:: It's one of those days where it's hard to keep up. I read a post on Geoff's site that led to comments from Lucas about Textile - A Humane Web Generator, and my brain exploded. It's like, my brain couldn't handle one more piece of new, state-of-the-art, cutting-edge blogging/HTML/coding technology today.
:: Tonight I need to rehearse for a Saturday, May 3rd, concert, and refresh my memory about Blogger for an upcoming presentation in May. I've done neither yet.
:: Read this post mortem on Napster.
:: Karlin Lillington follows up her interview with William Gibson with this incredible post that links to a 1967 CBC broadcast called Yorkville: Hippie Haven - Yorkville was Canada's equivalent to Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco at the time. It's a 14-minute clip, but worth watching. A 19-year old Bill Gibson appears at the beginning and the end of the broadcast - he speaks over top of scenes of him walking about Yorkville. The CBC page notes that the show’s featured hippie, Bill Gibson, is none other than the author of the classic 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, and the man who coined the term “cyberspace.”
:: Dear Dirtbag in St Louis: Please stop making intrusion attempts to my machine. Thank you.
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:: Ah, Sunday morning, late April, in Edmonton. The sun is shining, the temperatures beginning to get warm, the birds singing, the kids playing. A nice, hot cuppa joe, the NYTimes, sitting under the canopy in the back yard, and - what? Snow? You're looking out from my driveway at 10:00 MDT this morning. This is to what we woke up in Edmonton this morning. But it was nowhere near as bad as Calgary, and the rest of southern and central Alberta. I did spend 15 minutes bashing the snow from my Juniper trees, whose branches were bending over from the weight of the very, very wet snow.
:: The year is nearly 1/3 over, and it always seems to be going so quickly. Tomorrow at work we begin two weeks of "spring training", consisting of a number of in-house workshops and training sessions. In the midst of this, I'll try to get some regular work done. I'm working on a presentation I will give on June 10 in NYC at the annual SLA Conference, and there is a forthcoming presentation on edu-blogs, which I will be presenting with Geoff on May 22nd.
:: I'm considering cancelling my subscription to the Edmonton Journal, which is more and more under control of its parent body, and offering less local opinion and editorials. In Edmonton and Calgary, we have two dailies, one to the right (The Journal), and one to the far, far right. Essentially, it is not possible to get balanced news reporting in Alberta, ever. The other exciting news of the day is that I ordered 4 new Michelin tires at Costco, where there is a $60 sale on said Michelin tires. Life doesn't get any better!
:: The good news about the weather is that it will warm up in less than 24 hours, and be back to the mid-teens (Celsius) by Tuesday. The ski resorts in the mountains get to stay open a bit longer, and the farmers in Alberta get much needed precipitation as they prepare for seeding.
"Always look on the bright....side of life!"
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:: William Gibson, who started blogging in early January 2003, has (apparently) decided, after three months and such, to give up the activity, at least for now. Or has he?
Gibson is currently in Ireland on a book tour for Pattern Recognition. In an interview with Karlin Lillington in The Irish Times, he notes that to prepare for his next book, he'll have to give up the blog:
I do know from doing it that it's not something I can do when I'm actually working. Somehow the ecology of writing novels wouldn't be able to exist if I'm in daily contact. If I expose things that interest or obsess me as I go along, there'd be no need to write the book. The sinews of narrative would never grow."I've enjoyed reading his blog entries, as have others, and I will buy the new book soon (I need a break from non-fiction). I met Gibson in Vancouver in the 80s, while still an active member of sf fandom, and saw him a number of times afterwards. He was invited to be a co-Guest of Honour at the ConText'89 in Edmonton, the conference that served as the launchpoint for what is now known as SF Canada, and for the nifty Canadian magazine, Edmonton-based On Spec. The last time I saw him was when he was on tour for Virtual Light, and came through Edmonton. After his reading, Derryl and I rescued him from the masses and took him for a beer on Whyte Avenue.
He said in the interview that he's giving it up, but he's posted an entry today. Can we expect more?
Thanks for Doc Searls for the lead into this story.
| TrackBack (0):: 1. What was the last tv show you watched: L&O: SVU.
