on Lord of the Rings
I am transfixed listening to the music of Lord of the Rings. It doesn't make me happy. It makes me rather sad. And I don't know why I like it so much. I don't imagine characters running around in my head when I listen to it.
It just takes to another place. And sometimes when you just want to be somewhere else, just away from what you are familiar with, you find yourself soothing to thoughts of a cool jungle and dark pool rippling in the twilight, gleaming stars creeping over the sky.
It just takes to another place. And sometimes when you just want to be somewhere else, just away from what you are familiar with, you find yourself soothing to thoughts of a cool jungle and dark pool rippling in the twilight, gleaming stars creeping over the sky.
gold and autumn
Listening to Aragorn And Arwen piece from Lord of the Rings makes me gloomed. To see the darkened leaves tinted with gold and autumn above their embrace. Looking upon the menacing future looming in front of them. Uncertain as hell.
New hobby
My new hobby is going to people's profile pages especially on orkut and ripping idealistic quotes (especially if they are in hindi) and posting them on my facebook for laughs. Not very noble, yeah, but I feel like Banksy doing this. Stealing ideas. And making them more famous than it had been. Not that what I put on facebook ever became famous.
As I do this and that and this and that everyday on the Internet, I sometimes wonder and marvel at the varied ideas that people have about being 'cool'. Being cool has never been uncool. And it's always a laugh to see what people do to be cool.
The temptation to be cool led to the evolution of uncool people on earth.
As I do this and that and this and that everyday on the Internet, I sometimes wonder and marvel at the varied ideas that people have about being 'cool'. Being cool has never been uncool. And it's always a laugh to see what people do to be cool.
The temptation to be cool led to the evolution of uncool people on earth.
American arts & entertainment
I detest American mainstream arts and entertainment. I think its the culmination of the modern day deadening of brain and intellect. Everything they do is aimed at pleasing the audience, and I guess that’s cool as long as we talk about entertainment.
But again, there are a few who turn to entertainment not for the shallow sole purpose of being amused but also to be impressed, to be moved, and to be provoked and inspired.
Most times American entertainment makes you sit through it, gaping in wonder and awe and then when you leave that place, you don’t feel the need to be affected by it anymore.
Approaching it from the direction of arts and entertainment serving as escapist tools, yes, that is how it should be.
But then again, arts and entertainment is not merely an escapist tool. When you escape, you still want to feel like you belong there. You still want to be a part of it. American stories make situations where things are just a bit too high for you to reach, you can just gape and wish you were there doing what the people in their stories are doing. That is not only depressing but it is degrading.
Building gods for the mass is never safe. Something that people should not take lightly. It is good for the business. It is an easy way out in terms of marketing boost, but then look at what irresponsible portrayal of pop icons and movie characters have led to.
I am not an idealist and I don’t like the idea of speaking the ‘positive’ message all the time. I do not like to pressure the arts and entertainment because I believe freedom to express is something that is fundamental for its survival. And there is nothing anyone can do if people still decide to make crap models and heros for the pleasure of the mass.
My point is, just because we have the power to do it, we don’t have to.
But again, there are a few who turn to entertainment not for the shallow sole purpose of being amused but also to be impressed, to be moved, and to be provoked and inspired.
Most times American entertainment makes you sit through it, gaping in wonder and awe and then when you leave that place, you don’t feel the need to be affected by it anymore.
Approaching it from the direction of arts and entertainment serving as escapist tools, yes, that is how it should be.
But then again, arts and entertainment is not merely an escapist tool. When you escape, you still want to feel like you belong there. You still want to be a part of it. American stories make situations where things are just a bit too high for you to reach, you can just gape and wish you were there doing what the people in their stories are doing. That is not only depressing but it is degrading.
Building gods for the mass is never safe. Something that people should not take lightly. It is good for the business. It is an easy way out in terms of marketing boost, but then look at what irresponsible portrayal of pop icons and movie characters have led to.
I am not an idealist and I don’t like the idea of speaking the ‘positive’ message all the time. I do not like to pressure the arts and entertainment because I believe freedom to express is something that is fundamental for its survival. And there is nothing anyone can do if people still decide to make crap models and heros for the pleasure of the mass.
