This is all about Pale Saints
Monday, June 24 2002 : 1.25 am

Actually, I'm here this morning to write utterly useless things.

Number one is that one of the best films I've ever seen was the 1997 Pale Saints. Who could have thought that this masterpiece would hail from canada? Who could ever resist a riveting Russian roulette scene?

But wait, let me digress. About Russian roulette in movies. It's not just a gun game where you twirl the barrel and fire goddamnit. it's an art form, parallel to a dance with the devil, hence, requires all seriousness and treatment, with just the right amount of humour. And with Pale Saints... mwah! very nicely done. Makes me wish I'd chosen the bullet. Bang!

Absolute madness.

I wish , as in the film, I were an undercover agent named Chicklet in groovy 70's clothes, walking to my apartment in step with The Zombie's She's Not There. Please, may I be reincarnated as an undercover agent? Chicklet. I love these small-time hood names - Gus, Hef, Vic, Dody, Whitey, The Pirate... take yer pick, cowboys.

It's got the right amount of surreality too, just like the bite of a procompsognathus, those cute late Triassic dinosaurs whose poison gave you the feeling of lightheadedness and cloudwalking.

Cinemax used to show this around 3 years ago, along wtih that film of Oliver Milburn who changed the definition of "hepcat" in my personal dictionary. Now, movies in the movie channels are, to say very appropriately for lack of an articulate term, dumb. God forbid they show indie films that made sense. They probably have a banner during their board meetings : "Let's please just feature Hollywood films", those little hoodlums...

To talk about Sean Lennon's album, which I think did not receive the credit it deserved because his songs are incomparable to good old Daddy's stuff, and if, theoretically, their works were placed side by side in a record bar without any background knowledge or connection - I would pick Sean Lennon's album.

BossanovaKala

PS. Dear Pitas,
What is the matter with you, that my beloved boyfriend cannot properly open my birthday present? (refer to entry below). The cat and I are slightly bemused by the lack of direction, hey you, hey you (not my words)

Happy Birthday Jul !!!
Saturday, June 22 2002 : 1.40 pm

the strong gets more while the weak ones fade
Monday, June 17 2002 : 10:39 pm

Playing Chinese checkers with papercups on a windy Friday June evening, under palm trees with mosquitoes biting bare legs. It should've rained but still it held our interest, and after all peoplewatching is a noble way of passing time, especially wtih coffee. Torn packs of sugar on the table, brown sugar, white sugar, cream, heavy cream, light cream... These days, everything is in a convenient, easy-to-open pack, from sugar to spirituality to kismet, just tear along the dotted lines. A slice of banana bread waiting to be eaten, but no one dares touch it so it walks away from the table, quite desolately, I observe, prompting raucous laughter from the whole table, and from there, craning necks up to seek the man in the moon, all the sounds of the night blend into Billie's prophetic verses, wafting to us from the open doors of the cafè: Them that's got shall have, Them that's not shall lose, So the Bible said and it still is news, Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child that's got his own, That's got his own

Leaping Andromeda
Wednesday, June 12 2002 : 07:24 p.m.

There is a story, I forget where I read it, about a man whose princess daughter was kidnapped, and in order to save her, the condition was to be able to jump over three stars in the sky.

Or something similar to that. The other story details aren't clear to me anymore, but I remember the solution. The wife put three basins on the ground, with the reflection of each star shining in the water. With the stars in the water, she jumped over the basins, and the Princess was saved.

Who said you couldn't put a billion years in water? After all, it is believed that we are constantly packed and dispersed, exploding and imploding. So why do people laugh at my declaration that I have stars in the water?

Last night I gazed into the pool and couldn't see anything from the sky reflected on the water, even though it was a clear night. Slightly annoyed and subtly challenged by the universal ruse that I could only see myself. Then I knew that the cosmic joke was on me, because it's all so transparent, and defenses so opaque.

Yeah I'm culprit for having a thousand galaxies in my eye. Come to arrest me? Though humankind has always been afraid of growing older and leaving the arms of a disillusioned universal embrace, take it from me, we're just a stargazers jumping over the moon, and I don't know about you, but I don't feel at all like a billion years old.

i am this
Tuesday, June 4 2002 : 6:00 pm

excuse me while i disappear, angel

the ballerina imbalance
Monday, June 3 2002 : 12:15 am

Noticing an imperceptible movement of something you never give a second thought to is, to me, a monumental feat. Most of the time we're too busy looking out the window to notice that we just want to look towards ourselves. Most of the time we look into mirrors to be reassured that we aren't disappearing yet. There always has to be some sort of psychological reprieve, a reassurance of having your ideals and ideas checked-in with the rest of your baggages.

That you choose to surround yourself with people who best reflect your "self-concept" is a strange synthesis of truth and falsifications, it can either be an outright lie or a humbling self-revelation. Be assured that you are never stagnant: there is always a gap widening or a bridge being built between the world and yourself. Constantly jumping off or getting on. Narcissictic thought? Most probably. I could be the center of the Universe, an essential pivot point, a ballerina's toe, balancing. "To be or not to be?", that isn't the question, it's the answer, because the answer IS a question.

Had I been born with everything, I wouldn't be who I am right now, feeling like a child;s puzzle, unsolved, but very much alive. Had Morrisey gotten what he wanted by begging please please please, he wouldn't have known how brokenly beautiful it is to have something beyond your outstretched fingers, out of reach, but very much attainable in the aspect that matters most, the Idea. The Idea, the broken chord, minor seventh, the missing link, the not-quite-yet.

Or the thought that's at the tip of your tongue that you can't seem to form into words. The absence is beauty because it isn't absent at all and even if the world can't see it or hear it, you know that you know.

Hey Jellybean
Sunday, June 2 2002 : 7:45 pm

One-Zero
Saturday, June 1 2002 : 3:00 am

Let it be known that I don't watch basketball and I fall asleep watching golf matches on TV, but I tremendously enjoy football because the Americans suck at it.

Churchill didn't have a good 1940
Thursday, May 30 2002 : 12:26 pm

On May 16 1940 Winston Churchill turned to General Gamelin and asked about the strategic reserve available for the German onrush that threatened the collapse of the Maginot line. General Gamelin shook is head and said "There is none."

Three months later, all too well (and sadly) aware of the 200 German aircrafts and equally heavy fighter escort noisily approaching London, he asked Air Vice-Marshall Keith Park of the RFA, "What reserves have we?"

"Errr...we have exactly...wait, let me see... none, Sir."

I told my Father I'd have wanted to join the Royal Air Force Fighter Command, specifically in 1940, had I been a soldier during that time. He looked absolutely proud that I knew about the dawn of military aviation, about the self-sacrifice of the pilots, about the legacy of the first independent strategic arm victory against Nazi Germany.

The truth is, I just said that because I liked the photograph of the Hawker Hurricane of No. 71 'Eagle' Squadron on page 99 of the WW2 book he gave me. Man would I love to fly one of those babies...

But don't tell him I said so, because that comment just earned me plus 25 good-daughter points.