bookofjoe

My definition of insanity

It's visible in the video above of a so-called "drill bit" tornado, shot yesterday from a car in Ashby, Minnesota, whose driver and passenger decided to head straight for it rather than high-tail it in the other direction.

Poetry and Religion — Les Murray

Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture

into the only whole thinking: poetry.
Nothing's said till it's dreamed out in words
and nothing's true that figures in words only.

A poem, compared with an arrayed religion,
may be like a soldier's one short marriage night
to die and live by. But that is a small religion...

There'll always be religion around while there is poetry

or a lack of it. Both are given, and intermittent,
as the action of those birds—crested pigeon, rosella parrot—
who fly with wings shut, then beating, and again shut.

"Revisiting Genesis" — Oreet Ashery

Above is Episode 12: "Prayer, Aerialist."

"'Revisiting Genesis' takes the form of a web-series in twelve episodes and a feature-length experimental film, written and directed by Oreet Ashery."

Hayao Miyazaki's Giant Ghibli Clock

According to those who've seen it IRL, pictures don't do it justice.

From Atlas Obscura:

Tokyo's only vaudeville-cuckoo clock–steampunk-Victorian curio cabinet timepiece.

Officially called the "Nittele Really Big Clock," four or five times a day this wacked-out symphonic mega-machine spins, dances, whirs, and clanks.

And as a side gig, it also tells the time.

The giant clock is in the Shiodome section of Tokyo, at the Nittele Tower (headquarters of Nippon Television).

It was designed by Hayao Miyazaki, the renowned director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, and while it's not exactly drawn from his 2004 film Howl's Moving Castle, it's been likened to the aesthetic of the anime classic.

The clock is huge: over 20 tons of copper and steel, three stories high and 60 feet wide.

Besides chiming out the time, there are over 30 mechanical vignettes at appointed hours, including cannons, a couple of blacksmiths, a wheel spinner, boiling teapot, and two bell-headed piston crankers.

They all move in a delicate and industrious ballet, some reminiscent of a cuckoo clock and others like 19th-century tin toys.

The clock springs to life four times on Monday to Friday, with an extra show on Saturdays and Sundays.

Each performance begins about four minutes ahead of the hour, and you can see it from many different spots around the Nippon TV tower.

But get as close as you can so you can really see the detail.

Anime fan or not, Miyazaki's clock is crazy with detail.

Know Before You Go

The clock is located in front of the Nittele Tower (Nippon Television headquarters). It jumps into action every day at noon, 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m., and there is an extra morning chime on Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m. It's a good idea to get there a few minutes early, so you're ready when the music begins and the wheels start to turn. Take the Yurikamome Line to the Shiodome station or get off at Shimbashi station where several of the main lines meet.

What is it?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Hint: smaller than a bread box.

Another: stainless steel.

A second view: