Tuesday 27 December 2016

The greatest view




THE GREATEST VIEW. Written while my wife was asleep. Start writing at 2.31 am 26th December 2016.
And here we go.

------------------------------------

Story telling part 1 : bla bla bla on comics

My mother told me a story of the day she knew I was different from other kids.

It was when I was 4 years old.

Back then, my mom was just starting her career at Kwong Yik Bank, and my father was a clerk at University Malaya.
Their life was quite a struggle but they got it fine.
Mom just gave birth to my brother, and so they moved out from their rented house at Kampung Kerinci, to a rented Bandaraya flat 'house' at Bangsar.

Room 313 13th Floor Blok A Flat Seri Pahang. The rent fee was RM80.00.
(I wrote this address as I read there was a proposal from DBKL for project to somehow "renew the flat" sometime in 2015).

Blok A Flat Seri Pahang

My mom and father was resting on the couch watching TV, when I suddenly took the newspaper, opened the TV schedule page,
scanned thru the pages, then proceeded to change the TV channel to watch cartoon.

In front of them.

Then they realised I could actually read.

Actually I think I got whacked then for changing the TV channel without asking permission.

They did suspected before that I could read earlier, because I would spent my time looking at the comic section at the newspaper,
(yeah the comic section was below the TV schedule, ie. same page) but they didnt exactly knew what to do and they don't want to ask much from me the little kid because they were afraid I would threw tantrum if I was disturbed.
(they had enough trouble and tired-ness tending to my new-born brother).

Back then they bought Berita Harian newspaper on daily basis, and bought Utusan Melayu only on Sundays as there is a dedicated section for malaysian artist gossip pages on Utusan Melayu. And they realised I always flip around the pages of the newspapers.

I think they did wonder if I was actually enjoying the sexy artist photos. But I was 4 then. I could just threw tantrum if they even asked.

They were proud, but as tired parents, they didn't know what to do or what to expect.

Those time, there was one incident in the 80's (or 70's, I did'nt remember) when
Ungku Aziz (the 1st Vice-Chancellor of University Malaya) took a genius kid to be
under his tutoring and care but somehow things didn't work out. The boy didn't become a great contributor to society as expected.

His name is Shukri Hadafi. Go and google it up. I'm too lazy.

So what my father did after he realised I could read?

He bought Gila Gila comics every month to encourage my reading habits.



This was helped by the fact that around the late 80's or early 90's, I did'nt remember the exact year, when Gila Gila publisher rented an office nearby my flat.
The exact location was behind the Maybank big office at Bangsar.

And so, my father would supply me Gila Gila comics, and as a happy dumb talkative kid,
I would read loudly the jokes inside the car while we went to Jalan Imbi to fetch my mom back from work.

Sometimes I was too tiring for them, and I got scolded as I lack the ability to tone my voice down.
Kids are cute but the excessive high amplitudes can drive tired parents to nuts.
Amplitude


But the comics buying didn't stop.

They did figured out that I was quiet when I read comics alone by myself though, so they guessed correctly that these comics were a kind of
pacifier to make this high amplitude noise kid calm and stable. (they have two boys somemore, and you know how struggling it was to have two high amplitude noisy boys).

My mom shared this enlightened knowledge with her sister, and her sister bought Gelihati comics to her two daughters.
She must have been tempted with the pacifying impact of comics to children (and it can teach your kids to read too), but I heard my aunty stopped buying Gelihati sometime after that.
I guess my uncle, who had served in the military, didn't like his daughter reading the funny pages.
Could be the high amplitudes created.

(Talk about the funny pages, yeah, there was a scene in the movie Godfather, Al Pacino told Marlon Brando that his kid too are able to read the funny pages on the newspaper.)



Some years afterwards our family went out from Bangsar and off we go to Kajang as my mom had bought a house there from her salary which was quite good. (her career was picking up)

I think they donated the comics when they moved out, to save space. Sometime afterwards they bought videogames then, the Micro-genius game pad connected to the TV but then decided to "close-down" that because we were just too noisy.

 Not to mention that the game-pad was broken after 4 days of usage. (you know how boys are. naughty boys aren't elegant with their toys)


the awesome Microgenius

Some time afterwards I started to cut photos of jet fighters, tanks, SCUD rockets from the newspapers (it was Gulf War between US and Iraq back then), my parents noticed it, and they started purchasing the Perajurit magazine on monthly basis order.

My mom would splashed us with whatever we desire. She loved us and she felt guilty about not spending time with us due to her career.

Hence, the comic buying never stopped. It just got better. Now I have more reading material to keep me quiet.

Used to cost only RM5


You know scrap books? My teacher once asked the class to make our own scrap books. Some drew. Some kids glued dried leaves.

Hell, I was the only kid in the class who had a scrap book full of photos of jet fighters, tanks, rockets, military info from the newspaper and Perajurit
magazine.
I was proud, damn well I was.

Actually I wanted to cut and glue the newspaper comics but newspaper always disappear with the surprising appearance of a Chinese guy in the lorry screaming "Old Newspaper!!".

Explanation : there were serial comics appearing 3-4 comic box strip daily in sequence. You have to follow it day by day to catch up with the story sequence.

And so if some of the newspaper edition is missing you will not get continuity in the comic story. Cutting it and pasting it to a scrap book will drive you nuts
because you keep figuring why the hell it happened and how the hell it ended.

So I went for military stuff. I was helped by the fact that the world never bores itself from war with its full of maddening people killing each other on
everyday wars and conflicts that it enabled me to have "continuity" in my scrap book.

My brother didn't share much of my reading interest (except for the DragonBall,Mutiara Naga, Shinchan, etc.)
and luck must have it, by this he saved a lot of parents money by not demanding reading materials. Why should he? He could read mine.


And Doraemon of course, how the hell I forget?


Somemore he had picked up a good socialising skill, which that he knew when to talk and when to shut up when my father had a bad mood.
I didn't. Maybe because I was too self-centred, which I guess I am.

And so, I got screwed more often than my brother.
My brother must've learned the skill while observing me getting screwed.

And yet, my lovely parents would not hesitate to buy comics or magazines or whatever expensive books whenever I asked.

This is supported by me getting good grades at school, scoring full A's at UPSR, PMR (now PMR is called PT3).



My relatives did screw my father on why he whacked me like hell, but he just don't care.
He didn't want to spoil me, didn't want me to become like that genius kid that Ungku Aziz took for care.
And I now realised it's actually because I'm stupid enough not to shut the hell up when the need arises.

When I got good grades for UPSR and received a letter for MRSM boarding school, he didn't let me go there.
He thought that even though I will be surrounded with smart kids, those kids will just be Malay people only.

He wanted me to mix with Chinese and Indians, because it's essential for me to pick up a good command in English.

He was from the Islamic-religion-curriculum-based boarding school, and when he went to KL for work after school,
he didn't get good jobs because he could not speak English well. He ended up being clerk despite having a wife working as
assistant manager in the bank.

He wanted me to become like my mom who learned in English curriculum-based schooling. English = better future.

And the beautiful coincidence in this MRSM story is, I didn't get separated from the funny pages.
If I went, the comics would've been lost by some mysterious intervention.
I would've miss reading Dragonball, Mutiara Naga, ShinChan, etc. and my brother would've been the one to beg for the comics.

When I was form 1, my father started buying the Star newspaper on Sunday, weekly basis.


To me it was good because the Star newspaper Sunday comic section have more pages than both Utusan and Berita Harian combined.

I would spent time reading Thelma's section (the section where people asked Thelma's opinion on their personal problems)
and the zodiac section to my parents, on Sunday.

Sometime near afternoon while waiting for the rice to be nicely cooked, I will be asked for the reading.

But I would enjoy devouring the comics section first. Then I would read Star2, especially reviews on new music album releases.

By the way, now I realised why Thelma is good. It is because she's a women. I think only women can write a full page describing and advising
marital and family problems.  If he was a guy, he would not written that much words. Married men tend to ignore
other people marital and family problem. Some married guys I knew even tend to forget that they are married. <=sexist joke.

You might wonder why the story ends here. It is because Form 1 afterwards, I had new passion. Metal Music!

Ok end of part 1.

----------------------

story telling part 2 : the reason why the hell story telling part 1 was written

And so I received this from PosLaju on Friday 23'rd December 2016.

(photos of unwrapping)






I just unwrapped it on the night of 26th December 2016.
In front of my wife.

She was quite sarcastic because she didn't understand why a 34 year old fella would spend money on comics.

Being a smart husband, I just shut up. (thank you father for the experience)

Furthermore, I had the guts to borrow her smartphone to capture pictures of me unwrapping it and whatsapping it to my phone.

Hell, I need to tell Prince Of Noob the delivery had arrived, and what better way to do it than sending jpegs of unwrapping
his delivery and said "bro, thanks, delivery arrived, nice wrapping, wife likes the wrapping bubbles, she's pinching it now".


 Notice the wrapping bubbles there?


The camera on my smartphone had become a disappointing piece of equipment due to neverending abuse by its self centred owner.

(So now you know why I had to unwrapped it few days after I received it as she went for end year vacation and just arrived home
on the night of 26th December 2016. A very Einstein-like husband right?)

By the way, she then realised I knew her phone's password so she quietly made a new one when I was asleep (or so she thought hehe)

Comics, even though silly to some people, it actually provide you the greatest view that the artist wanted to draw.

The word count is less, yet the drawings are expressive in its elegance.

They express it in sketches and drawings. They expressed it in "views".

And my childhood are filled with these views and made me to become a good reader, with passion for books.


I've searched in Google Image of the word "view afar" .This is what I got.



I have tons of respect with the people who worked on the BuasirOtak comic (I knew some of these guys online) since they are better than me.
They are able to express what they had in mind better, funnier, with depth.

Better than me who write bla bla words in this blog just to express myself.

Since I know some of the guys involved in the BuasirOtak comics, let me tell you something.

This is a DIY (Do It Yourself) project. These people did it on their own free will and spent their time making it.
Or what can be written simply as "passion".



I knew DIY publications from the underground punk scene in Malaysia.
If you ever heard of Food Not Bombs,
they made DIY magazine (a very cheap production with just A4 paper being folded and stapled,) and sell it,
and the small profit there is used to cook food for the poor people on the streets.
I knew one of the guys in Food Not Bombs Penang.

Usually the DIY publications from the punk guys, are about articles on music, the latest underground album and bands, and so on.
It was common with the cassette tape-trading culture in the underground scene.

There were numerous DIY punk magazines in KL, Johor and Penang (so far as I know and bought), not just Food Not Bombs;
these people did it not for profit, but just for their simple undying passion for music, uncorrupted by the needs of money and so on.

Food Not Bombs International


 Food Not Bomb Penang "branch"

Back to BOTK, this 4th release of BOTK is a major improvement from the last series of BOTK comics.

It's not just a good job. It's a great execution. It's more humane, with depth. The jokes are still there. But the focus now is more on the message.

Actually, if they want to get their message across, they could've done it in a "4 or 5 box comic strip on 1 page".

But hell, they expressed it in a storyline.

And it come out elegantly beautiful.

Go and get it. Go to BuasirOtak blog and contact Prince Of Noob for an order.

To the team involved in the 4th BOTK, thanks, and really, you guys did a magnificent job.

The thank-you note here is because you guys subtlely taught me something.

People nowadays, are like me. Talkative, too much words, noisy.
Look at facebook and see there how people criticizing people, expressing views with neverending words.


Did you see their world getting better?


The world will be better if the people had great "views".

And you guys did just that. You didn't drowned me with words.

This 4th BOTK release just gave me, in its own passionate and elegant way, what you guys thought, with the greatest view you could made.


"Greatest View"

You're the analyst
The fungus in my milk
When you want no one
And you got someone
Through the wind
You crawl
And laugh at burning dunes
When no one else will
Ever see

Now that you know why you feel like you do
They're turning their head whilst they wait
For no one
And finally I know why you feel like letting go

I'm watching you watch
Over me and I've got
The greatest view from here
I'm watching you watch
Over me and I've got
The greatest view from here

Mistakes don't mean a thing
If you don't regret them
So pack your tactic toes for the winter
Chain a waterfall to burned and withered skin
No-one else will ever see

I'm watching you watch
Over me and I've got
The greatest view from here
I'm watching you watch
Over me and I've got
The greatest view from here

Now that you know why you feel like you do
They're turning their head whilst they wait
For no one
And finally I know why I feel like you're letting go



Silverchair - The greatest view - acoustic @ Nova Radio 2002




Small notes:-

(notes at 3.30am 27 Dec)
My wife just woke up.
Being a smart husband, I have to go now and pretend that I woke up to go to toilet.
Hence, I couldn't much do editing on the grammars.
Good bye!

I wish my wife could've made sketches instead of nagging words to punish me.
That'll make me a better husband hehe.
(end of writing 3:32am)

(10.30 am 7th Dec :To be uploaded to the Net the next morning due to crappy Internet back at home, and still the writer did'nt edit the grammar.
Didn't he told you he was self-centred?)


(11:23am Had to post this 3 times. Screwed up big time)




Monday 26 December 2016

(-) vity

1.  The world is drowned in hypotheticals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypotheticals

I think I told some people about me writing stuff but not publishing it.

First, about Aleppo, and what Malaysian facebook-ers are debating about it.

Then about the funny pages (Sultan Melaka, Amran Fans Official (head-changing body fella haha), Si Rashid, etc).

Damn he even works at TV3 haha

Then those pages who claim about being critical about the society, but from what I've seen, they like to comment Islamic things critically, then the ones who comments the most are the Non-Muslims.
That it seem like the Muslims are shooting their own legs by making fun of their own Islamic stuff, and letting Non-Muslims laughing about it. Or so it seems.

Then this Tuan Guru Haji Hadi, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party president, went to Iran, and people debating whether is it moral to go to Iran when Shias are killing Sunnis at Aleppo.
And these people bla bla bla as if a pint of blood can be saved from spilling from the killings at Aleppo from their debating.

In the end, I find a simple conclusion. And so those thousand words and bla blas I've written, are not elegant to describe it.

Whatever it is, the popular issues that happened and the chicken noises about it, are just conjectures.

Really, give a two-minute thinking about it and decide whether the issues there, are really issues, or just conjectures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjecture 

Actually those so called hot issues out there, where you see people shooting and criticizing each other, question yourself,

Do they really know what they are talking actually? Or they just knew small facts about it?

Whatever happened in Middle East, is bloody complicated, whether in Israel or Syria. Read a lot about it from books and newspapers in the Net.
And if you know it, you should know that, you don't have any idea, or what you have is just small information, to justify you shooting at people in Social Media.

So please. Just refrain youself.

(Update and Edit :
Actually Malaysian were in bloody conflict before. Read about the Malayan Emergency.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malayan_Emergency
Anyhow, none of the newer generations in Malaysia really experience it as the Malayan Emergency ended at 1989.
Mistakes have been made in writing this...so I deleted some writing)




2. Being (-) without knowledge screws things up

Especially being sarcastic about it.

My wife went for holiday with her family, I didn't follow due to personal things (huhu), and so I invited a relative to stay by.

Then somehow, when we started to enjoy things together, he had an asthma attack.

Some stupid argument happened along, because he thinks it's just a minor attack, while I wanted him to go to hospital to be nebulised (is it a correct word?) because his ventolin puffs are clearly not working.

And somehow we did went to Sg. Buloh hospital.

He was given two nebuliser treatment (one nebulised bronchodilactor treatment should do the trick, but if was too bad, the doctor will give u a second round of it, and if it was not enough, you might be given epinephrine injection)....and he was prescribed prednisolone and medication for coughing.

Yet he told me, warm things should do the trick. So he had hot tea drink then went on for a ciggie puff.

"There I feel better", he said.

Then on the car going home, things were not looking so good. He blamed the car air-conditioning bad ventilation.

Somehow I sent him home.

When I tried to explain medical things about asthma, well he didn't agree with it.

He had his own ideas.

And so, I just shut up. There's no need to argue back. I'm not a priest, and hell, I'm not a medical doctor either so why the hell he should believe me.


For Asthmatic people out there, if your ventolin or nebulisers didn't relieve your difficult breathing, go to a clinic or hospital, damn it.

If you think I'm wrong and you're Einstein, then no amount of info could change your mind. All that is left are prayers and God to decide whether to enlighten you or to suffocate you.

You're damned by your conjecture.


In the end, I spent my Christmas all alone, scanning photos from my father's album which I found earlier, and enjoying my Sunday Remembrance of him (refer to previous post).

And lately, I'm learning to listen to jazz. Hell, it's lovely to have a warm cup of drink and listen to Miles Davis. Alone.


Kind Of Blue is beginners to Jazz hehe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kind_of_Blue

Kind of Blue has been regarded by many critics as jazz's greatest record, Davis's masterpiece, and one of the best albums of all time. Its influence on music, including jazz, rock, and classical genres, has led writers to also deem it one of the most influential albums ever recorded. Kind of Blue was one of fifty recordings chosen in 2002 by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry, and in 2003, it was ranked number 12 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Being alone listening to Miles Davis with a hot cup of coffee or tea is like metformin to (-)vity of  this small world. It just lowers the -ve function.

Notes:

(-)vity = negativity

Forgive my English. I want to write in English as a practice as it's not my mother-tongue. But if you don't forgive me then don't.

It is because..


Sunday 25 December 2016

my own remembrance sunday


Lest we forget.

Photo taken on 28 September 1982 at Bangsar, KL when this fella was 6 months old.

Photo taken on Sunday 30 October 1983 at Bukit 'B' Kg. Kerinci Kuala Lumpur 

So it was Christmas 1983 when this fella was looking for his milk bottle

Oh this fella was with his dad on Christmas 1984. 

My father had written notes at the back of each photo above, noting where and when he took the photo of his son.




The term "Remembrance Sunday" is actually https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Sunday

Remembrance Sunday is held in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth as a day "to commemorate the contribution of British and Commonwealth military and civilian servicemen and women in the two World Wars and later conflicts"
"The poppy flower is worn around the time of Remembrance Sunday"

 
But I would like to enjoy my own remembrance sunday with warm bright flowers instead.
 

Merry Holidays guys. Merry Xmas.

Friday 9 December 2016

Maya Deren

Note : This is artistic shit that might bore you to death. But I liked it and so it is here in this blog.


I knew of Maya Deren because I listened immensely to Godflesh (their magnum opus in 1989 and their 90s period), and one of the Godflesh outcomes in those successful period, had this cover.


As per Wikipedia, this cover is taken from of the photo-scenes of the 1943 film Meshes of the Afternoon by Maya Deren.


And this is Meshes of The Afternoon.



Derens film clearly demonstrates a dreamscape atmosphere through over use of stop action cutting and abrupt editing. The abstract camera angles and movements generates a dream like quality that allowes audiences to question and wonder into a subconscious level. 
With all of the abstract editing and symbolic imagery, its evident to believe that Deren and husband Hammid wanted to show an artistic visual of the subconscious through film. Viewers that watch the film are lead to follow a normal narrative, but gets fooled once the first shot is displayed. There are many subjective shots that parallels with camera angles and movements. These technical shots are obvious to the viewer,while also subtle to clues and symbolism leaving an open ending. 
Derens objective for this film was to create a poetic visual art film, initially an avant garde personal film with her husband. However not only does this film carries out as an avant garde, but also is considered one of the most influential and powerful experimental films ever made."

Maya Deren (April 29, 1917 – October 13, 1961), born Eleanora Derenkowskaia (Russian: Элеоно́ра Деренко́вская), was one of the most important American experimental filmmakers and entrepreneurial promoters of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer and photographer.

The function of film, Deren believed, like most art forms, was to create an experience; each one of her films would evoke new conclusions, lending her focus to be dynamic and always-evolving.[1] She combined her interests in dance, Haitian Vodou and subjective psychology in a series of surreal, perceptual, black and white short films. Using editing, multiple exposures, jump cutting, superimposition, slow-motion and other camera techniques to her fullest advantage, Deren creates continued motion through discontinued space, while abandoning the established notions of physical space and time, with the ability to turn her vision into a stream of consciousness.


 One of her other movie which I considered as bloody cute yet artistic is The Private Life of Cats, made on 1947.

Anyway, this is a documentary on Maya Deren.

You can read this book online now.


Thursday 8 December 2016

sunshine in the bedroom




I wanted to write something, but seems overpowered by my emotions, with episodes of life's ups and downs.

I'm no longer working from last November.

I worked back the relationship with my brother.

And the three of us (the 3rd person is my mom) are finally "emotionally" together.

====

From last November, there's this telenovela "7 Hari Mencintaiku" which my wife love to watch tremendously. Either she admire the actress Siti Saleha cuteness with her cruel arrogant attitude in the story, or maybe my wife has a secret crush on Shukry Yahya the main actor, or enamored with the patience of his character.

I'll be honest.

The first 3-4 episodes, I hated it too much that I locked myself in the room, and told my wife I'm busy with my prayers 
(This telenovella had the unfortunate timing of being aired on Maghrib, ie 7pm, where pious Muslim guys are usually at the Mosque) 

Then I realised, that the hate is actually because I'm traumatised by some shit that happened to my family before, ie. divorce.

I wouldn't tell you the overall story of us. Nevertheless, it is suffice to say, it had a big impact in me even though I didn't think much about it when it was happpening back then.

I realised I was emotionally heated up whenever the characters in the 7 Hari Mencintaiku, whether the Mak Leha or whoever, ask both the wife and husband to get divorced and start their own life.

I was emotional. Yet I couldn't cry because I couldn't understand why I'm so riled up.

I was in heavy thoughts while watching Buletin Utama (the news that was aired after the telenovela) about me getting riled up, that I didn't give a damn about the recent hu-ha's in my beloved country.


No matter what the news said in its sugar-coated language, the economy is in bad shape, people are feeling the pinch, and they don't give a shit much about political allegiance. And being preached every day about the political correctness and the wrong ways of the opposition every minute, made us deaf.

It made me deaf though, empowered by my thoughts of getting riled up by 7 Hari Mencintaiku.

While watching the propaganda machineries, I finally thought that actually, even though I'm not bothered by the divorce or the shit episodes of it, 

I was truly hurt by it.

And the telenovela is just the same as the propaganda machineries, telling me again and again of what I'm hurt with.

Since I'm not working, I visited my Mom few times, and my brother few times.


===============

Since my wife visits her family in Cheras weekly, I went to visit and slept at my brother's place when she made the visit.

My brother and I talked together, played music together and prayed together, and spent time with our Mother whenever possible.





And this two tracks is what I felt about this.

"Son Of A Gun"
(originally by The Vaselines)

Up up up and down
Turn turn turnaround
Round round roundabout
And over again
Gun gun son of a gun
You are the only one
Makes any difference what I say

[Chorus]
The sun shines in the bedroom
When we play
The raining always starts
When you go away
I wish you guys the same happiness I felt now. Thanks.

Photo Source : Google
https://www.google.com/search?q=kitten&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHvtDE-OTQAhVFQ48KHX8VC20QsAQIGA