Pavement Reunion

Haven't updated in awhile.

Just found this earlier-

Holy Shit: Pavement Reunion

Wow. Just wow.

Lives That Cannot Be Replayed

Taken from jap drama Searchin' for my Polestar (pretty bad translation but you get the gist)-

"Why do people keep missing each other?
Why can't we be more understanding?
People face each other everyday.
And we can really love someone.
And time is that short.
In our lives that cannot be replayed.
Why is time wasted on separations, misunderstandings and mistakes?
Everyone knows it's happiness to be with someone you love."


Answers can't be found at times.

Find The River R.E.M.

Get well, Daw Aung Sang Suu Kyi.


Find The River - R.E.M.

Find The River

Hey now, little speedyhead,
The read on the speedmeter says
You have to go to task in the city
Where people drown and people serve.
Don't be shy. Your just deserve
Is only just light years to go.

Me, my thoughts are flower strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon.
I have got to leave to find my way.
Watch the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes.
Nothing is going my way.

The ocean is the river's goal,
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go.

I have got to find the river,
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away.
Leave the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes.
Nothing is going my way.

There's no one left to take the lead,
But I tell you and you can see
We're closer now than light years to go.
Pick up here and chase the ride.
The river empties to the tide.
Fall into the ocean.

The river to the ocean goes,
A fortune for the undertow.
None of this is going my way.
There is nothing left to throw
Of Ginger, lemon, indigo,
Coriander stem and rose of hay.
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete.
Pick up here and chase the ride.
The river empties to the tide.
All of this is coming your way.

World Leader Pretend

I sit at my table and wage war on myself
It seems like it's all, it's all for nothing
I know the barricades, and
I know the mortar in the wall breaks
I recognize the weapons, I used them well

This is my mistake. Let me make it good
I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down

I've a rich understanding of my finest defenses
I proclaim that claims are left unstated,
I demand a rematch
I decree a stalemate
I divine my deeper motives
I recognize the weapons
I've practiced them well. I fitted them myself

(chorus)
It's amazing what devices you can sympathize, empathize
This is my mistake. Let me make it good
I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down

Reach out for me and hold me tight. Hold that memory
Let my machine talk to me, let my machine talk to me

This is my world
And I am world leader pretend
This is my life
And this is my time
I have been given the freedom
To do as I see fit
It's high time I've razed the walls
That I've constructed

(repeat chorus)

You fill in the mortar. You fill in the harmony
You fill in the mortar. I raised the wall
And I'm the only one
I will be the one to knock it down


Incidentally, my 100th post.

Decoding Loneliness

Ever felt this incredible sense of loneliness overpowering you suddenly, even though you're in a crowded place with people around you whom you know? Somehow, you felt that not one of them is on the same frequency of thought with you, for what could be that single moment in time. A moment of devouring Loneliness, whereby you question your own existence. No one understands you.

That may be why I'd felt the opposite too when I was in a dark cinema with strangers around me. Everyone were focused on the same thoughts depicted by the film. When it was a sentimental film, the emotions seemed to be amplified through everyone. You'd feel a tidal wave of emotions. Like you were part of something, a camaraderie, even though everyone around were mere figures in the dark.

All of a sudden I feel like watching Krystof Kieslowski's Three Colours again. :)

Find

Sonic Youth 1/5/1985 Gila Monster Jamboree, Mojave Desert


Brother James

Kill Your Idols

Brave Men Run

Death Valley '69

I Love Her All

I'm Insane

Flower

Burning Spear

Searching For A Star

"Look to the stars when you get lost." - Something the j-drama Searchin' For My Polestar taught me.

Polaris will always lead you to your north. Then maybe have a look at Orion, the hunter, ever strong wielding his bow. After that, throw a glance at Betelgeuse, a prominent star in Orion- a star near the end of it's life.

