Arena from Páraic Mc Gloughlin on Vimeo.
This video is beautiful, of course, but this discussion with its creator makes it even more special. I enjoyed reading about the process used to make this video more than I thought I would, and I especially enjoyed the creator’s perspective: “I was hoping to evoke something of the unknown or something of what it is to be alive.”
Well done.
(and hat tip to Kottke.org, where I found this, and find all the other coolest stuff on the internet)
There are messages from ads and messages from graffiti. I know which ones are speaking to me.
It’s been a while.
Finished “Oxherding Tale” by Charles Johnson
Finished “Ulysses” by James Joyce
Finished “The Crying of Lot 49” by Thomas Pynchon (still trying to convince myself I don’t need a muted post horn tattoo)
Currently reading “The Association of Small Bombs” by Karan Mahajan
Also currently reading “Here” by Wilsawa Szymborska
On deck “Iraq +100” edited by Hassan Blasim
We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentencesWe travel faster, farther, more often,
but bring back slides instead of memories
– Wislawa Szymborska, “Nonreading”
There’s so much about this article I wholeheartedly agree with, but the discussion of social connections resonates with me most. I love taking Amtrak. Whenever there is train service available between my origin and my destination, I choose to take the train, primarily because of the people I meet on the trip. In an age when pretty much everybody agrees that air travel is dehumanizing, the train is refreshingly humanizing. There are all walks of American life on the train, and there are hours to kill talking. I’ve never enjoyed getting from A to B more than I have when taking the train, getting to know strangers I would never had met otherwise, watching the countryside roll by. The train, in a way, is about as American as it gets.
And now I’m in…Poughkeepsie, New York.
And now I’m in…Columbus, OH
And now I’m in…Chicago, Illinois.
I sense the world might be more dreamlike, metaphorical, and poetic than we currently believe—but just as irrational as sympathetic magic when looked at in a typically scientific way. I wouldn’t be surprised if poetry—poetry in the broadest sense, in the sense of a world filled with metaphor, rhyme, and recurring patterns, shapes, and designs—is how the world works. The world isn’t logical, it’s a song.
– David Byrne, Bicycle Diaries.
