Out of bed, out of comfort

Antlers - We Were Evergreen

Tell Us Your Name - The New Limb

Drifting In & Out - Porcelain Raft

Overjoyed - Bastille

Build Your Kingdom Here - Rend Collective Experiment

Collective Mon Amour - Éléphant

Entertainment - Phoenix

Pompeii - Bastille

Everything's Gonna Be Undone - Band of Horses

No Other Plans - Sunny Levine feat. Young Dad

Big Parade - The Lumineers

Towers - Bon Iver

Charleston - Set Sail

Son My Son - Milo Greene

Wild Things - San Cisco

Cousins - Vampire Weekend

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Here's what I've been listening to lately, songs plucked out from youtube obscurity & also my Facebook timeline (!): The latest from WWE, tracks from the Celeste & Jesse Forever OST & the lesser-known from Coachella. These are the songs I could spend entire rainy days listening to, days like the ones we've been having, falling asleep beside melody & lavender tea.

I also received my We Were Evergreen package I blogged about earlier this year (x), all the way from London! I had to stifle screams of excitement as I ripped apart postage paper & airmail bubblewrap to get to its contents: a signed poster, handwritten lyric sheets for Penguins & Moonboots by Fabienne & best of all, their first album from 2010! Every track is different, slightly incomplete, but beautiful. There's a fifty-second demo at the end of the record entitled Verano ('summer', in Spanish), a mere fragment of a song which begins with nothing but whistles & a plucking guitar & repeats the lines 'Hang on to summer / Don't let go / Don't let go' over & over. It's perfect in its simplicity. I love how much you can fall in love with a song & how much comfort it can give & how it never asks for anything in return.


I don't know... I'm feeling strangely content right now, just listening to fresh music in my room. Haven't felt like this in a while & it's nice.

Dear Friend,

'So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.'

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It's hard to describe in words, how much this novel means to me. I have read coming-of-age books like The Catcher In The Rye or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn before, but up till when I was fifteen, I don't think I've ever felt like a book really understood me. That is, until The Perks of Being A Wallflower.

I remember reading it for the first time and just being incredibly astounded and moved by the sheer profundity of this story, this small collection of letters. It was as if all the weariness & frustration & things I could never quite actualize into words were present in that text and the spaces in between, all the adolescent awkwardness I've ever felt was reflected in the protagonist Charlie. It's amazing, to see your own experiences come alive on a page.

I don't think it's fair for people to sneer and say that The Perks of Being A Wallflower is just another book about teenagers and sex and drugs, because these things don't make it any less important, they make it more real. And it's not all about the sex and drugs, because all of us have had Patricks & Sams & Bills & Mary-Elizabeths in our lives, and all of us have felt the bit of magic found in the three-minute space of a song. Some might think that there is no point in sharing or writing or reading about these stories because everyone else has experienced it before but there is, because sometimes, we just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn't try to sleep with people even if they could have.


We just need to know that these people exist. 

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 11

'Let's start with a brief description of yourself.' 

'I'm Sam. I like to buy useless things. Writer, sort of. Film enthusiast & critic... okay that sounds ridiculously pompous. Scratch that. I like movies. Sometimes have trouble distinguishing real life from, say, television or novels.' 

'If you could live in any other era, what era would that be and why?' 

'Perhaps the '50s. I feel as if I could have been good friends with the average Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg. Or maybe the '60s... Yeah, the '60s. I want to see Johnny Cash & The Beatles & The Sex Pistols. I want to go to Woodstock and, ah hem, accidentally get stoned because honest to goodness, I can't tell a bong from a pretty vase... (laughs). I think I would also find it hard to say no to cute hippies.' 

'(Laughs) So anyway, what do you think inspired you to start writing?' 

'I just couldn't help it.' 

'Explain.' 

'Well, first of all, I started doing it because apparently I was pretty good at it. Good grades in English compositions, prizes at writing competitions, all that jazz. But then I realised it just felt good... I could string words together and lay it out on a page and people would read it and feel... (long pause) changed. I find that the love of writing always stems from reading. Once you have that love for reading, words & poems & stories flow out of you uncontrollably, whether you want it to or not.'

Samantha T. 20

Communications major & fiction-writer

Boy Lilikoi

And then I heard youYou made me long forTo be a part ofSomething that I can't seeA life that is beyondSomething that I can't fearTo be a part ofThe story - It belongs to you

Something you said wasAbout the pen and the paperYou can always write itIt is something you'll have to doGathering stories

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A beautifully-adapted novel, Cameron Crowe, and Jonsi as a composer. And all in one movie! It's a film buff's dream.

