Just one movie for you today, and it’s great as it is
bizarre, surreal, and funny.
In 2009, Vimeo developer Casey Pugh had a dream: to
create an entire remake of the original Star Wars: A New Hope using only 15
second fan-made clips; they could recreate the scenes whichever way they
wanted, whether using action figures, beer bottles, animation or dogs. Now, a
2010 Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media
later, the entire crowd-sourced project has been completed.
You can see the completed fan-made Star Wars Uncut:
Director's Cut,below. The two hour film includes animation, live
action, puppets, Lego figures, and the weirdest collection of 15 second clips
ever assembled into one delightful pastiche that pays tribute to George Lucas’s
groundbreaking film.
Thanks to Gothamist for bringing
this to my attention.
Have you ever wondered how they made those little round
balls that passed as bullets in the olden days? You know the type I mean.
Small, round, lead balls that had to be rammed down the barrels of primitive
muskets and pistols, before they could be fired at an assailant or enemy
combatant. Well, today’s Things You Discover Walking entry provides the
answer.
A couple of kilometres from the home I am currently house
sitting (in the Melbourne suburb of Fitzroy North), is a tall chimney-like
structure that towers high over the neighbourhood of Clifton Hill. A little
research reveals the column to be the Clifton Hill Shot Tower, a structure that
was first erected in 1882.
...
Would you like to hazard a guess at the number of bricks that went into the towers construction?
...
But what exactly is a ‘shot tower’?
“A shot tower is a tower designed for the production of
shot balls by freefall of molten lead, which is then caught in a water basin.
The shot is used for projectiles in firearms.” ~ Wikipedia
Let’s examine this process in more detail. Inside the shot tower,
lead was heated until molten before it was passed through a copper sieve high
up in the tower (presumably, the furnace to melt the lead was located at the
top of the tower). As the molten lead dropped through the air it solidified as
it fell, and the surface tension generated by the fall, formed tiny spherical
balls.
The partially cooled balls dropped into a pool of water at
the bottom of the tower where they were left to cool down completely. And that
in a nut shell is how lead shot used to be made before the development of
modern bullets.
To make larger shot sizes, a copper sieve with larger holes
was used. However, the maximum size of the lead shot was limited by the height
of the tower, because larger shot sizes needed to fall farther to give them
time to cool.
Originally, molten lead was poured into moulds of various sizes to create lead shot, but as you can imagine, this was a long, slow, time consuming process. The advent of the shot tower sped up the process considerably until even newer modern methods were developed.
Clifton Hill Shot Tower
...
The Clifton Hill Shot Tower rises 49 metres (160 ft), and
can be found on the corner of Alexandra Parade and Copper Lane. The tower (the
tallest shot tower ever built in Australia), was operated by the Coops family,
who also managed the Coops Shot Tower. Remarkably, this tower has also been
preserved and can be seen inside the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre. Both
towers are on the Victorian Heritage Register.
Modern methods for producing lead shot for shotgun shells,
have of course done away for the need for shot towers, but many examples of
these fascinating relics of a bygone age still survive.
Two of the oldest towers still standing are the Jackson
Ferry Shot Tower in Wythe County, Virginia. This was built in the 1790s, and is
now part of a state park and open to the public during the tourist season.
Another is the Chester Shot Tower, in Boughton, England. This tower, built in
1799, is the oldest surviving shot tower in the Britain. Other examples still
survive in countries as diverse as Germany, Finland, New Zealand, and
elsewhere.
Clifton Hill Shot Tower
...
So there you have it: the Clifton Hill Shot Tower. It now
stands like a silent sentinel on a nondescript corner just metres from the
entrance to Melbourne’s Eastern Freeway.
It would be wonderful to see the tower turned into more than
just an old relic from a bygone era – I’m sure the view from the top would be
well worth the climb – but sadly, money, politics, and planning constraints
will no doubt conspire to stop that.
