Potent

Maybe we’re not supposed to be happy. Maybe gratitude has nothing to do with joy. Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes simply to be human. Maybe we’re thankful for the familiar things we know. And maybe we’re thankful for the things we’ll never know. At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate.

I have loved you so long

ANY CASE

-  by Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Closer. Farther away.
It happened, but not to you.

You survived because you were first.
You survived because you were last.
Because alone. Because the others.
Because on the left. Because on the right.
Because it was raining. Because it was sunny.
Because a shadow fell.

Luckily there was a forest.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A frame, a turn, an inch, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the water.

Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet.
What would have happened if a hand, a leg,
One step, a hair away?

So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended?
The net’s mesh was tight, but you? through the mesh?
I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough.
Listen,
How quickly your heart is beating in me.

A less defeating path

Falling to the ground
I was anxious to be found
You can always go home
To the safety of your cloud

All he wants

This song breaks me into bit and pieces. Again. What does it mean when people say their hearts are broken into pieces? It is that moment in between you can't hold yourself up together and your head is held up high; and you're totally down on the ground unable to move into the direction of happiness and anything that comes along the way.

Again.

Out of water

Will a shark
be as fearless
in a
forest?
Can the devil
survive
in heaven?
Will a tiger
still roar
on the face of
the moon,
or will it
whimper
more meekly
than
a lamb?
If the moon
can linger
on a morning
so bright,
why can't
the sun
do the same
at night?

When you are gone

But if only God
would grant me
a piece
of His courage,
I might face
your absence
without dying.
But if only you would
take me
with you
wherever you go,
I would find
home
in a million different
places.
And I would sweeten you
in a million different
ways.
Before you are sleepy,
I will have already placed
a thigh
under your falling
head.
Before you are hungry,
I am already peeling
onions.
When you are
angry with me,
I shall
kiss you.
When you are not,
I shall kiss you
twice.
If you should die
before me,
I shall lie down
beside you.
Whisper a joke
into your half-listening ear.
Promise
the ultimate promise
of eternal companionship.
When you are gone,
I do not die,
But I am forever
dying.

Well, you know that's a lie

A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you're willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you've spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don't see coming, when we don't have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that's when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.


 

So why d'you have to lie?
I take it I'm your crutch
The pillow in your pillow case
It's easier to touch

What's the point of this song? Or even singing?
You've already gone, why am I clinging?
Well I could throw it out, and I could live without
And I could do it all for you
I could be strong
Tell me if you want me to lie
'Cause this has got to die

Don't look back at this crumbling fool

  Didn't I give it all?Tried my bestGave you everything I hadEverything and no less

Love IS a battlefield

There is no better film to watch other than In The Land of Blood & Honey, after I get back from Birotatanegara Camp (sorta a boot camp but less military). As Angelina Jolie's directing and writing debut, the piece gives a perfect reflection of what is happening intricately in Malaysian politics, nowadays, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am gonna leave that to my fellow Malaysians to observe it in the film.

If you look at her portfolio as an actress (The Tourist, Salt, Wanted, Tomb Raider, Original Sin, Mr. Mrs. Smith), you’d never thought of seeing this piece from her. As her first time directing and writing, Angelina has an artist’s eye, strong personal vision, and a masterful command of her stars.

It is 1992 and tensions between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia were escalating to frightening levels. Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), an artist and a Bosnian, agrees to go out on a date with Danijel (Goran Kostic), a cop and a Serb. They meet at a club and as the evening progresses, dance and flirt with each other. Their date ends when a bomb explodes in the club killing many people. Ajla and Danijel survive but they are now thrust headlong into the center of a war characterized by a newly designated term, “ethnic cleansing”.

This piece highlights the savagery of the Serbs. Danijel has been given the position of running a military camp by his father, Serbian General Nebojsa (Rade Serbedzija). When Ajla is one of the women rounded up to be a sex slave in his camp, he saves her from rape. Danijel keeps her away from his men and takes her as his lover. Having a Bosnian Muslim for a lover and protecting her, is highly dangerous for him.

Zooming out to the actuality of the war, this ruthless movie puts a human face on a conflict that was all but ignored by the rest of the world even as it encompassed the worst genocide in Europe since the Nazis and horrific war crimes from mass systematic rape to the use of civilians as human shields.

Of course I have heard about “ethnic cleansing” but this film boldly and bluntly puts it all out there like an untold story. The rape and humiliation of the women and Nazi-like behavior of the soldiers is harrowing – important because it happened in the 1990s. The Serbian soldiers killed civilians as ruthlessly as the Nazis. They took people from their homes with the same violence shown the Jews during Hitler’s reign.

