Sticky Post
POSTED AT 01:11 PM

karcyr

Welcome to Rambler. Originally intended to be a personal blog, I shifted its angle some months back to become a deposit for more substantial writing and linked it to a feed.

I was not aware back then that there were some technical problems between Tabulas, my feed distributor (uh, is that the word to call it?) and my Livejournal syndication, which meant that what I typed would end up looking a little garbled up at the receiving end if it was a copy-and-paste work from a Word Processor. This made it very uncomfortable to post long entries. 

If you're following this blog via syndication or feed, feel free to drop it. I've started writing on Wordpress and it feels more comfortable. At the same time, I'm waiting for Scribblit.com to start opening to the public, so that might cause more shifting.

It might take a year until I finally stabilize and decide where I would blog regularly.

Thanks, and sorry for all the trouble.  

On the latest Christian self-help book
POSTED AT 04:10 PM

karcyr

Gary Chapman's The 5 Love Languages is the latest self-help book made popular by the worldwide Christian community, following The Purpose-Driven Life: What am I here for? by Rick Warren, but with a stronger Focus on the Family-like presence. Like James Dobson, Chapman tends to be a bit of a narcissist, having people in his anecdotes continually calling him 'Dr. Chapman' at almost every page, although he does confess (at the end of the book, well hidden from most eyes) on a personal note that his training is in anthropology, not medicine. Chapman has built quite a franchise around The 5 Love Languages, with several versions of the book geared for specific purposes (he has one for singles and another for children) and seminars.

These reasons are enough for many people to stay clear of The 5 Love Languages. This is quite unfair as Chapman's book is fairly useful. According to Chapman, people show their love to someone in different 'languages': some do it by spending time with them, some do it by hugging or kissing them, some do it by buying things, and some do it by cleaning plates and doing the laundry or things like that. The key to a successful partnership is to figure out which 'language' one's partner communicates in, and then using that language to communicate that one cares. For an example, if a girlfriend likes to receive presents, but the boyfriend does all sorts of things but never buys her anything, she will always feel him somehow lacking.

Like most self-help books, one tends to finish off the last page and think, "I wasted my time. What's so special about that anyway?". I would recommend people to read it in a bookstore or a library even if they may not feel so inclined to purchase it, because it's one of the few -- and admittedly, a pretty good (else it wouldn't have sold so well) -- guides to loving someone practically.

Narrative structures of Western and Eastern writing
POSTED AT 02:49 PM

karcyr

There's a very interesting series of blog posts and replies on Sharon Bakar's blog about the different narrative structures of Western fiction and Eastern (Asian) fiction.

 Here is some input from blogger Chuah Gua Teng: http://chuahguateng.blogspot.com/2007/11/some-thoughts-on-form-in-novel.html

 Here is Sharon Bakar's first take, with quotes from several people: http://thebookaholic.blogspot.com/2007/11/are-asian-stories-different.html

Some of the points raised by author Xu Xi, who was mentioned in a newspaper article by Ann Lee, who was then quoted by Sharon Bakar (whoah, imagine the academic footnote for this!), include one in which she states that Asian stories are more or less episodic, with Buddha 'mosey(ing) along, this way and that, and then one day achieve enlightenment when it happens' whereas the three-arc story structure, with a very definite climax and conclusion, is a heritage from the Greeks.

I'm not very hot about narratology because you can learn all you want about it, but it doesn't change the way you tell a story, the way people read stories, and it won't make someone a better storyteller. However, I am interested in the cultural aspect of it (I know, I'm using such a vague term, but at this point I'm not secure about securing a particular term on it). What influences shaped the different narrative styles, and what events brought these cultural elements together? All of these is very difficult to describe and figure out without very specific individual examples, and of course you can't get a good picture of the whole without individual examples.

 Here's food for thought, if you should take it, or not.

 

Public Reading
POSTED AT 04:28 PM

karcyr

I'll be here:

 

 

 

My surname has been misspelled, but I'm not very picky about names and stuff. If names have too much importance I'd be so much happier to go without one.  

Understanding Toilets
POSTED AT 04:02 PM in Opinion pieces

karcyr

 

I occassionally work as a researcher in Predream's office. One day his partner, TY, showed me a piece of white paper which had the above picture in the middle of it. "Do you want it?"

"Haha!" I laughed, thinking it a joke or something. "What is that?"

"It's Predream's work of art."

I paused. Then I looked at it again. Then I looked at Predream who was looking at his laptop. He said nothing and after that I couldn't help it. There was TY being polite and half-serious, and there was Predream who wasn't saying anything, and there was a picture of four gradient stripes on a piece of paper, and years of waxing lyrical about writers culminated in one moment of vengeance. I laughed -- very loudly.

"It looks like a printer error!"

