monoceros blogsMy father has bought himself a new fountain pen, the Franz Kafka pen from the Mont Blanc writer's series. Its body is dark red (bearing an uncanny resemblance to blood) and its finishings, silver. Here's my favorite bit - a small cockroach with every detail realistically carved onto the silver nib.
To accompany the new pen are several bottles of ink from a company called Private Reserve Ink. Over the past few days, he's been trying out a shade, Naples Blue, with the Kafka pen, scribbling on recycled paper and leaving them by the computer. Today, as I waited for a printout of a style sheet for my editorial work, I read some of those scribbles.
On one sheet, he'd been writing out verses from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood." Years ago, my father gave me a Penguin book of William Wordsworth poems, and I remember how he pointed out a favorite verse of his, the same that Natalie Wood recited in the film, Splendor in the Grass. Say what you will of it, but it was one of the saddest films I watched as a teenager. (Later, when I watched Sylvia Chang's Tempting Heart, I thought it reminded me very much of Splendor in the Grass.)
"What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind."
And here is my favorite verse, which comes after my father's.
"And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o'er man's immortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."
~ William Wordsworth
"Don't Wait Up" by Colin Hay
Don?t wait up
For her tonight
Coz she won?t be coming home
Don?t wake up
Till it gets light
And by then she?ll be long gone
Her restless heart
Has set its sail
She can feel the waves washing over
She knows what life
With you entails
Love her strength, you despise your weakness
Don?t wait up
For her tonight
Coz she won?t be calling home
Don?t wake up
Till it gets light
The dogs are scratching at the door
Your jealous heart
Has won the day
You can feel the darkness creeping over
She paid the man
And sailed away
Leaving you your incompleteness
I actually did some re-reading (not that I don't already have six dozen and one unread books I need to get to) over the past few weeks. Seeing as how I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time halfway two summers ago and had to leave it behind in Singapore to go back to school, I thought I would start over and enjoy it thorougly. And I did. Perhaps my present emotions are making it incredibly easy to slip into the book, imagining what it's like to be autistic Christopher and then each of his torn-up parents. I love the logic puzzles and the explanations about the human mind, but some of my most favorite ones are the passages about the Milky Way and the Blue Planet videos. Despite a love - or obsession - for his immediate world to be orderly and unsurprising, Christopher has a vast imagination of the universe and the earth as a planet.
He reminds me very much of another protagonist but I'll get to him later. The other book I re-read is The Instance of the Fingerpost. A friend brought it up and I decided it'd been too long since I last read it. It's certainly one to experience. A real classic. It deserves every comparison to Umberto Eco's In the Name of the Rose that it receives, but is also a splendid book in its own right. I felt inspired, comforted, refreshed by the end of the book. The novel has an unexpected ending, but more unexpected (and even on the second read, I'm taken by surprise) is how moved you are by the protagonist's epiphany. Sure it's just a book - or a book using historical characters in a plot that has politics, science, philosophy, betrayal, murder, and lust - but still, it has such a profound revelation at the end that you can't help but wonder at the miracles that have happened, that do happen, and will again one day.
Another book that got me all emotional at the end is The Highest Tide, the very one with the observant protagonist who would have liked Christopher Boone of Night-time. The writing is...well, I'm still reeling from the glorious images of the ocean that Jim Lynch put in my head with his prose. It made the ocean come alive for me, filled me with more wonder than I've had in a long time.
Miles O'Malley, the protagonist, lives right by the mudflats of Puget Sound, and because he cares enough to pay attention, he finds wonderful things like a dying giant squid, a ragfish, geoducks, sea cucumbers, and glowing, mating worms. And because he reads plenty, he knows these creatures well enough to perform the cheeky but harmless art of revenge of placing a sea cucumber in his friend's arms so that it vomits its internal organs onto the poor fellow's head. Change is rife in Miles' life. He's on the brink of a growth spurt, he's in love with his former babysitter and wonders if she'll ever feel the same way, and he's witnessing the crumbling of his parents' marriage. How do you know he wants his parents to stay together? After his parents realize how gifted he is, they want to reward him, but Miles asks only for them to stay together, even though in his boyish heart, he's always longed for a dog.
