#new invention? kevin and charles coded

[secret-sageent]

kevin wtnv is so IDKHOW coded to me

[popculturebuffet]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 Review: Still Possesses Turtle Power After All These Years

Cowabunga all you happy people! I freaking love the Teenage Ninja Turtles. I grew up with it from Turtles in Time, which was my first video game, to the 2003 cartoon, which I covered the first three episodes of last month, and on to present day as I re-read the idw comics after finally reading the original eastman and laird run of mirage, and impatiently waiting for Shredder’s Revenge to come out after a LONG drout of no good TMNT games. I”m a fan of these heroes four, their dynamic as a family, the endless possiblities that come from it’s long history and ablitlity to go anywhere in any genre, and the wonderful goofy shit that happens when you have a franchise about mutant turtles learning ninjitsu from a rat and fighting a dude covered in knife covered samurai armor. 

So with me finally covering the guys after almost a year last month and with a new movie set to debut at some point this year, I had the bright idea to revisit the FIRST TMNT movie after way too many years of not watching it. This movie is anear and dear to my heart: When I first started getting into the boys big as a kid with the 2003 cartoon, I badly wanted more turtles. But back then it wasn’t nearly as easy to glom onto some more of the sewer shock pizza kings: Streaming sites with all the cartoons on them weren’t all that accesable, dvd’s were expensive for the 87 cartoon, Mirage wasn’t reprinting the comics in any meaningful way and my local comic shop didn’t have any at all and I could only play the SNES when my brother had it set up on occasion like at our Grandma’s farm. 

As you probably guessed though there was one exception: the original 1990 movie, which I got at Walmart for 5 bucks and haven’t let go of since. It was one of my first dvds and is still one of my most precious. Said film hit the spot just right as like my beloved 2003 series, it was a mildly goofy but still fucking cool adaptation that stuck closer to the mirage comics, even more than the 2003 series would, while taking a few queues from the 87 series. This film is as precious to me as the 2003 series and a with a brand new movie coming up, I figured it was the exact right time to dig into this classic: what makes it still good to this day, what’s fun to point and laugh at, and how the heck Jim Henson got involved in this. So join me under the cut as I take a look at my boys first theatrical outing and why I still love watching a turtle. 

No One Wanted To Make This: Before we get into the film itself some background. As usual I struggled a bit, but thankfully found some help in the form of this Hollywood Reporter article.  It’s a fascinating read worth your time, providing an oral history of the film from the people who worked on it. 

The film was the baby of Gary Propper, a surfer dude and road manager for the prop comic Gallagher, aka that guy who used to smash watermelons but now has instead opted to smash what little’s left of his career by being a homophobic douchenozzle. He found an ally in Showtime producer Kim Dawson who’d produced Gallagher’s special. I don’t think there will be more of an 80′s sentence than “Gallagher’s surfer dude agent wanted to make a teenage mutant ninja turtles movie”. Propper was a huge fan of the comics, and with Dawson’s help convinced Laird and Eastman to let them option it to studios. 

It may come as a shock to you but the road agent for a homophobic watermelon man and a producer at a niche cable channel wanting to make a movie based on an underground comic book about masked turtles at a time when the two most recent comic book movies were Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Howard the Duck, did not go well. Every door in Hollywood got slammed in their face, even Fox> Even the eventual backer of the film, Golden Harvest, a hong kong action film studio, took months to convince to actually back the film. 

Things did not get easier from there: The films writer Bobby Herbeck had trouble getting a story agreed on because Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s working relationship had deteroiated horribly from the stress so naturally the two could not agree on a damn thing and argued with each other. Peter Laird  made a tense siutation even worse by constnatly sniping at Herbeck and feeling he was a “Hollywood outsider infringing on his vision and characters”

Granted the script was apparently not great... but Pete still comes off as a pretnetious ass who views his weird indie comic as THE HIGHEST OF HIGH CALLINGS HOW DARE YOU SOIL IT. And continued to be kind of a prick like this throughout the rest of his time with the property. 

Thankfully the film found i’ts voice, vision and director in Steve Barron. Barron was a music video guy who knew the producers and while reluctant, eventually dove into the project rightfully thinking the film would need to be a mix of the mirage comics and 87 cartoon, keeping aprils’ reporter job, the turtles lvoe of pizza and their iconic color coding from the cartoon but adapting several stories from the comics as the backbone of the film. The guys liked barron MUCH better and things ran smoother. 

Barron also brought in one of the film’s biggest selling points and it’s most valuable asset: it’s triumphantly awesome Jim Henson costumes. Barron had worked with good old Jim on the music videos for Labyrinth, and while it took some convincing since the comics were violent as hell and that wasn’t Jim’s style, Barron eventually got him on board. This naturally doubled the budget, but given Henson’s costumes STILL hold up today and look better than the cgi used in the platinum dunes films... it was a good call. And this was brand new tech for jim, having to invent tons of new ideas and mechanisms just to make the things work, and said things still were absolute hell on the actors. Jim later ended up not liking the film for being too violent... which I find hilarious given how many muppets got eaten or blowed up real good on his show but regardless, I thank this legendary and wonderful man as without him this film WOULD NOT have worked. The costumes here look great, feel realistic, and you can’t tell the actors were dubbed much less horribly suffering in those suits. Much like Disney Land. 

The film would get picked up for distribution by New Line, and despite i’ts weird as hell origins and the long shot it had.. the film was a MASSIVE hit at the box office, owing to a combination of Batman 89 the previous year having proved comic book movies can work for audiences, the cartoon’s runaway sucess, and a massive marketing campaign. The film made it’s mark. So now we know how we got here let’s get into the film itself. 

What’s the Story Morning Glory?:

So the story for this one is largely cobbled together from some of the more notable arcs Eastman and Laird did before handing off the book to others full time as the stress of the company and the mounting tension with each other made it near impossible to work together on the book itself. 

To Save time i’m just going through what hte movie takes from the comics plot wise now to save me the trouble later:The movie takes elements from the first issue (The Turtles, Splinter and Shredder’s backstories, Shredder being fully human and the main antagonist, Shredder’s design and the final rooftop showdown that results in Shredder’s death), second and third, (April’s apartment over her dad’s old store and the turtles moving in when their home is ransacked and splinter has gone missing), the rapheal micro series (A tounge in cheek way of cashing in on the Mini-Series craze of the 80s, a one shot by modern standards and something that’s tragically been underused as an idea as only TMNT and MLP have used the idea at IDW, Raph meeting casey and their fight with one another), the return of shredder arc (One of the turtles being ambushed and mobbed by the foot and then thrown though a sky light (Leo in the comic and Raph here), the turtles being horribly outnumbered by them, Casey coming ot the rescue and metting the non-raph turtles for the first time, and them being forced to escape when the place goes up in flames), their exile to northampton (April writing in a journal, casey working on a car with one of the guys and one of hte guys looking over hteir injured brother), and finally, their triumphant return which was very loosely adapted as there are no deformed shredder clones and shredder not being dead yet in this version was not brought back by a colony of super science worms. 

So as for how this all comes together: Our story takes place in New York: A crimewave is high with muggings mysterious. There are a ton of phantom thefts going around and at most people have been seeing teens responsibile. And the police.. are at about this level of useful:

The only person doing something is April O’Neil, played by Judith Hoag. Hoag is easily the standout of the film, giving us a strong, confident woman with a wonderful sense of humor. She honestly might be my faviorite April O Neil, and given we’ve had some great ones with 2003, 2012 and Rise, that’s not something I say lightly. I honestly wish I’d recognized her in more stuff as she was both on Nashville and the mom in the Halloween Town films, and most recently was on the ScFy show the magicians. She’s a talented lady and i’m glad she’s still goin. 

April is a reporter for Channel 3 like the cartoon, though for some weird reason her boss from the cartoon is replaced by Charles Pennigton, played by Jay Patterson, whose currently dealing with his troubled son Danny, played by Micheal Turney. Pennington is horribly useless at both jobs: At work he tries to ease April off calling out Chief Sterns, who refuses to listen to April’s evidence gathered from japanese immigrants that the crimes resemble similar ones in japan in favor of trying to get charles to shut her up. Danny meanwhile is a member of the foot becase his dad thinks shouting out him and talking about him like he’s not there and generally being a dipstick will actually do anything to help him. 

I love the concept for the foot here. In addition to being a Ninja Violence Gang as always, they now recruit new members by finding kids without families or with troubled family lives and giving them a sense of family with the foot, and sweeting the bargin with a giant cave filled with arcade machines, a skate ramp and general late 80′s early 90′s kids goodies. Is it rediculous? Yes. Is it also clever as it gives Shredder an easy army of plausably deniable theives that he can pick the best out of to put in his elite that will be tirelessly loyal to him and him alone? Also yes. 

So April being public about this stuff gets her attacked, which naturally leads to our heroes coming in, first in the shadows and later directly when April wont’ give up on the case and Shredder sends some ninjas to go shut her up.. which he does weirdly as the guy jsut slaps her and tells her to cut it out like he’s on a domestically abusive episode of Full House. Raph saves her, and we get the turtles origin.. though weirdly they cut it in half. We get the ooze portion but Splinter’s past with Saki, Saki’s murder of his master and his master’s partern Tang Shen is left for later in the film and the fact Shredder’s saki is treated as a big twist despite the fact the biggest audience for the film would be kids... and kids would’ve been familiar with the cartoon where the giant brain monster routinely screeches out saki at the shredder. Maybe Barron just thought he was an alcoholic I don’t know. It just would’ve made more sense to have it all at once and let the audeince put it together. 

April becomes good friends with the turtles over a night of frozen pizza and camradrie, but the Splinters return home to find it ransacked, Splinter kidnapped by the foot, and are forced to Stay with april. Charles meanwhile tries to get April to backoff because he made a deal with the police to clear Danny’s record, without TELLING her any of this mind you, but I will save my rage on that little plot point for in a bit as Danny who he drug along sees the turtles and tells the Shredder. 

