Month: April 2008

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Mara And Dann By Doris Lessing – An Adventure Of A Sister And A Brother During The Next Ice Age

Mara and Dann by Doris Lessing

Having read a few of the books by the Nobel Price winner in literature, Doris Lessing, I am curious about her another genre that is not popularly accepted by the critics – science fiction.  So I picked up “Mara and Dann” (year 1999, 407 pages) from our National Library.  I have not read all of her thirty over books yet but if the book publisher describes the heroine of this book as “one of Doris Lessing’s most appealing heroines”, I would gladly take their words for it is a nice departure from the rather dark and depressing titles of “The Fifth Child” and its sequel “Ben in the World” whereby the main character is more or less a monster living in our own world.

Perhaps human condition regardless of time is depressing.  Life is hard.  And the saving grace throughout the time continuum is love.  In “Mara and Dann”, the story is set somewhere in the distant future when our Earth is covered in ice – except Ifrik (equivalent to our modern day Africa).  Dotted in this continent Ifrik are civilizations of different progression (stone age, medieval, military, religion, and science), people of different shapes and colors, richness and the poor, and in the diverse race of the Mahondi,  the Rock People, the Hadrons, the Hennes, the Agre, and the Albs, nothing escape the sharp eyes of Mara who is always hunger for knowledge.

Abducted since young, Mara – a Mahondi by birth – began an epic journey traversing Ifrik together with her little brother Dann.  The main plot evolves around Mara with Dann coming in and out of Mara’s journey.  In “Mara and Dann”, you will get to experience Ifrik first hand with Mara.  You may even feel the thirst and hunger of Mara like I do, and the joy and desperation.  You will certainly see how the characters grow as they aged, how their bonding gets stronger as days go by.

What some may see lacking maybe a main quest within the story.  What propel me to continue reading the book, however, was simply: what will Mara see next?  In such, “Mara and Dann” is a different type of page turner perhaps more appealing to those who are drawn to the world of scare resources, slavery, conflicts, racism, and sexism.  My main take home messages are two: (1) we always expect things to remain the way they always do (which they don’t) and (2) we can’t truly understand something unless we experience them.

A timely read as we ourselves are faced with the challenge of climate change, today.

Related Entries:-

Categories
Travel Blog

Photos From My Petaling Jaya Road Trip – Of PJ Hilton, The Curve, And More

PJ Hilton

After my rather unexpected encounter with the Malaysian Custom, my next challenge was to locate “PJ Hilton”.  I had no clue how exactly to get there.  It’s been donkey years since I worked in Petaling Jaya and how the whole place has changed!  There are new flyovers, streets turned one-way, new shops spawned from nowhere, and already humongous shipping malls duplicate into twice the size.  This interesting satellite city of Kuala Lumpur has officially gained a city status just two years ago.

Photo captions from left to right: (1) A slice of Petaling Jaya, (2) PJ Hilton, (3) View from the hotel room

Truly a weird feeling not sure if some of you could relate, pieces of memory of the street layout that I was once so confident in negotiating from one street to another seems to have vanished in thin air.  I have zero recollection on where is where in PJ.  OK, I do have a vague idea that PJ Hilton is along the Federal Highway but how to get to the highway?

New Paris Restaurant and the Curve

Photo captions from left to right: (1) New Paris Restaurant at SS2, a must try! (2) interesting dish with champagne braised chicken that has a sour taste served with balls of water melon!  Say what?! (3) Finally, “The Curve” signboard after a 2 hours drive … the return trip was barely a half-an-hour trip.

Fortunately, what we humanly not possible to accomplish – in my case, the revival of my faded memory – technology made possible.  Nokia Map is a great tool, though I must say the screen size of my N95 is a tad too small.  It is pretty much like a computer game to me.  There is an icon marked as my destination.  And there is this blinking cursor telling me where I am via the global positioning system established between my tiny phone and the far away satellites above me.  All I need to do is keep driving till the blinking cursor coincide with the target icon – in theory.

The Curve at Petaling Jaya

Photo captions from left to right: (1) “The Curve” is a new shopping mall with little stores along the middle of the street, (2) TGI Friday!  I wonder if they will return to Singapore one day, (3) There is … Cineleisure at “The Curve”!

