Archive for July, 2009
Farther From The Sky
Editing
I got extremely bored somewhere along the week and couldn’t resist going back to work again, so I’ve started on editing Bukit Merah. While doing so, I named this current version of the manuscript “Farther From The Sky”. Naming each version was a habit I picked up with The River. It’s more endearing, I guess, than a simple number or a date.
I’ve not started to go very in-depth with it. In fact, I’ve barely even started at all. I’ve mostly been glossing over it to get a feel for things, so it probably will be a while before I start going through it word by word. I’m currently hunting for this particular sentence that I spotted before I began this editing phase. I knew it was atrociously wrong, but I didn’t want to get sucked into the editing back then and left it alone. For the life of me, I can’t find it anymore. But these things happen.
It’s not exactly exciting stuff, but it’s a part of the job. At least I can hope it becomes readable by the time I’m through with it once.
How Old Am I?
My birthday is approaching. It’s not that close, but it’s not far away either. I just happened to think of it the other day and I realised then that I tend to have problems remembering my own age. I actually have to remember the current year and deduct it from my birth year, which I imagine is not something that most people do. Otherwise, I tend to overestimate. How very odd.
Service From Hankyu
This customer service story… is pretty incredible. [via Kotaku]
Counter Culture
“Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress” is a book by Candacy A. Taylor about “lifers”—career diner waitresses. The author, who worked for close to a decade as a waitress herself, interviewed fifty-nine waitresses in forty-three cities across the country. All of the waitresses were fifty and older (many of them were in their seventies) and all of them had worked in diners for at least twenty years.
Certainly sounds quite interesting, and here’s a brief photo essay (from which I stole that description). [via The Book Bench]
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Carroll And Cannabis
Recently, I began to take apart my list of in-waiting books. My intention was to clear up some of the photography and art books (since I don’t usually do too much actual reading outside of the school term). I’m now currently on Africa [via Amazon], which is a book that I’m quite enamoured with right now, but there were two other books before that, books that I really enjoyed too, so I thought it would be a good idea to write this bit about them. Since I’m not a prolific review writer by any stretch of the imagination, I’ll try to keep this short. And I put in the links to the books to vendors merely for convenience; you might find them at better prices elsewhere.
The first of them is a book called Lewis Carroll, with text by Anne Higonnet. [via Amazon] Carroll, as you know, wrote Alice, but he was also one of the most prominent photographers of the Victorian era. This pretty volume collects his photography work with some handy descriptive captions for each plate by Higonnet. For me, it was initially quite surprising to see the complexity that Carroll worked into these photographs (I would surely have missed some of the visual metaphors had it not been for the text), but Carroll was after all a brilliant, brilliant man. There are striking portraits, celebrity faces and dashes of humour scattered throughout this quite unique book, and to top it off, it’s nicely bound and competently edited. In other words, it’s a book I found very pleasant to read and I think it’s a quite a pretty and special book to have on your shelves if photography and/or Lewis Carroll are among your likes.
The other book is a collection of art by anime artist (err, animeteur?) Tatsuyaki Tanaka called Cannabis Works. [via Play-Asia] If the name doesn’t ring a bell, then he’s been involved in things such as Akira (where I believe he animated the mutating arm) and the Genius Party Beyond (in which he did Tojin Kit). A quick Google search will yield some samples of his work. The book itself offers an excellent selection of some starkly beautiful images, full of cyberpunk dystopias and strange beasts. There’s a nice balance of full-colour portraits, sketches, storyboards, poster designs and the like. Overall, it resembles a pretty complete portfolio that ably represents Tanaka’s best design work. I haven’t quite liked a book of this nature since I fell in love with the Okami art book [temporarily out of stock via Amazon], actually. (Speaking of which, the Okami book is just one of those that I absolutely adore.) I was left wishing for some larger reproductions, actually, because the book is kind of small, but darn, the pictures are pretty enough as it is.
So, there you have it, two really pretty books that you can might want to consider. I think they’re probably a bit niche in their appeal (say, if you don’t like Lewis Carroll and Victorian photography, or if you don’t have the slightest interest in anime design), but if any of those things appeal to you, and you’re looking for something a little different to add to your shelves, then I humbly submit these two suggestions, fine books that I’m very happy to own.
Now back to the Salgado…
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The Boney King Of Nowhere
Impatience
As you know I’ve been busy doing nothing. Well, almost nothing. I’ve caught up on some television programmes and finished up my first round of Valkyria Chronicles. But otherwise, I’ve mostly been resisting the urges to write some short piece that I’ll throw away soon enough, edit Bukit Merah, make any commitments on the next project, and think about more submissions (the last of which I admit are more superstitious than anything).
That’s not to say that I’ve not had any new ideas. Plenty, in fact. An embarrassment of riches, I think is the fancy sort of term they use for a situation like this. It’s remarkably difficult to tell myself to wait and see, because when they start appearing, they just seem to be leaping around, gesticulating frantically, trying to get you to dive into that new project. My experience with my ideas is that most of them turn out to be bad, so I’m not supposed to believe them initially. The ones that survive a gruesome natural selection-type process tend to be the better ones, so the only thing I can do, really, is wait.
But it’s difficult.
Still, it’s not that I have anything even whole to work with. A couple of days ago, I said something about everything failing to come together. It’s still not any closer to that, so I’m pretty sure that if I dive in now it’ll be a total mess. I think the only thing I can do in the meantime is to keep jotting away on my notebook and hope that it sorts itself out eventually. It always does.
Postcard Books
These books look very interesting. [via The Book Bench] I’ll probably keep them on some shopping list somewhere.
There There
I went to watch the video of Radiohead’s There There. (The Boney King Of Nowhere.) yesterday for some reason. [via YouTube]
One of my favourite Radiohead songs, so it’s a little surprising (to me, at least) that I’d never seen the video before. Strangely, it’s quite similar to how I’ve always pictured it, except, instead of an animated Thom Yorke, it’s always been a little girl in a pretty frock running around in a forest full of shadows and living trees and the like. Kind of Alice-like I suppose, but with something of a twist. The big Wicked Witch of the West-type figure, of course, being the Boney King of Nowhere.
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Notebooks (And Commencement)
New Beginnings
On Saturday, I retired my old notebook. I hadn’t finished it, but it just felt right to leave it behind and start the new one. So, of course, I started the new one too. I’ve made a few entries since, primarily to do with the incoming project. I had a very good idea of what it was going to be before I started writing Bukit Merah, but it doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Which is good, I guess. I’m trying my best not to dive straight in, because I know that usually ruins the whole thing.
Still, a remarkable flurry of ideas, some old, some new, but mostly new combinations of old ideas. There are… a lot of things to deal with, lots of ideas that seem to go in some place and yet can’t fit anywhere. It isn’t helped by the fact that I’m not adopting my old structure, so I don’t have the big picture to work with in the first place. Still, it’s a problem that I am happy to have. Early days, these.
Funny to think of notebooks and how I used to not know what to do with them. Well, obviously one makes notes with notebooks, but there was a time when I thought I’d get a notebook, open up to a blank page and just not know how to do anything on it, seemingly out of fear of ruining a nice page. Many years and notebooks later, I think I’ve developed some kind of procedure, so I don’t have that sort of fear of the blank page anymore. In fact, I think it’s become central to my whole thinking process. Sometimes, I just can’t piece things together unless I write it down. And other times, I just need a place to put down all the half-ideas buzzing in my brain before they slip away.
In the meantime, though, nice to have a proper notebook with me this time round. I actually put aside a bit of cash to invest in one this time, as you will probably know. Before this, I used free notebooks from CommunicAsia, low-price ring-bound ones from Popular, and spare ones lying around the house. I suppose you could consider it a bit of a luxury, this, kind of pampering myself a tiny bit. Just a tiny bit. Having spent most of my time with those types of notebooks, this Moleskine feels a little… strange in my hands, but hey, it’s a feeling I can get used to.
Congratulations
Jolie’s commencement is tomorrow, if my memory hasn’t evaporated yet, so, congratulations, Jolie!
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Tammy Shoes
Who Is Jack Purcell?
On Wednesdays, I went out with my grandma (as I think I mentioned). Somewhere along the way, I got a pair of new shoes to make up for two pairs that I’m tired of repairing. I stepped into the Converse shop and chose between two designs (the more expensive one too ): ) and prayed very hard that they would have a size for my big feet. It wasn’t exactly the best fit, but it fit, and that’s all that matters. So, for I think the first time in my life, I got myself a pair of Converse trainers. I call them Tammy Shoes because this girl I know is the only one around me who consistently wore such trainers. Or maybe she didn’t and I just imagined that. I haven’t seen her for a while so I can’t check.
Not having very much of sports knowledge beyond football and basketball, I had no idea who Jack Purcell was. I thought he designed the shoes. I came home to read his wiki to find out that he was world champion of badminton at one point in time. There’s not much in that article, but he already sounds like a brilliant man.
Where Did My Feature Go?
I really wanted to do up a Feature for today, but I just couldn’t bring myself to yesterday, so all you get is this rather normal looking post. I spent half the day doing up my music properly (tags and stuff), then the other half on television and Valkyria Chronicles. Speaking of which, I’m on the last chapter. The previous mission seemed very intimidating at first, but I think it’s very manageable with proper planning and a bit of luck. And plenty of potentials. But only if you know what’s going on.
What Are You Doing Today?
The National Museum in the morning, and then I’ll be off to have tea or something with my parents. Nothing in particular at the museum. Just meeting a friend so that I don’t strangle myself with all this excess boredom.
What’s Up For The Remaining Bits Of The Holidays?
I imagine more of the same, really. Music, finishing up a couple of games, some reading, and just catching up on things in general. I think I’ll be doing some research in anticipation of my highly likely rejection. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll do a bit of writing, though I highly doubt it. Oh yes, I’ll have to start preparing for school, of course.
And with that I’m off.
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