Vin Crosbie's Personal Blog

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Esoterica

My Guilty Pleasure of Zatoichi

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This post is for the benefit of my local friend Rob the Screenwriter whose knowledge of contemporary (say, after 1990) films is broad, but who hasn’t yet discovered most films from the 80 years earlier. Film Comment, the magazine of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, has long had a feature called ‘Guilty Pleasures’ in which famous people from the film industry list favorite films that they’re embarrassed or shy to admit that they like (such as Martin Scorsese love of ‘The Ten Commandments’). Although I’m not inside the film industry, merely work for a media school, my ‘guilty pleasure’ is Japan’s 26-film ‘Zatoichi’ series produced from 1962 to 1989. I’m sucker for extreme ‘high-concept’ films, movies predicated on so simple a concept that explaining it isn’t an ‘elevator pitch’ (i.e., something that can be said in no more than 30-seconds), but what I call a ‘stepladder pitch’. For example, when I heard that the concept of the film ‘John Wick’ was simply that a retired hitman wants revenges after thieves steal his car and kill his dog, I knew I wanted to see that film! Likewise, the ‘Zatoichi’ series, which is based upon the ‘high concept’ idea that the best swordsman in medieval Japan happened to be a blind masseuse. Yeah, you got that right! Except that concept is embellished a bit more than just the dozen words I mentioned. The ‘high concept’ is that the best swordsman in medieval Japan happened to be an itinerant blind masseuse who liked to drink and gamble and was always failing at love.  Got it now?  Zatoichi is an ‘easy come, easy go’, affable sort who just likes a good meal, good drink, good dice game, and good conversation, but woe be those who exceed his patience (as this video shows) by double-dealing or oppressing people! Based upon a character created by novelist Kan Shimozawa (born Umetani Matsutaro in 1892) who was inspired by an actual blind yakuza swordsman from centuries ago, and played for 27 years by the wonderful actor tor Shintaro Katsu (born Toshio Okumura in 1931), Zatoichi (‘low-ranking, blind person number one”) wanders medieval Japan, getting entrapped in intrigue arising from his good nature and love of sake and dice games, requiring him to right wrongs, save kids or kimono-clad damsels in distress, and fight samurai and assassins in the pay of corrupt aristocrats or corrupt bureaucrats. He never gets the girl, […]

The Best Brewery in America?

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At 3:59 p.m. on a former farm 20 miles (32 km) into the woods of rural Massachusetts, 150 people, most between the ages of 21 and 40, and from at least a half dozen U.S. states, queue in the dirt swept by winter winds behind a large, green aluminium shed no more than a decade old. Its door opens for the day at 4 p.m., but only for four hours. By 5 p.m., the queue outside the opened door will be 350-people long.   This is the Tree House Brewing Company of Monson, Massachusetts. Hundreds have traveled to this unlikely location because Tree House is arguably the best artisinal brewer in the United States. In BeerAdvocatecom‘s ranking by thousands of people of the top 250 beers brewed in the U.S., three of the top five ( indeed, seven of the top U.S. 20) are from this shed, including the top beer.   Tree House doesn’t distribute its products to pubs, restaurants, or stores. Its beer can only be gotten here. Yet none of its beer can be drunk here because the brewery doesn’t have a pub license. The first few hundred people waiting in queue will be allowed to buy a limited number of cans of beers (I bought two six-packs for $43), although those towards the back of the queue might be too late. An hour after the door opens, one of three of that day’s fresh-brewed varieties has sold out. By 6 p.m., a second is out. And by 8 p.m., no matter what, the door closes for another day.

