extra features: the creatures

standing there - BOOMERANG

look at that! from the BOOMERANG album. just see how they treat the music, the speed, the form, the rhythms. then look aat the video, the gothic mood, the spanish dance, the silhuettes, the motions and montage. It's beyond its times. remember we're talking about 1981. THIS IS THE CREATURES.

Here comes the CREATURES

Siouxsie and Budgie, husband and wife, started a side project called the CREATURES besides siouxsie and the banshee. Budgie is a great purcussionist, and you could hear it from songs in the later Banshees albums when he joined. the music, since then, sound milder, and much more 'composed', than the PUNK and NOISE period of the Banshees.

getting into the 80s, where minimalist music started to emerge with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, the CREATURES to me seemed to get into the vibe of primal sound and rhythms that creates deep impact to the audience. Budgie uses his creative and painstaking drumming and constantly varying rhythm to form the basis of the sound for the CREATURES, siouxsie, with her distinct throat delivered voice siren throw the music and giving life to each song, glues on really well together. The lyrics is sometimes hilarious and referenced. like this video, 'Miss the girl', took inspiration from the book Crash, by J. R. Ballad, and the video set was made by themselves. The video was banned for unknown reason (probably the pseudo spousal violence)




their lyrics, more notably ones from the Banshees, are vivid and fun.
'Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway' - HONG KONG GARDEN

'And don't forget
when your elders forget
to say their prayers
take them by the legs
and throw them down the stairs' - SPELLBOUND (i always laugh in this song)

'My so-called friends say you're not alive
I'll bake their bones for telling lies
Then pull the pastry from the pie
And pour the gravy in their eye' - SCARECROW

and some from the CREATURES, Gecko in particular, struck me

'Panoramic banana
A passion fruit samba
Pale skin is itching
A tropical fever' - wtf?! just can't stop laughing!

Steve Reich in 'drumming' and 'music for 16 musicians' brings on the questions of minimalist music in the 80s that studies the constant change of timbre and musical qualities through repetition. the music inevitably puts you in a state of trance, hypnotic quality. through the subtle changing of rhythms, depth and slight and continuous alternation and interplay of musical instruments and timber, overlaying rhythmic motives, minimalist music becomes an extensive and far-reaching area of musical history. Like impressionist music, Steve Reich and Philip Glass seemed to go too far and find no company. But the Creatures took this on, and even literally pulled in from Primal Hawaii, and Oriental drum sound from Japan, and turning them into music with a greater audience.

Sounds like the minimalist music would always be a cult.

the sweetest thing about THE CREATURES the ingredients they used are from places they did their recordings. they randomly put a pin onto the world map, and would do their album in that place. it sound like an extravagant dream to most, but they managed to pull out albums that come with spanish heat, Hawaii festivals, Japanese Godzilla, but always with this distinctive CREATURES sound. the content are always fresh, but the strategy and representation familiar. this is never easy for musicians.

i think i have come to the end of my research on this branch. This year have been outragiously fruitful. Merry Christmas.






PS some of the images i took from the following website
elhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifements

Siouxie and the Banshee

this is a cool video. Spellbound. Now i'm bound to Siouxie.
I've bought their BEST OF album. For £5 only I've enjoyed a rollercoaster ride of 80s chic music! coolest grungy rock and roll. Siouxie and the Banshee. Keep me motivated all day!

interlude

How weird. Morrisey and Siouxie singing together.
the woman had a solid voice of a man.
the man had a timid voice of a woman.
the song was good one though,
siouxie is always cool.



what seems like an interlude now,
could be the begining of love.
yick... 好梁啊

HONG KONG GARDEN

it seems too obvious that i am addicted to youtube.
found this from Siouxie and the Banshees, HONG KONG GARDEN
it was in MARIE ANTOINETTE too.
one of the coolest new wave bands. look at her moves. and her eye shadow... awesome
80s.



