Werner Herzog: 'Into the Inferno' (Netflix, 2016)

Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno (2016), a Netflix documentary, takes us to various places around the globe with its primary focus ever in mind: volcanoes and people. Among Herzog's cerebral meditations and the reliable help of Cambridge volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer, there are startling shots of breathtaking ecology, lava flows, explosions, and people's responses over time to the mysteries of volcanic activity.

As one might expect from Herzog (for those who are familiar with his earlier work), there are some weird, offbeat meanderings into associated mysteries. It's all a bit ramshackle at times, but well-worth the effort. 

Where does the film go? Points of focus include Endu (Endu Pahakol) on the island of Ambrym in the Vanuatu Archipelago, featuring the bemused Chief Mael Moses; Mount Erebus, Antarctica, where Herzog met Oppenheimer; La Soufrire
de Guadeloupe (footage from the 1970s); Katia and Maurice Krafft, who filmed volcanic activity and were "instantly killed by a pyroclastic flow in Japan, together with 41 other people" in 1991; Mount Sinabung, Sumatra, Indonesia; Mount Merapi (Fire Mountain), Java, Indonesia; Mount Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland; Mount St. Helens (Lawetlat'la), Washington; the Danakil Depression, Afar Region, Ethiopia, "300 feet below sea level;" the Erta Ale, "one of the three [volcanoes] in the world where magma is directly exposed;" back to Iceland; on to North Korea and Mount Paektu and mass social formations featuring thin, underfed people; and back to Vanuatu, to the John Frum cargo cult village, and Mount Yasur on Tanna Island.

To the Ends of the Earth and Back Again with Werner Herzog (born 1942)!  A salute also to Peter Zeitlinger (born 1960), Czech cinematographer and filmmaker who shot most of the newer footage for and with Herzog.

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Jean-Luc Godard: 'Adieu au Language' / 'Goodbye to Language' (2014)

Jean-Luc Godard's Adieu au Language / Goodbye to Language (2014) comes in 3D and 2D versions, take your pick. 

Marshall McLuhan probably would have liked this, a playful and colorful response to the world and its changing modes of communication. Godard, like McLuhan, is quite aware of the "electronic envelope" surrounding us; that "the medium is the message;" that we live in a "global village" and are actively participating in a "global theatre." Godard wants us to remain aware of our surroundings, and of our modes and methods of communicating. If all else fails, his dog Roxie will lead the way.

Goodbye to Language is not Dada. It's not a cut-up experiment such as might have been done by Brion Gysin, William Seward Burroughs, David Bowie or Mick Jagger. It has some similarities to a David Lynch film, so a touch of Surrealism, and to Woody Allen's philosophically toying with the lenses and filters of reality (such as in Deconstructing Harry, 1997, or Melinda and Melinda, 2004). 

"The present is a strange beast." People reading from a three-dimensional book. 

"This morning is a dream."

What is most important?  "Infinity and Zero." "Sex and Death."

"A line of zeros along the sea."

Writing in a journal with a pen. Do you write letters and send them off via postal service, or is that way not your way? 

"Do something."

Today's Rune: Breakthrough. 

Roberto Rossellini: 'Paisà" / 'Paisan' (1946)

Roberto Rossellini's Paisà / Paisan (1946), the second of his "War Trilogy," contains six stories set toward the end of the Second World War in Italy, starting from the South and working North.

Pictured above from the second episode is American M.P. Joe (Hylan "Dots" Johnson, 1913-1986) and Italian waif-survivor Pascale (Alfonsino Pasca) in bombed-out Naples. The movie title means "friends" or "countrymen."

Paisà / Paisan is up close and personal, with Germans, Italians, British, and Americans fighting with or against each other, trying to communicate beyond language barriers amid violence or the near aftermath of violence. 

Picking through the devastation of Firenze / Florence, a live battlefield in episode four.  

Episode five of Paisà / Paisan involves the visit to a monastery by a Catholic, a Jewish and a Protestant chaplain, with a bemused mix of appreciation and confusion for hosts and guests.  

The final episode involves the brutality of guerrilla warfare along the River Po, with the Germans still mounting effective resistance. 

Paisà / Paisan: a free-wheeling ensemble and stark reminder that war is a cemetery for those killed and both a nightmare and a cultural exchange for the survivors.

Today's Rune: Protection. 

Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese Military Prints, 1894-1905 (Part II)

The Great Victory of Our Forces at the Battle of the Yellow Sea (1894)

Bradley M. Bailey, Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese Military Prints, 1894-1905. Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017. And exhibition at the Ackland, October 6, 2017-January 7, 2018.

An original and fascinating exhibition of Japanese woodblock prints, highlighting with jingoistic relish the rise of the Japanese military. Artistically, aside from the purely historical context, the prints highlight fog, smoke, exploding shells, searchlights, bursts of red and exciting activity. 

Also in the Ackland, meet No'om of Palmyra (Tadmun), Syria. Her age is about 1,850 years. Can you dig?

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese Military Prints, 1894-1905 (Part I)

Bradley M. Bailey, Flash of Light, Fog of War: Japanese Military Prints, 1894-1905. Chapel Hill: Ackland Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2017.

In the late 1800s, Japan industrialized rapidly and, through war, took on two major powers: China and Russia. One of its prizes was the Korean Peninsula. 

Given that these same powers are still connected in the latest Korean conflict, the rise of Japan as a major military power is highly relevant -- as was its total destruction as a military power by 1945. 

Japan wasn't the only nation playing jingoist games at the time of the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars. Besides Western European powers and their own imperial wars, the United States of America initiated the Spanish-American War, resulting in a number of intended and unintended consequences. 

Outside of Africa, Spain's old empire was virtually demolished -- leading eventually to the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939. 

Also as a result of the Spanish-American War, the US seized Puerto Rico, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines and annexed Hawaii at the same time. The US became a world naval power, steaming toward conflict with Japan. The poor, innocent US that never does wrong and only fights to defend itself! 

As for a Korean nuclear war in the 21st century, the verdict is still out -- but the surprise should be not at all, given the history of the last 125 years. 

Yesterday, today and tomorrow: Cherchez la guerre / Look for the War.

Today's Rune: Initiation. 

Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis: 'The Metamorphoses,' aka 'The Golden Ass' (circa 165 A.D.)

The first complete novel still in existence, so far as I know, is Apuleius' The Metamorphoses, also called Asinus aureus / The Golden Ass; it dates to about 165 A.D. (or C. E.) -- 1,852 years before the time of this post. 

Lucius comes to town and stays at the house of Milo and his wife Pamphile. While out and about, he is beckoned by Byrrhena, his aunt, who tries to ward him off Pamphile, a genuine witch. Lucius is more curious than fearful, and soon develops an attraction to Milo and Pamphile's servant woman, Photis (aka Fotis). Milo is a dummy and has little clue that his wife really is a witch. 

In between social obligations, Lucius banters with Photis. Lucius (as first person narrator) notes, "my courage came upon me which before was scant." From Apuleius, The Golden Ass or; the Metamorphoses, translated (in 1566 A.D.) by W. Adlington, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004, page 23.

Photis responds playfully: "'Depart, I say, wretch, from me; depart from my fire, for if the flame thereof do never so little blaze forth it will burn thee inwardly, and none can extinguish the heat thereof but I alone, who know well how with daintiest seasoning to stir both board and bed.'" (page 24). 

Lucius is immediately smitten. Eventually she comes into his room, having already stocked it with "dainty meats" and wine. 

"[G]enerous cups were filled half full with liquor, leaving room only for enough water to temper and delay the wine, the flagon stood ready prepared, its neck opened with a wide and smooth cut, that one might the easier draw from it, and there did nothing lack which was necessary for the preparation of Venus." (page 28).

Soon Lucius is "dying" for her embrace, "wherewithal she made no long delay, but set aside all the meat and wine, and then unapparelled herself and unattired her hair, presenting her amiable body unto me in manner of fair Venus, when she goeth under the waves of the sea."

"'Now,' quoth she, 'Is come the hour of jousting, now is come the time of war, wherefore shew thyself like unto a man, for I will not retire, I will not fly the field; see then thou be valiant, see thou be courageous, since there is no time appointed when our skirmish shall cease . . .'" (page 29).

Later, after the completion of several "jousts and skirmishes" together, Lucius asks Photis to help him acquire some of Pamphile's magic ointments, something that will make him be able to fly like a bird. Photis is dubious, but eventually complies; however, Lucius employs what turns out to be a potion that turns him into a donkey instead of a bird. Photis has gotten the wrong vial by mistake, but Lucius blunders into it by his own foolish choice. 

And so the novel continues, with Lucius trying to survive as a beast of burden, finding himself among various people who are none too concerned with either animal or human welfare. It's a novel that has stuck with me like a memorable dream sequence, or a surreal memory. 

p.s. Not to be confused with Ovid's poetry volume, Metamorphoses (8 A.D.), but not entirely unrelated to it, either. 

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Attar: 'The Conference of the Birds' (1187 A.D.), Part the Third

Attar, The Conference of the Birds (1187 C.E.), translated by Sholeh Wolpé. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017. 

Sufi Bounce: some of this dovetails with Buddhism and other "Eastern" outlooks, as well as with all sorts of forms of mysticism in various corners of the globe. It also seems like common sense, if only such good sense was more common.

"Whatever you imagine you must have
lasts but for a moment . . .

If you're thrilled at a desire fulfilled,
don't boast; it's just a flash of joy.
If your mood darkens when things go wrong for you,
don't cry; this too is fleeting. . ."

(pages 177-178).

On direction (very important in a bird's life):

"Without direction, you suffer great hardship,
like a stray dog wandering the streets.
Such a dog endures many hardships, yet for what?"

(page 188).

"Do unto others as you would have done to yourself. That so-called infidel has shown fidelity and loyalty; where is yours?"

("Parable of a Dishonorable Warrior," page 206).

"A worthy seer of secrets
is never audacious from rudeness.
To the one who holds civility on his left
and respect on her right,
a moment of audacity is possible."

(page 209).

"As long as you're steeped in your own illusions,
your cries and prayers are worthless, my dear . . .

If you give in to the ego, even for an instant, arrows will shower you from all directions . . ."

(page 223). 

Today's Rune: Defense. lllustrations: Birds from the Panchatantra, Walters Museum; Islamic Medical Manuscripts, National Library of Medicine.

Attar: 'The Conference of the Birds' (1187 A.D.) , Part the Second

Attar, The Conference of the Birds (1187 C.E.), translated by Sholeh Wolpé. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017. 

Another flight with this feathery Sufi-inspired work by Persian herbalist and poet Farīd ud-Dīn Aṭṭār of Nishapur (circa 1145-1220/21).

"The shadow and its maker are one and the same,
so get over surfaces and delve into mysteries." (page 78).

From the story of the Christian girl:

"Her eyes were agents of calamitous love; her eyebrows, twin arches of temptation. A single glance at her beauty stripped her lovers of reason."   (page 87).

"Tonight I burn in longing; I've no stamina for love's mayhem." (page 89).

"Love's labor is not superficial work. Safety is not compatible with love." (page 95).

"As empathetic as you may be, you can't understand what hasn't happened to you."  (page 99).

The Hoopoe to the Weak Bird:

"If this quest is wrong and in vain,
and if we die of distress from it right now,
then so what?
Mistakes abound in this world --
add this one to the list."

And here's one for a new Trump Tower ("Parable of the Ostentatious Merchant"):

"Out of vanity, a merchant built a golden mansion. He then invited everyone he knew to his new home with great affectation and pride, so that they could see it and be amazed. On the day of the big reception, the merchant was running around making arrangements when he came upon a Wayfarer.