The Oncoming Labor Storm

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The rise of ‘right-wing’ politicians in post-industrial countries — politicians such as Donald Trump of the United States of America, Marie Le Pen of France, the late Jörg Haider and his successors in Austria, and others, and similar movements, such as the Tea Party movement in the U.S. — are only the beginning of what will probably be a 20 to 50 years of reactionary protests as major countries (indeed, all countries eventually) now transition from the Industrial Era into the Informational Era. The 2020’s will likely be a particularly tumultuous decade. The Informational Era denotes a period in human history when most economies are based upon performing services rather than manufacturing products. The U.S. have now entered that period and become ‘post-industrial’. Part of that transition has involved low-skilled manufacturing and industrial jobs (such as manufacturing thread or clothing, electronic devices, or simple furnitures and supplies)  migrating to other countries where lower wages are paid. That part of the transition has been occuring during the past 40 to 50 years. However, another major and often overlooked part of this transition from Industrial to Informational involves robotics. For examples, very many manufacturing jobs in the U.S. have been replaced by robotics. An industrial robot controlled by someone who has a master’s degree in engineering can replace anywhere from several to a dozen or more manual laborers. These machines pay for themselves in only a few years. This revolution in robotic has transformed manufacturing in many countries. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, industrial jobs in the U.S. have been lost due to robotics replacing workers, yet industrial manufacturing output in the U.S. has risen to record levels, exceeding output during the Industrial Era. Another reason why this new era is being called Informational is that technology has developed machines that can now use information (i.e, their programming) to create actual products in ways light years beyond what the simple Industrial Era mechanical loom could do. Moreover, that robotics revolution has begun to invade those countries were industrial jobs have migrated due to low wages.  Earlier this year, the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong reported that one factory in China’s Jiangsu province used robots to replace 60,000 workers, and that 600 other companies in that province were drafting similar restructuring plans. In Taiwan, Foxconn, which manufacturers computer products for Apple, has spent a total of $500 million on robotics, […]

25 July 2016

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Late July and early August are slow times for me. My consulting practices slows down as clients in the northern hemisphere go on holiday plus I’m on summer holiday from teaching my New Media Business course at Syracuse University’s graduate school (although I annually during August update its eight-year old syllabus for the latest changes and developments in media business).  So, in my spare time, I’m doing cooking and drinking (no, not that type of drinking!) I mention new media, which is all technology-based, and cooking because even the later subject is being changed by technology. I’m not talking about molecular cooking or other esoteric cuisines, but about even such things as simple as outdoor grilling.  Consider the robotic BratWurst Bot, presented at the Stallwächter Party 2016 summer political festival in Berlin where it perfectly cooked more than 200 sausages autonomously. People grilling meats outdoors is neolithic, which you might says means somewhat traditional. On a nice, sunny, summer day, however, I wouldn’t mind having one of these contraption—provided it came with an option that also automatically serves German beers! While on the subject of drinking, the BBC has collected nine famous drinking quotes from Ernest Hemingway. Beans, I say. This past weekend, The New York Times published an excellent guide to cooking beans. By the way, if you get a chance, check out how Humanitas, a retirement home in Deventer, the Netherlands, provides the elderly with the care and social interaction that they need to remain physically and psychologically healthy, by providing free lodging in the retirement home for six students who spend at least 30 hours a month with the 160 elderly residents living there, helping the elderly whether prepare their meals, shopping with them, or teaching them to use computers or even paint street art! Great video about it at this website. Am listening today, via YouTube, to ElectroHouseBangers‘ Best Music 24/7 Live Stream | Best Remixes Of Popular Songs | Summer Dance Charts Mix 2016 | New Pop #  

Bucolic Connecticut

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My native state of Connecticut lacks high mountains and grand canyons, but its scenic wealth is its lush and gently rolling forests and small farms. That is what attracted most of the American Impressionist landscape painters to it a century ago. The tiny state has been one national park, the Weir Farm National Historic Site in the town of Wilton. It’s the 60-acre former home of artist J. Alden Weir (1852-1919), formerly of New York City, who owned homes here and 90 miles (145 km) east across Connecticut in my native town of Windham. Other late 19th Century and early 20th Century American Impressionists, such as  Childe Hassam, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John Singer Sargent, and John Twachtman, also visited Weir and painted here. Weir’s landscapes hang in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and many other museums. My sister-in-law and I’m are fortunate to have inherited two Weir landscapes, one of which the artist apparently gave to my great-grandfather a century ago. Earlier this month while visiting Weir Farm, about 45 minutes from where I now live in Connecticut, I decided to ‘channel’ Weir’s vision through my digital single-lense reflex camera.

In the Mood Today for East Asia

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I’m in an eastern Asian mood today. Many things have reminded me of it. For instance, Thailand is renown for its Public Services advertisements on television. Here is a recent example, a full movie told in only three minutes: Click here to read Adweek’s story about why and how it was produced.  The same producers two years earlier created a possibly even better Public Services short, about compassion: The story behind that one is here. ∅   Kudos to Chinese pharmaceuticals billionaire Li Jinyuan who took 6,400 of his employees on a nine-day vacation in France.  They arrived aboard 84 commercial flights and occupied 140 hotels.  the cost was €15 million ($18 million). ∅   Who exactly won? Forty years after Communist North Vietnam took over capitalist South Vietnam, an international poll reports that Vietnam is now the world’s most capitalist country. China was ranked fourth. ∅ When traveling to such places, or anywhere in the world, I’d always thought that the best passport to have was Swiss, because nobody blocks the politically neutral Swiss. However, CNN reports that the best passport to have is actually U.S. or U.K., followed by France, South Korea, or Germany, or Sweden, or Italy, or Denmark, Singapore, Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, or Netherlands, and only then Swiss. Those groupings are based upon how many countries the passport holder is allowed to enter either without a visa or by relatively easily obtaining a visa upon arrival at the border. One hundred forty-seven countries permit that for U.S. or U.K. passport holders. ∅ Speaking of travel, it was interesting to see the the CEO of the Starwood Hotel Group concede that his company’s Sheraton brand has become tired and in need of change. ∅ You might say that I’m sensitive to submarines. Although my naval officer father served aboard surface ships during World War II and the Korean Conflict, I grew up around New London, Connecticut, headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s submarine fleet. Seeing nuclear submarines silently leave that port (which was actually across the river in the town of Groton) was a routine sight. By far the most advanced submarines in the world are the Seawolf-class submarines constructed just after the end of the Cold War. These ships indeed are parts of a trio of U.S. ‘superweapons’ that no other nation possess. The other two in the trio are the super-accurate LGM-30G Minuteman III missiles (each capable of delivering within 30-minutes a thermonuclear warhead, […]

Meet Ahmet Merabet, The Muslim French Policeman Who Gave His Life Defending Freedom of Speech

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Meet 49-year old Ahmet Merabet, a Muslim policeman from the 11th Arrondissement of Paris, who on Wednesday (7 January 2015) gave his life defending the right of free speech. He and 49-year-old policemen Franck Brinsolaro, a French Christian, where guarding the offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo when three Islamicist terrorists attacked with assault weapons, killing Merabet and Brinsolaro then 12 members of the newspaper’s editorial staff. It was Merabet’s death that was pictured in a spectator’s mobile phone video.

Data Visualizations of Vital Statistics

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Here are two well done data visualizations by mathematician and software design Brad Lyon and graphic designer Bill Snebold. The first depicts real-time information about births and deaths in the United States. Whenever and wherever one of those events occurs, the map shows it. The second depicts the same real-time information worldwide. (Click ‘Restart Simulation’ if either data visualization doesn’t automatically start when you visit it). The Atlantic monthly magazine explains more background about these data visualizations.

Efficient Days

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A story in the Huffington Post  features a chart from the book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey and RJ Andrews how famously creative people spend their average days. Besides Ludwig von Beethoven, it features people such as Victor Hugo, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, et. a. Besides showing who was a ‘morning’ and who an ‘evening’ person, it’s helped me realize that my most productive working hours aren’t that eccentric. What else I’m reading today: For the first time in the history of the United States, the majority of member of its Congress are millionaires (as is President Obama and six of the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court). So, is the United States governed by rich people? Quite literally, it is: the majority are people in the top one-percent of incomes.