OK. I have made a serious dent in World War Z. Yup. I am really enjoying it so far, its narrative structure as a series of journal entries from around the world documenting the incarnation of the disease. Great tension builder. Like the Japanese sailors wondering why their boat is shaking just before the emergence of Godzilla. We know what’s coming. They don’t. The book is better than what I was expecting and I can see how it will translate at the theatres. But I have to go bed. I would love to pull an all-nighter!
More History of Debt
If you haven’t had the chance to read anthropologist David Graebner’s book Debt then you will have another book to put on your reading list.
The Bonds of Debt: Borrowing Against the Common Good by Richard Dienst is reviewed here at Dissent magazine and looks well worth a read. I am quite fascinated by this emergent topic and how it is becoming a focal point for people outside of Occupy circles. Main stream academics are now seeing that it is the social construct of debt that is at the core of political economy and until we deal with that, every other element of social philosophy will suffer. Along with a lot of people.
Superman!
So Tristan and I went to see Superman in 3d last night. I was expecting the story to be overwhelmed by the special effects but I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it. I, like the author of this review in The New Yorker, appreciated the deeper allegories and metaphors littering the story. Some were too much, the scene of Clark Kent discussing who he is with a stained glass of Jesus in the background, mentioning TWICE that he was 33 (year of Jesus’ supposed death). That, and some other simmering religious allegory does, however, provide a clue to the utility of the original storyline created in the early 1930s and why this movie works: the desire for someone to save mankind from itself is desired in difficult times. Mired in what later came to be know as the Great Depression, many longed for salvation. The German people would elect Adolf Hitler as Roosevelt replaced Hoover. The novus homo was strength incarnate. But this is (and was) a morality play: what limits does power put to itself? I noted that young Superman was looking for those answers in Plato. Perhaps more people should.
But someone really needs a steadi-cam for their birthday. Enough already with overused shaky in-you-face camera work! It was quite distracting in the first part of the movie but perhaps someone had a discussion with the Director of Photography since it did get better, and less distracting. But boy did I love those space scenes with the fast focus pull perfected in Caprica. Awesome graphics when they were not over-used, which happens a couple of times, but is entirely forgivable!
New Online Image Collection
It is no secret that I love paintings and art galleries in general. The National Gallery in the US has opened its digital vault to allow access to thousands of high resolution images of its work here.
From the website:
NGA Images is a repository of digital images of the collections of the National Gallery of Art. On this website you can search, browse, share, and download images. A standards-based reproduction guide and a help section provide advice for both novices and experts. More than 25,000 open access digital images up to 3000 pixels each are available free of charge for download and use. NGA Images is designed to facilitate learning, enrichment, enjoyment, and exploration.
Tonight’s movie: some classic 1970s martial arts!
I can’t wait!
I saw The Man From Hong Kong on a crappy Beta (don’t ask) tape when I was twelve or thirteen! Yu Wang and George Lazenby in a international drug dealing, hang-gliding, kung-fu on top of Ayers Rock, over the top sound effects, Australia-Hong Kong butt kicking old time kung fu film! More here! If I have time I may also watch The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, the 1978 master piece of Chinese kung fu and re-live my youth 😉
World War Z
So that book about the approaching zombie apocalypse, World War Z, is soon out at the theatres. I had meant to read the book. Alas, Hollywood’s ability to convert text to pixels is outpacing my ability to read. Truly Sad. Here is a link to the movie website. It is quite a nicely integrated site with my iPad.
As I ruminated on the continued proliferation of the zombie genre I couldn’t help but to think that, like Paul Krugman and other, that the zombie metaphor is the metaphor of the age: no matter how dead you think an idea is, wrong. It is still alive. Ideas that inhibit the growth of our culture and our society still linger, old hatreds die hard. Or, I think, don’t die at all. Horror movies used to have a single threat, a Jason or a Freddie. Now all of use are potentially the destroyer of all that is good. So much for inevitable progress!
I’ll put the zombie movie on my list, although that list is growing and no plans to hit the theatres in my immediate future. Oh, and Superman looks good too! Nice iPad site too!
Photography and Watercolours
Lazy Like a Fox
Click here for a great TED talk on open source houses that can be printed by a 3d printer after downloading the open source blueprints from the web. Incredible technology! They are pioneering a process that is completely open source and can be accessed by anyone: the Wiki House!
Early anti-Nazi film re-discovered
In the early part of the last century Cornelius van Derbilt IV, the descendent of the railway tycoon, was in a unique position to interview some rather lofty players in the game of European politics including Adolf Hitler. In 1934 he produced a film called Hitler’s Reign of Terror that was censored and denied access to distribution due to its inflammatory nature. It has been recently re-discovered in the Belgian Archives. More here.
Did I mention that the film was censored and denied distribution in the United States?
Words that the English language could use
You know when you are expecting someone to come to your place and you keep checking to see if they have arrived? It is called iktsuarpok in Inuit. Or seigneur-terraces, French for coffee shop dwellers who sit at tables a long time but spend little money.
Great article here.