The Useful/Useless Info Thread

[vokazu]

Member group claims Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club spent $800,000 on wagyu beef​

ByCarla Jaeger​

April 19, 2024 — 3.45pm


A group agitating for change at the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club has claimed the club spent $800,000 on wagyu beef in a financial year when the club reported a $2.4 million loss from its hospitality operations.
The allegation is one of several claims made by the Kooyong for Members group in a letter sent to fellow members on Monday and obtained by this masthead.

The Kooyong for Members group claims the tennis club spent $800,000 on wagyu beef.CREDIT:JAMIE BROWN

The money was allegedly spent on wagyu beef, an expensive variety of meat from Japanese cattle, in the same year the board called in auditors to investigate a blowout in its dining operations.

The group, comprised of influential Kooyong members including corporate finance expert Fiona Hansen and investment banker Enrique Klix, says the claims in the letter are based on information shared by the Kooyong board in meetings to discuss member grievances, including concerns about the club’s handling of its recent financial saga. This masthead makes no suggestion regarding the correctness or otherwise of the letter’s claims.

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”The board also shared the findings that: i) the club paid in the order of $800,000 for wagyu beef in the 2023 financial year [August 2022-July 2023] and; ii) at one stage the club was employing 21 chefs,” the Kooyong for Members letter states.

This masthead has seen evidence that this was raised at a meeting between the members’ group and the board.

The apparent big spend on beef came in the 2023 financial year when the food and beverage section of the accounts revealed a near doubling of total expenses to $10.96 million.

The accounts show a 155 per cent increase in food costs to $4.18 million.

Comparatively, food revenue increased by 43 per cent to $6.29 million. Staff costs jumped 77 per cent to $2.5 million.

The Kooyong for Members group also claimed in the letter that the losses continued beyond the 2022-23 financial year, and that the hospitality business had posted a loss of $533,000 for the first quarter of the 2024 financial year, which covers the period from August to October 2023.

Kooyong president Darren O’Loughlin did not respond to calls or text messages sent by this masthead regarding the claims outlined in the group’s letter, including a request to expand on information the board shared about the club’s spending.

However, O’Loughlin on Thursday sent a detailed letter to Kooyong members in which he said the board had recognised the need for “substantial change and improvement in the operational aspects of the business”.

“Since being advised in September 2023 of the extent of the financial loss, the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club Board has had to confront the fact that not all the necessary checks and balances were in place to promptly identify inadequate financial management practices,” O’Loughlin said in his letter.

He added that “every part of the Club’s operations is being meticulously reviewed”, and addressed the members’ claim of a $533,000 loss in August-October last year.

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/ten...-club-s-missing-millions-20240207-p5f35y.html

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Questions remain after Kooyong report finds no evidence of criminal activity over missing millions​

“The rectification work to correct the issues causing the losses began in October, however it took the first half of October for results to be achieved,” O’Loughlin said in his letter.

“Since November, the food and beverage area’s financial performance has significantly improved month on month with March returning to historical levels of profitability ... The forecast for the overall Club financial performance for the 2024 financial year is a return to profitability.”
The Kooyong for Members group was formed by Melbourne business leaders, who are also Kooyong members, in response to the club’s handling of the $2.4 million loss. The hospitality arm of the club had previously operated at a profit, bringing in between $300,000 and $600,000 from 2018 to 2022.

Accounting giant Grant Thornton found that poor financial management and reporting were to blame for the multimillion-dollar loss.

A feud between members and the club grew as auditors investigated the missing millions.CREDIT:GETTY IMAGES

The Kooyong for Members group believes the review did not go far enough, calling for a forensic investigation into the whole club’s accounts.

The board has not released the Grant Thornton report, claiming it is commercial in confidence, but on Thursday provided members with an overview of its findings and a progress report on each recommendation.

A member forum is scheduled for April 29, at which members are expected to be given more detail about the findings of the Grant Thornton review, and to have the opportunity to ask questions.

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Melbourne business elite take aim at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club board​

Demand for the member forum is so high that the club has had to expand the venue. It will stream the event for those who miss out on a seat.

The Kooyong for Members group, which refused to comment further on their letter when contacted by this masthead, has previously told members it has lost confidence in the board and is seeking a change in leadership.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

The surprising power of pomp and ceremony​

Dimitris Xygalatas 1st May 2023

Excerpts:

Collective ceremonies act as social glue. They brandish symbolic markers of group membership and coordinate people's appearances, actions, and emotions. By doing so, they create feelings of unity that can transform individuals into communities. Research shows that when people participate in group rituals, their heart rates synchronise, and this helps them feel more bonded. This effect extends not only to the people performing the ritual action, but to the entire community watching it.

State rituals in particular serve to extend this sense of unity to entire nations. This is necessary, because nations are not real: their members are not bound by any inherent similarities – only by their collective imagination. To survive, they must constantly renew their figurative existence through myths, symbols, and rituals.

The idea of continuity is still paramount. To uphold an unbroken tradition is to become a member of a community that transcends one's own time and place, along with countess others who have done so before and will do so in the future.

Repetition brings conviction, and etiquette adds a sense of importance. Indeed, studies show that ritualised actions are perceived to be more special than ordinary ones. Most state rituals, however, can be rather humdrum, and so their effects are fleeting. On occasion, the social glue needs to be reinforced through the use of additional ingredients.

The glamour and theatricality of royal ceremonies gives them an aura of epochal significance. They involve explosions of light, colour, music, and pageantry. All this fanfare activates psychological processes related to how we appraise our world. When we attend a ritual loaded with magnificence, our brain is telling us that something momentous is happening. This is why, across the globe, ceremonies honouring monarchs are far more flamboyant than those addressing their democratically elected counterparts.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230428-the-surprising-power-of-pomp-and-ceremony

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Great PR for L.A. Phil and classical music!

Concertgoer lets out a ‘loud full body orgasm’ while L.A. Phil plays Tchaikovsky’s 5th​

Walt Disney Concert Hall. (Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

BY CHRISTI CARRASSTAFF WRITER
APRIL 30, 2023 4:35 PM PT

“Everyone kind of turned to see what was happening,” Grant, who was seated near the person who allegedly made the noise, told The Times on Sunday in a phone interview.

“I saw the girl after it had happened, and I assume that she ... had an orgasm because she was heavily breathing, and her partner was smiling and looking at her — like in an effort to not shame her,” said Grant, who works for a jewelry company and lives in Los Feliz. “It was quite beautiful.”


ENTERTAINMENT & ARTS

Multiple people who attended the L.A. Phil concert on Friday reported hearing a woman making a moaning noise during the symphony’s second movement.

One attendee, composer and music producer Magnus Fiennes, described the sound on Twitter as that of a person having a “loud and full body orgasm.”

An alleged audio recording of the moment — where someone can be heard crying out during a quiet beat in the music — was making the rounds on social media. Attendees who spoke to The Times said that the clip was similar to what they’d heard.

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“Friends who went to the LA philharmonic last night are reporting that in the middle of the show some lady had a SCREAMING orgasm, to the point where the whole orchestra stopped playing,” tweeted journalist Jocelyn Silver. “some people really know how to live...”

However, people in attendance said that the musicians played through the disturbance without stopping. Classical pianist Sharon Su tweeted that she “checked with someone who works at the LA Phil and they confirmed” that the orchestra continued playing through the commotion.

The Times’ sources and the audio recording support this account of the orchestra playing on despite the sound from the audience.
It is still unclear what exactly occurred in the audience. The Times has not been able to identify or contact the person who made the sound. Representatives for the L.A. Phil did not immediately respond Sunday to The Times’ request for comment.

Friday’s program, led by conductor Elim Chan, also included a performance of Thomas Adès’ “Concentric Paths” Violin Concerto.

The L.A. Phil’s online program notes include this description of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5:

“The ... luscious main theme was adapted for a popular love song; Tchaikovsky’s skillful orchestration, however, lifts the mood from sentimentality to high Romanticism. The movement’s principal melody is presented in a memorable solo by the horn, followed by other appealing woodwind solos.”



Silver Lake resident and music agent Lukas Burton said the sound from the audience member was “wonderfully timed” to a “romantic swell” in the symphony.

“One can’t know exactly what happened, but it seemed very clear from the sound that it was an expression of pure physical joy,” Burton said. “A sort of classical-music equivalent of that scene in a movie where someone is talking loudly in a party or a nightclub, and then the record suddenly stops and they say something that everyone hears.”

While the outburst was clearly an unusual and surprising moment for a classic music concert, Burton described it as “rather wonderful and refreshing.”

“There was a sort of gasp in the audience,” Burton said. “But I think everyone felt that was a rather lovely expression of somebody who was so transported by the music that it had some kind of effect on them physically or, dare I say, even sexually.”
https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...30/la-phil-concert-orgasm-twitter-tchaikovsky

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Putin's Own Vodka Brand Netted Him $500 Million – Investigation​

Feb. 28, 2023

A supermarket customer buys vodka.Mikhail Pochuyev / TASS

Russian President Vladimir Putin may have earned up to $500 million from sales of a popular vodka branded under his own name between 2004 and 2019, according to an investigation published on Tuesday by independent media outlet Proekt.