2. What was the last thing you complained about: making errors transposing chords on a music chart
3. What was the last person you complimented, and what did you say? My musical colleague, Amelia (fiddler); I told her that her new glasses looked very good on her and suited her face quite well.
4. What was the last thing you threw away? A pizza box.
5. What was the last website (besides this one) you visited? Tonya's.
:: As I type this, the rink announcer in Dallas just announced, "Last minute of play, in the 7th period." The game between the Dallas Stars and the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim is now the fourth longest in NHL history.
:: What the hey? All this stuff was found in Uday's Pleasure Palace?
:: Interested in RSS? Read's Geoff's piece, then check out this list of RSS Readers.
:: Many of the states in the USA are in deep financial trouble. In Missouri, the governor ordered every third lightbulb unscrewed to save money. (May require registration.)
:: "Is this the dawning of the age of hysteria?" You be the judge.
:: From the Sunday 20 April 2003 NYTimes: "THE RETURN OF SEATTLE Out of the ashes of grunge, Seattle rock has risen again, with bands like the Chromatics, Blood Brothers, Akimbo, Minus the Bear and Pretty Girls Make Graves. Most make a post-punk fracas of harcore, metal-indie-rock, occasional dashes of electronica and T-shirts that are two sizes too small." (Neil Strauss, Section 2, p24.)
:: In the 8th period (5th overtime), Anaheim won the game.
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¦¦ Those who know me know that I physically warm up easily. That is to say, my body needs to be around cooler air to feel comfortable at the best of times. I hate long sleeve shirts, I always feel too warm in them. Two weeks ago it was still cold in Edmonton - tonight, at 12:20 am MDT, it's 15C (60F) outside, and I'm in my home, feeling too warm already, and it's only April. This seems to be getting worse every year. The bedroom fan is back in business.
¦¦ Geoff sent this link about the tourism industry in Toronto getting hammered because of the SARS scare. The World Health Organization has advised travellers to postpone all but essential travel to Toronto. This warning does not bode well for the forthcoming joint Canadian Library Association/American Library Association Conference, to be held in Toronto, 19th-25th of June, 2003. 20,000 attendees are expected. The City of Toronto is working hard to assure visitors that the risk of contracting SARS when visiting is extremely low.
¦¦ PLEASE go to this entry on Tonya's site, and look at EVERY photograph of these properties in Santa Fe NM. I want to go there now. I want the one with the porch light at dusk. I like this bedroom, and want this or this in my backyard, and this in my bathroom, and this for a workspace.
¦¦ I'm getting bored with the layout of my website again. Don't know what to do to change it, but I don't have the energy to do much at this time. Hell, I should be asleep now as it is.
¦¦ Moveable Type has announced the forthcoming launch of TypePad. More details are here.
¦¦ I saw someone today who made my world a better place for a little while.
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From Blogcritics.org: Ian Thomas is one of my favorite Canadian songwriters, ever. He burst onto the Canadian scene in 1973 with the tune, "Painted Ladies", and has remained a fixture ever since, albeit somewhat quietly at times. Thomas's regional hit single, "I'll Do You Right", from his 1984 album Riders on Dark Horses, is my favorite singalong-in-the-car song, and a brilliant love song as well.
Three years after his last album, Levity, was released in 1988, Thomas joined forces with three great Canadian musicians: Bill Dillon (guitar), Peter Cardinali (bass), and Rick Gratton (drums), all of whom he had known for years by that time, to form The Boomers. Between 1991 and 1996 they released three albums: What We Do, The Art of Living, and 25,000 Days. By the third album, Thomas's writing had turned to themes about getting older, musing about past sins, changes a' coming, truth, and the entire span of life: 25,000 days is in fact, just about the average life span of a man, just under 68.5 years. What impressed me consistently about these albums was the songwriting craft of Thomas combined with one of the most solid rhythm sections working today. Cardinali and Gratton are a perfect fit, laying down an impressive foundation for every song, and Bill Dillon's guitar and occasional mandolin work are very tasty.
