lab 42

going through the "legendary directors" list skipping too old b&w authors, after ridley scott and david finsher picks, finally, came across roman polanski works

he is generally into thrillers and dramas with a heavy-loaded plot. one of the works i checked not so long ago was on my roommate's advice since it was her fav of the horror genre. and 4 (actually 5) more i watched last week to get an impression of the author.

was low budget and mostly sober since monday. after getting through "10g per week and 10 lines of code per day" times I spent this week doing my work duties (copying code from 3 guides to my own python script) and got first results. ofc with a pretty visualization to demonstrate on today's workshop

wtf is workshop I discovered only today during a 6h long session (with a pizza break) with cz archeologists on their territory. literally a tight conference room, and 30+ yo europeans around. two bearded archeology enjoyers in front...

arrived 15min earlier, vaped in the yard well watching yellow autumn leaves hanging on the tree and laying around. got inside and walked around the room to see what they have laying around. nice aquarelle picture with a collage of archeology finding drawings hanging on the wall. picked a colored printout of the last years research in cz, went through the headlines and pictures before the first familiar faces arrived.

my senior college sitting right besides me definitely noticed how fidgety I am (couldn't even secretly vape for 2-3h). hope he liked the 🦖 🦕 I drew in the same notebook where I sketched and noted the whole working process.

overall went good, and heard that they wouldn't make it without me, by the end. yet said that I shouldn't be so "hasty" (last-minute) sending the warning I have a lecture during the workshop. but said I just needed an excuse to skip it plus I was the earliest to come in any case.

after that spent uah from the extra account on 🌿 to finally chill on the weekend. pretending to work is going well enough to do some hws in the empty office on the weekend

firstly, the title may seem strange, one of its meanings is explained in the beginning - a knot in a known worldwide children game. another meaning is relieved later in the story - the rope pattern doesn't look either like a cradle or like a cat at all.

secondly, the main sci-fi element is an ice-nine substance invented for military guys sick of getting stuck in the swamps. won't spoil the details, yet it's a mass destruction weapon able to freeze any water in a matter of seconds.

moreover, the mc is a writer sent to the laboratory where a co-father of an atomic bomb has spent his last days, there he discovers the last horrifying creation of this brilliant mind. although he was reassured such horrors beyond human comprehension don't exist yet, he is having nightmares about ice-nine. tbh, this morning i also dreamed about riding some car wagons escaping from the rain that was about to fall and freeze everyone...

the made-up religion is another powerful aspect of the novel, below are some terms from it's dictionary on wiki so that you know what to expect:

karass – A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident.
duprass – a karass of only two people ( loving couple who work together for a great purpose), who almost always die within a week of each other.
granfalloon – a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist.
wampeter – the central theme or purpose of a karass. Each karass has two wampeters at any given time, one waxing and one waning.
foma – harmless untruths.
kan-kan – An object or item that brings a person into their karass.
sinookas – The intertwining "tendrils" of peoples' lives.
stuppa – a fogbound child (i.e. an idiot)
duffle – the destiny of thousands of people placed on one "stuppa"
sin-wat – a person who wants all of somebody's love for themself.
Busy, busy, busy – words Bokononists whisper when they think about how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is.
boko-maru – the supreme act of worship of the Bokononists, which is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons.
zah-mah-ki-bo – Inevitable destiny.

it's definitely a memorable book and you have my recommendation to check it