The Bride of Lammermoor-1

P5
In short, Dick Tinto's friends fears that he had acted like the animal called the sloth, which, having eaten up the last green leaf upon the tree where it has established itself, ends by tumbling down from the top, and dying of inanition.


P8
So ended Dick Tinto! A lamentable proof of the great truth, that in the fine arts mediocrity is not permitted, and that he who cannot ascend to the very top of the ladder, will do well not to put his foot upon it at all.


P9
But I will not allow that a professor of the fine arts has occasion to embody the idea of his scene in language , in order to impress upon the reader it's reality and its effect. On the contrary, I will be judged by most of your readers, Peter, should these tales ever become public , whether you have not given us a page of talk for every single idea which two words might have communicated, while the posture, and manner, and incident, accurately drawn, and brought out by appropriate coloring, would have preserved all that was worthy of preservation, and saved these everlasting said he's and said she's, with which it has been your pleasure to encumber your pages.

關於左肩的疼痛

我想告訴你關於
右肩的疼痛持續已久
那陣陣的隱隱的鬧騰的
藏在血肉中不安分的
其實也想逃脫的小獸
困於一片與另一片肌肉間
左…右…衝…撞…
你不知道這疼痛牠
牠也受到的折磨是
如一枚陷入琥珀的針
無處借力以逃遁
一團青色的瘀脹
於是我請左手在右肩
捏戳揉蹭這裡和那裡
最後
嗯
最後便不分左右了

你與我，當一切娛樂無窮......

此時演唱會該是已經開場了，讓我想起另一場錯過的演出。
海報好看得叫人愛不釋手，序章的文字讀了又想再讀，錄了又自己再聽。

___________________________________________________________

發生在故事之前——序章
我不時想起那尾很老的魚。有一次，偶然走到動物園，下雨，水族館，一個魚缸，只有那尾魚、青苔和小石。之後每朝早晨，有時早晨和下午，都回去，一看幾個小時。保安員每次撕入場票，給我一個心照的微笑。
魚不長不短，奶白色的鰭，很靜，不動。魚缸狹小，唯有不動，時間變短變少。牠的靜態把我迷住，我像明白牠暗自的願景：以一種漠然的靜，摒棄時和空。
魚金色眼睛，人一望便掉進去，臉龐幾乎要黏到魚缸玻璃。我搞不清我跟牠的關係，牠是沒有進化完成的動物。每次牠凝望我，鰭稍稍一動，我的背會一痛。
其實我怕魚，若不是保安員在場，我不敢看牠。保安員說：你望得像要吃掉我。我看到魚缸玻璃外自己的臉龐，我的臉龐往後退，忽然明白。
他再沒有來，我不長不短的身軀不多動，靜止。我再次看見在玻璃缸外那雙眼睛，他想的是缸外的事，我明白：他是他，我是我。不需要明白，我只是如他一般思想的魚，魚都一樣。
他曾常來。昨天再來，看很久，然後離開。他已對我沒興趣，只是習慣了便偶然來。
我不時想起他，我和他都沒關係，當初他對我好奇，現在都不是他的事。
我只能安慰自己，想著他在寫一個關於魚的故事，有關一個人在魚缸前看魚的故事。

Memories of My Melancholy Whores-2

Three hundred girls in white blouse with Ash Wednesday crosses on their foreheads were sewing buttons in the vast, illuminated nave. When they saw us come in they sat up straight, like schoolgirls, and watched out of the corners of their eyes as the manager explained his contributions to the ummemorial art of attaching buttons. I scrutinized each of their faces, terrified that I would discover Delgadina dressed and awake.    

看到这段的时候突然想起了小王子，如果小王子发现了一个花园种满玫瑰，他还能一眼认出那朵独一无二的吗？人在眼前时既真实又模糊，茫茫之中任什么，把一个人和一个人连结。

She sighed.Do you know something? In more half a century, this is the first time I haven't received you in bed. We're not who we were, I said. She continued without hearing me: Every time they say things about you on the radio, applaud you for the affection people feel for you, call you the maestro of love, just imagine, I think that nobody knew your charms and your manias as well as I did. I'm serious, she said, nobody could have put up with you better. I could not bear it any more. She sensed it, saw my eyes wet with tears, and only then must have discovered I was no longer the man I had been, and I endured her glance with a courage I never thought I had. The truth is I'm getting old, I said. We already are old, she said with a sigh. What happens is that you don't feel it on the inside, but from the outside everybody can see it.

Today I look back, I see the line of thousands of men who passed through my beds, and I'd give my soul to have stayed with even the worst of them. Thank God I found my Chinaman in time. It's like being married to your little finger, but he's all mine.  

老情人相见，半生情怨一笑而过。

Still, when I woke alive on the first morning of my nineties in the happy bed of Delgadina, I was transfixed by the agreeable idea that life was not something that passes by like Heraclitus' ever-changing river but a unique opportunity to turn over on the grill and keep broiling on the other side for another ninety years. 

