On Saturday morning we had our digital content studies group study session. It's monthly, started in May, and this november session was the seventh of the series. Our guest speaker this time was Kei Hirakura, an art and film critic fresh out of his Ph.D. program at the U of Tokyo, and it was so fresh and exhilarating. I loved it. He analysed two post-2001 films: Steven Spielberg's Minority Report and Tony Scott's Déjà vu. Both are taken as stories focusing on the image-simulacra and their doubling function in relation to reality-as-we-share-it. Quite interesting.
Then in the afternoon, we had our seventh monthly session of the World Cinema study group that I and Keisuke Dan initiated. This time the host(ess) was Miyako Otsuji and she showed us her favourite filmmaker Luis Buñuel's American film (what rarity indeed) Robinson Crusoe. The strangeness of Robinsonade was multiplied by Don Luis's weird imagination. Altogether an enjoyable film, yet very MAD.
And on Sunday, the first day of winter in this part of the world... we had our first "kogarashi" the northen gust that's supposed to blow away brown and yellow leaves off the trees. But it was a beautiful day. There was this New Zealand Paradise Week 2007 going on at Roppongi Hills and we went to listen to a girl singer, half-Japanese half-Kiwi, that I had discovered a couple of weeks before. Her name is Kat McDowell. She has a great voice, a great feel, a pretty face and a good general attitude. As long as she is offered good songs she will surely make it as a Tokyo-based bilingual singer. My daughter was instantly fascinated!
And so my weekend is now over and I've got to resume my work, as hard as Milton, or Karl Popper (who worked 360 days a year from dawn to midnight and who rewrote his Open Society thirty times...).
My days are limited. Sing a hymn.
