To feel the flow of time through Before trilogy

I recently re-watched the Before trilogy, one movie per week, over 3 week-span, just like how the movies was made, 9 years gap in between movie. I guess it is the only way to do right to the trilogy, the correct way to watch the trilogy. It gives time gap to allow the thoughts to sink in, let the emotions to mingle, to marinate, to feel the time passing, inevitably.

I'd always thought that the idea of setting an artificial time limit was brilliant romantic idea first brought up in the Drumroll, Please episode of How I Met Your Mother. I realize it is actually an idea first brought to life by Before Sunrise. I guess adding a ticking clock, a time limit, just like some people would argue that it is exactly because we will die eventually that it gives meaning and excitement to life.

The cities that each of the movies is set in are very interesting choices. I agree that both Vienna and Paris are very romantic cities. The only difference is that Paris to me, exactly like the Jesse and Celine in their early 30s in Before Sunset, more history, more diverse, and yea, I guess more mature. As to Greece in the third installment, I think it is also a perfect fitting to the stage where their relationship is in. Although it is filled with sunshine, it is no doubt a city of ruins and end-of-empire melancholy. It sets the tone of the movie and perhaps it also has a subconscious effect on both the characters and viewers, just like how the city of Istanbul has influenced Orhan Pamuk, his work, and his view on life.

I've always like this fan-made tribute video for the trilogy. From the video, one could already know the entire plotline of the trilogy, but that's not the point. The plot is not point. As well made as how this tribute video is, it is no match to watching these movies itself, to evolve together with the characters through these movies.

I feel like I could just listen to them talk. The topics that they bring up is so interesting and I just feel like quoting all of them here. What else to say about the trilogy that has not being said. It is excellent. I watched the trilogy a few years back. Now that I'm older, it manages to hit me more than the first watching. I have no doubt that when I re-watch it years later in the future, it would hit me in even more ways than it is now. 

Mind Hygiene

大包子(Da Bao Zi)'s latest video resonates with me so much. He articulates what I have been thinking in such a structural fashion.

So amidst the rise of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, another "virus" hit the Malaysian Chinese community not long ago. It was the Yang Bao Bei (YBB) saga. In summary, 大包子's video criticizes, in the rise of this virus invasion into the public consciousness, how the general audience is easily manipulated by social media, advertisers, and more specifically by an influencer, and how they used our primitive monkey mind to further their power over us.

The majority of the YBB saga happened about a month ago. After a suicide attempt which gained the public's empathy, only to reveal that she had been lying, cheating, stealing, and heavily involving in gambling and loan sharks, the public anger against her was at all time high. It was at this time that some cheeky folks decided to sponsors her and used her infamous popularity to advertise their products on Facebook live stream. I think deep down, YBB and her recent sponsors understand very well that her recent rise of popularity is an effective tool to sell products. While those sponsors are definitely dodgy, but just like 大包子, what disappoints me, is the huge number of audience who tuned into those live streams.

I feel like most of the people just don't seem to understand that view count is how they earn money and what feeding their power. The way I see it, there are two types of people who tuned into the live streams. First are those who love a good train wreck, ready to see "good" drama broke out at anytime, those whom 大包子 qualifies as soulless folks; while the others are angry about YBB and eager to express it all under the comment section. One must realize that anger is the best tool for an idea to spread online. To this point, I have to recommend a CGP Grey's video years ago about how ideas are propagated online. Like Cobb said in Inception, in many ways, an idea is just like a virus, while the emotion of anger is the best entry point for an idea to get into our mind. It reproduces, may be mutates, and then further spreads to other people when the host shares the idea. So in the end it was a mix of morbid curiosity and public anger that was used for marketing purpose in the case the YBB live streams.

Bottom line is, we have to educate ourselves, keep our mind "hygienic", build up a more solid defense mechanism with more critical thinking, in order to prevent the spread of dangerous "virus". In the case of YBB, those live streams were simply business but we as the audience must realize that we collectively has the power to influence what kind of content to be promoted.

 

Indifference is the best reaction towards the junk food internet content like the YBB saga - don't watch, don't react, don't comment. Don't solely blame the Youtubers who produce unhealthy, emotion-driven, clickbait-y junk such as pranks, we must also question ourselves if we have been over-consuming the junk by feeding them our view.

I guess another reason that compels me to write this is because I feel so unfair for Youtubers like 大包子 and 新聞爆爆看 (News Bao Bao Kan). They produces the kind of content I would like to promote. 大包子 is focused on explainer videos on Malaysian social topics while 新聞爆爆看 is aiming towards becoming a late night show like Trevor Noah. I could sense the hard work pouring into their respective channels. But sadly I also know that it is hard for them to gain the level of viewership of a drama-filled channel or influencer.

The Race For Space

 "The Race For Space" by Public Service Broadcasting, it is an album which I highly recommend. I always find the album endlessly hopeful, something that is especially in shortage during this eventful year of 2020.

I first got the know about this musical band from a recommendation by Brady Haran during an episode of the podcast Hello Internet. The band would kinda fall into the category of hipster-ish, because I'm pretty sure that not many has ever heard about them. Although I qualify the band as hipster-ish, I think their musical style is very accessible. I would describe their songs as mostly instrumental, contain almost non-existent lyrics, and heavily on the electronic musics and drums.

"The Race For Space", the idea of the album is to capture one of the most exciting times of scientific progress in the human history - the space race. And dare I say, it succeeds in it. The excitement of that era is condensed into a 40min album. It brings the listeners back to that era surrounded by a sense of unity in humanity in face of the impossible. We may not live during that era. But through this album, we could re-live the Apollo program, Yuri Gagarin first venture into the outer space, the moon landing, etc.. Through this album, we could feel the joy from the success, as well as the angst from the countless failures.

The album is very complete, in the sense that from the start to the end, it is an experience. All the songs follow the chronological order of the actual events. So it only makes sense to listen to this album in that order and that order only. If I have to pick a favorite song, it got to be "The Other Side". Unlike the most famous song in this album - Go!, this one won't get you all pumped up and all motivated for a morning run. "The Other Side" is about taking a leap of faith, going into unknown, and hope for the best. The actual voice recording of the event mixed into the song, the anxiety of waiting in silence, the triumph in the end, and especially the connotation of the going into the other side and might not come back ever again, the thought of it just gives me goosebumps. It is a very atmospheric song, and I just love it.

Wounds need air

The concepts of "before" and "after" don't exist. The past, the present, and the future, all happen simultaneously as one. Such is how Dr. Manhattan experiences time. Such is also how I felt for the past few days when I watched the entire Watchmen HBO series, while in the US, all the racism news and the corresponding protests and riots wrecking havoc across the country.

Never before had a fictional work about the racist problem in the US resonated with me so much. Real historical events like the Tulsa massacre and the KKK are mixed into the narrative of the series, while the seeing video of George Floyd where racism manifested so blatantly, so deeply rooted, so outrageously maddening, so unreal, for brief moments, I can't dissociate the fiction and the reality. May be the "Seventh Cavalry" and Senator Keene really do exist in our reality, may be President Trump is secretly financing the "Cyclops" movement, or may be I'm currently overdosing on Nostalgia and imagining I'm the Hooded Justice... Fiction and reality intertwine, every episode of Watchmen, every recent news from the US, just brings chill down my spine.

Watchmen is ... about how war and violence can be embedded in the law. And when violence gets embedded in the law, it can often evades judgment as a result. After all, justice is blind.

Wisecrack analysis on the Watchmen series

When Will Reeves puts on the mask to become the Hooded Justice, and when in the end, he asks Angela: "When I put it on, you felt what I felt?" Angela replies: "Anger." I felt that anger too. But Will adds on: "Yea, that's what I thought too, but it wasn't. It was fear. It hurt." 

The most romantic thing that I've ever did

To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to draw closer, to find each other, and to feel, that is the purpose of life.

The reason I love Walter Mitty the movie so much, especially this scene, is because I once did something eerily similar before. The movie just gives me a trip down the memory lane, to the time where I went to Tunisia solo, in a totally impromptu manner. Just like Walter, out of a sudden urge to move, cheesy to say but yea, an urge to feel more alive, I booked the flight ticket 3 days before departure, to a country on the African continent, a country I hadn't never been to, a country still in civil unrest and just caught the international attention due to the Arab spring one year before. I left for the unknown country without any prior research and without a plan. And then getting to know a stranger during the flight and proceed to follow him on his car with his friends on a 8-hour drive to a oasis town of Tozeur deep in the Sahara desert. It ended up that they were really kind folks, hosted me for a week there, brought me around town to visit, treated me with many homecook local meals, all and all simply an unforgettable trip. It is so crazy when I come to think about it.

Just like in the scene, while I was walking to check-in counter in the Lyon airport, I still remember the slow-mo feeling, as if everyone surrounding me just moved a bit slower. Stepping into the unknown, heart pounding, my backpack was light, so as my body. My pace was steadfast and steady. Open-minded, razor-sharp focus, driven purely by emotions - adventurous, nervous, angsty, and a bit suicidal. That point I was ready to accept anything the journey would throw at me, ready to look for something beautiful, something more exciting, yes I admit, something more dangerous. Everything was so surreal, so like a movie, that I could almost hear a soundtrack, an epic theme song, playing in the background. I remember that the day before departure on the Christmas' Eve, when my friend asked me what was my plan there, I think I said something along the line of: "I don't have a plan." That is probably the most badass line I've ever said in my life.

Never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite, never outstay the welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what, it's probably worth it.

Richard, The Beach

Now that I'm older. My heart colder. Even a bit grumpier. Am I still capable to do something similar? Am I still as open-minded?