orchids = catalyst

first film screening a success! we had frito lays, pretzels, and chips ahoy (spelling?), and used paper towels from the women's bathroom as plates, so we were all set to enjoy our night at the pictures.

it's late and i am tired, so i'll just say briefly: what most struck me was how adaptation is portrayed as a much more violent event than i'd previously considered. the film opened with a visual timeline of the earth's adaptation, complete with the violently agitated primordial soup from which we all sprung, and the messy evolution of life, through to the present time; and john laroche muses that "adaptation's a profound process–learning to survive in the world." interesting that susan sees it as "something shameful" or something that one does as a means of "running away," and yet she finds herself running with an inevitable agency which makes her conclude that adaptation can't be avoided.

adaptation seems to be just a violent, terrible struggle that's inevitable for survival, and even though it can result in something beautiful, we instinctively seem to fear it and require the catalyst of something transformative–in this case, the search for the ghost orchid (or the psychotropic power of the orchid?)–to force us to metamorph into something new.

Welcome to Adaptations!

Here is the class blog! I look forward to reading what you have to say! Prof. Newman