傾城之戀

這一次風暴，正要吹向我們的懷裹。

她的來臨使我們有了希望，把一些不想軀存的東西，一拼吹走。

內心是有些不安，雨點卻瀟瀟地擊向我們，有點像為了殉情，也有點像為了洗滴我們的心靈。

我們內心風暴也給了回應，她選擇了我們，我們選擇了戀愛，內心的灼熱和外在風暴是給我們一些共同信念而來。

Many years ago, good slave wrote the above short passage mainly to kill time on an El Niño day!

Smile

Today seems like a bad day for many who decided to stay, however, things are not as bad as you may think, or at least you are still online here to keep good slave company.

:-)

What's the best investment you can make?
"Invest in yourself," Warren Buffett said

The story of Daedalus returned @ 2008 Beijing Olympics 北京奧運開幕

In Greek mythology, the “plan” of the labyrinth was to contain the monster Minotaur, of the child given birth by the human beastly thoughts. When Daedalus was imprisoned by his own creation of the labyrinth, he alleviated himself to a "section" viewing to resolve a "plan" puzzle- the building of the wings to levitate one’s thought and body to higher altitude. However, the story ended with the tragic death of Daedalus’s son Icarus who was exhilarated by flight and flew beyond his capacity.

In 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, the mass game was a simulacra of a digitized labyrinth-like environment. Human mass performances synchronized with the particles display on the mega LCD, of embodiment with symbols, mass and spectacular, bodies become an extension of the pixels metrics. The labyrinth-like animation was the merging of pixels and bodily dynamics, with guiding movement of instructions emitted from blue tooth-like device attached to each performer, it alleviated the mass game to a digitized conducting performance. At the final scene of body levitation, the chasing of the Olympic script was the return of Daedalus’s curse. The imprisonment of the endless “plan” in disguise as “section”, tempting one's ego to go beyond the limit.

Time is fractal 明日之歌

Good slave has an addiction. At times when numbers affected good slave deeply in the past and begin to resurrect recursively, good slave believes is angelic. A form of whispering chant from the guardian to announce good slave worthy to be in its presence. Numbers chart our desire in the moving average of time, at intervals when the affections radiate from the fast entangles with the slow moving desire, time becomes fractal and so does desire. The moving average of desire is the line of revelation when it diverges to designation opposites to the world tendency. The immediate present interval of lines leap into the passing world of desire, of same fractals displaying the delaying modes of lines depart to an uncharted world. The fast slows down while corresponding to a disparate attraction, the world idles and flattens to a point fold. The movement of recursive numbers brings joy to good slave, it enheartens a lost soul for its annunciation for a new fractal time.

我要你為明天歌唱
我帶著淚珠切切盼望
我去了 我去了
明天的花兒一樣香
我去了 我去了
明天的太陽一樣光
我要你為明天歌唱
我帶著淚珠切切盼望
分別了 分別了
明天的美酒你獨嘗
分別了 分別了
明天的歌曲你獨唱
為了我們明天難相見
此恨綿綿問蒼天
把枕邊細語
一句句記在心田
對明天陽光
一聲聲引吭向前
明天 明天
我們在夢中再相見
啊……
我要你為明天歌唱
我含笑留下這篇詞章
忘了吧 忘了吧
明天不再是哀傷
記住了 記住了
明天是充滿了希望

作詞:沈華 作曲:顧嘉輝 編曲:李端嫻

Ultimate terror

In the video released by the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), the terrorist group commander Seyfullah made threats to terror attacks for the 2008 summer Olympic events (details here). However, he made good slave and the whole world ponder more than fear, for his threats to blow up a competition entry of the Olympic stadium and not the built one.

Competition entry no. B01
Should he threaten the same if he knew entry no.B11 suppose to be the winning entry? If he did and with an intention, would he possess some mystical power to destroy a concept for architecture? This sounds like the ultimate terror in architecture, a threat to destroy the built and the unbuilt at someone's discretion.

