Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Blogger, why did you delete my post as i click publish? Is it some game, some tomfoolery that you wish to perform because you're popular and you know that even after this I'll still come back and write some more? Has it occured to your google bought over mind that the post I just agonized upon for eons meant something to me? Alright whatever. I have work to do and I can't just spend the entire evening rewriting a gazillion words just because you're playing coy.
Up yours Blogger, and cya in a bit.
Friday, March 23, 2007
I wish every day was a chilly evening on the streets of Europe. Cobbled roads lit up only by the warm glow of street lamps, drizzle pelting the ground and a million people heading somewhere, arms clutching an umbrella or placed deep in the recesses of coats, heads bowed and feet gliding against each other as if in purposeful choreography. As the wind howls behind your back you can smell heavenly aromas and fragrances wafting from a hotdog stand or night market, the smell of grilled onions or burnt coffee, hitting you like a welcome brick in the midst of the damp coldness that pervades.
And then I wake up and realize that yes its wet and cold, but not in that neo-romantic way I imagined it to be. Rather, it's the get down from a crowded, pressure cooker of a bus into the throngs of disgruntled and disillusioned Singaporeans at a bus stop - manner of wet and cold. Like a can of sardines, even.
But when the wind hit me, after I trudged out of that cramp, stifling confluence of people, it was amazing. Refreshing, and if I dare say, life giving. Stirred up plenty delusions of cobbled streets, warm smells, fur coats, and people going somewhere, some place, in choreographed purposeful strides.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
"He looked at the sky, hoping to find there the shell he had admired, which had embodied for him the whole train of thoughts and feelings of the past night. There was no longer anything resembling a shell in the sky. There, in the inaccessible heights, a mysterious change had already been accomplished. No trace of the shell was left, but spread over half the sky was a smooth carpet of ever diminishing fleecy clouds. The sky had turned blue and radiant, and with the same tenderness, yet also with the same inaccessibility, it returned his questioning look.
'No,' he said to himself, 'however good that life of simplicity and labour may be, I cannot go back to it. I love her.' "- Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Some indie lovin' today. This songcomforts me, somehow. I'll upload it once Radio.Blog.Club's working again. Highlights include the way the piano gingerly steps down a scale starting from 4.50. Makes you think that life isn't that bad after all.
Actually yeah, life isn't that bad after all.
Wake Up - The Arcade Fire
Somethin' filled up my heart with nothin',
Someone told me not to cry.
But now that I'm older,
My heart's colder,
And I can see that it's a lie.
Children wake up, hold your mistake up,
Before they turn the summer into dust.
If the children don't grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little god's causin rain storms
Turnin' every good thing to rust.
I guess we'll just have to adjust.
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin' to be
When the reaper he reaches
And touches my hand.
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am go-goin’
You'd better look out below
Delivered at 11:43 AM;
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Life would be a painless process if we could develop amnesia and forget something at its passing. That way, life would not need to be an experience, as the term connotes nostalgia, reminiscence and learning. Without the need to hearken to the past we as people could just walk along by looking foward and not having our heartstrings pulled back by an imaginary force like a brutal master reining in his errant steed.
In this void we would be without such lofty ideals such as loyalty or love, and there would not be a need for something as useless as relationships which bind rather than free, stirring up restlessness rather than providing comfort. If each person, object, institution or idea we come across and interact with was just a part of the above process called living, not influencing our thoughts, beliefs or feelings(no point for these too) and dissipating into nothingess upon contact, the world would be clean, a blinding white state of existence which would not be marred by hot crimson feeling and wants.
The world will not be happy. The World will not be sad. An unfeeling world is an efficient one, with everyone guided by pragmatism and the loud trumpets of money and other tangible bullshit. Ah, one laments, if only we could detach ourselves from such time wasting notions like loyalty, character and spirit, then we can speed up this throughtrain and reach utopia faster, heck maybe by even Term 2 week 1, ehh?
Institutions crumble to dust. Honour and Pride ebb in the dwindling fire. There is no place for sandcastles in the sky. We are A Crushed Spirit. We have been tricked, thrust into a masquerade for 12 long years. Screw the red tape and veiled darts. This is what we are, and what we possses. A Crushed Spirit Inside. I am disillusioned and I know no longer where home is, in this age where loyalty, a sense of ownership and belonging and everything that was dear to our hearts count for as much as a blood caked spear and shield against loaded barrells in open terrain.
