BUYING BOOKS | Ferlinghetti and West

Trying out my dad's camera, so here's the book purchases of the day (the duckie is just something sitting at my desk):

1. A Coney Island of the Mind: Poems, by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I've been hoping to pick up Lawrence Ferlinghetti for the longest time.This is the first collection of his that I'm finally going to read. There's something I admire about his bohemian spirit and his insistence that poetry and literature are mainstream and relevant in our lives. Now into his 80s, he's still very much engaged in the arts and culture scene. You can say his whole life is the arts.

I've set aside 24th March to read this collection - because it is Ferlinghetti's birthday - as it is mine.

2. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, by Rebecca West
A lot of book bloggers have been raving about Rebecca West for a while. Since Penguin Classics has a new edition of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon out, so I thought I check it out. I was not prepared for all 1181 pages of it though. Amazon described it as "[p]art travelogue, part history, part love letter on a thousand-page scale" - and something of a Balkan Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I love history on an epic scale, and I'm waiting to set aside time for this.

TURKEY | Onwards the Day Approaches

The date approaches for the trip to Turkey. I will be in Istanbul on the 26th of March, 2007. I am packed to go, which is worrying, because I usually take a lot longer to pack. I keep wondering if I left anything out. Oh well, I'll have to buy what I need in Turkey, or just go without it.

But now for the Most Important Question: What book/s shall I bring to Turkey?

This is a life or death decision, because the wrong book - a dull book, will mean unnecessary suffering.

If you're stuck in an airport and your plane is 3 hours late, you want a book that will keep your mind off the fact you're in a large confined space, the seats are uncomfortable and you need a bath.

If you're on a plane for 8 hours, and the idiot behind you is kicking the back of your seat, you want a book that will absorb you 100% - because otherwise you're going to throttle the idiot.

But when you're in a nice coffee place in Istanbul, and the view is beautiful, you're watching the people stroll by - you want the book you're reading to reflect well on you. And in the event a beautiful Turkish young man/woman comes up to you to chit-chat, you do not want to be caught reading Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

But it should also be sufficiently light, so your daypack will not be too heavy. But it should be thick enough to last the length of your stay. Substantial but light in weight. Oh, the dilemma.

The Shortlist:

1. In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin
   Because he's always walking, and he tells stories. And because Bruce Chatwin first made me realise I have to travel to walk off my own restlessness.
2. Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It, Geoff Dyer
   Because I'm reading him now, and I don't want to stop. But it's a library book, so there's a guilt-factor for me to take library books overseas.
3. The Cornish Trilogy, Robertson Davies
   It is sufficiently thick to last the long trip, and beyond. But it's THICK. However, I know I can rely on my travel companion for quickie Robertson Davies chit-chat anytime, since she's the one that introduced me to Davies.
4. Sodom and Gomorrah, Marcel Proust
   I really need to get back on track with the Proustian Epic, and reading Proust in a coffeeshop can only enhance one's public image. But do you think the title will be suggestive?

In light of the political situation, I'm not bringing Orhan Pamuk or Elif Shafak. I will however, be bringing the manual for the digital camera I borrowed from my dad: Canon PowerShot with 10 Megapixel. Now I just need to learn how to use it quick.

MUSIC | Rachael Yamagata "I Wish You Love"

I'm still on my Rachael Yamagata flush. Been playing her songs on my mpeg player to work, and when I am home, I play her CD. This video here is the Rachael Yamagata cover for "I Wish You Love" - played at the end of the movie Prime, which starred Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep. More mellow than her usual fare, but subdued palettes have their own beauty.

YOGA | Back to Gita

I've not been attending yoga classes for the past week. I have been taking a break because of the pain on my back. But a few days ago I felt better and I tried some standard poses, like Revolved Side Angle Pose but with the advance hand-binds. I think I pulled something on my right side as there is now a sharp pain that refuses to subside. Talk about an exercise in bull-headed stupidity.

I think my backaches may not just be the King Cobra I attempted two Fridays ago. For the past few months I have been pushing myself in my spinal twists. The pain is probably a cumulative effort of all the heavy-duty spine work.

Just a clarification: It's not about the style of yoga I do or who was teaching the class. While it is important to have a mindful teacher that looks out for you, we have to take responsibility for our practice. It is my practice, no one else's. I was impatient and went too far, too fast in my practice. And of course my refusal to rest delayed my recovery.

I was looking forward to my inversion class ― and most of all the new Anusara class they launched last week ― but as one of my teacher reminds us, we have our whole life to practice.

But this doesn't mean I'm not agitated. I'm trying to use this time to take stock on what I have neglected in my practice. Last year I had intended to re-read the Bhagavad Gita, but this time the Stephen Mitchell translation. As best laid plans went, it didn't happen. I'm putting the Gita back on my 100 Books To Read 2007. If anything, my pulled muscles is evidence I need to learn the lesson of effort without expectations. I was too caught up with achieving the "perfect pose" - I forgot yoga was never about how you look, but it is the journey towards self.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna:

You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a an established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat. For yoga is perfect evenness of mind.

As Mahatma Gandhi explains it:

By detachment I mean that you must not worry whether the desired result follows from your action or not, so long as your motive is pure, your means correct. Really, it means that things will come right in the end if you take care of the means and leave the rest to Him.

But for Gandhi, renunciation:

... in no way means indifference to the result. In regard to every action one must know the result that is expected to follow, the means thereto, and the capacity for it. He who, being thus equipped, is without desire for the result and is yet wholly engrossed in the due fulfillment of the task before him, is said to have renounced the fruits of his action.

Paradox seems to be the essence of yoga. It demands that you always try your best, but simultaneously demanding that you relinquish claims to the results of your good works. The effort itself is supposed to be purifying. Without expectations, only then is one truly able to act wholeheartedly for the benefit of all. But that is so hard to do, to be so centred in right action. It requires that leap of faith, trust in the unfolding of karma. I sometimes wonder if I possess enough faith for someone so ordinary.

BOOKS | Horizontal Drift

I've just started reading Geoff Dyer's Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It. It was easy reading, and I hope I will enjoy it as I continue. I'm at a loss as to the unifying theme of this book, as in a post-Seinfeld kind of way, this book seems to be about something, but also about nothing in particular.

The first essay, "Horizontal Drift" - has Geoff Dyer accounting his short stay in New Orleans. In 1999 he had an apartment on the Esplanade, just beyond the French Quarters. A young man, Donelly moved into the apartment next door, and his backstory is interesting: on April Fool's Day 1987, he found out he had skin cancer and the doctor prognosed a 30/70 chance of survival. That was four years before Donelly met Geoff Dyer and he had survived a series of operations, "sufficiently full of life to try, five months before we met, to kill himself."

According to Donelly, "It wasn't like I was depressed or anything. I didn't even want to die particularly. I just didn't want to live any more." And it seems Donelly's case study was perplexing to his doctors at the mental home where he was treated for his attempted suicide.

I guess one could say this story is about a friendship lost?

All this means, I suppose, is that he was my friend. Living as I have, in many different cities, in different countries, I've got used to making new friends at an age when many people are living off the diminishing stockpile amassed at university, when they were nineteen or twenty. It's one of the things about the way I've lived that has made me happiest, and maybe the only reason I'm telling this story ― this non-story ― is to record the simple fact that in New Orleans,a town where we knew hardly anyone, Donelly and I became friends.

Dyer played with the idea of writing a book about Donelly's life. He saw the book as "a kind of parable, one without any lesson or moral, a parable from which it would be impossible to learn anything or draw any conclusions." Instead of a book, he wrote this essay.

