Skinny Side Up

Mood: Emancipated

I adore the invention of the term METRO SEXUAL from the core of my skinny bones.

The world has been getting sexier [for some men and most women] since the arrival of the metro-sexual attitude many moons ago. Looking good infected men and good looking men on cover magazine sells.

Men can now sulk over their less than ideal weight and wouldn’t get struck by lightning of masculine protocol for opening the emotional closet for an undaunted vanity to look good.

Finally:

I can now officially hate myself for being too lightweight and could get nods of *I have been there* approval from hunky friends who had graduated from the under 19 BMI community. Also, to try and bring Jason, who brought me to gym, a sense of pride by irritating him the steps necessary to turn me into three quarters of a hunk by the end of 2006.

Here is the emotional demon haunting what I think of my weight:

I am a bottomless pit for junk food. But I am also an ectomorph! *smirk*.

For every calorie I eat, probably only 0.1 of it gets deposited into good use in the body. The mystery of my life is explaining the other 0.9-mulitply by-28 years of my life-mulitply by-all the meals I ate in one year calories. For those who are nodding in empathy, writer *waves excitedly* and shouts out “Hi! I want to hear from you…”

This is a snapshot of my ectomorphic torso.

Whoever says that being an ectomorph is fun has to be those with BMI more than 19 like forever! Imagine if my body was a bank, and calories represent client’s money, I would have been liable to be sued for unaccountability for most of the caloric-funds. But even if the management embezzles funds in a bank, you at least know that the money has been put to hedonist end! But mine… NO!

I am like a high maintenance refrigerator that talks back to you….

I think slim and skinny people are far more likely to be neglected than people on the opposite end of the weighing scale. If I am obese and I declare a weight loss program, I will receive *thank god u see the light!* nods of approval and can rally my friends to discipline me into shape. Of course, it can help if they tease about your size to anger you into inspiration.

If I am slim and announce a weight gain program, there would be a temporary silence accompanied by *are u sure u need this?* stare, and u can bet on them to indulge me with “it’s ok if u fail to gain, for u r not obese or anything!” answers when I complain that the program is unfruitful….

I don’t want to be slim, my friends. The next time we meet up, surprise me with thoughts about how I can overcome my very lanky physique.

Uber sexual is as much a state of your mind as it is a state of my yearnings. Essentially, imagine a man who is in touch with his manly side, yet sensitive enough to connect emotions...put my face on it!

Cheers!

Paying It Forward

I trust in the powers of paying it forward. If I have been touched in my heart or received an act of kindness, I'll return it or pass it on. Broke Back Mountain has inspired so many voices to come forward to reach out to touch our hearts. I am but one among the sea of voices. Yet, like little Trevor McKinney in Paying It Forward: “sometimes, the simplest idea can make the biggest difference.”

***

Straits Times

The Straits Times is the matriarch of news in Singapore. For many years before the recent few, she is the only official storyteller Singapore has had. In contrast to cities with as many newspaper voices as there are musicians in an orchestra, news for Singaporeans is a single voice, strait-jacket tailored for benefit of the majority.

Broke Back was given cover page in the Straits Times lifestyle section: I felt a warm pat on my shoulders easing the weight of my sexuality I had carried silently for almost three decades now.

Warm because stories of me and my fellow brothers are now in the company of Hollywood mainstream film and Straits Times acknowledged that milestone in cinematic history.

Straits Times has set forth a chain reaction: out of the 3 million Singaporeans with access to the newspaper, how many will receive Broke Back with acceptance?

I have confidence it wouldn’t be hard. Regardless of the merits and de-merits of the film itself, I was inspired to dare think so, for a good straight crowd turned up at the preview last week.

Quote from LIFE!

“A straight guy like me wept buckets at this movie about the sweet romance…I haven’t cried at movies where boy breaks up with girl. Not even when boy breaks up with girl and the dog dies, the car is repossessed and the ship sinks…But this story, about two men who loved one another to pieces-it really moved me”

“The reason Broke Back Mountain has been hailed as such a breakthrough is precisely because the scriptwriters and Lee have depicted such a central gay experience in the language of straight romantic cinema.”

For more eulogies of Broke Back, click here. But do indulge sensibly; you won’t want to be carried away by unfounded sweet talk.

Yoga Editing

If you goggle Broke Back, there would be, at least ten pages of, resources to quench your thirst on the following topics: the sensitive yet sensible Jack Twist, your anguished sympathy for Alma and the romantic motif of the cowboy shirts.

I would like to be odd, and talk about yoga editing.
Yoga editing is not an offical cinematic term; i coined it out of frivolity. More precisely, Lee Ang used it on Broke Back, and I shamelssly named it for him.

The concept starts with this:

When you breathe in a meditative speed, slow and steady, as practiced in yoga, your mind opens up and calms down. If and when you are calm, you tend to receive sensitive/controversial news such as sexuality and love with open arms and less defensively.

How does Lee Ang make you breath meditatively in the movie?

