Urbania

Urbania. I put this in the same class of movies as The Fountain-- somewhat experimental movies that fail, but with a little tweaking could have been great.

The concept of Urbania is that urban legends are happening to people around Charlie, while Charlie is part of a new urban legend of his own making. Charlie's neighbor is an old lady who puts her poodle in the microwave. Charlie meets someone who was drugged and had his kidney stolen and so on.

The problem is that the movie does have a single story at it's core-- revenge for Charlie's slain lover. The urban legends woven into the story are inconsequently and distracting. They could have been cut to yield a tighter and more focused movie. The revenge story was very good. It didn't need to be dressed up.

The other weakness to the movie is that it had too much fancy camera work. A little fancy camera work is nice, but too much and I get distracted. I stop paying attention to the movie start noticing way things were filmed. It was very well constructed. However the construction wasn't well integrated with the story.

Alexander Von Humboldt Or What May Be Accomplished in a Life Time

By F. A. Schwarzenberg.

I wanted to love this book, the story of Alexander Von Humboldt. Humboldt explored the world during the early 1800's, documenting his discoveries.

But this book... it sucked the energy out of me. I failed to make it through.

"What May Be Accomplished in a Life Time" is not a linear biography. It consists of many little anecdotes about Von Humboldt, each no more than a half a page. Every anecdotes praises Humboldt for something he did, then tells a little story to illustrate the point. Praises for this thoroughness is followed by a story of him taking detailed notes. Praise for his persuasiveness is followed by a story of how he changed someones mind. And so on. And so on.

Between the anecdotes there is much empty, flowery verbiage.

At a higher level, the stories don't connect together. They are not told in chronological order or according to another theme. All I really learnt was that than Schwarzenberg admired Von Humboldt and wanted you to feel the same.

The Inner Game of Tennis.

By W. Timothy Gallway.

The book is about the useful mental attitudes to adopt while playing Tennis. The book has made it's rounds in other circles as it's principles can be applied to any task.

Ideas from the book...

When learning, or performing any task, don't judge yourself. Neutrally observe yourself performing the task. Form a picture in your mind of what success looks like. Then practice. The idea is that a picture is worth a thousand words. For success, hundreds of things must go right. Communicating all of them is very error prone-- you can't possible keep all of the success criteria in your mind. And if you focus on improving one area, it may be at the detriment of others. Envision success and observe yourself practicing.

Judging yourself is not effective. We learn by making mistakes-- we learn like a toddler. It is pointless to beating yourself up, or judging yourself as bad when you make a mistake. You made a mistake. You still have more to learn. Get on with the practice.

The book also has an interesting take on competition. Competition can drive us and challenge us, yet if we use it to judge ourselves, it's unhealthy. We are not better people because we win a game of tennis. Weither you win or lose, you are still the same person.

But, competition can drive us to improve ourselves. Only the best competitors can push us to our limits and push us to improve.