Walk away from the tyranny of convenience

A couple fine podcasts for your listening delectation:

The first is entitled "The Joy of Walking" from BBC radio's The Documentary. It's partly about how the simple act of going for a walk has multiple benefits to stories such as one about a doctor who has integrated walks with patients into their healthcare regimen.

The second is from CBC's Ideas podcast - "The inconvenient truth about convenience culture". An interesting jeremiad against the onrush of AI and the concept of letting machines do everything for us, generally speaking.

It looks at the view that embrace of convenience is a progressive one, one that indicates you welcome the future which, by definition, is better than the present. There's also the proposition that convenience is anti-human, essentially, but also incredibly difficult to opt out of.

Lots of food for thought.

Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself with headphones on

 

I have listened to the first part of BBC Radio 4's adaptation of Dante's The Divine Comedy. Inferno is also the only part of the poem that I have read. It was excellent. You've got 2 legends - David Warner and John Hurt - along with some fellow named Blake Ritson. The soundscape was fantastic. I cannot tell you how eerie it was, owing a lot to the absence of non-diagetic music.

I suspect I am very sensitive to this subject now after having watched the bulk of the current season of Doctor Who. The music this series has mostly made for a very...very...typical soundtrack. "Let me tell you exactly how you should feel here!" kind of stuff. It's fine stuff but doesn't strike me as unique or particularly Doctor Who-y. In 1963 the show featured experimental electronic music and now it's generic orchestral music. Nothing against the composer - no doubt it was what he was paid to do - but it just sounds like it came from basically any other TV show or movie. There's no character to it as it's all "feel sad!" or "danger!" or whatever emotion is required that the visuals and the rest of the soundtrack are apparently unable to deliver.

Anyway, this adaptation of Dante is just great so far.