One speculative theory about the cosmos is that the universe is floating in a flat "brane", as in membrane, like a slice of bread, that exists possibly in a higher spatial dimension that is so large we can't even conceive of it (as if we can conceive of even the size of our own universe), much less point to it.

However, ours isn't the only universe, and it's floating in what is not the only brane. There are others; slices in a loaf of bread. Where they came up with this, I don't know. A bakery wouldn't surprise me. It sure isn't the model I would pick for the universe.

The part that intrigues me, though, is the part of the theory that suggests that every once in a while, every several trillion, trillion years or so, branes interact. They smack up against one another.

Current observations suggest that our universe is not only expanding, but the expansion is accelerating. If the expansion and acceleration continue, in the far distant future, the universe will stretch itself out of any meaningful existence. Quantum atomic components will come apart.

But it's the smacking of the branes that might shock a universe into another big bang, another cycle of cosmic existence, timescales of a Hindu nature.

Smacking each other, bumping each other, touching each other, like bumping arms with a stranger who you had just caught eyes with moments before, on a sidewalk curb waiting for the light to change. And then it seems the clashing of branes creating a universe is the most intimate thing imaginable.


Opening roll with my new Rainbow V 22mm ultra-wide angle toy camera.

It's a knock-off of the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim and the main attraction is the 22mm plastic lens. No controls, just a shutter button; a true, literal point-and-shoot.

Nanjing E. Rd., Sec. 5, Lane 251, a.k.a. my lane. Ilford XP2 Super

Ongoing MRT construction on Nanjing E. Rd.

Dongxing Road

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 3:38 p.m. - Miramar Mall, Dazhi, Neihu District.

The Good The Bad The Weird (2008, Korea)

The first I heard about this film was that it won a best cinematography award in some Asian film festival, and that the cinematographer was a newcomer who admitted he didn't know what he was doing, which gave him freedom to do anything. I thought that was an awesome approach, or at least a great way to describe it.

The film should have also won best sound design.

As for the film itself, you're taking a big risk when you make a film with a title that references one of the greatest films of all time (I think "The Good, The Bad & the Ugly" is my number 2). You're walking a fine line between making a successful homage, and stepping into a big pile of shit. I think this film hits the former on the mark. It's not derivative at all, it's its own film, with the homage in the 3 archtypes (although it also directly rips off the hat duel from "A Few Dollars More" (part of the "The Good, The Bad & the Ugly" 'trilogy'), but in a way that it's clearly homage. There's no question of where the scene came from).

This Korean film, set in Manchuria in the late 30's (or 1941 if you do that math), is a slick, stylized, madcap romp of an action film. It's fun, exciting, and like I said has a killer soundtrack and amazing sound design, which for me stood out more than the excellent cinematography. It's not a flawless film, but you don't watch a film like this for perfect plot points.

It's outrageous and cool, and a lot of fun. All three main characters are likeable or have a "cool" aspect to their persona. There is an unexpected twist late in the film which was a nice touch, differentiating it from the homage, where the archtypes have been clearly laid out. And it must have been nice for the Koreans to treat the Japanese army the way that they did in the film. A small expression of "getting back at them".

9 out of 10 tomatoes for the cool, fun factor.



My So-Called Love (2008, Taiwan)

I guess I should have known better. I don't like romances, the previous romance I saw was horrible until I found out there was a twist, and that, in the end, didn't help redeem it much, it just made it watchable.

I had higher hopes for this film after reading someone else's (who I don't know at all) blog review. It sounded like it was more sophisticated and concept-driven. But to me it was a glorified pretentious chick-flick, attempting to land an "indie" feel.

The first huge fault I have with this film is the style. Many scenes are choppy and cut up like an MTV video. Very few visuals are allowed to develop, it's cut, cut, cut. Maybe the director felt this style was saying something about love, but to me it said something about the film – nothing develops.

The characters aren't developed, the situations aren't developed, the narrative doesn't develop, no ideas develop. We're just supposed to believe that this woman's experience with three men is supposed to shed some light on the nature of love. It doesn't.

