S2S : Senses To Senses

The day after Marion Cotillard won the Oscar for the Best Actress in a leading role is just a day as good as any to explain more about what is behind this blog's recent name and concept change.

S2S means Senses to Senses and red is our theme color - because red symbolizes passion and sensuality.

The new blog is taking on events, objects, people, and phenomena that work positively on our senses. That's why we told you we will be writing here about all kinds of things we like, from movies and TV shows to fashions, food, cars and travel.

The two prerequisites are these: we like it - so you won't find much negative talk and whining on here - and it's sensual - so not much about violence, wars, brutality, dirt and filth. But then, we don't like those things anyway.

The Edith Piaf movie 'La Mome' - known in many countries as 'La Vie en Rose' - is symbolic for the type of movie we might be discussing on this blog. It's a very human story of talent, passion, but also intense misfortune and unhappiness, and that's why we believe it spoke to so many people worldwide. It's more than a biopic about a singer, it's more than just another French movie, it's really a universal story.

Other sensual themes that have caught our attention the past weeks include preparations for the next Burning Man, an avantgarde arts festival held yearly on a desolate plateau in the Nevada desert. The latest edition is still about seven months away, but it has fired our enthusiasm.

The movie about Edith Piaf also fired up ideas for similar epic movies about other real-life figures. As far as senses and sensuality go, there is nobody more likely to embody those ideas than another French woman, actress Brigitte Bardot. She went from ballet student to model to superstar actress, becoming a sensual dream icon and a representative of France. Later in life she turned to animal protection and radical rightwing politics, but she will always been known for her youth. A great story for another book, screenplay, and movie, we thought.

S2S : Senses to Senses will accompany you on a subjective, roundabout, zigzagging journey through sensuality. Be sure to come around again next week, when you will find a report about a visit to the Philippines.

Heroes

"Yes, Ando. Tonight, we will attack."

Not the most sizzling of dialogue lines, but actor Masi Oka as Hiro Nakamura is one of the main reasons why American TV series "Heroes" is such a hit.

I never loved science fiction, and I barely like the supernatural. But I've been a complete fan of "Lost" - the story of those mysterious people crashed on that mysterious island, now in its 4th season on US television.

"Heroes" has some things in common with "Lost" - the large range of characters and the supernatural - though it takes a bit too far. The second season, now on view on Star TV in Taiwan each Tuesday evening at 9, breaks open a whole tin of new characters from Japan to Ireland, with more people showing off more extreme powers. Think leaking black eyes that can kill and hands that shoot off bolts of lightning, in addition to all the flying and thought reading.

It just gets a little bit too intensive and too farfetched for me, though its sensuality rating still shoots high sometimes because of its nicer characters. The frontrunners in that 'nice' league must be cheerleader Hayden Panettiere, Japanese wouldbe warrior Masi Oka, and "I can do anything that's on TV" Monica Dawson, played by Dana Davis. Actress Dania Ramirez also promises a major element of beauty on the show as the runaway from Central America, so I'll keep watching and hope humanity prevails over magic tricks and science-fiction hankypanky.

By Shadrilla Kems for S2S.

Team S2S

We've got ourselves a new title, now we have a new layout which can still be improved upon. Next, let me introduce the new team.
As I'm still the official webmeister of this blog, you will still see my name - Enzo Ciancia - around a lot, but otherwise I now have a team standing by depending on the subjects up for discussion. Blog items about fashion, food, cars - limited though they might be - will still come from my hand, but other subjects will have other authors.
First let me introduce to you Sean Moss, who will take over my duties regarding the worlds of writing and travel. Just like me, Sean loves writing. He hopes to become a published thriller author later this year, and just like me, he has been dabbling in online competitions to while away the time and improve his writing chops. He is also a more frequent traveler than I am, so he will be giving you more pictures and general travel impressions than I have been able to. Sean's first foreign destination is rumored to be the Philippines later this month, so I'd look out for his comments on this blog in early March.
A third member of Team S2S is Shadrilla Kems, and her favorite topics for discussion on this blog might be anything from fashion to hotels to beaches to shopping, with movies and music thrown in.
So much for Team S2S, in our next posts we will be revealing more about what S2S really stands for and what this blog aims to be doing.

Happy Valentine

Happy Valentine!

What a perfect day for the pre-launch of our new concept.

You've noticed that the official name of this blog has now been changed into "S2S" and you're probably wondering what that means.

We're going to leave you guessing a little bit longer as we finetune our new concept and decide what to do with this blog.

You already know that we moved from the occasional report about the opening of new luxury stores in Taipei, Taiwan to writing about ... well, writing. Our scope is about to expand to include an even wider range of subjects, though they will all have one thing in common: S2S.

Our team will do its best to rev up the post count by providing more information but especially personal opinions about a host of topics, all of them things which are drawing our interest across the world, not just in Taiwan. That's why we dropped the name Taiwan in the title, though we hope our postings will still bear relevance to this place. Despite the removal of the word Fashionista from the title, fashion is still one of the topics up for comment. And as you can tell, our URL remains the same.

A happy Valentine from Enzo Ciancia and the S2S team, and more about our concept in the near future as we transform this blog into a new experience.

First Offender

I did it! I sent in my first entry in Britain's Crime Writers' Association's Debut Dagger competition.
There must be hundreds and maybe even thousands of others like me, so my hopes of winning are still realistic, but still I'm very happy I made it.
As you know, they only want a first chapter of 3,000 words, a synopsis of 1,000 words, and 20 pounds. There is no need for you to write the whole story - which would take 100,000 words and quite some time.
It's only after you actually know you've won something - and that might take several months after the February 15 deadline - that you have to start worrying about producing a coherent, publishable story.
My first try is a pretty straightforward gangster vs. police story, with British characters - mindful of the country the jury is from - but set against the background of a Mediterranean country just because I like the sunshine.
I now still have 10 days left until the deadline. I'll be filling those with writing the first chapter and synopsis of a second story - with fewer characters, and set in a bleak British town - and maybe even a third. In my previous posting, I told you about the Cloverfield effect, well, my third story will be loosely inspired by that movie, though of course it won't involve monsters attacking New York.
If I want to reach my aim of competing with three different stories - which is actually completely by the rules - then I'll have to spend every morning and afternoon working on either story number two or three for the next few days, including the Chinese New Year holidays.
I'll let you know what I'm doing, and in the meantime, enjoy the start of the Year of the Rat.

Some Thing Has Found Me

Call it the Cloverfield effect.
I don't like movies about monsters, whether King Kong, Godzilla or Alien. I don't really like science-fiction movies, and I hate Star Trek and Star Wars in equal measure.
So what happened last Friday? Because of all the hype, and because of all the people on the Internet saying they became nauseous watching it, I just had to see Cloverfield.
You know, the 238th-something movie about something nasty attacking New York. The gimmick this time around of course, was that it was all supposed to be an amateur video shot by some immature young dude.
Well - it worked. I thought the film was great fun to watch. Despite the shaking around which, by the way, didn't make me nauseous at all. I guess only old white men who never lived through MTV and YouTube culture would get a headache out of watching this. It was also fun despite the lack of an apparent Hollywood happy ending. Despite the silly looks of the monster. Yes, that won't change, I still dislike monsters. And despite all the inconsistencies you can read about on any Internet forum.
Call it the Cloverfield effect.
The whole premise, the whole concept of the amateur video was so well realized that it got me thinking about writing a story with a similar concept. Well, not about a monster attacking New York nor about amateur video tapes, but about something equally original.
What comes first, comes first. February 15 is the deadline for the British Crime Writers' Association's Debut Daggers competition. As I wrote before, this needs a first chapter of up to 3,000 words and a synopsis of up to 1,000. I'm almost ready with my first piece for the competition, but I was also planning for a second.
Now Cloverfield is affecting my work for the competition. No, I'm not going to give up on my two stories. But what I'd love to do, once I've sent in my first story - probably tomorrow - is to work on my second, and write a third as well. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, every single day leading up to the February 15 deadline.
Blame my enthusiasm on Cloverfield, on director Matt Reeves, on writer Drew Goddard, on Lost mastermind JJ Abrams, and on gorgeous Canadian actress Jessica Lucas. But not on that silly monster.