what's your thought on these ?

good art

good art

good stuff

Mira Calix

her real name is Chantal Passamonte.she plays neat and good shit. dig her album covers as well. blend well with her music & her flawless vocals.

Favourite Worst Nightmare

luv them. they never let me down !

overall is good. alex turner's vocal got me really rooted on this particular track - Only One Who Knows. bass-less & drum-less track. more or less a song on a dying relationship.

Only Ones Who Know Lyrics
In a foreign place, the saving grace was the feeling,

That it was a heart that he was stealing,

Oh he was ready to impress and the fierce excitement,

The eyes are bright he couldnt wait to get away,

I bet the juliet was just the icing on the cake,

Make no mistake no,

And even if somehow we could have shown you the place you wanted,

Well I'm sure you could have made it that bit better on your own

And I bet she told a million people that she'd stay in touch,

Well all the little promises they dont mean much,

When theres memories to be made,

And I hope you're holding hands by new years eve,

They made it far too easy to believe,

That true romance cant be achieved these days,(so fucking true!i so fucking agree)

And even if somehow could have shown you the place you wanted,

Well I'm sure you could have made it that bit better on your own,

You are the only ones who know

reading list for the freakishly serious and the seriously freaky......

grab these from PaperMag

Lars Nilsson, creative director of the French fashion house Nina Ricci:
1. The Man Who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the Invention of the Computer by David Leavitt
2. Party of the Century: The Fabulous Story of Truman Capote and his Black-and-White Ball by Deborah Davis
3. Brando Unzipped by Darwin Porter
4. Isherwood: A Life Revealed by Peter Parker
5. The Muses Are Heard by Truman Capote

Tad Friend, writer for The New Yorker and author of Lost in Mongolia:
1. March by Geraldine Brooks
2. The Last Face You'll Ever See by Ivan Solotaroff
3. The Happiest Baby on the Block by Harvey Karp, M.D.
4. What to Expect in Your Baby's First Year by Heidi Murkoff, Sandee Hathaway and Arlene Eisenberg ("...")
5. Did I mention that my wife and I are expecting twins?

Elisabeth von Thurn und Taxis, writer:
1. Marie Antoinette by Stefan Zweig
2. Mademoiselle de Maupin by Theophile Gautier
3. The Odyssey by Homer
4. Truth and Tolerance: Christian Belief and World Religions by Pope Benedict XVI
5. King Wren: The Youth of Henri IV by Heinrich Mann

Debi Mazar, actress on HBO's Entourage:
1. Easter Rising: An Irish-American Coming Up from Under by Michael Patrick MacDonald
2. Living Presence by Kabir Edmund Helminski
3. Catherine de Medici: Renaissance Queen of France by Leonie Frieda
4. Italian with Ease by ASSiMiL Books
5. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

Karen O, singer/songwriter for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs:
1. Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz
2. A Simple Heart by Gustave Flaubert
3. The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories by Carson McCullers
4. Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
5. The Body Ecology Diet by Donna Gates

Maripol, artist:
1. Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln
2. The Possibility of an Island by Michel Houellebecq
3. Platform by Michel Houellebecq
4. Think Like a Genius by Todd Siler
5. Perfume by Patrick Skind

hou lan wong ah (i'm so fucking prosperous & lucky)

can ATHF chase the bad luck away from me? go Frylock go !

could hardly wait for them in big screen...

they said when you're consistently showered by bad lucks. you should keep telling yourself that you're the most lucky and prosperous person in the world, or say things which are the opposite of it.

it will reduce the negative energy from accumulating and in the hope of bringing good luck in.

so i have to steal the tagline of Digi and perhaps should dress myself from head-to-toe in yellow !

bad luck sui-ness go away, come back in no other day!

digger for these

stole this from a interior design webby. i want my wallpaper to be that way!

been digging these lately

1. samamidon -the album: but this chicken proved false-hearted (courtesy of Boon)

2. 65daysofstatic - the album: the destruction of small ideals

3. maximo park - the album: our earthly pleasures

4. stars of the lid - the album: and their refinement of the decline

5. kings of leaon - the album: because of the times

6. xiu xiu - all the albums

7. cornelius - the album : sensuous (super duper good!)

