Casino Royale

Casino Royale is a raw interpretation of Ian Flemming's James Bond novels. The director Martin Cambell has tried to be more faithful to the original stories, making Bond much colder, more like you'd expect an elite-trained soldier to be. Timothy Dalton's character was an attempt at being more faithful to the original story, making Bond more fallible but the franchise had been dominated by the excessively camp Roger Moore for too long and Dalton basically came across as just a comical failure. Daniel Craig is smolders (according to just about every woman who's seen it so far), and the violence and action are more akin to Vin Diesel in XxX. The romance with Eva Green is incongruous but the concept is interesting - two hyper-talented orphans on a mission to higher stakes and bionic performance. Casino Royale is a good new James Bond. Out with the cheese and kitsch and in with a little more realistic portrayal of this State Terrorism we seem to love so much in the UK. We're still kicking arse globally which helps our diminutive British self-esteems shine for a few cinematic moments. The weather is tough you know, stiff upper lip and all that. The scene pictured here with Eva Green is powerful - I won't ruin the film by explaining why.

Friedrich Nietzsche

HOPE is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.

1. noun 1 a feeling of expectation and desire for something to happen. 2 a person or thing that gives cause for hope.
2. verb 1 expect and want something to happen. 2 intend if possible to do something.
3. PHRASES hope against hope cling to a mere possibility. hope springs eternal in the human breast proverb it is human nature to always find fresh cause for optimism. not a (or some) hope informal no chance at all.

If you have a boss or leader who made decisions based on hope, would you have confidence in them. Look at the mess Blair and Bush made in Iraq - why did they do this. Its simple, they had a tiny piece of intelligence, they jumped ahead anyway, because that's what pseudo-religious people like them have been brainwashed to do.

Faith, Hope, and all the other sick devices cults use to manipulate people, steal money, build ivory towers, and give the kings their cannon-fodder.

Religion is the most dangerous of all drugs. The pill is taken by continuously jumping in feet first, and chanting "god save me, I am coming to you dear god, I am doing your work."

Of course, some people just want to be good, and can go-meta reading scrupture and believe others are doing the same, so a community of good is forming. But why focus on one set of books, attend one church, hang out with one group of people to do this? Why exclude information, why close the doors if the aim is to be good?

People are strange

Spotted
Originally uploaded by mentalese.

The recent visit to Saltaire and in particular the Charlotte Street Social Center was a real eye opener. This is a picture of the locals that I took undercover with my camera at the start of the night. The characters in this room each had a movie in just their faces. As for The Act, a singer with gags then...

Of course I was mesmerised. A southerner Op North. On enquiry then apparently these Phoenix Nights are quite common and not the invention of Peter Kay.

Fly

oko w oko
Originally uploaded by leniwiec72.

This is where photography comes into its own for me, the so-called 'Macro' shot. We don't see this, we see an average world. Millions of pictures spliced together but here we get one perfect shot. Okay it looks a little staged...

Moving frameworks

Old Tree
Originally uploaded by abozaid.

Everything exists in dimensional space. We form ideas with expressions received through our culture. New expressions are emerging into common langauge that can gather more thought, position ideas better, hold more fruit.

Language is the tree we hang ideas from. Jesus must now be crucified on n-dimensional virtual reality for his association with good to be re-affirmed.

We cannot hang modern ideas from ancient trees.

Half awake

Half asleep. Art. Trance. A Zen moment. When we are all senses and without thought, reasoning instinct, neuro-pharmacologically sublime.

When pictures flow large and whole, unadulterated, unquestioned, uninterpreted.

When we can just stare at something and feel content.

Minds melt. Mine akin water.

Super shorts

I have just been to a super shorts screening in Oxford. It was late, I cycled their through dense fog and the usual soup of Oxford pollution. I was tired. I drifted off to a few of the films in the middle.

There was one film that stood out for me called Days of Sleep, directed by Claire Dix. I am not sure why I liked it, maybe I understood the theme or liked the music. The fruitstand, the gifts, the explosion of needing, the goofy Jananese actor. I think actually it was the music, then the fruit.

These mini-festivals can be a little painful though. What really bugs me is that so many films are being made with absolutely no point to them. I get to the end and just think - why did you spend all that effort making that. Sure I should appreciate the craft involved but you'd think in a world like the one we live in now then someone would have something to say.

