M&M: Prestige

Dear reader,

today I want to introduce you to a movie with magicians and about magic. No, of course not Harry Potter! Probably everyone knows that magician already, even those among you, who didn't read the books or watched the movies know enough for me not to write about him in my blog.

The movie “Prestige” is from 2006 with Christian Bale as Alfred Borden and Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier. Borden and Angier work together at first. Although Borden is the younger magician and more a helper or stooge playing an audience member. One day an escapology act goes terribly wrong though and Angier's wife, who is bound underwater in a watertank dies. Since Borden as an audience member tied the important knot, Angier makes him responsible for the death of his wife. Needless to say that they go their separate ways after that. Although not quite, because both spend a lot of time to bust the other and being the better, if not the best magician.

Both develop a number: they go into one cabinet and seconds later, the step out from a second cabinet. That's the main principle of the big number they both have. Is Borden using a double? But Angier, in one of his bustings hurts Borden that he actually lost fingers on one hand and Borden stepping into the cabinet as well as the one stepping out are missing those fingers. Angier on the other hand (no pun intended) is travelling from great britain to america to meet the physicist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). Tesla really existed and was famous for unusual inventions. To this day it's not known how some of his inventions he presented actually worked. In “Prestige” we see that he hands Angier a light-bulb which then lights up in his hand like that. But are feats and inventions like that enough to give Angier a second man?

Angier wants to destroy Borden desperately and definitely. That means that he has to set him up. During a performance Borden gets to enter the backstage area and sees Angier seemingly trapped in the watertank. The top lid can't be opened anymore. Angier drowns. This leads to a trial. Borden, meanwhile with a wife and a daughter, faces a possible death sentence. His life up to that point is the main part of the movie. In prison, waiting for his execution, Borden gets a visitor. Only when that man tells Borden that he'll take care of his daughter from now on and is about to leave, does Borden recognise that man. It's Angier! So Borden is no murderer!

At the end both magicians paid a high price for their big number and they know the secret of the other ones trick and what that trick has cost him.

For me “Prestige” is something special, because I'm interested in magic and do a bit of magic myself. I guarantee you that almost all tricks are real and possible, the way they are presented. The tricks are actually learnt and performed in front of the camera by the actors, quite unlike “The Illusionist”. “The Illusionist” is very disappointing in that regard, because many things would be real, but were quite visibly, at least for me, done with “film tricks”. “Prestige” is as real in the magic it shows as it can be with a movie like that.

My top favourite scene of all in the movie is when Borden is in prison and gives the warden a wipe. He does that with a combination of two main principles. He shows the warden a ball and throws him in the air. Once. That's supposed to be a magic trick? A second time. Okay, we get it now. On the third throw we look up and often the magician doesn't throw the ball really at that time. The human eye is used to the routine of the ball in the air, it looks like the ball vanishes in thin air. The second principle is to seemingly let the trick go wrong. The magician looks like an idiot. When Borden throws the ball a third time, he doesn't catch it and the ball drops off the table. The great magician is in prison for murder and can't even escape like Houdini, and then he can't even catch a ball properly.The warden likes that, of course, up until...

A couple of magic notes and anecdotes for those interested:
- Teslar isn't the only real person in "Prestige". In a performance Borden sees a chinese, Chung Ling Soo, who deceived the world (including Harry Houdini!) In reality he was an american by the name of William Ellsworth Robinson. But the first and only english words he ever spoke on stage would be shortly before his death, "My God, I've been shot."
- He was shot performing the so called "Bullet Catch", a classic magic trick, which Borden will perform in the movie, too. Robinson is one of the 11 magicians, who didn't take enough precautions, which cost them their lives.
- Other classic magic tricks performed in the movie are: the water tank (made famous by Harry Houdini especially), the "chinese linking rings", coin magic, the bullet catch. I don't know what the trick is called, but Angier tries to do one once where different objects are revealed from the long coat of the magician, usually ending with the revelation of a huge bowl filled with water and a gold fish in it.

I admit I haven't seen the movie in a long time. So I can't think of any more notes and anecdotes just now. Probably I missed some. If I should think of more, I'll add them here later. Anyway, the movie is a real pleasure for me to watch as someone interested in magic and sort of performer in magic myself, I love it for the relation to reality and because almost all of the tricks can be done that way, as you see them.

Also I like the soundtrack by David Julyan a lot.

The movie was made on the basis of the book by Christopher Priest with the same title. Like so often the case, the book is different from the movie. Angier and Boden never worked together. Angier's wife never died, but was pregnant and lost her baby because of Borden. The book is separated in different parts as diary entries which one reads and the rivalry goes on for several generations. The history of magic is more fleshed out. The background story of what life was like for the two magicians before they were on stage performing can be read. The book is different. Film and book are just two different media with their individual ways of story telling and creating suspense.

Until next blog,
sarah

Two in one

Dear reader,

the dandelions were blooming in the garden so vast that I only needed about a quarter of the flowers for the receipt doubled of the dandelion marmalade, which I made in april. But then came the gardener and mowed the lawn and then the dandelion blooming period was over. It seems like I won't be able to make any more dandelion marmalade this year. Not many people know that dandelion isn't weed, but can be used. The flowers can also be used for tea. I would like to taste dandelion tea. My first one definitely brewed for too long and was bitter tasting. Now I don't have the flowers. At least the leaves are still growing and I can use them for my guinea pigs.

