Magic Happens

I've been immersing myself in my studies recently. The problem with PhD work, or at least my approach to it, is that you don't have any start or finish time and it seems to lend itself to a workaholic lifestyle. I always seem to be working, be it thinking through my ideas and arguments, rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to calibrate my simulations, or, the most time consuming activity of all - trying to avoid thinking about my work (aka procrastinating). It seems impossible to get anything done whilst procrastinating, except menial tasks such as cleaning. Any recreational reading or blog writing makes me feel guilty about the reading and writing I should be doing for my PhD work. And then there is the blog. I caught up with Meg at a gig on Friday and she was giving me grief about my lack of postings. So here is my recent effort:

Those who know me in the real world know that I grew up in a small town called Upwey on the outskirts of the Kingdom of Batmania. The town of Upwey was named after a town in Dorset, England, on the river Wey. Upwey is also half way up a hill, so I always thought that somebody had just misspelled directions to the town. I found out that the town of Upwey, on the river Wey, is somewhat famous for being home to an old pagan era wishing well (at least a contributor to the ever reliable Wikipedia thought so). Apparently, the well is the source of the Wey river. The water flows out of the well and fills the Wey valley. During the Victorian era people with paddle-wheel steamboats would use the river to transport important items, such as food and ice cream, to the township of Upwey and the surrounding region. Sometimes pirates would sail up the river and commit piracy on the paddle-wheel steamboats, presumably keeping the ice cream for themselves.

I remember, when I was a child travelling around the world with my parents, I visited this city which seemed to be all skyscrapers. I can't remember the name of the city - I must have been too young to remember things like that. For a brief period during the day, during the eleventh hour, the sun would rise above the skyscrapers and shine on the small park in the middle of the city. During this short period all the trees would blossom and the park would be filled with the bright colours that nature offers, contrasting the greys of the city. Unfortunately all the people who worked in the city didn't have their lunch break until noon, and so they never saw the park during this time.

In the middle of the park was a stone wishing well with a sign hanging over it which declared, to anyone who wasn't already in the know, that "Magic Happens". The people on their lunch break would sometimes throw coins into the well whilst making a wish and thinking about getting "Magic Happens" bumper stickers for their cars. I was lucky enough to visit the park during that brief period, during the eleventh hour. I looked down into the well, which was very dark, and wondered what was at the bottom. At some point a nice man walked by. It was the first time he'd seen the park during the eleventh hour because he'd only just quit his job, being of retirement age. He dropped a coin into the wishing well and made a wish, and then he gave me a coin so that I could also make a wish. I wished to know what was at the bottom of the well and dropped the coin.

The coin clattered down, bouncing off the walls. Before it hit the bottom, it was caught by a goblin. The goblin's name was Dorcas. It was Dorcas' job to organise the coins into categories based on the type of wish. There was a weekly pick up of the coins to take them onto the wishing factory, or some such place - Dorcas wasn't particularly concerned about that stuff. The room at the bottom of the well had shelves along all the walls with boxes to hold all the coins. Dorcas had become very cynical about the people who worked in the city, whose wishes were almost always selfish. People would often wish for things like their coins back, wanky bumper stickers, or to see such-and-such a person without their pants. There was a rather large cliche section for people who wished for things like world peace, or whatever was trendy at the particular time. At some time in the past Dorcas had been an elf. He had turned into a goblin due to the long hours he spent in the well getting cynical about people and spending all the time counting money. Elves are very receptive to their environment, so this type of Magic Happens often.