Dyer has moved many times since New Orleans, and he lost touch with Donelly. He had no idea if Donelly had tried to contact him. From time to time he thought about trying to track Donelly down, but had no idea how to begin. This is what happens in life. Random strangers come into our lives, make an impression and then we lose them. Perhaps the point of Dyer's essay is about random encounters and how easily we lose them. Perhaps Dyer wrote this in compensation for a lost connection, and also of connection never made:

... the kind of feeling you get when you see a woman in the street, when your eyes meet for a moment but you make no effort to speak to her and then she is gone and you spend the rest of the day thinking that, had you spoken, she would have been pleased, not offended, and you would, perhaps, have fallen in love with each other. You wonder what her name have been. Angela perhaps. Instead of hopping the freight, I went back to my apartment on Esplanade and had the characters in the novel I was working on do so.

When you are lonely, writing can keep you company. It is also a form of self-compensation, a way of making up for things ― that did not quite happen.

This is my interpretation of it, at least. I was o the bus when I read Dyer's "non-story." And my mind wandered, as it often did on a long bus ride.

I was in Melbourne a few years ago with some people. It was December, but it was broad daylight by 5 am. I was usually awake by then. While my travel companions slept, I would make tea, read and meditate. Or at least I tried to meditate, because my mind was constantly disturbed by the thought of an old friend that I had lost touch with during my university days. Last I heard she had moved to Melbourne.

Let us call my friend Crazy S. (It's not flattering, but if you knew her then, you will agree it's suitable). I knew Crazy S. from high school, having struggled with puberty and the Awkward Age together. We lost touch for a while when I uprooted myself to another Junior College when I was 17. But during our university days, she got hold of my email address from a mutual friend. She had been studying in a university in Melbourne, but she emailed me on a regular basis. She bothered.

Crazy S. had always been headstrong. But she was also capable of great empathy and insight. While she was studying in Melbourne, she fell in love with an Engineering student, D. and they moved in together, in an apartment paid for by Crazy S.'s mother.

Crazy S. never told her mother about D. Then one day, during her study break, she flew back home with D. in tow. I was introduced to D. and that's when I learnt why D. was kept a secret. Anticipating the emotional upheaval that would soon follow, I stayed away.

Crazy S. and D. returned to Melbourne later. I learnt from mutual acquaintaince that Crazy S. and her mother quarrelled before she left. As Crazy S. had been emailing my university account, we lost touch when I graduated. I failed to follow-up with my personal email. I guess I just failed to stay in touch.

When I was in Melbourne a few years back, I wished I had made the effort to keep in touch with Crazy S. I would have liked to meet up with her and D. ― if they are still together. I wished to be able to apologise to them for my failure of loyalty and moral courage. And to tell her something else.

That time in Melbourne, when I was trying to meditate, my mind replayed what I wanted to say to Crazy S. if I should run into her. In one of the scenarios I did find her in Melbourne. We had dinner at her place, Crazy S. D. and I. And I told Crazy S. that D. must possess the patience of a saint to put up with my friend for so long. I imagined telling her about my relationships since we last met ― and I imagined her being sympathetic and ironic at the same time.

When you are lonely, writing can keep you company. It is also a form of self-compensation, a way of making up for things ― that did not quite happen.

Maybe that was what my mind had been doing then, writing and re-writing as a form of compensation.I was trying to make up for the things I failed to do, trying to compensate for the things not done.

MUSIC | Patti Smith and Hall of Fame

While we're on the topic of music, Patti Smith (one of my personal heroes) was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Yes, as long as I'm still breathing, we will see posts on Patti Smith.

Her opening lines for "Gloria" (from the 1975 album, Horses) heralded her arrival as punk rock goddess:

"Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine"

These are the very lines that made me take notice and fall in love with Patti Smith, her music and mission. She is more than a performer/artiste; she is Punk Rock Prophetess. She was more than the nihilistic self-destruction of Sid Vicious and his likes. For me, Patti Smith's mission was about defiance against institutionalised authorities, rebellion as activism. Her purpose was admirable and even now she has not lose her idealism in pursuing what she believes in.

In an interview with Patti Smith on her induction, Smith explains the famous opening lines:

Did you have any idea in 1975 that the opening line of 'Gloria' would become as famous as it has?
[Laughs] No. First of all, I wrote the poem for 'Gloria' in 1970. I was brought up a Jehovah's Witness and I had a strong religious education and a very good Bible education. I left organized religion as a teenager because I felt it was too confining. When I wrote 'Gloria,' it wasn't really anti-Christ -- who I really admire -- it was anti the idea that everything was set up for us and we had to fall into a certain behavior based on how things were organized for us. If I was going to do things wrong, I didn't want anyone having to die for my sins -- I was going to take responsibility. It was really about personal and mental liberation. A writer called it a declaration of existence. To this day, I think that's the best description of that song, although I probably would not write the same lyric now because I've gone through a long process of evolution.

Also read what Patti Smith has to say about the induction into the Hall of Fame in an Op-Ed article for The New York Times.

MUSIC | Rachael Yamagata Concert

Since I could only take a picture of Rachael Yamagata in concert with my substandard Sony Ericsson camera phone, you will just have to take my word for it that the picture above is really Rachael Yamagata.

Rachael Yamagata dived in with her first song, Letter Read. Dressed in all black, with her Pan-Asian face and her messy black bangs, she bellowed the angsty chorus: "my love, my love, how could you do this to me?" with all the aggressive energy that angry, young jilted females are known for. Sometimes described as "Janis Joplin mets Fiona Apple" - it's easy to stereotype Rachael Yamagata. Afterall, her songs are often pop-fusion renditions themed around heartbreaks and unhappy relationships. Someone in fact described her music as, "Musice to Slit Your Wrists To." But she remarked how she's always disappointing journalists that she's not the dark, depressed, wrist-slitting artiste that they often expect. The Rachael Yamagata that was onstage tonight was brassy, a little playful, a little naughty - a straight-shooter with a certain degree of self-awareness of her own romantic indulgences. She has a sardonic sense of humour that she peppers throughout the concert. She admits that humour is important, "or else we'll all be killing ourselves."

At one point a male voice from the audience cried out, "I LOVE YOU, RACHAEL!"

"What's your number?" she quipped. "We'll talk after the show." Later at the piano, she just said matter-of-factly, "We'll talk. You'll break my heart." Hmm. A sense of humour, but also a self-awareness of a jaded attitude to love. Throughout the concert she's constantly commenting on the abysmal state of her own romances.

She told the audience how one of the song she just performed was initially entitled, What About Steve - but she later felt people not named Steve might had problem relating to the song, so she came up with, What If I Leave?" She recommends it for those relationships when you can't decide to stay or leave:

"Just press 'PLAY' and watch him or her.

"Go on, leave. What the FUCK do I care?

"I'm sorry. I promised I wasn't going to swear. But I also have this policy about being true to myself."

And we the audience just applauded thunderously. And as a follow-up , "It's a song about a guy who dicked me over."

We love this girl. She's unpretentious - warts and all. And she's flirty with her audience - sluts that we are. Someone in fact called out, "I wish I know how to quit you, Rachael!"

As she introduces the next song she's going to sing, "It's on the EP. And EP stands for - " Embarrasing pause as she struggles to remember. She turns to her band members for help.

"Extended Play," she finally recalls. "I'm not sure why it's called 'Extended Play' when it's so short."

Rachael also jokes how after shooting her mouth off tonight, no one's going to mistake "this foul-mouthed, alcoholic, suicidal slut," to Norah Jones anymore. She describes Norah Jones as being "more classy." But she's happy just to have a little corner of her own universe.

As you can see from the picture on the right, I now own 2 Happenstance CDs. How did that happen? I found out during the concert that there was going to be an autograph session after the concert. So I bought another copy of the CD just to get it signed.

The autograph session was only supposed to be 1 hour, but with the photo-taking, the hugging, and Rachael trying her best to exchange a few words with each and every fan, they had to extend the session - just so she could at least sign something for everyone.

