Tuesday Photo: the hinge

The Weeks

Almost midnight, and the Tenth Week had been drinking. Things weren’t looking too good, but he was at the end of his shift. Hic. Hic. Hic. Stumbling about with no sense of direction, no sense of time, the Tenth Week felt enormously depressed.

What happened? How did it come to this? There was the project thing. There were friends to keep up with. There were things to worry about regarding the next shift. Sure, he wouldn’t be the one on duty then, but it didn’t keep him from worrying, from thinking. He  know how the others got by. Did the Eighth Week worry about the stuff that was ahead? or did she simply leave it all the chance?

(He never talked to the Ninth Week, who was enigmatic and gaunt and really scary.)

Questions, questions. Getting a little drunk was always easier. Though it did make him think about the others. What would they think of him now? always more than a little tipsy, always scared to face the truth. Gah! Another question! Away with you! I just want a quiet night before I hand over the reins!

Then again, it wasn’t all horrible. Not too far in the horizon, there was the one they called Recess Week, and then it would be examinations. Supposedly, some kind of absolution would be achieved then, and some happy paradise would descend upon them all. Probably just tales, really, fictions concocted to mislead the ignorant. Yet, they did have that saying about ignorance and bliss, and who was the Tenth Week to object?

Another gulp. Another dose of a watered-down dream.

The seconds seemed to be impeded. It was as if time was decelerating. Tick. Tick. Tick… Tick… Silence… Tick. No, not now, he thought. Twenty seconds. Then fifteen. Then twelve. Ten. Nine. Eight? No, now, eight. It was slowing down too much. Come on, he thought. Seven more seconds. Seven more. Another gulp. Another gulp. Six. You can’t do this to me. One more gulp. Impatience. Another gulp. Silence. Another. Five. Gulp. Gulp. And the bottle was empty. Not now! Don’t abandon me no! Four! Go to four! Yes! Now three! Three! Come on! Three! Please! Three. Please… Three. Please…

The Tenth Week shut his eyes. Everything stopped.

Then, there was a hand on his shoulder.

How was the shift? asked the Eleventh Week.

Oh, it’s you. The Tenth Week opened his eyes. Well, uh, you know. The… uh… usual. The usual.

All right. My turn.

See you again soon, said the Tenth Week. as he stood up to leave.

You always do, said the Eleventh.

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No… Not Friday already…

Crunch Time

Project, tests, impending doom… So many things are taking place in the next couple of weeks that I really kind of wish it isn’t Friday today. Oh well, I suppose the best way to handle it is to charge right at it with my lungs ready to explode from the incredible volume of my battle cry.

I’m not worried about anything in particular. It’s just that sometimes, you’d just prefer some other way of passing the time.

Where The Wild Things Are Trailer

Looks really pretty. Really fun. And I really hope it does the book justice. [via Apple - Movie Trailers]

Reading

I’m now reading a Bob Dylan interview anthology called Dylan On Dylan. I picked it up in a 2-for-10 offer at an HMV. It’s been pretty fun to read so far, though I’ve kind of been skimming through a couple of those I’ve seen before. The television press conference is always a great read, though.

New Music

My Hazards Of Love has still not arrived, though here are the liner notes. [via The Decemberists] In the meantime I’m contemplating the new Springsteen and the new Starsailor, and am just waiting for someone to tell me if either of them are good. Can I get any help here?

Help Tim Schafer

Help Tim Schafer with his hosting duties at the Game Developers Choice Awards with this point-and-click Flash game that makes you look for jokes. [via Double Fine Action News] I really have no time to get to it, but I did find one joke in the short amount of time I spent with it, and I quite enjoyed what little I played of it. I must get back to it soon.

On The Jukebox

Old Springsteen (Jungleland in particular), some Decemberists, some orchestral things, and old songs by The Band. And I think a few days ago I started to go back to Dylan albums I wasn’t too familiar with, and that probably figured into my decision for reading Dylan On Dylan.

Right, have a good weekend, people.

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Thursday Photo: ready for take off

Pound And Poisson

Last Chapter

Yesterday, we ventured into our final chapter of the Math (out of four), and it’s statistics. Supposed to be the easiest of the four chapters, but… we’ll see about that. It’s incredibly short, though, and it just made me realise that the end of the semester is nearly upon us. Strange feeling, this. Not sure what I think. It’s just going by me quite inertly.

Poetry

Reading Ezra Pound. Probably not the best thing to read on the bus and train when it’s 6.30am in the morning. Still, quite liked a few bits. Not exactly done with the volume, and a very sad accident yesterday made me drop my book, but I’ve really enjoyed myself so far. I should be finishing up today.

All Of Us

Yesterday I told myself that I have a pretty miserable existence. Then again, most of us do.

Randomness

For some reason, I was going through the wikipedia article for the Sarangi, which is an Indian musical instrument. [via Wikipedia] It has nothing to do with the rest of this post, but hey, you can discover something new every day (if you don’t already know what it is).

Exit

Disguised as a panda.

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Tuesday Photo: stuffing my face in

Artsy Things

Weekend

This weekend, I managed a bit of work, managed a bit of entertainment, and had interesting conversations with a bunch of people, notably Jolie, with whom I had many happy chats with via IM throughout Sunday, so I suppose you could say it was a good weekend. The weekend also saw the birthdays of my mom and Chinese High, so we celebrated with durian. We also saw my football club doing well. All in all an enjoyable weekend by any measure.

Flower

I bought Flower off of the PlayStation Network a couple of days ago. It’s… quite unique. Very pretty, I must say, though I’m pretty sure those who don’t appreciate the more artsy experiences will find it boring and simply not worth the cash. But I’m one of those who does, so I will say that while you don’t do very much, while it’s not exactly a game, and while it might be shorter than I realise, I still think it’s a fantastic experience and it’s certainly worth the price of admission just to admire it as a thing of beauty.

Seed

Someone sent me this short animation by Johnny Kelly and I thought it was beautiful.

The Seed from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

There’s also a making-of video by the creators.

Making of ‘The Seed’ from Johnny Kelly on Vimeo.

Hugos

The Hugo nominees have been announced. [via Anticipation]

Of note:

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
(336 Ballots / Bulletins)

• “The Constant” ( Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
• Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
• “Revelations” ( Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
• “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” ( Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
• “Turn Left” ( Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)

Well, not that it matters, but it’s just nice to root for someone or something, like in a football match where you’re a neutral. So I’m rooting for Doctor Who, of course, just for the fun of it. I haven’t actually watched these episodes, but I’ve heard that they’re among the best in the new series.

Also of note, it was nice to see Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book among the nominees, and Fables too.

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My Back Pages #02: Birds Do The Strangest Things

My Back Pages is what I would call an irregular feature that I’ve got going here. Essentially, every now and then, I dig out a book from my old shelves and my childhood to examine it with a new perspective and more than a hint of nostalgia. I have no idea why I’m doing this, and what I’ll end up with, but I figured that it might be slightly interesting. More interesting than what usually happens here anyway. Yes, it takes its name from the Dylan song, and yes, this is a standard introduction. You can read more about it from the introductory page I’ve written for it.

A Block Of Information

Title: Birds Do The Strangest Things (Revised Edition)
Authors: Leonora and Arthur Hornblow
Illustrator: Alan D. Singer
Other folks: No other folks
Publisher: Random House New York
First publication: 1965 (text), 1991 (first paperback edition)
Edition: 1991, 0679911596

Wings

Here’s our second book. It’s a science book. Well, not exactly science. Natural history at its most basic, perhaps. It’s called Birds Do The Strangest Things, as you can probably tell, and I seem to remember reading it quite a bit when I was very young, say, when I was seven.

Essentially, it’s a series of short pieces (and by short, I really mean short) on birds and their strange habits. There’s no particular theme as far as the birds or the habits are concerned, so it just jumps from this bird to another quite freely, quite happily. For instance, it could be about the cuckoo and its deceptive call on one page, and on the next, it’s the toucans who hide in the trees.

It’s the sort of non-fiction book you hang on to when you’re a child, thinking that you’ve got the whole world in your hands. No one can no better about birds than you now! And you always feel slightly invincible, and you just want to dive in the next day to read it again.

The writing in itself is a mix of facts and stories. It’s a lovely mix because, the way I see it now, it allows the child to learn something new and also opens up possibilities, allows the imagination to breathe. A loon carries its babies on its back; but its cry is also “like a terrible scream for help” or a “ghost laughing on Halloween”. Gulls eat shellfish and compete with one another for food; but they also “help keep the beaches clean”. It’s mostly quite factual, but with a tiny dash of the fabulous, and I think I really liked that bit of it.

Illustrated

Every section/chapter/two pages comes with its own illustrations, and those illustrations, I always thought, were fantastic. Even now, as I look at them with these grown-up eyes and a grown-up heart, they still look marvellous to me. They’re fairly realistic illustrations by Mr. Alan D. Singer, with the birds usually placed in their natural habitat, doing some thing you would imagine them doing in their natural habitat. There’s usually not much of that habitat on the pictures, but I think as a kid, all you really need is to see an ostrich running alongside a couple of zebras and you already see yourself there watching the whole spectacle unfolding.

Many of the illustrations, like the pigeon above, don’t even have any background, but they’re still great things to see, these anatomically accurate and fairly exciting drawings. Yesterday, when I took it out, I realised that I hadn’t forgotten most of them, and that feeling was just fantastic.

Two Names And A Class

Upon opening the book, you will realise that I had my name written on it twice. I don’t know why I had that done. I think I might have been afraid that I would forget my name. Since it’s been fifteen years now, I suppose it worked.

With my wonderful handwriting, I’m sure I didn’t perform the actual writing.

It also says Random House, and I think it wouldn’t be far-fetched to guess that it was my first Random House book.

And 1C. That was my class in Primary One. So I was six going on seven when I got this book.

A Love Of Nature

I had two main kinds of non-fiction books when I was young. The first type was dinosaur books. The other type had to do with nature in general. (I wish I had more space books, come to think of it.) I think that explains why up to this day I still love dinosaurs, and I also have a passion for natural history. I suppose it’s true that the stuff that inspires you as a kid sticks with you for practically all your life.

I remember seeing this picture for the first time, this lovely blue bird, and I kept wondering that if I would spot one outside if I kept looking out of the windows, kept hoping and praying and keeping my fingers crossed. I never did, of course; I was in the wrong half of the planet. Still, it was just so beautiful, and I could imagine a real one just flitting around, navigating the shrubbery expertly, and to look back now and see how it’s affected me since is just the most wonderful thing.

Quotes

Just two.

“Pigeons don’t care about medals. All they want is to get home.”

I found this hilarious because, taken out of context like that, I get a picture of a cigar-smoking, rifle-toting bunch of pigeons in their own Dirty Dozen.

‘Owls make all kinds of sounds. But their best-known sound is “hoo-hoo.” And who-who wants to be an owl?’

Not exactly poetry, but I remember thinking that it was very clever when I was a kid.

Last Words

You can still find the book, though, quite possibly not my edition. I found this Amazon link that appears to be the one, though the picture seems to indicate that it’s the 1965 paperback with a different illustrator. I haven’t been able to find a vendor with an edition that’s definitely the same as mine, so it does make me a tiny bit sad.

Still, I’m flipping through it again, and this last page here has a rather peculiar effect on me, I realise. There’s a line on it that wonders if crows are actually laughing at us when they’re cawing, a shred of a fable and a hint of a cosmic secret combined. And I think the reason I look back at this so fondly is precisely that, that it was one of the things that was there at the beginning of a love of not simply nature, but of myth and fable, of stories within stories, of imagination and secrets and dreams and wonders.

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Thursday Photo: red bunch

Really Bad Week

Completely Unexpected

It’s funny how I put together a whole idea of how the horrible week was going to go in its own horrible way with every major event clearly listed with every expectation rigged to unleash some worst possible outcome, and I find myself not actually having to deal with any of those events (so far). My math test has better than expected, though worse than it ought to have been. My project isn’t in too bad a shape either.

It’s funnier still how it’s still turned out to be an immensely bad week. Sometimes, something completely unexpected happens, derailing the whole day, the whole week, your whole life. And it did. Yesterday. It’s really nothing much, though every now and then, these things happen and essentially put you in touch with that crushing sense of futility that underscores (well, to me, anyway) all our lives, in this way or that.

Still, nothing to worry about. I imagine I’m still fairly unsinkable at this point.

Though, you know, they said that about the Titanic.

O! A Week!

A week away from The Hazards Of Love, which, you must realise, always gets me more than a bit excited particularly because I haven’t had any new music in quite a while. (Really busy times, and sad times.)  That said, I think my order won’t arrive punctually, so I’ll probably be in for a bit more waiting.

Punctured

I think I really can’t continue writing very much today, so I guess this post will have to be just this short.

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