Solar Beats

Patrick Bokanowski's 2008 short film Battements Solaires or "Solar Beats."

Voyage to the Moon

A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells.

The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the moon's eye.

Jan Švankmajer

Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934 in Prague) is a Czech surrealist artist.He is known for his surreal animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Quay and many others.

Sukumar Ray

Sukumar Ray (1887-1923) was a Bengali humorous poet, story writer and playwright. His works such as the collection of poems "Ab, novella "HaJaBaRaLa" short story collection "Pagla Dashu" ("Crazy Dashu") and play "Chalachittachanchari" are considered masterpieces equal in stature to Alice in Wonderland, and are regarded as some of the greatest treasures of Bangla literature.

More than 80 years after his death, Ray remains one of the most popular of children's writers in both West Bengal and Bangladesh.

Thames tv

Thames Television was a licensee of the British ITV television network, covering London and parts of the surrounding counties on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until 31 December 1992. It was both a broadcaster and a producer of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and for networking nationally across the ITV regions.
Thames covered a broad spectrum of commercial public-service television, with a strong mix of drama, current affairs and comedy. The company's logo remains widely recognisable and was accompanied by a fanfare called "Salute To Thames", composed by Johnny Hawksworth.

rocky raccoon

Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota
There lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon
And one day his woman ran off with another guy
Hit young Rocky in the eye Rocky didn't like that
He said I'm gonna get that boy
So one day he walked into town
Booked himself a room in the local saloon.

Rocky Raccoon checked into his room
Only to find Gideon's bible
Rocky had come equipped with a gun
To shoot off the legs of his rival
His rival it seems had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy.
Her name was Magil and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy.
Now she and her man who called himself Dan
Were in the next room at the hoe down
Rocky burst in and grinning a grin
He said Danny boy this is a showdown
But Daniel was hot-he drew first and shot
And Rocky collapsed in the corner.

Now the doctor came in stinking of gin
And proceeded to lie on the table
He said Rocky you met your match
And Rocky said, Doc it's only a scratch
And I'll be better I'll be better doc as soon as I am able.

Now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room
Only to find Gideon's bible
A Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt
To help with good Rocky's revival.

Space 1999

Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television series. In the series, nuclear waste from Earth is stored on the moon. The waste explodes in a catastrophic accident on 13 September 1999, which knocks the moon out of its orbit and sends it and the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha hurtling uncontrollably into outer space. The series was the last produced by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, famous for the TV series Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Fireball XL5, and UFO.

powers of 10

"Powers of Ten" is a 1977 short documentary film written and directed by Ray Eames and her husband, Charles Eames. The film depicts the relative scale of the Universe in factors of ten. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 book Cosmic View by Kees Boeke, and more recently is the basis of a new book version. Both adaptations, film and book, follow the form of the Boeke original, adding color and photography to the black and white drawings employed by Boeke in his seminal work.

day is done

When the day is done
Down to earth then sinks the sun
Along with everything that was lost and won
When the day is done.

When the day is done
Hope so much your race will be all run
Then you find you jumped the gun
Have to go back where you began
When the day is done.

When the night is cold
Some get by but some get old
Just to show lifes not made of gold
When the night is cold.

When the bird has flown
Got no-one to call your own
Got no place to call your home
When the bird has flown.

When the games been fought
You speed the ball across the court
Lost much sooner than you would have thought
Now the games been fought.

When the partys through
Seems so very sad for you
Didnt do the things you meant to do
Now theres no time to start anew
Now the partys through.

rubaiyaas

Omar Khayyam ,(born 1048 AD, Neyshapur, Iran—1123 AD, Neyshapur, Iran), was a Persian polymath, mathematician, philosopher, astronomer and above all poet.

He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period. Recognised as the author of the most important treatise on algebra before modern times as reflected in his Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra giving a geometric method for solving cubic equations by intersecting a hyperbola with a circle. He also contributed to calendar reform and may have proposed a heliocentric theory well before Copernicus.

