#a chinese odyssey: love you a million years

[the-monkey-ruler]

Is there any adaptation where SWK does stay happy with his love interest?

There is surprisingly not a LACK of SOs that do end up with a Wukong but just that you have to be willing to accept it as "Wukong" so to speak.

But otherwise, it is very rare that there is a universe Wukong ends up with a love interest… mostly cause a lot of adaptations are based in the middle of the journey, they are Retellings, hence the return to the status quo is only to be expected, or that it is afterward, where Wukong becomes Victorious Fighting Buddha.

In most circumstances, adaptions that would have Wukong with an SO and have the circumstances where they are able to get together are without a doubt going to be more Alternative Universes where the setting is completely different or Appropriations where they are more character-inspired than anything else.

Trying to make a list of Every Significant Other that DIES (this list is only for Wukong, not Sanzang, Bajie, or Wujing though those exist as well)

Green - Retelling Blue - Continuation Purple - Alternative Unierse Pink - Appropriation

DIES

A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella (1995) 西遊記大結局之仙履奇緣 - candle stick lady dies but comes back to life, but they def don't get together

Journey to the West (1996) 西游记 西遊記 - Wukong not interested in spider girl but she still uncultivated back to spider

My Son Goku (2003) ぼくの孫悟空 - remake of Tezuka's Alakazam the Great, Rinrin dies in this one.

Spring Brightened Zhu Jiumei (2011) 春光 灿烂 猪 九妹 - all a dream Wukong gets with femme Bajie

The Grow (2012) 金箍棒传奇 - Wukong's staff turns into a woman and back to a staff

Monkey King (2014) 西游記之大鬧天宮 - lady fox dies by DBK

The Monkey and the Banshee (2016) 猴王与女妖 - White bone demon dies of broken heart cause of Wukong

Taste of Love (2015) 紫霞 - Chinese Odyssey clone

Immortal Demon Slayer (2017) 悟空传 - woman dies by Queen mother

Monkey King and Million - Journey to the West Sidestory 6: Fall in Love with Monkey King (2017) 西游外传之爱上美猴王 - jade rabbit falls for him and dies I think?

The Legend of Sun Wukong (2017) 悟空前传 - Chinese Odyssey clone

A Chinese Odyssey: Million Years (2017) 大话西游之爱你一万年 -Chinese Odessey clone

Winning Buddha (2017) 斗战胜佛 - reincarnated into the next life, his crush dies so he can become Wukong again

Journey to the West: Rediscovering the Power of God (2017) 西游记之再显神威 - Wukong and Iron Fan are reincarnated in the next life and get together, so they technically did die

Monkey King and Million Demons City (2018) 齐天大圣·万妖之城 - I'm pretty sure that flower demon dies

Till We Meet Again (2018) 千年来说对不起之 - flower girl dies in the story, meet in the next life

The Monkey King: The True Sun Wukong (2019) 美猴王之真假孙悟空 - dragon girl dies and turns into the Ruyi Staff

Monkey King - The Volcano (2019) 齐天大圣火焰山 - flame spirit girl BECOMES HIS FIERY EYES

The Westward Movie (2020) 西行纪之再见悟空 - killed by her own father, the Jade Emporer

Great God Monkey (2020) 大神猴 - princess of all demons falls for him and dies

Tears of No Regret (2020) 斗战胜佛之大圣之泪 - fallen star woman that keeps messing up her life

The Monkey Is Back (2020) 混世四猴：神猴归来 - Dude.... he just not into you~ but yeah random woman dies but I think she comes back to life

God Of High School (2020) 갓 오브 하이스쿨 - Femme Sanzang and Wukong but she dies and he has to eat her to defeat big bad

The Regrets of Journey to the West (2021) 大话西游之遗憾 - another dead dragon girl

A Chinese Odyssey 1 (2022) 大话西游：至尊宝 - Chinese Odessey clone

A Chinese Odyssey - Origin (2022) 大话西游之缘起 - Chinese Odessey clone

Legend of Wukong (2022) 悟空传 - Immortal Demon Slayer clone

Journey to the West: Marble Mountains (2022) 大梦西游之五行山 - demon hunter dies and Wukong is placed under the mountain

Wukong (2022) 悟空传 - Chinese Odessey clone

LIVES

Punishing Son Goku (1954) 殴り込み孫悟空 woman falls in love with Wukong but he wasn't interested in her... so maybe that why she lives Alakazam the Great (1960) 西遊記 - lives and he married a monkey girl Rinrin

SF Saiyuki Starzinger Movie Edition SF (1979) 西游记 剧场版 SF西遊記 スタージンガー - Femme Sanzang and Wukong in scifi universe

Dragon Ball (1986)ドラゴンボール - Goku "Wukong" gets married to Chichi "Iron Fan"

Monkey Magic (1998) モンキーマジック- femme monkey lives but they don't get together

Shinzo (2000) 爆裂战士マシュランボー - Wukong and femme Sanzang marry

Journey to the East (2002) 都市东游记 - Wukong and femme Sanzang get together

RWBY (2013) 红白黑黄 - Sun Wukong's SO lives but does not end up with him

Miraculous Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir (2015) Miraculous, les aventures de Ladybug et Chat Noir - Wukong inspired character has a girlfriend

A Chinese Odyssey Part Three (2016) 大话西游3 - ret-con of previous movies to have Six Ears go on journey and Joker never becomes Wukong to stay with Zixia

A Korean Odyssey (2017) 화유기 - Wukong and femme Sanzang end game

Dream Journey 2 Princess Iron Fan (2017) 大梦西游2铁扇公主 - Wukong loses his memory and becomes someone else, falls for Princess Iron Fan, but gets his memories back later

New Journey to the West: Unexpected Jingxi (2017) 新西游之意外晶喜 - accidentally knocks up White Bone Demon but he aint sure the baby is his

Journey to the West The Legend of the Merman (2017) 西游鲛人传 - gets with a mermaid after the journey

The Monkey King’s Daughter (2018) 猴王的女儿 - gets with Gaunyin's daughter I think?

The New Legends of Monkey (2018) 新猴王传奇 - Wukong and femme Sanzang end game

Three Eyes Broken Sky (2019) 三眼哮天录 - more of an Erlang Shen reborn as a girl and Wukong hits on her

Ultimate Westward Journey (2019) 终极西游 - Wukong falls for femme Sanzag in the next life

The Legends of Changing Destiny (2023) 凌云志 - Wukong and Sansheng Mu get together ??? not sure

This is all the one that I am AWARE of at the moment but as you can see a lot more Retellings/Continuations are where Wukong's SO dies and this is mostly for the case of keeping the status quo and moving on with the original plot. They are more like additions of the OG story that let Wukong have his character moment.

It is far more with Alternatives Universes or with other Continuations that there are more 'alive at least' SOs, some in the case of reincarnation or being in a different setting for the plot otherwise. Some of them don't even end up WITH WUKONG (most likely save their lives).

Just depends on what you are watching but traditionally Wukong does not have alive SOs for the sake of the plot/character development, while in other he has them alive where he is less Sun Wukong or is it taken out of the xiyouji context.

If you have any more please let me know cause a lot of plot summaries just DONT include any mention of a romance subplot. I can only imagine WHY.

[jonathankatwhatever]

I was casting about looking for a way to get into what I need to say when I began to think about Spielberg. I don’t remember why his films came up. I was able to focus on two examples of what I don’t like in his films. One is in Close Encounters when the out-of-shape, middle-aged people are escaping the military base and there’s a shot of a soldier almost directly behind, pointing like in a comic book illustration, ‘There they are!’, then a a cut to the out-of-shape, middle-aged people running up the side of a mountain at altitude with a pile of soldiers about a quarter mile behind. That’s absurd. It’s not physically possible.

Another is in Pvt Ryan when, in the midst of battle, we see a group of American soldiers climbing on and banging on a German armored car. They are then killed. We’ve never seen these soldiers before and we’ve seen everyone in the unit as they’ve gone on their odyssey across Normandy. And what group of soldiers, who have been in combat, would ever climb on an armored car like that? They are trying not to get killed, but the movie treats them as objects who are shifted into place because what ….?

And that’s when I realized that is exactly what most people want, not consistency at the tObject level, but consistency at the Thing level. So what happens here is we bypass the physical rules and simply insert material that would not otherwise reduce to tObjects, meaning not actual things and thus not what would appear on screen. We’ve gone over this a million times over the years, haven’t we? The way I knew you really got it was not the kitchen but the car approaching: that angle really the entire capture creates a Triangular between your character and the character entering the space where you tell your tales.

And, yes, I see a lot in Fellini, but you know the scene that sticks in my brain is Nosferatu rising at the camera, rigid, arm out-stretched, from his coffin, embodying the propulsion, the energy of that which never dies because it feeds off the lives of others, cutting yours, adding that to its own, a version of the ancient God which not only requires sacrifice but sacrifice of what you hold dear, which renders in the Torah as the first-born or choice of animals, but which also then renders to humans as animals and thus the God that demands blood.

Anyway, way off track but I love thinking through melodies. Thoughts and melodies are the same. You don’t write a melody: you think it.

So, people love these glitches. Did I get that correct? They truly love the glitches because it’s exciting to have a chase, and part of the enjoyment of watching a show comes as you surrender to the experience. Like you know Pat Sajak is going to be the gentlest, most convivial host on Wheel of Fortune. He’s extremely skilled at it, the best I’ve ever seen, along with Alex Trebek. That was the real genius of Merv Griffin: he could cast. I remember him saying Vanna walked in the first day of auditions and he knew instantly. It’s been 40 years. Those casting decisions are possibly the two best in entertainment financial history: look at how much those shows have generated and how much they’re worth, especially now that they’ve shown you can replace these guys when you must. It can be done.

BTW, it’s 31 Jan 2023.

I had a rough morning. Had a cloud over my head. Thought about you, and got into the space but the thoughts wouldn’t settle. I’d catch glimpses, like reading technical questions and seeing that the answers not only made sense, but in some cases I was thinking past them. I’ve isolated the math learning issue to the concept of glyph, which is a glitch, as you know. That is, there is a bunch of learning in a symbolic expression, and thus you can either take the expression apart and translate it or you can look it, and process the meaning you’ve learned that associates with that expression. It’s the same idea I saw in Chinese education as Jordan described it to me: that doing will teach understanding, so repetition of the glyph tells you what it does, which is exactly how Chinese characters work. I don’t know many Westerners who understand that embedded in Chinese language and thus Chinese thinking is that characters are constructed ideas, that a character thus carries with it a context, and that a context has within it certain states but also the processes which link those states. So inside the language itself is a commitment to the process which, for example, makes a home. To compare, look at the word home. It doesn’t look anything like a shelter which you literally draw in your mind and with your hand when you write home.

I noticed a connection deep back in childhood relating to internal compression and contraction of the bladder assemblage. The link is that I noticed that as I master contraction while peeing, the process of putting on socks, etc., while standing suddenly felt like it did when I was 8. I don’t mean the feeling ended after 8, but that I can hold an image of that experience from around that age. I can date it to Roeper, and before 4th grade. My 3rd grade memories are mixed up because we had 3 teachers and I didn’t enjoy that. Seriously, having Susie’s mom as teacher made social interactions weird, and I didn’t like the last one. So all year long I was reminded of Miss Fleet, who I only knew for 3 days before she died. She was my ideal teacher, so warm and encouraging and interested in our learning.

Then I noticed while in the shower that my left groin has no pain. For the last few weeks, I’ve been pushing extensions and stresses into that area, though it scares me because that was the bad hernia side and that is where I pinched that nerve, and that was perhaps the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced, which means it hurt a heck of a lot. I relaxed myself through the fears, concentrated on getting into left-handed positions. There were a number of scary moments, but I trust the process. And now, more functionality, less pain.

So there are these glitches in Spielberg movies. They tend to drive me nuts, but they’re the way in which he constructs an artificial space in which he can make people feel exciting chase, drama where you know when you see those soldiers that something will happen to them, story that includes predictable clichés. In Close Encounters, if they’d had the chase unfold more logically, like they’re spotted from below after they get away, then you’d expect a less syrupy ending than all the missing people from UFO’s walking out.

My perspective on Martin McDonagh, btw, is that his plays reached near-Greek levels throught the specificity of their self-destructive urges. His movies don’t and the play about hangmen was like a movie. Is it the medium? I bring this up because he’s able to render a concrete mess. He’s in some ways like a violent version of Harold Pinter, who could make remoteness feel concrete. The rendering of those characters is the line of iObjects becoming tObjects as you see them, as they enact on stage or on film. So concrete can be like Italian realism or it can be lines between characters spoken in an artificial Mamet world. Movies want endings that don’t end. Does that makes sense? When you see or imagine characters on stage, the play ends and the actors typically come out and take a bow. When a movie ends, you don’t have that closure in which the characters switch off and the people switch on. Much of the rise of celebrity culture seems to rest on that notion, that these are characters which ‘switch on’. I like to think of Jesus coming on a talk show with the actor who plays Jesus in a movie, and all the questions are for the actor because we can identify more easily with one who plays Jesus than with actual Jesus.

Need a break. Need to do some math here.

[fyzitao]

A Chinese Odyssey: Love you a million years - Trailer

[dycefic]

Hello, I recently read some of your work and I really really like your writing style! I’ve loved everything I’ve read so far and if it is not a burden to you and you are okay with doing so, I was hoping you could answer a few questions?

I was wondering if you had any formal writing education? Any advice for writing? Also wondered what kinds of books and authors you read, if you read?

I am sorry for all the questions, and if they’ve been asked before (I tried to find any answers you may have given to these or ones similar and I’m sorry if I missed them but direct me if need be).

I am also a writer and I’m always very curious about writers I look up to/ really like- most of them just happen to not be among the living so I do t really get to ask them any questions. Thank you for your time! It’s a pleasure to be able to read your writing!!

Thank you!

I am blushing extensively, thank you for all your kind words!

As for writing, I have had no formal education in it. I tried - and might not have dropped out of university if I'd succeeded - but creative writing required higher general scores than I got in school. I've read a lot of books on writing... like, a LOT... and always taken an interest in plot structure. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who walked out of House Of Flying Daggers (I saw it in theatres, I'm that old) rhapsodizing about the way they visually represented traditional storytelling metaphors (ie 'a rain of spears').

I will note that while it seems that absolutely everyone recommends Stephen King's 'On Writing', I've never read it because a) I found the little bit I read wordy and self-indulgent, and b) the very mention of that man's name enrages me because my partner once got into a serious hyperfixation and we didn't have a single conversation in which King's name was not mentioned for OVER A YEAR. This is not King's fault, but the name still fills me with intense fury.

Books on writing I would recommend:

K. M. Weiland's 'Structuring Your Novel': I like her 'voice', and her chosen examples, and pacing longer stories is one of the things I have the most trouble with.

J. Michael Straczynski's 'Complete Book Of Scriptwriting': It's an old book now, but it's still one of the best I've ever read, and my long-standing favourite. There's a ton of fascinating history about the evolution of screenwriting, and a lot of very pithy advice that applies just as well to novels and short fiction as it does to movies and television.

Chris Baty's 'No Plot? No Problem!': I haven't reread this in quite a while, but I remember it as being really helpful as well as fun to read. I also recommend NaNoWriMo in general. I've been participating since 2002 - this year will be my twentieth anniversary of NaNo - and my writing has improved enormously in that time. Writing is like everything else, insofar as the more you practice, the better you get. I've hit 50K every year since the beginning, so even if I never got a novel I wanted to finish, polish, and put out there (and a couple of them are promising), that's still 950,000 words I've written.

Also? Fanfiction. Fanfiction is a GREAT way to practice the craft. Because the characters and universe are pre-built, you can focus on the writing itself, on things like examining nuances of character, identifying and using tropes, and building a compelling story. Between NaNo and fanfiction, over the last 24 years, I have written over 2,000,000 words, and you can't do ANYTHING two million times without getting better at it.

As for who I like to read, I can't recommend Diane Duane, Tamora Pierce, and Georgette Heyer too highly. Not only do they write good stories, they were/are very, very technically skilled. Reading their work is an education in itself. I also recommend consuming narratives from other cultures - I learned a lot about different narrative conventions from things like reading translated novels, myths, and fairy tales, reading manga, and watching Chinese and Korean movies and dramas. It really gives you a different perspective on the mechanics of storytelling, and shows you how many 'default' or 'obvious' plot tropes are actually really culturally specific. (I have consumed every re-telling, re-imagining, or re-translation of Journey To The West, including the old tv show AND the Hallmark movie. I really recommend this, as it is FASCINATING how many ways different people interpret the same story. The Korean 'Korean Odyssey' and Netflix's 'New Adventures Of Monkey' are my favourites)

Bonus reading: When Books Went To War, by Molly Guptil Manning. It's not about writing, but it's about why stories are important, the lifeline a novelist can throw to someone experiencing the darkest of times, and what I believe may have been publishing's finest hour. I cry every time I read it, and it makes me proud to count myself a writer. If you ever wonder why you're slogging away so hard at learning so fickle and difficult a craft, this book will remind you.

“The therapeutic effect of reading was not a new concept to the librarians running the VBC (Victory Book Campaign). In the editorial Warren published on the eve of commencing her tenure as director, she discussed how books could soothe pain, diminish boredom or loneliness, and take the mind on a vacation far from where the body was stationed. Whatever a man's need—a temporary escape, a comforting memory of home, balm for a broken spirit, or an infusion of courage—the librarians running the VBC were dedicated to ensuring that each man found a book to meet it.” ― Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II

[tobiasbotte]

Okay, I've got a weird itch, and I'm wondering if my dear netizens can help me scratch it. This is a fic rec request post. Also kind of a praise post? Skip to the end to see the request, because I go off on a bit of a tangent.

I've been…really getting into The Untamed/Mo Dao Zu Shi fanfics lately? Like, seriously, been doing a deep dive every since I finished the live action drama because holy shit that was something beautiful. And I gotta say, my favorite kinds of fics right now in this fandom are the full blown, novel length, ensemble cast ones. You know, the ones where all the right ones live, or even our favorite bad guys get redemption arcs, and almost everyone is paired off by the end. I'm a sucker for that shit. It's beautiful.

This does not negate the fact that the show (I'm working up the courage to read the actual novel that started this all - I've started, now I just need to take the plunge) is beautiful in its own right. I adore that WWX and LWJ got their happy ending. I also adore these fics.

I digress.

When I first dove into the fandom, I loved LWJ/WWX & LSZ interactions as a family. Then I fell down the WWX & JC reconciliation hell hole and I have not climbed back out, nor do I wish to! It’s amazing. But now, I've noticed that the fics that have Meng Yao|Gin Guangyao as the fulcrum are the most fascinating. Everything revolves around him, most of the time, and while I adore WWX as my favorite tortured soul and his epic pining romance with LWJ and his family dynamic with LSZ and JC, these giant fics with JGY at the center are like. Epic odysseys. It's amazing. 

And, you know, off topic of this post - which is supposed to be a cry for recs, please help - it really makes me want to write one, but first off, I know next to nothing about wuxia/xianxia style stories (though with the amount of media I've been consuming, and the cultural rabbit holes I've fallen down in on Google this past month alone, I daresay I could definitely make a good run at it), and second, just the whole psychological aspect of it for all of those characters - I pride myself on being able to read a room, especially with what I do for a living, but holy shit do these fics do a deep dive.

By the way, I speak of two specific fic authors who write the most epic JGY-fulcrum fics that I've seen so far: @mercyandmagic and @hamliet. If either of you guys see this, my respect to you as writers is through the roof. Seriously, it's mind boggling. The dissection of JGY's character, his desire for acceptance, his desperate will to live no matter what - it's beautiful. Not to mention the viewpoints of literally every other character in their fics?! And the head-hopping is amazing - not something I usually see. (Apparently this is common in Chinese fic writing, or so I’ve read somewhere? But it’s not disconcerting at all, at least not how these two do it. I kind of want to try that style...)

Lord, I don't even remember where I'm going with this. If any of my readers follow me on here, you know I'm mostly a Yu Yu Hakusho writer (let's forget the other secret account I had back in high school; I burned that, I believe). I write novella length stuff at best (of fan fiction. My original works are…massive, to say the least, which I'm proud of.). But I've never been in a fandom (and I'm in a lot of fandoms; my bookmark count on AO3 can attest to that holy shit I have a problem) that has produced such epic works that it has moved me to sway from my usual fic writing habits of safety, of topics that I'm familiar with. Seriously, I "know" wuxia/xianxia stuff now (I've been going back to my nerd roots lately and tearing through K- and C-dramas - with my mother, no less! - and absorbing a lot of cool shit. It's so fun.), but I don't know it, you know what I mean? I can explain to my mother the significance of joss sticks, paper money being burned for the dead, wedding red and mourning white, the wedding games people have to play to retrieve their spouses, cultivation culture, etc., but I'd never try to write about it because - let's face it! I'm scared. Which is funny. I'm not Japanese (I’m black/Filipino/white), but I actually grew up being fascinated by the culture thanks to my dad - our family's original weeb - and so I'm not too terrified to write fics about animes because, you know, I'm kind of familiar with it.

Chinese-based fics though? Alien to me. And it's not that I'm scared of offending anyone - I'm glad that the majority of fan culture that I have personally interacted with is nice. It's a shame that a lot of the nasty stuff gets the spotlight, gives fandom culture a bad rep, but I know that most of you guys - I'm speak of you readers/writers - are chill people who wanna vibe with the fandoms in peace.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I guess I'm just making excuses to not write MDZS fics by claiming that I don't want to contribute because I don't want to do the genre its in any injustice. The real reason I don't want to write it is because I don't think I'd be able to have a good grasp on the mental aspect of any of the characters! Weird. Writing fanfiction has never scared me before. I know it's because I'm comparing myself to these other awesome writers, not just the two I've listed, but all the writers of the amazing MDZS fics I've been reading, but who doesn’t compare themselves to someone else? It’s destructive. At least I’m aware of what I’m doing-

Holy shit this post is long I need to stop what was the point.

The point...

