merciless

heart-renching unrelenting bleak brilliant. left a pit in my stomach.

just want i seek out from an afternoon at the pictures. contender for film of the year.

Madama Butterfly

Went with S and D to see the superlative relaunch of Minghella's seminal 2006 take on a timeless classic and a FKJ fixture. Placido Domingo conducting. We could not have been further back and while it would have been great to see the amazing production design up-close-and-personal the whole experience was pretty breathtaking regardless. Boasting an awful cold, i reined in my sniffles as best I could.
It's bloody hard though. and I failed, honking snot as the orchestra thundered to a close.



ah yes, revisiting it all.

O a me, sceso dal trono
dell'alto Paradiso,
guarda ben fiso, fiso di tua madre la faccia
che ten resti una traccia, guarda ben!
Amore, addio! addio! piccolo amor!
(con voce fioca)
Va, gioca, gioca!

yup. lost it again.

amazing santana

I would have dropped Glee about two seasons ago if it hadn't been for
my favourite cheerio. Here she is KILLING it in 'Someone like you' in
an Adele mash-up.

I swear, I wept.

Now go punch Finn's lights out.

drawn to the cult leader

camping ain't so bad

a couple of ticks and a cold night's sleep but i was with my two favourite girls in the throes of an indian summer in connecticut

change!

here is how the palestinians feel about you screwing them over.

melancholia

cannot, repeat cannot wait
and love seeing my boy kiefer

tomorrow is another day

butch ciucci and the sundance niblet do nantuckey

a much-needed and much-appreciated break to a stunning corner of the earth for my first and only swim of a dimming summer. maude of course had a blast, until she ingested lots of sand, got quite ill, worried both her mommies silly and cost us a mild fortune in emergency vet care.

"maggots in my scrotum"

tiz and i laughed and laughed at this irreverent religious satire. anything was game and nothing was sacred.

she better be worth it!

armed with carlo gesualdo, the three-colours trilogy and the decalogue, a couple bottles of good white and a small stash of cigarettes (hell if it's the end of the world i might as well enjoy a final puff!), we are all set to spend the next 48 plus hours holed up at home.
a hurricane is just what i needed to inflict much needed rest. now, onto the first of a stack of novels.

i know i am settling in

when i can devote a good 50% of my weekend to watching films. am squeezing plenty in this weekend but the highlight so far is, unsurprisingly, a couple of classics in black and white. always had a huge soft spot for nicholas ray (ahem "Johnny Guitar") and though he is better known as the director of "rebel without a cause," his contributions to the film noir genres are what make him a stand-out in my eyes.

'pornsicles'

after an envigorating meal in K town, what better option to refresh the palate than red bean/green tea popsicles nextdoor. buoyed by the general merriment of the occasion -- our mic turning 28 -- we displayed some skills at licking, sucking and you get the jest. some of us were better at this than others. judge for yourself. ahem.
(photo credit to RT)



next up was: best asian
we had some naturals and then some were just rubbish. ahem

better times

love is a losing game




pre-fame

say what you

will about the band. but this is a stunning song.

musical indulgences

the national are the band i just cannot get out of my mind. been listening to this album on and off for a year now and the one before that compulsively. just not getting tired of them. not been this obsessed since radiohead.

Miranda July -- am a lover not a hater

she has her detractors, who find her twee, cloying, annoying, contrived. you name it, they say it with a certain relish.

i disagree. All i have seen of her work (and the exposure has been limited so maybe that helps) seems effortless, spontaneous and original without trying too hard. Plus she has great style.

