"poetry of the day after"

i've been listening full tilt, nonstop to mayday's "後青春期的詩" or "poetry of the day after" for a while now. my opinions of it has been steadfastly improving, especially after i read this review, which summarized the idea behind the album as follows:

It’s the paradox of life. When we’re young, we can’t wait to become older and gain our grown-up freedom. And when we grow old, we look back wistfully on the carefree days of shining dreams, and we would give anything to be young again. For the lucky few of us, we might get an extended lease on the wild ride of youthful exuberance, and that is the theme explored by Mayday in their seventh album, “Poetry of the Day After.” The original title is 後青春期的詩, which literally translates to Poetry of the Late Adolescent Period. After all these years, Mayday is still five oversized kids having fun with each other. And the music they produce is still as energetic and moving as ever.

so true and so altogether bittersweet. mayday embodies success and friendship and happiness. once achieved do we have a fast hold on these grails or is it just a tenuous grasp, the grip each day lossening. and mayday, as they mature, will they be able to maintain their energy, their wide-eyed zest for life or will producing these types of songs become a farce?

if mayday has any conception of the impact they have on the lives of those who listen to their music, those of us using their music to explicate, to find meaning, to move, to inspire, to create, then they will find a way transcend the generations.

the following are my favorites in order:

1. 夜訪吸血鬼
2. 出頭天
3. 後青春期的詩
4. 你不是真正的快樂
5. 突然好想你
6. 爆肝

rating: 8.5/10

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"tropic thunder" and "the ruins"

i watched 'tropic thunder' monday night. fully fell short of expectations on comedy, humor, wit. all the laughs to be had were already highlighted by the trailers.

rating: 6/10

then last night, i watched 'the ruins'. really, how menancing can a plant be? there was a couple of stomach-churning, retch-inducing scenes of amputation and self multilation, but that only works on a visceral level, not on the prolonged psychological level, which are the territory of truly frightening films.

rating: 6/10

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"shade's children"

i finished reading garth nix's "shade's children" this weekend.

!!!spoiler alert!!! the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in the non-too-distant future, surprise, surprise. one fateful day, "the change", all humans over fourteen years of age disapear. those remaining are herded into concentration camps or otherwise killed. why? because beings calling themselves "overlords" have decided to make earth a battle ground for creatures who are built from body parts harvested from fourteen-year-olds. a resistance movement orchestrated by shade, an artifical intelligence program, created by a computer scientist prior to the change, seeks to discover the source of the overlords power and destroy it. the book follows one of shade's cells, comprised of ella, drum, ninde, and gold-eye.

i liked it! the action was fast-paced, but i didn't feel like i was reading a movie script. the character development was good, the world imagined by nix interesting, and the mood ominous. i flipped through the pages so quickly, i didn't have time to note down interesting quotes, save two near the end:

(1) "There comes a tide in the affairs of men, that if taken at the flood...or something like that. There is still a chance, a very slight chance."
(2) "Then they were dead, and the sun moved around, bringing the shade to wrap around their bodies like a shroud."

rating: 7/10

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not persuaded

"persuasion" 2007 is a mess. why is there a need for this new adaptation, when it chooses to focus on the same scenes from the book as the 1995 movie? make it a miniseries instead!

the cast is fairer than their 1995 counterparts, and that's its only claim to "superiority". the actors in the 1995 version achieved such a delicate rapport, all the characters playing off so beautifully against each other, like a intricately choreographed dance.

the 1995 version also touched upon genius with its ability to create episodes of sheer comedy out of the overall melancholy narrative. the 2007 version captured no such spontaneous joy.

much of the problems of the 2007 version is the decision to have scenes leap from one event to the next with no continuity. let the force of the scene sink in and draw upon the power of cinematography to convey subtlety of feelings words fail to express.

rating: 7/10

bottom line: "persuasion" 1995 is still the definitive adaptation.

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persuasion

what! bbc has remade "persuasion"? can't wait for jan. 13 to roll around to watch/judge this version. it certainly has big shoes to fill given the near-perfect 1995 adaptation.

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no, "ma'am"

on new year's day, when i was at target surveying the shelves upon shelves of discount christmas merchandise, a college-aged trim blond let out an "excuse me ma'am" as she walked past in front of me. this isn't the first time i've been monikered "ma'am" by strangers, but never by people who're younger than me, so the remark especially stung for two reasons.

first, i obviously was disgruntled that she failed to recognize that I was still in my twenties, single, with no kids. i know this reason is shallow, has no merit, shouldn’t register on my righteous indignation meter, and should bear no mention. but even the best of us from time to time, will fall prey to vanity, so you can imagine how it is for those of us, like me, who only attempt to achieve mediocrity of character.

neither my age, place in life, nor dress warranted a "ma'am". well, now looking back, i made the mistake of wearing baby janes with oh-so noticeable white socks, which rendered me a bit matronly. i didn’t have the time to prim, prep, style, and accessorize because i hadn’t intended to spend the day outdoors. in fact, i had set aside the day for catching up on the backlog of work resulting from my freewheeling non-productivity the week before christmas. but i happened to notice target.com had some shoe and apparel items at 75% off the night before. not knowing my size, i decided to head out to my local target to try on some of the sale brands. by the time i finished browsing through target.com, it was already 4 a.m., and i figured i had to get the online transactions closed out asap for fear my size would get bought out. so i set my alarm for 7:45 a.m. (15 minutes before store opening time), but snoozed another hour, waking up around 9 a.m. i flew out the house kicking on the most easily accessible shoes, my slip-on red baby janes.

lesson learned: don’t wear socks with baby janes.

on the other hand, and more sobering and less rational, was the juxtaposition of the imbalance of life options between us. it was a slap in the face that she cemented this divide with “ma’am”.

lesson learned and relearned and will need to be relearned until it becomes second nature: as the french would say, “il faut cueillir la fleur quand elle est prête à être cueillie” or more familiarly here in the States, “seize the day”.

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new year resolutions

in increasing order of difficulty:
1. keep promises
2. lose 20 lbs of fat
3. gain 5 lbs of muscle
4. adhere to a work hard/play hard lifestyle
5. visit machu picchiu

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