If there is one good reason why this piece lost to the Iranian masterpiece, A Separation, in last year’s academy award, it should be the direction in acting and weak script. While I am sure that romances such as the one depicted in this movie do occur, the movie is unconvincing. What happens on the screen seems impossible, despite a good many things the actors and technical people do very well. Even the good choices Jolie makes, such as her insistence in casting actors unknown to U.S. audiences and having them say their lines in their native Serbo-Croatian, are undone by the terrible love story at the movie’s core.

Never less than competent, it’s clearly the result of a sincere, long-harbored desire to raise awareness of these horrific, dehumanizing events. It is frequently said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and, with that in mind, it’s an almost entirely noble endeavor. The film’s treatment of Serb characters – most of whom are portrayed as monsters beyond redemption – has already proved controversial and divisive for many in the Balkans as they look to move on from the past.

The man and the woman

We all want to grow up. We're desperate to get there. Grab all the opportunities we can to live. We're so busy trying to get out of that mess, we don't think about the fact that it's going to be cold out there. Really freaking cold. Because growing up sometimes means leaving people behind. And by the time we stand on our own two feet, we're standing there alone.

For the past, at least, 10 years, I have been waking up feeling I am the one who holds my own choices, decisions, and consequences. Friends, best friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, people around me, come and tap all kinds of resources out of me even at the heart. I have given it all and most of the time without tapping into theirs.

However, the man of my life and my mom have taught me an essential life lesson.

That the human body is made up of systems that keep it alive. The one that keeps you breathing, the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry and the one that makes you happy. They're all connected, take a piece out and everything else falls apart. And it's only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.

There’s an endless gravitational limitation on how this man has pulled me into a force to reckon with.  Healed.

I have never fully and heartedly understood this piece, which I have once performed years ago in front of a bunch of talented performers in Movement for Actor class in Purdue Theatre. A recent ‘fall’ has reminded me that this piece speaks directly on how ‘beautiful’ this man is in accompanying me to get back into the battlefield of life.

 49

 I hold her hands and press her to my breast.

 I try to fill my arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet

   smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes.

 Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky?

 I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in

   my hands.

 Baffled and weary I come back.

 How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may

   touch?

                   The Garderner, Rabindranath Tagore

Mom used to tell me that I could go out and play. Running and chasing all different kind of victories. But do come back before the sun goes down. She hopes for happiness.

I came back with a great wound.

She has come comforting me as the truest friend I have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon me; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with me in my sunshine desert me; when trouble thickens around me, still will she cling to me, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to my heart.

Thus, now, I have learned that everything is connected. Every little kid knows the words to the song. The foot bones connected to the leg bone. The leg bones connected to the knee bone. In biology, I learn it's a little more complicated than that. The song’s not wrong. Everything is connected in order for ME to stand tall. Again.

Clear cut

I've heard the all warnings and I've ignored them. I pushed my luck. I rolled the dice. I played with fire. It's human nature. When I was told not to touch something, I usually did, even if I knew better. Maybe because deep down, I was just asking for trouble. Trouble that risked the whole of my life.

It's a clear damaging cut.

All of my life I was trained to be vigilant, to chase down the problem, to ask all the right questions, to find the root cause until I know exactly what it is and I confront it. It takes an extreme amount of caution or I can't overstep myself. I can create problems that don't exist.

Because my intentions are always pure. I always want to do what is right, but I also have the drive to push boundaries. So I was in danger of taking things too far. I was told to do no harm while I was trained to cut myself open with a knife. So when I do things when I should have left well enough alone. Because its hard to admit when there's no problem to treat, to let it alone before I make it so much worse. Because I caused terrible damage.

Until I have used every single strength in every single cells in my body, I am not gonna give up. The insanity these cells brought into my soul has conjured an insensible heart, a numb heart. It is not time for a curtain call yet. Until then, I am gonna be living truthfully under imaginary circumstances - call me insane.

Then, the heart will stop.

It's one of those things that people say, you can't move on until you let go of the past. Letting go is the easy part, it's the moving on that's painful. So sometimes we fight it, try and keep things the same. Things can't stay the same though. At some point, you just have to let go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it's the only way we grow.

Keep Breathing

Storm is coming

But i don't mind,

My heart is dying

I close my eyes,

All I know is

I am breathing now.

I want to change the world

Instead I sleep,

I want to believe in more

than you and me.

all i know is i am breathing,

all i can do is keep breathing,

all we can do is keep breathing,

Now.

This is it

Thank you so much.
Take care and good bye.

