I read in The Guardian that Interstellar (2014) is currently “the internet’s favourite film” and has become the most-loved film of Christopher Nolan.  So I decided to watch it again.

Today, I also listened to a long interview with Kip Thorne, the Nobel prize-winning theoretical physicist who advised Nolan on the making of the film, and even wrote a book, The Science of Interstellar.

In the years since the film was made, the idea that our best hope of saving humanity is to escape to a planet B has become associated with obnoxious billionaires and is parodied in the film Don’t Look Up.  I think the makers of “Don’t Look Up” may have watched the mentioned interview, because the Star Talk host, Neil deGrasse Tyson, ends his show with what apparently is a signature line, “Keep Looking Up”; but this is the first time I had ever watched Tyson or the series, so I don’t know.  There was also something in the elderly voice of Kip Thorne that reminded me of the high-pitched tone adopted by Mark Rylance in the character of the Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos/Steve Jobs surrogate of “Don’t Look Up”, but this may be unfair and subjective.

Anyway, the first question Tyson asks Kip Thorne is if it wouldn’t have been easier just to fix the environmental problems like blight-induced multi-crop failures, than to seek a solution involving space travel?  Thorne’s answer requires the resort to one of the film’s many unexplained back-stories, and the same is true of most of his other responses to the difficult questions posed by Tyson.  The science in Interstellar turns out to be theoretically interesting and conceivable, but it all adds up to a set of unconvincing implausibilities, to my mind.

I don’t think that audiences invest much attention to the matter of credibility in sci-fi films, though. They come for the wow-appeal, action and adventure.  Indeed, what science fiction often lacks is emotional depth, which turns quite a lot of people away from the genre.  But in Interstellar, the film’s fair storytelling, competent acting and emotional drama apparently work well enough to hold viewers through the film’s 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Ultimately, that this is the internet’s favourite film at the moment, says something about the mediocrity of our contemporary culture. Most popular never equals anything like best, of course, but still you could hope that the two apices would draw a little closer.

Source: https://hub.vikshepa.com/item/1dab7286-6688-472a-a508-a41409e90a32

The Guardian has a section called “Making sense of it”, and in it an opinion piece “Spirituality isn’t rigid dogma. It’s a living, breathing practice that helps make sense of an incomprehensible world”  The writer finds comfort in various “quiet rituals” which he says have stayed with him more than strictly religious practices.

Drawing on my own encounters, I’ve come to see how these seemingly small gestures – the fragrant smoke of esfand to lift heaviness, the rhythmic pull of qawwali, the quiet assurance of a taweez tied around a wrist – hold more than superstition. They carry virtues: grounding, comfort and a deep sense of protection. None of these things were in any book of religion. No one ever sat down and taught them. They were just picked up, like pebbles from the ground, passed from women to girls, from grandmothers to mothers to daughters – and sometimes to sons who were paying attention.

This writer is a Muslim from Pakistan, and the specific rituals he mentions would be foreign for most of us.  But my grandmother had other, no less inexplicable beliefs and rituals: throwing a pinch of salt over the shoulder if salt had been spilled, not opening an umbrella inside the home, and, of course, not walking under a ladder.

Sometimes the beliefs of one people contradict those of another: for example, the number 13, unlucky for Christians, is lucky for Jews.  At other times, they correspond: the Hamsa is a popular amulet all across the Middle East and North Africa.  The use of Henna designs at weddings and marriages goes all the way from Morocco to Malaysia, and it hardly matters whether the brides are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Sikh.

India has a huge and daunting collection of beliefs that govern people’s lives, and sometimes they seem to cut across religions.  I know that in the renovation of a neighbouring house in South India, there were specific rules, based on the Hindu Vastu Shastra, governing the position of every room in the house – particularly the direction of kitchen and bathroom appliances.  There is no way the Muslim plumber would agree to do it differently.  And the local people – I think, Hindu or Muslim alike, would never, as we do, re-use clothes as rags.

I vaguely recall that the 19th century tome, The Golden Bough, purports to explain many folk customs and beliefs, such as the practice of covering our mouth when we yawn (I think this is to prevent the soul from escaping).

Really, I do not think that any of these folk beliefs, customs and rituals, have much to do with spirituality. Some of these are quaint, colourful or harmless, but often, just as people may find comfort, they are, in equal measure, constrained by these nonsensicalities.

Source: https://hub.vikshepa.com/item/13228e2b-0696-4b00-aa84-3d0eb1246f78

Trump was here, speaking in our living room. I managed to drown him out by shutting the door and playing loud music.

Grateful to the man for pissing on the fire before the Strip had been burned to a cinder and his weapons had killed every living soul, including the hostages. Still, it would have been nicer if this had happened a trifle sooner.