Sink ship 沈船

For man, sink ship is disastrous when
Woman got soul

Or with moves!

Your gaze at her is fatal but makes life lives twice.

Can you feel it? 你感覺到嗎?

In animation, there is a zillion way to walk and with an attitude. Every posture is a series of extractions defining certain highlights/extremes only to be reconnected by the animator’s imagination. To be virtually natural is to search for postural extremes that express inner thoughts/emotions and to animate the posture with kinetics, of inevitable moves that guide the animator’s imagination and subsequence mathematics scripting.

In reality, only 1/zillion% of it falls within the human perceivable spectrum, while the remaining % is often regarded as delusional. The iterative signs within the 1/zillion% have the same progressions of the remaining unperceivable spectrum. While the perceivable lags behind and resonates with the delusive spectrum in shape and movement, the future becomes a recursive/delaying mode of displaying the already present (the inevitable), a projectile of self-affine series of events that is imminent but random at immediate viewing and with a well orchestrated movement at its exponential contributions. Reality becomes a black box sank below the placid lake of the already present future, of data displaying the imminent impact well preserved at the midst of the unforeseeable unknown.

Prophets and animators are interpolators of reality. They foresee the inevitable of the exponential seeding, re-stitching the extremes of the improbable and announce the imminent impact at the signs of the time. Prophets/animators navigate to the unforeseeable realm only to bring back the gems of the black box, displaying the textural ordinates of the unknown and conceive the unforeseeable. The recurring numbers and occult symbols are mystical ordinates to preserve the placidness of the worldly display, of fate to quarantine uncertainty variables, revealing the immediate probable and not affecting the divine order of the unforeseeable.

Note- The writing of this post is an after effect of the Olympic mystic (details here & here ), and for the final Olympic Fuwa prophecy, good slave believes is the reincarnation of the Jackson 5 divination… Can you feel it? good slave is ready!

MediocreCITY- City with no pride - 平庸城市

What the hell is good slave doin’ here
Good slave doesn’t belong here…

You* made vows only to abjure
In a city with no pride
Your allegiances to immediate greed made you renounce to the world of pride and obligation
An exile to MediocreCITY
So forgive them God…

A vow is to belong,
A vow is to take pride of what you do,
A vow is to practice what you preach,
A vow is to be fucking special…

You** bash the gifted only to steal from them,
In a city with no pride, you stop to evolve
Never been committed but evasion of your duty to create
You** stop bashing once you’ve learnt to steal
A citizen of MediocreCITY
Never enlighten, never contribute, forever a conformist
So where is your pride?

Good slave must be a creep, a weirdo
Believing in perfect soul
Believing in the vow
An outcast of MediocreCITY
Good slave must gravitate
For the soul commit to higher vow…

You* refers to newly-appointed undersecretaries (details here & here)
You** refers to local architectural practitioners (details as below)

Design for new cultural district, Bao’an, Shenzhen, by Rocco Design Limited
Design for Opus, Dubai, by Zaha Hadid

The oath that our local appointed undersecretaries previously made-
I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.

The disaster takes care of everything

The magnitude of disaster is congruous and harmonious with the intensity of architectural extremes that fit anything but themselves. At point fold of the fault where nature displaces the foundation of the very belief in architecture, a refuge from nature enfolds, eradicating life and city. The interior is a chamber of derangement, of anti-world- void-less, dark-less and faithful-less, where memories counterpart the disastrous loop, of the infinite returning future in the cosmic array of 成 、 住 、 壞 、 空. Disaster conglomerates to the multi-facet of the absolute where our desire illuminates, diminishes and simultaneously self-reflecting of this cosmic array.

Title-

a quote from "The writing of the Disaster" by Maurice Blanchot.

Yes we can 心中嘅一團火

Voodoos are everywhere- the self-motivating slogans of “yes we can, just do it, impossible is nothing” are spells placed under our already hypnotic environment. Good slave believes that if one needs feeling-amplifier voodoo to empower one’s enthusiasm, one is most likely not an achiever or worst - failing but believing in the self-fulfilling prophecy. An achiever is possessed by passion only and practice is the only ritual he/she can offer. The religion of practice is to transgress from being the untrained to the trained, a charm that stands guard against all voodoos and not to bewitched by the subliminal slogans.

Despite saying that, good slave is overflowed with enthusiasm in reading the quotes by Randy Pausch (The last lecture) The feeling of high hopes that good slave believes shall be more promising when sharing with you the invisible audience…

“... the brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.”

“If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it. I mean everything that could go wrong did go wrong. But at the end of the day, a whole lot of people had a whole lot of fun.”

“You obviously don’t know where the bar should be, and you’re only going to do them a disservice by putting it anywhere.”

Flat world

The world is flat…

At the vast horizon, enterprises orchestrate the world supply chain, of networks competing networks/ aggregates empowering aggregates, of strategic alliances in defining the borderless flat world… The navigations of global trades accelerate the apocalypse phenomena. The logistic in global searches of best aggregates skyrocket the energy demand. Human and machine are now competing for food, turning corn into ethanol, a fuel that can replace gasoline and compete farmlands with livestock.

Commodity price rises and the dollar falls, at where the convergence of the flat leveraging world with the apocalyptic fear is the revelation for architecture… The seeding of architectural commodity is an in-situ activity, a field of crops-like enterprises driven by global variables. Orchestration is the soil from which the architectural seeding spring, of leveraging the global capacities and aligning with networking possibilities. Architecture synchronizes with the primordial anticipation and fluid enterprising. The crops-like seeding pulsates the global aggregates, in-situ communal desire and optimizes the robust global anticipation, creativity derived from this massive plantations and apocalyptic orchestrations.

References -

Competing In A Flat World by Victor K. Fung, William K. Fung and Yoram (Jerry) Wind

Territorial war

Three days after good slave made the preaching on L in death note (New Year Resolution posted on 27 Jan 08), Hong Kong has become a site for the territorial war. Every citizen/non-citizen becomes a possible Kira to defend the last resort for free access of information (i.e. the internet).

First strike - the leakage of sex photos on the web, of rich star Edison Chen and a few starlets with naked postures and sexual act.
Second strike – police served warnings and arrested “anyone” who uploaded or kept any related photos. Many were arrested despite being the second tier distributors and police claimed to have captured the main source.
Third strike – Everyone became a potential Kira to led the war on cyberspace with the police and new photos on the web continue to surface.

The core of the incident is an age old war on territories among the have/have nots, public figure/general public. There are hundreds of private sex photos being uploaded on the internet daily, the police was alerted this time because the photos review the private life of the “have” while the “have not” not suppose to share. It is not about the obscenity that agitates the police, but the revealing of a general life style among the rich and famous. The arrest of chat room user was a retaliation on public by invading their cybernetic territories and Kira phenomena was the after effect that back fire the police, for any retaliation, more private photos to be revealed. The police took the role of Terminator, but only proven to be an obsolete machine. The general public is the cybernetic Kira T-1000, of no definite form nor identity, only perform fatal strikes to the authorities.

Remember the controversy paintings “Olympia & The Luncheon on the Grass” by Edouard Manet back in the 19th century? They agitated the bourgeois at that time because they led the general public to peek into their private life. Rather than being a naked Goddess (as in any conventional classical paintings), woman in there was naked only to be presented as any possible mistress for the bourgeois at that time. She gazed at the viewer (breaking the fourth wall) to flirt while enjoying the company with other males in the painting, a primordial form of Japanese AV idol and made Manet the avant garde of 19th century.

There is no bourgeois in Hong Kong, only rich and famous. Somehow they made belief to be living as bourgeois in a tabloid’s free 19th century society, and what’s remain private shall remain private under the privilege protection from the government… and that is fatal!

