Just got the email from a girl called Emily Fung. She happened to bring me the bad news about the Canadian Chamber of Commerce Short Story Competition. I lost, not even on the honorable mention list. I was quite confident indeed, yet it proves I am not up to that level. I planned to do some reading tonight. Now, the mood is gone. I just want to do nothing.

What is Southern Comfort?

It is the wine that Mr. Chow taught me to drink with 7-up, all the way back in the summer of 1999. Venue: California in LKF. Since then, every now and then, it has been the standard drink I order in bars.

It is also the name of a film I wanted to see for a long time. I finally get it, thanks to Roger. I will watch it tonight.

I jumped into Atom accidentally in the new HMV in CWB. We went to Pokka cafe for a tea. I have not seen him for a while. Some time was needed for warming up the conversation. We talked about YI HEY, well actually only I did.

Two great discoveries:
1. Roger helped me buy the DVD of Happiness (1998) in the States. I used to have the Vcd but it's nowhere to be found at home now (perhaps it's because of my sister who has a habit of displacing and re-placing stuff, especially my treasures - books, vcds, dvds and cds). I wanted to watch it again simply because of Me and You and Everyone I know. Both films have so much in common - about people living in the postmodern world, a lonely and alienating life and every one of us has deep down something bizzare, either sexually or habitually. I've never seen a movie as disturbing yet humorous and appalling. I highly recommend it. You can get it in HMV.

2. I bought the magnificent The Faber Book of Smoking, edited by James Walton at Page One.
It has all the passages from speeches, essays, screenplays, novels, poems, whatever in print that concerns cigarettes. Some of the passages are amazing, such as:

"because non-smokers were becoming increasingly irritating, and the only way I could distance myself from them was to light up"

From Martin Amis's London Fields (1989): "On the wall was a sign bearing the saddest words Keith had ever read: NO SMOKING."

Thank you for smoking.

So pass like this the best dating nights in this month. Nothing caused a big change, or brought a huge surprise. There were, however, some small ones - yet foggy and did not lead me to anywhere. Perhaps, that's the best my luck could do with me. Not that I can't survive alone. Listen, those who are strong-willed and who think I am too dependent on romance. Love is very much like a sunny weather. It makes our days better by creating a cheerful and positive environment. When it rains, life is still livable, but time is intensely heavy.

July... Am I really meant to travel after 7 July?

像青春一樣, 一個人的運是會耗盡的.

When you are losing on the mahjong table, all you could is to 守 - until the time your luck returns. No one knows when. Every tile you play will make you lose, whether they are a safe play or a risky one. When you are doomed to lose, you will lose even you make no mistakes. The question is how long one can hold onto it and how patient one could be.

就算失收　始終要守.

Charles and I believe that every one has their own quota on love.
I want to know mine.

ANG LEE and me

I can't believe that it is one the website: http://bc.cinema.com.hk/zh/focus.jsp

The first question was asked by me!! I was too nervous and mumbled a lot! Gosh! Who wouldn't be nervous when they had a chance to talk to such a big figure?


問：
My question goes to Director Lee, I'm very interested in the process of adaptation, how do you manage to add so many details and so many colors to the story?
李：
其實這是一個很漫長的過程，adaptation的第一步是Larry McMurtry做的，他是比原著作者名氣還要大的，寫西部的專家，小說裡有的他完全保存，女人的部份他加了很多新的戲，他把情節很出色的描出來，結構也把拉出來，拍的時候我有很多意見，所以我跟他們改寫，我跟著兩位大師學習，自己也做很多研究，到懷俄明那地方考察，與當地人談，學習牛仔的東西，對我幫助最大的除了他們以外，就是照片，還有文學方面；我最不要看的是西部片，因為對我來說是一種障礙…… 做這個片最有意思是它是一個“period piece in a timeless place”，在這個地方你好像看不到時間，外面的東西好像跟它沒多大關係，但它是一個period piece，一個古裝劇，這個東西很難把握。
_________________________________________________________________

I place the bet today. Waiting...

