Observations of a Sick Person

I have an excellent track record in fending off sickness.

A blemish on this record appeared at the start of this week. After fighting off flu and sickness many times over the past few months my body finally succumbed and shut down for several days. Being sick is unusual for me and as such, I made some unusual observations while beset by this virus. When I was becoming sick I took it as an opportunity to have some down time, to try to relax and to take things easy. Of course, this is a nice point of view to have until you actually become sick and remember what it's like.

Memory was certainly one of the things that took a strange turn while I was sick. The different aromas and tastes of medicines reminded me of all the times I was sick as a child. Even just the feeling of being sick and bedridden brought back many memories of similar patterns in my life. While helping my long term memory, this sickness severely played havoc with my short term memory. Days blurred into a continuous stream, conversation became difficult and I quickly forgot the context of my life pre-sickness.

It is this life that stood out most in my illness induced observations. As mentioned before, this flu has been threatening me for months. There was a very good reason (several in fact) that I had managed to defeat it up to this point. I was mentally strong. When these situations reversed I became very susceptible to the sickness. The absence of my previous mental strength has been made poignant by this sickness.

Which brings me to my final sickly observation: some things are not as easily healed as the flu.

-The English Student

District 9: Film Review

At last, a Hollywood sci-fi film that proves that a huge budget isn't necessary for good story telling.

District 9 is a debut film from Neill Blomkamp that deals with the results of an unexpected first contact with alien life forms. The film instantly plays off the standard science fiction choice between "friendly, helpful alien life" and "aggressive, warmongering alien life". These aliens arrive and offer no contact whatsoever. The story continues by detailing the relationship between alien and humanity along with internal human concerns. This is balanced by the personal trials of Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) who is caught amongst these struggles.

As mentioned in a previous post, much of science fiction seems to suffer from the problem of relying on science fiction details in lieu of competent story telling. It is very easy to distract a reader or film viewer with flashy imagery or pseudo scientific jargon. But this rarely works and the underlying plot, characterisation or language problems always remain. District 9 seems to have gotten the balance just right by engaging the audience with appealing characters and a strong plot through the medium of forward and unique science fiction.

I found the acting to be excellent, the style of cinematography highly appealing and the overall production sublime. But the most impressive element of this film relates back to the method of story telling. Refreshingly, Bloomkamp has joined the group of science fiction story tellers that do not feel the need to over-simplify or explain a situation. Plenty of questions are left unanswered by this film and not only is that perfectly ok, it's a great benefit to the film. Why spend huge swathes of time explaining a situation that does not need explanation?

Good writers allow the audience or readers to use their imagination to enhance the story and District 9 is a very good example of this pattern.

-The English Student

The Sound of the City

We use all our senses to experience the city, not just our vision.

Any place offers audio sensation as well as visual ones. Our capital city is the perfect example of how sound can affect our experience of a place. Depending on what route we take through the city we can see different things and also hear different things. Certain bus routes have older buses. These buses will have a slightly different engine pitch. In certain areas different types of birds or animals are more likely to congregate and diffuse their noise through the air. Even different types of people can be found that speak with different tones or accents.

Of course we are often inclined to ignore this music of the city. We prattle on to someone about unimportant subjects. Or more frequently, we put in our headphones and drift off into our own personal store of music. In short, we do anything to fill what we perceive as the absence of noise when travelling through the city. We need professional musicians to provide us with a soundtrack instead.

But people, buses, trains, even bands and musicians on the street combine to form a soundtrack for the city. There is a different score every time we enter the capital, with different notes contained within it. This score is played by different instruments too. While we may be more inclined to force our own music onto the scene we should allow the music of the city to flow through us and enhance our perception of the city.

When we use more of our senses we gain more information and get closer to understanding our capital city.

-The English Student

Let's Save Vinyl!

Choices for music buyers relate to content and form.

New technology means new progress in audio formats. Cassettes replaced vinyl, compact discs replaced cassettes, mp3's have replaced CD's and increasingly clear formats such as .FLAC are pushing the boundaries of electronic formats. But while these progressions are exciting, they are not necessarily always an improvement in how we experience music. I recently added to my meagre vinyl collection with a new album that was released in this format, along with CD and mp3. There are two very specific reasons that I decided on this particular format.

I may have a reputation as something of an audiophile and as such, I do find the quality of vinyl better than electronic formats. Without going into too much detail, vinyl has a greater ability to record and reproduce analog audio. This equates to better sounding drums and bass along with treble quality. While it is true that the format is more delicate and can have slight hissing sounds at lower volumes or with older vinyl, at louder volumes I believe the positive difference is noticeable and worth the drawbacks.

I previously used the phrase "experience music" and I know that this seems a little unusual. But it highlights the many facets involved with listening to music. Even if we do not hang on to the vinyl format due to the marginal improvements in audio quality, the experience of vinyl is valuable. People seem content with buying songs from iTunes but I find the process somewhat hollow. The packaging, care and tactile pleasure of physical formats is missing. Being able to touch and handle vinyl and even the simple observable process of needle on record create a specific music experience that is lost in electronic formats. While it seems like a small point, being able to use your sense of touch and vision, along with hearing allows us to connect closer to music.

So go on, spend a bit more money and let's save vinyl!

-The English Student