In 2002, after a six-year hiatus, The Boomers released Midway in the fall of 2002. The title intrigues me: does it reference the end of Part 1 of the Boomers' collective lives (all four are in their 40s, at least, and likely early 50s), or is it the halfway point in the life of the band? In any event, Thomas returns to familiar themes on this album, such as aging, reliving warm memories, the ever-present need to believe in something, and love, but not casual, in-your-20s love, with flaming crotches and palpitating hearts, but love that has lasted for years, strengthening and deepening with the ages. Musically The Boomers offer a selection of songs that I can best describe as laid back, at times a bit too much for my taste, but not at the expense of the musicianship or writing. The Boomers are not a band that's going to "rock your world", or prepare you for the mosh pit (wait, are those still around?). My favorite tune on the album is I Remember, a song that grabbed me from the outset as it opens with an infectious guitar hook and builds from there.
I hope The Boomers are around for a time to come. If I could advise Thomas on the next album, I'd say, "Ian, rock out a bit more next time. Let the band flex its muscles!" That said, I'm still listening to Midway. There is a danger in suggesting their music is better suited for older listeners (i.e., 35+), and I hesitate to do so. But my guess would be that a seasoned listener might have more appreciation for Thomas's songwriting and the band's amazing musicianship.
Ian Thomas, and The Boomers, are examples of great Canadian musical talent that has remained regionally successful in Canada, immensely successful in Europe, especially Germany, but have made no noise in the USA. This may be your chance to hear them.
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I know...in my dreams, flyboy. But for a fleeting moment in time recently, I was able to spend five minutes with the amazing Molly Parker. *sigh* How did this happen?
Please try to see her new movie, Marion Bridge, it's worth the effort. Also watch for her supporting role in Max, the disturbing new movie starring John Cusack and Noah Taylor.
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¦¦ I just finished a workout, 30 minutes on the cross-trainer, and it felt excrutiating. But upon returning home, the sun has just appeared, and that feels so nice.
¦¦ Here's a fascinating proposal: A barn-raising for civilization.
¦¦ I've never played a round of golf, but like millions of Canadians last weekend, I was thrilled when Mike Weir won the Masters. It was a nice diversion from the rest of the world's woes, and a morale boost for the country. Nice to also hear that he's made the cover of Sports Illustrated.
¦¦ This is interesting: QuickTopic, a service which allows users to create their own one-topic bulleting boards/group discussion space. Also offered is a service called Quick Doc Review, to allow collaborative review of HTML or Word documents.
¦¦ What Liberal Media?, sez Eric Alterman.
¦¦ Another Canadian band worth supporting: The Boomers, led by Ian Thomas, brother of Dave (SCTV) Thomas, and a Canadian music icon in his own right. Here is a good, concise "omni" of their musical output to date. Their newest album is called Midway. Thomas's lyrics focus on love, life, and getting older, and the music is laid-back but intricate and multi-layered.
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¦¦ I'm tiring of posting negative stuff lately, but this is just too weird to pass up. I was reading Jen's blog this morning, and came upon this entry from April 14 (her archives aren't working, so I can't link to the exact post):
Just as I was leaving for work today, I caught the first half of "The Today Show" interview between Matt Lauer and Tim Robbins, who came on the show to discuss his affiliation with the Baseball Hall of Fame. Predictably, the discussion turned to politics. Lauer and Robbins debated back and forth for a few minutes until it was obvious the censors were going to unleash their cruel powers. Just as Robbins started, "And what about the war in Afghanistan? Did we all forget about that?" the bad theme music interjected and the program segued into commercial.Robbins has already made the news recently when Dale Petroskey, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and a former Reagan aide, cancelled a 15th anniversary celebration of the movie "Bull Durham", scheduled for 26-27 April. The reason for cancelling, according to Petroskey, was that the Hall is not a place for pro- or anti-war statements, and that given Robbin's and Susan Sarandon's track record of criticizing the Bush administration, the Hall didn't want the take the chance that one or both of them might actually say something in an anti-war vein. (Robbins responded, noting that he was looking forward to "a weekend away from politics and war." Also, baseball writer Roger Kahn cancelled an appearance at the Hall in protest of Petroskey's actions.)
But getting back to the Today show incident, here's the weird part: try searching for reports on this incident - there's nothing out there. I searched Google News, Poynter/Jim Romenesko, I Want Media, AlterNet.org, CNN, Reuters, AP, Drudge, NYTimes, etc etc etc., to no avail. Are news reporting agencies self-censoring this story? Is there collusion? When is it going to warm up in Edmonton?
