Kestrell

I'm still trying to find where the sighted housemates hid the stopper for the bathroom sink so that I can plug it in order to rinse out my prosthetic eyes without worrying that they are going to drop down the drain into whatever lies down in the ancient pipes of our old Victorian house, and then we will have to call the special plumbers who still know how to fix things in very old Victorian houses in order to retrieve my very expensive eyeballs from the eldritch horror of whatever lives in the abyss.

So, yes, one of my few nagging anxieties is that I will lose my eyeballs down the bathroom sink, and checking that I know where the plug for the sink is is a thing I do on a regular basis. And this plug is a heavy metal stopper, it isn't easy to lose, so really, people *sigh*...

I probably wouldn't be so freaked if I hadn't read all those Clive Baeker stories in which he goes into *excruciating* detail about things that can live in your bathroom pipes...

This past week Alexx and I rewatched "Barton Fink" (Dir. Coen Brothers, 1991), which is one of my *favorite* movies, and when I say "favorite movies," I mean it is one of those movies which causes me to babble on like the movie geek I can be which, fair warning, this post is all about.

There are many reasons to love "Barton Fink": it's a Coen Brothers film with the usual wonderfully quirky performances, including a really funny/terrifying performance by John Goodman.

The reasons I love this film are 1, it's a movie about making movies in Hollywood and 2, it has one of the most innovative and impressive sound designs of any film, ever. It's the film that made me--and many other people-- really sit up and pay attention to how sound design could become a significant part of the narrative of the film, instead of something tacked on as an after thought.

Regarding this last, if you do an online search for films with the best sound design, "Barton Fink" will show up in the top three almost every time ("Apocalypse Now" often shows up as number one).

Having spent the past week researching and reading about "Barton Fink," I thought I would share some of mthe best resources I found.

"Barton Fink" is a movie about making movies in Hollywood circa 1941, and much of the sense of time and place is taken from books written by writers who were actually writing in Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s. These included many writers such as Raymond Chandler, Nathaniel West, and William Faulkner, who is the basis for W. P. Mayhew. Another book used by the Coens was Otto Freidrich's City of Nets, about German expatriates living in Hollywood in the 1940s. An astounding amount of the dialogue and some of the character details are taken from these books.

The most complete exploration of the literary influences of "Barton Fink" I found is
"Barton Fink: ‘For the Common Man’" in _The Cinema of the Coen Brothers_ by Jeffrey Adams (2015, Columbia University Press) (available on Bookshare.org)

Online resources which provide a similar exploration but which is not quite as extensive are

15 Fiery Facts About 'Barton Fink' | Mental Floss
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67383/15-fiery-facts-about-barton-fink

and

How the Sausage Gets Made: Inside the Hollywood Film Industry in Barton Fink and Hail, Caesar! by M. Keith Booker
https://bookerhorror.com/how-the-sausage-gets-made-inside-the-hollywood-film-industry-in-barton-fink-and-hail-caesar/
(this article can also be found in _The Coen Brothers' America_ (2019) by M. Keith Booker)

If you are interested in film sound, the ultimate online resource is
FilmSound.org: dedicated to the Art of Film Sound Design & Film Sound Theory
http://www.filmsound.org/

The following article provides a basic introduction to what sound design is and what a sound editor does, and then gets into exploring the sound design of "Barton Fink."

When Sound Is a Character
By Judith Shulevitz
Aug. 18, 1991
Posted online at
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/08/18/movies/film-when-sound-is-a-character.html

This is an academic article which is part of a journal issue on sound design in film
Barton Fink: Atmospheric Sounds of the Creative Mind
Sound Practices of the Coen Brothers
by Randall Barnes
https://offscreen.com/view/barnes_bartonfink

As I said, "Barton Fink" shows up on most links of best film sound design, and here is a great example:

The Films That Influenced a Sound Design Master
https://www.filmmakeru.com/blog/the-films-that-influenced-a-sound-design-master

"Barton Fink" is filled with many small but anxiety-producing details, and one of these is the motif of the shoes. We always see empty shoes, but never the people they belong to. This reminded me of folklore associated with shoes and death, but also of concentration camp pictures of piles of shoes ("Barton Fink" has other references to World War 2 and fascism).