If you are a keen moviegoer like I am, you will almost
certainly be familiar with the elevated railway lines that are used to such
great effect in films like The French Connection, Saturday Night Fever, and
the opening credits of Welcome Back Kotter. While most of the elevated
lines in New York City (colloquially referred to as the ‘El’), have long
disappeared from Manhattan, wonderful examples of these amazing engineering
works can still be seen in Queens and Brooklyn. However, a short section of
elevated line for the ‘1’ Train still soars high above Broadway and 125th
Street in Harlem.
Manhattan’s most famous surviving section of elevated line
today must surely be the formerly abandoned, by now newly renovated west side
line. This has undergone a new lease of life, and been reborn as the incredibly
popular High Line (see Walking The High Line, Street View Comes to The High Line, and here...). All of which serves to introduce today’s
series of Monday Movies featuring the former Third Avenue El.
If Things Could Talk: The Vanishing ‘El’ [10:00]
As the name implies, the Third Avenue El, ran the length of
Manhattan’s Third Avenue before crossing over into the Bronx. The first
segments of the line opened in Manhattan in 1878, and service continued before
the line was eventually shut down in stages – beginning with the Manhattan
sections in the 1950s – before the complete shut down of the Bronx section in
1973.
The Third Avenue El was featured in a number of films,
including The Lost Weekend (1945),The Naked City (1948), On
the Town (1949), The Killer That Stalked New York (1950), and On
the Bowery (1956).
The 3rd Avenue El [10:39]
In this film a beatnik photographer with a tripod, a
stumbling drunk from the old Bowery, a giddy little girl travelling with her
father, and a couple on a romantic excursion help create a loose narrative of
life on the old El.
~ After an exhausting eight hour day wandering around central
Melbourne – buying books and visiting the Melbourne Museum and the Australian
Centre for The Moving Image (ACMI), I returned to my house sitting base in
Fitzroy North, and pretty much collapsed from the effort.
It doesn’t bode well for the rest of my five week stay, but
I’m sure I will adjust to the routine – as long as I don’t make the purchase of
books a regular part of that routine. Personally, I thought my Training For
Travel program of daily hour long walks would have prepared me better for the
rigours of extended city walking, but of course, there is a big difference
between walking for an hour, and being on my feet for at least seven of the
eight hours I was out and about yesterday.
Right now, I am still in recovery mode. Thankfully, my feet
are complaining less, and my back is a lot happier now that I am spending most
of the day reading, writing, and relaxing. But watch out, body, tomorrow we hit
the streets again. So suck it up, and make the most of your layover day. The
adventure is only beginning.
One of the many things I love about New York City is the range of amazing musicians and singers who eke out a living performing across the city’s subway network. Actually, ‘eke out’ may be the wrong expression. Judging by the amount of money some of these musicians are able to earn in tips (based on my observations), they may in fact be making quite a good living.
Of course, this only applies to the best of the performers, but then to survive as a performer on New York’s subway stations you have to be more than good, you have to be very good. So today, I thought I’d feature some short films that focus on a few of these subway singers.
The first film was uploaded to YouTube by a person using the pseudonym/profile name: mybs86. Regarding the video s/he writes:
"okay- what you are about to watch is a true new york experience. what originally started out as a typical nyc subway ride ... turned into an awesome performance by two people who have never met before. i captured the whole thing on video.
the singer continued with another great song after the entire subway car demanded an encore. her name is jessica latshaw- make sure to check out her music."
Whether the meeting of musicians was a set up or not is immaterial. It’s a great clip, and Jessica exudes confidence and charisma by the bucket full. Jessica Latshaw has her own Facebook profile [https://www.facebook.com/jesslatshaw], so if you feel so inclined – get in touch and become a Friend/Follower.
Thanks to Gothamist for bringing the Jessica Latshaw video to our attention.
Below New York
Below New York is the name of a documentary for CamLin Productions, whose first feature
“…is a unique and stylized look at some of New York City's finest subway performers, musicians and artists.
The film draws the audience into the amazing lives these local performers lead, and how their quest for a venue and sustenance adds a truly wonderful aesthetic to one of the greatest cities in the world.”
