orderly, but soulless

Yesterday evening, when I was watching the well-coordinated movements of thousands of performers in the closing ceremony, I suddenly thought about some mise-en-scenes in the film the Lord of Ring, in which the intimidating force is represented in the similar manner. The only difference is that the later one is a simulacra created on the screen with the help of computers, while the former one is a real event happened in the Bird's Nest.

Today, quite exceptionally, the headline of the top story appeared nearly all newspapers in Beijing, and Internet news portals as well, has unanimously used IOC chief Roggae's word 'truely exceptional' (in Chinese it's translated as '无与伦比', which plays up a bit to the meaning 'best ever' from Roggae's words, like this story from the Australian indicates) to praise the Beijing Olympic Games. Although it's amusing to see the gap btw the Chinese expectation in the translation and what's been given in reality by Mr. Roggae's, I'm really sick of such self-intoxication in such a shoddy unanimity and order, so depressing and distasteful that when I heard Boris Johnson poking fun to his audience at the London House by saying it's the 1908 Games, I couldn't help laughing.

It makes me feel better, and I swear, it has nothing to do patriotism or nationalism. I'm just cheered up a bit by his sharp and humorous comment, like suddenly you are granted to breathe freely after having been confined in a tightly controlled space for a while. This somewhat eccentric London mayor just behaves like that lovely child in the story of Anderson's emperor's new cloth, by simply pointing out a matter of fact, while most of us are silent. Of course, the speech given by him as a whole is full of Londoner's pride, but it's not offensive to my ears.

What a relief! I know he thinks the aesthetic taste of the ceremony is quite outdated, even philistine.

There is another story from WP that has made my head even cooler. Probably it is the first insider's account on the weirdness of services he was provided.

'As sports spectacles go, I've never seen one more efficiently or soullessly executed than this one. I have no idea where they put the real people for 17 days, but I felt like Jim Carrey in "The Truman Show." Where's Ed Harris saying: "Truman is going to turn left on Main Street: Cue the smiling girl and the hearty hot dog vendor." '

Very personal indeed, but it gives me a sense of truth about how good it is.

Really a cool stuff!