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Oh, Women

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Oh, Women

All men out there, listen up. I think we could all agree on something in our lives that holds true: we love women. I love women, or girls, or the ladies, or the opposite sex, however you want to call them. I love women because they smell nice generally, though some men love women for other reasons. For example, a desperate and lonely men could love women because they satisfy his sexual desires, makes sense. Other lonely men could love women because they were brought up by single mothers, and has a special affiliation to women in general, makes sense too. There are little boys in primary school who'd tell you that they hate girls in their classroom because "they smell funny". That's why little primary school boys would come together during recess and then talk about the girls that they hate the most, which usually are also the ones whom they like the most. In primary school, everything is usually the opposite, because you never want to be caught liking some other girl in class, because liking someone was seen as being really embarrassing. So, little boys hate little girls even if they really like little girls, makes sense. Even gay men like women, and by that I mean they don't have anything against women even if they do prefer men sexually. No one is going to say "I hate women" with a straight face, you just can't. 

But then again, a lot of things have been done for love, you know. I hit you because I love you, I abuse you  because I love you, I kill you because I love you, it's complicated - just ask Mark Chapman. A lot of atrocities in human history have been done because of love, which makes this little thing called love a very ambiguous thing. Every single Crusade has been done because of the love for two different Gods, though I am pretty sure killing each other wasn't in either of the two good books. It doesn't take a lot to move from love to hate though, and it is true as far as cliche goes when they talk about how there is only a fine line in between things. I always wonder where the point is, the moment you tell yourself that you don't love a person any longer, and you translate that love to hate with all your heart. It's strange but, nobody ever said that love is easy. A lot of men proclaim their love for their wives or their girlfriends, but then again there are also a lot of women who are in abusive relationships. There are probably more women who are silently suffering under the kicks and punches of their husbands, but they are not telling because their husbands are doing it for the love of it all. It's complicated. 

Maybe that is why I don't understand why men like to treat women like shit, you know? Of course, the words "like shit" is merely an expression and not exactly accurate. Abusive men don't treat women like shit, because you don't keep a lump of shit around just to kick it every once in a while. Abusive men probably think of women as anger control balls that happen to have vaginas. You are drunk, pissed off with the world, and you come home and are in need to take it out on somebody. So you ask your wife to come out for a beating, and you feel good about yourself - though, not enough. So you want to have sex with her just to make you feel even better, to make you feel that at least you are still in power, that you are still in control. It is this "male pride" thing I suppose, and don't blame it on the extra Y-chromosomes. I don't know any abusive husbands, but I am trying to understand why they are the way that they are now. They hug their wives close to their bodies and tell everybody that they love them, and yet everybody can see the big black bruise around her eyes, what's up with that. Women are like anger control balls to them, though they only provide a temporary relief to things. Just keep them breathing, keep them alive, they need them to be around on another drunken night like this. 

The same abusive men are the ones who are probably behind every gangster rap songs out there that talks about 1) The ghetto 2) Your greatly exaggerated past as a criminal 3) How much money you have 4) Your desire to fornicate with a woman 5) Your bitches. If you are a female character in a rap song, you are a bitch. Not because we see you as being a bitch, but because the rapper calls you that, for some reason. You hear it all the time, and it appears in the song somewhere between him boasting about his bullet scars and all his money. He loves you so much that he is willing to think that you are a female dog of some kind, though they never actually specify the breed. I don't see how people like these can rationalize such things, loving someone and calling someone a bitch at the same time. The last I heard, a "bitch" is supposed to be a negative term, not a word to replace the word "girlfriend". I don't suppose calling your partner a female dog is, in any way, flattering in any culture out there. Probably just in your tiny little pretentious gangster rap world but, that is a different world altogether from the rest of us out there with brains. Is it really that hard to love someone and not have that person be your sex slave at the same time? 

This whole argument in regards to gender equality has been going on for the longest time, and it has quite a large foothold in what I am studying right now (or rather, I really should be studying it right now). I'm pretty sure all those women out there with bruises on their faces and a patch of burned skin would like to go back to the hunting and gathering days, when men and women were seen as being equals. Somewhere down the line, being unable to hunt for animals for nine whole months was seen as being something weak, and that was probably when a women's role started to take a step back. The men must have been shocked, the very first men that had sex with women anyway. Not only did they change the size of their stomachs, they also changed their roles entirely as a result - how strange. So women have been treated unequally all throughout human history, one way or another. Even in the Indian caste system, for example, it is infinitely better if you are a men. If you are in the lowest caste, the untouchables, it is still better to be a men, because you probably still get more privileges as a men. If you are a men, your life is probably going to be a bucket of shit, where as a women in the same caste probably receive a tub. If you are a woman, you are short changed, and that's the reality of things - which I don't get. 

It just seems like it all comes down to this male pride thing, I suppose. Men don't like to know that a women in the same position as himself could potentially get paid more. Which is why women all around the world get paid, on average, 70% less than men even if they are in the same position. Men like to think that no matter how smart or how capable the women are, they are never going to be paid the same as them - and that makes them feel better about themselves. They like to think that no matter how much beating they get at work by their colleagues or their bosses, they can always go home and do some beating and feel better at the end of the day. It is this intangible pride they have to uphold somehow, and love just seems to be the key to bring it all down. I think true love makes one vulnerable, the way it opens up doors and to opportunities. You start to do things that are out of character, things that you wouldn't normally do. I have heard of guys making gifts for their girlfriends, when they are the same guys who failed during art lessons in high school. I, for one, have never been too good with making gifts either, but this little thing called "love" made me try, and try, and try harder. 

True love opens up this dam in your head, and everything is allowed to come through, and a lot of men don't like the idea of that. They don't like to have anything change the constancy in their lives, they want everything to remain the same and yet, still receive the benefits of having a woman around the house for them to have sex with (this is where the anger control ball with the vagina comes in). Love is a slippery slope, I tell you, you take a step down that road and you have to go the rest of the way till the very end. You open up one door, and you open up a lot of doors along the way, and everything comes in along the way. Women have been socialized to think that it is OK to be emotional, to cry, to breakdown, whatever. Our parents have told us to not "cry like a girl", because girls are supposed to cry and boys are not. That is why, when it comes to falling in love, girls are infinitely more ready to do so than boys. Then again, of course, change the word "love" to "lust" and you have a completely different story, but that's besides the point. The point is that we were never expected to be open with our thoughts, to be expressive with our emotions, to show our vulnerabilities to others. Love, however, does all of the above, and it breaks the balance that has been in the male community for the longest time. 

Speaking of the male community, all women should consider themselves as being lucky if you are not a woman in Africa, or the Middle East. The video below is a television talk show in a Middle East country, whereby an author talks about the best way to beat up your wife - yeah, on television. According to them, beating the face is not good, because you don't do that to camels or donkeys. You don't slap her around left and right either, because that'd make them ugly. Basically, you can hit her as hard as you want, whichever way you desire, just as long as it is below the neck, does not leave a mark, and does not make her uglier than before. So much for being Muslims, since they have prided themselves for their egalitarianism in regards to women. You don't justify something just because "it is written in the Holy Book". Have an original thought, be flexible. It's a freakin' book, get over it. I don't think women deserve to be treated like that. Or rather, I don't think any humans deserve to be treated like that. If you don't set your car on fire just because it doesn't start, you shouldn't be beating your wife just because she isn't doing "what you want". The world does not revolve your arrogance, so get over yourself. 

Videos like that remind you that there are a lot of inequalities in this world. As much as people tend to tell you that "life is unfair" and try to convince you that that is the truth, these are the kind of things that should never be tolerated. It's just sad that there are some men who see it as being normal and right, and even sadder when some women agree. Ultimately, what is "right" is socially constructed, and at the same time we should never try to impose our beliefs and our values upon others. Sociology tries to teach us to have cultural relativism, to look upon other cultures and try to understand their point of view, and not be judgmental and critical about what they do or do not. Still, when you have a whole country full of chauvinistic pigs, you start to wonder if cultural relativism really should be practiced in view of this unfairness that goes on in the region. Oh, don't judge us because we beat our wives, have a bit of cultural relativism. I am sorry but, I do not agree with that at all. I mean, I love women, and I want to go to great lengths to love them, you know? 


Sonics XII

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Sonics XII

Drama by Bitter:Sweet 
Nobody can listen to Bitter:Sweet and say the words "This is horrible music" with a straight face - you just can't. Bitter:Sweet has such a wondrous blend of electronica, trip-hop, jazz and big band that it is so difficult to resist. It's just an overall fun album, like their last outing with The Mating Game. You just kind of feel like getting off your chair and start dancing to songs like The Bomb, because it's just such an infectious song. Besides, who doesn't like a couple of moaning in songs (that's right Joyce, I'm looking at you)? If David Holmes' score for the Ocean's movies represents the type of heist that is cool and suave, Bitter:Sweet's music represents the kind of heist that is fun and cute, at the same time. Though, their cuteness never actually crosses the line of being annoying or irritating in anyway. Shana Halligan's voice is just perfect for this kind of genre, the kind that is soothing to the ears and fun if she has to. That is kind of also why she almost became the Bond girl for Quantam of Solace, you just can't go wrong with a good girl with a wild side. This album is just as good, if not better, than their previous outing. The song "The Bomb" along is enough to, well, bomb every other song they ever produced out of the water. It's just an amazing album and definitely a band that rose up a few ranks in my list of great bands. Who can resist this type of music, anyway? Unless you are chained, or else you can't. 

