Shopping at Bus-stop
A: Are they afraid that the shoes might be stolen?
B: They are well concealed. You can't break the glass.
A: No, I think it's because they put in only one of each pair, left or right.
B: You think so? Let me see... (brain exercise, censored)
A: Save it. They just don't care having them stolen.
B: Maybe that's why they change the display so frequently. It was showing some night cream in a watering vessel two weeks ago.
A: They must be very creative to prevent theft of night cream then. Did they show only empty bottles?
B: Can night cream be more expensive than one shoe?
A: Hey, the bus is here.
B: Do you see there is price?
A: Bus? Shoes?
Relentless transformation of a city into a shopping mall, with creativity. Bus-stop @ SOGO, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.
Groundhog Day again
For the MMC (Mercy! Movie Club) I have just watched the fourth of fifth time of
Groundhog Day. Still more to feel and discover besides the affective reflection on repetition of life in nature that I mentioned in
my first blog entry, and the relationship between one's attitude and life "entrapment".
Being doomed to repeat is not the saddest thing here, like Rita remarks, "it may not be a curse". And that applies to us all I think. Phil is lucky because he remembers ("I am a god, not The GOD," he says) and got the chance to get enlightened... OK, or just changed ("It's not me, it's the universe. I am just the vessel.") Think about Ned, Nancy, Larry or any one in and outside the backdrop who repeat again and again without realizing. You may have been planning for your first Paris trip twenty times already, loving the same person, falling into the same dilemma a hundred times, devoting your life for your first million dollars for a trillion times... just because you have forgotten because of some reason - ignorance of time by our own species (re: C.S. Lewis' "The Dark Tower") or
reincarnation in any form.
I saw this time Rita, the
producer, has a more significant role.
Kevin Alteu marks the signification of selflessness as manifested in the episode she appears first, with her body dissolved into the TV set on the screen. This probably gave her a more transcendental position in the repetitive process.
Transparencynow also notes her maternal role for the nurturing of Phil's enlightenment. Perhaps this loving mother figure is the most
religious element to me.
Paul E. Schindler did a very comprehensive research on the web annotated after his own essay,
Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me. Another interesting reading,
The Ned Ryerson Conundrum by Tom Armstrong, I read earlier is listed there with more of his other two essays also.
Note: MMC welcomes everybody (in Hong Kong), please check with
Bliss Wisdom.
Spring in Japan
Outside the complex of Roppongi Hills. A summary of the Spring view is
here.
Visiting the Toyota Province
The brief visit to Aichi province was a refreshing one (No, the
EXPO and robots were not there yet). Jamsen described it (Nagoya city) quite well: a look of modernity with rural spirit. I looked at it in a positive way as I always like the relative simplicity outside city. That was my impression of Japan after my first stay for a summer job there in the summer of 1992. Of course, probably because I have never lived there for a real life. It's more like a vocationist projection. You know, the postcard effect.
Exposed to the dreamy attack of pollen (to Jamsen more than me), we went to the
real Apple Shop and a temple of Guanyin, with all my luggages on my back. Then we were back to Ogaki where Jamsen spent most of his days, between
IAMAS and his spacious hostel room. We had a very pleasant dinner together where he took some
nice shots.
People sometimes need distance to get closer, when one can see clearer how a friend could warm your heart with small stuff, like borrowing blankets "in risk" to keep your night warmer, cooking a vegetarian congee for your breakfast before you wake up, or forgetting his Japanese lesson for your visit.
Missing Mori Art Museum
I
rushed to
Roppongi
for the
famous
new sitebut
no door
was found.
These
lovely
encounters
could
therefore
hardly
justify
the
1,800-yen
ticket...
The
museum shop
was open,
of course,
for some
nice
purchases.
The
"city-scanning"
video
Tokyo Veinbeats
anything else
this time.
Meeting Fadhel Jaibi's work
The first Tunisian performance I watched tonight at the
Tokyo International Arts Festival was quite an impressive work. Though I did not understand a word and had to make imaginative guesses from the translated subtitles in Japanese, the overwhelming poetry of the language used in
JUNUN-Insanity was almost visual. Varied energy and rhythm was asserted by the well choreographed group movements and economical mise-en-scéne, reinforced further by the precise articulation of lines and the brilliant acting of the major actor playing the insane boy. The most appreciated fact: no multi-media chiché. (Image by Dali LAMOUCHI from the festival website)
And, it was always nice to have the casual party to meet the artists, with wine and sushi after a show's opening in Japan. I learnt what the artists were saying through the French interpretation. Felt a bit strange, like being a spy. But why should I?
