WOMAN: I was created of Nu and Wa, the sister and brother whose union marks the beginnings of the human race.

NARRATOR: (Sage Chinese accent) She is sometimes described as having a human head but the body of a snake or fish. Bi-zarre.

WOMAN: Having the head of one species and the body of another may sound bi-zarre to you, but if you think about it with the Chinese part of your brain, it will be easier for you to understand. You see, it is very difficult to imagine a goddess with bound feet. Can you see me as a two-year-old goddess held down on a bed with cotton in my mouth to gag my screams while my foot is bent inwards into itself until the tender arch snaps and breaks? And can you see me, lovely ephemeral creature that I am, unwinding the stinking bandages from my feet once a week, to squeeze out the pus and cut away the dying flesh? But for many years, you couldn't be a lady without bound feet, and can you imagine a goddess that isn't also a lady? So, the solution... if you have the body of a snake or fish you can still have a beautiful face and be a lady without having bound feet.

--- Ovidia Yu, The Woman in a Tree on a Hill

As a management consultant, I've visited my share of offices that send out confused signals. Not too long ago the window office, walnut desk and leather chair were nearly as important as the salary in reflecting executive status. In this carrot-and-stick model, only the champions earned leather and wood. But I know firsthand that lots of folks rebel against that work model. I still remember the day I interviewed at the consulting division of one of the big accounting firms. Great people. Reputable firm. Reasonable salary. It all looked pretty good until I asked to see what my office space would be like as a new associate.

First, my simple question about space flushed out the truth about lifestyle. Suddenly, I heard that you travel so much you don't really need a desk, which was a different story than I had heard earlier. Second, I got a clear signal about how they valued new associates. Not only did I not get a desk, I didn't get a filing cabinet or even a drawer. Where would I store my files and things? I'd share a gray sheet-metal utility shelf with another associate, my portion marked only by my name scribbled on a piece of masking tape. Maybe it wasn't quite rational that I turned down the job offer partly because of a gray utility shelf, but the space had communicated a lot about the firm's culture, and I wonder how much talent was fended off over the years because the "body language" of the firm said, "New associates don?t matter."

--- Tom Kelley (with Jonathan Littman), The Art of Innovation

"I assume you've read some of Kafka's stories?"

I nod. "The Castle, and The Trial, 'Metamorphosis'. Plus that weird story about an execution device."

"'In the Penal Colony'," Oshima says. "I love that story. Only Kafka could have written it."

"That's my favorite of his short stories."

"Really?"

I nod.

"Why's that?"

It takes me a while to gather my thoughts. "I think what Kafka does is give a purely mechanical explanation of that complex machine in the story, as sort of a substitute for explaining the situation we're in. What I mean is..." I have to give it some more thought. "What I mean is, that's his own device for explaining the kind of lives we lead. Not by talking about our situation, but by talking about the details of the machine."

--- Murakami Haruki, Kafka on the Shore
(trans. Philip Gabriel)

Montage (GRACE AND LESLEY)

LESLEY: Are we so difficult for you?

GRACE: Yes.

LESLEY: Do we seem so wrong? (Pause from Grace. Lesley laughs gently) In London, whoever came home first would get dinner. Whoever was later would do the dishes and take out the garbage. Ellen would work late just to avoid dinner duty. On Saturday mornings we would clean house, do the laundry, lug grocery bags up five flights of stairs. On Sundays, we would fight over the weekend paper, have friends over for dinner, run out of paper napkins. Earthshaking, wasn't it? But you know how it is already.

GRACE: Yes. And you know that's exactly why it's so difficult.

(Music.)

--- Eleanor Wong, Wills and Secession

From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light - a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.

In about one and a half centuries - after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs - metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.

The glow is born from the sum of thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.

Some nights, some places are a little brighter. It's difficult to stare at New York City on Valentine's Day, or Dublin on St. Patrick's. The old walled city of Jerusalem lights up like a candle on each of Chanukah's eight nights. Trachimday is the only time all year when the tiny village of Trachimbrod can be seen from space, when enough copulative voltage is generated to sex the Polish-Ukrainian skies electric. We're here, the glow of 1804 will say in one and a half centuries. We're here, and we're alive.

--- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated

To all who wrote, thank you.

