tv [untitled] March 15, 2013 2:00am-2:30am PDT
2:00 am
2:01 am
>> in the 16th century, about 1500. yeah. >> (inaudible). >> no. no, no, just you have to leave this room thinking we did not kill anybody for that. yes, you had a question? >> (inaudible). >> yeah. well, yes, there are -- in cities like the northern part and lima there are certain districts like -- certain ones
2:02 am
and the capital and to the south of lima the district there and to the south almost border to chile there is a community that is unknown that we are doing research right now on it. yes, the value there and with chile and all of that area. yes? >> (inaudible). >> no -- you know what it is. it's a rubber stamp of the tube that is heating it. you can -- >> (inaudible). >> no it's a tube. somebody had a question. i don't know if we are running out of time or we have to go or -- >> (inaudible).
2:03 am
>> (speaking spanish). i think it was done two years ago. it's peru veian. >> (inaudible). >> (speaking spanish) the style in the music to hit all those notes back and forth and then the guitar which is a spanish instrument and the lyrics are from spain and the type of song is indigenous and the type of percussion can is african. >> (inaudible). >> yeah, you could hear in the music. it has that pitch and
2:04 am
2:08 am
>> what if you could make a memorial that is more about information and you are never fixed and it can go wherever it wants to go? everyone who has donated to it could use it, host it, share it. >> for quite a great deal of team she was hired in 2005, she struggled with finding the correct and appropriate visual expression. >> it was a bench at one point. it was a darkened room at another point. but the theme always was a theme of how do we call people's attention to the issue of speci species extinction. >> many exhibits do make long detailed explanations about species decline and biology of birds and that is very useful for lots of purposes. but i think it is also important
2:09 am
to try to pull at the strings inside people. >> missing is not just about specific extinct or endangered species. it is about absence and a more fundamental level of not knowing what we are losing and we need to link species loss to habitat loss and really focuses much on the habitat. >> of course the overall mission of the academy has to do with two really fundamental and important questions. one of which is the nature of life. how did we get here? the second is the challenge of sustainability. if we are here how are we going to find a way to stay? these questions resonated very strongly with maya. >> on average a species disappears every 20 minutes.
2:10 am
this is the only media work that i have done. i might never do another one because i'm not a media artist per se but i have used the medium because it seemed to be the one that could allow me to convey the sounds and images here. memorials to me are different from artworks. they are artistic, but memorials have a function. >> it is a beautiful scupltural objective made with bronze and lined with red wood from water tanks in clear lake. that is the scupltural form that gives expression to maya's project. if you think about a cone or a bull horn, they are used to get the attention of the crowd, often to communicate an important message. this project has a very important message and it is
2:11 am
about our earth and what we are losing and what we are missing and what we don't even know is gone. >> so, what is missing is starting with an idea of loss, but in a funny way the shape of this cone is, whether you want to call it like the r.c.a. victor dog, it is listen to the earth and what if we could create a portal that could look at the past, the present and the future? >> you can change what is then missing by changing the software, by changing what is projected and missing. so, missing isn't a static installation. it is an installation that is going to grow and change over time. and she has worked to bring all of this information together from laboratory after laboratory including, fortunately, our great fwroup of researche e-- g researchers at the california academy. >> this couldn't have been more site specific to this place and we think just visually in terms of its scupltural form it really
2:12 am
holds its own against the architectural largest and grandeur of the building. it is an unusual compelling object. we think it will draw people out on the terrace, they will see the big cone and say what is that. then as they approach the cone tell hear these very unusual sounds that were obtained from the cornell orinthology lab. >> we have the largest recording of birds, mammals, frogs and insects and a huge library of videos. so this is an absolutely perfect opportunity for us to team up with a world renown, very creative inspirational artist and put the sounds and sights of the animals that we study into a brand-new context, a context that really allows people to appreciate an esthetic way of the idea that we might live in the world without these sounds
2:13 am
or sites. >> in the scientific realm it is shifting baselines. we get used to less and less, diminished expectations of what it was. >> when i came along lobsters six feet long and oysters 12 inches within they days all the oyster beds in new york, manhattan, the harbor would clean the water. so, just getting people to wake up to what was just literally there 200 years ago, 150 years ago. you see the object and say what is that. you come out and hear these intriguing sounds, sounds like i have never heard in my life. and then you step closer and you almost have a very intimate experience. >> we could link to different institutions around the globe, maybe one per continent, maybe two or three in this country, then once they are all networked, they begin to communicate with one another and