My point is, just because we have the power to do it, we don’t have to.
flowers in spring
The sky was black with clear stars silhouetted against the orange and white city lights. I walked past under a rhododendron tree that loomed overhead the footpath. I had just been reading about rhododendrons just a few minutes ago at home in wikipedia. I had also been writing a blog post in elijahemory.wordpress.com about happenings under a rhododendron tree one lazy afternoon. I wanted to stand there for a while but then I had a better place to be at. Just for that night.
I liked the shadow of flowering trees at Cashmere Hill. And draping myself in that shade merging into the night. Watching the night lights of Christchurch from there. I had taken a bus to Centauraus Road one late evening for a dinner with a couple who were family friends, and had missed the stop. I watched the sign pass by and realised I had missed the stop. I also realised that the bus was starting to climb up Cashmere Hill, out of the city limits. There was nothing I could do but wait for the next stop. I got off in the silence. Below me, Christchurch gleamed like arrayed golden pearls laid on a bed of darkness. It's orange glow permeating the lower skies until it slowly faded off to starlit night sky upward. I walked back down the hill. Somehow I was glad that I missed the stop. The night was gorgeous.
And that was when I chanced upon the shadows on the path cast from the flowering trees overhanging the road. I stood there for a while. Wanted to stay on there, but realised the couple were expecting me for dinner already.
Two weeks ago, I was returning home one night, and this time, as it happened earlier, I walked into the shadow of a flowering tree. This time the tree bore white wild rose. I stopped on my tracks. Watched the elegant folds and layers of the rose. So beautiful, beyond what people try to remake. Watched the dark leaves and the shadows that they hid in.
I jumped and caught hold of a few bunches. They felt firm and strong. I smelt them. Faintly rose like. Something deep. Like being lost in a memory of a beautiful person.
I took them home and put them in a Coke can that I had brought home in a mind to recycle them somehow.
After that I have gotten into the habit of collecting bottles from drinks I have had. Organic cola's, bitter lemonade and so on. Another day I gathered together a bunch of rhododendrons and arranged a bunch of white roses and rhododendrons. They dry quickly. But I guess that's why I like it. The brevity of beautiful things.
Two days ago, I saw more daffodils had sprung up around Barbadoes Cemetry. And looking around if anyone was watching, picked a few and brought them home. I saw an empty bottle of whiskey in the sitting room (Raj's, not mine) with a few drops of whiskey still at the bottom. I put two stalks of the daffodils in. It is still blooming strong after two days.
Nothing like a few drops of whiskey to keep daffodils going strong.
---
So yeah, Spring is here. And Christchurch is as beautiful as ever. The skies. The sunlight. The people.
untitled
I need to start my own collection of Haiku poems. Not necessarily Haiku, because maybe I won't stick to the rule of 3-2 or 3 lines format. Spontaneous.
Haiku by Christopher Herold
tractor idling
the last bright star
fades into dawn
mother’s best corn cakes
warming with her song
on Haiku
Haiku poems are so beautiful. They were Japanese forms of poetry that made use of simplicity, finding their muses from delicate pleasures of nature, love and little things. I think they just about speak what the heart says. The way it ignores details in the very same way it notices smaller details, the way that a little intricacy is seen in the a soft light tone.
It is hard to explain. They remind me of the Japanese style of art. Clean lines. Simple white spaces. They are never afraid to speak too little. They just know how much to say.
old photographs
I went through photographs of people I'd met and who had passed on and it scares me to think that people as important as, well, individuals, could be shifted from my memory without an effort. In more ways than one, I have also passed through someone's memories and then shifted away into just a vague shadow in the back of that person's mind or even none at all.
It is sad to think that something as important as people can be so easily forgotten. His/her memory discarded as easily as an old photograph kept away at the bottom of a messy shack of papers.
Then that person gets a job, falls in love, finds hate, peace, children, family and dies away. While I live my life as though I had never met that person ever in the past.
It is very sad. I'd hate being forgotten from people's memories to be let alone to live my own life. Maybe I will just be an old photograph erased and replaced, made to gather dust in an unopened cupboard for years.
