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It's all happening over at blog.jhaines.name.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Thoughts on Avatar
So Swiss movie theatres have a slightly evil habit of having a 15 minute break in the middle of every movie. It's the cinema's way of taping you on the shoulder and saying: "Stop! Don't get too immersed! It's only a movie. Perhaps you should take a breather and go out and BUY some ICE CREAM." I can perhaps forgive them for a break in the case of Avatar, since the movie is longer than the 30-year war.
Another terrible part of the break is the inevitable question that your movie-going neighbour asks: "So... what do you think of the film so far?" For a plot or character driven movie, I hate this question. No: I do not want to judge a film until it has finished; I don't want to articulate my half-formed thoughts on the movie until it's over.
Not so for Avatar though. The first half is an aesthetic experience and the mid-film review a simple emotional reaction: the movie is just beautiful. The 3D is stunning and used to exquisite effect creating a magical and completely immersive world. Some of the scenes literally brought tears to my eyes.
Parts of the world reminded me of underwater seascapes seen whilst diving. The most obvious being the jellyfish/tree-seeds. The spiral plants that retract when you touch them also exist in tropical waters, unfortunately the real ones are only 1-2cm in size, not 1-2m. I guess the underwater inspiration shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since James Cameron has an obsession with water and the undersea world.
After the break came the second half of the movie.
It's as if the writers gave up and handed the unfinished script to a couple of teenagers along with a book of movie clichés. The remainder of the movie lacked the slightest hint of originality. The movie lost me from the moment that Jakesully fulfils his destiny by harnessing the beast-that-has-only-seldom-been-tamed and uniting the tribes that have only once-before-been-united. The gung-ho cry "This is our land!" seemed incongruous with the earlier tone of all-living-creatures-are-precious-gifts.
The first half of the movie talks about the "interconnectivity of all living things". While this makes a nice metaphor or spiritual belief, it loses a lot when it is used in the climax of the film to "kick some ass!" as mother nature opens a can of whoop-ass on the technologically superior humans.
One grating scene has the human characters unironically declaring: "We have to save the Tree of Souls!" This shouldn't come as surprise though as by this stage of the movie we've discovered that all the characters are one dimensional. The scientists are tree-huggers and the military personal all thugs. The exception of course being the protagonist and the pilot who, also stereotypically, fall in love with the beauty of the forest and realise the error of their ways
Avatar has been compared with Dances with Wolves. The key difference for me being that Dances with Wolves ended on a down note with the natives fleeing before the invaders and ultimately to their effective extinction. Avatar would have been a much better film if it had ended on a similar note.
Another parallel that can be drawn is that of the quagmire wars that the United States has gotten itself involved in - Vietnam and Afghanistan. This is another theme that James Cameron has touched on before - he declared that Aliens was Vietnam set in space. The message being that a technologically and military superior force can be brought down by a determined opposition with local knowledge, guerilla tactics and a love of their homeland. But this metaphor doesn't work in the world of Avatar. After some half-felt wincing expressions the commander decides that the bottom-line comes before the lives of the locals. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan could have been won if the invading force decided they didn't care about the lives of the locals instead implemented a scorched earth policy of wiping out the locals.
Another alternative ending that I would have found more satisfying would have been along the lines of Gandhi in India style of passive resistance. Sadly it seems that James Cameron didn't consider himself a strong or daring enough film maker to create such a movie. Perhaps it was just commercial pressures on the studios. The current ending is certainly selling to teenage boys the world around.
In the mid-movie break, I declared that I'd happily see Avatar a second time. A complement formerly reserved for the Lord of the Rings movies. Given the disappointing ending, I think I'll wait for a Director's Cut where hopefully James Cameron decides a complete rewrite of the second half is required.
Another terrible part of the break is the inevitable question that your movie-going neighbour asks: "So... what do you think of the film so far?" For a plot or character driven movie, I hate this question. No: I do not want to judge a film until it has finished; I don't want to articulate my half-formed thoughts on the movie until it's over.
Not so for Avatar though. The first half is an aesthetic experience and the mid-film review a simple emotional reaction: the movie is just beautiful. The 3D is stunning and used to exquisite effect creating a magical and completely immersive world. Some of the scenes literally brought tears to my eyes.
Parts of the world reminded me of underwater seascapes seen whilst diving. The most obvious being the jellyfish/tree-seeds. The spiral plants that retract when you touch them also exist in tropical waters, unfortunately the real ones are only 1-2cm in size, not 1-2m. I guess the underwater inspiration shouldn't come as too much of a surprise since James Cameron has an obsession with water and the undersea world.
After the break came the second half of the movie.
It's as if the writers gave up and handed the unfinished script to a couple of teenagers along with a book of movie clichés. The remainder of the movie lacked the slightest hint of originality. The movie lost me from the moment that Jakesully fulfils his destiny by harnessing the beast-that-has-only-seldom-been-tamed and uniting the tribes that have only once-before-been-united. The gung-ho cry "This is our land!" seemed incongruous with the earlier tone of all-living-creatures-are-precious-gifts.
The first half of the movie talks about the "interconnectivity of all living things". While this makes a nice metaphor or spiritual belief, it loses a lot when it is used in the climax of the film to "kick some ass!" as mother nature opens a can of whoop-ass on the technologically superior humans.
One grating scene has the human characters unironically declaring: "We have to save the Tree of Souls!" This shouldn't come as surprise though as by this stage of the movie we've discovered that all the characters are one dimensional. The scientists are tree-huggers and the military personal all thugs. The exception of course being the protagonist and the pilot who, also stereotypically, fall in love with the beauty of the forest and realise the error of their ways
Avatar has been compared with Dances with Wolves. The key difference for me being that Dances with Wolves ended on a down note with the natives fleeing before the invaders and ultimately to their effective extinction. Avatar would have been a much better film if it had ended on a similar note.
Another parallel that can be drawn is that of the quagmire wars that the United States has gotten itself involved in - Vietnam and Afghanistan. This is another theme that James Cameron has touched on before - he declared that Aliens was Vietnam set in space. The message being that a technologically and military superior force can be brought down by a determined opposition with local knowledge, guerilla tactics and a love of their homeland. But this metaphor doesn't work in the world of Avatar. After some half-felt wincing expressions the commander decides that the bottom-line comes before the lives of the locals. Both Vietnam and Afghanistan could have been won if the invading force decided they didn't care about the lives of the locals instead implemented a scorched earth policy of wiping out the locals.
Another alternative ending that I would have found more satisfying would have been along the lines of Gandhi in India style of passive resistance. Sadly it seems that James Cameron didn't consider himself a strong or daring enough film maker to create such a movie. Perhaps it was just commercial pressures on the studios. The current ending is certainly selling to teenage boys the world around.
In the mid-movie break, I declared that I'd happily see Avatar a second time. A complement formerly reserved for the Lord of the Rings movies. Given the disappointing ending, I think I'll wait for a Director's Cut where hopefully James Cameron decides a complete rewrite of the second half is required.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
iPhone App Review: Lonely Planet Hong Kong City Guide
An electronic travel guide is something I dreamed for years. This is a potential killer-app for the iPhone, but the Lonely Planet Hong Kong Guide shows that we are not there yet. Good content is let down by an unpolished interface.
The biggest selling point for me would have been the map functionality enhanced by the iPhone's built in GPS and compass. Unfortunately, the map function has many frustrations. Firstly,every time you open the map, it forgets the last view you were on. Thus the switching between the text and the map (more on this below) is an exercise in frustration. This wouldn't be too so annoying if the locate-me function was a bit more robust (perhaps a hardware issue). Also annoying is that the map is not searchable by street name. When looking for a street, I ended up grabbing a free paper map as it was bigger and easier to scan over. Also, the map is either incomplete or not up-to-date. My hotel (Novotel on Nathan Road) was not in the guide. I wasn't even to overcome this by adding my own marker to the map: custom waypoints isn't a supported feature.
