Sigur Ros; "Jumper"; "I Am African"

The other evening, I was glancing at the videos at YouTube looking for ones I'd not seen before. One of my favorite musical groups is Sigur Ros. (Also check Sigur Ros - Wikipedia. The group is from Iceland and sings in both Volenska which is a construct of meaningless syllables and resembles scat singing, and Icelandic.) I first heard them four or five years ago and was mesmerized by their music which defies description - neo post rock, ethereal, and .fairy-tale-like. And the same can be said of their videos.

The following gorgeous video is among their newest - "Glósóli" from "Takk...":

The next video is from their third album and is almost heart breaking - "Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása" from the album "Agaetis Byrjun":

This version clocks in at 7+ minutes; the complete version is at least 10 minutes, but after considerable effort, I'm unable to find it. I also can not remember the other ending.

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Last night as I bounced around on the web I discovered that a movie is being made of one of my favorite books - "Jumper" by Steven Gould. Essentially it's the story of Davey Rice who "discovers he can teleport himself by using his thoughts, although he doesn't know how it works." I was very surprised to discover that it's being treated as an A-list movie starring Hayden Christensen, Samuel L. Jackson , Rachel Bilson, and Jamie Bell with a budget of $100 million. (More about the film at Jumper - Wikipedia and at Jumper - IMDB.)

Davey has a very physically abusive father. The mother has been in physical and emotional recovery for years. Davey finally meets the mother who is soon killed by terrorist. Davey does not turn the other cheek, he seeks revenge. Of course, once the US government figures out what he can do, they want him - very badly. Davey strikes back and says where do you want me to explode the first thermonuclear device - Kiev or Moscow.

There's one really terrifying part involving the World Trade Center, and I'm wondering how they will deal with that after 9/11.

At lunch today, as I was reading the November 13 issue of "The New Yorker," I came across a very striking photo of Sting that said "I Am African - Help us stop the dying "

The photo looked familiar, and it took me a while to realize that I'd seen a similar photo of Elijah Wood on one of this fan sides. A number of celebrities from Richard Gere to Lenny Kravtz to Gwenyth Paltrow are lending their support and can be found at I Am African.

This campaign is part of Keep a Child Alive that highlights the AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa. "There are currently 12 million AIDS Orphans in Africa alone. How much longer will we sit by while millions of people die from a treatable disease?"

As I was Googling for info on this project, I was amazed at the number of sites complaining about it. All too many seemed to have totally missed the point. Try copyranter for sheer lunacy. Some of the comments are especially "endearing."

PAX!