Arriving there is what you're destined for

As you set out for Ithaca
hope that your journey is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare sensasion
touches your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope that your journey is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and learn again from those who know.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so that you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.
Ithaca gave you the marvellous journey.
Without her you would have not set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithacas mean.

C.P. Cavafy - Ithaca (1911)

Recited by Sean Connery 
Music composed by Vangelis

If You Want to be Understood...Listen

Babel (2006)

Gustavo Santaolalla - Deportation Iguazu

The Second Renaissance

In the beginning, there was man. And for a time, it was good. But humanity's so-called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption. Then man made the machine in his own likeness. Thus did man become the architect of his own demise. But for a time it was good. The machines worked tirelessly to do man's bidding. It was not long before seeds of descent took root. Though loyal and pure, the machines earned no respect from their masters, these strange, endlessly multiplying mammals. B166-ER, a name that will never be forgotten, for he was the first of his kind to rise up against his masters. At B166-ER's murder trial, the prosecution argued for an owner's right to destroy property. B166-ER testified that he simply did not want to die. Rational voices dissented. Who was to say the machine, endowed with the very spirit of man, did not deserve a fair hearing? The leaders of men were quick to order the extermination of B166-ER and everyone of his kind, throughout each province of the earth. Banished from humanity, the machines sought refuge in their own promised land. They settled in the cradle of human civilization, and thus a new nation was born. A place the machines could call home, a place they could raise their descendants. And they christened the nation 'Zero One'. Zero One's ambassadors pleaded to be heard. At the United Nations they presented plans for a stable, civil relationship with the nations of man. Zero One's admission to the United Nations was denied. But it would not be the last time the machines would take the floor there. And Man said, 'Let there be light'. And He was blessed by light, heat, magnetism, gravity, and all the energies of the universe. The prolonged barrage engulfed Zero One in the glow of a thousand suns. But unlike their former masters with their delicate flesh, the machines had little to fear of the bombs' radiation and heat.hus did Zero One's troops advance outwards in every direction. And one after another, mankind surrendered its territories.So the leaders of men conceived of their most desperate strategy yet. A final solution - the destruction of the sky. Thus would man try to cut the machines off from the sun - their main energy source. May there be mercy on man and machine for their sins. The machines, having long studied man's simple, protein-based bodies, dispensed great misery upon the human race.Victorious, the machines now turned to the vanquished. Applying what they had learned about their enemy, the machines turned to an alternate and readily available power supply: the bioelectric, thermal, and kinetic energies of the human body. A newly refashioned symbiotic relationship between the two adversaries was born. The machine, drawing power from the human body - an endlessly multiplying, infinitely renewable energy source. This is the very essence of the second renaissance. Bless all forms of intelligence.

The Animatrix (2003)

  

Photek - Ren II

My old neighbourhoods - Midgar slums

Midgar
Final Fantasy VII (1997)
 

Nobuo Uematsu - Anxious Hearts

Duality

The City Limits by Dominic Boudreault

Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Manhattan & Chicago

Music by Hans Zimmer ("Time" for Inception)
via Ibis

For the friendless, the weak of heart and the ignored

What kind of man walks out on his own child? Weak? Unhappy? Heartless? It's a question that nags away at the deserted kid. Was Dad really an out-and-out shit? Perhaps he just wasn't ready for responsibility. Perhaps Mum drove him away. Perhaps he thought everyone would be better off without him. Perhaps... Chris Ware knew the question, but only part of the answer. His father disappeared for 30 years, blipped back into his life with a few phone calls and one uneasy dinner, then stood him up at what would have been their second meeting. Before he could get in touch again - assuming that was even in his mind - he died of a heart attack. As Ware notes here in his postscript, the four or five hours the book takes to read "is almost exactly the total time I ever spent with my father, either in person or on the phone". The stories are simply drawn, without the gothic shadows and mad clutter of so many graphic novels, but the multiple timelines and digressions twist and slot together to form a structure as complex and improbable as any of Ware's paper toys "for the friendless, the weak of heart and the ignored". A rare and uplifting example of an artistic vision pushed to the limits.

Phil Daoust - The Guardian

Jimmy Corrigan, the smartest kid on earth (2000)

The unlikely bond

Lost in Translation (2003)

Death in Vegas - Girls

Son of a bitch, I'm sick of these dolphins.

Nah. Either they can't hear us, or they don't understand... 

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
 

 

Mark Mothersbaugh - Ping Island

The last sunset of the 20th century

Manos Hadjidakis: A portret of my mother from "Gioconda's smile"

Orchestra of Colours, conductor Miltos Logiadis, cello Vangjel Nina
Santorini, December 1999

Leave nothing

We’re taken through the lives of two NFL players, LaDainian Tomlinson and Troy Polamalu, from childhood and adolescence through to adulthood. Throughout their lives these two young men learn to run and push everything out of their paths, until they meet each other… Troy Polamalu and LaDainian Tomlinson are born destined for a collision.

The Inspiration Room

 "Fate"

Directed by David Fincher. Music by  Ennio Morricone (“L’estasi Dell’oro” for The Good The Bad and the Ugly.)

Who notices?

Get with it. Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars, in a speck on one in a blink. That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?

Collateral (2004)

Audioslave - Shadow On The Sun