I really have no idea if he made the picture ages back and only used it that day to test the printer; or whether he made it for the purpose of testing the printer and then called it art; but Predream wasn't taking my laughter too kindly. Any dismissal about a work of art is always followed by a discussion of what art is, and Predream got into that straight away: sure he used it as a test page for a printer, but it's still art. I said that as long as it's in a gallery it's not art, it's a test page. He said my idea was outdated: what if a work of art is still in a studio, isn't it still art? I said no, it was just stuff in a studio. He looked annoyed and then went back to work. I just continued laughing (it was obviously rude, but it was too much of a temptation not to).

Honestly, I do think that Predream's work has some analyzable attributes. Here I go: entitled Trials, the piece shows four metallic gradient stripes over each other. The placement of gradient in each stripe is different, indicating a sense of movement and speed. This sense of movement is hampered: the viewer does not interpret the image as four separate stripes on top of one another but rather as one whole picture, and the presence of the boundaries between these stripes act as dividers, as borders between one space to the next. To add further discomfort to the picture is the choice of colour: metallic grey is neat and aesthetically pleasing, but it also brings to mind the cold and uneasy sensation of touching steel. Since I know Predream in person, I would also say that this work reflects his personality very much: he is a very hardworking young man whom many would consider pleasant, but I've always thought him a little cold.

If Predream had not been insistent on the value his work, what I just did in the previous paragraph would have been ridiculous. Predream believes that works of art are validated by human cognizance, I take the more cynical view of works of art being validated by institution. I believe there is room for both views. When the human mind considers a viewed object it is capable of undergoing the same process that I have just mentioned, but whether the viewer chooses to be aware of it or to dismiss it depends very much on social cues (TY states that she is unable to appreciate or understand art; to her things are 'nice' or 'not nice'. Just as I learned the basics of understanding literature by analyzing my responses to text, so I apply the same to art: I believe that our responses work only along the line of what is primarily 'nice' and 'not nice', but what makes 'nice' or 'not nice' consists of many different things, some intrinsic in the work of art, some not. While the confession of only being able to discern what is 'nice' or 'not nice' may sound base, it's a more honest and sincere expression of how the human mind works).

If Predream's work were on display in a gallery I think the write-up accompanying it would not be very far from what I have just written (although perhaps with more jargon). But without the social cues to scrutinize a viewer's responses to a work of art, no one would do it. It is not in the nature of human beings to gaze and gaze upon an object and marvel at its curves, its shape, its colour and its texture. Because Predream had been so indignant about his picture of four gradient stripes on top of each other being a work of art, I am licensed to look at it as one. If Predream had dismissed it, or if TY had not thought it amusing to show it to me, I would not have thought it as a work of art. If I had simply encountered it lying around on the office table, I would have taken on the most logical conclusion: I would have thought that it was some kind of printer error.

Not a single idea in this entry is new: Duchamp's toilet has done this very well for the institution of art nearly a hundred years ago. Nevertheless it's a very different feeling when one encounters the problem for the very first time: whether it is in seeing a childish scribble sold for thousands of dollars in a gallery, or when a boss/friend calls a printer test page a work of art.

>:(
POSTED AT 12:13 PM in Everyday Life

karcyr

My apartment management has a fondness for hi-tech entry gadgets. Unlike other apartments around the Klang Valley, the management is not content with asking guards to raise bars whenever a resident drives in with an apartment car sticker. When I first started renting at the apartment you had to wave this card over a detector, which sends signals to lift the entry bar. The detector could sense your card if it was as far as three metres away or more.

It worked like magic; except that it broke down every few weeks or so. After several months the management installed a new card system. This was something slightly less hi-tech: you had to touch the detector with a card to get the entry bar to open.

Once they started activating it my housemate and I got nagged at for several weeks by the security guards on our not changing our access cards. It's not that we're taking this thing for granted, it's that we're tenants. The procedures for getting access cards is a little bit more complicated than that for owners.

Well today we settled the issue with our landlord and I got our new access cards. I was about to leave the apartment area, happy to try my newly-acquired access card for the first time, when I noticed something at the entrace/exit area of the apartments. The new hi-tech access system had broken down.

POSTED AT 11:09 AM

karcyr

Have laptop. Brand is Acer. Name is Vivien. Using her now to connect to WiFi at Departure Lounge.

 's all right. It's just Internet.  

*-*
POSTED AT 05:48 PM in Everyday Life

karcyr

I wish reality came with a time-space bag. Whenever convenient (or inconvenient) I would unzip time-space and crawl into the time-space bag. My time-space bag would have a few books I've brought inside into it. And nothing much else, perhaps some padding for sleeping. Time-space bags float in the air from place to place, undetected. Because people are communal people put their time-space bags into time-space neighbourheads. It would be very nice to have a time-space bag, just like having your personal blog or webpage. If you don't like where you're wandering online you open your page in your browser. Time-space bags would be nice and slightly rounded around the corners, just like Web 2.0.

 

I wish there were not so much paperwork to be done.