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."

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."

Ten Canoes

"Watching the wonderful Australian film Ten Canoes is like being attacked by an army of storytellers."

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.

London Markets

"Here is a map of 19 of markets that are all within easy reach of Central London."

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."

Contrails

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 )."

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."

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.” "

The New York Review of Books: How Terrible Is It?

The New York Review of Books: How Terrible Is It?: "Terrorism is anything but new. Violence by nonstate actors against civilians to achieve political aims has been going on for a long, long time. "

lens culture photographer interview: Simon Norfolk

lens culture photographer interview: Simon Norfolk: "Simon Norfolk is a very talented driven young photographer who is pursuing one of life’s big questions with intensity and focused intention. He is studying war, and its effects on many things: the physical shape of our cities and natural environments, social memory, the psychology of societies, and more. "

Johnny Cash

"He was in his late thirties and already had plenty of mileage on him when he was discovered by television; longer hair and the shadows and dents of middle age brought out the character in his face, making him almost handsome."

China: Fifty Years Inside the People's Republic

Great photography exhibit from the Asia Society: China: Fifty Years Inside the People's Republic

Amidst the Pines, Belevue, Washington

Amidst the Pines, Belevue, Washington Photograph by pmorgan.

Lots of landscape photographs (almost all?) seem to be taken as if looking at a scene, rather than from the perspective of being in the scene. My experience is that most of the time in the wilderness, one is amidst the scene and only at the very summit/end/peak/distant shore is one able to see a classic landscape photographic perspective.

Father and Son, Prada, Tokyo

Father and Son, Prada, Tokyo Photograph by pmorgan.

Notes on Japan

Nanzen-ji Temple, Kyoto Photograph by pmorgan.

20 Nov 05 Nozomi Shinkansen Car 7 Seat 12A Depart 15:15 Arrive 17:33 Distance 533km (avg speed = approx. 230 km/hr). One-way ticket cost 135 $CDN. Check-in via bilingual machines or agents, downtown to downtown.

iPods to be sold in 7-11 convenience stores.

Extreme liberalism

What is the problem with being liberal these days?

On Friday morning, as Bush was meeting the leaders of Southeast Asia, his press secretary issued an unusually blistering statement responding to Representative John Murtha's call for a pullout from Iraq. The statement charged that Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat who had often backed Bush's military initiatives, was endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore, whose movie "Fahrenheit 9/11" attacks the Bush administration, and "the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic Party."

Source: International Herald Tribune

Hu helped guide China's initial market-oriented economic reforms, rehabilitated many people who had been purged or disgraced under Mao, and pursued ideas for deeper political change through much of the 1980s. He left power under pressure in 1987, accused by party conservatives of having "bourgeois" tendencies that undermined stability.

Political analysts said that the rehabilitation of Hu was unlikely to lead to policy changes, noting that President Hu has tightened controls on lawyers, journalists, human rights activists and intellectuals and warned about the threat from "liberal elements."

Source: International Herald Tribune

Photography, Architecture: Tokyo City Hall and Kenzo Tange

Tokyo City Hall

A 20 second exposure of Tokyo City Hall and clouds. The building cost more than $1 Billion US. The architect was Kenso Tange.

Tange's early thinking was influenced by Le Corbusier, as evidenced in his urban philosophy calling for comprehensive cities filled with megastructures that combine service and transportation elements. Other artistic influences included Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo and 20th-century German-American architect Walter Gropius.

"Tange, in turn, was influential on the next generation of architects. His practice expanded to employ 130 architects around the world by the late 1980s, including architects now well known, such as Fumihiko Maki and Arata Isozaki.

"Tange came to international attention in 1946 when he designed the master plan for rebuilding Hiroshima after its devastation during World War II. His design included a memorial and museum complex where the atomic bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945.

"A recent review of his life by Reuters reports: '...Tange's trademark was a boldly spare and elegant style, blending Japanese and Western aesthetic principles... [He] captured the spirit of a rapidly developing Japan with his swooping 1964 Tokyo Olympic Stadium, often described as one of the most beautiful structures built in the 20th century.'

Source: ArchitectureWeek

More detailed information is at GreatBuildings. Here is a google search for relevent images

Still another aspect of architecture and cities in our informational/communication society is inter-architectural relations. In the industrial society, strong emphasis on costs and intense demand for functional sufficiency of individual buildings meant that less thought was given to large functional units, including the building's neighboring structures and surroundings. I think it is difficult to determine which of the two is more important, but in a society that places great stress on communications, relationships with the surroundings probably deserve as much consideration as the functional sufficiency of the individual building.

Source: Pritzker Prize Acceptance Speech

His firm's website has a nice line drawing on the main page:

Planning: Radical Tactics

Precise site with good insight about following ones dream; being organized.

Knowing your dream and living it--this is the whole purpose behind simplifying your life. By knowing your dream, you have a powerful motivator to make changes in your life. By starting to have pieces of your dream, your life takes on a joy that makes the sacrifices of simplicity worth it.

Source: Live Simple: Radical tactics to reduce the complexity, costs, and clutter of your life

Google Cheat Sheet

Site: Google Guide Quick Reference: Google Advanced Operators (Cheat Sheet) by Nancy Blachman

Education: Instructional Design Models

Martin Ryder has compiled a comprehensive and instructive list of instructional design models.

