13.9.07
An African hero: Biko - the forgotten martyr
"In popular culture, he is a very powerful symbol of hope, an icon of change. He helped to articulate our understanding, our own identity that continues to resonate in young South Africans to this day."
An African hero: Biko
An African hero: Biko
How Anita changed the world
"... it might seem presumptuous to a degree to include in this august company of Dead White European Males a woman from Sussex who sold shampoo. Yet there seems no doubt that Anita Roddick, the founder of The Body Shop, did change profoundly the way that we think about things, in a way that flowed on to change the world itself."
8.9.07
A Photographer's Guide to Namibia
A Photographer's Guide to Namibia - photo.net by Philip Greenspun; created September 2007 Namibia is the African country for beginners to Africa tourism. It is mostly too dry for malaria. The spaces are wide open. The cities are uncrowded and safe. The roads are good and you can drive yourself from place to place rather than being shepherded."
31.8.07
The New Great Game. Blood and Oil in Central Asia - by Lutz C. Kleveman
"Crude oil, once seen as a wealth-creating blessing for mankind, is fast turning into the “devil’s tears”. The struggle to control the world’s remaining energy reserves increasingly culminates in bloody conflicts and the killing of innocent civilians, with the war in Iraq only being the latest example."
Source: The New Great Game. Blood and Oil in Central Asia - by Lutz C. Kleveman
The author's website is here.
Source: The New Great Game. Blood and Oil in Central Asia - by Lutz C. Kleveman
The author's website is here.
Masters of Photography: Josef Koudelka
Josef Koudelkaquoted by Czeslaw Milosz, in Exiles
"While writing this essay I had before my eyes Josef Koudelka's photographs. Let my words serve as a tribute to his art of telling stories without words."
"While writing this essay I had before my eyes Josef Koudelka's photographs. Let my words serve as a tribute to his art of telling stories without words."
25.8.07
Visual Art - Illegal Art - Copyright
Visual Art - Illegal Art
Exhibit of art artists have got in heck for creating because the corps didn't like the ad or the copyright violations - check out Barbie and Starbucks, as good examples.
Exhibit of art artists have got in heck for creating because the corps didn't like the ad or the copyright violations - check out Barbie and Starbucks, as good examples.
22.8.07
The Unsettled West
Foreign Affairs - The Unsettled West - Joshua Kurlantzick: "Indeed, thanks to Beijing's policies, instead of fighting among themselves, as the Uighurs had done for centuries, after 1949 many began to settle their intra-ethnic differences and build a sense of Uighur solidarity."
8.8.07
Hey, Jack Kerouac - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog
Hey, Jack Kerouac - Paper Cuts - Books - New York Times Blog: "The review that started everything for Kerouac was Gilbert Millstein’s, published in the daily New York Times on September 5, 1957. Kerouac would have made it without Millstein. But this was the review that kicked the door down."
9.7.07
Lunch with the FT: Tina Brown
"Thanks partly to Blair, who she interviewed for the book, she says Britain is now a very different country from the one she left 25 years ago. “London is really humming,” but outside the capital it is a different picture, she says. “The middle classes seem fairly beleaguered and very depressed. They are all talking about moving somewhere else.”"
9.6.07
Babel - Reviews
NYT: "Chieko’s brazen attempts to solicit attention result, again and again, in humiliation, and Ms. Kikuchi’s performance is an unnerving blend of sexual provocation, timidity and sheer rage. Of all the characters in Babel she seems most surprising and least tethered to cultural stereotype (in spite of the short-skirted schoolgirl uniform she wears). And her story, unfolding without evident connection to the other three, does not seem quite as bound by the fatalism that is Mr. Arriaga’s hallmark — as well as his limitation — as a storyteller.
The splintered, jigsaw-puzzle structure of “Babel” will be familiar to viewers who have seen “Amores Perros” or “21 Grams,” the other two features Mr. Arriaga and Mr. González Iñárritu have made together. Indeed, this movie belongs to an increasingly common, as yet unnamed genre — “Crash” is perhaps the most prominent recent example — in which drama is created by the juxtaposition of distinct stories, rather than by the progress of a single narrative arc.
The sheer sensory exuberance of the film at once subverts the fatalism of its story and lends it whatever credibility it has. On paper, very little of it makes sense, but what is on screen has an almost physical impact. In the end “Babel,” like that tower in the book of Genesis, is a grand wreck, an incomplete monument to its own limitless ambition. But it is there, on the landscape, a startling and imposing reality. It’s a folly, and also, perversely, a wonder.
Guardian: "The Tower of Babel, iconically painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in the 16th century, forgettably re-created by John Huston in his film The Bible, is - as recorded in the first nine verses of Genesis, Chapter XI - one of the founding myths of Judaeo-Christian civilisation. It's a brutal tale of God's anger over the hubris of a united humanity's attempt to build a tower whose top might reach heaven. To punish His own creations, He scattered them to the four corners of the earth and 'confounded their language, that they may not understand each other's speech'. During the first third of the 20th century the silent cinema went some way towards the forging of a universal, unifying art which was destroyed by the coming of sound. So the film Babel, which concerns itself with what divides and unites mankind, unfolds in four languages - English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese.
"The global village depicted in Babel is a harsh, unfair place. Tourism and mass media have done little to improve mutual respect and understanding. The film does not state this directly, but it dramatises it in a powerful and moving fashion. The task of re-creating that human unity God destroyed when the Tower of Babel was being built is probably too great, or has been too long neglected. Some will think this film glib and overly schematic. I found it an impressive, beautifully acted work with a tragic sense of life. The formality of its structure controls a seething anger."
The splintered, jigsaw-puzzle structure of “Babel” will be familiar to viewers who have seen “Amores Perros” or “21 Grams,” the other two features Mr. Arriaga and Mr. González Iñárritu have made together. Indeed, this movie belongs to an increasingly common, as yet unnamed genre — “Crash” is perhaps the most prominent recent example — in which drama is created by the juxtaposition of distinct stories, rather than by the progress of a single narrative arc.
The sheer sensory exuberance of the film at once subverts the fatalism of its story and lends it whatever credibility it has. On paper, very little of it makes sense, but what is on screen has an almost physical impact. In the end “Babel,” like that tower in the book of Genesis, is a grand wreck, an incomplete monument to its own limitless ambition. But it is there, on the landscape, a startling and imposing reality. It’s a folly, and also, perversely, a wonder.
Guardian: "The Tower of Babel, iconically painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder in the 16th century, forgettably re-created by John Huston in his film The Bible, is - as recorded in the first nine verses of Genesis, Chapter XI - one of the founding myths of Judaeo-Christian civilisation. It's a brutal tale of God's anger over the hubris of a united humanity's attempt to build a tower whose top might reach heaven. To punish His own creations, He scattered them to the four corners of the earth and 'confounded their language, that they may not understand each other's speech'. During the first third of the 20th century the silent cinema went some way towards the forging of a universal, unifying art which was destroyed by the coming of sound. So the film Babel, which concerns itself with what divides and unites mankind, unfolds in four languages - English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese.
"The global village depicted in Babel is a harsh, unfair place. Tourism and mass media have done little to improve mutual respect and understanding. The film does not state this directly, but it dramatises it in a powerful and moving fashion. The task of re-creating that human unity God destroyed when the Tower of Babel was being built is probably too great, or has been too long neglected. Some will think this film glib and overly schematic. I found it an impressive, beautifully acted work with a tragic sense of life. The formality of its structure controls a seething anger."
Paris: Des Photographies
"Unframed photos line a rotating gallery space on one wall, among them a Bruce Davidson image of Marilyn Monroe with Simone Signoret (4,000 euros, or $5,480 at $1.37 to the euro).
Two trays with hundreds of small, anonymous photographs lure customers who long to own a piece of French history at a more modest price. A 1930s photo of the Place de la Madeleine is 30 euros; a view of the Pont des Arts goes for 75 euros.
