So immediately upon starting the last post, I realised I had just boxed myself into a corner in terms of both subject and tonal matter for what I really wanted to post: a (what I assume is) fake note from Werner Herzog to his cleaning lady, Rosalina.

While I wouldn’t put it past him to actually pen something like this, reading it certainly screams out that it’s a fake, but no matter, that is insignificant to just how funny and on the mark it is…

Rosalina. Woman.

You constantly revile me with your singular lack of vision. Be aware, there is an essential truth and beauty in all things. From the death throes of a speared gazelle to the damaged smile of a freeway homeless. But that does not mean that the invisibility of something implies its lack of being. Though simpleton babies foolishly believe the person before them vanishes when they cover their eyes during a hateful game of peek-a-boo, this is a fallacy. And so it is that the unseen dusty build up that accumulates behind the DVD shelves in the rumpus room exists also. This is unacceptable.

I will tell you this Rosalina, not as a taunt or a threat but as an evocation of joy. The joy of nothingness, the joy of the real. I want you to be real in everything you do. If you cannot be real, then a semblance of reality must be maintained. A real semblance of the fake real, or “real”. I have conquered volcanoes and visited the bitter depths of the earth’s oceans. Nothing I have witnessed, from lava to crustacean, assailed me liked the caked debris haunting that small plastic soap hammock in the smaller of the bathrooms. Nausea is not a sufficient word. In this regard, you are not being real.

Now we must turn to the horrors of nature. I am afraid this is inevitable. Nature is not something to be coddled and accepted and held to your bosom like a wounded snake. Tell me, what was there before you were born? What do you remember? That is nature. Nature is a void. An emptiness. A vacuum. And speaking of vacuum, I am not sure you’re using the retractable nozzle correctly or applying the ‘full weft’ setting when attending to the lush carpets of the den. I found some dander there.

I have only listened to two songs in my entire life. One was an aria by Wagner that I played compulsively from the ages of 19 to 27 at least 60 times a day until the local townsfolk drove me from my dwelling using rudimentary pitchforks and blazing torches. The other was Dido. Both appalled me to the point of paralysis. Every quaver was like a brickbat against my soul. Music is futile and malicious. So please, if you require entertainment while organizing the recycling, refrain from the ‘pop radio’ I was affronted by recently. May I recommend the recitation of some sharp verse. Perhaps by Goethe. Or Schiller. Or Shel Silverstein at a push.

The situation regarding spoons remains unchanged. If I see one, I will kill it.

That is all. Do not fail to think that you are not the finest woman I have ever met. You are. And I am including on this list my mother and the wife of Brad Dourif (the second wife, not the one with the lip thing). Thank you for listening and sorry if parts of this note were smudged. I have been weeping.

Your money is under the guillotine.

Herzog.

[ Source: sabotage times ]

Spent quite the bit of this weekend going over some Herzog material, particularly Into the Abyss, his recent documentary film that revolves around capital punishment and its subsequent TV mini-series On Death Row. Both are chillingly astute observations, not so much of the United State’s justice/prison system, but more about the microcosm that the people involved now live in. Very recommended.

Nursing a hangover; this tv-hour long interview has been just the thing needed. Part 1 of 4.

Last post’s articles touched on some fairly sombre points. This one has a cat in it.

Europe: A crisis of the centre
“There were two “moments” in the defeat of liberal centrist politics in Germany, Austria, Spain etc. in the 1930s: the first, where polite society realised the working classes were swinging to the right and left, but patronisingly reassured themselves that the world of Jazz, surrealist poetry and foreign holidays could never end. That is, they said to themselves: the workers are clinging to the past, but we, avatars of a more liberal and progressive future, have economic history with us, which points only in the direction of liberalism and economic co-operation.” [full article]

Movie Studios Are Forcing Hollywood to Abandon 35mm Film. But the Consequences of Going Digital Are Vast, and Troubling
This year, for the first time in history, celluloid ceases to be the world’s prevailing movie-projector technology. By the end of 2012, according to IHS Screen Digest Cinema Intelligence Service, the majority of theaters will be showing movies digitally. By 2013, film will slip to niche status, shown in only a third of theaters. By 2015, used in a paltry 17 percent of global cinemas, venerable old 35 mm film will be mostly gone. [full article]

Cassini Sees Objects Blazing Trails in Saturn Ring
“I think the F ring is Saturn’s weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought,” said Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at Queen Mary University of London, England. “These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile [kilometer] in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles [kilometers] in size, creating a spectacular show.” [full article]

Does the Internet Make You Smarter?
These claims were, of course, correct. Print fueled the Protestant Reformation, which did indeed destroy the Church’s pan-European hold on intellectual life. What the 16th-century foes of print didn’t imagine—couldn’t imagine—was what followed: We built new norms around newly abundant and contemporary literature. Novels, newspapers, scientific journals, the separation of fiction and non-fiction, all of these innovations were created during the collapse of the scribal system, and all had the effect of increasing, rather than decreasing, the intellectual range and output of society. [full article]

Realising that the majority of recent posts are mostly video related; here are some tumblr sites for something different.

Coloring with Aloha

Sone Ki Diwaane

Franflow

At least I’m starting to ‘annotate’ some of this stuff too.

Made me realise I haven’t played an RTS in a long time… might still be a while, but this video sure helps leaving me wanting.

Was wanting to post one or two of these, but honestly, I just want to post everything that makes up the website that is Colossal.

Started up just over two years ago, this blog has been consistent from the get go in finding and posting some of the most inspiring and creative things happening out there and on the internet and my go to guilt trip for not being active enough.

Highly recommend bookmarking the shit out of it.

24 Hours of Photographs Merged into a Single Panoramic Image

Underwater Portraits by Jacob Sutton

Stupidity Captured at 2,500 Frames per Second

On a bit of an editing thing lately and what better way to exhibit this, than three video demonstrations of how the process can drastically alter the original intention of a work.

First, one from the fan-editor’s fodder favourite:

A classic re-edit of a classic (and a prime example of why I almost never bother to watch trailers).

And finally, something a bit more cheeky…