The text content is great as it is taken directly from Lonely Planet's reputable guide book. Unfortunately it doesn't exploit of any of the advantages of an electronic interface. The index is a list of all the item and sub-items - Getting Started, Background, Neighbours etc. Unfortunately each sub-section is not collapsible, so it takes a minute scrolling to get to down to the section you are interested in. Searching doesn't help either: typing in the name of the region "Kowloon" results in multiple entries all saying "Kowloon" - only by tapping on one and going back can you find out which one is "accommodation" and which one is "eating".
The text pages themselves are then frustratingly devoid of hyperlinks. There are no links from one page to another beyond previous/next buttons. Worst of all, there are almost no links to the map and, as mentioned above, jumping between the map and the text is an exercise in hair-pulling frustration
The price is cheaper than the equivalent dead-tree edition and an electronic version had the potential to be superior to a physical version. Sadly, with the software limitations, I found myself using a paper map and wishing that I'd just shelled out the extra money for the book edition. I'll keep an eye on this class of apps though as the limitations will hopefully be overcome in future versions.
The biggest selling point for me would have been the map functionality enhanced by the iPhone's built in GPS and compass. Unfortunately, the map function has many frustrations. Firstly,every time you open the map, it forgets the last view you were on. Thus the switching between the text and the map (more on this below) is an exercise in frustration. This wouldn't be too so annoying if the locate-me function was a bit more robust (perhaps a hardware issue). Also annoying is that the map is not searchable by street name. When looking for a street, I ended up grabbing a free paper map as it was bigger and easier to scan over. Also, the map is either incomplete or not up-to-date. My hotel (Novotel on Nathan Road) was not in the guide. I wasn't even to overcome this by adding my own marker to the map: custom waypoints isn't a supported feature.
The text content is great as it is taken directly from Lonely Planet's reputable guide book. Unfortunately it doesn't exploit of any of the advantages of an electronic interface. The index is a list of all the item and sub-items - Getting Started, Background, Neighbours etc. Unfortunately each sub-section is not collapsible, so it takes a minute scrolling to get to down to the section you are interested in. Searching doesn't help either: typing in the name of the region "Kowloon" results in multiple entries all saying "Kowloon" - only by tapping on one and going back can you find out which one is "accommodation" and which one is "eating".
The text pages themselves are then frustratingly devoid of hyperlinks. There are no links from one page to another beyond previous/next buttons. Worst of all, there are almost no links to the map and, as mentioned above, jumping between the map and the text is an exercise in hair-pulling frustration
The price is cheaper than the equivalent dead-tree edition and an electronic version had the potential to be superior to a physical version. Sadly, with the software limitations, I found myself using a paper map and wishing that I'd just shelled out the extra money for the book edition. I'll keep an eye on this class of apps though as the limitations will hopefully be overcome in future versions.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
(500) Days of Summer
"(500) Days of Summer" is not standard romantic comedy fare. There are some amusing moments but they are more warm or touching rather than funny.
Zooey Deschanel is a delight as the film's eponymous romantic focus. She brings a light quirkiness to the role that is very appealing. It's easy to see why the protagonist, Tom, falls for her.
Unlike many romantic comedies, the protagonist is a guy and the story is told from his perspective. The film is written by two men and directed by another. The movie has a far from a macho take on romance though.
This may be appropriate as men tend be more romantic than generally given credit for. Contrary to common wisdom, on average, men tend to fall in love faster than women. Also men tend to suffer more after a break-up. I suspect there might be an evolutionary drive for women for fall in love later: women historically (think from hunter-gatherer times up until a few decades ago) bore a huge risk if they fell pregnant to a man not committed to them. From this perspective, not falling in love too quickly is a sensible precautionary measure. Men suffer more after a break-up probably because in losing their partner they typically also lose their best friend. Women tend to have a stronger support network of friends to get them through.
We certainly see Tom suffer through his break-up, despite the support of his friends. Very sweetly, he gets the most support from his baby sister. The wisdom she has gleaned from her high school years helps him work through the end of his relationship.
An appealing part of the movie is that the story is told out of sequence. The memories of the romance are played out in the way that they might be during a break-up - Tom's mind flashes from the romantic beginning to the eventual disintegration of their relationship. Some events are revisited in his memory - romantic moments hold hints of trouble when analysed in retrospect.
I saw a reviewer criticise the movie for not being cynical enough and he objected to the ending's ultimately optimistic view of love. This might say more about the reviewer's love life that it does about the film. For me though, the message of the movie is that even though two people in a partnership will live out the same events, the experience of being in a relationship is ultimately a subjective and individual one. When these experiences diverge too widely, the result can be heart-break.
Zooey Deschanel is a delight as the film's eponymous romantic focus. She brings a light quirkiness to the role that is very appealing. It's easy to see why the protagonist, Tom, falls for her.
Unlike many romantic comedies, the protagonist is a guy and the story is told from his perspective. The film is written by two men and directed by another. The movie has a far from a macho take on romance though.
This may be appropriate as men tend be more romantic than generally given credit for. Contrary to common wisdom, on average, men tend to fall in love faster than women. Also men tend to suffer more after a break-up. I suspect there might be an evolutionary drive for women for fall in love later: women historically (think from hunter-gatherer times up until a few decades ago) bore a huge risk if they fell pregnant to a man not committed to them. From this perspective, not falling in love too quickly is a sensible precautionary measure. Men suffer more after a break-up probably because in losing their partner they typically also lose their best friend. Women tend to have a stronger support network of friends to get them through.
We certainly see Tom suffer through his break-up, despite the support of his friends. Very sweetly, he gets the most support from his baby sister. The wisdom she has gleaned from her high school years helps him work through the end of his relationship.
An appealing part of the movie is that the story is told out of sequence. The memories of the romance are played out in the way that they might be during a break-up - Tom's mind flashes from the romantic beginning to the eventual disintegration of their relationship. Some events are revisited in his memory - romantic moments hold hints of trouble when analysed in retrospect.
I saw a reviewer criticise the movie for not being cynical enough and he objected to the ending's ultimately optimistic view of love. This might say more about the reviewer's love life that it does about the film. For me though, the message of the movie is that even though two people in a partnership will live out the same events, the experience of being in a relationship is ultimately a subjective and individual one. When these experiences diverge too widely, the result can be heart-break.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Meditation Tip #3
Following on from Tip #1 and Tip #2 comes
Meditation Tip #3: Empty your mind
This is the hardest part and probably the key to meditation. The idea is that we rarely give our minds a chance to relax. Sleep will restore our bodies, but even when we are asleep, our minds are still active and dreaming. This is, of course nonsense: we only dream in the shallower stages (REM) of sleep. Most of sleep time is spent in deeper sleep stages when our brains are quite chilled out.
The deeper stages of sleep aren't as well researched because, well, I guess even sleep scientists find dreams darn pretty interesting. It seems though that deep sleep might be a chance for your brain to shut-down and selectively forget some of the stuff that you've processed during the day.
In any case, meditation can replicate some of the tranquil level of brain activity that is experienced in sleep and it can't hurt, so...
The trick - and it's a trick that takes some practice - is to allow thoughts to come up and let them go.
Concentrating on your breathing is a good start (see Tip #2). If you meditate with your eyes open, allow your eyes to soft focus on a point.
Chanting a mantra might work for you. I'm sure there are entire books written documenting the effects of different mantras. For my money, I wouldn't go past "Omm".