That lover of the Path said to the merchant: 'Crude fellow, I would love to come this very moment to your mansion to take a shit, but I have to run; please accept my apologies.'

And with this, he took his leave."  (pages 158-159). 

Today's Rune: Partnership. 

Attar: 'The Conference of the Birds' (1187 A.D.) , Part the First

Attar, The Conference of the Birds (1187 C.E.), translated by Sholeh Wolpé. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017. 

Such a cool Sufi-inspired work by Persian herbalist and poet Farīd ud-Dīn Aṭṭār of Nishapur (circa 1145-1220/21)!

At a global conference of the birds, a leader is chosen to guide a volunteer flock of various types to seek the Simorgh, the Great Bird (aka godhead or avatar of Paradise). Most of the the birds are either too scared to go, or find other reasons. But the vast flight journey is indeed made in a self-selecting migration. . .

The Hoopoe becomes migration leader. Addressing the conference of the birds, he addresses people of the 21st century, too:

"Cast off the shame of narcissism.
How long will you keep this faithlessness, this disgrace?
. . . Surrender your ego and step into the Path,
cross that threshhold [threshold] dancing."  (Page 43).

As various birds try to get out of the adventure, the Hoopoe responds. The Heron, for example, wants only to love water, inland or by the sea.

The Hoopoe replies:

"Heron, you know nothing of the sea.
It is full of crocodiles and fierce creatures in its deep . . .
It has smashed many a great ship.
Many have swirled into its cyclone and died . . .

Who can hope for comfort from such a faithless entity?
If you don't step away from the sea,
It will draw you in and drown you . . ." (pages 67-68).

Another message for the 21st century:

"You who are drunk on love of treasures,
suppose you come across one.
You will guard it until you are dead,
and while your life slips away, you gain nothing.
                                     . . . . .
If your heart is flawed by love of gold,
you will enter eternity with a face ugly with greed." (page 70.) 

"This Road is not for the lazy or the idle." (page 74).

(To be continued). 

Today's Rune: Growth.

Jim Robbins, 'The Wonder of Birds' (2017)

Jim Robbins, The Wonder of Birds: What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future. New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2017.

This is a fun, interesting and thought-provoking read. You can catch bits and pieces of similar thoughts and developments related to birds in news outlets and specialized journals, but it's helpful to have a bunch of them concentrated and reviewed in one place. 

I knew from previous reading that crows are smart, but there's always more to ponder. For instance: "It depends on how you define it, but the most intelligent corvid could be the New Caledonian crow, which is also in the running for the smartest animal on the planet." (page 155). It's funny, because a few days after reading the section on crows, while I was at a red traffic light, I looked over and saw a crow in the median, holding with one foot half a muffin, still partially wrapped in paper; while with the other foot, said crow pushed the paper off, so as to get at the delectable morsel inside. Groovy, man! All before the next green light. 

In any case, Robbins gets into migrations (what do they mean? How do they work? How is human activity disrupting patterns and habitat?); ideas like "emergence" and "murmurations" (mass avian spiral patterns) and neurogenesis (regeneration of thinking bits), theory of mind (being able to suss out other creatures' desires, &c.), chronesthesia (mental projection through space and time) and panpsychism; and sudden species collapse (such as of the passenger pigeon). 

The Wonder of Birds contains a lot of big ideas, and many specific examples of bird types and behavior, plus much about the positive impact of birds biologically and culturally.

Only in his consideration of cities / urban areas does Robbins step into weirdville: Tesla and pigeons, social work with eagles and other bizarro tales. 

I think that if Robbins has a blind spot, it's in "pigeonholing" cities, reducing them to one imagined uniform place where people are so "hyper-focused" that they barely realize the presence of birds, &c.  

Because there are many varieties of urban spaces, depending on geography, population size and density, planning, presence of nature preserves, cultural attitudes, historical factors and everything in between. One thing I can assure him: I've never been to a single city anywhere in the world that only contains pigeons.

