Hurricane Preparation Tips

Hurricane Preparation Tips

For Sandy Super Storm

The Federal Emergency Management Agency offers tips on how to prepare for Hurricane Sandy and other tropical storms. Sandy is expected to be especially disastrous when it merges with a winter storm system, bringing powerful winds, rain, snow and storm surge along the Eastern Seaboard.

Before the hurricane:

— Know your surroundings and whether your home is in a flood prone area. Determine where you would go — and how you would get there — if you were ordered to evacuate

— Cover your home's windows, either with permanent storm shutters or marine plywood at least 5/8 of an inch thick

— Be sure trees and shrubs around your home are well-trimmed

— Clear clogged rain gutters

— Secure all outdoor furniture, decorations, trash cans and anything else that could blow away.

— Install a generator for emergencies

During:

— Listen to the radio or TV for information

— Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors

— Turn off propane tanks

— Avoid using the phone except for serious emergencies

— Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purpose such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other larger containers with water

— Stay indoors during the hurricane and away from windows and glass doors

Do not:

— Drive into low-lying areas or over roads and bridges that are already under water

If evacuating, bring:
— Checkbooks
— Driver's license
— Credit card information
— Birth certificates
— Social Security cards
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Source: FEMA.

How to Prepare Your Pets

Friday, October 26, 2012 - 11:45am

ASPCA Disaster Response

Breaking Update, 10/27/12: In anticipation of Hurricane Sandy’s landfall early Tuesday, the ASPCA wants to remind New York City residents that all evacuation shelters accept pets. Please take your animals with you if you need to evacuate.

To locate your evacuation zone, please check the OEM's Hurricane Evacuation Zone Finder (or call 311), and the site will direct you to the proper facility.

Low-lying areas of the city that are most at risk for flooding and other damage are designated as “Zone A” and include: Coney Island and Manhattan Beach in Brooklyn; Far Rockaway and Broad Channel in Queens; South Beach; Midland Beach; low-lying areas on Staten Island; and Battery Park City in Manhattan.

Here are some ways you can prepare for a major storm:

Get a Rescue Alert Sticker for your home. By posting a sticker similar to the one found in the ASPCA Pet Safety Pack in an easy-to-see location, rescue workers will be alerted that there are pets in your home. You should include the number and types of pets present, as well as your veterinarian’s contact information.

Choose a safe haven. First, decide which room in your home will be the safest spot to ride out the storm. Then, know in advance where you can take your family and pets in case of evacuation. Check with evacuation centers and area hotels to find a pet-friendly location. In New York and New Jersey, all evacuation centers are required to accept animals.

IDs, please! Make sure your pet is wearing collars and ID tags with up-to-date identification. This is the perfect time to have your pet micro-chipped if you have not already done so.

Stock up. Make sure you have plenty of food—for humans and pets!—water, medications, batteries, first aid kits and other emergency supplies on hand in case of a power outage.

Stay indoors.  At the first sign of danger, bring your pets indoors and keep them with you.

For more information, check out our complete list of disaster preparedness tips.

The ASPCA will continue to monitor the storm’s progress. Be sure to check our blog, and visit our Facebook and Twitter pages for breaking updates.

http://blog.aspca.org/content/how-prepare-your-pets-hurricane-sandy

Les Enfants du Paradis🎬 Children of Paradise

Les Enfants du Paradis
Celebrating a French Classic: 
The Children of Paradise

By ELAINE SCIOLINO -October 26, 2012

 

Pathe Cinema Pierre Brasseur, left, and Arletty in “The Children of Paradise”

PARIS – It has been called the best French film of all time and declared a national treasure by the United Nations.

Now Marcel Carné’s 1945 masterpiece, “Les Enfants du Paradis” (“The Children of Paradise”), is being celebrated at an exhibition here at the Cinémathèque Française, the center devoted to the preservation, restoration and showing of films.

The exhibition brings together 300 photos, costumes, paintings, posters, musical scores, letters and other documents that capture the history of what was until then France’s most expensive film (and at more than three hours, long as well).

Based on a real-life killing by the 19th-century mime Baptiste Debureau, who accidentally struck a drunk with his cane, the film is a series of interlocking stories of love and betrayal set in the Paris theater world of that time. Scenes from the film are projected on screens mounted throughout the exhibition.

At the entrance is a life-size facade modeled on Théâtre des Funambules in Paris, on the “Boulevard du Crime,” the nickname for the Boulevard du Temple.

