Top New Wildlife Films: “Chungungo – A Mentor’s Tale” Directed By Ben Goertzen (2019)

https://vimeo.com/338880115

Written and Directed By: BEN GOERTZEN

Producers: RENE ARANEDA CONTRERAS, MAURICIO HANDLER-RUIZ

Chungungo A Mentor’s Tale Directed by BEN GOERTZEN 2019

Executive Producers: DENY STAGGS, RENE ARANEDA CONTRERAS, MAURICIO HANDLER-RUIZ

Director of Photography: BEN GOERTZEN

Chungungo A Mentor’s Tale Directed by BEN GOERTZEN 2019

Underwater Director of Photography:MAURICIO HANDLER-RUIZ

Chungungo A Mentor’s Tale Directed by BEN GOERTZEN 2019An endangered, South American Marine Otter mother and her two pups act as a vehicle into a poetic exploration of the threshold between comfort and action. Through blending traditional blue-chip cinematography with a philosophical narration the smallest marine mammal in the world is used as a mentor to teach humans about trusting their internal compass and confronting difficult questions. From showing a caring mother, to a playful sibling bond, to the kelp forests that nourish their entire ecosystem, this film aims to build empathy for animals as complex beings with more depth than we give them credit for.

Website: http://www.aquaterrafilms.com/

Health Studies: Majority Of People With Dementia Never Receive Specialty Diagnosis Or Care

From a USC News online release:

Alzheimer's & Dementia Journal Aug 2019The team found 85% of people first diagnosed with dementia were diagnosed by a non-dementia specialist physician, usually a primary care doctor, and an “unspecified dementia” diagnosis was common.

One year after diagnosis, less than a quarter of patients had seen a dementia specialist. After five years, the percent of patients had only increased to 36%.

In the first large study to examine the diagnosis of dementia in older Americans over time, researchers found the vast majority never meet with a dementia specialist and are instead overwhelmingly diagnosed and cared for by non-specialists.

The study, which also found the use of dementia specialty care was particularly low for Hispanic and Asian patients, was published Wednesday in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.

To read more: https://news.usc.edu/160355/dementia-diagnosis-usc-study-specialty-care/

Best New History Books: “Escape From Rome” By Walter Scheidel (Oct 2019)

From a Princeton University Press release:

Escape From RomeThe fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome’s dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe’s economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world?

In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil ensured competitive fragmentation between and within states. This rich diversity encouraged political, economic, scientific, and technological breakthroughs that allowed Europe to surge ahead while other parts of the world lagged behind, burdened as they were by traditional empires and predatory regimes that lived by conquest. It wasn’t until Europe “escaped” from Rome that it launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.

To read more: https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13581.html

Future Of Camper Vans: The “Hymer VisionVenture” Looks, Designed Like A “High-End Apartment”

From a Curbed.com online review:

Erwin Hymer Group debuted the VisionVenture concept interior stairsThis year at Düsseldorf, the Erwin Hymer Group debuted the VisionVenture concept. Built on a Mercedes chassis, the VisionVenture is a forward-thinking camper that looks more like a high-end apartment than a striped-down adventure rig.

To accomplish this, the camper’s interior uses warm bamboo, gray felt, and leather, mixing woods with other materials to add interest. The living area is located in the rear with two white sofas and a center dining table that folds down below the passenger-side bench. The stand-out feature of the living room is the panoramic rear window and large side windows. Fold out the rear door, drop a lower gate and the van boasts its own rear deck—complete with slide-out electric grill.

Erwin Hymer Group debuted the VisionVenture concept interior

It’s an impressive lounge area, and the kitchen goes even further with a flush cooktop, sink, refrigerator, and ample storage. The styling is fresh too, with modular, deck-like wall paneling that works to hang plants or cooking equipment as needed. Integrated next to the kitchen is a compact slate-colored staircase—reminiscent of tiny house design—that boasts storage, motion-activated lighting, and access to an inflatable pop-up sleeping area. The upstairs bed sleeps two and takes advantage of big views through the rear roll-up window.

https://www.hymer.com/de/de/modelle/technologie-innovation/vision-venture

To read more: https://www.curbed.com/2019/9/5/20851580/rv-camper-van-hymer-concept-visionventure

Best Travel Shows: British Series “Travel Man” Is Helpful And Hilarious

From a New Yorker online article:

Travel Man PhotoOn “Travel Man,” Ayoade is fun to look at (snappy suits, thick-framed glasses, expression of amused diffidence) and fun to listen to. (Of a monastery turned hotel in Naples, he says, “As well as modish guff, like a rooftop pool and a spa, it retains attractive old shiz, like staircases dug into the hillside.”) His persona is warmly amused, broadly skeptical, and gently astringent—i.e., British. He’s not a joiner. His intros conclude with him saying, in that episode’s particular city and with that episode’s particular guest, “We’re here, but should we have come?” 

 

Travel Man: 48 Hours in . . .” is a British series in which the comedian, writer, actor, and director Richard Ayoade spends forty-eight hours in a city, accompanied by various friends—“some of the most available and affordable names in light ent,” as he puts it—and tells us about what to do there. “Mini-breaks are a swirling nebula of nonsense!” he says at the top of “Copenhagen,” during a brisk montage of him in Venice, Copenhagen, Vienna, and Moscow. “How can anyone go somewhere new and be expected to enjoy themselves without a decade to decompress?” Exactly, I thought. This is the show for me.

