where thoughts materialise.

So we're into the sixth version of my blog after the last version hung around for a year or so.

Now, a bit of info on this image. This photo was taken one lovely spring afternoon, featuring the iconic Old Well from the UNC Chapel Hill campus. I would like to think of this image as a tribute to my time in UNC Chapel Hill, the awesome friends I made and the memories I now hold dear.

A milestone in my life indeed.

I've dropped the tagboard cos its useless and taking eons to load. But thanks to Angela who helped me set it up, I still do like and will miss the pink interface.

So yeah, it's the sixth one you fellas!

Yours.

27 April 2008

you know you miss my older entries

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 March 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

Thursday, November 11, 2004

I picked out Kazuo Ishiguro's An Artist of the Floating World from the shelf in the morning. A text i did for lit3, 20th century writing, for my a levels.
I was looking for a certain passage that came to mind recently, i can't remember the words now, i needed to see it again for sure.

I loved EN3, lots of life lessons to draw from. But i sleep ever so much during benzie's tutorials and often didnt turn up for his lectures. What was i thinking.

I managed to speed read the whole book, with Zouk Flava blasting R & B on my com, back to front. Haha i'm rather impressed myself too.

Amongst the doodles in the book, apart of the proper notes, i found myself scribbling:
Natnal day comin soon! yeah yeah yeah yeah (then some scribblings i couldnt make out)
Half day today?!?! virginia better decide.
venezia or kap, kap or venezia
Syllogism (i haven't seen this word in ages)

Couldnt believe i looked forward to national day. Like what?!
I must have slept a lot too. Too many words left written halfway before trailing off into nothingness.

* *

Anyway this was the passage i've been looking for. Read it, and find something in yourself you might have been missing out on.
Mori-San, a master artist, talks to his student, Masuji Ono about the floating world. This passage opens with Mori-San speaking.

'Gisaburo is an unhappy man. He's had a sad life. His talent has gone to ruin. Those he once loved have long since died or deserted him. Even in our younger days, he was already a lonely, sad character.' Mori-san paused for a moment. Then he went on: 'But then sometimes we used to drink and enjoy ourselves with the women of the pleasure quarters, and Gisaburo would become happy. Those women would tell him all the things he wanted to hear, and for the night anyway, he'd be able to believe them. Once the morning came, of course, he was too intelligent a man to go on believing such things. But Gisaburo didn't value those nights any the less for that. The best things, he always used to say, are put together of a night and vanish with the morning. What people call the floating world, Ono, was a world Gisaburo knew how to value.'

Then he went on: 'The finest, most fragile beauty an artist can hope to capture drifts within those pleasure houses after dark. And on nights like these, Ono, some beauty drifts into our own quarters here. But as for those pictures up there, they don't even hint at these transitory, illusionary qualities. They're deeply flawed, Ono.'

'But Sensei, to my eyes, those prints suggest most impressively these very things.'

'I was very young when i prepared those prints. I suspect the reason I couldn't celebrate the floating world was that I couldn't bring myself to believe its worth. Young men are often guilt-ridden about pleasure, and i suppose i was no different. I suppose I thought that to pass away one's time in such places, to spend one's skill celebrating things so intagible and transient, I suppose I thought it all rather wasteful, all rather decadent. It's hard to appreciate beauty of a world when one doubts it very validity.'

I thought about this, then said: 'Indeed, Sensei, I admit what you say may well apply in respect to my own work. I will do all i can to put matters right.'

Mori-San appeared not to hear me. 'But I've long since lost all such doubt, Ono,' he continued. 'When I am an old man, when I look back over my life and see I have devoted it to the task of capturing the unique beauty of the world, I believe I will be well satisfied. And no man will make me believe I've wasted my time.

* *

This idea of the floating world. I would like to think I exist in it. A decadant and enclosed world where practicalities hardly abide, only beauty. To capture beauty whenever one sees it, and to be part of it.

nimgnoy let the night fall at 1:51 PM

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