2:14 am
share information. in 2010 the website will launch, but it will be what you would call an informational website and then we are going to try to, by 2011, invite people to add a memory. so in a funny way the member rely grows and there is something organic about how this memorial begins to have legs so to speak. so we don't know quite where it will go but i promise to keep on it 10 years. my goal is to raise awareness and then either protect forests from being cut down or reforest in ways that promote biodiversity. >> biodiverse city often argued to be important for the world's human populations because all of the medicinal plants and uses that we can put to it and fiber that it gives us and food that it gives us. while these are vital and important and worth literally hundreds of billions of dollars, the part that we also have to be
2:15 am
able to communicate is the more spiritual sense of how important it is that we get to live side by side with all of these forms that have three billion years of history behind them and how tragic it would be not commercially and not in a utilitarian way but an emotio l emotional, psychological, spiritual way if we watch them one by one disappear. >> this is sort of a merger between art and science and advocacy in a funny way getting people to wake unand realize what is going on -- wake up and realize what is going on. so it is a memborial trying to get us to interpret history and look to the past. they have always been about lacking at the past so we proceed forward and maybe don't commit the same mistakes.
2:16 am
♪ >> welcome to hamilton recreation and aquatics center. it is the only facility that has an integrated swimming pool and recreation center combined. we have to pools, the city's water slide, for little kids and those of you that are more daring and want to try the rockslide, we have a drop slide. >> exercises for everybody. hi have a great time. the ladies and guys that come, it is for the community and we really make it fun. people think it is only for those that play basketball or swim. >> i have been coming to the
2:17 am
pool for a long time now. it is nice, they are sweet. >> in the aquatics center, they are very committed to combining for people in san francisco. and also ensuring that they have public safety. >> there are a lot of different personalities that come through here and it makes it very exciting all the time. they, their family or teach their kids have a swim. >> of the gem is fantastic, there is an incredible program going on there, both of my girls have learned to swim there. it is a fantastic place, check it out.
2:18 am
it is an incredible indication of what bonn dollars can do with our hearts and facilities. it is as good as anything you will find out why mca. parents come from all over. >> there are not too many pools that are still around, and this is one-stop shopping for kids. you can bring your kid here and have a cool summer. >> if you want to see some of the youth and young men throughout san francisco play some great pickup games, come wednesday night for midnight basketball. on saturdays, we have a senior lyons dance that has a great time getting exercise and a movement. we have all the music going, the
2:19 am
2:20 am
>> on march 5th, 2007, a car bomb was exploded on mutanabbi street in baghdad. mutanabbi street is a mixed shia-suni area. more than 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. this locale is the historic center of baghdad book selling, a winding street filled with bookstores and outdoor book stalls. named after the famous 10th century classic poet, al-mutanabbi, this is an old and established street for book selling and has been for hundreds of years. mutanabbi street also holds cafes, stationary shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. it has been the heart and soul of the baghdad literary and intellectual community. this tragedy is part of a wider and continuing tragedy, but one that we want to isolate and
2:21 am
address, not only for the loss of lives but also for the implications underlying the destruction of a street where books were sold. book selling on mutanabbi street is no different from book selling here. we traffic in memory, ideas and dreams. in that sense, we feel that mutanabbi street starts at the front door of all of our book shops. mutanabbi street starts here. our first reader will be sinan anton. >> when i was torn by war, i took a brush immersed in death, and drew a window on war's wall. i opened it, searching for something, but all i saw was another war and a mother
2:22 am
weaving a shroud for the dead man still in her womb. there was a photograph of an iraqi boy on the front page of the "new york times". he sat on the edge of the truck, 8 or 9 years old, surrounded by his family, his father, mother , and 5 siblings were asleep. his head was buried in his hands. all the clouds of the world were waiting on the threshold of his eyes. the tall man wiped off the sweat and started digging the 7th grave. the next reader is going to be diane dupris. thank you. >> i'm going to read a few things that i wrote sitting in
2:23 am
a hotel room in, oh, whatever year that was, 01, i guess, when we started bombing afghanistan. these are short poems on the afghan war. 1, small bones of mountain children in the snow. two, bags of rice burst open, burlap flaps in the wind. even the label, usa, is fading. three, we air drop transistor radios. can you eat them? will they keep you warm? this one is called les american, october 5, 2001. we are feral, rare as mountain wolves.
