punctuum

if i should somehow suddenly die
i think i would like to state for the record
that i had a good time here
and i love you all.

A rabbit passing through the woods on business of her own stopped several minutes and sniffed.
"Hobbits!" she thought. "Well, what next? I have heard of strange doings in this land, but i have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors and in a bush..."

from denis darzacq - la chute (the fall)

"The parachute weighs fifteen kilograms, it is a very heavy and extremely hard thing to carry, one is really... condemned, one is really... minimised! In a word, it is terrible: one cannot carry it, one cannot walk with it. One is forced to bear it." - perec, the parachute jump

1. was reading about how perec related the parachute to his memory of the death of his father (killed during the war) because it was like "pere-chute"/"chute-du-pere" (french for fall of the father). somehow i was previously unaware of the etymology or precise meaning of the word. so thats why they call it a rubbish chute? our rubbish in freefall! [ps. can non-singaporean people reading this verify if the phrase "rubbish chute" is actually used in other parts of the world?]
   
   
2. Qn: If you had to make a parachute jump, how high would you like to get first?
   Ans: It should involve at least a couple days of non-stop drinking and excessive smoking.
   
   
3. Qn: If you had to make a parachute jump, how high do you think it would jump?
   Ans: ...nevermind

more on flickr

"in societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation." -gd/sos

i'd venture into the city with the first gray of dawn and walk the deserted streets,
and when the streets started to fill with people,
i holed up back indoors to sleep.
- murakami

1.

after sending you off at the airport, i slowly and uneasily meandered to the other terminal to find the train station. being the navigational failure that i am, i somehow managed take a train in the wrong direction, so halfway through my circumlocutory journey i got off at a completely deserted station, and sat on the floor of the platform, facing a large field and a huge empty building. distant insect noises and orange street lights. as i travelled down to tanah merah and back towards the city, the trains got more and more crowded; soon it became packed with schoolchildren, nurses, and workers nodding off to sleep in the cabins. when i got to my station, the sky had taken on a hint of dark blue. as i walked back home on foot, the night melted away until it was blue and the clouds were bright. i always love the absurd moment where one is attempting to drag oneself home at the precise hour when the world awakens to the new day, oblivious to the night. and the night is like a secret between you and me.

2.

why do i feel as if no one else here could teach me half the things i've learnt about the world from you?