“ I wasn’t born from a whistle
or milked from a thistle at twilight
No, I was all horns and thorns,
sprung out full-formed,
knock-kneed and upright. ”
Sawdust & Diamonds, Joanna Newsom (via smut-to-go)
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Little Sadie (Live)
Not the best sound quality, but I can only imagine how great this was live.
Beautiful poster by Martin Ansin for “Taming Light”, a group exhibition featuring painting, photography and illustration inspired by the films of Stanley Kubrick. I watched British documentarian Jon Ronson’s film Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes on my return flight from New York — it’s an obvious labour of love almost a decade in the making, and contains fascinating archival footage of the director at work. (via John Gruber)
Après le superbe trailer diffusé en mars dernier, voici la mise en ligne de cinq affiches présentant les personnages de Where the Wild Things Are. Le prochain film du réalisateur Spike Jonze sera une production Warner Bros, dans les salles le 16 octobre 2009.
A view of the city of Moscow in slow motion. Directed by Andrey Stvolinsky, and music by Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble.
Ojalá alguno de los profesores de esas asignaturas que amargaron mis años de estudiante las hubiera impartido con la décima parte de mano izquierda y encanto que tiene Xplanes contando historias de aviación. Esta sobre escuadrones femeninos de bombarderos rusos tampoco tiene precio. Hasta existe un cómic de Garth Ennis!
Night Witches
On June 22 1941, Germany commenced Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union. The resulting conflict is known by many names - The Eastern Front, the Russo-German War, the Axis-Soviet War to name a few - but scholars/historians tend to agree that it was the largest, bloodiest and most ferocious theatre of war in human history.
Marina Raskova, a famous aviatrix before the war, used her personal influence with Joseph Stalin to secure permission to form three all-female combat units. The most famous was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. They flew obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes (believed to be the second most produced aircraft in history), and flew night-time harassment bombing missions against enemy encampments. The Po-2 aircraft could only carry a couple of bombs each, so missions were mainly psychological in impact - the aircraft would cut their engines and glide over the targets, release their bombs, and hopefully vanish into the night (there are stories of enemy troops hearing singing as the silent aircraft passed overhead)
The German forces called them “Nachthexen” - Night Witches
The missions were endless and highly dangerous. The Witches would regularly fly in groups - each aircraft taking it in turn to act as a decoy against searchlights and flak. Losses to enemy nightfighters also took their toll. Many refused to wear parachutes, opting for a revolver instead..
By the end of the war, the Soviet women bomber pilots had earned 23 Hero of the Soviet Union medals and dozens of Orders of the Red Banner, flew more than 24,000 sorties and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. Most surviving pilots had racked up nearly 1,000 missions each.
(art above from the excellent but brutal “BATTLEFIELDS: Night Witches”, a 3-part comic mini-series by Garth Ennis and Russ Braun, released last year)
“ Come on a new journey with me, a journey only strangers can take, and we can remember it when we are ourselves again, and therefore never be merely ourselves again. ”
New York, I Love You is a 2009 romance film which will release in the United States on October 16, 2009. From the producer of Paris, je t’aime, it stars an ensemble cast, among them Shia LaBeouf, Natalie Portman, Hayden Christensen, Blake Lively, Orlando Bloom, Chris Cooper, Andy Garcia, Christina Ricci, Robin Wright Penn, Julie Christie and Ethan Hawke.
