Polar Express, Beowulf, Christmas Carol...

Would someone please explain to Robert Zemeckis the concept of the uncanny valley?

Random Crazy People 4

I should note before I start this one that there are a lot of people in Toronto that one might characterize as crazy for different reasons. Obviously, some people engage in erratic behavior due to chemical imbalances or alcohol/drug problems. I see a fair number of those types daily, but don't mention them on here because those are situations which I think should be shown a greater degree of pity and charity more than anything else. The only people I mention in my Random Crazy People posts are those who at least appear as though they should know better.

So, for your entertainment, I offer you today's random crazy person.

Scene: Riding home on streetcar about 2pm. Crazy man enters street car and sits in front of me, leaning back over the seat for a little chat.

Crazy Man: Mur mah nurm re ner.

Me: Excuse me? (he had a very thick European accent and wasn't speaking very loudly or clearly)

Crazy Man: Mur mah nurm re ner.

Me: I can't understand what you are saying.

Crazy Man: How old do I look?

Me: I really don't know. (he looked 50+)

Crazy Man: I'll be 50 next week. I look really young, right? (here he pointed to his face as though it were a great marvel and privilege to behold)

Me: ...why yes.

Crazy Man: Do you know how I stay looking so young?

Me: No idea.

Crazy Man: I never work. If you don't work you'll look young forever and be happy. I don't do any work at all. Isn't that great?

Me: I suppose if you hate doing work, that might be enjoyable.

Crazy Man: Yeah, I just sleep at shelters, get free food, and never work. You'll look young if you live like this and get lots of girls.

Me: ...

Crazy Man: Remember this. Don't ever do work.

Me: Ok.

At this point he got up and moved to a different seat and I recited in my mind a section from Choruses from the Rock:

The lot of man is ceaseless labor,
Or ceaseless idleness, which is still harder,
Or irregular labour, which is not pleasant.

I'm a little worried that since my reaction to this type of encounter is to recite Elliot, I might also be a crazy person.

ROM

The CMS is right across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum, which is a pretty cool sight. I haven't been able to find a picture online of the view from the CMS, but what you see walking out of our building is a large, somewhat late-Victorian looking stone building with nice windows. However, from Bloor street, you see this view:


Normally I am not a fan of modern architecture, but this looks pretty cool. I like that the also decided to integrate the new design into the old building rather than tearing it down and starting from scratch. It looks like several gigantic cubes have fallen out of the sky and crashed into the building. Or, maybe an explosion from the inside of the building itself...

Anyways, I think that it is a good piece of art.

New doings

Wow, its been a while since my last update. Nothing much new to report, aside from my new housing. I moved out of Satan's Armpit and am now sharing a much nicer apartment with a friendly roommate. My room is much bigger, there is a living room, there is a kitchen, and there are no roaches! Yay no roaches! I think I killed at least one roach a day at the other wretched place...at least there were no bedbugs.

Regarding the horrible house in which I recently lived, I am actually composing a short story about it. I had hoped to start posting it for Halloween since it is a "gothic" story, but unfortunately I am not the most diligent or consistent writer. One of my friends here also writes and she (no, don't get your hopes up, she's engaged) gave me some good feedback on the first couple pages. Yeah, its sort of sucky at the moment, but it might get better. Its also the longest piece of fiction that I have ever written. Well, aside from a couple papers for Crit theory. *cough*

Also, I started taking part in the German tutorial. It's only geared toward passing the German exam, which is a translation test in which a dictionary is allowed, so I won't actually be learning how to speak German.

Here is a picture of the CMS. Astute observers will note that it was formerly the Department of Household Sciences. There is a very nice wall with stained glass windows depicting people doing householdy sciencey things like weaving.

Hallowe'en

This blog post is dedicated to Ben and his pumpkin fixation. There is a display of hallmark cards from the early 20th century in one of the libraries and I always think of Ben when I see this one.

Two very different activities done while standing.

Last night was Toronto's Nuit Blanche, which is sort of an arts festival that goes all night long. Different events and exhibits were set up all around the city and I went with a group of friends from the CMS to see about as many as we could. Some of the stuff was just pretty weird, but some of it was really interesting as well. You can see pictures of some of the stuff here.

One of the exhibits I remember most is the Royal Conservatory's piece, which was basically the orchestra playing James Tenney's In a Large Open Space with the musicians spread throughout the hallways of the conservatory. It made you hear every instrument individually and was very effective in making the listener pay attention to every different sound as they walked through the place. Also, outside there were Morris Dancers. They were not dancing to In a Large Open Space, although that would have been very interesting.

There were also these people dressed as ghosts (sheets over their heads with eye holes) in one part of the city standing in a circle while reciting defunct slang terms. Only slightly entertaining. One of the guys in our group had a friend with an exhibition of kissing robots, so we wandered around for a long time trying to find the booth/thingy. We got a bit lost, but ended up stopping at what is apparently Canada's most Canadianest coffee chain (Tim Hortons), where I was pressured into buying a "large double double", being told that it was essential to the Canadian experience (this was at 1am, btw).

We found the kissing bots, I swallowed my hatred of robots, thought about WALL-E, and it turned out that they were pretty awesome, though some were a bit coy and refused to deliver the promised kisses. Oh well, you can only expect so much out of robots made from tongue depressors. They didn't actually kiss people, they just flopped over in your general direction and kissed the table in front of you when you made kissy noises at them.

I did not stay out all night and ended up going to bed around 3:30, since I had activity #2 to do today. Today was the yearly pro-life demonstration Life Chain and I had agreed to participate in St. Silouan's group. Basically, we just stood silently at an intersection holding signs that said things like "Abortion kills children" and "Adoption, the Loving Solution" (if I had my druthers, my sign would have said "Abortion ends human life," since that is fairly impossible to argue against). We got about the response that one would expect in a city like Toronto. Its always sort of comforting to be reminded that half the people who identify as "liberals" are just as rude and hate-spewing as half the people who identify as "conservatives." It is unfortunately a common human trait to simply want to yell abuse at others with whom you disagree and not engage in reasonable discourse seeking after truth.

Here is my reasoning for participating in an event like this:

Granted, this event probably did not change anyone's mind regarding abortion. The way to do that is through relationships and reasonable argumentation, not signs with one line phrases. However, what it did do was raise visibility of the issue and remind people on the other side that there are reasonable looking people who disagree with them, and that they are not all hate-mongering lunatics. This was a sort of "rhetorical" event, not an actual argument or dialogue. I wanted to dialogue with some of the more vocal detractors, but they were content to keep walking/driving and ignore my invitation.

People think they "know" what a pro-life person looks like: a crazed look, yelling, grimacing, accusing, judging. An event like this with people quietly holding signs with straightforward statements, smiling, and making an effort to show love challenges the stereotype. It is not a logical argument, but a rhetorical counter to the rhetoric of the opposing side. And it is (I believe through reasonable consideration) a rhetoric that supports and shows the beauty of Truth, and not an instance of rhetoric misused to fool others.

Bean Day

Daisy Owl might be the best webcomic of all time. I am actually in the middle of my own personal Bean Day right now. Oh the joys of bachelorhood: http://daisyowl.com/comic/2009-09-30