Found a random note today, abandoned at the bus stop, before our army of cleaning staff or the October rains could get to it. Am sending the note to FOUND Magazine. I don't harbour any hopes that it'll actually be published. Even if it were published I'd never see that issue; not from the other side of the planet.

I'm sending the note anyway, because I can.

Derrida is dead. Long live Derrida!

There is no doubt that Innocence is visually stunning, but it lacks the philosophical depth and thematic consistency that helped make its 1995 cinematic predecessor Ghost in the Shell a cult classic.

Fascinating visual touches abound -- kanji everywhere, cars styled as if from the 1950s. An eclectic mix of modern Japanese, Chinese and European influences pervades the work. However, there is no sense of these images having any greater significance within the context of the narrative. The boisterous parade scene in particular, with its riot of colour and mish-mash of Chinese and Japanese images, seems more of a parody rather than a homage to its subdued and meaningful cousin in Ghost in the Shell.

Also expected of Oshii Mamoru, this film is packed with textual references and quotes. However, he goes overboard with these in Innocence. The constant quoting and referencing alienate the audience instead of enhancing a mood or provoking further reflection, and the constant exposition doesn't help.

As a stepping stone for further exploration of burning philosophical issues like what it means to be human, Innocence is an excellent start, as the Midnight Eye review implies. In terms of narrative and structure however, it's not as coherent or engaging as the first. Still worth catching though, for the sheer beauty and fluidity of the animation.

Managed to hunt down (with help from hifiguy!) cheaper copies of the US hardcover edition of the last book in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Won't need to shell out $50 for The System of the World at Borders after all!

A combination of hunger, a fit of nostalgia, and the fact that there really isn't a good variety of snacks for sale anywhere in the immediate vicinity of Buona Vista MRT all resulted in my buying a pack of Yan Yan. I open it, and on the inside of the cover there's a printed message saying I've won... another free pack of Yan Yan. The odd thing is that there was no sign of a promotion anywhere in the shop. Even the shopkeepers didn't know and had to call up the distributor for confirmation. Talk about random luck.

Toy technology and design has improved by leaps and bounds from when I bought my last Transformer (from the pathetic Action Masters line) and there are some interesting sculpts and figures out there, like the Beast Machines version of Blackarachnia.

In the last couple of years Hasbro executives have gotten smarter too -- they seem to have discovered the monetary benefits of issuing repainted versions of older toys. Let's take our lady Transformer Blackarachnia as an example. There are three versions of that specific figure. The first is from the Beast Machines toy line. The second is from the later Universe toy line. The third is also from the Universe line, but packaged together with another Transformer (also a repaint) as a K Mart exclusive, and renamed Crystal Widow.

Those bootleg VCDs I inadvertently bought have quality akin to that of a movie recording made surreptitiously in a dark cinema hall using a handheld camera. But Last Exile, the anime series produced to commemorate GONZO's 10th anniversary last year still looks beautiful. Watching the version I now have, is like looking at an Old Master painting through layers of grime and dust. Just imagining what the (official) DVD version looks like invokes admiration and awe.

For pi-girl: Only music can save the baby camel.

For everyone: this year's French Film Festival. And will Maggie Cheung be coming to Singapore? Please please please.

More on Imelda:

The editing is deft and Ramona Diaz has the knack for choosing choice bits of stock footage to flesh out the life and times of Imelda Marcos. This never becomes a personal quest for Diaz however (unlike the work of a certain overweight white American filmmaker with huge political axes to grind).

Imelda Romauldez Marcos is given plenty of opportunities to exonerate or damn herself in candid testimonies. If her Ptolemaic rationalisations -- her theories of "beauty" and "order" complete with enneagram-like symbols, her insistence that there has never been any human rights abuses in the Philippines, her explaining away the fact that she and Ferdinand Marcos had separate bedrooms -- collapse under their own implausibility, this is hardly the director's fault.

Imelda Marcos's own self-perception is a combination of a messianic complex, monarchical tendencies and beauty pageant glamour all propped up by a stunning, even child-like, lack of self-awareness. The extent to which her vilification is justified however, is up to the audience to decide.

Diaz also presents her rise to power as a product of Filipino society even as Imelda condoned the abuses and tyranny of her husband's regime (as well as perpetrating a few herself it seems). Imelda, ironically enough, remains popular among the Filipino poor despite her blemished past and the fact that in concrete terms she has not really done much for them at all. The audience is invited to draw their own conclusions about how polities view their politicians, in addition to pondering Imelda's life beyond the confines of that infamous shoe collection.

I'm not a fan of horror movies and I never liked gross-out comedies, so the offerings at last evening's SFS core screening (One Missed Call (even if it is by Miike Takashi) and Sex is Zero) didn't appeal to me. I had to run errands downtown though, so I figured I might as well watch something I've been wanting to catch anyway.

Imelda is an excellent documentary (and not in the Michael Moore sense) about a much misunderstood political figure and her times. I was not disappointed at all.

(To whet your appetites, here's an Indiewire interview with the director, Ramona Diaz.)

Hey, The Necessary Stage is restaging godeatgod. After The Visit of the Tai Tai and The Physicists though, I don't think I'll be going to plays for a while.

Heavens. I'm more blur than a sotong in an inkpot.

Sepet is, of course, enjoying a general release run even as I type this. Excuse me while I kick myself.

Malay girl looks for Wong Kar Wai movie at pirated VCD stall. Meets Chinese boy who runs said stall. They fall in love.

Yes, yes, I know I missed Sepet. What I want to know is: will there be a commercial release?

--------------
Watched at Japanese Film Fest this year:
It's Tough Being a Man (Otoko wa tsurai yo!)
Osaka Story (Osaka Monogatari)
Scoutman

You have to see her dance! She was so wrapped up in it with all her heart and soul, her whole body a harmony, so without care, so spontaneous, as if that were really all, as if she were not thinking, feeling, anything else; and in that moment everything else surely vanished for her.

--- Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

South of the Border, West of the Sun is my least favorite Murakami Haruki work. I found it a little too straightforward -- unsubtle even. Driven more by angst and less by imagination and mood.

It seemed that way to me when I read it a few years ago, and upon rereading it I understand more of what Murakami was trying to convey but it's still my least favorite.

