Filler 54

...which being the case, a bit of rolleresque parklife was nigh on inevitable. The sheer weight of numbers out in Hyde Park that weekend, though, straining towards some fulfilment of existential seasonal necessity, was quite overwhelming -- I've never seen the place so dense with the SAD and desperate.

The alluring warmth was not the whole story, of course. In addition, just for starters, there was the breeding urge of the ubiquitous London Plane, generating nature's own itching powder wholesale. This stuff is present year on year, but somehow manages to become more irritating each time. I am still sneezing.

I spent last week in a grad school course on Adaptive Modelling of Complex Data, which was simultaneously interesting and frustrating. Based around assorted machine learning techniques, the course basically addressed methods for extracting useful structural information from large experimental data sets. An admirable, if dense, subject, this was nevertheless undercut by the difficulty of presenting useful applications within short practical lab sessions. I felt I gained a certain amount of understanding, but I'll actually have to implement some of these algorithms from scratch to get a decent grasp of their applicability.

On Friday we went to see Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Myth, a sort of belated sequel to his earlier C de la B effort Foi. The latter remains one of my favourite pieces of dance theatre ever, so it was no hardship to see it rehashed this way, with many of the same people doing many very similar things to much the same effect, but still it couldn't help coming across as a pale imitation. All manner of minor differences can be ignored, but the lack of fundamental pain and distress cannot. Much of Myth was quite beautiful, elegant and immaculately performed. I enjoyed the whole thing a great deal, but -- in contrast to its predecessor -- found it profoundly lacking in consequence. For all my enjoyment -- and I'd urge you to see it if you have the chance -- it's a long way from the triumph that Foi was. It just doesn't have the same heart.

Which leaves us with my birthday, which was essentially very nice, even if ultimately slightly marred by the astonishing awfulness of Apple's Time Capsule, a bug-ridden piece of junk which happens also to have been my birthday present from Ian. The idea is brilliant, the implementation hopelessly lacking. I've been forced to revert to my direct firewire-connected external drive for backing up. I really hope the TC gets sorted out soon, but right now see no reason to believe it will.

Vexing.
Posted by matt at May 21, 2008 11:44 PM