A felicitous passage!

I'm in the middle of reading Moby Dick at the moment.  It has been slow-going, to put it mildly; but every now and then Melville throws in some soaring prose that hits the nail of the human condition on the head and makes you sit up straight and reread it.  Here is a wonderfully written short chapter that I loved, titled "The Lee Shore":

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, new-landed mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.  When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!
Know ye, now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?
But as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God - so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

A Rhetorical Question and a Reminder...

The last few days, I've been asking myself: Why is it that we are so much quicker to be kind or understanding towards someone who we know is going through hard times?  On the face of it, the answer is obvious, but really, how many people do we encounter everyday whose stories we don't know, and yet if a confrontation arises we seldom give them the benefit of the doubt, or allow them some slack before judging them?

With the same mouths we praise God and curse men.  Note to self: quicker to listen, slower to speak.  Quicker to laugh, slower to anger.

Movie Review: Inception (2010)

Although the trailer for Inception did pique my interest a little, I didn’t have it rated as one of those blockbusters I had to see or I would DIIIE!  Well really, the last one that imperative for me was Lord of the Rings, so you can see the level of passion needed to awaken the movie monster in me.  But such was the buzz surrounding Inception in the last couple of weeks that I decided to watch in online a couple of nights ago.  I loved it.  I can’t recall the last time I finished a film that enthused—possibly The Departed four years back, although the sombreness of that movie meant it was a totally different experience.

If you haven’t yet seen Inception, I can best sum it up this way: it is The Matrix of 2010.  Not as mind-blowingly revolutionary as The Matrix, admittedly; nor as philosophically and ideologically probing.  But it is a very, very enjoyable film.  At no point was I aware of the time or wondering how much of the movie was left.  Much of this was down to impressive acting by Leonardo DiCaprio as the eternally guilt-ridden Dom Cobb, one of the protagonists.  Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ken Watanabe all turned in solid performances too, while Marion Cotillard is terrifically dark and menacing in the scenes she makes an appearance in.  A lot of my unawareness of the clock was also due to the action (almost continuous but never gratuitous) and special effects (breath-taking in parts—keep an eye out for the hallway scene).  But for me the real interest lay in the logistical and psychological complexity of what was going on.  As I’ve mentioned, it does not perhaps pose as many ideological questions as what you could take from a movie like The Matrix (which I keep comparing it to because they are similar in scope and subject matter, to a degree), but the logistical depth will certainly keep the wheels spinning.  If I have a quibble with the film, it's simply that it didn't quite reach its potential with some of the themes it touched on.  Some more introspective and nuanced questions in the philosophical and ethical realm would surely not have gone amiss.  That said, it was a great spectacle, and highly recommended.

The basic premise is this: sometime in the not-too-distant future, it is entirely possible to enter another individual’s dream, whether consensual and innocuous—in order to share the experience, for example, or for more devious purposes—to steal information and/or influence a person’s thoughts.  Although the majority of dream invasion centers on stealing information, it is the latter, much harder task of influencing a person’s thoughts that is the focus of the story.  After Watanabe’s character Saito catches Cobb extracting information from him, he offers him an extremely difficult job in exchange for safe entry into the U.S., where Cobb’s children are.  For reasons not immediately known, Cobb is wanted in the States and as such hasn’t seen his children for years, but Saito's ability to pull legal strings through his weighty business connections provides a potential solution.  Cobb assembles his team in order to perform his toughest task to date: Inception.  This involves planting an idea in the mind of Saito’s business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy).  The reason it is so difficult (and herein lies the psychological enjoyment of the film) is that, for the idea to truly take hold and develop to the point where it influences his thoughts, his actions—even his character—it must be subtle and convincing enough for him to think it is his own.