"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel like I'm gazing at a distant star," I said. "It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist anymore. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything."

Got to catch Thievery Corporation live last night! Awesome set. Great music that just got better and better as distinct tunes and songs segued into a seamless blend of Middle Eastern, Indian, funk, bossa nova and more, backed with an infectious foot-stompin' beat.

Left as much out of work committments as fatigue. I'd be more appreciative if I hadn't been only getting 4+ hours of sleep each night since Monday, and the sardine-tight crowds and smoky air didn't help either. But it's good music and fine company -- personality goes a long way.

Ecotonoha is a project -- to nurture a virtual tree collaboratively, and at the same time contribute to the actual environment to cope with global warming. As you make Ecotonoha's leaves, the virtual tree will grow, and as Ecotonoha grows, real trees will be planted by NEC.

This is one of the most beautiful Flash animations I've ever seen. Stunning simplicity.

I knew The Terminal was going to be fluffy and contrived, which it was. In mitigation, I would never have seen it if not for the "friendly outing" (formerly known as a "date"). On hindsight I'm glad there was the third person, a mutual friend, to keep the moribund conversation chugging along.

Spielberg's cotton candy offering may have been inspired by a real incident, and the truth is far sadder, complex and less palatable to a mass audience. See The Guardian feature: "The Man Who Lost His Past". Also take a look at "Merhan Karimi Nasseri at Charles de Gaulle airport, France, since 1988".

Last Friday morning, just before leaving for work, I suddenly thought of a book (not really a book, but a photocopy of a book). So I went to the cupboard where I knew I'd wedged it more than a year ago when I unpacked my things from Chicago, rummaged a bit, and pulled Dazai Osamu's The Setting Sun (Shayou) out. Somehow that unread novel has been lingering in the back of my mind ever since I failed to complete it for a Japanese Literature class a lifetime ago, but that morning -- just that morning -- felt right for reading it.

I've since finished, but even typing that seems hollow when I don't understand it. Don't understand why the characters behave and think and feel the way they do.

Good stuff from Barcelona, reminescent of Pizzicato Five and blazing a cool trail of their own. Ladies and gents: The Pinker Tones!

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, running amidst the mini-mall parking lot! It is Strangeknight, hands clutching a reflective halberd! And with an ominous grunt, his voice cometh: "Brace yourself, oh human speck of dust! I destroy all in my path like a river of pure piranha!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

If you've wondered where the smurf came from, it took over the slot on the Medicom website that used to be occupied by the much cooler Kill Bill 2 Bearbrick. I've since replaced it with a new avatar that will not inexplicably morph into something else. But there's a certain novelty to the idea of having my Blogger Profile image change without warning into something wholly unexpected.

btw if you're in the US and you like anime, support Operation Zeta!

David gave an excellent criticism of my last post: that it implies I expect someone with less education to be somehow less morally upright. This link is, of course, a ridiculous assertion anywhere.

My first reaction was to wonder about the logic of the post. Was that what I really meant? The post says "A, yet B", so does that necessarily mean "not A thus B"?

I am uncomfortable using logic as a defense, nor do I like falling back on the easy excuse that it's the indelible result of the Singapore hegemony of ideas about education here. In short, I admit that bigotry tinged my last post to an extent -- what extent I leave to you to judge from the unedited post below.

That's why I need people like David to help me purge myself of these views. Thank you.

Today, a guy in my camp approached me and asked me to write an essay for his friend for admission to the University of Chicago. Naturally, I turned him down with a vengeance.

What disappointed me the most was that this guy hails from one of the top JCs in this country, yet showed utterly no scruples whatsoever in asking me to be dishonest. Halfway through our brief conversation, he burst out: "But who's going to know?"

Words cannot describe my contempt for this boy.

I had simple plans for this weekend, revolving mainly around the free screenings at the Japanese Association. But other things have cropped up in the meantime. Nothing bad of course. Just lots of reshuffling and hastily composed SMSes. What's life without a modicum of excitement?

Q 1) You are meeting someone for the first time, and you're watching a movie together. What do you pick?

A) Safe Spielberg Hollywood flick The Terminal?

B) Independent Malaysian film The Beautiful Washing Machine?

Date or no date, A is the safest choice. The two people I've asked this say so. My head says so. But I'm stuck on The Beautiful Washing Machine, here for the Malaysian Film Fest. Sunday's the last day.

Besides:

Q 2a) If a third party comes along, is it still a date?

Q 2b) If your answer to 2a was "No" or an equivalent expression, would you still be bound by dating conventions e.g. a "safe" movie?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Seek her! Hunt her down like heat seeking missile! Be relentless!

Started my Sunday with the Terry Fox Run. 8km at a mostly leisurely jogging pace. Easier than I thought. I still have my doubts about where all the money really goes to though.

Went to the Zouk flea market in the afternoon, and walked out with a used copy of the Pulp Fiction OST. Most of the time I spent there was over whether to buy used Cospa Gundam T-shirts, or bootleg Galaxy Express 999 DVDs. Was surprised at the number of toys and anime-related stuff for sale there but Flea 'n Easy's the wrong place to be shopping for these things.

The Turkish Bazaar was a real letdown. Two tiny tentages dwarfed by the ACM Empress Place.

Dropped by The Arts House on the way back to check out the modern Japanese artists' exhibition Painting For Joy.

I don't think either was great, but I preferred the imagery (some of it was overstretched) and shots of Mango Yellow (Amarelo Manga) to the witty one-liners and musical-chair developments of Breaking Up (Separa��es).

 

The Japanese Film Festival is just round the corner! I'll probably be at the Japanese Association all of the 25th :p Want to watch the Tora-san movies as well, but haven't decided if I should watch them back-to-back or separately.

(Free movies = long queues. Ugh.)

btw, Midnight Eye has reviews for Taste of Tea (Cha no Aji) and Scoutman (Pain)

And after that's done, there's Insomnia48 which, as faithful readers of my rambling blog such as yourself will recall without difficulty, I've highlighted before on this blog.

Followed by a Friedrich Durrenmatt festival at the Arts House, Oct 9 - 31. Excellent!

First things first -- I'm heading down to the Grand Bazaar at the Asian Civilisations Museum this weekend. Will check out the exhibits too.

