Several Short Videos of the Sea from my iPhone

Back in the landlocked capital of Texas in Austin at the height of summer, I'm missing the ocean. Scanning through several videos of the sea taken recently from my phone. 

New York Harbor from the Staten Island Ferry with accompanying coastguard gunboat.

A Staten Island Beach in the wintertime.

In Dublin, Ireland looking out at the Irish Sea from atop the Martello Tower Joyce museum in Sandycove.

The Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, western coast of Ireland.



The Burren in County Clare, western coast of Ireland.



View from Vico and Sorrento, Dalkey, county Dublin, Ireland.

The Giant's Causeway and the rough Atlantic Ocean in County Antrim, Northern Ireland.

 

The pristine sparkling blue Mediterranean outside of Marseille in Côte d'Azur, France. 

Me swimming in the Mediterranean at a beach in Cannes, Côte d'Azur, France. 

Off the coast of Massachusetts, Vineyard Ferry cruising along Atlantic Ocean.

The boat ride from Dalkey Island, Ireland.
 

"There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor" (Melville, Moby-Dick, p. 160)

"the blending cadence of waves with thoughts"  (Moby-Dick, p. 163)

"Melville thought the names of all fine authors were fictitious because they stood for the ubiquitous and magic spirit of all Beauty. Keats asked to have HERE LIES ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER carved on his gravestone." 
    (Susan Howe, The Quarry, p. 192)

"The beginning of man was salt sea, and the perpetual reverberation of that great ancient fact, constantly renewed in the unfolding of life in every human individual, is the important single fact about Melville. Pelagic." 

[Pelagic (adj.): relating to or living in open sea]
    (from Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael, quoted in Susan Howe, The Quarry, p. 192) 

"Looking at the waves scudding outwards and getting lost on the horizon, [Heisenberg] could not help but recall the words of his mentor, the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, who had once told him that a part of eternity lies in reach of those capable of staring, unblinking, at the sea's deranging expanses." 
(Benjamin Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World, p. 96)

            Next 

Three Interviews with Master Craftsmen on the Art of Hip Hop

Producer Madlib recently appeared on BBC Radio 6 for a lengthy convo with Gilles Peterson, talking about his friendship with MF DOOM, his latest album Sound Ancestors, his crate-digging exploits, his love of Sun Ra and spiritual jazz music, and Madlib even played a bunch of records on the show. 

Producer/emcee Bronze Nazareth appeared on the podcast From the Desk of Lo for an in-depth interview detailing his whole background as a musician, how he linked up with the Wu-Tang Clan, stories of staying with RZA while working on Birth of a Prince, how he heard tons of unreleased Wu material from the early-2000s, growing up with his longtime friend Apollo Brown, and plenty of other interesting stuff here that I have never heard him discuss with this level of detail. They even get into the million-dollar Wu album which Bronze had some music on. Interviewer does a great job asking informed questions. (At the end of the interview Bronze mentions a book project I have been working on with him. It's progressing toward final stages now and I'm excited to get it out to the world soon.)

SkillastratorLO aka Sunez interviewed underground emcee Rome Streetz on the Power Write Show podcast. Sunez is perhaps the most in-depth, insightful, and knowledgeable journalist writing about hip hop these days and his interviews with artists are always intriguing. In this talk they get into a level of detail on the writing of rap lyrics that you rarely hear in artist interviews. I especially dug the discussion of writing in a "concentrated" style, embedding so much meaning and interconnectedness in rhymes that it takes the listener several listens to catch on. They talk about the new album Rome Streetz made with DJ Muggs, the intricacies of Rome's writing process, what it's like to work with a legend like DJ Muggs, how Rome's music fits into and outside of the underground rap genre, how his approach differs from other rap artists, etc. Real informative discussion here.

Mixtape in Memoriam of Kobe

From its humble inception 11 years ago this blog began with me showing love for the beauty of Kobe Bryant's jump shot, so now since today would have been Kobe's 42nd birthday I'd like to share some thoughts on the late Lakers legend, plus post a mixtape of choice clips of the Black Mamba. 

While I was never a Lakers fan and was usually rooting against Kobe as a Knicks fan (or as a fan of Allen Iverson or Tracy McGrady or Vince Carter as they went up against Kobe), he was such an amazingly talented, flashy, dynamic, high-flying and insanely competitive player it was impossible not to be entertained by his game even as he was kicking your team's ass. Dude was an absolute legend. During the latter half of his career I spent some time living in Southern California and got to watch a lot of Lakers games on local cable. In those days I also had a friend who was a huge Lakers fan and we'd argue about Kobe's place among the all-time greats. 

Prior to his tragic death early this year, the most recent memories I had of Kobe, the events that stuck in my head as I-remember-where-I-was-when-that-happened kinda moments, were how bad I felt for him the night he tore his Achilles and how happy I was for him watching his unforgettable final NBA game when he dropped 60 in a win against Utah. And I remember seeing that video of Kobe and Gianna, the father teaching his attentive daughter as they sat courtside at a Brooklyn Nets game, a month before the accident that took their lives. 

Looking back on it, the horrible death of Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna in a helicopter crash on January 26th stands out as a harbinger of the unthinkably dark and depressing months to come. Strangely, that period of grieving and binge-watching Kobe videos, watching the memorial they held at Staples Center, that was actually the final period of normalcy we had before the world we knew suddenly collapsed. I remember I was at work, on a lunch break when I caught Michael Jordan's eulogy for Kobe at his memorial. (My office would soon be closed indefinitely.) The Staples Center that day was filled with the gods of basketball lore all gathered together in the arena Kobe called home, all mourning a fallen star. Everybody packed together in Los Angeles and just one month later all public gatherings would be banned, NBA's season indefinitely shut down, America's confrontation with the coronavirus escalating. 

I remember that Sunday afternoon hearing the news about Kobe and Gianna and it was a gut punch. That shit hurt for a while. I was shocked how hard it hit me. Just seeing headlines with the words The Death of Kobe Bryant just looked surreal, bizarre, fake or unthinkable like The Death of Superman. I kept talking to friends about it, trying to process it with anyone who understood the impact of the death of Kobe, and at night I'd get lost in watching every YouTube video of Kobe I could find, reliving his greatest highlights and reliving my history as a basketball fan, commiserating with every commentator on the loss of Kobe from late night talk show hosts and retired NBA greats to Randy Moss and Jason Alexander and anybody who felt or understood the impact of the death of Kobe. The shock was well captured by Jon Batiste talking to Stephen Colbert, describing that viscerally painful realization that "even the mighty among us, those who seem like they'll live forever, the immortal ones could be gone (snap) just like that."

After the death of Kobe I felt like something inside me broke. To heal it I had to binge watch Kobe videos. I was trying to keep my memories of Kobe alive, everything I had ever loved and been inspired by about Kobe, I was trying to bring it all back to life. Having had a while to think about it now, what made me love Kobe so much, besides the entertainment value of his game was his drive, his inspiration, his internal push to achieve greatness. He was born with gifts, the son of pro basketball player Joe "Jellybean" Bryant whose hoop genes he surely inherited, but Kobe was never complacent, he famously had an ethic to work as hard as he possibly could to get the most out of his gifts. He was notoriously an asshole in his competitive excesses but he was driven to be the absolute best to ever play the game of basketball, determined to outdo his idol Michael Jordan. There was a great scene in the ESPN Jordan documentary where you hear Jordan in the locker room before an All-Star game talking about the "little Laker boy" whose cockiness would get the best of him. Kobe/Jordan battles evolved sharply over the years until the torch was officially passed to the Black Mamba who reached his scoring peaks around when Jordan finished his twilight years with the Wizards. Seeing Jordan pour his heart out in mourning his little brother at the Kobe memorial, it felt extra heart-wrenching that young Kobe was being laid to rest while the older Jordan was delivering his eulogy. The whole thing brought to the forefront for me the unyielding passage of time, the inescapableness of death, and the cold reality of our loneliness as human beings who are, despite all of our impacts and connections, born alone and who die alone.  

At the same time, in the aftermath of the death of Kobe I felt the reality of the idea espoused in the works of James Joyce which essentially amounts to: in death, absence can become the greatest form of presence. I thought about Kobe more in the wake of his passing that I had in many years. Kobe was on my mind constantly for weeks. I know that was the case for a lot of people. Jordan captured that in his eulogy, describing how we all feel like some part of us died when Kobe died. I'm still thinking about and feeling some feelings about Kobe Bryant today on his 42nd birthday. 

And so in honoring his memory, here is a mixtape of some of my favorite videos that capture what made Kobe Bryant such an iconic and inspiring figure.

(Video) Anti-Racism: Listen to Jane Elliott and Share This

Jane Elliott is an educator and anti-racism activist who has been working for more than 50 years to educate the public about the reality of racism in the United States of America and how to overcome indoctrinated racist beliefs. As her videos have been circulating around the internet a lot recently, I've been watching and learning a great deal from her. She is a captivating speaker, a passionate and fierce human being, a provocative and extremely knowledgable teacher who will crack your head open, show you what was implanted there by indoctrination, and help you to see things clearly for what they are rather than how they appear to be.

Of all the videos I have watched so far, the one I am sharing below struck me as the best because the interviewer gives her the space to speak her lessons longwindedly and she absolutely goes off. She goes off on the inherited bullshit American society indoctrinates its children with, she goes off on Trump, she describes what she witnessed as a small child seeing Hitler rise to power and World War II explode while comparing that to today, and she provides a litany of lessons for the viewer to learn from. She recommends a bunch of insightful books and even, towards the end, admonishes us about the power of television and what it does to our minds, recommending we all seek out the work of Marshall McLuhan to learn about how the medium of television can damage your perspective and sensory perception.


PLEASE WATCH THIS AND SHARE WIDELY. If you have friends or family members who express racist views or who don't understand the gravity of our moment in history, make them watch this. This woman Jane Elliott has that type of energy that will sit you down, make you shut the fuck up and LISTEN to the authority of her knowledge. She loves to bring up the etymology of the word Educator which literally means one who leads others out of ignorance. Listen and let her guide you.

"Pity the Nation" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Pity the nation whose people are sheep
   And whose shepherds mislead them
 Pity the nation whose leaders are liars
            Whose sages are silenced
  And whose bigots haunt the airwaves
 Pity the nation that raises not its voice
          Except to praise conquerers
       And acclaim the bully as hero
          And aims to rule the world
              With force and by torture
          Pity the nation that knows
        No other language but its own
      And no other culture but its own
 Pity the nation whose breath is money
 And sleeps the sleep of the too well fed
      Pity the nation oh pity the people
        who allow their rights to erode
   and their freedoms to be washed away
My country, tears of thee
                   Sweet land of liberty

Al Pacino & Robert DeNiro in Epic Conversation

Two of the all-time greats sit down to discuss their friendship and careers. I had no idea they both grew up in Manhattan and their acting careers essentially began in the coffee shops and bars of Beat-era Greenwich Village. Incredible how much artistic talent arose from that neighborhood during that period.

Whenever I hear about Greenwich Village in those days I think of one of my favorite authors, David Markson, who was a fixture of the Village during that time. Markson shared some colorful stories about his experiences during that era in an interview here.

(Video) RZA Shares the Wu-Tang Secrets, Takes Us Thru the Martial Arts Film Chamber

Thank you for this, RZA. Thank you, Vanity Fair. Thank you to everyone who made this video happen. One of the coolest Wu-Tang clips you'll ever see.

(Video) How Art Arrived at Jackson Pollock - by Nerdwriter

Great video covering vast territory in art history in a brief amount of time with extraordinary clarity, highlighting one of Jackson Pollock's finest pieces. This guy Nerdwriter really does fantastic work. Watch this fullscreen.

(Video) 1971 World Series, Game 7

Another classic baseball treasure. The full broadcast of Game 7 of the '71 Series between the Pirates and Orioles in Baltimore. Featuring a young Willie Stargell. Roberto Clemente in his prime. Brooks Robinson swallowing up grounders at third base. Boog Powell being a large man. Frank Robinson taking massive cuts. And Steve Blass, the pitcher who would go on to develop a mental block on throwing accurately to the degree that they named a disease after him, here pitching a complete game against the vaunted O's. 