This is where my review falls apart, because there were just so many faults about this film, I don't know where to begin – it totally falls flat from my point of view. I struggle to find anything redeeming aside from the eye-candy of lead actress Barbie Hsu, who I recently saw in a horror movie on TV called "Silk", and I think she's a very capable actress.

If I had to choose a second big flaw, I guess I'd choose implausibility. Do real people talk like this? Do real people act like this? Do situations like this really happen? These aren't rhetorical questions – no, they don't! (or do they?)

The funny thing is the trailer says it's based on real events, but they must be real events of the writer's love life, which I'm led to believe was unexceptional. If you make a love-themed film based on real life, it better have an exceptional story.

Do you want to watch a film about my love life? Believe me, you don't. And I don't want to watch a film about your love life, unless there was some exceptional, universal theme you experienced that everyone else can relate to or wish for. I don't want to watch all the cutesy annoying anecdotes that you thought were the world while they were happening.

There's no flow to how the story unfolds. Wait, no story, no plot, just a timeline. Apparently 10 years, but it was a total surprise to me when I found 10 years had passed. Seemed like a several months to me.

Dialogue is random, scenes are random. Watching this film, admittedly already biased against it, I kept wondering "where did that come from?" Along with all the quick cuts, I wondered if the director wasn't trying to be impressionistic like a Seurat painting. Each little bit of information on the screen is distinct, but the mind puts it all together into a seamless narrative. Or not.

Actually, there is one scene where a character reacts to a situation in much the same way I wanted to react to the movie. She finds herself in one (random) situation that she finds so incredible and ridiculous, and no doubt she's hurt by it, that she takes off laughing hysterically, and laughing, and laughing.

Rotten. 3 out of 10 tomatoes, and the 3 is for a decent soundtrack that appealed to my fringe tastes, and the eye-candy of Barbie Hsu. Ironically, the film may have fared better if they didn't cast such a beauty in the role. It would have been more credible. Well, not credible, but at least less distracting. Maybe more depth.

I usually watch DVD rentals twice, sometimes I get something more out of a second viewing. I couldn't watch this a second time. I ran it, but it just annoyed the hell out of me, and didn't pay much attention to it. Whenever I paid attention, it just reminded me how annoying it was. I recommend this film for anyone who wants to know what I consider a bad film, although from the blog review I read, it might also appeal to chicks who like anything vaguely "romantic".

I guess things have been quiet now that New Years and the Lantern Festival are over, and now that the band is done (despite one off gigs now and then like this Friday), and work has settled into just being weekends again.

Real quiet. In my life, in my head. Much less interesting than January was.

Once the singer leaves, that'll definitely be it for the band for me. The newspaper had a retirement ceremony for my boss a couple weeks ago. He says he'll still be coming in until sometime in March, until the new guy takes over as editor-in-chief. I don't expect I'll stay there much longer after my boss retires for good.

I foresee quitting for good by the end of March, and around that time I expect to get my citizenship and being allowed to travel overseas again. If my parents offer their miles for me to go to the U.S., I'll visit for an extended period. Four weeks maybe, like last time. I have some things I would like to wrap up there.

So live until then. Float along until then. And who knows, maybe a trip abroad will give me the motivation and momentum to move out of Taipei and continue my (wretched) life. I don't know, I can't say anymore. Everyday I wake up in an existential quagmire. Why am I still here? Why not today? And then I sit.

Everyday needs an answer to 'why not today?', and the answers aren't very good. That doesn't indicate anything in the big picture, it just says how pathetic I am, because everyday it's "why not today?" Because I have one last trip to the U.S. to straighten out some last affairs, and after that I might have the momentum to move to Kaohsiung, and no, no, no, no, no, no, no (oh mama mia, mama mia).

That's right. Why not today?, but the answer isn't because of something in the future. 'Why not today?' has to be about today. If it's not today, it's just because it's not today. And the hope is on the one day it might.

Lately I've been feeling I've been making headway on my instinctive negativity; karmic negativity, if I may. It's still there, but I've been more successful in habituating it to automatically implode.

The goal is to condition myself out of instinctive negativity. I may not succeed right away. There may be an intervening stage – lifetimes where the negativity is still there, but there's a stronger doubting of the negativity, and less of a concrete reality of it. But I do get the sense that my efforts are having an effect. I just hope it's deep enough.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 5:31 p.m. - Xinyi District. Ricoh Caplio R4.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 4:00-4:16 p.m. - Ride up to Danshui. Canon IXUS 860 IS

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13 - Keelung Road. Pentax ZX-5n, Kodak BW400CN.

Lantern festival, Xinyi District.

Keelung Rd. at Yongji Rd.

6:44 p.m. - I guess I'll take the stairs.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1:29 p.m. - Back at'cha.

Tizzy Bac performing outside Eslite Bookstore, Xinyi District. I first heard them on the soundtrack for the local film "Candy Rain" and was intrigued enough to check them out live. They blew me away and I went and bought their CDs

 

3:14 p.m.

3:52 p.m.

1895 Formosa (2008, Taiwan)

This is a commendable film about a 5 or 6 month period in 1895 in Taiwan's history, between China's cession of Taiwan to Japan, through the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Sino-Japanese War, and Japan's colonial control of the island.

The film focuses on the insurgency waged by local Taiwanese militias, after the ruling mainland Qing Dynasty officials and military fled after the landing of Japanese forces and initial skirmishes which made it apparent that resisting the Japanese would be fruitless.

By "local Taiwanese militias", that's a point that I'm not qualified to clarify because they were comprised of various ethnic groups that I'm not clear on, and I don't know anything about the language variations or ethnic history, so I don't even know what language(s) they're speaking. I will say that it is great that the film was shot using local dialects. The insurgency was waged by both indigenous Taiwanese (of Polynesian descent) and Taiwanese of historical mainland descent, one group of which is Hakka (apparently both of my grandparents were full-blooded Hakka. I don't know what that means, but it isn't impossible that my ancestors were involved).

The film was OK, I would recommend it just because of the little known history it covers, but it does suffer from several problems.

First of all, the portrayal of the Japanese is incomprehensible and I can only cynically believe that it was because the director didn't want to offend Japanese movie audiences. The Japanese are portrayed as beneficent governors with a poetic sheen; the military is professional and disciplined – even to their disadvantage on the battlefield.

The problem is it totally removes the motivation of the insurgency. Why are the Taiwanese fighting if the Japanese Imperial administration looks to be so enlightened? You have the Taiwanese saying, "Klingon Japanese bastards! You killed my son!" in one scene and then have the Japanese waxing poetic about the island's beauty in another.

I would believe it if the Japanese military in 1895 wasn't as rapacious as it would become as a war machine in World War II. In 1895, it was just proving itself as a match to Western powers, but it was holding itself to Western standards of military engagement. However, I also believe in its drive to prove itself to the West, it was highly efficient and brutal when deemed necessary. This movie kid-gloves this likely aspect.

Second of all, the scope of the movie is focused on one militia group and the family dramas involved, but the leaders of this militia group are considered national heroes of the movement. It would have been better if the film mentioned that it was, indeed, a widespread movement. Scenes of scores of Japanese soldiers being killed and only individual militia members dying betrays the 12,000-14,000 Formosans who died for their country.

Just a comment or two on the trailer for the movie in the link above, the caption that says "A struggle of live and death" must have been written by one of the subtitlers of the movie.

Seriously, sections of the English subtitles in the movie are done by a non-native English speaker and apparently weren't proofread. Sometimes they are so uncomprehensible, I could only just try to get the impression of what was trying to be conveyed by whatever words appeared. To me, that reflects poorly on the film and the director, and obviously the intention to not offend Japanese audiences wasn't extended to English speakers.

Finally, the caption "A holocaust that changed everything", I don't know, if I had any real affinity towards being Taiwanese or national pride, perhaps, I would feel a need to apologize to Jews for the tasteless misuse of the word. The Formosan insurgency and the Japanese response to take control of the island that they felt was rightfully theirs amounted to no holocaust.

However, if the caption in the trailer refers to the scene immediately afterwards of pigs being butchered, OK, maybe there was a holocaust. I feel that way everytime I walk through a morning market in Taiwan with butchered pigs and chickens galore.

Nominal fresh rating of 6 out of 10 tomatoes, taking into account the insult of the English subtitles. Even otherwise I wouldn't give it more than 7 stars, though. Watchable, but not a must-see. Recommended for anyone interested in Taiwan/Chinese history.



Secret (不能說的秘密) (2007, Taiwan)

This movie is the directorial debut of Taiwanese super popstar Jay Chou. I'm no fan of Jay Chou from what I've seen on MTV and YouTube (although he had one entertaining video of milk-drinking cowboys), so his name was no inspiration for me to watch this film. He also stars in the leading male role of this music film, which made me think this might be some self-indulgent ego-wank.

I watched this film knowing nothing about it aside from Jay Chou and that is was a romance, not my favorite of movie genres. And for most of the movie it seemed like a straight-forward romance, but incredibly unlikely and unconvincing and I was ready to turn it off more than once.

But then there's a twist! Where the "secret" comes in. Suddenly the movie had potential. It looked like it might become interesting and that all of the unlikeliness might have some reason and meaning behind it.

It was a major twist for me, knowing nothing about the film – although I think a general viewer that would have been interested in this film and would have learned a little about it would have known it. But I'm not going to give anything away.

Suffice it to say that the intriguing aspect which demanded a second viewing to see how everything fits together didn't pan out. The pieces don't fit together or are forced together in ridiculous circumstances and premises.

Still, it was watchable and Jay Chou's direction and acting are commendable, albeit they won't have me liking him as a popstar. It was OK enough for me to buy the DVD used from Blockbusters for my local Taiwan film collection that I'm trying to amass to bring back to the U.S.

If I bring nothing back with me to the U.S. to give my brothers' children about their heritage, at least I'll have some films to give them some taste. Nominal fresh rating of 6 out of 10 tomatoes.

Not that I'm affiliated with any Buddhist institution, neither DDM nor the monastic system I stayed at and was considering entering. I don't even like the classification. I'm not into the institutional thing in this lifetime for some reason or another.

I consider myself a wanderer, an outcast, walking my own path to explore the variations of the path that many have trod before me, redefining my previous vows as my commitment to them. There are lifetimes to do the institutional thing and there are lifetimes to do the wild thing.

The monastery I was considering was the closest thing to home I've found, and still I left. Sometimes I think of going back, but then I realize there's no need to re-try it. I tried it and rejected it as an option in this lifetime. Re-trying it as an excuse to not commit suicide is lame now.

And even though I'm not into the institutional thing, that was where I received my "formal initiation" in this lifetime, maybe just touching base with the idea in this lifetime, and so that's where I place my nominal affiliation.

When I came to Taiwan, I found the practice at DDM was similar in practice and philosophy, and it turns out that Master Sheng-yen was friends with Thich Nhat Hanh. But my contact with DDM was just as a visitor, and as they all "belonged" to DDM, they accepted that I was under TNH's umbrella. But that's just a point of reference since I never accepted any one individual as my teacher.

So I practiced with the DDM international group for a while, and then when it stopped doing it for me, I stopped going. I think when I first started going, it was largely because the monk leading the group was American.

Even though he ended up at a Chinese monastery with an insistence, as noted in the obituary, on orthodox Chinese Buddhism, we shared a cultural background, one which was devoid of any Buddhist preconceptions, and that we found and had to explore it on our own because of the lack of resources in the U.S. to feed us any set doctrine.

Our educations were both liberal, white American. The foundation of our Buddhist construction was probably more similiar to each other than with any of the Chinese practitioners, at least the ones I met.

