p i e c e s m i s s i n g e v e r y w h e r e

Over

2006-12-19T23:01:00.000+08:00

In a move that many would consider ill-advised, I took a day’s leave and spent all of it at my ex-girlfriend’s place. She was on leave too, and we were the only ones in the house. But I wasn’t there to see or talk to her; I was there to use her computer because it can do a number of things that mine can’t. And for the longest time, I’ve been meaning to finish something I started working on while we were still attached.

Sounds incredible? But it’s true, and in many ways it characterises our relationship (whether as a couple or as platonic friends): one of fuss-free practicality. We never stood in each other’s way; we never hesistated to change our plans if there were more pressing matters to attend to, and we never questioned or made up for them. We felt it was no point arguing over things that needed to be done anyway.

So it was unsurprising that she was completely comfortable with me spending a whole day using her computer as she went about cleaning the house and clearing old clothes. Where such a move in the past would have seen us heaving against each other in various states of undress, this time around I went about my business with ruthless efficiency, finishing what I set out to do before her mum got home.

And for the first time since our breakup, I detected no shadow of longing or regret in her countenance. In that quiet, spartan flat of hers, she felt more like a sister than a former lover. And I realised that all the vestiges of our romance had dislodged themselves from my heart. I paused for a moment, trying to remember what it was like to kiss her, and it felt exceedingly weird.

When we parted ways at the bus-stop near her flat, she headed for mass and I to town, it was with such matter-of-factness that I knew that chapter of our lives was truly and well closed. And I felt an immense sense of liberation.

I Could've Walked All Night

2006-12-02T23:58:00.000+08:00

After having some very nice photographs taken together, she asked if I wanted to call a cab, since the party was very far in. I declined, and went off on my own after breaking our parting gaze. There’s a certain beauty in walking along dimly lit stretches of road, beneath a thick canopy of black foliage, passing by unusual houses and buildings with unseen occupants and untold stories. There’s a kind of wonder in throwing one’s head back to look at the sky and being stunned by the sight of the immense halo around the moon that you normally can’t see for the streetlights. And there’s a kind of escapism in wandering out to an unfamiliar main road, feeling the emptiness of passing cars, imagining the sterile comfort of the homes in the distance, and breathing in the stinging freshness of the air on a night so clear that you can see for miles.

And there is an unexpected joy in not caring if the wait for a cab lasted another hour; then getting into one and being surprised by how quickly the landscape became swallowed by familiarity, because home was just around the corner.

Japan Goes Down

2006-11-22T23:07:00.000+08:00

I honestly can’t remember the last time I went to a cinema alone. But with a name dripping in B-Grade chic, you can be sure I’d go out of my way to watch The Sinking of Japan, it even if it means travelling an hour to Yishun 10 after work to catch its very last screening in Singapore.

Far from being home-release bargain bin fodder, Sinking is a surprisingly well-paced, well-thought out movie--one almost imagines that the producers went through a table-top crisis simulation exercise to envision the entire catastrophe developing from rumour to mass hysteria; and its political consequences locally and abroad. Its special effects, coming from the makers of the Godzilla franchise, were nothing short of spectacular. But more than the effects and suspense, what struck me most about the movie was the screenwriters’ willingness to allow Japan to be almost completely destroyed before being saved from submergence at the movie’s end. Is the paranoia of annihilation still in the Japanese psyche after 60 years? Interestingly enough, in a move too loaded with symbolism to be mere coincidence, the country’s final salvation is effected through a nuclear device.

Of course, there’s an added kick for me in watching Sinking since I’m currently learning the language and can now pick out expressions like sumimasen (“excuse me / sorry”), wakarimasu (“understand”), and nan de kore (“WTF!?”), not to mention all the -eru, -imasu and -shita verb endings (even if I don’t know the verbs themselves).

What I can’t understand, though, is a scene where the protagonist’s love interest says “make love to me now”, causing him to break into heavy sobs. He tearfully replies that he can’t “at the moment”, because only saving her family would make him truly happy. This has to be the first time in recent cinematic history that a male protagonist turns down an opportunity for casual sex with his love interest. What the f***, indeed! Maybe I do have a lot to learn about the Japanese psyche...

Evening Bliss

2006-11-17T23:42:00.000+08:00

It was one of those unexpected, perfect little evenings: getting off duty early, heading out on a whim, attending a free film screening cum faux-intellectual discussion, and proceeding (again, on a whim) with the organisers for drinks. The hours were touched with lightness: the air was sedate; the dressing casual, the company somewhere in that feel-good zone between acquaintances and friends. Many fond memories were evoked, and the night ended just before inertia set in. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this relaxed and happy...and a while since I had a beer, too. It’s a nice place to be.

Going Places

2006-11-08T23:14:00.000+08:00

For years, I had a major hangup about not being as well-travelled as my peers—a hangup which I unscrewed shortly before my graduation by making a mother of a trip to New York City. Since then, I’ve scraped the remains of that hangup with trips of various natures to China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia, all in the space of a year.

You would think I’m content, but there’s been a nagging itch. Beyond merely travelling, I’ve longed for the quintessential travel buddy experience—the kind of travel experience which is amplified because of the presence of a friend to take all those shameless photos you want of yourself, to watch your back, to collectively savour everything the destination has to offer and recount the adventure with fondness many years on. All my post-New York travels were made in large, organised groups, and the one in which I tried to force a travel buddy situation turned out to be a disaster.

Which is why this morning, as I punched in the last digits of my credit card number into airasia.com, sealing an impulsive deal I made with two close friends just a week before, I felt an inexorable sense of personal triumph.

The Earth Has Swallowed Me

2006-09-26T23:16:00.000+08:00

People have a nice expression for situations of imminent trouble: “sinking feeling”. In a single breath, it apprehends the nature of the situation and captures the accompanying physiological sensation—an ominous slowing and heightening of the senses, especially the heart. We’ve all felt it before.

But beyond a certain point, one’s heart no longer sinks. Beyond a certain point, a trap door flings open between your feet and your heart just drops straight into it and disappears. It’s a feeling that passes through you before you can feel it, a sensation faster that thought, but with such terrifying force that it strips you of your emotional capacity to react.

I really wish I could tell you today about how I spent—or intended to spend my 26th birthday, looking out at the world from my secret place on a 26th floor, ruminating over the lessons of life I’ve gleaned from the past year.

But all I can tell you about today is the new sensation I experienced when the phone call came two nights ago, informing my family that cousin died suddenly.

