyer ever find his muse without losing it first?
What happens if he is without both his muse and his wife? Is he still going to compose, the new darling of the moneyed set, or just find some other storybook soundstage to lose himself -- that other elusive plane of existence that enchants and entangles, and inevitably leads to sorrow?
Like legal limbo.
Labels: Alexis Smith, Brenda Marshall, Charles Boyer, Charles Coburn, Edmund Goulding, Joan Fontaine, Joyce Reynolds, May Whitty, Montagu Love, Peter Lorre, The Constant Nymph
My Man Godfrey - 1936
Carole Lombard Blogathon and Other Stuff


Just in time for Earth Day, Disneynature's all-new feature film "Penguins" is a coming-of-age story about an Adélie penguin named Steve who joins millions of fellow males in the icy Antarctic spring on a quest to build a suitable nest, find a life partner and start a family. None of it comes easily for him, especially considering he's targeted by everything from killer whales to leopard seals, who unapologetically threaten his happily ever after. From the filmmaking team behind "Bears" and "Chimpanzee," Disneynature's "Penguins" opens in theatres April 17, 2019.
Disneynature does "documentary-lite" with flair. This film, only about an hour and a quarter long, is an ideal introduction for kids who love animals, non-fiction, and learning facts about the world. Watching Steve navigate his new grown-up life is, for the most part, light-hearted and informative. Upbeat music accompanies these funny, little penguins and the personalities the narrator adds to the animals is comical and sometimes a little goofy. There are moments of tension, with orcas, leopard seals, and the harsh weather of Antarctica. Most of the tension is quickly resolved, and the film doesn't focus on the grisly realities that Adélie penguins naturally face. (Spoiler Alert: There are a couple of moments that may upset young or very sensitive children, but it's all okay.) We live in a remarkable world and it's fun to see a corner of this planet that we would never otherwise see. Be sure to stay for the credits!
Celebrate Earth Day with this sweet movie! For each ticket sold to see Disneynature's PENGUINS during opening week (April 17, 2019 –April 23, 2019) in the U.S. and Canada, Disneynature will contribute $.20 per ticket to the Wildlife Conservation Network through the Disney Conservation Fund to support penguin conservation, with a minimum guaranteed donation of $100,000.


My company has a Gentoo based process monitoring system ... built by a company that went belly-up shortly after handing it over.
Now I am getting a boot failure error - Insert start-up CD ... and of course, there is no start up CD. The box appears to be generic - no logos that would give me a clue as to what architecture it uses.
Is there a generic startup CD I can download - if that works, what commands should I try to run?
Without knowing the details of the product you have, it is difficult to determine what needs to be done.
Assuming that the box is an x86, you should be able to boot off the minimal cd. If that works, then mount the disks/chroot etc. to do whatever you want.
hiya were abouts are you based?


Presentations are given in PDF format. Viewing PDF files requires the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.© Some presentations also have corresponding written publications listed. For presentations prior to 2006, see the Presentation Archives.
Nelson, M., & Caldarella, P.
Improving student behavior in art classrooms using Class-wide Function-related Intervention Teams. Layton, UT Poster presented at the Utah Multi-Tiered System of Supports Conference.
Griffin, A. J. & Caldarella, P.
The effects of a buddy bench on social interactions in elementary students with internalizing behaviors. Provo, UT Poster presented at the annual David O. McKay School of Education Mentored Research Conference.
Orr, R. W. & Caldarella, P.
Improving teacher and student behavior using CW-FIT in a middle school special education classroom. Provo, UT Poster presented at the annual David O. McKay School of Education Mentored Research Conference.
Nelson, M., Caldarella, P., & Williams, L.
Improving student behavior in art classrooms using CW-FIT. San Antonio, TX Poster presented at the National Association of School Psychologists Annual Convention.
Caldarella, P., Larson, A. A., & Williams, L.
Effects of CW-FIT on teacher ratings of elementary students at risk for EBD. Tempe, AZ Paper presented at the annual Teacher Educators for Children with Behavior Disorders Conference.
Caldarella, P., Williams, L., & Young, K. R.
More time to teach, more time to learn: The effects of CW-FIT on classroom behavior. Layton, UT Paper presented at the Utah Multi-Tiered System of Supports Conference.
Addressing internalizing behaviors through social and emotional learning. St. Louis, MO Paper presented at the Council for Exceptional Children Annual Convention.
Kamps, D. M., Wills, H. P., Wehby, J. H., Caldarella, P., Hansen, B., & Williams, L.
Class-Wide Function-related Intervention Teams: A two-tiered group contingency to improve student behavior. St. Louis, MO Paper presented at the Council for Exceptional Children Annual Convention.
Jolstead, K. & Caldarella, P.
CW-FIT: Implementing a positive behavior support group contingency program in preschools. San Francisco, CA Poster presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Positive Behavior Support.
Teerlink, E., Caldarella, P., Guzman, G., & Judd, A.
Using peer praise notes to address problem behavior at recess. San Francisco, CA Paper presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Positive Behavior Support.
Wills, H. P., Kamps, D. M., Wehby, J. H., & Caldarella, P.
Improving elementary classroom and individual student outcomes with the CW-FIT Program. San Francisco, CA Paper presented at the Thirteenth International Conference on Positive Behavior Support.
Social and emotional learning for students with internalizing behaviors: An overview and evaluation of the Strong Kids curricula. Layton, UT Poster presented at the Utah Multi-tiered System of Supports Conference.
Hansen, B. D. Cortes Gardner, E. Caldarella, P. Williams, L.
MTSS in dual language immersion settings: Two case studies in behavior support and language instruction at the elementary level. Layton, UT Paper presented at the Utah Multi-tiered System of Supports Conference.
2012 Hawaii International Conference on Education Honolulu, HI The Brigham Young University-Public School Partnership: Renewing Teacher Education and Schooling Through Collaboration, Professional Development, and Research.
See the written publication here.
Lynnette Christensen Nov. 2008 TECBD Conference Tempe, AZ Can School-Wide Positive Behavior Support Be an Evidence-Based Practice?
Ben Young July 2008 OSEP Conference Washington D.C.
Boston, MA Praise Notes: An Effective Part of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support?
K. Richard Young Nov. 2006 TECBD Conference Tempe, AZ Praise Notes: An Effective Part of School-Wide Positive Behavior Support?
Teaching Character Education and Social Competence: Is There More to Education Than Academics?
Conference on PBS Reno, NV School-wide Screening for Students with Behavioral and Emotional Concerns.


