To the Lighthouse

The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now—



I really like this little lighthouse, with very cute "bowl" for cider drinking and, of course those very delicious crepes.

something indicative

I know I always have problems but I never realize that they're so serious. I scored 36, oh my.


Are you alright?

愛念與怨念同樣重

copy a douban entry here, so i can have new post.



I can't help thinking of the memoirs of a geisha, i reckon it's a camp book title.


章節混亂，毫無時序可言，可能此乃作者風格，又可能作者行文時腦袋受其他物質影響，其實通通都不重要，因本書實在有趣，書如其人， 混亂、搞笑。but, no no, 難道我們樂迷們不知道Carlos其實是憂鬱的、認真的? （但作者的命運總是逃不過種種的偏差）

書的開首是比較咬文嚼字，我認為作者原先是想寫一本認真及優雅的自傳，但往後變得比較隨意及口語，沒關係吧，libertines都是shambolic的。內容方面，我當然最最最最最期待一切有關他與Peter的往事。没有驚天動地的祕聞，所說的相信樂迷們一早已知道。本書由頭到尾也經常地提及Peter，有時（我認為）作者對Peter刻意淡化，Peter僅是他的室友及樂團的拍擋；但有時Peter又被形容為他生命中（曾經的）重要伙伴；或他的伯樂，給他自信，助他克服舞台恐懼；有時作者會誠實地表示對Peter的懷念，期待遇上另一段刻骨銘心的「友情」，甚至會感懷地總結他的前半生就是失去了一段重大的「友情」。（對，作者十分強調「友情」關係，請粉絲們不要幻想太多。）但更清楚的著墨則是對這位朋友的控訴，像Peter和女友或友人無故失踪而丢下作者一人，致使他憂鬱發作；又或染上毒癮後的Peter失踪、失場、失控，作者怎樣獨自承受失去至愛朋友的痛苦同時又不被其他人了解，甚至要忍受無知粉絲的謾罵。我是相信、理解及同情作者的，很想拍一拍他的背，說句感謝及欣賞的話，但同時我又感到快要被作者千斤重的怨念淹沒。

文中提到作者跟Anthony Rossomando 及Danny Goffey 的友情也很甜蜜，但不明白為什麼找不到Tim Burgess的踪影，他們不是很要好的嗎？（或是我看得太快，看漏了眼？）

另外作者亳無掩飾對毒品及酒精的鍾愛，雖然最後言之鑿鑿向從前講再見，唔 … 不予置評。

本書的大部份內容我是覺得有趣的，只是到最後有少許不耐煩，如他的交待近況（太hard sell）；訴說怎樣愛新女友、新生命、新生活（太不rock n’ roll太正常了，我就是那些吸血鬼般的粉絲，只愛異常的、墜落的、被摧殘的、憂鬱症的或狂喜的，正常人（如自己）太沒趣了）；及最终回的真情剖白，我明白作者經歷過非一般的高與低，我無意輕視任何人的痛苦，尤其是親愛的作者，所以當我對他在最終回的剖白納悶時，其實我是有罪疚感的，但最終回提到之焦慮、寂寞、迷失、毒品、酒精、女友、重回人間（不是之前已講過嗎？），太像一些emo kids 的blog文或日記了（在此我又輕視了emo kids 的痛苦，真不應該），我想，可能作者仍然是一名emo kid 吧（沒有眨義的）。

save me from tomorrow

I hate these words, they're so true.

Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow.

Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert

not a book of revelation

Oh he can write! It's definitely an interesting read, though there are too many vocabularies (my poor english) and pseudonyms. It's funny to read between lines and found the unintentional (but actually very obvious) explanation about the life with peter. He wanted to point out that they only lived under the same roof, but not the same room. He did not share the grand brass bed. The co-bank account was only for work purpose. So what we've read before is false or we are all just too imaginative.




Not relevant to his book, but I just found it's so beautiful and I want to put it on my blog. History.



nicked from someone else's blog, can't even remember where so i can't give credit, sorry.

oh the book turns gloomy, actually there's nothing new, salute to the writer.

Because all things will change and as your God explains, we live again

Brett Anderson Live @ HITEC Hong Kong, 1.10.2010




I just want to say, I love that evening very much. No suede song. Great that Brett finally made an unequivocal stance that he has moved on, with elegance and grace, without shedding any excitement. Many ex-suede lovers, now the suede/brett-haters (the change was due to their belief that the man is living in the past while they've improved), please hear the songs and watch the man before bestowal of your precious criticism. He is still the diva, twisted and danced like the old days, or transcended us to the sublime different place, or, with the sedative guitar sounds, prayed with us in a mysterious occult, collective delirium.

when she wakes up in the morning

I didn't eat or drink or even go to toilet for the whole sunday (not too good for one's health), just to stitch this word on the spine of the book. I'm glad i made it, though frankly, i hardly believe in this word anymore. I have a pocketful of its broken pieces, and i seldom touch them, they hurt.

meow

This is my first attempt to make a rubber stamp as birthday gift for a cat lover, hope she won't mind my substandard work.