It's really hard to define 義氣: stand by you and back you up all the time? guide you and be there whenever you need them? counsel you and stop you from doing the wrong thing? Well, it's even more difficult to find and English equivalent. All of the descriptions depend on 'actions'.

義氣 is defined by actions and redefined by not taking any, which is 沒義氣.

Am I just too demanding on my friends? 'Friend' is already a term ambiguous enough. Claiming to be one and really acting to be one makes a hell of differences.

Let's look at the literal definitions of this elusive term (extracted from http://www. dictionary.com)

1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement.

Most people interpret the term by using the second definition! Can't you even see?

I like my friends, all of them. I believe that mutual likeness and likeliness are the factors that initiate a friendship. Comradeship has become extinct in today's society. Back in war times, men are willing to die for each other, sacrificing their blood and body. Typical examples would be D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love and Johnnie To's Election.

Gay people just focus too much on the artifacts, on the surface, nothing deep down could grasp their attention, even the way to define 'friends'. Someone just alerted me on msn on the term "義氣" - gay people are women, they don't know such a thing. Very right.

This week is going to be my reading week. I hope I can pick up some books I want to read but yet I don't have time for. I guess I will write a few articles, short ones, not academic, but insightful.

The food of today is: 鍋貼

Movie reviews

1. Me and You and Everyone I know - B++
2. Scary Movie 4 - D
3. My Date with Drew - B
4. The Omen - C-

After 6 Easts of GM, I finally got home at around 9. I bought my breakfast at McDonald's (known as M-C-Donald, according to someone). Yet, the coke was spilt over the entire breakfast case. Whatever. 好的一餐, 不好的又一餐.

Before I fell into a long coma. I asked myself: Why would people love me? The ultimate big question. People around me are all dating, which does not bother me at all. I am happy for them, just that in certain tiny split of seconds, the sense of loneliness would irritate me. 我心眼少, 想法多. After I have finished the new chapter on my thesis, I finally have the time to experience the pleasure of this tiny pain. Such kind of time is a luxury in life.

"Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You'll get over it." (Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson)

My sister is in love. They are sweetly in love in their apartment I have not yet visited. They have a world of their own. She told me they have a common goal of working in Taiwan. Common goal, another luxury I have not yet shared and found with the one for me.

27. Looking into the mirror, things have changed. 我老化了. 老化 is different from 老. 老化 means decaying, a loss of something which you can't retrieve. 老 simply means not young. I am 27, still very young.

He knows how to drive and has a good taste of living. He is in love. He is caring, independent, sincere and mature. He is in love. He wears Dior Homme and makes a reputation of being so. He is in love. He manages to find another one to stop being the third party in a relationship. He is in love. He has been suspected to have an affair. Numerous breakups were said. He is still in love. He decided to dump his boyfriend because he thought he deserved someone better. But they are dining tonight with him tonight. He is in love. He has been finding the most simple mode of love, but ending up moving from one person to another. He is in love, I guess. He loved another one besides his boyfriend and lied to others that he has never been serious with him. He is in love, I guess. He works in IT, looks young (he is young). He is stylish and looks Japanese. He is in love.

As a 27 man, I do seem to lack many things - I don't know how to drive, not to mention owning a car. I don't have savings in my bank account. I don't have a stable and foreseeable future with a well-paid job (even my mom is worried about it). I don't dress up, in fact, i gave up dressing up. Fuck it, you know I despise such materialistic measurements on how one should live. I only have countless books and DVDs at my home. I don't even know what I should do with my studies after I'm 30. I was told to support my family and looked for a well-paid job. Money is not my concern. It has never been. It is just a point of nuisance to me.

I seem to have found myself after I started my studies all over again. This self I believe I have is never agreeable by outsiders. Either I am really myself, or I am the one that others seem to expect me to be. I am happy and desperate at the same time. Enjoying my solitude and in need of something to be complete.