Stand Up For Singapore

2006-08-10T21:27:00.000+08:00

Some things they won't tell you about the experience of watching the National Day Parade at the stadium:

There's a buzz from taking a train to the venue, and watching it fill slowly with people decked in red;
It's more exciting watching the proceedings without the sedate, formal commentary that accompanies the telecast;
The F16 fly-past is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it affair, while the paratroopers are a delight to watch (you can see them from the moment they appear as tiny red specks in the sky till their dramatic landing minutes later);
During the feu de joie, you can hear the movement of the fire as it runs from one end of the Guard-of-Honour formation to the other and back again;
The sight of a stadium full of people with their torches switched on in the dark is surreal and almost romantic (or maybe it’s just me);
The mass display segment is electrifying because it fills your entire field of vision, and never cuts away;
After the fireworks subside, you can smell the thick stench of gunpowder;
You learn the true meaning of 60,000 when you wait an hour for the crowd to disperse, and it still takes forever to walk back to Kallang MRT.

As something that began in 1976, NDPs held at the National Stadium are very much a thing of my generation, and I'm glad I finally had the chance to watch one in the flesh. Not a year too soon, either, as the stadium will be demolished in 2007. Well, if it's not one for the photo books, then it's certainly one for the children to hear about many years from now.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

2006-07-01T22:30:00.000+08:00

The Young Musician’s Society Auditorium. It began four years ago at this very spot, where we were rehearsing for a school theatrical production.

Countless days, conversations, kisses, gifts and special moments later, it was only appropriate that our final discussion on our relationship began here. (It was my idea to stop by this place—I am, after all, a stickler for beginnings and endings.)

It wasn’t easy to begin doing this: as the first serious relationship for both of us, it was precious and wonderful. And as if to hold on to this wonder for just a while longer, we spent a long time reminiscing. Only in the final hour did my thoughts gain lucidity and gather momentum, and I mustered the courage and conviction to tell her why it had to end.

In many ways, we had the perfect relationship, and it had the perfect ending. She took it very well, and I am very proud of her for that. In fact, when she broke down at the very end, it was not because of the pain of separation, but because of my parting gift for her. Though only 20 cents, I got it to fulfil a small promise I made many months ago. I gave it to her as a kind of closure, and to assure her that there was no animosity in our breakup.

Then, there was a surreal moment of catharsis. Freed from the burden of planning our finances for a home and a wedding; freed from the difficulty of raising children with our differing value systems; freed from the awkwardness of salvaging our fraying relationship so we could do all this; freed from the weariness of always talking and messaging each other in our bedroom voices; we felt a great burden lift from our shoulders. After all, it was not as if she didn’t want to separate at all. She only wanted to stay together more.

Suddenly, it made so much more sense just to be friends. And we had a nice, big steamboat dinner together.

My last moments with her were spent along a bustling sidewalk as she looked out for a bus that she could take home. It arrived sooner than a final hug or gaze. Up its steps she disappeared, like a memory.

As the dust settles, I begin to think of the things we always talked about doing but somehow never did. Watching the DVDs and VCDs we bought to watch together. Taking a holiday in a distant country. Experiencing snow for the first time. Going to this restaurant, or that one. Feeding each other an entire meal. Making love. I wonder if I will wake up some mornings and reach for the phone, forgetting that it’s over.

Yet, there is a lot of good in this. As the first serious relationship for both of us, it was sweet and naïve in its own way. And perhaps, it is therefore better remembered with fondness, than lived out to the point of farce.

Thank you for four beautiful years.

Wood

2006-05-01T16:35:00.000+08:00

While getting into the lift to throw out parts of an old bed, I was suprised to hear a small voice behind me ask, "which floor are you going to?" It was a young, plump boy with a knapsack. I mentioned the ground floor, and he obliged to press the button, saying "okay, I'm going there too".

Not a floor had passed before he walked to my corner and asked what the wooden planks were for. I told him they were parts of an old bed I was throwing away. "Why throw them away? You could remove the metal parts and use the wood for something else", he said, pointing to the iron brackets.

I was amused by his precocious questioning, and decided to probe further.

"Well, what do you think I could use them for?" I asked. With no hesitation whatsoever, he suggested using them as "spare parts". He went on: "Or you could also use them to write a message. With a penknife. You can carve the letters on the wood. I think it's a good idea actually. Or you could give them to a carpenter".

Too many thoughts came to my mind so I just smiled and nodded. "Thanks", I muttered, as the door slid open. The boy said good-bye and pottered off. I carried the planks to the void deck and set them next to other parts of the bed which my father brought down earlier.

As the lift ascended, I recalled a time when I was like that boy. I remembered the power I felt from speaking freely with adults, and the praise I received for being able to do so. At that time, I honestly thought I was being applauded for coming up with ideas which adults themselves couldn't think of. Well, I guess not. For all that is sometimes said about how much adults can learn from children, there's a reason why children are children. And that's no bad thing.

Sympathy for the Devil

2006-04-30T16:55:00.000+08:00

Spotted outside Big O Cafe at Wheelock Place:

...since when has SPCA's charter expanded to include demonic creatures?

A Question of Lust

2006-04-18T23:58:00.000+08:00

Three years into our relationship, and my girlfriend and I will soon be going for a marriage preparation course. Hopefully, it will help us to decide if we should take the plunge, or cut our losses and run. Whatever the outcome, one thing seems certain for now: given our differing religious persuasions, we are destined for a rather sexless marriage. How fortuitious, then, that the organisers of 19th Singapore International Film Festival decided to screen Toru Kamei's Question.

Exploring precisely the role of sex in marriage, Question revolves around the lives of Jun and Mari, a young couple who eke out a bizarre existence in a Japanese suburb. They sleep in separate beds and don't even touch each other, leave alone have sex. Despite this, their relationship is as tender and genuine as it gets. For the year they've been married, Jun has been finding sexual release through alternative means. By the time of the film's opening, he has reached breaking point. What ensues is a poignant, engaging psychological drama as Jun and Mari attempt to reconcile their differences.

I liked how Kamei amplified the isolation of his characters through the film's stark, mundane feel. It worked at every level: the functional sets; the clean lines and strong whites in the cinematography; the sparse dialogue; the use of only two musical motifs (a skittery acoustic guitar and a piano piece); the literal nature of the film's title; the linear plot with a simple but meaningful twist, and tidy resolution. If films are days, then Question is a lazy, subdued, yet thoughtful Sunday afternoon. I love this aesthetic because it's close enough to real life to resonate with me, yet that much neater.

Not that my girlfriend would understand any of this, though. Prior to Question, she'd never seen any movie with full-frontal nudity in it, leave alone explicit sex. She must've been reeling from the experience, as her first reaction to the film was acute pity for the actress who had to bare her entire body for the camera. Little did she know that the joke was on her: pretty female lead Yunna Mizumoto is an Adult Video actress. (warning: the link is not work-safe)

That said, the sex in Question has none of the gloss of Japanese pornography. If anything, it has a quality of vérité: Kamei devotes several minutes of screen time to an intensely silent, continuous shot of a blowjob from the point of insertion to ejaculation. Lovemaking, when it occurs, is in turns desperate, tentative and clumsy. Despite the generous amount of onscreen copulation, however, Question does not glamourise sex. In fact, it shows an empathy for people who abuse it because they are unable to realise its full potential in the context of a relationship.

