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The Picture

But though they are gone, the night is full of them; robbed of colour, blank of windows, they exit more ponderously, give out what the frank daylight fails to transmit- the trouble and suspense of things conglomerated there in the darkness. - Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Elie found an old picture of her mother while taking a stroll in a wood. The art of wandering is mainly to seek for the astonishment of winding up in an unknown destination. To wander in a familiar place, on the other hand, is to contrive yourself a complexity with which it foretells a even more astonishing outcome. Elie took a stroll in a wood of the vicinity, an upset girl searching aimlessly for merriment. Some writers come across their rebellious phase in their early developments. Others' extend to the day of their death, to whose scatter-brained relatives' dedication of a rather deadpan elegy might even induce some ho

Frank Sinatra, "A Foggy Day"

* Frank Sinatra's songs are widely welcomed by any occasions. They are like puddings, with various different toppings. Some become broody in their early teens, I took it further by pining for a life as a hermit. As my age progressed, the hankering only got more severe instead of blurring away on a blotting paper. How the social scene has steered to the vulgarity plays a crucial role in consolidating my dream. It is as if the whole place was turned into a massive barhouse, the most outlandish and unwelcomed ones belonged to those who steeled themselves on their sobriety. The desperate measures those heartbroken ones took to leave their beloved home, and transported themselves to another place where they still succumbed to supreme drunkenness. Being hemmed in an overwhelming scale of grimness and solitude, they sozzled. I appreciate shirking the work of being a submissive recipient of news for a day or two, but my equanimity can only withhold a short while before I pucker my nose aga

T.Rex, "The Visit"

* Marc Bolan took a visit to one of his many dreams which was scattered with inexplicable patterns. Logic played the unwelcoming intruder. I had a dream last night of the world turning into one of those settings in Harold Pinter's plays. The world was practically normal; virtually silent with no other characters except myself. The grave silence of the setting foregrounded the fastidiousness of one's ear. The intermittent sound of a flushing toilet was acutely audible, interspersed with the throbs of my heart. Suddenly a shadow fleeted through the window. The queerest happened as I presumed the passing figure as a mere harmless passerby. I, who is always suspicious of things, be it only a absentminded glance, succumbed to the mysteriousness in an enigma-rousing environment! Then, like every other dream, my legs jellied. Some spend the day muse about the most improbable, or squander their doubts on trivialities. The others seize their day permitting the hours slip through their f

Antony and the Johnsons, "Thank You For Your Love"

* Overload compliments will make the singer eventually reach into a crescendo of gobbledygook. Victor Hugo once said that complimenting someone is like giving her a kiss on the veil. Smug and flattered she might be, but the kiss is merely stained on the veil, that damnable membrane. Somebody has told you to rub those compliments into bundles of snowballs and throw them all away when the monsoon came. But your eyes are glazed over by the glistening beauty of the snowballs, therefore you keep them, after much deliberation, and rather witness them inundating your corner. Or people begin to complain to you that they can no longer see your face, for the veil has lost its transparency with smears of kisses. Little did they know, neither could you see clearly of your way. Hold back your tears. You should never let loose a drop. Until you climb up that pinnacle, and let the insurmountable altitude trigger your lachrymal gland- you caress that little diamond drop gently in your cupped hands. --

Johnny Cash, "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound"

* Johnny Cash's rendition of Tom Paxton's classic is hemmed in with grits and veils of smoke. My train of thoughts always goes thus when journeying: the nervousness propels the churn of my stomach growling for inexplicable hunger. The mixed feelings of excitement and premature homesickness trigger multitudes of music notes in my ears. Numerous music notes, play incessantly and intermittently, rush to and fro, like flies in net. The melody blurs out with the increase of its speed. As a result they all turn into awkward glossolalias, the alien language I speak in some alien lands. I love a journey without an end: the prolong of one's expectation, the expectation one relishes- I suspect it to be the only moment that is truly of one's own, the time one can truly relax. I love a journey without a destination: it is a reasonable excuse to shirk one's daily responsibilities and take upon adventures, small scaled notwithstanding, life itself can be adventurous anyway. And m

Joanna Newsom, "Easy"

* Joanna Newsom sounds like an enigmatic robin trapped in the webs of a harp. His mistress rubbed his forehead gently, fingers drenched with oil balm. His exhausted body planked down before her like a long-rooted tree under defeat. The sound of humming mantras swerved with the smoke of a burnt-out candle. "Just lay down and relax, my lord," he heard her said, "just take it easy." His eyes blurred. She took an odyssey to a foreign land with a rumbling hope of meeting her long-lost father, but hope dusted away. Loitering aimlessly on a street packed with esoteric hurly-burly, she tried to put up the easy-breeziness by forcing down the mingled, nondescript feeling While stomach still churned. Dismissing love before disillusioning the pain without love, the thought tumbled in her head along with the punishment of her imprudence. Drawing up the curtains unconventional for a heavy nightfall, she perched on the sill and waited patiently for the lights to come. Trouble, wea

Double Identity(Part IV)