Russian vodka sold under the Putinka brand hit the shelves in Russia in 2002 and became the market leader by 2005, at which point it was selling over 40 million liters annually.

The popularity of Putinka vodka also coincided with a peak in Russia’s alcohol-related death rate, according to Proekt.

While the owners of the Putinka brand have changed over the years, all of them have been connected to Putin’s inner circle and have been required to allocate part of their profits to the Russian president himself, according to Proekt’s sources.

One of Putinka’s intermediary owners, the Cyprus-registered Ermira Consultants — legally owned by St.Petersburg lawyer Vladislav Kopylov — was revealed by Proekt to be Vladimir Putin’s “wallet” — his personal offshore company.

Proekt also identified Ermira Consultants as one of the companies linked to the construction of Putin’s lavish Black Sea palace, the existence of which was uncovered by jailed anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny and his team in a landmark 2021 investigation that infuriated the Kremlin.

The Cyprus-based offshore company was also involved in purchases of a 120-square-meter apartment in Moscow’s prestigious Airport district, three apartments and a penthouse in the Black Sea resort town of Sochi, as well as two estates in the exclusive Moscow suburb of Usovo Plus.

Each of the properties was purchased for Putin or for members of his inner circle, the investigation found.

“We used the term ‘to pay with Emira’ which meant using Putin’s money to finance a certain deal [made in his interest],” an anonymous source linked to Emira Consultants told Proekt.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023...d-netted-him-500-million-investigation-a80360

 

[WYK]

Often times when an American gives you their address, you know where they live before even checking a map.
In the UK and Ireland, addresses are generally based upon the neighbourhood or estate the house is located within.
Because of this, you often have small numbers and odd names like - 13 The Studio, 13th Estate East. This tells you it might be a studio? It may be East of something as well. Maybe...
In the US, if you are given an address like 1313 East 13th street #13. You know it is most likely:
The 13th block East from the city centre(or whatever their city thinks is the center), and 13 streets up or down, 7th building on the block on the South side of road, 13th apartment or office.
Now some cities may go with North for odd vs even, and some cities that are big have multiple number names for north and south, east/west. But you get the idea.
If you know your city stateside, you will know where an address is the moment someone gives it to you.
In other words, the Post codes/Zip Codes in the US are not really very useful to your average person other than for the general area - they are sorting codes for the post office.
Whereas my post code here in Ireland(and the UK) is my exact address, and can simply be typed into google maps to bring the house up.
But it sort of has to be that way because US addresses generally tend to be exact, and UK and Irish ones not so much.
Germany tends to go this way as well, especially in the newer areas rebuilt after WWII.

 

[vokazu]

Jafa - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I think now I get the picture why I don't feel so welcomed in one of the tennis clubs in Auckland. One of the head coaches there is really a typical "Jafa".

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

'Earthrise': The photo that sparked an environmental movement​

(Image credit: Nasa)

By Isabelle Gerretsen 11th May 2023

Excerpts:

More than 50 years after it was shot, Earthrise continues to be seen as one of the most iconic environmental photographs ever taken.

On Christmas Eve, 1968 the crew of Apollo 8 captured a spectacular sight as they orbited the Moon: the illuminated Earth appearing above the barren lunar horizon.
The Nasa astronauts were awestruck by what they saw.

"Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There's the Earth coming up. Wow, is that pretty!" Bill Anders shouted at fellow astronaut Jim Lovell. "You got a colour film, Jim? Hand me a roll of colour, quick, would you?"
"That's a beautiful shot," said Lovell as he clicked the shutter and captured what has become one of the world's most famous photographs.

The image was coined "Earthrise". It was the first colour photograph of Earth taken from space and quickly circulated around the world. The photo is widely credited with propelling the global environmental movement and leading to the creation of Earth Day, an annual event promoting environmental activism and awareness, in 1970.

"It shows the Earth that we all live on, a little blue sphere set within this black expanse," says Pritchard. "It suggests everything from fragility to our uniqueness."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...-photo-that-sparked-an-environmental-movement

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Vladimir ChatGPTov

Version 1:

Version 2:

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

COMPANY TOWN

SAG-AFTRA seeks strike authorization even before talks with studios begin​

SAG-AFTRA headquarters in Los Angeles. (Tommaso Boddi / WireImage)

BY ANOUSHA SAKOUISTAFF WRITER
MAY 17, 2023 UPDATED 7:14 PM PT

In a sign of escalating labor relations in Hollywood, SAG-AFTRA is asking its 160,000 members to authorize a strike before it has even started contract negotiations with the major studios.

The performers union said Wednesday night that its board had unanimously agreed to pursue a strike authorization vote, which would give union leaders the ability to stage a walkout if they were unable to reach an agreement on a new contract before their current one expires June 30.

“The prospect of a strike is not a first option, but a last resort,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

The union said the vote would not necessarily mean a strike would happen but would give its negotiators “maximum bargaining leverage.”

Strike authorizations are commonly used by unions as a tactic in bargaining, but SAG-AFTRA’s move is unusual because it comes nearly three weeks before talks are set to begin with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of the major studios and networks.

The move also increases pressure on the AMPTP, which is in the midst of a standoff with Hollywood writers, who went on strike May 2. The alliance also is in talks with the Directors Guild of America.

Actors face many of the same issues as writers and directors, arguing that their incomes have been eroded by inflation and the rapid shift to streaming. Actors also are looking to regulate the use of artificial intelligence.

The last time actors went on strike was in 2000 in a dispute over work on commercials. That strike lasted about 6 months.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...ftra-strike-authorization-vote-writers-strike

 

[Sentinel]

Martin Amis just died at 73.
I've heard of his father, Kingsley. Just looked up and read that his father also died at 73.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Martin Amis just died at 73.
I've heard of his father, Kingsley. Just looked up and read that his father also died at 73.

A Martin Amis novel is the source for a powerful film currently getting great reviews from Cannes. Jonathan Glazer's "The Zone of Interest" confronts audiences with the banality of evil.

With two essential films, Cannes finds haunting new prisms on the Holocaust​

An image from the movie “The Zone of Interest,” which premiered in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

BY JUSTIN CHANGFILM CRITIC
MAY 21, 2023 10 AM PT

CANNES, France —
Even before it entered its first weekend, the 76th Cannes Film Festival had claimed its first critical triumph and competition standout with “The Zone of Interest.” An implacably chilling, entirely mesmerizing portrait of a family living in the shadow of the inferno, the movie was greeted at its Friday night gala premiere with rave reviews, crass Academy Awards speculation (“Has Director Jonathan Glazer Finally Hit the Oscar ‘Zone’ With ‘Interest’?” wondered a Variety headline) and the usual meaningless gush about its lengthy standing ovation. The sustained applause was deserved but also, I suspect, a little incongruous. I’m glad to have seen Glazer’s movie at a morning press screening that was noticeably absent any claps or cheers; as we stumbled out of the theater, silence seemed the only sane response.

Silence also feels appropriate following the news that the author Martin Amis, whose formidable oeuvre includes this movie’s 2014 source novel, died Friday at the age of 73. Glazer’s “Zone of Interest,” it should be noted, is dramatically different from Amis’, with which it shares little more than a title and a setting.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...-film-festival-zone-of-interest-occupied-city


Review

The Zone of Interest review – Jonathan Glazer adapts Martin Amis’s chilling Holocaust drama​

Focusing on the everyday domesticity of the Auschwitz commandant’s family might only reflect the horror indirectly, but the film pulls the banality of evil into pin-sharp focus
https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...-adapts-martin-amiss-chilling-holocaust-drama

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Michael Chekhov Bio​

1891-1955​

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Chekhov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in August 1891. His father, Aleksandr was the brother of the great playwright Anton Chekhov. In 1912, Chekhov became a leading actor of the Moscow Arts Theater, studying Stanislavski’s new methods of ‘affective memory’.

Chekhov became Stanislavski’s ‘most brilliant pupil’. By 1918 Chekhov began to investigate Rudolf Steiner’s spiritual science through his friend, writer Andrei Bely. Chekhov began incorporating some of Steiner’s philosophies in his work. He began to create his own acting technique.

In 1922 he became head of the First Studio of the Moscow Art Theater. He left Russia in 1928 and travelled Europe staging many productions. In 1935 he put together a company of Russian actors to tour the United States, there he met Beatrice Straight and Deirdre Hurst du Prey.

In 1936, they invited him to establish a theatre course in Dartington Hall in Devon, England. In 1938 he moved to Connecticut, United States and set up a new school for actors.

