Thursday, April 10, 2008

Documentary Day!!!

I spent this afternoon eating pizza, de-pussing multiple pinky-toe blisters, and watching three documentaries, which, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear, I've decided to blog about.

Documentary One: Prostitution Pornography U.S.A. Okay, this wasn't so much a documentary as interviews and sexploitation porn from the 70s, but as I'm both nerdy and pervy it suited my tastes quite well. Included interviews with a call girl, a hooker, a pimp, a fat hooker, an exploitation model, and a lesbian junkie who gave bjs in public bathrooms back in like 1975 or something. The movie went into a brief history of each woman, displaying childhood photographs and trailing the events leading to their inevitable placement on the market, and each interview was followed by video taken from behind a two-way mirror of hairy mustachioed 70s dudes purchasing their services. I've just got to say, and I may be off here or something, but there really is NOTHING less hot than a prostitute or the act of purchasing sex. It's just...so...mechanical. I mean, I understand that people need some. I know that it's the oldest profession in the world and I totally think prostitution should be legal. But after seeing this film and reading Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia, I can honestly say that I JUST do. not. get. it.

Documentary Two: The Boy with the Incredible Brain. A five-part YouTube gem, this one tracks the extraordinary abilities of Daniel Tammet, a savant from England who learns languages in seven days and once recited the first TWENTY TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN DIGITS OF PI, with NO mistakes, in just over five hours. He doesn't even do the calculations in his head...instead, his brain simply reveals answers to him in synesthetic shapes corresponding to a numerical value. To him, sixes are almost invisible, nines are large and intimidating, and ones are a bright light. The only way I can even remotely compare anything in my life to this is my synthesthetic association of 72 degrees Fahrenheit with the shape of a somewhat rounded, upside-down triangle, but that isn't really useful at all, now is it?

Documentary Three: Out of the Blue. Another YouTube recommendation by Jesse. 9 parts. Basically, UFOs exist. It's essentially fact to the point where it's almost boring. It takes only a certain number of ex-Majic/Majestic/Pentagon officials from the late 40s testifying that they all saw stuff and were told to cover it up with official explanations of swamp gas before you really just have to say, "Okay." According to a more modern variant of the Drake Equation, which calculates there are ten thousand intelligent civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy alone, the probability of life capable of contact with Earth from somewhere else in our known universe is indistinguishable from one. (And because I trust mathematicians and scientists over politicians and military officials, that's a pretty big deal for me.) Plus, I've, very factually, no bullshit, seen a UFO with my own two eyes, but that's an entirely different blog altogether.

1 comment:

swhit said...

Please write about the UFO. Wasn't it hovering over the apple processing plant??

p.s. love you