talking of Michaelangelo.
Saturday, August 30, 2014
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a matter of taste // 10:30 pm
A good narrative should have some kind of structure or form. I like some kind of form and structure to it. The beginning kind of sets up something for the end, or something that goes full circle. I like stories that have a few of something. They have to find 5 of something to complete something. I like the feeling of completion. That's how I like my stories. I find stories like that much more intriguing. Something with some kind of ending to look forward to. Is it just me?
That's how I like the flesh of my fish.
The backbone... add... add... form a fish.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
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lag // 4:07 am
Welcome to the world of jet lag where slumber seems to take over at strange times and nights are... difficult. Welcome to the world where you wake and it's fucking 12:13pm and you check the time on the internet and you realize you've already missed your first day of work.
So it's 3:52am now and sleep won't take me. So, I write.
It was a pilgrimage of sorts. Like a kind of cultural reawakening to be in a place steeped with history and culture. Like a tea bag of culture with its slithery fingers making its way through the water, the city. The architecture telling stories of empires rises and falls, of fires and reconstructions. Oak, burns slower.
And I heard Mrs. Dalloway, walking with me, though it wasn't exactly her. I think I took a walk with Shakespeare instead.
The Drama experience was phenomenal, it was almost surreal getting to learn about it. I think I was wide-eyed with curiosity for whole trip, soaking everything up like bread in soup and I was drenched and thirsted for more. Every night I fell asleep exhausted with new knowledge, new learning, discovered new things my body could do, my mind could do.
Rediscovering Shakespeare too, in a different perspective. An actor's perspective, a playwright's perspective, a storyteller's perspective, a fighter's perspective and it was all fascinating. I had always taken it from a reader's perspective and that is probably the worst perspective one can probably take it in. Shakespeare was a bawdy, funny man, his words deliciously rich with intellect, intent. (I still don't like him much.) But I saw more of him this time than I had any other time when I had read him. I played him this time, I played him, I wrestled his words and got more from it.
Nights out with friends were fun and food, if you choose right, could be excellent. Dingy basement pubs and seafood with a side of drama shows. Discussions of which plays were great which actor was mediocre in the morning. The life of a tourist, a learner, a pilgrim in London. It was like going back to a place I hadn't finished, like rediscovering a brilliantly lit place. A place of glamour, steeped in old history. The old and the new coming together creating sparks, (so unlike China, which seems to care only for the artificial).
On the plane, Peony told me of art. She told me of the blending and mixing of art and literature and music and architecture and fashion and weaved it all together. She told me in the dark of the airplane when everyone was sleeping. She held her finger up drawing first a vertical line in the air and she said art is made a the moment time, the vertical line, and geographical, the horizontal line. And all the forms of art come together in one big symphony, splash of colour, ensemble of dance and all all are bound together. One cannot just miss one form of art, one would be missing out. We need to see it all, the big picture, the sounds, colours, smells, feel the action for ourselves...
And I had a lovely time. I came back refreshed. I thirst for something more, I don't know what exactly it is that I want, but I want something and I'll discover it, or if not, then I'll create it. Make my art, feel my art. World, my art coming for you.
(...but sadly for now... back to the daily grind.)
