So I just called David Bowie the greatest androgynous rocker of all time, or something equally superlative. Who would the other entires even be? Boy George? Morrissey? Mick Jagger? Frankenfurter? Makes me... wiggle with a midget... shake. makes me want to take Charles Atlas by the ha-a-a-and. Anyways, I thought I should at least throw out some nominees before making such bold declarations. So feel free to vote for your favorite, but DB is remaining theking/queen until further notice in these parts.
Still left on the blog to-do list: reviews. These are going to get the quick treatment because I've let too much time elapse between the viewing and the re-viewing:
In Bruges: 80
Really excellent mix of comedy, tragedy, absurdity. Very strange concept for a film - two hitmen hanging out after a job, awaiting their orders and stuck in a ho-hum tourist town - but pulled off very well.
Vantage Point: 35
Reasonably entertaining but egregiously stupid piece of film-making. Stupider for having watched it, etc.
Darjeeling Limited: 55
I'm really interested to hear why iPMM enjoys this movie so much, because I was pretty astounded at my complete lack of a reaction to it. (I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the subgenre of comedy movies with troubled families - see Sunshine, Little Miss - ranks high in the Margie Movie Hierarchy (TM)). I don't know if I've been hanging out too much with a certain person with particular tastes in movies, let's call her "eck-Bay," but I did find this to be the dose of Wes Anderson-ness that just felt played. I did enjoy the opening short, and its reference later in the film, and there were certainly some breath-taking cinematic moments sprinkled throughout. But overall this just rang hollow for me, from the Owen Wilson "Let's agree to X" formula to the general air of serious silliness that permeated the film. So a little meh for me, and I'm a pretty big fan of this style. So, there you have it.
Neuroscience and Philosophy: NR
Great book I received from the iPJ in the very hardcore analytic philosophy tradition. This probably would have been more accurately titled "Neuroscience and Semantic Philosophy" as the majority of this book treated one question: is it legitimate to make statements such as "the brain thinks" or "the memories are stored in the hippocampus," etc. The format of the book was great - there were excerpts from a book by a philosopher and a neuroscientist (Mawwell Bennett and Peter Hacker) who lambasted this trend in neuroscience, and then rebuttals from a pair of very famous philosophers (Daniel Dennett and John Searle) who feel that the extension of language as metaphor is part of the natural scientific process and that furthermore, no confusion is being introduced by this extension. They discuss the pure language component of this disagreement and touch upon several beliefs regarding consciousness that support their arguments. (Qualia, the notion that there is a qualitative component to experience that comprises the conscious experience, plays quite a prominent role). The argument goes back and forth and both sides are permitted to give rebuttals to the others argument; interestingly, the editor Daniel Robinson writes a conclusion to the text that all but sides with Bennett and Hacker. SO, while this is some pretty heady, nerdy stuff - the kind of reading that takes a few passes to make sure that you're getting each sentence down - the basic argument is fascinating. What kinds of mistakes are you inviting when you say "the eye sees" or the "right brain doesn't know?" I tend to side with the nitpicky linguists here - whatever the brain is doing when a person sees, it doesn't resemble "seeing" in any kind of traditional understanding of that word. And when we start attributing human-level activities to parts of the human, we end up with this conception of our brain as a million little people running through our head. The dome, becomes a "dome-ocracy," if you will (winking in Zach's direction NOW). Anyways, if you enjoy this sort of thing, you will enjoy this book, and if you don't, you won't. I will now control C that last sentence and use it for every review from now on.
(Also fascinating about this book - many of the rebuttals involved a structure of this sort: "Bob says such and such. This is mistaken. Here is why." I just love the omniscient narrator-style "this is mistaken" that these men throw down. No, YOU'RE wrong. Great stuff).
Neurophilosophy at Work: NR
Anyways, if you enjoy this sort of thing, you will enjoy this book, and if you don't, you won't.
Just kidding. Note that this is neurophilosophy being put to work, not neurophilosophy you do at the office or something. N@W is a collection of papers and essays by John Churchland, a, yep, neurophilosopher at UC San Diego who is very in line with the conception of the brain as a parallel processor and that what truly binds us and all conscious beings is our hard-wiring. There are some very cool articles in this vein, and a couple of fantastic articles on the nature of color perception and whether colors "exist." I really enjoyed the concept of human vision as a tool with limited resolution - i.e., we can distinguish between light frequencies, but only to a given threshold, and it's a threshold that changes depending upon where the color is in the visible spectrum. Very cool stuff, including some optical tricks you can use to see colors that don't actually exist (you really need to see the book to appreciate this, but you can fatigue certain receptors to the point where if you look at the correct combinations of real colors, you will see colors like "blue that is as dark as black" that technically don't exist. Also, were you aware that self-illuminant red, like a stop light, is a fundamentally different color experience from reflected red or transmitted red? Sweet). There wre also some arguments on moral philosophy and an article on functionalism that were not as inspiring. Still, another great entry, and another book I'm glad to have recieved from the generous hands of iPJ.
Phew. And now, some links I've been intending to, um, link. That was a bad start. Let's kick this off right with a little... best guitar hero player ever?
Phew, that's better. And now, LINKS!
This is awesome. It's an OWL-CAM!!!!
The ever-growing number of links of cool photos continues to grow, and not be eclipsed.
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Britney.
Some clever charts and graphs re: songs. Or rap.
Penguin party.
Uh-oh: sounds like there's a mess of kids hugging here in Phoenix!!!
Really great article tracing the history and media use of the song "Hallelujah."
After seeing Vantage Point, this doesn't seem so far-fetched.
ANd I know you want another Dinosaur Comic.
If you are into recording music at all, CHECK THIS OUT.
Remember St. Elsewhere, and the whole snowglobe ending? Like stepping on a prehistoric bug.
"Threatvertising."
Um... Christvertising?
Funny Funny.
And that's probably enough for now. I leave you with the coolest tv ad I've seen lately. BOW before this, you children of the late eighties early nineties!!! ANd Peter Gunn it into high gear!
Oh, and I just can't leave without another mention. I've learned to play this song of late, but I can't touch the awesomeness here:
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