Douglas Coupland’s latest novel - JPod - is supposed to be an ‘upgraded’ version of Microserfs, which wasn’t my favourite book of Coupland’s, but let’s hope I’ll like version 2.0.
JPod
June 4th, 2006Mondaine - Official Swiss Railways Watch
June 3rd, 2006
I found this Mondaine classic watch at the Design Museum to replace my Tag Heuer until I get back to Hong Kong and change the battery on it. The Mondaine clock design originated in 1940 and was used as the official clock design of the famously punctual Swiss Railway.
AVENUE Q
June 3rd, 2006
I hadn’t been to the theatre for a while and was excited to hear about AVENUE Q coming to London. My friend, Queenie, highly recommended the show to me when I was in New York a couple of years ago but it was too popular to get in. Finally, they have a preview in London this month.
It’s just like your life… only funnier!
is the official tag line, however, I am not sure how much this applies to UK audiences. More importantly, I can’t say AVENUE Q is funny! It is defintely entertaining and has a lot of things to be said on the good sides, but it’s just not funny. (And definitely wasn’t the witty, sarcastic kind of funny that Brits tend to go for these days.)
The cast was amazing throughout the performance — the mannerisms and movements of the puppets was very well done and believable. The set was simple but clever. It easily showed both the interior and exterior of the home of Princeton (a fresh graduate who was searching for a purpose in life), Kate Monster (a kindergarten teaching assistant who dreamt of having her own school for monsters), Rod (a closet gay Repulican), Nick (Rod’s messy flatmate), Brain (a wannabe comedian), Christmas Eve (the Asian American wife of Brain), Gary (a used-to-be child-star) and Trekkie Monster (who is obssessed with internet porn).
Although the songs were hardly the most impressive element of the show, they were certainly catchy and easy to remember. I found myself annoyingly humming ‘Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist’ and ‘If You Were Gay’ for the rest of the evening and the day after! ‘Schadenfreude‘ was actually quite a funny joke but the rest of the songs like ‘The Internet Is For Porn’ needed more variety in terms of lyrics.
In short, AVENUE Q was entertaining and the performance of the cast was brilliant but it is just not all that witty or funny. I still think that it deserved to win three Tony Award in 2004 for Best New Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score.
X-Men: The Last Straw
May 29th, 2006
It is the last X-Men movie I see unless Bryan Singer comes back to direct and write - it is likely to take him a while to clear up the mess and disappointment that the third movie, X-Men: The Last Stand, has created.
Just because it’s stupidly* called ‘The Last Stand’, it doesn’t mean that it is accpetable (especially to fans of the comics) to kill off most of the key characters: Cyclops, Professor X and Jean-Grey. Then again, I am not sure if there is much point for the others to stay alive when Rogue was ‘cured’ and Storm’s only role was to deliver over-sentimental cheesy lines. I couldn’t help but burst into laughter when the almighty Magneto was shocked by Phoenix’s power and exclaimed, What have I done?
. This is not something you’d expect from one of the greatest villains. The entire film is just a joke to original X-Men fans.
If you are not an X-Men fan, you would still be disappointed by the lack of entertaining elements. It was just a blockbuster with lots of second-class explosions and special effects. The plot was so weak that you wouldn’t care about any of the characters. That’s probably why most people would have missed the ‘hint’ about Professor X’s coming back after the credits. In fact, some of them might have left before the end of the movie.
*How on earth could it be called ‘The Last Stand’ when they are going to make the fourth film?
Modernism: Designing a New World 1914-1939
May 13th, 2006
Modernism is a cultural movement that generally includes the progressive art and architecture, music, literature and design which emerged in the decades before 1914. It was a movement of artists and designers who rebelled against late 19th century academic and historicist traditions, and embraced the new economic, social and political aspects of the emerging modern world. - Wikipedia
It was my first visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) and I was impressed with the architecture and the large variety of collections they house.
However, my focus was on the latest modernism exhibition, which consists of a large range of objects – from architectural, interior, furniture, product to graphic, painting, film and photography. It certainly helped keep my concentration when looking at objects of different nature and use of the same theme.
As a photography enthusiast, I enjoyed looking at the architectual photos. The furniture part was interesting and some of the selected chairs such as the Marcel Brauer ones were quite familiar. The interior of the Frankfurt Kitchen was worth spending time at. I wouldn’t have minded seeing more products though.
