love

Where is love?
It's in the airport.

I was totally sold as these lines starting the movie "Love Actually".
The stories of the movie were not surprising at all. Pieces make the whole surrounding the topic love, which is not a new style of romantic films.
The first of this kind that caught my eye is an HK film 新同居時代 (English title is "In Between"). Oh, it just so happened that my favorite actress Maggie Cheung was one of the leading roles. Wow, that was 1994. My memory of Chinese movies stops at the year of 2002. Can't blame me.
By the way, my all time favorite love film is still 甜蜜蜜 Tian mi mi. This 1996 movie made Maggie Cheung my favorite.

Back to love.
Last night, I saw "Dan in Real Life", which is surprisingly good!
Surprising point number 1: I was surprised by Juliette Binoche. I did not know it was her who played the female leading role. I went to see the movie simply because I saw Steve Carell's head lying on a stack of pancakes for the past whole month at every bus stop booth in Manhattan.

This is called obsession.
Once someone gets my attention in one film, I probably will see all the future films that he/she plays in. I had no idea what "Dan in Real Life" was about. I did not even see the trailer. I simply thought it could be good because of Steve Carell.
Obession example number 1: Maggie Cheung. After Tian mi mi, I saw films made with her acting.

Steve Carell got my attention in "Little Miss Sunshine". His performance in the TV show "Office" is also good but in a disturbing way so I stopped watching the show after the first DVD of the first season.
(Disturbingly good means an actor plays a disturbing character or plays in a disturbing story with a great great great performance that enhances the quality of the film or the show and also facilitates the purpose of the film. Usually, in this category, the purpose is to disturb the audience. If the purpose is successfully accomplished, I am disturbed and I will not see it again.
Disturbingly good movie example number 1: Boys Don't Cry)

Oh, right, "Dan in Real Life" discusses about love.
It's humorous and witty and laughable and touching and .... scrumptious :)
There was a weird moment when a young guy said "Love is not a feeling. It's an ability." and Steve Carell's character disagreed. The moment was weird because that was almostly exactly my definition when I was probably 10 years younger.
I believed 愛是動詞, literally translation: Love is a verb. That is, love is to make someone feel being loved. If that person does not feel it, there is no love.
The believe came from my desire of being loved.
I wanted to feel being loved by a certain person who told me he loved me but could not act as if he loved me.

Now, I don't agree with my old belief anymore.
People change because people meet people who change their perspectives toward things, even fundamental things such as belief of love.
I met another person who acted as if he loved me (i.e., made me feel being loved) even though he did not feel love.

So at that weird moment in the movie, I shook my head.
Love is a feeling. You don't need an ability to feel it. You just feel it.
You are confused?
Let's try again.
Love is a feeling, not an ability. You love because you feel it, not because you are able to make people feel being loved.
You cannot control the feeling emerging through your cells and surfacing on your skin. Every time you resist the emerging process, you get confused and question yourself about the feeling. The more you question about it, the more you get confused.

When I am confused, I frown.

Steve Carell is great at laughing at difficult moments and making those moments from a frowning me to a smiling me.
He made my night a good smiling one.
Recently I have smiled much much more. This is a sign for feeling happy.
Perhaps it is because the feeling of love is not reflected as a single easily assessable facial expression, it confuses people who actually feel it.

And I met Dan in real life :)
Dan, a white-haired and white-bearded man, who works in the movie theater.
He asked which movie we saw. I said Dan in Real Life. He said hi, I'm Dan. I shook hands with Dan. Cal, as usual, started the conversation. Dan started talking about movies coming soon, his grandchildren, and his neighborhood.
Cal always makes strangers the center of attention, and strangers will tell him anything. So amusing.
Somehow I enjoyed that moment. Dan the stranger and conversations. I felt warm.

I have started developing an ability to initiate or to continue a conversation with totally strangers met in non-social occasions.
My heart has been lightened.
I am ready to feel again.

why I cannot make food

Thanks for Vivien's sharing. I love Japanese food TV shows.
That looks like something green-tea... yummy.

thanks giving

It's getting cold.

The weather was getting into my bones the other day. The weather managed to enhance my mood of not feeling well. My legs were reacting in a way that eventually I had to call Mama for more Chinese medicine cream.

