Life is about the things you take for granted, like the music scores in the movies, always in the background but rarely realized. Like your mother’s prayers and your father’s concerns.

View on Path

I love it when you end a sentence and look into my eyes with a smile. Then hold that smile a little longer than you should.

View on Path

I would love to hold your hand. But I can’t.

Sincerely,
Dandelion

Buku pertama di 2015.

Actually, it was another gift from Uda. It was on sale at Periplus. Oh, how I love finding cheap treasures!

Roald Dahl, as always, presents incredible short stories.

My favorite was the one in the cover, absolutely! I was left wondering if anyone had made it a movie even. It would be great! Two old men reminiscing their life long friendship & ‘business’ with Henry Sugar. His early life, the day he found the book, Imrat Khan & the doctor, his turning point as well as his new found glory. Excellent stuff for a 3 hour movie even!

Not only that. With this book the readers get lucky too. Mr. Dahl spills out how he became a writer, including some tips on writing. Yay!

I tend to devour my books slowly and sensibly. I don’t feel any obligation to gobble up books just to meet a number of books per year. I savior a story, put down the book, ponder upon it, get other stuff done, ready myself for the next story and pick up the book again. I do this especially with my favorite writers. To mention a few, Mr. Dahl & Mr. King.

There is one more story I’ve yet to read in this book. His first published story. A Piece of Cake. A non-fiction about Roald Dahl’s days as an RAF pilot at war. Intended to be written by C.S. Forester. They had lunch where Dahl was supposed to tell him his story, but the talking and writing ended up interfering with their lunch much. So, Dahl offered to write the notes on his experiences and send them to Forester. In return, Dahl received a letter from Forester praising his work and telling him that it has been sent (as it was) to the paper he wrote for for $1000 (minus 10% agent fee).

And that, my dear friends is how Fantastic Mr. Fox, Charlie the crazy chocolate factory owner, Matilda and so much more were born.

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The answer I’ve been searching for these past couple of days.

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“Those who adopt, with Allah, another god: but soon will they come to know. We do indeed know how thy heart is distressed at what they say. But celebrate the praises of thy Lord, and be of those who prostrate themselves in adoration. And worship your Lord until there comes unto you the certainty (i.e. death).” [15:96-99]

Allāh tells you: don’t worry, I got this, you ignore them; He then tells you how: by busying yourself in My remembrance, busying yourself in prayer; He then tells you for how long: not until the moment passes or peters out, but till you meet Him.

So anyone that says they are avenging the Prophet (ﷺ) is pretty clueless. I make no bones about it; this attack was not in defense of the Prophet (ﷺ). These bunch of cowards were not offended by any of the cartoons, and I would freely assume they do not care about the Prophet (ﷺ) one bit. It is just a ruse, it gives them pretext for murder – murder so senseless that it in turn gives the swelling right grounds to continue their diatribe against Muslims.

They hope to sow the seeds of division, they want to see mosques attacked, they want to see Muslims assaulted and vilified – they do this all in hope to see us being expelled from the West – hoping that it will lead us to support them, and see their side.

But it will not happen. We won’t let it.

via theconsciousmuslim.tumblr

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Alhamdulillah.

View on Path

‘Kids’ who grew up in the 90s are super proud of their ‘music upbringing’. At a time when Coldplay was just a faint echo from the future, while Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana ruled the air waves. We had GIGI’s Janji and Kahitna’s Cantik back then. We had Lisa Loeb’s Stay and Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn and don’t forget Hanson’s Mmmbop.

Songs of the 90s mostly made sense and had some kind of message or story to tell the youth, not just telling them to party their voluptuous butts off and their emphasis on sex, sex, and sex.

We had Frente. Ah, their remake of New Order’s monotonously lovable Bizarre Love Triangle into just over a couple of minutes is what I sang in the shower all through my achy heartbreaky youth.

There was one band that stood out for such a brief period but strong enough to make me use my measly allowance to go and buy a cassette. I saw the MV of their first single on MTV. A bunch of young people causing chaos in a mall. Masses shoving it up the capitalists’ asses. “You Get What You Give”.

Gregg Alexander the foreman produced and wrote all the songs. Most of which had very strong criticism in them. Songs that weren’t afraid to mention names that pop culture so highly praised. He even portrayed the church in one of his songs.

“I’m crying like a church on Monday.”

His songs did occasionally bring up sex and vulgarity but more of what made me think. How easy it is to sell a human body for drugs and what a waste it would be. He tried to teach us in a way that wasn’t preachy. He was rather on our side pondering the thoughts with us.

None of the songs on “Maybe You Were Brainwashed Too” in my opinion were skip-able. My personal favorite was “I Don’t Wanna Die Anymore”. The Jazz rock, alternative rock and blues concoction of songs were perfect for my ears. Even more fit for singing from the top of my lungs in my room jumping up and down on my bed.

After doing a bit of Google research it turned out that Greg Alexander was tired of touring and promoting his album. The band disbanded before their second single “Someday We’ll Know” was released. I think his record label didn’t approve of him using the promotion interviews to elaborate on the concerns he wrote in his lyrics.

Greg Alexander stepped out of the limelight and opted to writing songs for other artists, “The Game of Love” to be one of them. Which I just recently discovered and had loved from the time it was first released until now.

Here’s a taste of my 90s:

Wake up kids, you got the dreamer’s disease!

Every girl has experienced this at least once in her life.

She puts her gear in neutral.

At the top level of the only shopping centre in this God-forsaken suburbia.

The afternoon sun mercilessly shooting her with rays upon rays.

Drying the streaks of bleeding mascara that lined her cheeks.

Today she has decided to end it before it’s begun.

Her adorations of him.

The what ifs she played in her mind with someone other than what’s right.

Pierce it through the heart, is what Bard did.

And so must she.

The dragon is never content with the bounty of treasure she owns.

Breathing her wrath over all the innocence.

Her innocence.
His innocence.
Their innocence.

There, she cried and cried until her tears turned red.

There, there.

Kill it before it starts.