Archive for October, 2006
Miquelrius notebooks
October 30th, 2006 Treats
Kinokuniya is an extraordinary bookstore. In a small corner, I found these spanish noteooks. The floppiness needs some getting used to, and the fact that they don’t lie flat, or have a pocket and hardbacks. The paper, however, is wonderful for fountain pens – none of that irritating feathering and bleeding. Oh why can’t they buy over moleskine!
Reactions to books read lately
October 24th, 2006 books
First Read
Siegfried by Harry Mulisch : like a clever adorable little girl full of chatter and curious ideas that can be sleep-making
The New Oxford Book of Literary Andecdotes: Good gossip book
Six Walks In The Fictional Woods by Umberto Eco: turned out like a bad blind date
Re-reads:
The Annotated Lolita by Nabokov: Irritated by Humbert Humbert’s gushing about the girl
Third Year At Malory Towers by Enid Blyton: Most arresting of the whole lot
The Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez: Good detective book
Russian Lectures by Nabokov : comforting
Elsewhere
October 17th, 2006 elsewhere
Things I didn’t know about hybrid cars
Clean cars makes you feel better about yourself but that’s about it. Increased fuel prices might increase research for alternatives to petrol fuelled cars, these alternatives are not as powerful. They are also not gadgety enough. The tax incentives might be a great attraction to tip the scale, however.
“Hybrid car buyers pay a premium of a couple of thousand extra dollars over what others are paying for a comparable car. By most calculations, this extra expense will not be recouped in gas savings by the owner. What kind of person spends that extra money and why?”
Ans: Irrational folks buying stuff because he thinks the stuff he owns speaks volumes.
~
Pen votes No surprises
Government Intervention
October 12th, 2006 Uncategorized
Gecko on effects of government intervention, pointing the finger at the government. Elia Diodati quotes Krugman in his discussion pointing out that government intervention had nothing to do with the astonishing growth. Bernard thinks it’s the herd problem.
The goverment is wringing hankies over the local economy. Years ago, we took a short cut to success by copying the developed nations, observing rising industries and putting in foreign money and local manpower. Now when we’ve got to carve out our own niche or die, no one knows what to do. The problem is serious. Our domestic economy isn’t big enough to sustain ourselves: we can only earn the mark up from being middlemen. But no one’s looking at us for a middle man job. Malaysia can do it cheaper; China can do it cheaper, and not forgetting India – so what about the quality? With that kind of savings, you can still pay for bad quality and work out a tidy savings to show your boss at bonus time.
It is our philosophy that creates the problem. Nothing to do with democracy, nothing to do with freedom of speech, etc. It is the philosophy that there is someone who knows better and therefore has the right to stay involved in our lives. A look at the forum pages and you would see that there is a need to look to a higher authority to explain banking problems, rat problems. Meet the minister sessions are mainly to do with appeals to waive summons, to intervene in loan arrangements. We are a small village, following the orders of the village chief – that’s the problem.
Enid Blyton’s children fiction
October 12th, 2006 books
I never got the last two books of the Malory Towers series and having found them in Popular, bought the books and was thoroughly distracted. I have passed the age that I found their goody-two-shoes and sensibility irritating. Still, I skim over the preaching and look out for the gossip. What happens afterMalory Towers is absolutely hilarous. Has a bit about Bill and Clarissa being gay, Irene selling out, Mavis in a punk rock band and Gwendoline having a gay following in her acting career.
Tick Tick Boom
October 12th, 2006 music, theatre
The musical travelled light – a few steel structures, a piano, two chairs, a bench, three singers and five or six musicians – into a well filled theatre. The musical acts like an extended monologue set to music. The story is an autobiography of Jon Larson, composer of Rent, a week before his 30th birthday. Jon is terrified and full of angst. He doesn
Untitled
October 5th, 2006 Uncategorized
I was listening to Cabaret CD bought last week. Is this something more than a song about nature?
From Icons
The song Tomorrow Belongs To Me, often thought to be a genuine anthem of the German Nazi Party, because of its appearance in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film of the stage musical Cabaret, is in fact no such thing. It was written by the musical’s composers, John Kander and Fred Ebb, in the style of German nationalist anthems such as Die Wacht Am Rhein and the Horst Wessel Lied. Real anti-semitism could hardly be further from the songwriters’ intentions, as both are in fact Jewish.
Lei Yu – Thunderstorm
October 1st, 2006 theatre
The program warned me on various pages I was watching an eternal classic, a canonical work not to be taken as a farce or a comedy therefore awkward laughter – if I were not an insensitive brute to the life and times of the dramatist – is to be minimised. Perhaps the marketing fellow is making a little joke, demonstrating the oppressiveness of the play – ordering me not to crack a smile, or heaven forbid, to enjoy myself. I failed to finish the guide before the start of the show and unknowingly rebelled against its commandments. I discovered the show was as promised: melodramatic and uproariously funny.
It must have been a shocker when it was first staged. After countless prime time Taiwanese dramas included incest, diabolically despot fathers and dance-hall moms in their storylines, the shock has worn off. According to the program guide, the playwright aimed to show the brutality of the universe. So, the storm was really the violence of Fate, the live wire death – an amazingly cool replacement for death by lighting – was a direct comment from heaven on the state of affairs in the Zhou home. The play is also expected to be a comparison between new and old China: the corruption, decadence will erupt into a violent revolution. During intermission, I overheard a conversation of a boy in trying to impress the girl he is dating, complained about the actor
