Tealeaf's FriendsWednesday, December 30, 20098:36PMThe "parts only" copy of Civilization and Advanced Civilization that I bought on eBay turned out to be a) complete and b) in remarkably reasonable shape. That was well worth $50. 8:57AM - ResolutionsI've just been reflecting on resolutions, probably because ravelry has me thinking about them a lot. I decided to look up my resolutions from last year, and wow, did I lose track of where I wanted to be! Here they are: 9:50AM - Help, LJ computer genie!When connected to the router by a cable, my new computer (which is delightful, btw) gets 20 Mbps. My laptop, via wireless, gets the same. But my desktop, via wireless, gets like 5-6, and sees less signal strength than the laptop despite being the same distance from the router. Tuesday, December 29, 20092:27PM - Buried in RedThey may not be green, but the ti plants and bromeliads around my neighborhood have run rampant in recent humid weather. Our gardens are streaked with hues of blood red, magenta and burgundy... Sunday, December 27, 20094:03PM - Deus ex machinaI am a sucker for a happy ending. I like to see everything work out in the end, no matter how improbable that resolution may be. Old Horace back in the day decried these sudden, often miraculous solutions to a narrative problem, calling them deus ex machina, a "god from the machine". You can see these machine-produced gods all over the place in popular literature and film. Just when everything seems like it's lost, Santa swoops in and drops gifts all over us and everyone is at once at peace. This type of ending, while happy, feels mediocre because no one really expects things to work out like that. The Santa we know is a nice old man who sits in the middle of the mall December 1 through 24 smiling and waving, but never swooping in to fix all our problems. Saturday, December 26, 20092:12PM - Need help for the finals!I haven't come to you all all season, but I'm hoping someone can help me this week... Friday, December 25, 200912:26AM - Saint-Petersburg. Russia.Wednesday, December 23, 20098:27PM - TWoN Book 3 Chapter 4This very short chapter deals with drawbacks. I’d have had an easier time of it if I knew what drawbacks are. Next chapter is about bounties, and the same applies. As near as I can tell, a drawback is a refund of a portion of whatever duty is charged on export. Page 389: “They tend not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself among all the various employments of society.” My problem here is that it doesn’t make sense to me to speak of some sort of natural balance of employments and then see interference by the State as external to this; the State is an integral, inevitable part of capitalism, and when it interferes in the market, it is (to the extent it does so successfully from the point of view of the capitalists) doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It is like trying to understand the movement of an orbiting body by examining the centrifugal force, but seeing gravity as an unnatural interference. Copyright 2008 The Dream Cafe. ©2009 Words Words Words. All Rights Reserved. .2:27PM - TWoN Book 3 Chapter 4This very short chapter deals with drawbacks. I’d have had an easier time of it if I knew what drawbacks are. Next chapter is about bounties, and the same applies. As near as I can tell, a drawback is a refund of a portion of whatever duty is charged on export. Page 389: “They tend not to overturn that balance which naturally establishes itself among all the various employments of society.” My problem here is that it doesn’t make sense to me to speak of some sort of natural balance of employments and then see interference by the State as external to this; the State is an integral, inevitable part of capitalism, and when it interferes in the market, it is (to the extent it does so successfully from the point of view of the capitalists) doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It is like trying to understand the movement of an orbiting body by examining the centrifugal force, but seeing gravity as an unnatural interference. Originally published at Words Words Words. Please leave any comments there. 12:01PM - Still autumn colors
11:04AMMerry Christmas, everyone!!! Monday, December 21, 200912:49AM - Up in the AirUp in the Air: *** 1/2 (out of 4)Amongst the most awkward movie experiences of my life was when I saw High Fidelity. I went to the movie with a pair of friends, one of which was an ex-girlfriend, bearing a Transformer I had just purchased across the street at Meijer. The movie was in large part about breakups, seeing those ex-significant-others, and putting away childish things. I had clearly seen the movie in the most inadvertently appropriate manner possible; and years later, I still feel both awkward and wistful as I think about it. Up in the Air is in large part about the loneliness of a crowd. I saw it alone, in a fairly packed theatre, surrounded by others that choose to go to movies on a Sunday night. And as I left the movie, I felt that I had to take a walk around the neighborhood to contemplate the situation. And I wonder if I'm going to be thinking seriously about this otherwise-innocuous evening in nine years. From the trailers, I had originally pegged the movie as a romantic comedy. I suppose that it did, in some ways, fit that bill; but it was not (as I feared) about the relationship between George Clooney and his 23-year old assistant, but instead about the relationship between Clooney and his job. The main hook of the movie is this job: Clooney (Ryan) is a travelling consultant who fires people for a living. This, of course, resonates well with the modern economy (which is why it's doing well at the box office); but more interestingly, this makes it a bit of a period piece, as well as movie about a specific setting, that being (for the most part) the Midwestern and Plains States. And while I'm not sure that just the existence of Omaha was meant to make us laugh, I wasn't (quite) the only one in the theatre to do so. But what we really get is a character piece. Clooney has chosen to live his life on the road; we spend the movie seeing both what this offers him, and what he has to give up in order to maintain that life. He has also chosen a role in life that many would consider, at its heart, evil; and of course we see what this costs him. We see him respond to changes in his life (outsourcing comes for all employees), and indeed to try to change his life as well. And we see him come back to the beginning, slightly changed. The plot was, in many ways, incidental, at least for Clooney. Interestingly, the movie felt authentic to me. The firings were, indeed, brutal, without being over-the-top or evil. The new young worker - not an assistant at all, I might add, another place that I was misled by the trailer - seemed both stereotypical and a lot like several brilliant-but-unlucky women I've known in my life. Speaking from someone right in the middle of the generational gap presented, the arguments on both sides were spot-on. The wedding and its trappings were properly excruciating for me, because of the sheer awkwardness of the situation for the family. And the airport scenes always felt like airport scenes, in a way that invoked both just a touch of pity for having to be in the airport, and jealousy for getting all of the perks that there were to be had. And you know what? I liked the actual romance of the movie too. It was sweet and modern and doomed and cute, as well as, somehow, kindof natural. I may not have liked where it ended (not an attack on Chicago, mind), but I... respected it. Clooney got his comeuppance in a perfectly natural, perfectly unfair way - just like all of the people that he had fired throughout the movie. It was just... how things had to be. It's a strong movie, very well done. I liked the direction, the script, the acting, and the settings. And I think that I'd have enjoyed it just that little bit less if the theatre had been empty, or if I had had somebody with me to hold hands with. *** 1/2 URL: http://wiki.killfile.org/reviews/mo Saturday, December 19, 200912:57AM - Hot WW pick ups for Week 15.Houston D/ST |
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