I shudder at that thought. I wish I can remember and relocate everyone I have met in my life. How beautiful it'd be to see the guy who ran away from school in my primary school, and what he is doing with his life. Or what about the teacher who was so loved and scorned by everyone, who got married to a rich guy and left school? Is she fat now? Does she still have that teacherly look with tinted glass and orange salwar? Or that fellow in college who kept following us around just because he liked a girl from our group? Or what about that girl in my class who drew a comic where she and a guy called Ben got married, who according to her story was a classmate of hers in primary school (haha!)? What music does she listen to? What kind of shoes is she wearing?
I'd love to know all these. I hate to let them pass into oblivion, these little details of their lives. But then I am only human and as much as I hate doing it, I know it is happening to me and with me too. I am being forgotten in someone's memory. And I am slowly forgetting someone tonight.
It is sad to think that something as important as people can be so easily forgotten. His/her memory discarded as easily as an old photograph kept away at the bottom of a messy shack of papers.
Then that person gets a job, falls in love, finds hate, peace, children, family and dies away. While I live my life as though I had never met that person ever in the past.
It is very sad. I'd hate being forgotten from people's memories to be let alone to live my own life. Maybe I will just be an old photograph erased and replaced, made to gather dust in an unopened cupboard for years.
I shudder at that thought. I wish I can remember and relocate everyone I have met in my life. How beautiful it'd be to see the guy who ran away from school in my primary school, and what he is doing with his life. Or what about the teacher who was so loved and scorned by everyone, who got married to a rich guy and left school? Is she fat now? Does she still have that teacherly look with tinted glass and orange salwar? Or that fellow in college who kept following us around just because he liked a girl from our group? Or what about that girl in my class who drew a comic where she and a guy called Ben got married, who according to her story was a classmate of hers in primary school (haha!)? What music does she listen to? What kind of shoes is she wearing?
I'd love to know all these. I hate to let them pass into oblivion, these little details of their lives. But then I am only human and as much as I hate doing it, I know it is happening to me and with me too. I am being forgotten in someone's memory. And I am slowly forgetting someone tonight.
untitled
I hate hurting my mother. Because I feel for her too much. I feel her worries, her sadness. It's something about what I sense when she stands in the feeble glow of the street lights waiting for her kids to come home.
Call me sissy. Call me anything. I grew up by my mother's side. She spun stories and imaginary realities for me. She called me names and made me think I could be anything in the world. Everything good I have (except my tendency to worry unnecessarily) I have got from my mother.
[A man who does not know her mother is not complete. A person needs a mother. Everyone needs a mother because everyone needs that love, that crazy insane running after (that annoys us so much sometimes), else we'd all be lost.]
I don't know why I said what I said. She was being a mother. She did nothing wrong. I didn't do much wrong too. But then my mother is too perfect. She wasn't wrong. And I hurt her.
Call me sissy. Call me anything. I grew up by my mother's side. She spun stories and imaginary realities for me. She called me names and made me think I could be anything in the world. Everything good I have (except my tendency to worry unnecessarily) I have got from my mother.
[A man who does not know her mother is not complete. A person needs a mother. Everyone needs a mother because everyone needs that love, that crazy insane running after (that annoys us so much sometimes), else we'd all be lost.]
I don't know why I said what I said. She was being a mother. She did nothing wrong. I didn't do much wrong too. But then my mother is too perfect. She wasn't wrong. And I hurt her.
the sepia tinted pine
The other day I dreamt that I was in Woodstock School. I had randomly dropped in there with some of my friends one golden evening. Everyone talked in the common room while I went to talk to the head teacher.
I was telling her that I am writing a book and its idea and inspiration has come a lot from what I knew of Woodstock School, because mine was a similar one, set in the foothills of the Himalayas. She smiled and repeated the names of the places as I told her. She didn't share the same enthusiasm as I expected her to. Didn't she want her name and the name of her school in the acknowledgment page? It was going to be big, this story, this imaginary world that was in my head. I knew it. The world would love it. Many other stories would spin out of its richness and details. Wouldn't she be proud to have played some part in it, or her school?