Other than this urban quibble, I'm good with The Wonder of Birds; certainly I'm an advocate for the book and for birds and sustainable ecosystems. Essential to the future, given the outlook: "Temperatures and ocean levels, already on the rise, will increase further as the climate changes . . . more, and more immense, hurricanes and other storms, withering drought, punishing floods, and destructive winds." (page [297]).

And don't forget the hummingbirds! From what I've seen, they're very competitive, and I can often  pick one out in a tree, placed for optimum interception of other hummingbirds, sometimes chirping out a sort of tiny, fast Morse Code. 

Today's Rune: Movement. 

Marie de France, "Lanval" (circa 1180+ A.D.)

The Lais of Marie de France, translated with an introduction by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby. Second edition with two further lais in the original Old French. London: Penguin Books, 1999. Marie de France (circa 1150-1215), "Lanval," pages [73]-81.

"Lanval" is an otherworldly tale that reverses the usual details of encountering something strange away from home. All power to save Lanval the Knight resides with "the Maiden," opposed to Guinevere, Arthur's Queen.

Attended by two richly attired damsels, "the maiden" arrives from a faraway land (The Otherworld) to win over Lanval, a knight in the service of Arthur who has been somewhat neglected by the latter. Lanval is the son of a king from another land, but as soon as the maiden invites him into her pavilion -- in the woods between a meadow (where Lanval leaves his horse to graze) and a river -- he declares fealty to her above all else. 

"Inside this tent was the maiden who surpassed in beauty the lily and the new rose when it appears in summer. She lay on a beautiful bed . . . clad only in her shift. . . she had cast about her a costly mantle of white ermine covered with Alexandrian purple. Her side, though, was uncovered, as well as her face, neck and breast; she was whiter than the hawthorn blossom."   (Ibid., page 74).

The author wryly notes: "Now Lanval was on the right path!" (Ibid.)

Compare the above description of this scene with that via Eugene Mason's translation, published as "THE LAY OF SIR LAUNFAL" in 1911:

"Within this pavilion Launfal came upon the Maiden. Whiter she was than any altar lily, and more sweetly flushed than the new born rose in time of summer heat. She lay upon a bed with napery and coverlet of richer worth than could be furnished by a castle's spoil. Very fresh and slender showed the lady in her vesture of spotless linen. About her person she had drawn a mantle of ermine, edged with purple dye from the vats of Alexandria. By reason of the heat her raiment was unfastened for a little, and her throat and the rondure of her bosom showed whiter and more untouched than hawthorn in May. The knight came before the bed, and stood gazing on so sweet a sight. . ."

But not all will be fun and games for Lanval, for the Maiden tells him that he must never speak of her in front of the other people of the City/Town/Castle. Just that one little thing -- which, of course, proves to be much easier said than not done. And even though this tale is from more than 800 years ago, no more spoilers here!

Today's Rune: Partnership.  

'Tokyo: A Biography' (2016). Earthquakes and Crow Goblins

Stephen Mansfield, Tokyo: A Biography. Disasters, Destruction and Renewal: The Story of an Indomitable City (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2016). Pictured above is the same author's Japans's Master Gardens: Lessons in Space and Environment (Tokyo: Tuttle, 2012). 

In the mid-nineteenth century, "[Edo/Tokyo] may have had fewer open spaces and public gardens than the cities of Europe or the New World, but flowers and greenery remained an important part of . . . life. Entranceways often featured a bonsai or potted tree, while the narrow borders of the house served to display morning glories, water plants, and calabashes." (Tokyo, page 57). 

"July 8, 1853, saw the arrival of Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry's kurofune ('black ships'), as the Japanese called the four American steam-powered vessels that sailed into Edo Bay." And thus began the more than 160-year hate-love relationship between the USA and Japan, still ongoing as of this post. Pictured above: a Japanese depiction of Commodore Perry as some sort of kerasu-tengu, or "crow goblin."  (See Tokyo, page 63).

