נפטר המשורר רומן באימבאיב

ביום (ה') המשורר רומן באימבאיב נפטר באופן פתאומי בגיל 55, עקב זיהום בגופו. באימבאיב אושפז בבית החולים איכילוב בתל אביב לפני מספר ימים כאשר חש ברע, ונפטר היום בשעות הבוקר המוקדמות. הלווייתו תתקיים היום ב-16:00 בבית העלמין קרית שאול.

באימבאיב נולד בצ'רנוביץ', אוקראינה, ב-1956. בתחילת שנות ה-70 עלה לישראל. בבגרותו למד הנדסת מכונות בטכניון, אך מעולם לא עסק בתחום זה, אלא בשירה ובאמנות פלסטית.

בתחילת שנות ה-90 שיתף פעולה עם האמן מיכאל רפופורט, ועבודות אמנות של השניים הוצגו במוזיאונים בישראל וברחבי העולם. בהמשך חייו החל להתמקד באמנות השירה, וב-98 פרסם את ספרו הראשון, "רומן באימבאיב מסכם את נסיונו" (הוצאת קונטרסט לשירה) אותו ערך המשורר נתן זך. בתקופה זו פרסם באימבאיב משירתו בכתבי עת שונים. ב-2006 פרסם את ספרו השני, "הלוואי וגודביי" (הוצאת אוריס מדיה) שלווה בתקליטור מוזיקלי בשיתוף עם האמן דני צוקרמן.

Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin

DIRTY PICTURES is a documentary about Dr. Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin, the rogue chemist who discovered the effects of MDMA (aka Ecstasy) and over 200 other mind-altering drugs. Shulgin’s alchemy has earned him the title “The Godfather of Psychedelics,” and a reputation as one of the great chemists of the 20th century.
Working from a lab in his home, and using himself and his wife Ann as test subjects, Shulgin's discoveries have brought him into conflict with the law but made him a worldwide underground hero. The two books they co-authored, “Pihkal” and “Tihkal”, have built a foundation for cutting-edge neuroscience and medical research. DIRTY PICTURES examines the impact of Dr. Shulgin's lifelong quest to unlock the complexities of the human mind.
"Грязные картинки" (Dirty Pictures) посвященного американскому химику Александру Шульгину (Alexander Sasha Shulgin), который синтезировал более двухсот психоактивных веществе, в том числе МДМА более известный как "экстази". Шульгина называют "Крестным отцом психоделиков" и почитают как одного из самых великих химиков двадцатого века.
Работая в домашней лаборатории и используя себя и свою жену Энн в качестве биотестеров Саша Шульгин имел серьезные проблемы с американским законом, но стал настоящим героем в глазах андеграуда. Две книги написаные им в соавторстве с женой "PIHKAL" и "TIHKAL" послужили материалом для огромного количества научных работ по неврологии и смежным медицинским дисциплинам. В фильме рассматривается вся жизнь доктора Шульгина, как путь к открытию новых возможностей человеческого разума.
אלכסנדר "סשה" תאודור שולגין (Alexander Shulgin; נולד ב-17 ביוני 1925) הוא פרמקולוג אמריקאי, כימאי, ומפתח סמים. שולגין התפרסם בעקבות הפופולריות של הסם MDMA, הידוע בכינוי אקסטזי, בייחוד בשנות ה-70 המאוחרות ושנות ה-80 המוקדמות בעקבות השימוש בפסיכו-תרופות על מנת לטפל בדיכאון והפרעת דחק פוסט טראומטית.

בשנים שלאחר מכן שולגין גילה, סינתז וחקר את השפעותן הביולוגיות של יותר מ-230 תרכובות פסיכואקטיביות. בשנת 1991 ו-1997 הוא ואישתו אן שולגין חיברו את הספרים PiHKAL ו- TiHKAL בנושא סמים פסיכואקטיביים. שולגין גילה פנתילאמינים רבין לציון ביניהם משפחת *2C אשר 2C-T-2, 2C-T-7, 2C-E, 2C-I, ושהידוע ביותר מביניהם הוא 2C-B. בנוסף שולגין ביצע עבודות הזרעה, תוך תיאור סינתזות של תרכובות מבוססות טריפטאמין.

