Saturday, December 19, 2009
". . . She did think it mattered, her party, and it made her feel quite sick to know that it was all going wrong, all falling flat. Anything, any explosion, any horror was better than people wandering aimlessly, standing in a bunch in a corner like Ellie Henderson, not even caring to hold themselves upright.
Gently the yellow curtain with all the birds of Paradise blew out and it seemed as if there were a flight of wings into the room, right out, then sucked back. (For the windows were open.)
[. . .]
The curtain with its flight of birds of Paradies blew out again. And Clarissa saw - she saw Ralph Lyon beat it back, and go on talking. So it wasn't a failture after all! it was going to be all right now - her party. It had begun. It had started. But it was still touch and go. She must stand there for the present. People seemed to come in a rush.
Colonel and Mrs Garrod... Mr Hugh Whitbread... Mr Bowley... Mrs Hilbery... Lady Mary Maddox... Mr Quin... intoned Wilkin. She had six or seven words with each, and they went on, they went into the rooms; into something now, not nothing, since Ralph Lyon had beat back the curtain. . . ."
--- Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Thanks to everybody from the NUS Comics and Animation Society alumni for supporting and making today's party a great success! It was a real pleasure to see and talk to all of you again. I wish I could have spent more time with each and every one of you, but I'm sure we'll meet again in the near future =)
kaoru said at 4:20 AM
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Thursday, December 03, 2009
I am so, so sleepy.
I spent about 6 hours today reading a measly 20+ pages of Azuma Hiroki on the "database model" of postmodernity and getting into time-consuming theoretical wrangles with him on what I thought to be his misreading of Baudrillard before realizing he meant something else. Shit. Was Azuma being unclear in his argument, or am I just getting dumber?
Then I rushed down to Somerset to meet Diana, MW and Calvin Xie for dinner and got lost once I stepped out of the new 313 Somerset, which just opened today. Orchard Road is starting to look very unfamiliar.
Nothing of great interest has been happening in my life, except, perhaps, for the fact that I watched 2012. Yes, the day I watch a Hollywood apocalyptic movie is the day the world comes to an end. I decided to sacrifice $7.50 for it because I'm working on apocalyptic narratives in Japanese shoujo manga for my thesis, and I need to have at least a rough idea what the Hollywood conventions of such narratives are.
Anyway, after watching the movie, I think I can summarize the essence of 2012 (and perhaps of other similar movies in the Hollywood tradition): lots of spectacular explosions (and I use the word with its full Debordian connotations); some guy makes some inspiring speech about 'humanity' (which is really a disguise for celebrating the GREATNESS OF AMERICA); an indirect nod in the direction of China's burgeoning technological power (but you're still going to be castrated so that you don't compete with the white hero who saves the day by undoing the mess he created himself); some minor characters die, major characters look sad for 5 seconds and start making out with someone else; hooray for (American) humanity, Africa is now free for you to colonize all over again.
kaoru said at 8:56 AM
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