Empire Dance is history.
The day before Thanksgiving was the last day the dance floor crowded with tango dancers.
I danced til the end with a smile and a bit of sorrow. The first time I danced there was ... probably July, 5 months ago from now. My first Nocturne, Robin Thomas's milonga 10pm to 5am.
I took Robin's classes there.
I met great dancers there.
I met old and new friends there.
I observed people there.
I wish I could make a movie of the studio. It'd be in the color of red and in the texture of wood and full of classic tango music with pretty legs and caring embraces. It'd avoid those arrogant attitudes of Manhattan. It'd be sweaty with people saying "excellent!" and understandable Spanish. I'd be sitting in the leather coach with my laptop.

When goodbye is inevitable, you just have to smile at it and move on.

I moved on to the best turkey dinner ever in Judy's new home. Home, yes, it's called home physically and emotionally.
Note: if you want a good turkey dish, do not trust the so-called traditional American Thanksgiving dinner.
(Sorry, Jenny, I remember the first "real" American Thanksgiving dinner you invited me to, but the turkey was as dry as paper. I just cannot be a fan of it.)
Judy did a great job feeding eight people, meat eaters, vegetarians, and vegans. And the night was fantastic. The weather was kept well outside of the house whose doorman warned us not to step into the unenclosed air.

The day after Thanksgiving, the wind was killing my legs and cells in my other body parts in Newport.
I was thinking how to face an inevitable goodbye yet again and how to smile at it and move on.
I don't know how the story goes yet so I'm not going to say much about it.
But I know I had been anticipating a miserable face of mine and now I suddenly am content. Human emotion is mysterious. What are you saying? Prefrontal or amygdala? No, no one knows.

It's not the head.
It's the weather.
The sun has given temperature yesterday and today and probably tomorrow.
The sun may be going to live in me. Well.... I wish this wish can come true.

Many years ago, I was in the most happy stage of my life. Not because I was much younger then. It was because the sun was living in me and around me.
After the sun left, I was not sure whether I actually needed it for being happy and smiley.
And after several Thanksgivings, I am sure I do need it.
Especially one Thanksgiving, my wisdom tooth was removed, and I was alone, and I wished I was removed with the tooth. Black Friday shopping did not help much because my face was so swollen that nothing could make a smiley face from me.

What' wrong for admitting that you need something.
I need coffee. So? Got a problem?
I need tango. Yeah, I do.
I need the sun. The moon is beautiful but beauty is not enough for me to smile.

Alright, go back to the title of this post.
Thanks are given to Empire Dance where nice memory had formed for me.
Thanks are given to friends who have made food for me.
Thanks are given to the sun that always makes me smile.

man movies

超熱血的啦
Han would say so if he saw the movies.

Recently Russell Crowe played a traditionally considered bad guy in "3:10 to Yuma" and a traditionally considered good guy in "American Gangster".
These performances remind me of the time when I started to notice him as a good actor. No, not "Gladiator". It was "A Beautiful Mind" that caught my eye.

After a childhood of Hong Kong martial-art movies and Hollywood hero movies, it becomes harder and harder for me to enjoy new man movies.
It is, firstly, very silly to define a movie by its audience population or the major characters in the film. But it is what the silly Hollywood has done. For example, gay movies and woman movies and chick movies and child movies and animal movies.

So I say "3:10 to Yuma" and "American Gangster" are man movies. No important female role in both movies. They are based in a man-only world. Men kill men. Men chase after men. Men befriend with men. Women are simply objects for sex or care-giving to men's children.

As a woman, I am not offended. If that is what the story is about, it's fine with me. I was not offended either when seeing "Brokeback Mountain".
I cannot deny that those two new man movies are well made. I cannot deny that I enjoyed both movies although I was very hungry when watching them. Never watch a 7-ish movie without a late lunch.

When will I see a well-made and well-accepted movie with a great female gangster or a great female cowboy featured in Hollywood movies? No, I am not talking about porns.
Hong Kong has already done so, except that cowboys are not universal.

Interestingly, even in a woman movie, men are not often simply regarded as objects for sex or hardware-fixing.
Cannot think of one.
Perhaps in the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie, some male characters will be objects.

