First Flight Review: SKYWALK CHILI 3 paraglider

Portable record players then & now

We love the crackling sound that record players give off, and we adore that Crosley has re-made portable turntables! I actually own a vintage turntable and a new portable Crosley one, and I go back and forth between the two because they both sound amazing, but a tiny bit different!  Which would you chose, old or new?

then // now

then // now

then // now

then // now

then // now

The House of Seven Corpses (1974)

Oh, those silly Hollywood filmmakers—time and again, at least according to the logic of bad horror movies, Hollywood filmmakers make the idiotic decision to shoot on locations where murders occurred, and then keep shooting even when clues indicate the filmmakers themselves are about to become victims. But, hey, if it weren’t for stupid characters, there wouldn’t be very many horror movies, would there? In The House of Seven Corpses, a film crew led by obnoxious director Eric Hartman (John Ireland) shoots a Gothic shocker in a grand estate where several generations of residents were killed. Aiding the crew is a cadaverous old caretaker, Edgar Price (John Carradine), who does creepy things like critiquing the accuracy of murder reenactments, and, at Hartman’s behest, crawling around the graveyard adjoining the estate’s main house. Is it even worth mentioning that the crew is lodging at the estate in addition to shooting there, or that the film being shot has parallels to the Satan worship that inspired past killings? A low-rent American attempt to fabricate the style of England’s Hammer Films, The House of Seven Corpses overflows with mediocre acting, predictable jolts, and uninteresting characters. In particular, the members of Hartman’s acting troupe represent a barrage of clichés—the dim-witted blonde starlet, the insufferable theater-trained ham, the vain leading lady unwilling to admit she’s passed her expiration date, and so on. Plus, of course, Hartman is a cliché, too, since he berates his co-workers relentlessly. Thankfully, many of these annoying characters die. For cinema buffs, the only novel part of watching The House of Seven Corpsesis seeing the camera equipment that’s used by Hartman’s crew. Yet if glimpses of vintage Arriflex 35mm cameras are the best things a horror flick can offer, that says a lot.

The House of Seven Corpses: LAME

The Glacier Express Skiing Video in the Alps

Andreas Fransson professional climber and skier shares this video with us


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DllNmF9JyrU

https://www.facebook.com/cyril.kaicener


Please visit my website.
http://www.hiking4health.com

ADVANCE EPSILON 7 Trailer

Sito Advance Epsilon 7

CHAD WISHES YOU HAPPY EASTER

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972)

          One of Spanish director Luis Buñuel’s most acclaimed works and an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is not the easiest movie to penetrate—the story’s satire operates at such a sophisticated level that it’s easy to mistake some stretches of the narrative for straightforward psychodrama. Plus, as was Buñuel’s wont, the story loops around itself several times via tricky dream sequences and fake-outs that obscure what’s “really” happening. Yet for patient viewers willing to participate in Buñuel’s postmodern games, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie delivers a droll appraisal of the way feelings of entitlement blind the semi-rich to the absurdity of their own circumstances.

          The principal running gag of the movie involves a group of upper-middle-class friends attempting to get together for a dinner date. Throughout the story, outrageous events scuttle the plans—a restaurant holds a wake, complete with a corpse, during the dinner hour; a group of soldiers appears at a country house expecting entertainment and food; gun-toting gangsters invade a dinner party; and so on. The joke, of course, is that the protagonists are so preoccupied with creature comforts that they never lose their appetites—it’s as if the working-class people who interrupt the protagonists simply don’t exist. Meanwhile, Buñuel and co-writer Jean-Claude Carrière reveal the sordid activities of the main characters. A foreign ambassador (Fernando Rey) moonlights as a cocaine smuggler; a horny couple (Jean-Pierre Cassel and Stéphane Audran) sneaks away from guests to screw in the woods; an underserviced housewife (Delphine Seyrig) has an affair with a family friend; et cetera.

          Even though The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie runs a brisk 102 minutes, Buñuel and Carrière cram a lot of narrative content into the movie—beyond the items already mentioned, there’s also a subplot about a sexy would-be terrorist and two strange sequences of people describing their dreams, which are depicted via surrealistic vignettes.

          Whether all of this material coalesces into a unified statement is a subjective matter, because the ambiguous final images could imply a heavy-handed theme of awful people stuck on a road to nowhere—or the images could imply something else. (Providing concrete answers was never Buñuel’s thing.) Appraising The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie by standard criteria is pointless, seeing as how the film does not aspire to realism, but it’s sufficient to say that Buñuel stocks the film with attractive women, debonair men, and elegant locations—these slick surfaces amplify the director’s ideas about a class preoccupied with materialism. One more thing: Because other viewers may have the same experience, I should add that that the discreet charm of The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisieescaped me on first viewing, but the more I thought about the movie, the more its aesthetic scheme—and its virtues—came into focus.

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie: GROOVY

U Prime

U Prime di AirCross

U Prime from AirCross on Vimeo.

STORE LOCATOR: J.PRESS YORK STREET

J.Press, gentlemen's clothing store since 1902 teamed up with the brothers Ovadia and developed the J.Press Yorkstreet collection. A few weeks ago the first York Street Store opened it's doors @ Bleecker Street with next door neighbors like Gant Rugger & Brooks Brothers Black Fleece. The store has a lot of heritage and links with the Ivy League background of J.Press, with "Handsome Dan" the Yale bulldog as mascot. (pics via flickr & selectism)

Good things on Good Friday.

We're drooling over Sessun's SS13 collection. Love the dreamy photos!

These roasted red pepper and feta skillet scones from Joy the Baker look amazing!

Cat pockets? Are you kidding me?

Loving the secret garden collection from Casper & Pearl.

Ha! Such a great Iphone case!

Idaho Transfer (1973)

          If you didn’t know that Peter Fonda once directed a sci-fi movie, you’re not alone, because Idaho Transfer is among the most obscure items in his filmography. Released to little fanfare in 1973 and subsequently relegated to the public-domain slag heap—most available prints of the movie are cruddy second-generation copies—the movie is little more than a footnote to the Easy Rider star’s career. And while it’s true that Idaho Transfer is not the sort of movie that generates much excitement on the part of the viewer, seeing as how the film is leisurely and meditative, the picture has some meritorious elements.
          The story revolves around Karen (Kelly Bohanon), a mixed-up young woman who joins her older sister, Isa (Caroline Hildebrand), at a remote research facility run by the girls’ father, George (Ted D’Arms). George has created time-travel technology and determined that the Earth is racing toward an ecological disaster, so he’s “transferring” young people back and forth to the future. In the future, the young people are laying the foundations for a settlement that can rebuild the human race after the apocalypse. Screenwriter Thomas Matthiesen adds all sorts of inventive flourishes to this wild premise; for instance, the notion that 20th-century environmental damage is destroying the kidneys of mature adults explains why persons past the age of 25 can’t participate in the time-travel experiment. Matthiesen also flips the story on its head partway through, when several young characters get trapped in the future and must fight for survival in a realm plagued by zombie-like radiation victims.
         Although this might sound like the setup for an action story, Fonda presents Idaho Transfer as a lyrical parable. Spotlighting inexperienced amateur actors and striving for a naturalistic feel, Fonda uses a supremely restrained approach—most scenes involve characters casually discussing their extraordinary circumstances. (Composer Bruce Langhorne’s plaintive score accentuates the unimaginable tragedy of outliving one’s own species.) This laid-back approach to sci-fi doesn’t really work, per se, since the movie could have used a lot more adrenaline, but Idaho Transferis an interesting counterpoint to the overwrought melodrama found in most movies exploring similar subject matter. After all, wouldn’t wandering mostly uninhabited wastelands be a quiet existence? Fonda’s cast generally underwhelms, though Bohanon seems comfortable onscreen and Keith Carradine pops up for a couple of scenes as a minor character. It’s easy to admire what Fonda set out to accomplish, and every so often his cerebral/spiritual take on the sci-fi genre connects in a moment of sad poetry.

Idaho Transfer: FUNKY

Upcoming Hikes for the Meetup Hiking Group Mar 30

The Inland Empire and Coachella Valley hikers have some good hikes in their area starting Mar 30
Video of emergency call boxes on Skyline

http://www.meetup.com/Hiking-Coachella-Valley/

  San Jacinto

=======================================================================
Video of emergency call boxes on Skyline

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWtTFWl4NY4


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Please visit my website   http://www.hiking4health.com

freestyle paramotor acro

freestyle paramotor acro from OSCAR MESCHIARI on Vimeo.

Nautical mile.

We took a little bit of nautical inspiration for our outfits today:

Stef's outfit details:

Navy jumper: Forever 21

Blouse with neck tie: market in Bangkok

Knee socks: market in Tokyo

Black wedge shoes: Urban Outfitters

Erin's outfit details:

Cream dress with red & navy link print with bow: Vintage from our shop Rhymes With Orange.