His significance as a philosopher and teacher, and his few remaining philosophical works, have not received the same attention as his scientific and poetic writings. Zamakhshari referred to him as “the philosopher of the world”. Many sources have also testified that he taught for decades the philosophy of Ibn Sina in Nishapur where Khayyam lived most of his life, breathed his last, and was buried and where his mausoleum remains today a masterpiece of Iranian architecture visited by many people every year.

Outside Iran and Persian speaking countries, Khayyam has had impact on literature and societies through translation and works of scholars. The greatest such impact was in English-speaking countries; the English scholar Thomas Hyde (1636–1703) was the first non-Persian to study him. However the most influential of all was Edward FitzGerald (1809–83) who made Khayyam the most famous poet of the East in the West through his celebrated translation and adaptations of Khayyam's rather small number of quatrains (rubaiyaas) in Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.


some rubaiyaas of Omar Khayyam:


The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes -- or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face
Lighting a little Hour or two -- is gone.




Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly -- and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing.



They say the Lion and the Lizard keep
The Courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep:
And Bahram, that great Hunter -- the Wild Ass
Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.



Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

Aelita

Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a silent film directed by Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov made on Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio and released in 1924. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's novel of the same name. Mikhail Zharov and Igor Ilyinsky were cast in leading roles.

Though the main focus of the story is the daily lives of a small group of people during the post-war Soviet Union, the enduring importance of the film comes from its early science fiction elements. It primarily tells of a young man where he leads a popular uprising against the king, with the support of Queen Aelita who has fallen in love with him after watching him through a telescope.

Probably the first full-length movie about space travel, the most notable part of the film remains its remarkable constructivist Martian sets and costumes designed by Aleksandra Ekster. Their influence can be seen in a number of later films, including the Flash Gordon serials and probably Fritz Lang's Metropolis. While very popular at first, the film later fell out of favor with the Soviet government and was thus very difficult to see until after the Cold War.

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bacK & white

and

Meetings With Remarkable Men

BOOK

Meetings with Remarkable Men is the second volume of the All and Everything trilogy written by the Greek-Armenian mystic G. I. Gurdjieff. A book of autobiography, it was originally published in 1963 and tells the tale of the young Gurdjieff growing up in a world torn between his unexplainable experiences and the developing modern sciences.

The book takes the form of Gurdjieff's reminiscences about various "remarkable men" that he has met, beginning with his father. They include the Armenian priest Pogossian; his friend Soloviev, Prince Lubovedsky, a Russian prince with metaphysical interests, and a couple of others.

In the course of describing these characters, Gurdjieff weaves their stories into the story of his own travels, and also into an overarching narrative which has them cooperate in locating spiritual texts and/or masters in various lands (mostly Central Asia). Gurdjieff calls this group the "Seekers of Truth".

Most of them do in fact find "truth" in the form of some suitable spiritual destiny. The underlying philosophy, especially as articulated in an appendix, amounts to the assertion that people generally live their lives asleep, are unconscious of themselves, and accordingly behave like machines, subject to outside causes and pressures. Also, one of the chief assessments of the novel is that the people of the past epochs lived in more suitable outer conditions and at higher inner levels than the people today.

FILM

Filmed in 1979 by Peter Brook. A classic spiritual movie of G.I. Gurdjieff struggles beginning with his childhood until his discovery of The Fourth Way, an ancient spiritual tradition that used sacred movements as meditation. The story in this film is based on Gudjieff's book with the same title, which is the second book of his trilogy: "All and Everything".

During his long career, director Peter Brook has conducted a wide range of theatrical experiments, pushing audiences and performers well beyond their typical experience of theater, in an effort to achieve not a temporary catharsis but a transcendent, transformative event. As the narrator of THE MAHABHARATA says, "If you listen carefully, at the end, you'll be somebody else."

