because coincidences like these are still funny.

so yesterday I went for CHVRCHES and it was bloody amazing but I needed to pen this down somewhere because what happened yesterday night after the  concert which was equally interesting was when I thought I'd lost my car keys when in actuality I'd left it at TGIF during dinner to which was kept by the manager but said manager had left with my car key kept in his pants pocket and was currently at the gym in Wangsa Maju as told by a helping staff member of which I'd gotten the details of said manager's number from so I could contact him when he was done with gym so I could get my car keys back which meant that I had to take the LRT home from midtown KL with nothing on me except my wallet, lipstick and handphone and wearing a cropped top paired with an extremely short skirt did not help at 11:30p.m. but I didn't have a choice so I did and when I reached home later on, I waited until said manager finally called me and was apologizing non stop and offered to send me straight back to my car in midtown KL and so he did and picked me up from my condo minus cropped top paired with extremely short skirt (I had to change in something more demure obviously) and after several minutes of talking, we find out that we went to the same high school and he was my senior by four years and I knew his friends well and he knew my friends well and in a world so small, such coincidences happening are still and will always remain relevantly funny and necessary for remembering. 

because it is like an addiction.

I've never really been blessed with any sort of generic artistic talent.

I can’t play any instrument because 1)I don’t think I have great mind-finger coordination and 2)I simply can’t. I don’t sing very well, discount the times when I’m singing out loud to Sam Smith in the car, asking stray cats and dogs by the pavement to stay with me. I paint but everyone who wants to paint can paint. Same goes for dancing and acting and visualizing and the lot. I do, however, have always had a large appreciation for all things art. Generically and more specifically, for great movies, songs, and books.

I do not realize how a large portion of my growing up and identity formation has been based on some of my earliest exposures to art. To the books written by Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, particularly Matilda; 

         

I mean, take a look at you and me. You chose books - I chose looks. I have a nice house, a wonderful husband... and you are slaving away teaching snot-nosed children their ABCs.

                                           - Probably my most remembered full length quote from the book; I read this when I was seven.

and to the songs by the Spice Girls and Michael Jackson, particularly the Earth Song. I remember watching the music video on TV when I was four when I came home from kindergarten, not having yet been intellectually exposed to things like deforestation and elephants being left to die after their tusks get removed.

My appreciation and total or that I believe understanding of a movie came in later in life and as time goes on and I grow older, I developed a taste and liking for movies that fall under listed categories of dangerous, disturbing, on many accounts depressing and/or deliberately slow. I’m not sure when exactly this came on and which movie first steered me into this direction – Blue Valentine, maybe?

So you can imagine what happens to me when a really great book is made into a movie or when a really great movie was brained from a book, combined aesthetically with the wonders of a damn good soundtrack to carry the movie through fluidly.

For a lack of better words, I go into a phase of Tak Boleh Berhenti Fikir Pasal Movie Itu.

No really.

I literally cannot stop thinking about it.

So when a momentary, unexplainable obsession takes over, what am I to do – reread the book or rewatch the movie? Unfortunately, some films can be too much to absorb; I watched Girl, Interrupted twice perhaps and realized that I could not do it another time without risking myself unconsciously developing the antagonist’s characteristics. & I already have too many books to read. & I am also, ironically, lazy. 

So thanks to the wonders of being born into the computer age, I carry on my obsession by fully utilizing the Internet – I look up specific and more in depth details of what goes on behind the scenes, what happened on set during production, what the actors had to do to prepare themselves for their roles, who were the director's original choice of cast, how the soundtrack is composed and selected, why the director’s cut involved a certain take and angle, what sort of new technological tricks were used to elicit what sort of reaction, how the cinematography is conceived.


 I watch and read countless interviews of the actors, the directors, the book’s author. I plough through the movie trivia, the did-you-know pieces of information, absorbing every bit of possible fact. I listen to the soundtracks over and over sometimes it’s the only thing I hear for weeks and it is still the only thing I'm listening to right now and selflessly allow the very DNA of that movie diffuse into my system like heroin. 




I am now resisting from going to sleep despite being rather exhausted from a long and great day and despite the fact that I'm going to wake up very early because I felt an extreme need to complete and publish this drafted post about how much I was amazed and terrified and still am by the brilliance of Requiem For A Dream. 


I randomly decided to watch it a couple nights ago because I'd been meaning to for years but left it in the virtual shelf to collect dust. & I was hella bored.

man was it a wrong decision to watch it at night.

alone.

in the dark. 

I perhaps need to watch this one again, despite how much I was left feeling an extreme level of anxiety as the movie was a constant and steady decline from what seemed like a normal life in Brooklyn to a sheer state of void, emptiness and transparent madness.


because I am in full admiration of Darren Aronofsky's very meticulous transcribing from book to film, how he got Hubert Selby Jr. to come on set to read specific paragraphs to the actors before their due scenes, his dedication to the production so far that he purchased the rights of Japanese animated thriller, Perfect Blue, for $18,000 just to replicate a 30-second inspired scene which was terrificly haunting, how Jared Leto lost 25lb and how Ellen Burstyn lost 40lb plus having to wear prosthetic pieces which took four hours to put on, how the cinematographer, Matthew Libatique, accidentally let a shot go out of frame because he got emotionally affected while filming, how Hubert Selby Jr. himself cried on set upon watching one of his written characters come to life so painfully and flawlessly, how Hubert Selby Jr. made an unknown guest appearance in the film, how Jennifer Connelly's eyes alone are a perfect representation of the entire film,


and how the whole soundtrack both kept my adrenaline on a steady pump and made me feel like I was mentally dying of desolation, how some imagery were edited just to evoke the similar rushes that one gets from taking drugs, how some imagery were left to be so plain and empty and dreadfully dull to evoke the similar withdrawals that one gets from not taking drugs, how some extras on the set were actual junkies, how the movie had a total of 2000 cuts compared to a normal 600-700 cuts...