It could be a pop wisdom. These people don't want to flatter currupt politicians, psychotic business people with their attention. Could be wise indeed. Maybe I am just old school in thinking they have any relevance at all.

Or maybe these people actually don't have anything to say.

Was it the Beatles that predicted we'd all be making films and music. Well we do all seem to be producing but with so much information how will we find the meaning. How will we attend to meaning when it is so dispersed. Will the machine stop?

National Climate March

I fear I am too tired to go up to London to rally against Exxon and the American Embassy so I will do a virtual march in Blog Space:

http://www.campaigncc.org/

I have blogged about Exxon before - the most short-term profitable company ever.

Of course this marching is illogical and probably pointless or even counter-productive but I wanted to see first-hand what it is about.

My banner would have been:

THIS IS THE MARCH THAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE IRAQ - ITS ALL ABOUT OIL AND OVERCONSUMPTION.

A tad long obviously but my sentiment is that we can't just rally against war and not stop doing the things that cause war, i.e. ourselves and the way we overconsume. People are so hypocritical and shallow. Some people go I am sure just because they love to show public anger.

I still believe it could be worth going but I am simply too exhausted. Maybe I will go march through Oxford by myself.

The inner puppeteer

All thinking must be the result of movements of matter, thought is physical, energy is being channeled within our minds, by neurones at synaptic junctions (neuro-pharmacology).

All thought must be the result of some form of 'symbolic' re-representation process. Our neurones must be reconfiguring through time and space to conjure networks that allow ourselves to express meaning.

This knowledge in the head is re-presented in the world using various tools and external symbolic representation systems. This allows us to communicate and form intellectual networks.

The mind, devoid of non-mind must be blank, tabla rasa.

Q. Do we wonder through life at random, our destinies wrapped up from birth in some deterministic path, controlled by our genes, our social standing and other large strange attractors.

Q. Is there an inner puppeteer, a spark that is beyond all computation, a human spirit that allows us to select the world we experience, to control the learning we gain of symbolic representation systems. Do we seek the teaching we need?

Q. Does society crystallize around entirely predictable structures that mean we never escape the humdrum we are born with?

We spend our lives trying to look our puppeteer in the eye so that we can try work the strings with him - in unison we are free to explore the world as a whole person. The older we get the harder it is to keep this partnership because those that loose it - the zombies, want to bite us and turn us to stone with their fits of jealousy.

Art and science are the only antidote to these fatal attacks. They remind us that everything is a mystery, there can be no rest - there is not time for complacency and dogma.

Aldous Huxley

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

I read this a few months ago. It keeps popping back to my thoughts every time I see politicians talk about the latest war (Iraq). Its like tribal times with these people, they smell the hunt then we seem all programmed to align to their blood lust. Its amazing how often the parliamentary executive stifle opinions with threats of disloyalty and misinformation. Why can we not arrest these tyrants?

Here's my problem with Tony Blair. He's blinded by religious faith, a belief system that is centuries out of date. He knows he is out of his depth but carries on anyway because he has been programmed from childhood to think that the feeling of hope is a good thing.

There is only one place we live and that is in reality, there is only one set of rules, one universal truth and it does not care about the Bush - Blair religious vanity and personal insecurities.

I think it was Jeremy Paxman who said the only distinguishable feature of all politicians is that they failed in their preferred walk of life. Blair we know wanted to be a rock star - so now he inflicts these dreams on all of us. I just wish he'd smashed his guitar over the people who have their hands up the Bush-Puppet arse (ignore Bush himself, he's just there to obstruct public scrutiny - his masters know that we won't probe him hard because he triggers such deep senses of either pity or loathing that we are unable to speak our minds in his presence).

Houses

Completed on the 8 Vincent Ave. sale today. Got A&L mortgage agreed. So will redeem mortgage and go down the 'getting the exchange' path on Cricket Road.

Since I am selling and buying in such a short space of time then I will never really get into credit.

Funny how on the face of things we never seem to own anything. Other people always seem to own our money, we're always in debt, renting and being managed by people further up the supply chain.

Anyway, I will own a house so that is nice. My own space.