Regardless it's been six years since her last film and i am looking forward to her new one, since the theme touches me and my generation personally:

"It’s kind of about letting go of that feeling of my 20s, that feeling that I will do absolutely everything, I will have sex with everyone, I will go to every country,” she says. “In your 30s, it’s obvious that a finite amount of things will happen.” @NYT

cannot wait

"Melancholia è prima di tutto una pellicola dolorosa e angosciosa, quello che, per sadismo e assoluta mancanza di speranza, si potrebbe definire il film definitivo di Von Trier."

simply marvellous

and kind of in love with rob

cover thursday

caro emerald does gaga's finest hour, bad romance

love it

dismayed. horrified. outraged

oh the Horror, the horror


so seems that Spike flipping lee is remaking OLDBOY, one of the best films of the 2000s and nothing short of a staggering masterpiece (drool. gush. dribble. sigh)

blogs are alive with the same ringing question: is he right person for the job?
rather, why not ask the rather more obvious question of why they are bothering remaking it all. a classic is a classic. leave it be! don't touch! hands off! fuk off!

i am just so bloody angry at this. it's a tale as old as time of course, the butchering of foreign-language films at the hands of hollywood. about 95% of the time it's always revealed itself a terrible idea and a money-losing proposition to boot so why they keep doing it over and over is frankly baffling.

no good can come of this particularly misguided enterprise. add to that my personal antipathy for spike lee (i will grudgingly grant him kudos for the exceptional 25th Hour) and it's enough to ruin week. uff, i feel sick.

not to keep banging on, but the most disturbing aspect of all this is that OLDBOY is so steeped in Korea culture, obsessions and perversions i am not even sure how you can take it of that context and hope to salvage something.

let me relive the magic for a second before it gets tainted





ah just beautiful.

italian pool party time

last week i was caught unawares when i realized i certain small asian niblet had run off to cambodia with my swimming costume, leaving me in the somewhat difficult position of having to borrow my lovely host's wife's bikini when i rocked up to a pool party on a sunday. deciding that my shameless borrowing habits had hit new unacceptable lows, i went out with turd this morning, under the blazing washington sun, to see what the capital had to offer in terms of bathing wear. see above
so am off to the italian pool party where the men cook up feasts and i get to do handstands in the water and go a light shade of lobster red.

nough said

hottest couple ever

works for me

best actress of her generation

remembrances

well chaps, it's been more than three years. my longest relationship. and very happy years they have been. here is a splattering of them, courtesy of my shorter and better half. i miss her terribly since she has buggered off to cambodia doing lord knows what, leaving me on hound duty for a month. when she returns we're settling into NYC.

ayrton

if it was up solely to me i would name our first born ayrton.
how i loved the man, let me count the ways.
not only was he staggeringly sexy, charismatic, intense, talented, not-of-this world. he was proud. and petulant. simply put, i remember swathes of my semi-unhappy adolescence crouched in hardwick, cambridge watching this man race. i was never interested in formula one before nor have i been interested since. he elevated it to an art form and his rivalry with alain proust is up there with the bjorg/McEnroe dance of foes.

as i teared up on air force two en route to zambia to the preoccupied bemusement of the hostess ("are you ok?") i thought to myself, well when did the 90s and my youth feel so dated. i felt mildly prehistoric in remembering recent history, so fresh in my mind, given the retrospective treatment. ayrton will always be 34. incidentally my age.

opposite ends of the globe

while i was travelling from a refugee camp north of Khartoum to a Dinka village in southern sudan, Jasmine was having the roadtrip to end all roadtrips toward east Oregon and beyond. a few of the pictures we sent each other.














in an endless layover in london, and my tots are not even around to visit

HIGH-LARIOUS

good lord, i have not laughed this much in yonks. i might have even wet myself in the progress. kristen wiig is a comic goddess.

s and m

i may be bad but i am perfectly good.

track of the fuking year

black keys and their brothers all the way,

need a lebanese t-shirt

...and thanks to oatsy and the wonders of the digital age. i have one!

yes

of god and men

two letters, one truth

just beautiful.

heading here

for a record-breaking 5-hour stay.

crossing 4 continents in a week.

EXHAUSTED

Tre Topi

I am starting to do double-chin massages.

sunday listening

loving agnes obel. brings out a twinge of amsterdam.

getting my stevie nicks on

Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too

PINKIE.
BRITTANA

hymn to ungrateful daughters

bound to be in an INSTANT classic