talking of Michaelangelo.
Friday, November 28, 2008
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let's talking about waiting for Godot // 12:46 am
How absolutely ironic that I was just on the subject of waiting yesterday (except I was thinking in Chinese). I didn't want to overwhelm my blog with heavy words within such a short span of time. Over the course of this post, I'm going to be just splaying some quotes from
Waiting for Godot. Take what you want from them I'm not going to try to explain them or try to incorporate them. Afterall, I do that enough in essays.
So this post is overdue, it should have been written yesterday. Yesterafternoon in 366, we talked about the second act of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. I was deeply moved by the intelligence of the absurd. The mask that covers what the play really is: witty, smart despite the nonsensical dialogues.
Estragon: (aphoristic for once) We are all born mad. Some remain so.
The idea of a tragicomedy makes my heart giddy. The mixed genre feels intriguing. The double layer of hilarity yet depressive nature of the play makes me think harder. (Fantastic Plastic Machine!)
The thing I meant to talk about was waiting. Vladimir begins to give up on the wait... so he says this:
Vladimir: We are no longer alone, waiting for the night, waiting for Godot, waiting for . . . waiting. All evening we have struggled, unassisted. Now it's over. It's already tomorrow.
Yes. It is already tomorrow. And I am waiting f or ... waiting. I love that quote it mirrors my sentiments so completely. Here let me give a longer one:
Vladimir: Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for once the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? (Estragon says nothing.) It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflection, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in this immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come—
This incredible ABYSS I feel when I read it. Like the world out there is not my own, yet it is my own and it crushes me at the same time, coursing through my veins and smothering me. This sense of futile. This emptiness is something I feel I belong to, have succumbed to long ago. In some deep, dark place in my soul (which I'm throwing all over the internet now on here), I can draw up this apprehension of the waiting. I'm angsty about having to wait. What am I waiting for?
"And should I then presume? / And how should I begin?" - Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
WHAT AM I DOING HERE?
Let's leave that thought there but I'm going to leave you with this:
VLADIMIR: What do they say?
ESTRAGON: They talk about their lives.
VLADIMIR: To have lived is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: They have to talk about it.
VLADIMIR: To be dead is not enough for them.
ESTRAGON: It is not sufficient.
Words. Mm.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
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忍 // 3:14 am
感覺...好像畀人束縛住
有翼, 不過不會飛, 飛不起
有腳, 不過不會走, 走不遠
有淚, 不過不會哭, 哭不出 (就算哭,眼淚都結冰.)
無奈, 但是甚麼都做不到.
累了, 睡了, 起來...還是那麼累.
感覺有點不自在, 沒有甚麼自尊心甚麼奮鬥...我的恆心
已經不存在.
每天一步一步都過得慢長... 有時想透氣都透不到.
我要學怎樣等待...怎樣忍耐...
快吧...完吧...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
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ellipses // 2:00 pm
Does yours have 3 dots . . .
or 4 dots . . . . ?
Memories of Garden State suddenly came to me.
"Good luck exploring the infinite abyss."
Sometimes I can taste words and I think Zach Braff makes it aesthetically possible to do that for his audience as they watch this film. I can taste what he's saying, what he's thinking. It rolls around in my tongue, in my mind. It's well thought through, though at the same time a little meaningless and a little romantic. It's something so untangible yet I can feel it stir in me. It's so utterly
unnerving.
Something's rumbling in my heart.
by Frou Frou
Are you in or are you out?
Leave your things behind
'Cause it's all going off without you
Excuse me too busy you're writing your tragedy
These mishaps
You bubble-wrap
When you've no idea what you're like
[Chorus:]
So, let go,let go
Jump in
Oh well, what you waiting for?
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So, let go, l-let go
Just get in
Oh, it's so amazing here
It's all right
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
It gains the more it gives
And then it rises with the fall
So hand me that remote
Can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow?
