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Showing posts from 2003

L.G.R.S.

A cooler head prevails: so what's the starting rotation for the ALCS? I actually like: Game 1: Wakefield Game 2: this is the one I can't decide - Kim???? Kim as a starter seems to be a popular option, judging by the feedback I've seen on the Sox blogs, but in Yankee Stadium? Arroyo? because it would be surprising for the Yankees, and a pitcher they've never seen would be a good thing? (Vaughn Eshelman!) Some sort of Burkett/Suppan/Kim/Arroyo committee? Game 3: Lowe (gets to be at Fenway, gets 3 days' instead of 2 days' rest) Game 4: Pedro (5 days' rest for a change) Game 5: Wakefield Game 6: Lowe Game 7: Pedro Kim's still got good stuff, not great under pressure but arguably the pressure is worst for him at Fenway, and we might as well make use of him :) If the Sox win Game 1 I think this is the best rotation...

SOX WIN SOX WIN SOX WIN!

Argh, it's 11.30am in the morning and I'm at my desk and all I want to do is run out onto the street and shout! Takes me back to 1999 all over again - I wish I were back in Boston to join in the celebrations! Derek Lowe, none out, tying run on 2nd, winning run on 1st - shows he's still got closer in his blood... runners on 2nd and 3rd, 1 out and he goes for the strikeouts instead of the force? Amazing, especially for a groundball pitcher... Too bad about Williamson today - too tired after 2 games in a row? You can't throw heat all of the time... and MUST the Sox make it always so close? 2 extra-inning games, 3 one-run games... No wonder Boston has all these amazing heart disease centres, it needs them. GO SOX!

Go now...

Been watching the one and only season of My So-Called Life on DVD. It's so amazing - each of the characters is so fleshed out, from Angela Chase to her parents to Rickie and Rayanne... definitely among my list of best-ever one-season shows. (What else would there be? Hmm... Profit ?)

Essence of our natural fluids

The parallel to the left side listing of movies I've watched in the theatre this year is this listing of movies I've watched this year on DVD, video, and other media: Alfie , ... And God Created Woman , Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Boyfriends and Girlfriends , Dr Strangelove (or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) , Heathers , The Italian Job , La Collectioneuse , Last Year at Marienbad , The Naked Kiss , Old School , Roger Dodger , sex, lies and videotape , Teenage Doll , Who Framed Roger Rabbit? , Withnail and I .

I am an old woman named after my mother

Salon has a funny summary of the MTV Video Music Awards , including some of Chris Rock's great, great lines. "Good Charlotte? More like a mediocre Green Day." - man, the more I see Rock's act, the more I see just how sharp he is. And his taste is impeccable. Unlike whoever voted for Linkin Park over the White Stripes. How does one deal with people who think Linkin Park is real rock music? And how good is Johnny Cash's video for "Hurt"?

Yes, yes, I woke up and a kidney was gone.

Urban legends really bother me. Or rather, people who have the credulity to accept urban legends without looking them up really bother me. Snopes.com does a very good job of thoroughly investigating these stories. Especially "inspirational" stories that claim to be true. I received a magazine today that repeated the (untrue) story of the Seattle Special Olympics and how one boy supposedly fell down and the rest stopped, linked arms, and walked to the finish line together. (The real story , apparently, is that there was a track and field event in Spokane in 1976, and one competitor fell down, and one or two people went back to help him.) A mawkish story, and, as some have pointed out, a story that's actually quite insulting and demeaning to the Special Olympics participants. Yeah, I'm a skeptic by nature... I like the kind of person who actually bothers to call to verify these stories .

Halberstam on Red Sox conversion

David Halberstam (whose The Best and the Brightest I'm now reading) has a nice piece on the Red Sox Nation in the Boston Globe today. I think back on how I became a Red Sox convert - a citizen not by birth (having been born half a world away, and in a country without any baseball) but by naturalisation. I suppose "convert" isn't the right word, given that not knowing any baseball in Singapore I was unlikely to start following any team (having said that, I do remember seeing the Skydome when I was in Toronto in 1993... but that hardly counts). I became a Sox convert through osmosis: I think it was the constant feed of Sox news from boston.com (then my home page) and from TV, as I whiled away my Sunday afternoons in college doing work and watching the Sox on Fox 25. And then came the 1999 ALDS - my roommate had taken the term off, I had the room all to myself, and so to add some semblance of noise I left the TV on constantly - and then I saw Game 5, Pedro coming on i

What would you do if I sang out of tune?

