There are times, when you really really want to go to the cinema to watch a movie, but there is really nothing good on, so you end up going to a film you didn't really want to see just to be inside a cinema.
And then there are times when there are so many (potentially) good films about that you can't find the time to watch them all.
In the last two weeks, we flipped from situation 1 to situation 2, the quickest positive trend in film on offer for a long time.
Firstly, there was The Grand Budapest Hotel, which we saw in the art cinema last Sunday. Great film, quite strange, but in a good way. In the previews we saw the trailer of August: Osage County, which I have been meaning to watch since the Oscar nominations came through, and I want to watch even more after reading a very positive review on it. There was also a preview of The Book Thief, based on a young adult novel that is quite popular (writing this sentence made me realise that English is lacking a term for 'boekverfilming', the Dutch word used to describe films based on books. In the past, most Dutch films were based on books as funding is hard to come by otherwise, but the English-speaking world is quickly catching up, with most films now based on books or 'true stories'...). The film got some pretty bad reviews but still looks good anyway. The same is true for A Long Way Down, based on my favourite Nick Hornby novel. Most reviews say the film has done anything possible to wreck the great atmosphere of the novel, but still, I love the story and I will have to see it for myself.
So that made for 4 films, only 1 of which I have already seen.
But then yesterday's paper had even more film reviews, and they were quite positive about The Invisible Woman, which is a portrayal of one of the darker parts of Charles Dickens's life. Another literature film! I will have to see it. On the next page over was a review of Kill Your Darlings, the film starring Daniel Radcliffe and dealing with Alan Ginsberg's younger years. I am not a fan of the Beat generation, partly because I gave a horrible presentation on them once, and partly because I think the stuff they wrote is just too far-fetched, but this also looks like quite a nice film.
So, 5 films I need to watch, 4 of them literature-related. What more can a person ask for, apart from better cinema-going weather. It's going to be sunny and warm for the next few days, so I will have to put my film-cravings on hold for a little while, as great weather is even harder to come by than great films!
Friday 28 March 2014
Wednesday 19 March 2014
I made something
You can often see Internet memes captioned 'I made dis', showing proud (to our anthropomorphic minds) cats, dogs, or other animals and their offspring. I think the best example by far is this one, also because of the other word-joke included:
Anyway, as of yesterday, I have been walking around with the same feeling. Not that I have been making offspring, but I have been making books.
Now I've made stuff before: paintings, cakes, cookies, hand-crafted presents, and the like (this is apart from all the study-related stuff I've made, such as essays and endlessly transcribed editions of obscure medieval texts). I have even made books before, that is to say, I completed NaNoWriMo and other writing endeavours, and sometimes I've printed them out and handed them around.
But I've never really made a true book, with a cover and a title page and an opening and an ending and useful stuff in between. But as of yesterday, there are books in existence that I have made.
Not technically, of course, I haven't done any of the printing or putting-together. I'm not even that responsible for the content, as I haven't actually written a word that can be found in them. But I have managed the project that brought these books into being, from creating the concept, thinking up the graphic design, writing the texts, revising the texts, thinking up ideas for the pictures, then handing it over to the editors who made people draw the pictures and put it through to the typesetter who made it into a book file, which was then sent to the printer to be printed.
All these things were done by other people. But I am the only person who was involved in every step, and had influence on every step, and it is regarded by everyone as 'my' project, and hence when the books came in from the printer's yesterday they were brought to me and declared to be 'my' books.
This is not true at all, they were a team effort, a very nice effort at that, and I am very happy with the result. But still, I do have to agree that deep down, they do feel like 'my' books. Truly a 'I made dis' moment, which I hope I will experience many times more, maybe one day even with human offspring involved.
Anyway, as of yesterday, I have been walking around with the same feeling. Not that I have been making offspring, but I have been making books.
Now I've made stuff before: paintings, cakes, cookies, hand-crafted presents, and the like (this is apart from all the study-related stuff I've made, such as essays and endlessly transcribed editions of obscure medieval texts). I have even made books before, that is to say, I completed NaNoWriMo and other writing endeavours, and sometimes I've printed them out and handed them around.
