Jun's Paper Stand 书报摊

Masculinity in FS and FT

2012-02-12T12:26:00.007-05:00

Over a decade ago, during the height of all the Tanya Harding-Nancy Kerrigan hoopla and the rising dominance of Michelle Kwan, my friend did her theater-major Ph.D. thesis on femininity in the figure skating culture. She is now a figure skating judge (they're all volunteers).

It seems that good ideas often come to me in showers. As I did this morning I suddenly realized that I'm fascinated by masculinity in the figure skating culture. How did I get to this thought? I traced my thoughts back to last night. I was looking up a folk tale and stumbled upon "Iron Hans" in Grimms's fairy tales (type 502 in the Aarne-Thompson system). In the early 1990s, the story became the basis of a men's self-help movement started by the poet Robert Bly known as "Iron John."

How does this relate to figure skating? I came upon the realization that figure skating is perhaps one of the few places in sports where masculinity, as it is represented, is ambiguous, diverse, and complex, while most other competitive sports present masculinity in a linear way: more versus less, win versus loss, or dominance versus surrender. This is perhaps because figure skating is not a "pure" competitive sport, but rather a mixture of performance and competition of physicality and athleticism. There is a constant tension in figure skating between the performance and the athleticism that divide not only fans but also the judges and rule-makers.

I read the Iron John story and it is curiously not about the competition among men or dominance of women. I need to look into it some more.

It is figure skating that has taught me the diversity and complexity of masculinity, instead of the reductionist and linear view that controls the American social culture, which I think is incredibly idiotic. Masculinity is not at all simple and deserves more extensive study.

冰舞10

2012-02-12T11:45:00.002-05:00

凑够十个了，Woohoo!

冰舞：
1. La Valse (Jane Summersett & Todd Gilles/Tom Dickson)
2. Devdas & Bunty Aur Babli soundtracks (Meryl Davis & Charlie White/Marina Zueva)
3. Somewhere in Time (Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon/David Wilson)
4. House of Flying Daggers (Trina Pratt & Todd Gilles/Christopher Dean)
5. Carnival in Venice (Isabelle Delobelle & Olivier Schonefelder/Pasquale Camerlengo)
6. Pink Floyd (Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir/Igor Shpilband & Marina Zueva)
7. Samson et Delila (Meryl Davis & Charlie White/Shpilband & Zueva)
8. Hitchcock soundtracks (Piper Gilles & Zachary Donohue/Tom Dickson)
9. Organ Donor (Natalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat/Sasha Zhulin)
10. The Landing, Turn Around, and Gravity of Love by Enigma (Sinead & John Kerr/Evgeny Platov?)

Snow White

2012-02-08T23:45:00.008-05:00

Why oh why are fairy tales always so damned illuminating? Yikes!

See Grimm's Little Snow White, Translator's notes #2:

Some differences between the edition of 1812 and later versions:

Beginning with the edition of 1819, the Grimms add the statement that Snow-White's mother died during childbirth, and that her father remarried. In the first edition, presumably the version closest to its oral sources, Snow-White's jealous antagonist is her own mother, not a stepmother.

Are you fucking kidding me? It makes so much sense!

I wish I was a fairy tale historian or somethin'.

人不可貌相

2012-02-08T20:18:00.006-05:00

One of the most mind tickling phenomena is some people's mystery of the heart. There is no explaining why some people are the way they are.

A few years ago I had a colleague named Barbara. She is one of the prettiest women I have met in real life, with the same colors as Snow White: her skin white as snow, her lips red as blood, and her hair black as the ebony wood, with a couple of dimples in her cheeks thrown in as bonus. In a word, she looks like a doll.

During an after-work happy-hour gathering, as we shared our hobbies, Barbara announced that her passion was horror movies. She and her husband were life-long horror movie aficionados and liked them the bloodier the better. The Ring was OK, but their favorite was the original Friday the 13th. They had collected a houseful of videos of horror movies from all over the world, according to her, and their favorite pass-time on weekends was to watch some of these videos together. That is so romantic.

A Study in Sherlock

2012-02-07T20:49:00.003-05:00

等了几乎一个月，图书馆的排队终于论到了我，周末去领了回来。

Laura Lippman 的故事跟福尔摩斯根本沾不上边，形神都毫无交集，显然她并非福迷，也不知怎么被赶鸭架拉进这本集子。

SJ Rozan 版的 “歪唇男人” 其实情节过于七扭八弯了，不太合逻辑，但是很有趣，因为剧情里的人物是在伦敦开烟馆儿的中国老头。其中一个人说："The subtlety of the mind of Mr. Sherlock Holmes could lead one to believe he is not an Englishman at all, but one of us."

至今最好看的一篇是 Neil Gaiman 的 The Case of Death and Honey. 不是侦探小说，而是他擅长的半奇幻类，但是因为他对福尔摩斯太熟也太迷，不让人觉得突兀。我尤其喜欢他的“传说”风格。巧合的是，Rozan 的故事一开篇就是“陈和手执白瓷茶杯说...”，Gaiman 的故事一开头第二段是：“这些事发生在老高失踪之后，他儿子从丽江回来继承他的蜂窝之前。” 看到这里我哈哈大笑，怎么两个人不约而同地把福尔摩斯和中国拉上了呢？Neil Gaiman 多半刚从丽江玩过回来，记忆犹新，故事里不是张寡妇就是木耳银鱼汤。

Red

2012-02-05T22:04:00.009-05:00

Before the curtain went up, I said to the friend who came with me, "I have a sinking feeling that the play may disappoint me." Maybe my expectations for the John Logan play was too high.

In the end it both did and did not let me down.

The play is necessarily didactic, which is not necessarily bad. There is something vaguely Tom Stoppard about all the intellectual and philosophical discussion about modern art, the meaning and purpose of art. This potential dryness is relieved by the physical enactment of the labor of painting --- mixing paint, assembling the frame, fixing the canvas, and, climactically, priming the canvas with a thick layer of the color of dried blood.

In the end the play is not entirely satisfactory, but at least it met my hope that it would illuminate Mark Rothko for me. Rothko, here, is presented as the anti-Pollock. See, I've always felt I "get" Pollock, but I had felt like I get Rothko, even after sitting in the Rothko Room at the local Phillips Collection for at least 15 minutes.

The play does succeed in making sense of Rothko to me. That is perhaps enough.

During the post-play discussion, a woman in the audience characterized Rothko in the play with "an impenetrable loneliness." Indeed. He went to his studio and worked alone every day, from 9 to 5, like a banker. The monochromatic palette of his paintings is a mixture of both self-effacing isolation and unfulfilled yearning for connection.

"I'm sick of your neediness," says Rothko at one point to his fictional assistant Ken. It is perhaps the most significant insight into Rothko himself. He needs, and he does not want to be needy. Hence the conflict and sadness.

The least successful part of the play is the (overly dramatic but ultimately underutilized) psychological background of Ken. Is he a projection of Rothko's own youth? A spiritual "son" for Rothko? Or merely a board to bounce arguments with Rothko? In contrast to Ken's sob story, Rothko's own history and its effect on his art and life and eventual suicide are not presented in the play. Perhaps it is not a flaw to restrict the play's scope to the discussion of his art and its place in history, etc., but the curious thing is that, once I learned a bit of his psychological history, things made a lot more sense than the play has presented.

He emigrated from Russia (after the revolution) to Oregon at the age of 11. In childhood, he suffered periods of separation from his parent(s). At 17 he won a scholarship to Yale, where he did not fit in with the privileged WASP kids, himself a Jew in 1920. He was an outsider, shut out and shunned and isolated and, very likely, despised. He hated it and dropped out after 2 years. Isolation then became a kind of self-protection, and an apparent arrogance/audacity was a strategy to reconcile his sense of self-worth and a lack of trust for others. Yes, I know just how that works. Deep down he is the needy Ken, waiting for someone to embrace him whole and without reservation, understanding the large and small heartbreaks he suffered in every year of his life. On the other hand he could not bear to hand over all his vulnerabilities and heartbreaks and disappointments, for weren't they all just the same lot as the Yale bastards? They would just reject and abandon and ridicule him, wouldn't they? How could he trust anyone? I do wonder whether John Logan, as an American-born writer, is able to understand the sense of displacement of an immigrant child.

International Mysteries

2012-02-05T21:08:00.004-05:00

It's such a relief to have access to a few Swedish, Italian, French, and German detective series 6 days a week. The social idealism, the strong female characters, a lack of the relentless pursuit of happiness, ah ... what a breath of fresh air in an ever more suffocating cultural environment of my real life. They make me feel like I am not a lone freak.

Pina 3D

2012-02-04T19:33:00.007-05:00

除了第一段的“春之祭”以外，影片中记录的另外三个舞蹈 Cafe Mueller, Kontakthof, 和 Vollmond，几乎全是哭着看完的。并不是因为影片中的哀悼 Pina Bausch 的主题，虽然舞蹈团员们默然怀念的脸和旁白也十分有效。让我哭得鼻青脸肿的是她的舞蹈， the yearning and desolation, tenderness and strength，虽然有些地方也有 joy and wonder，更多的是刻骨铭心的 melancholy，感动死了TNND。

Air: Le Voyage Dans La Lune

2012-02-03T11:37:00.002-05:00

Melikes!

Le Voyage Dans La Lune

I'm not a techno fan, but this is mind-tickling and lovely.

WorldCon

2012-02-02T11:05:00.003-05:00

Will take place Aug 30 to Sep 3 in Chicago. Am contemplating ...

Actually, the only person I want to hunt down is GRRM. But then everyone wants to hunt him down.

Whew

2012-01-29T22:46:00.002-05:00

I'm so fucking exhausted. Will need a couple weeks to recover. Have no idea how I'll cope with work next week.

Seriously I cannot do this again next year, unless I win the lottery before next January and retire.

噩梦

2012-01-25T09:28:00.006-05:00

今早又做了掉牙齿的恶梦，这个 recurrent nightmare 已经好久没做了，忽然又来了。每次焦虑或者心情低落的时候容易做这个梦，满嘴牙齿碎片的感觉跟真的一样。

可能是因为，昨晚给一个朋友打电话，听说她妈妈病危不行了，大概这两天就要去世了。我认识她很久了，她妈妈从挺年轻的时候就得了MS，这几年尤其不好，除了几个女儿其他人都不认识了。

到了这个年纪周围开始有死亡的消息。记得跟某同学交往的时候，他的一只猫死了，我还哭了一场。

感慨人生很长也很短，委屈地活了一些年，也没过上多少舒坦痛快的好日子，忽然就完了。

US Nationals 2012

2012-01-24T13:21:00.000-05:00

I'm getting too old for this sh*t.

明明是每天都坐在冰场里看比赛，为什么早上起来浑身酸痛涅？

2003年后有印象的节目

2012-01-20T23:01:00.012-05:00

Updated 1/25，说不定能凑够10个。

男单：
1. The Mission (Matt Savoie/Tom Dickson)
2. Naqoyqatsi (Jeff Buttle/David Wilson)
3. Schindler's List (Jonathan Cassar/David Wilson)
4. Eight Season (Jeremy Abbott/Tom Dickson)
5. Chocolat (Stephane Lambiel/Salome Brunner)
6. Pirates of the Caribbean (Braden Overett/Braden Overett)
7. Jazz Medley (Yannick Ponsero/??)
8. Harlem Nocturne (Derrick Delmore/Jill Shipstad?)
9. Insane in the Brain (Adrian Schultheiss/Galina Lutkova)

冰舞：
1. La Valse (Jane Summersett & Todd Gilles/Tom Dickson)
2. Devdas & Bunty Aur Babli soundtracks (Meryl Davis & Charlie White/Marina Zueva)
3. Somewhere in Time (Marie-France Dubreuil & Patrice Lauzon/David Wilson)
4. House of Flying Daggers (Trina Pratt & Todd Gilles/Christopher Dean)
5. Carnival in Venice (Isabelle Delobelle & Olivier Schonefelder/Pasquale Camerlengo)
6. Pink Floyd (Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir/Igor Shpilband & Marina Zueva)
7. Samson et Delila (Meryl Davis & Charlie White/Shpilband & Zueva)
8. Hitchcock soundtracks (Piper Gilles & Zachary Donohue/Tom Dickson)
9. Organ Donor (Natalie Pechalat/Fabian Bourzat/Sasha Zhulin)

双人：
1. Pina (Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy/Ingo Steur)
2. L'Oiseau (Aliona Savchenko & Robin Szolkowy/Ingo Steur)
3. Galicia Flamenca (Jessica Dube & Bryce Davison/Lori Nichol, David Wilson)
4. Daphnis et Chloé (Amanda Evora & Mark Ladwig/Jim Peterson)

女单：
绞尽脑汁想不出来。这么多节目白看了。以后干脆全部跳过得了。
总算想起一个。
1. Dr. Zhivago (Alissa Czisney/Davis Wilson)

Nine Tailors

2012-01-20T16:30:00.000-05:00

看样子出发前是看不完这一本了。差不多到三分之二的地方。

过去只读过一篇 Lord Peter Wimsey 系列中的短篇，看过几集很低成本的电视剧，感觉非常 cozy 派，但这本小说是非常典型的 police procedural 派，虽然设定在英格兰乡村，甚至对独特环境的描写也跟 PP 派传统相似。

节奏拉得挺慢的，得耐心地看。

Adorable Freund

2012-01-19T16:16:00.007-05:00

我大概有点爱上 Anno 1790 里的男二号了。这剧其实有点阴沉压抑的气氛，但是可爱的男仆 Freund 同学总是忽然跳出来逗人开心一下。跟 Jeeves 一样万能（又要教警察局长家的孩子读书，又要给探长及其女友做饭，又要帮手探长破案和局里内斗，还要苦口婆心地拯救所有这些罪人的灵魂！），但又比 Jeeves 更多几分 attitude。他们的主仆对手戏真是逗死了，捶地 --- 虽然造出来的都是 belly laugh 而不会哈哈地笑出来，唉，我最吃这一套，但是这种北欧式笑不出声的jokes我总是学不来！

Utterly Hopeless

2012-01-18T22:46:00.006-05:00

Yet another fascinating ... "thing" I just happened to come across, would like to explore, but have no time for: World politics and history through the view of neo-realism. It's all because I read a feature in The Atlantic about John Mearsheimer. Oh, what a breath of fresh air to replace that rotten egg smell of Idealism (trademark of the special American brand) saturating the air. It is hardly a coincidence that Mearsheimer is interested in China. But I really don't have time to read his books, even though I'm incredibly intrigued.

As a Chinese person, I'm secretly amused that Mearsheimer is and will remain a Cassandra, a pariah, a voice in the woods, kept away from mainstream policies and influences. :)

When the Thrills Are Gone

2012-01-18T16:43:00.007-05:00

... not that I have any thrills, but it's the title of Walter Mosley's most recent Leonid McGill mystery I'm listening to.

I've finally pinpointed the style issue in Mosley's novels. He is obviously a lateral thinker. His narratives are filled with analogies, similies, metaphors, and sidebar commentary. They inevitably meander and slow down the narrative drive. Sometimes it gets to be excessive.

His Easy Rawlins series were a lot more efficient, but McGill seems to represent an older and more contemplative Mosley and is therefore a lot more chatty. Is this a sign of growing old?

One funny thing about the McGill series, which I've only read 1.5 so far, is all the bizarre characters and settings, even though the stories always take place in New York City. Perhaps New York City really is this bizarre, but to me it sounds like Wonderland. McGill's father was a farm laborer-turned-Communist. His honorary uncle is a Chicago gangster boss. He is married to a Swedish woman who continually cheats on him. They have 4 children, of whom 3 were not fathered by McGill. Actually one child is the daughter of a Chinese jewlry dealer who died on Mrs. McGill in one of her escapades. McGill is in love with a half-Danish-half-Japanese woman who collects rent in his office building. He walks down the street into a mansion, in which lives a reclusive real estate tycoon who remains anonymous to the world and his neighbors. The tycoon is married to a black artist who paints on massive steel plates. This wife, who is now missing, has a modern hippie of a sister, who is living in a commune in an abandoned building, also in the City. And that's just a few of the characters. It's crazy!

脏话

2012-01-17T16:57:00.003-05:00

看到这篇博文觉得逗死了，边读边笑。不幸小时候缺乏练习，中文的骂人话说出来，不知怎么的宣泄感有点不够。而且大多数的话性别味儿太强，作为女人有点说不出口。

哎，又想起还没把 Deadwood 三季 DVD 都给屯全了，Milch 的粗话连篇真够劲儿，又够文艺。

Striped Bass

2012-01-17T15:59:00.001-05:00

...as in "Speckled Band."

I still want to get that thing written.

Sherlock s2e3 (climax)

2012-01-17T12:11:00.008-05:00

Well, I have only myself to blame to re-watch the climactic rooftop scene. My oh my there are so many bugs crawling out of the script it makes me itch.

Worst of all the bugs is perhaps the suicide. All 3 assassins are not constantly staring at the rooftop of St. Bart, are they? How the heck would they know whether and when they should pull the trigger, perhaps within the next 3 minutes? If not in the next 3 minutes, then SH could immediately contact people (most reliably Mycroft), to dismantle the risks (but first I suggest throwing Jim's body over in his coat just to cause a bit confusion). And have I ever seen worse nonsense than "oh, so you are me after all"! If he were you, why are you so eager to kill yourself, eh? The game would be back on. Aren't you curious how he's going to make you talk? You've found your twin and life is again meaningful and fun. And then this: I am no Sherlock Holmes but I would certainly ask the most important question --- Why the hell should I kill myself at your request, my dear Jimbo? What will stop you from killing the hostages (since this is a typical hostage situation) anyway after I have so gladly obeyed your instruction? Should I trust you to keep your word and leave them alone? Isn't that a joke! You've proven how "changeable" you were last year. So, no, go fuck yourself. Bring on something worth bargaining before we talk.

It is in a way ironic, for it was Dr. Doyle's detective who first instilled in me, at the age of 12, the importance of logic and motives.

Dangerous Method, or, the Way We Live Now

2012-01-16T11:51:00.007-05:00

I probably need to see "A Dangerous Method" again, as a rather minor aspect of the film continues to nag at me --- Jung's wife who appeared to be agonized by his extramarital affairs with his favorite patients.

There are always people in the world who are (generally) in psychological harmony with others around them. For everyone else, there is psychiatry. It is only recently that I finally begin to appreciate the moderating effect of psychiatry --- moderating the relationship between the needs of an individual person and others around him.

Humans are social animals, but compared with ants and bees we are only semi-social animals. In terms of social tendencies and instincts, primates are perhaps somewhere between buffaloes and lions. Not quite in herds, not completely solitary.

Throughout the hundreds of thousands of years of homo sapien history, I imagine, back when a person lived with and relied on his extended families, there must have always been conflicts between what one wanted and what others wanted, and pulling and tugging among people must have been eternal. A bigger piece of meat for me would be preferable to sharing with my cousins. Yet they were my cousins, and when we went out to hunt, I had to rely on them to watch my back. One had to give and take.

One could argue, although perhaps there is insufficient evidence to prove this theory, that such giving and taking are easier to manage in one's head (rather for the limbic system) when one's relationships are limited to his blood relatives numbering perhaps a few dozens. Relationships become difficult to sort out, at least for some people, when one has to interact with many many people with questionable and ambiguous connections with oneself. How much should one give and take? Some (the lucky ones in harmony with the world around them) navigate with ease, while others have difficulties.

It is tempting to hypothesize that as population density rises exponentially, the conflict between individuality and collectivity rises with it. I am reminded of Lao Tsu's ideal world, in which neighbors can hear chicken crowing and dogs barking, but never have to chat with each other over the fences like the neighbors in "Home Improvement." Ah, but that world was a long-gone dream even in the 6th century B.C. Now we cannot turn around without elbowing each other.

In the process of bumping elbows, one inevitably runs into situations where indulging one's own desires conflict with others' wishes. The doctor would like to have a love affair with his favorite female patient, openly and without guilt, while still enjoying his wife's fortune. The doctor's wife would like to have the totality of her husband's affection or, if that is impossible, make him suffer the same degree of misery as she does. Both wishes are mutually exclusive. One has to live with more disappointment than the other. Ah, the zero sum game.

Unfortunately, selfless accommodation of others' wishes is definitely not a permanent or effective solution, but rather a pathology. On the other hand, unrestrained self-indulgence causes destruction and carnage all around, although there are research data that selfish people, oblivious to other people's needs, tend to live longer and have better physical health.

When an individual's behaviors and desires conflict with social norm (ie, the requirements of others living in close proximity to him), and the conflict is internalized within the individual to cause dysfunction, psychiatry comes in to mediate between the patient and his relationships with the multitude of others to reach some sort of compromise. Psychiatry cannot fundamentally remove the conflict between individuality and society.

Sherlock S2e3

2012-01-15T23:38:00.004-05:00

整个第二季终于超过了我的忍受极限。

Beck

2012-01-15T17:47:00.005-05:00

唉，有七八年没看见 Martin Beck 电视剧集了，当年就是这套剧加上 Wallander （瑞典版）系列把我给勾上了北欧侦探小说/电视的贼船。MHz Network 终于又开始播放 Beck 了，而且是回头从2000年初期的旧剧集慢慢地放出来。

最让我得意又开心的部分不是侦破案件，不是看 Beck 被女儿训，甚至不是看 Gunvald Larsson 习惯性地破门而入，而是又见 Beck 那个神神叨叨成天说怪话的邻居。哦真是太可爱了。

剧集中演著名的刺儿头警探，the inimitable Gunvald Larsson，是 Mikael Persbrandt ，那时候还是光滑的娃娃脸。最近这家伙很红，在 Susanne Bier 的电影 A Better World 里主演，然后在瑞典惊险剧集 Hamilton 里主演个007式的神勇间谍特工，然后又被拉去 The Hobbit 电影。可是他现在已经是个又皱纹又puffy 的中年人了。

Mr. Fox

2012-01-14T20:51:00.005-05:00

It has been a month since I read Mr. Fox, but I thought about it again today.

Typical meta-fiction, obviously. Oyeyemi is certainly not the first person to revisit fairy tales. I too find fairy tales fascinating, having devoured many of them in childhood. A truly globalized endeavor for a provincial kid, it was.

Anyway, Oyeyemi's take on fairy tales focuses on gender relationships and romantic love. For me, however, the mind lingers on the terror and violence in the original stories, all of which seem to be derived from the same origin:

Bluebeard
Fitcher's Bird
Mr. Fox

I realized that the logic in these stories and the mechanisms of coping with the violence and horrors are very similar to how my brain dismantles nightmares within a dream. I don't know what that means.

过年吃月饼

2012-01-14T16:40:00.004-05:00

今天去店里买点菜，人山人海的，才想起快过年了。好不容易挤出来回到车上，跟某同学说，下周末要过年了。某同学问：“要不要买俩蛋黄月饼庆祝下？” 我倒地不起，友邦惊诧地说，吃月饼是八月十五，跟新年差了八个半月哪。某同学回答：哪有那么严重，其实只差了三个半月 ...

1790 年

2012-01-11T22:01:00.008-05:00

最近某地方电视台忽然开始疯狂播出好几套瑞典侦探剧集，星期六就要开始重新播出好几年前停播的 Beck!

星期三晚上播出每集一小时的 Anno 1790。法国大革命的浪潮刚刚过去，瑞典刚刚跟俄国打完仗，居然也有人在闹革命... 男主（上剧照中右二）是个军医改行当首都警探兼验尸官，虽然同情革命，但本身是与世无争的和平主义者，一边维护社会治安调查案件，一边暗恋上司警察局长的太太（上图左边两人就是局长夫妻）。

内外景大部分是在摄影棚里搭的，虽然简陋倒也有古风，少数街道外景一看即认出是斯德哥尔摩的 Gamla Stan 岛 --- 这就是古城的好处了，拍古装戏方便。很多古代细节颇有意思，例如大家一般都没有钟表，大约知道是夜里但具体不知是几点几分；例如高级杂货店进口茶叶，有钱的寡妇没喝过觉得好神奇；店老板兼走私麝香；一把破火枪打了一发之后得装半天火药。

人物设定挺有特点的 --- 男主大侦探蔫头蔫脑，粘粘糊糊，闷得一塌糊涂，非常瑞典。他的“华生医生”（上图右一）是个脾气倔强心直口快的跟班，在理论上是男主的男仆，但这个男仆很虔诚很保皇，老觉得无神论的主人道德水准太低，成天找机会就训他一顿。想必并非刻意搞笑，但我觉得逗死了。真是太瑞典了。

可惜这剧至今只有十集，两个月后播完了他们打算播什么？

Sherlock s2e2

2012-01-09T20:05:00.001-05:00

Moffat 的剧本是形似而神不似（原著），Gatiss 兄的剧本则是神似形也似。

The Nine Tailors

2012-01-08T17:40:00.006-05:00

Dorothy Sayers 的侦探小说，Lord Peter Wimsey 系列之一。开头全部在讲英国东部 The Fens 地区的环境和社区，以及复杂的Change Ringing敲钟法。很有趣。搞得我又有点动心了。英格兰到处是这个村庄那个村庄的，只在侦探小说里读到过，希望有空可以去走走看看。

已经看到第三章了，尚未出现凶案，幸好地区性描写十分新鲜有趣，也不乏味。

Change Ringing 敲钟法在 YouTube 上可以看到，否则光读书里的描写，靠脑子想象也挺费劲的。小说一开头描写新年夜九个人要拉绳子连续敲上九个钟头！看了 YT 才知道原来这玩意儿在华盛顿的大天主教堂也有。

Fry as Jeeves

2012-01-06T19:02:00.003-05:00

Isn't he utterly GOOOOOORGEOUS?

The hilarity is icing on the cake.

Should I read it?

2012-01-06T18:12:00.006-05:00

I had never heard of The Marriage Plot until today, when I heard someone complaining that it is a fake satire of east-coast intelligentsia and that she (the complainer) feels like punching the protagonist in the face. Apparently it is about 3 graduate students at Brown and full of references that flood every university English department. I read a few reviews on Amazon and, oddly enough, a curiosity for the novel is creeping into my brain! Yuck! OK, I'm too stingy to shell out for this but maybe I'll go to a bookstore and scan it a bit.

Sigh, if bookstores are all gone, where will I sponge a few pages here and there of books I have no intention to buy?!

On a separate occasion I heard the phrase "post-modern pastiche." Hmpf. :P

It Reminds Me of Solaris

2012-01-05T14:43:00.005-05:00

An interesting article about Giant Pandas on NPR.

What reminds me of Solaris is the "Dear Scientist" letter from the typing panda. Ah mystery of the mind and heart ...

Two Weeks

2012-01-05T10:44:00.008-05:00

Two more weeks before going to San Jose for a week for US Nationals. I'm biting my nails and bidding my time. Waiting is such a pain in the butt. The good feeling is that just this morning I realized that I have nearly forgotten some of the most traumatic experiences at the Agency that occurred within the year past.

Sondheim on Piano

2012-01-03T19:14:00.004-05:00

实在是太好听了啊哟喂！Stephen Sondheim 接受 Jazz Piano 节目的采访。我好喜欢听他的直截了当的大实话，他的 interviews 都大大的有料啊。过去看到很多人背后说 Sondheim is a prick ，“任性”，“不给面子”，“说话难听”之类的名声在外。我看是 ... 名副其实！这个人意见观点一大堆，而且表达超准，绝不扭捏哼唧讲模棱两可的客套话。看过他跟演员排练自己的音乐剧的时候真的好严苛，一丝不苟，肯定让很多人受不了。但是他很坦白，what you see is what you get ，你可以信任他说的每句话都是真心的，不是在跟你瞎扯应付。

我也是个人意见观点一大堆，常常觉得自己其实是个 prick，但是平时十分小心地把招人讨厌的一面给藏起来，只有在匿名的网上才痛快地胡说八道。现在想想，其实得罪一些人，招一些人讨厌，也未必是多么可怕的事情。

Speaking Ill of the Dead

2012-01-03T13:58:00.007-05:00

Quote from Stephen Sondheim's book "Finishing the Hat" --

How can you comment critically on someone's work without hurting the writer whose work you're dissecting? My answer is cowardly but simple: criticize only the dead. I have never believed in "de mortuis nil nisi bonum"; speaking ill exclusively of the dead seems to me the gentlemanly thing to do. The subject cannot be personally hurt, and his reputation is unlikely to be affected by anything you say, whereas publicly passing judgment on living writers is both hurtful and stifling — I speak from experience, as someone who has been disdained both by journalists and by many of my songwriting elders and contemporaries as well.

Mwahahahaha. He certainly doesn't mince words. And obviously he doesn't believe in the afterlife or "looking down from heaven." :D

I have always felt the same way but thought it was wrong of me. Now I feel validated! Thank you, Mr. Sondheim.

Sherlock s2e1

2012-01-02T14:28:00.006-05:00

结尾有点落俗了。

直男看见 Irene Adler 就是心痒难搔，Steven Moffat 也不能例外，倒对比出 ACD 原著多么的不俗了。ACD 对女人的态度还真的是罕见咧。

直男对弯女的幻想也是百发百中，难怪 Basic Instinct 这么红。

Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (2011)

2012-01-01T17:38:00.005-05:00

I'm quite impressed with the movie adaptation. At places I wondered whether someone not acquainted with the novel or TV series would be able to follow the plot, but after the first 30-40 minutes the narrative became quite clear.

Gary Oldman's George Smiley is an entirely different person from Alec Guinness', which is not necessarily a bad thing. Guinness was perhaps closer to the novel's description of Smiley -- soft spoken, quiet, a bit like a retired accountant. One immediately identifies with him and trusts his benevolence. Oldman's presence is perhaps stronger, edgier, and darker than Guinness. It is no accident that he has been cast in many villainous roles. There is a vicious glint behind the thick, black rimmed glasses to suggest a formidable force.

Likewise, the TV series was closer to the novel in style and tone than the movie. I read the novel a couple of decades ago and remember the writing style as a bit heavy and slow, and unnecessarily convoluted. The movie dramatically paired down the personal histories and relationships of the five top men of the Circus and improved on story efficiency at the cost of some major characters. For example, Ciarand Hinds' Roy Bland was completely unused.

The real accomplishment of the movie is the visual narrative and editing. It is a very complicated story, and the original material is heavily expository. The movie could easily have slipped into scene after scene of one character telling another character what happened and what it all meant. Tomas Alfredson (who is surprisingly young) exceeded my expectations. It is incredible how few words were spoken in the whole movie --- the absolute bare minimum number of words necessary. I wonder whether this is a specialty of Scandinavian filmmakers. They all seem to grow up shooting very short screenplays. Italian screenplays must routinely be 10 times longer than Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish screenplays.

With its blue gray color palette and spare dialog, the movie could have been heavy and tired, but in fact I came out of the theater with a grin on my face. There is something funny and ironic about all this, but I can't quite explain what or how. A very black kind of humor and romance it is, and not unlike Alfredson's previous movie "Let the Right One in."

For one thing, all the "old" characters were intentionally made to look particularly greasy, bald, ugly, and flat-out hideous. Especially bald, as one hardly ever spots a bald man in a major role in movies. The only woman, poor Connie Sachs, fared as badly as "her boys." The "young" characters, on the other hand, looked practically gorgeous in contrast with the geezers.

John Hurt's C was rather hilarious, shouting at the gang from time to time like a grumpy mad grandpa. The love affair between Bill Hayden (Colin Firth) and Jim Predeaux (Strong) was a bit too hammed up and actually screwed up another plot twist.

Jason Moran

2011-12-30T16:36:00.006-05:00

半年前偶然听到 NPR 上关于 Jason Moran 的专题节目就喜欢得很，但是后来忘记了他的名字，想找也没找到。最近因为 Moran 被肯尼迪中心请去做爵士乐 curator 他又上了电台节目，于是我也把他给“找了回来”。

我对 jazz piano 毫无抵抗力，而 piano 和 bass 放在一起的质地对比简直太可爱了。Moran 虽然粉 Thelonius Monk，但是演奏风格感觉有一点 classical，当然这也没什么奇怪的，从 classical 开始而转而迷恋 jazz 的人多了去了。

在这个专题节目里，第一首曲子是 Moran 改编 Maurice Ravel ，好听得一塌糊涂，哇哇哇！后面的几首也不错。

A Terrible Time Waster

2011-12-29T18:42:00.005-05:00

YouTube, that is.

Got sucked into video clips of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie." For example:

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Help! I can't stop!

Very Long Blogs

2011-12-28T11:15:00.003-05:00

While watching the TV series Kingdom I happened upon Stephen Fry's blog. Holy smokes he writes very long blog articles! Ebert's weekly blog entries can run to the long side, but Fry's seem longer. Wow.

One of these days I'll do a long one. Maybe. :P

Edelstein, etc.

2011-12-27T16:44:00.007-05:00

It is fascinating to listen to David Edelstein's year end movie overview because he is another movie reviewer (an example is Roger Ebert) who is very candid about his own feelings and emotional context of his take on movies.

He expressed my exact sentiment when he labeled Steig Larsson's Dragon Tattoo series as a "primitive fantasy" and David Fincher as a "very cruel director." I also agree with him that von Trier's heavy disdain for people is a annoying and tiresome. I'm less inclined to be impressed by impeccable techniques and a vast visual vocabulary than film geeks. In other words, I'm picky about the kind of filmmakers I "hang out" with, which may have some correlation with how picky I am about the kind of people I hang out with.

When it comes to the impression of Steven Spielberg we go in completely opposite directions. There is something lurking underneath Spielberg's sentimentality that disturbs me, but I cannot put my finger on it. A friend once digressed that Spielberg betrayed a carefully disguised tendency to cruelty and calousness in the Indiana Jones series. Not sure if that is it. To me his effort to appear sentimental and innocent or child-like is just a little too laborious to be wholy convincing. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

Michael Clayton

2011-12-25T17:31:00.018-05:00

This is one of the most underrated movies I have seen. When I saw it in theater I couldn't quite put my fingers on why I found it so mesmerizing, but it has haunted me all along.

Putting the Blu-ray disc in the player, for some reason I decided to turn on the commentary track first, even though the plot has already faded in memory. Surprise, surprise. I had always assumed that, given it was the first directing effort by a renowned writer, its strengths lie in the dialog, the narrative structure, the plot, and the characters. Those elements are all excellent, of course, but I did not fully appreciate how beautiful it looks.

With only a fraction of my attention on the chatters of Tony Gilroy and editor John Gilroy (brothers), I stared at the shots and the color scheme. With all the dense and rapid dialog, visually it is remarkably still and uncluttered, with a stark palette and a gaze on faces and eyes. There is a simple elegance in the framing and composition of most shots. The lighting and shadow are exquisite without being showy or self-conscious, and the background lights and shapes have an abstract beauty that is simultaneously delicate and intense.

One of the movie's tricks is fluid scene-to-scene transitions, sometimes with temporally scrambled voice-overs, sometimes with clever editing (see Tilda Swinton's entry scene). Another trick is movements in the out-of-focus background, scurrying at the edges of the frame and the edges of the viewers' consciousness, oozing an ominous sense of conspiracy and dread.

As a moviegoer I am extremely grateful for directors/editors who trust and respect my intelligence and attention. Thank you for choosing people like me to make your movies for.

****

I can think of no other movie that reflects the mood of the era better (2001 to 2008). It speaks to me.

On the commentary track, Tony Gilroy talks about how heavily he has been influenced by the movies of 1970s. The period of late 1960s to first half of 1970s is truly the golden age of American cinema, the end of which was marked by the commercial successes "Jaws" and "Star Wars." One of these days I'll have to systemically watch the classics from that time. It occurs to me that the parallel between that time and ours is no accident. Vietnam war, Civil Rights movement, social unrest, the assassinations, and, to cap it off, Watergate. Deja vu.

Much Ado About Nothing (Cuban version)

2011-12-25T12:12:00.002-05:00

因为是个欢乐的剧，被现代化之后（1930年代古巴庄园）还又唱又跳的，我就拉某同学去看了。现代古巴化之后，全卡司美国口音也十分融合了，只有两个配角演员还很热心地拿出了小小西班牙语口音。美国舞台莎剧里不是每个人都能上英国口音，所以有时候满台南腔北调。不知道英国舞台上 Eugene O'Neill 或者 Tennessee Williams 是否有口音分歧。

某同学坚决不看悲剧，上次跟几个朋友一起看“玻璃动物园”就被他推掉了。

一根葱

2011-12-19T20:19:00.001-05:00

最近忽然遇见两起事件让我疑心有些人会不会太把自己当根葱？但是别人或许会说我只是将低自尊投射到别人身上。谁知道谁的现实感更接近现实。

如果哪天有人觉得我太把自己当根葱，请不吝留言提醒。

A Dangerous Method

2011-12-18T21:16:00.007-05:00

Nearly all the posters of "A Dangerous Method" arranges Keira Knightly's Sabina Spielrein in the middle, between Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), a transparent --- and entirely wrong --- characterization of the movie's theme. She is not the woman that came between Jung and Freud and broke up their friendship.

David Cronenberg, who is Canadian by nationality, makes a subtle but conscious case for the Jewishness of psychoanalysis. The riff between Freud and Jung, the movie seems to argue, is largely an ethnic and class divide manifest in academic disagreement.

Buried beneath this ethnic argument is the suggestion that it is no accident that psychoanalysis originated and flourished in the repressive Victorian era in Europe among Jewish medical men (and remain dominated by Jewish psychiatrists to this day), that the permissive and liberating philosophy of psychoanalysis is inherently Jewish, and that Protestants are instinctively unable to embrace psychoanalysis, even an open-minded, intelligent Protestant like Jung.

I don't know enough about Judaism and Jewish culture to judge whether the hypothesis is credible. It probably is to some extent. I do have doubts about whether ethnic and class difference played a large role in Jung's feud with Freud. The movie implies that Jung is troubled by Freud's emphasis on sex as the underlying motivation for nearly all human behaviors and unconsciousness and his implied support of socially unacceptable behaviors (e.g., infidelity), because Jung is sexually repressed and deeply conflicted. One scene in particularly clearly establishes that Freud and Spielrein understand it (the central role of sex) and each other, because they are Jews and therefore not as plagued by sex-related guilt and conflicts as Jung is.

I don't know enough about Jung and his work to judge whether this characterization is real. Again, it may be true to some extent. However, the very fact that Cronenberg is suggesting that the riff between Jung and Freud is rooted in social class, religious, and cultural differences that neither of them has any control over happens to support Jung's theory that cultural heritage heavily influences people's behaviors and unconscious. Isn't it ironic?

I wonder whether Cronenberg has realized this irony. Although Jung in this movie is portrayed as being repressed and unable to fully accept the legitimacy of sexual urges, while Freud is portrayed as being more "liberated" or knowing of the human nature and therefore perhaps "more correct," the movie itself indirectly acknowledges that Jung is just as correct if not more so by tracing his behaviors and decisions to his Protestant heritage.

Fascinating.

Nevertheless, it would be an injustice to suggest that the movie blames the breakup between Freud and Jung entirely on the Jewish-Protestant and class divide. It fully acknowledges the Oedipal nature of their relationship and conflict. I don't know whether all men want to marry his mother, but it seems pretty universal that all men must murder his father to become his own person. The more intimate and affectionate the relationship, the more the son has to kill of the father (even if symbolically) to become an adult.

The intimacy of mentor-disciple relationship is shown is something of a double layer in the movie: The Jung-Spielrein relationship is a parallel to the Freud-Jung relationship. However, the daughter does not need to murder her father to become independent. She separates from him and her sexual desire for him, and becomes her own person in a process that is perhaps as painful as the patricide. The movie makes both types of separation perfectly clear and somewhat symmetrical.

****
Although the movie is heavily didactic with long segments of dialog, Cronenberg's visual language remains ripe with meaning and suggestions. Note the deep-focus shot in the scene above, which keeps both Freud's face in the foreground and Jung's face in the background clear. Similar view is used throughout the movie to keep the patient and the psychoanalyst, who do not face each other, in the same frame with the same clarity. Perhaps he is suggesting that the process of psychotherapy is bidirectional and affects not only the patient.

The acting is interesting across the board. Knightly is fine in the hysterical, manic scenes and slightly laborious in the later "normal" scenes. Fassbender, interestingly, has done two movies and sexual urges and conflicts around the same time. The second movie, "Shame," seems almost like a rebuff to the line in "A Dangerous Method" that sex is the only reliable pleasure for everyone.

Mortensen takes the cake for the best, but also the subtlest, performance in the movie. While maintaining a detached, controlled, dominant, almost manipulative presence, he drops a number of hints of vulnerability and genuine affection.

Jung's wife, played by Sarah Gadon, is probably a little underdeveloped compared with the 3 main characters. Nevertheless, I am fascinated by the treatment of this character and the movie's exploration of gender and power in general. She is clearly distressed by Jung's insatiable sexual appetite (depicted through his hearty appetite on the dining table), but she has to make do, even though she is the financial pillar of the family. So, perhaps, she is a counterpoint to the acceptance and indulgence of primal sexual urges. Possessiveness and exclusivity are also a human instinct. When we love someone we want the most we can wring out of that person. We don't want to share and dilute. Or perhaps some but not all of us craves the exclusivity. That is an instinct, not social regulation or repression. Obviously, one man's freedom is another woman's suffering, even if you take society out of the equation.

As such we enter a territory not thoroughly explored by Freud. Social restrictions on individual behaviors have obviously brought on neuroses and conflicts and mental dysfunctions, but they also serve the purpose of keep us living together in close proximity without cutting each other's throat. Such is the human condition. There is never a place where one's own needs and others' needs can exist in absolute and blissful freedom and harmony. We always have to struggle with conflicts and competing needs between ourselves and others, and hope for a tolerable compromise. (People do cut each other's throat every day in the world, after all.)

****
If I have to grossly simplify the movie's plot, it would not be a love triangle in which Spielrein breaks up Freud and Jung's relationship, but rather a love triangle in which both Freud and Spielrein love Jung, but the damned Protestant just doesn't get it.

Manamana

2011-12-18T17:13:00.002-05:00

小时候看到一点芝麻街，对这首歌印象很深，但是不知道啥意思。曾经以为他们在说 "Phenomenon"，现在才知道根本不是！

芝麻街的瑞典厨师也很逗，很疯狂。

不过最好笑的还是 Statler and Waldorf 一对老头儿。

Untitled

2011-12-14T22:53:00.004-05:00

Once again I am reminded that I shall never know how another person feels.

Zinsser wrote about his Overtone Years, but it was the sentiment of being a fourth-generation New Yorker that got my strings shuddering.

I've not had rootedness for at least two generations. For whatever reasons, I live like HC Anderson --- figuratively, philosophically.

It's neither good nor bad, this life, but I am just reminded that I'll never know how it feels to be a fourth-generation New Yorker and walk by the apartment buildings that your parents and grandparents lived and died.

隔行

2011-12-14T19:42:00.002-05:00

今天听见新闻说粒子撞击器那边爆出新闻，Higgs Boson （又称上帝粒子）“可能” 被证实了。

想到不久前的超光速中微子消息，我有点不敢相信，发了个电邮给某同学问这个是不是真的。上次超光速中微子的消息出来，某同学说多半不是真的；这次他答曰十有八九是真的。

其实某同学也不是物理学家，但是学过一些物理的人至少有概念，一个谣言出来能判断可信几率有多高，而外行就完全两眼一抹黑。同理，我对粒子毫无概念，很容易被蒙住，但是如果拿一篇医学生物研究给我看，即使不懂，至少能估计出是不是胡扯。

Mr. Fox

2011-12-14T19:36:00.005-05:00

I'm about 25% into this breezy and delightful book. I like it because it does not have the whiff of rotting paper coming out of university English departments.

Attack the Block

2011-12-11T19:35:00.007-05:00

Both funny and scary, with a bit of social commentary.

Beautifully photographed and directed with judicious use of special effects. Thankfully the alien monsters were "man in a suit"/puppet, with little CGI. CGI cannot imitate the real fluidity of movements.

A lot of apparently ad lib dialogs, just the type I like.

It is just the kind of movie that has you screaming and laughing simultaneously.

Father Brown

2011-12-08T20:30:00.001-05:00

把 Hamsun 暂时放在一边，重读 Father Brown 系列。过去没注意，现在拿着 Kindle 慢慢地读，才品出 Chesterton 的好。

味千拉面

2011-12-04T11:35:00.004-05:00

洛杉矶有诸般不好，只有一样好：吃。

各种中国饭馆，跟某同学一星期内吃也吃不不过来，只有在味千拉面吃了两次。

说实话我有点怀疑白色的猪骨浓汤不是真正用猪骨长期熬出来的自然白 --- 每日流量巨大的快餐店，很难相信店堂后的厨房里有几只巨大的锅一直在熬猪骨。谁知道浓汤是怎么批量生产出来的，里面放了多少 MSG，不过好吃还是好吃的。黄黄拉面也还算有筋道，对于没吃过真正用手拉出来的日本拉面的人来说。主要是汤面里的肉、菜、汤、面搭配数量已经科学化系统化，恰到好处，深得我心，各个成份多一分嫌多少一分嫌少，刚好被我全部吃光，无论哪一样多一点都会剩下。

某同学十分钟情店里的南瓜 tapioca 糖水，冷甜食一碗，不算特别甜。

放狗一查，味千只有加州与纽约有连锁店，失望。

Meek's Cutoff

2011-12-02T21:29:00.011-05:00

Is it Oregon? I couldn't help but feel it was Australia. On film hardly any place but Australia has left such an impression of a complete lack of human infiltration. Sure, you get a glimpse of a half-nekked aborigine, but that just makes it worse. "You should see the cities we built," Michelle Williams grumbled to the lone Indian captured by the white men. The Indian didn't understand her, of course. I wondered whether she was only trying to remind herself of what cities looked like.

The movie is slow, oppressive, and pretty much a long journey into the belly of desperation. In a male filmmaker's hand, no doubt at some point insanity would take over and someone would get killed in a mad struggle. She generally avoided blood and death, but the sense of doom hung heavy without release, even in the end. Even I find it a bit unbearable and fast-forwarded to the ending.

The ending, ha! A cursory Google search can tell you that a lot of viewers are enraged by it. Mightily pissed off. Is it a reaction typical to American moviegoers? Or is it universal? I digress. Anyway, I suspect that if the movie were merely a slow and artsy *film* but spared us the uncertainty and doubt, if there were some relief of closure at the end (even if tragic), people would not have been so angry about it.

********
There is hardly any dialog in the movie, except for the endless boasting of Stephen Meek, played by an unrecognizable Bruce Greenwood (I wouldn't have known it was Bruce Greenwood if it weren't printed on the cast list). This character makes me chuckle (but without mirth). Why? Because I know this guy. I have met him a number of times before. I met him in a friend's husband, with whom I had an unfriendly argument that spoiled my friendship with the wife. I met him in a pot-bellied government bureaucrat, spewing bullshit as his subordinates listened in hushed reverence. You can see him on TV on Fox News, CNN, or other news network's talking heads that they use to pass for news. He is the art professor, some sort of expert, or resident intellectual who keeps dropping big words but makes no sense. He is so sure of himself that people look up to him with awe. He freely dispenses truisms that are vaguely profound but entirely meaningless. He is the charming snake-oil salesman. He is usually male, but I have seen him in a woman or two with Ph.D. in social science.

It is really funny (funny ironic, not funny haha) that, in the beginning, the men in the wagon train, which got lost under Meek's guidance, were whispering doubts about Meek and even suggesting that he be hanged. Yet, faced with Meek's bravado, they continued to follow his lead, relinquishing their power and judgment in his hand. He had no idea where he was going, but neither did they. And people would rather follow a blind man than follow their own instinct. Ain't that the truth.

I know that man. Don't you? I often wonder why such a guy is so popular, so revered, so trusted. "Do you see he has no idea what he's doing?" I want to yell at people and shake their shoulders. But people love him and beg him to tell them what to do. Considering the poignant but subtle social commentary in "Old Joy," I was convinced that Kelly Reinhart was making reference to contemporary events.

Surprisingly, "Meek's Cutoff" is a true story. There really was a Stephen Meek, and he really did lead a wagon train lost in the Oregon wilderness. Only there were a lot more wagons following him and the consequence was more disastrous than in the movie. Amazingly, Meek was not killed by the disillusioned mob after many died on the road, although there were rumors. In fact, the real Meek died of old age. Ain't that what always happens?

********
Back to the enraging uncertainty of the ending. I was reminded of John Sayle's "Limbo," which also has an equivocal ending. "It could be water or blood," as Meek says in the movie.

Just recently I was thinking about the human perception/illusion of time as Brian Greene explained. The past and the future may be equally elusive, but the constant, weak electrical impulses and neuronal patterns that are memory give us the feeling that we have access to the past, but not the future. It is not the past that we know, but rather the ghost of the past still living in our brain. What if we didn't have this ghost living in our brain? (Think anterograde amnesia. Think "Memento.") What if we had a similar ghost in the brain that feeds us knowledge of the future in the same way?

So, anyway, what the heck was I trying to say? Oh, the unknowable future. Right. Hmm. We don't know what awaits us in the next minute, day, week, month, year. We could be hit by a bus and die tomorrow. Or gets killed in a plane crash next week. Or get lost in the Oregon desert and die of thirst. At least, living in this era gives us a false sense of certainty. The whole world has been mapped out. If we get lost, click on the GPS. If we are thirsty, turn on the tap. We know the mathematical probability of dying in a car crash or plane crash. We know the treatment for pneumonia, the cause and prevention of cholera, and the way to get to the nearest hospital. We have this cemented sense of safety through our access to a huge amount of knowledge. However, in the time before maps were charted, what was it like, PSYCHOLOGICALLY, to walk into a desert or sail into the sea without a map, without satellite, with no end in sight? I don't know about you, but it scares me shitless. Perhaps this is why we like our movies predictable. Yet isn't this unknown landscape the same as our everyday reality? The desert of tomorrow is as unknowable as the Oregon desert for the westward emigrants? Isn't it also the same for "the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns"?

The Conversation Soundtrack

2011-12-02T17:01:00.004-05:00

发现了 David Shire 的电影音乐，很不错，我喜欢。

The Conversation (计划把整个OST买下来）

The Taking of Pelham 123

Farewell My Lovely
(Very retro)

Shakespeare Theater

2011-12-02T16:54:00.004-05:00

Nice marketing tactic. I never fall for sales calls but I did this afternoon. $150 for 3 plays for the rest of this season. I picked Much Ado (Cuban version), Strange Interlude (O'Neill), and Merry Wives of Windsor.

Michael Khan at STC and Erick Shaeffer at Signature are so good. Ah, I am grateful for living in the DC area. It is no NYC but soooooooo much better than LA. There was nothing to see in LA last week. Everyone was doing "Nutcracker." Ugh.

时态

2011-11-30T21:32:00.003-05:00

Hamsun 有个毛病让我十分抓狂，这个人喜欢乱用时态，过去时现在时混着乱用。翻译成中文正好没问题，翻译成英文就让人很烦。但是他文字颇妙，尤其是写人物言行与动机错开不一致，我又舍不得不看。哼，哼，这也就是成名作家能 get away with 乱用时态，居然还有人夸奖乱得好！换了无名作者手稿早就被扔进垃圾箱了。

Currently Reading and Watching

2011-11-27T18:19:00.003-05:00

"Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the d'Urbervilles" by Kim Newman. One of the better spoofs on Sherlock Holmes, with Thomas Hardy as collateral damage. Told from the point of view of the hapless Colonel Sebastian Moran, the gory and sometimes hilarious adventures of the criminal mastermind cleverly reference and parallel the Canon. The inimitable Irene Adler made an appearance and became the woman who is forever referred to by the professor as "that bitch."

"Wanderers" by Knut Hamsun. I can't seem to shake his spell.

Darren Aronofsky's "Black Swan" is a curious mixture of various subjects: psychosis in youth (possibly the first sign of schizophrenia), dysfunctional but common mother-daughter relationship (more common in Asian than western families), arrested psychosexual development with links to both perfectionism and ballet, sex and art/dance. They are not entirely tied up in a perfect bow but the connections are there. Aronofsky may be suggesting that arrested psychosexual development in beautiful young women is linked to both a distorted, prudish, and obsessive parental point of view, and that the ideals of ballet may unconsciously represent such a parental view in the audience, which conflicts with the inherent sex appeal in the dance/performance aspect. Art is sex, even the somewhat frigid framework of ballet.

Rare Export: A Christmas Tale (Or, Bad Santa)

2011-11-16T19:41:00.005-05:00

北欧幽默真是墨墨黑，连圣诞老人的传说都能被他们拍成恐怖片来，而且看上去似乎芬兰的幽默比瑞典挪威丹麦的还要更硬上几分。大部分是悬疑恐怖成分，偶尔来一句（绝不翘嘴角的）笑话。

一个无法解释的现象：这片儿里绝对没有女人！父子加铁哥儿们打天下。这说明什么？不清楚。

必须贴一张影片第一男主角Onni Tommila （上图），可爱得要命，在影片里跟他亲爹 Jorma Tommila 出演父子。DVD 中有两个短片，是同一编导在拍这部电影之前 (2003, 2005) 拍的同一题材短片，采用原班演员，其中 2005 年拍的短片 Rare Exports: Official Safety Instructions 里有 Onni 出镜，当时大概只有四五岁，逗死人。芬兰人里一部分有强烈的亚洲特征，跟欧洲相貌一混，效果十分神奇。他们的语言/名字也很绕口，什么时候我得拿来借用一下。

In The Loop

2011-11-12T12:31:00.005-05:00

The dialogue! The dialogue!

去查了一下，天啊，五个人合起来写的对话，我立刻脑补画面：五个哥儿们躲在一间屋子里一边抽烟一边疯狂地互相 insult each other 一边编笑话，然后拍成电影。很久很久没听过这么密集的搞笑对话了。

很多地方让我联想起英国版 The Office，只是设定换到华盛顿DC和伦敦唐宁街，虽然人物都是 minister, congressmen 什么的，但无能和乱搞跟 The Office 一样。It would have been pure hilarity if it weren't also true.

The Chute

2011-11-11T23:40:00.004-05:00

It was about eight in the evening when I decided to take the cardboard Amazon box to the garbage chute on the tenth floor. The chute is dark and dirty and stank of the seasonal mixture of garbage of a highrise apartment building. In summer, the ghost of rapidly rotten fruits and food rushes out of the pit and hits you in the face. But it is autumn now, so the stink is vague, hollow, with a slight chill of some unknown substance slowly disintegrating into some other unknown substance.

The wall into which the chute opens is hidden behind a door in a small, windowless alcove. A thoughtful design to thoroughly block the stink from creeping up the giant garbage receptacle in the basement. Tonight, however, the little alcove was lit by a dim light bulb on the verge of going out any moment, making the small enclosed space seem especially isolated.

I gripped the handle on the chute cover and pulled it open. With my head slightly turned sideways to avoid being hit by the stink, I thrust the cardboard box into the gaping black hole. Suddenly, with a damp breeze, a soft, shapeless, semi-transparent blob arose slowly out of the darkness and floated, like a jellyfish in deep sea, toward me, toward the light.

I gave out a scream and slammed the cover shut, and rushed back into the hallway, running until I reached the door to my own apartment.

Take Shelter

2011-11-09T22:09:00.011-05:00

I was not as impressed with Take Shelter as I had expected --- perhaps I had expected too much. In general, the movie leaned pretty heavily toward the "paranoid schizophrenia" context (ie, subjective delusional point of view), rather than toward the "apocalyptic horror movie" genre. The mood is beautifully created. I just thought the filmmaker could have gone farther. The dream sequences are pretty fantastic, but the movie could easily have used 2-3 more such segments --- even though I was shaking in my shoes already.

One day about a month ago, I was driving home on Rt. 66 from work and got caught in a torrential downpour. On the radio, the news station was blasting tornado warnings in just the same area. The roads were so slick with water that the car was nearly floating. Plus I could see nothing but a blur outside my window and hear nothing but the mad beating of the rain drops. I pulled over to the shoulder several times, heart pounding, hand shaking, breathing hard. It felt like the end of the world, and there I was sitting alone in the car.

According to the currently known of laws of physics, all that has happened still exists in the space-time continuum, and so exists everything in the future. The undetermined nature of time is but an illusion. The future is there, only it is out of the reach of our cognition. So I often wonder what is ahead of now, this moment, for the little speck in the universe that is I, that has already happened, waiting for my senses to enter and surround it and make it real for the sorry little brain in my scull.

Sitting in the car alone in the rain, I wondered whether a short (time) distance beyond was my car swirling in a funnel cloud. The future is right there but I cannot access it. Oh well, at least on that day the world did not end, and nor did I leave Kansas.

So, what will happen has already happened, and the only barrier is our knowledge. We are the way we are, because a large part of our nature is rooted in our oblivion of what lies beyond now. I suppose there could exist a different creature, a creature that sees every spot in the space-time continuum or even just the segment of their finite life span, a creature that has symmetrical memory of the past and future. Such creatures would feel, think, and behave differently from humans, obviously. How? I don't know. I only know that for these creatures there would be no such thing as hope.

********

Come to think of it, our sense of the past is also an illusion. The past exists in a physical sense outside of our awareness, just like the future does the same. Our knowledge of the past, however, exists in the now, in the lazy but continual sparks between neurons or the patterns of a few particular neurons somewhere in our brain, now. It has nothing to do with the actual physical events in the past, just like the girl in the photo, which I am looking at, is not the same thing as the small human female I was 30 years ago. What we are holding in our hands is not the actual past but rather a (now) flickering shadow of the past.

In other words, we have a sense of the forward direction of the flow of time, only because we have memory. Without memory, we would not know what time is. (Of course, like the stars and aliens, time exists outside of human knowledge. Or does it?)

On Conan Doyle

2011-11-08T21:22:00.009-05:00

... by Michael Dirda, who is of the editor of the book review column in Washington Post.

Last Friday we went to dinner at a fancy place near Dupont Circle. What luxury to be living in the area, I sighed. Within half a mile radius are 3 (!) book stores, including Kramer, the chain books-a-million, and a second-hand book shop which was playing Bob Dylan at 9 pm.

While browsing the shelves in Kramerbooks --- their collections were very distinctively Washingtonian, skewed toward politics, current affairs, social studies, etc. --- I happened upon Dirda's little book On Conan Doyle: Or, the Whole Art of Storytelling. It is more or less fanboy chatter about our Dr. Doyle. :D

Dirda's favorite Sherlock Holmes story is, not surprisingly, also The Hound of the Baskervilles! He claims to be a member of a club known as "Baker Street Irregulars."

Four Weddings and a Funeral

2011-11-05T22:50:00.003-04:00

They're showing it on TV tonight. My God how did it ever gain its absurd popularity? Today I find it intolerably annoying and not remotely funny or cute. Argh! Loathsome garbage! (Imagine me waving my fist in the air and scream, "LOATHSOME!")

物理科普片儿

2011-11-03T23:05:00.005-04:00

最近PBS又推出一套四小时科普片儿，讲现代理论物理，看了第一集关于空间的内容，前半部分还是老一套的历史课，从牛顿讲到爱因斯坦到量子力学，但是一半过后就是新鲜东西了，没全听说过，连某同学都没听说过放卫星用陀螺测量引力造成的空间扭曲试验。最后结尾来段新鲜有趣的、未经证实的理论，据说九分可靠，是从黑洞推导出来的：宇宙内四维空间里的一切现实其实是外面一层二位空间上储存的信息投射进来的全息影像而已。换言之，我们都是倒影。

另一条有趣的话题是，空间不是空的，充满了某种“物质”，有质量的物体的质量来自结构中的例子跟空间“物质”互动，互相作用越强，越是“滞”，就越重。这倒让我想起过去的神话般假设，空间不是空的而是充满了某种介质，然后发现了空气和粒子运动和光速守恒，介质说就被甩掉了。当然我听说过黑暗物质和黑暗能量，但是它们是最近才发现的，而所谓空间物质与质量的关系的理论出现在此之前。实际上，上小学的时候，我读过一本苏联科幻小说叫“太空神曲”，里面的一个中心理论是真空不是真空而是某种介质，可以随时从中提取能量而推动高速（半光速）太空飞船，那么星际旅行可以不必自带大量燃料。那小说在八十年代就有中文译本，那么原著最早也得七十年代出版，作者是从哪儿搞来的这套理论呢？结果居然是正确的 --- 好吧，不能肯定是正确的，因为这个所谓希格斯粒子（绰号“上帝粒子”）尚未被超级粒子撞击器正式发现，不过貌似电视上的物理学家都差不多相信了。这个理论是64年发表的，难道苏联科幻作者听说了就与时俱进地塞进了小说里？

这个节目的视觉效果很好，很形象，对解释抽象的理论很有帮助 --- 对于我这种无知外行来说。主持人又采用很多比拟的说法，例如他解释爱因斯坦通过研究光速为什么是不变的而发现了狭义相对论，说“空间和时间此起彼伏的推拉，保证了光速不变”。我咕咕地笑着跟某同学开玩笑说，这是空间和时间的阴谋！他俩商量好了扭来扭去的硬要保持光速固定不变，为的是把我们的脑子搞晕！

Why I don't like LA

2011-11-03T16:37:00.004-04:00

In preparation for an upcoming trip, I googled the area for B&N stores in various areas and, disappointed with the sparse locations, googled for other book stores. The density of book stores is so low in the vast and populated LA county that I want to weep.

No wonder I never learned to hang out in a book store until I moved east. One is hard pressed to find a book store while barreling down the streets (ha!) in the congested streets. Kids like me hang out in movie theaters, on the beach, in shopping malls, at Asian cafes, but not book stores.

To my horror, I just realized that, as book stores dropping dead across the country, we are all going the way of California.

Deception

2011-10-28T21:08:00.004-04:00

Denise Mina 的有声书。

最近又是听这本书（设定 Glasgow）又是看电视剧 Case Histories （设定 Edinburgh），搞得我满脑子苏格兰口音，半睡半醒时脑子里漂浮着苏格兰音的字词 ...

虽然受到 Michael Connelly 的推崇和评论界的追捧，我还是得鉴定为跟我气场不合。节奏太慢，主流文学气太重。因为节奏慢，我基本上把谜底都猜得七七八八。算了，不追她了。

Uncommon Therapy

2011-10-25T16:18:00.002-04:00

过去在好几处听说过 Milton Erickson (1901-1980)，精神病医生，催眠疗法大师，在二十世纪中段据说很有名气，追随者后来在他那套催眠疗法上系统建立立了NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) 疗法。但是现在的心理学和精神病学里就不经常看见他被提到。

这本书不是 Milton Erickson 写的，而是他的徒弟 Jay Haley 写的，类似学生给老师传记，把老师的病例笔记拿出来整理剪辑一下发表。里面的 cases 写得很神奇，很悬乎。

可以看出为什么 Erickson 的治疗方法后来不仅没变成主流，而且在眼下的文献里很少提到。第一，他行医的时代 (1930年代到1970年代) 医学界和精神科行内的职业准则与现代差别很大，很多当时的合理行为放到现在就有违 ethics。例如他经常给病人下直接的命令，尤其是在催眠状态下发出明确的指令，改变病人的思想，行为，甚至记忆；他还经常瞒着病人安排一些场合与冲突，让病人在不知情的情况下改变对某件事的 obsession。过去医学界的态度比较 paternalistic，替病人作主，医生出于“为你好”的动机，决定基本上全掌握在他手上。后来 bioethics 的发展方向渐渐偏向提高病人的地位，医生需要尽量跟病人开诚布公，让病人掌握选择权（哪怕他们选择得“不好”）。

第二，他的治疗手段和方法非常独特而随意，甚至充满幽默感，我觉得别人根本没法学，也无法系统化之后加以推广。当然，心理治疗实际上都是因人而异的，但是一些根本的技巧还是有规律可循，可以系统地教授、练习、掌握，但是 Erickson 的那一套，似乎很大一部分是建立在他自己的直觉和经验之上，看样子不是随便谁都能掌握的。

*****

Call me a cynic. 我在惊叹的同时又产生一些 skeptical 的念头。写书阐述病例是弗洛伊德开创的精神分析学的传统，很多精神病学家，尤其是流派创始人，写很多本书，记录病例和治疗成果，给自己的理论奠定基础，这些书一般比较通俗，吸引了专业之外的读者。别的医学专科没那么多通俗作品，也没这个传统。这本书里，Haley 直接引用了许多 Erickson 自己记录总结的病案，每一例都是神奇而成功，有一些案例（不是全部）给读者留下“一点即通”的印象，仿佛 Erickson 很轻松地通过一两次催眠就彻底治愈了顽固持久的焦虑或者纠结。我就想，就算是大师也不会百发百中吧？只写成功不写失败，很容易造成偏颇的印象。

同时又想到，心理/精神治疗的一个严格准则是保密性，其实不仅保护了病人的隐私，也可保护医生的名声。除非病人自己跳出来公开地说不仅没被治好还被治坏了，一般情况下弗洛伊德可以随便宣扬自己的方法多么有效，成功率多么高，多么手到病除，也没人能证实他的成功率是90%还是50%还是30%。一个比较有想象力的人甚至可以编造病例内容，天马行空，虚构病历 --- 追查此类书籍中的病人以及现实中的后续几乎是不可能的。

Milton Erickson 是不是象 Haley 描述得那样神奇，我当然不可能知道，不过这些案例读着很有娱乐性倒是真的。

形式

2011-10-21T09:35:00.002-04:00

前两天在考虑写一篇小说，全部描写外在的东西：环境，外貌，动作，对话。完全没有心理活动或者 judgment （这人相貌凶恶，语言粗俗，显然是个街头混混）。自然主义。

试验一下，因为我总是爱写心理活动。

然后忽然想起其实电影或者舞台剧本什么的都是这种形式，然后又想起是不是应该参考一下海明威，据说他的小说都是这种形式，我一直没兴趣，因为我偏爱读心理活动。不过还是算了，看了又会被影响乃至模仿。

The Scarecrow

2011-10-20T20:35:00.003-04:00

Michael Connelly 的小说很适合听有声版的。这本讲的是精通网络的坏人多么如虎添翼神通广大，听得我心惊肉跳，因为书里的那些手段都很 ... 普通，一点也不高精尖，完全可以想象一个 Google 或 Facebook 的员工随手即可做到，并不需要什么电脑高手黑客。小说中的男主，洛杉矶时报的犯罪版记者 Jack McEvoy 调查连环杀手，在网上 research 的时候被凶手觉察，猎手反被捕猎，凶手轻而易举地就把他的祖宗八代调查得清清楚楚，打入他的 e-mail 和报纸的整个 e-mail 系统，查到他的私人讯息，兵不血刃就打入他的银行账户，信用卡帐户，手机帐户，搞得他提不出钱，打不通电话，住不上旅馆，跟别人通不上消息，行踪被查得一清二楚。过程么，其实真的不难 ...

小说中的另一段情节也让我心有戚戚。女主角 Rachel Walling 被联邦调查局开除，因为她不识时务，得罪了局里的势力，以“跟被调查对象发生不正当关系”为借口而陷害 (这个“被调查对象”是 Jack McEvoy)。离职之后，跟 Jack 上床，Jack 说现在你可以想跟谁搞就跟谁搞，不必担心丢工作了。我听到这里忍不住吃吃地笑出来。

顺手狗了一下这本书的前传，是1996年出版的 The Poet。然后，看见他的小说系列又受刺激了：这个人经常一年出两本侦探小说！GRRM 你不羞惭吗？！

Case Histories

2011-10-18T21:48:00.006-04:00

Many years ago I showed a first-person-perspective short story of mine to a male classmate. He said, "The hero is a woman, because no man thinks or behaves like this." Ever since then I have not written anything from the male POV. Now I know the young man who was my classmate and the young woman who was I had no idea how diverse and unpredictable the male and female minds are. Nevertheless, I've always been a little embarrassed and insecure about my understanding of the male perspective or the lack of.

So imagine my shock and delight at hearing author Kate Atkinson confess, "Jackson Brodie is basically a woman --- he is me." on an interview about the TV series adapted from her novels featuring the affable private detective. And the producer of the series happily copped to the fact that the character is a "female fantasy." I had thought the same thing when I had watched the episode last Sunday, but in not so enthusiastic a mindset. Yet, now that I hear the two women admit to it cheerfully, why not? Why the hell not indeed!

Sigh. Bordie is such a Teddy bear. This is not Michael Connelly or George Pelecanos. This is the female fantasy, baby!

I loved the first episode, primarily thanks to the scenery in and around Edinburgh (aaaahhhhh...), and the variety of Scottish accent, which tickles me to no end.

Funny

2011-10-16T23:21:00.004-04:00

Saturday evening at 7, I was sitting at the nearest Barnes and Noble's cafe area, eating a piece of cake-like thing known as an Oreo Stack while flipping through the latest Us Weekly. Mind you, I don't usually read Us Weekly (really), but I have heard about their reputation for being trustworthy (really). They claim to double check and confirm their sources before printing any celebrity gossip and break divorce news earlier than National Inquirer.

So, I was flipping through the issue and saw an interview with a 22-year-old secretary in San Diego who claimed to have had a one-night stand with Ashton Kutcher, who is a comedy actor of minor fame for a few badly reviewed movies and a celebrity of major fame for having married Demi Moore. Anyway, the spunky blonde told the magazine reporter that she was invited by some friend's friend to a party held in a hotel suite that was occupied by the said actor, who subsequently invited to get into the hot tub with another girl after everybody supposedly got drunk. Kutcher then invited them to have sex with him. The offer was declined by the other girl but this girl was game. It was almost daybreak, apparently, when they went to bed.

Anyway, all this was mildly amusing. The reporter wisely printed a few of the girl's "like" in the piece to go along with the photographs. She is indeed cute and fresh faced. I was very intrigued by the interviewer's methodical approach to questioning her (a "civilian" rather than a professional celebrity). The person (I neglected to check the reporter's name) interrogated the girl like a seasoned detective, gentle but systematic, probing for all the detailed, such as whether the actor wore condoms during their acts (he did not) and whether he was tender afterward (the girl was ambiguous).

The girl said they started small talking after they both dozed off for an hour or so. The actor said that since he had to act 90% of the time, he enjoyed not acting in moments like this. He then asked a bit about the girl's background. She said she was a Lutheran from Texas. He exclaimed, "OMG, are you a Republican?" And he proceeded to ask her whether she knew anything about politics. The girl grumbled a bit and admitted that she'd heard of Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas. The actor asked her whether she'd vote for Perry next year, and she said she did not know.

This political detail is so out of place in this story that I just burst out laughing in the bookstore. Perhaps it had something to do with my having watched the political movie "The Ides of March" not an hour before. Perhaps it reminded me of my years of living in Los Angeles and knowing how indifferent the West Coast masses feel toward politics. I don't know why but the scene in my head --- a professional celebrity and his one-night-stand in bed talking about politics in a San Diego hotel --- was immensely hilarious.

Due South Season 1

2011-10-16T17:27:00.002-04:00

I can't believe they made so many episodes in season 1. A grand total of 24! I'm still on Ep. 1.17.

No wonder the show had lukewarm reception in the US, but was a huge hit in Canada. The humor, sentiment, and characterization are entirely Canadian.

Underneath the absurdity and jokes is a light melancholy, which most likely has something to do with broken families and lost love. Just a touch. I am completely powerless to resist it.

Pan

2011-10-13T20:52:00.002-04:00

把这篇 Knut Hamsun 小说放在 Kindle 上好久了都没去读。

上高中的时候在一本中篇小说集里看见这篇，狂热地着迷，翻来覆去看了很多遍。

来美国之后又找来英文版读了一遍，但是觉得很迷惑，似乎跟第一次读中文版时的感觉完全两样。

前阵子终于重新读了一遍。令我惊诧的还不是作品本身的风格如何如何，而是我自己的反应。原来二十年前的着迷完全是典型的一厢情愿的单恋，对方的性格缺陷被粉红的眼镜彻底过滤掉视而不见，而中年的眼睛立刻看穿猥琐心理，回想起当年的痴迷真是哭笑不得。

虽然猥琐，但还是很能激发我的共鸣，说明我们是同类型的猥琐！

Tsunami Song

2011-10-09T12:17:00.000-04:00

刚在广播上听见，觉得东西结合的调调很有趣。赶快记下来省得忘了。

Kenny Garrett's Tsunami Song.

New Scan Cook

2011-10-07T22:51:00.003-04:00

在 PBS 的数码副台上看见一个挪威做饭节目，说实话饭看上去也就那么回事儿，但是主持人 Andreas Viestad 特别逗。他总是在室外做饭，很多时候是阳光明媚（但是看上去不暖和）的夏天，但也有一集是飘着小雪的冬天，他穿着大衣在户外示范 cheesecake 的做法。今晚看见的节目里，Viestad 在湖边树林里搭了两块平石头，下面烧树枝，在石板上烤面包和牛排，然后面包夹牛排，涂上芥末权当蔬菜，我看得笑死了。还自己跑到湖里去捉小龙虾 (crawfish)，手指被夹得痛，把小龙虾煮了之后得意地说： Revenge is a dish best served hot. 笑死我了。很北欧的幽默。

Miles Davis

2011-10-07T18:32:00.009-04:00

In general I'm drawn first and foremost to piano, sometimes to bass, and am very rarely affected deeply by any of the brass.

Yet, listen to this Davis' rendition of "Round About Midnight" (Thelonious Monk's standard). It is soooooo intimate, so raw but tender. I'm so taken by his trumpet portion that I have tears in my eyes. It is not to say John Coltrane's tenor sax in the second half is any less, but it is just not as personal and vulnerable as the first half and the ending.

Now I want to get Davis' recordings.

Here is a piano version by Monk himself. Also beautiful.

Lehrer vs. Gladwell

2011-10-04T23:36:00.006-04:00

Jonah Lehrer and Malcolm Gladwell are an interesting pair of writers. They have covered many of the same subjects or, when they seem to cover different subjects, I soon realize that they are actually examining two sides of the same coin. I have not seen either of them acknowledge the influence of the other writer, yet their shared concerns are too numerous to ignore.

Take, for example, the topic of too many kinds of toilet papers or pasta sauces on the supermarket shelves. Lehrer thoroughly investigated the neuropsychological mechanisms of choosing in his book "How We Decide" and continues to write about it (see his recent blog entry here). He complained about feeling paralyzed standing in front of the countless brands and types of toothpastes.

Tonight I stumbled on a video of Gladwell's talk about the marketing evolution of spaghetti sauce (BTW, I think he is wrong about the "authentic" Italian sauce) he gave in 2007. It is as if he was giving a direct answer to Lehrer: Look, I'm giving you a history lesson to explain why there are so many choices for every product in the supermarket and why it's not a bad thing! (On this issue I actually side with Lehrer, as I too am sick of being overwhelmed by too many choices with hardly any substantive difference. But Gladwell is also not wrong about most people feeling happier when they imagine that there is a product "just for them.")

The Winter Thief

2011-10-02T02:05:00.009-04:00

Jenny White's novels, especially this one, remind me of GRRM to an extent. Both seem to have a coolly detached and fatalistic view of the powerlessness of individuals (including kings and pashas) swept by the currents of history. Fatalistic, but not cynical, an attitude derived from their uncommonly vast knowledge of and clearheaded understanding of the real histories of nations and politics.

Her delineation of all the forces at play in and around the Ottoman Empire at that particular moment --- January 1888 --- is almost as impossibly complicated and unbearably tense as the moment before King Joffrey ordered the beheading of Ned Stark. International socialists, Armenian nationalists, Ottoman bureaucrats and secret police, Kurdish troops, everyone has his or her own agenda. Everyone is at odds with each other and, as we already know, bureaucrats who are supposed to be on the same side are more dangerous than your enemies, and the knife is more likely to be plunged into your back than your front.

The macrohistorical elements are beautifully and credibly weaved together. The political landscape is accurately drawn. The ultimate effect is a sense of inevitability and pessimism, especially if you know that the storm brewing and temporarily averted in this book did arrive a couple of decades later, in real life, with its full force of mayhem.

Yet while reading it I was frequently bothered by small flaws that buzz around like gnats around the light on a summer night. Not bad enough to erase the accomplishment in other aspects, but annoying enough to damage my enjoyment. Most of characters are distinct enough thanks to colorful ethnic details, but their motivation from one scene to another or in certain moments are crude and unbelievable. Transitions from scene to scene are sometimes sloppy and illogical. Dialogs and relationships are occasionally unrealistic. The author lets slip her weakness in plotting with some awkward narrative choices and overlapping exposition.

These flaws are not enough to make me throw the book down. In fact, her pacing is excellent. I didn't zip through it in one day like I did with "The Abyssinian Proof," but did stay up till 2 am to finish the last stretch.

White is simultaneously sharp and sloppy. Most important , besides the plotting problem, I can't help but feel deeply unsatisfied with the uneven characterization. Something, a crucial ingredient for a great storyteller, is missing. I can't quite name it, but this ingredient has to do with a deep and organic insight, an unconscious and instinctive understanding of the heart. White seems to lack this instinct and fake it with overly intellectual analysis and argument.

GRRM, on the other hand, has this instinct in astonishing abundance.

Hugh Laurie: Let Them Talk

2011-10-01T20:25:00.003-04:00

昨晚看电视正好撞上大半 Hugh Laurie 到 New Orleans 拍摄的音乐会特辑节目 Let Them Talk。他请到一些颇有分量的当地音乐家跟他合作录制，挺有气氛的。Laurie 自己演唱加弹奏钢琴。

Hugh Laurie 唱得，嘿嘿，真的不咋地，至少我这么觉得。（Tom Jones 被采访的时候哼哼唧唧地说 Laurie 唱歌很，那个啥，有点象那个谁谁，而我，咳咳，那个啥啥，挺喜欢那个谁谁的。听得我乐坏了。）但我觉得他的钢琴还不错。更重要的是，我跟他的口味十分近似！他最迷 Blues ，选的歌都很好听，让我多次胳膊上刷刷地起鸡皮疙瘩。这是真爱啊 --- 可以从他痴迷的眼光里看得出，我对此非常理解和认同。

The Elegance of the Hedgehog (spoilers)

2011-10-01T19:53:00.007-04:00

对我来说这本书很适合听有声版。如果是读字版的，肯定早就不耐烦扔一边儿去了；但是在上班路上一边开车一边一只耳朵听，两个读书者（一老一少）声情并茂，倒很有趣。尤其是稚气的童声抒发哲学感慨，效果很逗。

小说写得好像哲学教科书，基本上没什么情节，仅有的少量情节也都是滥俗的童话套路，可有可无。我听着听着，每句话里都少不了前缀后缀的复合词，忽然就想起 William Zinsser 写过的拉丁语系和英语的差别。拉丁语系的语言风格就是层层叠叠，绕来绕去，充满 flourish。古英语传下来的词儿和风格则质朴直接，简洁有力。不过现代英语亦吸收大量拉丁语词汇，令律师们疯狂滥用得不像样儿。

Hedgehog 中唠叨的学术气，不知是作者自身职业的浸淫还是拉丁语的天然文化遗产，我偏向于后者。但是同时，不知怎么作者让干燥无水分的人生思辨和哲学感慨听上去有种游戏的轻松感，我疑神疑鬼地觉得她对一老一少两个主角的 “深刻思考” (Profound Thought #4) 和高雅情趣其实带有点不太辛辣的调笑意味。对哲学系学生和教育系统大发牢骚尤其真实加逗人。

提到 Renee 喜欢的侦探小说时冒出 Michael Connelly 和 Henning Mankell 的名字来，不禁让我微笑。可惜我不看战争与和平，不知道能不能算得上品味有文化。

小说结尾让我联想起 "One Day"，一般的 contrived，但是在这里倒也不让我多么反感。第一，我私心猜想，作者这么写，会不会是因为下不了手制造一个彻底的灰姑娘与王子从此幸福 ... 的结尾 --- 尤其是让读者脑补一对老头老太彼此上下其手乃至宽衣解带的情景！第二，结尾时 Paloma 的口气真是太日本小说了！想必是有意模仿日本小说中经常干掉主角，然后剩下的主角挥着小拳头发誓要“勇敢地活下去”这种桥段。

The novel struck me as setting a perfect tone of lightheartedness. Indeed a lighthearted tone is perfect for a philosophy professor's novel. Best leave the heavy and complex and "heart of darkness" stuff to real novelists.

The Most Delightful TV Show EVER

2011-09-30T20:00:00.003-04:00

Due South, of course.

今天在油管上找 Da Vinci's Inquests 的片尾曲 (which is awesome, btw)，看见有人提起 Due South。搅得我又回忆起多年前迷恋这套寿命甚短的电视剧了。

找到一些视频片段，里面 Fraser 的口音又逗又可爱，一般地方跟美国口音差不多，但是遇到 schedule 和 lieutenant 就是英式的讲法。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oyy1EfM6nzg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2qHluHEBG8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZrGj7Yvax8

Peeved

2011-09-30T15:40:00.002-04:00

I'm not an angry person --- not overtly at least --- and do not lose my temper more often than once or twice a month. However, certain things irritate me like a bone spur in the shin.

This week, unfortunately, I've had two such irritations. The first was a job ad posted yesterday on LinkedIn for a medical writer. The recruiter wrote that this writer would be "create guidance's for the department." ARGH! It's "guidance" or really style guide. People who cannot distinguish plurals from possessives, ie, those who write "it's" when they mean "its," really piss me off.

I'm not a grammar Nazi, you know. I don't begrudge people for misspelling words or missing an article or a preposition, nor am I particularly bothered by double negatives (as long as they are in quotes). But (see, I can even start a sentence with "but") I just hate mixing up possessives!

The second irritation came from figure skating, specifically, Han Yan's short program at this week's junior Grand Prix competition in Innsbrook, Austria. Chinese coaches who cut music for their own students are often woefully unqualified to do a barely decent job. I hate programs that totally butcher the original music! Ugh, butchered music really grates on my nerves like a dull knife cutting my toe off. These coaches should be absolutely forbidden to touch any music-editing software.

****

Oddly enough, I do not remember being irritated by grammatical errors in Chinese. Well, I don't remember seeing grammatical errors in Chinese, in fact. Maybe it is because I've almost never been around people for whom Chinese is a second language.

Wait, no, that is not the heart of the matter. A lot of errors in English are made by English-speaking natives, yet I've never seen or heard Chinese-speaking natives making grammatical errors in Chinese. A lot of mistakes (by native speakers) in choosing the right character/pictogram, yes, but grammar is never a problem.

Conclusion: Chinese grammar is VASTLY simpler and more intuitive than English grammar. So simple that no one can mess it up even if they try.

西游记

2011-09-29T18:20:00.003-04:00

昨晚某同学在看一本ABC作者的漫画书，剧情掺入了西游记的一些内容，跟华裔美国孩子的日程生活平行兼混合起来。某同学问西游记到底讲啥的，我就给他略述了一下小说的内容。说着说着，忽然意识到西游记原来是社会讽刺小说，讽刺了从上到下社会各界人士，包括在西天遇见的图书馆门卫，甚至还很有后现代主义地把佛教和道教混在了一起。简直就是 ... 格列佛游记！其实我也没读过格列佛游记，但是大约知道作者是借用神神叨叨的情节讽刺社会上各色怪现象和人性荒谬。难怪毛自比孙悟空，二者的确都是占山剪径的 bandits 头头。

Indian Myth

2011-09-27T10:48:00.000-04:00

War of the Ghosts
One night two young men from Egulac went down to the river to hunt seals and while they were there it became foggy and calm. Then they heard war-cries, and they thought: "Maybe this is a war-party". They escaped to the shore, and hid behind a log. Now canoes came up, and they heard the noise of paddles, and saw one canoe coming up to them. There were five men in the canoe, and they said:
"What do you think? We wish to take you along. We are going up the river to make war on the people."
One of the young men said,"I have no arrows."
"Arrows are in the canoe," they said.
"I will not go along. I might be killed. My relatives do not know where I have gone. But you," he said, turning to the other, "may go with them."
So one of the young men went, but the other returned home.
And the warriors went on up the river to a town on the other side of Kalama. The people came down to the water and they began to fight, and many were killed. But presently the young man heard one of the warriors say, "Quick, let us go home: that Indian has been hit." Now he thought: "Oh, they are ghosts." He did not feel sick, but they said he had been shot.
So the canoes went back to Egulac and the young man went ashore to his house and made a fire. And he told everybody and said: "Behold I accompanied the ghosts, and we went to fight. Many of our fellows were killed, and many of those who attacked us were killed. They said I was hit, and I did not feel sick."
He told it all, and then he became quiet. When the sun rose he fell down. Something black came out of his mouth. His face became contorted. The people jumped up and cried.
He was dead.

Sweeney Todd

2011-09-26T20:27:00.005-04:00

不知道 Stephen Sondheim 自己对 Tim Burton 的电影版 Sweeney Todd 有什么真实的感想，会不会捂着耳朵听不下去。Johnny Depp 的嗓音就够粗糙了，但他在整个卡司里还算不错的，其他人的演唱几乎没有一个能听的，还能听的只有年纪最小的小男孩，至少有点中气垫着。最难听的是 Burton 的老婆 Helena Bonham Carter，气若游丝，弱是弱得来。。。比我在淋浴里的歌声还差。让我对 Tim Burton 的看法咵嚓跌下一大截，一巨截，这个人完全不在乎音乐的制作质量么。

看样子 Sondheim 虽然是天才，但脾气非常好，居然没跟 Burton 翻脸，还在 DVD 上出现，说点好话，表示一下支持改编。

九月

2011-09-26T11:46:00.003-04:00

八月底台风过境，之后整个九月都在湿漉漉粘答答的空气中度过，不是雨下个没完就是雾气蒙蒙的天，浑身凉凉湿湿，怎么也不肯干，又不冷又不热，又不出太阳，让人没来由的不耐烦。

十月，希望全是秋天干燥的空气和淡淡的阳光。

Drive (and other digressions)

2011-09-25T23:15:00.012-04:00

Last week, Fish Tank reminded me of a thought that once bothered me --- As stories accumulate over human history, will we one day run out of stories to tell? Have we already? Is there truly nothing new under the sun?

I'm sure other deep thinkers have long contemplated such literary apocalypse before, although at least I can claim that I came up with it independently. It seems inevitable (to me) that there are only a finite number of stories, or original thoughts, available to the universe of the human mind and experience. Homer and other classical authors had it easier than modern storytellers, one could argue.

Fish Tank was excellent, yet my brain could not help but drudge up all the similar movies I had seen before. Same with Drive. It is impeccably crafted with a strong point of view, yet I cannot bring myself to use the word "unique."

From the start, Drive immediately recalls the archetypal western: A lone gunslinger with no past or allegiance comes to town. He befriends a good woman and her family. He toys with the fantasy of settling down with such a woman and having a normal life. He feels protective toward them. He is subsequently drawn into violent showdowns to save the peaceful normal people. In the end he rides into the sunset, alone, because that is his destiny, because the lone gunman can never integrate into society. In Drive, the entire setup, down to the ending, pays full homage to Shane (don't they all?).

The interlude involving the voluptuous Christina Hendricks (poor woman), on the other hand, was a halfhearted reference to film noir. Albert Brooks is a somewhat fresh touch in the genre though (I'd hesitate to call him "delightful"). The storyline of crime boss setting up their minor underlings, meanwhile, reminds me of John Woo's The Killer and its predecessor Le Samurai (Melville). Yeah, in this kind of stories, the boss always sells out their employees/contractors, just like bureaucrats. There may be a semi-decent middle manager (Bryan Cranston here, Chu Kong in The Killer), but the big boss is always evil. Did the French audience recognize Alain Delon's le Samurai in the boyish Ryan Gosling?

It's so meta! Nicolas Winding Refn's graphic violence and the strong retro style must have Quentin Tarantino, the king of remixing the old, biting his lips furiously. I suspect a nod to the Japanese swordsmen/Yakuza genre in all the blood squirts that both Tarantino and Refn seem to love. The techno soundtrack, on the other hand, is very European.

A bit of homage here, a tip of hat there. Meta on top of meta, references to references. It's all because we are born too late.

There's nothing wrong with Drive, which is made with a precise eye and a ruthless pair of scissors. (Editing is king, I often think.) I only shudder at the end of original stories as we know it. Or, perhaps, it is merely a hazard of being old and jaded like me.

The Winter Thief

2011-09-25T11:48:00.001-04:00

Jenny White 果然又出了一本 Kamil Pasha 侦探小说，我到图书馆去借了来打算慢慢地看。

各种土耳其生活画面与细节，尤其是城市与食物，真让人向往。

A Dream

2011-09-25T10:19:00.002-04:00

I was walking in the dark and damp backstreets of an unknown city. The walls were of the color of dirt and soot. The overcast sky occasionally drizzled.

Within a maze of houses, a door opened and ushered me into a small, bare room. Light seeped in from the only window, high up in one of the walls. The air was musty and wet. It was a cellar, I deduced. The room was entirely empty save for a bench set along the wall.

Dr. Watson sat at one end of the bench. Has a murder or some other crime taken place in the cellar? I wondered. Yet there was no body on the stone floor.

"Holmes is coming," he said, without moving.

"OK," I nodded, and left.

...

I was again walking the narrow alleys and streets. The air smelled of rain, yet none had fallen. It was just as well, for I was holding a book in my right arm. The book was paperback but with the dimensions of a normal hardback, and heavy. On the cover, medieval knights on horseback were slashing at each other.

A crack tore through the book's spine at about a quarter from the top. I held it delicately as if I was holding a baby, but it was no use: The crack expanded before my eyes, and the book snapped in two in my hands.

I stood there confounded. It was then that I realized the book was GRRM's next entry in the Ice and Fire series. And it was a pre-publication copy that Amazon had shipped to me by mistake. Should I send it back for a replacement? But then I would not be able to read it ahead of everyone else. Perhaps, I thought, I could read the whole book in their current state, and then return it to get a new copy. Then a thought entered my head: Why didn't I get a Kindle version? But a Kindle version would not have been mistakenly delivered ahead of publication ...

Fish Tank

2011-09-22T22:47:00.003-04:00

蓝领阶级，Housing Project (在英国叫 Council Estate)，单亲家庭，年轻而倔强的穷女孩子被年纪大得多的男人引诱 ... 这个永恒的故事结构，从 Tess of the d'Urbervilles 至今被反复采用。Fish Tank 也不例外。另有之前看的瑞典电影 Pure。

Fish Tank 还让我联想起其他电影，包括 Dardenne 兄弟拍的劳动阶级题材影片，还有陈果的《香港制造》，因为香港制造也是描述困在官方贫民窟，即 Housing Project 里的年轻人的故事。

这片里的女主角固然演得好，不过此类女主总是很相似，倔强而美丽的一朵野花。而 Michael Fassbender 的男主角非常性感但又保持微妙的自然主义，两人的对手戏充满了张力，倒是不太常见的特点。

The Longest Year: The Admin

2011-09-22T09:56:00.012-04:00

It is a ubiquitous phenomenon around here that the more you get paid, the less work you have to do. My boss can disappear for weeks at a time, and I can spend days doodling in my office, but the poor admins sitting in open areas have to work all day.

She came to sit outside my office a year ago. She is extremely quiet, even when she is talking on the phone or cutting open boxes of office supplies. Her moves are elegant and precise and absolutely noiseless. She is unflappable.

She looks somewhere between 30 and 35, perpetually neat and orderly. She usually has her long brown hair tied up in a bun, but on Fridays when few people are in the office ("working at home," supposedly) she would let it cascade down in a puff of soft, wavy cloud.

I initiated small talks a few times with her as I dropped off forms and picked up pens and mouse and books. I learned very little, including that she recently moved and has two children. There has never been any mention of a husband, but hints suggest that he is around. They can't afford to buy a house, so they rent a condo. (Me, too!) She said she was born in Texas and lived in New Mexico, but there was not a trace of Texan accent.

So, on Monday, when I passed by her desk, I stopped and whispered, "I'm leaving."

She looked up with not a hint of surprise on her oval face. "Another department or altogether?"

"Altogether." I replied.

Her lips curled up slightly. "I don't like it here either," she rolled her light brown eyes. "They're so disorganized."

"Tell me about it," I chuckled. One of the few sane people around, she is.

The Longest Year

2011-09-19T17:54:00.004-04:00

... is finally over, after 16 months of agony and repression and humiliation and self-doubt.

The truth about this failed relationship, however, is this: It's not me. It's YOU!

An Interesting Factoid About ...

2011-09-18T21:25:00.005-04:00

... Astrid Lindgren.

心血来潮在本地图书馆网站上找 Lindgren 的书（英文版），然后顺手 wiki 一下 Lindgren biography。

生于 1907 年，中学毕业后，在家附近的城里当秘书。19 岁时怀上了老板的孩子，老板向她求婚，她拒绝了！

这是 1926 年哦同学！不是 1996 年哦！

然后，这个未婚先孕的女秘书，一个人从乡下跑到 Stockholm 去谋生，当秘书、打字员，把孩子生下来，自己没钱没法养，就寄养在别人家里，打工攒了钱经常去探望儿子，直到攒够了钱把孩子送到娘家养。几年之后，嫁给当时的老板，但继续给杂志写新闻和文章。然后，儿童小说手稿得奖一鸣惊人...

其实她的人生整个都挺传奇的，但是在我眼中她那个19岁拒绝求婚的决定才是最意外的关键！

The Guard

2011-09-17T20:37:00.007-04:00

I guess it's Gaelic, for "The Guard" really means "the policeman." The police uniforms and cars had "Garda" on them.

The movie was hilarious, but I must have missed somewhere between 10% to 20% of the jokes, lost in the fog of Irish accent and dialect. Worse, I suspect that all the absurdities marked an Irish sense of humor --- black with a bite --- which went a little over my head. Indeed, during the movie I laughed frequently but a little uneasily, not unlike Don Cheadle's American cop who stared at Brendan Gleeson with equal parts of amusement and disbelief ("Is he truly dumb or just playing so?").

Meanwhile, the writer/director John Michael McDonagh continually referenced Hollywood action movie cliches. The climax especially recalled American westerns. It was very ... self-consciously meta, as suggested by Gleeson's knowing wink. Is that also an Irish thing?

Both Gleeson and Cheadle were impeccable, but who would have expected less from these two? However, it was the freckled boy on a bike with a dog that stole every scene he was in.

Chinese fake chicken

2011-09-14T21:32:00.007-04:00

I cook, sometimes.

Yesterday I scoured the frig and dug out the last bits of groceries since the shopping trip 2 weeks ago.

I chopped up the green beans and shiitake mushroom into short strips, saute with garlic, added water and covered to steam a while, and then threw in chopped pieces of a wrinkly tofu product known as "vegetarian chicken".

Salt, pepper, a bit of soy sauce, a couple of tablespoons of sugar should do. I dropped a scoop of "lemongrass sauce" from a jar for improvisational fun.

It probably needed five more minutes to soften a bit more, but I lost patience and turned the gas off. Served on white rice.

Lemongrass sauce

Store-bought fake chicken (not my photo).

Hunger Games

2011-09-11T19:26:00.003-04:00

这本小说实际上差不多是美国版“大逃杀”。不是很合我的胃口，或许未必是作者的责任。情节本身十分血腥野蛮，且含有社会讽刺的暗流，但以 Young Adult 的定位而出版和推销，结果造成一种遮遮掩掩的效果，有些成人化主题完全没法发掘和深入讨论。我觉得或许是自己 cynical 的态度跟 YA 类型小说本身就不太相容。

让我觉得比较有意思的是作者从女主身上流露出的俄狄浦斯情结（女儿版），不知是故意设计的还是有感而发。

Hunger Games 电影正在拍摄中，发行的时候多半会去看看，作为动作片，情节设计颇为惊觫，高潮和 twists 节奏安排得相当抓人。

八奇嘠路皮

2011-09-10T19:12:00.004-04:00

五月底的时候跟某同学去巴尔的摩的科幻会，有好几个有名的作者到会讲座，包括帕欧罗八奇嘠路皮先生 (Paolo Bacigalupi)。某同学说他现在很红，拼命得奖，没想到看上去这么年轻，还挺帅的。我说，他戴了耳环，穿着又悠闲有款，多半是弯的，而且看上去人很和气亲切的，你上去勾引他一下嘛。某同学扭捏不肯，不过，趁我睡觉的时候，他跑去买了本儿他的 Windup Girl 小说请他签名。（某同学以为他叫八西嘠路皮，我说是八奇，这是意大利语，信我的没错儿，你别跟人家说话把人家的名字都叫错了。）

这两天在读 Hunger Games，不太喜欢，想起来问某同学要来 Windup Girl 看。某同学反复警告我要细心对待，不要折书页，不要弄脏了，不要 ... 因为“是签过名的！” 我翻开首页一看，哇，还有留言呢，“给某同学，希望未来的世界比现在的世界更美好，八”。搞得我都不好意思拿着读了，象我这么不爱惜书的人（经常书敞开着面朝下放着），不如到图书馆里借本旧的乱翻算了。

哼，改天我去追来GRRM的签名。

成都火锅

2011-09-09T22:43:00.003-04:00

前几天开车时迷路了，偶然看见路边一家饭馆的中文招牌 “麻辣烫”，而且英文招牌还是拼音 Mala Tang --- 为什么麻辣要当成一个词而在一起呢？麻辣烫三个字应该是平行的嘛。上网调查一下，发现原来是一家成都火锅店。可是，麻辣烫的原意好像不是火锅 ... 吧？

今晚去尝了尝。店是华人厨师和本地洋人合开的，装潢什么的面向洋人顾客，有点拿腔拿调，还好，味道不错。火锅也是单人份的，每人一个专用的小锅。某同学很能吃辣，我就给他叫了个麻辣汤底，给自己叫了个不辣的汤底，然后点了鱼肉、羊肉、蘑菇、青菜。两人吃价格有点贵，但某同学表示物有所值。

吃到一半，一对大学生模样男女在我左边的桌旁坐下，女生是金发洋人，梳马尾辫，对男生说：“我在中国吃过正宗的...” 我的耳朵又竖起来了。然后她头头是道地讲起眼下中国各省市的关税问题，我断断续续地完全没听明白来龙去脉。然后他们就开始埋头大吃，我也继续埋头大吃，关税问题就被搁置了。

不锈钢做的小火锅下面是个酒精炉。该涮的食物都涮了之后，我招手请服务男生过来帮我把火给灭了。他拿起一个很小的盖子，在蓝火苗上一盖就灭了。过了一会儿，某同学也要灭火，很 macho 地不叫服务生，自己用夹生肉的小夹子去夹小盖子灭火，笨手笨脚地折腾了半天，终于给它盖上了。不知为什么我觉得好笑得要命。

What's in a name?

2011-09-08T21:05:00.002-04:00

不记得何时，不记得作者，只记得有个民间故事，刀枪不入的终极大恶人的练门在于它的名字，一旦名字被人猜到它就死了。

今天忽然想到这个故事的含义非同凡响啊，名字（延伸开来就是象征性符号，如语言）在现实中的确有神秘的力量。

乡下

2011-09-04T19:51:00.003-04:00

我对乡下一直有点偏见，自认城市老鼠，一定不会喜欢，一定会闷出油来。结果并不。事先没有任何计划，每日上午坐在 sunroom 里望望海湾，翻翻 Kindle ，在附近走一走，跟店主 Bob & Tracy、厨子 Peggy、其他住客聊聊天。下午跟某同学开车出去找个饭馆儿吃本地海鲜，下午在小城里逛逛，在港边看看船，天黑前回到小岛尖端看日落。晚上坐在楼下客厅的沙发，或者阁楼角落里的沙发床，上上网，读读 Kindle。九点多天黑透了，去外面看看星星。

除了 Kindle 和 laptop 之外，还带了一本 sketch notebook，但是忘记带铅笔，只有一只黑钢笔。白天坐在树下的躺椅上，水边的饭馆儿里，街边的长凳上，画画树，画画船，画画房子，画桌上一杯冰淇淋。已经很多很多年没有动笔了，十几年前自己玩过水彩画，还想去上课，但后来都搁下了。在乡下觉得处处有可以 sketch 的景致和镜头。我并不擅长画画，视觉记忆不佳，且缺乏练习，但是画画让人心情愉快，脑筋清醒。

住宿的旅店周围是个鸟类保护区，看见不少不认识的鸟，认识的鸟类有在海里捉鱼的 blue herron，海鸟，以及白头雕 bald eagle。旅店门前的大树上有家白头雕做巢安家，家里的小娃子一早必站在岛末端的十字架上得意洋洋地东张西望，让我们这些游客远远地留影。还有黑压压的蜻蜓群和几只蝴蝶，包括一只黄色的 Monarch。

在乡下呆了三天后回家，发现带回好多礼物 --- 浑身被蚊子咬了很多包，涂了三天的可的松药膏才消下去。