Wednesday, August 25, 2010
New York
Model of plane on float in "New York at War" Independence Day parade up Fifth Avenue. New York City, New York. July 4th, 1942. (Andreas Feininger/Time-LIFE archive)
First Lines: Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
First Lines: Plato - The Republic
I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of Ariston, that I might offer up my prayers to the goddess; and also because I wanted to see in what manner they would celebrate the festival, which was a new thing.
Monday, August 23, 2010
New York
In 1925 there were an estimated 30,000 to 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. Near the end of the ban on alcohol in 1933 Life photographer Margaret Bourke-White captured some of the city’s elite speakeasies.
First Lines: Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (Preface)
Our reason (Vernunft) has this peculiar fate that, with reference to one class of its knowledge, it is always troubled with questions which cannot be ignored, because they spring from the very nature of reason, and which cannot be answered, because they transcend the powers of human reason.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)
During the Korean War, a Navy fighter pilot must come to terms with with his own ambivalence towards the war and the fear of having to bomb a set of highly defended bridges.
Ambitious, but pedestrian and dated character study under war circumstances.
The Strangers (2008)
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A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.
A standard horror film situation is done with style and some inventive and scary twists.
(Watch out for Gemma Ward as one of the masked strangers!)