Anyway! The Roma jazz festival is here, from the 8th to the 30th November. And Cart managed to find out about the concert, which is held at Auditorium Parco Musica Roma, quite by chance.

The place reminds me quite a bit of the Esplanade in Singapore, which is another concert hall. The only thing missing was the sea, I suppose.

Coincidentally, it was also the location where Pat Metheny played some years back while Cart and I were dating, Knowing how much he loves this group, I would be happy to treat him to a concert. But either Pat arrived come months too early then or Cart some months too late and we didn’t get a chance to watch it then.

But as soon as Cart told me about the concert, I quickly jumped at the chance. Take it as an early Xmas present or a 2012 birthday present I guess *aren’t I a good wife? *coughs* And here are the tickets!

Because the seats were quickly filling up (and we bought the tickets the day before) we only managed to get balcony seats at the sides. Which  is amazing, because I think that this particular concert was the priciest in the list of concerts … Buy hey, whatever makes Cart happy … He just better not get too used to it

There were loads of people when we arrived there last night. It doesn’t look crowded here in the picture below because I snapped this earlier February this year. There were interesting phrases in lights above every pillar. This particular one says, “Music is the soul to the universe and our imagination”

And *here* is the same place yesterday, with a crowd of people yesterday. There were probably about 5 thousand in all.

And here is the theater! It’s huge! It looked as if we were in a huge spaceship with the futuristic looking lighting on top. It was my first time in there, and it was Cart’s too even! And as a sidenote, I’d have to confess that even though I’m a Singaporean, I’ve yet to watch anything in the esplanade … that’s quite sad.

Anyway, here we are, taking a picture for posterity, waiting for the concert to start. The concert was supposed to start at 9 but they started like 15 minutes later and before that, poor Cartcart was stressing out, trying to reach the area by 8.30pm to search for parking and stuff.

But at length, they started. We’re sitting in an odd angle, but the sound is amazing up here nevertheless. All three players were really energetic and enigmatic and there were a number of songs which I recognized, as Cart forced encouraged me listen to them.

I took a couple of pictures which is totally not allowed, hence it’s a little bit blurry. But there were so many others taking footages (many with flash too … WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!) so I thought that one or two wouldn’t hurt.

The one on the bass is Larry Grenadier and it was rather hypnotising seeing him handle his instrument to the point that it looked quite sensual. The one on the drums is Bill Stewart, he totally reminds me of animal when he plays and we all know that animal, is fabulous!  And of course, on the guitar is the amazing Pat Metheny himself, with his trademark striped shirt. We only got to see his back throughout the entire concert though, boo hoo!

But oh, if only I could somehow do a Professor X and share with all of you telepathically the concert somehow, because it was simply spectacular. Especially the finale bit where Pat Metheny performed alone, but pressing some pedals, he controlled a couple of instruments to accompany him as he plays.

It was something like this, but with more instruments.

If only I could remember the title of the song … argh! But that performance was totally eargasmic. I wonder if I’ll ever hear that again.

Anyway, before I end, I thought that I’ll share his last encore performance which was really beautifully haunting to me. Visually, it’s a crappy quality but sound wise I think it’s worth listening to.

It’s very sexilicious, no?

Anyway … Well. Well. Well! Look at how happy Cart looks with Pat Metheny leaning on his shoulder

If I were rich, I would buy Pat Metheny and make him play before I got to sleep each night. But I’m not rich … So it looks like I’d have to start harassing Cartcart to pick up the guitar again

* cracks whip *

We watched I Soliti Ignoti which is a bitter-sweet comedy about a group of thieves who attempt to burgle a pawn shop and while I had a hard time trying to understand what they were saying, (there were no subtitles, not even Italian ones) it was interesting to see the different cultures and mannerisms during the 50′s.

Like, I didn’t know previously that Sicilian’s (from Southern Italy) were very proud people and before their women get married, they were supposed to be unseen and are always hidden at home. But then again, this was the 50′s and this tradition doesn’t really hold in modern times.

But one of the things that I was really wowed about was the location of the film. I like, and get a kick out of seeing old videos and pictures and see if it can still be found at the present time. Check out this scene from the movie :

And check this out from google maps :

And this one :

Compared to this one :

I’ve been here! Its not too far away from the gelateria that I was earlier this year! Absolute coolness! I’d like to see more of these, there should be more though, but I’m not that fluent enough to decipher and research more Italian! 

In any case, this makes me not help but to wonder. Do we have any films representing old Singaporean monuments and roads? For one, I think that Old P.Ramlee movies do, however the only ones that I can find are always in crappy VCD format so the images and sound are pretty crackled.

I do wish that Shaw Brother’s would digitally restore it and release it in at least DVD format, with subtitles for all to share. It will be such a shame that history is slowly disappearing like this!

The invite card by the way, looked very interesting. At first glance I thought it was the type of mural that you’d normally see in a catholic church.

But looking closer, I was quite surprised to see that each character was wearing traditional Korean outfits! Hehe. That’s cool.

The Santa Maria Basilica is located right in the middle next to the Campidoglio where we were supposed to find the giant foot (Till now, Cart and I didn’t have the chance to visit it!)as well as the Vittorio Emmanuele II Monument. Its pretty easy to spot out due to the many stairs to reach it. And yes, it was quite a physical labour going up!

Nevertheless, in my opinion, this was a popular place for couples to get married because I’ve seen quite a number of bride and groom here since my stay in Rome. Moreoever, Cart tells me that there is an official marriage board around there too.

When we entered, I was really floored by how beautiful the church was. I’ve seen quite a number of churches in Rome, but walking inside the Santa Maria Basilica, it was just so stylo and classy. I think it could probably be the chandeliers upping up the ante.

And we sat down to enjoy the performance. There were a number of pieces with a mix of Italian as well as English classics. And the performance was so beautiful! I’ve always liked listening to choirs and had actually been in the choir myself during my secondary school days. And I would have liked to join another one like the SSO, but ehm, unfortunately, I cant read music scores.

Anyway, do listen to one of the performance that I bootlegged. I tried to record the murals too so you’d be able to have a feel of what it’s like but do excuse the jumpy video, my hands are not natural born stabilizers :p

What do you think? :-)

If you liked this post, you might enjoy :

• Visiting the Museum of Musical Instruments in Rome
• Sojorn NTU Symphonic band 2008 – Singapore
• Gamelan Jamming Session

With the seasons changing and the temperature dropping, it’s inevitable to be sick. And indeed, during the weekend, I was caught with the cough, flu and fever.

Yeah, what’s new

And all throughout the duration, I was feeling lousy, miserable, and in dire need of cuddles. With Cart at work and me being home alone and feeling dramatic as usual, the only thing that I could think of was Jude Law to take care of me. Or specifically, Jude Law in the form of a robot in Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence is an interesting movie set in the not too distant future, in the world where increasingly, robots looks and act realistically like humans. And these robots are given various types of tasks to assist humans, such as nannies, domestic helpers and such.

To me, what’s great is that they are very commited in their tasks. And they will continue to serve their duty faithfully, till the end. While there are mainly two divides between the embracing nature of having them as opposed to ‘robots taking over the world’ mentality, personally I don’t have a problem with it. After all, having them has made life easier. Morever, there are plentiful of aspects where robots cant completely take over a human’s role.

But digressing! Ahem, that’s Jude Law on the right, playing the character, Gigolo Joe, complete with his Ken-doll hair and the shiniest outfit I’ve ever seen. He’s probably be a good companion to any sick women.

Although to be honest.  I dont know how much I’d tolerate his character after 5 minutes or so, because what comes out of his mouth is SO corny and cheesy. Even my sick self would be even more disgusted, if it were humanly possible to do so.

“I think you’re afraid of letting go and this is starting to excite me. Are you afraid of seeing the stars? I can show you how to reach them”

“You are a goddess. You wind me up inside. But you deserve much better in your life. You deserve… me.”

“I know all about women. About as much as there is to know. No two are ever alike and after they’ve met me, no two are ever the same.”

