an eternal golden braid. indeed

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid
by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Not sure what i could say about it. felt a sense of accomplishment already that i was able to gobble it down in its entirety. after quite a few "false starts". :-)

It's a "beauty of complexity": exploring human mind in such a comprehensive way that a reader is constantly in need of specialized and deep knowledge in diverse areas from art, music, mathematics, computer, artificial intelligence, to molecular biology. and a "beautiful mind", if not as beautiful as the author's.

And a book of entertainment, too ,despite the difficulty of the topics. The author was forever playing word games/puzzles, embedding small jokes/amuzements, or just generally thinking and writing in informal/playful ways, as branded in the title: "a metaphorical fugue on minds and machines in the spirit of Lewis Carroll".

Also amazing that the book doesn't seem to age, 30 years since its publication. What could I say? One of its kind? Oh, sure.

self-identity in a crowd

Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley

"be yourself" is such an evidently enticing idea that one rarely pauses to speculate what "self" is really about... until the matter arises that one could not be anyone, or anything, but himself.

such was the fate of Frankenstein's monster. there are many things to read into this book: a horror story with an unmatchable monster, a science fiction about mad scientists in blind pursuing of knowledge, an indictment of modern science, ... even an advocate for Rousseau's educaion theory.

but i couldn't help but drawn by the monster's absolute loneliness. his creator, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, loathed and abandoned him the moment he was created, his life since becoming a futile search for love, bitter rejection by all who set sight on him, and his brutal annihilation of everyone his creator ever loved. with all this, however, when he finally confronted his creator, all his wanted was a monstrous companion of his own kind. such a revealing moment. it turns out that individuality is secondary to group identity, without which, the monster, or we, could not have happiness or peace.

should have known this all along. after all, the genetic identity among human beings are >> 99%, while our individuality is the 1% "rest of the story".

i was a little disappointed by the writing style (seemingly amateurish) and the lack of action from page to page. by the time i closed the book, though, i was totally impressed by its originality and complexity.

I buy books

I buy books
To tuck me in
With one more glance
Those blurry lines on
That page of vague importance

I buy books
To take me to
To many a lonely journey
That commuter train humming
That airplane roaring

I buy books
To bring home world
Of imagination
That mid-earth long past
That true love never to realization

I buy books
To listen to souls
Of originality
That gentleman who hunts whales
That young lady who walks on insanity

And I buy books
To wander in virtual reality
Between words and phrases
I forget
(Momentarily)
My own identity

Frank McCourt Passed Away

Angela's Ashes and 'Tis

Frank McCourt

I started this Pulitzer winning memeoir with high expectations (it was instantly a highly acclaimed book ) and was not disappointed. The childhood story, wrapped in the thicket of Irish culture, was sad, heavy and touching; the narrative smooth, poetic yet non-sentimental. This combination made an easy reading and left a lasting effect even after the book ended.

"'Tis" was a recount of the author's growing-up experience since he came back to America in late teen. It picked up where "Ashes" ended and more than made up what I felt unsatisfied after the first book. So these two books are essentially one and a very good one.

a sailing ant

(it was meant to be a joke - someone wrote a Chinese poem of sending an ant to a journey)


chip as the boat
leave being the sail
sat alone, the ant
pondering on his tail:

that gentleman will be fanning
the wind will be blowing
i shall say him good bye now
but where am i going?

geocities going away

(as everybody else who felt nostalgic, i set up my first ever website and wrote my first ever HTML line there. and the beginning of my internet addiction. but it was a brief hangover. moved on years and years ago. )

this is the "original statement" on the homepage --

Welcome to my eHouse!