So we get the return of the shredder arc as Raph goes through a window, our heroes fight valiantly, and Raph’s friend Casey who he met earlier shows up, the two having bonded as all true friends do.. by beating the shit out of each other ending with raph shouting DAMNNNNNNN really big and dramatically into the sky for some reason. The Turtles and friends escape with an injured raph from April’s burning second hand store. She had a second hand store it was poorly established and only there because she had it in the comics. 

Our heroes retreat to a farm April’s grandma owned in Northampton, Massachutes, where Mirage was located at the time the original comics where they were exiled to the place were written and a location that has been a staple of the turtles ever since. The turtles slowly recover, lick their wounds, talk about who hooked up with who on gilligans island etc, before Leo connects with Splinter via meditation, who tells them to come back. Splinter also starts to connect with Danny and convinces him to swtich sides.. or at the very least squat in the boys old home. 

The boys return home, find danny, and prepare, Danny goes back and ends up giving away the Turtles are home.. but the turtles are ready and in an awesome sequence kick the fuck out of the foot squad sent for them with some well prepared steam vents. Casey goes to get splinter since Danny told them and with Danny’s help, finds him, since Danny found out they were gonna kill him. Casey beats up Tatsu, shredder’s right hand man, and they get him out. 

We get our final fight which is awesome up until the climax.. which is splinter casually tripping shredder with nunchucks and thier bloody history being kind of rushed and unsatsifying. Casey crushes shredder with a garbage truck, April gets her job back, more on that in a moment, she and casey hook up, and we end with the fucking awesome song T-U-R-T-L-E Power by partners in cryme. Seriously check it out it’s fucking triumphant. 

The song is just good.. cheesy? Sure but that’s half the fun. It’s the gold standard for movie theme songs for them and stacks up handily with the various animated series themes.. all of which slap. Okay... ALMOST all of which slap. Fast Forwards is aggressively medicore, which is doubly suprising to me since 4kids was REALLY damn good with theme songs. It was one of the three things they were best at along with finding VERY talented voice actors and setting japan based works in america because merica dammit.  

The plot is very solid: It skilfully packed half of eastman and laird’s run on TMNT into 90 mintues while adding things like April’s job at channel 9, the way the foot recurited kids etc. The plot flows well for hte most part and apart from one annoying subplot we’ll get to never has a moment that feel unecessary or dosen’t pay off later. And the stellar plot and fun pacing of it helps boilster the characters that do work... and help paper over the ones that are so thin the’yd fall down a grate...

Our Heroes, Villains and Annoying Middle Aged Guys:

Yeahhhh character is hit and miss here. Some are rather strong, others are the bare basics for the character their adapting and most are just to serve the plot but some work some don’t,  So let’s talk about it starting with our boys:

Raph is the most fleshed out of the turtles, being the main focus of the first 2/3 of the film, and having his anger be part of what SHOULD be a character arc, learning to temper it. And while granted MOST TMNT properties do this, to the point that Rise Raph is so loveable in part because his boisterous bruiser big bro attitude is a refreshing break from the usual grumpus we get. But at the time this hadn’t been done in every version but the 87 cartoon, so exploring it was valid.. but despite saying this should be a thing htey just forget about it and the most plot relevance he gets is going thorugh a window. He dosen’t really get a resolution.. his arc just kind of stops dead for the final half and it’s one of the film’s weaker points, one I only just now noticed on this rewatch. He’s still the most entertaining. 

Leo is the weakest of the turtles. He really lacks a personality here mostly just being leader and while his spirtual side is touched on, it’s  mostly a plot device. He’s just kinda the leader because he was in the comics to the point Partners in Cryme called Raph the leader. His role in getting taken out by the foot was taken by Raph, so he just has.. nothing to do for most of the film other than gripe at raph ocasionally and say orders. He’s probably the worst Leo i’ve seen outside of Next Mutation. I prefice that because after watching Phelous’ review it’s VERY clear those four are the worst versions of the characters, and no personality is still better than either having your team do nothing or yelling at them as your personality. I chalk this up to the Mirage Leo, and the mirage turtles to a poit being kind of bland. Not TERRIBLE characters, especially for the time, but not nearly as fleshed out or individualized as they woudl be in other adpatations, and with most traits LEo DID have, like his badassery flat out gone, he’s just.. nothing here. 

Mikey and Donnie are a double act here with both sharing a brain. Interestingly instead of his normal genius character, Donnie is Mikey’s best friend and the two simply trade jokes and schtick together. The two are interchangable.. but easily the best part of the film and a lot of the most memorable gags and lines, from Ninja Kick the Damn Rabbit! to “Do you like Penicllin on your pizza”, are from them. Thier there almost entirely as comic relief but it works, with both clealry being more modled ont he 87 cartoon turtles, a move that helps lighten the mood in darker moments. Their just genuinely charming and it’s intresting to see such a diffrent version of Donnie, and other incarnations, specifically the 2003 and Rise versions, would retain the sarcastic edge. 

Splinter is splinter. That’s about it, he’s peformed well and the puppet is amazing but he gets kidnapped a half an hour in and outside of influcencing Denny, more on that in a moment, and finishing Shredder he dosen’t do much but spout exposition. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s essentially a rodent shaped plot device. He was also puppeted by Kevin CLash, aka the guy who does Elmo. So there you go. 

April on the other hand.. is truly excellent. This might be my faviorite April. Judith’s april nicely blends the cartoon and mirage versions: She has the cartoons energy and job, but the comics sheer will and casual nature. Judith just oozes personality and her April is just a joy to watch, from her breezy chemistry filled interactions with the guys to her confrntation with Chief Sterns, knowing she’ll get thrown out by the asshole. She’s confident, and even when afraid dosen’t back down to her attackers and even helps out during the sewer ambush. I mean it’s a pot on the head but still it’s neat. She’s easily the best part of the flim and the most fleshed out of the cast. The worst I can say is they kinda shove her store from the comics, Second Time Around, in there for no other reason than it was in the comics: It dosen’t come up until it’s needed for the foot’s assault on her place. But overall.. she’s just fantastic to watch. 

Speaking of fantastic to watch, Elias Koteas is fantastic as Casey. Seriously he’s only second to the 2003 version in my eyes, getting the concept of a testorone filled average guy who decided to just go out and hit people with sports equipment after watching too much A-Team.. I mean that part of it’s not in this version but it’s implied, just right. Like judith, Elias is just really funny to watch and his big scenes, showing up just in time during the foot assault on april’s place and his fight with Tatsu are some of the best parts of the film, the former taken directly from the comics. This version isn’t without problems: His friendship with Raph, his most endearing aspect and one that has been carried throughout eveyr version Casey’s important, with the only exception so far being rise and we have a movie to fix that, is absent here. HE does save the guy, but they don’t really bond or anything. In fact he disappears for about half an hour after his big fight with Raph. But... again he’s just so damn entertaining, down to his JOSEEEEEEEEEEE Conseco bats (There was a two for one sale!).

Shredder is just a LITTLE better than splinter, if only because his actor projects a true aura of menace and I feel this version had some influence on the pants crappingly terrifying 2003 version. And the idea of the foot recurting teenagers like I said is a good one: He gives them home and a cause, they give him plausably deniable backup. And his fight with the boys in the climax is really awesome... the conclusion sucks but otherwise h’es okay. Not the deepest villian, but he has enough presence to be enjoyable.

His right hand man Tatsu, whose been adapted ocasionally since this and reimaigned as Natsu in the IDW comics, a female version, is also fine. He’s your standard grimacing goon but has enough presence to work. 

So that brings us to the penningtons. Charles, april’s boss at the station and his son Danny who’s joined the foot as he feels his dad dosen’t love him. Charles..is about as interesting and likeable as a dog turd and is the worst aspect of the film. No debate there, he just sucks. He sucks so hard he’s classified as a black hole.  The film wants you to see him as a put upon wokring dad whose frustrated with his son’s increased moodiness, skipping school and crminal undertakings and just wants to help him and loves him deep down. The problem is his actor’s delivery instead of concerned.. is just pissed. He just seems pissy and upset about the whole thing and comes off like he’s only mad about Danny doing this because he’s embarassing him and not because you know, it’s bad. When confronting Danny about stealing, he dosen’t consider MAYBE he’s part of a gang or needs help, but just wonders “Why are you stealing when I give you stuff”. Because, Dipshit, sometimes kids do crimes not because they need the stuff but because they WANT to, and because they want to act the fuck out. 

The most he does for the kid is agree to try and get April to back off the police when Cheif Sterns offers to let Danny go and not put him on record in exchange for it. The problem.. is this makes him even MORE unsympathetic. While I do get wanting to help your child, I do and it’s a sucky position... he again should be sympathetic.. but he handles the thing so badly it sucks. He just tells april to ease off, with no reason given, then fires her when she SHOCKINGLY dosen’t give up taking the guy whose refusing to take her hard work seriously or actually solve the crime wave problem to task for his shitty behavior as ANY person facing a shitty, corrput cop would. She just wants to hold him acountable and get him to actually do something. He clearly knows her on a personal level too as he talks about his issues with his son freely with her, something you don’t do with an employee unless their also a friend on some level. 

He could have TOLD april what was going on. She’d be furious at Stern’s naked corrpution and prioritizing shutting her up over actually solving crimes.. and thus put at least some of that energy into shutting him down or finding a way around it, going to the papers or something like that. Even in 1990 pre-internet, there were ways to get around Sterns blackmail and expose him so someone who’d actually do the job could get the job. Instead he just comes off as a selfish coward who rather than try and fight the guy blatantly abusing his power and using Charles own son as  barganing chip, goes along with it because it’s the easier option to simply bow to him instead of TRY and stop this. And it’s not like he’s even going after a beloved public figure or someone who could hide behind his rep: Sterns was blatantly failing a crime wave, April had called him out on his failrues and coverups multiple times. The public was against sterns.. finding out he tried to blackmail the media into shutting up about him would PROBABLY end him... I only say probably not because the public wouldn’t skewer him, but because police tend to escape consequences for blatantly murdering someone on a daily basis and Andrew Cumo is STILl mayor over in new york, the same city this movie takes place, 31 years later, depsite EVERYONE asking him to resign over a long history of sexual harassment and a more recent but still horrible history of hiding death numbers. I don’t doubt people being stupid enough to ignore this or the bilaws with cops being stacked enough for him to get away with it, but just because someone gets away with a crime dosen’t mean you shoudln’t try and go after them in the first place. Fuck. Charles. Pennington. 

