Flights and Movies

Have just touched down in Auckland after having flown up to SFO. Burned up the time with movies:

- Pride and Prejudice (second viewing)
- History of Violence
- Broken Flowers
- Lords of War
- Proof

The last four I had all wanted to see. Of the many I would say I found History of Violence to be the most potent and original. It is always interesting to hear a telling to a tale of dual lives (or former lives), from which we cannot escape, though per chance we can find some arrangemet with. Interesting here is how the arrangement requires the complicit participation of the family and local authority....and how each of these comes to terms with the situation. Gripping flick. Broken Flowers was predictably sad....and Lords of War was just plain predictable (and I found Proof also to be predictable).

First time back in NZ in 5 years....though of course this is just the airport. Everything is a bit more like America in the world (the more that I travel now). That was definitely true of Cabo San Lucas....which is merging with East Palo Alto. Like the Accidental Tourist with William Hurt, travel is becoming more and more like being at home. The world is less and less about where we are, and more about what we do, and choose not to do.

Material and media pleasures are all becoming more generic and the center and more find combed at the periphery....but this is no longer so aligned with geography. I just had my breakfast here.....and it could have been anywhere.

Newer markers of identity matter more and more that "place" in physical terms.