March 2013
3 posts
“Strong complementarian women combine things the world cannot explain: a sweet,...”
– John Piper (via denyandfollow)
“You tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer...”
– “For Women Who Are Difficult to Love,” Warsan Shire
February 2013
1 post
Ang Lee: A Never-Ending Dream →
morabbiton:
BY IRENE SHIH FEBRUARY 26, 2013
Following Ang Lee’s second Best Directing win at the Academy Awards last night, this beautiful essay resurfaced. Here is my translation of Ang Lee’s words, written in 2006 (post-Oscar win). Please credit the translation to Irene Shih (and to this blog), thank you!
In 1978, as I applied to study film at the University of Illinois, my father vehemently...
“`Have you made your peace with your God?’
`I never quarreled with my God.’...”
– Last words of Henry David Thoreau, speaking with his aunt on his deathbed. (via gaws)
January 2013
1 post
A Poet Reflects: growing-orbits: Making a FistWe... →
contrive:
growing-orbits:
Making a Fist
We forget that we are all dead men conversing with dead men. —Jorge Luis Borges For the first time, on the road north of Tampico, I felt the life sliding out of me, a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear. I was seven, I lay in the car watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass. My stomach was a melon split wide inside my...
December 2012
1 post
November 2012
2 posts
RAYMOND CARVER’S OKCUPID PROFILE, EDITED BY GORDON... →
youmightfindyourself:
My self-summary I am a writer and poet, one, bear with me here, of the “major” writers of the late 20th century, though just typing that felt desperate. I received a B.A. in English at Humboldt State University, then went on to attend the esteemed Iowa Writers’ Workshop, thus launching my career. I also like to drink.
What I’m doing with my life Working on some short...
“For me, a woman who is absorbed in her work, who does not care about gaining...”
– Yohji Yamamoto (via thatkindofwoman)
August 2012
1 post
“The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent,...”
– Chuck Palahniuk
June 2012
2 posts
“I miss you because memory
is a kind editor.
The past is a long scroll and
in...”
– “Return Key,” Cory Mesler (via clavicola)
April 2012
3 posts
There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves by... →
youmightfindyourself:
I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable...
“To me it seems that at those moments, which are characterized by the sudden...”
– T.S. Eliot, describing those rare moments of clarity and inspiration (via invisiblestories)
The Tangential: Seven Reasons Why Women Are... →
thetangential:
1. Women are winning at education. As educational achievement increases across the U.S., women’s achievement growth is exceeding that of men in every demographic group—most notably at the highest income levels. Women are reaching adulthood better-equipped with the knowledge and experience…
January 2012
1 post
The 100 Most Beautiful Words in English →
Ailurophile A cat-lover. Assemblage A gathering. Becoming Attractive. Beleaguer To exhaust with attacks. Brood To think alone. Bucolic In a lovely rural setting. Bungalow A small, cozy cottage. Chatoyant Like a cat’s eye. Comely Attractive. Conflate To blend together. Cynosure A focal point of admiration. Dalliance A brief love affair. Demesne Dominion, territory. Demure Shy and reserved....
December 2011
1 post
“Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern. The country is grey and brown and white in trees, snows and skies of laughter always diminishing, less funny not just darker, not just grey. It may be the coldest day of the year, what does he think of that? I mean, what do I? And if I do, perhaps I am myself again.”
― Frank...
November 2011
3 posts
WHOA WHOA
Need. To. Blog.
This is a decidedly familiar rush; the desperate need for an outlet to proclaim the mess that is my life, brought on and exacerbated by the fact that I am home, and home is messy, and there is nothing about being home, where my histories and contexts are, that can be neatly put in a box.
I wrote ‘CALM THE FUCK DOWN’ on a Post-It note and stuck it on my laptop corner,...
October 2011
1 post
1 tag
So totally high school
Whoa whoa. Even though that was a decade ago I still have these sudden onsets of frivolity and angst (never one without the other) that lead me to do things that are decidedly… high school. Like post pictures of actors i am hankering after on my tumblr. I wonder if kids these days still put up posters in their lockers or on the inside of their cupboards.
