Sunday Morning

Flower blooms of Cactus

It’s Sunday morning and things haven’t turned out as planned. My 100km ride is still undone. There’s a lot of fatigue there, but I’m determined to get it done in the next 48 hours. Not fulfilling one’s own promises to oneself is the greatest sign of weakness; and when you give yourself a bit of leeway either way, it’s exceptionally dangerous — but still, one has to do it because it’s raining this Sunday morning!

Maroon 5

What happened to these clowns? Why aren’t they making music anymore. Whenever it rains on Sunday morning I get that song in my head. It’s crazy, cos it’s not really even about Sunday morning. Or maybe it’s about a raining Sunday morning on Miami beach or something, cos nobody sheds clothes and shows skin on a rainy Sunday morning.

Something about Jane must be one of my top twenty albums, it’s so cool yet without being soppy. Sentimentality is something I just can’t stand. It’s the opposite of cool. Which is why I like Jazz and classical music, because formalist structures negate sentimentality to an extent.

But that’s just rubbish isn’t it?

Sapuri

I’m torturing myself with this Jdrama at the moment. It’s about a bunch of cats who work in an advertising agency and end up in the mangled tentacles of love and puppy love.

The subtitles are in chinese, so it’s like going to work for me whenever I watch it, listening to Japanese and reading Chinese are hardly reflexive for me and so I have to concentrate doubly hard; pause and rewind at parts because I miss something.

But that kind of pain (more an annoyance) doesn’t quite compare to having to put up with characters bent on making things as complicated as possible for themselves by not really knowing what they want. Fujii likes Ogiwara, Yuya likes Fujii, Ogiwara likes Fujii and is therefore rivals with Yuya, assistant girl A likes Yuya, Ogiwara also likes Tanaka, Tanaka likes Ogiwara and is therefore rivals with Fujii, Yuya does not like assistant girl A but goes out with her anyways, Fujii likes Yuya but not in that way but she can’t tell Ogiwara she likes him.

It’s all messed up. No wonder they work so hard. I can quite imagine that in real-life japanese workplaces aren’t like this, but in real life the people aren’t as attractive too. Such is life.

People

Hell is other people. That’s what Sartre said. And sometimes that is true. Other times other people are heaven. And other times they are bromide, enough to bore you to make them hell, but before being hell, they’re just bromide. Instant hell is like instant noodles, it takes awhile to soften and get up to the right temperature. That’s right.

Business Tax

I was just looking up business tax rates around the world… since I want to get into business and Singapore has the best environment in the world with 10% (I think it was). Australia comes in pretty high, but the corporate tax is still 30%. But neither have large markets. China is way down on the world bank’s list (for obvious reasons), and the US is just recovering from a recession, but the bankruptcy framework is second to none.

But I think I’ll head to Singapore or China (or HK) when the time comes. Because one has to go where the waves are lively, if you know what I mean.

Getting my head shaved

This morning. I’m just so tired of having long hair. It’s 50% permed and 80% dyed. Terrible half-way house to bad moods.

Cactus Flower

It’s summer and each summer the cactus in my backyard blooms in the moonlight. I can see it from the window, it will only bloom on a wet night, it’s very surprising to look out the window into the darkness and see these these large white blooming from the depths of your vision; ever more so because they bloom from the bosom of a bare, boring, cactus.

The tragedy thing is that, by the next morning, all the blooms are closed, and within a few days will have fallen to the earth in forget.

Such is life in the desert.

I think if you’re going to have a list of things to see in your life, something worth putting on there is seeing the desert flowers bloom after the rain. Imagine that under the full moon.

~

Anyways really boring post. I’ve been reading Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It is one of the best. Shall post soon.

Listening to Dvorak Cello Concerto

Peace&Love

N

Say goodbye, mada goodbye

Goodbye Law Faculty

Goodbye to Law

For those of you who don’t know, I used to be a Law Student. But after half a decade (including another degree) of benumbed torture and indifferent failure I have come out a little jaded. But today was a special day, I handed in my last assignment. It’s finished now.

Traditionally on the last day, people takephotos with friends in front of this facade of gaudy purple, cheap glass and wooden frieze of tripe espousing oft-touted legal epigrams that don’t actually represent reality, and of course garish silver lettering. But I didn’t have that luxury because I was there by myself because I seemed to have lagged behind in the last semester and had to take class over summer.

So what? It’s finished now. It’s done, over. Get over it.

PS: If you look closely in the photo you can see my ghostly apparition in the glass– it’s like I was leaving before I even left.

Short and sweet

I’m going to keep it short and sweet today, so I’ll just do this..

Reading:

Think and Grow Rich — Napoleon Hill;
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds — Charles MacKay

Listening:

Chemical Brothers

Watching:

Lord of war (with Nicolas Cage)
‘Sapura’ (Japanese Soapie)

~ Much love & peace

N

Next post will be Friday, after my 80km + 100km rides.


