Slightly Ill

Brr.

I don’t know what it is I’ve got. I suppose it’s a mild flu or something. And a sore throat. Hit me on Monday as the day was just ending. I’m writing on Tuesday night, but I suppose I should be all right by the time you read this.

Tests.

I’m done with my tests, so that’s all out of the way and it looks like it’s time to get stuck in for the second half.

Brain.

Oh my brain is really not working now.

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Tuesday Photo: everybody must get stoned

Things We Bought Today

Disappointing

I went a little late to collect my tickets for the Neil Gaiman events at the Singapore Writers Festival. I missed out by five people.

Buying Things

I bought many things after the disappointing morning excursion. For instance, I bought two T-shirts featuring the work of Tan Swie Hian from the museum shops. The first is this one with a poem that he wrote.

The other one has a giant Lu Xun on it.

Also from a museum shop, a bookmark with calligraphy by Pan Shou.

Then there’s these things from the museum shop too. Well, actually only the books is mine, and the hanger came along with it. Sam the Samsui Woman is there because she is cute, but I was helping my sister to get it.

The book is actually a book about a local wayang troupe. Has lots of photos. I suppose it’s something of a photography book. It comes in nice binding and is a limited edition of 500. It’s number 210.

Inside the book:

Apart from the museum shops, I also bought two second-hand George Eliot books. Silas Marner and The Mill On The Floss.

Next up… I didn’t buy these today, but they came in through the mail to complete my day. It’s the Mythical Creatures stamp set from the Royal Mail, with art by Dave McKean and text by Neil Gaiman. I have four of these, but I’m only keeping one. Again, I was helping people to get them too.

But the actual last stop of the day was BooksActually, where I got these.

The pencils are inscribed with the names of writers. I have two James Joyce ones because I’m going to use one.

And yes, those are retro bus tickets on the sketchbook cover. I’m so happy I got it.

Also, Hamlet

Hamlet featuring David Tennant will be released on DVD after Christmas. [via RSC Shop Online]

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Samsui Women

Samsui Women

I saw this yesterday and couldn’t help showing them to everyone (well, okay, not everyone) who was online. [via Singapore Museum Shop] Samsui women accessories! Remarkably cute, these things.

Games Convention

There was a Singapore games convention, Games Convention Asia. [via Kotaku] As one of the comments goes, we had a Games Convention?

End Of Recess Week

Wow, it’s almost the end of the recess week already. How did it go by so quickly? I have so much unfinished business. I have a short story I’ve yet to complete; I have a lab report; I have a Chekhov book I’ve yet to finish; I haven’t met up with everyone I was supposed to meet up with; I have tests; I have a presentation; I have… oh darn, someone just asked me something and I forgot what it was that I was supposed to write here.

But you get the point, and it’s all going by so quickly. I need afterburners.

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Thursday Photo: four fingers

9 about 9

I went to see 9 yesterday. Here’s what I liked about it:

1. Design: 9 manages to tackle some very familiar influences and roots in its design without turning out stale, and that to me is quite an achievement. It is a thing of imaginative beauty and this aspect of the film at least ought to be applauded. The sack people look great. The machines too are lovely. It’s really a showpiece that ought to be marvelled at.
2. Animated People: Of course, all the pretty design in the world wouldn’t make a difference if the film didn’t look good, but it does. It’s some pretty decent work by the studio.
3. Set-Piece Spectacular: When I emerged from the theatre, the thing that stuck with me was the monsters and the action sequences. 9 is at its best when it pits the little sack people against this or that giant machine monster. It’s in these sequences that the film manages to prove that it’s a gripping piece of filmmaking.
4. Nice Direction: Shane Acker does a pretty great job, especially considering that he probably could have had some more material to work with.

And here’s what I didn’t like about it

1. Dialogue Dud: The dialogue isn’t terrible. It just never catches you, and sometimes even manages to bore you. The characters never say anything terribly clever or memorable, and it always seems to border on the obvious. It feels a bit like the script came out of a standard Saturday morning cartoon. Yes, I think obvious is the word. Obvious and tired.
2. No Character: 9 is made up of obvious characters who tend to be mostly one-dimensional. It doesn’t help that most of them don’t actually end up having a lot of screen time.  Lead character #9, for instance, is about as exciting as a cardboard box, and he is flanked by #5 and #7, the first a secondary character who seems to be there just to say the things that needed saying and the latter presumably a potential love interest although they didn’t really seem to be very interested in exploring any of that. The end-result is that it’s quite difficult to invest very much into the film.
3. Ending, Wut?: I think quite a bit has been said about the ending, and I suppose it tried not to seem like a cop-out, but it was a little bit convenient and definitely felt rushed. And the final, final scene was a little bizarre and strange to me for some reason. It’s almost as if it didn’t want to live with the consequences of earlier plot devices.
4. Dull Drama: 9 tries to be dramatic, but it doesn’t do drama very well. Part of it will imaginably be down to the characters, but it also just fails to push the right buttons for the drama to succeed.
5. Too Short: It’s short. About 80 minutes or under. And I think if it afforded more time to fleshing out the ending, put in an additional monster or two (or gave more time to the existing ones), gave the characters a little more space (and thought), it might have been a much better film.

