keh leh feh

(via The Miura-ori and how to fold it)

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:28:30 -0800

"I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided..."

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:07:00 -0800

“I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies. This would have to be an action or a gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both the world and eternity. The action or gesture I’m talking about would have to be on the anagogical level, that is, the level which has to do with the Divine life and our participation in it. It would be a gesture that transcended any neat allegory that might have been intended or any pat moral categories a reader could make. It would be a gesture which somehow made contact with mystery.”

- Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners

The Indie Band Sleigh Bells’ New Album, ‘Reign of Terror’ - NYTimes.com

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:07:05 -0800

The Indie Band Sleigh Bells’ New Album, ‘Reign of Terror’ - NYTimes.com:

Click the left side to listen. It’s great. The album is out everywhere tomorrow.

Time.com - Jeremy Lin’s “The Christian Nerd High...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:50:06 -0800

Time.com - Jeremy Lin’s “The Christian Nerd High Five”

If You Find Yourself Caught in Love by Belle & Sebastian (by...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 22:57:17 -0800

If You Find Yourself Caught in Love by Belle & Sebastian (by Spivey2036)

Hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day :)

"Aereo works by pulling broadcast signals out of the air and then streaming them to subscribers. In..."

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:40:06 -0800

“

Aereo works by pulling broadcast signals out of the air and then streaming them to subscribers. In an undisclosed location in New York City the company has arrayed thousands of tiny TV antennas — each one roughly the size of a thumb — so that each subscriber has an individual antenna. That way, the company says, it complies with laws involving the exhibition of copyrighted content.

“Technically we’re actually providing a use license for the antenna and the cloud DVR,” Mr. Kanojia explained, using the acronym for a digital video recorder.

Once people sign up, stations that are broadcast in New York City are viewable on phones, tablets and television sets via Aereo.com, which resembles a TV grid to subscribers. The site is built in HTML5 so it looks and feels like an app.

”

- New Service Will Stream Local TV Stations in New York - NYTimes.com

Sounds very cool. It’s like a cloud-hosted version of Slingbox.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Here is the most depressing song...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:50:06 -0800

Happy Valentine’s Day. Here is the most depressing song ever.

I want to be a good woman
And I want for you to be a good man.
This is why I will be leaving
And this is why I can’t see you no more.
I will miss your heart so tender
And I will love this love forever

I don’t want be a bad women
And I can’t stand to see you be a bad man
I will miss your heart so tender
And I will love this love forever
And this is why I am leaving
And this is why I can’t see you no more
This is why I am lying when I say
that I don’t love you no more

Because I want to be a good woman
And I want for you to be a good man

“Good Woman”, by Cat Power

"But his shuffling, uncomfortable acceptance speech, in which he expressed something resembling..."

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:08:00 -0800

“But his shuffling, uncomfortable acceptance speech, in which he expressed something resembling genuine gratitude while calling the entire enterprise into question, was a minute or so of riveting TV.”

- The 10 Least Boring Moments From The 2012 Grammys Bon Iver’s itchy, prickly acceptance speech. – Stereogum

That’s a good summary of Bon Iver’s speech. The Grammys are dumb (but we keep watching).

"He works 12-hour days and finds $600 to $1,200 a week, Mr. Bemsel said, but winds up blowing most of..."

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 12:10:04 -0800

“He works 12-hour days and finds $600 to $1,200 a week, Mr. Bemsel said, but winds up blowing most of it on bad horse picks. “The whole reason I do this is to feed my gambling addiction,” he said. “It’s an illness.””

- Not Betting a Dime, a ‘Voucher Vulture’ Cleans Up at the Slots - NYTimes.com

It’s a curious article until you read this paragraph…

""

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 11:52:27 -0800

“”

- Ed’s Story: “My Garden” - CNN.com

香港小舖 | Hong Kong Good Store

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:33:48 -0800

香港小舖 | Hong Kong Good Store:

我們深知霸權可怕，所以更須團結一致。我們期望香港小舖能成為一個小商戶的社群，凝聚大眾力量，讓大家知道每個選擇，都代表著一種態度及價值，起著關鍵性的作用。我們不希望霸權繼續扼殺本地產業的平衡發展，我們需要更多不同的選擇。香港小舖對未來的最大願景，是如何讓大家更容易多走一步，更有勇氣身體力行去實踐這個信念。

衷心期望我們的城市能再次百花齊放。

彭羚 - 小玩意 (黃偉文作品展) 2012.02.09 (by chengunjai) I’ve always...

