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David Lidstone, New Hampshire hermit

Multiple media sources report on a New Hampshire hermit living in a cabin in the woods. He has been forced to leave his dwelling and is jailed for violating zoning regulations. He represents a dilemma of the modern hermit: all nature and land is “owned” and not accessible legally for squatting or living, however isolated or undeveloped. On the day he appeared in court, the cabin burned down mysteriously, which supported the authorities’ goal of leaving David Lidstone without any resources. Initially, hermit Dave Lidstone indicated that he would not return to the hermit life. But subsequently, well-wishers have donated money, clothes, vacant properties, and food to him while he contemplates his future. The owner of the property holds over 800 acres in properties and has been seeking to evic t Lidstone for some years.

Coverage oof this story will continue.

URLs: Associated Press: https://bangordailynews.com/2021/08/04/news/new-england/after-decades-in-woods-new-hampshire-hermit-forced-from-his-cabin/ ; update: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2021/aug/11/river-dave-81-says-he-wont-return-to-hermit-lifestyle-after-cabin-burns-down-video; Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9871885/Hermit-River-Dave-says-hes-happier-billionaires-release-jail.html; https://www.vnews.com/River-Dave-amid-remains-of-cabin-41971151

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“Wooden People” – short film

Presented in 2012 by filmessay, an Italian organization distributing short films, Wooden People is a documentary film about a solitary man living in a Belarus village. He is its last resident, but has created a simulated world. From the film website:

“Mikalaj is an old man and the only inhabitant of a village in the biggest forest of Europe, Belavezhskaya Pushcha. This place was teeming with life once, but since then all the other people have either left for the city or died. What depresses Mikalaj is not merely solitude. It is very hard for him to deal with the utter lifestyle and mentality. So he resurrected his country folk. He made hundreds of wooden figures representing all possible kinds of farm work and all the stages of human life. His small characters work, love, marry, give birth, divorce, drink and die. The tiny society has even a nuclear bomb that threatens the very existence of a miniature mankind. That is how Mikalaj lives: working in the field like his ancestors did and talking to his little men.”

URLs: (article) https://boingboing.net/2021/07/31/watch-this-documentary-about-a-villages-sole-inhabitant.html; video: https://vimeo.com/50674051.

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Hermits in Chinese Art: art exhibition

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is presenting a year-long exhibition entitled “Companions in Solitude: Reclusion and Communion in Chinese Art.” The exhibition centers on Chinese paintings featuring hermits and hermits in natural settings.

From the Metropolitan website:

“This exhibition will explore the twin themes of solitude and togetherness in Chinese art. For more than two thousand years, reclusion—removing oneself from society—has been presented as the ideal condition for mental cultivation and transcending worldly troubles. At the same time, communion with like-minded people has been celebrated as essential to the human experience. This choice, to be alone or to be together, has been central to the lives of thinkers and artists, and Chinese art abounds with images of figures who pursued both paths—as well as those who wove them together in complex and surprising ways. Companions in Solitude, presented in two rotations, will bring together more than 120 works of painting, calligraphy, and decorative arts that illuminate this choice—depictions of why and how people have sought space from the world or attempted to bridge the divide between themselves and others. In the wake of 2020, a year that has isolated us physically but connected us virtually in unprecedented ways, this exploration of premodern Chinese reclusion and communion will invite meditation on the fracture and facture of human connection in our own time.

Rotation one: July 31, 2021–January 9, 2022
Rotation two: January 31, 2022–August 14, 2022″

URL: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/companions-in-solitude

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Legendary French hermit-martyr

Le Petit Bleu d’Agen reports on a series of lectures and tours of the archaeology of the ancient church remanants associated with the legendary saints, martyrs, and hermits St. Caprasius and the female St. Faith, associated with Agens, a town in France. Nowadays a lycée de l’Ermitage offers tours and lectures.

URL: https://www.petitbleu.fr/2021/07/22/vivre-en-ermite-une-experience-inedite-proposee-par-destination-agen-samedi-9687367.php

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Hermit feature film: “Pig”

An oddly-themed feature film about a hermit (Nicholas Cage), once a chef, who has abandoned the city and lives alone in the wilderness, foraging for truffles with a companionable pig. The hermit sells the mushrooms to a swank restauranteur. The restauranteur abducts the pig, leading to the plot of the film, the unraveling of the drama of the search, with elements of crime and conflict. However, a lot of inside jokes and shots of luxury plates suggest irony if not satire, which requires viewing for evaluation. Trailer: https://youtu.be/-4nRpdONaAA