Art: Now and Then

Had two very interesting conversations about art the past few days, with very different views on the issue of "art" these days.

View #1: Art is about feeling
The first view I came across was that art isn't what it was back in the days before photography. It's no longer about technique and realism, but about expressing feelings and emotion. It's art, not documentation. It's about putting feelings into shapes and colours.

View #2: Art is about what you write about it
The second view, which is a wee bit more cynical, basically say art nowadays has nothing to do with art anymore. It's all about what is said about the piece of art. That accounts for the fact that nowsadys it's hard to tell apart a masterpiece, and something a 4 year old painted. (There was an article on that before, but I can't seem to find it now)

In my case: I paint things that are neitehr skillful or too emotional. In fact, it's more for decorations. So maybe it's should really be called art at all. Just... colours that look good around the house.

*sigh*... Probably shouldn't quit my day job eh?

Child Prodigies

Came across this one one slashdot today. Eight year old boy going into uni to study physics.

You know, when I was young, all I ever wanted was to be a prodigy. It's a little secret of mine. I don't really know just exactly in what field I want to be a prodigy in, and by the looks of things I don't think my folks do either. I thought it'd be cool to be a prodigy in music, until I realise by the age of 9 I still haven't master having instrument to performance levels (my dad tried by "letting me" learn violin at the age of 4. Then again, I probbaly did ask for it. Knowing me.) I also thought it'd be cool to be a prodigy in poetry, Chinese poetry to be exact. I did memorise A LOT of poems by around 10, and know the stories and lives of quite a lot of different poets. What about art? I loved to draw... maybe I can be an artist! Or maths maybe? I was the top of the class afterall... When I was around 12 it hits me that I would never be a prodigy.

I was somewhat annoyed at the fact Mozart wrote a bloody symphony at the age of 14 (Or something like that. I never aimed to be a prodigy in the field of remembering historical details, or any details for that matter). And knowing that at the age of 16, my piano teacher still complained about my harmony exercise.

Over the years, I'm still somewhat obsessed with IQ tests, desperately trying to proof to myself I'm smarter than average. Right now, however, I think I got over that obsession. Purely because I disagree with the way how intelligence is measured.

Now I'm wondering whether it's because my brain isn't all crammed with some sort of special talent, which made me come up with that conclusion. But given the choice, maybe growing up and getting ridiculous philosophical might actually be better than being obsessed about one subject from a young age.

Maybe it's just me.

Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes night found us in this really terrible weather. The rain stopped a little when we get to Bucklands Beach. Man it was more like eating sand. It was SO windy that's almost impossible to play fireworks. That didn't stop most people, just stopped us that's all. I managed to actually take my picture though: my experiment with light and photography. This one is entitled Dancing Fire. You can see the path of those little sparks, it's so pretty. No doubt more of these will be available. :P I'll upload to DeviantART when I got it. :P (This one is on DA already)

Anyway, I'm still confused about Guy Fawkes. Why are we celebrating because some guys try to burn down the parliament? I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but right now: I can't think of any. Probably because it's late, and I'm tired. :P

More rambling later. :)

Cleaning the shower with a toothbrush

Mum handed me a toothbrush and told me to clean the shower today. Yup. An old toothbrush.

I swear she must be in the military in a fomer life.

Anyway, I didn't know quite what to say when I saw the toothbrush: it was my old Macleans with those wipey thingy that "polish your teeth as you brush!" sort of "new and improved" toothbrush.

You know, modern toothbrush is not made to be used to clean shower. The nice "bendable joint", which is there to protect your gum, means I can't scrub hard. Mind you I do like the diamond shape head, it does make it easier to scrub the "hard to reach places", like all those corners and stuff.

For the whole entire time, I can't help wodering whether the plastic wipey thingy is actually polishing the shower as I scrub...

I think there's definitely a whole market there in making bigger version of these toothbrush (without the bendy joint thingy) for scrubbing showers.

Human need more hands

I was walking back from the cafe where I normally get my pie from.. with a pie, a bottle of ginger beer, and my wallet.

Since you read the title of this post, you see the problem.

