26.5.08

Z’s-Inciting Flicks with Fat Budgets

Well, that was refreshing.


I almost felt asleep in a theater watching The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The title “The Lullaby of Narnia: Sleeping Caspian” would have been more fitting.

I confessed my mistake of not watching the first Narnia movie and ended up wondering who or what the hell Aslan was. I first made an uneducated guess that Aslan was a majestic-looking, authority-exuding monarch or wizard with a heavy staff, striking fear into enemies’ hearts and inspiring faith on allies’.

Boy, I was only half correct.

He was majestic alright, but he didn’t sport any staff. Not any that was visible to the eye, at least. Aslan was a lion?? Forgive my ignorance, but hey, great sequel movies didn’t call for a mandatory watching of the first. Take Godfather 2, Terminator 2, The Two Towers, or Basic Instinct 2 as examples. Well, the last-mentioned movie was an exception, but surely you get the picture.

It was the second time in a row that my eyelids drooped in front of a silver screen. The first was Speed Racer, a supposedly high-speed racing flick featuring slick, high-tech cars with outrageous driving. Not so, in my humble opinion. The actors talked too much when they should have concentrated more on driving, and got me asleep at the wheel. Don’t talk and drive!

Preposterous to think that I spend my hard-earned money to see such below-expectation shows.

SCANDALOUS!

A robbery!

Money-thieving scheme!

Yeah!

Well…

Hmm…

Zzzz Zzzz Zzz…

19.5.08

Off-the-cuff Quote of the day

"I was afraid of failing, now I’m afraid of succeeding."

-White stupid man, when asked about his chances of finally getting rid of his notorious, longstanding celibacy.-

16.5.08

Your Sins Will Catch Up With You

Now I’m terribly sure that I have heard this foreboding expression on a recent occasion. Was it a Bible verse, a movie, a book, or a soothsaying buddy?

I think it’s from that British movie “Dead Man’s Shoes” that I watched some time ago. A solid movie, but I am to write of the sins, not the flick.

Some of my old vices are surely catching up with me. And it comes on the form of a seasoned and persistent hag in a white robe. With a literal sleight of hand, she made me committed an all too familiar sin at a time when I didn’t want to.

It’s odd and it comes with a heavy price. I feel satiated, sad, enraged, and manipulated at the same time. I left the hag with a sunken feeling and cursed her over and over, while deep in my heart, I know that I am to curse myself.

Gotta run faster...

11.5.08

Second Encounter: Amusing Ignorance and Brazenness in the Big Apple

My visit in April found New York City at her best mood. The sun was shining graciously, the temperature was perfect, and the wind was blowing softly on my hair. A fine day, as aptly summoned up by an old man standing on the roadside when he audibly mumbled, “You just gotta love Manhattan in summer.” An opinion that I fully shared, and I chuckled wholeheartedly.

Alas, as with my previous, I was in NY for a business trip. The UNSC was holding yet another debate and my times in the Big Apple were mostly confined to chambers; both referred to my bedchamber and THE Chamber. I managed to have my fair share of sunlight though, not to say perspiration, of running back and forth between the Mission and the UN.

The Pope was in New York, too. His visit to NY was heavily covered in every newspapers and TV channels to make sure everybody was aware of it. With the exception of, as it turned out, the good people of the UK. They were unaware of the Papal visit, and unwittingly scheduled the visit of Gordon Brown at the same time as the Pope’s. Some papers made fun of it, and one printed a particularly catching headline:

"The Pope is in the Big Apple."
"And so is the British Prime Minister."

As the PM made the most of his visit by meeting Obama, Clinton, and McCain, I made the most of mine by watching late night TV programs. It wasn’t long though, before I got really annoyed by incessant commercials of black-suited lawyers playing Good Samaritan with their unnatural white teeth and offering legal counsel to unfortunate people recently involved in accidents. Be they work-related accidents; accidents due to poor public facilities; due to negligence by others; or simple you-should-have-known-better accidents, a horde of lawyers stood ready to sue anyone of your choice. Types of accidents covered knew no boundaries that a wild idea occurred to me to sue the lawyers themselves as I almost cracked my jaw laughing out loud at their shamelessness.

Well, I knew better. I didn’t cherish the idea of a neighbor suing me for his disturbed sleep over my boisterous laughter, so I turned off the telly and pulled my blanket. And so it was, a day in life that sometimes could be so full of amusing things, and I chuckled wholeheartedly.

10.5.08

The Songs of Wings

I’m a man of songs, as my karaoke-singing buddies would reluctantly attest. And these days, two songs in particular keep playing in my head. I would sing them over and over at heart, and feel mystified by the power of the lyrics.

The first is Jimi Hendrix’s iconic Little Wing:

Well she's walking, through the clouds
With a circus mind that's running wild
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams, and fairy tales
That's all she ever thinks about
Riding with the wind
When I'm sad she comes to me
With a thousand smiles she gives to me free
It's all right she said, it's all right
Take anything you want from me
Anything

Fly on Little Wing
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Little Wing

The second is Westlife’s pop Flying Without Wings:

So impossible as they may seem
You've got to fight for every dream
'Cause who's to know
Which one you let go
Would have made you complete

Well, for me it's waking up beside you
To watch the sunrise on your face
To know that I can say I love you
In any given time or place
It's little things that only I know
Those are the things that make you mine

And it's like flying without wings
'Cause you're my special thing
I'm flying without wings

I tell you, it is not a coincidence that both songs have the elements of “wings” on them. Angelic things in life can really make you ‘fly’ without wings, but ‘wings’ do not always get you flying, as Icarus (not my karaoke buddy) would reluctantly attest.

2.5.08

Dear Grandma

Dear Grandma,

I dreamt of you today.

In my dream, you exclaimed with joy and had that childish but toothless grin when you saw me. How I miss your smile…

You were hugging me, and your first words were “You are alive!” What an odd thing to hear from you, Grandma.

I staggered on my knees and stammered as I returned your embrace. I glanced above your bony shoulder and realized that we were in a room littered with boys’ toys. Were they mine?

I picked up an old photo album from the floor and started to show you the pictures inside. I wanted to explain why I felt odd to see you. I wanted to show you your last picture, where you had an eternal smile etched on your face but everyone else was crying.

Instead, I found pictures of me from the past. Old pictures of myself when I was still young and naïve, and pictures of me when I grew older and still naïve. You flipped through them, smiled affectionately at most and knowingly at few.

I was happy and I could tell that you were, too. But the pictures came to an end, and so did you. You were gone, and I was left standing in a dark room, clutching an old photo album.

I woke up, and tears rolled down on my cheeks. These were ones of sadness, happiness, and apology. How real surreal things could be. And how odd it was when the dead had to come to comfort the living.