Movie speech clips to inspire for 2009

Scroll down to the entry for December 19th in Scholarly Kitchen to find some inspiring short movie clips.

To wish you well through the end of the year and into 2009, please find a montage of inspiring speeches and outtakes from famous movies as assembled by Matthew Belinkie.

Times Literary Supplement online

The latest issue has several free online articles, including 'Enslaving the Amazon'.

"Far from being a great emptiness to be exploited and profited from, the Amazon must be appreciated for what it really is - a reservoir of natural richness from which we can learn much about how our planet works": Sandra Knapp looks into the violent, troubled history of the Amazon, "a symbol for the richness of life itself and for its fragility in the face of human exploitation".

Other articles for which you need to go to the site to link to, or scroll back from the one above, include 'Down home with Warren Buffett'.

Does the billionaire Oracle of Omaha, with his folksy philosophy and his cult following, merit a 900-page biography, asks Richard Davenport-Hines? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is yes: Buffett's biography has "the bouncing vitality of an early Sinclair Lewis novel" and it "raises questions about the role of the public intellectual in the US".

Shakespeare and deep England

John Guy finds Jonathan Bate's new biography of the Warwickshire playwright "enthralling, the most eloquent evocation of Shakespeare one is ever likely to encounter", revealing his "cultural DNA" as the "Soul of the Age".

Similarly the latest issue of the London Review of Books has some fascinating free articles, including James Wolcott 'Updike should stay at home', reviewing The Widows of Eastwick by John Updike.

“Where Norman Mailer set out to bend the future with his telepathic powers and the Beats sought to hot-wire the American psyche (at the risk of frying their own circuits), Updike wrote as if he were doing fine draftsmanship under a cone of light, honouring creation and the American plenty. He was the ideal son of a platonic union between John Cheever and J.D. Salinger, with Nabokov attending the christening as fairy godfather. Apparent lack of inner struggle and purring efficiency made it possible to take him for granted. ‘No one has ever sat around worrying about Updike, the way one apparently worried about Wolfe and Fitzgerald and Hemingway, as if they were all soloing the Atlantic with each book, to see whether he’s lost his touch or his nerve or his fastball,’ Wilfrid Sheed wrote in Essays in Disguise. ‘We know damn well he’ll have his touch this time and next: we just want to see whether we like what he’s done with it.’” [read more . . . ]

And Is it Art?

John Lanchester on video games: “There is no other medium that produces so pure a cultural segregation as video games, so clean-cut a division between the audience and the non-audience. Books, films, TV, dance, theatre, music, painting, photography, sculpture, all have publics which either are or aren't interested in them, but at least know that these forms exist, that things happen in them in which people who are interested in them are interested. They are all part of our current cultural discourse. Video games aren't. Their invisibility is interesting in itself, and also allows interesting things to happen in games under the cultural radar.”

Not available online, but well worth reading are selections from Alan Bennett's diary for 2009, although a UK Daily Telegraph blog wasn't quite as enthusiastic.

"Savouring Alan Bennett's diaries in the London Review of Books is becoming almost a New Year tradition in its own right. But every year, pleasure in these snippets of humour and shrewd observation is marred by Bennett's knee-jerk anti-police harangues. Two or three years back Bennett actually confessed to being ashamed of this himself, but he can't kick the habit. In the entry for s11 September 2008 he notes, 'In Britain the police shoot people with impunity. They always have'. This hardly chimes in with the oft-stated reluctance of armed officers to shoot in any circumstances for fear of being prosecuted. And what about Met. Police constable Gary Nelson, convicted of two murders in 2006 and sent down for a minimum of 35 years?"

10 things to look forward to in 2009 from the UK Evening Standard

THE NEW HONESTY

“I can't afford it” has become a perfectly legitimate excuse for turning down pricey invitations to weddings, holidays, or even a drink or meal.

GETTING OUR PRIORITIES RIGHT

The worsening economic situation affords us all a chance to concentrate on what we need rather than what we want, and to make a virtue of necessity. Look for a rise in home cooking (and a rise in culinary cheating and corner-cutting as the crunch destroys food snobbery), a rise in home-grown (rather than shop-bought organic) food and the triumph of good-value local restaurants over elite dining rooms. Expect, too, a resurgent interest in crafts, hobbies, board games and other (cheap) home entertainment.