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Empire 2x16 Review: "The Lyon Who Cried Wolf" (Mommy and Me) [Contributor: Rae Nudson]
11:48 AM contributor: rae nudson, empire, empire review, s02.16 No comments
"The Lyon Who Cried Wolf"
Original Airdate: May 4, 2016
This episode opened with some cheesy lines from the new Lyon matriarch like "The boy is famous now" and "I had the voice but they never gave me a chance" and "Your eyes... are you kin to me?" all one after the other during a Bingo game. And I have to admit that had me a little worried for the direction of the episode, but it looks like Empire has centered on the theme of family. Which always works better than, say, crazy journalist storylines. (Luckily for us and unluckily for Harper, I think that storyline is over with now.)
MOMMIE DEAREST
Cookie is working to set the Lyons up to perform a family song at the ASA awards, which everyone is building up as the biggest award show and biggest world stage ever, and can apparently make or break your career and company. Because it is the Lyons, they can't agree on how to sing their song, and petty arguments ensue. Because this is Empire, Andre thinks their rehearsal for the show at the Leviticus club is the perfect time to reintroduce his family to their supposedly dead grandmother.
The thing I love about Grandma Lyon is that, finally, someone appeared to give Lucious a run for his money. She looks like a feeble old lady, but her history with Lucious is deep and there's a lot of pain there. Also, when she's around Lucious, she turns into an unstable, dangerous woman who could seriously do him some harm. (I'm as yet decided as to what her characterization says about stereotypes of bipolar disorder. I think the show has done a pretty good job showing that Andre isn't a crazy evil person because of his illness, so time will tell what's really going on with Grandma.)
She is the only one in or out of the Lyon family to truly be a threat to Lucious' well-being. Cookie can annoy him, sure, but neither her nor their sons can unnerve Lucious like his mama can. One of the problems with Empire is that Lucious has been allowed to run wild without any repercussions or threats. His family still hung around him, Cookie was still feeling him, and he just got back to Empire. With his mother in the picture, Lucious' antics won't go unchecked, and hopefully his actions won't keep getting crazier and crazier, with no consequences.
Because Andre has decided he wants to take care of his grandmother, he insists she remains out of the nursing home. And when Grandma Lyon insists she goes home with her son Dwight, for some reason Lucious complies. I'm a little unclear why Lucious couldn't have just taken her back to the home instead of taking her to his house, but maybe he was already worried for his life. It turns out that worry is not unfounded, because when she gets to Lucious' home, she dismisses the maid who was supposed to keep an eye on her and then forces Lucious to eat cakes she baked. It's a pretty delicious scene, and not just because it was filled with cake. It was somehow chilling, over-the-top ridiculous, and still believable that Lucious would be worried for his life. I mean, I wouldn't say no if an unstable woman who previously tried to drown me was holding a very large, very sharp knife and telling me to eat something. For a show that has focused on fatherhood in the past, it looks like its new stories are coming from the moms.
Anika is back from the hospital (still no word on why she was in there, though) and is setting up a nursery in Hakeem's place. She's getting cozy with Rhonda, who finally remembers the feeling of hands on her back before she fell down the stairs and lost the baby. And just like that, it looks like we're back to the storyline of Rhonda getting pushed down the stairs. I really don't know what is going to happen with Anika and her baby. I can't see a baby working on the show for long, but getting Anika more intertwined with the Lyons is a good thing for her character.
Jamal's new man is a master of the neg. The ASA music director D-Major plays hot and cold with Jamal, first yelling at him for interrupting his session and then angry kissing him during an argument. D-Major isn't out, so he wants to keep his budding romance with Jamal a secret. Getting involved with anyone involved with the ASAs can't possibly end well for Jamal, even (especially?) if he wins an award. I am grateful that it looks like the reappearance of boring boyfriend Michael is over as quickly as it came up.
As ridiculous as some of the scenes were in the episode, they actually hung together a lot better than last week's. Most of what happened was logical and made sense within the world of the show. Hopefully the last few episodes of the season will be like this one.
Cookie Crumbs:
Is anyone else worried about what happened to the maid Juanita?
I love the shoutout to Ryan Coogler, director of Creed and Fruitvale Station. I hope Hakeem's song gets picked for his new movie.
Loved Becky teaching Porshe how to be a good assistant.
That long moment where Andre and Rhonda played with the video screen on their car must have been an ad, and it did not work very well.
I maybe liked that Lucious had Harper killed? It makes him seem more like his evil self if he actually carries through on his threats. Also she was sort of a terrible character.
Of course Anika wears Louboutins to push someone down the stairs.
Super creepy that Rhonda just gave all her baby things to the woman who made her lose the baby.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Fancy something a little bit different this Halloween? Join in our Family Fun Days and go green!
Have a go at Halloween arts & crafts using recycled materials, find out the many uses of a Pumpkin and some of try some Pumpkin soup, and much, much more!


