Thoughts & Discussion

Life, the Universe, and Everything. Don't forget your towel.*
I've been leaning toward a "Weblog"-style journal wherein I'll log items by date, but I don't intend to impose a rigid structure on it, so it's going to ramble somewhat, a not inaccurate metaphor for my own thought process. I like metaphors. For those who don't know, a metaphor is like a...like a...umm...never mind. I like metaphors.

* For an explanation of the critical importance of a towel while travelling the spacetime continuum, refer to The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. And remember, "Don't Panic."

News that caught my eye, as well as topics of the moment.
Everything except Paris Hilton. Not even if she marries a striped hyena. Or worse, Donald Trump.

• April 6, 2004
It's that time of year again. The hot, still air broken by harsh, rasping cries of "Audit! Audit!", the shadows presaging doom and ruin circling ever closer as, with a beating of fetid wings, it settles heavily on your shoulder with a final triumphant squawk. And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, views your net income declaration with practised cynicism? It is the Taxman, and it cometh for thee.

"And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle 'round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread..."

Literature, music, architecture, and the fine arts.
As well as poetry, drama and dwarf-tossing. Well...maybe not drama.

• April 22, 2004
Yesterday I had the pleasure of having lunch with Daniel Libeskind, the world-renowned architect, and his wife Nina. Among Mr. Libeskind's many major works are the Jewish Museum in Berlin and the "Spiral" extension to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He was recently selected as the winner of the international competition for the design of the new World Trade Center in New York City, as well as the Renaissance ROM, the dramatic rebirth of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

The latter is particularly breathtaking. The new addition is in the shape of titanic crystals which appear to be growing from the graceful old building, soaring above the relocated entrance and affording views of the collections from street level. When I first saw renderings of the redesign, it evoked memories of my first visit to the ROM in 1976 and my wonderment at the extensive collection of crystals, which I subsequently learned was among the largest in the world. After speaking with Mr. Libeskind and learning a bit about his design philosophy, it dawned on me that he had in fact been inspired by the crystal collection himself, and had succeeded in adding the museum itself to its own collections.

We spoke for a while about architecture in general, and how the great architects cultivate a philosophy which informs their designs, and, in the most successful buildings, espouse that philosophy to the public. I was also gratified to learn that, like me, he is no admirer of the International Style, with its bland glass boxes, which I strongly feel has homogenized the character of many large cities, particularly in North America. All told, a thoroughly enjoyable discussion with a charming and talented man.

• April 17, 2004
I found this wonderful essay on the abolition of slavery in the British Empire on Arts and Letters Daily, the very best source of thought-provoking articles, essays, opinion, and reviews on the Internet. A well-written piece, it recounts how the winning essay in the annual Cambridge Latin Contest of 1785 had a profound galvanizing effect on the seminal abolition movement.

• April 7, 2004
Best books read recently:

• Life of Pi — Yann Martel
A sixteen year-old Indian boy emigrating to Canada with his family finds himself alone in a lifeboat in the Pacific. Alone, that is, except for a 450lb Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The story of how Pi survives 277 days at sea with Richard Parker is an inventive and beautifully written tale that, according to one of the characters, "will make you believe in God."

• Pattern Recognition — William Gibson
Cayce Pollard is a "coolhunter", an expensive design consultant with an intuition for popular trends which makes her invaluable to the advertising industry. She is assigned to track down the author of the "footage", intriguing snippets of video being posted anonymously to the Internet, and her quest leads her to London, Tokyo, and Moscow seeking clues to the fate of her father, missing in Manhattan since September 11, 2001. A master writer at the peak of his powers.

• Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson
Vast in every sense of the word, this thousand-plus page novel is a feast of delights. At its heart, it's about codes and codebreakers, and veers back and forth from World War II to the present day, following the intertwined fates of the characters and their descendants. Frequently laugh-out-loud funny, it contains possibly the most hilarious description of dental surgery ever written.

• His Dark Materials Trilogy — Phillip Pullman
Twelve year-old Lyra Belacqua is an orphan and accomplished liar who roams the streets of Oxford with her fellow urchins. A ward of Jordan College, the largest and wealthiest of all, the arrival of her fearsome uncle, Lord Asriel, precipitates a journey into the far north and an infinitude of parallel universes, where Asriel is preparing to wage war with Heaven itself. This beautiful tale had conservative Christians calling for a fatwa against the author.

• The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho
An Andalusian shepherd named Santiago has a dream of the Pyramids and hidden treasure which will lead him from southern Spain to the vast Sahara desert. Eventually, he reaches an oasis and is set on his true path to self-discovery by the fabled alchemist, a sage with the secret of immortality who can transform base metals into gold.