And because I do remember and know some of the landmarks and eating spots in PJ, finding them in my phone is relatively easy.  Getting there, took time.  At one point, after going round and round in circle and Cynthia and I were excited to see that our car was finally heading directly to the new shopping mall “The Curve” only to realize that it was a dead end blocked by another highway.

Also unexpectedly, I have decided to call up my good old friend Catherine and her husband whom I met back when I was working in Mauritius.  Their daughters are so cute!  And they have grown up so much.  Amazingly adorable they are.

My friend Catherine and her family at PJ

Categories
Music Reviews Pop Rock & Alternative

HAARP – Muse Live Tour – Full Of Light And Sound

HAARP by Muse

We have watched the Muse concert at Fort Canning Singapore back in January last year and that, has blown our minds.  Can HAARP – a CD and DVD collection recorded at Wembley UK on June 16 and 17 respectively – blow our minds too?  The answer is a definite yes.

I won’t go through much of the details here because my previous journal has (surprisingly to me!) captured more or less the essence of what you would expect in terms of sound and visual (ahem … a pat on my back).  What I will cover here is how I perceive the post-production work involved in creating HAARP.

Let’s start with the CD.  Muse is a 3-piece band with one to two additional musicians to help out on selected songs when on tour.  The live recording of the music tracks are surprisingly clear given how hard it is when sound tends to flood over from one track to another.  And the sound from the audience is crisp and nicely mixed into the recording too.  You can actually hear some girls screaming “I love you” in the background.

To me, the CD is great.  But the DVD that contains a few piano tracks amongst others that are not found in the CD is the real gem of the package.  Cameras whirling around the light filled stage, special visual effects with subjects of interest blurring in and out of focus, seamless cut scenes in tandem with the beats of the music – all of which aim to bring the electrifying live experience right into your living room (depending on how loud your audio system is of course).  Their interpretation of the song “Feeling Good” is a pleasant surprise to me.  Below is a clip of the song “Hysteria”.  Enjoy, and don’t forget to turn down the volume a bit!  If you are already a fan, there is little reason why you should give this collection a miss.

Related Entry: Muse’s 2007 Tour at Fort Canning Singapore

Categories
Drama Movie Reviews Romance

The Other Boleyn Girl – How Accurate I Wonder

The Other Boleyn Girl

Knowing that I was about to recover from my flu, Cynthia tapped onto the Sunday morning paper and said, “I want to watch number 1, 2, and 3.”  “What’s number 1?” I asked.  She said something and I replied, “Huh?  What boleh girl?” (”˜Boleh’ in Malay means ”˜can’, which ironically is not too far from the plot).  It was not as hilarious as my friend TK whom we met later at the cinema.  He joked: The Other Boon Lay Girl.  (”˜Boon Lay’ is a small housing estate in Singapore.)

“The Other Boleyn Girl” has both the talented Natalie Portman (TK and I are big fans of her) and the beautiful Scarlett Johansson as the main actresses.  To top it up, Eric Bana (my favorite Hector of Troy!) played King Henry VIII.  I had no idea what to expect from the movie and I came out of the theatre feeling a bit more aware of some of the important events in England such as the breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church and the birth of Queen Elizabeth I.  I certainly had no idea the importance of the role played by Anne Boleyn and Mary Boleyn – the sisters acted by Natalie and Scarlett.

The life of King Henry VIII is rich and complex.  Married six times and having a few mistresses of his own, “The Other Boleyn Girl” portrays only a facet of his life – his affair to Mary Boleyn and his marriage to Anne Boleyn.  If the film sticks to the original intend and tell a story from the other Boleyn girl’s perspective – that is Mary played by Scarlett – it may have been more focused and intense.  But we all know how captivating Natalie’s acting can be and she does have a lot of air time in the movie.  In that sense, I am not sure if I was watching The Boleyn Girl instead.  Validity of the historical accuracy aside, I too find the casting of two Americans and an Australian with little or no British accent to play these main English characters odd.

There is little doubt that the acting is great.  And Natalie Portman is such a versatile actress.  If you try not to think too hard on what one man would do just to get a baby boy of his own or how all of these was a bloody mess due to one man’s lust, it is actually quite an entertaining romance drama to watch.  “The Other Boleyn Girl” does seem to me like a prequel to the more epic movies “Elizabeth” and “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”.  In such, the reminiscence of Natalie Portman’s role as Queen Amidala as sequel to the epic movies of Star Wars episodes is quite startling – to me at least.

Somehow there is a yearning within me to learn what exactly happened to Anne and Mary’s lives during their time.  The plot of the movie may not have done the history justice.  And I wonder, will the filmmakers hundred years down the road be fascinated by the stories of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and make a movie out of their lives?  One thing I am sure is: royal scandals sell – especially ones that come with sex and blood.

Categories
Book Reviews Fiction

Remember Me By Sophie Kinsella – A Calculated Risk That May Or May Not Work For Some

Remember Me by Sophie Kinsella

Fanboi talk aside – as I do have read all eight of her novels – “Remember Me” is an interestingly subtle departure from her time proven success with the Shopaholic formula.  First, let’s recap.  Be it as Becky Bloodwood of the Shopaholic series (5 books), Samantha of “The Undomestic Goddess”, Emma of “Can You Keep A Secret”, or Lexi of “Remember Me”, the author’s heroines have always been an embodiment of someone who is flawed, optimistic, and passionate towards family and friends.  The formula extends beyond the main character herself.  There will be lovers involved, parents, best friends, best friends who are no longer best friends, bosses, and a sister in some cases, and to top it up, Sophie Kinsella’s books are always a fun read that make you laugh-out-loud drawing suspicious glances from people around you.

The bottom line is: does the world need another book from Sophie Kinsella?  For those who worship the Shopaholic series, “Remember Me” may come across as less entertaining.  It has lesser laugh-out-loud moments per page flipped.  For those who find the Shopaholic series too shallow but enjoy reading her standalone novels instead, “Remember Me” may come quite close to “The Undomestic Goddess”, which I still think it is the author’s best work today.

There is a novelty in the idea itself: imagine what would happen if one day you wake up and three years worth of memory has just vanished?  And you wake up with a new job title, a new look, new set of friends, and you realize that you are married to someone who is a stranger to you.  Through the character Lexi, Sophie Kinsella explores the condition of amnesia, and more so than any of her previous works, I think there are a fair bit of planning in order to make the storyline works – set aside the need to have every small details made sense to the readers.  To that, I think Sophie Kinsella has done a great job in delivering a relatively more complex storyline with relatively more character development for those who surround the main character.

“Remember Me” is still a page turner and prompted me in thinking: perhaps all these efforts of upkeeping my own blog site are not too bad an idea just in case one day, touch wood, I bump my head onto something and lose a chunk of memory.

PS. I tried to place a reservation at our National library but I gave up after seeing the queue.  I was close to number 250 with just over twenty books available for lending.  And knowing how long it may take for the paperback to hit the bookstore, I go for the hardcover instead.

Related Entries: Can You Keep A Secret?, On Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic & Baby, and Undomestic Goddess – A Good Read

Categories
Diary

My Doctor Prescribed Nanotechnology Enabled Medicine For My Jaw

Flexogan

I couldn’t open my jaw.

OK.  I could.  But not without the strange bone cracking sound from within my skull, and the pain.  It started when I was in Malaysia and it didn’t bother much till I realized that I couldn’t really sing without being able to open my mouth wide.  And I couldn’t yawn properly during my rather tiring return trip on the Malaysian highway.  Took me forever to finish eating a sandwich.  When I told my friend JL my little problem, her response was: you were speeding on the highway with the window down and your mouth wide opened, izzit?

Ha ha ha.  Farny.

Since I woke up feeling sick, I was motivated to see my favorite neighborhood doctor whom his core competency is to give out medical certificates – and I hope to have my jaw fixed.

We were like long lost friend inside his consultation room because my last visit was on December 2006.  “So you’ve changed your job,” he asked.  I nodded and he told me that I looked more relaxed and less stressed.  Really?!  And I shall trust a doctor’s observation.

