A Christmas present to the world and back to you

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Leaking World

The world has been leaking
for ages.
Cracks were plastered.
Plaster cracked.
Cover-ups upon cover-ups,
until the inevitable burst.
From the credit crunch,
to the names of fall:
Freddie Mac, Fanny Ma
AIG, Northern Rock,
Lehman Brothers
and the latest,
down to a person,
Bernard Madoff –
mad and off.
Oh, not to forget
our Iceland
wobbling on melting wealth.
We should have known,
Icesave is of course, not safe.
Greed is a leaking vessel
who can't get no satisfaction.
As we are busy cleaning up
all these mess,
there's one worse coming
if we keep doing nothing.
Credit crunch of another sort –
the ecological bad loans from our Earth.
Oh my global village fellows,
can we survive the day after tomorrow?

Epilogue:
The picture is the view above my head in my office. The pipes on the ceiling have been leaking for months. Though just a drop of water fell onto my desk (or luckily on my head) once every hour or two, it's still a nuisance. We asked the building management to fix it but they just never did. So this was the best solution I could come up. A towel tied around the leaking spot perfectly soaked up the tiny amount of water. At first, one was enough, then more were asked in for help later on.

Day in, day out, I looked up, I contemplated... not sure of what and back to work. Finally, I thought, "What the hell, just post it and call it an accident piece of conceptual art." But somehow my writing took a surprise turn to a poem of some sorts. I lost my bearing on the way. Well, how could it not be? I didn't bring any map in the first place.

Banksy's Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill

For more eerie creatures – aged and sad-faced Tweety, porn-watching monkey and hotdogs (yes, they are actually alive), visit its official site. The physical shop at 89, 7th Avenue in the West Village of New York City was closed. (All the pets were sold out I guess?)

Wintry Thought

Finally the sign of winter comes as cold wind arrives from the north. The temperature drops to around 14ºC. It's enough to make many of us put our heaviest clothes on, while we stare in disbelief at some Westerners wearing nothing more than a T-shirt.

Few eyebrows were raised when I told others I actually quite enjoy wintry weather. To some who utterly despise coldness, it's just perverse. Let me clarify here, though I also very much enjoy a sunny day out on the beach, the chill of winter just doesn't bother me much. I find pleasure and beauty on the contrary.

Okay. I've long concluded that people in the world are divided into two opposite camps – Summer and Winter, roughly like Yin and Yang in the Chinese philosophy. On one side, you've got people who are extrovert, bold, hot-tempered, aggressive and most of all, winter-hater. On the other side, introvert, soft, timid, slower, melancholy and winter-dweller. (I didn't say winter-lover. They don't necessarily "love" winter but rather they feel relaxed about it, can be mellow in the cold breeze, the snow and the sight of leafless-trees.)

Here's a test. If you found pleasure in the video above, we are alike, "cold brothers and sisters". It's the trailer of the documentary film of the Icelandic band – Sigur Rós. What better place to represent winter than the Iceland? ICE-LAND. The land of ice. (For the "summer people", why on earth did someone decide to live there, it is madness beyond reason.)

When I first saw it, I felt rather like the title saying "Heima", "at home" in Icelandic. I just love the strange landscapes, the remoteness, the vastness, and the cold air that you can almost smell. And of course the music compliments so well with it.

Now here's the band one should at least memorize their name. It's the perfect kind of band that when conversation comes up around music, casual mentioning of their name can intimidate few and show off your distinctive taste and broad musical knowledge. But then again, that' s not the kind of thing that "winter people" do, we are low-profile, you see. What if you are the "summer people"? It's not your kind of music, is it?

Last point, I noticed that the lead singer Jónsi Birgisson wears only a T-shirt in the video. What? In Iceland? ...Whether hot or cold, it's a relative thing. 14ºC, It's summer in Iceland and everyone takes off their shirt and basks in the sun. 14ºC, It's winter in Hong Kong and everyone turns on their heater and sits around it.

What's your temperature? I'm 17ºC, I reckon. Perfectly happy on an autumn day when I can feel the coolness of the wind and the warmth of the sun.

