Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lists. Show all posts

17.6.19

According to the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man (from 2002) Smart High School Students from Queens Study at the 42nd Street Library

The 42nd Street Library (The Stephen A. Schwartzman Building)
If you live in New York City, everyone knows the 42nd Street Library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. The building (flanked by its two iconic lions - Patience and Fortitude) represents the city's public library system - even though the site is not a branch library (it's a humanities research library) and the city hosts three public library systems. The building is also embedded in the medium of American popular culture - everything from Ghostbusters, Sex and the City to Day After Tomorrow and Breakfast at Tiffany's have featured the library. So considering Spider-Man is New York city's own superhero - he's a teen from Queens, after all - it's fitting that the 2002 original Spider-Man movie starring Tobey Maguire would feature this iconic spot.

Uncle Ben's Famous Speech: "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"
Peter Parker needs to study, so Uncle Ben drives him from their home in Forest Hills in his massive gas-guzzling Cadillac to the front steps of the library. It's there that he gives his famous speech: "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility." Besides being a motivational speech given by a surrogate father to his maturing son, the address serves as foreshadowing to what's to come. Uncle Ben dies in a shoot-out caused by the trigger-happy actions of a thief (whom Peter Parker was unable to capture). Peter feels directly responsible for his Uncle's death - and it is his death that propels the Spider-Man story forward.


Do Kids from Queens Use the 42nd Street Library to Study?
How many kids from Queens go to the 42nd Street library to study? I am a teacher in Queens, so I really want to know. My experience is that Queens' kids stick to their neighborhoods - be it Jackson Heights or Forrest Hills. So I guess it shows that Peter Parker is an outlier - he chooses to expand his horizons. In reality, if you live in Queens, you are more than likely to use the Queens Public Library - which is actually a separate entity from the New York Public Library - but I digress.

Great Places to Study if You Want to Do a Peter Parker and Get Out of Bed
If you really want a quiet place to study but you don't have Uncle Ben's wheels to take you to Manhattan here are a few of my favorite places to explore in Queens:
  • Forest Hills Branch, Elmhurst Branch, and Jackson Heights Branch of the Queens Public Library - these are just three of my favorite branches in the Queens system.
  • Museum of the Moving Image - If the weather is beautiful - and you don't mind paying the entrance fee (15 for adults 11 for students and 9 for kids) - the outside patio is a comfortable place to study and read.
  • If you are looking for a sweet spot in Jackson Heights try Espresso 77 - but be warned you cannot use a laptop on weekends - and on weekdays laptop people are relegated to a particular table.
  • The J, Z, F, M, R, E, G, and 7 trains of the New York City Subway all go into Queens - so grab a metro card and sit, ride, and read (not recommended for very prolonged periods).

8.6.19

Bathroom List: There Ain't No Place to Pee in New York City (Unless You Know a Few Spots)

It's a common occurrence. You have to pee. And you're in the city. You probably don't want to risk peeing in an alley or behind a tree (although I must admit I have been forced to do that). New York City, unfortunately, has very few public places to relieve oneself. When nature calls, what are you going to do?
Photo by Nik Shuliahin on Unsplash


19.2.18

Who is Your Favorite U.S. President?

Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite U.S. president. Why?
Theodore Roosevelt, January 8, 1907, Cove Neck, Long Island, New York 
1. I loved reading The Alienist by Caleb Carr - which is when I learned that Teddy Roosevelt was Police Commissioner in New York City from 1895 to 1897. I know. Just because I read about him in a fictional novel really should not count towards his prowess as president. But. Hey. Everything I ever learned has come from reading fiction.

2. His house in Gramercy is sick. He was born there in 1858. It is now a National Park! I went there once and the National Park Ranger fellow told me how Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt.

3. The dude survived an assassination attempt. He was reading a speech in Milwaukee and was shot. The papers he had stuffed into his breast pocket saved his life - cuz they partially blocked the path of the bullet.