Cleanse my heart, give me the ability to rage correctly. -- Joe Orton

The modern industrial society, or that part of it which is composed of the large corporations, is in all essentials a planned economy. By that I mean that production decisions are taken not in response to consumer demand as expressed in the market, rather, they are taken by producers. These decisions are reflected in the prices that are set in the market, and in the further steps taken to ensure that people will buy what is produced and sold at those prices. The ultimate influence is authority.

--- J.K. Galbraith

Before the pirated copy of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou dissolved into a hail of static, Steve Zissou (wonderfully underplayed by Bill Murray) met his long-lost illegitimate son:

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

Are there words to be said? Yes, oh yes. But a blog might not be the most appropriate medium. Blogging is not the same as writing, imho. And with the minutes I snatch out of each day, I would like to be writing instead of blogging.

Heard about Screen Singapore yet? 31 days of Singapore film! :D

Admiral Zheng He (Cheng Ho) can be considered a great explorer, and the STB has set up an exhibition based on Gavin Menzie's questionable book 1421 to commemorate the 600th anniversary of Zheng's first voyage. This is just the first of many events planned -- including the reconstruction of "Dragon's Teeth Gate" (Long Ya Men) an ancient rock formation blown up in the 1880s that Zheng He might have seen, and whose actual appearance no-one can be certain of.

Doesn't anyone find it culturally absurd that we're commemorating an explorer who has almost no link to Singapore whatsoever other than that he passed by and might have used us as a resupply point?Xinhua carried an article on this -- bet the China Chinese are amused.

Singapore's 1st Fantastic Film Festival is over. We never got the response we weren't expecting, but we forgive all the people who went to watch Initial D instead. To everyone who did turn up -- a big Thank You! Your support mattered (and umm... we're still friends right?).

And now for the post-festival paperwork. And bills. Ugh.

There's a good amount of paperwork to do after the festival

Now, why didn't I read this before agreeing to work with Dave? So, You Want To Start a Film Festival - Don't.

Hello :)

You realize the sun don't go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world
Spinning 'round

Faster Talk: Apple in Their Eyes

Six companies talk about how they're building products to rival the iPod. All of them agree that just copying Apple is a bad idea, and all six have different strategies to tackle the market leader. Well, four actually since the Sony and Dell representatives say nothing useful whatsoever -- skip those. Sim Wong Hoo from Creative weighs in at the end; he's the only one who laments Apple's multi-million dollar marketing budget.

So the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Big Media in MGM vs. Grokster:

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice Souter wrote.

But there's a fine silver lining, as noted here: Hollywood triumphs in piracy fight.

Eric Garland, the CEO of file-sharing tracker BigChampagne who has followed the Grokster case closely, said Hollywood & Co. was looking to the Supreme Court to rule that peer-to-peer technology is illegal because it's used mostly for illegitimate purposes.

But the court, said Garland, sidestepped the issue in Grokster by focusing instead on how Grokster and StreamCast marketed themselves to potential customers.

"The entertainment industry really needed this to be about the technology. What they didn't get was a decision that said 'tools that allow people to exchange files freely on the Internet, without permission, are illegal,'" said Garland.

Not all is lost.

BBC's In Our Time is running a poll for the "Greatest Philsopher" . The Economist also weighs in. Don't let Marx win ;D

As Belle & Sebastian sing softly in the background, I'm making up a story. This is a tiny part of my work for now.

I'm being reminded of how good it feels to be writing something fictional.

The appeal of Star Wars is really a reflection of society's uneasiness about geeks, scientists and techies? Neal Stephenson on Star Wars: Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out.

Time travel has always had a major loophole -- that a time traveller going back in time can change the present such that he/she wouldn't have to go back in time to begin with. Researchers suggest a solution -- New model 'permits time travel' -- but it all smacks of Baron Munchausen to me still :p

Well, as a sticker on a door in my old dorm read, "Wherever you go, there you are."

Bought a PSP 2nd hand over the weekend, with 3 games: Wipeout Pure, Ridge Racers and Minna no Golf (Hot Shots Golf). I can see how Minna no Golf can be interesting -- it's like a golf RPG with chibi characters that you can customise, but I'm not a fan of golf at all. Although every review out there says that Minna no Golf is plain fun it just doesn't appeal to me. Maybe I should play it a little more?