who's vivien leigh?

i was most astonished to find out that none of my singaporean friends and a friend from china at the dinner table tonight knew who vivien leigh was. i wonder if it was a matter of country or that i was really out of date. turned out that the american suitemates i asked didn't know who vivien leigh was either, despite the fact that the glam movie star was from this very country. (jaw dropped.) fine. i'm out of date then. there is really a generation gap between me and my peers from other countries. friends please prove me wrong! hands up if you know who vivien leigh is! also shirley temple. man. i grew up watching her cute little films.

or is it just china that is out of date on such things? pple, please answer the following questions:

what books did you grow up reading?
what films do you remember watching when you were a child?

fyi this is vivien leigh.

this is shirley temple

and yes that's a real kid up there.

and for fm's information, this is audrey hepburn

吾足

吾足 is not good. haha. it sounds more like 'my foot'. sorry for coming back to this topic. am i the only person amused by this thing?

to fm

fm, i'm a goddam utilitarian who is not able to think outside the influence of societal consequences. this has in a way become part of myself and such consideration is the closeset i can get to a personal choice. i think this has sth to do with my upbringing. maybe it's communist influence. who knows.

finally

i'm finally done with my second doc paper that i started eons ago and got rid of the pain in the ass ochem midterm2. now i can come back to blogging. recently i haven't even been surfing people's blog, which is such a sad thing. been busy with other things too. been having fun. but almost lost touch with the world outside ucsd.

(sits in one of the balconies outside sierra summit. there is breeze. eats a spoonful of hot oatmeal with raisins and lotsa cinnamon sugar.) well. i find studying quite fun now. studying is like everything else. when i'm outside of it, i'm tremendously reluctant to start. but once i'm actually studying, i wouldn't mind if it doesn't end. it's just that the latter situation is far too rare. most of the time i remain outside of the condition of studying and complain about me getting bored of studying, which i'm not doing. i'm being confusing here. heck. it's just like a bath. on a normal day with normal temperature and humidity, i have perfect inertia against baths, just because it involves a change in environment, from dry to wet. but once i start it, i won't want to come out.

i've kind of picked the motivation again. (well done! at the end of quarter. roll eyes.) a few things happened that makes me think this way. firstly, i heard about one of my friends' glorious undergrad years. something like w uporking in two labs and coauthoring papers and getting offers from top schools. can't help feeling like crap myself man.. :p Secondly, i didn't get the solo part for requiem. i assume that some voice major in the chamber singers got it. i would know who on the concert night. fine. the feeling of wanting something really badly but not getting it feels so distant to me. i realised that i haven't been competitive for a long while. haven't been competing for anything of such nature. like that SOLO line that in the end only ONE person can sing. scholarships are for many many people. U admission is for many many people, at least the ones i got into. A for courses is for many many people, not to mention that this quarter my school work is all down the drain. i haven't been fighting for the top spot for so many many years. i haven't been fighting at all. and what have i been doing? donno. i'm too comfortable about being mediocre. i'm now feeling the urge to stop this. yeah. a few days earlier you would have found me feeling lousy and defeated, but now i'm all ok again. and motivated.

let's switch gear. a few days ago a friend asked me if i would choose family or career if the two couldn't coexist. it got on my nerves immediately and i made this whole fuss about social stereotype that forces women into this choice but not men. the friend found my argument quite ridiculous and irrelavent, as he was only asking about personal choice that i would make if all social and other constrains were taken away. and then i realised that too. why am i masking my inability to choose with all these sociology crap? my inability to choose. yes. of course i cannot choose. on one side is raising a child and sharing all the time with this little being there. on the other side is the quest for truth and finding fulfilment for being useful to the human kind with my career. both are equally holy. i'm not able to choose. how could anyone choose? sigh. why have humans made ourselves so complicated that the task to perpectuate our species and that to adance it have become so disparate. my life is too short for both. what do you say? people...

and my oatmeal turned cold. :(

digital cams are the best things in the world. perfect reunion of art and technology... (sounds meowish)... k. so what do you think the thing above is?

decided to delete the flower post cos it was too big blocking my nice backdrop. this is such a nice picture. sigh. if only i could do the same. sigh.
and nothing happening in life. :( except driving ard with a permit. i kinda like driving now. if not for the stupid freeway exits.

and chemistry chemistry i love you. hope this old spell my sec sch chem teacher taught us still works now.

dear friends

thank you for your comments on the post i put up regarding me being torn (sounds bloody, for a rosy v-day morning) between my passions. (to jess, yeah it is la jolla symphonic chorus. they are doing carmina burana next quarter.) the choir thing is just the surface of the problem. i'm perfectly aware that the 3 hrs/week and 2 nights of performance right before finals are not, with any luck, going to affect me that much. my problem really is doubting my own capacity as a scientist. i'm not wobbling between the sciences and the arts as a career. i never was. from the start i wanted science as a career. call me practical, and sometimes i do suspect that i've made that choices for practical reasons. but when i think further, i often realise that my passion IS in practicing the sciences, or in the desire to contribute to the sciences. i hope you could see the distinction between the two, but i can seldom differentiate them when i examine my own feelings towards science. it's more likely to be the latter.

my real worries are that my other passions indicate my inadequacy for science, because i do believe that there are gifts involved in the potential to succeed in the sciences, just like in every other field. and the gifts for the sciences and for the arts have really become so different or even opposite over the course of history since da Vinci. i posted Onnes' quote and Blake's print to show that successful scientists and artists are really opposite in personalities. and given a choice, i would not want to settle for being a mediocre scientist at the expense of being eloquent in other subjects. (i believe that the world is not made better by a flock of generalists, but a diverse group of specialists. even though i see myself really going down the drain of a generalist. ) that is, i would rather live without the desire to do other things.

(even if that means to abandon the immense joy that the arts bring me?)

you see, i'm so absolute a utilitarian. i see my life as a course leading to a certain end, which is all that's used to judge the success of my life itself. i wouldn't think that enjoyment along the course would count for anything, even though i enjoy the good of life so.

绕口令

史上最强的绕口令,吐血也读不出!


1,初入江湖:化肥会挥发

2,小有名气:黑化肥发灰,灰化肥发黑

3,名动一方:黑化肥发灰会挥发;灰化肥挥发会发黑

4,天下闻名:黑化肥挥发发灰会花飞;灰化肥挥发发黑会飞花

5,一代宗师:黑灰化肥会挥发发灰黑讳为花飞;灰黑化肥会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花

6,超凡入圣:黑灰化肥灰会挥发发灰黑讳为黑灰花会飞;灰黑化肥会会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花化为灰

7,天外飞仙:黑化黑灰化肥灰会挥发发灰黑讳为黑灰花会回飞;灰化灰黑化肥会挥发发黑灰为讳飞花回化为灰


v day is coming. you feel it come wrapping you from all over. ads. decoration in the dining hall. paper heards on the wall of my living room. people's msn nicks. and people's faces. it's coming. while i'm eating a long and chewy teriyaki flavoured beef jerky and reading tongue twisters. lol. guess it's all good. and i'll keep the time and idleness to myself for another few years.

长相思·纳兰性德（清）

山一程，水一程，
身向榆关那畔行，
夜深千帐灯。

风一更，雪一更，
聒碎乡心梦不成,
故园无此声。

so what?

Heike Kamerlingh Onnes: Door meten tot weten (by measurements to knowledge.)

vs

William Blake:


i want to audition for a choir that takes a lot of time and cannot be counted for anything. and when i told my friend about it i said the artsy side of me said it's worth it but my science side of me said it's a waste of time. i don't konw. look at Onnes and blake. to one, measurements are what life is all about. they become life itself. to blake, measurements are the first thing in the world to be despised. and i, i can't decide which one i'm for. i'm not going to become an outstanding sientist after all, maybe. because i'm not absolute. is it that hard to reconcile? da vinci magaged to find himself a middle point and contributed to both fields, but that was so long ago when the sciences and the arts were not differenciated so much. today there is a valley between the two, which does not allow me to step on both sides firmly and balanced. i either migrated to one of them, or get torn.

i'm still a scientist.

finding neverland

how do i even start?

nice movie i got to say. set me thinking again. and feeling. well, yeah. life is not only about thinking. also feeling.

