read a good book?

here's an excerpt of a book i recently read:

"But there's Violet (it'll be Harriet next, I thought, with dread and fascination) in sudden hot tears because on a crowded and sullen Northern Line she's just bought a stupid keyring from a deaf-and-dumb woman every other passenger in the carriage has stonily ignored. The tears because when the deaf-and-dumb woman (sixties, watery blue eyes, a furred mole above her top lip, the anorak and old butter smell of the poor) has smiled and said something incomprehensible, Violet, not wanting to engage beyond mechanical charity, has responded with a look of puzzlement and okay-I've-bought-your-shit-now-please-go-away-and-leave-me-alone. Then, the woman turning away with a look of threadbare weariness, Violet's realisation that the garbled phrase was 'God bless you'. It holds her for a moment, this translation, poised on the brink of a shocking grief. The woman's last look: You can't understand me because I can't talk properly; you don't want me to talk to you because you're afraid that I'm going to want something from you - money, love, time, your life; you just want me to leave you alone; that's all right, I know, but I was just saying thank you. All Vi's childhood rushes up into her heart - the kids they made fun of, the tiny cruelties, the horrible guilt - all her adult excesses too, and thus with her heart full she looks down at the mute's keyring. Its gimmick is a little sign language chart in clear plastic. On the reverse it says: Learn my language and we can be friends! And this, this more than anything hitherto pitches her over the edge and she finds herself in tears, publicly - not discreet weeping, either, but audible boo-hooing and visible, body-shaking sobs..."

- Lucifer, 'I, Lucifer', Glen Duncan


had a similar experience once. makes you feel really small.

and the lesson for today is...?

my Mum (bless her) cannot, for the life of her believe, that "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" is completely spontaneous and made up on the spot.

not seen the show? for shame! but the long and the short of it is:

4 comedians are given (often insane) scenarios to play out e.g. "Colin and Ryan are two Latino doctors operating on a Chinese Salsa dancer when their European nurse, Wayne, who is madly in love with both doctors, comes in and demands a love confession out of them both."

and the comedians play out the scene. its totally unscripted and often times pure comedic gold. (those guys are geniuses i tell you! i mean, we're talking reeeeeeeeally smart guys (and girls)!) (whoa... parentheses in parentheses followed by parentheses in parentheses... (and i don't even know if i'm spelling it right!))

so anyway, i watch and laugh my head off and Mum sits on the couch reading her Chinese newspapers, furrowing her eyebrows and stroking her chin.

"(in Mandarin) Is it really that funny?"

i try to explain as best i can in halting (an understatement, i assure you) Mandarin and she pouts and shakes her head.

"The whole show? Impossible! Even the singing?"

"yah! its true! damn good, right?!"

"How can it be? They've planned it all before hand for sure!"

"but they let the audience throw in ideas!"

"Oh, my dear boy. They planted those "audience members" there. Don't be so gullible, please."

various forms of this conversation take place every morning she and i are in the living room, her with her newspapers and me giggling like a schoolgirl over milk and cereal (some of which jettison out through my nose into carpet oblivion).

she is just not (and can not) be convinced that any of it can be true. and so she sits there frowning and furrowing her brow through the entire half hour (too short... too damn short). Dad tries his hand at it, too, but she's a stubborn one that woman.

so i sit and enjoy the 22 minutes (urgh, damn commercials) and think to myself,

"man, she's missing soooo much! just coz she refuses to believe it."

and so we arrive at the point. yay.

dumb guy!

yeesh.

i've been doing it a lot lately. stupid.

take the previous post for example.

"wow! look at me! i did something i never did before! i'm, so proud of me! i have to tell the whole world and smother myself in my own greatness (its a relative term, this 'greatness')!"

fuckin guy.

think you so smart.

what you think you know is a mere sliver of a shred of a speck (all S's leh) of something (there it is again!) a million others already know, have known or will know.

so get off of that nice little horsey (bitch!) before you get hurt or someone REALLY takes issue and kicks you off. its too tall for you, anyway.

think you so crever... you'll never get anywhere thinking like that (bakayahro!).

so there. i'm an arrogant pig. (took me a while, i know, but i got here.)

i'm going to hell for this

i just wrote a blasphemous 6 page script.

i actually think its pretty original, which is cool. but i also think it'll never get made... or if it did it would never be screened... or if it did i would be labeled satanic and under satan's influence... or worst of all! i could be called juvenile and immature.! NnnnoooOooo!!1!!1

"oh, man, please... using the bible as reference for a story? grow up lah! hooooow many million people ever do it before? the only reason why no one does it now is coz its passe! you should be writing horror stories! now THOSE are in!"

yipes.

annnyway.

all i'm saying is that i'm kinda scared now. i like using the bible for reference and twisting its logic and in so doing inadvertantly insinuate that what Christians believe they know could all be just a big fat lie.

i tell myself that its just fiction. a story just like any other. "can use for debate". but a little part of me just can't help but wonder, "have i really been overcome by 'he who walks this earth'?"

pray for me.


p.s.:
here's a link to an interesting website. please DO NOT visit it if you feel you are unable to accept a broader world view (oh yeah, that's really gonna keep you away):
http://www.theosophy-nw.org/theosnw/world/christ/xt-ibel2.htm