Anyone wanna join me? :)

You know, I would love to do a movie where every single time the lovers are together, it's raining. When they meet, when they go out together, when they make love, no matter what. Whenever they're together, it's raining [...] I think also that rain forces people together. In September when it rains, suddenly the people have to stay inside the house, they have to be together, and it becomes more intimate. It gives an atmosphere for more intimate things to happen, whether it's falling in love or in other ways sharing a togetherness. It affects their mood in some way. In the same way, I guess, if you're in a bedroom with a woman to make love and all the bright lights are on, that's one atmosphere. But if you turn it way down, and it's very soft lighting, the atmosphere becomes much more romantic and gentler. The same thing with the sunshine. If you take the sunshine away, it becomes more moody, more confessional. You tend to want to confess more and express your deeper feelings more.

-- Woody Allen, Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman

Toki no namida wa yusareta ka?
 

Saturday night: I like the music, but it's the company that matters the most. Hanging out at odd hours with all of you, talking and chatting over milo beng, teh alia and other kopitiam staples -- those are the best moments of all.

Sunday's just a DJ set away:


The loot today:

Captain Harlock gashapon set, pictured above. The sculpts are excellent, as is the quality. Seams are visible but that's always a problem with gashapon. You'll notice Captain Harlock's laser sabre is missing -- I'm in the process of straightening the darn PVC thing.

Ibuki figure. Another gashapon to keep Taki company (Did I mention I have a thing for female ninja? ^_^; )

Bootleg Gundam shirt -- in the wash now. The back has one of Akitaka Mika's famous MS Girls. A Kampfer, in fact ^_^

Soseki's I Am a Cat and a guide for job interviews. Both picked up from the bargain corner at Kinokuniya Liang Court.

Also picked up a budget reissued volume of Matsumoto Leiji's Queen Emeraldas. That was the best purchase for me, 'cos I missed out on the previous volume. 

I know that other people have social lives of their own (and that those lives are probably far, far more interesting than mine), but I'm still not used to the concept that I have to plan my weekends a week or two in advance so I can "book" people. It feels to me like I'm asking my doctor or my dentist out.

In order to explain why I find this figure and this one from Chara Hobby 2004 (oh, only the biggest anime/gashapon/action figure/garage kit/model kit convention in Japan) especially funny, I would have to explain Gundam and Azumanga Daioh to you.

I love both series, and I think I know how the connection was made from one to the other. It all has an otaku coolness about it that I love.

Where are you on The Political Compass?

Just playing some Astrud Gilberto, on a rainy day.

Am down with food poisoning. Can't go out today. Would be a good time to watch that In The Mood For Love DVD -- except that I returned it to the library yesterday :(

Along the way, the people of the interior seem to have adopted the attitude that whatever the foreigners can screw up they usually will, so you might as well focus on the few acres of rock and lichen you can control.

It's similar to the conclusion that came out of a big US study earlier this year discounting the role of positive emotions on cancer survival. A relentlessly upbeat attitude has probably been overrated in society.

If you really want arteries that will let you live to 100, you'd do better to follow the example of a Sardinian peasant and respond to everything, good and bad, with the same sort of droll fatalism. As Demurtas put it to me: "A girl once asked me, 'How can I live to be your age?' I told her, 'Don't die too early.'"

--- John Hodgman, Men Who Defy Death

Faithless's new music video for their track I Want More is made up of documentary footage that captures the preparation for and performance of a North Korean mass concert. Children and adults, men and women all leap, run, twist and twirl with robot-like precision, making these mass displays breathtaking and eerie at the same time. See for yourself -- click here.

I'd understand Jay Chou (Zhou Jie Lun) better if he didn't slur so much, but he is a very good Chinese R&B singer/songwriter -- the best thing to happen to the moribund Chinese pop scene in a long while. Can't get enough of his evocative Qi Li Xiang. For the lyrics and a translation (with an explanation of the title that shows how horribly mundane English is compared to logographic languages) click here
.

Managed to pull entry for two into a media screening of Saved! last night. A typical high school comedy with the usual stereotypes:

• Inept adult figures, especially the parents.


• A super-popular, pretty, vain but stupid and mean-spirited young blonde who is, of course, the main antagonist. Mandy Moore hams it up in this undemanding role.


• Stupider sycophants for the antagonist. Usually two.


• The school outcasts. Usually a duo.


• A protagonist who gains acceptance into the antagonist's group but later comes to realise that her real friends are the outcasts.


• Cute guy who becomes an object of contention between the protagonist and antagonist.


• A feel-good ending. The protagonist gets the cute guy. The social outcasts are vindicated. The antagonist realises she's wrong and is redeemed. The inept adults have their resolution. No-one dies or is grieviously hurt. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Saved! tries to rise above this hackneyed formula by spoofing fundamentalist Christian attitudes and practices throughout, transposing the relevant memes onto the secular American high school environment most moviegoers would be (for better or for worse) familiar with. Classrooms with colourful "Creationism" displays on the noticeboard, a large Jesus Christ billboard as youth project, Christian rock school concerts etc. By exaggerating fundamentalist Christian influences, the movie does take a dig at the tendency in some groups to see Christianity as some quintessence of being American. More importantly, the movie skewers human arrogance and hypocrisy. Religion here is a vehicle, not the target.

But with two-dimensional characters, a cliched narrative and passable dialogue Saved! is really another thin serving of American high school comedy, even if the protagonist is an unwed mother. Of particular note is Macaulay Culkin -- an absolute riot as Mandy Moore's sardonic wheelchair-bound brother and probably the best thing in the movie.

The first film I worked with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai was Days of Being Wild. He is a quiet man who likes to smoke a lot. Somehow, we get along well and have worked on four subsequent films. We communicate in rather peculiar ways. Most of the time, we don't have a complete script. Often, I give Tony a song or some music as reference.

I don't know whether my working style fits Tony, but throughout these years, he seldom complains. Most of the time, when I ask him to listen to a piece of music, he would do so sitting in a corner, holding a cigarette and peeking at me with a devilish smile.

Osamu Dazai once wrote a short story entitled "A Handsome Devil with a Cigarette." I had always thought it was a great title for a film. I like Dazai a lot. Tony reminds me of him.

--- Wong Kar Wai

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I bought a portable MP3 player today. Setting it up wasn't a problem at all. What really irritates me to no end now is that I can't determine the order in which my MP3s play. The bundled software doesn't allow me to directly move files around within the memory of the player. I thought the player might be arranging them alphabetically. that's mostly right. Numbers before alphabets, A before B etc. But when it comes to filenames that begin with the same letter the order just goes to hell in a handbasket.

Well, that's what you get when you buy an Aigo. I keep telling myself it's a stopgap measure until I start working :/

I remember now why I never liked earphones -- I can't wear them properly. The left one will fit just fine, but the right one will never fit properly. So I have to keep shoving it in or else it'll come loose eventually. The result is an aching right ear, raw around the canal opening.

So stupid, that my right ear is shaped ever so slightly differently from my left.

I knew I should've bought headphones. Maybe one of those big ones that you see at the listening stations at HMV or Tower. Dammit.

Michael Frayn's Headlong was definitely fun to read, even as my enjoyment mingled uneasily with disgust at the protagonist's self-delusion and slide into moral ambiguity. Ambition, greed and scholarly discourses on Bruegel. If anyone wants to read about conspiracies and paintings, this is far better constructed than that literary tripe The Da Vinci Code.

Destiny?!? Boo... ;P


Destiny, you are the oldest of The Endless, you are
eternally chained to a book that holds the
secrets of the universe. You are all business,
never have time to even crack a smile, and
always make sure you do not draw too much
attention. You do not want people hunting after
you!


Which Endless are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Kill Bill Vol. 2 Japanese Limited Edition DVD box set, like its predecessor, is full of goodies. Since DVDTimes won't let me post pictures of the blood-red t-shirt with silhouettes of The Bride training with Pai Mei and the Chinese characters for "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", the Pai Mei keychain, and the "Love Bride" Bearbrick with special coffin housing, you'll just have to click here or on the link above.

To whet your appetite, I pulled this off the Medicom site:



Ain't she pretty? 8th October! But I won't be in Japan :(

Insomnia48 looks like great fun.

a non-stop 48 hour event of performance, clubbing, music, happenings, videos, installations, ateliers, workshops and social interactions. The audience is invited to join the completely free event (there are no catches!) from friday 8 pm to sunday 8 pm

Anyone wanna go with me? :D

Imagine, if you will, a t-shaped stage with white gauzy material draped all around such that it looked like a corridor -- probably meant to evoke the cramped alleys in between the "death houses" that once stood in that open, ill-tended field where we sat on plastic chairs, watching Ma: Moment.

I have no real complaints about it, even the unintentionally funny scene where one of the actors plays a hungry ghost in melodramatic agony. Amanda and Justin thought it was all very depressing. Which it was, but somehow I didn't feel for the characters very much and so the pathos never reached me.

I did like the technical and conceptual aspects of the production, particularly the coherent integration of scenes from the '60s film Mother's Grief (Ke Lian De Ma Ma), projected onto the gauzy white draperies for ethereal effect, into the fractured narratives of the production. One moment it's a film in the now demolished-Metropole Cinema, the next a proxy for memories and when silent, a pliable medium ripe for interpretation by actors' voices.

I've noticed that whenever Singaporeans meet, the questions that follow those about name, occupation and workplace invariably have to do with educational background. Where you studied, what you studied.

This probably has to do with Singapore's tiny size relative to other countries and the tendency for certain schools to assume reputations, even auras, beyond their geographical size. Throw in our general anxieties with education as a whole, and the result is that people have come to expect one another to exhibit certain traits based solely on where they studied. For instance, if you come from a St. Joseph's Institution or either Anglo-Chinese School, be prepared for jokes about poor Mandarin results for the rest of your life regardless of how well (or poorly) you did. We've even gone to the extent of saying that certain people have a "look" about them that indicates a certain school.

I myself have been a victim of this kind of stereotyping, and I like it even less now. Being pigeonholed by educational institutions and subjects shows a horrid lack of imagination. Shouldn't people be interesting enough on their own?

Finished watching Godard's Contempt (Le Mepris) last night. Ah well, nothing to report other than I still need sleep. But who doesn't?

Got up early yesterday to catch the sublime Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring before it leaves cinemas here for good. Then watched Dogville in the afternoon. Two vastly different, excellent reflections on human nature.

Going by their performance last night at the Esplanade Waterfront, I think The Observatory's ok. They're not bad. I especially like Leslie Low's mellow vocals and how they use electronic noise to unnerve audiences and give an ironic twist to their music. Maybe their album sounds better?

Speaking of local bands to support, Electrico just released their debut album. Sounds good.

Rejection came quickly. Nope, didn't get into AS or MAP. Now I'd wish I'd come out of that interview with a sick feeling in my stomach like everyone else instead of an adrenaline rush.

Friends have encouraged me not to take this too hard, and I've been preparing myself for this letter far before the interview occurred. So I'm not ripping myself up inside over this bit of bad news.

Well, not much. Not for long.

I very nearly couldn't get the copy of Rolling Stone with the Gary Trudeau interview and the Tom Wolfe excerpt.

Well, the terrible truth about writers is, they create characters and then they put them in harm's way. That's what drama is about. As a writer, I don't have an emotional link to the characters. I have to summon them up -- I have to pull them out of the toolbox and put 'em to work. They don't live in my head. --- Gary Trudeau

Yes, I should spend more time pulling things out of my head instead of just cramming it with... stuff.

Has anyone noticed that the satirical website Talkingcock.com has been down since National Day? Or that Colin Goh's fortnightly column failed to appear as scheduled in last Sunday's newspaper?

Hmm.

How I wish I, wish I'd done a little bit more
Now "Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" means I'm out of time
'Cos "Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" can't change your mind
And I wonder, wonder what I'm gonna do
"Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" are the last words of a fool.

The SGFilm forums now have a blog -- http://www.sgfilm.com/blog/

Want your China and HK movie fix? MonkeyPeaches !

The photos don't look too promising, but who knows what this giant book sale might throw up?

I'm supposed to treat it like a conversation. A chance for them to get to know me better.

I'm just a boy whose intentions are good /
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood!

