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"Rise of Planet of the Apes," --the prequel" to "Planet of the Apes"--is far more than what one might think.

The premise of the movie is that a large drug company is developing an Alzheimer's drug and finds that it enhances the apes' intelligence enormously. A very touching side story concerns the lead scientist's father, who suffers from Alzheimer's and is slipping away until he gets the drug.

Lots of action as well. It's set in the San Francisco Bay area, with dramatic shots of San Francisco, the Golden Gate bridge, and Muir Woods.

"Rise of Planet of the Apes" is filled with nuanced portrayals of the interactions of humans and apes, both good and bad. The behavior of the apes is very realistic. Someone on the movie team obviously spent a lot of time watching and researching their behavior.

I would see it again.

Susan Tweit writes:

Riehlife nurtures connections. I think of Riehlife as a tapestry woven of the many voices you meet and hear and read. It's a way for people to meet the "other" without fear, to explore new ideas and new cultures, to expend their view, bit by bit.

It's a "journal" in the sense of thoughtful and thought-provoking magazine, not personal diary.

I’m lucky. The American Dance Festival, a summer institute for dancers in Durham, NC, imports the top troupes in Modern Dance from America and around the world. In years past I’ve had season tickets and felt like the luckiest dance fan in the universe. I’ve been mesmerized by performances of dances by Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Alvin Ailey, and have been so fortunate to see Twyla Twarp, Laura Dean, Martha Clarke, and Eiko & Koma dance in dances they too choreographed. Of course Pilobolus Dance Theater always wows.

Last weekend, the Dance Festival honored Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, 53, from Belgium, with their twentieth annual Samuel H. Scripps award, sort of the McArthur award for dancers, including $50,000, obviously well deserved. It was previously given to all the choreographers named above. I met a friend to see a reprise of de Keersmaeker’s break- out Rosas danst Rosas, a two-hour dance in four movements. After all the appropriate speeches and her acceptance, including the audience spontaneous singing "Happy Brithday" when it turned out to BE her birthday, she turned on her heel and marched off stage, saying "Let's dance." It was only halfway into the second movement that I was sure the 53-year-old choreographer was the lead dancer, vigorous and fit and commanding. She had choreographed it in the early 80s at the astonishing age of only 23 shortly after moving to New York City to study dance. It’s now legendary, and she is internationally acclaimed.
I was thrilled to find excerpts on Youtube from a seriously well-done film of Rosas danst Rosas, all worth watching. I pass them on to you. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The first movement lasts eight minutes. It starts in silence and the only sounds you hear are from the women when they fall on the floor, slap it, turn, breathe. For all my privileged experience, I’ve never seen women dance like this, powerful and vulnerable, utterly without reference to men, sexual but not seen through the male eye. When De Keersmaeker created this dance in the early eighties, the feminist movement was so richly articulating ideas of women’s privacy and power.
Her empowering vision embraces female beauty as it combines emotions and physical strength, grace, and endurance. The camerawork in the Youtube clips exquisitely captures what I saw on stage. I love the first movement because of the relationship the dancers have to the ground/ earth, the primal slaps and grunts and even efforts to rise up. Take a look.

The second movement, on chairs, starts in silence. Then music comes in but you can still hear the swish of the dancers’ skirts, the slap of their bare feet on the stage floor, and their breathing, sometimes a grunt of effort. The placement of the chairs made me think of a commuter train and so I imagined the women moving out into the world, together and alone in their striving to go forward. This video lasts ten minutes, but on stage, that movement must have run 25-30 minutes. Amazingly, I lost all sense of time. That hadn’t happened to me since I first saw the original Seven Samurai in the seventies and was shocked to learn that what seemed to take place in, oh, an hour and a half had taken two and a half hours in all. De Keersmaeker’s dance in four movements lasted two hours and five minutes. Genius.

In the third video, below, the third movement is also much shortened. In the film, the setting is extraordinary and camera work amazing. On stage there were only four women in each of the four movements, but I love the way De Keersmaeker doubled the number of women dancers then tripled them so that long shots finally show almost a dozen women dancers on the three floors of the building. This must be a school, don’t you think?

