Collective dynamics of small world networks theory

On bumping into undesirable people in London, on a fine Sunday morning

Being on a holiday away from London and thus having an infinite amount of free time on my hands, I decided to revisit a classic, one of my favorite film : 2 Days in Paris, by Julie Delpy. The film, if you haven't seen it, is as funny as it gets -although more enjoyable if you are fluent in both English and French. It it set in Paris, and follows couple Marion and Jack (franco-american couple) for two days.

One thing that caught my attention in the film was Marion's monologue on the 'Collective dynamics of small world networks theory' (cf video above). Although she doesn't believe in it, and although I was dubious at first, I have to admit that times have proven me wrong. It is incredible that in a city as big and diverse as London, you always end up bumping into people you know. Granted, everyone in their twenties hang out in the same spots and your chances of running into your neighbours on a holiday trip increase if you stand under the Big Ben, but why is it that we always have to see those people? 

Bumping into people you love is one thing. Bumping into old hook-ups who never answered your call and people who have wronged you (Or, the opposite, *gasp*!) while you are taking a casual stroll on a lazy Sunday is a terrible offense that should be punishable by law. This may not occur to you very often, but it does to me. I have bumped into people who were in London for only one day, parents of high school friends, teachers, old hook-ups (the number of these appearances are extremely high and I suspect a serious case of stalking), ex-friends, and even animals (There is a black dog that I always bump into around Shoreditch). 

2 Days in Paris

What I am trying to say, though, is that if you pay enough attention, you start noticing that your mind is subconsciously looking for the familiar. You don't accidentally bump into that old lover of yours at the food market. In a crowd that big, some energy pushes you to the familiar. In a room full of strangers, it will make you hear the voice of the one person you know in a louder volume. It will make your eyes search for people you know, acknowledge their locations and your feet will subconsciously take you to them. If you pay enough attention, you notice that encounters are coincidental -but you noticing it comes under your brain's frenetic and unconscious search for the familiar. 

So, next time you are out and about, try and and focus -see how easily your brain tricks you into going back to the familiar. 

Girls, Girls, Girls & why I don't like you anymore

How the show Girls by Lena Dunham lost its potential, and why I don't like it anymore.

      Being in your twenties is hard, but being a girl in your twenties is even harder. It's a time when we're all trying to figure life out, trying to fit in somewhere, and we're all in our existential phase, which doesn't really matter actually because nothing matters and life is pointless and our very own existence is irrelevant and devoid of meaning. Right? Add to that a fear of aging and botox, late night texts from drunken strangers and you get our life. Most of the time it sucks and we're trying really hard to figure everything out, but it's  almost never like in the movies where people have sex with their underwear on and STDs don't exist, so our life is a blur of cigarette smell, bad decisions and self-doubt. Which is what I liked about the pilot of Girls. Finally, the main protagonist is a fat college graduate! She is not pretty, not thin, not rich, and most of all she is annoying! She is simply trying to figure out her life and failing because well, life is scary and it's hard to get a job when you have an art degree (which is actually my main concern once I graduate, given that I have an art degree). In the first episode, Hannah (played by Lena Dunham) is high and broke. And unemployed. Needless to say, I recognized myself in her. She even made me feel better about myself because, well, her life kinda sucks. She can't afford rent, eats cupcakes in bathrooms and has a creepy relationship with a guy that is even more creepy. 

My initial response when I first watched Girls was excitement and amazement. It had so much potential! Normal people! Normal girls! Normal sizes! Normal (awkwardly disgusting) sex scenes! Ugly boobs! Eating food in secret! It was the first time someone said on TV: "hey, let's make a series about our life because well, it sucks and that is pretty funny". The show got all the girls of the world on edge; it made everyone wonder: what was gonna happen to the annoying Hannah? And beautiful Marnie? And Jessa, isn't she oh-so-liberated and the perfect image of the modern feminist? Well, at first, yes. There is a scene, before Jessa is supposed to have an abortion, where she is sitting in a park, talking with Shoshanna about what being a "lady" means. This dialogue is perhaps what made me fall in love with the show, because it seemed to me that it had happened to me too many times in my life. Jessa accuses Shoshanna of reducing her to a lady, saying she has to do this and only have sex a certain way. Jessa then says "I do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want, with who I want" (something along those lines) and I thought that was simply brilliant. Finally, someone said that, on the TV show, and actually meant it, as she later has a miscarriage while a random stranger is fingering her in the bathroom. Go Jessa. This is what life is about.

The part where I started to lose the excitement and the anticipation was when, after 5 episodes, I still couldn't recognize myself or any of my friends in the show. I know the race issue has been tackled by the press and Lena herself apologized for it, but I still find it hard to believe that a woman graduating from an liberal arts college and living in New York has no black, asian or latino friends. I myself am asian, and my group of best friends counts black people, mixed raced people, asians, latinos etc. Not once did I recognize myself, as an Asian who was born abroad, in the series. Oh, unless you count that asian secretary working with Hannah, but that can't count because her english was too bad for her to even say the word 'coffee', and she was a bitch, right? So I had to watch a whole series centered around four white girls, all middle-class it would seem, going on about their daily lives with their casual sex with (once again) white guys. Sure, they're all broke but they all work in art galleries or are actors, so life's pretty cool I guess? Why can't we never see a bored girl working for the government? Why can't we never see someone work as a finance analyst? A lawyer? Why do we always have to give the girls jobs that are so girly?

It is only in the second season that Lena Dunham introduces a black person (fair enough, the girl takes criticism from the press quite well) in the show, as Hannah's boyfriend. Okay. One black person. Fine. What about the rest of us? The rest of the 'girls' who watch the show with avidity, only to find out that its exclusivity lies in the fact that everyone in the show is 'white 'n' wealthy' ? After doing some research about the actresses in Girls, it seemed that they were all there due to nepotism. All of them are daughters of artists, wealthy mean, well-known sculptors etc... Which angered me because the show was supposed to be about normal girls, trying to make it in new york city. Where do us, normal girls, stand when we learn that? What's it supposed to tell us? That the show is actually not about us? But about Lena Dunham and her raging desire to show her boobs every five seconds? I'm all for naked girls of all shapes and sizes on tv (thank you Game of Thrones for doing that!), but I don't know anyone who gets naked that often in front of other people. Hell, I haven't even seen my roommate's boobs yet. It seems to me that the show is not only about Hannah, but a lot about Lena Dunham as well. The characters on the show are becoming whiny, annoying, and irrational (the gay best friend having sex with Marnie? What?). Yes, Hannah, I get that high school was not easy for you because as you like to say it so often, you were fat and ugly, and you are scared all the time, but guess what? So are we. And I don't find myself or any of my friends (who happen to be high as well -and broke, mostly) to behave in that annoying crazy girl way. Granted, the others are not as annoying. Jessa, for example, is the character most of my friends and I related to, because she was so cool and carefree, but even that has changed. Her on screen time quality has declined and her storyline is becoming...weird. I can only guess that it was written by someone who was high on crack and who thought it would be totally coooool to have her marry that irish dude from the IT crowd.

So, Girls, after being an avid fan for the first season and then realizing that you had lost your potential, I can only say that you were fun while you lasted. You made me feel better about myself at times when I couldn't afford milk and couldn't afford to lose my self-respect by texting that oh-so-cute idiot. You made all those hollywood rom-coms cry in shame because no one actually wakes up with make-up and wavy beach golden hair, but sweaty mascara and bad breath. I think it is time for us to see other people, like maybe asians or black people. I hear they're pretty nice. Sorry, it's not me, this time it's actually you. 

Life of Pi : Book review

Warning: Contains spoilers

Whenever I buy a new book, I always read the last line. It's a perverse pleasure, I despise myself for doing so, but more so, I loathe myself for enjoying it. Yes, I suppose you could call me a masochist with severe emotional issues. Life of Pi is written by Yann Martel, who won The Man booker prize, and is currently being adapted to the hollywood screens by Ang Lee. 

The last line of this novel goes like this: "Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger". In my book, this is what I consider a satisfying last line- revealing of the plot but also not ruining the book. Everyone knows that the hero of this novel survives; it is, after all, a tale of survival, as described in the summary. Consequently, because this last line did not shock me and make me question the whole plot twist, I decided that this book was worth a long read (which means that I would read it on several days and not in one go). I read some chapters in the tube, some in class when the seminars got dull, walking to work, during breakfast and snuggled up in bed. It was a great read, and I was satisfied with the narrative, until I read the last chapter. It was so unexpected  and left me hanging so quickly that I marveled at Martel's talent to sneak up on the reader without him noticing it. I was caught off guard and was left wanting more (we have an expression for this in french: Rester sur sa faim -to stay on one's own hunger). The ending is, for me, what really elevated the novel from satisfying to genius, and Martel does an excellent job playing with the reader.

The story begins with Pi, the son of a zookeeper in India, who recounts his childhood. He remembers his fascination with the animals-especially the dangerous ones, and his curiosity with absolute faith, leading him to practice Hinduism, Christianity and Islam at the same time. The first part of the book is mainly focused on science and this little boy's perception of religion. The reader knows, then, that the book will evolve around religion, faith, but mostly- about choice. With Pi explaining the traits of each religion he finds attractive, the reader is forced the choose to either believe or not. Although Pi's childhood is a large part of the novel, the narrative eventually shifts to the main story: the sinking of a cargo ship in the Pacific. 

In the second part, Pi and his family are moving to Canada, where they are planning on selling their animals. To do this, they must travel with them on a cargo ship. The ship sinks and Pi find himself thrown on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, a hyena, a zebra and a female orang-utan. What follows is an amazing journey through faith, life and death -punctured by occasional disturbing and fascinating events. Seven months later, when Pi's lifeboat finally touches ground in Mexico, he is interviewed by two japanese men. He recounts his tale the way we read it, the way we believed it throughout the whole book (although we are asked to take leaps of faith). He recounts how the tiger killed the hyena, the zebra and the female orang-utan, how he had to train the tiger to survive, and how he found a magic island that seemed to swallow anything that set foot on it. This is the version we are being told throughout the whole book, the version we are inclined to believe. It is the adventurous version, the brave version, the one that makes us believe in faith, survival, strength and life. Beautiful words that do not seduce and convince the two interviewers. When faced with their incredulous questions and their disbelief, Pi finally gives account of another version, a darker, more sinister yet more realistic version. 

He was thrown on the lifeboat with his mother, a sailor, and a cook. The same facts are taken into account, but without any animals this time: this story is far more brutal and savage. The interviewers slowly realize that each of the animals correspond to the people on the lifeboat : the mother, the cook and the sailor. What also comes into light is the parallel between the Tiger and Pi, who, in this version, killed and ate them for his own survival. From this point, the reader is forced, like the two interviewers, to make a choice: which version do they believe in ? In the end, the interviewers choose the animal version, just like Pi. 

When asked about the structure of the novel, Martel admits that it was specifically designed so that the reader would be forced, subconsciously, to choose whether he would believe or not, so that the ending would be theirs. He is, throughout most part of the book, asking us if we have faith or not, and if we are ready to walk that extra mile to believe, despite the turn of the incredible events. He argues that the core of the story lies here : in this choice. Choosing the better story- the one with animals or the one with people. Interestingly enough, this choice is also at the center of his religious faith: choosing the better story.

What Martel makes us question eventually, is reason over faith -the ultimate debate. However he rejoices in the fact that he is making the choice extremely difficult for the reader. Jumping from one story to another is what Martel wants us to be doing- jumping from faith to reason; and to make this choice even harder he wrote the incident of the magic island, where the meerkats' bones were found in Pi's boat at the end. This episode occurs shortly after Pi, who has become blind for a period of time, encounters another blind survivor, at lost in the Pacific as well. At this point, disbelief kicks in and the reader is trying to make sense of the story, thus asking reason to come in. The reader shakes his head in disbelief and asks of the author the truth; yet when he is given one reality of the truth he is cornered in his own trap: asking for the truth results in being given a darker version, an uglier version of the story, with only flesh and blood.

For Martel, who exposes this post-modernist view, subjectivity is truth. There is no ultimate truth to Pi's survival, only what you believe. And in Pi's own words, let me ask you this: "Which is the better story?".