HONG KONG GARDEN

Harmful elements in the air
symbols clashing everywhere
Reaps the fields of rice and reeds
while the population feeds

Junk floats on polluted water
an old custom to sell your daughter
Would you like number 23?
Leave your yens on the counter please
Hong Kong Garden

Tourists swarm to see your face
Confuscius has a puzzling grace
Disoriented you enter in
unleashing scent of wild jasmine

Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise
a race of bodies small in size
Chicken Chow Mein and Chop Suey
Hong Kong Garden takeaway
Hong Kong Garden

DOES IT MAKE ME HOMESICK? DOES IT MAKE ME HOMESICK?

痴根

我笑左好耐好耐，真係好好笑。一定要睇到尾，痴根。

chessy

same people, same scene. comes out with something entirely different.
Uma Thurman and John Travolta in BE COOL dance scene.



i narrowly threw up on this... why are they so uncool this time?

obscure beauty

beauty is a lie, they only tell you things you have seen.
the true classic lies in things you can't tell them coming together, head to toe, decomposed. Jack Rabbit Slim's twist contest twists your knees and your toes, your fingers and your eyeliners. Preculiar and obscure, that's something you have not seen. that's pulp fiction.

obsession

she is one of my darkness of all obsessions. NICO. she has a grungy, captivating voice, that's about unredeemed conscience and melancholy. She is not beautiful. But she is, to me, the darkest side of 70s. People say she's a mystery, i'm not into how she died. I'm more into how I'm going to die. though this is not an interest discussion.
Her last album, Camera Obscura, released in 1985, made her the 'punk goddess' of that era, I really what to be there and see how she made it. Cold, fragile and far away, she is my obsession.




pre-christmas party all night long. I danced and danced until my thighs were sore, and I didn't know. I was very conscience, and I narrowly thought to myself, in a split of a second, that I could live by myself, just on my own, happiliy ever after, not needing anything, not seduced and caught up by anyone. Just myself, sufficiently. But then when I got up this morning, I'm back into that fragile, please-come-over boy surrounded by the 4 milky walls that doesn't shut the sound but my heart. When do we get enough of something. I'm yearning for good times, while you get up, i'll tune in, brew you coffee, and that's what we need. You are my obsession. I'm the darkness of all, beautifully.

Oh Tennessee, what did you write?

can you imagine seeing this song and the versaille together? I didn't, but I can.

the stokes' song on MARIE ANTOINETTE. really good single for their sophomore album, ROOM ON FIRE. didn't used to like their music, got their first one, but just THIS IS IT. now looking back and revisiting their 2nd album, HMMM IT'S REALLY TASTY! now with their 3rd one, I DUN REALLY LIKE IT, IT'S NOT AS GOOD. we'll see. REALLY GOOD SONG, AWESOME LYRICS, CHRISPY AND FUN. HUMOUROUS AND SAD.

"what ever happens"
I want to be forgotten,
and I don't want to be reminded.
You say "please don't make this harder."
No, I won't yet.

I wanna be beside her.
She wanna be admired.
You say "please don't make this harder."
No, I won't yet.

Oh dear, is it really all true?
Did they offend us and they want it to sound new?
Top ten ideas for countdown shows...
Whose culture is this and does anybody know?
I wait and tell myself "life ain't chess,"
But no one comes in and yes, you're alone...
You don't miss me, I know.

Oh Tennessee, what did you write?
I come together in the middle of the night.
Oh that's an ending that I can't write, 'cause
I've got you to let me down.

I want to be forgotten,
and I don't want to be reminded.
You say "please don't make this harder."
No, I won't yet.

I want to be beside her.
She wanna be admired.
You say "please don't make this harder."
No, I won't yet...

research- chain reaction

it woke me up at 5 in the morning. I opened my eyes and saw a sulphuric hue lingering outside my curtain. I sat up, lightly pulling the curtain and that was what i saw. That very morning, the atmosphere woke me. I was struck, this malancholic beauty that seemed to only have happened in THE DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE,and took my camera. I remember that once you hesitate, the moment's gone. it's a cliche, but true.

have been doing so many things lately. Have been doing nothing lately. They are not empty words, neither are they meaningless.
have been working on a series of researches.



