Month: January 2009

Went to see “Slumdog Millionaire” last night not having an inkling what it was about. Had detected the Oscar buzz and noticed the poster image of the lead couple, but genuinely had managed to miss reading, seeing or hearing anything like a review or a trailer. I had even failed to connect some recent Bollywood media references with this film, and not noticed the “Who wants to be a Millionaire” references. So I went in cold, expecting some cheesey chick-flick.

What a treat, on so many levels. The best movie I can recall seeing in a very long time …. spoiler warning ….

On the face of it, it’s Hollywood plot #1, boy meets girl, circumstances drag them apart to near-death experiences, and mixture of fate and determination bring them to the obligatory tight-shot as they finally kiss, love having conquered all. I was actually disappointed that the (Oslo) audience did not get up to dance and cheer as the credits rolled with the Bollywood-style curtain calls. (But then we’ve had surreal cinema audience experiences here before. *)

The 2008 Mumbai hotel and railway station terrorist events must have created some interesting production team meetings, concerned as the film is with Hindu vs Moslem vs the underworld of the Westernization of the Indian economy set against those very same Bombay locations – setting brother against brother – from the perspective of street-wise Moslem kids. Brave stuff.

“Millionaire” provides not only the insidious example of a Western meme creeping in to dominate popular culture, but of course is the vehicle to create the suspense and tension as each “chapter” is played out. Inspired. Inspiring too the sights, sounds and smells of the locations and the characters, especially the child actors playing the eponymous slum-dogs.

Millionaire also provides the “riches” in this rags to Raja, raga-musical tale, where it is so evident that love drives the final gamble. He makes the right choice. It is of course not written, but determined; By all too human intentions.

OK, so maybe the predictable outcome was a little too cheesey, and why did they have to show us a shot of the cell phone falling onto the car seat to signal its later significance. Minor flaws in a well executed emotional whirlwind with some deep and lasting messages. Go see, and don’t fail to get up and dance as the credits roll.

[(*) The previous Oslo fim experience ? The audience laughing at the ironic discovery of the pet puppy hidden amongst the matket produce on the boat, after Apocalypse Now’s Mekong patrol crew had machine-gunned the local occupants . Irony yes, but laugh ?]

[Post Note … and this is reassuring.]

Interesting quote in this piece on rising fish stocks in the Med off the Nile delta as a result of increased agricultural run-off nutrients in the river.

We’re programmed in the West to think of ….

Those darned memes again.

Thanks to Sam for the link to this Grauniad piece. A series I didn’t know, featuring in this edition Niall Ferguson, a historian I’ve barely heard of.

We historians are increasingly using experimental psychology to understand the way we act. It is becoming very clear that our ability to evaluate risk is hedged by all sorts of cognitive biases. It’s a miracle that we get anything right.

I’ve become a transatlantic human being – six months here with my family and six months in Harvard. I abuse caffeine on the way out and alcohol on the way in.

Cognitive biases and habits, and …

I don’t envy the historians of the current period. You have a disappearing decision trail in politics. It’s likely that databases of emails won’t be preserved, and if they are there will be so many that it will be extremely hard to use them. Plus, in investment banks they downgraded the use of email and switched to voicemail for key decisions, because of legal issues.

Oral history is a recipe for complete misrepresentation because almost no one tells the truth, even when they intend to.

Truth eluded in the information age.

[Post Note : For heaven’s sake; Join up the dots between points one and four. It’s not the Oral aspect of history that’s at issue, but the elapsed time between the experience and the expression of it, written or oral. What is expressed is always related to what is experienced, via psychology … all of it ! ]

Priceless.

A 1980 film that passed me by, of a genre that I wouldn’t normally be looking out for anyway … but I discover includes footage of Stevie Lange performing The Stripper with Night, as well as performances from UB40, Pretty Things and B A Robertson. (A track not published in any other recording, except the inevitable YouTube. The clip – including a strip – has been removed, but the sound track is ripped here.) What a voice.

In her current line of voice-coaching and music-production business Stevie is promoting her work with heavy rock band from Virginia  Sekshun 8.

Another great Einstein quote, provided by Steve Peterson in the Hildebrand / Dewey / Rorty thread mentioned earlier on MoQ.Discuss.

“Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world. In our endeavour to understand reality we are somewhat like a man trying to understand the mechanism of a closed watch. He sees the face and the moving hands, even hears it ticking, but he has no way of opening the case. If he is ingenious he may form some picture of the mechanism which could be responsible for all the things he observes, but he may never be quite sure his picture is the only one which could explain his observations. He will never be able to compare his picture with the real mechanism and he cannot even imagine the possibility of the meaning of such a comparison.”

This is my “there is always a hole in any metaphysics” point. And, let’s not forget that ingenious is the root of “engineering”, Dennett’s preferred intentional metaphor for evolutionary processes … cue blind watchmaker … etc.

I linked earlier to the BBC resources aimed at celebrating the 200 and 150 year annivesaries of Darwin and the Origin.

When I saw the “In Our Time” schedule for Darwin last week I had to yawn however. So I also had to smile also when Melvyn in his own newsletter decided not to mention the subject of the series at all, or only in passing in the newsletter about the subsequent week’s subject – Thoreau.

I didn’t think that I needed to write newsletters about Darwin, … there seemed not a lot else to say.

Why oh why did the BBC miss a chance to contribute to the value of Darwin in the evolving world of here and now by going back to the history of his life and times – again ?

OK so it is amazing how much Victorian gentlemen really were working on the right stuff (despite the conservative image of their day) and how the rise in the dominance of science and technology through 20th century wars and economics almost totally obscured that view. Evolution as the most important natural process in human progress was true then, as before and even more so now. The resources of education must be focussed on explaining that point. Contributing to the fluff that takes our eye off that ball was a major gaff by the Beeb.

Still at least Melvyn noticed the real topic, when linking the contemporay rise of US Pragmatism from Darwin, through Thoreau …

I’m always astonished by the range of these great Victorian men.

So come on Melvyn and the Beeb, join up the dots, and stop falling down into the tried and tested silos of subject matter.

Debating the legal niceties never helped anyone but lawyers.

Glad to see the Israel Gaza conflict back in proper focus after the inordinate coverage of the feel-good Hudson Hero story over two days.

Of course phosphorus weapons are legal battlefield weapons, but that gives Israel absolutely no moral right to use them in the densely populated Gaza. Criminal. And they’ve been doing it continuously since December. Criminally cynical too for Israel to launch this offensive over Christmas and New Year and whilst the US administration is in limbo. The UN effectiveness must be strengthened to balance these Christian / US weaknesses.

How does Israel expect any case it has for Levantine lands to be taken seriously when it acts like this ?