One technique that I invented for myself (I'm curious as to whether it has been independently discovered) is "photographing the thoughts". When a thought surfaces, imagine a polaroid photo being taken of it. Visualise the image frozen in front of you. Imagine it passing slowly through my head. As the photo passes through your brain it takes the thought with you. As over thoughts arise, repeat the process.
Meditation Tip #3: Empty your mind
This is the hardest part and probably the key to meditation. The idea is that we rarely give our minds a chance to relax. Sleep will restore our bodies, but even when we are asleep, our minds are still active and dreaming. This is, of course nonsense: we only dream in the shallower stages (REM) of sleep. Most of sleep time is spent in deeper sleep stages when our brains are quite chilled out.
The deeper stages of sleep aren't as well researched because, well, I guess even sleep scientists find dreams darn pretty interesting. It seems though that deep sleep might be a chance for your brain to shut-down and selectively forget some of the stuff that you've processed during the day.
In any case, meditation can replicate some of the tranquil level of brain activity that is experienced in sleep and it can't hurt, so...
The trick - and it's a trick that takes some practice - is to allow thoughts to come up and let them go.
Concentrating on your breathing is a good start (see Tip #2). If you meditate with your eyes open, allow your eyes to soft focus on a point.
Chanting a mantra might work for you. I'm sure there are entire books written documenting the effects of different mantras. For my money, I wouldn't go past "Omm".
One technique that I invented for myself (I'm curious as to whether it has been independently discovered) is "photographing the thoughts". When a thought surfaces, imagine a polaroid photo being taken of it. Visualise the image frozen in front of you. Imagine it passing slowly through my head. As the photo passes through your brain it takes the thought with you. As over thoughts arise, repeat the process.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Flashpacker transport options
There are no trains from Saigon to the highlands of Dalat. The journey involves a 7 hour bus trip which means either be an entire day on the highway, or an overnight trip. The bus company targets local and international tourists, so at least wouldn't be a repeat of my recent bus journey. Still, I wasn't keen to loose an entire day travelling or suffering a unpleasant night with even less sleep than my travel insomnia would allow.
A quick internet search showed two flights a day with Vietnamese Airlines. Since these flights are mainly filled by locals, the prices are reasonable (US$50 one-way) and, better still, can usually be booked at short notice. After a bit of a struggle, I got myself a ticket for a Monday morning flight.
The good news was that the flight would get me in to Dalat at 07:30 for a full-day of motorcycle touring. The bad news was that I'd have to be at the Saigon airport at 05:30. The taxi from the centre to the airport can take an hour and while I had been waking up at 04:00 I was trying to encourage my body clock to stay asleep at that time.
Budget travel guides, both Lonely Planet and online, were silent on hotel options near the airport. An internet search revealed a number of high-end options. I had been staying in budget accommodation for far in Vietnam, but having come to terms with my flashpacker status, I decided to go for it and booked a room online.
The driver stuffs my backpack into the back of his taxi. "Parkroyal Hotel?" he confirms, looking at my backpack and then from my sandals to my grubby T-Shirt. "Vang," I assured him. Yes, a luxury hotel for me tonight please! In the taxi I try to make myself look presentable. I put on my best, or at least cleanest, T-Shirt and take off my bead bracelets. I try brush some of the dirt off my backpack and zip away the shoulder and waist straps. It looks a little bit like a shoulder bag, but really is still just a backpack pretending.. There is nothing I can do about my sandals - the only footwear I have with me are my pair of Tevas.
To try and compensate for my slightly grubby looks, I booked myself in with the title "Doctor Jason Haines" (unfortunately, "Lord" wasn't an option). PhD doctorants can be eccentric can't they? I've worked with academics that wore sandals in far cooler climates than Saigon.
I try to feign confidence as a stroll into the lobby. I've stayed in hotels of this class in Europe and had to pay 3 times as much for the privilege - I could stay here a year if I maxed out my Visa card limit. I give my bag to a porter and present my passport - use two hands in Vietnam - to the receptionist with a "Chao buoi toi (good evening)". I get a friendly welcome, well at least after they've seen my credit card. I'm sure the sideways glance he given me is just in my imagination.
The porter deposits my "bag" in my room and I change for a swim in the indoor pool. Back in the room, I hit the mini-bar. To complete my 1st-world neo-tourist-colonist image, I take a Gin and Tonic ("Keeps away the mosquitos, old boy! Don't want a dose of malaria, what?").
Over the few hours of my stay I spend more money on tips for the porters and the mini-bar than I'd spent on accommodation the previous two nights. The room is both ludicrously cheap by European standards and ludicrously expensive by Vietnamese standards.
"I hope you enjoyed your stay. Thank you Doctor Haines," says the receptionist as I check out. No, thank you!
A quick internet search showed two flights a day with Vietnamese Airlines. Since these flights are mainly filled by locals, the prices are reasonable (US$50 one-way) and, better still, can usually be booked at short notice. After a bit of a struggle, I got myself a ticket for a Monday morning flight.
The good news was that the flight would get me in to Dalat at 07:30 for a full-day of motorcycle touring. The bad news was that I'd have to be at the Saigon airport at 05:30. The taxi from the centre to the airport can take an hour and while I had been waking up at 04:00 I was trying to encourage my body clock to stay asleep at that time.
Budget travel guides, both Lonely Planet and online, were silent on hotel options near the airport. An internet search revealed a number of high-end options. I had been staying in budget accommodation for far in Vietnam, but having come to terms with my flashpacker status, I decided to go for it and booked a room online.
The driver stuffs my backpack into the back of his taxi. "Parkroyal Hotel?" he confirms, looking at my backpack and then from my sandals to my grubby T-Shirt. "Vang," I assured him. Yes, a luxury hotel for me tonight please! In the taxi I try to make myself look presentable. I put on my best, or at least cleanest, T-Shirt and take off my bead bracelets. I try brush some of the dirt off my backpack and zip away the shoulder and waist straps. It looks a little bit like a shoulder bag, but really is still just a backpack pretending.. There is nothing I can do about my sandals - the only footwear I have with me are my pair of Tevas.
To try and compensate for my slightly grubby looks, I booked myself in with the title "Doctor Jason Haines" (unfortunately, "Lord" wasn't an option). PhD doctorants can be eccentric can't they? I've worked with academics that wore sandals in far cooler climates than Saigon.
I try to feign confidence as a stroll into the lobby. I've stayed in hotels of this class in Europe and had to pay 3 times as much for the privilege - I could stay here a year if I maxed out my Visa card limit. I give my bag to a porter and present my passport - use two hands in Vietnam - to the receptionist with a "Chao buoi toi (good evening)". I get a friendly welcome, well at least after they've seen my credit card. I'm sure the sideways glance he given me is just in my imagination.
The porter deposits my "bag" in my room and I change for a swim in the indoor pool. Back in the room, I hit the mini-bar. To complete my 1st-world neo-tourist-colonist image, I take a Gin and Tonic ("Keeps away the mosquitos, old boy! Don't want a dose of malaria, what?").
Over the few hours of my stay I spend more money on tips for the porters and the mini-bar than I'd spent on accommodation the previous two nights. The room is both ludicrously cheap by European standards and ludicrously expensive by Vietnamese standards.
"I hope you enjoyed your stay. Thank you Doctor Haines," says the receptionist as I check out. No, thank you!
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Flashpacking
A backpacker is someone travelling independently and on a budget. They avoid organised tours and typically choose simple accommodation and take local transportation.