During the forties Chekhov acted in Hollywood movies such as Hitchcock’s ‘Spellbound’, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. His students later included Elia Kazan, Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, Jack Palance and Marilyn Monroe. Chekhov died on September 30th 1955 in Hollywood.
https://www.chekhovacademy.com/michael-chekhov/

Stanislavski’s System Vs. The Chekhov’s Acting Approach​

Among the most frequently taught styles of acting, these two are part of the most acclaimed approaches. Although Konstantin Stanislavski considered Michael Chekhov his most brilliant student, their methods are different in spite of the fact that they share important psychological influences.

Strong Connections Between Actor and Character​

Stanislavski’s system is based on self-analysis, emotional memory recall, and spiritual realism, aspects that he highlighted to produce convincing performances. The Russian theatre practitioner claimed that actor training required true connections between the interpreter and the character through psychological processes.

This method is put into practice when an actor uses their own emotional experiences to activate their characters’ feelings and actions. The actor lives the role they are portraying by justifying their character’s performance with their inner motives, and those things in common bring life to the scene. As a result, they introduce the audience to a character with whom they are emotionally and psychologically involved.

Students improve their concentration and develop emotion memory, dramatic analysis, as well as observation, voice, and physical skills. However, Stanislavski encouraged young actors to create their own method and techniques by finding what worked for them while keeping the roots of tradition.

The Chekhov’s Approach​

The Russian-American actor and author developed strong connections between psychological processes and physical actions to create believable expressions. Students learn how to analyze their character’s internal conflict and then express the problem through movements and external gestures.

Chekhov claimed that the human being was a “two-fold instrument”, which allows actors to make use of their soul or inner self combined with their body to give stunning performances. In the process, these two components are developed together in the same direction. The actor’s imagination leads to inner and outer movements that express their feelings, worries, and conflicts.
https://theplayground.com/stanislavskis-system-vs-chekhovs/

Deaths That Were Overshadowed By Other People’s Deaths: Michael Chekhov (Died September 30th, 1955)​

As an actor, Michael Chekhov was probably best known for his role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound, for which he was nominated for an Oscar (Best Supporting Actor.) As an acting instructor, Chekhov wrote a book called To The Actor, which is still cited as a developmental tool by actors such as Johnny Depp today. Chekhov would count among his students such luminaries as Marilyn Monroe, Lloyd Bridges, Anthony Quinn, Clint Eastwood, Elia Kazan, and Yul Brynner. But on September 30th 1955, Michael Chekhov’s death was not even a news story compared to another person who would become associated with method acting.

When James Dean died in a car crash on September 30, 1955, the world stopped and nothing else happened for the rest of the year. And while even Dean himself would have probably admitted that Chekhov had the more influential career, it is his death, not Chekhov’s, that still resonates to this day.
https://www.toptenz.net/top-10-deaths-that-were-overshadowed-by-other-peoples-deaths.php


Michael Chekhov escaped Russia during Stalin's purges that included the Russian Templars.

Did Stalin eliminate the last templars in Russia?
23 October 2020

On 11th September 1930, members of an elusive secret society were arrested by Joseph Stalin's secret police. Could these have been the last of the Russian Templars?
Some historians argue this was an essential part of Stalin's coordinated drive to crush any groups he perceived as a threat to his totalitarian power.
Video by John O'Mahony
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p08w5mj1/did-stalin-eliminate-the-last-templars-in-russia-

Michael Chekhov in "Spellbound"

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Amazon settles Ring customer spying complaint​

San Francisco (AFP) – Amazon on Wednesday agreed to pay $30.8 million to settle Ring and Alexa privacy complaints filed by US regulators, including accusations that employees spied on female customers, according to court documents.
01/06/2023 (June 1, 2023)

The Federal Trade Commission charged Amazon-owned home security camera company Ring with failing to implement basic protections to stop hackers or employees from accessing people's devices or accounts.

According to the FTC complaint, Ring's failures in security resulted in "egregious" violations of privacy such as female users of home security cameras being "surveilled" in bedrooms or bathrooms.

"Ring's disregard for privacy and security exposed consumers to spying and harassment," FTC bureau of consumer protection director Samuel Levine said in a statement.

Under a proposed order, which requires approval by a federal judge, Ring will delete any data unlawfully viewed and ramp up security with features such as multi-factor authentication.

Hackers exploited vulnerabilities to not only access video streams but also to take control of cameras to taunt children, sexually proposition people, and threaten a family with harm if they didn't pay a ransom, according to the FTC.

Ring will pay $5.8 million as part of the settlement, the proposed order indicated.

"Ring promptly addressed these issues on its own years ago, well before the FTC began its inquiry," Ring said in response to an AFP inquiry, adding that it disagrees with the allegations.

Amazon will pay an additional $25 million as part of a separate deal to settle FTC accusations that children's voice recordings captured by Alexa smart speakers were kept when they should have been deleted, according to the regulator.

US law "does not allow companies to keep children's data forever for any reason, and certainly not to train their algorithms," Levine said.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230601-amazon-settles-ring-customer-spying-complaint

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Postmodernism is like a megadose of LSD for society, deconstructing metanarratives and negating any foundation for a new metanarrative. A society of narratives by decree, foundationless and not grounded in reason and fact, cannot last. Illusions and fantasies can seem as real as the law of physics when reason is bypassed. Nothing is true and everything is possible, but reality wins when you’re on top of a building and your truth is that you can fly.

Reminds me of the story of a town gone mad:

When the French Village of Pont-Saint-Esprit Went Temporarily Mad​

By Lucas Reilly | Sep 24, 2018​

iStock

On August 15, 1951, dozens of people became terribly ill in Pont-Saint-Esprit, a quaint commune in the south of France. In the days that followed, hundreds more joined them. They complained of nausea and stomach pain, weak blood pressure and faint pulses, cold sweats and low temperatures. Worst of all, everybody had insomnia and smelled. “A state of giddiness persisted accompanied by abundant sweating and a disagreeable odour,” reported the British Medical Journal [PDF]. People would compare the stench to the fragrance of dead mice.

For hundreds of victims, that’s where the inexplicable mass illness stopped. For others, it was only the beginning. Dozens upon dozens of people began experiencing nightmarish hallucinations.

The town became gripped in pandemonium. A little girl screamed as she was chased by man-eating tigers. A woman sobbed about how her children had been ground into sausages. A large man fended off terrific beasts by smashing his furniture. A husband and wife ran around, chasing each other with knives. Even the local animals had gone mad: A dog chewed on stones until its teeth chipped away. Ducks began marching like penguins.

Everywhere, people ran wildly as they tried to avoid imaginary flames. One man, convinced that red snakes were devouring his brain, jumped out of a window. Another reportedly leapt from a window, broke both legs, stood up, and continued running.

Outside, a local postal worker complained that he was shrinking. A person sprinted down the lane, claiming he was being chased by “bandits with donkey ears.” Near the Rhône river, a man—convinced that he was a circus tightrope walker—attempted to balance his way across the cables of a suspension bridge. Another tried to jump into the river, only to be saved by friends. “I am dead and my head is made of copper and I have snakes in my stomach and they are burning me!” he yelled [PDF].

(Not everybody was having a bad experience. Some people, according to The New York Times, “heard heavenly choruses, saw brilliant colors … the world looked beautiful to them.” It was an especially productive experience for the head of the local farmers' co-op, who began writing hundreds upon hundreds of pages of luminous poetry.)

But overall, the scene was apocalyptic. “I have seen healthy men and women suddenly become terrorized, ripping their bed sheets, hiding themselves beneath their blankets to escape hallucinations,” the mayor of Pont-Saint-Esprit, Albert Hébrard, said. Asylums were filled with people wrapped in straitjackets and tied to beds. According to the British Medical Journal, “Every attempt at restraint increased the agitation.”

Lubman04, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

By the time the mass illness had subsided, approximately 300 people had been in some way affected. At least four died. In the immediate aftermath, the outbreak was blamed on … bread [PDF].

The summer of 1951 was especially wet, and ergot fungi grew all over the country's rye fields. Tainted grains were sourced back to the Roch Briand bakery, where a miller had used fungus-contaminated flour, causing widespread poisoning. The last time ergotism—or what's colorfully known as Saint Anthony’s Fire—had reportedly struck France, it was 1816.

Today, ergot poisoning remains the most commonly accepted explanation of what happened in Pont-Saint-Esprit, though there have been competing theories. Just weeks after the incident, the president of France’s millers’ union, Pierre Jacob, refused to acknowledge the ergot explanation, Reuters reported. Jacob argued that ergot was always present in French flour and, therefore, could not be responsible. To prove his point, he offered to eat ergot-tainted bread in front of a group of experts [PDF]. (There's no record of whether he actually completed the stunt.)

Other theories blamed mercury, fungicide, and various other types of fungus. Some people claimed it was the water used to make the bread, and not the grain, that had been infected.
And, of course, there are conspiracy theories.

In 2009, writer Hank P. Albarelli Jr. claimed that he found a fishy document belonging to the CIA. It contained this label: “Re: Pont-Saint-Esprit and F. Olson Files. SO Span/France Operation file, inclusive Olson. Intel files. Hand carry to Belin—tell him to see to it that these are buried.”