The point was - a request! So far, those are the only two writers I've come across who do those epic ensemble/fulcrum/happy ending for all/everyone is paired off fics in this fandom. Obviously I've barely made a dent in all the material that's out there, but I figured I'd save myself some time and ask if anyone in the MDZS fandom could recommend any other fics that do this.

Bonus points if it includes Qin Su/Wen Ning or Su She/Jin Zixun (like, seriously, I would have never in a million years expected to have liked the latter pairing, but when I've seen it logically laid out on how to rectify them, it fucking works?!). If not that, then my second favorite type of fics are the WWX & JC brotherly reconciliation fics with lots of gross sobbing. I adore the relationship between these two and I just want them to be a family again, please. There's a lot more of these works than the former, and I'm slowly working my way through them, but if you find some that I should absolutely read right now, lemme know.

[exoluxionlove]

A Chinese Odyssey: Love You A Million Years (Eng Subtitles)

Tao Cuts:

Episode 1 & 2 [ Youtube ]

Episode 3 & 4 [ Youtube ]

Episode 5 & 6 [ Youtube ]

Episode 7 [ Youtube ]

Episode 8 [ Youtube ]

Episode 9 & 10 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 11 & 12 [ Youtube ]

Episode 13, 14, 15 & 16 [ Youtube ]  

Episode 17, 18, 19 & 20 [ Youtube ]

Episode 21, 22, 23 & 24 [ Youtube ]

Episode 25, 26, 27 & 28 [ Youtube ]

Episode 29, 30 & 31 [ Youtube ]

Episode 32, 33 & 34 [ Youtube ]

Episode 35 & 36 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 37 & 38 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 39, 40 & 41 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 42, 43, 44 & 45 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 46 & 47 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 48, 49 & 50 [ Youtube ] 

Episode 51 & 52 [ Youtube ]

Updated: May 16, 2020

[onestowatch]

Why Virtual Reality May Be Our New Reality | Music and Its Digital Past, Present, and Future

Pre-quarantine predictions about the music industry painted a picture of one its best years yet. Such predictions were overflowing with promising new releases, sold out tours, and unique marriages of music and technology just beyond horizon. While coronavirus has shifted many a release schedule and left tours and festivals in a state of indefinite hiatus, alliances between music and technology remain increasingly vital, both in the name of technological progress, and, more recently, as a supplement to the live experience industry inhibited by the ongoing pandemic. 

Discussions of technology in relation to music range from video games to virtual reality. Travis Scott and Marshmello both held concerts in Fortnite, Paul McCartney had a hand in the Destiny soundtrack, and Ariana Grande had both a song and a playable character in Final Fantasy Brave Exvius. Billie Eilish, Panic! At The Disco, Imagine Dragons and many others have also made their concerts available to stream in virtual reality. But there is another game changing intersection between the music and digital world that challenges not only how we experience music, but also how music is created. It’s called the vocaloid.

Early versions of software designed to synthesize human speech have existed since the late 1930s. Fast forward about two decades, the earliest form of synthesized singing had arrived. The IBM 7094, installed in 1962, was the first “computer to sing,” singing a song called “Daisy Bell” by Harry Dacre (the technological advancement would go on to inspire a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi epic, 2001: A Space Odyssey). Since then, vocal synthesis has come a long way, and has also been marked by a different name. 

The year was 2000. The place was Barcelona, Spain. Hideki Kenmochi developed the vocaloid, a voice synthesis software short for vocal android, which was designed to emulate singing. Commercially adapted by Yamaha and distributed by Crytpon Future Media in 2004, the company launched the first Vocaloid and initially called it “Daisy,” after IBM 7094, but due to copyright issues, settled on “Vocaloid 1.” This is where the game changing begins.

Using this first iteration of the software, Yamaha created Meiko, an animated persona designed to serve as the face to the sampled voice of singer Meiko Haigō, with both English and Japanese vocals. Meiko was followed by the release of Kaito, a male vocaloid, two years later. As time went on, the software became increasingly realistic. 

In 2007, Yamaha launched Vocaloid 2, which Crypton Future Media used to bring us Hatsune Miku, a vocaloid persona that quickly went from software to stardom. With long turquoise hair and a heavily anime-inspired look, Miku was sampled from voice actress Saki Fujita, and her Japanese name fittingly translates to “the first sound of the future.”

Hatsune Miku is the first vocaloid to top the charts, has been involved in countless advertisement campaigns, such as those with Google Chrome, Toyota and Louis Vuitton, and opened for Lady Gaga’s ArtPop Tour in 2014. And if it were not for COVID-19, 2020 would have seen her make her Coachella debut. Though other vocaloids have since been created, none have reached the full cultural immersion achieved by Hatsune Miku. Hatsune Miku is now not only the face of vocaloid but also one of Japan’s most recognizable pop stars. Though Miku’s virtual existence isn’t palpable, her real-life fandom and influence certainly are. So much so that in 2018, Akihiko Kondo formally “married” the vocaloid, making for the ultimate ultramodern love story.

But it doesn’t stop there. In 2016, a transmedia startup co-founded by Trevor McFedries called Brud created Miquela Sousa, the first computer-generated social media influencer, programmed as a half-Brazilian, half-Spanish bisexual 19-year-old from LA. With 2.4 million Instagram followers, the mysteriously charming avatar is an ideal fit for advertisers. Miquela did an Instagram takeover for Prada and a Calvin Klein ad with Bella Hadid, in which Hadid, too, was animated, prompting a fascinating elusiveness. 

Miquela is also openly progressive, showing support for Black Lives Matter and other movements. Her creators have noted their intention to help promote social justice through their pioneering of virtual personalities–and talented ones, at that. Miquela is not only an influencer with multiple brand partnerships but also a musician who has collaborated with Lauv and Baauer and is now signed to CAA.

McFedries, Miquela’s manager and one of her creators, is not new to the music industry, having been a DJ, radio show host, director and manager himself. He also created two other virtual personas, Blawko and Bermuda, who are friends with Miquela and whose frequent dramas are created and conveyed through their social media and Youtube vlogs, like a relatable, sympathy-inducing reality show. The three unique virtual influencers portray an obvious self-awareness that they are not human, addressing themselves as robots. Despite not having a true pulse, the self-awareness of these bots certainly shows they have a pulse for the culture, for humor and for connection. So much so that Miquela was listed as one of Time Magazine’s “Most Influential People on the Internet” in 2018, alongside Rihanna and, unfortunately, President Trump.

The creation of both Hatsune Miku and Miquela sparked a paradigm shift in the role of technology in music, an intersection that will lay the foundation for the potential digital future. But this article taps only the tip of the iceberg. From self-driving cars to self-writing songs, the potentially unpredictable nature of innovation sparks anxiety in some and optimism in others.  

Unlocking new worlds of music technology can equip new levels of human creativity. But some may wonder, where the line is drawn when humans are not the only ones making art? Technology is meant to be a resource for the artist, not a replacement. On the other hand, who is to say an artificial collaborator is not a tool? Who is to say the creators and drivers of these vocaloids or virtual artists are not artists themselves? 

Perhaps the increased role of technology will bring a heightened appreciation for the human elements. Perhaps all this live streaming via social media will create a heightened appreciation for the physically live experience while also giving us new tools to reach people around the world. Similarly, while vocaloid hologram performances allow us to experience music in a new way, perhaps this will reinforce an appreciation for the live, human performer.

Fear is an inevitable part of progress, as people before us feared the advent of trains, television, and the internet. Technological progress does not exist in a vacuum, as we have witnessed its challenges but also its immense rewards. Ultimately, we are veterans in experiencing the result of groundbreaking technologies sewing their way into our everyday lives, and adapting accordingly. As technology expands exponentially, we are still only at the cusp. (If you don’t believe me, just google the quantum computer IBM has sitting in their refrigerated basement).

Though the future can be daunting, it is also exciting. Having Miquela in a Calvin Klein ad in which Bella Hadid, a familiar face, was also animated is like opening a portal between the virtual and real world (like the princess in Enchanted jumping out of the sewer, morphing from cartoon to human). Bonding with artificial characters is not new. But this portal allows virtual influencers to become a notable real part of our reality as they themselves claim to be part of it, whether via music, fashion or fandom (or marriage, in the case of Miku’s now supposed husband, Akihiko Kondo).

The newest Miku update is Vocaloid 5, launched in 2018 and now more adaptable across formats and also available in Chinese, Spanish and Korean. As she shared on her instagram, Miquela dropped two singles this year and is still seeing her friends Blawko and Bermuda.

With coronavirus still very much a reality, the longing for a return to normal is absolutely understandable; however, with so much of our world changing, our world may never return to its pre-pandemic state. Instead, it is likely to return to a new normal, in which live streaming and virtual reality are not supplements for the live experience but directly part of it. Whether virtual musicians like Hatsune Miku or Miquela are a momentary fascination of our present or a glimpse into a very real future, one thing remains certain. Our potential digital future is much closer than we think. 

[back-and-totheleft]

The Vietnam Odyssey of Oliver Stone

The soldier trained his rifle at the ground in front of the feet of the unarmed Vietnamese villager and fired away, yelling "Dance. Dance. Dance." The old man hopped from one foot to the other.

"I wanted to kill him," recalled Oliver Stone. "I hated him. I crossed over into being a monster."

The above incident is depicted in "Platoon," written and directed by Stone, a Vietnam veteran. It and the other events shown actually happened, according to Stone. He's not proud of it. But he owns up to it. "Platoon" is Oliver Stone's atonement. Moreover, it's our atonement, too. "Platoon" is the first Hollywood movie to take the redemptive power of cinema and focus it on the Vietnam War.

If you think Vietnam was John Wayne in "The Green Berets," Robert DeNiro in "The Deer Hunter" or Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now," think again. "Platoon" is about the bugs and rain and the jungle and the pain. It's about the unseen enemy, rice paddy stashes and gun caches in thatched-hut villages. It's about boredom, fear, friendship, rage, loyalty, humor and choices - right and wrong. Like the phrase from the comic strip Pogo, "We have met the enemy and they is us," that's what "Platoon" is all about.

Why is "Platoon" drawing critical raves, Oscar talk and large numbers at the box office? Why is it being called the most important movie about Vietnam, or perhaps the most important war movie ever made? Why, 20 years after the war's escalation, are we seeing images of a Vietnam movie on the cover of Time magazine and in the media across the nation?

Oliver Stone has a few theories. The Academy-award-winning writer ("Midnight Express") and acclaimed writer-director ("Salvador") says it took 20 years for the nation to heal its wounds, for historic perspective to settle in and allow Americans to understand Vietnam and welcome home its legacy - the Vietnam Vet. It took the Vietnam monument in Washington, D.C., and, yes, Bruce Springsteen's misunderstood "Born in the U.S." ("Got in a little hometown jam/So they put a rifle in my hand/Send me off to a foreign land/Go and kill the yellow man.") It was an educational process, Stone told a recent gathering of the media in New York.

"We thought the war was over, when in fact it was just beginning," Stone recalled of his return after 15 months with the 25th Infantry Division near the Cambodian border. Stone, wounded twice, was awarded the Bronze Star for combat gallantry and a Purple Heart with Oak Leaf Cluster. He was later transferred to the First Cavalry Division. Of his return home, he says, "There was total indifference. The war happened at 7:15 each night on the news."

