This morning I woke up with the brilliant idea of sending LSB a recording of my piano-playing. Then the problem - what to play for the love of my life? Something not overly cheery - neither of our dispositions tends towards carnivalism (yes, my made-up word. I shall petition to Derrida's memory.) Something that sounds warm and lovely and appropriately romantic. Something that wouldn't make my philistine boyfriend think immediately of 'that techno remix by random anorexic Taiwanese star'.
Unfortunately there's nothing in my repertoire that quite fits the bill. So in the end I decided I'd just have to learn a new piece. I dug up a copy of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, sight-read and practised a couple of times, just to get the hang of things. Then I played the 1st bit of the 2nd movement for him. After about 30 recordings and two hours, I settled on one version and emailed it (together with all my love and a lengthy mushy coupla paragraphs) to LSB...
Turns out he can't seem to open it.
Ok.
Oops sorry. Don't mind me. Just stumbling my way through life and love. *trips over own feet*
(Seriously, that should be my motto: 'stumbling my way through life and love'.)
Anyway, I'll probably let LSB listen to it at some point, but of course it's no longer a 'grand romantic gesture' and more like a 'ok, do I really have to listen to this? your playing sucks' kind of scenario.
BUT just because it will forever be associated in my mind with the general screwed-uppedness of life doesn't mean that you guys can't listen to the music now. :P
I searched through Youtube and can't find a single version of the 2nd movement that I like. *sigh* It seems everyone plays it much slower than I like it. Nevertheless, here's Zimemann (don't ask me who he is) with Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata (in C minor), 2nd movement:
It's really a lovely piece.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Hamlet
Comments like this remind me of how different Hamlet appears to all of us:
"We love Hamlet, but, it seems to me, we love him more because we see him not only at his best (when he tells Horatio, in the serenity of acceptance, “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” or when he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes, the brother of the woman he loved and whose heart he shattered) but also at his worst (when he bullies his mother and brings her to tears, or when he hesitates to kill Claudius at his prayers because, not content with taking revenge for his father’s murder, he wants to send his uncle’s soul to hell)." - The American Scholar
When Hamlet gives his "fall of a sparrow" speech, I don't think 'serenity of acceptance' - I think fatalism, a sense and premonition that events have come to a head and he no longer has control anymore. When Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius, I don't buy his 'I want uncle to go to hell' excuse. I just think that he felt it was not the right time - his anger had not run its course, there were too many things he still did not know and had not made clear (why his mother had married his uncle, for instance, and how she felt about all of this) - to kill Claudius in the midst of so many unresolved issues and so much uncertainty, it just didn't feel like the right time. So I do buy the 'Hamlet as man of thought instead of man of action' theory in the sense that I believe he could not take action until he's straightened out his world of thoughts. (But not in the sense that Hamlet is perenially unable to take any meaningful action.) Perhaps A.C. Bradley would disagree, his Hamlet being more warrior-like than mine.
I remember some scholar - I can't remember who - commented that the beauty of Hamlet the play is that Shakespeare leaves so many things unexplained. We never truly know why Hamlet did this or that and as a result, we are able to interpret Hamlet in our own different ways. Each of us is able to create and own a different Hamlet by projecting ourselves upon this slate that is not entirely blank but blank enough. I am 80% convinced that my interpretation of Hamlet reflects what I would have done in his place. But methinks perhaps Hamlet's motivations or even his personality are not quite the point of the play.
Hamlet the character is an elusive and charismatic one, and he is a constant source of fascination for me. I think this character is probably one of the best known in English literature, and much of the attention given to the play is focused on figuring out this personality, his motivations, and in some cases, figuring out whether he is 'good' or 'bad' or plain 'pathetic'. But if I don't remember wrong, till the 19th century Hamlet the character did not receive much attention from the literati. The play was seen as just one of the 'vengeance dramas' (my term), which was by no means an original plot, even during Shakespeare's time. I think some writer (Goethe?) suddenly found Hamlet the character to be pretty interesting and atypical, and suddenly everyone was debating Hamlet the character, and Hamlet the character took precedence over Hamlet the play.
Ok my account of the history of scholarship is not particularly impressive. (I'm old! My memory is fading! I knew this once!)
I have to confess, I love thinking about Hamlet the character as well. But I also think that Hamlet the play can be appreciated without much knowledge of Hamlet the character, and not just in a Hollywood blockbuster - murder and incest and sex and war - kind of way.
