「韓白之爭」的二三事

1. 韓寒的特色是用爽快幽默的文字說出大家都想說，但講不出的話。
2. 寫作的人，到頭來，如能說出心裏那幾句，反反覆覆的真實的話，就已經很好了。
3. 韓寒好比馬克吐溫。諷剌裏儘有幽默, 温而不損。自負, 也自嘲。極有自知與知人之明。最重要的是, 跟馬克吐溫一樣，他是人如其文，文如其人，無分彼此。
4. 這兩天裡斷斷續續看完他的博。很少這樣想一人的文字。比如一樣好吃的東西，昨天吃了，今天又想。
5. 韓寒寫博，就像卜戴倫寫歌:「和他的呼吸化為一氣」（”become identical with his breath”）（艾倫金斯堡說卜戴倫是 “a column of air” ， 不就是咱們說的「氣」麼？）照韓寒自己的說法就是: “… 在短短的半小时内，出现了一篇《你的敏锐总是直指我的软肋》，大家在高兴的讨论“高处不胜寒”。不可能，我高晓松堪称才子，写这么一篇文章也要将近三天， 写完后必须修养一个月。他韩寒第二天要比赛，7点要起，我高晓松有熊的力量，对方怎么有豹的速度…” 多生動，多刻薄！:)
6. 「韓白」一役，勾出個重要的題目，就是，需要講真說話時你敢不敢説，懂不懂說，能否直指其要害?
7. 「韓白之爭」真是比（他媽的）電視連續劇還好看，意想不到的人物過界跳進來，毫不相干的大小事兒都拉扯了出來：又有髒話，又有紅衛兵，更有學術腐敗，「親朋相衛」，老少兩代的觀念沖突…… 真箇是高潮迭起— 而且高下立見。本來，underdog據理力爭的故事不是我們盤古以來就愛聽的麼 ？韓寒一個人，一個博，見招拆招。好比《棋王》裡的梁家輝，在漫天胡叱亂喝聲中，穩住頭腦，以一「博」十。難得的是雖然他有點囉嗦，也有點得理 不饒人，卻始終持平講理。對就是對錯就是錯，掩眼法也只是騙術而己。
8. 一 個人博客，通常要經過一段時間要建立一個個人的博客 persona。因為博裡公開與私人的介點和社會上的很不同，網友之間的表達意見的方式也與生活中迴 異。那個平衡點需要忖摸和適應。在「韓白之爭」裡我們見証了兩個博「受不住熱氣」，關閉了。其實也反映了一些博客水土不服，適應不良，沒有完全過渡過來。
9. 當然這一切裡最吸引的，還是那條隱隱然，似有還無的感情線。熱鬧完了，但韓寒一句：「最后，有个人，女人，在朝阳区某地的二楼，看着报纸，笑了。」仍不時浮現腦海，揮之不去。
10. 韓寒這人是應當寫作的，你們「谁也别挡着他」。

Cotton Tree

The tree outside the window is blossoming. It started with a few bulbs - it seems longer - but only a few days ago. Those budding bulbs looked so hard and small, you’d expect them to be indifferent to the imperious climate, resistant to the luring rain. They were white, small and satin-seeming; I thought it was a cotton tree (木棉). But a day later they all changed, adding in number, growing in size, and it became clear that they were going to be full-crown flowers. Every time I looked out the window they had changed– a coup that staged its moves covertly and uniformly – and I reminded myself to write about it, about its white promise with a tint of yellow– or was it pale yellow I saw? But I forgot every time, and again they changed. Within a few hours there was no doubt: the bulbs were going to be yellow flowers, lemony yellow. With the discovery I relished the lost moments- very little mystery is left, is there? Well, until you catch yourself looking out the window again, you never know.

唔係係話？

無意中搵到周星星歷套電影嘅劇本同經典對白。嘩原來佢啲戲咁鬼多台詞嘅，睇嘅時候又唔覺噃。同大家分享下：

剧本 | 老康之家
ungoo抵死粤语网站 (經典對白)

凌凌漆：啱，系侏罗纪。暴龙究竟系鬼鬼崇崇走嚟走去嗰条定还是“哈—哈”嗰条呢？
司令：系“哈—哈”嗰条。
凌凌漆：咦，嗰条好冇人性，专追啲细蚊仔嚟咬个噃？
司令：唔会，肯定中国呢条唔会。

勁鐘意廣東話，正爆。

A fine piece of writing...

