Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963) augured the explosion of effects-driven cinema over the last 30 years, died in London on May 7 at the age of 92, according to his Facebook page.
Born in Los Angeles in 1920, Harryhausen began his love affair with stop-motion animation early after watching the seminal effects movie King Kong (1933). He started making his own stop-motion films in his family’s garage while connecting with a burgeoning science-fiction fan community in L.A., including life-long friend Ray Bradbury, who would become one of the pre-eminent sci-fi authors of the 20th century. Harryhausen, meanwhile, won work under a succession of filmmaking pioneers, including visual effects guru George Pal on Pal’s popular Puppetoons shorts, director Frank Capra on the Army Motion Picture Unit during World War II, and finally Kong animator Willis O’Brien on the 1949 giant gorilla film Mighty Joe Young, which won an Oscar for its special effects.
Harryhausen quickly became a sought-after effects artist in his own right, working on studio adventure films that culminated with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad in 1958. Filled with expertly rendered and designed visual wonders, the film climaxed with an iconic fight sequence between the title hero and a sword-wielding skeleton, a spectacle that Harryhausen topped five years later with a whole horde of warring skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. The sequences revolutionized how actors could interact with stop-motion effects, a process Harryhausen called “Dynamation.”
Harryhausen’s effects work continued through the 1960s and ’70s on films like the 1967 Raquel Welch movie One Million Years B.C. and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in 1974, ending with the 1981 mythological epic Clash of the Titans. In 1992, he received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for Technical Achievement at the Scientific and Technical Achievement portion of the Academy Awards. At the event, host Tom Hanks said, “Some say Citizen Kane is the greatest motion picture of all time. Others say it’s Casablanca. For me, the greatest picture of all time is Jason and the Argonauts.”
Ray Harryhausen, special effects pioneer, dies at 92
Posted on 8th May 2013 at 12:36
Ray Harryhausen, whose dazzling and innovative visual effects work on fantasy adventure films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958) and Jason and the Argonauts (1963) augured the explosion of effects-driven cinema over the last 30 years, died in London on May 7 at the age of 92, according to his Facebook page.
Born in Los Angeles in 1920, Harryhausen began his love affair with stop-motion animation early after watching the seminal effects movie King Kong (1933). He started making his own stop-motion films in his family’s garage while connecting with a burgeoning science-fiction fan community in L.A., including life-long friend Ray Bradbury, who would become one of the pre-eminent sci-fi authors of the 20th century. Harryhausen, meanwhile, won work under a succession of filmmaking pioneers, including visual effects guru George Pal on Pal’s popular Puppetoons shorts, director Frank Capra on the Army Motion Picture Unit during World War II, and finally Kong animator Willis O’Brien on the 1949 giant gorilla film Mighty Joe Young, which won an Oscar for its special effects.
Harryhausen quickly became a sought-after effects artist in his own right, working on studio adventure films that culminated with The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad in 1958. Filled with expertly rendered and designed visual wonders, the film climaxed with an iconic fight sequence between the title hero and a sword-wielding skeleton, a spectacle that Harryhausen topped five years later with a whole horde of warring skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts. The sequences revolutionized how actors could interact with stop-motion effects, a process Harryhausen called “Dynamation.”
Harryhausen’s effects work continued through the 1960s and ’70s on films like the 1967 Raquel Welch movie One Million Years B.C. and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad in 1974, ending with the 1981 mythological epic Clash of the Titans. In 1992, he received the Gordon E. Sawyer Award for Technical Achievement at the Scientific and Technical Achievement portion of the Academy Awards. At the event, host Tom Hanks said, “Some say Citizen Kane is the greatest motion picture of all time. Others say it’s Casablanca. For me, the greatest picture of all time is Jason and the Argonauts.”
“March Against Monsanto” Planned for Over 30 Countries
Posted on 8th May 2013 at 12:21
March Against Monsanto has announced that on May 25, tens of thousands of activists around the world will " March Against Monsanto ." Currently, marches are being planned on six continents, in 36 countries, totaling events in over 250 cities, and in the US, events are slated to occur simultaneously at 11 a.m. Pacific in 47 states.
Tami Monroe Canal, lead organizer and creator of the now-viral Facebook page, says she was inspired to start the movement to protect her two daughters. "I feel Monsanto threatens their generation’s health, fertility and longevity. I couldn’t sit by idly, waiting for someone else to do something." [The full March Against Monsanto mission statement can be read here.]
Met Museum’s Punk Exhibit Juxtaposes Anarchy With Esteem
Posted on 8th May 2013 at 12:04
THAT THE punk movement, nearly 40 years after it was born, will be feted at this year’s annual Met Ball, the gala that kicks off the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibit, shows us just how far the onetime subculture has come. A style that began as the provenance of street kids will now occupy rarefied museum space at one of the world’s foremost art institutions.