Whether or not Hamlet was a thinker or a warrior or an angsty spoilt teenage prince or misogynist, the range of emotions in the play is exquisite and exquisitely portrayed. The highlights for me:
- the despair and grief and bitterness of Hamlet: "Seems madam, I know not what seems"; "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into dew"
- his angry lashing out at everyone around him: his bitter wordplay with Polonius, his disastrous (relationship-wise) scene with Ophelia
- Ophelia's beautiful mad confused grief: "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died"
- Gertrude's subdued, poignant and pathetic (in a tragic sense) lament for Ophelia: "There's a willow grows askant a brook" is one of my favourite speeches from this play; "Sweets to the sweet, farewell. ... I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, / And not have strew'd thy grave" --> I was horrified when some stupid local desserts show on tvmobile called itself 'sweets to the sweet' or something to that effect.
- the self-centered (& perhaps guilt-ridden?) angry fight between Hamlet and Laertes in Ophelia's grave: "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with their quantity of love, / Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" --> Seriously? You called her a whore, dumped her, killed her father and caused her madness, and now you disrupt her funeral and fight with her brother in her grave over who loved her more? One of Hamlet's lowest points for me.
- Hamlet's final realisation that it was all over: "The rest is silence." --> Another of my favourite lines.
- Horatio's lament for his prince: "Good night, sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." --> Yet another favourite line. It's so poignant and yet ironic, given Hamlet's last words.
Ah I'd almost forgotten how much I love Hamlet the play. Chock-full of emotions and drama! Which is the way I think it should be appreciated. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on understanding and not enough on simply feeling.
"We love Hamlet, but, it seems to me, we love him more because we see him not only at his best (when he tells Horatio, in the serenity of acceptance, “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,” or when he exchanges forgiveness with Laertes, the brother of the woman he loved and whose heart he shattered) but also at his worst (when he bullies his mother and brings her to tears, or when he hesitates to kill Claudius at his prayers because, not content with taking revenge for his father’s murder, he wants to send his uncle’s soul to hell)." - The American Scholar
When Hamlet gives his "fall of a sparrow" speech, I don't think 'serenity of acceptance' - I think fatalism, a sense and premonition that events have come to a head and he no longer has control anymore. When Hamlet hesitates to kill Claudius, I don't buy his 'I want uncle to go to hell' excuse. I just think that he felt it was not the right time - his anger had not run its course, there were too many things he still did not know and had not made clear (why his mother had married his uncle, for instance, and how she felt about all of this) - to kill Claudius in the midst of so many unresolved issues and so much uncertainty, it just didn't feel like the right time. So I do buy the 'Hamlet as man of thought instead of man of action' theory in the sense that I believe he could not take action until he's straightened out his world of thoughts. (But not in the sense that Hamlet is perenially unable to take any meaningful action.) Perhaps A.C. Bradley would disagree, his Hamlet being more warrior-like than mine.
I remember some scholar - I can't remember who - commented that the beauty of Hamlet the play is that Shakespeare leaves so many things unexplained. We never truly know why Hamlet did this or that and as a result, we are able to interpret Hamlet in our own different ways. Each of us is able to create and own a different Hamlet by projecting ourselves upon this slate that is not entirely blank but blank enough. I am 80% convinced that my interpretation of Hamlet reflects what I would have done in his place. But methinks perhaps Hamlet's motivations or even his personality are not quite the point of the play.
Hamlet the character is an elusive and charismatic one, and he is a constant source of fascination for me. I think this character is probably one of the best known in English literature, and much of the attention given to the play is focused on figuring out this personality, his motivations, and in some cases, figuring out whether he is 'good' or 'bad' or plain 'pathetic'. But if I don't remember wrong, till the 19th century Hamlet the character did not receive much attention from the literati. The play was seen as just one of the 'vengeance dramas' (my term), which was by no means an original plot, even during Shakespeare's time. I think some writer (Goethe?) suddenly found Hamlet the character to be pretty interesting and atypical, and suddenly everyone was debating Hamlet the character, and Hamlet the character took precedence over Hamlet the play.
Ok my account of the history of scholarship is not particularly impressive. (I'm old! My memory is fading! I knew this once!)
