From the Heart of the World - The Elder Brothers' Warning

Earlier this week I was relaying the story of the Kogi priesthood to my roommates, and Zack remembered having heard about their extraordinary training process before. He remembered another friend having told him about a movie that documents the process, and that started my current mission to find and see this movie. Here is the part of Wade Davis' lecture, The Light at the Edge of the World, (the talk he gave at TED is an abbreviated version of the lecture linked too) that started it all:

The Inca and Kogi are descendants of the ancient Tairona civilization that once carpeted the Caribbean coastal plain of Colombia. In the wake of the conquest and the madness that ensued, these people retreated into the peaks of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a vast volcanic massif that rises to 20,000 feet from the Caribbean coastal plain. In a bloodstained continent, these people were never conquered. To this day, they remain ruled by a ritual priesthood.

The training for the priesthood is rather astonishing. The young acolytes are taken away from their families at the age of two or three, sequestered in stone huts in a world of darkness and shadows for eighteen years (two nine-year periods deliberately chosen to mimic the nine months of gestation they spent in their natural mother’s womb) so that they are metaphorically in the womb of the great mother. During that entire time, they are indoctrinated in the values of their society, values that maintain the proposition that their prayers and their prayers alone maintain the cosmic or ecological balance. At the end of this arduous initiation, they suddenly are let out by the priests, the mamas, and before first light, suddenly, in that crystal moment of awareness of their first dawn, everything they have learned in the abstract is affirmed in stunning glory as they see the sun rise over the flanks of the Sierra Nevada. The priest sort of steps back and with his body language says, you see it is as beautiful as I said, it is that wondrous, it is yours to protect as the elder brother. They call themselves the elder brothers; we, who they believe have ruined the world, are known and dismissed as the younger brothers. And this relationship between spirit, culture and landscape plays out in marvelous ways.

I was able to track down the name of the documentary - From the Heart of the World, The Elder Brothers' Warning - but traditional avenues like IMBD and Netflix turned up nothing in the way of locating a copy. Rotten Tomatoes has a listing for it with a picture of the VHS case on the left (it was never released on DVD) but little else. With the help of both Jon and Bryan, one copy turned up on sale for $41.12 at Robert's Hard To Find Videos, no thanks. My plan now is to visit the Museum of Television & Radio and look for it in their collection, which you can't search without paying them a visit. If that fails I'll turn to the public library system.

What ought to happen is for someone out their in the interverse to get this documentary uploaded to google video so everyone with a high speed connection can learn from the ways of the Kogi. If by sheer coincidence anyone reading this knows where I can get my hands on a copy, please, please leave a comment.

I'll be posting more excerpts from Davis' lecture down the road, and once I track down the movie I'll share my excitement or disappointment with you here.

The Ethnosphere

Over the weekend a friend called my attention to Wade Davis' TED Talk on preserving the "Enthnosphere" - "the sum total of all thoughts and dreams, myths, ideas, inspirations, intuitions brought into being by the human imagination since the dawn of consciousness" - and while I remember watching it when I first discovered TED Talks, I clearly didn't pay close enough attention because it's been on my mind all week. It's a speedy rundown of the stunning depth to human culture and experience peppered with memorable anecdotes that illustrate the value of cultural diversity. Worth watching twice:


I've been reviewing my favorite TED Talks in preparation for my contribution to KTR in a few weeks, and since I've ruled Davis' talk out of the mix for the radio show, I thought I'd plug it here because his thoughts have sparked a lot of excitement in me and opened doors of interest that I might have missed otherwise. There is more than one post in all of this, so consider this just a taste.

Sound Map

Edmund Mooney and Andrea Polli, two of the creators of the New York Sound Map, were the guests for the final segment of The Brian Lehrer Show today. It was a cute interview featuring a sound quiz where callers were challenged to identify various sounds of the city. Playing along from home I was able to successfully identify the sound of a dog drinking from a pond but mistook rusty playground equipment for an elephant. That elephant's got rhythm! Anyhow, the Sound Map is a collaborative project, and a great idea. From their site:

Maps are tools for understanding the world from different points of view - political, cultural, personal, and historical. Maps hold the power to shape the truth about the world and mapmakers shape the future. The NYSoundmap is a container - a concept or idea to hold many types of processes and projects. The project reaches across the city's geographic, economic, educational, cultural and racial divides. It is at once a historical record and a subjective representation of the city. It is what each user wishes it to be and it is ever growing, ever changing and totally interactive.

You can explore the map and find instructions for participating in the project on their site, and also check out The New York Society for Acoustic Ecology where the idea was hatched and executed.

Flickr Wednesday

Flickr user Lost America scouts the freeways of the American Southwest, mainly in California, for abandoned properties and uses them as the subject of his outstanding flickr sets. I am a big fan of both the subject and execution of these photos. They all have a dreamlike quality which captures a mood that I found permeates the landscape in that part of the world during the short amount of time I have spent there. These shots make me want to go back and explore. They make me jealous. Here are two of my favorites. The descriptions below each shot are his, and there is this relevant disclaimer on the main page of each set:

Some multi-exposure compositing, contrast adjustments and minor cloning on some of these, but the lighting FX and color are all done in-camera. These are not Photoshop creations.

Decrepit truck scale station at the East Garrison of Fort Ord, an abandoned Army base near Monterey, CA. As of this posting, it may already be demolished . . .

Night, full moon, 2 minutes f 5.6, green-gelled strobe flash, red-gelled flashlight.

shadowoflightproject took Joe Reifer and I all over the Antelope valley earlier this month and this was one of my favorite stops that night: A pair of abandoned tour-busses for the Velvet Knights Drum Corps.

Gigantic on black velvet.

We had to hike cross country 1/4 mile out to the busses and we had only managed to set up a shot or 2 before I started popping red and green flashes. That brought spotlights on us instantly. Moments later a pickup truck began driving around the perimeter of the field, so we bolted back to our cars and tore off to the next location . . . Yeah, totally my fault we got busted. Sorry guys.

Night, full moon, 2 minutes, red and green gelled strobe flash.

Also check out the Abandoned Food Bank set which is what initially brought this user to my attention. Thanks to Lost America for the great pics.

Darpa's Glove

Noah Shachtman's article, Be More Than You Can Be, in this months Wired looks at some stupefying technology being developed by Darpa, the defense department agency that pursues strange and sometimes outlandish technologies in the name of American military prowess. Shachtman sums up Darpa nicely in the article:

The Advanced Research Projects Agency was founded in 1958 (the D was added in 1972) as a place to noodle around on ideas too big, or too far out, for the Cold War military-industrial complex. The results can sometimes be spectacular failures (nuclear hand grenade, anyone?). But Darpa has also pushed the development of some things that have become part of the fabric of military and civilian life: wearable computers, long-range drone aircraft, night vision, even the M16 rifle and the computer mouse.

The article focuses on Darpa's recent ventures into building better soldiers instead of just building better tools. Specifically there's a device dubbed "The Glove," designed by biologists at Stanford, which is truly remarkable. If you're not going to read the entire article, it's worth reading the first few paragraphs where Shachtman describes his first encounter with The Glove:

The lab is climate-controlled to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and 66 percent humidity. Sitting inside the cramped room, even for a few minutes, is an unpleasantly moist experience. I’ve spent the last 40 minutes on a treadmill angled at a 9 percent grade. My face is chili-red, my shirt soaked with sweat. My breath is coming in short, unsatisfactory gasps. The sushi and sake I had last night are in full revolt. The tiny speakers on the shelf blasting “Living on a Prayer” are definitely not helping.

Then Dennis Grahn, a lumpy Stanford University biologist and former minor-league hockey player, walks into the room. He nods in my direction and smiles at a technician. “Looks like he’s ready,” Grahn says.

Grahn takes my hand and slips it into a clear, coffeepot-looking contraption he calls the Glove. Inside is a hemisphere of metal, cool to the touch. He tightens a seal around my wrist; a vacuum begins pulling blood to the surface of my hand, and the cold metal chills my blood before it travels through my veins back to my core. After five minutes, I feel rejuvenated. Never mind the hangover. Never mind Bon Jovi. I keep going for another half hour.

Shachtman discusses the article on BoingBoing's most recent podcast, one of their more entertaining episodes to date. There's also a second recent article by Shachtman on the same Darpa research.

Sunday Videos

This week your Sunday Videos showcase people with unique and impressive skills. These are talents that don't have much practical application besides intimidating and wowing, but they are great for blowing minds. Happy streaming.

Splits

Hard to say how many cars he clears, but its a lot. Heroic.

Head Spin

Here are two more nifty tricks requiring use of the head.

Foosball

I'm assuming these moves are legal during actual play, which would make these skills very useful in foosball hustling. Anyone know if that's true?

Beatbox

Perfect for serenading. Ladies love the beatbox, flutebox, clipbox, and frenchbox.

Haka

Haka puts the fear in your opponent. Serious intimidation, seriously awesome.

