最新一期的Little Thing Magazine二月號（Issue 10）刊了我的訪問，在此特別感謝Timmy及Tammy。

另外，由Little Thing Magazine的四月號開始，將有我的短篇故事連載。

祝大家貓年快樂。


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Photo by LUCI.

短短的一年半之間，共有三位親人離去了。

去年六月是父親；今年八月是最小的姑姐；然後，這個月是排行第八的姑姐。

葬禮進行時，心裡怪平靜的。原來，在不知不覺間我已到達了能夠掌握內心空白的可悲境地。

於是，這裡也來很短暫的片刻空白，好好警惕自己。

現時每天在這裡刊載的，並不算是完整小說，大概只可以稱為「Shitty First Draft」。SFD的好處是容許各種浮現於腦海的故事可能性收納於紙上，整體結構和造句這些方面反而可待在完成整個草稿後再多番增刪修改。

第一篇關於在公園遇上哭泣的法國鬼，是寫於五個多月前的零碎故事情節，隨手拿來作開端；老爸這個造棺木的角色，則原是另一沒關連的構想故事人物。至於其他你們一直在看著發生的，我也只是每天到了落筆一刻才能確定，就好像是看電影似的，這些人物各自在腦海內活動起來。

前數天忽然是感覺到了這個故事有作為長篇小說的可能性，跟原先網上連載的篇幅構想有了出入，這樣反倒令落筆時多了猶豫。於是希望作出一點改動：在寫至第三十篇時，無論是寫至什麼境況，將會暫停刊載這個故事。

蜥蜴也是熱門的，不過最終還是垂耳兔贏了。

那就垂耳兔吧。

感謝大家參與這個遊戲。You all are fantastic!

Credit: Photos from Wikipedia

1. 鸚鵡
2. 倉鼠
3. 刺蝟
4. 垂耳兔
5. 蜥蜴

請大家在這個Blog Post的Comment Box留言，寫下你的動物選擇，我將會把獲得最高票數的動物放在故事內。投票截止時間是10月10日下午12時（香港時間），得票最多的動物大約會在第10或11篇出現。

愛BLESS可以有很多理由，對我來說，從此這個「Fake Me」便是其一。她們可愛的地方是，在為新一季作準備而替店舖換新貌之際，悄悄把我穿了秋冬季新裝的相片印了真人比例貼在柏林的BLESS Shop，然後才電郵這張相片給我驚喜。實在實在太愛她們了！

如果你們有機會到柏林，來跟「我」合照吧，然後把相片也電郵給我，這將會是十分好玩的事情。（我還沒有到過柏林，正在跟自己說，一定要去一趟，並且跟「自己」合照！）

*If you happen to be in Berlin, go to BLESS Shop and take a photo with my “twin”, and then email me the photo. It’ll be fun, and I’ll really appreciate it!

其他生物詢問怪東西的名字，牠卻默不作聲，一隻狒狒便作弄牠說：「不懂說話嗎？那你一定是Mutant（異形）了，就是Mute Ant（啞巴螞蟻）的意思啦！哈哈！」Mutant正在苦惱自己沒事忙之際，上帝發出通告招請保鏢打退夢魘，獎賞包括事先可獲夢想成真。Mutant前往應徵，要求上帝讓自己忙個不停，上帝欣然答應。

自此Mutant忙著跑來跑去，不停擊敗夢魘；被粉碎的夢魘變成蜜糖，讓Mutant吃個不亦樂乎，越長越巨型。上帝非常滿意Mutant的表現，賜給牠一座堡壘，並替牠改名為Giant（巨人）。Giant變得橫行霸道，來回走動又常常引發地震，其他生物非常不滿，一起向上帝投訴。與此同時，化身夢魘的外星人忽然不再來了，Giant沒蜜糖吃，威逼其他生物用蜜糖來繳稅，不依者均被鎖在堡壘的地窖裡去。

上帝認為Giant瘋了，便想出一道妙計：衪先用濕布蓋著太陽，然後用白雪替自己造了一個新娘，再發通告為新娘招請保鏢。Giant愛上新娘，要求也做她的保鏢，還發誓說假若她被擄走了，便會一直追，直至把她尋回為止。上帝悄悄把濕布揭開，新娘隨即慢慢融解並消失於泥土之中；傷心的Giant便叫上帝把牠變小，好讓牠鑽進泥土裡去。