Albums by the band:
1. The Mating Game (2006)
2. The Remix Game (2007)
3. Drama (2008)

All Rise by Inara George
Inara George's solo effort away from The Bird and the Bee retains the brilliance and quality of what made the duo famous in the first place. There is something irresistible about Inara's voice, though you can't really put a finger on it most of the time. This album of hers represents a kind of departure from the kind of music you would expect from The Bird and the Bee, and a step in the right direction at that. Her work with The Bird and the Bee is more of electronica than anything else, but All Rise feels more like a folk album more than anything else. There is a lot more focus on her vocals this time around, and perhaps the usage of more traditional instruments to boot. With this more stripped down version of her work, the music becomes a whole lot more honest and real, in my opinion. Fools in Love is a great song that touches on how one falls into the blindness of love, and the rest of the album just feels like a great album for a Sunday Afternoon. I actually didn't know that Inara George is behind the same voice in The Bird and the Bee, and I fell for it the same way that I fell for her band in the first place. This is a nice folksy album that is definitely going to find a place in your heart and mind in times of need. 

Albums by the artiste:
1) All Rise (2006)
2) The Invitation [with Van Dykes Park] (2008)

The Distant Sounds of Summer by Susumu Yokota & Rothko
Yeah, the album cover looks horrendous, and don't ask me what the hell it is, because I don't know either. I can assure you, however, the 49 minute-long album is far better than what the artwork. This is a collaborative album between the acclaimed Japanese electronica musician and the British ambient band. Susumu Yokota, to me, makes the kind of music fitting for meditating, and it pulls you into this zone of zen somehow. I am not familiar with Rothko, however, but you can find hints of their style layered on top of Susumu's in this album. Perhaps it is the more generous usage of string instruments, I am not sure, but one thing is for this album: it works. This is a beautiful, beautiful album that puts you into this trance somehow, it's kind of like watching the lava lamp while you are high on drugs. But, this album is completely safe for daily consumption, guaranteed. Caroline Ross contributes to the lyrics as well as the vocals in this album, and she kind of reminds me of Elizabeth Fraser, with her contribution in the song Teardrop by Massive Attack. Both of them have this very crisp and haunting voice that chills you to the bones somehow, and yet you cannot deny the calming effect of it all. The haunting voice blends in with the peaceful and serene music in the background, creating this beautiful musical equilibrium that is this album. Don't believe the album artwork, just let the music take you. 

Albums by the band:
1) The Distant Sounds of Summer (2005)

Prospekt's March [EP] by Coldplay
Coldplay continues their musical brilliance with this little present right in time for Thanksgiving. This EP is like a sequel to their latest album, Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends. These are the so-called "leftovers" from their recording sessions with Brian Eno. You can tell why some of the songs were left out from the album, you can tell that the themes don't really go in line with what they have in the LP. Still, that is not to say that these songs are, in any way, under-produced. Postcards From Far Away is a nice little piano interlude, right before the signature arena bursting Glass of Water. I have no idea why lyrics were left out from the first version of Life in Technicolor, but at least we have the second version of it here in this EP to make up for the loss. Rainy Day is a particularly interesting song to me, in the sense that it probably represents the greatest departure from the style that they are usually comfortable with. I hear a lot of electronica elements in this song, though they are essentially still a rock band. This isn't synthesized sounds we are talking about, but sounds that could have came out from any electronica bands out there. With that said, that is not to say that this album does not have its downfalls. I seriously dislike Jay-Z's remix of Lost in this album, adding his rap to the song towards the end. What the hell is that? Get out of a Coldplay song, damn it. And the Osaka Remix of Lovers in Japan really doesn't add anything new to the table. Still, this is a great EP, and it has received quite a bit of play on my iMac over the past couple of days already. Rock on! 

Albums by the band: 
1) Parachutes (2000) 
2) A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)
3) X & Y (2005)
4) Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends (2008)

Sun, Strength and Shield by DoF
This album is amazing. I repeat, this album is amazing. This album is probably the result of putting Andy McKee in a room with a computer. This is what happens when you put acoustic guitar with electronica, the result is just mind-blowing. I think I first read about this band on John Mayer's blog, and he mentioned something about how brilliant this album is. It is. Quoting someone off the iTunes Store, "DoF is Jesus", you read that right. This album is everything that makes you happy, or the kind of music that just kinda blows you out of the water because of how good it is. Press Play on a rainy day, let this song run through your room and see everything light up. It's an uplifting album, with no lyrics or any kind of vocal. It's just electronic sounds, piano, and guitar for the most part. This album is one of those albums that I am glad to have found, especially because of the fact that I cannot find this band on Wikipedia (yeah, they are one of those bands). This is the kind of rare gems that I am happy to have found, because I am pretty sure not a lot of people out there knows about them at all. You start to wonder to yourself how did such a wonderful album fall under the radar? It's ridiculous, I tell you. Anyway, this is an amazing album, though I have already said it twice, and no more words are going to justify it any longer. So I shall leave it to your curiosity to find out on your own. 

Albums by the band:
1) If More Than Twenty People Laugh, It Wasn't Funny (2003)
2) Mine Is May (2004)
3) Sun, Strength and Shield (2006)



Rejection

Friday, November 28, 2008

Rejection

It's a terrible thing.

The Jonas Brothers

The Jonas Brothers

It's easy to say "I hate this band" or "I hate that singer", if you don't like their songs or if they are dating too many women. "He's a douche", you might say, even if he doesn't do anything to offend you directly. More often than not, you probably don't "hate" him, probably just not a fan that's all. Like, I'm not a fan of Christina Aguilera, for example, but I don't hate her - I think she is an amazing singer. I dislike Amy Winehouse, however, but I don't hate her either. A lot of celebrities, singers and bands fall in this category, simply because of the amount of bad music floating around everywhere in our airwaves. Just picture this for a second, all the bad music being transformed into radio frequencies, and then passing through your head silently and then feeding you with their awfulness without you knowing it. Everything happens on a subconscious level, this slow and gradual pollution of the mind. It's creepy, but that doesn't make me hate singers or bands. I dislike a singer or a band if I deem them to be over-rated, or just playing music that I think should be pulled off the radio - like My Chemical Romance. 

But, you really hit the Everest of my hate when you do this one thing: cover the songs of my favorite singer or band and then ruining it completely. That is the same reason why Avril Lavigne is on my list here, because she tried to cover Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls and The Scientist by Coldplay. Both songs turned out to be filled with teen angst, so much so that I wanted to vomit my intestines out and then hang myself with it. Then Simple Plan came around and covered Foxy Lady by Jimi Hendrix, turning that song into something under throwing metals together and putting nails to a blackboard. I am not exactly a fan of Michael Jackson, but I am sure Sarah has a thing or two to say about the Fall Out Boys when they covered Beat It earlier this year. There is something about bands nowadays trying to cover other people's songs, and then turning them into pop trash. They turn perfectly awesome songs into twisted junk, and they are proud to do it for some reason. However, the Jonas Brothers, they have crossed the line, the furthest line that you can cross. 

Bill Maher is right, and I shall quote him from one of his shows. On the Jonas Brothers, he said "We don't hate you because you wear purity rings. We hate you because you blow". I was watching MTV (don't ask) the other night when I heard one of the worst songs I have ever heard in my life, and it just so happens to be by the Jonas Brothers. I am basing my judgment purely on the type of music here - you suck, and that's a compliment. When your music is crap, you don't go and cover just any song you like out there, because it doesn't work that way. Know your limits, know where you can go and how far you can go. If you can't cover a song, don't cover the song. Don't try, because your video is going to end up on the Internet somehow and then make a lot of people out there sick to the stomach. You have crossed the last line by covering not one, but two songs by John Mayer. What the hell is the matter with you idiots? With a voice like that and a guitar tone that sounds like you are throwing metal plates together, you try to cover Gravity? I hate the Jonas Brothers so much now that I want to tear each of them a new asshole with a spoon. You don't need to know guitar to hear the difference in quality here. 

To be fair, I chose a clip from John Mayer's concert, shot live by a camera as well. The sound quality isn't perfect, but just so that the comparison is a hundred percent fair. Not a lot of people can achieve John's guitar tone, fine. He is playing the Stevie Ray Vaughan signature Stratocaster after all. But if you sound like that, don't even attempt to sing songs that are not yours - don't. A room of screaming fans does not make you good, it only serves to make your ego bigger. So you go on to cover even better songs that are out of your league. Seriously, stop whatever you are doing, and go back to your own songs. Go away, and never come back. 

