camera obscura!

Just for the record, the Palestinian-israeli conflict has been the hot topic with wx and thengz. Listening to bbc to stave off boredom during, I realised how sad and desperate the Lebanese are. Why can't there be peace in the MidEast?


Haven't been keeping track of the latest podcasts for a long time, and boy am I ecstatic to find camera obscura featured in kcrw-morning becomes eclectic! The band was a serendipity when lulu and I were at cafecosmos(now defunct). Download the show.

daiko..

I was surprised when the website spdaiko I designed for my daiko club turned up when I googled the term 'daiko'. It almost gave a sensation of pride, or nostalgia -- the site wasn't a sophisticated piece of work.

Anyway, if you do visit the site, the drummer show on the homepage was my sensei, Akemi Jige, when I was in Japan for a daiko-drum workshop. To this day, I am filled with awe and respect for her when I think about her skills. Her drumming was energetic, forceful and vigourous, and you could see her completely absorbed in the rhythms, I wasn't surprised she was in her early 50's packing over a thousand push-ups and sit-ups everyday to get her physique.

In fact, ChannelNewsAsia did a feature on the revival of daiko-drumming in Japan and interviewed sensei Jige. Read about it here.

for seekers only

I stumbled upon this cool resources site, consciouschoice that professes "to help readers live healthier lives and create a sustainable society" -- and [more importantly] have fun doing it." Check it out!

Monster

Every once in a while, I get hooked to a VCD series that I can't resist putting the next disc into the player. Even if it's the nth one. The latest series giving me such cliffhanger dilemma is the anime, Monster. With foresight, I only rent 6discs at a time to prevent VCD overdose.

The story tells of a genius neurosurgeon whose life is turned upside down when he saved a boy from a gunshot in the head. The extraordinary boy is in the centre of a series of mysterious murders, which the surgeon feels responsible for. .

Like the other widely-acclaimed series, Ghost in the Shell, Monster is laden with deep questions for the attentive audience. For example, by what measure can we attribute one's evil deeds to him or he? Do we also factor in family background and society in our judgement?

According to wiki, New Line Cinema is adapting the series for Hollywood. Hmm.. I can't wait.

Official Monster site

music.. cabaret & baybeats

I had a good dose of live music over the past two weekends. Sadly, I found both rather disappointing.

Baybeats was a 3day music festival at the Esplanade Bay featuring local and overseas rock acts. Although touted as a festival, the atmosphere was however quite sombre. There were no hippy, happy dancing teens, hotdogs, burgers, nor beer. Instead, the young crowd milled around, looked "cool", and generally unaffected by the music. The moshing, bodyslamming skinnieheads don't count; they vent their teenage angst at every opportunity. (In fact, according to wx, they got into trouble with the "security".) To be fair, it wasn't the fault of the bands. Not all of them anyway. Velvet Teen and Panda no Panda were awesome. The former is like Jeff Buckley with his balls squeezed backed by Sonic Youth, and the latter is just unbelievably funny rap and electronica (they're beyond me.)

I guess the lukewarm response is unavoidable. The organizer even got the audience to stand up and jive to Panda no Panda, but they sat down after maybe 3 songs. In fact, Velvet Teen was the second frustrated american band utter 'fuckyou' to their uninterested audience here in singapore. The first was Matchbox20 before they were really big playing to picnicking families on the Padang for free. So probably Singaporeans only get high at concerts they pay $100++. :(


Last Saturday, I was again at the Esplanade - to watch the musical, cabaret, with grette. I can't say much about it, perhaps the singing was a bit weak, but the costumes looked great. However, we were seating right at the last row, and the airconditioning was so warm that probably made me miss all the good parts.

So that's two unsatisfying music weekends for me. I really should shell out the bucks for Mogwai who's coming real soon. Really sad that the student tickets were sold out by the 3rd day...

site of memories 1: boredom=doodles

tokyo tower 2002...
bugis st. twilight mystique...

Zidane-inspired

I can't explain the kick I get out of seeing these head butts. Hurhurhur... thx thengz.

You make the Decision

I love the quotes from inspirationpeak.com! Here's one.

"Having the energy to pursue our passions will always come if that's
our
wish. Most of who we are, what we do, and where we are going relates to
our attitude. Being tired, bored, scared, or unhappy are decisions,
nothing more. Coming to grips with this reality has the potential for
changing every aspect of what remains of our lives."

Author Unknown
But Very Much Appreciated!

Do Not Fall In Love

The door on the right says: Do not fall in love.
Why? Because it hurts. The subway holds so many surprises that makes me want to visit NY again.

yamakazi

Got this video link from wx. These guys make Jackie Chan look like papa gorilla.

How far into the future do you care about? 200 years? Or 2 months? An historian argues that it is only recently when we really only care about our immediate future. By contrast, people before the world wars cared much more for posterity hundreds of years into the future. As a result, while they stewarded their lives and fortunes for the future generations with hope and optimism, we spend and consume voraciously all available resources, and think twice about bearing offspring into this terrible, uncertain world.

This is because the world has become generally pessimistic about the future. It is filled with uncertainties and a big pile of mess we created: environmental deterioration, global warming, nuclear proliferation etc. If we can't be certain of the future, we might as well take all and enjoy while we can, no? Or we can choose to undo the mess we created and make the world a better place for ourselves and the future generations?

This was done in 2004 over many sleepless nights. I thought I'd end up in the multimedia industry but later I found that the idea of endless hours in front of the computer too daunting. Oh well, 'twas fun anyways.

love
the hot summer air
turns the room into a furnace
fanning flames of desire
melting steely will to
thoughts of cotton candy
sweat runs down the back
darker and darker patches
of navy blue; maroon
wings outstretched and
deodorant slaps
but she is not there

The impermanence of things
Yay.. My Powerbook's alive again. I just got it back from co-op yesterday. The problem started when one fine day it decided to crash whenever it felt like it. Nothing I did could solve the problem. The hardware check revealed no problems and I formatted the harddisk, re-installed the OS, reformatted, re-installed... Apparently my RAM was fried; the guy at the co-op told me they replaced it. Shrug.
The malfunction's given me a huge dose of anxiety and disappointment already. First, it costs me bomb and second, more importantly, I haven't done anything fantastic with it except writing essays and surfing the web. Yes I admit that I'm not maximising the features of this baby for fun stuff like making videos and music. Nonetheless, the zoom-in-zoom-out accessibility feature is already well worth the money (i can't see well).
Anyways.. i'm glad it's ok now. I should create something with it before it dies on me again..

Chocky - a song by Mogwai is playing on my Launch radio station now. It expresses how I feel about the thought of missing their coming concert--dark melancholy and a little angry. Their tickets sold out on the 3rd after ticket sales opened. They're not as expensive as Coldplay, yet I must stick to my budget. Or make more money.