She promises to come back. I hope she honours this promise. I will definitely be there.

I had a lovely time tonight. To be honest, Rachael sounds a little raspy tonight, her voice cracking like a 12 year-old boy in mid-song at one point. But that did not diminish the pleasure of the concert. We come to the concert because we are already in love, and it is only to see the object of our affection upclose. Rachael Yamagata may not have won many new fans tonight but they will definitely look out for her next album and her future concerts.

Meanwhile, here's a lovely picture of Rachael Yamagata in case anyone is interested. Much better than my uploads, ya?

I love how she insists on writing her own bio for Happenstance on Amazon.com:

Happenstance…the never can be…

Main Entry: hap·pen·stance; Etymology: happen + circumstance: A circumstance especially that is due to chance. - Merriam Webster Dictionary

I apologize for insisting on writing my own bio, but I just can not be satisfied with another’s account of my psyche when even I don’t understand it myself. Welcome to the world of this indecisive control freak hopeless romantic…

Happenstance, produced by John Alagia (John Mayer, Dave Matthews etc.), is a collection of songs inspired by my obsessions, often love related, but not always. It’s about the battle between chance circumstances and the belief that everything happens for a reason. The title and the back cover addition of ‘the never can be’ suggest that I’m not really endorsing chance, but, in fact insisting that there must be a reason for repeated broken hearts – perhaps a promise of a better situation, learning experience, the greater love etc. It’s a circular argument… and it’s merely a matter of ‘happenstance’ that the title is what it is anyway. Without the hopefulness of reason, how could anyone weather the highs and lows of relationships and this delightful junk called love.

Look to the second album for a more cynical approach in which it all goes to hell and nothing makes sense and chance is winning…

Favorite Film Adaptations of Books

From Literate Kitten’s Thoughts for Thursday.

Not Thursday, but I’m always a little behind.

1. The English Patient [Directed by Anthony Minghella]

It was the film where I had my crush on Kristin Scott Thomas and Ralph Fiennes. Thomas was radiant in the movie, the exquisite English Rose in the desert. Her character Katherine Clifton fell for Almasy’s intensity. And why wouldn’t she? I did. The man spoke a thousand tongues with his gaze: a vocabulary of anger, heat, pain and passion. But when he does speak, it could break your heart.

"Every night I cut out my heart. But in the morning it was full again."

But she had to die; she was not a flower of the desert.

When I finally read The English Patient, I was breathless with the poetry of Ondaatje. Most amazing is how film and novel complement each other, how Minghella used lines from the novel and breathed new meaning into them. In the novel, Almasy spoke of a cactus known among the desert Bedouin. The Bedouin would cut out the heart of this cactus, and in the morning it will be filled with drinkable water. Minghella took these lines, gave them to Almasy once more - but this time as metaphor for his love.

2. Trainspotting [Directed by Danny Boyle]

"Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose your future. But why would anyone want to do a thing like that?"

Ewan McGregor's voice-over sums up the spirit of this nihilistic story of Sickboy, Renton, Spud and Begbie. All low-life losers and except for Begbie (who is addicted to violence) – all junkies who will trade their mothers for a hit. Anyone else had problem understanding their Scottish accent (I assume it’s Scottish)? But to be fair, by the 8th viewing, their accent starts to make sense. It was a joyride, their antics, their downward spiral into heroine-fueled self-destruction. When I finally read the book I had as much fun reading it aloud with the odd accent. The accent – that’s the only way to have fun reading it.

3. Silence of the Lambs [Directed by Jonathan Demme]

One of my favourite movie.

Jodie Foster always seems smarter than the men in her films - but Silence of the Lambs is probably the only movie that gave a male counterpart that was convincingly superior in his intellect. I have never seen such great chemistry between a man and a lesbian - which goes to show the sexiest part of the human body is the brain.

Anthony Hopkins embodied the chilling superiority of Dr Hannibal Lecter from Thomas Harris's novel.

MOVIE | The Other Bolyen Girl

I just found out about the upcoming movie based on Philippa Gregory's novel, The Other Boleyn Girl. Set during the Tudor Period, Eric Bana playing Henry VIII - while Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson plays Anne and Mary Boleyn respectively. The beautiful leading actresses are already worth the ticket price.

Is it okay to read the book because of the movie? The snob in me is always self-conscious about coming to a book because of a film - but I do it all the time. I've spread the news of this movie among my colleagues who are fans of Tudor history/historical fiction. They are heading for the bookshelves for Gregory's novel.

This year I'm also looking forward to the new Elizabeth I movie starring Cate Blanchett - The Golden Age. (Yes, it's a sequel. But as long as we don't say it out loud, it's okay.) Geoffrey Rush reprises his role as Walsingham, but there's Clive Owen (I don't get him - why are people so charmed by him?) this time as Walter Raleigh.

I love Elizabeth and Cate Blanchett was superb as the Virgin Queen. Among the supporting cast, there's also an exquiste Fanny Ardant as Mary of Guise. Ardant is one of those women who come into their beauty later in life. I adore the lavish set, the costumes and soundtrack. And although the film is a little liberal with the historical facts, it was wonderful in its exploration of gender politics.

It was Elizabeth the movie that first made me curious about reading up on the monarch. I'm still undecided between Elizabeth, the Queen by Alison Weir and Elizabeth by David Starkey. Anyone has any recommendation on a highly readable history book on Elizabeth I?

MY MUSIC | Dolores O'Riordan's New Solo Album

Any Cranberries fans out there?

Or to be more specific, any Dolores O'Riordan fans out there?

It seems like forever, but Dolores O'Riordan's is finally releasing her first solo album, Are You Listening, in May 2007.

I can't even begin to describe how excited I am when I first found out about the album. I own every single Cranberries album I can get my hands on. Yes, there are other members in the band, but I love Cranberries for her voice. She made the lyrics heavenly.

The first single "Ordinary Day," can be heard on Dolores O'Riordan's MySpace page. She lost none of the crystal-like clarity in her voice.

DOLORES O'RIORDAN – ORDINARY DAY

This is just an ordinary day
Wipe the insecurities away
I can see that the darkness will erode
Looking out the corner of my eye
I can see that the sunshine will explode
Far across the desert in the sky

Beautiful girl
Won't you be my inspiration?
Beautiful girl
Don't you throw your love around
What in the world, what in the world
Could ever come between us?
Beautiful girl, beautiful girl
I'll never let you down
Won't let you down

This is the
beginning of your day
Life is more intricate than it seems
Always be yourself along the way
Living through the spirit of your dreams

Beautiful girl
Won't you be my inspiration?
Beautiful girl
Don't you throw your love around
What in the world, what in the world
Could ever come between us?
Beautiful girl, beautiful girl
I'll never let you down
Won't let you down
Down, down...

Source: Cranberries-Fan.com

On a very personal note: I just found out her birthday is 6th September - a date that she shares with someone I care about. You know who you are.

WTF | Klingon Politics

A friend of mine once went for a job interview with Nokia. The job required relocation to Finland, and interviewers were curious about her impression of the country.

My friend replied Finland is the home of Nokia and Santa Claus.

She got the job anyway.

Apparently, Finland is also a place where politicians are of a Klingon persuasion. A Finnish member of parliament is aiming for re-election by campaigning with a translation of his Web site into Klingon:

He said his politics posed some translation difficulties, since Klingon does not have words for matters such as tolerance, or for many colours, including green -- the party under whose banner he is running in the national elections on March 18.

Non-warriors can also access the site, www.kasvi.org, in English, Swedish and Finnish.

The home-country of Santa Claus and Nokia phones seems to be a really fun place to be.

Full story here.

