Ten Films - Two Hours - One Week - Around the World - Manhattan Short Film Festival

The films have been narrowed down to ten.  From Peru, Canada, Hungary, Scotland, Australia, USA (2), Egypt, Sweden, and Switzerland.  The shortest one was 8 minutes, the longest 18, but most were right around 10 or 11 minutes.

We were at this Festival in 2008.  My blog post shows that tickets then were $10.  They were only $7.50 this time.   At the first one I was madly writing notes in the dark on a piece of paper so I could remember all I'd seen.  This time there was a fancy program and each film had a whole page. 

The audience gets a card with all the films listed and you can only select one.  They are all tallied and the winner will be announced October 2 on the Film Festival website. 
Each was a story.  These were pretty straightforward story telling.  They were all very good as stories.

They are played around the world in a one week period.  Actually, it looks like a little longer.  From the list in the program, it appears tonight was the first night in any venue. 

Tomás, they are playing in Salamanca Oct. 1 and 2 at Auditorio de la Hospederia del Colegio Fonseca!

Jay and Gene, they'll be in London.

Ropi, even though there's a Hungarian film among the ten finalists, there are no showings in Hungary.  I'm guessing the closest place to see them is in Vienna or Krakow.

Anchorage folks, they're at Out North Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 4pm.
Palmer folks, you get them next weekend, October 1 and 2.
I just noticed Talkeetna (Sept. 24) and Petersburg (Sept. 29) have showings.

The rest of you can check locations around the world where you can watch these ten films and help chose the winner.  There are lots of venues in Russia and even one in Beijing.

These were good films.  Selecting one as the best is both hard and probably unfair.  The finalists were all good stories.  No artsy stuff in this festival - all very straightforward narratives.

The festival founder, Nicholas Mason introduced, on screen, the show.  Each director also introduced his or her film.  It was unfortunate that they had a beer commercial at the beginning and before the intermission.  I understand the funding isn't easy.  I hope they gave a lot of money to be able to add their own commercial. 

Dogs played significant roles in I Love Luci and in David and Goliath, both of which I liked a lot.  The relationship between Marjory and Tommy is truly sweet.   Perhaps David was so powerful for me is because I know people like David - the real David at the end of the movie.  I didn't see how the title of David and Goliath fit - in the original, they don't become friends in the end.

I found the first film, Incident by a Bank, compelling film making - the film makers recreated a bank robbery they originally witnessed and filmed with a cell phone.  DIK was easily the most fun yet it had a good lesson about communication and assumptions.  And Sexting was a tour de force for Julia Styles - talking pretty much the whole ten minutes full face into the camera. 

There were only two that I were easy to eliminate from consideration when picking 'the best.'   Mak and A Doctor's Job both were in the competition for my vote too.

These are good films.  Different from run-of-the-mill Hollywood stuff.  They show 10 films selected from over 500 submitted from 48 countries. 

There was also a spectacular fabric show at Out North.  I'm going to find out more - but the lace was incredible.  Here's a preview from Beverly Bronner.  The card said Bobbin Lace (Binche Belgium) 120 Cotton.

This isn't normally something I'm into, but when you see anything that is really high quality, it's worth paying attention to.  All the lace was exquisite as were the other fabric creations - scarves, jackets, and other items.  If you are interested in this sort of thing, it is well worth a stop at Out North kittycorner from Costco on Debarr.

Copper River Delta Brown Bear Learning To Fish

As we drove out to Child's Glacier last July, a car was stopped on bridge.  We stopped to see what they were looking at.  A young brown bear was in the creek trying to catch fish.  The half hour we were there he didn't have much luck.  But then the glacial silt made it hard to see what was in the water.

But it was a beautiful spot and a magnificent young animal.

Termination Dust On The Chugach

Summer's is ending when there's termination dust on the mountains.  When the clouds lifted Tuesday we saw white.

September 16 marked the day that studded tires are again legal. The Department of Transportation website  gives details:

It is unlawful to operate a motor vehicle with studded tires on a paved highway or road from May 1st through September 15th, inclusive, north of 60 North Latitude and from April 15th through September 30th, inclusive, south of 60 North a motor vehicle with studded tires from May 1st through September 15th, inclusive.