I have found that the best kinds of films do not depend on the talent of actors or directors, but on the musical score that it is set to. How lovely it is, when music is so aptly woven into the script and scenes that it becomes a character of its own. This is music that makes your soul soar, the kind of music that leaves you breathless.    

Phoebe in Wonderland

'At a certain point in your life, probably when too much of it has gone by... You will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are. Especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful normals. And you will say to yourself... But I am this person. And in that statement, that correction, there will be a kind of love.'

Lately, I've been watching a lot of Elle Fanning movies. It sounds strange, because you wouldn't expect such a young actress to have had a tremendously prolific career and an extensive filmography. The thirteen year old Elle, however, is certainly going places. She was absolutely brilliant in Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, shone in J.J. Abram's Super 8, and was a regular Jerry Spinelli-esque Stargirl in We Bought the Zoo. It was her first lead role in Phoebe in Wonderland, however, that remains the most special of all.

I love this movie. I love it because it tells all of us (and to a point, reassures me) that it's alright to be different. It's okay to feel disconnected and distant and a little bizarre. It's perfectly fine to delve into another world of looking glasses and talking rabbits and tea parties, and completely lose yourself in the magic. It's comforting, to know you're not alone :)

inspired

'You are a great champion. When you ran, the ground shook, the sky opened and mere mortals parted. Parted the way to victory, where you'll meet me in the winner's circle, where I'll put a blanket of flowers on your back.'

Cale Crane, played by Dakota Fanning

'Dreamer'

Spidey & Gwen Stacy

I don't often rant about movies but this... THIS WILL BE PHENOMENAL. With Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy (!), Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst just seem, well, impossibly sad.

I'm so biased, BUT I LOVE ANDREW AND EMMA. They are incredibly talented and also, incredibly hot. Always a bonus. Anticipation for this film is driving me nuts; it only comes out in 3D on July 3rd next year. Why Columbia Pictures, why?



Anyway, besides waiting eons for new films as such, I've been indulging in many oldies. Remember As Told By Ginger anyone? Anastasia? Only if you're a '90s kid. They help me to blatantly ignore linguistic readings, which have been piling up like mad. We'll worry about those later. For now, we enjoy!

It's systematic!

Watched this movie today while stuck at home with a massively-painful sore eye. Who can resist John Travolta's 1970s' Thunderbird swagger!

There's orientation tomorrow. Naturally, the spirit is willing but the flesh is oh-so-weak. Laziness doesn't usually cut it in college life but hey, if I've slakced for the past 18 years and survived, I can blaze through these four years right? Right?

Meh.

That method actor

“An actor is at most a poet and at least, an entertainer.”

Marlon Brando

Everyone thinks it's unhealthy to have crushes on much older or god forbid, deceased dudes. Honestly tho, between men like Marlon Brando/Paul Newman, or perpetually prepubescent boys like Beiber, who would you pick? Thought so.

Tributes & a Reality Check

Writing posts and reminiscing about Europe is all well and fine, but I thought it would be good to talk about real-time stuff for a bit. Life, unfortunately, does go on. Uni life starts next week and I have no idea how I should feel about that. Mostly, ambivalent. Anyway.

Besides watching lots of The Office & basically bumming around a lot at home, I've been catching up with old friends through lunch dates and movies and sleepovers. Which is nice :) Caught Bridesmaids, which was so hilarious even though it got so much bad press here in Singapore (Sure, The Hangover is fine but when women do it...)

Finally managed to watch the final installment of the HP series today! It was wonderful, except for the bit at the end when all of them returned as middle-age versions of themselves. Drawn-on crows feet does not make Emma Watson an old lady, just saying.

It's more than amazing to see how these characters and the actors themselves have grown; more so because we have grown up with the books and the movies. I remember receiving the first four novels as a gift from an aunt in the late 1990s, who had bought the set abroad and sent it back to Singapore, where it wasn't popular yet. From then on, it's just been one long, wizardry craze. Reading the subsequent novels in single sittings, doing HP trivia with friends, or watching the movies with the same friends and crying our eyes out. Or worst of all, remembering the feeling I had, upon not receiving my Hogwarts notification when I was 11.

Harry Potter has and continues to be a great part of my childhood and without doubt, millions of children and teenagers across the globe today. As J.K. Rowling said in her speech at the premiere, the legend that is Harry Potter does not end with this movie, but lives on in readers' hearts forever.

It's been a great ride, potter heads! Mischief managed :)

'Oh look, we have created enchantment.'

On a random note, I just watched A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Marlon Brando... HUBBA HUBBA. Sure, Vivien Leigh was astounding as usual; brilliant acting, a style icon, the regular femme fatale, etc etc.