(Video) 1986 World Series, Game 6

Been having baseball fever the last few weeks, sprung about by attending a Spring Training ballgame in Bradenton, Florida a few weeks ago and reading some baseball books this past winter. By the magnificence of YouTube, we are able to view full game broadcasts of many classic baseball games from as far back as the early 1950s. So I've been watching lots of classic baseball footage lately.

In this video you can watch, at the 7m 30s mark, a parachuter suddenly land in the middle of the field in Shea Stadium during Game 6 of the World Series. The crowd goes nuts, the players are amped up, and Ron Darling gives the parachuter a handshake as he's being escorted off the field by police. You can watch a young Roger Clemens mowing down the Mets. Prime 'stache Keith Hernandez taking his cuts. Wade Boggs roping line drives. Gary Carter leading the best Mets ballclub ever. Or skip ahead to the 3hr 15m mark to begin watching the bottom of the 10th inning, one of the most thrilling conclusions to a World Series game of all time. The Mets, trailing in the series 3-2, trailing in the game 5-3, down to their very last out, suddenly embark on an epic, back-from-the-dead rally, a level of high drama that only baseball can offer.

For the 25th Anniversary of the Almighty Wu-Tang Clan

from here.

Been needing to compile this for a little while. First, I want to share with you a few videos from this past year when the Wu-Tang Clan celebrated the 25th anniversary of their seminal LP, Enter the 36 Chambers (1993). Wu-Tang was all over the place in 2018, these are just a select few vids that stuck out for me. Then I want to briefly share my personal history as a fan of the Wu-Tang Clan starting as a kid growing up in Staten Island in the 90s, when the imprint of Wu and what they stand for became foundational building blocks for the person I have since become.

First, here is an interview with RZA at the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee from last August. RZA gets into some stuff here that I've never really heard him talk about before. Typically in Wu-Tang interviews we hear the same origin stories repeated, whereas here RZA gives some insights on identity and the eclectic array of cultures that combined to form the core elements of Wu-Tang Clan that he doesn't often get into this much detail about. (Side note: this is the first time I've heard him share this amazing factoid: that while all the early Wu-Tang LPs were crafted to sound like movies, ODB's Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version album was made in the vein of a Richard Pryor record.) I often criticize RZA's musical evolution on this blog but I've said it before and I'll say it again: my mind grows when I listen to The Abbott speak.





The Wu-Tang Clan, minus Mef and Ghostface, put on a show for NPR's "Tiny Desk Concert series" in December. It was a thrill to see them perform in this format, ad-libbing, freestyling, taking turns throwing darts, with RZA playing the role of DJ. I wish they'd do this kinda thing more often, it's fresh as could be. Since it's a live show and there are so many members, there's some noticeable discord---especially between Raekwon and RZA who've been on different wavelengths for years now---but Wu-Tang performing live is still one of the greatest shows on earth. I especially love RZA's verse at the end here (19-min mark), a typically scientific-mystic Abbott verse that sounds like a taste of his long-promised album The Cure, delivered over classical orchestra strings. "Wu-Tang is for the kids!"





In October, the entire WTC formed like Voltron for a live performance of their classic single "Protect Ya Neck" on an episode of the Jimmy Kimmel show filmed live at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Howard Gilman Opera House. It's rare to see the full collective come together and perform on a platform like this. Altogether this was a fantastic Wu-Tang showing, not in the least bit sullied by the lame audience clearly not being a typical Wu crowd.




