movies

I got a bike earlier this month called BOO!!. BOO!! has given me a new sence of freedom in dublin and a much better sence of dublin geography. One of the things I now am able to do is go rent movies. There is a video store called Laser that is kind of like Queen Video, and to get there before would be a huge friggn pain in the arse. For those who know Dublin (mud) the bus system is insane. All buses lead to the centre of the city, so if you want to get across the city at all you have to go into town and get on another bus back out of town. Not only is it crazy time consuming and a pain you also have to pay a full fare again. grrrr BUT now I can bike there in 15 mins or less.

A few nights ago I got "Rosmaries Baby", this is one of those movies that I was embrassed to say I hadn't seen yet. People just expected me to have already seen it. I had seen bits and parts but never from start to finish. Especially after my stepford wives obsession it was finally time to see this film. And my responce. well it is part of my top ten I think. It was great, deffinately one of the best films I have seen in a long time. One of those horror movies that mess with you head and don't go for the cheap trills. Except you have to wonder about the last sceen when the old women sticks out her tongue at Mia Farrow and the random japenese tourist. It was as if we suddenly were watching the directors cut. ready and I looked at each other giggling wondering if that really just happened. I'm sure most people already know the story line and I know I have a habit of telling too much of a movie so I will stop here, but if you are like me and enjoy these kinds of films GO RENT IT!!!

I was so excited about my new found freedom of the bike and movies that the next day after returning the film and reading in a random coffee shop for hours I went back to laser to get another film. Ok I know I said it is like Queen Video but what a really mean is that it is realitivley better and more artsy adn alternative then the mainstream video store but that does not mean that it has what you are looking for. I'm sure Blockbuster has everything that this one has. well maybe not, there is a gay film section and I don't think blockbuster has that. But the problem is I couldn't find anything that I wanted to watch, since I only have the DVD player on my computer my choices were even more limited.

I ended up renting alice in wonderland. The BBC black and white version. I know that the movie is bizarre to begin with but this verson really cuts the cake. First of all they removed all of the animal characters, the cards and much of the vision bizareness of the movie. It was a strange combination of realism in the absurd. It was slow paced and alice was this straight faced straight talking very calm girl. She never looked at anyone just stared into space as she engaged in diaglogue with these odd acting characters. The way it was done was very clear that this was not part of her engaging reality - her lack of eye contact and the lack of emotion and straight forwardness was in such contrast with everything that was happening around her. I can't say that I enjoyed it, I suppose I'm part of the video game generation where I want colour, action, humour something to grab me. I was ready to go on this trip with alice but she refused to have fun in her trip adn really I don't think I will smoke with her again ;)

I just looked up a review for this version and it seems I'm not allone in my interpretation of this film

Unfortunately, the film itself is a letdown. In the accompanying audio commentary, Jonathan Miller sets out his conception of this production. He attempted to make a film that stayed true to Carroll's dialogue (he discouraged any ad-libbing from the cast, with a couple of exceptions). He set the action during the Victorian era of the book's publication (the Queen of Hearts character is based on Queen Victoria). He didn't want his famous actors hidden behind animal-heads or playing-card costumes, so they are all dressed as Victorian men and women. In order to cast Alice, he placed a newspaper ad, and received hundreds of pictures of perky little girls. Only one girl's picture perfectly fit his conception of Alice as a somber, old-fashioned, stone-faced Victorian girl, so 11-year-old Anne-Marie Mallik was hired (this will sound odd, but her face reminds me of the half-naked pubescent girl from Blind Faith's 1969 record album). Though the BBC may have thought it was paying for a children's production, the film that resulted is geared more towards adults (it's simply too boring for most children—and many grown-ups, I fear).