Below New York – Select Blendz
One of the groups featured in the Below New York documentary is Select Blendz, an (almost) a’ Capella group that clearly has the doo-wop thing down pat. I say ‘almost’ because they do include an upright bass player in their lineup. This second clip showcases the group on an unnamed New York subway station.
In my first post for the year (Welcome to 2012), I
mentioned that many people have found ways to indulge their love of travel,
often for extended periods of time, and that if you are prepared to make the
commitment and sacrifice, you too can travel sooner rather than later. What I
didn't include in that post, however, were links to some of the many blogs and
websites from these travellers. So today, I have decided to address that
omission.
All the travellers highlighted have embarked on amazing
personal journey's that often defy logic, logistics, money, and maybe even
common sense. But as I also wrote in that entry:
“You will … encounter naysayers,
sceptics, and critics who will argue that the world is filled with dangers
lurking around every corner – as if watching an hour of the evening news
doesn’t reinforce that time and time again.
Then there are others who argue
that you need to knuckle down and focus on finding a life partner, or family,
or career, or homebuilding, or making a fortune, or [add your own inner
nagging voice].”
The intrepid travellers noted below, have all chosen to ignore
the critics and live their dreams.
Bearing the tag line: An ongoing adventure of travel and
living while using a wheelchair, Tim and Darryl Musik’s website is a
detailed record of the father and son’s travels across America and further
afield. Tim has been disabled from birth. Darryl is his father and caregiver.
Together they have embarked on journeys to Austria, Belgium, Dominican
Republic, England, France/Monaco, Germany, Ireland, Mexico and throughout the
United States.
Filled with numerous images and short, high quality videos,
The World on Wheels is always positive, uplifting, and insightful. And it shows
that confinement to a wheelchair is no excuse for staying home, when there is a
world of wonders waiting to be discovered and experienced.
Someone else who is exploring ‘the world on wheels’ is
Keiichi Iwasaki. In April 2001, the Japanese national, then aged 28 decided to
ride his bicycle across Japan. He had just 160 yen (around $2) in his pocket.
His plan was to perform magic tricks wherever the opportunity presented itself,
and to pay for his bike ride as he went. Keiichi not only completed his ride
across Japan, but he enjoyed it so much he caught a ferry to South Korea and
kept going. Ten years, thousands of miles and dozens of countries later,
according to this September 2011 report on the National Geographic
website,
Keiichi is still riding – and still paying his way by performing magic
tricks.
Along the way he has been robbed by pirates; arrested in
India; nearly died after being attacked by a rabid dog in Tibet, and narrowly
escaped marriage in Nepal! But he has also climbed both Mont Blanc and Mount
Everest; used a rowboat to travel from the source of the Ganges River in India
to the sea (a distance of over 800 miles), and also rowed across the Caspian
Sea just because he wanted to see “…how big Caspian sea is?” It took him 25
days.
Irish author Dervla Murphy has written over twenty travel
books, many documenting the details of her journeys by bicycle across an
incredible range of countries. In 1963, at the age of 32, Dervla embarked on
her first major bike ride – from Dunkirk, France to India, and wrote her first
book Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, about that ride. Still
travelling at 80, she recently published her latest book, The Island That
Dared: Journeys in Cuba.
German born, Christoph Rehage set out on November 9th, 2007
– his 26th birthday – to walk from the Chinese capital Beijing to Bad Nenndorf
in Germany. One year and 4600+ kilometres later he ended his walk – still in
China – at Urümqi, a couple hundred kilometres shy of the border with
Kyrgyzstan. Although he didn’t complete his walk, Cristoph (who now studies in
Berlin), writes that “…getting as far as I got was an experience for which I am
very grateful.”
His website, The Longest Way, documents his walk in great
detail, with this time lapse film of the journey receiving over a million hits.
