Hmm. This weekend kinda just zipped by. For lack of a better quantification system, I shall list my purchases and hope that my weekend was longer and that it was better spent than I am imagining it to be right now. One CD, one magazine, four LR44 batteries, four books (1, 2, 3, 4), one movie ticket (boring, and I wanted to kick the four talkative idiots in the row before us), a goood crabbbbb lunch and a nice cup of pearl milk tea. My backlog of books is getting ridiculous, but I am really so good at buying them that it seems a waste to stop.

Hmm. That is quite depressing. I think I need an extra day for my weekends. Of course, I can always kick the addiction to ‘Word Challenge’, and I can stop unscrambling words or see words in words (you know, like there is ‘nose’ in ’snores’. And ‘rose’ and ‘nos’ and ‘ore(s)’ and ‘res’ and ’son(s)’ and ’sore(s)’ and ’sen’ etc). And I can fall asleep without thinking that I missed out ’tile(s)’ in my last game. And that I can read a magazine article without thinking that ‘aspen’ is probably a word I’ve never used in the game.

Hmm. Set out to write an entry about nights, but instead, this has turned out to be this. But aren’t nights marvellous? Everything ceases their bustle and switches off their lights. The slightly eerie glow of lone fluorescent tubes in dark alleys. People who sleep in these alleys, completely nonchalant about lively cockroaches and other miscellaneous insects and animals, but so wary of our human mean-no-harm footsteps. Strangers who become people in the absence of day, who become people who shake our hands, volunteer their friends for our cameras, and then amble off, laughing and laughing.

Painting to See the Skies

Smoke Painting

Painting for the Wind

I’ve liked Yoko Ono’s early instruction paintings since I read about them in uni, and have always thought them as undeservedly overlooked (I guess it is kinda hard to see beyond the fact that she was dating the Beatle). Simple in form, yet richly imaginative (well, as imaginative as you wish to be). Okay, I just realised why I can never be an art critic or commentator. I like! Actually I like them so much that they would go on my ‘Art that changed my life’ meme, if there is indeed one.

More: Yoko Ono: This is Not Here flickr pool

(Instructions taken from aiu and here)

You should know better than to start a story with its title.

But, writing comes in spurts like these, and sometimes these spurts begin with a string of words that would belong nowhere else. These words are stubborn, set in their ways, and you would argue, sometimes amicably and rarely antagonisingly, but always to no avail, that they should instead maybe open a paragraph. “No,” they would insist, eyebrows raised, “we are the title. That’s all we will be.”

“How about a chapter title? A chapter is sometimes like a new story.” You try again.

“Not in your case. You never go beyond two pages.”

Their insistence would persist, and your will is but a half-hearted wuss. A naggy annoyance, an excuse for an intellect. You let them be, then you end the story.

Saw a Facebook ‘15 books in 15 minutes’ meme a few days ago, and since then, it’s been kinda on my mind. Mostly because I like to look at my new bookshelf and imagine it bigger. And more filled up. And in mahogany. I’ve also been slacking on my reading this week, and instead like to stare into space on train rides than stare into pages of make-believe worlds. However, much to my credit, the book-buying mood hasn’t ceased. What’s with these books-related entries, you ask (you don’t ask), and I shrug my skinny shoulders and blame a lack of good movies (and my present addiction to ‘Word Challenge’).

Random Youtube video.

Anyway, about those elusive 15 books that changed my life. I doubt I have 15, because I like to think that my life has been a well deliberated one and takes maybe 4-5 slow gradual turns around corners rather than 15 (fifteen) sudden life-changing shortcuts through dark alleys with leaky water pipes. Now, that is a shabby excuse.

1. The Faraway Tree Stories – Enid Blyton

My favourite Blyton series. I was a fan of the Famous Five and Malory Towers books too, but nothing tops the magic of the Faraway Tree. Gosh, I really feel like rereading the books now. Once while visiting a friend in her super suburb place in Brisbane (zone 4 and beyond!), we took a walk with her dog in the woods behind her house and I had several ‘it-is-this-tree!’ moments. Sadly, those were just ordinary trees and I doubt any land, good or bad, had ever stopped atop them. And yes, the woods was really in her backyard. Or five amazingly short minutes away. It was certainly an eye-opener for this HDB dweller.

Fansite!

2. The Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

I think I might have a more optimistic and less cynical outlook in life, if I have never read that book. Damn glad I did though.

3. Nine Stories – JD Salinger

A Perfect Day for Bananafish. Beat that.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Read this once when I was way too young to understand it. Read it again early last year, and it was brilliant. For a very long time, I was not reading any novels / books at all, instead favouring short stories and magazines; not that there was anything wrong with that, but I had missed those days where I could immerse myself in a book for days and days on end and inhabit its world completely. This book reassured that I could still do so, if I so wished to.

5. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? / Short Cuts – Raymond Carver

Read ‘Are These Actual Miles?’ during a short story writing class in university, and that started my Carver reading spree. His stories, bleak as they come, for some reason always fill me with a certain optimism. Maybe it was through his stories that I realised that it was possible for people to behave without histrionics. And well, that evolution has got to trickle down eventually to the actual human race.

6. Goodbye Tsugumi / Kitchen – Banana Yoshimoto
 

7. A Wild Sheep Chase – Haruki Murakami

Hmm, just in case it hasn’t been obvious, I quite adore the author. I probably need a little more time to fully digest and reread some of his works so that my assessment of how I feel towards his books will be more accurate. For now, only this is on the list because it was my first Murakami book and a great introduction to the myriad worlds of ambitious sheep, vanishing elephants and talking cats.

8. Setting Sun: Writings by Japanese Photographers

This is a collection of writings by erm, Japanese photographers (just in case you missed the title). This is on the list because it provided me with invaluable insights on the work and thought processes of these photographers, and elucidated that writing and words can play an integral part in understanding and creating photographic works, which was something I had always known but had never believed.

8 for now. Sleepy and distracted.

Photo slideshow
Interview with Stephen Shore

(Images stolen from here and here)

I’ve always liked that line. What a waste of gunpowder and sky from Aimee Man’s ‘Fourth of July’. Can’t really believe she is really heading to Singapore for a concert, but am really quite pleased pleased pleased ecstatic about it.

Hmm, now I can’t remember why I started writing in here. Half-inclined to just close the page, but I don’t think I will. Reverse psychology. I know there’s a word for this. Shall just quote random Aimee lyrics since I’m listening to ‘Whatever’ now. I’ve had it. All seem strangely appropriate. Oh, experience is cheap, if that’s the company you keep. Bored.

Say anything ’cause I’ve heard everything. Reprise. Say anything (’cause I’ve heard everything). I’d like very much to think that I’m setting a precedent in the world of nonsense blogging here. It makes my head spin, and spin it did all night long yesterday. Spin spin sugar. As such, I’m on a reading-hiatus, which largely explains why I’m writing random words here. Each word, plus another word a sentence maketh. Each day, it’s harder to get on the scale.

Well, I could hurt you now. Yawn. Why don’t people read? How else do you entertain yourselves? Speech is overrated.

What a waste of webspace and sky.

(from artist’s site; link via JeanSnow.net)

突然好想用中文。
已好久没用中文思考了。有一点陌生，有一点紧张。有一点犹豫，又有一点盼望。盼望着各种无法用英语表达的心情可终获得一些解放。虽然这所谓的解放也可能是一种虚幻，一种终究只有自己能认同的解脱。但是，不浮出表面的思考，它也就只有往下陷的厄运。放纵久了，就会凝固。凝固了，也就无法拨开探索。 然后，也只能变成占着位、阻碍着前进的绊脚石。

于是想着，到底要从哪开始。也想着是否可能理性地解释或表达。若无法这么做的话，总觉得一切也只有归于原点的命运。朋友也写着：“仿佛能写下的，就是能放下的。”

觉得那是对的。是正确的。
但也觉得一点舍不得。放下的东西也只能有离去的下文。

I had planned this entry to be one on my sewing Sunday, one where I would be able to extol, at relative length and with adequate pride, my brand new blouse. Unfortunately, due to foreseen but unovercomeable circumstances, that piece of garment did not materialise. It did at some point resemble an effort at making a blouse, but that was about as far as it would go. If a blouse works like a skirt, I would be a lot more pleased with myself, but as sartorial principles and basic anatomical knowledge go, a blouse needs armholes. And armholes, my dears, are as tricky as balancing a pencil on the tip of your nose while having it tickled by a feather plucked from a rooster who knows why it doesn’t crow in the morning. Tricky business.

Instead of moaning over things I can’t (yet) do, let’s move on to something I do extremely well. Buying books. Is that a special skill? Nah. Is it something difficult? Well, it does get less and less easy with every try, especially when the month is approaching its third week, but on most occasions, it is a relatively simple task. I reckon I must have bought at least 30 books since the start of the year, which is probably more than what I bought for the whole of last year. What is slightly comforting is that while I must have read fewer than 10 books last year (magazines do not count. I want them to, but they have withdrawn from the competition, citing the presence of advertising and other evils, which include, but are not limited to, a monthly rehashing of content), this year I have mostly been keeping up with my purchases. Until last week, I guess.

So far, this has been a year of Murakami and David Sedaris. Very different styles, which worked out just fine because I was alternating between the both of them. I would read a Murakami novel, get all sad and depressed and weirded out, then switch to Sedaris who would, on more than one occasion, had me wishing I had spoken more kindly of people who laugh to themselves on train rides so that I would, on the convenient account of karma and whatnots, be exempted from their disdainful glances. I ran out of Sedaris before I could finish Murakami’s novels though, so there was a period of general moodiness. I also started reading ‘Watchmen’ but that, despite being an excellent read, wasn’t exactly uplifting as well.

Probably a common thing, but once I find an author I like, I tend to want to polish off everything that he or she has ever written. There was a J.D. Salinger phase (secondary school to first year of poly), even though he didn’t write a lot (Save J.D. Salinger’s Archives!). I loved ‘The Catcher in the Rye’, duh, and quite frankly, a good deal of my writing compositions then were very Holden-Caulfield wannabe. Phony, I guess. Oh well. I remembered loving ‘Franny and Zooey’ too and ‘Nine Stories’ was probably my first foray into short stories (my preference for short stories would eventually become an excuse for not reading longer works). For some reason though, I never got around to reading ‘Seymour’. I have it, but it is still wrapped in plastic with a Towers Record price tag. Odd.

(I also went through a Milan Kundera phase, though nothing of note has remained in my brain. It is very strange. I probably read half of what he has, but nothing really comes to mind now. I vaguely remember someone dancing in a mental asylum. It is scary how completely I forget some stuff.)

And then there was a Banana Yoshimoto phase. Oh! I found Lizard! It was a large paperback though. My other books are normal paperbacks. Sigh. Anyway, ‘Kitchen’ and ‘Moonlight Shadow’!, and ‘Goodbye Tsugumi’!! Her short stories! My eloquence is unparalleled.

Verbosity rules when you don’t have to verbalise words, and it makes mindless entries look impressively long (yes, this is a redundant mention of length) and thoughtful. And when you get bored, you can just end off with some random pictures:

(“Joge-e 上下絵, or ‘two-way pictures,’ are a type of woodblock print that can be viewed either rightside-up or upside-down.”)

(Joge-e images and writeup from here)

The weekend has not ended but I feel that at 3 in the morning on a Sunday, it is pretty much nearing its end. Of course, Sunday is a nice full day that you can fill with exciting activities like rock climbing, or jogging, or shopping, but Sunday is essentially just known as the day before Monday to me. And Mondays, I don’t like.

I love Tetris, and I kick ass at it. And yesterday was Tetris day! I feel like I should had played a few games to celebrate, but I didn’t know about the day until it was over. The Google Tetris logo was cute though.

Tweeted about this earlier, but theauteurs.com has made my films-to-watch list explode with joy. From the site: “The Auteurs is the fastest growing online destination for lovers of independent, foreign and classic film; an online cinema, anytime, anywhere.” Like, uh huh. YES. And then a whole load of ecstatic emoticons. Granted that there aren’t that many films available for viewing in Singapore yet, but that is certainly promising.

(By the way, as a sort of disclaimer or whatever you may choose to deem it, contrary to what some may believe, I don’t necessarily just watch art house, indie, or foreign films. I like good films, and sometimes they fall into those mentioned categories. I like my movies entertaining, and I like them smart without being obtuse. And with intelligent dialogue. And with humour. And with no monosyllabic beefy guys in racing cars. And with no cheesy love story involving a scene with a flock of white doves that will suddenly swoop up at you when you’re contemplating a sacrificial suicide. Apart from those criteria, I am pretty much quite easy-going when it comes to movies.)

Watched ‘After Life’ on the site this afternoon (I liked it, though not as much as ‘Still Walking’). Seeing that it was a Saturday afternoon, the streaming was relatively decent – I left it to load for an hour before I started to watch – and the quality was equivalent to a HQ Youtube video. Screencaps below:

The only gripe I had was the sound. It was a tad soft, but I guess turning the volume dial higher isn’t gonna need a whole lot of effort.