January 31st, 2008
[It] has always been a pleasure [for] me to work in the B-genre and elevate that, or use that as a vehicle for other thoughts. It’s like the paintings of Karel Appel, our Dutch guy, who was copying all these children’s paintings. That was a heavy influence – or you could even look at Dada. It’s a normal thing in art, to use the ‘mediocre’ and the ‘banal’ to make a statement. That kind of sophistication in art is rare in film-making.
If you look at painting or even in music – especially at the beginning of the 20th century. Even the titles of some of these pieces: ‘Musique en forme de poire’ by Satie. Using the banal – something that is everyday, which is used in a different way. This is normal in a lot of the arts, only in film-making it isn’t, because of the high entertainment value, where everything has to be immediately understood. It’s rare, and if you use that, this method of hyperbole and irony and alienation, it’s very difficult for the audiences and even for the film critics to see through that. Often they are not even basically educated in the other arts, so they can only look at movies in the same way they’ve been looking at movies for the last fifty years or so.
This is why I like his films…!
Two interesting interviews: Here and here.
January 31st, 2008
Photo from Wikimedia.
Today’s dictionary.com word of the day is canorous, meaning pleasant sounding or musical.
It says it’s from the latin canere, to sing, which is interesting because if i recall correctly, the gaelic verb to sing is “ag canadh”…!
Yeah I just thought i’d note my observation. I have an Indo-European Linguistics exam on Saturday so I’m just warming up ;)
January 24th, 2008
Actually this post isn’t about Spielberg, it’s about Simon Wild. Just saw his site – nice stuff! Good example:
January 24th, 2008
Nolens Volens is the “word” of the day on dictionary.com. I just wish other people would know what it meant if I said it, because it’s a fun little expression.
January 20th, 2008
Here’s
a fascinating article about time slowing down, and time having two dimensions all by itself.
I could have sworn time was speeding up though; I’ve barely gotten anything done all week.
January 18th, 2008
Here’s a damn interesting article from Damn Interesting, about Bonnet visions – hallucinations, named after a man called Charles Bonnet, and had by otherwise-sane, conscious people who are often in the unfortunate situation of slowly going blind. People with these symptoms are known as having Charles Bonnet Syndrome and this article also explores connections between such hallucinations and dreams. Are they result of the same workings of the brain?
Some have suggested that Bonnet visions are the product of the same mechanisms that generate dreams. Clearly the mind is starved of visual input during sleeping periods, so it stands to reason that both dreams and CBS hallucinations may be the result of the same thing: the visual cortex becomes bored due to lack of stimulation, and gratifies itself using stored imagery. This notion is further supported by sensory deprivation experiments, where subjects experience hallucinations when placed in complete darkness for long periods of time. But the explanation fits the problem imperfectly, because dreams include sound and sensations, whereas Bonnet-visions are confined to sight.
January 17th, 2008
I found a supermarket here where they sell real milk as opposed to UHT milk. In Belgium it seems most people are content with UHT milk but I find it quite unpleasant, having been raised on the real McCoy.
January 15th, 2008
Two interesting articles.
One from BoingBoing: The Quest for Synthetic Life
One from Neatorama on a different but related story: Scientists create a rat’s heart based on the structure of a dead one
January 13th, 2008
What the fuck? Give me a break. First tonsillitis after Christmas, then a fever when I get home, and now tonsillitis again, the day that Julia gets back from Brazil.
As indicated by the above diagram, there are two types of tonsillitis. The worst form, the bacterial form – which is the one I have, is happily very treatable with antibiotics.
Update: It’s pretty much all better now. I made a video journal of my tonsils over the course of my illness – purely just so I could look into my own throat and see what was going on. With luck, the video footage will never see the light of day, as it is thoroughly repulsive.
January 10th, 2008
This is an interesting article I found on Neatorama that tells of a Harvard psychologist who believes that one’s perception of one’s activity is just as important as the physical exercise itself.
Hotel Maids, who on average do enough exercise as part of their work to fulfill the recommended exercise quota each day, were measured and weighed, and then told that they are leading very active lifestyles and fulfilling their daily quotas. A time later, they are weighed and measured again and found to be slimmer, presumably due to the knowledge that they were exceeding their exercise requirements.
The next time I go for frietjes I will tell myself that I’m expending a great deal of energy in doing so.
January 10th, 2008
I made this flash applet to help one create lists of things.
January 6th, 2008
I thought I had it bad with my room being damp and musty. But then I read this story on BoingBoing. Click the image to see what it’s about.
So yeah, I moved all my stuff back to my old room, and arranged it differently to the way it was before. It’s not musty at all, and not very damp at all. I shouldn’t have moved in the first place. It’s much nicer. I’ll post pics, or video, later.
Began studying today. The key is to go to a coffee shop or something to do it.
January 3rd, 2008
The radiator in my room stopped working, so I tediously moved all my stuff to the room next door where the radiator works.
It’s 6:52am and I can’t sleep. I woke up at 5 in this new cold damp room, clutching my gut, feeling nauseous. I went to the window, flung it open and hung out of it, thinking the fresh air would do me good. I immediately felt dizzy, so dizzy I couldn’t see, ran to the toilet to vomit, but instead had a peculiar bowel movement.
Sorry for the details but I presume nobody reads this anyway.
January 1st, 2008
Curry is now part of my culinary repertoire (very adventurous and impressive, I know).
I am procrastinating far too much.
January 1st, 2008
I must try these two tricks from photojojo when I get the opportunity
The cool thing is that you can use any shape, not just a heart. There are some more nice examples of the vignette effect on this French site that I can’t read.
January 1st, 2008
another clock portrait. this time, spongeclocksquarepants. a dutch clock. hence the orange sash.
>
click for larger version
>