Thursday, July 22, 2021

The mysterious process of one thing leading to another



 

In one of the interviews in "Encounters" when a young man speaks of having found his "tribe" in the eccentric community at McMurdo, that led me to remember a local artist who lived for two years in McMurdo and to see if I could find a video about him.

"In 1997, he embarked for Antarctica where he spent two years managing a general store at McMurdo, an American science station. He says in Antarctica, all distractions were stripped away, and the desolate windblown landscape left him with little else to do than fill his sketchbooks." (excerpted from an article about Ben Mann.  Click here)

Had I not found a copy of "Grizzly Man" on DVD on the free table in the mailroom of the condominium where I live, I doubt that I would have watched it all the way through but in the context of having just seen two other Werner Herzog films and thinking back to the first Herzog film I saw in my 20s, "Aguirre the Wrath of God," "Grizzly Man" had unexpected lessons for me about the consequences of living in delusion, much as "Aguirre the Wrath of God" had taught me the same lesson in a disturbing and unforgettable way so long ago.  

With all this in mind, I met with a neighbor friend and took a 3-mile walk on the trail on the north shore of Lake Whatcom before coming back to work on this post until I could click on "Publish."




Perhaps the truth depends upon a walk around the lake.

-- Wallace Stevens

2 comments:

Pixie said...

I love that man's artwork and the sound of the water lapping in that video. Thank you.

Sabine said...

I just love everything about and from Werner Herzog, especially his wonderful accent.
These are my top two bits from/about him:

1. The nihilist/existential penguin: https://youtu.be/-KriRCtS4rs
2. The rescue of Joaquin Phoenix: https://youtu.be/nDcnLfLaFiY