Time killer

I know I'm not (and I won't be) good at parchment work as I lack the necessary patience and attention to details which is the a-must requirement. Euphemistically I call myself freestyler, haha, a pretext for clumsiness, and that's why I like decoupage and scrapbook much more. But having said that, I do want myself to be more skillful in parchment making, in the hope of training me more elegance, err... don't vomit.

He was there

Bob Dylan @ Kowloonbay International Trade and Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong 13.04.2011


Dylan and his shadow (this made me think of the split personalities/identities as suggested in I Am Not There)

First, I must admit that I am not very familiar with all Dylan's songs, so I attended the show merely from a pilgrim's perspective, thinking I should pay a visit to this legendary person, if chance arise. Of course what I got from the night was more than a pilgrim's experience. Bob still rocks with his band, especially the extended Highway 61 Revisited (oh but he didn't play Desolation Row while he played it the previous night!) Groovy and blue, men with office attire who flooded the venue already took off their suits and ties, intoxicated and danced crazily. Bob seemed quite enjoy the vibe and the scene and bestowed flashes of sneaky smile.

So, about that constant question for each show of this Asian tour - Will he? Will he not (play the Blowing in the Wind)? For a man who has such large repertoire, and for a song that has played over 40 years, I was not disappointed about the omission or thought that Dylan was self-censored. The closing tune Forever Young, "May you always know the truth, and see the lights surrounding you, may you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong" I would like to think that these are the words Dylan dedicated to us.

Because everything's in ruins

The Turin Horse

"Because everything's in ruins. Everything's been degraded, but I could say that they've ruined and degraded everything. Because this is not some kind of cataclysm, coming about with so-called, innocent human aide. On the contrary... It's about man's own judgement, his own judgement over his own self, which of course God has a hand in, or dare I say: takes part in. And whatever he takes part in is the most ghastly creation that you can imagine. Because, you see, the world has been debased. So it doesn't matter what I say because everything has been debased that they've acquired, and since they've acquired everything in a sneaky, underhand fight, they've debased everything. Because whatever they touch - and they touch everything - they've debased. This is the way it was until the final victory. Until the triumphant end. Acquire, debase. Debase, acquire. Or I can put it differently if you like: to touch, debase and thereby acquire, or touch, acquire and thereby debase. It's been going on like this for centuries. On, on and on. This and only this, sometimes gently, sometimes brutally, but it has been going on and on. Yet only in one way, like a rat attacks an ambush. Because for this perfect victory it was also essential that the other side... That is, everything that's excellent, great in some way and noble should not engage in any kind of fight. There shouldn't be any kind of struggle, just the sudden disappearance of one side, meaning the disappearance of the excellent, the great, the noble. So that by now these winning winners who attack from the ambush rule the earth, and there isn't a single tiny nook where one can hide something from them, because everything they can lay their hands on is theirs. Even things we think they can't reach - but they do reach - are also theirs. Because the sky is already theirs and all our dreams. Theirs is the moment, nature, infinite silence. Even immorality is theirs, you understand? Everything, everything is lost forever! And those many noble, great and excellent just stood there, if I can put it that way. They stopped at this point, and had to understand, and had to accept that there is neither god nor gods. And the excellent, the great and the noble had to understand and accept this right from the beginning. But of course they were quite incapable of understanding it. They believed it and accepted it but they didn't understand it. They just stood there, bewildered but not resigned, until something - that spark from the brain - finally enlightened them. And all at once they realized that there is neither god nor gods. All at once they saw that there is neither good nor bad. Then they saw and understood that if this was so, then they themselves do not exist either! You see, I reckon this may have been the moment when we can say that they were extinguished, they burnt out. Extinguished and burnt out like the fire left to smolder in the meadow. One was the constant loser, the other was the constant winner. Defeat, victory, defeat, victory and one day - here in the neighborhood - I had to realize and I did realize, that I was mistaken, I was truly mistaken when I thought that there has never been and could never be any kind of change here on earth. Because, believe me, I know now that this change has indeed taken place."