The Bastardized Version:


The Original Version:


Prospekt's March

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Prospekt's March 

Smoke is rising from the houses
People bury in the dead
I ask somebody what the time is
But time doesn't matter to them yet

People talking without speaking
Trying to take what they can get
I ask you if you remember
Prospekt, how did I forget? 

Drowns, here it comes
Don't you wish your life could be as simple
As fish swimming round in a barrel when you've got the gun

Oh, and around, here it comes
We're just two little figures in the soup bowl
Trying to get a kind of control, but I wasn't one

Now here I lie on my own in the separate sky
And here I lie on my own in the separate sky
I don't wanna die on my own here tonight
But here I lie on my own in separate sky


Operation Winter Coat

Operation Winter Coat

Operation Winter Coat came to me in the form of a greeting over the Internet one night. It was from Elizabeth, and she mentioned something about throwing a small party for April, who is going away to New York for her studies in December. School has ended for the most of us, we are just stuck at home with our textbooks and our notes, dragging ourselves through this study week before we go in for the kill next week. The finals are around the corner, and the lot of us are growing fat because of all the snacks we are eating while we study. Studying does that to you, you know, the way you sit there for the whole day with a hill of snacks next to your pencil case. Anyway, school ended, and the chances of us (April and I) seeing each other dropped completely from zero to none. I thought it was a great idea to throw her a little party, along with Shen who is also going over to New York, to our main campus to test the waters before I go over there myself. It was nice of Elizabeth to plan it, really, and I agreed almost immediately. Then, of course, it became even more exciting when she wanted it to be a kind of surprise, though she hasn't thought of how to go about doing it at that time. 

So over the next week, she devised a plan in tricking April into believing that she has yet to buy her winter coats, and thus the name of this secret operation. This was the plan: Elizabeth is going to Toronto this December, and then en route to Buffalo to check out the campus over there, since she will be going over in August next year as well. Toronto, being freezing coat, requires you to wrap yourself up with obscene amount of clothes, in which she thought it'd be great if April helped her out with the winter coats shopping. So Elizabeth told April that her mother has a bunch of winter coat over at her place, and it'd be nice if April comes over to help her pick out which is nicer - or something like that. This part of the plan was rather blur to me, since she was the one who was planning it all along. In the mean time, however, we'd be buying the ingredients for dinner and then setting up the place for her eventual arrival. That was exactly what we did on Tuesday afternoon, when we met at Great World City to buy the materials for dinner. It was just Shen, Sherry and myself there, with Shen being the big chef as he always is. Grocery shopping is so much fun, by the way, especially when you know what to buy. Just follow the list and pick them off the shelves, it's like a treasure hunt (the Fusilli did take us a while to find)!

So we bought a box of Fusilli, strips of bacon, cheddar, and an entire roast chicken. Everything was done, and we took a cab all the day down to Elizabeth's house down at Tanjong Pagar. I didn't think anybody stayed there, actually, with all the big trucks going in and out of the busy ports, and the giant cranes looming up over the expressway like some prehistoric dinosaurs. Anyway, even the outside of her house looked beautiful, with all the garden decorations and the strange woodpecker as the doorbell of sorts (she has three doorbells). She answered the door, and the time was about twenty pass five (April was supposed to arrive at six). Before I go on to describe how we planned the surprise, let's just say that I am in love with Elizabeth's house. That is the house you get when both your parents are interior designers, and the house seriously didn't look like something that is a part of a HDB flat. It (almost) has everything that I want in a house, from the black curtains to the cushions, from the dimmed lights to the music that fills up the entire house - perfect! I'd like my house to be filled with the kind of music I like, but installing speakers in every room is costly and, let's just say, impractical. Her house is a small house, probably optimal for just one to two people. That was also why sound traveled much easier around the house, which was also what made it so freakin' awesome of a house. I want to do a coup. 

Anyway, the big chef went into the kitchen to do his thing, while the rest of us thought about ways to decorate the house a little bit. There were a few problems we actually encountered, and one of them was the fact that the balloons Sherry brought had inappropriate words on it. By that, I don't mean any sexually suggestive words, but it's because they didn't exactly fit the occasion. They had words like "Happy Birthday!" and other strange cartoon animals printed, though it really didn't make a difference once we manage to blow them up. By the way, I realized that I cannot blow balloons very well, and I have no idea why. I can only get them up to a certain size, and then they just kind of get stuck there no matter how hard I try. I suck at blowing, and I leave it to you to decide how you want to interpret it (Cue on Sarah to laugh out loud here). And more than I sucked at blowing, I sucked at tying up the balloons. I agree with what Liz said, balloon tying really should become a sport of some kind. I was defeated by cheap rubber balloons out there at her place, and I felt weak and ashamed, somewhat. But I had the advantage of my height, which was put into good use when we had to paste the balloons on the beam that stretched from the side of the ceiling to the other. Besides, we got to cut paper, so that's kinda my forte, you know. 

So we printed out the letters that made up her name, cut it out with scissors, stuck them onto balloons with tape because an accident happened when we tried to write it with markers. Liz fished out a marker from the bottom of the table and tried to write the first letter "A" on the balloon. It was our biggest balloon at that time, and apparently it couldn't take the pressure of the tip of the marker. The moment she touched it with the marker, it exploded and Sherry gave a soft squeal of fright. That was also why we gave up on the marker idea and went straight for the paper, which took a lot more time. I pulled out the tape and stuck them to the edge of the table while the others blew even more balloons. We stuck them up towards the ceiling, and I taped two more on the fan and turned it on so that they spun around and around like those games you find in night markets which you have to throw darts at. It was a great set-up, and everything was pretty much done when April called to say that she has arrived. So the plan was to play a song while she is coming in through the front door, and we'd be dancing strangely in the living room when she sees us. Liz, of course, would be bringing her in, and then that'd be the grand surprise that we've been preparing for. 

So, the front door opened, I pressed the play button a tad bit too early, and then we became face to face with our victim as she stood in the doorway, confused and surprised. She didn't show any facial expression at first, just a "what is happening" look, and that was the moment when I thought our cover was blown and she wasn't exactly pleased with everything. Then it sunk in, with the balloons spinning on the fan and her name printed out in big bold letters, that we were there to have a farewell party for her. Then she cried, tears streamed down her cheeks like a leaking pipe, and she couldn't stop from there. It was nice, to make someone happy, even for a little while. I suppose, at that moment, we all knew that Operation Winter Coat was a great success, and even more so when the dinner was ready and Shen dished out the pasta as well as the roasted chicken, all chopped up. It was delicious, though the serving was a little modest in my opinion. Still, I did wolf down a lot of chicken, and also a homemade jelly made by somebody in the house - not Liz, whose pineapple salad I skipped. The dinner was great, and the hanging out afterwards was great too. I kinda really wanted to play board games, but the rest decided on a movie which, as it turned out, wasn't half bad. It was a great night, a great night indeed. Not to mention the fact that Liz and I started throwing forks at the balloons like darts. Childish fun for the win. 

You start to think about things, you know, when you are leaving a country for good. The future is unclear for someone like April, there isn't a certainty that she is ever going to come back. It could be Hong Kong, or she could come back here for the sake of convenience, who knows. Then you start to look at your departure date sometime next year, and you start to wonder if people are going to care about you leaving at all. Some would, of course, while others are probably going to be really glad that you are gone for good. Good riddance for some, I suppose. Their lives are going back to normal afterwards, a whole lot easier for them to move around school without bumping into me, or anybody else who are going to leave as well. It's a scary thought, but at the same time you just have to learn not to care about these things, you know? You have to zone them out, and kind of think about what you have to do, because this is what you have to do. Having these thoughts is not going to get you anywhere, really, though the ones that want you to stay is going to make it hard for you to leave. And as for the rest that cannot care less, I suppose I shouldn't care too much about those either. It's only going to be a semester anyway. And after that, I shall be back to haunt your lives all over again. 

Body of Lies

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Body Of Lies


First of all, Operation Winter Coat was a great success! Thanks to the thoughtful heart of Elizabeth (who came up with the idea), the wondrous hands of Shen (who made dinner), the delightful presence of Sherry (who is a bundle of joy as always), it was a roaring success! We managed to fool April into believing that Liz needed help with her winter coats. More on that in the next entry, but let's start with a movie review here. First off, I am glad that we did not end up watching Quarantine or Beverly Hills Chihuahua. You know how I am with the movies we decide to watch at the theaters, I tend to be very picky about such things. I haven't sat through a movie with talking animals in ages, and that even includes Pixar animations, mind you. I'm sorry but I have a thing against talking animals and inanimate things talking in movies. Anyway, so the lot of us decided to catch Body of Lies, which I've been looking forward to watch since a while back. I am a moderate Ridley Scott fan, and by that I mean I am excited to see his materials, though not exactly the head-over-heels kind of excitement. He is a good director with his hits and misses, and I am a sucker for movies wit a geopolitical background. So, I was a really happy guy even before the movie started.