But I've never really made a true book, with a cover and a title page and an opening and an ending and useful stuff in between. But as of yesterday, there are books in existence that I have made.
Not technically, of course, I haven't done any of the printing or putting-together. I'm not even that responsible for the content, as I haven't actually written a word that can be found in them. But I have managed the project that brought these books into being, from creating the concept, thinking up the graphic design, writing the texts, revising the texts, thinking up ideas for the pictures, then handing it over to the editors who made people draw the pictures and put it through to the typesetter who made it into a book file, which was then sent to the printer to be printed.
All these things were done by other people. But I am the only person who was involved in every step, and had influence on every step, and it is regarded by everyone as 'my' project, and hence when the books came in from the printer's yesterday they were brought to me and declared to be 'my' books.
This is not true at all, they were a team effort, a very nice effort at that, and I am very happy with the result. But still, I do have to agree that deep down, they do feel like 'my' books. Truly a 'I made dis' moment, which I hope I will experience many times more, maybe one day even with human offspring involved.
Thursday 13 March 2014
Cat cards
I like cats. You might even go as far as to say that I am a 'cat person'. However, I don't consider myself very extreme in my cat love. Okay, I am wearing a shirt with a cat on it at the moment, but it's one of only 2 I have (the other one says "Are you kittin' me?") and it's very cool, and not something like 'Jesus was a cat' or a pastel-coloured pencil drawing of a kitten in a basket of flowers or something.
Which exactly exemplifies the two groups of 'cat people' that you can find in the world, in my opinion: the ones that focus on the cats independence and coolness, and the ones that focus on the cat's prettiness and fluffiness.
Now this is not something I think about on most days (ah, what a quiet life I would have if I could...) but today I received two cat postcards that got me thinking about this. Let me present them to you:
Exhibit A:
And exhibit B:
Do you get what I mean?
When I ask for 'cat postcards' on Postcrossing, I'm talking about type A: pictures that show off a cat's independence, stubbornness, innate relaxedness, just how they are as solitary creatures. Picture B to me shows a scared, fluffed-up, cuted-up baby that can't really think for itself.
And that has nothing to do with me not liking long-haired cats, because you can have the 'majestic independence' in those types of cats too:
It's mainly the 'deer in the headlights' look, or the combination of cats with other cute things, such as roses (as in this card, and here too), bunnies (here, although this cat does look like it has a mind of its own, and the bunny knows it) fishbowls (here) and vacant expressions (here).
So somehow, it is pretty rare to get a cat-card that shows the cat the way I think they are. Maybe that proves my cat-worldview is faulty, or maybe it proves that cats do not photograph easily (which I can attest to personally), or don't really want to show themselves on camera. Whatever the reason, but when I do get one like the first card above, it makes it extra special, which is nice in a way too.
Which exactly exemplifies the two groups of 'cat people' that you can find in the world, in my opinion: the ones that focus on the cats independence and coolness, and the ones that focus on the cat's prettiness and fluffiness.
Now this is not something I think about on most days (ah, what a quiet life I would have if I could...) but today I received two cat postcards that got me thinking about this. Let me present them to you:
Exhibit A:
 |
| HK-221737 received 13 March 2014 |
 |
| DE-2903757 received 13 March 2014 |
When I ask for 'cat postcards' on Postcrossing, I'm talking about type A: pictures that show off a cat's independence, stubbornness, innate relaxedness, just how they are as solitary creatures. Picture B to me shows a scared, fluffed-up, cuted-up baby that can't really think for itself.
And that has nothing to do with me not liking long-haired cats, because you can have the 'majestic independence' in those types of cats too:
 |
| FI-1853936 received 15 September 2013 |
So somehow, it is pretty rare to get a cat-card that shows the cat the way I think they are. Maybe that proves my cat-worldview is faulty, or maybe it proves that cats do not photograph easily (which I can attest to personally), or don't really want to show themselves on camera. Whatever the reason, but when I do get one like the first card above, it makes it extra special, which is nice in a way too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)