Dreams, Existence..... a lot of this existentialist stuff has been going around lately. Wonder why?
Maybe it's because a lot of us are so disillusioned with life as it is. And it's not just a lonely graduate thing. Other friends I know not in NTU or NUSSUX feel the same thing to some degree or another. Maybe it's all the bad news going around right now? War, SARS, unemployment, possible nuclear destruction at hands of psycho dictator....... not exactly the best of times right now. Once you start to question the reality around you........ what other reality is there for you to live in? You become just like someone in the Matrix. If you know that the comfortable world around you is in fact, false........ do you still wanna continue living in it? Or leave for an uncertain future and possible death? Applying it here, once you know that the stories your parents told you [grow up, study, get job, marry] were just stories, would u rather cling on to them as all you have, or would you rather go out n see the world for yourself?
I suspect I'm gonna get my own answer to that very question very soon...........
This may be a bit heavy. I should lighten up...... Here's an interesting article about what happens when Mum finds ur blog..... hee..........
My Mom Found My Blog!
Thursday, November 13, 2003
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Can anyone out there find the easter egg? Hee.... If you do, tell me so on the tagboard, but don't reveal where it is... doomo..... ;)
The Shit hits the Fan..... and that's us
Anyway, I finally watched the Matrix Revolutions and gotten closure on the whole Matrix series. If you ask me, considering the hype of the first movie, it's sad to see that the next two just degenerated into the regular action movies that Hollywood churns out mass-production style. I'm understanding why my fren Jubilee says she prefers foreign films. It's cos' they're just darn good..... They're way more creative in terms of storyline and they have so much more impact on the viewer. Watching a film like 15, for example, is like getting hit in the chest by a flaming meteroid. Watching Revolutions was like...... a wadball..... [piece of wetted tissue paper that kids blow thru a straw onto unsuspecting victims] The action's good, but ultimately, the film's forgettable by itself, and can only exist thru the fame of its eldest brother.
Remember from Econs 1001: What happens when you give one company an entire monopoly? THey start producing crap stuff for you 'cos they know you can't get ur kicks anywhere else. It's sorta like the crack dealers. They can mix in baby powder with the crack and charge the crap off you for it, cos they know you just want more........ this is cos in the movie industry, only Hollywood has the clout [$$$] to produce a movie and let the whole damn world know about it. Other pple have to beg and scrape for production and distribution, and then even if it's critically acclaimed, there's the chances that no one wants to see it, cos no one believes the critics anyway. An example of this would be Mel Gibson's Passion, for example. [A film about the life of Jesus Christ].
The same thing's going on in the music industry. Nowadays, if your album doesn't make it big the first time round, the label drops you. They're not interested in the lifetime potential of the artist, they just wanna see the big bucks now. [candle, remember the concept of lifetime value from service? Well, they're not doing it.... ] Instead, they just push stuff like *shudder* Britney Spears at us again and again. Pls, if I wanted to see bellybuttons, I would have just lifted up my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror.
This is soooo sad......... the entertainment industry is potentially going to shit and all of it's falling on us............
Anyway, not that you'll need it or agree with it, but:
Khel's List of Top Ten Movies
In no particular order,
1. Lord of the Rings: Finally! A decent fantasy movie(s)!
2. 15: Teen angst at its best
3. Gangs of New York: I have a thing for gangsta flicks
4. Moulin Rouge: The colour and song.... fantastic mix
5. Battle Royale: Blood + Teen angst
6. Bowling for Columbine: Guns + Teen angst
7. Hero: Loved the cinematography and colour
8. Romeo n Juliet: Shakespeare MTV style
9. Shakespeare in Love: The passion...sigh
10. (vacant) Hey when I think of the tenth one i'll tell you..... :p
Extra thought: Anyone read last week's issue of Newsweek? They had this great feature on human beauty, and the lengths we go to achieve what we deem as physically beautiful. My thought: SHALLOW. All these pple can think about is how pretty they are, and how everyone thinks how pretty they are. They think people think:"Wow! This woman is great! She's beautiful!" when in reality they could be thinking:"Wow! This woman is great! I wanna F**K her!" [ok, this might seem like a basketful of sour grapes] The article is great in explaining what we think is beauty [The Golden Mean and the lifetime average] why our idea of beauty has changed [globalisation and the pan-asian look] and how people are willing to go thru all lengths of plastic surgery to achieve that standard of beauty. My favourite example is this woman, who went thru sooo many operations, the beauty salon is adopting as its mascot. [and when I showed Candle the photo, she said the woman still looked more or less the same. Makes me wonder what exactly it was she paid for] My favourite quotation also comes from that woman. When the reporter asked her who she wanted to look like? She said: "I'm not trying to look like anyone. I'm just trying to be myself."
