(Untitled)

[mimicucumber]

Springheel_Jack writes up Roman Polanski so we all don't have to.

This is the month of really large daddy longlegs. They're forever getting trapped in stuff, like the one this morning that had attached itself to a bit of radiator-fluff and was stuck. I freed it and it came flying at me, trailing cobweb, like a very small nightmare. Stupid things.

Comments

[talkingtocactus]

they are like my worst phobia, i hate daddy long legses. when i was at boarding school there was this little lawn area that wasn't cut very often outside the dorm block and every time you walked across it (which was every day to start with, until they put in a path and cut the grass more) about 6-7 of them would fly into your face every time you took a step. the corridor between my dorm and the loos was basically a graveyard for them, and one night i pulled my duvet back to get in bed and there were 8 of them in my bed. i refused to get in until the bed had been changed (i couldn't do it or i'd have been sick and that really wouldn't have helped

[geshmally]

I like it when there are no Daddy Longlegs. Not because they bother me, but because when there's a shortage, there's also a shortage of wasps (who live on them). I fucking hate wasps.

[talkingtocactus]

i don't like them either, nasty stingy things. i was driving the other day with the window down and one flew toward the window really fast (i was sitting at lights). i closed the window and i thought i'd just managed to stop it coming in. i drove to where i was going and parked and when i came back to the car, it was sitting on the inside door handle. i'd managed to trap it and never noticed! i'm glad i didn't notice, i'd have panicked! i just opened the door again and let it out. phew. but yes i get a few wasps here too, i get all kinds of things here. i'm like you are with spiders - i have billions of spiders here but they don't really bother me, mainly because they get rid of midges, flies and stuff which really really bother me. actually i don't relaly mind spiders anyway, i get some really vast ones here, but they're usually on the ceiling/windows - as long as they avoid my bed, they can do what they want :D

[unkoogabriel]

I'm not entirely sure why he feels the need to slag off Polanski's film-making at the beginning, since his personal opinion of the man's professional work is, and should be, irrelevant in this case. Surely the point of the post is that Woody Allen et al are misguided to defend Polanski on the basis of his being a good director? Thus, it's just as misguided of SJ to augment his criticism of Polanski's personal actions on the basis of his being a bad director?

Obviously, everyone's entitled to their own artistic opinions. Personally, I think that, cinematically, Polanski has done some brilliant work over the years. But because I'm an adult, that doesn't mean I have to defend or condone his being a rapist. Becuase SJ is presumably an adult too, he shouldn't feel the need to slag off the films on the basis of the man being a rapist either. I can't help but think it both weakens his argument and makes the post look facile.

[mimicucumber]

... it kind of being his LJ and his opinions, I think he's entitled to say what he likes about Polanski's film. He's not attempting to make that strengthen his argument re the rape anyway - only connection is debunking the whole 'OMG he's an ARTISTE!' reaction which yeah - is down to your opinion about Polanski's work.

[unkoogabriel]

Of course he's entitled to say what he likes. I just can't help but think that, by mentioning how rubbish Polanski's films are directly above the paragraph in which he begins criticising his personal actions, he is rather crying out for the two to be linked. The impression I got was rather "Not only are these people defending him because his films are good but - hah! - those films are actually shit, too!" I felt that, rhetorically, it undermined the piece as a whole, is all.