Danny on the other hand is FAR more interesting and I think gets way too much flack when it comes to this subplot. Unlike his dad, whose dead weight, Danny is intresting: He provides a POV character for the foot’s MO in the film of taking in wayward teens, and his character arc is pretty engaging, slowly realizing the foot dosen’t care and that hte turtles are the good guys. HIs actor does a great job and while not the biggest presence, he’s not a bad addition to clan hamaoto and I wish other adaptations would find a way to use him. The pull between doing the right thing and his found family is a good struggle. My only real issue with his plot is the moviies flawed aseop about family. It tries to contrast shredder and his using the kids blatnatly with Splinter and Charles really loving their sons. And it works with Splinter and the kids because despite being a tad strict, Splinter clearly loves his sons and works with them to help them. The problem is ENTIRELY with Charles and Danny. As I said Charles love comes off as transasctional: He either thinks he can buy it or just expects it because he shot a bunch of goop into Danny’s mom after two minutes of disapointment. It dosen’t work with them because neither option is good for Danny. His father is neglectful, chooses throwing his jounralistic integrity out the window over talking to his son or his best friend about another way, and abrasive. Danny is no saint, he does do crimes, but it’s clearly a result of a shitty upbringing and the shredder and co actually offeirng him the love he desperatly craves. Danny goes to the foot because his dad is bad at his job but the film never adresses that and just expects Danny to go back to his dad because the plot says so. Danny would HONESTLY be better off with Splinter. No really. Sure he’d have to live in the sewers.. but he did so for a few weeks in the course of the movie. He’s fine down there. Splitner actually cares about him and took an intrest to him and knows how to raise a child. Let him become the fifth turtle. An aseop about family is not a bad thing: Loaded subject that it can be given how many outright abusive families exist, i’m one of the lucky ones who dosen’t have that issue, family is an important thing and can be a source of comfort and support. But this film tells you you should love and respect someone who does not love, respect or value you because he spent a minute in your mom’s vagina and that’s not how family should work and is outright dangerous to kids in an abusive situation. Love the film otherwise but fuck this aseop skyhigh. 

Final thoughts:

Overall though.. the film is bodacious. It’s funny, well paced, has an awesome cast, and outside of a certain bald asswipe... it’s a really good superhero film. Is it the best i’ve seen? Nope. Not even close and character wise most of them are as thin as a wet paper bag covered in ranch dressing. But it’s still a fun as hell with awesome corepgraphy, a killer soundtrack, seriously the soundtrack is damn excellent and only didn’t get it’s own section because I didn’t have enough to say and some of the best effects work i’ve seen in a film in the turtle suits. If you haven’t seen it I urge you to check it out: it’s a breezy 90 minutes, it’s on hbo max and it’s a shell of a time. Will I do the next film? 

We’ll see how this one does like wise and such, but I will be doing the rise film whenever it comes out this year. So look for that and keep possesing turtle power my dudes. If you liked this review subscirbe for more, join my patreon to keep this blog a chugging, comission a review if you have more turtle stuff you want me to cover, and comment on this. What do you think of the movie, what are your thoughts on the review, what can I do better, what other turtle stuff would you like me to cover/ Let me know and i’ll see you at hte next rainbow. 

[newagesispage]

                                                                AUGUST    2021

THE RIB  PAGE

Fran Drescher is running for National SAG-AFTRA President with Anthony Rapp as secretary treasurer for Unite for Strength!!! Matthew Modine is running under Membership first with Joely Fisher for Secretary Treasurer. Running in local elections are, among others, Yvette Nicole Brown, Shari Belafonte, Rosie O’Donnell, Jeff Garlin, Ezra Knight, Dule Hill, Camryn Manheim, Sara Rue, Mindy Cohn and Ever Carradine. Sept. 2 is the day!** Frances Fisher filed a suit against SAG-AFTRA over the health care plan but a judge rejected it.

*****

Sha’Carri Richardson’s problem is all our problem. No more drug testing for Mary Jane in this country!

*****

Chuck Schumer finally unveiled the Cannabis administration opportunity act to end Federal prohibition of marijuana.

*****

Dolly Parton used the $10 mil + in royalties from the Whitney Houston version of her song to invest in a black neighborhood in Nashville.

*****

Bob Balaban and Henry Winkler play brothers in The French Dispatch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can’t wait for October 22!!!!!!!!!!!!** The next Wes Anderson film will star Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody and Tom Hanks. No other details are out there yet.

*****

Trees save lives in heat waves.

*****

TBS will bring us n updated Stupid Pet Tricks with Sarah Silverman.

*****

So much organized religion is based on forgeries, fakes and plundering. Virtually none of it is based on any sort of truth, spiritual or even historical. Just lies to fulfill an agenda and control the masses. And so far it has worked. –Larry Charles

*****

Scarlett Johansen has sued Disney cuz her contract guaranteed a theatrical release only.

*****

An expert on the circus industry recently reached out to me and urged me to not compare Trump and his comeback tour to clowns and the circus, as that is an insult to clowns. –Jim Acosta

*****

Eric Adams has won the Dem primary for Mayor in NY.

*****

Have you seen High on the Hog?? It’s awesome!!

*****

Jeff Flake will be ambassador to Turkey.

*****

Cornell West resigned from Harvard with a scathing letter accusing the school of “intellectual and spirited bankruptcy of deep depths.”

*****

Biden gave a hell of a speech in Philly. He needed to go on more about the filibuster but he was passionate about the For the People act and the John Lewis voting rights advancement act.  He roared, “Peddlers of lies are threatening the very foundation of our country.”

*****

Will Celebrity Dating Game continue? I am sure they think romance expert, Michael Bolton is a cute and quirky thing to do but not so much. If it stays, I hope they change the music, at least those final notes. And why are half of the questions, “Who am I?” The show could be cute but they need a little work!!

*****

Jeff Bezos donated $200 mil to the Smithsonian air and space museum.**Feminists everywhere winced when Gayle King was interviewing the Bezos space team.  Bezos commented about the 18 year old going with them into space and that he was just worried about the prom at 18. Gayle said “And I was just hoping for a date to the prom.”** But we have to love Wally Funk, the oldest woman to go into space.**Bezos thanked the Amazon employees and customers for paying for his trip. Yikes!**  Saw a great sign: Pay fair taxes, end hunger, help people, end poverty, save Earth or fly to space.

*****

Antonio Banderas and Harrison Ford will star in Indiana Jones 5.

*****

Zsa Zsa Gabor’s ashes were laid to rest 5 years after her death.

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The Britney conservatorship mess is still going thru the courts, and now topless?

*****

Pope Francis underwent colon surgery which caused him to comment on the need for good health care for all.

*****

Questlove brings us Summer of Soul!!!

*****

Reports show that about 150 people were killed by guns in more than 400 shootings during the 4th.

*****

Has anybody ever built a show around the Tex Watson tapes?? The LAPD apparently liked to deny them but there was a book.

*****

Henry Hall is out with his debut album, Neato, along with a tour.

*****

Do all male law enforcement officers have to be bald now?

*****

Idaho has begun an eradication campaign that could slash the number of gray wolves living in the state by 90%.

*****

Hooray for the monthly child tax credit!!

*****

Release Me 2 from Barbra Streisand is due out August 6.

*****

The look into the Jan. 6 insurrection has begun. Kinzinger and Cheney are in. **Tucker Carlson attacked Harry Dunn, a Capitol officer on air. The man protected Carlson’s son, a House staffer.** On Jan. 5, the Steve Bannon podcast went like this: All Hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this. It’s gonna be moving. It’s gonna be quick.** Why is mainstream media putting nearly all eggs in the Covid and Olympic baskets and only a few on the insurrection hearing?

*****

Why do so many that call America , “great” seem to hate it?? How can one love this country and not want majority rule, not want democracy??

*****

The Emmy noms are out: Lovecraft Country was nominated even though it has been cancelled.  Also hooray for Pose, The Flight attendant and for Conan!! Lead actor is a tough category with Matthew Rhys, Billy Porter and Rege-Jean Page. Aidy Bryant and Jean Smart got lead and supporting noms. I have to route for Ewan McGregor and Anya Taylor-Joy. I am excited for Paul Reiser, Bowen Yang, Evan Peters, Carl Weathers, Renee Elise Golsberry, Dave Chappelle, Helena Bonham Carter and Daniel Levy. There is love for Yvette Nicole Brown, Issa Rae and Maya Rudolph. The Masked Singer got a few noms. The doc category included Tina, Allen V. Farrow and The Bee Gees. Friends: The reunion got 4.

*****

“Voting is not supposed to be easy. That’s what our men died for.”- Jack Finger

*****

Giant Pandas are no longer endangered.

*****

Zalia Avante- Garde is the 93rd Scripps National Spelling Bee Champ.** I’m more impressed by the girl who won the Spelling Bee than the billionaire who went to space. –Mike Jollett.

*****

Why do they have to run erectile dysfunction ads during true crime rape episodes? ** And why do people still say things like, “this just don’t happen here” or “dumped like a piece of trash? “ There have to be other things to say.

*****

Tom Barrack, chairman of the inaugural committee for Trump was arrested for foreign lobbying shenanigans. America first, right?** Wilbur Ross lied to congress about the census and the Trump administration declined to prosecute.** Stephen Calk, bank exec was found guilty of trying to get a WH position by giving Manafort millions in loans.

*****

Jake Ellzey won the Texas special election run off for congress, beating out Trump’s girl Susan Wright.

*****

Every city should have a Peacemobile!!!!!

*****

The Chinese government has been called out for malicious cyber -attacks.  Four officials have been indicted in California.

*****

Miracle Workers’ Simon Rich was there when FB was invented and was so creeped out by people using it to stalk women.

