It's really good listening to this in conjunction with reading A Hong Kong Story as it really does fill in the landscape around the characters. Of course you do this in the fiction but never having been to Hong Kong, more is more! I will have a look at the clips next but I see that you have included the Steve Buscemi piece from Paris je t'aime. I saw that in the cinema when it came out and although there were so many wonderful pieces in it, that's the one I always remember!
Least said about the London tube the better. In summer you feel like a sardine in a heated tin can. The Hong Kong metro sounds fabulous.
Thanks so much, Jules! Happy that it adds something to my fiction as well.
I love that film - the whole thing but especially this short one. Not much happens, but it's just Buscemi at his best mixed with a great mise-en-scene I guess. I think all the shorts are available on YouTube FYI. I've used several for different teaching lessons. The one with the girl wearing the hijab that blows off is also one of my favorites.
The poor London underground. I guess the city is just so old?
I am learning so much from both your fiction and these posts about "layering". It's so enjoyable.
Thanks for the tip, I will revisit Paris Je t'aime. GD is in it so I'll look for his bit 😊
I started watching the other clip you included, the one set in NY. That was good too. Interested to see Denis Leary. He's an interesting comedian and actor. I used to like his stand up.
Yes, parts of the London Underground are very old. The world's first underground passenger railway, and when I worked there in the late 80s/early 90s it sometimes felt like it 😄. It is very overcrowded at rush hour. I haven't been to London since 2019 but we used to go most every year and we always tried to avoid rush hour. Just thinking of the one in Tokyo where they used to have men pushing people on and found this!
Yikes - it felt a bit like your video when I went to Beijing!
Paris je t'aime - Le Marais from Gus Van Saint is also lovely, so subtle. And Wes Craven's at the grave of Oscar Wilde! I was looking for the GD one for you -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7MBu8PsGlA
That was some food for thought! I imagine exploring the gap could be done effectively in a train setting, maybe on a ship a la Titanic. I love how Parasite and Squid Games explore poverty. The film and show do well with showing new perspectives, motivations, longings, etc. Also if anyone is in need of new ideas, exploring the subject in a war setting could be enlightening. Or how family can use money to control someone who is chronically ill, which sadly happens.
Good call on Korean cinema! 🙌 Excellent in general but also for the topic.
These are also other compelling ideas and scenarios. War is inextricably linked with economics, both on national and personal levels. And the ill. Interested in this idea of control. Also, it may depend how the economic system does/not support health care and hospice care, and what this means for families financially. Thanks for the great ideas, Nadia.
Absolutely loved listening to this. So much good stuff and so timely for me as I was thinking about writing about the voice/ speech and class. I have saved it for another listen. I just think your content is SO good, Kate.
Nov 29, 2023·edited Nov 29, 2023Liked by Dr. Kathleen Waller
"The great unifier" the one phrase that sums up for me the quintessential conundrum, des Pudel's Kern, the question we yet have to answer and any piece of fiction may paint a version of an answer, incomplete, insufficient, imperfect. Without difference, without conflict, what story is there? All fiction has some form of capitalism, some form of power struggle, one has more, the other has less, I thought about it a lot in terms of my far future Dystopian story in Spherean, doing away with the capitalistic system, going beyond hypercapitalism. How will that society operate etc. lots of details, and many rabbit holes to follow. Fascinating.
Maybe one day when someone asks, "Where are you from?" You reply: "Earth."
Earth!! How wonderful. One can dream. We work at making this happen so some generations down the line eventually it will... 🤞
And, ha, Paris metro. It becomes so poetically glorified and yet, it is rather inefficient and dirty, is it not? That is a shame. At least when I lived there, I was on the RER A. At the time, it was rather new and clean.
Until then, make sure to wear a mask on the metro. The amount of PM2.5 pollution in Parisian metros is exorbitant, not so romantic. Search: "paris metro pollution" and you'll find plenty, and that's on top of the human factor (~5mil passengers a day).
Economics ... not my strong point, but in listening to this I realise that there is *some* aspects of income gap and class that has been working its way into my fiction. Precipice the most, as the two cities themselves represent a stark divide in class, which will begin to come through more, but even with Siridin in the lower city then it's present across districts. I've tiptoed my way around this though, perhaps because I don't understand enough of real-world economics!
The many faces and people on public transport is always fascinating. The different lines (tram and train) here in Melbourne carry their own, intrinsic demographics. It's quite something.
Great listen, and as Jules says, it's really good reading A Hong Kong Story along with these weekly pieces.
Thank you, Nathan! I don't think I went on the metro when I was in Melbourne. It would be fun to see a kind of photo gallery of different cities' metros with people doing whatever they do on them.
Ha, economics is also not MY strong point. Eek. I'm becoming comfortable with making connections and allowing any experts to pipe in with extensions, corrections, whatever that might be. I like reading David Harvey's work on neoliberalism. Other than that, it's mainly as I've experienced things or the bits of research I've done in relation to - for example - immigration. Very interesting about Precipice! Yes, I guess you could always add more detail there if it inspired you without going into deep economics and more about the impact on characters' lives. Will look out for it...
That'd be so good (though recently I witnessed a fight break out because some stranger took a photo of another stranger on the train!)
Yes, I think I'm OK with being open to some details needing to be sprinkled through later, perhaps. Though, having said that, I can think of several recent fantasy novels that created a real sense of the world but where economy didn't really feature. On the other hand, in Dune it's very much a point of political intrigue.
(I can't help but feel I'll now be paying more attention to it! Thanks 😊)
It's really good listening to this in conjunction with reading A Hong Kong Story as it really does fill in the landscape around the characters. Of course you do this in the fiction but never having been to Hong Kong, more is more! I will have a look at the clips next but I see that you have included the Steve Buscemi piece from Paris je t'aime. I saw that in the cinema when it came out and although there were so many wonderful pieces in it, that's the one I always remember!