8. M.I.A. - the album : bird flu

Snatch

another witty & high-energy flick by guy ritchie. i find it way way way better than lock, stock. this is more composed, more sub-plots and more narration on each character. but it is still another film on masculinsm. i really wonder when will guy do a movie on feminism. madonna please help to look into that. just look will do, don't bother to act in it.
everyone does well, including brad pitt (he reminds me of Fight Club during his fighting scenes). guy looks pretty restless on the plots. each plot is closely connected to each other, giving you no room for a breather. he tends to use this fast-forward effects to make things look more lively.
MONEY is the main theme. followed closely by revenge. diamond is a gal's best friend - the same thing can be applied in this movie everyone is after the diamond, 86 carats. fuuyoh ! well i wasn't really attracted to it cause it goes pale in comparison with the characters' name
franky four fingers
boris the blade
brick top
cool names innit ?
i got a bit messed up with the characters towards the middle, as in who is after who and who's killed who, etc etc. yet i'm still hanging on to it tightly cause i've fallen in luv to the mood and the flow of the movie, just like the Layer Cake. and oh yeah, the one thing that i know brit indie flick won't let me down, for sure, is their movie soundtrack - infused with indie music ! if you compare this with lock, stock. the latter has more indie rock songs ! yay. also not forgotting dry brit humour. most of the pricks in it are pretty dumb but still in for big the money.
i was asked this question once : i notice you like to watch this sort of gangsta/mafia movie, why ? reason being : movie is supposed to fill in the gap of the realism and the surrealism. i think gangsta /mafia flick does it. (to me at least)
rated 7.9/10

survive style 5+

my fav scene - with the Cake's i will survive as the b/ground music - awesome !
good colour composition

definitely in one of the best movie i've seen so far for this year !

5 + simply means it is made up of 5 stories

1. a husband whom is in a constant wish to kill his wife whom seems to have superpower - strong, tough and able to fly. they live in a beautiful house with colourful theme for each room, long walkways, antique and unique ornaments, (i wish my house could look like that). they don't talk to each other, no script for them. all is about action. how they try to kill each other. they finally feel tired of killing each other at last and they have actually began to treat each other differently like exchanging glances & smiles, the wife actually decorate the already beautiful house for christmas with grotesque christmas ornaments and they are sitting down together admiring the wonderful house and enjoying a moment together. it all ended when vinnie jones (the paid-killer) knocked on the door and found out that the wife that he was supposed to kill (as ordered by the husband previously) is still alive. he went mad and immediately killed her on the spot. i dont' know whether to classify this as a happy or sad story. i would decipher it as the couple is having some problem, hence the husband is always visualizing about how he had killed the wife and how the wife wanna kill him. he even get the help from the murder service to have his wife killed. but in the end he seems to have softened up and decided to give a second chance to their marriage. but it was too late. it might look very 'kill bill ' but deep down inside the message is simply about forgiving.

2. yoko the creative director of an ad agency (yeah this is a movie created by the Dentsu in Jap) is always in a state of trance by having strange ideas for her ads. she always laugh at her joke, but deep down inside she has this constant doubt of her ideas as in its functionality. she could be happy for a second and depressed for the next second. a typical city folks -forever in a confused state-of-mind. her love affair with abe is simply some icing to the cake. simply to let you know that she doesn't allow any 'grey' matter in her life. either she love you or she hate you. period.

3. a happy family living in a big house with 2 beautiful children. father is the solely breadwinner for the family. things changed after they went to a famous hypnotist show (a talk of the town kinda show) where the father volunteered to be hypnotized to become a bird. but the hypnotist was murdered before the show ended. thus left the father stranded forever as a bird but with the body of human. the family went for all sorts of doctor to cure him but to no avail. in the end they finally able to accept him whole-heartedly as what he is now thanks to the youngest son. i luv this story the most, i luv his son, he is so witty, he sees things through the heart and soul. he knows that the father is tired of being the solely breadwinner, and he can see that he is happy now as a bird. he said this that really touched me deep down inside ' he is my dad and he is a bird' the scene where his dad fly in the sky with the husband (in the 1st story) with the song 'i will survive' by cake as the background music is so perfect ! the song is not about break-up here but about changes ! people are very sceptical and afraid to make any changes. but they forget that there's another horizon waiting to be unfold after you've made the changes.

4. 3 small-time pricks and the homosexual love stories between 2 of the guys. pretty loose story, not really able to tie with the rest. but i luv the music cue that strikes up whenever the gay couple staring at each other lovingly (anyone knows the song?)

