Eugene Linden
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Latest Musing

Pet Peeves: Absurd Sci Fi Films Division

            Settle into my seat on a flight from Heathrow to JFK. Scan through movie options. Banshees of Inn...

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Books


Fire & Flood
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Deep Past
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Articles by Category
endangered animals
rapid climate change
global deforestation
fragging

Books
The Ragged Edge of the World



Winds of Change
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Afterword to the softbound edition.


The Octopus and the Orangutan
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The Future In Plain Sight
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The Parrot's Lament
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Silent Partners
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Affluence and Discontent
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The Alms Race
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Apes, Men, & Language
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GRAVITY


Friday October 18, 2013

I hugely enjoyed the movie Gravity. The vistas and effects, particularly in 3-D, are nothing less than stunning. Great survival story. But, there was one thing that bothered me, and it was not a little thing. In the film’s crucial scene, as George Clooney valiantly unhooked himself from Sandra Bullock so that the added drag of his weight didn’t break the thin lines that constituted the only thing that connected them to the crippled space station, I wish I been floating there with them in order to scream at him: “You don’t need to do this! There is no drag in space! You’re weightless you idiot!”

In this scene, they are both tumbling along outside the station as space debris perforates everything around them. The only thing that prevents them from being lost in space is that Sandra Bullock becomes entangled in some lines connected to the station amid the carnage. After the lines hold in the initial shock, and in a prolonged, heart-wrenching scene, the Clooney character calmly says that he’s going to unhook himself from Ms. Bullock otherwise the lines will break. This self-sacrifice might be understandable if they were hanging from a plane 100 miles closer to earth with earth’s thick atmosphere and gravity in play, but, but, but George … if the lines held after the initial shock and you and Sandra are now floating in concert with the remains of the station, there would be no more drag or gravity to deal with. Which makes this climactic scene colossally and comically dunderheaded in a film entitled Gravity, which promises to bring alive the impossibly harsh realities of life in space. Why did he even float away? The space station was not under power. When he unhooked, he should have just hung around with a sheepish look on his face. Am I wrong?

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Short Take

Summer Evenings in July

 

I go out to my porch, drink in hand, as the gloaming fades. I sit on a very comfortable rocking chair, given -- maybe loaned; it’s unclear -- by a friend.

My cat, Noodles, joins me, settling on the couch facing me. He tends to his grooming, and I wait for the fireflies to appear.

There are less every year and this is disquieting on an otherwise perfect night. I want them to be fruitful and multiply -- if possible by the millions.

That would be a sign that, perhaps, all is well.

It’s warm, and to my west is a wall of green, dominated by a very tall Linden. Hello, fellow Linden!

As the warm air stills around me, emotions rise. I feel – I’m sure the Germans have a long word for it, but I’m too lazy to search on google – I feel…

Something deep and strong; something like love for the world.

It gives me hope for another day.



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