The day after he was censored while being interviewed on live television, Robbins spoke to the National Press Club in DC.
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¦¦ Props to Heavy G for his extended entry on RSS (Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary - where RDF means Resource Description Framework). Head hurting already? Well, mine has been for some time, as I try to stay on the information superhighway, rather than in the ditch, changing a virtual flat tire.
Geoff cuts through the quagmire of RSS, RDF, XML with a few timely tips and lucid explanations. (Am I lucky that his office is right next to mine? Duh.) Take the time to read his posting and you'll see a reference to an experiment I tried a few days ago. Suffice it to say that it hasn't worked, but it was worth the try. I realized afterwards that trying to move an extended discussion spanning five listservs at once, over to a blog set up to collate the responses, isn't going to work unless you convince the participants to join you, in advance. That said, the idea of creating a subject-specific library blog for, say, engineering librarians, continues to intrigue me.
I am working through Geoff's entry in an attempt to learn more about this subject and its applications. If you are interested as well, take the time and learn from an up-and-coming master.
¦¦ In other exciting news, I met with the sports physician today re: my continuing tennis elbow condition in my left arm. While it could take months to heal, I can play guitar and mandolin without too much difficulty, while at the same time abandoning free and machine weight exercises involving those muscles for the time being. I will return for a shot of cortisone in May, which given the area of injection, is predicted by the doctor to be very painful. Am I having fun yet?
The good news is that after six weeks of Stott Pilates classes, I'm already noticing an improvement in the form of the absence of lower back pain and stronger muscles in the abs region.
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¦¦ The sickening, unfortunate news from Iraq continues unabated. In addition to 170,000 artifacts in the National Museum having been looted or destroyed, the Iraq National Library was in flames as well on April 13. The building was so thoroughly torched that heat still radiated 50 paces from the front door. From the April 13 NYTimes:
By tonight, virtually nothing was left of the library and its tens of thousands of old manuscripts and books, and of archives like Iraqi newspapers tracing the country's turbulent history from the era of Ottoman rule through to Mr. Hussein. Reading rooms and the stacks where the collections were stored were reduced to smoking vistas of blackened rubble
The US Administration has finally acknowledged the seriousness of the destruction and looting, and has pledged to recover and repair antiquities. One wonders if this will happen.
The destruction of libraries continued with the Islamic Library of Qur’ans set ablaze. Here is an account from the Arab News. I hope all librarians around the world will gather together to help Iraq rebuild its history.
| TrackBack (0)¦¦ I've already mentioned my concerns about the looting of the library at the Basra Polytechnic College. The gutting and pillaging of the Iraq Museum of Antiquities has me seething. It took ten years to reopen the museum after the Gulf War in 1991, and now, two years later, it lies in ruins. When you read a little about what the museum held, you realize that what has happened rivals the destruction of the library at Alexandria. An estimated 170,000 items were destroyed or stolen! Where were the American troops (see next paragraph)? The responsibility for this sits squarely on their shoulders. The observation of this Al-Jazeera reporter says it best: "When mobs in Baghdad entered the Iraqi national museum and destroyed the artifacts, little did they know that they were wiping out large traces of history. Not just of Iraq, but that of the entire world."
This is what I find most disgusting and abhorrent, yet predictable and expected: the US troops have protected only two ministries by putting troops inside the buildings and surrounding them with military vehicles: the Ministry of Interior (intelligence information), and - wait for it - the Ministry of Oil. Duh. Who woulda thunk it? What possible reasons could they have for being interested in these two minis - never mind.
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¦¦ Last Tuesday, while driving home after work, and later while on the cross-trainer at the Y, I was thinking about having lived in Edmonton since Dec 1978, and considered that I've spent half my life in Winnipeg, and half in Edmonton. From Sept 1976-April 1977, and Sept 1977-April 1978, I lived in residence at the U of A while attending library school, but never really considered that "living" in Edmonton. While still living in Winnipeg in the 70s, I had an aquarium in my bedroom. When I moved here permanently in the fall of 1978, I decided not to set up another aquarium, thinking I wouldn't necessarily be here for a long time. I'm still here, and haven't set up another aquarium.
