We watched it half a year ago and I can’t remember anything from it.
It was quirky and fun to have an Asian-American protagonist (we are so spoiled relative to the lily-white days of the 80’s!). Red pandas are super cute, especially when Pixar-fied. I wish I had a crew to hang with like the girl (moving across the state in 6th grade did not help).
But yeah. Not much here. I’m not sure what “it” should be, but “it” ain’t here. The movie was better than I expected from the trailer but my predominant memory is feeling slightly bored.
It doesn’t hit like the classics like Toy Story or Monster’s Inc., which we just rewatched the other night.
I wonder if one can pinpoint this decline halfway through WALL-E when it went from an avante garde film without words to that silly fat human spaceship.
At some point Pixar chose to pursue technical proficiency over crafting a great story. And the results — both good and bad — are unavoidable.
It’s fine. The production is nice and the selected passages are properly inspiring. Chopra is a fine reader and the Indian music is atmospheric. I don’t know much about Hinduism, but I presume this combines best passages out of the Bhagavad Gita and Rig Veda with a dash of explanatory text.
But I can’t shake the feeling that this is just a basic offering. Mix a few ingredients that feel truthy across all cultures, coat it with woo, and sell it to America.
I’d be more charitable if this three hour production was marketed as an introductory taste of Hinduism, but I was put off by its inflated self-importance. I don’t care for a program that dilutes spirituality and sells it as more than a mere starting point.
As a pan-theistic atheist who is skeptical of all forms of systematic formal religious structures, I am the prime target audience. Slap on an ancient spiritual sheen and I’m intrigued. But I also spent my teenage years as a Reformed Baptist steeped in the intellectual cathedral of Calvin. Don’t pretend you got more unless you’re bringing it.
I got sucked into this video while brushing my teeth, before realizing it was 45 minutes long. I went to sleep late that night.
It was fun to watch the guys take ridiculous risks and challenge each other. There’s all the vicarious thrills you’d expect from a Parkour YouTube video.
Beyond the stunts, the charm was in watching the guys enjoy each other’s company. Who knows if the mutual affection is true, but they made it work on camera.
It reminds me of the late 2000’s before UFC transitioned into a mainstream sports league. Back then, the fighters made a show of respect to each other, which created a screen camaraderie that intensified my enjoyment of the matches.
Unfortunately, I might be out of step with popular culture since the UFC’s heel turn with outlandish promotions has made them a billion dollar business. I get how the physical brutality of football or MMA leads to war analogies, but we need to cut that shit out.
When it comes to games, we ought to think of our competitors as “partners”. In joining the challenge, the players are committing to a constrained set of rules striving towards a mutually agreed upon goal. Unlike the endless slog of reality, a game is a measure of marginal advantage with a set end point.
We need to stop mixing the (potentially high stakes) infinite struggle of life with the (relatively meaningless) competition of these finite games.
If we do, maybe we’ll enjoy each others’ company as we play together.
One little cloud caught the last rays of the sunset after its neighbors had gone grey. It was a brilliant orange that quickly faded into the background.
When I first got out of college I had no job prospects. (Networking is not one of my strong suits.)
So I found work the old fashion way.
I xeroxed the yellow pages section for architects, cut the pages into strips, and xeroxed each strip onto their own page. I worked down the list, using the wide margins for taking notes.
Unimaginable brute force in today’s networked environment.
But it worked! I found a small firm that set the trajectory of my career.
Occasionally, I do something that reminds me of that initial job search. Something that requires a deep breath of air and picking up the phone. Again and again.
A few years ago, I led the programming for a major state office building. There’s only one way to call the heads of twenty-three agencies, introducing myself and the upcoming project. Same with advertising a new project for bidders.
No one told me that the relentless job search would come in handy long after I got that first gig, but any work done earnestly can repay itself in surprising ways. Effort done contentiously might not be optimal, but it isn’t wasted.
~
Some Links
Having cut current events out of youtube, the algorithm fed this lovely dance video pairing tap dancer Aurélien Lehmann and pianist François-René Duchâble. Which reminded me of this epic challenge scene in Tap with Sammy Davis, Jr.
Matthew Poburyny has just moved to America! He has a distinctive photographic style that harkens to the new topographics and I always savor his contemplations. Plus one of our conversations convinced me to stop listening to podcasts when driving and just observe.
Jo Mortimer just started a newsletter with a series of great essays. One of the agencies I serve is public behavioral health, but as an OPM I only have an abstract understanding of their work. Her creative non-fiction on a former patient makes shit real.
