movie: Drive

Few things can be done only by car rather than bicycle. The drive-in theater is one of those things. Now that I have a vehicle again, I went to the Vali-Hi theater while the weather is still warm enough for them to show movies. I brought a blanket with me, just in case. It's a cheap night, just $8 for 3 movies. I spent extra money for corn dogs and popcorn, but they're always cheap at a drive-in. Since people can bring their own food in for free, it keeps the concession stand prices in check with reality.

The first movie was "Contagion". I had heard good things about it, but I wasn't as impressed as I'd expected to be. It was an okay movie, but I just never developed the sense of panic and dread that I think I was supposed to feel. Maybe I'm just jaded. I've attended the wildlife rehabilitator conference out where I work. After learning about parasite cysts that can only be destroyed by flamethrower (even bleach doesn't work), the movie just couldn't scare me. A virus with a mere 25% fatality rate and that's spread only by direct contact just doesn't seem such a bother. *laugh* It was entertaining, though, to see Minneapolis as "ground zero" within the USA. I know that intersection where they had the sick guy get off of the metro bus.

I assumed that "Drive" was just another car chase movie. I was wrong. This movie impressed me a lot. The direction, cinematography, and editing are very nice to behold. It's about the driver, not the car. His character is very muted, very understated. I like that kind of minimalism. I understand it. Likewise, I understand the torrent of emotions when any of them is finally unleashed. Fair warning, the movie has moments of intensely graphic violence. Not in the usual Hollywood way of running 20-minute chase or fight scenes that leave you in exhausted panic. This movie is much more realistic. Violence happens suddenly and awfully and thoroughly. And then it passes in order to deal with the aftermath. A very good film.

I'm not a fan of dramas, but I was going to stay for "Crazy Stupid Love" anyway. But then just as the opening messages started to scroll, there were gusts of high wind that threw up parking lot dust to obscure the view. Then a smattering of rain started to fall, and everyone had to start their windshield wipers. I didn't want to see the movie badly enough to watch it in bad weather, so I started up the car and drove back home instead.

I will not eat

Here's a curious question about (or for) omnivores: what won't they eat?

I have consumed meat from the usual variety of critters that Westerners eat (pig, cow, chicken, fish, shrimp) plus a few more (frog, rattlesnake, crawfish, and various bugs accidentally caught in my mouth while bicycling). I am planning to eventually convert to a primal diet that will require much more meat than my current diet. What creatures are not to be found on my menu?

There are some animals that I will not eat unless dire circumstance might present a reason, but why are they on my list at all? I've eaten rabbit before, so I'm not wired to avoid a kind of animal just because I've been emotionally attached to one of them before. I write my list with that trans-species bill of rights in mind, the one that doesn't exist but that I repeatedly reference anyway.

I avoid creatures that I consider sentient at some level. Sentience is a kind of meta-cognition, meaning that the creature can think about its own thinking.  I believe that some kinds of suffering require sentience to experience.  I think that all mature animals experience pain aversion.  More intelligent animals can experience dread of recurring pain.  A persistent history of dread may even offer a kind of despair. I think true despair, however, is limited to sentient creatures because it requires the ability to survey large landscapes of possibility and still find no course to alleviate suffering.  Despair requires mental exploration of options for relief, and the failure to locate any.

I will not eat creatures that might be capable of despairing that they will someday serve as my food.  I currently include these creatures in my prohibition:

• coleoid cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus, squid)
• primates (human, ape, monkey)
• cetaceans (dolphin, porpoise, whale)
• various birds that don't seem easily grouped (european magpie, african grey parrot, crow, finch)

The only item from my do-not-eat list that appears in common restaurants is the squid. I've eaten calamari (squid) before, but I will not do so any longer.  I would be willing to eat even creatures on this list if they had already died of other causes (not intended as food), and I needed the nourishment.  I expect of myself that I would not kill them, however, if I needed nourishment and their living body was the only available source.

For the record, this list began with a single animal.  At Epcot Center in Disney World many years ago, I encountered a lone cuttlefish in a circular display aquarium.  It's bland coloration and catatonic body convinced me that it despaired of ever escaping its confinement.  I think it felt the despair of a pointless existence, or at least the alien equivalent of such emotion and realization. I have slowly added to my list as I learn of the advanced reasoning abilities of other animals.