And the music, oh my gosh, the music. Joe likes to cock his head and 30′s music like Fred Astaire’s Cheek to cheek will start making the entire situation even more corny.

Nevertheless, I thought that Artificial Intelligence was an interesting movie. Although I thought that it was majorly one sided in its view in thinking that humans will never be able to have a bond with robots.

I mean come on, everyday we bond with our piece of technology. If you take away any random person’s handphone, you’ll see how at loss they would feel. And above all else, havent they seen the news about the guy who loves his game so much that he married his Nintendo DS character?

I also have a huge problem with the character Monica who plays the mother. She seems so dumb (insert Antoine Dodson Bed Intruder song) Actually, I’ve an issue with practically the entire family.

I mean, for someone who lives in the future, you would have thought that they would be more aware on the intricacies on how to care for a robot, right? The biggest being to correct or reward for each task done. After all, that’s the whole point to the term, “Artificial Intelligence” … that something will be able to learn and grow through experience and mistakes.

Thus I had a big issue when David, the boy-android opens the door while Monica was in the toilet, mistaking it for a hide and seek game. Why didnt she correct his behaviour and tell him about the human needs for privacy?

Or during the sibling rivalry between Monica’s real son during dinner. Martin started to provoke David to start eating when we all know that robots cannot eat. And while the two parents saw what was going on, they did not do anything but to continue sitting on their ass, talking docile-ly, to both of the boys “Stop it. Stop it. Dont do that”

Cute teddy bear robot by the way

What??? I mean come on. You dont need to be a parent or live in the future to know that, that tone never works.

And they are both so irresponsible. Even though both of them know very well that once David’s love-program was activated, there is no way of going back or restart David as how he was before. Its not like a freaking digital pet Tamagotchi! Monica goes ahead and activated the program without even consulting her husband (or maybe it wasnt shown in the movie, who knows)

And in the end, without investigating why David pulled Martin into the swimming pool, (and of course without explaining why it was harmful) both of them simply judged that he would be a threat around the family. To this, I understand because every family wants their child to be safe.

What I don’t understand is that even with the knowledge that there are anti-mecha flesh fairs (kind of like a monster truck demolition but with robots) and would be dangerous for David to be by himself because he would be at risk of capture for flesh fairs, she just abandons him in the forest like that … LIKE THAT!

Come on! I think that having him dismantled at the factory would be a much much more merciful. Urgh! Suddenly I’m remembering the dog euthanasia scene from the fly 2. I think I cried buckets at that scene.

Uhm, where was I? But of course, if David was to be dismantled at the factory, the movie would probably be over in just half the duration, and maybe that’s the entire point of the movie itself. To feel completely unjustified by the family’s antics.

But I dont know if it is just me, because in my opinion, there are quite a number of movies that talks about the moralities of having an android companion. Like the Bicentennial Man, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, (I guess you could categorise Frankie as an android too) maybe even eXisTenz (however the heck you spell it).

But one of the best ones that I watched in regards to this topic was actually from an anime called Chobits.

I’m not so into anime, but I blame it on my brother, Spai who insists on dragging me to watch these things. Nevertheless, I appreciated the storyline that embraces and addresses that there are a group of people who appreciates robots and there are a group of people that are against them.

Unlike A.I which is one sided.

But why am I rambling about A.I. anyway? Cough cough cough. Oh yeah, its because I am sick. Having a robot helper would be nice. Then he could do the housework, cook me hot meals, help me with Italian, do the marketing, give me endless cuddles … etc. etc. etc.

If you liked this post, you might enjoy

• My non-review of Julie and Julia
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This movie is a charming comedy drama which contrasts the life of The French Chef and personality, Julia Child in the early years of her culinary career with the life of a young New Yorker Julie Powell, who aspires to cook all 524 recipes in Child’s cookbook in 365 days, a challenge she described on her blog.

In all honesty, apart from watching a few Youtube clips, I dont know Julia Child that much except that I thought that she had this unmistakable high pitched voice, while I watched her prepare food in real time. At first it was quite annoying to hear, but it grows on you. She rambles a lot, nevertheless, its the type of ramble that you wont mind listening to because she’s funny and goofy and charming.