I'm really wondering if she's serious or just trying to be funny.
The Shit hits the Fan..... and that's us
Anyway, I finally watched the Matrix Revolutions and gotten closure on the whole Matrix series. If you ask me, considering the hype of the first movie, it's sad to see that the next two just degenerated into the regular action movies that Hollywood churns out mass-production style. I'm understanding why my fren Jubilee says she prefers foreign films. It's cos' they're just darn good..... They're way more creative in terms of storyline and they have so much more impact on the viewer. Watching a film like 15, for example, is like getting hit in the chest by a flaming meteroid. Watching Revolutions was like...... a wadball..... [piece of wetted tissue paper that kids blow thru a straw onto unsuspecting victims] The action's good, but ultimately, the film's forgettable by itself, and can only exist thru the fame of its eldest brother.
Remember from Econs 1001: What happens when you give one company an entire monopoly? THey start producing crap stuff for you 'cos they know you can't get ur kicks anywhere else. It's sorta like the crack dealers. They can mix in baby powder with the crack and charge the crap off you for it, cos they know you just want more........ this is cos in the movie industry, only Hollywood has the clout [$$$] to produce a movie and let the whole damn world know about it. Other pple have to beg and scrape for production and distribution, and then even if it's critically acclaimed, there's the chances that no one wants to see it, cos no one believes the critics anyway. An example of this would be Mel Gibson's Passion, for example. [A film about the life of Jesus Christ].
The same thing's going on in the music industry. Nowadays, if your album doesn't make it big the first time round, the label drops you. They're not interested in the lifetime potential of the artist, they just wanna see the big bucks now. [candle, remember the concept of lifetime value from service? Well, they're not doing it.... ] Instead, they just push stuff like *shudder* Britney Spears at us again and again. Pls, if I wanted to see bellybuttons, I would have just lifted up my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror.
This is soooo sad......... the entertainment industry is potentially going to shit and all of it's falling on us............
Anyway, not that you'll need it or agree with it, but:
Khel's List of Top Ten Movies
In no particular order,
1. Lord of the Rings: Finally! A decent fantasy movie(s)!
2. 15: Teen angst at its best
3. Gangs of New York: I have a thing for gangsta flicks
4. Moulin Rouge: The colour and song.... fantastic mix
5. Battle Royale: Blood + Teen angst
6. Bowling for Columbine: Guns + Teen angst
7. Hero: Loved the cinematography and colour
8. Romeo n Juliet: Shakespeare MTV style
9. Shakespeare in Love: The passion...sigh
10. (vacant) Hey when I think of the tenth one i'll tell you..... :p
Extra thought: Anyone read last week's issue of Newsweek? They had this great feature on human beauty, and the lengths we go to achieve what we deem as physically beautiful. My thought: SHALLOW. All these pple can think about is how pretty they are, and how everyone thinks how pretty they are. They think people think:"Wow! This woman is great! She's beautiful!" when in reality they could be thinking:"Wow! This woman is great! I wanna F**K her!" [ok, this might seem like a basketful of sour grapes] The article is great in explaining what we think is beauty [The Golden Mean and the lifetime average] why our idea of beauty has changed [globalisation and the pan-asian look] and how people are willing to go thru all lengths of plastic surgery to achieve that standard of beauty. My favourite example is this woman, who went thru sooo many operations, the beauty salon is adopting as its mascot. [and when I showed Candle the photo, she said the woman still looked more or less the same. Makes me wonder what exactly it was she paid for] My favourite quotation also comes from that woman. When the reporter asked her who she wanted to look like? She said: "I'm not trying to look like anyone. I'm just trying to be myself."
I'm really wondering if she's serious or just trying to be funny.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Deliver Us
There's a land that
You promised us
Deliver Us
To the Promised Land....
Yes, dearies, the theme of today's blog is Deliverance. Why? Mainly becos of 15.
For those not in the know, 15 is the stunning new local production by Royston Tan. ( No relation to the one in bizad ) What he did was to basically take a camcorder and film these 5 teenage boys as they go about their daily lives. No, it's not just school, home and sleep for them. These kids smoke, play truant, get into fights, and sell drugs for a living.
