And statistics

So I've finally discovered the Stats/My Guests page for LiveJournal (accessible via the Profile menu), and I'm puzzling over the results. One thing I don't understand is the Journal stats versus the Entries stats. For example, if I look at the Journal stats for yesterday, it says 100 unique people looked at my pages or pages I commented on in other people's LJs. It says that of those, 7 looked at my journal directly (I think). Now, if I look at the Entries stats for my post from yesterday about The Good, the Bad, and the Weird, it says that 63 people saw it in some form or another but only 2 people looked at it directly. I'm assuming that means only 2 people looked at the comments, probably the two people who made comments.

So I'm a little confused about how to interpret the results. I guess it means that 100 people looked at pages that included *something* I wrote (whether an entry or a comment), but only 63 people looked at pages that included that specific entry. Of the 100 people who looked at pages including something I wrote, 7 clicked through to one of my entries, probably to look at (and/or make) comments.

It's actually been interesting to look at the stats, even though at first I found them kind of depressing because I was only looking at the number of people who visited my journal directly. The more I ponder them, however, the more I get a sense of how people read LiveJournal: mostly via Friends Pages, which is how I do it too, only clicking through if I want to read or make a comment. Has anybody studied their stats in more detail?

Can't breathe! Too excited!

This is nothing but a fanboy squee, but I'm completely, utterly, and, like, totally, massively stoked that Criterion has finally announced the upcoming release of Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg: "Vienna-born, New York–raised Josef von Sternberg (Shanghai Express, Morocco) directed some of the most influential, extraordinarily stylish dramas ever to come out of Hollywood. Though best known for his star-making collaborations with Marlene Dietrich, Sternberg began his movie career during the final years of the silent era, dazzling audiences and critics with his films’ dark visions and innovative cinematography. The titles in this collection, made on the cusp of the sound age, are three of Sternberg’s greatest works, gritty evocations of gangster life (Underworld), the Russian Revolution (The Last Command), and working-class desperation (The Docks of New York) made into shadowy movie spectacle. Criterion is proud to present these long unavailable classics of American cinema, each with two musical scores."

I've seen all three of these on videotape, although Underworld was a crappy dub of what looks like a TV telecine. And still it is ravishingly beautiful! I worship Sternberg, and these three silent films are every bit as beautiful and amazing as the films he made with Dietrich. Everybody should watch them. Here's one tidbit about Underworld: Howard Hawks worked on the scenario (although it was Ben Hecht who won the Oscar for the story), and he based Rio Bravo on aspects of the story. One of the clues is that they both feature characters named Feathers. (One of the great shots in Underworld is when Feathers walks into a nightclub -- her first appearance in the film -- and a feather from her boa floats slowly, gently down, followed by the camera, into the sights of "Rolls Royce" Wensel, who looks up to the source, standing on an ornate spiral staircase, and immediately falls in love with her.) There are also huge similarities, not least visually, between Underworld and Hawks' gangster film, Scarface (also based on a story by Ben Hecht).

Okay, gotta start breathing. I have to make it to August 24th, which is the release date of this set.