How gay are you?

In the light of the recently turned evil, much talked-about Big Brother.. many social issues/agendas have come up... primarily, homosexuality.

Here is a gay-o-meter test, sent to me by a lovely friend. It would be funny to see how you score.

My results said i was 43% gay:

Congratulations! You scored right in the middle and are a happy and well adjusted hetero babe!

*phew*

I have to say i did hate that kitten feminist-lesbian on Big Brother quite alot the first time (did you see her gestures before she went in?) but now i'm beginning to sympathise with her... if i were homo, i might even have fancied her. But luckily i'm not. haha...

Out there

A: The person I'm looking for isn't going to answer to your man-call on the streets.

L: I told them you were beautiful and if they are beautiful, smart and single men out there, trust me, they'd respond to the call. They follow their dumbsticks. It's a biological fact, whether you like it or not.

A: I really pity you. If you think all a man is governed by is by his dumbstick, then why do you even bother with the whole thing, doesn't that make you ever finding anyone a hypocrisy?

L: Don't be silly, Ally. Do you really think you're going to meet your man out there by chance.. in a bookstore, both reaching out for Balzac?

It doesn't happen that way.

You've got to do something.

A: (pause)

Now, who should be pitying whom?

The Dreamers

After a day of revision today, i finally did something, though not as much as i could have done. but let's not be greedy and over-ambitious. i know it's not entirely justifiable, but i rewarded myself by going to watch The Dreamers . Bernardo Bertolucci has outdone himself again. Most might remember him for his memorable Last Tango in Paris casting the ever-famous Marlon Brando in a role very different from the mafia Godfather i'm studying right now.

Anyway, here's a handy little review of The Dreamers if you're too lazy to plow through it's official website and its plug-ins. though i must say it's worth the effort. I am proud to say that this is the first time in my life that i have ventured to a theatre to watch a film alone, and i'm well proud of myself. it didn't matter whether i had company... the film was brilliant to watch alone or otherwise. I was incredibly excited when the film unfolded itself before my eyes and my newly-acquired intimate knowledge of the French New Wave freshly vivid in my mind leapt to equip me with identifying with the multitude of references Bertolucci weaved into the film. I was so excited to a point that i automatically fished for my notebook and started penning the references in the dark, oblivious to the fact that i couldn't really even see my own writing. it was so much like film screenings where we scribble our notes illegibly, only so much more fun. everytime any member of the trio of Theo, Isabelle and Matthew made a reference to a film, or everytime Bertolucci juxtaposed the narrative with black and white images drawn from cinema history, i joyfully exclaimed in my head, "that's Hawk's Scarface! That's Garbo's Queen Christina!"

The trio Theo, Isabelle and Matthew was obvious reference to Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim . Even the sleeping together, exchanging partners thing was kept faithful. Godard's A bout de souffle haunted the beginning with the use of its main themes non-diegetically. Theo, Isabelle and Matthew walk exactly like Jules, Catherine and Jim (the sequence just before Catherine jumps into the river) along the banks of Champs Elysses. And then belle poignantly relates the moment she first said 'New York Herald Tribune!' along the streets of Paris, exactly how Patricia (Jean Seberg) does in A bout de souffle. Bertolucci even cuts to my favourite moment of the film when the Seberg character is introduced with soaring strings soundtrack and Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) finds her selling the American newspaper on the streets.

Right, i've got to stop doing the actor/actress name in brackets thing. it makes me feel like i'm writing one of my film academic essays. sigh.

But anyway, Theo and Isabelle's house reminded me so much of the french film i watched in the first year (which was not part of the New Wave) called Le Captive with its green hue and confined, meandering spaces. Theo watching out on the balcony, the composition of those frames were obvious references to Truffaut's Antoine Dionel character from his first feature Les Quatre cent coups. Bertolucci's use of jump cuts bring Godard's experimental editing up another level by randomly cutting to bits of other films at different points in the film. Matt's letters to his mother, and the presence of the candlelights, Theo's motorcycle, their illicit parties with alcohol and sexual activity.. obvious extractions of Chabrol's Les Cousins.

