Field Trip City

Most of my group met today to watch a video of a Death in Venice performance, and we tossed around some ideas about the material we're going to present. After talking with them I'm starting to look forward to it. I have some ideas about looking at writer psychology, tying it in to Thomas Mann's work and the character Aschenbach. Looks positive so far.

I watched Faust and it's incredible. I LOVE Murnau's work. Nosferatu is probably the one he's most known for, but he also directed the amazing Sunrise: A Tale of Two Lovers that choked me up when I saw it. He's probably the greatest of the silent film directors (I say this on the eve before watching Griffith's most well-known work). Murnau's effects are overall great even by today's standards. I posted some stills over at the film_stills LiveJournal community.

Andrea and I had a conversation about outer space, prompted by the news that astronomers discovered methane rain on Titan. We started talking about other worlds and how little humanity still knows about them. Andrea sent me a documentary on supermassive black holes that I watched in amazement. But then that prompted investigation into how scientists think the world is going to end. One thing seems to be certain: regardless of anything we do, the Earth will not exist in 6 billion years (based on solar evolution, the sun will have become a "red giant" by that time). Humanity will have disappeared even sooner than that, because the oceans will have evaporated 5 billion years earlier, followed by the atmosphere. Venus will have melted entirely.

It's kind of humbling to know that despite our best efforts to cling to life, we're not going to be here forever. 6 billion years from now, if humanity still exists in this or another galaxy (not Andromeda, which will more than likely have melded with our galaxy creating a supermassive black hole that will either slingshot Earth out into space or evaporate it completely), it will probably be a lot different from what it's like today. How far are we going to evolve? Where will we end up? When will we end, if at all?

I picked up some graham wafers at the grocery store. They're sweet and taste like honey. I like to eat a few before I wash them down with cold water.

200 more words today.