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December 23, 2003
Post-Its
More movies I've watched over the weekend that I want to talk about but I can't yet cuz I am incapable of doing so.
1) Lord of The Rings - Return of The King (tiff, I will still watch with you!!)
2) Girl with A Pearl Earring
3) Addicted to Love
Different movies, but I loved all three of them!
And because two out of three of them exposed me to the world of the camera obscura....it's my new current obsession. :)
Posted by lainey at 01:01 PM | Comments (0)
December 18, 2003
Bearing The Weight
I went to watch 21 Grams last evening on my own. I had a vague idea what it was about, but it hit me hard, much harder than I expected. I thought it would leave me brooding and sombre. But it did more than that. Or at least, I think it did. I didn't know if it was because I was caught in the rain before the movie, or if it was the psychosomatic effects of the movie, but I felt sick in the middle of the movie, and at the end of it, I had to go throw up. A cigarette made me feel better but I'm running a fever now.
I would like to attribute it to the movie, rather than the rain.
You know, 21 grams is the weight one loses when one dies.
In the movie, Sean Penn's character dies many times over, as in, he has many near-death experiences. And his character asks, how many 21 grams can one person lose? His character also had the chance to see what death can effect on the living. Alot of people die, or comes in touch with the idea of death in the movie.
So if the dead loses 21 grams. Then 21 grams must be what those left alive has to gain.
His character finally asks the ultimate question for the grieving, the living.
He asks how heavy is the 21 grams?
(At this point, I can't remember if he asked or I asked.)
I think about so many things that have happened. And I think about all the different 21 grams I've gained. And I think, as a stupid joke, it's no wonder I'm so fat now. Then I look at my mom and the 21 grams she gained and how she's dealing with it. And how I'm always so angry at the way she's dealing with it.
Is the way I'm dealing with my multiple 21 grams any better?
Then I remember how she dealt with the 21 grams I gained the way I'm dealing with her 21 grams now. With pure unadulterated anger.
Shwang posed me this question. What if my him is to die?
I didn't tell Shwang. That everyday, I ask myself that question. That it's my greatest fear. I also remember, in happier times, that's his greatest fear for me. From the beginning of our relationship, he expressed opened fear of me dying. That's when I've learnt to take care of myself. And it's something I can't shake off up till now. We spent most of our relationship with me assuring him that I would stay alive the best I can. So much so that he developed an immortal quality. But it doesn't stop me from reading San Diego Online everyday. Just in case. He races.
So how heavy is 21 grams?
It is as heavy as your heart.
Posted by lainey at 05:38 PM | Comments (2)
December 17, 2003
Next In Line
I finished Wind-Up Bird!! :)
Of course I feel a lil sad having to depart from Mr Okada's world. The ending was a tad pale...but it was a marvellous, intricate work of imagination though. I can imagine the text in Japanese. The Japanese language is more formal, more tedious and more naturally contrived (how oxymoronic!), thus making the over-writing un-exaggerated. But the translator probably tried to retain most of the elements of Murakami's writing.
I must soon learn to read in more than two languages. :(
Moving on to another translated piece of work - Erick Fromm's in fact. I have to at least finish what I've set out to read for this trip, otherwise this would be considered a wasted trip.
Yes, I define my life by the books I read.
And I'm still putting writing on hold.
But oh! Mr Wind-Up Bird! What a wonderous wonderous affair we had!!!! You made staying in , reading by Manhattan's skyline and the snow so much worthwhile.
addendum: Stepphenwolf peaks from the corner and reminds lainey gently that he oughtta be finished soon. Subway reading is, perhaps, an insult. Lainey has not taken the Subway in almost a week!
Posted by lainey at 06:03 PM | Comments (0)
Forget-Me-Nots
I'm making a note here, so that I wouldn't forget.
I had intended to blog about these, because, they are worth remembering.
Movies I've watched here and want to talk about:
1) Sylvia
2) Hero
3) Mystic River
4) Farewell to My Concubine
Have to talk about:
-Boston
-Guggenheim Museum
In the meantime, I'm silenced. I feel the need to write but I can't. Because writing would mean I have to address my own issues.
In the meantime, I turn to the frenzied reading of Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Because as long as HIS life is more fucked up than mine, I don't have to concentrate on mine.
Let me hide, in Murakami's world and New York City for just a little bit more.