從此Giant成了一隻極小的螞蟻，不停在土壤之間鑽來鑽去。

*《逐夢者》（The Dreamfighter），英國詩人泰德．休斯（Ted Hughes）撰寫的短篇故事，是他對忙碌螞蟻的想像。

後記：
很久以前看了西西的《傳聲筒》，一直十分喜歡她用自己的方式述說喜歡的故事，也很認同她說的：「敍說一本小說和翻譯一本小說，同樣擔當了傳聲筒的角色，所不同的是，翻譯所受的束律更為嚴峻。敍述只提供說者個人選擇的角度，而翻譯，根本並不容譯者自由參與。前者尚有許多活動的空間，讀者可以接受敍說者的講述方法；後者則必須隱退背後，自我完全消失。」

那時候，讀著每一篇西西敍述的小說或短篇故事，我是真的有立即尋找原著的衝動。不知道是否所有愛書的人也有說書的慾望，至少我是看到了喜歡的故事便會想跟別人再說一遍。現在效法西西，即使未必能成功為大家提供如她所言的誤讀樂趣，也希望可以引發一點點想像力量。假若你們會因此找原著來看看，就更好了。

跟母親在小店裡發現這個長相奇異標籤叫作人蔘榕的植物，我用嚇唬小孩的口吻小聲跟她說：「帶回家的話，晚上它是會站起來在屋裡四處走的！」母親笑瞇瞇的自管自觀看著，忽然說：「你喜歡嗎？我送給你吧！」我還沒來得及反應，她已經捧著它到櫃台前付了錢，興高采烈的把這怪東西塞進我手去。

現在我看著它，便會想，若果它也有屬於自己的名字，那一定會是，樹嬰。是的，樹嬰，你知道嗎？我興幸自己的家並沒有這些長了樹足的檯子，否則每個晚上你們也要跟貓們玩捉迷藏的話，那將會是令人十分懊惱的事情。

Credit: Tables by Chul An Kwak.

奇幻花園內有各式雕塑臺座、穿洞碑塊及巨型頭飾供參觀者運用想像擺姿勢拍照，Miranda更鼓勵大家把照片貼在個人網誌，一同參與展覽。

她自己也來示範戴頭飾，很美。

眾多「模特兒」當中，我其實最喜歡這兩位搬運工人，我猜應該是運送展品其間Miranda靈機一觸提議他們一同擺姿勢拍照，難得他倆如此幽默。

Credit: Photos from MirandaJuly.com & WeLoveYouSo.com

在茫茫網海中找到了這幀照片，記錄著朱天文寫作時的情況。我看那貓躺著的霸道姿態，幾乎是要相信牠跟我家書桌上的那隻，是對雙生兒。若果世間真有如此一套運作公式——文采就是借著貓這般擠著飛揚起來——那多好！

我是最近才看《巫言》，看得很樂，好像今天看到她寫她妹妹的寫作情況，先是用上賭方作寫作過程的比喻：「此賭方必須先輸，一直輸，輸到你信心動搖，意志潰決，輸到沒得輸了輸到底了才開始贏，一贏，全部贏。」與此同時形容她妹妹每回在構思作品初期總會天天說自己還在輸錢，跟著演進的情節便是：「面對她那攤在咖啡桌上的空白本子呆坐，一字未寫，回家。次日再進城去坐。坐到尾椎痠痛，無意識的咬牙切齒引起三叉神經緊繃而致耳鳴，坐到白紙發黃捲起了毛邊，回家。空白依然空白，空白得像在煤礦堆裡尋找黑貓，找一隻本來就沒有在那裡的貓。到底了，還是去坐。終於這一天，妹妹拎提袋回來，對屋裡人說：『開始贏錢了。』」

我大概是沒有什麼輸不得的，重點是堅持到底，所以也就學著不怕了。

剛剛貼了Petit Poems的第二首作品，買不到Little Thing的朋友可到這裡看。

*Update: 香港的朋友們，想買Little Thing的話，可到UUU…SHOOOP!!!、Kubrick或書得起找找看。

Stranger Than Fiction by Marc Forster

Me And You And Everyone We Know by Miranda July

This seems nice.

Daddy, can I have
a fairy for my birthday?
Real thing, please. He says.

Credit: Photo by my father.

Out from your womb I
suck in the wonder of life.
Mother, I love you.

“If a ray of light came out of the sky and said to me, your next book will never see the light of day, it won’t be published, it won’t be paid a cent, nobody will ever read it and the question is, will I still write the book? The answer is definitely yes.”

- Markus Zusak

Excerpt: The Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger.

Where is your ideal place to read?

My chair is giving me much backache these days. I’m dying to curl up on this lovely rug so that I can properly drool over my favorite books.

The above Pop Up Book rug is designed by Bob Foundation. You can buy it online here.

Credit: Photos from Bob Foundation.

If she likes a word,
she will keep it in a hole,
guard and watch it grow.

