[fun sketch] no cities left

This used to be a giant and prosperous country finely divided by the flows of rivers and climbs of mountains. My ancestors dwelled along the Labyrinth of Minotaur, or 'the Myth', a local dialect mastered by a city of less than a million people. I am a descendant of the Myth's blood and they bathed me in the Maid of Krynn. The gentle streams soothed a baby's first cry of life.

But there was no Myth, or it seems nobody remembers it anymore.

I was born Lance, at 21° 18′ 30" E and 40° 25′ 20" N. My fiance Sasha is to meet me at at 15° 35′ 50" E and 45° 11′ 15" N, 17:00 just before sunset. People stopped asking 'where's the place?' a long time ago, or 'where are you from?'. We live by coordinates to the nearest precision. Everything's restructured in a way that leaves no room for redundant descriptions. Still, we say the sunset is beautiful, or intoxicating in its grandeur and forgiveness. Nature, both mother and us, hasn't changed much in the core.

The stellar express is travelling at a speed of 5000 miles an hour. Maid of Krynn flashed by below my feet and disappeared as quickly as it came. It spans 5° North and makes a sharp turn to the South in which it continues another 2° East before hitting the valley. That was high school geography my teacher taught me. My great-grandfather said, the Maid was borne under the belly of Myth, sprang it open and ran wild like an abandoned child. After conquering the Mountain of Knosses she grew tired and tamed, and quietly returned to the labyrinth. I know its vein as if it runs in my own blood wailing for an ancient map that's now burnt to the ground.

What marked the territory was now erased and names were denounced. The great War of Autonomy, or so they recorded it in print broke out a hundred years ago when Sanderstone first claimed sovereignty. Cliffton followed. The two largest cities threatened to throw the country into hell. Death toll soared across borders where people shed gallons of blood to claim bits of land smaller than their fingernails. It's funny nobody has an accurate account how the craze ended. All I know is, after the pledge for cease-fire, we were again united as civil men and women, on a land where no cities should exist.

I was shaken out of my reverie as the express halted abruptly at the destination. I stepped out of the gateway to see Sasha jumping to her attention.

'Ranpasarrrr!' She called out in a jolly note. Around her people turned at the foreign sound.

'You don't have to roll your tongue so much you know. It gives me the creeps.' I managed to feign a scowl.

'Don't you - '

'Ranpasar,' I pecked her lightly on the cheek. She smiled and poked me in the ribs. We looked at each other as if to reassure, and slowly started to walk towards the terminal.

It's 15° 35′ 50" E, 45° 11′ 15" N here, or at least that's where we are headed, the midpoint between our birth coordinates. Two days later a wedding shall be held.

However my great-grandfather won't bear witness to the reunion. He didn't even live to see how well Sasha learnt the word.

Ranpasar, with or without the extra 'r's, is saying in Mythical tongue - My love.

***

O man, what a hasty lazy ending. - Jude
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Now playing: The Shins - Kissing the Lipless
via FoxyTunes

[fun sketch] the third man

(A first! No idea how this was envisioned in your mind--a character sketch? A plot outline? I'll make a mini story this time.)

(Year XXXX, doomsday climate on Earth. A flood broke out somewhere in West Africa, engulfing villages, turning grasslands into soggy swamps and submerging miles and miles of grounds. The most violent outbreaks of the storms would see countless number of human beings flushed away together with domestic animals and wildlife. It was a most despairing sight.) - unnecessary background writing. =p

Two teenage boys are carried away from their villages in the Flood. Though neither of them knows how to swim, sheer luck sees to it that a sturdy wooden cabinet floats nearby. Bobbing up and down and under along the rapid, muddy deluge for days until, on the barren waters, they see a giant, lone tree breaking the surface. Carefully steering the cabinet float, the two boys paddle and finally arrive, climb up and dry off and stay stationary and have all those pleasures one can have dwelling in a large tree.

Days pass; the 'anchored' cabinet gets torn away in a subsequent storm, the bitter-sour fruits in the tree are barely enough to sustain them any more, and the boys were getting desperate. But what can one do? They fall quiet after hours of discussion.

