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May. 6th, 2005 12:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaalaMum visited me--for what was originally intended to be only last weekend but eventually became four days--in order to help me move into my fifteenth floor (!) bachelor apartment. (That's "studio flat" for any Brits in the audience, I think.) Packing was on Saturday (until around midnight), we picked up some used items at the moving-day exchange and everything was moved from the house to the apartment by the end of Sunday (around midnight), we unpacked/organized and took a break to see The Merchant of Venice on Monday, and shopping took place and Mum left for home on Tuesday. As one might surmise from the previous sentences, it all took longer than was originally anticipated.
And on Saturday night, as we were carrying furniture down the porch to the car... I witnessed the death of a neighbour's cat after it was run over by a taxi. The bushes rustled as we walked by, Mum exclaimed, "Oh no!", and both the cat and the taxi moved so quickly that I didn't even realize the animal I'd barely glimpsed bolting across the road was a) a cat or b) the animal we'd just startled, until much later. It happened in a matter of seconds.
The event doesn't sound very impressive, but I spent a lot of time standing right next to its body while frantically attempting to call the owner or the SPCA and then eventually reporting the incident to the police, and once everything was over and what I'd seen really sank in, I was very upset. As far as I can recall, it was my first time witnessing the death of a mammal--and this was a pretty violent and gruesome death. The cab passenger dashed over and talked to us for a few minutes but she was so upset that we didn't want to keep her. The driver did stop just a few seconds after the event but didn't leave the vehicle; according to Mum (I didn't see it), he was making motions like he was going to vomit.
These are the two images I can't get out of my head. First: immediately after the cab zoomed past, the animal's legs and body flailed wildly around so that it looked like it was trying desperately to stand up and run away but couldn't. Second: it lay on its side with blood spread along the street for a couple of metres, and (and this is the worst part) the visible eyeball had popped out of the socket. I didn't even realize it was a cat instead of a small dog until the cab passenger asked, "Is this your cat?" Ever so often, a jolt would run through its body and it would appear to scratch its stomach or paw the air. Upon later consideration, especially after we noticed that the skull was crushed, we figured that it was rendered brain dead pretty much instantly and the movements were just impulses of the nervous system in shock.
I couldn't sleep at the motel that night for several hours. Mum let me watch television to distract myself for a while but (just my luck) I couldn't find a single program or movie unrelated to death. A documentary about Buster Keaton making an NFB movie looked harmless enough... until they brought in a freshly killed rabbit to cook. Then Ace Ventura, Pet Detective... and there's a murder crime scene with blood spread everywhere. Or I could have read Mum's mystery novel... about a lynching. Sheesh.
By the way, The Merchant of Venice was very good. The period details are unbelievable. The music is gorgeous. True to Shakespeare's play (and probably a realistic depiction of the attitudes of Shakespeare's time), neither the appalling anti-Semitism nor Shylock's lust for violent revenge are toned down at all. In all fairness, Shakespeare gave Shylock some remarkably sympathetic lines in his stinging criticisms of the hypocrisy of those who scorn the Jews. The portrayal of the Muslim prince as a thick-accented doofus made me uncomfortable, but then again all the other suitors are also thick-accented (and frequently hilarious) doofuses.
As you've probably heard, the movie belongs to Al Pacino. His acting when Shylock is unexpectedly thwarted by the law and forced to convert to Christianity as an act of "mercy" is heartbreaking. The lovers' stories are also done well, Portia being the most impressive by far. That guy from Love Actually is surprisingly good. Mackenzie Crook is cute but convincing, as usual. And then, of course, there's the sight of John Sessions cavorting with a naked-breasted female prostitute...
And on Saturday night, as we were carrying furniture down the porch to the car... I witnessed the death of a neighbour's cat after it was run over by a taxi. The bushes rustled as we walked by, Mum exclaimed, "Oh no!", and both the cat and the taxi moved so quickly that I didn't even realize the animal I'd barely glimpsed bolting across the road was a) a cat or b) the animal we'd just startled, until much later. It happened in a matter of seconds.
The event doesn't sound very impressive, but I spent a lot of time standing right next to its body while frantically attempting to call the owner or the SPCA and then eventually reporting the incident to the police, and once everything was over and what I'd seen really sank in, I was very upset. As far as I can recall, it was my first time witnessing the death of a mammal--and this was a pretty violent and gruesome death. The cab passenger dashed over and talked to us for a few minutes but she was so upset that we didn't want to keep her. The driver did stop just a few seconds after the event but didn't leave the vehicle; according to Mum (I didn't see it), he was making motions like he was going to vomit.
These are the two images I can't get out of my head. First: immediately after the cab zoomed past, the animal's legs and body flailed wildly around so that it looked like it was trying desperately to stand up and run away but couldn't. Second: it lay on its side with blood spread along the street for a couple of metres, and (and this is the worst part) the visible eyeball had popped out of the socket. I didn't even realize it was a cat instead of a small dog until the cab passenger asked, "Is this your cat?" Ever so often, a jolt would run through its body and it would appear to scratch its stomach or paw the air. Upon later consideration, especially after we noticed that the skull was crushed, we figured that it was rendered brain dead pretty much instantly and the movements were just impulses of the nervous system in shock.
I couldn't sleep at the motel that night for several hours. Mum let me watch television to distract myself for a while but (just my luck) I couldn't find a single program or movie unrelated to death. A documentary about Buster Keaton making an NFB movie looked harmless enough... until they brought in a freshly killed rabbit to cook. Then Ace Ventura, Pet Detective... and there's a murder crime scene with blood spread everywhere. Or I could have read Mum's mystery novel... about a lynching. Sheesh.
By the way, The Merchant of Venice was very good. The period details are unbelievable. The music is gorgeous. True to Shakespeare's play (and probably a realistic depiction of the attitudes of Shakespeare's time), neither the appalling anti-Semitism nor Shylock's lust for violent revenge are toned down at all. In all fairness, Shakespeare gave Shylock some remarkably sympathetic lines in his stinging criticisms of the hypocrisy of those who scorn the Jews. The portrayal of the Muslim prince as a thick-accented doofus made me uncomfortable, but then again all the other suitors are also thick-accented (and frequently hilarious) doofuses.
As you've probably heard, the movie belongs to Al Pacino. His acting when Shylock is unexpectedly thwarted by the law and forced to convert to Christianity as an act of "mercy" is heartbreaking. The lovers' stories are also done well, Portia being the most impressive by far. That guy from Love Actually is surprisingly good. Mackenzie Crook is cute but convincing, as usual. And then, of course, there's the sight of John Sessions cavorting with a naked-breasted female prostitute...