I have to confess, I love thinking about Hamlet the character as well. But I also think that Hamlet the play can be appreciated without much knowledge of Hamlet the character, and not just in a Hollywood blockbuster - murder and incest and sex and war - kind of way.
Whether or not Hamlet was a thinker or a warrior or an angsty spoilt teenage prince or misogynist, the range of emotions in the play is exquisite and exquisitely portrayed. The highlights for me:
- the despair and grief and bitterness of Hamlet: "Seems madam, I know not what seems"; "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, / Thaw and resolve itself into dew"
- his angry lashing out at everyone around him: his bitter wordplay with Polonius, his disastrous (relationship-wise) scene with Ophelia
- Ophelia's beautiful mad confused grief: "I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died"
- Gertrude's subdued, poignant and pathetic (in a tragic sense) lament for Ophelia: "There's a willow grows askant a brook" is one of my favourite speeches from this play; "Sweets to the sweet, farewell. ... I thought thy bride-bed to have deck'd, sweet maid, / And not have strew'd thy grave" --> I was horrified when some stupid local desserts show on tvmobile called itself 'sweets to the sweet' or something to that effect.
- the self-centered (& perhaps guilt-ridden?) angry fight between Hamlet and Laertes in Ophelia's grave: "I loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers / Could not, with their quantity of love, / Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?" --> Seriously? You called her a whore, dumped her, killed her father and caused her madness, and now you disrupt her funeral and fight with her brother in her grave over who loved her more? One of Hamlet's lowest points for me.
- Hamlet's final realisation that it was all over: "The rest is silence." --> Another of my favourite lines.
- Horatio's lament for his prince: "Good night, sweet prince, / And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." --> Yet another favourite line. It's so poignant and yet ironic, given Hamlet's last words.
Ah I'd almost forgotten how much I love Hamlet the play. Chock-full of emotions and drama! Which is the way I think it should be appreciated. Sometimes I think we put too much emphasis on understanding and not enough on simply feeling.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Agyness Deyn
How do you say 'new girl crush'? (alt.: how do you say 'yes, I attended a girls' school'?)
Ok I'm probably late on this bandwagon, but she's so incredibly beautiful!!!!!!!!! But not in a done to death way!!!!!! Argh! Especially love the hat look in this video. I also love the look in her eyes, if you know what I mean.
Friday, June 13, 2008
10 smokin' beavers
This was a phrase that decided to take up residence in my brain just a few minutes ago. I'll try to use it somewhere in this post so you know what 'tis all about. We all know what a earworm is (or at least now you do, if you followed the link), but I'll be damned if there aren't brainworms as well.
As you all have probably rightly forgotten my dismal attempts at philosophy some months and a lifetime ago, you would probably be surprised that I haven't given up the expedition into cuckooland. Nope, I have too much iron in my soul (ironic fortitude, perhaps?) to be turned back by mere lack of reason to continue. *roars and thumps hairy chest*
I have as a matter of fact, gone past Leibniz, at whom I was stuck at the last time, by employing the elegantly simple strategy of skipping the chapter. By dint of pure willingness to ignore whatever looks too difficult to understand, I've reached Locke. And discovered that I can't proceed any further without going back to the bloody Greeks. (watch for it...) And I was like, 10 smokin' beavers ina cherry pie! Ain't this a right-ho bobbity-cop?
Guess which accent I have in my head. Really, guess. Prizes if you get it wrong.
So dragging my feet (I must say my feet appear to be less philosophically inclined than the rest of me), I went back to Socrates and started from there. The beauty of getting a 'philosophy for idiots'-type book from the library is that I managed to go from Socrates to Aquinas during lunch hour before I was rudely interrupted by the pointed silence that marks the recommencement of work.
Let's face it, if Socrates was playing an electric guitar with his homie Plato on a snazzy stage, I wouldn't be throwing any underwear on stage. In fact, I'd probably be doing the opposite. Which means I'd be collecting the underwear thrown on stage and either screaming to teenage girls that THEY COULD GET PREGNANT IF A BOY TOUCHES THESE PANTIES or not so surreptitiously pocketing the underwear to sell on eBay later. But never mind that.
The Greeks are so antiquated! *cries*
Good work, me. That was a brilliant one.
I really want to get to the 20th century soon, and I have only... well, 700 years to go.
Hmmm actually, that doesn't sound as bad as I thought it would sound.
I tend to take the default, instinctive position that people have always been a certain way and will always be this way. But reading these strange old men, I'm constantly surprised by how differently people think nowadays.
Which reminds me of the website of lynching photos that fell upon my lap from the bountiful plenty of the Intrawebs. Mere decades ago it was considered ok to kill someone. Mere decades ago children laughed and played around the gibbet or bonfire or any ol' tree as someone died and it was ok. Nowadays parents are uncomfortable when kids play violent video games.
I once attempted to read John Boslough's Stephen Hawking's Universe, which is the 'pop' version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which is the 'pop' version of whatever else it is that he has written. Needless to say I started out with the Stephen Hawking original, didn't understand a word, retreated to Boslough's further dumbed down volume and still didn't understand a word, at which point I retreated into ignorance and fortified the defences against anything quantum.
Gosh I do like me my digressions.
There are only 2 things I brought away from Boslough's book:
First, WTMF what do you mean space might be shaped like a saddle?!?!?!?!
Second, Robert Frost's poem: -
I love this poem. It is rife with material for blatantly pointless analysis, but I think I shall go sleep. I just remembered tomorrow I have to march in the ranks of the living dead, juggle 3 full pitchers of water and solve a sudoku puzzle at the same time.
As you all have probably rightly forgotten my dismal attempts at philosophy some months and a lifetime ago, you would probably be surprised that I haven't given up the expedition into cuckooland. Nope, I have too much iron in my soul (ironic fortitude, perhaps?) to be turned back by mere lack of reason to continue. *roars and thumps hairy chest*
I have as a matter of fact, gone past Leibniz, at whom I was stuck at the last time, by employing the elegantly simple strategy of skipping the chapter. By dint of pure willingness to ignore whatever looks too difficult to understand, I've reached Locke. And discovered that I can't proceed any further without going back to the bloody Greeks. (watch for it...) And I was like, 10 smokin' beavers ina cherry pie! Ain't this a right-ho bobbity-cop?
Guess which accent I have in my head. Really, guess. Prizes if you get it wrong.
So dragging my feet (I must say my feet appear to be less philosophically inclined than the rest of me), I went back to Socrates and started from there. The beauty of getting a 'philosophy for idiots'-type book from the library is that I managed to go from Socrates to Aquinas during lunch hour before I was rudely interrupted by the pointed silence that marks the recommencement of work.
Let's face it, if Socrates was playing an electric guitar with his homie Plato on a snazzy stage, I wouldn't be throwing any underwear on stage. In fact, I'd probably be doing the opposite. Which means I'd be collecting the underwear thrown on stage and either screaming to teenage girls that THEY COULD GET PREGNANT IF A BOY TOUCHES THESE PANTIES or not so surreptitiously pocketing the underwear to sell on eBay later. But never mind that.
The Greeks are so antiquated! *cries*
Good work, me. That was a brilliant one.
I really want to get to the 20th century soon, and I have only... well, 700 years to go.
Hmmm actually, that doesn't sound as bad as I thought it would sound.
I tend to take the default, instinctive position that people have always been a certain way and will always be this way. But reading these strange old men, I'm constantly surprised by how differently people think nowadays.
Which reminds me of the website of lynching photos that fell upon my lap from the bountiful plenty of the Intrawebs. Mere decades ago it was considered ok to kill someone. Mere decades ago children laughed and played around the gibbet or bonfire or any ol' tree as someone died and it was ok. Nowadays parents are uncomfortable when kids play violent video games.
I once attempted to read John Boslough's Stephen Hawking's Universe, which is the 'pop' version of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which is the 'pop' version of whatever else it is that he has written. Needless to say I started out with the Stephen Hawking original, didn't understand a word, retreated to Boslough's further dumbed down volume and still didn't understand a word, at which point I retreated into ignorance and fortified the defences against anything quantum.
Gosh I do like me my digressions.
There are only 2 things I brought away from Boslough's book:
First, WTMF what do you mean space might be shaped like a saddle?!?!?!?!
Second, Robert Frost's poem: -
We dance 'round in a ring and suppose
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
I love this poem. It is rife with material for blatantly pointless analysis, but I think I shall go sleep. I just remembered tomorrow I have to march in the ranks of the living dead, juggle 3 full pitchers of water and solve a sudoku puzzle at the same time.
Monday, June 09, 2008
Ubi Sunt
From Wikipedia:
The moment I saw this, I thought of Tolkien's lament:
And behold what Wikipedia says:
I am constantly amazed by Tolkien.
Yes I know I'm at work, but it's lunch. :P
Ubi sunt (literally "where are...") is a phrase taken from the Latin Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning "Where are those who were before us?" Ubi nunc...?, "where now?", is a common variant.[1]
Ubi sunt is a phrase that begins several Latin medieval poems and occurs, for example, in the second stanza of the song De Brevitate Vitae (also known as Gaudeamus igitur). The theme was the common property of medieval Latin poets: Cicero may not have been available, but Boethius' line was known: Ubi nunc fidelis ossa Fabricii manent? Ubi may set the tone of a poem, and can even be used to indicate the tone of another work, such as Beowulf.
The moment I saw this, I thought of Tolkien's lament:
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the sping and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?
And behold what Wikipedia says:
Sometimes considered to be a nostalgic longing for the clichéd "good old days", the ubi sunt motif is actually a meditation on mortality and life's transience.
I am constantly amazed by Tolkien.
Yes I know I'm at work, but it's lunch. :P
Playlist
This is stuff currently on my mp3 playlist:
I stumbled across Mazzy Star on youtube and fell in love (again). Not good music if you're sleepy but need to work.
If anyone is wondering, this is the SM song that I keep telling you guys about. It's wonderfully delicious listening while on the way to work.
I love the sound of this band, which is not surprising, since their sound reminds me of velvet underground.
This is one piece I wish was on my playlist, but haven't had the time to acquire. Does Chopin never go wrong?:
Oh and in other (perfume) news, I got the miniatures for 24 Faubourg & Sisley's Eau du Soir. I'm especially enjoying the Sisley (I just bought them on Saturday, so I'll try the 24 Faubourg soon), which I should, since I paid 8 good bucks for 2ml. But I hadn't expected to find a miniature of that one, so I count that as a steal. It'd be perfect if I could find a miniature of Sisley's newer Soir de Lune :( And I know that cost per ml is MUCH higher for miniatures than for the full bottle, but dammit I don't have enough money for the full bottles... and this way I get to own more perfumes :P
Accuracy of Death & The Black Book are wonderful, if a little depressing. There're so many lovely movies these days *contented sigh*. Sex and the City.... well, the dresses (some) are drool-worthy. Nothing more, but I don't think anyone was expecting more either.
I stumbled across Mazzy Star on youtube and fell in love (again). Not good music if you're sleepy but need to work.
If anyone is wondering, this is the SM song that I keep telling you guys about. It's wonderfully delicious listening while on the way to work.
I love the sound of this band, which is not surprising, since their sound reminds me of velvet underground.
This is one piece I wish was on my playlist, but haven't had the time to acquire. Does Chopin never go wrong?:
Oh and in other (perfume) news, I got the miniatures for 24 Faubourg & Sisley's Eau du Soir. I'm especially enjoying the Sisley (I just bought them on Saturday, so I'll try the 24 Faubourg soon), which I should, since I paid 8 good bucks for 2ml. But I hadn't expected to find a miniature of that one, so I count that as a steal. It'd be perfect if I could find a miniature of Sisley's newer Soir de Lune :( And I know that cost per ml is MUCH higher for miniatures than for the full bottle, but dammit I don't have enough money for the full bottles... and this way I get to own more perfumes :P
Accuracy of Death & The Black Book are wonderful, if a little depressing. There're so many lovely movies these days *contented sigh*. Sex and the City.... well, the dresses (some) are drool-worthy. Nothing more, but I don't think anyone was expecting more either.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Disturbed
I came across this website of lynching photos from the USA (via Politics, Theory & Photography), and emerged feeling really disturbed. I suggest you don't follow the link if you think you might be affected. These are real photos of lynchings and dead people. I almost cried while looking at those photos, and felt really sick afterwards, so don't say I didn't warn you.
From the website:
"Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of a mad citizenry. The communities' best citizens lurking just outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt."
- James Allen
It was really hard to look at the photos, but I'm glad I did because the photos are meant to be seen, to be recognised finally for what they are before they can be laid to rest - evidence of murder. I felt that I had to see the photos, and for each photo admit that yes, this was wrong, they were wrong to do this.
