Choice

You know what. If I have to do away with The Scream, I do consider a few alternatives as my profile picture:

• the official picture of Franz Kafka
• a picture of Baruch Spinoza
• a silhouette of Sherlock Holmes
• a book cover with Philo Vance
• the cover of The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (笑傲江湖)
• my calligraphy of The Poem of Seven Sorrows (七哀詩) by Wang Can (王粲)
• a trilobite (三葉蟲)

But, above all, my all time favorite is a two-word phrase in Chinese: 杜鵑.

PS. After all these hassles, I found out that it was the problem of the hyperlink to my original profile picture, which was broken when I updated my computer folders. Unfortunately, I lost the previous version of The Scream, and I am forced to use a new one.

Cover

Discerning visitors of this site may notice I changed the profile picture recently.

Oh, it is still The Scream of Edvard Munch, just that the colour tone of the picture is slightly different from the previous one. (For reasons that I use it as the profile picture, see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2008/02/scream.html) However, the sequence of event was slightly more complicated than it appears.

It goes like this: In the past few weeks, I noted that my profile picture did not show up in the blog site. I first thought it was a server or software problem, but it didn't resolve after a period of observation. My next working diagnosis was there are copyright issues and The Scream could not be used as the profile picture.

Therefore, I tried to find a new picture to represent myself.

But, what should I use?

PS. Oh, no, not my Facebook picture.

Possessed

On my way home after watching the university life of Mike Wazowski, my mind kept thinking of an inconspicuous character briefly appeared in Darkness God (黒竜王), a story in the all time classic comics of Buichi Terasawa (寺沢武一), Cobra.

That's an old man whom Cobra found living in the gigantic tummy of a robotic whale. He had an all-too-common face - except wearing a wig that looks like an octopus on his head. He was well mannered, and always appeared to be helpful to passers by... although he was actually putting up secret plots against the space pirate.

But, as the story unfolds, it turns out that all through his life, the old man was possessed by his wig - an octopus-like alien. His thought, his emotion, and his behaviour, were all governed by that horrible creature on his head.

The sobering truth is, without the haunting wig, the man did not know how to live and how to think. In short, he had no soul - just a moving specimen of flesh and skeleton, and he died shortly afterwards.

Alas, are we wearing wigs?

Mike

I finally took my two princesses to watch Monsters University.

I knew the plot well in advance from several sources, and was slightly skeptical to begin with. The original Monster Inc was so impressive that I used to have high hope on the sequel (see http://ccszeto.blogspot.hk/2011/05/m2.html). Unfortunately, the movie is meant for kids and there is no hidden message this time as far as I could see.

But, it does not mean that the film is totally devoid of dark humour. All through that two hours in the cinema, I kept thinking how Mike feels when he comes to realize what company he is working for and what dream he has been so passionate about ever since he was a child. Unlike Sulley, Mike has no familial advantage but is a frantic supporter of the company. If he does not find out the truth, he will continue to be one of those we find in the crowd, waving a small red book under the poisonous sun. He is born to be used and then discarded by Mr. Waternoose.

Or, if he does find out, he is the one to be expired in an exceptionally long May.

Galileo

My recent leisure reading is Galileo No Kuno (伽利略的苦惱) by Higashino Keigo (東野圭吾).

This is a collection of short stories around Yugawa Manabu (湯川學) - not my first book about the remarkable physicist. As always, this little paperback proves an excellent reading for entertainment, although I am not particularly impressed by the hardcore details of the logical deduction.

Of course, there is an inherent problem of having a professor of physics as the detective - you can call it the information bias. To put it simply: If a crime is committed via some elaborated physics or mechanics, the guilty person must have the necessary knowledge and raw material in order to construct and execute the evil plan. For example, half of the criminals in this book of Kuno are experts of physics or engineering.

As Hamlet said: For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ.

解說

各位議員，各位巿民:

今日我希望喺呢度同大家開誠公佈，一次過交代我件事。

首先，我嚴正聲明，經過多次嘅轉售，啲地依家係我太太嘅家人持有。(嗰個家人就係我。)注意，嗰啲人唔係我嘅家人，(我自己當然唔算係我嘅家人。我大學時有讀新亞大一通識：李天命嘅思考方法。）我太太自己亦冇任何權益。(啲權益全部係我嘅。)一直以來，我太太參與土地買賣，目的都晤係賺錢，（而係為咗幫我引開傳媒嘅注意。）佢其實亦從來冇一分一毫落過袋。（啲錢全部係入我袋。）

至於啲地，我重覆一次，係買嚟作我屋企嘅休憩用途。(我屋企嘅休憩消閒活動就係土地買賣。好似你哋啲升斗市民玩大富翁咁，不過我用真地、起真樓之嘛。）我同意啲地買嘅時候好平，為咗釋除公衆嘅疑慮，我打算盡快搵完全唔關事嘅第三者買咗佢。（升咗咁多，梗係搵人出貨。）我亦承諾以後唔會投資土地買賣，（但會買賣樓宇、公司、契約、之類之類。）同埋其他同我公職有衝突嘅生意。（有人阻頭阻勢先有衝突。你地俾我横行無忌就冇得衝突。）

最後，我想同大家講，我唔會辭職。一直以來，我擔任公職嘅目的都係服務香港人。（我服務我自己。我係香港人吖，我冇話我服務全部香港人喎。）我其實好謙卑，對各位傳媒朋友嘅質問，我都會想起約伯書裡面嘅教導嚟回應。（係約伯書第38章、第11節。）大家可能覺得我喺度唧牙膏式咁講嘢，係玩緊語言偽術。我同意我嘅措辭係比較華麗，呢個係因為我真心覺得講嘢係一種呃。

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Szeto's note: Job 38:11 - Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further. In Cantonese, it could be translated as: 好咧喎，唔好再追問落去咧喎。

PS. I must admit, as an old boy of the New Asia College, I am slightly agitated. I am sure if Ch'ien Mu (錢穆) is still alive, his response will be no more gentle than mine.

辯辭

各位議員，各位巿民:

今日我希望喺呢度同大家開誠公佈，一次過交代我件事。

首先，我嚴正聲明，經過多次嘅轉售，啲地依家係我太太嘅家人持有。注意，嗰啲人唔係我嘅家人，我太太自己亦冇任何權益。一直以來，我太太參與土地買賣，目的都晤係賺錢，佢其實亦從來冇一分一毫落過袋。

至於啲地，我重覆一次，係買嚟作我屋企嘅休憩用途。我同意啲地買嘅時候好平，為咗釋除公衆嘅疑慮，我打算盡快搵完全唔關事嘅第三者買咗佢。我亦承諾以後唔會投資土地買賣，同埋其他同我公職有衝突嘅生意。

最後，我想同大家講，我唔會辭職。一直以來，我擔任公職嘅目的都係服務香港人。我其實好謙卑，對各位傳媒朋友嘅質問，我都會想起約伯書裡面嘅教導嚟回應。大家可能覺得我喺度唧牙膏式咁講嘢，係玩緊語言偽術。我同意我嘅措辭係比較華麗，呢個係因為我真心覺得講嘢係一種art。

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Szeto's note: Since the speech is almost entirely in Cantinese, we have reasons to believe the last word is only misheard as English.

It got to be 呃。