it's about the potency of art in inspiring us human beings, in elevating us from mundanity, in giving us hope and spiritually supporting us, at the worst of times. it does not change anything physically, but gives us the power of believing. believing is everything really. it is not what science can do. it is not anything else can do. and it's about love. the irreplaceable role that the human connection and understanding play in our small and pitiful struggling excistence. and to put art and love together, it takes a genius. like JM Barrie. indeed, he saved Sylvie Llewellyn Davies and her boys with that magic fairy touch, with his love carried in his art. i thank his play. and i thank this movie.

it must have been fun to live in the Barrie's England then.(as a rich man, of course.) such a exquisite kind of life, attempting to get in touch with one's self. and wonder how it was to live in Barrie's England as a play writer, as Barrie. flaneuring? getting inspiration everywhere. fanacizing. writing. loving. living. must have been dramatic. must have been intense. must have been tough. how did they live? George, one of the sons, died in World War I, Michael drowned himself with his boy friend in Oxford. Michael's death was a deep blow to Barrie. Peter, who become a publisher, committed suicide in 1960. peter pan. the ever hopeful and strong little fairy. sigh.

Sir James Matthew Barrie

answer to the previous post on art for art's sake

stupid me.
if art's function was to convey political messages, like that in realism, of course the artists would embrace the idea of showing themselves, and their attitude in their paintings. whereas in the case of impressionism, the function of art is to serve art itself, for it's own sake. therefore, artists were naturally out of the spotlight and should be hid from the viewer, leaving the viewer to the art and art only.

and interesting: limelight really started off as a flame burning in a cylinder of lime (CaO) with the light focused with a lens.

致：天培

多谢阁下光顾鄙blog。亦舒我读得不多，只是断断续续读了报纸上的一些连载，《印度墨》什么的。感觉一般。或是连载之过，情节不连贯，震撼就不太强烈。有空可以在网上多读一些。
喜欢李碧华，不仅仅因为她小说戏剧化得近乎荒诞的情节，也为了她于文字的一种聪明（相对于智慧），一种游刃有余的敏捷。她总是三言两语就已点到要穴，而回味不止。印象最深的是她写的程蝶衣。想，怎么可以这么简略地把一个人这么复杂的心理写得这样微妙，这样到位？这种感觉总让我想到孙柔嘉画汪太太，“十点红指甲，一张红嘴唇。”尖刻而精炼。又感觉够冷，不让人觉得叙述中扑面而来的都是作者的气味。我不喜欢作品中作者的成分太多，作者的感情色彩太明显，一如琼瑶的小说，不留什么空间，有些急吼吼却乏味得很。
写不长，算了。做功课去了。

art for art's sake

just a follow up kinda thing:
kester was talking about the idea of art-for-art's-sake in the late 19th century, increasingly prevailent with the progress of impressionism, which reminded me of wilde. (recall his comment on beauty and artwork in the preface to the picture of dorian gray.) and the time wilde was active as an art reviewer was about 1880's and 1890's, at the tail of impressionism which started off in around the 1870's. so when i asked, kester's reply confirmed that wilde was actually a key figure in the movement of art for art's sake.

then i have to ask, did it become fashionable to hide artists from the work of art again towards the end of impressionism? remember that one of the key features that evolved with maturation of realism was that artists started to demonstrate themselves, their images, their own emotions and perspectives explicitly in their paintings. why, then, in mere 30 or so years' time, wilde was advocating artists' duty to conceal themselves from their painting? i'm missing the link between realism and impressionism, thanks to the class missed on tuesday morning. (it's not a good idea for them to have interesting classes at 8am, cos i'm bound to miss one or two through the quarter.) and it is ironic that i missed the lecture primarily on monet, considering that i had come into this class with the preoccupation of monet as my favourite painter. (i don't necessarily think so any more.) next week we are talking about van gogh, i'd better sleep early and make sure that i don't miss it. and kester shouted at the end of the class today 'come on down van gogh!' like some real fan. lol.

to my horror, there is not a single marks and spencer store in the united states of america!