While looking through the photos, it felt a bit as if I was bearing the burden and responsibility for what happened and what happens still, and it felt right. The crimes humanity has committed are rightfully burdens of memory and guilt to be borne by us all. Not quite rational, but it felt right.
From the website:
"Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an unearthing of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh-tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and other acts of a mad citizenry. The communities' best citizens lurking just outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt."
- James Allen
It was really hard to look at the photos, but I'm glad I did because the photos are meant to be seen, to be recognised finally for what they are before they can be laid to rest - evidence of murder. I felt that I had to see the photos, and for each photo admit that yes, this was wrong, they were wrong to do this.
While looking through the photos, it felt a bit as if I was bearing the burden and responsibility for what happened and what happens still, and it felt right. The crimes humanity has committed are rightfully burdens of memory and guilt to be borne by us all. Not quite rational, but it felt right.
Gender, Love and Sex
Ok I swore I'd clear the backlog of things I want to blog about.
I read this really interesting article about a guy who underwent a sex change, but what got me was the comments. One comment linked to this NYT article on a married couple who stayed happily together after the husband changed his sex. Yet another comment tells a supposedly true anecdote about a hetero female who fell in love with another woman. A reply to this comment argues that either 1) the female is not hetero but is bisexual or lesbian, or 2) the female is hetero but not really 'in love' with the other woman.
So the question is, can you be straight and still love a person of the same sex? And by love I mean what most Singaporeans would see as the emotion that leads boy and girl to date, get married and spend the rest of the lives together.
One particularly favoured response to that question is that our sexual preferences are just general preferences. Meaning that if I say I'm a hetero female, what I mean is that I'm usually attracted to guys, but I might, however rarely, be attracted to and fall in love with women. So some hetero females might be more likely to be attracted to women than other hetero females, but they remain hetero because most of the time they're still attracted to guys. Likewise a lesbian might be attracted to females most of the time, but might occasionally be attracted to a guy.
Now I totally agree with the above response. I think it's silly to believe that even though we may like more than one type of music and more than one type of cuisine and more than one colour, we can only like either males or females, or that if we usually like only males then we cannot possibly like females or vice versa. Why should our sexual likes and dislikes be so different from our other likes and dislikes?
But what I find more interesting is the definition of love and the question of the relation between love and sex.
When I say love, I'm talking about that romantic love that people seem to differentiate from all other types of love, and have amazingly high standards for. 'Love' has to be monogamous (usually), it's special, it's great and momentous and unique, and above all 'true'. You can't merely 'feel affection for' - that doesn't make the cut. 'Love' is greater than that. It's the force that triumphs over death and families locked in violent conflicts and the star-crossedness of all that.
But what is this 'love'? What makes it so special? We all know about 'true love', but what exactly is it? Were Romeo and Juliet 'truly' in love? What makes it not just a crush? What makes it different from other types of love?
One question is, can you be in 'love' and not feel sexually attracted to the person you love? Can there be love without lust?
If love can exist without lust, what makes this love so special? How is it different from the love between family members and friends? Would you marry your best friend if you saw him 'only' as a friend? If you see him as 'more than a friend', what's the extra thing that constitutes the 'more'?
If love cannot exist without lust, then what if someone has well, libido problems? Or is for some reason not interested in sex? Does that mean that that person cannot love? Does this mean that on days when you think your partner looks unattractive (your dress makes you look fat, dear) or on days you simply don't feel the lust (headache, dear) you then love your partner less?
What are the other components of love (besides, perhaps, lust)? Conventionally, one would list things like care, affection, commitment etc. These are things that are common to familial or platonic love. Can we say that familial/platonic love + lust = Love? But what if you have a friend whom you care about and are physically attracted to? Does that mean that you 'love' that friend in that special way? How much must you care about the person in order to be able to say you 'love' him?
The most common way (this is what friends tell me!) of 'verifying' if someone 'truly' 'loves' you seems to be his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for yours. I'm not sure I quite buy that. When you sacrifice yourself for someone, is it a total loss on your part, or do you actually gain utility/satisfaction from sacrifice/being needed/being perceived as noble and loving? If so, when you 'sacrifice', is it an indication of your love, or your enjoyment/satisfaction from your sacrifice?
