Second visit to the Out of this World exhibition at the British Library. I've spent another hour in there, and I was still nowhere near finishing seeing the whole thing. Maybe I'm a slow browser, but I'd like to think that it's due to the sheer amount of material on display. It always astonishes me how London can provide us with such high quality exhibition for free.
So far, I've browsed the sections on space travel and aliens, and on future societies and humans. It's interesting to read about how right and wrong these writers were, and how our society really is more futuristic beyond their imagination (perhaps with the exception of space travel and flying cars).
Science fiction, and exhibitions like this, highlights a pretty overlap between history, science and art. It also reminded me of religion. Some the ideas presented can easily take a mystical persecutive rather than an intellectual one. And inversely I feel that some of the prophets or oracles of the olden days can perhaps be good science fiction writers, if given the chance. I guess at least one modern cult has its origin based on science fiction.
I'm looking forward to go there again another day, to look through the section on parallel universes.
Saturday 23 July 2011
Saturday 16 July 2011
Weekend routines II
I have the perfect excuse to not wake up and stay in bed and do nothing today. I suppose 'it's Saturday' is as valid excuse as any, but I tend to guilt trip myself if I don't give an elaborate reason to 'why a you wasting your life', though I do give myself a lot of practice these days. Today I actually have two almost reasonable excuses.
I skived school yesterday, and went Lovebox, a festival at Victoria Park. I know none of the bands playing, and no one I know is going, save some girl I met once, because 'she wants to go but doesn't want to go alone', a sentiment I once had before I become good at being a loner (though I understand not everyone can be as awesome as I). As for the festival, it focuses on DJs, and club and dance music (totally out of my scene, but I'm adaptable), though the headline act is misleadingly indie. The weather was uncharacteristically glorious, and I pity the revellers to that festival today. I find those dance and DJ sets have strange similarities to classical music, in that each 'piece' is long, repetitive, and are just variations of a theme, and that new comers to it will think 'everything sounds the same'. Still, I had to dance and everything and enjoy myself, anyone can do that if they wanted to, which leads to my first excuse: I don't wanna wake up because my legs are still tired, even after sleep.
The second excuse is a lot more universal. No one sets their alarm clock on weekends anyone, though I idiotically slept with my phone next to bed, and someone decided to text at 7am. It could've been a good thing, I had half a mind of going to a festival at Shoredich, if the weather is good. It wasn't, and it's still bad now. I didn't even have the look, the rain was rattling hard on the windows. With no reason to get up, I went back to bed, until I really needed food.
I skived school yesterday, and went Lovebox, a festival at Victoria Park. I know none of the bands playing, and no one I know is going, save some girl I met once, because 'she wants to go but doesn't want to go alone', a sentiment I once had before I become good at being a loner (though I understand not everyone can be as awesome as I). As for the festival, it focuses on DJs, and club and dance music (totally out of my scene, but I'm adaptable), though the headline act is misleadingly indie. The weather was uncharacteristically glorious, and I pity the revellers to that festival today. I find those dance and DJ sets have strange similarities to classical music, in that each 'piece' is long, repetitive, and are just variations of a theme, and that new comers to it will think 'everything sounds the same'. Still, I had to dance and everything and enjoy myself, anyone can do that if they wanted to, which leads to my first excuse: I don't wanna wake up because my legs are still tired, even after sleep.
The second excuse is a lot more universal. No one sets their alarm clock on weekends anyone, though I idiotically slept with my phone next to bed, and someone decided to text at 7am. It could've been a good thing, I had half a mind of going to a festival at Shoredich, if the weather is good. It wasn't, and it's still bad now. I didn't even have the look, the rain was rattling hard on the windows. With no reason to get up, I went back to bed, until I really needed food.
Saturday 9 July 2011
Out of this world: prelude
First of all I decided that Nando's is so delicious, I'm going to have it every week. Saturdays, in fact. Euston station may not have the nice huge ceiling of Paddington, or the posh new St. Pancras bit near King's Cross, it does have a Nando's, making it my station of choice for food purposes.