I love Michael Pitt's semi-soliloquy on the lighter, its dimensions, how it fit with the table patterns, the inexplicable cosmic harmony of things around us, of the world.
I love Theo and Isabelle's father and his attempt to explain French existentialism, while his character apprently portrayed with a certain 'American-ness'.
I love the classic rock sountrack, simultaneously out of place in this feel of european art cinema, but so brilliantly underscoring the film's narrative, giving it just the right touch.
I love the discussions they had of Keaton and Chaplin, of Clapton and Hendrix, of Fascism and Communism, of the violence of the student's French Revolution and America's Vietnam war.
I love the sitting about, discussing intellectual ideas, elaborating ideologies..not for its pretentiousness, but that's what the French intellectuals and elite, much like the New Wave filmmakers sat around doing, during the late 60s.
I love the cinephiles.
I love the French's fascination with the cinema, with American cinema... and its references to the stars that were Garbo and Dietrich.
I love the fake death Theo made in reference to Hawk's Scarface . I loved the clip Bertolucci picked out of that film, with one of Tony's men shot dead, with the sign of the cross juxposed on the dead figure.
I love it when they ran through The Lourve trying to break the record set in Godard's Bande a part.
I love it when the film had its little musical-esque moment when Theo and Belle sings "we accept you one of us" as Bertolucci once again jumps cut in reference to American cinema.
I love the siren sounding outside the apartment, exactly like how siren sounds randomly while Michel and Patricia have their bedroom talk in A bout de souffle.
I love the little sisha tent Isabelle built for them.
I love the composition of frames and camera movements of her attempted suicide with the long tube filling with gas.
I love how the revolution prevented their deaths at the crucial minute.
I love how the siblings dependence on each other are portrayed with such intensity.
I love the beauty of Eva Green.
I love the spectacle of the riots (albeit not its motivations in theory).
I love the fade to black and white from the burning colours of the mise-en-scene.

There are, however, moments of the film where it turned slightly pornographic. It would be understandable how someone who either haven't been brought up in a culture to accept such images on screen, or someone who doesn't have cinematic knowledge of the theories behind the motivations of such images, would label it 'disgusting' and 'fucked-up'. Still, Bertolucci justifies these acts by revealing how this is just part of growing up. a sexual re-awakening. Case in point, Theo calmly fries some eggs while it goes on - Bertolucci detaches the act for us. It is just part of life. Who can say it's not?
(I do agree though, to be fair, that the blood smeared across their faces was slightly distasteful and wasn't all that necessary.)

Cahiers du Cinema - as Pitt quotes...
A film-maker is like a peeping-tom. A voyeur. It is a spy; you look and are disgusted, guilty... but you can't look away.

A lovely phrase i keep turning over in my mind.

I know The Dreamers has nothing to do with the exam i'm sitting this friday. but to hell with that, i would have regretted it if i missed this out (for the third time). As a funny note, i stayed to watch the whole closing credits, and right at the end i was rewarded for my patience and efforts when i saw this phrase included at the end of the credits:

"Indigenous trees have been planted to off-set the carbon dioxide produced by this film."

That just made my smile, while i was walking out of the theatre, just slightly bigger.

Picture This

only 3 days left. the countdown to the first paper is progressing at an alarming rate. currently experiencing a massive headache possibly due to the fact that i tied my hair while having dance lessons today. okay, i know that's probably not true but i can't think of other reasons. maybe it's the stress getting to me.

been reading past Hollywood Cinema exam papers... and now this current article on Out of the Past, a forties film-noir that i'm studying for the exam. And all of a sudden i remember what Ed said in the lectures about the 'cross in the wilderness', although that was more applying to the western and sci-fi genres. See, my thoughts have progressed to a stage that its logical map of thought-processing is not that logical anymore. But anyway, that recollection reminded me of this photo(see below) i took in edinburgh at the beginning of winter. i think the picture would have been nicer if the trees at the side didn't feature so much at the forefront.

On another note, i made a discovery today that i do not have a single decent picture taken of Sg, in Sg. was going to post some (sorry dem, i know i said i had some to show!) but i realised that whenever i'm home, i just never bother to take my camera out. it seems i'm only snap-happy when i'm travelling in some fashion or another. but it is appalling, though. come to think of it... that it has never occured to me to collect images of home. wait actually, i have done that before quite a lot, but that was mostly on the job working as a jouralist back home. so whatever photos i may have taken on the job would have been the company's copyright. and i dont have a hard copy of them either! (although some were pretty nice and got published)

Am now trying desperately to take mental pictures of important sequences in all the films that i am examined on this friday. but with an average film lasting two hours long, or in my case, the Godfather II being almost four hours long, it is pretty damn hard to remember everything that is relevant. my head feels like it's going to explode. and it's an irony because there's nothing much it can explode of since i haven't filled it with very much useful stuff anyway...

so the countdown continues.