There have been a few attempts at making a Wu-Tang documentary, none of them truly hitting the mark thus far, but this newly announced series on Showtime called "Wu-Tang Clan: Of Mics and Men" definitely looks promising. Here's the trailer:




And here's an interview with the director of the new documentary, Sacha Jenkins, who rocks a Mets ballcap and therefore shares not one but two of the greatest loves of my life. This looks like it'll be dope:

*   *   *

(Video) Madlib Meets Ethiopian Legend Ayaléw Mesfin

Madlib meets legendary Ethiopian funk musician Ayaléw Mesfin whose music he has often sampled. The story of Ayaléw Mesfin, his struggles under an oppressive government, his humble appreciation of political asylum in America, and his emotional return to the stage to perform his music years later---there's a lot to appreciate in this 13-minute video. Ayaléw was jailed by an oppressive Communist regime that took over Ethiopia in the 70s. Arrested for distributing his music to the public for free, released only on the terms that he stop making and performing music.

A student of music in all its forms, we witness Madlib meet one of his idols and discuss their respective crafts as well as the harrowing story of what Ayaléw suffered through. Had to post this here as it really resonated and I'm glad to see Madlib showing love to one of the musicians whose work he's inspired by, while shedding light on an obscure artist for the fans.

Album Reviews: The Wu-Tang Phoenix Re-Arises Again

The sheen on the iron "W" was scuffed following Wu-Tang Clan's disappointing 2014 album A Better Tomorrow and the whole distasteful debacle of the Once Upon a Time in Shaolin project. Maybe any press is good press, but while Wu-Tang remains generally beloved and un-fucked-with, the PR hit resulting from the one-two punch of teasing fans with a new Wu-Tang Forever-sounding album assembled by one of the team's freshest new beat-makers sold as one single secret copy to one of the most hated men in the world while instead serving to the public a fractured and subpar group project produced by a rusty and out-of-touch RZA, definitively marked a low point in the Wu-Tang legacy. Maybe the lowest point.

Not to be kept down for long, the Wu phoenix has re-arisen again. The whole Wu-Tang conglomerate has regrouped and brought forth a swarm in 2017, releasing a slew of new projects that serve to reassert their present skills and still-fearsome roster depth while burnishing the legacy of the brand. No bullshit, no gimmicks, just dope beats and dope rhymes. (To top it off, the asshole who acquired the single copy album, Martin Shkreli, was sentenced to prison in a case where a prospective juror stated on the record that he held a grudge against Shkreli because "he disrespected the Wu-Tang Clan.")

Here are some capsule reviews of the new projects brought forth in 2017 thus far.

Madlib Interview NYC 2016 (Video) & More

Posting this not because it's a fantastic interview or anything, but a new(ish) appearance of an interview with Madlib in that type of setting is worth celebrating and paying attention to. The interview technically isn't even anything special, mainly because Madlib is such a notoriously quiet character. But for me, as a huge Madlib fan, his elusive nature and bizarre personality---buried as it is within a thick turtle shell whose surface is decorated with jewels and whose cavernous depths echo exotic clanky music---is fascinating in and of itself. It's amusing watching Madlib here squirm away from straightforward answers, or use humor and sarcasm as subterfuge.

More importantly, Otis Jackson Jr. aka Madlib is widely considered (by those who know who he is) to be one of the great musical geniuses of our time. When he speaks (whether in a rare interview or through music), you listen. A multi-instrumentalist who transcends mediums and genres, his trippy crate-digging mixes of Brazilian jazz or African rock or other miscellaneous gems are just as interesting as his one-man band jazz releases or his legendary beat tapes. He's always been one of my favorite artists to write about and a constant presence in my daily playlists. I'm thrilled to see the mind of Madlib open up here even just a little bit to share his wisdom. Plus, above all else, the common thread of intrigue about his sound is his style, and the man's unique style certainly comes across in this interview. So do check it out.

After that, you can listen to this Madlib mix of Brazilian records from the crates, entitled Speto Da Rua.

(If you dig that, then also check out his newer mix, Mind Fusion: African Ear Wax.)


Lately, I've been immersed in the instrumentals he produced for Strong Arm Steady's 2010 album In Search of Stoney Jackson. I could listen to this for days:



And, lastly, one can't talk about Madlib without lamenting the absurdly long wait for the new Madvillain album with Doom. Here's Madlib's remix of a track from another long-awaited collabo, Doom and Ghostface:

The Sudden Relevance of Children of Men

Poster by Mondo.