"Flashpacking" is term that has arisen in recent years to describe a subclass of backpackers. The main distinction is that flashpackers are not so limited by budget constraints. High-end digital cameras and iPods are common equipment. Increasingly a laptop will also be crammed into the backpack between the sarong and the Lonely Planet guidebook.
I don't necessarily think there is anything noble about travelling on a shoestring. Some travellers take pride in how little they spend on a trip - the mock travel guide "Phaic Than" parodies this by boasting that one of its authors travelled on such a low budget that he actually made a profit on his last trip to Asia.
For me, independent travel is about the lifestyle. You are more open to meet people - both locals and travellers - when when avoiding organised tours and high-end accommodation. A backpack is a practicality and allows you to hop on the back of a motorcycle taxi which is often the best, if not the only, travel option to get to a budget hotel.
Having a tight budget for food might mean missing out on some local food. It will typically exclude the tourist-priced western dishes. I much prefer to eat local food while travelling, but after a few breakfasts of Pho (noodle soup), I feel no guilt about tucking into a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs with local coffee and fresh tropical fruits.
For me, independent travel is also about the experience. The broader the experience, the better. This goes for accommodation as well as food. Staying at a high-end resort is also an experience, but for my tastes is too generic and not as much of an adventure as staying in lower end budget options. At the other extreme, very low-end, dingy, flea-filled hotels aren't generally the sort of adventure one deliberately seeks out.
I'm on the "gadget-freak" sub-sub-category of flashpacker backpackers and I think I started early. I backpacked in 1999 with a CD player and a digital camera. This was in the dark days before MP3 players and when digital cameras were large, clunky, expensive battery eating machines. Laptops were impractical for travel and were without wifi. GPS devices wouldn't become popular until the US Defence Department turned off the accuracy reducing "selective availability". (oh dear, I think I've written a "kids of today don't know how good they've got it!" paragraph)
For my 2009 trip, I took both my digital cameras: a mid-range one with a good zoom lens and my pocket size waterproof one. I also brought my iPhone which has been invaluable. I think I got my full flashpacker stripes when I bought myself a MacBook Air duty free at the Hong Kong Airport. With free WiFi being pretty much ubiquitous, a laptop is usually the best method for internet access. It also allows me to write, write, write. Bus journeys are a good chance to sort photos, write emails and do blog posts.
I'm writing this on the bus from Dalat heading towards Saigon. I'm going to be dropped off on the way to visit Cat Tien national park. This is not the typical stop, so I'm hoping the driver remembers. I'm a bit reassured as I found the GPS coordinates on the parks official website. By entering them into the GPS app of my iPhone I know that we're now 54km and 1 hour 20 mins away from the park. Good thing too: I'd like a toilet stop for my bowels which are on an Immodium induced "pause".
"Flashpacking" is term that has arisen in recent years to describe a subclass of backpackers. The main distinction is that flashpackers are not so limited by budget constraints. High-end digital cameras and iPods are common equipment. Increasingly a laptop will also be crammed into the backpack between the sarong and the Lonely Planet guidebook.
I don't necessarily think there is anything noble about travelling on a shoestring. Some travellers take pride in how little they spend on a trip - the mock travel guide "Phaic Than" parodies this by boasting that one of its authors travelled on such a low budget that he actually made a profit on his last trip to Asia.
For me, independent travel is about the lifestyle. You are more open to meet people - both locals and travellers - when when avoiding organised tours and high-end accommodation. A backpack is a practicality and allows you to hop on the back of a motorcycle taxi which is often the best, if not the only, travel option to get to a budget hotel.
Having a tight budget for food might mean missing out on some local food. It will typically exclude the tourist-priced western dishes. I much prefer to eat local food while travelling, but after a few breakfasts of Pho (noodle soup), I feel no guilt about tucking into a plate of bacon and scrambled eggs with local coffee and fresh tropical fruits.
For me, independent travel is also about the experience. The broader the experience, the better. This goes for accommodation as well as food. Staying at a high-end resort is also an experience, but for my tastes is too generic and not as much of an adventure as staying in lower end budget options. At the other extreme, very low-end, dingy, flea-filled hotels aren't generally the sort of adventure one deliberately seeks out.
I'm on the "gadget-freak" sub-sub-category of flashpacker backpackers and I think I started early. I backpacked in 1999 with a CD player and a digital camera. This was in the dark days before MP3 players and when digital cameras were large, clunky, expensive battery eating machines. Laptops were impractical for travel and were without wifi. GPS devices wouldn't become popular until the US Defence Department turned off the accuracy reducing "selective availability". (oh dear, I think I've written a "kids of today don't know how good they've got it!" paragraph)
For my 2009 trip, I took both my digital cameras: a mid-range one with a good zoom lens and my pocket size waterproof one. I also brought my iPhone which has been invaluable. I think I got my full flashpacker stripes when I bought myself a MacBook Air duty free at the Hong Kong Airport. With free WiFi being pretty much ubiquitous, a laptop is usually the best method for internet access. It also allows me to write, write, write. Bus journeys are a good chance to sort photos, write emails and do blog posts.
I'm writing this on the bus from Dalat heading towards Saigon. I'm going to be dropped off on the way to visit Cat Tien national park. This is not the typical stop, so I'm hoping the driver remembers. I'm a bit reassured as I found the GPS coordinates on the parks official website. By entering them into the GPS app of my iPhone I know that we're now 54km and 1 hour 20 mins away from the park. Good thing too: I'd like a toilet stop for my bowels which are on an Immodium induced "pause".
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Travel Lady
The Travel Lady taps on her keyboard. "Flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Dalat," she says, "Is okay with stopover?" I frown. It's a short flight. "Where is the stopover?" More tapping. "San Franciso," she says. "San Franciso?!"
I plan to fly the next morning and that's too late for online booking. I figured that going to a Vietnamese travel agent in Vietnam with a prominent "Vietnam Airlines" sign in front would mean I could book a Vietnam Airlines flight. Not only is my travel agent probably using one of those brain-dead flight searchers that don't include domestic flights, but apparently she lacks a basic understanding of world geography. And relative costs - she slides a printed quote over the desk: $750.
So, I could take a 50 minute flight for around $50 with Vietnamese Airlines, or spend 24 hours on planes and $750. Maybe I'll try another travel agent. "Cam-on; Thank you" I say and make my way for the door.
I plan to fly the next morning and that's too late for online booking. I figured that going to a Vietnamese travel agent in Vietnam with a prominent "Vietnam Airlines" sign in front would mean I could book a Vietnam Airlines flight. Not only is my travel agent probably using one of those brain-dead flight searchers that don't include domestic flights, but apparently she lacks a basic understanding of world geography. And relative costs - she slides a printed quote over the desk: $750.
So, I could take a 50 minute flight for around $50 with Vietnamese Airlines, or spend 24 hours on planes and $750. Maybe I'll try another travel agent. "Cam-on; Thank you" I say and make my way for the door.
Bus trip to Can Tho
The Friendly Woman sitting in front of me on the bus motions to get my attention. She indicates in the direction of the ticket inspector and makes a sign. She spreads her fingers wide and taps her palm against her first curled in a circle - 50 thousand dong, about $2.50.
The ticket collector comes around as the bus is pulling out. "150 thousand dong," he tells me. I tell him the price is 50 thousand and we start to haggle. "I paid 50 thousand to come here," I lie, not wanting to implicate my undercover accomplice, Friendly Woman.
The bus is stopped and the collector calls over the motorcycle driver who had brought me to the (slightly dodgy) bus station. Since he had already ripped me off for the taxi, I guess they figured I would be gullible enough to trust him for the bus fare. They come down to 80 thousand and I give up by offering 70 thousand. Friendly Woman glances at me when the inspector leaves. I show her 7 fingers and she raises her eyebrows. I guess being overcharged 20% is a lot for her. For me, I avoided the original "200% gullible foreigner surcharge" and I ended up being taken for around $1.
