LM and I binge watched Harry Potter moives 1-8 during Christmas. It felt like reconnecting with a long lost friend, a very endearing friend in fact. Alan Rickman's passing was especially hard to sink in after immersing myself in the wizard world and not wanting to emerge from it. It was moving to see how fans around the world honored him, like the flowers on Platform 9 and 3/4 (image from web).
Ultimately I think the credits go to Rowling who conjured the greatest
antagonist of all time. The immense impact of HP over a decade is
impossible to grasp. We are talking about people growing up with it and
their lives revolving around it or even defined by it. The actors were
12 when they started filming Sorcerer's Stone. Ten years flashed by when
the last film was shot. Can you imagine? I was just stunned after
reading Harry Potter Page to Screen. The stories from everyone involved
are every bit as imaginative as the novel/film. Given another life time, I'd very much like to build models of castles and beasts... Below are some brilliant details of production. Even if some only lasted split seconds in the film, or worse still didn't even make it into the film, the sheer amount of passion is worth the highest accolade. It's a designer's dream to work on fantasy world projects.
A map of Hogwarts like it's a real, breathing thing.
Model of Hogwarts. Top left are miniature owls made for the owlery.
A wintry Hogwarts achieved by sprinkling salt as fake snow. All the more painstaking to vacuum it without destroying the delicate structures.
Model of Diagon Alley shops, with their miniature candy shelves, cages and lamps.
Diagon Alley concept art. It's both real (based on colonial architecture) and surreal (nothing is quite straight).
Basilisk model, fitting skin over frame
Plates of animated cats in Umbridge's office. There were 30-40 photo shoots of different cats in muggle or wizard settings.
Design of Quidditch costume, considerations of how to make it sporty yet medieval.
Design of Hermione's Yule Ball gown which shows a coming-of-age femininity
王尔德的作品一部都没看过（或看完整过），昨天抽出老早买的二手complete works of oscar wilde翻了几页，还是从他唯一的小说开始读吧。似乎小七的最爱就是dorian gray，很好奇啊。最感兴趣的是de profundis，原稿存于大英博物馆封印60年才公诸于世，只因为60年后书中的人物全已消失于人世，所以这本书算是死后遗言了，还死无对证。
actor ben barnes(who's that?), in the upcoming movie dorian gray co-starring colin firth
dorian gray 2009 behind the scene
i think the tone oscar sets in the preface is very authoratative to the extent of preaching, as if he's writing the bible of art, and at the very end pronounces it useless. what a campy queen lol. but hell, sure this's beautiful prose!
the picture of dorian gray, preface 道连·格雷的画像 | 序 （中文版按这里）
The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim. 艺术家是美的作品的创造者。艺术的宗旨是展示艺术本身， 同时把艺术家隐藏起来。
The critic is he who can translate into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful things. （缺）
The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. 自传体是批评的最高形式，也是最低形式。
Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. 在美的作品中发现丑恶含义的人是堕落的，而且堕落得一无可爱之处。这是一种罪过。
Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty. 在美的作品中发现美的含义的人是有教养的。这种人有希望。认为美的作品仅仅意味着美的人才是上帝的选民。
There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. 书无所谓道德的或不道德的。书有写得好的或写得糟的。仅此而已。
The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in a glass. 十九世纪对现实主义的憎恶，犹如从镜子里照见自己面孔的凯列班的狂怒。 （＊caliban, an ugly character from shakespeare's work)
The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban not seeing his own face in a glass. 十九世纪对浪漫主义的憎恶，犹如从镜子里照不见自己面孔的凯列班的狂怒。
The moral life of man forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. 人的精神生活只是艺术家创作题材的一部分，艺术的道德则在于完美地运用并不完美的手段。
No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything. 艺术家并不企求证明任何事情。即使是天经地义的事情也是可以证明的。艺术家没有伦理上的好恶。艺术家如在伦理上有所臧否，那是不可原谅的矫揉造作。艺术家从来没有病态的。艺术家可以表现一切。
Thought and language are to the artist instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. 思想和语言是艺术家艺术创作的手段。邪恶与美德是艺术家艺术创作的素材。从形式着眼，音乐家的艺术是各种艺术的典型。从感觉着眼，演员的技艺是典型。一切艺术同时既有外观，又有象征。有人要钻到外观底下去，那由他自己负责。有人要解释象征意义，那由他自己负责。
It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. 其实，艺术这面镜子反映的是照镜者，而不是生活。对一件艺术品的看法不一，说明这作品新颖、复杂、重要。批评家们尽可意见分歧，艺术家不会自相矛盾。一个人做了有用的东西可以原谅，只要他不自鸣得意。一个人做了无用的东西，只要他视若至宝，也可宽宥。
I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. I felt in myself a superabundance of energy which found no outlet in our quiet life. - Leo Tolstoy, 'Family Happiness' Passage highlighted in one of the the books found with Chris McCandless's remains.
Unrequited love, at that period of my life, the only kind I seemed capable of feeling. This caused me much pain, but in retrospect I had to see the advantages. It provided all the emotional jolts of the other kind without any of the risks, it did not interfere with my life, which, although meager, was mine and predictable, and it involved no decisions. - Margaret Atwood
Today I did an one-time meticulous counting: My concentration span is 9 B5-sized pages of text, and anything after 9 pages will be, Oh let the thinker sits on a spinning clockwork mechanism, a stray cat steps over the neon light, Hmm soon it'll be closing time when should I go etc etc, while my eyes zap back and forth along the same line that doesn't image on my brain.
Something interesting about perfume: The indigestible part of giant squid, in particular their beaks, accumulate in sperm whales' stomachs into the substance known as ambergris(wiki), which is used as a fixative in perfumes. The next time you spray on Chanel No.5(assuming you do), you may wish to reflect that you are dousing yourself in distillate of unseen sea monster. - From 'A short history of nearly everything'by Bill Bryson, footnotes of a certain page
To sum up my reading, ambergris is a chunk of sweet-smelling wax (amber-like?) which I suspect, is something like seasoned squid you find in a snack pack.But it's pricey!and before it's reduced to the highly sought-after form, it's just shit-smelling waste from the whale.
People are born free, they aren't born to be bound by anything, says Jin. That's what I've always thought. But isn't that contrary to a warrior's duty? Freedom, the monk tells him, isn't something earned through suffering or pushing yourself. You must accept yourself just as you are and live according to the flow of things;that is true freedom. - Episode 12 温故知新, Samurai Champloo
Excerpts from 'Notes from a small island' by Bill Bryson, a travel journal on an interesting island named Britain.
(Chapter 7, page 81) "Throughout this trip, I would have moments of quiet panic at the thought of ever leaving this snug and homey little isle. It was a melancholy business really, this little trip of mine, a bit like wandering through a much-loved home for the last time. The fat is, I liked it here. I liked it very much. It took only a friendly gesture from a shopkeeper, or a seat by the fire in a country pub, or a view like this to set me thinking that I was making a serious, deeply misguided mistake.
Which is why, if you were one of those cliff-top strollers in Bournemouth that mild evening, you may have seen a middle-aged American wandering past in a self-absorbed manner and muttering,'Think of endless winter months of rain. Think of VAT at 17.5 percent. Think of loading your car to overflowing with rubbish on a Saturday and driving to the dump only to find that it is shut. Think of the strange, unshakable fondness of BBC1 for Cagney and Lacey repeats. Think of...'"
(Chapter 10, page 106) "Indulge me for a moment, if you will. Drum on the top of your head with the fingers of both hands and see how long it takes before either it gets seriously on your nerves or everyone in the vicinity is staring at you. In either case, you will find that you are happy to stop it. Now imagine those drumming fingers are raindrops endlessly beating on your hood and that there's nothing you can do about it, and moreover that your glasses are two circles of steamy uselessness, that you are slipping around on a rain-slickened path a single mis-step from a long fall to a rocky beach - a fall that would reduce you to little more than a smear on a piece of rock, like jam on bread. I imagined the headline - AMERICAN WRITER DIES IN FALL; WAS LEAVING COUNTRY ANYWAY - and plodded on, squinting Magoo-like, with feelings of foreboding."
***
To break away from the magnetic, radiative force of my laptop screen, I forced myself to take a book to a nearby Taiwanese cafe and sat through one and a half hour in late night, trying to read. You have to see the picture yourself: I was surrounded by noisy packets of lovey dovey HK couples and among the sea of romance, there I was making a spectacular attraction by appearing as a book flipping geek who let out bouts of laughters. I wasn't particularly aware of my obtrusivenesses until the guy at next table gestured to his girlfriend to look in my direction. What is there to look at? Haven't you seen a book before? I made a mental note to stay till closing time, out of sheer misloveydoveyanthropic outburst and rebellious stubbornness. I did achieve a great amount of reading, 'seldom seen amount' in months in fact, but eventually decided to go back on my words and pull out when more people flushed in and took my spare chair away. All right, take the table. I'm leaving for good and I swear not to come back for my next night reading session.
