The Quickening Field – A Poem Collection by Hachikai Mimi

This is my first time reading a book featuring nothing but poem. I thought I give it a try as so many often said that a book full poem is nice to read.

The Quickening Field won the 5^th Nakahara Chuya Prize.

I enjoyed reading her poems because they felt like a very short story but I honestly don’t know how to write a review of a poetry book. I know I should have said that her poems are powerful or have depth or something. All I can say is that some of her poems are easy to understand while some of them are very difficult.

There are 15 poems in the book, but I only liked few of them because I could understand them.

My favorite of all is Morning Glory. The poem is like a story seen from 4 points of view. Someone was taking the cat for a walk and saw a girl crying.

The path through bamboo ending at a shrine
appealed to the cat too. Just as
we started down it,
a little girl in a uniform
darted out of the groove,
her name-card and skirt flying,
and ran off in tears.

At the same time, an old man also saw the little girl.

An Interview With Marky Jahjali – Indonesian Director Who Will Direct A Stephen King Adaptation Movie

About two days ago, I posted a post called How I Met Another Stephen King’s Fan and I also mentioned that I will have a simple interview with him.

Why would I want to interview a King’s fan? you might ask!

Well…this fellow King’s fan happens to be a talented Young Director.

Marky Jahjali

Meet Marky Jahjali!

I was born from an artistic father & a scientific mother, under the August moon and constellation of Leo. Been writing stories since 7 years old. Love science, art, tech, good food, movies, and books. A grandson of an actress of the 50s. Has a twitching third eye.

Marky was graduated from Bandung Institute of Technology’s school of fine arts and design. He had directed 4 short films,  His Chair, Lolonii and Strangers (click on the title to see the film) . All three of them have been nominated in many movie festivals. He has also received many praises from critics. He had also directed art video and documentary

Marky is not only a Director but also an actor and a writer.

It’s going to take a whole page to write about his achievement…therefore, I have created a second page for you to read more about his works. Please go click>> HERE.

Now…let’s begin the interview … and since we both are Stephen King’s fans, I can’t resist the urge to ask him few things about SK

How I Met Another King’s Fan & 2 Videos of King’s Adaptation

If you have been to my blog so many times, I am sure you know that I am a huge fan of the great Mr. Stephen King. I love his works and I honestly think he is one of the best writers of this century … even though many will contradict my opinion

Being a fan of Stephen King is not easy in Indonesia. People might have heard his name but most never read his works. I introduced him to my best friend, she likes him but not quite a fan like me. She told me that she introduced King to his work mate and said that he likes it and wants to read more by him

I think it’s a bit unfair when someone said that King is bla bla bla (all the bad words) without even trying to read his works. He doesn’t only write horror, he writes many things…hope is one of them. His aim is not only to scare people meaningless. Anyway, I am not here to talk about his greatness and why I love his works…I want to share about another huge fan in Indonesia.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

I have seen so many review of this book, many said it was good and few said it wasn’t that good.  I am curious with this book since a couple of years ago but something always distracted me and ended up picking other book from the shelf. Last week, I was in the mood for light reading from thin book and my hand finally picked Kitchen.

I think Kitchen is really good, it mainly talks about how we deal with death. There are two stories in one book, one deals with the lost of close relative while other deals with the lost of lover.

Kitchen is a 102 page story about a woman named Mikage Sakurai. She had been living with her grandma since childhood. Her grandma was her only living relative. The story began when her grandma passed away leaving her all alone. In her lonely days, a man younger than her who had once worked with her grandma asked her to live with him and his mother. Yuichi Tanabe and his mother, Eriko, are very nice to her…but she soon found out that Yuichi’s family was not an ordinary family. His mom was actually his father. His father loved his mother so much and when she passed away, she decided she wanted to be a woman and named himself after his wife. Both are very genuine people. She had wonderful time there but when she moved from the house to live independently, bad news reached to her ear. Both Yuichi and Mikage dealt with another lost in their own way.

Detroit Metal City – One Funny Live Action Movie

I want to become a trendy musician. Debuting as trendy pop musician like Ozawa Kenji or Cornelius. That’s my dream.

But then I’ve graduated…and the band I’m in…

Yes, we are a demon metal band. DMC, meaning Detroit Metal City.
Why did it turn out like that?
Where did I make mistake?
It’s horrible!!
What I want wasn’t this kind of music.
And not this band!

Detroit Metal City is one crazy and hilarious movie!

I didn’t know that the movie was a live action version of manga/anime of the same name (If I knew, I would have put the review together with Rurouni Kensin and Ranma ½ in a post called from anime to live action). Anyway, it seems that almost all Manga turns to anime than to live action…I honestly don’t mind at all as long as the one making it is still Japanese (remember the horror of Dragon Ball?). To put it short, although I haven’t seen the anime nor read the manga…I am really satisfied with Detroit Metal City-live action. It makes me want to find the anime

Soichiro Negishi

Soichiro Negishi wants to be a pop singer who sings cheerful songs. Negishi is a shy college boy who is not attractive at all, he is rather nerdy and goofy…but he is very nice. Somewhere along, a scary manager (blonde woman with foul mouth) puts her power on Negishi and turns him into a singer of a Death Metal band (Negishi calls it akuma instead of death) called Detroit Metal City. When he ss on stage, he turns into Krauser…a man who often shouts the words Kill, Rape and other bad words…but once he stepps down from the stage he turns back to the nerdy looking guy named Negishi.

Usurper of The Sun by Housuke Nojiri

From Goodreads:

The mysterious Builders have brought humanity to the edge of extinction; can they be reasoned with, or must they be destroyed? Aki Shiraishi is a high school student working in the astronomy club and one of the few witnesses to an amazing event—someone is building a tower on the planet Mercury. Soon, the Builders have constructed a ring around the sun, threatening the ecology of Earth with an immense shadow. Aki is inspired to pursue a career in science, and the truth. She must determine the purpose of the ring and the plans of its creators, as the survival of both species—humanity and the alien Builders—hang in the balance.

This is a new book in Japan Foundation Library. Knowing nothing at all about the book was not an excuse for me to not borrow it…in fact, being new book as the main reason I borrowed it. It looks like a good book and I haven’t yet read sci-fi by Japanese author.

Usurper of The Sun had interesting story but has a VERY slow pace. The incredibly slow pace almost made me abandon the book…but my curiosity got the better of me. I continued reading with a lot of skimming.

Aki Shiraishi was a high school student when she first spotted a tower on Mercury. Her discovery made a lot of scientist interested with it and the tower made Aki became obsesses with it. Over the years, the tower grew into a massive ring around Mercury. Being so close to the sun, the ring caused sun blocking. The earth with its lack of sunlight was facing human extinction.

Firestarter By Stephen King (The Book and a bit of The Movie)

For me, Stephen King’s book is like a home sweet home. Whenever I found myself struggling to finish a book, I often went back to the King of horror and trailer. I have mentioned that I was having difficulty to finish The War of The World, and so happy that King’s Firestarter is a fast read and not a single page made me sleepy.

I watched the movie when I was very young, couldn’t quite remember how young I was but I think it was when I was still in school. I remember liking the movie a lot. I haven’t read King’s book back then because here in Indonesia, Stephen King is not as famous as other writers. I saw the paperback last year but hold myself NOT to read it straight away, I want to have a Stephen King’s book ready on my shelf when I got bored with other writers (which reminds me that I have NO King on my shelf now and better buy one as soon as possible!)

Firestarter is more like sci-fi book rather than a horror book. Andy McGee and his future wife, Vicky Tomlinson needed a quick cash and signed up as volunteers in Dr. Wanless’ experiment called Lot Six. They didn’t know anything about the thing injected to them. Andy met Vicky there and had a love affair. The scientist and The Shop (the government bureau which supported Lot Six) never planned for such thing to happen…but it did happen. Their marriage brought them short happiness and a lot of misery from The Shop.

The War of The World by H.G. Wells

About 2 months ago, I bought a new phone and I was so happy that I could download a free ebook app with some free books. The first book I noticed was The War of The World. When I saw the movie, I didn’t know that that movie was based on a book published in 1898. I was intrigued and straight away downloaded it. I didn’t read it immediately because I was in the middle of other book. When I finally finished my previous book, I straight away read TWOTW.

Although it left me sleepy almost all the time, I still think the book was really good. What made me sleepy was certainly not the story because I marveled at Wells’s imagination. For someone who lived in late 19^th century, his imagination of destruction by being from another planet was really amazing. I wondered how people at his time reacted toward his book…he lived in the era where most writers wrote about life drama. H.G. Wells’s bravery to come up with a sci-fi book about human annihilation totally awed me.

However, even though I marveled at the idea I still couldn’t keep my eyes open after the story had reached certain point. I can’t quite explain why I fell asleep after 5 or 6 pages…I guess it’s something in the way the words were arranged, you know the old English way. It wasn’t as difficult as Dickens’s but it lingered too long in one description. I think the only book that can keep me awake with its long description is The Lord of The Rings, even after reading it more than once I still read every word written in the book. Other than TLOTR, I often drifted away in long description and finally sleep took over me.