Richard Hawley’s Don’t Stare at the Sun

Good art makes us see something we normally don't.

Credit to director George Belfield.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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.