The UNIT 9 research on materiality and their relationship to manipulate micro-environment within a small habitational plot. The further study of this branch now links to finding the right wood veneer, lamination and production process, as well as the relationship with the environmental and spatial manipulation.



a movie reseach, that links from MARIE ANTOINETTE, locating all the people in the movie and the music they used. the further study of this branch now links to THE STROKES, an amazingly chrispy NY band of 5, doing ingenious music just like Franz Ferdinard, but with less class. 1 song struck me particularly, WHAT EVER HAPPENS.



2nd career research. made some friends who have connections with FILM PRODUCTION STUDIOS and MUSIC LABELS. obviously this is a good chance to learn more from them, and possibly, do something with them. The further study of this branch now links to deeveloping a new script for the protential upcoming short film, and reorganizing my CV to meet the needs of these new people, telling them I'VE GOT LOADS TO OFFER. Some more research on setting connections with festival management in Taiwan/HK/CHINA, 89268? So exciting.

CHAIN REACTION. The ripple effect of knowledge is so intriguing, so is the effect of knowing people. it sounds like EACH TIME I MAKE AN EFFORT THERE WOULD BE A NEW WAY. This is a very optimistic thing to say, and it's so not me. It's true. I brought a friend to LEVI'S looking for a new pair of jeans to replace my torn ones (you wouldn't wanna know where I torn it :P) and he would recommend me TK Maxx, where he got a new deisel jeans for £50. OMG!

BTW1, my christmas wishlist:
NEW PAIR OF JEANS/ EXTREMELY FIT TROUSES LIKE THAT GUY I SAW ON THE TRAIN (i should tell this story some other time...) actually i'm looking for another pair of DIESEL ZATHAN, but they are too expensive here... sigh
a good longlasting slim waist trench coat. I am sometimes very tempted to become a brit gentleman.
some love messages from friends. Got a CD and a little envolop from my best friend. I WAS SQUEEZING THE ENVOLOP ALL THE WAY TO SCHOOL, ALMOST CRIED. CHERYL I MISS YOU SO MUCH.
this acadamic year ends bright and shine. MICHAEL HENSEL IS VERY CRITICAL, ALMOST A JERK. but his sharpness and seriousness in research and studies is very much what I need. I'll take this bitter medcine with acceptance and joy, and it's better for my education. WE ALL KNOW WE DESERVE WHAT WE GIVE. At least we receive guiltless when we produce.

BTW2, just been to the james morrison concert. HE IS TOTALLY NOT WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. not handsome, coarse voice, not charistmatic at all, and singing on stage as if he's working. THE WORST PART IS THAT HE AND HIS BAND ARE ALL LATE, and the audience almost threw the stage over until he showed up. that didn't ruined the night, and they are really accommodating, clapping and cheering as if they'd never heard pop songs before. GOOD FOR THEM. got some pics on the mobile, too bad can't put them on my mac.

donnie darko

very stunning artwork
reminds me of SIX FEET UNDER. i didn't watch the final series.

magpie

The magpies are medium to large, often colorful and noisy passerine birds of the crow family, Corvidae. The prefix "mag-" is short for "Margaret." Known for its noisy chattering, the European Magpie may have acquired its name as an allusion to nagging. It could have also been named after "Maggot" because it stole eggs and nestlings from other birds. "Pie" is the original name of the bird, from the Latin pica. - wikipedia

simply, magpie is the kind of bird that's attracted to shiny things. I'm not magpie, because i'm attracted to dark and mythical things. there's no myth in the world, so i'm dissatisfied and unfulfilled, always.

from the song MAD WORLD, I found a movie DONNIE DARKO, which uses the theme song.
not because of Jake Gyllenhall, but because of his BIG RABBIT friend.
His imaginary friend that'll kill me I presume.
he needs a companion, the world is not fulfilling. he made himself one.
this is a cliche, everyone knows that, but why are directors all talking about 'connection' and 'alienation'?

JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL'S SHORTBUS is not a porn (yes it is), but a story about connecting to people, feeling the skin and filling the heart. Orgasm is only a metaphor for fulfillment, but they would fill empty inside and the character would cry after climax is over. nothing is long lasting, that's why dreams fade, and we hear the alarm, and the chilly and gloomy days would be waiting outside the window.
the only crazy thing about the movie is that they dare, and can, be so explicit about the sex content. Erected penis, real sex scenes, ejeculations, so vivid, so audacious, but so sad. A bunch of losers who can't locate themselves, would come together at the SHORTBUS club and find themselves.
looks like the 60s, but with less hope.

I can't help comparing the film with HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH.
a lost transexual rock star dreamer from devastated east germany, audacious, tough and very scary on the outside, but timid and broken inside, yearning for love and connecting with someone else.
a desperate theraphist/ gay couple/ dominatrix within the post 9/11 New York, vulnerable and typical, a bit too typical on the outside, and still yearning to be fulfilled and connected to others.

doesn't make the story very clear when Sophia, who (may or may not) had an orgasm that caused short circuit and cracked the electric supply in whole Manhattan, tried out a threesome with a couple, when her husband start kissing another lady. the same camp glamourous flair is here, the soundtrack still juicy, though not as witty and straight to the point (well, HEDWIG was almost a rock musical), but Jamie Bond was actually the character I love the most. I never like Drag Queens, that's the tricky part. the Finale was very amusing, but it ended very badly, which i feel a real pity.
I think i saw Mitchell amongst the crowd of fucking human (animal) kissing another guy.

MAD WORLD 2

tears for fear is a big thing in the 80s.
this is the 80s version of MAD WORLD



now, GARY JULES from the band is doing a reprise version,
sad and melancholic. that makes me ponder.
don't know if you ever try to think,
how glamourous celebrities are, but they would sit in front of the tele
and talk about how sad children in the 3rd world are,
they would tell stories as if they are quoting the truth.
and people would talk about anti-globalization, green society, equality of races, peace, but then they lead live just like everyone. i bet they wipe their asses with toilet paper too and nothing else.
i call that PRETENTIOUS.

anyway, this is the new version by JULES alone. easy listening, everyone loves easy listening music, coz we are all brought up to be the same. forgotten.



you kn ow what, this music and the video reminds me of a TORI AMOS song, I DON'T LIKE MONDAY.

MAD WORLD

i'm never into tv games,
but this tv game's commercial really caught me.
the music caught me.
GEARS OF WAR
stunning computer graphics, very realistic, well where else could CG go from being realistic anyways (what's good about being realistic? i am realistic, i am not happy)
but that voice, that comes in from the darkness,
like the hero who fights the mad world.
with a gun, that's very literal, literality is cheap and uncivilized.
we are intellectual, we are the generation anti-globalization,
or are we?
no. we are just somebody, nurturing and numb in the culture of money.
CULTURE GOES WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
IT'S NOT ABOUT WHO'S RIGHT, BUT WHO'S RICHEST.
this is true.
mad world.

monsieur gondry

it's a pity i missed the showing of SCIENCE OF SLEEP in the UK.
it's like an exaggerated show in ART ATTACK, my mate says.
but i do love ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF A SPOTLESS MIND.
a play of animated moving collage.
about overlapping of time and movement.
this is not an easy job, but surely a very astonishing one.
Gondry did a lot of MTV about collage.
Bjork's BACHELORETTE is surely one of my favourites
Kylie Minogue did one with him too, surely one of her least chessy videos.
and this is Chemical Brother's STAR GUITAR.
not only is it about collage.
it's about city and urbanism.
imagine a trip of the train, where we ACTUALLY see our city like that.
do we find that amusing?
oh gee, I find it very amusing.

THE MOVIES - marie antoinette

i've only watched 3 movies in cinema so far in this 4 months. amazingly expensive to hide out in the dark. does that show how unfamiliar people are to movie that it has to be so expensive, or is it that filmmakers are starting to demand too much from their audience? £9.5 for a movie, i want to be a producer.

