Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Home of my Own




I've recently gotten a bit obsessed with home design. Which is laughable considering I live in a share house in one of the most under decorated rooms of all time (perhaps a slight exaggeration). I stand by the fact that when you don't own yr own home, stuff you can't just throw away just weighs you down - yes I am a veritable beat poet (not quite). However its never too early to start planning your dream abode is it? Yes I am actually a middle class 50s housewife waiting to break out - sorry.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

No. 44



happy inauguration day! i know i'm not american but hey i love obama too!


ps i'm also obsessed with his young gun crew - eugene kang, reggie love, jon favreau

Monday, January 12, 2009

So In Other Words...


I really want to take up French again (learnt for four years -ten years ago) but maybe I should just give up and try something else. I love how languages and dialects have phrases and words that are almost untranslatable but describe things perfectly.

Makes you wonder about subtitles in movies huh?

These are among the words discussed by Christopher Moore in his fascinating book In Other Words:

Russian - razbliuto

The confusing bundle of emotions felt by Russian males for their ex-girlfriends

Czech - litost

This is an untranslatable emotion that only a Czech person would suffer from, defined by Milan Kundera as "a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery." Devices for coping with extreme stress, suffering, and change are often special and unique to cultures and born out of the meeting of despair with a keen sense of survival.

Portuguese - saudade

A kind of intense nostalgia that only Portuguese people are supposed to understand. In Katherine Vaz's definition, which she uses to explain the title of her novel Saudade, it is "yearning so intense for those who are missing, or for vanished times or places, that absence is the most profound presence in one's life. A state of being, rather than merely a sentiment." In his 1912 book on Portugal, A.F.G. Bell writes: "The famous saudade of the Portuguese is a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist, for something other than the present, a turning toward the past or toward the future; not an active discontent or poignant sadness but an indolent dreaming wistfulness."

To read Simon Winchester's foreword to In Other Words, click here.


ps #115 Promising to Learn a New Language - From Stuff White People Like

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Please say the Baby!


Lil Wayne my favourite rapper - so quotable (see below), funny and evocative - now he just has to release a solid slow jamz mixtape and I will die a happy woman!


"And I know this world is so cold and deceivin but I keep my head up like my nose is bleedin" - David Banner


"My name aint Bic but i keep that flame" - A Milli


"Hahaha, yea boy that's my girl, And she pops excellent up in waynes world'' - A Milli


"And if ya man ain’t me, why bother" - Easy


"And if your man is whack and if he lack what I pack then I will make you lack him" - Poppin Remix


"I getsall in ya head just like shampoo. I just wannafuck with you like rude polices. I don't want abroken heart because I lose the pieces" - Breakin My Heart


"He tell me I’m gainin weight. I tell him I’m getting paid. Money over bitches. I’m yellin it to the grave" - Money On My Mind


"I'm probably in the sky, flying with the fishes, Or maybe in the ocean, swimming with the pigeons" - Sky's the Limit


"I listen to her heartbeat because it plays my favorite song." - Crying Out For Me Remix


"I’m lookin like a star, bitch. When you see me make a wish" - Money On My Mind

"You can call it what you want but she gon call it what she feel" - You


"And I'm a G, And you aint gotta know the alphabet to see, I know that my whole city is depending on me, And I forget a lot of shit, but I could never forget the streets." - Ride with My Niggas

"Subway work bars fags sleep nothing"

"Métro boulet bistrots mégots dodo zero" - from the poem titled Couleurs d'usine by Pierre Béarn

Monday, January 5, 2009

Fruits of the Summer Pt2


Yes yes it took a while - I know you've all been waiting with baited breath to see what other films I feel are worthy of my blog and its faithful reader(s? i wish).

The Class

It won the Palme D'Or how bad could it be? As long as it side steps that lefty middle class patronising attitude towards poor people and the third world in general - probably not too bad.

22 Jan 2009

I've Loved You So Long

The other night I watched Under A Cherry Moon which I believe was Kristin Scott Thomas's first film (or at least v early on in her career) she plays a drumming, rich girl who finds herself through her love for Prince. I like to think of this as the sequel to that wonderful start of Thomas's filmic career.

Dec 26 Out now.

Slumdog Millionaire

I'm semi fascinated by the concept of pre-determined destiny and peoples reactions to that philosophy. I like thinking that everything is pre determined and that the future is rolling out exactly the way it is supposed to. I know to some people this seems somewhat apathetic and often it makes them feel powerless but sometimes its comforting to know that you're not making the wrong decision but simply the decision you were to make at that time - excellent mind trick for the indecisive - its either that or a pro/con list and there is not always time.

Anyway I also like game shows too so I want to see this.

Plus I can't find one bad review of this film - and my friend told me theres a great bollywood style dance scene at the end which, lets face it is how all films should end really.

Dec 18 08 - OUT NOW!

Just as a quick aside - do not see Benjamin Button it is fast falling in the quicksand of my mind to the depths where I keep such stinkers as Closer, Garden State and Little Miss Sunshine. Also just in case you cared: I thought Twilight was funny (so many montages - how did the scriptwriter get away with that?) and I am somewhat curious to see Bolt (its been ridiculously well reviewed).

Thursday, January 1, 2009

I noticed the music, I wanted to dance

I noticed the grass,I noticed the hills,I noticed the highways,
I noticed the dirt road,I noticed car rows in the parking lot
I noticed ticket takers,I noticed the cash and checks & credit cards,
I noticed buses,noticed mournders,I noticed their children in red dresses,
I noticed the entrance sign,noticed retreat houses,noticed blue & yellow flags –
noticed the devotees,their trucks & buses,guards in Khaki uniforms
I noticed crowds,noticed misty skies,noticed the all-pervading smiles and empty eyes –
I noticed pillows,colored red & yellow,square pillows and round –
I noticed the Tori Gate,passers-through bowing,a parade of men & women in formal dress –
noticed the procession,noticed the bagpipe,drym,horns,noticed high
silk head crowns & saffron robes,noticed the three piece suits,
I noticed the palanquin,an umbrella,the stupa painted with jewels the colors of the four directions –
amber of generosity,green for karmic works,noticed the while for Buddha,red for the heart –
thirteen worlds on the stupa hat,noticed the bell handle and umbrella,
the the empty head of the cement bell –
noticed the monks chanting,horn plaints in our ears,smoke rising from atop the firebrick empty bell –
noticed the crowds quiet,noticed the Chilean poet,noticed a Rainbow,
I noticed the Guru was dead,I noticed his teacher bare breasted watching the corpse burn in the stupa,
noticed mourning students sat crosslegged before their books,
chanting devotional mantras,
gestering mysterious fingers,bells & brass thunderbolts in their hands
I noticed flame rising above flags & wires & umbrellas & painted orange poles
I noticed the sky,noticed the sun,a rainbow round the sun,
light misty clouds drifting over the sun –
I noticed my own heart beating,breath passing thru my nostrils
my feet walking,eyes seeing,noticing smoke above the corpse - fir’d monument
I noticed the pass downhill,noticed the crowd moving toward buses
I noticed food,lettuce salad,I noticed the Teacher was absent,
I noticed my friends,noticed our car the blue Volvo,a young boy held my hand
our hey in the motel door,noticed a dark room,noticed a dream
and forgot,noticed oranges lemons & caviar at breakfast,
I noticed the highay,sleepiness,homework thoughts,the boy’s nippled chest in the breeze
as the car rolled down the hillsides past green woods to the water,
I noticed the houses,balconies overlooking a misted horizon,shore & old work rocks in the sand
I noticed the sea,I noticed the music,I wanted to dance.

-Allen Ginsberg