This interest in transformation that has characterized the latter part of Brook's career continues with this adaptation of the autobiography of famed mystic G.I. Gurdjieff, which stars Dragan Maksimovic. Driven by a sense of unwavering dedication to unraveling the meaning of human existence, he journeys throughout the most unattainable areas of the East, encountering an array of Hindu fakirs, Buddhist monks, whirling dervishes, and gurus of every stripe.

In search of enlightenment, he climbs the Himalayas, walks across the desert on stilts, and uncovers evidence of an ancient order, guards of an arcane wisdom. Most fascinating, perhaps, is the form of dance he created as a form of meditation and later taught in the West. A film that may be best appreciated by those already familiar with the work of Gurdjieff, MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE MEN features spectacular photography and a highly evocative score, incorporating various indigenous musics.

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i saw you

The summer had inhaled and held its breath too long
The winter looked the same, as if it never had gone
And through an open window where no curtain hung
I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me
One begins to read between the pages of a look
The shape of sleepy music, and suddenly you're hooked
Through the rain upon the trees, that kisses on the run
I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me

You can't stay and live my way
Scatter my love like leaves in the wind
You always say you want to go away
But I know what it always has been, it always has been

A transparent dream beneath an occasional sigh
Most of the time I just let it go by
Now I wish it hadn't begun
I saw you, yes I saw you, comin' back to me

Strolling the hills overlooking the shore
I realize I've been here before
The shadow in the mist could have been anyone
I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me

Small things like reasons are put in a jar
Whatever happened to wishes wished on a star?
Was it just something that I made up for fun?
I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me

After all, it’s been seven years

Shuttle Lifts Off for Trip to Telescope

By DENNIS OVERBYE , THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 12, 2009

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Seven astronauts blasted off for one last dance with the Hubble Space Telescope on Monday.

The space shuttle Atlantis, commanded by Scott D. Altman, bolted through the sky on a pillar of smoke and fire just after 2 p.m. Monday. Atlantis is carrying 22,000 pounds of custom-designed tools, replacement parts and new instruments to slice and dice starlight as well as the hearts of scientists and stargazers everywhere. It is rushing toward a Wednesday rendezvous with the telescope, which happened to be floating about 350 miles directly above Cape Canaveral at launching time.

If all goes well, in five spacewalks starting Thursday morning, the crew members will revamp and refresh the telescope, which has dazzled the public and the science community with its iconic cosmic postcards. Then they will say goodbye on behalf of humanity forever. Sometime in the middle of the next decade, the Hubble will run out of juice, and it will eventually be crashed into the ocean.

Besides Commander Altman, the crew includes Gregory C. Johnson, as pilot, and John M. Grunsfeld, Michael J. Massimino, Michael T. Good, Andrew J. Fuestel and K. Megan McArthur, as mission specialists.

The Atlantis astronauts will spend Tuesday examining the shuttle with cameras looking for any dings or nicks or holes caused by flying debris during the launching. The shuttle Columbia was doomed in 2003 because a hunk of insulating foam broke off the external fuel tank and damaged the tiles that protected the spacecraft from the searing heat of re-entering the atmosphere.

The astronauts carry a tool kit for fixing small holes or cracks in the fragile tiles. If there is something they cannot fix, they will hunker down and await the shuttle Endeavour, which is sitting on another launching pad, ready to blast off with a four-man crew and retrieve the Atlantis astronauts from danger.

“The sad thing is if we get to orbit and see something bad and get waved off and don’t get to fix Hubble,” Dr. Grunsfeld said. “That would be the saddest.”

Among other things, Endeavour would have to bring a spacesuit for Commander Altman, who takes an extra-large that is not stocked on Atlantis. The two most experienced spacewalkers on Atlantis, Dr. Grunsfeld and Dr. Massimino, would then escort their shipmates along a rope to the Endeavour in a two-day dance of swapping spacesuits that would include a sleepover for Dr. Grunsfeld on the Endeavour.

Because of changes to the design of the fuel tank that make it less likely to sustain major damage during launching, the bigger risk this time around comes from micrometeoroids and space junk, which is more prevalent at Hubble’s altitude and orbit than at the lower space station. There is about a 1 in 229 chance of a catastrophic collision, so the astronauts will take another close look at their craft at the end of the mission.

