One More Time

taken off www.sfs.org.sg 

taken off www.sfs.org.sg 

taken off www.sfs.org.sg 

caught this brillant animation todae

Interstella 5555
(The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem)
- a collaboration between french house group daft punk and famous japanese animator Leiji Matsumoto.
the soundtrack of the animated feature is made up of tracks from daft punk's discovery album, played back to back - think of it as a super long mtv.. and i was so impressed how the soundtrack gel so well with the animation... while each can hold its own... major cool !

film synopsis : a blue-skinned alien pop band - the one seen in one more time mtv - has been abducted by this machiavellian witchdoctor (?) who attempts to use them to complete his plans for universal domination - din realli explain how. Anyway this guy abducts them, sabotages their memories, changed their outfits and pigmented their skin from blue to human skin tones...to make them think that they are humans. and to keep them under his control, he makes them wear what look like tinted shades so that they are constantly hynoptised - literally a manfactured band! complete with a listless look in their eyes. he becomes their manager and the band goes on to top the charts and become a massive success, while the band members become pale shadows of themselves, jus mere puppets who have to blindly fulfill the obligations of being popstars

another amusing snippet - flashbacks which show other aliens being abducted before them and moulded into stars who look suspiciously like music legends from our time - (those i can recognize) athena franklin and janis joplin

so what can i say? ONE MORE TIME !

music i m listening to now : face to face - daft punk

got this from saitou

Cold and Ugly

Underneath her skin and jewelry, hidden in her words and eyes is a wall that's cold and ugly and she's scared as hell. Trembling at the thought of feeling. Wide awake and keeping distance. Nothing seems to penetrate her. She's scared as hell. I am frightened to. Wide awake and keeping distance from my soul. I am scared like you.

- Tool

music i m listening to now : Beck's Everybody's gotta learn sometimes (Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind soundtrack)

at ym's room

haven't had these long heart-to-heart talk for quite some time.

went to ym's room today at PGP. It looks and feels like a rented room at a backpacker's inn. small, cosy and self-contained, with bits of herself thrown all over the room - jeans and skirts pegged behind the door, shawls and towels draping over the chair and bed. piles of cds, books, little trival items and a trusty diary strewn all over the desk, an icq msg beeping on her laptop. Just a little piece of haven, or should i say, sanctuary, which i too crave for at the end of each day, in my own study room, taking in the silence in the dead of the night.

we had met up for dinner and went to hmv afterwards - been some time since i take a listen to the testers there - and once again she enthralled me with the music she has been listening to, a nice change from the stuff i am used to

we took a long bus ride, climbed over the fence and finally reached her room, tucked away in isolation along pasir panjang road.
we settled down, loaded the cds - i played M83, an electronica outfit which i read in some review describes them as 'the electronica version of My Bloody Valentine' - ha, hm... finally she gets to listen to what i have been listening to - electronica/electro-clash/ambient/atmospheric/idunnowhatelsetodescribe it.

its quite funny how the music taste of the 3 of us have evolved

then she loaded skunk anansie - i like it... soulful, honest and gets you at the core, (to think that she listened to it at 16)
amy winehouse - witty, biting humour, all sang with a raspy voice, pretty good and the lyrics are refreshing, but i still prefer the heavier beats of skunk anansie
then eventualli phoenix, i had listened to one of their tracks from lost in translation soundtrack, din know they can sound so loungey

and while the music played on in the background, we talked and talked... its not one of those small talks u have to make to pple u hardly know, but one that i can feel so at ease with myself.
this is one of those things that is keeping me alive.

it all started from here... we were comfortable in our seats... listening to phoenix on her laptop and was having a serious GAL talk ...  

i took out my harmless looking little gadgety
and went trigger happy..
i snapped ...  

and snapped...  

welll, i am usually camera shy... but i figured i trust the photographer this time.. and i'll let this pass...  

cant sleep  

bought these cubic candles at daiso the other day... cute hor?  

like a candle in the wind

On April 18, 1945, Capa entered Leipzig with the US First Army. He climbed to the top floor of an apartment buildg, 'to see if the last pic of crouching and advancing infantrymen could be the last pic of the war for my camera.' Moments after he entered the apartment, the young corporal manning a machine gun on the balcony was hit by a sniper's bullet and died almost instantly." - Taken from Robert Capa : The Definitive Collection  

lazy sunday afternoon

the heat was unbearable as i lay on the floor, eyes poring over the photographs taken by robert capa, the legendary war photog who died during the Vietnam War as he walked up the grassy slope and unknowingly stepped on a Vietminh anti-personnel mine. When they found his body, "his Contax was clutched in his left hand, but his Nikon had been blown several feet away by the blast."

To me, a good photog is someone who can engage with his surroundings, to the extent of blending in seamlessly and becoming invisible, like a chameleon, observing life quietly and patiently creating the opportunities to capture moments of a particular time and place and record them down, as a reminder of what life was at that very sec when he pressed the shutter.

Robert Capa can be said to be at the right place at the right time, but as i read on, i was impressed by the way he showed so much interest in life which was reflected in his photos. like the pics of refugees walking on for miles with whatever possessions they have to safer lands, pics of children and their reactions to the adult world ard them, portraits of pple in china, japan, vietnam, paris, berlin on the streets. When he was asked how he managed to get such natural and honest expressions in the portraits he took of strangers, he replied, 'like people and let them know it.'

he belonged to those who love humanity and photography was his medium and tool

till now, i dun realli recall seeing many pictures which conveyed that kind of interest in life in singapore, there is somehow a kind of detachment i see in those pictures, it feels as though most photog jus want to take pictures for the sake of taking pictures, there is somehow a lack of commitment to the subjects we are shooting, a kind of distance between the photog and subject which makes the photos so cold and umimpressive.

when i looked at capa's photos and read the captions, it reminds me once and again how good pictures are made only when one is willing to open himself up to his surroundings and get fully enagaged with it.

wanted to post pics taken by my fuji finepix but found myself engrossed in this collection of capa's photographs .... 937 out of the 70,000 he shot... woah...

Taken at Bidadari Cemetery

testing to add this pic, one of my personal favourites