Twilight in Seattle

I'm in Seattle right now, waiting for the Japanese friend I'm travelling with to wake up. Seattle is a charming and quaint city. I've never been to England, but I picture that Seattle looks a little like English suburbs. Like San Francisco, Seattle is surrounded by water and is a maritime city. The bay sits on its outer rim and walking along the pier, I had a feeling that I never left San Francisco.

When I talked to Lee last night he asked me how I was enjoying my stay in the city and I told him "it is not quite..."trying to find the right words and he finished it off for me "exotic as you think?" I guess that it is just another American city and I had expected a change of scenery. But it is a very beautiful city and walking along the streets downtown, there are moments when I feel that I have gone back to Hong Kong, and by the bay overlooking the port of Seattle, I feel as if I'm back in Singapore except for the cold, it is something I can almost believe in. Homesickness always comes with traveling--it is a kind of bitter sweet freedom. One always thinks of home on one's journey, or the abstract idea of one.

At night, at the modest hotel my friend and I are staying in, I watched the Twilight movie (yes the vampire movie) and it made me realize something. I can see the appeal of the movie. I have never read the book, so I can't quite discuss the writing. But the movie, the movie..it was gripping. It was literally hard to stop watching the film. It made me once again think of story construction. If a writer can get a reader to wonder what would happen next to such a degree, they will stick with even the silliest dialogues and crappiest special effects.

Besides, I can understand why young girls love the books and movies. The whole idea of a supernatural forbidden love eternal, and an invisible protector. What is more erotic than the idea that there is a kind of love when one's very physical existence is threatened. I suppose it is romantic and erotic, to love so strong and so deep, and even unto death, to believe that love is all powerful.

Of course it is silliness, and anyone who has been in a relationship understands that love is more than that or perhaps in ways less than that. But I didn't want to write about love, I wanted to write about storytelling.

I think Shakespeare understood what Twilight movies captured--there are things that people enjoyreading, watching: scandals, sensationalized drama, love unfulfiled, revenge, murder, insanity, and as tacky as it sounds, I think some deep part of us crave this kind of stories. Call it escapsism or immaturity, but I can see why something as "terrible" as Twilight can be enjoyable. Maybe I should read those books to find out what made it so effective. I'll consider it.