*****

There was a story in Rolling Stone about how Eric Clapton threatened to cancel shows if the venue required proof of vaccines. Valerie Bertinelli tweeted: Once a dick, always a dick.

*****

Every Fox news host is vaccinated. –Mikel Jollett

*****

Toyota has dropped out of Olympic ads.  Contenders are starting to drop out due to positive Covid tests.

*****

Actor Isaiah Stokes has been indicted for murder.

*****

Lionsgate has bought the rights to Clerks 3.

*****

Ready or not, here come the Olympics.- Harry Shearer

*****

The Cleveland Indians will now be the Cleveland Guardians.

*****

A bust of KKK leader Nathan Bedford Forrest was taken out of the Tennessee capitol.

*****

American Housewife was sold into syndication.

*****

The poorest zip codes include Erie, Pennsylvania, Decatur and the south end of Peoria, il, Canton, Oh, Waterbury, Ct., Bonsecour, Al. and Elpaso, Tx.

*****

Issa Rae married Louis Diame.

*****

The court of appeals disqualified Judge John W. Ouderkirk from the Jolie- Pitt divorce because of a business relationship with Pitt’s attorney.

*****

Joe Manchin owns a coal company.

*****

The Hollywood walk of fame has welcomed Jimmy Smits, Kathie Lee Gifford and 90 year old Marla Gibbs. Terry Crews is next!

*****

Generation after generation of women love the bad boy.  Do they never learn? I will never understand, please explain.

*****

Pelosi rejected 2 of the noms to serve on the special committee looking into Jan. 6. Kevin McCarthy withdrew his 5 noms.

*****

The gun that killed Billy the Kid is for sale.

*****

I think you should leave with Tim Robinson on Netflix is hilarious if U get thru the gross. U can’t miss the episode with Clifton Davis and Fred Willard!!

*****

Joaquin Phoenix is trying to get some bears from a traveling show moved to an accredited sanctuary. The Bearadise Ranch in Florida has been cited for, “violating state wildlife laws.”

*****

Go employees Go!! Frito Lay is on strike, Coal miners are on strike and Ride Share drivers are on strike. A good portion of this country should be on strike. The top of the corporate ladder needs to learn! Let those that treat us fair rise to the top.

*****

Who owns Brett Kavanaugh?

*****

A Bishop seeking to deny Biden communion was caught on Grindr.

*****

Gabriel Jagger married Anouk Winzenried.** I don’t know why the Rolling Stones bass player doesn’t just change his name to “not pictured.” –Michael Mckean

*****

Frank Fritz will not be back on American Pickers.

*****

For the first time, astronomers have seen behind a black hole. Einstein predicted the gravitational pull of black holes is so enormous that they warp the very fabric of space. He was right. Scientists have now spotted light which was being emitted by the far side of the black hole.

*****

Look for Heels on Starz.

*****

What is this new screen for Amazon? It sucks.

*****

Biden has signed an executive order to protect infrastructure from cyber- attacks.

*****

Arthur was canceled.

*****

The Kennedy Center has revealed the latest honorees. The 44th class is Justin Diaz, Berry Gordy, Lorne Michaels, Bette Midler and Joni Mitchell and will be held on Dec. 5.

*****

Get well Bob Odenkirk!!!! The fabulous Odenkirk collapsed on the set of Better call Saul from a minor heart attack.

*****

Days alert: We have lost Days of Our Lives first director, Joseph Behar.  He will be missed.** Marla Ginns is joining the cast as Paulina’s Mother. ** Is EJ throwing Sami out? Will AJ McLean join the cast? **Rex is back.**Peacock is bringing us a limited series, Days of our Lives: Beyond Salem that will send many couples on romantic vacations and lead to intrigue. Lisa Rinna will star.** Arianna Zucker (Nicole) is set to marry Shawn Christian (former Daniel).  He popped the question on Father’s Day.

*****

R.I.P. President Jovenel Moise, Philece Sampler, Robert Downey Sr., Richard Donner, flood victims of Belgium and Germany,  Robby Steinhardt, Covid victims, Joseph Behar, Robert Moses, Jackie Mason, Dusty Hill, joey Jordison, Priscilla McMillan, Ron Popeil, Carl Levin, Saginaw Grant and Charles Robinson.

[taleoftalespod]

Tale of Tales | episode: 1.07 “Risen (Part 1)”

Once there was a god who rose from the dead…

In this (year late) episode of Tale of Tales, we'll explore the complexities of imperialism, the joys (and sorrows) of sex, and why you literally cannot win once you've gotten yourself mixed up in goddesses' interpersonal disputes.

https://www.buzzsprout.com/800948/8267888-1-07-risen-part-1.mp3?blob_id=37471845&download=true

Tale on this episode:

Publius Ovidius Naso, “Venus and Adonis”, The Metamorphoses, ed. Charles Martin (0:18:47-0:43:58)

“Inanna and Dumuzid”, reconstructed from various hymns collected by Samuel Noah Kramer and Diane Wolkstein in Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns From Sumer (0:51:22-1:29:54)

All Music Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Track Listing:

“Afterlife” by Alexander Nakarada (0:00:12-0:03:09)

“Tranquil Fields - Eastern” by Alexander Nakarada (0:03:10-0:04:33; 0:54:22-0:56:26; 0:58:13-1:00:40)

“Wanderer” by Alexander Nakarada (0:18:47-0:20:25)

“Stay the Course” by Kevin MacLeod (0:24:32-0:31:17; 1:02:33-1:04:40)

“Ancient Rite” by Kevin MacLeod (0:31:17-0:36:28; 0:51:22-0:54:22)

“Tranquil Fields - Peaceful” by Alexander Nakarada (0:37:55-0:41:55; 1:33:32-1:34:36)

“Send For the Horses” by Kevin MacLeod (0:41:55-0:43:58)

“The Enemy” by Alexander Nakarada (1:04:38-1:07:28)

“Oppressive Gloom” by Kevin MacLeod (1:08:39-1:14:19)

“Reign Supreme” by Kevin MacLeod (1:14:50-1:15:53)

“Expeditionary” by Kevin MacLeod (1:15:51-1:18:57)

“Gathering Darkness” by Kevin MacLeod (1:20:29-1:25:06)

“Burnt Spirit” by Kevin MacLeod (1:24:55-1:26:45)

“Tempting Secrets” by Kevin MacLeod (1:26:24-1:29:54)

Episode Extra: The Afterlife of Mary Magdalene

There is another woman, closer to home for Christianity, who has been known for the love she had for a dead man. Though the number of women at the empty tomb varies depending on the gospel being read, the Christian Church has traditionally recognized the round number of the Three Marys: Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Salome, and Mary Magdalene, also known as the Myrrh Bearers since they brought precious ointments with them to embalm Jesus’ body. Mary was a popular name at the time — in Hebrew, it’s Miriam, the name of the prophetess who helped Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt during the Exodus. In a time of political dissatisfaction and nostalgia for an imagined past of religious and national freedom, many Jewish parents of the first century named their children with the expectation of an imminent reversal of fortunes. 

Mary Magdalene is an enigmatic figure from her very first appearance in text: her title “Magdalene” doesn’t translate very well into anything. The most common scholarly reconstruction is that it means she was from Magdala, a large fishing village in the Galilee, but even that isn’t very certain. Mark and Matthew only refer to her by name, without any other description beyond her attachment to Jesus’ following. Luke informs us that she had been rid of seven demons by Jesus, but also that (somewhat more importantly) she and a couple other women were his patrons — they funded his work. In spite of her mysterious past as a demoniac, then, her role in Jesus’ ministry reflected not simply womanly servitude but the power and prestige of a typical rich Roman woman helping pay a client’s bills — a position common enough in early Christianity to afford women quite a lot of say in the Church in the first few centuries CE.

Naturally, there was some tension about these powerful roles, and the second and third centuries saw increased squeamishness from Christian men about women’s outspokenness, and for one reason or another Mary Magdalene became, for both misogynist and proto-feminist sides of the debate, the prototypical woman disciple. The second century Gospel of Thomas ends with a scene in which Peter, prototypical of male discipleship, asks Jesus to tell Mary Magdalene to go away since “women don’t deserve to live”, but Jesus reassures him that she can stay because his guidance will make her (at least spiritually) male — a pro-Mary Magdalene take in which women are allowed to be prominent in the Church but must act like men to do so. Another somewhat-easier-to-digest text, named the Gospel of Mary by scholars, describes a discussion between the disciples after Jesus has gone back to heaven — Mary Magdalene tries you reassure the male disciples that Jesus promised her he’d be with them forever, and Peter responds that Jesus would never have spoken alone to a woman, inciting a furious argument between all the disciples about Mary’s place. Later legends told how Mary Magdalene sailed to Rome after Jesus’ resurrection and tried to convert Emperor Tiberius, bringing a white chicken egg as a humble gift; when Tiberius claimed a man could no more rise from the dead that her egg could change color, the egg in her hand turned blood red — a potential source for the modern Easter egg tradition.

Misogynistic arguments found support in Mary’s sordid demonic past and her subservience to Jesus and relative silence in the New Testament gospels themselves. The medieval pope Gregory XIV did the Magdalene a further disservice by proclaiming (with no evidence) that she was the same woman as the “woman of ill repute” in Luke 9 who cried on Jesus’ feet, instigating a number of inventive portrayals of Mary Magdalene as the terrible scandalous harlot whom Jesus converted  into a repentant, quiet saint. A sorry, penitent Mary Magdalene, usually tantalizingly undressed but still covered by her long hair, sometimes contemplating her own mortality via a skull in one hand, became a favorite subject of Christian artists, giving the Church a whore to complement Mother Mary.

The past century has seen attempts to revitalize and reclaim the image of the Magdalene. Some attempts have been less progressive than others — such as the rumor that, rather than a sex worker (gross), Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ wife (good), an allegation that inspired The Last Temptation of Christ and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. More recently, Pope Francis in 2012 declared Mary Magdalene “apostle to the apostles”, based on the fact that in the Gospel of John she is not only the only woman at the empty tomb, but also the first person to see Jesus alive again, and the one whom he himself entrusts with the news of his resurrection, essentially making her not only the very first apostle, but also the very first Christian. In her book The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, feminist theologian Jane Schaberg notes, “Mary Magdalene is the madwoman in Christianity’s attic... hidden there because of an open and not fully appreciated secret, and its implications, at Christianity’s core: that the male disciples fled and the women did not.”

