gambitch - now available in blue

Saturday, February 04, 2006

I was just browsing Bruno Bozzetto's site, and look what I found!

So I'm a little behind, but I hadn't been checking Mr. Bozzetto's site that often. Not bad, actually. I find his work interesting, mostly because he manages to communicate so much without using that many words. His Italian completely doesn't get in the way.

Enjoy!

gambitch [ 6:13 PM]

Friday, February 03, 2006

Damn, I feel ill.

Bad timing, do you think? I still have work to do, and this is what happens.

Great, just great, I say.

gambitch [ 6:19 PM]

Thursday, February 02, 2006

A couple of days ago, I had this absolutely strange dream. It's so strange I don't know what to make of it. It's also rather embarrassing, because it involves some form of sex. More so because I'm totally nonchalantly single, and sex is so not my thing.

All this is partly by way of saying you probably want to skip this post if you are offended by mentions of sex.

Now, if you've stayed on, let me start by digressing. You see, it's one of those little-known things that I'm not terribly interested in Chinese pop music, or more correctly Taiwanese pop music - because music from China nearly never makes its way out of the country into the international market. But popular culture being popular culture, you actually have to be a hermit today not to come into any amount of contact with it. That, I am not.

So I do come into contact with Taiwanese pop music. And one of the big groups in the past few years is this all-female outfit called S.H.E.. I'm not a huge fan of them, unlike my younger brother, but maybe I qualify as a closet fan, if not a fervent one. They're actually pleasant to the eye and ear, and they have some personality. Plus, of course, they're appropriately young.

Now, the sinful thing about too many bands and groups is that they lack distinctive individual personality. Great as a group, but break them up and they can't sell. Thankfully S.H.E. does not fall into this trap. Each of the three girls has her own distinctive image, yet as a group they gel well.

Me? I like Ella the best among the three. Selina looks every bit the darling princessy pretty face with her soft, almost saccharine voice, which makes her a great dream girlfriend for teenagers perhaps. Hebe's got her own personality and quirkiness and may come out pretty in a "natural makeup" way. But it's Ella who is most striking for me.

Why? She's no babe in the common pop-culture definition of the word. But her almost tomboyish short hair works great in terms of creating just that little ambiguity about her gender role. Sure, there have been malicious rumours originated in China claiming either she was a hermaphrodite or she had gone through a sex change operation, but I'm buying into neither. It might be indicative of how she tends to get the more 'male-ish' roles among the trio. But if she is not a babe, she is every bit a girl - as she once painstakingly stressed on a Jacky Wu show by indicating her underrated figure.

And personality-wise, she's great fun to be with. Her chubby-looking face has been turned many a time into a great comedy asset in terms of imitating certain other, uglier guys. That she does it without a hint of shame is indicative of her great comfort with herself. Throw in the ability to fake a heavy Shandong accent - she's notably done this with Taiwanese TV hosting maestro Chang Fei - and there should be no doubt that she's no talentless vase.

I like girls like that. If she wasn't a pop star she'd make a great girlfriend, because there'll be the times when I can totally treat her as if she's "one of the guys" and I suspect she won't complain. At the same time she won't totally turn into "one of the guys" for me - I am conscious of these things at times after all.

Which brings me back to my odd dream, where I have this girlfriend, or maybe female friend, or whatever. I can't properly define the relationship, because this dream had too little context. Suffice to say I'm on reasonably close terms with the girl, who bears too strong a resemblance to Ella for me to ignore. Might have been a different 'her'.

What little I do know in the dream is that the girl's ill with a bad fever, maybe flu. How did I know this? Selective omniscience. So there I was, in the same room or wherever it was as the girl, and maybe I was just tired from taking care of her or something. Anyway, everything was a general blur.

Now here comes the bad bit. I was seated on the floor, against a wall, maybe catching a bit of a nap or whatever (pardon the haziness of my recall of this dream; it's too strange for me to pay attention to all the details). Suddenly, for absolutely no reason, the girl stumbles over on all fours and crawls into my arms. And before I knew it, she was hurriedly and unsteadily undoing my pants and, to put it nicely, "going oral".

Was the experience pleasant? That was so not at the top of my mind at that point. I was taken aback more than anything else, yet for reasons even I don't know, I just sat there and did nothing beyond asking her in a state of half-panic, "Why are you doing this?" I didn't do the knee-jerk "right thing" and get her away, nor did I actively participate. I was in more of a state of shock than anything else. As is perhaps appropriate, I felt just about nothing.

Now for all those fanatic idol supporters and moralists who take offence at my account of this dream, I apologize. This post was never meant to be sexually arousing - and as I stated, I was so totally not aroused during the dream itself. The good news is this is roughly where the dream ended. But I was awakened afterwards with a few disturbing thoughts.

First off, where was the context? How did I get to know this girl who looks so much like Ella in the first place? What exactly was our relationship? How close were we? And why did this thing happen? Is there something of a proper explanation for it?

Besides, where's the resolution? And I'm not thinking in terms of more sex scenes; that would probably have been off the agenda for me. I honestly suspect having sex while carrying a fever is not a great idea. But more importantly, did the fever go away later? And what happened further into the future?

Too many questions, too many questions. And not a single one that can be answered.

And behind all this, there's that one bigger, dull but niggling question.

Would I ever meet my Ella?

(No, I'm still nothing more than a mild closet fan of S.H.E., but thanks for asking.)

gambitch [ 12:08 AM]