the new year

well, it finally came as it always does. Unlike previous year, I stayed home the last night of year by myself. I didn't feel like getting out celebrating what seemed like a dull repeat of what I had been doing, only to see nothing much had changed. I'm hoping this year is different. I have made no promises to myself what I must do (no new year resolutions or anything of that kind) since I think it just puts more pressure on myself and so gives myself more reason to procrastinate. I can afford to do that anymore. Next year is too important a year for me to waste and drink away like I did this year. Let's see what this years brings. 

story

I've finally come up with a story line that would work quite well with the character I'm writing about, or is it the other way. Anyways, I'm so happy that its working out fine. It came to me last night while having a drink. I don't how it came...I think it was something I saw on TV that led me to it. I don't know but I"m glad I finally found the missing piece.

I just need a good central story to wrapped it. 

nick Hornby

I'm reading "the complete polysyllabic spree" by Nick Hornby. I had no idea who he was until I picked up the book at a second-hand book dealer nearby my house. On the flap of the cover it says the author wrote High Fidelity, apparently a bestseller when it came out, and other popular books. I think I heard High Fidelity but I'm not so sure about other books he wrote. 

I read a few pages. So far it's pretty interesting.  In the introduction he mentions that the thought of reading too-literary-minded books are, well, put off by most people because those books tend to be too difficult and highbrow, although there are exceptions like Dickens and um...Dickens. So, his mission is, through this book, to make these books and other popular novels, books, brochures etc...accessible, without making people feel guilty of not having read the books they ought to have, and make them more book-reading-friendly.

This is not a book so much as a compilation of columns he wrote for the literary magazine whose board he sits on. 

Well, I wouldn't say that his prose, as he admits, is one of the most engaging I have ever read, but it's his honesty that matters the most in this book, and not bullshit around and be pretentious. 

Atonement: the movie

Just finished watching the movie. I hadn't read the book so I'm not entirely sure what liberty was taken by the filmmakers in making this movie. Though the movie isn't that apealing to me (only the beginning third is good), it reminded me of another British film based on a book by another British novelist Virginia Woolf. The movie, of course, is "The Hours." Both of these movies share simililarities, in terms of filmmaking at least, in that they both rely heavily on the sound and rythm to advance the narrative. I'm not sure if this is always a good idea. Although, it kind of worked in The Hours, it nonetheless isn't so effective in Atonement. I think it's becuase, intead of betting their filmmaking skills on the telling of the story, they overly rely on the atmosphere of the story. Unless this is music video or documentary, nothing can take the place of good storytelling. One thing it accomplishes, however, is that it's making this viewer want to rush out and buy the book. I'll post another one for the book next time.

cool widget

I'm posting this blog from my blooger widget. Wow, this is pretty cool. I can now blog anything on a whim anytime I use computer, instead of launchingn the browser and logging onto the blogger to do it. 

Woolf and her lighthouse

It’s been more than a decade since I read “To The Lighthouse.” Although I read many books then and since, no reading experience has ever come quite as close as reading this one. Though young and unworldly, I knew, after finishing the novel, I had just read a work that would stay with me for a long time. Even now, some of the passages from the book bubble up from the bottom of my numbed awareness, waking me out of my dead consciousness, as if I’ve never left reading it.

I still remember how I felt when I read it for the first time. I was unprepared for what I was about to embark on, taking days before finally ploughing through one third of the book. What makes the book so difficult at first reading is that the perspective shifts from person to person, the scene and the time along with it. I found myself flipping back and forth between the pages just to make sure if I’d not missed a page or so. At times, the perspective changes in a matter of a sentence without warning, confounding the reader. It was and still is a very difficult novel, and patience is the only sure way to get through this book, at least it was for me.

Though the story unfolds surrounding the Ramsey family, the book is not so much about them as it is about the internal monologues these different characters exert onto the page. It is the language what Virginia Woolf convinces the reader to feel for. What takes the center stage is the words themselves. Through words the readers are thrown about into the turmoils of characters’ psychology, where everything is at once real and elusive, this minute as calm as still water, the next the roaring sea.

I’m reading it again just to remind myself what words alone can accomplish, reliving the rapturous moments I had with the novel at my first encounter.

about Obama

I like him. Period. End of story.

But then again, he’s a risky one, as far as pitting him against a republican candidate, whoever it’ll be, in the general election. Nevertheless, I’d like to see him compete against those republican machines that have hijacked American ideals. Although I have to admit Hillary is a much more shrewder politician than Obama is but I’m disturbed, as the election day approaches, by the way she has carried out her campaign. I am afraid she would cause the republicans to revert to their old hate attacks on the democrats, which was so prevalent in the 90’s. It won’t help the country, nor get us out of this deep hole.

Obama, on the other hand, gives us a hope, though very tenuous, nonetheless a hope. I’m old and wise enough to know that in this modern age we live no one politician can completely alter the course we are on, though Obama can make people believe that people can come together, left or right, for the greater good. I can envision Obama doing this, but not, much to my dismay, Hillary, seeing that, along with her husband, she has been the made object of republican hate, becoming unfortunately for her both a victim and cause of much of the US politics now. it is so hard to believe she can end it. Obama, through not his own making, escaped this perilous period of American politics; he’s not part of it, therefore he can safely dismiss it out of hand.

It’s not fair to vote, especially for Hillary, based on assumption rather than the candidate’s ability as a leader, but I think this election is different in that we have seen much of what can happen in the politics of hate. I want someone with a fresh approach; and the leadership that can both show the world that whatever has caused the water to become muddy is now behind us and only thing we have to worry about is the future.

a new start

I’ve been gone for a long time. I have no idea why but I thought I needed to take some rest, though my entries up until my last one did not amount to much.

I live in a small place with a window taking up more than one half of one of the walls. It is not a big window but it is big enough, though it does not allow in enough light as much as its size. Why? i do not know. I always wanted to live in a place with lots of light flowing in through the windows. So much for my wish I never, so far, lived in one of them.