Johnny Rotten, member of the Sex Pistols, 1976. Said, Malcom McLaren, one time manager of the band, "If [punk] wasn’t to do with sex, then it was to do with politics.” (Ray Stevenson/Rex USA)
Johnny Rotten, member of the Sex Pistols, 1976. Said, Malcom McLaren, one time manager of the band, "If [punk] wasn’t to do with sex, then it was to do with politics.” (Ray Stevenson/Rex USA)
PUNK: Chaos to Couture dives earnestly into the famed movement’s long-lasting effects on aesthetic culture. The exhibit showcases the style of its illustrious ’70s figureheads: Patti Smith, Vivienne Westwood, Sid Vicious, and Richard Hell to name a few. The remnants of their holed (and holy) garments are paired alongside contemporary high-fashion labels like Comme des Garçons, Jean Paul Gaultier, Thom Browne, and John Galliano, effectively exhibiting the proliferation of counterculture flourishes: acid wash, neons, menacing hardware, and DIY fabrications like safety pins.
via The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Taking care to stage the punk movement in all its glory, the Met has even “faithfully re-created” punk-music venue CBGB (the original was located at Bowery and Bleecker), an homage to the movement’s strong ties to music.
via The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Punk, which peaked between 1973 and 1977 in New York and London, was a subculture based almost solely on provocation. “If it wasn’t to do with sex, then it was to do with politics,” Malcolm McLaren, the Sex Pistols’ onetime manager and original punk, says in the exhibit’s corresponding book by the same name. And, of course, fashion too. It’s appropriate, then, that Andrew Bolton, the exhibit’s curator, writes in the introduction to PUNK that the show serves as “an origin story of punk’s greatest and most enduring contribution to our cultural landscape. Not only were punks creating their own fashions, they were working toward breaking down the barriers between production and consumption. In a bizarre twist of fate, their ethos of do-it-yourself has become the future of ‘No Future.’”
PUNK: Chaos to Couture will run at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 9 through August 14.
Love Is The Law shared (The New Love) Sacred Divine
Posted on 7th May 2013 at 15:04
The New LOVE is a PURE LOVE:
PURE LOVE:
"Many find it hard to understand the notion of pure love. Most have never experienced it. The romantics believe, jealously and possessiveness are central elements of passionate love. Mothers feel attachment is necessary to show care and concern. Friends believe expectations are integral to friendship. Pure love is least understood and yet most desirable. Let’s take a deeper look at what exactly pure love is.
First premise: Pure love means to want nothing, nado, zilch… sometimes we convince ourselves that at least we have the right to something from our partners, spouses or close ones… but no… not really. To want makes me a beggar and in reality the beggar does not deserve pure love, he deserves ‘pure pity’.
Pure love cannot be given it can only be shared by two beings of equal pure intensity – its when two individuals don’t share the same pure love, that that quality of exchange turns into a need for help, sympathy, comfort, approval, confirmation or sense of security etc., whereby one (giver) is forever filling a bottomless pit in the other (taker), with so-called love.
Pure love does not expect anything… I may not want, but I will expect and the two are slightly different. I may not want love – and perhaps feel full of it – yet I may still expect others to be loving in some manner or form! And in the process I become Mr. or Mrs. Fix It. To expect anything, means to set one self up for disappointment, and further disappointment as I realize I can’t fix anyone! I have to accept that I am the guilty party, not the other, for setting up false expectations in a world where more are empty than full of pure love.
Although marriage is a contract, love is not! You cannot own someone or get someone to love you just because they have signed a contract to be with you ‘for better or worse or till death do us part’. Pure love does not demand. Pure love is natural, gracious and freeing. It binds, but only to your higher, true, pure and perfect self.
In pure love I am detached, meaning I am unaffected by the outcome. I am detached from the outset, not that I find myself attached (and thus affected) and then need to detach! I do not hold onto anything. I let go and accept the person or the situation – no preferences of like or dislike – from the outset! This is a freeing thought for myself and the one I love. It allows for newness, magic and mysticism to flow.
Having pure love means to bring others closer to themselves and to their inner truth. Therefore there is utmost honesty and a deep respect for the soul and their process. Today we may not see someone in their highest self but we know that tomorrow, if we continue with our generosity of pure love, they will ascend to their greatness. Therefore, wish the best for the one you love and not necessarily what is in your best interests.
Pure love means to keep the highest attitude and vision for every soul. We realize, through a vision of soul consciousness, how lovely each one is; it is not an effort to see this. Once we are set in our highest self-respect, it’s easy to see everyone through this filter.
Be careful to not project your needs onto someone else… in a world where no one is emotionally complete, it’s a tall order and impossible to fulfill. In pure love we do not demand. We trust. We trust that we will have the abundance we need and that the drama of life will deliver the right people and situations to help us feel the beauty of pure love.
God’s love is the purest. He doesn’t measure his love nor love you on Tuesdays and not Thursdays! His love is constant and truly altruistic. Although we can’t be God, we can learn that divine love has to be of the same measure – pure, constant and selfless, first for the self and then for others.
It’s Time… to share love of the highest quality – Pure Love. My greatness lies in returning to this pure, divine consciousness. Stay detached from the offset and do not allow personal likes and dislikes to get in the way of the flow of the beautiful actors and drama of life. Pure love is freeing and generous, embracing and rewarding. Sign this contract of pure love with your higher self!" ~ Elza van Swieten
Stonehenge was occupied by humans 5,000 years EARLIER than we thought
Posted on 7th May 2013 at 14:37
Human beings were occupying Stonehenge thousands of years earlier than previously thought, according to archaeologists.
Research at a site around a mile from Stonehenge has found evidence of a settlement dating back to 7500BC, 5,000 years earlier than previous findings confirmed.
And carbon-dating of material at the site has revealed continuous occupation of the area between 7500BC and 4700BC.
For more on this check out this website: http://csglobe.com/stonehenge-was-occupied-by-humans-5000-years-earlier-than-we-thought