Miles is a huge fan of Rachel Carson, and after reading the passages that he quotes, I've become one too. Carson describes the oceans and its life in the language of a poet's dream. And as Miles says, she sums up "the entire history and role of the ocean in two sentences: 'In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life and receives in the end, after, it may be, many transmutations, the dead husks of that same life. For all at last return to the sea - to Oceanus, the ocean river, like the ever-flowing stream of time, the beginning and the end.' "
More bodies of water, this time a lagoon and many, many canals. Venice in a strange mythical setting. The Water Mirror is targeted at teenagers, but like other successful trilogies such as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, many adults are increasingly attracted to Kai Meyer's work. The Water Mirror is the first book, a slim one, in a trilogy. Nothing is revealed or explained yet, you have to wait for the next two books (the second arrives in October this year). I read it in one sitting, thrilled to the bone by what I read and imagined. It's nothing like what I've read before. It's evocative, it's mysterious, it's deliciously dark, it doesn't shy away from the grotesque (reminding me vaguely of the the computer game, "American McGee's Alice", in which a children's story becomes warped and sinister and extremely enticing).
And now, I've just begun reading Vengeance, the book on which Steven Spielberg's Munich is based. Sometimes you wonder at the violence in the world, how it's so easily sparked by comments or cartoons, how the violence harkens to the story of two half-brothers who were divided and how their descendants are still raging against each other centuries later. It sure makes your problems stand around like miniscule stick figures twiddling their even more miniscule stick thumbs nervously. But every story and every conflict is vast to the one who writes and experiences it. To anyone else, taking the train from a small town to London may be a piece of cake, but for autistic Christopher Boone who makes that journey to find the mother he thought dead, it's as epic and life-changing as an odyssey to Ithaca. I'm just glad I get to follow them all and see these other worlds and maybe learn a thing or two along the way.
It's so clear tonight that I stood in the garden looking at the stars for a few minutes. Orion's Belt. Check. Little cluster of stars. Check. Large stand-alone stars. Check. (I don't have a whole lot of background in astronomy.)
This was quite a contrast to last evening's entertainment. Yes, I attended my first rock concert. Franz Ferdinand at the Indoor Stadium. Mogan had complimentary free-standing tickets, and since his girlfriend is back in Germany for a while, I was the backup date. We had some adequate fried rice for dinner and then cold sake to get us buzzed for the concert. I downed quite a few until I was red in the face and neck.
We were a little late getting in and had to push our way to somewhere near the left speakers. They were huge speakers with the bass booming so loudly I would have been blown away had it not been for the billion bodies that rocked and shook violently beside me, so close that I couldn't tell whose sweat it was on my bare arms. It's hard not to be sucked into the music. Those wicked rhythms. There was a fair amount of headbanging and beating the air and shaking fists above the heads. I mean me, of course. Yeah, I had a good time. And the crowd was literally hopping mad.
It was a brief concert. Just a couple of hours, but there were good moments. Like when three of the guys (I couldn't really see who was who; most of the view was obscured by persons taller than me, which was nearly everyone around) started playing on the same drumset. And then there was a minute when a shirtless white guy got lifted or had his friends lift him so that he rode above the crowd not too far from me. I was taken by the band's genuine happiness at being in Singapore. They even invited all of us to an informal after-concert party at the foyer of the Hotel Intercontinental. "Bring food," Alex Kapranos said. And if we had any problems getting in, we were to look for the general manager, who was now a pal of Alex's.
Mogan and I had our left ears facing the speakers, which resulted in our being hard of hearing on that side. Mogan said he felt a little wounded by the blast from the speakers. My ears did hurt during the concert but after that, it felt more like someone had stuffed cotton wool - loads of it - deep inside. We decided to bow out and let the youngsters have all the fun at the party.
On our way out, I watched teenagers - Asian, Caucasian, South Asian - whip their drenched locks with the fury (or glee) of wet dogs. A few sets of parents had accompanied their children. A few guys looked like they'd probably been around long enough to have attended a few Rolling Stones concerts back in the day. I felt a little old myself, especially during the performance when I got into the whole hopping thing for a few seconds and then my knees started hurting.
We decided to wait for the traffic to clear, taking a walk to Kallang Bridge and airing our ears out. It seemed the after-concert party had already begun at the back of the Indoor Stadium where screaming youths had waylaid the band and demanded autographs.
Later, we had more drinks at Blooie's, a laidback, airy bar very near my home. I slept quite soundly after that. It isn't too hard when your ears are temporarily out of order.