4. Oh. About his service as President. How good of a president was he? I know he expanded the National Park Service. :-)

5. He was somehow indirectly connected to the creation/ marketing/rise in popularity of the Teddy Bear.

6. He was the most boyish president.
Theodore Roosevelt, Age 11, Taken in Paris, France circa 1870
7. And he was a New Yorker. The first President born and raised in the Empire State.

Happy President's Day! Who is your favorite president and why?

30.3.11

If You Try To Contact Me On My Website I May Just Respond (See Below For Details)

"Starry Night" gets more views than Stones of Erasmus.
But Who's Counting. Google check your algorithm.
Yes, if you e-mail me at the stonesoferasmus 
domain I will try to write back: unless your e-mail meets the following conditions:
1. spam. yuck. i don't eat the stuff
2. if you know me and just want to say, "hey"
3. hate mail. no one sends me hate mail to my other addresses, so why here? prolly won't happen
4. queries about hooking up (use another site)
5. homework help
6. queries to proofread (argghhh)
Although, I will respond most expeditiously to the following messages:
1. corrections. i like to be corrected on factual stuff. i'm no wikipedia
2. suggestions
3. rants
4. raves
5. ways you used my content
6. blah blah

25.10.10

Philosophers and Their Buzzwords: A Primer on Metaphysics


A Table of Western Philosophers and Their Metaphysical Systems


Philosopher
Buzzword
ThalesArche (Latin for "first principle")
HeraclitusBecoming
ParmenidesThe One
SocratesDialectic
PlatoThe Forms
Aristotlebeing qua being
Thomas AquinasGod as Being
DescartesThe Cogito (Latin for "I think")
SpinozaGod as Causa Sui
LeibnizMonads
HumeExperience
KantThe Transcendental
HegelAbsolute Spirit
NietzscheWill-to-Power
KierkegaardRelation
MarxCapital
FreudEgo
HeideggerDasein (Literally in Germain, "being-there")
SartreExistence precedes essence
LacanSymbolic
FoucaultPower
DerridaDifférance (with an “a”)
BatailleEros
DeleuzeFlow
BaudrillardSimulacrum
DesmondThe Metaxu (The Between)
ButlerInscribed Body
ŽižekIdeology

PDF version for printing

image credit: Society Of Metaphysical Advancement

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21.10.10

5 Provocative Texts for the Precocious Adolescent Reader

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Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
The novel tells the story of Humbert Humbert, Lolita, the girl he travels the country with, and the mysterious Quilty, a man who is on their trail. Or is he? The piece reads in three parts. One part paean to language, two parts mystery, and three parts obsession. I suggest reading the novel with The Annotated Lolita: Revised and Updated at your side. You’ll need it to look up odd flower names, arcane historical references, linguistic puzzles, and Lepidoptera. Good luck.

When I read it I was a junior in college on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. What can I say? I love to mix the sacred with the profane. Lolita is the best book to read to help one overcome adolescence, so you may want to save it for last, but it is the best book of the lot. So, I place it first.

19.3.10

Libraries and Librarians in Film

EW did a thing on 18 movies with libraries, but I thought I'd add to the mix with just 3:
Citizen Kane
The Library Matron
The librarian grants access to a journalist to read the diary of Charles Foster Kane's guardian William Thatcher.
Citizen Kane (1941)
William Thatcher's diary in the famous Citizen Kane library scene
A stern-looking librarian leads a reporter into a cell containing a diary by Charles Foster Kane's guardian William Thatcher that may give him leads to the infamous newspaper magnate's sudden death. The journalist in the film plays the part of the dogged researcher who seeks out every possible avenue to sort out why did Kane spout out before he died, "Rosebud." He arrives at a fortress (or what appears to be a prison) that turns out to be an imposing archive. Granting permission to the journalist to peruse Thatcher's diary, The librarian tells him he can only read pages 83-142 and that he must leave the library premise by 4:40 sharp. I watched Citizen Kane for the first time with a librarian and she was quick to point out how librarians are erroneously depicted in popular culture as stern "guardians of the stacks." The mantra, it seems, is "the book shan't leave my sight!" I chuckle because the Kane library scene is sometimes true. I knew a librarian who went to the grocery store one afternoon and saw a patron in line and instead of telling her hello demanded to know why she had not turned in her overdue library book. True story. Anyway, I still consider this scene the quintessential library scene in film history even though it stereotypes librarians as "sole proprietors" of knowledge, I still love it. I think I was mesmerized by Greg Toland's brilliant cinematography: the way the light shines from above, illuminating the manuscript on the spare table, the way the camera makes you feel trapped inside the library walls, chained to nothing but a book. Then the camera focuses on a page in Thatcher's diary, I first encountered Mr. Kane in 1871." The book morphs into a flashback scene of little Charlie Kane playing in the snow with his sled. It's a stark effective scene as well as a metaphor for the increasing mystery of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane's mysterious life.


Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
The Library Know-it-All
Obi-Wan Kenobi scours the library databases in the Jedi library but to no avail.

Obi-Wan is surprised that not even the library has it!  
Obi-Wan Kenobi goes to the library to look for a planet in the star database in the Jedi Archives.  Obi-Wan has the right information but cannot find the planet. The librarian insists the planet does not exist because it does not appear in the star charts where it is supposed to be located. If it is not in the database, then it does not exist, the librarian remarks. Coincidentally, I was with the same librarian I saw Citizen Kane with when I saw this movie and she pointed this out to me with the same chagrin on her face as she did when she pointed out the Kane librarian trope. The Star Wars librarian is another variation of the Kane librarian: not only does the knowledge not appear in the record, if the knowledge is not in the record then it does not exist. So, does that mean if I do not have a birth certificate I do not exist? I become a tad bit nervous when librarians began messing with my existential priorities. The flip slide is the student researching a term paper: "I cannot find anything on my topic." It doesn't exist? Even Obi-Wan knows that; in case you were wondering, it was the Sith who smudged the planet from the star charts to hide their nefarious plans to create a clone army. So it just goes to show you, if it is not in the database, and it is supposed to be there, someone bad took it out, like a Sith Lord.    

Ghostbusters
The Library Catalog Haunted by a Ghost

I ain't afraid of no ghosts
The Ghostbusters stumble upon a ghostly specter in the stacks.
 If you thought an archive powered by the Force was cool, what about a card catalog haunted by a slimy ghoul? Ghostbusters has a fun opening sequence that features none other than the famous New York Public Library (although the interior shots were filmed in a library in California). I like the part when the green slime emits from the card catalog. Priceless shot!

EXTRA! EXTRA! See my post on the library scene in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

7.1.10

Top Ten Movies in Black and White Made After the Invention of Color Film


1. Wizard of Oz (1939)
Oz is meant to be in dazzling techno-color, right? What is Glinda in black and white but a dried out witch?  As a kid I loved the surprise transition from black and white to color, dazzled by the transition from black and white of Kansas to the sparkling color of the Munchkin village. But, the black and white scenes give us the film's original avatars of the scarecrow, the tin woodsman, the cowardly lion and the wicked witch of the west as shadows of Dorothy's unconscious. Wait! Does that mean the black and white world is the dream and Oz is the reality? Ah hah. I think I've stumbled upon something here. And, don't forget, Dorothy's rendition of "Somewhere, Over the Rainbow" is sung in glorious black and white, not color.

2. Schindler's List (1993) 
Image result for schindler's list
A film about the holocaust filmed in black and white seems to suggest that black and white only represents the darkest, most insidious side of human nature, but Steven Spielberg is blithe to contend that even a bit of color can intrude in the darkest moments of human history. Interspersed within the panoply of dark and shadow granulation, a colored spectacle of a fated Jewish girl appears on film. The colored vision Schindler sees is supposed to represent his epiphany - the error of the Aryan solution. Schindler sees her carted off by the Nazis; her colored body adrift among a sea of gray. The absence of color represents everything stark. Everything Gestapo soldiers are not but the color of the little girl is: life, innocence, hope.

3. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Although technically not a black and white film, this World War II flick reaches the limit of color while still retaining color status. I think it is the only color film that I still remember in black and white. The director and his color expert drained most of the color out of the scenes to give the film a grainy, realistic look, as if the viewer is right there with the soldiers on Omaha beach. It is a gritty film. I cannot say there is a better film in color that mimics the mise-en-scene of black and white any better than this one. A must-see.

4. Psycho (1960)
OK. Now when you thought I'd pepper this blog with only seemingly black and white films, I have finally added a true black and white film. Albeit, the shower scene was filmed with chocolate syrup, I still think the horror of this film is aptly felt. When I show the shower clip in the classroom as an example of the horror genre, the students laugh at the low-tech - but they fail to realize the beauty of the of the edit, the visual deletion of the knife hitting skin. I recently watched Gus Van Sant's loving reproduction of Psycho in full color and still remain partial to the original black and white piece. I think it has to do with the fact that Hitchcock is plain brilliant and Van Sant, although brilliant (recently watched his original genius, Mala Noche, and loved it) does not pull off even in reproduction what Hitchcock was able to do with sheer invention.

5. Raging Bull (1980)
Again going on the metaphor of blood - there is something about seeing blood stream from a boxer's body in the rink that fares better in black and white than it does in color. Scorcese's film is a mixture of color and black and white. I think the reason Scorcese chose this montage was to exacerbate the underlying theme of the film: the vacillation of the alcoholic rage, going from prickly tenderness, as the familial scenes in the kitchen, to the parallel between domestic violence and the grueling games of the rink. I would say this film is almost too perfect to be filmed totally in color. In the discombobulated form of color and gray  


6. Wings of Desire (1987)
If Woody Allen's films form a poetic paen to New York, then Wim Wender's orgiastic love song to war-blown Berlin is equally beauteous. I may be biased because I love the library scene in this film - and library books shine better in sepia tones anyway - a book does not need Technicolor. This film about angels entertaining us unaware is half a dirge and half a love song to humanity. I loved it. One thing about black and white - and sounds cliché but I will say it anyway - black and white cinematography, if done well, brings out the humanity of the human face (as an allusion to Emmanuel Levinas, somewhere).

7. The Seventh Seal (1957)
The black and white image of the Virgin with Child apparition coupled with the dance of death is beauteously rendered in black and white in this entirely diaphanous film. For a film about death, the beauty of a stark, rocky beach - a crusader and the personage of death - is painted in miraculous poetic tones. Of all the films I have ever seen, this film stands out as a gem of cinematic technique.
 


8.  Manhattan (1979)
So, Woody Allen is a neurotic who cannot keep stuffing sunshine up his you-know-what, I still love this beautiful take on romance and cityscape. And yes, the plot is basically the same as all of Woody's films: an older neurotic cannot keep the young girls from falling all over him - but I have to say, of all the directors in this list, Allen has the unequivocal ability to make cinematic love to his city. What I like about Manhattan more than the dysfunctional romance is the paint brush swathed over a canvas. New York is a commonly filmed town, but Woody Allen's films make New York a character.

9. Europa (1991)
Lars Von Trier's eerie look at post-war France is both a Hitchcockian mystery, Cagney-esqe train thriller and existential romp that will leave you scratching your head. There must be something about existential movies (see the Seventh Seal) that seem to fare so much better in black and white than they do in color. Color is too happy (see Pleasantville) or is reality too much like Kansas (see Wizard of Oz). The distinction between color as freedom and black and white as fascism (and the race against time) seem to be the predominant themes in this little treat of a film from everyone's favorite Dogme hero. I think the prize goes to Europa for the last scene. I cannot image the death any other way than in water and in black and white. Water, trains, floating bodies - black and white for sure!


10. Pleasantville (1998)
Just as the Wizard of Oz begins with a dream and enters dream reality, Pleasantville begins with an illusion and enters a satirical nightmare. Playing on the conventions of boring 1950s black and white television that needs some color, the film playfully looks at the land of Oz from a completely sardonic point of view. I thought the movie deserved a place in this list because it is perhaps the only film I am aware of that is so meta-aware of itself as a black and white film poking fun at black and white films.