nsfw.

These are pretty tame images that I have collected from Sandy Kim's website, my new favourite photographer. To all voyeurs, please check out http://www.sandykim.com/xxx.html. Art should make one uncomfortable. I like honest art.

More sexy facts because I love them so!
- In Medieval times, breast milk was considered to be diverted menstrual fluid. Milk does not not equal blood, otherwise I am grateful for choosing soy milk over skim milk in my coffee. This is what you get for being a vampire obsessed culture.
- Men, your penis is actually one third longer than you think. What you see is just the "root" and the rest is covered by the skin. Tell your lady about your 10 inch erection today!
- Thanks to MRI scanners, scientists now know that your male friend takes on the "shape of a boomerang" during intercourse. How do we know this? Stick two people in an MRI and watch them have sex. You can see why, initially, only extremely flexible (dancers) were used in such studies. It's tight in the MRI tube (no pun intended, though the MRI machine is, in retrospect, quite a funny looking machine).
- Israel Meizner of The Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine witnessed a 7 month old fetus "grasping his penis in a fashion resembling masturbation movements". You're in the womb for 9 months. You've got to pass time some how, I guess.
- The earliest orgasm on record (a Kinsey observation) was seen in a three year old girl. I wonder if the 7 month old fetus had a "happy ending".
- Evolutionists reckon that a man evolved a penis with a ridged flans so that he could scoop up competitors' semen before thrusting in and leaving his own sperm. The last portion of the ejaculate also contains a natural spermicide. What an intelligent creature the penis is! (let's face it, the penis and the man are not one)
- Masturbation is bad. Jk, lol but the that's what peeps thought in the 1850s when they manufactured the Penile Prickling Ring. This ingenious devise was engineering to be placed around the sleeping penis. If, God forbid, the creature expanded during sleep, the ring would expose metal spikes and prevent the wet dream/erection from continuing on. Using negative reinforcement, it was believed that you would be able to contain your arousal. I wonder if these poor men, like Albert and the white rabbit, had any long term complications with arousal and getting it up. Or like Little Albert, shriek and shiver at the sight of their engorged cock. Roy Levin (a sex physiologist) reckons that masturbation evolved because if you jerk off, more fresh sperm is made, keeping you more fertile and thus more evolutionarily advantageous. Too much wanking though can actually deplete your sperm counts but Lewin encourages that you (for medical purposes, clearly) autofellatio every 5 days. I had a friend in school that never busted a nut, but then again, he was getting it on with so many women I could never count on my fingers.
- In 16th and 17th Century France, impotence was legal grounds for divorce. A team of "experts" and examiners (sometimes 15 physicians, surgeons and legal functionaries) would visit the husband up to 2-4 times in some cases, and the man would have to prove that he could get and maintain an erection. If he failed on all accounts, the man would be fined and forbidden to remarry. He would also have to return the dowry received from his wife's family. This is a horrible story. I mean, I'm sure a lot of men out there would not want to touch themselves in front of a group of strangers and the pressure of this entire ordeal could be too much for your little, flaccid twinkle. Isn't it easier to get an erection in a whore house than in the company of 15, what I assume were, geriatric and Sigmund Freud looking (in my head, at least with big Harry Potter glasses and bushy, white beards) males? So many issues! What if the husband is gay, clearly 15 watchful males would be a turn on unlike the loving gaze of his missus. What if he has prostate cancer? This is too much! this may be the beginning of masturbatory webcams!
- The harem obstetrician to Kamil Pasha (an Ottoman Empire statesman), Skevos Zervos, was always really intrigued by Pasha's enthusiastic relations with all 64 of his wives and the feminising effects of testicle removal on eunuchs. What was his response to all of this? Why, clearly it was a good idea to graft testicular tissue from rabbits/dogs onto geriatric gonads. This was 1909 and there is an even more morbid story from Quentin Chief Scientist, Stanley (I've forgotten his first name), which I heard about in an Ethan Bloom lecture at the SymbioticA symposium. Stanley grafted dead prisoners' gonads onto prisoners. According to Stanley, asthmatics reported improvement, as did diabetics (3/4), and epileptics (3/5). His test subjects apparently saw better and their acne cleared up. Odd how nowadays we don't accept such "inhumane" and "brutal" human experimentation. Science can only progress if you prove that something isn't due to A and B. But that's for another blog post, I guess. Makes you wonder if we really should be looking so deeply into the beauty of the human body (coming from the Medical student :s ). The Chinese did experiments on genitals as well. Instead of grafting tissue, though, they dried it and made it into pills or potions. The Chinese journal Materia Medica (1597) recommends the penises of dogs, wild cats and otters for impotence treatment.