Rumbula's Echo WORK IN PROGRESS 33min. румбула

Breaking new ground, Rumbula's Echo is the first documentary about a large mass shooting of the Holocaust. Eyewitnesses tell how, in late 1941, 25,000 Jews were murdered in two days at Rumbula Forest -- the second largest such mass shooting of WWII. Set within the broader story of the Holocaust in Latvia, viewers see and hear how 98% of Latvian Jews trapped in the country were killed, and how 2% survived.
Amid horror and death, seven uplifting personal stories of survival, rescue and reunion emerge in Rumbula's Echo. These dramatically illuminate the power of individual decisions and, for the first time in film, introduce an overlooked cost of genocide to society.
For more information, visit the film's official website: www.rumbulasecho.org
more...
http://www.ein-hod.net/2010/02/k.html

«Мелодии Рижского гетто».

Маёвка 1987 на Тивериадском Oзере

1.Маёвка — (в России до 1917 года) — нелегальное собрание революционно настроенных рабочих, устраиваемое за городом в день 1 мая; весенняя увеселительная прогулка за город.
2.истор. весенняя увеселительная прогулка за город ◆ Маёвкой тогда называли выезд за город на природу, но не для политики, как было при царе, а для отдыха. Михаил Хайкин, « Уха из пескарей. Истории Гончарной улицы» // «Вестник США», 2003 г. (цитата из Национального корпуса русского языка, см. Список литературы)

Who is Patient N?

The DNA donor was selected from a large pool of more than 1,300 volunteers who are participating in an unpublished genotyping survey of Russia’s ethnic populations. The goal of that study is eventually to analyze 4,000 people from about 40 nationalities living around Russia and surrounding territories, from Uzbekistan in central Asia to the Arctic Ocean in the north, and from the Pacific to Poland in the west (essentially spanning the former Soviet Union).
“Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA), we could put different individuals into various ethnic groups governing this geographical distribution,” says Prokhortchouk. “You can distinguish Russians as an ethnic group from Tatars or Poles, Siberia, and so on.”
Based on the PCA, Patient N was selected as an archetypal Russian genome. “Mathematically speaking, he’s Russian!” says Prokhortchouk. “I don’t know anything about his parents or what language he speaks or where he lives, but I know that under mathematical rules [PCA], he’s Russian!”
He is also a renal cancer patient, which provides a further rationale for studying this genome. That work is ongoing. The Prokhortchouk and Skryabin labs are part of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (see Nature, April 2010). Preliminary analysis of the renal cancer focused on SNPs that have been associated in genome wide association studies [GWAS] in renal cancer. “Using linkage disequilibrium, you can trace the SNPs [in the Patient N genome] close to the marker SNPs and go to particular exons in particular genes.” One of those looks particularly interesting, he said, but declined to elaborate.
Although the decision to publish in an unknown Russian journal, which is not yet recognized in PubMed, stifled media attention abroad, the paper attracted considerable media attention inside Russia when it was published last year. The big question on reporters’ minds was: Who is Patient N? “They thought it was Prime Minister Putin. It’s not true!” said Prokhortchouk. Speculation was not unreasonable, given that according to Wikipedia, the institute director Kovalchuk’s brother is described as the “personal banker” to Putin.
(read more...)

Mans vīrs Andrejs Saharovs

How does the “brains” of the Soviet regime, an academician, the “father” of hydrogen bomb, an outstanding intellectual for whom even in the Kremlin all the doors were open can become an irreconcilable champion of human rights and prisoners of conscience and an internationally renown enemy of this system? The film My Husband Andrey Sakharov answers to this question in an intriguing yet subdued, even intimate form – by confronting the views of the witnesses of those times and Sakharov’s colleagues. His widow Yelena Bonner and the last secretary general of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev are two brightest participants of this indirect debate in the film, which not only by presenting facts and their interpretations and forceful poeticism of the documentary footage makes one think about the games of power and guarantees of human freedom that is a topical theme not only in Russia.

Фильм режиссера Инары Колмане «Мой муж Андрей Сахаров», снятый латвийской студией фильмов «Deviņi» совместно с французскими кинодокументалистами, был отмечен премиями на многих международных фестивалях. В 2007 году в номинации полнометражный документальный фильм эта лента была удостоена главного приза Латвийского национального кинофестиваля «Большой Кристап». Интерес к личности легендарного советского академика Андрея Сахарова и по сей день остается большим во всем мире. С одной стороны, Сахаров отец водородной бомбы, с другой - непримиримый критик идеологии СССР, узник совести, сосланный под домашний арест в закрытый для иностранцев город Горький...
Мне посчастливилось быть знакомой с Андреем Дмитриевичем лично. Не стану преувеличивать - чай с академиком Сахаровым и его женой Еленой Боннер на их легендарной московской кухне я не пила. Более того, с Е.Боннер, главной героиней фильма «Мой муж Андрей Сахаров», никогда даже не встречалась. Тем не менее, коль скоро именно в Латвии снят такой фильм, осмелюсь рассказать и о своем знакомстве с Сахаровым. Благо случилось это знакомство во время того злополучного Съезда народных депутатов СССР, когда Горбачев сгонял академика Сахарова с трибуны под улюлюканье и топот ног агрессивно-послушного большинства Съезда. Итак, 2 июня 1989 года. Москва, Кремль...

read more...

