My mother is cooking chicken curry for lunch. I am very excited. Something about being home on a Saturday, working a little on my MacBook and then stopping to have chicken curry cooked by my mother that makes me happy as a clam.
I can smell the spices already. Ahhhh... :)
I heard some bad news yesterday. An acquaintance's 21 year-old daughter committed suicide. Such sad news... I pray for God's peace and hope in that situation.
You see, that is why I hope I will never lose sight of the wonder of little things, like the smell of chicken curry cooked by your mother on a Saturday morning, like talcum-powdered little kids in worn cotton t-shirts and flip flops, like hugging someone you love, like the way a tulip opens to the sun.
For all who stop by here, I wish you a day full of wonderful little things... Have a good weekend!
Saturday, March 31, 2007
The wonder of little things
Friday, March 30, 2007
Quiet
Quiet night. It is 12:36am. I don't know why I think it so important to tell you what time it is. It seems important for you to know that it is dark, that it is past midnight, and that I can hear myself typing on the soft keyboard of my MacBook.
But it is not completely quiet. My coffee-charged colleague just got back after I started this post, and I can hear her talking and laughing. Others are talking softly in the background. It doesn't bother me. The sound of typing is comforting.
I miss rambotan. He hasn't written in a month and a half. I actually know him in real life—that's why I don't have him on my blogroll. I hope he is okay, but I've kinda lost touch with him so I don't know how to ask.
I'm random at night. I've started two different paragraphs but I've deleted them both. Things get personal at night, if you get my meaning. Must strive to be impersonal, but that is hard to do.
I will type until I fall asleep...
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Watching
My workplace bans access to the internet when you use your personal laptop; thankfully, for some reason, I can access the internet with Safari, which is very good especially when you are stuck at work at 11:45pm.
It is all about watching, learning and keeping your head down. It ought to be one of the essential skills they teach you when you first start work for any kind of hierarchical organisation. Maybe later, after you've had developed some rapport with your colleagues and supervisors, then you can talk about what you really think. Meanwhile, when you are still green behind the ears, it is better to just follow.
So I have my trackpants, my Sandman comic, my darling Mac, a sleeping bag and my mobile phone. I hope tonight will be trouble-free.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Talking to myself
I must not buy more than 1 comic a week. I must not I must not I must not buy that comic I want. I am spending so much money on random stupid things like files and red pens and decent looking clothes so that I can look fierce and menacing that I really cannot afford to spend any more on stuff I don't really need. This new profession is going to cost me and I haven't even got my first pay check yet.
Okay, I'm seriously thinking about popping by the library to pick up the comic I want. See ya later.. Ta!
Monday, March 26, 2007
Spot the bruschetta
Okay, so we need to work a little on our presentation. But it was yummy!
Oh, and I watched Babel. I couldn't bear to keep watching at some parts. It was too tragic. When it was done I had the feeling that it had something to do with miscommunication and guns. The next day I had a quasi-revelation that the guns were a metaphor for the tower of Bable, the instrument of power that is the embodiment of mankind's desire to be like God. It is the gun that lies innocently at the heart of all the tragedy.
Bang bang! And we all fall down!
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Yertle about town
YERTLE AT HAN'S
YERTLE TAKES IN THE VIEW
"I got locked out of my house again."
"You silly person."
"Hey! Who are you calling silly?"
"Erm... Yertle."
"Oh. Okay."
YERTLE THE SCAPEGOAT Read More!
Region madness is killing me
Over and over and over again.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Understanding Comics by Scot McCloud
This is a pretty amazing book that tells you exactly how comics work.
But I am too sleepy to say much else. Other than that the pyramid is cool (retinal edge, conceptual edge and the language border) and the idea that the more iconic the drawing, the better readers can relate to characters.
Did you know that both Tintin and Asterix use detailed background and iconic characters to emphasise the otherness of the setting and the inclusiveness of the characters?
Death: The time of your life by Neil Gaiman
Don't be fooled by the title. This is a feel-good comic.
Starring Death, Hazel and Foxglove, what is there not to like?
I was going to buy "Death: The high cost of living" but Kinokuniya had no stock so I bought this instead.
No regrets.
Region madness is driving me up the wall
I cannot believe that I have to run Apple Boot Camp and Windows just to watch a DVD from a different DVD setting as the setting my drive is set to. Why isn't there region-free software for the Mac? Windows has DVD Region Master and a plethora of players that will ignore the region of the disk. Why not for the Mac?
It is absolutely ridiculous. It is ridiculous that a drive bought in 1996 (rpc1) is better than a drive bought in 2007 (rpc2). VLC used to be an option but not with the new Macs, mine included. What is a consumer supposed to do?
They instituted regions for DVDs because they wanted to control piracy. Bollocks! This punitive measure doesn't hurt the big players — do you really think they don't own a rcp1 drive or cannot find a way around this? — it only hurts regular people like you and me, who spent $2228 for a new machine and is now pulling her hair out for want of a solution to this region madness.
The Berlin wall fell in 1989. Today you can book a flight and be in Beijing, China or the former U.S.S.R within a week. We have bi-lateral trade agreements, ASEAN talks and United Nations initiatives with nations from every continent. But sorry... you cannot watch their DVDs.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
A ten-week marathon
Yawn. It is only 8:30pm. Last night I woke up at 3:05, 4:00, 5:00, 5:30 and finally at 6:00am. I hope that some of that nervousness has drained away and that I will sleep better tonight. I had better... It is a ten-week marathon.
Read More!Monday, March 19, 2007
A weekend in words
I know I'm being a prick, but shouldn't there be an apostrophe in
"Teachers Network"?
Went for an invigorating jog at MacRitchie yesterday evening. I had
forgotten how much I love running at MacRitchie. It wasn't too long
ago when I went there to take photos but somehow the sun looks more
glorious when it sets in rhythm with pounding footsteps and rushing
adrenaline. I swear it really does look better that way.
Certain colours evoke certain emotions. There is rage red, peace
green, happy yellow. For me, that particular shade of orange
reflected by the ripples in the water evokes nothing short of inner
calm. It is practically an equation.
I'm at Teachers Network (It gives me much angst to type that without
the apostrophe). It is a strange feeling because I started my
Secondary School life here in this building too—running around a
track in the old Raffles Institution to see if I would qualify for
track and field. The tarmac track looks the same; the football field
looks the same; sixteen years hasn't changed much of the surrounding:
only the people get older.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Strange isn't it, that a Japanese author can capture so well what it is like to be an English butler in the early 20th century?
I like this novel, possibly more than Never Let Me Go. It is written from the point of view of Mr Stephens, a man so committed to his professional role as a butler that he manages to keep the stiff upper lip even under enormous personal strain. Ishiguro never departs from Mr Stephen's voice and sometimes the readers are left guessing the true nature of what really happened.
While it is nostalgic, it never descends to the sentimental. It hints of a certain regret especially with regards to the choice of making one's own mistakes, but it ends on a positive note with Mr Stephens planning to improve his bantering skills. It is when the daylight is almost gone—the remains of the day—when one is most prone to nostalgic and regret, but Mr Stephens chooses to look ahead and keep learning. It is very admirable.
I am in the bright noontime of my day. I hope it will be a long one.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
The Sandman, The Kindly Ones, Vol. 9
Now I know how it ends. Sigh.
The Kindly Ones is the grand finale of an intricate and fantastic masterpiece crafted by Neil Gaiman. It makes a reader want to stop and gape at the scope of his imagination and his craft in putting it altogether.
I am still missing pieces of this jigsaw: Season of Mists and Fables & Reflections. Neither have I read the two that come after The Kindly Ones—what a misfit for a name!—The Wake and Endless Nights. But I will get to it soon enough.
I don't particularly care for the style of artwork that is predominant in this volume. It is the kind of artwork that is more abstract that realistic, using bright colours and two-dimensional shadowing to evoke emotion. It is a bit like Japanese anime with the !!!! above the heads, if you know what I mean. Regardless, the pictures still made me want to cry.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
The Sandman, The Doll's House, Vol. 2
One of the disadvantages of borrowing The Sandman from the library is that it is impossible to read it in order. Instead, I read it in a haphazard way, pouncing on whatever I can get my hands on first.
Doll's House is Volume 2 of the series and introduces many of the key characters in later volumes. (Except for me, it is more like Star Wars I, II, III that came after parts IV, V, VI.) Rose rises to prominence in this volume, as does The Corinthian. Even Mad Hettie and Barbara, along with Martin Tenbones, get a mention.
It is a pretty intricate story.
The road to hell is wide
A huge wave is about to crash in these parts and there is nothing much I can do about it except wait. The next ten weeks will be hell, I expect, and will determine what I will doing for the next five years of my life. If it turns out to be worse than hell, I'm afraid that I'll have to close this door and try my hand at something else. I hope it will not be worse than hell.
They have assigned me the most difficult class of that level. Repeatedly they say to me, "Very difficult. Discipline problems. Rebellious. They will tell you off, swear at you. Remember not to engage them in verbal wars. Remember `Hands off '." And I nod and smile, and steel myself for the scenario.
Then I think, "Don't worry! You can assign interesting texts. You can make it engaging and fun." And I look at the magazines they subscribe to and the textbooks they kinda sorta follow, and everything looks superficial, dumb and boring. And I fret about finding a single thing to say.
The road to hell is wide, but not wide enough for a U-turn.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Twelfth Night by the Thames Shakespeare Company
Twelfth Night was supposedly very popular in Shakespeare day. I actually laughed out loud at the play when Malvolio showed up in yellow stockings, cross gartered and smiling. Gosh, you should have seen his smile. It cracked me up! I suppose people are also amused when women fall in love with women in disguise and men kiss women in men's disguise. That kind of thing is always popular.
The fool is a really interesting character. Going with the idea of disguises, the fool is not what he seems. He possibly may be the most intelligent character on the set, yet he goes around singing songs and playing the fool to entertain others. This idea that things are not what they seem may be found throughout the play: Viola disguised as a man, a forged letter, a brother lost at sea, and the wise fool. The audience is privy to all the schemes and deceptions, which is pivotal for comic effect.
Which makes me wonder... do you think God finds our little deceptions funny?
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
因为我吃饱没事做
我很久没有写华文了。
要写好象要吐血这样。
写了也不美，那为什么写呢？
可能我觉得华文比较真诚，比较亲密。 比较适合讲心里的话。
可能我喜欢在纸上画小圆圈。
这样画。。看！这里有多三个。。。
美丽的小圆圈。。。
How to burn a CD or DVD in Mac OS X
Copying a CD on a Mac is possibly the most complicated basic task you can do on a Mac. Strange that they make you jump through so many steps just to copy a CD, but thanks to James Mitchell of FocusedTutorials, here are the steps.
1. Insert the CD that you want to copy.
2. Go to Applications>Utilities>Disk Utility
3. Go to File>New>Disk Image from folder
4. Select the CD you want to copy. Click "image"
5. In the dialogue box that appears, make sure that you choose "DVD/ CD Master". Save.
6. A file will be created with a .cdr extension where you saved it.
7. Eject CD.
8. In Disk Utility, choose the disk image you just created from the left column (usually at bottom of list).
9. Click on it once.
10. On upper-left corner, click burn. Follow instructions.
I hate burnng CDs on a Mac. The above method did not give me a usable audio disk. Grrr. Read More!
The English Teacher by R. K. Narayan
[Aside: I'm blogging like it is work. But my memory is like a leaky cauldron and I'm afraid that if I don't pin it down with words, I'll lose it forever. So I soldier on...]
But the novel was really quite good. The blurb also made me place way too much emphasis on (some tragic event) when it really isn't about (some tragic event) but about stuff like life, death, happiness, and fear. It is a deeply Hindu book actually, teaching about the importance of letting go of earthly distractions, a calm inner life, being one with nature and the important things in life. It is practically impossible to talk about this novel without a Hindu framework.
Think I will check out his other work Malgudi Days when I'm done bulldozing through the books on my table.
Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
Read the book a while back but don't remember much of it. Watched the movie adaptation last night, which was a bit on the melodramatic side, if you ask me. But otherwise, it hits the nail on the dynamics in an Asian family.
Read More!An Enemy of the People, adaptation by Arthur Miller
I've forgotten the power of a good play.
With good dialogue, good ideas and good dramatic tension, who needs props and special effects? Heck, who even needs colour?
