Watching time, the only true currency // A journal from John B. Roberts
“You don’t talk because of Friedrich Nietzsche.”
Steve Carell playing a suicidal homosexual Proust scholar in Little Miss Sunshine is funny, and he makes that line almost a howler. Trust me. He’s not alone in sparking laughs from material which by rights should not be so humorous. See this movie. The 78 from Metacritic feels spot on.
I’m noting this on Wednesday, but I occasionally get to the Kezar Stadium track on Tuesday mornings, if my friend Billy provides external motivation. Yesterday, 3x1200m and then 3x1000m. Felt good as I ran the first five at a very controlled pace with the group, so I went after the last one with the intention of negative splitting each 200m. I came pretty close, which left me satisfied.
3:32 for the full 1000m, for an average of 42.41 per 200m
45.29 = first 200m
42.97 = second 200m
43.01 = third 200m
41.01 = fourth 200m
39.79 = fifth 200m
The “precision” of hundredths of a second is false, of course, but it’s what I have, and it is directional. I’m not very consistent about recording my workouts, but I’ll be curious to see what I think of this workout’s final piece in a year’s time. Or five.
I wanted summer reading, and I found it in Robin Cook’s Marker. Beyond focusing a broadside at managed care, Cook mostly skips right along with a semi-thriller. Not having read any of the multiple bestsellers Cook has written before, I don’t know if all of them are medical. I suspect so, since he touts his medical training. Michael Crichton was trained as a doctor, too, and in using a thriller to make a political point, Marker felt like State of Fear. Neither one is a great read, unfortunately.
When I saw the title Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control in my coming Netflix queue, I thought it was a Vin Diesel type movie. I couldn’t remember why I had put it in the queue, but I was ready for a light film.
Oops…wrong movie. The movie was on my list because of The Fog of War, the fantastic documentary about the Vietnam War through the recollections of one of the United States’ leaders in the conflict, Robert McNamara. Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control even stranger if the expert was naked. Morris’s signature interview style, where the subject is speaking straight into the camera, filling the screen, really works. The music, too, somehow weaves things together. The intercutting of old science footage and pulp movies, though, was a leap. Overall, I liked watching these folks explain their passions, but I’m glad it was only 80 minutes.
Note: I watched this movie in two airports, Oakland and Boston’s Logan Airport, since I wasn’t willing to waste money on Wi-Fi as I filled the hours waiting. And waiting… long layover in Boston 11 days ago.