The Cascadilla Gorge hike was one of my favorite Rose events this year. I especially enjoyed learning about the history of the gorge and trying to envision the natural forces that shaped the area. One of the cooler aspects of the hike was when our guide pulled a rock from the cliff and it had several shell fossils. It seemed crazy to me that any old rock from the cliff could contain imprints of organisms that lived millions of years ago. I was always curious about why the waterfalls in Cascadilla Gorge, Ithaca Falls, and Fall Creek Gorge have almost perfect stairsteps. The reason is that the waterfalls are actually made up of two (or more) different types of rocks. One rock is softer, so over time, the softer rock is eroded away, leaving behind the harder rocks. This is also the reason why there are large pieces of rocks near the bottom of the waterfalls. Those are the harder rocks, and they aren’t eroded so easily, so when they break off of the main bedrock, they don’t get broken down by the force of the water.
Author Archives: Ning Ning
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb poses an interesting situation where the USSR creates a “doomsday device” that will wipe out live on earth if it is attacked. Theoretically, such a device should discourage any nuclear warfare, since any attack would be followed by destruction of all belligerents. However, an idea that was proposed was moving thousands of survivors into mineshafts to outlast the nuclear radiation caused by the doomsday device and reproduce in order to restart the war all over again once the fallout subsided. It reflects a darker supposition about the persisting tribal nature of humanity, an enduring part of us that wants to wipe out the other side.
I admired Stanley Kubrick’s ability to weave comedy around nuclear apocalypse, a traditionally darker topic. It reminds me a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s style. In fact, the ending of Dr. Strangelove is very similar to the ending in Cat’s Cradle, where essentially all life is extinguished without either work really focusing on the appalling nature of the outcome. There was no gore in the movie, and the series of unfortunate events leading to the nuclear holocaust were quite humorous. Additionally, the Vera Lynn song at the end maintained levity.
Immediately after the movie ended, I realized that the title was odd, since Dr. Strangelove seemingly played a very minor role in the film. After thinking about it for a while, I think that perhaps the title is a reference to the suggestion that Dr. Strangelove made about how there would be ten women for every man in the mine shaft shelters, in order to rebuild the population.
My thoughts on Beyond Thunderdome
I was excited to watch Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the third and final movie in the original Mad Max series, because I had heard good things about the franchise but had never watched any of the movies. The only context I had about the series prior to watching the movie last week was that it took place in a post-apocalyptic world. In all honesty, I hated the movie. The action scenes seemed way too over-the-top, the children from the oasis were annoying as hell (I must have heard at least a hundred squeals of “Captain Walker!” and each one was more irritating than the last), and in the end nothing seemed to be accomplished aside from that the children finally found “Tomorrow-morrow Land,” which was honestly just a city ruins wasteland.” Aunty was still in control of Bartertown, and on top of that, Mad Max had destroyed the methane refinery so the entire town had no power source. Perhaps Max had some kind of grudge on Aunty, but the entire town should suffer for it.
I suppose one thing that the film did correctly was the idea of Bartertown. I guess I never really thought about how a post-apocalyptic society might look like. Bartertown’s political structure is backwards–it has a near all-powerful leader and justice is administered with a wheel of fortune. Conflicts can be resolved by staging a gladiator-style fight to the death. I suppose in an environment where survival isn’t taken for granted, political fairness comes at a much lower priority. It makes sense that all goods are bartered for in a place where new currencies can’t be produced.
I also found the speech of the children kind of interesting. Not really knowing anything about the world that Mad Max takes place in, I’m assuming that they were born after the war that tore civilization apart, and a lot of what they know about English, they learned from each other. So as a result, some of the words and grammar is off. I suppose the scene where Max goes through Captain Walker’s old photographs is where South Park got the idea for “Member Berries” from.
Thoughts on a genetically engineered future
Last week, I watched Gattaca at the Flora’s Films event. It was an interesting commentary about the upcoming age of genetic engineering, and the potential consequences of the future.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It was nice seeing the protagonist, Vincent, achieve his dream of piloting a spaceship; however, it does strike me as very irresponsible for him to to do this when his heart is in danger of giving out at any moment. Sure, there are incredible places that pure willpower can take you, but it can’t prevent your heart from giving out due to a genetic defect. Piloting a ship when his heart was already past its deadline sort of soured the feel-good story that the movie was aiming for, at least in my experience.
In the movie, there exists a sort of class hierarchy between those who have been genetically engineered and those who haven’t. This happens even though there was a law designed to protect against “genetic discrimination.” I thought this was interesting–if an employer such as the Gattaca space center is given the option of hiring a genetically superior person over someone like Vincent for piloting a critical mission to Saturn, of course they’re going to choose the former. It’s really impossible to guard against genetic discrimination–it’s like passing a law today to outlaw “ability discrimination.” A person cannot be hired over another based on their abilities. This makes me wonder if there’s any way to make life fair for non-engineered humans if a scenario like the one in Gattaca appears in the future.
Life in a favela
City of God was probably the best movie I’ve watched in the past year. It was an action-packed thriller, but it also got me thinking a lot about how it’s so difficult to break out of life in the favelas.