The Enemy of the People is a play by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Arthur Miller and produced by National Education Television. In an Ibsenian way, it undermines the ideas that democracy is built on such as the idea that the majority must always right. The town meeting mocks the neutrality of chaired democratic meetings, accentuated by a town drunk who slurs and yells, "There's no law that says a man that's drunk can't vote!" Which is true.
When the town drunk is told sternly by the mayor to leave, the drunk threatens to call the mayor, which makes everyone laugh. Yet, it draws attention to the fact that the mayorship is a position that can be filled by anyone in a democratic system (see scene where Thomas tries on Peter's hat), neither sacred nor necessarily enlightened.
Peter the mayor declares, "Without moral authority there can be no government," which is all fine and dandy and what everyone likes to believe, but is that true? Perhaps all is required is the facade of morality, but a keen eye at the dollars and cents behind that facade, so that taxes will be kept low and the city prosper?
Money complicates matters. For example, Singapore researchers did not have a problem of blowing the whistle on Baush and Lomb's Multi-purpose Solution for Contact Lens last year when they found it related to a higher incidence of fungal infections. But what if it involved something close to our wallet, like the billions we are pumping into stem cell research in our quest to be a bio-science capital of the world? Or the money-generating integrated resorts?
Adults always balance. Truth balanced against dollars and cents, then working out a compromise. I am not against the compromise if it is worked out in a just and moral way. Or maybe I'm one of those in the majority with the wool over her eyes.
Me & my fancy premium membership
I am now a paying member of the National Library and I am proud of it.
If saying so makes me appear eccentric and geeky, I say, "Bring it on!" I love the Library. I would wear a huge button on my shirt declaring my love if it came down to it.
It has practically everything I want, from old newspapers to How-to books, from Runner's World to The Sandman Series. I can check the catalogue online and even make suggestions to the library about what I would like them to buy! I receive an email reminder 3 days before my book is due, and something I've taken for granted... I can return my books at any branch! But the best thing about the library is that every one can borrow four books, no matter whether you are rich or poor, smart or dumb.
The Library is a great example of what good you can do if you just have a little vision and a sizeable budget. Not everything is better privatized! I feel like yelling that from my high-rise HDB window. I hope it will always stay true to its vision, or at least my vision of what a Library should be.
----
Update: Know what's funny? When I went to the Library this week, I noticed that they had started a "I Love my Library" campaign: I feel so prophetic. Though I have to say that actually having printed stickers makes me less inclined about wanting to wear a button. The human mind is strange and rebellious.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Mail.app non-tip
While trying to set up an email reminder in iCal today, I discovered a kink that has eaten up an hour of my time this morning. I can't receive emails sent from my own gmail account in Apple Mail! If I open up the web interface, the email is there; but it never gets downloaded by Mail.
The reason given in this post is that gmail treats the sent email as downloaded because it is sent from your own account. I tried sending it to my yahoo and other gmail account which get forwarded to my primary gmail account to no avail.
Now, what is the point of a reminder that you cannot see?
-----
Bonus Mail.app tip (for listening to me gripe):
How to set up shortcut for creating hyperlinks in Mail.app (Source)
1. System Preferences> Keyboard and Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts
2. At bottom of list choose "All Applications" > Mail
3. Click the "+" sign.
4. Type in the command exactly as it appears in the Menu. ("Add Hyperlink...")
5. Choose shortcut (Option+Command+H)
Sunday, March 11, 2007
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd
In one of the resettlement camps, poisonous drugs are given to the prisoners in an experiment. Most die; but not the man in Room V. This man becomes the man behind the painted smile.
V for Vendetta is a critique of society and a vision of what it should be like. There is a moving letter written on toilet paper by a gay woman whom we never meet that describes human dignity and freedom as that "inch" deep inside her that no one can ever take away. Anarchy is reconsidered in light of freedom; murder, in light of a new ordering of society.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Instiki problems
Why can't I install instiki on my Mac (OS 10.4.8)? It gives a connection error when I try to connect to http://localhost:250/. I downloaded the fuss-free .dmg package from here.
Am I supposed to run something from Terminal?
I can't believe I can get it running on a PC and not on a Mac.