Friendly Woman offers me further advice. She points at my shoulder bag and mimes pulling her own close to her. She indicates in the direction of the Sleazy Guy who is sitting across the aisle from me. The warning wasn't really necessary. When the bus was still in the station, Sleazy Guy had shifted across to sit next to me. With a serpentine smile and tobacco breathe he nattered at me in Vietnamese. "Fine," I thought when he touched my arm, "the Vietnamese are open and tactile people. My pale skin and hairy arms must be a curiosity." When he put his hand on the inside of my knee, I thought that was a bit too open. A stern frown and a firm shove sent him scurrying back to his side of the aisle. "Great," i thought, "now I know what solo female travellers have to put up with." So, no, I didn't need further warnings to be careful around Sleazy Guy.
The ticket collector comes around as the bus is pulling out. "150 thousand dong," he tells me. I tell him the price is 50 thousand and we start to haggle. "I paid 50 thousand to come here," I lie, not wanting to implicate my undercover accomplice, Friendly Woman.
The bus is stopped and the collector calls over the motorcycle driver who had brought me to the (slightly dodgy) bus station. Since he had already ripped me off for the taxi, I guess they figured I would be gullible enough to trust him for the bus fare. They come down to 80 thousand and I give up by offering 70 thousand. Friendly Woman glances at me when the inspector leaves. I show her 7 fingers and she raises her eyebrows. I guess being overcharged 20% is a lot for her. For me, I avoided the original "200% gullible foreigner surcharge" and I ended up being taken for around $1.
Friendly Woman offers me further advice. She points at my shoulder bag and mimes pulling her own close to her. She indicates in the direction of the Sleazy Guy who is sitting across the aisle from me. The warning wasn't really necessary. When the bus was still in the station, Sleazy Guy had shifted across to sit next to me. With a serpentine smile and tobacco breathe he nattered at me in Vietnamese. "Fine," I thought when he touched my arm, "the Vietnamese are open and tactile people. My pale skin and hairy arms must be a curiosity." When he put his hand on the inside of my knee, I thought that was a bit too open. A stern frown and a firm shove sent him scurrying back to his side of the aisle. "Great," i thought, "now I know what solo female travellers have to put up with." So, no, I didn't need further warnings to be careful around Sleazy Guy.
Boat trip from Phu Quoc
I feel eyes upon me and look across the aisle to see a sweet little Vietnamese girl giving me a toothless grin.
I smile, wave and say "hi," thus utilising 50% of my Vietnamese vocabulary. Her mother encourages her to say "hello" which she does. I take a photo with my iPhone and show the screen across the aisle. She gets curious and takes a step closer. I hold out my hand for her to shake. It takes her a minute and lots of encouragement from her mother to gather the courage.
She's interested in my phone and I wrack my brain for apps that might be suitable for kids. I've got a little fireworks application that responses to touching the screen and this keeps both occupied for the next half an hour as we send explosions and flashing lights around the screen.
Tired of fireworks, we move on to my photo album. She's able to look through by swiping her finger across the screen. Her mother looks across the aisle with interest. I show them photos of Switzerland and try to mime that snow covered alps means that it's cold.
Every time a western woman appears in a photo, the girl points at the innocent Swedish girl sitting next to me and asks me a question in Vietnamese. I have no chance of explaining that my dark-haired ex-girlfriend in the photo is not the blonde Swede sitting next to me. I nod enthusiastically. "Sure," I say, "it might as well be her." The Swedish girl raises her eyebrows and gives me a side-wards glance. Regardless of how many different western woman come up, she points at the Swede asks the same question. I nod agreement. We get to a photo of wedding in a park I once visited. The girl points at me and the Swede and asks a question in Vietnamese. In for a penny... "Sure," I reply. "Our wedding in Russia was very lovely," I tell the Swedish girl. She gives a laugh
We look at photos of my Cambodian trip 10 years before. There's ONE photo of me in there standing naked under a waterfall facing away from the camera. My bare, white buttocks cause much giggling for everyone. I tap on to the next photo and the girl swipes back to it. More giggling. Well, serves me right I guess.
I smile, wave and say "hi," thus utilising 50% of my Vietnamese vocabulary. Her mother encourages her to say "hello" which she does. I take a photo with my iPhone and show the screen across the aisle. She gets curious and takes a step closer. I hold out my hand for her to shake. It takes her a minute and lots of encouragement from her mother to gather the courage.
She's interested in my phone and I wrack my brain for apps that might be suitable for kids. I've got a little fireworks application that responses to touching the screen and this keeps both occupied for the next half an hour as we send explosions and flashing lights around the screen.
Tired of fireworks, we move on to my photo album. She's able to look through by swiping her finger across the screen. Her mother looks across the aisle with interest. I show them photos of Switzerland and try to mime that snow covered alps means that it's cold.
Every time a western woman appears in a photo, the girl points at the innocent Swedish girl sitting next to me and asks me a question in Vietnamese. I have no chance of explaining that my dark-haired ex-girlfriend in the photo is not the blonde Swede sitting next to me. I nod enthusiastically. "Sure," I say, "it might as well be her." The Swedish girl raises her eyebrows and gives me a side-wards glance. Regardless of how many different western woman come up, she points at the Swede asks the same question. I nod agreement. We get to a photo of wedding in a park I once visited. The girl points at me and the Swede and asks a question in Vietnamese. In for a penny... "Sure," I reply. "Our wedding in Russia was very lovely," I tell the Swedish girl. She gives a laugh
We look at photos of my Cambodian trip 10 years before. There's ONE photo of me in there standing naked under a waterfall facing away from the camera. My bare, white buttocks cause much giggling for everyone. I tap on to the next photo and the girl swipes back to it. More giggling. Well, serves me right I guess.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Meditation Tip #2
Following on from Meditation Tip #1 :
Meditation Tip #2: Breathe
Take deep relaxing breaths from your diaphragm. Belly breathing may or may not come naturally for you. To practice, exhale and rest both hands lightly on your stomach with the tips of your middle fingers touching. As you breath in you should feel your fingers separate, touching again together on exhalation.
Some schools get excited about exactly which orifice you breath through. I've heard several yoga instructors even claim that airflow through one nostril or another will affect which side of your brain is more active (hmmm....). Outside of hayfever season, I prefer relaxed breathing through the nose. Do whatever works best for you.
Meditation Tip #2: Breathe
Take deep relaxing breaths from your diaphragm. Belly breathing may or may not come naturally for you. To practice, exhale and rest both hands lightly on your stomach with the tips of your middle fingers touching. As you breath in you should feel your fingers separate, touching again together on exhalation.
Some schools get excited about exactly which orifice you breath through. I've heard several yoga instructors even claim that airflow through one nostril or another will affect which side of your brain is more active (hmmm....). Outside of hayfever season, I prefer relaxed breathing through the nose. Do whatever works best for you.
Another aspect is the pace of breathing. I read a paper pointing out that many relaxing activities such as meditation and singing share a common element of a controlled exhalation. The theory is that replicating this breathing pattern may give the same relaxing effect. Try it and decide whether it works for you. The technique is simple: time your inhalation for around 4 seconds and your exhalation for 6 seconds.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thoughts on: Whatever works
Not a movie review - head over to salon.com's review of Whatever Works for that - rather, my thoughts on the film, assuming the reader has seen it.