You Don't Know Jack Online

The classic computer trivia game from my adolescence, You Don't Know Jack, is now available to play for free online! I've only been able to give the online version a quick glance today, but I'm happy to say that its signature smarm seems to be intact. Just hearing the host's voice takes me straight back to hormone soaked afternoons in front of the Wasserstrom's PC, playing round after round of YDKJ until dinner time. Oh, the many Jack Attacks. If you've never given it a whirl, try it out. I don't think its wit will be lost on adults. And if, like me, you played back in the day, find the time to take a stroll down memory lane.

Update: There are only three seven question YDKJ games available to play, and I take back my remark about the game's wit not being lost on adults. It's really not as clever as I remember it being when I was sixteen. Oh well. It's still cute.

Flickr Wednesday

Here are a two photos from Colorado to send winter on its way. Check out a set of darkmatter's best for more beautiful shots.

The Century of the Self

Adam Curtis' four part BBC series from 2002, The Century of the Self, is available for streaming on Google Video, and in the past two weeks I've been able to watch the first three hours of it. Highly recommended. It's the type of unsettling, introspective material that would never air on American television, demonstrating what a valuable resource TV on the Internet can be. The program delves into the history of propaganda, public-relations and marketing in the U.S. since the end of World War II, and it traces the use of psychoanalytic techniques and their later revisions by advertisers to consciously manipulate the masses, giving rise to the faux individualistic consumerism of the current era. It's a part of American history we all should be more aware of, and something high-schoolers ought to be studying in their Media and Advertising Literacy classes. (I wish.) Seriously though, it's a fascinating program.

Here's a excerpt from the series' website:

To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

If you can find the time to watch, here is Part 1:


And here are the links to Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Happy streaming everyone.

Giant Snowflakes

Today in the New York Times Science Section there's a cool little article about the bizarre phenomenon of snow flakes as big as frisbees. For years, reports of giant snowflakes have understandably been laughed off, but in light of new research it appears they are actually real! Snippet from the article:

Since at least the 19th century, people have periodically claimed to see giant snowflakes falling from the sky — big ones the size of saucers and plates or even larger, their edges turned up, their heaviness making them descend faster than small flakes.

But the evidence was always sketchy and, because of the fragile nature of snowflakes, fleeting. The giant flakes were not quite in the category of sea monsters or U.F.O.’s. Even so, skeptics noted the human fondness for exaggeration, as well as the lack of convincing photographs. And the organizations that compile weather records never made tracking big flakes an observational requirement. So the giants languished in a twilight world of science, their existence claimed but seldom documented.

Now, theorists, weather historians and field observers are concluding that most of the reports are true and that unusually large snowflakes two to six inches wide and perhaps wider fall regularly around the globe, surprisingly big and fluffy, if seldom witnessed or celebrated. Guinness World Records lists the largest snowflakes as having fallen during a storm in January 1887 at Fort Keogh, in Montana. A rancher nearby, the book says, called them “larger than milk pans” and measured one at 15 inches wide. But no corroborating evidence supports the claim.

The one thing this article is missing is mention of the great Vermonter, Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, a pioneer in the field of photography, he was the first person to ever capture a snow crystal on film. I wonder if he ever laid eyes on a monster flake himself.

Sunday Videos

For the second time, the theme for your Sunday Videos is innovative and awesome design. This week enjoy five videos which capture a variety of potential human futures.

Jules the Android

Courtesy of Robotmessiah comes the most ambitious and lifelike android I've ever seen. The creators of Jules, Hanson Robotics, are also responsible for the Einstein android and the (missing) Philip K. Dick android which you may have seen bouncing around the internet in the past year. For some even more impressive robotics, check out the weather-bot that runs on house-flies (three minutes in).

The Future of Windows

From boing a while back, the Dutch architecture firm, Hofman Dujardin have rethought the window and given us the Bloomframe. Check out the vision of Jacque Fresco and the always marvelous Earthship for two more clips about evolving the design of everyday things to make our lives more beautiful and practical.

Chair from the Future

My personal favorite for obvious reasons. I am very curious as to how much it weighs.

Replacing the Etch A Sketch

It now seems likely the in the near future we'll be encouraging our kids to draw on the walls. This wonderful invention probably uses the same technology as the Graffiti Research Lab's laser pointer graffiti system, which reminds me to link to this clip.

The Future of Rain Gear

No subtitles, but you get the point; there's always room for improvement.

Flickr Wednesday

This week's flickr shots hail from the Republic of Maldives. With so much spring in the air this week, I thought I could amplify the longing that accompanies the end of winter by posting a couple of pictures that could've come from a tourist brochure, or even better, a dream about heaven.

How about that hammock? Oof. Hurts to look at, don't it? And, if I do say so myself, it clashes nicely with the anti-meth ad below.

