My brother killed a cockroach and left it at the doorway. dead. we have not been talking for several days it seems. and even though i said i don't care perhaps i do.

yesterday, while cooking i dropped a glass bowl and it shattered into a hundred pieces. or maybe a hundred and one. all over. while pink floyd played comfortably numbed in the background. and for the first time i understood what it meant--to be comfortably numbed.

It is easy to see how people gradually give up and just take the convenient way out.

i read and watch a movie each day to fill up the emptiness. i'm scared of losing myself. of forgetting. of becoming them. not that i'm much different. but you can never be too careful. people are conditioned to change and adapt. but too much adaptation becomes conformation or indifference.

But good writings and good movies, they take you out of your cramped and narrow little shell and give you space. they keep you wondering after the last page, after the credits have scrolled through. and you feel madly alive. madly depressed. delirious with joy. nauseated with excitement. all at once. because it was so beautiful told--all the happy and sad strands of life, and because it had touched something deep inside of you and for a moment filled up the void of existence.

And that dose of life this week was Kieslowski's Dekalog 1. And for that, i cheer to the pirated dvds industry in Vietnam. There are Kiesklowski, Hitchcock, Godard, Renoir, etc. complete collections available at affordable prices. The quality is of course not the best but the fact that they are available is good enough.

I am not religious in any sense and do not think much of the 10 commandments but that is not the point when watching Dekalog. First of all, it is amazing how every shot is so well framed. The colors and the music coil into one beautiful harmony in conveying the mood. and the characters--Kieslowski has a way of bringing out the subtlest details in their faces, their emotions underneath.
I can still see the man by the fire, staring coldly, so coldly outward.