Wednesday, February 3, 2010

mindful entertainment

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xvi. how to be alone, jonathan franzen
hmm, a bunch of essays on a variety of topics, they felt a little detached, like he had been commissioned to write pieces for a variety of magazines and publications, which is probably actually the case for most of them.

xvii. a moveable feast, ernest hemingway
similarly to thoughts i had while reading 'a short history of nearly everything' and 'fun home' it's a little eye-opening to imagine that famous authors alive in the same period actually knew each other even though they always seem like discrete figures. maybe that's what history is about? i never studied it.

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ix. religulous
the title is never explained but i guess it's supposed to imply ridiculous-ness. which bill maher does to great effect, by pointing out inconsistencies inherent in all religions, not to mention plagiarism and jealousy and a distinct lack of peace. where does logic end? he's preaching to the choir though, i often wonder how religious people would view these kinds of documentaries, probably with the same kind of cynicism that goes the other way as well. basically the unsolvable problem.

x. cold souls
the concept that your soul can be extracted from your body is quite strange, because never was 'the soul' defined; is it the good parts, the bad parts, what parts do they leave for normal functioning? i would have preferred the movie went more in this direction and maybe more also about soul residues, rather than going off on a tangent about trafficking and stereotyping russians.

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