You know you have too much free time on your hand...

... when you actually do one of those online quizzes and find out you are a 'materialist' (cue Madonna):

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements. Materialist 69% Postmodernist 63% Cultural Creative 56% Existentialist 50% Romanticist 44% Modernist 38% Idealist 19% Fundamentalist 6% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

... when you've actually found that quiz through the Xanga of your former college crush's friend, after spending an hour browsing through Hi5.com (btw, they do get cuter when they're older).

... when you spend another hour looking through a suburban mall (Central Ladprao, in case you are wondering) trying in vain to look for a Sufjan Stevens CD.

But hey... it's fun!

Insomnia

I just finished Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and just could not go back to sleep. It's an amazing book - how can one write a novel so lyrical and sensitive, and at the same time deal with the burden of the entire post-war German generation - the Holocaust?


*************************************

I made another one of those embarassingly late connections in pop culture while browsing at Kinokuniya the other day. On the philosophy shelf, not far from Focault, was a name teasingly waiting to be dug up from my assorted memories...

Marshall McLuhan...

Connections started to light up in my head (the sound effect is one of them sounds when you get awarded points in gameshows). Hadn't Prabda Yoon just name dropped just the other day? The Medium is the Message. The movie line in Annie Hall!

[An excerpt from Woody Allen's Annie Hall] (audio)

MAN: It's the influence of television. Now, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a, a high-- high intensity, you understand? A hot medium--

WOODY ALLEN: What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it.

MAN: -- as opposed to the truth which he [sees as the] media or--

WOODY ALLEN: What can you do when you get stuck on a movie line with a guy like this behind you?

MAN: Now, Marshall McLuhan--

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work--

MAN: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture, so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, do you?

MAN: Yeah.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

MAN: Oh--

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: -- I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

You learn something new everyday.

The Poets of Singapore: Arthur Yap

there is no future in nostalgia

& certainly no nostalgia in the future of the past.
now, the corner cigarette-seller is gone, is perhaps dead.
no, definitely dead, he would not otherwise have gone.
he is replaced by a stamp-machine,
the old cook by a pressure-cooker,
the old trishaw-rider's stand by a fire hydrant,
the washer-woman by a spin-dryer.

& it goes on
in various variations & permutations.
there is no future in nostalgia.