Some more astounding info from "America Before" by Graham Hancock, concerning an aftereffect of the Young Dryas Impact. A new theory suggests that the main comet fragment may have landed in Michigan, creating the Saginaw Bay, which gives that state it's "mitten" shape. The scientists who propose the theory have triangulated the trajectory of the fragment based on elliptical ground formations in two geographical areas. One is located along the Eastern Seaboard, where the formations are known as the Carolina Bays. The other is centered in Nebraska where they are known as the Rainwater Basins. You can Google the images of these two locations to see what they look like. In satellite photos, the basins look like very shallow, but flat, not like craters from meteors. The theory states that when the comet fragment hit upper Michigan, it struck the one kilometer thick Laurentide Ice Sheet. Wikipedia says the sheet was two miles thick in places, but anyway, imagine a sheet of ice that thick, and then imagine a 60 kilometer rock slamming into it at thousands of miles per hour.
The new theory suggests that the Carolina Bays and the Nebraska Rainwater Basins were formed when ice chunks - ranging in size from a basketball to a kilometer or more, were hurled upward with tremendous force after the comet struck, and were thrown into suborbital space in an arc of hundreds of miles. When these ice chunks fell back to Earth, they splayed out in a "butterfly" pattern equidistant from the Michigan impact site, and the elliptical basins were formed in the Carolinas and Nebraska.
I don't know about you, but this stuff blows my mind. Does anybody remember when the Shoemaker-Levy comet collided with Jupiter in 1994? We saw that in pictures from NASA. Was there video, too? I don't recall, but my point is that even in an image taken from millions of miles away, you could see the power of the impact. So now, transfer that power to the Earth and imagine what happened during Young Dryas, in which the ice bombarment continued for 21 years. Have you ever wondered why the Earth's rotation has a wobble, or why it's axis is tilted?
Whammo. That's why. (although the wobble and tilt would've been caused by a much bigger impact than Young Dryas, possibly a collision with another planet that wandered into out orbit and was smashed into pieces, creating both the Asteroid Belt that exists between Mars and Jupiter, and our Moon. Imagine a time before that impact, when there was no Moon in the sky.
Young Dryas, or another earlier event like it, caused the Flood related in the Bible and all other major religious tracts. We are fortunate to live in a break in all this cosmic activity, man oh man, but it really makes you take very seriously the stability of our climate, because once it gets thrown entirely out of whack........well, forget it. You get an extinction event. /////
I will now cease and desist from this line of discussion, haha, and we will get back to Sonata #3 by Frederic Chopin. Last night I asked you to choose your favorite interpretation of the Largo from that piece, between the versions recorded by my three favorite pianists : Dinu Lipatti, Wilhelm Kempff and Vladimir Sofronitsky. My personal choice for this Largo, as promised, is the one by Sofronitsky. As great as the other two are, he owns this piece. Sofronitsky slows it down, to pause the melody and accentuate the phrasing in the descending line, and this sets his interpretation above those of the other two geniuses. All three of the above mentioned pianists transcended the notes to take the music into spiritual realms, but Sofronitsky was quoted as saying that he was trying to play to God. If you listen to his recordings, especially of Scriabin, you will agree that he succeded.
Tonight's movie was "Stage Fright" (1950), directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Jane Wyman. Jane plays a young actress in training at RADA who has been dragged into a murder mystery by her lifelong friend Richard Todd. He's an adventurous sort who's been having an affair with a married woman, Marlene Dietrich, a stage actress who currently has a hit production in London. As the movie opens, Jane is driving the getaway car. The cops are after Todd, so she is taking him to her father's house by the sea. Todd had come to her apartment suddenly that afternoon, all afluster, with no time to explain his situation. But now, as they drive, he tells Jane Wyman what has happened.
Earlier that day, there was a knock at Todd's door. It was Marlene. She was hysterical, wearing a dress that was covered in blood. She told him she'd just killed her husband. But, she said it was in self-defense. Her husband is an alleged brute who beats her regularly. That's one reason for her affair with Richard Todd. Now her husband is dead, but Marlene is worried the police won't believe her story. She convinces Todd, her loverboy, to go back to her house - where the body is still lying on the floor - to get her a clean dress, and while he's there, to make it look like a burglary. Todd is smitten with Dietrich; he'll do anything for her, but he doesn't realise he's being set up. While he's at the house, tossing the furnishings about to create the false "burlary scenario", in walks the maid. Marlene knew she was gonna be there, Richard Todd did not. The maid sees him, sees the body and runs out of the house yelling for the cops. She identifies him as the burglar and the killer. Now he is on the run.
Wyman takes him to her Dad's house. He's an old sea captain with a few rough edges. As played by the great Alistair Sim (the greatest Scrooge of them all in the 1951 "Christmas Carol"), he practically walks off the screen and into real life. Dad is full of advice for his plucky daughter ("Turn the blinder in before he takes you down with him"!), but she is headstrong and loyal to a fault. She believes Todd is innocent, just as he's said. She agrees that the cops will never believe his story. They've got the maid as an eyewitness, and besides, Marlene Dietrich is an actress, and a good one. When they interview her, she'll pull out all the stops to convince them that Todd is the killer : "Ohh, he vas sooo jealous of my husband".......
Jane's Dad reluctantly agrees to let Todd stay at his house for a spell, and then Jane Wyman gets an idea. She's an actress, too, you see, and though still in training, her teachers at RADA think she's very promising. What if she were to use her acting talents to get close to Marlene Dietrich? Might she be able to coax a confession from her? Jane shows up at the theatre where Dietrich is performing. She corners Dietrich's dresser and bribes the lady to let her take over the job for a few days. The dresser then calls in sick, but tells Marlene that she has a friend who can replace her. That friend is of course Jane Wyman. Now she will be alone for several nights with Miss Dietrich. But there is also another person in the mix, because a detective has also come to the theatre, to interview Dietrich, who of course frames Richard Todd for the murder. But while there, he meets and gradually falls for Jane Wyman, who is pretending to be "the dresser". The next thing you know, he is over for tea at her house. She's been calling herself by a different name, and now - at home - her Mother doesn't understand (and btw, Jane's Mom and Dad are separated, that's why he lives by the sea). The detective is confused as well, but Jane turns out to be a very good actress herself, because she has a convincing explanation for everything.
Alfred Hitchcock could wind up a mystery story like no other director. With "Stage Fright", though he hasn't quite reached the heights of his classic nail biters like "Vertigo" or "North By Northwest" he's still close to the top of his game. Jane Wyman - who won a Best Actress Oscar for "Johnny Belinda", was excellent in this film too. I'm surprised she isn't as well known as the other greats, because she carries this movie, even appearing alongside the likes of Alistair Sim and Marlene Dietrich. The dashing Michael Wilding (one of Elizabeth Taylor's many husbands) plays Smith the detective, and Richard Todd was quite good as well as the troubled boy toy. "Stage Fright" takes you through many twists and turns, but in the end it's all about the "acting". The Play's The Thing, as someone once said.
I'd never heard of "Stage Fright" before finding a copy at MidVal last week. I'm surprised again that it's not as well known as the other Hitchcock classics. Though it's not quite in their league, it's still a must-see for fans of Hitch, and I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. It's shot on location in London, photographed in black and white, and it's also a family affair : Hitchock's wife Alma wrote the script and his daughter Patricia gets a cameo. There are also some humorous moments. /////
That's all I know for today. As of now, I am off work through Thanksgiving, so I'll be writing from home for the next several days. See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment