There Are Screaming Ape-Men on My TV

[ase]

I've been pretty happy with CDex in the past, but it's the 21st century and you never know when your favorite freeware program will go away. I recently tried Exact Audio Copy because it's the 21st century and I should branch out, and the five or six classical CDs I ripped with it sound skin-crawlingly lossy. (Also, it absolutely refused to work on the laptop, so major, major thumbs-down.) So I'm installing CDex on the desktop, beating the ports with a permission stick, re-ripping those CDs, and telling everyone: don't mess with success.

This message brought to you by me messing with two PCs and the library copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have been alternately underwhelmed and baffled by the first 20 minutes, so I'm wondering if what I'm seeing on the screen is what Kubrick meant to put there. At all. Fortunately, I read the book first, so I know the plot. Which is moving at a glacial pace. (Not melting ones.)

...oh, for a side of datedness: the "jet liner of THE FUTURE" has one person taking the Earth-to-LEO flight. Remember, kids: 1968 predated the first oil/fuel crisis.

ETA Also, remember: no matter how awesome your effects budget us, in 30 years false-color Earthscapes will be super-passe.

ETA #2 Oh Em Gee GIANT STARBABY OF DUBIOUS INTENTIONS. That is a sight I could've done without.

Conclusion: Kubrick, whatever you were trying, I'm parsing this through the filter of having read the book first.

Comments

[rwl.livejournal.com]

It didn't exactly get good reviews from fans back in 1968 when it was first released. Harlan Ellison, in particular, gave it the back of his hand.

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

It only gets more disjoint and confusing from there.

2001 is basically utterly incomprehensible taken in isolation. The book is *necessary* if you want it to be anything other than pretty lights during a recreational drug trip (that movie was apparently a really amazing thing to see while on an acid trip, and most of the people who liked it back in '68 saw it that way).

The book explains the nigh-empty spacecraft. It's a tremendoustly hush-hush trip under immense security, and there's a comment about it being the only one-person Moon trip in history.

[limnrix.livejournal.com]

I read the book first, and I still love the movie. And I've never even taken acid. Although, yeah, it's sloooowwww.

[ase.livejournal.com]

If you parse it as a story about the fundamental loneliness of space and cruelty of evolution and/or higher powers, it makes sense. Otherwise, it's an acid trip.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I read the book; I don't care what it says, the movie needs to stand on its own, or it's failed. It's not very good, and it's very dated: the story doesn't stand up to the evolution of special effects and camera angles. However, the soundtrack is demented genius.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Sooooo slooooowwww. I may revise my initial distaste from "total failure" to "deeply flawed", but it's got a lot of problems. What do you like about it?

[(Anonymous)]

It's the self-referential ways it examines humanity, defining it through artificiality and the limits of perception. Our basis for the straight line, the horizon, is actually curved, so the monoliths are a kind of creation of the impossible right angle, in a universe where it's possible that what humans are is not entirely defined by their terran origins - and yet they absolutely are defined by earth, as our viewing of transcendent things is limited. In a way, it's coming to terms with what we consider ours by creation overtaking us: our technology as our children, with oedipal complexes of their own. Everyone can approach that movie in a different way, but maybe the main thing is that it's supposed to threaten the limits of your eyes' and minds' tolerance and expectations.

[limnrix.livejournal.com]

sorry, that was me!

Anyway, yeah, it's about humanity being unable to understand the unhuman. Perhaps almost being used as a tool by some agency of the universe and being transformed in the process. I don't get space baby either. Maybe you need to see it on a big screen: for one thing, it's filmed in consecutive square proportions, same as the monoliths: 1x4x9

[ase.livejournal.com]

Aren't the monolith dimensions 1x3x9? Anyway. You have obviously thought about this way more than me. I appreciate the man vs the unknown themes, but surely there could've been a better way to shoot it.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

I know I've asked you this before, and in the interim, I've lost the pertinent records...but, what do you use to organize your music on the computer?

And yes, I still owe you a copy of Rosenkavalier. Gods...I still owe me a copy of that!

[ase.livejournal.com]

C:/Music/Artist/Album/Trackname. C:/Music/playlist.m3u. C:/Music - Classical (or whatever non-general subcategory/Album etc. A temp folder for random... stuff. (The temp folder is gigantic and disorganized.) Text search by artist or song title. It's probably unwieldy by some standards, but it works for me.

There's a subfolder for the mixes that get swapped on and off my mp3 player, but that's only pertinent if you're dealing with a non-ipod mp3 player.

You do owe me music! We need to do something about this. (I ower other people music too! Oh dear.)

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

*meep*

I am now reviewing the wav files. Sounds pretty good...for a bootleg anyway.

*i kills that coughing man next to me!*

Address ending in 13 still valid? I'll send CDs.