Such boundless pleasure
We've no time for later
Now you can't await
your own arrival
you've twenty seconds to comply
P.S. A lot to cram in one post but, would like to add: I'd like to see the movie "Love me if you Dare". (A French movie entitled Jeux d'enfants) looks intriguing!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
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be careful // 3:31 pm
Don't burn yourself with ice.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
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scapegoat // 7:42 am
I'm still looking for somewhere safe to put my heart. I dread that feeling of having wait and wait for the person who will love me incessantly.
It is late and it becomes harder and harder for me to articulate myself properly.
I find it hard to accept change, especially in other people. I am afraid of people leaving me. Intensely afraid that people will abadone me for something/someone better, because there are so many people who are better for them than I am. No one can't live without anyone. That's what makes me so afraid. There are some people I feel like I can't live without. But the thing that scares me most is that people can live without me and I am certain of it.
I have noticed that I like to preface a lot of the things I say. I think it's because I'm also intensely afraid to offend people. But that, I would guess, links right back to the people leaving-me-behind issue.
"Night, in which everything was lost, went reaching out, beyond stars and sun. Stars and sun, a few bright grains, went spinning round for terror and holding each other in embrace, there in a darkness that outpassed them all and left them tiny and daunted. So much, and himself, infintesimal, at the core a nothingness, and yet not nothing." - DHLawrence, Sons and Lovers
In a sense, I am, at the core - a nothingness. Yet, I am not nothing.
Lately, the chills have been enveloping me so I've been hiding in bed quite frequently. I prefer the comforts of home. Challenges are coming my way.
I will brave them out and rise triumphant. I will try to be my own courage.
P.S. I don't know what I am going to do when I move away from my housemates. It's almost been 2 years. They have become my comfort. They have become who I go home to. They have become my shoulders when I am weary, when I am disappointed, when I need to pull myself together.
How am I going to live without them in the impending future?
P.P.S. Last night, some emotions dawned upon me - it made me strangely afraid. I often find myself a scapegoat to justify some darkness within me. It is wrong, but I do it.
It is wrong. I am sorry, but it is an empty apology. Call me a terrible person.
Friday, November 14, 2008
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all I want for Christmas // 12:27 pm
I've decided - I'm going to watch
Love Actually again this Christmas!
(and you and you...)
I have shared this song on facebook already. But I thought I could put it on here too, just because... it's really interesting. Maybe it's the tune... but the lyrics are pretty cool too. Sharing is caring.
I see the headline news,
the stories that I read do not affect me, directly,
It's hard to feel that they are real,
I end up gazing at the words.
I see the evening news, reports that
they are showing are depressing, distressing,
But even so, I'm not involved
I end up staring at the screen....
But you spring mind
You make me think hard
I suddenly start
To take things to heart
You color my world
A little more ever day
Seeing clearer now
Don't you know
I'm thinking of you
You make me think hard
I feel the surprise
Reality bites
A breath of fresh air
A little more every day
Seeing clearer now
The politicians quarrel, journalists rejoice
in every scoop that they're making,
For dirty news gets great reviews,
and profits soar into the sky.
A famous actor dies, the photographs
they take of friends in mourning appall me;
I close my eyes, don't recognize
the pain I'm seeing every day.
You speak your mind
You make me think hard
I saw on the start
You think it's too hard
You color my world
A little more ever day
Singing clearer now
Don't you know
I'm thinking of you
You make me think hard
I feel the surprise
Reality bites
A breath of fresh air
A little more every day
Singing clearer now
Don't you know! (echoes)
As you regret
We feel no sorrow
We do our best
To face tomorrow.
credits to Fantastic Plastic Machine (ft. CLAZZIQUAI)
Monday, November 10, 2008
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dare you to move. // 1:00 pm
Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's hereEveryone's here
Everybody's watching you nowEverybody waits for you now
What happens next?
What happens next?I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
The tension is hereBetween who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should beI dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happenedToday never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before.
(Be careful what you wish for.)
The time is: now.
