Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) You don’t let much get in the way of things you feel you need to get done.That, my dear, is exactly the problem.You’re undaunted by illness, circumstance, or legitimate complications that would cause virtually anyone else to turn away and give up.We all admire your steely determination, of course, but you may want to revise your standards. Sometimes something just isn’t meant to work out. Occasionally even you need to take a sorely-deserved break.This week work on learning to listen to these not-so-subtle clues when they appear, and heeding at least some of them.

Ok I know this. I can be single-minded/stubborn sometimes. Listening to those around me as well as myself  more especially when it comes to knowing when to take a break or take a chill, is a lesson I need to learn. Just this spring I finally learned the meaning of taking some personal days. Not going on vacation or taking time off for dental/medical appointments, just “personal days”. It was a good lesson.
Via Caeriel (here)

Via Pitchfork (here)

Three things about this movie stood out to me.

1) The eponymous title scene (about halfway through the film) wherein the IDF “squad leader” attempts to lead his soldiers across a road/square from a ditch in which they are pinned down. He grabs the MAG from a soldier under his command and literally waltzes into the square dancing with the machine-gun in his arms, firing at all the Lebanese, firing on his soldiers. A waltz plays and the light from flares and streetlights illuminates the “squad leader” as he dances his violent death dealing dance in front of an large poster of Bashir Gemyel the Phalangist leader whose 1982 assassination was the spark which led to the massacre.

2) The repeated invocation by the film of the analogous nature between the complicity of IDF soliders to the Sabra Shatila Massacre and the Holocaust atrocities of the Nazi’s during WW II. At one point one ex-soldier being interviewed mentions the visual similarity between one of his memories from Lebanon and the famous image of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (see below).

3) The sudden return to live action, film footage (actual documentary/news footage from 1982) following the massacre of the Palestinians by the Christian Phalangists. This signals the return to Truth, following the animated, psychedelic muddling through of unreliable memory (the fluidity of and reconstruction of memory being the main organizing theme of the film) and the end of the film.

More on Waltz with Bashir (here)

Essentially this film is about two sets of brothers from the same father. One are the boys he left behind after becoming a Christian and giving up drink. These boys have been raised to hate their father and his new family by their mother. Yet, they are kind and deeply loyal to each other.

The film is set in rural Arkansas and the pacing, scenery and lifestyle depicted are one of good old Americana. Upon learning of the father’s death the boys show up at the funeral and the eldest interrupts the ceremony to defame the father to his new family and spit on the grave.

The rest of the film is basically a family feud in the making, with one son from each family being killed in the process. This and the coming end of summer (when one family’s brother must return to coaching basketball and the other’s must return to college) bring an end to the feud. Both family’s realize that the feud must be left to rest before generations are drawn in.

The film’s themes of brotherly love, loyalty and languid summer days of booze, sun and growing up or moving beyond resonated with me. Even though I don’t have a brother. Although I do have brother(s)

More on Shotgun Stories (here)

Italian polymath Umberto Eco: “I like lists for the same reason other people like football or pedophilia.”

Eco is currently curating a new exhibition at the Louvre in Paris, on the “essential nature of lists, poets who list things in their works and painters who accumulate things in their paintings“. In the interview he discusses the place lists hold in the history of culture, the ways we try to avoid thinking about death and why Google is dangerous for young people.

Via Der Spiegel (here)

VIRGO [August 23–September 22] “Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us control over ourselves is harmful,” said Goethe. Luckily, Virgo, you’re in the midst of a process that may emancipate your spirit and give you more control over yourself. Here are two ways you could cash in on this potential: 1) Brainstorm about a big dream even as you attend to the gritty details of making the dream a reality. 2) Expand your imagination about your tricky situation even as you burn away the illusions you have about your tricky situation.

I am definitely trying right now to brainstorm. I just am bothered by the fact that it seems as if all the things I am brainstorming regarding are realistically 1-2 years away from fruition or occurrence. Although I suppose maybe the lesson therein is patience…

Via Free Will Astrology (here)

Song entitled “TV in the Radio”

Via Pitchfork (here)

A presentation by Matt Jones (of BERG London and Magical Nihilism fame) given at Design By Fire 2009, Utrecht in which  “Using examples from the development of Dopplr.com and other services — alongside historical and science-fictional perspectives — Matt will explore what we might call neochronometry and illustrate some directions we could take as interaction designers to treat time as a material.“

The talk is about how human cultures constructed time and suggests new ways by which designers can de-construct or even re-construct time.

Also mentioned are:

Hypertime, anthropologist John Postill’s notion of “clock and calendar time” (one of the West’s most successful exports), time as a design material/medium?

Finally, did you know the IT concept of real-time was initially developed for control mechanisms of nuclear power plants?

View slide-show (here)

As a result of population growth as well as the modern demand for charcoal, the old growth huarango (a mesquite like tree) forests in Peru which capture moisture and help to create Andean climate/glacier conditions, are disappearing.

Hence some are proposing a massive reforestation effort. Yet, scientists note that perhaps only 1 percent of the original huarango woodlands remain.

“With Peru’s glaciers predicted to disappear by 2050, the Andes need trees to capture the moisture coming from Amazonia, which is also the source of water going down to the coast,” said Mr. Chepstow-Lusty in an interview from Cuzco, in Peru’s highlands. “Hence amajor program of reforestation is required, both in the Andes and on the coast.”

One other interesting factoid, the trees’ roots are some of the longest on record, up to 150 feet long. They also tap the mist coming from over the Pacific for moisture.

Read more (here)

Man on the Wire (previously published as To Reach the Clouds), Philippe Petit (Skyhorse Publishing, 2002)

The text is prefaced with a quote provided by Werner Herzog the Mad German director.
“One more thing: Philippe, you are not a coward-so what I want to hear from you is the ecstatic truth about the towers.“

My favorite thing about this book was the way it read like a screen play. It had the pacing, intensity and structure of an inner dialogue Or more accurately a monologue. I read most of the book in one sitting while at the laundromat.

I suppose partially because it is autobiographical, however one gets also the strong sense that this is symptomatic of the personal character of the book’s protagonist. Petit seems a very passionate and willed individual, I mean he did plan and execute an illegal high-wire walk between the two twin towers.

From the beginning the towers and Petit had a special relationship. Starting with the first newspaper article he read discussing their plans to the requiem to them at the end of the book. They were “my towers”. However, it is less the towers than the void between them that he is attracted and awed by. It is that void which he had to conquer. In many of even the first images, to those later of him performing the walk, the towers are not the focus. Rather, they serve to frame the void that is his calling.

Towards the end he describes the process of tightening the wire after it has been fastened to both the North and South tower. He describes the beauty of the catenary curves this produces, “an infinite number”. In fact each clandestine action and accompanying rigging has it’s own most seductive catenary curve. The pencil drawing he uses to illustrate to my mind resembles a cheshire grin, perhaps that of the cat from Alice and Wonderland?

The book is truly inspiring if only because his own personal madness became his greatness victory. If only we could all be driven to such madness. Petit closes with a plea for rebuilding, and offers his own proposed design. He closes with this offer;
“When the towers again twin-tickle the clouds, I offer to walk again, to be the expression of the builders’ collective voice. Together, we will rejoice in an aerial song of victory. I will carry my life across the wire, as your life, as all our lives, past, present, and future-the lives lost, the lives welcomed since.
We can overcome.“

Buy (here)

Note: I know the book was made into a movie yet besides seeing whatever film footage there is of the walk, I can’t imagine the movie being “better” than the book