(to my friends who have finished their exams and are either happily touring europe now or getting drunk every night.... lucky bastards, go away!)

The cross in the wilderness. 

Ode to James

To the delightful friend i've got to discover recently (who incidentally also keeps bugging me about this)... I dedicate a re-written version of Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk to you. A lovely song introduced by an ever lovely friend... (and i mean it). You should try singing along to it with the re-written lyrics. i can even accompany you on the piano... ;)

Here are the original lyrics. It would make more sense (for those not in the know).

Cigarettes and chocolate milk > Rufus Wainwright > now re-written as an Ode to James

cigarettes and chocolate milk
these are just a couple of my cravings
everything it seems i like's a little bit stronger
a little bit thicker
a little bit harmful for me

if should buy a keychain
i'd buy an afro one to think of you
everything it seems i like's a little bit sweeter
a little bit different
a little not harmful for me

and then there's those other things
which for several reasons we will mention
everything about you is a little bit nicer
a little bit funnier
a little bit older

it isn't very smart
tends to make one talk so open-hearted

sitting here remembering you
always been a friend made for the city
go ahead, accuse me of just singing about praises
with hot swimmer's bods
and general love of the town
sending me those wonderful songs
takes a lot of sentimental valiums
so expect the world to be your raggedy andy
not running on empty
you little old doll with a smile

we've got to keep in the game
football watching memories facing forward
i suggest a session of some 'fantastic dancing'
or 'last minute writing' or 'late night chatting'

it isn't very smart
tends to make one talk so open-hearted

still i wouldn't trade you for others
holes or a friendly intervention
i'm just a little bit lucky, a little bit cheeky
a little bit tower of pisa whenever i see you
so please be kind if i'm a mess
cigarettes and chocolate milk

My first Bloggerbot-attempt at publishing a photo! This photo was taken at Newquay last summer... what i would give to be back there now... 

Identification

As usual, my surroundings call out to me to distract me from the process of revision. i sometimes swear it is a conspiracy of the world against me to prevent me from doing what i should be doing. but i shall not moan about work. i have concluded that i am going to start avoiding talking about work/revision/study from today till the end of my exams. there's no point berating how much i haven't done when it's only obviously going to make me feel worse about not doing anything, especially when the world around me seemingly is engrossed in the captivating acts of book-mugging and library-hogging.

I was randomly surfing around today and came across a recent added web service that contributes to what many have now called the blogging phenomena. Phlogger is its name, and it's basically a service that allows you to send MMS from your phone to your blog. I know that sounds really cool... and i was about to sign up for it when i realised that Phlogger is the innovation of a Singapore-based software company. As i surveyed the details of the fields to be filled in, I noticed that one of the pre-requisites for using this service is providing a 'NRIC/FIN number'.

I stared blankly at this blank field for quite awhile. This is quite the first time since i've left home that i've had to fill in my IC(Identity card) number. Basically, (for my fellow english friends) NRIC simply means National Registration Identity Card. Every single resident has this identity card - a number assigned to you right from the moment you are born. Before, it used to be different from your passport number, but now your IC number functions as your passport number as well. FIN is an alternative identification given to foreigners in the country. So everyone in the country has a number of some sort.
It really made me think about something i heard from my coursemate only a few days back. about England thinking about introducing identity cards for the whole nation. one of my mates, who has always known to feel passionately strong about his opinions, said he thought the idea entirely wrong and that the country should stand up against it. There was mention he was even ready to go to jail for standing up against the idea of identity cards. His argument is that it is a violation of human rights/privacy for so much personal information (full name, date of birth, address, blood group, thumb print etc) of the individual to be contained on a single card.