GREAT TELLY

If we're going to be spending more nights in, thank goodness there's plenty to watch. On terrestrial TV, there's the second series of Ashes to Ashes, Joss “Buffy” Weedon's new sci-fi thriller The Dollhouse, the remake/sequel to Minder and the prospect of a new Dr Who. Cult followers of David Simon's The Wire can look forward to the satellite premiere of his new show, Generation Kill, following a group of young soldiers in Iraq."

The UK Guardian reveals the secret literary life of George W Bush

"Karl Rove reveals outgoing president read average of two books a week over last four years Throughout his career, George Bush cultivated the image of the common man. Unlike Al Gore or John Kerry, he was a guy Americans would be happy to have a beer with - well, fruit juice maybe, as the president gave up the bottle long ago.Now comes incontrovertible evidence that Bush's country bumpkin persona was a bit of a front. Karl Rove, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, tells us that underneath that bluff exterior, Bush was, if not exactly an intellectual, an avid reader. According to Rove - often referred to as Bush's brain - the two competed for the last four years over who read the most books. By the end of 2006, Bush had read a highly respectable 95 books to Rove's 110. That works out at about two books a week - a fairly impressive feat for such real masters of the universe.

The overplayed folksiness should come as no big surprise as his father tried to pull the same stunt - to much less convincing effect. Bush senior may have told us he kept pork rinds on his desk, but he always came across as politically high caste. Bush junior played the game much better, down to the use of the vernacular ("bring 'em on"). While it may have sounded jarring to polite company, it probably went down well with Joe Six-pack.

But what kind of books did Dubya devour? Lots of biographies, particularly political ones: Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie, Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ - and Genghis Khan. But there was also time for fiction with the president showing a penchant for Travis McGee novels by John MacDonald (eight). Perhaps most surprising on the 2006 list was Albert Camus's The Outsider - the archetypal novel of alienation. For good measure, each year they competed, Bush read the Bible cover to cover." More here.

Davi d Cameron must learn historical accuracy

The UK Evening Standard has exposed UK Opposition Leader David Cameron's New Year message as containing a history lesson of arguable provenance: "For us, the strong economy of the future will be built on a strong and responsible society. The Emperor Hadrian, when asked how Rome would be rebuilt after a devastating fire, replied: 'Brick by brick, my citizens; brick by brick.'"

Following perusal of the internet, and consultations with classicists from Cambridge, my man in the University Library can't find any historical source for this quote. Nor was there any devastating fire in Rome during Hadrian's reign: the Pantheon burned down for a second time in 110AD, and Hadrian rebuilt it, but there is no reference to that quote in the relevant histories.

Googling the quote, you find a few hundred hits - all attributing it to Hadrian but without any source reference - mostly on American blogs. Curiously though, all these references appear after the film Seabiscuit (2003) where the character of Red Pollard (played by Tobey Maguire) addresses the horse of the film's title as follows:

"l know. l know. l'm in a hurry too, Pops. But you know what Hadrian said about Rome: "Brick by brick, my citizens. Brick by brick." Now surely, with an education at Eton and Brasenose, Oxford, Cameron didn't just lift a quote from the film, Seabiscuit, and attribute it to Emperor Hadrian without checking its historical veracity? Is there some genuine historical-source for the quote? Let's hope so, but the Londoner fears there isn't.

Seabiscuit was shown on BBC2 on 23 December. So now we know what the Tory leader, or perhaps his speechwriter, may have been doing that afternoon. Cameron should at least have consulted his Eton and Oxford contemporary, Boris Johnson, a classicist who has made TV programmes about the Roman Empire. Do they not talk to one another any more?

Lake Superior State University is known for its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

Now a new site at Wayne State University, Word Warriors, aims to draw attention to “words of style and substance that see far too little use.” Among the first words identified for this list: cahoots, defenestrate, insouciance, mendacious and quixotic.

The UK Guardian reports that Mills & Boon has linked up with the Rugby Football Union

to create a series of rugby themed romance novels featuring 'jet set locations, hunky alpha male heroes and hot sex ... in a rugby context'.