Heart stops, soul breaks

The broken clock is a comfort, it helps me sleep tonight
Maybe it can stop tomorrow from stealing all my time
I am here still waiting though i still have my doubts
I am damaged at best, like you've already figured out

I'm falling apart, I'm barely breathing
With a broken heart that's still beating
In the pain, there is healing
In your name I find meaning
So I'm holdin' on,
I'm barely holdin' on to you

The broken locks were a warning you got inside my head
I tried my best to be guarded, I'm an open book instead
I still see your reflection inside of my eyes
That are looking for a purpose, they're still looking for life

I'm hangin' on another day
Just to see what you throw my way
And I'm hanging on to the words you say
You said that I will be OK

The broken lights on the freeway left me here alone
I may have lost my way now, haven't forgotten my way home

Prepared to be lucky (revisited)

Lately, my Zune's playlist is full with original soundtracks. Atonement OST has taught me the beauty behind OST that is curcial to be incorporated in a film. Of course, I have owned several OST's before Atonement - thanks to Miss Eti for introducing Craig Armstrong. Slumdog Millionaire, Brokeback Mountain, Mystic River, Changeling, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Chicago, and Moulin Rouge are among films that I've collected their OST. However, the best part of this is what Tyla Tharp said in her The Creative Habit: Learn it and use it for life, "digging your grooves".

Listening to all these great composers, I started to gain interest knowing their other works. This process also introduced me to another world of creativity in arts. For example, after being mesmerized by melodramatic soundtracks in Cinema Paradiso, I've come to know Ennio Morricone, Italian Academy Award-winning composer for Cinema Paradiso itself and other great films such as the astounding Once Upon a in America. The soundtracks Cinema Paradiso and Deborah's Theme relatively from both films mentioned, have been re-arranged and played by numerous musicians in all over the world and one of them is the great comtemporary jazz trumpeter, Chris Botti. This is the point I think I got my "groove". Botti's music expressively pulled me into the ecstactic jazz music. Other than that, his music makes me wanted to listen to opera songs, which I never thought I would fall in love to. Nessun Dorma popularly sang by the legendary late Luciano Pavarotti, which is also an aria from the final act of Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot, is one of the songs recomposed and played by Botti.

On top of that, his music has become a part of my daily routines. Again, Twyla emphasizes that it is important to have a solid rituals of preparation in order to pull out creativity in daily life. Botti's music gives me a solid ritual as I wake up turn on his music, grab a cup of coffee, stand next my room's window, look outside at people walking to classes and I feel like I'm lilting in this beautiful rhapsody. This ritual really helps me creating my character in my theater class, such as imitating different styles of walkings with different feelings - being late to class, enjoying a sunny morning, walking while eating, etc.

After all of this crap that i just wrote, I think your creative endeavors can never be thoroughly mapped out ahead of time. You have to allow for a suddenly altered landscape, the change in plan, the accidental spark - and you have to see it as a stroke of luck rather than disturbance. Habitually creative people are, in E.R. White's phrase, "prepared to be lucky". I'm lucky enough to know Chris Botti.

p/s: I just bought (BOUGHT! - i don't buy DVD except for this one) Chris Botti in Boston which features Sting, Josh Groban, Katherine McPhee, Lucia Micarelli, John Mayer, and Steven Tyler!

Bad decisions make good stories (meh...)

Say you're on a climbing route (refer to rock climbing if you wanna know what it is like). Fail to clip a quick draw on a bolt. When suddenly everything goes to hell. So, you fell to the next bolt, far away from the one you missed, the fall was not the 'right' one, and soon that crappy situation is a thing of the past. Too bad you can't meet all of climbing's challenges with a rope and quick draw. I mean, you could try. But I'm pretty sure that would be considered assault.

In other unrelated events, it then lead to these things that we beg for. A root canal, an I.R.S. audit, coffee spilled on our clothes. When the really terrible things happen, we start begging the god we don't believe in to bring back the little horrors, and take away this. It seems quaint now, doesn't it? The flood in the kitchen, the poison oak, the fight that leaves you shaking with rage. Would it've helped if we could see what else was coming? Would we have known that those were the best moments of our lives?

I have come to a few points in my life that I 'kinda' have regrets on a few decisions I have made in my life. Yea...you can't go back and fix it, just keep the head held up high, life offers better future, you won't go anywhere if you keep on thinking about it, bla, bla, bla.. But, seriously, it keeps on hitting you right in the face! (This is where I need Quantum Theory together with Source Code (a movie - and yes, I just did a parenthesis in one) exist in my life).

However, the best part of these regrets are actually the story of your life you have just written, putting everything into the picture - plots, actors, settings, and even costumes (enjoying wearing skinny jeans to the office!). As the great Chaplin would say that life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

It's more than just a songbird

So...while waiting for the man to get online and to Skype with him. I decided to watch Adele's 'Live at Royal Albert Hall'. The clips of this concert have been posted all over YouTube and I have seen some of those, especially my favorite songs of her.

