Below are the 13 most recent journal entries recorded in blueasthesky's Blurty:

Monday, September 3rd, 2007
12:33 am	On timeliness I write and am writing so much about time, yet I realised today that I have never written (or thought) anything about timeliness. This is something I had been thinking about on and off this weekend. What is the condition of time? What is timeliness? What is a "when"? M Scott Peck wrote in "The Road Less Travelled" that the only time to seek help is when you want to seek help (I paraphrase). And I'm increasingly realising the truth of that, in ways which I can't really blog about. But it's something like this: school being the way school was, there were a number of things I had to learn in the past and, education being the way (SIN) education is, I mugged them all, duly passed my exams and, needless to say, promptly forgot them all. Yet, the subjects being the way the subjects were, there were a lot of things I learnt simply to "jargon-drop", score that tick and get that mark. To this day, I still know the jargon. Through help, guidance, thinking, reading, talking and serendipity, for one reason or another I have been revisiting quite a lot of that jargon recently. And somehow things are starting to make more sense. Things are helping me see better - see myself better, my relationships with my family, with the world, with life. Things are guiding me to a better understanding. Not yet (and perhaps never) a breakthrough, but better understanding. Yet these were precisely the same things I learnt all those years ago for my exams, and which left about as much impression as dust. The only time to seek help is when you want to seek help. All it took was time. I'm beginning to understand that a "when" need not be a particular entry or date on a calendar. I'm beginning to understand that life is taking place even when nothing seems to be taking place. I'm beginning to understand that perhaps the last three years were not completely in waste, and I'm beginning to realise I can stop beating myself up about it. I'm beginning to learn, again, that I can trust myself, trust my instincts. I'm beginning to understand that timeliness - the condition of time - is not something we can mark or write an entry against. It takes time to learn to live, and life takes time. A future is a becoming. A when is a being. And timeliness is, simply, to be. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 19th, 2007
3:30 am	Then and now Variations on a common theme which has been running through my mind for a while now: 1. In my twenties, I was brave, I was hungry, I was foolish. I never, ever thought I would fail. In my thirties, I realise, well, life is not that simple, one's world, when shaken too much, gives one a terrible headache, and ambition burns on the fuel of youth. 2. In my twenties, I believed in the fight. I believed there was worth in fighting, in sacrifice, in striving. I believed in the sincerity of my desire. In my thirties, I realise that there is a bigger picture, bigger than I could have ever realised. I realise that I should have just watched more "Black Adder", and understand that fighting is very, very overrated. 3. In my twenties, I was happy for everything to be grey. Hurray postmodernism! Hurray relativism! Not only because of my ignorant liberalism, but because all that means we don't have to think of an answer. In my thirties, I realise that there must, of course, be an answer. And that I, even I, will have to look for it. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 16th, 2007
1:21 am	Ghosts and Love Went on a sudden, impulsive Queen - whom I've long thought is the best band (forget the Beatles!!), in the whole world, ever - rampage tonight. I went through their songs, I surfed about the band, I YouTube'd their videos. And somehow it all streamlined into two thoughts: Ghosts and Love. * * * * * So we resolve to live each moment to its maximum capacity, but what happens when you try that, and even then, you are still somehow left half filled as time erodes your youth and patinates your memory? - Andy de Klerk, "Rust Never Sleeps" This is the video of one of Queen's last singles, "Those Were The Days Of Our Lives." Freddie was already very sick by then and probably knew he was going to die. And you can see his sickness: his gaunt cheeks, his sunken eyes, his shocking thinness. This is defiance in the face of (at that time, since retrovirals had not yet been discovered) certain death. Like the photograph of the boy condemned to execution in Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida, as we see death in every photograph, in these last public images of Freddie Mercury do we also see "this new punctum": he is going to die. And as we view it now, he is dead. As so shall we all be. Yet, you can still see the ghost of the old, healthy Freddie, even in this half-spectral gaunt husk of a man: the insouciant looks, the florid gestures, the unflinching stare into the camera, the flamboyant charisma that can only be Freddie Mercury. There