open up your mind, and [ku ku ku, baby]

[intertribal]

I've taken to spending my mornings watching the crisis shows on NatGeo - Seconds From Disaster, Critical Situation, Final Report, and of course, Air Emergency (which is what the Brits call Air Crash Investigation).  By the time the lame-o historical shows come on in the afternoon, there's Law & Order on TNT.  I have to say, I've learned a lot.  I think they're genuinely useful programs.  The Air France Hijack episode has a lot to say about counter-terrorism - what works (negotiation, concession), and what doesn't (refusal to compromise, refusal to accept international help) - and the avalanche in Galteur, well, changed conceptions about the existence of safe zones.  I can't say there's much to learn from the Columbia disaster, sadly - I think the lesson the U.S. has taken home from that disaster is "abandon the space program, the deaths are too dramatic". 

I bought the soundtrack to Sunshine.  It's good, but very creepy - creepier than I remember the movie being.  I also bought "Ku Ku Ku," "This Golden Wedding of Sorrow," and "Bring In The Night."    God I love Death in June.  

New layout inspired by both Death in June and Air Crash Investigation is now complete! 

Comments

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

so, why was it life-changing?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

well, for one it affected me emotionally. the end is extremely sad (the father and uncle wolf go off hunting and in the meanwhile a helicopter comes and throws grenades at the wolf den, with the mother and baby wolves inside). the author goes into the den in a manic need to see if they're ok and they're alive, but at first he sees the eyes glowing in the dark and is afraid, even though he knows the wolves. and meanwhile the other two wolves are running across the plains howling, trying to find the rest of the family. and even if they all survived that time it's likely that they died soon thereafter because the Canadian government decided to run a huge extermination campaign regardless of what Mowat reported.

it was sort of the beginning of my back-to-nature sort of quest. I think it helped with the depression I felt of being in New York City, at Barnard. I really don't do well in environments where I can't be around nature. and this book was like a reminder that there is a larger world than the intensely human world of New York, that humans haven't completely destroyed life, that there's still wilderness, that people still believe in magic, just a little. the value of being lost. etc.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

magic! one of the basics of human society! just had to be annoying there... steve just worked out the semiotics of a certain sort of magical thinking.

yeah, i like being around nature too.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I think magic is a basic of human society, if that means what I think it means (and that's rarely true).

I wish I did witchcraft.

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

i dunno, it basically means logical fallacies.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

logical fallacy = basic of human society?

[royinpink.livejournal.com]

for as long as we've had logic ;)

what aspect of magic are you thinking of?

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

hmmm... I don't think I understand that, but magical thinking is definitely a logical fallacy by def.

oh, you know, the whole shabang. I basically wished I lived in a world that was a combination of Charmed and Xena, so there you go. First and foremost, divination. I love divination (although necromancy's too icky and dangerous in my opinion). The only problem with witchcraft is that so much of it is geared towards like "the goddess" or whatever, and I would just be like, fuck that. Same problem with voodoo, although I'm not attracted to the idea of sympathetic magic and hexes anyway, although voodoo and santeria can do some pretty cool things. I think I like alchemy more than that authority-oriented shit. That and demonology. Man, I am so into that, but that's just a research field, not an actual type of magic. I like the idea of mana (and ki! lol lol lol) - equal opportunity magic. Shamans are cool. But for me it definitely should be about an individual connection to either subconscious parts of yourself or subsurface parts of the world, and doesn't involve a whole lot of things that turn me off mainstream religion (i.e., worship and rules and blah blah blah). I love the idea of walkabouts and "spirit quests", to use a cliche.