Werner Herzog's Notes From The Amazon
In 1982, filmmaker Werner Herzog wrote and directed an epic movie called Fitzcarraldo, based on the life story of Peruvian rubber baron Carlos Fitzcarrald.
In the movie, a man named Fitzcarraldo traveled to the heart of the Amazonian jungle to get to the last remaining rubber trees parcel in a steamboat. He has to navigate some of the most perilous river in the Amazon as well as transport the boat up a mountain on dry land (you’ll see).
Just as interesting as the movie is his newly published book Conquest of the Useless; Reflections on the Making of Fitzcarraldo, which is a transcript of Herzog’s notebooks from almost three decades ago. Minnesotastan of TYWKIWDBI blog has the excerpt:
What was interesting to me was to discover that Herzog didn’t live the life of a pampered director; he was on-site near the headwaters of the Amazon, living in squalor and coping with the incredible incompetence of local workers. Here are some of my jotted notes from the book to give the flavor of the contents:
12 – At the Indians’ request, we bring chain saws, machetes, and shotguns to the Rio Cenepa, as well as a large canister of poison for arrow tips. They no longer know how to make it themselves. Vivanco says they will pay for a spoonful with a gold nugget.
79 – The family who had given us a pot of hot water crowded around, and we fixed tuna for them and gave them tea; that is how it is done here – food is always shared, Cesar says, which is why there is no word for “thank you” in their language.
169 – The helicopter of the Bolivian president, Barrientos, flew into a power line and crashed from a low altitude. He had suitcases full of money with him, presumably from drug deals. The helicopter immediately caught fire, but although people were there and tried to rescue him from the blaze, no one could get close, because the heat made the submachine guns carried by the president and his entourage start firing wildly, and in the hail of bullets no one dared approach.
226 – Across from our headquarters overlooking the Nanay there was a huge explosion in a boiler, fortunately after the work day in the factory there as over. The one night watchman was blown to pieces and sent flying. A smallish bloody piece of him landed with a splat on our porch.
But if readin’ ain’t your thing, you can just rent Burden of Dreams, a documentary by Les Blank about the making of the movie.
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Amazing Video of Fire Ants Making a Living Life Boat
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A little flood isn’t going to stop a couple thousand of good fire ants in the Amazon jungle. Take a look at this amazing BBC Wildlife video of how fire ants crossed a river by forming a "living" life boat made with their own bodies.
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Deforestation of the Amazon from 2000-2008
NASA’s Earth Observatory has some amazing satellite photos of the deforestation of the Amazonian rainforest over the past 8 years. At the link, click on the years posted below the picture to see the progression.
The state of Rondônia in western Brazil is one of the most deforested parts of the Amazon. In the past three decades, clearing and degradation of the state’s original 208,000 square kilometers of forest (about 51.4 million acres, an area slightly smaller than the state of Kansas) has been rapid: 4,200 square kilometers cleared by 1978; 30,000 by 1988; and 53,300 by 1998. By 2003, an estimated 67,764 square kilometers of rainforest—an area larger than the state of West Virginia—had been cleared.
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Three Wolf Moon Shirt
Sales of the “Three Wolf Moon Shirt” are up 2300% after word got out that it was getting priceless customer reviews on Amazon. Hundreds of reviewers are vying to be the funniest. The first one says, in part:
This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened. After checking to ensure that the shirt would properly cover my girth, I walked from my trailer to Wal-mart with the shirt on and was immediately approached by women. The women knew from the wolves on my shirt that I, like a wolf, am a mysterious loner who knows how to ‘howl at the moon’ from time to time (if you catch my drift!). The women that approached me wanted to know if I would be their boyfriend and/or give them money for something they called mehth. I told them no, because they didn’t have enough teeth, and frankly a man with a wolf-shirt shouldn’t settle for the first thing that comes to him.
It gets better from there. The manufacturer is not exactly pleased with the reviews. Link to story. Link to reviews. -via Fark
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You Can't Please Everyone
Chris of Cynical-C blog has a nifty series called You Can’t Please Everyone. In it, he collects one-star Amazon reviews of classic movies, music, and literature.
Take, for instance, The Sound of Music starring Julie Andrews. The movie won 5 Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 1965. Adjusted for inflation, it made more than $1 billion in earnings since it was made … yet, even it can’t please everyone:
This movie was made in the sixties, we live in the 21st century, GET OVER IT!
I loved it when I was ten, but I think I’ve out grown it
When I see garbage like this, I finally understand what is wrong with the world. I watched this movie on a dare and was absolutely mortified!!!!! I would have given it negative stars if I could have. As an animal lover and vegetarian, I was especially offended!!! Anyone who is a fan of this series should run, not walk to the nearest Psychiatrist. You are in desperate need of having your head examined. And we as a society wonder why violence and seriel killers have become a part of daily life. Well, ladies and gentlemen I present to you Exhibit A…….
This movie should be called the Sound of Mucus. The only redeeming quality is that the family has to run from nazis.
See more of Cynical-C’s You Can’t Please Everyone series: Link – via kottke
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Surprise Book Delivery
Michel Cuhaci received a flawed copy of the book A Student’s Guide to Maxwell’s Equation, so he left a one-star review on Amazon. The author, Dan Fleisch responded and promised to send a replacement overnight. At the time, Fleisch did not realize how hard that would be on Christmas Eve!
“I called (parcel services), and getting it delivered was out of the question,” he said. “Then I thought, ‘OK, maybe I can find a bookstore that had it in stock.’ ”
No luck — most bookstores had closed early.
“It got to be late afternoon. I couldn’t find anyway to get it to him.”
His next thought — he’d drive to Canada and deliver the $26 book himself.
“I looked at my iPhone and there was this massive blob (snowstorm) over the whole Northeast,” he said.
Fleisch ended up flying from Ohio to Ottawa to deliver the book on Christmas Day, ending up back home after midnight. His journey reads like a comedy of errors.
Last week Cuhaci went back to Amazon and added a new comment about the book and its author.
“But I did not change the rating,” he said. “I want people to look at my comment and see what a dedicated author he is.”
Link to story. Link to Amazon review. -via reddit
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The People Behind Amazon's Mechanical Turk
Amazon’s Mechanical Turk is a web service that lets you assign tasks to human workers in exchange for payments. It is named after The Turk, a chess playing automaton made by Wolfgang von Kempelen in the late 1700s (it turned out that a chess master was hiding inside the machine).
Andy Baio of Waxy was curious to see what exactly the Amazon Mechanical Turk looks like, so naturally he started a new Turk experiment to answer two questions: what do these people look like, and how much does it cost for someone to reveal their face?
Here are his answers, #1:
And #2: about $0.50
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Archaeologists Found the Lost City of the Mysterious Cloud Forest People of the Amazon
Archaeologist Benedicto Perez Goicochea and colleagues discovered something fantastic in a remote mountainside in the Amazonian jungle: the village of the mystical "Cloud Forest People."
The buildings found on the Pachallama peak are in remarkably good condition, estimated to be over 1,000 years old and comprised of the traditional round stone houses built by the Chachapoya, the ‘Cloud Forest People’. [...]
Archaeologist Benedicto Pérez Goicochea said: "The citadel is perched on the edge of an abyss.
"We suspect that the ancient inhabitants used this as a lookout point from where they could spot potential enemies."
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