are ghosts among the living, there are also ghosts among the dying. * * * * * In the roaring waters I hear the voices of dead friends Love is life that lasts forever My heart’s memory turns to you - Monologue from Derek Jarman's "Blue" "Love of My Life", is a genuine love song, written by Freddie for his ex-girlfriend, Mary Austin, whom he apparently loved right through his life, even though he left her after six years together and turned to a string of male lovers. It was to Mary whom he left his mansion, half his assets and all future income from his music. And apparently he never let her go even after they split up, and had continued to keep her close to him and his life, getting a job for her at his recording company, a flat for her near his own etc. Brian May (Dr Brian May!!!) plays this song in the video. I love the live versions so much more than the studio recording partly because the guitar introduction and accompaniment is just too beautiful to be true (in the recording it's rather cheesy piano), but mostly because the crowd, like a single living, breathing (albeit crammed and sweaty) organic being, sings along to the song. It is absolutely amazing to hear. This is one good reason to go for crammed and sweaty rock concerts, I suppose - if only to be part of something like that. And this astonishing phenomenon in musical concord - the crowd singing along to Freddie Mercury - happens in every single Queen concert (check out any number of the YouTube videos!) from Wembley to Sao Paolo. Typically, he will sing the opening bars, then leaves the rest to the crowd, conducting them like the grand maestro that he is, joining in only for the bridge, and then for a few bars through the rest of the song. One cannot help but feel the ghost of Mercury in Brian May's rendition - the same guitar chords, the same holding back, the same interjected "beautiful" in the same place, the same crowd transformed into a living being, now singing this love song about a love which never died, as Freddie Mercury himself has never died; like all the greats, he is still with us, and listening to this love song, circa 2005, is its proof. Perhaps that is the true indication of ghosting time, because love is life that lasts forever. Those days are all gone now But one thing's still true When I look and I find I still love you (Comment on this)
Monday, July 30th, 2007
5:19 pm	A turning point When the line, read as "you are my lost destiny" is revised afterwards, inverted: "you are my destiny, lost".* * with apologies to Alfian (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
11:18 pm	That which haunts us There's a scene in Neil Jordan's The End of the Affair, in which Sarah (Julianne Moore), meeting with lover Maurice (Ralph Fiennes) for the first time since she ended the affair (for very good reason, but Maurice doesn't know this), storms out of the restaurant, upset and emotional. Jordan cuts to Sarah hurrying away from the restaurant, holding back her tears, and then behind her we see Maurice dashing out, running after her, holding his coat over her head (it's set in London, it's raining, enough said) while he apologises furiously before they kiss - we only realise this is a flashback because the light is slightly different and they are wearing different clothes. The reality of that day in that scene, of course, is that Maurice stayed in the restaurant, bitter and vengeful, and Sarah walks away alone. That scene is replayed once more at the end of the film, in its denouement, with Sarah's voiceover as read from her diary. As we go through the scene again, Sarah hurrying in the rain by herself, her tears running down her face, her voiceover from her diary notes sadly: "In the old days, he would have followed. We would have made up or made love." It's a scene which I think about often, it's a line which constantly haunts me. Like a decrepit housewife, I'm tired of thinking of "the old days", I'm tired of thinking of "in the old days, he would have [insert verb]". These days, rather, I'm finding in myself a strange condition - an unceasing amnesia of the present. I simply don't remember anymore. And then I need never say that line again. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007
11:43 pm	Dear Bunny (Part Two) He once asked her, "how good are you with silences?" "Enough to do the Jack Rabbit Slims' Twist with you," she replied quickly, cheekily referring to the "when-you-can-just-shut-the-fuck-up-for-a-minute-and-comfortably-enjoy-the-silence" moment of the Pulp Fiction film, poised just before John Travolta and Uma Thurman take to the stage with their crazy, ill-synchronised, cultural-icon-destined dance. She should also have added: enough to keep my Media Player blasting at top volume when I am alone at home and all I can hear are the muted roars of my solitude. Enough to type loudly on Internet Messenger so that the chattering of the keyboard might substitute our unheard voices engulfed by typefonts flying across the screen. Enough to sing to myself once I have to turn the computer off, as if my tuneless humming could reassure me of a corporeality subsisting on the basic principle of air passing through and against oesophagus and larynx. And enough to touch my wet face to realise I would rather sob than to continue listening to the silence when I no longer hear from you. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 15th, 2007