In the end I've never seen a definition of love that really satisfied me, and my sneaking suspicion is that love is probably an amalgamation of phenomena instead of the unique discrete phenomenon that it's often perceived to be, and that the composition of love differs from person to person, relationship to relationship. i.e. 'True love' is often seen as special and momentous and more than mere affection or care or lust, but I suspect it's actually just 'great affection' or 'great need' or 'great desire', and that what I mean by love might be quite different from what you mean by love. I do believe that there is no such identifiable, definable thing as 'love'.
And yes, I know the difference between 'cannot be defined' and 'does not exist', and knowing this I still believe that the 'special, momentous, till death do us part, one and only, there'll be no other' love is a myth and a fantasy. At least until I stop thinking and start feeling.
I read this really interesting article about a guy who underwent a sex change, but what got me was the comments. One comment linked to this NYT article on a married couple who stayed happily together after the husband changed his sex. Yet another comment tells a supposedly true anecdote about a hetero female who fell in love with another woman. A reply to this comment argues that either 1) the female is not hetero but is bisexual or lesbian, or 2) the female is hetero but not really 'in love' with the other woman.
So the question is, can you be straight and still love a person of the same sex? And by love I mean what most Singaporeans would see as the emotion that leads boy and girl to date, get married and spend the rest of the lives together.
One particularly favoured response to that question is that our sexual preferences are just general preferences. Meaning that if I say I'm a hetero female, what I mean is that I'm usually attracted to guys, but I might, however rarely, be attracted to and fall in love with women. So some hetero females might be more likely to be attracted to women than other hetero females, but they remain hetero because most of the time they're still attracted to guys. Likewise a lesbian might be attracted to females most of the time, but might occasionally be attracted to a guy.
Now I totally agree with the above response. I think it's silly to believe that even though we may like more than one type of music and more than one type of cuisine and more than one colour, we can only like either males or females, or that if we usually like only males then we cannot possibly like females or vice versa. Why should our sexual likes and dislikes be so different from our other likes and dislikes?
But what I find more interesting is the definition of love and the question of the relation between love and sex.
When I say love, I'm talking about that romantic love that people seem to differentiate from all other types of love, and have amazingly high standards for. 'Love' has to be monogamous (usually), it's special, it's great and momentous and unique, and above all 'true'. You can't merely 'feel affection for' - that doesn't make the cut. 'Love' is greater than that. It's the force that triumphs over death and families locked in violent conflicts and the star-crossedness of all that.
But what is this 'love'? What makes it so special? We all know about 'true love', but what exactly is it? Were Romeo and Juliet 'truly' in love? What makes it not just a crush? What makes it different from other types of love?
One question is, can you be in 'love' and not feel sexually attracted to the person you love? Can there be love without lust?
If love can exist without lust, what makes this love so special? How is it different from the love between family members and friends? Would you marry your best friend if you saw him 'only' as a friend? If you see him as 'more than a friend', what's the extra thing that constitutes the 'more'?
If love cannot exist without lust, then what if someone has well, libido problems? Or is for some reason not interested in sex? Does that mean that that person cannot love? Does this mean that on days when you think your partner looks unattractive (your dress makes you look fat, dear) or on days you simply don't feel the lust (headache, dear) you then love your partner less?
What are the other components of love (besides, perhaps, lust)? Conventionally, one would list things like care, affection, commitment etc. These are things that are common to familial or platonic love. Can we say that familial/platonic love + lust = Love? But what if you have a friend whom you care about and are physically attracted to? Does that mean that you 'love' that friend in that special way? How much must you care about the person in order to be able to say you 'love' him?
The most common way (this is what friends tell me!) of 'verifying' if someone 'truly' 'loves' you seems to be his willingness to sacrifice his own happiness for yours. I'm not sure I quite buy that. When you sacrifice yourself for someone, is it a total loss on your part, or do you actually gain utility/satisfaction from sacrifice/being needed/being perceived as noble and loving? If so, when you 'sacrifice', is it an indication of your love, or your enjoyment/satisfaction from your sacrifice?
In the end I've never seen a definition of love that really satisfied me, and my sneaking suspicion is that love is probably an amalgamation of phenomena instead of the unique discrete phenomenon that it's often perceived to be, and that the composition of love differs from person to person, relationship to relationship. i.e. 'True love' is often seen as special and momentous and more than mere affection or care or lust, but I suspect it's actually just 'great affection' or 'great need' or 'great desire', and that what I mean by love might be quite different from what you mean by love. I do believe that there is no such identifiable, definable thing as 'love'.