Emanuel Yakobson on BBC Беседы с генетиком Эммануилом Якобсоном Part 1 2

Features associated with germline CDKN2A mutations: a GenoMEL study of melanoma-prone families from three continents.
Goldstein AM, Chan M, Harland M, Hayward NK, Demenais F, Bishop DT, Azizi E, Bergman W, Bianchi-scarra G, Bruno W, Calista D, Albright LA, Chaudru V, Chompret A, Cuellar F, Elder DE, Ghiorzo P, Gillanders EM, Gruis NA, Hansson J... expand author list, Hogg D, Holland EA, Kanetsky PA, Kefford RF, Landi MT, Lang J, Leachman SA, Mackie RM, Magnusson V, Mann GJ, Bishop JN, Palmer JM, Puig S, Puig-butille JA, Stark M, Tsao H, Tucker MA, Whitaker L, Yakobson E, Lund Melanoma Study Group, Melanoma Genetics Consortium (GenoMEL) collapse author list
Journal of medical genetics 2007 Feb; 44(2)
BACKGROUND: The major factors individually reported to be associated with an increased frequency of CDKN2A mutations are increased number of patients with melanoma in a family, early age at melanoma diagnosis, and family members with multiple primary... expand abstract melanomas (MPM) or pancreatic cancer. METHODS: These four features were examined in 385 families with > or =3 patients with melanoma pooled by 17 GenoMEL groups, and these attributes were compared across continents. RESULTS: Overall, 39% of families had CDKN2A mutations ranging from 20% (32/162) in Australia to 45% (29/65) in North America to 57% (89/157) in Europe. All four features in each group, except pancreatic cancer in Australia (p = 0.38), individually showed significant associations with CDKN2A mutations, but the effects varied widely across continents. Multivariate examination also showed different predictors of mutation risk across continents. In Australian families, > or =2 patients with MPM, median age at melanoma diagnosis < or =40 years and > or =6 patients with melanoma in a family jointly predicted the mutation risk. In European families, all four factors concurrently predicted the risk, but with less stringent criteria than in Australia. In North American families, only > or =1 patient with MPM and age at diagnosis < or =40 years simultaneously predicted the mutation risk. CONCLUSIONS: The variation in CDKN2A mutations for the four features across continents is consistent with the lower melanoma incidence rates in Europe and higher rates of sporadic melanoma in Australia. The lack of a pancreatic cancer-CDKN2A mutation relationship in Australia probably reflects the divergent spectrum of mutations in families from Australia versus those from North America and Europe. GenoMEL is exploring candidate host, genetic and/or environmental risk factors to better understand the variation observed. collapse abstract
מצא עוד סרטים כאלה ב-Ein Hod עין הוד