Now I want to hug a huge barrel of popcorn.
Have a good weekend, you all. See a movie with some objectified human characters. And you think about it. Thinking is powerful. Your mind needs some workout.

beautiful season again

My yard, well technically it's not "my" yard, is covered with golden leaves. This makes me happy.
My smile makes me even happier. I am happy that I can feel this pure kind of pleasure again. Feels like being reborn. Feels like the world actually does not abandon me.
And my smile makes another person smile, which is the best thing in the world.

The first time I found my smile could affect a person was when I sat down under a tree ten years old. It would've been perfect if that tree grew golden leaves. Season changing is the best thing in the Northern East of the States.

There is a tree at the heart of Penn State campus. That tree gives a golden blanket like the tree in my yard.
I liked to visit the tree everyday in the season of Fall for 5 years. It was just plain beautiful. It was just a smile maker.



For the past couple months, I have had conversation with this sunny boy, who often times gives wise comments. He is weird and calm. Totally. So I like him.
He reminds me of people I met when I was 19 and when I was 25. He is not mere a mixture of characters, but quite a character.
He is beautiful. And I like to stare at him. I want to stare at him before the season of him ends.
I am wondering if he disappears too, when does the season come again? Or ever again?
How long can I stare at him? Measuring by year or by month?

He questions me.
All the time.
Which makes me think.
When I think, he questions me more and makes me laugh and I think more and I feel happy and I think more.
The conclusion often is I think too much and should have stopped when started laughing.
This kind of thinking is quite healthy.
This kind of thinking is to give myself an illusion of being grounded instead of make myself a unhappy whiner.
Feeling grounded is awesome!

Suddenly I am afraid that I am not going to see him again. So I stare at him more. Perhaps therefore I think even more and too much more.
But the sad truth is the nature of my life is unstable, is ungrounded, which really upsets me.
All these years, seeing people come and go, in and out of my life, tires my soul and slows down the process of me getting excited about new things.
Somehow, new things won't stay long enough to be old.

What can I do?
When the beautiful season goes, just wait for it to come again.
May I just bravely make it stay?
But if it has to fade, I cannot do anything. I have to live in a place where I am sure the beautiful season will come again.

make you learn

conferences

Hey, I did attend to the conference ...

(see the badge?)

.....with humans .....

(finally, after graduation, I start my Taiwanese network)


and animals :)

(just click on it to see more and more pictures)

Wild Animal Park - Nov 6, 2007

art at this moment

It is not a museum although it claims it is.
It is called the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego. It is even not as good as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland.
Of course, neither can compare the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

However, I find myself enjoying the MCASD because of the building. The design of the museum, which is rather a spacey gallery in my opinion, captures the light.
And turns the sunlight into rainbows.

I stare at them on the floor, hesitating whether I am allowed to use a camera there.
And it occurs to me that the "museum" does not display or own the rainbows, the art at that exact moment.

San Diego is artificial.
It feels like a huge theme park. The "historical" part of it does not attracts me because of its undetectable age. It is nice and cute in a way that provides travelers food, drink, and window shopping memories.

Little Italy is not Italian for me. It is not full of loud people. It does not smell like coffee, wine, bread, or fish. It looks pretty and clean.
Old Town is not old for me. I pass by at least three times before I notice it is there because there is a sign saying "Old Town".
Downtown is where hundreds of thousands of conference goers play. Oh yeah, we play pretty hard. Almost impossible to get into the parties thrown by MIT, for example.

But I encounter arts from Tim Cantor.
If you like Cirque du Soleil as I do, you will like paintings of Tim Cantor.
I was supposed to go to the party of UCSD, but his charming art caught my eyes. I stopped and entered the gallery. I was amazed by how lights are represented by his artistic sense.

It is like after a show of Cirque du Soleil, I need to be alone or be in a quiet place to settle my thoughts and to move on with my thoughts with new inspired thinking.
My mind is suddenly overwhelmed. After a day of neuroscience, after a weird experience in a social event, and after Tim Cantor's artificial lights, I went back to the inn.

Some art is so transient as the rainbows on the floor of the museum.
Traces have to be consolidated to be remembered.
Or just sleep on it to release myself.