MARIE ANTOINETTE
i personally couldn't agree more with the fact that there are too many EPICS in the movie industry. big production on historic fairytales, PERAL HARBOUR came vividly into mind. it's a cliche today to make an EPIC. marie antoinette is not an epic, it is a lullipop ride of polaroid shots and chic music and lots of champaigns and cakes and ribboned highheels. the powder blue sex pistol style poster with Dunst in french hairdo is very tempting i must say.

from the proposition of 'not being stunningly epical', it turned out to be a soft and intimate protriat of a character. I do not know the real person, so judging from the movie, she is a very adorable but melancholic little girl, been assigned the pressure of the entire country on her shoulders at the age of 16, and led an empty life within the confines of a beautiful palace. We, as the audience, are targeted to experience the same emptiness and fake happiness that the heroin has tried to fill her life with, music, parties, gamblings and loads of nonesense. Some find it meaningless including these in the movie, which is said to have no storyline and progress, but in my opinion, this is what life is. Emptiness and devastated, we find a way to release and fulfill our desire. Perhaps these people find it meaningless because their lives are starting to be as meaningless by now.

STILL LIFE. there are various scenes that are still shots of a scene, may it be on the heroine's tub while she baths, on the palace fountains, on the grand stairways, in the garden with green turfs and sheeps, on the dining table with beautiful asparagus mountains. The scenes are so colourful that it is meant to be absorbed, withhin the time given, but the characters are not as much of an eye candy, where they are stiff, awkward in their situations, and are simply trying to break through, no matter into having sex with the tupid husband and future king, or calling a terrible singer off her stage. still life is a potrial of fakeness and an absprtion of the contradiction.

MUSIC. the most talked-about thing of the movie is the choice of its soundtracks, mostly from the 80s new wave gurus, gang of four, bow wow wow, souixie and the banshee, etc. this is a twist. it turned the story into a modern protrial in 16th century french flair. they danced like in the discoteque, they play games in al fresco tent dinner making fun of big names like MOZART. theve have given the audience an approximity to get into the characters and find their associations with them, and also diluting the time frame of the movie, while Kristine Dunst could also look like she is that timid girl in THE VIRGIN SUISIDE, lying on the lawn and daydreaming about love, with her straightened hair and awkward american accent, which has no contextual relevance with the French Versaille at all.

the movie is definitely not as right to the point compared with LOST IN TRANSLATION, but the intellectual humour (the imaginary affair with the captain into Napoleon on the battle field, that's hilarious vs. Bill Murray shooting the alcohol commercial, that's even more hilarious), the particularity in the search of beauty and composited shots (the 4 girls sitting at deliberated while Marie Antoinette was reading, posing as if doing an polaroid oil painting vs the girls sitting at the lawn of the house in VIRGIN SUISIDE), the softness and refrain in handling the scenes (saying goodbye to the Versailles, and the scene shen she stood out the balcony and bowed at the mobs, with no chessy music and gradiose angles, as well as the numerous shots of the character towards the light source, giving a dreamy silhuette) are all very worth exploring. this is definitely not a badly conceived script i'm sure.

PS. you know what? this film actually reminds me of DUCHAMP playing around with MonaLisa. Not Dan Brown, just Marcel Duchamp. we don't fuck history, we reinterpret and re-contextualize it.

宗教 - breaking the waves

been watching a couple of movies, jot them down before i forget them. they are not easily forgotten though.

BREAKING THE WAVES
a very heartbreaking story about love. never seen movies about the triumph of love that turned out to be so devastating. Bess, a simple girl in North Scotland, married an outsider of her village, Jan, who works for an oilrig.
This village is governed by the tight fist elderly, a representation of the conservative christianity who're cruel and dogmatic. Bess found her simpliest and purest form of love and joy with Jan, which she enjoys as much from having sex with him and sleeping in his snooring arms.
an accident in the oilrig paralysed Jan, and he wish Bess to find a lover outside and have sex with him, and then tell Jan about it. Sound like redicule, but to simple Bess's mind, she will do anything for him to make him better, so against the religious virtuals, she started dressing like a whore and hooking on other men in town.