According to the BBC, Frank Olson was a CIA scientist researching LSD; David Belin was executive director of the White House commission investigating the CIA's abuses. Were these men connected to the Pont-Saint-Esprit poisoning? Was it some kind of hidden CIA LSD experiment? Or was the CIA—which was certainly studying psychoactive substances at the time—simply curious about what had happened in southern France?

Steven L. Kaplan, a bread historian at Cornell University, who wrote extensively about the fallout from the outbreak in a French-language tome titled The Cursed Bread, doesn’t buy into the CIA conspiracy theory. LSD, he says, was an unlikely culprit; the symptoms suffered by residents don't match those caused by the hallucinogen. But he’s not convinced that ergot was the cause, either.

Which raises the question: If not ergot or LSD, then what happened in Pont-Saint-Esprit in the summer of 1951?
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article...ance-1951-bread-poisoning-mass-hallucinations

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Great white sharks more common off California coast than previously thought, study says​

Researchers with the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach have found that sharks and humans swim together at some California beaches more often than previously thought.

(Carlos Gauna / Cal State Long Beach)

BY CHRISTIAN MARTINEZSTAFF WRITER
June 3, 2023

If you swam off the coast of Santa Barbara or San Diego recently, chances are you had company. You just may not have noticed.

A new study from Cal State Long Beach found that juvenile white sharks are more common at some California beaches than previously thought.

Although the news may conjure up images of Steven Spielberg’s film “Jaws,” scientists say it should instead be a reminder of how rare shark bites are.

“It’s not just about sharks, it’s about people,” Christopher Lowe, professor of marine biology at Cal State Long Beach and director of the school’s Shark Lab, said in a statement. “This study may change people’s perception of the risk sharks pose to people that share the ocean with them.”


CALIFORNIA

During the two-year study, researchers used drones to study more than two dozen beaches up and down the California coastline.

Juvenile white sharks, between the ages of 1 and 5, were found congregating at two spots in southern Santa Barbara County and central San Diego County.

At those locations, sharks and people were found swimming together 97% of the time, according to findings released Friday.

“The juvenile white sharks were often observed within 50 yards of where the waves break, putting surfers and stand-up paddle boarders in the closest proximity to sharks at the aggregation sites,” Patrick Rex, a lab technician at the Shark Lab, said in a statement. “Most of the time water users didn’t even know the sharks were there, but we could easily see them from the air.”

In an interview with The Times, Rex called the findings surprising.

“People think, ‘If I see a shark in the lineup (the area where waves begin breaking), I’m going to get bitten or I’m in danger.’” Rex said. “And what we’ve seen is that that’s not necessarily the case.”
The fish “tend to mind their own business,” Rex said.


CALIFORNIA

“And they come up within like 10 feet of people, and that’s happening daily,” he said. “What we found is that they’re spending the majority of their time within 100 yards of where the waves are breaking.”

That’s a lot closer than originally thought.

“It was assumed that sharks are miles out but you could be wading and then have a shark swim right next to you,” he said.

No shark bites were reported at any of the beaches observed during the two-year survey. From 1950 to November 2022, there were 209 documented shark incidents in California, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.
These new data can be used by lifeguards, especially those at aggregation spots, to help ensure safe swimming and water recreation, Lowe said.

The young sharks gather in the aggregation spots for several years, feasting on stingrays and small fish on the seafloor.


CALIFORNIA

Exactly why sharks are so disinterested in snacking on humans is still a mystery, Rex said. Even when hunting, they tend to ignore what’s going on at the surface.

Rex and Lowe have hypothesized that the sharks have started to identify humans as “not food.”

“But that’s such a hard conclusion to make, because we still don’t really know why sharks bite people,” Rex said. Still, humans do not appear to be on the menu.

That may be a blessing as it appears that the fish may be staying along the California coastline for longer periods of time.

“What we’ve been telling people for the past 20 years is that the sharks will be here for the summertime and then, when our water gets too cold, they migrate down to Mexico,” Rex said.


CALIFORNIA

But the study found some sharks never left.

Climate change and warmer waters could be the reason, Rex said.

“It means that the sharks may not be making that long migration anymore,” Rex said. “But we need more data and more time to make any conclusions on that.”
https://www.latimes.com/california/...rnia-coast-than-previously-thought-study-says

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

WGA Strike

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Natalya Varley in "Viy" (Konstantin Yershov & Georgi Kropachyov, 1967) reminds me of Winona Ryder.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Silvio Berlusconi, Italian leader and billionaire media mogul, dies at 86​

He dominated and divided his country for decades through a combination of showman charm, scofflaw bombast and ruthless application of financial and political power​

By Jason Horowitz
June 12, 2023
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/06/12/silvio-berlusconi-italian-prime-minister-dead/

We’re All Living in Berlusconi’s World Now
The Italian leader played buffoon, victim, and messiah. Others have followed suit.
By Tobias Jones

Excerpts:

The billionaire pulled off the incredible stunt of appearing as a man of the people.

Such sleights of hand were possible because Berlusconi came to power at the dawn of the so-called post-truth world. Italy was, perhaps, the first country to enter this strange terrain because it has always had a strange relationship with veracity: As one eloquent Italian proverb has it, “To get to the truth, you have to listen to two lies.” And with Berlusconi, there were a lot of lies to listen to. Whether because of the trumpeted “end of ideologies” or because of a rise of relativism or due to the echo chambers and low quality control of the nascent internet, the aspirations of objectivity, and fidelity to the facts, seemed to dissolve in the 1990s. Gonzo journalism—subjective, deliberately dissolute, and excitingly coarse—had given way to gonzo politics.

By the mid-1990s, no one had ever expected objectivity because Italy had always had hired guns in the media and angrily ranting shock jocks. The situation was compounded by the national pastime of dietrologia—conspiracy theorizing or, literally, “behindology”: Nothing is ever taken at face value, and being cleverly counterintuitive is admired more than common-sense acceptance of the facts.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/08/21/were-all-living-in-berlusconis-italy-world-now-trump-boris/


"Don’t you realize that something doesn’t exist – not an idea, a politician, or a product – unless it is on television?"
-- Silvio Berlusconi

Why We’re Post-Fact​

Peter Pomerantsev​

Excerpts:

‘We are living in a ‘post-fact’ or ‘post-truth’ world. Not merely a world where politicians and media lie – they have always lied – but one where they don’t care whether they tell the truth or not.’

The new media, with its myriad screens and streams, makes reality so fragmented it becomes ungraspable, pushing us towards, or allowing us to flee, into virtual realities and fantasies.

This equaling out of truth and falsehood is both informed by and takes advantage of an all-permeating late post-modernism and relativism, which has trickled down over the past thirty years from academia to the media and then everywhere else. This school of thought has taken Nietzsche’s maxim, there are no facts, only interpretations, to mean that every version of events is just another narrative, where lies can be excused as ‘an alternative point of view’ or ‘an opinion’, because ‘it’s all relative’ and ‘everyone has their own truth’ (and on the internet they really do).

Maurizio Ferraris, one of the founders of the New Realism movement and one of postmodernism’s most persuasive critics, argues that we are seeing the culmination of over two centuries of thinking. The Enlightenment’s original motive was to make analysis of the world possible by tearing the right to define reality away from divine authority to individual reason. Descartes’ ‘I think therefore I am’ moved the seat of knowledge into the human mind. But if the only thing you can know is your mind, then, as Schopenhauer put it, ‘the world is my representation’. In the late twentieth century postmodernists went further, claiming that there is ‘nothing outside the text’, and that all our ideas about the world are inferred from the power models enforced upon us. This has led to a syllogism which Ferraris sums up as: ‘all reality is constructed by knowledge, knowledge is constructed by power, and ergo all reality is constructed by power. Thus . . . reality turns out to be a construction of power, which makes it both detestable (if by “power” we mean the Power that dominates us) and malleable (if by “power” we mean “in our power”).’

Post-modernism first positioned itself as emancipatory, a way to free people from the oppressive narratives they had been subjected to. But, as Ferraris points out, ‘the advent of media populism provided the example of a farewell to reality that was not at all emancipatory’. If reality is endlessly malleable, then Berlusconi, who so influenced Putin, could justifiably argue, ‘Don’t you realize that something doesn’t exist – not an idea, a politician, or a product – unless it is on television?’[3]; then the Bush administration could legitimise a war based on misinformation. ‘When we act, we create our own reality’, a senior Bush advisor, thought to be Karl Rove, told the New York Times in a quote Ferraris zeroes in on, ‘and while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities’.

