Cereal Musings

Last Friday I was out with my colleagues, and this Friday turned into a repeat. This time, it was Citigroup who was nice enough to invite us to a Press Club event at Ivory - an Indian restaurant at Clarke Quay that’s also apparently a shisha joint. I didn’t get to have any shisha (or even see any shisha around), but the buffet spread was really good, and it was nice to wash it all down with a couple of drinks.

After the Ivory event wound down, a few of us adjourned to the Wine Company outlet at Evans Road, next to the 24-hour Mr Prata joint. We hung out there till the place closed and kicked us out, hahahah! They were quite unsubtle about it, turning of the lights one by one.

Before that though, we managed to squeeze in some photos. WC and US aren’t in these photos though cuz WC was busy hanging at another table of friends, and the photos with US in them are out of focus or weird. Oh yah, and LE left early because she has to send her sister to the airport early in the morning.

Quaffing this African wine called Fishbone; what a name!

We were cracking up with laughter (you can actually see US doubled over with only her hair visible) when AS had hard time operating my phone’s camera

After the kitchen closed, AS went to a vending machine, bought a few packets of snacks, and combined them together to form our very own trail mix, heheh. It tasted better than it looks, but wasn’t ideal accompaniment for wine

UOB was nice enough to throw a small media party on Friday night at Harry’s at Boat Quay, so a few of my colleagues and I decided to go. It was nice catching up with our friends and contacts at the bank, and I was extremely pleased with the draught Guinness - none of the new-fangled surger nonsense; straight from the tap. Later on, we decided to wander around a bit, and ended up at The Coffee Connoisseur at nearby Clarke Quay.

From left to right: NK, CT, US and KS

We hung out all the way till 1am in the morning, which was very nice. Good conversation always makes the difference. The tuna sashimi salad and grilled ahi tuna also helped, heheh.

There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator
- Fritz Lang, “Metropolis”

Fritz Lang’s silent film Metropolis (1927) is widely feted as a seminal masterpiece of science fiction. However, what strikes me, more than the the focus on technology and special effects, is the essential humanity of the story. I love experimental science fiction as much as the next nerd, but my fav sci-fi always has a humanistic core. I couldn’t find a clip of the portion of Metropolis the above quote came from, so here’s the introduction to the movie instead, which contains a related line: “But the hands that built the Tower of Babel knew nothing of the dream of the brain that had conceived it.”

Lang’s analogy of the heart as mediator between brain and hands reminds me of similar metaphors used by C.S. Lewis in his little book The Abolition of Man, which I slowly ploughed through when I was 12. Lewis is better known nowadays as the author of the Narnia series of books, which have been translated to the big screen, but he’s written plenty of other, more provocative stuff.

He describes the chest as being the mediator between the head (intellect) and the stomach (visceral needs/desires). When the chest (seat of emotions) atrophies, the head no longer controls the rest of the animal. This analogy has the useful side effect of conjuring a grotesque image of a huge head, bloated stomach, and shrivelled chest, like an emaciated human or caricatured extra-terrestrial.

It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal

Brain-hands, head-stomach; the problem with both pairs is they perpetuate mind-body dualism, which I don’t think is the healthiest way to look at the world. But it does starkly illustrate the issue of harmony within the self. It also describes how people actually treat themselves and others. Even if dualism is an inaccurate description of reality, if people act based on that mental framework, then a dualistic explanation of human motivation, action and control remains useful in describing motivation, even if it it doesn’t describe things as they actually are.

But dualism - the belief that mind and body are two completely different and opposed elements - may be one of the roots of unkindness. It’s a convenient excuse to say that my heart wants to be kind, but it’s the base body that made me do something nasty. How many times have we heard someone say that they didn’t mean to hurt others, but they couldn’t help deny their physical needs? And then there’s that pernicious line, “The spirit is willing but the body is weak”. What a cop out. Well, the solution then is to have a heart, isn’t it?

Lewis has this to say about heartless people:

It is not excess of thought but defect of fertile and generous emotion that marks them out. Their heads are no bigger than the ordinary: it is the atrophy of the chest beneath that makes them seem so

That’s a tasty bit of civilised invective, I think. Maybe I’ll tuck that away for future use. “You’re no towering intellect - it’s the contrast with your small heart that makes it look that way!”

I think I’ll end with this comment on the perils of starving one’s emotional development:

… famished nature will be avenged, and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head

Inspired by the various family shots from Being Warm and S.H.E, I thought I’d finally get around to posting some of my own. Last night (Thursday), after work, dinner, and Guinness Foreign Extra Stout with RL, I decided, what the hell, I’d drop by a family dinner at the House of Sundanese Food at Great World City. Yes, I’d eaten already, but I didn’t really have anything pressing to do, and my Auntie K and Uncle C are leaving Singapore this Sunday. Plus, I don’t see my eldest brother and my sister-in-law enough.

Family dinner with (counter-clockwise from top left): Auntie K, Uncle C, Bro, Dad, Sis-in-law, and Mom

Oh heck, while I’m at it, I might as well show you my nieces. Here they are amusing themselves drawing at New Year’s Day lunch at the Ritz Carlton. They’re so cute and smart. For years, I wanted to be an uncle, partly so that I could have a taste of what it would be like to be a father. Yet, now that I’m an uncle thrice (my other brother R has a son, Justin), I don’t spend as much time with my nieces and nephew as I thought I would . When I do spend time with them though, they make me wonder what it would be like to have children of my own.

My nieces: Jillian (left) and Justine (right). Jillian is younger

It’s amusing to apply the First Law of Thermodynamics to life in general. The law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, and is also commonly known as the law of the conservation of energy.

Yes, I know it’s bad science to transplant scientific hypotheses to life in general. That was the mistake Herbert Spencer made with Social Darwinism, and the thin ice sociobiologist Edward Wilson trod on when drawing microscopic parallels between ant farms and human society.

All that doesn’t mean though that it isn’t interesting at least to experiment viewing the world through different lenses.

So, imagine if there was conservation of emotional energy - conservation of optimism, say. You wouldn’t be able to shed it without first converting it into happiness, or cynicism. Or conservation of sorrow? You wouldn’t be able to shed it without transmuting it into peace, hope, despair, etc.

The traditional psychoanalytic term “sublimation” could be useful for describing these transmutations, but of course it would be a bit of an anachronism since the term has never been associated with conservation of any kind of energy.

Perhaps the most useful insight from this mischievous exercise is not so much about rigid conversions, but about reciprocity. And perhaps our notion of emotional cost is nothing more than qualitative (as opposed to rigidly quantitative) reciprocity.

Would we feel so bad about having to make choices if it were simply about converting energy from one state to another? Oh, right, the difference is that some emotional states are much less desirable than others *sheepish laugh*.

Kinda reminds me of the title of a Sandman graphic novel spinoff called Death: The High Cost Of Living.

You can feel the waves coming on

It’s time to take the time

Let them destroy you or carry you on

It’s time to take the time

You’re fighting the weight of the world

But no one can save you this time

Close your eyes

You can find all you need in your mind

The way your heart sounds

makes all the difference

It’s what decides if you’ll endure

the pain that we all feel

The way your heart beats

makes all the difference

In learning to live

Here before me is my soul

I’m learning to live

I won’t give up

Till I’ve no more to give

I first discovered Dream Theater back in 1992 with the release of their second album, Images and Words, which yielded the two songs above. After 15 years, numerous albums, and seeing them in concert twice, Dream Theater remains one of the few bands whose CDs I buy automatically when they’re released. They sometimes oversing and overplay, but are never boring, always melodic and occasionally brilliant.

VS VS Curse of the Golden Flower

I recently watched Curse of the Golden Flower, and had it pointed out that I should check out director Zhang Yimou’s other moves in the past couple of years for comparision, so I did.

I can’t help but feel that things headed downslope after Hero (2002). The plot, pacing and acting in Hero was outstanding. We’ve come to except visual excellence from Zhang Yimou, but all of the special effects wizardry supported the plot directly; emphasising the psychological landscape, colour-coding perspectives, etc. In Curse, a recurring feeling I get is that wherever there was a choice between dialogue to flesh out the plot, and a silent dramatic shot of a brooding man/woman, Zhang Yimou sacrificed substance for form and chose the silent shot.

House of Flying Daggers (2004) spends a lot more time on character development than Curse does, but is let down by an appalling ending that’s almost as bad as the one in The Banquet. Zhang Yimou points out in an interview that the heroine in House of Flying Daggers departs from the traditional Chinese mould of sacrificing herself for the greater good, and instead chooses love. Well, that admittedly interesting aspect would’ve been far more hard hitting if the love story was more believable. I like Takeshi Kaneshiro, and respect Andy Lau, but even they can’t carry an entire movie by themselves.

Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li are given more of a story to work with, so they manage to carry most of it by themselves, and it really is essentially a story about the two of them. Jay Chou’s been pilloried for his performance as the second of three sons but I think he actually fills out the two-dimensional role passably. I can’t help but laugh to myself when I see Ye Liu cast as the crown prince. He has the same deer-in-headlights look that worked so well in The Promise where he played the tortured Snow Wolf. But his one-size-fits-all look does make for a convincingly effete and tormented crown prince.

Much has been made of the corseted cleavage on ample display in Curse. I was much more interested in the armour. Zhang Yimou did a great job of using it to emphasis Chow Yun Fat’s unshakeable grip on the kingdom. Even when sitting down, his armour is so heavy and bulky that it needs to be adjusted.

Now, if there’s one face I’ve seen enough of in Chinese cinema, it’s Zhang Ziyi. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s a competent actress and good-looking woman, but she’s simply been so overused. It would be different if she always brought a positive energy to her roles, but I’ve noticed that she always has the same, angsty, slightly grouchy look. I didn’t realise how starved of variety I was until I watched Vicki Zhao in Warriors of Heaven and Earth and Cecilia Cheung in The Promise. Zhang Ziyi would never have been able to pull off Zhao’s straightforward mixture of innocence and courage, and Cheung’s combination of mischievousness and vulnerability. Zhang Ziyi appears in Hero and Flying Daggers, but we’re spared her in Curse.

Zhang Yimou please give us another Hero. I wonder where his next pseudo-historical flick’s going to be set. He’s already covered the first dynasty, Tang at it peak, Tang in decline… I guess we’ll see eventually.

zui qiu tou ru

Record My Mind mentioned this Chinese phrase to me yesterday, and lamented the difficulty in translating it satisfactorily for an old buddy of ours who doesn’t know Chinese.

Translating Chinese can be quite a tricky business since you have to balance sacrificing literal accuracy, lyricism and poetry. We’re only talking about a single four-character Chinese phrase here though, so it should be do-able.

A literal translation of zui qiu tou ru would be “in pursuit of immersion” or “pursuing immersion”.

That sounds a bit soullessly technical though. Poetic interpretations like “seeking surrender”, “looking to be lost”, or “eager to be enveloped” (forgive my alliterative mood), or something tongue in cheek, like “looking for a hole/sea (to jump into)” would capture the spirit better.

Hmm, how about “all or nothing”, or “playing for broke”? Nah, that’s way too much poetic licence, even by my liberal standards.

I know! “Seeking submersion”.

World Was In The Face Of The Beloved

World was in the face of the beloved–,
but suddenly it poured out and was gone:
world is outside, world can not be grasped.

Why didn’t I, from the full, beloved face
as I raised it to my lips, why didn’t I drink
world, so near that I couldn’t almost taste it?

Ah, I drank. Insatiably I drank.
But I was filled up also, with too much
world, and, drinking, I myself ran over.
-Rainer Maria Rilke

To be loved means to be consumed. To love is to give light with inexhaustible oil. To be loved is to pass away, to love is to endure.
- Rilke and Benvenuta: an Intimate Correspondence

Dialogue-driven drama can really polarise reactions. Many people I know can’t abide movies where “the people talk too much. Talk talk talk, and no action. So boring. Just shut up and do it lah. Shoot the bugger, or grab the man and find a hotel room”. I beg to differ.

There’s only so much physical emoting you can do. You need dialogue for punctuation, at the very least, even if it’s not a focus. Tom Cruise can ripple his facial muscles all he wants, but if he doesn’t open his mouth, it can quickly become trying.

Ok ok, yes, I’m biased too since I’m obviously a words person - a lover of articulated feelings, desires and ideas. Talk, please. Because it’s rare. Because it’s evidence of effort. Because it shows you care and that I’m worth it. Because we’re not telepaths.

Take Before Sunset, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, for example. The movie is completely dialogue driven, but the lines are so good, so memorable, and so revealing that you don’t mourn the lack of action sequences.

Closer, starring Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Natalie Portman, is another great dialogue-driven movie. A lot of it strengths come from being an adaptation of Patrick Marber’s play of the same name. Clive Owen also premiered the play when it first hit the stage in 1997, which helps explain his commanding performance in the film version.

Choice quotes from Patrick Marber’s play Closer:

Don’t b a pussy. Life without riskisdeath. Desire,liketheworld,is an accident. The bestsex is anon. We liv as we dream,ALONE. I’ll make u cum like a train.

You’re the belle of the bullshit. You look beautiful.

She has the moronic beauty of youth.

Anna: Dan, please be bigger than… jealous. Please, be bigger.

Dan: What could be bigger than jealousy?

Anna: When we’re making love, why don’t you kiss me? Why don’t you like it when I say I love you? I’m on your side. Talk to me.

Dan: It hurts. I’m ashamed. I know it’s illogical and I do understand but I hate you. I love you and don’t like other men fucking you, is that so weird?

Anna: No. YES. It was only sex.

A gritty, unpretty track from Future Sound of London’s Dead Cities album:

My first encounter with Neil Gaiman was in the early ’90s, when my eldest brother started collecting the Sandman graphic novel series. That was a real masterpiece.

When his first pure-prose novel Neverwhere was published in 1998, I was underwhelmed despite really wanting to like it. It was an entertaining yarn, and recognisably Gaiman-esque, but lacked punch. I think it was a question of pacing. There wasn’t enough dramatic buildup to make the climaxes interesting.

It didn’t help that my benchmark for no-holds-barred fantasy novels (those that flit between the real world and fantasy, as opposed to traditional fantasy tales like Lord of the Rings) was Clive Barker. I’d been spoilt by epics like Weaveworld and the inimitable Imajica, in which Barker perfected the unveiling of a faerie world just under the skin of our own. Gaiman was up against stiff competition.

2002’s American Gods and its 2005 sequel, Anansi Boys, were both better than Neverwhere, but they were only an evolutionary step forward, which solidified my opinion that Gaiman was still best at graphic novels.

Then, I finally got around to reading Gaiman’s Coraline (2002) - a not-suitable-for-kids children’s novel that bears direct comparison with Barker’s Thief of Always from a decade earlier. It was the first time I felt a Gaiman prose work eclipsed a Barker one; a perfectly-crafted and satisfying read.

It was only after I dived into Gaiman’s latest offering, Fragile Things, that I realised what I’d been missing all these years. Released late last year, it’s a collection of short stories and poetry, many of them previously published. The quality’s consistently good, and redolent of the disarmingly gentle insight that made me fall in love with Sandman.

It’s worth repeating a quote from the introduction to Fragile Things, which I’ve posted before. S.H.E. asked me last night what my new year’s resolution is. I couldn’t really answer her satisfactorily then, but now I think this quote encapsulates my attitude:

I think… that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.

It goes quite nicely with this song:

So, my resolution for 2007 is to continue to spend my life on fragile things, partly so that I’ll never have to regret a moment.

Anyway, back to Gaiman: I never bought Smoke and Mirrors, an earlier anthology from 1998, because I used to prefer longer stories. In fact, I used to dread endings. My tastes and needs have changed though, and I’ll probably pick up Smoke and Mirrors soon. Besides, Gaiman’s stories never really end since he revisits many of them. I wish more of my favourite authors would revisit old characters and places. After all, story endings are essentially arbitrary - chosen for pace and effect, not for necessity. Something more can always be said after you close a book.

At this point, my conclusion is that while Gaiman’s strength still lies in graphic novels and shorter pieces, his prose talent is clearly strong enough to stand on it own without graphic illustration. I can’t say the same for his poetry, since a Gaiman poem has yet to grab me by the scruff of my neck.

Choice quotes from Sandman:

King of Dreams (speaking to Lucifer): What power would hell have if those imprisoned here were not able to dream of heaven?

King of Dreams: On reflection, while I cannot give you the thing itself, I could give you a dream of my love.
Nuala: I already have that, my lord.

Delirium (formerly known as Delight): His madness… His madness keeps him sane.
King of Dreams: And do you think he is the only one, my sister?