I could go on and on about this movie.
because of how much of a masterpiece it truly is.
in all its technicality, its simplicity, and overall context.


I am a huge fan of when the chosen soundtrack and film complement each other and both evidently make each other whole. I cannot get enough of how much it worked on Requiem For A Dream. plus my tendency of remembering scenes and imagery better by the music that accompanies it, I can still remember clearly how I was made to feel during specific portions of the movie and how I both loved and hated it simultaneously.


fourteen years later,
the movie proves that not only can it stand the test of time.
 did you know that Aronofsky consciously avoided a specific time frame to the movie so that people could not tell when exactly the film is supposed to be set in?


funnily enough, the way this movie has got into my skin and bones almost resembles how the movie is about drugs and the very detailed way it gets into you and leaves you. though I'm not sure whether I will ever be able to drop my undying obsession towards this film. perhaps until I stumble upon my next fix of a movie, maybe?


Dreams - Clint Mansell & Kronos Quartet

because you can't win everyday.

Early this morning, while I hustled and bustled through the various traffic jams to get to KL where I work (yes, I am working already, and the don't-know-what-i'm-supposed-to-do-with-my-life phase has taking a halt), I got to thinking about an ongoing theme that has been occurring this past week, not just to me, but also the several people that I got to talking with. and that is failure.


now, the reason why I thought about it this morning was because I'd been feeling that way for quite some time, up until this very morning itself. in my family, I am and have always been the more messy, disorganized and slightly disheveled one. I am not as tidy, not as clean, not as well ordered, and on top of all that, extremely careless and forgetful. I'm the type of person who will forget to wear pants as I leave the house, ten years down the road.


so yes; I'd been feeling rather bombarded with the little errs that I'd been making, both from my own overthinking and from the environmental cues in general. a good mixture to blow up into anxiety and trepidation. 


I get really upset when my family members outrightly claim that being forgetful/careless/messy is just the equivalent of being lazy, selfish, unthoughtful and not putting in enough effort. and it is fact that that is the light I am seen in by my family members, though they don't say it as much now than they used to. I try to block out sharp and heavy words like that and I rarely ever use them on other people because I understand the weight that those words carry. they seep into the system and like a stain, it is hard to wipe off.


over years of domestic abuse (LOL),
I have grown up feeling rather misunderstood. and thus, along with having studied Psychology, has resulted in an inveterate psyche of always searching to be understood. and also resulted in my natural character of always trying to understand those around me. I know that it's not as gravely as growing up with actual abuse and the torment of being compared to one's more successful siblings in my case, i'm the academic achiever by default but still, issues are issues and these are mine that I'm airing. banyak lagi my issues but let's not go there.


what I struggle with from time to time is the thought that I'm not living up to my family's expectations in this particular area of life. yes, you can have a degree and and excel in most academic areas and get a job exactly one month upon completion of studies and still made to feel like a useless butt for forgetting to turn off the room lights or not washing a dirty spoon because I was rushing out of the house. and yes, it makes me feel like quite a failure.

failure to live up to basic familial expectations aside,

another area of which I feel like I am failing is just life in general.

I thought that getting a job that I do have a passion in (writing) and earning a standard fresh-grad pay would make me feel slightly better. that at least, I'm doing something with my life instead wasting away at home like a hibernating toad. it's been exactly a month since I'd started work and the idea of a mundane 9-6 job five days a week is already starting to take a toll on me. like a tiny itch that hasn't spawned into a full blown disease. 

'I am so not in the mood for life."

a dear friend that I'd just have lunch with a couple hours ago said the above line before going back to work; frustrated and unmotivated. despite the odds that I am typing this from my work desk ever so casually, I don't think this is all there is to a working life. sure, not every day is going to be filled with eureka and excitement but I believe that a job doesn't have to always be confined to a blank desk. perhaps there really is something out there for everyone - we just have to keep trying and looking. and in my case, I can only continue looking next year after all my Etcera Plans are carried out.


people say that it is normal to not know what to make of our lives, especially at this point of age. is it though? I cannot help but compare myself with the people around me who are either my age or much younger, seeming to be achieving much more in their time than I am. could it be because they are not exactly working, and instead, doing what they really love? and what about getting jaded? I haven't been working long enough to feel jaded yet of course but what if I do?


perhaps I need to calm down.
seriously juyi kau kena sabar sket


and perhaps I just need to persevere, because like I said earlier, not every day is going to be filled with eureka and excitement. well then, I guess in the mean time, I will just continue filling my mind with movies that I've always wanted to watch, like Requiem For A Dream, which I watched yesterday night which totally killed me books that I've been meaning to read like Nick Hornby and music that I've been listening to on repeat like Angel Haze and Azealia Banks 


Black Dahlia- Angel Haze