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

My Beautiful Laundrette is a 1985 film directed by Stephen Frears. The screenplay was written by Hanif Kureishi. I actually knew nothing about it until a few years ago. My own interest in the film was sparked by my first encounter with Kureishi which inspired me to search for more of his works. That encounter was with a short story, Beheadings and Weddings that made it into one of my first blog posts (see here).

However, after I picked the film up from the downtown library I was pleasantly surprised to see that it featured a performance by the young Daniel Day Lewis, circa 1980s.

Basically it is a coming of age story of a Pakistan immigrant in Thatcher(ite) England.

There are of course a few twists. His father is a drunken intellectual who wants him to get a university education, his uncle who he works for lives a playboy lifestyle with a mistress, and his uncles business partner and friend imports drugs (heroin or coke). Additionally, in the course of the film he reunites with an old friend (played by Daniel Day Lewis) from schoolyard days.

It is slowly suggested that they had more than just a past friendship, they were lovers. It is at this stage of the film that the laundrette appears. The two boys become business partners with a plan to renovate and revamp(or is it camp) the establishment.

Something about the laundrette being itself a campy ideal, but cool. I mean how gay right? But it was almost designed like a club. They even had a booth with two way mirror where they consummated their love on-screen, at least for the viewer, for the first time. Something also so downmarket in the sense of aspirations. A successful laundromat (in the US) business and a lover. Not too much to ask right?

Overall the film was quite lovely, a simple plot, yet with characters that were believable. Moreover by the end the viewer was definitely rooting for the two protagonists.

Oh, and the director Stephen Frears (of High Fidelity fame) just happens to be from Leicester. Which is the only city, or region (the Midlands) of England that I have spent any amount of time in.

Buy it from Amazon (here)

As “Mexican pot gangs” begin to grow more weed state-side using illegal immigrants and plantations on National Parks and Indian reservation lands the size of their operations (in one case recently in Oregon up to 24,000 plants) are impacting natural environments and native Indian communities…

Read more from WSJ (here)

As TV expands globally beyond the First World the culture/lifestyle portrayed therein encourages advancements in reproduction and gender equality.

Read in full (here)

Via Bruce Sterling (here)

“DJ music is now the common art form of squatters and the nouveau riche; it is the soundtrack both for capital and for its opposition.“

Via old issue of N+1 (here)

So said Meejin Yoon, Principal, MY Studio / Höweler + Yoon Architecture, and Associate Professor of Architectural Design, MIT School of Architecture and Planning, at the recent 2009 Future of Design conference.

Meejin also list the following new modes of action, forms of production and types of agency which have been radicalized by the emerging currency of access. Creating new ecologies of practice and new modes of architectural production. These include:

inter-multi-post diciplinary

simplicity-complexity-simplicity

software-hardware-wetware

author-opensourced-crowdsourced

new-old-type-hybrid macro-nano

global-local-glocal

social ecologies-collaborations

essential-ornamental

production-post production

material-immaterial

inanimate-animate

clean-dirty/green-brown

recycled-precycyled

 

Discussion touches on the rise of the Dirty South, the meaning of Soul Food and the place of the Dungeon Family in the canon of Souther Hip Hop.

An excerpt:

I see “Dirty South” as being a blueprint for so much music that’s come out of Atlanta and the south since.
Everything that came after Dungeon Family [felt their influence], whether or not it’s directly second generation Dungeon Family like Jim Crow or Youngbloodz. I mean hip hop from that point on, regardless of being from Atlanta. You could go to the west coast, the east coast, the midwest and see bits and pieces of influence from the lyrics as well as the music. I remember this record coming out and I was like “okay, here we go… they’re not gonna like this.” But the reality of the situation as I got older and got around and started meeting people was that people that thought that the south didn’t [make] contributions worth of hip hop were the minority. When I really got up to the east coast and really started meeting dudes and talking to dudes, people actually had love, they knew the music, they embraced us as artists. I was like, you know what? It’s just a handful of cats that got nothing better to do that’s talking like this. Everybody for the most part was feeling it.

Read full interview (here)

Global climate change and rapid population growth are already taxing the limits of Yemen’s water resources. Additionally, factors such as the booming Qat narc0-agricultural industry and poor water management practices are even further strain.

“It is a collapse with social, economic and environmental aspects,” said Abdul Rahman al-Eryani, Yemen’s minister of water and environment. “We are reaching a point where we don’t even know if the interventions we are proposing will save the situation.” Making matters far worse is the proliferation of qat trees, which have replaced other crops across much of the country, taking up a vast and growing share of water, according to studies by the World Bank. The government has struggled to limit drilling by qat farmers, but to no effect. The state has little authority outside the capital, Sana.

More Via NYT (here)

Seriously. I haven’t often seen yams that big even at a farmer’s market. For a naturally grown (read: organic, local, personally, no additives etc) yam I am impressed. Of course how many staff were working the crop.

Anyways, congrats again to the Obama’s for a great photo op, pushing a “progressive” (read: conservative, I mean farming right and Victory gardens right?) message.

Via Swampland (here)