[and what was i doing at 15? reading comics and doodling furiously during my physics classes]
But kudos to Royston Tan. He managed to befriend these kids and even persuade them into letting him film them freely while they went about the lives. THe boys are not professional actors, but are real-life street delinquents. Thus, a lot of the events in the film are given a very real dose of realism to them. Halfway through the script, Tan even had to change the actors. [although i'm not sure if he did it becos the 1st 3 boys refused to go on filming, or becos something happened to them] At the end of the show, the end credits tell you that one of the boys is awaiting trial for drug smuggling, another was involved in a stabbing incident, one attempted suicide, and one is missing, whereabouts unknown.
For me, the film brings home the stark reality that these boys face, an often hidden facade of Singapore, underneath the clean HDB blocks and the shopping malls full of giggling kids. These boys are the dark beneath, living on the fringe of society, and sniffed upon by the rest of us 'civilized folk'. In one of the scenes, 2 of the boys are sitting in a coffeeshop next to a group of students [dressed in all white, they could be SJI, RI, or even Maris]. One of the students blows a water pellet at a stray cat, much to the amusement of his peers, but not to the 2 boys. They confront the students, who scold them back in English, and a verbal battle of hokkien and english swear words ensues.
[I am amazed at the utter arrogance of those students. Didn't they ever realise the danger of pissing off 2 boys with tattoos all over their arms, and one with piercings over half his face?]
In a later scene, the group of students corner the 2 boys in an underpass and start beating them up. Unknown to them, they are seen by another boy, Armani, who notifies the rest of his 'brothers'. Suddenly, in the middle of the fight, a whole gang of bengs wielding cleavers, parangs and other sharp objects appears in the tunnels. [K*****, wo gai brother le gan pak? Ok, my hokkien looks even worse when I type it down...] Of course the students run. [ah bah then???]
But there are other literally gut-wrenching scenes in the movie. One of the scenes shows the boy, Armani, trying to commit suicide by slashing his wrist. [i had to close my eyes] Another shows another boy swallowing condoms filled with ecstasy pills. [closed my eyes too] Then there is the one where this boy just stands there, while an unseen paternal figure hurls vulgarities at him, calling him useless and telling to just leave home. [No, i didn't have to close my eyes here]
This show exposes the plight of this underbelly of Singapore. It shows a group of kids, [they're all 15] who no longer have the will to go on living, becos they have lost all hope in life. Throughout the movie, the 5 of them carry the same look of hopelessness and resignation. They are fiercely committed to their 'brothers', because all they have is each other. Lacking in academic ability, they are condemned both by family, and by society. [one of the boys is thrown out of his house for failing a maths test] Why do they have to live like that? Why can they not pick themselves up? Why is it everyone prefers to just give up and look down on them? Hard questions we walk away with after the movie.
Deliver us/To the Promised Land.......
Personal Thought: Though very much more blessed than these boys in terms of finance and family, there is a certain aspect of them that my friend and I could identify with that night. My friend has been considering quitting her job for a long while, but yet still remains, unsure of her next step. I am able to graduate, and yet I have no idea what to do with my future. As we walked around in the lonely hours of Orchard, I guess we were another kid of 'delinquent', no aim, no goals in life, unsure of our direction, and no yellow brick road with the Emerald Castle at the end. Stuck in situations that we want to get out of, and yet not knowing how to. In the end, we are just aimless wanderers, like the boys in the film, with only each other for support.
In the end, we're just like the Hebrews. We call and pray for deliverance from our prisons. Yet when we get it, we end wandering in the deserts, following the crowds, hoping the guy in front knows what he's doing and trusting to God to show us the way. Will we wander forever, or will we finally reach our Promised Land?
Monday, November 10, 2003
Random Ramblings.....
It's been a while since I had anything really worthwhile to say on this blog, so i'm just gonna try rambling on and see if I hit something....
Kazaa
It's been an even longer while since I've downloaded anything, cos I was watching the whole download-witch-hunt going on in the States. Now that I've finally been on, it's such a BLAST to receive music illegally for free again! ( Gods, if someone from that law firm sees this blog, i'm screwed............ ) The only irritating thing has been all the new measures taken to stop downloaders from well, downloading. First, there's the file that plays one section of the song over and over and over again. Then there's the one where the song starts normally, and then disintegrates into static. Another one just opened into.......silence.......