Body of Lies is an espionage movie, a straightforward politically driven film set mostly in the Middle East, but spans across a dozen different countries as the story progressed. It tells the story of CIA agent Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) working undercover in order to expose a terrorist plan to take revenge on the western civilization. Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) is his boss, the one that sits in the comfort of his office and watches his movement from a spy plane a few hundred miles above the ground, and communicates with Roger through a cellphone and directs him everywhere he goes. Roger knows his way around, he knows the rules and is quick to action, while Ed Hoffman is cunning and has his way with information gathering. His ruthless and merciless nature turns off Roger, but what needs to be done has to be done after all. Their paths lead Roger to Jordan, where he recruits the help of the local head of secret service, Hani (Mark Strong). Everything was looking good until lies and deceit start to surface, when operations ran along side current operations, when withheld information costs lives. Trapped between the need to please his superior and the need to gain the trust of Hani, Roger's mission to uncover the terrorist plot becomes even harder than ever.

It's pretty straightforward, we've all watched movies that dealt with similar themes. We've had Munich, Syriana, The Constant Gardener in the recent years, and Body of Lies does not actually bring anything new to the table. We have seen these themes played out before, we have heard about these stories being told over and over about lies and deceit in the whole CIA business. Still, the problem with all the other movies that I have mentioned is that they tend to become too preachy when it comes to their message. That is not to say that Munich was a bad movie though, I personally loved it very much. Syriana and The Constant Gardener, however, never really caught on with me, especially the former, which I didn't finish watching. Anyway, Body of Lies has a surprisingly strong stand in a neutral point of view, when the story never actually becomes too preachy that it feels like a lecture. Ridley Scott, already an accomplished director, has nothing to prove in his career any longer. That is also why he is able to break out of the norm and make a film that isn't about the car chases and the explosions, nor about the preachy stories about how the war on terrorism never ends. It does not insult the moviegoer's intelligence, as it demands the attention of the viewers at every turn.

Younger viewers, or the ones who do not have patience and have a love for action sequences should stay away from this movie. Other than a few major explosions throughout the movie because of terrorist acts, the most action you get are probably going to be people chasing other people down long dark alleys, with guns. This is a thinking movie, with the characters doing the talking most of the time, and that is where the story emerges. Don't expect to have a roller coaster ride where you just sit back and relax. This film does not condescend, but it rewards those viewers who are willing to think and process the basis of the story. Ridley Scott masterfully weaves the story through a dozen different cities, but at the same time he never loses sight on the story itself. The pacing is almost spot on her, contrary to a lot of reviews that I have read, and it carefully builds up to the crescendo at the end that involves a particularly painful scene that is difficult to watch. Think about that scene from Hard Candy, then multiply it ten times. There is always a brewing sense of danger in this film, and where it succeeds is how the audience buys into the reality almost completely.

By that, I mean it is easy to believe that whatever that went on during the movie has a high chance to be happening somewhere else in the world today. You see a terrorist bombing somewhere on the news, and you start to wonder if it really was pre-planned in the first place by the powers at be. There are a lot of movies like that which never convinces you very much, and you find it difficult to immerse yourself in that world. Body of Lies does that very well, and you ease into this dark and gritty world of lies and deceit easily. Of course, with the ease of belief, there isn't a need to preach about your stand in the movie. You don't have characters actively debating the rights and the wrongs of sacrificing the innocent. It shows you, but in a subtle way that it does not distract you from the actual story line itself. And it is made even more so by having characters that you actually care about, even if they are just small roles in the grander scheme of things. We have Leonardo's character really struggling in between two powers, as well as Russell's characters who has to balance between his work and his life. This film is somewhat of a character study as well, though not nearly as prominent.

William Monahan's script is pretty awesome, and he has become one of the most respect screenwriters for me, personally. His scripts are really tight, and the no fuss attitude can be observed everywhere. He took his brilliance from The Departed and then continued it in this film. You know that a script is successful when more than 90% of the film is talking, and yet you are engaged by it in ways that you wouldn't normally expect yourself to. Perhaps it is the lack of expectation for this film that caused me to like it so much, it's difficult to say. But one thing is for sure, is that both Ridley and William are not dependent on flashy gimmicks to make the story interesting. No car chases, no giant gun fights, none of those things that sell tickets. Here we have a thinking movie, one that requires more than a little brain cells. That is the kind of movie that I love, and this film delivers on that term.

Acting wise, I am pretty sure this film is not going to get a lot of recognition. It's not that the leading actors didn't do a good job, it's just that the story does not actually require them to. They do just enough to get by, and they are great within the bounds of that. Leonardo's character kind of feels like an extension from the roles he had from The Departed and Blood Diamond, and Russell Crowe obviously gained a few pounds for this movie. Still, the actor that stood out the most for me was probably Hani, played by Mark Strong. Apparently, his suave presence and his Jordanian accent swept more than one member of the audience off her feet, namely April and Elizabeth, who were just blown away by his charm. Understandably so though, he really had the charisma, and his character was indeed very interesting, and played a pivotal role at that.

So, for those who care more about the story rather than giant explosions, do check this movie out. It demands your attention, and you should not drink too much during the course of the movie, as it is easy to miss an important point or two in the mean time. Other than that, this film gets a solid recommendation from me, and it definitely is a better choice over talking animals, thank you very much.

8/10

Torture

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Torture

[insert evil laughter here]

Torturing is a bad thing, in fact it is a horrible thing. That's the whole argument behind why many people in America feel that Bush and friends should be impeached, the way that they allowed torture to be involved in interrogations. It's like saying, just as long as we get the answers that we want, then the ends justifies the means, and torturing another fellow human being is A-OK. But then again, I don't suppose humans could ever wash our hands clean from various torturing techniques, the way we have always resorted to torturing to get what we want. Sometimes, it isn't so much about getting answers, but just to prove a point sometimes to the general public. I think we all know about lynching in America, and all the people that were killed as a result. Some of them were tortured before their deaths, with Jesse Washington's death being the most prominent in 1916, when his genitals and fingers were cut off, and then later burned to death at the stake. This happened only in the last century of human history, and it's just disturbing that this is just one other way in which humans differ from animals - when was the last time you saw animals actively torturing each other on television? 

But humans have this obsession with torturing, no? You see a perfectly shaped object, and you just want to tear it apart for one reason or another. We do it because we can, we love it because we do. We have a human being, perfectly normal human being, and we just want to break it apart and see what happens, see how far he can go with the pain. So over the years, humans have came up with different ways to inflict pain, for interrogation, for fear, and for fun. But the act of torturing isn't so prominent in today's context as compared to the past, though they usually come under a different name for the most part. It's kind of like how slavery has been renamed just so that it does not sound half as bad, but the problem of slavery is worse now than ever before, truth to be told. Just because the name is changed, it doesn't actually make it OK to commit such a crime. Torturing techniques have been renamed to be "Intelligence Gathering Operation Management", and our love for such inhumane acts has also been fueled, though under a disguise, by the movie industry. You know, all the Saw movies, all the Hostel movies, and all those movies that involve people being torturing on screen. Well, it's not real - it's OK. 

No, it's not. But at the same time, we aren't living in George Orwell's 1984, thought crime isn't really a crime, is it. It isn't a crime if you merely think about it from time to time, who doesn't like to think about the possibilities anyway. We dream about robbing banks, being drug lords, murdering your boss in a dozen different ways. If it exists in your head, then it isn't so bad, I suppose. We all have people in our lives whom we can do without, and things would be much easier without these people around. So you think about different ways to eliminate them from the surface of this planet, only because imagination knows no boundaries, and it is perfectly legal for you to torture someone in your head, just so long as you do not torture that person in real life. I have had recurring thoughts about various torturing techniques myself, but they usually never go further than the thickness of my skull. They remain there in my brain, they tumble around and then they fade away like the end of a heavy metal song into that of a rock ballad. They don't last very long, but they are there if you look hard enough. Unlike someone like Nurul (whom, I have a suspicion, thinks about it all the time), I only harbor such thoughts in extreme cases of anger or frustration. And that, was yesterday morning in school. I was positively infuriated by my lecturer, and we all know who we are talking about. 

I was talking to Azhar the other day about murder, and he was telling me how he never knew the point when a man goes "I want to kill that person". There's always a point when you just don't care, when there are enough reasons to send a person six feet underground. Well, that moment came to me ever so briefly yesterday morning, and the thoughts of torture surfaced once more as I sat in the lecture theater. There is something really messed up with our lecturer, don't you think? There is something really wrong with her, almost everything is amiss. The way she walks seems awkward, and her body proportions make her look like a doll made out of clay by a five year old with shaky hands. Physical attributes aside, I hate her teaching style - I hate it. I hate it when a lecture is vague about what she wants, and then comes to penalize you when what you have is different from what she had in mind. I know it doesn't make sense to you now, and you would think that these "professors" should know better, but they don't. Everything exists on the paper for them, all those certificates and all those alphabets and numbers don't speak very much when it comes to their abilities to teach, and she is a great teacher when she is instructing a dog on how to poop in the sandbox, at best. 