Japan responded as if aliens had landed from another plant. Eventually the shogunate -- the shogun system that had lasted 268 years -- was overturned and the emperor elevated. But in the meantime: "Liberated by the prevailing instabilities, mobs congregated in Edo and other large cities, stirring hysteria by carrying Shinto images, cavorting half-naked in the streets, looting the homes of the wealthy, engaging in frenzied public sex and quasi-religious delirium, shouting out 'Ei-janai ka!' (Why not? Who cares?)."  (Tokyo, page 64). 

There were rice riots, cholera epidemics, earthquakes, fires and floods. More was to come. But first, in 1868, Edo was renamed Tokyo (compare Constantinople and Istanbul in Turkey). 

Between the first arrival of the Americans and their black ships and the early 20th century, Japan took up Western technology and industrialization with a fervor, so much so that by 1905 Japan military forces defeated Russian Imperial forces in the Russo-Japanese War, which started with a surprise attack -- only 37 years before Pearl Harbor. 

Then, on September 1, 1923, a 7.9 magnitude quake and resultant fires devastated the area in and around Tokyo. "Approximately 400,00 buildings were destroyed, and some 63 percent of Tokyo's population was made homeless." (Tokyo, page 105). More than 100,000 people perished. "From the hills of Ueno Park, the imperial capital resembled an extinct city." (Tokyo, page 106).  

But from 1924 until 1943, Tokyo would rise again, until 東京大空襲 -- the Night of the Black Snow -- on March 9-10, 1945, when American bombers devastated the city once again.

Today's Rune: Fertility.  

Barry Jenkins: 'Moonlight' (2016)

Barry Jenkins, Moonlight (2016), based on Tarell Alvin McCraney's In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue (2003). Set mostly in Florida (plus Atlanta) and divided into three sections (Little, Chiron, Black), Moonlight, made on a relatively tiny budget, is intensely poetic, much more like an independent international film than a traditional American Hollywood movie. 

Moonlight can be approached from multiple angles, including race/ethnicity, poverty, sexual orientation, gender roles, cultural attitudes, existential philosophy and more. However, because so many of these have already been discussed elsewhere, here I'd like to consider another theme of the film: isolation vs. connection. 

Maybe because it's set along the Atlantic Ocean side of Florida, I think of Howard Thurman (1899-1981) when he was growing up just a little north of where Moonlight is mostly set, but during the Jim Crow era. In Moonlight, the main character (Chiron) is isolated by circumstance: his mother is a menace, school brutes are a menace, he is falling through the social cracks; with Howard Thurman, white society at large was the principal menace. 

In order to survive and function, let alone thrive, one must be connected to another person or other people. Howard's father died when he was very young, but, despite being poor, other relatives helped him enough that he could begin his own arc; for him, libraries (and librarians) became his bedrock for hope. Once he began reading in earnest, and with the kindness of strangers, he was able to become his own person, despite the obstacles of Jim Crow. Howard Thurman went on to become a mystical philosopher, education and civil rights leader, author and co-founder of the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco in 1944, still in existence.

Chiron, in Moonlight, has to go it more alone, but it is mainly because of the intervention and kindness of characters like Juan, Teresa and Kevin that he can nurture a modest hope for his own arc. 

Social isolation is such a tragic, fearful position to be in that even small gestures of kindness are magnified. 

Still, given how much his school seems to neglect him, and his mother, I wish Chiron could have found refuge in a library, where he would have found additional support in the same way that Howard Thurman had. But he does, at least, find some connection, and that's a start.

Because the US (and much of the rest of the world) still has so many fearful hangups about sexual orientation, specifically, and sexuality in general, Moonlight is highly important not only as its own story, but for its ability to boost consciousness raising and awareness, especially unto those feeling isolated, letting all who see it know they are not alone in the world, no matter how restricted their initial life situation may be. It is a profound reminder, too, for those who are socially well-connected, to reach out and be kind, to welcome those who are feeling left out in the cold. 

Today's Rune: Partnership.