Stone, 40, is a bear of a man with a boyish face. He's a very forceful individual who speaks in bursts of words which tumble forth. At the same time, the writer in him is ever observant. He seems impatient, as if he can't wait to get back to the word processor.

Ten days after his return in November 1968, Stone found himself in prison, arrested on a marijuana charge. Adjusting to civilian life for him and some 2 million other Vietnam servicemen would not be easy. But Stone managed to tough it out. What was his salvation? The cinema. Stone studied screenwriting and directing with Martin Scorsese at New York University Film School, receiving a BFA in 1971.

A Canadian firm bought a screenplay, "Seizure," and allowed him to direct the low-budget film. In 1976, Stone moved to Hollywood. Two years later, he won an Academy Award for his screenplay, "Midnight Express," which also brought him the Writers Guild of America Award. Stone also directed another low budget film, "The Hand," and co-authored the script for "Conan the Barbarian" and wrote the screenplay for "Scarface."

It was 10 years ago, during America's Bicentennial, that Stone wrote the script for "Platoon." He says every studio in Hollywood turned it down, telling him nobody wanted to see a movie about the Vietnam War. "It was considered too gruesome, too realistic."

"Platoon" is a Vietnam movie from the grunt's point of view. We see the war through the eyes of Charlie Sheen, who plays Chris, a young recruit (based on Stone), and hear it through his words in letters he writes to his grandmother back home.

The movie depicts a night watch in the jungle turned into an ambush by the North Vietnamese Army, contrasts the boozers (those who drank beer and alcohol off-duty) and the heads (those who used marijuana and other drugs back at base camp), shows a My Lai type scourging of a village by American soldiers and the conflict between a gung-ho, out-to-kill lifer Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), and a mild-mannered eager-to-get-o ut-alive Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe). The movie does not paint a glorious picture of the American presence in Vietnam.

" 'Apocalypse Now' was about everyday life in Vietnam. It was more Joseph Conrad mythology," said Stone. " 'The Deer Hunter' was more about Pennsylvania and Meryl Streep than Vietnam."

The characters in "Platoon" are based on real people who existed in three different combat units in Vietnam. The characters and events are composites, but based on reality, Stone said. "My hypothesis was: 'What would happen if the three were in the same Platoon?' "

I asked Stone how accurate the scenes were depicting drug use in Vietnam. Many Vietnam soldiers were introduced to drugs in Vietnam and returned with drug habits. "Not in the field," said Stone. "A lot of us did it in the base camp - mostly marijuana, some heroin."

The tone of "Platoon" is not one of condemnation, but rather understanding - a knowledge that the roots of war are in all of us. Stone called war "one of the greatest highs. There's an adrenaline that flows. Life freezes down to a minute."

As you might expect, the violence in "Platoon" is graphic. But it is not gratuitous. "TV violence is obscene," said Stone of small-screen images of crashing cars, shootouts and fistfights where the participants seem to always mend by next week's episode. "It ignores reality, the real pain, shock and loss. It (violence) has to be done explicitly. Otherwise, you'll deceive the public."

Stone found a willing backer for "Platoon" in England. John Daly and Derek Gibson, owners of Hemdale Film Corp. arranged financing and brought in producer Arnold Kopelson. "Platoon" was brought in for $6 million, a low figure in today's Hollywood where a $15-million budget is average. Orion Pictures is distributing the movie.

Hemdale had produced Stone's "Salvador." Other noteworthy Hemdale movies include "The Falcon and the Snowman," "At Close Range," "River's Edge," "The Terminator" and "Hoosiers." They'll team again with Stone for his upcoming "Tom Mix and Pancho Villa.'

"Platoon" was described "as the flipside of 'Top Gun.' "

" 'Top Gun' was totally irresponsible, really," said Daly. "My friend's son, 12, saw 'Top Gun' and wanted to sign up. I said, 'Wait to sign-up until he sees 'Platoon.' "

To heighten authenticity, Stone and the producers brought the cast to the Philippines prior to shooting for two weeks of "basic training." Sheen, Berenger, Dafoe and the rest were given a shovel, told to dig their home, taken on hikes and climbs, given night guard duty and handed Army rations. Capt. Dale Dye, a retired Marine officer and Vietnam veteran, was in charge.

Dye, who has a consulting firm, Warriors Inc., which advises film-makers on military accuracy, contacted Stone, telling him, "You understand that this is as significant for the Vietnam veteran as anything is going to be. Let's do it right."

Dye was a sergeant in Vietnam where he was wounded in action three times during 31 major combat operations including the battle for Hue City and Khe Sanh during the Tet Offensive in 1968. Later, as a master sergeant he was active in the evacuation of Saigon and Phom Penh.

" 'Apocalypse Now' and 'The Deer Hunter' are war films," said Dye, "but have nothing to do with Vietnam. They are allegorical in nature, but don't reflect the agony and ecstasy of young men who went to fight in that very difficult war."

Dye now has no illusions about war: "I went into it with grand delusions of flashing sabers and lovely ladies on my arm. When I got down to the mud and the blood, I found that to be hollow."

Stone was similarly gung-ho. A son of a stockbroker who met his wife in Paris during World War II, Stone attended the Hill School, Pottstown, before entertaining Yale University. He studied there for one year. In 1965, he got a job with the Free Pacific Institute, teaching Vietnamese-Chinese students in the Cholon district of Saigon. Then, he got a job on an American merchant ship. Two years later, at 21, he was back in Vietnam.

Has "Platoon" helped Stone put Vietnam behind him? Yes, he says. "I was totally warped and twisted by Vietnam. I got rid of all my demons."

-Paul Willistein, “The Vietnam Odyssey of Oliver Stone,” The Morning Call, Feb 1 1987 [x]

[porlockstompf]

Reading de Nacht Reading 2018

                                  my favourite books of the year

my overall favourite book of the year:

wiliam h gass "the william h gass reader" (2018)

post-cyberpunkstompf:

01 cixin liu "ball lightning" (2018)

02 kim stanley robinson "red moon" (2018) 03 dave hutchinson "europe at dawn" (2018)      + dave hutchinson "shelter (the aftermath 01)" (2018) 04 paul kincaid "ian m banks (modern masters of science fiction)" (2017) 05 hannu rajaniemi "summerland" (2018)

06 m john harrison "you should come with me now: stories of ghosts" (2017) 07 wade rousch (ed) "twelve tomorrows (2018) 08 christopher moore "noir" (2018) 09 jonathan strahan (ed) "infinity's end" (2018)     + jonathan strahan (ed) "the best sf & f of the year, vol XII" (2018) 10 neil clarke (ed) "the final frontier" (2018)      + neil clarke (ed) "the best sf of the year vol III" (2018)

11 gardner dozois (ed) "the year's best sf: thirty-fifth annual collection" (2018) 12 steve toutonghi "side life" (2018) 13 mike ashley (ed) "lost mars: the golden age of the red planet" (2018) 14 mary robinette kowal "the calculating stars: a lady astronaut novel" (2018) 15 mingwei song & theodore huters (eds)  "the reincarnated giant:      an anthology of twenty-first century chinese science fiction" (2018)

16 john zakour & lawrence ganem "the peach-blonde bomber" (2018) 17 becky chambers "record of a spaceborn few" (2018) 18 yoon ha lee "revenant gun" (2018) 19 derek künsken "the quantum magician" (2018) 20 gregory benford "rewrite" [arc] (2019)

21 richard k morgan "thin air" (2018) 22 charles stross "the labyrinth index" (2018) 23 john varley "irontown blues" (2018) 24 peter watts "the freeze-frame revolution" (2018) 25 karl schroeder "the million" (2018)

26 drew williams "the stars now unclaimed" (2018) 27 peter f hamilton "the salvation" (2018) 28 neal asher "the soldier" (2018) 29 nick mamatas "the people's republic of everything" (2018) 30 s j morden "one way" (2018)

31 gareth l powell "embers of war" (2018) 32 alex white "a big ship at the end of the universe" (2018)      + alex white "a bad deal for the whole galaxy" (2018) 33 s k dunstall "stars unchartered" (2018) 34 catherynne m valente "space opera" (2018) 35 alastair reynolds "elysium fire" (2018)

36 charles stross "dark state" (2018) 37 n k jemisin (ed) "the best american sf & f 2018" (2018) 38 jack mcdevitt "the long sunset" (2018)   + jack mcdevitt "a voice in the night" (2018) 39 elizabeth moon "into the fire" (2018) 40 r.e. stearns "barbary station" (2017) /      steven erikson "willfull child III: the search for spark" (2018)

polarstompf:

01 david hewson "the savage shore" (2018)

     ex aequo      andrea camilleri "the pyramid of mud" (2018)      + andrea camilleri "death at sea: montalbano's early cases" (2018)

02 mirko zilahy "de schaduw" (2017)   + mirko zilahy "de mythe van de dood" (2018) 03 mick herron "london rules" (2018)   + mick heron "the drop" (2018) 04 volker kutscher "babylon berlin" (2017)   + volker kutscher "the silent death" (2017)   + volker kutscher "goldstein" (2018) 05 chris petit "pale horse riding" (2017)

06 edgar cantero "this body's not big enough for both of us" (2018) 07 ian rankin "in a house of lies" (2018) 08 philip kerr "greeks bearing gifts" (2018) 09 jack grimwood "nightfall berlin" (2018) 10 dolan cummings "the existential leap: a crime story" (2017)

11 ann van loock "de expo '58 moorden" (2018) 12 massimo carlotto "master of knots" (2004) 13 joseph knox "sirens" (2018)     + joseph knox "the smiling man" (2018) 14 geir tangen "het meesterwerk" (2017) 15 kate atkinson "transcription" (2018)

16 patrick conrad "diep in december" (2018) 17 jorge zepeda patterson "zwarte trui" (2018) 18 wolfgang burger "heidelberg requiem" (2016) 19 charles cumming "a divided spy" (2016)      + charles cumming "the man between" (2018) 20 frank goldammer "the air raid killer" (2018)      + frank goldammer "a thousand devils" (2018)

21 andreas norman "stille oorlog" (2018) 22 jesper stein "de onrust" (2018)      + jesper stein "papa" (2018) 23 luca d'andrea "in de greep van de waanzin" (2018) 24 jo nesbø  "macbeth" (2018) 25 hans dooremalen "descartes in amsterdam: filosofische detective" (2018) /      chris pavone "the expats" (2012)

klassikstompf:

01 wiliam h gass "the william h gass reader" (2018)

02 louis armand "breakfast at midnight" (2012)      + louis armand "the combinations" (2016)      + louis armand "canicule" (2013)      + louis armand "cairo" (2014) 03 andrew crumey "the great chain of unbeing" (2018) 04 viv albertine "throw away unopened" (2018) 05 daniela cascella "singed" (2017)

06 ted geltner "blood, bone, & marrow: a biography of harry crews" (2017) 07 steve erickson "zeroville" (2007) 08 olga tokarczuk "drive your plow over the bones of the dead" (2018) 09 julián ríos "the house of ulysses" [] (2010)      + julián ríos "poundemonium" [1997] 10 daniel mendelsohn "an odyssey: a father, a son, and an epic" (2017)