So, the lot of us had this research paper to do, it is upon three hundred points. I hate the fact that she grades every semester to one thousand points, because that kind of means a whole lot more assignments for us to do. If each assignment is one hundred marks in total, that's ten assignments altogether. Aside from all the assignments she wanted us to do throughout the semester that weren't graded at all, she has been vague about the ones she actually wants to grade. Her instructions usually involve font sizes, page margins, line spacing, and all these little technical stuff that are usually pretty pointless in regards to the research paper as a whole. That is not to mention how she drops assignment as and when she likes, like those one-minute speeches we had to do yesterday for the last lesson. She wakes up with a thought, and she wants us to do it as a "take home assignment", and she claims that it isn't a very big workload - it is. Anyway, so we had this research paper to do, and I won't go into the details as to what it is all about. I have a feeling that she didn't really know what she wanted at the beginning either, and only came up with what she wanted halfway through marking the first paper. So this is what happened. 

A bunch of us have to now redo this stupid research paper because we all failed. When she was explaining to us what we did wrong in the research paper, it was the first time we were hearing all those things. By that, I mean she never actually went through what she demands in the research paper, in concert with how vague she usually is about everything. It is always "up to us to decide", and "whatever that we deem fit". The end result is half the class failing because what we deemed as being fitting, isn't what she deems as being fitting either. Like Jeremy said, it is OK for you to fail us if we do not follow a set of instructions that you gave, that's fine. But when everything is usually up to us, and then you fail us for that, it doesn't make any sense afterwards. Let's say she wants you to do some kind of poster for the module, and she wants you to be creative about it - that's the only rule. "Oh, be creative", she would say, but you have no idea what to base the poster on. So you go up front to ask her about it, and instead of answering your questions, she asks you a question, which leads to even more questions. So you become frustrated, which is why you go on to do it on your own. 

The poster gets done, you print it out on an A3 sized paper and it looks fantastic. You hand it up to her, and a few lessons later she tells you that you failed because it wasn't what she wanted. "Well, I wanted it to be based on your own experiences and what you have learned, not so much textbook content. I'm sorry, I had to fail you. This isn't what I wanted". It's kind of like trying to make a living in a country with no laws, and yet you have policemen barging into your shop and telling you that you have broken the law, when you don't know what they are in the first place. I was really frustrated with everything, simply because my group was being penalized for something that we didn't know about. She has been this way for a long time now, always being vague about what she wants and then giving you a shitty grade afterwards. Of course, she then went on to tell us that she had a great time teaching us, and wished us good luck with the finals. OK, with grades like that for the research paper, no kind of luck is going to help us pull through till the end anyway. She loves to pour salt into your wound and then bandage it up with a band-aid. OK, maybe not a band-aid, since it really does little to ease the pain. Probably just a Kleenex in an attempt to stop the blood. 

That is also why some of us conjured up various torturing techniques in our heads, especially Nurul and I. You know how it is, when you feel that you have been thoroughly fucked upside down by somebody, this is probably how it feels like. Nurul spoke about how she has always wanted to peel the skins off somebody bit by bit, pulling his or her veins out to make into pasta, and then rolling that person's bare skin in salt. I've always thought Vlad torturing methods to be gruesome, and yet ingenious. He was called Vlad the Impaler for a reason, and what he did was to set up columns after columns of wooden spikes, and then he would put someone through from his asshole to his mouth, or the other way around. Nurul and I agreed to incorporate both methods, which would be pretty interesting to say the least. Of course, all this is going to happen in a room that plays the songs of Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus all day long. I think the songs are going to drive someone over the edge, we won't need all the dirty gritty stuff. There are times when you just want to tear someone apart, even if it is just in your head. There are some people that just deserve it more than the others, and I suppose this is one of those moments whereby you just want to break all the rules and take a moral holiday.

By the way, an interesting bit I just read from the textbook that belongs to her module:

"A third style of team leadership is negligent (or laissez-faire) leadership. This type of leader offers such little guidance or direction that this style closely matches a nonleader situation. He or she offers complete freedom and movement in the group. If asked for information, the negligent leader will respond, but otherwise, the leader takes no part in decision making and offer slittlea dvice or direction. To use an analogy, this type of leadership is like a cold, limp handshake: Neither has much life, and both are unsatisfactory. Research has shown that this style usually generates negative effects in both task and satisfaction outcomes. Team members not only take more time on task management, but they also resent the overall inefficiency of the process."

- Page 194-195 of Business and Professional Communication, by Carley H. Dodd.  

It's Child Abuse!

Monday, November 24, 2008

It's Child Abuse!

Oh, what a cute baby boy!
His name is Urhines Kendall Icy Eight Special K.
True story.

A dog with a leash, I think I can handle that. I vehemently believe, however, that a dog chained to the floor for the most part of the day should be considered animal abuse. In fact, if you do not have enough space in your house for a dog that is bigger than your couch, it should also be considered animal abuse. You are taking an animal to a place that is between a prison and a madhouse, only with less bars and padded walls. At least the dog would have fun with those padded walls, not your white concrete walls with ugly pictures of yourself hanging by a bunch of nails. If you don't have a space for a big dog, don't get one. It's the same with children, though that is not to say that you shouldn't have a child if you do not have the room for one. Well, actually, that does make sense, but that isn't the point of this blog entry. I believe that if you are stupid enough to give your child a stupid name, then you do not deserve to be a parent at all. Such an act should be punishable by the law in every country, and should be filed under child abuse. It may not be the typical form of child abuse we hear of on the news, but it comes close enough. You give your son or your daughter a stupid name, and he or she is going to be stuck with it for the rest of his or her life. Imagine all the bullying in between his first birthday and birthday when he can legally change his name to something else. Yeah, you idiots - that's right.

More than just the responsibility of bringing up a child, I think every parent has the responsibility to give their children names that are not going to cause them to become the butt of jokes all around the world. Isn't it heartbreaking to see pictures of those innocent looking babies in magazine covers, only to know that they are going to grow up with that same stupid name? I think it is against the law in New Zealand to give your child a stupid name, because of all the teasing your child is going to be prone to when he attends school. Besides, there are a lot of stupid people out there, and a lot of them are parents. Most parents want their child to be successful in life, to stand out from a crowd. Some parents, however, don't want them to do so in terms of their abilities and their skills. They want their children to stand out because of their names, but sometimes it just sticks out like a penis out of an opened fly - it's not pretty. There are really retarded names out there in this world, and you can't help but ask yourself just what in the world were those parents thinking in the first place? Were they drunk, high, or both? It is hard to tell, but you start to get a hint that they probably were all of the above, and more. It's just sad that these babies have to be born with stupid names, given by stupid parents. These parents should also be tagged stupid names, or just have the word "stupid" added to their last names.

"They are just names", you might say, but a name speaks a lot about one person. Do you have a name in your mind right now, a name that belongs to someone you don't like very much? If it is Sarah, I know of a name that you are probably going to hate for the rest of your life, and anybody else that comes along with the exact same name. Anyway, there are people in my life who has never gotten along very well with me, for some reason. The first is Eugene, I've never really liked anybody called Eugene. There was this rather feminine, or gay (allow me to be crude) schoolmate of mine in high school called Eugene. My most hated platoon commander during my days in the army was called Eugene, the same guy that kicked me in my helmet and punished us in the rain for two hours. I also never got along with anybody called "Jared" for some reason, and both of them incidentally happens to be potential sexual predators. The first Jared was rumored to jack off in the school urinal, and was once reported to have harassed my friend's now ex-girlfriend. The other Jared was once involved in calling up the girl he had a crush on back in Junior College and masturbated over the phone. Of course, not all Eugenes and Jareds are like that, I'm just saying that I don't personally know any whom I can get along with. 

But those are just very ordinary names, truth to be told, but some of us tend to relate two people with the same names together, and then have a stereotypical image about them both. Names are important to us humans, which is also why all of us have names. Names give us an identity, more than those serial numbers you have in your identification card, or those bar codes down below in the bottom right hand corner. We call each other by our names, sometimes our pet names, but they are still names. Names pretty much follow you for life, probably the only thing that is going to stick, provided that you do not change it of course. And as for celebrities, names are especially important to them and their identities. Take the rapper Akon for example, Akon isn't his real name. Well, it is a part of his real name, and the real one goes something like that: Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam. If I have a name like that, I'd probably go for the name "Akon" as my rapper name as well, it does sound rather badass. Though, I do always mispronounce it as A-Kon, like "air-con" or "acorn" - not exactly what he was aiming for, I'm sure. Imagine if he actually picked the wrong name, and his rapper name becomes "Lulu" or something. "Yo, Lulu in da house!". Not exactly the coolest name ever.