 The leaves are changing colors and some are already on the ground.

US Soldier Documents Call To Dad In Alabama After Don't Ask Don't Tell Ends

The words are abstract: Don't Ask Don't Tell Ends. But this video makes it concrete and very personal. You can read more at the San Francisco Chronicle.




It also talks to the power of identity - how we see ourselves, how others see us, and what it takes to change that identity, especially in an environment that is hostile to the new identity.

2011 Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend = $1,174

The Governor announced the value of this year's Permanent Fund Dividend a few minutes ago.

From Gov's Website video

I've posted on the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend in the past, so I won't repeat all that, but you can look here for some background.


The value of the fund as of yesterday was:

unaudited, as of Sep 19, 2011
US Bonds	$5,950,200,000
US Stocks	$5,620,700,000
Non US Stocks	$7,003,400,000
Global Stocks	$4,418,800,000
Non US Bonds	$1,369,200,000
Real Estate	$4,115,100,000
Cash	$638,300,000
Alternatives	$5,758,900,000
Real Return/External CIO	$3,041,300,000
TOTAL	$37,915,900,000

That's down over $2 billion since June when it was $40 billion.

Here's a history of the payments from the Permanaent Fund Corporation website.

1982	$1,000.00		1990	$952.63		2000	$1,963.86		2010	$1,281.00
1983	$386.15		1991	$931.34		2001	$1,850.28		2011	$1,174.00
1984	$331.29		1992	$915.84		2002	$1,540.76
1985	$404.00		1993	$949.46		2003	$1,107.56
1986	$556.26		1994	$983.90		2004	$919.84
1987	$708.19		1995	$990.30		2005	$845.76
1988	$826.93		1996	$1,130.68		2006	$1,106.96
1989	$873.16		1997	$1,296.54		2007	$1,654.00
			1998	$1,540.88		2008	$2,069.00
			1999	$1,769.84		2009	$1,305.00

[2008 = highest amount (Corrected, thanks Harpboy);  2011 dividend added]


Norway's oil based Fund, which began in 1998, is about $530 billion.

BTW, when did the Alaska Permanent Fund become a Sean Parnell initiative?  On the Governor's webiste, we see this spin:

Tomatillo

Getting fruits and vegies through Full Circle Farm means we get foods that we wouldn't normally buy.

Last week we got tomatillos.



From rain.org 

The tomatillo is of Mexican origin and is related to the husk tomato. It is an annual low growing, sprawling plant usually not more than 2 feet high. The tomatillo has small, sticky, tomato-like fruits enclosed in papery husks. They are 1 to 3 inches in diameter and green or purplish in color. . .

The tomatillo is an important vegetable crop in Mexico (11,000 ha) and is grown in small plantings in the warmer areas of California. Commercial cropping has been successful along the central and south coasts, as well as in the low deserts and the central valley. . .

Use. Tomatillo is widely used as a principal ingredient in green salsa, but also in soups and stews. It should be harvested in a developed but unripe stage. Quality criteria include the intensity of green color of the fruits and the freshness of the husk. Fruit which begins to yellow is of low culinary value.
Nutrition. The tomatillo is similar to the tomato in vitamin A, and second only to mushrooms in niacin. It also provides fair amounts of vitamin C. The fruits are high in ascorbic acid (36 mg/1,000 grams).

 J got a recipe out of her old 'the vegetarian epicure book two' by anna thomas:  enchiladas salsa verde.  The salsa part includes:

"Peel the dry skins off the tomatillos, wash them, and boil them in lightly salted water for 7 to 10 minutes, or until they are just soft.  Drain, purée them in a blender, and put them in a saucepan with the minced jalapeño peppers, 4 tablespoons of the chopped cilantro, the salt and 1/2 cup of the chopped onions.  Simmer the sauce gently for about 40 minutes."

It was really good.  There was a wonderful new taste.  

J modified the enchilada recipe.  You can see some of the green sauce on the tortilla.

Why I Live Here - Fall Walk On Beach - Plus a Bear, a Dog, Swans, Mud, and Fiber Optic Cable

In 30 years, my definition of a beach has stretched beyond sand and palm trees.  There's a spot of rocky beach and mudflats that we like on days with sun and no wind.  Today qualified.