So why is it Friendster arranges profiles on pages so that early adopters get shafted by getting put near the back? Is there no justice? He said in a melodramatic tone of voice. And I recognise it's super-geeky to be sneakily proud of having a low Friendster and ICQ number, but yeah. Interestingly, it's quite clear that the pattern of Friendster adoption leans northeast/New York initially - so if you look at my profile (search for Daryl Sng) you'll notice that the newer users tend to be my Singaporean friends, and the older ones my American friends... Oh, I get by with a little help...

Had we but world enough, and time

It's August and the Sox, as always, are good enough to break my heart... I can't believe we're almost 3/4 of the way through 2003, but then it does seem like my army stint was a world ago... Just watched Secretary . Maggie Gyllenhaal is great stuff and the movie's hot - and she really does look like her brother. But the whole last 15 minutes really loses the snap of the rest of the movie, the pace slackens so much that it becomes just gratuitous. Then over the weekend I watched Sex, Lies, and Videotape - interesting to compare with Secretary , since James Spader is still master of that vacant, tabula rasa look of the voyeur. Would make a good double-bill, methinks.

Ipso facto, using up your oxygen, you know I'm shallow

Happy National Day to all fellow Singaporeans reading this... spent the earlier part of today listening to the directors' commentary for About a Boy - man, the Weitz brothers are really cinematically literate! I do like their oeuvre: American Pie is one of the only so-called gross-out comedies that holds up with repeated viewings, probably because it actually features powerful women, and I found Down to Earth a good remake of Heaven Can Wait . But anyway, the commentary is interesting, because it's a good reminder that directors constantly think of numerous things in crafting their movie even if the ordinary moviegoer can't be expected to get them: the Weitzes talked about imitating Scorsese's shots from Casino , and the switching of lenses, and all sorts of interesting technicalities. Question: why is it I can think of lots of pairs of brothers as directors (the Weitzes, the Farellys, the Coens), but not any pairs of sisters? Is it just because there aren't enou

Breathe in for luck

Apologies to readers of this blog for the tardy updating. [Tardy: Tardis: Doctor Who: I wish I had a time machine.] I plead the usual excuses: work, work, and work. Or, to be more specific, I've dedicated the first three months at work (June, July, August) to adjusting to being part of the workforce, which has consequently meant a reduction in time spent on expositing my thoughts to the world. It is nice having some spending power though, after 2.5 years of receiving a pittance - bought a Canon Powershot S45 digital camera, for my first foray into digital photography. Still, at least in sunlight, I think my Lomo takes much more interesting shots. I don't even have time to surf for random things like I used to, although Friendster is a lovely procrastination tool (the fake Friendster profiles are the funniest: try searching for FirstName: hotasians Last Name: hotasians and then click through all of her friends). And of course, there's been love. Ah. Those who know me enough

"I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could."

It's been a ragin' month, all dizzy in a tizzy everything moving as if on impulse rather than under control everything coming up roses everything fine and dandy like sugar candy... that I'm not in, that I'm all out, that I'm barely coherent - a function of a dazed and confused used and abused July...

All Quiet on the Eastern Front

Sorry for going incommunicado for a month... came back from America and threw myself straight into work! Um... that's it really. But if you want a true time-waster, catalogs.google.com is one of those "man, this is brilliant" applications...

Live from New York, it's Saturday night!

Mmm. I knew how much I missed New York, but it's still good to actually be back. Katz's and the Second Avenue Deli, I salute thee!

Uncanny

Just watched X2 . Brilliant stuff, and I love the bigger improved role for Rogue, my favourite of the X-Men. (X-Women, I suppose.) But the question remains: couldn't Iceman just use his powers at the ending? Also, it's interesting that the women all seem to have it together (Jean Grey and Storm fly the plane, Mystique's a computer whiz), while the men may have powers but they're all neurotic as hell - the tortured Wolverine, the repressed Cyclops, the uncertain Nightcrawler. Speaking of Nightcrawler, it was interesting to see Alan Cumming in a less campy role for a change. And I liked the way Bryan Singer managed to give moments to a whole panoply of X-Men, not just the big roles but also Siryn, Jubilee, Gambit, Kitty Pryde... apparently there was a Beast sequence too but I missed it. And Ian McKellen as Magneto escaping from the prison - brilliant action sequence, beautifully realised.

