AI Criticism

I gave ChatGPT my blog URL and asked for criticisms of the author's prose and writing style. Here's what it said:

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Here are some stylistic criticisms that could reasonably be made about the writing itself, independent of the author’s personality. These are not "flaws" so much as areas where certain readers might feel the prose could be improved or sharpened, based on the tone and patterns common across the blog.

1. Occasional over-elaboration

Many posts unfold in long, reflective paragraphs with nested thoughts, asides, and clarifications. While this creates richness, it can also make the prose feel a bit meandering or slow to arrive at its point.

2. Intellectual density that may alienate some readers

The writing frequently incorporates references to philosophy, linguistics, niche hobbies, and technical details. Readers not already invested in these areas might find the prose overly cerebral or high-context.

3. Understated emotional tone

Even personal stories are often delivered with restraint. This controlled register may feel emotionally distant; some readers may wish for more immediacy or vulnerability in the expression.

4. A tendency toward self-qualifying and hedging

The prose often uses softeners ("perhaps," "I suppose," "in some sense") that add nuance but can dilute the clarity and confidence of a sentence.

5. Structural looseness

Posts sometimes move organically between observations, memories, and reflections without strong signposting. This can feel poetic, but it can also produce a slightly scattered structure, where the thematic arc is implied rather than shaped.

6. Precision that borders on fussiness

Descriptions—especially of tools, processes, or small experiences—sometimes linger on fine details. While charming for detail-oriented readers, others may find it overly meticulous or slow.

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I do agree with the analysis, although I also think that some of these "flaws" are what makes the writing distinctively mine. But I have, independently, been trying to cut down on asides and clarifications (point 1) and hedging (point 4). There is always room for improvement – I suppose.

Diegetic Music

I just learnt a new term, diegetic music, defined in Wikipedia as:

music that is part of the fictional world portrayed in a narrative (such as a film, show, play, or video game) and is thus knowingly performed or heard by the characters. This is in contrast to non-diegetic music, which is ... heard by the viewer but not the characters, or in musical theater, when characters are singing in a manner that they would not do in a realistic setting.

Off the top of my head, here are my top three instances of diegetic music in movies.

The group singalong to Tiny Dancer from Almost Famous (2000):

The swing scene from Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964) – Madhabi Mukherjee singing Phule Phule Dhole Dhole (ফুলে ফুলে ঢ'লে ঢ'লে):

I've loved that scene since I first saw Charulata in high school, but now it's also entwined with the memory of my friend Rajasi (whom I've mentioned before) singing on the public swings at Kim Pong Park.

And finally, Faye Wong in Chungking Express (1994) secretly cleaning her crush's apartment while playing California Dreamin' on his CD player:

California Dreamin' is a recurring motif in Chungking Express, but my favourite song from the movie is Meng Zhong Ren (夢中人), sung by Faye Wong herself – a Cantonese cover of Dreams by the Cranberries. However, Meng Zhong Ren is used non-diegetically, as background music, and is thus not eligible for this list.

By the way, this is a cool video about how Wong Kar-wai made Chungking Express almost as a side quest. As teeveetalker puts it:

Chungking Express was made on a shoestring budget, with no permits and a constantly changing script. Made like a student film, it comes with a young project's optimism, experimentation, bravery and inherent coolness.

Sure, it has flaws – "If you're trying to follow the plot, you may feel frustrated," wrote Roger Ebert, while Janet Maslin was unimpressed by its "raffish affectation" – but for me, the flaws are part of its charm, and therefore, its strengths.

Baroque Wordplay

Two instances of wordplay which rely on (a) swapping, and (b) some knowledge of few-centuries-old western art.

Dick Cavett asked us to imagine a newspaper photograph of the billionaire Aristotle Onassis standing outside, and thinking of purchasing, Buster Keaton's former Hollywood home. Cavett's suggested caption was "Aristotle Contemplating the Home of Buster" – a play on the title of a Rembrandt painting, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer.

On similar lines, riffing on the first line of a Shakespeare poem, a Cincinnati sporting goods store apparently put a sign in the window: "Now is the discount of our winter tents".

I should say that baroque, in the title of this post, is not strictly accurate. While Rembrandt is indeed a baroque painter, Shakespeare is more of a Renaissance guy, though his later works supposedly show "emerging baroque aspects". However, baroque can also mean "complicated in style, often when this is unnecessary or too much," and in that sense, I thought it was fitting!

Sidewalk Badminton (that Tai Tzu-Ying Video)

In an earlier post, I linked to a video of Tai Tzu-Ying playing badminton on the sidewalk with her 90-year old grandma. The video is from 2020, when badminton tournaments were suspended due to the pandemic (more context here).

TTY is now effectively retired, but at the time, she was world no.1 in women's singles. She held that ranking for a record 214 weeks, although the two biggest titles in badminton – the World Championships and the Olympics – always eluded her (she won silver in both, but not gold). TTY is my favourite badminton player, not because of her many records and achievements but simply because of the way she played – graceful, fluid, seemingly effortless, spontaneous, unpredictable and endlessly creative. (For a taster, see Tai Tzu Ying: Queen of Deception.)

Anyway, the aforementioned sidewalk reel is one of my favourite videos on the internet. It has captions in Mandarin, but I haven't seen a translation, so I got my friend Muzi to transcribe the captions and ran them through Google Translate. For anyone else who is as obsessed with the video as I am, here's the text in simplified Chinese:

奶奶第一次试打
站姿看起来很有架势💪🏼
我的假动作一定是奶奶遗传给我的
再看一次🤣
不小心丢到奶奶的脸了🤭
奶奶这个杀球太快了！
要看到最后哦😏😏
跟奶奶解释她打的太快了
我会接不到😅
奶奶有慧根
一点就通
奶奶一直想站着打
我跟她解释这个瓷砖地担心站着会滑
又来一个假动作🤣
原来奶奶也是欠训练的啦👍🏼
再看一次精彩表演

... and in English:

Grandma's first time trying it out.
Her stance looks pretty good 💪🏼
My feint must have been inherited from Grandma.
Watch it again 🤣
I accidentally hit her in the face 🤭
Grandma's smash was so fast!
Be sure to watch until the end 😏😏
I explained to Grandma that she hit it too fast
and I wouldn't be able to return it 😅
Grandma is quick to learn.
She gets it right away.
Grandma always wanted to play standing up.
I explained to her that I was worried coz the tiles are slippery.
Here comes another feint 🤣
Turns out, even grandma needs some training!👍🏼
Let's watch another great performance!

Delulu in Tagore

Text from my friend Kwang: "I'm reading the home and the world... he really said delulu is the solulu". (In case you're not familiar with the phrase, here is some context.)

The novel in question is ঘরে বাইরে by Rabindranath Tagore, which Kwang was reading in translation (The Home and the World). The story is told from the perspective of the three main characters, taking turns: Bimala, Nikhil and Sandip. In the passage which Kwang was referring to – which I had forgotten, having read the novel long ago, in high school – Sandip says:

This is hypnotism indeed,—the charm which can subdue the world! No materials, no weapons,—but just the delusion of irresistible suggestion. Who says 'Truth shall Triumph'? Delusion shall win in the end.

Or in the original Bengali:

এই তো হিপনটিজ্‌ম্‌। এই শক্তিই পৃথিবী জয় করবার শক্তি। কোনো উপায় নয়, উপকরণ নয়, এই সম্মোহন। কে বলে সত্যমেব জয়তে? জয় হবে মোহের।

Enjambment in Texting

Enjambment in poetry is where, as Wikipedia puts it, "the meaning 'runs over' or 'steps over' from one poetic line to the next". Here's an example from Big Thief's Simulation Swarm:

Once again, empty horses
Gallop through the violet door.

The opposite of enjambment is end-stopping. In the following excerpt from Bob Dylan's I Want You, line 3 is enjambed, while the rest are end-stopped (more analysis here):

The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I
Should refuse you.

In some cases, like the examples I just gave, enjambment and end-stopping are very obvious. But sometimes, it's not so clear. If I had to pinpoint the moment when I first learned to appreciate modern poetry, it was when, aged 14 or so, I encountered these lines from T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The meaning does indeed 'run over' from line 1 to 2, but at the same time, line 1 is an independent finite clause (i.e. it can stand on its own as a sentence). So I'm not quite sure if it's technically enjambed, end-stopped, or a secret third thing. I haven't looked into this in depth, but I suppose the answer might also depend on how exactly you define enjambment. According to this typology, I think the Eliot couplet is an example of cross-clause enjambment.

Then there are broken rhymes, where a line break occurs in the middle of a word, as in Willard Espy's The Unrhymable Word: Orange:

The four eng-
ineers
Wore orange
brassieres.

And just when I thought this could go no further, I found the delightful Essay on Enjambment by Raymond Griffith, where a line break splits a single letter (W) into two Vs.

When texting, if you press send in the middle of a sentence, it's a sort of line break. Some of my friends write longer, sometimes paragraph-length texts, while others break up their missive into shorter fragments. My friend Violet is an extreme example of the latter, and lately I was thinking how many of her texts read like skilfully enjambed poetry.

Another example:

wanted to share the joy that
i got a violin!

...and a longer one (all texts quoted with permission):

i was trying to look for lye
to make cold pressed soap
singapore is really
so regulated

A Certain Leisurely Attitude

To Park, being "learned" isn't about formal education or status but about having a certain leisurely attitude toward things one encounters, having the mental and emotional margin to be able to observe without projecting.

—Park Jiwon, Preface to Collected Poems of Neungyang, as paraphrased by Hannah Kim

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Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy.

—Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

Flycatcher Rescue

I was picking saga seeds in a dry gutter when I found this female yellow-rumped flycatcher, curled up against some dead leaves and only moving feebly.

She had no obvious injury, but seemed very weak, or perhaps in a state of shock. I found her just outside my condo, so I picked her up and brought her in, put her in a cardboard box lined with towels, and gave her some water in a little plastic tray. She drank it, but only when I brought it very close to her – almost dipping her beak in it.

I then called ACRES, which is a wildlife rescue NGO. They said they had no capacity, and suggested contacting the National Parks hotline. In less than an hour, NParks sent someone to pick up the bird and take her to a vet where, I hope, she will make a full recovery.

While I waited for the NParks guy, I took some photos.

Two years ago (to the day!) I had a dream about taking photos of a wild bird in my apartment. I told my friend about it at the time, so I'll quote my texts verbatim:

Had a funny dream
A duck flew in through my bedroom window
Mallard duck. Male, because he had a green head
I quickly closed the window thinking I would interact with him for a bit
Then I had the idea that when I opened the balcony door to let him escape, I would take photos as he flies away. On burst mode, multiple frames per second. To see the flight/wing pattern
So I was standing by my bed, changing my lens to a zoom
Meanwhile the duck was chilling next to me. I patted his head
And then he was doing something on my hand with his beak. The thing that cats do – biting but not actually biting, more a show of affection
But then suddenly he bit me 😳 And again I could almost feel the serrations in the beak and pain in my hand. I probably even moved my hand in my sleep. And then I woke up.