Month: April 2006

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Referencing Wikipedia

Psyche

In Greek mythology Psyche ("soul" or "butterfly") was the human bride of Eros, the god of love. Before she is allowed to marry Eros she is forced to undergo many difficult ordeals. Apuleius tells the story of Eros and Psyche in his Metamorphoses.

Eros' mother, Aphrodite, was jealous of the beauty of Psyche. She asked Eros to use his golden arrows to cause Psyche to fall in love with the ugliest man on earth.

Psyche – Wikipedia

That is a quote & a reference to athe opening of the item on Psyche in Wikipedia reference in 2004, saved for posterity (hopefully) in the web.archive.org. Using a slightly different structure (as there are now may more items with the title Psyche) this page has dramatically evolved in 2006, and it is different. Here is the current version (if you are reading my blog on Friday, 14 April, 2006.) of the equivalent passage

Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche

The goddess Venus, jealous of the outstandingly beautiful mortal Psyche, asked her son Cupid to cause Psyche to fall in love with the vilest wretch alive. Cupid agreed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupid_and_Psyche

I think there is marked improvement in consistency & clarity, a tribute to the spirit of Wikipedia & the people who serve her! But one thing is clear, that if I wanted to reference a passage or refer to wikipedia items in my writing I'd better do that using http://web.archive.org as that will ensure we are still looking at the same page.

I could not find any other information about how to reference Wikipedia, surely academic institutions have policy on this?  Using the Web Archive seems an excellent solution.

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More Moore

MTV.com

There are layers & layers of interconnection, which is one of the themes of the book / film and there is no shortage of this complexity in all the background drama & the characters, who are as engrossing as the art.

I have a theory, which has not let me down so far, that there is an inverse relationship between imagination and money. Because the more money and technology that is available to [create] a work, the less imagination there will be in it. My favorite films are those that were made on a shoestring. And they weren't adaptations of some other work, they were original pieces of cinema. All right, [Cocteau's] "La Belle Et La Bête" is an adaptation of "Beauty and the Beast" — but it was made into something very different. And I mean, John Waters, his early films, they're terrific! Because he was making them with some friends of his from Baltimore, with whatever cheap film stock he could borrow or steal. George Romero, in "Dawn of the Dead," "Day of the Dead," all the rest of them, he ingeniously used the fact that he had almost no budget to his advantage — claustrophobic sets, everyone's trapped in the cellar and the zombies are trying to dig their way in. Very inexpensive, incredibly powerful. That is where cinema really works for me.

Moore goes on to say exactly some of what I have in mind for my treatise on the difference between the movie & the film:

It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England].

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Natalie Portman, V & the Moriori

Cinema Confidential News: 03/15/06

Good interview, there is so much to reflect on in this movie and portman does that: here is one example:

There was a book I read that we all ended up reading in the movie; “Cloud Atlas,” which was pretty formative to my ideas about violence because it has this story of the Moriori Tribe, which is this non-violent tribe in New Zealand. They thought that if you commit violence, your soul would become tainted and you would become outcasts in their society. When the Europeans came, they were violent and now the Morioris don’t exist.

I have just read the original Alan Moore & David Lloyd graphic novel V for Vendetta and seen the movie. I feel like writing a treatise on the difference between the two! I am OK with both but the differences were worthwhile, and make me respect the Wachowski Brothers all over again. The did it for me in Martrix and they lost it in II and III and have it back in V (ha). I can easily echo her closing remark:

I’m looking forward to talking to people who see this movie because it provokes strong reactions from someone, and different reactions, is so interesting; to see people’s different interpretations and reactions is so nice to hear.

Here is a backstory about Alan Moore & his distancing himself from the movie.

PS: I am following up on the Moriori!

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Plug for my ISP

Woosh Wireless

I like my Woosh!  Of course I’d like faster & cheaper, but this is great for me as I can use it on the laptop anywhere (where there is woosh) but what I really like is that I can also use it as a dialup when needed.  I feel good about avoiding Telecom, who I particularly dislike, though not as much as the Govt who sold it to them.

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Audio attuned to Environment

invisible5:

In podcasting the “soundseeing tour” genre was coined in about  2005 and this project takes that to a whole new level.  I am downloading to have a listen, even though I won’t be driving Interstate 5 for a while (it is a long way from New Zealand).  My connetion is with Amy who is one of the creators, great to see this project online Amy!

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