Filed under: Motion picture, Music | Tags: A. R. Rahman, Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Jai Ho, Longinus Fernandes, Mahalakshmi Iyer, Slumdog Millionaire, Sukhwinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, Victoria Terminus
Filed under: Elsewhere, Uni | Tags: Books, Bread, Dreams, Libraries, Toronto Public Library
I meant to head downtown early with a friend today to go to the reference library, but that plan fell through. I’ll head down on my own in a little bit. In between wake-up calls, I dozed in an out of the weirdest library-set dream. It wasn’t the reference library, if I remember properly, but it looked very much like a Toronto Public Library. I was sitting in a booth with my tall stack of books I brought home with me over the break (i.e. school books, not TPL books) and I was very anxious that they might get mistaken for TPL books and be accidentally shelved. I did, however, have one TPL book and it was very old and in French.
In the booth next to us, was this guy I had a class with last year, facing us. He’s a grad student in East Asian Studies. He picked up the one TPL book I had to look at it, which was okay and made sense that he might have an interest in another EAS book, and I continued to work on whatever I was working on. I look up, and he’s eating this large piece of bread. Apparently, the bread was the book? or pages of it? And he was eating it?! I was shocked. Not so much because my book had become bread, but because he was defacing public property (and a book, no less). Apparently the text of the book was in Chinese characters all over the crust, but he’d already eaten the crust. I snatched the bread and the rest of the book (he’d only taken a few pages) back from him… and I can’t remember the rest of the dream, except that I was very anxious about my books, and very WTF that this guy had been munching on one of them.
Filed under: Attempts, Consumerism | Tags: Chie Mihara, Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Royal Ontario Museum, The Nature of Diamonds
Diamonds only became “forever” during/after the Depression when jewelers needed to find more accessible diamond settings (whereas previously huge rocks might have been set and reset as per fashion). The day I last posted I visited the ROM’s Nature of Diamonds exhibit. It was all right I suppose. I thought they could’ve talked more about the social impact of diamonds. There was one poster devoted to conflict diamonds, a quarter of which was devoted to the film Blood Diamond and Hollywood presentation. I get that they might not want to dwell on it, because it was sponsored by a diamond company, but it would’ve been interesting to learn more about like… how diamond mining in Canada might’ve changed Arctic communities and economies. Yea… a little lacking, imho.
It was my first visit to the ROM in ages (the renovations were slightly disorienting- still deciding how I feel about it), and my first visit to the ROM ever when I didn’t visit the mummies.
Today I went Boxing Day shopping and consumed things: yay annual mother-daughter bonding. Got these Chie Mihara shoes, a bra, and a couple headbands.
Filed under: Consumerism, Current events | Tags: Credit crunch, See by Chloé
[160 USD]
Imagining practical clothes to wear on vacations (not at that price point, I just think the above piece is funky-looking in a simple way) such as long t-shirts and comfy jeans (a pair of which I purchased today) in exciting and exotic places like North Africa or China… imagining such things when I have no substance on which to posit these possible trips around the world: no money, no employment, nor admission letters (not that I’ve applied anywhere yet). Now my father is spouting conspiracy theories his clients have shared with him about the ongoing recession that partner the Family Saud with the Freemasons. And now he’s talking about the possibility of selling everything to cover expenses. I should stop shopping- but it’s hard. It’s a good thing I don’t buy any of these things I copy JPEGs of/link to. Yeah…
Filed under: Motion picture, Music | Tags: A. R. Rahman, Anthony Dod Mantle, Danny Boyle, Dev Patel, M.I.A., O... Saya, Slumdog Millionaire
I went to see Slumdog Millionaire yesterday with Annie and her friend Andrew. I really liked it. It got mostly good reviews from the film critics except for one that wiki mentions which criticises as nothing special but glossy sentimentality. While cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle’s work was incredibly *wow* I think it was still a great film underneath. I had a little trouble taking Dev Patel seriously whenever he had a romantic scene because of his work on Skins but I still think he was very good. It wasn’t “OMG BEST ACTOR EVER” but I’d be really happy to see him pick up a few more awards (he’s already been recognised) in the spring ’cause it’s nice, ’cause he’s young (it’s weird watching Skins when you’re like a couple years older than the characters but so much more boring and you wonder, are British kids just like that or huh?), and he did a good job, and like… yea. That said, I think I was happier for Marion Cotillard winning Best Actress for La Mome at the Oscars last year, than I might’ve been for Ellen Page, even though she’s young (and bonus points, Canadian), ’cause Cotillard was so happy and it was so unexpected.
So yea… this is me recommending the movie. Go see it. I’m really digging the soundtrack (by A. R. Rahman) right now. M.I.A. is so cool. The song I’m digging most features her: O… Saya (Pitchfork is streaming).
All this said, I’m not a big fan of dunh dunh dunh *destiny*. Still, I’m a fan of the movie.