Features associated with germline CDKN2A mutations: a GenoMEL study of melanoma-prone families from three continents.
Goldstein AM, Chan M, Harland M, Hayward NK, Demenais F, Bishop DT, Azizi E, Bergman W, Bianchi-scarra G, Bruno W, Calista D, Albright LA, Chaudru V, Chompret A, Cuellar F, Elder DE, Ghiorzo P, Gillanders EM, Gruis NA, Hansson J... expand author list, Hogg D, Holland EA, Kanetsky PA, Kefford RF, Landi MT, Lang J, Leachman SA, Mackie RM, Magnusson V, Mann GJ, Bishop JN, Palmer JM, Puig S, Puig-butille JA, Stark M, Tsao H, Tucker MA, Whitaker L, Yakobson E, Lund Melanoma Study Group, Melanoma Genetics Consortium (GenoMEL) collapse author list
Journal of medical genetics 2007 Feb; 44(2)
BACKGROUND: The major factors individually reported to be associated with an increased frequency of CDKN2A mutations are increased number of patients with melanoma in a family, early age at melanoma diagnosis, and family members with multiple primary... expand abstract melanomas (MPM) or pancreatic cancer. METHODS: These four features were examined in 385 families with > or =3 patients with melanoma pooled by 17 GenoMEL groups, and these attributes were compared across continents. RESULTS: Overall, 39% of families had CDKN2A mutations ranging from 20% (32/162) in Australia to 45% (29/65) in North America to 57% (89/157) in Europe. All four features in each group, except pancreatic cancer in Australia (p = 0.38), individually showed significant associations with CDKN2A mutations, but the effects varied widely across continents. Multivariate examination also showed different predictors of mutation risk across continents. In Australian families, > or =2 patients with MPM, median age at melanoma diagnosis < or =40 years and > or =6 patients with melanoma in a family jointly predicted the mutation risk. In European families, all four factors concurrently predicted the risk, but with less stringent criteria than in Australia. In North American families, only > or =1 patient with MPM and age at diagnosis < or =40 years simultaneously predicted the mutation risk. CONCLUSIONS: The variation in CDKN2A mutations for the four features across continents is consistent with the lower melanoma incidence rates in Europe and higher rates of sporadic melanoma in Australia. The lack of a pancreatic cancer-CDKN2A mutation relationship in Australia probably reflects the divergent spectrum of mutations in families from Australia versus those from North America and Europe. GenoMEL is exploring candidate host, genetic and/or environmental risk factors to better understand the variation observed. collapse abstract #[Gene silencing RNAi technology: possible application to therapy] Vestin A, Weinstein J, Davidov E, Sidi Y, Yakobson EA Harefuah 2006 Feb; 145(2) RNA interference (RNAi), i.e. gene silencing, or gene expression down-regulation is the process whereby a double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) induces the homology-dependent degradation of cognate messenger RNA (mRNA). When dsRNA is introduced into cells, an ... expand abstractRNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) is assembled. RISC serves as cellular machinery that is responsible for the specific mRNA degradation. This process results in the subsequent reduction of the specific protein translated from appropriate mRNA. Short RNA duplexes (21 nucleotide), called small interfering RNA (siRNA), have become the major tool for induction of gene silencing. With the human genome mapped and sequenced, attempts are currently being made to manipulate the expression of genes involved in viral diseases, carcinogenesis and other disorders with the aim of developing novel therapies. collapse abstract # Search for germline alterations in CDKN2A/ARF and CDK4 of 42 Jewish melanoma families with or without neural system tumours. Marian C, Scope A, Laud K, Friedman E, Pavlotsky F, Yakobson E, Bressac-de paillerets B, Azizi E British journal of cancer 2005 Jun; 92(12) To gain insight into the molecular mechanisms involved in the inherited predisposition to melanoma and associated neural system tumours, 42 Jewish, mainly Ashkenazi, melanoma families with or without neural system tumours were genotyped for germline ... expand abstractpoint mutations and genomic deletions at the CDKN2A/ARF and CDK4 loci. CDKN2A/ARF deletion detection was performed using D9S1748, an intragenic microsatellite marker. Allele dosage at the p14ARF locus was analysed by quantitative real-time PCR employing a TaqMan probe that anneals specifically to exon 1beta of the p14ARF gene. For detecting point mutations, dHPLC and direct sequencing of the coding sequences of CDKN2A/ARF and CDK4 was used. No germline alterations in any of the tested genes were detected among the families under study. We conclude that in the majority of Ashkenazi Jewish families, the genes tested are unlikely to be implicated in the predisposition to melanoma and associated neural system tumours. collapse abstract # Search for genetic variants associated with cutaneous malignant melanoma in the Ashkenazi Jewish population. Loo JC, Paterson AD, Hao A, Shennan M, Peretz H, Sidi Y, Hogg D, Yakobson E Journal of medical genetics 2005 May; 42(5) # A single Mediterranean, possibly Jewish, origin for the Val59Gly CDKN2A mutation in four melanoma-prone families. Yakobson E, Eisenberg S, Isacson R, Halle D, Levy-lahad E, Catane R, Safro M, Sobolev V, Huot T, Peters G, Ruiz A, Malvehy J, Puig S, Chompret A, Avril MF, Shafir R, Peretz H, Bressac-de paillerets B European journal of human genetics : EJHG 2003 Apr; 11(4) We have screened for CDKN2A germline mutations in 49 Jewish families with two or more cases of melanoma. The Val59Gly mutation, one of the three different alterations identified among these families, was also detected independently in two kindreds fr... expand abstract
read more

Андре́й Андре́евич Вознесе́нский (12 мая 1933, Москва — 1 июня 2010)

Ни славы, и ни коровы,
Ни тяжкой короны земной -
Пошли мне, Господь, второго,
Чтоб вытянул петь со мной.
Прошу не любви ворованной,
Не милости на денек -
Пошли мне, Господь, второго,
Чтоб не был так одинок;

Чтоб было с кем пасоваться,
Аукаться через степь,
Для сердца - не для оваций,-
На два голоса спеть;
Чтоб кто-нибудь меня понял,-
Не часто, но хоть разок,-
И с раненых губ моих поднял
Царапнутый пулей рожок.