Posted by lainey at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)
December 10, 2003
Living Like A Wind-Up Bird
I'm more than halfway through Murakami''s very gripping Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I refuse to go the Strand bookstore to acquire more books until I finish this one. I guess I create lil motivations as such for myself. Pico Iyer's Global Soul(another great read, by the way) introduced this book to me, and I love it....it provides an extremely wonderful alternate reality for me to escape into when New York City and its bright lights and sounds are not enough to distract me from my own afflictions. I guess Mr Wind-Up Bird's loneliness is so intense that I can forget my own, even for only a little while...I guess it's marvellous that it's more than 600 pages long then.
This passage elucidates the six-month-life I carved for myself just before I came to New York:
Between the end of that strange summer and the approach of winter, my life went on without change. Each day would dawn without incident and end as it had begun. It rained alot in September. October had several warm sweaty days. Apart from the weather, there was hardly anything to distinguish one day from the next. I worked at concentrating my attention on the real and the useful. I would go to the pool almost every day for a long swim, take walks, make myself three meals.
But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drank, the very air I breathed, would feel like long sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at 4 oçlock in the morning.
Of course Mr Wind-up Bird and I do not lead parallel lives. I had .... more variations in my life. I had a couple of weeks of S, and 22 hours with J...and a very wrong one month with T. It seems that in Singapore, where we get unchanging weather, I mark the passing of time with different men instead of with the changing seasons. Now in New York, time is spent exploring everybit of a new city. But how new is it? And how different can it be? How can it hold my attention for so long that I can be distracted from the fact that I'm still alone, naturally.
I still crawl out of bed in the middle of the night. No matter where I am, no matter what I do.
What I'm most scared of is that , when I go back to Singapore, this will be the life I will lead. That each passing day is marked by a turn of the Calendar page, that my life is filled up with activities meant to merely conceal the gaps of silences. I do not yearn not to be alone. Because I take pride and enjoyment in being alone. I'm terrified of the loneliness that ensues. Loneliness that nobody, no activity, no drug, can remedy.
So I am jealous of Mr Wind-Up Bird, because I have a suspicion that at the end of the story, his loneliness will be quelled, and mine will only just begin.
Posted by lainey at 10:16 AM | Comments (0)
December 08, 2003
foul mood
fuckit.
wanted to blog abt my movies and my books. but seriously.
fuckit.
Posted by lainey at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)
December 02, 2003
Escape to the PictureHouse
I was bent on watching Sylvia yesterday but I could only find the big commercial cinemas, which of course, are not showing the movie. I managed to stumble to the East Village but found only a tiny cinema showing indie films. All the better I thought and proceeded to buy a ticket...there are so many prospective good ones but I didn't recognise any of them except for a picture that is "coming soon" and that's Le Papillon and I've already seen it twice.
So finally I decided on Être et Avoir - A French documentary on a single classroom school in a little village in rural Auvergne. I chose it because...well it's set in the French countryside and I have a thing about the French countryside. And also because The New York Times reviewed it (they pasted the review on the door) and said that it will make one understand why teaching is a thankless job.
Sometimes, the idea of becoming a teacher in Singapore makes me balk. There's such a huge stigma involved and teachers don't get the credit they deserve in a place like Singapore. For instance, the people I meet here, when I tell them I'm going to become a teacher, marvelled and heralded my choice. The response I get from Singaporeans is more daunting. I get laughed at or dismissed instead. I'm not saying I want to be exalted, but I do not need my ideals to be belittled into an easy-way-out to an idle life.
But then, I try my best. Not to let what others think affect me. Sure I'm not going to become some high-flying, money-churner career woman. But I'm going to do something I've always wanted to do. Infect lives a little, affect lives a little and maybe help with the world we live in and give back some of what I've taken.
The film made me cry, laugh and smile.
It was a good 104 min reprieve from the maddening crowd. :)
Posted by lainey at 08:19 PM | Comments (0)
December 01, 2003
Travel Companions
I remember reading in Vaya's blog or somewhere that reading makes us learn to be alone.
But I don't feel alone!
I was alone in a big big city and was feeling scared and small. Then when I enter the world of Hesse and Murakami, my world is a better place to live in. And New York City becomes beautiful.
Right now...my bedtime reading is Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and my Subway reading is Herman Hesse's Stepphenwolf.
And I'm having the time of my life. :)
No no..that's an hyperbole.. I'm just having a good time. :)
Posted by lainey at 08:00 PM | Comments (0)