“What can I do for you today,” he asked.  I told him my jaw problem.  And I told him that I may be coming down with a flu.  He said he would give me some lotion to apply and some painkillers for my jaw and my flu.

At the counter, I stared at the lotion and it says: nanotechnology.  I was amazed!  Although nanotechnology is not new, its application to our commercial world is still at its infancy stage.  It will be years before those nanoscaled swarm of microscopic machines become a reality as depicted in Michael Crichton’s novel “Prey”.  When that time comes, I don’t know what the world would become.

My friend SF asked me out for lunch and she saw the tube of lotion.  She asked if I was OK.  I waved the tube in the air and said, “This, has enough nanorobots to keep me happy.”

“There is no nanorobot inside,” she laughed.

OK.  I know she is a bio-science graduate.  But still …

“Yes, there are,” I insisted.

“No, there isn’t,” she shook her head.

“Look,” I began.  “Look,” she interrupted.  I continued, “Look, there are things inside this tube that are manufactured, programmed to carry out a certain function, and they are super tiny.  Therefore, these are nanorobots.”

“They are not nanorobots!” she reinstated.

Whatever they have inside the tube, it doesn’t seem to work wonders.  It smells really bad (bad bad robots!) and I think the painkiller does the job just as good.  In the evening, the flu virus seemed to be ahead of my willpower by a nanometer so I have decided to take the non-drowsy flu medicine my favorite doctor prescribed.

At first I felt terrible.  Then I felt like puking.  My head was spinning.  I vaguely remember such an experience.  This morning I woke up, I did a search of “cough pills” in my own site and I found this post.  OK.  For future reference, my body doesn’t go well with Dextromethorphan (or Dexcophan).

Bad bad (+)-3-methoxy-17-methyl-9α,13α,14α-morphinan or whatever it is.

Related Entry: Cough Pills

Categories
J Pop Music Reviews

BoA – The Face – And The Conquest Continues

BoA - The Face

To tell you the truth, I am more thrilled by BoA’s phenomenal success in the music industry at the age of 21 than her music itself.  Straddled between the Korean and Japanese markets, her 11th studio album is a Japanese release that attained the number 1 position in the Oricon chart the 6th consecutive time (only Ayumi Hamasaki has done it before with now a record of 8 consecutive number 1’s and stops there).  To enjoy such a strong fan base in Japan as a Korean is remarkable.  To enjoy such a commercial success as a 21 years old, I say it’s phenomenal.
 
I often admire BoA’s ambition and energy.  There are not many artists in the world who relentlessly release albums that target at two different local markets, in two different languages, simultaneously.  Her appetite, I believe, is not only in these two countries.  Rumor has it that she is currently putting the Korea market on hold and planning to venture into the US market.  I am concerned over her English pronunciation but we shall see.  And she has released a few songs in Chinese as well.
 
“The Face”, like her previous albums, is packed with the typical electronic sounded pop music that you can happily bop to.  I personally think that these bright and youthful songs are great to be seen live as BoA is a great entertainer on stage.  Just by listening to the album alone, something does seem missing.  Perhaps the music is not as memorable as I would like them to be.  Perhaps those complicated dance beat arrangements are meant to shine during live performances.  Hence, like her previous album “Made in Twenty (20)”, I actually appreciate the DVD better than the CD.
 
“The Face” comes with 2 DVD’s.  One with music videos from the single releases as well as an interview session that I don’t understand.  Another one is packed with live clips from two different concerts filmed in year 2007.  Those live clips are beautiful.  It has the classic BoA-and-the-piano-and-the-orchestra kind of performance.  It also has the BoA-and-her-hot-dance-moves kind of performance too.  One year ago, as written in the previous review, I was trying to get used to her voice.  Today, I still try.  At times her vibrato sounds a bit mechanical.  Perhaps, I will get myself BoA-ized one day.  Below is one of her singles “Lose Your Mind” with the making-of clip.  If you enjoy slow songs, try search for her another single “Love Letter”.

PS. Is it just me who feel that BoA looks more haggard judging from the live videos these days?  She has definitely lost some weight.

Related Entry: Made In Twenty (20) – Another Japanese Album By Korean Singer BoA