Thursday, January 19, 2006
The show that I feel most for now is the 7-up series now that project runway has ended. It's on arts central on thursday at 10pm, a documentary that began with interviewing a group of british kids when they were 7 in 1964, asking them about their ambitions and lives and ideas and then done every 7 years . Today was the second episode of when they're 35. It's just amazing what they say when they're young and the way they behaved so innocently and how they've changed. When Tony was young, he wanted to be an astronaut and he turned out to be a short, spritely guy who failed as a jockey and ended up being a bet collector and then taxi driver with a happy family and rise in social status. At 21 for the interview he was wearing this red windbreaker and it was all young and energetic he told the interviewer that his wish is to see his baby son and no one knows it but the interviewer at that point. Bruce wanted to be a missionary, but at 14 concluded he was a quiet sort who couldn't do that kind of work, and became quite a recluse doing mathematics at cambridge or oxford and eventually became a teacher to poor students and taught at India for a bit, being a quiet sort that reminds me of Ixer, but far less...naughty, sort of elegant and round. I can't quite describe these people, you (whoever you may be, I have no idea who reads this) have to watch it to see these people. Tony and Bruce are those I like to follow. But today a good part of the show was about this other guy, Neil, who was glowing at 7 and wanted to be an astronaut and skipped home, at 14 spoke oddly and at 21 was a squatter in an old flat, at 28 was quite sure he was going mad and at 35 said he knew he was going mad and when he spoke he seemed about to cry and like he was going to have a nervous breakdown. He seemed very lonely, living on state funds I think, in a small town and said he stopped relying on psychiatric prescriptions and said everyone wants to be somebody in life. He writes plays and tries to go on, and didn't get picked for director for the local play the second time because no one nominated him. He thinks the world is crazy and described a specific moment when he really felt that way-being in a London street. He never wanted to have children. At 7 it was because they would go around being naughty and untidy, but at 35 he said it was because he thinks no children can not inherit any characteristic from their parents, and even if his wife were the most full-spirited, kind woman, his children could not live in complete happiness because of him. I mean it's just horrible. To see how they change from when they're 7 to 35 is painful. It seems to change from a world of wonder to a world of still life, regrets, tiny joys of family, and incomplete marital bliss. The wonder mostly remains only through the children they have, for those who have children. And when I watched Neil, I felt like I knew what he was talking about and that I could actually see some of myself in what he was saying, suddenly. Which scares me. It's funny how months ago, as I was still studying, the show was in the sunny 21 age and now it's this slightly dark age of 35.On another show, the history of rock and roll, clips of pete townshend from The Who shaking his buttocks madly and swinging his arms and moving around the stage sort of dancing and playing, with his bulky thin long nose, intersperse with clips of him being interviewed as a 50-something year old man, looking almost exactly the same, speaking sanely, with a small harris mouth, and it's hard to believe it's the same guy wiggling his quite fleshy butt energetically at the audience during a guitar solo or something.
Today I bought my first Bob Dylan cd. It's funny how I've actually been listening to him on the easy rider soundtrack and that I actually read this entire 20-page thing on the Rolling Thunder Revue which is Bob Dylan's travelling (thunder that rolls from one place to another) act with lots of other musicians and friends in 1975, this thing being the cd cover which I stole from Mr. L many months ago and was lying in my room for weeks as I read it and was vaguely haunted by the pictures of bob dylan with a face painted white playing the harmonica, and what the person who wrote it said about the songs and the act, but not really knowing much more about bob dylan till now. Well.............I can't believe it's already january 19. Each day lapses into the next quickly when you vaguely do whatever you want to when you want to, but not quite.
And okay I just read this:
Tony, who wanted to be a jockey, has settled for life in the suburbs with a sour-faced wife. ``I've done about as well as I could,'' he says to the camera, almost as an apology. ``I think I've reached my limitations.''
This is the best:
For viewers who have followed the series, ``42 Up'' gives a sense of catching up, marking time with old friends. The best news is that Neil, who seemed doomed and hopeless when last we saw him, is doing much better and finding a satisfaction that had always eluded him.
And Bruce is finally married.
moled at 1/19/2006 07:16:00 AM
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
WILD CAT
My grandmother just scolded me for not making the bed perfectly and for being uselessly without a job. I've been doing housework since the new maid and hopefully the last maid my family will ever have though probably not, but for me maybe because I will never hire a maid, and to recover the sentence, since the new maid isn't here yet. I make the beds every morning, and I went from an hour to make 3 beds very leisurely to making all the beds in 20 minutes, the way I like it, neat enough to satisfy you but messy enough that it didn't take too much obsession to make. I washed the toilet once, watering the whole place and choosing random spots to scrub with detergent. I swept the entire downstairs till my back ached, and washed and dried plates. But the most alluring of all has got to be ironing. The hiss that emerges when the iron goes over a spot sprayed with water is quite tingling. And the satisfaction that blooms with every pressed, flat and nice shirt ironed is something that housewives surely take their daily little-joys in. The smoothness of the motion of moving your hand back and forth with an iron and the sound of water clicking and the addictive feeling of wanting to make more and more crumpled shirts smooth and pressed are all very well. But it is also somewhat a trap. You could wake up everyday with nothing else on your mind besides wanting to make the beds nice, water the beautiful flowers around the house, make good food for your family, wash the toilet till it is fresh and clean, and ESPECIALLY, to iron lovely clothes, all of which are actually very insignificant things. It might mean a lot to some people, but when I think about it in the context of....the whole universe, it means nothing. What is making a nice bed that resides on a puny microscopic part of earth, which is a microscopic part of the universe? I know I am starting to sound crazy.
So for now I'm not going to get a job. Everyday passes so quickly, and weeks pass so quickly. I'm going to keep up with the face painting so that by chinese new year I can convince relatives to hire me should they want a face painter. I think I'll do more papier mache and sell it somehow. I'm watching the history of rock and roll and Elvis Presley's first performance of gyrating hips and slinky looks and singing Hound Dog is just sensational. Bob Dylan is Robert Zimmerman. When people give me hongbaos on Chinese new year (which my father says is rude to reject and please don't cause us any trouble) I will be thinking, half a Bob Dylan cd...Yes, thank you, a quarter of a cd......while they go 'wah, so big already ah', 'wah, lian hen bai hen mei hor!' (face so white and pretty, which my grandmother's cousin with a saggy white face always says) and the FOOD. Longan tea and pineapple tarts and nuts and ohhhhh!!!!!!
Carpe Diem Goodbye
moled at 1/17/2006 07:53:00 PM
Bob Dylan ZOOM IN
moled at 1/17/2006 06:47:00 AM