she only loved two things. the first was her long dark hair. the second was how easily she could cut it off, and feel nothing.

i loved love love the movie. its quirky, funny, sincere, cute, light, witty and comes a lovely soundtrack which i bought promptly after the show. its playing on itunes as i post.

i had already found joseph gordon-levitt endearing as tommy solomon in 3rd rock from the sun and that was the last time i saw him as a teen. i did some cursory search on joseph gordon-levitt and found out that he is in fact my age and share the exact same birth date as i. another thing we have in common is the lack of spatial intelligence and direction sense. in an interview he says, “I get lost all the time. My sense of direction sucks. I remember time real well. I think everybody’s mind works really differently. I remember time real well and remember space pretty poorly.”

zooey deschanel looked really familiar but i couldn’t put a finger to it. imdb enlightens – she was trillian in hitch hiker’s guide to the galaxy (2005). also starred in many other mainstream movies like yes man and failure to launch but i didn’t see those. zooey deschanel also sings and composes, often her music is used in the films she is cast and its ost. she is the “she” is “she & him“. she recently married ben gibbard of death cab for a cutie.

i loved how the movie has a relationship with the city in which it is set. joseph gordon-levitt’s character is an architect by training but not by profession. but he still loves the craft and often sketches architectural designs. ooh, i love sketching, i don’t sketch enough. i loved the scene where he explains to zooey deschanel’s character how space can be better utilised in congested nyc by drawing the skyline on her arm and also tells her how long each building has been here.

i wish i could nurture that kind of relationship with the city of singapore where a structure can grow with me and chart my journey. i wish the creative industry in singapore can devote more time to ponder on that and produce works along those lines, not in a documentary but something more fictional and wistful.

mumm-ra’s she got you high is my favourite track of the ost.

in a bid to read the novel before the movie adaptation, i completed reading my sister’s keeper by jodi picoult within a week. its rather readable, easy to follow and i particularly like how the story is told from multiple points of views of the various characters, each struggle to respond to the crisis before them and their own demons.

books will always occupy a place in my heart and mind where movies are a poor substitute. i find myself having had journey more with characters in a book than in a movie, possibly because of a motion film’s technical constrains such as script writing, cost, marketability and attention span of the movie goer, etc. as a result, characters in book have the advantage to develop more thoroughly and endear themselves to the reader closer than a movie can since reading can take place anytime, anywhere and over a longer period of time.

even after i’ve finished reading the book, the characters continue to live inside my head as i speculate how they would deal with the next phrase of their lives after the closure of the said crisis. every now and then, i check back with the para-social relationships i’ve cultivated and find out how they are – with is a constant state of unadulterated clarity and happiness. they’ve achieved closure, arrived the wiser and accomplished some enlightenment, so maybe so can i.

i think revelation from literature occurs only when what the book offers is engaged with what we bring into it. the result is catharsis.

the fitzgerald family taught me how to love and let go of loved ones. good people in our lives are a gift, sometimes they enter in passing, sometimes they stay longer, but eventually everyone dies. i’ve come to treasure extremely dearly certain relationships in my life, so much so that i fear the resulting end of it when death comes a knocking and takes one of us away. i’ve planned for hypothetical succession so that legacy of love once found can continue. but that too isn’t a bulwark against what will claim us all. so this is what i can finally say: no matter what the circumstances turn out to be of mortal separation, i’ll say proudly – it was an honor to have met you, the privilege to suffer loss is mine to bear and i wouldn’t have it any other way.

in my less then extensive width of reading, i seem to have come across more analysis and celebration of sisterly relationship then brotherly ones.

my sister’s keeper is of course about the relationship between a sick sister and a life-giving one, but other than that, there are two other pairs of sister relationships that are painted so vividly in the novel that it could reflect any one of us.

the other book i’ve read about the love-hate, bitter-sweet relationship between sisters is a short history of tractors in ukrainian by marina lewycka.

within the same family, the dynamics of misunderstandings, idiosyncrasies and pms are rife in sister-sister relationships in a way that does not exist between brothers or brother-sister relationships.

on a macro scale, there is a solidarity between women that cuts across cultures, religion and age. i believe that it partially stems from the history – and in some cases, reality – of marginalized womenfolk in many societies. and partially from the common painful and binding experience of menstruation and childbirth, and of course the much debated role of the woman at home, in the workforce and in her dealings with man.

capable of both sensitivity and brutality, when push comes to shove, women will come through for each other.

i only see my sister suzanne once or twice a year. she lives less than an hour and several thousand philosophical convictions away.

- my sister’s keeper

last night i attend the glass percussion project at the national museum. the set up was pretty – delicate and fragile, even delicious like lollipops.

the performance however was not what i expected. for about an hour, Eugene Ughetti made the glass squeak, howl and mourn without momentum or tempo. it literally sounded like random wind chimes, microphone feedback and clanging chemistry laboratory apparatus.

i’m sure there was very sophisticated audio and precision engineering involved but i think i would very much prefer the catchy crash! boom! bang! of stomp.

last night, d.r. and i attended “the complete works of william shakespeare” by the reduced shakespeare company at the drama centre.

it was my first time attending a performance at the drama centre and i loved it. it felt up close and cosy – perfect for an intimate performance.

the trio from the rsc sustained a high level of energy and wit thought the 2 hour performance. you don’t have to be an avid reader of shakespeare or a thespian or an academic buff to enjoy the show. in fact, to the uninitiated, this is an insightful and light hearted keynote address to shakespeare in a nutshell.

the 37 plays are not equally divided upon 97 minutes. in fact hamlet took the entire half of the performance after the intermission. the comedies of shakespeare were condense into a 10-15 minute gig aptly called ‘4 weddings and a transversite’.

i was pretty pleased with myself that i knew where mid summer’s night dream blended into the tempest and when twelth’s night began and when all’s well that end’s well ended.

there was also audience participation and occasionally localised to humor the singaporean audience. it shows that they do their research and bother about heightening the enjoyment for the audience profile. it was commented that the history plays was like a game of football with the crown tossed about, pretty much like how liver pool trounced the lions for the victory.

true to shakespeare’s plays, there were also many sexual innuendos that i suspect didn’t get the attention of all the audience – which made it even wickedly funnier.

all in all, it was a great show where the performers gave 200% of themselves.