Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts

OCD by Neil Hilborn



The first time I saw her...
Everything in my head went quiet.
All the tics, all the constantly refreshing images just disappeared.
When you have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, you don’t really get quiet moments.
Even in bed, I’m thinking:
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
Did I lock the doors? Yes.
Did I wash my hands? Yes.
But when I saw her, the only thing I could think about was the hairpin curve of her lips..
Or the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek—
the eyelash on her cheek.
I knew I had to talk to her.
I asked her out six times in thirty seconds.
She said yes after the third one, but none of them felt right, so I had to keep going.
On our first date, I spent more time organizing my meal by color than I did eating it, or fucking talking to her...
But she loved it.
She loved that I had to kiss her goodbye sixteen times or twenty-four times if it was Wednesday.
She loved that it took me forever to walk home because there are lots of cracks on our sidewalk.
When we moved in together, she said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times.
I’d always watch her mouth when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked—
when she talked
when she talked;
when she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges.
At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off.. And on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off, and on, and off.
She’d close her eyes and imagine that the days and nights were passing in front of her.
Some mornings I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave cause I was
just making her late for work...
When I stopped in front of a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking...
When she said she loved me her mouth was a straight line.
She told me that I was taking up too much of her time.
Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place.
She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her; that this whole thing was a mistake, but...
How can it be a mistake that I don’t have to wash my hands after I touched her?
Love is not a mistake, and it’s killing me that she can run away from this and I just can’t.
I can’t – I can’t go out and find someone new because I always think of her.
Usually, when I obsess over things, I see germs sneaking into my skin.
I see myself crushed by an endless succession of cars...
And she was the first beautiful thing I ever got stuck on.
I want to wake up every morning thinking about the way she holds her steering wheel..
How she turns shower knobs like she's opening a safe.
How she blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out candles—
blows out…
Now, I just think about who else is kissing her.
I can’t breathe because he only kisses her once — he doesn’t care if it’s perfect!
I want her back so bad...
I leave the door unlocked.
I leave the lights on.

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)


The best cover sung by James Brush

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping on your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.

They know that Santa's on his way;
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.
And every mother's child is going to spy,
To see if reindeer really know how to fly.

And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
A very Merry Christmas to you.

The Art of Drowning


The Art of Drowning
by Billy Collins

I wonder how it all got started, this business
about seeing your life flash before your eyes
while you drown, as if panic, or the act of submergence,
could startle time into such compression, crushing
decades in the vice of your desperate, final seconds.

After falling off a steamship or being swept away
in a rush of floodwaters, wouldn't you hope
for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand
turning the pages of an album of photographs-
you up on a pony or blowing out candles in a conic hat.

How about a short animated film, a slide presentation?
Your life expressed in an essay, or in one model photograph?
Wouldn't any form be better than this sudden flash?
Your whole existence going off in your face
in an eyebrow-singeing explosion of biography-
nothing like the three large volumes you envisioned.

Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,

a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds.

The Art of Drowning (animation version)
by Diego Maclean

No Slack!

"Shining rainbow in the heavy sky", taken at Changhua, Taiwan. (July 27, 2008)

During the livelong four months, from March to June. In order to prepare my master degree thesis proposal, I haven't gone home for a long time. Eventually, I had finished the oral examination on July 21. It was really a tough and alarmingly passage, but I thought that would be another good beginning.

After finishing these annoying things, I went to my hometown Changhua last weekend for participate in my grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. Thank God, I could breathe deeply and freely in few days! Unfortunately, Typhoon Phoenix came with my poor vacation.Beside the damn typhoon, I passed three days with my father, grandmother and cutest doggy, Hei-Lu. Last weekend I was so lazy, so abandoned and so "ZEN", but a grand don't come for free, I must get up steam quickly. Anyway, no slack again!

No reason


Last month I visited Taipei Artist Village for a special activity named “2008 spring open studio program”. As implied by the name, visitors are allowed to enter the studios of artists who reside here current season by rare chance. Each season has only one time, four times a year.

First, I visited a Japanese artist called Soya Arakawa. I was surprise that there were a lot of interesting things in his studio, even though it was “Chaos”, it really made the space more likes an artist’s. He introduced himself to me courteously and talked about the process and the concept of his current works. Because I can’t say Japanese and he don’t know Chinese, we communicated with each other in English. When he explained his thought, he used the phrase “No reason” several times, that’s interesting to me. Then, he showed me a new project about “Destiny”, to get information by rolling a pencil which was written a word or a sentence on each side. Each pencil answers different questions. He rolled “Artist” as a profession, efficaciously, he is an artist. I rolled “Hotelman”, I think maybe I’ll work at hotel one day.

Then I saw the modern dance of male duo, Yossi Berg and Oded Graf, who came from Israel. These two guys both have beautiful body shape and charming demeanor, so appreciating their performance is an enjoyment. They mixed with what they saw and felt in Taiwan into their work. Every step, every turnaround, even every breath, they all have their own meaning. After performance, a student asked them why they represent this way. And then they explained much but also used the phrase “No reason” as a response. This shocks me again.

There is something that can’t be described clearly in artist’s mind. Either too many thoughts are abstract or just an individual feeling. To completely explain is difficult, especially in the second language, such as English. I really don’t know why “No reason”. In my opinion, “Not everything is ‘No reason’, but it’s true that something maybe ‘No reason’”. Through this experience, I learned that “Don’t think too much, just follow your sixth sense”.

More information:
Taipei Artist Village
Yossi Berg & Oded Graf

"Textbox" at TIBE 2008




"Textbox", the latest high-tech device brings a new performance style for reading poetry, and it's revolutionizing literature appreciation now. I found this interesting device at TIBE 2008 (Taipei International Book Exhibition), and really enjoyed the performance of Bas Böttcher.

In October 2006, two German poets, Bas Böttcher and Timo Brunkeacted, devised the first Textbox in Berlin. The poet acts out his works inside a glass-walled box, with translation on the screen to facilitate comprehension. The audience can hear the voice through the headphones that connected with Textbox, without noise from the outside. At the same time, you can also read the poetry on the LED screen. Textbox perfectly combines with talking ,listening and reading.

More information about Textbox:
http://www.textbox.biz/
http://www.basboettcher.de/