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NYT: Is silence going extinct?

The article writer joins a scientist in Alaska’s Denali National Park in search of silence and natural sound, with commentary on the status of silence and natural sound as components of wilderness and animal life. Remarks the scientist: “If you’re on foot and you choose to focus on the natural quality of the landscape, you’re completely immersed in nature; nothing else exists. Then a jet will go over, and it kind of breaks that flow of consciousness, that ecstatic moment.” Part of that natural quality and flow of consciousness is silence.

For more than 40 years, scientists have used radio telescopes to probe starry regions trillions of miles away for sounds of alien life. But only in the past five years or so have they been able to reliably record months-long stretches of audio in the wildernesses of Earth. … Indeed, though soundscape ecology has hardly begun, natural soundscapes already face a crisis. Humans have irrevocably altered the acoustics of the entire globe — and our racket continues to spread.

Article includes representative natural sounds of Denali National Park.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/magazine/is-silence-going-extinct.html

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UK short film “Hermit”

UK-based filmmaker Susannah Bragg has produced a half-hour short comedy film titled “Hermit,” described as:

a short fiction film about a young prodigy who, for the past 20 years, has woven fantastic stories of worldwide acclaim — from the confines of her room. However, on her 28th birthday, she runs out of ideas. Now, she must re-enter the world.

Welcome to Izzy Blue’s slightly surreal and off-kilter life. Come along with her as she tries to reconnect with her family and share in her fantastic adventures.

Unfortunately, fantasy and reality are not always as distinct — or as comprehensible — as Izzy would wish them to be. In fact, an increasingly widespread phenomenon in Japan, Hikikomori (“Shut-in’s”) soon will number up to a million.

FILM website & trailer: http://www.indiegogo.com/Hermit-3
ADDITIONAL TRAILER site: http://vimeo.com/36743409

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British anchorite reflects

In an article in the Catholic Herald of the UK, a British nun describes her year as an anchoress. In the article — titled “How I became a medieval-style anchorite” — the anonymous author explains:

Before 2003 I thought that hermits were extinct — as dead as a Dodo. I had heard of some of the medieval hermit saints, but in the 21st century, in Britain, surely not.

Yet now I am an anchorite, as was Julian of Norwich, and for one precious year the bishop locked me in. I had a bed area, a shower room, an enclosed garden of 10 square feet, and my oratory with the wicket window opening into our chapel. I had stable doors, the top half being under my control, the lower half locked. I was a “prisoner of the Lord”: no radio, phone, or internet. It was a wonderful year, but due to us moving it could not be prolonged after the initial trial year.

The author usefully summarizes the activities of the historical hermit and the distinction between hermits, solitaries, recluses, and anchorites. She places the live of the anchorite in the perspective of her faith, and ends with the famous quote of Simeon the New Theologian:

Let me alone, sheltered in my cell.
Let me be with God, who alone is good.
Why should I move out of my cell?
Back to that which I left?
Let me be.
I want to cry and mourn over the days and nights I have wasted.

URL: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/2012/02/29/how-i-became-a-medieval-style-anchorite/

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Alex Soth interview

Alex Soth is an American photographer and filmmake. The theme of his most recent exhibition “Broken Manual” is hermits, mentioned previously in this blog. Soth is currently exhibiting at New York City’s Sean Kelly Gallery. Soth was interviewed by the Blouin ArtInfo website. The article is titled: “How to Run Away: Alec Soth on What He Learned From His New Series of Hermit Portraits,” printed Feb. 17, 2012. Additionally, the mainstream Huffington Post also features Soth in an article titled “Alec Soth’s Photographs Capture Males Outside Of Society” (because the hermits Soth photographed are all men).

Here is an excerpt from the interview, followed by a quoate from the Huffington Post article.

ARTINFO: Hermits aren’t exactly easy to pin down. How did you actually find your subjects?
SOTH: In many cases, I found people on the Internet, which always seems like a contradiction. The whole thing about this project is that it’s a contradiction. One of the resource materials that I looked at a bit… there’s this blog that I read on hermitry. And I just think that’s really funny. All these people reading this blog–
ARTINFO: A blog on hermitry seems like the ultimate irony.
SOTH: Yeah, exactly. …

Huffington Post:

What is the inner life of a hermit like, you ask? There is something unsettling about the men in Soth’s images; they quietly address the interior struggle between savagery and civilization, between masculinity and sensitivity. It is clear that the men place great trust in Soth; the natural urges for both bold masculinity and sensitivity lurk in the shadows of their honest faces. Their haunted, faraway expressions create equally haunting imagery, the wilds of the woods mirroring the recesses of the mind.

URLs:
ARTINFO: http://artinfo.com/news/story/760382/how-to-run-away-alec-soth-on-what-he-learned-from-his-new-series-of-hermit-portraits
HP: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/alec-soths-hermit-photographs_n_1285167.html