In order to do this, the team quickly realizes they will need to design and orchestrate not a single-tiered dream, but one of three levels—effectively, a dream within a dream within a dream.  Therein lies the logistical complexity of the movie, as we follow the team on their journey through different layers of the subconscious, having constantly to keep in the back of our minds which level they are in, and how that influences both previous and subsequent levels.  Added to the mix is the notion of ‘kicks’, or physical jolts designed to bring the dreamer back to a higher degree of wakefulness.

 The hallway scene

I won’t go further into the plot because it would take some of the suspense and excitement out of it, but suffice to say that it keeps you on the edge of your seat for all two and a half hours of the film.  It is an action-packed blockbuster, no doubt, but it is more--at times acutely poignant, such as the penultimate scene with DiCaprio and Watanabe; sombre at many others; and with a very ambiguous ending (I as an eternal optimist choose to interpret it accordingly) that offers a glimmer of redemption.  And although I’ve said it doesn’t quite live up to The Matrix’s probing questions, maybe I’m being unfair; it does raise some interesting points.  For example, What is the genesis of an idea?  Is it even possible to come to a conclusion objectively, or will we always bring our baggage and the thoughts we want to believe rather than what we know to be true? And if that conclusion harms no one and makes us happy, is that an acceptable alternative?  Is it ever alright to act on someone else’s behalf in their interests, even if those actions go against their will?  If so, where is the line drawn?  On a larger scale, at what point does the greater good outweigh individual benefit, or a person’s right to privacy? On a less ethical but nonetheless abstract level, how does the dreamworld work?  How is it that we can simultaneously create (often to extraordinary detail) and perceive within it without being conscious of the fact?

All interesting questions.  But my advice to you is to leave those for after.  For the two and a half hours of action, just enjoy the show.  And don’t worry about keeping up with the logistics—you can do that on your second viewing.  Or fifth, whatever.

My rating: 8.5/10

Runtime: 148 mins

Director: Christopher Nolan

Studio: Warner Bros.

MPAA: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout

How to be alone

I saw this video posted on someone's blog and liked it.  It's a bit cutesy, but it's well-made and I think the message is good.



It was made by filmmaker Andrea Dorfman and Singer/Songwriter/Poet Tanya Davis.  You can also find it on YouTube, where I got it from.

A Country Of My Own

Cerro San Bernardo, near Bariloche, Patagonia

To see a landscape like the one above, you could be forgiven for thinking you had died and gone to heaven.  Words and even photographs don't capture the beauty or the immensity of such nature.  Even more than this scene of lakes and trees amid majestic mountains, the kind of natural beauty that really calls to me is the barren, the overcast and the wild.  Heather bending beneath the wind on Scottish hills at the foot of a ben on a cloudy day.  Sheets of rain driven by a wind scudding across a New Zealand bay at sunset to contrast the utter calm and tranquility of the waters it has not yet reached.  The gray expanse of scrub and tundra nestled at the foot of imposing Patagonian peaks farther South, where I haven't trodden, but hope to someday.  

Or surreal, lunar landscapes of dry and dusty Cappadocian valleys in central Turkey, fairy-tale chimneys of stone rising out of nothing to stand in sharp relief against a bleached, faded sky.  Stars shimmering above endless dunes in Arabia, where a circular horizon shows itself for lack of landmarks, nothing here but sand, wind and stars.

And to think that, if Plato was right, these are just shadows and copies of a much more perfect and beautiful reality!  That these are but imitations of an ideal, as C.S. Lewis expresses so poignantly in the last chapter of his Narnia chronicles, Farewell to the Shadowlands.  I think Lewis must have been reading the book of Hebrews too--more on that in future posts.  It also reminds me of one of my favourite passages, in 1 Corinthians:

"Now we see but a poor reflection, as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." -- 1 Corinthians 13:12

Hi, I'm Andrew.  Welcome to my blog!  I'm going to be discussing whatever comes to mind and piques my interest, and re-posting things from around the net and the blogosphere that I think are worthy of some more attention.  I hope you enjoy it!  Let me know if you do by following this blog or writing in the comments.  Questions and discussions are welcome.