Even recently Earthtrust found a restaurant in Taichung, Taiwan, which sold penis soup to male diners (at $320 a serving!) though I'm not too sure if it's since then been shut down. I assume it has. Interestingly, one penis makes soup for 8. Time to start poaching tigerzzzzz.

i am beethoven (no).

"time is always new; cannot possibly be anything but new. Heard as a succession of acoustic events, music will soon become boring; heard as the manifestation of time eventuating, it can never bore." - Zuckerkandl, from his book Sound and Symbol

Is this not the most perfect quote? I think it quite accurately depicts how I feel about music. When I was doing TEE, I used to always watch the hands of the clock tick lazily across the face, calculating how much practise I still needed to get done for the week. I didn't appreciate that time was slowly seeping through my fingers and that instead of fighting it, I should simply appreciate and be with 'the moment'. I once heard on ABC radio a professional French Hornist talk about her relationship with her instrument. She mentioned how sometimes you pick up an instrument and it just feels like your skin. You know it is 'the one'. I never had that feeling with trumpet but I did, and continue, to have that for my first love: my piano, Violetta. A sexy minx dressed in black.

I've decided to learn as many of Bach's Preludes and Fugues as possible starting with Prelude and Fugue No. 2 in C minor, BVW 847. Bach clears my head. I don't think about anything other than the music. I feel more in the moment than I have ever felt with Violetta but it wasn't long before I encountered my first obstacle: to metronome or not to metronome? If I used the ticking device, I would be stripping the music of its unique quality, turning it into a succession of musical notes and rendering it pathetic. After all, the metronome wasn't even around when Bach composed this piece. What's good enough for Bach, is good enough for me.

Beethoven was the first composer to include metronome markings in his pieces and he was criticised by his colleagues who considered him senile and eccentric. His marked metronome markings are, in general, quicker than how the music should be played. Rhythm is a touchy subject! Apparently Galileo used to hum to himself as he observed the descent of objects. This enabled him to more accurately estimate the time in which things fell, as opposed to using other (unreliable) indicators. Clearly, we have a natural sense of rhythm which may be destroyed by the use of my pathetic, electronic metronome. Metronome, I am above you. (On a side note, some people tend to be rhythm deaf, like Che Guevara who apparently couldn't tell a mambo from a tango. Didn't stop him from causing political upheaval, though).

Evolutionists argue that rhythm is necessary for survival (see 'ear worms') and even in modern society you can see its importance in work songs. I know that I much rather listen to music with an awesome beat when I'm working out; it makes me get into a rhythm and makes strenuous exercise much more enjoyable and, simultaneously, easier. Some broken legged patients also find that certain rhythmic songs can help them regain their original 'body image' map, encoding the intricate wirings of the brain. Rhythm is represented through the entire brain - in the cerebellum, brain stem and the frontal lobe. I use mnemonic devises with a memorable rhythm when I'm trying to remember something in my study. There are bizarre cases of people with frontal lobe damage, that only respond to commands if they're said in a singsong sort of way and I guess poetry owes part of its success to people's fondness for repetition. When the clock ticks, ever tick is the same mechanical sound, but instead of "tick tick" we hear "tick tock." We seem to impose a rhythm even when there are identical sounds. How odd. The evolutionists alwayz have a wanky explanation for such thingz.

In the end, I gave in. I'm no Galileo or Johannes Sebastian Bach. Just a silly 20 year old which philosophises too much about the importance of music. When you're learning a new piece, especially something by Bach, you need a solid beat, an acoustic event. If time is going to pass in its lethargic pace, completely disregarding my insipid and pointless need to relive and stay in the past, I'd rather be spending it with you, Violetta.