ANYWAY. Current Object of Obsession,...
September 2011
6 posts
Saudade
“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past. They are fighting for access to the laboratories where photographs are...
Anniversary
I think this woman is one of the funniest people on the internet today. Writing about 911 is counterintuitive to a comedian’s form but this is probably one of, if not the best, tributes yet, dedicated to the “18-to-34-year-olds and spam bots… Tweeters and Tumblrers and Bloggers and whatever the HECK else portmanteaus we can whip up while sitting in ironic coffee shops ...
4 tags
“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens...”
– John Steinbeck
This made me laugh.
Let’s just say - after a night out where I had too much whiskey, I tried to give my stupid cat a ‘fat kiss on its wet nose’… and he scratched me. And I have a potty mouth, amongst other true facts.
From The Tangential, one of the funnier tumblrs I read. IF WHISKEY WAS A PERSONALITY TYPE
Your friendships As you slither in from a night of partying, you pick up your cat...
August 2011
6 posts
not to be dramatic
… but the day I’ve feared would come is finally here -
I think I’ve lost my ability to write.
Insert look of absolute panic here please.
Make Your Own Beauty Products from Scratch →
Healthy Food Combinations →
Enjoying Solitude
I am now sitting in my hotel room listening to typhoon warning sirens blare in the distance - I could head out, but why plunge myself into the endless blackhole of people (yes, even in this weather) that is Shanghai? (And get my feet wet with the grit and spit of the city? But more on my slight mysophobia another time.)
Yesterday was similar. Till I had to meet some peeps for dinner, I realised...
“It was not in my nature to be an assertive person. I was used to looking to...”
– Jhumpa Lahiri, Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship: The New Yorker (via bookmania)
June 2011
1 post
Why I Write
at the request of a dearest, old friend - who remembered this when i had completely forgotten. from my first blog, dated 4 Feb 2004.
*
in one of my better moments. dedicated to all you, all us, bloggers.
why i write.
i write to exert some sort of illusionary control over my life. i write to solve. i write to satisfy. i write by accident, even though this is by no means accidental. i write to...
May 2011
7 posts
The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet | Belly... →
when bored
Plan travel.
Irony
I booked a trip to Siem Reap to be alone but that ended up not being the case (a mistake on my big mouth’s part), but came back to Singapore to an empty office because all project teams are offsite this week (and mine is on vacay).
Breakfast was coffee and croissants, it’s starting to rain outside and it’s quiet, peaceful and perfect.
April 2011
3 posts
Just some men
A young Sting and a young Jeremy Irons
Jude Law and Matt Damon
Travel
Solo in Siem Reap in 2 weeks - 3 days to temple myself out, cycle through rural villages, browse at the markets and visit a gallery or two. And eat summa that cambodian curry. Already shitting myself thinking about the 20km sunrise ride i’ve signed up for.
My initial thought was Laos and India by year’s end, the big blowout trip being North India for some r&r. In Gangtok, to be...
“Generally speaking, the significance of the indirect results may very often be...”
– P.D. Ouspensky (via newyorkcitylights)
March 2011
4 posts
Not with it
Today I transfered a fairly large sum of money to the wrong guy (and a random, one-off, year-old person-on-my-list-of-transferees) and had to write a mortifying email asking for it back starting with “oh hi do you remember me?”
And then tonight I went to Guardian pharmacy and left my $25 worth of toiletries at the counter. Only realised I had to endure another day of...
“My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the...”
– D. H. Lawrence
I was thinking about this quote for a good part of yesterday - I’ve always liked D.H. Lawrence. At first I was inclined to agree wholeheartedly because I thought it validated my preference for heart-use than head-use. Then I realised what Lawrence was talking about had nothing...
February 2011
14 posts
“Never mind the artist’s ego and career, what about art itself? How does a...”
– Stewart Brand
Creating Creating
This piece was the keynote at the 1992 CyberArts Conference in Pasadena, Calif.
(via artprize)
