the observatory

No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude  Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"

Jean Claude Van Damme

Late 90’s – before we have smartphones, we have newspapers on the table, where we gather for breakfast, conversation issues ranging from football results, Manchester kalah, best players sold, bought. Arguments where we can get teh Tarik, roti canai yang best, number toto results, and whatsoever. Someone got fired, threw a fit, goes nationwide tour, public demonstration and the word Reformasi became fashionable. 1998 – all breakfast conversations or dialogue ( at times can beat any repetitious academic polemical conferences ) revolving Sodomy Anwar Saiful These 3 words – cause so much arguments, questions, delusions, indemnity, personal squabbles or ensuring to lose your apetite. 8pm, the whole world saw a magical mattress came out from the police truck to the court. Its not small ok, its king size…..We were awakened with personal bedroom issues, graphic details of someone sodomized someone's ass.   its so vivid, livid and graphical. I wa

emphasis on feeling over reason the heart over the mind the simple over the sophisticated the useful over the demonstrable the personal over the systematic. its focus is on the pursuit and acquisition of truth  rather than on the nature of truth itself. utility, autonomy, immediacy and simplicity in pursuit of what Rousseau called the ‘truths that pertain to the happiness of mankind’.

A  logo    -  a  graphic  mark,  emblem , or  symbol used to aid and promote public recognition.  It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name it represents. secondly - a graphic designer who spend years, investing thousands of bucks in their formal education specializing it, learning all the required skills, perfecting their craft - to put an "idea" to a "form" is not easy plus, launching it and to be accepted needs time.  dealing with clients who wants it adds more complications. lastly -  anything requires  to grow in anybody's heart requires time.   lets see all the brilliant logos's that stand thru the time, even  i can summarize few examples with one line because it just works.  Coca Cola with her curves, Mcdonalds with the yellow M, someone bite an Apple. Swoosh. so Malaysia just unveiled their new logo for Visit Malaysia Year 2020.  i thought its a prank. Seriously?......Malaysia is a tropical, m

1. one is "considered" an art object while the one is merely an installation that is "instagram" worthy 2. one can have a 15 page "critical writing" "books  published about it ( ( heavier, glossier is better )" or requires a curator standing beside it and explain to you while the other one simply have a............. label. 3. one doesnt let you touch it ( oooohhhh....as it's sacred ( berhala ) ), asking people to contemplate upon it ( fuh!! ) while the other let people to pose with it. 4. one is classified as an "art object" while the other one as "found object" "kitsh" "decorative" "mundane" " a poor copy of a representation of a reality" which one?

we need to make others KNOW that film won an award or something. How? add the fucking leaf - make sure the font goes well with it what is the award?

with the internet everyone can be philosophical or whatever they want to be snap a pic of yourself doing something cut, copy and paste of a quote who needs to read now convert the photo a black and white or add funky filters post it voila.

its annoying seeing people commenting "sifu, master, otai, legend, idola or whatever"  people simply throwing words  honestly and objectively "are they "qualified" to give the "term?" the real masters are the one that kept on doing and moving reinvent and at the same time.... being anonymous.

Story No 1.  Loc : Jungle/ Day/EXT   "apahal Andy didnt replied my whatsapp ah?"  My pal asked my another pal. I parked my 4 wheel, put down my keys and my phone and light up a ciggarette. My pal didn't asked anymore question.  Story No 2 Loc: Classroom/INT while dissecting technology, Allegory of the Cave and Alex Garland's Ex Machina. The tutorial class went quiet when i showed them my phone. Story No 3 Loc : Mamak Shop "oi hello....even my 75 year old Indonesian contractor now able to send me a photo tau tak." Story No 4 Loc : Starbucks/EXT/Day "why on earth u still using this?" "I want to live longer."  Story No 5 while driving. "my battery last 7 days."  Story No 6 Living Hall/ INT my late dad came out from his room and told me "something exploded"  I replied - " that's my adapter" he went back to sleep. Story No 7  Coffee

Sergei Eisenstein. In 1920's he introduced a new visual language structure where series of short shots are edited into a sequence to condense space, time, and information. Its called the Soviet Montage Theory. The world changed forever except RTM. See the comment section where Brian De Palma paid homage to Sergei's historical sequence In The Untouchables.

so Wolverine is retired, got new job in a circus....well let me present you Obi Wan first started out as writer, try to tackle Nicole Kidman before turned to an average jedi master. Please watch this in your 80K TV. Its an effective drug!

Until today I dont understand this. So milking out a sea creature for her milk is a jedi training or a a subtle joke of how Lucasfilm/Disney milked us all for the past 40 years. secondly....i wanted more of her instead we are given 1 hour of her other "sister" and someone in 9gag did this - and yes i spilled my coffee.

Malaysians bad translations always get roasted/celebrated through the social media. Like what i mentioned if we can spend time learning our national language which is Bahasa Malaysia, taking pride with it, we can be like the French. French took pride in everything - in fact, theorist, notable modernist philosophers are French. Baudrillard. Lets take an example of how French calls a potato in their mother tongue.  They called it Pomme De Terre. Sounds exotic right?  pomme (“apple”) + de (“from”) + terre (“earth”). Literally meaning "an apple from the earth" or an "earth apple". earth apple. ( amende ni? ) anyway "if" we dont take any pride mastering a language, forget taking second language or third or fourth and so on. How on earth la we can start to build a nation.  BM ke laut, English is in Mars.  Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa.