Still boxed (unless stated), hardy used, full manufacturers guarantee. Possibly some small marks.
A portable yet versatile polarising microscope to solve the demand of travelling scientists needed rugged, capable instruments.
Incident light unit with polariser, analyser and psu.


This program has been invaluable to me as my mother has severe osteoporosis. I set up a program for her as many others and the transformation in their strength and ability to finally being able to move has been too fold…..Awesome!!! I would recommend this program to whoever wants to listen.
I would highly recommend this workshop to clinicians, exercise professionals and educators. The information was evidence-informed, up to date and relevant. The instructors were engaging and inspiring. It was the best course I've been to in a long time. Thank you!
The flow of the work shop was wonderful. Involving complex patient cases was very practical and ensured that we knew the materials well enough that we could incorporate it into practical situations.
The most informative and well structured course I have taken. I would reccommend this to everyone I know in this field of work. This is extremely useful to me as I work with OP patients everyday. I have so many new ideas to help them.


text:
Q: In python, on windows, how to wait until mouse moves? I'm developing a screen capture tool, this tools aims to help software developers understand how users ended up crashing the application. The idea is to start screen capture once the mouse starts moving and stop it after 5 minutes the mouse didn't move. screen capture works fine through subprocess with ffmpeg, the only remaining problem (except for the application crashes) is to start and stop the screen capture. How can I do this? ideally it would work with condition variable but even a loop which tests if the mouse moved in the last second would do. Is there any chance python supports something like OnMouseMove()?

A: A loop + pywin32, like this:
import win32api
from time import sleep

count = 0
savedpos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
while(True):
    if count>20*5: # break after 5sec
        break

    curpos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
    if savedpos != curpos:
        savedpos = curpos
        print "moved to " + str(savedpos)

    sleep(0.05)
    count +=1

A: wxPython gives you access to a whole set of OnMouse events that you can bind to.

A: After considering my alternatives I think this the right way to handle my problem, please note I've updated the code to support remote desktop disconnect by checking if the GetCursorPos() throws an exception, also please note that when closing the remote desktop ffmpeg outputs
[dshow @ ] real-time buffer full! frame dropped!
But the output file looks fine to me. This script was tested on Windows server 2012
# http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
# http://www.videohelp.com/tools/UScreenCapture
# http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/files/pywin32/

import time, win32api, threading, subprocess, datetime, string, winerror

StopRecordingTimeout = 10

def captureFunction():
    pos = None
    proc = None
    counter = 0
    while True:
        time.sleep(1)
        exceptFlag = False
        try:
            newPos = win32api.GetCursorPos()
            if pos == None:
                pos = newPos
        except Exception as e:
            if e[0] == winerror.ERROR_ACCESS_DENIED:
                exceptFlag = True
        if newPos != pos and proc != None:
            # mouse moved and we are recording already so just make sure the time out counter is zero
            counter = 0
        elif newPos != pos and proc == None:
            # mouse moved and recording didn't start already
            fileName = filter(lambda x : x in string.digits, str(datetime.datetime.now()))
            fileName = 'output' + fileName + '.flv'
            print 'start recording to ' + fileName
            proc = subprocess.Popen('ffmpeg -f dshow -i video=UScreenCapture ' + fileName)
        elif proc != None and (newPos == pos or exceptFlag):
            # mouse didn't moved and recording already started
            if counter < StopRecordingTimeout and not exceptFlag:
                counter = counter + 1
                print 'stop recording in ' + str(StopRecordingTimeout - counter) + ' seconds'
            elif exceptFlag or counter >= StopRecordingTimeout:
                print 'stop recording'
                proc.terminate()
                proc = None
                counter = 0
        pos = newPos

print 'start'
captureThread = threading.Thread(target = captureFunction)
captureThread.start()
captureThread.join()
print 'end'

