A few assorted thoughts on a Sunday evening.
First, what the hell is this?
If it’s any sign of what else is to come, I think Modest Mouse will be easily knocked off the perch for “most disappointing album of the year.” Yuck.
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Watched the new Harry Potter movie this week. It was pretty good – probably the best of the movies, actually. Which is pretty interesting since I thought the book was one of the weakest (only saved from being the bottom by The Chamber of Secrets). But the weaknesses of the book were turned into strengths on the big screen – the endless pages spent on Harry being emo were trimmed down to a few well-acted scenes by Daniel Radcliffe (who is increasingly impressive, by the way, and hopefully won’t end up typecast as Harry Potter for the rest of his career). Time concerns also forced them to tweak a few elements of the story, which was another blessing in disguise since in past movies they’ve worked very hard to cram in stuff that was great on paper but less than satisfying on film. This time they just resigned themselves to losing some stuff and making minor modifications, and it paid out well.
It’s the first time I’ve seen one of the movies and said to myself “I really want to re-read the book” which, given my feelings about the book, is especially impressive.
Sadly, pressures on my schedule make trying to re-read Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince before Saturday impossible, so I’m just working my way through book 6 in anticipation of the big release.
I realize that it’s a little geeky, but frankly if you’re not excited about the final Harry Potter book, you’re really missing out on a major cultural moment (and some great reading).
Also, it’s really disturbing how attractive the characters in the movie are, given that most of the actresses are actually pretty close to the age they’re portraying. I am so old. At least Tonks is age-appropriate.
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I realize I’m a week late in mentioning it, but did anyone else watch the last few days of Wimbledon? An insane comeback for the young Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the quarterfinals against Andy Roddick, an unbelievable marathon of a match between Dokovic and Baghdatis, and incredible upset of the #1 seeded Justine Henin by the virtually unknown Marion Bartoli, and a final showdown betwen (who else) Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. It looked like this had a chance to be Nadal’s first win against Federer on grass when he had two separate games at 15-40 in the last set, but Federer gave us a glimpse of why some people think he might be the best tennis player of all time with a roaring effort to secure his fifth straight Wimbledon title.
I don’t watch tennis much, but I usually find a way to take in Wimbledon each summer. There’s something incredibly satisfying about watching tennis on grass that I can’t even really explain.
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Finally, this is fascinating – a study of an Amazonian tribe which challenges some long-held beliefs about the biology of language.
The Pirahã, Everett wrote, have no numbers, no fixed color terms, no perfect tense, no deep memory, no tradition of art or drawing, and no words for “all,” “each,” “every,” “most,” or “few”—terms of quantification believed by some linguists to be among the common building blocks of human cognition.
I really have no idea about the science of it, but it’s an intriguing article.