hehe
Monday, November 2, 2009
Saturday, October 31, 2009
robinson crusoe's wise sayings...
by Ian Mcmillan
you can never have too many turtle's eggs
i'm the most interesting person in this room
a beard is as long as i want it to be
the swimmer on his own doesn't need trunks
a tree is a good clock
if you talk long enough to a rock you'll fall asleep
i know its christmas because i cry
waving at ships is useless
footprints make me happy. unless they're my own.
(i'm too lazy/tired/busy to write anything of my own composition. this will do, since often i share his sentiments anyway. except for the part about the beard.)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
...for movies
nnnaaaaattaaaaliiiieeeeee,
mischief, mayhem and soap.
mischief, mayhem and soap.
this week is very exciting because you and i both know, that i could easily spend the rest of my life in front of a screen watching films and doing little else. to begin i started out by making a list of all the top movies from the decades from 1930 - 1990. i wasn't going to go any earlier than 1930's because frankly i didn't fancy sitting through a whole heap of silent films (i know, i'm a philistine) since the technology for synchronising sound with movement wasn't easily available before 1927.
it was really a fun few weeks and naturally it wasn't easy to pick one decade. i had a few favourites from all the films i watched.
1936 - my man godfrey - a classic story, with william powell and carole lombard, of a vagrant who gets hired to be the butler, but isn't whom he seems to be. call me crazy but william powell is also strangely attractive in his little pencil moustache.
1942 - casablanca - what to say about it. you know exactly how wonderful humphrey bogart is. love, intrigue, nazi's and a bar. really, you don't need much to make a movie more wonderful than that.
1950 - all about eve - with one of the strongest female casts, is an amazing film - a little like single white female but without the nudity. bette davis is the quintessential fading diva, and anne baxter is the scariest most earnest protege (how to get all the right accents?)
1967 - the graduate - the best film every made. period. it's funny and clever and the acting is brilliant and dustin hoffman is dustin hoffman. seriously, physically he's just a little grayer. anne bancroft is so good that i won't be able to see her in any other character after this. she will always be mrs. robinson. the soundtrack is needless to say brilliant also, simon and garfunkle were at their peak. i couldn't get it off of my head for weeks. now i'm writing about it, guess what i'm listening to? i was tempted to make the 60's my favourite decade just based on this one movie.
1987 - the princess bride - i know the title sounds a little corny, but it's the bestest fairy tale EVER! the movie intro lines/verse says it best:
"scaling the cliffs of insanity
battling rodents of unusual size
facing torture in the Pit of Despair
true love has never been a snap"
my favourite decade however, is neither of the decades featured above. it seemed only fair to highlight the movies that i really enjoyed watching from each decade as well
as those of my favourite decade. i picked my decade on a purely subjective non-scientific basis. if i liked the film it got highlighted in yellow on my list, and at the end i just counted how many i had highlighted. it was a hard choice because, although the sheer number of movies in 
my decade is just enough to force my hand, the 1940's with its classic films noir, were a close and hard contender.
i love the intrigue and the sparse looks the movies from teh 40's carry. humphry bogart, lauren bacall, carey grant, laurence olivier are still unmatched as actors with that particular bland of platinum standard star quality.still, the 40's didn't quite cut it. although movies such as the grapes of wrath were award winning and very classily made, i felt a distinct inability to connect with it. hence, i left it for two days without getting to finish it and really, movies shouldn't require that much commitment. for me movies are pure entertainment. i want to be able to put my feet up and be enthralled. my decade really did this for me.
my favourite
decade, for movies, then are the 1990's
i blame it on my mother. i'm a child of the 80s/90s. i grew up with jurassic park, die hard, braveheart and toy story. bruce willis is the closest thing i have to a language coach ("yippiekayey muthafucka"). the first bond film i saw (that spawned and uncontrollable bond obsession) was golden eye (1995). my first rom com was jerry maguire (1996). legends of the fall (1994) made me want brad pitt's babies. i even had his long haired mug on my wall for over a year.
then when i was little older, and i could actually discern between good and bad film, i saw all the films i missed, or watched and never understood and some of them still remain in my all time favourite movie lists.
princess mononoke (1997) from the studio ghibli is one of the best anime movies i have ever watched, along with other ghibli films remain on my top most favourite movie lists. animated films in general really intrigue me and even at the disgustingly old age i am at, i find they really haven't lost its magic for me. anyone who has seen toy story, the lion king, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast (and other such disney fare) KNOWS that their hearts are filled with goodness (and songs, many many songs) after watching.