Someone who did complete his walk across America was Matt
Green, who walked from Rockaway Beach, Long Island, to Rockaway Beach, Oregon, crossing New York state, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois,
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Washington, and finally
Oregon. After roughly five months, 3,000 miles, and 1500 blog entries, Matt said:
“A couple years ago I started a walking group called
Hey, I’m Walkin’ Here! in New York City, and my love for walking really
blossomed over the course of our adventures. Moving through the world at three
miles an hour, you can fully take in your surroundings. There’s nothing
separating you from your environment. You notice things that go completely
undetected by people zooming by in cars. It’s such a rich experience: you can
see, hear, and smell everything around you, and even touch and taste things if
you feel like it.”
Having completed his walk across America, Matt began 2012
with the goal of walking every street across the five boroughs of New York
City. As you would expect, he is documenting this challenge on his website I’m Just Walkin’ (NYC)…
Want more? Check out this list of people
who have also walked across the United States.
Tara Alan & Tyler Kellen set up Going Slowly in February
2008, to document their bicycle tour around the world. That epic ride may be
over – but the website acts as a permanent scrapbook of their many adventures together.
Also going slowly are Anna Rice and Alex Hayton. Anna and
Alex are currently undertaking a year long round the world journey by rail,
road, ship and whatever other forms of transport they can arrange – short of
flying. They have decided to embrace the concept of slow travel with all its
joys and challenges, aiming to eat and sleep locally, and travel with as small
a carbon footprint as possible.
Ok, I know I have chosen some pretty extreme examples, and I
don’t expect you to walk or ride in the footsteps of the people mentioned. But
the point of this entry is to push home the message that anything is possible
if you are prepared to make the commitment and sacrifice to see your travel
dreams come to fruition.
Folks, if it was easy – everyone would be doing it!
It isn’t easy, but as the examples above show, it is
doable. So remember…
“Whatever
you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness
has genius, power and magic in it!” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
On both my trips to New York City in 2008 and 2010, I have
at various times found myself wandering through Zuccotti Park. Strictly
speaking, it is more of a plaza than a traditional park, and in fact it used to
be known as Liberty Plaza Park. Created in 1968, the park was one of the few
open spaces with tables and seats in the Financial District. It is located just
one block from the World Trade Center. Following the events of September 11,
2001 it was left covered with debris, and subsequently used as a staging area
during the ensuing recovery efforts.
As part of the Lower Manhattan rebuilding efforts, the park
(renamed Zuccotti Park in honor of John E. Zuccotti, a former City Planning
Commission chairman), reopened on June
1, 2006, after an $8 million renovation which involved regrading the area, the
planting of numerous trees, and the reintroduction of tables and public seating.
The park is home to two sculptures: Joie de Vivre by
Mark di Suvero, and Double Check, a bronze businessman sitting on a
bench, by John Seward Johnson II.
Double Check, John Seward Johnson
When I first saw Johnson’s life sized statue of a
businessman sitting on a bench, I was some distance away. Initially, I thought
the figure was one of those ‘human statues’ that can be seen in many major
cities around the world. You know the sort I mean: they cover their clothing in
paint, strike a fancy pose, and only move if you put a coin or two in their tip
jar.
On closer inspection, I realised that this incredibly
life-like figure was forged in bronze. Apparently, the artist John Seward
Johnson II, uses casts of real people as the basis of his work, which accounts
for the realism of his sculptures.
Double Check, John Seward Johnson
Joie de Vivre, seen below and in the top image, is a
70-foot-tall sculpture by Mark di Suvero. The work, consisting of bright-red
beams, was installed in Zuccotti Park in 2006, having been moved from its original
location in the Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY.
Mark di Suvero's, Joie de Vivre
Of course, since I was last in New York City, and by
extension Zuccotti Park, the area has become known around the world as the
location of the "Occupy Wall Street" protest which began on September
17, 2011. It will be interesting to see if the OWS protests are still taking
place when I visit New York again over the summer of 2012.
Here is a short video I shot during my April, 2008 visit to
the park.
Blogging can be such a thankless task. Most of us do it because we think we have something of value to offer, or because we like to contribute in some way to the body of knowledge and information that multiplies at an exponential rate across the Internet.
Some bloggers, myself included, try to reap some small monetary reward for the hours of writing, researching, photo editing, and everything else that goes into maintaining a blog. We do this by running Google and Amazon ads on our sites, but the vast majority of bloggers, again, myself included, make no income worth talking about via these ads.