I thought that Meryl Streep was solid in her depiction of Julia Child, she got the voice and mannerisms dead on. Check out this short clip on her solid performance.

I’m not sure how true the movie portrayal was as compared to her real life, but seeing her live and adapt in France is very admirable to me. I feel quite inspired. She didn’t seem to have any fear at all being friendly and so charming with the natives even with her lack of knowledge of French at the time. I wish I was like that! I tremble even when trying to talk to the clerk while registering for an Italian class.

See! I want that! I’d like to be happy and charming and people around me to light up when they see me. Instead, the man selling vegetables at the mercato near our place just wants to get to the next customer

Also, it was very inspiring to see how brave she was, signing up for a culinary school, despite many challenges against her – a schoolmaster that didn’t want her there, being in an all male and I assume all French speaking class, she amazingly didn’t crumble and instead continued to be so positive and just went ahead. No publisher was interested in publishing her cookbook initially. I think most people would feel defeated already.

Here she is looking very happy that she’s able to chop all the onions first, after feeling upset during her first lesson being brushed off by the teacher for not being able to chop properly. She took up the challenge, practised with who knows how many onions, most probably with bucketfuls of tears and just did it!

Anyway, here is a treat for all glee fans. if you looked carefully, you could actually see someone very familliar acting out as Julia’s sister, Dorothy :

Its Sue Sylvester from Glee in a dress! And a hat! Hehehe! What a riot! I cant get past her NOT wearing her red sweatsuit!

The performance by Amy Adams was alright. Although the character, Julie Powells, she portrayed seemed rather narcissistic, and it strikes me odd that she’s always talking about Julia Child at least once every 5 minutes, she was still well meaning and cute. Also, she’s easy on the eyes

I could even look past the part where she and her husband are all eating greedily, even talking with their mouths full! Making lewd, orgasmic sounds. I mean, one “MMM!” is fine. But anything more than 5 seconds is just too much. But I had to draw the line and cringe every now and then when the husband just casually comes in the kitchen and dips his hand in the bowl of frosting. I’d be very upset if anyone does that.

I DON’T KNOW WHERE YOUR FINGERS HAS BEEN! Its probably dirty! Dont put your fingers in my bowl before I’m done cooking! Urgh! Its such a big pet peeve!

In any case, there was a part where Julie received a call from a journalist who actually asked Julia Child, of what she thought of her blog. After the call, she looked crestfallen and with her hands flaying, she squealed, “Julia HATES me!”

And at the end of the movie, without it explaining why, I thought to myself, why did Julia Child hated Julie Powell’s blog?

And thus I searched online and found her blog.

I couldnt even read halfway through the first page – its full of rambling. And not in the good, Julia Child way. I couldn’t stomach reading the rest of the pages, but to what I have read so far, it was so pretentious and so dull and so LONG! I applaud anyone who could read all the way through.

Its a blog, its not a book! A blog post shouldn’t be more than a million words long! There are no pictures to rest my eyes every now and then. Some might say that technology might not be so advanced, but come on, its only about 7 years ago and people had digital cameras in 2003. And I think phones already had cameras then.

Also, its not her fowl foul language that bugs me, actually when used in the right context, it brings out a person’s grief or anger or anguish. Not like the song Billionaire which uses the f-word to sound cool. Instead, I find it very pretentious. Hate it. And it ruins the song for me.

But coming back to the blog, what bugs me is that its so narcissistic and so full of complaints. And for a blog that’s supposed to be known to showcase cooking all the recipes from Julia Child’s cookbook, I don’t see much writing about her experience while cooking.

Alright, granted that I merely skimmed through the blog, but the bits that I do read when she writes about her time in the kitchen, there doesnt seem to be much description about that. Its like, “BLA BLA BLA. Eric is so mean to me. BLA BLA BLA. My job sucks. BLA BLA BLA. Today, I cooked Beof Bourginon. It was fine. BLA BLA BLA”

I mean come on, it doesn’t take a foodie to know this, but if someone loves something, big chances is that they would want to share their joy and be more descriptive in their experience – be it good or bad. With her blog, I don’t sense the love.