The YouTube clips did not impress me at all. Until I saw Malin (a theatre friend of mine) posted 'Someone Like You' performance from the concert, I was moved. The freaking Adele cried at the end of the song! Hence, I would suggest for those who want to experience it, do watch the whole concert and not just the clips from YouTube.

Then, what's next? I Torrent-ed the concert (yes, SOPA didn't go thru!).

Here I was. Watching the concert and totally blown away.
From her hits (“Rolling in the Deep,’’ “Chasing Pavements’’) to heartfelt covers (including a fantastic, rootsy rendition of the SteelDrivers’ “If It Hadn’t Been for Love’’), the performances are routinely inspired. With the voice of an angel - and the potty mouth of a sailor - she’s a force throughout.

Being an artist, one's hardest task is really putting out your heart to the audiences. Be it a painter, author, singer, actors, etc. you have to be genuine of who you are and not being afraid of being 'naked' for the audiences. In this concert, Adele has totally shown to her fans, on the grandeur stage of Royal Albert Hall, of who she truly is - or an artist, lover, woman or human, in that matter.

I totally envy her courages and artistic instincts when it comes to presenting her oeuvres. You'd get to know how did she get to write songs in her album, who inspires her, why she wrote the songs, and what she feels about all of them.

When she cries at the end of the concert, right after a singalong of “Someone Like You,’’ there’s no doubt her emotions are genuine. It’s such a poignant moment that you’re left wishing Adele a speedy recovery. She clearly belongs in front of an audience.

It isn't just a peek through neighbor's window

Let me break this long hiatus with personal notes on A Separation or 'Jodái-e Náder az Simin'. It is such a breathtaking masterpiece. Often when I choose a film or any form of performing arts, I would pick those with strong touches on humanity. A Separation has that ability of awing you at the first glance. It'll, then, grab your hands and run across magnificent discoveries of humanity.

Warning

Spoiler

A Separation opens with Simin (Leila Hatami) and Nader (Peyman Moadi) facing a magistrate (and facing the camera, and hence, facing us). She has applied to leave Iran and wants her daughter, Termeh (Sarina Farhadi, the director's daughter), and husband to come along. But Nader won't go - his father, who suffers from Alzheimer's, needs his care.

Nader goes to work, and Razieh comes into their apartment, her daughter in tow, to tend to the old man. This arrangement doesn't work out, however: Nader returns home early one day to discover his father strapped to the bed, Razieh nowhere to be found.

What follows - an argument, an accusation, a push - is left open to interpretation, with Nader and his family on one side, and the fiery Hodjat and his clan on the other. And all of the chauvinist and religious biases of their country in between.

In those argument, accusation and push, everybody, in his/her utmost honesty on being the humans created for them, is simply trying to protect his/her loved ones, all the way to the points telling lies. The storyteller has put his heart on on telling the truth of the story, in which cultural and classes’ differences are being laid upon the audiences on its naked truth. For example, Razieh has to call her religious leader asking if she could touch an old man, Nader’s father, helping him out on his dirty clothing. She even afraid to swear upon Al-Quran on telling the truth about the pregnancy that she doubts caused by Nader. I was not startled much when I saw this, since I have seen and experienced such conditions. However, the story transcends itself easily and connects to other audiences who have never heard or seen this.

Thus, often audiences/people are afraid of watching or experiencing things outside of their comfort zone, they should realized that the in depth of their understanding on one issue, culture, norms, or people, is not something hard to swallow. By making A Separation specific to Iranian society, the storyteller has ensured his piece can travel the world. The movie has tremendous and compassionate understanding of human behavior, family bonds, and the way ordinary people would respond when they’re forced into a moral quandary. I can’t imagine anyone not being transfixed by it.

Technically, much of A Separation takes place in confined spaces: Nader’s middle-class apartment, the chambers of a courthouse, a hallway where the fateful act takes place. The director uses his camera to emphasize the spaces between people and their spatial proximity to each other. He wants to convey the physical realities of his characters as well as the emotional ones. That’s the sort of detail many filmmakers often overlook, because it doesn’t seem important. But this wise, humane movie wants us to empathize with its characters, and the more we understand their everyday reality, the deeper we’ll be drawn into their lives. A Separation succeeds so well that the end result is pulverizing. Sometimes, in an attempt to do the best we can for the people we love, we end up wreaking irreparable damage.

"If mainstream cinema leaves you soulless, see this film.
If you have a modicum of intelligence, see this film.
If you like great acting and directing, see this film.
If you like great writing and editing, see this film.
If you are a parent, see this film.
If you are a son or daughter, see this film"