To make matters worse, by saying that all knowledge is (oppressive) power, postmodernism took away the ground on which one could argue against power.
https://granta.com/why-were-post-fact/

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

The Untold and Deeply Stoned Story of the First U.S. Rock Festival​

How the Doors, Byrds and nearly 30 other bands, a pack of Hells Angels and a lot of drugs made history at Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain
BY JASON NEWMAN
JUNE 17, 2014

The Byrds perform at Magic Mountain Music Festival. HENRY DILTZ

ON JUNE 10TH and 11th, 1967 — one week before the Monterey Pop Festival and two years before Woodstock — tens of thousands of Bay Area music fans converged on the Sydney B. Cushing Memorial Amphitheatre on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California, for the first U.S. rock festival. Conceived as a promotion for the KFRC 610 AM radio station, the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival featured more than 30 acts, including the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, the Byrds and Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, as well as a group of Hells Angels and an “acid doctor” to mitigate bad trips. Arguably, the festival was the true start of the Summer of Love, and this is its previously untold story.

Since it was overshadowed by Monterey Pop, Fantasy Fair has been largely forgotten (only snippets of film exist from the fest, and virtually no audio has survived). But to many of the artists and fans who were in attendance, it remains a pivotal moment of the counterculture takeover. Rolling Stone spoke to more than 40 artists, organizers and attendees to piece together the secret history of this landmark festival.
https://www.rollingstone.com/featur...-story-of-the-first-u-s-rock-festival-124437/

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

VistaVision: shooting the film horizontally:​

What is VistaVision — A History of Widescreen in Hollywood​

BY RAFAEL ABREU ON JUNE 20, 2021

Before the 1950s, nearly every single movie was in the same 4:3 aspect ratio. But then CinemaScope from 20th Century Fox changed the landscape with widescreen imagery to get people into theaters nationwide. Pretty soon, other studios were making their own widescreen movies, including Paramount Pictures with VistaVision. What is VistaVision, you ask? Well, it takes a bit of explaining, so if you can, please join us as we look into the origins of VistaVision, what it was like, and why it still matters today.

VistaVision is a high-resolution widescreen process that uses 35mm film. Unlike most other types of filmmaking, the VistaVision camera process involves turning the film stock on its side, so that the perforations are at the top and bottom of the image (instead of on the left and right). This allows for an image space 2x the size of traditional 35mm. Resulting in higher-resolution photography, along with a native widescreen VistaVision aspect ratio of about 1.5:1 that can, by design, be cropped for 1.66:1, 1.85:1, and 2:1.

VistaVision camera characteristics include:​

• Widescreen presentation.
• High-resolution imagery.
• Paramount Vista Vision logo at the beginning (only for Paramount films that used the process).

VistaVision was created in 1954 by Paramount Pictures engineers, as a format to compete with CinemaScope and other studios. Paramount had actually released their first widescreen movie by cropping the Western film Shane (1953) from its 1.37:1 Academy Ratio to 1.66:1. This was just on regular 35mm, but it gave the studio the idea for what would become Vista Vision.

In comparison to CinemaScope’s anamorphic lenses, VistaVision was a “flat” widescreen process, which meant filmmakers and theaters did not need special VistaVision lenses to shoot or present Vista Vision movies.
Filmmakers did, however, need a special VistaVision camera that could shoot the film horizontally. While this process is behind why the image quality was so good, it also meant that the film stock would run out twice as fast.

What is VistaVision? • VistaVision aspect ratio​

When providing prints for theaters, nothing special was required, as the movies would be copied onto regular 35mm film that could be shown at any theater that had a widescreen (which, by 1954, was most of them). In addition to the movies not having the distortion of anamorphic, VistaVision provided an option for filmmakers and theaters that wanted a widescreen experience that didn’t sacrifice height or width and could be easily presented nationwide.

The rise and fall of Vista Vision​

The first of the VistaVision films was White Christmas (1954), and it was a wild success. It was also one of the few VistaVision films that had 8-perforation prints made for special engagements that could present the movies in their original format (horizontal VistaVision prints vs regular vertical 35mm).

This required special equipment that most theaters were not going to house, especially since it was impractical and prone to problems.

But Paramount was not trying to make Vista Vision movies that could only be screened in select theaters. The VistaVision camera was meant to provide an easy widescreen process that emphasized quality above all else, while still making that quality accessible to as many movie goers as possible.

And it accomplished that, with movies like 3 Ring Circus (1954), Richard III (1955), The Ten Commandments (1956), The Searchers (1956), Funny Face (1957), and many others.

What is VistaVision? • Martin Scorcese on Richard III​

One of the most famous directors to make VistaVision films is Alfred Hitchock, who used it for To Catch a Thief (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Vertigo (1958), and North by Northwest (1959), the latter of which was released by MGM, an uncommon example of VistaVision being licensed out to another studio.

However, the good times were not to last. Marlon Brando’s only directorial effort, One-Eyed Jacks (1961), was the last of the VistaVision films Paramount Pictures produced. The format fell out of favor soon after the early ‘60s, primarily due to advancements in film stock and processes from other companies that made VistaVision obsolete.

New film formats were coming out around this time and filmmakers had new ways to shoot their movies without having to rely on movie studios.

The legacy of Vista Vision​

Since VistaVision was no longer a major format, Paramount sold off many of their cameras to international filmmakers, who used the process infrequently throughout the rest of the decade. Many of these “off-brand” VistaVision films included classics of Japanese cinema, such as Death by Hanging (1968), In the Realm of the Senses (1976), and Vengeance is Mine (1979).

However, VistaVision caught a true second wind during the New Hollywood era of the 1970s. A group of young filmmakers wanted to use the format to film visual effects shots in their upcoming science-fantasy movie.
These filmmakers made their own rigging and came up with some creative ways to use the camera for VFX purposes.

What is VistaVision? • Star Wars revolutionizing VFX​

These filmmakers were, of course, working on Star Wars (1977), which, more or less, changed cinema for the rest of the century. It also proved that VistaVision could still be used for VFX shots, since the larger negative space provided less film grain when compositing the effects shots.

As a result of the Star Wars franchise (as VistaVision was also used on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi), more movies started to use the film format for VFX purposes. These included the first two Star Trek movies, the Back to the Future trilogy, the first two Men in Black and Mummy films, the first two Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, and Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. The Dark Knight (2008) specifically used a VistaVision shot during the truck-flipping sequence.
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-vistavision/

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Bad news for John McEnroe, Ted Robinson, Brett Haber, Steve Weissman, Mary Carillo, Jim Courier, Chris Fowler, et al.: you are no longer necessary.

"Sorry to tell you that, mate . . ."

​

Wimbledon to introduce AI-powered commentary to coverage this year​

All England Club teams up with IBM to offer AI-generated audio commentary and captions in online highlights clips

Dan Milmo and Alex Hern
Wed 21 Jun 2023

Game, set and chatbot: Wimbledon is introducing artificial intelligence-powered commentary to its coverage this year.

The All England Club has teamed up with tech group IBM to offer AI-generated audio commentary and captions in its online highlights videos.

The service will be available on the Wimbledon app and website and will be separate to the BBC’s coverage for the 3 July-16 July tournament. It will use IBM’s watsonx AI platform, which has been trained in the “unique language of tennis” with the help of the All England Club. The club already uses IBM’s AI technology to provide features such as its player power index, which analyses player performance.

The coverage will also include AI-powered analysis of singles draws, examining how favourable a player’s path to the final might be.

“This new insight will help tennis fans to uncover anomalies and potential surprises in the singles draw, which would not be apparent by looking only at the players’ ranking,” said IBM.

Data, such as tracking data for the ball, tracking data for the players and the type of shots the players make from different parts of the court, is collected from a variety of sources around the court. It will then be fed into IBM’s platform, where it will be processed by the company’s AI models before ultimately being fed to a chatbot-style system that produces natural language commentary, specifically fine-tuned in the language of tennis and Wimbledon. That commentary can also be handed on to a second text-to-speech AI to turn it into audio commentary in near-real-time.

IBM said the move was a step towards generating AI commentary on full matches. The European broadcasting union announced this month that the cloned voice of the commentator Hannah England will be used to provide commentary for the European Athletics Championships. England’s voice will be used to replicate the content of the event’s live blog for commentary on the European Athletics YouTube channel.

Watson, IBM’s branding for its suite of AI tools, made headlines more than a decade ago for playing – and winning – a game of the American TV show Jeopardy!, where contestants answer general knowledge questions with peculiar phrasings. At the time, the system was groundbreaking for its ability to understand spoken queries including “Vedic, dating back at least 4,000 years, is the earliest dialect of this classical language of India”, and to buzz and respond in real time with the correct answer – in this case, “What is Sanskrit?”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...e-ai-powered-commentary-to-coverage-this-year

 

[Rafa.the.Magnificent]

Bad news for John McEnroe, Ted Robinson, Brett Haber, Steve Weissman, Mary Carillo, Jim Courier, Chris Fowler, et al.: you are no longer necessary.

"Sorry to tell you that, mate . . ."

​

Wimbledon to introduce AI-powered commentary to coverage this year​

All England Club teams up with IBM to offer AI-generated audio commentary and captions in online highlights clips

Dan Milmo and Alex Hern
Wed 21 Jun 2023

Game, set and chatbot: Wimbledon is introducing artificial intelligence-powered commentary to its coverage this year.