And then there's Singapore, a whole small country consisting of 4 million people, every single one represented by a number - a number that we dont even stop to question or challenge in any way. Who came up with that idea, anyway? I've never really given this much thought, but now that i think of it, everytime i fill out an application at home, i've got to fill in that 7 digit identification number. it does kind of make one feel like a convict being called from his jail cell, like "021581!" Even when i fill in lucky draw coupons, i have to include the number. does various known and unknown agencies link up to this one big databank that contains the personal information of every single living person who exists in the world? It's a scary thought. I am reminded of Hollywood conspiracy thrillers where any person's file can be called up by the FBI/CIA, deleted on random, modified by whim, and exploited by use of personal information. I just never thought myself part of any conspiracy and that idea is starting to sow its seeds in my fervent imagination.

Maybe i'm just losing it. America, after all, has social security numbers, that work on this principle. But that's America. Who gives the right to governments to label their citizens by numbers? But for purposes of logistics and track records, what other alternative is viable to society?

I am strangely perturbed that I have an identification number. There is not a chance that 7 or 8 digits are embodiments of who you are and what your identity is defined by. When I frivolously write my number away, on the countless forms you fill up in the process of your life, who knows what kind of information am i giving away about myself?
I look at the blank fields on the Phlogger page again, and suddenly i get repulsed by the fact that I am on the other end of the earth, on a whole different continent and country, but am still required to fill in a number to define myself, as provision of personal information, before i can use a service, that has no relation to my identity.

In a republic country masquerading on the principles of democracy, where the need to control is so strong, it is hardly surprising the concept of identity cards exist. It is even more hardly surprising that it does not occur in a single instance in the singular mind of the average obedient citizen to question why there's a need for identity numbers in the first place. Is its existence justified? should strangers be allowed to know significant personal details of any other person just by glancing at a single 3 by 2 inch laminated card that has our name on it? Or are we over-reacting?

Whatever it is, I didn't proceed with the registration. Somehow, having to provide that detail to use a web service just made it seem like i was revealing something about myself to the intangible gaping galaxy that is the internet; and that made me feel vulnerable. Is there no other way?

General Musings

I can't say i've had a fantastic day. the pressure is mounting and it's officially like 9 days till my first exam and i have done absolutely nothing save saying that i've done absolutely nothing and still not do anything about it.

I have resolved that that should change. purchased a nice black ball point pen today and the ink just flows unbelievably smoothly. am now encouraged to write notes so that can only be a good thing.

my only highlight of the day was my hour of Ally. i made a nice stir fry dinner..the most effort i've put into any of my meals for a long time, and snuggled up in my chair for my hour of Ally. and it was such a good episode. Ally and John were getting birthday blues..what she calls pre-birthday attacks of an immense sense of underachievement. that's exactly how i'm feeling right now even though it isn't 2 months till my birthday. today's case in court was about how this man's wife died of a cardiac attack and because he couldn't bring himself to let her go, he sawed off her hand as a little 'momento' of her. i know it sounds bizarre but sometimes, as Ally argues, people do stupid things in the name of love that has no explanation, and deserves no explanation. her case was made solely on the fact that at some level, we all wish to experience that kind of madness. and when that madness takes its form in such a morbid fashion such as the act of sawing off a hand, we close our eyes to it and denounce it as a crime... when in a twisted way, we envy the people who have had that kind of love that reaches the depths of this insanity.


and then, of course, Nell gave John a little birthday surprise by inviting Barry White perform at the office bar. for Ally fans, you know how Ally has a theme song (Tell Him) like John has one sung by Barry White. Well, that little theme started playing and it has got this sort of rhythmic upbeat attraction about it that makes you want to start bobbing your head or do a little dance of your own. I always thought it'd be really cool if our lives could have soundtracks just like films always do. how great would it be if everytime we felt like it, we could really hear a tune surrounding us. sure we do hear those stuff in our heads(surely it's not just me?), but if it was physically playing in the diegesis of our world, how much more wonderful life could be. anyway, Barry White starts crooning Love Hurts and John gets up to do his little birthday dance with his usual quirky eccentric gestures. and the rest of the characters get up to join in and they start dancing a synchronised number... it was such a delight to watch. it reminded me of the days when i was but 14 or 15 and used to watch Ally (my mum often disapproved). Everytime they had those end-of-episode-moments on Ally where they get up to do a dance, i find myself inevitably having a smile on my face.... and in those days, i always felt as if i had to get out of my life back home and go somewhere where i can do just that without being branded weird.