My Flash Delirium

MGMT live @ Kowloonbay International Trade & Exhibition Centre, Hong Kong 30.03.2011


Flash Delirium as the opener, how apt it was!!! I must admit that I'm still deliriously happy even it's nearly 1 week after. Since some time last year, I fell under the charm of this band so you may understand how I began my delirium when I heard that they would have a gig in my little hometown. And then, boom! Euphoria always flashed past unnoticed. Those ecstasy-filled songs such as Time To Pretend and Kids never failed to hypnotize the whole crowd into a state of bewitched rapture, we were all intoxicated by the beats and sound and oxymoronic to the lyrics, we did not have control anymore. But what i like most for the night was that they played nearly the whole Congratulations except the nightmarish Lady Dada. "When it's over, to breathe in everything exposed" what did it bring? A sweet trip. An escape. A lost. But did we find again? The last two songs were pretty autobiographical, The Handshake and Congratulations (and, I never thought The Handshake could be so psychedelic!). I was a bit lost. My trip ended, the show ended. The last two songs told me (and the band) what the reality was like. They seem to play well in this game of balancing reality and idealism (while i never know how to play this game) and I hope they will continue to manage well in this game (cos' they're called MGMT).



The visuals on the backdrop were so much like the visuals after consuming substance (hey, i was told about it)


my fellow sagittarian hid behind the amp


ok, i tried hard to control my idiotic fangirl gene

how my favourite person P thought about my favourite person R and his fandom

"Camus, Saw, Conquered

About your Manics article (NME, April 19). Mr Wells knows the Manics are middlebrow and they probably always have been. Kafka, Camus and Proust might sit snugly on shelves in assorted adolescent bedrooms around England, but if their owners were led to them by the inside of a CD cover, the true motivation stretches as far as the need to drop an esoteric title into a conversation in the common room.
The Marxists, Situationists, pseudo-bisexual-BAD POETS avec eyeliner, pseudo-leopardskin BAD POETS sans eyeliner, and the rest of the Cult Of Nothing should accept, for the last time, that with Richey went all feeble hopes of purity and guitars and profound graffiti.
Don't hold it against the lads - they want to do it. They are comfy. And they know that there is more chance of social equality through conformity that through locking yourself in a hotel bathroom and shitting in your purse. Besides which, the middlebrow ethos is far more revolutionary than the self-conscious political seriousness school of thought.
Peter Doherty, Somewhere Rather Lonely, 10 May 1997
P.S. That's the final word on the Manics. Forever. So all fanzines must stop. Let it be known."




I quoted that, it doesn't mean I agree to everything from my favourite person P. Yes, I finally found a disagreement with P. I put it down just as a record.

Poem generator

Charming nights
emptiness
useless summer
Lovers escape
using only thoughts
facing dreams
pains
Their very beauty made your words
sadness between idleness tenderness
Been lost
waiting
Finding
She kept Her Bits Old soul
named london
Still loving
All these feeling
(started manic laugh)
libertines, Those Always




Do I make sense here? Doesn't matter if it's yes or no cos' it's really good fun and inspiring. These are the broken phrases from my blog jammed out from the html5 word cloud.

alice no.2

Haven't picked up a carving knife for a long time, seems that my hands need to hibernate in winter. It's spring time now! It's time to practise again.




This is my alice no.2. She looks more normal than her ancestor, but got a big belly, haha, maybe she bears some features of her maker.

God bless

Shocked by the quake in Japan. It's like everything can be collapsed and destroyed just in a second. Every step could be indeed our last.

Oh no, you say you need a friend
but we can't live again
Monday morning comes too fast
You stumble down the diamond path
and every step could be your last
the sunken eyes you just can't see
remind me how you'll never leave
every breath could be your last.

wise up and take care, the one who's so clever, but not very wise

hope he hasn't got any trouble again, on the eve of his birthday.

It's always the song that I want to dedicate to the birthday boy.







(sorry for the awful fangirl fantasy, but some part of the lyrics does aptly describe my thought.)

find a place to hide

Boss out of office means all work is shifted to me. I'm damn busy right now, too busy that I want to click to my old blog and procrastinate a bit. No matter if i drown myself to work the whole office hours or even work overtime, I still can't finish the work, it's like a series of tsunami, so overwhelming and non-stop, nowhere to hide. I have to press the pause button, be lazy and unproductive (actually no matter i'm busy or not, i always pause this button).

To sum up my mood:





Homer is always one of my most favourite cartoon characters, yes, I always have a strange fondness for the misfits.