It is wonderful someone came up with this simple graphic website to teach us about these stars and constellations-

http://www.quietbay.net/Science/astronomy/nightsky/

Sad

This song was playing on my ipod. Sonic Youth - I love you golden blue.



:(

Trying To Live

What is Life? Will we ever know the significance of words such as Life, Love and God? That is why I hate it when the phrase "Get a life" is coined.

Isn't everyone trying to live? And "getting at life"?

Will a person know more about living than another? Only someone who is pretencious and self-righteous will tell another to "get a life". More accurately, Life isn't easy to "get at"; to understand. If you think you've known all about Life, then perhaps you're merely indulged in living in your own little perfect pocket of a world and have not looked hard enough into what it is. But who is to know? Maybe you really had seen it all, all that is Life. But you should at least have accumulated a decent amount of experiences to proclaim that i.e. you're old enough.

Perhaps it is wise to think twice before telling a person how to live their life or to "get a life".

Life isn't the same for all of us. For most, it's not all that fun and cheery. Some of us lived through 80% of shit to get to the 20% that is worth living. The intrinsic value of important things in Life varies for everyone too. Wealth may mean more to some than to others. When we add up all the variables, it is simply impossible to measure Life.

How do we "get a life" when we don't really know what Life is, when there is no way to measure it?

In the end, we're all merely trying to live in our own ways.

The Hours (2002)

Been looking for the dvd of this movie. Wanted to watch it again.


Leonard: Virginia (Woolf) we must go back home now. Nelly is cooking dinner. She has already had such a difficult day. It is our obligation to eat Nelly's dinner.
Virginia: There is no such obligation. No such obligation exists.
Leonard: Virginia, you have a obligation to your own sanity!
Virginia: I have endured this custody. Endured this imprisonment.
Leonard (with contempt): Oh Virginia!
Virginia (disdainfully): I am attended by doctors. Everywhere. I am attended by doctors, who inform me of my own interests.
Leonard: They know your interests.
Virginia: They do not. They do not speak for my interests.
Leonard: Virginia I can, I can see it must be hard for a women of your...
Virginia : Of my what?
Leonard: of your, your...
Virginia:(angry) of my what exactly?
Leonard: of your talents to see that she may not be the best judge of her own condition.
Virginia: But who then is a better judge?
Leonard (raised voice/ exasperation): You have a history...you have a history of confinement. We brought you to Richmond because you have a history of fits, moods, blackouts, hearing voices. We brought you here to save you from the irrevocable damage you intended upon yourself. You have tried to kill yourself twice. I live daily with that threat. I set up the press,... we set up the printing press not just for itself, not just purely for itself but so that you might have a ready source of absorption and a remedy.
Virginia: Like needlework!
Leonard (shouting out of hurt): It was done for you! It was done for your betterment. It was done out of love! If I didn't know you better I'd call this ingratitude.
Virginia (somber): I'm ungrateful. You call me ungrateful . My life has been stolen from me. I am living in a town I don't wish to live in. I am living a life I have no wish to live. How did this happen? It is time for us to move back to London. I miss London. I miss London life.
Leonard: This is not you speaking Virginia. This is an aspect of your illness
Virginia (pleading): Its me! It is me!
Leonard (both are speaking at the same time): No
Virginia (angry): It is mine and mine alone!
Leonard (patient): No, it is the voice that you hear
Virginia (sorrow/raised voice): No it is not. It is mine. I am dying in this town.
Leonard: If you were thinking clearly Virginia you will remember it was London that brought you down.
Virginia: If I were thinking clearly... If I were thinking clearly...
Leonard (whispers/in a barely audible voice): We brought you to Richmond to give you peace?
Virginia: If I were thinking clearly Leonard, I would tell you that I wrestle alone in the dark, in the deep dark and only I can know, only I can understand my own condition. You live with the threat; you tell me, you live with the threat of my extinction. Leonard, I live with it too. This is my right; it is the right of every human being. I choose not the suffocating anesthetic of the suburbs, but the violent jolt of the Capital, that is my choice. The meanest patient, yes, even the very lowest is allowed some say in the matter of her own prescription. Thereby she defines her humanity. I wish, for your sake, Leonard, I could be happy in this quietness but if it is a choice between Richmond and death, I choose death.
Leonard (on the brink of tears): Very well, London then. We go back to London then.

