that is all for now.
His feet stank. He took off his shoes. At home he had a wife who was not well, not well in a manner he could do nothing about nor understand, but as he sat here now in the sun, the tense, resistant nub of flesh inside his back resolved itself for the first time in months. He lay down. His spine pressed into the soil a notch at a time, undid him. Upside down was a land of female legs. He was fond of these new bell-shaped skirts, wide enough to crawl under and be kept safe, and wished he had waited to marry, or married differently. He thought, What if I stayed here? Let the sun swallow me, and the orange dazzle under my eyelids become not just the thing I see but the thing that I am, and let the one daisy with the bent stem, and the rose smell and the girl upside down on the pub bench eating an upside-down ploughman’s with her upside-down friend be the whole of the law and the girth of the world. Wasn’t it the work of moments, of a little paint, to change “HANWELL’S FINEST” to “HANWELL AND HANWELL”? [omar's bolding]i found that bold part particularly moving. words can be so powerful (i was thinking about doing photography recently and this reminded me of the power of words... i should push on my words)
Utterly useless lay-abouts Joaquim and his son find they can't cope on their own when “mom” dumps both their lazy butts and leaves them for good. Joaquim concocts a devious plan for domestic rescue, becoming perhaps the first man in history to want his mother-in-law to move in with him. But the wily old lady has a trick up her own sleeve. A dead pan comedy written and directed by Borja Cobeaga and nominated for a 2007 Academy Award for best short film. Principal cast: Ramon Barea, Marivi Bilbao and Alejandro Tejeria.in some ways this short film is about fitting nicely into your surroundings. there's all kinds of things we do well in our life -- and there are things we have trouble with. ideally, we place ourselves in a complimentary environment: i help you, you help me, we are compatible. in this film, the mother-in-law finds a home with people who appreciate her; the man and his son get a caregiver.
at chi2007 i saw a wonderful talk presenting a neat tangible interface, the Tug N' Talk belt. here's the abstract:
Tug n’ Talk is a prototype of a tuggable communication device, allowing for
intimate communication between two individuals using tugging as a metaphor. In this paper we discuss the advantages of tugging over other haptic communication modalities, such as vibration,with a focus on input/output spaces and meaning construction.
the basic idea is that you and i are wearing virtually attached tuggable belts. each belt has a small chain attached to it. if i tug my chain, then you feel that same tug. harder tugs on my side translate to harder tugs on your side. no more using my cell phone or kicking you under the table -- i can tug you. here's two pics from the paper:
