Film Diary: Port of Shadows (Le Quai des Brumes), 1938, directed by Marcel Carné.

We loved Carné’s Children of Paradise so we picked up Port of Shadows when we saw it at the library. Even though the movie starts off with lots of atmosphere and the fantastic actor Jean Gabin, its true greatness kind of creeps up on you.  By the end, we felt like it was one of the best movies we’d ever seen! The shots, the music, the acting, the writing–it’s all top form.

Michèle Morgan is striking (and when you first see her, she’s wearing an eye-catching plastic raincoat–it turns out the costumes were designed by Coco Chanel, adding an additional layer of visual appeal) and Michel Simon is ingratiating and sinister all at once. It’s a rather bleak film, but done in such a poetic style that you can revel in its beauty as it’s breaking your heart. All the elements combine together to present a heightened reality that really works with the improbable story filled with universal themes.

Hey Bay Area, my brother George has put together another Variety Show! It’s tonight in SF at ATA (just down the street from our old store). The name/logo is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the date (don’t show up expecting a stoner gathering; well, not purposefully). You can read an interview with George and watch a clip of his intro from the first variety show on Argot & Ochre. By the way, our mom does NOT sound like that!

A mix of talk show, comedy, and music performance. Hosted by George Chen
publisher V. Vale (http://researchpubs.com/)
comedian Chris Thayer (http://www.facebook.com/christhayercomedy)
cartoonist Jason Shiga (http://www.shigabooks.com/)
performance by Tastyville (http://tastyvillepresents.com/)
music by Spaceburn (Steve Santa Maria and Brian Tester)

ATA, 992 Valencia Street, San Francisco
$5, all ages
8pm-11pm (music done by 10:30pm)

Love the cover of this 1958 version of Albert Camus’ The Stranger. I snagged it from my mom’s bookshelf as she was packing up to move. Turns out it was her favorite book when she was younger. Who knew? The funny things you learn about your parents. Anyhow, she admitted she probably would never read it again so I was able to bring it home with me. I’ve since seen at at Powell’s, but there’s something nice about having her copy.

I’ll have to say finding out this flying squirrel from my box was a GIANT flying squirrel (stamps aren’t necessarily drawn to scale right?) certainly made it more intriguing, besides the fact that, hey, it’s a flying squirrel! It looks like Petaurista Alborufus is found in China and Taiwan and moves around at night, but this stamp doesn’t do justice to how cute it is. The stamp seems to be part of a series from 1971 (there’s also a pangolin!) and can also be found among this collection of flying squirrel stamps.

1971 Taiwan

This week’s stamp from my box celebrates the centennial of the discovery of nickel in Sudbury, Ontario in 1883. I was just drawn to it by the colors and lettering (including the foil printing, which it turns out is a representation of the metal). I didn’t even notice the city skyline until I scanned it in, which added an extra layer to my appreciation of the design. I was able to find out more about the stamp on The Canadian Design Resource, which looks like a pretty awesome site documenting all sorts of Canadian design.

1983 Canada

This week’s stamps from my box provided me with another chance to learn more about another country. It was hard finding information about these particular stamps besides from online sellers, but this page about the largest flower in the world gave me some insight about the series and Malaysian government. So Malaysia actually consists of 13 states and 3 federal territories and for these stamps, they released a main federal one and then 13 variations for each state, making for 14 different stamps for each of 7 flowers. That’s a whole lot of stamps! I only have a few from Pulau Pinang, and then one from Perak, but you can see the different coat of arms. The flowers are pretty interesting too.

1979 (reissued 1983-6) Malaysia

Since Discovery was retired this week, it seemed fitting to take a trip into space when I came across this Space Shuttle stamp from my box. Turns out this comes from a series of eight stamps celebrating space achievement. Unfortunately the Shuttle pictured is the ill-fated Columbia, but it still speaks to our innovation and curiosity. With only two more Shuttle missions left, we’re really coming to the end of an era.

1981 USA

And we tend to think of the Space Shuttle as a national achievement, but apparently our neighbors to the north, while not launching an astronaut program until 1982, contributed to the Shuttles and the first Canadian astronaut flew aboard the Challenger in 1984. Going to guess this stamp was inspired by him.

1985 Canada

And not to be left behind, here’s a set of stamps from China entitled “Space Flight” (some of the few mint condition stamps in the box–not sure who gave them to me). According to a Taiwanese seller, these depict…

1. Dongfanghong-1 satellite
2. Returnable remote sensing and technical test satellite
3. Submarine-launched rocket
4. Launch to Geosynchronous Orbit
5. Satellite receiving earth station
6. Geosynchronous Earth Orbit communications satellite

1986 China

Anyone who knows my brother knows he is involved in many things so it is only fitting that he should combine his interests into a variety show in Berkeley tomorrow night! Here’s a great article in the East Bay Express all about it. Wish we could be there!

Many apologies to our Spanish readers, but I had no idea Spain has had a king for the last 35 years (needless to say I feel pretty ignorant!). Apparently Juan Carlos I took over after Franco died in 1975 and has been head of state ever since. Much like Queen Elizabeth, I guess his royal visage requires no identification so I had to figure out that he graced these stamps from my box by first coming across some more recent ones. These are from much earlier on in his tenure and I like the profile and monochromatic nature. I’m drawn more to the font and design on the left, but they’re both strikingly modern for a monarch.

1981 (left), 1985 (right) Spain