英雄

听屠洪刚，斗室里满是他慷慨壮阔的一把嗓子，一股正气。这个花脸，不是白练的。真是欲刚则刚，欲柔则柔，活脱脱的一个有情有义的英雄形象。尤其是有时候唱破了的音，有一种说不出来的劲道，听得浑身都爽。听听：“ 狼烟起江山北望，龙起卷马长嘶剑气如霜”；“何惜百死报家国，忍叹惜更无语血泪满眶”；“身轻好似云中燕豪气冲云天”；“来世也当称雄，归去斜阳正浓”这些字句，并不难让人想到岳将军、楚霸王，抑或美髯公、林教头。在如今柔声细气无病呻吟的颓废小资小男人充斥的中国流行歌坛里，这样的阳刚之气，实在难得。郑州有人说屠洪刚假唱，我总很难相信。嗟夫！若是真的，那就连这一点正气也没了，也许我们对英雄的憧憬只能到列代小说传记里去找了。也不是说不可能，到头来，屠洪刚只是个半吊子科班，唱了七年花脸，终究耐不住寂寞，跳进了流行大军。

（题外话：我每次想到使枪的，总想像一个剑眉星目的白面美男子站在块石头上，披风枪缨都是红的，迎风乱舞。岳飞林冲都是使枪的，我不知道他们原来师出同门，今天才听说，不知是真是假。可叹世事难料，其际遇悬殊，岳飞成了名将，林冲落了草。）

孙悟空也是英雄文化的一点象征。这猴儿的形象，不知还能在中国留几代。不用几年，大家就只知道张卫健周星驰等人演的流气孙悟空形象，与原来哪个嫉恶如仇，忠肝义胆的美猴王相比所去甚远，所去甚远。 六小龄童访谈


精忠报国

演唱:屠洪纲作词:陈涛作曲:张宏光

狼烟起江山北望
龙起卷马长嘶剑气如霜
心似黄河水茫茫
二十年纵横间谁能相抗
恨欲狂长刀所向
多少手足忠魂埋骨它乡
何惜百死报家国
忍叹惜更无语血泪满眶

马蹄南去人北望
人北望草青黄尘飞扬
我愿守土复开疆
堂堂中国要让四方
来贺

中国功夫


卧似一张弓站似一棵松不动不摇坐如钟
走路一阵风南拳和北腿少林武当功
太极八卦连环掌中华有神功
棍扫一大片枪挑一条线身轻好似云中燕豪气冲云天
外练筋骨皮内练一口气刚柔并济不低头心中有天地
清风剑在手双刀就看走行家功夫一出手
就知有没有
手是两扇门脚下是一条根四方水土养育了中华武术魂
东方一条龙儿女似英雄天高地远八面风中华有神功


霸王别姬

我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄
我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄

人世间有百媚千红
我独爱爱你那一种
伤心处别时路有谁不同
多少年恩爱匆匆葬送
我心中你最重
悲欢共生死同
你用柔情刻骨
换我毫情天纵
我心中你最重
我的泪向天冲
来世也当称雄
归去斜阳正浓

我站在烈烈风中
恨不能荡尽绵绵心痛
望苍天
四方云动
剑在手
问天下谁是英雄
人世间有百媚千抹
我独爱爱你那一种
伤心处别时路有谁不同
多少年恩爱匆匆葬送
我心中你最重
悲欢共生死同
你用柔情刻骨
换我毫情天纵
我心中你最重
我的泪向天冲
来世也当称雄
归去斜阳正浓

was reading wilde's De Profundis while Arvo Pärt's De Profundis was playing. strangely the two works resonate to produce a depression that silently creeps into me. that recording is good, described by one of the reviewers on amazon as 'an icy wind of delicious sadness'

(Lidholm)  De Profundis


De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.
Domine, exaudi, vocem meam.
Fiant aures tuae intendentis
in vocem deprecationis meae. Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:
speravit anima mea in Domino
 

Engl. Trans  (Lidholm) De Profundis

Out of the depths I cry to Thee, o Lord
Lord, hear my voice!
Let thy ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplication.
I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in His word I hope.


