Pyre

From Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice (1986)


"In the spring we made a boat
Out of feathers, out of bones.
We set fire to our homes,
Walking barefoot in the snow."

-from Of Monsters and Men's "Your Bones"

Nostalghia

From Andrei Tarkovsky's Nostalghia (1983)

"The Sacrifice" Art by Michał Karcz

Keeping up the Tarkovsky theme with a stunning piece of art inspired by The Sacrifice by graphic designer and artist Michał Karcz - perfect for your desktop!

Full desktop wallpaper source here.

Zone

July 2012 - Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Heroes of Idiosyncratic Non-Fiction

Hello all. Today, I want to share three episodes of a podcast that I listen to fairly regularly: Colin Marshall's Notebook on Cities and Culture, formerly The Marketplace of Ideas. I love this podcast for many reasons, mainly the fascinating range of guests Colin sits down with, the deeply intelligent questions he asks them, and the winding conversations that spring from them.

Three interviews in particular have been getting regular play on my iPod over the past few months, one being with Geoff Dyer; the other two with Pico Iyer. Geoff Dyer is known for writing books on a variety of subjects, among them Andrei Tarkovsky (Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room), D.H. Lawrence (Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence), jazz (But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz), and more. But what I love about him is how he approaches such subjects from a personal, level-headed, often funny perspective that specifically avoids stuffy academic over-analysis, opting for a highly relatable and open form of cultural commentary.

Pico Iyer, author of books like Video Night in Kathmandu and Other Reports From the Not-So-Far East, The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto, and The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home, has a more specific area of interest in his writing (travel and world cultures), but like Dyer, he also pulls readers along on unpredictable journeys of ideas, thoughts and observations. His points on the ever-intensifying dialogue between cultures are among the most insightful I've ever come across.

Being committed to a large-scale writing project of my own at the moment, which I hope to make good progress on during this summer and, with luck, I'll be able to talk more about before too long, it is extremely inspiring to read and learn about writers like Dyer and Iyer, who are guided by their own passions, interests, and personal experiences over any other factors, and who make a point of incorporating these very personal components into their non-fiction work. Listening to them discuss such things is just as rewarding, and whether you're a writer or not, the interviews gathered below will surely charge your imagination and get you thinking about how we look at culture, art, and travel. Happy listening!

*Note: Notebook on Cities and Culture is also available on iTunes.

-Literary auteurhood: Geoff Dyer, writer and intellectual gatecrasher (May 2011)

-The world dreamed but not judged: traveler and writer Pico Iyer (August 2011)

-Fathers Chosen and Unchosen with Pico Iyer (April 2012)

Crown

August 2011 - Northern Ontario, Canada

Sacrifice

"Every gift involves a sacrifice. Otherwise, what kind of a gift would it be?"

Happy 80th Birthday, Andrei Tarkovsky

October 2011 - Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Distance

May 2011 - Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Vegetation

August, 2011 - Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Meeting

August 2011 - Oakville, Ontario, Canada

Green III

This picture and the other nature shots I've been posting over the past few days were all taken this past January in Victoria, British Columbia around Durrance Lake. Stay tuned here for more shots that I've gathered over time.

Green II

Green

Mirror

Tangled Morning IV

Tangled Morning III

Tangled Morning II

Tangled Morning I

Elegeia (Mark Beneria, 2009)

Hello, all. This post comes in the midst of yet another period in which I've been pondering the life and work of the great Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. A while ago, I found a short film devoted to him on Youtube that I really should have shared earlier. In any case, here it is now. Shot on and one day after December 29th, 2008 (the 22-year anniversary of Tarkovsky's death) in the Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Sainte-Geneiève-des-Bois, France (near Paris) where he is buried, Mark Beneria's Elegeia offers up a fittingly poetic tribute to the artist using patient camera movements and a solemn flute score (by Okuda Asuya) that evoke his legendary, powerful films. In a mournful tone, Beneria reflects on the greatness of Tarkovsky's work and the sad circumstances surrounding his troubled life in exile. If devoted admirers of Tarkovsky's work weren't compelled to actually visit his grave in France, they will be after seeing this film. I know I want to.

Images of a Tarkovskian Nature

Hello, all. So, lately I've been going through something of an Andrei Tarkovsky phase, which I've fuelled by reading a fair bit about him, revisiting certain films of his and discovering others for the first time (including his final masterpiece, The Sacrifice). I've also been greatly appreciating a Tumblr blog run by the Criterion Cast's Ryan Gallagher that provides continuous postings of Polaroid pictures Tarkovsky took throughout his life - it should come as no surprise that each one offers up an image of beauty.

So, to make my own image-based tribute to this beloved master of cinema, I thought it'd be fitting to share a few pictures I've taken during my recent travels that strongly evoke his films and their unique, powerful connection to nature.

So, without further ado, here are some Tarkovskian images for you to enjoy that will hopefully put you in the mood to revisit one of his beautiful films.

The following pictures (which you can click to enlarge) were taken in different corners of Canada, in Victoria, British Columbia...

...Minden, Ontario...

...and Oakville, Ontario.