SUNDANCE / UT

VIOLETA WENT TO HEAVEN
DIRECTOR Andrés Wood SCREENWRITER Eliseo Altunaga
Chile/Argentina/Brazil/Spain, 2011, 110 min, color & b/w,
Spanish/French with English subtitles

Like a Chilean Edith Piaf or Bob Dylan, Violeta Parra was a folksinger and pop culture icon whose songs, like “Gracias a la Vida,” expressed the soul of her nation and protested social injustice. Violeta Went to Heaven tells Parra’s extraordinary story, tracing her evolution from impoverished child to international sensation to Chile’s national hero, while capturing the swirling intensity of her inner contradictions, fallibilities, and passions. Director Andrés Wood, whose films are distinguished for crystallizing Chile’s zeitgeist, wisely moves beyond linear biography, drawing on an impressionistic structure and a reverberating performance by actress Francisca Gavilán, to unearth the elusive, charged core of this magnetic character. Wood evocatively interweaves key set pieces from Parra’s life—her humble family roots, her Paris foray as a celebrated visual artist, her travels through Chile to preserve disappearing traditional culture, her tenuous hold on motherhood, and her tumultuous love life. And then there’s the music. Violeta’s heart-wrenching, indelible songs permeate this film, and they will penetrate the viewer’s soul. Sundance Film Festival

'How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?'

'How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr. Foster?'
Renowned British architect Norman Foster, known for grand modernist structures in international locales, gets the star treatment in a new documentary.

The film traces the rise of one of the world's premier architects, Norman Foster and his unending quest to improve the quality of life through design. Portrayed are Foster's origins and how his dreams and influences inspired the design of emblematic projects such as the largest building in the world Beijing Airport, the Reichstag, the Hearst Building in New York and works such as the tallest bridge ever in Millau France. In the very near future, the majority of mankind will abandon the countryside and live entirely in cities. Foster offers some striking solutions to the problems that this historic event will create.

Brave New World

Entrevista realizada en el año 1959 al autor de "Brave new world" (Un mundo feliz 1932) Aldous Huxley.

A Radical Revolution of Values

A Radical Revolution of Values
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be changed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war, "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." Martin Luther King Jr.

:: 1Q84 Haruki Murakami

:: 1Q84  Haruki Murakami

::

On Politics:

“I don’t think people think of America as a model anymore,” he said. “We don’t have any model at this moment. We have to establish the new model.”

::

The Barcelona Speech:

“I am 99 percent a fiction writer and 1 percent a citizen. As a citizen I have things to say, and when I have to do it, I do it clearly. After 1945, we have been working so hard and getting rich. But that kind of thing doesn’t continue anymore. We have to change our values. We have to think about how we can get happy. It’s not about money. It’s not about efficiency. It’s about discipline and purpose. What I wanted to say is what I’ve been saying since 1968: we have to change the system. I think this is a time when we have to be idealistic again.”

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On Writing:

“I live in Tokyo, a kind of civilized world — like New York or Los Angeles or London or Paris. If you want to find a magical situation, magical things, you have to go deep inside yourself. So that is what I do. People say it’s magic realism — but in the depths of my soul, it’s just realism. Not magical. While I’m writing, it’s very natural, very logical, very realistic and reasonable.”

Leoš Janáček - Sinfonietta
(Short Version)

— 1Q84

"The taxi’s radio was tuned to a classical FM broadcast. Janacek’s ‘Sinfonietta’ -- probably not the ideal music to hear in a taxi caught in traffic. The middle-aged driver didn’t seem to be listening very closely, either. With his mouth clamped shut, he stared straight ahead at the endless line of cars stretching out on the elevated expressway, like a veteran fisherman standing in the bow of his boat, reading the ominous confluence of two currents. Aomame settled into the broad back seat, closed her eyes, and listened to the music.” 

Leoš Janáček 
Sinfonietta

Source: The NYT

THE ASIA SERIES: Bob Dylan's Paintings

BOB DYLAN 
The Monk, 2009
Acrylic on canvas
48 x 36 inches (121.9 x 91.4 cm)
Photo by Joshua White


Legendary songwriter Bob Dylan is once again at the center of a controversy about plagiarism, but this time it's not about his words or his music — it's about his painting. The Asia Series, Dylan's current one-man show at the Gagosian Gallery in New York, was initially billed as the musician's visual response to his travels through Asia. But as it turns out, many of the pictures are direct copies from historical photographs.

www.gagosian.com/publications/2011_bob-dylan_the-asia-series/

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The Statement Released By The Wall Street Protesters

Keith Olbermann Reads
The Statement Released By The Wall Street Protesters
2011-10-05

"The American Dream has been stolen from the world. Workers are told that they aren't allowed health care, shelter, food. Students are told that they aren't allowed jobs, and that they will be in debt for the rest of their lives, unable to declare bankruptcy. The 1% has destroyed this nation and its values through their greed. The 1% has stolen this world. We will not allow this to occur."

A protest in New York dubbed "Occupy Wall Street" appears to be settling in for the long term. Twice a day, protesters leave the tents, makeshift kitchen and free bookstore set up in Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan and begin a slow march down the sidewalk. Anywhere from hundreds to thousands of supporters are showing up for marches each day. A protest on the Brooklyn Bridge Saturday resulted in about 700 arrests. Another major demonstration is set for mid-week as union members join protesters. npr