If only we could forget the past. That way, 12 years under the same banner counts for nothing, 6 as a member of the only institution worthy of the title Band of Brothers (holy shit he's actually emotionally attached to one CCA?! More CCA better! More CAS hours!) counts for nothing, and 18 years as an individual who still in his heart wishes to change the world..counts for nought.
I bang my fist on the table and lament why why why why can't I be like other people, foccused on task at hand and whose existence revolves around 45? Why can't I convince myself that the old Institution has shattered and dissolved. That a place of navy blue ties, assemblies outside sunlight classrooms, parades in an asphalt parade square without obtrusive monuments, "we the citizens of Oh Shit", student activity centres with warm lights, chairs of orange and blue, pizza at $1.20, bermudas, changing in the classroom, sweaty backs and soccer filled days, dismissals at 2.40, teachers who knew and understood, all boys, juniors who respected those in long pants, creaking lockers, a turfless astroturf ('hockey pitch'), interclass soccer, philemon, ephraim, habakkuk, enoch, blue, red, yellow green, Boot Polish, Godspell, SYF 2003/2005, dates that don't make sense to anyone else, friends, comrades, brothers, true blue ACSians ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC
does not exist, no more.
We grow up, we move on, we lead different lives. I'm just truly afraid that what I will be remembering will not be what I want or should be remembering. Aiyah, to cut a long story short, everyone should develop amnesia. Let's all go change the world.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
What have we become?
My salad days,
When I was green in judgment: cold in blood,
To say as I said then!
Delivered at 12:03 PM;
Monday, March 05, 2007
What's the most common chord used in Christian music today?
Gsus.
I really should make better use of my free time.
Anyway over this couple of days I have been rather intrigued by the concept of violence in films, or more specifically whether creative license and the pursuit of underlying themes justify copious amounts of blood and gore in the cinema where three films have caught my imagination - Letters from Iwo Jima, which I saw, Saw, which I have not seen, and 300, which I intend to see.
Now the grenade scene in the first movie, with terrified Japanese soldiers pulling the safeties of their nades, tipping them over their helmets and exploding in a cloud of "wan sui", blood and entrails is easily for me the most poignant moment of the film. Granted, every war film needs at least a fair amount of violence,be it for realism or to get the adrenalin rush pumping, but this was different because the wounds were well, self inflicted. All for Hirohito eh? And "See you at Yasukuni" is the quote of the movie hands down.
Speaking of self inflicted wounds, I haven't seen Saw, and I don't intend to, but yet I'm weirdly fascinated by the whole "how much blood would you shed to stay alive" quandry that forces the audience to mull upon so that they forget that the entire movie, no the entire trilogy is just one extended torture sequence of increasing morbidity and of course amount of blood and guts. It's as if the traps themselves don't cause that much pain and mortal anguish as having to decide to hurt yourself so that you would live. It's as if the horror is doubled when there's no one to apportion blame upon. I see the intellectual premise (if any) of the franchise to be that man will want to stay alive regardless of the pain that he has to undergo. And I think the nausea and fainting reported during test screenings in the UK were probably due to the audience not being able to pull themselves away from the victims' shoes, and being forced to internalize the dilemma that he/she faced. Saw is truly a classic out of the frying pan and into the fire experience, well except this time it's the slightly more grisly 'hand in acid or ribcage torn apart' kinda experience. Eek.
And yesh, 300. M 18 due to violent battle sequences. I don't really trust ratings anyhow though, for how can a board of film censors decide what you can or can not stomach? Ah well. I certainly don't expect 300 to be some fluffy movie where spartan kids with killer abs frolick in the sunset
waiting for the dinner bell to ring. The entire film may just be an extended battle sequence for all I know, but hey, with a theme and concept like this, who's complaining. Just look at this:
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/trailer2/large.html
I haven't truly enjoyed a film since the Lord of the Rings, where traces of its battle scenes and dialogue can be found in this movie. Hmm, maybe somehow I'm indebted to believe that the human spirit will triumph, odds are meant to be overturned, and we're all gonna be fine and dandy in this desolation called IB. And yeah, I have to admit that although the 300 did perish eventually (how could they not?), they sure as hell took down loads of Persians with them.
Madness? This is IB. And we're in for one wild night.
rah.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
The Apple Song, as quoted in Embracing Defeat- Japan in the Wake of World War Two by John W. Dower
Red apple on my lips,
silently watching the blue sky.
The apple doesn't say a thing,
but the apple's feeling is clear. Shall we sing the apple song?If two people sing, it's merry.
If everyone sings, it's more and more delightful.
Let's pass on the apple's feeling -
Apple's lovable, lovable's the apple.