[allbestnet]

232 Book Recommendations From Derek Sivers

Mindwise: How We Understand What Others Think, Believe, Feel, and Want by Nicholas Epley

So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William Irvine

The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert

E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber

The Dip by Seth Godin

Happy by Derren Brown

Au Contraire: Figuring Out the French by Gilles Asselin and Ruth Mastron

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson

Ego Is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday

Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart: Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now by Gordon Livingston

Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters

Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches by Marvin Harris

The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster by Darren Hardy

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

The Wisdom of No Escape by Pema Chödrön

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön

Fluent Forever by Gabriel Wyner

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

When Cultures Collide by Richard D. Lewis

The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman

Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Willpower Instinct by Kelly McGonigal

Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield

Quiet by Susan Cain

What Technology Wants by Kevin Kelly

Do the Work by Steven Pressfield

What Got You Here Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman

Drive by Daniel Pink

Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt

Influence by Robert Cialdini

Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes

The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

The Smartest Investment Book You'll Ever Read by Daniel R. Solin

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz

Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon

The Geography of Genius by Eric Weiner

A Mind for Numbers by Barbara Oakley

Smartcuts by Shane Snow

Superhuman by Habit by Tynan

The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday

Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams

5 Elements of Effective Thinking by Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird

The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin

Mastery by Robert Greene

Mastery by George Leonard

The Little Book of Talent by Daniel Coyle

The Developing World by Fredrik Härén

Willpower by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney

Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer

Practicing Mind by Thomas Sterner

Seeking Wisdom by Peter Bevelin

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland

Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling and Mike Taber

On Writing by Stephen King

The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner

The Investor's Manifesto by William J. Bernstein

How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman

The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle

Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod

Tribes by Seth Godin

How to Talk to Anyone by Leil Lowndes

Brain Rules by John Medina

You, Inc - The Art of Selling Yourselfby Harry Beckwith

How to Get Rich by Felix Dennis

The Innovator's Solution by Clayton Christensen

Small is the New Big by Seth Godin

Getting Things Done by David Allen

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers

The Road Less Traveled by M. Scott Peck

Grit by Angela Duckworth

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Fabe and Elaine Mazlish

The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik

The Inevitable by Kevin Kelly

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Geography of Time by Robert Levine

How to Learn a Foreign Language by Paul Pimsleur

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Choose Yourself! by James Altucher

No B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs by Dan S. Kennedy

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

The Passionate Programmer by Chad Fowler

Fail-Safe Investingby Harry Browne

Poke the Box by Seth Godin

The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss

Cognitive Surplus by Clay Shirky

Hackers & Painters by Paul Graham

Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun

I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi

Why Smart People Make Big Money Mistakes by Gilovich and Belsky

What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis

CrowdSourcing by Jeff Howe

The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams

Meatball Sundae by Seth Godin

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t by Steven Pressfield

The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias

Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change by Pema Chödrön

Germany: Unraveling an Enigma by Greg Nees

Give and Take by Adam M. Grant

The Bed of Procrustes by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Ikigai by Sebastian Marshall

Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

Pragmatic Programmer by Andy Hunt and David Thomas

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 

You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Making a Good Brain Great by Daniel G. Amen

Business Stripped Bare by Richard Branson

Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi and Tahl Raz

Overachievement by John Eliot

The How of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky

The Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille

The Four Pillars of Investing by William Bernstein

Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

The Culting of Brands by Douglas Atkin

Execution by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan

Maximum Achievement by Brian Tracy

The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne

The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life by Russ Roberts

Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey

The Story of French by Jean-Benoit Nadeau and Julie Barlow

Island by Aldous Huxley

Ready for Anything by David Allen

Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe

The Now Habit by Neil Fiore

Meditation for Beginners by Jack Kornfield

A Gift to My Children by Jim Rogers

Linchpin by Seth Godin

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins

Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking by D.Q. McInerny

Pomodoro Technique Illustrated by Staffan Nöteberg

Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt

The Great Formula by Mark Joyner

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Lucky Or Smart? by Bo Peabody

The China Study by Campbell and Campbell

The Power of Less by Leo Babuta

Cut to the Chase by Stuart Levine

Know-How by Ram Charan with Geri Willigan

The Art of Project Management by Scott Berkun

Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking by Richard Nisbett

Never Let Go by Dan John

In Pursuit of Silence by George Prochnik

The Laws of Subtraction by Matthew May

Drop Dead Healthy by A. J. Jacobs

Little Bets by Peter Sims

One Simple Idea by Stephen Key

Focus by Leo Babauta

The Upside of Irrationality by Dan Ariely

The Profit Zone by Adrian Slywotzky

Speaking of India by Craig Sorti

Losing My Virginity : How I've Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way by Richard Branson

Leading an Inspired Life by Jim Rohn

And Never Stop Dancing by Gordon Livingston

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World by Donald Sull

Quirkology by Richard Wiseman

Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark

A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger

Make It Stick by Peter Brown

The Power of No by James and Claudia Altucher

How to Learn and Memorize French Vocabulary by Anthony Metivier

The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande

Hiring Smart by Pierre Mornell

Discover Your Inner Economist by Tyler Cowen

Causing a Scene by Charlie Todd

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

How to be a Billionaire by Martin Fridson

Enough by John Bogle

Management of the Absurd by Richard Farson

Reality Check by Guy Kawasaki

Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Obsolete Employee by Michael Russer

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind by T. Harv Ecker

The Future of Almost Everything by Patrick Dixon

Wilde in America by David M. Friedman

Complexity: A Guided Tour by Melanie Mitchell

Your Memory by Kenneth L. Higbee

The Philosophical Baby by Alison Gopnik

Hire With Your Head by Lou Adler

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain De Botton

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell

China Road by Rob Gifford

Hot Commodities by Jim Rogers

Me, Inc. by Gene Simmons

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff and Leland Purvis

The Four Filters Invention of Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger by Bud Labitan

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Confessions of a Serial Entrepreneur by Stuart Skorman

Life Without Lawyers by Philip K. Howard

The Productive Programmer by Neal Ford

Crash Proof 2.0 by Peter Schiff

Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton

A Bull in China by Jim Rogers

Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston

Seeing What Others Don't by Gary Klein

Flex: Do Something Different by Ben Fletcher and Karen Pine

Cambodia's Curse by Joel Brinkley

Conspiracy of the Rich by Robert Kiyosaki

The Think Big Manifesto by Michael Port and Mina Samuels

[topfygad]

24 interesting facts about Aconcagua

We share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua – from the world’s highest art gallery to mysterious mummified remains

I recently climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, the third step of my journey to climb the seven summits.

Cerro Aconcagua may not be one of the most beautiful mountains in the world and the ascent is certainly short on charm, but this enormous lump of Andean rock and ice is one of the most coveted mountains on the planet.

Every year, thousands of seasoned and amateur mountaineers flock to its slopes to test themselves in one of the harshest environments on the continent.

I spent 14 days on the mountain’s blustery, barren slopes doing just that. Below, I share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua I picked up along the way.

Interesting facts about Aconcagua

1. The exact height of Aconcagua is debatable. A 2001 survey by an Italian-Argentinian team put the mountain at 6,961.83m (22,840ft). However, in 2012, a team of scientists from various academic institutions in Mendoza resurveyed Aconcagua and came up with 6,960.8m (22,837ft). (Source: Britannica)

2. What is unquestionable is that Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas, which is why it’s often called the ‘roof of the Americas’. (Source: Lonely Planet)

3. The above also makes Aconcagua the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Western Hemisphere and outside of Asia. (Source: Popular Mechanics)

4. Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits, a collection of the highest mountain on each continent. It is the second-highest of the seven after Asia’s Mount Everest. (Source: Britannica)

Darq/Shutterstock Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits

5. After Mount Everest, Aconcagua is the world’s highest topographically prominent summit (i.e. the height of the summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it). This makes it an ultra-prominent peak – notable for its exceptional rise (more than 1,500m/4,900ft) over the surrounding terrain. (Source: PeakList)

6. As climbing Aconcagua does not require any specialist mountaineering skills, it is considered a non-technical ascent and is the highest trekking peak in the world. (Source: The Telegraph)

7. There are several theories on the origin of the name based on the local languages. In Mapuche, Aconca-Hue refers to the Aconcagua River and means ‘comes from the other side’; in Quechua, Ackon Cahuak means ‘sentinel of stone’; and in Aymara, Janq’u Q’awa means ‘white ravine’. (Source: R.W. McColl. (2005). Encyclopedia of World Geography. Facts On File: New York)

8. German explorer Paul Gussfeldt made the first recorded attempt to climb Aconcagua in 1833 getting to within 500m of the summit. (Source: NASA)

Atlas & Boots Peter on the summit of Aconcagua

9. The first survey of the mountain was completed by Charles Darwin during the voyages of the Beagle in 1835. (Source: NASA)

10. Swiss climber Matthias Zurbriggen made the first successful ascent of Aconcagua on 14th January 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999) Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

11. Brit Edward FitzGerald led the successful expedition but failed to reach the summit himself despite making at least eight attempts between December 1896 and February 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999). Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

12. At the time, it was the highest peak in the world to have been climbed to date. (Source: British Mountaineering Council)

13. The world’s highest contemporary art gallery is on Aconcagua. Located at the Plaza de Mulas base camp at 4,300m (14,107ft), Nautilus is a tented art gallery featuring the works of local artist Miguel Doura. (Source: Guinness World Records)

Alfredo Cerra/shutterstock Nautilus art gallery at Plaza de Mulas base camp

14. In December 2019, Czech skyrunner Martin Zhor set a new record for the fastest ascent and descent of Aconcagua. He completed the return trip from base camp in just 3 hours, 38 minutes and 17 seconds. (Source: Planet Mountain)

