From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V11 #6 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, January 7 2002 Volume 11 : Number 006 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 [Capuchin ] Re: More movies! [Capuchin ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: effective cone disposal [Capuchin ] Re: birds ["Brian Hoare" ] Re: Minus 3 points for the techies [Capuchin ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: Bloopers [Capuchin ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 [Jeff Dwarf ] Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: Memento (warning: big effin' spoilers) [Capuchin ] Re: More movies! [The Great Quail ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:01:56 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, Glen Uber wrote: > On 1/4/02 3:11 PM, "Natalie Jane" wrote: > > I appreciate that dogs like to get out and about, but you know, not > > everyone *likes* dogs - some people are allergic to them, some are > > even scared of them - and inflicting them on strangers is just plain > > rude. Your dog is not going to languish and die if you leave it at > > home for one night. Jeez. > > I know it's not a popular opinion to hold, but I've said the very same > things -- to the syllable -- about children. I don't know anyone that is either allergic to or scared of children. And small children are MUCH MORE LIKELY to die if you leave them at home alone for one night than dogs. I was at the video store the other day and there were TWO SEPARATE couples in there with their dogs. IN THE STORE. You don't see me pushing my bicycle through the aisles, do you? I lock it to the pole outside as these people should do with their animals. Oh, there's also a neighbor a few houses down that keeps some breed of killing dog in their useless fifteen square feet of front yard. This animals spends most of its time (near as I can tell) snarling and trying to eat its way through the fence in order to slay passers-by. Why any civilized city dweller would want a creature bred for hunting or bloody combat to live on their homestead is beyond me. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:21:07 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: More movies! On Fri, 4 Jan 2002, The Great Quail wrote: > I know a lot of Fegs have raved about this movie -- as have critics, > friends, co-workers, etc. -- but I have to say, it left me pretty > disappointed and unimpressed. I think there's about fifteen seconds of film that both defines and exemplifies what this movie is about and what it means. Royal says (and I'm paraphrasing all quoted material, but with an attempt at best recollection), "These last six days have been the best of my life." And there's a pause. And the Narrator says, "The moment after he said these words, he realized they were true." And Hackman's face, and the tone of the whole film, changes. There's a sublime beauty and a subtlety in that transition. The liar speaks truth, but not because it is the truth, but because it also happens to be the most convenient lie. And in the realization of the truth in his own words, he sees, for the first time in his life, that charity, kindness, and honesty can also be self-serving. He sees a whole new world of opportunity in goodness. Is there such a thing as realistic expressionism? I'm thinking of something between Mark Ryden and Odd Nerdrum. Maybe a better term is "hyper-realism" (though that probably means something else). I'm thinking of realistic depections of exaggerated reality that represents, in allegory or symbolism, some abstract concept or emotion. But I don't really know anything about art. Anyway, this film is, for me, how a realistic expressionist would write "family". J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:23:58 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 Capuchin wrote: > I was at the video store the other day and there were TWO SEPARATE > couples in there with their dogs. IN THE STORE. You don't see me > pushing my bicycle through the aisles, do you? I lock it to the pole > outside as these people should do with their animals. well, no. actually, they should have one person wait outside with the dog, while the other goes in to select a video. if they need to discuss things, have the cashier/clerk hold the disputed videos for a sec while you go outside to discuss it. and if you are alone, take your dog for his/her walk, then go out again to the video store. but too many things can happen to a dog left alone outside a store and none of them are good, tied up or not. of course, it's a very small minority of dog owners who do crap like this, or taking the dog to a concert, etc. most of us never take the dog any more exotic than the park. > Oh, there's also a neighbor a few houses down that keeps some breed > of killing dog in their useless fifteen square feet of front yard. > This animals spends most of its time (near as I can tell) snarling > and trying to eat its way through the fence in order to slay > passers-by. Why any civilized city dweller would want a creature > bred for hunting or bloody combat to live on their homestead is > beyond me. well, city-dweller probably has little to do with it. most suburb or even rural dweller have no use for dog like that either. of course, the problem is almost certainly the owner, not the dog. that kind of dog seems to pair with the SUV a penile substitution amongst a certain type of guy these days. hopefully some day soon, the dog will turn on it's owner and not the local lacrosse coach. people who train/torture fighting dogs should be filleted, prefereably without benefit of anesthesia. ===== "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy . Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:26:38 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: effective cone disposal On Fri, 28 Dec 2001, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > I have here one of Robyn's cones, the only one for sale at the Glasgow > Soft Boys gig on 24 April 2001. Unusual in that it's signed by all the > Soft Boys, see here: > http://homepages.enterprise.net/scruss/rh_temp/index.html#cone > > As it'll be utter poo to ship to Canada, do I: > > * make an arrangement here, or > > * embrace the free market and slap it on ebay to let it find the going > value? > > It'll be a shame to part with it. If you're going to sell it in ebay, you'll have to ship it, no? So you may as well ship it to yourself in Canada. Me, I'd just build a rectangularly prismatic frame (copper tubing or PVC or something), run some string through the cone (up through the bottom and out the hole in the top), secure the string to the frame, then build a cardboard box around it. Ship as is with a "fragile" sticker. The surface of the cone wouldn't come in contact with ANY of the packing material and it'd be fine as long as it didn't go on the bottom of a huge stack of heavy things. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 09:38:55 +0000 From: "Brian Hoare" Subject: Re: birds James: >Sigh. I miss kestrels... and barn owls, and puffins, and British robins, >and tits (no smart comments, please). But if I moved from NZ I'd miss >fantails and bellbirds and grey herons and kereru* just as much. I don't get to see barn owls very often. My dad, a vet, had one brought in with a broken wing once so I got to see it close up - a very beautiful creature. Puffins are great, I saw a colony on Anglesea when I was on honeymoon. Its was a ten mile round walk to the site from our cottage but well worth it, better than the hideous boat ride to Lundy only to find that they were all in their burrows. My favourite birds at the moment are the group of Cormorants (or maybe Shags, I used to think they were the same thing but my bird book tells me otherwise) that live down in Lyme Regis. These are mean looking primative sea birds that dont have proper water proofing and stand with there wings outstretched to dry themselves in the sun. Their likeness to Noggin the Nog's guide Graculus endears them to me even more. I my bedroom I have a bronze bird ( bought in Phoenix) in a brass bird cage and a black plastic crow that is perched over a window. Our garden is home to four chickens. We have two bantam hens called Ginger and Treacle after their colouring. We also have two broilers that escaped becoming pie filling by hiding when the van came to the chicken factory. These are Pearl and Rani. Unfortunately Rani has now grown an impressive scarlet wattle and comb and has discovered _his_ ability to crow. As we live in a terraced row his days are numbered - the neighbours don't mind him at the moment but the dawn will now occur earlier and earlier. I once knew a couple of crusty urban acid heads that were keen twitchers. During the migrations they would rouse themselves from the debris of the previous night's psychedelic revelry and ring an info centre for rumours of unusual sightings and then possibly head off hitch hiking to remotes parts of the country. One of these guys ran our Dungeons and Dragons adventures, he had a folder that was effectively a bird watchers manual for his imaginary world. His birds were beautifully drawn and extensive notes on range, habitat, diet and behaviour were available. RH content: I have a strong desire to see Robyn do an acoustic set at the sea front at Lyme Regis. Such a beautiful bay and town. It is so good to walk along the Cob at night and see the moon shining down through the water. "Build it and they will come" :) brian np Sun Ra : Space is the Place. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 01:40:39 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Minus 3 points for the techies On Thu, 27 Dec 2001, Redtailed Hawk wrote: > Luckily this survey did -not- include librarians;-) > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2100701,00.html Is a self-serving marketting survey really "research" suitable for a "news" article? NETg, the company responsible for distributing the press release regurgitated here as news, sells training services to IT professionals and their employers including non-technical training in stuff like "effective communication" and "team building". The article goes on to say that "the study indicates a need for IT support to improve their human interaction skills." Gee? Is it surprising that a "study" from a company that trains IT people in human interaction skills shows that IT people need better human interaction skills? This is an advertisment written as a "press release" printed up as a news story. Isn't it great how we've totally bypassed the middle-man? Now the corporations just go ahead and write the news as they see fit and the news outlets publish it without thought. Combine this with the unsettling thought that a journalist who asks a tough question of a public figure risks ruining their career by never being granted another audience with a public figure and that sound you hear is the death knell of journalism. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 09:43:45 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > fighting dogs I'm always amused by the language used by breeders of certain kinds of fighting dogs, esp Tosa Inu breeders who describe them as "silent fighters to the death". Tosa fighting dogs are basically canine sumo wrestlers. They don't fight to the death at all; they sort of push each other about. They tend to be very docile creatures, but since they've got a lot of great dane and mastiff in them, they're huge, and not for the faint of heart or small of estate. They're banned in most European countries just 'cos they're so enormous and scary looking. Stewart (who has a terrible soft spot for dogs like Tosa inu, ridgebacks, staffordshires and bullmastiffs, alas.) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 09:48:45 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: effective cone disposal Capuchin wrote: > > run some string through the cone (up through the bottom > and out the hole in the top) this cone hath no hole at the top, and the holes at the flange are inconveniently close to where the SBs have signed it. Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 02:15:20 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: now *here* is a great film! Allow me a few kilobytes to wax on digital media and how we're handling it so badly. On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, Aaron Mandel wrote: > The fucked up thing is that DVDs have had "Chapter Select" listed as a > feature on them since they started coming out, even though I doubt a > measurable number of people ever cared -- and yet for Memento, a movie > where seemingly everyone who saw it started talking about getting the > DVD and watching it in order using that thrilling Chapter Select > feature, they screwed up the chapter breaks so that you can't; many > chapters include both a b&w scene and the adjoining color scene. Dumb, > dumb, dumb. Well, there are about a thousand problems with the way digital media is being presented to people and they all come down to the fact that these kinds of choices don't need to be made AT ALL. The only reason the disks have "Chapter Select" is because they've artificially limited the type of forward and reverse scanning one can do on the disk. There's no reason to put out a widescreen AND cropped version of the same movie on separate disks because the format specification could have been written so as information could be provided to the player to do the cropping on the fly. And now we're seeing with these sort of "global blockbuster" films like Harry Potter and the Philosopher's/Sorcerer's Stone and Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring that the old business model of staging releases to happen at different times in different parts of the world is losing its appeal to the distributors. Thus, the whole reason for DVD content scrambling and region coding (because content scrambling is really just an excuse to impose region coding and control the player market) is going away. There's also pretty good argument that huge sections of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act was written solely for the protection of the movie distributor's business model. So now we face having quite restrictive laws on the books whose only purpose is to protect a business model that nobody uses. About fifteen years ago, my friend Ryan Johnson got a fancy stereo component system with a CD player. I rushed over to his house to see the thing and play some disks that I'd won via radio contests and stuff (I used to be really lucky with that kind of thing... I may still be, but I don't enter anymore). I was INCREDIBLY surprised to find that this device didn't have ANY KIND of programming interface. I mean, you could set what order you want the tracks to play and it had a "shuffle" button and an "intro" mode that played the first few seconds of each track, but that was extremely limited given the non-linear access possibilities of a digital disc. I wanted to be able to tell it to play the last thirty-four seconds of track six, up through the eighteenth second of track seven, loop from 1:10 to 1:15 of track twelve fifteen times, then cut to 1:35 on track one and play until 9:23 of track three. But you couldn't do anything LIKE that. And there's no way to play faster, slower, backward, higher or lower pitched, and so on. All of this is pretty trivial to implement in the hardware (by today's standards), but just isn't done. I am now able to playback prerecorded CDs in any fashion I choose using the CDROM on my computer and the extremely flexible operating environment I run. So that problem is solved via the hackish workaround of being able to make minidiscs of the play order I've chosen and listening to THOSE on my stereo system. The ability to add and delete track marks on a minidisc virtually eliminates the problems CDs have had with programming. But then we have the added detriment of SCMS which prevents multiple generation copying of minidiscs without more expensive equipment. Mind you that this only prevents the average person from making casual copies for theirselves and friends. Anyone interested in mass duplication or so-called piracy can just lay down the extra ducets and get a "professional" dubbing machine that doesn't have the restrictions. This is really an attempt by these commercial firms to dictate culture through manipulation of habitual activity. They make it hard to casually copy in order to prevent the natural human tendency to casually share information. This is more insidious than the DVD region coding because it doesn't just protect a business model by explicitly stating that model in law, it protects a business model by retarding social progress. It's like the digital television standard. They quibble over aspect ratio and how many pixels wide or tall the image should be. There's absolutly no reason for that. The television program itself can tell us how many pixels wide and tall it is. It can even carry meta-data that tells our television sets how to crop each frame to give flexible output for people with TVs of all sizes and shapes. So we have this issue with the Memento DVD. Here's a nice case in point where a person might want to reprogram their player to playback the scenes in some specific order not intended by the author's of the film. But the technology goes out of its way to inhibit this kind of activity. Now, I happen to have a very high quality Open DiVX dump of Memento here on one of my hard disks (and a CD backup). I'm seriously considering chopping it up and creating a new single video stream that is chronologically consecutive (with the exception of flashbacks and retellings, of course). But where does that put the black and white conversations? Are they all right before the last scene? If anyone's interested in such a cut of the film, I might be willing to actually do it with some help. Anyway, there's another glimpse of how things would be done if I ran the world. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 02:18:28 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Bloopers On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, Redtailed Hawk wrote: > This is great: > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15250-2001Dec21.html Many of these have been circulating on the net (and older circulation methods) for years. Does this guy actually claim to have collected these from their sources? I think many if not most of them are apocryphal. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 02:22:54 -0800 (PST) From: Jeff Dwarf Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 "Stewart C. Russell" wrote: > Jeff Dwarf wrote: >> >> fighting dogs > > I'm always amused by the language used by breeders of certain kinds > of fighting dogs well, i wasn't thinking of breed classes here; i was thinking of people who specific rear their dogs (usually pit bulls, rotweillers, dobermans, etc) to get into fights to the death with other dogs for the entertainment of themselves and other microphallic turds. , esp Tosa Inu breeders who describe them as "silent > fighters to the death". > > Tosa fighting dogs are basically canine sumo wrestlers. They don't > fight > to the death at all; they sort of push each other about. They tend to > be > very docile creatures, but since they've got a lot of great dane and > mastiff in them, they're huge, and not for the faint of heart or > small > of estate. They're banned in most European countries just 'cos > they're > so enormous and scary looking. > > Stewart > (who has a terrible soft spot for dogs like Tosa inu, ridgebacks, > staffordshires and bullmastiffs, alas.) ===== "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." -- John F. Kennedy . Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 07 Jan 2002 10:33:21 +0000 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: fegmaniax-digest V11 #3 Jeff Dwarf wrote: > > i was thinking of people > who specific rear their dogs ... to get into fights to the death oh yes, I can have no truck with them. Such people bolster my fervent belief in reincarnation. And even though Tosa Inu aren't bred for fighting (outside Kochi prefecture in Japan, at least) they're still described as fighting dogs. Even though they'd be better described as "domestic bears". Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 02:37:00 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: now *here* is a great film! >But where does that put the black and white >conversations? Are they all right before the last scene? My understanding is that the B&W scenes go forward, finally turn into color and merge with the "beginning" of the primary storyline at the end of the film. So essentially, the end of the film is the midpoint, and there's one trail leading *up to* that point (B&W) and one trail leading *back* to that point (color). >blood glucose levels -- too low or too high, and the fine blood vessels >in the feet block, causing nerve and tissue damage, somewhat akin to >leprosy. Hmmm...ok, that makes sense. Eb, amidst watching "Prospero's Books" on tape, and feeling like he's only skating on the surface of the purty imagery ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 03:16:34 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Memento (warning: big effin' spoilers) I found the bit about a fellow with no ability to create long-term memories and his little habits and methods for simulating memory was somewhat novel, but really it's just a slight twist on a tired tale (man seeks to avenge wife and redeem self... see The Fugitive where the "twist" is that the man is wanted by the police, rather than having a mental/physiological defect). The narrative device was a bit clever in that it simulated for the audience the experiences of a person with no recollection of the past (though we're blessed with memory of the future, instead, which is probably functionally BETTER in this sort of thriller), but it seemed to me an obvious step along the path we'd been on in pop cinema since at least Pulp Fiction. Hell, didn't they use the same narrative style for an episode of fucking Seinfeld? On Wed, 26 Dec 2001, Eb wrote: > I picked up a lot of little touches on my second viewing. Really? I felt like the movie was practically designed to eliminate the need for repeat viewing. I mean, every question that you have is answered a scene or two later. There would be some event and you'd think "Huh? Why this, that, and the other?" and then the consequential scenes would first tell you why this, then that, then the other. > Like how Natalie shrewdly removed the pens from the desk before > starting the big "Your wife is a fucking cunt" fight This was a central plot point. I can't imagine how you could have gotten anything out of the first viewing if major things like this required a second viewing to pick out. We see from the first few scenes how Teddy is constantly trying to manipulate Leonard, but failing. The motel clerk is pulling