Looking South Down Turnagain Arm

Looking North

First we stopped where cars were parked along the side of the road.  Not unusual when the Dall Sheep are around.  But the sheep we saw was black and looked a lot more like a bear. 

He's up there top, left of the middle.  Ignoring all the people and stopped cars below.  We went years and years seeing less than a handful of bears in the Anchorage area.  This was my fifth bear this summer in Anchorage.  (Anchorage stretches a long way south along Turnagain Arm.)

 

 

 

I made a self-portrait out of Turnagain mud and rocks.

One train went by headed north and another south while we were on the beach.  We walked  back on the tracks, which was a lot easier than the rocky beach.  We kept a close lookout for trains, but we didn't see another one until we were 15 minutes down the road in the car.

I found a long description of this cable line on a 2006 post at Diesel Generator:

"Fiber optics involves the transmission of laser signals along glass fibers at the speed of light. In the case of the ANC/WCIC cables from Whittier, communications equipment connected to the fibers enables signals to be transmitted at 10 billion bits per second. These 10 billion bits per second will encompass voice, data, and Internet traffic, at a rate equivalent to 128,000 simultaneous telephone calls.

"In some respects, the companies putting up the facilities are competitors. On one side of the railroad tracks on the upper side of town, a facility is being installed by General Communications, Inc. (GCI). GCI will service submarine cables laid to Valdez, Juneau and Seattle. WCI Cable, Inc. (WCICI), will operate submarine cables laid to Valdez, Juneau and 2000 miles on the North Pacific sea bottom to Portland and Seattle via a "landing site" at Tillamook, Oregon. . .

"Worldnet Communications, Inc. Alaska Fiber Star (AFS), WCI Cable, Inc., and Alaska Northstar Communications (ANC) are companion units in a family of communications companies that are owned by an Australian insurance and investment company, AMP Ltd.

An existing AFS "backbone" - terminology for the routing of a fiber optics system - emanates from Anchorage and runs to Fairbanks with ADMs (add/drop multiplexers) at Wasilla, Talkeetna, Cantwell, Healey, Clear, Nenana and Fairbanks. At these sites, traffic can be added to or dropped from the backbone system to provide communications access to local carriers. The fiber optic signals are also regenerated and passed on to the next site. Presently these stations are sited about every 60 miles.

From the Anchorage NOCC, the backbone runs south along the Alaska Railroad route to Whittier. A 100-mile submarine cable runs to Valdez.

 The friend enjoying the sun and sea with us said that WCI no longer exists.  While trying to check that out online, I found a 2002 Bankruptcy Court opinion (pdf) regarding the fee they paid for this cable to the Alaska Railroad:

"The WCI Group has installed, maintains and uses its fiber 26 optic cable between Anchorage and Eielson Air Force Base (the “Northern Route”) and between Anchorage and Whittier (the “Southern Route”) in Alaska pursuant to two “Transportation Corridor Permits”  (the “Permits”) with the Alaska Railroad Corporation, which owns the rights of way. Under the Permits, the fee for the WCI Group’s use of the Northern Route right of way is $150,220 per month, or a total of $1,802,640 per year, and the fee for the WCI Group’s use of the Southern Route right of way is $297,320 per year, payable in quarterly installments of $74,330. The WCI Group’s payment obligations under the Permits represent a heavy financial burden that the WCI Group would like to lessen."

But we weren't thinking about any of this as we walked.  Rather we were absorbed in all the colors.  Like this fireweed.

At the parking lot, I found an answer to a question in yesterday's post.  Yes, there is a dog.

This calm reflection of sky and fall colors at Potter Marsh belies all the cars and highway noise as people returning to Anchorage slowed down and stopped to watch the seven trumpeter swans getting ready to head further south for the winter.

2000 As Seen in 1910 And A Few Other Goodies

I offer you few examples of human imagination to remind you there's always a better - or at least different - approach.  (They all have images, though in respect to the creators of the images, I've limited my use of them severely and altered the ones I used.)


1.   How about a pocket garden?  Literally, a garden in an altoid tin?

2.   Get a quick nap in a sleepbox at the Moscow Airport.

Click to enlarge and read small text

3.   Then there's this great poster.    Click on the image to go to the original and read the all important small text. (The image info says it's from Motifake.com, but I can't seem to use the search there successfully.)