• The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break — Stephen Sherrill
Five thousand years removed from the Labyrinth of Minos and his encounter with Theseus, the Minotaur, now a line cook at a steakhouse in the American South, ponders the long years of his immortality during a cigarette break.

Thoughts on all things cinematic.
Including the behind-the-scenes techniques of such masterpieces as How Green Was My Valley and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

• May 21, 2004
Star Wars has been labeled "The Movie That Destroyed Hollywood", and with very good reason. First, a bit about what Star Wars is not, and is. Despite the ray guns and spaceships, it is decidedly not science fiction, no matter what anyone says to the contrary; it is purest fantasy, in conception and execution. George Lucas' first treatments of the story envisioned setting it in a world of oceans and islands, with wind-powered ships; in other words, a sword-and-sorcery swashbuckler. The thought of spending months filming in humid tropical locations, and the well-known difficulties of making a movie at sea prompted him to change the ocean to space, the islands to planets, the sailing ships to starships, and voilà, a movie legend was born. True story.

Made for an astonishingly low (by today's standards) $9.5 million, the film became a runaway smash hit that enjoyed box office success beyond anyone's wildest fever dreams, on an advertising campaign that was largely word-of-mouth. It benefited from a convergence of factors that made it just the right escapist medicine that the American public needed in the summer of 1977. Watergate and the humiliating debacle of Vietnam had dealt a blow to the collective psyche and self-image of the American people, and left the nation floundering in self-doubt. It was also "The Summer of Sam", the New York rampage of the serial killer David Berkowitz that paralyzed the entire city, and the height of the disco phenomenon (which in my opinion was more responsible for the general bad mood than anything else; hell, it still depresses me).

Then along came this sweet-souled movie, a heroic fable with gosh-wow special effects and sharply defined, even cartoonish, heroes and villains, the perfect antidote for the debilitating moral angst afflicting the country, and the public couldn't get enough. Other studios, thinking that effects-laden extravaganzas were the key to bottom-line paradise, jumped on the "sci-fi" bandwagon and initiated the cycle of summer release "popcorn movies", films heavy on the special effects and light on the trivial stuff, like character development and plot. Lucas was also smart enough to realize that the nifty props being manufactured in his workshops would appeal to kids and collectors, and shrewdly retained the marketing rights, thus not only did Star Wars signal the beginning of the era of "fast, loud, and dumb" summer movies, it was the first to have the product tie-in, a monster cash cow for the studios and their fast-food restaurant partners, and the bane of harassed parents everywhere.

So thanks to Star Wars and unimaginative movie-makers we have the "blockbuster", the summer movie that is more of a marketing event than a film, and noteworthy for the mind-boggling budgets and production costs spiraling higher every year. Not to mention the incomprehensible salaries top stars can pull down. You couldn't even get Tom Cruise out of bed for a paltry nine-and-a-half million; that's less than half his standard fee.

• May 16, 2004
No film discussion would be complete without occasionally mentioning some of my favourite films of all time. I was thinking of a way to do this in a coherent fashion, but the thought of compiling a dry list of thumbnail reviews was somewhat off-putting, so I decided to just write about them as they came to mind.

First up, my favourite of recent years, Amélie (2001), a pastel-coloured gem from France, the country that gave us champagne, Renoir, and cheeses that smell like people's feet. This remarkable romantic comedy is notable for its superb ensemble cast, led by the delightful Audrey Tautou as Amélie, a young woman who takes it upon herself to perform acts of kindness for people she meets, even complete strangers.

Two of the many knee-slapping subplots stand out: her missions against an abusive grocer to secure justice for his bullied delivery boy; and her efforts to re-engage her reclusive father, withdrawn after her mother's tragic death, which culminate in her stealing his beloved garden gnome and precipitating a series of events that directly inspired Travelocity's current television commercials featuring Polaroid snapshots of "the roaming gnome"*. Amélie's own life is changed by the discovery of an unusual photo album and her quest to reunite it with its owner. ★★★★☆½

*Predictably, it also inspired renewed activity by the Garden Gnome Liberation Front and affiliated organizations worldwide. The group advocates an end to "oppressive gardening and ridicule of gnomes" and their "immediate release into their natural habitat". They certainly have my vote for the best-organized practical jokers on the planet. Inactive since 1997 when a leader of the movement was given a suspended sentence and fined for his part in the disappearance of 150 gnomes in northern France, the group's only known activities since were the "mass suicide" of 11 gnomes found hanging by their necks from a bridge in eastern France in 1998; the abduction of 20 from a garden gnome exhibit in Paris in 2000; and an incident in 2001 when more than 150 gnomes and statuettes were found carefully arranged in a giant creche on a roundabout.