И пусть мой напарник певчий,
Забыв, что мы сила вдвоем,
Меня, побледнев от соперничества,
Прирежет за общим столом.
Прости ему - он до гроба
Одиночеством окружен.
Пошли ему, бог, второго -
Такого, как я и как он...

Музыка Высоцкого на стихи Андрея Вознесенского для спектакля "Антимиры"
Andrey Andreyevich Voznesensky (Russian: Андре́й Андре́евич Вознесе́нский) (May 12, 1933, Moscow, USSR – 1 June 1, 2010, Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet and Russian poet and writer who has been referred to by Robert Lowell as "one of the greatest living poets in any language". He was one of Russia's "children of the 60s".

Georgian Cognac and ...

The special love of Georgians for wine is not accidental. If you talk to just about any good winemaker, you will come away with the feeling that he or she has a vast wealth of winemaking knowledge to draw from, and that the winemaker consistently fine-tunes his or her approach to meet the requirements of a given wine. It is much like man fine tuning his approach to meet beautiful women. If you ask any Georgian about which is the best wine in the world, their immediate answer will be ‘Georgian’. They may also specify whose wine exactly – his, his uncle’s, brother’s, neighbor’s, etc. The Georgian wine is often compared to the company of beautiful women. Some winemakers out there who don't operate this way; they get by with a rigid, 'recipe' approach to winemaking. But this philosophy is not the best in the long run.

Udmurts or Votyaks sing Beatles

The self-appellation of this people is udmurt, vudmurt, odmort, udmort, ukmort (in plural, -joz is added, e.g. udmurtjoz). The name for the Udmurts propagated by the use in the Russian language and now outdated is Votyak, which the Udmurts consider disparaging and offensive.
The Udmurts live in an area between the rivers Vyatka and Kama in the Republic of Udmurtia (capital city Izhkar, in Russian Izhevsk). About 2/3 of the Udmurts live in their Republic (42,100 sq. km.). The rest live mainly in the Perm Province, Bashkortostan, Tatarstan, in the provinces of Kirov and Yekaterinburg of the Russian Federation, and in the Mari Republic. Occasional Udmurt settlements are also in Siberia, Kazakhstan and the Far East.

LSD , Russian Mushrooms and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

R. Gordon Wasson launched the “psychedelic revolution” with his Life magazine article of 13 May 1957, in which he publicized his experience on the nights of 29-30 June, 1955, in the remote Oaxacan village of Huautla de Jiménez with the Mazatec curandera or shaman María Sabina, whose identity he tried to protect under the pseudonym of Eva Mendez, even being the first to use the embarrassing term of “magic mushroom,” which was probably invented by the magazine’s editor. As a professional international banker, he was a most unlikely candidate for this role. He and his wife Valentina Pavlovna were about to publish in that same year their Mushrooms, Russia, and History, which they had started writing in the mid 1940s as a cookbook, with merely a footnote on “the gentle art of mushroom-knowing as practiced by the northern Slavs.” The Life article effectively was publicity for the book, which was lavishly published at Wasson’s expense in a limited edition of only 512 copies, which would have placed it beyond the notice of the general public: the original price of $175 has now escalated to several thousand, something that Wasson was proud of as an investment.(read more...)