Earlier in March, I was invited (along with a hundred other artists and designers) to participate in a charity fund raising event, Bag For Better*, which is dedicated to help the AIDS impacted orphans in Mainland China. I was given a plain canvas bag to re-create it, and since I am in fact no good at painting or hand-making anything, I decided to “stamp print” two of my twitter stories on it. (Well, the cross out typo was not intentional… shhhh…)

One story about a boy, and another about a girl. Both make sense if you are willing to believe in hope and magic in life.

Exhibition Period: 8th-30th May 2009 (Mon-Sat) 10am-7pm
Venue: YY9 Gallery (G/F, 83-85 Sing Woo Road, Happy Valley, Hong Kong)
Enquiries: +852 25743370

*All re-created bags will be exhibited and sold under silent auction at YY9 Gallery, and all proceeds will be donated to Chi Heng Foundation.

I keep thinking Emily Dickinson could have dressed like these when she wrote this piece:

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading – treading – till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating – beating – till I thought
My Mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then space – began to toll,

And all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing – then -

Credit: Clothes by Lotta Volkova. Photos by Manfred Unger.

如果我這個女孩
願意跟象一起
靜靜混合碎裂
我和象會不會
柔軟地感覺
不一樣

Elephant Woman by Blonde Redhead

Naughty squirrel found at Hyde Park in London on 28th February 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Stay still, be still
No wonder you are always lost
As a messenger you must be known
With messages you must return
To be seen by demanding hands
And touches of jealous men
Invisible, unforgivable
To all their secret ends

Be it so be quick
Don’t run just walk and walk and walk
Don’t lose yourself to decorate
Somewhere on your wall
Cause somewhere in your mind
You know you are doing fine
Holding secret hair locks
You’ll pluck before you hide

So how can I keep anything to myself
So how can I keep any of these things to myself

So how can I keep anything to myself
So how can I keep anything to myself
So how can I keep anything to myself
Behind these clouds
I’m almost home.

The lake feels lonely.
It speaks in ripples and a
duck replies with splash.

Lovely handmade brooches. They all look great on my outfits!

A tote bag with all the lovely characters from the story.

Rabbit with a trumpet inside a snowing waterball.

Opposite Alice’s Shop is the Christ Church where both Carroll and the real Alice had lived. Some of the locations in Alice were based from here.

You can almost see the Queen of Hearts playing croquet here…

Or Alice popping out from these windows…

Or the White Rabbit rushing out from this post office nearby…

Well, I did kind of run into Mr. Rabbit outside the shop, but the Sheep was not inside. What a shame!

Credit: Photos by LUCI, except last one is by Kan.

A cat always knows
how to impress with mischief.
That is why it grins.

Twin trees found at Oxford Castle on 2nd March 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

What would you like to read more in the future?

What stuff I no longer write here that you’d like to read again?

Is there anything you wish I would add on this website?

You see, I’ve got so many questions on my mind! The comment section is waiting for you. Write in English, write in Chinese, write in elf languages and ask me questions. Show me some love and tell me what’s on your mind. If indeed no words pop out, you can always give me a smiley face

Kisses,
LUCI

Back shots of hairdo taken by Hedi Slimane.

The one brand which I can always appreciate its intrinsic beauty even from a rear view is no doubt COMME des GARCONS by Rei Kawakubo. (The above photos are from the Autumn/Winter 2009 collection, shot by Don Ashby and Olivier Claisse and originally posted on Style.com.)

Easter reminds him,
even some eggs can have friends.
Humpty Dumpty pouts.

Forest in a room found at BLESS show in Paris on 5th March 2009.

P.S. I’m going to have a room like this some day!

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

This lovely Little Thing magazine (a bimonthly fashion publication from China) has arrived in my mailbox today! I’m delighted to tell you all that there is my new Chinese poem column Petit Poem, Grand Universe in it starting from this issue. It is a project supported by my friend’s fashion brand, UUU…SHOOOP!!!.

Go check it out!

A hug found in Notting Hill of London on 3rd March 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Chopin’s cat found at Père-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris on 6th March 2009. (This cat was “guarding” Chopin’s grave during my visit, and it was actually sitting beside the grave and looking at it when I took this photo, so I named it Chopin’s cat.)

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Yes, no matter how right the wall may be and how wrong the egg, I will stand with the egg. Someone else will have to decide what is right and what is wrong; perhaps time or history will decide. If there were a novelist who, for whatever reason, wrote works standing with the wall, of what value would such works be?

What is the meaning of this metaphor? In some cases, it is all too simple and clear. Bombers and tanks and rockets and white phosphorus shells are that high, solid wall. The eggs are the unarmed civilians who are crushed and burned and shot by them.