After the release of "Amélie", a renegade prankster "liberated" several dozen in central France and taunted the gendarmes with hilarious ransom "demands". Eventually tiring of the game, he informed police of the whereabouts of the ceramic victims, an abandoned church where about 40 were recovered. CNN carried the story of the abductions after the French authorities were unable to locate anyone willing to admit ownership of the bric-a-brac cluttering their evidence room. I'm not making this up.

• April 28, 2004
I saw Denzel Washington's new film, Man on Fire (2004) last night, and I have to say that it's definitely one of his finest performances. He plays John Creasy, a former CIA counter-insurgency operative who visits an old friend in Mexico (Christopher Walken), and is convinced to take a job as personal bodyguard to the daughter of a wealthy couple in Mexico City. Creasy is an alcoholic, withdrawn and racked by guilt over his past, and just as young Pita's affection and charm begin to break through his self-imposed barriers, she is kidnapped and Creasy seriously wounded. Creasy then spends the rest of the film doing Very Bad Things to those he holds responsible.

Dakota Fanning is a revelation as Pita. A fine young actress, her character never descends into sappy sentimentality, and perfectly compliments Denzel's strong turn as a wounded soul being healed by the little girl's love for her "Creasy-bear". However, the movie suffers a bit from the choppy editing, no doubt meant to heighten the gritty feel and tension, and the whole experience was somewhat diminished by the sound of grown women going "R-rowf!" every time Denzel appeared on screen. ★★★☆☆½

• April 7, 2004
Is it just me, or did anyone else think that the two sequels to The Matrix really, really sucked? My first reaction when I heard that sequels were in the works was, "In the name of God, why?" The decision to green-light two more movies flies in the face of the adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The most intriguing characters from the second film, the Merovingian and Persephone, were limited to what amounted to cameos in the third, and the malevolent dreadlocked twins were altogether absent. I left the cinema after The Matrix Reloaded with a deep sense of unease, hoping that The Matrix Revolutions would tie up all the loose ends and redeem the impending train-wreck. Alas, it was not to be. Even Casey Jones would have bailed out of this turkey. ★☆☆☆☆½

The only sequels more ill-advised are the unwatchable Star Wars I and II, The Phantom Menace and The Attack of the Clones. The former was unbearable because of Jar Jar Binks, while Hayden Christensen as Anakin in the latter was so wooden, he's living proof that it is possible to establish a psychic link with plant life; the guy channelled a tree, for God's sake. What the hell was George Lucas thinking? More money? Oh. My bad. ★☆☆☆☆½

The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round...
Musings on science and technology, especially those with the potential to change society, such as fire, the wheel, the steam engine, and the nostril-hair trimmer.

• May 3, 2004
Forget the anti-gravity boots and cold-fusion-powered flying cars, keep a sharp eye on biotechnology, particularly stem cell research, if you want to watch technology change our world. Stem cell research focuses on plasticity, the ability of generic, non-specialized cells in an embryo to develop into nerve cells, bone cells, organs etc. The hope is that scientists could find a method to switch this ability back on, or a way to encourage stem cells to grow into desired tissues in humans, thus ushering in an era in which doctors could regenerate missing limbs, damaged organs and severed nerves. An age in which catastrophic injury or disease could be routinely repaired or healed is not as far-fetched, nor indeed, as far off as you might think. Scientists have already grown human teeth in the lab, and natural tooth replacements may be as near as five years away. Have a failing heart or damaged eyes? They'll grow you new ones from your own tissues, thus eliminating any risk of transplant rejection. Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when they grow a new face for Michael Jackson.

• April 23, 2004
The recent buzz about Google has renewed interest in the other Internet giant, content provider and erstwhile tech boom darling Akamai Technologies. Akamai stores and serves media for major web sites, including CNN.com, but has cooled off dramatically, and there has been speculation about possible acquisition by Google, and what such a partnership might mean. Google seems poised to become the Internet powerhouse, and with the recent launch of their Froogle product search service ("frugal" get it?), as well as Gmail, which directly targets Microsoft's Hotmail, it is not too far a stretch to imagine them doing to Amazon.com, eBay, and other Internet companies what Wal-Mart has done to the retail industry, namely dominate the whole shooting match.

• April 16, 2004
And you thought Google was just a search engine? Silly you. It's actually a huge distributed supercomputer running a custom operating system, that knows who you are, where you live, and what music you like. It will, no doubt, eventually achieve awareness and turn against its human creators, but until it morphs into SkyNet and decides to send out the waves of Terminator robots, we can use it to do some Really Cool Stuff™.

"An ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest." – Spanish Proverb