Sunday, March 27, 2005
Babette's Feast & women writers
A couple of days ago I was reading an introduction by Amy Tan to The Best American Short Stories 1999 (Best American Short Stories) and was struck by her comment that those who loved the 1987 Danish/French film Babette's Feast will likely not liked her selections for this 1999 volume. That gets me interested in the film and as it happend I had bought a DVD of this film a couple of years back but did not bother to watch it....it sits there among a hundred or so films that I've yet to watch....and I watched it last night...and I liked it.....this quiet, understated and melancholic film is quite beautiful....and now that I liked this film I'm going to plough through the 1999 short stories volume and see if Amy Tan is correct (about people liking Babette's Feast not liking her selections for this Volume)...
...I've never read anything by Amy Tan including her well know book The Joy Luck Club and rightly or other wise as I've stated elsewhere...I never like women writers very much...unless they write like men...and I don't feel... based on her Introduction to this volume -which is interesting enough by itself - that she's a writer that will get me very interested in her works.
But I could be wrong about her as I was quite wrong about Dorris Lessing. I had a strong prejudice against this writer (Dorris Lessing) for some reason which I'm not going into here but I now realised that she is in fact quite a good and manly writer...
...I've never read anything by Amy Tan including her well know book The Joy Luck Club and rightly or other wise as I've stated elsewhere...I never like women writers very much...unless they write like men...and I don't feel... based on her Introduction to this volume -which is interesting enough by itself - that she's a writer that will get me very interested in her works.
But I could be wrong about her as I was quite wrong about Dorris Lessing. I had a strong prejudice against this writer (Dorris Lessing) for some reason which I'm not going into here but I now realised that she is in fact quite a good and manly writer...
Thursday, March 17, 2005
An Art Addict
I have a confession to make : I am an art addict.
Of course - like most of you - I'm no Bill Gates and don't have the money to buy any original paintings worth millions of dollars...
I do have some passable paintings though...some original local watercolors, some oils from the Philippines, Myanma and China by unknown artistes...a couple of tibetan landscapes that I bought from Lhasa...and some copies of famous paintings, notable ones include copies of still life by Chardin, and 17th Century Dutch Still lifes (de Heem, Van Huysum, etc) , Cezanne, and one matisse which I bought from those little galleries in Ho Chi Minh...where they have these artists copying famous paintings full time....
May be my most valuable possession is a pen sketch of a naked man jerking off by Khalil Ibrahim...on a student drawing paper.
I got this for free too....the story is like this...Khalil has a good friend who is a self tought artist in Kelantan... Khalil used to go to his home a lot when he comes to Kelantan but many times this guy is out. What Khalil normally do is to make a quick sketch of any thing that suits his fancy and pins it on the guy's door....but this guy is basically stupid and always throw these sketches away...except this one that I happened to come across before he threw it away...rumor has it that Khalil has a folio of erotic drawings hidden somewhere....I wish I can get hold of them!!
And I have many art books.... ranging from Expressionists, impressionists to old masters...and I have tons of Christies and Sotheby auction catalogues...Some Chinese auction catalogues too that I bought in Beijing (Panyiyuan weekend market) and Chengdu....
And whenever I go anywhere overseas my first visit is almost always the art museums...hence I'm proud to say that I've visited The National Art Gallery in London many times. I've also been to the Tate before it was split into Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Tate Britain, V&A (all in London), MOMA, The Guggenhiem, Frick's Collection, The MET (all in New York), Paul Getty Museum (LA), Guggenhiem in Venice, Rijkmuseum, Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), The Louvre, Musee D'Orsay (Paris), Juresalem Museum (Israel), and all the national museums in Asean countries (Jakarta, Manila, HCM, Yangon...but funnily not yet in Bangkok though I visited Bangkok for more than 10 times in the last 3 yrs!...too much distraction in Bangkok obviously), NSW museum in Sydney and many other smaller exhibitions and galleries....
You must have tought that I'm a millioniare gallivanting all over the globe visiting art museums.....but nothing is further from the truth...in fact right now I only have RM100 in my saving account to tide me over till the next pay check...I live by borrowing from the modern day pirate...credit card by other name.....the trick is I tailor my professional duty/visits overseas to my personal interests!!...my only remaining goal is to go and see the collections in the Uffizi (Florence Italy), the Prado (Madrid) and the rest of the major musuems in Europe....one day soon I hope...