In the movie, a gang leader named Li’l Zé built up an enormous amount of power, coming close to controlling the entire “City of God,” a favela in Rio de Janeiro. For young kids, joining the gang was a way to not only be cool but also to make money. There were various different tiers of gang members, from sentries to soldiers to drug salesmen. However, it takes a lot of time for young kids to make their way up the totem pole, and as one of the “Runts,” a group of young wannabe gang leaders remarked, it wasn’t worth it. However, leaving the gang life was also difficult. One of the main motifs of the film was “a hood never stops, he just takes a break.” Once a boy gets involved with the gang lifestyle, it’s often too late. Maybe he gets hooked on drugs, and wastes his money away. Or maybe he’s unable to continue his education, and doesn’t have the skills to find a job in order to make an honest living. It seems that the movie’s message is that the situation never improves in the favela, for it’s clear when the Runts kill Li’l Zé that the cycle will just start all over again.
Blue or Red?
Last Friday, I watched The Matrix for the second time at the Flora’s Films event. After finishing the movie, the GRF, Magdala, asked us whether we would’ve taken the blue pill or the red pill. This is referring to the scene where the protagonist, Neo, is offered two options: the blue pill, which allows him to forget everything about the Matrix and go about his ordinary life blissfully unaware of the real world, or take the red pill, learn about the truth behind the Matrix, and lead a life filled with struggle against the sentient AI focused on imprisoning the humans.
I voted to take the blue pill, and I was surprised to see that very few of the audience raised their hands to signal they would do the same. There was a much larger response to take the red pill instead. I wonder how many people who voted for the red pill would actually be willing to leave behind their friends, their dream of graduating from college, their life at Cornell. Personally, my life seems real enough for me, so if this is indeed just a computer simulation, it’s a pretty good one. I enjoy living my current life, so I’m frankly not interested in leaving it behind to join a struggle that it appears I will be on the losing side of. Maybe this is selfish, but I bet there’s a good chance that the AI is right about this one. Perhaps humans are indeed viruses and it would be better to have the computers take over. Just take a look at what we’re doing to our planet.
Freedom in France
Last Friday, I watched a short documentary called They Call Me Muslim, which was about the two different experiences of Muslim women in France, a democracy, and Iran, a theocracy. It gave me some insight into the political situation in France, which is very different from that of the United States.
In 2004, the French government instituted a law that banned the wearing of religious symbols in public schools. This law was enacted to maintain the separation of church and state in France. I believe this approach was a radical one. The government is taking away the freedom of Muslim girls to practice an important principle in their religion, but the students aren’t interfering with the government’s role in preventing religious influence. Headscarves aren’t tearing down the wall between church and state.
I’ve read that Europeans generally have a different attitude towards immigrants than most Americans do. The United States is different from European nations because the nation was built by immigrants. And although there are anti-immigrant attitudes in the US, they are not as prevalent as they are in Europe. In places like France or Germany, there is public pressure to maintain the western culture. In the documentary, some of the girls mentioned that the ban of Christian symbols wasn’t enforced. I wouldn’t be surprised that this ban was passed because politicians noticed a mistrust of Muslims by the public and sought to gain political points.
Perspective into a different era
I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love. It was a decent feel-good movie. Even though William Shakespeare and Viola de Lesseps were unable to stay together, it didn’t feel too sad because both knew that it was impossible to live together, and it felt like both were simply making the most of their time together. I liked how the movie featured Romeo and Juliet while also making reference to Twelfth Night. I was not familiar with the latter play, so I did a bit of research, and it turns out that there’s also a character named Viola in the play that disguises herself as a man. The way that the movie interwove elements of both movies was clever in hindsight.
The historical introspection that Shakespeare in Love gave was also interesting. The way theater in the Elizabethan era was produced was interesting to me–no females were allowed to perform and it felt that Shakespeare was under heavy pressure from the theater owners to produce material. It seemed that the owners themselves had sole rights on producing a writer’s work. Furthermore, the competition between Shakespeare and Marlowe was often comedic to experience–Shakespeare seemed to go out of his way to inconvenience him. I was very impressed by the actors’ accents in the film. They were exactly spot on with my expectations of what speech might’ve sounded in that time. I wonder if that’s actually an accurate representation of how people talked back then. How would we know about the kinds of accents that people spoke with in the 16th century?
Fight Club–What was the purpose?
It’s been a week since I watched Fight Club, and I’m still not sure exactly what to make of it. Obviously I had heard all the pop culture references to the movie, and I knew it was popular. I was expecting a thrilling blockbuster similar to The Matrix, but Fight Club was something entirely different. I felt uncomfortable throughout almost entirely the entire movie. When fights were shown, I wanted to look away. I felt horrified when Tyler pointed a gun at the shopkeeper in order to get him to pursue his dream. Even at the end of the film, when the protagonist defeats Tyler Durden, instead of feeling release and relief, I only felt sickness from the bullet wound in his face.
I’m guessing the emotions that I felt are intended. The purpose was to get me to understand something about masculinity or violence or something like that. And I guess I did feel a bit of resentment towards Durden’s values. But the point seemed forced. The big reveal at the end was that the narrator was Durden all along. Seriously? Talk about an underwhelming deus ex machina. It was almost as bad as the “it was all a dream” cliche. In the end, I didn’t have any big epiphany about human existence. I didn’t particularly enjoy the film. I just walked dazedly to my dorm room and sat in the dark for a minute just trying to figure out what the hell I had just watched.