Life is a Lemon

Life is a lemon. You can bite it raw, sucking all the glory and bittersweet in one explosive instant. Or, you can crush the fruit, add a lot of water, make a pot of lemonade, and enjoy an iced cup of light drink for a whole summer week.

Press Here to Repeat

And again.

Repetition Kills You

I used to think my life stops being meaningful when I begin to repeat myself. Now I know better.

As The Black Ghosts reveals in their song, "this (song) is a repetition of words, dancing needs a repetition to work," the secret of life, besides the trick to keep breathing, is accepting repetition, and learning to repeat while not repeating.

For people in the creative business, this is perhaps the most important revelation. Repetition doesn't kills you. Boredom does. How to repeat with style and interesting flavor to entertain your audience, and to stay relevant, is an art, even THE art, of creative lives.

And on a broader scale, isn't life a series of endless repetitions? We go to work, we knock off, we go on holidays, we get back to work. The mundaneness is torture, but only when you have mastered the routines, can you starting seeing the hidden possibilities and ironies.

And the fun to play with them.

Hooter

I heard a owl for the first time the other night. Actually it mustn't be the first time, because the sound came out familiar to my ears, only I didn't make the cognitive connection between the hooting sound and the animal that's making it, until that night.

You need to turn up the volume to the hear the hooter. It's in the background, masked by the incessant city chatter, but distinctly audible if you know what to listen to.

Owls in the city? Right beside my apartment? I only have limited knowledge about birds, but this discovery didn't come as much a surprise as it could have been. Subconsciously, I suspect more that a few nocturnal critters had ventured into the city domain, sneaking back and forth across the tacit boundaries of civilization and wilderness.

Believe it or not, a night heron once perched atop the fountain in our front yard, drooling over the carps, and just this morning at 4 o'clock, I ran into the spotted cat, strolling into the basement just as I opened the gate, as if I were the doorman, she a resident.

Denim shorts or Lycra pants

The heat is maddening. You would think people would flock to the underpass to cross the street, if only for the temporary respite from the heat. But what do you know? Even in the most scorching of scorching days, Taipeians stick to the blacktop, marching briskly along the white stripes.

Heat can be debilitating. There is no clarity of mind, everything is muddled, distorted by a wavering mirage. The more you try to concentrate, the more exhausted you become.

Which is more sexually arousing? A pair of denim hot shorts, or Lycra pants? It's completely irrelevant, but it's also the only thing you can manage to work in your brains sitting at the barely sheltered outdoor coffee stand.

The only good thing perhaps, about summer in the city, is you get to appreciate every possible variation of lovely female legs.

Zach's Song

If only I had more time with you.

Let's go UP

I didn't know Zach Sobiech, only heard of his name several days ago from a passing twitter post. But his soft mumble accompanied by a 7-note melody, struck the softest spot the first time I heard him sing.

His story filled the airwaves and the net, I really don't need to share his story again. Actually his story was nothing to me, until the song told me of the dark and lonely hole he fell into, and how he climbed his way to the edge to fly up, up, and up, to the clouds.

Zach passed away a few days ago, ending his struggle with cancer. The song "Clouds" is an iTune bestseller now, leaving a steady stream of donations to medical researches. But what he left behind is really much, much more than that. Because every person listening to his song would feel a little better, fly a little higher, hoping a little harder, for a nicer little place up there in the clouds. 

Speed Meal

The lady sat by the door, conversing excitedly with her company, oblivious to the outside world. She had full cycling gear on, complete with the air-dynamic helmet.

And it's the helmet that gave an out-of-this-world aura of her, in the near-empty fast food restaurant, under 7 o'clock morning light.

I don't know what makes people wanna eat with their helmets on. A speed meal? Protection from the onslaught of cholesterol?

Or maybe she is just fashionable.

Fear

We all fear. Fear of death, fear of loss, fear of letting out the fact that we fear. But we can not use fear as the excuse to remove everything that makes us fear.

Because the origin of fear is you. Not "it", not "him", not "them".

We can beat up every kid who won't gang up, kill all the bad guys who threaten us, bomb out every country that smuggles WMD, and we would still find some "other" thing to fear, one after another. Insecurity creeps up, just when you thought you have weeded out the root of evil from the surface of earth.

Because in the end, the battle of survival is not between "us" and "them", but in yourself, between "fearful you" and "fearless you".

Humidity

I am sure it's been analyzed in some scientific study here or there, if it's not already been revealed in academic report.

I mean, the fact that people are touchy when the weather gets under their skins.

Your wife yelled at you for no reason, cars at your back honked for the slightest wait, cars rudely cut in front you, cars speeding, sirens wailing in, sirens wailing out, even your cat seemed to hold a grudge against you, only she's too busy napping to take it out on you.

Spring is occasionally nice here, like when you go for a night cruise with the windows down. But most of the time, rain and sun combine in such a bad way that you swear you want to wring the air dry like a dripping towel.