The Simpsons way of life

nice dream if the sky was darker, the crowd quiet(er)

Sleepwalking in the electric labyrinth
someone said the sea will ...
no, neither the sea nor the trees will electrocute us all
only our mind will.



Power Plant @ Kowloon Walled City Park


P.S. Oh it's been ages that I haven't set my foot in Kowloon City since I left my secondary school. It looks a bit old now, I couldn't find the records shop that I used to buy back load of good vinyls (wasted money, bought vinyls without a proper record player) and also the sanrio shop, but glad to see that Muslim Beef Bun shop (yummy) still survives, maybe it will go on forever.

Anglophile

You leave a taste
A bitter one
I have searched for your springs
But people, they stagnate with time
Like water, like air
To you
I cling.



- extracted from England - Polly Jean Harvey

Lost Time / The Sound of the Streets

My mp3 player just popped out The Sound of the Streets when I was reading the last page of In Search of Lost Time. How coincident. No, of course this song cannot summarise the whole epic, but I really thought of this song in some paragraphs, such as when the narrator lay in his bed and listened to the street noise outside his window.

"Inside she feels like winter
For the child that died within her
She walks the streets to pass the time

Sadie, Sadie hear the sound of the streets
Insane as anything"

"For the child that died within her" I don't think Brett meant it literally, not that Sadie had a miscarriage or abortion. I think he meant the lost time as a child that she couldn't find it again. Strange juxtaposition for this song and the last page of Time Regained.

Sometimes we can find the lost time again, if we drown deep enough in our sea of memory, but sometimes we just can't. The time had lost, the persons, the things, the passions had died. And remember the words from our dear Mr. Barat? Something like for a failed relationship, a part of yourself was died because all the things you had said, all the secret between the two lovers was lost forever. Actually I was quite surprised that he could utter something so Proust.

It took me quite some time to finish the whole series, I even doubted that if I could finish it before the end of my life, and thought if it would be too time-consuming if I had to re-read it again in my next life (if I could have one). These were my idle thoughts of course and now, even though I eventually finished it, I really want to re-read it again immediately. There were moments that I felt so heavy or intense that I had to close the book (excuse for the slowness?). I remember Proust once said that he did not expect praise or censure for his book, he just wanted his readers to feel "oh this is really like it" (ok, it's my interpretation), and I think he succeeded. I was always amazed by his clairvoyance.

Of course my life is not as epical as Proust's (or that of the narrator). During my time from reading Vol.1 to Vol.6, I had my joy and sufferings, I lost someone dear to me (but I did not know until I lost him). I will try to "recherché" those joyous moments, bury and banish the sufferings. I may find the lost person again in my memory, but may lose him again by my indifference and forgetfulness (and we say time is a healer).

useless but not hysteria

For an autistic person like me, every social interaction always results in awkwardness. A few days ago I just carelessly showed my "staff card holder" to my colleague while accessing the office, my colleague spontaneously threw me the questions of "What (the hell is that useless thing?)" and "Why (did you waste time to make it?)" and gave me a "wtf" facial expression. I could only smile embarrassingly and explained in a rather apologetic tone (without knowing why) that although it's cheap and also of a better quality to buy a proper "staff card holder" in the market, I was such an idle person and liked to make useless things, and also there's a hidden reason (cos' to spell it out would make me even more freakish) that I really like the patterns on the reverse side of envelops.


Is it really so strange? Of course it looks very plain, I could have decorated it more but I made it in a haste at night so I just folded the paper up, in fact I like it plain.


I also like to use the reversed envelop to be a book protector, given that I always read book at the pace of a turtle, my book will end in much wear and tear when I finish it.


Actually paper "staff card holder" may not be a good idea, with no lanyard and always wetted by splashing water, so i made a more proper one by adhersive tape and then pretend to be employed by hmv (oh my teenage dream).

Bits and bobs for complaining

It's so cold for these couple of weeks that I only wanted to sleep or dream, inertia no matter in office or at home, and worse still, I seem to still under the influence of flu, suffer from occasional chest pain and headache, why did my 2011 begin in such way?!

Have taken too many western and Chinese medicine, my eye bags and panda-eyes are so huge now.

Money slipped away for no reason at all, I can't remember what I've spent but my accounts figures keep going down. Shit, all my banal and trivial troubles, money, boring life, even my complaining is so uncool, I wish I could be more intelligent.