11 giorgio van straten "in search of lost books: the forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes" (2017) 12 pascal mercier "night train to lisbon" (2004) 13 tony white "the fountain in the forest" (2018) 14 alejandro zambra "not to read" (2018) 15 gabriel josipovici "the cemetery in barnes" (2018)

16 lucy ives "impossible views of the world" (2017) 17 matthew herbert "the music: a novel through sound" (2018) 18 ann quin "the unmapped country: stories & fragments" (2018) 19 stephen fry "mythos" (2017) & "heroes" (2018) 20 johan swinnen "happening: de aanslag op de Inno" (2017)

21 ermanno cavazzoni "the nocturnal library" (2018) 22 richard powers "the overstory" (2018) 23 alain robbe-grillet "project for a revolution in ny" (1972) 24 melchior vischer "second through brain" (2015) 25 bob van laerhoven "return to hiroshima" (2018)      + bob van laerhoven "dossier feuerhand" (2017)      + bob van laerhoven "dangerous obsessions" (2015)      + bob van laerhoven "heart fever" (2018)

gedächtnisstompf:

01 jacques derrida "geschlecht III: sexe, race, nation, humanité" (2018)      + jacques derrida "le goût du secret: entretiens 1993-1995" (2018)

02 tom cohen, claire colebrook & j hillis miller      "theory & the disappearing future:  on deman, on benjamin" (2011) 03 hannah arendt "het waagstuk van de politiek:      over politieke leugens en burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid" (2018)      + dirk de schutter "hannah arendt: politiek denker" (2015) 04 serge andré "les perversions #1: le fétichisme" (2013)      + serge andré "les perversions #1: le sadisme" (2013)      + serge andré "les perversions #1: le masochisme" (2013) 05 ger groot "4 ongemakkelijke filosofen: nietzsche, cioran, bataille, derrida"            (2003)

06 mark fisher "k-punk: the collected & unpublished writings (2014-2016)" (2018) 07 molier, ellian, rijpkema (eds) "de strijd om de democratie:      essays over democratische zelfverdediging" (2018) 08 florentijn van rootselaar "filosofisch veldwerk:      grote filosofen van nu over leven in barre tijden" (2018) 09 lieven de cauter "van de grote woorden & kleine dingen" (2018) 10 nemanja mitrovic      "the (im)possibility of literature as the possibility of ethics" (2017)

11 sue prideaux "i am dynamite! a life of friedrich nietzsche" (2018) 12 paul farley & michael symmons roberts "deaths of the poets" (2018) 13 erik bledsoe (ed) "perspectives on harry crews" (2001) 14 kailash c baral & r radhakrishan (eds)      "theory after derrida: essays in critical praxis"(2018) 15 agnes czajka & bora isyar (eds)      "europe after derrida: crisis & potentiality" (2016)

poesisstompf:

01 john cooper clarke "the luckiest guy alive" (2018)

02 kate tempest "running upon the wires" (2018) 03 robin robertson "the long take" (2018) 04 david austin "dread poetry & freedom:      linton kwesi johnson & the unfinished revolution" (2018) 05 tommy pico "junk" (2018)

platterstompf:

01 power, devereux, & dillane (eds)       "heart & soul: critical essays on joy division" (2018)

02 michael glasmeier & ursula block (eds) "broken music: artists' recordworks"         (2nd edition 2018) 03 mark e smith "messing up the paintwork: the wit & wisdom of mark e smith"         (2018) 04 willy dirickx (ed) "de brassers" (2018) 05 tommy mackay "40 odd years of the fall" (2018)

06 john h baker "the art of nick cave: new critical essays" (2013) 07 will oldham "songs of love & horror: collected lyrics of will oldham" (2018)      + alan licht (ed) "will oldham on bonnie 'prine' billy" (2012) 08 michael goddard & benjamin halligan      "mark e smith & the fall: art, music, & politics" (2013) 09 daniel kane "do you have a band? poetry & punk rock in nyc" (2017) 10 bendle "permanent transience" (2015)

11 david grubbs "now that the audience is assembled" (2018) 12 nick soulsby "swans: sacrifice & transcendence (the oral history)" (2018)      + michael gira "the egg: stories" (2018) 13 robert young & irmin schmidt "all gates open: the story of can" (2018) 14 mike goldschmith "discord: the story of noise" (2012) 15 bruce russell      "gilded splinters: essays & aphorisms towards an aesthetic of noise" (2018)

16 philippe robert "agitation frite" (2018)²      + philippe robert "action friite" (2018)      + philippe robert "action frIIIte" (2018) 17 guillaume belhomme, philippe robert, ea "le son du grisli:      varèse, tzara, mochizuki & cave" (2018) 18 david stubbs "future days: krautrock & the building of modern germany"                (2018)       + david stubbs "mars by 1980: the story of electronic music" (2018) 19 blixa bargeld "europa: una letania" [2009] (2018) 20 chris bohn (ed) "the wire" 

21 richard hirst (ed)      "we were strangers: stories inspired by unknown pleasures" (2018) 22 françois girodineau "nick cave & the bad seeds: tender prey" (2018) 23 mick middles "the fall" (2009) 24 jim dooley "red set: a history of gang of four" (2018) 25 mats gustafsson      "discaholics! record collector confessions vol I (2nd ed)" (2018) /      + rob van scheers "drie akkoorden & de waarheid: muzikale levenslessen"              (2014)

stagestompf:

01 ian rankin & rona munro "rebus: long shadows" (2018)

humorstompf:

01 robin ince       "i'm a joke & so are you: a comedian's take on what makes us human"       (2018) 02 simon munnery "how to live" (2018) 03 lucien randall "disgusting bliss: the brass eye of chris morris" (2011)

bilderstompf:

01 michael glasmeier & ursula block (eds)      "broken music: artists' recordworks" (2nd edition 2018)

02 thomas bernhard & ferry radax "thomas bernhard: 3 days" (2016) 03 ed van der elsken "love on the left bank" (2002) 04 philippe monsel "francis bacon" (1994)

05 paul duncan & jürgen müller (eds)   "film noir plus taschen's top 50 pick of noir classics from 1940-1960" (2017) 06 cuauhtémoc medina "manifesta 9: the deep of the modern" (2012) 07 julian schnabel: permanently becoming & the architecture of seeing" (2012) 08 reinhard kleist "nick cave & the bad seeds: an art book" (2018)

wissenschaftstompf & other distractions:

01 brian cox & robin ince      "how to build a universe: an infinite monkey cage adventure" (2017)

02 patrick moore & chris north       "the sky at night: answers to questions from across the univers" (2012) 03 chip carter "obsessed with star trek" (2011) 04 leon hunt "danger:diabolik" (2018)

cyclostompf:

01 jean cléder "petite éloge de la course cycliste" (2018)

02 max leonard "higher calling: cycling's obsession with mountains" (2018) 03 colin o'brien      "giro d'italia: the story of the world's most beautiful bike race" (2018) 04 velominati      "wielergoden: de meest heldhaftige renners ooit 38 heroïsche verhalen”           (2018) 05 william fotheringham "sunday in hell" (2018)

06 jonas heyerick (ed) "bahamontes" (magazine) o.a. extra editie de giro (2018) 07 jorge zepeda patterson "zwarte trui" (2018) 08 dirk jan roeleven "de nieuwe fiets: villar san constanzo - a'dam" (2018) 09 frederik baeckelandt "gino bartali (les héros 03)" (2018) 10 chris sidwells "the call of the road: the history of cycle road racing" (2018)

10 john dowie "the freewheeling john dowie:                  a comedian, a bike, & a tent, what could possibly go right?" (2018) 12 edward pickering "the ronde:       inside the tour of flanders, the world's toughest bike race" (2018) 13 charles pope "a golden age of cycling" (2018) 14 roger gilles "women on the move:       the forgotten era of women's bicycle racing" (2018) 15 peter cossins "the first tour de france:       60 cyclists & 19 days of daring on the road to paris" (2017)

16 paul maunder "the wind at my back: my cycling life" (2018)       + paul maunder "rainbows in the mud" (2017) 17 giacomo pellizzari "het geheim van de eenzame fietser" [2015] (2017) 18 dries de zaeytijd & fons leroy "25 jaar kweekvijver van koerstalent" (2018) 19 peter sagan "my world" (2018) 20 bradley wiggins "icons: my inspiration, my motivation, my obsession" (2018)

most pleasing purchases:

01 jayne county "man enough to be a woman" (1996)

02 berns, moyaert, & van tongeren (eds)      "de god van denkers en dichters: opstellen voor samuel ijsseling" (1997)

03 anselm kiefer       "l'art survivra à ses ruines: anselm kiefer au collège de france" (2011) 04 ludger lütkehaus       "'ruhe. grösse, sonnenlicht': friedrich nietzsche in sils-maria" (2014) 05 paul raabe "spaziergange durch nietzsches sils-marie" (1994)

… tsundoku !

may your home be safe from tigers, leroy, x HNY!

find me on LT:

TBR... PILING UP ...

postcyberpunkstompf:

adam roberts "adam (the aftermath 02)" (2018) eric brown "the martian simulacra: a sherlock holmes mystery" (2018) gary gibson "scienceville & other worlds" (2018) greg egan "phoresis" (2018) ian mcdonald "time was" (2018) ian whates & tom hunter (eds) "2001: an odyssey in words: celebrating the centenary of arthur c clarke's birth" james lovegrove "firefly: big damn hero" (2018) james patrick kelly "the promise of space & other stories" (2018)

jeff noon "a man of shadows" (2017) + jeff noon "the body library" (2018) kevin j anderson "selected stories: science fiction vol I" (2018) rich larson "tomorrow factory: collected fiction" (2018) seb doubinsky "missing signal" (2018) stephen baxter "redemption" (2018) + stephen baxter "xelee: vengeance" (2018) steve erikson "rejoice" (2018) tom schweterlitsch "the gone world" (2018) & maybe, just maybe: jay key "how to pick up women with a drunk space ninja" (2018) + jay key "how to win a pit fight with a drunk space ninja" (2018)

polarstompf:

dario correnti "heimwee naar bloed" (2018) giancarlo de cataldo "suburra" (2017) matthew pearl "the dante chamber" (2018) victor del árbol "a million drops" (2018) zygmunt miloszewski "priceless" [2013] (2018)

[elastigirl72]

Potentially a Greek Odyssey...Crossing a continent...there are no rules

(Disclaimer: this whole blog is written on an iPhone)

I wonder if...

Any ancient explorer spent as much time as I have procrastinating about which way they’d travel to cross a continent, where they’d start, where they’d cross waters, which mountain range they should scale and where should be their final destination, how little they could get away with carrying and when was the best time to go and if they should drive to Heathrow and park or figure out the logistics to be able to cycle the whole way.