Least said about the London tube the better. In summer you feel like a sardine in a heated tin can. The Hong Kong metro sounds fabulous.
Thanks so much, Jules! Happy that it adds something to my fiction as well.
I love that film - the whole thing but especially this short one. Not much happens, but it's just Buscemi at his best mixed with a great mise-en-scene I guess. I think all the shorts are available on YouTube FYI. I've used several for different teaching lessons. The one with the girl wearing the hijab that blows off is also one of my favorites.
The poor London underground. I guess the city is just so old?
I am learning so much from both your fiction and these posts about "layering". It's so enjoyable.
Thanks for the tip, I will revisit Paris Je t'aime. GD is in it so I'll look for his bit 😊
I started watching the other clip you included, the one set in NY. That was good too. Interested to see Denis Leary. He's an interesting comedian and actor. I used to like his stand up.
Yes, parts of the London Underground are very old. The world's first underground passenger railway, and when I worked there in the late 80s/early 90s it sometimes felt like it 😄. It is very overcrowded at rush hour. I haven't been to London since 2019 but we used to go most every year and we always tried to avoid rush hour. Just thinking of the one in Tokyo where they used to have men pushing people on and found this!
https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/08/subway-pushers-of-japan.html London doesn't seem quite as bad as that! I have been known to let a couple of trains go by and wait for a less crowded carriage.
Yikes - it felt a bit like your video when I went to Beijing!
Paris je t'aime - Le Marais from Gus Van Saint is also lovely, so subtle. And Wes Craven's at the grave of Oscar Wilde! I was looking for the GD one for you -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7MBu8PsGlA
Thanks again 🤗
(Squeals) Thank you!! 😁
Watching now 💛
That was some food for thought! I imagine exploring the gap could be done effectively in a train setting, maybe on a ship a la Titanic. I love how Parasite and Squid Games explore poverty. The film and show do well with showing new perspectives, motivations, longings, etc. Also if anyone is in need of new ideas, exploring the subject in a war setting could be enlightening. Or how family can use money to control someone who is chronically ill, which sadly happens.
Good call on Korean cinema! 🙌 Excellent in general but also for the topic.
These are also other compelling ideas and scenarios. War is inextricably linked with economics, both on national and personal levels. And the ill. Interested in this idea of control. Also, it may depend how the economic system does/not support health care and hospice care, and what this means for families financially. Thanks for the great ideas, Nadia.
Yes, all this!
Absolutely loved listening to this. So much good stuff and so timely for me as I was thinking about writing about the voice/ speech and class. I have saved it for another listen. I just think your content is SO good, Kate.
Amazing how we seem to have a lot of crossover through different subjects. Sounds fascinating. Thanks so much & also for the share, Victoria!
"The great unifier" the one phrase that sums up for me the quintessential conundrum, des Pudel's Kern, the question we yet have to answer and any piece of fiction may paint a version of an answer, incomplete, insufficient, imperfect. Without difference, without conflict, what story is there? All fiction has some form of capitalism, some form of power struggle, one has more, the other has less, I thought about it a lot in terms of my far future Dystopian story in Spherean, doing away with the capitalistic system, going beyond hypercapitalism. How will that society operate etc. lots of details, and many rabbit holes to follow. Fascinating.
Maybe one day when someone asks, "Where are you from?" You reply: "Earth."
PS. Paris Metro is vile. VILE. So are the RERs. 😅
Earth!! How wonderful. One can dream. We work at making this happen so some generations down the line eventually it will... 🤞
And, ha, Paris metro. It becomes so poetically glorified and yet, it is rather inefficient and dirty, is it not? That is a shame. At least when I lived there, I was on the RER A. At the time, it was rather new and clean.
One day ;)
Until then, make sure to wear a mask on the metro. The amount of PM2.5 pollution in Parisian metros is exorbitant, not so romantic. Search: "paris metro pollution" and you'll find plenty, and that's on top of the human factor (~5mil passengers a day).
Yikes! Thanks for the warning. :(
So much to think about AGAIN!
Economics ... not my strong point, but in listening to this I realise that there is *some* aspects of income gap and class that has been working its way into my fiction. Precipice the most, as the two cities themselves represent a stark divide in class, which will begin to come through more, but even with Siridin in the lower city then it's present across districts. I've tiptoed my way around this though, perhaps because I don't understand enough of real-world economics!
The many faces and people on public transport is always fascinating. The different lines (tram and train) here in Melbourne carry their own, intrinsic demographics. It's quite something.
Great listen, and as Jules says, it's really good reading A Hong Kong Story along with these weekly pieces.
Thank you, Nathan! I don't think I went on the metro when I was in Melbourne. It would be fun to see a kind of photo gallery of different cities' metros with people doing whatever they do on them.
Ha, economics is also not MY strong point. Eek. I'm becoming comfortable with making connections and allowing any experts to pipe in with extensions, corrections, whatever that might be. I like reading David Harvey's work on neoliberalism. Other than that, it's mainly as I've experienced things or the bits of research I've done in relation to - for example - immigration. Very interesting about Precipice! Yes, I guess you could always add more detail there if it inspired you without going into deep economics and more about the impact on characters' lives. Will look out for it...
That'd be so good (though recently I witnessed a fight break out because some stranger took a photo of another stranger on the train!)
Yes, I think I'm OK with being open to some details needing to be sprinkled through later, perhaps. Though, having said that, I can think of several recent fantasy novels that created a real sense of the world but where economy didn't really feature. On the other hand, in Dune it's very much a point of political intrigue.
(I can't help but feel I'll now be paying more attention to it! Thanks 😊)