(Psalm 129 / 1-2, 5-6)

And the brand played on

a friend guided me to this link: And the brand played on and i agree that this is a very meaningful article. just putting it here, not sure how many people will be interested though.

and for those interested in jap/non-jap animated films, here is a new blog by my dear friend Life in Motion enjoy!

hail. zhang weiliang.

i almost got a heart attack when i read on some webpage that zhang weiliang the ultimate chinese music idol, love of my life was born in suzhou! (soochow that is.) i was like, what?!!??!!??!! OMG(although i want to avoid using such remotely religious exclamation, it is hard under such circumstances). So proud i am, my fellow con-politans who do or do not know zhang weiliang, that the little old city that we are from should have produced a musician so fine! as much as it is entirely logical for suzhou to have cultivated such a person, considering the cultural and musical tradition of the city, i was very surprised by the discovery. juiceyly surprised! it would never have occurred to me. never. ooh! :D

hoho.
and happy chinese new year. people.

yo. in cloud9

郑燮敲你的大脑袋

郑板桥好好笑哦。他诗钞的《后刻诗序》里说：板桥诗刻止于此矣。死后如有托名翻版，将平日无聊应酬之作改窜滥入，吾必为厉鬼以击其脑。
不过精神可嘉，精神可嘉。

Quick Vote!

who do you think is cutest? i mean guys. duh. :p


the one at the top left corner? (T) PEDER KARLSSON
the one in the middle? (Ct) ANDERS EDENROTH 
or the one at the bottom? (B) ANDERS JALKÉUS  

haha i'm just being stupid and bo liao here. haha. but i think karlsson at the top corner there is really cute!
Well, the girls. pretty too.
Left (S) MARGARETA JALKÉUS
Rigth (A) KATARINA HENRYSON. oh her voice!

i'm bored... :/ and i long for a group as such. they sound amazing.
and zj, i thinik of you all haha when i hear i sing you sing then feel like you all singing non-stop over and over...haha it's pretty maddening.. hah.

oh, and today during my art hist midterm i had 20 slide ID questions, but not every slide i memorised came out. so i was a little surprised. so when i got back i counted the slides i memorised, 27 of them there are! wow. i didn't know i'd memorised so many...wow.

i'm sitting in my room trying to memorise 20 slides of paintings from late 18c to early 20c. and am dying of all the audially intriguing but visually confusing names, majority of which are french. some of artists have similar names, some share common first names, most have more than 2 parts to their names. such as jean-auguste-dominique ingres, jean-francois millet, john everett-millais, jacques-louis david, elisabeth-louise vigee-lebrun, and joseph mallord william turner (note the use of hyphens). while naming them, their parents obviously weren't aware that their kids were growing up to become great figures in the grand history of art, and possessing the potential of confusing pathetic art history students like myself who are killing all their neurons trying to secure that one point for this name. i love them. i love their works. i just can't stand the inconsistencies in the naming of kids in the european societies. maybe an IUPAC system for nomenclature of kids will help.

and outside my room, in the common room, the TV is broadcasting the bushistic state of union. and 2 of my neighbours are watching. the president speaks cooly and firmly of the freedom in iraq, the freedom in the US and no freedom to create embryos, before the audience breaks into overwhelming waves of applause every now and then.

LIst of Scores

List of Scores I bought myself recently:

The Real Group's fun and jazzy interpretation of
-Chili Con Carne

Whitacre's ever powerful compositions
-Cloudburst
-When David Heard
-Water Night
-Lux Aurumque
-Five Hebrew Love Songs
The last one is a SA with piano piece. thinking when i go back to singapore if we are missing guys again at least we can do this one.

and i'm looking forward to buying another beautiful song by the Real Group
-Kristallen Den Fina (Heavenly Crystal)
and i want a copy of Ravel's Trois Chansons. I will get it sooner or later.

And there i was staring at my scores. they are so new and neat and enclosed with beautiful music. what's the point? These are meant to be read by a group of people and translated into sounds with colors. not to sit there on my desk, doing nothing. :( i don't have a group. and i don't even feel like looking for or starting one here. well. small groups are such intimate things. i don't think it's what i can start just by shouting "who wants to sing in a group" across the facebook. well. sigh.

and i'm very sad.

