Archive for May 2003

Last night, as I shopped for oranges and pears, the greengrocer asked me where I was from, as if it couldn’t possibly be Australia. (This was partly because I’d never heard of some type of Australia pear but whatever.) Why is this? I get this quite a lot. Do I speak funny?

I saw The Matrix Reloaded yesterday afternoon. (In the afternoon because it was part of a work “team building” exercise. It was really weird to come out of the cinema and have it still be daylight, let me just say.) Anyway, it’s quite good! Visually, it’s not as strong or cohesive as the first, and Neo is way too powerful, but there’s an amazing amount of interesting philosophy of the traditional sci-fi sort (i.e. the topics of free will (most of the characters who have an opinion about it insist there is no such thing), the nature of time, multiple universes, perceived reality versus reality, and so on) as well as the nature and implications of belief, and the possibilities of love. (Actually, it occurs to me now that the whole thing could turn out very religious in the end. Which I wouldn’t mind.)

Other notes: (1) there’s an incredibly long wordless rave scene that fortunately stops at about the same time you realise that no-one has said anything for quite a long time, and begin to wonder why the Wachowskis have inserted a music video into the middle of a movie; (2) there’s a trailer to the next Matrix movie after the credits; (3) the power-station hacking scene is surprisingly realistic; (4) Morpheus’s speech desperately needed a rewrite; (5) the Oracle died almost two years ago!

“It was so hot in the club that it was difficult to breathe, but Puffy was still wearing his suit, and not one button was undone. His tie was so tightly knotted it seemed to put a strain on his Adam’s apple. A diamond stud was planted in each earlobe. A thick rope of a diamond bracelet-from Jacob, the New York jeweller to the hip-hop elite-adorned his wrist. He said, “From my manicure to my pedicure, from my head to my toe, it’s the swagger that I show the world, it’s my face, baby. It’s my walk, my attitude.” He rubbed the wisps of hair on his chin. “Fashion is about leaving on your jacket and tie when other people are too hot to bother.”

— Puff Daddy (“I Am Fashion” by Michael Specter in The New Yorker, 9 September 2002)