great jady!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! check it out!

haha i really laughed my ass off, that short scribble you wrote on Mr. P Pervert that is. Yao huihui read it too and we recalled a great deal abt Pervis, but eventually came to the conclusion that those Londoners all look alike and we can't recall who's the one who loves the word 'rubbish' so much, with a spicy accent.

back to our original plan. free verse by which i mean, anything there exists in your imagination, poetry, broken sentences, ones you put down in a word document and found them all underlined in red, but all of these can't be more welcome in this slapstick free verse project.

i wrote a short paragraph some time ago and left it hanging, whether you wanna continue painting that imaginary character, delete, add, insert, whatever or start anew. at least let's get it moving.


A big yawn, seems to suck in all the air there is in this room, which becomes a vacuum as a result. Who knows the temperature of a thing called vacuum? Or have you ever heard of weather forecast on vacuum? The vacuum is snowing, raining, temperature drops to sub zero? Laugh away my friend.
But it’s freezing.
For my heart sits in its half cold labyrinth, deadly composed, listening to mutters. Then a strike of laughters that for once seem to break the crystal of thoughts, but no, they only shake the vacuum. Left, right, up, down. Riding the spasm which stops in no time.
You can sense shadows crowding, dark patches that flicker against the curtain painted golden by the lamp light. I don’t have to look to see. Doesn’t take much for a blind man to be wise. Whispers that are only a step away from excited gasps, mouths nipping on ears that are dangerously close, nervous glances exchanged that fail to hold a heart’s thousand secrets.
I’m the one looking on, a dangerous cat prowling with sensual strides, eyeing its prey from afar, ready to attack at any time. But the cat is not hungry. Kills for pride, kills for sinister discontentment. Kills to break the vacuum.
‘Hey, stoned again? Wanna play poker? We need one more to fill in.’
Prey is speaking. Low life. How pathetic and insignificant like a dust to be brushed off.
‘Why not. I’m bored’
Half lie, half truth.

indeed what happened

dear stick,
indeed what happened to our original plan. I wouldn't call it cowardly that I decide to quit the monumental project titled novel X right now. Partly due to the fact that I can't devote my time to extensive brainstorming and writing with absolute logic with few loopholes that are required of a successful detective novel. and It's neither wise to start out so big at first try. My suggestion is reserve the tarot muder and novel exchange as two separate projects for further development and meanwhile let's do some free verses as what originally planned. what do u think? I'm asking the same question here. I feel it's getting too big to be mangaged. Think smaller and have a realistic start seems to be more practical, at least for me coz I know i can keep it up and not dropping it any time I feel demoralized or brain blocked. waiting for your verdict and we'll see which path we choose. when we feel it's time to stop the free verse correspondence we'll be good enough n prepared to take on the two projects. let's title the free verse project slapstick for now and write whatever we want. alrite, less said and just vote.
we may even drop pieces of our thoughts into the free verse just to prepare for the 2 projects and see how it goes since there's no consequence attached.

Stick's vote

Of course I'd vote for that. That's what I (and you) wanted to do all along! Motion passed!



Haha, so now we do free verse. By ‘free verse' do you mean only poems like ‘A bird'? Or just any form like short stories? In any language? (We only know two anyway…plus what little French and Greek and Latin we could scramble together between us…hahaha) I am on for absolutely anything, anyway.



I am flipping through my old scrapbook, looking for tidbits of inspiration for a short story or something…and it strikes me how long since I last actually held a pen and wrote an entry. I am tempted to make just one, though probably inevitably silly, New Year's Resolution—keep a diary like VW did, who left 26 big volumes of diary after her, which she wrote with in mind the future pleasure of a 50 year-old VW slowly burning them in a fireplace, which she eventually didn't, and 50 a threshold she never lived to cross. WHY are we so obsessed with VW?! She's great, a true artist no doubt; still the obsession could be something worthy of several long notes of explanation from ourselves.



Ah, now I come across a hastily scribbled paragraph, standing all by itself. Ha! See if it's continuable!



Mr. P slowly articulated his arguments from between his teeth and his glassy blue eyes gazed down at me with a look of triumph. I was not sure I knew what was behind that look—“rebut me?' or “dare you to?” or “now nod and say yes”. Would have blurted out something were I in another place, but I was in Singapore, the Embarrassing Island, which possessed all the embarrassments of a former colony. Not wholly British; not Chinese, or Malay or Indian in that case; it's caught in the middle and can't make up its mind which way to go, therefore a ‘culture meltpot'. Meltpot my ass. I pulled myself back from raging thoughts and said, “Yes sir, I get your point.”



Hoho I guess that was written after some particularly frustrating conversation with Mr Purvis the Pervert, still remember him? Never mind what the argument was about, I don't remember it anyway. If you think it's possible to go on, go on anyway you like. First person or third, new characters, out of Singapore and into space, time travel, whatever. We are in a blindly-write-and-exchange game! And I think it best to first draw material from familiar experience for starting writers, and life in Singapore definitely falls in that range, ain't it? And if you think it's best to leave the rather 没头没尾的 paragraph alone, throw something else over!



And now I've come to the end of my grey scrapbook that lasted me from July 2002 to November 2003, and reread my own novel project that aborted after some dense three pages. Maybe I SHALL pick it up and bring it out of oblivion! My New Year's Resolution number 2!! With any luck, you'll get to read it ten years later.

I wandered lonley as a cloud - William Woodsworth

I wondered lonely as a cloud-William Woodsworth

probably the most well-known poem, compelled to post it up though. maybe just because it's such a bright n happy poem. n happy poems are rare.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud


1I wandered lonely as a cloud
2That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
3When all at once I saw a crowd,
4A host, of golden daffodils;
5Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
6Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.


7Continuous as the stars that shine
8And twinkle on the milky way,
9They stretched in never-ending line
10Along the margin of a bay:
11Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
12Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.


13The waves beside them danced; but they
14Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
15A poet could not but be gay,
16In such a jocund company:
17I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
18What wealth the show to me had brought:


19For oft, when on my couch I lie
20In vacant or in pensive mood,
21They flash upon that inward eye
22Which is the bliss of solitude;
23And then my heart with pleasure fills,
24And dances with the daffodils.
Notes

1] Wordsworth made use of the description in his sister's diary, as well as of his memory of the daffodils in Gowbarrow Park, by Ullswater. Cf. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, April 15, 1802: "I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones . . .; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing."


21-22] Wordsworth said that these were the two best lines in the poem and that they were composed by his wife.

and about the line numbers, that how univeristy of toronto categorizes the poems. and i'm too lazy to do any editing.

Krall song of the moment--|Stop this World|

Stop this world, let me off

There's just too many pigs

in the same trough

There's too many buzzards

sitting on the fence

Stop this world

it's not making sense


Stop this show, hold the phone

Better days this girl has known

Better days so long ago

Hold the phone

won't you stop the show


Well,

it seems my little playhouse

has fallen down

I think my little ship has run aground

I feel like I'm in the wrong place

My state of mind is a disgrace


Won't you stop this game

deal me out

I know too well what it's all about

I know too well that it had to be

Stop this game well it's ruining me


Well I got too smart for my own good

I just don't do the things I know I should

There's bound to be some better way

I just got one thing more to say


And that is

Stop this game,

deal me out

I know too well what it's all about

I know too well that it had to be

Stop this game well it's wrecking me

Disillusioning comes slow and painful; in spite of the slowness, and because of the pain, it is irreversible. It's yet to be termed “disillusionment”, for it's yet to complete, the heart yet to release its clamping, compulsive-obsessive clasp on hopes, true or false alike. It's yet to rid itself of attachment and anticipation, yet to live true to a Buddhist lifestyle of having magnanimous love towards the world at large, and without attachment. The other day I came across this passage on friend's blog—

笑容立定可取，快乐下落不明

跟一个朋友一起去吃饭， 两个话痨凑在一起，一边吃一边说自然觉得很开心。
但是后来，他突然说，虽然此刻在笑，其实已经很久很久，没有感觉过那种发自内心的开心。他说着这些的时候，表情依然很淡然， 像在说着一件与己无关的事。

我们看欢乐总动员， 看八卦新闻，看六人行，看一切网上广泛流传的，脍炙人口的经典段子。我们那么乐观，随时随地，很容易就可以笑出声音。可是，当他问我最近有没有发自内心的开心过时，我笑着笑着停了下来，这问题太简单，但我却无法开口说出那答案。

我知道他说的那种发自内心的开心，那是一种从里到外的，无法言喻的欢喜，觉得诸事皆顺，万物皆顺眼，满心有无数的快乐要与人分享。那种感觉，曾经有过，至今依然记得。只是已经很久很久，没有体会过。

也许只有当一样你向往了很久很久的东西，终于被握在手中的时候，才会有那样深的幸福感。但是现在的我们，不再有耐心和勇气去等待和追求任何一样东西， 我们更喜欢那些垂手可得的快乐，虽然浅薄，然而立杆见影，是以也稍纵即逝。

过生日的时候许愿，闭上眼的瞬间，竟有一丝的慌乱，突然发现不知道自己要什么。只好马马虎虎的祈祷岁月静好，现世安稳罢了。一个连愿望都无法清晰的说出的人，又怎么会有愿望实现的时候那深切的欢喜？

与此相对的，是哭也变得比以前容易，甚至一句台词一段旋律都可以骗取我们的感伤和眼泪， 但是事后，也并没有多深切的悲伤。如果一样东西其实并未深入内心，不过是在脑海一闪而过，此间的得失，自然不会造成多么彻骨的痛苦。

我就这样变成了一个无所谓的人，同时丢失了那些鲜明的欢喜和哀伤。立等可取的眼泪和笑容更多的时候不过是一种发泄的途径，已经和我们秘而不宣的内心无关。

在轻浅的悲喜背后，是对生活淡淡的失望。
那些真正经历着快乐或悲伤的人，都是幸运的.

My first reaction was, How right this is. One moment later I felt confused, for when I thought about it I no longer was so sure that I'd agree, and didn't know how to categorize myself either—I live, or have been trying to live, a detached life, yet I constantly got myself into violent attacks of emotions, not infrequently invited them to me. Rapid switching back and forth between a peaceful/free of want state and an agitated, sensitive state helps only to push the schizophrenic tendency further, and hardly anything else. My tranquil self despises my actively seeking and feeling self for its attachment with the world, and the latter despises the former for its cowardice and escapism. In all good conscience I could just stick to one and be at peace with the universe and myself, but why oh why am I still not even remotely doing that?!

Jude, what do you think?!



评论/留言
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作者：Slappujudu　　时间：2004-12-4 6:14:30

it''s hard to say...
what''s the last time you felt so very happy?
unhappiness and discontentent are twins, at least for me. I always thought more things we know, more things we try to figure out on our own, the greater the discontentment that follows for not being able to truly understand material things, emotional status, and finally ourselves, whether we''re happy, whether what we''re doing is meaningful or whether the tea leaves are going to settle down at the bottom of the teacup at all. becoming detached and unfocused, small things easily fix my mind.it''s sometimes not even a matter of whether i choose to be one state or another, i let go of my feelings so easily that I don''t even bother to consciously pull myself out of it. and all of these for me, i know it''s the discontentment that comes with age. the feeling of not being in control puts me in hyper tension and to conquer my own discontentment i lose sight of happiness. but guess it depends on the simplicity of one''s mind and what it is he seeks in life. my grandma leads a simple life, haha gimme a break, i guess most grandmas do. if i ever see some granny one minute beseiged by the complexity of a philosophical problem n sinks into deep self inspection and the other minute all smiles n steady coz her secret wish come true i''d rather not be borne knowing this constant struggle of mind and mood swings are continueing into one''s late years. maybe i''m exaggerating and i bet there''re still some old grumpy souls out there. but the truth is, or i think it is, that all these frustrating split personalities are going to fade when i learn to let go, and that won''t happen any soon until i''m old n wrinkled as my grandma, and that''s an inevitable fact that''s programmed into my life. sometimes i think my definitions for my state of well-being is horribly strict. grandma smiles when we crowd around her, hugging n pinching her stomach. i laugh when told a joke, or when a friend''s words warms my heart. which one do u call happy? and who has the right to define transient happiness for everyone n why the need to cruelly separate them and draw boundaries, saying the cat with spots is not a true cat. I might have denied my own laughters but again, that''s probably coz i''m so discontented I start to doubt every existing particle, picking trivial wrongs out of ordinary happiness. but i am happy, even interspersed with fits of violence in life, coz they''re inevitable.
and don''t dispise your violent self coz that part of you is not wrong. neither be stringent with your tranquil self coz you are entitled to what''s rightfully yours. all i can say is, live easier and don''t escape. and maybe when you''re at the bottom of your own cage, will it comfort you that someone is thinking of you, hoping you well. it might sound cliche but why won''t that be happiness. r we not too strict on something as innocent as happiness. won''t it be overly painful to doubt every single line you heard or suspect nothing is what it seems. i''ll tell u a joke just to make you laugh and don''t roll it three times in your brain whether you laugh coz u r happy. you''re happy coz i wish you r happy, that''s why i''m telling the joke. simple.

有人用箭射大猩猩，一射，大猩猩用左手接住了， 二射，右手接住。 三射， 大猩猩用嘴接住了。三箭射完了，坏人已经没有箭了。可是最后，大猩猩还是死了， WHY WHY WHY

Depression, Jazz, Blues, and loving Diana Krall

The first time I heard Diana, I said to myself, this is how I've always wished my singing voice to be, low, throaty, has a warm, grainy texture to it, like those old pinewood floorboards in old-fashioned houses, brown with time, comfortably dry yet moist with fermented sentiments, faintly fragrant.

Now in another violent bout of depression I sit in my unlit room in the failing afternoon light, salty liquid half dried on cheeks, listening to Diana once more. That worn out heart trying to take those melancholic doses of warmth in, like how I would clasp my stone cold hands round a glass of steamy water in winter times, then slowly sip, drink, and feel the heat tickle every cell awake as it passes. The Heart is Lonely Hunter, by McCullers. I suddenly think of the novel I have yet to read. Only read another book by the same author long time ago, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, from which I copied the following quote—

"Often the beloved is only a stimulus for all the stored-up love which had lain quiet within the lover for a long time hitherto. And somehow every lover knows this. He feels in his soul that his love is a solitary thing. He comes to know a new, strange loneliness and it is the knowledge which makes him suffer. So there's only one thing for the lover to do. He must house his love within himself as best as he can; he must create for himself a whole new inward world—a world intense and strange, complete in himself…the value and quality of any love is determined solely by the lover himself.

It is for this reason that most of us would rather love than be loved. Almost everyone wants to be the lover. And the curt truth is that, in a deep secret way, the state of being beloved is intolerable to many. The beloved fears and hates the lover, and with the best of reasons."

That's right. Go check out McCullers sometime. She wrote with a reticence and taciturnity that's most uncommon in writers.

And back to Krall. In her latest album she wrote six of the twelve songs, most of which are introspective, personal, and most intimate. And my personal favorite—

The Girl in the Other Room.

The girl in the other room
She knows by now
There's something in all of her fears
Now she wears it threadbare
She sits on the floor
The glass pressed tight to the wall
She hears murmurs low
The paper is peeling
Her eyes staring straight
at the ceiling

Maybe they're there
Maybe it's nothing at all
As she draws lipstick smears
on the wall

The girl in the other room
She powders her face
And stares hard
Into her reflection

The girl in the other room
She stifles a yawn
Adjusting the strap of her gown
She tosses her tresses
Her lover undresses
Turning the last lamp light down
What's that voice we're hearing?
We should be sleeping
Could that be someone who's weeping?

Maybe she's there
Maybe there's nothing to see
It's just a trace of what used to be

The girl in the other room
She darkens her lash
And blushes
She seems to look familiar

It is almost poetry. Or shall we say, it IS poetry, of its own kind, lyrical and wonderful, almost a film sequence, fragmentary frames, an oil painting, an afternoon reverie. A dimpling sea of mercury that mirrors an image of a ghostly self in me, immaterial, shivering with the joy of existence, and also angst of having in possession pining youth that's both a blessing and a curse. Am I the Girl in the Other Room? Or am I the one thinking about the Girl in the Other Room? Or both? Or neither? Only time knows. Which, again, is an illusion.


评论/留言
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作者：Slappujudu　　时间：2004-12-4 5:27:33
dear stick, your thoughts almost remind of of esther sama, but then probably no. her constant ''angst'' doesn''t contain melancholy. i actually listened to diana krall''s new album and was playing ''stop this world'' on repeat mode some period months back. and yes her voice is surely sensual and throaty. what i understand about beloved or the to love which paired together will be perfect but taken to be unidirectionally domineering, seems like a a selfish emotional outlet of what i''d say is excessive love that is eager to spread over and devour that ''house'' which quietly and patiently holds those tingling nerves until the emotional tides swell up from inside and eager to conquer another territory-the beloved. mind of a new lover that starts to live in your heart house and unaware it''s changing u in little aspects that amount to a new being recoganizable no longer. and you stare into the mirror grimacing and screaming at the new art work sculpted by a foreigner who comes from his own lonely planet n makes yours his home. dunno what i''m talking about. just suddenly feel that love is selfish. and lovers probably the sweetest enemies.

12月3日 占卜

十字法 问：情

1. 塔 U
2. 皇后 R
3. 魔术师 R
4. 死神 R
5. 星星 R
6. 正义 U
7. 皇帝 R
8. 祭司 R
9. 恋人 U
10. 倒吊男 U

理智，情感，谶。他人，自己。该相信谁。可以相信谁。

Stick starting Chapter One

Stick wakes with a splitting headache and yawns wildly. Contemplating the ceiling fan for some fractions of a second he decides to call himself ‘It' today, a sexless, whirlpool-like consciousness. ‘It' then lethargically tosses around on the narrow bed, only to discover, grudgingly, that he's sleeping among scattered tarot cards, survivors of previous night's attempts at fortune-telling. Thwarted efforts in trying to tear the opaque veil off Fate's ugly face had driven Stick into some tantrum-throwing, which resulted in, among other things, an already-dog-eared and faded set of tarot cards becoming ink-stained and torn beyond repair. One card, however, seems to fare surprisingly well—The Fool, resting snugly beside Stick's pillow, stands unscathed, clean, grinning widely, a sight that's almost sinister in the feeble morning light. Stick shudders and in the same flash of a second recalls the impending deadline of the novel, which his agent and sometimes even the publisher have started calling up and inquiring about more frequently than pleasant. The stack of paper Stick prepared for the novel months ago now sleeps on his broad desk in the vast emptiness of his workroom, yellowed through autumn and winter, yet to enjoy the gentle scratch of a pen point and soothing flow of indigo ink. Except last night, in the severe attack of Nausea and self-loathing, Stick had smashed his pewter ink bottle. He stared gaping, as if stunned, as the indigoness, now free of confines, flied towards the paper stack and gave it a light kiss on the side, speckling each and every page with idiosyncratic streaks and dots, almost as telling as crack patterns on a turtle shell.

Alright, I am going to start with The Fool. Before Stick consciously realizes his almost subconscious resolution, he's already striding into the deserted, stale workroom, and starts scribbling away frenziedly in a broken pencil. Somehow, the impermanency and ease of change of pencil marks gives Stick tremendous comfort, unthought of and quite unthinkable in his fountain pen days. He writes—

April 1st,
[The Fool—Upright: New beginnings, new adventures, new opportunities, unlimited possibilities, pleasure, passion, thoughtlessness, rashness. Reverse: A bad decision, indecision, apathy, hesitation, a faulty choice.]

“Mother, I think I'll go to the literature camp myself.”
A girl in a checkered denim dress lowered her eyes and said aloud, as if more to herself than to her slightly startled mother. It was a clear day in mid-spring, the platform, reeling in gasoline smell, was quickly emptying, the dusty red train noisily engulfing passengers, the air making its presence felt by its unsettling stillness.

The girl fingered the creases in her faded blue dress and said once more, this time with a solemnity and determination that was almost irrefutable. She didn't turn around to behold the melancholic, knowing smile in her mother's eyes; she knew. Without another word she reached out for her light suitcase, now with a black dove sitting on it, Sphinx-like, fixing her with an unfathomable stare, cooing silently. She felt momentarily dizzy, blackness closing in all at once. She shook her head, and it was daylight again. The black little creature had departed, leaving an almost dried, heart shaped puddle of poop on the suitcase. Instinctively the girl reached in her pocket for a Kleenex—“Don't.” the mother broke her silence suddenly, her voice low and comforting, her manner queenly. The girl looked up into those steady, dark eyes, and saw both premonition and determined amusement. In that fleeting eye-contact mother and daughter conversed a thousand thoughts, and the girl boarded the train, alone.

Diary, April the first, departure from northpoint station.
Alice,
We both saw the premonition in mom's eyes just now and I can hardly tell what the Future has in stock for me. You, my future self, would be wiser of course, but I won't be daunted to jot down my ignorance now, or maybe it's just my usual rash thoughtlessness that constantly threaten to humiliate me before you. Either way, I'll say this: I am happy that I am embarking on this new adventure, though I am hardly seeing beyond where I stand in time and space Now, the bright penetrating light of the torch that's my Insight now rendered quite powerless as the straight passageways it shone down no longer are, replaced instead by crooked, narrow alleys, meandering in an insentient maze called Fate, all a resolute choice of mine. New openings, new possibilities, adventures, these are what energize me, and I really hope that you still hold these dear in your heart, no matter how far you have advanced on the Time axis.

Novel X, a tentative start

Prologue (Or should it be plot summary?)

Here’s a room, almost empty you say, but there’s one desk which makes you hesitate to say the word ‘empty’, and above all, there’s a man at the desk, biting his pencil. You can almost make out the teeth marks. He’s thinking, musing, deeply entrapped in his own web of imagination, or is it deadlock--we’re not sure. But we can see his pages are empty. There’s only a date, 1 April. He needs his players, he needs a protagonist. Probably a girl to start with, then continue to invite in more to make the plot going. He stared hard at the blankness and suddenly started to scribble with such fury that started us.



Meanwhile, it might be useful to know that the man is a schizophrenic, split into two major personalities, among other tinier, quieter ones; he himself terms the two Slap and Stick, mocking his own life as a slapstick writer. Quite a terminal case, shall we say.

Here you say there’s nothing special about it, just another lunatic writing a multi-paragraph self-entertaining thing. Why, it’s all a dream. We always excuse the inconsequentiality and nonsensicality of dreams, don’t we.

It’s a dynamic, interactive novel. Not to be composed by one person alone. For every 2 weeks, writings are to be exchanged, at random. To whom the unfinished pieces are passed on to is unknown. Scripts are deposited in a black box and drawn by the next one, but who? Nobody knows. No complaints, no grudges. Write on as if it’s always been your own.

They don’t know each other. How is that possible? Communication is strictly forbidden. Let’s just idealize the situation for now and be contented.
They can’t tell from handwritings since everything’s typewritten.

But, there’re always ways to know. Loopholes, chances, traps.

The same beginning takes on different flows. Life of the writer at the desk takes different turns.


A girl gets to know the secrets of a boy, or she thinks it’s a he. And keeps the secrets well. Pen pals in love.

One of them writes a detective story. On paper, horrible crimes are committed. On the day of final submission, real murder takes place. It is April 1st.
Who wrote the plot? Too many. Who did it? No one. Everyone.
A paper is stolen and returned a day later. Everything’s the same except the ending. Why the change?
They’re each independent happenings. They’re all linked

novel discussion post 2

novel discussion post2

haha great great kicking it off! yeah i totally agree that we should have some kind of forum specially dedicated to novel discussion just to keep track n easy reference. stick, you configure that! Stick starting Chapter One, great! initally when i read the post i thought the 'Fool' was a he, or is it my stereotypical view that made me think along this old line. surprised yet super delighted that it's a female FOOl hahaha, laughing my lungs out. this's kind of offstream n cool in some sense to have a female protagonist who's like the puppet master pulling the strings n silently dictating the lives of our tarot players behind the scenes dont you think? alrite, so we have Stick as the map maker. This's getting mysteriously interesting!!

and i favour the idea that the life of our protagonist, the Fool, should be given little mention throughout the early part of the novel, or maybe only unfolded slowly, bits by bits to keep her a forever mysterious mind boggler. and about what kind of background and character the FOOL shoudl entitle, it must be somewhat unusual and shocking then, can't think of an abstract idea of it though. yes she's schizo.

Tarot cards: agree, 22 would be horrifyingly excessive. let's lay our favourite cards down. i think something mysterious about tarot card (it does happen to me!!) is that some cards never appear. for me personally,these cards seldom appear ' the lovers, hierophant, the sun'. and these appear with shocking high frequency 'devil, justice, fool, magician'. well, digressed. ok, i'll pick some first.

lovers
justice
devil
hermet
hierophant
magician
death
empress/emperor - should we give both versions? they're about the same to me, maybe just choose one.

btw, is there such card as 'stars', 'the towers'? stars being hope, towers meaning dillema? and the hangman?

stick pick your favourite cards and let's see the final contestants.

mmm, after deciding the cards let's assign names n characters and link them all up in some way. like matchmaking game, maybe we should think of some ultra bizzare relationship, such as the Hierophant with the hermit,hangman and tower, and some contesting ones like devil-justice, death-stars etc. can well go beyond one to one correspondence. and anyway it's a dynamic novel and everything gets swapped on periodical basis, so there's equal chance that these tarot characters meet each other once, on paper or in some other forms.

logic is a tangle of mess now. i'll continue with chapter 2 tmr. any suggestions how to do the intro, or we stick with 'stick writing the first chap', or giving a prologue. i was thinking, giving each chapter a tarot card name may not be a very good idea though, depends on how we pull it off, if not smooth it'll sound very mundane and poorly structured. ideas?? and continuing on chap 1, the fool start scratching the scary date down' april 1st', what will she write and who's gonna follow?
maybe we should draw up some independent events first, major themes, such as establishing the realtionship of major characters. ok, waiting for your wise thoughts! with abaited breath!!

Novel discussion post 3

hoho now Stick wakes again and here's my thoughts: but hey no, before my thoughts, I must give my previous batch of thoughts/intentions, which consist of the following—
1. nah Stick is hardly THE mapmaker. Neither is Stick a female. In my head it went like this: since Novel X is a doll-within-doll affair, the outermost layer is of course the man at the desk in an empty room writing the detective novel, and in the tentative prologue I named this man SlapStick, who is schizophrenic, who splits into two major personalities that's Us! This lays the grounds that Us can take turns to write and the differential styles explained for. In a style like “stick writing chap one”, “slap writing chap 2”, “stick continuing chap25””slap revising chap 14””diary: by stick/slap” etc etc, so as to give ourselves flexibility and control over the developments at any one time. Hence, Slap is THE OTHER IMPORTANT HALF OF a mapmaker, just like how it works here in the blog enterprise hehehehe. Exactly which differing aspects of personality in Us (us us us) we want to reflect here in novelist SlapStick we both will have to start another discussion on. My tentative ideas now: Stick as the angry, anxious, impatient, violent, fatalistic, and always theorizing about HIS (since Slapstick was defined to be a man biologically) sexual identity or lack thereof (therefore the she/he/it thought, a minor point of interest which could be played out more if it becomes more relevant later), and Slap as gentle maybe, easier going, trying to be brighter, but still a bit sulky about life n acrid. We'll have to make them two distinctly different, if not contrasting, yet subtly sharing some character too, say sentimentality, that underlies the united individual Slapstick. Gotta arrive at a consensus later.

2. So Slapstick being a terminal case of schizophrenic (refer to Prologue) constantly switches back and forth between Slap and Stick (reminds of Fightclub huh?), either self quite unconscious of the switches. He may keep a personal diary too, so while detective novel under his pen unfolds, his own personal history and problems and realisation of his split can be disclosed on a parallel line. (how very complex! But hey, we are challenge-loving souls!)

summary of chat history, 2004-12-01

1. agreeing on the girl being a schizo…there's distinct difference between schizoid and schizophrenic and i am not sure which would fit with her THE FOOL identity better, if at all. NB: gotta do research on that.
2. named the fool Alice, from Alice in wonderland. Her mom is the high priestess, tentatively
3. the novel has 3 layers: slapstick, tarot set ppl, tarot ppl novel
4. hourglass structure probably. the first and third layers being the bigger ends, the second layer a connection between the two worlds
5. characters sorta abstract and eccentric and surreal but hauntingly make readers have to identify with one or another trait in them
6. the personalities of characters remain largely unaltered, we assume that's where slap and stick have unwittingly agreed upon. only the fate of the people are steered around. like in a whirlpool they are pulled by contesting forces （ that's us), not knowing if in the end they'd be swallowed alive or escape
7. we write diary entries and letters and 3rd person narratives on 2nd layer but the weightage needn be as big as on 1 and 3
8. characters in layer2 have real life names, like alice. they arrive at the scene of confine, say an island, a mountain resort, and are asked to draw tarot cards.
9. we have to come up with characters and establish their basic relationships or else this's gonna run into a hodgepodge given how inexperienced we are. although individual pictures will be perfect, impressionistic, coloured, the whole plot can't be void or else we'll be 张艺谋ｎｏ．２
10. a bit like nausea/fightclub/ten little niggers/run lola run/conan/the talented mr ripley/*more to come* rolled into 1
11. http://www.themysticeye.com/info/tarotcardm.htm
12. stick's fav cards ( which are suitable to adapt into persons): fool, magician, hanged man, hermit, devil
13. maybe an inner circle of ppl writing the novel, say five, plus the ruling one, who can be the Emperor going all wrong in the head. and there's an outer circle, relatives and friends, whom the inner circle communicate with via letter, telepathy, whatever
14. the devil in particular in slap's impression is a very charismatic person
15. fool and magician are lovers
16. slap was thinking of a character, not exactly hermit, someone inconsequential who has extrememly low self esteem n watches others in silence, always there in the shadows and he has lots of secrets too. Stick thought that's the hanged man.
17. there are just 9 ppl cards among the 22.. 9=fool, magician,high priestess,empress,emperor,hierophant,hermit,hanged man,devil
18. slapstick himself could be the tenth one. Nice number.
19. summary of chap1: alice is departing from train station, saying bye to her mom who's tentatively the high priestess, going to the mountain resort/island. a 3rd person narrative, maybe plus a short diary entry
20. if we auteurs can't agree on one ending, we can write multiple endings...like run lola run
21. advice: don't look too far and speculate immoderately, or you shall get vertigo and writer's block.

网上流传的《名侦探柯南》大结局十二种

（一）柯南终于打败黑暗组织并找到恢复身体的方法，与小兰共结连理。后来两人有了爱情的结晶——一个男孩，取名为工藤柯南……

（二）柯南终于打败黑暗组织并找到恢复身体的方法，但小哀在与黑暗组织的决战中为掩护新一不幸被琴酒枪杀。新一与小兰共结连理，后来两人有了爱情的结晶——一个女孩，取名为工藤志保……

（三）柯南终于打败黑暗组织并找到恢复身体的方法，但毛利小五郎在与黑暗组织的决战中壮烈牺牲。新一继承了毛利侦探事务所，与小兰共结连理并改名为毛利新一，后来与小兰有了爱情的结晶——一个女孩，取名为毛利洋子……

（四）小兰知道了柯南的真实身份后恼羞成怒，用空手道修理柯南，结果用力过猛酿成无法挽回的悲剧……

（五）柯南终于打败黑暗组织并找到恢复身体的方法，但在新一向小兰告白前夕，小兰遭遇车祸……

（六）在与黑暗组织的决战中，小兰不幸……，志保和新一远走高飞……

（七）全体被黑暗组织抓住后乱枪扫射……

（八）全体被黑暗组织抓住后捆住手脚丢到海里喂鲨鱼……

（九）柯南在与黑暗组织的决战中和琴酒同归于尽……

（十）打败黑暗组织后，柯南没能变回来，向小兰表白身份后，两人移居美国治疗柯南的侏儒症……

（十一）柯南终于打败黑暗组织并找到恢复身体的方法，但小哀因嫉妒用APTX4869给小兰投毒，并毁掉了解药逃走，新一只好服下最后一颗APTX4869，又变回了柯南……

（十二）柯南终于打败黑暗组织，但却无法再恢复成工藤新一，向小兰说明一切后，两人洒泪分手……几天之后柯南的班上转来一个很可爱的小女孩，柯南看到她时一下子惊呆了（你知道是谁了吧）。女孩微笑着对柯南说：“我会永远和你在一起，你再也赖不掉了！”若干年之后在夏威夷的海滩上出现了一对年轻的情侣……

Downpour

for Stick, also for me, for our forever young childhood memory
(starts to sound as if i wrote it, i'm so sorry Master Zamora)

Downpour

-Daisy Zamora

From an airtight office window
I gaze out at the downpour
Yellow flowers
From an acacia shaken by the wind
roll along a rusty tin roof

A fish in a fishbowl
I recall with envy the young girl who was
Drenched and happy, jumping
Mud puddles and ignoring calls
Because later
My go-between great aunt
Hidden from grandfather
Would dry my hair,
Change my clothes,
Clean the mud off my shoes.
And wrapped up in a bedspread
Warm as love
I slept

An old downpour that succeed in soaking me
Only within
Is now beating the tin roof,
Flooding the canals and levies
And the riverbed of memory

POTD:神女峰 by 舒婷

　在向你挥舞的各色花帕中
　　是谁的手突然收回
　　紧紧捂住了自己的眼睛
　　当人们四散离去，
谁
　　还站在船尾
　　衣裙漫飞， 如翻涌不息的云
　　江涛
　　高一声
　　低一声

　　美丽的梦留下美丽的忧伤
　　人间天上， 代代相传
　　但是， 心
　　真能变成石头吗
　　为了眺望天上来鸿
　　而错过无数人间月明

　　沿着江峰
　　金光菊和女贞子的洪流
　　正煽动着新的背叛
　　与其在悬崖上展览千年
　　不如在爱人肩头痛哭一晚

PS: you probably have read this piece long ago, most famous among her great many other poems. but i love this one too much to refrain from putting it up here once more. enjoy.

Novel discussion post

I thought we'd better create a post specially dedicated to our discussion of the novel, ideas of characters, flow and plot and all that. String our ideas here. Hopefully this is an easier way to keep track and reference too.
So now I am thinking this: there are 22 cards in the major tarot set, but we couldn't possibly get 22 characters in the novel! Maybe we can mention some of them in passing, still it would be very hard to keep track of all of them, and the sheer number would hamper the novel's focused-ness, considering that most Agatha novels contain less than ten main characters, (the masterly And then there were none has ten of course), and skilled as the queen of crime novels was, sometimes we readers just can't help get baffled and irritated...i think I have belaboured the point. So now what shall we do? Assigning the cards to a full set of 22 characters and choose to concentrate on some of them, or rolling some cards into one character, like The High Priestess and the Empress into one? Or do both? Or something else? Thoughts thoughts~~~~~

Also, if you have read what I just wrote, my idea goes like this: faithful to your original plot line I am gonna introduce a girl character, embodying the Fool. She's going to be presented through her diary entries and letters to someone(s), who can take up roles from the cards, say, her mother as the High Priestess or the Empress, or a much respected teacher as a the Hierophant etc, who may or may not be part of the novel-within-novel writing group. So I am going to write her letter or diary now, briefly saying why she's going for this novel-writing thing, (exactly why I myself haven't figured out a remotely plausible explanation. I'm just gonna make up an easily replaceable one that hopefully doesn't impact on the novel plot much at this early point.), and perhaps shed a little light on her character and personal life in the short entry. Then I'll pass on the pen (keyboard haha) to you dear Slap. Do edit my writings, add and delete and alter as you deem fit, and develop new characters and lines~~~~~~exciting exciting exciting!! It's like groping in the dark with just ever so little light, enough to see where your foot is next going to be and not a single step beyond, and all the time knowing the ending!

The Major Arcana
The Fool Upright: New beginnings, new adventures, new opportunities, unlimited possibilities, pleasure, passion, thoughtlessness, rashness
Reverse: A bad decision, indecision, apathy, hesitation, a faulty choice
The Magician Upright: Originality, creativity, skill, will-power, self confidence, dexterity, sleight of hand
Reverse: Weakness in will, insecurity, delay, no imagination
The High Priestess Upright: Wisdom, knowledge, learning, intuition, purity, virtue, a lack of patience, a teacher
Reverse: Ignorance, lack of understanding, selfishness, shallowness
The Empress Upright: Action, development, accomplishment, mother/sister/wife, evolution
Reverse: Vacillation, inaction, lack on concentration, indecision, anxiety, infidelity
The Emperor Upright: Accomplishment, confidence, wealth, stability, leadership, father/brother/husband, achievement, a capable person
Reverse: Immaturity, indecision, feebleness, petty emotions, lack of strength
The Hierophant Upright: A need to conform, social approval, bonded to the conventions of society
Reverse: Unconventionality, unorthodoxy, an inventor
or
Upright: Mercy, kindness, forgiveness, compassion, conformity, a sense of historical importance, inspiration
Reverse: Foolish generosity, errors are repeated, impotence, vulnerability, frailty, unorthodoxy
The Lovers Upright: Love, harmony, trust, honor, the beginning of a romance, optimism, a meaningful relationship/affair
Reverse: Unreliability, separation, frustration in love, fickleness, untrustworthy
The Chariot Upright: Perseverance, a journey, a rushed decision, adversity, turmoil, vengeance
Reverse: Unsuccessful, defeat, failure, last minute loss, vanquishment
Strength Upright: Strength, courage, conviction, energy, determination, action, heroism, virility
Reverse: Weakness, pettiness, sickness, tyranny, lack of faith, abuse of power
The Hermit Upright: Counsel, inner strength, prudence, caution, vigilance, patience, withdrawal, annulment, a loner
Reverse: Imprudence, hastiness, rashness, foolish acts, immaturity
The Wheel of Fortune Upright: Destiny, fortune, a special gain, an unusual loss, end of a problem, unexpected events, advancement, progress
Reverse: Failure, bad luck, interruption, outside influences, bad fate, unexpected events
Justice Upright: Harmony, balance, equality, righteousness, virtue, honor, advice, a considerate person
Reverse: Bias, false accusations, intolerance, unfairness, abuse
The Hanged Man Upright: Suspension, change, reversal, boredom, abandonment, sacrifice, readjustment, improvement, rebirth
Reverse: Unwillingness to make an effort, false prophecy, useless sacrifice
Death Upright: Transformation, making way for the new, unexpected change, loss, failure, illness or death, bad luck
Reverse: Stagnation, immobility, slow changes, a narrow escape, cheating death
Temperance Upright: Moderation, temperance, patience, harmony, fusion, good influence, confidence
Reverse: Discord, conflict, disunion, hostility, frustration, impatience
The Devil Upright: Ravage, weird or strange experience, downfall, unexpected failure, controversy, violence, disaster, an ill-tempered person
Reverse: Divorce, release, handicaps are overcome, enlightenment
The Tower Upright: A sudden change, abandonment of past, ending a friendship, unexpected events, disruption, bankruptcy, downfall, loss of money or security
Reverse: Following old ways, a rut, entrapment, caught in a bad situation, imprisonment
The Star Upright: Hope, faith, inspiration, optimism, insight, spiritual love, pleasure, balance
Reverse: Unfulfilled hopes, disappointment, dreams are crushed, bad luck, imbalance
The Moon Upright: Deception, trickery, disillusionment, error, danger, disgrace, double-dealing
Reverse: Deception is discovered before damage can be done, trifling mistakes, taking advantage of someone
The Sun Upright: Satisfaction, accomplishment, success, love, joy, engagement or a happy marriage
Reverse: Unhappiness, loneliness, canceled plans, broken engagement or marriage, a clouded future, a lack of friends
Judgment
or
Rejuvenation Upright: Awakening, renewal, a well lived life, better health, a quickened mind
Reverse: Fear of death, failure, possible loss, ill health
or
Upright: Atonement, judgment, the need to forgive, rejuvenation, rebirth, improvement, development, promotion, efforts are rewarded
Reverse: Delay, disappointment, indecision, procrastination, theft, worry
The World Upright: Completion, perfection, recognition, honors, the end result, success, fulfillment, triumph, eternal life
Reverse: Imperfection, lack of vision, disappointment

American Indian Myth

American Indian Myth

White Buffalo Woman

The people saw her walking off the sam direction from which she had come, outlined against the red ball of the setting sun. As she went, she stopped and rolled over four times. The first time, she turned into a black buffalo; the second into a brown one; the thrid into a red one; the fourth time she rolled over, she turned into a white buffalo calf. A whilt bufalo is the most sacred living thing you culd ever encounter.

'Winchinchala' meaning the girl you are in love with
There is no place in the village where you could be left alone. The only chance to show her that you are interested is to wait for her at daybreak when the women go to the river or brook with skin bags to get water. When the girl you had your eyes on finally came down th ewater trail, you popped up from behind some bush and stood so that she could see you.
-from 'The Legend of the Flute'

How the Sioux came to be
The Great Spirit, Wakan Tanka, became angry with the earlier people on earth and sent a water monster to cause a great flood. People climbed to the highest land they could reach but even that was to no avail. All killed except one girl who was carried off by a big spotted eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, who took her to his nest on the tallest pinnacle of the Black Hills. The woman and the eagle had children together, and when the water finaly subsided, Wanblee helped the children and their mother down from his rock and put them on earth, telling them: 'Be a nation, become a great Nation- the Lakota Oyate.'
So we descended from an eagle nation...


And therefore the sacred pipe is also something that binds men and women together in a circle of love. It is the one holy object in the makin gof which both men and women have a hand. The men carve the bowl and make the stem; the women decorate it with bands of coloured porcupine quills. When a man takes a wife, they both hold the pipe at the same time and red trade cloth is wound around their hands, thus tying them together for life.
'White Buffalo Women', as told by Lane Deer


All the above excerpts from the movie script 'Dances with Wolves', starring Costner

random quotes of the day

It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince

Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel.
-Horace Walpole

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved-loved for ouselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
-Victor Hugo

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.
-Virginia Woolf

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-George Orwell
(how do you interpret it? i sense something political in it.)

In the city, a road with no exit is marked Dead End. In the country, we call these roads lanes. I always think tha tit is sad to label anthing a dead end. No one wants to explore it then. But walking down a lane is romantic and exciting. I hesitate to venture down a dead-end road, but I look for lanes to explore with a favourite friend. An unexpected building, a rare flower, a quiet peace all wait for me on country lanes.
Katherine S. Abrams

pieces of love(from jewel)

pieces of love (from jewel)

the painters
Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
They remind her of her lover, how he left her, and of times long ago,
When she used color carelessly, painted his portrait
A thousand times - or maybe just his smile -
And she and her canvas would follow him wherever he would go

'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world

Oil streaked daisies covered the living room wall
He put water colored roses in her hair
He said, "Love, I love you, I want to give you the mountains, the sunshine,
the sunset too
I want to give you everything as beautiful as you are to me

'Cause they were painters and they were painting themselves
A lovely world

So they sat down and made a drawing of their love, an art to live by
They painted every, passion every home, created every beautiful child
in the winter they were weavers of warmth,
in the summer they were carpenters of love
They thought blue prints were too sad so they made them yellow

'Cause they were painters, and they were painting themselves
A lovely world

Until one day the rain fell as thick as black oil
And in her heart she knew something was wrong
She went running
through the orchard screaming,
'No God, don't take him from me!'
But by the time she got there, she feared he already had gone
She got to where he lay, water colored roses in his hands for her
She threw them down screaming, 'Damn you man, don't leave me
with nothing left behind but these cold paintings, these cold portraits
to remind me!'

He said, 'Love I leave, but only a little, try to understand
I put my soul in this life we created with these four hands
Love, I leave, but only a little, this world holds me still
My body may die now, but these paintings are real'
So many seasons came and so many seasons went
and many times she saw he love's face watering the flowers,
talking to the trees and singing to his children,
And when the wind blew, she knew he was listening,
and how he seemed to laugh along, an how he seemed to hold her
when she was crying

'Cause they were painters, and they were painting themselves
A lovely world

Eighty years, an old lady now, sitting on the front porch
Watching the clouds roll by
They remind her of her lover, how he left her, and of times long ago,
When she used color carelessly, painted his portrait
A thousand times - or maybe just his smile -
And she and her canvas would follow him wherever he would go
Yes, she and her canvas still follow

Because they are painters and they are painting themselves
A lovely world



Foolish Game
You took your coat off and stood in the rain,
You were always crazy like that
I watched from my window,
Always felt I was outside looking in on you
You were always the mysterious one
With dark eyes and careless hair,
You were fashionably sensitive, but too cool to care
You stood in my doorway, with nothing to say
Besides some comment on the weather
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees

these foolish games are tearing me apart
Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart
You’re breaking my heart

You were always brilliant in the morning
Smoking your cigarettes, and talking over coffee
You philosophies on art, baroque moved you,
You loved mozart and you’d speak of your loved ones
As I clumsily strummed my guitar
Excuse me, guess I’ve mistaken you for somebody else
Somebody who gave a damn,
Somebody more like myself

You took your coat off and stood in the rain
You were always crazy like that



Adrian
Adrian came home again last summer
Things just haven't been the same around here
People talk
People stare
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

An unfortunate accident in a canoe
Dr. said, 'I'm sorry, not much I can do'
The air was so still
His eyes did not blink
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

Little Mary Epperson liked him
She vowed always to watch after him
Still he did not move
Dr. said it's no use
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

She sat by his side, watched the years fly by
He looked so fragile, he looked so small
She wondered why he was still alive at all



Everyone in town had that 'I'm so sorry look'
They talked in a whispered hush, said
'I'd turn the machines off'
But still she sat by his side
Said, 'life he won't be denied'
Oh Adrian, come out and play

Yellow flowers decorate his bedroom
Sign above his door says Welcome Home
But he just sits and stares
He's awake but still not there
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

She sat by his side, watched the years fly by
He looked so fragile, he looked so small
She wondered why he was still alive at all

And little Mary Apperson grew up lovely
She still comes to visitAdrian came home again last summer
Things just haven't been the same around here
People talk
People stare
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

An unfortunate accident in a canoe
Dr. said, 'I'm sorry, not much I can do'
The air was so still
His eyes did not blink
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

Little Mary Epperson liked him
She vowed always to watch after him
Still he did not move
Dr. said it's no use
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

She sat by his side, watched the years fly by
He looked so fragile, he looked so small
She wondered why he was still alive at all



Everyone in town had that 'I'm so sorry look'
They talked in a whispered hush, said
'I'd turn the machines off'
But still she sat by his side
Said, 'life he won't be denied'
Oh Adrian, come out and play

Yellow flowers decorate his bedroom
Sign above his door says Welcome Home
But he just sits and stares
He's awake but still not there
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

She sat by his side, watched the years fly by
He looked so fragile, he looked so small
She wondered why he was still alive at all

And little Mary Apperson grew up lovely
She still comes to visit him on Sundays
He's like an unused toy
He's got big hands but the mind of a little boy
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

Adrian came home again last summer
Things just haven't been the same around here him on Sundays
He's like an unused toy
He's got big hands but the mind of a little boy
Oh, Adrian, come out and play

Adrian came home again last summer
Things just haven't been the same around here


Jady sticked at:
2004-11-29 2:01:07

have always loved ''adrian''...it''s sad and helpless to the point of being almost morbid, unbearable if not for the cold, calm, almost imperceptibly flowing music..and jewel''s voice conveys such strong emotions it''s like a quiet earthquake..her songs in the first album are so so so beautiful it''s painful to think about that lastest, neon colored slutty release..can''t even recall its number-name...jewel jewel please come back...

introducing Jane Hirshfield

Lying

He puts his brush to the canvas
with one quick stroke
unfolds a bird from the sky
Steps back, considers
Takes pity.
Unfolds another.


Arja

She spoke almost no English
was there as a spouse
'You talk, but I don't understand nothing,'
she said

But on the good-bye card
she painted,
the words I most remember from that time--

'Only the clouds are faithful to the mountain.'


Abundant Heart

Because the pelicans circle and dive, the fish
Because the cows are fat, the rains
Because the tree is heavy with pears, the earth
Because the woman grows thin, the heart


Secretive Heart
(What's this? This is an old toolshed.
No, this is a great past love.)
Yehuda Amichai

Heart faulters, stops
before a Chinese cauldron
Still good for boiling water

It is one of a dozen or more,
It is merely iron,
It is merely old,
there is much else to see.

The few raised marks
on its belly
are useful to almost no one

Heart looks at it a long time
What do you see? I ask again,
but it does not answer.


Clappered Heart

As always
the day flares up
in the shape
of a small brown
bird. She is
inconsequential
and lovely;
as you were,
one night's beloved,
now long ago.
Two decades
appear and vanish
while I ponder
why you are suddenly here,
standing between her singing
and the red pine
In the distance,
a truck gears down,
the bells
of morning begin.
But because I can,
I silence them.
I stay
a little longer
behind these
ink-stilled clappers,
to watch you shift
in puzzlement and wonder


Manners/Rwanda

They took the woman
and tied to one arm a child
to the other arm a child
to one leg a child--
you also read this in the paper--
and threw them all in.
No marks of damage, not one
on the five bodies,
which means of course
that they drowned,
which means of course
that she knew.
The river made its way
from higher ground toward lower
and carried them with decorum,
the way a river does
it carries what it is given
and because in the night
a border was crossed,
what was given then was
taken out with a pole.
It may have been united
before before added
to the tally sheet with others
and given next
to the quicklime and earth,
but probably not.
There it will likely stay,
where it was carried,
the last contact with anything living
a hand's continuing rising,
almost a waving,
almost a plea
letting go after rolling it in.
The two beats of its fall
almost gentle,
a door being carefully opened,
quietly closed.
And through you too
are sickened, as even the river
is sickened, undrinkable now
with the human heart,
you also carry
what you were given with decorum.
Perhaps reminded later
by something mentioned
only in passing--
a large family,
a cat's toy of string--
you stop smiling a moment soon.
Across the table
someone notices,
but does not speak.
You watch his quesitn rise
and seem to waver like a hand
about to act,
a hand about to change its mind,
and drop politely away.


About Jane Hirshfield
Jane Hirshfield was born in New York City in 1953. After receiving her B.A. from Princeton University in their first graduating class to include women, she went on to study at the San Francisco Zen Center. Her books of poetry include Given Sugar, Given Salt (HarperCollins, 2001) which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, The Lives of the Heart (1997), The October Palace (1994), Of Gravity & Angels (1988), and Alaya (1982). She is the author of Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry (1997) and has also edited and translated The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (1990) with Mariko Aratani and Women in Praise of the Sacred: Forty-Three Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994).Her honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, Columbia University's Translation Center Award, the Commonwealth Club of California Poetry Medal, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. In addition to her work as a freelance writer and translator, Hirshfield has taught at UC Berkeley, University of San Francisco, and been Elliston Visiting Poet at the University of Cincinnati. She is currently on the faculty of the Bennington MFA Writing Seminars.



all the above poems from her collection 'The Lives of the Heart'


How I came across her work- random pick from library
any further read beside 'lives of heart'?-no
thoughts- very feminine and subtle, free verses, can be used as lyrics.

Jady's Comments:
hmm seems randomly picking up stuff from the stale shelves of libraries really has some merits . i have yet to run out of clear ideas of what i wish and have yet to read, but i''ll adopt your spontaneity when that day finally comes when i finally have read all i wish to read and dunno what next, hehehe..
i like ''Manners/Rwanda'', almost a mesmerizing silent film, in fragmentary, slow motion..keep loading~~

POTD:天梯上的夜歌 by 海子

　　天梯上的夜歌

天堂的夜歌

　　夜歌歌唱了我

　　弓箭放下

　　我画出山坡

　　太阳放下弓箭

　　夜晚画出山坡

　　一群群哑巴

　　头戴牢房

　　身穿铁条和火

　　坐在黑夜山坡

　　一群群哑巴

　　高唱黑夜之歌

　　这是我的夜歌

　　这是我的夜歌

　　歌唱那些人

　　那些黑夜

　　那些秘密火柴

　　投入天堂之火

　　黑夜 年轻而秘密

　　像苦难之火

　　像苦难的黑色之火

　　看不见自己的火焰

　　这是我的夜歌

　　黑夜抱着谁

　　坐在底部

　　烧得漆黑

　　黑夜抱着谁

　　坐在热情中

　　坐在灰烬和深渊

　　他茫然地望着我

　　这是我的夜歌


评论/留言

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作者：Slappuju　　时间：2004-11-29 3:05:32

stick this''s deep n sounds morbid to me. and i think it''s beyond my comprehension. despair as dark as the night?

CELLOPHANEs

Cellophane (From SWEET NOVEMBER, by Amamda Ghost)
--------------------
Nobody moves me
I've been through this life with no place that I can call my own
Thinking above me
I never seem to find anybody that can feel like home
And I try and I try and I try.
Funny how it feels when there's nothing to say.
Trapped with my ideals I can't contain
I'm wrapped in cellophane.
Nobody told me obsessive needs were always following me around
And you can't ignore me.
Look at my face and then tell me my place in town
And he's in and she's in and he's in and she's in
And I try and I try and he's in and she's in and he's in and she's in.
============================================

Mister Cellophane (from CHICAGO, by John Reilly) someone loved this song VERY much..was it you or gang..?
-------------------------------
If someone stood up in a crowd
And raised his voice up way out loud
And waved his arm
And shook his leg
You'd notice him

If someone in a movie show
Yelled "fired in the second row,
This whole place is a powder keg!"
You'd notice him

And even without clucking like a hen
Everyone gets noticed, now and then,
Unless, of course, that personage should be
Invisible, inconsequential me!

Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name !!!!
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there!

I tell ya
Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me walk right by me
And never know I'm there. . .

Suppose you was a little cat
Residin' in a person's flat
Who fed you fish and scratched your ears?
You'd notice him

Suppose you was a woman wed
And sleepin' in a double bed beside one man for seven years
You'd notice him

A human being's made of more than air
With all that bulk, you're bound to see him there

Unless that human bein' next to you
Is unimpressive, undistinguished
You know who. . .

Should have been my name
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there
I tell ya
Cellophane
Mister cellophane
Should have been my name
Mister cellophane
'cause you can look right through me
Walk right by me
And never know I'm there
Never even know I'm there


评论/留言

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

作者：Slappujudu　　时间：2004-11-30 9:15:10

it''s gang who''s so fascinated n obsessed with cellophane!! haha, i love it too though! i love that guy''s voice!!he''s a damn brilliant performer!

Sweet November Soundtracks

years from now i probably wouldn't be able to recall much of sweet november the movie, probably only comfy blurry impressions of theron's walking away from reeves, over that autumn bridge, gathering her coat around her against the morning chill and walking, walking, on those stunning legs . and maybe also her running and rolling around on that white beach with six incredibly identical and white doggies (species=..?) and that emotional medicine cabinet/bathroom scene, and driving license exam and the big brown paper bag..alright alright, already a lot...funny that i don't remember reeves at all..perhaps except that silly wig present. how sad.

BUT, years and years from now i'd still remember that the soundtrack is fantastic, i am quite certain of that, and almost certain it's quite the same for you, slap. it's something that can be put on infinite repeat and not get me bored or irritated with the constancy for quite a long time. how we crazed about Heart Door (熨衣服~~) and Touched by an Angel (all the time wondering whether the singer was male or female...)and You Deserve to be Loved..which is opium for moments of low self-worth..enjoy!

Heart Door

There is a diamond inside of me that lights up the sky of my soul
Where fell the diamond when I believed that all of the hurt was my fault

I'm opening the heart door, letting in the light
Opening the heart door and giving life to me that died

You ended up so with that person who comes home too late from the bar
I ended up so when my courage could finally walk on its own
When I finally opened the door

I'm opening the heart door, letting in the light
Opening the heart door and giving life to me that died

You ended up so with that person who comes home too late from the bar
I ended up so when my courage could finally walk on its own
When I finally opened the heart door

Touched by an Angel

And when she walked in the room
After so many years
He looked up and saw her
He was standing at the crossroads
She was moving in slow motion
Everything was the same
Except that everything was different

In that very moment, everyone was silent
And everyone was friendly
For the first time in years
Everyone was smiling
Though their pain was apparent
And the floor was wet and slippery
With the tracks of their tears

And when I see someone standing
At the side of the stage
Not standing in the shadows
I see her face
Glowing in the darkness
In her own angel way
"I have come to make you better
I have come to take you away."

No one slipped and fell
This time, everyone was steady
Someone held my arm so that
I would not fall
For the fist time, in a long time
Everyone was ready
No one said a word
And that simply said it all

And then I see someone standing
At the side of the stage
Not standing in the shadows
I see her face
Glowing in the darkness
In her own angel way
"I have come to make you better
I have come... to take you away."
I'll make you better

Walking through the room together
In suspended animation
No one saw us go, no one said goodbye
But in my heart I leave
Great expectations
That you will find the answers
To your questions
And that life will once more
Be a celebration
And that you will be touched by an angel
And that you will be touched by an angel
And that you will be touched by an angel

Celebration
Someday
Someday, someday
Celebration

The Consequences of Falling

are you breathing
what i'm breathing
are your wishes
the same as mine

fire you needing
what i'm needing
i'm waiting for a sign

my hands tremble
my heart aches
is it you calling
if i'm alone in this
i don't think i can face

the consequences of falling
are you thinking
what i'm thinking
does your pulse
quicken like mine

are you dreaming
what i'm dreaming
i can't read your mind
one step towards you
two steps back
feels like i'm crawling

if i'm alone in this
i don't think i can face
the consequences of falling

My Number

Showers pounding out a new beat
I trade my old shoes for new feet
I grab a new seat
I don't like the one I got
The fabric's wearing through
And it's wearing me out
You're wearing me down

Watching old baseball games
And low budget telethons
Ain't like watching you yourself
When you yourself is on
Got time to wander to waste and to whine
But when it comes to you,
It seems like I just can't find the time

So watch your head and then watch the ground
It's a silly time to learn to swim when you start to drown
It's a silly time to learn to swim on the way down

If I gave you my number
Would it still be the same
If I saved you from drowning?
Promise me you'll never go away
Promise me you'll always stay

Closed down the last local zoo
I'm gonna win the endless war
Over who kills the last koala bear
And who in death will love him more and I
He grabs me by the hand
Drags me to the shore and says
Maybe you don't love me
But you'll grow to love me even more

And I well I'm not surprised

If I gave you my number
Would it still be the same
If I saved you from drowning?
Promise me you'll never go away
Promise me you'll always stay

Showers pounding out a new beat
I trade my old shoes for new feet
I grab a new seat
I don't like the one I got
The fabric's wearing through
And it's wearing me out
You're wearing me down

So watch your head and then watch the ground
It's a silly time to learn to swim when you start to drown
It's a silly time to learn to swim on the way down

If I gave you my number
Would it still be the same
If I saved you from drowning?
Promise me you'll never go away
Promise me you'll always stay

Only Time

Who can say where the road goes,
Where the day flows?
Only time...

And who can say if your love grows,
As your heart chose?
Only time...

[chants]

Who can say why your heart sighs,
As your love flies?
Only time...

And who can say why your heart cries,
When your love dies?
Only time...

[chants]

Who can say when the roads meet,
That love might be,
In your heart.

And who can say when the day sleeps,
If the night keeps all your heart?
Night keeps all your heart...

[extended chants]

Who can say if your love grows,
As your heart chose?
Only time...

And who can say where the road goes,
Where the day flows?
Only time...

Who knows?
Only time...

Who knows?
Only time...

You Deserve to be Loved

Mind your manners, watch your ways
Be a good boy, just behave
What's wrong with you?
Settle down keep your two feet on the ground
Sit up straight, stand up tall
Never falter, never fall

I stay in school
Make the grade
Never fail and never fade
Be a hero, be a star
Anything but what you are

Find a girl to possess
Always pay, pursue, protect
Be a master, be a slave
Work your way into an early grave

But you deserve to be loved
You deserve something real
It's time to heal, time to feel...love

Daddy's favourite little girl
Dress up in your mommy's pearls
Serve his breakfast in his bed
Earn a little kiss on the forehead
You are sugar, you are spice
You are growing up so nice
Paint your nails, paint your face
Paint around the empty space
Find a man who can provide
Try to fill the how inside
With a family and a home
Tell yourself you're not alone
Keep the memories of yourself
In a shoebox on the closet shelf

But you deserve to be loved
You deserve something real
It's time to heal, time to feel...love

I know somebody loves you
Somebody, somebody love you


评论/留言

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作者：Slappujudu　　时间：2004-11-30 9:10:19

I DO LOVE THAT SOUNDTRACKKKKKKKK!!!! the pictures i remember from sweety nov, slow dance at the old house, 6 o''clock shadow cast by the slanting faded rays, the dust slowly rising in gentle whirls, circling them as they danced, as charlize clumsily stepped on reeve''s shoes (and she was wearing bulky earth shoes!! how i love them, and her scarves too!!! so many colourful scarves!!!! and most of the clothes she wears in that movie!!! great wardrobe!), they walking side by side on the beach, reeves singing in the end(how hilarious, hahahahahha, wearing a white tuxedo and black waistband hahaha), charlize smiling, charlize talking, stunning legs, stnning figures, radiant smiles, lovely hair, lovely dress hahaha, charlize here, charlize there, keanu where hahaha. yeah, my fav scene is they dancing in that house, with the story told by reeves about ''his father'', how he shut himself in that small room and listening to the 80s, and reeves desperately wanted to be a singer coz that''s everything his father''s not, and that house became a heart''s scar, haunted. but i have to say that the general plot is really crap though. oh, how can we forget those transvestites downstairs????!!! although their cooking''s great.

More on 海子

【明天醒来我会在哪一只鞋子里】


我想我已经够小心翼翼的
我的脚趾正好十个
我的手指正好十个
我生下来时哭几声
我死去时别人又哭
我不声不响的
带来自己这个包袱
尽管我不喜爱自己
但我还是悄悄打开

我在黄昏时坐在地球上
我这样说并不表明晚上
我就不在地球上 早上同样
地球在你屁股下
结结实实
老不死的地球你好

或者我干脆就是树枝
我以前睡在黑暗的壳里
我的脑袋就是我的边疆
就是一颗梨
在我成型之前
我是知冷知热的白花

或者我的脑袋是一只猫
安放在肩膀上
造我的女主人荷月远去
成群的阳光照着大猫小猫
我的呼吸
一直在证明
树叶飘飘

我不能放弃幸福
或相反
我以痛苦为生
埋葬半截
来到村口或山上
我盯住人们死看
呀, 生硬的黄土 人丁兴旺

死亡之诗(之一)】



漆黑的夜里有一种笑声笑断我坟墓的木板
你可知道。这是一片埋葬老虎的土地

正当水面上渡过一只火红的老虎
你的笑声使河流漂浮
的老虎
断了两根骨头
正当这条河流开始在存有笑声的黑夜里结冰
断腿的老虎顺流而下, 来到我的
窗前。

一块埋葬老虎的木板
被一种笑声笑断两截

【死亡之诗(之二)】


我所能看见的少女
水中的少女
请在麦地之中
清理好我的骨头
如一束芦花的骨头
把他装在箱子里带回

我所能看见的
洁净的少女, 河流上的少女
请把手伸到麦地之中

当我没有希望坐在一束
麦子上回家
请整理好我那凌乱的骨头
放入一个小木柜。带回它
象带回你们富裕的嫁妆

但是, 不要告诉我
扶着木头, 正在干草上晾衣的
母亲。

【死亡之诗(之三:采摘葵花)】


雨夜偷牛的人
爬进了我的窗户
在我做梦的身子上
采摘葵花

我仍在沉睡
在我睡梦的身子上
开放了彩色的葵花
那双采摘的手
仍象葵花田中
美丽笨拙的鸭子

雨夜偷牛的人
把我从人类
身体中偷走。
我仍在沉睡。
我被带到身体之外
葵花之外。我是世界上
第一头母牛(死的皇后)
我觉的自己很美
我仍在沉睡。

雨夜偷牛的人
于是非常高兴
自己变成了另外的彩色母牛
在我的身体中
兴高彩烈地奔跑

扶着木头, 正在干草上晾衣的
母亲。

亚洲铜】


亚洲铜, 亚洲铜
祖父死在这里, 父亲死在这里, 我也会死在这里
你是唯一的一块埋人的地方

亚洲铜, 亚洲铜
爱怀疑和飞翔的是鸟, 淹没一切的是海水
你的主人却是青草, 住在自己细小的腰上,
守住野花的手掌和秘密

亚洲铜, 亚洲铜
看见了吗? 那两只白鸽子, 它是屈原遗落在沙滩上的白
鞋子
让我们----我们和河流一起, 穿上它吧

亚洲铜, 亚洲铜
击鼓之后, 我们把在黑暗中跳舞的心脏叫做月亮
这月亮主要由你构成


评论/留言
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作者：moviegoer (SlapStick)　　时间：2004-11-29 18:14:37

应该听过海子吧。在山海关卧轨结束生命的诗人。还是童年时代的事了，那时听到，什么都没意识到。等真正接触的时候，尸骨已寒多年。就像beyond和家驹，就像三毛，翁美玲，（这么列举的话可以一直到女娲和神农氏...），没等我出生就逝去了。生不逢时。

喜欢海子的诗。从没读过解析他的学术文章，不喜欢他们神经地把人和诗分门别类而后把诗一个词一个词肢解掉的野蛮。喜欢只是个人喜好，喜欢那种不着边际漫游的疯狂脑子，流浪，不羁，荒野，草原，女人，生命，死亡。多么希望他还活着，这样还会有更多诗，但明亮燃烧的蜡烛烧完得也快，终结生命未尝不是人力能所为最强烈的诗。所谓大象无形，大音希声，大概就是如此。

先读这个

title's self-explantory, as not to scare you with dazzling lenghty post that follows. i should be off to mug bio, chm, biochm. before i go, just add another bag of rubbish to our bin.

我在听
灌篮高手， 直到世界的尽头，
'我一个人独自徘徊，就好像空罐头， 被丢弃在街头。'
guess it's one of slapstick fav song that we would set to repeat mode. It's actually a sad love song about couples breaking up, leaving sad memories behind.

and the cat returns, i remember you said you liked her voice, so clean and sweet. it's not sung by the seiyu though.
and the lyrics,
我会独自一人仰望着这宁静的夜晚的星空，
直到天明仅存的这最后一颗星
不要过于悲伤
我把你的叹息化作春风
阳光照耀的山坡上，
我骑着自行车直上
车筐里满载的
是我们失去的回忆
lalala
低声吟唱
让春风环绕着我们
默默的祈祷着
与你再次相遇的幸福


sweet dreams!! back to my books.

---------------------
comments
作者：Stickyjady

我还真不知道《直到世界的尽头》的歌词是这样的啊~~“我一个人独自徘徊，就好像空罐头， 被丢弃在街头。”是开头樱木独自拍着篮球独行的背影那一段么？5555555555好想念..想念小学暑假天天起早床等候每天4集灌篮的日子，吃看奶粉或是蜂蜜或是冰棒，笑到在地上打滚（真的某一集我滚了好长时间...）我的寿寿阿！！！！
在听my heart will go on,突然很想再看一遍titanic..当年那么喜欢的帅气的leo，现在。。现在都成什么样子了嘛！！！！！！！！！！55555不过还是好喜欢...写marvin''s room review算了..没救的花痴...

Sartre & La Nausea

The NAUSEA
I live alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing?When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell something: the plausible disappears at the same time as the fiends. You let events flow past; suddenly you see people pop up who speak and who go away, you plunge into stories without beginning or end: you make a terrible witness. But in compensation, one misses nothing, no improbability or, story too tall to be believed in cafes. [14-5]

Objects should not touch because they are not alive. You use them, put them back in place, you live among them. They are useful nothing more. But they touch me, it is unbearable. I am afraid of being in contact with them as though they were living beasts. [19]

People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say - yes you might say, nature without humanity?Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea. [29]

The Nausea is not inside me: I feel it out there in the wall, in the suspenders, everywhere around me. It makes itself one with the caf? I am the one who is within it. [31]

I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of out time - the time of purple suspenders, and broken chair seats; it is made of white, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for twenty years. [33]

I tear myself from the window and stumble across the room; I glue myself against the looking glass. I stare at myself, I disgust myself: one more eternity. Finally, I flee form my image and fall on the bed. I watch the ceiling I'd like to sleep. [46]

I am all alone, but I march like a regiment descending on a city?I am full of anguish: the slightest movement irks me. I can't imagine what they want with me. Yet I must choose: I surrender to the Passage Gillet, I shall never know what has been reserved for me. [77]

Nothing seemed true; I felt surrounded by cardboard scenery which could quickly be removed? [106-7]

I can't say I feel relieved or satisfied, just the opposite, I am crushed. Only my goal is reached: I know what I have to know; I have understood all that has happened to me since January. The Nausea has not left me and I don't believe it will leave me so soon; but I no longer have to bear it, it is no longer an illness or a passing fit: it is I. [170]


On EXISTENCE

The thing which was waiting was on alert, it pounced on me, it flows through me. I'm filled with it. It's nothing: I am the Thing. Existence, liberated, detached, floods over me. I exist. [134]

I hadn't the right to exist. I appeared by chance, I exited like a stone, a plant or a microbe. My life put out feelers towards small pleasures in every direction. Sometimes it sent out vague signals; at other times, I felt nothing more than a harmless buzzing?he (Jean Pacome) had used his right to live?He has always done his duty, is duty as son, husband, father, leader匜or a right is nothing more than the other aspect of duty. [115-6]

I exist. It's sweet, so sweet, so slow. And light: you'd think it floated all by itself. It stirs. It brushes by me, melts and vanishes. Gently, gently. There is bubbling water in my throat, it caresses me- and now it comes up again into my mouth. For ever I shall have a little pool of whitish water in my mouth - lying low - grazing my tongue. And this pool is still me. And the tongue. And the throat is me. [134]

My thought is me: that's why I can't stop. I exist because I think?and I can't stop myself from thinking. At this very moment - it's frightful - if I exist, it is because I am horrified at existing. I am the one who pulls myself from the nothingness to which I aspire. [135-6]

I am. I am. I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I ?because ?ugh! I flee. [137] I exist, that's all. And that trouble is so vague, so metaphysical that I am ashamed of it. [143]

I was just thinking ?that here we sit, all of us, eating and drinking to preserve our precious existence and really there is nothing, nothing absolutely no reason for existing. [157]

I realized that there was no halfway house between non-existence and this flaunting abundance. If you existed, you had to exist all the way, as far as mouldness, bloatedness, obscenity were concerned. [172]

The world of explanations and reasons is not the world of existence. [174]

The essential thing is contingency. I mean that one cannot define existence as a necessity. To exist is simply to be there; those who exist let themselves be encountered, but you can never deduce anything from them. I believe that there are people who have understood this. Only they tried to overcome this contingency by inventing a necessary, causal being. But no necessary being can explain existence: contingency is not a delusion, a probability, which can be dissipated; it is the absolute, consequently, the perfect free gift. All is free, this park, this city, and myself. [176]

Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of form a distance; it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast - or else there is nothing at all. [177]

They did not want to exist; only they could not help it. [179] It was impossible for them not to exist. [181]

Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance, [180]

Existence is a fulness which man can never abandon. [180]

Existence is what I am afraid of. [214]

To do something is to create existence - and there is quite enough existence a sit is. [228]

An existant can never justify the existence of another existant. [237]

Now when I say "I," it seems hollow to me. I can't manage to feel myself very well, I am so forgotten. The only real thing left in me is existence which feels it exists... Consciousness forgotten, forsaken between these walls, under this grey sky. And here is the sense o fits existence: it is conscious of being superfluous. [227]

There is knowledge of the consciousness. It sees through itself, peaceful and empty between the walls, freed from the man who inhabited it; monstrous because empty. [228]

And I too wanted to be. That is all I wanted; and this is the last word. At the bottom of all these attempts which seemed without bounds, I find the same desire again: to drive existence out of me, to rid the passing moments of their fat, to twist them, dry them, purify myself, harden myself, to give back at last the sharp, precise sound of a saxophone note. That could even make an apologue: there was a poor man who got in the wrong world. [234]

Behind the existence which falls from one present to the other, without a past, without a future, behind these sounds which decompose from day to day, peel off and slip towards death, the melody stays the same, young and firm, like a pitiless witness.


On GOOD and BAD FAITH

The doctor would like to believe, he would like to hide out the stark reality: that he is alone, without gain, without a past, with an intelligence which is clouded, a body which is disintegrating. For this reason, he has carefully built up, furnished, and peddled his nightmare compensation: he says he is making progress. [96-97]

He (M. de Rollebon) needed me in order to exist and I needed him so as not to feel my existence. [133]

People who live in society have learned to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Is that why my flesh is naked? You might say - yes you might say, nature without humanity?Things are bad! Things are very bad: I have it, the filth, the Nausea. [29]

I am. I am. I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I ?because ?ugh! I flee. they will have to find something else to veil the enormous absurdity of their existence. Still?is it absolutely necessary to lie? [150]

It would be better if I could only stop thinking. Thoughts are the dullest things. Duller than flesh. [135]

What held me back was the thought that no one, absolutely no one, would be moved by my death, that I would be more alone in death than in life. [157]

In your most insignificant actions, there is an enormous amount of heroism. [161]

And I might succeed - in the past, nothing but the past - in accepting myself. [238]


On HUMANISM

Without mental reservation, I admired the reign of man. [123]

I do not believe in God?But in the internment camp, I learned to believe in men. [154]

The misanthrope is a man: therefore the humanist must be misanthropic to a certain extent. But he must be a scientist as well to have learned how to water down his hatred, and hate men only to love them better afterwards匢 believe that one cannot hate a man more than one can love him. [160]

It is difficult, Monsieur, very difficult to be a man. [161]

In your most insignificant actions, there is an enormous amount of heroism. [161]

I am alone in this white, garden-rimmed street. Alone and free. But this freedom is rather like death. [209]

I am going to outlive myself. Eat, sleep, sleep, eat. Exist slowly, softly, like these trees, like a puddle of water, like the red bench in the streetcar. [210]


On ADVENTURES

"What sort of adventures?" I asked him, astonished. "All sorts, Monsieur. Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison. Monsieur, I believe the word adventure could be defined: an event out of ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary. [52]

Adventure - it was an event which happened to me?I never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. [53]

I have suddenly learned without apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly. [54]

But an adventure never returns nor is prolonged. [55]

This is what I thought: for the most banal event to become an adventure, you must (and this is enough) begin to recount it. This is what fools people: a man is always a teller of tales, he lives surrounded by his stories and the stories of others, he sees everything that happens to him through them; and he tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell. [56]

But for me there is neither Monday nor Sunday: there are days which pass in disorder, and then, sudden lightning like this one. Nothing has changed and yet everything is different. I can't describe it, it's like the Nausea and yet it's just the opposite: at last an adventure happens to me and when I question myself I see that it happens that I am myself and that I am here; I am the one who splits in the night, I am as happy as the hero of a novel. [76]

We forget that the future was not yet there; the man was walking in the night without forethought, a night which offered him a choice of dull rich prizes, and he did not make his choice.

Perhaps there is nothing in the world I cling to as much as this feeling of adventure; but it comes when it pleases; it is gone so quickly and how empty I am once it has left. [78]

This feeling of adventure definitely does not come form events: I have proved it. It's rather the way in which the moments are linked together. [79]

The privileged situation, slowly, majestically, comes into other people's lives. Then the question on whether you want to make a great moment out of it. [198]


On PHENOMENOLOGY (Past, Present, Future)

Things are entirely what they appear to be- and behind them ?there is nothing. [13]

Nothing happens while you live. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days are tacked on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable, monotonous addition. [57]

My memories are like coins in the devil's purse: when you open it you find only dead leaves. [47]

I build memories with my present self. I am cast out, forsaken in the present; I vainly try to rejoin the past: I cannot escape. [49]

The past is a landlord's luxury. Where shall I keep mine? You don't put your past in your pocket; you have to have a house. I have only my body: a man entirely aloen, with his lonely body, cannot indulge in memories; they pass through him. I should not complain: all I wanted was to be free. [91]

How can I, who have not the strength to hold to my own past, hope to save the past of someone else? [130]

The true nature of the present revealed itself: it was what exists, and all that was not present did not exist. The past did not exist. Not at all. Not in things, not even in my thought. [130]

the EP - quotes c'td

For echo is the soul of the voice exciting itself in hollow places. A man thought to be sullen and mad had written that sentence, down in an English hospital.

There are betryals in war that are childlike compared with our human betrayals during peace. The new lover enters the habits of the other. Things are smashed, revealed in new light. This is done with nervous or tender sentences, although the heart is an organ of fire.

A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing-not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.

(Hana)
'Did you hear what i said?'
'No, what was that?'
'I thought. I was going to die. I wanted to die. And I thought if I was going to die I would die with you. Someone liek you, young as I am, I saw so many dying near me in the last year. I didn't feel scared. I certainly wasn't brave just now. I thought to myself, we have this villa this grass, we should have lain down together...'


Hana's father
‘Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog’s paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in the house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog’s paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It’s a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so’s garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen—a concentration of hints of all paths the animal had taken during the day.’


A novel is a mirror walking down the road.


The december ice over the fish pond, the creak of rose trelises. She'll take my wrist at the confluence of veins and guide it onto the hollow indentation at her neck.

'Madox, what is the name of that hollow at the base of a woman's neck? At the front. Here. What is it, does it have an official name? That hollow about the size of an impress of your thumb?'

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comments
作者：Slappujude

hey stick!!!! i remember this paragraph, so vividly!! you ARE INDEED CRAZY, if not as crazy as me. we're doomed to slap our fate and stick with shocking exam scores. yesterday on msn i was asking if you have the EP movie script coz i just downloaded it. if not, i can email.

作者：Stickyjady

I took down The English Patient from my dusty shelf and started reading. I must be crazy. It's 22:39 and the philosophy test is coming in 12 hours time; I have barely read 1 page of notes. I AM crazy these days. Happily, devil-may-care-ly so.

So I traveled towards the desert and wandered in from the edge. Gold everywhere I don't know what to pick. And I picked this one—

‘Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in the house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumours of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog's paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It's a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so's garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen—a concentration of hints of all paths the animal had taken during the day.'

I'll go back to notes reading and rescue myself from total disaster. Going to write and edit with full power from tomorrow night onwards. Ta!

Munch's Colours

'Go to the billiard room. After you have looked on that intense green table- cover for awhile, look up. How strangley red everything is! Those men you know were dressed in black now dressed in crimson red, and the room-the walls and the ceilings-are red.'

'After some time, the clothing is black again. But if you want to paint an emotional mood like that, with a billiard table, then you must paint it crimson red.'

'I paint not what i see, but what i saw'- 40 years later he summed up his practice : 'I do not finish a work until I'm a bit removed from the vision of it so that my memory can clarify its emotional impressions. Nature confuses me when I have it directly in front of me.'

The Kiss
Munch Notebook

It rained a warm rain
I took her around
the waist-she walks
slowly after
Two big eyes against
mine-a wet
cheek against mine
My lips sank into hers
the trees and the air and
All the earth anished
And I looked into a new
world-I never
Before had known