Friday Night Life

Friday night in the big city- and another studio session ends so frustratingly I have to leave the building for awhile. Happy hour with the graduate architecture council is a welcome relief with the $1 beers. The weather is not as warm as it was yesterday, but it is still a welcome change from the icy misery of January. Home and a hot smoked sausage sandwich with an episode of BBC's Life. Life, which was from the same producers as Earth, follows roughly the same format, but is less sublimely edited, and spends less time on its subjects- with a bit less of the distance Earth kept. Another episode, served with a gin and tonic. Here, where the Earth cameras panned away, the Life cameras keep the stock rolling to watch a chinstrap penguin get flayed in slow motion by a leopard seal, or the carnage of a dozen Komodo dragons tearing into a dead water buffalo. It's incredible, compelling footage, all of it, and one can understand the value of spending several months to capture ten minutes.