Archive for June, 2006
Namiki VP in yellow orchre?
June 23rd, 2006 TreatsTags: Pens
The minute the pen shop rang me that the shipment is in, the rain stopped, the sun beamed at me and rainbows, wood nymphs came out to make merry. When I saw the yellow wasn’t the screaming lemon yellow I thought it would be but a dirtier, mud colour yellow, the rainbows disappeared and the sun was just the sun and the rain made everywhere hot and wet and what wood nymphs?
Then I saw Sailor’s screaming lemon yellow, I thought, yuck: thank the moon, stars, sun, and God that I didn’t get that!
Also bought a bottle of Private Reserve in Tanzanite. A gorgeous rich purple blue that I’d probably not use. I also don’t use much the grey I last bought. The black cherry and the standard lamy blue are colours are I usually fill.
A Beautiful Mind
June 18th, 2006 books
When a person’s self esteem relies on his mental abilities, and if surround by those who are not his intellectual equals, the person becomes aloof and bullying. If surrounded by equals, naturally, competitiveness would have driven the person into overwork.
The book name seems to be saying, “Well, a beautiful person, he sure isn’t.” Everyone agreed that Nash is brilliant in his work but he had a hard time getting tenure. This little story that underlined his world view and his whole career. Nash thinks that von Neumann whom he had approach about the Nash Equlibrium did not believe the equilibrium was an important point in cooperative game because von Neumann was jealous: Nash was playing a non-cooperative game instead of joining von Neumann’s collboration. Nash diminished the role of cooperation and collaboration in success and replaced it with aggressive hardwork.
Much of creativity is to see patterns which are not there. Under intense pressure and fatigue, a brilliant mind can fall into mental illness. It is a terrible for others to see a brilliant person unable to hold a coherent thought, to know the person hears voices. A person having this illness, however, will not be able to differentiate the reality of soundwaves with a voices speaking to his mind. As Nash put it, “the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.” In chinese culture, it is easier to hide mental illness – a sane person can see someone who is not there, can hear the voices of someone who is not there – this person can claim to have the third eye.
The biography does a good job of clarifying the theories Nash and other mathematicians put across, especially in the area of games. The prisoner’s delimma that I knew was taught with an emphasis on pareto-optimal outcome – that is, both parties would not confess if they knew to cooperate in the first place. However, Nash’s point of view is that the prisoner starts of as self-regarding, hence, dobbing the other prisoner would maximise his outcome because there is no incentive to change his strategy if the other prisoner doesn’t change his. Only when playing this game multiple times between the same players, that we learn to reach the optimal outcome. The problem, I think Nash was trying to say is that, in applications, the game is not repeatible – different information set and different knowledge changes the game – hence, pareto-optimal solution is difficult to reach.
In his Nobel autobiography, he wrote his brief note about his recovery: “Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort.” This is a good reminder to put in one’s notebook to keep oneself in check.
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Although I’ve seen the movie, only after reading the biography that the similarities between the father character in the play Proof and John Nash struck me: John Nash’s son was also stricken by mental illness.
U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha
June 12th, 2006 screen
Having spent all day working on my homework, I went, as a reward, to watch the show. The story follows Bizet’s Carmen with one alteration: bullfighter Escamillo became an Opera Singer in the movie.
I’m more accustomed to opera sung in a performance hall or a theatre. This film brought the opera out on the streets. Street sounds, chatter, laughing, teasing, dancing and singing took place both in and out of doors. It placed the Carmen right where it belongs: in the gritty hard living streets.
The lead actress is so hot my glasses steamed. (Now, why can’t I do whatever she did?) And she’s competitive and greedily takes all the screen attention for herself. Oddly her eyes tend to go blank in a close up. The male lead has a good voice but doesn’t sound like he’s trained for opera singing. I heard his voice go high and thin when he reaches for the high notes. One supporting actress caught my attention: the one who was Amanda – her voice was all sweetness and light. She hit that giddy spot in my head.
