Feel better, friend.

The mouse scurries across the path at night under the blurriest HDB lights. It hurries and scampers furtively, No worries, your secret is safe with me. A moderately-sized cockroach escapes, out on one of its midnight escapades. It creeps along a construction site - your secret's also safe with me tonight. Isn't it a bit too late eh, alate? You have to let your love of lights abate! This addiction will be your true downfall, but I promise, my lips are sealed, for sure. Ah, mosquito, out for a late night snack? Allow me to serve you this... one tight smack!

Playboy:  Thanks to those special effects, 2001 is undoubtedly the most graphic depiction of space flight in the history of films — and yet you have admitted that you yourself refuse to fly, even in a commercial jet liner. Why? Kubrick : I suppose it comes down to a rather awesome awareness of mortality. Our ability, unlike the other animals, to conceptualize our own end creates tremendous psychic strains within us; whether we like to admit it or not, in each man’s chest a tiny ferret of fear at this ultimate knowledge gnaws away at his ego and his sense of purpose. We’re fortunate, in a way, that our body, and the fulfillment of its needs and functions, plays such an imperative role in our lives; this physical shell creates a buffer between us and the mind-paralyzing realization that only a few years of existence separate birth from death. If man really sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would ...

http://www.webtoons.com/en/thriller/tales-of-the-unusual/ep-27-my-wifes-memories-part-1/viewer?title_no=68&episode_no=28

Mise en scene can operate on four levels: 1. Functionalistic - supporting stage acitivity 2. Atmospheric - ambience  3. Sociometric - reflecting social status 4. Symbolic - extra-textual, metaphorical meanings 

Hybridity | Homi K. Bhabha Creation of transcultural forms within the contact zone produced by colonization. Hybridisation takes place in many form : cultural, political & linguistic (Pidgin & Creole) Hybridity :  bringing together two cultures  offering the possibility of a third way/ “Third Space” "former colonial subject became a kind of hybrid, neither belonging to the imperialist master nation, nor to the new nation, the former colony" An indeterminate identity,  which, paradoxically, may have some strength.   Edward Said | Orientalism - Orient as a construction of Western Imperialism - made to continue subjugation of southern hemisphere/ eastern people Orient as 'the other'  Like feminism - The problem of the male gaze and a 'colonial' gaze  --> Objectification of the 'other' = seen as weak, different, and therefore not 'right', relative to the experience of the powerful (men, colonial power...

"If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. ... All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary rever...

“When I think of this trip, I see David and me in the front seat of the car. It’s nighttime. It smells like chewing tobacco, soda, and smoke. (The smell of chewing tobacco is like a muddy lawn you’ve just fed a truckful of cough drops to.) The window is letting in a leak of cold air. R.E.M. is playing. The wheels are making their slightly sleepy sound of tape being stripped cleanly and endlessly off a long wall. On the other hand, we seem not to be moving at all, and the conversation is the best one I’ve ever had.”  ―  David Lipsky ,  Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace "David thought books existed to stop you from being lonely. Living those days with him reminded me of what life is like. Instead of being a relief from it. And I'll tell him that it made me feel much less alone." - The End of The Tour  David is dancing in slow-motion, at a church.  David gives a eulogy.  I take a ride to Punggo...

On a merry-go-round, all of life moves around me. It does not stop, it cannot stop. I tell myself to enjoy the ride, to try my very best to remember the significant moments on this ephemeral ride. The beauty that passes around me - I catch only glimpses. Time flies when your having fun, huh. You wish for it to slow down just a little bit more, so that you can take the time to... understand.... or appreciate... something. Something about life that makes it precious. But you keep going - round and round and around. Until the music stops and the lights go off and a pained silence hangs in the air. You would do anything for the ride to start up again. I would too. I will kick and scream and throw ten tantrums till I got my way. You will shout and cry and lament your impossible sorrow. but here, there, we sit in darkness and await silence.

I really shouldn't attempt to write this... as if this were an assignment due on Monday. It isn't, so I shall not.  Two days - it took me this to finish my first SingLit novel, as far as I can recall.  It was about a family who goes through tough times. This family was Sikh. This family was Singaporean. This family felt, for a few heart-wrenching seconds, like my own.  Dalveer and Harbeer have three children: Gurdev, Narain, and Amrit. Karam is Harbeer's nephew, but he doesn't get to be a narrator in the story, so, screw him. Also, he's an asshole.  We see their story unfold over a period of twenty years - this is paralleled by Singapore's own growth as a nation. We see the effects of rapid industrialisation on the nascent city state, and we begin to identify some of the more... unspoken problems faced by its people. In its endeavour to grow, advance, burgeon -- people, genuinely good people, are left behind. In our  struggle for success, the few am...

So the meaning of life. What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning for the breath in our lungs, the voice in our heads, the beating of our hearts? Why live on this earth? Fret not, for I have the answer, and the answer is… the answer to the meaning of life is  ------ McNuggets…. Hmmm...  Curry sauce…. Hmmm… Barbeque Sauce… Extra 50 cents?!?!?! 

Oh god, look at that pompous prick poking perilously into the open sky. I bet he thinks he’s better than all of us. “How’s the weather down there ?” he says, “I can see everything from up here.” Fucking asshole. I’ll have you know that we are all made of the same material, okay. We are all concrete, rebar, and metal, and subjects of Jay-Z’s love song. So, just shut up. Dick.  ------ The universe boils, and incandescent lights of marvelous purple and blue rise like steam. They reach out to touch, across an endless expanse of more smoke, and more space.  ------ Rustle in the tall grass: the wind is invisible but yet I can chart its path through the greenery. At first unclear, yet the sun rises ever steadily. It breaks over the horizon, meekly, and whispers a morning greeting to all of heaven’s creation. The mountains ascend to consciousness, and greet the sun back.

Light blue, kempt, formal. Seems to keep your head in place. I wish it wouldn’t.

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? You have a classic 22 nd century relationship with what you thought was, by all measurements, a normal guy. Then, at some point in the future, you of course realise that he’s an absolute madman. He constantly tries to contact you, leaving you with no personal space. His never-ending mind-to-mind instant messages clog up all the space on your already congested yottabyte [1] quantum drive.   You need to get away! What should you do? What can you do? Well have we got the perfect solution for you! After years of research and development, we have the answer to all your crazy boyfriend problems. How does it work you ask? Well let’s take a look at these three unfortunate single women who simply must get away from their relentless partners.   First up, we have poor little Hamela Hamderson. She’s trying earnestly to make her overly-enthused lover a former one, but she can’t seem to accomplish her task. Hamela frantically downloads a f...