the thing is with most films from the 90's they're so easy to watch. they're like a security blanket.
especially if you've traumatised yourself by watching clockwork orange in the night, you need to see while you were sleeping (1995 with sandra bullock and bill pullman) to reassure yourself that the world's not bonkers.
in fact, i think 90's films mostly take us out of time and place. the world is such a volatile place, nothing is assured anymore. if you were to fret about everything that went wrong or that bothered you or made you think, you'd be a wreck. so really in a way, i think i like 90's film for the same reason i like 40's film. they were both really volatile decades, and the movies acted either as a form of catharsis, with the good always winning over the bad (or your side, over their side) or really downplaying the danger and uncertainty of the age. the difference being that, the 90's actually deal/dealt with the things that i could relate to. plus really, i love the cheese.
incidently of course, not all of the 90's were cheese. i was just making a point. some of my fav films were decidedly uncheesy. here's a few.
the talented mr ripley (1999) - gorgeous cinematography, very subtle story and matt damon. even if he is the creepy bad guy. it made me want to be insanely wealthy and spending months at a time in a quaint italian villa. it was the role jude law was born to play. lazy, rich and sun tanned.
edward scissorhands (1990) - johnny depp is one of my favourite actors. he's also the darling of one of the best directors in the world, tim burton. he made being an outsider cool. i dare you to not love it.
the virgin suicides (1999) - sophia coppola's surreal masterpiece. i say surreal because it really is - even at the end you're wondering what the hell happened and you try to theorise in a 150 different ways. amazingly hauntingly beautifully shot. based on the book by the same name, it has a soundtrack by the french band air, that could maybe rival simon and garfunkle's take on the graduate.
fight club (1999) - with edward norton and brad pitt. a film thats crazier than helena bonham carter's hair directed by david fincher of the curius case of benjamin button fame. dark and strangely funny.
then last but definitely not least, there's tarantino. pulp fiction (1994), reservoir dogs (1992) really? need i say more? (girl, da dum dum daa, you'll be a womanh sooonh). tarrantino is pure genius. i dont know how anyone can not love these two films. the soundtracks are equally, and very importantly, awesome.
love,
Y.Yaka
it was really a fun few weeks and naturally it wasn't easy to pick one decade. i had a few favourites from all the films i watched.
1936 - my man godfrey - a classic story, with william powell and carole lombard, of a vagrant who gets hired to be the butler, but isn't whom he seems to be. call me crazy but william powell is also strangely attractive in his little pencil moustache.1942 - casablanca - what to say about it. you know exactly how wonderful humphrey bogart is. love, intrigue, nazi's and a bar. really, you don't need much to make a movie more wonderful than that.
1950 - all about eve - with one of the strongest female casts, is an amazing film - a little like single white female but without the nudity. bette davis is the quintessential fading diva, and anne baxter is the scariest most earnest protege (how to get all the right accents?)1967 - the graduate - the best film every made. period. it's funny and clever and the acting is brilliant and dustin hoffman is dustin hoffman. seriously, physically he's just a little grayer. anne bancroft is so good that i won't be able to see her in any other character after this. she will always be mrs. robinson. the soundtrack is needless to say brilliant also, simon and garfunkle were at their peak. i couldn't get it off of my head for weeks. now i'm writing about it, guess what i'm listening to? i was tempted to make the 60's my favourite decade just based on this one movie.
1987 - the princess bride - i know the title sounds a little corny, but it's the bestest fairy tale EVER! the movie intro lines/verse says it best:
"scaling the cliffs of insanity
battling rodents of unusual size
facing torture in the Pit of Despair
true love has never been a snap"
my favourite decade however, is neither of the decades featured above. it seemed only fair to highlight the movies that i really enjoyed watching from each decade as well
as those of my favourite decade. i picked my decade on a purely subjective non-scientific basis. if i liked the film it got highlighted in yellow on my list, and at the end i just counted how many i had highlighted. it was a hard choice because, although the sheer number of movies in my decade is just enough to force my hand, the 1940's with its classic films noir, were a close and hard contender.i love the intrigue and the sparse looks the movies from teh 40's carry. humphry bogart, lauren bacall, carey grant, laurence olivier are still unmatched as actors with that particular bland of platinum standard star quality.still, the 40's didn't quite cut it. although movies such as the grapes of wrath were award winning and very classily made, i felt a distinct inability to connect with it. hence, i left it for two days without getting to finish it and really, movies shouldn't require that much commitment. for me movies are pure entertainment. i want to be able to put my feet up and be enthralled. my decade really did this for me.