Doesn't seem fair to talk about Jarmusch and not Ho Yuhang's Min which I also watched last week. So let's give it a go. Before that, here's a synopsis:

Min (2003) by Ho Yuhang
Running time: 78 min
Country: Malaysia
Language: Malay with English subtitles

Min (2003)This film is about a young teacher named Yasmin ("Min"), a young Chinese girl, adopted by a Malay family, who goes to look after her biological mother.

Min, a 20-year-old Chinese girl, discovers that she was adopted as a little child. Her old school friend is charged with finding out that her biological parents are. Min informs her adoptive parents about her plans and sets out on a long journey for her roots. All she has got is the address of the factory where her mother is employed.

Ho Yuhang's style is reminiscent of Taiwanese directors like Tsai Ming-Liang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. With calculated modesty and nearly perfect visual expression, this Malaysian independent director has made the purest art cinema.

Ho refuses to play up the melodramatic potential of the plot (a Chinese woman adopted by Malay parents goes to look for her natural mother) and gives us a far more significant take on the loneliness of urban life. Music is kept to a minimum. Instead the mundane events of the film, depicted through long takes and long shots, play out against an unceasing soundtrack of harsh, grating urban noise. This incessant din extends into the extended full blackouts that throw audiences from scene to scene. Min is not a comfortable movie.

Wanna watch one of Tsai Ming Liang's films even more.

Thanks to a friend with a spare preview ticket, I got to watch Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. The movie's a collection of black and white clips, with a fairly star-studded cast that includes Bill Murray, RZA (wearing a Ghost Dog hat I wish I had), GZA, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, Cate Blanchett, and for the indy music fans -- Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Jack and Meg White (a.k.a. The White Stripes). Even Roberto Benigni makes an appearance.

As you might expect, not all the clips are equally interesting or funny. The only things that tie all of them together are coffee (well, tea in one case), cigarettes, and the idea that speech is the worst form of communication between two people.

The dialogue is often funny and quirky but the things left unsaid are more crucial and this is where it falls to the actors to really differentiate the scenes from one another. For instance, put character actor Alfred Molina and established British comedian Steve Coogan together and you have a segment that shines with the contrast between Molina's effusive enthusiasm and Coogan's dry, understated wit. This makes the reversal at the segment's end much more satisfying. Also kudos to Cate Blanchett for talking on double roles in her episode and filling both -- a rich, well-heeled celebrity and her poor punk-rocker cousin -- admirably. In contrast, the musicians' episodes fall flat when there's no obvious visual quirk, like Jack White's Tesla coil.

I admit I'm not familiar with Jarmusch's work. I've only watched Ghost Dog and that was more accessible than Coffee and Cigarettes. So arm yourself with more patience if you're going to see the latter. Caffeine may help.

My ability to write essays in an exam setting is in severe disrepair. And just when I thought I'd left those dog days behind.

The itinerant booksellers have returned to my neighbourhood. Guess what I found today? Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman.

Mostly done with A Defining Moment: How Singapore Beat SARS. I went through the main text first, leaving the little side panels and appendixed stories for later. Chua Mui Hoong treats this book as a blow-by-blow account of healthcare and governmental reactions to the unfolding crisis. Even as she carefully avoids any explicit bias towards the Government, our Ministers and top civil servants end up looking really good.

Chua asserts that the main factor behind our relatively successful control of SARS is a certain collective mentality shared by the rulers and the ruled that have led us to be labelled as a "nanny state".

Like a trusted nanny, the state was successful in getting its messages across because it had a deep reservoir of trust with its citizens, built up over the years, to bank on.
----- p. 139

To this effect, Chua gives adequate space to the errors and mistakes made, but takes care to emphasise that these occurred because of time pressures and the need to err on the side of caution. Throughout the book she takes as given that the decision-making structures put into place (or already planned for, as the case may be) were the best possible ones to contain the SARS outbreak. Moreover, she paints a largely rosy picture of all levels of society humming in tune with Government measures. Any resistance is either glossed over or rendered incredulous -- like the story about the Cat Welfare Society planning to send stray cats to a Johor pet shelter in protest at increased cat culling by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority here. In all, the book isn't so much an account of a society coming to grips with a deadly disease as it is a story about a well-oiled machine going through its paces. But no-one's perfect, and you can't argue with results.

The photographs are nice, but paper quality was selected with affordability in mind -- and rightfully so. There is little doubt that this is a feel-good book, meant to appeal to the masses and inspire Singaporeans everywhere. There is truly much that rank-and-file Singaporeans (especially our healthcare professionals) can be proud of. Just don't expect any deep analyses behind decision-making processes or public policy implementation and so on. If you're into that kind of meatier, more critical stuff, you will want The New Global Threat, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Its Impacts. And hey, it's conveniently available at Select Books (hint! hint!).

I'm looking for the lyrics to The Hives' infectious Walk Idiot Walk, but it's clear that the vast majority of lyrics sites just copied the same wrong lyrics from one another. Annoying as heck.

Oh, and I haven't found an accurate version of said lyrics. Would someone like to help?

Singapore celebrates 39 years of nationhood today. If you're not from Singapore and reading this, go out and have a drink (non-alcoholic counts too) and be happy just like the 4.2 million people here.

The classic The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy has been with us for almost 25 years now. Be happy for that too (drink optional) and think that Douglas Adams is laughing as well, somewhere out there.

Kinokuniya here launched their Privilege Card this weekend. At $21 a year for a 10% discount on all purchases, I see no reason to get it since I spend less than $210 a year at Kino. In any case, I can always wait for the 20% storewide discounts that they offer three times a year.

Speaking of which, if you're thinking of picking up a copy of A Defining Moment: How Singapore Beat SARS at the sale, don't bother 'cos the discount doesn't apply to "government publications", and this is one of them. Go get your copy from Select Books -- support local independent bookstores (assuming they have copies in stock)!

I am looking for a system to organise my life by. I want to be able to see all that I need to do, in all their categories with as few transitions or glances as possible. I would prefer not to have to cross-reference because I know I will forget to cross-reference in the first place. In other words the problem isn't remembering what the string on my finger does, but remembering to put the string there in the first place. And then you have to remember what it does...

The ideal might be my own personal internet, with the ability to creat hyperlinks on the fly. As I type this I'm imagining a holographic construct -- a cube, say -- with a glove of some sort like the one Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report to interface with it.