Things I have learned in my life so far

1. I'm not big enough to be worshiped by myself.

2. The more I give, the more I am. [The more I am, the less I shall think I am.]

3. Marriage is not easy, so as almost anything that is worth striving for.

4. If I don't want to get hurt, don't love (or live, all together).

5. Being vulnerable, I can fear nothing. (Going into a battle, it's impossible to give a good fight when my well-being is my sole concern.)

6. Act first, then feeling comes.

7. If I didn't say "ok! I'm going to stand up, get down the street and buy some milk", and actually do it, I would never have bought a pint of milk.

8. Important things are not things.

9. Material satisfaction diminishes as soon as it was realized.

10. Art is useless, that's why it's so valuable.

11. Ordinary + Extra = Extraordinary

12. Nobody is not creative, just too many lukewarm souls.

13. Being pretentious is the sign of my own insecurity.

14. When cats encounter fear, they make themselves look big by getting their hairs standing. We are more evolved. We boast.

15. The hardest thing for human to achieve is to do good knowing that it's not done by one's own goodness.

16. It's ridiculously comforting to admit to myself that I am nothing but a small chrysalis. Nonetheless in my dream, I saw my wings – wings of a beautiful being.

17. God is there, and He is not silent.

Inspired by the previous post, I thought to myself – why not do my own version of "things I have learned"? I flipped through my old note books, past posts from this blog and my whole life basically. There you have it. Some points are related to others. They are not meant to be all inclusive. Just things I rate more important than others. Well, that's a bit redundant to say. We've been learning billions and billions of things since we saw the first light. But what really matters? That's the question. To nobody else but ourselves.

Things I have learned in my life so far by Stefan Sagmeister

I incidentally found that the rock star of graphic design (it's a bit limited using this term, he certainly has crossed that, but anyway) have recently published this book sprung from his own diary notes and the same titled talks he gave.



The DIY cover is very clever.
Looks like an extended execution from his previous work on Rolling Stones' 'Bridges to Babylon' album cover.

Here's the list of what he learned in his life so far.

To me, writing a blog is equivalent to keeping a diary.
It does support my personal development.
I'm glad I did.

Love is noise

I was slow to know that The Verve has it's fourth album (titled "Fourth") out on August.
I was even slower to know that they actually reunited last year.
Maybe I was buried by so many things other than what's happening in the music scene.
Here's the single "Love is noise."
It makes me want to jump up and down a bit.
Love the bizarrely mixed odd scenes in the music video, especially the North Korean parade.
Critics often accuse some bands of lacking progress or repeating themselves.
But for The Verve, we can forgive them.
Just love their original sound and hope they never change.

Buzz around Giorgio Morandi

I said earlier in my older post that Giorgio Morandi might not be very well-known.
I think I was wrong, or he and his paintings are getting more and more popular.
A new book on him ranked fifth on Amazon's recent best selling artist book list.
His retrospective exhibition is currently held at Metropolitan Museum.
And it's been reported on style magazines.
Following my own painting of toilet rolls appearing beside his on Google image search, a blogger Marisa Polin has put it on her blog along side... well, you know who.
Very flattered.
I'm going to do another experiment: put another still life up here and see what will happen.
It's "Three Jugs" I painted months after the toilet rolls, in a much realistic way as I was fascinated by the reflections.
It's now in the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt...
No, just joking. It's few miles away, on the wall of my uncle's house.
As a gift to him many years ago.
This is not a good photo of it. A lot of subtle colours has lost.
I wish I can see it real again, some time, in the future.

Silly Hoarding

Talking about hoarding, just round the corner another shop is under construction.
A watch shop, and they too try to do something with their hoarding.
You can see they are trying very hard to be smart.
But fell flat. Very flat.
This kind of pretentious crap really annoys me.
Who is responsible for this, the client or the creatives? I'm not sure.
The message I've got here is that either they thought the passersby are really stupid or they are.
"We don't know exactly when we will open. But it will be on time."
In advertising, making a paradoxical statement can win you some attentions, but it has to be conveying a sensible truth.
Nonsense remains nonsense, whatever rhetoric you throw in.
"Before opening we have to work 24 hrs a day. Like IWC watches."
Oh really? I don't see you working this morning when I'm on my way to work, not to mention at night.
Just what sort of thinking is this?
Silly. Liar.

