I had no clue and was extremely blank when I heard about this subject for the first time so I was very curious to know what this subject was all about.
Before sir started the class, he played ‘Shine on you crazy diamond’ by Pink Floyd and told us to listen to it and try to understand the purpose of listening to it. I think the purpose of listening to the song was to identify the changes in the pace.
SHINE ON YOU CRAZY DIAMOND is a song by Pink Floyd written by Roger Waters and was released in 1975(album-wish you were here).SYD Barrett was the founding member of Pink Floyd and served as a singer, guitarist and songwriter. He was dismissed from the group in 1968 after succumbing to LSD-fueled psychosis. One described as a joyful, friendly and extroverted, Syd became depressed and experienced hallucinations, disorganised speech, memory lapses and mood swings. Roger has described the condition of Syd in this song.
After this we had several discussions on time,experience,perceptions,universals,particulars,time travel,etc. As humans, we live life on actions, observing the world around us.
Later we watched the short film ‘An occurrence at owl creek bridge’ which was shot in 1890(at the time of the civil war).
I think that the word “occurrence” in the title of the story demonstrates how common the loss of life is within war, lessening the perceived value of those human lives. Farquhar’s fantasy demonstrates the danger of having illusions about war.
Another theme present is that of “dying with dignity”. The story shows the perception of “dignity” provides no mitigation for the death. The final idea is the idea of psychological escape right before death. Farquhar experiences an intense delusion to distract him from his inevitable death. The moment of horror that the readers experience at the end of the piece is when they realize that he dies before hugging his wife and whatever happens in the film was just his imagination!
We heard another song by Pink Floyd ‘Another brick in the wall’ released in 1979.
The meaning of the song is that the teacher actually represents the government and the students are the people. The government doesn’t let people do what they want and the government wants to control everyone.
Toward the end the boy is dreaming about the students burning down the school. I think this means that eventually people get really tired of being controlled by the government which results in war.
How is time recorded?
I think it is recorded by changes in the seasons, crop cycles, memories, growth, routine, distance, speed.
When we say that the clock has stopped it means that a routine is broken, someone has died, something has ended.
We watched ‘Blink’ by Doctor Who in which the time lord zips through time and space to solve problems and battle injustice across the universe.
For the next class we had to write narratives and get it for the next class.
This class was quite stressful because we did a lot of thinking and understanding but we enjoyed it and I’m looking forward for the next class.
AYUSHI JAIN 