I don't know how saner folk like Justin can manage with pen and paper. I tried that too, but the inability to rearrange and reorder my notes on the fly is infuriating. And then there's the problem of quick access to what I wrote before. No search engines for notepads.

Perhaps I should look into investing in a PDA. That gives me the added advantage of being able to carry and read long documents (like theses) on the bus or MRT without having to expend ink, pulp and time.

As for my room, I'd love a large whiteboard with markers.

Breaking his long silence, Trudeau sat down with Rolling Stone in the modest studio in Manhattan where he creates "Doonesbury." Despite the flecks of gray in his hair, at fifty-six he has the easygoing, curious manner of a grad student still fascinated by the world around him. It's no exaggeration to say that Trudeau revolutionized the funny pages, creating a space where reactionaries and radicals alike squabble over the issues of the day. His style is part Charles Schulz, part Charles Dickens. Over the years his characters have grappled with everything from AIDS and abortion to Alzheimer's. But with the election of George W. Bush, who attended Yale with Trudeau back in the Sixties, "Doonesbury" has taken on an urgency and relevance reminiscent of its early, gleeful assaults on Nixon.

Spent all Sunday helping my bro sell toys from his personal collection at the weekly Clarke Quay flea/toy market. He's unloading all his Be@rbricks, and has a very comprehensive collection up to Series 7. So if you read this and you're interested in procuring some of these figures, just drop me an email or leave a note in the tagboard or a comment or something. ;)

So the week's begun, and it's gonna be a busy one for me. The wheels began turning a while ago, but it's only now that they're picking up speed. Gotta do my bit to see what kind of a ride I'll be getting for the next, oh, 6 years or so. Fun fun fun. :p

Unfortunately, Zhang Yimou has fallen to the seductions of CGI and gratuitous slow motion shots. House of the Flying Daggers (Shi Mian Mai Fu) starts out okay, but gets sluggish in the second half and dies a slow tortuous death from ludicrous setpieces, excruciating melodrama and uninspired fight scenes. Everyone struggles with the pseudo-classical Mandarin lines, and there's little chemistry between any of the three leads. The plot borrows heavily from Infernal Affairs (Wu Jian Dao) -- in fact House might as well be titled Infernal Affairs: Tang Dynasty instead. Heck, it's even got Andy "Wo Shi Jing Cha" Lau in it.

The only things going for the movie are Zhang Ziyi's acting, Kaneshiro's impishness, the beautiful landscapes and Emi Wada's lusciously reimagined period costumes. And yes, there are a few gems -- the bamboo forest sequence is actually rather cool to watch. The CGI is fun at first, but tires extremely quickly. You will want to throw a few daggers yourself after watching, for the umpteenth time, close-ups of a CG-rendered dagger as it flies. The gratuitous slow-mo makes the film even worse.

In all, don't believe the hype (incidentally, the guys who came up with the promo displays should be fired -- a crucial plot point is given away in the publicity photos!). There're many good reasons why this film wasn't in competition at Cannes.

Is there anyone who didn't think The Return was very, very good? Watched it yesterday and was impressed too. A hermetic blend of motif, fable and allegory tied by parallels, efficient dialogue and brilliantly constructed visuals.

Here is another face of a woman spun out of the familiarity of years, concealing a lifetime of episodes, splendidly recorded by a listening photographer. It is a face, I thought when I first saw it, of our life at home. Six months later I was showing the pictures casually to my sister. "There's Mrs. Farraj," she said. Indeed, it was. I first saw her in 1946 when my cousin married her daughter, who was the first beautiful woman I encountered in real life. Then I saw her in the fifties, and then again now, in Jean Mohr's picture. Connected to me, my sister, my friends, her relatives, her acquaintances, and the places she's been, her picture seems like a map pulling us all together, even down to her hair net, her ribbed sweater, the unattractive glasses, the balanced smile and strong hand. But all the connections only came to light, so to speak, some time after I had seen the phototgraph, after we had decided to use it, after I had placed it in sequence. As soon as I recognized Mrs. Farraj, the suggested intimacy of the photograph's surface gave way to an explicitness with few secrets. She is a real person -- Palestinian -- with a real history at the interior of ours. But I do not know whether the photograph can, or does, say things as they really are. Something has been lost. But the representation is all we have.

-- Edward Said, After The Last Sky

The Scriptwriting for Film seminar yesterday was mostly quite basic and rushed, as expected. No surprises, and a lot of handouts and worksheets. For my part I was hyped up on caffeine most of the time, thanks to periodic infusions of the instant coffee provided. However, as Justin stoically and sensibly pointed out, the trick was staying hyped up in the days-weeks-months after the seminar.

Watched The Ronggeng Dancer (Nji Ronggeng) and Magnifico in the evening.

The Ronggeng Dancer, made in 1969, is one of the first colour films made in Indonesia. I'd let the writeup provided by the Arts House describe the remarkable nature of the film:

... the film reconstructs performances of the ronggeng dance as they are supposed to have occured in village squares and carnivals in West Java in the 1930s.

The ronggeng dance, similar to the Balinese joget, is a subtle and sensuous dance performed in public spaces by both paid and unpaid female dancers. In these dances -- which duly provides an erotic spectacle as the woman, usually a professional dancer, invites men from the crowd to dance with her -- the woman sometimes has the power to dismiss their partners if their dancing is not satisfactory to her. In the film, the form of ronggeng dance is one wherein male partners are invited to try to touch the woman's hair, and where, through her dancing, she tries to evade them and even deflect their attempts to touch her hair by using defensive hand movements used in silat (a traditional Indonesian form of self-defence). Hence, the dance, as depicted in the film, is more than simply an erotic spectacle. Like the Balinese joget it is a highly structured social ritual in which the male partner's attitude to the woman, his exhibitionism, his pride and his capacity for self-control, also become part of the public spectacle. This, in fact, becomes the dramtic subject of the film Nji Ronggeng.

The blurred distinctions between martial art/combat and dance was particularly interesting imho, and this is clearly shown throughout the film. The opening credits of the film are imposed upon a ronggeng performance, and halfway through the dancer begins going through silat patterns -- first barehanded, then with small parangs in each hand. In another instance, young men take part in a kind of sparring contest with short bamboo cudgels, while music plays in the background. The men approach each other using dance and react accordingly as the music changes tempo. In another instance, when the villain's henchmen attempt to kidnap the "damsel" in the dance troupe, combat comes easily (if not too effectively) to the troupe members -- including the "damsel" herself.