Folklore abounds with stories of shoes and the dead. In times past, it was thought worthy to make a gift of a pair of new shoes to a poor person at least once in a lifetime. The belief was that, in the afterlife, the person would have to cross barefoot surfaces of thorns and gorse. If one had given shoes to a poor person during life, an old man at the beginning of one's journey would meet one with the same shoes to travel over the thorns without scratch or scale.
This belief is most memorably and creepily covered in
the Lyke Wake Dirge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgr65_MPVEo&ab_channel=stewuk

Old boots and shoes are commonly found in cemeteries as gravesite remembrances. From Canada to New Orleans modern finds of shoes of various styles have been found draped across and or surrounding grave sides. According to Heck and Heck, the modern practice was inspired by Canadian songwriter Felix Leclerc’s (1914 – 1988) song, “Moi, Mes Souliers” (Me, My Shoes).

foot talk: Dead Men’s Shoes : A brief history of funereal footwear and toe pointing
http://foottalk.blogspot.com/2020/06/dead-mens-shoes-brief-history-of.html

and here are some more pictures and folklore about shoes and the dead, especially in New Orleans
https://diggirl.wordpress.com/2017/01/16/565/

the infamous "Paul is dead" conspiracy theory, when Paul McCartney was pictured not wearing shoes on the album cover of "Abbey Road."
http://feetshoesandsuperstition.blogspot.com/2008/10/feet-shoes-and-superstition-dead-mens.html

My friend and fellow scholar, Faye Ringel, will be teaching an online course on Lovecraft over four weeks beginning on October 25. Faye has published two books and many papers on New England gothic literature, and I don't know anyone who knows more about H. P. Lovecraft.
I can also say that the online registration page is fully accessible, as is the etext resource that Faye provides. Any outside resources I mention on Lovecraft I mention in class (and I have many books on Lovecraft and gothic literature) will also be available in accessible formats.

The registration fee is $40.

Lovecraft: Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (Online) | EdAdvance Adult Education FALL 2022 Catalog (coursestorm.com)

Description: Who is H.P. Lovecraft? Why do writers like Stephen King and Neil Gaiman admire his horror fiction? The work of this racially controversial and creatively influential writer will be discussed via his stories and letters. What are Cthulhu and the Necronomicon? The focus will be on "The Shunned House", "The Festival", "The Shadow Over Innsmouth", and "The Dunwich Horror" plus more. Suggested reading prior to first class is found at the following free online Lovecraft resource: https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/

Oct 25th, 2022
Tue for 4 weeks from 7:00 - 8:00 pm

Register here
https://ed-advance-foothills-adult-continuing-education.coursestorm.com/course/lovecraft-horror-fantasy-science-fiction-online?search=Lovecraft

It's definitely a very cool app, and I know we have lots of different kinds of birds around our house, including wild turkeys, crows, owls, and cardinals.

However, whenever I start recording with the Merlin app the only bird sounds it picks up are house sparrows.

Yes, we have flocks of house sparrows, and they just never get tired of twittering along.

There are some outside my window right now, mocking me.

Alexx and I were sitting outside in the patio furniture, listening to that other sound of the great outdoors, lawn equipment, and I have to admit, I was impressed that the sparrows were not at all cowed (can birds be cowed?) by the roar of lawn mowers. I think they even upped the volume to eleven. They really seemed to be projecting the message "There are more of us than there are of you, and we can do. this. All. DAY!"

So now they are even popping up during my Internet browsing, per the following webpage:

The Meaning of Sparrows: Symbolism and Identification
JENNIFER STONE
https://owlcation.com/social-sciences/The-Meaning-of-Sparrows-Identification-and-Folklore

According to sparrow symbolism, I live in either a very lucky house or the house of the dead.

Now, anyone who saw the very awesome movie "The Dark Half," directed by George Romero and based on the book by Stephen King, knows that sparrows are psychopomps, and I do love psychopomps. If only they didn't sound as if they were providing the soundtrack to a Disney movie, and I'm not talking about "Night on Bald Mountain."

Anyway, here are some other sparrow facts from that page:


According to the Audobon Society, a common superstition states that sparrows carry the souls of the dead, and as such, it is bad luck to kill them. This superstition closely resembles the ancient Egyptian view of sparrows and that of traditional sailors, some of whom would get sparrow tattoos in hopes that the birds would catch and carry their souls should they die at sea. Modern authors have also shared
systems for interpreting sparrows and other birds as omens.
https://exemplore.com/spirit-animals/birds-as-omens-and-signs

Alternatively, sparrow tattoos can represent joy, freedom and inhibition. A popular example of this meaning is Jack Sparrow's sparrow tattoo in the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. In addition to being a tribute to the infamous pirate's last name, Jack's tattoo also points to the counterculture of freedom, expression and self-determination prized by those who choose to live outside of the bounds of structured society....

