Is it disturbing when you find it trivial rather than shocking to see and hear about the atrocities we as humans have comitted against each other? Like the nazi concentration camps - Arbeit Macht Frei - a short flight away, less than a day to get there (and possibly back as well), and some 60 years gone by. Twice my lifespan so far - and perhaps on par with what I can hope to have left.
With so much evil occuring at all times - and so much information available, have we become de-sentized, blocking it out with the latest sports and Idol news and rumors? How much could we really change the world if we put all our effort to it rather than watching televison, playing videogames and surfing mindlessly?
Like Hanna Arendt - the triviality of evil, triggered by the Adolf Eichmann trial. (segment inspired by and based on the initial comments in a SPOR article by Erling Sandmo on the 21st of May)
Jedi beyond
census form with Jedi as religion - 390 000 did it... in the 2001 census in the UK. It wasn't an official option, but due to pre-hype and emails, it obviously hit a nerve with enough of the people filling it in.
"kidult" - 'the career-minded grown-ups who might as well play GTA as host a dinner party' - with Star Wars as one of the main iconic moments. Nice phrase, building on to the basis of the old gen-X discussion - when we don't really have to act resposibly, do we ever turn into "adults" in the way it was used, say, 50 years ago? When you can continue to meet your friends in bars and cafes, spend your time online and gaming - or simply backpacking around every now and then? Is life to easy for us? Or is it simply a new twist on the old "get a haircut and get a job" - rather than having a baby and reading the newspaper, we get a console and visit Rome?
"culture shock" - George Lazenby as James Bond - a young Yoda... things are not always as we would prefer them, or as we think we remember them (but sometimes they were... Han Solo controversy, the dvd edition where he doesn't fire first anymore)
Expectations >> possible result? Can't possibly reach the sky-high demands? But then, it sort of did - even if I had the feeling that there were missing segments waiting for an extended dvd?! Knowing a lot but not too much made it a good experience for me. I was pshyced, but not soaked in the rumors and speculation (knew about the big lightsaber fight, and expected a bit of wookies based on the trailer - but only got two short glimpses I think)
"Revenge of the Sith" - "Return of the Jedi", should have been called "revenge", but it was dropped to give a softer image - whereas the Sith can be nasty. But the question is - for me at least - is what it is Sidious want to avenge!? Unless you know the potential backstory (such as the setting for the KOTOR games - during the Old Republic, when the "present day Sith" are followers rather than a race, as they once were - before the fallen/outcast/... jedi settled on their world).
(nod to Phil Jupitus and his essay in FT weekend 30. april [locked sub online], and of course to mr Lucas)
Who gets attention?
Johan Harstad 630 page novel - review interview in MB by Bendik Wold, and a pure review by Erik Bjerck Hagen (13-19 May issue - yes, I'm catching up with some left-over paper-clippings to clear up the desk) Book called "Buzz Aldrin, where did you end up in all the fuzz"
Perhaps the best people are those we never notice - the once that bow down their heads and get the job done, be it tending to the needy, getting the groceries into the stores or the gasoline up from the ground (or the oil from the ground/seabed to the refinery and the gasoline from there to the pump to be literal)
Starting of the review by calling it "very long novel"... at 600 pages it is a short Clancy or Grisham. Not to mention the various RA Salvatore et al trilogies coming out from Wizards. Which is basically why I hardly bother with any new norwegian literature - especially in hardcover. Paying $80 for a book and finishing it in one evening? Or $15 for a pocket version of a solid (proven) international author?
"magnificent, magnificent desoltaion" - Aldrin, a "half mythological, half forgotten name, drifting into and out of consiounsness" It is out there, the big open - the universe and all the other planets, stars and other entities.
Cardigans - the swedish band - Nina Persson "terribly sweet but tough enough to play Black Sabbath covers" [tune in and listen to it?]
1972 - Sun Ra made "space is the place" - and man visited moon for the last time... so far?
...and the sun is softly lighting up the clouds, keeping it nice and light at almost 9 in the evening
[semi-draft, maybe improve and expand during the weekend?]