How fully my girlfriend and I will realise this potential, if we do get married, remains to be seen. But Question has certainly given us--especially her--some food for thought, and in a way that no straightlaced, institution-based marriage preparation course will ever be able to. I'm glad for that.

Second Chance

2006-04-14T23:49:00.000+08:00

I was right.

I couldn't be sure, until that moment in the conversation where you let slip that you were thinking of getting back together with him. But then he dropped the bomb, and there was no turning back.

I wonder if you'll turn back to the other thing you walked away from recently. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised--the last time we met, it seemed every fibre in you was set on crossing a line that would irrevocably divide us. As it turns out, a series of incidents blocked your progress in the intervening months. You eventually arrived at the realisation that you had all you wanted all along.

But let's not dwell on such heavy-going things.

You looked fabulous tonight--did you dress up just for me? You didn't have to, if all you were doing was coming from home, on a bus, to a place which is nowhere near the kinds of places that people dress up for. But you did. And sitting there, framed by the wall and table, I couldn't help but notice the details in you. I marvelled at your immaculate dinner etiquette, and struggled to hide my own ignorance of which knife to use.

When you spoke, I heard ambition, sensibility and depth. As you drew in a breath to laugh, I felt drawn in as well, and all of a sudden I wondered what it means to completely give oneself to more than one person in one's life.

The night ended earlier, and with far less solidarity than when we first met up. But it ended with just as much promise.

I want to see you again.

Puppy Love

2006-03-28T16:50:00.000+08:00

It's been a long time since there's been a face I can look forward to seeing every day. It's been a long time since there's been someone I constantly want to steal glances of; a voice whose every spoken word I want to cling to; a person whose every nuance and mannerism I want to memorise.

I don't know if I will give myself away, and if I do, what will happen next. All I know is that I feel this great lift in my spirits whenever our paths cross, because all that is sweet, young and true shines in her aspect.

There's something very liberating about this dalliance. The last time I felt this way was nine years ago, when I was still in my Bibi-and-Baba school uniform and life was less complicated. The intervening years have been bogged down with too many near misses, false hopes and angsty ruminations. In all my frustration I've forgotten the simple joy of running home and peering through the fence to see if the girl next door is in.

This afternoon, after nine long years, she is.

Pure Morning Surprise

2006-03-26T18:17:00.000+08:00

It's not every morning that you wake up not expecting to catch a Placebo gig, then end up catching a Placebo gig.

On Thursday, I had one of those mornings.

Placebo was in town for an invitation-only gig to commemorate the launch of the 2006 Singapore Fashion Festival. Weeks before, free invites were given out to sponsors and contest winners. Naturally, some of these made their way onto the black market, going for as much $150. My bandmate got his for $100 after much asking around.

After spending well over $1,200 in a month on Franz Ferdinand, the Bangkok 100 Rock Fest (including attendant airfare and accommodation costs), Oasis, Erlend Oye's DJ set and the Kings of Convenience, there was no way I'd cough out another $100-odd for Placebo, especially since I'd already seen their headline set in Bangkok. I'd sooner cough out blood.

How fortuitious, then, that I was in a conspirational mood today and decided to log on to MSN webmessenger while at work. Within an hour, one friend told me he had a lobang for an invite at $60, and another one told me she could get me one for free. So much for watching Mad Hot Ballroom with my girlfriend; we were now watching Placebo! And thankfully, despite being decked out in boring office attire, I happened to have a blazer and shades in my drawer. Just right for the glam-punk aesthetic of the event.

I slipped out of the office right on the knock-off hour and rushed to Ngee Ann City's Civic Plaza with my girlfriend. Throughout the journey, my phone buzzed incessantly with messages to hurry up as the queues were getting longer and longer. Thankfully, this wasn't an issue as a Poptart regular spotted me and pulled me to front of the queue where he had been planted for the past hour.

This meant that, despite the people with priority passes (stamped with the MTV logo) being allowed into the tent first, we still managed to squeeze to the front of the stage. My bandmate and his friends were already there. From our experience in Bangkok, we knew we were on the side that Brian Molko and Alex Lee (erstwhile Suede guitarist; current Placebo sessionist) would be standing. Being Suede fanatics, we shamelessly screamed Alex's name when he came out for a quick technical brief by a roadie, and he looked at us and smiled.

It took an hour before MTV VJs kicked off the show with a lame audience participation segment, and a useless admonition against flash photography during the performance. With that, Placebo finally came on. Their nearness was palpable; there was no barricade between the audience and the stage (the only other gig I've been to with this arrangement was Fischerspooner's Canal Room gig in NYC). The band launched into "Taste in Men", and it was then that the ingenuity of the event shone through: Placebo were the soundtrack for the fashion show. The image of five sharply-dressed alternative rockers pumping out a dark, confident tune on male sexuality as lean, muscular models with guitars strutted icily past them onto the catwalk was utterly striking.

What followed was a three-song volley of "Follow the Cops Back Home", "Because I Want You" and "Infra-red", all lifted from their latest album, Meds (which, incidentally, I absolutely love). It was quite a treat as two of these weren't performed in Bangkok.

Another surprise was "Without You I'm Nothing", a dark, slow-burning anthem from the 1998 album of the same name. At the sound of its suspenseful opening notes, I felt extreme pity for my drummer, as he was missing his favourite song of all time, performed by his favourite band of all time, all because he was stuck in camp for NS. The models came back out for this song in a way that complemented it perfectly: blindfolded and in dark suits. Instead of walking down the catwalk and turning back, each one remained on the catwalk, forming a line which stood ominously till the song ended. Mind-blowing.

"Song to Say Goodbye" was next, followed by the crowd-pleasing "Every You Every Me". This one got finally got the crowd moshing--the entire floor trembled, which is always a good sign at gigs. As if to play on the song's title, all the models remained on stage, slowly filling it up. And that was it. The end of the main set.

In acknowledgment of his proximity to the audience, Brian Molko leaned forward and touched a few hysterical hands. The models next to him took the piss out of that and reached out their hands in a mocking manner to those who didn't get to touch the Placebo frontman.

The band quickly returned for a two-song encore of "One of a Kind" and "The Bitter End", much to the disappointment of the people behind me who were screaming for "Special K". Nevertheless, the performances were spirited, even if the sound was murky. The playing was tight and the tone of the guitars sounded amazingly close to their recorded versions. The whole affair took about an hour, from 8.30 to 9.30pm. All the setlists within physical reach were gone before the last song ended, but I recalled from watching the roadies set up that there was one on Alex's keyboard. After most of the crowd dispersed, I called out to one of the roadies and drew a rectangle with my fingers. She looked around for a setlist, found it where I expected it and passed it to me, duct tape and all. It may lack the crumpledness, torn-off corners and footprints of a setlist from a major gig, but what the hey, it's a lovely souvenir of a fantastic time which I didn't expect when I woke up in the morning. And who could complain about that?

