Archive for November, 2008
Proper Names On An Exam Monday
First Blood
First paper today! And this will probably be the last substantial post you’ll see from me in a while. The photo features should continue, though.
New Name
I’ve finally got rid of the pompous first name we’ve been using around this place for something a little less fancy and closer to the heart. The original name (“scordatura”) was always kind of a filler name and I’m happy to see it go.
Quantum Weirdness
On quantum antitunnelling. [via Scientific American]
Pop-Up Pulp Art
Somebody took pulp adventure books and cut out the covers in a pop-up fashion to create some rather interesting results. Take a look. [via io9]
Pixels In A Wedding
Came across this yesterday, this pixelated wedding. [via cabel.name] It honestly looks quite pretty.
Earphones
I’m interested to see how the Atomic Floyd earphones turn out. [via Josh Spear] Not that I’m considering a purchase, of course. My Ultimate Ears are still young.
All right then, I guess this will be it from me for a while… Time to fling myself against the exams. Rawr.
d
On The Sandman
Yesterday, I got my hands on the fourth (and last) volume of The Absolute Sandman, to much joy (which fluctuated whenever I turned my gaze towards my bank account). There it is now, sitting on my shelf, all thirty kilos of it, waiting for me to go through it during the December break with as much relish as I did when I first read the series what I think must be seven or eight years ago now.
I think I must say that the series has always been quite important to me, a motif you might come across again in the future, so I thought it would be good to explain it.
Back then I was writing badly, reading poorly, and suffering from what I now think of as a slow creative poisoning. At one point, I stopped writing creative material for more than two years. And because most of what I read was nonsense, I read less and less, until at one point I was really only reading my notes and random news magazines.
At that point, too, I had given up on comic books, figuring that they were a portion of my youth that I ought to leave behind if I were ever to grow up. I stopped reading Spider-Man shortly (okay, maybe a few months in, or maybe even a year or so) after the clone saga, which in retrospect I really didn’t like. I must have been sustained purely by my love of the webslinger.
So, essentially, I had given up on some pretty big things, things that were once important to me. I was now writing argumentative essays, a joke column we ran in class, and silly love songs. I was reading TIME, The Economist and a bunch of textbooks. I was pretty much running on empty.
The first Sandman volume I got was The Dream Hunters. I didn’t know why I bought it. Probably on a whim, I think. It’s the hardcover (because it was new back then and the trade paperback really appeared only a couple of years after, as I remember it). It was some time before I decided to try out Preludes And Nocturnes. Months, I think. Or maybe even a year or two.
And with that introduction, I was hooked. So the following Christmas, my family got me the entire series in the ten volumes.
One of the reasons I treasured this discovery of mine so greatly was that they were beautiful. The art was often spectacular, and mostly appealing. The writing was sublime and remarkable (especially for a which had shown me Ben Reilly and Peter Parker complaining week after week about being clones and feeling that life is artificial and empty). And the characters were all pretty unforgettable (in a Planescape: Torment way). It was all stitched together in this cohesive, sprawling mythos, and cried out to the adolescent imagination that I had put into hibernation.
Because of this series (and Grant Morrison’s brilliant Arkham Asylum), my faith in the graphic form was restored, and I was encouraged to explore it further (and of course I still do today). Also partly because of this, I was reminded of the power of stories; Joyce’s Dubliners, for instance, had an effect on me that I never understood and never tried to understand until I came across this and felt intellectually mature enough to revisit those themes. In other words, I believe it was part of a list of factors (and a big part, at that) that caused me to embark on the frustrating and depressing journey to discover writing again. It was one of the main things that pulled me out of the humdrum existence I was leading and the creative death I was marching towards.
The conclusion of The Kindly Ones and some of the writing in The Wake moved me in a way I still know no comparison to. One might conclude that this is all rather naive, that there are works of literature that surely I’ve read that far surpass what I might find in (as they so often assume) a comic book; and at some level, that’s certainly true. Yet, while Dostoevsky would later show me the power of the written word and Cormac McCarthy would crush my soul and bring me to the verge of tears, The Sandman stuck with me at a different personal level. It seems that while the literature of the years that followed seemed to wrestle with the greater forces from the individual, The Sandman started with gods and beings greater than gods to touch the heart on an intimate level. And through that I learnt the power of mythology, which is why, even today, my main writings all have a mythological slant.
So you see, I’m indebted to this series in a way that is similar to the way I’m indebted to Dubliners, Leaves Of Grass and Beckett’s Trilogy. To the academics, it might never compare, since it is after all a comic book series, but it has no obligation to claim legitimacy in the face of the classics, especially not to me. I know what it’s done for me and what it’s taught me; and that puts it in the secret corner of my heart (and mind) where I keep it side by side with all the other books that have been and continue to be important to me.
The series is also the home of fond memories. Many fond memories. Many hours holed up by myself reading it. Many occasions of research trying to learn of some of the mythologies that were less familiar to me. Many bouts of self-education in the techniques of art and literature (Jacobean tragedy, pencil art, stained glass, gothic horror stories, collage, et cetera). All good memories, definitely.
(And then there’s the little matter that I used to read them with a girl I was extremely fond of…)
I’ve actually not read the entire series at a go again after my second reading in, if memory serves, 2002-2003. I’ve never read Preludes And Nocturnes again after that, for example. On the other hand, I’ve reread a few volumes multiple times (notably the final two volumes, Dream Country and Seasons Of Mist). I suppose this is a really good time to revisit all of them, with my new perspectives on what I want to do, what I can do, and what I will do. I’m sure the nostalgia will take over at some point, and I’ll begin to remember what I was doing when I read this bit or that.
So I’ll just round this off by saying: The Sandman is something really special to me, something I regard in debt, respect and adoration because it pulled me out of that sad hole I was sinking into and sparked a creative realignment. It also taught me of the power of graphic forms (Morpheus’s face when despairing was so stark and bare that I remember the effect the contrast had on me up to this day), reminded me of the depth of a few good words (as opposed to many bad ones), and reinforced my exuberance for the imagined. It is the house that shelters some of my best memories, and the monument that reminds me good art and stories will remain good art and stories no matter what form they take.
I’m sure I could just as easily curse and swear at it because it was one of the things that led me down to this decidedly difficult path (and curse you too, Mr. Joyce!), but I think it’s important to remember that in that blackest of crucibles, I uncovered the love of what I do and embraced the littlest flame we call inspiration.
d
Hit The Pause Button
Paused
I’ve decided to take a break from the writing until after the exams are over. I’ll almost certainly be starting on the edits for The River during December, so that’ll take precedence, so this probably means I won’t be doing Singapura for quite a while.
Exam Schedule
Here’s what my timetable looks like:
On Monday, I have Chinese Music.
On Thursday, I have Singapore History.
On the next Monday, I have Biofluids.
On the Tuesday after that, I have Biochemistry.
And my last paper is on Wednesday, with Organic Chemistry.
GMail Themes
There are now themes for Gmail. [via Official GMail Blog] How very colourful.
John Barth Interview
I also found this interview over at Barnes & Noble with John Barth interesting. [via Barnes & Noble]
Well, it goes through several filters. My wife, bless her, who is my first reader and best critic, is very sharp-eyed — not only catching typos, but also applying her wonderfully retentive memory so that she can say, in effect, “Look, you played this card on page 4 and you forgot to pick it up on page 137.” Or as Chekhov said, “If you hang a rifle on the wall in Act I, you have to fire it in Act III.” You needn’t shoot out all the lampshades in the room — just fire the damn thing.
Ah, so it appears I’m missing a wife!
Book Arrangements
Finally, there’s also this intriguing article about arranging books in one’s personal library. [via The Online Photographer] I suppose that’s something I’ll have to worry about in the near future.
d
Study, Study, Study (And Study)
Not Yet
It hasn’t quite hit me that the exams are right at the doorstep. Maybe there is a bit of confidence going into a couple of the papers, which has me taking the foot off the pedal a bit so as not to send myself crashing and burning. I’m sure that by the time next week hits the sense of oh-no-it’s-here will be a bit greater, and I’m also sure that by the end of next week, I’ll be suffering from a stiff left shoulder (I lean on my left when studying on my bed) and a horrendous amount of examination fatigue.
Until then, all looks peaceful. Maybe a bit too peaceful, but I’ll take all the peace I can get.
My papers are on the 24th, 27th, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Postings will probably be affected, but we’ll see what happens.
Inspiration, Desperation
While all this is going on, I’ve been writing tiny bits every day. Mostly it’s been the new project Singapura, which as you already know I’m taking my time with. It’s gone at about a hundred words or so per day ever since when I first said I had started, which I believe was Saturday. (See? That’s why I need a reminder post.) Of course, I haven’t had much time to actually sit down for hours to work at it, so I think a hundred words or so is in fact an extremely positive outcome. And it doesn’t look bad. Not horrible, at least.
In the meantime, there are just some days you think of the old projects (i.e. The River) and you just feel that most of it is trash. Yesterday was such a day. I’m sure the attitude will be different by the time the exams are over and I get back to editing, but it sure looks terrible and amateurish right now. ):
All right, back to work…
d