也许这一句话就可以代替百年孤独了。

I went out to the street, radiant, and for the first time I could recognize myself on the remote horizon of my first century. My house, silent and in order at six-fifteen, began to enjoy the colors of a joyous dawn. Damiana was singing at the top of her voice in the kitchen, and the resusciated cat twined his tail around my ankles and continued walking with me to my writing table. I was arranging my languishing papers, the inwell, the goose quill, when the sun broke through the almond trees in the park and the river mail packet, a week late because of the drought, bellowed as it entered the canal in the port. It was, at last, real life, with my heart safe and condemned to die of happy love in the joyful agony of any after my hundredth birthday. 

好一个温暖宜人的结尾。

陰鬱難舒，忽而沉靜

  

       

最好的時光

       

        最近下載了很多部一度決心要，而始終未看的電影，比如說海報騙了人的《茉莉花開》， 實在讓我失望透頂。今日鼓起勇氣再看《最好的時光》，當屏幕上出現年份及分幕《戀愛夢》，心裡一驚，別再來一部時光花開啊。
        當觀看的電影數目積累到一定程度，雖然還不能一語道出愛看的是哪一種清晰的摸樣（本來電影又不是一個模子一個模子扣出來的），但討厭的膩煩的類型早已浮出水面。首當其衝的就是那種一部片裡講幾個故事，包羅數個主題的，貌似很有概念性，以“片中不同的小故事各自獨立而又有著微妙聯繫”為宣傳詞，但完全沒有一部電影該有的味道。其實觀眾并不很沒耐性，如果沒有宏大的篇章要書寫，單單一個完整的小故事一樣可以做得精彩，《白氣球》和《漫長的婚約》就是很好的例子。所以作者不該太貪心，企圖往單獨一部片裡塞若干個靈感（不過我倒覺得多數情況下是電影人江郎才盡，靈感枯竭才真）。
        只是隨著情節推進，很快地我又接受了《最好的時光》，因為它的確又做得不錯，三段時期無論是鏡頭的安排，音效配襯，還是演員的表現，都風貌鮮活。還採用了插敘的形式，由1966到1911，再回來2005（這算什麽理由）。1966的鏡頭停滯又簡單，正表現出純淨年代生活本身的單調而純真。1911中畫面非常細膩，舒淇和張震的一舉手一投足亦顯得非常講究，有別於60年代的青澀或現代的毫無拘束。更出色的該數這段中無念白的安排，幾曲小調作為背景貫穿，簡潔有味的字幕取締臺詞。這樣的處理方法，演員的眉眼神韻都很考究，著實令人回味不已。至於2005中，同性戀、自殘、萎靡等關鍵字眼，不願多說。
        升字幕時，碩大的“編劇：朱天文”嚇到我，虧得後來對片子印象轉好。於是連即想到，默聲那段的詞，想必是她所寫。查了一下，“十七年中多少事，春帆樓下晚濤哀”原是引自梁啟超詩。後來再查影片資料，為侯孝賢收山之作，三段式也不為過了。
只是，對於分段電影的厭惡還是依舊。

sara
2012年10月23日

Memories of My Melancholy Whores-1

p12
When I happen to see her bending over in the laundry room wearing a skirt so short it bared her succulent curves.
p26
She was drenched in phosphorescent perspiration despite the fan, and the heat became unbearable as the night progressed. It was impossible to imagine what her face was like under the paint applied with a heavy hand, the thick layer of rice poweder with two daubs of rouge on her cheeks, the false lashes, her eyebrows and lids smoky with kohl, her lips augmented by a chocalate glaze. But the adorements and cosmetics could not hide her character: the haughty nose, heavy eyebrows, intense lips. I thought:A tender young fighting bull.
p27
Before I went out I peered into the mirror over the sink. The horse that looked back at me from the other side was not dead but funereal, and he had a Pope's dewlaps puffy eyelids, and thin, lank hair that had once been my musician's mane.
p27
I ran the tip of my index finger along the damp nape of her neck, and she shivered inside, along the length of her body, like a chord on the harp, turned toward me with a grumble, and enveloped me in the ambience of her acid breath.

攝影之友隨手翻

"新吉卜賽人的生活方式，讓人想起作家梅裡美筆下的人物，熊人洛奇、吉卜賽女郎卡門和野姑娘科隆巴。他們妖豔放蕩、自由奔放，他們不負任何責任，與世人所說的生活無關；他們處於世事的邊緣，遊離於社會之外；他們猶如荒草隨生隨滅。他們的生活無所謂邏輯，無所謂意義，不以常人常理去判斷。他們有的只是生命本身的沖騰勃發，便足夠綻放出炫目的光彩。"