15. In 1944, Frenchwoman Adriana Bance became the first woman to summit Aconcagua. Tragically, she and her husband would later die on the mountain. (Source: Joy Logan. (2011). Aconcagua: The Invention of Mountaineering on America’s Highest Peak. University of Arizona Press: Tucson)

16. In 1947, a British plane rumoured to be carrying Nazi spies and a payload of gold mysteriously disappeared near Aconcagua. In 1999, wreckage was discovered 100km away on a mountain called Tupungato. Despite a massive investigation, the mystery of the gold, spies and a cryptic morse code message sent moments before the crash remains unsolved. Much of wreckage remains hidden in glaciers. (Source: The Guardian)

17. Aconcagua featured in a 1942 Disney animation called Pedro. Pedro, a ‘baby plane’, nearly crashes into Aconcagua while carrying mail over the Andes while covering for his dad who ‘was laid up with a cold in his cylinder head’. (Source: IMDB)

18. In January 2009, there were five deaths on Aconcagua in four separate incidents. It’s unusual for so many to die in such a short space of time on Aconcagua and the events sent shockwaves through the local community. (Source: Outside Magazine)

19. One of those deaths was of Italian Federico Campanini. Controversially, video footage was uploaded online showing a team of rescuers trying to help Campanini. Campanini’s father took the rescuers to court citing they did not do enough for his son. The case was dismissed. (Source: National Geographic)

20. In 1985, mountaineers discovered mummified remains of a seven-year-old boy on Aconcagua at 5,300m (17,400ft). His body had been wrapped in cloth and was surrounded by six small statues. It is thought the boy was a child sacrifice. During the reign of the Incas, children were sometimes taken to high mountain peaks where they were killed or left to die. (Source: BBC News)

21. In 2019, Airbus landed an H145 helicopter on the summit of Aconcagua. This was the first time in history a twin-engine helicopter had landed at such an altitude.  (Source: Airbus)

22. The notoriously unpredictable weather on Aconcagua is made worse by the peak’s relative distance from the equator. The further you travel from the equator, the thinner the Earth’s atmosphere becomes. As such, the effects of altitude are more extreme and the weather is more volatile. (Source: Jim Ryan. (2018). Trekking Aconcagua and the Southern Andes. Cicerone: Kendal)

23. The youngest person to climb Aconcagua was nine-year-old boy Tyler Armstrong. He climbed the mountain with his father, Kevin Armstrong, and Tibetan sherpa Lhawang Dhondup. (Source: BBC News)

22. The oldest person to climb Aconcagua was Scott Lewis who reached the summit in 2007 when he was 87 years old. (Source: Irish Independent)

23. There are no official statistics, but it is thought that over 100 people have died trying to climb Aconcagua. (Source: BBC News)

24. Finally, one of the most interesting facts about Aconcagua is that depending on the time of year, concurrent winter climbs in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges of Asia, and given that summit times on Aconcagua typically correspond to night-time in Nepal and Pakistan, when a climber summits Aconcagua, it is likely he or she will briefly be (as I was) the highest person stood on Earth. (Source: The Independent)

Lead image: alfotokunst/Shutterstock

from Cheapr Travels https://ift.tt/3b8vPQ2 via https://ift.tt/2NIqXKN

[journaljunkpage]

LA FORCE DU LANGAGE

David Sanson / D.R

Avant de mettre le cap sur la Norvège de Jon Fosse et de Tarjei Vesaas, la Compagnie des Limbes reprend son Témoignage dans les tribunaux de Périgueux et Pau. S’inspirant des textes de Charles Reznikoff, héraut de l’objectivisme poétique américain, ce spectacle impressionne par sa maîtrise autant que par son art de la suggestion.

C’est en 2001, à leur sortie du conservatoire de Bordeaux, que Romain Jarry et Loïc Varanguien de Villepin ont fondé la Compagnie des Limbes. Et c’est de la fin des années 1990, pendant leurs études d’art dramatique, que date leur découverte de la poésie « objectiviste » du New-Yorkais Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976), via l’inoubliable Holocauste mis en scène par Claude Régy. Régy pourrait d’ailleurs être l’une des figures tutélaires d’un travail théâtral « centré autour de la question de la voix et du poème » que la compagnie, sur son site Internet, présente comme « une aventure de l’écoute ». À l’instar de leur glorieux aîné, les Limbes ont souvent travaillé sur un matériau textuel non spécifiquement scénique, souvent poétique : dans les écrits de Ghérasim Luca, Henri Meschonnic, Kurt Schwitters ou Virginia Woolf, le collectif a trouvé matière à activer des formes théâtrales dans lesquelles le corps, le son, la lumière concourent à modeler l’espace labile, à la fois net et flou, « ouvert et indéterminé », créé par la profération du texte. « On cherche à explorer la théâtralité d’écritures qui vont au-delà du genre “théâtre”, confirme Romain Jarry. Une écriture, c’est une invention de langage : on peut donc penser qu’en étant portée à la scène, elle va “réinventer” le théâtre. Il s’agit de travailler ce que fait une écriture – ses propriétés rythmiques, sonores – plutôt que ce qu’elle dit, ou l’écart, justement, entre ce qu’elle fait et ce qu’elle dit. Ce que Meschonnic appelait “la force du langage”, cette puissance qui outrepasse le sens. »

La figure de Reznikoff ressurgira quinze ans plus tard, à la faveur de Tout Ouïe, une résidence de territoire en pays du Couserans : les Limbes puisent alors dans Témoignage matière à des ateliers de lectures à voix haute destinés à des lieux « non théâtraux ». Sous-titré originellement Les États-Unis, 1885-1915, et publié en 1965, ce livre « récitatif » marqua l’un des points de départ de ce que Reznikoff appelle l’objectivisme poétique : des témoignages prélevés dans les archives des tribunaux américains de la fin du xixe siècle, morceaux de réel que le poète a découpés et agencés de manière à créer, dit-il, « un état d’âme ou un sentiment ».

Cette foi en la puissance du geste/texte poétique, outre qu’elle rencontre à l’évidence la recherche menée par la Compagnie des Limbes (sa foi en la puissance suggestive du texte), fait aussi de ces textes autant de saisissants instantanés de l’histoire des États-Unis de la Seconde Révolution industrielle, semblant relever le défi jadis lancé par le philosophe Walter Benjamin : « Honorer la mémoire des anonymes est une tâche plus ardue qu’honorer celles des gens célèbres. L’idée de construction historique se consacre à cette mémoire des anonymes. »

Ce projet dans l’Ariège – département où Loïc Varanguien de Villepin dirige par ailleurs, à Sainte-Croix-Volvestre, un lieu de résidence pluridisciplinaire, Les Bazis – fournit la matrice d’un « spectacle » qui, aux trois comédiennes de la version initiale, adjoint une troupe de 12 amateurs. C’est avec eux que s’élaborent, quatre jours durant, la conception des trois épisodes, le choix des textes et le travail (y compris corporel) sur ceux-ci. Chaque épisode, d’une durée d’une demi-heure, se compose de 10 textes (conclus par une chanson) que Romain Jarry, dans la position du juge, organise à chaque fois en direct, tel un DJ, proposant sur le vif un nouveau montage de ces textes déjà eux-mêmes constitués de fragments recomposés. Le tout, face aux comédiens, puisque tous les acteurs-lecteurs-citoyens sont répartis dans la partie de la salle réservée au public, celui-ci occupant, en l’occurrence, la position des jurés : « Inverser le dispositif de mise en scène qui est “déjà là” – la mise en scène judiciaire – est une manière de renverser le point de vue, de jouer avec les codes du procès sans tomber dans la reconstitution », dit encore Romain Jarry. Les effets de réel surgissent au contraire d’une gestuelle qui, en lien aussi avec la musique obsédante, permet de dépasser (et déplacer) le naturalisme… Le rythme de l’ensemble, la qualité chorégraphique, – à la fois dense et impondérable —, avec laquelle Témoignage parvient à faire résonner l’espace et le temps (c’est-à-dire le texte), impressionnent fortement, aussi parce qu’ils développent une pluridisciplinarité qui n’est pas, comme c’est trop souvent le cas, uniquement cosmétique.

Si elle reste motivée par le texte, la démarche des Limbes se déploie en effet sous une grande variété de formes et de médiums. Le son et la musique en sont un autre aspect, notamment avec le travail que Romain Jarry mène avec le musicien Kevin Mafait sous le nom de Je ne sais quoi, transformant en « chansons » des textes de Baudoin de Bodinat ou Takuboku Ishikawa. Après un titre paru sur la compilation consacrée par La Souterraine à la scène néo-aquitaine, un album est en voie de finalisation…

Mais pour l’heure, les pas des Limbes les mèneront vers la Norvège pour y retrouver l’unique auteur de théâtre qu’ils ont jamais porté à la scène, Jon Fosse, celui que des confrères ont pu décrire comme « le Beckett du xxie siècle » : créée en 2008 et inédite en français, sa pièce Desse Auga (These Eyes en anglais) tient à la fois, selon Romain Jarry, « du poème et de l’oratorio ». Encore un objet éminemment suggestif et onirique, qui sera prochainement au centre d’une résidence de traduction – une première pour les Limbes – au Chalet Mauriac, avec la traductrice Marianne Ségol-Samoy : « Après toutes ces aventures pluridisciplinaires qui continuent d’essaimer, après nous être aventurés dans la danse, et même dans de petites formes confidentielles pour le jeune public (avec Le monde est rond de Gertrude Stein), on avait envie de retrouver la structure d’une pièce de théâtre, aussi abstraite soit-elle, et d’y injecter ce qu’on a pu gagner dans le travail sur le rapport corps/langage... »

La Norvège est aussi la patrie de Tarjei Vesaas – autre écrivain qui doit beaucoup à Claude Régy –, dont la pièce de théâtre radiophonique Pluie dans les cheveux devrait fournir la matière d’un dispositif scénique et sonore à venir… Reste seulement à espérer que les radars des « grandes institutions » ne passent pas indéfiniment à côté de ces Limbes-là.