The flight comes as NASA is once again at a crossroads. The agency lacks a permanent administrator; Christopher Scolese has been acting administrator since Michael D. Griffin stepped down in January, and the White House is said to have been having trouble finding a candidate who can pass various forms of muster.

The agency has begun laying off workers as part of the decision to retire the shuttles next year. Last week, President Obama ordered a review of the agency’s long-heralded plan to return humans to the Moon and of the Constellation spacecraft that are to succeed the shuttle.

So if it is the beginning of the last act for the Hubble, the flight Monday also marks the beginning of the end for the space shuttle, whose greatest legacy might very well be the role it played in the repair and maintenance of the Hubble, what Commander Altman recently called “an incredible example of how humans and machines can work together.”

Dr. Grunsfeld, who has earned the sobriquet of “Hubble repairman” for his previous exploits in space with the telescope, said: “The only reason Hubble works is because we have a space shuttle. And of all things we do, I think Hubble is probably the best thing we use it for.”

As Mario Livio, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute, put it, “It’s not just a telescope, it’s the people’s telescope.”

Atlantis is scheduled to rendezvous with the Hubble on Wednesday, latch it down in the shuttle cargo bay and take a good look at it with the robot arm and cameras. The engineers say they will not be surprised to find flapping insulation blankets or micrometeorite hits.

After all, it’s been seven years.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/05/01/science/space/20090505-Hubble.html

28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.

Donnie Darko, receives a disturbing vision that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds.With the help of various characters, including a 6 foot rabbit called Frank, he slowly discovers the mysterious physical and metaphysical laws that govern his life and that will lead up to the destruction of the universe.

p_atari

parts from article...Business Week, June 15, 1981 :

Atari's bet on home computers

Because the home computer still does not have much of a market-despite the initial wave of enthusiasm three years ago over its huge potential-nearly all of the personal computer makers are concentrating their development and marketing efforts, on where the action is: the business and professional customers who are responsible for U. S. microcomputer sales soaring ahead at more than a 40% clip this year. But Atari Inc. is absolutely committed to the consumer business, and despite the fact that it is almost alone in believing that now is the time to do it, the Warner Communications Inc. subsidiary is betting its future on the home computer and ignoring today's high-flying markets. A senior Warner executive admits that Atari seems to be ignoring the conventional wisdom, "but sometimes you've just got to go with your gut feeling," he says, "and home computers will be one of the most important consumer electronics products of the 1980s."

No threat. "Perhaps the market doesn't exist today, but we're prepared to make it happen," the Warner executive declares. Atari believes the market is about to explode for two reasons: To the man on the street, the computer is becoming so easy to use that it will no longer represent a technical threat, and enough software is finally becoming available to make the computer attractive for a variety of jobs in the home. Today's home computer market is definitely puny. Sales last year hit 52,000 units worth a mere $38 million. But the outlook for 1985 is a bullish one: 1.5 million computers worth $500 million in retail sales. By then the number of consumer computers sold will match the number of units sold in the commercial marketplace, predicts Roger H. Badertscher, president of Atari's Computer Div. To accomplish this crossover by that time, however, will take some "substantial improvements in software and prices," adds John V. Roach, president of Tandy Corp., one of the industry leaders with its Radio Shack line.
...

Small business market. Nevertheless, Badertscher is hoping that once his computers gain acceptance in the home, they will also find a niche in the very small business computer market where ease of operation is just as important as it is in the home. While he refuses to comment on Atari's plans to move in this direction, insiders say that Atari is currently holding discussions with mainframe and minicomputer manufacturers about teaming up. Atari would concentrate on consumer sales while its partner would go after the business customers. One entree to millions of American households, as far as Badertscher is concerned, is the educational market. He is making a concerted push for this business, which already accounts for 25% of Atari's computer sales. "It's important that kids be weaned on Atari , - Badertscher declares, since his strategy is that any children who use an Atari computer at school would then press their parents into buying one for the home. To get into the schools, Atari is offering a free, 30-day trial offer. "It's going to be hard for any school to give the computers back after the kids and teachers get 30 days to use them," says Stanley H. Goldman, a product marketing manager at Computerland Corp. His San Leandro (Calif.) company operates 166 retail computer stores that sell Atari machines. Atari has tried to make its computers simple enough so that almost anyone can use them. No programming experience is required; users just snap in a program cartridge and type two command words to operate the machine.
...

