The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Remember the video for One by Metallica? With the scenes in the old hospital of a soldier with no limbs who couldn't speak or move? And in the end he figured out how to communicate in morse code, but just kept repeating the phrase "kill me" over and over?

Well, now there's a version based on someone's real life experience, and it's so much more deep and positive and even affirming. Of course, if I had gorgeous French women hanging on my every wink I'd probably feel like hanging on for a few more days myself.



(Link to trailer)

The movie showed the process of coming to accept your own situation and appreciate the true value of an intact mind in a way that inspires by extreme, uncontradictable example.

I enjoyed very much that the whole film was in French, I haven't used French in too long a time, but it didn't take me very long to get back into the rhythm and become able to just sit back and listen and take it in and not worry about actively trying to catch each word.

I was having a pretty bad day before putting the movie on, was quite unhappy about some things that really shouldn't have bothered me as much as they did. But the experience of thinking in a whole different language made all those thoughts just completely slip away, a complete switch of my frame of reference just by changing language and taking away the words I was bombarding my psyche with all afternoon and evening. That combined with the truly hope-inducing story and the beautiful cinematography and music was enough to give my mind a real vacation from negative thoughts for a while.

It's still playing for a few more nights at City Cinema, if you are in Charlottetown definitely try and go see it.

Labels: Language, Movies, Reviews

Thunder? WTF?

OK I thought the first one was a snow plow making noise hitting a mailbox or something, but the second one was definitely a rolling crash of thunder. In January. I don't see any lightning out my window, though, which is too bad. I bet lightning on snow would be gorgeous.

Could you get electrocuted by just being out in the snow somewhere near a lightning strike? Is the air between the snow flakes enough of an insulator to make this not the case? I think I need to start spreading around an urban legend about this and then have Mythbusters try and tackle it. They have a lightning machine, right?

I went to see The Darjeeling Limited tonight by myself. Before seeing it I had a bit of a sense of steadily lowering expectations for Wes Anderson's movies, as each one has been steadily less interesting than the one before. I think he needs to shoot someone else's screenplay next, since he has too many cliches and character personalities that he is relying on too often. The Darjeeling Limited confirmed all of my fears in this direction. That said, it was still a funny Wes Anderson movie with humourously awkward dialog, strained relationships and interesting sets and costumes that have a timeless quality to them which I do enjoy.

OK, the thunder seems to have subsided. Oh shit there was lightning. Damnit, I stopped watching for it, too. It's quite close, too, the thunder was only about 2 seconds behind.

OK, I googled Winter Lightning, here's what came up: Link.

Can there be lightning during a snowstorm? Lightning is usually associated with thunderstorms, and therefore is thought to be a spring and summer event. Yet lightning does occur during winter, and even during heavy snowfalls and blizzards. Winter lightning appears to be unusually powerful, associated with loud and long thunderclaps. Sometimes associated snowfalls can reach 3 inches an hour. A man was struck by lightning during a blizzard in Minneapolis during March of 1996. He is still alive...and very puzzled.

Neat.

Apparently in Chinese they have several different kinds of states or descriptions of feelings of love, mostly centered around sadness. The examples given were "sorrow-love", "tenderness-pity" and "sorrow pity". Sounds ominously like something I'd probably wind up in. There's an interesting frankness about human relationships that comes through there that is a little intimidating.

Labels: Language, Movies, Weather

"Oh, Neat!"

That's right, people, I'm bring back "neat!" as an exclamation. I like the innocent wonder it conveys.

When you say "that's cool" you're making a value judgment, you're saying "this deserves to be called 'cool'." If you aren't cool yourself, you don't have the authority to deem something cool in the eyes of actual cool people.

But anyone can be awed or impressed by something and say "that's neat", since one imagines it usually being said by an innocent four year old seeing a wind-up car zoom across the floor for the first time.

I think the world needs a little more neat-ness.

Labels: Language

Searching for the right word

A Mexican friend IM'd me today, asking for what word I'd use in English, for when you're asked to do a task, and you will do it, but not right now.

I thought about it and the best thing I could come up with was 'Mañana'.

Which reminded me of this joke:

Spanish singer Julio Iglesias was on television with British TV host Anne Diamond when he used the word 'manyana'. Diamond asked him to explain what it meant.

He said that the term means "maybe the job will be done tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe the day after that. Perhaps next week, next month, next year. Who cares?"

The host turned to Irishman Shay Brennan who was also on the show and asked him if there was an equivalent term in Irish.

"No. In Ireland we don't have a word to describe that degree of urgency," replied Brennan.

I'm sure this is apocryphal, since it's a takeoff on what Pete McCarthy said in his book McCarthy's Bar "The Spanish concept of mañana is said to be too urgent-sounding to be translated into Irish."

Labels: Jokes, Language