mushr
During their Mazatec séances the Wassons had experienced the divinatory potential of the Mexican mushrooms. The account of their first velada with Aurelio Carreras, María Sabina’s son-in-law, on 15 August 1953, two years before they ate the mushrooms themselves, was intentionally buried in the bulk of Russia, Mushrooms, and History. Wasson described the event more fully in his last book, Persephone’s Quest. “I had always had a horror,” he wrote, “of those who preached a kind of pseudo-religion of telepathy, who for me were unreliable people; if our discoveries were to be drawn to their attention, we were in danger of being adopted by such undesirables.” Carreras, without prompting or questions, was able to tell the Wassons correctly that their son Peter was not in Boston, as they thought, but in New York, that he was about to enlist in the army, and that a close member of the family would die within the year.
In February of 1955, Wasson mentioned this occurrence to Andrija Puharich, when they met for cocktails in the apartment of the New York socialite Alice Bouverie, who had learned of the Wassons’ ongoing research from a reference librarian at the Public Library, while investigating psychoactive mushrooms. Puharich, an American-born medical doctor and parapsychologist of Croatian descent, at the time was a captain with the United States Army, stationed at the Fort Detrick Chemical and Biological Warfare Center in Edgewood Maryland, working for the CIA on chemical and other means of mind control; and with Wasson’s permission, he dutifully passed on the information about Carreras to his military associates, which may have been why Wasson’s 1956 expedition to Mexico was infiltrated by a CIA mole, James Moore, with a generous financial grant, clearly indicating that the intelligence community regarded a divinatory mushroom as a valuable tool in their arsenal. Moore found the journey extremely unpleasant, and although he witnessed the séance, he was extremely ill, and eight kilos thinner, he fled with a packet of the mushrooms, intending to isolate and synthesize the chemical, which, in fact, Albert Hofmann succeeded in doing before him. Hiem identified them as Psilocybe caerulescens and the psychoactive agent was named psilocybin.
(read more...)

Liquid Sky of Slava Tsukerman

Liquid Sky is an independent American film produced in 1983 with a budget of $500,000. It broke all the existing box office and duration records in the U.S., Germany and Japan (citation needed) and won a cult following shortly after its release. In New York, Boston and Washington D.C. the film played non-stop for more than three years and grossed more than a million dollars in each city. Liquid Sky was the recipient of five international film festival awards.

In April 16, 2009 Dan Person of current.com recalls that upon its release Liquid Sky "provoked heated arguments and, love it or hate, was required viewing for anyone who really cared about film." Dan Person considers the film "one of the formative forces of indie film."
Carlos James Chamberlin wrote in March, 2004 at senseofcinema.com: "It’s about time people started rendering into Liquid Sky. Its long lipstick trace is smudged through much of indie cinema."
Liquid Sky regularly plays at numerous international film festivals and every screening is completely sold out. The audiences are young and their reaction to the film is more fervent than it was when the film was first released in 1983.
Vladislav "Slava" Tsukerman (born 1940) is an Russian film director. He was born in the Soviet Union and emigrated in 1973 with his wife Nina Kerova to Israel. In 1976 he moved to New York City. He is best known for producing, directing, and writing the screenplay for the 1982 cult film Liquid Sky. He also directed the 2004 documentary Stalin's Wife (about Nadezhda Alliluyeva) and the 2008 film Perestroika.
Liquid Sky (Slava Tsukerman, 1982) Plot summary: Tiny aliens in a very small flying saucer (which looks like a cheap neon Frisbee) come to Earth, looking for heroin. They land on roof of a penthouse in New York's East Village (new-wave Manhattan) inhabited by a drug dealer (Paula E. Sheppard (the former child star of 'Alice, Sweet Alice')) and her female, androgynous, bisexual nymphomaniac lover, who is a fashion model (Anne Carlisle). The aliens are after the chemicals produced in the human brain during orgasm, which they have discovered is far superior to heroin, and the model's casual sex partners quickly begin to disappear, one by one by one.

This increasingly bizarre scenario is observed by a lonely, (sex-starved) woman in the building across the street, the German scientist, Johann Hoffman, who is following the aliens (played by Otto Von Wernherr), and an equally androgynous, and drug-addicted male model (also played by Anne Carlisle).

Изгои

Поэтому фильм назван "Изгои"?

- Название пришло уже в ходе работы над материалами. Я вдруг увидел - на основании того, что услышал и собрал, - совсем другой подход к этой теме.
Во время войны евреи на самом деле неожиданно для себя оказались одни - один на один со смертью и несправедливостью.
Пришла война и нацисты. И одни соседи начали убивать евреев, как в Балтии. Другие смотрели и отворачивались. А чтобы оправдаться перед собой, обвиняли евреев в коммунизме и во всех смертных грехах. Третьи - спокойно забирали их имущество и вселялись в их дома. Четвертые - сами не убивали, но собирали евреев в эшелоны и депортировали. Или поступали как болгары, которые своих евреев - пятьдесят тысяч человек - Гитлеру не отдали, но, будучи его союзником, оккупировали Македонию и Северную Грецию и всех тамошних евреев "преподнесли" немцам. И так далее...

