Blade Runner’s Memories
[Spoilers alert: Don't read this if you've never seen Blade Runner but you are planning to]
Husband seems to believe that watching the same movie over and over again is fun. He likes how old movies feel familiar–you’ve learned all the lines by hearth and known exactly what to expect. They become part of you, and it’s almost like watching yourself. To me, watching the same movie twice feels like a waste of time. I like novelty. Familiarity bores me.
Well, except for Blade Runner, of course. I lost count of how many times I saw Blade Runner.
I blame Ridley Scott for the multiple versions that continue to crop up every decade: the first and studio-engineered voice-over version (“Families considering viewing this film should avoid the original like the plague; instead go with Ridley Scott’s vision” write Afsheen Nomai and Marjorie Kase in Common Sense Media), the Director’s Cut, and now the “Director’s Final Cut”.
Yes, Blade Runner is in theaters again (well, at least in one theater, the Ziegfeld in NYC) and yes, I went to see it again. (I wonder, how many times can a director make the same movie?)
I just cannot resist existential sci-fi, the type of sci-fi that explores other worlds and creatures as a way to reflect on what makes a human being human (is it emotions? memories? dreams? compassion? empathy?).
Blade Runner’s cinematography and the atmosphere are still amazing. Inside buildings and in the streets everything is dusty, messy, and wet. You can almost smell the moldy and rotten stench of the street of 2019 Los Angeles. Most scenes are dark, but bright artificial light intrudes and blinds. And it always rains.
Some scenes are more violent than I remember, probably because even the first time I had to close my eyes (this time, I knew exactly when it was time to keep my eyes shut). Watching replicants die was hard the first time, and hasn’t got any easier. They die with a fight, and they are painful to watch. But this is exactly the point.
Replicants are the scary others–so strong, unpredictable, and merciless–but killing dangerous creatures who don’t want to die still feels very much like killing.
Above all, Blade Runner is a movie about memories. Are we our memories? What if our memories are not real? What happens to our memories when we die?
At the end of the movie, Roy saves Deckard life, and it’s for not compassion or a sudden awakening of empathy. Roy needs a witness. A part of himself will continue to live if somebody listens to his memories and survives: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
Time to die.
If you think this is funny you are an idiot
The blogosphere is passionately debating Kathy Sierra’s death threats and misogynous bashing at the defunct meankids.org.
Kathy is mourning the loss of her normal self.
I have cancelled all speaking engagements.
I am afraid to leave my yard.
I will never feel the same. I will never be the same.
Some have decided they won’t talk about it, because nothing makes a troll happier than fame. Others have written beautiful and touching posts about it.
I will never forget the descriptions of how me and my friends were to be raped. And Kathy will never forget the descriptions of how she was to be harmed. That’s what it means to be terrorized. How can we live in a community that permits that? How can we allow spaces like that to foster under the guise of “free speech”? We have a responsibility, a moral responsibility, to help generate spaces that breed tolerance, to speak out in support of those around us, and to bite our tongues rather than spit hatred when we’re frustrated.
The web debates who is to blame. Of course the people who wrote the threats and posted the pictures are to blame. And yet, those who created the space for hate and violence, those who set up the chemistry experiment that got explosive—people who are considered smart and accomplished because they understand social dynamics on the web—should think hard about what happened and about the human consequences (even indirect) of their actions.
Hurting people is way too easy, and there is nothing remarkable about it. It’s just sad and despicable. [If you are curious about meankids.org, you can still find cached pages on Google. But I warn you, you'll be disappointed: it's really boring reading.]
If you think about it, Kathy Sierra has been harassed because of who she is, what she says and writes. Wake up! This is not funny: this is dangerous. It attacks and destroys the very essence of the freedom of speech you are hiding behind. If you think this is a funny, innocent game you are an idiot.
UPDATE: Read few more blogs. Some “balanced” people write: sure, being threatened and insulted is not nice, but it comes with the territory and we need to preserve freedom of speech on the web. Besides, you cannot be responsible of what people write on your blog.