So, names are important, and they are determined by our parents. The relatives could give ideas, the friends could give ideas, anybody can give ideas. But it is ultimately up to the parents, of course, which is why they think that they have power over you for the rest of your life - they gave you your name, after all. Your identity! Anyway, there are parents who are just downright irresponsible when it comes to baby names. There is a famous story about a couple in China who wanted to name their son the Internet "at" symbol. You heard me right, they wanted to name their son @. That is because, in mandarin, the symbol "@" sounds like "love him" phonetically, and the parents thought that it'd be cool for their son to be reminded of their love for him. It's just sad that, as parents, you cannot think of better ways to make him remember your love. Just do what you are supposed to do as parents, they will love you back in the future, no matter what. I don't know if they went ahead with that horrendous name, but I do suppose it'd be pretty confusing for the child in the future, hearing his name in every e-mail address that is going to be uttered. Using names like that should constitute as parental cruelty!

Then there are some parents who are obsessed with mother nature, and they want to name their sons and daughters after aspects of it. Summer Skies, Autumn Night, April Shower, Spring Flower and whatnot. Take any two of the following nouns and you get the baby name of a child that belongs to freaks of mother nature: Rain, Autumn, Mountain, Tree, Lake, River, Winter, Summer, Spring, Sunshine. Here's an idea, why not name your sons and daughters after other aspects of mother nature? Rats, rodents, cockroaches, ants, flies, mosquitoes, dung, slug, or snail? The only person I know who pulled off a name that is related to mother nature is probably River Phoenix, the brother of Joaquin Phoenix. But, of course, he did die due to drug overdose outside Johnny Depp's club, maybe he really didn't like his name after all. These nature freaks love to name their daughters after some aspects of the nature, and they fail to realize that they make their child sound like potential porn stars. Just visit any random porn site with a bunch of featured porn stars, and you are going to see some of the names that I have mentioned above. Trust me, you are going to find a Summer Snow or two, because that is the way it is.

It is bad enough if your children have stupid names, it is worse when you were supposed to give them a normal name, and they end up having a weird name because you misspelled it in the first place. It is spelled as J-A-M-E-S, not J-A-Y-M-E-S, thank you very much. And, it is M-I-C-H-E-L-L-E, not -M-Y-C-H-E-L-L-E. I hate it when parents take the liberty of twisting perfectly normal names around and make them look unique and special, when they really look ridiculous and stupid. "Sophia" and "Sofia" can be understood at least, by James and Jaymes? Come on! Then you have real names that are missing a letter or two, not because of an administrative mistake but because the parents can't spell properly. It's Taylor, not Taelor. It's Natalie, not Nataleigh. It's Zachary, not Zakary, or Zakkary, or Zacharie. It's Michael, not Mykal, or Mychal. It's Megan, not Maygun, Maegan, or Maygen. It's Jessica, not Jessika. It's Grace, not Grayce. It's Michelle, not Mashell or M'shell. And, it's Kayla, not Kaela, Kaylah, Caelah, Cayla, or Chaela. Take notes, stupid parents. You might need it. 

Celebrities are at the epitome of baby name stupidity. So I did a little research on celebrity baby names, and I have even less respect for these celebrities than some of them already have in my mind. Let's list a couple of them, shall we? Nicholas Cage named his son Kal-El because he loves comic books, and he loves Superman. Jason Lee (the guy from My Name Is Earl) named his son Pilot Inspektor after hearing the song by the band Grandaddy called "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot". Sylvester Stallone named his son Sage Moonblood, as if he is some Elf from World of Warcraft or something. I respect Steven Spielberg, I really do. But his genius in directing movies didn't actually translate to naming his own child very well - Destry, like Destroy without the O. When your father is one of the most over-rated singers in the history of rock and roll, or Bono, you shouldn't be surprised that you are also given a stupid name like Memphis Eve. What does that mean, the eve of (something) in the city of Memphis? Speaking of U2, The Edge (the guitarist) has a baby daughter called Blue Angel. It wasn't enough that Angel is a perfectly normal name by itself, he had to add some colors to it. Then again, "The Edge" isn't exactly a very clever name to begin with, so what were you expecting, really? 

Let's continue with celebrity baby names here. Actress Shannyn Sossamon (you know, the girl from A Knight's Tale with Heath Ledger) has a son called Audio Science. Yeah, really, Audio Science. Why not Video Physics? I am sure you guys don't know who she is, and I didn't know who she is either, until I checked up on her. She is hardly a celebrity, and it is just sad that this is the only way for her to make the headlines - by giving her son a stupid name. Frank Zappa has four children, and all of them have equally stupid names. In order of the least stupid to the most stupid: Ahmet, Dweezil, Moon Unit, and Diva Thin Muffin. The famous magicians Penn & Teller, we all know their magic tricks and stuff like that. I've never really liked Penn, I've always been a fan of Teller, though he is rather laconic in nature. Penn's son is called Moxie Crimefighter, believe it or not. The first part of his name sounds like a brand of mosquito repellent, while the last part of his name just sounds like the name of a stupid, well, crimefighter. No wonder I've never liked Penn very much. He really should learn how to make a brain appear in his skull. Next, we have Rob Morrow from the show, Numb3rs. We have had pretentious hippie names, retarded joke names, and now I present to you - the pun names. His son is called, drum roll, Tu Morrow. I can imagine all these kids going "Fuck you, parents!". I agree. 

So, parents should really be regulated here. Stop giving your children stupid names, because they are supposed to live a long time with that name. They are going to be made fun of, laughed at, beaten up in the playground, and this is just in nursery school. Just wait till they get to high school and the kind of jokes that they are going to tolerate. My sister's friend's brother's classmate is called Long Dick Long, and you really don't want that kind of name, no matter how flattering you are. Also, dialect names in the Singapore context really should be carefully watched, especially when "Gay" is a legitimate last name here. Not to mention the infamous identification card of a boy named "Batman Bin Suparman", somehow related to Nicholas Cage perhaps. These parents should be thrown into jail, or have "stupid" behind their last names. They are evil, I tell you, they do not even deserve to be parents. I am not a parent yet, and I hope I do not get the chance to tell you any first hand information. But, at least I know the importance of a name, and baby names like all the ones mentioned above should be left out of consideration and filed under "epic fail". Seriously, don't think about it. Don't, really. Don't. 

Shadows Of Me

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Shadows Of Me

Those shoes of yours,
I've been in them. 

One blog led to the next, to the next, to the next. You never really know where you end up as you click through the links and skip from one blog to another, being a busybody. That is what happened anyway, and I chanced upon a "honest" and "raw" blog entry by I person that I sort of know, in a way. We know each other, and we've talked on the phone for that one time when I was looking for somebody we both know. The conversation was brief, and our meeting was even briefer. You crossed my path as a white shadow, a figure in the corner of my eyes, and you never stopped in your tracks to say hello. You have a name that I have heard a dozen times over, a common name shared by name people that I know of. There's that bully in class who got into a fist fight with Samuel, the guitarist friend of Ahmad who played a gig with us a couple of years ago in school, and then there's you. You existed to me back then as a name and as a voice over the phone, and then you existed a few months later as the target of all my hatred and anger, for no apparent reasons at all. I was upset, and got into a self-destructive pattern. In a self-destructive pattern, mind you, you do not just destroy yourself, but you want others to be burned up at the stake with you at the same time. I wanted all of you to join me, the both of you - for what? Stupid, stupid me, I was young and stupid. 

I was there, I know how it is like. I know it isn't easy, but I also know that you will pull through, because I did. As a white shadow, as a voice over the phone, I see myself in your shadows, a single point of light over exposes your deathly white skin. You feel as if you are about to die, or at least you felt it before. It's normal, that's what you get after severing ties with someone whom you have invested a lot of emotions in. It wasn't like a terminal disease, though it must have felt the same way. It didn't take its time to deal death, it came suddenly like an accident on the freeway, a five car pile-up and a lot of casualties. You have thought about ending it all, because the road ahead is unclear and blurred out to your eyes. At least with a terminal disease, you have time to plan the next step, you know where to go, you plan for the worst. You have time for preparations, but not when ill news come like that, not when you have so much hope. It sucks, doesn't it, it really does. I was there, just like you. I was there in those shoes. I hated you back then, and I have no idea why in retrospect. But that aside, I have no reasons to feel anything towards you right now, though I do feel like giving you a pat on the back. We've been there, haven't we? And you know, and I know, it always gets better from here on out. 