Aronofsky's Big Sky Meth Campaign

The Montana Meth Project, now the largest advertiser in the state of Montana according to their website, recently launched a new ad campaign targeting teens: "Meth, Not Even Once." The imaginative and innovative film director, Darren Aronofsky, worked on the television portion of this campaign, and the result is 12 bleak, disturbing TV spots available for watching here. Here' s a snippet from the Montana Meth Project's press release:

The new campaign takes a darkly ironic look at the dangers of Meth use to those closest to the users. In one of the television ads, the voice of a girl tells how much her boyfriend loves and protects her while the filmed image conveys a much different picture of the boyfriend permitting a drug dealer to have sex with her in exchange for Meth. Another has the protagonist speak of how loyal her friends are while the image shows them dumping her body in front of a hospital after an apparent overdose then speeding away in a car.

I find the ads to be the best anti-drug commercials I can remember seeing. After a lifetime of transparent anti-drug campaigns that equate marijuana with crack-cocaine, it's nice to see one that's hard-hitting and easy to get behind. For more about the American Meth Epidemic, I recommend watching the Frontline episode from last year.

Parkour on Google Vid

I realize that this blog is presently dominated by media recommendations instead of original content, but I can't help it.

Last night I had the chance to watch this BBC documentary about Parkour in Britain, and I rather enjoyed it. Check it out to learn about the rapid evolution of the sport and philosophy of Free Running, and while you're at it, get blown away by the potential of the human body inside the urban environment. Exciting stuff. Happy streaming.

Sunday Videos

This week your Sunday Videos is just a Sunday Video. Last night at a place called The Baggot Inn, the band Staring Contest (aka Shitstorm!) performed their brand of improvisational ambient noise rock for a crowd of confused and perhaps distraught patrons after a set from Receptor - the greatest band from the 90s formed in the past five years - who had rocked everyone's faces off. I had the privilege of putting together the visual portion of Shitstorm!'s live show and was able to capture pieces of the ensemble's recital in 3 minute clips as my camera allows. So without further ado, I give you ten minutes of Shitstorm!:

For context I recommend looking at Receptor's myspace page where you can hear their encore, "Unbound," (Can you feel the flow?) and check out this photo to get a feeling for their presentation. Honestly, I don't want to poke fun, but there were people who were sincerely enjoying these guys, and that, to me, is distressing.

Flickr Wednesday

This week I've put together a set culled from pics with the tag Tehran. There are many beautiful, eye-opening images in that collection of nearly 14,000. These are just a few:

Pomegranate seeds.

More great images from the Iranian festival Chaharshanbe Suri -- Red Wednesday, or Wednesday Fire -- here, here, here, and here.

There are anti-American murals like this one surrounding the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran. You can see more of them here, here, and here.

Fallen into the Horse's Eye.

Battlestar Iraqtica

I had a chance to hear a Studio 360 episode from two weeks ago during my commute yesterday, Iraq & Company, and I wanted to call it to the attention of those of you who are BSG fans. Cylon aggression on New Caprica as metaphor for the American occupation of Iraq? You know it. From the website:

In the 1960s and 70s, Hollywood turned to the Western to depict the racial, moral, and military issues of the Vietnam War. Today, directors and screenwriters are again grappling with war indirectly, through genres like fantasy and science fiction. Critics Lisa Schwartzbaum and Laura Miller show us how the war in Iraq gets addressed in the movie Children of Men and television's Battlestar Galactica. Produced by Eric Molinsky

If you've never watched Battlestar then there's a good chance you are like I was when I was first told to check it out; highly skeptical. Listen to the show. Laura Miller relates the plight of BSG fans in their effort to be taken seriously quite well. It's good television. Get on the bandwagon.

Inside Tehran

If you are like me, you know very little about Iran and its capital city, Tehran, but thanks to the BBC and google video, you can take a free crash course on Tehran and its people. The city is bigger than New York and more alive than I imagined, and, most surprising of all, crack cocaine and crystal meth are a growing problem in the middle and upper classes. I was blown away by the beauty and complexity of Tehran as portrayed in this BBC special hosted by Rageh Omaar, so turn off your TV and tune into to TV on the internet.



You probably already know, but google video is full of quality documentaries. With so much content to choose from, there's something to suit everyone's tastes. Happy streaming.