I am current sitting in the Starbucks overlooking the British Library. I planned to visit the 'Out of this World' exhibition there right now, but by the time I negotiated myself out of bed, got myself to Euston, and sated myself on Nando's, it's a bit after 4pm. The building closes at 5, which means I have to leave, after only got through the section on Martians and half way through the rest of the aliens. I am planning to go again tomorrow, since I'm curious as to what the big blue police box next to the mechanical walker is about.
I am current sitting in the Starbucks overlooking the British Library. I planned to visit the 'Out of this World' exhibition there right now, but by the time I negotiated myself out of bed, got myself to Euston, and sated myself on Nando's, it's a bit after 4pm. The building closes at 5, which means I have to leave, after only got through the section on Martians and half way through the rest of the aliens. I am planning to go again tomorrow, since I'm curious as to what the big blue police box next to the mechanical walker is about.
Wednesday 6 July 2011
Image of the Invisible God
There are some cool bible verses, ones that read like a passage from a magic book, inspiring a whole hierarchy of heavenly beings.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:15-16 KJV)
This is from a bigger part of the text read out during some bible study session I tagged along to. Instead of talking about the more awesome aspect of the 'invisible' world, the bits where angels and stuff being summoned, they fall back on just grovelling about how amazing their God is. I live in a world where leaders who demand grovelling tend to be evil/mad, and I find it disconcerting that Christians seem to attach that quality to their God.
It's the 'invisible' that drew me to this text, and the ironic use of 'image'. I'm pretty sure Paul is not a natural philosopher, and when he said 'invisible' he really meant ghosts and demons and angels and stuff. Mystical things.
There are other kinds of invisible though. Forces, fields, spectrums. Space, time, logic. Maths. I like the irony of how we can wield these 'mundane' powers to achieve what priests and shamans do in the past using gods and magic. Here we have an oracle that can predict the weather, and work out when the sun would go dark. We can heal the sick. We can kill from a distance, and destroy cities. Maybe now we know what the invisible God really is.
Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: (Colossians 1:15-16 KJV)
This is from a bigger part of the text read out during some bible study session I tagged along to. Instead of talking about the more awesome aspect of the 'invisible' world, the bits where angels and stuff being summoned, they fall back on just grovelling about how amazing their God is. I live in a world where leaders who demand grovelling tend to be evil/mad, and I find it disconcerting that Christians seem to attach that quality to their God.
It's the 'invisible' that drew me to this text, and the ironic use of 'image'. I'm pretty sure Paul is not a natural philosopher, and when he said 'invisible' he really meant ghosts and demons and angels and stuff. Mystical things.
There are other kinds of invisible though. Forces, fields, spectrums. Space, time, logic. Maths. I like the irony of how we can wield these 'mundane' powers to achieve what priests and shamans do in the past using gods and magic. Here we have an oracle that can predict the weather, and work out when the sun would go dark. We can heal the sick. We can kill from a distance, and destroy cities. Maybe now we know what the invisible God really is.
Sunday 3 July 2011
Weekend routines
There were plans. There is so much to do in this city. The weather is great. Despite of all the splendid reasons I gave myself, I find it hard to wake up and be useful at weekends. There is no reason why I should listen to The Archers or Desert Island Discs in bed before I decided to get out, out of sheer boredom. DID is a fine program, by the way, it's just not a good reason for inactivity.
There are things to blame of course. The tube line that takes me to London was suspended. What I wanted to do will still be there when transport works again. No one is going with me. Why do I want to do stuff anyway?
Well here I am, sitting in a Starbucks, scribing random stuff on the blog, before deciding on where to go next.
There are things to blame of course. The tube line that takes me to London was suspended. What I wanted to do will still be there when transport works again. No one is going with me. Why do I want to do stuff anyway?
Well here I am, sitting in a Starbucks, scribing random stuff on the blog, before deciding on where to go next.
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