I have to stop complaining, too many people have warned me that negative thinking would only bring bad luck. I have to control my thought (so there is even no freedom of thinking), I need good luck.

Strange rumour I read in facebook:
Dec 2012

Maybe we should from now on just play, play, play (but first I must get my migraine to stop).

A year has passed without a trace without a sound

This is a peaceful year for me. No alarms, no surprises, I am actually glad about it. I hope my life will pass like this. I never feel bored about peace and quietness, maybe I'm just a boring person.

Music is still my important companion, provides me an exit from banality, even some moments of edification.

to continue my previous post, my favourite album of 2010:

1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

2. Sambassadeur - European
Sunshine, sea breeze, idleness, indolence, sea birds swirling in the sky, cruise to the Mediterranean, gondola in Venice, a feast in the southern Italy, loafing around in Greece, haha, that adoring laziness, those sunny places i've never been, that's what i thought of when i listened to this album. A true summer album,but I still listen to it in winter days, and I will definitely continue to listen to it when i long for a summer holidays in my head. I always like Swedish pop. Strange, the female vocal Anna Parsson does not have a heavenly goddess' voice, or you may even call it plain, but it just perfectly fits the music.

3. Carl Barat - Carl Barat
I always enjoy his song craftsmanship. I think I'm one of the few who believe that he is actually talented. I hoped so much that I would like this album. That is the reason why I was silent about it when it was released because if I could not click a "Like" to it, i would rather remain silent. But i was capricious, as i now write about it, yes, i now really adore it (or did i hypnotise myself enough to have a change of heart? haha)

His style in this sole album was described as that of marc almond, serge gainberg and leonard cohen. We made various association that is not very fair to him (though I admit I also think of those names when I listened to it). I never skip a track of it. Maybe I love his new music style or, maybe I just love to hear his confession of failed relationship. Besides his music talent, I'm sure he is also good at breaking hearts. It's difficult not to associate his songs to some of his ex-lovers. I remember he once said in an interview "somebody dies, not only do you lose them, but you lose a part of yourself, things that only they know about you". I think carl must have died a bit in all his failed relationships. But whatever great passions and relationships are, they do not crumble and die all of a sudden, they just turn cold, fade into the realm of forgetfulness and indifference, however much we do not want to accept it. So, for a record (pun?) of relationships that he (and I) cares/cared about, I will rank it to my top 3.

4. Foals - Total Life Forever

5. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest

6. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

7. Johnny Flynn - Been Listening

8. Philip Selway - Familial

9. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening

10. The National - High Violet

Some other albums I also like include Jonsi - Go, Warpaint - The Fool, Marc Almond - Variete and MGMT - Congratulations (my appetite to it is quite addictive at first but then dies down suddenly). Manics, Klaxons and Bryan Ferry are a bit disappointing to me. Girls' EP is heartrending as ever but it's EP, so I don't count it in.

In the night there is someting wild, I feel it, it's leaving me

A sunny silent afternoon again. I don't like to draw the curtain down, for I can feel the warmth outside and see the glittering water flowing above my head, of course this is only the reflections of sunlight on the water, which is reflected on the ceiling of my office. Yes, there is a large artificial lake outside my window, with various big fishes swimming and bubbling. It's lovely to idle the life away, like the fish.

My most favourite album of this year:


1. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
i regard it as the part 2 of the Funeral, still about the agony of growing up, but of course Funeral is more "in the process" of growing up - frenetic, violent and reluctant, The Suburbs is more like "the aftermath", a hollow wasteland, but still reluctant. I love it cos' this album is actually very "me", haha, I the aftermath, the hollow wasteland.

