Category: xavrixx-archive

Christopher Nolan: Up Close and Distant

With all the anticipation surrounding Tenet, here’s a reversed way of looking at Christopher Nolan: There is something hypnotic about watching these characters live and breathe so far away from the camera. In the midst and fog and crowds, they seem to lose all individuality. But perhaps something quite different is taking place. Seen a different way, in these long […]

Metro North Train Schedule Icons

Before they’re gone for good, I want to say a word about these two little icons. In terms of web design, they’re so outdated, yet like an AOL email address, there is a real charm to them. I heard a rumor that they would be removed and I had trouble finding them. Now they seem to be back on the […]

Lopsided Matt Damon

Matt Damon has always had a fascinating kind of sex appeal. Amazingly handsome, and yet there is the goofball quality that is disarming, alluring. When I saw this photo, I realized there is a certain lopsidedness to, well, all of him: his smile, his posture, and in some ways even his acting. I suppose some might criticize this — the […]

Blazing Iron

Blazing Iron Open-hearted Battle-ready Ever-smiling Bardo traveling companion Always now Never forgotten… The glyph merges the alchemical symbols of the upward-pointing triangle (fire) and forged blade of iron

Word Root: deru

What about the etymological powerhouse family of words stemming from the root deru — betroth; Dante; dendrite; dendro-; dendrochronology; dour; Druid; drupe; dryad; dura mater; durable; durance; duration; duress; during; durum; endure; hamadryad; indurate; obdurate; perdurable; philodendron; rhododendron; shelter; tar; tray; tree; trim; troth; trough; trow; truce; true; trust; truth; tryst.* INSTANT STORY: We can go from tryst to betroth […]

Healing Jungle, Lurking Snakes

I began 2020 by getting thrown off guard by this haunting and hallucinogenic film, Embrace of the Serpent (El abrazo de la serpiente, 2015) by Ciro Guerra: Its double story, the ghostly black and white cinematography, and the theme of desperately seeking a cure in parts unknown. The Amazonian Shaman Karamakate bridges the two tales, two journeys which are thirty […]

Come to Believe
Snow (Hey Oh)

There are many, all anonymous, who know the meaning of this… Come to believe that I better not leave Before I get my chance to ride … which is to say: Don’t quit before the miracle. Come to decide that the things that I tried Were in my life just to get high on When I sit alone, come get […]

Babylon Berlin:
Beginning and Ending

A lot has been mentioned about the title sequence of Babylon Berlin, and it even garnered awards such as the top nod from the Art of the Title 2018. There is something truly hypnotic about the swirling sequence, drawing you into a dream, but in actuality, the mesmerizing insanity of the Weimar Republic. Kudos to designer Saskia Marka. But I […]

Turning Identity into Gold

If there is one academic book out there truly inspired by Whitman’s famous “I am large, I contain multitudes,” then this is it: Authorship as Alchemy by David Glenn Kropf. A brutal lit-crit read, but the concept is simple: What if writers (what if each one of us) were not just a mere single person, but multitudes? Not just woman […]