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Jia18 November Harry Potter(Has a little plot spoiler, stop if you are still to read the Harry Potter books.)
It's been a while I'd read some Harry Potter every night before I go to sleep. At first it wasn't that exciting, as those CAPITALIZATIONS and multiple exclamation points (!!!) appeared so often that you felt the writer was throwing words right at your face -- she didn't trust you to get it otherwise. But apparently J.K.Rowling also realized it and dropped it soon. And I was surprised to find how wonderful her books turned out to be -- well, I was not a big fan of the Harry Potter movies, I fell asleep during them. The Harry Potter novels, however, are so much better than their big screen renditions.
J.K.Rowling created a wonderful universe. In this universe people travel on broomsticks or through fireplaces. You can get into a secret kitchen run by house-elves (a joke about house-wives) by tickling a pear on an oil painting. People in portraits run to neighboring frames when they get scared. A knight bus skids to a halt right in front of you when you need rescue. Even a book can scream or bite you. In this universe we are called Muggles.
All Harry Potter books have wonderful stories and a big variety of interesting characters: I found so much fun in figures like Moaning Myrtle, a weepy girl ghost who lives in the U-pipe of the girls bathroom and still got hit in the head by flushed diaries (ouch!); Dobby the big-eared house-elf, who keeps banging his head on the wall everytime he ill-mouths his masters; Trelawney the Divination teacher, who totally looks like a hippie and only made two real predictions all her life; Hagrid the half giant, who thinks all monsters are cute and shed tears for a huge dead spider; the Weasley twins Fred and George, most popular trouble makers in school, whose departure from Hogwarts left a legend; Lupin the werewolf, whose worn cloak with patches over patches has so much style; Mad-eye Moody, whose magical eye constantly rolls to the back of his head to watch anybody anywhere in the room... There are so many of them and they are all vividly different. Compared to these supporting roles, I had a little compliant about the hero. Through the first 4 books, I couldn't really get a clear idea or describe exactly what kind of a person Harry is. Well, he is an orphan, he has some mysterious power against Voldemore, and he's brave. But that still sounds vague, doesn't it?
Starting from the fifth Harry Potter book, I began to get a clearer image of the title figure, but, alas, I don't like him that much anymore. After beating Voldemore so many times, Harry has become so full of himself. He'd feel mad at Dumbledore just because he made Ron, instead of himself, a prefect (who cares?). He'd yell at Dumbledore and raise hell in his office, supposedly because of his sadness towards Sirius' death. He wouldn't stay one day for Bill's wedding because he was too busy saving the world, yet he had no idea what to do after he left the Burrow. He's constantly impatient, implicitly because he thinks everybody is stupid, and nobody understands him, of course. After Dumbledore has died for him, he jumped to suspicion first instant when he heard some rumors about his headmaster. And when he couldn't immediately figure out what the Snitch Dumbledore left him means, he starts to doubt if Dumbledore really cared about him. Well, I'm sure Dumbledore did, but I don't anymore.
Harry was not like this from the beginning. Just as Dumbledore said, when he first came to Hogwarts, he was not well-nurtured, but healthy, not spoiled, but a pleasant normal boy. It seems this has changed over the years. I hate to admit, but Harry became so self-important in Hogwarts. He was spoiled by Dumbledore. I know this is just a flaw of youth. Nobody is perfect, especially when they're young. But still, there are different types of shortcomings. Ron's clumsy and Hermione's bookish are way more forgivable -- actaully they're lovely. But when Harry keeps yelling at people, I just want to tell him to shut up and go to hell.