Still, we live in hope that one day, we will begin to earn something worth boasting about. So when someone sends you an email enquiring about the possibility of buying ad space on your blog, your heart tends to leap in anticipation of the riches that might be waiting.
Well, folks, a couple of days ago I got one of those emails, and this post recounts the sorry tale as a warning to other bloggers and webmasters. Here is the complete text of the first message I got from a Maxence Leclerc:
To: Webmaster From: Maxence Leclerc mleclerc@nami-agency.com Message: Hi, We are looking for new advertisement platforms and we are interested in your site compleattraveller.com. Is it possible to place banner on your site on a fee basis? Best regards, Maxence Leclerc
On replying to M Leclerc that it was definately possible to place a banner ad on my site, I recieved this reply:
Hello, Thanks for reply to our proposal! I represent Nami Agency. At the moment we are preparing an advertising campaign for Lacoste Company (it is a French company producing clothes, footwear, perfumery etc.) We already have designed banners for the campaign, they are the following sizes: 160x600, 240x400, 300x250, 336x280, 468x60, 728x90. What can be your price for one banner (banner should appear at ALL pages of your site) of abovementioned sizes (please specify the place for the banner – top, bottom, left, right)? Please mention a normal link for banner, without javascript code and set prices in US dollars per month. Best regards, Maxence Leclerc. site: www.nami-agency.com e-mail: mleclerc@nami-agency.com phone: + (0)9 78 62 68 47
Well, as the saying goes, "There's one born every minute," and for about four or five days I was that person.
It now turns out that M Leclerc has been very active spamming blogs and websites at random across the internet in an effort to scam as many people as possible. The gist of the scam seems to be that once he has agreed to your price (and he always agrees), you have to install a piece of code on your blog or website which displays the agreed to advertisement.
I have not been able to find out yet what this code does to computers, blogs, or websites. It may be that the scam simply involves the blogger/webmaster installing Leclerc's ad code across their website, which results in Leclerc getting all the income that may result from visitors clicking on his ad and completing a purchase. In effect, Leclerc is piggy-backing his ads onto other peoples websites. We do all the work, but he reaps the rewards.
Sweet.
For him.
But it is a bitter pill for us, the webmasters and bloggers.
As someone who has been online in one form or another for at least 15 years, I thought I was too smart to get caught out by scammers, but the prospect of turning my blog into some sort of money earner clouded my judgement, and I too *almost* got sucked in by M. Leclerc.
I say almost, because right now I am waiting for him to get back to me about a 'quote' for an ad placement on my website. I did check out the Nami Agency site, but did not think to Google his name, otherwise I would have saved myself a lot of trouble and dashed hopes.
The Google search reveals more than one person going under the name 'Maxence Leclerc', and of course this scammer may or may not be one of the listed people. In fact, it is almost certain that none of the people so named are the perpetrators of this scam. I further Google search reveals that this attempted rip off has also been carried out under the names of 'Martin Dumont', 'Gabriel Petit', and 'Evan Hubert'.
Anyway, I just thought I should write about this scam today. If you are a fellow blogger or webmaster - be warned. M Leclerc is on the prowl sowing the seeds for his scam even as you read this.
~ I have said it before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat it from time to time: the world
really is a beautiful place, and the two films I have selected today for the
Monday Movies reflect that very much. The first is a stunning seven minute NASA video of footage
shot from the international space station and presumably from various Space
Shuttle flights. The video is narrated by Dr. Justin Wilkinson from NASA's
astronaut team.
In the film you can see some of the planet’s most impressive
landscapes, including the coast of Namibia, Tunisia and Madagascar, along with
Sicily, China, the Zagros mountains in Iran, Australia’s Gulf of Carpenteria,
and the Great Salt Lake in Utah to name some of the birds-eye views on offer.
