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Apr. 20th, 2009 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bks+ Why is Don Cheadle not in more movies? In big movies? Watching him in Traitor last night reminded me of how good he is. I may have to find a copy of Hotel Rwanda, because he gives the performance of a lifetime...the movie is painful to watch, though.
+ Must read Brideshead Revisited. Felt like I was missing the point of the movie, really, because I didn't *get* Charles Ryder's obsession with Brideshead. I'm not sure if the problem was Matthew Goode being stolid or his lack of dialogue or what. In some ways it reminded me of The Remains of the Day (another film in which Emma Thompson rocked!), in terms of the observation or commentary on the death of a certain type of English lifestyle in the years between World War One and Two. As I mentioned to The Biochemist, I think part of the problem is that life is so alien and strange to me – if I were to liken it to fictional settings, it’s almost as unreal as JR Ward’s vampire world, or Bujold’s Barrayar. I can accept them as fictional constructs, though, because I know they are imaginary. There’s a sort of mental disconnect for me with the Brideshead type setting, because I know that however unreal it is to me today, it actually existed in the not too distant past.
+ More randomness arising from an exchange with TB: the social stigma of tattoos in mainstream American culture perplexes me. It dimishes a little more everyday as tattoos become more mainstream, yes, but it seems inconsistent with the American attitude toward other body modifications. Squirting botulinum toxin into your face in order to paralyze it is socially acceptable, because it is geared toward looking youthful. But injecting ink under/into your skin for other purposes (social identification, body decoration, celebration of an event or activity, etc.) is frowned upon. So ultimately, is the inconsistency about the history of one (tattoos) vs. the purpose of the other (chasing youth and beauty)? That says something disturbing to me.
+ Being a cabbie in London changes your brain? The article is about the thin line between ability and autism, but what interested me was the bit at the very end with respect to brain change in London cabbies as a result of the enormous geographical knowledge they must learn.
+ The president of Paraguay has now been named in a second paternity suit. OMG, a politician had sex, where's the news in that? Well, the issue isn't that he had sex as much as the fact that he did so while still a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. Since he hadn't been released from his vow of chastity at the time of conception for the first-reported (younger) child and was still acting as a bishop at the time of the conception of the second-reported child, the very existence of the suits is glaring commentary about the church's inability to police its own staff/members.
+ Must read Brideshead Revisited. Felt like I was missing the point of the movie, really, because I didn't *get* Charles Ryder's obsession with Brideshead. I'm not sure if the problem was Matthew Goode being stolid or his lack of dialogue or what. In some ways it reminded me of The Remains of the Day (another film in which Emma Thompson rocked!), in terms of the observation or commentary on the death of a certain type of English lifestyle in the years between World War One and Two. As I mentioned to The Biochemist, I think part of the problem is that life is so alien and strange to me – if I were to liken it to fictional settings, it’s almost as unreal as JR Ward’s vampire world, or Bujold’s Barrayar. I can accept them as fictional constructs, though, because I know they are imaginary. There’s a sort of mental disconnect for me with the Brideshead type setting, because I know that however unreal it is to me today, it actually existed in the not too distant past.
+ More randomness arising from an exchange with TB: the social stigma of tattoos in mainstream American culture perplexes me. It dimishes a little more everyday as tattoos become more mainstream, yes, but it seems inconsistent with the American attitude toward other body modifications. Squirting botulinum toxin into your face in order to paralyze it is socially acceptable, because it is geared toward looking youthful. But injecting ink under/into your skin for other purposes (social identification, body decoration, celebration of an event or activity, etc.) is frowned upon. So ultimately, is the inconsistency about the history of one (tattoos) vs. the purpose of the other (chasing youth and beauty)? That says something disturbing to me.
+ Being a cabbie in London changes your brain? The article is about the thin line between ability and autism, but what interested me was the bit at the very end with respect to brain change in London cabbies as a result of the enormous geographical knowledge they must learn.
+ The president of Paraguay has now been named in a second paternity suit. OMG, a politician had sex, where's the news in that? Well, the issue isn't that he had sex as much as the fact that he did so while still a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. Since he hadn't been released from his vow of chastity at the time of conception for the first-reported (younger) child and was still acting as a bishop at the time of the conception of the second-reported child, the very existence of the suits is glaring commentary about the church's inability to police its own staff/members.
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Date: 2009-04-21 09:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-22 01:17 am (UTC)