Cream belt: Thrifted

Shoes: Ida in tangerine c/o B.A.I.T. Footwear

XO

Detroit 9000 (1973)

          During his Pulp Fiction afterglow, Quentin Tarantino created a short-lived Miramax subsidiary called Rolling Thunder, which distributed handful of indie movies and re-released faves from Tarantino’s days as a grindhouse habitué. One of the obscure ’70s movies that benefited from Tarantino’s largesse was Detroit 9000, a racially charged action thriller set in the urban wasteland of the Motor City. Yet while the picture has a lively cast and solid action scenes, it’s strictly a run-of-the-mill endeavor, so Tarantino’s imprimatur should not unreasonably raise expectations. Yes, Detroit 9000 is relatively unique in the way it blends elements of blaxploitation and mainstream action movies, and yes, the movie flips a cliché by portraying a black guy as the book-smart half of a buddy-cop duo—but novel elements can’t compensate for the lack of a memorable story. Detroit 9000 begins with crooks stealing millions from a fundraiser for a black gubernatorial candidate. The cops assigned to the case are street-smart white dude Det. Danny Bassett (Alex Rocco) and college-educated African-American Sgt. Jesse Williams (Hari Rhodes). Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t fully exploit the culture-clash potential of this dynamic, even though Rhodes and Rocco are both interesting performers.
          Rhodes, best known for his role on the TV adventure series Daktari(1966-1969), was a man of letters offscreen and, accordingly, brought eloquence and poise to his acting. Therefore, it’s a shame that Detroit 9000 give Rhodes one of his only leading roles, since he’s got nothing to do here but strive to retain his dignity while running through gutted urban locations and/or spewing bland dialogue. Rocco, a versatile character actor whose filmography includes everything from The Godfather (1972) to a string of sitcoms, provides a totally different flavor of authenticity, although he, too, is handicapped by an underwritten characterization. Among the supporting cast, Scatman Crothers does some energetic speechifying as a preacher; Vonetta McGee classes up a trite hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold role; and Herbert Jefferson Jr., later a regular on the original Battlestar Galacticaseries, shows up in full pimp regalia. The problem is that everyone involved in Detroit 9000, including second-rate blaxploitation director Arthur Marks, did better work elsewhere—so why this mediocre flick lingered in Tarantino’s memory is a mystery.

Detroit 9000: FUNKY

Comunicato Stampa FIVL

Parapendio volano al Festival del Vento in Liguria
 Inquadrata, come da tradizione, nell'ormai consolidato Festival del Vento
giunto alla sua 14.a edizione, la giornata dedicata al parapendio, al
deltaplano, paramotore e paracadutismo sarà di scena nel fine settimana del
6-7 aprile a Spotorno (Savona).

Come sempre è l'Aero Club Albatros di Genova ad organizzare la kermesse, un
raduno interdisciplinare che prevede per il pubblico la possibilità di
provare voli in biposto parapendio e lanci tandem in paracadute
dall'elicottero con istruttori. L'associazione ligure, nata nel 1989, è
attrezzata con supporti multimediali e meccanici per l'apprendimento delle
tecniche specifiche delle diverse discipline ed ha avvicinato un consistente
numero di appassionati al volo libero in parapendio, al paracadutismo e al
paramotore. Quindi non poteva certo poteva mancare al festival spotornese
del 2013 che si snoda per un mese con esibizioni di aquiloni, aeromodelli,
vela, bike, arrampicata, mostre collettive d'arte, mercatini
dell'artigianato ed antiquariato, voli turistici in elicottero ed altro
ancora.
In particolare i voli in parapendio decolleranno dal monte Mao con
atterraggio in spiaggia di fronte a piazza della Vittoria dove è allestito
il gazebo Albatros. Recupero il 13-14 aprile in caso di maltempo.

Gustavo Vitali
Ufficio Stampa FIVL - Federazione Italiana Volo Libero
http://www.fivl.it - 335 5852431 - skype: gustavo.vitali
vitali.stampa (AT) fivl.it

Foto
http://www.gustavovitali.it/pagine/comfivl/spotorno-26-03-13.html

per ulteriori informazioni sul FESTIVAL DEL VENTO contattare:
Agostino Gurrieri - 349 0676701 - info (AT) albatrospara.it
http://www.albatrospara.it
Programma completo:
http://www.comune.spotorno.sv.it/14-festival-del-vento-e-delloutoor-2013/

Tutti i comunicati stampa FIVL all'indirizzo:
http://www.fivl.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=77&Itemid=1
384

Recipe for raspberry & coconut tarts!