Cigarettes and Singapore

2006-02-24T23:55:00.000+08:00

I was half-expecting this: I wasn't excited.

It's hard to beat the mad, mad high of a rock festival. With Bangkok 100 still resonating in my head, I wasn't about to get worked up over another concert anytime soon, even if it was Oasis.

While at work, I found myself wishing I could go home to a nice, quiet evening of rest and recuperation. But no, I had a $160 ticket in hand, and was bound to complete the rock 'n' roll week of my life--a week bookended by this gig and the Franz Ferdinand one last Thursday. The journey to the indoor stadium was predictably filled with a sense of deja vu: sitting in a cab, lining up at the premier entrance, walking past the security counters and into the cavernous venue--all this I had done just a week ago. Then there was Oasis' stage setup--giant velvet curtains, a wall of Marshall amps, christmas lights and a psychedelic piano--just as it was in Bangkok.

Lo and behold, even the audience was the same.

With its princely admission fee, I hardly expected the front section of the venue to be packed. But it was, and boy was it packed with crazy people. Even before the lights went down, the crowd was so dense that I didn't have enough room to bend my elbow and scratch my nose. When the pre-recorded intro of "Fuckin' in the Bushes" blasted out of the speakers, the entire floor bobbed in sync, simply because our bodies were that tightly packed together.

When Liam Gallagher finally stepped up to the mike, all hell broke loose.

All through the opening salvo of "Turn Up the Sun", "Lyla", "Bring it on Down" and "Morning Glory", my friends and I lurched from one side to the next, pummelled at all angles by waves of human force. One of my friends gave up quickly and pushed backwards into a calmer part of the crowd. I sallied forth undaunted, even though I was focusing more on maintaining my precarious balance than actually watching the band. Now don't get me wrong. The vast majority of people I know hate this kind of concert experience, and with good reason. On the contrary, I LOVE IT...the rush from it is intense. There's something perversely exciting about the being part of a huge crowd that expands and contracts like a muscle with a mind of its own. There's something exhilirating about staggering helplessly for metres, locked at the shoulder with dozens around you, not knowing when and if you're all going to fall together. It was Bangkok all over again, and who would've expected it so soon?

Of course, such fun is good is small doses, because it is very draining. Thank goodness, then, for Noel's slow set of "The Importance of Being Idle" and "The Masterplan", which lulled everyone into a gentle sway. More breathing space opened up during "Live Forever" when Liam tossed his tambourine into the audience, causing an almighty scuffle just to my right. About a dozen arms shot up before a slightly deranged Englishman seized the instrument and bulldozed a gaping escape route, which I happily occupied. The man then doubled over, using beserker strength to cling to his souvenir despite several others trying to wrest it from him. He repeatedly let out blood-curdling cries of "IT'S MINE!" and fought on for what seemed like an hour, eventually grunting "it's broken...it's broken!" and holding the damaged toy up triumphantly.

Despite such an enthusiastic reception from their audience, Oasis were characteristically detached. Liam's entire performance was made with his one and only singing stance: hands behind the back, right leg forward, body leaning to the right and mouth turned upwards to the microphone. Gem Archer and Andy Bell, while providing tight, polished rhythms, were non-entities on stage.
Banter was sparse, and whatever little Liam said was rendered incomprehensible by his thick Mancunian accent and the infamously murky sound of the indoor stadium. He introduced fewer songs than he did in Bangkok--perhaps only "Acquiesce" and "Wonderwall", the latter of which was "for all the ladies". He hardly deigned to acknowledge his audience, though once during "Cigarettes and Alcohol", I swear he sang "all I need are cigarettes and" before pausing, surveying the moshpit and completing the line with a spoken "Singapore".

But one could hardly fault Oasis for a lack of showmanship. With a larger-than-life frontman, godsized choruses and generation-defining tunes such as "Champagne Supernova" and "Don't Look Back in Anger", they only needed to turn the volume up to 11 and let the music do the talking.

And yet, as the show closed with The Who's "My Generation", Oasis executed the oldest trick in the rock 'n' roll performer's handbook: pulling a fan onstage. After completing his vocal duties, Liam scanned the front row, pointed to a buxom lass and nodded repeatedly to his bouncers. A quick boost and the girl was onstage embracing the stern frontman. She backed off awkwardly, hands clasped over her mouth in stunned adoration. She made several faux kowtows to the band, who continued playing a raging outro as Liam sauntered about the stage. The singer then handed the girl his tambourine and prompted her to lead the crowd into the song's final bars. This she did with great aplomb, pogo-ing like she wanted to shake her tits off, urging the audience to clap to the beat.

Not Another Poptart Post

2006-01-22T15:39:00.000+08:00

Another month, another great Poptart. That much greater for the fact that more of my friends turned up for this one than before...the same five as the last time, plus four inductees. The days of me dancing stupidly on my own and feeling resentment towards cooler-than-thou people are over (I hope). The days of me aching for every other girl on the dancefloor are over too. Now I am either too distracted by communal revelry to dwell on my desires, or I ease my ache by comparing notes with my chums in our post-clubbing declarations of lust...all in good fun, of course.

Christmas eve's Poptart still remains the greatest session ever, but on the whole, things are getting better. The crowd's interacting more and more with the deejays, rushing to the decks and reaching out for them as if they were the singers of the bands being played. The deejays in turn are feeling and working the crowd. Even the crowd is working itself...my friends and I agreed to open the bodysurfing floodgates and we just knew, at the same time, when that moment was (for the record it was Suede's "New Generation"). I learnt just how important this crowd sentiment is when I attempted to bodysurf during The Tears' "Lovers", which I love but people didn't really get into...I ended up being dropped on my head because I surfed into a big gap on the dancefloor(!!)

A highlight of the night was when Adrian spun a remix of "Bizarre Love Triangle" and segued it into a propulsive drum loop which few could identify...until the familiar hook came on, and we realised it was a thundering DJ mix of Franz Ferdinand's "Do You Want To". And what would Poptart be without its de facto anthem, The Arcade Fire's "Wake Up"? I guess this picture, which I took during the song, sums it up really:

As icing on the cake, the electronic billboard at Home announced that the next Poptart is on 11 Feb. It will be a fitting kick-off to a truly manic month: Poptart (11 Feb), Franz Ferdinand 'live' at the Indoor Stadium (16 Feb), Bangkok 100 Rock Fest (18-19 Feb), Oasis 'live' at the Indoor Stadium (26 Feb), Erlend Oye's DJ set at the Esplanade (15 Mar), Kings of Convenience 'live' at the Esplanade Concert Hall (16 Mar), with another Poptart right after the gig. Oh my God!! (Oh my depleted bank account!!)