I say: this is true and bullshit at the same time. Freedom of speech is essential, but viciously attacking somebody for what they write—or worse, who they are—is a limitation of their freedom of speech. The more I think about it, the more I agree with danah boyd: this is an issue of social responsibility.
There are people and there are principles: I’ve always distrusted those who put principles above people. “Sorry, Kathy, but you are less important than freedom of speech. Your feelings, your life, even your right to express yourself, is less important than this abstract idea. Get over it.” You know in your heart that if this is true, we have failed.
Should Kathy have refrained from naming names? Perhaps. For one, it would have saved her some grief. Some of the people she mentioned by name seem to be very weakly connected, if at all, with the site. So, we are back to the beginning: we may not have the legal responsibility to be respectful to others, but we do have the social responsibility to think about the consequences that our words and actions have on other people.
4/2/07 Update: Kathy Sierra and Chris Locke write a “coordinated statement” in preparation of their CNN interview.
Our Irish Fairytale of New York
Yesterday it was St. Patrick day and we fully enjoyed it. In the morning we crossed a white Central Park to go to the St. Patrick’s day parade on 5th avenue.
I was impressed by the high number of black and asian Irish parade participants.
It was cold and windy, and after 5 hours marching in the streets was not that pleasant any longer.
I especially enjoyed the girls of a catholic school who, in a skillful high-lift leg move, proudly showed their Vatican yellow underwears.
In the evening, we couldn’t miss the Pogues’ concert at the Roseland Ballroom. So many people, so much beer and drunk jumping, sticky hardwood floors, and Shane MacGowan singing from a wheel chair. What’s not to love about Ireland?
Via Margutta – November 2006
In my twisted, contradictory, conflictual way I really love Rome and I always will.
Of the kindness of strangers (in NYC)
Who ever said that New Yorkers are rude?
I’ve been in NYC a little bit more than a month and I’ve been rescued, helped, advised, and even received medical attention by total strangers, without me ever having to ask for help.
It started with the young woman who saw me trying to buy a MetroCard from a machine with my credit card. She stopped to tell me that that machine never worked with credit cards; I should use cash or go to the other Subway stop across the street.
Then it was the turn of the elegant black businessman who rescue me in the Time Square tower where I was trying to figure out how to get to one of the high floors. He showed me the right spot and how to operate the elevators (which worked like no one I’d seen before).
It was Maria from Ecuador who didn’t even speak English and saw me coughing. Instead of stepping away from me and looking at me with despise, she talked to me with kindness and gave me a Cepacol lozenge for my throat and a menthol lotion to spread on my neck for relief.
It was the woman who saw me standing with my luggage in front of the emergency exit door of the ACE subway stop at Port Authority—would the alarm sound if I opened the door, as the sign read?—who moved towards me and without even slowing down (I’ve been told that New Yorkers walk 30% faster than non-New Yorkers) opened the door for me. “I was afraid the alarm would sound.” “So what? Go!”
Then the elderly black woman with the cane waiting for the green traffic light , who scolded me for being too close to the corner where cars could hit me. And the two guys who—independently—prevented me from forgetting my gloves in the subway car (one stopped me and pointed at my gloves, the other collected them and handed them over to me).
When people don’t use cars, they actually share the same space-time; they perceive the connectedness among human beings who find themselves in the same space (even more strongly in smaller spaces like subway cars).
New Yorkers practice an efficiency-driven solidarity I haven’t experienced in any other place. They act as a collective “Getting started” manual for a city that it’s not always easy to use for newbies. Perhaps it’s because so many people are new to NYC. Perhaps it’s because of the many traumatic experiences who have taught New Yorkers how important is to rely on each other. Whatever it is, it makes you feel like you belong and people care.
Then, one evening going home from work, I heard the man sitting to my right saying something about “his biggest fear.” I looked at him. He looked at me asked: “Do you think a man should confront his biggest fears?” It was a rhetorical question; he only needed to find the courage to do what he knew he had to do. I asked him what his biggest fear was. In the space of a subway stop, the man told me about his biggest fear and how he was avoiding it, and how he decided to deal with it. “Good luck!” I said standing up to get off at my stop. I really meant it.
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