In two months and a bit since opening comments, this blog received just eight, of which half were mere applause; and Blogger makes handling comments a bit of a nuisance. So I’ve turned commenting back off; and incorporated the four substantive comments as addenda to the original posts, which is what I do anyway when someone bothers to write to me.

Can you tell that I’m grouchy today?

Later: One friend takes the above as a complaint – he did not use the word whine – about your collective failure to provide more comments. Please set your minds at ease! I opened comments only because that same friend remarked cattily two or three times on their absence; on closing them I felt a duty to announce and explain the end of the experiment.

Civil disobedience at its finest (cited by Bill St Clair, who got it from Claire Wolfe)

I’ve now seen Rashômon twice, about twenty years apart, and still can’t see what’s so great about it.

My housemate asked: “Is there a Japanese School of Overacting?”

November: And who can translate the title for me? The frame story takes place in a ruined monumental gate on which a sign of three characters can be seen; the third is mon ‘gate’, so presumably Rashômon is the name of the place. One of the other kanji — I’ve now forgotten which — means ‘life’ or (as on Asahi beer labels) ‘fresh’. I couldn’t make out the third.

a year later: 羅生門

I dreamed that Ed Pegg had closed down Mathpuzzle and moved to the Balkans. (Whew.)

Sunlight refracted by Venus at the edge of the transit

Nudged by Madhu, I watched Once Upon a Time in India — or rather, Sholay. (Sholay is not the name of a character or place in the story, but I see that the film has also been known as Embers or Flames.)

I think this was my first Indian film. I was amazed at the landscape (are we really expected to believe in a village of farmers on land consisting mostly of boulders?); surprised at the ubiquity of horses (I recall just one brief scene with a horseless carriage, and that not moving); intrigued at the number of English words audible; and disappointed that none of the songs are subtitled!

What I liked most about Sunset Blvd: two brief bouts of flirting between Joe and Betty struck me as having rare wit and heart.