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


SPC700 (Sound cpu emulation) is now enabled by default whether sound is enabled or not. Emulation will now be slower than normal if you usually run with sound off, but the compatibility is higher. However, you can disable this through the options window in the GUI if speed is of your concern. Also, a few games only run with it disabled so this option may be useful in those cases.
Added an option to raise the pitch level to the pre-v0.989 pitch levels, mainly for non-Creative brand sound cards.
You can now change the sound settings (Enable Sound, Stereo, Sound Frequency) with immediate effects without re-starting ZSNES. However, there seems to be some problems with stereo switching on SB Live!'s.
Lots of port preparation done on the source.
The GUI is now using the standard in-game video blitter rather than it own.
Implemented 4-point gaussian interpolation. This is the interpolation used by the actual snes! Many thanks goes to Neill Corlett for his work on finding this info! Of course, this routine takes up an extra cpu load so emulation will slow down a bit if your computer isn't fast enough, but you can always disable interpolation through the sound options.
Fixed up Pitch Modulation method. Thanks again, Neill!
Pitch modulation was modulating from the wrong channel. Fixed.
Expanded filename length in the GUI display for long filenames by 3, but had to decrease the directory name by 2.
Fixed a pitch modulation bug when Voice 0 modulates Voice 1. Thanks to kode54!
Fixed some SA-1 sudden slowdowns. This does slow down the overall emulation speed in SA-1 games though.
All sounds were being played at the wrong pitch (slightly higher than normal. It's now fixed so Zsnes should sound better now. Thanks to kode54 for helping out here!
Implemented SDD-1 MMC. But none of the SDD-1 games run properly yet because of the compression chip.
Fixed up dirty CPUID fix for Cyrix CPUs so that you don't have to re-run Zsnes twice every time.
Forgot to re-enable pitch modulation after disabling it for debugging purposes.
Re-added Sound Buffering. I was hoping to re-write it, but later found out that it wasn't worth the trouble.
Added Simulated Triple Buffering for cards without VESA 3.0 Hardware triple buffering. This method does some lose frames, but should be faster than v-sync. This only works on VESA 2.0 modes.
Fixed up directory sorting to always put ./.. at the top.
Implemented Save Ram support into netplay. Thanks to The Minder for help testing this!
Fixed an SA-1 memory map bug! Fixes DBZ:HD.
Finally, after many, many hours of hacking. Figured out what caused the odd noise sounds! So far, simulated noise is implemented since the true nature of how this noise is produced is unknown so it will sound somewhat off compared to the original sounds. There is also a slight chance that some sounds will become noise incorrectly and vice versa.
Removed Sound Buffering. I don't think it's worth losing the quality of the sound for a small amount of speed boost.
Implemented Triple Buffering. You can enable this through the Video Options in the GUI. Unfortunately, Triple Buffering won't work with 2xSaI/Super Eagle engine at the moment since they rely on the previous screen for updating nor will it work properly with high resolution games in the old gfx engine. Thanks to GreenImp for patiently helping through testing!
Any proper VESA 2 error messages now doesn't exit the program when in the GUI but instead display the error message in a box and allows the user to continue.
Thanks to Daniel for lending me his copier which helped me hack the SNES Sound Noise/ADSR stuff!
Fixed DMA position reader to fix the high sample rate problem in SB-Live! cards. Thanks to ShihTzu for helping us with this!
Removed SB16 only message under stereo option in commandline help. Shouldn't really be there since v0.600.
Low Pass Filter is now disabled by default. But you can still enable it through the GUI.
Implemented an option in the GUI to not allow Zsnes to change the current start-up game path in the configuration. You can access this in Config->Options.
Joystick calibration values have been reset since there seems to be some problems with it. You may have to re-calibrate your joystick if it doesn't respond correctly.
Used hardware DMA counter to determine which sound block to write to rather than assuming it always starts at the first one for the sound routines. This should hopefully fix all those nasty sound static problems many people seems to have. Many thanks to Crono for the code and for his help!


