1. The World's Oldest Olive Tree
... as far as we know, is located in the village of Ano Vouves in Crete (Greece), and is about 3000 years old (or more). Durable and enduring as all olive trees are (which is why they have been cultivated for thousands of years throughout the Mediterranean), this tree continues to produce fruit - and to live. (You can learn more about the Vouvos tree on this blog and in this article.)
In the video below you can see some drone-filmed images of the tree, with its ancient, contorted, and now mostly hollowed-out trunk. Looking at it, and thinking about it - and learning that is used to be surrounded, millennia ago, by a cemetery - brings to mind the sun-scorched ages of man in the Mediterranean, the lives and the societies that surrounded - and used - this tree, the length of time that preceded us - days that were not shorter nor longer than ours; a "present," then, that was equally a "present time," as is our own "present;" in short, duration, or, in fact, human duration (always the same, and always equally oblivious of its own past).
In any case, enjoy:
And, since you asked about the process of making olive oil out of the fruits of the tree, here is a primer that presents both the traditional and the modern methods of production.
2. The Aftermath of Le Corbusier
Le Corbusier is, of course, the father figure of a school of architecture and urban planning that represents, in many ways, the quintessentially Modern vision - namely, the idea of designing and implementing ("on" human beings) a masterplan for their lives that is guided by (purportedly) the most "enlightened" and "humanist" ideals, but which is also far removed from, and even disdainful of, the lived messiness of human existence, of its floral diversity, gregarious needs - and of its actual history.
It does have a certain charm, or so I find, this "brave" vision of a new future, which combines hopefulness (i.e. naive idealism) and hubris, reflecting that typically Modern combination of half-digested Enlightenment ideas with the promise and enticing power of the empirical sciences (that we will "measure" the world and take complete control of it - Die Vermessung der Welt, the French encyclopedists). Of course, from similar hubristic-yet-well-intended metanarratives resulted also the catastrophic ideologies of the twentieth century...
Part of Le Corbusier's philosophy was the creation of "machines for living" that were designed (in total disregard for architectural traditions, heritage, and context, but) following rationalist and utilitarian principles - pure and angular geometric forms, made mostly using exposed concrete, and following rational rules about what the human beings want and need. In other words, a top-down vision about designing human habitation that rejects all things "organic" and messy, and aims for pure rationality (rationalism, in fact) and utility (utilitarianism, in fact). If this does not sound all too friendly or appealing, well, perhaps you have to be taught how to live (by these buildings). (At the other end of the pendulum swing, but perhaps with quite a few similarities, would be Gaudi, whose "organicist" architecture isn't terribly "human," either; just as the jungle is the not the friend of man.)
I would note here that I do find Brutalism, as an architectural style, to have its own charm, in isolated exemplars and reduced quantities. In other words, I would not say the same thing about the aforementioned principles of urban planning, nor of habitations made entirely of Brutalist buildings, streets and squares. (Of course, this idea of teaching people how to live, and of forcibly re-making the world, still holds appeal - the remains of the days of Modernity.)
But, as much as we want to re-make existence based on pure, rational, measurable principles (all for the "higher good"), life takes over, life flows beyond the human-set bounds; it turns out that we will not measure, categorize and put in neat boxes the entire world, all of existence; it seems, then, that time and life win, and win, over and over again. It does not help either that concrete is an ugly construction material, especially when affected by said passing of time and by the elements.
One of the major projects in which Le Corbusier was involved, which gave him relatively free reign both in urban and in architectural design, was the planned city of Chandigarh, the capital of the Indian states of Punjab and Haryana (a planned city like Brasilia, the capital of Brazil). (See more info on Chandigarh here - but do watch the video, as it is more instructive than the text itself - and one has to see it.)
Given what was said above, I find the video below quite poetic; it is of a building in Chandigarh, and, if modernist architecture is inherently futuristic, this video seems to express a post-apocalyptic version - and also the organic denouement - of said vision. Quite ironic and quite poetic, I find.
3. Sport & the Arts
At the commemoration of 70 years since the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, the local football team, V-Varen Nagasaki (playing in J-League's second division) launched a dedicated “Pray for Peace” kit that featured an origami crane (a symbol of peace) and an image of Seibo Kitamura’s Peace Statue (statue located in Nagasaki's Peace Park, and which is meant to symbolize both the atomic threat and the mercy and peace of God).
Here are the jerseys:
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| UK Soccer Shop |
On the brighter side of the same topic of sport & the arts (and, in fact, of football and the arts), some creative minds decided to start awarding the Fallon d'Floor award (the name is a spoof on the prestigious Ballon d'Or award), for the best "dive" (faking a foul, and following that with a spectacular fall) of the year. Although such dives can indeed be artistic, that is not the aspect that brought this issue under this sport & the arts heading, but the fact that in 2014 the same creative minds spiced up the awards by creating mock film posters for each dive (also spoofing in the process the titles of major movies).
Here are a couple of examples, and you can find more at this link. Regarding the first poster, a bit of context: it makes reference to the incident at the World Cup when Argentinian player Luis Suárez (whose most recognizable physical characteristic is a significant overbite) bit (!) Italian defender Giorgio Chiellini on the shoulder (!!), and then pretended that it was the Italian player who actually hit him in the teeth (!!!) with the shoulder (and I ran out of exclamation signs).
4. Morricone on the Streets, courtesy of Italo Vegliante
... and featuring a variety of instruments (or instrument sounds). The esteemed street artist featured in the video, signor Italo Vegliante, besides being a minor (Internet) celebrity today, was an Italian B-movies star (in the 80s), and is, most obviously, a talented musician / guitarist / entertainer.
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