Falling Slowly

Did you ever wake up in the middle of your night sleep at 5.30 am on Saturday and then stay up jaded because you couldn’t decide what to do? It’s weird isn’t it? I went to bed around 2.30 am after spending some time writing the script. I stopped writing because I was kind of stuck and needed some time to think. So I went to bed reading a little bit of Erin Brockovich, Bournce Ultimatum, and then Chris Marker’s La Jetee! (don’t try it at home, …will not ever do that again!) I didn’t have enough neuron power to read the first two that much but got immersed into the last one, La Jetee. That night, or this early morning, or three hours ago, agh…whatever, I finally able to comprehend the real brilliance of that work since I was first introduced to it in a theory seminar in grad school four or five years ago. It really is a powerful and superb piece of work!

So, after that reading, it started the ticking bomb inside my skull, I closed my eyes but continued to think about the possibilities for my script. I actually woke up because it was so insane inside my skull, it seemed like there is another life on it’s own and I couldn’t control it. I was so intense on thinking and planning what I will do on Saturday. One of it is I couldn’t decide whether to go shopping with the girls and Johan or do some test recording with Daisy and Nikko, both of which I really want to do if I have two time universe. I woke up still dreaming or imagining doing the recording. Andrea, does that kind of things happen to you as a writer? What would you call that?

I know I used to do that in school, trying to think of a solution or idea for a project during sleep. That also reminds me of what Jose, my 70+ years old teacher and one the last disciples of Le Corbusier alive, used to tell me about the importance of having a passion in what you do. He said he used to wake up in the middle of the night and take a walk trying to think about a project. That’s what we need to have in doing something, the passion, he said. I always remember that one. So what now. It’s 6 o’clock on Saturday morning, don’t feel sleepy at all but too jaded to do anything else. I am just ‘falling slowly’, like Glen Hansard’s song in Once, into the insanity of ideas.

Today's Script

It was a nice day today.
Woke up in the morning, went to the office.
Had a cup of coffee and a banana for breakfast.
Did some works for Jordan and Kazakh.
Helped Marija a little bit with Kuwait.
Got off work around two and drove Achong to a few places, Walmart, Halfrpice, Meijer, Partyshop, applying for jobs.
Walked around Walmart.
Took a short nap in my car waiting for him filling the application.
A coffee from Meijer.
Bought Hillsong’s new remix CD and a book by Tommy Kyllonen, the hip-hop pastor.
Went to Cissy’s holiday party, met a group of very interesting people: Bob, Sally, Jay, Sandya, Bruce, Mousam, Mark, Carlos, Harsh, Steve, Lyndell, Aleks, and Anastasia.
Borrowed Wilco’s new album, Sky Blue Sky.
It is the Christmas weekend, that’s why...
Enjoy the love. Merry Christmas!

dream

dream, late morning, i was driving a big car, ford f-150 (parked beside my car yesterday), unstopable, driving through a bridge and plunged to a river, a tall bridge, planned to get out after the plunge, running from something, like hollywood action movie (I am Legend that I saw last weekeend?), archana had a baby, there is one more but i forget...

My Cyborg Pose

The Pursuit of Unhappiness

I met with Owen again. I first saw him in the special care unit of the hospital when he was born a couple weeks early. Always a delight and joy to watch and play with him. But that’s the thing though that makes me thinking while I am here. See, I love to play with little kids... but to have one? Ehm...I am not so sure. After looking at the efforts and care that my sister and her husband put in to take care of one child, kids are not as fun as I thought anymore. I have always felt that way... I love to hang out with nephews and nieces but when it's time for maintainace, I would fled from scene of crime as fast as I can.

Also, being the last in line in my family to be married is not fun. I have to observe all the challenges of raising kids and see the other side of the marriage coin, the unhappiness, the endless complaints, in-laws, etc. So, is that good or bad? People would say that’s a good experience but as for me at this point, it is not.

LAnded

I am in Torrance now visiting sis, mom and little o.

This should be the last of my three consecutive weeks of going back and forth from Ohio Missouri Ohio Illinois Ohio California Ohio. These trips were not really planned but all these events just happened side by side and I just have to go to all of them for various reasons. So for the last three weeks I usually worked Monday and Tuesday and then spend the rest of the week out... Imagine if that could be a lifestyle it would probably be fun.

I am sure this is creating a hassle for 'Mr Manager', but there is something more important in life than work, right? Especially after Fred's passing away and me realizing how tragic the timing is, just as he was getting ready to retire with all the benefits and wealth he had accumulated over the last forty years. But I am sure he has had an enjoyable life and career as well.

Black Monday

I felt a loss today. My friend, mentor, and colleague fell off over the weekend and died. Fred was a great architect, had been one for forty years. He was somebody who looked at and designed architecture with passion. His hotel downtown is of the most beautiful architecture I’ve ever known. His presence and spirit will always be with me and continue to inspire me through that. I am proud and honored to be the one of the last youngest designers to work with him for the last two years. Another character of him that will deeply influence me was his frankness to everyone around him. No words can ever describes the depth and value of the experiences together with him, so I just want to say, thank you.

Ned Flanders' Vegas

Hey, I am in Branson, Missouri right now for this year’s retreat. Quite an interesting place, feels like the Midwest version of Las Vegas. Here is some text from WIKIPEDIA about Branson: A quote from The Simpsons goes as far as Bart saying "My dad says it’s like Vegas — if it were run by Ned Flanders".

So, it’s the end of the first day and I am quite excited to be here although a little tired, haven’t gotten any real sleep since yesterday. Will keep posting soon.

The Amazing Ray

Finally today I got to see a doctor for my knee injury, a small step for mankind but a giant step for me. I have postponed it for almost a year since I buckled my knee and injured it for the first time. Since then, I abused it several times again because I just couldn't resist the temptation to play sports, especially soccer, the game of my life. Through it I learned so much about life and human experiences, first how one can thrife in it and now, since the knee incident, learn the limit of it. So by going to the doctor today I officially admit to myself that I am older now and in a new phase of life.

But what really brought that notion of being older to home was actually by looking at the x-ray images of my own knee. This is my first time looking at x-ray and the inside of my own body parts. Suddenly, a small and tender voice from Mr. Knee spoke to me "See, that is you and that is also me, can't you see how small and fragile I am, just a little thing in there that has to endure all your 'exciting' activities. See, yourself and myself are one, we are one, whatever you do to me will happen to you..." Seriously, that's a revelation to me. Sometime we forget that our body is fragile and made up of many little parts... there is a limit for how much it can endure. My friend, be nice to your own body, please.

Wish Me Luck

I will gone for a while, will be doing lots of stuffs, really exciting stuffs though: learning how to write a script, in the very early process of working my first indi film (ala Nuri Bilge Ceylan), rebuilding church website, actively recording, editing, and documenting events, helping my pastor strategize plans for next year, designing a 2 ha luxury apartments and hotel, doing a church retreat soon, and then a leadership conference in chicago, mom in la, east coast road trip… all before the end of 2007. Wish me luck.

San Juan Bautista and alternate Marxism

The story (and history) of the Mayflower ship has always been associated with, among other things, positive human mental strengths such as courage, persistency, and heroic ingenuity. The ship arrived in Plymouth in 1620 and carried one of the earliest European settlers. But there is another story that is often overlooked and not heard as much although it could represent equally well, if not better, the human mental strengths mentioned above. It is the story of another ship called San Juan Bautista. It was a Spanish ship that carried slaves from Angola, pirated, and then some the slaves transferred to Plymouth in 1619. Those slaves became one of the first Black Americans in North America. Their journey, a very long journey, and survival are more fascinating to me.

The history of Black America is about a distinct group of modern people that evolved and progress in the last 400 years in a very fascinating way. I remember sometime ago I heard a profound speech from Sonia Sanchez in one of Tavis Smiley’s shows commemorating the 400-year of Jamestown settlement. Tavis was bringing up the question what would America be without the Negro people and asked her “what does it mean to you, for you that we have in fact survive?”.

And she replied very passionately and firmly that, “we have not only survive, we have moved to another level to this place called America... this country said that black people would not survive, we didn't have the smarts, we didn't have information, we didn't have the go getter to survive, but looked at us we did survive...but the point to me, is that through out the 20th century, what we showed the world is that, against great odds we not only survived, but we taught America how to survive also, we taught America and the world: culture, good manners, humanity. We taught America that indeed you can enslave someone physically but you don't enslave them always mentally, you don't enslave the spirit also too. And so we continue to produce not only music, not only dance, not only literature, but we also put something else into this ballgame called America. We said in the 1960s, what does it means to be human, we threw that out into this mix, if you want to be human you got to do the followings…”

What a speech!

During that same period when I heard her in the radio, I was also reading and thinking about Karl Marx a little bit. I was just wondering why Marxism could still be so popular and effective in almost all intellectual fields while at the same time it is a well-known failure in every single social and political experiments in the modern history. Then the two things coalesced together in my mind at that point. I realized that the history of Black people in America is actually what a successful Marxian revolution would be. It is the alternate Marxian revolution, one which ends with the true triumph of the proletariats but achieved without the rigid and dogmatic rhetoric of the theory. So, I think the history of Black people can be used to revise Marx’s theory.

7a

sadness pill

Are you feeling blue? I have a sadness pill for you. Listen to Ray Charles' rendition of "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word". The lyric and song were originally created by Elton John in the 70s and had become one his hallmarks. But Charles' version is somewhat different, I guess it just sounds deeper and sad-errr. When he sang it, you know that he really meant it and knew exactly how you felt deep inside the soul because he (sounded like he) had been there, the same emotional valley that you are in now. Listening and experiencing the song and music let you swim in the romantic bleakness instead of drowning in it. That's the magic of Ray Charles, no wonder he is called the father of soul music. Click the sound clip below to listen what I am talking about.


Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

What have I got to do to make you love me
What have I got to do to make you care
What do I do when lightning strikes me
And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I say when it's all over
And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I do when lightning strikes me
What have I got to do
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word

after-affects

Hey, I think I have found something that is more irrational than love. It is the thing called affection. When I was in grad school, that was actually the hotness of the day, the theory of affects. It had become an interesting intellectual discourse, one that I am still influenced by too. But that’s affects in my nerdy world. What I am interested in this blog is about affection in the world of feelings, the ‘real’ world, the John and Jane world... Here are some basic definitions from dictionary, one, a moderate feeling or emotion, two, tender attachment, three, the feeling aspect of consciousness.

I am very curious about how other people’s experience about it. For sure, I had it every now and then, not always. But when I had it toward a woman, it was a great feeling. Like the definitions above, it is something soft and elusive like a thin coat of soap bubble on your heart. You can have affection in several ways. It could be somebody that is older or younger (slightly) than you that is affecting your comfort. It could be somebody that you admire or respect. It could be somebody new that has something that your current relationship couldn’t provide, etc.

But one that drives me crazy, and the most irrational, is that you can be affected by a person without even knowing that person or seeing her physically. I am sure that is something different from falling in love. That is affectation or “the state of being affected.” You know what I mean? Did you ever feel that sensation? Did you enjoy it or you just forget about it? Do you think people from different ages experience it differently? Did you, all the women out there, experience it differently than us? Let me know.

PS: Ken, you are the one that used that word a lot (including one for my ex-girlfriend!!!). If you are reading this: how is it going? How is your after-affects life so far...

a bizzare interconnected world

Hey, I just want to share an interesting photo from New York Times online frontpage featuring the Iraqi football team who just won the Asian Cup 2007 in Jakarta against three-time champion Saudi Arabia. For those of you who follow our national team's struggle in the past 20 years to just pass the qualification group, winning the Asian Cup would be a huge thing.

Looking at that photo this morning is just an amazing moment for me thinking of our bizzare interconnected world today. Well it started from Captain Younis Mahmoud dramatic corner kick header that sealed the winning goal for the Iraqis. There is a great jubilant going on right now across Iraq as all people old and young, men and women risking their lives celebrating the victory. PM Al-Maliki had to order a full car curvew across Iraq to prevent the terrorist for blowing up people who are celebrating which they did before as the Iraq team progressing through the Asian Cup.

There is a deep joy inside me, a triumph of humanity against terror, it can keep us in fear but never always, from celebrating life. I am also proud that we can in our small way contributed to this globally interconnected historical moment.. a short moment that unites the universal human spirit, the Sunnis with the Shiites, people across the world who have concerns in that region, the Americans with the Iraqis, and even the Indonesians from all background who were part of the event that day live in Senayan or in warungs and in their neighborhoods.

But take a look at the screenshot photo I send you. It's the best part. Standing in front of the team in Senayan is FIFA's President Sepp Blater and AFC's Mohamed bin Hammam the bigshots in the world football. Next to them of course is our good looking President Bambang which I am not sure whether he is happy and smiling or depressed and worry (about his safety?).. an ambiguous man indeed... just like his presidency. But the funny part is his bodyguard to the right of the photo... hahahah that guy is really funny.. standing sideway 90 degree to the camera looking stern at his president... completely in contrast with the rest of the people... good job Mr Bodyguard !!! I am proud of you too showing the world we can be serious and focused when doing our job : ) Great photograph also.

the gravity of memory

I watched my second Michel Gondry's film "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind". The first one was "the science of sleep". Both are really good. Good enough to keep me up past midnight to type. This one is also the staple of Gondry's works of using surreal visuals to depict the non-linear and intertwining connection of memory (eternal) and dream (the science). So watching them in reverse of their release dates actually makes more sense.

But the basic story in 'eternal' is closer to my heart. It is about an incidental meeting of an introvert man with an impulsive woman. The introvert man got attracted to the out-going approach of the woman. The woman curious with the quiet but thoughtful and humorous man. The man didn't find anything that "he doesn't like". So did the woman. Life became beautiful for both. Until the proportion of their differences piled up and surpassed those early beautiful moments. The woman then would get bored with the bookish man and feel trapped in the relationship. The man will get tired of the impulsiveness and insecurity of the woman. Relationship grew cold and became tiresome. The woman would call it off. The man would let it go. Their live would go on and continue to diverge. However, both would now live in a new realm constantly under the gravity of their memories. That's the underlying story line in "eternal". A universal human romance problem indeed. Merci Michel.

some moving thoughts

This is a blog about three recent movies that I watched: A Man with a Movie Camera (1929) by Dziga Vertov, The Lake House (2006) played by Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, and Evan Almighty (2007) played by Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman, and Lauren Graham. The similarity from all of them is that they are better than what I expected and that’s it.

AMWAMC is a black and white experimental movie shot in the nascent days of filming on celluloid. It has no specific storyline and just a pure indulgence in recording. That’s probably the biggest joy of a filmmaker. That is if he can just make a movie by focusing fully on the visual composition and free from the tyranny of a narrative.

The content of the film is also interesting. It has several things that I wanted to comment on. It experimented with shooting techniques that are quite innovative and creative even by today’s standard. Among my favorites are the bird-eye view of the city and a couple of breathtaking freeze frame moments.

The subjects in the movie include people from a wide range of social classes in Ukraine mainly the rich, the poor, and the workers. Another main subject is the daily mix of urban activities of factories, heavy machines, trains, trams, pedestrians, horses, carriages, and rickshaw. It is the time when the images of heavy industrial era technology can still coexist with a residue of medieval technology in the streets of big cities. The main experimental value of that work is its attempt to combine film and photography into one cohesive or hybrid project.

The Lake House is a nice little charming romantic movie but with some intellectual interests to me. Well the first obvious thing is this is the reunion of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves after Speed more than a decade ago. Besides, they are both such a good looking Caucasian male and female that any kind of movie which even only has one of them will make it worth your eight-and-a-half dollar in the theatre.

Alex (Reeves) is portraying an architect who is in a juncture in his life both professionally and privately. At work, he has just moved out from his dad’s prestigious practice in downtown Chicago to a ‘less’ glamorous job at developer’s building site. In his private life, he is in the familiar quest to search for the ideal companion. He lives in 2004. Kate (Bullock) who lives in 2006 is a young doctor who has just got into the, already cold, life together with a successful young lawyer. All of these characters are caricatures of modern metropolitan people.

But what’s exciting is when they both start communicating to each other and exchanging affection back and forth literally through times. Alex is constructing his dream every day until he will meet this woman. Kate flashback-ing through her memories to find this guy she met at some point in the past. Both are basic story-telling techniques but rarely are both deployed simultaneously and so seamlessly on a single screen. When you feel the switch in the story-telling perspective it is a sublime movie feeling. This is also probably the first movie, at least for me, that illustrate the possibility of the multiple universes advocated by string theorists like Brian Greene.

The Lake House itself is a beautiful project. It is an early 20th century art-nouveou style glass house set on a scenic lake. It is not a real building but a set constructed in 7 weeks and had to be torn down immediately after the movie production. Just to add a couple observations. First, with the single-pane glass on a lakeside in the Midwest, it would be almost impossible to live in that house in the winter. Second, if Alex’s father died in 2005 and the house was constructed in the beginning his career and when Alex was between 5 and 8 years old, then the year it was built must fall between 1950s and 1960s. At that time, new modernism and avant-garde architecture were at their heights. To build an art-nouveau house like that for a young architect rising in his career, he must be a retro or traditional style architect.

Last, last, and finally is Evan Almighty. I praise this movie for it’s creative political attempt. Like other movies in the same genre, this one quite successfully caters to audience from various ages and social backgrounds. But what’s different is that it also able to send a subtle political message that are acceptable to both the right wing conservative and left wing environmentalist.

the convergence

Beethoven is the household name in our popular culture associated with creative and artistic genius in music. I have always tried to learn more about him but never got a good chunk of time to spend on it. And fortunately tonight I stumbled upon the movie Copying Beethoven (2006) and got a quick intro into his life. He is portrayed as the typical blend of a master genius that is eccentric, egoistic, imbalance, lonely, spiritual, but on top of those all is brilliant.

In that movie, I enjoy the images of 18th century Europe and the Baroque Vienna. I am also inspired by Beethoven’s intense devotion in writing music. Something that I can really related with right now as I am drawn more and more into the passion to ‘write’ architecture. A composer’s life is similar to an architect. His main preoccupation is to imagine and plan the orchestra. He is able to conceptualize the simultaneous flows of many instruments and at the same time also able deploy a specific effect of an instrument. Architecture is like an orchestra. It is the convergence of techniques, history, and effects. That’s what makes it very exciting to me.

Thinking about architecture occupies all my waking hours. Everything that I see and experience can be projected back into this passion inside me. I feel like it is something that I will do for the rest of life no matter what my profession is and will be.

this might be why

I am always more attracted to music by people like Miles Davis, Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and all their contemporary descendants such as Diana Krall, Jamie Cullum, Jane Monheit and a few other jazz quartets. This might be why. In addition to all the wonderful sounds, their works share a kind of lamentation and melancholy about life. They all sing about or sound a certain broken-heartedness, not in despair but in a moody and therapeutic way.

However sad the songs or the music sometime could be, they all sing with a theme of hope, the inner strength of human spirit, or the light at the end of the tunnel. It is that soul-searching aspect of the music that I enjoyed very much. They are not very different from the Ecclesiastes writings, my favorite part of the Bible, about the universal and time-less human soul yearning.

am I really Rhea?

If you want to see a weird movie, see Tarkovsky's Solaris (1972). If you want to see a weirder movie, see Soderbergh's Solaris (2002). If you want to become weird, read Stanislav Lem's novel, Solaris (1961).

Well, to be honest, I am actually quite intrigue by all these Solaris stuffs. They have the ingredients of things that I am interested in: morality, reason, memory, consciousness, intelligence, existence and feelings. Maybe this is my unconscious reaction to my other interest in the physical environment and its construct. Or those could be just a universal human interest. Last but not least, it would be interesting to analyze all these versions of Solaris as a case study for the evolution of ideas and interpretations. Let’s quote Gibrarian’s word in the 2002 Solaris, “There are no answers, only choices.”

miss home

Psalm 119:89-96
Your word, O LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures. Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life. Save me, for I am yours; I have sought out your precepts. The wicked are waiting to destroy me, but I will ponder your statutes. To all perfection I see a limit; but your commands are boundless.

I heard about this psalm today at the church. My pastor shared about the intimate loving relationship we have with our God. Sometime, in life, we can keep running away from Him but surely at some point we will miss home. The unfathomable side of our faith is that we know God is always there ready to accept us with open hands. It is that feeling of a personal and loving God that I felt today through this verse.

solaris

I just finished watching Tarkovsky's Solaris. This is the first time I ever experienced a movie like this. It took me almost a week to finish it. It's so slow-paced so I had to pause, sleep, and continue the next day. I just realized it's parallel to Kris Kelvin's experience in the station. A series of oscillating memories, realities, and dreams. During the day, the images in the movie stayed in mind and intermixing with my reality. And at night, both got mixed together in my dreams. Actually, I discovered a new way to experience a film by wacthing it in segments, just like reading a novel. This is the perfect cinematic “blur” project. Cool. The end of the film, however, is very perplexing to me. It shows an island appearing on the ocean of Solaris. Did he eventually return to earth? Or is that showing the alien form adapting to the consciousness of human and evolving after interacting psychic-ly with Kris? Or did Tarkovsky prophecy the end of socialism in Russia? : ) I am curious to know your personal reading of that.

wounded in love

Tell me what a feeling looks like. Sad. It’s just in there. What makes me sad? See a woman that I love, got married, had a children, and lived happily with her family. A feeling never leaves you. Really. I tried to avoid it and bury it for the last nine years thinking that I had been pretty far from it. I tried to replace it with another one. It worked a little bit, temporarily, but not erasing it. Maybe this what people called wounded in love. What can a year do to you? It can torture your feeling for the rest of your life. That’s what I felt. Is feeling real or merely an illusion of imagination?

a sticky life

I just came back from watching Breaking and Entering, a new film, wrote and directed by Antony Minghella. It is a really good film but I was surprised not many people were there. I watched it in the theatre with three friends and there were a total of seven people when the film started. By the end of the show only four of us left. More sadly, they were also not too fond of the film. I couldn’t believe it. What’s wrong with people, I thought. So I will try to share what I think of the film a little bit here.

As most of the movie critics agree, the strength of the film is in the performance the supporting characters which consist of a string of fine and veteran actors. First, there is Juliette Binoche a well known French actor who plays the Bosnian immigrant single mother. Robin Wright Penn who plays the character Liv, the wife, and becomes a great balance to Binoche’s character. Martin Freeman, who we remember playing a comical character in BBC’s The Office, plays a very serious business partner of Will Francis. And most memorable to me is the acting of Vera Farmiga, recently in The Departed, as Oana the Eastern European prostitute. Jude Law, nevertheless, does business as usual and plays the main character Will Francis, a rising landscape architect in London, equally impressive.

I also like what Minghella said about London, his home city, in the interview clip on their website (http://www.breakingandentering-movie.com). Oftentimes people talk about London as a great multicultural center and sort of a melting pot of cultures. That’s a “charming” depiction of the city. But he is more interested to portray the “less charming” reality of the city. I think his attempt to describe the city this way is much more interesting and truthful than any tourist books can ever do.

His analysis is that there is a void in the English blue-collar social strata because everybody ‘suddenly’ moved to the middle class. As a consequence of this absence of English blue-collar workers, there emerged a new “invisible” class made up of immigrants and filled the vacuum in the society. Law, also on their website, described one unique aspect of the film that it is so “specific to this period”. It is a film made now and also about the “now”, such as the impact of the Bosnian conflict and the Somali immigrants for the people in the film.

With the underlying themes above, Minghella beautifully weaved several lines of interesting story ideas into one coherent film project. It is filled with metaphors about the entanglement of two worlds. It is the inner struggles in Will Francis as a husband, an architect, and as a human. It is the symbiotic coexistence between the upper middle class and the lower class. It is the tension between urban environments and its inhabitants. Through this he is trying to argue that although our reality is sticky and messy but it is also filled with beautiful encounters and personal redemptions.

A sticky life is my intepretation of the word 'sticky jam' used in the film. 'Sticky jam' is a metaphor the daughter read from a children story book at a moment when each character’s life in the film is completely entangled with each other. I think that’s a very subtle and clever climax of the story. I would also add that there is another layer of entanglement among the metaphors itself. But I will save this for another discussion when you get the chance to see the film. I would be interested to know what you think, anything, so go for it.

a painful uneasiness

Ryabovitch and Olengka (Olga Semyonovna) are the main characters in Anton Chekov’s short stories The Kiss (1887) and The Darling (1899). As you know, Chekov is the master in dissecting human emotions and feelings and presenting them as vignettes of daily life through his short stories. These two stories explore the captive power of a feeling.

Ryabovitch was occupied by the kiss he got unexpectedly in a party while on duty with his artillery battalion. The image of the mysterious woman and the dark room flickering on and off in his mind during his five months away in tents and landscape. Chekov exploits this feeling of longing that we are all familiar with when we are in love. It is “A painful uneasiness that took possession of him.”

Olengka also has a longing although in a different way. She is a woman that always feels the need to express love to somebody. “She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her whole soul and reason…” Without it, her soul, “was empty and dreary and full of bitterness.” When it's taken away she is lost and desolate: “In winter she sat at her window and looked at the snow. When she caught the scent of spring , or heard the chime of the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed over with tears; but his was only for a minute, and then came emptiness again and the sense of the futility in life.” But who wouldn't if put in her place. She lost three husbands and a step son. This is where, I think, Chekov really pushed the experiment of human feelings to the extreme.

The captive power of a feeling is really interesting. Although I hated when I was in it. It’s like being trapped in a mud slide. Messy and stupid. But I asked myself why is it so captivating as in Ryabovitch’s story and could create such a misery as in Olengka’s story? Then I think about something different. These two stories are more about an exploration on how one can shape a feeling or otherwise be shaped by it.

the paradox of love

That's what just came up my mind... i thought that, like many other things that came out of my mind, was the most genius thing one can ever think of, that i was the smartest person under the sun.. and it lasted for 30 seconds, after that usually came another "what a crap", "anyone can come up with that"... but i will give it a try this time.. maybe my second self was wrong...

At last i understand what a perfect love is... it is perfect when it is one-sided. You can only really love someone when that one doesn't love you. That's weird, but think about it. When you are in a relationship, when you say you "love each other" you don't really "love" each other. What you do is you are just being kind because she is being kind because you are being kind and so on and so on. Maybe that's one of the "chasing after the wind" in the Ecclesiastes. That is the irony of life. The beautiful irony. Well, what do you think? maybe, maybe not, stupid, bodoh, aneh, desperate?

I know what you are thinking now, the answer is No. I am not trying to please myself because I was rejected or something like that. It just happened suddenly that i was able to steal some internet connection from my neighbor and Xenia keep asking me to write something in this blog. So here is the blog of the day.

love yet?

Three years ago, around the same time in the year, I asked you in this blog "If love is not enough to love, what else is there in love?" I am still waiting for an answer from anyone of you out there... Because I still have no clue after all this time. It feels like the snow landscape, it could be sublimely beautiful but cold and harsh at the same time.

The Jakartans

"Gue stay sampe malem jam 9 trus balik keluar sama temen2 gue yg salah satunya lagi hamil dg naik mobil box menerjang banjir... sampe di depan gerbang metro kita jalan kaki sekitar 2 kilo di tengah banjir utk nyegat oplet di pinggir tol... utg tuhan baik, kita ditengah jalan ketemu sama sopir metro yg mau anterin pake mobil phanter sampe ke pinggir tol... Man, waktu itu seluruh hp dan telpon telkomsel juga lumpuh sejakarta... itu bener2 balik ke zaman pre-technology deh... kita udah kaya refugee2 yg diliat di tv-tv(ditambah lagi dengan ibu hamil 6 bulan temen baik gue yg ikut kita jalan 2 kilo di tengah banjir)... yg bias lo andelin cuma strangers di tengah jalan dan di kampung2 sekitar yg bahu-membahu saling nolongin orang... (gue bener2 enjoy the experience of solidarity among the people around, baik di kantor maupun di jalan2) Sayang banget lo gak di sini, i bet you'll gonna love the experience too..." - Ken

Ken, thanks for your live reportage about the flood in Jakarta. Well, first, it's great to hear that you are all right. Secondly, I am very thrilled to hear such a light spirited voice from you and the people around you in such an inconvenient time. And that's what I am about to write now.

As you have probably known, I have been thinking and reminiscing about Jakarta for quite some time now… actually ever since I was away from it. The city is always in my heart and is the image of home for me. I love the traffic messiness and the informality of the urban structures (highways, pollutions, warungs, reckless oplets, metrominis, ojeks, etc…). But I became a little bit sad about Jakarta every time I encounter stories about major urban developments in other metropolitan cities in the region such as Kualalumpur, Singapore, Hongkong, Shanghai, Tokyo… It seems that they all just keep moving forward, keep upgrading, building great urban spaces and architecture, and leaving us behind. We keep hearing flashy things about KL with it’s Petronas Towers in all kind of news, books, and magazines. And now they have the brand new Putrajaya with state-of-the arts convention center, offices, and starries hotels. Singapore is making plan for first ever Frank Gehry’s building in Asia. Hongkong always vibrant and filled with iconic towers. Shanghai has been “hulk”ing for almost a decade now. Tokyo, the largest and most populated place on earth, is a classic story of a relatively success megapolitan.

Not until I received your email that I realized that Jakarta’s strength is actually in her people. She is a city that has gone through many difficult times. Therefore it produced strong and resilient people called Jakartans. In my time there within the past ten years, I witness the heroic daily life of these Jakartans. They have to endure daily heavy city traffic, tough environments, live through riots, big or small, and even started a revolution for the whole country. Let’s think about that for a second, a revolution that overthrew a 32-year old military regime! That’s what the Jakartans are capable for, a heroic daily life and once in a while, a revolution!

That’s the respect I have for Jakarta and it’s people now. So you are exactly right Ken. You have only been there for less than a year now and you already got the Jakartan spirit. Tetap semangat!

Petebakar Is Cooking

Hello all. I am back from hibernating. Thanks to devanga for his enthusiasm that encourage me to revive my virtual presence. Let's start cooking.