Software gap. But Atari still faces some major stumbling blocks in its move to open up the consumer market. For one thing, both Commodore Corp. and Radio Shack offer lower-priced machines. And the company cannot churn out software fast enough and has had to turn to independent software suppliers for help. Badertscher acknowledges that the computer will not become a mass consumer product until there are programs for everything from entertainment to home management, and that includes mundane tasks such as deciding which cosmetics to wear with which dress, and choosing the colors of carpets and drapes for the home. But there is an even more important role that the computer can play in the home that could help Atari and the other computer makers to open up this market. "Home information networks will make the home computer market explode," Badertscher says. He brashly predicts as a result that computers will be in 95% of the nation's 70 million homes by 1990. Atari is already getting important support from its $2 billion (in annual sales) parent. At the same time, Warner is counting on Atari's computer to unlock the demand for a whole range of Warner information products and services. The two companies already have joined forces with CompuServe Inc., a subsidiary Of H&R Block Inc., to test an interactive home information system. And subscribers to Warner's QUBE television service will be able to use an Atari computer to call up the latest news, stock market quotations, and information from other data banks, as well as services such as electronic mail and electronic shopping. But Atari and Warner have plenty of competition in this embryonic market. Apple Computer Inc. and Mattel Inc. are working on similar systems-and all computer makers will face stiff competition from TV set makers. The TV manufacturers plan to incorporate terminals in their equipment that can do the job of a computer in home information systems, according to Grant S. Bushee, an industry analyst with Dataquest Inc., the Cupertino (Calif.) market researcher. "It's going to be a battle," he acknowledges, "but Atari has an advantage, since it has shown it understands the home market." It is a battle that Warner is determined to win. "It's a critical part of its' long-term strategy for tying together its various cable, video, and entertainment operations, notes one industry executive close to the company. Both Atari and its parent are thus moving quickly into the home market even though such an early move could mean further short term losses. "We're in this for the next decade," asserts a Warner executive. "We're not in this for tomorrow."

more info... http://www.atarimuseum.com/

SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK

Theater director Caden Cotard is mounting a new play. His life catering to suburban blue-hairs at the local regional theater in Schenectady, New York is looking bleak. His wife Adele has left him to pursue her painting in Berlin, taking their young daughter Olive with her. His therapist, Madeleine Gravis, is better at plugging her best-seller than she is at counseling him. A new relationship with the alluringly candid Hazel has prematurely run aground. And a mysterious condition is systematically shutting down each of his autonomic functions, one by one. Worried about the transience of his life, he leaves his home behind. He gathers an ensemble cast into a warehouse in New York City, hoping to create a work of brutal honesty. He directs them in a celebration of the mundane, instructing each to live out their constructed lives in a growing mockup of the city outside. Somewhere in Berlin, his daughter is growing up under the questionable guidance of Adele's friend, Maria. His lingering attachments to both Adele and Hazel are causing him to helplessly drive his new marriage to actress Claire into the ground. Sammy and Tammy, the actors hired to play Caden and Hazel, are making it difficult for the real Caden to revive his relationship with the real Hazel. The textured tangle of real and theatrical relationships blurs the line between the world of the play and that of Caden's own deteriorating reality. The years rapidly fold into each other, and Caden buries himself deeper into his masterpiece. As he pushes the limits of his relationships, both personally and professionally, a change in creative direction arrives in Millicent Weems, a celebrated theater actress who may offer Caden the break he needs.