M&M: The Terminal

Dear reader,

considering the growing number of refugees coming over to Europe, it probably makes sense to watch the movie The Terminal from the year 2004 once or again.

In it Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, who comes from the fictive Krakozhia to America. But due to a revolution in his country, he's seen as stateless. With no proper passport, barely able to speak English, he's unable to travel further in America, nor allowed to fly back to his country. Viktor Navorski is stuck at the JFK airport. But he's not idle. He tries to make himself comfortable at the airport and find a job to get something to do. But because he has no passport, many don't want to employ him. So he needs to be creative and find things to do on his own, to get money to at least pay for food and something to drink. Only when builders are working on a wall and Navorski finishes the wall in the middle of the night, he gets employed. Other foreigners befriend with him (one Afroamerican, one Latino and one Indian). He also befriends with the stewardess Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Jones). He even invites her to, believe it or not, an actually quite romantic dinner at the terrace of the airport!

Then the revolution in Krakozhia ends and Navorski can finally leave the airport. Before he flies back to his home though, he's got a task to finish from his father. He had found a picture of 57 Jazz legends in a newspaper and set himself the goal to get an autograph from all of them. Only one, that of Benny Golson, is missing. Will Navorski be able to find Golson after his long stay at the airport and finally get the autograph? See for yourself!

Probably not always quite realistic, but still with lots of heart and humour, this movie is a nice pastime. Like I hinted at the beginning, because of the growing number of refugees and asylum seekers, it's still up to date even in these days.

Until next blog,
sarah

Sleeping multi media and interactive

Dear reader,

with the tags/keywords sleep and sleeping problem, which I included here, you'll find my previous entries on what helps me when I want to go to sleep fast. Assuming I think about those methods. I want to make the entry today a multi media and interactive one.

For one thing, I'd like to introduce you to Holmes (actually a promo for the second season of "Elementary" with Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu) the clip shows a series of methods of how Sherlock wakes up Joan in all sorts of different ways, although all of them could generally just be called "mean". The clip is meant as a sort of "When you've got problems waking up, use the Holmes system". Here's the clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-aB2hU3axc

Fans of Benedict Cumberbatch certainly know the radio series "Cabin Pressure" by and with John Finnemore. He suffers repeatedly from insomnia, which lead to the piece "Insomnia Ballad" in his other radio series "Souvenir Programme". Here's the original (roughly 2 min. 19 sec.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrYGSlEmt_I

Of course there are fans, who create their own version and publish that. I find that the musical is so well done, that I want to share it with you, too. It's a bit less than 3 minutes long and you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzSqubuZ7H8

And the interactive part? Well, that's your turn. What do you do, when you can't fall asleep? Or what could you suggest for others, who can't fall asleep fast or who can't fall asleep well? Anything is welcome, from music you like to listen to, to videos you have created to help others. Post it in the comments.

Until next blog,
sarah

One hell of a city

Dear reader,

American readers of my blog may know the town of Centralia in Pennsylvania. I want to shortly introduce it to everyone else in this entry. No, I haven't been there ever. I haven't been to America ever actually. But I found out about it in a documentary on television and think it's pretty impressive.

Centralia is a very small place. According to wikipedia, effective 2010, the town only had 10 residents. In 1986 it had been "over 1,000 residents" (German wikipedia). The reason for so many residents moving, are the fires underground since 1962. Yes, you read correctly. The residents of Centralia lived from anthracite coal mining. This coal caught fire and burns ever since in the mine pits underneath the town. Anthracite coal burns long and steady. That's why tries to extinguish the fires failed, because the fire ate its way through the barriers. Now they stopped trying to extinguish the fires.

There are two theories (on the German wikipedia page) on how the fire started. In the documentary only one was mentioned. Members of the members of the volunteer fire company wanted to clean up the town landfill, so they burned it all up. The landfill was relocated to the abandoned mine pits, which didn't have coal anymore. But the fire went also to the pits with coal.

Another theory is that the coal just selfignighted. Scientists, according to the German wikipedia, suspect that the 15 km² fires will probably burn on for another 100 to 200 years. (According to the English wikipedia 1.6 km², 400 acres and about 250 years of fire.) Although the quality of the air isn't worse than that of Lancaster, a place further away, the residents were asked to relocate. The last residents though have "permission to stay in their homes for as long as they live", as can be read on wikipedia.

Centralia has its own homepage, among pages is an article Weird Centralia, which discusses just how weird or not, the town actually is. Check it out! There are also some funny pictures of people taken in cracks on the street with smokes coming from the cracks.

Until next blog,
sarah

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