What's odd is that Edmonton still doesn't feel like home. Winnipeg will always be my home town, that can't change. I'm not sure why Edmonton has never felt like "home"; I'm no longer sure, if ever, what the word means anymore. Perhaps I've never known the meaning.
In late June I turn 50. Friends remind me that it is just a number, and (correctly) to stop obsessing about it. But it's a number of considerable significance. However you look at it, turning 50 represents a watershed moment in one's life - half a century of life, and cause to reflect on what has brought you to that moment in time. I don't know what it will mean to be 50, or how I should feel. Generally I still feel like a kid. Ten years ago I asked my Dad years ago how he felt physically at 65, and he said no different from being 18, other than the body slows down quite a bit.
When I was 18, I assumed my life would follow a similar path to that of my father's: I would get married in my late 20s, find a house somewhere in Winnipeg, with or without a white picket fence, have children, bring them to the grandparents' house on Sundays for dinner, mow the lawn, play some guitar, work at whatever job or career I moved into, hang out with friends, and so on.
None of this happened. I never intended to leave Winnipeg - it was (and still is) a fine place to live. Instead, after graduating in 1978, I returned to Winnipeg and couldn't find any professional library positions that summer. That September, I returned to Edmonton, eventually landing a position in the public library system in December, 1978. (Which in itself is a story I'll leave for much, much later. Suffice it to say that I consider the time from Dec 78 to Feb 83 as four years and three months of my life I'd love to have back. There is resentment, but resentment is like drinking poison and hoping someone else will die.)
In my life, I consider two events to have had major impact on the rest of my life (other than birth.) In the summer of 1966, my family drove to Vancouver to spend time with my mom's brother, Uncle Roland and his family. What I didn't know at the time was that my father was investigating the option of working on Vancouver Island, in Port Alice of all places. If he have decided to move, who knows what would have happened to the rest of us. In a sense, this event was a non-event: a decision not to do something.
In 1969, my parents decided to move to another section of St Boniface, Manitoba, where we were living. (St Boniface was one of seven cities which merged into Winnipeg in 1971). We moved from a district called Norwood to another one called Windsor Park (there's one in every city). I was terrified of the move - I would be attending a high school that at the time had one of the worst reputations in metro Winnipeg for delinquent students harrassing teachers, etc. I had spent Grades 1-10 avoiding and dealing with asshole bullies and other creeps, so didn't relish the thought of moving to where it might get worse. Instead, Grades 11 and 12 would be the two best years of school for me.
In the summer of 1971, after Grade 12, I got a job organizing street parties in Windsor Park with another student from my high school, part of an OFY Grant (Opportunities for Youth). The various jobs were supervised by the deacon of our church. At the fifth street party, I was sitting in a lawn chair when two older women approached me whom I'd not met before. They introduced themselves, told me they were friends of the deacon, and asked if I would consider playing guitar for them when they sang at an upcoming wedding. The women and I became permanent friends to this day: one is a provincial court judge in Calgary, and the other is the head of Ottawa Public Library. Wait a minute - did I say "library"?
While studying computer science at the U of Manitoba in 1971-73, I found myself disliking learning about Fortran and systems analysis, and reasoning that I needed to complete something, switched to mathematics and graduated in 1975. That September I was hired as a library assistant at a branch of Winnipeg Public Library, and followed that by attending library school at the U of Alberta as noted above. Despite my best efforts to land a job locally in Winnipeg between April and Sept of 1978, it never happened. And so I ended up in Edmonton. The rest, as they say, is history.
I'm not sure where this is going. I can see that I'm trying to somehow weave together my age and the fact that both halves of my life have been spent in two cities. Maybe I'm reaching out to find something that will help me define "home".
What defines "home" for you? Is it where your roots are? It is where you've planted them? Does it matter to you? Why or why not?
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¦¦ The war in Iraq has brought death to many innocents and soldiers, a shortage of supplies, food and water, and the serious need for humanitarian aid of all kinds. Unfortunately, anarchy continues to spread in the larger cities, including Basra.
There have been many photo galleries available with astonishing images of the events as they have unfolded in Iraq in the past three weeks.
