I don't think in words as much as I used to. Krissa was talking about something the other day and I, trying to understand a concept, came up with three mechanical analogies in a row and realising this I stopped myself and wondered if I always thought this way and the three-in-a-row was a fluke, or if familiarity with that sort of mindwork these days is changing the way I look at and think about the world. I hope it was a fluke.
Analogies aside, my brain plays with geometry and the interactions of space for a huge chunk of the week, and the interactions of hypothetical energies and masses the rest of the time, and feels increasingly comfortable doing so. I hope this doesn't mean as I go along I'll be losing the ability to think...well, organically. I'm not saying my head whirrs with numbers, but the feel and the flow of them.
And speaking of which, Krissa and I went to see Stranger Than Fiction on Friday night.
It's bloody brilliant.
Will Ferrell plays a taxman who starts hearing a female voice narrating his life as if he was in a novel, including, just when he was already freaked out enough, references to his imminent death. Emma Thompson is brilliant as the neurotic writer drawing a blank on how she's going to kill the main character in her latest tragic novel, and all of the leaps of deduction that her main character makes in trying to find her are made hugely enjoyable by a cucumber-cool college English professor played by Dustin Hoffman:
"So you're the young gentleman who called me about 'the narrator'. The thing to determine conclusively is whether you are in a comedy or a tragedy. Have you met anyone who simply might loathe the very core of you?"
"I'm an IRS agent."
So Will Ferrell's character, tied up in the novel, slowly stops thinking in numbers and starts living his life. The best line, for me, was when he turns up to the bakery of Maggie Gyllenhaal's character (who he's taken a bit of a shine to, naturally) holding a tray full of brown paper bags.
"I brought you flours."
Worryingly, this took me a full minute to get. Am I suffering from numbers on the brain?
Anyway. Go and see 'Stranger than Fiction' as soon as you humanly can. It's the best film I've seen in ages.
My trip to England for work went really well, and as a sort of bonus I'm heading for Berlin for a long weekend at the beginning of December. I just got my flight itinerary, and the return leg is 9hrs and 15 minutes long.
That's nearly double figures. The prospect of double-figure-hour flights scares me.
I'll stick with the 45 minute subway commute for the time being, methinks.
Some people think in numbers. Others think in pink. Everyone thinks in a different way. Some people think in ways more flexible and it helps them explain things.
I am not one of those people. I think in numbers.
I have been anxiously awaiting this movie and was most relieved to hear a favorable description of it. Reading "It's bloody brilliant" only made the smile wider.
I went and saw Stranger Than Fiction the weekend it came out (weekend before last I guess) and just adored it! Glad to know that someone else gets it because I don't think a lot of people will. Is it wrong that I want to find an IRS agent and scream "Get Bent, Tax Man!" at the top of my lungs?
Your opening line is brilliant. Even if I didn't already enjoy your writing, that would've hooked me. Well said.
And I think I'll see Stranger the Fiction, now.
I adored the movie, also, but even more worryingly, did not get the flour/flower thing until you explained it. Two full weeks later ... and I'd even brought up how odd it was that he brought her unpotted flowers to a friend. He's glad we get the joke now, too. So, thanks.