Watershed

This must be my favourite photo of my favourite time ever. Dinner at Asakasa tokyo at 10pm. Halcyon, reckless, free, innocent, decadent. All in one. I look terrible with short hair though.

A watershed is when it’s dark, the stars blanket the sky, and you’re walking out towards a metal shack whose edges crease out against the blue dust horizon. And then you decide, yes, it was worth coming out here, far from the dusty road, your car engine is running but nobody is going to come, it’s too far away from everything, civilization, your kids, your wife. Yes, and you paint your name on the side of the shack. And then the spirits of the place whisk you away because you spelled out the magic words and you find yourself in the middle of a blaring concert in Tokyo, and the woman next to you just coughed out a furball while the band plays ABBA to the twin revolutions of the strobe lights.

What is with me tonight?

Three words. Caffeine, Sugar, and Cigarette — that’s the singular cigarette.

Jay Chou

The artist I listen to most these days is Jay Chou. His songs are just so romantic and full of pathos. Maybe that’s because I feel very pathetic (as in… full of the feeling of pathos). No I didn’t just break up with anyone. But I feel sad, really really sad. But I’m not as sad as I really feel because nobody ever is. Don’t you think maybe’s and could’ve beens and possiblies can make people really sad? You could’ve had the world, you could’ve of had her, you could’ve been the one — but no, you’re not. It’s passed you by.

That’s what is sad, and we need the comfort of sadness streamed into our ears through the oversized Panasonic head phones I saw at Bic Kamura Kyoto station but bought on ebay.

Music and art speak to me, in their own singular voices, and tell me of the sadness of other people. Because it’s not just to me they speak, they strive to speak to everyone. And that there, is the beauty. I can now align my sadness with that of others. I’m not alone in suffering, when I read Stendhal or Murakami, watch Lost in Translation for the upteenth time or Tony Takitani, or smoke a cigarette with a silent mobile phone in my hand.

Coke

To the sound of mobile phones receiving sms’s I drink this can of Coke. The same Coke Warren Buffet, Obama, Kennedy, Dean Martin, Marilyn, Kim Jung-Il… the self-same. The beauty of mass market capitalism is right here. Am I just echoing the sentiments of Andy Warhol?

Yes. But today is my birthday and I got a television so its A O Kay.

No. I didn’t get a television. I didn’t get anything today. But it’s not really my birthday you see.

Damn those SMS tones. Stop it. Somebody SMS me +61 (0)411 193 876. I’m really bored. And I drank coke today, does that make me fat?

Consumption

Okay, I admit, that was kind of crazy. But what isn’t crazy is my bonsai tree and my Giant road bike and my E72 and my Omega Watch. Why do I talk about these things? Because they make my middle class western life worth living. Western modernity isn’t much more than this. Academic’s speak in registers I can’t understand, the well-moneyed travel on top and hide behind fortified walls; the television spews out rubbish, everyone I know watches television. So, I just buy stuff and travel coach to places to buy more stuff pretending that I’m saving money in the foreign country (ppp wise) but deceiving myself into believing that I didn’t pay $1000 AUD ($1 AUD = 0.90 USD and about 1 SGD or 85 JYN or 6 RMB) for a plane ticket.

Unfamiliar Ceiling

Did anybody watch Neon Genesis Evangelion? There was an episode called unfamiliar ceiling; a leitmotif for loneliness, waywardness and abandonment. ‘Another unfamiliar ceiling’ the male protagonist said, tinged with forlorn loneliness, as he pulls the freshly washed sheets over his pale, petite body.

Call me crazy but I want to see an unfamiliar ceiling. My place is full of furry little creatures that jump around and keep me awake at night. They’re like poltergiest, or not… they’re little pockets of memory and emotion, concentrated in whirling, invisible eddies around my room. They keep me awake at night, sometimes they’ll touch me. Is that scary? They remind me of who I am, and sometimes I’m not too pleased to see them because nobody wants to be reminded of who they really are… right?

Did anybody see Avatar?

Of course you did. I don’t have much time to bash it, so let me just note three points…

1. The story line was hackneyed as heck, post-colonialist anti-corporate dogma rubbish. Indigenous population v technologically superior yet morally deficient invading force? Say, Great Britain (Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Guyana, the Carribean), The Kingdom of Spain (Argentina, Cuba, The Phillipines), Holland (I forget), The Kingdom of Portugal (Brazil etc. etc.) or say Bechtel Inc (Bolivian water), Blackwater (Iraqi Security contractors), Halliburton (Iraq Contractor), British Petroleum (in the Arab States), oh whatever, you get the picture.

2. The idea of a living earth… this Gaia thing (see James Lovelock) is in practically every single geeky video game (mostly Final Fantasy… also see the Final Fantasy movie). What I want to know is how James Cameron got the masses to swallow this?

3. Words like Shock & Awe and pre-emption are just buzz words, they barely have any real meaning for anybody with any political knowledge whatsoever. Politics is far more than this. The movie banal, period.

Why did they want to cut down the tree… it a really really big planet, with plenty of unencumbered land and resources? And I did not see one instance where the natives actually attacked a human being without provocation.

One more, any planet which orbits such a big planet would probably suffer from some serious gravitational issues. Prove me wrong.

Final note

I’m going for a 60 km ride now. It’s nicer at night. Also I don’t smoke much at all. If you like Murakami or Jay chou. Say so.

PEACE

NG

Week in review

Happy Victim. Photograph: Tsuzuki Kyoichi

My mind was a fecund garden this week, and though I don’t have the patience to write in depth about each of them, I do have the recollection to note down a few of them here.

Stoicism and Modern stoicism

Stoicism is commonly thought of as strength of mind in hard times, but really it’s a very valuable philosophy in this modern life. Failure looms around every corner, the chances of disaster befalling us grow each and every day. Am I doom mongering? Yes. We never know what will hit us, and the longer the trend of everlasting peace and middle class contentment, the higher the chances of a catastrophic event occurring.

So we should prepare ourselves, our minds, for the inevitable day when all before our watery eyes smoulders in ashes.

(see Stoicism ~ Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus)

Japanese Breakfast

A traditional japanese breakfast (traditional in the sense that it is not western) consists of Nattou beans (fermented beans of some sort ~ google this), seaweed, miso soup, rice, egg, and coffee.

My variations (being in Sydney): Instant Miso soup, instant coffee (black), frozen instant Nattou beans, yesterday’s Rice (not japanese), and yes, a real fried egg. The Miso had seaweed.

Oh, and Canteloupe.

Cartier-Bresson

While I was surfing the internet I stumbled upon the photographs of Cartier-Bresson, the original photo journalist. One of his photos is below. I first heard of Cartier-bresson from his obituary in the TIMES. So I only knew him when he died, his death was the signal event. Quaint and mordant? Is it delusional of me to think that he will gain anything from my admiration?

Kyoichi Tsuzuki

This brings me to Kyoichi Tsuzuki. I stumbled across this photographer when I was reading Deluxe (Dana Thomas), a books about the history of the luxury goods industry (you don’t want to know if you enjoy your Prada). He photographs the rooms ‘happy victims’ of the luxury goods industry. Many are Japanese. All live in little two by fours crammed obsessively with luxury goods, often to neurotic extents including never taking them out of their plastic wrappers. The above photo is an example.

Final thing, on conversation

Interesting conversation must be one of the hardest things to do. As Marcel Proust said (I paraphrase here, indeed it may have not been Marcel Proust… ) ~ ‘Conversation is the art of pretending to be interested in another person’.

We’re all egotists, but that per se is not the tragedy, the tragedy is that the person who isn’t an egotist is patently uninteresting, I don’t really want to talk about myself, I am around myself far too much to find myself interesting.

What I’m doing from now on

Thinking about what I’m going to do with my life. What do I want to do with this existence? Is that a relevant question even? Isn’t living an end in itself?

Till next time, much peace
and Love

NG

I am Lazarus come back from the dead

Cartier-Bresson; bella

That is what my blog would say if it could speak. ‘Is she [the blog] quoting the bible or T.S. Eliot?’ Is what a wry commentator would say. Nothing is what an erudite observer would say, who’d just let her [the blog] babble, because that’s what blogs do.

Enough play, down to business.

I started this blog as a form of catharsis. A punching bag. A friend easily disabused but difficult to displease. I started it because I wanted somebody to hear my inner murmurings. I had pretensions of a literary career. It’s both a long and short story why that hasn’t eventuated. Money mostly. So, goodbye to the past (I’m skipping ahead in the narrative) and hello to the future.

The future of le blog — the realm of ideas

Not to say it was all for nought. The failed endeavour taught me that life was worth living for an endless multitude of reasons. That to close ourselves to habit was the most wasteful thing. And so begins the new incarnation of life and this blog — dedicated to life and the endless ideas that I find amusing and interesting and which I think readers will enjoy e.g. pop philosophy, literature, stories, music, finance and economics (only the good stuff), rambles, interviews, reviews, video games, gadgets, sport, science.

These are subjects which interest me, and, hopefully, will interest you as well. They are what makes life living apart from the fundamental things.

User friendly

I’ve often been accused (rightfully) of being a snob, and possibly a hypocrite. I don’t want it to be that way. So posts will be written in easy to understand language, and in a popular journalistic style — short paragraphs with headings. Hurrah!

Friendly users

Another purpose of this blog is to make friends, and keep in touch with existing friends. So please drop me a line if you find anything interesting.

Peace out.

NG