YOGA | Pushing into King Cobra

In one of my recent post on yoga I mentioned my anatomical advantage with backbends. My regular teachers like H. knows it, so he refuses to allow me to cheat when it comes to backbends. "You're more flexible than that," he reminds me. I admit: it's a source of pride for me in my practice. But the monstrous Ego has no place in a yoga class.

Last Friday I had an opportunity to flaunt my advantage in a Hot Flow class. The result? I woke up with an aching upper back on Sunday morning. I missed the Sunday morning yoga class because of the sore back; I had trouble getting out of bed.

Most people who have taken yoga are familiar with the Cobra pose - one of the foundations of the Sun Salutations. With legs firmly on the ground, we lift our chest up and forward, and look up. We do it all the time in class, and there are several variations on the Cobra.

One of the more advance variation on the Cobra is the King Cobra. Basically, you start in Cobra, then you reach your legs up towards your head to touch. Sounds easy but it's not. As it turns out, I am still not there yet - but I was close. How close? About an inch between my feet and my head.

It was a challenge, and I wanted to push my edge. One of the Eight Limbs of Yoga is ahimsa (non-violence.) To push yourself into injury is a form of violence, and a violation of the spirit of yoga. It was pride - pride in my backbends that made me strain my back trying to reach to touch my feet.

But I had to try. It has always been my weakness - pride, and a certain lack of restraint. I would do it again, I realise, because I couldn't bear not trying. I wouldn't be me, if I let it go.

But probably after my back stops aching. It will heal, because thank goodness, it's not the sharp, pulling pain that indicates something dangerous. I'm going to remember to take it easy on my back.

I promise.

Pictures from the official website of the International Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centers.

[Addendum]

In a miracle of cosmic synchronicity, minutes after I published this post, I found this article on the Yoga Journal website:

Harvey Deutch has been a physical therapist in San Francisco for 22 years ; during that time, he says, he's seen a lot of broken yogis, most of whom err on the side of overflexibility. For these people, the key to successful practice is to know what range of motion is normal for a joint and to not exceed it—even if they easily can. "We see these very flexible women in yoga classes who can flop into poses completely," he says. "Because their ligaments and soft tissues don't create a barrier, they can end up going way too far into a pose. And they run the risk of destroying their joints—and their spine in particular—in the process."

I think the Universe is trying to tell me something.

COMICS | Villains United

Villains United (Countdown to Infinite Crisis)
Written by Gail Simone, with art by Dale Eaglesham and Val Semeiks

The DC: Infinite Crisis series has ended and I'm just catching up with some of the backstory. I almost gave this title a miss though - Villains United - hullo? Can anyone take this title seriously? There's a lot of talented people working for DC Comics and they can't come up with anything more decent? The only thing that could convince me to give this title a try is Gail Simone. Her work on Birds of Prey has earned my upmost respect for her writing.

The story take place before the action in the DC: Infinite Crisis. After it was revealed that some of the Justice League superheroes mindwiped a villain, Dr Light, the ethics of the so-called superheroes are put into question.

Lex Luthor is organising his Society of villains in a bid to declare war against these superheroes. Of course his recruitment method leaves much to be desired, and it involves a lot cajoling and threats. Doesn't help that a lot of these villains are just plain psychos. Oh fun.

Meanwhile, another group of B-grade villains are organised by a mysterious mastermind (known only as Mockingbird) to work against Luthor's Society of Villains. There are six of them, and they are of course named: the Secret Six (somebody is really lazy with the names here) The Secret Six is made up of Catman, Deadshot, Chesire, Scandal Savage, Ragdoll and Parademon. All B-list villains that usually serves only as supporting cast.

And you know what? In spite of my complaints about the cheesy names, this comic don't suck. In fact, it's GREAT. It made me a fan of the Secret Six and just proves once again how Gail Simone is one of the most brilliant writer working in the comic scene today. She illustrates how a writer with enough talent and effort can take the bare bones of something and work it into something complicated and interesting. Her greatest success have to be the reinvention of Catman. The character was a loser that was bullied by Oliver Queen in his previous comic appearance. But Simone took this "B-list never-been" and remade him into greatness.

Earlier in the comics, Dr Psycho and Talia Al Ghul were sent by the Society of Villains to recruit Catman (aka Thomas Blake.) As the story goes, Catman has been in Africa these past few years finding himself among the lions. He has remade himself as a warrior among the great cats. The Society of Villains were not prepared for the new Catman, and they did not take well to being rejected. So they try threats:

Talia Al Ghul: Mr Blake. It's clear that you've been through a transformative event. Perhaps we were too brusque for a man of your...stature. But if we leave here with a "no", or if we don't return...You will suffer. For a time.

Catman: Noted. Please understand that I don't care, Talia Al Ghul. The sun still rises if I'm breathing or not. By the way, if you see any poachers on your way back to civilization...Do me a favor. Skin and neuter them, would you? Good day.

This pride, this defiance and lack of concern for self-preservation - it is so Zen. I think I am in love with this new Catman. Talia Al Ghul alludes later to Catman's Will-to-power that is similar to another DC caped crusader. There were moments when Catman's costume looks suspiciously like Batman's. The cape, the little pointy hood, the non-killing. Suspicious. Even the name: Catman. Batman.

But most of all, I love how Gail Simone explores the tenuous demarcation of Heroes versus Villains. Her Catman could almost be a hero - but only almost. He recognises in himself his weaknesses, and therefore has no claims to any moral superiority. Yet he has that self-awareness that sets him apart from Luthor's gang. A character that stands somewhat in moral ambiguity. One of my favourite bit is at the end, when Catman punches Green Arrow and tells him:

Catman: Good guys don't lobotomize people who are already in handcuffs. Every stinking thing that's happened because of it is on your heads. Remember that. People are going to die, because you took the shortcut.

... ...

Catman: You were all great once. You can be that way again...But you'd better hurry. Before the line between you and us gets too damn blurry to see.

Comic books are filled with superheroes - because no matter how the world evolves, we still want to believe in heroes that are better than us. Comic book is part of popular culture, but it is not any less deserving of respect - because popular culture has a finger on the pulse of the Everyman.

These days, the good guys are getting harder to find. The "Good Guys" are calling their enemies "Terrorists" - but their own methods and motives are disgusting. The "Good Guys" are not supposed to torture captives and then try to bury the evidence. When the "Good Guys" fail to act morally, no wonder we start looking towards the opposition. There is no heroism by default or birthright. Heroes and villains are made by their actions and their choices. Fallen heroes can rise again, but only if they recognise the mistake and make the right choices.

BOOKS | Theme Reading Lists II

I'm having too much fun with the lists. Oh dear. ;p

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES IS DEADLIER THAN THE MALE
1. The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas
Milady.
2. Armadale Wilkie Collins
Lydia Gwilt. Seductive, tragic, passionate. Did I mention she's also a roaring red-head? Her real crime is that she was born a woman with a man's ambition and courage.
3. Queen of the South Arturo Perez-Reverte
Perez-Reverte knows how to play up the noirish femme fatale. Here, he rewrites The Count of Monte Cristo with a female twist.
4. The Seville Communion by Arturo Perez-Reverte
One particular scene: the femme fatale lights a cigarette, then proceeds to tuck her lighter under her bra-strap - it struck me as a gesture most erotic.
5. The Fencing Master by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Adela de Otero. Her intricate knowledge of fencing and the mysterious, tiny scar at the corner of her mouth that hints at dark violence.
6. Waltz into Darkness by Cornell Woolrich
I confess: I want to read this title because the Angelina Jolie movie, Original Sins, was based on this book.

BOOKS | Theme Reading Lists

Recently some bloggers [ Pages Turned & A Work In Progress] featured their Theme Reading List. Since I'm totally unoriginal but absolutely geek, I'm posting some lists of my own.

