One Week-end of Movies and Friends and Oddities

A whole week-end spent cooking and watching movies of radical genres with radical people.

Thanks to M., I dipped my toes into eras I would have probably never watched on my own.

I've never watched a young Barbra Streisand, this has been rectified with a delightful comedy.

Such a good dialogue and great pacing. Also pretty funny what the hell!

I've never watched a Marylin Monroe movie, this has been corrected with a comedy taking place in the background of the alcohol prohibition period and the bootleggers time in the U.S. (both of which I am ignorant).

So American cinema used to know how to write great dialogues? Or is it because it was so selective that only decent stuff came through?

Then, because it is that time of the year again, I watched the latest Murakami at hand and it didn't disappoint.

Even more so since it's a Lee Chang Dong creation, which brought me to more more more rewatching of the man.

Finally, let's not forget the reality of things even though to be honest, this whole week-end of dopamine and hanging out was meant to alleviate the burden of human existence and current events right now.

It's getting harder and harder to be a human being, becoming more of an exclusivity and a luxury really.

I'm starting to worry my jokes over the human condition and capitlizing this concept eventually are starting to become an actual reality.

These are weird times folks.

The Luxury of Gazing at The Moon

I think I've outgrown 1Q84: As I'm going through it once more, I don't feel the usual feeling of having to go through it again. It either sunk deep enough within me, or no longer resonates with me.

It happens, and I'm grateful that I still feel the urge of going over Hard-Boiled within.

“It was a cruel world though. More than half of all children died before they could reach maturity, thanks to chronic epidemics and malnutrition. People dropped like flies from polio and tuberculosis and smallpox and measles. There probably weren't many people who lived past forty. Women bore so many children, they became toothless old hags by the time they were in their thirties. People often had to resort to violence to survive. Tiny children were forced to do such heavy labor that their bones became deformed, and little girls were forced to become prostitutes on a daily basis. Little boys too, I suspect. Most people led minimal lives in worlds that had nothing to do with richness of perception or spirit. City streets were full of cripples and beggars and criminals. Only a small fraction of the population could gaze at the moon with deep feeling or enjoy a Shakespeare play or listen to the beautiful music of Dowland.”

1Q84 Run

Going through this jewel again, getting teased at work for "reaching the point when you need to literally read a dictionary"

Literally...?? XD

I didn't know it was a mistake I could hear in French.

On October 6, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was assassinated by radical islamic terrorists. Aomame recalled the event with renewed pity for Sadat. She had always been fond of Sadat's bald head, and she felt only revulsion for any kind of religious fundamentalists. The very thought of such people's intolerent worldview, their inflated sense of their own superiority, and their callous imposition of their own beliefs on others was enough to fill her with rage.

Other Great Ones didn't get it either.

Another Nobel year with no Murakami as a winner.

Erf.

And I've never heard of Patrick Mondiano.

A Healthy Dose of Murakami

Going through Murakami's 1Q84 again.

“I was confident that I was a special person. But time slowly chips away at life. People don't just die when their time comes. They gradually die away, from the inside. And finally the day comes when you have to settle accounts. Nobody can escape it. People have to pay the price for what they've received. I have only just learned that truth.” 

- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

Dreamwriting vs Dreamreading

I accidentally stumbled upon this on the internet and I don't know where a comicstrip from Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is hiding but I WANT IT. The artwork seems beautiful.

I believe it's an extract from the dreamreader time at the library.

As a dreamwriter, I find dreamreading and dreamlistening to be such a selfless act. Of course when it is sincerely performed. It's such a selfless act.

A Hard-boiled Wonderland

I saw a chubby girl dressed in pink today after coming back from the gym.

I think I need to read Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World again.

Although I'm starting to think of reversing to audible books to make something out of the two hours commute to and back from work: I get dizzy reading manga on my iPAD in the bus.

Bob Dylan

 I'm Not There on rewatch today:

I absolutely adore that Haruki is a fan as well, to the extent of mentioning him in his books.

besides, he gives an accurate perspective about one of the singer's aspects.

I can tell Bob Dylan in an instant," she said … "I really like his voice. It’s like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

Murakami in a nutshell

I still get pissed whenever I think of my Murakami collection. Gosh I can't wait for the emotional phase of loss to be over.

MU-RAAA-KA-MIIII

I don't have any space, ANY SPACE, to put my Murakami collection!!!!

I GOT RID OF ALL MY CLOTHES EXCEPT THE COAT AND THE SUIT. I LET ALL MY MUGS GIFTS AND MY CONTROLLERS AND MY DVDS AND I LEFT THE YOGA MATTRESS I BOUGHT AND BASICALLY ALL THE TECH DEVICES I BOUGHT FOR MYSELF.

Still no room!

My Murakamis! I CANT believe I can't take them with me! I CANT BELIEVE IT!

Koroonful, deep breaths, remember Durden's speech, fight club on, it's ok, Morocco will eventually give in epay, you will buy it all once you get a decent job, and there is a spare book of Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World back in Morocc.

So please calm down, fight club mindset on and swim it away if necessary.

It's okay now, it'so kay ;____;

I'm NOT crying è_______é.

I'm done. Trying to.

"We’re all kind of weird and twisted and drowning."

— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood was my first Haruki. Back then, I thought maybe I won't read something of this author again: he speaks often of two things I really can't relate to: love relationship and solitude.

Then I remembered I adored One Hundred Years of Solitude because of the second and Wuthering Heights because of the the first and I just decided I can go ahead and enjoy his style without the necessary empathy to dive in with the characters.

Harukis are the books where I watch actually. I just belong to the landscape there and it's awesome in its own way.

I had a unicorn skull in my hands...

...Quotes from my favorite Murakami:

Deep rivers run quiet.

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

Open your eyes, train your ears, use your head. If a mind you have, then use it while you can.

But like a boat with a twisted rudder, I kept coming back to the same place. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was myself, waiting on the shore for me to return.

…my head swimming with abstract shapes. Do I occupy the body of another? Everything is so ponderously heavy, so vague.

The absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope.

Kindness and a caring mind are two separate qualities. Kindness is manners. It is superficial custom, an acquired practice. Not so the mind. The mind is deeper, stronger and, I believe, it is far more inconstant.

I like the moments of darkness before dawn… Probably because it’s a clean slate. Clean and unused.

I wasn’t particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don’t have to die the next.

----Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

I myself kept wondering for a little while

On Time and Money

Spend your money on the things money can buy. Spend your time on the things money can’t buy. 

---The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

This is one of the lines that reminds me again why I like this author and hope he will get the nobel prize: just like Dylan ad Sting, he's able to give consistency to intuitive ideas I had in my mind.

Haruki Yet Again

-'We cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever. We must stand up and move on to the next action.'


I'm not going out this Sunday and I'm obsessing over my beloved Murakami collection. It's going to be a promising period.


I need to Metal Slug it on a little bit though: I have been craving those for a small while now. Maybe it was because of the HALO session at Abhi's. I need to look into that.

Here is what I think, Mr. Wind-Up Bird

"Everybody’s born with some different thing at the core of their existence. And that thing, whatever it is, becomes like a heat source that runs each person from the inside. I have one too, of course. Like everybody else. But sometimes it gets out of hand. It swells or shrinks inside me, and it shakes me up. What I’d really like to do is find a way to communicate that feeling to another person. But I can’t seem to do it. They just don’t get it. Of course, the problem could be that I’m not explaining it very well, but I think it’s because they’re not listening very well. They pretend to be listening, but they’re not, really. So I get worked up sometimes, and I do some crazy things."

---The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

On Expectations' shape

"Whatever it is you’re seeking won’t come in the form you’re expecting.”

— Haruki Murakami

To be explained to understand...

❝ If you need to be explained to understand, it means that no explanation will never make you understand. ❞

---- Haruki Murakami,1Q84

Victimization is Over

“In a sense, I’m the one who ruined me: I did it myself.”

---- Haruki Murakami

Just like a Coriolis Storm

"And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about."

----Haruki Murakami