A Gaga World

It’s a sorry state of being when people have to be almost social deviants before their golden talents get noticed by the public.

But then again, what do you do to get noticed when you are born in a world of too many people who have seen it all at least once before?

Either you go extremely simplistic so as to be pure (Susan Boyle, I love you) or go to the other end of the spectrum.

Take Lady Gaga for example. I had her dismissed as yet another performer more than a ‘singer’. Isn’t it all about circus-like entertainment and hype nowadays?

Sure the techno-pop is dancey and can certainly talk to the listening and club-hopping public. After all, millions relish all the rehashed stuff with a new kick. Who isn’t a sucker for the familiar yet unfamiliar stuff?

Yet, surprisingly, behind the glitter and freak-show, is a talented musician – pianist and composer with a wonderful singing voice.  Listening to Stefani Germanotta – the original alter ego of Lady Gaga – at the piano is like listening to Norah Jones except that Germanotta sings with more, yep, gaga gusto for life.

Her most astonishing accomplishment to date is catapulting into global stardom in a year driven by her crazy outlandish fashion.  Her next one may be getting people to uncover her real musical talents.  Just listen to her at these links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SagYW3-KNyc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiLiISBGhKQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGIKQWQx3A&feature=related

I don’t care much for the over-the-top costumes or the overt sexy videos (whatever happened to subliminal advertising?). But let the lady work the keyboards any time and I’ll happily celebrate life with her music for accompaniment!

The Lovely Bones

No one understands violence until it has touched one in a very intimate way. Especially when it snuffs out a life before it could even begin or ripen.

I picked up Lovely Bones thinking it was about the fantasy of a heavenly creature playfully messing with people’s lives on earth. I thought it would give my late sister a kick if I read it and thought of her in the lead.

I hunkered down and opened the first page. I read two sentences then slammed it shut. Murder. Girl. Young. Deep breath. Well, I knew it was about a dead person, didn’t I? Fine, it will get better.

On page 66, I felt I have been reading it for weeks and had put it down several times. On 211, I was a mess and ymed my other sister faraway telling her not to even think about picking up this book and watching the movie. After I briefly gave the plot, we talked no more. We did not say goodbye. I guess she was in as much mess as I was.

Five years on, the pain of watching someone so young, so beautiful fight determinedly to live despite her broken, irreparable body is still unbearable. I felt it all over again, seeing her lose the fight and feeling all her emotions – angry, sad, lonely – in me afterward.

People read Lovely Bones and they think amazing fantasy, original thought, bravo. Others would disregard it for a nut job.

I relived everything that I experienced after my sister’s death. I was Ruth, who saw her after she left and later felt and heard everything she was thinking. I was Lindsey who sometimes felt she was carrying her dead sister inside her, like a twin. I also talked to my sister when I was in pain over something. I told her I wish she were alive to enjoy this or that experience. Then I thought she was in a much better place than us down here. I hoped so.


Where is she now?


When we lost her, and after feeling her hang on to me all the time like a baby twin (someone explained that when we become souls, we shrink hence I felt her to be small), I felt her leave me. She would go telling me she’ll roam and then come back. Others felt her too (so I knew I was not completely crazy). Then her murderer was found, and I did not see her anymore. Later I imagined her on a swing, everything was white, flowers, her dress and she was carefree and happy. I felt relieved, was she finally in heaven? I hope she moved on. For her closure. And for mine.

I trudged on with the book. I felt compelled to finish it. Why? I was fighting not to feel my sister again. I don’t want to communicate again. I can’t bear it. I’m sorry I’m not strong for you. Please go away.


Then there it was, when Susie Salmon fell to earth.

I knew my sister loved someone. When she lay fighting, she allowed visitors to see her. I’ve never seen so many people stream through. Some brave and comforting. Others just broke down openly in front of her (I wanted to knock their heads). We asked her to stop receiving, that she could see visitors when she was well again (I wouldn’t want everyone to see me with tubes down my throat and me unable to speak or feel anything from the neck down), she signaled to let them through. Later I knew she was waiting for someone. I asked her friends to let that person know what happened to her.

