Monday, August 28, 2006

time reinforces and diminishes.

Jo, Danny, Gooizhen, Gloria and I made a trip down to the Royal Albert Hall last Friday for the Proms, and I'm very happy to report that none of us fell asleep. While we quite fancied the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and the Sibelius 5th Symphony, we all cringed at the pompous contemporary piece. It dealt more with 'aesthetic' concepts, and dare I say it - almost kitsch-like in construction. Why, the more abstract the piece is, the more wonderful the work must be. If it's beyond our understanding, it must truly be such a great work of art. Use as many instruments as you can, employ unusual orchestration, have the players walk up and down to blow their own trumpets - literally. (Well, in this case, trumpets and trombones) Only two dynamic levels - ff and fff. How impressive! Applaud, applaud!

Jo thought it sounded like noise music befitting Caesar's Palace, and Danny likened it to 'pretentious' - I couldn't have said it better myself. Then again, read this from a book recently:

"The spectator, standing just a few inches away from one of Monet's painting of Rouen cathedral, sees only daubs of paint and vague shapes. Just as the outline of the cathedral emerges only when the viewer takes a few steps back, so the image of the artist and his works is supposed to gain in clarity the farther we withdraw from it in time."

It makes me wonder if the difficulty that we face in appreciating such 'novel' music lies with us then - that we'll only learn to cultivate taste through proximity and distance, and under severe conditioning through imposed exposure to modern music, or anything else for that matter.

Like how hindsight is always 20/20, everything seen through the (hopefully, objective) retrospective lens is infinite times clearer and far more luminous. But more often than not, it's already too late, what has passed you by is forever lost. Sprawled on the bed face-down, fondling the dregs of your fallible memories, which alter and lose much meaning with each enforced revival. And one day, even the presence of their absence would fade into that postcard-thin line of obscurity amongst many new coloured acquisitions, which makes it seem as if it had never once lived.

But you carry on living. Maybe with a gray tinge of inexplicable loss, for forgetting what you have forgotten, but most incredulously - you start life from square one, all over again, because you're now none the wiser. Then again, it sounds too fantastic to be true, but it explains why delusions have to be larger than life - reality tends to disappoint us with its all-too-prosaic nature. I wonder why we (or at least, I) ever thought otherwise?

blueprint

I will like to spend my days, as though they are my own, which I mostly end up doing in halves, for duty beckons, and I am answering its clarion call. Soon enough! I am also a veteran procrastinator.

fresh monodies

there is no satisfying greed.
fuming at myself; gripe alert!
panicking.
lunch.
three unrelated photos.
quattro formaggi, cover my eyes.
do not wake me up when September ends.
vell, the point i vonted to make woz J L J L J L J.
feeling pained.
oversleeping.

previous rants

August 2004
September 2004
October 2004
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
March 2008
April 2008
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
August 2008
September 2008
October 2008
November 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
August 2009
September 2009
October 2009
November 2009
December 2009
November 2010
January 2011
February 2011
August 2011
October 2011
May 2013

treatises on life

arty jen
betty boop
carmentica
charming-linn
chasing snowy cars
cheeky lynn
cheryliciously glam
clean and cute
cyclist-mad bass
darling dominic
feisty jing
fellow ditz-sista/porkSTAR
hail mary!
hell's kitchen
hero on the beach
h-Euge heart
hunky lenny
lipgloss queen
little cheryl
live n learn, baby
lolita lou
loony loon
mr popular
musically dan
m y s t j
phringe
princess tania
roger smurf
runaway pigeon
sabotage king jeremiah
sibling angst1
sibling angst2
spector dan
spunky tian
steffy bunny
sun-sunzzz
teeny wee-nee
weeeee, leonard!
yangtze yang'en

frivolous pursuits

for shallow ppl
for very geeky ppl
for the truly bored
spun prose
binary thoughts
past imprints
some stamps
montage of images
other memories

mulling over

And there were phlegmatic souls.