Despite a veneer of cynicism, "Whatever Works" is ultimately a optimistic philosophy of love. Indeed, the movie title is our protagonist's view of love explicitly expressed in one of his speaking-to-the-audience asides. While that philosophy might be an admirable one, the movie labours the point.
This film is also more than a bit deceptive in its presentation of this view of romance: it's not about two people finding each other and accepting each other for who they are. Rather, each of the main relationships in the film starts with someone falling in love based on some unknown initial spark - so far, so good: the ingredients for attraction are mysterious ones. However, the object of desire then conveniently finds a completely different, previously undiscovered, side of their personality. Each member of the Celestine family from Mississippi turns out to be one neurosis-resolution away from happiness and true love. While this may all be part of the joke, it comes across as more than a little contrived. The daughter, Melodie, discovers a suppressed intellectual curiosity. Her father has an almost insulting easy adjustment to the realization of his homosexuality. Melodie's mother, in an entertaining performance, discovers her talent for photography. Apparently photographer-artists are obliged to live in polygamous relationships; this aspect of the film is lifted directly from Allen's previous, and more satisfying, movie Vicky Christina Barcelona.
While a big part of a romantic relationship is self discovery, the personal growth resulting from the couples in Whatever Works is one sided. I'm not willing to credit Boris Yellnikoff's (Larry David) realisation that "maybe loving a human being isn't that bad" as being that much of a breakthrough.
My main problem with the film may be that the movie rests on Larry David's character whom I struggle to appreciate. Again from salon, Heather Havrilesky points out that Jason Alexander plays the "Larry David" character - as "George" in Seinfeld - better than Larry David does. In the recently concluded television series "Curb your Enthusiasm" Larry David portrays himself. The character George comes across as a lovable loser. In contrast, we get to see how much Larry David delights in showing us just how cynical and unlikable he is really is - it's the George character with mean-spiritedness replacing the goofy charm.
Overall, I didn't get many laughs from the film. This may in part be because I watched it on a long-haul flight with crackly audio on Swiss airline's mediocre entertainment system in economy-class squinty-vision. Comedies are usually better seen in a theatre to get the social proof of the rest of the audience laughing along.
Meditation Tip #1
A friend asked me about meditation and it occurred to me that I've learned meditation on at least 3-4 different occasions. Despite being wrapped in a lot of mystique, there seem to be a few essential points that are common across schools of meditation. I'll share my take on them over a few posts.
Meditation Tip #1: Relax
Find a comfortable position. I suggest lying down: leave your arms sightly away from your sides, palms and feet relaxed outwards.
Other schools suggest you sit. Qigong even goes for a standing position. Whatever works for you.
I keep my eyes closed. Alternative is to focus on a point in the distance and soften your gaze.
See also
Meditation Tip #2
Meditation Tip #3
Meditation Tip #1: Relax
Find a comfortable position. I suggest lying down: leave your arms sightly away from your sides, palms and feet relaxed outwards.
Other schools suggest you sit. Qigong even goes for a standing position. Whatever works for you.
I keep my eyes closed. Alternative is to focus on a point in the distance and soften your gaze.
See also
Meditation Tip #2
Meditation Tip #3
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Review: Shadowland
Piloboulus' Shadowland is in Zurich for November and the show is breathtaking. Describing this as "shadow puppetry" doesn't begin to do it justice. The show brings elements of dance and gymnastics and the shadow artistry itself is very creative. Shadows are used to convey an impressive amount of narrative while leaving the details to be filled in by the imagination of the audience. This is creates an incredibly immersive atmosphere.
Thematically, the piece is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland or, more contemporarily, the darker Coraline. Shadowland is darker still. Unlike the pre-adolescent protagonists Alice and Coraline, our heroine is a teenage girl. Her fantasy world is correspondingly more ominous and more sexual. These elements are compellingly combined.
Thematically, the piece is reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland or, more contemporarily, the darker Coraline. Shadowland is darker still. Unlike the pre-adolescent protagonists Alice and Coraline, our heroine is a teenage girl. Her fantasy world is correspondingly more ominous and more sexual. These elements are compellingly combined.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Diminishing returns of verbosity of ideas
A great insight in one sentence seems obvious, no matter how much of history [or] how many people have spent [time] not coming up with it. The same insight alluded to and digressed from for hours on end seems like a fantastic mountain of understanding.This is from Meteuphoric.
Certainly many of the "great ideas" books I've read could be neatly summarised in a pamphlet, yet the author stretches the concept out to several hundred pages. There are certainly diminishing returns when expanding on an idea or investing time in reading one.
Let's take the following (reasonably well known) advice for idea generation:
1) Immerse yourself in all the background material
2) Forget about it for a while to let it digest
3) Wait for the solution to occur to you
I once read a book (link anyone?) that openly and unashamedly expanded this concept out to 30 pages. I guess just scrawling the points on a toilet wall (or, um, a blog post) wouldn't get the same audience or revenues as publishing a book.
This phenomenon is also apparent from many of the TED talks I see. Many of the talks are authors presenting a shortened version of their books. The key ideas of Dan Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness
are neatly summarised in his TED talks on happiness. I found Alain de Botton's book Status Anxiety
an unsatisfying read, while his TED talk on the philosophy of success is sensational.None of this will stop me from buying every second book that is implicitly plugged on TED. The value I find in reading those books is not so much in expanding on the idea, but giving by giving myself the concentrated time to absorb the idea more.
Thus, succinctly summarised ideas aren't necessarily more obvious. Rather they perhaps just require more effort to absorb. So I disagree with the statement "a great insight in one sentence seems obvious". My counterexample is the Meteuphoric blog itself. A main reason I subscribe is the surprisingly regularity of exactly those one-sentence great insights. A half-formed idea of mine recently crystallized from the description, almost in passing, of corporations as a form of super-human intelligence. Another great insight is the idea of vegetarianism as a form or martyrdom - the same concept is particularly revealing when examining the recent backlash against geo-engineering solutions to climate change.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Katja Grace on love & marriage
Katja Grace, former ANU student and blogger of Meteuphoric. How could one not like a former ANU student?
Katja will regularly show a stunningly unique viewpoint on a topic. Recently she had a thought provoking post on love and the marriage contract.
Katja will regularly show a stunningly unique viewpoint on a topic. Recently she had a thought provoking post on love and the marriage contract.
Google Suggest
From Digg, via slate.com comes these two articles:
Awkward Suggestions - Let's have fun with the Google search box
The winner of the Google Suggest contest
Selective use of grammar gives an hilarious and sometimes disturbing revelation of an alternative Google Zeitgeist.
Awkward Suggestions - Let's have fun with the Google search box
The winner of the Google Suggest contest
Selective use of grammar gives an hilarious and sometimes disturbing revelation of an alternative Google Zeitgeist.
Movie review: Inglourious Basterds
Perhaps not a movie review, more my thoughts on the film. As often, I'd suggest that the wonderful writers over at salon.com give a better review of Inglourious Basterds than I can. I'll assume the reader has seen the film as I'll refer to scenes and include lots of spoilers. That aside, let's go!
Inglourious Basterds contains great acting, great dialogue and a compelling story. Tarantino has not so much borrowed historical facts as incorporated the mythos of World War II into his film. Most of the Nazis - and almost all the Germans in the movie are Nazis - are portrayed in a similar light as they are in computer games like Castle Wolfenstein. This isn't an attempt to achieve a realistic depiction of events, rather the Nazis are deliberately used as a mechanism to embody a cartoonish good-vs-evil battle.