To read more: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/travel-man-richard-ayoades-travel-show-for-people-who-hate-travel

Top Travel Destinations: Ortigia Island, Historical Center Of Syracuse, Sicily

From a New York Times online article:

In Syracuse, taking a passeggiata, or evening walk, around the perimeter of Ortigia island, is a popular activity.CreditCreditSusan Wright for The New York TimesA passeggiata, or evening walk, around the perimeter of Ortigia reveals many notable structures and stories. Start from the Parco Letterario Elio Vittorini, on the eastern side, and head clockwise. As waves crash against the rocks below the sea wall, you’ll pass crenelated lookout points and the chiseled facade of the 17th-century Chiesa dello Spirito Santo, before finding yourself in the palm-planted gardens of the 13th-century Castello Maniace. 

Founded by Greeks around 734 B.C.,ortigia sicily map Ithe southeastern Sicilian city that Cicero called “the greatest and most beautiful of all Grecian cities” achieved a size and status in the ancient world that made it a rival of major powers like Athens and Carthage. Takeovers and makeovers by Romans, Byzantines, North Africans, Normans and others left their marks as well, influencing everything from religious art to the region’s distinctive savory-sweet-sour cooking style. Much of the ancient city has crumbled since Cicero’s day, though the ruins can still be explored in Syracuse’s celebrated archaeological park and museum. But the main attraction today is the historical center of Syracuse: Ortigia island, a maze of narrow streets, ornate Baroque churches and centuries-old palazzi.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/travel/what-to-do-36-hours-in-syracuse-sicily.html

Top Science Podcasts: Persistent Antibiotic Resistance And Modeling Hot Cities (Nature)

Nature PodcastResearchers have identified how Salmonella ‘persister’ cells can spread antibiotic resistance genes in mice intestines. 

Cities are generally hotter than their surroundings, but what are the causes of these ‘heat islands’?

In this episode:

00:46 Antibiotic resistance reservoirs

Researchers have identified how Salmonella ‘persister’ cells can spread antibiotic resistance genes in mice intestines. Research article: Bakkeren et al.

08:12 Research Highlights

Bright barn owls stun prey, and the evolution of dog brains. Research Highlight: Zip-lining owls reveal what really scares their preyResearch Highlight: A dog’s breed is a window onto its brain

10:13 Urban heating

Cities are generally hotter than their surroundings, but what are the causes of these ‘heat islands’? Research Article: Manoli et al.

16:54 News Chat

A cryptic Russian radiation spike, and India’s moon mission gets closer to touchdown. News: How nuclear scientists are decoding Russia’s mystery explosionNews: ‘The most terrifying moments’: India counts down to risky Moon landing

 

Top Museum Exhibitions: “Gorham Silver – Designing Brilliance 1850–1970” At The Rhode Island School Of Design

From a RISD Museum online exhibit:

RISD MuseumEstablished in 1831, the Gorham Manufacturing Company adeptly coupled art and industry, rising to become an industry leader of stylistic and technological achievement in America and around the world. It produced public presentation pieces and one-of-a-kind showstoppers for important occasions, as well as tableware for everyday use. Its works trace a narrative arc not only of great design but also of American ambitions. In this volume, insightful essays are accompanied by gorgeous new photography of splendid silver pieces along with a wealth of archival images, design drawings, casting patterns, and company records that reveal a rich heritage of a giant in decorative arts and silver manufacturing.

Produced in collaboration with the RISD Museum, which has the world’s most significant collection of Gorham silver, this major new book casts new light on more than 120 years of grand aesthetic styles in silver, innovative industrial practices, and American social and cultural norms.

Website: https://risdmuseum.org/art-design/projects-publications/publications/gorham-silver-designing-brilliance-1850-1970

Books Worth Reading: “Quichotte” By Salman Rushdie Is “Fiction Telling Truths We Can’t Get At”

From a London Review of Books online review:

Salman Rushie Quichotte NovelQuichotte opens with a brilliant parody of Cervantes’s first sentence: ‘There once lived, at a series of temporary addresses across the United States of America, a travelling man of Indian origin, advancing years, and retreating mental powers.’ The temporary addresses are a fine revision of Cervantes’s pretending not to remember the name of the place where Quixote lived – literally, he says he doesn’t want to remember. But in spite of this and many other echoes, Quichotte is not all that close to the original Don Quixote in style or mood, and doesn’t seek to be. The leading character chooses his pseudonym because a recording of Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte was his father’s favourite LP, and echoes of the musical Man of La Mancha, with the obligatory ‘impossible dream’, are all over the place.

Cervantes tells us that Don Quixote lost his mind because he read too many romances of chivalry, not all nonsense, as many critics assume, but not models of realism either; yet there are indications, as the novel develops, that Quixote has learned to play at madness, like Hamlet, because it seems to work, because a functioning pretence of knighthood is better than staying at home. Quichotte largely follows the romantic reading of the knight as idealist, whose madness consists of his nobility of spirit and his refusal to believe that the pragmatically possible is an acceptable limit to human behaviour. Rushdie is both mocking and celebrating this posture, and his Quichotte is genuinely ridiculous as well as heroic. He has other sources too, he tells us in his acknowledgments, and both Pinocchio and The Conference of the Birds play a considerable role in the plot. It’s good to see Jiminy Cricket speaking Italian.

To read more: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v41/n17/michael-wood/the-profusion-effect

Top New Travel Videos: “The Coast Of Cornwall” Produced By IKWAI (2019)

Cornwall. Less Agatha Christie and more Poldark, you’ll stumble upon secluded fishermens’ villages and dilapidated copper mines perched on gustcliffs. The sea is never far. Seagulls’ cries echo wherever you go.

The Coast of Cornwall travel video by IKWAI 2019

And sheep decide to block your way on some lonesome road outside an unpronouncable town. Of course, there’s fish and chips (too much fish and chips). It’s pure bliss.

The Coast of Cornwall travel video by IKWAI 2019

Music: Tony Anderson – Younger

Website: https://vimeo.com/ikwai