Feeling kind of awkward

about having to begin school again in several days time. Not being one who loves the hustle and bustle of being busy (or at least the external fidgeting that is often mistaken for work) I have put myself up to being busy in terms of reading books and watching movies. Brought a whole load of DVDs and Videos back from Australia - stuff you can't get here, or stuff that was cheaper there - and have been watching like two videos a day and reading. Books? Yup I only managed to bring back one - with Borders and Kino and Amazon - there's practically nothing you can't get here that you can get in Australia (UK bookstores on the otherhand stock much more interesting stuff). So I only managed to return with a "banned-in-Singapore" book - Rushdie's The Satanic Verses which is quite a book I must read for it begins with my namesake - Gabriel - (my name in real life is an Americanism of it apparently - this fact being handed down by my mother, though I have never found corroborating evidence).

So I've been watching movies: watched "Chungking Express" - with the fabulous Faye, "Seven" with the brooding Brad, "The Seven samurai" which Miss Tan objected to for all the grunting and screeching that's supposed to pass for intensity of Japanese emotions and "CentreStage", which is really not bad.

"Chungking Express" was the Wong Kar Wai Movie I wanted to watch before watching anything else he did because of its urban sensibility, mundaneness and hip editing. I'm glad I did too cause now I've got some angle to approach his other work. The edition I got my hands on was also quite good cause it has Quintin(?) Tarantino talking about the movie and other Wong Kar Wai stuff. Will try to watch "Days of being Wild" and "Ashes of Time" next.

LOTR - watched it twice in two days and have been re-reading parts of the novel. Love the names - wouldn't mind naming my kid Arwen - so exotic and can be used for both Hes and Shes. Nice long opening vowel sound rounded by the "w" and the softer second vowel. Can sound Chinese enough also (Ah1 Wen3) if the need arises.

Books - Just finished a Delany book - Stars in my pocket like grains of sand (SPGS)- which was intellectually very demanding (perhaps the my brain is turning flabby). Delany is perhaps the most difficult sci-Fi writer around(along with Neal Stephenson?), being very insistent on consciously weaving Lit Crit theory into his novels. For eg, he had factions in SPGS named "the Sygn" and "the Family". It isn't obvious but the references to structuralism and Freud are in-built in those namings. Further, he really pushes the boundaries of what is culturally acceptable in his Sci Fi. In SPGS, he has humans living with evelmi (which are, to put it crudely a kind of scientient flying lizard), and having relations (yes, sexual as well). From tasting tongues to speaking with multiple tongues (at the same time) to all sorts of strange sexual couplings, Delany writes a dense and complex fable of DIFFERENCE. Even gender is broken down for in Delany's world, everyone is called a WOMAN/SHE and you become MALE or FEMALE only in a specific cultural situation. So some pretty mind boggling stuff.

Question is how far does one go reading this without becoming perverse, distorted or arbitrary? At least there is the distancing glass of Theory.

Haven't been productive in writing lately. Maybe it's being overwelmed by all that has gone before. Ironically, reading a good book is the worst way to be inspired to write. You realise that so many words have gone on before you have even conceived of thought, so much more precise and vivid than you could ever think of ... and the fact is many of those words will never see the light of day.

The solution: Read a bad book.