Magical Realism Death Match

I started this blog with the intention of NOT writing reviews on the films, books and music that I come across - the internet seems to have such things well covered without me. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to share my thoughts on the film "Pan's Labyrinth" which I saw today. I'm a big fan of the genre of magical realism, so I'll just placate myself by saying that I'm writing about the genre rather than the film. The film is an Alice-Down-The-Rabbit-Hole story set in post World War II Spain. It's a bit dark, not a children's movie, in fact, I thought it was more violent than "Reservoir Dogs", with it's very own torture scene (sans catchy song). It had absolutely amazing creature effects, including a wicked looking faun that could surely kick Mr Tumnus' arse all the way back to a disappointing filmic version of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Anyway, I loved it, but then I'm into that type of stuff, that is, magical realism. I'm not sure if there is a consensus on what magical realism is. I'd define it, most probably, inadequately, as a story where real and magical elements are interwoven in such a fashion that it is difficult to delineate between them. One of my favourite books of all time is "One Hundred Years of Solitude", which is considered, by many, as the best example of the genre. The book is about a South American town which, through isolation from the rest of the world, is innocent of its technologies, where things like magnets and magic carpets hold the awe of the townspeople and something as simple as ice is truly miraculous. Just thinking about it makes me feel all choked up, like a bit of a pansy. What I love about the genre is the child like perspective it gives on those difficult adult problems, such as politics and discrimination, technology and IP addresses. Anyhow, here are some of my favourite films, which may, in some possible reality, be considered as magical realism: Heavenly Creatures, Big Fish (although the book was way better), Lawn Dogs, The Purple Rose of Cairo (one of the best films of all time).

And now for that death match, judge for yourself:

Mr Tumnus

Versus

Pan's Labyrinth Faun

Setting Things Straight in Owenia

I recently received feedback on one of my PhD papers I'd submitted to a journal. The paper was about my simulation environment, which I discussed in an earlier post. One of the problems that the reviewer had identified with my model was a rule in my simulation which implied cannibalism. Basically, when an agent in my simulation dies it's health is recycled back into the local ecosystem to be reused as an energy source. My thinking was that this implies cannibalism in the same way that eating food fertilised with manure implies eating shit.

Anyway, I was thinking about this problem in my simulation late into the night. Long after Jodi and Gypsy had gone to sleep I saw strange lights shining though the window from outside the house. I went to investigate and there was Windy Pop, my friend from the planet Flatulon-Nine, whom I'd thought I'd only dreamt. Windy Pop told me of this place he visited called Owenia. I have no way of accounting for it, but it would seem that by some strange cosmic phenomena the world which I created in my simulation had become actualised as a real world, some twenty thousand light years on the far side of galactic central point. The occupants of Owenia, the Owenians, celebrated effigies of me, referring to me as the Designer. Now, I'd be inclined to say that this type of thing is an inevitable consequence of living in an infinite universe, something we all just have to accept and deal with, but the stories Windy Pop told demanded affirmative action. I had designed the inhabitants of Owenia to be capable of competition and reproduction, thereby evolve-ability. Although they were capable of evolving certain forms of biological altruism, such as aging, they weren't able to act in a cohesively social manner - apparently they just weren't made of the right type of stuff. The horrors Windy Pop recounted to me included the sins of necrophilia and cannibalism. Clearly it was my duty to visit this world I was responsible for creating, so that I may provide some higher order moral guidance.

Initially, Windy Pop's main method of transportation around the universe was via space taxi, but this proved problematic as it is very hard to find a space taxi without an air-freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, which, as any Flatulonian will tell you, is the root of all evil. But thanks to invaluable advice from a wise sage about the magical properties of Santa's reindeer wee, Windy Pop devised a method of interstellar astral travel between planets by consuming copious quantities of reindeer wee. Unfortunately this had an unpleasant side effect of dizziness, so I only vaguely remember the trip. I do remember first seeing the torus shape of Owenia in the distance. (A torus is a ringed doughnut shape. This seemed like a convenient shape for my simulation world, which is essentially a square grid with the edges wrapped around and connected. Try it yourself with a piece of paper).

Once I got to Owenia I refrained from revealing myself to the Owenians. Instead I selected a special group of people, who were currently enslaved by a selfish group of Owenians, to be holy agents. I also selected, from among them, a special one, named Mooses, who I spoke to in the form of a burning bush and told to lead the holy agents into an empty cell patch called the promised land. I gave Mooses special powers allowing him to part the seas, which defined the borders of the cell patches, permitting the holy agents to pass. After the holy agents were freed of their captors, I called Mooses up to a nice grassy knoll where we had a nice picnic of baguette and dessert wine, and I gave him the rules by which to live in the promised land - the Ten Commandments: