Shinjuku and others

I watched the Shinjuku Incident yesterday. I had, for some unknown reason, thought that it was about the Tokyo subway terror incident. Quite a tragic story with a strong sense of foreboding throughout. I kept worrying that someone was going to get mutilated again after Daniel Wu got his face slashed and hand chopped off. I thought they wanted to fry his head too when they pushed him to his chestnut cart. I DON’T have the stomach for this…

But the story was good and moving. I was kept on my toes in the roomy Film Garde Theatre 5 in ILUMA, the newest spanking mall in Singapore. I felt sad for the characters and the verse “those who live by the sword die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52) kept ringing in my mind. These things do happen in real life…and even worse ones. Isn’t it sad? And some people have little choice, being thrust into these at a tender age. Sad. Sad. Maybe that’s why I woke up feeling a tat heavy this morning. (But hey, regardless, this is resurrection Sunday, the reason for hope.)

It was a decidedly Chinese food day yesterday. I had lunch in Fei Cui Crystal Jade with 2 friends who came back from Shanghai — one of whom commented on my 2nd puberty. (yes, I have been plagued!!!) Then I had eight treasures ginger dessert in Central after aqua aerobics. For dinner, it was noodles in QQ. All very delicious. And aqua aerobics was quite fun, especially cycling on “the noodle”. I had this image of the silhouette of ET as he cycled pass the moon flash across my mind.

Friday night, I had very vivid dreams. I heard 2 very beautiful songs in a big cave with frescos and many people from different countries. I told myself I wanted to remember the tune and lyrics but they eluded me when I woke up. There was also this episode where I was hanging at the side of the ship precariously. I got there because I went too far out to take a picture when the ship swerved. I knew I have to hang on till help comes else I’ll fall and hit the hard bottom. I was actually quite calm and there was someone beside me who went to seek help. But when the person came back, strangely I now saw through this person’s eyes, I had already jumped onto a lifeboat that came by and had disappeared. Anyway, free adventures in my dream…not bad!

Bye Oly

Enjoyed the volleyball matches, and amused by some of the names, like “ball”, “salmon” and “priddy”. But tis over. Olympics. Nice while it lasted.

Yummy Olympics

So cute so cute…the womenfolk went as they watched the Olympics. Ok only lah…the Japanese one was cuter…he looks like my hamster…he has the whole package…  So goes our little bimbonic sports commentary . We saw the form, and it was lovely.

The adornment of the skies

I was at my sea of galilee this afternoon and saw a few birds dipping into the water. Were they feeding or playing? (or bathing?) Started with 1 little birdie, then 2, suddenly 3 more joined in. A random formation, small projectiles flitting around and making little ripples on the water, quite quietly.

A day ago, I saw another kind of formation, the man-in-metal type aka F16. They were fierce. You couldn’t miss them, booming and piercing the air, leaving trails of fumes/condensation (I think). Awesome (in American accent). There was certainly mood. Throngs of people from every tongue and tribe hanging around the bay area stretching all the way to Raffles Quay, wowing at the F16 aerobics. I could imagine how thrilled the G.I.Joe-type among us would be.

When the fireworks came on, the people gasped and clapped. Yes, very nice. But I was too intent on taking pictures so I actually did not enjoy the spectacle as much as I could have. I was busy varying the aperture and shutter speed to get pretty pics. But in between the quite mindless fiddling, a thought occurred to me: the fireworks look like bacteria culture.

The parade was soon over, people started leaving and I discerned the concentration of O2 in the airwent up. To give my cells more time to oxygenate, we hung around and trained our sights on the buildings around us. I saw a vision of Gotham city, with the dim neon lights and smoke from the fireworks, so I snap snap again. Some pro photographer with a powerful Nikon D-series camera weighing a few kg gave us some tips. Turned out that he was from Myanmar so we learned a bit about Myanmar culture too. Apparently, they do not have to follow the family name. Strange. 

Then two days ago, I saw part of the Beijing Olympics opening on TV and I was floored. Li Ning flying in the air with the scroll unrolling and the music. Class act. Heard the front bit was very good but missed it unfortunately. Their pyros were even fiercer.

Buzz everywhere

NUS was abuzz with activities yesterday. There was the workshop on experiential media systems in the morning and while I was on my way to the engineering auditorium for Ken Mogi’s keynote on the contingent brain, I was told that the chief scientist of Baidu Dr William Chang would be speaking shortly in the seminar room around the corner, so I changed my plans.