And yes, I know the difference between 'cannot be defined' and 'does not exist', and knowing this I still believe that the 'special, momentous, till death do us part, one and only, there'll be no other' love is a myth and a fantasy. At least until I stop thinking and start feeling.
What's in a name?
The most heated LSB-moi arguments are those over the name(s) of our future daughters. Yes, those future daughters that are not even a sparkle in our collective eyeballs yet. LSB doesn't seem to care about the name(s) of any future sons.
For some reason, LSB has this horrendous penchant for very feminine and slightly old-fashioned names. Whereas I prefer names (for gals) that are unisex or not so girly.
Today LSB proposed the latest horror of a name - which I shall not specify, just in case someone with that name gets really hurt hehe - that I thought was pretty much bovine. You know, you can't help it. Some names just sound placid, slightly stupid and like they should have wide hips and a bell around their neck.
LSB observed that the child would be traumatised if her own mother thought she was a cow. I observed that the child would be traumatised because I would have fed her grass throughout her childhood. Nice green grass.
I sort of want to call any future daughter Sylvie after my 1st French teacher. My 1st French teacher (a french lady of course) had incredibly flat abs and... well let's just say she had assets that made the day she entered our chilly classroom without a bra (or with a very thin bra) a very very hallowed, blessed day. We were truly subdued and awed.
Gosh I still remember this. Yep I sound like a guy.
For some reason, LSB has this horrendous penchant for very feminine and slightly old-fashioned names. Whereas I prefer names (for gals) that are unisex or not so girly.
Today LSB proposed the latest horror of a name - which I shall not specify, just in case someone with that name gets really hurt hehe - that I thought was pretty much bovine. You know, you can't help it. Some names just sound placid, slightly stupid and like they should have wide hips and a bell around their neck.
LSB observed that the child would be traumatised if her own mother thought she was a cow. I observed that the child would be traumatised because I would have fed her grass throughout her childhood. Nice green grass.
I sort of want to call any future daughter Sylvie after my 1st French teacher. My 1st French teacher (a french lady of course) had incredibly flat abs and... well let's just say she had assets that made the day she entered our chilly classroom without a bra (or with a very thin bra) a very very hallowed, blessed day. We were truly subdued and awed.
Gosh I still remember this. Yep I sound like a guy.
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
More wishes
Yes, my wish list expanded again, and it's all perfumes dammit.
I'm tempted to buy the guy perfumes on the list for LSB/my dad, though more probably my dad cos then I can steal a spritz or two whenever I like. Unfortunately my mum has final say on how my dad smells, and my mum's taste differs greatly from mine. :( On the other hand, I do quite like the idea of deciding how LSB should smell. Hmmm. Plus LSB recently gave me permission to shop for a scent for him. Perhaps he was drunk.
I bought a Sonic Youth cd. They rock, but they don't rock as much as Velvet Underground.
Random thought. Vetiver smells like grass to me, but grass with a twist. It's as if you take scent of grass, identify the earth smell, make it stronger, then somehow make it sharper. And then you get vetiver - a grassy scent with a strong, sharp earth smell. Oh, and I like vetiver vetiver. I don't really like it softened or sweetened. I want to be hit in between the eyes by blades of grass and clods of fresh earth.
Hey, it takes all kinds.
I'm tempted to buy the guy perfumes on the list for LSB/my dad, though more probably my dad cos then I can steal a spritz or two whenever I like. Unfortunately my mum has final say on how my dad smells, and my mum's taste differs greatly from mine. :( On the other hand, I do quite like the idea of deciding how LSB should smell. Hmmm. Plus LSB recently gave me permission to shop for a scent for him. Perhaps he was drunk.
I bought a Sonic Youth cd. They rock, but they don't rock as much as Velvet Underground.
Random thought. Vetiver smells like grass to me, but grass with a twist. It's as if you take scent of grass, identify the earth smell, make it stronger, then somehow make it sharper. And then you get vetiver - a grassy scent with a strong, sharp earth smell. Oh, and I like vetiver vetiver. I don't really like it softened or sweetened. I want to be hit in between the eyes by blades of grass and clods of fresh earth.
Hey, it takes all kinds.
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