Ongoing issues

I was feeling artistically inclined and unusually motivated, so I took my laptop over to the park to work on my 16 part philosophical treatise on Studio Ghibli and the work of Hayao Miyazaki. On my way, I was truly inspired. My head was filled with profound ideas and clever ways to phrase them. I realized I would have to deal with Kurosawa, that old fucker, but the way around the problem was clear.

Then I finally get there and find a nice spot by the lake, start the computer and my writing application, and all I can think about is the reflection of the clouds on the lake and how Miyazaki would handle the challenge of depicting that scene in an animated sequence. I tried to tear myself away from such wasteful speculation and get to work on the treatise, but my eyes kept straying from the screen to the lake and then to the sky. Finally, I realized the connection. The foundation on which I would build the entire 16 volumes was right there in front of me. It wasn’t a rock, it was a lake. No it wasn’t a lake, it was a reflection on a lake. It was something ephemeral yet tangible like drops of water, whether they be part of the cloud or spray from the idle splashing from the waves against the breakwater. Nearly an hour and a half had passed as these thoughts ripped feverishly around my mind. When I was ready to type, the computer’s battery was dead. Ha ha, I thought, I am not one to be defeated by technology. That's why I kept a pen and paper in my backpack, but the fucking pen was broken and my pack soaked with blue ink.

So anyway, I’m thinking I might write a few words about Princess Mononoke here, though not now. It is a very interesting movie and I need to weigh my thoughts carefully. If you haven’t seen it and would like to understand what I will be talking about, I encourage you to rent it. If you are into literature and film, it will give you a lot to think about, whether you ultimately like it or not.

In other news, I bought the Thom Yorke CD today because I liked the song that played over the credits of A Scanner Darkly. I was foolishly hoping for a suite of songs that would maintain that mood, but that has not proved to be the case. Black Swan is great, but my recommendation is to save yourself $9 and buy the single on-line. But before taking my advice, keep in mind that I do not like Radiohead. Your tastes may differ.

And finally, I’m still in training at the new job along with a couple of other new hires. The first week of training is general so we are all together. After that we will break out into our specialties. My new colleagues are not like me. Burt (recall that I will not be using anyone’s real name) is a software developer and Helga is in sales. The training so far has been very abstract and intellectual. We are learning about data mining and business intelligence and how the two can be combined to paint a socio-economic portrait, so to speak, of any particular individual. A lot of our time is spent playing a game that the company has developed in which we take various pieces of information about a person’s demographics and buying habits and analyze various marketing campaigns and how the may or may not work for that individual.

You may think bad of me for taking this kind of work. I could plead that I need the money, and I admit that the money is good, but I’m doing it for more than that. I have a rare opportunity to feed in the belly of a beast and the things I learn will help me better understand both the actions of individuals and large organizations. It’s a bit scary though. The company has an attitude, an air of superiority that they do a poor job of disguising. They think they know us better than we know ourselves. And from what I’ve seen so far, they are not altogether wrong in projecting that attitude out on the general population.

Update: If you are interested in a positive review of Thom Yorke's new CD, go here.