Super Short Story (173): Placebo Having heard that a certain food is supposed to be chock-full of nutrients, it has become his placebo, eating it when on the brink of any sickness. He imagines it might have the right ingredients to allay it. Of course, sometimes it (appears to) works, and...

Super Short Story (161): Virtual World As he spent too much time gaming, surfing and watching videos, whenever he looks away from screens, the real world looks really virtual - more so than the virtual ones that have become more...

Super Short Story (152): Blu-ray He said Blu-ray resolution looks so real that it looks fake, though it’s the other way round - he had gotten so used to less real resolution that the more real seems...

George Michael’s ‘Waiting for That Day’ is also known as ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, as that line recurs in the song as its last words, becoming it most memorable ones (while the real title only appears once in the lyrics). Actually the longer...

Nothing is more surreal than the shimmering lights of the city, and its colourful cars and people fleeting by. Nothing is more surreal than reality itself, than this scene of swift change. Thank goodness this is seen as such, for I wouldn’t want any hard and harsh ‘reality’...

While sharing on the movie ‘Inception’ at NTU Buddhist Society’s camp at Cheng Beng Buddhist Society’s building, I concluded by flashing a replica of Cobb’s top totem (that came with the special box set of the DVD). Somewhat mirroring the last scene of the...

From Wikipedia is a description of the video of Owl City’s ‘Vanilla Twilight’ – ‘Various people and a dog witness and revere swirling mammatus cloud formation associated with a squall line. It has a well-defined vortex which is lit by a veiled Sun on an...

The ingenious film that is ‘Inception’ begins with the assumption that it is possible for multiple persons to enter someone’s dream, that can even be designed without that person knowing, thus digging out deep secrets from his sub-consciousness, or even implanting ideas...

‘Summer Wars’ tells of how virtual reality as a ‘Second Life’ spills over to reality, till it becomes indispensable to real life when it gradually replaces aspects of it. In reality, like the illusory in Samsara, nothing is merely virtual once it is taken seriously...

This is one of the most soothing songs I’d ever heard, that is gentle while singing of strength. I read that it was ‘written to sooth a young child who had had a bad dream about being all alone and lost’. Many sought solace in it as it seems to sing about loss of a loved one...

Moonpointer moderators will be away on the road soon, on Buddhist pilgrimage in India and Nepal. In the mean time, there will most likely be no new articles till after 3rd January 2010. Till then, merry Christmas and happy new year in advance! Spiritual retreats and pilgrimages are journeys...

A Tit for a Tat (9) Tit: Do you think my sms reply was okay? Tat: Well, it depends on how she reads it… Tit: Huh? Tat: … just like how you replied depended on how you read her sms! Next aT4aT: http://moonpointer.com/new/2009/06/only-for-now Previous aT4aT:...

In the plot of the movie ‘Ploy’, the characters seem to live their interconnected dreams as alternate but believable realities, before they wake up to actual reality – albeit not that realised in enlightenment, but the usual samsaric reality. The dreams experienced are not...

While selecting films for a Buddhist film event, we sampled some movies. A friend wondered why many of the shortlisted films seem to end with some form of death. Someone else in the audience remarked that we all have to die anyway. Hmmm…. only half correct… some of us might be...

I think films of the respective eras they were made in tend to be rather accurate portrayals of the general temperament of their times… though there are also landmark masterpieces which were trendsetters ahead of their times – more so than reflections of the then current trends....