This is not all, though. It carries a deeper meaning. Think of it this way. Each of us is, more or less, an egg. Each of us is a unique, irreplaceable soul enclosed in a fragile shell. This is true of me, and it is true of each of you. And each of us, to a greater or lesser degree, is confronting a high, solid wall. The wall has a name: it is “the System.” The System is supposed to protect us, but sometimes it takes on a life of its own, and then it begins to kill us and cause us to kill others — coldly, efficiently, systematically.

I have only one reason to write novels, and that is to bring the dignity of the individual soul to the surface and shine a light upon it. The purpose of a story is to sound an alarm, to keep a light trained on the System in order to prevent it from tangling our souls in its web and demeaning them. I fully believe it is the novelist’s job to keep trying to clarify the uniqueness of each individual soul by writing stories — stories of life and death, stories of love, stories that make people cry and quake with fear and shake with laughter. This is why we go on, day after day, concocting fictions with utter seriousness.”

I don’t want to sound like a Murakami fanatic here by quoting too often from him, but this speech is indeed very inspiring. Because of the fierce battle in Gaza, some people had warned him about boycotting his books if he would accept the Jerusalem Prize. Instead of following their advice, he chose to go to Israel and delivered this speech to tell his truthful opinion.

Imagine if more people are willing to stand with the egg, and I mean not just novelists but human beings in general. Just imagine.

Note: Please visit Salon.com if you’d like to read the full version of Murakami’s speech.

Excerpt: Haruki Murakami’s speech at the 24th International Book Fair in Jerusalem on 15th February 2009.

Tree on a wall found at Christ Church in Oxford on 2nd March 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Dear Vincent,

You once told your brother Theo, “My youth was gloomy and cold and sterile…” It’s a pity you were born too early and didn’t have a chance to read Where The Wild Things Are. I guess it would also have been interesting if you had drawn some wild things among your wheat field. Wild things are just as brilliant as crows, with their terrible claws and yellow eyes and joyful howls and everything.

Maybe this movie can make up for what you’ve missed? Then you wouldn’t frown when I take a photo with you again?

Happy 156th Birthday!

Love,
LUCI

Credit: Photo by Kan.

It’s the Earth Hour now, and I can tell you my cat is pretty much enjoying it. We are also watching this video. It is important that we start to care and take some actions.

http://www.charitywater.org/donate/

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Mark Borthwick has recently published his new photography book titled Not In Fashion. I basically “grew up” with his photos and has been greatly influenced by his attitude towards fashion. I’m really happy that someone has finally published a retrospective book for him.

Credit: Mark Borthwick’s photos from Papermag.com; book cover image from Rizzoli.

Pink bench found at a small station between London and Oxford on 2nd March 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

Secret message found at abandoned restaurant at 3 Rue Barbette in Paris on 5th March 2009.

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

I started to read this book today. I was going through the first short story, The Shared Patio, when these sentences intrigued me:

“When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly.”

Now I keep seeing the image of a whale falling through the infinity of a deep deep ocean. This either means I have very good imagination, or I want to be a fish.

If you don’t like whales at all, you may try watching this interview of Miranda July:

Credit: Book cover image from Barnesandnoble.com.

You told me one of your dreams today. You dreamed you were somewhere. You were watching Dad from a distance. He was distributing some small envelopes to a bunch of children. The envelopes looked like the lucky money bags people give away during Chinese New Year.

Someone next to you said, go and take one. You asked, what are they? That person said, just go. You panicked. You woke up. The dream ended. You sat up on bed and your heart pounded.

I asked, why were you scared? You said, I don’t know, it just felt scary at the time.

I think about it now. I am certain you are scared of death. And you really miss Dad.

You see, the thing is, there is this old man I met in Paris. He owns a very small hotel. He takes care of it all by himself. He is very much alone. He is a kind old man.

While Kan and I were staying at his hotel, one morning we did as usual what we were supposed to do. We left him with our room key before we went out. We headed towards the corner of the street. It wasn’t raining. I thought about taking a photo of the hotel. I turned around.

Look, Kan said and pointed at a window on the first floor.

The old man was leaning out. He was watching as we left. He would have been watching us disappear around the corner if we hadn’t turned around. I wondered if he had also done this in the previous days, if he already had a picture in his mind about the journeys we were to take. I wondered about many things when he started to wave at us. I waved back.

Someone had done this before, many times, I thought. The waving hand was saying, come home soon. I looked at the old man again. I toke hold of my camera and snapped. I thought of Dad.

I was about to tell you this when you told me your dream.

Love,
LUCI

Credit: Photo by LUCI.

To celebrate the opening of this newborn website, I’m going to allow some embarrassment of myself with this video.

It’s one of the things I’ve done recently, drumming at BLESS show in Paris. Hmmmm, if you would call that kind of lame attempt of swinging sticks as drumming, that is.

Credit: Video from Newsheheit.