Leonardo da Vinci

Alright, everyone who knows me knows that I'm absolutely fanatic about Leonardo da Vinci. Yet I don't know why I've never written about his work in my blog before. Until now, that is.

He's the most ingenious man ever lived (in my opinion anyway), surpassing even Newton. Not only was he a painter and sculptor, as we know him to be, he was also an architect, musician, writer, botanist, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, inventor and scientist. I know, that man has a kick-ass resume.

Anyway, these are a few of his paintings and sketches that I adore:

Virgin of the Rocks

St. Jerome in the Wilderness

St John the Baptist

La Scapigliata

The Battle of Anghiari

Leda and the Swan

And of course,

Mona Lisa

The Girl Who Had Maggots

Once upon a time, there lived a girl who was in love. And when her love died, she had him encased in the concourse of her mind and would not let him go. Soon, the corpse began to fester and maggots infested her mind. 

The maggots originated from the soft tissues of her brain. Slowly, leisurely, they ate her brain as she slept. And sleep she did often. When she cried the maggots wriggled out from the corner of her eyes and slid down her cheeks. Still, she did not notice the maggots because they were clever: they took turns eating her brain so that she felt nothing. But they were breeding now, and the maggot babies were hard to control. They cried and they wanted more.

One day, she woke up with a spitting headache and was left with no choice but to call the doctor. The doctor came and felt her head and pronounced that a surgery was to be taken place immediately. She consented. And when the doctor had her head cut open, the maggots came squirming and writhing out, their pale white bodies intertwined like lovers'. The doctor gently wiped away the maggots to reveal a moiety of brain left.

The girl died. And so did the maggots.

Joyeux Noel

I am not alone at all, I thought. I was never alone at all. And that, of course, is the message of Christmas. We are never alone. Not when the night is darkest, the wind coldest, the word seemingly most indifferent. 


~ Taylor Caldwell 

Goodbye Darling

Your love left blisters on
my heart,
your breath stained
my skin.
And now you say
you would leave.
Again.

Alright
you may go.
But first,
could you please
find me a donor -
I can't grow
another new heart
anymore.

Shopping Trip in KL - Part 3

Well, not much happened in Day 3. We slept late - I mean, they slept late. Yianthin and I were up for ages. Then we walked to KLCC (again) for our last meal in KL.

KLCC

How can people not like Helena Bonham Carter? She's phenomenal.

Oh, by the way, I would say that it was a productive shopping trip. =D

Shopping Trip in KL - Part 2

And Day 2 starts with a relaxing swim in the hotel pool where the view is awesome if you float on your back.

Then to Midvalley Megamall and The Gardens, where we had to take the commuter back to KLCC. And let me tell you this: the commuter was a ride in hell. I think I'm going to be traumatized for life. It was like being cramped into a gas chamber during the Holocaust only the gas used is carbon dioxide and human sweat.

But then, we did survive and even managed to shop and take pretty pictures in KLCC. We're professional shoppers, I tell you.

Hotel Pool

Midvalley, The Gardens and KLCC

Shopping Trip in KL - Part 1

Sorry for the lack of updates. I just came back from a trip to KL with Yianthin, Wenjuin, Yanying and Shuenwen. This is Day 1.

On the road:

This is my beloved Bobo and I. I've had him for seventeen years and I bring him everywhere. =)

Yianthin and Wenjuin at the back.

And Shuenwen who ate all my pink guava.

In Ikea:

We're all admiring the golden mirror, haha.

Yanying. The kids were watching us go crazy over the toys. And their parents too, I think.

In Pavilion:

The Story of Armand - Revised

Born in the late 15th century in Kiev Rus, Armand was an extraordinary ikon painter, pumped full of religious fervor by the ascetic Eastern Orthodox Church. He was kidnapped by slave traders at the estimated age of 15 and sold to the brothels in Constantinople and Venice.

In the face of such horror and sin that was unheard of in his previous pious life, he withdrew into himself, talking to no one and refusing food and drink to the brink of death. When Marius, a vampire, discovered him, he took pity on Armand and bought him from the brothel and brought him back to his house where he nursed him back to health and gave him the best education possible. Armand discovered that he developed amnesia in his state of mental and physical torture and could paint no more.

