Happy New Year!
Happy New Year, everyone! No matter what your religion, ethnicity, or creed, I think we can all agree that, according to the Gregorian calendar used by the majority of the world, the arbitrary time at which one year segues into another is rapidly approaching. So enjoy it!
Because this is my vacation, I don’t intend to write a long blog entry. But I can make an exception for three lists of three:
Three recent disappointments:
1. Enchanted – I guess it was too much to hope Disney might completely spork their own movies. Sure, there are some funny moments, but the whole affair is basically an elaborate plot to set up a straw-man cartoon that out-Disnefies Disney in order to make the rest of the Disneyfied picture seem reasonable and realistic. But we’ve still got true “love at first sight”. It would probably help if the characters didn’t verbally point out the rare ideological deviances whenever they do occur (“Hey, you’re a man, but you’re like the damsel in distress”). Give me Into the Woods any day. Or else make it a single mom and her daughter who rescue the princess from the streets of New York City.
2. Richard Dawkins’s A Devil’s Chaplain – Dr. Dawkins, I agree with you about a lot of things, but, if you’re going to argue about history and philosophy of science, then address the academics who are making the arguments against you, not the laypeople who are distorting them. As a matter of a fact, Thomas Kuhn’s favourite example is not Newtonian vs. Einsteinian physics; the antirealist philosophers of science against whom you argue do explain why they feel it is justified to call certain scientific observations into question but not everyday occurrences; using the Western idea of objective truth inherent in your characterization of a jury to argue against cultural relativism (with which, by the way, I don’t agree myself) is begging the question. Also, the inability of users of a word to explain its precise meaning verbally does not necessarily indicate its lack of significance; what, precisely, is a “gene”? Or “complementarity”? Daniel Dennett isn’t the only philosopher who “reads the science”; he is merely one of the few who appears to accept it in the same manner most scientists do. And, actually? I think it’s pretty historically naive to claim that particular historical tragedies wouldn’t have happened at all without religion. Like, I’m pretty sure that cultural and territorial colonization dating back to the middle ages also had an influence on the sentiments currently characterizing the split between the “Western” and “Islamic” world.
3. For the eight-millionth year in a row, the Rideau Canal is not open over winter break. WTF, global warming? What’s the point of skating if you can’t buy Beavertails, drink hot apple cider, and eat enough fudge to make you throw up?
Three recent pleasant surprises:
1. Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd – I wasn’t sure anything could match up to John Doyle’s play, but I was definitely wrong. Sure, there’s typical Burton/Depp/Bonham Carter weirdness, and it still squicks me out to see Alan Rickman as a lecherous rapist. But the movie is good in a movie way. It would make a poor stage production, but, then, the stage production would make a poor movie. Tim Burton is a director who knows how to adapt material for the screen; he knows his medium’s strengths and exploits them for maximum effect.
2. Tim Burton’s Big Fish – Usually, I’m not one for the father-and-son relationship stories or family sagas, but Big Fish balances on that edge of absurdity. Also, I have a total soft spot for stories about the purpose and nature of stories. And the visuals are just so lush and colourful.
3. All sorts of letters, emails, phone calls, and message posting from my friends and family for my birthday. Awwww! Thanks, everyone.
Three things I hope I’ll do in 2008:
1. Get an agent or publisher interested in my novels and/or short stories and/or plays
2. Figure out where the heck my academic career is going (history of stage technology? philosophy of theatre and mathematics?)
3. Turn 24.
Merry New Year to you too. I haven’t seen “Enchanted” and don’t know anything about Tim Burton, except that he makes really tasty donuts. Haven’t read “A Devil’s Chaplain” — but Kuhn *was* pretty keen on the Einstein/Newton affair as an example of incommensurability, wasn’t he? (At least in “Structure”, and at least insofar as he is defined by the examples that his opponents took up).
As to list 3 point 2, have you had a look at Paul Feyerabend? He trained as an opera singer, would have become one if not for the war, and had some ideas (at least he did in his autobiography, which I recommend) about some similarities between philosophical language and dramatic language (used the plays of a guy called Johann Nestroy as example of a person who revealed the corruptions of cliquey languages just by asking people to read those writings literally). And I gather that he had an eclectic vibe about him in general.
I admire you for aiming for 24 this year — it’s going to be a real struggle for me.
Hey Mike –
I’m sure 24 won’t be that difficult – after all, I’m told that if you try hard enough, you can do anything you put your mind to… (… or at least get a grant for it?)
Arg, you’re right, I had forgotten that part of “Structure”, although I think Dawkins was mostly trying to dismiss the entire idea of paradigms and/or antirealism by claiming that Newtonian and Einsteinian physics aren’t really different in the ways that “matter”. It’s difficult to tease out his argument because he lumps a lot of ideas together (and doesn’t mention other, equally conventional things like the Ptolemaic system, phlogiston, etc…)
Thanks for reminding me of Feyerabend – I had intended to look into his stuff this term just because he seemed interesting, and now I’ve got even more reason to do so.
Hope Canadian New Years hasn’t been treating you too badly!
PS. In case you didn’t know, Mark Solovey is a pretty good screenwriter (at least according to graduate small-talk and the Filmmakers International Screenwriters Awards). Don’t know if he builds it into his history of psych stuff though.
As for Canadian New Years, when you take into account the weather, the number of people crowding outside Nathan Philips Square, the snow in my shoe, and the Canadian approach to New Years fireworks (ie. save them up for Canada Day), and the fact that New Years in Toronto is about sixteen ours too late, it was thoroughly enjoyable! The barpeople also treated me well, as did all the jolly Canadians.
Hmmm, sounds like a typical Canadian New Years to me. (Especially the disappointing fireworks and the “snow in my shoe part”… actually, the latter sounds like a typical Canadian October-to-June) Didn’t know Mark Solovey was a screenwriter. Een-teresting…