365 – Magnolia (1999)

spacetime coordinates: 1999 San Fernando Valley

Magnolia is a 1999 American ensemble drama film written, co-produced and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.  The film is a mosaic of interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.

Themes

The film has an underlying theme of unexplained events, taken from the 1920s and 1930s works of Charles Fort. Fortean author Loren Coleman‘s 2001 book “Mysterious America: The Revised Edition” includes a chapter entitled “The Teleporting Animals and Magnolia“, addressing the film. The chapter discusses how one of Fort’s books is visible on the table in the library and the film’s end credit thanking Charles Fort.

Further information: Raining animals

wiki       imdb

363

We slip into Tientai caves,
Home is a hole,
And a hole’s where nothing is.
We visit people unseen —
Chewing magic mushrooms,
Underneath tall pines.
We talk about the past and present,
And sigh at the world gone mad.

Shih Te (9th century)

348 – Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“attentiveness alone can rival the most powerful magnifying lens.”

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Living at the limits of our ordinary perception, mosses are a common but largely unnoticed element of the natural world. “Gathering Moss” is a beautifully written mix of science and personal reflection that invites readers to explore and learn from the elegantly simple lives of mosses.

In this series of linked personal essays, Robin Kimmerer leads general readers and scientists alike to an understanding of how mosses live and how their lives are intertwined with the lives of countless other beings. Kimmerer explains the biology of mosses clearly and artfully, while at the same time reflecting on what these fascinating organisms have to teach us.

Drawing on her experiences as a scientist, a mother, and a Native American, Kimmerer explains the stories of mosses in scientific terms as well as in the framework of indigenous ways of knowing. In her book, the natural history and cultural relationships of mosses become a powerful metaphor for ways of living in the world.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/87040.Gathering_Moss

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“the tiny pool of water held in a spoon-shaped leaf is the perfect resting place for a waterbear, as plump and gelatinous as a candy gummy bear. the moisture in a moss mat is as vital to the moss as it is to the waterbear. but, since mosses are non-vascular, their water content fluctuates with the amount of water in the environment. the moss leaves shrivel and contort as water evaporates, leaving them crisp and dry. the waterbears too, simply shrink when desiccated to as little as one-eight of their size forming barrel- shaped miniatures of themselves called tuns. metabolism is reduced to near zero and the tun can survive in this state for years. the tuns blow around in the dry winds like specks of dust, landing on new clumps of moss and dispersing farther than their short waterbear legs could ever carry them.”

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_body 

Timeline –  Bog Bodies on youtube

4000 Year Old Cold Case – The Body in the Bog 

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Carved idol from the Urals shatters expert views on birth of ritual art – “Only the freak conditions of the peat bog of Yekaterinburg permitted the idol’s survival.” read more

The oldest wooden statue in the world -4-must credit Ekaterina Osintseva-The Siberian Times,queries Will Stewart 007 985 998 94 00.jpg

346 – Dunkirk (2017)

spacetime coordinates: 1940 France

Dunkirk is a 2017 war film written, directed, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.  The film is a British, American, French, and Dutch co-production, and was distributed by Warner Bros..

Dunkirk portrays the evacuation from three perspectives: land, sea, and air. It has little dialogue: Nolan sought to create suspense instead from cinematography and music.

Dunkirk has extensive practical effects, and employed thousands of extras as well as boats that participated in the evacuation, and period aeroplanes.

The film received praise for its generally realistic representation of the historical evacuation. It accurately depicts a few Royal Air Force planes dogfighting the Luftwaffe over the sea, limited to one hour of operation by their fuel capacity. In 1940, destroyers and fighter planes were indeed held back from battle, as the Royal Navy and Air Force would have been the sole defenders against invasion. Also praised were accurate depictions of how a small boat attempted to evade aerial attack, and how soldiers returning to England saw a civilian population largely unaware of or unaffected by the war. British officers did initially refuse to evacuate French soldiers, although Churchill later insisted that the French be evacuated alongside the British. The overall realism of the film was acknowledged by surviving Dunkirk veterans, although Branagh said that some thought it “was louder than the battle” (read more: Historical accuracy)

*by_jwolforange13

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5013056/

342

“Better never means better for everyone… It always means worse, for some.”

― Margaret Atwood

337

“The ancillary promise is that, through green consumerism, we can reconcile perpetual growth with planetary survival. But a series of research papers reveal there is no significant difference between the ecological footprints of people who care and people who don’t. One recent article, published in the journal Environment and Behaviour, says those who identify themselves as conscious consumers use more energy and carbon than those who do not.”  Too right it’s Black Friday: our relentless consumption is trashing the planet   –    George Monbiot

334

“Cinderella’s transformation from “slutty maid” to “virtuous princess,” accomplished by the fairy godmother, was in part an exercise in fashion design. Perrault wanted to display what superior people should wear and how they should carry themselves.” Jack Zipes – Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion