After a slight delay, I had an idea for a blog post and I’m going to run with it. Hope you can keep up.
I have started to run. I have known for a long time that I needed to do this but it took a build-up of pressure to get me moving. It is for my own good. I am feeling the pain but also, still somewhat to my surprise, the benefit.
So far I am managing to go running about three times a week. I am the slowest jogger in the park but that’s OK – it’s not a competition. I am not racing. Most definitely not racing. In fact, part of the reason for running is to get away from from my racing mind, from the constant streams of thought that the life of a scientist drives through your head. In a sense I am running to find a way to stand still.
I say running but strictly I’m jogging. Well, I say jogging but in truth it’s more of a slow plod. And as I plod I am usually plugged into my iPod. I tend not to listen to music – too fast. The slower pace of the human voice is more in tune with my motion. On Monday of last week as I pounded around Kensington Gardens I was listening to Front Row, a Radio 4 review of the arts. I heard Mark Lawson’s polished back-of-the-throat voice (that I find strangely appealing) as he spoke to Jonathan Miller about an exhibition of photos that Miller has curated for the Estorick Museum.
Rather appositely for my run, the exhibition is called ‘On the move’ and seeks to show how photography came to give new insights into the motion of people and animals and to influence the work of artists, who had sometimes struggled to capture the true dynamics of movement in static media such as painting and sculpture.
Miller waffled on a little too portentously for my liking but my interest was piqued and so on Saturday I made my way to the Estorick in Highbury and Islington in north-east London. I took the train – it’s a little far to run.
The exhibition starts with the work of the improbably named 19th Century photographer Eadward Muybridge who was commissioned by Leland Stanford, a horse-racing governor of California, to settle a bet about how horses ran. Because of the speed of movement as they galloped over the turf, no-one was quite sure how their legs moved and, crucially, whether at any point, all four legs left the ground. Eventually – the work was interrupted by Muybridge’s trial for the murder of his wife’s lover – by using a clever arrangement of trip-wires and high-speed cameras, he was able to capture a sequence that settled the point. They do.
It was a breakthrough that ultimately convinced the artistic community to change their ways. The previous tradition of rendering horses with a rocking horse gait (fore and hind legs stretched out) was abandoned. Curiously, there was initial resistance because Muybridge’s images differed from the perceived reality (probably largely based on paintings); only after he had assembled a moving image from his sequence of stills to re-create the familiar running motion of a horse were people convinced that the camera had not been lying.
These days with a digital camera, it is quite easy to replicate this technique. I got my daughter to film me in motion and this is the sequence that it produces. It reveals that even with my leaden step, there is one instant at which both feet are off the ground:
Muybridge went on to apply his technique to other animals, and to men and women, mostly scantily clad (his interests were prurient as well as scientific). But although his technique captures the elements of motion, it loses the dynamic. The movement is broken apart and his images are strangely static. The eye does a poor job of re-creating the motion in the mind.
A different approach and one that is more visually appealing was developed by the French photographer Etienne Jules Marey who worked out how to capture a sequence of stills on a single image. He did this using cameras with high speed shutters. Marey’s images retain a sense of dynamism and are immediately more… arresting. He photographed runners and jumpers and even birds in flight. The latter impressed him so much he commissioned an artist to render the bird in a statute that is on show at the gallery.
In later work – some of it funded by the French military in the hope that the analysis of motion might help to devise better training regimes for their troops – Marey sought to abstract the movement into its elements. He would dress his subjects in black but affix bright white strips to their arms and legs. There resulting images have faded somewhat but retain an mathematical beauty, swathed in curves that connect the swinging lines; they are like spirographs partly unwound.
Marey’s ‘lineograph’?
Marey’s chronophotographs, as he dubbed them, were artistic in themselves but clearly inspired artists such as Giancomo Balla to try to capture the dynamism of motion in paintings, as here below in The Hand of the Violinist. I have to say, I prefer Marey’s photos.
The hand of the violinist (Balla)
In the 1920s the baton was passed back to the US where an MIT engineer, Harold Eugene Edgerton, improved on Marey’s technique by incorporating multiflash or strobe lighting. The regular bright pulses of light gave much better illumination of the subject and, along with faster emulsions, yielded crisper images. Edgerton also worked on high speed photography and was responsible for iconic images of splashing milk drops and bullets smashing through fruit that many of you will already know (though none are represented in the exhibition).
Though an avowed engineer (“I am after the facts. Only the facts.”), Edgerton collaborated with the Italian photographic artist Gjon Mili whose pictures are among the most memorable of the exhibition. Using a creative combination of lights attached to his subject and bright flashes, Mili conjured some brilliant images. A particular favourite of mine was his picture of a violinist in action. To me this is more evocative of the music and the musician’s artistry than Bella’s painting.
Mili’s violonist
I’ll say little more – this is only meant to be a taster. It’s not a very large exhibition but I found it absolutely fascinating; there is an eclectic collection of images and objects. Miller, for all his bombast, was not too stuffy to include cartoons images of Billy Whizz from The Beano, arms multiplied as he threw snowballs, that made me smile in recollection. But more eloquent and more moving was a sculpture of fluid beauty inspired by the wing-beats of a dove taking to the air:
Poetry in motion.
Stirred by the exhibition I made my own homage to Marey and Mili. I will leave it to the reader to judge whether this constitutes any kind of poetry in motion. I fear not.
Prose in motion?
Which brings me back to running. The images from the exhibition each sought to extract an instant of stillness from the moving subject, whether runner or musician or horse. In my own running I am also seeking a kind of stillness – a moment of peace, an escape from turmoil.
Curiously, as I headed out the door on Saturday to take the train up to London I grabbed my old copy of John Updike’s Rabbit, Run. I suppose this blogpost on running was on my mind and triggered a memory of the title. The book is the poignant and painful story – written in Updike’s trademark exquisite prose – of Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom for whom the American dream is not working, though he can’t figure out why. His solution is to keep running away, but he can never seem to outrun his misery.
The cover refers to the book’s opening which has Angstrom dallying in a side-street on his way home from work, watching some kids playing basketball. He is reminded of his own youthful prowess at the sport; he tries to join in, to recapture something he knows he has lost.
I don’t want to overload this piece with symbolic weight. I am not the tragic figure of Rabbit Angstrom, though my own recourse to running is a kind of escape. I thought I might be able to use the book to make a connection. There was one, but it turned out to be astonishingly coincidental.
As I mulled and turned the book over in my hand I read that the photograph on the front cover of young Americans playing basketball had been taken by Gjon Mili.
Fantastic post, Stephen. Love the segues between running, art, and literature (then back to art). That exhibit sounds fascinating.
I like the violin photos. I have one of me where my hands are all blurry:
Stephen, that’s a great post, that is. But tell me – did Muybridge kill his wife’s lover, or not? Your public clamors to know.
Henry, the story is better than I imagined. On discovering his wife was having an affair with a Major Harry Larkyns he paid Larkyns a visit and announced himself thus, “Good evening, Major, my name is Muybridge and here is the answer to the letter you sent my wife”. And then he shot him.
He was eventually acquitted on the grounds of justifiable homicide. Those were the days.
I find listening to R4 not conducive to exercise – the rhythm is too slow! My colleague tried marathon training to The Archers and pretty much came to a complete standstill.
At least he didn’t photograph the Major as he fell.
Very nice.
I don’t really like listening to anything while I run – it’s the one time I can just switch my brain off. For much the same reason I only very rarely run with other people…
Thanks Alyssa – I realise the exhibition is a bit out of your way but it is running until 18th April. Just in case!
You’re right Bob – that was an odd omission!
Ian – I can see that the spoken word might work against some runners but for me, for now, it’s just about the right pace!
Nice photo Eva: hands ablur but gazed absolutely fixed! It reminded me of a picture that I had been thinking of including in the post which is very much in the style of Mili (or so I like to think). My camera has a synch/flash setting which allows for long exposures followed by a single flash.
@Steffi – sorry missed your comment. I guess I listen to the ipod as a further means of escape but it may also be a strategy to help me stick with the running (though, having disdained jogging and joggers for many years, I am finding it strangely addictive). I was worried that just running wouldn’t have much appeal.
I have an ambition to try to increase my stamina so that I can run for 45 min – long enough for a full episode of Melvyn Bragg’s In our time (I have quite a backlog of podcasts on my iPhone).
Bravissimo. {takes notes} {secret notes}
Lovely post Stephen and some great pictures – thanks very much!
Great post, I love Marey’s line photo, are there more online? I remember seeing photos of Picasso drawing with some light pen, by Mili:
Tips about running: to increase quickly your capacity to run for a long time, do fractionated running. Sprint at ~70-80% capacity, then jog same distance. Repeat ten times. Start with 100 meters, increase to 200. If you find it easy (!), alternate 200 and 300, and jog faster, but do not sprint harder (it’s the recovery/heart capacity you’re working on). Do that once a week and within one-two months you can jog 1 hour+ easily. Make sure you breathe properly too, it’s easy to tense up/hunch and not let enough air in the lungs.
Richard’s taking notes? Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that…
Cheers Lou!
Wow – fantastic picture Nicolas: two masters for the price of one. And many thanks for the running tips – I’ll maybe give that a go! Bit worried that 70-80% of my sprint capacity is the same as my jog speed… 😉
Oh, and here’s another coincidence. I gather that Nature Networker Brian Clegg will be giving a talk about the colourful career of Eadward Muybridge at the British Library next Monday (1st Feb).
I’m certainly going to try to get along.
Thanks Stephen! He’s certainly a remarkable character. You can see a bit about my attempts to trace him in Kingston here.
Great post, Stephen!
I’m another recent convert to running. I started last Spring, and did pretty well (two or three runs a week) until a series of impediments / excuses (swine flu then a holiday then the lingering respiratory effects of the swine flu then the darkness and rain then Christmas) interrupted me. I just started again last week after a couple of months off, and interestingly, different muscles are complaining this time (quads rather than calves).
I too listen to spoken word (podcasts) rather than music – this lets me go at my own pace rather than adjusting my speed to the rhythm of the music. I do find that it acts as a good incentive to get out there, because I reserve certain favourite podcasts for running (and the gym) only. These favourites are all comedies, which makes things much more bearable but does result in odd looks from fellow runners and dog walkers as I run through the foggy cemetery, bright red in the face and chortling like an idiot.
Taking advice from a
crazyfriend who does Ironman triathlons, I run intervals. I started with 1 minute run, 1 minute walk, for 8 minutes, and gradually built up the running intervals as well as the overall time of the run. Before the swine flu I was doing 44 minutes with 4×10 minute running intervals interspersed with 1 minute walks, and when I restarted last week I decided to start with 32 minute runs with 4×7 minute running intervals. I have an iPhone app called Runner that announces the intervals (“prepare for walking in three seconds. Walk for one minute. Halfway point”) over the top of my podcasts. I found that it was easy to build up the distance and time, but much harder to build up speed – maybe we should run together some time, because it sounds like you might be the only person running at my speed! I managed ~3.9km on my 32 minute run today (the iPhone app tracks distance and route too). Mycrazyfriend recommends adding a sprint interval (my iPhone app does that too) for the penultimate minute of each running interval as a good way to help build up speed, but the one time I tried that I got my timing disastrously wrong and found myself on a steep hill on each sprint interval!Anyway, this comment is almost as long as this morning’s run, so I’ll leave you with this link to an article on the BBC website about the first X-rays. Quite way there is a BBC Radio 4 series called ‘Images That Changed The World’ is beyond my comprehension, but hey, maybe British radios have come a long way since I left almost 8 years ago!
…and I forgot the link. I copied, but forgot to paste. Did someone say something about the mental benefits of running?
thanks Stephen. I never did think too much about those horsey legs straight out and back were wrong (all the nice paintings I enjoyed as a younger person). I never really thought about it, and I found myself looking over and over at the sequence you posted. Clearly it is hard to changes one perception of “how things should be” 🙂
The other photos posted are marvellous too. I like the younger one with the sparklers [‘tomtebloss’]. The “three photos in one” effect is very fascinating. And the picasso one of course.
As for the running, I need the music for it to be possbile to adjusting my speed to the rhythm of the music as to paraphrase cath. I need the incentive of the rythm when I get tired to keep going and not stop/slow down. This only works at the treadmill though, outside I know my route and enjoy the bird song [cars so I don’t get run over] while knowing how fast I should go… (those few times I actually manage to run outside… ^^)
Thanks for that very fullsome comment Cath! Your advice mirrors what Nicolas wrote (about how to build up stamina) and I shall have to investigate that Runner app. The initial advice I had, from a long-time runner friend, was not to push myself too hard. I do want to make sure that I am enjoying it so that I’ll manage to develop a habit. I started at the turn of the year and, though it’s been cold, that hasn’t put me off (except perhaps one very frosty morning when the cold air almost gave me an asthma attack). It’s the rain I can’t stand. But spring is on its way. so I am looking forward to some milder weather.
Thanks for the X-ray link. I did come cross another arty thing recently that made me think of X-rays, which has an obvious connection to my own work – and to the idea of science allowing us to see things differently. Maybe I’ll come back to that.
Åsa – ‘tomtebloss’ – what a delightful word for sparklers! I am lucky to have Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens on my doorstep at work, which are much pleasanter (and cheaper) than the College gym. I confess I don’t really fancy treadmill sessions, even if they do allow for more control over your pace (and an escape from the rain…).
Sorry Stephen, I do go on a bit sometimes don’t I. I’ll edit myself better next time!
No, no – I wasn’t complaining. All the gory details – that’s what we like!
I really dislike running on treadmills – I only dislike exercise bikes more. Although, bizarrely, rowing machines are fine. However, nothing beats a good run in the country. I am fortunate that I only have to run/jog about 1 mile and I am in Dunham Massey, which has a wonderful Deer Park with a manageable perimeter to run round (a couple of miles. Of course all the wildlife gives wonderful excuses for a pause to view nature.
The other direction from my house and I am in the Bollin Valley
However the rural idyll is interupted by Manchester Airport (top of view above), and in summer it is a Giant Hogweed reserve.
Ah, we may be using different definitions of fulsome!= That was probably my fault for being illiterate.
I just signed up for a Vancouver to Seattle charity bike ride in June. Well, last year’s route went from Vancouver to Seattle, they haven’t announced this year’s details, but it should be of an equivalent length. ~250 km over two days means I might be spending more time on my bike and less time running in the lead-up to the event!
[I suddenly feel full of comments like “sure, bash on the poor girl in the place where HEAT is an issue a lot of months in the year” not to mention “we have private properties here, and guns to keep ’em that way” but that would sound bitter and bad. hence, I’ll just look at the photos and be envious of it and dream of the time when I did live close to parks and forests like that. /end of whining]
Brian> I like the treadmills since I have to keep a pace and it keeps me focus. It’s not as enjoyable and relaxing as running in a park but … there is something written about that on top of this 😉 I never have tried rowing machines, only proper rowing outdoors. Maybe that is my new thing to test for spring?
Brian, what great running routes! I often run in the nearby cemetery, which you’ll have no doubt seen on film if you’ve ever watched the X-Files, The Watchmen, or a variety of other Vancouver-made films and TV series. It looked suitably atmospheric this morning, with a low-lying blanket of fog with sunshine, trees, and a view of snowy mountains above. Oh, and a film crew setting up with catering and mobile dressing room trucks. It’s great to get away from the traffic; I don’t start my podcasts up until I’m off the main roads. No deer, although I often see raccoons, and (once) a coyote.
My other option is a park with an ash/gravel running track, which is easier on the knees and shins, but more boring visually unless there’s a game of cricket or ultimate frisbee going on inside the circular track (complete with its own hazards of being brained by an errant projectile). Ah, the joys of urban life!
Ooh, look, the cemetery site has an aerial photo! The (massive) cemetery is in the middle, and the Northern edge of the park with the running track is in the bottom right corner of the photo. The cemetery is easily big enough to avoid any funeral services, although I tend to run on early mornings and weekends when there’s no-one to disturb anyway, just lots of other runners, bikers, and dog walkers.
I just got your title. Just now. Sheesh, I am slow.
Wow – beautiful park Brian. Plus you have the advantage that you can jump on a passing deer when you get tired…
Åsa – sorry! I’m sure Brian and I didn’t mean to flaunt our park proximity so recklessly! Clearly you have good reason to stick with the treadmill. I know little of Memphis except that it’s in the South (hot!) and was the setting for John Grisham’s The Firm. As I recall the movie, there was lots of running (by Tom Cruise) and guns. Is that what it’s really like…?
Steffi – you’re not slow. My title was just deep. Very deep. I bet you’re faster at me than running, in any case!
Thank you, Stephen. You’re a real friend. I think I’d even make an exception and run with you, if we ever got the chance.
@ Åsa – I won’t tell you then that I have a beautiful forest run two minutes from our apartment (oops..). I do feel your pain, though: when we lived in Colorado, of course there was the most gorgeous trail running imaginable… on the weekends in summer. Otherwise, it was pretty much impossibly hot in summer or too cold/too much snow and ice in winter, so I too spent many hours on the treadmill. But even on the treadmill, you can do useful stuff to get in shape for those outside runs 🙂
(p.s. on the treadmill, I do of course listen to music/podcasts/plays – otherwise, my brain would run out of my ears…)
We can run round the synchrotron next time I’m in Hamburg… 😉 (but I fear I won’t be able to keep up).
Heh – maybe the HERA tunnel? Would be cool, and 6.3 km would be worthwhile… (part of the tunnel was just opened to ‘the public’ during the annual ‘open door’ day last November).
Londoners are spoilt by choice when it comes to outdoor running venues, there are so many parks! I am always mystified by the amount of people I see running to/from King’s Cross though, surely there are better and less crowded places?
Tip for other runners: Paddington recreation ground has an outdoor running track with a decent synthetic surface (compatible with spikes) that is available for free!
Steffi: haha, I’m ok with all the great forests. I mean, I used to live there…. I like the treadmll for exactly the reasons stated in your link. You can control your work out. That is also exactly why I love running (jogging/trying to move half fast) outdoors since it is more relaxing for the mind 🙂
Stephen: now the guns…. well, not to be coy and all but there are quite a few of them here yes. And I would assume that in certain parts of the city running and guns would be an accurate description. However, my main thing about not running outdoors more than around in my neighbourhood for a few months a year is the heat (and humidity). I’m such a baby when it comes to temperatures above 22C for running 😉 I liked the photos, just turned a bit envious but that is good. I need to remember what it is to live sort of where I grew up 🙂
Nothing to add that hasn’t already been said, but I feel compelled to say ‘wow, what a brilliant post’.
You’re welcome to leave comments like that anytime, Matt!
Fully understand about the temp limitations of Tennessee, Åsa – the treadmill is a most intelligent choice in the circumstances. I remember seeing someone on Dragon’s Den try to sell the idea of videoscreens on treadmills that were linked to the speed of your run and would play out a film of moving through woods, just to give you that outdoors vibe. Didn’t sell.
Stephen, there is a game on Wii Fit that does just that, the character you control on the screen adapts its speed to your step frequency. The scenery is awful and boring, though, and running on one spot isn’t the same as ‘proper’ running.
Stephen> yes, I don’t know about thos screens. For me it wouldn’t work since I’m an either or – real nature or real tv 🙂
Although, it might not sound that strange if one knows that those screens have been tried on spinning classes (bikes and routes to make the whole uphill/downhill more believable). Dragon’s den however is an intersting concept. I don’t think I would dare voice my [smaller] ideas in front of the world and those dragons…
Yes Nicolas – I agreed with the Dragons on that one: a video screen is no substitute for the real thing (as Åsa says).
Åsa, Dragons Den makes grant applications look easy!
In news elsewhere (published in this week’s Nature), I see I shall have to consider running barefoot
Stephen> I have seen something similar recently. something about “running naturally” which is smaller steps and more of a “rolling run”, which also includes less heel and more fore foot. hm, I wonder where I saw that video. It’s some guy in the US (where else?) who have seminars/training sessions on how to run in thinner sole shoes, more similar to barefoot and how people run/walk when they are young, and this makes for a less impact on joints run.
It takes some training apparently, since we are more use to the whole “heel to toe” running. I don’t think running barefoot on asphalt is that good though (think about even horses hoves need protection against the harshness) but then again, who likes running on asphalt? 😉
Well that Harvard prof in the video on that link didn’t seem to mind running barefoot through the streets of Cambridge (Mass. – not Eva’s Cambridge) – even in winter!
We use Dunham Park (Brian’s deer picture) for family outings from the ‘burbs, and I have done a lot of walking round there (and the Bollin valley) in pre-child-owning days. Can’t say I was ever tempted to run the park perimeter, though.
When I have taken up running (for various periods, the longest being about a couple of years) I have always found having to run in the dark during the Winter a major, major disincentive – the dark much more than the temperature. And have never been able to get into the idea of running on a treadmill – way too much like a Human Physiology lab class! I used to do Yoga classes at one point so if I feel the need to de-embrace middle-aged spread I think it might be Yoga and cycling to work.
Should just add my congrats to Stephen for a fascinating post. I knew of Muybridge (though only the photo-sequences) but Marey and his beautiful images (which clearly prefigure the work of some abstract artists) were new to me.
Austin – I’m sure I would feel the same way about running in the dark (though I had quite a nice dusk run along the Serpentine last Friday). I am generally sticking to the daylight hours by taking time at lunch to go for a run.
I was gong to say ‘making’ time but ‘taking’ is closer to the truth. I have decided that I am worth it!
Good luck with the yoga – didn’t know you could do that on a bike. You must be pretty good.
Just to prove that I do occasionally read blogs outside Nature Network, there is a nice piece by Ian Hopkinson on Edgerton’s role in photographing the first atomic bomb blast on his SomeBeans Blog.
I’m sure he’ll be happy for you to leave a comment or two…!