The All England Club has teamed up with tech group IBM to offer AI-generated audio commentary and captions in its online highlights videos.

The service will be available on the Wimbledon app and website and will be separate to the BBC’s coverage for the 3 July-16 July tournament. It will use IBM’s watsonx AI platform, which has been trained in the “unique language of tennis” with the help of the All England Club. The club already uses IBM’s AI technology to provide features such as its player power index, which analyses player performance.

The coverage will also include AI-powered analysis of singles draws, examining how favourable a player’s path to the final might be.

“This new insight will help tennis fans to uncover anomalies and potential surprises in the singles draw, which would not be apparent by looking only at the players’ ranking,” said IBM.

Data, such as tracking data for the ball, tracking data for the players and the type of shots the players make from different parts of the court, is collected from a variety of sources around the court. It will then be fed into IBM’s platform, where it will be processed by the company’s AI models before ultimately being fed to a chatbot-style system that produces natural language commentary, specifically fine-tuned in the language of tennis and Wimbledon. That commentary can also be handed on to a second text-to-speech AI to turn it into audio commentary in near-real-time.

IBM said the move was a step towards generating AI commentary on full matches. The European broadcasting union announced this month that the cloned voice of the commentator Hannah England will be used to provide commentary for the European Athletics Championships. England’s voice will be used to replicate the content of the event’s live blog for commentary on the European Athletics YouTube channel.

Watson, IBM’s branding for its suite of AI tools, made headlines more than a decade ago for playing – and winning – a game of the American TV show Jeopardy!, where contestants answer general knowledge questions with peculiar phrasings. At the time, the system was groundbreaking for its ability to understand spoken queries including “Vedic, dating back at least 4,000 years, is the earliest dialect of this classical language of India”, and to buzz and respond in real time with the correct answer – in this case, “What is Sanskrit?”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2...e-ai-powered-commentary-to-coverage-this-year

I definitely want to check that out when Wimbledon rolls around. Glad they’re starting out with just online clips!

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

francisfordcoppola

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

‘Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned’, Meaning & Context​

‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ is an idiom that is adapted from a line in William Congreve’s play, The Mourning Bride (1697). The line from which it came is ‘Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”

People usually think that this quote comes from Shakespeare, that it is one of the hundreds of Shakespeare’s phrases that have become idioms, as it looks as though it is one of Shakespeare’s lines. That is particularly the case because it has the early modern English word ‘hath’ in it. The word ‘hath’ has crept into the idiom even though it is not in the original line.

William Congreve was a popular and successful English playwright of Restoration theatre, whose plays are still sometimes staged. Some of his other lines are also mistaken for Shakespeare, for example, ‘Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, ‘ ‘tis better to be left than never to have been loved,’ ‘You must not kiss and tell’ and ‘married in haste, we repent at leisure.’

The Mourning Bride is a tragic play, first performed in 1697. The line is spoken by Zara who is captured and made a prisoner and becomes involved in a deadly love triangle.

The word ‘scorned’ has a specific meaning today: it would be similar to ‘mocked.’ So it seems to be about mocking a woman, but the meaning has changed. The theatregoers of the 17th century would have understood the word to mean ‘betrayed.’ That would be especially in the case of a woman who had been replaced by another woman in a man’s affections.
https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/hell-hath-no-fury-like-a-woman-scorned/

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Hunter S. Thompson interviews about the Hells Angels (no apostrophe):

I'm working on a story (fictional) set in mid-1990s Copenhagen about Hells Angels, organized crime, partying men who work at the British embassy in various capacities, escorts/prostitutes, and the intersection between the Danish government and an underworld allowed to operate under a murky, very unofficial understanding.

The life of Robert Maheu is good material for a screenplay.

CIA contractor who inspired ‘Mission: Impossible’​

By Tom Jackman
February 9, 2019 at 7:00 a.m. EST

Robert A. Maheu pauses outside federal court in Los Angeles in 1974, where a jury ruled that he had been defamed by billionaire Howard Hughes. A new book claims that Maheu, a longtime CIA operative, may have arranged the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.). (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)

Robert A. Maheu was such a colorful character that it’s widely believed the television show “Mission: Impossible” was based on him and his private investigative agency.

As an ex-FBI agent, the CIA asked him to handle jobs it wanted to steer clear of, such as lining up prostitutes for a foreign president or hiring the mafia to kill Fidel Castro. For more than 15 years, Maheu and his Washington-based company were on monthly retainer to “The Agency,” CIA records show. And during much of that time, Maheu was the right-hand man to Howard Hughes as Hughes bought up vast swaths of Las Vegas and helped finance CIA operations.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/hist...mission-impossible-kill-rfk-new-book-alleges/

​

https://www.spyculture.com/king-starlet-cias-fixer-hollywood/

Robert Maheu - FBI, CIA operative became confidant, front man to billionaire Hughes​

Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times
Aug. 7, 2008

Robert Maheu, who worked for the FBI and the CIA before he became billionaire Howard Hughes' confidant and right-hand man, shielding the eccentric industrialist from the public he feared and crafting the deals that made him a Las Vegas power player during a critical period in the city's development, has died. He was 90.

Whenever I spoke, it was Howard Hughes speaking. We had an incredible relationship," Mr. Maheu, speaking to Vanity Fair a few years ago, said of the man who made a fortune in tools and aerospace before deciding to seal himself off from the public. Hughes' descent into mental illness is one of the strangest true-life stories of the 20th century

Private eye work​

Mr. Maheu's association with Hughes began soon after he opened a private investigations firm in 1954. An intermediary brought him an assignment, which he later learned was contracted by the former aviator, Hollywood studio owner and founder of Hughes Aircraft. Mr. Maheu apparently performed satisfactorily because Hughes requested his services again.

He spied on Hughes' love interests, including actress Ava Gardner. He blackmailed Hughes' blackmailers into keeping their mouths shut.
The son of a grocer, Mr. Maheu was born on Oct. 30, 1917, and grew up in Waterville, Maine. He majored in economics at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts before entering Georgetown University law school. He joined the FBI in 1940 and during World War II worked in counterespionage, posing as a German sympathizer. He left the FBI in 1947.

After opening his own investigations firm in 1954, the CIA became his first steady client. He was given "cut-out" assignments, jobs involving illegal actions that could not be traced back to the agency.

Set up Castro hit​

His most infamous assignment was to arrange a hit on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Mr. Maheu recruited two top Mafia bosses, Johnny Roselli and Sam Giancana, who suggested a scheme to poison Castro, but the plot was ditched after the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. "The plan was always subject to a 'go' signal, which never came," Mr. Maheu told a Senate intelligence committee in 1975.
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Robert-Maheu-FBI-CIA-operative-became-3274466.php

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Sentinel]

Tom wanted to tell you that he's having a lot of Skyr these days.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Tom wanted to tell you that he's having a lot of Skyr these days.

Sounds good. Coincidentally, I had skyr for breakfast this morning. I had nonfat, low sugar skyr and added fresh berries and walnuts. Normally, I add blueberries and/or blackberries, but today I added strawberries instead to get in the mood for Wimbledon. It's a healthier version of the Wimbledon strawberries and cream. I've had the strawberries and cream at Wimbledon, and actually prefer strawberries and skyr.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

‘To be a writer means to discover a truth’: Milan Kundera – a life in quotes​

The Czech author has died at the age of 94. Here are some of the most memorable quotes from interviews and articles over the course of his career
Milan Kundera: The Unbearable Lightness of Being author dies aged 94

Ruweyda Ahmed
Wed 12 Jul 2023 08.49 EDT

On being a writer​

When I was a little boy in short pants, I dreamed about a miraculous ointment that would make me invisible. Then I became an adult, began to write, and wanted to be successful. Now I’m successful and would like to have the ointment that would make me invisible.

For a writer, the experience of living in a number of countries is an enormous boon. You can only understand the world if you see it from several sides.

With the first story of Laughable Loves (I wrote it in 1959), I was certain of having ‘found myself’. I became a prose writer, a novelist, and I am nothing else. Since then, my aesthetic has known no transformations; it evolves, to use your word, linearly.

I lived in Czechoslovakia until I was 45. Given that my real career as a writer began when I was 30, I can say that the larger part of my creative life will take place in France. I am much more tied to France than is thought.

To be a writer does not mean to preach a truth, it means to discover a truth.

Milan Kundera with his wife Vera Kunderova in Prague in 1973. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

On novels​

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer to everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything

A novel does not assert anything; a novel searches and poses questions. I don’t know whether my nation will perish and I don’t know which of my characters is right. I invent stories, confront one with another, and by this means I ask questions.

I think that the importance of the novel in European culture has been enormous; European man is unthinkable without the novel, he was created by it. For centuries it was the first thing one read. The love of adventure, which is so European, adventure understood as a value. If you say, ‘I lived my life without adventure,’ then it’s a failure, right? Well, it’s the novel that impressed upon us this love of adventure.