In China the government permitted that the sparrows be shot. They eat up the crops for the people there. With the sparrows gone, the crops are infested by bugs. So pesticides are used to kill them off. The pesticides however don't just kill the bugs, they also kill the bees. As a result of that people have to pollinate the plants in China. Anyone care to guess who's better pollinating plants: bees or people?

So many could be used with a little bit more information and knowledge. Instead everything that's not wanted is destroyed. But, hey, maybe Mars will be habitable in a couple of decades! Since the Earth is not nice enough anymore, maybe we could move there instead. Wouldn't that be nice?

Until next blog,
sarah

Two and a half cultures

Dear reader,

there are two big human cultures. One is that of the indigenous people, especially earlier often called "primitive" or "wild". They lived and live ever since they can remember basically the same way without huge changes and above all they live in accordance with the part of the world that's around them. The others call themselves civilised, spread throughout the whole planet and destroy not only the planet. Their lifestyle is so demanding that many of them are sick and probably destroy themselves that way, too. Many are so desperate that in fact they kill themselves. Mind you, not every death can be traced back to that unusual lifestyle.

In his book „Ishmael“ Daniel Quinn uses a different pair of words for those two cultures. Even though he describes one culture as destructive, he still wants to move away from the generally loaded with prejudices words of civiliced and primitive or even wild. Based on the saying „take it or leave it“, he chose “Takers” for the civilised and “Leavers” for the indigenous people. One can argue about whether or not it makes much sense to use a new pair of words. Like so many other things that are simply renamed because of the bad image. Daniel Quinn himself has since gone back to writing about civilised and indigenous people. His books, not just Ishmael, are quite well known. Maybe he moved away from his pair again, because in the end it doesn't matter what you call those two cultures.

I want to call your attention to one other aspect regardless of that. Daniel Quinn stresses the point that there is no one right way to live for humanity. Although the civilised spread out and with that also spread the very thought of just that. Namely that their lifestyle is the right way and desirable for all people. On the other hand it's obvious that the lifestyle of the indigenous people is by far calmer and less demanding for the immediate environment of the people living that lifestyle. If the civilised are so destructive with their lifestyle, wouldn't it be better to destroy this culture and lifestyle. Particularly since the destruction of the Earth by man will stop with that, too. (Whether with the climate change will stop, too and the Earth will be more “stable” all together, is another doubtful subject.) I assume that indigenous people would most certainly rather fight to defend themselves, but not to actually attack the civilised. They are, as history has shown, far more powerful anyway. A dismantling of the civilisation to save the Earth would more likely happen from within. By people, who are unhappy with that lifestyle and want to put it to an end. But if civilisation is most likely to be dismantled by civilised people, would those fighters not in the end fight themselves? Maybe they'd be something in between those two cultures. Half a culture?

Besides, what if civilisation with all its flaws is just a intermediate stage for humanity to the next stage? Much like a toddler clumsily learning how to walk, very uncertain at first, before they actually walk and run like the grown-ups. How would we know whether civilisation is more like a virus that should better be destroyed to protect all the others or whether it's a clumsy intermediate stage towards something far better?

In any case: more and more young native americans show more interest in their own culture again and overall there is a greater interest in self supplying, how to make fire and other related subjects. I don't know how much those things will actually be useful in the end. At least the knowledge about those kind of things doesn't get lost with interested people like that. Does that really help the Earth in some way? Could the civilised, who showed interest in such things so far actually live like that when civilisation is broken down? No idea. Maybe time will tell when it actually happens.

Until next blog,
sara

A vent (gut) post

Dear reader,

my blog is called "ventquest", because at the time of starting it, I was interested in ventriloquism, the gut in a broad sense. Not really on a quest as such though. It was more the fact that "quest" seemed close and funny enough to "quist" from "ventriloquist". Anyway, some days back I spent my evening... no, not in front of the telly, but on Youtube. One video followed another until finally I found one with the german title "Help with autism". I expected the "usual" autism being a "defect" in the brain, genetic, starting with healthy normal kids which then between 1 and 3 years getting "strange". Some are lucky and learn to communicate, others are fully dependent on others to care for them and can't speak.

Wrong for this movie. Partly anyways. This film tells the story of Adar Hassan with their sons, who came from somalia to america. Two of her sons are autistic. It started for one of them after he was treated with antibiotics for respiratory problems. She adopted the american ways of eating at first. But she found that when she cooked fresh food like she used to in somalia, her sons autistic expressions were less severe. Many immigrants found similar developments with their children.

But Ellen Bolte's son suddenly became autistic, too. She too lives in america. Her son was treated with antibiotics after an ear infection. Much like Adar Hassan's son, Ellen Bolte's son started with autistic behaviour after that. Ellen Bolte then started being interested in gut bacteria and found out some pretty interesting things. See for yourself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGH1UD7uIQ4 (about 52 minutes running time) (Sorry for the subtitles, couldn't find any other version)

I wonder if disorders like ADD/ADHD may have similar causes. At least I see the treatment of that with tablets for "quieting" as worrying.

Giulia Enders studied medicine and is rather famous here in germany for her science slam about the gut. Very funny and entertaining. Sadly it's only in german. She also, rather unsurprisingly, published a book about that. That too is only in german. I do have another english clip for you though, which is a bit of a treat for you, because it only exists in english. Dr. Nancy O'Hara talking underlining the connection of the gut and autism in her presentation

Autism & ADHD: Healing From The Inside Out (about 21 minutes)

Until next blog
sarah