Arctic Summer

Here's a lovely little piece that shows the path of the summer sun in the Arctic Circle--threatening to set... but never actually doing so.

Thinking of you, Woman North!

Man on Wire

We recently watched the documentary Man on Wire, which is the story of wirewalker Phillipe Petit's quest to secretly string a wire between the two towers of the World Trade Center, and walk it. Petit suceeded--on August 7, 1974 he and some friends managed to sneak into the unfinished towers, went through the ordeal of placing the cables, and he stepped onto the wire, and into history. The documentary is really beautifully filmed. There is a lot of footage of a young Petit and his cohorts, and that, combined with some treated new film make a fantastic visual feel. It's just plain pretty to look at.

However, The Boy and I being the nerds we are, were equally interested in what the documentary said by omission.

One thing I'm sure was intentional was that the film, though it was an homage to the Twin Towers, said not a word about September 11. I'm sure it was because they didn't want to dilute their story, and this makes sense. I appreciated it. It allowed us to look at the massive scope of the towers and feel the loss of the lives, the buildings, and that day the world changed in a very subtle way. In a way, the film is about a love story between this man and the towers. They make him breathless. He speaks about them in poetry. It makes the viewer love and miss them as well, if only as a symbol of a time when the world seemed safer and happier.

Something the film covered only briefly was the effect of Petit on the people around him. He's a sort of rock star--charismatic and convincing, talking people into helping him possibly lose his life. What nobody says is that he's also probably also an egomaniac who, in this stunt, simply used the people around him as a means to an end, letting relationships die in the process.

In the interviews, Petit seems enamored of himself. He doesn't doesn't speak much about the friends who were crucial to his stunt, and who worked for years so that he could step out onto a wire and take the glory. He's thrilled to tell you he's a visionary, and that the world will remember him. The man who was his best friend struggles to hold back tears, and fails, saying that after the stunt, everything changed. Their friendship changed. The woman who was his girlfriend at the time politely looks away, and says that once Phillipe found fame, she realized it was time that their relationship moved along so he would be free. It's pretty clear that this means, "He immediately began screwing groupies (which he actually did, while at the same moment, his friends--the people who made the stunt possible--were under arrest and being deported from the country) and he decided he was too famous to be with me."

It's a fascinating and sort of sad story. An interesting film--well worth watching.

In which I rave about Joss Whedon:

So I recommend you go immediately to view the first installment of Joss Whedon's latest internet project: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which was released today.

The next two installments will be July 17th and 19th, and I believe it will only be available to be viewed online until the 25th, so act now!

Prettier than your average documentary

The Boy with the Incredible Brain is a documentary that follows the mental magic of Daniel Tammet, who is able to do insane mathematical calculations in his head with seemingly no effort.

The subject matter is intriguing all on its own--a young man who can recite twenty thousand numbers of pi by memory, who can learn languages ridiculously quickly, and will never need a calculator for anything--ever, unless it's for someone to check the fact that he's right.

However, I'm impressed at the prettiness of the documentary as well. It's beautifully put together, the music is lovely and the overall look if the thing is much more interesting than the usual fare.

I....I don't even know what to say.

This was just posted on Neatorama, but it was too good not to share here. Apparently this movie can be watched as part of Netflix's online video rentals.

There is also a music video complied with scenes from the film. The poo sings so touchingly.

(??!)

A City Like Cincinnati

The most recent Take Away Show from La Blogothèque is their fiftieth, and they determined to make it something special. My, but they've suceeded.

It was filmed in Memorial Hall--one of Cincinnati's old concert venues--a meandering walk behind the scenes, beginning on the roof, and wandering down through dusty storage rooms filled with antique chairs to find the Czech duo, Havlovi quietly making music amongst forgotten set pieces. As their song fades out, the watcher is slowly drawn down the hall to find Sufjan Stevens plucking a delicate and solomn song next to a window, and so on and on, we stumble onto one gorgeous, quiet performance after another, as if we were walking on a lazy afternoon through a beautiful, rambling building with people who just happened to be performing in every stairwell and nook.

Also included on the page is a lovely film of Sufjan Stevens up on the roof of the building singing The Lakes of Canada by Innocence Mission.

All the Take Away Shows are special (see The Arcade Fire, and Alan Sparhawk particularly), but this 50th one just swept me along with it.