THE GLORY THAT WAS ROME :

1. Memoirs of Hadrian Marguerite Yourcenar


2. The Claudius Novels Robert Graves


3. The History of Rome Michael Grant


4. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon


5. The Twelve Caesars Suetonius

ICE:

1. Skating to Antarctica Jenny Diski


2. This Cold Heaven : Seven Seasons in Greenland Gretel Ehrlich


3. The Ice Museum Joanna Kavenna


4. Ice Vladimir Sorokin


5. The Ice Cave: A Woman's Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic Lucy Jane Bledsoe

SOLITUDE:

1. Walden and Other Writings Henry David Thoreau


2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek Annie Dillard


3. A Pelican In the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries and Recluses Isabel Colegate


4. Solitude: A Return to the Self Anthony Storr


5. Stillness: Daily Gifts of Solitude Richard Mahler


6. Journal of a Solitude May Sarton


7. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

BSG | Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny

If you are a fan of the new Battlestar Galactica, if you have watched the Season 3 episode "Maelstrom" - then you will understand why I posted this picture here.

This is the way I see Captain Kara "Starbuck" Thrace. She's military but she has never been someone who plays by the book. It gets her thrown into the brig on more than a few occasions but it is precisely her independent, defiant spirit that sets her above the others, what allows her the ability to think outside the box. She is a young woman haunted by her unseen demons.

And no matter what the fans of Dirk Benedict says - Kara Thrace was waaaaay better as "Starbuck." More depth, more complicated, cuter and more human.

"Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny" is also a very good name for a cover band. *grin*

YOGA | Moving into March

We enter March with some pleasant surprises, and some new things to look forward to.

The yoga studio where I practice has just started a new class -- Upside Down -- for inversions. I just came back from the first class this evening. There's something very liberating about being able to come to a handstand (assisted, of course). Maybe it's seeing the world in a whole new direction (upside down!). Maybe it's the sense of achievement in a challenging posture. Or maybe it's just fun getting a headrush.

The studio will also be opening a few new Anusara yoga classes on a regular basis. One of our regular yoga teacher is a Anusara-certified instructor, and I have always enjoyed the energy of his classes. The first Anusara class starts next week. I'm looking forward to it.

Lately I've been trying to pay attention to what are the poses that "feels right" for me. It is part of the process of looking into the more subtle properties of yoga. While it's important to have a good teacher, it is more important to find a teacher that suits your needs. Focus is important, and specialising in a specific style of yoga will help you go deeper. But right now, as a beginner, I am still exploring the different styles of the practice. Eventually I will come to a place that I feel most comfortable. Until then, I am still going for Ashtanga classes while exploring Anusara.

Why the interest in Anusara? Partly because of their emphasis on alignment - which can be rather technical at times -- and "heart-opening" postures. Especially the "heart-opening" poses. While I am still lousy at balancing poses, one of my teacher, H. identified an anatomical advantage where I am more "open" than a lot of people at my upper back. It allows me to go into deeper backbends. I helped demonstrate an intense backbend in class once, and I admit I did enjoy the astounded gasps when I arched my back into a high inverted "U" -- I don't often get to feel that proud of my practice, so I'm enjoying it for the moment.

Hridayam is the Sanskrit word for heart, which means "that which receives, gives and circulates." We can increase this process of giving, receiving and circulating by strengthening the supportive and protective anatomy around our heart and extending the range of motion in those areas. That includes our arms, ribcage, shoulders, neck, upper back and chest. I enjoy poses that requires me to lift my chest and open the heart. Too often the daily stress and frustration of ordinary life weighs on the heart and hardens us. The expansion of chest and rib cage allows me to stretch and release that physical and emotional "armouring" of daily life. Heart-openers rejuvenate me. I smile more freely after class, more willing to open to strangers. It brings me closer to the world around me, where usually I prefer to stay aloof, disconnected.

I will write about my Anusara class next week. I believe this is the right direction. I would like to think the month of March brings gentle blessings. Afterall, it is my birth month, when we can look forward to gifts.

World Literature Tour | New Zealand

Ah, finally. The Guardian was running a series on World Literature on their book blog last year. Then one day, it just fizzled out. They are finally back, with a new destination in mind.

Join the Guardian's World Literature Tour: New Zealand by contributing your choice of the New Zealand literature to read.

Some titles & authors that I've noted down:

Katherine Mansfield - I've scheduled her collection of short stories for this year
Keri Hulme's The Bone People - I wanted to read this book for the longest time
Janet Frame - I've heard a bit about her, especially Owls Do Cry
Witi Ihimaera - I've only watched The Whale Rider, but I enjoyed the film

Justice for Darfur

It has become clear to me that there will be no enduring peace without justice. History shows that there will be another Darfur, another exodus, in a vicious cycle of bloodshed and retribution. But an international court finally exists. It will be as strong as the support we give it. This might be the moment we stop the cycle of violence and end our tolerance for crimes against humanity.

What the worst people in the world fear most is justice. That's what we should deliver.

From the Washington Post. The writer is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, writing on the situation in Darfur. She is pleading for justice.

Of course, the writer also has a career in entertainment.

I admit I am cynical when it comes to the celebrity "doing good deeds". But sometimes I wonder if a celebrity could also just be an ordinary person trying his/her best to make a positive change in the world? Perhaps it's not the PR machine at work. Perhaps, they really what to help. It's easy to laugh, but it takes real dedication to continue working for the best when the world is mocking you for your efforts. So, the tabloids make jokes out of her UN duties. But are we making any personal efforts to help anyone recently?

Just my 2 cents this evening on people trying to make a difference.

BOOKS | Follow Your Own

A while back, Jenclair posted a question on how we decide what to read next. I thought a little about my own reading choices and came to the conclusion it's all whims and fancies.

Then Jeanette Winterson wrote something along this topic for The Times' Her Word column. Her advice:

Then – and this is the fun bit – proceed to a section of the bookshop in which you think you have no interest, and buy something that catches your eye. I have just been reading Captain Cook’s Journals, which made me read Robinson Crusoe again, which made me think about island narratives, and has run me towards Boswell and Johnson in the Hebrides, Marianne Wiggins’s wonderful novel John Dollar and to Diana Souhami’s award-winning Selkirk’s Island, which made me order Coconut Chaos, her new book on Pitcairn.

For me, this is the way to read and reread books. I don’t want to be told that if I liked X I could read Y, or that people who bought A also bought B. Reading is not a place to be one of a crowd, it is the place to be yourself. In our world of lookalikes and wannabes, being yourself amounts to a social service. Give books for good reasons – because you love them – and buy new books that can become part of a living library, a place where the unexpected still happens.

I'm always at a loss because I really find it hard to sum up quickly what books I like to read. Really, the most accurate reply I can give is this: I read whatever catches my interest at that time.

The thing is, an answer like this often do not satisfy people. It does not allow them to understand or classify you immediately.

I work in a bookstore and you would think people who work in bookstores are good judge of readers and reading habits. Not true. My manager was surprised that I have a pretty good working knowledge of fantasy novels; she thought I was all serious fiction. One of my vendor was caught off guard that my degree was in English Literature; he thought I was all non-fiction.

I guess I shouldn't tell anyone that my graduating thesis was a Bakhtian reading of William Gibson's Neuromancer - Cyberpunk as Cybergothic. (I always imagined Angelina Jolie as Molly Millions.) What will people think of me then?

My friend once told me how her editor, RL, found my Director's love of comic books demeaning. A grown man reading comics? I was amused because I have very little respect for my Director's taste in general - but I have to stand up for the genre and say RL should keep his mouth shut about people who read comics, since he knows very little about it.

We often have assumptions about people and what they should be reading. One of my colleagues once told me she doesn't read fiction because she is a person well-grounded in reality. She was particularly disdainful of speculative fiction. Yet she is in fact one of the most fragile character I have ever met, because she breaks down completely everytime her worldview is challenged.