Grand Breakfast Tokyo
I gave up the hope of finding a good vegetarian breakfast around Sangen-jaya without even trying... Well, that was a decision last night when I bought these items from the convenient store after a nice post-performance party of "
Grand Hotel Asia". Not the food again, but the atmosphere in the cosy restaurant mixing with the interesting artists from all around Asia involved in the production. I should spend some time later in Hong Kong writing about the ambitious project itself... Now I shall prepare for a packed day of meetings before another show tonight.
Lost in Tokyo
Most of the time Japan is neat and minimalistic, but only when you overcome the challenge in comprehending the subway map and the orientation standing at the cross-road after a half-day journey. Sangen-jaya, Tokyo.
Tokyo Art Index
Preparing for the trip to Tokyo tomorrow, I came across the
TOKYO ART INDEX [ENGLISH]. Pretty resourceful website, great help if I have the spare time to do museum/gallery-hopping. (But why can't I locate the event of
Setagaya Public Theatre that I am going?)
Feel excited that I will visit what
PicTalks sees, and the person himself.
A night of no gale
Watched the third piece in this year's Hong Kong Arts Festival, an adaptation of
Hans Christian Andersen's
The Nightingale. The constant laughters of children in the auditorium may have proved well the success. The London-based director, from
Yellow Earth Theatre, claims in the program note that more provocative/controversial reading of the famous tale (night-singing nightingale as signifier of the Danish author's sexuality) is abandoned for an audience of families this time (Yes, he claims the two "glamorous" dancers will be replaced by men next time).
The preserved simplicity of the original plot (quite different from my usual way) might not be intriguing to me, but it conveyed an admirable attitude towards some near-forgotten "naive" themes: virtue and evil, freedom/happiness and confinement/sorrow, nature/culture, etc. The weakness is their sheer interpretation.
For me there are more oriental elements than enough which almost tagged the show as exotic: shadow play, Chinese dance, red and gold ornaments, lotus lantern, cow-face (as Death) ... Given the apparent fascination towards the Orient by the 19th-century writer, I would say the mix with fetish objects in the show (e.g. high heels, golden slippers (for lost love), foot-binding, flashy toys, blue wig...) create more dialectics for new meanings, despite their typicality. Again, my taste.
I reread Andersen's original story at home afterwards and found surprisingly an even more powerful simplicity is presented. The eight-page narration is highly economized in terms of details and ornaments. Signification asserted seem more ambivalent yet alluding, more like a song in the dark.
Note: Graphic by Arnolfini Limited from HKAF's website
The pretties talk
Finally! Here are the 2 old friends who have been waiting to be posted patiently, since I took this first pic with
my-x8, 2 months ago.
Yes, got connected. Not because of Sagem, but the sleepless
toy which makes me be called a
geek. Actually I just witnessed the "touching" instance, using simply bluetooth.
New Power or Expensive Toy
I confess that I didn't really understand what 1.67GHz meant when I decided to give up the fancy
temptation and placed my order for a
new 15" PowerBook instead. This "small" figure striked my sense only when Eno, who happened to be around in my flat for the legendary apple-unpacking experience, kept exclaiming about its deft reaction comparing her little white. Hey, she was just clicking here and there on the system panel, not dealing with any REAL tasks yet.
In fact, I was more amazed by its "now-workable" luminated keyboard in the dark, with the brightness of the screen dimmed simultaneouly in a considerate manner for the eyes, and the fact that it IS very pretty. For another legend about its
Sudden Motion Sensor, I will not think about testing it for your mere admiration anyway. (Not before I fully comprehend the linked article at least.)
Though greatly admiring its sophistication, I remind myself it's just a
tool after all. What I am going to do with this new power is the question. Will it / I speed up my blog writing at least? Yes, let me tell you I have something
serious in mind. Any more suggestions?
Update: Thanks for Amit Singh's AMSVisualizerh (
download dmg file) which Toby locates, now I "see" SMS working.
