Saturday, September 18, 2010

[bearshorty]

Fasting today – mostly that means watching lots of tv to distract myself. It actually went pretty well. I didn’t even get dehydration headache. Fast ended at 7:42pm and then I had a nice dinner although I discovered that I can eat only so much asparagus even when I’m hungry.

Michael Pollan is giving a talk at my university next month! My writing program director emailed us this morning to ask if anyone would like to go to dinner. I submitted my name. I don’t know if there will be room at the English Department dinner for me, but I definitely want to at least try to get in on that. I will go to the talk, at least. I’m very excited about that. Neil Gaiman and Michael Pollan in the same week. The universe can be good sometimes.

Highlander S5E22, S6E1,2 “Archangel” “Avatar” “Armageddon” I finally watched the Ahriman trilogy. With a bit of reluctance. The episodes were ok, I’m just not a fan of a storyline that involves supernatural on a sci-fi show. I like my fantasy and sci-fi to remain a bit separate. I don’t mind the demos themselves, I love “Buffy,” it just does not seem to fit here. I knew Richie will die, I’ve seen the scene before, but when it actually happened it was still jarring and my hand went to my mouth. Poor Richie. Poor Mac too. I did like that Mac didn’t know what to think and was wondering if he was losing it, especially after seeing Kronos. And I liked that Joe helped him anyway despite his reservations. How did Jim Byrnes get through those “Armageddon” scenes – that must have been personally very draining.

I know Season Six does not have the best reputation, but, of course, I’m going to finish it to finish the series.

“Little Ashes” I watched this movie today; its been in my Netflix instant queue for a while. It is interesting that Robert Pattinson picked this movie after all the hoopla of his other stuff; it is good he is trying quality stuff too. The movie wasn’t the best movie ever but it was nice and interesting. I certainly knew very little about Federico Garcia Lorca, other than he was a famous poet. Pattinson did a great job playing the genius and the the related craziness of Dali. Spain is very pretty, I loved the landscape. The scene in the water with the full moon was shot gorgeously.

“The Big Lebowski” I just got bored watching it. I couldn’t make it past half an hour. I know I promised Papa I’d watch this but really I can’t.

National Geographic article on Madagascar is very depressing. And the environmental devastation, particularly of the redwood trees, can’t just be blamed on the new post-coup government. The previous, more environmentally conscious, president wasn’t exactly free of corruption. I also didn’t appreciate the picture of a cure lemur on top half of the page balanced with a picture of lemur soup with boiled lemur heads on the bottom of the page.

As I was looking for internet links today, I saw the there will be an article on Jane Goodall in October issue of National Geographic. Very timely for my class, I did post it on class website, not that they would read it.

Comments

[crazypumpkin]

Pollan spoke on my campus last year. If you're already in the Pollan camp, you likely won't hear much new. If you're on the fence, it could be interesting and help you form some better ideas. Either way, the thing I found most powerful was simply being in a large room (the building used for hockey and basketball) with other people who were also interested in the local foods/whole foods/less crap line of thought.

[bearshorty]

I find that I learn a lot about the author when he is reading his own material. :) I am certainly already a big fan but to see an author in person makes me geek out. I'm teaching one of his articles this semester in my writing classes, in fact that very week, so I'm also going to try to make some of my students come to the talk.