Favourite Simpsons Episodes

10 great episodes of the greatest television show of all time. Plus, my favourite of 300 reasons to love the Simpsons : "Ideally, you should be able to watch each episode anew at five distinct stages in life. As a toddler, marvelling at all the bright colours; as a teenager, enjoying the tilts at authority; as a student, relishing the in-jokes and movie references; as an adult, musing on the truths about life, love and death; and in your dotage, marvelling at all the bright colours." 3F18 22 Short Films About Springfield - the showcase of stories for the various secondary characters. "'An Aurora Borealis? At this time of year?... Localised entirely within your kitchen?' 'Yes' 'May I see it?'" 4F18 In Marge We Trust - Marge becomes the 'listen lady', Homer is Mr Sparkle. "Baboons to the left of me. Baboons to the right." 5F18 Natural Born Kissers - the one where Homer and Marge can't stop having sex outdoors. "I

Trystero

Wow - a new piece by Thomas Pynchon . How fitting that it's an introduction to a new edition of Orwell's 1984 , given that Pynchon's own works sound simultaneously fascinated and repelled by conspiracy theories (see V or The Crying of Lot 49 ).

Looking back through time, it's clear that I've been blind, I've been a fool...

Just spent the last 45 minutes playing David Gray's "Babylon" and Ryan Adams' "New York New York", tributes to London and New York respectively, two of the cities that I really love. Then I viewed the Mike Figgis video for "Babylon" - the moment where the crowd is miked up and comes in the chorus just makes me so happy. Which is the point to say, I'll be in New York for the next 3 weeks so updates may become slightly sporadic. [Words I love: sporadic; peripatetic; snickersnee; facetious.]

Watching Too Much TV

Oh great, I've finally recovered from economy-class syndrome caused by watching too many Singapore Film Festival movies, and then I realise I'll be in New York for the Tribeca Film Festival ...

Here comes Johnny Yen again

I felt more than a bit of schadenfreude at Creed being sued for giving a piss-poor performance , but really, asking for a refund just because a band copped a rock-and-roll attitude? Don't be ridiculous. (I wanted to mention the famous Dylan-goes-electric concert, which obviously some people in the audience weren't expecting and hated, but this excellent Guardian article beat me to it) But I wouldn't expect anything more from Creed fans - what else would you expect from the kind of people into such ultra-serious (read: sanctimonious) music but tut-tutting over drinking and drug-taking? Rock musicians drink? Heavens to Betsy!

To surrender I just wept

I got the Japanese pressing of the Flaming Lips' Fight Test EP, with their "Can't Get You Out of My Head" cover and with a copy of the Fight Test music video. They're still making really inventive videos, and indeed it seems there are quite a few great videos being made now (that Lego one for the White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl" even though no one I know just watches videos anymore... Is it function of age? I just don't remember anyone talking much about videos in music publications whereas 10 years ago it seemed like they were part of the conversation about music, for better or worse. But anyway.... can someone get it in people's heads that when I buy a CD I don't just want to watch the enhanced part (in this case, the music video), I want to LISTEN TO IT? It's very irritating to slip in a CD into my computer and not be able to PLAY SONGS OFF IT, WHICH A NORMAL CD WOULD LET ME DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT.

Is Patience Still Waiting?

I had such a case of insomnia last night, I ended up sleeping at 2pm. On the other hand, I did manage to watch loads of episodes of the Sopranos in a row, so the night wasn't a total wash. In the space of two days, I've rewatched season 1 episode 4 to season 2 episode 12 - man, the whole Richie Aprile arc is creepy and great. Richie is like the Laertes to Tony's Hamlet: he's the one without self-doubt, with the absolute conviction of his ways - and thus a perfect foil to show that removing introspection isn't necessarily the solution to Tony's problems. The only problem with watching the Sopranos, really, is suddenly you feel like swearing like a motherf***ing made man...

I'm Not Alone 'Cos the TV's On

So I realised, watching the Singaporean film festival , that I'm still holding on to the idea that if someone shared my taste in movies or music, that if I happened to see the same woman at all the same movies at the film fest or if I saw someone on the train carrying a Sahara Hotnights album, that it will be the marker of an instant deep connection... how very adolescent of me.
To Be Young, Gifted and Black Farewell Nina Simone .

Jacketless in the Jasmine Air

I've decided to start blogging about the numerous shows I'm catching at the Singapore Film Festival , but since I just spent the last 8 hours in movie theatres I need to take a breather to collect my thoughts... meanwhile, here's a Pier Paolo Pasolini poem - I loved the phrase "discouraged harmonicas".

Noir et Blanc

So we were trying to come up with good names for clubs over drinks tonight. My favourites: Snog; Coup D'etat; Veto. My favourite names of real clubs (regardless of actual quality)? Bed (Sheffield); Bungalow 8 (New York); Cream (Liverpool); Embargo (Singapore); Fabric (London); Pacha (Ibiza); Zouk (Singapore). Not that you need that great a name to be influential - the Paradise Garage is the mother club of lots of dance music, but as a name I would say it's only above-average. But then, it did give its name to garage music... so what do I know? I think I could open a bar called Pushkin... Imaginary track listing for my imaginary band, the Mentally Aborted EP 1. Veni Veni Veni 2. Fly American 3. Sinister 4. 29 Down 5. All the Young Dudes
Don't disturb the sexy Random thoughts: Someone should post a spoof personal on one of those sites, answering the standard questions in the style of Ted Bundy or something "Things I can't live without: the death of others".... punks jump up to get beat down... Pedestrian advocacy ... tomorrow I get to eat a pound of (bovine) flesh... that Japan Herald comment from 1881, "the Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much" - for all of the Japanese economy's current problems, who would say that now? How easy it is to assume racial characteristics are somehow fixed in stone... "Am I hot or not?" is the question of my generation, for better or for worse... the Boston closer-by-committee idea is sound, but the people they need to do it aren't there... I want to be a male guitarist in an otherwise all-female band, kind of like the drummer in the Breeders...

Meg White is a robot

Continuing this blog's prattling on about all things White Stripe, here's a " Meg White is a robot " page.
In Memoriam 15 April is the anniversary of the Hillsborough football disaster in 1989... I remember staying up late, a boy of 11, eager to check out who might meet Everton (well, assuming Everton would win) in the FA Cup final and just being horrified at the scenes being shown. The sad part is, while the disaster spurred the conversion of stadia to all-seaters, there still hasn't been a full inquiry into the actual events of that day: check out the Hillsborough Justice Campaign .

Yeah

Things inspired by the "yeah-yeah-yeah" refrain of "She Loves You": the "ye-ye" nickname of Real Madrid's 60s team ; ye-ye music in France; and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' band name. Ah, the world-conquering genius of a seemingly simple phrase...

You're Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl)

Just watched Punch-Drunk Love , which I found captivating - the weird flat quality of L.A. light seems to come through very nicely in the film. I really liked the moment where Barry (Adam Sandler) meets Lena (Emily Watson) in the Hawaii hotel and her leg just automatically lifts up - it's the moment on the film poster. Why do women's legs do that upon kissing? Answers on a postcard. While waiting for the show I popped into HMV and got me a copy of the White Stripes ' Elephant . It's got bass! Dang. Good stuff, more like De Stijl than White Blood Cells with its huge amount of bluesy stuff and the presence of a cover song. I really like "Well It's True That We Love Each Other", that final song with Jack and Meg and Holly Golightly singing - nice little banter going on. But nothing really grabbed my gut the way "Fell in Love With a Girl" or "Hotel Yorba" did the first time I heard them.... maybe it needs listen #2. Meg White remains supe
King Jeremy the Wicked ruled his world... Random thoughts: Tina Brown has a nice piece in the Times about the difference between George Bush and Tony Blair... why do even things shot for 4:3 sometimes look better in 16:9?... Train's "Drops of Jupiter" may be catchy as hell, but the lyrics are nonsense - asking the woman to think of "the best soy latte [she's] ever had"? Such new-age mumbo-jumbo.... just caught the great Weezer "Keep Fishin'" video, with the Muppets, and it got me to thinking: my favourite-ever videos: A-ha "Take On Me", Blur "Coffee and TV", Blind Melon "No Rain", Smashing Pumpkins "1979", Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Prodigy "Smack My Bitch Up", REM "Everybody Hurts", Bjork "All is Full of Love", Chris Isaak "Baby Did a Bad Thing", Eels "Novocaine for the Soul", Fiona Apple "Criminal", Fatboy Slim "The
Another day... just breathe This whole SARS thing - I blame the People's Republic of China, for not responding to the epidemic early enough, for thinking that the WHO's labeling of Guangdong as the source of the disease was somehow politically motivated, for being so concerned with face. Ugh. I think face is the most overrated characteristic: if everything negative makes you embarrassed, then maybe it's time to think about growing a thicker skin. The truth shall set you free. Speaking of the truth, somewhere amid all the news about the war, Dubya has signed an executive order reclassifying loads of documents that were scheduled to be declassified... apparently war is a good time to hide other news.
You're not bigger than this, not better, why can't you learn? I'm not sure how long my ticker can take supporting Everton ... nice to get a win under the belt, and one against Newcastle at that, but just once I'd like to see my team rout an opponent... Committing to a film plan by putting it into print (okay, online): these next few weeks I will watch John Sayles' Sunshine State , Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights , Francois Truffaut's Jules et Jim and The Four Hundred Blows , Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Seven Samurai , and Paul Schrader's Auto Focus . Why? Because I have the DVDs, damnit, and they shouldn't be treated like those books one buys just because they look good on the shelf.
Pleasure at the Fairground Good Lord. Mick Hucknall in trying to be part of the House of Lords , seems to reveal himself to be against liberal democracy. Sadly, it's all too easy to just dismiss "politicians"... a cheap rhetorical trick. Here's a link to a Mitre Hotel video , home of the only dive I've ever seen in Singapore, where the bars unfailingly try to be chi-chi, and where it's like banging your head on a wall sometimes to explain the appeal of grubby bars in the East Village.
Happy together Farewell, Leslie Cheung. You always had the saddest eyes. So, Pestilence here in Singapore and War in Iraq. That's half the Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding into the world already. (Footnote: Is the gender-neutral term "Riders of the Apocalypse"?)