"Oh my God." Her hand covered her mouth. She glanced at him in desperate panic. "They filmed me kissing you. And it's up on the giant screens." Her voice rose, her cheeks were scarlet, and her reluctant glance towards the stadium ended in a moan of disbelief. "Oh God, I can't believe this ... and my hair is all over the place and my bottom looks huge, and - everyone is looking." His eyes on the pitch, Prince Casper watched with cool detachment as his friend, the England captain, hit a post with a drop-goal attempt. "More importantly, you just cost England three points."

Rugby and romance are perhaps not the most obvious of combinations, but one that the world's biggest romance publisher, Mills & Boon, and the Rugby Football Union believe will bear fruit. The pair have teamed up to publish a series of books featuring tall, dark and handsome rugby heroes - minus cauliflower ears - and their glamorous love interests.

"Our mission statement is to do for rugby what Jilly Cooper did for polo - to give it an air of sexiness and glitz and glamour," said series editor Jenny Hutton. "You don't have to like rugby to like the books," added Clare Somerville, Mills & Boon's sales and marketing director. "They've got all the elements of a quintessential Mills & Boon romance: jet-set locations, hunky alpha male heroes and hot sex, but in a rugby context."

Information on the rules of rugby for the non "rugby savvy", along with tips on what to wear at matches, will also be included, she said.The RFU International Billionaires series launches with The Prince's Waitress Wife - in which one sex scene takes place in the president's suite at Twickenham - on 1 February, just before the start of the RBS Six Nations Championships. In a later title, The Ruthless Billionaire's Virgin, the heroine stands in to sing the national anthem, only to suffer a "wardrobe malfunction" from which she is saved by the chivalrous hero.

But readers should not expect guest appearances from real-life players such as Lawrence Dallaglio. "We made a decision early doors that that wasn't going to happen," said Jane Barron, licensing and marketing manager at the RFU. "There are no real people - it's all imaginary."

John Mullan lists in the UK Guardian ten of the best fictional valets

These include:

Jeeves - Reginald Jeeves to give him his rarely used Christian name - is not so much servant as guide, saviour and benign manipulator. And not a butler (who is a household servant). Perfect and unruffled as he is, Wodehouse's great creation is a profound anti- Puritan, a covert and intellectually brilliant promoter of cakes and ale.

Strap - In Tobias Smollett's first novel, Roderick Random, the hero narrates his wanderings in the company of an old schoolfriend, Hugh Strap, who, recognising that he is a true gentleman, opts to become his valet. Through all Roderick's misadventures, "my faithful valet" remains true, finally helping him to win the hand of the gorgeous Narcissa (and marrying her maid himself).

Sganarelle - In Molière's Dom Juan, Sganarelle is valet to a notorious libertine. He is a half-protesting assistant, who offers his atheistic employer religious sentiments and occasionally warns girls what is coming to them. When Juan is dragged down to hell the valet cries out despairingly: "My wages! My wages!"

The US Chronicle of Higher Education on X-Rated America

"Meenakshi Gigi Durham is an associate professor of journalism at the University of Iowa and author of The Lolita Effect: The Media Sexualization of Young Girls and What We Can Do About It (Overlook, 2008).

Sex is everywhere, and it's always been everywhere for this generation," Alecia Oleyourryk, a Boston University senior, noted in The New York Times. Oleyourryk was a founding editor of Boink, Boston University's student-run skin mag; others in the genre include Harvard's H Bomb (whose start-up costs were paid for by the university), Vassar's Squirm (partially supported by the campus student association), and the University of Chicago's Vita Excolatur (paid for by student activity fees). The on-campus production of pornography is just one facet of the new sexual revolution - activities like Yale's Sex Week are, for better or worse, a fairly routine part of college life in the 21st century.