New Year resolution – pathologically speaking

When there is a resolution, there will be commitment. For every commitment to be made, there will be a path. And for every pathological self obsesses with procedures, there is a habitual pattern. The truth is out there, nothing but repetitions of things/movements do we see the lights within.

L in “Death note” is possessed by the procedures of committing murders, neither the discovery of the Death Angel (the supernatural) nor any confession of murderers could satisfy L’s compulsion to the logic among procedures. The supernatural/Death Angel is imperfect, but the procedure that governs a murder is flawless. There is only a suspect (the writer) and the effect of the text (the way of killing in death note), the rewriting of the text and reconstructing the procedures that contributes to the killings are L’s tactics to make the writer reveal himself.

We practice the same path everyday & night, of the same notes and postures, for every repetition we fine tune we see the logic within. The abstractive habitual pattern (bubble diagram) breeds pathological effects, an infinite loop of returning and connecting functions in the absence of the formula “if return xxx times then….” Only endless feeding of functions among functions…

For New Year re-resolution, we can either choose to re-invent the wheel that brings us the protagonist self or simply look inside the microscopic logic of our daily notes/posture and activate the pathological healing process…

Like in yoga practices…Namaste

Fatality moves

Writing script is like club dancing, purely for the spectacle, showing the world how fertile a perturbing form can be, all moves conglomerate to a “fatality” scenery – the ultimate attraction!

Everything seems like magic, you whisper “fatality” and the world follows. You command with a leverage point and with the flow of noise, the beat, the sexy form succumb to your specification.

For every word input, we await for wonders. A kind of agent-base arrangement with letters/symbols inserted into the black box/“fatality” that elicit wonders. Without the architectural dogma of drawing as representation of thoughts, scripting makes seductive moves and commands with the noise that brings forth the amazement.

Disclaimer- good slave does script.

Slaves are passionate

Good slave loves the Cultural Revolution propaganda MV, despite being the biggest lie that fooled a record breaking number of slaves.
The display of will & passion is insurmountable.
The drive to be free from slavery is the “Black Swan” of the improbable.
The impact is immense.
The outlook to a future that the present will not accommodate, the emancipation is the passion that drives the “Black Swan” phenomena.
To be free is immanent and not limited by free will.
Passionately guided by the inevitable and fulfilling the “Black Swan” prophecy,
Slaves align oneself with the imminent, making their traces upon the immense impact.

The evil spell of Suzie Wong

Once in a while at a dinner party, you would be stucked with an unknown encounter who happened to be an architectural designer. You asked about his views on local architecture (mainly for a start of conversations), and this often ended up being a monologue on feng shui and bamboo scaffolding. For the rest of the evening you would be hearing about how the locals grasped every opportunity to represent feng shui/bamboo scaffolding in their architectural thinking, from any international exhibits to local lectures, these were the “must do” theme to be recycled for decades. You might have wondered if there was life (or architecture in general) beyond feng shui/bamboo scaffolding or you being in a twilight zone listening to a primordial being babbling.

Things will evolve despite being mediocre. In recent years, the primordial beings were told that the most fashionable and politically correct term is “sustainability/preservation”. Since these are the new magic words to all things, the primordial beings are to find correspondence with their existing theme (i.e. feng shui/bamboo scaffolding) so as to continue their mediocracy. Therefore, you see bamboo decorations everywhere claiming to be sustainable in whatever aspect, and any types of additions to the historic context become justifiable instantaneously when under the name “preservation”.

In case Mr. Herzog & De Meuron are truly concern with the idea of “preservation” rather than “stereotyping”, good slave suggests they firstly to research more on the banality of these terms within the city context before inserting the gigantic bamboo-like scaffolding above the historic site (i.e. Central Police Station Compound) and claiming to conserve and revitalize (details here). In good slave opinion, building a bamboo-like scaffolding building at this day of age is no better than making a Suzie Wong movie back in the previous century.

