Usually I run alone, but of late I have added in some buddies to keep me company and help me keep the running rhythm. Well I am just trying to be cute, I started to listen to music while running and find is strangely appealing. After a few runs, I am starting to get the feel that some music works better than others. There is a need to find ones natural rhythm and find music that suits it.

My first best was to load up the iPod* with a bunch of tracks that I thought are good for running. Some Pop, some Rock, some Jazz, some Dance and some I have not heard in a long while.

Michael Jackson: This was a surprise. The songs are either too fast or too slow for me. I guess they are designed for MJ to dance or as ballads. I cannot keep up either way. However, I realized there is a lovely funk riff in Scream, which incidentally will go into my running playlist.

Thelonious Monk: A definite No. I guess most jazz is going to be difficult to run to. There is a strict emphasis on rhythm but Monk’s music is very fragmented. It is great to listen to but running to fragmented rhythm is not something I want to do. Needs lot of experimenting to find the right songs, but I guess it is all part of training.

Mahavishnu Orchestra: This is a surprise, I thought it too fast, but I can actually run at half the pace . I will experiment a bit to find the right songs…

Weather Report: Same as Mahavishnu Orchestra. Too fast but just nice at half pace. And the music is crazy wonderful.

Placebo: I never thought I would listen to placebo for more than a few minutes. But they seem to compose music at the right pace for me. Many many songs work well for the run.

U2: Ugh. I love the band, but their pacing is so inconsistent song after song, I find it very distracting to run with.

Simon & Garfunkel: Good pacing, especially when I want to take it slow, but the motivation drains. I will have to intersperse placebo with S&G and get some interval runs (though it seems yucky to play them one after another).

Wir Sind Helden: Another shocker. I got their albums from a friend and they found their way into my playlist by chance. But it is another band that plays just for me to run. Good pacing. It also helps that I don’t understand German

There is a lot more music I can think that will be good to run to. Soul, funk are areas I have not experimented yet. REM seems like a running kind of band. Have not tapped into electronic music yet. Not that I have particular interest, I may end up discovering new music through this process too. I am kind of liking the idea of music motivating the running and run motivating new discovery. It can only be good I think.

* Note: iPod is synonymous with “a music player”.

The Fellini Film Retrospective in Apr-May, 2010 in Singapore has been a great time to catch up on great movies. I picked out a bunch I have been trying to watch for a long while and some I wanted to watch on the ‘big’ screen. I had scheduled La Dolce Vita as the last in the series.

I have heard a lot of things about the film, the term paparazzi for instance and the episodic nature of the film, the religious symbolism etc… What I was not prepared for was the sheer complexity in comprehending the film as a whole. One can read the thesis and explanations of the themes at the wiki.

The movie moves from one episode to another each providing a very sparse link, if any at all, to the previous document. I guess that is the way city life moves about. The quest seems to be about finding a sense of purpose and the search for the meaning of life which never comes. I suppose the commentary is that the life in a city is so full of distractions that a search for meaning will be pointless anyway. The most composed character in the film has the most tragic end too.

Apart from the obvious philosophical interpretations of the film, the more I think about it, the more patterns and stylistic touches I can see. Symmetry, seems to be a key element in the stylization. For instance, the beginning and end of the movie are totally symmetrical and radically opposite. The movie begins with a lot of hope, Jesus files over the city, seemingly blessing the town, it is dawn and a very cheerful Marcello is hitting on a bunch of girls and asking for their telephone number. The conversation is drowned by the noise of the helicopters. The film ends almost tragically with a dead fish that is washed ashore and Marcello feeling desolate and asking what it is staring at. The decadent Rome is left behind and the youthful and angelic country girl is trying to speak to Marcello now. The symmetry comes into play here and the conversation never gets across and this time it is Marcello who brushes the girl away to get back to his party.

The stylization is pretty overwhelming. The movie seems to be constantly waking up, there are many morning and every morning seems to bring bad news and tragedy. The nights seem to be a time to forget the day and revel in wine and women but the dawn invariably returns and brings with it more bad news.

Even the episode with his father starts with his dad looking for a good time with the french tart and lots of champagne and ends with him rudely awoken by an ailment (presumably a mild heart attack) and a realization that the days of revelry are far behind and he needs to get back to the village to get back to ‘life’.

I still cant seem to get over these details and try to figure out the movie. May be that is the idea, there is no point to be figured out. I dont know. But I am sure I will have to get a DVD and watch the show a few more times. In some sense this is the most complex movie I have watched till now. But what was on screen was captivating yet fleeting. I recall laughing through so many sequences but I cannot recall precisely why. The movie may have a lot of sense or may be just a bunch of vignettes put together to stylistic effect. I cannot say precisely what. But I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and and signing up for repeated watching.

It is magical when you get to watch 8 1/2 and Guilietta degli spiriti (Juliet of the Spirits) back to back on a weekend. In a theater.

I thought of writing some inane article on these movies, but even I cannot pretend to be a buff enough to do something that presumptuous. It has been a wonderful experience for me though it was about 7 hours in hard seats and I had to brave neck, back and arse sprain doing it.

Only thing I can say is that the movies are two sides of the same coin and it definitely makes a lot of sense to watch them together, if not in one sitting, at least within a short interval.

If you did not catch them this weekend, consider it a lost opportunity and don’t miss doing it if it ever happens again.

I think it is appropriate I can link to some thoughtful comments from Roger Ebert.

• 8 1/2
• Juliet of the Spirits