4.    If you've ever wondered what those initials stand for, you can find out at Mental Floss.

H.G. Wells
H.P. Lovecraft
J.D. Salinger

F. Scott Fitzgerald

J.K. Rowling

E.E. Cummings

W.B. Yeats
T.S. Eliot

P.G. Wodehouse

There are nine more.

5.  How about the year 2000 as envisioned in 1910?  Here's one of French artist Villemard's  visions - teleconferencing. 

See more the images with descriptions at Sad and Useless.

The Paris Traveler has posted some of these and others from the National Library in Paris.

Death of the Adversary

"The papers published in this volume were given to me some time after the war by a Dutch lawyer in Amersterdam."

So begins Death of the Adversary.

The narrator asks some questions but the Dutch lawyer is evasive.  We learn the papers are written in German. A page and a half later, we're reading the papers themselves.

"For days and weeks now I have thought of nothing but death.  Though I am normally a late riser, I get up early every morning now, calm and uplifted, after a night of dreamless sleep." 

I was having trouble at this point, but the book was supposed to be a masterpiece.  My mother had alerted me to an LA Times obituary of the author Hans Keilson who died this past June at age 101.   

"Hans Keilson was a newly minted physician in the mid-1930s when the persecution began. As a Jew in Hitler's Germany, he was stripped of the right to practice medicine. A writer, he soon lost that identity too: His autobiographical first novel was pulped soon after it was released because of a Nazi ban on Jewish writers.

"He fled to the Netherlands, where he wrote the beginnings of two more novels and buried the pages in his garden. After the war's end, in 1945, he dug them up and finished them. "Comedy in a Minor Key," a darkly humorous story set in Nazi-occupied Holland, was published in Germany in 1947, the same year as Anne Frank's diary. The second, more philosophical work, "The Death of the Adversary," earned enthusiastic reviews when it was published in America in 1962.

"That was the last that American audiences heard of Keilson — until last year. After five decades of literary obscurity, he landed on bestseller lists when both books were published again. It was a miracle of literary reclamation all the more remarkable because the long-forgotten author had lived long enough to witness his rediscovery."

Fortunately, Loussac had a copy.  The book is about a man whose life is dominated by his enemy whom he learns about overhearing his parents talking.

My enemy - I refer to him as B. - entered my life about twenty years ago.  At that time I had only a very vague idea of what it meant to be someone's enemy;  still less did I realize what it was to have an enemy.  One has to mature gradually towards one's enemy as towards one's best friend.

I frequently heard Father and Mother talk about this subject, mostly in the secretive, whispering voice of grown-ups who do not want the children to hear.  A new kind of intimacy informed their words.  They were talking in order to hide something.  But children quickly learn to divine the secrets and fears of their elders, and to grow up towards them.  My father said:




"If B. should ever come to power, may God have mercy on us.  Then things will start to happen."
My mother replied more quietly, "Who knows, perhaps everything will come out quite differently.  He's not all that important, yet."

This book mixes abstract ideas of the nature of 'the enemy' and the relationship between adversaries and very concrete detailed incidents as he grows up and learns more about the enemy.  He's excluded by classmates, he meets others with the same enemy,  he runs into the enemy in the flesh on two occasions. 

He never mentions Hitler or Jews by name.  It's all sort of vague.  It took a while for me, reading it, to figure out this was not some personal family adversary.

At the end, when the narrator is returning the papers to the Dutch lawyer who says,

"I received them from the author with the assurance that they contained not a single word that could endanger me, if I kept them."
"Did you believe him?"
"In the beginning, yes, but that was before I had read them.  Later I did read them."
"And then?"
"Then I buried them. . ."

What struck me throughout wes the wrestling of the narrator of the text (rather than the narrator of the intro) with his relationship with the adversary.  First it was understanding what it meant to have an adversary.  Then there was the denial of the serious impact the adversary would have on his life.  Here's an example of fellow victim of the adversary who feels he's being too complacent:

"At bottom you know as well as I where you belong, nor do I believe that you are rebelling against it.  That's not what worries you.  What you're after is something impossible:  you are trying to plaster up the crack that runs through this world, so that it becomes invisible;  then, perhaps, you'll think that it doesn't exist any more.  You are right in the centre of a happening and are trying to render an account of it to yourself, and at the same time to alter the situation so as to allow you to extricate yourself from it with a single leap and to look at it from the point of view of the man in the moon.  You're trying to look at something that concerns you as though it both concerned and did not concern you.  Am I right?"