At the ends I ended up pressing the bottle onto my chest with my arm and pray it'd stay there, it did. But it felt weird walking on the street like that.

So: how about giving each human 4 hands huh? Don't tell me it looks weird, you only think so because you're used to 2-handed/armed human. But imagine the possibility!!

• You can do your nails AND drive at the same time!


• Eat a steak dinner while playing computer games!


• Stabilise youself better in rock climbing!


• Hold one of those really thick books open AND flip the page without risking losing the page! (okay... that one it's probably just me)


• Finally be able to play Debussy's La fille aux cheveux de lin! (Still convinced you need at elast 3 hands to play that one o_O)


• ... alternatively, you may just want to play Heart and Soul over and over again


• AND! You can carry your pie, ginger beer, AND your wallet at the SAME TIME!

Are you convinced yet?

Anyway, silliness aside, I thought I got better and got into uni today... nope I'm still sick as a dog. Should've stayed in bed. Stupid flu.

Who doesn't cough rhymes with dough?

It just intrigues me, you know. How some English words look like they rhymes but don't. So I just put that question to Pete, why doesn't cough rhymes with dough? (He was coughing a lot). I think his exact answer was *"Because! Dough is spelt d-o-u-g-h, and cough is spelt... oh."

And people wonder WHY I can't spell? Pfft.

In honour of my victory in proving English is a difficult, if not impossible, language to learn (and that "spelling by phonics" is a myth), allow me to blatantly plagiarise the following poem**:

Similar Sentiment

I take it you already know
of TOUGH and BOUGH and COUGH and DOUGH.
Others may stumble, but not you,
On words like HICCOUGH, THOROUGH, and THROUGH.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of HEARD, a dreadful word
That looks like BEARD and sounds like BIRD.
And DEAD - it's said like BED, not BEAD.
For goodness sake, don't call it DEED!
Watch out for MEAT and GREAT and THREAT.
They rhyme with SUITE and STRAIGHT and DEBT.

A MOTH is not a MOTH in MOTHER,
Nor BOTH in BOTHER, BROTH in BROTHER,
And HERE is not a match for THERE,
Nor DEAR and FEAR for PEAR and BEAR.
And then there's DOSE and ROSE and LOSE -
Just look them up - and GOOSE and CHOOSE.
And CORK and WORK and CARD and WARD.
And FONT and FRONT and WORD and SWORD.
And DO and GO, then THWART and CART.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!

* Pete probably won't admit it. ;) Don't blame him... afterall he's supposed to be the one who can spell in this relationship... I still love you Petey!!

**Don't look at me for some of them... I always think dose rhymes with rose... is it just me? What about goose and choose? If they do indeed sound different, I've yet to be enlightened. Probably it's my Asian accent. Some Asians are still convinced that chip sounds the same as cheap...

SPUD!

Last night I got a bit hungry around 9:30pm, since I couldn't have too much dinner with my sore throat. So Pete, my brother, and myself went to Denny's for a quick bite. Pete and my brother ordered desserts, and I ordered potato and gravy. Coz I like their mashed potatoes. Plus it won't hurt my throat too much.

So we waited for a while, Pete's dessert came, my brother's oreo sundae came, and no sight of my potato. How hard could it be? Scoope the mashed potato they have, and add gravy. Done. And then, the waitress came to the table. With a potato.

Now let me describe the scene better: we were, sitting at our booth, and this waitress just walked to our table, with a whole potato (I assumed it's baked, although it does look quite raw...) on a dish. Nothing else. Potato, and dish. The potato was wobbling a bit. I could only do so much to tell the waitress I ordered a potato and gravy, which I assumed is mashed (since they never asked.. and I always got mashed potato if I order it anyway), and the waitress went back to the kitchen, and we just broke out laughing.

it's just something very funny about a whole potato sitting on a plate with absolutely nothing else on it. That made our days.

So there you have it: if you're having a bad day, go get a potato and put it on a dish. It might help if you say "SPUD!" a few times too, like we did last night, but that's not really neccessary.

We're WAY too easily ammused.