DINNER WITH "THE MIRACLE WORKER"

EXT. SOUTHERN MANSION.

SON (VO): "Meanin' no disrespect Father, but Helen's deaf and blind. Maybe you expect too much of her."

THE COLONEL: "Tarnation! What makes you think I expect too much? I let her eat off my plate don't I? I simply said she'd benefit from some table manners!"

THE COLONEL (CONT): "Bless her li'l heart! It's not her fault that she's filthy and disgusting, and possibly evil. She needs some tender, lovin' care."

THE COLONEL (CONT): "That's why I hired The Miracle Worker!"

ON THE MIRACLE WORKER: She's doing some serious chowing down. She pauses to wave when she hears her name, then resumes eating.

FATHER (VO) (CONT): "She's a Yankee gal, but she knows that finger talk."

FATHER (VO) (CONT): "Maybe she can do some good."

SON: "But Father, maybe we don't need The Miracle Worker. Maybe Helen's never going to be better than she is right now."

SON (VO) (CONT): "Look at her. She spontaneously eats the food of others. She's a true child of nature."

SON (VO): "Maybe she's better off not knowin' the rules of man."

SON (VO) (CONT): "I envy her her. She lives in a simple world of gentleness and calm..."

SON (VO) (CONT): "...a gossamar, wispy world where the only emotions felt are those of happiness and love."

SFX: FWAP!!!!!

SFX: WHACK!!!!! She hits Helen with the spoon!

SFX: WHACK!!!!!!!!!

SFX: CRU-U-UNCH!!!! She bites Helen!

SFX: CLOOOONG!!!!!!!!! Helen hits The Miracle Worker with a baseball bat!

THE MIRACLE WORKER: (ROARS)

COLONEL: "MISS MIRACLE WORKER! I INSIST...I say I INSIST that you STOP this instant, before someone gets hurt!! Helen, you come outside with me! Poor child! You must be a bundle of nerves!"

EXT. OUTSIDE ON THE LAWN:

THE COLONEL: "Oh my Gosh! Look at this! She can hear and see! It's a miracle! The Miracle Worker has done it again!

THE END

ITALIAN INSULT GESTURES

A few months ago I wanted to try doing pencil tests on Flash so I thought I'd do a little YouTube film of Italian insult gestures. It never came about. I had so much trouble getting the program to work that I finally walked away from it and did something else. Now I have a trial download of Digicell Flipbook, and the tiny film seems try-able again....except....

...except I just looked over my incomplete notes for the gestures and I can't remember how some of them worked, or what some of them meant.

This drawing (above) for example. What does it mean? It fell out of my notes, and I have no idea what I was thinking when I drew it. It's something I used to see in high school. Sometimes it provoked laughter, once a fight. But why? What does it mean?


And what is this (above)?


I forget what the top finger-pinch (above) means...my guess is that it says, "You mean less than dust to me!"

The bottom drawing (above) is one of the oldest and best insults: you simply turn your back on the other person. They're not worthy of your front.

Once the back is turned (above) the insulter has the option of intensifying the insult with a butt shake...


...maybe followed up with a tooth flick.


Some insult gestures (above) are so strong that to use them is to make an enemy for life. I have no idea what the above gestures mean, but I suspect that a mother's virtue is being questioned here.


All these little finger gestures...what do they mean? They look pretty nasty.



Whatever it is, it can't be good.


This one (above) had me puzzled, but I figured it out while posting it. It's the first of two drawings (the second one must be missing) showing a man about to do a pushing away gesture, as if to say, "Your existence is an offense to me! Go away! Just GO AWAY!"

What makes this special is the extreme anticipation to the push (above). It's not just a simple prelude to a push, it's a statement of obliteration. The pusher is so disgusted by the other person that he chooses suicide if necessary to avoid having to look at such a fool for a moment more.

I wanted to end the film on a cheerful note, maybe with a quick little story demonstrating some of the most common romantic gestures. I haven't found all the doodles yet, but I remember how it started:

A boy is sitting with his friends when a beautiful girl walks by. He does a startle response (above), then pushes his friends aside, maybe upturning the table, and he runs ahead of her and introduces himself. The boy puts on a good show but, since she gets hit on 50 times a day, the girl gives him a bored look and keeps on walking.

The boy runs to catch up. After trying everything, he pulls out his big gun...the thing that never fails...his most irresistibly charming gesture. He symbolically plucks off the girl's cheek, retrieves it and kiss it...kisses every finger of her cheek (!?)...then blows it back to her.


The poor boy! The girl is unaffected. She just walks on. The boy, outraged and broken-hearted, shakes the kiss from his hand, does a "Heck with you!" gesture, and returns to his friends, who are doubled over laughing.

As the speaker says in this video (above), Italy is fast losing it's gestural heritage. What a pity! I read that it used to be most intense in Naples, which was a noisy city where everybody hated everybody. The gestures were a way to argue between balconies when the clatter from the streets made spoken insults unworkable.

This video (above) is completely off topic. I found it when I was searching for gesture videos on youTube. It's only a minute long. See what you think.

FIRST EVER BLACK HOLE CREATED ON EARTH

About a month ago New Scientist magazine ran a story which claimed that Chinese scientists had succeeded in creating a mini-black hole (above), or something which mimics black holes, in the laboratory. That's amazing! I don't remember seeing that in my local paper. Maybe it was buried in the obituary pages.

Evidently the hole they created isn't exactly the same kind we encounter in space (above). This one only absorbs microwaves, though the lab that created it claimed that they'll probably be able to make one that absorbs optical light by the end of the year. This would be a very, very significant event!

It's significant because the black hole absorbs the waves and emits the energy again in the form of heat, and heat powers engines. This means that black hole solar cells could run cars (above), and do it much more efficiently than solar cells can do now. No directional solar collectors would be necessary. The cars would simply absorb the ambient light around them. Maybe this would make them appear as black silhouettes to observers.

I forgot to say that this Chinese black hole was created without benefit of a super colider like the one at CERN (above). This was done on a tabletop device made of printed circuit boards arranged in rings around a cylinder. Two Indiana scientists figured out how such a machine would work in theory and the Chinese surprised everybody by actually building it.

Thanks to Milt Gray for telling me about this.