Tuesday, December 7, 2010

A Life in Photos: Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years

Apparently this video has been viral for the last four years, so I guess I'm just really not up to speed.  Apologies if everyone has already seen this, but I just recently discovered it and liked it a lot.  It obviously took a lot of dedication to keep it up over 6 years (actually he's still doing it, so it's been more like 11 years now).  There are a lot of other time lapse videos out there, some started before his and longer lasting, but somehow his struck more of a chord.  It might be his eyes--very melancholic eyes that seem to stare into your soul.  It might be the music, composed by Carly Comando.  I don't know for sure, but I do know it's more than the sum of its parts.  And there are a lot of parts.  Enjoy.




One of the things I liked about Noah Kalina's project more than others is that the background constantly changes.  There are repeats of course, and it's mostly indoor, bedroom scenes--but angles change, lighting changes, rooms change, life happens.  A lot of other people chose to photograph themselves against an unchanging background, often a white wall.  I think it is supposed to highlight the changes in them over the years--everything from face structure and hair loss for the really long-lasting ones to the trivial--hairstyles, fashion, glasses, zits.  I guess this is the idea with time lapse projects.  What I liked about Noah's was that it seemed to flip this around--everything around him changes; in fact, because of slightly shifting photo centers and some being a bit closer than others, and in no small part due to his wild hair, he appears to be spinning around and around in a wheel of time, a Billy Pilgrim for a new generation of disenchanted skeptics and soul-searchers.  Everything around him rapidly becomes a blur; he is the one constant.

And I feel that for that reason, combined with the haunting music and his large, sad eyes, his becomes less of an artsy, "neat-o" project, and more of an intimate connection with another human being.  Do we know him?  No.  Can we gather from the blur of self-portraits flashing before us in rapid succession what he has gone through in those six years, what joys, what depths of despair, what losses, what happinesses, what events--from the mundane to the life-shatteringly transcendent?  Of course not, barely more than he can gather of our lives from looking mournfully back at us.  But we want to know, we yearn to make a connection with this fellow traveller on Earth, one whose art reminds us of how fleeting, how ephemeral life is.  Six years condensed to five minutes.  A life condensed to photos. 

So it goes. 

Thursday, December 2, 2010

Lessons from The Little Prince: On Death

Il ne répondit rien à ma question, mais il ajouta:                      He made no answer to my question, but he added:
-Moi aussi, aujourd'hui, je rentre chez moi...                          "I, too, am going back home today . . ."
Puis, mélancolique:                                                                     Then, sadly--
-C'est bien plus loin... c'est bien plus difficile...                       "It is much farther . . . It is much more difficult . . ."
                            ***                                                                                                 ***



Il avait eu peur, bien sûr! Mais il rit doucement.                        He was afraid, there was no doubt about that.  But
                                                                                                       he laughed sweetly.

Je me sentis glacé par le sentiment de l'irréparable.  Et             I felt myself frozen by the sense of something                        je compris que je ne supportais pas l'idée de ne plus jamais      irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the              jamais entendre ce rire. C'était pour moi comme une                thought of never hearing that laughter any more.            fontaine dans le désert.                                                                For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the
                                                                                                        desert.

-Justement ce sera mon cadeau... ce sera comme pour              "That is my present. Just that. It will be as it was l'eau...                                                                                             when we drank the water . . ." 

-Que veux-tu dire?                                                                           "What do you mean?" 

-Les gens ont des étoiles qui ne sont pas les mêmes.                     "All men have the stars," he answered, "but they                Pour les uns, qui voyagent, les étoiles sont des guides.                are not the same things for different people.  For               Pour d'autres elles ne sont rien que de petites lumières.              some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For               Pour d'autres qui sont savants elles sont des problèmes.              others they are no more than little lights in the sky.      Pour mon businessman elles étaient de l'or. Mais toutes                For others, who are scholars, they are problems.                   ces étoiles-là elles se taisent. Toi, tu auras des étoiles                 For my businessman they were wealth. But all                        comme personne n'en a...                                                                 these stars are silent. You--you alone--will have
                                                                                                           the stars as no one else has them--" 

-Que veux-tu dire?                                                                            "What do you mean?"

                                                                                                            
Quand tu regarderas le ciel, la nuit, puisque j'habiterai                 "In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them                dans l'une d'elles, puisque je rirai dans l'une d'elles, alors                 I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars            ce sera pour toi comme si riaient toutes les étoiles.                       were laughing, when you look at the sky at night . . .                                

                                                                                                                                          

Tu auras, toi, des étoiles qui savent rire!                                       You--only you--will have stars that can laugh!"                   Et il rit encore.                                                                                   And he laughed again.

Et quand tu seras consolé (on se console toujours)                       "And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes               tu seras content de m'avoir connu.                                                 all sorrows) you will be content that you have 
                                                                                                            known me.

                              ***                                                                                                          ***


"Cette nuit... tu sais... ne viens pas."                                                  "Tonight... you know... do not come."
"Je ne te quitterai pas."                                                                       "I will not leave you," I said.
"J'aurai l'air d'avoir mal... j'aurai un peu l'air de                                   "I shall look as if I were suffering... I shall look a               mourir.  C'est comme ça.  Ne viens pas voir ça,"                                little as if I were dying.  It is like that.  Do not                      ce n'est pas la peine."                                                                          come to see that, it's not worth it."

"Tu comprends. C'est trop loin. Je ne peux pas emporter               "You understand... it is too far.  I cannot
ce corps-là. C'est trop lourd.                                                            carry this body with me.  It is too heavy."                           Moi je me taisais.                                                                                I said nothing.

"Mais ce sera comme une vieille écorce abandonnée.                      "But it will be like an old abandoned shell.
Ce n'est pas triste les vieilles écorces..."                                         There is nothing sad about old shells..."

Il hésita encore un peu, puis se releva.  Il fit un pas.                       He still hesitated a little.  Then he got up.  He took one Moi je ne pouvais pas bouger.                                                            step.  I could not move.

Il n'y eut rien qu'un éclair jaune près de sa cheville.                         There was nothing but a flash of yellow close to his ankle.
Il demeura un instant immobile. Il ne cria pas.  Il tomba                    He remained motionless for an instant.  He did not cry doucement comme tombe un arbre. Ca ne fit même pas                    out.  He fell as gently as a tree falls.  There was not even de bruit, à cause du sable.                                                                   any sound, because of the sand.