I miss Scrubs. I really do. Season 5 is showing in the US right now. The only thing I can do to satisfy the craving is re-watch old episodes. Oh, and listen incessantly to my "Scrubs" playlist and read episode guides on the latest episodes.
I've had the two DVD boxsets on my wishlist (on two separate websites) for the longest time (even though I have most of the episodes, courtesy of noob). I'm not sure what's stopping me. I love the writing, the acting, the fact that it stands apart from all other comedies, those with the laugh tracks, the live audiences and multiple cameras.
I also love the music (which explains the playlist; again, courtesy of noob). Colin Hay, the Cary Brothers, Keren DeBerg, Josh Radin. So I was checking out this week's free downloads on Itunes when I spot a new release by Mr Radin, his first full-length CD (incidentally, another Scrubs musician - Shawn Mullins - has an album out too). I sample all 11 tracks and wonder how I should get the music. I could buy it off his official site (I want an actucal CD!) or Itunes. I could wait and see if it will reach Singapore. I could wait for noob to get hold of it and then pester him for a music dump the next time I'm in Ann Arbor. I could buy it off Itunes. Yeah, I guess I could.
He has a blog too, which I could read as I listen to his new music. That would be nice.
Here are lyrics to the favorite track, which played at the right moment on a particular episode of Scrubs.
"Winter"
I should know who I am by now,
I walk the record stand somehow,
Thinking of winter
Your name is the splinter inside me
While I wait.
And I remember the sound
Of your November downtown,
And I remember the truth,
A warm December with you,
But I don't have to make this mistake,
And I don't have to stay this way
If only I would wake.
The walk has all been cleared by now.
Your voice is all I hear somehow
Calling out winter
Your voice is the splinter inside me
While I wait.
I could have lost myself
In rough blue waters in your eyes,
And I miss you still.
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~ by Robert Frost
Of all the poems I memorized - be it for school or just for fun - this is the one that sticks. One of Frost's shortest works and one of the dearest to me. A friend sent it to me years ago and I later recited it at camp in New Hampshire. The poem brings something new every time I recall it.
The family dog loves bedsheets. She loves it when I throw them over her, that is, she loves playing hide and seek by herself beneath the cover of darkness. She also enjoys being tucked in with one paw over her blanket. She doesn't like to be photographed while falling asleep though and will stare with her big button eyes until I go away.
I save as many poems from The Writer's Almanac as I do postcards from Postsecret. No, the poems actually outnumber the postcards - I've been collecting them all my life. From the rhymes and songs my mother taught me to the metaphysical poems I read at junior college to the anthologies my father gave me. And even the bad ones I confess to writing.
This one is about music.
"Sonnet" by Elizabeth Bishop (Today's featured poem from The Writer's Almanac)
I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling finger-tips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.
There's beauty yet in this world. Sometimes it's right in front of us that we miss it altogether, and sometimes it's so far we need a telescope to bring it closer. Aren't we lucky?
Courtesy of the Hubble Telescope.
Today began a little poorly, a slight hiccup in certain expectations. But never mind, the day got better. I had a nice lunch with DSD, as in nice conversation but not so nice food. I should have ordered what she did, the rosemary chicken and herb rice instead of poached fish with papaya sauce. I now know that I must never doubt DSD's culinary opinion.
Later, I went to Scotts Road and got a little retail therapy (some small silly things, which happen to include a minute panda). Then I dropped by Borders even though I had no plans to buy anything (what's a trip to town without entering the bookstore?) and it was nice to walk around the store without being jostled by six dozen customers. I was about to leave and head towards Tangs to meet my mom and her friend visiting from Toronto when I felt a punch on my arm. It was my own good friend, one whom I hadn't seen in nearly two years.
Mogan and I have the kind of friendship that withstands these lapses. We always pick up where we left off with no awkwardness, no accusations, no wishywashy talk. Several years ago when I noticed how a few friends had grown distant and eventually disappeared, I told him I hoped we would be friends for a very long time, for always, I said. And he, good fellow that he is, didn't laugh; he saw how serious I was and he told me I need never worry where he was concerned. Later, he was emcee at my wedding, and he and my brother rehearsed till they got the song "She" in place as the surprise entrance song. I also remember how he'd single-handedly taught me two years of Math in a few weeks so that I got my A at "A" Levels (how bad was I? I had 19% on a re-exam in year 1.)
We went to Wine Network on Dempsey Road where we tossed tradition out the window and had dessert wine at four in the afternoon. It was a sweet 1997 German ice-wine and we had a cheese platter (no blue cheese, thank you very much) to go with it. We talked till the sun set and then I walked by myself around the old warehouses, staring into the darkening sky. I loved those quiet corners and I thrilled at the emptiness of the long, low buildings. I walked alone because I wanted Mogan to write something in a book he bought me as a isn't-it-great-we-saw-each-other-after-so-long present.
I'd picked out the book at Borders that afternoon, something by Jane Smiley. It's called 13 Ways of Looking at a Novel, the title wittily fashioned after the poem "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" by Wallace Stevens (a staple in college poetry anthologies).
After Mogan's inscription came the epigraph Jane selected for the book, which I hadn't noticed earlier. I'd like to put it here because I think it's terrific.
"We are not told of things that happened to specific people exactly as they happened; but the beginning is when there are good things and bad things, things that happen in this life which one never tires of seeing and hearing about, things which one cannot bear not to tell of and must pass on for all generations. If the storyteller wishes to speak well, then he chooses the good things; and if he wishes to hold the reader's attention he chooses bad things, extraordinarily bad things. Good things and bad things alike, they are the things of this world and no other."
~ Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji
And this is how the day ends: I collapsed in bed - very buzzed - opened my book to those words, and then let the wine do its work. I managed to wake up a little past eleven o'clock to wash my face and brush my teeth, and to write this.
On what could be one of the worst days so far, I picked up a few peculiar details around me -
1. I received a bouquet today and there were small white feathers stuck to the edges of the red tissue paper. Do florists deliver feathered creatures as well?
2. Midway through the trailer for this year's teen chick flick - Aquamarine - I caught sight of a Giordano shopping bag. I didn't know Giordano had arrived in America.
3. The six-inch Victoria figure from McFarlane's Corpse Bride line has lopsided pupils. In the official photo, she looks slightly cross-eyed. On my desk, one eye is going upwards and the other is gazing straight at me.
4. Last summer, while Noob and I waited for his friend to finish shopping in an Ann Taylor store in Chicago, a mannequin fell over in front of us. Noob fished the finger off the floor to show me and I knew immediately I wanted to keep it, so it now sits on my desk, next to a small music box bedpan. For someone who doesn't eat ladyfingers, I have a bizarre desire of keeping the inedible sort on display.
There aren't easy answers to many things in this world. Sometimes I love life because of that, sometimes I don't. For instance, I love wondering why giant squids need such large eyes, the largest of any creature on earth (the size of dinner plates, if one must know). In a book I read once, a character said maybe it's because it's so dark down where they live in the ocean. And yet I don't like thinking about why people change or hurt each other even though they may not want to, even though they don't know why. Well, I do think about it but I seldom find the answers. I remember a professor who told me that you begin a story with a question, and you set out to answer the question but you don't have to pin down the answer. It's okay if you can't; but it's important that you try to. The story, the journey - every journey - lies in the search.
I enjoyed the soundtrack of Motorcycle Diaries very much and was delighted when I learned the composer/guitarist, Gustavo Santaolalla, planned to work on a quite-little-but-look-where-it's-gotten project called Brokeback Mountain. His music tends to be Argentine-influenced, the guitarwork is always amazing, and the melodies very much enhance and even define the scene it was written for. And yes, the score for Brokeback Mountain got nominated for an Academy Award, but why isn't "A Love That Will Never Grow Old" by Emmylou Harris up for Original Song? Or "I Don't Want To Say Goodbye" by Teddy Thompson? Those songs made a lot of people cry.
Another recent work of Santaolalla's is 21 Grams, a film I didn't watch though I did catch bits of the OST. It's considerably more haunting and darker than Santaolalla's other scores but what surprised me were the titles of the tracks on the album. They're arresting, to put it simply, all very large and pregnant sort of questions. Here they are:
1. Do We Lose 21 Grams?
2. Can Things Be Better?
3. Did This Really Happen?
5. Should I Let Her Know?
6. Can Emptiness Be Filled?
8. Can I Be Forgiven?
10. Is There A Way To Help Her?
11. Does He Who Looks For The Truth, Deserve The Punishment For Finding It?
12. You're Losing Me
13. Can Dry Leaves Help Us?
14. Can We Mix The Unmixable? (Remix)
15. Can Light Be Found In The Darkness?
16. When Our Wings Are Cut, Can We Still Fly?
The last track is performed by the brilliant Kronos Quartet.
