Life in Colour

I should have been a film professional. I didn't know that in the beginning, when I was starting out in the university. Although I wouldn't be listening unless people shouted "down with something!", if someone had just hinted that maybe I should shift to film journalism or something that is connected with film, I think I would have seriously considered it. Except at that time a popular actor named Richard Gomes was also in film class. I was so repelled by this actor, who was nowhere as attractive as my brother or cousins, I didn't join the class for fear of being branded a film enrolee after his attentions. During his term in college the film class swelled to four times its normal size! Of course there were also students who turned out to be well respected broadcasters and film directors with whom I was proudly acquainted in that department. But at that time yes, they were thought to have taken up film because they are fans. True, they had a unique courage to endure that kind of humiliation.

Almost twenty years hence I have not lost my interest in watching good films despite my brain's unfortunate lack of memory space to recall all the endings. Provided with almost every opportunity and convenience to go to a spa or a bar after work hours, my first impulse would still be to line up at the cinema.

Before reaching my teens we had our first betamax machine. My father immediately spent most of his small salary purchasing many classic films. Most of them he had wanted to see when he was young but was too poor to afford the cinema. My sister and I would cuddle up beside him and watch one after another until we fell asleep, but this was only done during weekends when school was out. Gradually betamax was replaced by laser disks and then VCDs then DVDs. My Dad's betamax tapes had molded over a long time ago. And before he could change the machine he had already retired. Years later when he visited me in my workplace outside the country, he saw the same films now in DVDs in my collection. He was so happy I remembered the titles, and that works of favourites like Alfred Hitchkock Mysteries and the Pink Panther had been so readily available.

It is one of my regrets that I do not work in this industry. Film has changed the world in a decade more than radio or print did in fifty. It continues to depict the realities of life in its most beautiful and terrible faces, while giving flight to humanity's greatest dreams. The so-called idiot box has become the one mass educator for people who could not go to school. It has connected us in more ways than we can imagine. Generations before could not have "pictured" a future where watching a movie in the palm of one's hand can be done while writing a letter and chatting with friends at the same time -- on the same machine. Yet this was the subject of early film makers' so called "science fiction" themes wasn't it?

So I decided that if I wasn't going to be one of its creators I could surely be an avid spectator. And keep to what I know-- writing about it.

I can see clearly now (Jimmy Cliff- Cool Runnings)

I can see clearly now the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sun shiny day

Yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sun shiny day

Look all around, there's nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there's nothing but blue skies

I can see clearly now the rain has gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Here's that rainbow I've been praying for
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sun shiny day
It's gonna be a bright, bright, sun shiny day

Yeah it's gonna be a bright, bright sun shiny day


-Sunday, Nov. 8 2009 2:00-6:00 pm

CAW

The personal is political.
Committee for Asian Women Executive Committee and Secretariat
2009

Van Morrison Afternoon

Laundry goes in the tub with soap and suds

Heating up yesterday’s food on the stove

Sighing, got to really scrub the floor

Or fix the picture frames by the door

Had a 3-hour night’s sleep on a high-noon Saturday

Busy body making sure of a full day’s chore

Somewhere in the room there’s a film screen showing

That scene last night when I left, of you and her dancing

Counting my money, changing the lights

Intermittent internet signals keeping me online

Somewhere at the back of my mind

You are holding her hand instead of mine

The fruit truck has come by but there are still apples in my fridge

Maybe tomorrow I can grab the usual treats

Thinking I should be having a telephone

Somewhere some shadow wonders where you went home

There’s good music playing tonight, friends invite me to come and delight

They are the ladies’ lonely hearts club out to have a good time

I prefer to watch my videos alone to help me sleep

Whispers gossiping you’re probably giving her a kiss

Happy Birthday

There is your angel, it said to me
And I saw your shadow past the door
From your breath lilies fell to pad your steps
Your eyes gazed at me and I looked at the floor

I have no angel I replied to no one in particular
As though it is the most normal thing to do
Certain that the daily demons that surround my life
Would shield me from whatever it is coming from you

“He comes from paradise” once again it spoke
Taunting me to argue “there is no such thing”
I kept my silence, and, in case you should look
whispered softly: “what does he bring?”

Just as you smiled, all is understood
This angel from paradise is only a man
Come to play with the mortals on land
So I stepped aside to let you through

Solidarity

I really should be writing a solidarity message for May 1 and not a message to Stephanie Meyer, who in 2008 disclosed that a close friend has leaked 12 chapters of her draft of Midnight Sun on the internet. The heartbreaking part of her statement, issued on www.stephaniemeyer.com is when she said two plus two always makes four regardless of how you feel, but that writing is completely different, depending a lot on the writer's state of mind and emotional well being. She felt so betrayed that she did not even commit to other writing projects, saying she just wants to spend time with her family, to 'cool off'. How she kept from killing her so-called close friend I do not know. But I know how violated she must feel. Indeed, how does one go back to what was being written with all the hurt and disappointment riding one's creative space? I can understand if she would never look back on the Twilight series at all, for all the fame and fortune it created for her, only to end up like this.

Thus I am also saying goodbye to the Twilight Saga, knowing full well that the "officially disclosed" draft of Midnight Sun over the internet by Meyer herself would be the last of it. Ironically I can't decide whether to read the draft in my computer or not. Because of its very incompleteness, it has doubled if not quadrupled its value among us Twilight fans. But that is where it is most painful-- reading from page one, something which is no longer, and forever undone.

Sleepless in Bangkok

Two dreams in two consecutive nights: The first one, I was sitting in the passenger front seat of a brown car. It feels as if I do not even know the driver, who is in a black leather jacket. Suddenly a motorcycle carrying two, also in black leather jackets and head bonnets comes to my side of the car, one gun pointing straight at my face. The second dream the following night finds me in the same car with the same driver, but the motorcycle riders, instead of pointing the gun at my face, insert the gun in the window and fire at something behind us. My knee tries to maneuver the window handle to slide the glass up and trap the hand with the gun. I fail in my efforts, the gun swerving to my face again....then I wake up. I thought "too hollywood, and I don't even get to see if the gunmen were cute".