В итоге - миллионов людей как будто не было на этой земле. Только в Беларуси погибли 800 тысяч евреев. В Польше до войны их проживало более трех миллионов. А сегодня - где-то шесть тысяч. Те евреи, кому повезло выжить, кто был в подполье или ушел в партизаны, там тоже нередко оказывались одиноки.

И в партизанах встречался антисемитизм, и не хотели принимать еврейских беженцев, и верили слухам немцев, что беженцы из гетто - это засланные агенты. Всякое бывало. Но то, что было в Украине, Польше, странах Балтии - просто кошмар. Я, например, и раньше встречал информацию о то, что, скажем, в Польше евреев не любили. Это не новость. Но то, что в Литве и Беларуси еврейские партизаны погибали не только от рук немцев или полицаев, но и от рук польских партизан, - меня удивило. И это были не единичные случаи. Иначе я бы на такие факты не клюнул

(more...)

Смотрите "Мелодии рижского гетто"

Felines perform tricks on giant balls

You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more unusual circus, or father-daughter performing duo. The Moscow Cat Theatre is just that: a travelling show of cats that perform amazing tricks for the owners who love and train them. Everybody in Russia may be used to seeing cats perform tricks, as the theatre’s manager explains in this funny, charming film, but felines walking tightropes, crossing the stage on giant balls and walking upside down is not a common sight in most countries. As a balalaika and accordion circus score plays in the background, Creative Director Vladimir and his daughter Maria combine their love of cats and stage to create a captivating act and illustrate the tricks of the trade – giving new meaning to the expression ‘herding cats’.

Freaks and SPURS

The film's climax—the night in which the freaks wreak their justice upon the strong man and trapeze artist, followed by the epilogue showing the horrendous hen-creature—have long been touted as supreme examples of screen horror, and are

unquestionably a major reason why FREAKS has remained a cinematic legend. They are indeed highlights of the film, the torrential downpour being a Browning tour-de-force in which the only sounds are assorted groans, screams and the elements of nature. Nevertheless, for all that can be said of it, the chase sequence is far too brief. We must be content with the one glimpse of Cleo's face and the freaks in pursuit the camera affords us, although a longer series of shots, with Cleo racing . . . falling . . . struggling to make her way through the forest with various innocent shadows playing amongst the trees and undergrowth, climaxing in a similar way, would have made the sequence even more memorable. There remain, admittedly so, the couple of marvelous close-ups of the freaks propelling themselves through the mire towards the mortally wounded Hercules (there appears to be some footage missing here, for the strong man's fate is never actually explained in action or dialogue; an original plan was to have him emasculated, but as the film exists now, it is assumed that the freaks murdered him). Had Browning chosen to insert additional shots such as these, the result would have been even more satisfying.
(read more...)

Stalker (Сталкер)

When the British Film Institute launched a survey on “the film you would like to share with future generations”, behind Blade Runner in first place was a surprise second place entry: Andrei Tarkovsky’s science fiction film Stalker, in which a guide leads two clients to a site known as “the Zone”, which has the supposed potential to fulfill a person’s innermost desires.

Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky; Produced by: Aleksandra Demidova; Written by: Arkadi Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky; Starring: Alexander Kaidanovsky, Anatoli Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko; Music by: Eduard Artemyev; Distributed by: Mosfilm; Release date: August 1979 (Soviet Union); Running time: 163 min; Language: Russian; Subtitle: English; Description: Near a gray and unnamed city is the Zone, an alien place guarded by barbed wire and soldiers. Over his wife's numerous objections, a man rises in the dead of night: he's a stalker, one of a handful who have the mental gifts (and who risk imprisonment) to lead people into the Zone to the Room, a place where one's secret hopes come true. That night, he takes two people into the Zone: a popular writer who is burned out, cynical, and questioning his genius; and a quiet scientist more concerned about his knapsack than the journey. In the deserted Zone, the approach to the Room must be indirect. As they draw near, the rules seem to change and the stalker faces a crisis

Kin-Dza-Dza! A Russian Steampunk Epic Кин-дза-дза!

At first glance, Kin-Dza-Dza!, a science fiction epic about two Soviet men transported to a desert world, seems anything but subtle. Stranded in a world where everyone can read minds but the local language has only a few words (a dozen or so technical terms plus "kew" - a curse word and "koo" - every other word), where a single sulfur match is worth a fortune, and where wearing yellow pants is a sign of great status, the two must survive by learning to hang a bell in their noses and to squat the appropriate number of times when a superior walks by. This is a scenario that would have been easy to mishandle, to say the least.

