finally saw lost in translation tonight. would have preferred to have been working on my own film, but on the strength of astrid’s recommendation and out of the need for human society of some kind, i ventured out into the (very) chill toronto night over to the revue cinema. i was astonished by what i saw and heard. or more significantly didn’t hear. there is almost no dialogue. i had thought this film was supposed to be about two disparate people hooking up and exchanging things from their different lives. historically, under such circumstances the individuals in question speak to…
3 CommentsCategory: Whimsical
after my daily swim at trinity bellwoods in toronto, i met some men and from one of them heard an amazing tale. this fellow has a friend, you see. and the friend moved to germany. the friend is some kind of an engineer and likes to put in long hours. he was stymied in his desires. when he arrived at the german company he was given a ten page book of work rules. highlights include. no eating lunch at your desk. a fireable offense. obligatory half hour of socializing in the lounge with co-workers after lunch. not a fireable offense…
Leave a Commentfionnuala suggested i see le divorce – not because it is a good movie – but because of the subject matter. english language film set in paris. dropped by rottentomatoes.com to have a look at the synopsis. a priceless quotation from the lovely kate hudson. She was particularly intrigued by the French willingness to say almost anything, no matter how seemingly outrageous or controversial, and to utterly disregard any notions of political correctness. “However they feel, whatever they want to express, they just say it,” she notes. “They’re quite a passionate people.” it turns out in europe one can actually…
Leave a Commenttoday i needed to find some moving boxes and a car to rent. first i tried to find uhaul for the boxes. impossible to find a company website. the top thirty google listings for uhaul toronto have almost all been spammed by a single company. what’s worse that company has a talking doll as its spokesperson. i have written google to let them know about the spammer. next i decided to rent a car, preferably from national as i had some good experience with them in the past and they were not expensive. no luck there either. no company website…
Leave a Commentsince i’ve been back in toronto, i’ve received two newspapers each day. the globe & mail which is known as a national paper (although it is based in toronto) and the toronto star which is proudly a city paper. the star has its role on the national stage as well as it is sole major liberal voice in canadian newspapers. all the other major canadian papers are part of canwest or southham. canwest’s major contribution to canadian culture has been the rebroadcast of american hit tv shows with canadian ads. they no longer allow independent editorial in their dozens of…
Leave a Commentrussell smith talks about virtual beauty – a new beauty contest of virtual models. more interesting is the point he makes about the body image of women. it certainly is no longer men who are at fault for women’s compulsion towards self-starvation. Contrary to popular belief, it is not men, on the whole, who determine the beauty ideal in fashion magazines. The readership of fashion magazines, like the editorship of fashion magazines, like the audience for fashion shows themselves, is female. Fashion models tend to be much skinnier in women’s magazines than they are in men’s magazines. Compare the curviness…
1 Commentthe americans are in need of democracy aid from the rest of the world, say two young swedes. i’m not certain whether charity towards the americans is in order, but if a little bit of money might bring about regime change in washington… better than bombs.
Leave a CommentIf you refuse where you have always granted you invite to theft. some days you just look up from your book and find that the world is rich in reflection and sense. for me such a day was when i discovered one of the maxims of publilius servus, the first great author of mimes (circa 80 BC). very little of his writing survives apart from his maxims. but they are as applicable today as when he wrote them. the roman world was perhaps the most similar of all the ancient ones to our own. what makes us so similar? good…
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