I bought a TY Elvis bear a while ago, and I have grown very attached to the bear since. It wears a pair of shades and has a body of orange fur and a turf of black spikey hair. It is very adorable (to me) and I have brought it out with me on two separate trips, just because I felt like doing it. I sometimes look at it and think to myself that its face reminds me of one of my tuition kids, this girl who likes to play basketball and is very softspoken when we were having English lessons. Right now the bear is sitting in a lazy laid back way on the monitor of my PC which I hardly use anymore, and it is staring quite silently at the ceiling. I find the posture extremely endearing, and I wonder if I would bear to take it away from its sitting place, even if it's just to hold it in my hands. It is a beanie soft-toy and I realise that those are the soft-toys that I like best, not too soft and not too hard and uncomfortable when you hold them in your hands. Sometimes I talk to Elvis and pretend that it is singing to me, when in fact I am singing to myself. I like to think that it is a little vain esp when it lowers its shades and acts all mysterious, just like its namesake Elvis the King. And my, look at those sideburns, they lend such character to the bear.

I was having dinner at the hawker centre and I saw this old man eating by himself, a full plate of chicken and eggs and vegetables, two mugs of coffee by the side. He looked very happy and contented but I couldn't help wonder if he was all alone, not just then but always, because he had no one else in his life. I took a careful look at him. Short, cropped, greyish-white hair, a face of wrinkles, sagging cheeks and eye-bags, skinny neck and forearms. He was attacking his food with voracity; clearly, he had a good appetite, or he must have been very hungry. By now I had finished eating and was walking slowly away from the place. But I kept my eyes on the man. He continued to eat his dinner, oblivious to his surroundings. I felt a little sorry for him, I wasn't quite sure why. Perhaps I was trying to picture myself at his age, old and wrinkled and alone, having dinner by myself and making the best of it by giving my full attention to the food in front of me. And after the dinner, what next? Back home to a flat that is cold and silent and a little dank from lack of ventilation. How is it like to be alone in this world, to spend my life by myself and share nothing with no one not because I don't want to but because there is nobody to share it with? I shuddered as I walked out from the food centre, a little wind was blowing and I was glad I had some warm clothing on.

Tom Everett Scott

They had me meet Jonathan Demme. We bullshitted about acting and theatre in New York and that was it. Thursday, a week from my first audition with Howard, I got a call from a guy like around eight o'clock, nine o'clock. He was like, "Is this Tom Everett Scott?" That's not typical. Everyone calls me "Tom Scott." So, I knew it was related to acting. I said, "Yeah, yeah. This is Tom." He said, "Okay. Just wanted to make sure this was your number." I said, "Wait, wait—who's this?" He said, "This is Ed Saxon from That Thing You Do! I'm a producer on the movie and I'm really just calling to make sure this is your number." So, I got off the phone and I grabbed my laundry bag. My girlfriend Jenny—now my wife—and my roommate Andrew Sgroi were like, "What was that?" I said, "I gotta get outta here. I'm gonna go get my laundry. Then let's go out and get a drink." I go down and then come back up with my laundry and ask, "Anything?" "Nothing." "Phone hasn't rung?" "Nope."

Phone rings. Scoop it up. Say, "Hello?" And this voice says, "Hi. Is this Tom?" I say, "Yep." "Tom Hanks." I was like, "All right." And that was it. I'm sitting in the kitchen of my railroad apartment and talking to Tom Hanks. He's saying all of these great things and, asks, "Do you wanna be in my movie?" That was my big break, that movie. Sure enough, what I was going through and what the character was going through was the exact same situation, really. There's things that started happening that didn't happen before: getting meetings with heads of studios; general meetings with all these people that just wanted to see my face, talk to me in person; and getting straight offers, not having to audition for some stuff. That's nice.

(Original article here)

The moment is a little past 9 pm on a Monday night, and the purpose is an escape from the drudgery of work and classes. The afternoon rain today brought peace and life to an otherwise parched existence hovering on the edge of madness. And as if that isn't enough, what a lot of bullshit from someone who hopes to sell you an insurance plan; if you ever come across one of them, I advise you to walk straight on in the other direction.

Writing in the cloak of darkness is a wholly new sensation. The dull white noise from the television set outside serves as a lullaby, and while I struggle to stay awake, my words come fast and easy, my mind having a mind of its own and writing its thoughts down onto the screen in front of me. What I write is for myself, for me to consume, but at the same time it is also for you, who are reading this at once and not at all, you who are now at least unknown to me, but who nevertheless exist in the future and always.

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Fatalistic ideals

At 12:58, I gather my thoughts, sat down. Its that time of the night, That half an hour just after reaching home from work, before I sleep, sometimes it stretches to an hour, where I allow myself a degree of freedom. To read this or that, and to do this or that, then to bed.

The news today reported that six teenagers entered into a pact with a Taoist medium to kill themselves. The objective is novel – to save the world through their sacrifice.

Two jumped from the ninth floor, and died. The others did not.

Their thought process, I imagine, must have been similar to that running through the minds of the suicide bombing of the Islamic terrorists of late, except of course, to their credit, they did not physically harm others.

Their fatalism, because of its unthreatening and naïve nature, appears obtuse here. I feel sympathetic, but at once, tempted almost to be cruel

The ability of humans to convince others to abandon their instinct to survive for the greater good fascinates and horrifies me, and arouses in me at once repulsion and admiration.

And as a contrast against the terrorists (not those boys), the great grandson of Darwin (and you may at once note how the breath of history may make mockery of all of us and our theories), Rubert John Conford – communist, poet, hero, intellectual, good looking (and yes, thats a real picture of him), had the whole world in front of him – if he wanted it, died for his political beliefs against fascism, capitalist exploitation and the heartlessness of the world.

And yes, here is his poem (which you no doubt have read already and how the above rambling relates to this blog):

A Letter from Aragon


This is a quiet sector of a quiet front.

We buried Ruiz in a new pine coffin,
But the shroud was too small and his washed feet stuck out.
The stink of his corpse came through the clean pine boards
And some of the bearers wrapped handkerchiefs round their faces.
Death was not dignified.
We hacked a ragged grave in the unfriendly earth
And fired a ragged volley over the grave.

You could tell from our listlessness, no one much missed him.

This is a quiet sector of a quiet front.
There is no poison gas and no H. E.

But when they shelled the other end of the village
And the streets were choked with dust
Women came screaming out of the crumbling houses,
Clutched under one arm the naked rump of an infant.
I thought: how ugly fear is.

This is a quiet sector of a quiet front.
Our nerves are steady; we all sleep soundly.

In the clean hospital bed, my eyes were so heavy
Sleep easily blotted out one ugly picture,
A wounded militiaman moaning on a stretcher,
Now out of danger, but still crying for water,
Strong against death, but unprepared for such pain.

This on a quiet front.

But when I shook hands to leave, an Anarchist worker
Said: 'Tell the workers of England
This was a war not of our own making
We did not seek it.
But if ever the Fascists again rule Barcelona
It will be as a heap of ruins with us workers beneath it.'

On Odd Days

On odd days I write to myself.
Pick up a line and go dancing.
One, two, step to the left, to the right.

They always lead me on (for have I confessed I can’t quite dance at all?)
And we paint circles to cross out the sun.

But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path.

- Barack Obama

From his speech in Cairo titled "A New Beginning"