Conceptual-art-like Hoarding

This is the most (and probably the only, as far as I can remember) interesting hoarding I've seen in Hong Kong.
A lot like a piece of conceptual art.
Drawing attentions from passers-by.
It's a new shop under renovation, near where I work.
Pak Sha Road, Causeway Bay, if you want to pay a visit.
I wonder what kind of shop it is.
I will be really surprised if it sells fans.

The Emperor Qianlong's Review of the Grand Parade of Troops

Another week of heavy workload.
Thank goodness we got a Chung Yeung Festival day off.
I went to the Sotheby's auction show held in Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
I planned to see the Contemporary Chinese Art session which was closed.
Instead there were some masterpieces of Chinese ceramics and works of art on show titled "Legacies of Imperial Power".
I was captivated by one piece – the Dayue tu (大閱圖), Emperor Qianlong's Review of the Grand Parade of Troops.

15 meters long. Meticulously painted.
It depict the emperor reviewing his troops which consists of astounding numbers of soldier on horseback – 16,000, I was told. (Save your trouble, you'll never be able to count.)
No larger than thumb size, one by one in formation, like duplications you can do on computer today. (Each is unique on close examination.)
No Western perspective representation here.
That somehow makes it look surprisingly modern.
It was sold for 67,860,000 HKD, around 8.7 million USD.
15 percent less than expected.
Blame the financial crisis, Sotheby's.
Or should I say the Émile Guimet family – former owner now.
How was such remarkable national treasure in the hands of a French collector?
Well, legal robbery.
By the French army officials in 1900 when the Eight-Nation Alliance occupied Beijing.
The French was controlling the Shouhuang Hall on Mt. Jing.
You can guess what was in there.

Giorgio Morandi Revisit

Recently, I found that this blog got a lot of traffics coming from Google image search, and they all directed to my older post on Giorgio Morandi.
For some mysterious reasons, my own painting "unofficially" became a Morandi painting on the Google image search. (It's on the third page, not bad uh?)
It's quite gratifying.
Apparently, some people was looking for a Morandi painting and saw mine.
"Toilet rolls by Morandi?"
"That's unheard of."
Click.

About this WWW, I observed:
1. By just a fraction of uniqueness, image generates more clicks and traffics than word.
2. You don't need to find the audience, the audience will find you.
3. The rest is a mystery.

Rocky Took a Lover

He said 'I wanna shine in the eye of Orion
But I drove my soul through the Black Hole!'
She said 'What a wonderful way to wake me
You weren't so nice last night
You're such an asshole when you're drunk'
He said 'At least I'm OK in the mornings'

He said 'The three wise men came a long way
Following that pin hole in the sky
Yeah that one right there'
She said 'I don't believe in any old Jesus
If there was a God, then why is my arse
The perfect height of kicking?'

He said 'I'll shine for you, I'll burn for you
Yea I'll shine for you, that's what I'll do'

He said 'They're like headlights
In the rear view mirror
They're closer than they seem
And from this gutter we're still staring at the stars'
She said 'Would ya go away and shite
Last night all you did was curse those stars
You said they sang to you of hope'

He said 'The sun gives life, and it takes it away
But like all the greats, it'll burn out someday'
She said 'I don't mind, I don't want to get bored
I don't want to end up beached on this shore
I want to be that star'

And then I'll shine for you. Then I'll burn for you.
Then I can shine for you. That's what I'll do

My all time favourite song. Just never get tired of hearing it.

Ingeniously written, both musically, lyrically. Every line spills out wit and poetry.

Casual teasing between lovers reached up to heavens. The stars smile and were moved.

Check out this Irish band – Bell X1. Not a household name, formerly known as Juniper before the departure of lead singer Damien Rice, whom you may know better.

Yea, why my arse the perfect height of kicking? ...There must be a God.

Perfection. Perfection. Perfection.

Found at home this forsaken knitting manual. It's a very very old book, probably published in the '70s.

The cover picture made me stop and look. Besides its odd and funny styling, something was not quite right here. The guy on the left half-opening his eyes. The guy on the right looks bored by the photo shoot.

Happening today? Head transplant operation straight away, digitally.

An art director myself, I know nothing gets published until every detail was retouched to an immaculate state of perfection.

By the vehicles of the media, the most influential force on human's perception and psychology of beauty may well be... Photoshop.

This award-winning Dove TVC makes my point.



It's been 2 years old, you should have seen it. If not, share it with your girlfriend.

It might challenge her obsession on her own looks.

I suspect more likely, she'll ask you to start learning Photoshop.

Our Sixth Sense - Humor

It's a timely reminder in these few hectic weeks. Thank you, it's very comforting.

Sending e-card these days is like telling your buddies you're still a big fan of Backstreet Boys. Not a very cool thing to do. Yet I found this atypical e-card site – Someecard, which is worth our reconsideration. No cliché sentimentality, but healthy banters, plain sarcasm, and something slightly over the top to someone's taste.

Still not fancy sending? At least you can copy a few satirical remarks that might come in handy.

For example, "Congratulations on having just enough Facebook friends to appear popular, but not needy."

Mark Twain said, "Humor is mankind's greatest blessing."

For the sake of yourselves and all fellow human beings, acquire the skill.

On my way to Lithuania

Because of the Olympics, my colleague Mike asked me what's the English name of Lithuania (He learned it's Chinese name – 立陶宛). I forgot the exact spelling, just remembered it's somewhere between the Eastern Europe and Russia as she's part of the former Soviet Union. I looked it up on the Google map.


It's a clear day. The sun was setting. As I flew across a vast field on the south of Ukraine, a strangely looking house appeared under the clouds. It's like a fairy floating dwelling in one of those Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿) films. I couldn't help but to stop and find out. I asked the locals what it really was and why it was biult in such a way. Well... all answered back in Russian (I took two pictures though). That really didn't matter. Facts are not important in a dream. And we are in a dream land.
The great thing is you might visit there in reality one day, you never know.

In Thankful Memory...

It's been a terrible week, to say the least. My cat died last Sunday. We had to do the painful decision to let him go. His kidney had lost all its function and his condition worsened. It's been an emotional roller coaster. I've never imagined the loss of a beloved pet would induce such deep pain.

It took me awhile to let the feeling sink before writing about this.

Humans seem to go quiet when they grieve.

But, grief is a place we should never dwell in for too long. Staying there, even time is powerless to heal.

Dose with tears and thankfulness. And move on.

The Taming of the Fox

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"
"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. "It means to establish ties."
"'To establish ties'?"
"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

. . .

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."
The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

. . .

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--
"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."
"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.
"Yes, that is so," said the fox.
"Then it has done you no good at all!"
"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:
"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

– An extract from The Little Prince


It's more than 9 years ago, my wife brought home a white tabby kitten, rough and feeble. We fed him, washed him. We took him in out of intuitive affection, not knowing how exceeding joy he could bring us. Many sweet anecdotes, few scratches and "love bites" sandwiched between.

He's the smartest cat in the world (comparing to my other one, at least). He talks (he knows when my wife is on the phone and "meow" for it). He has his own little tricks to open door (even sliding door), pick the best part of the food, do his pee and poo nicely, avoid the medicine...

He's no longer just like a hundred thousand other cats. He is unique in all the world to me.

He was diagnosed with renal failure after an usual check-up. We were heartbroken. For the past months, we've been taking him in and out of the vet numerous times. We never thought that a sick animal could bring such a heavy feeling – this magnitude of sorrow when seeing him weakening and...

If he said "I never wished you any harm; but you wanted to tame me..."

I would answer, "Yes, that is so. But it has also done me good. When the sun shines on the whiteness of my apartment walls, it will bring back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the sound of every 'meow'."

Someone told me, "Don't love if you don't want to get hurt."


"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."


Who's my rose? Who's yours?

Things I learnt from Travis gig

1. If you want to sound friendly and honest, speak with Scottish accent.

I love the funny sound of Scottish accent. Very down-to-earth. That's also my overall impression of Travis. ("We arrre from Scotland nee England", as Fran had to stress that during the show.) Polls reveal that people believe those with Scottish accents are more trustworthy and honest. Language reflects culture. Maybe they really are, generally.

One thing bothers me though, why when people sing, accent disappears?



2. Music connects us, emotionally.

I am reading two books at the moment – This is Your Brain on Music and Social Intelligence. Found an interesting correlation. A part of our brain called amygdala which is long considered the seat of our emotion is responsible for both our musical enjoyment and social interaction.

