So this is all in japanese but here's what seems to be going on: there's this movie, "Tetsujin28", coming out that looks like a modern remake of some japanese giant robot series or whatever.
And here is the movie's... blog. WTF.
This is getting absurd. Way worse than e-commerce and dot-com combined...
On monday night I went and watched "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou". I went alone.
It took until last night for me to fully absorb it and realize that I really liked it.
A straight-faced dead-pan comedy adaption of Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea", shot with imagination and color. I found it mildly depressing for a day or two, despite the giggling fits brought on by listening to the soundtrack almost constantly for the last three days.
Google movie reviews (hmmm based on the ratings aggregated there, I'd say most people are equally perplexed emotionally by this film...)
Back in high school, being part of one of the worst rabble-rousing classes in the whole private french school I attended, over a five year period we went through four different english teachers. Mrs Nolan, from my 7th grade year, got promoted to vice-principal and the following 3 replacements all quit at various points out of disgust. with our treatment of them. That first year I had handed in a book report on "The Old Man and the Sea" and had gotten a fairly good grade. Taking advantage of the teacher rotation that followed, I managed to pass that same paper off 3 years in a row. Well sorta... On the third try, Mrs Nolan called me into her office and, smiling said to me: "You must really like that Hemingway story..." Seems the current english prof had told her "Boris handed in a really good book report..."
We laughed about that. And then Hemingway punched me in the mouth.
A very rare picture of me that I can live with. Thanks Yuki.
(Sorry about the desaturation and levels tweak though... my complexion was really bad that week.)
The screen is really messing with my head. I don't mean just the screens of my computer.. I mean "the screen", as the interface to the network and my expanded mind...
(Here he goes again...)
Two examples.
Last night, moblogging this picture of my drink; spending a few moments absorbed into the screen of my P910, when the task was done and I looked back up, the switch in realities was staggering and eminently palpable. I viscerally FELT the shift in... modality, in mindframe, in realities.
Just now, I was going though my photolog, stopped for a moment on this photo of Emma, just when she, from the couch, which is located behind my desk, just a bit beyond my screen, meowed. The disjunction and recombination of the inputs from the two worlds was jarring. Again, viscerally affecting me.
Ten years ago, DdeK's "The Skin of Culture: Investigating the New Electronic Reality" pulled the lid back on my mind. Now his "The Architecture of Intelligence (The Information Technology Revolution in Architecture)" (Excerpts) is pulling it right out of my head... To counter this effect, a simultaneous reading of "Mind Hacks" and "Turning the Mind into an Ally" (Sakyong Mipham, Pema Chodron), to push it back in, trying to keep it within itself.
Half the time I don't know if I'm dreaming.
I write an inordinate amount of “weblog entries” in my head. Ninety-nine percent of them never make it to the keyboard, let alone get published. A funny side-effect of this is every so often someone will bring up an entry I did publish and I'll be like “oh... did I write that?”
Did I say that out loud?
Put another way, I think in weblog mode alot. I also think Instant Message conversations with people alot. The side effect of that is I often think I've already told someone something I wanted/needed to tell them. Not so good.
The interesting part of this is why this happens, why I have conversations with people, in my head... do you want to know why?
No I am not insane. :p
It's because with IM, at this point the people I communicate the most with are pretty much always right there. My mind expects to just communicate with them. The interface, at this point consisting of a screen, keyboard, mouse, a chat application, a network connection, is merely a conduit, a medium, an extension of me. It is an extension that my mind has accepted and uses alot and just expects to “be there”.
Sadly, this current conduit is a poor and inefficient one. The perceived reduction in my cognitive capabilities - short term memory mostly - is merely an artifact of the malaise created by this fact.
Ok so we've all seen Google Maps in action right? Just for kicks (like I have time) I asked for directions from my place here in Montreal, to Aaron's in Vancouver.