I could write a book about the dreaming and planning alone, and Ben Fogle wouldn’t have a patch on my stories, never mind the oceans and deserts he’s crossed.  If I’m honest, he does have the job I’d now wish I’d had.  Why has it taken me until I’m approaching the half-century (there are still a few years to go, just in case you thought I was looking REALLY good for my age, yes, I can hear that’s what you were thinking) to finally realise that is what I was destined to do.  But now, where media favours youth and beauty, I wasn’t blessed with much of the latter and youth is a long way behind me.  Accepting my fate, I will continue doing my job, dream about being (with) Ben Fogle, and aspire to challenge Judith Chalmers in my 70s.

If I consider my expedition, I have dreamed about it since I can remember looking at the illuminated globe and dark green, leather bound giant world atlas that adorned a dust-ridden, tar-stained shelf in our family home in Windsor.  I have planned it in detail over 5 years and in countless iterations, and aborted 2 years running.  And now, today, 10 days before I’m due to set off in some direction, it truly appears it might happen. The odds are even, but 10 days is 10 days.  Nothing is certain.

Anyone who truly knows me will question my fitness, I’m sure.  Can I really do this?  Until this weekend, like last year’s abandoned plans to ride from East to West cost USA, I considered that I would again be “winging it”, hoping that the good genes I’ve inherited, and my clear stubbornness will see me through.  My knee remains attached to me by a few stringy threads.  I have worked out that any stray pieces of cartlidge that pop up from the one-time smooth head of my femur aren’t an enemy to stop me anymore.  Like a splinter on a block of wood, provided the kneecap can plane the surface continuously, the pain and swelling will come and go as the surface is smoothed down again.  Grit my teeth and keep moving until I can’t move anymore.  It is a bit bonkers. But as there’s plenty of things that can stop you doing anything, multiplying as I get older. So, whilst I still can, I still will. It’s not a race, and I will make it to Athens. Which is the second flight I’ve booked for the same trip! The goal is to get to the finish line. Other than that, the rules are there are no rules.

April 13: 5 days to go: preamble to the ramble

The name to my expedition came to me this morning. It is the Transcontinental Odyssey and camera course. I am surrounded by photographers in my family. Dad a.k.a. Norm, was a photographer in his day and very talented. My brother-in-law was a professional photographer and till smart phones were invented. By association, my sister Jane is also a photographer. It is quite surprising that I know absolutely nothing about technicalities of photography! Aperture ISO and shutter speed could be part of an engine for all I know. Luckily, I have amazing neighbours who are also photographers. Almost correct: Jane, my neighbour is the long-suffering wife of a photographer and by association to Andrew who is a photographer. Given that all the Janes and Andrews that I know who are married contain at least one photographer, I stand a good chance also by association of being able to take good photographs. This is what I’m telling myself and the reason I’m prepared prepared to consider my new camera as my luxury item. At 300 g, it is my heaviest piece of kit that I will be carrying for over 2000 miles. There is a good incentive for me to make it count! Probably the reason that most people remain amateur photographers and now rely on smartphones is because the lessons on Aperture and shutter speed are very dry to say the least. My first lesson with Andrew on Friday night after work was helped along by two gin and tonic‘s made by Jane she doesn’t drink to make measures were approximately two thirds gin and one third tonic. This is known in photography circles as the rule of thirds. As I’m writing this post, I can tell you that my bod no longer responds to gin particularly well. That said,I had a very enjoyable evening learning about photography.

Marlborough, UK

How many times did I pack and weigh my kit? I sat looking at it for weeks on the kitchen table, packed it, took it out, weighed it again, removed some grams and packed it again. With the experience of a similar trip (albeit 1,300 miles shorter and with a week of planning), this time, I couldn’t have been more prepared. With greatest regret, the following were culled:

Trainers (sacrificed for flip flops)

Belt (improvising with heart rate monitor as my belt. Genius 😆)

Wood lock (a magical Chinese ointment which has legally restored my overused muscles for 17 years)

Playing cards (oh well, I’m sure there’s some app that can replace those)

Class (I have resorted to convertible walking trousers, a t-shirt, a merino base layer and my cycling jacket for my casual evening attire)

My bikini 😢

Butt butter (as I like to call it - one last dose of chamois cream before I left and then utter sadness and regret)

But making the cut:

Puncture repair kit

Glasses and lenses

A handful of toiletries

My luxury item: a camera (the only thing heavier is my backpack)

6 supplements (magnesium, iron, maca, beta-alennine, zinc, L-carnitine)

Small first aid kit

A million usb cables

A million plug converters (don’t you love that each country has designed non-compatible plugs to their neighbours?)

Di2 charger (outrageous that I should need this but apparently the battery lasts only 1500 miles)

A lock

Overshoes, leg warmers, rain jacket, wet weather gloves, mitts (I have an optimistic plan to post these home in Italy and buy a bikini 🙏)

Passport, cards and cash (although I ditched the coins weighing in at a whopping 178g!)

2pairs of knickers

A bra (underwear is a luxury)

An erroneous crop top.

In all, my extra weight amounts to 4kg against my weight of 58kg. I thought I was heavier, and so I set off delighted that mentally, my net gained weight was 2kg (on the basis I thought I was 60kg).

These weight insights are invaluable. So, how is it that on my first day, not flat but hardly mountainous, and into a headwind, I have already started to create a package to send home. I practised carrying my life on my back on a ride to st David’s only 10 days ago and yet somehow, the backpack, aka Monkey has gained weight whilst I’ve lost. The Welsh guy deep in the Black Mountains where I recharged my phone were mightily impressed at my trans Wales trip that day. They’re a friendly bunch. Super chatty when they know you’re leaving, sending me off with a parting statement : “Look out for the green pick up truck about 10 miles up the road, that will be me as I mow you off the road into the bushes! [to which he then laughed to himself a lot]. “That’s where you’ll be staying for the night!” The interesting observation I picked up from this rowdy, bald, heavily tattooed Welshman is his sense of humour. So unique to Wales...

And so to bed. I have made my presence known in Marlborough. If you’re old enough to remember, picture this: Wayne Slob getting chicken and chips from the fish and chip shop. Yep. That’s me. That’s who I’ve become . I’m staying in the Bear Hotel which whilst a lovely room, is more expensive than my flight home from Kalamata that I won’t be taking. And whilst I wasn’t remotely hungry tonight, I have had to remind myself “eat for the ride you’re going to have, not for the one you’ve just had”

[disorientedblog-archive]

举杯望明月，低头思故乡。- I Raised My Glass and Look to the Bright Moon, Then Lowered My Head and Think of Home

by EJ Mitchell / photo: Bufan Zhu

He smiles, satisfied.

I watch as Mark rocks the shaker back and forth, the ice, green tea infused gin, passionfruit, and red pepper syrup sloshing around until they are perfectly blended. He takes a straw to taste his concoction. “嗯。”

(“Mmm.”)

He grabs a fizz glass and carefully places three ice cubes inside. He pours the mixture, gently shaking out every last drop. I appreciate such care.

He adds a few splashes of seltzer, and the fruity aroma begins to perfume my nose. I pick up the glass and inhale deeply, taking a generous sip.

“嗯，可以 !”

(“Mmm, pretty good!”)

Mark helps another guest as I enjoy my drink. AirPods in ear, I listen to Amber Mark’s “Love Me Right” for the nth time, letting the layers of Mark’s creation and Mark’s harmonies soothe me. I normally don’t drink by myself. But around this time of year, when Beijing is emptied by 春运 (the Spring Festival travel rush), I am alone and most reflective. The beginning of 2019 begets the transition into a new zodiac year, the anxiety surrounding performance reviews, and my fifth annual winter odyssey back to the US. I also find that people are at their most inquisitive:

What are you doing for New Years?

Where are you going for Spring Festival?

Are you staying for another year?

How much longer do you see yourself in China?

When are you coming home?

These questions assume a lot—that I have funds to do something or go somewhere, or that I am thinking about leaving China, or that one day I will eventually “go back.” The longer I live in Beijing, the more the last question perplexes me.

Beijing is where I have accumulated over six years of formative experiences. I’ve cried because I was in love (or so I thought). As an educator, I’ve experienced my worst nightmare—the loss of a student and the ineffable numbness that follows. I’ve even danced my way into free rounds of tequila shots on my birthday. At least that’s what I was told. If nothing else, Beijing is certainly the only place where I feel confident in my adulting skills. Literally, and I mean literally, every time my Didi arrives, the driver says,

“我还以为你是我们中国人！没想到你是外国友人，打电话听不出来！”

(“I thought you were Chinese! I didn’t think you were a foreign friend. Couldn’t tell over the phone!”)

This is a compliment that I have learned to authentically accept humbly (”我中文还行吧…“ / “My Chinese is okay…”), instead of simply saying thank you. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of my Beijing accent, but I know better than to think that just because I have adopted erhua and say things like “Bu ri dao!” or “Ma qu?” that I can by some amount of sheer effort become or be seen as a true Beijinger. When asked, “你什么时候回家？” I intentionally, and perhaps defensively, reply, “我要去美国,” emphasizing that I am going to America, not returning home. Have I not done enough to demonstrate to others that I am at home when I am in Beijing?

I have the last gulp of my drink and have a feeling that I am going to need another.

“Mark，再来一杯。你随便调吧。“

(Mark, another one. Mix as you see fit.)

As Mark readies a mixture of blackberries, aged sherry, port, and rum he calls “Darker the Berry,” I find myself starting to feel guilty. Here I am, sitting in not just any bar, but my bar. Five Beijing blocks away the streets are lined with H&M, Alexander McQueen, stadium-style night clubs, and the entrance to my gated apartment complex. In a mere few days I will return to Forest Park to sleep on my mother’s living room couch in a Cincinnati suburb of fewer than twenty-thousand people, in contrast to the three and half million that call Chaoyang district their home. If I’m honest with myself, though I love my mom’s cooking and dearly miss my five siblings, I could do without the tear-filled overtures of emotional baggage and petty arguments masked as “discussions.”  

“很快就能回家啦，开心了吧？” Mark asks.

(“You’ll be returning home soon. You must be happy?”)

“嗯。” I feign a smile.

(“Mhmm”).

Counting the time in my head, I haven’t gone back to Cincinnati in over a year and a half, choosing instead to visit a friend and former colleague from Beijing in Scotland last summer. Sometimes I wonder if I’m just running away.

“You don’t know…you weren’t there! You’re never around!”

This isn’t the first time my brother’s words have echoed in my mind, but this time I feel different. My ears are warm. I can’t tell if it’s from the stiff drink or because of recalling my adult brother’s emotional eruption the last time we were together. His words, though at the time came as a shock, were true, and to some degree still are. I remember writing in my personal statement for college about how, following the dissolution of my parents’ marriage, I felt that I had outgrown my family and that I, too, needed a divorce. Now 6800 miles away in Beijing, I have my chosen family, a job that I don’t just like but love, memories of vacations to St. Petersburg’s palaces and Almaty’s mountains, a savings account with actual savings…

Haven’t I done enough? Am I not the child my parents raised? Am I not a person that they—no, that any parent or family—would be proud of?

“You’re never around! You’re never around! You’re never around!”

Apparently not.

