Just Love and Joy

A beautiful tribute by Brittany Howard to her Daddy.




If you still have your Daddy, please cherish him. Those like me can only count the minutes for our energies to reunite in love and joy one day.

I also like how the video showcased beauty in the mundane, joy in the ordinary, and a slice of black Southern life that isn't about drug, violence, or racism.

One more ear candy goodness from her for the road.

 

A is for admire

I have no talent for drawing or any kind of art-linked endeavours. Couldn't even draw a straight line with a ruler. But I love pretty things and these pictures below really speak to me.

These are the works of Ms. Rebecca Mock.

 

My favourite activity in my favourite mode of transportation.

Age doesn't inhibit embracing technology.

 I love the eloquence of her art, elevating something as prosaic as reading on a train or in the outdoors into something whimsical and delightful. The pictures are so evocative, you could almost feel the movement of the train of the warm breeze caressing your skin while you lounge on the balcony. The feel of the grass under you separated by the blanket. You could almost hear the chirp of birds and the buzz of bees collecting nectar in the flourishing garden.

Doesn't her work remind you of the animated pictures and portraits in the Harry Potter series?

Self pimping!

Come stroll along my memory lane here.

Forewarning: it is almost completely in Malay (my mother tongue). If it sounds awkward it's probably because the only Malay book I have read in the past ten years is the English-Malay Dictionary.

*shame face*

If I Survive by Hybrid

Ah, a walk down memory lane.

Cloudy with a chance of rain

Today was the first time I went on a company sponsored trip for work purpose. I was delighted to get the window seat and entertained myself peering over the wings of the plane looking down on the ground.

From KLIA, the earth is a verdant, emerald carpet, thanks to the #1 cash crop of the country, oil palm. Breaking the greenery are the developments, clusters of cookie-cutter housing estates and townships. Angry red welts of exposed raw laterite marks areas where the earth has been gouged for new development. As the plane made its (seemingly) desultory pass over the hilly areas, I wonder how long before those proud peaks are levelled for more development. :p

But I digress.

Looking at the clouds drifting in fat clumps outside the window of the Fokker F-50 (I think), I remembered that as a child flying towards Europe, I looked at the blanket of white below and wanted to ask the pilot to stop the plane for a while, let me out to play in the clouds before resuming the journey. I was seven years old and did not understand that clouds are merely condensation and those cartoons depicting people living on clouds with harp and wings (heavenly, really?) are NOT REAL.

However, at this hoary age that I am at right now, gazing at the expanse of thick whiteness with jagged peaks, reminiscent of pristine Antarctic icefields, still makes me want to ask the pilot to stop and let me go play in the clouds. Granted that I now know that by doing so I'll be plummeting to a horrific death in the South China Sea, but the feeling still remain.

I should stick to playing in the snow (when possible).

Here are a couple of songs I love that features clouds.



This song of Tori Amos has a way of tugging my heartstrings. So poignant and resonant; not a bad feat considering I barely understand her enunciation.

I adore The Cardigans for their subversiveness. Such cheery, pop-py melody teamed with dark themes and slash-your-wrist sentiments as demonstrated by Cloudy Sky (dang youtube no let me embed). Superb.

No wonder one of my favourite past times is lying around watching the bouffant poufs of water above drift by with my earbuds firmly plugged in and my MP3 player on shuffle.

Traditions versus Islamic practices

I love how this guy articulate an issue that is plaguing many Muslims, especially in the current global sociopolitical climate.



ETA: Transcript of video under cut for Seorang Blogger.

Everyone's got the message but me ...

There's something about this song that resonates with me. Maybe because I have always felt out of step with everyone else around me.

Enjoy Elizabeth and the Catapult's Rainiest Day of Summer (lyrics here).



Non-sequitur: Am recovering from a mini-cold, the first in a very long time. You only appreciate God's gift of good health when you are busy hacking out a lung or limping along like a lame tortoise with a recalcitrant ankle. Humans. *snort*

Gotta love a nerd

Anyone who ever watched footie at a stadium (live or as a telecast) and/or is a hardcore rock music fan would know this iconic STOMP-STOMP-CLAP. I even had Generation Z students who used this song as template for a performance to explain mitosis.

