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I'm living in a silent film
Wednesday, 16 January 2008 09:02 amPhooey. Forgot the earphones for my IPod yesterday, so had to do gym without music for the first time in almost a year. It was ... weird. For some reason it made me feel slightly lost and acutely self-conscious, not to mention stretching the routine out to what felt like about three and a half hours, and making the cycle and rowing bits particularly unmotivated and self-flagellatory. Also, there was grump, possibly withdrawal symptom grump. I hadn't realised what an important space the gym has become for simply listening to music - and I mean listening, since the background music I play when working is simply that, background, and doesn't have my wholehearted (and fairly analytic) attention in the way that it can in the gym context. Thesis: the current David Bowie fixation wouldn't be nearly as strong if I wasn't devoting my whole attention to his music for about five hours a week, albeit while mortifying the flesh. Discuss.
Given the salutary nature of this experience, the earphones are now firmly in my handbag with the Ipod, where they'll come in useful for the scheduled 12-2.30 power cuts we have on campus for every day this week. I am fortified with knitting, reading and lunch that doesn't require heating up, and will lay in tea stocks at 11.55. It's been incredibly annoying, but I'm hoping that the cuts now mean we won't have the damned things in the middle of orientation and registration, where they'll create max organisational chaos by plunging a lot of programs into stygian gloom in the windowless lecture theatres. The university authorities do get so annoyed when we carelessly lose students to Things That Go Bump.
Given that stv and the Evil Landlord were doing Manly Steak Night things last night, jo and I went to see Death at a Funeral, which was very funny, very British and beautifully scripted and acted - slightly predictable at times, but very well done. I could have done without the scatalogical stuff, but Alan Tudyk and Matthew MacFadyen were excellent, and the whole thing had that nice balance of howling farce with quite serious emotional themes. I have also added it to my list of Movies Which Are Basically LARPs. Also? Naked Wash Butt.
And, finally, because I love the concept: Shadow Unit. This is a joint effort by a bunch of sf writers who include Will Shetterly and Elizabeth Bear; they're basically creating the internet buzz and fan activity around a TV series (slightly X-Filesy) which doesn't actually exist. I mutter "simulacra!" and "Baudrillard" a lot, but the concept amuses the hell out of me, as do the enthusiastic responses of Teh Internets, or at least the self-conscious ironic postmodern sf fandom bits of it. Particularly inventive discussion here.
Last Night I Dreamed: I was entrenched in a hospital in a pleasantly rural old age home in Zimbabwe (despite still being young) having some kind of operation done which required needles being stuck into my spine while strangely-coloured fluids were pumped in.
Given the salutary nature of this experience, the earphones are now firmly in my handbag with the Ipod, where they'll come in useful for the scheduled 12-2.30 power cuts we have on campus for every day this week. I am fortified with knitting, reading and lunch that doesn't require heating up, and will lay in tea stocks at 11.55. It's been incredibly annoying, but I'm hoping that the cuts now mean we won't have the damned things in the middle of orientation and registration, where they'll create max organisational chaos by plunging a lot of programs into stygian gloom in the windowless lecture theatres. The university authorities do get so annoyed when we carelessly lose students to Things That Go Bump.
Given that stv and the Evil Landlord were doing Manly Steak Night things last night, jo and I went to see Death at a Funeral, which was very funny, very British and beautifully scripted and acted - slightly predictable at times, but very well done. I could have done without the scatalogical stuff, but Alan Tudyk and Matthew MacFadyen were excellent, and the whole thing had that nice balance of howling farce with quite serious emotional themes. I have also added it to my list of Movies Which Are Basically LARPs. Also? Naked Wash Butt.
And, finally, because I love the concept: Shadow Unit. This is a joint effort by a bunch of sf writers who include Will Shetterly and Elizabeth Bear; they're basically creating the internet buzz and fan activity around a TV series (slightly X-Filesy) which doesn't actually exist. I mutter "simulacra!" and "Baudrillard" a lot, but the concept amuses the hell out of me, as do the enthusiastic responses of Teh Internets, or at least the self-conscious ironic postmodern sf fandom bits of it. Particularly inventive discussion here.
Last Night I Dreamed: I was entrenched in a hospital in a pleasantly rural old age home in Zimbabwe (despite still being young) having some kind of operation done which required needles being stuck into my spine while strangely-coloured fluids were pumped in.
