Category: History

exceptional journalism from the NYtimes

9/1/2016

I'm blown away by the recent piece Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart, a chronicle years in the making, presented as an entire issue of NYTimes Magazine. In terms of form I am reminded of a documentary approach, i.e. following different people in different locations for years (reminiscent of 'Iraq in Fragments'). Beyond observation, the piece provides an illuminating roadmap for those like me who need to be reminded of certain 5 Ws e.g. an overview of the Kurds, of the Arab Spring, of US involvement... I learned more about conflicts in the Middle East from this single piece than I have from traditional reporting. The whole functions as a constellation of sorts, where lines between events become more clear while ultimately pointing to the overwhelming scale of things. I got my hands on the print version and wish it had been bound into a solid book. It deserves to be.

Maréorama!

4/17/2016

illustration from Scientific American, found on Wiki.

At the Exposition Universelle 1900, in Paris. This boat ride simulator provided the feeling of seafaring for up to 700 people at a time. with rolling panoramas, rocking floor, seaweed odours, synthetic ocean breezes and accompanying sounds. I'm feeling hints of that Borges story about the world-sized world map.

rocks on my mind

4/16/2016

"Stability itself is nothing but a more languid motion."
- Montaigne, 'Of Repentance'

... and as originally written... so good:
"La constance mesme n'est autre chose qu'un branle plus languissant."

films or bark

4/11/2016

I say therefore that likenesses or thin shapes
Are sent out from the surfaces of things
Which we must call as it were their films or bark.
Because the image bears the look and shape
Of the body from which it came, as it floats in the air.

- Titus Lucretius Carus, from 'De rerum natura'

flashback to the sign I faced the many times I waited for the bus

4/10/2016

Sign by Raymond Boisjoly. Photo from Catriona Jeffries Gallery.

This was on Hastings St in Vancouver. The sign is no longer there, nor the gallery below it.
Link to this work on website of Catriona Jeffries Gallery.

maximizing peripheral vision: Frederico da Montefeltro

4/1/2016

After the loss of the eye, Federico – no stranger to conspiracies and one of the leaders that inspired Niccolò Machiavelli to write Il Principe – had surgeons remove the bridge of his nose (which had been injured in the incident). This improved his field of vision to a considerable extent, rendered him less vulnerable to assassination attempts – and, as can be seen by his successful career thereafter, restored his merits as a field commander.

- from Wikipedia

2 oft-compared piano concertos

3/30/2016

Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto in A Minor (1846) and Edvard Grieg's Piano Concerto in A Minor (1868) are often compared. Grieg apparently saw a performance of Shumann's piano concerto in 1858. Conscious influence or not, I enjoy (plausible) examples of cross-polination before the internet.

some insights from talk with Joshua Oppenheimer

1/20/2016

I was lucky to catch a discussion with Joshua Oppenheimer in Vancouver before a screening of The Look of Silence. Along with its precursor The Act of Killing, these two films are staggering companion pieces, must-sees that are having very real impacts on filmmakers, politicians, societies, etc. For in-depth pieces, try this one from The Atlantic, or this one from The Independent.
Since most who attended the talk are involved in filmmaking, he indulged our curiosity about the particulars of his process and techniques. Here are a few highlights :

supplement to the last post...

1/8/2016

... because the notion of 'truth' is open to excellent, necessary debate/conversation, of which the previous post is but one hint. I turn to Errol Morris for more depth:

First on Radiolab, discussing the truth/untruth of an 1855 photograph taken during the Crimean War:

And in conversation with The Believer. I pulled a few excerpts (below) but the whole article is worth a read!

... to me these are really, really, really important issues.
[...]
... the claim that everybody sees the world differently, is not a claim that there's no reality. It's a different kind of claim. What really surprised me on re-watching Rashomon is that you know what really happened at the end. It's pretty damn clear. Kurosawa gives you the pieces of evidence that allow you to figure out what really happened. So, it's not what many people imagine it to be, but it is a very powerful story about self-interest, about wishful thinking, about self-deception, about people imagining scenarios at variance with the truth. And so I found Rashomon to be far more interesting than I had remembered it. With an underlying theme very much like The Thin Blue Line. Truth exists, but people have a vested interest in not knowing it.
[...]
I was surprised at the time that The Thin Blue Line came out that people reacted to the reenactments as blurring the distinction between fact and fiction. Between documentary and drama. My feeling was the exact opposite. It was telling us how images can confuse us. Images are not reality, nor do I claim that they are. In fact, they usually bear a very complicated relationship to reality. And when people talk about reenactments, I like to point out that consciousness, itself, is a reenactment. Everything is a reenactment. We are reenacting the world in the mind. The world is not inside there. It does not reside in the gray-matter of the brain. Think of my movies as heightening our awareness, not confusing the difference between truth and fiction, but heightening our awareness of how confused we can become about what is real. Take the first line in Vernon, Florida: "Reality. You mean, this is the real world. I never thought of that."
http://errolmorris.com/content/interview/believer0404.html

to a year of staying true to the 'integrity of ideas'

1/8/2016

Diana Vreeland's fashion-forward ideas are currently cruising at breakneck speeds in the form of in-flight entertainment. Something tells me she would approve. The 'entertainment' in question is a biographical documentary about her called Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel. The film appeals on many fronts, not just the fashion/art perspective. One of my favorite parts - in her later career with the Met's Costume Institute - recounts her insistence on exaggerating the wig of a mannequin for the exhibit 'The Eighteenth-Century Woman' (pictured below). In reasoning with designer Harold Koda (who happens to be stepping down this month from heading the Costume Institute), she says, and I'm paraphrasing, 'it is not about showing the whole complete truth, but the integrity of the idea' .

See 'read more' for another example from the film Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.

music not only a mirror but an unconscious crystal ball

11/30/2015

this is my favorite Ideas episode. Fascinating approach to history. With this in mind what does today's music forecast? See link for a listen:

It's often been said that WW1 created who we are today: geopolitically and culturally. Robert Harris explains how music -- classical and popular -- both prefigured and reflected the war in the years leading up to the unprecedented destruction and after.
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/wind-of-another-planet-music-and-the-great-war-1.2687102