That may explain why music moves our emotion so much and we feel "one" with the band and audience when we are listening it live.

In the middle of the show, Fran did an unusual thing. He said, "it's funny that all you guys, total strangers, come together, standing and touching each other, all because of this same love for a band. That's actually quite amazing. Let's do a social experiment. Turn your face to the people around you and say 'Hi' to each other."...Oh, that's when the embarrassment came in. Our rational side took control. Most people reluctantly did as told...mostly to their own friends.



3. If you are really passionate about something, you'll be creative about it.

Their last song of the show was one of their best hit – Why Does It Always Rain on Me. As soon as the music started, two umbrellas were raised above a sea of heads at the very front row. (see one in the middle of the picture?) It surprised everyone including Fran, who couldn't help but smiled at them. That day was a fine day without rain. Some die-hard fans must have prearranged it. It's a small gesture but made a big impression on me.

Nobody is not creative. Just too many lukewarm souls.

5 Favourite Words

While we are in this postmodern era of visual-worshiping, let's not forget that books have changed the world more than movies do. (Of course, books contain pictures and movies contain words, but you know what I mean.) So, let's take a break from pictures and Youtube today. Just words, words, words.

Words like people, food and music, I prefer some over others.

My top five likings, in no particular order:

LOVE – Simply for what it is and everything that goes with it.

ACQUIESCE – Learned from an Oasis song Masterplan: "...cast your words away upon the waves, bring them back with Acquiesce, on a ship of hope today". Haven't got a clue what it means. Just love the phonetic beauty of the word– act-queer-us. Uhm...

DESPERATE – We need to be sometimes.

PARADOX – Some words just look like the way they mean and mean like the way they look. This is one. Paradox ends with "X", which to me looks like two arrows going against each others (><) – a powerful symbol of contradiction. Above all, I have this compulsory obsession with everything paradoxical – from a quote, an image to a Margritte painting. (I desperately love to have another blog solely for it.)

ETHEREAL – It's ethereal.

A word knows how to paint too.

Abstract Beauty

When I was an art student, once my art tutor asked me why I didn't paint abstract arts. I replied with some naivety, "To me, everything I look at can be an abstract art – a stained wall, a rusted steel. What's the point of making more?"

Of course, now I know things are more complicated (or cultivated) than that. But I still believe there were some truth in it. If you look at something harder and longer enough, you can discover art in almost anything.

If you don't believe me, take a simple test. Look at your palm. Look, like you've never seen it before. Stare at it. Gaze upon it. Follow every whorls and lines. Let them tell you that this is your hand – the very hand that you made the first touch, held your love one's, and probably felt the first pain.

For a moment. Take everything in. Now "screen cap" this image, imagine you can blow it up and frame it on a pure white gallery wall. Behold. it is a beautiful piece of art. (By the help of Lady Fame, it could be auctioned for a fortune.)

To further prove my point, can you tell what the below image is?


Take a deep breath and click this link to find out. (Hint: it's beauty above all.)

Travis rocks

It's the Autumn of '97, a girl told me this band rocked. Heard this song, loved them ever since.

Back then, Fran (the lead singer) got more hair and looked like the son of his present self. Oh dear.

On 31st this month, I'm going to see their gig at the AsiaWorld Arena in Hong Kong. With the girl. Now my wife.

Cornstarch's Resume

Name: Corn Starch
Date of Birth: Refer to package
Sex: Desexed by now
Marital Status: Separated
Nationality: Mexican

Education:
None except the fact that I've been through hell tortured by hours and hours of soaking, grinding and dehydration before becoming who I am today – fine, very fine.

Qualification:
Member of Non-Newtonian Fluid

Work Experience:
I work mainly in a kitchen as a thickener, binder and baking flour. I'm a good team-worker. I mix well with others like water, different sauces and other fellow flours. I've actively participated with enormous contribution in many highly successful and delicious recipes. Examples listed below.

Hors d'oeuvre and Soups:
Prawn Toast, Eggplant Tempura, Hot Sole Mousse with Creamed Watercress, Cream of Artichoke Soup, Chicken & Sweetcorn Soup. (Too much to mention, in fact all kinds of Campbell soup if you insist to know.)

Main Courses:
Grouse with Pear Sauce, Pizza Base, Beef with Orange, Oregano Braised Lamb. (To mention but a few.)