my favourite
decade, for movies, then are the 1990'si blame it on my mother. i'm a child of the 80s/90s. i grew up with jurassic park, die hard, braveheart and toy story. bruce willis is the closest thing i have to a language coach ("yippiekayey muthafucka"). the first bond film i saw (that spawned and uncontrollable bond obsession) was golden eye (1995). my first rom com was jerry maguire (1996). legends of the fall (1994) made me want brad pitt's babies. i even had his long haired mug on my wall for over a year.
then when i was little older, and i could actually discern between good and bad film, i saw all the films i missed, or watched and never understood and some of them still remain in my all time favourite movie lists.
princess mononoke (1997) from the studio ghibli is one of the best anime movies i have ever watched, along with other ghibli films remain on my top most favourite movie lists. animated films in general really intrigue me and even at the disgustingly old age i am at, i find they really haven't lost its magic for me. anyone who has seen toy story, the lion king, the little mermaid, beauty and the beast (and other such disney fare) KNOWS that their hearts are filled with goodness (and songs, many many songs) after watching.
the thing is with most films from the 90's they're so easy to watch. they're like a security blanket.
especially if you've traumatised yourself by watching clockwork orange in the night, you need to see while you were sleeping (1995 with sandra bullock and bill pullman) to reassure yourself that the world's not bonkers.in fact, i think 90's films mostly take us out of time and place. the world is such a volatile place, nothing is assured anymore. if you were to fret about everything that went wrong or that bothered you or made you think, you'd be a wreck. so really in a way, i think i like 90's film for the same reason i like 40's film. they were both really volatile decades, and the movies acted either as a form of catharsis, with the good always winning over the bad (or your side, over their side) or really downplaying the danger and uncertainty of the age. the difference being that, the 90's actually deal/dealt with the things that i could relate to. plus really, i love the cheese.
incidently of course, not all of the 90's were cheese. i was just making a point. some of my fav films were decidedly uncheesy. here's a few.
the talented mr ripley (1999) - gorgeous cinematography, very subtle story and matt damon. even if he is the creepy bad guy. it made me want to be insanely wealthy and spending months at a time in a quaint italian villa. it was the role jude law was born to play. lazy, rich and sun tanned.
edward scissorhands (1990) - johnny depp is one of my favourite actors. he's also the darling of one of the best directors in the world, tim burton. he made being an outsider cool. i dare you to not love it.the virgin suicides (1999) - sophia coppola's surreal masterpiece. i say surreal because it really is - even at the end you're wondering what the hell happened and you try to theorise in a 150 different ways. amazingly hauntingly beautifully shot. based on the book by the same name, it has a soundtrack by the french band air, that could maybe rival simon and garfunkle's take on the graduate.
fight club (1999) - with edward norton and brad pitt. a film thats crazier than helena bonham carter's hair directed by david fincher of the curius case of benjamin button fame. dark and strangely funny.then last but definitely not least, there's tarantino. pulp fiction (1994), reservoir dogs (1992) really? need i say more? (girl, da dum dum daa, you'll be a womanh sooonh). tarrantino is pure genius. i dont know how anyone can not love these two films. the soundtracks are equally, and very importantly, awesome.
love,
Y.Yaka
Saturday, September 26, 2009
trader horn
whoever Owen K Fielding is, he's looked after his books exceptionally well. i picked up a second hand (maybe more) copy of Trader Horn by Ethelreda Lewis at the Book fair yesterday. for fifty rupees. it's from Penguin's Travel and Adventure series from 1938!
it is in remarkably good condition, the pages are still crisp and the cover virtually unblemished.
i love the smell of bargains in the morning.
it is in remarkably good condition, the pages are still crisp and the cover virtually unblemished.
i love the smell of bargains in the morning.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
stories
old paving stones
surround fresh new puddles
bare paws follow
bare feet
splashing across reflections of the blue skies
mushy wet grass
squelches underfoot
the very cool breeze
floats across space
to fly through her hair
to whisper in her ear
strange stories of people
in a language she’s not sure how she knows
maybe that’s why in the cool night
amidst the pitter patter
constant sounds of rain on the roof
she sleeps undisturbed with
gentle dreams keeping her mind occupied…
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