The exhibiton will last until 23rd June at the V&A.
A Long Way Down
May 12th, 2006
Reminding me of Douglas Coupland’s “All Families are Psychotic” - Nick Hornby’s latest book is surreal and full of coincidences.
The plot of the story wasn’t exactly convincing but the characters were highly believable. Half-way through the story, I started feeling sorry for Maureen (a 51-year-old single mum with a teenage son in a coma) and wanting to punch Jess (a rebellious, foul-mouthed daughter of the Ministor for Education) in the face to shut her up; Martin (a former morning show presenter who went to jail for sleeping with a minor) knew he was a snobbish arsehole but failed to be a better person; the only character I didn’t care about was JJ (an American rock-and-roll ‘musician’ who was dumped by his band and his English girlfriend).
I liked the way it was written through four prespectives. It was like watching Jackie Brown - same scene from different angles.
Although Hornby’s characters kept criticising happy endings, it didn’t stop him from creating another Hollywood-friendly conclusion.
A Long Way Down was written by Nick Hornby.
Empress Orchid
May 12th, 2006
An engaging and addictive story based on the life of one of the most controversial women in Chinese history - Empress Orchid.
I liked the fact that the author (Anchee Min) tried to keep the events as true as she could, according to the extensive research she’d done. It brought back memories of my Chinese history school lessons.
It allowed a fictional peek at the lives and politics within the Forbidden City and revealed a different perspective of the most powerful female in the royal court. It also showed the sensitive side of Orchid, who in many circumstances, would be described as a woman with enomous ambition to take her life as well as her country into her own hands.
It certainly inspired me to read more about Orchid’s real life.
Empress Orchid was written by Anchee Min.
My Granddad
April 12th, 2006
I was at work when my brother rang and broke the news to me. In fact, I was burying my nose under the most complicated spreadsheet in the world (given that Maths was my least favourtie subject in school) when I heard his deep voice, saying that Granddad has just passed away.
I only found out that Granddad was admitted to the hospital again yesterday and although my mum didn’t sound very optimistic about his situation, I wasn’t expecting things to move on so quickly. He hasn’t really been himself for quite some time now and once in a while, I received the news about him being admitted to hospital. However, it was strange to receive the news while I was at work. I didn’t know how to react to this news and I still don’t.
Most of my friends know that I am not exactly close to my father’s side of the family, but my granddad was always the most interesting one. According to my Grandmum, he led a legendary life when he was in his youth, being one of Lee Rock’s close associates. There was also a rumour that Ng Man Tat’s character in the movie was based loosely on him! I have no idea whether this is true or not and I guess there is no way to find out now. I only know that Granddad was put into a mental institute in the 70’s - some said that he had a nervous breakdown while others suggested that he was just pretending so as to avoid the ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) investigation. Again, the truth will stay with him now.
Photography, Art and Architecture - Week 3
March 11th, 2006
Half-way through the five-week class, we were back at the National Theatre and continued looking at some of our photos from the first and second week. Chad McCail was our guest lecturer, who seemed to have a lot of interesting things to say but wasn’t really given a great deal of chance to.
We spent most of the day going through everyone’s photos and making constructive suggestions on each other’s work. The conclusion was that I should focus on my shadow series, which was obviously showing a sense of absence through an intention of searching for someone or something, and I am happy to give it a go.
I am never very good at photographying architecture and still find it difficult to make them meaningful and give them a ’soul’, without any obvious object. I may try taking a series of photos at Bow Quarter and see what happens.
Photography, Art and Architecture - Week 2
March 4th, 2006
The second week of a five-week class on Photography, Art and Architecture was more fun than the first week. We spent a little too long looking at Diego’s photos before we moved to the National Theatre for evaluations on some of our photos from last week and practical work.
I really enjoy this class partly due to an interesting mix of our fellow students - a third of the people are architects while there are also a professional photographer, psychiatrist, PhD student of Fine Art and an investment banker. We are also from different countries: Spain, Romania, Denmark, Hong Kong and of course, England.
As Diego said, our differences were shown in the ways we see the same building. Some people were keen to capture the details and tend to be more graphical while the others were obsessed with the spiral staircase. I like taking photos of reflections - through windows or shadows.
We didn’t have long photographing the National Theatre and decided to come back again next week.