wrapping up my day.

Today was a good day, work-wise.

So here I am wrapping it up.

First some links:

The Tanner lectures are freely available online! [via Crooked Timber]. Awesome! Here's Thomas Nagel, John Rawls Kwame Anthony-Appiah and Michael Walzer. Plus many more.

Extracts from Pervez Musharraf's new book. Doesn't the man know that political figures are supposed to write memoirs when they're at least twenty years out of office?

Also a great piece on copyright. It's a great primer, and more. And a piece on income inequality that I really liked. [via Ross Douthat]

Now some movies:

I saw "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros" yesterday, and while the frank attitude towards pre-teen sexuality is quite unsettling -- essentially this is a coming-of-age movie about an effeminate boy who is infatuated with an older, handsome police officer -- I found the movie way too mawkish. The portrayal of a Filippino slum, where the movie takes place, is remarkably authentic. I am not so sure about the dialogue although I really cann't say much since the film was subtitled. But this -- the authenticity of the spoken language in foreign-language films -- is something that has intrigued me since I saw Syriana, where the Urdu/Hindi melange that its Pakistani characters spoke in, was completely unrealistic -- in fact the subtitles sounded way better than what those guys said (and the way they said it).

Ps: For those of you who haven't watched Syriana -- left-wing agitprop but nevertheless interesting -- but plan to, stay till the end of this infuriating movie: the dramatic ending almost makes up for the (purposefully) sloppy story-telling.

And it's probably best to avoid "Eating Out" (as also, I guess, the coming sequel.)