A bit about what Dr Chang shared…The Internet penetration in China is now 16%. Generally, after 15%, there will be a hypergrowth phase. So there are lots of opportunities now, specifically in distribution/marketing; legitimate business models for free music, video, etc; 4 necessities (shelter, transport, food and shopping); education; finance and personal wealth management. Examples of some popular sites — shelter (http://sh.focus.cn/), restaurants (http://www.dianping.com/citylist), shopping (http://www.alibaba.com/, http://www.taobao.com/). He also spoke about search…big topic…the database of intentions…

Then I had to zip off for the National Museum for the ISEA2008 opening where a big announcement was going to be made, and it was. Then the food and the drinks. The crowd was clearly quite artsy.

Meanwhile, the museum was ALSO abuzz. There was the giant David on display. Took a few pictures and my friends thought me perverted. Sigh. Misunderstood. And the night festival too. Unfortunately, I was too tired and had to leave earlier. Still, I caught a glimpse of what I missed while I was passing by SAM. I wonder how many projectors they used.

F1

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Bleed me a river

The usual weekend’s-over-but-I’m-not-ready-for-Monday mood. Schmarks. So many things I haven’t done. At least I have watched 赤壁 (Red Cliff).

It certainly is an epic with grand cinematography and all. I can see why it costs US$80million. Enjoyable on the whole but could be tighter.  Didn’t know Takeshi has so much eye-black (iris).

I like war movies. Why? Because I like the strength, courage, camaraderie and resourcefulness. Stirring. Which makes it even more aching and haunting as the end-result of the wars can be so futile sometimes. Like when you fight for a new king who eventually proves to be just as bad as the previous one.

Human history has been awashed with blood. Bleed me a river. Why do we fight so much? I think it’s testosterone. Men. Women won’t fight because scars are ugly. Ha…

星期天的月光

Tend to be more reflective on Sunday nights. Again, didn’t quite do all that I wanted to, but well…we live to fight another day.

Watched Amjad by La La La Human Steps on Saturday, my hat trick of Singapore Arts Fest performances (Thurs: Temple + Fri: Hydro Sapiens). The choreography was certainly aesthetic and some of the sequences were moving (the birdy moves were especially cute) but honestly honestly, I did get bored, when it seemed like it was more of the same. I didn’t quite understand why the men were dressed in what looked like office attire either. I mean, shouldn’t they be showing off their rippling muscles? Haa…

Just let it wash over you. You don’t always have to understand it. That’s art I think. It leaves room for your own interpretation and free association so perhaps at the end of it, you learn more about yourself than anything else.

News about this storm and that disaster in the background as I am typing this. What a world. Caught a bit of the聊斋奇女子”辛十四娘” and understand that the ending for the very likable leads will be tragic. Aarghss… 城裡的月光把夢照亮　請溫暖他心房 看透人間聚散　能不能多點快樂片段.

Making good

It was a bounteous bundle of fun and the animation was terrific: the fur, the fluidity of the movements (and kung fu no less!) as well as the intricate expressions of the body, face and even eyes (manga-type sparkling talking eyes). For the record, Kung Fu Panda (KFP) required more than 24 million render hours – four times as many as Shrek. The story of the roly-poly, slacker-turned-good panda who saved the village and redeemed the master’s peace of mind was a tat formulaic but the characters, music and visuals more than make up for it. I thought I heard a guy wailing near the end of the show at one of those touching moments. But indeed, it has its moments. Err…I think I’m inspired.

Before catching KFP, I watched Hydro Sapiens by the Lunatics at Bedok Reservoir, small-town 4.8km-perimeter water body that is making good in recent days. Apparently, a piece of the Berlin wall will be nestled here. Proud of ye. Anyway, took us a bit to find the stage. Performance was ok, but not as nice as the Arts Fest opening performance Water Fools. Just didn’t resonate, the love story was also not very convincing. I’d rather meet Master Oogway under the peach blossoms on the mountain for some motivational talk.

I say

First Cake production I watched. Not bad. Temple was, in my opinion, basically about the 2nd law of thermodynamics – things tend towards disorder. The play was brightened considerably by funny Goh Guat Kian. She spoke in Mandarin throughout, and there was the irony of her being a couple with a guy who spoke Malay throughout. Well, if you think about it, that’s actually quite an accurate depiction of how things are in real life. Communication is hard work. You need language mediation even for the same language I say.