Témoignage. Les États-Unis, 1885-1915, Compagnie des Limbes, samedi 15 septembre, tribunal de grande instance de Périgueux (dans le cadre des Journées du Patrimoine, avec L’Odyssée, le CDAD24 et l’OARA), de 9 h à 18 h, Périgueux (24000). Du jeudi 29 au vendredi 30 novembre, palais de justice de Pau (avec Espace Pluriel, le CDAD64 et l’OARA), Pau (64000). Du jeudi 10 au vendredi 11 janvier 2019, tribunal de grande instance de Toulouse (avec le Théâtre Sorano, l’Usine CNAREP et l’OARA), Toulouse (31000). compagniedeslimbes.free.fr

[transhumanitynet]

Episode 85 - Charles Eisenstein on Living in the Space Between Stories

Hello my friends and other fellow naked apes!  Another uncut interview plus fully produced, HIGHLY edited show for the inner circle…this time with one of my favorite provocateur-lover-authors, Charles Eisenstein. Do you like having the video of the full interview?  I ask because:

It usually takes me 5 – 10 hours per episode just to do the audio editing, because without the video there the normal long pauses and weird placeholders we insert into conversations just don’t seem right.  

Plus, sometimes we have to interrupt the recording to move – like in this video, from 9:00 – 11:45, which I encourage skipping over unless you like watching me stare blankly into space… 

Giving you this raw secret thing is kind of like taking off all of my makeup now that we’re actually in bed.  It’s vulnerable, raw, and real…but I’m not sure how much that matters to you.  So send me a note if you feel strongly, one way or another!  Or, you know, about whatever.  I’m listening.  🙂

love Michael

This week’s guest is Charles Eisenstein, author of five books that challenge our inherited stories of civilization and progress – but move beyond critique and into an articulation of the new paradigm emerging simultaneously through all fields of human inquiry and practice: new modes of inter-being in a living and intelligent world; humility and celebration of the mysteries that bridges science, art, and spirit; and new perspectives on how we determine value and how we can thrive amidst an age of transformation.

Charles offers us a literate and savvy look at how we got to where we are and what we will require to move past the suicidal, ecocidal myths that got us here. He’s also warm and kind and makes it easy to unfold into this awesome conversation, in which he calls BS on the rhetoric of endless economic growth and scientific conquest, and invites us to co-dream the future that so many of us have become too cynical to hope for. Enjoy this bracing dose of cool, clear wisdom and bright insight:

Our New, Better Life?

https://charleseisenstein.net/essays/7061-2/

Why I Am Afraid of Global Cooling

https://charleseisenstein.net/essays/why-i-am-afraid-of-global-cooling/

Discussed:

What inspired Charles’ thorough history and critique of civilization, The Ascent of Humanity, and how it differs from “anti-civilization” texts.

The independent convergent evolutions of civilization in Mesopotamia, China, India, and several other places, pointing to the inevitability and directionality of what we call “progress.”

What new stories emerge at the intersection of the timeless attractors toward a whole and healthy, thriving biodiverse world of human inter-beings, and a fragmented post-ecocidal VR fully artificial landscape?

When is it useful to think of humans as part of nature and when is it useful to think of humans as distinct from nature?

“Participation begins with listening. And that listening is motivated by accepting that there’s something to listen TO. That there’s something that wants to happen. What wants to happen and how can we participate in that? How can we exercise our gifts in service to this larger thing?”

What cultural appropriation gets wrong in its attempts to retrieve and revive indigenous rites (“It’s not the content of the rituals; it’s the spirit of the rituals.”)

Money as a ritual: “One of the reasons money comes so easily to us is that it’s a kind of ritual. The human mind…ritual is its territory.”

“Law, Medicine, Money, and Technology: those are the most powerful realms of ritual that we have.”

Operating on a story that believes the world to be dead leads to a world that is, in fact, dead – whether or not it actually was dead in the first place. Treating nature as a resource rather than as a community of minded cohabitants and potential collaborators is a self-fulfilling prophecy and an act of self-sabotage.

Charles’ critique of the New Age technologies of manifestation as oblivious of where the intention or vision comes from in the first place, how we’re enfolded into our environments…

…and how paradoxically similar that critique is to the disenchanting philosophies described by people like Yuval Harari and Timothy Morton, who make the case that it’s equally the case that the world is alive, or that humans are basically just machines. Or Erik Davis’ “re-animism,” in which we return to a pre-modern sense of a sentient environment through our encounter with AI-suffused devices.

How the scientific quest for control over a purely mechanical cosmos pushed us all the way around into some truly weird revelations about the indeterminate, irreproducible, and contingent workings of our mysterious universe.

Why machines don’t provide a sufficient metaphor for understanding consciousness, and certainly not for reproducing it.

Is trying to fit the complexity of the world into a linear narrative structure the problem at the root of all this? Is it a form of violence to talk about time and evolution having a direction?

“I’m not a story fundamentalist. If I say the world is built from story, I also recognize that that itself is also a story. I look at the story of inter-being, for example, as really just the ideological layer of an organism that is far deeper than story.”

“There are many ways to know. And we’re conditioned by a story that says only the measurable is real. So we’re conditioned to give priority to ways of knowing that have to do with putting things in categories.”

“Progress as currently formulated is not real progress at all. We’re not getting ANY closer to the fulfillment of human potential. Well, aybe we are getting closer on one very narrow axis of development. But there is so much more to a fully expressed human being…and we’re moving away from it in a lot of ways.”

What metaphor for mind/life/nature is set to replace “the computer,” just as “the computer” replaced “the steam engine,” which replaced “the geared watch?”

How black box AI solutions restore the mystery and magic to the technosphere, replacing reason with blind faith.

Kevin Kelly, Stephen Pinker, William Irwin Thompson, Douglas Rushkoff, Arthur Brock…

“The more empathic our participation, the better off we’ll be.”

Can we be TOO empathic?

“I think on some level, we all DO feel what all beings are feeling.”

The boundaries we draw between our selves and the world, between one organism and another, also evolve.

The healing power of grief.

Purge-aholics Anonymous.

The evolution of service as a continuously shifting, molting thing that changes, that requires careful listening. No moment is the same.

The sacred disquiet that attends our new perspective as we learn to see a bigger (ever-bigger) picture.

“We have to be cognizant of the inevitable reduction that happens when we assign values to things…one way to translate the humble awareness of the limitations of quantified value is to design currencies that do not need to grow in order to survive.”

Did money invent science?

“Property is an agreement. It’s not an absolute objective thing…as much as libertarians would like it to be.”

Why cryptocurrency (wants to, but) can’t replace human agreement with code.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts:

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0085 – Charles Eisenstein on Living in the Space Between Stories.mp3

Charles Eisenstein,

Future Fossils,

economics,

philosophy,

science

Episode 85 – Charles Eisenstein on Living in the Space Between Stories was originally published on transhumanity.net

[topfygad]

24 interesting facts about Aconcagua

We share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua – from the world’s highest art gallery to mysterious mummified remains

I recently climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, the third step of my journey to climb the seven summits.

Cerro Aconcagua may not be one of the most beautiful mountains in the world and the ascent is certainly short on charm, but this enormous lump of Andean rock and ice is one of the most coveted mountains on the planet.

Every year, thousands of seasoned and amateur mountaineers flock to its slopes to test themselves in one of the harshest environments on the continent.

I spent 14 days on the mountain’s blustery, barren slopes doing just that. Below, I share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua I picked up along the way.

Interesting facts about Aconcagua

1. The exact height of Aconcagua is debatable. A 2001 survey by an Italian-Argentinian team put the mountain at 6,961.83m (22,840ft). However, in 2012, a team of scientists from various academic institutions in Mendoza resurveyed Aconcagua and came up with 6,960.8m (22,837ft). (Source: Britannica)

2. What is unquestionable is that Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas, which is why it’s often called the ‘roof of the Americas’. (Source: Lonely Planet)

3. The above also makes Aconcagua the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Western Hemisphere and outside of Asia. (Source: Popular Mechanics)

4. Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits, a collection of the highest mountain on each continent. It is the second-highest of the seven after Asia’s Mount Everest. (Source: Britannica)

Darq/Shutterstock Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits

5. After Mount Everest, Aconcagua is the world’s highest topographically prominent summit (i.e. the height of the summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it). This makes it an ultra-prominent peak – notable for its exceptional rise (more than 1,500m/4,900ft) over the surrounding terrain. (Source: PeakList)

6. As climbing Aconcagua does not require any specialist mountaineering skills, it is considered a non-technical ascent and is the highest trekking peak in the world. (Source: The Telegraph)

7. There are several theories on the origin of the name based on the local languages. In Mapuche, Aconca-Hue refers to the Aconcagua River and means ‘comes from the other side’; in Quechua, Ackon Cahuak means ‘sentinel of stone’; and in Aymara, Janq’u Q’awa means ‘white ravine’. (Source: R.W. McColl. (2005). Encyclopedia of World Geography. Facts On File: New York)

8. German explorer Paul Gussfeldt made the first recorded attempt to climb Aconcagua in 1833 getting to within 500m of the summit. (Source: NASA)

Atlas & Boots Peter on the summit of Aconcagua

9. The first survey of the mountain was completed by Charles Darwin during the voyages of the Beagle in 1835. (Source: NASA)

10. Swiss climber Matthias Zurbriggen made the first successful ascent of Aconcagua on 14th January 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999) Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

11. Brit Edward FitzGerald led the successful expedition but failed to reach the summit himself despite making at least eight attempts between December 1896 and February 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999). Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

12. At the time, it was the highest peak in the world to have been climbed to date. (Source: British Mountaineering Council)

13. The world’s highest contemporary art gallery is on Aconcagua. Located at the Plaza de Mulas base camp at 4,300m (14,107ft), Nautilus is a tented art gallery featuring the works of local artist Miguel Doura. (Source: Guinness World Records)