The second video is less than three minutes in length, but
shows a full year in the life of our nearest neighbour – the moon. The
time-lapse footage is quite hypnotic, but for me the real impact comes from
comparing the views that both films offer of life in our universe. The stark
contrast between the ever changing, blue, green and red landscape that is our
beautiful planet, with that of the bare pockmarked surface of the moon, is
frighteningly obvious.
As I said about another recent Monday Movie featuring
different footage from the International Space Station:
"... if you think we humans are going to find a
better place elsewhere in the universe – you are kidding yourself. This is it.
This really is as good as it gets, and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we
can focus on protecting the planet, and doing everything possible to ensure it,
and we, survive for many future generations."
Touring The Earth From Space
-o0o-
A Year in The Life of The Moon
If you were stuck somewhere far away from the recent lunar
eclipse, here’s some consolation courtesy of NASA. The Scientific Visualization
Studio at the Goddard Space Flight Center has put together this two and
a half minute video from over a year’s worth of data recorded by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), which has been
orbiting the moon at 50 kilometers above its surface for over a year.
It’s traditional to offer some homilies and reflections at
the end of one year, and at the beginning of a new one, and being a bit of a
traditionalist I am happy to add my few words to the millions that have been
written already, or to those that are being uploaded across the Internet as we
speak.
Last year was not the best in my extended family, coming as
it did with the loss in May (at age 70), of an older brother, George. There was
also the untimely passing of a brother-in-laws much loved mother, and family
matriarch, Maureen (who lived a long and fulfilled life of 91 years). Of
course, all deaths are untimely, when it comes down to it, but Meg, as she was
affectionately known by one and all, passed away just a couple of weeks before
Christmas, and any death close to Christmas seems to have more impact than if
it had occurred well before significant events that are normally celebrated by
most families, or the larger community.
There were other deaths along the way, all of which served
to remind me that I am not getting younger, and that if I am going to make the
most of the rest of my life I need to focus my time and attention where I can
get the most benefit out of the years ahead. Of course, life marches to its own
beat, and it has a way of getting in the way of our best laid plans – no matter
how carefully we have made our arrangements.
So for myself, the new year begins with much reflection and
the hope that last year’s farewells will be the last I am going to see for some
time. The new year also begins with the promise – and planning – of new
journeys. Next week I head to Melbourne for a five week house sitting stint,
and in July and August I should be apartment sitting in New York City. Then
there is a much anticipated return to my ancestral home on the Greek island of
Ikaria – and another stay in Paris, France would not go amiss either.
Dear reader, life is finite. The clock is ticking.
Travel blogs are filled with comments from readers wishing
that they too could embark on journeys they have been daydreaming about, in
many instances, for years.
If this sound like you, take
heart. You can have your cake and eat it too – but you will have to
decide on your priorities. You will almost certainly have to sacrifice
something to make your dreams come true. And you will again, almost certainly,
have to overcome many doubts and fears to bring your dreams to fruition. You
will also encounter naysayers, sceptics, and critics who will argue that the
world is filled with dangers lurking around every corner – as if watching an
hour of the evening news doesn’t reinforce that time and time again.
Then there are others who argue that you need to knuckle
down and focus on finding a life partner, or family, or career, or
homebuilding, or making a fortune, or [add your own inner nagging voice].
Ignore them all. Travel blogs are also filled with articles
from people – young and old – who have decided to live the dream they have been
nurturing for many years, and who have left the 9-5 rat race behind to travel
the world, in many instances for years at a time.
Some work their way from country to country, others busk or
perform on city streets and subway station platforms. Travellers can join a
wide variety of networks and organizations filled with friendly people that are
happy to offer accommodation and advice for the passing traveller. All this
information and more is available online via the monitor or portable device you
are reading this post on right now.
Make a plan. It doesn’t matter if your plan is to travel in
five years instead of five months. The important thing is to make a plan and
stay focussed on it. Nurture it. Feed it. Grow it. Read, research, make notes,
make plans, make contact with fellow travellers, and aim to put some money
aside each week until you reach your ultimate goal – and departure date.
I say again – life is finite. The clock is ticking.
So, Love The Life You Live – or change it – and may all your
dreams and more come to pass in 2012.
