On Thursday, October 15, I completed my 31st cycle around the sun.
My wife bought us tickets for “Elephants and Ants”, a play based on one of Yaşar Kemal’s books. It was a story about elephants oppressing ants with their brute power, and ants, after years of abuse, rebelling against them. I liked the story very much, but more than that, I liked the practical effects of the play. In the play, the decor was very sparse, almost non-existent. But the cast did many small things that made the story richer: suddenly throwing small pieces of white paper to represent snowfall or “acting” just with their hands to show the busyness of ants. I checked many theatre glossaries to see if there’s a term for this but couldn’t find any. I know it sounds mundane, but it was not, at least for me. On that front, this was probably the most original play I’ve ever seen.
About the moving images on screen:
- We finished watching the first season of True Detective. As I said last week, we have no intention of watching the other seasons. I can’t imagine any other season being this good anyway. The first season was one of the best things I’ve watched on screen.
- We started watching American Horror Story. The first two episodes were okay; I can’t say I loved them. There’s something I don’t like about its directing: the cuts feel disconnected from each other.
- I watched Paul Schrader’s Hardcore (1979). Wow, what a great movie! I really loved the story and George C. Scott’s acting.
About the words on paper:
- I finished reading American Trickster: The Hidden Lives of Carlos Castaneda. It was a dense book that took me a while to finish. It was a great and eye-opening read. Not sure if I want to publish a review of this book; we’ll see.
- I also finished reading Franco “Bifo” Berardi’s After the Future. I very much enjoyed the book. I already have a draft for a review; I hope I’ll finish it next week.
- Lastly, I started reading Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We.
We moved into this apartment at the beginning of July. After 3 months, we need to move again, sigh… Recently the municipality examined the building for earthquake risk and found it to be at high risk. Most likely we’ll need to leave the apartment before this year’s end. Moving is very stressful on its own, but I have a trait that makes everything harder: Once I realize I need to leave a place, it starts to look ugly to me and I want to leave immediately.