Thank God it's This Kind of Friday

2006-01-21T00:59:00.000+08:00

This is my idea of a night: heading straight from work to a jamming studio that you haven't been to before, and realising it's easily the best of the four you've been to so far. Focusing on a single song, listening to the riffs your lead guitarist has come up with and discussing the transition to the chorus with your drummer. Laughing with your bandmates as each take falls apart.

Calling your other friends whom you planned to join for drinks after the jamming session, and finding out they are already calling it a night. Deciding, on the spur of the moment, to grab two beers from the nearest 7-eleven and downing them with your drummer on the steps of the old Supreme Court building. Discussing the band's future and various personal issues while watching the cars pass. Leaving the cans behind and running to catch the last bus / train home.

The spontaneity; the escapism of it all. This kind of night is so simple and so easy to achieve, yet it took me years to find the right people to experience it with. But now that I've finally met them, there'll be many more yet.

Memoirs of a Geisha-Watcher

2006-01-19T23:32:00.000+08:00

The beautiful thing about theatre is its power of suggestion. A skilled actor can portray any character or situation even if he has nothing but a black leotard on and a blank stage to work with. He can do this regardless of age, appearance or gender, and be utterly convincing.

It's just not the same with cinema. Because camera angles, location shoots and digital sound leave little to the imagination, film triumphs less through suggestion than authenticity.

This is an area where Memoirs of a Geisha fails miserably. As a Chinese, not only do I find the idea of Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh portraying a quintessential aspect of Japanese culture to be odd, I find it downright insulting. It reinforces the idea that all Asians are the same to Caucasians, and that there are only about five of them in the popular consciousness of the entire Western Hemisphere.

It doesn't help that the entire supporting cast are bona fide Japanese--that only makes the leads stick out more. The use of English dialogue peppered with Japanese terms further heightens the artifice of the film--Yeoh's forced intonations of words like "Danna" and "Nitta" are particularly grating.

Basically, the entire show smacks of cultural voyeurism. What could have been a compelling insight into a closely guarded tradition turned out to be a thinly veiled exercise in exoticism, without any real empathy for its characters. At the show's end, I remained unconvinced that Sayuri went through all she did to be with the Chairman on account of a brief childhood encounter with him. Perhaps this is addressed with more depth in the novel, but I haven't read it.

Having said all this, it's not a bad film. It's entertaining and engaging in the way that mainstream Hollywood fare is, and the use of elegant zen-like phrases and descriptions from the book give it a touch of class. A personal favourite is Sayuri's recollection of a poem in front of a temple, called 'loss', which consists of only three words. There's more to it but I won't spoil it here.

The real treat of the night, however, has to be child actress Suzuka Ohgo. All of 12 years of age, she gives me the same jailbait goosebumps that Natalie Portman did in her prepubescent debut in Leon (a.k.a. The Professional). Here is a shot of her with a smile so disarming it can end a nuclear war.

Already in an A-list film, it's only a question of time before she grows up and pays her acting dues by baring her as-yet unformed chest on the big screen. But let's not go there just yet...

Don't Start Giving Me Ideas Now...

2006-01-16T21:20:00.000+08:00

Spotted at City Hall MRT:

...do I just have a filthy mind, or is there really something inappropriate about this advertisement??

Between Bangkok and a Hard Place

2006-01-10T16:30:00.000+08:00

Warning: this is a bitch post.

So I was thrilled when a friend told me about the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival two months ago. So I was psyched up when he said he would arrange for his family to get tickets for us when we they went up to the Thai capital in December. So I was bummed when for some reason, he only got tickets for his girlfriend and himself. So I was ecstatic when another friend of mine holidaying in Bangkok helped me buy the most expensive ticket at the drop of an SMS. So I was annoyed when the first friend went ahead and made all the flight and accommodation arrangements for his girlfriend and himself, leaving me out of the picture probably assuming:

That I would stay in a different hotel / hostel and somehow be able to find him among 100,000 revellers during the gigs,
That I would be able to return to an empty room each night after the performances and not feel like an absolute retard (NB: highs must always be shared...think about the difference between drinking with friends and drinking alone)

So I tried knocking on every door, begging and pleading with my Poptart Posse to make the trip with me. Along the way, I was floored by the revelation that the weeks before and after the Festival will be mega crunch time at my workplace (due to the nature of our work). Faced with the prospect of flying out on Friday night and back into Singapore on Sunday, I tried to pitch the experience as a hit-and-run adventure; as a chance to take a rock n' roll holiday over the weekend and show the metaphorical finger to our employers in the process. I told my friends exactly what I was thinking: What will you remember of 2006 on 31 December? That you spent every weekend catching up with work, or that you got away with being part of a Glasto-style festival near home?

No-one's bitten yet.

Now I could go into a much deeper rant about how jealous I am of other people who have regular travel companions who would literally go to the ends of the earth with them. I could rant about how I've hardly travelled in my whole life, and now that I have the spending power to, I'm foiled by friends who are overwhelmed by work--friends who can sacrifice this travel experience because they've had so many already. But I'll come across as a self-consumed ass if I do, so I won't.

I'll just say this: time is running out. Either I scalp my ticket before everyone who intends to go gets one; or I find a travel buddy and book flights and accomodation before they're all snapped up.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't. So what should I do?

Epiphanies

2006-01-07T15:46:00.000+08:00

Last night was the kind of night that opens one's eyes. For the past year and a half, I lived my life based on beliefs I held about some people I know. I always remained guarded with them. Yet, I secretly wanted and worked towards becoming like them.

But last night I heard things I never dreamt I would hear. Loosened by alcohol and compelled by the deepness of the night, they spoke of their vulnerability, regret, and the things that really mattered to them. I heard beliefs that deeply resonated with me, and saw uncanny parallels where there once seemed to be none. I saw tears. Real tears.

Essentially, I heard all I needed to know to straighten out some long-standing personal issues.

We walked off the conversation in step with each other, spontaneously singing the songs of our teenage years. When we went our separate ways, I felt like the luckiest guy on Earth. My friends, not feeling as lucky, felt comforted and united in commiseration.

I reached home at 4 in the morning, made myself a cup of instant noodles and lay in bed till the first cracks of light appeared in the sky. Staring at the ceiling and feeling the cold air awakening my skin, I pondered about Life, about people I know, about pretence and honesty. I felt older, a little uncomfortable, and felt like life was beginning again.

Beginnings

2006-01-01T17:02:00.000+08:00

And so, 2006 is upon us. I celebrated its arrival with six friends in a swanky hotel room. We played drinking games, reminisced about the year just past, sang the songs of our youth and headed out to the poolside to gaze into the night sky. At the stroke of midnight, we charged into the streets, screaming in delight as we raced towards the nearby clubs, stolen balloons trailing in our hands. We narrowly missed the collective countdown, but didn't allow that to dampen our spirits as we cheered and released our helium-filled orbs into the sky.

Not too far away, a fireworks display began. We could only catch a glimpse of it through the gaps between the buildings across the road. It was the first time I'd ever seen fireworks in person. Photographs and newsreels don't do justice to them--their measured ascent; their immense and graceful expansion; their suspension. This photo I share with you captures little of this, but it does reflect where I find myself in life at the moment: gazing through the cracks at the brilliance that constantly lies just out of reach. Well, at least I think I'm looking in the right direction. Happy New Year, everyone.

Thank You For The Music Already

2005-12-30T17:05:00.000+08:00

A friend recently made the astute observation that this blog has become almost exclusively devoted to music. That's true. One reason is the fact that I don't blog about work (I feel it's generally a bad idea). The larger reason is that, between the start of the year and now, music has indeed become a much larger part of my life.

In celebration of my renewed enthusiasm and fanboyishness, let me share what's got me geared up for 2006:

Gigs
When I visited Manhattan in May, I made the observation that about 5 'big names' (at least, big to indie kids) were performing there every night...more than what Singapore gets in a year. Well lo and behold, by March next year we'll be halfway to breaking that record. Look at who's dropping by our sunny island in the space of a single month:

1. Franz Ferdinand 'live' at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, 16 Feb
2. Oasis 'live' at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, 23 Feb
3. Kings of Convenience 'live' at the Esplanade Concert Hall, 16 Mar

This is an exciting development. To add to the madness, right smack in this maelstrom of performances is the Bangkok 100 Rock Festival from 18-19 Feb, which boasts two of these acts and six others, plus some Thai bands to boot. After the gigslutfest that was Manhattan, I had no idea I'd be doing the whole lyric-memorising shebang again so soon. And the dancing too...the FF and Oasis gigs have General Admission (i.e. free-standing) areas!!

Albums
Every year has its best newcomers, but since I can't tell the future, I'm looking forward to the new releases of perennial favourites:

1. Morrissey: Ringleader of the Tormentors (20 Mar)
2. Pet Shop Boys: Fundamental (Apr)

Morrissey's album will be a shot in the arm of indie nights all over the world, not least of all Singapore. Popsluts may get an anthem to replace "First of the Gang to Die". Judging from his typically dubious song titles, I'll wager that the new stomper wil be "On the Streets I Ran".

What can I say...roll on 2006!!

Ingredients for the Perfect Christmas Weekend

2005-12-26T23:55:00.000+08:00

What more could I ask of the long weekend just past?

1. House Party on Friday
Truckload of university mates. Naughty gift exchanges. Staying behind longer with the ones I'm closer to. Playing drinking games. And more drinking games. And even more drinking games. And getting a rare insight into the loneliness of someone I hitherto thought was unshakeable.

2. Mother of all Poptarts on Saturday
Heading with friends to the maddest Poptart ever, complete with snow sprays, bodysurfing, non-stop pogo-ing, staggering across the street to the 7-eleven to tank up on alcohol, and dancing till the point of physical injury. Not to mention supper, watching the cops clean out a nearby club, and witnessing a mind-blowingly surreal formation in the sky. It has never been this crazy, and the two first-timers among the six of us couldn't have chosen a better Poptart to start with.

3. Indie Night at Cafe Cosmo on Sunday
Great conversation; nice atmosphere; a birthday surprise for one of the regulars; discovering a band whose latest album cover misled me to believe they were unlistenable; getting inside info on the big acts coming to Singapore in 2006. Couldn't have been a better way to enjoy indie without aggravating my dance injury.

4. Jamming at Boon's Studio on Monday
After years of false starts, false hopes, too much self-belief and too little faith from others, it finally begins. It's come a long way from that innocent reply to an online forum thread back in April. Yes, the amps were lousy, the guitars were shit and we were absolute amateurs. But we have original material, commitment and a great deal of momentum. The three of us get along really well, too. At the tail end of 2005, the defining feature of my life in 2006 has already been set in motion.

...did anyone say anything about work?

Sunday Night Ennui

2005-12-11T23:45:00.000+08:00

7:15 pm

I'm rushing through my dinner on a Sunday night, so I have time to finish up one of two submissions due tomorrow. The TV happens to be tuned to a channel showing a documentary on Krakatoa, the site of the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history. It's something I don't need. Watching the re-enactment of lives that ended more than a century ago, I can't help thinking of my own mortality. Contemplating the destructive power of nature, I can't help feeling like an inconsequential statistic in the endless speadsheet of history.

I can handle this sort of thing when I'm relaxed and reflective; not when I'm feeling the life squeezed out of me. I need to regain control. I need to feel I matter. So I quickly finish up the last few bites of my dinner and dash into my room, locking the door and turning up the radio. Surrounded by things no older than I am, I once again become the centre of my universe. Looking out the window, the calm electric lights of the neighbourhood remind me there is nothing else in this world but the here and now. Every cell in me awakes, and I get back to work, ready to face tomorrow.

11:30 pm

And so it goes: over 3 hours spent on a submission, with three appendices included. It's the most productive I've ever been on a weekend. It also raises the question, however: why do I even need to be productive on a weekend? I didn't sacrifice people time, leisure time and housekeeping time just for fun. I did it because I'll be too burdened and badgered at work if I didn't. I'm not complaining about my job--most desk-bound corporate jobs are like that these days. I'm just wondering why it has to be so.

I think about Karl Marx, who wrote on the alienation of workers in capitalist societies, and how a man should ideally have the freedom to be a hunter in the morning, a fisherman in the afternoon and a poet at night. I'm also feeling faintly nostalgiac about my days of autonomy as a student. I stop and wonder why my life--indie scene, prospective band and all--only began after I graduated and stopped having time to live. Oh the irony.

It Was 25 Years Ago Today

2005-12-08T23:48:00.000+08:00

R.I.P. John Lennon 1940-1980

You are remembered, loved and hated by many people for many things. You have been deified in rock history as a songwriter that could do no wrong. You have been elevated as the patron saint of world peace. Yet you were the everyman, doing drugs, having noisy sex at a party as your wife listened in the adjoining room, nicking other people's work and getting sued for it, migrating and undergoing primal therapy. You were no (working-class) hero. You stumbled from one identity to the next--mop-top to hippie, Liverpudlian to New Yorker--as lost as any of us. Your struggles came out in your solo material, borne aloft by your distinctive whine that grew thinner and cracked as you searched for redemption in your later years.

Your 'bagism' and anthems of love, therefore, may not have been visionary--they may have merely been fashionable posturing; self-delusional reinvention; an attempt to stand for something. It is easy to read your biography either way. But I know deep down you really cared about people, and had a profound understanding of the beauty of life. I know because of a song you wrote in 1965. It is my favourite song of all time, and I don't care what the popular opinion is. Screw "Imagine", "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Power to the People", really. This song sets you apart as someone with a truly uncommon grace and largeness of heart.

