What's Going On

A few words on what I've been up to:

Firstly, I re-read Animal Farm in its entirety, in one sitting, yesterday afternoon in Browsers. I'm now convinced that it is a much better novel than I previously thought. The effect of reading it in a single sitting (it's not long, only 95 pages) was interesting.

I also re-read part of nineteen eighty-four last night. I think I'm definitely going to be writing my paper this weekend on Orwell.

I watched Fritz Lang's 1931 crime-thriller M starring Peter Lorre. This German-language film was fascinating for many reasons, not limited to it's subject matter - it's part serial killer film, part police procedural, part criminal justice - but also the themes that it raises regarding victim and predator. Very interesting. Of course a couple years later, the Nazis would kick Lang out of Germany and ban the film for ostensibly being "anti-death penalty."

With my dad gone, and me doing a fair bit of reading lately, I've been dipping into his classical music collection. I always enjoyed listening to it, but never had to actively seek it out because my dad would have it playing in the car, in his office, &c. Recently I've listened to Hector Berlioz's La Carnaval romain and Symphonie fantastique, and Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Nos. 8, 2, and 23. Listening to the piano work on the Beethoven sonatas was amazing. Given my interest in piano recently, I think I need to track down some Glenn Gould.

Also, I've been listening to much White Stripes (White Blood Cells) and The Black Keys (thickfreakness and Rubber Factory). Some of my favourite tracks are "10 AM Automatic", "The Lengths", "Hard Row", "Have Love Will Travel" and, for the Stripes, "Fell In Love With A Girl".