M&M: Footloose

Dear reader,

I can't dance and don't have much interest in dance movies, although I've seen some of them out of interest and watch some of the older films like “Flashdance” and quite enjoy them. On the other side there are the newer films, which somehow seem pretty much the same mostly: a teenager/young adult, first a kind of outsider, dreamy and/or misjudged by the end of the film has a breakthrough and is accepted at the dance school or established as the dance genius that they have been from the beginning. The film “Footloose” from the year 1984 however is different, which makes it interesting for me, others are criticising precisely that. But more about that later. Here's the story first:

Ren MacCormack (Kevin Bacon) comes from the metropolis Chicago to the town of Bomont. Due to certain circumstances of the past, alcohol, rock music as well as dancing are forbidden. Especially Reverend Shaw Moore (John Lithgow) wants to keep it that way very much. The Reverend lost his son in an accident, which he believes came because drugs and alcohol come with rock music and are therefore the cause of his son's death. So dancing of any kind is forbidden in the city. Ren likes to dance as well as listening to loud music, which gets him into conflict with the conservative people in town shortly after his move there. Ren also falls in love with the daughter of the Reverend, Ariel (Lori Singer).

Ren wants the dance ban to be lifted for the prom of his school. He prepares a speech for the city council, with quotes from the Bible, which moves the Reverend, but the council votes to keep the ban. The wife of the Reverend (Diane Wiest) makes her husband even more thoughtful. When some town members want to burn books, because they think of them as dangerous for the youth, the Reverend can just about stop the book burning and realises that the banings and rules in this town have gone too far.

Will the students be able to dance at their prom? You've got to watch and see that for yourself. Chris Penn (the brother of Sean Penn), can be seen in an young role as a friend of Kevin Bacon. Reportedly Chris Penn couldn't dance, but had to for the film. Probably this is what lead to the short montage in which Kevin Bacon's character desperately, but ultimately successfully teaches Chris Penn how to dance. A quite amusing montage, I find. Speaking of young actors: Sarah Jessica Parker plays Rusty, one of Ariel's friends and has one of her first film roles, for which she was also nominated with the “Young Artist Award”.

Strange as it may seem, but the story of a dance ban in a city has some true story behind it. In Elmore City, a town in Oklahoma, dancing was indeed forbidden from 1861 until a rebellion of the youth in 1980 led to the ban to be lifted at last.

Roger Ebert wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times about “Footloose” that the film tries to depict a conflict situation in a small town, as well as showing some glowing teenage characters and wants to be a music video, failing with all three. Certainly “Footloose” isn't a dance film like the new ones I described earlier. But with the background of a true dance ban in a town, I enjoy watching it anyway. Contrary to many modern dance films, this one isn't exclusively about dancing and showing others how well the students can dance, but it's about the right to dance and the montage with Kevin Bacon teaching Chris Penn to dance, for me, is worth watching time and again. Dance enthusiastic viewers, who expect many dance parts, will certainly be disappointed. I however enjoy watching “Footloose” every once in a while.

In 2011 a remake of it came out. The remake is close to the original story, sometimes even word-for-word in dialogues and a bit more modern and with more overall energy than the original. For me however the spirit of the original is lost and it touches me close to not at all compared to the original. It is, for me anyway, just a modernised, bad remake.

Until next blog,

sarah

Language of sensation

Dear reader,

similarily to my entry on organ language, there isn't just one way of expression, when it comes to the organs and the body. People interested in Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP) will also have noticed that we use expressions having to do with our senses. NLPers (people using and studying NLP) like to point out this fact that a person, who uses a lot of visual words or words about seeing, would be a “visual type”. You could then get a good connection and build trust to that person, by using similar expressions and wordings yourself.


I think that people shouldn't make that mistake and use only expressions and wordings of one sense though. It's certainly good knowing those expressions and being aware of them. I'm sure I can help in the beginning of a connection to a person to listen more carefully and noticing phrasings and pick up on them. I don't however believe in, for example, a purely “visual type” as such and I think it counterproductive to consciously only use visual phrasings based on that belief. Something like that can come across as stiff and manipulative, which in my opinion, it then is. That's certainly one of the accusations about NLP, that it's manipulative.