Samejima Mamimi

FLCL


The Pillows - Ride on Shooting Star

Comprehension

I don't understand all of it. I may never understand any of it. And thus, I'm afraid. Many secrets of the heart. We're born unto this world with the ability to seek knowledge and to try to understand our surroundings. Yet there will be secrets forever hidden from our understanding in our lifetime. What can we do? Pretend that nothing is wrong and that full or even partial understanding is not important. To live with this pretence our whole lives? To ignore? That sometimes not knowing is a bliss? That all memories and knowledge are meant to be short-lived, fade away with age?

We are thus all pretencious beings. Pretend that full understanding is not important, that we are not equipped to understand all of it. To pretend to think that desire for full knowledge is equivalent to that of desire for power- it will corrupt us. But how will we know it will corrupt if we don't understand half of it? Our hearts tell us so.

Follow our hearts, they say, not only our brains. If our hearts can think, can we channel these thoughts? Are things made more complicated when we not only have brains that think, but hearts that think too? Maybe yes. Maybe not. Both my heart and brain refuse to give a definite answer.

Up until the last days of our lives- pretencious beings. The old man in his deathbed screams, "I don't want to go because I haven't known a lot of things yet. Can I have answers?" His life whisked away. No answers.

Maybe just follow our eyes. The eyes deceive too, you say? So what is real and what is not?

Fantasy is built on pretences. Create your own answers. Your Creations. Answers to the secrets of the heart. Breathe and live Fantasy. For every question, give it your own answer. Who is to say your answer may not be correct?

Words seek to derail thoughts. Pretence is an intrinsically negative word.

We are pretencious. But we fly on wings of Fantasy too.

I won't ever understand. And I am afraid.

Fireworks Of Life

"You've led me to think as I've thought several times before, when you asked, "Is it worthwhile to die in this manner?"

Lives lost to military training/exercises, in the name of defense of a country.

A crazy world of countries saying to each other, "How do my defense measure up against your defense? I have XXX number of warheads vs your XXX number of warheads!"

A spark occurs. A small conflict of ideas. Defense turns into Offense in a flash.

All the Defense expended at once in a beautiful but mind-boggling display of fireworks.

And you call that the Fireworks of Life?

So what do you mean by Defense of a country? What is Defense? Defense and Offense may merely be relative terms. They mean the same thing."

I wrote the above in a notebook when I was about 15... 17? If a 17yr-old kid could understand the above, the true nature of what you deemed Defense. I don't get how everyone in this world could not see this very thin line humanity treads on currently. Of course, everything is more complicated. Have to be made more complicated.

To the North Korean missile test crisis.

How I Wrote Elastic Man

"But in the town
They'll stop me in the shoppes
Verily they'll track me down
Touch my shoulder and ignore my dumb mission
And sick red faced smile
And they will ask me
And they will ask me
How I wrote 'Elastic Man'"

- The Fall Mark. E. Smith

Fraggle Rock

I always stood by the tv to catch every single episode of this Jim Henson's muppet show when I was a kid. Fraggle Rock was fun to watch yet profound, in a way, too because it contemplated on serious themes such as Death, Mortality, Discrimination. They don't make kid-tv like these anymore. =) These brought back much memories.


Sunlight and Shadow - Mokey sings of freedom when she was caught and caged up.

Sunlight and shadow,
And oak trees, bravado,
And rivers that race to the sea.
Puff balls, fireflies,
And larks in the sunrise,
All know a way to be free.
And here's to their roamin',
Here's to their homin',
Ah, how I wish it was me.
Pity a soul that's not free.