Only to watch the water rise higher steadily by day--numbered are their days. So finally they thought of this--carve the big tree into a canoe--that, at least, they can do-- and leave the rest to fate. Now that they start to regard the tree, they realized how gnarled and unusually grotesque it is: a thick trunk broke into two great branches abruptly, sickly crimson patches dot the twigs, parts of the trunks have caved in, and even some full-girth stretches seem too mushy or rotten to be of any good. They wonder if there was some reason no other tree grows near it in sight. But in the end they picked a short stretch on one of the main branch, marked the ends and decided to work on the carving the next day.

The night, however, didn't go so smooth. Both of them slept fitfully and when they woke to another scanty meal of unpalatable fruits, they related their dreams of the previous night. It was revealed they had a same little dream. A foreign looking man (fair and short, slouching slightly) accosted each of them and said these broken words, "…so cold…old...ake it for 3..shall be rewarded…4 o'clock at four…three of me." Though it injected a little lively talking to the dreariness of the days, mystery and freak incidents were not too welcome, and they warily put the topic aside after a while and set to work.

But it was mission impossible, with next to no tools and little strength left. The boys take turns to hack away at the chosen branch as if just to let out bursts of despair and anger while passing the time. The very night came another dream. The same man, pacing impatiently about, eagerly gestures to them. He makes a Y shaped sign with his arms and body, and nods his head vigorious, finally shouts, eks!!

This time the two boys are fearfully intrigued, they feel the message--if at all--was from nothing good, but seem to have a strong sense of purpose and direction. - What's 'eks'? What was that 'Y' shape about? And then it stumbled across one man's mind--could it be the tree?

The place where the two great main branches come together is a circle enough to stand three persons, and has accumulated soil and epiphytes over the years which the rain has made into a mini swamp. A little digging reveals an already brittle wooden bar--dig and pull it out: a medium sized axe. Some further work unearths a small spade, two daggers and an iron bar, all severely rusted but still useable. The boys almost panic with the flute, odd discovery, and work with compelling frenzy.

Days later, the snug little thing was almost ready. Just enough for two boys to sit in, it awaits to be cut off at the ends and fall into the water beneath. The strange man appeared a third time in their separate but same dreams, angry. "I said you would be rewarded for 3. I'm the third man on your canoe. Or else..." dream broke off here for both of them, for a raging storm broke out in the dark night. Struggling to hold on to the branches and twigs in the strong gales of wind and rain, the two boys were anxious and fearful, for they felt a presence around them, or about the tree. but what of the 'third man'? There weren't any people in sight, in fact there was only the endless waters, and the occasional sight of corpses of people and animals languidly or rapidly floating past and away…not even a dead body for a soul to sit on.

And then one of them slips and tumbles down the web-like top branches straight into the muddy pit between Y-shaped main branches. Gushing rain had made it a true swamp, and in a blink of an eye the man sank chest-deep--a depth they never even arrive at in digging! Frantically kicking to find a foothold, the man thought he brushed against something round and slippery--deep in the mud? But he has gripped the edge of the pit, and hoists himself up.

In the morning they set to investigate it--the first man has a feeling that that deep buried something may have something to do with the third man and his haunting dreams. After some strenuous clearing of the mud--curious scraps of unnamable, rotten material abound--they saw what it was: the back half of a human skull lying deep in the dark pit.

So the two boys took the skull with awed reverence and together set off for escape in the canoe, and was rescued a day later by a search boat.

***

The flood recedes and is completely gone years later. The grassland recovers slowly. The boys are now young men and good friends, and they never cease wondering who the third man was, and what his words meant.



...(to be continued. yawnzzzz)

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Now playing: Mai - like in a film
via FoxyTunes

SMR7 - Bluecat's Story

A night of endless pondering and fitful dreaming later, I joined my friend Bluecat for breakfast and this was the story he told—

SMR6 - Quiet before the storm

Monday afternoon. The sun was high in the clear sky for the second day running and the townsfolk knew then summer was officially upon them. A jubilant mood seemed to infect the small town, even the postmaster got out of the somewhat grim office he liked to squat in day to day, and was seen basking in the warm breeze, smoking a pipe and beaming at passers-by. The only unfittingly grim person, however, seemed to be me.

Three days had passed since I delivered the mail to the Mansion, and though there was no mail coming over the weekend, I had been finding myself excuses and pretenses to be around the mansion. I kept back letter No.25 and dropped No.31 and No.6 (now made 16 by me) in the mansion mailbox on Friday morning, the house dead silent in the morning shower, and in the afternoon when the storm stilled a bit, returned to deliver the left out letter. I was almost going to drop it in the mailbox as usual, having taken a good look at the solitary house in its desolate neighborhood, but something in me nudged and nagged: This is a perfect opportunity to find out…if No.6 mattered, if anything mattered at all…and I was both shaken and emboldened. I had hardly put down my hand from pressing the bell when the heavy oak door swung open again, and this time the Mr. King standing before me was even a stranger person.

It was startling to reflect that it had been only a few days since I last and first saw him, and his already translucent skin seemed to have gone transparent, revealing small, purple veins crawling underneath his skin, the neurotic hand holding the door had its index finger freshly bandaged, and there were subtle water stains on the front of his otherwise spotless trench coat ( in this weather?) All these I took in within a fraction of a second, his crumpling frailness and extraordinary fatigue...but his nonetheless severe gaze on me was crushing my self-assurance by the second, and it was almost within one breath that I stammered out a thin story of the discovery of one mis-sorted letter stuck to the bottom of the bag and…'Yes, boy, that will do. Thank you.' He almost tore the letter out of my clammy hand and shut the door promptly. In that fleeting moment I was sure he for once lifted his gaze from my face and looked out beyond the gate. It was as if he was expecting someone…or not. Uncomfortable to linger on for another moment, I shot home straight, and only later did I realize the reason of my discomfort: the dreadful man himself was dreading something.

The next day, I went to ask my neighbor and good buddy Bluecat for a favor.

***

Bluecat was the son of the plumber of the town, Bobilong, and barely two years older than me, he was already making a name for himself as a better plumber than his drunkard of a dad. Though he's a humble and loyal friend, the best kind you can have in a closely knit town, he's not someone to confide in—he talks to his imaginary pet—a 'blue cat'—all the time! He had it since he got lost in the wild prairie some time when he was four or five, and after he magically made it home, wide eyed and feverish and mumbling—everyone then had thought he was a gone case and already preparing memorial services—he had talked down to the ground since, sometimes seen stroking and tickling air, addressing it as 'kitty kee' or more fancifully, 'master K'. When asked about who he was talking to, the reply would invariably be 'can't you see this magnificent diamond blue cat?' People thought him a little nutty from the incident, but who could ask more from a soul supposedly lost forever to them? So they gave him the nickname and joked and laughed about it, so much so his given name gradually dropped out of people's memory. Bluecat would pause anytime in the middle of his work, in a conversation, snap out of a nap even, to talk to the cat. Most things he said usually made little sense to anyone at all, but through the years Bluecat had also blurted out some things that alerted and puzzled the older folks in the town—they said a young lad like him wouldn't have known those things even if he were literate and cared for books, for they were really old history and some people would rather see them remain buried. Bluecat just shrugged; my poor friend never knew why or how anyway. A wizened gypsy woman who wandered into town every 2 years or so even wanted him to apprentice under her, and if not for Bluecat's mom insisting that he stayed and took care of his young sisters and brothers, he'd have gladly gone to see the world with his feline friend.

***

So I went to Bluecat, asking him to go to the mansion and see the man. I didn't tell him the real reason—god forbid if he should tell that to the cat in the middle of town square!—instead I told him I thought the mansion was in bad shape and might be suffering from termite problems, and it was good for business if he cared to offer to inspect it. I also told him that although the man might seem severe and disagreeable, he was really a kind-hearted soul. Bluecat didn't even think about it twice, said he'd go there after he got a job done in an uptown household, no problem at all, and set off with his satchel.

***

The rest of the day I sat on the front porch, peeling onions and waiting for Bluecat to return. The rain was reduced to a dribble by dusk, and almost stopped completely when it got dark, but no sign of Bluecat even then. Mom called out to me for dinner for the third time, threatening to lose her temper, so I reluctantly shuffled inside, disquietude starting to nibble at my mind—what happened to Bluecat? Is he in trouble? Did that Mr. King see through the tricks and realize the true intention behind? Could he have attacked Bluecat? The last thought almost catapulted me out of my seat, earning a solid warning glance from mom, so I collected myself and finished dinner in record speed.

No, Bluecat can't be attacked, I thought as I sneaked out of the backdoor, thinking how thin but how strong and agile he was, never beaten in a street fight. Maybe he was running other errands after seeing the mansion? …but this was too late. I climbed over the fence and landed into the soggy vegetable bed at the back of their house, and seeing that Bluecat's attic window was still unlit, I pulled down the secret rope ladder and climbed up into his room.

A bunch of us used to play more often in the attic when we were younger, and long time had passed since I last landed there through the window. The room hadn't changed much though, the childhood toys and models in abundant disarray across shelves and sketches of house plans and also of Master K plastered the walls. The bowl of fish cookies for the cat was still by the foot of the bed, some of them even appeared broken and corners nibbled off by sharp teeth—maybe rodents? I picked up a loose paper and quickly drew a few symbols, put it in the bowl and weighed it down by cookies. Now all I could do was go home and wait.

***

…the sycamore outside my window shook and sighed loudly, I looked into its shadow and saw a cat, a diamond blue cat, scratching at the trunk of the big tree. I shooed at it and it turned up its eyes, and I shuddered uncontrollably—its eyes had the most woeful yet most resentful look, and its face was almost transparent, with blue veins crawling under the fur, it was almost like…

TAP! TAP!

I suddenly opened my eyes and realized I had dozed off and this tapping sound must be Bluecat! I hopped to the window and there he was in the garden, picking up small stones and aiming for my window. When he saw me he waved and gestured a few words—'I'm OK, talk to you tomorrow!' and I gestured back through the quiet night and was so relieved.

lyrics contest

sighs zhu, i realize there are technical problems in having more than one shoutbox on one page, so this newly constructed shoutbox only made a fleeting guest appearance on uku before been taken down and transferred here...with my fully knowledge that there's a resident (but much disused) shoutbox here too. Never mind that first, I don't see a great flurry of posts gushing into ss anytime soon, so let's just ping pong lyrics here.

uku uku

整个下午窝在瘸腿椅子里做ukulele beta版，站起来去买晚饭时腿居然麻了。一天下来什么正事也不想做，不想做事的时候大概就只能做模版..什么逻辑。

以为很难转换的beta template(其实应该说blogspot 2吧，人家都从beta毕业好久了)，仔细看了一下code，发现其实很简单，就是在CSS里面裹来裹去，换几个名字，加上一点新的，删掉很多无用的，差不多就是个可以见公婆的小媳妇儿了。uku是初试，所以花了不少功夫还是个不折不扣的丑媳妇，缺胳膊少腿，歪歪斜斜的眼眉就是整不端正，活活急死人。最后做完了发现其实变化也有限，好像保护文物一样，整旧如故，大概也只有做过的人知道有什么名堂罢。

习惯性的几乎每天看uku的webmeter stats，哪怕更新一点都不勤。不知道还有没有人像我，好像有强迫症一般，吼吼。除了世界地图比较好玩之外，referring url page也是很有趣的地方。你大概不知道uku人气最高/最常被搜的帖子是哪一篇吧？呵呵，是你那篇 Gedo Senki Kashu和Aoi Teshima的super review，不少人都是搜Teshima的歌词才点进uku的。有人前几天才留了言request歌词，不知你看到没。还有其他一些很好笑的或者很莫明其妙的search word combination，总之都end up在uku了，笑...

偶在想忙完了这一阵，要好好地，regular地给uku浇水施肥之类的。不过写review好严肃啊，一个月有一两篇可以啦 （或者两个月有一篇...哈哈...不过某人欠的norah还是要写的哈），还是轻松的推介比较好玩。希望不是五分钟热情...

Gay icons

This is too hilarious and fun, have to keep a copy.

Ten Gay Icons as chosen by Rufus Wainwright

Sunday November 12, 2006
The Observer

1. Judy Garland

Judy is not a gay icon at all. She is somewhere far beyond that. She is a gay beacon. A gay saint. She has led the way through the darkness for some 50 years. Whether it's the Wizard of Oz or the Judy at Carnegie Hall LP - these are brilliant touchstones for the gay experience. A kind of communion takes place between a gay listener and Judy. And of course there is the drink and drugs counter-story, which is very gay for one reason or another.

In the postwar years in Western culture, it has become somehow socially acceptable to be drunk and stoned. There is such a gay fascination to that story. Gay people understand a party, that's for sure!

There is no level on which Judy Garland doesn't connect with gay men. She married one, for chrissakes!

2. Stevie Nicks

Certain intellectual gay men obsess over Stevie. She is a dinner party conversation in herself, served up as a kind of hors d'oeuvre before a conversation about the Pre-Raphaelites, or something. She separates interesting homosexuals from uninteresting ones.

3. Dusty Springfield

Blessed with great artistry, she never let her lesbianism get in the way of it. Because she wasn't open about it, she gave herself the right to enjoy being a lesbian in private. It didn't diminish her. In the end, cancer claimed her; there's an iconic price for an iconic life.

4. Madonna

There's a dark force at work here - she subverts everything for her own gain. I went to see her London show and it was all so dour and humourless. She surpasses even Joan Crawford in terms of megalomania. Which makes her a kind of dark gay icon in itself.

5. Kylie Minogue

I love Kylie, she's the anti-Madonna. Self-knowledge is a truly beautiful thing and Kylie knows herself inside out. She is what she is and there is no attempt to make quasi-intellectual statements to substantiate it. She is the gay shorthand for joy.

6. Morrissey

Whether he's gay or not, he is the gay Elvis. He is among the greatest entertainers of our time. The banter, the dancing, the stage-craft, it all conspires and you know exactly what Morrissey is. He is heroic. He is a total package, like Dean Martin or Prince.

7. Barbra Streisand

Ugh, Barbra! You've got to hand it to her. She got everything she ever damn wanted and she does manage to maintain her insanity on such a highclass level. I respect her deeply. She's not as sinister as Madonna and she gives us some hope.

8. Pink

She's slightly left-of-centre in this deeply conservative pop world. She's not it, but you'd have more of a chance of finding it by using her as a conduit than you would if you used Britney Spears. You know, Pink is what I would call a 'gateway drug'.

9. Prince

It feels weird talking about Prince as a gay icon now but you have to applaud a black man in the American record industry who could be so playful with androgyny. Justin Timberlake wouldn't do that. He is a marine dressed as a pop star.

10. Kate Bush

She is the older sister that every gay man wants. She connects so well with a gay audience because she is so removed from the real world. She is one of the only artists who makes it appear better to be on the outside than on the inside.

飛べない翼

Once again.

I can’t help it; I watched Lily ChouChou again and yet again (within one week). When Salyu sang her 'Wings that can't fly' and Shiori pulled the strings and beamed watching the eagle-like kites, heart wrenchingly innocent and delicate, and so happy, I wept. Could only weep, and then more weeping. I can’t describe it. just breaks me.

Towards the end I got so tense. Because I could not remember the ending. It's been...eighteen months now, and my memory appears a moth-bitten carpet. I remember...crouching in the dark watching it for the first time with you in the home sty, I remember muffled gasps and tears (was it just me..) and going to bed with heavy heart and my face somewhat swollen and neither of us saying much besides a confused, broken discussion. (think Lily Chou-Chou is in many ways always associated with those hot summer days in Suzhou and the smell of the bamboo mat in your air-conditioned room). I couldn’t remember...what happened to Hasumi after Hoshino died. When he played a few notes on the piano at home and the camera cut to his torso quite still in midair my heart clutched itself and shuddered in fear, fearing that he might have hanged himself and that I have forgotten. (But how could I, if he did such a thing, or anything at all??) The ending came to this scene, billowing sunlight and Debussy, and the resemblance of this to the Love Letter scene struck me only now. My infinite respect and gratitude for Shunji Iwai, for giving closure (like how Ondaatje said a storyteller should do), and calm, pulsing hope.

And I just got more moRE mORE nostalgic for Kokyu and Salyu-as-Lily Chou-Chou. Saw this fictional discography of Lily Chou-Chou on the wiki page, beautiful, Lily-styled names, why can't they produce all of them?!

• 1stアルバム『ジュエル』　

1. みずうみ
2. 三つの扉
3. 踊る魚
4. 愛の実験
5. 犬の眼
6. オルゴオル

• 2ndアルバム『エロティック』

1. 共鳴
2. 孤独の瞬間
3. ビデオテープ
4. 化粧をしない生活
5. 家
6. エロティック
7. 約束の日
8. 指先
9. 悲しい瞳
10. 沈黙の木

• 3rdアルバム『呼吸』

1. アラベスク
2. グライド
3. 友達
4. 土曜日の郵便
5. 飛べない翼
6. セーター
7. 飛行船
8. 花の瞳
9. 九月の雨の心臓
10. 回復する傷