For a librarian, this is perhaps the most disturbing image of all: a thoughtless assault on what belongs to everyone: information, knowledge, data, all that is contained on the shelves and via the computers of a library. Who knows what was going through this man's mind as he relentlessly threw the books to the floor of an already badly damaged and abandoned library. I wonder about the students, staff and faculty, there to teach, study and learn, their lives and work interrupted by war. For those fortunate enough to return to this college, it will be a long and arduous time of rebuilding and recovery.
In the past, librarians in first world countries have rallied to help librarians and libraries in less fortunate countries to salvage their collections when serious damage has happened to them, be it the result of fire, flooding, or in this case, war and anarchy. I hope that our larger library community is able to learn, in a short time, more about the extent of damage and loss faced by the library at Basra Polytechnic College, and other libraries in Iraq that may be suffering the same fate. Hopefully we can then respond with help to restore books to their shelves and dignity to their lives.
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¦¦ This morning I woke up, hit the snooze alarm a couple times, then had a shower, and made a smoothy with orange juice, some strawberries, peach yogurt, a banana and some wheat germ. I watched Sports Centre on TSN. Then I drove to work. Now I'm at work. I credit my inspiration for this entry to this site. Thanks, Stephen.
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¦¦ Tired of getting those scam emails from various diplomats in Nigeria who want your money? A guy named Brad Christensen (this might be his site) has had enough, and has been scamming the scam artists. It's brilliant stuff. (Thanks, Bill Barol/Blather.)
¦¦ BTW, check out Quatloos, a US public educational website that covers financial scams. (I love it that this website gets its name from an episode of the original Star Trek series, called The Gamesters of Triskelion. That's the one with the three talking brains, who wager on combat games involving alien species. What currency do they use? Quatloos. Migod, here's the entire script!)
| TrackBack (0)¦¦ Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) is the recent full-length Academy award-winning animated feature from legendary Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki, creator of the critically acclaimed Kiki's Delivery Service, and Princess Mononoke. It tells the story of a little girl named Chihiro, who enters what appears to be a deserted theme park with her parents after they become lost while driving to their new home in a new city. While her parents take a break to eat, she wanders off and is discovered by a boy named Haku, who tells her she must leave the area. She runs back to her parents, only to discover that they are still eating, and have morphed into giant pigs. Thus begins an adventure that features the some of the oddest characters and weirdest twists I've ever seen in a full-length cartoon.
The English-language version features the voices of Jason Marsden, Suzanne Pleshette, Michael Chiklis, Lauren Holly, John Ratzenberger (who seems to be making a living lending his voice to cartoon characters of late!), and David Ogden Stiers. The voice of Chihiro is provided by 13-year old Daveigh Chase, already a veteran of over 20 film and television appearances, including Donnie Darko and A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Chihiro learns quickly that she is in a place where spirits come to replenish themselves. Haku tells her that the only way she'll be able to save her parents is to go to the boiler room, and tell the man there that she wants a job, and to persist, even if he refuses. She does so, and meets Kamajii, the boiler room man who has many arms, some of them many feet long. Kamajii commands little pieces of soot, each of whom carries a lump of coal to the furnace and live under the floor.
From that scene, the movie gets weirder and weirder - but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The film takes left and right turns, introducing bizarre characters and featuring amazing landscapes of colour and complexity. Chihiro, apparently the only human in the place, is assigned to Lin, one of many women (who all look quite human to me) who work in the bathhouse where the spirits come to cleanse and reinvigorate themselves. The house is run by a woman with an enormous head, Yubaba, who in turn has an even bigger baby named Bou. She also has a twin sister named Zeniba, who is after Haku for stealing her gold something-or-other (sorry, I can't remember!). (Yubaba also has three male heads that bounce around on the floor in her office and make odd grunting noises.) Then there is the Stinky Spirit, who wanders in to be cleansed, and is covered with and leaves trails of the most vile, disgusting goo you could imagine. Chihiro must attend to him, and is helped along the way by No Face, a spirit who seems to befriend her after she allows him entrance into the bathhouse. (All he can mutter is "uh".) But then No Face starts "eating" some of the locals, and getting bigger and fatter, and demanding that he see Chihiro (now called "Sen"). Haku, btw, appears as a dragon, and it takes the love of Sen to help him recover from injuries and return to human form. I think. Meanwhile, back in the pig barn...