Twenty months on, I think about what has come to pass as I visit your blog. I don't know you, I really don't. Though, I really wanted to meet you back then, I wanted to know you. You sounded interesting, the kind of guy who'd be fun to hang out with. But we've never formally met each other, timings never seemed to fit, there was always her in between to keep us apart. I waited four hours one day just for her, I remember, the day when rain fell hard in town and water ran off the red and white checkered table clothes in an outdoors restaurant. I was underneath a giant umbrella of a Starbucks, I sat there and waited for you to finish your time with her. I thought it was a friendly outing, colleagues going out after work because they are friends. I am sure it was that way, but I should have known. I should have known a lot of things, and I suppose that is what you are thinking right now as well. You should have saw it coming, but then bad news never have good timing. They just happen, you know, and to know that it happened so recently for you makes me feel that much more for you, somehow. We do not know each other, and I have no responsibilities in making you feel better. It's just interesting to see myself in your shadows, having been there and done that. Oh, self-destruct and explode, that is what we do - the heartbroken ones. 

For a long time I despised you, but I suppose I despised her more. With you, it was a sense of puzzlement, you were an enigma I did not understand. For a person such as yourself, I wondered how you managed to pull ahead in front of me, to take her away from me, how the both of you left me behind. There were a lot of things I didn't understand, and I pointed fingers at everybody other than myself. First sign of a nasty break up: you blame everybody else. At least you are not doing that right now, you are managing well. In fact, to be honest, I think you are handling it way better than I ever did. Then again, it was my first relationship, and thus my first major break up. I didn't know how to handle her, but mostly myself. You went through it once (or twice?) before, at least you know how it works out. Still, with every break up, we almost always tell ourselves that we'd never love anybody else as much or as deep, ever again. But you know, that is just breaking up doing the talking. You and I both know that it isn't true, because we always move on and become happier again in the future. We fall, we learn; we cry, we learn; we fail, we learn; we learn, and we learn some more. 

I learned that things could have been handled better, I learned the importance of controlling my temper. I should have, I could have, I should have. All the questions without answers, you should put them all aside. Think about what you have learned, think about what you have picked up along the way. She isn't going to come back, no matter how hard you may try to prove that you still love her deeply. That is the reality of things, I don't suppose she is the kind to look back and "give it a shot" all over again. She is moving on, and being left behind doesn't taste good in the mouth. It is bitter, to say the very least, and the aftertaste is so much worse. Especially when she moves on to greener pastures, and you are left behind to lick your old wounds. That is when the scars start to throb and your heart starts to ache the most. I was there, and you were the greener pasture she moved on to. Yes, it did hurt, and yes, it was unbearable. Because of the both of you, I had sleepless nights for months on end, not the mention the murderous thoughts I harbored that are both childish and immature in retrospect. That is more than a year from now, and I suppose I have grown. I have learned that things go on, because they go on. We get over things, we get over it. 

You don't have to worry about your options, like the doors that you need to open. This is like those old school game shows, and you are a contestant picking a door to open. You aren't sure which one to pick because you don't know what is behind each door, though you know that they all lead to somewhere. The taping of the show must go on, and the host prompts you to pick a door as the audience grows impatient. The truth is, pick a door, walk through it, bear with it. There is a prize in every door if you are willing to look, and we are always going to be happier - always. That is how we are, we move on and we always look back and realize that we are happier than we were ever before. At least that is how I am now, and I know that I am infinitely happier than who I was twenty months ago. All those anger and all those grudges, they amounted up to so little in the lessons that I took away back then. It was the quiet moments with myself, it was the talks with my friends, all of those amounted to valueless lessons that I hope that you'd learn yourself someday. It is going to hurt when she moves on, but you don't have to be surprised. You will too, someday, and you just have to prove that you can live a life better afterwards. 

I know of people that remain as friends after they have broken up, though they are so few that you'd have better luck in trying to find a multi-colored M&M (do they have those, in the first place?). We always end up telling each other that we will "be there for each other", that we will remain "as friends even though we aren't together anymore". People will scoff at you, because it isn't realistic, it works against all statistics. Numbers don't lie, they will work against you. You will find it hard to resist it at first, you'd want to do more as a friend, to cross the line. Try going out with her one of these days, you'd find it hard to resist your hands drifting to her, or to put your arms around her when she isn't looking. I am not saying that you will not remain as friends with her, I am just saying that I did not manage to do that. We are in pieces now, that thing that we shared, and I don't suppose we are ever going to fix it. Not now, not ever. She exists to me in the form of a blog, and the occasional trips pass her home just down the road from mine on a bus. I remember a month ago when that happened, I was on the bus and her bedroom window was opened. I was downstairs two years ago, showing her a sign language I learned on television. That is how she exists to me now, in the back of my mind as songs play on my computer, as memories of the past, as words on a blog, as a whisper in a dream. 

You will do better than me, and you must. You don't want to take the path that I was on, you don't really want to pick the door that I picked. Though, I must say, I still stand by the fact that every door leads to something great, something beautiful. Only, of course, if you are willing to open your eyes and see. There are people everywhere, people for you to meet. You will find somebody else, and you will find somebody new. You will find that the world is more than just you and her, the world has more to offer now that you are out there in the wild again. It may seem daunting at first, and somewhat scary perhaps. But you will see, people will find you in the most unannounced manner, and you will find yourself falling head over heels in no time at all. I know, because I was there, and I am there - too. I was in your shoes before, and I am in the shoes that I shall pass on to you. Right here, it is happiness - it's great. You will meet someone new, fall for someone new, and you will realize that you are capable of loving someone a whole lot more than before. Trust me, I know. 

Advice.

Neck Care

Neck Care

Give your neck a little workout, yeah?
You computer junkie. 


One Shoe Project

Saturday, November 22, 2008

One Shoe Project

A single slipper.
A single bottle cap.

The character of Vivian (see review below) mentioned about her little online project that involves taking pictures of lost shoes. She noticed her people always lose just one shoe and never the both of them at the very same time - why is that? Good question Vivian, because I have no idea why either. You see lost shoes mostly by the side of the road, in the gutter, floating around in drains or just at the side of the pavement. They are always alone, you never find their partners lying around somewhere close. You start to picture how in the world would someone lose just one shoe and not notice it at all. Then, of course, you consider the possibility of them losing that one shoe while riding a bike or something like that. Still, I'd probably notice something missing around my foot and stop to check things out, right? For those riders who lost their shoes, they were probably heading to somewhere on their bikes, right? So what happens after you lose that one shoe, you go to wherever you were going without that one shoe? What if you were going on a date of some kind in town, you carry on with just one shoe? It's strange, and it is one of those mysteries that I do not wholly understand. Kind of like why there are these plastic protruding things at the bottom of the letters F and J on the keyboard. I don't understand that, either. 

So, I have decided to start taking pictures of lost lonely shoes all around Singapore, the ones that can no longer find their partners in this vast urban jungle. It is going to be a vast undertaking, but I suppose it is fun to notice such things now and then. Though, I must say, trying to take pictures of a shoe on the expressway (where I usually spot them) is going to be pretty dangerous at high speeds. If you are a guy who likes to wear slippers or sandals, I understand how they could slip off easier than most of the other footwear. I mean, one of them is called a "slipper" after all - easy on, easy off, you know? No excuses for those people who prefer to wear normal shoes, or boots if you must. And believe me, you do find them littered around the roads of this country as well, and thus thickens the plot. Even if you are a fan of slippers, and you also like to wear them when you are riding a bicycle, for example, wouldn't you stop and then go back just to pick up your lost slipper? It just seems like whenever it decides to slip off a foot of a rider, it is considered lost or something. I don't understand how you can not notice a lost footwear, it's not like a key slipping out of your wallet or something. It's kind of like losing your clothes in the public and not knowing it - same thing. 

Anyway, speaking of collecting these pictures (with the one above being the first), I have collected things over the years in bits and pieces, with some collections being more extensive than the others. I think it began with my collection for toy cars, though it doesn't necessarily mean that I took fantastic care of them by placing them in glass shelves. I banged them against one another and ran them against the walls and the cupboards. Why? Because as a child, I was a fan of destruction, and toy cars were always an essential part of my bedroom mayhem. Cars crashing into cars, cars crashing into buildings, cars crashing into pyramids made of erasers, and everything else cars can crash into in a bedroom. Oh, they crashed alright, in every way possible. That is also why the paints came off, the wheels fell off, the plastic windshields cracked, and let's just say the most avid fan of old school toy cars would murder me with a pincer (I don't know why I said pincer). I had boxes after boxes of cars, and I think my parents did a count of how many cars I had in the past - a lot. They have a numerical number in their heads, though they have probably forgotten about that right now. Still, I considered myself a collector of toy cars, simply because I had a lot of them. 