This masterpiece is the brain child of one Dr Brian May, lead guitarist of the quintessential arena rock band, Queen. Dr May is more than a wild-haired electric guitar virtuoso, he is also an astrophysicist who wrote a book on the cosmology (aptly named Bang! A History of the Universe) based on his work on interstellar dust.

Yup, wild-haired brainy dude.(Thanks Wikimedia Commons!)

Initially, the sound effect was not to be included in the final cut of the song; but he was intrigued by the feedback from the audience during a concert that he thought deeply of how he could incorporate the audience participation in their live act - "a means of uniting the audience".

"I was thinking, 'What can you give an audience that they could do while they're standing there? They can stamp and they can clap and they can sing some kind of chant,' " he says. "To me, it was a uniting thing. It was an expression of strength." - excerpted from NPR interview.


He drew from his physics and mathematics background to create a distinctive sound of thousands of feet stomping and clapping in unison, building sound using old boards and prime numbers. Bet when you were swotting through mathematics, calculus, algebra and geometry, you never thought that you can use it to create a song that nets you millions in royalties, no?

Dr Brian May is the reason why girls love wild haired musicians: the guitar will loosen the knickers, but that brain? Totally meltworthy.

Happy International Women's Day!

Eye candy and an emphatic message for women = FTW!




For those who are wondering, the answer is "Yes. I have a thing for Daniel Craig." Silent or otherwise.

Walking down memory lane

When I was a kid, terrestrial TV was only on for 12-hours a day and the hours of 4 pm to 6 pm were when they screen the stuff for kids like Sesame Street, The Electric Company and cartoons. The closest I got to fandom obsession (i.e. feverish scribblings of Mary Sue-inserted fanfics) were the anime that they screened like Tosho Daimos, Voltron and Sabre Rider and the Star Sheriffs in particular.

Back then, the Filem Negara Malaysia made a number of cartoons based on Malay folklore and Aesop's fables to be screened in the late afternoon. The animations were pretty well crafted, although the vocal dramatisation left much to be desired. It also spawned one of the favourite cautionary tagline of my schooldays: "Jangan, Monyet!" (Literally: Don't do it, Monkey!)

Ah, what fond memories ...

Festering pit of despair ... (just kill yourself already)

You were searching for a flower
And you found a fruit.

You were searching for a river
And you found a sea.

You were searching for a girl
And you found a soul.

And you are disappointed.


                               - Unknown Finnish poem from here-


I am not much a poetry person, but this?

♥___________♥

Anthem: Lisbeth Salander

(Do not worry: this post is NOT a book review.)

I had finally finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Not knowing Swedish means I have to read the translated version by Reg Keeland. Some of the odd expressions littered in the book made me suspect that he made an effort to make sure that the original expression in Swedish is maintained.

It was a difficult first 60 or so pages for me; like a chemical reaction, the frenzy for devouring the book had a high activation energy threshold. But once I met Lisbeth Salander,  it was like a napalm firestorm; I was ignited to consume to book in a single sitting. This was not possible as real life has a way of interfering with obsessions and a wage has to be earned.

Salander is completely out of my realm of experience. Damaged, brilliant, cunning, naive, dispassionate and yet vulnerable, Salander is a contradiction within a puzzle wrapped in an enigma (or however the expression is). She is quite the archetypal anti-hero(ine)  who lives in the fringes of society; her wary forays into mainstream society often underscoring her prejudices of the  bourgeoisie.

To my mind, this song by Fiona Apple perfectly illustrates Salander. Lyrics can be found here.



The conclusion of the book was very satisfying and yet I was ambivalent about getting the next book in the series. Salander (and Blomqvist) is not a character that I find comfortable to read; (I usually stick to happily ever afters) but somehow, as I left my rental book store, I found The Girl Who Played with Fire in my hands.