People in fact, should read as widely as they can. And read what they want to. Forget about the critics or reviewers who tell you what you should or should not read - unless you really trust their taste of course. A friend used to jacket her romance novels with pages from magazines - she was self-conscious about being thought of poorly as a "romance reader." Oh, how we blush.

I hate it when someone remarks, "This is so not you" - about a book I'm reading. Well, I chose it, and I'm reading it - so it is definitely Me. It's just inconsistent with your definition of Me.

It doesn't matter if your reading is a little esoteric. It doesn't matter if no one in your bookclub wants to read Robertson Davies, and no one else seems to share your passion for this funny but wise Canadian author. You can just keep giving away Robertson Davies novels as presents. Birthdays, Christmas, Baby Showers - lots of good excuses for giving away books. Who knows? Maybe some day a friend will finally read your favourite author - and enjoy the experience. They might even pick up other Robertson Davies titles.

I have often thought my reading choices too on the whim, and there can't possibly be any active decision-making behind the books I pick up. But maybe not. Maybe my choices are not as incidental as I assume. Isn't it our spontaneous choices that truly reveal our genuine desires?

So why do I have a book on the history of salt?

We should all follow Jeanette Winterson's advice:

"I began to follow my own eccentricities, which is really the only way to read."

On an ironic note, I recall one of my teacher, Mr C., who came from a Jesuit seminary, training for a life of celibacy and service to his faith. As fate would have it, he met the woman who would become his wife, gave up God and ended up teaching Shakespeare to ignorant eighteen year olds. Mr C is a voracious reader on the subject of true crime and serial killers, and he has heaps of these paperbacks. If our libraries are archives of our longings, what does it say about Mr C?

And I have books on suicide and manic-depressive artists. What does that say about me?

Why care? Just go forth and read whatever you want.

TRICYCLE Meditation Challenge

I'm way behind on my magazine reading. Only just found out about Tricycle's 28 Days Commit To Sit challenge. And I'm interested.

Our twenty-eight-day Commit to Sit challenge puts that daydream of an intense daily practice to the test. How different will you feel when you meditate every day for a month? What happens when you commit to the five traditional Buddhist vows for laypeople, including refraining from intoxicants and minding your speech? The meditation instructions provided here come out of the Vipassana tradition, which can be traced directly to the way the Buddha himself practiced. The program schedule is based on Vipassana retreats popular in the West and has been constructed to encourage and support your practice.

Twenty-eight days. How about it? My meditation practice is something I have neglect of late. While I practice yoga diligently and I approach it as part of my spiritual practice, I know it is necessary to actually sit and meditate if I really wish to deepen my practice. Perhaps that is why I have avoided it.

Meditation is difficult for me, because my mind is usually unfocused; precisely the reason I need it.

I came to the dharma and yoga at around the same time. But I have stopped identifying myself as a Buddhist for a while now. It was a quiet decision. I have not discussed it with anyone. Most of my important life choices are made quietly.

I have not abandoned the dharma. But there are issues I have to sort out before I can call myself a Buddhist. I just want to be more honest. Or just less hypocritical.

But I can meditate. And I can try to practice the teachings in my life. And if I can do that, it doesn't matter if I identify myself as Buddhist or not, does it?

IRONY | I'm a Writer Too

Oh my gawd! That's me! It really is me!

Comic by Toothpaste for Dinner, via Bookslut

Saturday Library Haul

I swung by the local library today as I had to renew my library loan for The Art of Eating.

More than 700 pages of culinary writing, and you had to swim through pages of adorations and critical reviews before you get to M.F.K. Fisher's writings proper. It's enjoyable, as Fisher explores the preparation, cultural history and philosophy of eating. She also writes movingly on her own gastronimical experiences, and how it is all tied up with desire and hunger. More on it later.

Anyway, while I was at the library, I picked up some other titles. Alessandro Baricco's An Iliad is finally available for loan. Baricco is an acclaimed Italian author whose books I have enjoyed recently. This is his rendition of Homer's epic through a more subjective angle.

If you're interested in Baricco other titles, look out for Silk - a historical novella set in the 1860s. French silkworm merchant Hervé Joncour travels to Japan where he falls under the spell of a beautiful woman.

Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer. A travelogue that mentions yoga in the title. Okay, I'm easy bait.

Then there's Camilla Gibb's The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life. Recommended to me by someone who knows just how much I adore books about fucked up childhood and who also knows how much I enjoyed Ann-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees.

And, in the vein of Turkey related readings, I picked up The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay. It's published by New York Review Books, and the reviews say it's humorous and well-written, as it chronicles the madcap travels of a group of eccentric characters from Istanbul to legendary Trebizond.

Finally, Freya Stark's Baghdad Sketches. I collect travellers as my heroes. Freya Stark is one of them. This is a collection of articles she wrote while travelling in Baghdad during the 1930s.

My Library

"My library is an archive of my longings”

~ Attributed to Susan Sontag

It's supposed to be something that Susan Sontag wrote in her journal, and it's the kind of thing that makes me take a long hard look at my library and wonder how true this statement is for myself.

All these unread books. Why?

What does it say that I have a huge collection of travel writings to places I may never get to see? What does it say of me that I have all these books on dead civilisations?

Just a note: a posthumously released collection of Susan Sontag's works is now available: At the Same Time: Essays and Speeches. Published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

BOOKS | Twilight of Love

Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev
By Robert Dessaix
[16/01/2007 ~ 20/02/2007]
[Memoirs; Travel Writing; Russian Literature]

I've just finished Twilight of Love by Australian author Robert Dessaix. In a sort of introduction to the book, Dessaix provides the background to how he came to this journey, to Turgenev, and writing this book. When he was about 11 or 12 years old − a long time ago, when "the first sputnik began crisscrossing the sky", Dessaix bought himself a Russian dictionary. That purchase changed his life and set him onto a lifelong Russian romance. Within weeks he signed up for Russian classes, studied a year in Moscow, and eventually began teaching Russian language and literature to students.

Dessaix had intended to trail the footsteps of Russian writer Ivan Turgenev across Germany, France and Russia, to the places he had lived, loved, and wrote his novels. Yet like all good journeys, he meandered, "so crabwise, as it were, while seeming to fix my sights on Turgenev, I have ended up scuttling past him, heading for a broader target."

For a great part of the journey, Dessaix reveals to us how Turgenev spent forty years in love with the diva Pauline Viardot, following her and her husband around Europe until the end of his days. It was a bizarre menage a trois, as Turgenev was on good terms with the husband, Louis Viardot. It gives a perspective into another way of love, not the twosome affair that we are used to. Dessaix asserts that Turgenev understood he was never meant for the conventional twosome love. In fact, for a man so concerned with love, Dessaix noted that there was never any "happily-ever-after" in Turgenev's stories. The characters come to passion, illicit or forbidden in some ways, and it ends. Turgenev continued to have relationships with many other women, but his devotion to Pauline Viardot was unquestionable and complete.

Nowadays I expect we'd call such a scene high camp, but in 1843 it was deliciously theatrical. They knew how to do things in those days. He was twenty-five and she was twenty-two, and he was hers forever.

Dramatic, almost too unreal. Something changed in us between the time of Turgenev to present days. We are unable to love without fulfilment; we have come to assume love and happiness as our inalienable birthrights. We find it hard to believe in love like that, love that could just be − yet there is something that still remains in us that admires the chaste devotion Turgenev had for his Pauline Viardot. We have lost the vocabulary for it.