On the most fundamental level of discourse, he and I knew that there was no "right" doctrine, and we knew how to listen to and respect other varying discourses. The Chinese, on the other hand, are much more into expounding their knowledge and teaching other people who don't have their insight, or at least that's my perception of their attitude. They are much more black and white about wrong and right.

I left the practice group when he left to head a DDM center in the U.S. northeast, and his replacement was a Chinese nun, and sure she was an accomplished monastic and I respected her, but I still thought she had that sort of patronizing Chinese superior air in the cultural aspect of her approach. That's totally personal, not criticism. My reservations I keep to myself and I point anyone interested in the direction of DDM's international group.

Actually I felt reaffirmed about leaving the DDM group when the obituary mentions the "Four Insistences" – capitalized. There is little that can be insisted upon across the board in this life, so to even have them revulses me.

But then they're not even very enlightened things to insist upon. The environmentalism and education ones are not bad, but they are qualified into "Four Kinds of Environmentalism" and "Three Types of Education". All this putting things into boxes, all these restrictions and confining seems to be the hallmark of institutional religion that I find repugnant.

The other two things they are "insisting" on – DDM ideas and Chinese Orthodox Buddhism (whatever that is) – just drives me away. Too cultish.

The irony is the monk who used to lead the international group was sent to the U.S. to promote the internationalization of DDM. They're internationalizing but they're insisting on Chinese Buddhism. No, if you insist on Chinese Buddhism, you're going to get Chinese followers and foreigners who fetishize Chinese culture, the way Japanese Zen is so fetishized in the West.

I think Plum Village is much more international – focusing on Buddhism, not Chinese Buddhism or Vietnamese Buddhism. Vietnamese Buddhism came from Chinese Buddhism, and TNH studied Chinese to get to that source material, but he's not stuck on cultural trappings.

No one stopped my pursuit of Tibetan teachings while I was there, and I never saw anyone looking down on other elements that people brought from whatever background they came from – including non-Buddhist ones.

Well, there was one instance where I saw a monk decline a painting someone had found in storage and asked if he wanted it. He declined by saying it was "too Pure Land (Buddhism)" for him, but I think that was kind of a joke and also just a matter of good taste on his part. I thought it was funny.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2:59 p.m. - Bikeway at the tip of the beak of the duckhead, where the Keelung River drains into the Danshui. Ricoh Caplio R4.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 6:50 p.m. - Retirement ceremony for my boss. Great guy and a journalist of integrity.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 7 - Da'an Park footbridge. Re-visiting my old haunts in the Shida area. Pentax ZX-5n, Kodak BW400CN.

FEBRUARY 8 - Bade Road, near Jianguo Rd.

The universe may one day perish, yet my vows are eternal. 

The Most Venerable Master Sheng Yen let go of his physical body and left behind great compassion and great vows in this world. 

What I am unable to accomplish in this lifetime, I vow to push forward through countless future lives. What I am unable to accomplish personally, I pray for everyone to join forces to promote. 

Busy with nothing, growing old. Within emptiness, weeping, laughing. Intrinsically, there is no "I." Life and death, thus cast aside. 

~ Venerable Master Sheng Yen 

The Most Venerable Master Sheng Yen, founder of Dharma Drum Mountain, passed away at 4:04 p.m. of the afternoon of 3 February, 2009, at the age of 80.

The Master has dedicated his whole life in promoting the idea of "uplifting the character of humanity and building a pure land on earth" through the manifestations of his own physical body and actions. The Sangha community and followers of Dharma Drum Mountain around the world will uphold and fulfill the Master's wishes so that great compassion and great vows will continue in this world. 

