Saturday scribblings…procrastinating, again.
1. Prisoner’s Dilemma? My weekday self and my weekend self play a never-ending game of wits, seeing whether they will cooperate in doing laundry, getting some exercise, cleaning the apartment, paying bills, typing up notes, and catching up on long-delayed reading and writing. So today is Saturday and weekend self has already chosen to defect, leaving weekday self with all of the stuff that weekend self promised to do *last* weekend. Oh well, thank goodness it’s an iterated game. (I realize that talking about myself in this fashion makes me sound insane. Nevertheless, I like to think that I have two selves, each holding fast to its priorities and preferences, rather than one identity hopelessly incapable of following up on anything.)
2. Education and Creativity. This clip, from the Ted Talks series, is more than a couple of years old, but I just came across it. For those in education schools it’s nothing you haven’t heard before; Sir Ken Robinson is arguing that 21st century schools have to start educating to unleash each child’s potential for creativity, rather than seeking to stifle that creativity. Not to say I disagree, but it’s one thing to be ‘for’ creativity and to draw out what that means in the context of mass education. Nevertheless, it’s worth a watch for the wry jokes and the humane vision.
3. The 4th Wave of J-Horror? These clips, originally posted on a Japanese video site, are making the rounds on YouTube; they’re Japanese McDonald’s commercials spliced together into short sequences that are at once annoying, bizarre, surreal,. and horrifying. If you have coulrophobia, these won’t help:
and
As you probably already know, the conceit of one of the masterpieces of the J-Horror genre, Ringu (The Ring), has a bunch of kids dying seven days after they watch a mysterious videotape. I don’t think they’ve yet to make the YouTube follow up…
Do yourself a favor and go see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, you won’t regret it!
Hey, I read your review over at your blog. The only reason why I didn’t go was because I thought it was going to be one of those ‘triumph of the spirit’ affairs – and I just don’t go in for huge doses of movie sentimentality. (I think we share a similar attitude here…). But it sounds great!
I see your blog got a makeover! What was the occasion?
Ah, a makeover once every six months or so is a good thing, don’t you think?
I’m still experimenting…I’ll probably switch back. This isn’t doing the trick for me (though I am still in the midst of doing a brand new banner, so we shall see.)
BTW, I’m waiting for you to blog on Sarkozy and his new education proposal re: teaching the Holocaust. What’s your opinion?
My opinion is that this guy is competing real hard for the title of “worst president ever” and he already has a strong lead! Fortunately, the French are already souring on him.
What a stupid idea! We are already taught the Holocaust in France, quite extensively, but in junior high school, not before. There is no need to push it back to 5th grade.
And I could spend my entire blog just on Sarkozy’s stupid ideas… not to mention the fact that he’s overstepping his constitutional boundaries. The PM should be governing, not the President…. sigh… now you got me started on this again!
I’m glad this template is not doing it for you… I didn’t wanna say anything cuz (as my own blog shows), I’m no blog fashion expert, but it didn’t do it for me either
Yeah, I’m pretty surprised how fast downhill Sarkozy is going, considering his victory over Royal was, if not a landslide, nevertheless fairly decisive. The Holocaust proposal seemed to me somewhat revealing: self-intoxication with one’s own audaciousness.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback on the template. I’ve reverted back – no more flirting around with other templates until I’m good and ready for a proper redesign.
Anything with Ronald McDonald in it is seriously wrong.
Of course – but the videos are still slightly subversive, no? Show them repeatedly to a classroom of kids and they’ll never want to step in to a McD’s again.