Back to you

Brett Anderson will come to Hong Kong again. It becomes sort of automation that whenever Brett comes here, I'll attend. Many people are not that enthusiastic to this man now because they think that his time has passed. How they are wrong. To be honest, I am not looking for any excitement or nostalgia related to suede. I am looking for a night of beautiful music, the music from his three solo albums.



****************************


Britpop, the best era? (of course not, haha, but glad to see so many faces when they were still young)



british music experience, i don't know if i like it or not. Yes, I like its jukebox and its hi-tech approach (that could dazzle the lo-tech person like me), but everything is just too brief, or it never intends to be a serious exhibition. It's just an entertainment for a family (as every member of a family probably may find his/her favourite era). That very industry-driven approach also made me intrigue. Expensive merchandise. Joining fee to be a whatever member. Very expensive admission fee. I got a strange dislike to exhibit/present/summarise music like a commodities/in any substantiate form/a statement/a poster/an outfit. I wonder if I would go had i not won the free ticket by the quiz (as the tix is really expensive). But as my ticket was free, I should keep my mouth shut. Oh yes, there are some items i really like:



Brett's draft of the lyrics

"For what we've lost we will find again, never never!"

– Charles Baudelaire, The Swan, The Flowers of Evil

(but you know I never say never never say never again)

English weather.

Cold. Drizzled all day. No sun. I shouldn't feel disgusted about it. I vowed my fondness for the Victorian grey. But in my memory English summers were always warm, blue skies with dandelions dancing in the air. On the other hand, I remember when I came there for study many years ago, it was so chilly and I did not bring enough clothes. So whether English summer should be sunny or bleak, my memory cannot tell (or it tells both). This time the weather was bleak, and again I did not bring enough clothes, shivered with cold and hunger, I realized, "this is England, the place I love."

Those glittering.

Back to the forum. For the same band. I had three miraculous nights in 2003. In 25 August 2010, the blood-red words "SOLD OUT" sentenced me that I had no miracle. Still I walked there again, with my dear fellow desperados, in the pouring rain, we were waiting for godot. Maybe we just wanted to eavesdrop the music played or maybe, though we could not attend, we still wanted to participate in our own way this very important event. Horrorshow, the usual opening track, sent me back to the nights that I could howl with the boys. Actually I could still howl with the boys that night, just between the walls. John, Carlos and Gary were so kind to console all the restless souls after the show. Peter ... oh Peter. My intuition told me that he was still in the building, I just lacked a bit gut/luck. During the endless wait, a handful of glittering dust was suddenly poured down the street from the window, someone's naughty act, but the glitter, so symbolic and dazzling, almost dream-like, and we all knew what that dream was called.


The Libertines warm-up gig @ Forum, London 25.08.2010

The intermezzo

If I could even bump into Mr Barat in a club, I knew that I have a tendency to meet him. The Levi’s shop performance was almost a last-minute call. After the series of defeat in that libertines' lucky draw ballot and scramble for ticket, I did not have high hope for it but it turned out that I was able to access. It was an intimate gig, just about 150 people. Mr Barat looked tired and coughed a lot, blamed it on the busy schedule. The show was opened by Deadwood, and later Bang Bang, would it be a bit embarrassing to sing it now (just as if Gang of Gin by Peter?) Of course the performance was mainly for promotion of his new songs but I was not familiar with them (forgive me!) TFH and CSMN, the crowd went crazy. We then chanted Death on the Stairs but Carlos did not give in. In the Q&A section, we kept asking him if there would be more shows of the libertines, any secret gig tonight, haha, poor Carlos. There's also someone shouted out loud how Carl was sold to money. That guy was rude and was expelled, though we might secretly agree to what he'd said. On a second thought, didn't we all treat Carl a bit unnice? Years ago Peter performed in Selfridges for Gio-Goi, we were (at least I was) all mesmerized, in it for money, who cares?


Carlos Barat @ Levi's Shop, Regent Street, London 26.08.2010


Everyone is gonna be happy
Everyone is gonna be happy
But of course



Who cares about anything? So long as they are together again. That was a pure act of indulgence. Let us all drown in the Arcadian bliss. We all knew that music festival may not be an ideal occasion for the reunion of our dear band - the band which holds intimate connection with the audience - the communal audience who believes in all those myths of romanticism and albion reveries spread by the very band, everything that is opposite to a usual music festival (too big, too distant, too many wankers), or not? Let’s forget the distance and embrace your neighbour. Yes, that was a pure act of indulgence, let us all drown in the Arcadian bliss. We all sang from the first song Horrorshow to the last I Get Along, we screamed, we shouted, we could only express ourselves in this most primitive way because we could not find the right word, and we all just wanted to say, how we love and care, our dear old band The Libertines.

Peter was a bit sulky in the beginning (or was I too sensitive to his facial expression and then thinking too much?) but later, he seemed to be melted by sweet Carlos in the Music When The Lights Go Out. We all sincerely sang What Became Of The Likely Lads? That was indeed our question, but they could not provide the answer. We (and the band) did not know. We only knew in this instance, we were happy, and we certainly took this instance into eternity.