During my studies a teacher in the English course once handed us work sheets around the topic of learning. Of course it was about what “learning type” we would be. As we were working in pairs, discussing those papers and types, the teacher walked around and addressed me. I told her that I didn't learn best by repeatedly hearing in recordings or films, also not by repeatedly reading and/or writing the words or frequently saying them myself, but with a combination of all of these options. Yes, but when we found out what type we are and which of these methods make us learn best, we could use that advantage and learn more effectively.


Yes, probably there is a learning method for languages, which is more effective for each individual than other methods. I would really limit this to certain things which should be learned. Mathematics requires a different kind of thinking and probably also a different kind of learning. Still I don't believe in the learning type x. Much like a person can be a purely “visual type”. That's my opinion anyway.


Until next blog,
sarah

The most important thing in life

Dear reader,

the other day I went shopping and stopped shortly when I saw that a woman was deeply absorbed with her smartphone and walking right towards me, apparently without seeing me. I said nothing and just stood there. Only when she almost collided with me, did she look up shocked, said sorry and walked past me.

Several years ago one of my aunts (actually great aunt) was visiting us. Nothing against my aunt, I like her. But she was regularly phoning someone on her mobile and writing SMS to others or was on the internet writing emails to others. That went so far that my mother, who otherwise was really patient with others, once told her to put away the phone, please. Said a sixty-something to her 80-years old aunt! That was quite something!

I once heard of a group of Asian people, who reportedly went in a museum with a video camera recording everything. I assume it was to have a look at the art „in peace“ at home or in a hotel later? But who knows if that story is actually true... Hopefully not! Maybe it was just a photo camera. I'm not sure if museums would allow video cameras for security reasons.

On the train there are a lot of people busy with their smartphones. When somebody was sitting next to me, I was looking at what the person was doing. Some chatted, many were playing. Mostly something like Tetris where bricks where coming down and had to be put in certain order at the bottom or some balls were coming from above and had to be shot with a sort of „gun“. So all in all games, which are solely there to kill time. Nothing against those sort of games or people, who play them...

I'm member of a forum where someone has a signature under each of his entries. I found out now where that line is from, namely „Fast & Furious 5“. A character there says, “But the most important thing in life will always be the people in this room. Right here. Right now.“ I like that quote and I can understand that someone would choose it for their signature. I don't know the movie and I'm not sure how it was meant in the scene. But I like the thought that the most important thing in life are the person around me at that moment or the persons I'm with. The screen-society so to say, which is currently existing, where many people only scare on their screen and sometimes even walk into others, because they don't notice their surroundings anymore, I find that very sad.

The other day I came across an article online. A 14-years old girl was injured after she had crossed a street starring at her smartphone, busy installing updates, when she didn't see a car coming. It was only said that the girl had been injured, not how much. Luckily the girl was only injured and at least the car driver had paid attention.

The doctor and psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffman published a collection of stories in 1845 under the title „Struwelpeter“, one of them is “The Story of Johnny Head-in-Air” (German: “Hans Guck-in-die-Luft), a boy, who's so busy looking up in the air in stead of anywhere else, that he first runs over a dog and then, to the entertainment of the fish, he falls into the river, including his writing-book, which is then lost. Maybe the story is exaggerated and fictional, but on principle, it doesn't seem that unrealistic at all.

My mother sent me a picture once, which she had received from somebody else. The question underneath it read something like, “What is he doing there?”

Here is the picture:

(source: http://i.imgur.com/oHuAH.jpg)

Until next blog,
sarah

M&M: The Flying Scotsman

Dear reader,

yesterday I thought: which movie am I going to review tomorrow?!

Then, unrelated to that, purely because I like Jonny Lee Miller in “Elementary” and wanted to see him him in other roles, I watched “The Flying Scotsman”. All right, I've seen him also in “Trainspotting” and “Hackers” before. So I don't only know him from “Elementary”.

The Flying Scotsman. A flying Scotsman? Oh no, I don't want to watch fantasy like that tonight. Okay, let's see what the movie is about. Aha! Based on the true story of the Scotsman Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller), who loves riding his bike and sets a new world record – with a bike he build on his own! A bike, which consists of parts of a washing machine. Now, that does sound quite interesting. It does have a dark side to it though: Graeme has moments of depression and attempted several suicides.