The MN Guide to Much Ado About Nothing
So you see, there are two couples, Claudio and Hero—Claudio's a man and Hero's a woman, just in case you can't tell—and Beatrice and Benedict. Beatrice and Benedict are the kind who swear they will never marry—to marry is to be a cuckold! he says; men with beards and men without are both detestable to me! she says. But they fall in love anyway through a trick played on them by their friends.
Claudio and Hero are the wooing, swooning type who almost didn't get married because Don John and his bawdy associates stage a hanky-panky ruckus at the window of Hero's room, convincing Claudio that Hero is a woman without honour. Clausio refuses to marry her on their wedding day; so she swoons, naturally.
Eventually, everything comes to light, but not before Hero is presumed dead and Claudio is set to marry someone else. It ends with a song and dance; both couples are happy, which means that we come full circle and it was really—
______________________much ado about nothing.
Which also means much ado about female genitalia, by the way.
Lone Male Monkey who lives in a Valley
There are three types of mangrove monkeys: those that cannot swim; those that cannot swim; and those that can.
Eats, Shoots & Leaves, by Lynne Truss
Lynne Truss is a very funny woman. This is, by far, the funniest book on punctuation I've ever read. An explanation of the book's title may be found at the back of the cover.
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.Now who doesn't want to read it with a blurb like that?
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door, "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
After the jump, dry notes from the book.
The Apostrophe
1. It indicates the possessive
_____The children's playground
2. It indicates time or quantity
_____ Two week's notice
3. It indicates the omission of figures in dates
_____ Summer of '68
4. It indicates the omission of letters
_____ I s'pose we could've lived in S'pore
5. It indicates strange non-standard English
6. It features in Irish names such as O'Neill.
7. It indicates the plural of letters
_____ How many f's are there in Fulham?
8. It indicates the plural of words
_____ What are the do's and don't's?
Notes on the Comma
1. Comma Splice
_____ Where a comma is used in place of a semi-colon
2. Oxford Comma
_____This is the comma before "and" in a list, for example, "red, blue, and white".
_____The Oxford comma is hugely contested; although, I do have a preference for it.
3. Only use a comma when it modifies the same thing to the same degree.
_____ It was a dark, stormy night.
_____ He was a tall, bearded man.
_____ It was an endangered white rhino.
_____ The grand old Duke of York had ten thousand men.
Read More!
Thursday, March 08, 2007
The Sandman, World's End, Vol. 8
The story about the boy named Prez runs parrallel with the story of Jesus Christ—the naming of the child, the temptation, the miracles, the death—but at the end of the story, readers realise that there is no such thing as a "watchmaker", only the Prince of the World, Boss Smilely. Prez is saved by the King of Dreams and goes to visit other worlds. This idea of a multitude of worlds was also seen in "A Game of You", where an entire world passes away. I am thinking that this may be a cornerstone in Gaiman's philosophy in The Sandman series: this sense of multitude, plurality and diversity. I wonder how this Series will end...
The stories about Necropolis are probably my favourite just because they are so strange. Necropolis is an entire city of people specialising in the burial of the dead. The dead are shipped to this city and the inhabitants dispose of them according to the rituals of the client. After an air burial, the grey-faced people sit down and eat a sandwich and tell a story each, a story that is embedded in the story that a traveller tells in the inn, that is embedded in the story Gaiman tells. Amazing. In fact, one of the storytellers in the burial party tells a story which includes a lady that tells her own story within it. Makes a person as dizzy as running blindfolded in a catacomb.
The last scene in the night time sky is moving in a mysterious way. I still don't know who the funeral procession is for, and I am almost afraid to find out. Time will tell.
[In other news, I read another comic Black Orchid by Dean McKean and Neil Gaiman which I didn't care for at all. I think I'm not a fan of the superhero.]
Among the office drones
Today my mother persuaded me to go for a free 1hr aerobics-kickboxing-stretching class right smack in the field at Raffles Place at lunch time. It was slightly embarrassing and very hot. I thought it was ironical that I should come home from Krabi burn-free thanks to my dedication to Hamilton sun block in the aftermath of the Bali burn, only to stand for an hour in the noon-time sun, kicking and stepping and stretching and without any sunblock to speak of.
It was hot.