i am afraid my claustrophobia has grown larger than i expected it have been and has pervaded many aspects of my life. sometimes i wonder is it because i'm aware that i'm slightly clastrophobic, that i become really claustrophobic; or if i was already in that condition right from the start. i dont think it is, however. very much of who we are is conditioned mostly from how we were brought up and the nature of our environment... you might be thinking this doesn't really quite link up to what i was saying previously. but thought patterns are inherently weird and random. i dont know quite what was the biggest factor back home that caused my social claustrophobia, but it did happen. i can name you a few reasons why but it is such an irony. being claustrophobic around people who are like you is just... stupid. how can you be afraid of something that you are part of?

anyway, enough said. that discourse is one i think i'll need more energy than what i have now to pursue. it's past 1am and i'm tired, even though i haven't really done much. i enjoyed my hour of telly... it cheered me up somewhat to see John's delight at White's appearance. and thinking about how White unfortunately had passed on while i was holidaying in newquay last summer just ended the whole episode wistfully. it's strange how the dimensions of things you've watched or experienced before changes so much with a second viewing many years later in the light of how things/people have changed. sometimes i think my affection for this series is not so much due to its brilliance (a arguable point i know) but because it reminds me so much of a time in my life that watching it again now seems to me, to be reliving those moments. It's amazing how different we now think about those same things we used to ponder when we were young. And how time and age changes opinions so effectively. No wonder there's a saying that goes he who knows nothing, is the wisest. sometimes by acknowledging that we dont know very much at all, can we only begin to fanthom the enigmas that surround us.

Close-up

Guess what i'm doing at 4ish in the morning, instead of sleeping, or revising, or doing anything productive?



This is the answer. Don't ask me why. I just took my pencils out and felt like it.

The birds are now chirping outside my window... it annoys me to hear that deep in the night. it always reminds me of the essay horror nights where i work through without any sleep. I think I may retire soon.

Immortality

The gods envy us... because we are mortal.

To us, everything is all the more beautiful... because we are doomed.


I love Greek mythology. that reason alone stands as justification to watch Troy. With men waging bloody wars for seemingly reconcilable reasons, you would think that more than hundred centuries later, men would have learnt from their mistakes and one day realise the futility of war. Yet here we are in the birth of the 21st century and the same thing, only now fought with different weapons, seemingly happens right before our eyes again... it doesn't take a soldier subjected to having his head slowly sliced from one side to another in front of a camera, or fake photos of troops urinating on a prisoner, to reveal the different guises of the brutalities of war.

And yet, there is that beauty in that spectacle of war, re-used and re-cycled in the history of cinema. and that recurrent guilty pleasure of indulging in that spectacle, made to invoke simultaneously the sublime sense of waste and its accompanying majesty. i believe there can never be a singular absolute emotion to any one thing.

Did the heroes of that epoch really think their names would live on forever. are they part of true stories turned myth turned legend, or are they figments of imaginations passed on through time? Did they really think that 3000 years later, what they did in the present of their time, would still be remembered in our age now? Was that their only and true motivation for doing what they did? There are many questions, but never any answers, as always.

What does it take, for stories to transcend time and live solely in existence in the annals of history, or legend? How much does it take to be remembered and does it even matter...that we are remembered? Even if you were, would you even know it?

I wish I knew. I wish I could live then. wear their clothes, tread their soil, explore their cities, tap their souls. I wish time had many dimensions and we wouldn't always be stuck in the one we were assigned to all the time. I imagine the universe being zillions of story capsules, each unfolding simulaneously. Wouldn't it be fantastic if we woke up one day in the story of another... how much one could see, how much one could learn. sadly, my wishes are but a result of momentary postulation. i could never wake up one day in the story of troy. or learn how it was like, just for a day, what it was like to be Achilles. That's where, i guess, cinema takes its place. For it makes that experience possible, in the dark recesses of our mind, while we are sitting in our little cinema chair staring at a screen in front of us.