Desserts Cake and Bakes (My Specialties):
Couscous Pudding, Portuguese Cream, Mini Shortbreads, Spiced Sponge, Creme Caramel, Black Forest Cherry Cake, Oeufs a la Neige. (The list can go on and on.)

Ambition and Dream:
Not to be swallowed in sauce, soup or your stomach. But to be free in water and soundwave and freaking DANCE! My awesome Oobleck Dance! (A sample attached.)

Bubbly Bubbly Happy

It's like colour bubbles floating in liquid air. Happy!

Not getting enough?



OK, got addicted?



It could be one of those Sony Bravia TVCs (Balls, Paints and Play Doh). There's just something in common. If you haven't seen one, here's more stop-motion, colours, joyfulness, and bunnies – lots and lots of them.

Beautifully Dissected

Not a piece of conceptual art. It's a dissected Leica lens. Looking through it, you capture your image perfect. Cutting through it, a beautiful work of art by itself.

It's funny how things can get really unfamiliar and strange when we see them in a different light.

This prompted me to Google the words "Dissected" and "Cross-section" and see if there's any weird or beautiful image popping up. Here are some of my picks. (Actually I ended up getting most good ones from Flickr.)

Grab a chainsaw (or borrow a laser gun if you can). Cut everything up, every　　　　thing shows up.

Apply to human too, metaphorically speaking, of course.

The Selfish Gene

This morning, when I was walking out of Starbucks with my blueberry muffin, a lady in front of me stopped and sided before the exit door, expecting me to open it for her. Hurriedly in automatic mode, I pushed the door open and she followed me out without a slight sign of gratitude.

After thought: I still would have acted generously if I had paused and examined exactly what was happening.

I feel sorry for her, for Hong Kong generally. Having lived in London, one virtue that really impressed me was how people of all classes (which they're so obsessed with) hold the door for others even someone is miles away approaching. Don't expect the same here. Instead you will find comical scenario where upon the first person opening the door, the others after will slip past it with silky moves comparable to those of Ronaldo, until, the door is closing to an impenetrable state. Then the cycle starts all over again.

It's funny. It's sad. Imagine this one particular moment of selfishness (or just utter laziness), multiplies by a thousand times, to become the total sum of all she does in her life. What would that be? A negative number, not even a zero.

I don't want to be self-righteous, feel superior and pass judgement on others. I want this to be my own exhortation. It's certainly not some big, philosophical teaching I discovered myself that I want to preach to others. (it's called Altruism, I learned.) No. I just don't want to waste my life DOING NOTHING. To me, that act of not opening the door for others and myself is DOING NOTHING. I may think it's doing me good, saving me some energy?...(I can't even think of anything else.) But in fact I have done NOTHING valuable to even my very ME.

"Hey you
Threw it all away
By holding everything in
...
a perfect combination of good etiquette and charm
You keep the chocolate biscuits wired to a car alarm
Oooooooooh
Selfish Jean"

Fran Healy, Travis

Banksy x Hirst

Doing a bit of research on contemporary art, found this piece of old news:

Title: “Keep it Spotless”
Artist: Banksy x Damien Hirst
Date: Valentine's Day, 2008
Venue: Sotheby’s NYC
Cause: (AUCTION) RED for AIDS relief
Sold: $1,870,000 USD

Overheard Hirst:
"Deface my art. Sell millions. For the good cause. Fooking Brilliant Idea!"...
"What can you do with my Sharks? Mate."

Viva La Vida

Now, millions worldwide have listened to it and thousands of review have been written. It's topping Billboard 200 album chart with over 720,000 copies sold in its first week. Can't be too bad. No British music has done that for a long while.

I'm no music expert or critics. I will just tell what touches me musically, and I think that's what music is all about.



I believe most people would agree, the climax of the album has to be Viva La Vida. Today on my way to work, my iPod was playing it just when the bus hit the highway. Fantastic! Do you have the same feeling that some songs are made for listening on a car or a train? Everything you see outside seems like beats and sounds materialized. Cars drum the same beat. Trees harmonize with the chords. Birds soar with the vocal. Your personal music video in the making. Viva La Vida is exactly this kind of song. Escalating. Enthralling. Exhilarating. While the lyrics is about the dethroning of a king, it makes you feel the exact opposite – you are the king of the world!

I like the acoustic version of both "Lost?" and "Lovers in Japan" more. Not sure why. These few lines warm my heart:

"Just because I'm losing
Doesn't mean I'm lost
Doesn't mean I'll stop
Doesn't mean I will cross..." (Lost?)

"Lovers, keep on the road you're on
Runners, until the race is run
Soldiers, you've got to soldier on..." (Lovers in Japan)

The album starts off with "LIFE in Technicolor", ends with "DEATH and All His Friends". Title wise, it's an obvious choice. But more magically (even spiritually), at the end of "Death and All His Friends", It has this extension track "The Escapist". Here we come back full circle to the same tune of "Life in Technicolor", just this time instead of purely instrumental, Chris Martin sings,

"And in the end
We lie awake, and we dream of making our escape"

It's a masterstroke.

Not a collection of songs. But a symphony of Life with 10 movements. Bravo!

Staple it the wrong way

This was the "freak statement" made the other day by my usual trusted Staple who is happily going about his business normally. My first reaction was one of amazement with a cry out, "what's wrong with you?"

I showed it to my colleagues. Everyone was puzzled. Until there is always one Mr. Knowhow who came along and explained everything. My staple is actually one of a kind possessing built-in function that can change gears from the normal staple's ends in to the advanced version of ends out. This makes a pile of documents less bulky at the stapled ends. Wow! What a revelation! (Excuse me for my ignorance if you knew this mystery long ago.)

This incident alone made me feel that day was worth while living. A simple design solution was found in the wrong place. That's an enlightenment. A lesson worth remembering.

"Wrong can be the other way right."

Ok, I know what you mean, Staple.

Extra and Ordinary

An extra named Extra
who felt his existence an extra
to everybody and this world
on his way to a film set,
met an ordinary looking girl
named Ordinary
who felt like everybody else that
she's just very ordinary.
Nonetheless, Extra thought
she's the most beautiful girl he ever met.
They fell in love.
One day,
Extra said to Ordinary,
Marry me.
Let's make our life
extraordinary.

- To my Ordinary -

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The final note of Steve Jobs' June 2005 Stanford University commencement address.

A lot of people may have read it before, but still, I want to put it here.

I wish I could have heard it on my graduation.

I wish I would have always said the same.

There were days when I said to myself, "I have enough."

But now, give me back my crayons and paper, please.

How rich do you feel?

Attended a conference yesterday, there's a question about what's the goal we wanted to achieve in life. Not surprisingly, roughly 80% said they wanted to be rich.

Apparently, we all think somehow we are poor or at least not as well off as we would like to be (I'm no exception).

Came across this site: the Global Rich List.

Type in your annual income and you'll see where you would sit on a global scale.

See if you feel differently.

Stop-motion

At the moment, stop-motion seems to be the in thing, here're 2 pieces which caught my eyes.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Enormous dedication.

Enormous production.

me VS the WORLD

Surfing through the WWW, left me with just one feeling – absolute despair.

Too much to learn, too little ti/me.

Incurable Is Nothing

Sore throat is something incurable. At least that's what I thought up until today. As far as I can remember, you could never stop it before it inevitably led to coughing, sneezing or even worse – fever.

Last week, funny enough, for the first time in my life I went to see doctor because of a sore throat. Yes, just a sore throat! But deep down I thought it's not going to help. Why? You may ask. It's not cancer, AIDS or anything! Well, my experience convinced me that "oh shit, bad, going to be sick, again."

I found no alternative plot in my past.

The truth is: I could not do anything about it because I had never tried to do anything about it.

Now, that vicious cycle breaks. I'll go see doctor every time I've got a sore throat.

Impossible is not always nothing (Adidas will disagree), but many times, it's something only in our mind.

Autumn in Spring

Nature must have lost her diary or something.

Autumn popped in this week. Gorgeous weather. Cool, dry and blue sky.

Love the smell that came along. That intense scent/sense of Autumn. Words are useless here. The closest description I can think of – a bit like, you're in love.

That's cute!

"That's cute!" – the compliments I've got wearing this tee lately. All from females.

This struck me that females, even in their thirties, adore cute things. I know a few friends who still keep stuffed animal by their side. They talk to them, sleep with them, and even goto gym with them. Once my friend was taken aback when someone introduced her little buddy to her.

Advertisers can use more cutie stuffs when talking to our ladies. Why not? It's immature, too playful and not "corporate" enough? Who cares? Apparently except the marketing people. And ironically they are largely female (Just ask how many cute merchandises on their office desk).

We may not be as Kawaii-laden as the Japanese, but surely we are not as grown-up as we think we are.

Loosen up a bit, stay a little younger. What's wrong with that?

Once

Just saw this movie. Beautiful beautiful movie. Beautiful beautiful songs.

How often do you meet the right person?

Once.

The Omnipresence of Pun

Strolling around Central, found these 2 pieces of sign. If you know Cantonese, you'll see how the puns work.

"FORM PRINT" => "CONVENIENT" (in Cantonese)

"WRONG design" => "KING" of design

We call it "食字" (literally means "eating word") in Hong Kong. Arguably, THE most overused ad copy trick in the past decade and there seems no stopping.

Young@Heart sing "Fix You"

I've got goosebumps watching this. Can't quite put my feelings into words. The magic is that such a beautiful song about lost, failure and hope was sung by an elderly man approaching life's end.

When I first listened to this song by Coldplay, near the end, I thought it's like:

"...Tears stream down your face, UPON THE SEA WHERE I will learn from my mistakes..."

And tears filled my eyes.

But I found out later in fact it's "...I PROMISE YOU I will learn from my mistakes..."

I'll stick with my wrong impression though.

Banksy

Love this guy's works. You can goto here to see more of his street art. And this is an interesting note I found on his site:

"You shouldn't mess with graffiti writers. The longest recorded piece of graffiti was painted by a student in the toilets of his college at Changsha, China in 1915. It consisted of over 4000 characters criticising his teachers and the state of Chinese society.

After completing this masterpiece the student handed himself in and was paraded in front of the school and threatened with expulsion. The student was 22 year old Chairman Mao. A graffiti artist who later founded the People's Republic of China and was responsible for the deaths of over 30 million people." (Chieh Fang, Chinese Army Magazine, December 1968)

Long Live Graffiti Artist!

blowing plastic bag

Remember in the movie "American Beauty", there's a scene of how the boy next door Ricky Fitts discovers the beauty of a plastic bag blowing in the wind. Here you are, same ingredients plus a bit of imagination, a dragon comes to live on the street of New York.

In Every Sunflower

This is a beautiful song I recently love. (Sorry, it's not really a video.)

"I wouldn't swap the pain
For never knowing you"

It's true, I believe, for anyone who has ever loved.

From what I was told, this was written about the band's vocalist - Paul Noonan's long term girlfriend, who was killed in a car crash late at night driving to see him after a gig. That makes it even more poignant.

Paul Arden

"The person who doesn't make mistakes is unlikely to make anything."
– Paul Arden

The best piece of advice.

Sadly he passed away early this month.

Read all his books. Be inspired.

howies

I fell in love instantly with this brand.

I haven't owned any of their product yet, but I've downloaded all their wallpapers.

They give life back to copywriting. You inevitably felt happier, fresher and more positive towards your environment after sipping through some of their writings. It's optimism full of wits. You know how hard it is to do creative for the good cause. Either they are using shock tactics or just self-indulgently boring.

When today, most ads are very visual-driven, this is a breath of fresh air. Too many brands are hollow and stand for nothing anyway, they (at least it seems to me by brief observation) hold onto some values and beliefs above just making profits.

Giorgio Morandi

Someone may notice the header image is a painting by Giorgio Morandi. He may not be very very well-known. But once you've seen his paintings, the mug you use to drink tea everyday will never be the same.

I remember my first encounter with the name "Giorgio Morandi". Many years ago when I was an art student, I was stuck not knowing what to paint. I picked up 2 rolls of toilet paper, put them in a "not so mundane" way and started to paint. My tutor saw and said it's very "Morandi". I didn't have a clue and looked it up. Shocked.

roof top2

In Hong Kong, we crave for space.

The roof top up high is our backyard. We hang our clothes and play with our kids. Taller skyscrapers engulf, privacy is a luxury. But then again, nearly everyone is too occupied to look out.

roof top

A moment outside my office window.