Words, however, could not describe the way I felt when Brando stood beneath the stairwell with a ripped up white tee and his hands clutching his face, yelling 'Hey, Stella!' in that heart-wrenching voice. Of course, it did not hurt that most of the upper half of his body was exposed during the brief scene.


Melted like goo on the couch, and still feeling the same now. Marlon, why do you make me go all jelloid?

The Great Audrey Hepburn Tribute

'Audrey Hepburn: At midnight, I'll turn into a pumpkin and drive away in my glass slipper...

Gregory Peck: And that will be the end of the fairy tale.'

To travel to Paris, to wear perfume, and to listen to jazz

'It's not enough to educate us anymore, Mrs Walters!
You've got to tell us why you're doing it!'

It appears that I got my Carey Mulligan filmography thoroughly mixed up: I watched Wall Street first, followed by the poignant film Never Let Me Go, where she fitted perfectly into the role of a displaced Cathy Glass and lastly, An Education. It turned out to be for the better; her first major role as the bright but sheltered 16-year-old schoolgirl swept away by a suave gentleman was one of the best I'd ever seen.

Captured in the sleepy and old-fashioned English suburb of Twickenham, the film explores the true importance of an academic education as compared to, as Peter Sarsgaard so charmingly puts it, an education in the 'University of Life'. Mulligan's rather anachronistic character of Jenny puts the thoughts of thousands of A-level students together on the screen flawlessly, and more importantly exposes the restrictive societal mindset held by the working-class in 1960s England.

However, what was most impressive was the way the movie ended. While some may find it extremely unsatisfying (and ultimately, a betrayal in morals to the first ninety percent of the film), I found that the ending expressed finding comfort and a satisfaction for the simpler things instead of settling for living in a fantasy. Ambition is all well and good, but in the end, you can never truly have a shortcut in life.

Gosh it feels like I'm writing a literature essay here. So trust me, it's a movie you can't miss. Although no one could ever replace Ms. Hepburn, I'm personally really glad that Carey Mulligan was casted as Eliza Doolittle in the My Fair Lady remake. Definitely something to look forward to!

Knee-deep in definite integrals

Oh amelie. I can relate. Tomorrow will probably be the hardest day of my life (so far)... the only thing keeping most of us going is the prospect of never doing math ever again. Ever. Again.

Now I feel slightly better :/

You're a cannibal and I'm afraid I won't get out alive

Nothing cures the exam-sweats like a hot plate of bacon&pepper aglio olio and a movie. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, to be exact. Absolutely digging Kate Winslet's blue-do... a post-A-levels look? Hmmmm.

Graaaahhh. After Friday, we shalt have a bonfire to burn math notes.

His favourite author was Edgar Allan Poe

Hope you've had a happy, ghastly halloween.


May your ghastly imagination never die!

I sold flowers; I didn't sell myself.

'I know your head aches, I know you're tired, I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window. But think what you're trying to accomplish. Think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language, it's the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative, and musical mixtures of sounds. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer Eliza. And conquer it you will.'

Professor Henry Higgins
in My Fair Lady
Played by Rex Harrison

I watched this three-hour musical again after doing an extract from Pygmalion (Bernard Shaw, 1939) during Literature enrichment a couple of days back. It must prove to be somehow useful for ELL... I hope. No matter, we all need our breaks, don't we? After all, it was Eliza Doolittle who first declared that she 'could have danced all night'!

(then again, she also said 'Come on, Dover, move yer bloomin' arse!' This could be a nudge from the Great Audrey herself for me to start mugging. Intensely.)


Ippudo yesterday with obscene gang was delish :) And also the record-spam, where Clare and I chanced upon a Fleet Foxes EP for only a tenner! It was rather exhilarating. So ends my 3am rant.

Goodnight everyone, continue to study hard!

She had a voice that made you listen

You can say that again.

Someone should really print this on a shirt

'You really are the smuggest and most hateful man'

Vicky-T or Leighton Meester weren't the first ones to wear silver eyeshadow! Now I know.

Watched How To Steal A Million where the leading lady was paired with Peter O' Toole. I must say, he was quite charming. In the words of Audrey 'Tall, blue eyes, slim, quite good-looking...'


Audrey Hepburn, bold silver make up, and House of Givenchy serves another marvellous film. Even if it is, about the greatest heist in French history.

The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain.

Amélie is a shy young woman with a pronounced taste for all life's small pleasures; immersing one's hand in a sack of grain, cracking the crust of a crème brulée with the back of a teaspoon or skipping stones on the Canal St-Martin.