The lush music was also a joy to listen too. Alas, the acting wasn't too good, and the plot was very simple with erratic pacing. An interesting ending with a political moral. All the same, Ronggeng is a visual and aural feast -- if you have the patience.

I liked Magnifico as well, even if everything fell into place in that movie a little too neatly. The soundtrack was hideously overbearing and stagnant -- out-Glassing Philip Glass even. I wanted to rip my ears out halfway through. The acting in that film was quite competent -- the child actors deserve the most praise. Solid direction and visuals; solid crowd-pleaser

I used to have lots of foolscap paper pads lying around, but now that I want to find them they all seem to have disappeared.

Maybe they went off and wrote on themselves, having tired of waiting. Wouldn't that be pleasantly efficient?

Since I last posted, I've seen Mean Girls and Osama. The former is actually a well-scripted comedy, as far as the American obsessions with high school shenanigans go. The latter is sombre, brutal and uncompromising in its portrayal of the zealotry of the Taliban, particularly with respect to their dehumanising of women. Well-crafted stuff.

Naturally, the movies are worlds apart in every sense. An image of galaxies furiously spiralling away from each other comes to mind.

All realize the reality

Finally got round to watching Red Beard (Akahige). I feel fulfilled.

Over the weekend, I picked up some old anime VCDs for cheap. The first two Patlabor movies and Bubblegum Crisis 2040. I have no idea when I will get around to watching those.

I've always had a soft spot for Patlabor, which unfortunately is an extremely underrated series outside Japan. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that there're no babes (the main protagonist is a tomboy and actually looks like one), no fancy dogfights and no fanservice. Instead, the series deals with the everyday efforts of policemen -- albeit policemen who get to pilot giant mecha -- in 20th Century Tokyo. It deals with their personal lives, with inter-unit politics, and with the simple but difficult matter of just getting along with your colleagues. Then throw in a shadowy conspiracy for some added punch -- it is anime after all.

The Patlabor movies were directed by Oshii Mamoru. I don't care if the picture quality sucks -- I love his work. Which reminds me that I should get around to reading that Kerberos Panzer Cop manga someday. Yeah, someday :p

I have to stop buying more books. Even if they're interesting, in used but good condition and cheap(er).

Must. Stop. Hoarding. :p

Managed to catch The Other Side of the Bed last night. Superficial Spanish comedy of musical-chair-sex. The actors randomly burst into charming, slightly off-key song and dance. Witty dialogue (although the best lines are at the breakup at the beginning), and the slightly goofy, sincere acting save the day. Not to mention Paz Vega and Natalia Verbeke are great eye candy. Predictable and all feel-good but immensely likeable stuff.

Alas, I could have gone for One Day In The Life of Andrei Arsenevitch too but it completely slipped my mind.

'All that was once directly lived', wrote Debord, 'has become mere representation.' Nowhere is this dictum more starkly illustrated than in the case of Che, who, in the four decades since his death, has been used to sell everything from china mugs to denim jeans, herbal tea to canned beer [...] Today, Che lives! all right, but not in the way he or his fellow revolutionaries could ever have imagined in their worst nightmares. He has become a global brand.

Been sleepy all day. Watched the disappointing To Kill A King last night. I thought Tim Roth was a bit disappointing as Cromwell, with a forced accent to boot. Dougray Scott was a passable Fairfax, but not convincing at all. The best acting came from the supporting cast imho -- Olivia Williams as the conflicted Anne and Rupert Everett as a desperate yet dignified monarch facing certain doom. It was a good effort at a character-driven movie. Above average, but not remarkable.

I originally wanted to catch The Other Side of the Bed, but I was concerned about getting home too late and not sleeping enough. The irony, of course, is that I ended up sleeping close to 2am anyway. Must find time to go watch that, if only to make up for To Kill A King.

Picked up this awesome figure for cheap this evening. It's the redesigned RX-78-02 (the original Gundam we all know and love) in the Gundam The Origin manga series. Running now in the popular bi-monthly Gundam Ace comic anthology, Gundam The Origin reunites original character designer Yasuhiko Yoshikazu and original mecha designer Okawara Kunio for a retelling of the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime.

Yasuhiko is a good storyteller in his own right, and there's a kind of chic 70's aesthetic in his and Okawara's designs. The latter's mecha are more organic and curvy, compared to Katoki Hajime's angular, crisp designs for the Gundam franchises. For better or for worse, Katoki's designs now dominate all Gundam product lines and anime.

What I love most about the figure -- other than the price, the detail (the beam rifle has a detachable clip!), the paint, the design and the height :D -- is the amazing articulation it has compared to the standard MSiA line of mecha action figures. I tried to demonstrate this in the picture above.

The main flaws are that the multitude of joints are all quite loose (in fact, the elbows won't hold straight poses), and that some holes don't fit their corresponding pegs very well. I had to do some shaving with a craft knife. And I don't understand why the shoulder cannon (unique to this redesigned Gundam) wasn't included at all.
 

Good heavens! After reading Justin's blog, I realised I'd omitted Ishiguro from my last post.

Kazuo Ishiguro!

was born in Nagasaki, and moved to England when he was 6. For him too English was not a first nor familiar language, yet he found literary acclaim in that medium.

I wonder if I can add Ha Jin to this lot of uneasy, uncomfortable writers? He, too, started writing while in the US. Exclusively in English.

So, how fertile is exile?

Have put aside Na Han for a bit, and started on Edward Said.

Said's work was inspired by the deep feelings of dislocation and loss that he felt for most of his life. From his original work on Joseph Conrad, to the groundbreaking Orientalism, to his Palestinian activism.

Conrad was of particular interest to Said, who saw a kindred exile in the Polish-born writer. Conrad only wrote in English, and that these novels are considered some of the best of the 20th Century is amazing -- English was Conrad's third language.

Said himself specialised in literary criticism, and was a fine writer in his own right. Like Conrad, English was not Said's native tongue.

It must be said, of course, that both writers did manage to immerse themselves in an English-speaking society. Conrad became a naturalised Englishman, while Said spent almost his entire academic life at Columbia University, New York. Nonetheless, these writers were never quite at home in their Western (for lack of a more precise term) environments.

