Should have sent a poet

[vaneramos]

Just when I need to be most energetic and enthusiastic, I have come down with a cold.

Today's activities included:

1. A morning outing to Guelph farmers' market


2. Back home for lunch


3. Thankfully, an hour lie-down while the girls did their own thing


4. A plate of nachos and a couple games of pool at the e-bar


5. A visit to the mall


6. Browsing at Blockbuster video


7. Spaghetti and meatballs for dinner


8. Movie #1, one of my favourites: Contact


9. Movie #2: Legally Blonde, whatever, 90 minutes of not having to use my brain

I am exhausted and feel crummy and I'm off to bed. Tomorrow will be quieter.

One of my favourite movie moments is in Contact when Jodie Foster gets transported to some incredibly beautiful part of the universe and she gasps, in tears, "They should have sent a poet."

Comments

[stephe.livejournal.com]

"They should have sent a poet."

Actually, that's good advice for any mission of exploration. Poets should be standard equipment, along wiht a compass and drinking water. I'm willing to go to Mars if my government calls me. (Assuming my current government can pulls its collective head out of its collective ass long enough to consider the stars.)

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Too bad governments never take poets seriously enough.

[iamkatia.livejournal.com]

Jodie Foster gets transported to some incredibly beautiful part of the universe and she gasps, in tears, "They should have sent a poet."

That yearning itself is pure poetry.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Upon reflection, it seems like the thesis statement of the movie. Much of the plot revolves a disagreement over whether humans should send a scientist or a theologian to meet more advanced life forms that have contacted earth. By default Foster's character, an atheist, finally makes the trip. But in the end, as a scientist, she feels inadequate. Her yearning suggests that art stands somewhere in the gap between what we know and what is possible.