THE MOVIE IS INTO 9 EPISODES, A PROLOGUE, 7 EPISODES, AND AN EPILOGUE. this is an interesting intention, though i can't figure out why he decided that, except to disect the movie and dilute the emotions. the story is actually straightforward and interconnected.

SIMILARITY IN CHARACTER. Bess in the movie, has a strange resemblence, to me, with Selma 'DANCER IN THE DARK', pure, simple characters, almost naive, has a sort of double 'split personality', with God and with Musical, and suffers from being 'good'. the devastating trajectory of their lives, vividly and progressively spectated, drives the audiences into a psychological struggle of pity and hatred, one the one hand paranoid of how 'stubborn and stupid' the characters could be, that lead to their end; on the other hand symphathizing and pity on their purity of viewing life, and how we all desire to be as 'clean'. Bess, her last line, 'maybe this is all wrong, afterall' intend to break through all her devotion to the love of Jan, but this tolerance, satrifice and unfaltered faith towards loving a person is so powerful that it overwhelmed the stiffened ceremonial christianity, and their origin of equality and love. The irony is that, the elderly, at Bess's 'funeral', condemed her to hell.

DOGMA '95. the entire movie is made with handheld camera, but into video and recorded back into film. this gives the movie an intimacy that pulls the audiences into the lives of the chracters, at the same time presenting the movie in the likeness of a documentary, probably stressing the vividness and universality of the storyline. the use of avaliable lighting, no extra prop gives the movie a real life protrial, which made the story convincing, without any melodramatic twist and very real. this elevated the representation of storylines, and aided the emotional nausea that is aimed at the audience.

MORAL JUDGEMENT. from DOGVILLE, one could easily experience the painstaking stabs the director has provided targeting the existentiality and morality of human being, from the long conversation between Grace and her father. In this movie, there's also a judgement pressed on the dead heroine, which the court has queried with the doctor,
'so, in your medical opinion, the deceased was suffering from being good. And perhaps that's the psychological defect that led to her death?'
this tells how volnerable and difficult one could be 'good', which is seemingly seen as a 'psychological defect'. this is a matephor, perhaps, a reflection of devotional love, sacrificial love.

a 'simple love story' could actually include so much discussion. please don't say that love is a chliche.

生命中的一切不完美

使我們好好看待任何機會，那多好！
我用£０．３４（即＄８）買了一個小夾子，今天居然跌了便找不到，我的心傶傶然了許久。在香港跌了夾子？彎腰很辛苦呢！現在什麼都好小心用好好珍惜。我學會的不止是建築。
今天有ＰＲＥＳＥＮＴＡＴＩＯＮ，ＥＸＴＥＲＮＡＬ ＣＲＩＴＩＣＳ都很喜歡我的設計,唯獨是我的乞人憎TUTOR ＭＩＣＨＡＥＬ ＨＥＮＳＥＬ還在說亳無建設性的人身攻擊的用他調侃不以為然的打沉我。
EXTERNAL CRIT A,'this is very good work, just that the presentation could be clearer and more engaging.'(我非常同意，我會改改layout)
EXTERNAL CRIT B,'definitely, and i think you should really start making a link between this and that.'(這正是我的下一個目標，你說了我便放心)
MICHAEL HENSEL,'a person who can't do a proper presentation knows nothing about his work, no matter how hard to looks like he knows. he learns nothing.'(mmm,多謝哂亳無意義只令我氣餒的言論，我還未倒下，你還可以繼續辱罵我，用你自以為聰明不可一世的眼光。)
如果他為了我的進步要扮壞人扮得這麼切抵，那也真難為了他。我們非親非故，他放下好人的名聲幫我上進，賺人熱涙啊。
他是我生命中的一切不完美，可惡的是，他也叫MICHAEL。

找到個很可愛的廣告，不是人人都合適，但我卻很有共鳴。生命中的一切不完美，但都總令人快慰和期待，縱使結果都好像是一樣的。看看啊！

sometimes i feel the world is beautiful

wanna free hug?