But the best part of the lesson was clapping for the instructor at the end, collecting the goodie bag and going to get a refreshing cup of lime juice. Rubbing elbows with the office drones, all dressed up in their crisp clothes and their office passes hanging around their necks, made me feel very lucky that all I wasn't on lunch hour. All I had waiting for me was a cool afternoon at home with a comic book and maybe a bit of internet.
I haven't been to Shenton Way during office hours for so long that sometimes I just had to stop and stare. There is a "Sales and Marketing" building right by Tanjong Pagar MRT with full panel glass windows and a wax figurine sitting on a step outside the building. Inside were all these trim and immaculately dressed men and women having a meeting. I said to my mum, "They look so fake!" And she said, "They are wax figurines!" And then I looked back and saw one of the guys scratching his chin. And I almost believed her too.
At least I will never be mistaken for a wax figurine. ;)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
If Smole is taking the photo, who is doing all the work?
But she would have paddled it twice over...
The Land of Smiles
Thai people have the most beautiful and endearing smiles in the whole world. I'm not exaggerating. It is as if they have some deep reserve of joy they tap into every time they smile, smiles that light up like fireworks exploding in the darkest night of the year.
It is disarming. I first noticed the Thai smile with the guy who picked us up from the airport — a strong, dark man with a smile that surprised me — and then later with the receptionists, with the cleaners, at the buffet breakfast, on the streets, everywhere you can find a Thai person.
Where do they learn how to smile like that?
So I imitated them. "Sawatdee Kaa," I would reply, hands together, imitating their tone and smile. And they would smile back and ask if I was from Korea or China? "Neither," I would say, "I'm from Singapore." And then they would be surprised and say that I look exactly like I was from Korea and my friend from India, which isn't all too off the mark after all.
Mannerisms make or break a culture. We were at a seafood place for dinner and I was appalled at the Singaporean (or Malaysian) couple seated diagonal to us. They weren't downright rude or mean or anything, just that their tone was brusque. In a restaurant where the waitresses smiled as they explained to you the bill, their tone jarred like a fingernail against a blackboard. "Two rice!" they ordered. Fifteen minutes later, when the rice hadn't come, the lady lifted her hand high up, and said "We ordered two rice!" Oh dear me. When the bill came, she promptly whipped out her handphone to calculate the cost in their local currency, and intoned to her companion, "Cheap cheap." Aiyoh, it makes me want to crawl into a hole and hide.
I love my country and our people very much but at times like that, I'm secretly pleased that I look Korean.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Getting Things Done by David Allen
I had a bit of a to-do list bloat so I was looking online for a way to nest or organise my to-do items and I kept coming across this mysterious acronym that seems to have taken Lifehacker, 43 folders, Hawkwings by storm. In addition to the ubiquitous GTD, there is kGTD (kinkless GTD) and all kinds of tools that are run on the GTD philosophy.
Curious, I went to the library to get the book and flipped through it.
Much of it is common sense drilled into me every week for four years by my Secondary School Principal ("Make sure you have a workspace at home where you have everything you need at hand: pens, pencils, rulers, blah"), some I think may be useful in managing workflow (such as the "NextAction" idea), and others just don't cut it for me (e.g. the tickler file).
Maybe I'll appreciate it better when I have more work to do. I've installed Mail Act-on and Mail Tags which work like a charm, but seriously, I don't have enough volume right now to warrant all this fancy tagging and project naming.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Mail.app tip: How to get three-column panes
I didn't know I liked it until I had it, but once I had it I could not live without it.
To get three column panes for Mail.app, download Letterbox 0.16 by Aaron. The plugin lives in ~/Library/Mail/Bundles.
Blogger Tip: How to align images not hosted by Blogger
In the img tag,
<img src="http://flickr.com/image2">
add the code in bold
<img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left;" src="http://flickr.com/image2">
The margin bit, of course, is optional.
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
This is the memoir of a girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.
It is unsettling having things you read about in the papers fifteen years ago as a child––distant, vague words like "scuds"––having a direct impact on a real girl, only eight years older than I am.
The graphics are stark and powerful. A little downturn of the eyes in one, a jagged lying mouth in another, or a pane filled in completely in black (see bottom right pane on the left) evokes the full spectrum of human emotion made raw by turbulent times.
You can find it in the library here. I think I may buy this one. It is a keeper.
