居閑

他說，今早逛家私店，買了些香檳酒杯，一個連鏡的小櫃，好裝在浴室牆上，也買了把新椅子，可以躺著看書。

下午，還要去買學中文的認字卡。

Winona Ryder Shoplifted My Heart

剛剛同我老爹討論 Winona Ryder ，太興奮不得不馬上報告一下。話說最近心血來潮想翻看 WR （好歹 Little Women 是我最初喜愛的電影之一），首先是 Reality Bites ，講起她在油站用老爹的油卡「套現」的那組蒙太奇，青春散漫不濟到我和老爹眉飛色舞，老爹一再強調很喜歡這種 intelligent 、著住件 tee 的 woman-slacker （ well ，那是否都好喜歡我？咁我老爹就梗係喜歡我啦）。但是那場戲令我忽發奇想的其實是：Winona Ryder 可以演莎岡。除了因為 Reality Bites 令我有 Sagan 的聯想，也因為 WR 銀幕上銀幕下，都是個不規矩的 sweetheart 。講下去其實有點欷歔了，一單偷買就要了她的命，打後沒有演過有可為的角色，最近淪落到母親級大配角──同事傳來一幀 Star Trek 劇照，嚇得我心驚肉跳，那些令她看起來似五十歲的皺紋，都是化妝吧？但是為甚麼化得那麼逼真？ C'mon ，平步青雲的 Anne Hathaway 只是她的一個乖巧型翻版而已，看 Becoming Jane 不如看 Little Women ，看 Rachel Getting Married 不如看 Girl, Interrupted ── WR 自己監製，一個不小心捧紅了 Angelina Jolie ......

Winona Ryder 可以演莎岡，老爹連連稱是。當年那種消耗生命，愛理不理，其實又有點空洞，有點憂鬱已經那麼入神，現在有過墮落天使（我譯老爹口中的 tarnished angel ）的切身經歷，演來一定更加有深度。嘖嘖，怎麼你就是沒遇上這個劇本？不過也不要緊，就是想想也興奮！


（標題借的是 Facebook 上 WR 小組的名稱）

The Art of Being Totally Pointless

某日與咪某人吃飯，踫見黃小姐，黃小姐好興奮地説：「吖，我看了部戲很似你們兩個！」接着説了一堆法文，我目瞪口呆。

後來黃小姐把那部戲借了給我，是利維特的 Celine and Julie Go Boating 。看完之後就更加的目瞪口呆了，是為： The art of being totally pointless!

我地真係煩

（呢個真係要中文喎）

男下屬上來交帶事情，我指指隔離個空位：「佢今日生日喎。」

男：「知。我會發短信給她的啦。哈哈...」退下。

退到一半返轉頭：「你地真係煩！你生日佢又叫我發短信比你，佢生日你又叫我發短信比佢！」

藝高人膽大

假如當年希治閣讓珍妮李在《觸目驚心》半路中途死去是破天荒之舉，今天 PIXAR 教 ELLIE 一開場就仙遊簡直就是驚世駭俗，藝高人膽大。我的意思是，看過電影的人都不會不同意影片灰沉的暗湧（人生的許多來不及，家庭的不圓滿）是面向成人觀衆，但 UP 始終是一部主流電影，而且是動畫，而且是笑、涙、驚、險都計算得恰到好處的動畫，他們卻以一個暮年鰥夫和一個單親小男孩爲主角，帶足全場（怎麼有點眼熟，似個簡單版的《一生何求》？）。人生的破碎不是由大團圓結局彌補，而是學會接受——最後，一直不在場的父親也沒有出現——，也是非常反主流的智慧。看似快樂的結局，不免還是有點蒼涼，然而這就是人生。

——至於那一大綑色彩繽紛的汽球，實在很難令我抹去對《紅汽球》的聯想。

The Venetian Marble: Artistically Extravagant

My first stop in Barcelona during my Europe trip saw some really stylish mosaics and tile-pastiche works by Gaudi, their vigorous colours and eccentric patterns brimmed with imagination and vitality (and playfulness).

However……

Only when I stepped into the Basillica di San Marco did I really feel at awe: on the ground, the finest marbles in various shapes, each of them distinctive and carries its own beauty, were collaged in a sublime and majestic manner – the purpose of which is not to be eye-catching or startling, yet to be subtle and refined - , embodying an aesthetic that belongs to a highly civilized and artistically extravagant (meaning, at once: extravagant in artistic accomplishment, and an extravagance that is artistic) culture.

No photos allowed and my memory is thus fixed to this postcard that I bought from there. It stays in my heart, very dearly. (The fact is, you have the see the real thing to feel its charm).

(click for a larger image)

Male Sensitivity: Reading Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes

When reading this book, I suddenly realized that for all these years, almost all of the writers that I am obsessed with are those who concerns (more) about female sensitivity: Eileen Chang being too significant and exquisite she hardly needs mentioning, Sagan a very girlish, and later womanly, liberated and sometimes-self-judgmental soul, Miss Zhu Tianxin writes intimately not just about women but also lesbians (and apart from that, some larger-than-life issues), Kawabata a master (and connoisseur) of female sensitivity and sensuality, Mishima exhibits emotional depths and artistic aspirations with much complexity that appear more gay and feminine than straight, Kundera is sharp and witty about both sexes, and Proust's sensitive, sentimental and agonizing accounts of human emotions are more woman than a woman! (Eco, however, is rather asexual in this regard).

And so, these new Ishiguro's pieces, depicting variations of male sensitivity, all look fresh to me.

The book's moodiness evokes the feeling of Jim Jarmusch's Night on Earth. In a light and blue tone, five stories of poignancy and sadness are slowly and delicately told. It soon becomes obvious that for the narrator(s), women are always elusive (if not unfaithful), incomprehensible and hard to please: Lydia divorces her beloved (, famous, and talented!) husband in order to marry another even more powerful man for her stardom, and plays with the response of another "up-and-coming" musician in the "facial surgery" hotel, acting totally whimsical; Emily leaves both her husband and college-sweetheart disheartened by appearing entirely different in 1) the husband's recollection of her, 2) the narrator's observation of her and 3) her own notes – it was a brilliantly mastered narrative - ; Sonja is so unyielding in coming to agreement with her husband's opinions; and Eloise gave her young apprentice a total blown off when she suddenly appears to be so agreeable to marry her suitor after the earlier indifferent remark on the same person - and the jealous thus evoked in the young was so subtly written - . Nonetheless, it isn't disapproval that Ishiguro is demonstrating here, rather, such portrayal of women underlies a deeper and more complex feeling of loss and frustration, of one's incapability in grasping something precious.

Yes, on the other hand, these men who attempt to get close or to understand the women are all doomed to feel frustrated and disillusioned, however tender, committing and innocent (yes, innocent) they are. It is noticeable that Ishiguro never goes deep into the psychology of these women, he is more concerned about the emotional states the men undergo, and so , the men's frustration of failing in getting hold of a woman/a moment, or making major achievements in their career as a musician in their middle age is very much in grasped in a first person narrative.

This male sensitivity was beautifully and carefully repeated in motif, until at last the very word that can possibly conclude the series of work was uttered (for the first time): bitterness. But it's a kind of bitterness that is beautiful and respectable, because no matter how despair they are, they remain a gentlemen; if the women are graceful in their appearances, then the men are graceful in their hearts and temperaments. And this bitterness comes from, I reckon, one's awareness of being in the midst of this fleeting modernity in which everything is so much in a hurry, that even genuine fondness or affection are too impatient to be held on.

"...soon he will drowse off, then he will wake, and all that time he will be trying to stay as close as he can to the night as it melts inexorably in the light."

- Milan Kundera, Slowness

Milan Kundera deals with a similar idea (but in an entirely different tone and narrative) in his Slowness. With the juxtaposition of two similar embarrassing situations in a clandestine affair took place in 18th century and in modern times, a fading sentiment is depicted: when the 18th Chevalier, as the quotation above tells, tries to cling to an unforgettable night, the modern professor wants to get rid of it as soon as possible.

Upon finishing the last page, a feeling of sadness lingers, and you can almost hear a saxophone being played, rather forlornly...

大花面

因為要去化妝派對，畫《霸王別姬》一般的大花面，他不得已把腮幫頷下的鬍子刮掉，餘下貼著下唇小小的一撮，太討厭了，這麼可愛。他說不喜歡現在這張精光的臉──嘿，我叫他留之前他不一直都精光嗎？倒好，我還怕他這次刮了以後不願再長呢！

In order to paint his Farewell My Concubine-face for a party, TM had to prepare his Duan Xiaolou-head by shaving off the beard on his chins and the jaw, with only a tiny soft bit left below the lips – that is too cute too look at I almost hated it! He said that he doesn't like the way he looks now – alas, isn't this how he's been like for I-don't-know-how-long but anyway before I asked him to grow a beard? - Which fits exactly what I had wished for: I was kind of worried that he wouldn't want to grow it all over again after this 'clean up'!

(But he looks just perfect whatever the way he is.)