I'll finish by quoting Agnes de Mille (who choreography Copland's Rodeo - I seriously want to see this in concert one day), "the truest expression of people is its dance and music." Perhaps Paderewski's spider could differentiate between Chopin's etudes played in thirds from those played in sixths but music seems to be something uniquely human. I like spending time with others by dancing in my underwear and listening to Ravel.





Ps, Glenn Gould is a mega babe. Bach is supposed to be played on the harpsichord so it makes sense to play in staccato. On youtube, many were complaining that Gould played too slowly. I say fuck 'em and their stupid rhythmic expectations. Music should be an expression of yourself anyway.

essays in love.

On my flight back from Dubai I was seated next to a man whose name I don't know how to spell. Despite, at the time, being completely enamoured by A, I felt nervous talking to him. I guess I understand why, now.

I spontaneously decided to visit a friend from my past after my art class. It was late in the night and he had already been drinking. There were wine marks on his lips as he leaned in and told me that there are infinite possibilities surrounding us and that life continually repeats itself in alternative realities. A very Nietschian sentiment. He said it to appease me, to let me know that my decisions weren't heavily loaded with implications and weight.

As I sat in that aeroplane, thoughts full of A, I felt anxious. The man talking to me was attractive, well travelled, well read with a whole life behind him. I had committed myself to A, but the comfort that I felt around this man made me question that the reality that I had chosen was going to make me most happy. We got to talking about the partners we knew would be waiting for us at the airport. "Do you think it'll be the same as it was before?" he asked. "Better, the distance has made us closer." I replied. He frowned, "Every time I leave, I change. The person that returns is so different from the one that had become the object of love for every one of my girlfriends. I wonder if it'll be the same for you." I always remember what he said and I think that I agree. I changed, but not for the better. I view my last relationship in two phases - pre-Baltimore and post. To change, you don't need to wander out into the world, but you need to experience something novel.

I started reading Essays in Love and of course I thought of every one of my past relationships, in particular A which didn't bother me at all. And so I wanted to write this entry though perhaps I shouldn't. I had an amazing weekend which is odd because I generally want to block out my birthdays. They always seem to remind me of disappointment, but turning 20 was the most fun! Some of my reflections on love/attraction/courtship are as follows.

1. There is a theory that we fall in love with those that we feel have something that we lack. Through this union, we start to feel perfect as well. Pre-Baltimore, A made me feel this way. He always seemed to have this creative mind that I felt I lacked, or rather, had lost for a while. In America, I'd walk around with a big smile on my face and I was so surprised by the attention I received. I can pinpoint almost the precise moment when I fell out of love. It was the day he no longer appeared perfect to me, the same day that I felt ugly and worthless.

2. It's odd how easily you can flirt with those that you don't find attractive. Give me a homosexual or old man, any day. I become the most inept flirt around a beautiful woman.

3. Why do we always idealise/feel more powerfully for those we don't have? I still have never felt as strongly as I did for my first love, who introduced me to Paul Desmond. It was a completely different love with A. I never suffered with A and once in the relationship, we never argued. We laughed at everything so there was never a feeling that I was losing him. I think it's important to have that balance. Some would probably say that I'm overdramatising thingz, but when you don't long or yearn to be touched, there doesn't seem to be that feeling of reward. In Baltimore, I went out of my mind but we could never recreate that crazy passion when we were together.

4. As Proust would say, classically beautiful women are for men without imagination.

5. The Manu of New Guinea don't have a word for "love". I think love is universal, but can you feel what we know to be "love" if you don't know what to expect? II guess no expectations leads to less disappointments! In our world of rom coms and great love stories, there is a certain expectation of what "true love" should feel like. At first, my reasons for staying with A weren't admirable but after feeling disappointed at my previous attempsts at love, I wanted to feel the security that I knew he would give me. In the same way that the charm of the Taj Mahal has been lost to photography, has love lost its mysticism and wonder?