According to the ancient Egyptians, sparrows would catch the souls of the recently deceased and carry them to heaven. (Years later, it became common for sailors to get sparrow tattoos in hopes that the birds would catch their souls if they died at sea.) The ancient Egyptians used a hieroglyph that represented the house sparrow. It was used as a determinative in the words "small," "narrow," or "bad."

It's that state of mind that occurs for a week or two after you've been to a science fiction convention, like this past weekend's Readercon, and news stories strike you as even more ominously dystopian than usual which, after 2020, is saying a lot. But, seriously, creating your own doppleganger, you know that never goes well, especially when you compare them to cute harmless puppies. I mean, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?!

Deepfakes Are Now Making Business Pitches
TOM SIMONITE
08.16.2021 07:00 AM
https://www.wired.com/story/deepfakes-making-business-pitches/

The clips are presented openly as synthetic, not as real videos intended to fool viewers. Reeder says they have proven to be an effective way to liven up otherwise routine interactions with clients. “It’s like bringing a puppy on camera,” he says. “They warm up to it.”

New corporate tools require new lingo: EY calls these its virtual doubles ARIs, for artificial reality identity, instead of deepfakes. Whatever you call them, they’re the latest example of the commercialization of AI-generated imagery and audio,
https://www.wired.com/story/covid-drives-real-businesses-deepfake-technology/
a technical concept that first came to broad public notice in 2017 when synthetic and pornographic clips of Hollywood actors began to circulate online. Deepfakes have steadily gotten more convincing, commercial, and
easier to make
https://www.wired.com/story/cheap-easy-deepfakes-closer-real-thing/
since.

"O Whistle and I'll Come to Thee" -- you know, the one with the creepy sheet?
https://mashable.com/video/yale-robotic-fabric/?utm_medium=onsite&utm_source=internal

10. Ask Alexa to play the Aerye's theme song, "The Attic," by Professor Elemental

Here are the other nine
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/9-spookiest-things-alexa-can-do-on-halloween/

The healthcare policy advocacy group that I participate in had a fascinating speaker this week: Richard Antonelli, who is currently working out of BOston Children's Hospital, and is a researcher for developing metrics that can be used to measure care coordination and care integration, which is a huge, complex, confusing but incredibly vital issue in developing person-centered healthcare policy. You can learn more about what he does here
http://www.nhpf.org/speakerbio_richardantonelli

During a different presentation, I brough up the issue of hearing other consumer express confusion about the different phrases that are used: "care coordinator," "care manager," and one geographically-specific healthcare program that coined the phrase "care partner." At the same time, many of the consumers are using phrases such as "case worker," to refer to their contact person at the health insurance program, which suggests that they are still unclear that this is using a different model than the social welfare system, and this model gives them more agency over making choices.

Bottom line: I get to continue the conversation with someone at the health plan who wants to get a better grasp on what consumers are confused about. Heck, I've been doing this for a couple years now and I'm still confused How much of the word choice is about creating a different and (implied) improved model of delivering health care, and how much is branding to make your plan appear to be different than the others? This is where the intersection of disability advocacy, media studies, and semiotics has brought me: it's an interesting crossroads, but you have to be careful around such trivium.

Also spent huge amounts of time this week learning to use VoiceOver and Google Classroom--I'm still trying to figure out how to move files from Google Classroom to Google Drive (I keep hearing that it's supposed to be automatic, but that appears to be a lie, er, misconception), and NVDA. NVDA is just different enough from Jaws to be tricky, and I haven't figured out why I keep hearing so much of the formatting and field codes (I really do not need to hear about every carriage return, or every cell location of an object in a table).

Oh! And Alexx and I finished watching Mike Flanagan's "The Haunting of Bly Manor," and it was really wonderful, perfectly splendid! (such an innocuous term, and yet, now, so creepy...) Mike Flanagan is a director with the soul of a bibliophile: I am in awe of how much Henry James he must have read to create this series. I'm almost tempted to go back and read the stories Flanagan references in his series, but then I remember how annoying James can be.

Okay, I'm off to risk having my brain explode and do a bit more Voiceover review before lunchtime.

MurderBaby started off as a prop for my sinister harlequin costume for Halloween last year, but then MurderBaby followed P. home and now...MurderBaby is back!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1229087324130806&id=100010886508851

I'm going to try to insert a pic of MurderBaby and I, let's hope it works...

Directed by Mike Flanagan, who was one of my favorite directors even before The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of the House of Bly begins tomorrow on Netflix.

You can find the trailer here (but can you name that tune playing on the music box?)
https://www.canstarblue.com.au/streaming/haunting-of-bly-manor-netflix/