Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 18

'Give a brief description of yourself.' 

'My name is Dylan (Chan). I'm 16 & I attend SOTA, a local arts school. I specialize in visual arts & even more specifically, graphic design (typography!). I consider music my hobby, an unprofessional art form. Both are things I'm highly passionate about.' 

'Do you have an artistic role model?' 

'I am not really a fan of any human being. Most of the time you develop your own taste & style. But one ultimate designer I look up to is God the creator of the seas & the sky. Like good design, everything has its function & aesthetics. From the intricate nephrons in your kidneys to the expanse of the milky ways, it is impossible to ignore all the beauty around us.'  

'Why do you love the Beatles so much?' 

'The mere mention of their name makes me smile. The Beatles are wonderful! They're legendary. I can say without a doubt that they are the best musicians in the world, although to some people their sounds are a bit outdated, coming from half a century ago... But their melodies, tunes, lyrics & arrangements are just so skilful & thoughtful. 'Foot-tapping beauty'. Some lyrics are frustratingly simple. Simple chords, simple lyrics, all add up to an enjoyable experience of music. Great arrangements credits to the fifth Beatle, George Martin.' 

'What is music to you?' 

'Admittedly, I get excited at the topic of it. Music is immensely powerful. It determines mood, emotion & atmosphere. By nature, it travels through air, which makes it formless & free. What I love about music is the fact that it is there to keep. Forever & ever & ever. Today's technology has made that even more so... Music is unique in form, it exists in sound. It is unseen, which makes it even more real. To me, it's a whole new sense.'

Dylan C, 16

Art student, musician, & clearly suffering from well-known Beatlemania 

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

A backseat kiss

A Summer Playlist

All of the noise, all of the heat.

Cold Shoulders - Gold Motel

Violet - Thao With The Get Down Stay Down

Let The Record Go - The Mynabirds

Movements - Rend Collective Experiment

She Moves In Her Own Way - The Kooks

Saw You First - Givers 

We Bought A Zoo - Jonsi

When I'm Sixty-Four - The Beatles

Cape Town - The Young Veins

Blow Away - A Fine Frenzy

In The Sun - She & Him

Wouldn't It Be Nice - The Beach Boys

Tongue Tied - Grouplove

MFEO Part 1: Made For Each Other - Jack's Mannequin

Daylight - Matt & Kim

We're On The Run - Gold Motel

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 1

'What is your favourite place in the world?' 

'Paris.' 

'Ah...Really?' 

'Oui.' 

'But why?' 

'(laughs) I'm sure the answer you wanted was something tinged with age-old wisdom that's often associated with seasoned travellers, like 'My favourite place is wherever I am'. I would love to tell you that, but then I'd be lying. Truthfully, I am in love with the cliché that is metropolitan Paris. I am in love with the nostalgic images, the smells of crisp baguettes and hot espressos on a Monday morning, I am in love with the beautiful men (yes, men). I am even in love with my noisy, cigarette-smoking French neighbours, and my grumpy landlady. I sometimes dream of kissing a stranger in the middle of a busy street, like that famous photograph... yes, well, that is how much I am enfolded in the Parisian dream. I might be a cliché, but at least I'm happy.'  

'That's beautiful.' 

'Thank you. Of course, ask me this question again when the faucet is leaking, or when I have three classical lit papers to write, or when I only have fourteen Euros to last me till the end of the week, and I'm sure I'd say my favourite place is anywhere but here.' 

Claudia Lee, 23

Literature student, indie snob & Francophile 

Where the rain gets in.

My voice may not be loud

but it certainly carries far

A single note carries forth

Into the cavern

Out of the same mouth

I sing love and spite

Think less and live more

For this we are sure

Do you remember the faces

And how they melded together as one

And how he used to part the air with his tongue

And how the words used to flow endlessly

Into, from, down, around (a paper cup) 

To psychedelic dreams

And we will follow you to the depths of the aquamarine,

In a brilliantly-coloured yellow submarine.

