嬋娟 E Pluribus Unum

October, inaugurated another season of the Nobel Prize.  What a relief hearing the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the World Food Programme instead of Who Must Not Be Named.

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蘭絮 To Youth And All Its Foolishness

After excavating artifacts from old times, I decided to decorate my makeshift home office with a pair of royal wooden puppets from Bali, a boater from London, and numerous photo tiles from past journeys.  During the zoom debut, the team wondered if I drifted off to a remote island in the Mediterranean…  I WISH. 

整理舊物, 許多昔日心頭好陸續出土, 恰恰裝點違建居家辦公空牆, 開視訊會議時老闆與同事們狐疑, 這傢伙是溜到地中海還是巴厘島?

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解讀 Memento Mori, 109 Mt

So I titled my birth month post 'Remember You Must Die'… any psychiatrist in the house?  While COVID-19 hovers, I would be a hypocrite if I don't contemplate the probability and possibility of death.  GoT offers a somewhat plausible repartee, valar dohaeris(all men must serve) to valar morghulis(all men must die).

The will be, birthday reading of a couple books from my favorites.

SIP silver lining no. 0:  Breakfast table becoming… a modern art deconstructionism installation.

生日月談死亡似乎忌諱, 然陰曆七月半鬼門開, 中元普渡盂蘭盆節, 以史學人類學角度觀來, 祭祀先祖七七復生, 溫情淵趣.  同為八月壽星的LK弟, 感嘆自己不知不覺成大叔, 嬌妻幼子, 其實頗幸福.  老朋友M則選生日當天獨處小旅行兼冥思, 符合他近年清簡哲人風範.

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舊愛 Hrabal And Hannibal

Found another book in my garage(where're the skeletons?) which I started reading years ago and closed the final chapter with dignity last Sunday in one sitting, Too Loud A Solitude by Bohumil Hrabal.  Over a decade, the story of Hanta, the bibliophile, marinated to perfection for my palate or for it, I properly aged.  

兩者風馬牛不相及, 卻於敝人腦海過招, 愛誰更多些?  Dr. Lecter前有Anthony Hopkins睿智冰藍雙眸後有肌肉型男Mads Mikkelsen背書, 食色性也略勝一籌?  孰不知讀舊書的午后, 一氣呵成Too Loud A Solitude, 末頁喝得醉醺醺的怪老頭Hanta替自己舖好碎紙墓穴, 按下千斤頂壓床綠色鈕, 他眼前浮現曾親手綰的風箏和莫名失蹤枉死的吉普塞戀人…

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占卜 Toast

Sortes Vergilianae is a form of divination by books, specifically Virgil's Aeneid.  I continue to question the epic:  it's the men who play with fire but always the women burned on the pyre, WHY?!  The ability of making visual connection as a designer has made me a fine detective.  My foresight however puts me in awkwardly social danger sometimes, death by moral, so to speak.  Uncannily I was reunited with Nigel Slater nearly an exact year after by the movie Toast.

去年此時端坐京都開化堂的咖啡沙龍, 悠然午后品茗嗑小食翻書, 當時的我不識Nigel Slater何方神聖, 完全以封面和視覺效果取書, 想著要記下書名而後拋諸腦後.

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