But I did see him! And her! In the mirror! He greeted her, in a pleasantly robotic manner. She showered him with much-belated condolences and inquiries- for his health, for his mood, for his living condition(wouldn't that wench just browse the house herself?) and for the weather!? Ha, the weather! He replied absolutely nothing saved that of a constant bow-head and idiotic smile. She was crushed by his idiocy and reticence, and also the fail attempt to display her notorious ardency(Hypocrisy!Idiocy!) Complete noises. He crooked his head somewhat, still keeping that idiotic smile which feigned a pure form of innocence. She was also notorious for her low boredom threshold; she lost the patience to coming to terms of his indisposition so she knocked the table with her knuckles, hoping the loud sound would psych up the numb soul. The escapade worked, for he held his head askew as a dying fish struggling in a net and let out a shriek. A shriek I wished I had never heard unless I was born

Double Identity(Part III)

The climax of my story finally reached, and I warn you my readers, there are not many pages left till the end of my story, but more empty pages yet to come for my restless, ceaseless life. I confess to you that I did, from time to time, think about destroying both of us. I suspected it be the best way to stem that fetid evil. It was beyond horrific when one day it came to your disillusion that the practice of exorcising the evil spirits must be done at the expense of your own self. You and your own self, to be more precise. Or to say, the evil spawns in you, in that reflection of you in the mirror. Then one day came was the neighbor who used to drop by with baskets of tomatoes when my mother was still alive. It must had been an eventful day, for the frail wooden door hadn't heard its knocks for years. As I stood up and was ready to make my way to the door, all in a style of complete insouciance since now the curiosity of how my alias would react overrode the astonishment of my unwe

Double Identity(Part II)

You were always certain that those preternaturals did exist, although in your life you might not have the privilege to witness them within a nail's distance. You knew they would exist, although your mother had been trying desperately to wean you from those 'ominous mumbo-jumbos.' You read them in havoc-wreaking stories by Allan Poe; they were all fairly familiar to you: ears on walls, cat in walls. You sneered, dismissed them at times but still, you had to admit that they did give shivers down your spine. It's like a tribal statue, looming, standing stock-still before you. It has preoccupied your mind for ages to remove the statue, for it triggers unnecessary fear. But every time when you happen to glance at its eyes, red-beaded, infernal perhaps, in a shimmering way, your plan of dispelling the statue freezes up. So I lived with him for days without taking any measures or extending my shocks. I lived with him, that phantamagoric image of mine. He was there while I was

Double Identity(Part I)

Now if you're sitting comfortably, I'll tell you my own story. That thing came unexpectedly. One morning, a slightly unordinary day it was, the sun-frazzled day when I saw three instead of two albatrosses perching languidly on a tree. On this serene morning when even the paperboy was self-conscious of making scratching noise with his bicycle, that thing encroached upon me. Like a disease and stealthily it was, it slid in from under the door and mounted up my body, a pace resembled that of a fox hovering around its prey. Despite the intricate process of my transformation, the consequence was unarguably simple. That is, I was split into half. It was such a pity. It certainly was. I would rather have my own replica: someone doing a send-up of me so we can laugh, talk, whisper our secrets together, like my twin brother as to say. That is presumably what people will commonly assume when they are informed of me 'splitting into half,' but no! One must understand that I do fanc

Tim Buckley, "Love from Room 109 at the Islander (On Pacific Coast Highway)"

One's mental journey flows like streams. They start out smoothly; their surfaces glisten like transparent lids. Sunshine be the first one to bid them farewell, for it has the strong belief that the odyssey will definitely augur well. So they flow, with the illusion of meandering in a fairyland. Then the streams run into pebbles, freckled at first but permeated the next. The waves therefore occur. At times they can grow so strong that the initial pureness of the streams' colour is muddled. The streams race at full tilt, as troops of horses fleeing out of a conflagrant barn. The aforesaid case should be diagnosed as some usual undulations human lives, but their nosy friends can hardly care no straw of it. They stir up the waves again; verify the eternal delusion. The streams are propelled into gushes. Despite of how the others might consider them- to be mad, their words can still be sane and genuine, just like the notorious Septimus in Mrs. Dalloway . But who will lend ears to th

Judy Garland, "Me And My Shadow"

In his odes John Keats eulogizes the immediacy of emotions. Pleasure, joy and melancholy go hands in hands, and there is merely a translucent film blocking each compartment which enables the fairy of sentiments to skid liltingly in-between, gently tapping them with her sparkler. It is both importunate and inexplicable, of how instant a transformation can take place of a person's temperament. In the blink of an eye she is both evil and angelic. Wallowing merrily in the mud like a pig but the frill of her subtly-made dress reminds her of her extravagant past, and she is duly aggravated. You and your shadow. You are fretted about it always tagging along you so you trample it, with repugnance you trample. But it is with little wonder of the impossibility of casting off your shadow, so you learn to accept it and include it in your life, even when it can be the major culprit for your incident of caught-red-handed. Sometimes things are trapped in a web of intricacy t

Laurel Aitken, "Voodoo Woman"

My comfort zone shifts alot, at times it is full of noise and brouhaha, so I can hide among the crowd and disguise myself. Now I opt for silence. I guess that's how I conceptualize my forest, it always welcomes me as a haven. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I can hardly talk what I already talk, so I don't want to branch out."- Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

Nino Rota, "Suite"

To be a less highly-strung person, you have to numb your soul and morph into a complete spaz and let your train of thoughts shifts you away, to somewhere... Besides, I'm still enjoying my life in a suite. Being yourself is your extravagance. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It is often the most aimless and boring times that yields the most fertile material for fiction." - Marcel Proust