I wanted to share one of my favorite recipes with you today - Raspberry and coconut tarts. They are so easy to make and they are so incredibly delicious hot out of the oven!

Get a bowl out, and gather what you will need to mix them up. I used my Kitchenaid mixer, but a hand mixer or a good old wooden spoon will work just as well.

Ingredients:

* 2 eggs

* 3/4 C. sugar

* 1 tsp cornstarch

* 1/4 tsp salt

* 1/4 C. margarine, melted

* 1 Tbsp lemon juice

* 1 tsp vanilla extract

* 1 1/2 C. coconut

* 18 frozen regular size tart shells 

* Jam of your choice

Mix all ingredients together and set aside. Preheat oven to 375.

Next scoop a small amount of your favorite kind of jam (I chose raspberry) into each tart shell lined on a baking sheet.

All you do now is scoop one heaping tablespoon of the coconut  mixture on top of the jam and pop those tarts in the oven! Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until tops are golden brown! This recipe makes 18 tarts.

Enjoy!

xo, Erin

Play Misty for Me (1971)

          Clint Eastwood stepped well outside his comfort zone for his first feature film as a director, setting aside the action genre for a psychosexual thriller, and although his casting in the lead was inevitable—trading acting for opportunity is how most stars get their first directing gigs—it’s admirable that he took on the additional challenge of playing a textured role. Instead of incarnating his usual tight-lipped tough guy, Eastwood portrays a man who makes his living by talking (a radio DJ), and instead of battling some formidable male equal, he squares off against little Jessica Walter.

          The story is basically the same as that of Fatal Attraction, which was made more than a decade later—a man has a fling with the wrong woman, and then pays for his misdeed when he tries to dump her and thereby invokes her violent wrath. Eastwood plays Dave, a radio personality based in Carmel-by-the-Sea, the quaint Northern California enclave that, incidentally, has been Eastwood’s offscreen home base for decades. One of Dave’s regular callers is a sexy-voiced mystery lady who asks him to play the smoky jazz standard “Misty” every night. The woman, Evelyn (Walter), soon appears in Dave’s real life and offers herself to him. Yet while Dave made it clear all he wanted was a one-night stand, Evelyn has different ideas. She becomes obsessed, intruding into every aspect of Dave’s life, making public scenes that hurt his career, and eventually threatening the real object of Dave’s affection, his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Tobie (Donna Mills).

          Play Misty for Me is a straightforward stalker picture, and the best parts of the movie illustrate how easily Dave falls into Evelyn’s trap and how impossible it is for him to extricate himself. He’s complicit in his own crisis. Screenwriters Jo Heims and Dean Riesner carefully foreshadow Evelyn’s dark side even in the character’s first scenes, and the script emphasizes that the only thing preventing Dave from sensing Evelyn’s danger is his arrogance. Well, that and lust, since Dave is a swinger whose relationship with Tobie is forever being tested by his extracurricular conquests. Like Fatal Attraction, this movie is a warning to men who play the field—as Dave’s fellow DJ, Al (James McEachin), says with a wink, “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.”

          The last hour of the picture pays off the premise nicely, with several vivid scenes of suspense and violence, and Walter devours her role, creating a memorable movie monster grounded in believable, if deranged, emotions. Many of Eastwood’s directorial tropes manifested in this first effort, notably dark lighting and languid pacing, and the only major flaw with Play Misty for Me is that it sometimes meanders—for instance, was the indulgently long scene at the jazz festival really necessary? Still, this is well-executed popcorn entertainment, and it’s touching that Eastwood cast his directorial mentor, Don Siegel, in a minor recurring role as Dave’s favorite bartender.

Play Misty for Me: GROOVY

USP2

ARROW BLUE JEANS Co. SINCE 1851

For Fall 2013, Arrow offers a complete range of denim inspired shirts under the Arrow Blue Jeans Co. label. The shirts are fitted with some nice details like a special collar band, branded buttons a special neck label and vintage inspired hangtag. Above you can see some highlights. A supersoft corduroy shirt with contrast details a Arrow printed shirt and a denim shirt with a cut away collar. You can find the Arrow Blue Jeans Co. collection in stores as from August 2013.