The Nazis that have the larger roles come across as almost universally unsympathetic. No tears are shed when they are slaughtered off brutally and individually, or on mass. The one bad-guy that Tarantino humanises is German war hero Fredrick Zoller (played by the likeable Daniel Brühl in his first non-German movie). Unfortunately, Tarantino doesn't allow the audience to preserve their sympathetic feelings for him. In his final scene he is revealed as a chauvinist and just as evil as all the others. To emphasize the point, he is shot and in his dying moments manages to kill off the movie's heroine.
Not that Tarantino has ever displayed any sentimentality towards his movies' characters, the good or evil. Similarly here, almost every major character is bumped off. Tellingly, the only significant character that survives is Brad Pitt. I must wonder whether Tarantino would have allowed this character to live if it had been played by anyone other than a star of Pitt's profile.
Brad Pitt does give a solid performance in the movie as Lt Aldo Raine. I have to wonder though whether another actor with less of a profile might have brought more to the role. Some of the scenes - in particularly, one where Lt Raine does an atrocious job of masquerading as an Italian film maker - seem overburdened by Brad Pitt's ego.
Other actors in the movie are superb. Christoph Waltz is breathtaking as Col. Hans Landa, the Nazi "Jew Hunter". He plays the role with subtlety and precision and his Best Actor award at Cannes is well deserved. It will be worth rewatching the film for Waltz's performance alone. Many of the best scenes in the movie are based around clever dialogue building a delicious, almost unbearable tension. Waltz carries these scenes seemingly effortlessly.
An aspect of Tarantino's movie making that I find less favourable is his compulsion to pay tribute to movies he loves. When done with a light touch, this can work well. The opening scene of Waltz interrogating a farmer and his family is masterful. It's easy to imagine a similar scene set on a ranch in the wild west rather than a farm in occupied France. In other parts of the film, genre injection is more clumsily handled. Several characters are introduced by flashing up their character's name in a yellow, stylised font. This is jarring for those sections of the film where Tarantino had otherwise immersed us in a WWII genre.
WWII is not a genre that Tarantino has worked with before. He largely handles it well. I particularly appreciated that the movie was acted in the language that the characters would have naturally spoken under the circumstances. This cosmopolitan mix of German, French, English and Italian is refreshing and brave for a Hollywood movie.
Some elements of the story of WWII came across to me as anachronisms. Lt Raine's gimmick of carving a Nazi scar into the foreheads of released German prisoners doesn't make much sense in context. Post WWII, with the defeat of the Nazis, the swastika became a symbol synonymous with evil. At the time though, it was representative of the Third Reich, one of the world's superpowers. For the Nazis, the swastika was a symbol of pride and national strength. How would Americans of today react if marines captured in Iraq or Afghanistan had the American flag tattooed on their forehead?
A similar anachronism was the willingness of Col. Landa to sabotage the German war effort. Before the D-Day invasion, the ultimate defeat of Germany was far from certain. Would a high ranking Colonel respected by his side as a hero really place such heavy odds on the Allies being triumphant?
The faults are really nit-picks though. Overall, Inglourious Basterds is one of the few Tarantino movies I've thoroughly enjoyed (Pulp Fiction being the other). Overlooking the scenes of wincing horror/violence, Tarantino has put his talents of pacing and dialogue to use to create a movie that establishes a new sub-genre in World War II films.
Inglourious Basterds contains great acting, great dialogue and a compelling story. Tarantino has not so much borrowed historical facts as incorporated the mythos of World War II into his film. Most of the Nazis - and almost all the Germans in the movie are Nazis - are portrayed in a similar light as they are in computer games like Castle Wolfenstein. This isn't an attempt to achieve a realistic depiction of events, rather the Nazis are deliberately used as a mechanism to embody a cartoonish good-vs-evil battle.
The Nazis that have the larger roles come across as almost universally unsympathetic. No tears are shed when they are slaughtered off brutally and individually, or on mass. The one bad-guy that Tarantino humanises is German war hero Fredrick Zoller (played by the likeable Daniel Brühl in his first non-German movie). Unfortunately, Tarantino doesn't allow the audience to preserve their sympathetic feelings for him. In his final scene he is revealed as a chauvinist and just as evil as all the others. To emphasize the point, he is shot and in his dying moments manages to kill off the movie's heroine.
Not that Tarantino has ever displayed any sentimentality towards his movies' characters, the good or evil. Similarly here, almost every major character is bumped off. Tellingly, the only significant character that survives is Brad Pitt. I must wonder whether Tarantino would have allowed this character to live if it had been played by anyone other than a star of Pitt's profile.
Brad Pitt does give a solid performance in the movie as Lt Aldo Raine. I have to wonder though whether another actor with less of a profile might have brought more to the role. Some of the scenes - in particularly, one where Lt Raine does an atrocious job of masquerading as an Italian film maker - seem overburdened by Brad Pitt's ego.
Other actors in the movie are superb. Christoph Waltz is breathtaking as Col. Hans Landa, the Nazi "Jew Hunter". He plays the role with subtlety and precision and his Best Actor award at Cannes is well deserved. It will be worth rewatching the film for Waltz's performance alone. Many of the best scenes in the movie are based around clever dialogue building a delicious, almost unbearable tension. Waltz carries these scenes seemingly effortlessly.
An aspect of Tarantino's movie making that I find less favourable is his compulsion to pay tribute to movies he loves. When done with a light touch, this can work well. The opening scene of Waltz interrogating a farmer and his family is masterful. It's easy to imagine a similar scene set on a ranch in the wild west rather than a farm in occupied France. In other parts of the film, genre injection is more clumsily handled. Several characters are introduced by flashing up their character's name in a yellow, stylised font. This is jarring for those sections of the film where Tarantino had otherwise immersed us in a WWII genre.
WWII is not a genre that Tarantino has worked with before. He largely handles it well. I particularly appreciated that the movie was acted in the language that the characters would have naturally spoken under the circumstances. This cosmopolitan mix of German, French, English and Italian is refreshing and brave for a Hollywood movie.
Some elements of the story of WWII came across to me as anachronisms. Lt Raine's gimmick of carving a Nazi scar into the foreheads of released German prisoners doesn't make much sense in context. Post WWII, with the defeat of the Nazis, the swastika became a symbol synonymous with evil. At the time though, it was representative of the Third Reich, one of the world's superpowers. For the Nazis, the swastika was a symbol of pride and national strength. How would Americans of today react if marines captured in Iraq or Afghanistan had the American flag tattooed on their forehead?
A similar anachronism was the willingness of Col. Landa to sabotage the German war effort. Before the D-Day invasion, the ultimate defeat of Germany was far from certain. Would a high ranking Colonel respected by his side as a hero really place such heavy odds on the Allies being triumphant?
The faults are really nit-picks though. Overall, Inglourious Basterds is one of the few Tarantino movies I've thoroughly enjoyed (Pulp Fiction being the other). Overlooking the scenes of wincing horror/violence, Tarantino has put his talents of pacing and dialogue to use to create a movie that establishes a new sub-genre in World War II films.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Will humans ever stop fighting wars
This week's Radio Lab has a fascinating program on the, somewhat broad, topic of change. Go listen to the podcast; it's much more entertaining than my thoughts below.
They start with the question: will humans ever stop fighting wars?
They cite a contemporary survey claiming 90% of Americans say "no". In the 1980s this percentage was lower and people were optimistic for a peaceful future. I'm sure people's optimism for peace correlates with their awareness of war at the time. With the US being at war since 2002 it's no wonder that a peaceful future is hard to imagine.
A natural cognitive bias makes us over-estimate change that will happen in the short term and under-estimate long term change.
Short term we will probably have constant war. There has been a war somewhere in the world everyday since WW2.