CALRE, the acronym of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies, unites seventy-four presidents of European regional legislative assemblies: the Presidents of the Regional Assemblies of Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Austria, United Kingdom ( Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland), Portugal (Azores and Madeira), and Finland (Åland Islands).
The Declaration of the Assembly of European Regions (Basle, 1996) in its article 12.1 proposed mechanisms for contact between the European Parliament and Regional Parliaments, considering that they are institutions representing the direct will of citizens.
The Stuttgart theses, developed in May 1997 during an International Conference organised by the Landtag of Baden-Würtemberg in collaboration with the European Centre for Research on Federalism of Tübingen, on the role of Regional Parliaments of the European Union in European policy.
The Declaration signed by Germany, Austria and Belgium in October 1997, referring to one of the Stuttgart theses on the principle of subsidiarity established by the Maastricht Treaty. This declaration predicated the extension of this principle not only in the relationship between the Union and the Member States but also the Lander and other Regions considering that they have been attributed legislative power assigned by the national Constitution.
The possibility of the Regions directly defending their legislative power before the Tribunal of Justice.
The drafting of a clear list of the qualifications of the Regions which would have to be included in any Treaties of the European Union.
Strengthening of the collaboration between the European Parliament and the Regional Parliaments, without reducing the qualifications of the Committee of the Regions.
The importance of the relationship between Lander and Regions with legislative power to spread the feeling of European citizenship. With this objective in mind, they planned to establish a commission for European Affairs in all Regional Parliaments, as well as to launch a series of initiatives for information and exchange.
The official recognition of the relationship between Regional Legislative Assemblies and the European Parliament and its inclusion in the text of the Treaty. While at the same time it also requested a modification of the Regulations governing the European Parliament in order to allow the participation of representatives of CALRE in the work of the Commission related to regional policies as well as in other commissions studying questions that have regional repercussions.
The participation of the Legislative Assemblies of the Regions in the approval of decisions relative to social and territorial cohesion as well as those related to the extension of the Union.
In Santiago de Compostela on 28 October 2000, CALRE defined its action in relation to the modification of the Treaties. The Conference heard presentations from the main participants in the reform of the Treaties, with the presence, to illustrate the year 2000 Intergovernmental Conference, of personal representatives of the presidents of the Governments of Member States and ambassadors of Permanent Representations before the European Union.
CALRE finally adopted a Resolution on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The 5th Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies took place in Funchal (Madeira), from October 28 to 30, 2001, in which, apart from approving new Regulations to replace the very abbreviated regulations approved in 1999 during the Conference in Florence, unanimously adopted a document entitled "Declaration of Madeira", that emphasised the need for a correct and balanced attribution of qualifications on a European, State and Regional level (particularly within the framework of the follow-up of the European Agreement and the Intergovernmental Conference of 2003).
The Conference also adopted a document from the Parliament of Catalonia on the relationship between regional parliaments and the European Parliament and studied a report from the Presidents of the Parliaments of the Aosta Valley and Northern Ireland on regional parliaments in the era of the Internet. It also adopted a declaration relative to terrorism.
The 6th Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies took place on 28 and 29 October 2002 in Brussels.
The Conference unanimously adopted what has become known as the "Declaration of Brussels", by which the presidents emphasised the need to reinforce the relations of CALRE with the European Parliament and the Committee of the Regions and its willingness to actively participate and contribute to the work of the European Convention.
The 7th Conference took place in Reggio Calabria on 27 and 28 October 2003.
In it, among others documents, it adopted the "Declaration of Reggio Calabria", in which the presidents of the European Regional Legislative Assemblies made a statement on the work of the European Convention. They also mentioned, among other matters, the establishment of contacts with the presidents of the Conference of the Community and European Affairs Committees (COSAC) and the relationship with the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, and the Commission.
As appendices to the declaration, CALRE included a document on the strategies of the Conference and its working programme, the final declaration of the 4th Conference of the Speakers of the Parliaments of the European Union's City Regions which had been held in Berlin from 23 to 25 of February 2003, the declaration of the presidents of the Legislative Assemblies of European Island Regions members of CALRE, who met in Caller on 2 May 2003, and also a document on the commitments of the regional parliaments in relation to new information technologies.
The 8th plenary session of CALRE took place on 25 and 26 October 2004 in Milan.
The meeting discussed the project for the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and the principle of subsidiarity; the application of the principles of governability and cooperation with the European Commission by establishing the so-called "Structured Territorial Dialogue"; European inter-parliamentary cooperation and COSAC; regional representation and democracy; federalism, regionalism and decentralisation; and the desire to reinforce the cooperation with European and national institutions.
All this was included in the "Declaration of Milan", which also included as appendices a specific declaration on the new Constitutional Treaty and application of the principle of subsidiarity, another on the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty and support for the European idea and, finally, one on Euromediterranean inter-parliamentary cooperation.
The 9th Plenary Session was held in Barcelona on 24 and 25 October 2005. The "Catalonia Declaration", which includes issues such as Community recognition of the regions with legislative power and of their parliaments, was approved at this Plenary Session.
Also included is the request to the European Commission and to the other institutions for measures required in order to implement procedures that enable the regional parliaments with legislative power to participate in controlling the principle of subsidiarity, within the framework of the new reality of the enlargement of the European Union and the achieving of an Economic and Monetary Union.
Emphasis was also placed on reinforcing the process of regionalisation and of decentralisation through awareness of different regional experiences and cooperation actions.
Added to this Declaration is an annex on the proposals for regional parliaments to participate in the system to control the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
On 30 and 31 October 2006, the 10th Conference of the European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) Plenary Session was held in Venice.
During this meeting, held on the tenth anniversary of the founding of CALRE, application of the principle of subsidiarity, the new procedure implemented by the Commission and the results of the experimental work for the network of consultations on subsidiarity carried out by Municipal and Local Authorities without legislative power were all highlighted. The need to recognise the constitutional role of the Regions with legislative power, in a protocol enclosed in the Treaties, is also indicated.
Other considerations included in the "Venice Declaration" are the need for inter-parliamentary cooperation and the important role that Legislative Parliaments in the European Union play when informing citizens on issues of enlargement and dialogue with the new Member States of the Union. This Declaration ends by acknowledging the work carried out by the CALRE working groups and also by Community institutions and by congratulating the establishment of an internal group of Regions with legislative power inside the Committee of the Regions.
On 22 and 23 October 2007, the 11th Conference of Presidents of the Conference of the European Regional Legislative Assemblies was held in Berlin. The "Berlin Declaration" was approved at this meeting, laying down the general guidelines for CALRE activity during 2008.
Special attention was paid to the European Union Reform Treaty during the meeting in Berlin, emphasising the progress that it has meant for the regions in Europe, in spite of affecting the need to reinforce parliamentary cooperation.
As regards the principle of subsidiarity, the Presidents attending welcome the advances included in the new text, with the exception of certain criteria carried out by the Commission in applying this principle. The regional policy included in the budgetary reform by the Commission is cause for concern, in view of the condition of the regional parliaments themselves as legislators of regional budgets.
Finally, several annex Declarations were approved during the course of this meeting: on climate change, Fiscal Federalism and a resolution to support the Charter for Regional Democracy.