It is my belief that every individual carries in himself a unique perspective towards life. I am happy to share mine while wishing this inspires you to reflect and explore your own inner world.
The overall theme (so far) is pretty much my attention on individuality, my general appreciation of life on its brighter side and my learning of some complex and intriguing matters. The desired effect of reading my stuff is for you to feel superior and creative about yourself. Well, I have enjoyed this exercise more than I would like to admit. Now hope you get something worthwhile as well. (photo from http://www.corbis.com/)

the left pane:

BOOK SHELF

COFFEE TABLE

STORIES

POEMS

OPINIONS

PICTURES

COLLECTIONS

FRIENDS


HOME

lower center:

Chinese Writings (NEW!>

Topics I Enjoy Thinking About
Interesting Articles I Have Collected
Special Moments to Share
Friends and Their Adventures

lower right:

The Coffee Table
The Front Yard

even a disclaimer:

*Except those with authors and sources shown clearly, all articles were written by Name. You may view and copy them for your personal, noncommercial use, provided you retain all credits associated with the Content.

The mysterious tyger

(it much delighted me listening to my elder boy recite it the first time. i even read quite a bit about Blake afterwards. his life tells of an extremely creative artist. a sweet love story, too.

i call my younger boy the "little one", so this was read by the "big one". he read it in such a rhythmic, even musical tone)

THE TYGER

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp

Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,

And watered heaven with their tears,

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794

my new websites

A 20-year Memorial Service for Those Who Lost Their Lives in the Student Movement in the Spring of 1989

http://www.remember64.org/

a Chinese forum to exchange thoughts and find friends

http://www.baihua.org/

searching the truth of life - The origin of species

The Origin of Species

Charles Darwin

I picked up the book because I felt compelled to join the hype for the author's 200-year' birthday and for the 150-year anniversary of the book's publication. knowing not too little about modern genetics and biology, i was prepared to read it as something of historical significance but too outdated to enlighten the mind.

how wrong i was. the book has survived because it is still ever so fitting. the evolution theory is essentially the same today, just more vibrating with each new discovery in life science. the book entertains, too, with Darwin's broad and intricate knowledge of everything living or lively. besides "throwing light" on the origin of speices, the author also lights up himself: his intellectual power, his passion, curiosity, patience, thoroughness, ... and his humanity.

it's no exaggeration that Darwin found the truth of life. and as always, with a glimpse of truth -even a much lesser one - stirs the heart in a poetic sentiment. so he ends his book with these lines:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

so true, so profound. :)

in search of identity

Dreams from My Father

by Barack Obama

I picked up the book because a review article on WSJ commented on its good writing. I had had little interest in Obama's politic views and found his speech, which seemed to inspire just about everyone else in my vincity, rather boring and empty - this was still true when I watched him again the other night addressing the congress. Well.

However, I was totally absorbed into his stories, an almost nonchalant account of someone searching and defining his ancestral identity exclusively from his father's line. From there, I was also taken to the traumatic journey Africans have experienced (or been driven to) in the past hundreds of years. It is sadness, humiliation, desperation, confusion, anger, even hatred combined. And simple - forever seemingly - disorientation or dislocation for a people. Individualism, which I myself identify with, is rather powerless against such tantalizing tragedy of human life - I have to admit.

Of interest to me was also his experiences as a "community organizer". I remember I was mildly offended by the constant scorn against such a career during the presidential campaign, but had no idea what it was about. Well, it was part of his personal search for those of his own, and a mostly futile effort to mobilize people for some common causes that are evidently important but lacking in glory. I know better now with my own share of such endeavor.

As a geneticist, it's also quite curious how he seemed to have no desire in defining himself as a "hybrid". He saw and thought of himself as black.

All in all, a very good book.

221b - reading Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

(comments later. now this cute little poem; Sherlock Holmes (R) and Dr. Watson (L), drawn by Sidney Paget)

221b

by Vincent Starrett

here dwell together still two men of note
who never lived and so can never die:
how very near they seem, yet how remote
that age before the world went all awry...
here, though the world explod, these two
survive, and it is always enghteen ninety-five.

and how can one not love these two dudes, their singular (an often used word in the stories) friendship, their most absurd adventures and their all eccentric neighbors in the great city of London. what fun. :-)

Writing poem

Writing poem

by the little one

My mom wants me to write a poem,
So I'm going to write some,
even though I'd rather not,
but if I don't, my mom will get hot.

