Saturday, July 27, 2019

A Poetic Blast From The Past

A blast from the past. The famous "Fab5" poets from back in the days of Su Polo's Saturn Series poetry @ the Nightingale. Long live the "Fab5"!
-Daniel Canada aka Obsidian



ALSO CHECK OUT MY 2 BOOKS “THE SHAITAN” & “HOBO HANDBOOK: MEMOIRS OF A HOMELESS POET IN NEW YORK” SOLD AT THESE LOCATIONS:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/655627

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hobo-handbook-daniel-canada/1124340542?ean=2940153669205


They are not being sold on Amazon.com at this time.

To view a few sample pages or to purchase the books visit:

https://smashwords.com/books/view/573076  (Note: You must 1st remove “adult content” filter from top right hand corner of Smashword page to access the books, by clicking the “Adult Content” button before searching for the titles titles in search field).

If you want to view my Smashwords Author Profile visit:


You can also check out the comments I will be posting on these social media sites:

My Twitter account: https://twitter.com/lordlumiel
If you wish to shoot me a personal note, this is my email address: lordlumiel@yahoo.com
I’d love to hear from you!
-Daniel Canada aka Obsidian








Thursday, July 25, 2019

A Farewell to one the 80's "Great Badman" Actors



Rutger Hauer, ‘Blade Runner’ Co-Star, Dies at 75


Rutger Hauer, the versatile Dutch leading man of the ’70s who went on star in the 1982 “Blade Runner” as Roy Batty, died July 19 at his home in the Netherlands after a short illness. He was 75.

Hauer’s agent, Steve Kenis, confirmed the news and said that Hauer’s funeral was held Wednesday.

His most cherished performance came in a film that was a resounding flop on its original release. In 1982, he portrayed the murderous yet soulful Roy Batty, leader of a gang of outlaw replicants, opposite Harrison Ford in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir opus “Blade Runner.” The picture became a widely influential cult favorite, and Batty proved to be Hauer’s most indelible role.

More recently, he appeared in a pair of 2005 films: as Cardinal Roark in “Sin City,” and as the corporate villain who Bruce Wayne discovers is running the Wayne Corp. in Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins.”

In “True Blood,” he played Niall Brigant, the king of the tribe from which the Stackhouse family is descended and the faerie grandfather to Sookie, Jason Stackhouse and Hunter Savoy. Hauer also recurred on ABC’s medieval musical comedy “Galavant” as Kingsley in 2015.

He was a natural at horror and vampire roles, starring as Van Helsing in Dario Argento’s “Dracula 3D,” and as the vampire Barlow in the 2004 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “Salem’s Lot” along with Rob Lowe, Andre Braugher and Donald Sutherland.

Handsome, energetic and fluent in several languages, Hauer made his first mark in the late ‘60s in the Netherlands as the star of Paul Verhoeven’s medieval TV series “Floris.” He vaulted to the top ranks of Dutch stardom in 1973 opposite Monique van de Ven in Verhoeven’s sexually explosive drama “Turkish Delight,” which became a box-office smash and garnered an Oscar nod as best foreign film.

After three more Dutch features with Verhoeven that became art-house successes in the U.S., Hauer segued to a Hollywood career with a flashy role as a terrorist in the 1981 Sylvester Stallone thriller “Nighthawks.”

Hauer increasingly turned to action-oriented parts in the ‘80s: He toplined the big-budget fantasy “Ladyhawke” (1985), reteamed with fellow Hollywood transplant Verhoeven in the sword-and-armor epic “Flesh & Blood” (1985), starred as a psychotic killer in “The Hitcher” (1986), and took Steve McQueen’s shotgun-toting bounty hunter role in a modern reboot of the TV Western “Wanted: Dead or Alive” (1986).

His major artistic triumph came in Ermanno Olmi’s Italian production “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” (1988); his sensitive turn as a homeless drunk and petty criminal who finds redemption in Paris carried the feature, which collected the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

During the ‘90s, Hauer gravitated to more routine roles in American and international productions and played the vampire lord Lothos in the original film version of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

He debuted as a small screen star as Nazi official Albert Speer in the 1982 telefilm adaptation of Speer’s book “Inside the Third Reich.” His most admired TV work came in projects that turned on World War II themes: He received Golden Globe nominations for his performances as the leader of a concentration camp revolt in “Escape From Sobibor” (1987) and an SS officer in the alternate-universe drama “Fatherland” (1994).

He was born Jan. 23, 1944, in Breukelen, the Netherlands, near Amsterdam. Though both his parents were acting teachers, he took a circuitous route to the craft. He ran away from home at 15 to join the Dutch merchant navy; after returning to Amsterdam in 1962 he briefly studied acting, but exited school again for a stint in the army.

Finally committing himself to the stage, he became a member of the touring experimental troupe Noorder Compagnie, in which he acted, directed and served as costume designer and translator for several years.

His major break came in 1969 when Verhoeven cast him in the title role of “Floris,” an Ivanhoe-like knight who becomes embroiled in court intrigue upon his return from the Crusades. The show proved wildly popular, and Hauer reprised the part in a 1975 revival of the series, “Floris von Rosemund.”

By that time, the steamy, affecting “Turkish Delight” had firmly established him as the Netherlands’ top B.O. attraction. He reunited with Verhoeven and his co-star van de Ven for the period drama “Katie Tippel” (1975); he renewed his collaboration with the director with the World War II saga “Soldier of Orange” (1977) and the bold contemporary drama “Spetters” (1980).

