Bit of a fuzzy week, tired and not much energy. But I’ll write down some thoughts anyway. Gotta keep that streak going.

One more Ozu film

I watched Yosujiro Ozu‘s final movie An Autumn Afternoon (1962). Once again Ozu recycles themes with minor alternations to his previous movies: getting married opening and closing doors, western culture taking a foothold in Japan, mentions of the lost war, drinking out with old school buddies, Japanese family values, etc.

Ozu films were worth the time. Yes, they aren’t that attractive because his extremely rigid and conservative way of directing can be a hard sell for the wider audience. However, all the films were interesting observations of a country in flux of values and traditions in an ever changing world. I think of all five late-era movies by Ozu I saw during the past month, I would recommend Floating Weeds the most for being a bit more adventurous than the rest.

Learning web development again

I’ve been experimenting with html/css code quite a bit lately and sure enough, a lot has changed in the past ten years and to the better too. It has been a fun activity to learn new stuff and get back that coding flow after such a long time. I also noticed Google hardly is aware of my blog or travelogue, so I’ve been trying to figure out what gives with the help of its various tools. So far no major improvement, but I wonder is this a bad thing in the end.

More recent public art

This week’s public art stop was a rather simplistic one: a granite slab with a railing. The idea behind this is squarely related to its surroundings, which is a host of football fields, the ice-hockey arena and the Olympic Stadium. The podium encourages people to stand on it and enjoy the view. Fair enough, it is not granted everyone would pay attention to it, including the art piece itself.

But yeah, a pretty sluggish week. Or maybe just a sluggish week to write stuff down, better luck next time.

Tags: movies, public art, web design