Ants have a highway,
And birds have a skyway,
And winds can go wandering far.
See how they climb,
In the mercy of time and,
They don't know how lucky they are.
And here's to their roamin',
Here's to their homin',
Ah, but I wish it was me.
Sit for a moment and pity a soul that's not free.


Free and High - Wembley takes to the sky. My favourite fraggle- He's a laid-back coward, much like me.


Friendship Song - Boober and Red were trapped in a poison cave. They were terrified that they were going to die but cling on to friendship for support.

Breaking Point

Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) - Fight Club

Have I lost it? =)

Like many, I've hammered at walls of cubicles in toilets in frustration, slammed/kicked doors, threw furniture, vandalized, scrawled graffiti... I'd attribute most of that to teenage angst.

Later in life, I'd been held at knife-point in a robbery. Been taunted by a drunk with raised fists inches from my face at a bus stop. I had walked away from all of that with some anger but they had not amount to any serious injuries that would cause me to want to even retaliate. On some days, I do wish that same drunk will appear before me, so I have a reason to break his skull or break my own.

As I got older, I'd dealt with deaths of friends and relatives and began to understand and wrestle with the grim term- Mortality. But somehow most of us were able to walk away from all of that mostly unscathed too. Relationship problems have driven many insane, and killed or tried to kill many more. Simple rigors of trying to earn a living, to feed mouths, have driven many to suicides, corruption as well. It seemed that the limit at which one breaks depends on the individual. There's no fast and hard rules or formulas. All of us have known friends who are quick to anger, friends that are patient or ones that go crazy when we pushed a single wrong button.

I've always been known to be a patient person. So, I'm sometimes curious as to just what may be my own breaking point? Because I don't seem to be able to see it at all. Not on the horizon. Not on the plates. My life had been pretty shitty. Yet I'm still intact. What is wrong with me? So what does it take to break me completely? Or make me say enough is enough and retaliate with a hatred, mindless of my own survival?

The furthest I'd gone would be an incident in Navy- When I almost caused the lives of 40 to perish. It made me puke bile and gastric juices, fall on my knees. That's about as close as I got to... losing it. But I'm able to recover even from that. The only reason being that I 'didn't' really cause the 40 men to lose their lives. I'd been lucky. I'm reminded of a recent movie I've seen: Seven Pounds- Is it possible for a person to recover from that- killing 7 innocent people (including your own wife) in a car accident?

As I got older, I'd been able to walk away from nearly every situation with a mere cynical smile. I do cry sometimes. But tears will run dry eventually. At times it merely requires a retreat into my indulgence- music, movies, games etc. What happen when your whole world comes crushing down and you're supposed to feel sad but you're not? Like Brad Pitt/Edward Norton in Fight Club- You only smile while getting thrashed to death?

Numb. We gradually lose the ability to feel because pain and loss have become a steady diet. Late news on TV. Fake smiles. Obituaries. Walk away. You only have to walk away from it all.

But sometimes our limbs are tied.

"Rick Blaine : Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." - movie Casablanca


=) =) =)

Ed is Dead

I want to name myself Ed and this song is to be played at my funeral.


Pixies - Ed is Dead

:D

張懸 - 巷口

Love the lyrics to this song. To LM:

巷口

安靜的巷口　單車和人交錯經過
安靜的巷口移動

安靜的巷口　我還沒準備好回家
安靜的巷口迷惑

兩個人之間的字眼，省略許諾
孤獨中的快樂不能用來解決失落
對我來說　對我來說
其實跳不出生活

慢慢地想著　離開的人對我的好
慢慢地想著以後
淡淡地想著，總渴望逃脫的念頭
淡淡地想著；如何？

一杯酒帶來的熱絡　早上沒有
愛和改變分得清楚，可以等於自由嗎
對我來說　對我來說
其實就是生活

也覺得想不透；想透了能有多輕鬆
畢竟不是那麼沉重
還好不是寂寞。城市中我繼續行走
安靜的巷口沉默；沉默並溫柔



Found it on this blog

Goodbye

Tastycakes69 (in the comments wrote):

"To me this song is about being dead to a girl who forgot you............but going on living undead on a psychoactive beach in the cosmos, mellow and learning to deal."