I also wanted to add a note here about Hogwarts. The first time Harry got into the Great Hall, waiting to be sorted, he heard people talking about the 4 houses. It seems most "pure-blood" pupils want to go to Slithering; Most main & positive characters (Harry, Ron, Hermione) belong to Gryffindor; Someone mentioned it wouldn't be too bad if they are sorted to Ravenclaw, but it'd be shameful if they wind up in Hufflepuff. So you'd think Hufflepuff sucks. Later the sorting hat reveals the different values that the 4 houses represent: Slithering prefers ambition, Gryffindor treasures bravery, Ravenclaw cherishes intelligence, and Hufflepuff values fairplay. So, the first three houses pick their students, and Hufflepuff, whose founder believes all children with magical ability has a right to education, will take the rest. That's why Hufflepuff never scores well in all kinds of competitions against the other three houses, but for the same reason I think Hufflepuff is the coolest. And don't forget, Cedric Diggory, the handsome Champion picked among all Hogwarts candicates by the Goblet of Fire, played by the Twilight and New Moon star in the movie, is from Hufflepuff. (But he died rather quickly. What a shame.)
Another note about Voldemore. This bloke looks like a bit of a joke. No matter how intimidating he was described, truth is Harry beats him once a year. The Dark Lord almost has my sympathy for enduring such humiliation.
But all in all, J.K.Rowling is a genius and her books are great and I won't stop reading them until the last page -- I'm still working on the seventh, a.k.a. the last Harry Potter book, so please don't spoil any plot to me. Thank you!
29 October 不同人看SHOWGIRL的不同表现来美国后只去过两次脱衣舞俱乐部——老公一直认为这是件需要hush hush的事，可惜我这根弦至今没建立起来。
我发现不同的人看SHOWGIRL的表现相当不一样：
A熟悉各家CLUB，但他看的时候会打哈欠。 B看SHOWGIRL时一脸严肃，撇着嘴很不屑，但目不转睛。别人起身说“走吧”，他会说：“再看一会儿，15块钱呢！” C在底特律上学，每月开车过境到加拿大去看SHOWGIRL，因为据说那里的尺度更大——这后来成为了别人描述他是谁最有效的方法：寒假里几个A的同学来旅游，和大家一一见过，出了门，A回过头来补充说：刚那个帅哥，就是那个每个月开车去加拿大的同学。于是大家马上记住了C，并且从此每次看到这位帅哥嘴角都有一点忍不住的笑意。 D是学生会主席，以替没去过的中国同学扫盲为己任，对strip club的种种门道都很清楚，可是会穿着一身羽绒服待在离舞台最近的座位上待一晚上。他教导我们说：如果舞娘来问你要不要lap dance，你又不打算花这个钱，可又不想让人看出来，不丢人的回绝方法是：“not today.” F年龄比较长，没有我们这种大惊小怪。舞娘来问他要不要lap dance的话，他都来者不拒，然后就去让小妞们坐在他大腿上跳一支歌的艳舞，可他并不趁机吃豆腐，然后量力而行地给些小费，他总说，这些小姑娘做这行其实蛮可怜的。 G去strip club时总是穿一件名校T-shirt，不知是不是觉得这样可以吸引那些火辣的showgirl；也没有人知道他究竟是不是那所大学的。
F说得没错，舞娘们干这行真的不容易，尤其有时看到生得实在好的小姑娘，就会想说，为什么要来捞这行呢？为什么不去好好谈个恋爱呢？当然，我们其实没有资格judge别人，像DIABLO CODY，不就是喜欢这种生活方式吗？可也不是每个人下了钢管都可以去好莱坞当牛编的。
单从工作环境来说，舞娘的工作就相当令人气馁：舞娘的观众大部分是大腹便便的秃头男人，——ABCDEFG君是例外，但这些留学的年轻少艾大多几年也不去一次，去了也只青涩地坐在后排——围着舞台近前的都是些如此难看的老男人，厚颜无耻地向舞娘们伸出短、粗、红、胖的手指……相比之下舞男的处境就好得多。这真是个奇怪的现象：舞男的观众大部分是年轻女孩，她们会穿上漂亮的衣服，像高中时第一次约会一样发出紧张的笑声，时不时神经质的尖叫，还摆出跟米老鼠合影时的POSE来让同伴拍照。她们来这里庆祝生日，庆祝毕业，庆祝闺密旅行……
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两人下车。凯抬起头看着霓虹灯招牌：是家脱衣舞俱乐部。 凯：你干嘛带我到这种地方来？ SHARAD：凯，我们出国不就是来看世界的吗？要是你在国内的朋友问你，去了美国，看过脱衣舞吗？你什么都说不上来，那有多丢人？ 凯：也对噢。那为了他们，我就看一下吧。
10 October 记梦1梦到有一个女孩，妈妈不在身边（战地护士？），她在学校总是受欺负。
这一天她来到学校，人们却突然对她好了起来，还有人俯下身来为她系鞋带。
于是小女孩吓哭了。
因为她知道，一定是母亲死了。。。
做梦有时会相当有戏剧性，在梦里一边梦一边还想，醒来要记下来。只是醒来后绝大多数的情况下会发现梦里的戏剧荒谬不合逻辑。
这已经算是比较有逻辑的一个，所以记下来。
如果保持一个梦的日记，不知会好玩还是恐怖。
15 September A writer’s Routine
Get up late. Check emails, but don't reply them yet. Check news and a little bit gossip. Open an existing file or a new file on your computer. Stare at it and switch back to the gossip website. “I want a good breakfast.”