Among the other highlights are a copy of the original script by Jacques Prévert, a poet as well as a screenwriter, and Carné’s creative partner; a 1956 portrait in charcoal of Prévert by Picasso; maquettes by the designer Alexandre Trauner, who did most of Carné films; and Carné’s folding director’s chair.

There is a section explaining how Carné managed to make the film during the Nazi occupation (although it was released only after the liberation). He shot most of the picture in southern France, recreating the “Boulevard du Crime” with a vast set of 50 facades at the Victorine studios in Nice.

The exhibition captures Carné’s belief that keeping French film alive was a personal act of patriotism. “After Pétain signed the provisional armistice, there were two possible postures to assume: either go into exile or work in my own country and try to show that France was not entirely vanquished,” he said in 1981. “I chose the second.”

The exhibition continues at the Cinémathèque Française until Jan. 27.

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* L’Institut français:  http://institutfrancais.nl/fr/agenda_culturel/hors-les-murs/cinema/les-maitres-du-cinema 

* Source: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/celebrating-a-french-classic-the-children-of-paradise/?ref=movies 

* Analyse et critique: http://www.dvdclassik.com/critique/les-enfants-du-paradis-carne

* Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Paradise 

* Pierrot:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot

* Review: http://www.thefilmpilgrim.com/reviews/les-enfants-du-paradis-review/6068

Les Enfants Du Paradis

Blu-ray Review

'If Scorsese's Hugo was 2011's love letter to the cinema,
Carné's film is 1945's love letter to the theatre.'

Marcel Carné's majestic Les Enfants Du Paradis is a sweeping romantic epic, a luscious tale of love four ways (not what you're thinking) told with style and great affection. If Scorsese's Hugo was 2011's love letter to the cinema, Carné's film is 1945's love letter to the theatre.

As such, there is exploration here of dramatic convention and the lives of those who transform themselves for every one to see. As Simon Kinnear states in his review, 'if their Eden lies on stage, does that mean that real life is a form of exile for them?'. Frequently, the two clash as real loves are glimpsed by on-stage lovers, wrapped in the arms of others. Les Enfants is, simply, a recognition of the pure power of theatre craft, a recognition of its enduring ability to mirror our real life experiences and change them for better or worse.

Carné and regular screenwriter Jacques Prévert do not stop there. Their film explicitly considers dramatic genre, starting with Lacenaire's (Marcel Herrand) early dismissal of Tragedy, Farce, in his eyes, is the true genre of the intelligent writer. Like its somewhat obscure contemporary, Stranger Than Fiction - which dissects genre in a very different way - Carné's film sets about finding its classic dramatic identity by perfectly mixing elements of both. In the hands of a master craftsmen, each sticks equally but it is telling that Frédérick's (Pierre Brasseur) end goal is Othello, a reference which tells you where Les Enfants is ultimately heading.

Before it gets there though, Carné has woven a spectacular tale of every facet of love, with the main players representing each element, as object of desire Garance (Arletty) hops between their beds. True love Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault) is the most honourable, yet his inability to act represents love's fleeting and idealised nature. Without the substance to stand up and be counted, love is just a passing notion of empty romance, as Baptiste defaults to the unfortunate Nathalie (María Casares). Nathalie herself is Baptiste with substance; a person in love who acts recognisably on their desires. Casares is magnificent in a well-written supporting role.

The other elements are charm (Frédérick), danger (Lacenaire) and money, the latter represented by Louis Salou's Comte de Montray. Each is dismissed in tick-box fashion as lacking the necessaries to hold on to Garance, herself an idealised version of that which men desire, signified by her name, eventually revealed to be false and reflective merely of a beautiful flower. Baptiste is the only one with a chance and he cannot succeed without the input of the other's characteristics. Frédérick gets him close but the actions of Montray and Lacenaire are structured solely against him, as Carné engages in an assessment of desirable characteristics.

The history of Les Enfants is also worthy of mention. Produced partially under Nazi occupation, the film is all the more of a technical marvel for it. Incredibly modern camera-work signifies cinematographer Roger Hubert's populist eye and amazingly detailed sets bring 19th century Paris to live. The dedication required in marshaling the hundreds of extras again and again must have been immense, a fact reflected in the overall quality of a Romance on equal footing to fellow classics like Casablanca. A monumental achievement, now displayed on a very impressive restoration.

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