Pixies- Wave of Mutilation

Blood From The Shoulder Of Pallas

Mesmerized by this passage from the Watchmen graphic novel.

From Chapter 7 A Brother to Dragons-
Dan Dreiberg (Niteowl)'s Journal on the study of Owls.

"Blood from the Shoulder of Pallas

Is it possible, I wonder, to study a bird so closely, to observe and catalogue its perculiarities in such minute detail, that it becomes invisible? Is it possible that while fastidiously calibrating the span of its wings or the length of its tarsus, we somehow lose sight of its poetry? That in our pedestrian descriptions of a marbled or vermiculated plummage we forfeit a glimpse of living canvases, cascades of carefully toned browns and golds that would shame Kandinsky, misty explosions of color to rival Monet? I believe that we do. I believe that in approaching our subject with the sensibilities of statisticians and dissectionists, we distance ourselves increasingly from the marvelous and spell-binding planet of imagination whose gravity drew us to our studies in the first place.

This is not to say that we should cease to establish facts and to verify our information, but merely to suggest that unless those facts can be imbued with the flash of poetic insight then they remain dull gems; semi-precious stones scarcely worth the collecting."

Watchmen by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons

Watchmen is truly inspiring.

The Sorrow of Love

The Sorrow of Love
by William Butler Yeats (1865 - 1939)

The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.



Chilly. night. cold. :(

Beneath the skyyyyyy

headboppin to the pixies
in the middle of the night
They got a ranch They call number-51
Beneath the Skyyyyyyyy
Beneath the Skyyyyyyyyyyy
i empty my head bring me to sleep what happens when i sleep
Ed Ed is Dead Ed is Dead Ed Ed Dead ED IS DEAD
Wave of Mutilation Wave of Mutilation Wave eh eh hey hey
You can LEVITATE ME Elevate elevate elevate LEVITATE ME
HEY!!! must be a devil between us Or whores in my head Whores at my door Whores in my bed We're chained chained CHAINED
Got me a movie I want you to know Slicing up eyeballs DEBASER
makes me happy we have music

To the girl with a BIG BIG heart. You know who you are. Hang in there, kidd. Take Life by the horns.

Heidenroslein (Rose on the Heath) - Schubert

Watched the Taiwanese movie Cape No. 7 海角七號 some time ago. In it was an interlude played in a couple of scenes. One of which was that of an old man whistling a tune while riding his bicycle from screen right to left. It harked back a scene from Akira Kurosawa's movie Rhapsody in August. This time an old woman was braving a storm with her wrecked umbrella, the same screen right to left. The same tune/music was playing in the background.

I've been meaning to find out who made the music and what it was about. There you have it. :) Schubert's Heidenroslein (Rose on the Heath) There were Japanese and Chinese (野玫瑰) versions of it. Both Franz Schubert and Hans Werner Henze wrote a song based on a J. W. Goethe's poem. Here's the story of the song-

1)A boy saw a rose growing,
a little rose on the heath;
it was so young and lovely as the morning:
quickly he ran to see it from near,
and with much delight he saw it.
Rose, rose, little red rose,
little rose on the heath.

2)Said the boy: I shall pick you,
little rose on the heath!
Said the rose: I shall prick you,
so that you shall never forget me;
I won't let you do it!
Rose, rose, little red rose,
little rose on the heath.

3)And the rough boy picked
the little rose on the heath;
the rose defended herself and pricked,
but her cries and sighs were in vain,
she just had to let it happen.
Rose, rose, little red rose,
little rose on the heath.

Thanks to youtube.

2009

Dum dee dee dum. As far as new year's resolutions go, I have maybe one -

To try to eat breakfast every day of this new year.