Premiering this Friday...

I've been a fan of the three previous TV shows created by Joss Whedon - Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly - and found each new one more enjoyable than the previous one. So, it is no surprise that I've been eagerly awaiting Dollhouse since it was announced to be in developement. So far, Whedon hasn't put anything on TV that has made watching it feel like a chore - so I have great expectations.

Want to see the front pages of newspapers...

from around the world? www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/ will let you do that.

The smoke stacks in the picture...

belong to the DWP Truesdale Center at Glenoaks and Truesdale. (This is in response to Tom's attempt to identify them in the previous picture.)

R.I.P. Lux Interior

It came a bit of shock to find out that Lux Interior, the lead singer of The Cramps, died on February 4th at Glendale Memorial Hospital at the age of 60 from a pre-existing heart condition. If you aren't familiar with his music, check out You-Tube or their offiical website: http://www.thecramps.com/.

DVD Library Check Out

After my wife and I became enamored of British television adaptations of classic literature, I figured that the public libraries would probably carry that sort-of thing and so I checked. Well, to my delight, they carried so much more - at least in the Los Angeles and Burbank areas. Jean-Pierre Melville's LE SAMOURI and Federico Fellini's LA STRADA were not completely unexpected, as foreign art films would seem proper fare at a library, but there were also Italian Westerns - and not just the ones directed by Sergio Leone. The MGM/UA Sabata dvd set was found as well as the IFC/Blue Underground SPAGHETTI WESTERN documentary.

Hard to find Biblical movies

There I was flipping through the cable channels and suddenly I saw Gianni Garko on the screen. What channel was showing a Gianni Garko movie that I hadn't checked already? TBN - The Trinity Broadcasting Network was showing the Italian Biblical epic SAUL AND DAVID. This was the first that I knew that they weren't just televangelists 24 hours a day. So, I've been paying attention to the movies they show - usually on Sunday night, but during the Christmas season they played movies just about every night. And they play the movies without commercial interruption - if you don't count the telephone number at the bottom of the screen alongside the station logo. Last night they played THE STORY OF JACOB AND JOSEPH, which isn't an Italian production, but it was directed by Michael Cacoyannis, the Greek fellow who hired a Mexican/American to play ZORBA THE GREEK.

Okay, here's the view with normal sunshine.

Just in case you might think there are always dark clouds around here. This is the photo I took before adjusting the exposure so that the clouds didn't burn out.