A la recherche du vinyl perdu

Cover versions I am looking for - anyone wants to trade? The Merrymakers, No More Lonely Nights Celia and the Mutations, Mony Mony Tom Petty, Leave Virginia Alone (okay, this is the original, insofar as he's the songwriter - did he ever record his own version of this song?) McAlmont & Butler, Back for Good Shinehead, Billie Jean Cathode, Maneater Juliana Hatfield, Only Love Can Break Your Heart The White Stripes, I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself Aretha Franklin, The Weight The Flaming Lips, Can't Get You Out of My Head The Fastbacks, Waterloo Sunset Behemoth, Hello Spaceboy Kings of Convenience, Free Falling Matthew Good Band, Enjoy The Silence

Even Jesus Hates Creed

T-shirts! Get your Even Jesus Hates Creed T-shirts! Such a great slogan. Now if only people started making Hang Chad Kroeger Ts.

Gimme Shelter

Image
Does it seem like the British forces are doing quite well in a purely military sense? They seem to be getting the bad assignments (Basra, Umm Qasr), and lookie here, they got a general . Phonetic question: in Arabic is the sound represented in writing by "Q" really the aspirated [k] sound? I'm guessing it is. On a completely different note, woohoo, a new White Stripes album ( Elephant )! And it comes with a cover of "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself", presumably a campy-funny one since I can't imagine trying to top the Dusty Springfield version. Mmm. It's just a shot away... it's just a shot away.

I am in blood / Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more / Returning were as tedious as go o'er

As for what I think about the Anglo-American war with Iraq, I remain agnostic. Or rather, torn. As Edward Lempinen's piece in Salon.com puts quite lucidly, the fact is that anti-war protestors are not offering alternatives to the human rights violations committed by the Saddam regime. (George Orwell, ever quotable in such situations, writes that "the writings of younger intellectual pacificists... do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States". " Notes on Nationalism " is a nice short piece that's always worth a read.) I admit I remain completely suspicious of Dubya: I don't believe at present in the al-Qaeda / Saddam links, and I'm not sure how much of the war is due to a need for disarmament, how much a desire to impose a democratic regime, and how much the cold calculus of capitalism. Even so, the fact is this war could have positive human rights consequences, intended or

Blog tech

In a fit of extreme geekiness , this log has been rewritten to perform a server-side include using PHP. So http://www.dsng.net/blog.php also works to get to this page. And, continuing my penchant for random links, here's a snowdome that's done like the Biblical plague of locusts .

How come you taste so good?

So a friend of a friend of a friend had a spare ticket to see the Stones . A spare ticket worth $275 American. So I can now say that I have, indeed, seen the Rolling Stones, up close and personal. Charlie Watts was stoic as ever; Keef was dressed like a bag lady and used a purple guitar I've never seen him use during "Satisfaction". It was good. A raunchy spectacle, which is just as it should be - animations of topless women, tornadoes of confetti, giant inflatable women that looked like they were, um, pleasuring themselves with the flagpoles they were carrying. What else to report? Most of the favourites got a run-through: Brown Sugar, Start Me Up, You Can't Always Get What You Want, Sympathy For The Devil, Honky Tonk Woman, Street Fighting Man, Satisfaction. Would've Liked To Hear: The Last Time, Miss You, Salt Of The Earth, Angie, Paint It Black, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Sister Morphine. And would've liked more bass on the sound system. But all quibbles, all

Time Out

So my new Oscar conspiracy theory is that since everyone is so obsessed with making the thing come in on time, this year they decided to favour people who were likely to be no-shows: Roman Polanksi, Eminem, Miyazaki. Of course, the fact that all of those three were the best in their category might have a little to do with it too... Oh, and the archive is finally working, thanks to me finally figuring out what was wrong with my Blogger settings.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, then why the hell are there so many people walking about?