Today we are all struggling with the adversary.  People are denying reality, trying to either maintain their life as it has always been, or trying to analyze it abstractly and objectively.  We do this with the crashing economy.  We do this with politics.   Some take things seriously and act.  Others carry on as though  things will just pass. Jews in Nazi Germany - the most scientifically and  technically advanced nation in the world at the time - responded in many different ways.  Some realized the danger and got out if they could.  Others thought it would pass and things would return to normal.    The book gives a very intense, and from what I can tell, pretty much contemporary account of the mental processes people struggled with. 

"Self-deception is the pleasantest form of lying.  It is a panacea for all personal ills and injuries, it can heal even metaphysical wounds.  The experience with my friend had been a hard blow, of course, [A good friend had declared his allegiance to the enemy and their friendship ended] but it had not brought me to my knees.  On the contrary.  This first and severe disappointment had strengthened me and prepared me for all the future ones.  I no longer confronted them unprepared.  Had my loss not brought me a gain, or was this the beginning of self-deception?"

I think this is an eternal dilemma.  How does one know when there is imminent and serious danger and when it's no big deal?  While Tea Party members seem to be certain they must act now, and ruthlessly, to prevent the US from collapse, so too there are those who see the Tea Party as being manipulated by rich conspirators who are the greatest threat to American democracy.

And in the land that Keilson wrote about there was a similar sort of dichotomy.  Many Germans were spellbound by Hitler's charisma and demonizing of Jews, Socialists, and others.  It wasn't till many people died - not just those who died in concentration camps, but also those who died on the battlefield - that the bubble burst and they recognized they had been deceived.  Though there were many who continued (continue) to believe in Hitler. 

Father Oleksa on Culture and Bagpiper Plays Alaska Flag Song

Talking about cross-cultural communication problems isn't easy.  No one does it more effectively than Alaska's Father Michael Oleksa.  With lots of stories about his own German-Russian background and his wife's Yupik background and his many stories of teaching around Alaksa, he uses humor and a lot of thoughtful insight to get audiences to see how embedded our own cultures are in our brains and that there are reasonable alternatives to what we've grown up believing was 'the correct way' in any number of situations.

[UPDATE 9pm - Whoops.  I forgot the photo of Father Oleksa.  Here it is.]

He spoke today at the Alaska Federal Executive Association's Civil Rights Committee had its Multi-Cultural celebration Wednesday at Loussac Library. 

There's no way I can convey all he said, but I can give his overview of culture.  If it makes sense - you should try to find an opportunity to hear him spell it all out.  If it doesn't make sense - you should try to find an opportunity to hear him spell it all out.

Basically, he offered three definitions of culture:

1. Your view of the world - your culture's stories about how the world works
2. Your 'ballgame' of life - every culture has rules about how to play the game of life.  He discussed the conflict between his mother's German and father's Russian sense of time.  One was strictly tied to the clock, the other was more flexibly related to the natural flow of things.
3. The story into which you were born - these are the family stories you grew up with, which slowly get added to over your life, not necessarily in any chronological order, and not necessarily told the same way by everyone.

He pointed out that most people aren't really aware of the first two.  We tend to know these things subconsciously.  Only the third one is something that people can articulate.  For that reason, he suggested that people from different cultures ask each other about their grandparents' stories as a way of starting to understand each other.

Father Oleksa's website lists his videos and writings and audio, but isn't clear about how to get hold of them.  Communicating across cultures [videorecording] / is available at Loussac Library.  I promise you the videos will be wonderful to play for your family. They are NOT dry and boring. You'll smile and you'll gain insight.

After Father Oleksa spoke, we heard an example of cross-cultural fusion - Dan Henderson of the Alaska Celtic Center played the Alaska Flag Song on his bagpipe.



I learned that bagpipes were brought to the British Isles by the Romans and were banned for 75 years after they were declared a weapon of war by the British.