End of the Premiership

Today marks the end of the 2003/04 Premiere League. too bad the title went to arsenal, i shant be bitter and will accrue that they quite deserved it. and managing the whole season without being beaten is quite something. but the commentator on the Arsenal-Leicester match today certainly did annoy the f*ck out of me by repeating the word 'immortal' and 'invincible' like a freaking hundred times towards the end of the match and i'm not exxagerating when i say a hundred.
Going through a season without losing a match is cool but that doesn't make anyone immortal. plus they drew 12 games. if they were really invincible, they would have won all of them.

It was a lovely day to finish off the season though... what i saw on our premiership plus seemed like a perfect film setting. i couldn't help but all that spectacle was gone to waste, limited by the tv camera crews which were filming from the ground. if only they had a crane in the middle of the field to take the shots all round... ooh, that would have been magnificent. it was emotional... can't say that i didn't wish ardently that it had been my team winning the medals and holding up the trophy. thierry henry looked vaguely sad behind that facade of happiness at winning this season.. i wonder where the next season will bring him.

okay, the sun outside is mocking me. i'm going over to run in the hearsall common field just for the sake of it now to bask in some glorious sunshine....

The Little Things in Life

I was driving to school this early afternoon and here's what i heard on radio - 105.4 FM Leicester Sound. A song had just played on radio and the dj was delivering traffic reports...

'Previously we heard that there were some cows which were causing traffic problems on the M25 Motorway. I'm now happy to announce that the cows have been cleared and traffic has cleared. If I may say, the traffic has moooooo-ved.

And then he gave a 'har har, harumph' kind of chuckle and said 'haha, okay that wasn't quite as funny, is it?' and trailed off... before playing the next tune.

It was hilarious! I was laughing so hard in my car that i swear the old man in the car next to me (we had stopped for a red traffic light) was looking at me weirdly like i've gone off the rocker. but to be fair it was quite funny and it just made my day. i repeated the story to tash during our exec meeting today and she couldn't stop laughing for a dear 5 minutes...

such are the little things in life that never fails to make us happy. it's amazing how these seemingly inconsequential little happenings brighten up our days in the smallest ways. and then Ksusha said today to me that i always wear such nice clothes! i know it's a frivolous thing to be happy about but i was, nevertheless! got my Hollywood Cinema essay back which was okay, could have been better but i'm not unhappy with it. it just frustrates me that my average is hovering very close to a first and i can't seem to be able to lift myself to get a concrete first average. But then eve remarked today that students nowadays seem to be 'pigeon-holed by their grades' and i think that is so true - we are all guilty of it in some way or another. since grades are the only tradition that has been preserved so far in determining intelligence from one person to another, it is inevitable that we are in some way, whether we want to or not, affected by it. but then again, it should never be allowed to reach a stage when it matters more than life. for example, a junior girl in my secondary school, jumped off a building because of a bad grade. i would never be able to understand that. tears are the maximum i allow myself for academic disappointment.

But okay, i shall not wallow in such thoughts. it has generally been a good and happy day, even if it's only in those little ways. my room is in SUCH a mess, with my half filed notes, pre-deli outfits strewn all over the place, in the midst of all the normal shit i have on the floor anyway. need to do major re-organisation soon. speaking of which exams are looming ahead and despite serious catching up on a year's work that i have half-heartedly neglected, i'm wasting far too much time online messing about...

My New Home

Finally!
I have shifted to my new site. for months now i have been harbouring intentions of moving but have never gotten down to it. either i was too lazy, html and javascript too complicated a language for me to understand, or i just couldn't find the right design i wanted. But anyway, here it is! Don't you love it?

I know... it looks very different from my old site. I'm already beginning to miss that one, but somehow i like this one much better. I believe in change of environments! Anyway, if you're reading this on my old site, my address has now officially moved to http://heavensknow.blogspot.com . i tried getting heavenknows, for consistency, but it wasn't available, apparently someone else has it. but when i type the address in to check it out, that blog doesn't even exist. so oh well... anyway for those who's wondering whats up with heavenknows, it's nothing it's just my msn name.

Have overlapped some of my previous posts on this new site... but otherwise all the old posts are still around on the old site ready for access anytime (so long as they don't close down that server). I'm well excited and so proud of myself for constructing a site from scratch all by myself despite my limited html knowledge! but to be honest, i didn't have to do much. things just fell into place...