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:25:43 -0800

彭羚 - 小玩意 (黃偉文作品展) 2012.02.09 (by chengunjai)

I’ve always loved her delicate feminine enunciations. Listening to 小玩意 reduces me to a little girl.

图/金云钟

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:47:00 -0800

图/金云钟

"We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking."

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:38:00 -0800

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living. We live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”

- Richard Rohr

"“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am..."

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 20:41:10 -0800

“

“All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love —a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek—
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.”

”

- C.S. Lewis

"I owe my livelihood to technology and I love the raw capability it offers us as a tool, but I fear..."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:35:23 -0800

“I owe my livelihood to technology and I love the raw capability it offers us as a tool, but I fear it a bit more than most people do. It’s a tool, but it’s not quite a hammer, because a hammer doesn’t seduce you into sitting around lonely in your underwear for 6 hours at a stretch clicking on youtube videos and refreshing Twitter.”

- Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic | The Wirecutter

Kathryn Calder - All It Is (by honkywill) A dark song. A...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:38:46 -0800

Kathryn Calder - All It Is (by honkywill)

A dark song. A pretty song.

Analyzing "A King and a Queen"

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 11:29:00 -0800

I woke up today thinking about what makes “A King and a Queen” a good song.

The first thing that came to my mind was the closing verse.

“But the best thing for you would be queen, so be queen. You’re all that I need. Though I know that it never can be, I’d be pleased to post your decrees, to fall at your knees, to name all your streets and to sit down and weep when you’re carried back through them and set down to sleep, and to lie by your side for sublime centuries (until we crumble to dust when we’re crushed by a single sunbeam)”

It’s true for the entire song as well, but the central rhyme is most apparent here. The rhyme is the long e. “Queen”, “need”, “be”, “pleased”, “decrees”, “knees”, “streets”, “weep”, “sleep”, “centuries”, “sunbeam”. It’s repeated in short bursts, echoing in each line in an anapaest. There’s a great sense of comforting regularity and progression.

And then there’s also the poetic imagery. Of course, there’s this line:

“Be the princess in that stone tower, crying for that handsome butcher’s plight. And as some princess might she still calls him a knight”

It’s a striking imagery, and the brass crescendo in the background puts a spotlight on it. But truth be told I don’t love this line. It has an accusational tone to it.

I think more importantly it’s the progression of imagery of what the narrator wants her to be:

Be a little sheep
Be hands holding a knife / be a being of two feet
Be a princess in that stone tower
But the best thing… be queen

It sounds like the narrator is asking for her to grow. Especially in “be a being of two feet” — he’s asking her to stand upright. Don’t just be the sheep, but be someone with a weapon.

There’s also the idea of moving from being a victim - “learning who’ll shear and who’ll feed”, “the hands come and they leave”, “in the stone tower”, “handsome butcher”, contrasted with the final idea that “the best thing” is to “be queen”. He’s saying the best thing for her is to move from being a victim to become in power, to be in control.

The final lies are full of affection, but it’s especially interesting because it gets you thinking about who the narrator is. Interestingly, the song is titled A King and a Queen, and not simply Queen. The one saying all of this is a King. So the one who would submit, kneel, carry out her instructions, and lie by her side is the King. Although there are hints of an accusational, instructional tone in the song, ultimately he wants her to grow and be powerful — not just his equal, but someone whom he will gladly serve, and die together in a fairy-tale ending. It’s a remarkable metaphor.

There’s a few more interesting things in the song but I won’t explore them here:

From “be a little sheep” to “be hands holding a knife”, isn’t he asking her to become a butcher herself?
“With his heart trembling, butchering for a king he believes in though he’s never seen” — what does this mean? The gender switches and his heart is trembling. Is the king in this line the same king as the final lines? Or is this king a religious figure?
What is the significance of the opening lines? There’s a “dark dress” and “make a scene”, and “don’t lie on your bed … honey you’re murdering me” — the first accusation?
Why does he say “and though it never can be”? So he thinks this princess is never able to become a queen, and it is only a fantasy?
It’s interesting that the final line has a doomed image: they’re “crumbled to dust”, but at the same time it’s uplifting, “in a single sunbeam”. What does that mean?

Okkervil River - A King and a Queen (by veronicacau) I remember...

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:56:00 -0800

Okkervil River - A King and a Queen (by veronicacau)

I remember listening to this on gray Ontario mornings while commuting to work. It’s been a long six years.

"It’s one of our strengths and also one of our great weaknesses. Emotional honesty."

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:46:00 -0800

“It’s one of our strengths and also one of our great weaknesses. Emotional honesty.”

- Radiohead