Oh hey…I just visited Moscow recently…Last Feb 05 to be exact… visited The Historical museum at the Red Square…& Pushkin Museum ….don’t have enough time to visit the other great galleries…and I went back the long way..via the great trans-siberian Moscow to Beijing six day six nights train journey…but that’s another story ….for another time…
..
Of course - like most of you - I'm no Bill Gates and don't have the money to buy any original paintings worth millions of dollars...
I do have some passable paintings though...some original local watercolors, some oils from the Philippines, Myanma and China by unknown artistes...a couple of tibetan landscapes that I bought from Lhasa...and some copies of famous paintings, notable ones include copies of still life by Chardin, and 17th Century Dutch Still lifes (de Heem, Van Huysum, etc) , Cezanne, and one matisse which I bought from those little galleries in Ho Chi Minh...where they have these artists copying famous paintings full time....
May be my most valuable possession is a pen sketch of a naked man jerking off by Khalil Ibrahim...on a student drawing paper.
I got this for free too....the story is like this...Khalil has a good friend who is a self tought artist in Kelantan... Khalil used to go to his home a lot when he comes to Kelantan but many times this guy is out. What Khalil normally do is to make a quick sketch of any thing that suits his fancy and pins it on the guy's door....but this guy is basically stupid and always throw these sketches away...except this one that I happened to come across before he threw it away...rumor has it that Khalil has a folio of erotic drawings hidden somewhere....I wish I can get hold of them!!
And I have many art books.... ranging from Expressionists, impressionists to old masters...and I have tons of Christies and Sotheby auction catalogues...Some Chinese auction catalogues too that I bought in Beijing (Panyiyuan weekend market) and Chengdu....
And whenever I go anywhere overseas my first visit is almost always the art museums...hence I'm proud to say that I've visited The National Art Gallery in London many times. I've also been to the Tate before it was split into Tate Modern and Tate Britain, Tate Britain, V&A (all in London), MOMA, The Guggenhiem, Frick's Collection, The MET (all in New York), Paul Getty Museum (LA), Guggenhiem in Venice, Rijkmuseum, Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), The Louvre, Musee D'Orsay (Paris), Juresalem Museum (Israel), and all the national museums in Asean countries (Jakarta, Manila, HCM, Yangon...but funnily not yet in Bangkok though I visited Bangkok for more than 10 times in the last 3 yrs!...too much distraction in Bangkok obviously), NSW museum in Sydney and many other smaller exhibitions and galleries....
You must have tought that I'm a millioniare gallivanting all over the globe visiting art museums.....but nothing is further from the truth...in fact right now I only have RM100 in my saving account to tide me over till the next pay check...I live by borrowing from the modern day pirate...credit card by other name.....the trick is I tailor my professional duty/visits overseas to my personal interests!!...my only remaining goal is to go and see the collections in the Uffizi (Florence Italy), the Prado (Madrid) and the rest of the major musuems in Europe....one day soon I hope...
Oh hey…I just visited Moscow recently…Last Feb 05 to be exact… visited The Historical museum at the Red Square…& Pushkin Museum ….don’t have enough time to visit the other great galleries…and I went back the long way..via the great trans-siberian Moscow to Beijing six day six nights train journey…but that’s another story ….for another time…
..
Sunday, March 06, 2005
Raise high the roof beam....and Hunter S Thompson...
Just finished a short story by J D Salinger... Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction ... finished the first and starting on Seymour :An Introduction...I don't know why some people think that this is one of the worst J D Salinger's story...Raise High...I mean...I find it very charming and a lovely story.....
On a different note...When Hunter S Thompson shot himself...I was on a trans-Siberian train #4 from Moscow to Beijing...so I did not hear of the news till several days later when I arrived home...It's perhaps a fitting albiet sad end to one of the best crazy writers around...I can't say for sure but I have this feeling that he shot himself at exactly the time when my German friend was screwing another friend ... Sweedish girl... in the toilet...we all knew each other while travelling in the same coach/train ....
