Activist Me
Yep, I’m putting my money – and self – where my mouth has always been.
1. I started a school Amnesty group. It’s got maybe 10 very passionate kids coming along already (“can we go on a rally, miss?”). Today we held a lunchtime stall to raise awareness of violence against women, as part of AI’s 16 Days of Activism. We had badges, and they went very quickly. Got lots of kids to sign the petition… perhaps because we bribed them with badges, but I think saturation advertising has to have some good things going for it.
2. I went on strike, and went to the rally at the MCG last week, to protest against the new IR laws. It was a pretty cool atmosphere, and I really hope it makes a difference. It certainly felt amazing to be part of tens of thousands of people walking into the city together. Seriously people can make a difference. I hope.
Songs that make me cry
1. Brighteyes, by Simon and Garfunckle, from the movie Watership Down, which I saw as a kid and refuse to see again.
2. To her door, by Paul Kelly; it’s just so heart-breaking, and so real.
3. Forever Autumn, by Justin Hayward (singer for the Moody Blues), from Jeff Wayne’s musical version of War of the Worlds, which was one of the first CDs I ever bought. Again, this is a heartbreaking song… and just beautiful.
Supercentenarians
That may be spelt incorrectly. It’s people who’ve lived to be older than 110 years old. This website has really remarkable photos of some of them, and a few other people who are only just over 100 years old. There’s one man whose father stood next to Abraham Lincoln for the Gettysburg Address… I’m not even American and I think that’s cool.
**Edit: I got a great deal of traffic to this one little post when I had it spelt ‘supercentarians’. I decided I couldn’t stand the spelling error but wanted to see if I kept the traffic!!
Bridge to Terabithia
They’re making a movie of it! Amazing. Another of the books that I grabbed from school the other day, which I haven’t read in a long while – I definitely read it in primary school, and I can’t remember if I’ve read it since. Anyway, I’ll have to read it again before I see the movie, I think. From the trailer, it looks very different from what I remember about the book – I thought the imaginary stuff was just that, imaginary – but the movie seems like it will make those things ‘real’.
What I really wonder is how they will deal with the ending. I know some kids’ movies don’t shy away from tragedy, but that far? It will be interesting to see.
Ivanhoe
I am in the middle of Ivanhoe, the TV show. I thought it was much older than it is – it was made in 1997! And there was me thinking there were parts that looked like Monty Python’s Holy Grail! Oops.
I am definitely enjoying it… I got Scott’s book at a second hand book sale ages ago, but haven’t got around to reading it yet. Of course. The romantic entanglements have me very confused about exactly how it will all be resolved in the end. Well, one of them is dead, so I guess that helps… .
Isobelle Carmody
I’ve never read any Carmody except The Gathering, which I didn’t really like. I got Obernewtyn from school, and read it… in a day or so. I called my friend Krick, who has been bugging me to read them since, oh, college. She has also been complaining about the last not having been written, but I forgot that part when I started reading them. Anyway, she has given me the next three, and I am a third of the way through the fourth. I am, obviously, loving it. I had never realised it was post-apocalyptic; if I had, I would have read them long ago.
Then again, since the fifth – and God willing, final – was rumoured to be coming out the end of this year and Penguin now tells me (through Readers Feast) that it will be out in July ’07, there is less time for me to pull my hair out waiting.
Hanging out for this and Garth Nix may be the death of me.
[ominous] Dr Strangelove [/ominous]
or [perky] How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb [/perky].
That’s how the theatrical trailer presented it, anyway, and it was very apt.
The bro-in-law gave it to me a couple of Christmases ago, and I finally got around to watching it on Friday. It wasn’t entirely what I was expecting.
1. I hadn’t realised it was black and white.
2. I hadn’t realised Peter Sellers played three roles. That was cool.
3. I had no idea what the comedy in it would be like; that it was so esoteric was unexpected. I think I had thought it would be a bit more laugh-out-loud funny.
I did like it. Peter Sellers was very clever; I am not sure that I have seen him in anything else – which is a terrible burnish on my would-be movie guru plaque – but I was impressed by his physical comedy, as well as his absorption into the characters. It took me a significant while to realise that he was both Strangelove and the English dude; I didn’t realise at all that he was the president at all until maybe the end of the film!
I can’t imagine what it must have been like when it first came out. I am used to seeing apocalyptic movies, and I am not living in the Cold War so it doesn’t feel at all prescient. For a 60s audience… whew. Must have been a bit of a head-spin.
The iPod in my head
J thinks I am terribly funny, because I have music in my head most of the time… probably even when I sleep.
The other idea I had quite a schizophrenic day. Thanks to JJJ, I had Adalita from Magic Dirt’s cover of “Double Dare”, which is very dark and brooding and just a little threatening, in my head. It was combined, though, with the lovely Lior’s “This old love” – which is as mellow and lovely and delightful as they come.
So, crazy day in my head.
Carnivalesque
Hey, look – I got into the latest Carnivalesque. How very exciting! Welcome to anyone who follows that link.
Wickets
There is something very special about the sound of a batsman being bowled. It has to do with the leather ball hitting the wood, the clunk of it, and somehow the sound of the stump coming out of the ground.
I am not as much of a cricket tragic as my mother, but I do love summer.
Randomly Yours, Alex 