William Horberg

Under The Sea

There are not too many bad films in the Criterion Collection of classic dvd's, but every once in a while they really out-do themselves by bringing to light some forgotten or obscure gem from a remote corner of the world of cinema.

In the case of the new release "Science is FICTION - 23 films by Jean Painleve", that remote corner is actually underwater, as this collection of documentaries by the Frenchman Painleve takes the camera up close and personal into the murky lives of Sea Horses, Urchins, Hyas, Jellyfish, Shrimp, Octopus and other denizens of the deep.

Here is a photo of Painleve with his boxy underwater camera device. You really feel like this guy embodied Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek credo to "boldly go where no man has gone before".

It is hard to describe the unusual beauty of his work. They're like classroom educational films, but as if shot by Jean Cocteau, with moody new musical scores written especially for some of the shorts by Yo Lo Tengo.

Painleve was a scientist, but he was also an artist with a highly developed aesthetic sense. The films defy any sort of easy genre categorization, which is why they come as such a welcome antidote today.

Check it out!

william

More Mad Science

From yesterday's infinitesimal view to today's infinite view.

I'm always amazed at how hard it is too keep things in perspective. 

How we walk around in our daily lives worried about the opening weekend box office of a film, or the price of a bottle of milk at Ralph's, or the recount of some contested ballots in Minnesota, when at this very moment, whole NEW PLANETS are being discovered in new solar systems in the outer reaches of our galaxy.

These are two views of the HR 9799 solar planetary system discovered recently.

Using high-contrast, near-infrared adaptive optics observations with the Keck and Gemini telescopes, the team of researchers from Livermore, the NRC Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics in Canada, Lowell Observatory, University of California Los Angeles, and several other institutions were able to see three orbiting planetary companions to HR8799.

That ought to help us keep things in perspective!!

Reminds me of one of my favorite monologues in one of my favorite films, Scott Corey's last speech in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" as he fades away into nothingness, as written by Richard Matheson:

"So close -- the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet, like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens ... the universe ... worlds beyond number ... God's silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of Man's own limited dimension. I had presumed upon Nature. That existence begins and ends is Man's conception, not Nature's. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away, and in their place came -- acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation -- it had to mean something. And then I meant something too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something too. To God, there is no zero. I STILL EXIST!"

Enjoy!

william

Mad Science

We spend so much of our waking hours preoccupied with ourselves and our perception of the external reality we live in - what we create for ourselves, and what we project onto that reality and on to others.

Take a few minutes then, and watch this amazing video I stumbled across which re-creates in minute detail life on the most interior level - the inside of our cells!

 Inner Life of A Cell

 

Tomorrow: More Mad Science

william