Banality –
- Shall structures that imitate bamboo-like scaffolding be inherent properties of “nature, plants, transparency, the play of life and shadow” (as per Mr. Herzog & De Meuron claims)?
- By inserting “green areas, observation deck, public life accessible in the vertical dimension” that result a gigantic structure, shall such structure instantaneously be congruent to the principle of conversation?
- How does a local motif/icon (bamboo scaffolding/sampan/dim sum/triads society/Suzie Wong...etc) be of any significant that requires to be represented in a conservation project?

P.S. Previously in the media, many local architects had openly criticized the Sampan scheme for Hong Kong headquarter saying how it did not reflect Hong Kong as a metropolitan city and Casino façade alike… good slave wonder where are those brave critics now?

Quizás, Quizás, Quizás

Perhaps you come to this blog everyday and without saying anything,
Perhaps knowing you were here, good slave keeps writing it,
Perhaps in return, good slave wants you to be good,
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

Perhaps good slave is special and see what the future holds,
Perhaps good slave believes the world to be a better place when you become rich,
Perhaps you may want to hold cash before others become poor,
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

Perhaps gold is what you love when everything drops,
Perhaps you shall let go before the New Year's Eve,
Perhaps you are tired of being rich and not believe this,
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…
Updates –
Hang Seng Index, 5/11/07, value 28,942.32, change -1526.02 (day drop record high)
Gold, 5/11/07, 810 USD per oz (record high in 28 years)

《色•戒》《Masturbate • Not》

There are many ways to masturbate. For film, the thoughtless transposing of abstractive writings to picturesque scenes, replacing the intensified monologue with intense sex, without the strife of words, of reflections coming closer to the world apart but only representations of bodily fantasy.

Foreword by 張愛玲 Eileen Chang sharing her thoughts on writing 惘然記-

極簡單扼要地顯示文藝的功用之一：讓我們能接近否則無法接近的人。
For abstractive functions in art: to get closer to whom we cannot get close to.

在文字的溝通上，小說是兩點之間最短的距離。

In the communication of words, novel is the closest distance in between two points.

In 張愛玲 Eileen Chang’s writing, her microscopic detailing of the external world is derived from a contemplative dimension, an inner projection of a distancing world that inflate doubts and conflicts, neither a picturesque reminiscent of the past nor narratives of places… rather an agitator that speaks from a turmoil present, a truth elicitor from a disorderly world. On one hand, the powerful monologue of 王佳芝 questioned every reflections of her encounter, of what seemingly righteous act had rotten long after the primordial instinct took over, and on the other hand, 王佳芝 strife for the rational behind the sinful encounter and with delicate thoughts and sensitivities. The powerful monologue situates oneself inside the eye of a whirling world, her reflections and sensitivities are outlook for higher belief and lightness. In the film 《色·戒》"Lust Caution", the monologue was removed along with 王佳芝 reflections, the remains were places/objects of empty signs devoid of signification, with rubbles of historic images awaiting to be romanticized.

When sex becomes a deceitful weapon, passion weigh down on betrayal, only with an intent that levitates us from an irreparable world, of intense fulfillment in the passage of weighing & levitating. In《色·戒》, 張愛玲 describe the bodily encounter of 王佳芝 and 易先生 as such -

事實是，每次跟老易在一起都像洗了個熱水澡，把積鬱都沖掉了，因為一切都有了個目的。
In fact, every time when being with Mr. Yi, it feels like having a hot bath and getting rid of all burdens, it is because everything began to have an intent.