I first got to know and love Hunter S Thompson's writing way back in the seventies from the Rolling Stones magazine...and I still find his writings very manic...very energetic ..lively...doesn't matter if you agree with him or not..it's such good writings that you get carrried away with his crazy gonzo style...and I just picked up "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and started reading it right now...crazy stuff...brilliant....once I finish this I'll watch the film...got a pirated DVD from one the great DVD shops in front of Holiday Inn Lido, Beijing last year...
******
In case you have not read about his death...here's one of the news article about it..
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 · Last updated 3:36 a.m. PT
Hunter S. Thompson body was found in chair
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASPEN, Colo. -- Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in the kitchen in front of his typewriter with the word "counselor" typed in the center of the page, according to sheriff's reports.
The word was typed on stationery from the Fourth Amendment Foundation, which was started to defend victims of unwarranted search and seizure, according to reports released Tuesday.
It was not immediately known what, if any, significance the word had to the founder of "gonzo" journalism or to his family.
Juan Thompson found his father dead Feb. 20 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. After reporting the death, Juan Thompson walked outside the Woody Creek home and fired three shotgun blasts into the air.
"Juan told me he had shot a shotgun into the air to mark the passing of his father," Pitkin County Deputy Sheriff John Armstrong said in his report.
Juan Thompson was allowed to go into the kitchen alone to drape a golden orange scarf over his father's shoulders, according to Armstrong. Jennifer Winkel Thompson, Juan Thompson's wife, said the family had purchased the silk scarf in Florence, Italy, and gave it to Hunter Thompson the night before.
The couple and their 6-year-old son were in the house when Thompson, 67, took a handgun, put it to his mouth and fired.
A soft-sided gun case was found at Thompson's feet along with a spent shell casing, according to reports.
The family has canceled plans for a public gathering in favor of a private service. A public event will be held at a later date. Plans also are in the works to blast Thompson's ashes from a cannon, which was one of the author's wishes.
On a different note...When Hunter S Thompson shot himself...I was on a trans-Siberian train #4 from Moscow to Beijing...so I did not hear of the news till several days later when I arrived home...It's perhaps a fitting albiet sad end to one of the best crazy writers around...I can't say for sure but I have this feeling that he shot himself at exactly the time when my German friend was screwing another friend ... Sweedish girl... in the toilet...we all knew each other while travelling in the same coach/train ....
I first got to know and love Hunter S Thompson's writing way back in the seventies from the Rolling Stones magazine...and I still find his writings very manic...very energetic ..lively...doesn't matter if you agree with him or not..it's such good writings that you get carrried away with his crazy gonzo style...and I just picked up "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and started reading it right now...crazy stuff...brilliant....once I finish this I'll watch the film...got a pirated DVD from one the great DVD shops in front of Holiday Inn Lido, Beijing last year...
******
In case you have not read about his death...here's one of the news article about it..
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Wednesday, March 2, 2005 · Last updated 3:36 a.m. PT
Hunter S. Thompson body was found in chair
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASPEN, Colo. -- Hunter S. Thompson's body was found in a chair in the kitchen in front of his typewriter with the word "counselor" typed in the center of the page, according to sheriff's reports.
The word was typed on stationery from the Fourth Amendment Foundation, which was started to defend victims of unwarranted search and seizure, according to reports released Tuesday.
It was not immediately known what, if any, significance the word had to the founder of "gonzo" journalism or to his family.
Juan Thompson found his father dead Feb. 20 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. After reporting the death, Juan Thompson walked outside the Woody Creek home and fired three shotgun blasts into the air.
"Juan told me he had shot a shotgun into the air to mark the passing of his father," Pitkin County Deputy Sheriff John Armstrong said in his report.
Juan Thompson was allowed to go into the kitchen alone to drape a golden orange scarf over his father's shoulders, according to Armstrong. Jennifer Winkel Thompson, Juan Thompson's wife, said the family had purchased the silk scarf in Florence, Italy, and gave it to Hunter Thompson the night before.
The couple and their 6-year-old son were in the house when Thompson, 67, took a handgun, put it to his mouth and fired.
A soft-sided gun case was found at Thompson's feet along with a spent shell casing, according to reports.
The family has canceled plans for a public gathering in favor of a private service. A public event will be held at a later date. Plans also are in the works to blast Thompson's ashes from a cannon, which was one of the author's wishes.