He came at the wake. I knew he was the one because I felt my sister’s heart jump with joy when he came into the room. We watched while he mourned. My sister basked in his presence.


I picked up the book again and looked hard at the back cover summary. There, it said it was about a killer, unsolved murder, unraveling family. Why did I not see this when I was at the bookstore? I only read the part about Susie Salmon watching life on earth continue then paid for it.

Was that it? Did she want to tell of this love? I hope I just did it for her.

My family did not unravel, but it was close. We all wanted to die at the same time. Like Ohana – nobody got left behind. No mother, no parent, should ever live through it. But Mom did. Like so many parents did.

Life did continue, life was happy. And we never forgot. She lives on in us. The pain is there with the memory. It will never go away, will never fade as many other painful memories do.



But you will always be loved, I promise. I love you so much, we all do. Be at peace.

Unromancing the Stone – the Dark Side of Grandeur

Many people believe that we leave imprints of our personality in a place, a house or inanimate objects. Some say the echoes of conversations of imprinted personalities can be heard in areas where they have been.

Whether it is true or just a fanciful thought, I can’t deny that when I go to an ancient place, a very old church or mosque, I can feel the holiness of it. What creates such hushed atmosphere?

Likewise, when I stood in front of a darkened arch outside the Colosseo – I felt the creeps crawling all over me. Did I feel the anguish of the many souls who perished to the violent amusement of crowds past? Was it the reason why I couldn’t even bring myself to enter and look at the brutal arena – though they are just broken rocks, empty pits and dust now?

Certainly, when I put my hand on a massive stone block used to make some of ancient Rome’s buildings – I swear I could hear it hum with life. The hum of a thousand personalities trapped within.

And that is when you feel the reverence, the wonder of history. 

The Taj Mahal – Crown Palace

I realized I didn’t really know the meaning of the word AWESOME until I saw the imposing and literally breathtaking (I find proximity to massive stones or concrete with no vegetation can be overwhelming) Taj Mahal in Agra.

That it is a monument to a great love adds to its magnificence. It represents something greater than the self. The best of humanity.

Yet, this grandeur – like many others – did not come without a horrible price.

Our local guide to the place relished his role of storyteller and tourist guide. I can’t remember how many times he reprimanded me for taking photos instead of avidly hanging on to his every word, like my companions did. But I heard everything he said. He was very good, better than most even. Because he not only gave us the fairy tale of the Taj Mahal, he gave us the dirty laundry, too. 

  

Love and Death

The Taj Mahal is all about precision architecture. The perfect calculated symmetry.  If you move 4 floor tiles to the left from the center of the covered entrance to the Taj Mahal courtyard, you will see the perfect half of the mausoleum and its towers. It’s hidden half, a perfect mirror image.

It has its own optic illusion. The uniform-sized Arabic inscription on the façade was not just an intricate inlay of semi-precious stones. It was carefully laid out with the letters at the top bigger than those at the bottom so that seen from afar– they can appear of the same size and easily read. Canny.

The carvings on the marble stone walls are masterpieces. Whole slabs of marble must be used – when one broke, it had to be replaced. And work started all over again. Capricious.

Carving them and polishing them required great attention to detail and endless hours of focus. The marble lattice work of dividers inside the tomb was especially fragile and intricate (sorry  no photos – flashbulb discolors the marble interior). One can only imagine the sweat and backbreaking labor it took for the artisans to carefully carve them out of solid marble and manually make them shiny.

And the reward for the master marble craftsmen? Amputation of their hands. The better to prevent further use of their skills - lest another rich ruler takes it upon himself to hire them and create similar magnificent artistry elsewhere. Craptacular.

And what of the great love story?

Yes it is true that Shah Jehan built the monument as an ode to his beloved Mumtaz Taj Mahal (Jewel of the Crown Palace). Yet rumors reach out across centuries of the affair between him and his daughter. Apparently, they all three lived in the main palace at the Red Fort (where he can view the Taj Mahal and) where he installed his wife’s quarters on one side and his mistress-daughter on the other side.  Creepy.

