Archives For death

So Long, My Xiami

January 6, 2021 — Leave a comment

Greetings, my fellow lurkers, if you are lurking still. Knowing that I haven’t updated anywhere and I’m hardly active on social media, I just wanted to say that I haven’t died and haven’t been swallowed by the Earth. I hope 2020 didn’t wreck you, and that 2021 finds you in a more… calm path.

As I sit here making plans of wanting to do a lot of things, and then getting nowhere, I reminisce the days of internet freedom when roaming through websites was like the wild west. And that’s when I discovered Xiami— according to WP word search find, the earliest mention of the music site on the blog dates back to 2010… with an even older mention of forgotten HaoTing. lol Since then, over a decade ago and many an indie Chinese music discovery, Xiami had been part of my daily life for thousands and thousands of days.

I took a screencap for posterity! My Xiami account was supposed to last until the end of the year, and then an extra 4 months.

So it is with great sadness, but hardly any surprise, that I report that Xiami will be no more… on February 5th this year, to mark my 35ths birthday, nonetheless. End of an era for my music streaming, end of the era… of my youth, I suppose. With my only consolation prize that a lot of Chinese music is already available on not only iTunes and Spotify, but also on YouTube. I just need to re-find them and subscribe to whatever their channels are. It will be, of course, a lot more difficult to discover brand new Chinese music.

Sighs~

This is just hitting the right mood tonight. Discovered a couple of weeks back on the latest Xiami compilation– it’s called If I Lose my Youth (如果我失去了青春) by the band ZhaoZe (沼泽). Great thing they’re on Bandcamp too!

[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=4022515616 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small]

 

May you rest in peace.

How dare you, Studio Ghibli, do that this weekend?

It’s my dad’s third year anniversary, and I’m Setsuko in this GIF.

grave-of-the-fireflies-hotaru-no-haka-setsuko

Grave of the Fireflies is remains my favorite animated film, and the only animated film in my overall Top10 favorites.

The end of another era [1][2][3], I suppose~ xD

rapidshare-2008-2015-rip

I had never really been a RapidShare user, though had encountered the site several times over in many of my movie/TV journeys, but they’ve always been a pain for me. It doesn’t surprise me that bandwidth caps (for both free users AND PREMIUM), limited speeds and incredibly annoying waiting times that got longer and longer with captchas decreased users and traffic to finally put it out of business.

The relationship with cloud and file-sharing services with the DMCA or MPAA is a strange one. No matter what these services do to please them, it’ll never be enough.

source.

Joe Cocker was one of my dad’s favorite musicians, so I guess he’s now enjoying the music wherever they may be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRzKUVjHkGk

Y se nos fue, Chespirito. RIP, Chavito.

chavo-del-8-chespirito

Last night I got the chance to watch a really great Irish animated short called Coda by Alan Holly, which basically unfolds after a man who dies, and whose soul gets picked up by Death. However, before he leaves, he gets to revisit a lot of what this world holds.

You can check the trailer on Vimeo.

coda-screencap-animation

It’s hard to imagine that it’s already been a year. A year since my dad’s passing. As I sit here writing this a whole week ahead of the events that happened a year ago, I see the signs, the memorable -or maybe not so memorable- but etched in my mind as the most important things we did together. The things we ate, the things we watched, listened to and laughed about. His smell of cigarettes and mint candy, the roughness of his coarse beard, yet the softness of his now-clipped hair. His laugh and his unique way of ringing my doorbell.They all seem so distant, yet so close to my heart.

dads-1st-death-anniversary

Papa, wo ai ni. Wo hen xiang ni.

The Boy and the World screen print that reminded me of my dad, who is ‘turning one-year old’ this week. Us, sitting together and looking up at the sky.

o-menino-e-o-mundo-dad
But you know what takes the cake? O Menino e o Mundo opened in Brazil on my dad’s bday: January 17th. You gotta be kidding me.

the-namesake-ashoke-hospital-it-is-nothing

For those fathers who always play down their worries and fears.

我想你,爸。