Hi, Johannes. Just checking messages after an anniversary weekend in Washington. I ate at Obelisk, which is now reputed to be the best restaurant in DC, and it was fabulous. The ambience is a bit too much that of a doctor's reception area, but the food is great. It is sort of "art Italian". The dining room is very small, seating less than 50 at a time, so if you try to go, you should make reservations at least a week, and possibly more, in advance. Ask me for the number the next time you are coming to town, especially if you bring your wife. It is near Dupont Circle.....
On the movie: I have the advantage of having read the book, and also of having read another Arthur C. Clarke novel called "Childhood's End" about 25 years ago. It all has to do with Clarke's convictions about a sort of mystical evolutionary process, abetted by other races from the stars. Remember the obelisk at the beginning? It was a teaching machine, that got the apes to begin to invent things. In the movie, they mainly look agitated, and start banging bones, but in the book it is clear that it is a sort of neural stimulator. Then, when they go to the moon, there is another one, to lead them on to Jupiter, and yet another help in evolving. The idea was that they would find the one on the moon when they had evolved sufficiently, and it would lead them on to the next phase. Anyway, somehow, the special effects are supposed to represent the astronauts evolution into the Star Child, who is superior to humans, and we are left with the Star Child contemplating the earth and trying to decide what he should do next, without making it more explicit how the rest will be worked out.......In "Childhood's End", there is a different treatment of the same theme, of humanity moving on to a new, better evolutionary stage, helped by aliens..... |
