been a while since i last posted.
been busy busy busy.
anyway, top of the news- i just passed driving! as a private candidate on my first try at Ubi. so as you can see the odds were really stacked against me, but i did it with the help of an excellent private driving instructor, Mr Ah Seng. So if any of you are going to take your license or are thinking about it, ask me for Ah Seng's contact. you really can't go wrong... so far all my friends who trained under him passed on their first try.
kok- haven't been brewing much! finding it hard to finish 25 litres of beer!
yishi- too late. Shes GONE. but its okay, i can still cook for you.
stef- welcome back soon?
lenn- how've you been?
2005-04-19
Celluloid Realities and the Sadness of Tomorrow
I am now wading through the thick of the Singapore International Film Festival, which holds its screenings at the Singapore History Museum and the Shaw Cinemas along Beach Road. The Shaw Cinemas have droopy regal-red velvet curtains which are pulled so elegantly apart to reveal the screen. Ornate detailing also lines its aged walls. This is sharply contrasted with the tangy smell of yellow pee and old-man feet, which is a pretty pity. I felt like I was living out a scene from Cinema Paradiso. I also felt like I was living in the east again and watching a movie in Republic or Bedok Theatre.
The night before, I was watching Pin Boy, and to my dismay, was seated with people flanking me on all sides. Front, back, left and right. I guess this is pretty normal and I wouldn't consider myself chlostrophobic (sic), but I don't usually enjoy being in close proximities with other bodies, especially if there's no comfortably leaving the situation. Such situations make me feel very cooped up and I find it hard moving and sometimes have difficulty breathing even. It makes me feel like screaming. Okay, so maybe I am a bit chlostrophobic.
Anyway, so I left halfway through the show, which was pretty boring to begin with.
Pin Boy is an Argentinean show about a guy who moves from the country to the city to work as a pin setter at a bowling alley. This was, of course, before the advent of pin setting machines. The movie gave new meaning to the word "deadpan", because in this case, there literally were no camera pans. The camera was static for the most part of the film, comprising mostly of one-shots, which made the movie really boring to watch, despite nuggets of interesting dialogue here and there.
"I am a nice guy. Very easy going. Relax. But you piss me off, I kill you. I don't care. I kill you." says one of the other pin setters.
This taught me that sometimes, anti-education is education. Learning what not to do is as useful as learning what to do.
On another occasion, when I was watching another show, this time called Tarnation (which was very enjoyable and engaging), I saw Roystan Tan. I was stunned speechless and didn't know what to do or say except to just point and look stupid, which is my natural reaction to most things.
Tomorrow is a very sad day.
Tomorrow, Chalimah is leaving to return back to her family in Indonesia for good. I'm very sad. Not just because she's a good cook, but also because she's kind of part of the family. She's a part of the house dynamic.
I know I don't know how to cope with loss at all. Of course I try to remain objective and really it shouldn't matter too much but emotions always get in the way and screw up good logic, like the proverbial wrench into fine clockwork. I feel this, I feel that. I don't even know what I'm feeling sometimes, just that I'm "feeling something".
Feelings and emotions are very irritating. I wish I had more control over them.
I am now wading through the thick of the Singapore International Film Festival, which holds its screenings at the Singapore History Museum and the Shaw Cinemas along Beach Road. The Shaw Cinemas have droopy regal-red velvet curtains which are pulled so elegantly apart to reveal the screen. Ornate detailing also lines its aged walls. This is sharply contrasted with the tangy smell of yellow pee and old-man feet, which is a pretty pity. I felt like I was living out a scene from Cinema Paradiso. I also felt like I was living in the east again and watching a movie in Republic or Bedok Theatre.
The night before, I was watching Pin Boy, and to my dismay, was seated with people flanking me on all sides. Front, back, left and right. I guess this is pretty normal and I wouldn't consider myself chlostrophobic (sic), but I don't usually enjoy being in close proximities with other bodies, especially if there's no comfortably leaving the situation. Such situations make me feel very cooped up and I find it hard moving and sometimes have difficulty breathing even. It makes me feel like screaming. Okay, so maybe I am a bit chlostrophobic.
Anyway, so I left halfway through the show, which was pretty boring to begin with.
Pin Boy is an Argentinean show about a guy who moves from the country to the city to work as a pin setter at a bowling alley. This was, of course, before the advent of pin setting machines. The movie gave new meaning to the word "deadpan", because in this case, there literally were no camera pans. The camera was static for the most part of the film, comprising mostly of one-shots, which made the movie really boring to watch, despite nuggets of interesting dialogue here and there.
"I am a nice guy. Very easy going. Relax. But you piss me off, I kill you. I don't care. I kill you." says one of the other pin setters.
This taught me that sometimes, anti-education is education. Learning what not to do is as useful as learning what to do.
On another occasion, when I was watching another show, this time called Tarnation (which was very enjoyable and engaging), I saw Roystan Tan. I was stunned speechless and didn't know what to do or say except to just point and look stupid, which is my natural reaction to most things.
Tomorrow is a very sad day.
Tomorrow, Chalimah is leaving to return back to her family in Indonesia for good. I'm very sad. Not just because she's a good cook, but also because she's kind of part of the family. She's a part of the house dynamic.
I know I don't know how to cope with loss at all. Of course I try to remain objective and really it shouldn't matter too much but emotions always get in the way and screw up good logic, like the proverbial wrench into fine clockwork. I feel this, I feel that. I don't even know what I'm feeling sometimes, just that I'm "feeling something".
Feelings and emotions are very irritating. I wish I had more control over them.
2005-04-07
The Beautiful Cliche - a Critical Review of "Maria Full of Grace"
The cut-out protagonist - a 17-year old girl with fiery soul trapped in a poor, pious, and conservative Colombian family living in a generic semi-slum area in Colombia. The kind of area where streets aren't quite dirt roads, but aren't quite paved either. She lives in a house full of women, littered with religious artifacts looking more like Salvation Army rejects than tools of the divine.
She's poor, working a dead-end job de-thorning roses in a factory with an uncaring and unsympathetic boss with a waist far bigger than his heart. She has a small-minded boyfriend who seeded the growing foetus within her. "I don't love you, and you don't love me. But you have a baby and its my duty. Marry me." reasons her boyfriend in spanish. One can't help but snicker at the stereotyped lad.
Maria Alvarez, like any strong willed girl with wordly ideas of her own, vehemently rejects such an offer, and subsequently throws a fajita at him. Instead, she quits her job and becomes a drug mule. Drug mules are people who smuggle drugs into other countries by swallowing as many as 60 latex pellets packed full of drugs at a time. She does this to escape from her physical and financial reality.
Going along on the journey with her is her Best Friend, Blanca, (the fat girl side-kick to the attractive heroine)and another girl, Lucy, who acts as their mentor-of-sorts, though in my opinion they are all in the same sad situation. They're all headed for new york with a belly full of sin.
And so the movie plays out in similar fasion, full of predictable cliches and tired scenarios. Lucy dies in the motel they are held in in New York when a pellet bursts in her stomach. The drug dealers, bored, cold and calculative, cut her stomach open to remove the rest of the drugs before discarding her lifeless body. Maria flees in fear with Blanca in tow, going to the only place they know - the residence of Lucy's sister, who immigrated to NY some time before.
"New York isn't so bad. It was very scary for me at first, but I stayed because of my child," says Lucy's sister while cradling her swelling belly.
"I want to give him opportunities." she adds with a self-satisfied smile.
Pregnant Maria listens intently and behind her saucer-like earnest eyes, her brain races with the possibilities. One can already predict what she is going to do. Surely, she's going to stay in NY. But no, the movie pulls us along as she buys tickets and drags Blanca with her to the airport so they can get onto the next plane back to dead-end poverty.
That is, until Blanca passes immigration. She turns back to see Maria looking at her with a mixture of regret, sorrow but at the same time satisfaction, meekly waving good-bye. Blanca is neither surprised nor angered. Like us, she expected this.
Maria decided to stay in NY as one of the million illegal immigrants who try to eke out a living; hoping for a better future - If not for herself then for her child.
Maria Full of Grace, screened last week at The Arts House, is a beautiful movie where Joshua Marston, scriptwriter and director, exercises great restraint by sidestepping many tempting plot off-shoots, snubbing the "neo-noir" cinema popularized by the Coen brothers so famously in "The Big Lebowski".
Even its tag-line embodies the more traditional story-telling nature of the movie - "The True Story of a Million Lives." The film doesn't fool itself into thinking it's doing anything new, modern or cutting-edge. Joshua Marston realizes and embraces that everything which can be done has been done.
But the thing is - he just does it better.
The cut-out protagonist - a 17-year old girl with fiery soul trapped in a poor, pious, and conservative Colombian family living in a generic semi-slum area in Colombia. The kind of area where streets aren't quite dirt roads, but aren't quite paved either. She lives in a house full of women, littered with religious artifacts looking more like Salvation Army rejects than tools of the divine.
She's poor, working a dead-end job de-thorning roses in a factory with an uncaring and unsympathetic boss with a waist far bigger than his heart. She has a small-minded boyfriend who seeded the growing foetus within her. "I don't love you, and you don't love me. But you have a baby and its my duty. Marry me." reasons her boyfriend in spanish. One can't help but snicker at the stereotyped lad.
Maria Alvarez, like any strong willed girl with wordly ideas of her own, vehemently rejects such an offer, and subsequently throws a fajita at him. Instead, she quits her job and becomes a drug mule. Drug mules are people who smuggle drugs into other countries by swallowing as many as 60 latex pellets packed full of drugs at a time. She does this to escape from her physical and financial reality.
Going along on the journey with her is her Best Friend, Blanca, (the fat girl side-kick to the attractive heroine)and another girl, Lucy, who acts as their mentor-of-sorts, though in my opinion they are all in the same sad situation. They're all headed for new york with a belly full of sin.
And so the movie plays out in similar fasion, full of predictable cliches and tired scenarios. Lucy dies in the motel they are held in in New York when a pellet bursts in her stomach. The drug dealers, bored, cold and calculative, cut her stomach open to remove the rest of the drugs before discarding her lifeless body. Maria flees in fear with Blanca in tow, going to the only place they know - the residence of Lucy's sister, who immigrated to NY some time before.
"New York isn't so bad. It was very scary for me at first, but I stayed because of my child," says Lucy's sister while cradling her swelling belly.
"I want to give him opportunities." she adds with a self-satisfied smile.
Pregnant Maria listens intently and behind her saucer-like earnest eyes, her brain races with the possibilities. One can already predict what she is going to do. Surely, she's going to stay in NY. But no, the movie pulls us along as she buys tickets and drags Blanca with her to the airport so they can get onto the next plane back to dead-end poverty.
That is, until Blanca passes immigration. She turns back to see Maria looking at her with a mixture of regret, sorrow but at the same time satisfaction, meekly waving good-bye. Blanca is neither surprised nor angered. Like us, she expected this.
Maria decided to stay in NY as one of the million illegal immigrants who try to eke out a living; hoping for a better future - If not for herself then for her child.
Maria Full of Grace, screened last week at The Arts House, is a beautiful movie where Joshua Marston, scriptwriter and director, exercises great restraint by sidestepping many tempting plot off-shoots, snubbing the "neo-noir" cinema popularized by the Coen brothers so famously in "The Big Lebowski".
Even its tag-line embodies the more traditional story-telling nature of the movie - "The True Story of a Million Lives." The film doesn't fool itself into thinking it's doing anything new, modern or cutting-edge. Joshua Marston realizes and embraces that everything which can be done has been done.
But the thing is - he just does it better.
2005-04-03
Perfect-Day Scoop! Exclusive Interview with the Lennard.
"Why 'Eat Shit and Die'? Its so crass! You're more eloquent than that," says Noelle when she checked up on Lennard's blog one night.
"I think its pretty poetic. To eat someone's shit and die. Everything's pretty much shit nowadays- a regurgitation of images, thoughts and ideas we're all familiar with, sucked dry of all meaning and context. Contemporary culture is as ageless as shit," says Lennard.
"...And about as useless," he adds dryly.
The title is an evolution (or devolution, some might say) of Lennard's blog, Perfect-Day. "It started out as Perfect Day, with a plain and simple layout, and became something else. I forget. Then something else again, this time a bit more elaborate, and something else after that. Till what it is now," he says matter-of-factly.
"I mean, if you want to over-analyse the whole thing, the blog started out as a recountive-type blog. 'Today i did this and that. This funny thing happened, that sad thing happened', and has since changed into something more opinionated. Not something many would care about. It's a lot more 'I think' and 'I, I, I, I'. Shite. I've become pretty narcissistic," he adds.
One might attribute the shift to a change in circumstances- from schooling to NS and his shift from his room upstairs to his now more independant existance living in the basement. Lennard cringes at this analysis but doesn't deny nor confirm it.
"I'm worried for that guy. He's always in his basement where its dark and damp. He's got this picture of a rabbit cadavre and photo of a porecelain clown. He doesn't even sleep on a bed! Fuck, he's writing his own post in third person. How screwed up is that?!" says Dingren, a long-time friend.
Lennard smirks when told this. "Hey, Ding's pretty fucked up himself man."
Fucked up.
That seems to be a running theme with people Lennard's age. "All this schmoze about globalisation, the global soul and global citizen. What if its the exact opposite? What if this is an age of alienization and de-rootification of the individual? We become globally connected not because of a common soul but because of the lack of one," he laments.
"I mean, I don't even know who or what I am! Am I a boy, man or thing?"
Boy/Man/Thing is also the title of Lennard's self-planned and self-penned posthumous magnum opus of his life consisting of blog entries, sketches, milestones and interviews with friends, family and acquaintences. "To publish it anytime before that would be pretty pretentious, don't you think? Its gotta be posthumous. Yeah... definitely. I would like this interview to go into that book too. Could someone please take note of that?"
"Why 'Eat Shit and Die'? Its so crass! You're more eloquent than that," says Noelle when she checked up on Lennard's blog one night.
"I think its pretty poetic. To eat someone's shit and die. Everything's pretty much shit nowadays- a regurgitation of images, thoughts and ideas we're all familiar with, sucked dry of all meaning and context. Contemporary culture is as ageless as shit," says Lennard.
"...And about as useless," he adds dryly.
The title is an evolution (or devolution, some might say) of Lennard's blog, Perfect-Day. "It started out as Perfect Day, with a plain and simple layout, and became something else. I forget. Then something else again, this time a bit more elaborate, and something else after that. Till what it is now," he says matter-of-factly.
"I mean, if you want to over-analyse the whole thing, the blog started out as a recountive-type blog. 'Today i did this and that. This funny thing happened, that sad thing happened', and has since changed into something more opinionated. Not something many would care about. It's a lot more 'I think' and 'I, I, I, I'. Shite. I've become pretty narcissistic," he adds.
One might attribute the shift to a change in circumstances- from schooling to NS and his shift from his room upstairs to his now more independant existance living in the basement. Lennard cringes at this analysis but doesn't deny nor confirm it.
"I'm worried for that guy. He's always in his basement where its dark and damp. He's got this picture of a rabbit cadavre and photo of a porecelain clown. He doesn't even sleep on a bed! Fuck, he's writing his own post in third person. How screwed up is that?!" says Dingren, a long-time friend.
Lennard smirks when told this. "Hey, Ding's pretty fucked up himself man."
Fucked up.
That seems to be a running theme with people Lennard's age. "All this schmoze about globalisation, the global soul and global citizen. What if its the exact opposite? What if this is an age of alienization and de-rootification of the individual? We become globally connected not because of a common soul but because of the lack of one," he laments.
"I mean, I don't even know who or what I am! Am I a boy, man or thing?"
Boy/Man/Thing is also the title of Lennard's self-planned and self-penned posthumous magnum opus of his life consisting of blog entries, sketches, milestones and interviews with friends, family and acquaintences. "To publish it anytime before that would be pretty pretentious, don't you think? Its gotta be posthumous. Yeah... definitely. I would like this interview to go into that book too. Could someone please take note of that?"
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