De sterrennacht

(Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh, 1889, Oil on canvas, 73 × 92 cm, 28¾ × 36¼ in
Museum of Modern Art, New York City)

The Starry Night
Anne Sexton

"That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars."

--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

Project #1- Lit and the other Arts. It's time for me to banish all sense of negativity and embrace all fleeting epiphanies because it's simply happier and healthier that way. Yet it's not so much a concerted effort as it is a relinquishing of pettiness. If we all stop picking on details and look around, we might realise we're so much luckier than we think.

Tomorrow is our permanent address

After what i can only call a music dry spell for a couple of months, i've finally found the band to lift my jaded spirits. And this enlightenment has come from none other than a local band called B Quartet. Their new album, Tomorrow is Our Permanent Address, has been on repeat on my iTunes ever since their very very awesome album launch on Saturday. I will venture to make Radiohead, Portishead and at times, Muse comparisons. Props to the lead singer, who sounds like a Thom Yorke more in tune, their fabulous drummer, and the amazing guitar riffs, along with gorgeous keyboard and trip hop influences. For you guys out there who want indie music from a band that doesn't start with 'The', or has annoying punk vocals, or has fallen into the cookie-cutter song style of the genre, please go check B Quartet out on myspace. Totally mindblowing. Songs to look out for: Shoebox- a gorgeous ballad, Stupid Luxury- great beat, Boutique- perfect for road trips, and When Mathematics Fail.

I was thinking about the title of the album- first time i heard it, i thought it was just fact. Then i thought it seemed kind of hopeful, with the whole idea of going somewhere everyday, with the guarantee that tomorrow is going to bring a new experience. Now, i just think it sounds a little sad. The idea of inevitability is just depressing. And we're yanked along with time every day, even though we might not be ready yet. We think we know where we're going in life, we think we know exactly what we want- the right relationship, the good job, a good education.. but once we've obtained what we think is one of our goals, we become blind to the possibility that it might not be the 'right' one. It becomes harder and harder to retain clarity of mind/purpose when you're having to stomach unhappiness for the sake of happiness.

Don't get me wrong. It's not as bad as it sounds. It's just that we live on the hope that things will get better, that things will change, and that we will somehow get the direction we need. It's supposed to hit us in an epiphany of pure understanding; and that is just idealistic. If things haven't changed in a drastic, dramatic moment in 21 years, then where is the evidence that it might happen any day now? Is it possible that we're constantly living in the hope that tomorrow might be better if we can just stick with it today, and is that so wrong? When, then, does disillusionment set in, or has it already begun? Have we simply given up the fight, and instead, live on the possibility that things will change? People say that living in the right here and now is the way to happiness. Yet, i often find that it's the right here and now that is usually the most unbearable. Perhaps today's good is the proof that tomorrow is a direction we take positively. I hope im right.

Wait, they don't love you like i love you

LET us go now, you and I,
While the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

This strangelove addiction

It's been an.. interesting week.

I'm hiding out in the big city blinking

My heart is in your palm, exposed and raw. Your heart tiptoes over pre-packaged, sieved by decorum and appropriateness. My heart is unconditional and blind. Your heart is tamed by reason. My heart is a fool. Your heart is sanitised. My heart craves more. Your heart wants less. My heart wants to run wild and intense. Your heart is governed by your head. My heart wants to be loved wholeheartedly (no pun intended). Your heart wants no part of it. My heart is to be had without question. Your heart needs to be earned. My heart is too easy. Your heart scorns me. My heart is too vulnerable. Your heart is protected by strength.

I try honesty. You hear white noise. I try to express my pain. You see another tantrum. I see desperation and hopelessness. You see endless opportunities ahead. I see the end. You see bouncing back. I see a chance to spend time together. You see a waste of time and energy. I voice neglect. You voice irritability. I rush into things. You express skepticism. I tell you i need you. You say you don't want it. I tell you i miss you. You say you don't feel a thing. I cry because it hurts. You tell me i'm too emotional. I ask for your help. You say it's not your problem. I ask for comfort. You give it to me but your eyes say different. I need physical comfort to sustain me. You're not that weak. I say you don't deserve me. You think im joking. I stop looking at myself in the mirror because i'm afraid to look. You pose in the lift.

It's morning, pre-dawn. It's New Year's. I ask if you still love me. You say you don't know. I ask if you meant it. You say you don't know. I ask you what this means. You say you don't know. I sit on the pavement and say I'm lost. You say that you know. I say, Happy Anniversary honey. You laugh humorouslessly and repeat the sentiment. I tell you what i've given up to be with you. You say, who asked you to? I work up my courage to be honest with you. You say you can't remember what we talked about. You say you didn't mean what you said about not loving me. I ask why you would even say such a thing. You say you don't know. I lie on your bed and cry. You fall asleep. I grab your hands and talk to you. You glance out the door at your computer.

I say we should maybe take a break. You say maybe we should. I didn't mean it. I think you did. I tell you i would miss you. You don't reply. I know i've been too vulnerable. You don't care do you.

Cake.. or Death?

What was i supposed to do,
I was caught in between you and a hard place.

Tam Lin and the Elf Queen

Had i known but yesterday what i know today, I"d have taken out your two gray eyes and put in eyes of clay, and had i known but yesterday you'd be no more my own, I'd have taken out your heart of flesh and put in one of stone.

See the love there that's sleeping

Today's about film. After the 3 films i've watched in the last 2 days, i feel compelled to mention them. First up, the early-anticipated Across the Universe, the semi-arthouse, semi-musical Beatles tribute film that relied WAY too much on corny puns and self-indulgent directing. (spoilers warning) The stupid 'she came in through the bathroom window' comment + the totally superfluous existence of the character Prudence (just so they could sing Dear Prudence) and the final image of Lucy literally in the sky with diamonds (with the song really playing in the background) did not do anything for originality. (spoilers over)

And this was a great scene. As you can guess, it was Strawberry Fields Forever- totally trippy, and they layered on the images of the Vietnam war, and if you can get over how contrived/cliched that whole theme is, it was a nice edge of violence they added to the song there.

Click here for the opening scene of the film (which is one of my favourite parts because it goes slightly downhill from here). If anyone's not a hardcore fan of the Beatles, I'd say give this one a skip. The songs aren't their most well-known ones, and the ballads are only thrown in for very halfhearted love scenes that could be edited out without much consequence. Very impressed with Evan Rachel Wood though, who actually sings most of the songs.

Songs to look out for: While My Guitar Gently Weeps- Martin Luther McCoy, Because- whole cast, Girl- Jimmy Sturgess, Blackbird- Evan Rachel Wood, Happiness is a Warm Gun- (the guy who played Max) , A Day in the Life- Jeff Beck, and the best one, Let It Be- Carol Woods and Timothy T. Mitchum.

Speaking of Evan Rachel Wood, I absolutely loved her in Running with Scissors.

A psycho memoir about two psycho families, totally dysfunctional, completely whacky and very sad at the same time. Loved the entire film- i was literally quite riveted for the entire 1.5 hours. Go watch it everyone! Annette Benning is a genius. Everyone has a little madness in them, the world is so strange it's oddly comical yet tragic at the same time, there is no escape for insanity, and homosexuality is made even more twisted. Is it wrong i found Benning's character's delusions of grandeur very endearing.

Here's a scene- Click here.

And last of all... 21 Grams. It's sort of one of those playing-around-with-editing-and-saturation kind of films.. slightly experimental, like Crash meets Memento meets Pulp Fiction (at least in terms of editing) meets all depressing films with themes like racism, fate, mortality and heroism. Not that i didn't like it. Del Torro was great, Naomi Watts was great, Sean Penn is always great, etc etc; the whole thing was just so.. exhausting.

The editing moves between the future, the present and the past, and while all that is very dramatic and atypical of Hollywood (ie, a good thing for the most part), the ending was just so typical. Like (spoilers warning) YES WE GET IT, we lose 21 grams when we die (loss=death), we retain that when we're alive (unless you need a heart in which you lose one and gain one back), we gain weight when we're pregnant (gain=life), life is precious, poor Jack, cocaine is bad, fate and mathematics entwine, tattoos can be removed with a hot butter knife, and even though the title is tantalising, the entire film barely touches upon the potential of this loss/gain theme(spoilers over). Man. That was exhausting.

Lets take the road before us

Music: Xmas Carols

Okay. I don't want to bore everyone with lengthy narrative, so let me shorthand everything for you. Since finding the USB cable for my camera, these are all the labels that belong to the photos:

Deck the halls

Xmas dinner

Bangkok trip that was fantastic.

This last one here's for Domi- do you even REMEMBER taking this photo???

Quotes.

Clifford: (Xmas eve, outside Zouk) You know, im such a snob.
Domi: Why?
Clifford: Because I'm thinking like, hey im way too good to be standing out here with all these people! I need aircon!

Me: Nick wake up!
Nick: -grunt-
Me: WAKE UP PLEASE
Nick: -grunt-
Me: Hey my eyes hurt! OMG they hurttttt
Nick: (shooting out of bed) where where what happened!
Me: HAHAHA just kidding .. i got you to wake up
Nick: I am going to get you back for that.

Playing SimCity4-
Me: Can i put a police station here??
Nick: You can put it anywhere you want silly
Me: yeah BUT if i put the police station near the schools the prisoners might escape and attack the children!
Nick: HAHA you have worries never heard of before in SimCity

Nick: Look! They're going to build a house for the Mayor!
Me: ooh! LET'S PUT IT NEXT TO THE HOSPITAL. That way, if we get assassinated, we can be rushed next door and might not die!
Nick: oh..sure.

Domi: OH HELLO, so your name is GABRIEL?
Gabriel: yes.
Domi: ARE YOU AN ARCHANGEL?

Love and be silent.

Merry Christmas all :)Watch this one.

there's a light that never goes out

Take me out tonight,
where there's music and there's people
And they're young and alive.
Driving in your car,
I never never want to go home.
Because I haven't got one,
Any more.

You know how people always talk about the 'honeymoon' period of relationships, where everything is new and fresh, no one argues, you just keep learning new things to prolong infatuation, you have your 'first' everything, and the all-famous butterflies and jitters.

How is it that no matter how tired we are, no matter how late the hour, even if we'd been fighting, i still feel a pang of sadness every single time i open the car door to get out at the end of the night?

Take me out tonight,
Take me anywhere, anywhere
I don't care I don't care I don't care.
And in a darkened underpass, I thought,
Oh god my chance has come at last.
But then a strange fear gripped me and i just couldn't ask.

I just want to know that some things are for me, and by that i mean JUST for me.

Quiet domino, bury me now

Music: Jesus, etc; Wilco
"don't cry, you can rely on me honey"

Lacan: The mirror is where we, as children, catch a first glimpse ourselves and recognise our reflections as a separate entity. Often we forget that this 'separate space' is not real, but an illusion, and a kind of ideal "I" that we aspire towards, but not embody.

So what is it about Lacan's 'Mirror Image' theory that is so cruel? The real "I" is so much more disappointing when we can see the ideal.


you were right about the stars,
each one is a setting sun.

I <3 International Relations

Exams, part deux, Political Science:

9 Chapters in syllabus
studied 1 chapter (International Relations)
5 questions in total
International Relations came out in 2 sections (ie, both essays)
started studying 1.5 hours before the exam started
2 hours for exam
2 questions
1 hour for first question
1hour25mins before i walked out of exam hall

So concludes the module that is the bane of my existence.