text:
import taggit.managers
from django.db import migrations, models

class Migration(migrations.Migration):
    dependencies = [("taggit", "0002_auto_20150616_2121"), ("shifts", "0004_shift_key")]

    operations = [
        migrations.AddField(
            model_name="shift",
            name="tags",
            field=taggit.managers.TaggableManager(
                blank=True,
                help_text="A comma-separated list of tags.",
                through="taggit.TaggedItem",
                to="taggit.Tag",
                verbose_name="Tags",
            ),
        ),
        migrations.AlterField(
            model_name="shift",
            name="bool_finished",
            field=models.BooleanField(default=False, verbose_name="Shift completed?"),
        ),
    ]

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Pandemic, vaccine and controversy
There is no evidence that Covaxin is harmful. The trials, so far, have qualified the vaccine on immunogenicity and safety. No adverse reports on efficacy have been received.
Written by P Chidambaram | Updated: January 10, 2021 8:43:44 am
A Covid-19 vaccination centre in New Delhi.
The pandemic seems to be on its way out, but not yet gone. The vaccine seems to be on its way in, but has not yet reached households. The one thing that has remained unmoved throughout is controversy!
As I write this on January 9, the numbers are a grim reminder of the havoc wrought by Covid-19. The number of infections is 1,04,31,639 (second place after the United States); the number of deaths is 1,50,798 (third after the US and Brazil); and the number of active cases is 2,24,190. With a population of 138 crore, we can count ourselves lucky but certainly not a shining example of pandemic control and management.
There are six approved vaccines in the world. We know little about the Russian and Chinese vaccines although they are being distributed and administered extensively in the respective countries. As far as I know, no other acknowledged, long-standing regulator has approved for use the Russian or Chinese vaccine.
Four Vaccines, Great Opportunity
That leaves four. The first is Pfizer's, approved by the US FDA which, in the scientific world and among the medical profession, is the gold standard. The vaccine's immunogenicity, safety and efficacy have been proven in the mandatory three phases of the trials. The drawback is the conditions of storage (-70 degrees C) and cost in India (undetermined). Pfizer applied for Emergency Use Approval (EUA) to the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI), but did not appear to present its case to the Expert Committee despite three opportunities. My hunch is Pfizer is not keen on marketing and distributing its vaccine in India because it has assumed that, in India, its cost will be unaffordable and the conditions of storage will not be met. Since Pfizer's vaccine has been approved by many countries/regulators and the demand is high worldwide, Pfizer may have placed India low in its order of priority.
The second is Oxford-AstraZeneca's, that is being manufactured under a licence by the Serum Institute of India (SII). We can be proud that an Indian research-cum-manufacturing company has qualified to test, manufacture and distribute a vaccine under the name Covishield.
The third is Moderna's. It has not yet applied in India for approval.
Needless Controversy
The fourth is Bharat Biotech's Covaxin. While the company may have drawn on the work and knowledge of foreign researchers and scientists, Covaxin is a 100 per cent Indian product. It is a proud moment for India. The vaccine's approval was mired in an unnecessary controversy. The DCGI and the government's spokespersons (especially Dr V K Paul and Dr Balram Bhargava) should have, at the outset, made it clear that Covaxin's EUA was for distribution-cum-Phase III clinical trials and the results — especially the results on efficacy — will determine its further distribution and use. It is true that reputed scientists, virologists, microbiologists and doctors have questioned the speed (or haste) in granting approval even when Phase III clinical trials are underway. Desperate situations may require desperate remedies. India's requirement of vaccines (by volume) is so huge that neither the SII's Covishield nor imports can meet the demand for a quick nationwide roll-out. It is wise to encourage a potential candidate (a life saver) to complete the testing process quickly and also to keep ready a vaccine as a back-up for emergency use. My personal view is that we should be charitable to the DCGI and the government.
There is no evidence that Covaxin is harmful. The trials, so far, have qualified the vaccine on immunogenicity and safety. No adverse reports on efficacy have been received. We should collectively hope that Covaxin will complete Phase III clinical trials by the end of January and the results will be evaluated by March. Thereafter, we can accelerate the roll-out with two vaccines — we may also export reasonable quantities to developing countries — and acquire a place among nations that were able to research, find, manufacture, distribute and use a vaccine in 12 months.
There was, I suspect, a tinge of business between the SII and Bharat Biotech. Happily, both Mr Adar Poonawalla and Mr Krishna Ella buried the hatchet in a couple of days and promised to cooperate and work together. That is the way frontline companies, especially in research and development, should conduct their affairs, with a right mix of public good and private profit.
Real Test Begins Now
The real test begins now. How will the government vaccinate the bulk of the 138 crore population? Here are a few thoughts:
– There must be an order of priority and no breaches of that order should be permitted under any circumstances.
– The vaccine must be administered free of cost in government hospitals and vaccination centres. Levying a charge will encourage people to cut corners and, consequently, lead to corruption.
– When supplies improve, private hospitals should be brought into the roll-out. If they wish to buy the vaccine and charge their customers, the government should fix the price and let those who can afford to pay, pay for the vaccination.
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– Just as we have allowed export of India-made vaccines, we should also allow import of approved vaccines. Protectionism is a discredited theory in world trade and has certainly no place when the world is facing a pandemic.
– We must be prepared to face unknown consequences. We must keep faith in our scientists and researchers to find solutions. Ultimately, science will triumph.
For all the latest Opinion News, download Indian Express App.
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Reminding us of August 1942