"We used to wait, sometimes they never came." This is Win Butler's own Waiting for Godot. We wait, we waste and still we wait. I am convinced of this idea, how depressing. For human being we always have a restless heart to seek, for dreams, for the future, for meaning of life, haha, all these grand words. "In my dream I was almost there, then you pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere, I know we are the chosen few, but we're wasted, and that's why we're still waiting". Wasted Hours, my most favourite track of the album, its beginning reminds me of the summertime in my childhood, just staring out the window and doing nothing, this song somehow provides an exit (really?) for me. "Wishing you were anywhere but here, you watch the life you're living disappear, and now I see, we're still kids in buses longing to be free. Wasted hours before we knew, where to go, and what to do. Wasted hours, that you made new, and turned into, a life that we can live." Always out of place and out of time, we just feel frustrated, awkward, trapped inside a situation, longing to be free. Clueless, but we still try to seek (how ridiculous and also great we human being are), and before we find out the answer (for whatever questions), our life passed, like the fish, idle away, isn't it great?!


err... number 2 to the rest, maybe later.

festive seasons

I made my mull wine debut last Saturday, it was surprisingly delicious (and strongly alcoholic, good). I think I can be a good brewer or bartender, anything related to wine making.


it would look much professional if it was served in a glass bowl, but hey, it was actually very tasty!

made some quick presents for my friends:
just messed the frames with colours and further messed them up with cut n' paste patterns:


and then embroidered them with whatever junk i could find:


sometimes you will find it's easy to make people happy, but the first thing is you have to make yourself happy. Funny, i seem to be in good mood.

retail therapy (again)

I have much excuse to indulge myself this month and months ago, I did have plan to make myself something but I was just too lazy to start the work, so maybe i will delay it to the next year. "It was always mañana." haha, Kerouac told me. So what do I do to treat myself?

I didn't buy it for my big day. I ordered it months ago but it was the efficiency of British mail that I only received it yesterday. So now I can treat it as a gift to myself to celebrate my mortality. Yo, they are so lovely, worth the wait!

Junk boat and English boys crashing out, in a melancholy town where we never smile

If we could have frequent visit from the English boys like last week, of course we would smile a lot.

Press my retrieving button in my brain, I remember the vendetta was actually between Suede and Blur, not Blur and Oasis. The latter was like a marketing gimmick but the former I did feel a heartfelt hatred between the two front men. Me, a time-honoured protector of Brett, never openly admitted my liking for Blur. But long gone the history! I went to see Damon Albarn solo in Japan 2003 and found that I have to disarm in face of the golden boy. Last week, with his great multi-cultural and multi-generations' army of Gorillaz, I have to declare loudly of my fondness of his cuteness(!)

Sorry for the trace of idiotic fangirl's ramblings (that's what I'm good at), but Damon was CUTE. He bounced and jumped and posed and held hands with girl and waved the big big white flag, like a naughty boy. err OK, I have to stop myself talking like an imbecile. About the music: I actually do not like any music with hip-hop elements but Gorillaz is the exception. The HAHAHAHAHA DeLaSoul was perfect in Gorillaz and it's surprising that they would tour with the band. An even greater surprise was that Paul Simonon and Mick Jones also joined the tour - half of The Clash actually came and performed in my little hometown! That's really something grand in my eyes. To Binge, Damon and Little Dragon was so sweet on stage, with the word "poisoned" on screen, what? That's the real meaning of love? We were also surprised to find the Arabian (hooray for Syrian National Orchestra) and Chinese music blended so well with their hip-hop/rock/dance music. Yes, I put my dancing shoes on, great to bounce with 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel whole night.


Gorillaz @ AsiaWorld-Expo, Hong Kong 03.12.2010, a song for Hong Kong


Paul Simonon and Mick Jones


Damon waved the big white flag :)

After the exhausting night with Gorillaz, there was Adam Ficek (or Roses Kings Castles)'s Acoustic+DJ night. It was a night of tender serenade as compared to the previous night of carnival and varieté. Like his music, Adam was languid and gentle, though he might explain his manner as a consequence of jet-lag. The acoustic set was not long, I think he just played for about 30 minutes, but it was a lovely little set. The natural, idyllic, sometimes vivid, sometimes wistful pop music, almost like the Turner's paintings. The serenade ended when Adam turned into his alter ego DJ Adam. It's a shame that there was no trace of the "million-dollars band"* in his playlist (and i guess the organiser "Supersonic" [aka "the Likely Lads", the name which tells a lot of their music preference] had to delete all the songs of the "million-dollars band" and its related band in their playlist that night). When will all vendettas between my favourite musicians end?


Adam Ficek @ Backstage, Hong Kong 04.12.2010, he looked a bit melancholic...


* Adam mentioned the "million-dollar band" (The Libertines) during his acoustic set and joked about he knew some secret ;p