自問自己幾好　
有怨不報
離別我　離別好
自問健康幾好　
眼看得到強健到　
明明吞了剃刀　
都要上路

情人離開　
仍然永遠記得進步　
情人難保　
我已很堅強　
於谷底　玩跳高

可惜好想咳一聲　
卻又咳不到　
有話講得出聽不到　
要告不告　
要吐不吐　
難道為掛念你患上感冒　

原本想狠狠咳一咳　
卻又咳不到　
有罪然而無被告　
你怎麼不見人　
我太長情　
或太疲勞　
或者太用腦　
或欠擁抱

Coming out on 29 August 2006. Awaiting.
From Publishers Weekly: Starred Review.Reviewed by Lily Tuck

One of my favorite Haruki Murakami stories is "The Elephant Vanishes"—part of an earlier collection published in 1991—in which the narrator watches as an elephant in a zoo grows smaller and smaller until finally the elephant disappears. No explanation is given, there is no resolution, the vanished elephant remains a mystery at the same time that the narrator's life is changed forever.Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, Murakami's new collection of 25 stories, many of which have appeared in the New Yorker and other publications, also describes these epiphanic instances. In the title story, a character who is half deaf, alludes to a John Ford movie, Fort Apache, in which John Wayne tells the newly arrived colonel that if he actually saw some Indians on his way to the fort that means there weren't any. Everything is a bit off—including of course the blind willow trees whose pollen carry flies that burrow inside a sleeping woman's ears—as in a dream, where explanations are always lacking but where interpretations are plentiful. In "Mirror," the narrator sees someone who appears to be both himself and not himself in a mirror and then finds out the mirror does not exist; the disaffected woman—a lot of Murakami's characters are handicapped or incapacitated in some physical way—in "The Shinagawa Monkey," loses her own name; in "Man-Eating Cats," the narrator's girlfriend disappears and as he searches for her finds that "with each step I took, I felt myself sinking deeper into a quicksand where my identity vanished." Murakami's stories are difficult to describe and one should, I think, resist attempts to overanalyze them. Their beauty lies in their ephemeral and incantatory qualities and in his uncanny ability to tap into a sort of collective unconscious. In addition, a part of Murakami's genius is that he uses images as plot points, going from image to image, like in the marvelous story "Airplane," where, while making love, the narrator imagines strings hanging from the ceiling and how each one might open up a different possibility—good and bad. It is clear that Murakami is well acquainted with the teachings of Buddhism, western philosophies, Jungian theory; he has a deep knowledge of music and, also, I have been told, is a dedicated, strong swimmer. In his stories, he roams freely and convincingly through all these elements (and no doubt many more) without differentiating to create a world where cats talk and elephants disappear. In the introduction to this collection, Murakami writes how, for him, writing a novel is a challenge and how writing short stories is a joy—these stories are a joy for his readers as well.Lily Tuck's most recent novel, The News from Paraguay, won the 2004 National Book Award. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I am very tired recently. Finishing my chapter, I decide to take a few days off and recharge myself. There's always something I want to do apart from my research. Perhaps, write a few short articles and try my luck by sending them to Senses of Cinema.

I just don't want to communicate with people. For those whom I have been talking with, don't worry, I will keep finding you. For those who occasionally jump into my life, sorry, I need a break, a break-through. Don't wanna either clarify or explain myself. If you know me, you get it. I am not worried if communication would break down because I should not have communicated with them at the first place. I just get back to the intensity of zero. I have nothing to lose.

“黎耀辉，让我们重新开始。”

Happy Together 6 in 1 Ten Years' anniversay Edition.

I bought it finally!

Only twats and lunatics would buy such a commdified item. Yes, it's me!

Discomfort and jealousy just possessed me for the whole afternoon. I could not think of any ways to relieve myself. I bought a couple of DVDs and VCDs (some films I have seen but now I would like to write about them during the summer - I decide not to idle anymore in July and August). When I was about the pay at the cashier, the huge red box caught my gaze. Yes, it's you.

