Friday, September 9, 2011

Remembering the Twin Towers

A repost from 2008: Man on Wire: Twin Towers Tightrope

 

Frenchman Philippe Petit walked between the World Trade Center twin towers in August 1974. He had not asked permission of course. He was arrested and handcuffed. The authorities wanted to know why he did it and sent him for a psychiatric assessment. Watch this documentary in a cinema if possible. It's the last question you'll ask yourself.

Philippe had practiced between the pylons of Sydney Harbour Bridge and the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

It was one small step...

One Saturday morning in August 1980 I took these photos from the second top floor of one of the towers. I was visiting Bill Gates, a teacher mate from Up-State New York. We stayed at a Manhattan apartment of one of his friends whose husband worked on that floor. It was a long weekend so we had the place to ourselves. We were parked on the street opposite the buildings in the first picture. While we enjoyed the view, someone stole the car radio. I dragged out the old photos because the Statue of Liberty resonated so strongly with ones from the film.







I'll spare you our tourist snaps from the top of the bridge and the cathedral.

cinematakes1 More film reviews at Cinema Takes

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Jay Rosen Video: Why Political Coverage is Broken

 

 From the Melbourne Press Club:
Professor Jay Rosen, one of the leading thinkers in new media and the founder of the public journalism movement in the USA, explains why he thinks political reporting is broken. 
This speech was delivered at Melbourne's BMW Edge on August 26, 2011, as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival and the Public Interest Journalism Foundation's New News Conference. 
The Melbourne Press Club filmed and livestreamed a number of New News sessions over the two days of the conference. Watch them on our website. A transcript of Jay Rosen's speech is available on his blog, Pressthink.