The third movement speaks to me of female action and accomplishment, of being in the world, of moving through corridors, passages, of opening doors. Unlike the first two YouTube clips, Anne Teresa can be seen dancing in this one, first appearing at about 48 seconds. Her straight hair is cut in a blunt bob just below her ears so you can’t miss her. She dances with incredible fire and precision.
I’m SOOO frustrated I never found a clip from the fourth movement. Please let us know if you do. Having watched the whole stage performance with my heart in my throat, I do love all three videos, but it’s hard to pick up on the women’s vibrant silent communications—glances, whispers, nods—that I saw on stage. On stage, these gestures and inaudible speech confirm their bonds. For me the dance was about women's power and our isolation from each other at the same time we are able to find strength in what bonds us to each other. But it's also a Rorschach test, and I’m not sure the film shows it. I've read a couple of interpretations of de Keersmaeker’s vision that have nothing to do with what I saw that night!
And my friend Charlotte Hussey, a wonderful poet from Canada who studies the ancient art of belly dancer wrote me that she “really liked the third one—particularly the way it was filmed in an old school or warehouse. The dancers and their moves are hauntingly contemporary and speak to the angst we all feel in the modern world—particularly that of being a woman in a body that expresses her uncertainties and even shame. “
In the two hours of unremitting energy and action, I also came away with the strongest sense of being a woman in a body of the utmost power. It was an astonishing display of female physical health and vigor being brought to bear on uncertainty and shame. I've now seen clips from other of de Keersmaeker's dances, some by men, totally engaging, but I stand by loving Rosas danst Rosas for its feminocentric focus, for empowering women in our inevitable isolation but also for the special strengths we bring to community. It's turning into an empowering pilgrimage for me to reach out to other art forms to energize my creative spirit.

In yet another innovative move, Dave proposes an internet business model to debate social and political ideas. His main idea is to bring people together by exploring differences.

But, let's listen to Dave. He's the one with the goods.

Janet
______________________

"In Praise of Debate: An Internet Business Model"
Bringing people together by exploring differences

by Dave Scotese.

Gary Johnson was excluded from the CNN Republican debate held on June 13th. I learned about this about a week before the debate from someone who felt that his exclusion was unfair.

My first reaction was that Governor Johnson should have the funds to set up a live webcam feed so that he can participate in the debates in real time. If he watched it through Tivo or some other technology that provided that feature, he could pause the debate to respond to any content he wants.

PAIRS OF PEOPLE CREATE VIDEO INTERVIEWS

It gave me a business idea too: a website where pairs of people could create video interviews. The site would run interference between the two people, allowing each a minute or so to create a format such as response/prompt. Or, maybe they trust each other enough that the site imposes no time limit.

But it would also provide a kind of transparency. Once you've released your video response to the other person, it becomes the right of the site to provide it to the public. But it doesn't have to be video. It could be audio, and between many people.

The debate might become even more popular if the participants were in each others' physical presence, being filmed. The cost could be covered through a campaign at The Point which provides a tool for anyone who needs a large group to agree to something before moving ahead with it.

My next step was to ask several people, Janet included, how much it would cost to produce a debate. If enough money could be raised to cover that cost, then we'd go ahead with the debate.

Doesn't it make sense that political candidates should be able to spend campaign contributions bidding for spots in such a debate? The money could be raised that way too.

Janet asked why I was interested in debate. I've always been interested in politics and social issues. My original foray into websites and Litmocracy especially was a result of my realization that the Internet is an awesome tool for communications, and it could really help promote the general welfare or advance human progress or How to Fix the World.

I strongly believe that the main obstacle within any group of autonomous interconnected elements is that the elements can't communicate enough amongst themselves. That holds true for human bodies, human families, cities, clans, tribes, and companies.

Debate can polarize, but it can also have the positive effects to which I've alluded above. In praise of silver linings, I tend to encourage polarization, but less so than honesty, because they are very much at odds with each other.

