In a brief moment of freedom from our child (via babysitting), my wife and I went to the movies. Both being quite tired from our occupations and our offspring, we decided to go for an "easier" movie and saw RED. It's an action comedy that fit the bill as far as our mental states were concerned. I recommend it if you're in mood for playful thinking (Bear in mind, I enjoyed Hudson Hawk and A Knight's Tale; if you want a sense of what action comedy means to me).
After the end credits rolled up and the two of us had congratulated ourselves on our excellent movie selection we returned home to our sleeping child and our babysitter (our god-daughter). She asked us how was the movie. We said it was good and began to describe it in broad strokes. This was where we met difficulty as our god-daughter (who is 15) didn't know what "Cheesy", "Camp" or "Precursor" meant. Other than the third one, we struggled to define the words for her. I found it odd that she didn't know these words and worried that I had finally jumped the generational gap fence when I realized that I didn't really know where the words came from either.
As is my nature, I looked up the words afterwards:
Cheesy - Cheap, unpleasant, or blatantly inauthentic (In the sense that cheese is all the same colour and is full of holes...like the plot of your movie.. oh Snap!). I assume that exotic cheese is not part of this metaphor.
Camp - To contain artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess; in short to take your subject matter lightly . I found out there is actually a famous essay explaining camp which proves that I don't take movie reviewing seriously enough. I did like the line that the whole point of camp is to "dethrone the serious". Although I have never seen serious holding such a high seat in our culture as long as I have been alive.
Pre-cursor - To run before/in front of., which proves my point that everything sounds cooler in another language until you realize they are just using their version of "thingie" or "what?"
At the end of the day, the lesson I guess is to know the words you are using as there are teenagers everywhere to call you on.
S
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Two cheers for Communism?
One of the problems, if one can call it that, with being a disorganized reader is the tendency to sound cleverer that you actually are.
Case and point, at the book club meeting this weekend (250 pages or less club), I commented that there are only two working examples of communism--a camping trip and Babar. This got some laughs from the room and I got the impression of people being impressed with my originality.
Alas, I can't take credit. The two examples mentioned were recent discoveries through the course of my reading. The first, the camping trip, is from AA Cohen's "Why Socialism?" a mini-book that discusses the principles of socialism through the thought experiment of a camping trip. Whether you agree with socialism or not, it is an interesting book for laying out the questions and giving possible answers.
The other example, Babar, is from an essay I read at the anniversary of Babar last year, I believe, in the New Yorker. The essay was part portrait the elephant king's story as well as a commentary of how it reflected a "white-washed" version of French imperialism and communist thinking that apparently occurs in France (I often wonder if reporters/politicians/pundits/marketers are pulling our legs about what people in other countries are talking about--trust us they say while handing out tinted sunglasses). It's quite a thick article, but its a trivia lover's delight as it saves you the research time to compile the information yourself. That thought is also stolen from my good friend Corrina (wise woman).
As previously mentioned, the topic of communism came up during a discussion at our book club. The pick of the month was the Good Woman (soul/person) of Szechun by Brecht. An interesting play, which I will have to put on my list of plays to see in person. Oddly enough the theme of communism has shown up in a number of our book club picks completely by accident. I think its due to the time period of the books (the recent batch have all been from the early 20th century).
Despite the ominous shadow of Russian communism, fun was had by all with German food and Canadian book fun. Are next book is a Rushdie novel (Haroun and the sea of stories). I'm looking forward to diving into it.
S
Case and point, at the book club meeting this weekend (250 pages or less club), I commented that there are only two working examples of communism--a camping trip and Babar. This got some laughs from the room and I got the impression of people being impressed with my originality.
Alas, I can't take credit. The two examples mentioned were recent discoveries through the course of my reading. The first, the camping trip, is from AA Cohen's "Why Socialism?" a mini-book that discusses the principles of socialism through the thought experiment of a camping trip. Whether you agree with socialism or not, it is an interesting book for laying out the questions and giving possible answers.
The other example, Babar, is from an essay I read at the anniversary of Babar last year, I believe, in the New Yorker. The essay was part portrait the elephant king's story as well as a commentary of how it reflected a "white-washed" version of French imperialism and communist thinking that apparently occurs in France (I often wonder if reporters/politicians/pundits/marketers are pulling our legs about what people in other countries are talking about--trust us they say while handing out tinted sunglasses). It's quite a thick article, but its a trivia lover's delight as it saves you the research time to compile the information yourself. That thought is also stolen from my good friend Corrina (wise woman).
As previously mentioned, the topic of communism came up during a discussion at our book club. The pick of the month was the Good Woman (soul/person) of Szechun by Brecht. An interesting play, which I will have to put on my list of plays to see in person. Oddly enough the theme of communism has shown up in a number of our book club picks completely by accident. I think its due to the time period of the books (the recent batch have all been from the early 20th century).
Despite the ominous shadow of Russian communism, fun was had by all with German food and Canadian book fun. Are next book is a Rushdie novel (Haroun and the sea of stories). I'm looking forward to diving into it.
S
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