Hauer made an almost immediate and intense impression as Batty in his sophomore American feature “Blade Runner,” an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” He wrote his own dialog for the film’s climactic face-off with his adversary Ford. Though the film swiftly fell off screens, it remains a genre landmark today, in no small measure because of Hauer’s electrifying performance.

Olmi’s “The Legend of the Holy Drinker” brought him possibly the best notices of his career, but it failed to attract great attention beyond art-house audiences, and Hauer soon became a familiar and prolific supporting player in a variety of genre pictures, several of which went direct to home video. He shot seven features in 2001 alone.

He was active in social causes as an outspoken sponsor of the environmental organization Greenpeace and the founder the Starfish Association, a non-profit devoted to AIDS awareness.

He is survived by his second wife of 50 years, Ineke ten Cate, and a daughter, actress Aysha Hauer, from his marriage to Heidi Merz.

— Carmel Dagan contributed to this report.








ALSO CHECK OUT MY 2 BOOKS “THE SHAITAN” & “HOBO HANDBOOK: MEMOIRS OF A HOMELESS POET IN NEW YORK” SOLD AT THESE LOCATIONS:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/655627

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hobo-handbook-daniel-canada/1124340542?ean=2940153669205


They are not being sold on Amazon.com at this time.

To view a few sample pages or to purchase the books visit:

https://smashwords.com/books/view/573076  (Note: You must 1st remove “adult content” filter from top right hand corner of Smashword page to access the books, by clicking the “Adult Content” button before searching for the titles titles in search field).

If you want to view my Smashwords Author Profile visit:


You can also check out the comments I will be posting on these social media sites:

My Twitter account: https://twitter.com/lordlumiel
If you wish to shoot me a personal note, this is my email address: lordlumiel@yahoo.com
I’d love to hear from you!
-Daniel Canada aka Obsidian










Saturday, July 13, 2019

Global Warming's Apocalypse ?


This Weirdly Geometric Iceberg Is Freaking Us Out

By‭ ‬George Dvorsky

10/23/2018



Well here’s something you don’t see everyday:‭ ‬an iceberg so unbelievably geometric in shape you’d think it was deliberately carved with a gigantic chainsaw.‭ ‬Scientists have documented this sort of thing before,‭ ‬but this latest‭ ‘‬berg,‭ ‬which recently split from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf,‭ ‬happens to be a rather extraordinary example.

What you’re looking at here is a tabular iceberg.‭ ‬Unlike the icebergs of non-tabular variety,‭ ‬such as the irregularly shaped berg that sunk the Titanic,‭ ‬these chunks of ice are distinguished by their flat tops,‭ ‬steep sides,‭ ‬and sometimes massive sizes.‭ ‬At their largest,‭ ‬tabular icebergs can extend for hundreds of miles in length,‭ ‬and reach hundreds of feet below the surface.

NASA scientists spotted this iceberg in Antarctica on October‭ ‬16‭ ‬as part of the Operation IceBridge program—an ongoing mission to monitor polar regions and track the planet’s global climate system.

Tabular icebergs are the remnants of calving events,‭ ‬where a large strip of ice breaks free from an ice shelf.‭ ‬In this case,‭ ‬an uncannily square-shaped iceberg broke away from Larsen C,‭ ‬the same ice shelf that produced the gigantic A-68‭ ‬iceberg back in July‭ ‬2017.‭ ‬Based on its relatively smooth edges and pristine condition,‭ ‬this berg likely only calved very recently,‭ ‬according to NASA.
Speaking to LiveScience,‭ ‬University of Maryland Earth scientist Kelly Brunt compared calving events to a long fingernail that eventually snaps off at the end‭; ‬the process often results in seemingly perfect geometric edges.‭ ‬This berg hasn’t been measured yet,‭ ‬but Brunt says it’s about one mile across‭ (‬1.6‭ ‬kilometers‭)‬,‭ ‬which isn’t not particularly large.‭ ‬By contrast,‭ ‬iceberg A68‭'‬s surface area measured some‭ ‬2,240‭ ‬square miles‭ (‬5,800‭ ‬kilometers‭) ‬at the time of calving.‭ ‬Brunt added that only about‭ ‬10‭ ‬percent of the iceberg’s mass is visible,‭ ‬the rest being underwater.‭ ‬So what you’re seeing here is only the tip of the...uh...you know what.

Needless to say,‭ ‬this photograph isn’t telling us the whole story.‭ ‬It’s doubtful the entire iceberg is perfectly geometric throughout.‭ ‬But who cares—this photo is an instant classic.

‭[‬NASA via LiveScience‭]









ALSO CHECK OUT MY 2 BOOKS “THE SHAITAN” & “HOBO HANDBOOK: MEMOIRS OF A HOMELESS POET IN NEW YORK” SOLD AT THESE LOCATIONS:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/655627

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hobo-handbook-daniel-canada/1124340542?ean=2940153669205


They are not being sold on Amazon.com at this time.

To view a few sample pages or to purchase the books visit:

https://smashwords.com/books/view/573076  (Note: You must 1st remove “adult content” filter from top right hand corner of Smashword page to access the books, by clicking the “Adult Content” button before searching for the titles titles in search field).

If you want to view my Smashwords Author Profile visit:


You can also check out the comments I will be posting on these social media sites:

My Twitter account: https://twitter.com/lordlumiel
If you wish to shoot me a personal note, this is my email address: lordlumiel@yahoo.com
I’d love to hear from you!
-Daniel Canada aka Obsidian