There are four great novelists: Kafka, Broch, Musil, Gombrowicz. I call them the “pleiad” of central Europe’s great novelists

On the media​

An author, once quoted by a journalist, is no longer master of his word … And this, of course, is unacceptable.

On sex​

These days, when sexuality is no longer taboo, mere description, mere sexual confession, has become noticeably boring. How dated Lawrence seems, or even Henry Miller, with his lyricism of obscenity!

It is the sex of the novels and not that of their authors that must interest us. All great novels, all true novels are bisexual. This is to say that they express both a feminine and a masculine vision of the world. The sex of the authors as physical people is their private affair.

On central Europe​

It would be senseless to try to draw its borders exactly. Central Europe is not a state: it is a culture or a fate.

In fact, what does Europe mean to a Hungarian, a Czech, a Pole? For a thousand of years their nations have belonged to the part of Europe rooted in Roman Christianity. They have participated in every period of its history. For them, the word ‘Europe’ does not represent a phenomenon of geography but a spiritual notion.

It’s not Russia but communism that deprives nations of their essence.

I learned the value of humour during the time of Stalinist terror … A sense of humour was a trustworthy sign of recognition. Ever since, I have been terrified by a world that is losing its sense of humour.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...scover-a-truth-milan-kundera-a-life-in-quotes

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

AI will exasperate this dynamic:

Taylor Swift rules the airwaves! But that’s bad news for music​

The ubiquity of the pop superstar speaks to her enormous talent – while also reflecting how narrow and repetitive the industry has become
Arwa Muhdawi
Wed 26 Jul 2023

The US may be a republic, but it still has a queen. Her name is Taylor Swift and her reign is only just getting started.

The 33-year-old recently became the first woman, and only the third artist ever, to have four albums in the Top 10 of the US album chart simultaneously. The sun never sets on Swift’s empire: club nights that play only Swift songs have popped up in the UK and Australia, while her Eras tour is on track to be the most lucrative ever; it is expected to crack $1bn in revenue.

But her concerts aren’t putting money into the singer’s pockets alone; they have boosted the hospitality industries in cities across the world, making serious economists pay attention and giving rise to the concept of “Swiftonomics”.

Swift is an extremely gifted musician and performer. Her success is well deserved. Nevertheless, her dominance of the airwaves has a negative side. The ubiquitous nature of Swift – the fact that you are almost guaranteed to hear her if you switch on the radio or meander down a high street – doesn’t just speak to her talents, but also to the homogenisation of pop music. It’s not just your imagination: a growing body of research shows that all modern pop music sounds the same.

In 2012, for example, the Spanish National Research Council published an analysis of nearly half a million songs released between 1955 and 2010, which showed that the “diversity of … note combinations … has consistently diminished in the last 50 years”. And pop music isn’t just becoming more similar; taste-makers are also focusing on a smaller subset of songs. “Radio stations … are pushing the boundaries of repetitiveness to new levels,” noted a 2014 article in the Atlantic. “Top 40 stations last year played the 10 biggest songs almost twice as much as they did a decade ago.”

An increasingly data-driven music industry means there is a growing focus on replicating hits and far less space for nurturing originality. Technology may have given us multiple new ways to listen to music, but increasingly we are hearing the same old tune.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...les-the-airwaves-but-thats-bad-news-for-music

 

[Sentinel]

Kristin Harila and Tenjin Sherpa Set New Speed Record on the 8000ers

The duo completed the 8000-meter peaks in 92 days, breaking Nirmal (Nims) Purja's record by over three months

www.yahoo.com

Climbing all 14 peaks above 8000m in 3 months.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Kristin Harila and Tenjin Sherpa Set New Speed Record on the 8000ers

The duo completed the 8000-meter peaks in 92 days, breaking Nirmal (Nims) Purja's record by over three months

www.yahoo.com

Climbing all 14 peaks above 8000m in 3 months.

John Cleese asks:

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

With all due respect to Maha-Vishnu, are we living in Friedrich Hayek's dream?


The word has become a rhetorical weapon, but it properly names the reigning ideology of our era – one that venerates the logic of the market and strips away the things that make us human.
By Stephen Metcalf
Fri 18 Aug 2017

Excerpt:

Friedrich Hayek did not think he was staking out a position on the political spectrum, or making excuses for the fatuous rich, or tinkering along the edges of microeconomics.

He thought he was solving the problem of modernity: the problem of objective knowledge. For Hayek, the market didn’t just facilitate trade in goods and services; it revealed truth. How did his ambition collapse into its opposite – the mind-bending possibility that, thanks to our thoughtless veneration of the free market, truth might be driven from public life altogether?
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems​

George Monbiot
Fri 15 Apr 2016 07.00 EDT

Excerpts:

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papersoffer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.

In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.

With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of thinktanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia.

As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.

Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative.

At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: John Maynard Keynes’s economic prescriptions were widely applied, full employment and the relief of poverty were common goals in the US and much of western Europe, top rates of tax were high and governments sought social outcomes without embarrassment, developing new public services and safety nets.

But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream. As Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change ... there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”.

It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice should have been promoted with the slogan 'there is no alternative'

After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Today is International Cat Day.

 

[Mainad]

Hawaii is the only state of the USA that was once an independent kingdom.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Sudacafan]

Hawaii is the only state of the USA that was once an independent kingdom.

So the 4th of July must be a mixed-feelings kind of celebration for them.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

CULTURE / FILM / LONGFORM

'Lost in Translation' at 20: A Tokyo perspective​

While film critics often note the film's Tokyo setting is inconsequential, those involved believe Tokyo is the only place it could have been made​

"Lost in Translation" was a sleeper hit about two people meeting in an unfamiliar city and forming an intense and fleeting emotional bond. | ILLUSTRATION BY MING ONG

BY JAMES HADFIELD
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
SHARE
Sep 9, 2023

Excerpts:

In the autumn of 2003, Japan was having a bit of a moment at the movies. That October, cinema audiences were treated to the spectacle of Uma Thurman clashing with the Crazy 88 yakuza gang in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Vol. 1.” A few weeks later, Tom Cruise could be seen getting in touch with his warrior spirit in Edward Zwick’s period epic, “The Last Samurai.”

But first out of the blocks was “Lost in Translation,” the sophomore feature by Sofia Coppola — a celebrity kid already well on her way to becoming a celebrated filmmaker in her own right.

Released in U.S. theaters on Sept. 12, this tale of a brief encounter between two lonely souls at a luxury hotel in Tokyo was a resounding critical and commercial success. Produced on a modest $4 million budget, it went on to pick up four Academy Award nominations, including for best picture, with Coppola taking home the Oscar for best original screenplay.

The director, a frequent visitor to Tokyo, had intended the movie to be a love letter to the city. Not everyone took it that way, but even the film’s most ardent detractors would have to admit that it remains one of Hollywood’s more enduring depictions of the Japanese capital. Shooting with a handheld Aaton camera — and without obtaining permits — Coppola and cinematographer Lance Acord captured a vibe that, 20 years on, people are still chasing.

“Before, people came to Tokyo for work,” says writer and editor Kunichi Nomura, a friend of Coppola’s who appears briefly in the film and also helped out behind the scenes. “But after ‘Lost in Translation,’ people started to come here for a holiday.”

An intimate, chaotic shoot​

“Lost in Translation” is about two people meeting in an unfamiliar city and forming a brief, intense emotional bond that teeters between friendship and romance. One of them, Bob (Bill Murray), is a washed-up Hollywood actor in Tokyo to shoot a lucrative commercial for Suntory whisky. The other, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson), is a young college graduate who has tagged along with her successful photographer husband (Giovanni Ribisi).

Whereas most international productions at the time blundered into town with gargantuan lighting rigs and bloated budgets, Coppola tried to stay light on her feet.


Scarlett Johansson plays Charlotte in "Lost in Translation." The actress has said in interviews she feels it was a turning point in her career. | SOFIA COPPOLA, FROM ARCHIVE (MACK, 2023). COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND MACK (MACKBOOKS.CO.UK)

“She said that she wanted the film to feel as though it was filmed by her and a tiny, intimate crew of just friends — and we tried to make that happen as much as possible,” recalls Stephen Nomura Schible, one of the movie’s co-producers. Born and raised in Tokyo, he was among a handful of people involved with the production who were highly proficient in both English and Japanese.

“It started out quite difficult, and it never really became easy until it was all over,” he says. “In Japanese, they say ‘kajiba no bakajikara.’ Where there’s a fire, people freak out, and then they find all these abilities that they have all of a sudden. I think my experience of working with the Coppolas was a bit like that: It was genius, but it was also trial by adrenaline ... a trial by fire.”

“The first couple of days was really chaos,” agrees Takuro Ishizaka, now an established cinematographer, who worked as second camera assistant on the film. While shooting in central Shibuya, he remembers that Coppola and Acord would wander off to explore the area after finishing a take, leaving the rest of the crew scrambling to find them.