I'd better stop here before I ramble more. have just got back from a night out at Deli at Sugar (Leamington) so pardon if there are seemingly inexplicable phrases in this post. it is the result of intoxication. Oh, and if you want to say something, click on 'say something'. say anything. any suggestions/feedback will be good.

On another note, i have yet again missed another episode of ally tonight because i went ice-skating at the skydome. sigh......

Moments

Tonight on Paramount TV (Channel 127 on Sky tv), i relived one of my favourite-test episodes of Ally McBeal.

Ally and Billy grew up in the same neighbourhood. they fell in love and went out until billy moved away to michigan to study law while ally stayed in boston to study the same degree. twenty years later she joins a law firm and meets billy again, only this time, it's billy and his wife. It takes a couple of seasons, but mostly the sight of ally kissing another man, (a good looking black man doctor named greg) for that matter, to kick billy's selfish, possessive, misogynist instincts into overdrive, and he tells ally:

i have tried denying it, but am now finally unable to withhold it.... that i have never loved anyone and still love anyone the way that...i love... you.

and that's not the best part. a day later he works late and goes to her office, asking her, what happened? she says you tell me. and he replies,

I never thought that I would meet the person of my dreams... at age eight.

and that is the one single phrase i have remembered for the past five years since i first heard it uttered the last i saw that episode. how simple and how sweet. and how sadly true, that we seldom have the courage to believe something that is almost impossibly true when it is staring at us in the face.

Eternal Sunshine

(I'm going to talk about the film so if you haven't watched it, hate knowing stuff before watching a film, don't read on.)
If you want to know why the lengthy title, watch the film. it is a true poignant moment that it is revealed. i've watched so many films this year... recent ones including Gus van Sant's Elephant, Dogville, Zatoichi... the list is longer but i can't be bothered to remember it and i've been fairly lazy blogging bout the films. but this has got to be the first that has exceeded my expectations.

Right from the opening shot of Jim Carrey's face, to the cut across to his hanging wind-chime (is it?) on his blue melancholic windows, mirrored even in the solitary yet romantic piano solo in the soundtrack, just made me instantly knew that i was going to enjoy this film. and i certainly did. (in spite of one helluva headache) i'm one to dislike romantic comedies, but ever so occasionally, some romantic comedies just strike the right note. and i wouldn't degrade this film to even say it belonged to the romantic comedy genre. but it is, ultimately, a romantic film. not by mainstream definitions, definitely. the central reason for my intense cynicism for romantic comedies is the fairy-tale fall-in-love trials and tribulations which sometimes, fair enough, film-makers try to integrate some honesty. but mostly, you don't see the after-story. what happens after cinderella's prince marries her? He trots off into the forest and discovers sleeping beauty, has an affair in another faraway kingdom, comes back to his wife, starts getting grumpy. issues rise, and in our ever-so-modern context, would likely lead to divorce... and just 20% of a population leading such lives would indicate the social stratification we are subjected to everyday. and divorce rates are not just 20% trust me.

that's why i hate it when they try to present an all-sweet, goose-bump raising, pretentious romantic comedy. because that's just not what happens in real life. what happens in reel life serves to fulfill that desire in us to see the fairy story come true. to find that true love. to overcome all obstacles. and i dont have anything against feeding that hopeless romantic in us sometimes, of course. but that is never the solution.

what Eternal Sunshine offers, on the other hand, is honest romance, based on the nitty grittiness of life. of relationships. having a long term relationship with someone is not something all pretty and sweet. that usually lasts the first 6 months, if you're lucky. three months or less, if you're unlucky. Eternal's portrait of Joel and Clementine (yes, i know, what a name isn't it. but it's orange and because it's orange, it has to be lovely) is a startingly accurate depiction of the level of intimacy a real relationship possesses. such that when you try to erase the memories associated with it, you'd feel that a part of your life is lost. can you imagine permanently erasing it, then? the thought is inconceivable. the memories of a soul is what defines a soul. extinguishing it is extinguishing yourself. even if they are bad, bittersweet memories, they are your memories. it wouldn't make you, you, if you didn't have them.