The Most Venerable Master, who humbly called himself "a monk amidst the rain and snow", was voted as one of Taiwan's fifty most influential people in the last four hundred years. A review of the Master's life depicted a life of drifting from place to place, facing endless trials and dramatic turnarounds. As a child the Master was always sick and frail. After receiving monastic ordination in Wolf Hill, Jiangsu Province, China, and throughout the period of performing chanting rites for the deceased, serving in the military, studying in Japan for his PhD degree, propagating the Dharma in the United States of America, the founding and establishment of Dharma Drum Mountain, the Master always found a way out of all difficulties. In times of hardship we can witness his compassion, through his unswerving determination we can witness his wisdom through Chan (Zen) practice. To the Master, life is a journey of practicing the Dharma. 

In 2004, the Master, well aware of his poor health, made a will and instructed that after he passed away, instead of a traditional funeral ceremony, a Buddhist memorial rite should be held. It should be simple, solemn and economical, all flowers and wreaths are to be declined, just the chanting of "NAN MO A MI TUO FO" (Homage to Amitabha Buddha) so that we will all be joined in the Pure Land. Since he fell sick, the Master's attitude to life and death is not to wait for death, fear death or seek death. Instead he followed his vow "The universe may one day perish, yet my vows are eternal" and continued to lead everyone forward on the path of building a pure land on earth. 

In September 2006, the Master handed over the position of Abbot President to his disciple Venerable Guo Dong, symbolizing the transmission of the Dharma Drum Mountain lineage from generation to generation. In regard to the issue of selecting the Abbot President, the Master had clearly stated that regardless of whether a bhikkshu or bhikshuni (fully ordained monk or nun) was elected from within Dharma Drum Mountain or engaged from outside, when the person takes up the position of Abbot President, he/she also receives the transmission of the Dharma Drum Mountain lineage and will not abandon the vision and direction of Dharma Drum Mountain. 

Under the leadership of Abbot President, Venerable Guo Dong, the Sangha community and followers of Dharma Drum Mountain throughout the world will inherit the past and continue forward in carrying out the practice of "Four Insistences" - to insist upon the ideas of Dharma Drum Mountain; to insist upon the Three Types of Education; to insist upon the Four Kinds of Environmentalism; and to insist upon the practice of orthodox Chinese Buddhism – to support the vision of Dharma Drum Mountain as they had done in the past and to jointly fulfill the will of the Master in the building of the Dharma Drum University. 

In accordance with the Master's will, his ashes will be returned to the earth and buried in the Life Memorial Garden. 

The Most Venerable Master Sheng Yen once said, "Where there is life, there must be death. If one cannot face this reality it will become one’s greatest barrier in life, if one can regard death merely as a fraction within the eternal time and space then death is not an end to life but the beginning of the next."

Dharma Drum Mountain

Butterfly Lovers (2008, China)

This is a martial arts variation of a classic Chinese tragic love story that is attributed to being set in the Jin Dynasty (265 CE-420 CE). It is sometimes compared to "Romeo and Juliet", and this movie goes even farther in adding elements from Romeo and Juliet that are not in the original Chinese storyline.

It is a story of a young woman who wants to see more of the world and convinces her father to let her disguise herself as a male and study at a renowned martial arts center. She ends up falling in love with the head student, but then gets recalled by her father to marry someone else, before which the head student learns of her identity, and finds he returns the feeling.

The latter part of the film varies a lot from the original, and with the added Romeo and Juliet plot devices, I think it's an improvement, keeping in mind that it was most likely blatantly ripped off from Romeo and Juliet.

It's an uneven film. The first part is light and annoying, and borders on screwball with the female character totally unconvincing as a male. In Chinese film, there's a tradition of women merely dressing as men and therefore being seen as male, and that's fine ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" is a well-known reference that quickly comes to mind), but in this film, she totally acts like a girl; there's not a single attribute that would convince anyone this was a male. Not even a likeable female, she's whiny and flirty (and if male, aggressively gay).

The second part of the film becomes all melodramatic and tragic, with some plot points being hazy and poorly executed. However, the actual ending, along with the story of legend and the fated lovers aspect help redeem the film.

Not quite making it a good film, I give this a nominal fresh 6 out of 10 tomatoes rating.