a minor and probably inconsequential grift with the two rooms (and you have to wonder about the two rooms from the beginning because no film's continuity can suck that badly). But I think that scene with the pens is the first one where we really see how effectively and easily Leonard can be manipulated. This is where we get the... well, the POINT of the movie: Leonard's perspective is fucked. He can't know the truth from a lie. This calls into question his notes, pictures, tattoos... everything. > or how the bloody photo of the murderous Leonard is shown in *black > and white* the first time, so you don't realize there's blood until > later. Brilliant. I don't know if it's Brilliant, per se. He's pointing at the empty spot and has a smile. Seemed pretty straightforward to me. > And then the Web brought a couple of neat bits into focus for > me...like how Teddy is constantly trying to get the Jaguar's car keys > from Leonard, so he can steal the drug money from the trunk. Well, until the end, you're just left thinking that Teddy wanted the car for himself. Then you find the money in it and say "Ohhhh." > Or best of all, how the b&w shot of institutionalized Sammy suddenly > morphs into *Leonard* for a moment, right before the scene ends. Wow! Well, it's not a morph. The nurse passes and Leonard's in the chair in place of Sammy. Now, THAT just seems like a gimmick. It's value to the narrative is, at best, iffy. > I'm wondering if "Sammy" existed at all, now. Teddy said he was just a > con man, which would make perfect narrative sense, but like you say > above, Teddy lies and lies and lies. There's a lot to infer, but the only thing that made sense to me was that Sammy was a faker out to bilk the insurance company, Mrs. Shelby knew about it because Leonard talks shop at home sometimes, so she decides she's going to call Leonard out and make him remember by pulling the insulin stunt. She dies and Leonard is hospitalized. After Leonard escapes, Teddy is sent to track him down. Teddy sees the angle and decides to help. When he sees that Leonard is full of self-sabotage just to maintain his purpose for living, Teddy helps and uses Leonard for his own ends. > Best new film I've seen in *ages*. Eh. It was good and I didn't feel like I wasted my time, but beyond the gimmicks, there wasn't much to it. All tricks, no art. I'd give it a 65 out of 100 (for comparison, The Royal Tenenbaums is in the nineties, Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring makes the low eighties, Ocean's 11 comes to just about fifty, Shrek is around forty-five [with Shallow Hal], and Bones comes in about thirty and that's for production values alone -- basically, 50 is a take-it-or-leave-it, above 50 is worth the time and below isn't). J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:46:47 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: now *here* is a great film! Eb writes, >Eb, amidst watching "Prospero's Books" on tape, and feeling like >he's only skating on the surface of the purty imagery Yeah, I feel the same way about the film -- I love Peter Greenaway, and I like "Prospero's Books," but it really is all style over substance. Though the Nyman soundtrack is one of the best, and even has Ute Lemper on it! Yaaaay Ute! Yaaaay Germans, who think Ute is an acceptable woman's name! - --Quail PS: Yaaaay Ute Lemper, who actually makes "Ute" a sexy name! ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Jan 2002 09:55:59 -0500 From: The Great Quail Subject: Re: More movies! Capuchin writes, >I think there's about fifteen seconds of film that both defines and >exemplifies what this movie is about and what it means. I actually agree with you in that that scene was one of the better moments. Again, I certainly liked some moments in the film; but as a whole I thought it was just too eager to be quirky. And even with that moment, where Royal makes his "These last six days have been the best of my life" statement, the narrator has to immediately *tell* us that "The moment after he said these words, he realized they were true." And as you wrote, "And Hackman's face, and the tone of the whole film, changes." Well, my problem is, a stronger movie would have just let the look on Hackman's face convey the message itself, without feeling the need to narrate it. All in all, the film made me smile and wince in annoyance in equal parts, whereas "Rushmore" really touched me. I could go into a deeper criticism of the movie, but I'd rather not. I will add that so many people seem to love it, I am willing to put it down in the Eb-maligned "I just don't get it" category. >The liar speaks truth, but not because it is the truth, but because it >also happens to be the most convenient lie. And in the realization of the >truth in his own words, he sees, for the first time in his life, that >charity, kindness, and honesty can also be self-serving. He sees a whole >new world of opportunity in goodness. I just wanted to leave that bit in there because I think you worded it extremely well, and pinpointed why that moment was the highlight of the film, even to a guy who overall found it very flawed. >Maybe a better term is >"hyper-realism" (though that probably means something else). Alas, it does -- think "Disneyworld" in a negative context, "Mullholland Drive" in a more positive. > I'm thinking >of realistic depections of exaggerated reality that represents, in >allegory or symbolism, some abstract concept or emotion. But I don't >really know anything about art. Well, "magical realism" comes close to your idea, but doesn't really seem to pin it down. Maybe you have invented a new artistic term in "realistic expressionism!" - --Quail ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V11 #6 ******************************