Parkour or l’art du déplacement, translated as “the art of displacement” is an activity in which participants or “traceurs” perform daring moves to get from one place to another. They use a combination of gymnastics and martial arts in what often resembles the stunts in chase scenes of action movies. Now that description may make it hard to view parkour as a form of art, which is why you have to see it.
There’s something special about viewing these stunts as still images as opposed to live action; I think it adds a certain tranquility and really shows that it is an art. Check out the rest of this photo essay from TIME. You can see that the traceurs take their art seriously planning out the moves and noting precautions they need to take.
Of course there is also some pretty awesome live action videos of parkour online.
Though do be aware when searching for these videos that you will find some pretty lame ones as well. Actually, you’ll find mostly lame ones on video sharing sites, but do a google and you’ll find some good parkour sites like American Parkour.
Watch this, then go to WheretheHellisMatt.com for more videos and to read the story behind them. (I must thank Joshua Longbrake for bringing Matt back to my attention.)
I would love to do something like this. Come to think of it, I would do pretty much anything involving travel if someone paid my expenses. Anyone need an experienced writer to travel the world writing, photographing, and videographing her experiences?
Now the song this makes me think of, Los Campesinos – You! Me! Dancing
There’s no way I could have a “dancing” post without mentioning Brandtson’s “Nobody Dances Anymore,” which spawned many fan-created videos.
On checking the stats for my website, I noticed that IE is the top browser used by you guys, shame, shame, shame. This is actually the first month that has happened, it had been firefox since January. Don’t be afraid to give firefox 3 a spin, you’ll still have IE there in case you want to go back to it (would you really want to?), it won’t take it away.
(Note: Spreadfirefox.com is not loading for me right now and you may have to try mozilla.com a few times before you get it to load, but it will load and the download didn’t take any longer for me than it normally would.)
National Geographic takes an interactive look at how our PCs are harming our environment and our health after we “dispose” of them. If you’ve ever thrown away or even recycled a computer or plan on doing so (and who doesn’t at some point), you need to take a look.
Okay, this one’s more fun. The New York Times does a side-by-side of the old “Get Smart” television series and the new movie. I may not have been thought of yet when the series was originally on air, but I watched it every night on Nick-at-Night when I was younger.
Speaking of “Get Smart,” did anyone see the TV Land awards? Aside from aging (gracefully) Barbara Feldon has not changed at all.
