the pod bay door

:: I’ve been meaning for some time to make mention of two reviews I wrote recently for Blogcritics.com. Both reviews have Stanley Kubrick as their subject.

The first book is Moonwatcher’s Memoir: A Diary of 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Dan Richter, the actor and mime who played Moonwatcher in the movie. What was special for me was that I e-mailed the review to Dan, who in turn e-mailed me back with a few comments, as well as permission to add to the review his notes about how the voices were recorded for the 18-minute Dawn of Man sequence, which opens the movie. The review is here.

The second book is Stanley Kubrick: A Life In Pictures, a gorgeous coffee-table book, assembled with much love and care by his wife, Christiane. I borrowed the book from another library in the country, and spent two weeks examining it in detail. If you are a Kubrick fan, it is a book that belongs in your library. The review is here.

:: Despite the recent ruling that P2P file swapping of music is legal in Canada, the Canadian Recording Industry Association is preparing its own round of lawsuits to be filed against individual Canada-based file swappers.

:: Weighing in at 59 kg/113 pounds, and measuring 5 feet high and almost 7 feet long, Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Himalayan Kingdom, a 114-page picture book about the country of Bhutan, won’t be fitting on any standard library shelves in the near future. The brainchild of MIT Computer Scientist Michael Hawley, 500 copies are being printed, to be sold at $10,000US each, with profits after cost going to tax-deductible Bhutan-related educational causes. The book evolved from four trips to Bhutan with a few MIT students. Photos from those four trips are available on this page: http://ark.media.mit.edu/.

This article from MIT News shows a copy of the book opened, with one of the subjects of the book standing at one end. More coverage in the NYTimes (free registration required.)

:: The NY Film Critics Circle has named Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King as Best Picture of 2003. The complete list of winners is here. (The Associated Press, btw, reported this incorrectly.) The NYFCC gave Best Director to Sofia Coppola, for Lost in Translation. (Coppola and her husband, Spike (Adam Spiegel) Jonze, are divorcing.)

Meanwhile, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle reversed those two awards: they named Lost in Translation as Best Picture, but gave Best Director to Peter Jackson for LOTR: TROTK. When will the LAFCA announce their winners?

:: The Copyright Board of Canada ruled on Friday that downloading peer-to-peer music files is legal, although uploading them is illegal. More information is available under “Private Copying 2003-2004“, on the Canadian Copyright Board web site.

:: I wonder when I will learn that agonizing about money is a complete and utter waste of energy.

In November, I was driving in the parking lot of an abandoned mall, near my home. The only other car in the vicinity was approaching from the opposite direction on the same road. I realized too late that this car and I would arrive at the corner of this mall road at the same moment. It had snowed considerably the day before, and while the other car passed me at that corner without a problem, I couldn’t slow down enough to negotiate my left turn, and my car slid on an icy patch, into the curb. I knew immediately that I had a problem. When I drove on, I could feel the car leaning to the left. Back on the main streets, the steering wheel started to shake at 80+ kmh.

The car was in today for an oil change, and I reported the problem described above. I soon learned that the right front rim was bent. To replace it meant also replacing the front wheel bearing and necessary seals on the right side. Final damage: $491 and change. I also learned that the rotor run-out wasn’t damaged, which would’ve added another $200+ to this experience.

Party On!