In the movie Graeme is married to Anne (Laura Fraser) and the two have a child. In “real”life the two are divorced now and in 2011 he had a “coming out” and revealed that he's gay, as The Guardian for example reported: http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/feb/02/graeme-obree-cycling

As a child, he was bullied by other boys and one Christmas Graeme's parents gave him a bike for a present. He used it to get away from his bullies at first, but he enjoyed riding his bike in later life, too. So it's not very surprising that after he has to close his cycle shop, he starts working as a bicycle courier. While working there, he meets another courier, Malky (Billy Boyd), who's equally enthusiastic about bikes. When Graeme wants to set a new world record, he hires Malky to work as his manager. Because he builds his bike himself, sponsors of expensive bicycle companies fear for their money, so the Union Cycliste Internationale do their best to disqualify Graeme and make life difficult for him. But Graeme is creative and ambitious enough, to give them parole.

The film spares us many an amplified story telling and cliches and shows the enthusiastic biker Graeme Obree and his ambition. That certainly makes a movie well worth watching for other people, who enjoy riding their bike. The only sad bit about the film is that it starts well, and later seems to just rush through Graeme Obree's life. The childhood and beginning with Malky are in part very humorous. Then again he's just sitting there doing nothing at the harbour or at home. Seemingly depressive phases. (Today he's diagnosed as bipolar or manic-depressive.) But then he gets on his bike again and then the film ends. A bit sad for a film with such a good start. Especially worth mentioning for those daring to watch the film with the original audio, is the convincing Scottish accent of Jonny Lee Miller. Jonny Lee Miller was born in Kingston upon Thames, England, so truly a different accent.

The Flying Scotsman, for me, is a film well worth watching, despite the weaknesses towards the end, especially for bicycle fans (and fans of the Scottish accent). Quite worth watching and maybe also motivating for the viewer to get on their own bike a bit more again. We don't have to set a new world record though. Enjoy the ride!

Until next blog,

sarah

Who is “one" anyway?

Dear reader,

years ago we were sitting on the balcony as a family and had a BBQ. My sister told us about last night. I don't remember her exact words, but something along the lines of, “I had a mosquito in my room yesterday. It was flying around and buzzing. And when one turns on the light, it's gone!” To which our mother asked, “Who was the 'one' in your room, who turned on the lights?”

Even today I'm surprised that it was my mother, who jumped on the phrasing. Normally I have quite good ears for such things. In this moment my heart was turned on however, because we all know those nights too well, don't we, where mosquitoes are humming and annoying, when we want to sleep. My father is also fairly good, hearing discrepancies in what was being said and commenting on it. He too hadn't reacted on that that evening.

Who is this unknown, undefined person “one” anyway? You can find them in recipes and other instructions and guidelines, in German, at least. Probably not so common in cooking recipes in English. (Sometimes one has to think hard to come up with good examples in a language that's not their native one.) At least in English it's more common for “you” to take the table spoons. So that's good. I think.

“They” can also be charming and very intelligent people. “They say...” Who's doing the research for those people?

They say that lots of stuff on the internet is stupid. Maybe so is this entry. I don't know. I only thought of that evening on the balcony the other day, when I heard a mosquito in my room buzzing around an when I turned on the light, it was gone most of the times. The times I did see it, I was sadly unable to crush it.

Until next blog,

sarah

Organ language

Dear reader,

no, organ language isn't something bad or rude. It's the manner of expression of our organs, to show us that something isn't right. The theory goes that, based on which organ gives us trouble, we could also identify more precisely what kind of problem we have.

That doesn't seem that odd at all, although I have only very barely dealt with that subject. Some of it seems, even without deeper knowledge of organ language, almost intuitively finding expression included in our word-language, too.

The next time when you're thinking very hard about something, maybe also think of this entry and don't be too surprised that you've got a headache. Even though I can't tell you, why precisely you've got a headache from thinking a lot, there's still the phrase of “causing quite a headache”. Alternatively things can “cause somebody an upset stomach”.

Especially woman have fun when cooking, to also prepare the food on a plate in a nice way or enjoy it when someone serves them a meal that's set in a pleasing way, because “you eat with your eyes first”!

When once I was in the hospital for a surgery to correct my nose, many of us had tamponades in our nose and we joked some days after the surgery that we were “fed up” with it. Actually that one doesn't translate very well in English, because in German we say something like having a “full nose” literally.

Maybe you've heard of pheromones before, chemicals that are exchanged between two people and make us and the people next to us react to each other in certain ways. All of it is unconscious, but still there's some truth about the saying of “hating someone's guts”. Again, that one is a bad example in English, because in German we say that someone “smells good”, if we like them or doesn't smell good, if we don't like them. But still works in English with the “gut” as an organ in the saying.

Is it so surprising that some people develop asthma, when we've got the saying that something “takes my breath away” or something is “breathtaking”?

Maybe it's worth looking more into this organ language and what it may mean, especially if you've got problems with one or more organs time and again.

Keep a stiff upper-lip!

Until next blog,

sarah

The quagga and the woolly mammoth

Dear reader,

did you ever see a quagga or heard of them? Of course not seen it „for real“. They've been extinct since about 1883. Quaggas have been relatives of plain zebras today. Although the quagga wasn't white with black stripes, but light brown with almost no white stripes except on the head and neck. They have lived in South Africa and have been hunted mostly, because they were seen by the Dutch settlers as natural competitors of the cows. Only much later, after the last quagga had died August, 12, 1883 in the Artis-Zoo in Amsterdam, it was realised just how far the hunt had gone. By the way, the quagga (Equus quagga quagga) was not a separate species of zebras, but a subspecies of the plain zebra (equus quagga).

In 1987 The Quagga Project was started. The idea is pretty simple: when two plain zebras with few stripes mate, they (hopefully) get a child with few stripes and eventually the zebras of the project will then have so few stripes that they resemble the quagga. These could then be settled back in South Africa. So a mistake once made over 100 years ago would, at least in part, be put right. One could argue that a zebra, which looks like a quagga, because it has few stripes, doesn't make a real quagga. The people of the Quagga Project actually thought about that, too, and argue against that on the subpage Criticism of the Quagga Project. They say that because the quagga is extinct now, no other specifics other than the reduction of stripes can be made out. Also the grasses the plain zebras eat today are very close to those that existed in quagga times and would. So really it isn't a very strong argument to say that the reduction of stripes alone will not make a real quagga. You are free give your thoughts on that in the comments.

The Quagga Project has a whole bunch of photos with zebras, which already have visibly fewer stripes already. You can check out the photos at the following link: http://www.quaggaproject.org/Quagga-Graphic-Elements/PhotoGallery/PhotoGallery/slide.html

Woolly mammoths were pretty common in America as well as Eurasia before they went extinct. Because they have been living and gone extinct in a cold stage, many remains have been mummified because of the ice and remained relatively preserved. Maybe you can imagine what some scientists think of or are actually more or less working on. Correct, the mammoth would raise from the dead. Similarly to the quagga one attempt is get close to a mammoth through selection of existing elephants. Another thought is to use available DNA from mammoths and use them or even creating the necessary DNA, that is the sperm, to plant it into a living elephant. The cow elephant then would idially give birth to a mammoth baby. The anatomy of elephants and other aspects such as the suspected long gestation period like living elephants today (which is about 21 to 22 months) would make this very difficult and would make this a really long and time-consuming project. To create an artificial egg cell, the chromosome science isn't quite ready yet and the needed specimens of existing cells of mammoth findings are too fragmented.

I could sort of understand to create a quagga. This zebra-quagga would at least live Africa in an environment close to that of the actual quagga. A mammoth however... Where should the mammoth live and what from?

Surely it's an exciting thing, whether it can be possible to recreate animals again. But what for? To have again what isn't anymore and existed once before? To be able to say and show that we could and die make it happen? It would certainly be a sensation and impressive. But I think, it shouldn't be forgotten that the real natural environment of the animals doesn't exist anymore. The so called civilised humans will destroy the world more and more and with it the animals that (still) exist today. Wouldn't it make more sense, instead of recreating extinct animals, to make it so that endangered and critically endangered animals live can live on?

Until next blog,

sarah