Weekend "Activity"

Yesterday Ali and I went to see The New World. It was pretty great, in the usual Terrence Malick style: slow-paced and meditative, hardly any plot, lots of being inside characters' heads to hear their most mystical thoughts, gorgeous majesty-of-nature shots between every scene change. Too bad it had to be Colin Farrell, but he did a reasonable job. We had to take a bus out to the big-box industrial park to see the movie and we somehow got on the wrong bus. Neither one of us really knows that end of town at all, so we didn't realize it was the wrong bus until we came back to the same mall for the third time. We had to get off and catch another bus, which we almost missed because it was confusingly called "Out of Service," and then the mob of people at the theatre nearly made us late. I'm not really sure what they were all there to see, but it certainly wasn't our movie.

When we got out of the film 2.5 hours later, the sun had just gone down and this really weird fog had settled everywhere. The giant yellow sulfur parking lot lights above it were creating purple haze without the drugs or feedback, and the sky was a brilliant indigo with a bright half moon right in the centre. It was really beautiful and Ali got a picture of it, but unfortunately it's analog on a roll of 36, so it won't be available for some time.

The bus home wasn't for another half hour or so, so we went into the Chapters across the lot and perused the mags. Alison found a decent photography one, and I was excited to discover Seed, my favourite magazine, which I thought had gone under since I hadn't seen an issue for about a year. It's a great science-for-people-who-have-a-working- knowledge-of-science-but-think-that-there-are-other-important-ways -of-looking-at-the-world-too publication, and this particular one has an article by Daniel Dennett, my favourite rationality-biased philosopher, who talks about the need for scientists to bring religion under the microscope. I guess it's taken from a new book of his which I will now have to track down. There's also a fascinating piece explaining how new brain cell growth has been related inversely to stress, meaning that people born into poverty and other hardships may be at an actual biological disadvantage.

So today is reading and crossword day. Next time I'll tell you about this great novel I finally allowed myself to start reading and now can't put down. Hint: it's not the Michael Crichton one about eco-terrorists that my boss loaned me.

- Andrew