Interstellar

Interstellar is a long movie, almost three hours.  Or perhaps, now that THC has absorbed the science that underlies the movie (with the help of the THC Son, the Official Science Advisor of this blog who attended the IMAX screening with his father) it may have been 23 days long or 51 seconds long.  Actually THC's head still hurts thinking about this. That's what happens when you are dealing with a dying Earth, trying to save humanity, shooting through wormholes, falling into black holes and the Singularity all while worrying about the impact of relativity.

The movie is unsteady and erratic at times and the acting is bland with the exception of Matthew McConaughey and MacKenzie Foy (who plays the younger version of McConaughey's daughter) though the other actors include Michael Caine, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck and John Lithgow.  Without McConaughey and Foy the movie would have no emotional center.  Also, the music is so loud at times you can't hear the dialogue.  With all that it is definitely worth seeing.  The story is intriguing and thought provoking, the visuals are striking and it is oddly optimistic about humanity in contrast to the tide of apocalyptic doom mongering movies of the early 21st century.  Plus, you get to see what the inside of a black hole may look like.
The film is directed by Christopher Nolan, whose brother Jonathan wrote the screenplay.  Nolan has made some of the most intricate and interesting films of the past few years including Memento, Inception and the last three Batman movies, of which the second, The Dark Knight is brilliant. 

And, in contrast to Lucy, the THC Son advises that Interstellar does a fairly decent job on getting the science right.  According to Wikipedia, Nolan hired Kip Thorne, retired Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at CalTech, as a consultant "to ensure the depictions of wormholes and relativity were as accurate as possible".  According to Thorne:

 "For the depictions of the wormholes and the black hole we discussed how to go about it, and then I worked out the equations that would enable tracing of light rays as they traveled through a wormhole or around a black hole—so what you see is based on Einstein's general relativity equations."

Wikipedia goes on to say:

"In creating the wormhole and a supermassive rotating black hole . . .  Thorne would provide pages of deeply sourced theoretical equations to the artists, who then wrote new CGI rendering software based on these equations to create accurate computer simulations of the gravitational lensing caused by these phenomena. . .  The resulting visual effect provided Thorne with new insight into the effects of gravitational lensing and accretion disks surrounding black holes, and will lead to the creation of two scientific papers, one for the astrophysics community and one for the computer graphics community.

Manhattan 1936

Taken from the George Washington Bridge.  If you look closely at the Empire State building you can catch a glimpse of King Kong.  From Twisted Sifter, it's one of 900,000 online photos from the New York City Department of Records which has a website worth browsing for some wonderful pictures of old New York.

Mrs Richards

From my favorite episode of Fawlty Towers starring John Cleese from Monty Python (see also Enormous Savage Rodents); Mrs Richards, about a hard of hearing and hard to satisfy lady who comes to Basil Fawlty's B&B for a peaceful weekend.  Fawlty Towers is located in the lovely beachside town of Torquay in southwestern England.   Here Basil introduces Mrs Richards to her "room with a view".
This linked clip shows Basil and his wife Sybil attempting to calm Mrs Richards down about her loss of 85 pounds and concludes with Basil wistfully recalling the early days of his marriage.

Marching Through Georgia

The last time we caught up with William Tecumseh Sherman he'd just sent a letter to the Mayor of Atlanta explaining why he was forcing civilians to evacuate the city.

On November 15 1864 General Sherman and his army left Atlanta on their March To The Sea, arriving in Savannah on the Atlantic Coast on December 21.  His goal: destruction of the South's economy and forcefully driving home to the civilian population the cost of continuing the war.

In late January 1865, Sherman restarted his destructive march, advancing through South Carolina, where he unleashed even more havoc than in Georgia, and into North Carolina where he accepted the surrender of Confederate forces in mid-April.

Anne Sarah Rubin has just published an account of that long march, Through The Heart Of Dixie: Sherman's March And American Memory along with a new website on which you can follow Sherman's march day by day using the accounts of Federal and Confederate soldiers, civilians and slaves.  Take a look.

Nice Catch

THC doesn't know enough about the game to evaluate whether the subtitle of this video "greatest catch in the history of football" is accurate but he does know enough to know it's definitely "not too shabby".  He was watching last night and saw Odell Beckham of the New York Giants make this catch.  If you don't think it's hard have someone throw you a football and try to replicate it, making sure to catch the ball with only three fingers.  Oh, and also have someone mugging you at the same time.

St James Infirmary

Louis Armstrong from 1928.

I went down to St. James Infirmary, saw my baby there
Stretched out on the long white table,
So sweet, so cold, so fair

Let her go, let her go, God bless her
Wherever she may be
She can look this wide world over
She'll never find a sweet man like me

When I die want you to dress me in straight lace shoes
Box-back coat and a Stetson hat
Put a twenty dollar gold piece on my watch chain
So the boys'll know that I died standing pat

You can read a discussion about what a "Box-back" coat refers to here.