In My Life

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed.
Some forever, not for better;
Some have gone and some remain.

All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall.
Some are dead and some are living;
In my life, I've loved them all.

But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compares with you.
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I'll often stop and think about them
...In my life, I love you more.

Six years after learning these words, this song still gives me goosebumps and brings wetness to my eyes. It touches so close to the bone of the human condition, and what it means to live and love. Thank you, John, for leaving this as a reminder to all of us.

Looking Back in Anger

2005-12-04T18:49:00.000+08:00

I think, deep inside, all of us know this: at the end of the day, the most precious thing in life is not fulfilling one's grandest ambitions, achieving wild popularity, or even doing great works of charity. The most precious thing is to be comfortable in your own skin; to be at peace with yourself, the people around you and the general scheme of things.

Even though I am a passionate person by nature and covet many things, in my quieter moments I recognise that the drama and spectacle of life is very much in my mind. And in such moments, I like to think that I am ultimately content with who I am and what I've gotten out of life.

Yet, it only takes the smallest reality check to realise that there is still a great deal of unhappiness buried within; that there are wounds that haven't healed and things I will never come to terms with. To some extent, I will always be on the run from people I once knew. Not because of any closet skeletons--there are none--but simply because many of these people only knew the work-in-progress I once was, and assumed it was the finished product.

Well, this product is still far from finished, and that doesn't make things any easier. Last week at lunch, I self-consciously avoided two previous acquaintances. One waved to me from a distance; I waved back and walked in the opposite direction. Another happened to sit down right across table I was eating at, but I kept my head buried in my bowl of noodles, pretending not to notice. A few days ago, I was forced by circumstance to acknowledge a large group of ex-schoolmates. Until that incident, I looked back on the years I spent with them with some fondness. But the sheer discomfort and indignity that raced through my skin as I answered them made me realise that any fondness was an illusion caused by time and distance.

Some might say that it's my own fault that things have come to this. Others might say that I'm merely imagining the antagonism and awkwardness in these encounters. To some extent, both these conjectures are true. But there are some dynamics in social relationships that are just unfortunate, unfair and irreconciliable. Some people experience this acutely; some never do and blame the people who suffer for causing their own misery. Life is just capricious in that way.

Last Night Poptart Saved My Life...Again!!

2005-11-20T12:32:00.000+08:00

And the life of one of my honours classmates too. His first time at the indie disco event, he was instantly converted to the church of Pop. All through the supper that followed, he couldn't stop grinning and raving about it. He was a man reduced to a slobbering boy; any happier and he'd have to whack himself off to calm down. Knowing him, he probably did. What a great guy, and what a great night!

It was Poptart's 1st Birthday bash to ostensibly celebrate a year of "group hugs, wet kisses, body surfing, silly poses, and pure drunken unadulterated raw-as-fuck dancefloor madness". It was just like any other Poptart, except much better. The mania began with a free flow of beer and poorly-poured housepours from 10 to 11. Popsluts and opportunistic newbies alike thronged around the bar as if it Zaidi, Jah and wee.like.me were serving their tunes on tap.

The Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" got things off to a rousing start, and in surprisingly little time guest DJ Joe Ng (The Padres, Mee Pok Man, Localbarboy etc) took to the decks. True to his diehard local-loving heart, he played a set consisting almost entirely of local music. It did two things: (1) reminded everyone what these songs sound like (Joe covers many of them with Localbarboy), (2) showed that Singapore indie stands up damn well against UK and US stuff.

In an unexpected turn he even spun The Padres' November '91! Having sworn off covering his former band with Localbarboy because of the self-indulgence factor, this was quite a treat. Since I am not above a little self-indulgence myself, let me show off my knowledge of his playlist:

1. Force Vomit - Siti
2. Serenaide - The Girl from Katong (listen)
3. Stoned Revivals - Goodil
4. Humpback Oak - Lower Girl
5. Concave Scream - Driven
6. The Padres - November '91
7. The Flaming Lips - Race for the Prize
8. The Observatory - This Sad Song (a remix!!! a friggin' remix!!!)
9. (didn't recognise this one)
10. Astreal - Snowflake
11. The Boredphucks - Ai Sio Kan Mai?
12. Sugarflies - Yoshiki

wee.like.me took over, and again the music went from one high to the next. I swear this Poptart saw the highest bodysurfing count in its one-year history. And continuing a night of firsts, wee.like.me stopped his set to speak to his congregation to thank us for being "fucking awesome". He got us to sing birthday songs for both Poptart and Jah, who was next to spin. My honours mates and I pogo-ed and sang our hearts out, climaxing with a five-song burst of Morrissey's "First of the Gang to Die", Manic Street Preachers' "Motorcycle Emptiness", The Smashing Pumpkins' "Bullet with Butterfly Wings", Green Day's "Basket Case" and The Killers' "Mr Brightside". (Screw all who say this is populist drivel; the middle three songs transported us to the days of way back when, and that alone was worth the admission and midnight cab fare home.)

Thus we were spent, and headed out for supper. This brings me back to the start of my post, where the Poptart initiate among us kept gushing as if he'd seen the face of God. Then, in true faux-manly fashion, we began talking about manly things like bukkake in front of our female classmate, grossing her out. But more importantly, we made a pact to return to every Poptart in the forseeable future. And that was the sweetest end to a night which began rather awkwardly, with me turning up alone as I did the last time, not expecting to meet anyone. My posse is back, and December 24th couldn't come sooner.

Respect Your Elders

2005-11-08T23:24:00.000+08:00

I was walking along the road today, minding my own business, when I saw this.

Damn you, Singapore Design Festival publicity team!! How dare you diss Kraftwerk, my all-time favourite electronic musicians!! How could you be so callous as to equate their Man-Machine and The Mix-era images with mindless conformity!! How could you bring yourself to imply, by association, that they are lacking in "design"?!? Don't you know that they have put more thought into their image than you have into your publicity campaign?? Are you aware that their 1978 Man-Machine album sleeve, for all its "conformity", was based on the constructionist art of El Lissitzky?? How much more "design" can you get than THAT, huh?? Well I'll tell you how much more. Kraftwerk are so "design" that even their MUSIC is designed...their elegant, minimalist compositions are so tight and precise that they don't have a single excess note, beat or rest. And how about this: while most bands are happy to record original-sounding pieces of music in professional studios, Kraftwerk's music was so ahead of its time that they had to BUILD their own studio (Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf), and DESIGN it such that the whole thing could be brought out for their performances!! I kid you not!!

