Monday, August 15, 2011

Grrr...Torchwood.

I'm back...
Well, I didn't think it would go well...and it was what I expected. Torchwood exposed the badies, and the governments claimed they were acting for the good of the people. Rather than shutting down the projects and claiming plausible deniability, they've kept them open for the disposal of 'excess' human life.

I suppose that my reaction is worse because I've spent the evening whilst waiting to see the episode by browsing  photos of death and destruction...the bulk of which has been archived in reference to various wars around the world. (I must explain that I got onto the topic quite by accident as I followed a photographic link to prints from the 'Danse Macabre', which was one of my essay topics while I was at Uni. There were many prints made during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in response to the deaths that occurred after the plagues in Europe. They depicted the dance that every man from every walk of life must take with Death as you're carried off to the afterlife. {I actually built a couch, with a colonnade which I was going to paint with facsimiles of these charming prints...thus I still collect images off the net occasionally, rather than sketch directly from the aged books.}) Anyhow, in my browsing the least unsettling images I found were the peaceful images of cemeteries...Places where individual headstones had been laid by grieving loved ones.  Personally I find the mass headstones that are all identical, as offensive as waste of human life that caused them. To me they scream that there was no-one left to grieve, or that there wasn't enough of a recognisable body left for someone to claim. I feel sick to my soul about it.

On a side note, I feel sick that another generation is being taught that it's acceptable to fight rather than to lead by example. If ever I find that Raph or Mill, intend to join the armed forced I am going to sit them down and make them watch every one of the photos I downloaded...and ask them what if the people lying dead, and broken were people they loved...and if they were willing to cause another family the pain and anguish of having to find members of their family in shattered pieces. I want to point out to them that no matter what side you are on, what you're doing is wrong! Certainly some may say that if the allies hadn't gone to war with the axis in the second world war, that the atrocities would have been far worse...but if everyone had been living with respect for each other's lives in the first place then things wouldn't have gone so far as voting the Nazi's et al into power, and our own governments would have exerted pressure in time to reinforce the benefits of tolerance. *Deep Sigh*

IT'S NOT HARD PEOPLE: LEAD BY EXAMPLE...SAY NO TO VIOLENCE. 

I can't write any more tonight, it wears me out contemplating how simple it should be, and yet how hard we seem to struggle achieving it.
Kate 

Saturday, August 13, 2011

Don't know why it took me so long to find this song...

Hey,
I just watched Submarine for the first time, a simple coming of age story, with a nice soundtrack and nice directing (by Moss from The IT Crowd, aka Richard Ayoade). Just quirky enough to remain interesting all the way through.

 Anyway, here is a lovely tune for you, from the soundtrack. 




Alex Turner - It's hard to get around the wind.


It's like you're trying to get to heaven in a hurry
And the queue was shorter than you thought it would be
And the doorman says, "you need to get a wristband"

You've got to lift between the pitfalls
But you're looking like you're low on energy
Did you get out and walk to ensure you'd miss the quicksand?


Looking for a new place to begin
Feeling like it's hard to understand
But as long as you still keep pepperin' the pill
You'll find a way to spit it out, again
And even when you know the way it's gonna blow
It's hard to get around the wind.


Stretching out the neck on your evening
Trying to even out some deficit
But it's saber tooth multi-ball confusion
And you can shriek until you're hollow
Or whisper it the other way
Trying to save the youth without putting your shoes on


Looking for a new place to begin
Feeling like it's hard to understand
But as long as you still keep pepperin' the pill
You'll find a way to spit it out, again
And even when you know the way it's gonna blow
It's hard to get around the wind.


I can hear you through my window
But I'm never quite sure who is who
But they want the world on a dessert spoon
It always sounds like they're fightin'
Or as if that's what they're about to do
It might not hurt now but it's going to hurt soon

Cheerio Kate 

Monday, August 8, 2011

Torchwood : Miracle Day

Hi All,
As you may have noticed I'm a bit of a Torchwood fan (Yes, I'm still hoping that someone will give me a life size Captain Jack). The latest series is Miracle Day, and I'm five episodes into the story.



I have to say that the latest development in the story is quite disturbing. Aside from the fact that so far there have been no aliens (perhaps due to the series shifting to the US)...They have chosen to turn the whole world into a Nazi Death Camp. I feel quite sick as I contemplate where they hope to take the story. Certainly the storyline of experimenting on humans or aliens has been covered in the past, and the parallels have been drawn between Joseph Mengele and other scientific experimenters. But do we actually need to take things one step further into the horrors of our past? To actually put people into a gas chamber and just incinerate them. Surely this is taking things a step too far? The Second World War and the atrocities that were perpetrated then, are not so distant in the memories of the survivors and their children.  What they are trying to say could surely be extrapolated from a less explicit storyline.


Part of what I have found appealing about Torchwood, and Dr Who, is the exploration of our humanity and ability to respectfully apply those rights to beings that are foreign to us. I realise that part of that is facing the times that we have acted inhumanely towards each other...the act of holding a mirror up to see ourselves in a clearer light. My point is that in the past we have been given enough food for thought without having to make direct references.


Certainly I've read enough Sci-Fi, to have covered most of the post-apocalyptic terrors...and each time it has made me more concious about how I treat the people I come into contact with, and more determined to support equal rights for all. I'm not convinced that being force fed issues, leads to that self realisation. I would have thought that it is in our personal interpretations of the storyline, and the application of what we have discovered about ourselves, that works to make the world a better place.


I could turn off and not watch Torchwood, and thus put an end to my pain. I would miss the characters I've come to know and love. There is always the promise of knowing the outcome to try and keep me tuned in; I also know that eventually right will win, and the power of the people will turn against the corporation perpetrating the evil, thus theoretically my world balance ought to have been restored. It's all part of the formula...make us believe that we are capable of the worst, give us an option to do right, and then reassure us that the world will be a better place afterwards...oh and don't forget the scapegoat, without one we might actually have to live with the knowledge that it was our fault after all.

I will continue to watch, just because I'm a sucker. I just wont like what I'm viewing...but hey I watch some of the trashiest horrors made on abysmal low budgets. I will continue to miss the strong characters, the moving music, and the more thoughtful story lines that the original Torchwood had. Hopefully things will improve, the only other alternative is that they die.


My raised ire will over the insensitivity of the storyline will eventually dissipate, and I hope that not too many are offended by it in the mean time. I may of course feel the need reiterate my concern over the dumbing down and force feeding of historical atrocities at a later date.

Kate