Opera is highly dramatic. When it was planned for most of the violence to take place off screen, it softens a lot of the drama. While some others could be for decency sake, the most important screen violence – Carmen’s death – felt anti-climatic, a let down. The dramatic intensity of the death scene – where the knife disappear into Carmen’s body and the blood gushes out – is timed with the most dramatic point of the music. The movie takes dirty deed off screen: the audience only sees a shot of blood on her throat.
At this climatic point, before the final blast of the two ending notes, Jose is suppose to be really anguished. The final blast of the notes continues to sustain the tension. And all this tension can only be broken by the audience when the stage darkens and they leap from their seats and applaude wildly. But this, being a film, tries to let us down easy but having Jose’s react with shock and the camera draws away from the whole screen in silence. The tension remains high but having no outlet to release it, makes it a frustrating experience. In short, all very wonderful but too little screen violence.
A Stranger At Home
June 11th, 2006 theatre
The production feels like an amateur shot at theatre. The language attempts to move towards verse, failing to make that leap, falls into strident dissonant sounds. The spoken Hokkien in parts of the play is especially ugly – devoid of its natural melody, which, could be the fault of the actress delivering it. The directing was weird. Perhaps the effect was towards high style but it tanked. The actors stood on stage delivering their lines at each other as though a reciting from memory: they don’t connect with each other and fail to figure out what to do with their colleague’s presence onstage. The play itself was, I felt, topical, referring frequently to the change of the architectural landscape, the demolishing of old, the exhuming of gravesites, the lack of culture in Singapore. Plays of these nature date easily and turns into tedious bore without fresh perspective. The characters did not excite concern – I do not understand their motivation, or their personalities. In fact, it is as though to pretend it is a play and not a sermon, they had different people to speak at different parts of the sermon just so to keep it interesting. The good thing is the music and the multi-media is nicely done.
The meek’s inheritance
June 6th, 2006 elsewhere
He’s right about the damnable legacy of the 40s: they are good and we can’t top that act. But he’s missed the point. We don’t want that act anymore.
And he’s also got it wrong about the greatness of the 40s. It’s not about teevee, it’s not about lesser babies. The 40s was a great time to be born because it’s the height of the economic boom just about the time the “in-betweens” turn into economically productive agents. The 60s and 70s is always to me the decade of of pop culture – the kitschy collectibles, electronica, musical theatre. High purchasing power meant that I can buy instant gratification faster than if I had lived 20 years ago. Like the way the Wells Fargo Wagon brought goodies to the towns in the 1900s, the vehical of globalisation brought the people new goodies to town in the 80s-90s. I don’t think they artists are less great now – the public tastes has changed.
Aside: He is a very silly man to have written “Whatever else this religion is, it is not a formula for greatness”. Whenever did greatness become formulaic?
Elsewhere
June 4th, 2006 Uncategorized
Art = ability to call it art? Interesting point of view. (By way of Arts and Letters Daily.)
The story behind Da Vinci Code here by way of Will Duquette (whose wonderful Notebook introduced me to the idea of personal wikis).
160 Characters – 2nd June show
June 4th, 2006 Uncategorized
Everyone likes a good laugh. This one did okay on the har-har-hars but you won’t hurt yourself at this show.
Samovar: Check Out Chekov
June 4th, 2006 theatre
The title comes from a tea making vessal mentioned by Anton Chekov in his books. Three performers – a reader, two animators – worked on pre-drawn and live drawn comics depicting a household of Chekov’s characters collected from his works. I think it would be fun if I had known more about Chekov’s stories or at least read the wiki tab on them: Uncle Vanya, The Cherry Orchard, The Three Sisters, The Seagull. Much of Samovar was from Uncle Vanya, with some helpings of Three Sisters. Some scenes were set in The Cherry Orchard outside of the house and a romance of an old man and a young girl took the style and some lines from The Seagull. The show was beautifully drawn and the audiences were curious about drawings – more than a few tried to take a closer look which worried the performers a little and so positioned their bodies like a barricade to protect their worktables. One small complain I have is that without closeups, I cannot tell which characters were speaking and it makes the going-ons a bit hard to follow. The video superimposes one scene (background) with the characters (foreground) makes the whole thing look a bit ghostly – as though they are spirits and we are watching the leftovers of the lives they led.
Elsewhere:
A detailed how-to in making Russian tea found here.