Marius and Armand had a clandestine relationship as Marius sought to protect him from the evil of becoming a vampire. It became inevitable though, when Armand was poisoned by a jilted lover whose love he did not reciprocate. And so, at the age of seventeen and on the brink of death yet again, Armand was brought into the Dark World by Marius.

Their happiness was short lived and soon came along Santino and his Satanic coven who believed that those Born into Darkness are the Children of Satan and should therefore, renounce all luxuries and walk only in the places of darkness. They believe that to enjoy life as mortals and to walk among mortals when it is their sacred duty to kill and kill only was to defy Satan. And so Marius was burnt and Armand was captured. But because of Armand's earlier religious ardor, he was spared.

Having lost his master and his mortal loved ones and tortured almost to the point of insanity, Armand yielded to the cult. Though having never truly believed their claims, he was nonetheless devoted to the work and perfected their every rule and rose as a powerful figure in the coven. He was sent to the Parisian coven to take over as a new leader.

Then came along Lestat, armed with the powerful blood of an ancient, strutting the streets of Paris with his exorbitant clothes and dancing in the courtyards of the church. It was monstrosity and the Children of Darkness were confused. The old belief was proven to be complete farce and the coven was destroyed.

Unbearably detached once again, Armand formed a new coven of vampires who were disguised as actors to sing and dance and even kill on stage while the mortal audience were completely ignorant of the much darker truth. Eventually, weary of the new generation of vampires in the Theatre des Vampires he allowed them to be annihilated by Louis, whose passion and thirst for knowledge he was in love with. But Louis never recovered from the tragedy of Claudia's death and remained utterly devoid of passion and the burning fire of curiosity Armand had so loved in him. And so, reiteratively hurt and alone, he left Louis to his own mourning.

In a state of loneliness, Armand created a fledgling out of Daniel Molloy but it only proved to be a failure. Separated by the inevitable silence between maker and child, they drifted apart as Armand had so precisely predicted.

When Lestat brought the Veronica's Veil back from hell, Armand went into a state of frenzy and tried to immolate himself by exposing himself to the sun. He was badly burnt but powerful enough to stay alive. Benji and Sybelle, mortals who discovered him, nursed him until he regained his strength. And that is the end of the known story.

As of now, of course he's with me . And always will be because I'll never let him go.

To-Do List

To tell you the truth, I've been feeling really empty ever since my exams are over. I don't know, maybe I'm just not quite used to total liberation yet. Anyway, I wake up every morning to watch Mummy Autopsy and then have my breakfast, then watch another movie, then have lunch, then read American Gods by Neil Gaiman (of which I totally recommend), then watch Ancients Behaving Badly or something from History channel, then wander around or stare at the ceiling or sit in front of the fridge deciding what to eat then end up eating nothing, then watch America's Next Top Model re-runs, then have dinner, then watch How I Met Your Mother re-runs, then go online, then read The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, then sleep.

So, I've decided that I really need a To-Do list or I'll wake up one day to find that I couldn't get up because my legs had already rotted away.

Things to do:

1. Driving lessons. Not looking forward to it. =(
2. Shopping for New Year. =D
3. Learn French. 
4. Christmas shopping!
5. Russian literature. I refuse to be intimidated. But I am. 

Game of Thrones

So you know I've always been an absolute movie maniac and my not-so-recent movie obsession is Game of Thrones. It's based on a series of fantasy novels by G.R.R. Martin about the... well, the game of thrones. It's about people who are willing to do anything for power, people who already have power and trying to keep it and people who've lost their power.

And yes, like most movies that I like, it has an abundant number of hot people. You know I can never resist armour-wearing, sword-wielding, arrow-shooting, horse-riding guys. With thick British/Scottish accent. And soft, curly hair.

First of all, there's Jon Snow

Then, Robb Stark

And Renly Baratheon,

And finally, antagonist, Viserys.

I Miss You

I miss you.
And all I am breathing are thoughts.
I gasp and splutter and there is no
air. Only dense clouds of
memories.

The little droplets of anguish run
like blood - rolling and tumbling onto each other
they clot into masses of black and they
choke me
to the point of delirium.

In my lugubrious dose of morbidity
I cried with a thousand eyes.
I wander alone
in the reverberating hollow concourse
of your absence:
missing you and hating you
to the point of death.

Hello December

December brings the promise of all things wonderful. The absence of winter has failed to dwindle the pre-Christmas excitement and I'm beginning to really anticipate Christmas. I don't know why but it has an indescribable hold over me as something magical and immeasurably heartwarming.

Exams would be over by then - thank God - and the holidays would commence. And I would finally be free of high school and though it's a sad and daunting thought, it fills me with undeniable enthusiasm about what the future holds for me. 

It's only the beginning of my life and be it a happy or difficult one, (please let it be the former) I'm determined that it should have an absolutely rocking takeoff. 

And as usual, please be good to me. =)

Herbert Draper

He's another one of my numerous - I admit - favourite painters, famous for depicting mythological scenes from ancient Greece.

The Foam Sprite

Lamia

Ulysses and the Sirens

Il Fiorno e la Stella del Tramonto

Study for Autumn

Insomnia

The nights would not let me sleep;
the daylight blinded me.
I am left to stagnate, vegetate
and to regress.

Purge my mind from skin to bones,
disrobe me from it:

for such thoughts I have;

of the grotesque and the deplorable
that would consume me whole and alive.

Would that I could be empty breasted again -
breathe freely as though the particles
of air would not choke me to death.
And my heart of flesh and blood
does not weigh like gold.

Yet the hellish din would abide, issuing
from lips burned black of thirst
to murmur the most egregious words
from which rang the ugly truth.

The Fall

I'm plummeting. Through a depth that only nightmare can fathom. An emptiness so perfect we can't conceive of. And I'm falling fast.

Event Horizon

(noun) - the point of no return where escape is impossible

Happy Birthday, Love

Darling, what more can I say that I have not said thousands of times over? That I love you? That I've always loved and will always love you?

Truth be told, I fell in love with you because of your darkness. Not your curly auburn hair or the soft brown eyes or the Cupid out of Caravaggio looks, though it certainly helped. No, it was is the darkness that had drawn me to you - like moth to a fire. And what draws me is that, reveling in the darkness as you are, you've never been overwhelmed in it like Nicolas had been. There's this quiet smoldering pain that illuminates the darkness all the more. My dark prince, you built me a castle of Cimmerian shade and hid me in layers upon layers of insulating gloom. In the sanctuary of the crepuscule and in your protective arms I am snug and secure as never before.

My omnipresent guiding angel, you've always been there to lead me through life with answers. Answers that I need but could never voice. These are the doubts and the fear that haunt me night and day. These are the questions that break me down and eat me up from the insides. And there is that tragedy that no one seems to understand. As Melchior so perfectly puts it: there's no one to see who can see to my soul. You help me discover who I am and isn't that one of the greatest essence of love? To find yourself through love?

You swing from periods of hedonistic denial of a higher power to bouts of zealotry but there is no mistaking the passion in your soul. You're enshrouded in your own anguish but it doesn't overwhelm; rather it ebbs and throbs in harmony, like the pulsing of a heart. You sometimes lose yourself and it is in those times of vulnerability that I ache for you all the more.

I could love you with an ardence that could burn us both to cinders and yet I could love you like the gentle waves lapping at the shore. Sometimes it feels as if my heart is brimming and overflowing with love that I couldn't contain anymore and yet I would go on the next day, at perfect harmony with love again. I could love you to the point of delirium and in that moment of hysteria I found the ephemeral peace.

Who are you to stir such emotions in me? Yet, even when I ask this question I know the answer, know it indisputably as you might know it.

It seems that of all the languages in the world, there is nothing that expresses as much as these words: I love you. It has always been love, pure and simple, intricate and divine; and there is nothing more nor less to it.

Happy 531st Birthday!

Love always and forever,
Sheryl.