Nope, none of this when trying out your own cooking and really liking it.

I’m not a chef, or such an acclaimed food blogger, but I can usually tell if a person is being genuine or not on a blog. I get the appeal of Marisa, who herself was inspired by Julie and Julia. And is blogging about making new dress a day for 365 days. She’s adorably cute but most importantly, she seems genuinely passionate and enjoy what she’s doing.

So it baffles me, that there are so many people following Julia Powell’s blog and actually reading her drone. And on top of that, she gets donations through a paypal account, so much so to the point that that she could blow it on whatever. And she got two books published at this point of writing, and retained her fame through the movie. Um. Something is wrong here

I dont get the appeal. Its like the save Karyn project all over again – where a young woman accumulated a $20,000 credit due to HER overspending and she set up a website to ask for donations. Quite shameless right? Ironically, now all her bills are paid for, she’s publishing a book, has interviews from top television networks and a movie will be done about her in the future.

It feels like I’m doing wrong in life. Its like, life only gets better when you release a sex tape like Paris or Kim. Eech. They aren’t all that interesting on the telley anyway.

But I’m comforted in the fact that Julia herself doesnt approve of Julie’s blog. So there is hope in this world after all.

Anyway, if you havent watched this movie yet, do catch it. As someone who likes to eat, its fun to watch. And personally I think that its better without the Julia part, and it’ll probably make Julie Powell richer, so rent to watch it, don’t buy it

Having a telley in the kitchen, I enjoy tuning to the channel and listening to the music while doing banal chores like washing the dishes and preparing food. And since the start of the fasting month, Cart and I have been tuning in to break the 4am stillness and make it more lively.

We discovered a program called “The Club” where there will be a video profile of someone introducing themselves, answering provocative questions and are able to be contacted via SMS. I found myself morbidly fascinated.

This one here says that she did it in a carabinieri barrack.

This one here says that he really really really wants to find a girlfriend.

This guy here is currently working as a stripper.

And this one here says that she’s lost trust in all men. And she’s only 19!

What? Why are you telling all these private stuff to everyone? Do you people realise that you are scaring away potential friends by your desperate-ness? I’m horrified. And yet I cant seem to take my eyes off. Its like a car crash where everyone wants to see the action.

Vuoi conoscermi? Do you want to know me?

NO! Get a shower first!

Cart got it right though. Because a few days later, I needed a couple of these buscofen pills. Actually its a little scary at how Cart knows me so well to the point that he knows exactly what I am thinking at that point of time

Anyway!

We did manage to catch it live on the telley and I saw a couple of interesting acts, even if I was not familiar with most of them. One of the acts was the Tre allegri ragazzi morti. Translated, it means Three happy dead guys.

At first they reminded me of the Insane Clown Posse which at this moment has an extremely odd music video out. But the tre allegri ragazzi morti has an easy going grunge rock sound. Kind of like Smashing Pumpkins in their days of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and before.

The concert was hosted by this lady. Her name is Sabrina Impacciatore. Its probably a bad picture, but seeing the long hair and the white dress … the first thing that came to my mind was a pontianak.

But to her credit, she’s the first woman ever to host the concert. And, she is so funny! This is she in a Tomb Raider parody where she gives a tutorial for new users.

Its in Italian, but still amusing to watch anyway

As a person who spent hours playing Tomb Raider back in my pre-university days, I appreciated the poses and gestures like the flailing arms, the running and jumping which is quite on the spot in the actual game!

And then I noticed this :

These are the same guys who sang the annoying Carla Bruni song. This song is amusing because it sounds so much like they were saying, “Boleh. Boleh. Tak Boleh” which means, “Possible. Possible. Not possible” in Malay

As you can see, I’m easily amused

Si luncai terjun dengan labu-labunya. Biarkan. Biarkan. Biarkan. Biarkan