Not James Turell’s ‘House Of Light’ but this isn’t so bad after all.
Category: Muses
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Emotional Excess of A Potato
I’ve spent hours of re-consuming movies as a kind pilgrimage or a sentimental journey. Rob told me that I had this habit of watching Friends over and over whenever I felt broken (or in his term ‘potato’). “You feeling potato hon?” asked him, while part of his face peeked in the corner of the bedroom’s door. “Maybe.” answered me which often followed by my usual “Don’t ask.” look.
Then usually I was drowned to the word “maybe”. I’m not sure whether I felt potato or not.
I’ve been rewatching Friends over and over again for more than two decades now, I don’t know if that’s normal but truth is I don’t really care.
The least complicated reason is that I really like the movie. Or maybe because I’m a creature of repetition (I fear of trying new food– I don’t know there’s something new to try– especially if the ideas come from a foodie). Yes sure, repetition seems like it would make it lost its newness surprise. But repetition also requires less energy to process, easy to digest and I consider easy entertainment is good.
Sometimes they’re like habits, like praying the same prayer before bed every night– regular and automatic. Sometimes I watch familiar movies or series to extract fondness about the way things were– the warm particular nostalgic feeling when we exposed to scenes or songs from our younger days. A time machine to revisit a memory.
Then there are rituals, like watching all 8 Harry Potter movies after seeing The Cursed Child, watching Lost In Translation before going to Japan for the first time, The Family Stone on Christmas, binge-watching previous series before the new ones, or re-watching a movie after finally reading the book which inspired the film.
Anyway, just wanted to share screenshots from movies I re-watched this week during quarantine. Also, listening to the CMBYN’s soundtrack was a good detour from Sufjan Stevens’ latest album which I disliked. :/
Emotional excess may harmful but so is emotional depletion.
Friends’ apartment sets from Pinterest. Screenshots from Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Frances Ha (2013), Carrie Pilby (2006), Call Me By Your Name (2017).
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A Tear
While I have some drafts I’ve been working on for this blog (means that I clearly had zero talent in writing but know if I put some nice pictures it would help give nuances to it), I just wanted to share one of my source of joy during this quarantine.
A friend in the past introduced me to DW’s music and I instantly loved the spacey sound of his guitars, the echoing lines and how his songs created such a peculiar mood. I didn’t listen to him from Osker or Fingers Cut Megamachine but I do enjoy all albums under his own name.
Last year, I Google search him a few times a year to see if an album has dropped and he is hard to follow (essentially absent from social media except an inactive Facebook page and he doesn’t have a website). Then one day I received a notification from his Facebook page and he posted some updates regarding his upcoming album and he’s on Instagram!
After a six year break A Tear in Fabric was released. As written on his Bandcamp page, the break was defined by a series of changes: the birth of his daughter and the illness and eventual dead of his father.
My favourite songs from this release: Domesticated, Slow Motion, In Babylon.
Photos:
Devon Williams’ live stream from home on Instagram, May 2020.
Photo: Devon WilliamsI had this photo of him taped on the wall of my work desk. Aryaduta Semanggi A37A, 2017.
‘In Babylon’. Captured and edited from the video, courtesy of Slumberland Records, 2020.
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Who doesn’t love DIY?
Captured from Moonrise Kingdom
Will leaving for Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta soon.
Actually this was a saved draft from 2012 that I’ve found in the draft folder (obv!). But I did just got back from DIY last Sunday so this is… what?
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Tav and Tay
“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Sorry for the awful long quote. I’m a fan, and a sucker when it comes to paradox.
As corny as it is, maybe Tavi Gevinson and Taylor Swift are two famous Millenials that actually make me believe something good about myself again. Please do not imagine it in a Disney way (especially in Lion-full-of-drama-King way).
At first, Millennials is not the word I really want to describe my so-called generation nor myself. Maybe because when I hear the word Millenials in conversations (yes, by conversations I mean personality quiz on Facebook, Buzzfeed articles, Instagram hashtag whatsoever) it sounds tacky and used to offend some group of people. Younger people. Anyway, based on Wikipedia definition, I am one of them. So why bother?
Have you ever felt the time we get back to our college before and we see the students are now very different from ours? Uh huh. I feel so much different from my juniors in college, even though they’re only two years younger than me. And in the other hand, most of my students’ behaviors kind of legitimate the term even more.
They are loud, they have this weird taste of music (mostly because it’s hard for you to spell their favorite bands’ name). They give you eyesore with those perfectly made hair buns that you secretly admire. You believe that you’re a much cooler person than them.
They are blah.
And I am not like them. Do you hear me, Mom? I’m not.
Now, they don’t seem frightening anymore.
I do want to go into details about this theory, but I just think I shouldn’t.
Image: Claudia’s birthday party. (Left to Right: Ita, Claudia, Lia, me, Erika). Kelapa Gading, 1997.
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Rolesola Biya Te
Elizabeth Fraser – Cocteau Twins
Image from somewhere in the internet
Their song evoke such personal memories. Once, it was around midnight, Heaven or Las Vegas reverberated from my car’s speaker then suddenly my brakes failed. Hell-arious.
To my youthful ears it was a revelation. They came from five minutes down the road but they sounded like they’re from another galaxy, and that’s how it should stay.
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The ground is swallowing my options for release
Courtesy of Ivanmaria Vele“When the Berlin Wall came down, I understood it was a historical moment, but not really. I didn’t have the alertness to jump on a train and go see. Then The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and I immediately thought, ‘I cannot miss this one!’ I got in a car with two friends.”
– Massimiliano Gioni
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Dancing on her own
My baby niece dancing like there’s no tomorrow.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/11925060]
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Rapture
Is there not joy in being man, woman?
You have to live inside it for an hour, two hours, or half day.
Clue or clueless. Use or useless.
“My hummingbird, sing to me
Don’t believe a word that I haven’t heard
Little children laughing at the boys and girls ” – (Meadowlark, Fleet Foxes)“Marry my mind is to say the least
Its been awful hard to just stand on my feet
I think I’ll slow down if I am able
I won’t drown in the ocean
For starving my place at the table
Lucky ones are we all ’til it is over
Everyone near and far ” – (Marry Song, Band of Horses)Let’s end the day!
Captured from ‘This Is America’ by Childish Gambino
Captured from Me and Earl and The Dying Girl
