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As usual, I was late for work... But, Thursday was for a good reason. Because of this guy:
I have never in my life seen this freaky thing before. It suddenly appeared, speeding right down the shower curtain. I saw it at the side of my eyes and for a moment I thought it was a cockroach that flew by.
I was so scared when I flipped the curtain shower and saw this god-knows-what-the-hell monster and literally jumped out and dashed out from the bathroom, ...naked. I ran right into my room, cold (like only 10 degrees.) and wet, put on my clothes and ran back into the bathroom again, this time, with a roll of tissue to kill it...
This guy ran really fast but I immediately caught it with the piece of tissue and sent it straight to the pearly gate (dua bei gong bless him...). I was soooo freaked out that even by looking at the picture now, my toes curled and I feel myself trembling... Gosh, what the hell is this thing doing in my house??!!! I hope is not an infestation, I will so move out right this minute man...
By the way, this is a house centipede. God!!! The word centipede reminds me of those terrible stories my mama used to tell me when they stay in kampong, centipedes would drop down from the rooftop in the middle of the night and the kids would get bitten by them... ARrrgghhh!!!
I saw this documentary film about Norma Khouri that was revealed as a liar, writing a supposedly non-fiction fiction book called 'Forbidden Love' or 'Lost Honor', earlier during 2004
After the film, I googled for more information about this author and the film, and mainly, as the world would have already known, that her story is a total hoax albeit trying to stir up emotions and earn money out of it (do not believe that she did not earn a single cent out from the book sales.).
Even after the hoax was revealed, she went on further (or rather the media?) to agree to film this documentary called 'The Forbidden Lie$' that won best documentary in Australian Film Critics Assocation award, as well as Golden Al Jazeera award at 4th annual Al Jazeera Documentary Festival (an Arab News Channel). The film further revealed more about her life.
The major debate was that there were still support from people in general although the book was revealed as a hoax, along with other things that she has claimed (domestic violence from husband, sexual assaulted by father) etc. etc. And whether her book did bring public awareness (or westerners' awareness) to 'Honor Killing' problems in Jordan/Middle East.
Well, she sure did I am sure, but probably only for a short period of time. Where people will talk and discuss about it, sign some online petition, checked some information online. Probably even spur some tourism to Middle East. Period.
I read many blogs about this issue and have to agree with this one particular blog that saw Norma Khouri as a con-artist and goes on to really blame the big publishing agents (and western media) in general to allow such a hoax to be published without verifying obvious what was written. I think there were some very basic factual errors (like geography of Jordan) that was not even verified before publishing.
Probably media sensualization has grown to a point where truth (or at least perceived truth) are no longer important as a ground for non-fiction. The fact that the 'incident' (story) happens in middle east, with a culture that is so different from the west has caused people to push this out because they know general public would be interested, because it is the hot topics (terrorism, human rights suppression, war etc.) that has brought attention to things that most people in general are still pretty ignorant of.
In anyway, I have not read the book, and will not. I would, if they put it as a fiction, and if I knew of this book way before the Australian journalist revealed it as a hoax. As of now, personally am not interested to see a book published by a con-artist.
One point to add. Although the documentary film did raise a very interesting point of knowing truth itself or knowing lies, which I do believe was probably the intention of the director (Anna Broinowski), still cannot help but skeptically think that this is another media sensationalizing film with the partial objective of whatever objective she has in mind. Interestingly, in an interview by vanityfair.com, Anna Broinowski says“I don't trust her (Norma Khouri), nor she me. But we like each other.”
Information from Wiki on Norma Khouri and the documentary released on 2007:
Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Khouri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbidden_Lie$
Yeah Yeah Yeah!! Finally they have a second album available!! My favourite group that produces really sexy, dance music with beautiful angelic voice of Becky Jean Williams.
Introducing their latest album, only the 2nd one after the very successful Empty Streets released during 2005 (4 years ago!), Of Birds, Bees, Butterflies:
Released: Nov 10th 2009
Label: Ultra Records, Inc.
Tracklist:
01. What's In A Name
02. Finally Found
03. You Can Be The One
04. Light Reading
05. Golden
06. Uncharted
07. Small Things
08. Run A Mile
09. Of Birds, Bees, Butter Flies, Etc.
10. It's All The Same To Me
11. Potions
12. What If I Say Please
13. Minutes
Website of Late Night Alumni
I have made one song available for preview since there are non available in last.fm yet. This album continues the mood of the last one. I think they just keep making music better.
I mean seriously, you have options that does not make sense at all and then you wonder how to value music with the ease of availability (with little or almost no cost at all) on the Internet.
So anyway, for the past few days, I have been trying to look for Paul & Price CDs online. Amazon.com sells them at 20 USD over bucks on average, exclude shipping. CD at the official website is priced at 14 USD dollars (exclude shipping) per album. And then, mp3 256kbps vbr also available at 8.99~9.99 USD /album at Amazon.com as well.
A further search on google will give you a website called allflac.com that is selling the album in *.flac format at 2.00 USD on average per album. It is so ridiculously cheap that I went on to check out that this website is probably illegitimate. Although cheap, the money doesn't go to the artist. Undecided if I should spend more money getting mp3 (lesser quality) vs. ridiculously discounted price on flac (CD quality), or stock up more inventory (CD), which I should really stop doing so because I have just spent too much on music recently (gigs, CDs from the show, T-shirt only bought 1 though).
I went on to google for more sources of CD (cduniverse.com, musicstack.com, cdbaby.com) and prices were either almost the same, or their albums are not available. Talking about shopping online, you have to really do considerable amount of research via google.com or even yahoo.com.
So anyway, after spending a few days of looking and going back to Amazon.com for well over 10 times, I suddenly stumbled upon a website that also (finally) has flac format for all the albums. And, it's free.
Seriously, I do not know what to think anymore. It is kind of funny, and I do feel very sorry for artists. However, although the free stuff are easily available and sometimes even more so than the non-free ones on the Internet, I feel a need to contribute to the artist's salary if I do find their music well worth the money. Probably for the younger tech-savvy generation, it is more important to instill this thought to them, rather than finding ways to prohibit things that masses are already doing and seemingly unstoppable.
P.S.: Luckily I only have a few idols that I really support all the way, and they do not have one new album every year, otherwise I would have gone bankrupt years ago. =P
Nothing much going on these days in life, music exploration seems to be activity in recent weekends, been to a few really good gigs. Music genres that are not easily available in Singapore. By friend's recommendation, I recently discovered Diane Birch.
Recommended song, listen from last.fm:
http://www.last.fm/music/Diane+Birch/_/Nothing+But+A+Miracle?autostart
Album: Bible Belt
So this tune has been going inside my head again and again. In general, I have to say Diane Birch's voice is much more mature than her age, bears a resemblance of Carole King (love her!). I felt that her voice has a nice warm nostalgic feeling, kinda brings you back through time a little, especially with this song.
Do not know why but she reminded me of another singer, Corinne Bailey Rae. Probably both belongs to Soul genre, and because there was a period of time when her song (Like A Star) was swirling inside my head and at the tip of my tongue as well. Check it out in last.fm:
http://www.last.fm/music/Corinne+Bailey+Rae/_/Like+A+Star?autostart
Album: Corinne Bailey Rae
This is one rare album that almost every song is my favourite and still feels the same after listening to it so many times. Unfortunately, so far this is the only album that is released.
Next time I will talk about the Indie artists that I discovered in live.