The Libertines @ Reading Festival 28.08.2010

Once I had left a piece of my heart in London, I found it again in the magic night.



I eventually saw a sunny sky in London and in this late summer, even the sun became so tender. I decided to leave a piece of my heart in London again, so that I will have to come back again, and again.

this city's hard

this city's fair?

late practice

This blog is becoming my journal for handicraft, haha, for my trait of sentimentality has disappeared recently, so there will be no words for music, poems or toothache. I feel like I'm pretty practical now, yeah, making useless things and feel like practical (do I make sense here?)



It's difficult for a clumsy people like me to make a rubber stamp with lace-stripe pattern. Even if i did carve it (with flaws of course), it's so difficult to stamp it together continuously and smoothly like a real lace stripe. Yeah, need to practice more.

The scent (sense) of book

I have a strange foible that whenever I'm in a bookshop, I like to breathe deeply. I love that scent of books which never fails to give me a nerve-tangling joy. Of course a primitive like me also like that solid and physical feeling of a real book - how you can count the pages which you have read, how a page creases by raindrops or teardrops, how pages are all turned yellow by the passing of time.

Book rocks! (e-book, boo...)

Sound like a book-lover. No, no, far from it. I read too slow and too little (I've only read 2 books so far this year *shhhh*). But book-making-lover? Yes, yes! I found great fun in it.





My first "proper" handmade book. (as in the past, my books are too "amateur" ;p)

sometimes i still hear it singing its wild songs

and see it collecting those worthless glittering.

The solipsist

à mon cher petit Robert
Son inaltérablemen fidèle et tendre ami.

I think he looked so much like carl barat in this photo.
Oh yes, I'm bored.

Little playthings

Ha, my friends are so frenetic about rubber carving recently. It's great that they provide much motivation for me to do some, though I clearly lack the necessary patience, eyesight and steady hand. Oh the roughness, I call it my style (i'm good at euphemism). Hope my usual 3-minute enthusiasm will not die so soon.


what should i do with them?

All I need is a great big congratulations

For a pretentious person like me who proclaims her fondness for those elitist you-name-it bands, it is utterly embarrassing to admit my love for a band labelling under the genre of easy-listening. I know I should hum the gospel of cliché melancholy like "sorrow found me when I was young...", but instead I just like to soak up in a great big congratulations. Frankly, for these two months I think I have listened to this album over hundreds of times, played it at least once everyday and sometimes the first thing in the morning was to play it loud, such a fervent addiction. To reduce my guilt, I have to express my hatred for their first album. Owing to those three hit singles contained therein, I categorized their first album as one of that disgusting hedonist Ibiza club music and the band as a mere hype (yes, I can be very pompous sometimes). But that was history right now. Because of my recent fondness for their second album, I now think their first album is not that bad, or maybe it's actually quite nice.

To analyze my recent enthusiasm is that I suck young blood/am anxious to find the next boys band really feel passionate about the 60’s psychedelic music, the sound of Love/The Doors/Sergeant Pepper's (for many reasons I always believe that in my former life I was a dirty ugly hippie who died in overdose). I like their music which makes me think of trees and cloud and sunshine. I also like their clever arrangement of sounds, sometimes layers of choruses are blended together, sometimes different tunes are even blended into one song (and it is so If-on-a-winter’s-night-a-traveller, so twisted and playful and fantastic, see, I’m pretentious). Of course it is also interesting to hear the explicit reference to substance (while sung by an innocent and childish voice). Reminder: please put this album on when you consume your mushroom tea.

Look up to wikipedia, I found that they were one of line-up in 2008 Glastonbury and 2009 V Festival. Oh but I did not love them at that moment, poor timing! (err, but in both festivals their slots were coincidentally clashed with Mr Doherty, and it's impossible for me to forsake Doherty, so in all occasions it's still bad timing). For I had neglected them for quite some time, recently I have been busy in catching up on their video clips and, clearly, I've got a pistol that's aimed at my heart.


two super cute losers (not lovers, ha)





(right, don't feel surprised if I blah about any worship for a korean or japanese (even chinese?) idol, i have a shift of taste)

Hiatus

Blogging is dying. It's true. We now are all content with those 140-characters mini blogs or the status-updating in social networks. For me, blogging is like a conversation with oneself. It's so introspective and contemplative. So unhealthily sentimental. Soul searching is absolutely tiring. So we are happy to update our status in twitter or whatever platform, be it just a glimpse of thought, an exclamation, a joke or a fact, the words are so light, humdrum and trivial. I can no longer keep honest to myself or encounter my own fragility and banality. I want comfort. Let's evade.

What difference does it make?

Are the songs different from those in the album? I really need a turntable.



saw a tiny note of contribution which bears the name of Adam, oh Adam.

All the songs died in the early summer

他整夜的坐在廣場裏面
等待著他的救星出現
他也許就站在你的面前
註視著你成長的一切
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
廣場上曾經奔跑的青年
如今已經失去了他們的信念
而你整夜的坐在廣場裏面
等待黑夜夜吞噬你的一切
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場
這是一個沒有希望的廣場


- Carsick Cars, 廣場