I have seen the film for more than 8 times on cable. It's the best of Wong, I would say. The Europeans and Americans are too focused on In the Mood for Love and 2046. I believe my eyes and my taste.

I also got mom to Commerical Bookstore to buy a few books with her HK Bank credit card, which means I have discounts on them, and most importantly - I don't need to pay. I plan to read a lot during the summer. My starting point is Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. At p. 75 (out of 458 pages).

My recent favorite song: 戀愛盲 (梁漢文)


愛情有幾何於身邊穿梭　
最後留下我　不
為何全部都因我　
心眼小　想法多
如沒法像最愛的那個
寧願白白讓對象遊蕩過　


好友多全部有事也會找上我
到閒來無事似熟人路過　
不為何其實都因我　找愛戀　
怎預我全沒秘密最後變成姊妹　
慰問我

Woke up at 6 something. I slept for a slightly more than 3 hrs, and I turned in bed. I was awake. I knew I couldn't get back to my dreams. I decided to wake up. What's good to return to nightmares and let them continue to haunt you?

I resumed the never-ending chapter of my thesis, hoping to fully shape it as the first draft by this week. I had McDonald's hot cakes for breakfast, bought a spinach and cheese pizza for lunch, a pack of Kent M-3 and a caramel machitatto at Starbucks. On my way home, it suddenly rained. I was soaked wet. I felt refreshed. Today is my vegetarian day to mourn the death of my adorable grandma. I wonder if she has enoug money down there. Maybe Hell is also as capitalist as our existing world. So far we have not burnt anything for her. It's hard to live on earth and in hell with no money, I conclude.

有時候 有時候 我會相信一切有盡頭
相聚離開 都有時候
沒有甚麼會永垂不朽

5:41am, 5 June 2006. Still awake.

Having read too much Deleuze and Guattari, my head was on the edge of explosion. I bought the DVD of Il Mare and watched it again just now.

Two people with two years apart falling in love with each other. How romantic.

"Il mare" means the sea. The sea carries the horizon with it. You see it from a distance, but when you near, it disappear. The finite simply isn't there. Il Mare is always my top 10 favourite films of all time. I used to have its soundtrack but I forgot where I put it. It's simply romantic. It has one of the best smoking scenes in the contemporary cinema (the best is Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf smoking hand-rolled cigarettes in The Hours; the second best is the end shot of Andy Lau smoking with a bald head and dressed as a monk in Running on Karma).

I can't wait to see the Hollywood adaptation.

There is only one word that can describe her music - Ethereal. The spirit of her music is not the song, but her voice. Her voice carries the song, not the other way round. I never like the lyrics in her songs. They have no meaning at all. Yet, the chemistry of her music relies on this meaninglessness. If the words are too solid and too out-spoken by themselves, the ether will be ruined, but not maintained.

If she doesn't say anymore, we can give up our ears - a body that could detect no more sound.

Everybody is going to Thailand!

Three pairs of people I know are going to Thailand this weekend. I also want to go. I have never gone for a trip with my friends - that's strange. I did it with my family. I did it with my ex-es twice (one bad trip and the other average). I had working trips (half work; half play). I went to the States with my classmates when I was year 1.

I want to go to somewhere and when I depart, I don't know when I am coming back. I want to see the world and experience life. I want to try different food and listen to another language. I want some companions.

My life these days are okay, if you ask me. There's no serious work and no bad news. But people like me always try to pick the bones from an egg. I still feel stressed, believe me? haha. I hate appointments. I hate deadlines. I just want to do whatever I do and go wherever I go. I am a very ad-hoc person.

My sleeping problems come back. I could not sleep at all at night and wake up very very very late every day. I have dreams, very bad ones - either me dying or someone else. Gosh, what is my own unconscious doing?

My parents suddenly went to China today and my sister has moved out. I should enjoy my peace, but it seems that I am not. When I am at home, I am either doing my thesis or smoking. Sometimes, I want to do both, sometimes, neither. I just want to go to somewhere else with someone, now.

Have a nice trip, you all.