By drawing a clear distinction between "porn" and "pornography," the authors slice through the Gordian knot of definitions that has plagued pornography studies since its inception. Beginning with Justice Potter Stewart's gruff, "I know it when I see it" in his 1964 Jacobellis v. Ohio Supreme Court opinion, lawyers and scholars have struggled to clearly define pornography, including Catharine MacKinnon's focus on "sexual abuse as speech," Robert Jensen's straightforward "material sold in pornography shops for the purpose of producing sexual arousal," Camille Paglia's formulation of pornography as protest, and Nadine Strossen's concept of "sexual expression." Rather than wrestling with a precise definition, Sarracino and Scott recognize porn as encompassing a range of representations, behaviors, and understandings about sex, some of which they consider to be liberating, while others they view as harmful, problematic, and, in fact, "anti-sex." Working within that range gives them the scholarly elbowroom to explore nuances and vouchsafe critiques in a way that engages multiple perspectives and possibilities. No one ever said porn was simple.

Real life, the authors argue convincingly, has begun to follow porn-movie scripts. Students assess the "hotness" of professors with chili peppers on the Web; Bill Clinton's shenanigans with an intern were viewed with amusement by a generation familiar with, and unhorrified by, porn scenarios. The sexual scripts of porn, the authors observe, are "infused into mainstream culture everywhere we look." What was once marginal, the stuff of secret museums and Puritan shame, is now normal."

Reid Goldsborough in Information Today analyses Future Trends in Personal Technology

"If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me." Shakespeare's words are just as wise today, but this hasn't stopped people from trying to divine the future.

Crystal balling the near future is a lot less risky than the long-term future, with only small extrapolations needed from the present. Doing so can be both interesting in itself and practical, helping you prepare for what may lie ahead.

The advertising industry is among those sectors of society charged with keeping track of current, and possible future, trends. JWT, formerly J. Walter Thompson, is the world's fourth largest and perhaps best-known advertising agency, and it just released a report titled "10 Trends for 2009."

The report includes some insightful predictions, including the following:

The use of email will decline. Email is "an increasingly outdated medium," says Ann Mack, who goes by the title director of trendspotting at JWT. The reasons are twofold: Younger people prefer to communicate via text messages and social networks, and people of all ages are fed up with overflowing inboxes.

The report calls email overload a "serious productivity drain," but as yet there's no clear successor. The report indicates that partial substitutes will be social networking for professionals, which involve communications-centered websites, and microblogging, which involve brief text updates. A popular example of the former is LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com); an example of the latter is Twitter (www.twitter.com).

The use of mobile devices will continue to increase. Cloud computing offloads processing and storage requirements to web-based servers, making it possible to do more with less powerful devices. The increasing availability of wireless broadband connections from companies such as AT&T Mobility (www.wireless.att.com), Verizon Wireless (www.verizonwireless.com), and Sprint Nextel (www.sprint.com) will make it possible to use those devices in more and more places.

The devices themselves, following the lead of previous digital technology, will decrease in cost as they increase in functionality and ease of use. The technology leader, if not the price leader, is Apple's iPhone (www.apple.com/iphone), an internet-connected multimedia smartphone that not only lets you talk and exchange text messages with others but also do email, surf the web, take photos, listen to music, watch videos, play games, take notes, keep your schedule, do calculations, and more. Another popular smartphone with PC-like functionality is the BlackBerry (www.blackberry.com).

As with personal computers, the biggest benefit to smartphones is their customizability. Independent software developers create programs-some free, some at a cost-that let you do more and more things, and the number of such programs available will only increase."

The Couch Potato Winner is ... a Librarian!

The New York Daily Times reports "a Manhattan man has won his second couch potato contest. Stan Friedman, 47, a research librarian at magazine giant Conde Nast, needed 18 hours, 48 minutes and 17 seconds of sports-watching time to outlast the competition at the second annual ESPN Zone Ultimate Couch Potato Competition. The participants, sitting in recliners in front of dozens of televisions, weren't allowed to go to sleep or leave their recliners except for restroom breaks once every eight hours. He won $5,000 in prizes, including a recliner that takes up "an irrational amount of floor space" in his 350-square-foot Hell's Kitchen home."

Quote of the Week

"Christianity has done a great deal for love by making a sin of it" Anatole France.

Odd Book Title

'The History of the Melton Mowbray Pork Pie' by Trevor Hickman. Sutton Publishing, 2005

Pun of the Week

Review of a book on herbs: "It's sage and thyme-ly."