The Principal came inside the room we were at. He wasn't enthusiastic about it either. Was my idea not new? Had someone else already shared a similar story with them? Or even many other people?
I told him about my story and he listened til I finished and then he shifted the question to asking why my brother was in Korea and why he was studying what he was studying.
I told myself I hated people like that, people who are too concerned about facts and reality too much. Too much so that it makes you think reality is all there is. That imaginations and dreams are just for the sleep when you have nothing else to do but lie between the sheets.
I promised myself as I watched the evening sun lit the window frames brown with wooden varnish and the sepia tinted pine laden silhouette outside (and the streets of Mussoorie) that Sirion Diaries is going to be big. Bigger than my dreams.
of Jordi Duff Clinic
A lot's been happening lately. The primary happening is the new clothing & accessories label that is being started. Well not really started as yet, but in its initial stage of conception.
It's called Jordi Duff clothing label and people awareness hasn't really been generated much and that's because we are looking at November 1, 2009 as our release date.
Jordi Duff is made of, well, Jordi Duff and don't get me wrong, just because his name is our brand name doesn't in any way mean he is the owner or the sole designer. Danny Robertson, aspiring music producer. Michael Greene an Canterbury Uni law student. And me.
We have our own roles to play which are not specific to ourselves but which are roles that we co-ordinate and work with each other.
Heck of a risk and adventure it will be.
Watch out for Jordi Duff website soon to be released, from where you can order your clothes and accessories.
Come get a fix at Jordi Duff Clinic!
untitled binge
It's been a long day. It's been a long time leading to here. I am sorry I need to resort to descriptive writing now. Because........ well i have no reason for it. Just because I don't feel very moved to write anything of more aesthetically rousing material.
I don't like to think about my walk to class tomorrow. I wish I can discover a route to class that is not any more distant than the one that I am using now. I don't want to walk the same roads again, see the smooth flowing river and the grey ducks tomorrow. Maybe I should give those views a break and return to that later. They remind me too much of past events or things I thought about when I also walked to class in the past as I watched them. Seeing the familiar opens a trapdoor of memories that sometimes unnecessarily depress you.
Thinking about seeing these things already makes me no excited to walk to class tomorrow.
I do have a new route that I take, through Latimer Square down Armagh Street and branching into a perpendicular street via Worcester Street. It seems longer (as my mathematical mind tells me, according to the Pythagoras Theorem) but then for the sake of some new oxygen to breathe it seems a smart thing for me to do.
I will be singing and playing music at a Uni Ball happening in the next few weeks. To be honest, I don't know when the exact date is. It's been a long time coming, practising and catching the bus for jam sessions and picking songs and figuring out chords for songs (since apparently I am a 'chord identifier' haha. oh well always glad to know I could be of any use) and I hope the Ball wil work out well. The theme is Murder/Mystery/Crime. I should get inspiration from Film Noir and Alfred Hitchcock's films for dress-up.
What else. I should sleep now. It's damn late already.
I don't like to think about my walk to class tomorrow. I wish I can discover a route to class that is not any more distant than the one that I am using now. I don't want to walk the same roads again, see the smooth flowing river and the grey ducks tomorrow. Maybe I should give those views a break and return to that later. They remind me too much of past events or things I thought about when I also walked to class in the past as I watched them. Seeing the familiar opens a trapdoor of memories that sometimes unnecessarily depress you.
Thinking about seeing these things already makes me no excited to walk to class tomorrow.
I do have a new route that I take, through Latimer Square down Armagh Street and branching into a perpendicular street via Worcester Street. It seems longer (as my mathematical mind tells me, according to the Pythagoras Theorem) but then for the sake of some new oxygen to breathe it seems a smart thing for me to do.
I will be singing and playing music at a Uni Ball happening in the next few weeks. To be honest, I don't know when the exact date is. It's been a long time coming, practising and catching the bus for jam sessions and picking songs and figuring out chords for songs (since apparently I am a 'chord identifier' haha. oh well always glad to know I could be of any use) and I hope the Ball wil work out well. The theme is Murder/Mystery/Crime. I should get inspiration from Film Noir and Alfred Hitchcock's films for dress-up.
What else. I should sleep now. It's damn late already.
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