The Blond Leading The Blind

Mistress Boodles.

I watched a film recently, La Chamade, based on a story by Françoise Sagan, and it was not great, but good, in that it perfectly encapsulated the French attitude of the times – the late ‘60’s early ‘70’s. You know, terminally blasé, lots of pouting and existential angst. St. Laurent did the wardrobe and it is at times, divine. And La Deneuve, at the apogee of her beauty,  takes your breath away. The hair is huge and fluffy, her complexion is like luminescent porcelain and in profile she looks like a 12 year old girl. Honey... child.

 

 Denueve in St. Laurent in La Chamade 1969 - based on a story by Francoise Sagan

Here is the video box description.   Alliteration 101.

“The expensively kept girlfriend of a wealthy older man, Lucille is beautiful, bored and blissfully blind to her shallow existence… until she meets Antoine. Passionate but poor, Antoine offers a whole new world of experience and kindles Lucille’s smoldering desires. But as the charms of Antoine’s workaday life begin to fade, Lucille must choose between the love of her life and the love of her lifestyle”

 And then there’s this…

Isn’t this an amazing photograph!

Here is the text that accompanied the news item.

“This 1888 photo released by the New England Historic Genealogical Society in Boston shows Helen Keller when she was eight years old, left, holding hands with her teacher, Anne Sullivan, during a summer vacation to Brewster, Mass., on Cape Cod. A staff member at the society discovered the photograph in a large photography collection recently donated to the society. When Sullivan arrived at the Keller household to teach Helen, she gave her a doll as a present. Although Keller had many dolls throughout her childhood, this is believed to be the first known photograph of Helen Keller with one of her dolls.”

 

Sons and Lovers and Hideous Green Frogs

Originally sent February 26, 2008

Bonjour Boodell,

I just watched the most exquisite BBC production of “Sons & Lovers”, filmed in 2002 on the Isle of Man.

 The Isle of Man, England

Absolutely to die! Please rent it if you have not already seen it.

D.H. Lawrence's   Sons and Lovers

Starring Sarah Lancashire as Gertrude, Hugo Speer as the husband, James Murray and Rupert Evans as the sons James and Paul and Esther Hall and Lyndsey Marshall as their lovers Clara and Miriam. I cannot think of one bad thing to say. Production design, costumes (especially the mens), hair / maquillage, script, acting, casting, locations, EVERYTHING was impeccable. It is truly one of the most beautiful made for television films I have ever seen. The women are straight out of Rosetti, Burne-Jones and Millais' paintings, 

Burne-Jones

 

Millais

 

 Rossetti

 

 Rossetti

the men are breathtakingly handsome – all of them, and the script is a perfectly written adaptation of a literary masterpiece, something that is nearly impossible to do, as you know. Television in Europe is at such a high standard. Witness Fassbinder’s  Berlin Alexanderplatz

and nevermind Kieslowski’s The Decalogue

made for German and Polish television respectively. 

Valerie Caris, aka The Contessa Vallée and I

 The Contessa Vallée

took the train from New York to Boston to see the entire 10 part (11 with one alternative ending) Decalogue at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. It was nearly 5 hours each day for 2 days and we were completely floored by what we saw. It was a life changing experience. Wouldn’t it  be great to work on one of these productions? The budgets are obviously generous, but more importantly, the end product is something to be proud of.

So sad to read about Isabella Blow – somehow it struck a chord with me, that she was compelled to jump off of a bridge onto a freeway – breaking both of her legs and worse still, surviving. Poor dear. But now she’s really done it. You have to admit, it was a very glamorous and fitting NY Times obituary.

Isabella Blow

I have not seen “White Mischief” but will do so upon your recommendation. Sounds like my kind of flick. “Burmese Days” is one of my favorite Orwell books

although very dark and rather depressing, but all about the decent into alcoholic madness of an English officer stationed in Rangoon. He describes the children as “hideous green frogs”, which is so typically gin steeped, English, imperious, cruel and hallucinatory!

 

George Orwell's Hideous Green Frogs

The Singularity is Near

Originally sent May 2007

Dear Boodles.

You seem to be reading voraciously these days, as am I, and enjoying every second of it. Truly, such a healthy escape from the meaningless drudge of everyday life. Right now I have taken another tack in my reading and am devouring a book called “The Singularity is Near” by Ray Kurzweil, a computer/ engineering genius and MIT professor, revered the world over for his highly accurate proclamations about advances in computer technology, and how the human race, as we know it, will be profoundly

altered.

Ray Kurzweil

I’m a big fan of his and have read his other works “The Age of Intelligent Machines” and “The Age of Spiritual Machines”. I would not say that he makes “predictions”, that’s too simple. He is on the forefront of developing many of these technologies, so based on what he knows as fact, and what he has stated in the past – all of which have come to be, his writing and personal appearances are watched and read closely by futurists the world over. His primary theory is what he describes as the “law of accelerating returns”, simply meaning that advances in technology are developing exponentially toward a zero point.

In his words, “An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity — technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.”

The zero point being when computers are able to do two things, 1. Process reason and 2. Function at the capacity of the human brain, only one billion times faster. This is know in the world of artificial intelligence as “The Singularity”. That time is very near. This has many implications, and like Einstein, he stresses all of the positive aspects of what this will mean for humans including amazing advances in medical technology,

Fabricated DNA

Nanobots working at the  cellular level

doubling or more of life expectancy by 2030,

eradication of world hunger, disease and infant mortality,

deep space exploration and colonization,

earth and water preservation and much more.

And believe it or not, most of this will be commonplace by 2050, only 40 years from now. Of course, there is the other side of the coin which is at times too horrifying to read, but which he describes at length. I remember 4 years ago, while reading his last book, “The Age of Spiritual Machines” he stated that the US military, using nano technology, was developing drones that are the size of small flying insects and had enough explosive power to level a building.

Deadly insect drones made using nanotechnology

Two months ago, in the New York Times, the Israeli army in collaboration with the Pentagon announced that they were test flying, for immediate use, laser tracking drones that are the size of a common house fly!

Horrifying.