Above was my transient thought which made a U-turn and came back middle of nervewhere.
xl says:
你的本命属鼠，海中金命。五行土旺缺金；日主天干为土，生于春季。
（同类土火；异类木水金。）
Z a maze of boxes says:
缺金，没钱？？？
xl says:
按此所，你的名字的颖如果改成银就补了一些，不是缺钱的意思。
Z a maze of boxes says:
不要！ 好难听！
xl says:
或者用 蓥 也很好
汉语拼音一样
Z a maze of boxes says:
还是颖好，谐音就行了
The movie's based on a historical fiction. Based on what I gather from the Tudors, there's no rivalry between Ann and Mary Boleyn for the king. Natalie Portman(Ann) is rather convincing, but why does Scarlett(Mary) look like a wrongly accused maid...
Trailer
***
'Rear View' by Pete Duval, a collection of short creative writings.
Here's an excerpt from 'Spectator sport': (a group of college students volunteering in a lunatic hospice)
On the first day, the director had stood up in the bus on the way down and warned us not to take the 'commitment' lightly. You miss a week, she said, swaying with the movement of the bus, and one of them might 'snap'. I liked the director. She was the main reason I had volunteered to befriend insane people in the first place. She had shorn most of her hair away, except for a tuft up front, which she dyed a different color each week. She wore a sleeveless T-shirt and a tie-dyed dress and genuine Marine combat boots. Moreover, she wore earrings in the many fleshy parts of her body.
I sensed that the inmates were confused by the director. She reminded them of something. I did not know what. This Mexican insane guy named Pablo became attracted to the director and began to follow her around in his pajamas.
'Te quiero,'he often said. 'Te quiero.'
The director made it known that she wanted me to get between her and Pablo. For two weeks, that was my function. Anytime Pablo and she were in the same room, she required my services as a moving wall.
Most weeks Zeke and I played pool the whole two hours. There was nothing else for me to do. I had lost interest in the mingling. Zeke beat me at nine ball. It made me wonder why he was even in there. I was full of assumptions. I was equating sanity with skill at billiards. He was just this normal automechanic-looking guy in the middle of an absolute horror show. I would shun the others - just ignore them - even though this defeated the very purpose of my being there, which was to make conversation with a wide variety of insane people. Two hours per week. It wasn't much to ask. ---------------- Now playing: Ween - Learnin' To Love via FoxyTunes
Collaborations between artists and designers are very much a current trend. In addition to designers being inspired by paintings from long ago, they are also commissioning art works specifically for their garments.
One of these is Issey Miyake, who has recently commissioned guest artists to paint their masterpieces onto the front of his pleated dresses. One was by the Chinese artist Cai Guo Quiang. They say that art is in the eye of the beholder, a lady who wore this dress to a London restaurant had waiters rushing over with tissues because they thought she had spilled her dinner all down the front of her dress.
I pissed off an internet blogger & photographer whom I want to befriend and ask business information from. To summarise the unfulfiled event, I approached the conversation by showing my share of understanding (of his life) and sympathy which did no good. So the snobbish and nosy me was duly detested and ignored. Fine. But hell, why would you make the blog grandly public, put your msn up there if not to satisfy voyeurism while at the same time so guarded and not interested in talking? That I'm pissed off as well.
Below are poems by Jane Hirshfield, from the anthology 'After'. The collective title is 'seventeen pebbles', under which are 17 short subject poems. I just can't help admiring her mastery in evoking the senses and posing a spiritual insight.
Lighthouse
Its vision sweeps its one path like an aged monk raking a garden, his question long ago answered or moved on. Far off, night-grazing horses, breath scented with oat grass and fennel, step through it, disappear, step through it, disappear.
Maple
The lake scarlets the same instant as the maple. Let others try to say this is not passion.
Insomnia, listening
Three times in one night a small animal crosses the length of the ceiling. Each time it goes all the way one way, all the way back, without hesitation or pause.
Envy that sureness.
It is like being cut-flowers, between the filed and the vase.
Say goodbye to Clive and Cambridge, once so glamorous defying the whole world and blinding the unimportance.
But 'that's finished', said Scudder in the boathouse.
Their reunion doesn't touch me as much as the general idea of an ideal. Clive nipped it. Maurice died for it. The rebirth is only paying due justification to the hurt. How should it end otherwise when Forster's standing on the rebel's side?
*** Maurice blew out his cheeks, and began picking flowerets off a tall stalk. They vanished one after another, like candles that the night has extinguished.
*
Maurice opened his hand. Luminous petals appeared in it. 'You care for me a little bit, I do think,' he admitted, 'but I can't hang all my life on a little bit. You don't. You hang yours on Anne. You don't worry whether your relation with her is platonic or not, you only know it's big enough to hang a life on. I can't hang mine on to the five minutes you spare me from her and politics.'
*
To the end of his life Clive was not sure of the exact moment of departure, and with the approach of old age he grew uncertain whether the moment had yet occurred. The Blue Room would glimmer, ferns undulate. Out of some eternal Cambridge his friend began beckoning to him, clothed in the sun, and shaking out the scents and sounds of the May Team.