Like I said previously, perhaps one of the best things about the end of the dot-com (never ever "dot.com", which is garish) dream will be the demise of the "@" sign as a substitute for the word "at". Companies that used the @ always seemed a bit like a dad who talks about Michael Jackson (or Marilyn Manson?) in an effort to show he's "with it" - trying too hard, and too behind the times. Farewell, and good riddance. Anyway, on to more serious topics. I was thinking about how despite the posthumous canonisation of John Lennon, the unbridled id of Lennon wasn't the sole talent in the Fab Four. How does anyone deal with his solo work? I know "Imagine" moves lots of people, but I find it a tune of maudlin sentimentality. And that's the best of the Lennon solo canon? I think the maudlin is what I rail against most in music. (Apropros aside: Celine Dion Must Retire For Real.) But does time wash over maudlin tunes, coating them

Bau: haus

Had a lovely chat with my friend Jiaying yesterday about, amongst other topics, architecture and design in Singapore, and we were discussing the upcoming One North (I think it has some pretentiously punctuated version of its name, "one.north" or the like), which is a Zaha Hadid space, if I'm not wrong. We talked about the names of the One North buildings - e.g. there's a "fusionopolis" where people can be "fusionairies". Now, this murdering of the English language has got to stop already! Don't people have instincts about what sounds aesthetically pleasing? It smacks a little of Trying Too Hard To Be With It. Especially when, of the big tech companies I can think of, not many have forced faux-trendy names - Sun? Oracle? Dell? All very pleasing to the ear. Even Yahoo!'s name is a literary reference. And it hasn't escaped my attention that the ones with names that tried too hard - anything with an "@" sign (Excite@Home), an &qu

"Well Billy rapped all night about his suicide/How he kicked it in his head when he was 25"

Keef is coming to town - and I can't find anyone to go to the concert with me! Keef, incidentally, gives great interviews, as I learnt from reading one of him in Guitar World , and one in Rolling Stone : appropriately reverential of Stu's role as the fifth Stone, appropriately disparaging of Mick's solo efforts... Anyone know someone looking for a rhythm guitarist in her/his band? Likes the White Stripes, the Strokes, the Ramones - i.e. quick and dirty garage rock?

Would you burn out before the water fills your lungs?

Been inspired to try to update this blog more often (thus in keeping with the spirit of blogging) by my friend Weicong, who maintains a more regular blog of his own . "A blog of one's own" - very Virginia Woolf. Speaking of which, The Hours is scheduled to come to Singapore cinemas soon, and I really want to see if they adapted it well. On Wednesday I watched both Catch Me If You Can and The Quiet American , both of which I really enjoyed. The combination made me think about the quality of lighting: there's something about the light in Catch that seems very 60s - it's slightly yellow saturated is my guess? Was the light really different back then, or is it that our memories yellow just like photos? Or do our memories yellow because photos yellow? And Quiet American has the familiar (to me) oversaturated colours of the tropics - it's easy to see how that oversaturated quality of the daytime sun wearies people, makes them retreat into indolence. Or is it

True Stories of Apathy: a Life Spent Sitting

Wow - it's been a while since I posted. And I can't claim I did much in the interim, although my spankin' new electric guitar has been getting a workout and I ascended a Valkyrie in Nethack . Watched my first film in a cinema this year, Scorsese's Gangs of New York - a sprawl of a film, but what a sprawl. And early New York history fascinates me. Still, I'm not sure about the film's insistence on the idea that these were the hands that built America, as the U2 song on the soundtrack would have it - why do we need to glorify them anymore than what's already up there on celluloid? New York, perhaps America's most cosmopolitan city, can also be, and has always been, intensely parochial, and the film does a good job of depicting that. Why make these people out to be any greater than just who they were? Incidentally, it was really good seeing Luc Sante's name as historical consultant in the credits for Gangs - Low Life is the book that made me inter