Disappointingly but expected, the film maker of 《色·戒》"Lust Caution" translates the text into trilogy of sexual encounter, which often associated with Hollywood film genre -

1st encounter – Sadism and Masochism or SM sex… to show Mr. Yi frustration with himself of being a traitor and the mistrust with 王佳芝 that led her to become a sex object.
2nd encounter – The display of various sexual posture in reference to Karma Sutra or 春宮圖… to demonstrate their affection and enjoyment when 王佳芝 began to earn Mr. Yi trust.
3rd encounter – Intense sex… to show Mr. Yi and 王佳芝 being in love with each other.

When things become literal, it is mediocre. There seem to have a lot more to learn for the film maker about the ambiguous role in the display of passion, love and sexual encounter. Nagisa Oshima would have taught the film maker that these roles were to be interchangeable, of a reversal order as “in the realm of senses” that had manifolds of intensity than the formulated Hollywood conventions… Sadism and Masochism are not meant to objectify the sexual counterpart, rather the merging as oneness conglomerates the composites of eroticism…and love/passion not necessary progresses in linear fashion from (rough>tender) sex.

Lastly, there were a few commentators/film critics here who highly praised about the movie in a very explicit manner… phrases like “Ang Lee had re-incarnated Eileen Chang’s soul… the scene was realistically generated in finest detail that was good for reminiscent of the old shanghai and Hong Kong … only European would know how to appreciate the love in the fallen city and not Americans especially the Californians…etc” Accord with good slave classifications, those are called hyper-masturbation, i.e. masturbating while watching other masturbating.

And good slave honestly believe 張愛玲 Eileen Chang’s would have shared the same view too.

Thank-you for your tenderness 謝謝你如此溫柔

Feeling aloft is great especially when you are inside the mega-shopping atrium. You turn around at mid-point of an expressway escalator that takes you from G/F to n/F. The scenery is spectacular, a reeling sensation running aloft the horizon.

At vanishing point, you see city gurus doing the atmananda sequences behind the glassy facades covered with sweaty mist, simmering inside and with glimmering lights for navigation of the atmananda sequences. At viewing of their sun salutations, postures become your guiding lights to ascend at higher altitude…

At the sides, you look out to the tranquil cityscape – Portland st. A red light district that had passed its’ hay days, with a few remains of “3-tasty massage, fresh school girls, part-time housewife, Russian Blondie…” signage, twinkling like a constellation around those magnet store advertisements (nokia, slim-fast, H&M)… at where the facades of the old district had been “resurfaced” for installation of multi-storey high posters and flooded with metal halides, dedicating the white nights experience to the neighbors in case their windows have not yet been blessed by the magnet store advertisments coverage.

At the midst of feeling serene, tenderness and reassurance, you look up to the starry night of a digital projection (the atrium ceiling) while being overwhelmed with gratitude from the voice of 山口百恵「さよならの向こう側」. A return of the lost Portland st. tenderness in resonant with the MV played by the mega plasma under your feet-

何億光年

輝く星にも

寿命があると

教えてくれたのは

あなたでした

季節ごとに咲く

一輪の花に

無限の命

知らせてくれたのも

last song for you

約束なしの お別れです

今度はいつと言えません

あなたの燃える手

あなたの口づけ

あなたのぬくもり

あなたのすべてを

きっと私忘れません

後姿 みないで下さい

Thank you for your kindness

Thank you for your tenderness

Thank you for your smile

Thank you for your love

Thank you for your everything

さよならのかわりに

眠れないほどに

思い惑う日々

熱い言葉で

支えてくれたのは

時として一人

くじけそうになる

心に夢を

与えてくれたのも

涙をかくしお別れです

いつものように

さり気なく

あなたの呼びかけ

あなたの喝采

あなたのやさしさ

後姿 みないでゆきます

1408

We take many things for granted in this world, especially for architecture. We assume the world to remain at every moment we turn our back behind… Walls, windows, doors shall be stationed and awaited for our next time around to remember, of the forgotten past in truthful display, always being purposeful and never betray our memory.

At 1408, Stephen King called it “evil” when the world behind stop being "there" for us and where architecture starts to transgress when we passed through.