And then there is the attractive unpretentiousness of the Kings of Convenience. Norwegian-born, Norwegian-bred, but somehow ending up writing and singing in English. I wonder if they feel the same kind of uneasiness that Conrad and Said felt? Maybe not exactly, but maybe there is an essence of the exile at work (play?) here. In looking in, everything seems clearer. But the price of vision is friction.

I bought a budget release of Kurosawa's Red Beard about 2 weeks ago, but have yet to watch it. I hereby resolve to watch it before the week runs out and falls over into the abyss.

I bought a budget release of Zhang Yimou's Ba Wang Bie Ji (Farewell, My Concubine), which I impulsively popped into the DVD player as soon as I got home. Was surprised by the picture quality (the sound quality was probably top-notch too, but I can't quite tell without a proper home theatre system now, can I?) and the good English subtitles (which I turned off -- ha!). The viewing experience was marred by the logo of the releasing company which appeared in the top-right hand corner occasionally. Irritating and distracting. Otherwise, a wonderful three hours.

But I should go back and raid the Esplanade library's DVD collection soon too.

If I had been in Osaka over the weekend, I'd probably be broke by now. The Gundam speciality store there just reopened on Saturday. You can see pictures here (courtesy of G-Spirit).

It looks like everything was on sale at 20% off. Wish I could've been there :(

http://www.whatisvictoriassecret.com/

BLACK MAGE: I have a friend.

WHITE MAGE: What you have is a highly dysfunctional relationship based exclusively on abuse.

BLACK MAGE: Right, a friend.

A special edition PS2, coated like a Hyakushiki. So cool. So, so damn cool. But I wonder if the coating tarnishes?  

The third Harry Potter movie continues the fine tradition of being largely faithful to the source material. Alfonso Cuaron works The Prisoner of Azkaban with a decidedly darker, more gothic sensibility, and he handles shots and drama with far more skill than Chris Columbus ever did.

I had to abandon my UK Bloomsbury paperback editions of the first four Potter books, together with many others, when I moved from Chicago. It was painful at the time of course, but I don't miss those books at all now. Not even the Potter ones. Hmm... is The Order of the Phoenix any good?

If only life were as easy as resetting a blog template.

I switch to Firefox, and my blog layout goes to heck. Fiddlesticks.

It's gonna take me a while to finish Lu Xun's iconic Na Han (Call to Arms). I picked up a copy in the original Mandarin at Kinokuniya on that last day of discounts, attracted especially by the photographs and illlustrations scattered throughout the pages. These provide explanations of places and activities referred to in the stories, while footnotes are reserved for the more esoteric and literary allusions.

I've always wanted to read Lu Xun in Mandarin, even though it feels like running with a ball and chain sometimes. It's even worse when I'm trying to read Japanese. I'm far more comfortable in English, like the vast majority of my peers, but I'm also a bit of a stickler for reading and watching media in their original languages. I have come to a comfortable understanding with translations, but dubbing remains grostesque to me. In my opinion, the struggle to understand someone isn't so much an issue of language as it is of time. Or is it just semantics?

What Anime Mech Are You?

Good. I love Evangelion. ^_^

Bad weekend, bad weekend for me. Solid soap opera material.

You never know what will turn up at church sales. Once I found an old Charlie Parker CD -- Swedish Schnapps + Great Quintet Sessions 1949 - 1951. Today I picked up a Hamasaki Ayumi remix album. 2CDs for $2. There's some merit to this electronica, but I was never a fan of Hamasaki's music to begin with. To me Ayu-mi-x III: Non-Stop Mega Mix Version's main utility is to shut the world out. My kind of elevator musak.

Spiderman 2 was entertaining and competent. Really liked the dizzying, swooping, darting camerawork. No real complaints, although the train rescue was stretching things a little bit -- even for our friendly neighbourhood superhero. Look out too for the camp horror influences; probably Sam Raimi having fun with his earlier films like the Evil Dead trilogy and Army of Darkness. Chainsaws, lots of screaming. :)

Sony Pictures is really pouring money into the franchise. There will be a third movie, of course, and I hope it doesn't drown under a deluge of easy money and fancy CGI. We'll have to wait till 2007 to find out.

Changed the comments feature. Back to Haloscan, so no more discrimination against non-Blogspot folk and those to lazy to log in. C'mon people, let's hear from ya!

This is just... too damn cool for words...

/speechless




A small internet phenomenon on Futaba Channel, the OS-tan (OS for Operating System, and -tan as an overly cute Japanese honorific for a person) or simply OS Girls are the personification of several OSes, most famously Windows, by various amateur Japanese artists. A pure fan creation, the appearance of each character is generally consistent among artists. OSes are always portrayed as women, the Windows girls usually as sisters, despite sometimes seeming the same age (or younger).

/collapses and dies

The massive blackout we had on Wed night is quickly fading from the minds of most. The whole experience was creepy more than scary, and I think some people are finding fault for the wrong reasons. For instance, some have complained that they weren't able to reach the police to ask for information, like "Was it JI?" and "When's the power coming back?"

These critics should reflect for a bit and then whack themselves smartly on the head for panicking. The police hotline is for emergencies, not information. If they want information, well, that's what radios are for. Besides, so what if the blackout was because of a terrorist attack? Would that have stopped these critics from wringing their hands? Maybe, if it made them panic some more.

The main concern here should be why this widespread blackout happened in the first place. Five blackouts in the last two years is unacceptable to begin with, and this recent one is by far the most severe of the lot. When all it takes is one malfunctioning valve on Jurong Island (effectively the same as cutting off the flow of natural gas from Indonesia) to result in 70%-80% of Singapore reading the papers by candlelight, it doesn't take a Clausewitz to realise that there's a blatant vulnerability there on the magnitude (or ineptitude) of the Death Star's thermal exhaust port. Government is making the right noises, but we'll see.

... and the freaky-cute limited edition Murakami Takashi piece that came with Figure Oh Issue 71. Sorry 'bout the shakiness, but it was either this one or another with a lot of glare from the plastic packaging. Yeah, can't bear to open it... yet. 

My haul from Kinokuniya last night and tonight.