There certainly were quite a few museums along that stretch of road on the southern bank of the Mainz, and it was always going to be a bit of a toss up as to which ones we would end up visiting. As I suggested previously I was somewhat glad that the World Cultures Museum was closed because, well, the more I thought about it the more I realised that I wasn’t particularly interested in seeing a museum focused on world cultures – I personally prefer to experience them first hand as opposed to in a museum, though I have written a post on Australian Aboriginals since there was a room dedicated to them at the Museum of South Australia.
Category: Science
The Romantic Railways
I remember sitting in a courtyard of a hotel in Paris with a beer in hand, and a book, when an American woman entered and began to talk to me. The hotel backed onto a major railway line that went from Gare Saint Lazare out to regional France, and trains would be regularly travelling past. The woman asked me if the trains would be doing that all night, though I suspected that the answer was no (particularly since the last train from Rouen to Paris left Rouen at 8:20 in the evening). However, it started me thinking that Paris is probably the only city in the world where trains rumbling past your hotel at 10:30 at night could be considered romantic, or was it just that these rumbling trains reminded me that I happened to be in Paris, not that I really needed all that much of a reminder.
Westword – Dreams of Consciousness
I would say that I have just finished watching this rather mindblowing television series, but I wanted to at least watch the original movie, and then the rather disappointing sequel before I started writing down my thoughts. Also, watching a couple of youtube videos also helped a bit with coming through with some thoughts, however as I look at the last of the ten episodes, I have to admit that I struggle to see where they can go to from there, and whether they can actually surpass what we have already seen. In any case, if you haven’t already watched the series then I recommend that you do, especially if you are a fan of the original film before you continue any further because even though I will attempt not to spoil anything (namely because there are some awesome twists), I can’t say that I won’t ruin the experience with this post, particularly since I am exploring some of the themes.
Orphan Black – The Dark Side of Science
It took me a while to get around to watching this series, though I must admit that my TV watching habits have been pretty sparse of late (probably because there are a lot of other things that I would prefer to do than sit down and stare at the idiot box after I get home from work). Okay, I am watching TV as I write this, but it happens to be a football match and my team is getting absolutely smashed so I doubt I will be watching for much longer (though for some reason, whenever we are watching a sporting match a part of us seems to have this belief, however misguided, that our team will do something extraordinary and pull the mother of all comebacks).
Our War On Nature – Naomi Klein and Climate Change
Naomi Klein certainly doesn’t mince her words, but another thing she does is that she does not publish endless numbers of books saying the same thing over and over again. When she publishes a book she will say everything that she wants to say on the topic once, and once only. In her latest project, she once again takes the hyper-capitalist economic system squarely in her sights (which is a constant theme in her books) and exposes how they are destroying the world.
The World of the Exo-planets
While I had heard about the discovery of the first planets beyond our solar system I hadn’t really been keeping up with the news of such discoveries, despite the fact that I do really like my science fiction. Sure, there are planets orbiting stars that aren’t our sun, but considering the distance that one has to travel to actually get to the closest one I didn’t see much point in paying huge amounts of attention (but then again that was back before the internet where most of our news came either through the television or the newspaper and if we wanted to find out more we have to go to dedicated scientific journals).
Spirituality behind Jupiter Ascending
It is funny that after the second time I saw this film I have the urge to write another blog post. The previous post was a more general look at how the concept of deity is being secularised and that the wealthy elite of our world are being turned into gods, however after seeing this film a second time I suddenly realised that not only are there a lot of references to the UFO phenomena of the 1980s, but also a lot of references to Christianity. The movie in effect turns it into a cult religion that worships aliens.
Noah and the Antediluvian world
Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all… Read more “Noah and the Antediluvian world”
Live, Die, Repeat – Edge of Tomorrow
This film actually has two names, and I’m not sure why they changed its name to Live, Die, Repeat so late in the piece (namely when the Blue-Ray was released) especially since I didn’t actually have a problem with the original name (though there are probably reasons that I am not aware of that prompted the change). Okay, it is a Tom Cruise movie, and while I would generally say that I basically tolerate him, he still seems to find himself in some really cool movies, such as this one.
Intersteller – Another Nolan Masterpiece
I didn’t really intend on posting movie reviews on my blog namely because there are so many movies out there that I did not want to crowd them out of other things. However once in a while a film will come along that I feel that the 1000 word limit on IMDB simply does not allow me to fully explore the film at hand. Interstellar is certainly one of those films, and I feel it also makes a worthy addition to my previous post where I looked at Stephen Hawking’s book A Brief History of Time.
Art & Literature with the Sarkologist 