Start writing… So I do have wonderful ideas, don't I? Rock and roll! Or, I'm not cut out for this. My life is a joke. I'm a walking cliché. Keep writing…or keep beating yourself up. What should I have for lunch?
Observe people around you during lunchtime. Assign them all kinds of life tragedies. Make up your mind to write several jokes by the end of everyday. God bless comedians. Take a walk. Question the meaningfulness of your work. Question the point of writer as a profession. Wish you could be a farmer. Go to the bathroom. Clean yourself up. Moisten your hands with almond-flavored hand cream. Clean your end table. Drinks to the left, fruits to the right. Shut your curtain. Adjust your recliner. Put your feet up. You don't have any incense but that's okay. Now you feel like a King of Sudan in his private chamber, and you are ready to---- Watch a movie. Deeply moved. Find the meaningfulness of art again. Convince yourself your job is not totally pointless. Or Deeply repelled. Tell yourself at least you're doing better than that. Convince yourself that your job is not totally pointless. Looks like you're an optimistic after all. Make notes of the movie along the way and save them on Gmail.
Dig into your soul because that's the only way you're going to write...until you're not so sure if you actually have a soul. Get scared by what you write. Start hiding and twsiting, until nobody can tell you're the shadow behind. Drop it because you've become a phony.
Write some more, crap or not. But the fever is gone and you repeatedly switch to email-replying, blogs-surfing, while listening to talent show clips on Youtube through a headset. Write a bit more…and I want a Hazelnut Latte, plus a banana nut muffin, or a chocolate brownie, or a cheese Danish…No I shouldn't. I have quit Starbucks for months…How about a green tea latte? Feel sad realizing you're not working hard enough. Want to improve, but stopped working.
Talk to your husband on your way home, tell him you think you should work in a kitchen, because foods have been floating in your mind, come and go like a ghost. Your wildest imagination is always related to food, and you tend to describe everything as some kind of food, the vivid, sensual food...But then he tells you that's because you're on diet and you're starving yourself, like the vampire in Harry Potter who only eats lettuce now, it's only natural that you feel a bit nostalgic once in a while.
Eat lettuce for dinner. Play video games and comment on their characters and story arcs. Read in bed. Read in the bathroom. Go to the gym because you don't want a square butt like other writers. Exchange with your husband what witty and mean things you've heard or read people say and the two of you go, “what a genius!”
Have problems falling asleep.
Remember you haven't written the "several jokes" when you sneak to grab cookies from the refrigerator in midnight because you're too hungry. You haven't become the great comedy writer as you wanted because you didn't try your best!
Then you try harder…to fall asleep.
Have the impulse to tell the world you love Kurosawa every other week. Fellini every other month. Then realize they're both directors.
God bless writers, you pathetic little creatures.
