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Of Tar, Lamas, and Michael Moore...
Jul. 6th, 2004 04:58 pmToday I had a Tibetan monk join my class. He’s the real deal: red robes, shaved head, etc. He teaches meditation to yuppies downtown, but as part of an ESL exercise demonstrated the correct posture for meditation (balancing on the arms of his chair, no less), and described how one goes about achieving Buddha mind-fullness. However, even with this helpful demo I am still far from Buddha mind-fullness or any elevated mental state, having maxed out in one of the lower stages of unjustified mild-anxiety.
Here are a bunch of random thoughts in no particular order:
1) The Liberals squeaked in to win the Canadian election. We now have a minority government that has promised to form coalitions issue-by-issue. We’ll see how long that lasts. In other news, the unexpected downfall of several prominent conservatives in my home province has our provincial Liberal party (actually a Conservative party, not to be confused with the federal Liberals, who are… oh forget it.) worried. So they’re now frantically spending to try and Band-Aid the social services destroyed by the budget cuts they installed a few years previously. sigh
2) We had our leaky roof fixed yesterday. It took a team of nine workmen, a crane, and several vats of boiling tar, but water is no longer dribbling down the bedroom walls. The house smells of hot tar and I had to spend most of yesterday evening sweeping up the little bits of gravel that had fallen through the roof slats. My bedroom carpet is still coated with sawdust and dead spiders, so as soon as I finish this entry, I’m going to vacuum.
3) I just finished China Mieville’s “The Scar” and was quite impressed. I enjoyed it much more than Perdido Street Station, which I thought had a lot of good ideas marred by overly smug “look at how experimental and alternative I am” artistic posturing. “The Scar” isn’t exactly a feel-good story, but I found it to be a much more mature work than Perdido: it manages to retain Perdido’s interest in politics and world-creation without sacrificing character development and narrative drive. And this might be just me, but whereas I felt Perdido was very clearly informed by and writing for the purely academic perspective, I felt “The Scar’s” open-ended conclusion reflected a loss of conviction in the face of contemporary events etc. I dunno. Anyway, I suppose what I’m saying is that The Scar seemed to be a humbler book than Perdido, and I thought it was better for it.
4) Managed to see Fahrenheit 9-11 on the weekend. Thought it was good, but more because of its engagement with the political moment. As a documentary, it wasn’t very good, and as a movie, I preferred Bowling for Columbine. The first half in particular is rambling and incoherent, and relies on a disturbingly simplistic Saudi = Pure Evil equation. (I’m not exactly a fan of Saudi Arabia, but I don’t reach for my shotgun every time I see an Arab in traditional dress, and that seems to be the demographic Moore is going for.) The second half was good, but more because the movie’s graphic depiction of the war was (for me, at least) a welcome relief from the so-clean-its-sparkling depiction we were getting on American news channels. Final verdict: F- 9-11 might turn out to be an effective piece of propaganda, but as a documentary, it’s disappointing.
5) Spiderman 2 is a really good comic book movie, but only if you take “comic book” to mean “entertaining kid’s story with pinch of harmless violence, graphic artistry, and a dash of imagination thrown in.” My young Korean students loved it. I liked it, but I ain’t gonna buy the DVD any time soon.
6) The “Firefly” DVD, on the other hand, I might buy. That show is awesome.
7) So is “The Office.”
8) And as far as currently running tv shows goes, I am now officially a fan of Joe Schmo 2. Love that suicidal falcon! Love it to pieces!
In addition to watching all this stuff, I’m also doing work. I swear. But television is just so much more entertaining. :)
Here are a bunch of random thoughts in no particular order:
1) The Liberals squeaked in to win the Canadian election. We now have a minority government that has promised to form coalitions issue-by-issue. We’ll see how long that lasts. In other news, the unexpected downfall of several prominent conservatives in my home province has our provincial Liberal party (actually a Conservative party, not to be confused with the federal Liberals, who are… oh forget it.) worried. So they’re now frantically spending to try and Band-Aid the social services destroyed by the budget cuts they installed a few years previously. sigh
2) We had our leaky roof fixed yesterday. It took a team of nine workmen, a crane, and several vats of boiling tar, but water is no longer dribbling down the bedroom walls. The house smells of hot tar and I had to spend most of yesterday evening sweeping up the little bits of gravel that had fallen through the roof slats. My bedroom carpet is still coated with sawdust and dead spiders, so as soon as I finish this entry, I’m going to vacuum.
3) I just finished China Mieville’s “The Scar” and was quite impressed. I enjoyed it much more than Perdido Street Station, which I thought had a lot of good ideas marred by overly smug “look at how experimental and alternative I am” artistic posturing. “The Scar” isn’t exactly a feel-good story, but I found it to be a much more mature work than Perdido: it manages to retain Perdido’s interest in politics and world-creation without sacrificing character development and narrative drive. And this might be just me, but whereas I felt Perdido was very clearly informed by and writing for the purely academic perspective, I felt “The Scar’s” open-ended conclusion reflected a loss of conviction in the face of contemporary events etc. I dunno. Anyway, I suppose what I’m saying is that The Scar seemed to be a humbler book than Perdido, and I thought it was better for it.
4) Managed to see Fahrenheit 9-11 on the weekend. Thought it was good, but more because of its engagement with the political moment. As a documentary, it wasn’t very good, and as a movie, I preferred Bowling for Columbine. The first half in particular is rambling and incoherent, and relies on a disturbingly simplistic Saudi = Pure Evil equation. (I’m not exactly a fan of Saudi Arabia, but I don’t reach for my shotgun every time I see an Arab in traditional dress, and that seems to be the demographic Moore is going for.) The second half was good, but more because the movie’s graphic depiction of the war was (for me, at least) a welcome relief from the so-clean-its-sparkling depiction we were getting on American news channels. Final verdict: F- 9-11 might turn out to be an effective piece of propaganda, but as a documentary, it’s disappointing.
5) Spiderman 2 is a really good comic book movie, but only if you take “comic book” to mean “entertaining kid’s story with pinch of harmless violence, graphic artistry, and a dash of imagination thrown in.” My young Korean students loved it. I liked it, but I ain’t gonna buy the DVD any time soon.
6) The “Firefly” DVD, on the other hand, I might buy. That show is awesome.
7) So is “The Office.”
8) And as far as currently running tv shows goes, I am now officially a fan of Joe Schmo 2. Love that suicidal falcon! Love it to pieces!
In addition to watching all this stuff, I’m also doing work. I swear. But television is just so much more entertaining. :)