5:03 pm	For a stuffed dog I don't remember choosing you for your face—what I do remember is your glorious silver fur, silky as a princess’ carpet, soft as a dream. You were the most wonderful thing I had ever touched. I held and stroked and cradled you until my father got the hint. Details for the logbook: Plaza Singapura, Orchard Road, lower basement, Yaohan department store, some time April (I made a pact with my father that you were to be my birthday present, two months early)... I was six. I took you home that night and promptly anointed upon you the status of Most Favourite Toy—queen of my harem, holder of the best privileges: the first kiss when I came home from school, the biggest, fiercest hugs, the only one I told stories to, the only one entitled to an exalted place on my bed. When I ran away from home that one time, I took clothes, money, my laptop, my passport and you. And then came the horrific day when we washed you because my mother was convinced one day you were going to give me a tragic disease. Oh, dear one—we should have enfolded you in a protective pillow case and put you in on gentle-rinse mode, low-spin and hand-wash cycle. You are more delicate than a pair of couture silk stockings. Instead, we bung you straight into the horrors of the screaming machine, dark waters spinning like a Hitachi-manufactured twister. Your lovely fur was to be forever mangled like the aftermath of a horrible disease. My mother hung you up to dry by your four paws—you looked like you were about to be roasted over the fire-pits of barbarians. As if that wasn’t enough—one day I discovered a gaping hole in your back, your stuffing scattered around my room like little fallen clouds of candy dust. My little dog is bleeding to death! I rushed you frantically to my mother (the one who hung you up to dry) and agonized over what to do. My mother eventually sewed up the hole, but you had to be bunched up a bit so as to make the ends meet, like making a horizontal Hunchback of Notre Dame. I’ve sat on you, I’ve slept on you, I’ve stood on you, I’ve cried all over you, I’ve squeezed you and thrown you across the room in my tantrums and my hysteria. These days you are loved more dearly by another, and are now more often in his arms than in mine. Which is fine, but don’t forget: he loves you only because all my memories are imprinted on your face like firebrands, because my fingerprints are rubbed upon your little paws till they are raw, because each and every tuft of your sorry, washing-machine-matted fur carries one of my dreams and one of my nightmares. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 11th, 2007
10:45 pm	Dear Bunny (Part One) The moonlight was brilliant even though it was only half-full; it flooded the path like a wash of liquid ivory. "How can the moon be so bright?" she wondered aloud. "Because everywhere else is so dark," Bunny replied, deadpan as if plucking a koan out of her hair. The presence of absence, then - the darkness existing in the absence of light, the moonlight existing in the presence of ghosts and silent footsteps. And love existing as alternated between the two - the absence of you, the void of missing strengthening pillars of resolve (we will be together one day); the presence of your warmth in your desire, your beating heart as I laid my head against your chest to listen, your blown kisses placed against the train window, your promise to me shining in your eyes: "I will see you again and I will still love you." (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 10th, 2007
11:42 pm	Angel of Harlem (Part One) I had not heard of this song until you told me about it, and it turns out to be a devoted love song, an ardent tribute to the tragic Billie Holliday. Perhaps that is the common factor - that sliver of faith in someone hell-bent on self-destruction, who has lost her heart and her way. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 6th, 2006
10:22 pm	Are you around? Will you say goodnight to me? How a request can completely change the darkness - all the difference between its oblivion and its endless vigil, cast out with neither blessing nor peace. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 27th, 2006
