Beach scene considered

We closed yesterday with the following: "We shall discuss the things that are wrong with these pictures later." Well, now it is later and so we'd best get started. I had intended to dominate this post but after yesterday's posting the boys got to talking about it and they reflected a lot of what I would have expected from the general publics o I figured we could use their points as a starter.

First up then is Eddie. Now Eddie is nobody's fool and his response was immediate and strangely nuanced for such a straightforward guy. "Those kids aren't having real fun - their acting. Acting isn't the same thing as having fun - unless your an actor and they aren't. And why isn't the granny joining in instead of filming it? I used to hate having my photo taken when I was a kid and so did Ceddie there aren't many photos of either of us. The dad bloke is just doing his Martin Scorcese thing so he's not having fun either and as for granddad - well I don't know what he's up to. The more I think of it the more it reminds me of that film where the boy's dad keeps waking him up to film him and turns him into a killer with a pointy stick. Are they all trying to make their kids killers? Why don't they just have real fun?"

The film Eddie is referring to is Michael Powell's 1960 classic Peeping Tom. I personally think his reference is interesting.

Next up is Shem. This is typical Shem almost pure Shem in fact: "Your piece is amazingly self referential. It describes, by intermediating, an intermediated set of experiences. In your case your writing is the intermediator - in the referent it is the recording device that is the intermediator. I like that symmetry. The piece points up the distance that people are putting between themselves and their real life by interposing technologies and in this case recording technologies. It is a modern phenomenon and it worries me not a little. Your observation that the "memories" so recorded and later "recalled" are false is quite deep and I shall have to think about it. Maybe you should ask Proust. Or that Russian foundation that was studying complete recall - I remember one of the men who had it describing it as a curse."

That, I feel, will do for now. More tomorrow. My thoughts probably!