想看

但時間不太允許。可能要推掉些甚麼吧。

If you have no trouble making it, White Days by Lei Yuan Bin is showing at The Arts House. Only Aug 20 and 26 left. Tickets here.

Some smoke sessions are more thought-provoking than others

"I always thought I was cynical but then I realised that I might actually be an extreme romantic instead. If you're so miserable, then just be together. Finding someone you like is so hard. Everything else is compromisable -- money, kids, geography. Maybe it's because I'm a misanthrope. I don't like people easily, so when I met someone I actually liked I had to (makes grabbing motion). Finding a person who makes you happy is so difficult."

A friend talking about her housemate and friend, who broke up recently but who are both miserable and moping daily. She is married, has been married since she was 23 or something really young like that. Her husband is Canadian and they met overseas. She is now in her early 30s, still very happily married and existing very enviably with her friendly husband.

(I paraphrased what she said from memory, so the words are not exact.)

(Picture: At a train station in Hokkaido, I forget which. I was trudging behind this elderly couple. They were obviously old, older than my mother, but their gaits were sprightly and their posture, upright -- more so than mine at that point. The dainty lady was very properly dressed up in her neat, outdoorsy outfit, in that admirable Japanese way. I followed them until I managed to sneak a shot and then went on my way. As I strode past them, I thought, this, I want this.)

'Listen. Fox was here first, and his brother was the wolf. Fox said, people will live for ever. If they die they will not die for long. Wolf said, no, people will die, people must die, all things that live must die, or they will spread and cover the world, and eat all the salmon and the caribou and the buffalo, eat all the squash and all the corn. Now one day Wolf died, and he said to the fox, quick, bring me back to life. And Fox said, No, the dead must stay dead. You convinced me. And he wept as he said this. But he said it, and it was final. Now Wolf rules the world of the dead and Fox lives always under the sun and the moon, and he still mourns his brother.'

- American Gods, Neil Gaiman


The other day at Kinokuniya, we happened to be standing near a book titled How to Win Arguments, or something along those lines, I forget.

The friend I was with, a lawyer, mentioned that she knows someone who only reads books like that.

That is the saddest thing I've ever heard, was my reply. And if you really think about it, such... instructional manuals only present theory. Fiction gives you context, the play-by-play. More importantly, perhaps, it gives you a life.

I finished the tenth anniversary edition of Neil Gaiman's American Gods today. This is his preferred text and it has about 12,000 more words than the first edition, which was cut down from what was a version of this current version. I don't remember the first edition in such detail
that I know what is different about it.

I just feel... awed.

I'd forgotten what it was like to think that, perhaps, Neil Gaiman is God.

(Actually I wasn't even intending to read this, because I thought, I'd already read it once and how different could it be, and because I have been very disillusioned about Gaiman and have not even been following him on Twitter, for the longest of time. But then I saw it at the Jakarta airport bookstore and I was still holding most of my rupiah and was upset about having wasted a few days of my life on such a terribly, terribly organised trip in Indonesia that I just wanted to spend money and so I bought it and started reading it.)

There is no other explanation for the fact that this man pulled The Sandman and American Gods out of his head. They may be about gods but they make you feel so crushingly human.

I guess that's why I suddenly recalled that conversation about that person who reads only books like How to Win an Argument. So sad.

Coastal Park Connector

一直很想邊綺腳踏車邊聽音樂，
可是總覺得太危險了。
雖然我不是在馬路上行駛，但還是得常常過馬路。

那天，在這條路上
我總算如願以償。
這是一條很長很直的路，
兩旁都是樹。
右邊的樹林隔著海邊，
左邊的樹過後是大馬路，然後是幾場。
這裡的車輛走得特別快，
飛機也不停的起飛。
而我聽的，
是黃小楨的 No Budget 專輯。



No one will need to love you
as much as I need to
No one will need to be loved by you
as much as I need to
EhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnVvrrrRROOOARRR
So love, is such a wonderful thing
Mm hmm mm hmm la la la la la la

就是一直這樣。

我們都要勇敢

今天一直在想，接下來要怎樣。
其實也不只今天，
這幾個月都是在想這個。

我們這群孩子，沒辦法低著頭踏實地過人生，
老是懷抱著夢想，貪圖著一些自己也不知道是甚麼的甚麼。

就算是未知數，我們也要勇敢的去探索。
別忘了，要勇敢。
來，打勾勾。

2009，應該是2009，
那一年，我恨我的工作。
為了找些開心的事情來做，我買了第一台膠卷相機，
是一架Holga 135BC。
因為它，我開始用不同的角度看這個世界，
想把一些小小的幸福匡起來。
才知道，身邊每天每天都有些奇妙的小事情發生著。

去年，2010年，
我一個人在臺灣背著背包遊蕩了一個月，
一個月也不算多長，在那裡也沒發生甚麼晴天霹靂的大事，
不過回來之後，我發現我的人生觀改變了。
當你愛上了孤獨所賜的自由，
認清了其實別人追求的並非是自己想要的，
發現了世界其實真的很大，
一切就變得不一樣了。

臺灣，讓我找到了一部份自己，也在我內心深處掏了個空。
我想，那就是愛。

2011的夏天，
我又回到了臺灣。
這一趟，從那裡帶了一架摺疊腳踏車回來。
原來兩個輪子快速旋轉的聲音，
風塞滿著耳朵那呼呼的聲音，
急速的心跳與頻率呼吸的聲音，
這就是自由狂想曲。