That's not to say that the film has no positive qualities. It has the creepy, perverse, hyperreal atmosphere of a dream. The deep-focus, black and white photography is excellent, as is Ravi Shankar's sitar music (which Miller chose because it reminded him of the droning quality of insects on a hot summer's day). In fact, the film looks and sounds like an un-psychedelic, '60s-era head-trip. What little comedy there is relies more on Lewis Carroll's illogical riddles and puns than on character or shtick. I enjoyed the interchanges between Gielgud's Mock Turtle and Muggeridge's Gryphon, Peter Cook's Mad Hatter, and Leo McKern's drag-Duchess, but Peter Sellers is mostly wasted as the King.

women's week
ready and I made thisposter today for this Doctor for choice meeting, ok in reality he made it I sat there and said good, yeah, that print, right, no that one, good. It is the image when you click the word poster above, but we changed the text to "an intensely personal and emotional decision that can only be made by the Irish Church and state" Its a great poster. The meeting is going to be during womens week but not sponcered by womens week. The womens officer wants it to be a apolitical week. She thinks that if we give space for the pro choice group on campus we will have to give space for the pro life group. And even thought the pro lifers are going to have a event anyways the womens officer doens't want to have to support it. Fair enough I suppose, but I still feel that these weeks should be political and if readys and my motion went through to support the alliance for choice then the union would have made a stance and the womens officer would be alb eto choice sides. But for now, at least she is printing the posters.

This week is international student week, they have booths for many countries. the canadian booth has a hacky with a canadian flag on it and an out door adventure tour book of all of canada. thats it. Bascially it looks like canadians are out door stoner hippies. Ok maybe thats not such a bad way toi be seen, but there has to be more to canada. Funny think is I was joking to ready about the representation of canadians, then we went back to my gaff where I should him my hacky and pics of being at a cottage. So there you have it, I have fufilled the canadian requirments.

its racial assumption day at Tobies work

ah sorry thats everyday, but today was suppose to be a void of any harrassment or so the boss would like me to believe as the first thing he says to me is how he is going to try not to bug me today. By that he means that he will try not to make the racist jokes in my hearing range for once. Yet he still felt a need to explain how third world countries are starving there people for political reasons and don't need out side resources since they have enough money to build castles. Plus how is Africa the people wouldn't be starving if they went back to their natural ways of canibalism. When he came back from lunch he said that he didn't think the brown meet they served him was tuna, that he thought it might be arab.

This is all a massive improvement from him calling this girl at work ching chong and other "asian" sounding noises because she is from China, and when ever he sees any women who is not white says I thought that was Jessica (or what ever name he might come up with). Or how everytime a person of colour comes in he makes the assumption that they must be staying at a hotel and asked them if they have laundry service they can use at the hotel even when they are bringing in curtains and bed spreads.

The days where he goes off about only flying on a plane if everyone is white - or how the special olympics are stupid since those poeple should just realize they are not athletes they are disabled - or how in boston it is white people who shine shoes and the black people get there shoes shined to get back at them for years of slavery and as he says those poor white people having to bow down to them.

Or how people who have depression are just lazy and feading off the system, or how white collar crime isn't really a problem since they are just smarter then everyone else.

or or or . . . ahhhh somedays I think I hate my job, but then I just realize I can't stand working for this disagreeable man. You have to realize everything I mentioned and more only come out of him when he is having a good day. His bad days he yells at customers and basically calls them liars. He drives away customers everyday.

The one saving grace is the first two hours of work he is not there and he always goes to drop off repairs or coffee that keeps him away at least an hour. So with lunch and all that I only have to see him 31/2 hours a day out of 7.

This one guy at work continuesly talks aobut killing him, the other guy wants to have him convicted to a home, one of women humour him and the other ignores him. I have a mixture of ignoring him, or trying to argue with him in a futal attempt to fight the hate. I know it is useless but I can't be silent and therefore complicent in it all . . .

I cannot concentrate, I cannot read
Theories of class fly past my mind with out holding there own space
Focus can only come out of a drug of concentration.
An old found addiction that allows for self education.

I escape into the music and into my own mind
The theories are not liner there and the refreshing cannot be noted above.

I talked this morning about like minded people and post-modern feminists
All the time with tears streaming down my face.

You learn more with talking to those who differ from you
A kind women said to me on a cool summer day
Explaining how she enjoys her time with those who differ from her
Now in her older age.

Home was too safe, nothing would challenge,
I understand how I oculd stay for the love and comfort of it all,
By pushing my boundaries I discover the dreams I can now follow