Oprah and "The Secret"

Two weeks ago as I was leaving the office I got on an elevator and walked into a conversation about Oprah and her latest thing. I couldn't help but overhear one middle-aged woman explain to another that "the website for the secret has crashed because [Oprah] plugged the book on her show today." The Secret? Was this related to the ridiculous youtube clip from a movie of the same name that I'd recently stumbled on and posted to S&P as an oddity? So I butted in. Yes, the book Oprah had plugged and subsequently crashed the website of was indeed the same "Law of Attraction" self-help silliness I had happened upon on the web. This came to light after I described to them the clip I'd seen, and they in turn told me there is also a DVD called "The Secret" that Oprah was schilling. Then we shared a laugh about Oprah's patent PR and marketing power. I cut myself off when the conversation turned to the bible, and how it's the original self help book that's been teaching the secret for thousands of years to anyone paying attention. Note to self: When Oprah starts hawking them, buy stock in bibles.

Today I came across an article from salon.com, called Oprah's Ugly Secret, and as I read it, the happy disdain I have sometimes felt for Oprah (For instance while watching her recent hour long "Road Hogs" infomercial during which she and John Travolta traded such touching stories about how hard it is to be a rich celebrity and still maintain that down-to-earth wholesomeness which endears them to us so.) blossomed into actual disgust. I urge you to read it, but if you don't have time to look at the entire piece, check out the last few paragraphs which do a fine job of summing up the author's sentiment:

The promises of Oprah culture can seem irresistible, and its hallmarks are becoming ubiquitous. Believers may be separated into tribes according to what they believe, but they do it in pretty much the same way, relying on a "Secret"-style conception of "intuition" --- which seems to amount to the sneaking suspicion that they're always right -- to arrive at their tenets. Instead of the world as it is, constantly changing and full of contradiction, they see a fixed and fantastical place, where good things come to those who believe, whether it's belief in a diet, a God, or a Habit of Successful People. These believers may believe in the healing power of homeopathy, or Scripture or organizational skills -- in intelligent design, astrology or privatization. They all trust that their devotion will be rewarded with money and boyfriends and job promotions, with hockey championships and apartments. And most of all they believe -- they really, really believe -- in themselves.

For these believers, self-knowledge is much less important than self-"love." But the question they never seem to ask themselves is: If you wouldn't tell another person you loved her before you got to know her, why would you do that to yourself? Skipping the getting-to-know-you part has given us what we deserve: the Oprah culture. It's a culture where superstition is "spirituality," illiteracy is "authenticity," and schoolmarm moralism is "character." It's a culture where people apologize by saying, "I'm sorry you took offense at what I said," and forgive by saying, "I'm not angry at you anymore, I'm grateful to you for teaching me not to trust shitheads like you." And that's the part that should bother us most: the diminishing, even implicit mocking, of genuine goodness, and of authentic spiritual concerns and practices. Engagement, curiosity and active awe are in short supply these days, and it's sickening to see them devalued and misrepresented.

Not that any of this is new. Aimee Semple McPherson, "The Power of Positive Thinking," Father Coughlin, est, James Van Praagh -- pick your influential snake-oil salesman or snake oil. They were all cut from the same cloth as Oprah and "The Secret." The big, big difference is, well, the bigness. The infinitely bigger reach of the Oprah empire and its emissaries. They make their predecessors look like kids with lemonade stands. It would be stupidly dangerous to dismiss Oprah and "The Secret" as silly, or ultimately meaningless. They're reaching more people than Harry Potter, for God-force's sake. That's why what Oprah does matters, and stinks. If you reach more people than Bill O'Reilly, if you have better name recognition than Nelson Mandela, if the books you endorse sell more than Stephen King's, you should take some responsibility for your effect on the culture. The most powerful woman in the world is taking advantage of people who are desperate for meaning, by passionately championing a product that mocks the very idea of a meaningful life.

That means something.

Sunday Videos

This week your Sunday Videos celebrate the wonder of flight. Flying is marvelous. Here is the proof:

Flying on Snow

A fantasy come true, kite skiing needs to be featured in a Bond chase scene. There is more kite skiing on youtube here and here, and here is a kite surfing video that stands out for the impressive number of kites in the shot.

Fly Low

The Deassault Mirage F1 of France skims the dessert floor using Terrain-following Radar.

The Moth

Hypnotizing. Also a sad metaphor for a million things like life in the 21st century or, if you're feeling more literal, the glass ceiling.

Geese Migration

It's always moving for to watch these images. More Winged Migration clips on youtube here.

RC Ornithopter

The thing I want most as I write this is an RC Ornithopter. Wow. More here.

And now two Bonus Videos which aren't perfect for a celebration of flying but deserve to be included.

Extreme Pogo


Celebrate Better


Sorry there weren't any hang-gliding or sky-diving videos included. There are too many to choose from. Hope everyone's weekend was a good one. Thanks for watching. Enjoy the week.