Just like I knew you would

'For our last number, I'd like to ask your help. Would the people in the cheaper seats, clap their hands? And the rest of you, if you'd just rattle your jewelry.'

This is what I'm doing at 2am on Chinese New Year; watching old Beatles videos and falling in love with them all over again.

Sixties & Seventies

This is what has been playing in my head the entire day. Ughhhh... Don't get me wrong, I love Pete Townshend & Jim Morrison, but it's not exactly a great mix for a throbbing headache. In fact, this is basically what the next month is going to be like. The assignments are piling and there's a particularly vicious 2000 word essay on bilingualism & cognitive function + bibliography (I know!) that I've been avoiding for too long. Not to mention exams in a couple of weeks. Gotta get my game face on!

If there's one thing that triumphs assignments & stress in terms of numbers, it's distractions. More specifically, online telly. Two Broke Girls (Kat Dennings & that bimbo whose name I don't recall) & New Girl (Zooey Deschanel's new show) are hilarious sitcoms that go on the list. And... Tumblr. It's pretty awesome. I've always been behind when it comes to trends, online sites included! Anyway, you can follow me here and look at an endless slew of The Beatles gifs & random quips on why I don't like The Vampire Diaries. You have been forewarned.

Who doesn't love lucy?

Watching I Love Lucy clips makes staying at home, with nothing but an impaled foot for company, a little more bearable.


Speaking of excellent telly shows, new 2011-2012 line up of American sitcoms include Parks & Recreation, Modern Family & the Office; All out this week! I never tire, of the mockumentaries.

Borrowed time, thick as thieves

In this very moment, I am happy because I...

Woke up at noon and rejoiced in the fact that there was no school today

Had toasted blueberry bagels with cream cheese & grapes for breakfast

made fresh coffee for my dad and wished him a very happy 52nd birthday and hugged him

Played the songs of A Fine Frenzy and Simon&Garfunkel on guitar and remembered why I love music.

Had enough time to revisit a comfort novel, Sunshine by Robin McKinley for the 100th time, and was happy because there was someone in the world writing about vampires in a non-gross, twilight way.

Redecorated my room with record covers and Europe trip relics and other miscellaneous weird stuff.

Am Alive.

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.

And we'll go to the market and sell it

What I did on Sunday.

In an octopus garden near a cave

Reasons to love Ringo Starr
even more so than John, Paulie & George


1. He's one of the reasons why The Beatles lasted as long as they did.

2. His dance moves in 'A Hard Day's Night'

3. So incredibly goofy and lovable. Ginormous schnozzle and all.

4. He played a right-hand kit his whole life despite being left-handed, and still managed to be one of the most revolutionary drummers of all time (REVOLUTIONARY, not great.)

5. He wrote Octopus Garden.



I sang Yellow Submarine for the most of the morning and I felt that I owed Mr. Starr something for lending his marvelous vocals to one of the most famous Beatles' tracks around. And here it is!

'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 most terrible impulse to do something

' What is needed in order to really become a star is an extra element which God gives you or doesn't give you.

You're born with it.You cannot learn it.

God kissed Audrey Hepburn on the cheek and there she was. '

Billy Wilder

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.'

Currently Reading.

1. A little bookshop in Paris called Shakespeare & Co.

2. Radishes with salt & butter, and chocolate rum balls (yum.)

3. Legends.

4. A classic & the Spanish war

5. A twisted and monumentally demented world.

Don't know why I keep buying books when there are piles of un-read material sitting on the floor bed and cupboard and shelves. It's like an addiction to bookfairs and the odd-two-quid-for-a 400-page-paperback-deal.

So I was the kid who stayed at home to read while everyone was out having fun.

Whatever. It was fun to me :)

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!

All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

Fervent facebook discussions on the Beatles (in light of commemorating forty years since the brilliant Liverpool quartet broke up) makes me sad.

Just gotta love Ringo's face tho :)

something always told me us two would be serious

Nothing beats listening to the igg-ster (and his stooges) on days like these.