The most expensive item is a 20,000-euro daguerreotype of a family at a chateau after a day of hunting.
One of Mr. Calvier's favorites is a posed photo of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec at his easel in a courtyard, painting the portrait of a young woman. A handwritten note on the back dates it at 1893 or 1894. The price? Between 15,000 and 20,000 euros — if, Mr. Calvier says, he can bear to part with it.
Des Photographies, 21, rue St.-Paul; (33-1) 48-87-69-27; www.desphotographies.com."
Two trays with hundreds of small, anonymous photographs lure customers who long to own a piece of French history at a more modest price. A 1930s photo of the Place de la Madeleine is 30 euros; a view of the Pont des Arts goes for 75 euros.
The most expensive item is a 20,000-euro daguerreotype of a family at a chateau after a day of hunting.
One of Mr. Calvier's favorites is a posed photo of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec at his easel in a courtyard, painting the portrait of a young woman. A handwritten note on the back dates it at 1893 or 1894. The price? Between 15,000 and 20,000 euros — if, Mr. Calvier says, he can bear to part with it.
Des Photographies, 21, rue St.-Paul; (33-1) 48-87-69-27; www.desphotographies.com."
Ten Canoes
"Watching the wonderful Australian film Ten Canoes is like being attacked by an army of storytellers."
22.5.07
Economist Cities Guide
The Economist's Cities Guide: "Getting home after the London Underground stops running (12-12.30am) can be difficult. Many venues will order you a taxi or minicab on request. Night buses are cheap and increasingly plentiful, but can be packed and rowdy at weekends."
Other great travel information: Travel and Leisure, Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree and the New York Times travel section. Concise city specific information is at United's Hemisphere maagzine and yuppie Wallpaper magazine.
Other great travel information: Travel and Leisure, Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree and the New York Times travel section. Concise city specific information is at United's Hemisphere maagzine and yuppie Wallpaper magazine.
20.5.07
Bush presidency 'worst in history' for international relations: Carter
globeandmail.com: Bush presidency 'worst in history' for international relations: Carter: "Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter says President George W. Bush's administration is “the worst in history” in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy."
16.5.07
9.5.07
The Seven Sins of England
The Seven Sins of England: "On Saturday nights, a half-million workers flood the city like a sea, flocking into certain sections to celebrate the Sabbath all night until five in the morning. They stuff themselves and drink like animals ... They all race against time to drink themselves insensate. The wives do not lag behind their husbands but get drunk with them; the children run and crawl among them.
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1862 – quoted in Duncan Campbell 'In the Heart of Babylon' Guardian, January 6th, 2007 )."
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1862 – quoted in Duncan Campbell 'In the Heart of Babylon' Guardian, January 6th, 2007 )."
30.3.07
James Nachtwey
James Nachtwey: Protracted interview with James Nachtwey, war photographer. Gathers momentum as it goes; interesting, insightful, although Nachtwey is a bit wooden, which is surprising considering his photos are gripping.
"... his early career, and why and how he has devoted his life to photojournalism."
"... his early career, and why and how he has devoted his life to photojournalism."
Malcolm Muggeridge's journey by Roger Kimball
Malcolm Muggeridge's journey by Roger Kimball: "It is worth noting that in suggesting that “all forms of authority should be treated with a certain reservation,” Muggeridge is not denying the legitimacy of authority—what we might call the authority of authority. On the contrary, he hoped that constructive criticism would help bolster the claims of authority. He knew too well what happened when authority collapsed. It is one of the main themes of The Thirties (1940), perhaps his most comprehensive piece of social observation. Reviewing the book, George Orwell described this tart moral and political portrait of the decade as “brilliant and depressing.” Like many readers, Orwell thought the book too negative—a sobering judgment from the author of 1984—but he subscribed to its main lesson, that “We are living a nightmare precisely because we have tried to set up an earthly paradise.” "
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