On Beauty

Just returned from a long evening-met up with 4 others who like me,were practically completely clueless on how to do the QM forecasting assignment due tomorrow.So all of us lazily sat cross-legged with empty faces across Aliya's computer-clicking this and that pretending to be productive,when clearly our brains refused to function.Then the amazing Wai-Chong came with his large boxy folder,showed us how to do it-before actually doing it for us.So while he busily typed in data and calculated all that complex stuff,the rest of us who knew nothing sat back and shared gossip and funny stories.Yes,it's fun being useless.After two questions,we headed off to Red Silk @Chinatown,where the food's reasonably priced and not too shabby.

Watched The Lives of Others yesterday.Having won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film (beating front-runner Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth) and a couple other less prestigious awards,I looked forward to watching the movie despite it's strong political themes ostensibly more fitting for more adult audiences to enjoy.While the film featured intriguing characters,a meaty storyline,skillful camerawork and becomes positively absorbing in the latter half-it started off with a pace too slow to be enjoyable (especially the first 30 minutes-big loud yawn-),and the overlong running time just brings the entire film down.I'm no big fan of political drama's:the thing about them is that they never cease to try and enforce some kind of political agenda onto audiences-how the characters are harshly polarized and how things eventually turn out,it all *screams* propaganda.But at least The Lives of Others tries to use its' political themes as a secondary ingredient or background to complement the film's focus on the characters and their conflicts-it's most definitely not as bad as some other political thrillers,like Blood Diamond-where writers were keen on depicting an archetypal white man as some big,selfless and powerful yet emotionally flawed hero (this frail attempt at humanizing doubly functions as the cash cow by attracting the kind of women who seek to find Titanic in every LeoCaprio film) and everyone else either less superior or downright evil.And this film did nothing to make the genre seem any less uninteresting-still an outstanding film,just prepare some coffee,chocolates and patience for the first half.

Finished Zadie Smith's On Beauty today.Essentially it's about the life of an American family-Howard and Kiki Belsey,their children Zora,Levi and Jerome-relating to Howard's long-running intellectual feud with a man named Monty Kipps,the two families intertwine in ways that are first charming and hilarious,but later becomes devastating and heartbreaking.Zadie Smith is exceptionally talented at what she does-balancing humour and drama,but never losing sight of her story's sole tone and feel-she also does this thing,changing the reader's position from behind the eyes and heart of one character to another easily.Hence we're told of what the characters personally think of others and themselves in a fairly uncomplicated technique that doesn't disrupt the flow.The book focuses on the failing marriage of the Belsey's,with few subplots to flesh out the characters-Smith introduces her characters with passionate interest and no neglect for details,often noting us of their motivations and intentions,and how they're sometimes misconstrued by everyone else.But she doesn't pull us to any particular side or makes us favour anyone-as her characters are real and human,none a symbol of absolute good or bad.For example:at first encounter, Victoria Kipps she is profoundly smart and beautiful.She has this nerve wrecking and intimidating presence in the story that invokes admiration,awe and fear-until later on(spoiler),when her disastrous affair with Howard Belsey reveals her talents to be a kind of flaw,something she possesses to make up for the lack of emotional satisfaction and happiness in her life.An amazing novel.