text:
Austin Hill after Atlanta victory: I've been trying to win here for a long time
Austin Hill showed his quality again, and won the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Atlanta Motor Speedway. He is happy because of the car and what he had at his disposal. "What a car," Hill said post-race. "RCR has been working their ever-loving tails off to bring some really fast Chevrolet Camaros.
We were a rocket ship all day. "Man, look at this crowd, I love the fans," Team had certain problems that they still managed to solve. "We had an issue right when we pulled off of pit road. The team couldn't hear me.
We changed helmets thinking that was the case, but they still couldn't hear me. We had to do hand gestures." He had been waiting for a victory in Atlanta for a long time and now his wish has come true. Persistence is the best way to success.
"We just won at Atlanta, that's really special. I've been trying to win here for a long time. I've finished second here three times in a row, twice in a truck, and then earlier in the spring (NXS race). It's been owing me one.
Finally, we got one in Georgia where I grew up and was raised, about an hour down the road. This is going to be so special, I can't wait to party." "I have thousands of laps around this quarter-mile race track here (at AMS).
For it all come to fruition and to win on the big track, it's something that I will cherish the rest of my life".
Gibbs and Mayer
Gibbs is one of those who had something to say after the race. A tough race in which he could have done much more, but he is ready for the next challenges and what awaits him.
"It was hard racing and just came home on the wrong side of it," said Gibbs, as quoted by ESPN. Mayer himself is not satisfied with his performance. "I thought it was going to be good," he said. "It wasn't. That's my mistake. I've got to calm down and get my act together." An interesting rest of the season awaits us.
There are many names in the game, everyone is serious in their intentions, and there are also many quality drivers. However, only one team will reach the very end. We can't wait for the outcome and finding out who is 'the one' who will ascend the throne. It would be a great achievement for anyone.


Event Pictures has had 0 cuddles today (0 all together).
Event Pictures has been with us since December 2018, and it has cost us over £795 so far to look after her. And that's increasing by £5 every day she's here.
If there is any way that you could help with a donation to look after Event Pictures during her stay, we'd be eternally grateful. But not as much as Event Pictures would be!


text:
White Out: West Virginia 35, Louisville 21
Twenty-two seniors leaving the ranks soon. If the University of Louisville football program was in rebuilding mode up to now, it will enter still another phase next season. One hesitates to put a label on it, more of a forced denial than anything else.
— Sad to see players Brock Bolen, Bobby Buchanan, Eric Wood, Earl Heyman, Adrian Grady, Maurice Mitchell bowing out to polite applause. Wonder how that affected all the recruits on hand. Swaying stuff, not in a good way.
— Difficult to find the official or announced attendance for today's game but, whatever it was, it was far higher than anyone could have anticipated. At least double the number of UofL fans at today's game than at Ron Cooper's last game in 1996. West Virginia did its part with 3,000-plus, all but outnumbering Card fans at the bitter end.
— The good thing for quarterback Hunter Cantwell is that it's almost over. He's having his moments in the spotlight but he can't do anything with them. Cantwell's most impressive play was tackling a West Virginia player who had picked off the last of his three interceptions. Cantwell has probably had more passes intercepted than any Louisville quarterback in the modern era (1960's forward).
— Definite plus for the future of Louisville football is that Pat White is a senior. He would have to use UofL to set the all-time rushing mark for quarterback, accumulating 200 yards and three touchdowns on 21 carries, throwing for 122 yards and two other touchdowns.
–West Virginia players jumping up and down on the Cardinal logo: classless. Louisville punishing teams that do that: just a memory.
— Sorry Steve Kragthorpe. Everybody wants you to succeed. Really, we do. But it's not working out. Even the most vile, nasty-tongued critics would have crawled back on the bandwagon with a win over West Virginia. Tied 7-7 at halftime, few signs of life in the second half. Still another opportunity peters away. So many seniors, too few indications of improvement.
← One More Test Of Louisville Football Loyalty
Football Pokes And Ponderings →
3 thoughts on "White Out: West Virginia 35, Louisville 21"
bcs, no, not that bcs
One of the saddest things from today's disappointment happened shortly after the game: We actually were driving out of the parking lot BEHIND one of those tricked-out tailgating buses. I just hope those tailgaters, who usually close the lot down, were leaving because they were in a hurry to get to the basketball game. Oh my.
Perhaps the most interesting debacle that we encountered at the game today didn't have anything to do with the game. I'm glad that Cards Radio put the womens basketball game on 101.7, but…guess what? You just can't pick that station up in PJCS. Even with the nice tricked out, name brand radio headset that I have. Eventually, I found someone at home watching the game who agreed to set a radio by their telephone, and I listened to it om my cell phone. For a while. Gotta remember to recharge those things, folks…But, I got to hear the majority of the first half before the cell phone went dead. Fortunately, my friend at home realized it, and hung up, so Paul could recall her on his phone for the second half and keep me happy. I know, I need to upgrade to a Blackberry, (or some other exotic fruit)info device.
Boo to 790 for giving a great detailed halftime scores around the nation report, but not mentioning the Lady Cards.
frankpos
The good ship Kragthorpe finally even sinks
in Card Game waters…