5. vinnie jones as the owner of a murder house. he is constantly finding the answer to his favourite existential question -what is your function in life ? he is always with a japanese guy as his translator. i find his story pretty annoying due to the fact that i can't hear what he says, because he will speak in english and the translator will do the translation at the same time. argh ! the story could barely support the rest, why need vinnie jones, any jap actor with the killer face will do the same wonder.

they have beautiful visual presentation, wonderful actor & actress, matching song, humane storyline.

i think it deserves 8.8/10

before i forget....

some highlights of my life for the past few weeks :

Apartment Khunpa's gig (cross border) (22nd march)
the opening band was pretty boring, it was a rainy thursday night, the crowd was lessen by 50%. i came from a hearty and sumptuous dinner + after dinner drink. but still couldn't resist ordering a Mai Tai (to layan it with Apartment Khunpa's music). maybe i set my expectations too high. i don't find all their songs to be very nice. some are too emo, some all too monotonous, but the last few songs were pretty good. esp the slow ones. the lead singer did a good job, with his own style of body language, dance steps and voice. by the way, the Mai Tai was so-so only. i still prefer Pina Colada !

zouk's anniversary -TAG - the usual routine but not with the usual gang, heh. (23th march)
so tonight is suppose to be the 3th anniversay of Zouk (everyone was asking, 3 years only meh?!) anyway, the theme was supposed to be some hollywood glamour shit. but being malaysian, we normally don't give a shit. free-flow started from 9pm, i arrived about 10++, full house !!! as if they are giving out cash money on the door. can't even squeeze into the VIP lane. forget it. went to upstairs and stick to my routine. hang out with this group of fun & lovin friends. and we share the same taste in music !! they have very distinctive hairstyle, dressing, tattoos, etc.. one of them actually speaks a different language when she gets tipsy. hahaha. cute !

Tatsuya Yoshida (from The Ruins) 24th march
in case you wonder, here's the write-up on the email flyer:
Ruins Alone is Tatsuya Yoshida (of Japanese avant-punk legends The Ruins),one monstrous character who is described in wikipedia as "the "indisputablemaster drummer of the Japanese underground" & "rhythm section goneballistic".Tatsuya uses "elements ofeverything from sheer noise to disco and pop."For those who have been digging the wonderfully rich tapestry of Japaneseavant-punk/experimental & out-there rock music, Yoshida-san is a legend whohave been playing with tonnes of extremely godly names such as John Zorn,Painkiller, Keiji Heino, Mike Patton, Acid Mothers Temple etc.
it was held in an art gallery at Annexe Central Market. a small room with woody touch with lotsa painting on the wall. the opening act was done by Ciplak and Akta Angkasalepas (i hope i get the name right). they didn't play any proper music, it's all experimental sound, like the sound of you zip and unzip your jacket/pants, puking sound, throat sound, mess-up guitar sound, mess-up drum sound, and some visual stuff like burning the jacket and put their body on fire. i saw people start moving away from their place until the main act of the nite came on stage.
Yoshida is man in late thirties wearing a golden-rimmed glasses. he is a full time designer and part time musician. people from nowhere start flowing in when he was doing the sound-check. tighten-up your seat back and ready for the journey into sound ! his drum skill is extraordinary, fast and accurate, that's why he could afford to do all the mixing using the synthesizer and add in some weird vocals by himself. his music is a mixture of drum sound, trip hop, metal rock and his distinctive vocals (not really singing but some high-pitched shouting).
when the show was over, my ear was abit blocky (the venue isn't so suitable for this kinda noisy gig, no sound proof at all, everything is in wood and concrete). but it was an eye-opener for me. saturday night not wasted !

birthday party at Sanctuary (27th march)
for a friend who claimed that he was a Thai in the life before
i am starting to believe it, he has the Thai's quality. party hard, drink hard, play hard,
the organiser was trying to set up lotsa surprises for him, like stalking him into the cinema and bash him up after the movie was over, but all the plan A, plan B and plan C failed simply because too many unexpectations. the movie plan failed because no more seats left (mind you don't underestimate Mr Bean). so at last they all decided to just hang around The Curve while waiting for the birthday boy to finish up his movie.
JW was served like water during that night. birthday boy was drinking it NEAT most of the time. but yet i didn't see any signs of him being tipsy or a bit on the high side. Champion !
it's a tuesday night, so the club was pretty quiet. everything started to move to the slow side pretty early ard 1am++. i was pretty sober, but still manage to enjoy myself :-)

Blood donation (30th march)
it's friday ! after a hard-day of work, we decided it's time to pay back to the society with our blood. it feels good after donating blood, you feel kinda refreshed. this event is organised by a renowned property developer, so they actually serve you buffet after blood donation, and some premium like t-shirt, key chain and a cert.
QUESTION : is it bad for health if i down a few glasses of beer after donating blood ?
being in a high state, why not stop over twilight for a dose of indie music ? good move, ended up too exhausted till i couldn't drive back home till the next day. champion konon.

Stomp the Yard (31th march)
it's a last min plan with my bitch. i knew i will sure fall asleep in the cinema, true enough. never walk into the cinema when you're half hangover & lack of sleep. i think is not fair for me to rate the movie, but i think overall is 'pass'. it's the 31st of the month that day, so basically all the Baskin Robins had this long queue which for a moment you thought they were giving out cash money. thank god i'm not a big fan of BR 31 , prefer Andersen. i am not sure is it the age factor or what, i'm losing my interests in hitting the mall during weekends. nothing but just crowd crowd and crowd.

6.30am vs an unforgettable farewell bash (2nd - 6th april)
for the whole week i've been getting up at 6.30am, for a campaign that is goin on - compulsory to be in the office before 9am. shit wei. the last day was hellish, i could feel that my energy and battery level is so low that is beyond the chargeable limit. and so happen that friday night is a must-go-out night (farewell for a foreign friend whom is leaving malaysia for good). i thought i could catch some quality nap in between the hours, but i guess when you're too too too tired, you just can't nap. dragging my tired body to the twilight, i decided not to give a damn to anything but just drink the hell out of it. it was an unforgettable night, trust me.

forget about yoji, onto black circuit party (7th Apr)
champion habis me. i was granted a free ticket by the speedzone for the yoji's rave. but my lazy bump told me not to claim it during 5-7pm, thought i could buy it at the door. bad news came in around 8pm telling me that tickets were all sold out, ticket booth was all closed. frantically i jogged my phone up and down and dialled every possible number that could get me ONE ticket. it all came back with the same answer. 'babe, is really sold out, unless you go over now and look for the people you know, you have to be there physically, maybe they will let you in without the ticket'. fuck, i was thinking, why not give it a try ? but as i was driving near the KL Tower, i could sense that something is not so right, the traffic actually started way way before there, and everywhere is badly jammed up. not to mention to find a car parking space nearby. so i said to myself - forget it. moral of the story is - never take a free ticket for granted.
so i went over to Aloha for the Johnie Walker black circuit party - hip hop night with dj from Taipei (yay). it was a fun night with my old buddy and some new friends. free flow of JW - on the rock baby, rawks ! happy to bump into some friends which have not met for some time, and friend that you've just met but they happen to remember you pretty well. ;-)
as i was busy dancing to JT, Ciara, PDD, PCD, Nelly , friends in yoji actually text me saying that they were pretty pissed and was leaving the party earlier. couldn't take it anymore. so packed that they could not even move their head around. well well well, i went speechless for a while.

hellish

ain't a big fan of him, just luv this photo

y'day was hellish, trust me, until i lost mood in everything - ditched the gym, ditched everyone, i just need some time on my own. to put my thoughts and myself together. looks like i need to look at things in another perspective.

the chinese feng shui said you will go through a bad cycle for 5 yrs, then another good cycle for 5 yrs. but how come my bad cycle is like never-ending ?

nelly furtado said 'why does all good things come to an end'

i said 'why does all bad things never end ? esp on me ? '

sigh.

on the way (our fav line)

i like this kinda drawing and the colours, favourite yellow !

i've been lazing for so long, not that i'm in a state of honeymoon or in the lala-land or whatsoever that makes me too happy until couldn't find anytime to write anything.

i'm just pretty worried about certain things lately- career, money, etc etc. that's why my fingers are busy crossing themselves till they couldn't spare anytime on anything else !

anyway, i'm planning on a long entry, to update on all the things that happened (be it good or bad) when i wasn't blogging. heh.

stay tuned !