Noticeably less algae
The advantage of having highly descriptive titles in posts is that you don’t have to write as much in the body of the text.
I think I’ll leave the lights off for at least today, and then see what happens tomorrow when they go back on again.
Lights and algae
We turned the light off yesterday – well, I did, in a fit of pique and an effort to reduce our chronic algae issues (iss-ues). I’m sick of the disgusting matting effect over the gravel and the plants, and I’ve heard that this can help. So we’ll see. As yet we haven’t covered it up to hide it from the daylight; thought we’d try this first. James thinks it might be getting more light now than it used to, and that might explain why it’s there.
Class distinctions
I’ve been thinking about class distinctions and their representations.
Actually, I started by thinking about war. How is this for degrees of separation?
— Reading Tomorrow, When the War began with my Yr9 class
— Doing war poetry at the end of this semester, to get them thinking about the realities
–Someone suggested watching something like Toy Soldiers, because it’s about a school taken over by terrorists.
— Sean Astin stars in it
— Sean Astin is also Sam Gamgee
— Thinking about explaining the relationship between Sam and Frodo, because I’m sure some would see it as at least hinting at homosexuality (“It’s me, Mr Frodo, your own Sam…”).
— Deciding I would say something like “It’s a sentimental, nostalgic take on the ideal relationship between a man and his closest servant” – which, thinking about it and then remembering Biggles, is often also attributed to an officer and his batman.
— “A MAN and his servant”?!?!
That’s when I realised that that phrase completely de-sexualises, and disempowers, the lower class. Quite a realisation.
As well, of course, I’m sure that it was mostly an upper-class idealisation; I wonder if the lower class visualisation would have had the two on a more equal footing?
Willow
Not the tree, the movie. Kate come over last night for dinner and brought it with her. I hadn’t seen it in ages, so it was lots of fun. Such a young Val Kilmer! And nobody else I recognised. It must have been a great day for the dwarfish (dwarvish? and is that the PC term?) community when it was made, since they actually used real short people rather than lots of special effects (which they couldn’t anyway, since it was made in the 80s or something). We were convinced that one of the brownies was Flacco, but I don’t think he was. I might show it to my year 9s if ever I get a chance to do my fantasy unit, since I think they would be less likely to laugh at this than they might at Labyrinth (pft; no sense of style).
Bush and guns
I thought the man was a fool, but not this much of an idiot: I just heard on the radio that Bush has framed the gun that Saddam was found with, in his little bolt-hole, and hung it on the wall in the Oval Office. My goodness! How tacky and passe, for a start, to have such a modern weapon hanging on your wall.
High Fidelity
I’ve been wanting to see this flick since it was on at the movies; finally got around to it today (love those 5 weeklies for $8.50 deals). John Cusack is such a star… he’s the only reason to watch that awful Nick Cage escapee film, and Grosse Point Blank is just brilliant. And I love it when he’s in films with his sister. This one appealed to me because of the music… I may not have known all the music referred to, but I can associate with the vibe of the thing (or so I’d like to think). Jack Black was great, of course. Anyway, it was well worth seeing and I just should have seen it before this.
Monsters in general
I finally saw Underworld the other night (J didn’t; he fell asleep). It was pretty good: wish I’d seen it on the big screen, because some of the sequences would have been awesome. It was heavily Matrix, I thought… that movie’s influence will be felt a long time. The premise of the story was interesting, too; I liked the couple of twists it had. I also thought the conclusion was quite brilliant. My one complaint was the stupid thing about Corvinus: I guess they had to have some explanation of why the human was important, but it was so convoluted that it was just pointless.
Also finally got J to see Monsters, Inc. This is such a clever film; any animated movie that includes out-takes gets my nod, really. And of course there’s the whole thing about the main monsters being James and Mike….
Great article
This article is about a very interesting exhibition in Melbourne at the moment. They should have looked at loo doors at unis as well as in pubs, since students often express philisophical and political musings there, as well as having full-blown arguments
The Day after Tomorrow
Went to see this today. Had read a review that said it was “half a good disaster movie”, which is unfortunately rather accurate: the last half is mostly concerned with the usual improbable father-crosses continent-to-find-son story. I did like it, though. The effects were incredible – cloud formations and water action – and the story was not as bad as it could have been. I hope it also makes at least some people stop and think, about two things: global warming (no idea whether the theories proposed in the film are even wildly valid or not, but the point still holds), and ‘first-world’ attitudes to ‘third-world’ countries.
It is, anyway, one that could possibly go on the ‘help! the world is about to end’ list, particularly because there is nothing humans can do about it in this case.
Tragedy strikes
Dead rainbow. Just discovered floating at the top of the tank. Had been no signs in any of them yesterday, and I hadn’t seen it earlier in the morning either. All the others seems to be carrying on quite happily… sigh.
Ajax is asleep on a piece of wood; looks like that, anyway. And J pointed out to me this spot on his side where you can see what looks like a valve working; possibly breathing?
Just a bit later
I think there are only five rainbows. We moved the light soon after I wrote the above so that we could have a closer look at Ajax sitting on the back wall, and there was a rainbow body, on the glass above the water. It didn’t look like it had been there for very long… I guess we might have smelled it, had it been there a while. So that’s a bit depressing.
Randomly Yours, Alex 