A 15 year old kid is dead as an office chair from thrown by someone from 21st floor. Unbelievable shit - i thought ive seen worst, but this incident goes another level. from NST media found out the Seri Pantai Housing Projects residents known throwing out unnecessary stuffs ( rubbish and whatever ) seems to be a normal occurrence . This despicable act, ignorance, laziness turned to a normal exercise? Its resident association chairman Abdul Rahim Ahmad said once a resident threw a sofa and it broke the gazebo at the ground level. cmon man............seriously? what happened to common sense? a 15 year old kid paid the price. like what Kurt sang in Smells Like Teen Spirit .......... And I forget just why I taste Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile I found it hard, it was hard to find Oh well, whatever, nevermind

what nature does not give,  Salamanca does not provide refers to University of Salamanca meaning that education cannot substitute the lack of brains.

when you choose a name, it has meaning. Every parents knows this. That is why we have beautiful names ( until to the extend it takes seconds to pronounce them ). The word AMANAH is fulfilling or upholding trusts. The word Amanah also means "The Trust" has a broader meaning. It is the MORAL responsibility of fulfilling one's obligations due to Allah ( GOD ) and fulfilling one's OBLIGATIONS due to Allah's (willing) servants (other people). What is your Moral responsibility? Your Obligations? and NOW we have a political party that asking for donations for the coming elections. It can be from 1 to 15 ringgit. i'm shaking my head while writing this. sure, people can donate but What if this party lose? Any refunds? lets rewind for a bit, i was aghast when the public donated money for Penang Minister Guan Eng's trial....but again - it was stated that  "The money will be kept under the party custody and is to be refunded after the

god, please bless this genius. My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. Its brilliant.

whatever that is on top..................must come down

always remember what you said, done, did, act upon, promised  yesterday today, seconds, hours, minutes, days, weeks, years ago.  There is no such thing as.... "oh....i forgot" " please forgive me"

In  sociology ,  anthropology  and  linguistics ,  structuralism  is the methodology that implies elements of human culture must be understood by way of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure. It works to uncover the structures that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.  Now, im taking something out from the internet and titled it "traffic light in Kelantan 2017"

"Apa ni......why you cooked all grandma's favourite food?" i asked my mum.  My mum since 5am battling pots and pans cooking all the dishes ( which can be found in our CNY eve table ) 3 - 4 days before Chinese New Year, then will do this process again when Hungry Ghost Festival is around the corner. "kita ni mo celebrate Chu Sian" mum replied. "Chu Sian?" my head is spinning to find what is the meaning of Chu Sian, that time there is no Google Translate and whatever dictionary able to help you.  ( Chu Sian  is a Hokkien term = prayers to the ancestors - we always do this in Qing Ming Festival, death anniversary of our loved ones ) Lets jump to Coco - a beautiful animated film by Pixar where we can see the plot is placed in Mexico and yes the  Día de Muertos.  Day of the Dead is a  Mexican  holiday celebrated throughout Mexico, in particular the Central and South regions, and by people of Mexican ancestry living in other places,

Pixar took 6 years ( 2011 and 2017) to develop Coco, traveled to Mexico five times to research about the culture, people, food, traditions, It was reported that China censor board members were so touched by the film that they made an the exception and allowed it. Its brilliant how they made a brilliant story about paying respect to your ancestors. Coco did a beautiful job about this important fact. In Southeast Asian tradition, the Chinese Taoist will celebrate the Qing Ming Festival.  Qingming_Festival

Politic 2018

How to resurrect something new? How to get away from the legendary Robin Williams's shadow? Let expand the Jumanji's world where Robin ( Alan Parrish ) stucked for years. The 1995 film was brilliant and also Zathura a spiritual successor released in 2005 is pretty fun. ( directed by Jon Fevreau ) and yes who can forget this unlucky policeman? He is so unlucky - even Daft Punk's track Get Lucky cant help him. after film-makers set both film in the real world and in space. Jumanji 2 goes into the jungle. Maybe that is the reason why have Guns N Roses Welcome to the Jungle in the trailers? I dont have any complaints. Seminal 70's and classic 80's rock tracks all of sudden got new life - Led Zep turned more mythical and cooler in Thor Ragnarok. we have typical 4 high archetype high - school students Nerdy Spencer, the football Jock, the self absorbed pretty Bethany and the loner Martha, all of them got unto detention class ala Breakfast Club , forced to cl

Thru the years, I do receive few thoughtful gifts and yes I really appreciate it, but this is one of those rare gift I got to write something. It’s significant. A Box contained a t-shirt and folded catalogue of a reaction towards Syed Ahmad Jamal’s demolished public sculpture entitled Puncak Purnama back in 2016.                                         When a city council decided to demolish a public sculpture with an excuse that it's an eyesore, everyone from every hole came up in droves and “wanting” to say something, blame someone. As usual…drama. ( hell everyone love drama, that is why Korean drama can go on for years ).   I don’t want to put a summary on this ( just google Puncak Purnama ) but for me, all art institutions failed big time when a public sculpture turned to rubbles. Mind you, Syed Ahmad Jamal is not an ordinary artist, but a former director of our National Art Gallery and yes Seniman Negara. Artists will blame the public, society institution