“We had to carry two cameras most of the time, but with just the one camera crew. So we had to carry all the film, and reload on the streets, and then it would start raining — madness.”

Official oversight was less stringent at the time, meaning that movie productions shooting on the streets of Tokyo often had to worry more about attracting the attention of the yakuza than getting reprimanded by the police. Ishizaka was with the production’s second unit — helmed by Coppola’s brother, Roman — when they had one such encounter with some local heavies.

Meet me at the bar​

The most consequential casting choice, if you can call it that, was for the film’s main location. Coppola had stayed at the Park Hyatt Tokyo in Shinjuku before, and managed to secure permission to film at the hotel — something that had never happened prior or since. After its release, “Lost in Translation” turned the hotel’s 52nd-floor New York Bar into an essential stop on tourist itineraries; customers can still order a pink-hued “L.I.T” cocktail.

“I was working there during that time, and I clearly remember the changes there, day by day,” says Yasukazu Yokota, now the hotel’s Food & Beverage Manager. “It was already popular and loved by guests since opening, but after ‘Lost in Translation,’ I felt a big wave of people visiting because of the movie.”

He remembers being impressed by the “professionalism” of Coppola and her crew during the shoot.


Much of "Lost in Translation" took place in the New York Bar at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, which has now become something of a tourist attraction for fans of the film. | COURTESY OF THE PARK HYATT TOKYO

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/cultur...hnrhzqmf05ak5u6xov6cvpkjmo3n4sapdhonx8kiorbw0

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

James Dean died in a car crash on this day in 1955 while driving from L.A. to Salinas. I’ve thought about his death during my many drives over the years between L.A. and San Francisco as I drive by the I-5 exit for 41 and Paso Robles. I prefer not to think about car crashes during long drives, but I've strongly associated Paso Robles with James Dean since learning about his life and death.

L.A. Times archive:

From the Archives: Film Star James Dean Killed in Auto Crash​

OCT. 1, 1955 2 PM PT

James Dean, 24, one of Hollywood’s brightest new motion-picture stars, was killed early last night in a head-on collision at the rural town of Cholame, about 19 miles east of Paso Robles, the California Highway Patrol reported.

The young actor met death in his German-built Porsche sports car while en route to road races at Salinas. Patrolmen said Dean was dead on arrival at the Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital following the crash at the intersection of State Highway 41 and U.S. 466.

Mechanic Injured
His mechanic, identified by the CHP as Rolph Wuetherich, about 27, of Hollywood, suffered a fractured jaw, fractured hip and body lacerations. He was described as in “moderately serious condition.”

The CHP office at San Luis Obispo said a car driven by Donald Turnupseed of Tulare made a left turn on Highway 41 while traveling east, colliding almost head on with Dean’s tiny sports car. Investigators said Turnupseed suffered minor injuries.

An attending physician was quoted as saying Dean died instantly at about 5:30 p.m. from a broken neck, numerous broken bones and severe lacerations over the entire body.

The Indiana-born star left Hollywood with Wuetherich several hours before the fatal crash for a week end of racing at Salinas. He had just this week completed a role in “Giant,” the film version of Edna Ferber’s book about Texas.
He became a sports car racing enthusiast only last spring, shortly after he rocketed to stardom in “East of Eden,” made from the John Steinbeck story of early days in the Salinas Valley.

Under contract to Warner Bros. studios, the intense young star frequently had been compared to Marlon Brando and both were products of Director Elia Kazan’s school for tyro actors. Dean’s activity in television earned him his first motion-picture role, plus parts in two New York plays: “See the Jaguar” and “The Immoralist.”

Attended UCLA
Another film still unreleased in which Dean has the starring role is “Rebel Without a Cause,” made at Warner’s last summer.

Born at Marion, Ind., in February, 1931, Dean attended Santa Monica Junior College, later transferring to UCLA, where he majored in dramatics.

He left UCLA to seek an acting job in New York and won the David Blum Award for promising newcomers several years ago, the accolade helping him to starring roles in such television dramatic programs as Studio One, You Are There and Television Playhouse.

George Stevens, who produced and directed Dean’s last picture, termed the young star’s death a “great tragedy . . . he had extraordinary talent.”

One of Jimmy’s co-stars in “Giant,” Elizabeth Taylor, broke down when the news reached her: “I can’t believe it; I’m just stunned,” was all she could say.

Stevens and Warner Bros. said Dean had been forbidden to enter any sports car races while the picture was in production.

Just Got Car
A studio photographer, Sanford Roth, a few miles behind the Dean speedster, told the CHP Dean had just received delivery on the new car and was anxious to race it following the enforced studio layoff.

Ironically, Dean decided at the last minute to drive the sports car to Salinas. Stevens said the actor originally planned to travel north in his station wagon but changed his mind in favor of driving the small car just before departure time.

Dean was unmarried. He leaves his father, Winton A. Dean, a dental technician at Veterans Hospital, Sawtelle.
https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/archives/la-me-james-dean-19551001-snap-story.html

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

I got buzzed this afternoon in San Francisco, not properly in a bar, but by Blue Angels descending from the sky.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

World's Tallest Statues

The Statue of Unity (India)

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Lev Kuleshov, Alfred Hitchcock, and Robert Bresson could have made Oscar a star. Come on, Marty, who needs DiCaprio?

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

All these birds mingling, chilling, and drying their feathers on a wave breaker together made me smile this morning (only had my iPhone with me):

 

[Vcore89]

All these birds mingling, chilling, and drying their feathers on a wave breaker together made me smile this morning (only had my iPhone with me):

That is one stunning pic composition no less, Mike!

You mean your Hasselblad or Leica would've had a better way to express image quality?

 

[Vcore89]

What to consider before buying a BMW E9 Coupe​

By David S. Wallens
Aug 27, 2023

Timeless lines married with just the right amount of utility. Thin pillars allowing a commanding view in nearly all directions. And that dominating motorsports pedigree.

We’re talking about the Porsche 911, right? Nope, the E9-chassis BMW coupe. In most cases, this means the 2800 CS (1968–’71) or the slightly more powerful 3.0 CS (1972–’75).

A high-performance variant, not imported at the time to the U.S., carried the 3.0 CSL designation, providing BMW with a homologation model for the day’s touring car scene. It brought more power along with less weight thanks to thinner sheet metal, aluminum body panels and plastic windows. The race version dominated Group 2 competition from 1973 all the way through 1979, well past the car’s production run.

No matter the guise, these are the models that slot between those first, slightly awkward-looking Neue Klasse coupes of the mid-’60s and the handsome, timeless 6 Series cars that soldiered on until the end of the ’80s. The E9 cars weren’t all-new, though, as they borrowed most everything aft of the windshield from their predecessors. Lengthening the nose, however, helped Wilhelm Hofmeister and team to nail the proportions.

That longer nose wasn’t just about looks, though. It provided space for an inline-six engine. Now the BMW coupe offered the full package, as noted in a 1970 Road & Track test of the 2800 CS: “a new standard of sophistication and understated luxury for 6-cyl cars.” Another highlight from that review: “It just looks right.” The editors called the front seats “superbly designed” and found the engine to be “powerful and responsive.” Just a single fault, recalled from an earlier drive in Germany, was noted: slow window motors.

And all these years later? That praise holds true, says Arjun Soundararajan, CEO of BMW tuning firm UUC Motorwerks and owner of a pair of E9-chassis cars. “It’s a swoopy, cool, long car,” he says. “I’m looking at 2002 prices and wondering why someone isn’t buying a 3.0 at this point.”

BMW E9 Coupes Shopping Advice​

Our Expert:
Arjun Soundararajan
UUC Motorwerks

To me, personally, from a shape standpoint, it’s a classic profile of what is a BMW.

It’s remarkably nice over a bend or in a corner. It’s very user-friendly. It’s literally intended to be used as a daily driver.

You’re not going to go wrong with a 2800 or a 3.0. The 2800 came with rear drums. I would steer you towards a 3.0 due to better brakes.

I would say, in a perfect world, you would look for one in this order: rust-free, good engine, good suspension.

Inside the front wheel well there’s this little pocket, if you will, and water will go into that pocket and it has nowhere to go, so these cars would rust from the inside out. There’s no great reason why that pocket is there.

A lot of people went to E28 heads because the stock heads would corrode. A 3.5-liter from an early E24 would fit in an E9.

Some people automatically upgraded to Webers. Those are great.

Windows are another thing that they struggled with. They have weak motors.

The CSL: They’re cool things to talk about, but not cool things to live around. You’ll just wish it had regular glass so you could clean the thing.

 

[Mike Bulgakov]

Went to the Beat Museum this afternoon and had myself a good time!

Why you should visit The Beat Museum, a SF historic gem
You don't have to go "on the road" to find Beat history. Just head to North Beach's mecca for poetry and literature.
By Amy Ettinger,
Special to SFGATE
https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/the-beat-museum-18088770.php