Gus Gus

Recently I stumbled upon a treasure chest filled with songs. So I listened to them and they've started to grow on me. Funny MV they have about the "Call of the Wild." She actually pisses in the MV. Hahaha... gotta go take my piss now.

Marie Antoinette... Siouxsie and the Banshees

A while back we watched Marie Antoinette the movie at home, and one song was so catchy that I had to add to my no-so-legal collection. Turned out it's from Siouxsie and the Banshees... one of my old time pal Liz's favourite musicians. Yay Hong Kong Garden, and miss you lots Liz, even though I barely write you, and you never write back. Haha...

same old days

When everyday seems just the same, doing the same activities, wondering about the same issues, seeing the same people, with just different variations of what time you do what, it becomes a bit too dull for even the simplest brain to cope.

It's not that doing different activities is hard, it's finding different activities to do that's the problem so hard to overcome. Trust me, if there's a 'Losers Anonymous' around, you know who will be at their meetings!

m.i.a.'s got new album

Jimmy from the album Kala


After listening to some of the songs in the album, I have found renewed faith in Taiwan's 電子花車, or crappily translated - Electronic Flower Trucks (Where stripper-like girls dance to repetitive, high-beat low-tech cheesy electronic music on a stage of a moving truck covered with glittering lights and reflective decors, usually with several of them lined up in a procession for temple festivities).



I think that M.I.A. owes a pilgrimage to Taiwan to explore her potential in becoming a 台妹教主, or crappily translated again, queen of Tai-girls... haha. People will worship her.

Anyway, this album is fun with lots of high-pitched nasal singing Indian girls in backgroind, which has always been fun to listen to. But somehow I still like some of the catchy songs of the previous album better.

SAM's Olympic Sculpture Park

One last major site to visit was the Seattle Art Museum's Olympic Sculpture Park. I remember reading about it when it was being developed. The site has both motorway and railway going through, and the distinct Z-shaped design of the site ingeniously differentiates people and transportation in a comfortable environment. There are large outdoor artworks dotting the landscape, with wonderful views towards the setting sun and places to sit and relax. There's no better way of finishing off the day trip to Seattle than a walk through the sculpture park.

bubble gums no more

Aside from the site visits in Seattle, I was hoping to discover something interesting and unusual. My answer revealed itself, also in Google (they should pay me for the advertisement!) when I came across a fascinating picture of a wall filled with colorful bubble gum. I promised myself to go see it and take that same picture myself!



The location of that wall is actually really close to the major tourist traffic. However barely anyone came to see it, as we were one of the few tourists that came and goofed around for a while. Getting there involves taking a discreet staircase from the Pike Street Market down to some dark, sketchy alleyway. And that's all. It's just right there with barely anyone around, except for some local bartenders having a smoke in the alleyway or some delivery men slacking off the backdoor. The sketchy alleyway was even patrolled by mounted police while we were there.



I still remember the smell of the bubble gum wall. It doesn't smell bad, but in my mind it's just disgusting because all that smell had to have been mixed in countless human grinders, mixing with salivas of who-knows-who. The strawberries, bananas, cherries and sometimes a hint of smoke just gags me.



But it's a beautious wall. Colorful, cheerful, creative, and smells sickly sweet. Amy and I made each other do some stupid stuff close - but not too close - to the wall to keep this moment alive in our minds. Unfortunately, we did not have the tools to contribute our own saliva onto the monument. This should be able to put me off bubble gums for a while.

Chapel of St. Ignatius

Another wonderful work of art a bit out of the way of downtown Seattle is the Chapel of St. Ignatius by Steven Holl. We took the local bus near the Seattle Public Library - with some help from the locals - to University of Seattle.

The small chapel is a great example of ingenius play of light within the space. Within the chapel, plenty of dramatic light is brought in by use of clever light catchers and windows. The interior walls took shape to play with different sources of light to diffuse and dramatize glows throughout the volume. The chapel is simple and yet the spaces created are well thought-out. It does feel like the architect knows how to do it well with lights.

Seattle Public Library

While old-time pal Amy was back to Vancouver, she proposed that we go to Seattle to visit the Seattle Public Library designed by well-known architect Rem Koolhaas.

The large crystal structure occupies the whole block within downtown Seattle. At first, I wasn't so fascinated with the overall perspective views I came across on Google. It looked more like a cold, inorganic piece of poop from above, but after arriving and circling around the structure looking from a more human perspective, I can't help but change my opinions about the library. From far away with a bird's-eye view, it's not as inviting and welcoming as when you're actually standing below the covered main entrance.

Things started to get more fascinating as we explored the interior of the library. Large open spaces, bold colors, detailed furniture. At every corner, every level there is something innovative and intricate that stopped and ahh'd us. From the ramps of the spiral levels to the long, neon escalators. The rich red meeting rooms level, the sky-blue steel structures, everything was stimulating to the picture-clicking archi freaks like us. It took us a few hours to explore and have some fun within the building, and it became a building that did make an impression on me.