Nostalgic Musings

In a fit of nostalgia, I spent a good hour yesterday watching clips of "My Fair Lady" on YouTube. (The nostalgia had to do with the fact that I had watched it as a child.) This time around, I understood a lot of the social commentary that had eluded me as an 11 year old. I had always expected this. What took me by pleasant surprise were the lyrics. They had struck me as awfully clever back then, but I had assumed that as an adult, with a more sophisticated understanding of language and its nuances and hidden meanings,I would have found them somewhat less impressive. Not a bit. They were even more charming and clever. What is more, having attempted writing - admittedly casually - in the meantime, I was able to appreciate not just the elegance and intelligence of the words, but also the sheer effort that must have gone in their crafting. Combined with a good plot and a poignant social message, they make the film a true accomplishment.

On a side note, a friend of mine recently became an Irish citizen. By recently, I mean yesterday. The news, coming as it did during my nostalgia based YouTubing, reminded me that Shaw was Irish. And that got me thinking of the huge literary contribution of the Irish to English literature. Swift, Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw - all pretty much the Shakespeares of their day and age - all Irish. (I'm certainly not the first to make that connection - in one of the episodes of Yes Prime Minister, the prime minister, asked to name English playwrights other than Shakespeare, proudly reels off, "Sheridan, Wilde, Shaw" and is promptly told that they were Irish. Note to self - next nostalgic indulgence: Yes Prime Minister.) I have always been an unabashed Anglophile and have always marvelled at how such a small island of so few people has managed to accomplish so much. It seems that, at least where the written word is concerned, the Irish are even more remarkable. Maybe there is something to that Blarney Stone after all.

Fractals

From lightning and shorelines to trees, sea urchins and peacocks, fractals can be found everywhere in nature. Humans can exhibit fractal formations too - Glenn Beck has an arsehole.

Here We Go Round The Snobbery Bush

When I was a child, I was often made to play a game called 'Dumb Charades' or just 'Charades'. I never really liked it all that much. Moving awkwardly in front of a group of people was embarrassing for a rather shy seven year old. The fact that the people in question were working themselves up into a right frenzy (usually culminating in an orgasmic shriek of "Free Willy!", or something similar) didn't help much either. To top it all off, there were always some kids in the group who used to really get into it. They used to argue about how a particular action was not allowed ("Oh, yes it was!") or how someone spoke, or how the title was just too difficult and so on. Now, all this was fair enough. After all, it WAS a game, it WAS a party and all they were doing was enjoying it. The fact that it wasn't my cuppa was more my fault than theirs.

But some of these people have gone all poncey and decided to consider themselves 'artists'. It's not a kiddie game anymore. Oh no, it's 'interpretive dance'. Look at me as I express my innermost feeling by making swooshing movements and falling suddenly to the floor. Watch me bare my emotions (and much else besides) in my skin-tight but artistically torn spandex costume.

It's not the fact that they call it art that irritates me, though. I'm sure some of the performances are genuinely that. No, what pisses me off is that so many of these dancers - and much more importantly, people who claim enjoy watching these dances - consider themselves somehow more creative and artistically accomplished than the others who haven't quite embraced this art form with their fervour and enthusiasm. To remain unmoved by the sight of a grown, pot-bellied man writhing in an unnecessarily figure hugging costume is, apparently, to be uncultured.

This snobbery extends to other areas too. Take sushi, for instance. It's raw fish slapped onto rice, for fuck's sake. A ham and cheese sandwich is more of a culinary accomplishment. And yet there is no shortage of people - from arts undergrads at university to film actors portraying high-powered businessmen - talking about how the uncooked slab of orange flesh in front of them is the pinnacle of the art of food. Now don't get me wrong. I've had sushi. I like it too. Quite a bit, in fact. But to call it sophisticated cuisine is just ludicrous.

And it's not just the artsy classes either. The tough, cool crowd practice it too. I like some rap songs. But by and large, rap is banal poetry, recited badly by people flailing their arms about. And most of the lyrics seem to be disturbingly violent and misogynistic. And yet, if you don't like it, you ain't cool, mothafucka. It seems to be specific to rap too. You're allowed to dislike rock or jazz or any other kind of music without being judged.

But the most irritating of the bunch, personally speaking, are the Mac brigade. Now, I have nothing against Apple's products. I have an iPod Touch myself and love it. I don't have any beef with the people who claim Macs are better than PCs either. Maybe for what they do with them, they are. No, the irritating ones are those who believe that, just because they have bought a Mac, they have somehow BECOME more artistic and sensitive than the rest of us. You've just bought yourself a laptop that's twice as expensive as others with the same specs and all you're going to use it to do is write essays, because you're a third year student majoring in English Literature. Does it mean you're more artsy!?! No, it means you're a sucker.

None of the art forms/products mentioned above is bad in itself. I have personally seen genuinely good interpretive dance, tasted great sushi, heard very intelligent rap lyrics and, as stated, owned and loved an iPod. It's the attitude of many of the people who are aficionados of said art forms/products that gets on my nerves. "I'm a pelican! Now I'm a giraffe!" No, sir, you're a massive cock.

Randomness

"There's some basic animals and plants here, but th' planet seems to be devoid of intelligent life cap'n... No, wait, there's... there's summa happenin' in th' north."

"What is it Scotty !?!"

"There's... it's a bunch o' blokes cap'n... It's the same blokes we saw on tha' other planet last week! Th' ones wi' th' wings all flyin' an' shit!"

"Really!?!"

"Yeah! An' there's th' same bloke on th' ground wi' a beard tellin' 'em wha' t'do."

"What're they doing, Scotty !?!"

"They... well, they... they seem t' be buryin' great big bones deep in th' ground, cap'n."

"Really!?! Just like on the other planet!?! That's weird, eh!?!"

"Yeah. Looks borin', really. God knows why they're doon it. "

"How many times have I told you Scotty - there's no such thing as God. Now get ready to beam up, we must be getting along."

"A' righ' cap'n."

On Leaving Vancouver

I must be a git. Now, before you deny

This claim, gather round, and I'll tell you why

For five great years, I lived in a city

That is so lovely, so amazingly pretty

That you could be forgiven if you surmise,

"By George, it seems I've found paradise."

You wouldn't be far wrong - you can certainly bet

This is as close to heaven as this world can get

The lushest of forests with the loveliest trees

Great mountains that kiss the most shining of seas

And the nicest people you ever will meet

Greet you warmly as you walk down the nicest of streets

I have had now to move from this place onto

Cold, windy, drab and dreary Toronto

No, that's harsh, Toronto's fine, as far as I can tell,

But after paradise, even earth seems like hell

Now, so far so cheesy - I'm sure you don't need

To be told that this poem is awful indeed

But it has all been written out just to frame

A good case to support my original claim

Good folks go to heaven forever, you see

I had to leave in five years - what's that say about me

Refunds

When companies say that they will gladly refund my purchase if I'm not satisfied with it, I always get weirded out. Not by the refund - that's fine. It's the fact that they claim they will do so 'gladly'. It seems to imply that they're just happy that I'm satisfied with the refund and not suing them shitless as they were clearly expecting me to do. This, I find unsettling.

The Untold Chronicles Of Narnia

"- and finally, it killed and ate Edmund as well......
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Remember kids, it may talk, but it's still a fucking lion."