「兩週一聚」第二期題目: 【愛】 ∕ 「2weeks1gather」 #2: 【Love】

愛之種類繁多,有與宗教信仰有關的神靈之愛,有如岳飛肩背上刺的精忠報國丶為國犧牲的烈士之愛,而凡人世俗間,貪图物慾之愛,男歡女愛或其它組合,或各種形式的愛更是不可勝數。

但是,人總是要經歷生丶老丶病丶死的四個階段,那麼愛是否就会在人死後而隨風四散,化為煙沫?在「当事人」來說或許那是現實,正如一位好開玩笑的人說: 『如果您在訃聞看到我的名字,請不要來喚醒我!!』但在「未亡人」來說,愛可不是永恒的嗎?

我自己相信愛的存在與否,是和歷史一樣,是完全在乎有沒有人特意記錄和懷念,在個人或集體的回憶中,愛是沒有化為煙沫。但較現實的人或許会說,如果愛已演變為恨,那又有什么值得留戀啊?!但我会反問,無論是愛是恨,当2046号列車到了尾站,您是「下車人」,在那一瞬間,您又会不会回思過往的旅程呢?

References:
* 【兩周一聚】題目集錄
* 【兩周一聚】‘微豆 Haricot’集錄

Related lotusandcedar articles under 2weeks1gather label:
* http://lotusandcedar.blogspot.com/search/label/%E5%85%A9%E9%80%B1%E4%B8%80%E8%81%9A%202weeks1gather

越野跑 / Trail Running

I did not do any trail running for almost two years. So, I am quite happy to discover that I could still do a 80-minute run without stopping (well almost - with the exception of one stretch where the grade was a good 20+ percent and my uphill run slowed down to a brisk walk). If I can train at this level and be able to sustain myself over 158 kilometres in two days (burning abt 500-700 kilo calories/hour over 6 hours each day), I might even consider doing the Canadian Ski Marathon this winter !!!

電影【貓/鯰魚】: 疑幻疑真的網絡女友 ∕ "Catfish" the Movie: Is your girlfriend real or a manufactured persona?

Since abt 2 years ago, I have been watching an average of four to five movies a month, mostly on Tuesday nights when admission is half the regular price. Added to that list are the numerous re-runs I watch while flying across the Americas or the Pond. Many of these movies are so mundane that my mind will draw a blank if you want me to tell you right-a-way the stories in any great details.

However, I caught a big one called "Catfish" on Oct 12, 2010 at the Empire 7 Cinema downtown and would recommend it to anyone who is active or interested in social networking. The movie is abt a woman whom our protagonist met on-line. (spoiler alert from hereon !!)

At first, our young man was falling head-over-toes for this gorgeous looking singer/song-writer. Before long, they were exchanging intimate photos and texting each other some rather tenderizing messages. But then our Romeo started to suspect something was amissed when the music she played resembled some of the songs posted by somebody else on YouTube. As well, he could only talk separately to the woman and her "mother", but never both at the same time. Suspicion and curiosity started to creep in.

The young man was egged on by his brother and film-making buddy to investigate by paying a surprise visit to the girlfriend of his dream. Based on the snail-mail address, they drove all the way to the little town where his girlfriend lived, turned on the hidden camera, rang the bell, and the "mother" answered the door. She said her daughter was out. They also found out there were other family members living in the household, and of course, their identities and relationships to the (unavailable) girlfriend were all not exactly as advertised.

But as the manufactured identity of his girlfriend began to unravel, and real tears started to roll down the older woman's face, the audiences couldn't help but felt sympathetic toward the accused cheater, especially when she said something like: "... what I have now in real life is only a fragment of what I want ... and she (the gorgeous looking Facebook persona) is someone I could never be ... "

Now, don't you wish, at some point in your life, that things could have turned out better (secret crush on the boy/girl next door, school exams, relationships, careers, lotteries, ...). So what's wrong with posting and assuming the identity of a better "you" on-line and playing out your fantasy, even if it means "cheating", a concept that is not uncommon in virtual reality games?