I saw this film this afternoon, and left this film with mixed feelings. I'm wondering if as time goes on, I'll like it more. I've seen none of Miyazaki's other films, so cannot compare it to anything he's done, nor can I say if this film is any more or less imaginative than his other films. Therein lies the key for me: imagination. Spirited Away is rife with it. Every ten minutes something new appears on the screen, and I'm thinking, howinhell did he dream that up? There are problems: we never learn about No Face, who or what he/she/it is, and why it does what it does. But this doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the movie necessarily. I think I felt a combination of awe for Miyazaki's amazing animation, wonderment for the images and characters he creates, and a bit of hesistation in thinking that some of these characters are so way over the top. Honestly, I think my astonishment at what I saw on the screen for 2+ hours may have actually detracted from my enjoyment of the movie while I watched it.) My minor reservations aside, see this film. I can tell you that the many children in attendance today at the theatre seemed to like the film (especially the ones who wouldn't shut up and kept asking their parents questions - argh!). Now I know I must see his earlier work.
(Submitted as a review to Blogcritics.org)
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¦¦ My brother Chris advised me of an incredible story about what happened when it was discovered that Brian Walski, an award-winning photographer for the LA Times, submitted a photo for publication on the front page of the 31 March 2003 LA Times that was actually a composite of two pictures. Covering the war in Iraq, he shot two photos moments apart, then merged them to improve the composition. The subject was the use of human shields. Check this fascinating photo ethics case study (requires Flash), which highlights the flaw in the composite photo, and then shows you where the two photos were cropped. The Times has printed a retraction of sorts.
¦¦ Did you hear about the giant Antarctic squid?
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¦¦ The 30 March 2003 Herald published a brilliant rebuttal by Silver Donald Cameron to the national spanking US Ambassador Paul Cellucci gave Canadians recently about our lack of support in the war on Iraq. I think we need to be reminded often of the points made in Cameron's letter, and Americans need to know more about the history between our two nations. The again, all that matters in the States these days is the now. It's as if Canada is only as good as the last war it supported. After reading Cameron's letter, with its historical detail, I'm prouder today to be a Canadian.
¦¦ On a more serious note, Warner Bros is asking fans of the classic Looney Tunes to complete a survey on upcoming LT home video and DVD products. Check out some of the packaging options being considered by WB for the LT DVDs.
| TrackBack (0)¦¦ For Reasons Unknown, the problem I've had all week connecting from home to my website has dissipated for now. I'll leave well enough alone and end talk of it here.
¦¦ We have war, a new disease, airlines in bankruptcy, really cold and unseasonable weather, and in the midst of all that, this.
We're in a time when being publicly critical is not in vogue. Kathleen Parker is an American journalist whose nationally syndicated column runs in >300 papers, including the Salt Lake City Tribune. When Tribune staffers learned that her 19 March 2003 column was an unflattering piece about Ed Smart, father of Elizabeth Smart, they petitioned the editorial page editor not to run her column, which is what happened. In the eyes of other Tribune editors and columnists, it amounted to censorship. Parker contends that since the return of Elizabeth Smart to her family, Ed Smart has been mugging before the cameras non-stop, and that he's, well, kinda creepy. Do you agree? (Do you care?)
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¦¦ I know I said I wouldn't post anything else until I switch providers, but...
Hollywood has lost its balls. A peace sign will offend someone? How much more ridiculous is it going to get in the USA?????
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¦¦ The problems mentioned in the previous post are continuing. I am unable to connect to my site from my home computer, due to a router problem. When I do a "tracert" from the DOS prompt, it hits a wall at the fourth or fifth node and times out. Oddly enough, I can get my site from my work computer (which I'm doing now), and other visitors are connecting without a problem from their machines.
As such, don't expect another entry for a couple of days, or more, and the site itself might disappear temporarily. It will return (I own the domain name through to Sept 2004), and may look different for a while. Thanks for your patience.
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¦¦ I have been experiencing major problems with my web server host for the past 48 hours or so. My apologies in advance if this continues. I am very frustrated at this time. I am investigating other options.
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