Long-long term, a number of factors could change. Space exploration could lead to us mining the asteroid belt and effectively unlimited resources. Virtual reality could let each of us live in our own perfect world. We are evolving and we could in the long term become a more peaceful species. Radio Lab touches on this last point
The show's first story looks at how quickly a cultural change can affect aggression in society. The example is a great one: a troop of baboons in Kenya. A disease wipes out the alpha males in the troop. Without the more aggressive members, the troop becomes peaceful. Males would reciprocate female grooming and, very unusually, even male-male grooming became common. 20 years later the troop remains peaceful. New-comers to the group would learn non aggressive interaction. It's a small natural experiment that seems to support the old adage "If the world were run by women, there would be no wars."
It's clear that aggression will be culturally influenced, no doubt even more strongly in humans. Whether your "tribe" is a biker gang or a group of artists will affect your view on how to resolve conflict.
An evolutionary biologist is interviewed and sceptical of the result: until there is a genetic change baboons are still baboons and, presumably he means, naturally aggressive. But this "natural" state will depend on circumstance. It seems clear to me that baboons have a spectrum of aggressive behaviour and in the right circumstances can really be quite peaceful.
Radio Lab's 3rd part comes back to evolutionary biology and looks at a Russian experiment in domestication. A group of foxes was bred selectively to remove the foxes that were scared if humans. It's fascinating that the domestication process that took thousands to years to turn wolves into dogs can, when finally tuned and concentrated, turn foxes into pets in 10 years. The more interesting number I would want to hear, is how many generations this took.
This makes me think of selective breeding in the context of reversion to the mean. The original biological experiment on this was looking at bean sizes. These have a normal distribution. Over generations, larger beans will have descendants that are smaller, or rather, closer to the mean. For humans, two genius parents will typically expect their child to be less brilliant than themselves.
The implication of the domestication story is that selective breeding can alter the mean. I then wonder how permanent a change this is. If a domesticated population is then allowed to breed naturally, will they revert to their previous mean? I guess it would depend on the natural evolutionary pressures they find themselves under, once the absence of the artificial evolutionary pressure of domestication. In most circumstances, fear of humans is a pretty sensible default behaviour for animals.
Back to our friendly foxes, we find that not only do they become friendly, but they experience physical changes. Their ears become floppier, their tails more curly, their teeth smaller, their coats multicoloured, their bones thinner and thus their faces more feminine. Essentially they became more dog-like. Why does this happen? Radio Lab says: "No one knows why"
This is the point in the program where I jump up in my seat with my hand raised, "Me! Me! I know the answer to this one! Hormone levels are influenced in part by genetics. Domestication selects for those animals that are less aggressive. These animals have less testosterone and more oestrogen. Hormones also affect physical appearance, thus the foxes become more feminine."
Radio Labs' evolutionary biologist has a different theory: he also relates the changes to brain chemistry, but picks on adrenaline and the neural crescent cells that build the adrenaline glands. The implication is that selecting away from aggression selects away from adrenalin and the crescent cells that also build pointy ears and sharp teeth. Oh well, guess I've still got plenty to learn about evolutionary biology.
Radio Lab notes that humans are also physically changing. Our teeth have become smaller and other domesticated attributes. The theory goes, that as human tribes have grown in size, cooperative behaviours have become increasingly important. Overly aggressive individuals have been selected out of the gene pool.
I've got to wonder how much aggression we can eliminate. Corporate culture seems to attract and encourage aggressive behaviour. In contrast to the idea that society will select for empathy, sociopaths seem to be successful in companies. This success carries over into financial success and elevated status in society. High status correlates with having more children than average. So are we really breeding aggression out of species or will we just create more sociopaths?
They start with the question: will humans ever stop fighting wars?
They cite a contemporary survey claiming 90% of Americans say "no". In the 1980s this percentage was lower and people were optimistic for a peaceful future. I'm sure people's optimism for peace correlates with their awareness of war at the time. With the US being at war since 2002 it's no wonder that a peaceful future is hard to imagine.
A natural cognitive bias makes us over-estimate change that will happen in the short term and under-estimate long term change.
Short term we will probably have constant war. There has been a war somewhere in the world everyday since WW2.
Long-long term, a number of factors could change. Space exploration could lead to us mining the asteroid belt and effectively unlimited resources. Virtual reality could let each of us live in our own perfect world. We are evolving and we could in the long term become a more peaceful species. Radio Lab touches on this last point
The show's first story looks at how quickly a cultural change can affect aggression in society. The example is a great one: a troop of baboons in Kenya. A disease wipes out the alpha males in the troop. Without the more aggressive members, the troop becomes peaceful. Males would reciprocate female grooming and, very unusually, even male-male grooming became common. 20 years later the troop remains peaceful. New-comers to the group would learn non aggressive interaction. It's a small natural experiment that seems to support the old adage "If the world were run by women, there would be no wars."
It's clear that aggression will be culturally influenced, no doubt even more strongly in humans. Whether your "tribe" is a biker gang or a group of artists will affect your view on how to resolve conflict.
An evolutionary biologist is interviewed and sceptical of the result: until there is a genetic change baboons are still baboons and, presumably he means, naturally aggressive. But this "natural" state will depend on circumstance. It seems clear to me that baboons have a spectrum of aggressive behaviour and in the right circumstances can really be quite peaceful.
Radio Lab's 3rd part comes back to evolutionary biology and looks at a Russian experiment in domestication. A group of foxes was bred selectively to remove the foxes that were scared if humans. It's fascinating that the domestication process that took thousands to years to turn wolves into dogs can, when finally tuned and concentrated, turn foxes into pets in 10 years. The more interesting number I would want to hear, is how many generations this took.
This makes me think of selective breeding in the context of reversion to the mean. The original biological experiment on this was looking at bean sizes. These have a normal distribution. Over generations, larger beans will have descendants that are smaller, or rather, closer to the mean. For humans, two genius parents will typically expect their child to be less brilliant than themselves.
The implication of the domestication story is that selective breeding can alter the mean. I then wonder how permanent a change this is. If a domesticated population is then allowed to breed naturally, will they revert to their previous mean? I guess it would depend on the natural evolutionary pressures they find themselves under, once the absence of the artificial evolutionary pressure of domestication. In most circumstances, fear of humans is a pretty sensible default behaviour for animals.
Back to our friendly foxes, we find that not only do they become friendly, but they experience physical changes. Their ears become floppier, their tails more curly, their teeth smaller, their coats multicoloured, their bones thinner and thus their faces more feminine. Essentially they became more dog-like. Why does this happen? Radio Lab says: "No one knows why"
This is the point in the program where I jump up in my seat with my hand raised, "Me! Me! I know the answer to this one! Hormone levels are influenced in part by genetics. Domestication selects for those animals that are less aggressive. These animals have less testosterone and more oestrogen. Hormones also affect physical appearance, thus the foxes become more feminine."
Radio Labs' evolutionary biologist has a different theory: he also relates the changes to brain chemistry, but picks on adrenaline and the neural crescent cells that build the adrenaline glands. The implication is that selecting away from aggression selects away from adrenalin and the crescent cells that also build pointy ears and sharp teeth. Oh well, guess I've still got plenty to learn about evolutionary biology.
Radio Lab notes that humans are also physically changing. Our teeth have become smaller and other domesticated attributes. The theory goes, that as human tribes have grown in size, cooperative behaviours have become increasingly important. Overly aggressive individuals have been selected out of the gene pool.
I've got to wonder how much aggression we can eliminate. Corporate culture seems to attract and encourage aggressive behaviour. In contrast to the idea that society will select for empathy, sociopaths seem to be successful in companies. This success carries over into financial success and elevated status in society. High status correlates with having more children than average. So are we really breeding aggression out of species or will we just create more sociopaths?
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