One day last year, I sat down and wracked my brain to come up with a ranking of my favorite films of all time. After much deliberation, I determined my top film ever is Children of Men, the dystopic masterpiece from director Alfonso Cuarón, released on Christmas Day 2005.

I can remember seeing it for the first time. I was in San Diego visiting my brother and his wife. We all went to see it together. When it was over, I felt stuck to the chair, unable to move. The emotional impact of the film felt like a spear had impaled me, pierced my chest and nailed me to the theater seat in wide-eyed shock. It was an experience I'll never forget.

Despite the premise being a distant future---the year 2027 in which humans have lost the ability to reproduce leading to anarchy and rampant terrorism all around the world---everything about the film felt relevant to the current moment. I can remember being viscerally stunned at the force of the filmmaker's message, it felt like a desperate plea, trying to re-awaken our sense of humanity through art. Now, a little more than 10 years later, this sci-fi dystopian display of theatrical imagination feels more realistic than ever, loaded with xenophobic nationalistic politics conveyed through news media, ever present armored police militants, and extreme anti-immigrant, anti-refugee policies leading to frequent terrorist attacks.

Lately Children of Men, which was a box office flop when first released, has been gaining more and more attention due to its sudden allegorical relevance in our alarming contemporary situation. Abraham Reisman of Vulture recently summoned director Alfonso Cuarón to discuss the film as framed in the context of Brexit, the Trumpacolypse, etc, leading to an in-depth feature piece entitled "Future Shock" positing that Children of Men "might be the most relevant film of 2016."

In the feature, Cuarón describes the conception and execution of the film's most famous cinematic feats, its long uncut shots with the masterful cinematographer, Emmanuel Lubezski. I enjoyed this bit about working with him:

He recruited his longtime friend and frequent partner Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki to be his cinematographer. Together, they hit on the idea of loading up the background with information — graffiti, placards, newscasts — and thus limiting the kind of expository dialogue that often plagues dystopian stories. Cuarón recalls Lubezki declaring, “We cannot allow one single frame of this film to go without a comment on the state of things."

And Cuarón expresses his view of our current wayward moment in history:

The gap between our world and that of Children of Men is closing rapidly, but he refuses to give up his faith in our wayward species. There are dark days ahead, to be sure, but perhaps they will also be days of transformation. “Look, I’m absolutely pessimistic about the present,” Cuarón says. “But I’m very optimistic about the future.”

Following the feature, Vulture also published an expanded interview with Cuarón where they go into more detailed depth on the making of the film, what he felt it was really about ("it was more about spiritual infertility"), and the filmmaker's enduring hope for the future.

On the same note, YouTube film analyst Nerdwriter created this fantastic, enlightening glimpse of the symbology within the film's loaded frames, "Do Not Ignore the Background":



^
To the excellent observation that the shot of pregnant Kee in the barn echoes the posture of Botticelli's Venus, I want to add that the scene is also literally overflowing with symbols. Kee, the key symbol of the film, the future of the human race in the form of a young pregnant mother from Africa, stands surrounded by cattle, symbols of fertility from time immemorial, with their mother's milk being extracted. Fertility, fecundity, pregnancy are the story's most important symbols. Note the year is 2027, and it's been 18 years since the last child birth. 27 and 18 are both divisible by 9, the number of gestation. I could go on forever about this movie.

Here's hoping we as humanity get through our current bleakness and continue to produce beautiful art like Children of Men. 

Kandinksy in Stereoscope

Alfred Imageworks. STEREOSCOPIC FOR EXHIBITION - KANDINSKY from A Productions on Vimeo.

(Tip of the cap to my friend Scott for sharing this with me.)

On the Lofty Potential of the Human Brain

Stephen Wiltshire draws a city from memory

Soaking in certain books and lecture materials (mainly revolving around the works of Robert Anton Wilson and Timothy Leary) over the last few weeks has had me often floating in a deep, blissful and prolonged appreciation and consideration of the human brain, nature's astounding biocomputer.