But, wait a minute here. Are we, as rule-abiding netizens, going to let this Facebook "cheater" get off that easily, even when we have found out that she, in her real middle-age life, has broken no laws, is apologetic to our young man, is a real artist of sort (a painter but not musician), is taking care of two extremely handicapped young adults who are sons of her live-in partner (one would eventually die), and is crying with real tears? And what does the film title "Catfish" have anything to do with all these anyway?

Well, I guess you will just have to go watch the movie to find out the truth for yourself!!!

References:
* Wikipedia: "Catfish" the movie
* YouTube: "Catfish the movie/film - Official trailer"
* IMDB: Please note that some movie reviewers are saying: ... "Catfish" is not a documentary. The movie studio (Rogue Pictures) that is releasing "Catfish" is calling the movie a "reality thriller" ...

九廣鐵路: 柴油火車 / Kowloon-Canton Railway: Diesel Engine Locomotives

As a follow-up to my last article "人生列車: 漆黑隧道 / Life's Journey: Dark Tunnels", here are three YouTube video clips abt the diesel engine locomotives used by the Kowloon-Canton Railway KCR in the 70's and 80's.

七十,八十年代柴油火車 Parts 1,2,3







Related blog article:
* Lotusandcedar: Oct 19, 2010 blog article "人生列車: 漆黑隧道 / Life's Journey: Dark Tunnels"

YouTube:
* Part 1/3
* Part 2/3)
* Part 3/3)

References:
* Wikipedia: 九廣鐵路
* Wikipedia: 筆架山隧道

人生列車: 漆黑隧道 / Life's Journey: Dark Tunnels

I read with interest my friend Space's Oct 17, 2010 blog article "隧道 Tunnel" in which he remembers the first time he went through the Lion Rock railroad tunnel in Hong Kong獅子山隧道. In the postscript, he draws a parallel btwn the numerous dark tunnels of a train trip and the many ups and downs during life's journey. Here is the exchange.

Space:

>> ... 記得第一次跟學校（小學）去旅行，乘搭火車去新界，經過獅子山隧道時，突然陰暗了的車廂，而窗外漆黑黑的一遍，小時確實有些害怕 ...

>> ... 當人生的列車進入隧道，由光明轉到陰暗，再由陰暗變成漆黑一遍，列車仍然要走著，但卻不知道要走多久，才能由漆黑轉到光明，唯有拼命地向前方走著、走著，尋找那一線曙光。到終於跑出了隧道，終於見到光明，但又怎知到還有幾多條，更長的隧道，更漆黑的隧道，就在前方呢？...

Haricot:

Thank you for the childhood memory!! I too remember being afraid of riding the train thru獅子山隧道 when I was little. So, my father would take me out to the open gangway in btwn cars to confront my fear.

Inside the pitch-dark tunnel, I could hear the grinding and screeching of steel against steel from underneath the passenger cars. I could sense the groaning and bumping of the coupling that barely held the cars together. I could feel my face catching the tunnel air as the train rushed forward, its cargo lurching this way and that way. I could smell the thick diesel exhaust coming from the locomotive ahead, a comforting reminder that someone somewhere was in control.

But what I did not know at the time was that many years later, my father's words would still ring true in my ears: "Son, there is nothing to be afraid of !!!"

Photo Credit (top to bottom):
* Kowloon Canton Railway 九廣鐵路 museum: Diesel engine locomotive no. 51, retired (Wikipedia: Kowloon-Canton Railway)
* KCR locomotive no. 54 coming out of the northern exit of the Lion Rock tunnel and entering 沙田大圍 (undisclosed: there are undesirable pop-ups from this site)
* The same exit, after the tunnel has been leased to the natural gas company 隧道被租予煤氣公司作為連接九龍及新界的煤氣管道之用 (http://www.hk-place.com/)

References:
* Please click the following link to read Space's original blog article http://mindnecessity.blogspot.com/2010/10/tunnel-english-channel-bbc-deep-beneath.html
* Wikipedia/KCR: "九廣鐵路 Kowloon-Canton Railway"
* Wikipedia: "筆架山隧道"

傳奇民謠歌手瓊·貝茲 / Legendary Folk Singer Joan Baez

On Saturday, October 16, 2010, I went to see legendary folk singer Joan Baez performing at the Southam Hall, National Arts Centre, Ottawa. It was the first time I saw her concert live, even tho I started listening to her songs decades ago. The house was full and I was one of the 2000+ fans who fully enjoyed the evening !!!!!