Bloc Party is an autonomous unit of un-extraordinary kids reared on pop culture between the years of 1976 and the present day. Like many such kids, between them they eventually concluded that their own attempts to imitate what had informed them could be construed as a worthy variation on the many forms that preceded. They do everything that's required to conform to the currently received ideas of what a band is: ostensibly to play instruments at the same time, but also have a title for the work created.

Kele picked up a guitar when his hands enabled him to do so and his brain gave him the inclination. Russell had already done as much beforehand when they met in 1998. In the fine print of music papers and in telephone conversations they enabled meetings with Gordon and Matt who also had ideas of some relevance to bring to the collective effort. In this sense a band was created.

Henceforth should follow a list of auteurs and musicians that figured in the formative minds of the four as they went about their work. But to do as much seems churlish in an already self-referential world. Suffice to say there would be no band without the efforts of guitar bands formed in British and American towns in the 70s, 80s and 90s, aswell as visionary writers and artists of various kinds whose work has informed the world and culture itself as it stands. The precise names are as good as any you can come up with, in fact probably much, much better.

... and a pretty decent band too. Check them out: Bloc Party

Snow bunny, queen of the foot of the mountain

The body is resilient. It can be pushed and pushed, take a rest, and be back on going again. The drive up and down the mountain was interjected by dose-offs, but when we were there, from 9-5, we were awake; we were on, we were alive. The grumpiness from waking up so early for a workout melted like the mountain fog meeting the noon sun— it evaporated into the fuel for one goal. One simple goal: find the way up the slope and snowboard your way down. I had rarely used my body so much and so fully. It took only a few seconds to go down the wimpy slope that I practiced on. It took 5-10 minutes for me to go back up, get geared, and summon up the courage to go down again. Once I had made the trip though, once I had reached the flat foot of the hill where there’s no action, there was only one urge in me: go back up. Sure I spent a lot of time contemplating, theorizing about snowboarding when I was on the upper part of a usually pretty tamed slope. But only in coming down the sport really happened. I would have no control over the steepness, the curves, the bumps and the people. And I would not know what I was doing most of the time. And that would be exactly the point. That fear, followed by a rush, was what got me going and going.

Man, we went two days in a week. Snow fell the whole night before Wednesday and we enjoyed a thick, feathery layer of snow in our first lesson. A nice, forgiving cushion for a beginner like me. Still the snow didn’t help much when Sam tricked me to take the lift to the top of the mountain. I had to slide all the way back down. It took me like an hour to come down; it was no fun. What made it worse was that the mountain kept curving right. I didn’t get a chance to really do anything when I couldn’t even counter the natural way of the slope. All I could do was to squat up on the board a bit, get way too scared, fall back, and then redo the same thing over and over again. It was putting real strain on my lower legs; my left calf cramped two times during the slide. One time I got up and saw a creek with running water underneath— had I slid one foot to the right I would have fallen into it. Nonetheless after the Long Slide I went on practicing a couple of hours, and I only quit when a bad stop cramped and immobilized both of my calves. (I would spend the whole day next day walking like a crumbly old man, or the Hunchback of Notre Dame.)

I was hooked. I was on steriod; it was called Endorphin. I never knew sports was so fun—you have a goal, you face challenges, you master some techniques, and you go again. I was mountain high.

I love giving myself to the mountain. I love throwing my body out and let it fall. Although I did spend a lot of time ramping up to it, every time I fell I realized: “This is not too bad. I can totally get up and get going again!” When I skateboarded, everything else in the world shrank. Nothing was bigger than the mountain. No self, no worries, no trivialities. It was just me and the slope before me. I love this feeling of giving myself to a goal and forgetting the worldly cares— they are not significant anymore. After my first day we had to go to the Mall as we thought we had lost our cellphones. We were in dirty skid clothes, wide-eyed and wild looking, probably a bit smelly too. We were completely out of place amongst those holiday shoppers and teenagers who were so eager to be seen and to become something. Normally we get a little distressed by the grotesque commercialism of “da Mool”, but not that day. We’ve got PERSPECTIVE today. We knew there was only one thing that mattered javascript:void(0)
Publish Post(snowboarding down the mountain), and all else is only frizz and fluff. Yeah, frizz & fluff. Insignificant.

Today the snow was icier. It hurt more to fall. I had 4-5 pretty bad falls. I scratched my chin in one of them. I kind of look like a “flower-face cat” now…

a working artist in old dear HK...

See Stella So -
Interview at RTHK
Upstairs ‧ Downstairs (page bottom)

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