12:21 am	The Almanac of Last Things One of my favourite poems, by Linda Pastan: ******************* The Almanac of Last Things From the almanac of last things I choose the spider lily for the grace of its brief blossom, though I myself fear brevity, but I choose The Song of Songs because the flesh of those pomegranates has survived all the frost of dogma. I choose January with its chill lessons of patience and despair—and August, too sun-struck for lessons. I choose a thimbleful of red wine to make my heart race, then another to help me sleep. From the almanac of last things I choose you, as I have done before. And I choose evening because the light clinging to the window is at its most reflective just as it is ready to go out. ***************** And what do I choose? From poetry to prose: 1. I choose the sensuality of nature - the crunch of snow under my boots; the skidding crystals flying from under my skis; the road beneath my bicycle wheels whose warmth I can feel through the tyres, whose every pebble and gravel stone is driven through my knuckles; the feel of rock powder, like magic dust, beneath my fingers. Oh, and the fishes - always the fishes - the fishes and the water and the weightlessness, the wonder of this strange world I am privileged to visit even as I look up and see a shredded sun from where I had descended. 2. I choose love - not its dizzy heights or its sombre lows, but the warm peace of lying in someone's arms, the dull ache of missing someone you would probably be better off not being with anyway. Because you get more of those intermediates than the peaks and the valleys, misrepresentations as they are of the sine curve. 3. I choose music - not just notes and harmonies and melodies, but the music of familiar footsteps beating a rhythm to the door, of wind whistling in my ear, of the constant clicking under the seas like so much beautiful percussion. Music as played by someone else on my piano, music as I play for someone else over Skype, music as I play for myself, just because. Songs sung to me, voices that sing not only songs but also friendship and love. 4. I choose words. Godard and his Ajax washing powder can go to hell - if you have a problem expressing yourself through words blame yourself, not the medium. I choose words because they are lighter than air but heavier than hearts, because they are my expression of being, because I can't remember a time when I didn't know how to read and write. 5. And I choose light. Light and darkness, light and shadows, life and shadows ("Life to those Shadows"). Because your light and darkness is a beginning to joy: "as if the whole darkening world were dimming its lights for a party." And because everytime I sit in your darkness, your light on my face, I give yet another little prayer of thanks. Like Sontag, I hope I can die with you. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006
12:20 am	On moral order The other day, B and I were talking about Pater and Conrad, and the argument given to me was that Pater was all about beauty, sensuality, the sublimity of the moment, whereas Conrad at least imposed a moral order on his epiphanies; he devised for them a right and a wrong, and therefore the latter was superior to the former. To which my immediate response was, well, why do you need a moral order? What is wrong with pure beauty? (To which, incidentally, he shrugged his shoulders.) If you have a problem with hedonism, that's fine, but then at least acknowledge it, and don't pass a judgement simply because you don't agree with its premise. And here is where I start being too honest for my own good: I think this state of mind - this extremely unbecoming ambivalence, this reluctance to take a position, this floundering to commit - is really just symptomatic, and that there's a larger picture at stake. Deleuze speaks of the multi-faceted crystal image, well, how's this for a crystal image: an average, normal human being who is just trying to find black and white in infinite shades of grey. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 26th, 2001
12:13 am	The beginning, since there's always one "Julia talked very differently to herself and to other people: when she talked to herself her language was racy." (Maugham, Theatre) So this will be me talking to myself - not quite as racy as Ms Lambert perhaps, but certainly very different from how I talk to other people. But sometimes one needs a quiet space, a blind, non-discriminatory virtual audience - a blog of one's own. As for the blog name (pretentious literary allusion time): Scott Fitzgerald is neither my favourite nor most admired author, but I like his books well enough. "Blue as the sky" is a phrase from his "This Side of Paradise" which has always stuck in my mind as one of the most memorable pieces of dialogue I've ever read, with the equally memorable Amory Blaine, and which I will now leave, for the moment, with you: "We have here quite a slip of paper." "Open it, Amory." "Just to be dramatic I'll let you know that if it's blue, my name is withdrawn from the editorial board of "Prince", and my short career is over." ... "Watch my face, gentlemen, for the primitive emotions." He tore it open and held the slip up to the light. "Well?" "Pink or blue?" "Say what it is." "We're all ears, Amory." "Smile or swear - or something." There was a pause... a small crowd of seconds swept by... then he looked again and another crowd went on into time. "Blue as the sky, gentlemen......" (13 Comments |Comment on this)