(no subject)
(some pictures i posted on my stumbleupon account (of the same name, but rarely usedthese days) from the guardian's 24 hours in pictures feature).
lately, when i sit down to try and be productive, my head goes all fuzzy and i just. can't. concentrate. perhaps this is because i ahve no impending deadlines, but i do have a dissertation i should really get on the go.
things are going well. i am busier than i expected to be after exams (had been anticipating a nice long stretch of free time). there's been a fair bit of volunteering, reading/reseraching, socialising and generally trying to educate myself.
in regards to the latter, i'd like to document a few to share/to help me remember:
* a couple of week ago i went to a talk involving a former guantanomo prisoner (moazzam begg) and guard (chris arendt). it was very interesting indeed, and called to mind steve mcqueen's excellent film hunger. i find it difficult to articulate much more about it at the moment.
* last night, i attended a screening of peace, propaganda & the promised land about US media portrayal of the israel/palestine conflict - for me, it didn't highlight anything that i hadn't been expecting in terms of how the media spins, especially given what i've learnt in linguistics about how ideology is encoded in the language used by the media, but it was interesting to consider the specific messages/ideology employed and taught me a lot about the situation in general, of which i was/am woefully ignorant.
* when tom was here on sunday, we saw frost/nixon which i very much enjoyed. (the guardian had an interesting article on another aspect that i hadn't considered - about how although frost triumphed in this case, his future career doesn't live up to the precedent set by those interviews).
and hopefully i shall be seeing milk tomorrow with sai! which shall be very exciting indeed. in relation to frost/nixon and milk, i am taking a module called 'political fictions: on screen and apge' this semester. it focusses mostly on the 60s, but approaches the topic from a variety of angels; i just had the first lecture and it is looking rather promising. the other module i'm taking is called 'adaptation & appropriation', which will give me a chance to study some canonical texts that i haven't yet (brontes and dickens) but in a context which i will actually find interseting. i'll also be working on my dissertation, which also concerns adaptation, but in an american popular / youth culture context.
&
because i feel like sharing, here are some of the tabs currently open in my browser:
Click to viewjohnny flynn & laura marling performing a cover of 'travel light', from their summer tour of the US, along with mumford & sons.
incidentally, andy, with whom i share mutual friends but don't know each other very well, plays in/is a band called house of brothers. house of brothers supported mumford & sons on a uk tour, and i saw them play at nottingham (along with another band whose name i have forgotten but who quite enjoyed - altho their music live was, in my opinion, lots better than the stuff on their myspace). that night coincided with a brief stint to better my photography skills, particularly in relation to photographing people, so i have some photos from the gig. and andy's asked to use one of them (the one on his myspace page, actually) for his next EP, which is kind of exciting for someone who considers herself an amateur.
PS musically i am also madly in love with bon iver (liam introduced me to for emma, forever ago, but an old hong kong school friend andrew (different one) is also very into him and provided me with the earlier album hazelton which is what is currently living in my laptop cd drive. i still sometimes listen to mogwai (whose entire latest album is on their myspace, and accompanied me through many an essay-struggle), and am learning to love johnny flynn - i wasn't sure about him at first. incidentally, he's curating for 2 weeks at shunt (the club/gallery/theatre-type place situated in an old tube station, i believe, where zara went to for her birthday, which i sadly missed out on) and i would quite like to go. a london/shunt trip was sort of my xmas present to tom, a selfish one i admit because i get to enjoy it too, so maybe i shall suggest it to him... hah!
http://parkviews.blogspot.com/
a blog written by a man in my local area. a while back, there was an ad for historical walks around lenton at crocus, a community cafe where i volunteer at. due to general laziness, i didn't make it to the walk, but during my last shift i found a newsletter which details the walks and gives provides a link to the above site. perhaps uninteresting for many, but i think lenton's an interesting place (with lots of lovely buildings) so it's fun for me to find out more. the house in that partiuclar photo is one that i have been wondering about myself, and the blogger confirms my suspiciosn that 'people appear to be living in the house, despite boarded up windows on the ground floor.'
(OK, i am not normally one for local area love, but in relation to lenton, i am interested. the subject has made me think a lot about hte polarisation of politics in temrs of left/right and their cultural associations, in part in relation to america... this paranthetical bit probably makes no sense, but i can elaborate if you like)
wooster's dug a little deeper into an incident in nottingham that i heard about over chrismtas - fake signs which claim that certain areas are designated for public urination...
Sex between the covers: A new wave of erotica subverts the usual porn conventions, and invites debate about pleasure
(have yet to read this)
a beginner's guide to john updike.
a man who we (alison, sez & i) met in our youth hostel in prague recommended updike to me, after learning about my degree. he was interesting. i think in his early 30s. american. gave up his well-paid job to travel. had been in prague for a while and i think had met a lady friend during his european travels. he also recommended phillip roth to me (as did cliff, my sister's boyfriend).
sadly, i have yet to read either yet (actually, that's a lie, i began towards the end of time over the summer, but didn't finish it). it's difficult to find time to read outside of my course. had i been single honours american studies, however, i'd have read been required to do a module which includes roth. (my slight disappointment re: not doing that module is perhaps indicative of how little free reading time i have!)
and yes, i do read the guardian a lot. and i'm afraid most of these images have been hotlinked, sorry. (it's not like that many people read this, though!). my apologies if this bores you, but it's partly for my reference. things are pretty good right now. i am grateful. and felt the need to document, because i will probably forget that they were this good later.