08 September 记号2009减1975，我34岁了。哦。
和20年前相比，有什么变化呢？
那时的我，严肃，沉重，极端，并且，相当不喜欢自己。
现在的我，比较喜欢自己了。除了态度的改变，我想是这些年来，我的性格有发展，变得比较放松，乐观，宽容，因而更讨自己喜欢了吧:P
但不可否认的是，站在20年前看现在这个我，她一定会相当的失望。
MARK一下，给以后的自己做个参考。 21 August 人间戏剧这个世上有人很酷，有人不酷。酷哥们往往是软骨头，可是美女爱他们。你我是不酷的人，我们比那些酷哥们聪明，可是我们爱的女人不爱我们，她们爱酷哥。因此世间所有的戏剧，都是关于我们的，因为我们永远得不到满足。
——再次在一部好莱坞电影里印证了我的想法。
04 August LA印象好久没写博了，也好久没想起LA这个地方。昨天不知是在哪里，突然听到一段音乐，让我想起LA。
我对LA这个城市其实非常陌生，只去过一次，走马观花地玩了3天，其间还跑到SAN DIEGO去了一趟。无论是sunset Boulevard还是 Hollywood Boulevard，都是如此破旧，路旁的棕榈树，一个个都细脖子晃荡。小店露出一截砖墙，上面画着一个红脸女人张着大嘴的肖像。
这就是LA了，我在心里充满恋慕地想。
是的，我心里的LA就是这个样子，即便有好莱坞的风光，依然带着甩不脱的衰败。而这种衰败，又仿佛一种浪漫的怀旧，sunset Boulevard会把每一个人都变成那悲伤的昔日巨星。
可同时它又是如此年轻。好像每天都有人从公车上下来，到这个梦工厂寻找机会。FEDEX都是型男帅哥，餐馆里的女侍也人手一份带照片的简历，其中包括一张正面裸照。电线杆上没有老军医，到处都是audition的消息，可惜大多是学生制作，管饭没酬劳。没出头的作家们在替出头了的作家打字，一边敲一边竖起一只耳朵，偷听制片人们这周末在哪儿聚会。电影学院的毕业生以及毕不了业的学生们，在合租的公寓外踏上刚买到的二手摩托，去为某个明星买奶酪。你看那房子不起眼吗？艾略特·史密斯自杀以前就住在那里呀。
每天也都有很多人梦想破灭，离开LA。没走的，可能沉溺在大麻的香气里，也可能在rehab，还可能正在某个小公寓里咧着嘴切割自己的手腕。Hotel California说的就是一帮去加州寻找梦想的年轻人开着车步步靠近这个地方时对它的印象。醉生梦死也好，这是个让人上瘾的所在。
LA有一点脆弱和神经质。就像欲望号街车里费雯丽的样子。在她的某一版前传里，布兰奇每天深夜从家人为她安置的住所悄悄出来，开车去一个叫“天使之冠”的motel，从临近的码头上望着整个LA的灯火。LA的夜里有灯火吗？
然后天亮之前她又悄悄回去，别人从不知道她夜里曾经离开。
08 July 偶尔冒出的句子亚平说“早已不会写诗，只有偶尔冒出的句子。” 觉得很贴切，当灵感不成规模，抽冷子打中你一下，你就神经性的抽搐一下。
上一次冒出一个句子，是在向老公描述两首小时候听的歌：《在雨中》和“我怎么能够，就把你忘怀。。。”（这首从来不知道叫啥）。我告诉老公，小时候我认为这两首歌很不健康，属于“糜烂的大人们偶尔忧伤时唱的歌。”
又想起当年上“现代汉语”，老师让大家造一个偏正词组。那晚小呼不紧不慢的站起来，说：“神经质的人。”
让老师赞叹不已。
17 February Compromises民主制度很烂，但仍是现有人类社会最好的制度。
民主制度是现有人类社会最好的制度，但是民主制度很烂。
所谓“科学”如此不可靠，却是法庭上唯一可以依靠的东西。
所谓“科学”是法庭上唯一可以依靠的东西，可是它是如此不可靠。
09 December Leaving Las VegasSomeone drove in the desert and saw two road signs: one points east that says "heaven;" the other points west and says, "Las Vegas."
Oh well.
I'll get a Rebels T-shirt and get out of the Sin City. I'm not heading for heaven though.
I'm already missing Vegas. It's got glamour.
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