Does the scanner see into me?
I hope not, because then it would be obvious how my workrate has fallen away. Not much going on but I thought I'd better do an update in case people think the blog's died.
I'm trying to get the play finished (nearly there) but I find that if I've finished writing something, I go into a kind of slump and find it hard to do anything for a while - and having finished the sci-fi thing a couple of weeks ago, I've been slumping. I've also been pre-occupied with the job search situation (v bad) since I had to have an interview at the job centre where they said they would offer me "more help to find work". The use of the word "more" is interesting - it implies that they've been giving me "some" help during the past 13 weeks. The advice I was given was to lose most of the qualifications on my CV - I'm too highly qualified for jobs available in this area, and "bosses don't like having someone in the office who's cleverer than them". Meanwhile I phoned 6 temp agencies, and all but one said there was no point even registering with them because "there's nothing round here for someone like you". The other one said (in May) they could guarantee finding me a job. I rang them last week to remind them I'm alive. It really was worth spending all that time, effort and money getting some certificates, wasn't it?
So off we went to Cambridge for the weekend, to see some films and for A to check out the place to see if she likes it and wants to apply to the University (yes and yes). On Friday night we saw "The Science of Sleep" and both liked it. It's funny, and touching, and quite surreal. Gael Garcia Bernal does an excellent job as Stephane, trying to make sense of his relationship with his neighbour Stephanie (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) while his dreams increasingly leak into his day to day life. The film does wander a bit at times, and the dream sections work better than the real life segments, but it's so inventive and magical - definitely one to see.
We emerged from the cinema to find that the centre of Cambridge was full of loud drunken youths yelling and shouting - perhaps all city centres are like that late on a Friday night these days, I wouldn't know, but it was really pretty unpleasant.
Saturday we wandered round the city, which is very pretty, and visited a college; I like the way "new" bits of buildings are the ones that went up in 1830. In the afternoon we went to the UK premiere of "A Scanner Darkly" (sadly not quite the high excitement of the Cannes event, but at least this time I was wide awake). I loved it - A wasn't quite so sure. The rotoscoping really works for the story, I think, in the way it separates the viewer from reality, but leaves enough that's recognisable to hang on to. Having read the book again since Cannes, I realised how faithful Richard Linklater has been to PKD, and I really liked the "graphic novel come to life" feel to the film. Keanu, Robert, Woody and Winona were each perfect for their roles, Robert's manic riffs and Keanu's philosophising particularly good. It's funny, and deeply tragic, and a timely cautionary tale - I hope it gets a proper release here.
And last week saw POTC2 again - better a second time! I think second time round its easier to just relax into the ride, and not be thinking about how long the film is and what's going on, and as with the first one, you notice stuff on a second viewing that you missed first time round. And Johnny Depp's physical comedy is hilarious.
What to see this week? Haven't decided yet. I need to do some work first, though.
I'm trying to get the play finished (nearly there) but I find that if I've finished writing something, I go into a kind of slump and find it hard to do anything for a while - and having finished the sci-fi thing a couple of weeks ago, I've been slumping. I've also been pre-occupied with the job search situation (v bad) since I had to have an interview at the job centre where they said they would offer me "more help to find work". The use of the word "more" is interesting - it implies that they've been giving me "some" help during the past 13 weeks. The advice I was given was to lose most of the qualifications on my CV - I'm too highly qualified for jobs available in this area, and "bosses don't like having someone in the office who's cleverer than them". Meanwhile I phoned 6 temp agencies, and all but one said there was no point even registering with them because "there's nothing round here for someone like you". The other one said (in May) they could guarantee finding me a job. I rang them last week to remind them I'm alive. It really was worth spending all that time, effort and money getting some certificates, wasn't it?
So off we went to Cambridge for the weekend, to see some films and for A to check out the place to see if she likes it and wants to apply to the University (yes and yes). On Friday night we saw "The Science of Sleep" and both liked it. It's funny, and touching, and quite surreal. Gael Garcia Bernal does an excellent job as Stephane, trying to make sense of his relationship with his neighbour Stephanie (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg) while his dreams increasingly leak into his day to day life. The film does wander a bit at times, and the dream sections work better than the real life segments, but it's so inventive and magical - definitely one to see.
We emerged from the cinema to find that the centre of Cambridge was full of loud drunken youths yelling and shouting - perhaps all city centres are like that late on a Friday night these days, I wouldn't know, but it was really pretty unpleasant.
Saturday we wandered round the city, which is very pretty, and visited a college; I like the way "new" bits of buildings are the ones that went up in 1830. In the afternoon we went to the UK premiere of "A Scanner Darkly" (sadly not quite the high excitement of the Cannes event, but at least this time I was wide awake). I loved it - A wasn't quite so sure. The rotoscoping really works for the story, I think, in the way it separates the viewer from reality, but leaves enough that's recognisable to hang on to. Having read the book again since Cannes, I realised how faithful Richard Linklater has been to PKD, and I really liked the "graphic novel come to life" feel to the film. Keanu, Robert, Woody and Winona were each perfect for their roles, Robert's manic riffs and Keanu's philosophising particularly good. It's funny, and deeply tragic, and a timely cautionary tale - I hope it gets a proper release here.
And last week saw POTC2 again - better a second time! I think second time round its easier to just relax into the ride, and not be thinking about how long the film is and what's going on, and as with the first one, you notice stuff on a second viewing that you missed first time round. And Johnny Depp's physical comedy is hilarious.
What to see this week? Haven't decided yet. I need to do some work first, though.
posted by Sal at
9:51 pm
3 Comments:
Thanks, Sal!
Ditto.
Cheers,
Scribe
I thought Scanner was good, too (albeit depressing, in um, the right way). Amazing what a great posthumous career Dick is enjoying. Somewhere (i.e. in an alternate universe) the man is having a good laugh...
Glad to see that both you and the blog are alive. I'm going to be registering with temp agencies this and next week, stressing that I'm really not over qualified for office support roles. :)
Cambridge is pretty, I must agree. I found the library hideous to work it (Rare Book reading room was under reconstruction), so I gave up and wandered around the colleges instead when I was there.
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