I have reveled in the freedom that I have discovered in Beijing, a place I did not have or want to share with my family until their first venture out of the US to visit me; I was too hurt by what was behind me and too overwhelmed by what was in store. Yet, in my attempt to free myself from the aftermath of my parents’ divorce, I have created a distance between myself and my family beyond just physical separation—a college degree, language barriers, and inadvertent intellectual elitism, to say the least. But the distance hasn’t been all bad. In fact, in many ways, it has provided the critical space that I have needed to begin metabolizing the guilt that has been left to fester over time.

With a fonder heart, I am learning to patiently explain that Tokyo is neither where I live nor a city in China instead of rolling my eyes, and I strive to get as many hugs and selfies in with my youngest sisters, though I often wonder if they even know who I really am. Acquaintances and strangers alike have a habit of reminding me that I could always “just go back home,” reasoning that I would be closer to, and arguably closer with, my family (and definitely less frequently stared at). But one doesn’t just simply “go back” and expect years of mismanaged expectations and trauma to be fixed. Though well-intentioned, they are missing the point. I choose to stay because of the acceptance and affirmation from my friends. I stay because when I walk the streets and hear or see police I am not afraid for my life. I stay because when I look at a billboard I am not perplexed by the characters’ strokes but still in awe that I understand the language of the future. I stay because the look of ecstasy on my sister’s face after having her first bite of kaoya or my mom’s after her first sip of baijiu at dinner in Haidian with my host family is priceless.

As I empty my glass, my attention turns to the Cocaine 80s song in my ears.

“Or maybe you're just going through shit

And that's a part of your design

Just maybe all your dreams are lucid

Been in control the whole time…”

I used to dream that one day my family’s issues would work themselves out. But dreaming that I’m there for my brother isn’t enough to lift his spirits when he’s down. No amount of dreaming can change the fact that I can only remember celebrating one birthday with my sister who turns ten this year. The distance between me and my family is our reality, but that doesn’t mean I can’t build bridges. I can pick up the phone more—I’m always on it anyway—or offer to help offset the costs of visits. My experiences leading up to and in China have provided access to a life that was previously unimaginable, for me and my family. If I want to continue to do better for us, I have to acknowledge that things don’t work themselves out. I have to put in the work, despite how uncomfortable it may be.

“...Relationship nightmares

Your soul is drained

The demons that you've been dreaming up

Are angels under the pain”

Maybe, just maybe, I’m finally ready to do that.

EJ Mitchell has been working as an educational consultant in Beijing since 2014 and is a co-owner of Sanlitun cocktail bar 50/50.

[the-monkey-ruler]

A Chinese Odyssey: Million Years (2017) 大话西游之爱你一万年

Director: Zhu Ruibin 

Screenwriter: Liu Zhenwei / Tian Liangliang / Chen Chen 

Starring: Huang Zitao / Yin Zheng / Zhao Yi / Liu Tianzuo / Du Ruoxi / Wen Xin / Jiang Long / Ye Liu / Yang Juncheng / Wu Dawei / Huang Zheng / Gong Beibi / Mi Lu / Xue Jianing / Fang Anna / Shi Xiu / Hu Yunhao / Xia Yu / Wang Peiran / Yan Zidong

Genre: Comedy / Romance / Costume 

Country/Region of Production: Mainland China 

Language: Mandarin Chinese 

Date: 2017-09-28 (Mainland China) 

Episodes: 54 

Single episode length: 45 minutes

Also known as: Westward Journey TV Series / A Chinese Odyssey: Love You a Million Years 

IMDb: tt6011474

Type: Reimagining

Summary:

Five hundred years ago, Zixia (Zhao Yi ornaments) went down to find the the Sunset Warrior (Zhuang Zikai) who pulled out the Ziqing sword, but it broke the Ziqing sword. In order to restore the sword, Zixia uses the Moonlight Box to travel through time. Five hundred years later, Joker lost the memory of its previous life, and was reincarnated as leader of the Ax Gang, and the kind-hearted Bai Jingjing got along with each other both day and night. But Bai Jingjing was tricked by Black Spider Demon to pull out her sword and commit suicide. In order to save Bai Jingjing, Joker used the Moonlight Treasure Box to travel back five hundred years ago. When the two meet at Pansi Dongkou, Zixia realizes that the one in front of her her Sunset Warrior from five hundred years ago, but she finds that he has fallen in love with someone else. 

The Bull Demon King is greedy for her beauty and even threatens the life of the Joker to marry Zixia. In the chaos, Joker was transmitted to the modern  future by the Moonlight Box, and Joker through the journey saw his heart clearly. Joker fights the Bull Demon King to save Zixia. At a critical moment, Zixia blocked the fatal blow of the Bull Demon King for Joker. At this time, Qingxia, who was eager to save her sister, reached an agreement with the Six-Eared Macaque, and arranged a play according to the number of days, thus changing the fate of Zixia and Zhizunbao. The chaos in the world finally returns to everyone, and Zixia and Joker finally have a happy ending.

Source: http://chinesemov.com/tv/2017/A-Chinese-Odyssey.html

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIx8QniXH-rHw4BZ4G6w0kPboNYqQSr4l

[donqhox-blog]

Z.TAO

⠀⠀

Z.TAO is a singer and rapper under TH Entertainment and L.TAO Entertainment. He made his solo debut in 2015 with the album “T.A.O”.

Music video(s): T.A.O, The Road, Hello Hello (feat. Wiz Khalifa), Black White (AB), Beggar, 19, You.

Social media: YouTube, Instargam.

Birth name: Huang Zitao — 黄子韬.

Former stagename: Tao — 韬.

Birth date: May 2, 1993.

Birth place: Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.

Nationality: Chinese.

Blood type: AB.

Height: 183 cm — 6′0″.

Weight: Unknown.

Sibling(s): None.

Language(s): Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean.

Education: Qingdao Foreign Service Vocational School.

Ideal type: Someone who is pretty and has a nice body, as well as a nice personality.

Collaborations: Hello Hello (with Wiz Khalifa), Love Tonight (with Zhou Mi), Rewind Chinese Version (with Zhou Mi).

Soundtrack appearances: The First Lesson, I’m The Sovereign, 19, You.

Music video appearances: Jo Sungmo - Do You Know (Remake).

Movie appearances: “You Are My Sunshine” (2015), “Railroad Tigers” (2016), “The Game Changer” (2017), “Edge Of Innocence” (2017).

Drama appearances: “EXO Next Door” (2015), “A Chinese Odyssey: Love You A Million Years” (2017), “The Negotiator” (2018), “he Brightest Star In The Sky” (2018).

Awards: Migu Music Awards; Best Stage Performance, Mobile Video Festival; Most Influencial Male Singer, Tencent Video Star Awards; Most Influencial Male Singer, Weibo Nigth Awards; Most Popular Singer, The 5th V Chart Awards; All-Round Artist of the Year, 17th Top Chinese Music Awards; All-Round Artist of the Year, Asian Music Gala; Top 10 Songs.

Knows martial arts.

Former member of South Korean boygroup EXO, started training in 2010 and debuted in 2012. On August 24, he filed a lawsuit against SM Entertainment to terminate his contract. Z.TAO claimed the 10-year contract had unjust terms and said he lacks freedom due to the long contract period. However, the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal on March 15, 2018. The exclusive contract between SM Entertainment and Z.TAO is still valid.

Is the MC for Chinese show “Idol Producer”.

[fayewonglibrary]

Faye's Back (2011)

by: Boon Chan

For Faye Wong fans, her concert here tomorrow is an eagerly awaited affair, despite criticisms of earlier shows on her tour

As comebacks go, Beijing born singer Faye Wong’s return to the music scene is one of the most eagerly anticipated.

Turn back the clock to 2004 and the 42-year old was one of the biggest stars in Mandopop. She had released her 19th full length album, To Love, in November and then during the last concert of the subsequent tour in January 2005, she remarked: “If I ever retire from showbiz, I hope you all forget about me.”

Later that year, she married actor Li Yapeng and they had a baby girl Li Yan in 2006. Since then, she has kept a low profile, emerging occasionally to perform for charity.

And now, she is back - on stage, at least. Her comeback tour kicked off in Beijing in October last year and has taken her to Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Nanjing, Changsha and Wuhan. She performs at the Singapore Indoor Stadium tomorrow, seven years after her last gig here. Over 95% of the 6,500 tickets have been sold.

For the fans, it does not matter one bit that there is no new material or that Wong is famously reticent on stage.

Telecommunications regulation officer and self-professed Faye-natic See Chee Cheng, 29, says: “We don’t need a new album or new songs from Faye as she has too many to-die-for classics. Faye’s performances are electric and so alive. This is a priceless experience and will not be downplayed by the fact that there are no new songs.”

As for the lack of banter, packaging designer Qiu Wubing, 31, says: “I am not really bothered if I receive a little ‘Hello’ or not. Let the first word she sing be the hello and the last word be the goodbye.”

Financial analyst Carmen Leung, 31, is paying “way too much” to fly in from San Francisco just for the concert. She puts it this way: “Isn’t it better to have her spend the precious stage time on what she’s best at?”

Despite her lack of interaction and slick dance moves, Wong’s live performances certainly leave an impression on those who have watched her.

Ms. Lynette Chiam recalls that the first time she saw Wong was in Singapore when she was a teenager of 14 or 15: “The stage was moving and she wasn’t. She would sing and let the stage do the moving.” The second time, Ms. Chiam was 19. She recalls: “She sang even better than she did on the CD, that’s for sure.”

The 28-year-old merchandise manager at a bank declares admiringly: “She is her own genre. She’s like the Bjork of Asia.” Bjork is an Icelandic singer songwriter with a very distinctive personal style.

Wong’s imperfections only make her seem more human to her fans. Copywriter Mervyn Chan, 31, says: “I think her voice quality has deteriorated, not that she’s not a good singer anymore but it’s just an age thing. But her voice is still beautiful and I still enjoy listening to her.”

Even criticism of her going off pitch in early performances do not faze her acolytes.

Marketing manager Esther Leck, 31, searched for video clips to see what the fuss was about and says: “It’s not as bad as it was made out to be in the press, no one can be perfect always. Especially in this industry, it takes a lot of guts and willpower for someone like her to challenge herself on the big stage again.”

Mr. Jeffered Leow, who is in sales and marketing, says: “I think, there were some glitches in Beijing. Even Faye Wong is not perfect and she has not been giving public performances for so long. This is a live show so there are bound to be some problems.”

The 29-year-old adds that there is no need to clamour for new material. He says: “I was definitely very disappointed when she stopped making new albums but I have to respect her choice.

"We should be relieved she’s coming back to give a concert and not demand more.”

Some fans here could not wait till she performed in Singapore and jetted off to other stops on her tour. Mr. Qiu traveled to Hong Kong with friends to catch her concert on March 6. He spent under $1,000 in total including airfare, accommodations and the top-tier ticket of about $200. The most expensive tickets in Singapore cost $580.

He had some idea of what to expect as he had watched clips of her earlier gigs on YouTube.

The fan says: “The costumes were nicer than the previous concerts and there were also the 3-D laser effects and the lighting. The special effects were totally different. It was worth it.”

And yes, he will be attending the show tomorrow to show his support.

