Of life and art

Life imitates art or so they say but I disagree, life merely coincides with art to a certain degree every now and then.

  I’ve experienced such coincidences a number of time to a rather slight coincidence at that. In Murakami’s “Wild sheep chase” there is a scene where the protagonist’s lover asked him whether he’d like to kill her they’ve had after sex. Contemplating on how nice it  is to die a sudden abrupt death and freedom death brings. Where as in reality a girl asked me the exact same question though without the thoughtful insight and it was through a text message and it would make a thoroughly unremarkable fiction instead. If it were up to me, I’ll trade places with my fictional counterpart without the slightest consideration.

  Currently I’m the the shoes of Juan Garcia Madero but just for the opening paragraph. Like my latin counterpart I’m currently pressured into pursuing law though I’d like to do literature. Of course there are differences that keeps life and art asunder. First, Garcia Madero is an orphan living with his uncle, as for me the family ties/obligations are much stronger. There ideal set of circumstances would hardly materialize in reality as opposed how things more or less effortlessly fall into place in the fictional world. I’m referring here to my possible lack of qualifications, lack of means and lack of decent institution within proximity. A slightest fraction of Juan Garcia Madero.

  If life were to imitate art, like a perfect carbon based copy it should be, I’ll trade the end of Arthur Dent and Fenchurch with my ill fitting Capulet-ish ending. I’ll trade the globe to be in Stavogrin’s little town. My zero sum luck with candide’s string ill luck. But I can’t? Guess I have to cry instead then.

Rather short story: untitled for now

At first this is meant to be about rainbow eating ponies that poops out butterflies but somehow I got distracted along the way. Maybe those ponies will make an appearence in due time.

Dedicated to Liz and her ponies.

Of course the first thing that got created was light, how would the god admire his creations without light? Plus it would make a nice way to kick things off. “Let there be light” said God in his best James Earl Jones impersonation. 

  Then the land takes shape, hills, mountains, valleys and fjords. God was rather fond of fjords, thinking how birds would taunt those who can’t fly by zipping across. How animals would fall and wonder incessantly how to get back up. How some would end up dwelling in the water delighted God to no end.

  Water came next with the rest of water related products, clouds, mist and such. The world is almost ready to be occupied with the addition of gravity tying stuff down and keeps God’s creation from coming up to heaven to lodge complaints. In the future when humans think that they know everything, gravity would keep them guessing. It will the metaphorical middle finger to humans and their fancy science and technology but for now it simply ties everything down.

  As an afterthought, there was air roaming around in creation. God would like birds and other flying creatures to be around without them invading heaven. Air keeps stirring stuff upon creation too so it won’t be static like a painting.

  Birds are God’s favorite no doubt about it. Trees are grown so birds could have a place to perch on, grass so that birds won’t get dirt all over themselves when flying low.  

 I’ll continue the rest from time to time. Think so

The Poverty Game

Poverty game. The rules are simple. No more loans, don’t sell off possessions and don’t die of starvation. The milking of sympathy cow is not encouraged but if charity comes knocking don’t refuse.

  A few weeks after i’ve read George Orwell’s “Down and out in London & Paris” I’ve found myself in poverty. With only enough money to eat 2 “roti canai” every days. In a way, “roti canai” is the local equivalent to Orwell’s tea and 2 slice with the tea part missing.  This lasted around a week, after which a friend bailed me out by giving a soft loan to last till my next allowance.

  Being in poverty is not exactly life altering, since I’ve got safety nets: friends, family and loans sharks. But even with those safety nets it does help getting priorities organized. After a few days of hunger, depression kicks in, like a kick to the groin. The sound of my rumbling stomach becomes something more somber, like the tolling of funeral bells and when that happens tears are on the verge of falling.

 This time around reckless spending got me to live in poverty again, the temptations of buying Dostoyevsky  at 20% off proves to be irresistable. Leaving my coffers with enough money for 2 light meals a day. Proud to say I’ve lasted 11 days this time around. A NEW HIGH SCORE!!

Shit Happens: July 12

“Reality continues to ruin my life” -Calvin & Hobbes.

  Sometimes minor things make me wonder does shit happening, merely the result of chance or it is magically induced by omnipotent being out of spite, perhaps. Today is suppose to be kiting day but Rob McKenna came to visit and it rained. I wondering whether the Greeks, Norse and Egyptian of old gave their god more specification so they could split up the blame.

 It was a nice clean setup. New kite, willing victims, a rejection, partially filled waiting period and then the waterworks 45 minutes before showtime. Good execution, very subtle way to kill me inside.

Library

I started reading to help me sleep when i was 11. Due to the lack of a decent bookstore nearby my reading didn’t really pick up. Freeloaded during the weekends when I first started college but my library first started steady progress due to heartbreak of sorts. Now I can’t really remember, what actually got me depressed.

  Felt like it was yesterday when I first built you up, starting off with Stalin and his hangmen and Dostoevsky’s Devil. The relief that came with retail therapy displaces my sorrows adequately. Due to some promotion involving a RM250 purchase to get a RM30 cash voucher, you grow steadily. Perhaps, the lousy classes I’m forced to attend helps quite a bit. What better way to waste the time.

  There are times that my purchase of books have jeopardize my meals but that blame can be shifted to and fro between books and cigarettes. Nowadays alcohol should take part of the blame too. Occasionally there will be a title donation from the good old forgetful white tourist, which I thank for leaving behind Dice Men. Karma does apply, not enough for me to take it seriously but just enough to make me stop blaming probabilty at times. My Hitchicker’s Guide is currently missing as a result of Karma, fair trade I guess.

  Your growth Can be best described as contarary to half-life decay. Currently 2000 pages behind, haven’t got past a few hundred for the last 3 months or so. Someday you’ll repay me in other ways as oppose to just being there.

*Postscript: Most prized title goes to 1st edition Freakonomics. Love you.

 

Poem: Guns, Church & Drumming

Here’s what i wrote during one of my class, written under an hour. Its a fictional love encounter between my classmates. An asexual churchboy whose interest are guns and drumming, who fell in love for the first time.

Guns, Church and Drumming

I wish to compliment your hair hanging,

though it hangs much shorter now,

I wonder whats keeping us asunder,

maybe its our fate as two star-crossed plovers,

fixed at the opposite end of the room,

for in your presence I am but a broom,

Right now I’m yearning for you, guns, church and drumming.

Poem: Eating Loneliness

My poetic debut, Eating Loneliness. Drafted in apporoximitely 20 minutes on 9th November. 

Alone with the ceiling,

Friends left for a higher calling,

Leaving me to tend to my feelings,

Wasn’t it me who exclaimed “even karipaps have feeling?”

Even so I’ve consumed them with a relentless fury,

When greed takes over, all concern goes under,

No thoughts for the starving vagrant over yonder,

Nor the the scavenging bird grounded by merciless rain.

November special

Its my favorite month of the year again. November. Where the monsoon season starts, rain never stops and work never get done. Well more or less. For this month there are more significant birthdays than usual, the popular one being Mickey Mouse’s and Kirk Hammet’s Birthday on the 18th. Mine is on the next day.

  Birthday celebrations have been luke-warm ever since I was little maybe its because of the never-ending rain that usually comes with it. Usually if I’m with my family there would be a fancy dinner at a good restaurant and the usual present, MONEY. Not such a significant amount but it really helps. My good friend also having his birthday this month and usually attending his “party of sorts” helps. Great food, lovely cake and surplus of it.

   Getting money from my parents has been a very long tradition, I think it started when I was 8 or 9. Where I got a marching soldier toy that I didn’t like/hate. Fuck the military. Withing the following year I learned how to save, more like I don’t know what to do with the money, really. For the next one I got money for my birthday, I still remember the first. We when to have steak dinner and at the end of it my father gave me a few hundred and also the bill. Whats left was a decent amount for a kid.  Pretty simple eh?

  For this coming birthday I’m hoping to get books and lots of it. Some classics with high price like George Orwell’s Animal Farm or a Douglas Adam hitchhikers guide compendium (the one with black synthethic leather cover), To kill a mocking bird would be nice. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series which I have yet to own or to finish read (I’ve read till Waste Land). Hoping the extra cash from this month would get me Doris Lessing’s Cleft which cost a hundred, or Book of the Dun Cow. Having an affinity towards stories with animals seems childish.

  Birthdays have always dissapointing for me and I’ve always tried to kept the hope to a minimum, well at least tried. There’s something you just can’t keep down. Hope is the worse of all evil, it keeps the torment going but then evil is fun.    

Crap & Insults

So far the second semester has been insulting and crap. A few anticipated subjects failed to meet my expectations. Hmmn expectations, I used to limit myself to expect very little, just keeping it down to whether the sun’s going to rise. I guess this is why expectations are avoided but I digress.

  The list of my disappointment shall start with English for communication. For this class we are thought at primary six level. Doing exercise on grammar and such. He reminds me of my previous applied maths lecturer, Mr. Eik. Instead of ending his sentence with ”ya” he seems to be ever blinking and not attentive either, giving us ample chance to read and sneak out.

 ”Journalism I” sounds interesting rite? But crap can hit where you least expect. A middle aged woman who used to be a journalist for the oldest local newspaper, Berita Harian. I was expecting someone older, probably from one of the newspaper my college affiliates with, the Star or *Nanyang Siang Pau. Her verbal skill’s is not up to par for someone who is suppose to teach “journalism” with dumb pauses that goes “arr” and traces of Malay in here speech that goes  often goes “lah”. Not surprisingly for her class, we’re given vocabulary exercise equals to the ones given to form 2 students at most. Maybe it just her way to emphasize the importance of lugging a dictionary around. But ridiculous claims to be able read minds are the worse.

  Introduction to drama is not as bad, but I’m stuck with rejects (me being one of course) one of them ever absent, another just annoying little bugger and the rest not that bad except for their lack of verbal skills. Difficult assignment going to hold me back for this subject: writing a play review. No problem but getting to one is and acting out scenes with my group: going to be hell. Pray for a miracle folks.

 Bahasa Melayu Lanjutan or Advanced Malay Language starring the perky annoying lecturer from last semester. Oh fuck! here we go again. This time I’ve taken the initiative to get into a proper group: verbal skills check, brains check, beast of burden check. The thing that irks me is that things that I regard as interest, are deemed as sensitive to the system but deviant sexual orientation and practice are welcomed. This is where I say FUCK again.

   The coming 14 weeks is going to be one of the most patronizing semester’s ever, looks like I’ll be in class ever reading. 

*not quite sure.

What If? Upgrade options

What if human beings are customizable, wouldn’t that be great? Computers have it and so do cars, why can’t we have em too? Instead of bring pet/self/insect/friend to a workshop to get it tweaked. We, animals go through the process of evolution. Its where an animal faced by harsh living it will continue its meager existence but its offspring will develop a better defence mechanism against the environment.

  Aren’t people animals too? How come that we don’t “evolve” our animal counterpart do? If a hereditary disease runs in a family, is it possible that eventually a generation would gain immunity? Yes, if we can evolve but the reality is that the disease will continue to claim lives. Throughout the ages people have maintained the same in the physical sense, we’re much lazier now but then again nothing new sprouted. Our evolution is mainly in the form of knowledge pass down since the dawn of civilization. Isn’t adapting to the environment is the goal of evolution in the first place. We want to be on time, we invented clocks. Wanted something to talk about, TV came along. Need to brag/whine, we have blogs. Well maybe people aren’t evolutionary dead end after all, just methodically incorrect.

  Somewhere in the not so distant future, I predict there shall be sufficient advancement in technology for people to have upgrade option(s). It already here now, in the form of plastic surgery and artificial heart. Soon it will be more than just that. Maybe we could grow an extra(yes, extra) kidney or for smokers lungs. Further down the road it will be more ridiculous, another set of arms, maybe even a tail or my personal favorite horns. To help accelerate this process, people should abuse their body more instead of preaching ”prevention”. Its true prevention is better then cure, but the cure could open up more possibilities. After all, plastic surgery advanced due to the need of the masses to look good. Ugly people can function just as good but less appealing. I therefore encourage my currently non-existent readers to abuse themselves, smoking is a good way to start.