My page is supposed to look like this :(

A Screen Shot

viva corel

My Picture

李碧华看张爱玲

我记得我看过《绿腰》怎对下面这一段高见没什么印象？

－－－－
　　我觉得"张爱玲"是一口井--不但是井，且是一口任由各界人士四方君子尽情来淘的古井。大方得很，又放心得很。古井无波，越淘越有。于她又有什么损失？

　　是以拍电视的恣意炒杂锦。拍电影的恭敬谨献。写小说的谁没看过她？看完了少不免忍不住模仿一下。搅新派舞台剧的又借题发挥，沾沾光彩。迟一点也许有人把文字给舞出来了。总之各人都在她身上淘，然而，各人却又互相看不起呢，互相窃笑没有人真正领略她的好处，尽是附庸风雅，只有自己是十大杰出读者，排名甚前。

　　"张爱玲"除了是古井，还是紫禁城里头的出租龙袍戏服，花数元人民币租来拍个照，有些好看，有些不好看。她还是狐假虎威中的虎，藕断丝连中的藕，炼石补天中的石，群蚁附膻中的膻，闻鸡起舞中的鸡⋯⋯

　　文坛寂寞得恐怖，只出一位这样的女子。

　　--李碧华《绿腰》


张爱玲



文评我是写不象的。摘一点吧。

李碧华：素手裂红裳


　　没有矢志不渝，只因找不到更好的。

　　世界上之所以有矢志不渝的爱情，忠肝义胆的气概，皆因为时相当短暂，方支撑得了。久病床前无孝子，旷日持久不容易，一切物事之美好在于“没时间变坏”。

　　这便是爱情：大概一千万人之中，才有一双梁祝，才可以化蝶。其他的只化为蛾、蟑螂、蚊蚋、苍蝇、金龟子⋯⋯就是化不成蝴蝶。并不像想象中的美丽。

　　高晓松在《青春无悔》的文案中曾有过一句话：再也没有了一诺千金的男人，再也没有了“拼将一生休，尽君一日欢”的女子。身为女子的我也有着同样的惆怅：在成熟将我变得开通而自爱的同时，圆滑也是不可避免的；我原想要成长为一棵独立支撑的乔木，而现在，我成了分不清主干的灌木丛。所以，每次我看到韦庄的那阕词———春日游，杏花插满头，陌上谁家少年足风流。妾拟将身嫁与，一生休。纵被无情弃，不能休———的时候，总是叹息：有过一次那样热烈奔放的情怀，也不枉做过一次女人。就像郭襄小姑娘说穆念慈“既然欢喜了杨康，便要欢喜到底”，就像《胭脂扣》里的如花变成了鬼也要来追寻她的十二少，而白素贞闹到水淹金山也要向法海讨回那个怎么看也配不上她的许仙一样。李碧华的东西，同样不能一次多看，她有种“素手裂红裳”的决绝，看得你只觉天地苍茫伊人不知何处去、而桃花没心没肺地依旧笑春风。

　　李碧华跟亦舒一样擅长写女性，但她不是亦舒那样的“大女子主义”，否则，也不会有如花或白素贞的“贞烈”了；但李碧华也绝对不是爱情的信徒，她的美丽善良坚强的女主角们，往往是所遇非人，或者说，遇到的都是“小男人”：十二少跟如花约好了一起自尽，却又在最后关头贪生求救；许仙安心地享用白素贞带给他的一切舒适，也能冷笑着对小青说：“你以为我不知道你们不是人吗？娘子那么只求付出不求回报，哪是人能做到的？”———如花们的情太重太浓了，“小男人”根本负担不起，当年的胡兰成，基于同样的理由，离开才华盖世的张爱玲。

　　我更愿意相信，除了极个别的之外，尘世女子的心愿，也就是张爱玲所说的“岁月静好，现世安稳”，像刘若英那样只想做个好太太。只是，李碧华无情地说，你得能找到那个肯跟你过日子的男人。

　　对这一点，很多女作家也有同样的感慨。画眉在《湖畔的惆怅与乌烟灶头的亲吻》一文里的口气简直有点愤愤不平：“我们拥有自己的工作并且还算兢兢业业，我们孝顺爹娘看顾朋友拾金不昧，我们都还不老不难看，我们暂且还不想出家为尼，难道我们不应当被搭配一个说得过去的男人？”而钱红丽则怀着这样的希望：“找到一位像父亲那样温柔敦厚的人，与他白云苍狗共赴百年，过暖老温贫的日子。”

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（不过，干嘛拿李碧华和亦舒比？好像差太远了吧？）