Yet all the words I might find to describe this love somehow miss the mark. To call it a 'great love affair' makes it sound oddly banal, as if he and Viardot were lovers, which, as far as anybody knows for certain, they were not. To say he was 'deeply in love' with her all his life makes him sound eternally frustrated in his feelings, even adolescent, yet for most of his life it was a stable, enriching love. It was not just a matter of 'passion', either, although there was ardour there of a kind, especially in the early years. Nor was it merely disembodied 'adoration' − in letter after letter he kissed her hands and her feet (although not her lips.) …

One thing seems obvious to me: a love such as this is only possible between two points in a triangle. Otherwise there will be thunder and lightning and what links the two lovers will eventually break asunder. The third point may be a husband or wife or it may be something else entirely.

Quite possibly there is no name at all for this kind of love. Perhaps, in fact, there is no need for a name since so few of us will ever experience anything like it. For the lives most of us lead, the old words will almost certainly do, one replacing the other as the years go by. On the other hand, if I could fin the right word for what Turgenev felt, perhaps the love my own life is rooted in would grow even more luxuriantly.

I want to know what it felt like to love someone like that. I want to find the words.

Dessaix goes back and forth between Turgenev's life and his writings. For him, the focus of Turgenev's life's works is not the politics − nor is it the nihilism, the philosophy that is supposed to have sparked a failed revolution and led the Tsar to free the serfs.

Rather, it is Love. How to love. That is core of Turgenev's life, says Dessaix. Dessaix it seems, following the footsteps of the Russian author, is also exploring his own path to love in twilight, questioning what is means to love, his own realisation of Love. And he leaves us with these thoughts:

Human life may seem pointless and always end badly, but you must make your peace with it. If lasting happiness escapes you, you must resign yourself to magnifying the blissful moments. If burning pasion kaleidoscopes into something slower, mellower and more sweet-tempered, then you must have the grace to warm yourself by this gentler flame. If shafts of light are rare, or only a mirage, wait for them quietly all the same. If love, when you try to lay hold of it with your hands or even just your heart, slips from yout grasp like water because there's no one there, you must reconcile yourself to loving what you find. Love is never enough. It must always be enough. There's nothing else. That, at least, is what I hear him say when he talks to me.

I had picked up the book expecting something else. I had not imagined a treatise of love. It is introspective, lyrical, romantic and well-written. It warms me to the idea of reading Turgenev.

My thanks to Acquistionist for recommending Robert Dessaix.

HBO turns 'Fire' into fantasy series

Just found this news online:

HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy series "A Song of Fire & Ice" into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.

Via Variety.

Now, allow me an excited, girly scream.

I gave up on the sword and sorcery epics a long time ago. Those fantasy trilogies where the farmboy turns out to be the Chosen One stated in ancient prophecies where they will battle some dark god risen? It wasn't a conscious decision, but over the years you get jaded about the new stuff that comes out that doesn't quite inspire your taste. Then one day you just stop browsing at that section of the bookstore altogether.

Except for A Song of Fire & Ice. George R. R. Martin's multi-volumed high fantasy epic is the only series that still keeps me interested, long after I gave up on Robert Jordan and David Eddings. Why do I love his Song of Fire & Ice?

Martin never forgets that character drives the story, and if necessary, very bad things can be allowed to happen to your well-loved characters. And some really bad things have been done indeed.

Martin is also an accomplished writer of horror and it comes through in his writing.

Martin is always aware of the state of moral ambiguity. There are no real heroes, and his villains are heroes at the other side of the fence. His best character created in the epic is Tyrion the dwarf - a complicated and compelling anti-hero whose fate is unknown since the end of A Feast for Crows. Get him back. I want to find out what happened to him.

Martin still knows how to write an epic, with the rise and fall of great houses, lots of political intrigue and betrayal. He takes his time, yes, and so each book is worth waiting for.

I love love love love love A Song of Fire & Ice.

Visit George R. R. Martin's Official Website.

Uncanny Likeness

When I was watching Superman Returns last year, it occurred to me that Parker Posey shares a bit of likeness with Margot Kidder. Of course, it was whole Superman thing, but today I did a web search on the pictures of these 2 ladies, and the likeness just seems uncanny, especially around the mouth.

Oh, and I Heart Parker Posey.

BOOKS | More on Ice

I've previously mentioned this title, Ice, by Vladimir Sorokin. I just found out it's the first installment in a projected trilogy, to be released by NYRB (somebody go give them a pat on the back for doing a very good job, please). Sorokin himself apparently is known outside of Russia for his clashes with conservative groups over the last several years - but until now, very little of his particular brand of gritty satire has been available to English-language readers.

I still have the book on reserve. Will purchase it next week and hopefully read it soon.

My TBR pile aspires to the heights of the Tower of Babel.

There's more write-up on Ice in The Moscow Times.

News via Literary Saloon - still doing the world a favour by expanding our minds to literature beyond our own borders.

BOOKS | The Art of Detection

The Art of Detection
By Laurie R. King
[04/01/2007 ~ 20/01/2007]
[Mystery, Detective Fiction]

This post is long-overdue. I finished reading the book some time back, but just never got around to writing about it - as usual.

The latest in Laurie R. King's Kate Martinelli series, The Art of Detection features the usual set of characters that fans are familiar with: San Francisco homicide detective Kate Martinelli and her detective-partner Al Hawkins, as well as her life-partner, Lee Cooper. In this book we finally meet little 5 year old Nora - Lee and Kate's precocious daughter.

Since last we left Kate, she has settled into domestic life and juggling her police work with her duty to home. The character is at peace, which unfortunately seems to throw her and most of the characters into a blandness. Laurie R. King has the ability to write believable three dimensional characters with rich emotional lives - that is one of the reason she has such a strong following for her Kate Martinelli and Mary Russell series. In Art of Detection unfortunately, the characters are more pushed into motion than active protagonists.

Present time, San Francisco, the story opens with Detective Kate Martinelli going into the home of a murder victim, Philip Gilbert. What is disturbing is that the victim had set up his entire apartment like the interior of 221 Baker Street, with violin, fireplace, and bullet holes in the wall spelling the initial of Queen Victoria. It turns out the late Mr Gilbert was a collector-dealer in Sherlock Holmes memorabilia and he has recently acquired a typrwritten manuscript that is supposedly written by Sherlock Holmes himself.

The best part of Art of Detection is this mysterious manuscript, a short mystery story told in the first person by a male narrator of extraordinary deduction skills. Here is where fans of the Mary Russell series, especially those who have read Locked Rooms, will be excited.

I visit the Laurie R. King's blog from time to time, and my impression is that she is an intelligent, self-aware lady with a wry sense of humour. Here is the author playing on the consciousness of her own literary creations. Sometimes the characters you create seem to possess a life if their own and all you really are doing is acting as biographer for someone else's life. The crossover between the Mary Russell and Kate Martinelli in Art of Detection is playful, wry and very well-done. It is fun, and shows us how sometimes authors need to take a step back and not that themselves too seriously.

But one complaint: The Art of Detection pales in comparison to other Kate Martinelli novels, especially the wonderful first Martinelli novel, A Grave Talent (which won King the Edgar Award), and To Play the Fool, where we meet the most intriguing character King has ever created: Brother Erasmus - a living embodiment of the archetypal Fool, who buried within himself some tragic secret too terrible to speak of, that he could only communication in quotations.

A fan of Laurie R. King would find enough to enjoy the book, but I would not recommend it to newcomers. The plot is too conveniently tied up at the end, and there is none of the emotional engagement with the characters found in previously books. Even the victim, Philip Gilbert, is hardly a sympathetic character. I would suggest a newcomer to King try the abovementioned titles: A Grave Talent and To Play the Fool if you're interested in the Kate Martinelli series.

Or try the Mary Russell series, if you're more inclined towards Sherlock Holmes pastiche. In The Beekeeper's Apprentice (first in the series), in the year 1914, young, feisty Mary Russell meets a beekeeper and becomes his assistant in the world of mystery and intrigue. The Mary Russell series by the way, has always been more successful for King.