Many thanks to Brian Clegg, who gave a really fascinating talk on Muybridge at the British Library earlier this evening. Lots of interesting snippets about his life and work (there’s a book for anyone interested).
The talk was nicely rounded off by a short film by Marek Pytel (from realityfilm.co.uk) which literally re-animated many of Muybridge’s works.
Like NN, are you still running?
Yes, just back from my Wednesday stint. Knackered.
Are you noticing an improvement?
Physically, yes, but slowly. Am still only doing 20-25 min on each run but think I’m getting a bit faster. There seems to be a dip in the middle of each session where I find it hard going. After that, you seem to find the resources to keep going though I am usually quite happy to stop at the end.
Mentally the benefits are greater – I’d say that I am sleeping better and less affected by the stresses of work. This was in fact my main motivation for starting in the first place. I hope I can keep it up.
That’s really good, Stephen. The dip in the middle isn’t surprising–at least to me. It’s past the first rush of keenness and –hey, it’s ‘second wind’, innit?
Do you feel good at the end or just knackered? Got the endorphins going yet?
The way to avoid that dip is to take longer runs.
I should start up running again soon – my knee is feeling better, and the snow has gone. But I have to find some good routes here.
Talking to a much more experienced runner, I gather that he also experiences a dip. But it happens much later in the run (he can go for an hour or more). I probably do need to increase my running time, as Bob suggests, but would be happy to top out at 30-35 min on a working day. But I’m in no rush. 😉
Richard, I definitely feel ‘virtuous’ at the end of the run. I don’t think I’m getting any endorphin-powered highs just yet, alas.
Ach, that’s a shame. Hmm… do you get an endorphin rush after a really good curry? I wonder if you’re wired up right?
He said, straight-faced.
Missed this first time around. We have lovely running terrain round Mill Hill too, and a little nature reserve with a lake. I have been off running a bit (knees, Achilles tendons) but I did go out yesterday and no ill effects.
I remember when I first started running, there was always that moment when you felt you were going to die. But you didn’t. Hence, you learn that that is the order of things, and just keep running through the barrier overruling your mind that says “Stop – Now!”.
Yeah. It always takes me a few minutes to sort my breathing out (I’m still a bit nervous about that after the pneumonia episode) but then I’m fine for a good while. Except when I’ve not been out for 10 days or more, then it’s difficult.
Thanks for the tip Frank. The advice I had at the start was not to overdo it and to have a couple of walking breaks in the session when I got too tired. I have reduced the duration of these but maybe I should be working on eliminating them altogether. May need to start listening to some pumping background music to drive me through the pain though.
BTW, was listening to Front Row again today and discovered that in his latest film, Extraordinary Measures, Harrison Ford plays a scientist! Definitely one for the lablit podcast, Richard.
Yup, we have that on the list, Stephen, thanks!
However, there’s some house moving going on and we’re not quite sure when we’ll be able to record the next.
I agree with “don’t overdo it”, but walking is for wimps! Overdoing (for me) means too long a run, or trying to go too fast. I remember though that once or twice in the early days I took wrong turns, and ended up doing 6k instead of 4k. Again, it was a useful demonstration that I could do more than I thought I could. Small step-ups are good, but avoid major increases.
Re. music, I once tried taking a walkman out with me. I had Sibelius’ Violin Concerto on, which I love. But it does not have a regular or strong rhythm, and I found my running rhythm was all over the place, so I turned it off. Should have tried the Rite of Spring.
I guess I’m a wimp then. But I’m doing my best – honest!
On the question of music, although I have mostly listened to the spoken word, a couple of times I’ve had music on the iPod – a random selection on shuffle – and that did seem to push me along a bit more purposefully. But it’s a bit early to tell how effective that method is. Further studies are necessary.
(Can you tell I’ve been writing a paper today?)
Re Harrison Ford, the doctor character he played in The Fugitive definitely had some scientist-y aspects, e.g. staring down microscopes at pathology slides, which forms a critical part of the story.
I’d forgotten that one, Austin. I do like The Fugitive; Ford is pretty good in that, but Tommy Lee Jones has all the best lines.
I am a fan of Ford’s – he’s in some of my favourite films (I’m thinking especially of Blade Runner and Witness). But he has made some tosh in his time. Caught a bit of Working Girl the other night—dreadful.
The appearance for pub quiz film trivia geeks is Ford’s very brief appearance in Apocalypse Now.
Working Girl is a dire film. Of course, I struggle to think of any film Melanie Griffith made that isn’t dire, with the single exception of Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild.