Middle Eastern Debates

So, the beginning of the Middle Eastern Debates were today. I gave a rough-edged, sketchy, and somewhat rushed speech, but I can blame that on the way Chris controlled the television camera to pan away from me. Whatever. I'm optimistic about the next few days of debate. But first, some time off for the weekend. If anyone wants to hang out, call or IM me; I got a relatively full weekend but I can shuffle stuff around easy.

I'm a little worried about Sharif. He says he has something on me (Olmert) in the debate which I apparently don't know about. It involves nuclear weapons...and me giving them to someone. Plus he wrote a 70 page paper to prep. But I can play psychology well enough too. We shall see what happens.

Today, after school, a couple of friends and I walked downtown to the Commons. After grabbing the obligatory coffee, we...no joke, we hacked a sack for I swear like two hours. Something transcendental about it; I definitely improved mad skeeelz today. Granted, we did eventually leave and chill over at Sasha's. And then saw 300. It's my 3rd or 4th time seeing it, but it doesn't get worse, it just becomes more...internalized. Unfortunately, it came at the cost of coming home at around 12:30AM.

It's strange, but I have a sudden urge to listen to Japanese-German techno music. What's it with those two countries, producing the cheesiest shit ever? Maybe it's a post-axis-of-evil syndrome of some sort...perhaps one day, North Korea and Iran will come up with their own versions of disco-house. Oh god, I'm so politically incorrect.

300

300 kills people.

Zodiac

Ah, so many movies, little time. Well. In that case I'll stop posting about the movies themselves. Camille thought she wanted to see the 300, but we got to the theatre and it was (inevitably) sold out so we picked anything that might have been worth watching.

Zodiac. You know, the one that everyone hears about in movie theatre previews but no one actually knows or wants to watch. It's sort of just...there. Well yeah, I figure I understand why no one's all that interested in it; the fun is in the thinking about the film itself.

It's a long film so, don't worry. You'll have time for your little contemplative muses and theories. At one point, I am convinced that the cop's wife is the killer. For no apparent reason; such an idea just happens to strike me. Because it's so surreal. It's also based on a true story. Real life is surreal. But if you don't see it for the funny plot and mediocre cinematography, you must see it for the acting. There won't be a single character you can possibly hate.

Guess this means I'll have to watch 300 another time.

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Goddamn all these dinner parties my parents are throwing; I didn't even realize they had this many friends. I mean; my dad's antisocial as hell and my mom spends her time trying to bake a better Pain de Campagne. Where'd they get these guys anyway? Yeah. Ah, one last night, another one today. I need to get out of this house.

Oh, but I smell Thai food.

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Life tastes good.” —Coke

Or at least, it should. Antisociality for me has never quite come so often or without such reasoning.

My mother caught me sulking and she immediately launched into a 15 minute lecture about how she thinks that ACS is detrimental to my psychological health. She thinks that while the entire inclusion thing is great, you tend to rely on your friends too much. Well first of all, maybe that's what an ideal world should be more like, and second of all, fuck off and don't tell me how to live.

Please, dear god please don't tell me I'm emo. I heard a lot of that shit today (no names). No. I'm not fucking emo. I just happen to be a little antisocial right now.

Pan's Labrynth

Watched it last night with Camille and Yuval. Honestly, I don't have much to say about the movie. Surreal as it was, it was a movie you could generally understand just by watching closely and carefully. While complex and emotional, you didn't need to think, all you needed to do was feel. But I did wonder what I'd do if I was the girl. Or more importantly, what would my fantasy be?

That's all for now. I know I haven't posted in a while. And that's because my winter break was taken up by hanging out with friends, going to New York City with Sasha (and Yuval, who happened to be there; yes, I've been spending a lot of time with her recently), and trying to cram for a background paper on Israel that was due Wednesday.

Funny story though, on Wednesday, my 320GB external hard drive crashed...along with all my data, all my stories I've ever written, all the music I've ever listened to, all the photos I'd ever taken, all the schoolwork I'd ever done (including the essay), but most of all, the heart and soul of my inner existence. Needless to say, it's back up and running, and Satan has finally handed back my life from two days of unequivocal torture.

I shall end here, as I need to catch some sleep before school tomorrow. Viva la Revolucion!

The Last King of Scotland

Charming. Magnetic. Murderous.

When you're fooled into sympathizing with the bad guy, you can't help but question yourself too. When that bad guy is Idi Amin, there's something wrong with you. Except that I think there are few people who wouldn't think, "Oh, wow, this guys actually kind of cool." Until you learn about the shit going on.

I gotta say the one thing I loved best was the way the movie ended with the Entebbe hijacking and the events that led up to Gallagher's escape from Uganda. Oh, and Forest Whitaker is amazing in this film, I should add.

________

On Friday, Sasha and I went down to Juna's to grab some coffee and talk like we normally do. That day, we were joined by Lukas who had just gotten out of an internship interview with the Ithaca Journal.

So we covered the basic subjects, and then Sasha had to leave, and Lukas and I went to get some pizza from Neds, when we learned that neither of us had the three dollars we owed Neds for the the pizza.

"I have a debit card," says Lukas.

"No swipe...no swipe thing. I don't have," the rather rude pizza man says.

With no money, and no pin number for the ATM, we don't have a choice. We start looking around for people who have money, yet no one will give us any. I grab my bag and search through the deepest crevasses for loose change. In the end, we come up with $2.50 cents, a full 50 cents short. Problem is, we already ordered.

"You owe me fifty cents, next time," he tells me.

Shit, I think, what is this guy trying to do, jack me out of money later? But what choice do we have? We just spent money we didn't have. So we accept and go eat pizza while laughing about it. In the back of my mind, I know that if I come to him on Monday, he's going to ask for a dollar or two. I'm cool with that, but I'm not cool with letting him play me like that.

But my mom comes in with fifty cents and thus we are rescued.

Amelie

I should have watched this much earlier. I don't know why it took me so long before I'd come around and see this movie. You know, it's that procrastination thing. Everyone says you need to see it, you know it's going to be good, but that's where the problem lies. Oh, you'll say, I can watch it whenever I want. It's even on my mp3 player.


Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie Poulain could be my favorite movie ever. It's one of those movies that sort of shove a cute sense of happiness down your throat, and then make you chew. It's a little painful, a little cloying at first, but then you understand. You realize that oh, that's the way it should have been. Oh, so the cloying sweetness works. Oh, so that's why Audrey Tautou's the lead role.

Amelie, the character is just great, really. The first few minutes in, you automatically attach yourself to her persona. You'd want to meet her, even be the butt end of her ridiculous yet amusing schemes. Amelie understands our little insanities and appreciates us for them.

Speaking of which, Audrey Tautou has also probably become one of my favorite actresses, if not my favorite. Nelly was right, it should have happened earlier but the only movies I had seen with her were frankly, disappointing. (The Da Vinci Code, A Very Long Engagement.)

Amelie

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I just ruined the movie for you. :-)

So yeah, you could say I've had a good night. I'm dead tired from our jam today. It's been a while since we've had something that productive and that energy-draining. Tomorrow you can catch me before 11AM or after 4PM. I'm selling fruit at ACS and then going to the allergist again. :-(

Love,
- Mirko

Curse of the Golden Flower/The pPhone

Wanna see a weird movie that makes you really want to be a flying ninja?

Okay, so the ending's a little disappointing, and the plot's just absurd, but I find it typical of Chinese movies. The difference here, is that the fighting scenes are far more natural than other mainstream Asian films, and the cinematography is really a brilliant use of CGI.

That's where the film's high points really are: imagery and symbolism. The golden flower, the chrysanthemum, plays a thousand different roles in the film as the symbol for rebellion, particularly the final showdown scenes where the golden army's blood is spilled over a fresh bed of the flowers.

Go watch it. Next movie on my list is The Last King of Scotland.

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You know, speaking of form over function, Lukas, here's a little gadget that'll make you drool. Okay, so it's actually just a rebranded, souped up LG, but it's got the same features as Apple's new communication toy, it looks sexier than my bike, and it matches my favorite pants with the PRADA sign emblazoned underneath the camera.

And the beauty of it? It's less expensive than the nice pair of PRADA jeans and tight sweater I've been eyeing but will probably never attain. Form shouldn't exactly trump function, but never let school get in the way of your education.

Yeah, so um....fuck the iPhone?

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I cannot stress the beauty of French electronica that's not in French. Though French electronica that's in French is just as good.

Gotan Project - Santa Maria (rUmPeLsTiLtSkIn)

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Calorie counting

[23:18] inqualcanto: people who ACTUALLY count their calories.
[23:18] inqualcanto: annoy me.
[23:18] yuvali611acs: I CANT EAT THAT
[23:18] yuvali611acs: yea
[23:18] yuvali611acs: i look
[23:18] yuvali611acs: and then im like
[23:18] yuvali611acs: i shouldnt eat that
[23:19] yuvali611acs: and then i do
[23:19] inqualcanto: i wanna just go like "yeah bitch you are fat." and make them cry.
[23:19] inqualcanto: but that'd be a horrible thing to do.

Went and saw Stomp the Yard, and I can offer you a few words of advice: DON'T see it. Spend your ten bucks on something more enjoyable, like oxycontin or ritalin. Or Robitussin shots. SOMETHING. Okay, it had its cool dance moves which sort of made me want to take Capoiera. But the actors were dancers, not actors. And the girl wasn't that gorgeous.

Odd thing happened today. Yuval and I got to the theatre at 7:05, thinking the movie started at 7:15. (Dyslexia? Joking.) Apparently it started at 7:50. A shame, though, since for half an hour, we thought we had the theatre to ourselves; that would have been a first. It would have been pretty awesome, but we learned later when Ryan walked in and was like, "wow guys, how long have you been here?"

Perfume

Best movie I've seen in a long time. Why?

Because it's so new, so original, that I don't even care that it was a book long before it was a movie. I don't care that the portrayal of 18th century Paris is so grim and bitter, that the images were often too graphic for American media, and that Dustin Hoffman was a poor choice for an Italian master perfumer living in Paris. The idea is so fresh for cinema that it didn't matter.

Speaking for myself, I don't think it's that big an issue and that people need to face the fact that modesty is a man-made concept, but it's interesting that this got passed in the United States as an "R" rated film, given that some of the most intriguing shots include teenage nudity. With a rather sketchy premise, I might add.

One more thing I might add: It was a so difficult to distinguish the plum girl, Karoline Herfurth, from Laura, played by Rachel Hurd-Wood, that I actually didn't realize the difference after I got back home. No problem, though, their aesthetic similarity made the movie more powerful in this odd, unexplainable way.