Meme

My sister-in-law has tagged me on this movie meme that Ben started, so I am thinking hard...

1. One movie that made you laugh
Zoolander.

2. One movie that made you cry
I cry in almost anything. But particularly Wit. Andrew and I both cried just hearing the story of it. Then we cried when we watched it. Then we cried telling someone else about it.

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Galaxy Quest

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
The Bodyguard

6. One movie you hated
True Lies. Don't get me started.

7. One movie that scared you
No Country for Old Men.

8. One movie that bored you
Idiocracy

9. One movie that made you happy
Babette's Feast

10. One movie that made you miserable
Nobody Knows. Which is a really, really sad Japanese film.

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
I constantly chicken out of movies. Pan's Labyrinth is a recent example.

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Pete 'Maverick' Mitchell in Top Gun. (Hey! I was 13!)

13. The last movie you saw
Iron Man (see previous post)

14. The next movie you hope to see
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day or The Painted Veil - on Thursday!

15. Now tag five people: I tag Stephen and Meredith - and anyone else who would like to participate!

Iron Man

I'm a sucker for super-hero stories, so last night we went along and watched the latest Marvel Comics adaptation, Iron Man. For a light-weight movie, it had a certain style - Robert Downey Jr is a talented fellow, and more power to him for coming back from addiction.
Ultimately, though, the movie left a rather nasty taste in my mouth. Much of the action is set in Afghanistan, and you get a very small glimpse of how brutal and terrifying that conflict has become. While there is a certain subversive undercurrent to the storyline, the suggestion that what is really needed to sort things out is more violence (provided by more effective technology) rings sickeningly hollow.
It made me think again of an idea I've had for a TV series starring a (fictional) crack team of pacifists. Yes, pacificists! Each week they would be confronted with a challenging new conflict situation, to which they have to find a non-violent solution. What I love about this idea is that I think it would showcase the creativity of non-violence. If you rule out the possibility of violence, you have to really use your brain.
Some might consider this show unrealistic - but surely no less realistic than the fantastical fictions with which we are regularly presented, in which shooting people solves problems. Oh yeah, that's how things work in the real world.

Out of Ideas

At the moment I am juggling more ideas/projects than seems sensible. My paid work (basically full-time) is an Australian history project, which currently involves co-writing a book chapter, editing a conference series and working on a conference paper - each involving different sources, periods and topics. In my own research area of British history, I am trying to work on a book manuscript (due in June!! due in June!!) based on my thesis WHILE writing articles and conference papers based on the quite different project I began researching earlier this year in the UK. I also have quite a few other things going on outside work. So, as the boy in the Far Side cartoon said, my brain is full!
I am sorry to find that, as a result, I am all out of new ideas. I need a really good idea, on which to base a major research proposal, for a three-year post-doc. It has to be a Goldilocks kind of idea - not too big, not too small, sexy enough to catch the eye of the proposal-drunk readers, but not too sexy (in case I get pilloried in the columns of The Australian for wasting the taxpayer's money), relevant to my existing track record but not simply repeating my previous work. Faced with this daunting criteria, asking myself 'What would I really like to work on for three years?', my brain draws a blank. I just have no idea!

Hazardous Reading

I may have blogged about this before, but I will say it again: reading should not be attempted while walking. I have a very bad habit of combining the two activities, which on various occasions has resulted in:
- crying in the middle of the footpath because I had just read a particularly moving poem;
- walking straight past a large sign into a patch of very wet cement (the workmen standing next to the sign just looked at me incredulously as I lifted my head from the page)
- standing on an escalator for five minutes or so without noticing that the escalator was not moving. People were pushing past me to get up the escalator for the entire time. It was only when one of them laughed out loud that I noticed I was stationary.
It still hasn't entirely cured me. I just find the written word so deeply alluring, I find it very difficult to hold an unread book or a newspaper or even a bill in my hand, and not start perusing it - even if I'm running for the train. I would like to think that is evidence of some profundity on my part, but the sad reality is it doesn't have to be quality literature - when I walked into the cement I was reading the phone bill.

Getting Together

On Tuesday night, a friend and I went along to a Reconciliation Get-Together organised by GetUp. Fifteen people - most of us strangers to each other - got together in a local cafe to talk about what reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians might look like in our nation and in our local community - and how we could be part of that. It was a diverse group with lots of different backgrounds and experiences but a common passion for justice and reconciliation. I was honoured to hear peoples' stories and be part of the conversation. Across the country around 350 other groups were doing the same thing. You can read about Byron's experience here.
On 26th May GetUp is encouraging people to meet again to continue the conversation and to mark Reconciliation Week. If you are in Australia, I'd urge you to get along to a get-together - or even host one!