"Models, like myths and metaphors, help us to make sense of our world. Whether derived from whim or from serious research, a model offers its user a means of comprehending an otherwise incomprehensible problem. An instructional design model gives structure and meaning to an I.D. problem, enabling the would-be designer to negotiate her design task with a semblance of conscious understanding. Models help us to visualize the problem, to break it down into discrete, manageable units.

"The value of a specific model is determined within the context of use. Like any other instrument, a model assumes a specific intention of its user. A model should be judged by how it mediates the designer's intention, how well it can share a work load, and how effectively it shifts focus away from itself toward the object of the design activity."

Source: Instructional Design Models

The defintion referenced in the work:

Instructional Design is the systematic development of instructional specifications using learning and instructional theory to ensure the quality of instruction. It is the entire process of analysis of learning needs and goals and the development of a delivery system to meet those needs. It includes development of instructional materials and activities; and tryout and evaluation of all instruction and learner activities.

fail! This is because the defintions put the focus on the instruction rather than on the learning. I suggest the definition above be modified:

Instructional Design is the systematic development of instructional materials using learning and instructional theory to ensure that the highest possible quality of learning takes place. It is the entire process of analysis of learning needs, setting of goals, the development of a delivery and support system, design and production of appropriate materials and the use of coherent instructional strategies to meet the needs of the learner. It includes tryout and evaluation of all instruction and learner activities.

Ryder links to the useful A Brief History of Instructional Design by Douglas Leigh.

Another useful compendium of instructional design models has been prepared by Clyde Bassett.

Politics, Technology: Benetton's Colors Magazine on Oppressing Journalists

Grim and unpromising

"“China operates the most extensive, technologically sophisticated, and broad–reaching system of Internet filtering in the world,” according to a recent report by the OpenNet Initiative. Highly sophisticated filters can block up to 500,000 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) simultaneously, leave some parts of a website accessible while blocking others, and make e–mails disappear. Technological surveillance is backed up with the human kind: Thousands of state employees are thought to monitor web traffic, and 800 Internet Security Monitors will soon be dispatched to cyber cafés. And who is helping in this powerful and intricate clampdown on Internet freedom? Western companies desperate to do business with China: Firewalls and filtering systems have been provided by the American Cisco Systems, while Chinese Internet users wanting to start blogs on a site hosted by US company Microsoft are told that “democracy,” “human rights” and “Tiananmen” are examples of “prohibited language,” and advised to find an alternative."

Source: Benetton's COLORS

Politics: The Flow of Oil Money

Detailed Economist article on where the oil money is flowing:

"Despite the lack of hard data, many economists are sure that a big dollop of petrodollars is going into American Treasury securities. If so, the recycling of money via bond markets could have very different effects on the world economy from the bank-mediated recycling of previous oil booms. If petrodollars not spent flow into global bond markets, they reduce bond yields and thus support consumer spending in oil-importing countries."

Source: Recycling the petrodollars in the Economist.com

Music: Nick Hornby: "Earlier on in the week that I met Bruce Springsteen"

He looked younger than the last time I saw him, and he's clearly incredibly fit. He is one of the few artists I've met who is able to talk cogently about what he does without sounding either arrogant or defensively self-deprecating.

NH: Have you got to the stage where your kids are introducing you to things?

BS: Yeah, my son likes a lot of guitar bands. He gave me something the other day which was really good. He'll burn a CD for me full of things that he has, so he's a pretty good call if I want to check some of that stuff out ... The other two aren't quite into that yet. My daughter's 12, 13, and she likes the top 40. So I end up at the Z100 Christmas show, sitting in the audience with my daughter and her friends watching every top 40 act ... I'm all over the place.

No brilliant insights, but for the believers, its good stuff.

Source: Guardian Interview of Bruce Springsteen by Nick Hornby

Sringsteen's site has a podcast that shows the inner workings of the making of Born to Run. The New York Times has a review of the boxed set version of Born to Run. (Hopefully the Times will leave it publicly available, rather than behind a for pay gate.)

Photography, Film: CBC film on War Photograpers

Riveting

"BEYOND WORDS focuses on the world's top war photojournalists, and attempts to turn the lens of attention onto them. Many have been wounded. Some have seen colleagues die. All have been scarred by what they do: some become disillusioned, even ashamed of what they do, and leave the profession because they feel it's pornographic. Yet some remain charged by the excitement of it, and others committed to the idea that where there are no images, there is no sense of history."

Source: CBC: Beyond Words

A really worthwhile 10 minute version of the documentary is available on the site.

Photography: Sage Adice for Starting Out

"Question: What's the best piece of advice you have for young photographers starting out?"

Source: Editorial Photo.com

Technology: TinyURL.com

"Are you sick of posting URLs in emails only to have it break when sent causing the recipient to have to cut and paste it back together? Then you've come to the right place. By entering in a URL in the text field below, we will create a tiny URL that will not break in email postings and never expires."

Music: RollingStone Magazine Chooses the Greatest Albums

Site: RollingStone.com: 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

Politics, Environment, Photography: Thick Smog over Beijing

the scale on the source image (click the picture to go to it) shows this photo to cover an length of area around Beijing of about 1000 km.

"Thick pollution obscured the sky over Beijing and nearby regions on November 4, 2005. According to news reports, the cityÂ?s pollution index reached the highest level on the scale between November 4-5, and residents were warned to spend as little time as possible outdoors. Children, elderly, and those with respiratory conditions were cautioned to be especially careful."

Source: EO Newsroom

There is another image from the same source, this time about Smog and China, which I briefly noted.