The visual for Wong’s comeback tour were created by Taiwanese music video director Muh Chen, with input from acclaimed Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar Wai, Japan’s Mitsumasa Hayashi, a renowned lighting designer, was also part of the creative team.

Other fans will be catching Wong’s comeback in Singapore for the first time.

It will, in fact, be project manger Vitali Zabayrachny’s first time seeing her in concert. The 29-year-old is flying in from Moscow and tying in a vacation in Singapore together with the gig.

He says he is a fan because she sang the English number Eyes on Me for his favorite game, Final Fantasy, and adds: “She is beautiful and talented, how can I not like her?”

For copywriter Mr. Chan, this will be the third time he is watching her perform live. He says that there are two facets to her appeal: “Her sound was unique for an Asian singer and her fashion sense was always very cool, a bit quirky and very different form other artists.”

He adds" “It’s quite an experience to hear her sing live. It’s for the vocals and to see her in person. She’s been very reclusive and doesn’t make a lot of appearances, so on the rare occasion that she does, I will want to take a look”.

10 CAREER HIGHLIGHTS

MYSTERY (1994) Faye Wong had previously sung in Mandarin, most notably on the track No Regrets off the 1993 album of the same name. Mystery is her first all-Mandarin disc and is best known for the ethereal ballad I’m Willing. However, it contained too many remakes of her Cantonese hits, including a new cover of Tori Amos’ Silent All These Years. Regardless, it was a huge hit and sales went past the 800,000 mark in Taiwan alone.

RANDOM THOUGHTS (1994) At this point, her Cantonese releases were more daring and playful both musically and in terms of packaging. Unusual for a release by a major pop star, there was no sign of her face anywhere on the CD. Instead, there were fragments of phrases such as “No new image” and “No photo booklet”. While the anglicised name Faye had already appeared on 1992’s Coming Home album, this was the first time she used her actual Mandarin name Wang Fei.

CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994) Critics say that Faye Wong can only act as herself. True, but given the right role and director, her natural charisma comes through on the big screen as well. Her turn as a quirky snack-bar worker in Wong Kar Wai’s stylish drama won her the Best Actress award at the Stockholm Film Festival. Wong’s Cantonese cover of The Cranberries’ Dreams is played over the end credits.

DECADENT SOUNDS OF FAYE WONG (1995) This is how a covers album should be done. Wong took the songs of her idol, Taiwanese songbird Teresa Teng, and made them her own. It helped that the two share the same clear and sweet vocal qualities but the appeal also lay in the unexpectedness of the arrangements. They even breathed new life into the dated folksiness of a track like Sentiments of A Native Village. On the poetic, Wishing We Could Last Forever, though, little more than Wong’s pure voice was needed.

RESTLESS  (1996) The title song clocked in at under three minutes and the lyrics consist of just 22 words, and it was probably one of the more conventional tracks here. Given the experimental nature of the disc, it did not sell as well as previous albums. It was critically acclaimed though and after its release, Wong became the first Chinese singer to feature on the cover of Time magazine. The headline: The Divas of Pop

SCENIC TOUR (1998) She has never looked as serenely beatific as she does on the album cover here. And the record also contains several classics including the tender Red Bean and the showstopping Face, which sees her exploring different ways of singing on one track. The track Tong was written by Wong for her daughter with her first husband, China musician Dou Wei. Gurgles of that daughter (Wong has two) Dou Jingtong, can be heard on it. The album sold more than 2.5 million copies in Asia.

EYES ON ME (1999) It was the first time a Japanese video game, Final Fantasy VIII, had a Chinese singer performing the theme song. The single sold over 400,000 copies in Japan and paved the way for her entry into that market. She later became the first Chinese singer to perform at the Nippon Budokan venue. She even starred in a Japanese TV series Usokoi (Love From A Lie) and recorded the Japanese theme song, Separate Ways, for it.

FABLE (2000) Her regular collaborators, Hong Kong’s Lin Xi and China’s Zhang Yadong, both play prominent roles here. And while the cycle of five songs written by Wong marked another step in her growth as a composer, it was Cantonese track Love Letters to Myself which set tongues wagging. The ballad was supposedly about Hong Kong singer-actor Nicholas Tse, whom she was dating, and the fact that he never sent her love letters.

CHINESE ODYSSEY 2002 (2002) Faye Wong had as silly side to her as well and this was perfectly captured in the loony Chinese New Year comedy by director Jeffrey Lau. She was once again paired with her Chungking Express co-star Tony Leung Chiu Wai and their easy chemistry showed on-screen. Wong won the Hong Kong Film Critics Society award for Best Actress for her role as a runaway cross-dressing princess.

TO LOVE (2003) Despite the widespread acclaim for her singing and music, it was not until 2004, on her fifth nomination, that Wong won the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best Female Vocalist. She quipped in typical straightforward fashion: “I’ve known that I can sing, therefore I will also confirm this panel’s decision.” Not counting the six low -cost cover albums she released in China as a high school student, this is her 19th and, to date, final full-length studio album.

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SOURCE: THE STRAITS TIMES

[languagerp]

Dead Language staff here – getting redundant probably, BUT, we CANNOT thank you guys enough for your continued interest and support! So far, the interest we have seen from everyone has been beyond our wildest expectations. Staff is REALLY feeling all the love you guys have shown us so far, and, we can’t wait to show you guys more and more! 

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, WE PRESENT OUR TIMELINE -

THE YEAR 2129

Artaios I, on an exodus mission to Mercury, is the first to discover Ptenium in its raw form. An incredibly dense metal, samples are returned to Earth for study in a laboratory setting.

Under the direction and ownership of OmniCorp Holdings, Ptenium is refined and FTL testing on spacecraft begins.

Koshin Industries, OmniCorp Holdings, EnTech Solutions, the triumvirate of the largest major corporations, draft legislation on the Anima Mea project, granting unalienable rights and and lifelong benefits to any citizen, regardless of national creed, employed by a Corporate Entity.

Riots in major cities are reported across all social media platforms due to a shortage of fuel. As a result, in an attempt to quell protestors, the New York Police Department, in a last ditch, martial effort resorts to a brownout, cutting the city off from the world for forty-eight hours. New York City goes dark.

California suffers its thirty-fifth consecutive year of severe drought.

THE YEAR 2133

OmniCorp Holdings successfully completes drone-manned piloting of starcraft with FTL Ptenium powered cores and immediately begins rigorous human-piloted craft testing.

To the chagrin of disenfranchised protests worldwide, Anima Mea is passed. People are no longer divided geographically. Governing of bodies of major countries act as figureheads. Earth becomes divided Corpopolitically, with workers owing fealty to their acting Corporate Employer.

Gas Masks become mandatory for all residents outside of their homes in Beijing. Air Purifiers are now marketed and sold exclusively by Koshin Industries. The price, as noted on a variety of Social Media Platforms, rose exponentially in the aftermath, making it unaffordable for the average worker. 

THE YEAR 2136

All rights, research and technology involving Ptenium and FTL drives is sold and dispersed among every major Corporation in exchange for OmniCorp Holdings to own majority shares in each one.

Preparations between the subsidiary American, Chinese, German and Japanese government and their Corporate primaries for the first Exodus ship begin in earnest.

Under American law, fuel usage is now restricted to a certain mileage per week, per household size. 

THE YEAR 2149

For the first time in human history, we leave the solar-system.

Odyssey I is established as the First International Colony System, the remnants of the first exodus ship, it is positioned between a system of planetary bodies, thought to contain large amounts of raw Ptenium. 

THE YEAR 2157

The colony grows in scope. A sovereign government of acting corporate officials is established. The space station, initially very small, grows quickly, slowly acquiring a simulated gravitational field and environment as it becomes the place between the outer-galaxy colonies.

The population on Odyssey I now drifts into the tens-of-thousands of workers arrive to mine and find their fortune in the many Ptenium mines.

Earth suffers a series of revolts, in answer to the masses of disenfranchised left behind but OmniCorp Holdings, now sole proprietor of most social media platforms, puts them down quickly.

THE YEARS 2200 - 2314

The First Compromise is passed without conjecture, making Irminsul, the former Odyssey I colony, a private corporate city-state.

Irminsul’s population reaches 300 million.

The First Question begins, as, Unsouled workers marshal in protest in the Kyo Prefecture. Over 15,000 people are present.

Rigorous trading laws are passed that affect the rising Unsouled Handler class in all prefectures. Their goods leaving and entering the city are taxed exponentially.

EnTech begins work on the Artifex Project in an effort to curb the costs of human labor. With the Artifex Project completed hundreds of thousands of Artifex, synthetic humans, enter the workforce, building shipping vessels capable of carrying Ptenium deposits to the outer edges of the colonized galaxy.

Unsouled workers, affiliated with the First Question protesters storm the EnTech factory in the tens of thousands. There are fifteen casualties, all Unsouled, that go undocumented by Irminsul press. 

THE YEARS 2329 - 2335

A synthetic airborne virus affecting all Artifex is released. Artifex, unknowingly, quickly develop a form of sentience. As the population of synthetic workers has stretched into the hundreds of thousands, this poses a problem for the Corporate Guard.

Thousands of Artifex are gunned down as they attempt to storm Kyo prefecture and the city center.

Rebellions, in solidarity, of First Question protests begin in earnest. They amass, for the first time, with true leadership, storming Herz prefecture in an attempt to take the capital.

The Unsouled leaders of the rebellion are rounded up, acting heads of many Handler guilds, they are put to death publicly and without mercy.

Stringent First Question tests are developed to root out any remaining sentient Artifex. Tens of thousands are decommissioned. 

THE YEAR 2339

In an effort to curb Handler sympathies, remaining Artifex are reissued with the biological makeup of popular Handler leaders. The faces of once powerful rebel leaders now build the trading ships that pilot the outer-colonies.

-- G., thought to be affiliated with, or the sole creator of the First Question Virus (FQV) is arrested in the Beine prefecture. A fully-fledged Souled citizen, he is thrown in Xiétóng Penitentiary to await trial.

Irminsul’s population reaches .9 billion.

THE YEAR 2345

Untold numbers of pirates raid the outer-galaxy colonies, resulting the casualties of both Souled and Unsouled colonists.

The Counsel of Gestirn, the sole Corpocratic body of Irminsul, drafts legislation to make any trade outside of the Corporate Body a Systematic Crime, thereby reducing the growing Handler Guild’s to a non-entity.

The daughter of Felix Zheng, acting head of OmniCorps Holdings and fifth generation leader of the Counsel of Gestirn’s only daughter is kidnapped, leaving the largest trade conglomerate without an heir.

The counsel immediately blames the Handler’s guild. The Handler’s guild argues innocence.

[fyzitao]

Hi, what are the release dates of Tao's drama, movies etc? There has been so many shows and movies going on I'm lost 😅 Thank you ~

Hi, no worries(he has got his hands full, hasn’t he?^^). Here are Tao’s movie/drama projects so far and its release/released date. 

Movie:

Railroad Tigers- Released on Dec 23, 2016

The Game Changer - Released on Feb 10, 2017

Edge of Innocence - TBA 

Drama:

A Chinese Odyssey: Love you a million years - TBA (expected late 2017)

The Negotiator (currently being filmed) -  TBA