Versailles

Another of the band's "epic" tunes. This time he keeps singing falling, falling, and falling.

Do we spot a pattern here?

The audience was swooned, so much so the girls looked just like the groupies he talked about in Rome. Then again, with music so infectious, can't blame them.

BTW, turned out the band is from Versailles. The "Chateau." Close to Paris, but different place.

Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome

You barely make out what he is singing. But the electronic web wraps you, draws you in, echoing in an infinite yet closed auditorium, inducing a trance-like 4-min.

And he kept singing Rome, Rome, Rome, Rome.

The band "Phoenix" is from Paris. It's singer Thomas Mars married the directer Sofia Coppala in 2011, whose "Lost in Translation" is one of my favorites.  For a French band, Phoenix' music is more British or New-York sounding than chanson. But there is a polished side of it that surely reminds me of Paris.

Strange thing is, even after the 99th repeated play, I still can't figure out what Rome is supposed to mean..

Rain, lots of it

It's raining pigs and rabbits, cause I don't know how you would describe it, but it's definitely more than cats and dogs.

Hangover plus a deluge. Perfect way to start a efficient workday.

The hangover was not from beers. Went to watch a movie by Danny Boyle yesterday, the twists and turns made me dizzy, almost nauseous. Not saying it's bad, but it won't qualify as happy holiday entertainment.

The music was nonetheless good. Never knew elevator music could be used in a thriller soundtrack, and sounds oddly exciting. Not bad at all, as all British movies are musically.

Dream

The dream was so real, and I found out what they mean by "he woke up in a cold sweat."

I was in some kind of tour, like the ones 6th and 9th graders have before they graduate, and the tour had just ended, everyone were in the bus ready to leave with their luggages loaded, except me.

I had a strong feeling that this is not the first time I had dreams along this theme, but dreams being dreams, nothing is certain.

I was along in the hotel room, trying frantically to find the one very important personal belonging that I had forgot and had to retrieve, even when the bus was leaving to catch the plane.

In the dream, the sense of hopelessness is absolute, like the moments when you are in the air hurtling toward the street, falling off the height of a building. There's simply nothing you can do.

I rarely had dreams. Or rarely had dreams that I still remembers after I woke up. Is it the weather? It's been unusually warm the past few nights, as warm as summer. So it must be.

It tells me that I need a vacation. One at the beach. By car, and WITHOUT BUSES.

Boobs

Her cleavage is in plain view, riding like a racer, she leans forward in a loose shirt, speeding by.

I thought: biking is really not for women, or, at least show some etiquette when you are riding??

Seconds later, a guy jogged along, all sweaty, his nipples were clearly showing, soaked jersey totally see-through.

And I thought:......well, now I don't know what I am supposed to think, and let's just forget what I had just thought.

Don't Die

Seriously. You Bloody Bugger.

Mom Ahoy

"Please eat your greens, and don't sit close to screens, your eyes are a means to an end."

"And I would be sorry, if due to your hurry, you were hit by a lorry, my friend."

"Like you always say: Safe Travels, Don't Die, Don't Dieeeee, Safe Travels, Don't Die, Don't Dieeeeeee."

Lisa Hannigan threatened me merrily when I took a leak at work, reminding me it's only several days away from Mother's Day. But she sang more like my ex-girlfriend than my mom, throaty as a foxy bartender, and I was happily caught off-guard by the British humour of "don't die."

My mom never fails to give me a tirade full of shocking scenarios like my teeth rotten stinky and my waist bulging fat. She could have just said it like Ms. Hannigan, and I would try my very merry best to stay alive.

And well -- if she "sing" it all sexy, the way Ms. Hannigan does.

Bozos with Big Guns

The sun is hot even before 9:30. But I need more reasons to cheer up.

Modern jobs forced us to divide life into working and non-working days. At work, you have too little control over what you can or can not do. At home, you have too much control to figure out what you want or don't want to do.

Took a nap after lunch. Still restless, I picked up the history book bought a few days ago, started reading, and was quickly drawn into the narrative.

Most westerners are not threatened by death as long as they can avoid epidemics. In contrast, aboriginals in New Guinea are killed sooner by neighboring tribesman than by infectious germs, which can only survive in densely-populated cities. It stands to reason, that in order to survive the many perils of tribalism, aboriginals would evolve into a smarter people through natural selection, and western societies would more likely be left with a physically stronger, but not particularly intelligent type of offspring. So why then, if the general tribesmen have more brains than your average western civilians, is the world today dominated by Europeans and Americans, and not by the New Guineans? 

Why?

Lawrence Block

Lawrence Block  is dry. He writes about addiction and alcoholism, about divorce and brutality. His protagonist, Matt Scudder the private-eye, roams the pubs when he is not visiting AA groups. The plot crawls along maily by conversions between Scudder and other people of interest, and the crime-busting and logic-reasoning happens almost exclusively in the detective's secret mind, exposing to the readers only at the last possible moment. 

