Wish You Were Here

Dark Side of the Moon, the album which I was forced to listen when I was just three or four years old, for my brother used to scare me by the heartbeat sound and the strange man laughing therein. This was a Japanese Release with the chinese words "狂氣" on the side note of the vinyl. As a kid of course i feel so nervous of the band I thought was called 狂氣. When I grew up, this scary album becomes one of my all time favourite (and i will never return this vinyl to the owner cos' i believe it must be worth a bit now).

Dark Side of the Moon Tour, probably the event once in a lifetime. It doesn't matter if you call it a Pink Floyd live or just Roger Waters. It's the music that matters. But if you have to compare the Pink Floyd led by Gilmour minus Waters and the Pink Floyd with only Waters, (I actually shouldn't make the comparison cos' I only saw the former in the Pulse) I feel the performance of the latter is more poignant and direct. It's stunning to feel/watch the whole set of Dark Side of the Moon, but my favourite moment was Shine On You Crazy Diamond - the emotion was actually too much to bear when you heard the lyrics with the image of Syd Barrett. Of course the set of The Wall was impressively nihilistic. From teenagers to some 50 something middle age group, all shouted that you-know-what anti-establishment slogan. It's almost ecstatic and euphoric. As a human we all love to rebel and destroy.


The pig does fly - 你可以重寫歷史,但不能改變它


"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way" oh yeah, that's why I think I'm quite English


There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark.


The child is grown, The dream is gone.


Roger, an old man now


you painter, you piper, you prisoner


Requiem for syd

My own Proust's experience

Like a lightning in the dark, memories always catch you in a most
unprepared way, skip before you grasp. That is why people honoured memories as Ghosts, it's not you found them, it's they who caught and haunted you.

I walked to the pier humming that tune again, felt so frustrated as I couldn't remember the name. The only thing I know is that I used to love the song. Frustration symptoms lasted for a few days when I walked passed the pier until the ghost revealed itself. The song was called Love Letters. (phew, i don't believe i fall for that sin of banality, so it's definitely not the spell/curse of February 14). Rushed back to home to dig out the soundtrack of Blue Velvet.

A few notes of music bring the overwhelming impression of the past. I was shocked I forgot how pretty Isabella Roasellini and Kyle MacLachlan were, I was shocked I forgot the beauty of the film, violence blend with tenderness (typical David Lynch), I was shocked the film was released in 1986. Maybe I just feel a bit melancholic for the time passed.

In 1986, where were you? what were you doing? I was too young to go to see this category III film in cinema, but I was definitely shaped by abundant abnormal aesthetics.

give me more MAdnEss

sO eNougH meDIA hYpe for KLAXONS. bUT i must say HOw i adore their offical dEbTe album. "*** MyThS*** is SITTing On The BIG chAIr aT NumBEr ///////// O.N.E" it's not R,i,D,i,C,u.l.O,u.s at all. t
urn the volume to the maximum, finding tranquility in the sheer frenzy


klaxons - Myths of the Near Future

Busy without cause

Isn't that we call it 無事忙? My chinese is so bad that I may misunderstand the true meaning.

Busy for family issue, i'm not going to let all to see the wounds here but i do feel tired and sometimes disgusting, i want to disappear in somewhere unknown (but then i will be very irresponsible, u know, blood is fucking thicker than water so and so).

I was thinking about money recently. I am the person who is indifferent to it (am I being pretentious or ignorant to the fact) anyway that's what I think what I am but my stand was being challenged and ...

Yes, I am looking for a new job with better pay. Actually I do not know what is the standard "price" for a lawyer. "Your request is too low, you can request the double of your salary" haha, is it true or what? That's come from one of those big corporation... but i really do not like their attitude of "make your office as your battlefield everyday". used to be lazy and mediocre, I think I should be content with living in poverty while being lazy.

Routine work:
It's not a bad job(?), i think some people may even love my job, if you are a canton-pop lover. Licensee meeting, greetings and awards-giving, the chick of my department kept urging me to take photos of justin and leon koo, phew~ I'd rather shooting the cute birds.


Girl J(2)


Girl J(1)


Girl F


Band Z (let's clap for Vocals Chou for his having a red tonic, actually feel shit about it - no! I believe I'm the first to have it in Hong Kong, i've never wore it, now everyone have it, i know i'm idiotic to think this way)

Angels

They were so sweet.


J'aime ce bebe.

Picnic by the motorway, not

Taking the de botton's lesson again in the time of broke, let's go to the lavender garden near my home!

Well my home is actually very close to the border, I think it only takes about 30 minutes to Shenzhen, much closer than my office in Central. Anyone who knows me well must feel sad for me - for I've got a serious phobia for the middle kingdom (ok no political talk here). Don't feel bad for me, cos' the proximity to the border has no relation to the "feel" of this place. Comparatively speaking, it is one of the sparsely populated area in Hong Kong, which i feel so great as an autistic person. With assistance of a little bit imagination, I have a little tour to the lavender field in Hokkaido or even Provence (Paranoia!)


something looked like lavender


a bee drowned in the flower


idling all the day, so u want to be a cat or a human being?

Fitter, healthier and more ...

First post of 2007. I wish everyone safe and minted.

New year resolution. Why do we have to think about it in every January?

Learn a foreign language, read more books, change the job .... the list goes on. That reminds me of the plan for summer holidays when I was very young (and only at that age I tried to be good and pleasant). I used to draw up plans for my summer holidays and thought that I could finish all homework within the first week and then go fulfilling the plan (and the plan was, like others' new year resolution - learn swimming, learn a foreign language, practise drawing and calligraphy (ha, it's true, I once wrote down drawing and writing in my plan, hopeless)...). Well, plan was made just to show how it fell through. Every summer holidays, I just idled away and could only finish the homework at the last day of the holidays. I hate to plan now. It just strengthens the sense of failure. So, look at my New Year's Resolution of 2006, I couldn't achieve any, that's no surprise.

I decide to make the easier ones (or I should say the ones that please me most):

1. Drink more.
2. Take more _________.
3. Go to A again. (2 & 3 maybe corelated)

Look back in anger

2006, what a year! With disgust and a strong urge to escape.
Let me plagiarise some words from one of my favourite bloggers in his douban, "there is nothing worse than death, except to live". I feel it at heart.
To live, is to fulfil your obligations, or
in fact, living (survival/mere existence) is your primary obligation, albeit if there is any aim or meaning to it. I don't feel suicidal, any talk of suicide is old-fashioned and cliche nowadays. Asphyxiated? definitely. "Man was born free but was everywhere in chain". who said this? Rousseau or Voltaire? That is what I learnt in my a-level History class, I think it's true.

Well, i just want to write down my most favourite cds in 2006, but turn to be a paragraph of grumbling.

1. Funfairs & Heartbreak - Special Needs
This posthumous album of the Needs is what I need this year. A bunch of perfect pop songs, blue skies and winter gardens - that what makes me carry on, still humming "I'm not afraid, to fall and fall, I asked no miracles, at the curtain call".

2. I Killed the Zeitgeist - Nicky Wire
I maybe the only person who ranks this album so high. Misanthropist and withdrawn, this is Nicky, or this is me? "Do you know you could die from a broken heart?"

3. The Eraser - Thom Yorke
Another misanthropist and withdrawn person, so? thom yorke is always like my soulmate, knows exactly what i feel. "And this is fucked up, fucked up, this your blind spot, blind spot, it should be obvious, but it's not."

4. First Impressions of Earth - The Strokes
The first dark album i got from 2006, still lingers on my player.

5. Waterloo to Anywhere - Dirty Pretty Things
I actually do not know if I think this album is that good to be my no.5, but for my personal preference for mr barat... though he always remains his gentleman's silence, i think mr. barat is quite bitchy is this album, maybe that's the reason I love it.

6. The Freedom Spark - Larrikin Love
Don't need to say much about this album, the title speaks it all. Think all the caged soul like me love this album dearly. "It's time we told the story of how the soul grows old, and how a young boy grows up in a world that's cold".

7. The Great Western - James Dean Bradfield
Yes, I love James, everyone knows.

8. We Are the Pipettes - The Pipettes
They are hyped up, untalented, dress in ridiculous polka dot...but they are fabulous. This album is kind of illumination to my boring life, how i danced in my mind when i was just jam-packed in the train and listened to Pull Shape.

9. The Secret of the Loveninjas - Loveninjas
I must have missed so much good stuff for the swedish pop music. Actually I love their EPs more, but this album is not bad, sweet and pop, thanks to Labrador.

10. Jarvis - Jarvis Cocker or
Ringleader of The Tormentors - Morrissey
Oh I can't decide.

If Bumfest sessions of Babyshambles is an official release album, of course it must be at a very top ranking... and if The Blinding is not an ep, maybe i will place it somewhere within my top 10, but.. I really hate to listen the new I Love You But You're Green.

Death of Internet

Almost the death of me, mentally
Life becomes
Void and empty
Or that is what life is.

That suddenly reminds me of the film matrix, life seems so normal and fulfilled inside the matrix, but of course the fact is just opposite.

Christmas thought

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

Take me by the hand now, Waterloo to anywhere

So where the story begins
or in fact there's no beginning and no end

should i take you back to paddington

Paddington revisited, my dorm


The little garden below

or to the eternal garden of delight


112a Teedale Street, London

Take the train! Follow my own gypsie lane
this is the land where the noble spirits rest
though bleak and blizzard,
with the language I can hardly communicate
i am asking "if i can stay"

well, I was lost in this vanity and liberty


It's so bleak, so pretty


Any fool believes that love can be found at Pont-Neuf?


Lamps in front of musee du louvre


Art or luxury? musee d'orsay


I'm trying to copy a photomaster's masterpiece, with low quality


Metro Abbesses


Spining heavyhorse


I reckon these are the most romantic stairs in the world, yes, I wanted to slide down the banister if I was not that clumsy


Thousand steps for the deliverance, basilique du sacre coeur


It's so blinding


Beautiful Montmartre


That's the beginning, that's the end, anywhere in Albion

Two men, one soul

Are you still shaking out all dead wood from your bed
Live @ Brixton, London 4 December 2006

This was my third time this year to watch Dirty Pretty Things, how time and space matches each other, and of course I do like this band. Brixton was not a good venue, maybe I never like any big one. Wince not, I was compensated by the choice of songs. Glad to hear One To My Left, my most favourite b-side of dpt at the moment, and the unforgetable The Good Old Days (yes how can we forget the good old days). Gin & Milk was played extremely fast and smooth (and that's the best version I've ever heard). Lighting ciggies for Stan, you know mr barat has shaken out his dead wood, he with Stan are a perfect couple now. My only complaint (besides the venue) was, Carl didn't take off his clothes! Isn't all dpt gig a saucy indie boys strip show??! No, no disrespect here, but I must admit my liking for seeing mr. barat's naked body (albeit a bit chubby now).


That white strap looks like a bra strap

Now the wood is all dead, but you still smile like a child
Live @ Apollo Theatre, London 7 December 2006

"What's it really like now it's been a long long time since I've step outside .." Yes, it was indeed such a long time since I last saw Babyshambles. The history of mr doherty did discourage me to make any overseas booking. Call it a summons or spell (or curse), I took the risk. In fact the decision to go to uk again was all because of Babyshambles. I really miss this band (or the person to be exactly). Hate to see all tabloid news of Peter (it was a bit crazy, for my short stay in uk, I could find his news everyday in such tabloid), hate to meet all idiotic fans just love this tacky cliche of sex-drug-rockn'roll-oh-it's-so-cool, it all belittles this band and this man. My belief proves true, my loyalty pays off. Babyshambles was absolutely brilliant, yeah, they could be messy and shambolic (and it's no stranger to me, or even go absence), but when they show their true colour, all you feel is joy and bathing in the arcadian bliss (can anyone feel that i am going to be oblivious and insane now, i can't stop praising them). I am not exaggerated to say that when I saw their gig, I couldn't stop to think how their lyrics "So here comes the delivery, straight from the heart of misery" was so true and appropriate. Sorry I couldn't remember exactly the setlists, but the highlight (for me) was (it's all so predictable) sedative, you talk, fuck forever, what katie did, albion and of course time for heroes.


Great, there was only one song with The General

Sometimes I feel so strange that no matter how shambolic and druggy Babyshambles are, I still feel the joy, angelic and the childish care-free of their music, just like no matter how decent and gentle Dirty Pretty Things are (don't say clean, they are not), I still feel the demons, frustration and heaviness of their music. Two sides of the arcady.

Here I fucking go .... the albionsolution

"let's call it a day" I told myself
but my soul was caught again
in the most unprepared way
think it's the last
but back to the start

I messed my head

The more that you follow me
The more I get lost
You think that you know me
You're pissing me off
You said that you love me
why don't you fuck off?
You think that you own me
You're ripping me off

Enivrez-Vous

That is one of my most favourite poems. I feel so ecstatic to hear it recited by you.

Il faut être toujours ivre.
Tout est là:
c'est l'unique question.
Pour ne pas sentir
l'horrible fardeau du Temps
qui brise vos épaules
et vous penche vers la terre,
il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.
Mais de quoi?
De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu, à votre guise.
Mais enivrez-vous.
Et si quelquefois,
sur les marches d'un palais,
sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé,
dans la solitude morne de votre chambre,
vous vous réveillez,
l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue,
demandez au vent,
à la vague,
à l'étoile,
à l'oiseau,
à l'horloge,
à tout ce qui fuit,
à tout ce qui gémit,
à tout ce qui roule,
à tout ce qui chante,
à tout ce qui parle,
demandez quelle heure il est;
et le vent,
la vague,
l'étoile,
l'oiseau,
l'horloge,
vous répondront:
"Il est l'heure de s'enivrer!
Pour n'être pas les esclaves martyrisés du Temps,
enivrez-vous;
enivrez-vous sans cesse!
De vin, de poésie ou de vertu, à votre guise."

-- Charles Baudelaire

There are many translated version. Not many of them are satisfying. I like the below version (with some of my amendments):

Always be drunk.
That's it:
That the only question!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid burden
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, as you like.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, as you like.

The Lust of the Libertine

The Lust of the Libertine
Is really quite lame.



Lustful, promiscuous and intoxicated, that is all I suppose what a libertine is. Poetic, talented and bohemian, the A Must quality for a libertine. John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, is the second-rate libertine in the film. Lustful, promiscuous and intoxicated he was, I wouldn't blame him for that. To be a libertine, we all expect he/she a bit irresponsible and hedonistic, but that's because he/she yearns for the lust for life (mind you, i mean the lust for life, not the lust of life), to explore the deepest sensation, experience every passion - to get the most feeling of your life. The film did not quite manage to portray the Earl as the libertine in my mind. (P.S. of course this is not the fault of Mr Depp, he is always brilliant and charming)

Going zen

Insen.

Absolutely beautiful. It was a dialogue between electronica and piano. Stealing the words of the Programme, it was an articulation of opposites - digital against acoustic. It was strange that the cold, digital electronica of alva noto blended so well with the elegant piano of Sakamoto, sort of chemical harmony. Yes, I emphasise the word "chemical". With the visual arrangement, this was a transcendent moment to a shimmering horizon. I was wandering between a peaceful dream and the feeling of dazed and confused. Relaxed with moments of suffocation. One more evidence of the fact that, music is drug.


Mr Ryuichi Sakamoto is still very charming!!

賣笑大會

一年一度的賣笑大會又 - 開show!　對吾等年老版本隱蔽青年，社交應酬實在是一大苦差，回想去年初到貴境，對此等差事感到超及helpless, 今年本人也不見得有什麼改變／善，只希望擁有隱者隱身法。在大堂做迎賓還算不錯，起碼清楚知道自己要做什麼（帶嘉賓領取名牌）及可以和其他同事一起。之後的cocktail及dinner時間才是真正難頂記所在，要自己一個surrounded by groups of strangers,不要期望我會參與無聊不停地派name card的遊戲。因撞正大台台慶採排，本不期待有什麼好睇頭，哈有醫神又不錯，一向喜愛神神化化的他。對歌神之子本沒有什麼期望，但因當時太過沉悶，他（懶）rock的歌又幾好，更可能同坐的上等人掩耳狀甚痛苦，更令本人覺得愉快，希望歌神子整多幾吓distortion,哈哈。

不知不覺又悶完，又一年過去，不知未來我還會寫多少篇類似怨言文，我要催眠自己，I'm in it for the money, sucking corporate rock (but the sad fact is, the money is so little)

Charlie is my friend

有無人試過因被人狂摔至死?
又或因極度沉悶而至死?

Of course that person probably is me. Whinge and wince, the thing I told myself not to do, that's the privilege of youth.

Stumbled around other blogs, I found this out:



Hey, I don't have the real thing, can I have the fake?

Very entertaining indeed

The performance of Maywa Denki was better than my expectation. Actually I didn't know much about them, just my cousin kept telling me that she got some great seats with discounted price, ok, gave it a try. Just like what the supervisor(社長)said, Maywa Denki was a famous japanese brand like that of sony, panasonic and "micosoft". All their music was played by their electronic "products" which were very dangerous with 100 voltage of electricity. Of course that was only the gag. Nevermind if the music was good or not, it was very entertaining and funny. I felt like I have not had such belly laugh for a long time. I really appreciate the creativity as well as the business talent of Japanese. Very often, people are either creative but fail in the commercial world, or they earn a lot as the business genius but got no creative mind. Maywa Denki seems to manage both. I look at their little gadgets and toys, it's hard not to buy them (if I see them selling in the market).


Knock Man Family

This part was very funny (if you're a japanese animation fan like me):
1980's : 機動戰士
1990's : 新世紀福音戰士
2000's :



後記: owing to this Maywa Denki, met ppp again, nice meeting!!

Shop Shock

I don't know if the shop called "Beat"(節拍) at the old Hollywood Plaza in Mongkok still exists or not (cos I seldom hang around Mongkok now). Anyone who is above N years old would know the horrid experience of shopping in this shop. There was an old woman pushing you out of the shop, saying that you were not a likely customer and shouldn't stay in the shop. I recall this experience cos the shop ________ is exactly the same. I'm fortunate enough to be approved and regarded as the real customer so that's not my experience. I'm just an onlooker to the those poor innocent boys/real guilty "unqualified" who were rejected to enter the shop. That is the principle of owner - to sell the product to the real music lover. Some may not agree with the owner's idea, anyway. I was asked to write something about it (of course the positive opinion). My friend exclaimed, "so you're going to praise this crazy policy?" It doesn't matter cos Sagittarian likes to bullshit around (no, i mean to make everyone happy). I will not write the propaganda stuff here. Just to show some of the product of the shop. They are quite impressive, so maybe you have to take the risk (of being rejected ^0^).

Bowie

New Order & Unknown Pleasure

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Derek Jarman's Jubilee

Marr & Morrissey, Big Mouth Strikes Again

Metal Mickey

Blondie

Vivien Westwood's gay cowboys (once was worn by Johnny Rotten)
I have never worn this Tee out. I can't wear it, my mum will jump around and scold me for buying this Tee.

When the MV is far better than the song

Crap song but ... one of the indie boys is so cute, definitely deserves a play (... I mean to play the MV)


Indie Boys Don't Deserve It - QoN

Review of being a crap tour guide

In addition to all the passion and frustration, imagination and association, elation and depression, what does music bring to you? An empty purse? Stacks of cds and vinyls which your matchbox home is no longer able to contain? All is true to me. By the way, it gives me a bunch of friends who I would have never known but for my love of particular music/band/sound. I met some of them through internet or gigs, some still keep in touch, some are lost. I catagoise them according to the name of band like "my suede friends", "my manics friends", "my libertines friends" and so on. R and A are my suede friends from the Netherlands. I came to know them 10+ years ago (gosh, disclose my age) through the website of R (and A is his girlfriend). Of course that was the heyday of suede. My first visit to R & A in amsterdam was a disaster cos' I could hardly communicate under the influence of whatsoever. Those were the days. We are somewhat sober, older (sadly) and wiser (hopefully). R & A are now professionals flying around to attend conference (shit, I'm still fucking around) and that's why I met them again in Hong Kong. This was my turn to be their tour guide and this was also the time that I realise how I scarcely know this place. I even did not know how to go to the Peak Tram terminal! I have so much to learn from Alain de Botton - one should start his travel in his own bedroom. I started my travel in my hometown. It's interesting to find out how mountainous Hong Kong is (as exclaimed by my lowland friends). Hey, there is a waterfall at the Peak (I've never paid any attention to it):



Seeing everything as if I've never seen it before, making preparation, going through expectation and anticipation. Life should be much easier and happier if you hynotise yourself as a traveller everyday. Travelling is rather a state of mind. I know the key to this fun, it's a pity that I can't have this light-hearted feeling right now.

When the going gets tough, the tough gets going

"And worse I may be yet: the worst is not So long as we can say 'This is the worst'."

King Lear, Shakespeare

One should have a sense of humour like Shakespeare when series of touble come.

As instructed by my boss, I should have recorded a particular TV channel for a court case but ... I recorded a wrong channel!!! Well, a groaning morning ...

... and, I still received the call from someone I don't want to get in touch with, how to disappear completely?

In place of regret were the good times we spent

If life becomes too miserable, all I need is pop songs.

Special Needs keeps playing in my headphone. I want to think of nothing.

All plans are meaningless. Something we take it for granted, we treat it as routine, we treat people as our daily backdrop, we do not really listen to them, or talk to them.

I do not have good relation with my father. We are like strangers. I am his less favourite child. I do mind of this kind of preference but I am not feeling hatred now. I am not a good daughter too.

Never like the building called hospital, (who will like it?) it's so dark and cold in the midnight. There were baby's crying, human's groaning, unknown machine's bleeping.

I am so fatigued, physically, mentally.

Only you can bring back the good old days

Back To The Bus Babyshambles

If my memory does not fail me, this is the second Back to the Bus. I always thought this Back to the Bus series are something like the Back to Mine series or Under the Influence series, i.e. a trick to rip off money from the die-hard fans of a particular band or band's member by asking such band to quote their favourite songs and then make a compilation album. However, Back to the Bus series are still better than the rest. Not only there is an exclusive interview with the band, its artwork is always interesting. I think this one with Babyshambles is indeed "super-kawaii" (with slight magic touch of peter and drew?)

The songs chosen are just fabulous. There are my favourites Cazals and B & S, but what makes it really special is that the songs chosen are a bit autobiographical, unintentional maybe. Chinese Rock and Needle of Death are too obvious. Making Time (The Creation) just made me think of Can't Stand Me Now ("Tellin' lies, closing your eyes, making more excuses. Pullin' the wool, actin' the fool, people have their uses ... Why do we have to carry on, always singing the same old song ...").

Litt'lans' Their Way, what can I say? I can listen to this bitter-sweet song forever.

Jail Guitar Doors was spookily predictive. I remember Peter has quoted some lyrics of this song "... I'll tell you about Pete, didn't want no fame, gave all his money away, 'Well there's something wrong, it'll be good for you, son.' And so they certified him insane..." in one of his Books of Albion (I forgot which one), he must feel the same way (and i couldn't help laughing when I saw it at that time). Of course that was the time before burglary. To listen to this song now, it becomes even more spookily coincident with the lyrics "... waiting for trial, twenty-five thousand bail, if he goes down, you won't hear his sound, but his friends carry on anyway. Fuck 'em!" (and his ex-band members will then reply "I get along just singing my songs people tell me I'm wrong Fuck 'em!", oops, shouldn't make joke to all the events)

In the early interview, Peter always made reference to Love and so it's no surprise for having a Love's song, but Your Friend and Mine? It gave me goosebumps when I just heard the first line "Only you can bring back the good old days" and then "Only you still can see a memory, like what about the time you took my arm, said come with me you don't have to be strong, said here's a little something to relax your mind, now that we are two of a kind my friend, all we are is two of a kind".... I was thinking too much.

Yes, I was thinking too much cos' there're no good old days anymore. Only hatred remains. The last song What Katie Did, with the early 2003 Babyshambles Session, the version which I love most, I was somewhat disappointed to see the credit was given to Alan Wass!!! OK, Wass maybe a session man in recording this song and is talented in his own way, but I definitely do not believe that this song was co-written with Alan Wass!!!

You know, one day your dream will kill you

"Madame Bovary, c'est moi." Flaubert said so, and so did Mr Edward Lam. Et toi?

As a long-time admirer of Mr Lam (hope he doesn't mind this confession of love from an opposite sex), I don't know if I just blindly praise his every production or what. Both entertaining and thought-provocative, Madame Bovary Is Me(包法利夫人們) is still "very Edward Lam/not quite normal Edward Lam" (非常林奕華). I specially like the actors/actresses from Taiwan, they are very impressive.

The story was set in the 19th Century France, but strangely it can still apply to today society. Some may say a woman's life is no longer depending on her husband so this story is not relevant anymore. I do not agree - not only to the fact that many women (sadly) still think that the value of their lives are totally depending on their husbands (so finding a good husband is the ultimate life achievement), it's also because this story is not just a woman's story, it's a story for everyone (unless you don't ever have any dream or aspiration).

It is easy to be a moralist to blame Emma (Madame Bovary) for how she had destroyed herself and her family. Yes she was not a pleasant character but I think her demons were mainly due to reading too much literature and having too much romantic reveries. Entrapped in a mundane life, albeit comfortable, the dream-eyes girl spent her life to find the passions only glittering in her dream. She was trying hard, but all in vain. Don't we are all a bit like Emma in trying hard to break the shackles of banality and chasing the dream shimmering on the far horizon? The only difference is, Emma chose to end her life when life disappointed her, but we choose to submit to reality. Emma was an avoidant, loser, or the one who insisted her vision and finally killed by her dream? We are the conformists, survivors, or the ones who kill our dream?

Anyway, does everyone have dream? Or there are some lucky ones who reach their dream so not everyone is Madame Bovary? Or it's just the freak like me always believe there is some sublime beauty somewhere? But I sometimes think that there is no such thing as attainable dream, once you get it, it's not a dream anymore. The unfulfilled/unrealised nature of dream is what the beauty is.

在英倫尋找Arcadian Dream

本來只想於豆瓣寫的書評，回心一想何不也放在自己的blog，一稿多用。



England Is Mine: Pop Life In Albion from Wilde to Goldie - Michael Bracewell

Arcadia，一個已消失的理想國度，又或其實只是一個存在於幻想的國度。在Michael Bracewell眼中，這濛濃幻影正是英倫流行文化的精髓。無論是Oscar Wilde，寫實電影大師Lindsay Anderson，處境喜劇泰斗Sid James，又或悲情自憐自大者Morrissey，每位當代流行文化的Icon人物，總是對自己身處的世代感到格格不入，窮一生去找尋存在於記憶深處的一個浪漫國度，理想的日子仿佛已過去，其實大家都在懷一個不曾存在過的舊。

Arcadia對於英倫流行文化，其實又豈止是Bracewell所說的一次又一次的懷舊與思古！微妙又牢固的階級觀念，欲處處強調公平遊戲守則；隱藏又不可忽略的社會禮節規範(Decorums)，偏又喜歡革新破格； 對自身Englishness既驕傲又自嘲；另外，過度的工業化及城市化使都市人對田園生活充滿憧憬，但生活在田園小鎮的又對四周千載不變的人與事感到納悶非常，英倫生活上的種種自相矛盾，不正就是像arcadian dream般矛盾？在浪漫的牧人與諸神寫詩飲酒的同時，偏就巧遇死神的蒞臨；在天真的笑薔下， 卻是墜落的開始。

喜愛某隊樂團的，一定發現本書對兩位主將的影嚮，由Wilde到The Only Ones到Sid James到頹廢生活經典A rebours，更甚至其特別的 calligraphy。


每個chapter的 title所用的字體，真的和其中一名主將的字體非常相像呀!

1 Sept - Back to School Again

No. That's not a matter for me anymore, but I really want to say it, just to pretend that I'm a student. That's the cliche that we only value the things we no longer have. I saw many Form One - ers this morning, clumsy and nervous, some with their parents, cutie little things! I bet they do not feel the joy like I do. I remember the horrid feeling at the beginning of school term, especially if that was the first year to secondary school - the oversize school uniform looked so ugly on my skinny body (yeah, I was once skinny), my hairdo was disastrous , schoolbag was so heavy and obsolete, everything was just not right, out of time and out of place, while strangers were everywhere .... (given my crap social skill, it's still the same but strangers is not a big problem for me now, I tend to ignore them and live inside my head). I was not bright nor lovable, the faceless dumb in class waiting for the end of lessons so that she could go to Mongkok to find any new issue of depeche mode. Past challenge is the most easiest so I can now look back with a smile.

Well I probably will have this fond feeling towards my work when I work no more (wow, that wll be the end of the world - hands stop, month stops, save and except I win mark six).