6. I like that there are certain things that I do now that are purely A's influence. Like how I bend the bottom corners of pages whenever I read a beautifully phrased paragraph or sentiment. Or the way I've adopted A's method for brushing teeth. Of course, the relationship (like all my others, but I don't like talking about them), changed me. There's this intimacy when you're in love where you feel compelled to be honest with one another. To point out facets of character that others aren't bothered with. Like the way I wriggle in bed, my pessimism, my uneasiness in certain social situations. It's good. It helps you mature and recognise how to change. Or, learn to love your quirks.

7. As French writer Stendhal noted, humans are "social creatures", we are nothing if we're not surrounded by others. Alain de Botton describes humans as amoeba; organisms with an elastic membrane that can change shape. Different people bring out different sides of ourselves. Around A, post-Baltimore, I was always so composed and introverted. I always wondered why it was that I felt more alive around others. It's not that I wasn't myself - it was just a facet of myself that I didn't like. I think both of us started to unleash our own insecurities near the end. I thought I was inadequate and never voiced my opinion feeling as though he would crush every one of my arguments. You can't expect one person to give you everything that you want. But you need an intermediary that doesn't make you feel deformed or misrepresented. I feel happier now than I did with him. When did I stop loving him?

8. I think it's impossible to feel love (how the hell can you even define love!) all the time. People enter your life, you develop attractions for others, and you question if the person you're with is the one you're happiest with. They say the first six months constitute the 'honeymoon' period of the relationship and that once you step over that milestone, most start to question if it's time to persevere or take off.

9. I spent eight months of my life with A. He'd visited me when I came back from hospital, he held me when I thought Kita was dying. He had been a part of my life so when it ended, I felt like a part of me had died. It didn't matter if I loved him or not, I just wanted things to stay the way they were. I was devastated because I knew a part of me would never return. Like cats, I think humans have multiple lives. We can conquer death. Although, I know, that i will never feel the same again, a new life form will replace that which I have lost. It's not sad, it's just change and it's thrilling.

10. Living in the present is a scary thing, at first. One evening, I told him, "I'm scared that I won't know when to end it," and he told me to live in the moment. When you have no expectations, you feel lighter. I remember being in Asia with my friends in high school and feeling an overwhelming sense of freedom but the anticipation of its end would lead to an XTREME sadness. When you want to live in the present, you rarely do. I wanted to feel happy simply being with A, but thoughts of international placements, travel plans and what had happened three years ago kept bothering me. And so I felt heavy.

11. It's as if the ingredients of love's collapse are contained within the beginning. At first, I loved his intelligent conversation. Later, I came to view it as arrogant and insincere. I loved the way he kissed and cuddled and how he gave me space but it seemed so mundane towards the end. When you sense that the love is dying, you try to bring it back my doing the same things that kindled it. I tried eating out at restaurants again, wearing the same outfits that I did on the first few dates, reminding him of the first moments we shared together. I could feel it escaping me, but I knew that if the love died, a part of me would as well, so I struggled on and tried to hold onto it. It's like what Joni wrote about in her final telegram to George Nash, "if you hold sand too tightly in your hands, it will run through your fingers." I felt myself falling.

12. I read in a magazine last week that our memories aren't kept in time, but in place. The article used this to argue for the importance of architectural design and innovative space to human interactions and well being. When you're no longer with someone, you still feel their presense. everywhere In the space on the left side of your bed, in the empty chairs outside the restaurant that where you shared calamari. When I stopped seeing us sitting outside The Flying Taco, at first I felt guilty. Now, I smile.

13. It's always the one that no longer loves that makes the tender speeches in the end. I don't need to explain myself anymore. I'm glad I read this book, at least. In the same way that a century becomes remembed by a few important events, so will our love. Maybe I shouldn't have written this blog entry but I don't feel like I've divulged anything. It's just about love and who isn't facinated by it. I wish I had loved him, and though I know I did once upon a time, I couldn't sustain it. Something changed after Baltimore and the clock keeps ticking now.

the music bug.