Her songs not only brought back memories of the past but also tears to many ppl's eyes. For me it was John Lennon's song "Imagine". I recalled it was during the height of the Cold War when Joan Baez, along with Jane Fonda (aka Hanoi Jane), Peter Seeger and other anti-war performers, stood up and took a stance against the US military actions in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

At the time they were black-listed and labelled by the establishment as pro-communist, un-American, and even traitors. As it turns out, even Robert McNamara agreed many years later that (quote from Wikipedia): "..... Although he was a prime architect of the Vietnam War and repeatedly overruled the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) on strategic matters, McNamara gradually became skeptical about whether the war could be won by deploying more troops to South Vietnam and intensifying the bombing of North Vietnam, a claim he would publish in a book years later...." (the book is "In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam" which I bought during a trip to Cambodia).

Whether you share the pacifist view of Joan Baez or not, the fact that she is still performing in her 70's and has the voice to do it is truly amazing and inspirational to many of us. And I am not saying that just because I sing in a choir !!

To use a hippie-trippie phrase: Let's keep on truckin' (with reduced pollution from the proverbial "truck" of course) and help make the world a better place to live !!!

References/Photo Credit:

* Wikipedia / Joan Baez http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Baez

* Wikipedia / Robert McNamara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara

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Below is an article from the Ottawa Citizen abt Joan Baez's concert:

OTTAWA (Oct 14, 2010) — The gentle urgency of Joan Baez’s stunning vibrato on We Shall Overcome turned the song into an anthem for the anti-war movement on the 1960s. Back then, it seemed possible for music to galvanize a generation into calling for peace.

That was a long time ago, observed the legendary folksinger during a recent phone interview, and things have changed. In addition to the war in Afghanistan, today’s youth have to deal with everything from environmental catastrophes to economic ones.

“It isn’t like a community of people working for the same thing,” Baez says. “The only thing that’s missing is the feeling of cohesion. By circumstances, that’s what you had in the ’60s and early ’70s. It was a perfect storm. It was by chance that I was there and involved in it, but now without the anti-war movement being the central issue, with 400 issues instead, it’s very difficult for people to feel that cohesiveness.”

Even the optimism she felt when U.S. President Barack Obama was elected is beginning to slide, largely because of the U.S troops in Afghanistan, “which makes absolutely no sense from any angle” Baez can see.

She feels Obama should hold monthly meetings with fellow winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, instead of consulting with military officers on defence strategy.

“Nobel winners, they didn’t get there by just ‘ohm’ing’ and they didn’t get there by sitting on their asses and meditating. They made real social change in situations where people did not think it could ever happen.”

I think Obama needs to check into that now to give him some encouragement, to follow a path that isn’t just dictated by the Tea Party.”

Politics aside, Baez is celebrating 50 years of touring with a stripped-down stage show that recalls her coffeehouse beginnings. Her first tour in decades without a full band was inspired after seeing a concert by her old friend, Kris Kristofferson. “It was himself and a guitar and I thought, ‘How crazy to be lugging everyone else around when one can do this.’ I felt it was a good thing to try,” Baez says.

Baez, who turns 70 in January, maintains a regular touring schedule, logging about 75 shows a year. Her voice has changed with age, and she follows a daily routine to keep it in shape. “Anybody’s voice goes down and I’m not kidding about gravity,” she says. “It’s like any muscle. You don’t ask a tennis player to go out and play a winning match if he’s been sitting around for two months. He has to keep it up and that’s exactly the same principle.

“People don’t think about it but the vocalizing and the vocal training takes a lot of work at this stage, so I either do that or I close up shop and do something else.”

Like maybe retire?

“I don’t really know what that will mean,” Baez says, hinting that she’s been thinking about another album. “You meet a lot of people in this business, they go ‘here’s my farewell tour’ and they go around the world and then they come back and they’re bored so they have another farewell tour. I think I will spare myself the indignity.”