First consider the following two sentences:
1. A short sentence is easy to read.
2. Unless there is an unfortunate opportunity for the writer to choose to pen a sentence as long as is found in the literature of Jane Austen to the laborious effect of making an otherwise brief idea ostentatiously adorned with protracted language.

When we read a book, we mentally breathe when we arrive at the end of a sentence. Sentence 2 requires the lungs of Mariah Carey to finish reading.

We take a mental breath, too, in the movie. Each time the movie cuts to a new scene, we take a mental breathe as if we read a full stop.

If each scene takes less than 5 seconds before cutting to the next, as you may experience in the final sequence of any Indiana Jones movie, your adrenalin pumps, and you are ready for rush hour.

On the contrary, if the editing is slow and steady as with Broke Back, you never need to feel rushed to do anything more than just meditate the visual scenes into your head.

I think too much about film techniques, though not apologetic if I make films too technical to your taste.

Other blogs of similar cinematic observations are:
0205
Movie of the Week
9 Reasons

A Man's Diary of Non Sexual Needs

What a man needs is health;
Well-paid, congenial employment;
A house; a modicum of wealth;
Some sunlight; coffee and the papers;
Artichoke hearts adorned with capers;
A Burberry trench coat; a Peugot;
And in the evening, some [Wagner]
Or [Elgar]; a home-cooked dinner;
A Stilton, and a little port;
And so to a duvet, In short,
In life's brief game to be a winner
A man must have...oh yes, above
All else, of course, someone to love

0205

You have 10 seconds to recall any passer-by that made a difference in your life.

If not, at least one person you forgot shall spontaneously combust within 10 seconds.
*Ha! Who cares!* Kidding!

Movie Empress
Like the short brilliance of fireworks, for a few of the passer-by in your life, you will not only remember them, but remember them with ‘ooh!’ and ‘ah!’ Some time ago, an older man marked his 205th film for the year by the time I chatted him up in person….

205 films translate to about 4 movies per week, and if any particular week has less than 4 films premiering, he would be doing at least 5 movies in 7 days!

205: that is the number of times I should be having sex every year. That is my national obligation for the year. Citizens of Singapore are accused of a low humping frequency, only once a week the official number cries! I plan to change that in 2006.

Enjoying sex is starts from listening with your heart to the needs your partner and execute the changes necessary to keep the humping from turning routine. But I digress….

Are You A Movie Lover?
For 2005, I am surely way behind schedule of hitting the 205th film. I visited the movie theatre only 30 times in 2005. Even if we begin counting from 2002, I would still have to round it off to the nearest 100. [Upper 100]

Yet, the number 205 is not insane. On the contrary, don’t you think that this man’s devotion for going to the movies is of the purest form? Even a little romantic!

If you think about it, watching at that frequency of 4 or more films a week, what would be the chances of sitting through a disappointing movie or a B grade film?

Many film goers can claim they are devoted to movies.

Art Film Connoisseur
Art film aficionados have devotion, for instance, but they would make an informed selection of what to watch and give B-grade movies a miss.

Not that art film lovers don’t watch B movies…perhaps on a day off, lazing at home, in their’s favorite armchair, a B grade popped on TV…they think ‘Why not!’

But art film aficionados get a kick out of carefully selected film screenings. To quote the Martell advertising campaign slogan: ‘Only few can tell’. Not many ‘commoners’ have an eye to distinguish films that are gems from those that are of entertainment value. If you prefer Eat Drink Man Woman to Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon [both of which are Lee Ang’s works] you probably are on the right track as a film aficionado.

And then, there are the Mr. and Ms. Political Statement.

I refer to the person who chooses a film to make a statement about who he/she is and how he/she thinks, and they adhere to it like a political directive.

I have a friend who refuses any top grossing film. He brushes off Titanic the same way Madonna dismissed the music of Celine Dion many moons ago. He thinks that blockbusters are for the ‘common multitudes’ [to quote Shakespeare] or in English ‘because everyone else is going to watch it!’

Non-mainstream gems like Sin City and Taxi would be the best movies to quote if you want to date this intelligent Eurasian friend of mine.

Branded Stuff
Of course, there are many reasons why we watch the films we watch.

Some of us who are adamant that using your head in the movie defeats the fun that movie is supposed to be entertaining.

While some of us get in to the theatre for big brands names such as Brad Pitt and Maggie Cheung.

But the dude with 4 tickets stubs at the end of the week, every week…other than a sore butt, this person would need more than reasons to watch. To risk, week after week, the chances of dozing in boredom, or shrieking out of disgust, what would be the winning formula to make it through all those bad films?

*Drum roll!*, you need tolerance, and in heavy dosage.

Most of us will never adopt half the tolerance to hit 205th movie a year simply because, for most of us, we choose what we want to see and ignore those which do not fit into our comfort zone. Not to mention choosing friends who enjoy the films you enjoy!

If you seriously want to break out of your comfort zone in movies, go date that friend who has been watching all those films you had not ventured into. I had been pleasantly surprised, so would you.

The End.