Adam Luke

Last year, I had to study two pieces of music by Philip Glass that were in the soundtrack for Koyaanisqatsi (pronounced “koy-ahn-iss-kaht-see”, and meaning “life out of balance”), which I was told was a documentary sans narration. Sceptical as to how a documentary with no narration (or interviews, etc.) could possibly work, I watched one scene that I was studying music for, and did not see how, exactly, it could be classified as a documentary.

Recently, I was reading a discussion about documentaries, Koyaanisqatsi was recommended, and I got the urge to view it in its entirety. It was only then I realised what a fascinating documentary it actually was. It’s not the sort where you’re supposed to learn a lot about a particular topic; rather, it exposes you to different cultures, ways of life, and environments, juxtaposing them all. For example, the opening scene of aerial shots of a desert, is juxtaposed with the next scene of flowing oceans. Similarly, a scene of an empty city is placed next to a scene with heavily sped-up footage of a busy city.

Each scene is accompanied by a piece of music by Philip Glass, who although seems to make all his works rather similar, writes some beautiful music. My favourite scene by far of the movie was “The Grid” (part one, part two, part three).

In conclusion, I recommend this film, and am planning to watch the rest of the trilogy.

Watching Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs piqued my interest in, well, dinosaurs. I used to have a fascination with them when I was much younger, and remember my favourite dinosaurs being the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus and Pterodactyl. These days, I like the Archaeopteryx…if that even counts! Either way, it is the best looking, and has the coolest name, of all life that existed at the time. Over the past few days I’ve watched Walking with Dinosaurs, which I know I’ve seen at least some of in my younger years, as well as in high school science.

I find it so unfathomable that we can know so much about creatures that existed one hundred million years ago. I should actually research to find out how scientists know such things about them. For example, the documentary made me wonder how we can actually know that male Diplodocus stand on their back legs to impress female Diplodocus.

Overall, I found Walking with Dinosaurs extremely interesting, although six episodes was definitely not long enough. It only seemed to scratch the surface of dinosaurs, in general. While it did have particular focus on particular dinosaurs (such as the Diplodocus and Tyrannosaurus), it only mentioned other interesting dinosaurs in passing.

To get the ball rolling, I shall elaborate on something I posted on LiveJournal a few weeks ago.

I was in a toilet cubicle at university, and there was an amusing joke written on the wall. I had my phone with me, so I went to take a photo of it, only to discover (to my horror), that whilst on silent, taking a photo still makes a sound. I guess there are reasons for this, but whoever else was in the bathroom at the same time would have heard me taking a photo in the cubicle and must have had some strange thoughts.

The photo can be found at Flickr. I found it amusing that someone scribbled out the punchline, but good thing someone fixed it.