Had a neat dream. To get to the good part: I was a guest at a hotel on a island, where there are a lot of giant bird eggs. I discovered if you crush them under your feet, so its yellow yolk stick to your shoes, you gain the ability to fly. Not just weightlessness, but the full-blown-I-am-Superman Matrixy flight. It was exhilirating. So I flew around quite a bit, enjoying the breathtaking view from the sky. But soon other guests at hotel begin to learn the same trick. Then the novelty must have worn off. Perhaps the vividness of the dream has something to do with the special effects seen in Matrix.

Had a interesting conversation with a Neurobio grad student. Her project is on how languages affect development of the brain. She said that different kinds of languages are mapped in different parts of brain. In other words, languages are to a extent regiospecific. This raise the interesting question of whether cognitive developments are affected by the type of language a person learns. People learns their native language while still very young, when their brains are still developing. Could it possible that a population that learns Chinese as the first language follow a different cognitive development path than a population that first learn English? In a broader sense, could cultural factors, language being a major one, leads to cognitive differences between different civilizations?

Of course, this is my unlearned musings. The flip side is that the envrionements for individuals in all cultures are probably too diverse to be standardized.

Last night went to a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concertos at the Hollywood Bowl. First time I've been there, quite impressed with the atmosphere. It was a perfect evening, warm and clear night, the stars struggling against the city lights. I was surprised at the huge turn out for Beethoven, the cavernous space was nearly filled to capacity. People of all size and shape were there, from young to old, snappily dressed young couples holding hands, platoons of grandmothers, baby boomers herding their kids, Russians, Chinese, etc, they were all there. Once the concert started and the crickets hidden in the near by bushes began to sing along, something I chose to view as part of the place's charm. As for the music itself, they weren't crowd-pleasers and the uncomfortable wooden benches made it a trying experience. I regret not having the time last week to catch Tchikovsky's 1812 Overture there, those performances were capped by fire-work displays in place of the booming cannons. Now that would have been something worth seeing.

Just saw a remarkable movie: The Quest For Fire. The story is about a band of warriors from a Cro-Magnon tribe on a epic quest to find fire, without which the tribe could not survive. They traverse breaktaking landscapes, encounter other fledging cultures, both civilized and barbaric, run from sabertooths, gain a sense of humor, discover the "missionary position," among other things.

I have never seen a movie quite like it. Of course, cavemen flicks don't come around everyday, but this film is special. It's very immersive, you are immediately pulled into their world, their umwelt (ah, freshman biology), never do you feel like an anthropologist looking at a bunch half-ape savages. I guess the best word to describe it is "elemental," for it picutres an emerging humanity boiled down to its rawest essentials, love, lust, life, death and fire. The warriors started their journey with the simple goal of bringing back the life-giving fire to their tribe, yet through their encounters and struggles with nature and other proto-humans, their quest became not just for fire, but in a larger sense, for becoming human.


Word of Caution: not a movie you can sit down with your mom and pop and little nephew Billy. Let's just say while cavemen sex ain't pretty to look at, they sure love to go on. On the other hand, for those who are afcionados of cavemen sex, this is just the film for them.

That's it. No more summer classes. It's been a stressful and ulcer-inducing summer. Glad that's over. Enjoyed crushing every piece of problem worksheets into balls and shooting them into a garbage can across the room.