"Most Of The Global Economy Will Be Dedicated To Keeping The Water Away"

Most of the time when you tell people that climate change will raise the temperature worldwide a few degrees- they either glaze over or... laugh in your face. This brings it on home in no uncertain terms- unchecked global warming (which is what we continue to have despite and because of all the political hot air rhetoric) will be a world wide catastrophe in a hundred years (and even worse a hundred later), with many a major and world renown city abandoned and underwater...

I won't be here- will your children?

The Revenant

Vivid dreamscapes, nature in its raw, natural elements... cold, wet, breathtaking in its beauty and uncompromising in its ferocity. Since the world of movies first burst forth with those audience galvanizing scenes of a moving train and a pointed gun, cinema has never ceased trying to put you in the very scene it has sought to create. The Revenant does just that- the water, wind and snow beneath your feet, against your skin and throughout your senses. 

Wide angle lenses can often look gimmicky on the big screen, here in the great wide open Alejandro G. Iñárritu has used them flawlessly, a major reason why we are seamlessly enmeshed into the environment of his making. We see arrows initiate flight, frenetically approach and whiz harmlessly by our heads, or stop full upon their deadly mark. We hear, feel and for all purposes smell the very breath of those that approach us, friend and foe alike. 3D can't touch this, virtual reality can't come close.

This is experiential movie making at its most vivid and dramatic, where even the dream sequences that occasionally manifest are just further extensions of the present reality. And DiCaprio lives up to the spectacle. There's no way a human body could actually survive the abuse his endures, but you're willing to forgive and forget... because the movie is that damn good. 

Easily one of my All Time Top Twenty, possibly even in the Exalted Top Ten... Must see on the BIG screen!

96- Per Day...

Behold Nature



9/21/14 NYC- Photo: © S. Banos

9/22/14 NYC- Photo: © S. Banos

 

What Can One Man Do?

Lead us, show us, point the way...  but as with all the greats, they do it with the strength of will from their own two hands...

Happy Earth Day!

UPDATE:  Watch A Fierce Green Fire (in its entirety)...

Photo © S.Banos

Once scorned...

... these thirteen year old photos highlight just how fickle and ignorant we are as a species- and how photography can be interpreted, and misinterpreted, throughout the years and defining cultures...

The Virus That Is Mankind

I suppose I should be just as ever the more outraged by the amount of human suffering openly visible on the streets of any major city on any given day. I suppose it is, in fact, the every day commonality of it all, and our everyday indifference- particularly since it is we ourselves who have purposely designed and created our very own living hell on earth, which we perpetuate throughout every succeeding generation.

Nevertheless, this disturbed me to my core. To see this majestic, and most graceful of animals suffer such an agonizingly slow and painful death in the poisonous toxic remains that we have so casually made of our earthly home- a scene that was repeated countless times in the Gulf of Mexico (courtesy of BP), and annually in Japan by the thousands.

Our very planet is dying all around us and all we can think of are our god given rights to own iPhones and semiautomatics. The human experiment was a brave and noble experiment, and it would be truly heartbreaking to witness our own demise- but better us (and infinitely more noble) than the entire planet, and better sooner, while it may still have a chance...

365

Nature At Its Finest...

Via the wife (ie- of unknown origin).

Falling Trains and Breaking Waves

If you're ever on the #7 elevated subway line going into Manhattan from Queens, there's a rather sharp turn the train makes after the LIC stop that almost goes into a 45 degree bank as if on a large scale, slow motion roller coaster. Everyday commuters think nothing of it as they drag their worn and weary, half wakened DNA into the big city for yet another day's bout of making a meager living. Traditionally, this is not a line frequented by Wall Street insiders, and more likely traversed by those that clean their offices and make their meals.

One day, I noticed what seemed a relative newcomer seated with a look of increasing puzzlement on her face as we began the turn in question. The look quickly transitioned into apprehension, then wide eyed terror as the turning train proceeded into its 45 degree list. Said woman jumps unto her feet, frantically waving her arms and proclaiming with absolute clarity of voice and conviction, "Quick! Everybody to one side of the car!"

Of course, she meant well. She wanted to save us all by balancing the train so we wouldn't all plunge unto the rush hour traffic well below us. First Time Tourist Single Handedly Saves Train Load Of NYC Commuters! Looking about, I was the only person other than herself who even bothered to lift our sorry, if somewhat bemused, heads...

I recall this only because the first time I visited San Francisco, I was absolutely amazed and enthralled by the billowing fog that rolled down the hills on my bus ride from the airport to the city proper. Billowing waves of fog rolling down hills as if waves of water against the seashore- and I couldn't understand how everyone else was not every bit as mesmerized. What the?

This video gives one a pretty good sense, and even though it's speeded up, when you experience it in person first hand, the effect is even more intense and surreal in real time.

The Unseen Sea from Simon Christen on Vimeo.

Craters Of The Moon

This giant cinder cone at Craters of the Moon National Park is quite the impressive and minimalist natural structure (can't appreciate it's height or girth here), not a plant or living thing on site. Barren, bleak and very, very black...

Myca of Twin Peaks

I've really come to admire and respect coyotes, scrappy critters who learn to make do, wherever, however- like right here in San Francisco (and they're kinda cute)...

Photo: Janet Kessler

And Not One Collision...