Well, screw you, music moguls. I think it still takes less time for me to delete the song and find another [good] copy than it takes for them to create and flood kazaa with all these duds. 'Sides, there's always some other hacker out there who'll manage to get a good copy out on the Net. [Hands up for electronic freedom] As I speak, i'm listening to the 2nd version of "Life Got Cold" by Girls Aloud, and the line "And we hate when we have to pay..." Hee..... so suits the mood now.
~[still waiting for the record companies to find a viable solution to deal with online music]
~[also waiting for record companies to come up with good music, instead of giving us more swinging bellybuttons. Hey, who wants to pay for that kinda music?]
Incidentally, there's a really good acoustic version of Matchbox 20's "Unwell" that's going around the Net right now. You guys really shld get it.
Still on the Shelf..... and waiting
A Salut! to Candle, who did a tarot reading for me on Sat nite on my love life, and who told me that my love life is surrounded with conniving, cheating, no-good-lyin' conman [sniff] and that there's no change in that anytime soon [SNIFF!]. What's a girl to do, but to go home, and get herself a tequila on the rocks? [Sniff......*hic*!]
Nah, I din get myself drunk, never fear.... i'm not at the stage where i'm gonna drink myself silly on my own living room floor. Think of the mess i'd have to clean up in the morning. Yuk! But it is a bit depressing to hear such news about your [as-yet-non-existent] love life. With all those connivers around me, no wonder I'm still single! At this rate, shld I consider lesbianism? [cos the tarot mentioned a MAN as the connving one, not a female figure]
Ah well....... no matter what, even if i remain single, celibate, and [straight] all my life, it's good to know that i still have other things in life to keep me happy [and ranting]. I'll still have friends, comics, books, my blog, and my 2 bottles of vodka and tequila always there for me.
[at least candle did another reading for me, which though said roughly the same thing, also said that i'd have a happy ending at the end of the rainbow, with 7 cups floating in the air.......]
It's been a while since I had anything really worthwhile to say on this blog, so i'm just gonna try rambling on and see if I hit something....
Kazaa
It's been an even longer while since I've downloaded anything, cos I was watching the whole download-witch-hunt going on in the States. Now that I've finally been on, it's such a BLAST to receive music illegally for free again! ( Gods, if someone from that law firm sees this blog, i'm screwed............ ) The only irritating thing has been all the new measures taken to stop downloaders from well, downloading. First, there's the file that plays one section of the song over and over and over again. Then there's the one where the song starts normally, and then disintegrates into static. Another one just opened into.......silence.......
Well, screw you, music moguls. I think it still takes less time for me to delete the song and find another [good] copy than it takes for them to create and flood kazaa with all these duds. 'Sides, there's always some other hacker out there who'll manage to get a good copy out on the Net. [Hands up for electronic freedom] As I speak, i'm listening to the 2nd version of "Life Got Cold" by Girls Aloud, and the line "And we hate when we have to pay..." Hee..... so suits the mood now.
~[still waiting for the record companies to find a viable solution to deal with online music]
~[also waiting for record companies to come up with good music, instead of giving us more swinging bellybuttons. Hey, who wants to pay for that kinda music?]
Incidentally, there's a really good acoustic version of Matchbox 20's "Unwell" that's going around the Net right now. You guys really shld get it.
Still on the Shelf..... and waiting
A Salut! to Candle, who did a tarot reading for me on Sat nite on my love life, and who told me that my love life is surrounded with conniving, cheating, no-good-lyin' conman [sniff] and that there's no change in that anytime soon [SNIFF!]. What's a girl to do, but to go home, and get herself a tequila on the rocks? [Sniff......*hic*!]
Nah, I din get myself drunk, never fear.... i'm not at the stage where i'm gonna drink myself silly on my own living room floor. Think of the mess i'd have to clean up in the morning. Yuk! But it is a bit depressing to hear such news about your [as-yet-non-existent] love life. With all those connivers around me, no wonder I'm still single! At this rate, shld I consider lesbianism? [cos the tarot mentioned a MAN as the connving one, not a female figure]
Ah well....... no matter what, even if i remain single, celibate, and [straight] all my life, it's good to know that i still have other things in life to keep me happy [and ranting]. I'll still have friends, comics, books, my blog, and my 2 bottles of vodka and tequila always there for me.
[at least candle did another reading for me, which though said roughly the same thing, also said that i'd have a happy ending at the end of the rainbow, with 7 cups floating in the air.......]
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