2:24 am
our hearts are pure and stupid. we go down, pitted against our own. there's one other short thing. we gathered there frequently, old scholars, printers, book collectors, old and young writers pass through the place on any given afternoon. all kinds of activity came to the shop in the years i worked there. they were the early years of the black awareness, robert williams was active in south carolina. there was a period of time when the cot in the back of the store was a drop off for various disassembled armaments. sometimes someone we didn't know would put something under the mattress, making the cot unusable for several days. someone would come by and take
2:25 am
the hardware away in a shopping bag and that would be it for a week or so. there was often a black photographer who would come to the shop with an empty shopping bag. when he left, he with leave in a zigzag and eventually get on a bus going south. >> i wanted to read a poem that was sent by the poet that i invited to the recent san francisco international poetry festival from iraq i've been in touch with for more than a year and a half. after the united states would not give him his visa, i asked him -- i told him about mutanabbi street and he wrote a poem and he wrote it in english, though he writes in, of course, in arabic. but this one he wrote in
2:26 am
english. so i'll read it. one figure in the poem you should know, humbaba, which is an ogre, a monster of immemorial age. that was a special big garden, a forest, where all types of trees and flowers grew. the trees bending down gently flinging branches. our orchard grew like a crown on the sun's eyebrow. where did humbaba come from? his mother was just a cave, his father unknown. who made him a friend pretending guardian of the orchard. did those nice shrubs need fear to go begging for a garden and
2:27 am
have humbaba in his treachery ilk. those plants and flowers were like books everyone could read, not cut and throw away. their different fantastic colors had formed our blood so our veins ran smoothly, our 7 wonders showed. then humbaba made a whirlwind of fire and snow. who crowned him king? who showed him our garden was but a jail? humbaba was great and scary, but not so very strong, though no one could ever conquer him as no one would ever try. time and again, when things grew old, humbaba alone believed himself eternal and young, still powerful, able to defeat all. humbaba didn't want to know one fact: that accumulation will lead to eruptive change. but, sadly, when suddenly he
2:28 am
realized it after all, he chose to check its power on all, the tall. he crushed all the shrubs and plants leaving them creeping and broken all over. he damaged the flowers and colors, the flowers withered, their leaves all burned and soon they were throwing their seeds every which way and when the whole orchard changed into a dry, gray waste, humbaba, his mind like stone, shouted his horrible cry of fire and burned all that gray and yellow, birds of all kinds were flying away with ashes in their beaks which humbaba couldn't oversee any more or ever set on fire. then, grandfather ended his day and continued closing his big thick yellow book, turning to his grandsons and daughters and anding them a big red bud, then
2:29 am
bidding them good night and laying his head on his yawning book, he glances solemnly at the full moon in the core of the sky, his eyelids blinking once, searching for that big, silvery rose. the next reader is dima shahabi >> i'd like to move on with an iraqi poet, one of the most prominent and brilliant poets of her time recently passed away in cairo, in june, actually. she was not only a poet, she was luminous and free-thinking pioneer in establishing the theory of what has come to be known as free verse in arabic poetry. in addition to her extensive nt
77 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV2: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on