Random thoughts; bittersweet

[chickenfeet]

I have a snuggly grey cat on my lap and, like the bengals, she is healthy and hasn't been eating tainted catfood. This makes me very happy though my sympathies go to those of you with high temperature bengals or cats who have been eating the recalled brands. I hope everybody makes it through OK.

I've been reading physics again. This time it was Lee Smolin's The Trouble with Physics. It's the kind of book that disturbs me on many levels. There's the physics of course and I'll admit to prior biases in favour of Smolin's position. It does seem clear to me that any viable theory of quantum gravity is likely to be background independent. There's also the sociology. If physics is as prone to groupthink as Smolin suggests, what hope for disciplines that have a less strong tradition of objectivity. If physics can descend into pomo bullshit then we really are in trouble.

I would love to be able to talk about this with the beloved lemur but I can't. She has her spheres of interest and she isn't about to invest the huge amount of time in maths and physics that I have done. I understand that but I can't help wishing.

I was at the St. Lawrence market earlier. I really love that place. I see the same vendors and they know me. They also know and care about what they are selling. I think that's important.

I watched the trailer for 300 yesterday. I shan't be watching the flick. I was impressed by the armoured war rhino but the rest... with apologies to Simonides:

Go tell the Spartans,
Stranger passing by,
That here, in our bondage gear,
We lie.

Comments

[albionwood.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine (iisaw) saw it and liked it, so I've been posting snips from various negative reviews in his LJ. The NYT's A. O. Scott:

“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. ...a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s. ... Devotees of the pectoral, deltoid and other fine muscle groups will find much to savor...

The homophobic and pro-war agitprop aspects have been covered by, among others, Dan Savage, who says "George Bush is going to blow a load in his pants when he sees this movie."

So I, too, shall not be watching this one. In any case it is clearly designed to appeal to the video-game generation, which I somehow avoided joining.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

In any case it is clearly designed to appeal to the video-game generation, which I somehow avoided joining.

That's one of the two main reasons for avoiding it for me. I loathe the video game aesthetic. The other reason is, of course, my distaste for travesties of history, especially bits I know well. I rather regret missing some apparently fairly hot slavegirl on slavegirl action at the Persian court though.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

ROFL from the grave of Simonides.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

(I assume you've read Mary Renault's The Praise Singer?)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

A long time ago...