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(Note: This blog article was first drafted in mid-October 2010 and is actually published on Mar 15, 2012)

氣候變化, 破壞臭氧層 / Climate Change, Depletion of the Ozone Layer

The following are my comments posted on blogger Ossegredos de Manuela's Oct 11, 2010 article "Consciência Ecológica"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Manuela:

>> .... mudanças climáticas ( medidas para diminuir a emissão de poluentes e impedir a destruição da camada de ozônio )

I hope you don't mind my comments here:

Back in 1987 when the Montreal Protocol was ready for international signatures, scientists were mainly concerned with the harmful effect of UV radiations on human and other life forms on the planet. The control and banning of ozone depletion substances (ODS) had little to do with Global Warming then (now called Climate Change).

Climate Change measures agreed at the 1992 Rio Convention and subsequent Conferences of the Parties (COP) annual meetings will only protect the ozone layer from the harmful effect of some but not all ODS. The Montreal Protocol is still needed to manage the risk posed by those ODS that are not Green House Gases (GHGs).

Reference:
* Wikipedia: Climate Change
* Wikipedia: Montreal Protocol

朗奴.登勤 / Ronald Duncan

One foot in front of other
Some run perhaps farther
Il était un coureur
Les pieds et le cœur

As promised in my Sept 12, 2010 blog article, I am dedicating my Fall Colours half-marathon run to Ronald Duncan who passed away suddenly on Sept 5, 2010. I shall miss chatting to Ron at Bridgehead as well as 3B&1B in our neighbourhood.

約翰·連儂的70歲生日 / John Lennon's 70th Birthday

Photo Credit 攝影图片: 由上至下

(#1) The John Lennon peace monument, created by American artist Lauren Voiers and commissioned by the Global Peace Initiative, was unveiled at Chavasse Park, Liverpool on Oct 9, 2010. (Source: Based on today's article from www.telegraph.co.uk)

(#2) In this portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Annie Leibovitz relies on intimacy for effect. Her aim was to immortalise the couple's deep love for one another. But within hours of taking this photograph John Lennon was shot dead. Distributed around the world as a 'Rolling Stone' magazine cover, the photograph was instantly transformed. It became a memorial to Lennon and a symbol of the vulnerability of human passion. (Source: Quoted from website of National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburg, UK)

(#3) This John Lennon memorial bench is located in Havana, Cuba. (Source: I took this photo on Feb 11, 2009 and am posting it here on the occassion of John Lennon's 70th birthday anniversary)

Reference: (根據【维基百科】)

約翰·連儂
本名: John Winston Lennon
出生: 1940-10-09 英國利物浦
逝世: 1980年12月8日（40歲）被謀殺於美國紐約州紐約市
職業: 音樂家、創作歌手、藝術家、和平主義者、作家、唱片製作人

約翰·溫斯頓·小野·連儂，John Winston Ono Lennon, 是一名英國搖滾音樂家、創作歌手、作家與積極的和平運動家，以身為披頭四樂隊創團團員揚名全球。連儂與保羅·麥卡尼的合作是20世紀最成功也是最具影響力的創作組合之一，並創作了搖滾史上最受歡迎的歌曲，他在單曲榜史最有成就的作曲家中名列第二，僅次於麥卡尼。因其在音樂界的活躍和貢獻，在1965年獲英國女王頒發大英帝國勳章。連儂在他的音樂、電影、書作中，甚至在記者會與專訪時，總是顯露出一種桀驁不馴、反抗權威的性格與尖刻而諷刺的才思。與他的妻子小野洋子同為激進和平主義者與視覺藝術家，所以其作品亦是極具爭議性。在披頭四樂隊解散後，連儂發行《約翰連儂/塑膠小野樂隊》與《想像》等備受讚譽的專輯，也創作了Give Peace a Chance, Imagine等傳唱度極高的經典歌曲，順利開創了單飛生涯,為陪伴兒子尚恩成長而自願「引退」,之後連儂以專輯《雙重幻想》復出樂壇，但發行不到一個月的時間便遭到槍殺!!!!

禍不單行 / A Bad Day at Work

If you think you had a bad day at work,

watch this !!