'Unravelling Bolero' by Anne Adams. Ironically painted at the onset of frontotemporal demential which also plagued Ravel when he composed 'Bolero'

Someone once told me that my very existence proves that Murphy's Law exists. In the space of about a week, four horrible things happened and I crashed. I still don't know if the way I handled things was the best way of doing so, but I find my life hysterically amusing. Things from my past keep re-surfacing, like the bowler hat for Sabina, each time with a different but significant meaning. I can't help but laugh - I'm 20 in two days, why must things always take the most complicated route! :)

For a while, I felt numb. I was so removed from everything; I said hurtful things and placed myself in compromising positions and watched the action take place without even the sliver of emotion coursing through my veins. And then I heard Philip Glass's 'Opening' and the world beneath my feet, trembled. For about six weeks, I'd felt nothing. And now I felt everything. (Koko is a wankerrrrr)

Music can make you feel alive in ways that words cannot. Before L-dopa was brought in to manage Parkinson's, music therapy managed to temporarily inhibit the jerky stutter in motion that characterises the disease. People with Tourette's often find that playing an instrument harnesses and focuses their compulsion to touch and feel. In fact renown pianists Nick van Bloss and Tobias Picker both suffer from Tourette's. I guess what I'm trying to say, is that music can bring out the best in you. It stopped me from becoming a callous bitch. It can help those not only suffering from motor disorders, but also from emotional turmoil. When I felt like nothing mattered, no words could make me feel whole again. I heard 'Opening' and all this changed. I feel like it's woken me up from this dreamlike three years. Yes, I know I'm exaggerating.

The association of music with emotion and memory has been long established. I associate certain time periods and people with certain pieces of music. Everytime I hear Sonic Youth, I think of one of my dearest friends and I still can't listen to Metric's 'Help Me' because of the memories iand emotions t brings up but sometimes my connections between people and emotion and music become very convoluted. Sometimes, when I visit one of my friends I actually hear Kronos Quartet and feel as I did when I was 18 and whenever I see one of my closest friends' girlfriends, I hear 'Debaser' by the Pixies. I can't help it. I used to think that it was weird that I occassionally hear songs vividly in my mind when I simply am near someone. Perhaps this is a form of synaesthesia? Am I cross activating my auditory and visual cortices?

I think synaesthesia is more common than we recognise. I always associate the number three with yellow and seven with pale pink and feminine qualities. Nine is masculine and rude and mean. I read in a book that this is a "higher" order of synaesthesia which basically means that instead of mixing up the senses, ideas become cross-activated. Nabokov also saw different colours for each letter of the alphabet. In fact, when he was younger his mother gave him a box of coloured letters which distressed the poor kid who saw the letters coloured incorrectly. Luckily, I'm not this extreme. I've side tracked again, but synaesthesia is really facinating. Researchers reckon that in childhood, many of our senses are cross linked but that with time, "pruning" of unimportant/less used connections wires the brain in a different way. Begs you to ask the question, why are some people more susceptible to synaesthesia? Is there perhaps some sort of gene that makes some people less susceptible to pruning?

It makes me sad to think that some people can't react to music. Those with Asperger's can sometimes appreciate music, but not feel its full weight. Apparently Darwin lost his appreciation for music the more deeply he explored his theories on evolution. I read recently about frontotemporal dementia which really facinates me. Apparently this dementia can result in the disinibition of certain areas of the cortex asssociated with control and can unravel talents and a greater appreciation for the arts. One of my favourite composers, Ravel composed 'Bolero' at the onset of this dementia and artist Anne Adams, who had originally been a biology/math teacher, became enthralled by music and took up art. There's hope for everyone, even those with Asperger's! I find comfort in knowing that we all have some sort of musical prowess that we're not aware of. I don't want to wait around for dementia to hit, though. Man alive, music is wonderful.

Extra tid-bits:
- Williams Syndrome is a syndrome associated with heart and blood defects and mental retardation. Apparently those with this chromosomal aberration have a strong love and desire to play music for themselves and others (unlike savants which are highly robotic in their preoccupation with music).
- damage to the anterior temporal lobe of the dominant hemisphere (stroke etc) can lead to disinhibition of the parietal and temporal sections of the non dominant hemisphere. This can potentially lead to greater powers of perception.