As I stood taking yet another photo, with a half-cock ear to the web of intrigue being spun by our articulate guide, I figuratively stared at him wondering if he has gone mad sharing with us this ugly love triangle. Then again, this is his story, and his people’s history.

I wondered, would Lady Diana have made the dramatic decision to pose purposely alone in front of this ‘Monument of Great Love’ had she known the unpleasant side of it?

For that matter, is the Taj Mahal diminished in my sight upon knowing the dark side of its magnificence? How many other Wonders of the World hold similar unspeakable horrors? What of the slaves who built the Pyramids or the peasants who worked to build, and got buried, under the Great Wall?

No nation would get away with such atrocities in pursuit of grandeur now. Probably.

Yet we go and visit the great works of man, time and again marveling at the age-old skills and genius that created them. They are our history, after all. And reflect our nature, who we truly are – the best and worst of us.

Grand ancient architecture is splendor at its best because of its two facets – beauty and horror… light and dark, attraction and repulsion.

And we stand in perfect understanding, indeed, in great awe of it all.

A Reason To Be Gay - Why does homosexuality exist?

I love many homosexuals because they are so gay!

To me they are among the most fun, grounded, and least angsty individuals to be with. I call them issue-less individuals.

I’m sure they have issues – but generally, they are very good at not projecting these on to others in their personal or professional interactions. Unlike many ego-sensitive straight men and women who can be difficult to deal with most of the time (argh!).

But there is one thing that has been puzzling me about them: Why do they exist in the first place?

Survival of the fittest

Survival of the fittest means fighting or coping with elements not only to ensure your life but also to ensure that your children live and so would their future children. This means your genes will be passed on and you will not become a genetic dead-end. This is the forward looking view.

The backward-looking view means that the people you see now carry the traits that ensured the survival of their ancestors through the centuries, millennia. Whatever traits you see are those that survived through wars, famine, colonization, genocide and natural disasters.

Any physical strength, intelligence, virility, beauty or behavior in men and women that ensured successful mating (i.e. producing viable children who can give birth to offspring and therefore ensure the passing of genes) is a product of this Darwinian thought called evolution.

Hence I understand why men and women exist.

What I do not understand is why homosexuals exist. How can the gay gene exist today when it cannot be passed on in matings that will definitely not produce offspring. Homosexuals should have died out a long time ago, shouldn’t they?

What is the reason for homosexuality?

This question has been puzzling me for some time and, finally, I have come to a couple of Eureka moments on this:

First one concludes that many men (and women) before were gay but because of the dictates of society, they had to be married with children. Thus, whatever gay gene they had, has been passed on to the offspring of today. Ok check.

Still, why is there a NEED to have the gay gene? Surely, if you look at the population proportions, the homosexual population today must be disproportionately larger than before, taboos or not.

(And there has to be a gay-ness gene because, my dears, if it is not in your genetic makeup, there is no way you can act or respond in a certain manner, no matter what or how strong the external stimulus is.)

Population-regulation

Over a midnight snack of delicious Angus beef tapa and raspberry-oreo pancakes a few nights ago, my best friend Blue Soon explained it to me: Homosexuality is a population-regulation mechanism.

Apparently, the trait for homosexual behavior has various levels of “penetrance” (ok guys, this is a respectable technical term in the field of genetics, alright?). That means the gene is expressed in varying degrees of strength or expressed by varying numbers of individuals within a population.

I guess, it also means that, potentially, many of us carry this gene (hey humans carry both female and male hormones! And there are sex reversals in the natural world e.g. fishes but that is a topic for another day). And the manifestation of this gay trait is dependent on external influences.

He quotes a landmark experiment by John B. Calhoun (published in 1962) on rat and mice populations mimicking overcrowding conditions in inner cities. When resources became scarce, the rodents exhibited ‘strange’ behaviors. Among these are: increased aggression against females and the young, females forgot to care for their babies properly, and the males engaged in exclusive homosexual behavior.

Yup, it appears, homosexual behavior is our way of naturally regulating our population. It is our way of saying, enough is enough. Either we, all of us die now or we act to ensure the survival of the remaining – and future – humankind.

Cool.