Beautiful air-conditioned cottage of 85 m2 which can accommodate 9/11 people.
It is composed of three rooms: A large room with a bed of 160cm. A second with two bunk beds and a third of 18 m² which has a large bed of 160cm with a small bed of 90cm and its own bathroom with a separate entrance while being part of the house. In the living room a convertible sofa (for 2 people).
A very large living room, with dining room on open kitchen complete the Gîte du Vercors. A large pool over 12m by 4m completes the house.
In full nature near the medieval town of Crest. Renowned for its magnificent tower the highest in France. And ranked one of the 100 most beautiful detours in France by the Michelin guide.
The Bastide Milassole is located on the banks of the Drôme, 500 meters from the base of canoe facing the Vercors massif backed by the forest of Saoû 20 minutes from the motorway and Valencia and 1h30 from the center of Lyon and Grenoble , a few minutes from the village of Aouste sur Sye and Crest (classified in Michelin guide) with a view of its keep. In the morning you can discover the farmers markets.


text:
Orašac är en ort i Kroatien.   Den ligger i staden Grad Dubrovnik och länet Dubrovnik-Neretvas län, i den sydöstra delen av landet,  km söder om huvudstaden Zagreb. Orašac ligger  meter över havet och antalet invånare är .

Terrängen runt Orašac är kuperad åt nordost, men åt sydväst är den platt. Havet är nära Orašac åt sydväst. Den högsta punkten i närheten är  meter över havet,  km nordväst om Orašac.  Närmaste större samhälle är Dubrovnik,  km sydost om Orašac.

Klimatet i området är tempererat. Årsmedeltemperaturen i trakten är  °C. Den varmaste månaden är juli, då medeltemperaturen är  °C, och den kallaste är januari, med  °C. Genomsnittlig årsnederbörd är  millimeter. Den regnigaste månaden är februari, med i genomsnitt  mm nederbörd, och den torraste är augusti, med  mm nederbörd.

Kommentarer

Källor

Orter i Dubrovnik-Neretvas län

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Get Quizzical with Ntertain SpeedQuizzing!
Ever wondered how much your guests know about you, but wanted to break the ice in a fresh, fun and original way? Get Quizzical with Ntertain!
This package provides an innovative spin on a traditional quiz using your smartphone or tablet with the SpeedQuizzing application, available on the Apple Store and Google Play. It's a fast paced, multiple choice, 'fastest-finger-first' style quiz that will have everyone interacting. The app is FREE, very simple to use and as well as your phone or tablet, it's all you need!
At Ntertain we can create a truly unique quiz tailored you and your guests for a really entertaining experience on a Birthday, Wedding, Corporate Event and much more! All that you have to do after you enquire is supply us with any information you would like to be included in the quiz, e.g. pictures, important dates, favourite things like food, sports etc. and any question ideas that you would like us to use. The rest is taken care of by us at Ntertain!
It's the UK's number one quizzing application and it's taking us by storm, so get on board and Get Quizzical now!


text:
Cucumber juice is the juice derived from cucumbers produced by squeezing or pressing it. Cucumbers are 98% water.

Cucumber juice is used in beverages such as cocktails like the Bloody Mary, dishes such as cucumber soup, and in dips and salad dressings, such as green goddess dressing. Cucumber juice has significant amounts of potassium and is high in vitamin A. It also contains sterol and significant amounts of silicon.

Cucumber juice is used as an ingredient in cosmetics, soaps, shampoos, and lotions, and in eau de toilette and perfumes.

It was used in Russian traditional medicine to aid in the treatment of respiratory tract inflammation and to reduce lingering cough. In other traditions it was used to soothe heartburn and reduce acid in the stomach. For skin, it has been used to soothe burns and rashes. Cucumber juice has been described as a repellent against wood lice and fish-moths.

See also

 Cucumber soda
 Juicing
 List of juices

References

Further reading

Fruit vegetables
Juice
Ointments
Skin care
Juice


text:
The following is a list of the sixty-seven county seats of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.  The list includes forty-two boroughs, twenty-four cities, and one town.  The ranking is based on the populations of each county seat during the 2010 census.

See also
List of municipalities in Pennsylvania

References