Paradoxical? Yes, but honest introspection tends to bring people toward the middle, especially among those who are taught to "kill your ego". By this, I mean do not be afraid of admitting that you didn't have all the evidence, or that you hadn't considered it all carefully enough. That is a sign of great intelligence, as well as integrity.

I tend to have a lot more faith in human intelligence than most people because I understand that we each have our own unique set of values. I can tell that everyone nearly always works very intelligently toward achieving the highest ones on their own list (however foolish those values are to me).

The problem stems from widespread failure to understand how vastly different those sets of value are. And the accompanying mistake (thanks, Plato!) that there are universal values toward which we can get everyone working if we just find and enforce the right set of rules. That second mistake is unfortunately repeated and encouraged by authorities, whether religious or political, because it tends to help them, as the authorities making those rules, hold power.

What I love to see is people who agree to disagree not on the grounds that the other side can go on being wrong, but on the grounds that the other side has different values.

It's rare, but if you are philosophical enough, you can bring people to that place. Then they can see their own intelligence as well as yours, while at the same time disagreeing about how things "should be".

Stephanie Meyers' books (Twilight and The Host are the ones I've read) treat the subject of cooperation amidst different and often contradictory values very well. Even Bella and Edward sometimes agree to the same course of action, but for very different reasons. And they seem to find this perfectly acceptable. It's beautiful.
_____________________
ABOUT DAVE SCOTESE

In college, I read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. After graduation from Revelle College, UCSD with a BS in Cognitive Science, I met Alex Boese, the curator of the Museum of Hoaxes in a creative writing course. I tutored people in math and science and writing and then landed a computer job.

Like so many software engineers, I worked for several businesses that eventually ceased to exist. I co-founded www.StoragePoint.com, which crashed and burned like any good little dot-com company.

While I continued finding work with software companies, I got involved with Slashdot and a few other sites where an open membership was allowed to register individuals' judgments of quality. I studied a rarely used but highly efficient method of finding consensus that has been named after the French philosopher the Marquis de Condorcet.

A fellow software engineer introduced me to Austrian Economics and dredged up themes from Atlas Shrugged. He used Austrian Economics and Atlas Shrugged together to convince me that public policy inevitably leads to disaster.

I now spend my time encouraging people to stop relying on political rulers for solutions, to consider the possibility that public policy is an avoidable evil, and to use the "Condorcet Method" to find consensus. This last item is the foundation on which I intend, with your help, to enrich the lives of everyone that gets involved with Litmocracy, 99 Burning, and other projects of which I am a part.

With an unassuming style Mandel investigates important life questions. What is the nature of integrity? Why is it important? How do you resolve the tug between desire and making good? Shouldn't an artist be judged by his art, not the dips and turns of his personal life? Shouldn't personal life remain--well, personal?

These questions inform the core of the novel's plot, character, and descriptions. Mandel's dialogue crackles with relaxed humor while pursuing the mystery and moral challenge.

Cooper Thiery, Midwestern native, lands in Hollywood for an assignment of a lifetime--make a documentary at FlashBack Productions. The subject is Charlie Chaplin--the film maker Cooper's been passionate about for decades. But, who recommended him--really? How do all the clues and resources come his way--and, from whom?

Be patient. With wry wit and an easy narrative voice author Gerry Mandel answers all these questions in this page-turning novel. The novel is set in the Hollywood of the 1920s and the Hollywood of today that seems hell-bent on dragging Chaplin through the dirt.

Some of the personalities we meet in the 1920s scenes include Fatty Arbuckle, William Randolph Hearst, and Doug Fairbanks. Mandel gives us a front row seat to Chaplin's greatest movies and haunts as secrets from Chaplin's past are revealed. The dilemma is to tell or not to tell.

Along the way Chaplin materializes to both direct and misdirect Cooper's search for the truth. Chaplin's slight of mind tests Cooper's loyalty. Matisse said that "Creativity takes courage." So does saying "no" and walking away. What Cooper does with that struggle lies at the heart of this compelling story.

See Barbara Scott's review on Book Reporter.

I found this story to be soooo third world, so reminiscent of things that happened to me in Africa and Latin America:

One day a group of men came to the missionary and asked for money to buy a large canoe. He pointed out that they had perfectly good small canoes, but they said the small ones were obviously no good for going out with a large group of people. He said, if you can make a small one, why not just make a big one, but they said "The Piraha do not make large canoes." They asked him to go to a nearby village and buy a large canoe for them. Instead, he engaged the services of a canoe builder from the nearby village to come and teach the Piraha how to make a big canoe. The builder had the Piraha work alongside him until they all knew how the canoe was made and they had their own big canoe. Not long afterwards they came to the missionary and asked him to buy them another big canoe. He said, "But now you can make your own big canoe." The men said, "The Piraha do not make large canoes."

Reflective of Yelton's rural roots these poems impart a sense of place and connection to land, sky, and water. Al Past's photography combines with Yelton's words to create a layered duet. Yelton and Past deliver a love letter to nature. Here's an example from the first stanza of "In the Valley," found by opening the book at random:

Across the river, just beyond the stand of birches
I walk with daylight fading, mosquitoes humming in my ear.
The light filters softly through the still branches
and falls like a breath on the papery bark.

Impermanence and aging themes weave a tone of joy and sorrow at life's fragility. From "At Night on Winterstar":

And the wind and the rain and the mountain
continue
until that momentous day
when the rocks melt
and time ceases
and the wind learns
what it means
to be mortal.
and the rain
laughs no more.

Filled with tenderness "On Wings of Gentle Power" provides a glimpse of what is mostly unseen in our every lives.

Four parts.
61 poems
51 photos

"Invictus" [Latin for "invincible" or "unconquerable"] takes its title from a short poem by the English poet William Ernest Henley written in 1875 and first published in 1888 as part of a series of poems entitled Life and Death (Echoes). [See the entire text below.] Its last two lines are famous: "I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul."

In the film, this poem served as a source of inspiration during Nelson Mandela's long imprisonments. From his first arrest in 1962 through 1990 at both Robbin Island off the coast of Cape Town and at Pollsmoor Prison nearer the mainland Mandela knew the life of a prisoner first hand.

"Invictus" becomes a unifying symbol in the film as Mandela gives the poem to Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar, before the Rugby World Cup. In fact, Mandela gave Pienaar an extract from Theodore Roosevelt's "The Man in the Arena" speech from 1910.

Clint Eastwood's sons Kyle Eastwood, who contributed original music, and son Scott Eastwood, cast as one of the Springboks, show some of the range in the Eastwood family. The film's uplifting score features the capella singing group "Overtone" from Johannesburg.

Director Clint Eastwood deftly shapes "Invictus" with strong performances by stars Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. "Invictus" is a film of enormous integrity and heart.

INVICTUS
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Obesity began to rise dramatically in the US about 20 years ago, when these "hyper-palatable" foods started becoming more available. Legions of labs and scientists are devoted to hooking us on these foods, as if they were drugs. People can't stop themselves from eating them, as is demonstrated in a number of ways.

I know that there are certain foods I rarely buy because if they get into the house, I will eat them. Cheezits are one such. We don't eat out very often. But, though I have plenty of time for cooking, I am also weary of it. So I find myself buying more partly assembled meals (such as Costco's Chinese chicken salad - just add lettuce).

Now that I've read this book, though, I am going to be more vigilant. When I use my slow cooker, I get at least three meals from it, usually four. We eat one and the rest go into the freezer to be pulled out when I don't feel like cooking. This is a meal I've prepared from scratch.

We do eat lots of fresh veggies, which I always have on hand and add to everything--and a fair amount of fruit--I especially like those little seedless tangerines, and my husband likes grapes.

"The End of Overeating" is short and engagingly written. It's well worth reading and taking to heart.

Roberto Bolano is newly the 'it' guy of world literature. In Savage Detectives he takes us on the journey of two failing poets who start in Mexico and end up simply everywhere.

It's a good read, especially for us poets, because we can say "Oh I've gotta be better than those unknowns. They're just all about their particular style and sex!"

We all know some idealistic deranged versifiers like the ones in this book...and yet I found myself rooting for them.