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Lung Ying-tai is one of the people I look to for inspiration. Her new book just came out and I hope I get the chance to read it soon.

Murakami’s protagonists are often transformed by exquisitely tender physical meetings with unusual, beautiful and often confused or mysterious women. He describes love with delicate wonder, and his hero is driven by passionate need once the woman of his life is revealed. “I have to talk to you,” Toru Watanabe tells the emotionally troubled Naoko in Norwegian Wood. “I have a million things to talk to you about. All I want in this world is you. I want to see you and talk. I want the two of us to begin everything from the beginning.”

One of the great blessings I count as essential in my life is encountering Murakami Haruki as a young adult. Just like seeing Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express when I was sixteen, these are life-changing encounters, forever leaving memories etched in a soul during a time that is particularly impressionable. Memories to last a lifetime, and so unmistakeably part of who I am, what I write and where I want to be.

Listening to: Slowdive – Machine Gun. (it’s on repeat) Serendipity as it was playing when I went in AKA music, my favorite record store here in Philadelphia. Picked it up immediately.

Watching: Michel Gondry – The Science of Sleep. (dazed and confused) Besides, any movie that has its lead character speak three different languages is a priori worth liking. One of those rare body/mind out-of-syncs.

All three: geniuses. The combination of the three: midnight in a perfect world.

(Time as of writing? 4.18am. October 20, 2006. Philadelphia)

1) invisible cities by italo calvino
a fairy tale mastermind, calvino tells us the stories marco polo tells the kahn when he is on audition there. he spins wondrous narrations about the cities he explored and travelled to on his long journey – stories of cities with intricate architectures, mind baffling customs and habits and exotic creatures. read slowly, take it in and imagine you are in a world of the yet-to-be explored. the book has inspired many fans to draw illustrations based on his descriptions.

2) the melancholy death of oyster boy by tim burton
a little gem of pictures and imaginative stories that suck you into the freakshow plane/subconcious of the master, tim burton, himself. sometimes sad, sometimes happy, but always sincere and odd. please meet the fabrics of burton’s dreams: oyster boy, matchstick girl. you can read it online or buy it on amazon; this is really a book you want to have – to absorb over and over again.

3) fables by bill willingham
a series of comics by dc vertigo that has won all possible awards. re-interpretation of classic fable figures such as the big bad wolf, snow white and prince charming – who, forced to leave the fantasy homelands, now live in new york city and try to keep a low profile. with a cigar smoking wolf, a devious cinderella and a vain and flirtateous prince charming, you will never view the classic fairytale figures we all have come to love in the same light again. you can read the first issue for free.

on a sidenote: fables is a classic example of how the public domain, free culture and the right to rip, mix and burn allows for human creativity to soar and prosper. for example, a comic like fables but based on classic disney figures is just “never” going to appear because the term copyright expires has been extended again and again, preventing disney figures from entering the public domain and thus be freely interpreted; free as in without having to ask someone (disney) for permission and often (impossible) financial compensation.

so, what are your three recommendations?

Wiki has a not-so-complete entry, but given the (cultural, linguistical) constraints, it’s not all that bad. Also see the recently added about page.

EDIT: Belle once wrote a haiku inspired by ‘silent dreams’, reposted here in, posthumous:

floating on nebulous sky,
I lay my head
on the face of moonlight.

介紹一下一個我超喜歡的作家:西西. 寫短篇的眼光特別細節. 知識,內心一樣廣闊. 還記得是在台北的時候, 剛跟好朋友吃完飯, 到了誠品逛, 問朋友她感想最深刻的書是哪一本. 她指著西西的畫/話本. 一頁一圖一故事,都聽到她親切的跟你分享她對人生感覺到的奧妙,神奇,樂趣. 如果我能選一個可以一起喝咖啡的人, she is on top of that list.

Gisteren een boek gekocht geschreven door Jonathan Lethem, waarin hij in verschillende verhalen vertelt hoe populaire cultuur met zijn jeugd verweven was en hoe het zijn uitkijk op het leven heeft beinvloedt.

Die zin klinkt moeilijker dan het is. Voorbeeld: hijzelf schrijft over hoe Ford’s The Searchers hem heeft doen realiseren wat een film als Wong’s Chungking Express voor mij gedaan heeft: het besef dat je een uniek wezen bent, met een eigen plek en kijk op de wereld, die niet noodzakerlijkerwijs strookt met iedereen om je heen. Hoe het ook, vooral in het begin, onbegrijpelijk is dat niet iedereen ziet wat jij ziet. Dat wordt later, als je dat eenmaal doorhebt, alleen maar erger en erger: wat je eerst niet zag, kom je als een soort psychologisch priming proces, nu overal tegen; een wederkerend patroon dat je constant overal in terugziet – het onbegrip, en, je vermoedt, welhaast een vorm van sabotage, om te weigeren in te zien hoe mooi kunst, het leven is.

Maeda zei dat kunst de wetenschap van het genieten van leven is. En als je merkt dat mensen dat niet inzien en waar je constant met je neus op gedrukt wordt, leidt dat tot een proces dat je individualisering op gang brengt, omdat je beseft dat je je eigen mening hebt – je geeft om iets, verdedigt het hartstochtelijk, terwijl anderen je vragen ‘waarom?’, het uitlachen, aanvallen, en dus stel je jezelf onvermijdelijk de vraag waarom je de moeite doet om voor deze film op te komen, gevolgd door de vraag waarom je dan ook voor (althans dit deel van) de mensheid opkomt, probeert uit te leggen dat wat ze missen, monumentaal in al zijn detail is. Eerst is het vrij eenzaam – het besef dat je anders bent – maar de momenten waar je een gelijkgezinde ziel vindt die begrijpt, begrijpt, waar je het over hebt – dat zijn de momenten die het verschil uitmaken.

Kanttekening: ik merk dat het me meer moeite kost om een behoorlijke Nederlandse zin te schrijven. Ga maar eens vaker in deze taal bloggen (integratie enzo).

Finished reading Haruki Murakami and the Music of Words a few days ago. It is written by Harvard professor Jay Rubin who also translated a few of his books. Some food for thought:

“Neither of us is interested, essentially, in anything but ourselves. OK, so I’m arrogant and he’s not, but neither of us is able to feel any interest in anything other than what we ourselves think or feel or do. That’s why we can think about things in a way that’s totally divorced from anybody else.”

I really wonder whether I am like that, that I am unable to feel any or even slight interest in anything other than what I self think or feel or do. Did I tell you I think I am pretty arrogant, self-conceited and selfish? Then again, some people think being selfish (Ayn Rand) is a good thing. Ok, next quote:

“Haven’t you offered up some part of your Self to somone (or some thing), and taken on a ‘narrative’ in return? Haven’t we entrusted some part of our personality to some greater System or Order? And if so, has not that System at some stage demanded of us some kind of ‘insanity’? Is the narrative you now possess really and truly your own? Are your dreams really your own dreams? Might not they be someone else’s visions that could sooner or later turn into nightmares?”

This second quote reflects a big fear of mine, and something I see in a lot of people. In exchange for yourself, for your ability to critically think, we receive a narrative in return that makes the decisions for us, what to do in moral dilemmas, how to live our lives and even what we shoud like. We are being told what to do, feel, like and think. The concept of Insanity in this regard, then, takes on a different meaning than just ‘being crazy’, but instead reminds me of Foucault who regarded insanity as a normalizing discipline by way of categorizing (behavior, norms, etc) in an attempt to regulate society. Insanity, thus, is an unconditional trust in this morally superior narrative, excluding any other “crazy” one. After all, you know something the other does not know. [..] Scares the hell out of me.

What do you do when you read a book and it makes you want to write, write real badly? You write.

Re-reading The Invention of Solitude, it strikes me so much harder this time around. Just as Heraclitus said that, you cannot step into the same river twice – you cannot read the same book twice. Books have a time, place and memories – accessing them produces a different combination each time, again and again.

The Invention of Solitude is the memoir Paul Auster wrote after his father passed away. Incredible urges of desperation, to keep the presence of his father alive, he writes a thorougly touching account of how he saw his father and his relationship with him. He writes how his dad, a first generation immigrant in the US, survives – how this affects his outlook on life, first and foremost a survivor. For example, the function of money not as pleasure, but as protection. The strong urge to protect himself, his family but also a level of being devoid of aesthetics, because all objects are functional and functional only – and the only function is function itself; never pleasure, never beauty. The horrible relationship with his mum and how they despite their differences, they stay together for the children. How her mum gave up a long time ago, when she relinguished the control over home, private space governed by the woman, all autonomy gone. How Paul Auster himself went on to become a Columbia graduate, his passion for the written word, poetry, travels to Paris by himself, made possible by himself. Is that instant karma? A dad, bent on functionality decided by monetary value, giving birth to a son, bent on infusing life with beauty -is a bigger gap of understanding possible? Beauty rarely measures itself in money, and if it does, very poorly. Money is not the only currency in life; think respect, think vita active – the destruction of invisibility and the creation of a presence, shared memories through the act of living, act-ing. There is instant eternal life out there for poets, writers.

The way his dad is depicted by Auster, reminds me of my own dad and reminds me of myself. I never realized how much me and my dad are alike; distinguishing features always decided by those that sharply mark us as different, not by what we commonly share. You are what makes you different from the other.

A little game for practice, next time you face an Other – someone you cannot stand, someone who makes you angry, or even someone you could care less about. Picture yourself what you share in common with him/her. A talk to Selmin the other day, how fear is honest – when caught in a plane about to crash – everybody is equally affected, regardless of social class, race, gender, you name it. First class seats are no better than economy seats when crashing. Suddenly, everybody realizes not what makes them different (again, social class, race, gender etc.) but the commonality they share: the realization of the brittleness of their human lives. Everybody is human, and soon about to die.

Another mental exercise: next time you see a practice or belief that is bad; place yourself into the shoes of the other and try to find arguments for it. Internet censorship in China. Smoking marijuana. Looking at child pornography. Homophobia. The West versus the Islam. Suicide bombers. Looting African-Americans in New Orleans. Kanye West being censored on US television.

Reading Auster gave me a peace of mind again. A state I was looking for, a few days right before school is about to start again. That, the urge to write, and about a million ideas.