a working artist in old dear HK...

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Inspiration for us all 哦~

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Added 12/19/2006 - Stella So's personal website: smstella.com

Laughing till your tummy aches

We were talking in the kitchen about a Japanese cartoon called "Excel Sega". I recalled how in one episode they had thousands of Pickachu-look-alike characters invading Earth. They look like little furry dolls with really big, adorable eyes, and they repeat the same baby-like phrase over and over. When the heroes try to slaughter them, they can't. "I can't stand it. They are too cute!!", the heroes exclaim, turning their faces away. Finally the heroes have to blindfold themselves in order to eliminate these adorably menacing creatures. But as soon as these little creatures get killed, their cute little faces explode at once and turn into a face of a dirty old (Japanese) man. And they die gasping one last "AH---" in a deep old-man voice.

Then he pointed out that this wasn't the funniest bit in the episode. The funniest bit was a character called "Space Butler". We burst into uncontrollable laughter at the mention of the name every single time, but we never had any idea why. This time he said, "Let's break it down:" He said the stereotype of a butler has always been kind of funny. And I said that a butler was usually associated with a really private place, like deep inside an aristocrat's country house. Putting together the empty nothingness of the "Space" and a private and form-bearing "butler" is too absurd. And then there's the fact the "Space" is just this concept of a place that envelops everything. It's preposterous that there should be a position for a butler in Space. Obviously no one has asked "Space Butler" to become THE "Space Butler". He just wakes up one day and decides that Space needs some butlering. Then, he picks up the duster, or something, and becomes it.

Make no mistake: while we were analyzing the ridiculousness of this term, we were laughing like crazy people. I was squatting on the floor and his face got so cramped up that he had to ask me to stop. If someone else were in the room, they would probably think that we were retarded.

That reminded me of that time when I was in Hong Kong, I tried really, really hard to convince my brother that "Napoleon Dynamic" was one of the funniest movies on earth. I tried to describe to him the chicken farm scene, where Napoleon, who just started working there, asked the chicken farmer if the chickens had "large talons". While describing the scene, I made the worst mistake a joke-maker can make: I told my bro that it was really, really funny and laughed at the joke before delivering the punch-line. But I couldn't help it— in the movie the farmer looks at Napoleon like he's from another planet. With probably the most hilarious expression in the history of motion picture (which is an expressionless blank stare of a simple countryman), he replies in a country drawl, "I don't understand a word you just said."

Of course after telling the joke, my brother he looked at me, much like the farmer did to Napoleon, like he was looking at an idiot. My nice little brother was too polite to say anything though, which exactly and sadly showed how embarrassed he felt for me.

I still think that “large talon” was one of the funniest things I have heard in my life (considering Napoleon’s obsession for magical creatures). Man, it feels sooooo good to laugh until your tummy hurts; until you have to kneel down and beg, "Please stop! I am going to pee my pants..."

Now I really want to go see the Aristocrat. I was told that it was a joke that never disappointed. I am up for that. Has anyone seen it?

Nothing mellows one out like a barbeque

謊言

說謊的人至少要記牢兩個故事：一個真的、一個假的。有時說假的時候要停下想想那個真的，不然有時忘了說謊的目的，變了無意識無止境的漫談。習慣自欺欺人的人都是這樣開始的。

如果需要作多幾個大話去圓第一那個，就有更多故事要記；還要和每一個身邊的人玩一玩Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon— 這個世界之interconnected足以叫人迷信。

就算你那兩個故事過到骨，裡裡外外都瞞到了，別人不知道真相，也會隱然感覺到你兩頭人的秘密身份。他們會猜疑你做每件事的動機，從此不再信任你；亦會想盡辦法去套你那不可告人、必定要瞞他的事。——人的想像力住住比事實骯髒；任由別人填塞的謊言有時反比被拆穿的影響深遠。

Koyaanisqatsi by Godfrey Reggio

How much we resemble a swamp of bugs when we see ourselves moving a few times faster. When we move along in a sped up space the purposeful individuals blend in the crowd. You-- the person who worries about your job, wonders what's for dinner, hurries for an errand and fancies the stranger passed by-- can no longer be picked out amidst the rapid movements of the mass. In slow motion people appear to be solemn souls, struggling through their lives. In fast motion you don’t see people, but a comical, busy-bee collectivism. Something's moving us along; something is making waves out of us. This something is society. When you compress your day's doings into a few minutes, you'll start to see a pattern: you'd look less like a person living your life; more like a bug carrying out the will of the collective commons.

It's curious how one gets a different sense of being by simply manipulating the frame rate, or one's perception of time.

Roles I

The grandmother in Fanny and Alexander:

“We all play our parts. Some play them negligently, others play with great care. I'm one of the latter.

The bishop to his pregnant wife:

“You once said you were always changing masks... until finally you didn't know who you were. I have only one mask. But it's branded into my flesh. If I tried to tear it off--
I always thought people liked me. I saw myself as wise, broad-minded, and fair. I had no idea... that anyone could hate me. (I don't hate you.) No, but your son does.

The grandmother with the ghost of her son:

“Yes, Oscar, that's how it is. One is old and a child at the same time. What became of those long years in between… that seemed so important at the time? May I take your hand? I remember your hand as a child. It was small and firm and dry. And your wrist was so awfully slender. I enjoyed being a mother. I enjoyed being an actress too but I preferred being a mother. I liked having a big belly, and I didn't give two shakes about the theatre then. It's all acting anyway. Some roles are nice, others not so nice. I played a mother. I played Juliet and Margareta. Then suddenly I played a widow or a grandmother. One role follows another. The thing is not to shrink from them. But what became of it all? Can you tell me that, my boy? You're a good boy to listen to your old mother's soliloquies, as Isak calls them. Yes, you're a good boy, Oscar,... and I grieved terribly when you past away. That was a strange role to play. My feelings came from deep in my body. Even though I could control them... they shattered reality, if you know what I mean. Reality has remain broken ever since, and oddly enough, it feels more real that way. So I don't bother to mend it. I just don't care anymore if nothing makes sense. Oscar, my dear boy? (Yes, Mama.) Are you sad?
(I'm worried.) About the children? Yes.

scratch

there's no such thing as linear time. there's no track to life. you can skip a beat, hype it up, drag it down, take a break, split in two and jump around. your mind is an hour glass. tilt your head and it'll drip a different rhythm. nod your head and travel in time. dance to the beat and you'll be immortal, forever in the moment. sync-up is unnecessary-- the world is a million metronomes of different times. dj your own sound. when it gets smooth enough you'll hear other beats matching up.

“Everything can happen. Everything is possible and probable. Time and space do not exist. On a flimsy framework of reality, the imagination spins, weaving new patterns.

~ A Dream Play, August Strindberg

Looking for a good time?

A quote from " Pleasure seeking is normal and natural", the Guardian, December 16 2004:

“...pleasure can only be a transient sensation, the feeling of warming up when cold, or of eating when hungry. [Physiologist Michel Cabanac] believes that the lack of these gaps between how we feel and how we want to feel explains a lot of misery in modern society. "We're not hungry, we're not cold, we have everything,"... The result, he says, is that we are tempted to seek pleasure in other ways, by taking drugs, or over-indulging in pleasurable activities. Extremely hedonistic lifestyles may be caused by compulsive behaviour leading to an endless craving for pleasurable sensations, or subtle damage to the underlying brain circuitry, he adds.

我想起一個叫楊晨的鄭州女生的話：「贵族们不缺少食物，他们的痛苦必然另有来由。」

也想起John Locke和他的pursuit of happiness. 歡愉是過渡性的，只有追求快樂的自由是真快樂。但是現代人隨時可以滿足歡愉的基本條件，實際上是失效了。當我們吃飽穿暖睡足，我們該另找歡愉的替代品嗎？飽暖的時候，甚麼樣的快樂值得追尋？

我去吃一粒朱古力再告訴你。

他約我去迪士尼

你終於約我去迪士尼。我與奮莫名，渴望大家也聽到那絃外之音。多少年來，我們讓那些陌生的人，把你和我的感情，販回給你和我。他們草率地忖摸我們的私情、把幾粒熟爛透了的音符調來調去、再將我們的故事煽情地填塞進去。實在填不了，就胡亂拉扯些不相干的意象、潮語、人名戲名、流行話題……然後改個新奇的名字、找個偶像來唱，就照樣一次又一次、不恬廉恥地批發給濫情的我們。

終於我們也學會了這一套。聽《他約我去迪士尼》，我快樂得跳起。那轉音、那介口、那過門、那起伏，你和我都熟練的；歌詞裡的事物、動作、心情、語氣，過去唱過幾多次也不厭……如果今天可以去K房唱就好了！「他約我去迪士尼」比初戀還甜蜜剌激。因為它講的不是戀愛；它講的是顛覆。Royals幾個中學生，同你和我和我們的朋友沒甚麼兩樣，卻以那些流行販子的行文技倆，加上獨立創作人的誠意，做到他們也做不到的事：一夜流行，萬人下載。We beat them at their own game man!還有比這更令人與奮的事情嗎？

祝福米和老鼠。拜服米和老鼠。有了你們，這世紀是我們的。

Dreamlife of Angels

One girl lives, one girl dies, one girl goes on with her Dream-life:

“
Marie,

Sandrine will live. I hope you find the kind of life that you are looking for, the one that you are dreaming of, every moment, every second of your life.

Your friend, Isa