"Every second of your definitionally temporary consciousness, you are choosing how you spend something that will not last forever." - John Green.
This Tumblog is about some of the things I choose to think about- most are trivial, some ... not.
That is all.
DFTBA.
Basically, more of the same wonderful, careful writing from season one.
Sometimes we must turn to other languages to find le mot juste. Here are a whole bunch of foreign words with no direct English equivalent.
1. Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.2. Shemomedjamo (Georgian)
You know when you’re…
Favourite: “Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist.”
The Gay Bechdel Test: Why Hollywood Needs to Expand Its Representation of LGBT Characters
The Gay Test (which, regrettably, I will not call “The Coates Test” following Alison Bechdel’s lead), would have similarly few requirements, but they’re particularly tough to beat: to pass, a film must include two gay characters who interact in some way, do not offer sassy advice to the protagonist, and are not dead by the end credits.
“You don’t want to be caged by origin.” Salman Rushdie admonished a rapt audience at Tribeca Cinema’s Varick Room in New York last night. “Western writers have always felt completely unlimited to write about anything they want. If writers from the Third World decide to not write about the Third World — immediately that question about authenticity crops up. As if we are only allowed to write about where we come from.”
The “Tea for Two” episode offers an intimate look at a Sri Lankan couple who farm organic fair trade tea, and you mention that you didn’t expect to be so taken with their relationship. What kind of video were you expecting to end up with?
When filming a new story, we never really go into it with a clear vision of what the story will be. We just have a vague idea. Especially when filming overseas, we have limited access to information due to lack of a common language, internet access etc. All we knew about Piyasena and Ariwatha (the two farmers) is that they were part of the Sri Lanka Small Organic Farmers Association meaning they were organic and fair trade.
We went to the farm hoping to see a day in their lives… hear about what it’s like to be an organic tea farmer in Sri Lanka, and hear about their lives. When we got there, we saw that there was something else even more powerful going on — and that was the relationship between the two of them. So we decided to focus on that. I’ve got a TON of footage on the editing room floor with information about tea farming, etc. But this story just touched us. So we went with that. I think we spent four hours with them.
Elementary significant objects/milestones
Tom Phillips - A Humument (1966-73)
“In 1966 Phillips set himself a task: to find a second-hand book for threepence and alter every page by painting, collage and cut-up techniques to create an entirely new version. He found his threepenny novel in a junkshop on Peckham Rye, South London. This was an 1892 Victorian obscurity titled A Human Document by W.H Mallock and he titled his altered book A Humument.
The first version of all 367 treated pages was published in 1973 since when there have been four revised editions. A Humument is now one of the best known and loved of all 20th Century artist’s books and is regarded as a seminal classic of postmodern art.”
Chinese Brushwork meets Indian Cinema: Zhang Daqian’s Indian Actress (1950)
Previously posted about the graphic novel series, Aya, beginning made into an animated film. The trailer to Aya of Yop City (Aya de Yopougon) is now on Youtube.