The script by Georgi Daneliya and Revaz Gabriadze is masterful, however. At times biting, at times gentle, it pushes the surface plot forward relentlessly while each scene, each conversation, each exchange rings with hidden truths. Reserved direction and dry-yet-deep performances by such superstars of Russian cinema as Stanislav Lyubshin, Yuri Yakovlev and Yevgeni Leonov combine to result in a film of unexpected poignancy.

This film, with all its outlandish props and crude special effects, is chock-full of insights into society and human nature. It's also one of the funniest films I have ever seen, even if the laughter sometimes hurts.

Слово «ку» совпадает с португальским непристойным словом «cu», которое можно перевести как «задница». Интересно, что комедия «Кин-дза-дза!», где это слово употребляется весьма часто, участвовала в показах на кинофестивалях как раз в португалоязычных странах (Бразилии и Португалии), где, несмотря ни на что, (а может — именно по этой причине) получила призы.
A large number of quotes from the film have instant recognizability throughout the former Soviet Union even today. Western viewers may miss some of the humor (and some of the hurt) by having never lived in the USSR, but that is no excuse to pass up this gem.(read more...)

"Cinema is for us the most important of arts"- Lenin

"Man With a Movie Camera" was an effort to show the breadth and precision of the camera's recording ability, and similar films were produced in a few other European countries. The film is a succession of images supposedly showing the audience what the camera eye is seeing. Vertov's brother, Mikhail Kaufman, is the cameraman, and at times another movie camera follows "Man With a Movie Camera" on the street and in other places. In one sequence some women in a cab notice the cameraman smirk and gesture at the camera as they ride through the streets of Moscow.
Vertov explained his actions with profound statements such as, "Construction must be understood as the co-ordinating function of Constructivism. If the tectonic unites the ideological and formal, and as a result gives a unity of conception, and the factura is the condition of the material, then the construction discovers the actual process of putting together. Thus we have the third discipline, the discipline of the formation of conception through the use of worked material. All hail to the Communist expression of material building."
Dziga Vertov, born Denis Arkadievitch Kaufman (1896-1954), was the son of Jewish intellectuals who moved to Moscow to flee the invading German armies during World War I. He trained as a musician and neurologist, and he had studied at the Moscow Psycho-neurological Institute. He was also a poet, fiction writer and journalist. He was conducting experiments in synthetic sound before the outbreak of hostilities against the Czar. During the revolution he was in charge of photographic work in a partisan army fighting the Czar, and in 1918 after the Communist takeover, he was placed at the head of the Cinema Department of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. It was there that he met his future wife and collaborator, Elizaveta Svilova (1900-1976), who began her film career with Pathe Freres in Moscow. He abandoned the name of Denis Kaufman and adopted Dziga Vertov which was derived from the verb which means to spin and Dziga is the repetitive sound of a camera crank turning
(dziga, dziga, dziga ... ).(read more..)

«Homage Сергею Дягилеву»

XVI Международный фестиваль «АРТ-ноябрь»
Работы израильтянки Лоры Верховской. Уникальные картины на коже, выполненные по эскизам выдающихся художников — сподвижников великого импресарио.
Произведения Льва Бакста (эскиз костюма «Еврейский танец» к балету «Клеопатра»), Наталии Гончаровой (эскиз костюма св. Иоанна к балету «Литургия»), Константина Сомова («Маскарад») и Пабло Пикассо (эскиз костюма китайского фокусника к балету «Парад») Лора Верховская перенесла на кожу.
Художница работает в старинной технике интарсии. На Западе слово «intarsia» (intarsio — ит., разновидность инкрустации) употребляется много чаще и шире, чем в русском языке. Самые древние интарсии — итальянские. В них соединенны рисунок и графика, стилизация и декоративность, естественная необработанная фактура материала и высокое художественное мастерство. Как живописец красками, так Верховская «пишет» картину кожей, будто обладая особой врожденной связью с этим природным материалом. Поражающие своей материальной роскошью и декоративностью — великолепные картины Лоры Верховской не только дань памяти и преклонение перед гением Сергея Дягилева, но и обращение сразу к нескольким музам искусств: к Евтерпе, Терпсихоре, Эрато, Талии и Мельпомене.(via vashdosug )

The city of Moscow

Moscow in slow motion.
Camera and montage - Andrey Stvolinsky.
Music - Kilimanjaro DarkJazz Ensemble.