Now what should my poem be about,
The ideas in my mind are a drought,
I have no ideas, and I'm writng a poem,
My family's working hard, I guess I owe 'em.

Still in a block, I'm bored out of my mind,
Where's the inspiration I need to find?
Maybe a poem about my boredom?
That wouldn't be appealing to my mum.--------->mum is mom)

An idea finally sprang up in my mind
a unique poem, one of its kind!
A poem about writing a poem!
I'm writing so quickly, my hands are going numb.

I'm finally done,that was really fun!
You want to read that poem, made by a kid?
Guess what? You just did.

go catch that planet

just a playful exchange with friends. Easy Roader introduced a poem called "With Tenure" (by David Lehman). later on, hbai suggested me to do sth with "some materials": Beethoven had a lifetime appointment, tenured job. So was Gallileo, from Medici of Florence. Tenure may had saved Mozart from poor youthful death...it is easy enough to just re-order what he said ---

WITH TENURE

With Tenure
And silence,
Beethoven composed
Nine symphonies in a row

With tenure,
And wings - probably -
Gallileo caught the planet
Around the star?! Oh! No!

And tenure-less
Mozart died a youthful death -
Mr. Antonio Salieri they say*
You are his tenured foe!

(*I always have a soft spot for Salieri)

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter --- or a puzzle

(last time i read about it, it was celebrated as one of the most influential poems of america. so i had to read it again. and disliked it again. granted modern poetry is beyond me. and this one is still harder to appreciate -when its "original" has been ingrained in my mind since childhood. still the much fame? this incredulous acclaim? and its ubiquitousness? this is the answer i found by google search (picture from www.esg.net):

(it was) "a stage in the development of Pound's poetic concerns from his original concepts of "luminous detail"and "Imagism," through "vortex" and "haiku" and "metaphor," and ultimately to the "ideogrammatic composition" of his Cantos." - by one Thomas

well, i could only see an awkward creative attempt. :-)

The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
by Ezra Pound

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
By Rihaku

Now, "the real thing" ----

长干行

李白

妾发初覆额，折花门前剧。 郎骑竹马来，绕床弄青梅。 同居长干里，两小无嫌猜。
十四为君妇，羞颜未尝开。 低头向暗壁，千唤不一回。 十五始展眉，愿同尘与灰。
常存抱柱信，岂上望夫台。 十六君远行，瞿塘滟滪堆。 五月不可触，猿鸣天上哀。
门前迟行迹，一一生绿苔。 苔深不能扫，落叶秋风早。 八月蝴蝶黄，双飞西园草。
感此伤妾心，坐愁红颜老。 早晚下三巴，预将书报家。 相迎不道远，直至长风沙。

On Raglan Road - that much i know

(love this one! recommended by Dean. picture taken by him, too - somewhere downtown Disney.

love poems are often a direct outpour of emotion. as love is. powerful, but simple, too. we love "whole-heartedly". obstacles abound, but, more often than not, external. this love story, however, is a complex one about inner conflicts. as the first stanza says. there is enough doubt, or warning, about the desire from the very beginning. on Raglan Road... so what? emotion still overwhelms. takes him to the Grafton Street. when all is over, he is left on an unnamed "quiet" street, lick wounds and reflect... bitterness? yes. but more directed to self. the beauty of a true love? he gives her "gifts of the mind". he gives us a portion of that, too. and it amplifies....)

On Raglan Road

by Patrick Kavanagh

On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew

That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue;

I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way,

And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.

On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge

Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion's pledge,

The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay -

O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.

I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that's known
To the artists who have known the true gods of sound and stone

And word and tint. I did not stint for I gave her poems to say.

With her own name there and her own dark hair like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet I see her walking now

Away from me so hurriedly my reason must allow

That I had wooed not as I should a creature made of clay -

When the angel woos the clay he'd lose his wings at the dawn of day.