As it stands though, 9 feels more like a technical showpiece than a proper movie. It’s a beautiful piece of work, but it’s also threadbare in the narrative department, which left me more than a little disappointed.

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Tuesday Photo: this is chip

Some random things.

Now Listening

I got my hands on Muse’s The Resistance. I’ve listened to it about five times. Nothing spectacular, and in fact, far more average than one might expect. I think it’s a bit scattershot, and there’s too much mantra-dropping (“We will be victorious…”) that’ll never be a substitute for good lyrics. There’s also none of the energy or precision of one or two of their earlier albums, so it all seems a little… meh.

That said, Exogenesis, the three part suite at the end of the album is great, and it might be worth the price of admission, though don’t quote me on that.

Mono

Someone with the Beatles Mono Box Set let me listen to Sgt. Pepper’s and I realise the difference with this set of remasters is more significant than I imagined (though less than what would’ve made me go :O ). My own Stereo Box Set is supposed to be on its way (though Amazon is taking longer to process it than I would’ve expected), and I’m looking forward to it more than ever now.

Writers Festival

The Singapore Writers Festival is here again, as Jolie kindly reminded me. I missed out on all the events the last time round, so I’m quite determined to attend two or three things this year. I haven’t made up my mind on what to attend yet, but it’s still a whiles away anyway. Besides, I also need to trick someone to go along with me so that it isn’t all that lonely.

And if you’re interested, here’s the festival calendar detailing the events. [via Singapore Writers Festival]

Hartblei

I saw this yesterday and I more or less have no idea what it really is.

“So we decided to build a camera by ourselves. The camera should be completely open for all MF backs on the market and should use a 35mm lens mount as an interface to support all lenses, no matter whether 35 mm or MF. The plan was to give access to extreme wideangles down to fisheyes or superteles and while maintaining a reasonable price offering (i.e. below 5000 € with TTL spot finder plus electric Film-/D-Backslider).”

I think it allows DSLR on the front and medium on the back, but that’s all I got. What do you really do with it? What happens when I combine this with that, et cetera? It’s not all so clear.

Not that I’m buying it, but it’s fairly interesting.

Midterm Plans

Sure, I’ve got a lot to do for the week, but I’m trying not to let them get in the way of meeting up with my friends. I’m sure I need to eat a meal with a group of them, go out and take photos with one of them, go to some interesting place like a museum with another, and watch a movie with one more. That’s at least. Hmm, we can work it out.

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Saturday Photo: skink noir

Starlight

Short Story

I’ve started work on a short story. I can’t remember if I said down here that I was working on one about a week ago, but if I did then that one is scrapped because it didn’t look as if it would work. This new one appears to be doing fine so far, although having not written anything for what must be three months now, it all feels a little like dragging myself through a swamp. But don’t get me wrong—there definitely is a sense of joy. I’m definitely glad to be back in business.

The story is temporarily named Distant Star (I realise there is a Roberto Bolaño book of the same name but it was not intentional). It is I suppose nothing too new for me. It’s not exactly something I haven’t tried before. Yet it’s nice to be doing something like that again after all this time and I’m so far quite happy with the way it’s going. I’ve got about a thousand words down, and it all looks like it could be fine. I actually have no idea where it’s going to go, but at least it looks like it’ll turn out okay.

Irregularities

Project things are just… not turning out the way that you’d expect them to, but then again I guess they never do. As such it looks like a long day ahead for me today, and I might have to push away an appointment that I had arranged for earlier. Gah. That’s the way it goes, as the song will tell you. I really just want to do okay here and get this over with, though we’re not even past the halfway line at this point in time.

Animated Hazards Of Love

“And so: we Decemberists are pleased to announce the official release of Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, a collaboration between the band and four filmmakers, Guilherme Marcondes, Julia Pott, Peter Sluszka and Santa Maria — each of whom have created an animation to accompany a section of the music.  At Royce Hall on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles on October 19, The Decemberists will perform the entire piece synchronized with the animation, as well as an additional second set of older and newer material. A limited presale will be underway Wednesday at 10am PST at http://decemberists.tickets.musictoday.com/Decemberists/calendar.aspx.  General tickets will go on sale this Friday, September 18.”

[via The Decemberists]

I am more than a little sad that I’ll not be able to attend it. I hope there’s a DVD or the like, though. I’m fairly sure that it’d be great.

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