Linked:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Escaping+the+Laboratory%3a+the+rodent+experiments+of+John+B.+Calhoun+%26...-a0197666893

Woman, Choose Thy Happiness & Be Kind to One Another

Womenomics

In barely 5 years time, women will be two times richer than India & China combined, a CNN article quotes the World Bank.

And no this is not because they marry several rich husbands each. It’s about more women joining the workforce in developing countries and outnumbering their male counterparts in the US, for example. It’s now about “womenomics” and asking companies how to best serve the potential ‘saviours of the world economy’.

For those who have tirelessly worked to empower women – these are sweet, sweet words.

I say, yeah! We’ve come a long way baby, and we rock!

Grumpy Women

Yet, despite this, surveys of over a million women in developed countries show that women’s happiness in the last 40 years have dimmed (while men have become happier). In addition, women are less happy with their lot in life as they grow older while men become happier (so much for grumpy old men).

I thought this increasing unhappiness and dissatisfaction is all because of the “superwoman” syndrome that we women (yes, us, not men) inflict on ourselves. The need to be everything all at once: successful careerist, excellent mother, supportive wife (sister & daughter), community paragon, faithful BFF and a supermodel.

Nobody can be all that.

True enough a book (Supergirls Speak Out: Inside The Secret Crisis Of Over-Achieving Girls) and surveys show that the pressure for young girls to excel in “school, sports, relationships and looks” are making them - supergirl wannabes - very stressed and yup, unhappy. A 2009 UK survey says teenage girls are twice likely to self-harm as boys. Many of them are increasingly diagnosed with depression, have eating disorders and serious body issues.

Is feminism a double-edged sword?

We see a lot of working moms defending their position not to be full-time mothers. We see non-working mothers being pitied by many women for being “just a mom”. We see women blaming the feminist movement for wrongly selling them the idea that they will be happy childless and alone – having treated men as disposable commodities. We see women celebrating motherhood late in life and declaring their careers never gave them the same amount of fulfilment as raising their children.

Note, that in all this debate i.e., offensive vs defensive positions women take in justifying their chosen roles; it is women who are the best or worst critics of each other. Men, I think wisely refuse to get on this bandwagon – after all we dug this hole for ourselves.

This feminine judgmental view is a very knee jerk thing. We do it unconsciously, even subtly. I remember, in between careers and staying home with small babies, my girl friends became increasingly uncomfortable in my company. I felt that they pitied me because I could not contribute sensibly to their upward professional mobility discussions as I was stuck with raving about my son’s first words, or antics. Without stimuli other than what motherhood brought, I increasingly felt stupid and gauche among my peers. I stopped seeing them altogether.

And the funny thing is, when I rejoined the working world (and ‘regained’ my intelligence and confidence), I only felt pity for full time moms who felt inadequate especially when they had husbands having affairs with successful office mates. The only comfort I could give was to encourage them to stop just being a mom and do other things and be in shape. Ingredients that collectively puts pressure on women to be everything all at once! A recipe for unhappiness, if you will.

Lady’s Choice

I think, feminism gave us wonderful opportunities and choices. However, what we do with those opportunities and choices is our own business and should not be subjected to unrelenting disdainful criticism. We should not buckle under women pressure – whatever their philosophy is. And definitely we should not allow our teenage daughters to be burdened with all our issues.

Happiness is a choice. And life is a parade of never-ending trade-offs. Either we adjust our attitude to make the best of what we have or we should reassess and select only those that we feel would best suit us. It’s our life and we alone will deal with the consequences of our choices, not the other critical females (and true friends will support us no matter what, anyway).

For the rest of womanhood out there – we’ve arrived, we’re in the mainstream. Now, can we be kinder to each other, regardless of the roles – CEO, working mom, homemaker, wife, fat or thin – we choose to take?

Linked:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/25/intl.women.global.economy/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-buckingham/whats-happening-to-womens_b_289511.html

http://tailemac.multiply.com/journal/item/18/Why_women_are_more_unhappy_today_than_yesterday

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1221344/Supergirl-meltdown-How-middle-class-girls-today-unprecedented-pressure-succeed.html