The Unknown, a 1927 silent film, is by far the most intense and demented of director Tod Browning's films (which include Dracula and Freaks).  Joan Crawford always said that she learned more about acting from working with Lon Chaney in this movie than from everything else in her long career put together, and critics often cite Chaney's performance as one of the best ever captured on film.  Burt Lancaster always maintained that Chaney's portrayal in The Unknown was the most emotionally compelling film performance he had ever seen an actor give.  Chaney also did remarkable and convincing collaborative scenes with real-life armless double Paul Desmuke (sometimes credited as Peter Dismuki), whose legs and feet were used to manipulate objects such as knives and cigarettes in frame with Chaney's upper body and face.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unknown_(1927_film)  Turner Classic Movies aired a showing of the silent film The Unknown featuring a new music score by Vivek Maddala on October 30, 2012.  Other new scores for The Unknown have been composed by Steve Asetta and Philip Johnston. 

Wonderful, old-fashioned words

dale, originated before 900; vale, 1250-1300, glen, 1480-1490; rill, 1530-1540

Dale, vale and glen are valleys; rill is a small stream.  Vale sometimes means the world, as in this vale of tears. 

De Zoeker ("The Seeker") is a windmill located in the Zaanse Schans, Zaanstad, Netherlands used to extract oil from seeds.  Built in 1672, it is the only such mill still in operation, and is one of five remaining oil mills in the area.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page  

October 30, 2012 

The Appalachian Mountains,  which extend for approximately 1500 miles from the Canadian province of Québec to northern Alabama,  consist of a number of ranges, as follows:

·         The Green Mountains: mainly in Vermont, but extending some distance into the southern part of the Province of Québec and northern Massachusetts.

·         The White Mountains: New Hampshire and Maine.

·         The Adirondack Mountains: northeastern New York State. Geographically the Adirondacks are part of the Appalachian Mountains, but geologically they are a southern extension of the Canadian Shield.

·         The Catskill Mountains: southeastern New York State.

·         The Allegheny Mountains: Pennsylvania, Maryland, western Virginia and West Virginia. The Allegheny Mountains lie to the west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, with the Shenandoah Valley lying between the two.

·         The Blue Ridge Mountains: northern Georgia, western North Carolina, western Virginia and eastern West Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains form the easternmost and highest range of the main section of the Appalachians. Shenandoah National Park lies near the northern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

·         The Black Mountains: part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Black Mountains are in western North Carolina, northeast of the town of Asheville. The Black Mountains include Mount Mitchell, the highest point in the USA east of the Mississippi.

·         The Great Smoky Mountains: western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia.

·         The Cumberland Plateau and Cumberland Mountains: southwestern Virginia, eastern Kentucky, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama.  

The Appalachian Trail provides a route of walkers wishing to hike the entire length of the Appalachian Mountains.  http://www.johncletheroe.org/usa_can/usa/appalach.htm 

Mountains and Mountain Ranges in the USA and Canada  See details such as the Berkshire Hills are a southern extension of the Green Mountains and that the Canadian Shield covers about 1.9 million square miles - roughly half the area of Canada at:  http://www.johncletheroe.org/usa_can/mountain/index.htm 

Wistfully describes something that's done with longing or regret.  If there's a vague sense of yearning behind an action, you can say it's done wistfully.  People sigh wistfully, gaze wistfully, and wave goodbye wistfully — thinking about the past or what you are leaving behind with a little bit of sadness.  In the 1600s, wistfully had a completely different meaning — from the now-obsolete word wist, or intent — done with close attention.  It gained today's meaning in the early 1700s.  http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/wistfully 

Wistless:  Not knowing; ignorant (of); unwitting (of).  http://www.wordnik.com/words/wistless 

Time changes all things; there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913)