Then sometime in primary school, I got into collecting stickers. I had two sticker books, with those smooth glossy pages to paste stickers on, and I remember the covers were that of a bunch of Dragonball characters - yeah, I know. So I stuck stickers inside the books, any kind of stickers I could get my hands on. McDonald's gave out this series of Ronald McDonald stickers, I had those in the books. Wang Wang biscuits had five circular stickers inside every packaging, I had those in the books. The school gave out stickers of insects in every packaged drink that they sold, I had those in the books. They weren't particularly nice stickers for the most part, though some of them were. I threw them all into the sticker books because I just wanted to fill up the pages. At the same time, however, I didn't like gigantic stickers that filled up half the page, they were too big and grotesque for my liking. So I stuck to the smaller ones, and shiny stickers were also welcomed back then. I think I had a couple of 3-D stickers, those hologram pictures, those were great. In fact, my sticker collection got so extensive that they eventually migrated onto my desk. I had stickers on my drawers, and that posed as a problem a few years later when I grew up and had to scrub them off one by one. That one took a night and a whole lot of scrubbing. 

My sister was for, a period of time, into stamps. It is strange, because my sister isn't exactly the kind of person with a long-term hobby. I mean, the first guitar in the family was bought because my sister wanted to learn it. That fire burned for three days before it went out, and it was passed on to me - the rest is history. History is against the idea that my sister is a collector of any kind, and that has been the case for the most part. She collected her stamps in a small hardcover book, and I remember that it smelled funny. She filled up about a quarter of the book with stamps, and it was left for dead before it was being swept away by one of those spring cleaning sessions many years ago. I myself, am guilty of these temporary collections as well, and one of them is my Coke can collection. I have a couple of Coke cans from different countries, all with different designs. I am a proud owner of a Coke glass bottle, and it is a pity that they do not serve anything in glass bottles any longer. I understand the hygiene issues, but come on! They were cool. Anyway, there is a short and petite one that is about two-third the height of an ordinary bottle, and that one I got from Taiwan. Also, the commemorative World Cup editions and stuff like that. It didn't last very long, though, and Coke isn't exactly healthy for you after all. By the way, I drink the content before I put them on my shelf. Not drinking them is just disgusting. 

I have recently started collecting sands and rocks from different countries from all over the world. I haven't traveled much, and it kind of sucks that I didn't start this hobby of mine earlier when I was in India. I mean, the place that I was at had nothing but miles upon miles of sand. It's strange that it didn't occur to me to bring a handful back to Singapore just for kicks. Then again, if you think about it, judging from the amount of cow dung on the grounds there, it is probably very hard to find a decent handful of sand that hasn't been, at any one time, touched by cow dung. Still, I'd have liked the idea of bring a bit of India home with me, and I have been asking people to bring back sand for me from other countries, above all other gifts really. I have little gravels from Paris, sand from London, Australia, Japan, and a few of my friends did promise to bring me back some of them as well, though I think they forgot. Namely, Samuel who went to Vietnam and Kerri who went to Turkey. Perhaps I should really do this on my own, at least it'd be a tad bit more meaningful. 

Over the years, I have seen people collecting other non-conventional things, and the ones that interest me the most are usually photographs of normal everyday objects. There was a guy I mentioned before on my blog who took pictures of himself, once everyday, for six years. That is a collection of some sort, right? Then there was this other man who took a polaroid picture of something in his life, everyday, until the day that he died - really. It'd be random things like a stack of records, a bird on the window sill, a coffee stain on a napkin. Then he got cancer at one point, and you start to see his body break down through the series of polaroid pictures. It was rather disturbing to say the least, but it was still an interesting collection of pictures definitely. So, I have started taking pictures of lost shoes, and the one above is my very first one. It isn't terribly original, but then there are millions of people collecting stamps from all around the world, right? So, creativity hardly matters here, it all depends on whether or not you carry on with something you have started. I am not sure if I am really going to continue this habit, but it is definitely something interesting to say the least. Perhaps someday, I'd figure out why people do not realize that they have a missing shoe. That'd be the day, that'd be the day! 

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

Friday, November 21, 2008

In Search of a Midnight Kiss



Singapore never imports anything good. They either ban the good movies (Pulp Fiction, Requiem for a Dream), or they don't import it at all. Like this beautiful little indie movie that went completely under the radar in the local context. That is the fate of many movies from around the world, they never seem to make it pass the borders of this country. If movies like Children of Men got shut out from the theaters here (for whatever reasons), you shouldn't expect an indie movie to make it anywhere across the Pacific Ocean. It's true, just look at Garden State. With that said, I am glad that I got my hands on this little gem here, I've been wanting to watch this movie ever since the trailer popped up on my iMac's screen a few months ago. I love little movies like that, banking not on special effects but those everyday human relationships that develops and break apart. People have this fixed perception about indie movies, they think that most of them are ostentatious. True enough, some directors out there are just trying way too hard to be different at the expense of having a coherent story. Take Me And You And Everyone We Know, the little indie movie that felt too pretentious for my taste. It was indie for the sake of being indie, and I didn't like it at all. 

Some people got put off by the fact that this film, In Search of a Midnight Kiss in black and white. They think that by using black and white, it is a sad effort on the part of the director to make the film feel more "indie". Retarded claim, I know, but people has disliked movies for much less. Yes this movie is in black and white, yes this movie has a soundtrack filled with indie bands, yes this movie has actors and actresses I have never heard of before. Yet, it doesn't feel pretentious at all, simply because of how real and honest it is for the most part. Sure, there were parts that screamed of indie, but I thought the film still worked overall in trying to tell the story from a straightforward angle, you know? I like stories that demand your undivided attention, then there are movies that are just straightforward, and I like films like that as well. This is a straightforward story about a misanthrope seeking a misanthrope on the Internet, because he hasn't been in a relationship for the longest time. He moved from Texas to Los Angeles, has his own apartment and tries his very best to submit a script he wrote. Yet, his life was going nowhere, and so was his love life - or lack thereof. 

Convinced by his best friend Jacob, he sets up a profile on Craig's List and hoped for the best. Not too long afterwards, he receives a call from a mysterious girl who wants to spend a day with him on the last day of the year, the night before the New Year. He agrees, and the two meet in a cafe and spends the rest of the day together, just talking and hanging out. Think Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, but set in United States and more close to real life. I suppose the European setting in the above mentioned movies tend to give you a sense of surrealism, like you can never get over the fact that they are movies. This film, however, kind of feels like a documentary, or reality television if you please, though it does feel a little scripted at parts (The man that gives Vivian the flowers? Come on). Anyway, it is a simple story with very realistic characters we can all relate to, just two person hanging out for a day in the city. Wilson and Vivian goes from perfect strangers, to a couple that shares a cigarette, to a couple that confesses secrets to one another, and then the couple that goes on little adventures. My favorite scene in the movie has got to be the part when Vivian explains the website that she has of the pictures she took of lost shoes, and the conversation they had about fake happiness. I liked it. 

I have a feeling that this film was intentionally written to resemble Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. After all, it does have the producers behind the two movies, though it does not necessarily measure up to its greatness. Still, this film is a nice little companion movie I feel, with even more down to earth characters to relate to, and perhaps more gritty and life-like than some fairytale characters in a movie. The conversational topics aren't nearly as interesting and compelling as the ones in the other two movies, but the characters mesh together in a way that is similar to Jessie and Celine did in the Richard Linklater masterpieces. The two characters definitely hit it off really well, especially Wilson which I took a liking for. I have a thing for characters that are supposed to be losers, I just relate to them better. Vivian comes off as being a little annoying at the beginning, being too cynical and judgmental for the most part. Then she sinks in, and she grew on me throughout the course of the movie. The interesting part is always how the characters interact, and it was engaging enough for me to be enthralled. 

As much as I think that Nim, the main character's best friend's girlfriend is cute, it doesn't help by the fact that her love story with Jacob (the best friend) was a little bland. It wasn't very well developed, and it wasn't involving at all. We know that Nim is bored with the relationship, we know that Jacob wants to propose to her, and we find out how they met - so what? It is under developed and unnecessary, and a lot of time could have been dedicated to the actual story line between Wilson and Vivian. With a running time clocking at just over ninety minutes, you kind of want everything to be compact and not be wasteful. It is kind of sad that we could have learned more about the main characters if not for this little subplot, though that is not to say that it was bad - it was just a little redundant to me. 

Most conventional love stories in the cinema speak of happily ever afters, or at least they end that way to have a form of closure for the audience. Films like that do not bank on those predictable endings, but invests more time in the journey rather than the destination. The ending is satisfying, I feel, though I really didn't like the idea of how Jacob and Nim turned out at the end. Still, I thought it was more realistic that way, and things probably wouldn't have turned out half as well for the main characters, if they actually stayed together. This film is predictable in a sense that you kind of know what is going to happen, but you allow yourself to sit through the movie because you like to be a kind of voyeur through this process of seeing two people connect on a personal level. It is nice to see how the lives of characters in a movie reflects your own life somehow, when it comes to meeting someone new and then slowly becoming involved. It may not always happen at the end of the year, on some special occasion, but it is still special, it is still beautiful. Though this movie isn't half as good as Before Sunrise or Before Sunset, it is still a worthy movie for a comfortable morning like this one, and warms your heart in the cold winter winds. 

8/10