I <3 the Bell Curve

Exams Part un, 20th Century British Lit:

Studied 6 texts (Carter, Winterson, Beckett, Stoppard, Eliot, Yeats)
Left out 3 texts (Joyce, Woolf, Scottish poetry)
Spent 15 mins getting from 'Fragrant Plant Garden' to exam venue
Used 4 texts (Carter, Winterson, Beckett, Stoppard) on gender and Derrida
Wrote 9 sides
Went to the loo 2 times
Finished 10 mins early
Sat 2 seats away from Rohai
Panicked for 8 mins before deciding on questions
Didn't understand 78 words in Scottish poetry

Quotes of the day-

Rohai: (to Hana) eh how come you have these notes! WHAT IS THIS!

Lilly: Check out my notes for Joyce! (proudly displays 3 meagre sentences on huge sheet of blank paper).

Me: Lilly are you okay?
Lilly: i don't know!
Me: so what questions did you do?
Lilly: I DON'T KNOW!
Rohai: WHAT do you mean you don't know!
Lilly: I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW! (throws up his hands in despair)

Lilly: There is no exam; there is only death.

Rohai: (to me) eh how come you have this book! WHAT IS THIS!

Me: You know, i think we should have a sushi van that goes from place to place with conveyor belts flowing out the back, and a grill with a chef.
Lilly: OH MY GOD that is the best idea i've heard in my entire life.

Rohai: you know ah, i was halfway through my paper and then i realised, WHAT is this Dialogue of Self and Soul about?! WHAT IS THIS!

Dr. Yeoh: (at the end of the paper) So for you people, I'm sure all of you have Fergus' echoing in your heads eh? 'how great webs of sorrow/Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!'

One final patronising kiss

And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

I think we're over the storm

Flying me back to Memphis,
Honey keep the oven warm.

Now hang me up to dry

I need a reality check. I have never been a fan of the 'love will grow' philosophy, but could it be that I was so afraid of lacking instant spark, that i forgot about the possibility of unsustainable love at first sight?

Either/Or

Music: Between the Bars ; Eliott Smith

"the things you could do/ you won't but you might"

Irony always seems to find us at our most despairing. I've spent the last week watching all 6 seasons of Sex and the City, and after cooping myself up rather unhealthily at home for the entire month, the invitations are in for parties - one week before exams. I'm utterly burnt out, not with studying, but with sitting on my ass watching TV.

Hot Piece of the Day:

A King Charles Spaniel Cavalier. This is what i want for Xmas, people. Don't forget.

But fire thought she'd really rather be water instead.

Music: Heart of Glass ; Nouvelle Vague

"we could've made it crusin', yeah"
They say A swallow doesn't make a spring. Well maybe then this spring could bring the swallows.

If you see her, say Hello

Hot Piece of the Day:Hot bitch Elizabeth Perkins as Celia Hodes on Showtime's Weeds. I love that woman.

This weekend marks the last one i will be slaving over a stupid essay- all the rest from now til doomsday will be for slaving over my exam preparation -.- Oh, and since i can't comment on Stardust, having NOT WATCHED IT YET, Bee Movie is a sad but adequate substitute. Renee Zell-whatever should use her pretty whispery voice more and hide her blotchy face. She looks like a melting cake.

15 Steps to Post-Modernist Literature:

1) Fragmented structure
2) Episodic chronology (or lack thereof)
3) Multiplicity of self
4) Upheaval of a patriarchal society that is oppressive, along with its ideals
5) Social criticisms
6) Search for meaning abolished
7) Lack of meaning established
8) Death treated lightly to highlight meaninglessness of life

9) Intertextuality heavily employed

10) Meta-fictional elements

11) Constant undermining/irony of epiphanies, meaning, languge, and culture

12) Strong motifs that are ambiguous

13) Lack of meaning = changeability of every single thing = instability of language

14) Elusive ending (or lack thereof)

15) Sweeping philosophy that must be unique.

AAAANNNND you've got a post-modernist piece ready to go.

'Stay', you said we'd build a nest

So i left my life

Tried on your friends,

Tried on your opinions.

So when the bridges froze and you did not come home,

I put our snowflake under a microscope.