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moving on to the new decade // 12:40 am
(oh the irony! this is my 420th post on this blog!)No matter how I say it, it's going to sound old. So might as well just suck it up and go. November, always a month of reflection, evaluation. It's kind of like the time before new years for me. I have this theory that everybody's new year is actually different, it's their birthday. Because you were born on that day... therefore every time you have your birthday, it's technically the start of your new... year correct?
So technically this is like my time of resolution-making or whatever. Anyhow, I'm not in a mood to do that right now because I think it's best to think about something else.
It's the idea of leaving behind the old and coming out to the new. Stripping off my past and coping with the present and future as best I can without those packages that I refuse to close.
When I was 10, I had no real conception of the idea that 1 decade had past. And how that 2 has past. Oh boy do I have a sense of how messed up this world really is. I'm almost afraid to venture further.
Having entertained more than once, those thoughts of ending my life. I have come the conclusion that it's not my time yet. When it comes, it will come. Right now I'll just trudge on in this interminable Wasteland. (By the way, for me, it was a sad ending. Redemption? Rain? Fie!)
The triviality of this whole thing is that... some people, on their 20th just get wasted and pass out on their bed (or in front of the toilet seat). Whereas the conscious, like I, must pass by these hours dreading every moment. Perhaps I shall just sleep and forget about consciousness.
I'm moving towards this dark scary tunnel (or maybe it's the end of it?), where time is always running out and you are forever alone. We live alone, we are alone despite how we feel or what we want. At the end of the day, you are still your own person.
My best friend deems that we get three wishes this year for our birthday. Greedy, but not a bad thought.
Be careful what you wish for. You just don't know what might happen.
Goodbye 19,18,17,16,15,14,13,12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 year old past selves. Now, let's embrace this frightening, disgusting, yet glorious number.
Happy early birthday little one. Let's hope something good with come out of this year.
What's there left to change? Where am I to go?
12 hours and 20 minutes left.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
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remember remember... // 5:15 am
I cannot believe I forgot this day.
This day of revolution, of change!
"Remember, remember
the fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot,
I know of no reasonWhy the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."It's that time of year again.
The very interesting month called November.
For better or for worse, here I come. I'm ready to take on the challenge, whatever it may be.
I like
V for Vendetta so much because every time I watch it, I gather something new, something even more exciting than I found last time. And of course, the tears just roll out of my eyes. I've seen the movie four times. I can see what's coming ahead, but still. It moves me in ways I almost can't comprehend.
"But again, truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty you need only look into a mirror." - V
"But regardless of what weapons they try to use to effect silence, words will always retain their power. Words are the means to meaning, and for some, the annunciation of truth." - V
His words are beautiful. Just so full of power. The fact that he remains masked. The fact that he was
"...Edmond Dantés... and he was my father. And my mother... my brother... my friend. He was you... and me. He was all of us." - Evey
My heart swells at words so powerful and passionate.
"No one will ever forget that night and what it meant for this country. But I will never forget the man and what he meant to me. " - Evey (I believe I would say the same.)
Let's end with:
God is in the rain.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
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how peculiar // 10:33 pm
... is my appreciation for various animals. Peculiar because they are peculiar living things.
giraffes
(do I dare eat a peach?
gentle and graceful)
hippos (dumb looking things
fatally adorable)
kiwis (birds that cannot fly
tragically beautiful and tragically fat)
shika-san [deer from Nara]
(allies in the war against faces
serene, aggressively strong)
uribou [looks like a deer/boar]
(my mixed breed friends
energetically unique)
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
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// 7:29 am
It feels like I'm forcing words to vomit.
It feels like I'm forcing words to penetrate me.
Life of an English major being dumped into a load of bad marks.
restless.
at best.
I wish I could just be a dumb looking stuffed hippo.
Then I wouldn't have to.....
Monday, November 03, 2008
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exacerbate // 1:02 pm
Once again,
my heart's strings are pulled toward
some
unease.
Pull me through. Something.