Nevermind that it seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that we have the Trans Canada Highway which would take me clear across in one shot, and so it tries to send me down though the U.S. (fat chance!), but its distance/trip duration estimate is kinda funny...
3070 mi (about 1 day 21 hours)
Let's see, that works out to driving 68mph for 45 hours straight. Driving that fast for that long poses not only a serious health risk, but I imagine I'd get arrested a few times along the way.
Would Google care to factor in speeding ticket costs? ;)
I woke up this morning, still in Vancouver, and I am still here, about to go, and my mind is already home and it is already moving as if it were already home, i.e. I am thinking again like myself, from within my head.
Maybe it's just Aaron's coffee. Zing!
I awoke, my heels on fire, knowing what I needed to do.
After washing my face and brushing my teeth, I called the airline:
- “Hello I'd like to change my departure booking please.”
- “Sure. For when?”
- “As soon as possible please.”
- “Today?”
- “Tomorrow?”
- “I have 8:30am or 11:00am...”
- “Let's make it eleven. Thank you.”
I am a fickle and sensitive creature of comfort... not a rolling stone. Mock me for this if you must but remember: you're not the one who has just spent the last 5 weeks inside other people's lives, and outside your own.
I am nothing now... but exhausted.
I need to go home. I need to sleep, a good long sleep. I need to find my self in my dreams again. I need to work through and remold my self with all I have learnt.
This trip has been extremely taxing; financially, emotionally, psychologically, physically. I am happy and grateful for having done it and the kindness shown me along the way... but now... I need to go home.
(Even if it means freezing my ASS off... brrrr... ;)
I am sitting on my suitcase outside Aaron's apartment building waiting for him to debug something and come let me in... ;)
Canada Customs don't like webdesigners who stay in Tokyo for a month “for fun”. Makes them suspicious. Unpacked me to check for drugs and let me go. Fools. ;)
I've been on a lot of flights, to many places, at all hours of day and night. I've seen mountains, I've seen oceans, Aurora Borealis and the thin line where the sky turns dark.
Above the Bering Straight, looking south down the international date line from thirty-five thousand feet, at midnight, I see... nothing. I see nothing but a few, no, many, oh so many points of light. The curvature of the Earth faintly made out by total darkness, wherelse there are stars.
One imagines nothingness as a backdrop, a black curtain around us. At this moment, even at this altitude, the infinite is a mere canopy floating over my head but with a simple trick of the eye, a trick of the mind, some imagination and perhaps some faith, nothingness becomes a blanket that for a second wraps me up... and I am nothing as well.
Constellations become stars, stars become light sintered through where the blanket's weave is loosened.
Well, that's it. I have a flight to catch. Thanks to all who helped me out, let me crash, bought me drinks/food and otherwise spent some time with me!
I'm off to Vancouver now for a two week stint. Wheeee!
So my comments system got SNAFU'd by a clever spammer who snuck a whitespace bye me when I added 'im to my Blacklist. In other words, any submitted comment that contained a space was bounced for the last 24hrs or so.
Please, if you tried to comment and got bounced, please please try again. :)
“It's like you're in mourning” he said. “Like you're holding on to her ghost, and somehow feel you are totally satisfied with that.”
I can't get tired of views like this.
Tokyo City View, Roppongi Hills, Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan
Coming around from Akihabara on the JR Yamanote line this evening, I would catch little glimpses of a sky that could only be produced by a glorious sunset. Having just passed Ebisu, the rail line was now deep in a trench and all I could see were these golden fringed little clouds, and a few glints off of office tower windows.
I stood at the window, camera aimed, thinking "Damnit, c'mon! Gimme a view!"
Pulling into Meguro, I wondered where I could get to, right now, to actually get some horizon.
Then I remembered.
The doors were closing as I exclaimed "Sumi masen!" and pushed my way through the other passengers and dashed out onto the platform, up the stairs, through the gates. "Baka gaijin" they must've thought.
I ran the whole half a kilometer to that one spot I knew I could get a sunset shot of Mount Fuji from.