A little background: King has a BA degree in comparative religion and an MA in Old Testament Theology - all of which she puts in good use when she writes. Odd theological knowledge comes up when you least suspects it, and Mary Russell, protagonist of her Sherlock Holmes pastiche series, translates Sanskrit for leisure.

Another good King to start will be A Dark Place. It's a stand-alone, which features Anne Waverly, an esteemed university professor, who also works with the FBI on cult activities. (Here, King again puts her theological education to very good use) She goes undercover to unravel the truth behind a new fangled cult, the People of Change. A complicated and haunted character, Anne Waverly was previously a member of a cult herself, where she lost her family. Tragic, self-destructive, you feel for Anne Waverly as she gradually loses herself in her new assignment. The character of Anne Waverly was so compelling that I wish there was a sequel for her. But just as well. Sometimes a good thing is knowing when to stop.

Meanwhile, if you are already a fan of the Mary Russell mystery, check this out.

Another Non Fiction Reading

I just recalled the other non-fiction title I wanted to check out. Pauline W. Chen's Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality. It's about a surgeon's questioning of the medical profession and how it seems so inadequate in dealing with death. A human perspective into a profession meant to heal, but sometimes losing its way.

I think sometimes we forget doctors are human too, and medicial science does not have all the answer — especially when we are dealing with terminal illnesses and we look to them for the solution — then, realising they are not god.

This is of course part of my own recent experience, where we were frustrated by the number of tests the doctors were running on my grandmother and nothing seems to help her, because she is dying.

Again, since it's in hardcover, I'm checking out the library first. So it's definitely not going to be a selection for the Non-Fiction Five Challenge.

If I do sign-up.

SOLNIT | Storming the Gates of Paradise

I haven't seen anyone announcing this, so I thought I'll just drop a note:

Rebecca Solnit, author of the deliciously discursive Wanderlust: A History of Walking and A Field Guide to Getting Lost has a new book out later in the year.

Published in a hardcover by the University of California Press, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics collects more than 40 essays across her career, and deals with her insights into culture, social politics and environmental concern. It is more politically motivated than Wanderlust and A Field Guide To Getting Lost, but yet totally coherent with her entire life's work. Her writing has always been about staying engaged with the world we live in, opening our hearts and minds to the infinite curiosities of everyday life and acting conscientiously. Afterall, this woman wrote an entire book on the ordinary everyday act of walking and made it profound and romantic.

Amazon.com states release date as June 30, 2007. If you're interested - I am - do reserve it in your Amazon cart or look out for it in your favourite bookstore after the publication date.

Pacemaker May Explode During Cremation

We were at the crematorium this morning for my grandmother's cremation. I couldn't help but catch a note posted on the notice board inside:

Pacemaker may explode during cremation

My mind went: "Wooooh. Boom."

That was disrespectful, right? Not the right thought, right? Bad brain. Bad, bad, brain.

But you had to be there. It was funny.

Non Fiction Books To Consider

I'm still udecided about the Non-Fiction Five Challenge. Should I, or shouldn't I?

Meanwhile, here are some non-fiction titles I'm looking, regardless of whether I sign up for the challenge or not:

Thanks to Jenclair's recommendation, I'm looking at Written in Bones: How Human Remains Unlock the Secrets of the Dead, edited by Paul Bahn. It's a collection of articles by different contributors. They cover a variety of topic, from Incan sacrifices found on the Andes Mountains, to a discussion of the murders of the nephews of Richard III.

One of my little known childhood ambition was to be an archaeologist. I wanted to be like Howard Carter and explore the pyramids, discover ancient tombs and find hidden treasures. I loved books on old secrets and mummies and even now, I find myself fascinated by well-researched books on anthropology and how the ancient remains seem to speak to us. (Hmm...maybe that's why I love CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)

I'm also looking at Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, by Dean Karnazes. I first read about Dean Karnazes from Wired magazine last year. This man is amazing.

An ultramarathon is any run beyond 26.2 miles, and Dean Karnazes has done lots of them. In fact, he seems like a guy out to punish himself, with his habit of going for 100 miles run, and also having run in the first ultramarathon in the South Pole — "breathing the superchilled air directly [without a mask] could freeze your trachea" — Nice.

But there is something seductive in knowing more about a guy who would push him to the limits. What makes him do it, and more specifically, where does one find the motivation to go so far? Karnazes says the first half of the run is done with the body, the second half is with the mind. Sounds almost New Age, but this man has done it. And I want to know how.

The best part is, the books are actually available through the local library. So it's just a matter of hoping down one of these days.

You Are Alive. So Live

I was thinking of this this morning:

HIPPOGRIFF: Orpheus. We have heard of your loss; you have our sympathies also.

ORPHEUS: I do not need your pity, Hippogriff.

HIPPOGRIFF: It was freely given, boy. You should not scorn it.

ORPHEUS: Don't pity me.

MORPHEUS: You should have gone to her funeral.

ORPHEUS: Why?

MORPHEUS: To say goodbye.

ORPHEUS: I have not yet said goodbye to Eurydice.

MORPHEUS: You should. You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times, the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.

~Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Fables & Reflections,
"Orpheus, The Song of Orpheus"

Valentine's Day Blog

Today, if you are in love, or with someone who loves you, remember to cherish. That we will die, that we will lose the ones we love, is something we always seem to forget.

I have a copy of my grandmother's death certificate with me right now. Is it ironic that my grandmother died on Valentine's Day?

It was a surprise this morning at around 2:14 am when we received the phonecall. I was half-cursing the idiot who would call at 2 am, then the sobering moment when I heard my mother ran into her room in loud sobs; I understood immediately what had happened.

How do I feel? Nothing. We were virtually strangers, my grandmother and myself.

My grandmother had been suffering the last few weeks of her life. The doctors had tubes stuck in her because she could no longer eat. She had in fact begged to die. Yet her children were arguing over surgical procedures that were unable to save her or relieve her of her suffering - which I therefore deemed unnecessary.

Now she has no pain. I'm not that sure about going to a place of peace and all that rubbish though.

WTF | Anna Nicole Smith?

Call me unsympathetic - but why is the world in mourning for Anna Nicole Smith? It's not like she's Gandhi (or even Princess Diana).

There was even an article with the headline: "Chasing the American Dream: Anna Nicole Smith".

Now, is it the American Dream to become a Playboy Playmate with surgically enhanced breasts and an unfortunate drug habit?

QUIZ | Which Austen Heroine Are You

Take the Quiz here!

:: C A T H E R I N E ::

You are Catherine Morland of Northanger Abbey! You love a good Gothic romance - so much, in fact, that you'll fool yourself into thinking you're living one! You are imaginative and naive, which is at once endearing and perplexing. perhaps your heart is TOO pure...but it is adventurous. After all, you love a trip to Bath or a stay at an ancient Abbey.

Did I mention that's one Austen I have not read? I always thought I was more an Emma Woodhouse.

Via Ex Libris.

Discursive Polymaths and My Weekend

I'm meeting some of my friends in Chinatown later in the evening. Next week is Chinese New Year, so Chinatown will be crowded. *

Oh, to soak in the quagmire of agitated human sweat! Oh festive joy! **

But before I log off for the weekend, would like to point you guys to this piece posted at Conversational Reading, entitled "Discursive Polymaths." It's an interesting piece and I'm taking down notes on some of the titles discussed. Go read, while I go play.

A good weekend to everyone. I also leave you a picture of funny kittens.

Ciao.

* Understatement of the week

** I need to point out that I am being sardonic. I tend to dislike contact with foreign sweat. We need to get to know each other better, preferably with dinner, flowers and a movie included, before we even begin to discuss consensual exchange of bodily fluids, thank you very much.

Mary Oliver | The Uses of Sorrow

The Uses of Sorrow

(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)

Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift.

~ Mary Oliver