I'm living in a silent film

[freckles_and_doubt]

Phooey. 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.

Comments

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

epidural?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Pretty much, except for the blue and red fluids in vast quantities. Unless an epidural does require blue and red fluids in vast quantities? Felt bloody odd, going in. But it was all a bit mad-scientist bubbly-vat, "epidural" doesn't really cover the half of it.

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Dr Who-ish?

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

[(Anonymous)]

Alan Tudyk *is* excellent. Eszter (to be known henceforth as trippingowl, I suppose) reminded me last night that the only bit I remember of 28 Days Later was, well, him. In tears in a plant shop because he can't keep his plant alive and therefore will never be loved again. Completely peripheral to the actual story, but brilliant.

scroob

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Yes! I love that bit! I'd forgotten that was him. He's been in an eclectic mix of stuff, actually.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Please tell me you meant 28 Days, not 28 Days Later. I've just spent fifteen minutes being terminally confused on IMDB as I try to put potplants and zombies into the same frame of reference...

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Yes :). I thought the title didn't quite sound right. 28 Days is the film that got me liking Sandra Bullock, but the bit at the end with the potplant is priceless.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

In fact, part of the problem is also trying to put w-n and scroob into the same frame of reference as zombies. Not their sort of movie at all. Sandra Bullock makes far more sense :>.

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

Dear god, my mind was in a spin trying to reconcile potplants and zombies.

Pot Plants? Zombies?

[(Anonymous)]

These are clearly linked by Simon Pegg, his intimate relationship with a peace lily, and his brave fight against zombies.

Yes, I know these were two different movies, but, you know, merged in Pegglore.

Jo (Smoczek)

Re: Pot Plants? Zombies?

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Good grief, you're right! the connection hadn't occurred to me, but of course it's absolutely accurate. Once again, Simon Pegg is The Answer To All Things. Damn, must watch Spaced again.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

Zombie potplants? Feed me .. brains, Seymour!

Zimbo

[(Anonymous)]

John Simpson of the BBC TV news reported from inside Zimbabwe last night, which he had managed to sneak into. He went to Harare's top restaurant, where he was presented with a 390million Z$ bill, and left a 10mZ$ tip. The roads seemed very decayed, but people seemed to somehow be holding together, a testament to their resourcefulness.

At my gym, I am never resourceful enough to bring iPod and headphones, so have to endure the Spice Girls' "Who Do You Think You Are", which they seem to play endlessly.

-pinK.

Re: Zimbo

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

aargh. Zim currency is a joke, if you have a sick sense of humour. The holding-together bit amazes me - I don't know why anyone sticks around in that country, although I suppose there's a sort of desperate fellowship as the entire country unites in hapless horror at the culpable idiocy that is the government. I tend, in a thoroughly cowardly fashion, to avoid Zim news, on the grounds that Zuma is bad enough. Sigh.

Gym music is uniformly horrible. Fortunately they had it turned off during my Ipodless session yesterday, but earphones are a necessary defense against brain-rotting pop.

Re: Zimbo

[bumpycat.livejournal.com]

The UCL gym plays music loud enough that it drowns out Rammstein played at reasonable volume. I can either destroy my ears or put up with whatever godawful hip-hop or pop they are blasting out. Surprisingly, I choose to go without ipod.

Re: Zimbo

[origamitiger.livejournal.com]

When we were doing our VAT at the airport we were joking about getting $Z but needing a wheelbarrow.
I am surprised that there are still people there trying to make a go of it too.

Re: Zimbo

[wolverine-nun.livejournal.com]

Well, probably most of the country has no choice about sticking around. When you're poor, have no relatives elsewhere to flee to and have no seriously needed skill, what are you to do?