The Secret Life of Plants

"floweers have ears, heahear!"
 - Finnegans Wake, p. 337

Anyone who's ever read Robert Anton Wilson's classic book Cosmic Trigger would probably recognize the title "The Secret Life of Plants". That's where I'd first heard of it, at least.* Wilson mentions some of the discoveries from the 1973 book by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird in the process of presenting the reader with some fascinating perspectives about modern scientific discoveries and measurements of "spirit" or life energy in vegetation (see pg. 25).

*Actually, the very first time I heard of it (like so many occult things) was in a rap song by Killah Priest, though I had no idea what he was referring to: "The secret private life of plants/ the diligent and militant/ commodity and colonies of ants/ the spiritual and telekinetic mind of children/ all rolled up in rhymes that are chillin."

Recently I was at a friend's house and he had a copy of the book The Secret Life of Plants resting next to a few of his plants. When I brought it up, he strongly suggested I pick up a copy of the book as the ideas contained therein were very powerful. I haven't gotten to pick up the original book yet, but I did come across an entertaining documentary film based on the book which I'd like to share here.

This movie is from 1979 and features lots of motion capture scenes which beautifully display the growth of plants and flowers. The documentary is more than a bit unorthodox compared to contemporary standards, featuring a few fast-forward-worthy drawn out musical montages (with original tunes from Stevie Wonder). But, that's the beauty of our technology---you can skip right through the boring parts. There is plenty of eye-opening stuff here concerning plant sentience that will really leave make an impact on the way one sees the world.

The other important thing I want to point out is a funny synchronicity---as I mentioned, I'd originally heard about The Secret Life of Plants through a passing mention in Robert Anton Wilson's synchronicity-filled book Cosmic Trigger. Another memorable part of that book is RAW's discussion of the Dogon tribe in Africa that possesses an uncanny knowledge of the solar system, the universe, and especially the star Sirius. Long before scientific instruments could even prove it, this isolated primitive tribe knew that Sirius had another star orbiting around it. Not only that, they knew this second star takes exactly 50 years to make a full cycle.

A must-see for Cosmic Trigger fans, this documentary features a segment all about the Dogon tribe. If anything, you should definitely check out that one segment as it's one of the best parts of the film (though they never really adequately explain their connection to plant sentience...). To see the Dogon segment, fast forward to the 1hr 6m mark.

Video after the jump.

Tarantino on Charlie Rose

The art of film has occupied my mind a good deal as of late and the luminous scenes of Quentin Tarantino's latest flick have me digging for more analysis and appreciation of his work in particular.

I've seen a lot of the interviews he's done recently in promoting Django Unchained but none that came close to his interview with Charlie Rose. Here he gets very candid in passionately explaining his artistic craft, especially the writing aspect of it, about which he emphasizes how important it is to remember his movies all start with a pen and paper. He also reveals that he's written book-length unpublished pieces of "subtextual film criticism" which sounds absolutely fucking awesome and only fans the flames on the "subtextual criticism" or interpretations I've been working on for a couple years now for a few different modes of art (if you read this blog at all, you'll know what I'm talking about).

Anyway, it's a lengthy interview (48 minutes) but uninterrupted by commercials and filled with legitimately great stuff from a masterful artist discussing his craft. Highly recommended.

(Video after the jump)

Wu-Tang is for the Children: Neil deGrasse Tyson interviews The Gza/Genius

Astrophysicist and generally good-natured eloquent guy Neil deGrasse Tyson had co-founder of the Wu-Tang Clan and generally brilliant guy Gza/Genius as a guest on his radio/TV show recently. Somehow, Tyson was not quite aware of the massive cultural influence Wu-Tang, especially Gza, has had on the world. Here he learns, much to his amazement, how young listeners of Wu music were consequently led to passionate interests in science.

Watching him get schooled by The Gza, who spun out a few eye-opening bars during the convo, makes for great entertainment. And if you happen to be someone who is not fully aware of how Wu-Tang has inspired two decades worth of young people to seek Knowledge, Wisdom, and Understanding, you'd gain a fresh perspective by checking out the show.

(Video and personal reflections after the jump...)