the couple and all their idiosyncracies are unabashedly revealed to us. just as in a true relationship you reveal all that's both ugly and pretty inside you. when the film closes in a cyclical fashion, it brilliantly links you back to the opening sequences which you don't expect. it seamlessly weaves in and out of the deceivingly disorganized (but actually really ingenious) editing of shots as the film progress. the best part is there is no happy ending. well, not outright. not with popping champagne, bells ringing, people clapping, lips locking, does it end. it ends with the simple ordinariness that strikes right to the core, makes you sit up, and go, yes! that's it! that's how it is in life! why romanticise it needlessly?
they make to leave, but wait and realise, the memories are not something they can erase with a simple procedure. neither the place they occupy in each other's lives. they talk about their problems. well, okay, i think i can live with that. i can try to live with you. in your entirety.
and that is exactly what i'm talking about when i'm talking about the flaw in most romantic comedies. they don't talk about the things that couples have to live with for the rest of their lives. the moment the film ends, their fantasy, no make it our fantasy, is evaporated.

Joel and Clementine run along in the snow in the ending shots of the film... they run, they are happy. but most of all, the film impresses on us, just like how the snow envelopes and encompasses them, that no relationship is without problem or pain. they are like you and me. a realistic couple on earth. it doesn't offer an immediate solution. but it teaches us the beauty of memory. it reminds us of the beautiful times that come hand in hand.

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

The film ironically challenges the very mantra it establishes in its diegesis. It's not a perfect film, of course, if the concept of one even exists. But it has certainly rejuvanted the definitions of the romantic comedy genre. wait, it's not romantic comedy, really. it's offbeat romance. and rightly so.

Zoom

Things are happening too fast for me to keep a record of. Don't you ever get that feeling sometimes that too many things that you want to remember are just passing you by at a rate too fast, faster than you can consciously etch them in your memory?

I had an eventful weekend, starting with fantastic shopping at Birmy's BullRing, where i blew more than a 100 pounds, including paying an exorbitant 8 pounds (?!!!?!) for parking. thinking about it, i could have bought at least one decent top with the money i spent on parking and petrol. sigh.
but anyway, shopping was amazing. i bought three skirts including an absolutely amazing lovely skirt from mango. shoes, tops, more summer skirts, and a set of pyjamas! okay, shant go into too much frivolous details. point was i got really dehydrated while shopping, had to drive home, hardly had any rest, forced myself to go out for Soul Nation at the union...had promised many people i'd be there. drank the usual drinks.which wasn't very many. and when i woke up the next morning, i really felt like i was going to die, and i'm not kidding. i went to the bathroom after what seemed like eternity, gathering up all the energy left in my over-driven, unhealthy and pathetic state of a body, and almost vommitted all my guts out. yes, not a pretty picture i know. but that's the extent of how horrible it was. made some porridge after that. the first in two years of living in england that i've made that. mince pork porridge...wow, that brings back memories of young teenage days when my ex-maid, Imelda,(okay, i should say domestic helper, not maid, that's the term we use in my country though and yes i know it's offensive i try not to use it here anymore) would make watery mince pork porridge for me and bring it to my room with light soy sauce (because i like salty food) and a hot mug of water. one always thinks more about home when we're ill...

anyway, tried to make food. and then gathered the very very last remnants of my energy to go for the Ibiza party which i was podium dancing at. wanted to cancel, felt bad. three others had pulled out. but i'm glad i went, kind of. music was fantastic, amazing, really. with laser beams and spotlights on us podium dancers it was unbelievable. there were many creepy men about who kept asking me if they could get on stage with me to dance and i was like oh just get lost. i didn't want to be rude but with drunk english blokes you have to be rude sometimes to get the point across. but it's fair though, it's a union rule that unless you have a backstage dance pass, you can't get on the podiums. so even if a guy i fancy comes along, i wouldn't be able to allow him on even if i wanted to.

anyway, the amazing music was pretty much what kept me going despite my running temperature and a very sore throat. and in the last 10 minutes, we were all grooving mightly on the podiums/stages when suddenly, at 5 minutes before 2, there was a fire alarm. we couldn't even hear it. for a moment i thought i had been temporarily totally deafened. the music stopped, it was such an anti-climax. but then again, we already had a blast so it didn't matter.

went home, collapsed, couldn't sleep because i felt so horribly ill. got up, went for mass, went to rehearsals... was beginning to feel like a total zombie. and then the highlight of my day came when i watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. (see next post)