Except in a few lapses of style, Block would reveal his soft spots for humanity. Like in this description of a female owner of an antique shop which happens to be downstairs of the crime scene.

She was a dumpling, her hair an unconvincing red, her cheeks heavily rouged. Her billowy print dress flowing. Her smile was guarded, and something about her stance suggested she was keeping close to whatever device she could use to summon help.
I said I had a few questions about what had happened upstairs.
She said, "You a cop?" and her face relaxed for a moment, then tightened. "You're not a cop," she said, with such certainty she had me convinced.

The owner turned out to be a woman with enough savvy and life's wisdom to see through Scudder's unwillingness to talk to a difficult questionee -- the victims' daughter actually, and she detected the detective's mind with the shrewdness of any mother-of-four-grown-boys. The unexpected human touch surprises the reader like a single deliberately (accidentally?) colored character in an otherwise black-and-white comic strip.

Guillemots

"And to those of you who live your lives from one day to the next. Well, let them take you to next. Can't you live and be thankful you're here? See it could be you tomorrow, next year," Guillemots sings on my way to work, 4 o'clock in the morning. The effect is exhilarating.

They say the song is about London bombing, and the resolve to not to yield to terrorists. I don't know. I just feel like rocking my hand, and feet, and everything, whenever the opening drum starts rolling.

Their first album is fresh, daring, kaleidoscope of a music experiment. The second and following albums, can't say i am impressed. 

Nostalgia is an Attitude

To look back when people drive forth, and to look down when everyone stares above. 

The Ambassador

"I don't want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a flame in your heart," sings the intro music of the documentary "the ambassador" (by danish director Mads Brugger). And all of a sudden, my mind was sucked back into the post nuclear war days when I was a survivor in Fallout 3.

I don't know the singer, but the song for me, with the static noise, embodies the golden age with all the fuzzy warmness and languid nostalgia.

And a heavy sigh: "I-am-home."

Unsolicited

Incentives don't work on me. I hate coupons, resent 7-11 point-collection schemes, freak out at checkout when asked if I'd shell out an extra dollar for a totally useless home improvement knick-knack. And I find the routine of tearing away all the receipt-con-lotteries that kept cluttering in my pocket and on my desk extremely annoying.

I can understand there are people in this world whose lives would descend into a purposeless limbo if deprived of these marketing gimmicks to fill up the lonely hours and minutes, but please would somebody tell the MBA's in corporate spires, that for a number (albeit small) of consumers, your ploys are not just fruitless, but downright cheap, and backfiring like hell.

Just try to leave us alone.

Waiting it out

Finally, it's not raining. And I biked to work for the first time in...how many days? a week? 10 days? Not counting the perfectly sunny but non-working days.

Practically no major news coming in the whole day, the bitches at the editing desk exercising remarkable restraint, a feeling of euphoria that only days ago had seemed to be irrevocably lost, quietly returned to the office.

Knocking off, on my way home, the bike's front wheel snagged again on the elevated braking pads. Frustrated, I lowered the braking arm only so slightly, to make room for the movement of the rim, and it worked. Just like that. The wheel turned again. It took only 2 second, and I don't know why I had never thought of doing it until the 100th breakdown.

Looks like, sometime the best and only thing you can do, is to wait it out.

KMOA (as in "Kiss My Own Ass")

Spent whole morning changing my Wi-Fi handler from "ether" to "KMA-AH", as in "Kiss My Ass, Asshole". Hackers might or might not take the cue, but I was all sweaty hopping from one PC to another, salvaging network connection after the supposedly simple affair of a name-change.

I swear technology is a bitch, pretty or not.

Beautifully Sunny, Perfect Morning

Dogs walking humans crossing street, Girls in shortest pants flashing skin, after endless spring drizzles and downpours, nothing defines "perfect" better than a crispy sunny day.

The coffee shop is only slightly crowded, T.M. in a perfect weather is simply a languid lay-back township in slow-mo action - if there is any action at all.

Jack johnson is singing "I am just a waste of her energy, she is just a waste of my time, so why don't we waste it all , Tonight,"

Wanna get wasted. In Sunshine-Tequila. Big time.

I wonder if there is a stage in everybody's life, when you feel you've had enough, enough working, enough striving, enough aspiring, enough living with a purpose and climbing the social ladder, and you just want to lie down, staring at the sky, listening to everything and nothing, leaving everybody alone and being left alone, and time is just of no value and meaning like it's meant to be wasted...

Cause I think I am in that stage now.

to wed is to dine

Weddings are mini-dramas packed into a hectic 3-hour meal. We envy, we show off. We yawn, we blah-blah-blah. We laugh, scoff, bluff, puff, and play deaf. The exchange of gestures and emotions are just too much to be stomached for one night.

So when the show ended, we usually come home totally exhausted and mildly disgusted, going to bed early, hoping all the mixed feelings, bad tastes in the mouth, will all go away in the morning.