Alfredo Cerra/shutterstock Nautilus art gallery at Plaza de Mulas base camp

14. In December 2019, Czech skyrunner Martin Zhor set a new record for the fastest ascent and descent of Aconcagua. He completed the return trip from base camp in just 3 hours, 38 minutes and 17 seconds. (Source: Planet Mountain)

15. In 1944, Frenchwoman Adriana Bance became the first woman to summit Aconcagua. Tragically, she and her husband would later die on the mountain. (Source: Joy Logan. (2011). Aconcagua: The Invention of Mountaineering on America’s Highest Peak. University of Arizona Press: Tucson)

16. In 1947, a British plane rumoured to be carrying Nazi spies and a payload of gold mysteriously disappeared near Aconcagua. In 1999, wreckage was discovered 100km away on a mountain called Tupungato. Despite a massive investigation, the mystery of the gold, spies and a cryptic morse code message sent moments before the crash remains unsolved. Much of wreckage remains hidden in glaciers. (Source: The Guardian)

17. Aconcagua featured in a 1942 Disney animation called Pedro. Pedro, a ‘baby plane’, nearly crashes into Aconcagua while carrying mail over the Andes while covering for his dad who ‘was laid up with a cold in his cylinder head’. (Source: IMDB)

18. In January 2009, there were five deaths on Aconcagua in four separate incidents. It’s unusual for so many to die in such a short space of time on Aconcagua and the events sent shockwaves through the local community. (Source: Outside Magazine)

19. One of those deaths was of Italian Federico Campanini. Controversially, video footage was uploaded online showing a team of rescuers trying to help Campanini. Campanini’s father took the rescuers to court citing they did not do enough for his son. The case was dismissed. (Source: National Geographic)

20. In 1985, mountaineers discovered mummified remains of a seven-year-old boy on Aconcagua at 5,300m (17,400ft). His body had been wrapped in cloth and was surrounded by six small statues. It is thought the boy was a child sacrifice. During the reign of the Incas, children were sometimes taken to high mountain peaks where they were killed or left to die. (Source: BBC News)

21. In 2019, Airbus landed an H145 helicopter on the summit of Aconcagua. This was the first time in history a twin-engine helicopter had landed at such an altitude.  (Source: Airbus)

22. The notoriously unpredictable weather on Aconcagua is made worse by the peak’s relative distance from the equator. The further you travel from the equator, the thinner the Earth’s atmosphere becomes. As such, the effects of altitude are more extreme and the weather is more volatile. (Source: Jim Ryan. (2018). Trekking Aconcagua and the Southern Andes. Cicerone: Kendal)

23. The youngest person to climb Aconcagua was nine-year-old boy Tyler Armstrong. He climbed the mountain with his father, Kevin Armstrong, and Tibetan sherpa Lhawang Dhondup. (Source: BBC News)

22. The oldest person to climb Aconcagua was Scott Lewis who reached the summit in 2007 when he was 87 years old. (Source: Irish Independent)

23. There are no official statistics, but it is thought that over 100 people have died trying to climb Aconcagua. (Source: BBC News)

24. Finally, one of the most interesting facts about Aconcagua is that depending on the time of year, concurrent winter climbs in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges of Asia, and given that summit times on Aconcagua typically correspond to night-time in Nepal and Pakistan, when a climber summits Aconcagua, it is likely he or she will briefly be (as I was) the highest person stood on Earth. (Source: The Independent)

Lead image: alfotokunst/Shutterstock

source http://cheaprtravels.com/24-interesting-facts-about-aconcagua/

[topfygad]

24 interesting facts about Aconcagua

We share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua – from the world’s highest art gallery to mysterious mummified remains

I recently climbed Aconcagua in Argentina, the third step of my journey to climb the seven summits.

Cerro Aconcagua may not be one of the most beautiful mountains in the world and the ascent is certainly short on charm, but this enormous lump of Andean rock and ice is one of the most coveted mountains on the planet.

Every year, thousands of seasoned and amateur mountaineers flock to its slopes to test themselves in one of the harshest environments on the continent.

I spent 14 days on the mountain’s blustery, barren slopes doing just that. Below, I share the most interesting facts about Aconcagua I picked up along the way.

Interesting facts about Aconcagua

1. The exact height of Aconcagua is debatable. A 2001 survey by an Italian-Argentinian team put the mountain at 6,961.83m (22,840ft). However, in 2012, a team of scientists from various academic institutions in Mendoza resurveyed Aconcagua and came up with 6,960.8m (22,837ft). (Source: Britannica)

2. What is unquestionable is that Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas, which is why it’s often called the ‘roof of the Americas’. (Source: Lonely Planet)

3. The above also makes Aconcagua the highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, in the Western Hemisphere and outside of Asia. (Source: Popular Mechanics)

4. Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits, a collection of the highest mountain on each continent. It is the second-highest of the seven after Asia’s Mount Everest. (Source: Britannica)

Darq/Shutterstock Aconcagua is a member of the seven summits

5. After Mount Everest, Aconcagua is the world’s highest topographically prominent summit (i.e. the height of the summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling it). This makes it an ultra-prominent peak – notable for its exceptional rise (more than 1,500m/4,900ft) over the surrounding terrain. (Source: PeakList)

6. As climbing Aconcagua does not require any specialist mountaineering skills, it is considered a non-technical ascent and is the highest trekking peak in the world. (Source: The Telegraph)

7. There are several theories on the origin of the name based on the local languages. In Mapuche, Aconca-Hue refers to the Aconcagua River and means ‘comes from the other side’; in Quechua, Ackon Cahuak means ‘sentinel of stone’; and in Aymara, Janq’u Q’awa means ‘white ravine’. (Source: R.W. McColl. (2005). Encyclopedia of World Geography. Facts On File: New York)

8. German explorer Paul Gussfeldt made the first recorded attempt to climb Aconcagua in 1833 getting to within 500m of the summit. (Source: NASA)

Atlas & Boots Peter on the summit of Aconcagua

9. The first survey of the mountain was completed by Charles Darwin during the voyages of the Beagle in 1835. (Source: NASA)

10. Swiss climber Matthias Zurbriggen made the first successful ascent of Aconcagua on 14th January 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999) Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

11. Brit Edward FitzGerald led the successful expedition but failed to reach the summit himself despite making at least eight attempts between December 1896 and February 1897. (Source: R. J. Secor. (1999). Aconcagua: A Climbing Guide. Mountaineers Books: Seattle)

12. At the time, it was the highest peak in the world to have been climbed to date. (Source: British Mountaineering Council)

13. The world’s highest contemporary art gallery is on Aconcagua. Located at the Plaza de Mulas base camp at 4,300m (14,107ft), Nautilus is a tented art gallery featuring the works of local artist Miguel Doura. (Source: Guinness World Records)

Alfredo Cerra/shutterstock Nautilus art gallery at Plaza de Mulas base camp

14. In December 2019, Czech skyrunner Martin Zhor set a new record for the fastest ascent and descent of Aconcagua. He completed the return trip from base camp in just 3 hours, 38 minutes and 17 seconds. (Source: Planet Mountain)

15. In 1944, Frenchwoman Adriana Bance became the first woman to summit Aconcagua. Tragically, she and her husband would later die on the mountain. (Source: Joy Logan. (2011). Aconcagua: The Invention of Mountaineering on America’s Highest Peak. University of Arizona Press: Tucson)

16. In 1947, a British plane rumoured to be carrying Nazi spies and a payload of gold mysteriously disappeared near Aconcagua. In 1999, wreckage was discovered 100km away on a mountain called Tupungato. Despite a massive investigation, the mystery of the gold, spies and a cryptic morse code message sent moments before the crash remains unsolved. Much of wreckage remains hidden in glaciers. (Source: The Guardian)

17. Aconcagua featured in a 1942 Disney animation called Pedro. Pedro, a ‘baby plane’, nearly crashes into Aconcagua while carrying mail over the Andes while covering for his dad who ‘was laid up with a cold in his cylinder head’. (Source: IMDB)

18. In January 2009, there were five deaths on Aconcagua in four separate incidents. It’s unusual for so many to die in such a short space of time on Aconcagua and the events sent shockwaves through the local community. (Source: Outside Magazine)

19. One of those deaths was of Italian Federico Campanini. Controversially, video footage was uploaded online showing a team of rescuers trying to help Campanini. Campanini’s father took the rescuers to court citing they did not do enough for his son. The case was dismissed. (Source: National Geographic)

20. In 1985, mountaineers discovered mummified remains of a seven-year-old boy on Aconcagua at 5,300m (17,400ft). His body had been wrapped in cloth and was surrounded by six small statues. It is thought the boy was a child sacrifice. During the reign of the Incas, children were sometimes taken to high mountain peaks where they were killed or left to die. (Source: BBC News)

21. In 2019, Airbus landed an H145 helicopter on the summit of Aconcagua. This was the first time in history a twin-engine helicopter had landed at such an altitude.  (Source: Airbus)

22. The notoriously unpredictable weather on Aconcagua is made worse by the peak’s relative distance from the equator. The further you travel from the equator, the thinner the Earth’s atmosphere becomes. As such, the effects of altitude are more extreme and the weather is more volatile. (Source: Jim Ryan. (2018). Trekking Aconcagua and the Southern Andes. Cicerone: Kendal)

23. The youngest person to climb Aconcagua was nine-year-old boy Tyler Armstrong. He climbed the mountain with his father, Kevin Armstrong, and Tibetan sherpa Lhawang Dhondup. (Source: BBC News)

22. The oldest person to climb Aconcagua was Scott Lewis who reached the summit in 2007 when he was 87 years old. (Source: Irish Independent)

23. There are no official statistics, but it is thought that over 100 people have died trying to climb Aconcagua. (Source: BBC News)

24. Finally, one of the most interesting facts about Aconcagua is that depending on the time of year, concurrent winter climbs in the Himalaya and Karakoram ranges of Asia, and given that summit times on Aconcagua typically correspond to night-time in Nepal and Pakistan, when a climber summits Aconcagua, it is likely he or she will briefly be (as I was) the highest person stood on Earth. (Source: The Independent)

Lead image: alfotokunst/Shutterstock

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