Do you know that Kraftwerk have had more influence on the music in this universe than your puny little poster will ever have on anything?? Has anyone told you how much historical gravitas the group has, its members having been born in postwar Germany, reflecting the hope and anxiety of their generation in their carefully-DESIGNED concept albums?? I did not extend my stay in New York City this year and fork out S$500 for accommodation, flight changing and ticket fees just to watch a bunch of "conformists"; I paid to watch people who INVENTED the template for all their slobbering successors to conform to. In other words, Kraftwerk weren't just "creating the edge" as your festival hopes to do--they PUSHED the edge so far that modern music has never looked back. Now, BOW IN RESPECT TO THEM AND APOLOGISE!!

And so I carried on walking, minding my own business.

Take a Bootleggin' and Keep on Kicking

2005-11-04T20:30:00.000+08:00

The launch of Depeche Mode's current world tour in Florida was attended by 8,600 fans. The number participating in it, however, was far greater. As the show unfolded, audience members fed text and multimedia handphone messages to their friends, who in turn uploaded their contents to various DM-themed online forums throughout cyberspace.

The result: real-time, piecemeal reports of the event. They captured some of the experiences that make rock concerts so thrilling--identifying each song as it is played; and being able to see the performers, knowing they are there that very instant.

By the next morning, the official Depeche Mode Message Board was flooded not only with responses to these reports, but also links to high-quality audio and video clips. Anyone that spent more than a few minutes on the board would be able to provide an account of the concert as if he or she were really there--from the mannerisms of frontman Dave Gahan, to how the band screwed up their 1983 hit "Everything Counts" so badly that they had to re-start it.

Being able to take in all this information makes me feel a little better about being unable to fly New York City in December to catch Depeche Mode (and opening act The Bravery) at Madison Square Garden. More significantly, though, it also situates me as a member of a tech-savvy generation in a tech-heavy era.

Digital photography and web publishing have made journalists of the everyman, and spectacles of the everyday. Where people were once content with experiencing life, they are now obsessed with capturing, documenting and preserving it. It isn't because life has gotten any more newsworthy--it is, rather, because the act of documentation itself transforms the mundane into the extraordinary. It is an offer few can refuse...an offer that speaks to our inner celebrities.

Squared with the practice of keeping diaries, this phenomenon gives rise to blogging, with all its exhibitionist undertones. Squared with pop music, this gives rise to bootlegging on a grand scale. It isn't enough to have heard a 'live' recording of a band anymore--now you have to be able to hear the exact concert you went to over and over again. And guess what, you can, you will--and so will everyone else. The internet will be bogged down with more photos and videos than the world has use for.

This practice is so rampant that it surely has legal implications--not implications for the bootleggers, but implications for the law itself. Like it or not, covert phototaking and recording is here to stay. And yet, life goes on. Perhaps it's time for lawmakers to stop thinking about how to protect businesses so much, and business people to start thinking of alternative business models that won't have lawmakers breathing down the necks of average joes.

But hey, being an average joe myself, I'm not about to embark on a treatise on intellectual property and pop culture. My clever-arse student days are over. Now, I'm just going to hit 'play' on my Windows Media Player again and wait for Dave to say "what the fuck was that!!" when he realises he's singing on the wrong bar of "Everything Counts"...

He's Electric

2005-10-25T22:28:00.000+08:00

Having been Electriconverted earlier in the year, I couldn't resist heading for another Electrico gig earlier tonight. Neither, it seems, could the implausibly long queue outside Bar None. I was already impressed out of my socks when the band sold out the Esplanade's recital studio in August, with tickets going at $25 apiece. Seeing them draw a crowd easily numbering two hundred into a venue already filled to capacity, however, was quite something else.

Of course, I should mention that the gig was (1) free, and (2) headlined by Filipino band Rivermaya; but it's always nice to dream that one can make it this big in the local music circuit on one's own strengths.

Having recently emerged from a long period of arrested development, this was my first visit to Bar None. While the friends I went with lambasted the pre-show music (and rightfully so, it was Top 40 balladry), all I could focus on was how much its atmosphere reminded me of my New York City gigslutfest...particularly the 19 May Fischerspooner gig at the Canal Room. The low stage; the people thronging near it; the performers casually weaving through the crowd to get on it...dammit, even the housepours were about the same price (S$16 for a gin and tonic, anyone??)

Once Electrico got going, they didn't disappoint. Looking very dapper in shirts and ties, they took their audience through a tight 50-minute set of their radio singles and covers. Female groupies colonised the front of the tiny stage, shrieking as they held their digicams aloft to capture every bead of sweat rolling down frontman Dave Tan's face.

Besides living off last year's glories, the band also demonstrated their currency through some new pieces. Many in the audience were already familiar with their Bloc-Party riff-off "We're Not Made in the USA" (its Semogia Bahagia instrumental break was mercifully toned down), but Electrico pulled out a surprise in "Hip City", with its Interpol-esque verses showcasing Dave's ability to bellow with the best of 'em.

I didn't bother to stay for Rivermaya. With Saturday’s Poptart still ringing in my ears, my hearing worsened by a few notches, but my spirits were lifted. No matter how fulfilling I find my day job, watching a local band always reminds me of the possibilities that lie outside of the office--possibilities that have recently become more realistic than I'd ever hoped.

To cap the night off, when I stepped out of the underpass into the night air, I experienced a brief transcendental moment where I felt as if I was back in NYC. The air was surprisingly cold and refreshing--colder than the indoors, and certainly colder than anything in the last few days. And how sweet that was.

It Never Happens To Me

2005-10-23T20:40:00.000+08:00

I didn't expect you to cross the line so quickly.

But how could I forsee this, when in our five hour conversation, we connected over so many deeply harboured convictions about the world, and the human condition?

I walked away that evening thinking you were a free spirit; a kindred soul; someone who recognises the beauty and sadness of life and constantly seeks to transcend its mundaneness. I should've known better than that...you are after all a girl whose major is not Literature, Philosophy, Law or any design / visual / performing arts subject, and therefore lack the tragic intensity that girls of these disciplines possess.

So now you've turned to the other side, and to add insult to injury, it seems we get along fabulously nonetheless. It doesn't help to learn that you live near me, and that I'm uncannily like two other people you were very close to. When you gushed about how interesting it is to explore the heartlands, and how much travelling we can do as tourists in our own country, something in me broke.

As we left the building, I pushed on in the conversation, hoping to find some inroads, refusing to believe that someone so similar can remain so imperceptibly out of reach.

But when you couldn't fathom the value I place upon serial relationships (because I feel people learn something fundamental about themselves from each one), I realised I've been barking up the wrong tree.

And when the train doors opened, and you silently muttered that it's better for a couple to stay together...I hope it's only because deep inside, you wish your last relationship didn't end. And nothing else.

The Best Laid Plans

2005-10-23T09:45:00.000+08:00

It seemed like a good idea at the time: head down with a bunch of junior college mates to Geylang Serai to soak in the end-of-Ramadan festive atmosphere, tuck into hearty Malay cuisine and generally indulge in Malay culture.

It turned out, however, to be one of those nights when everything goes wrong. And it wasn't anyone's fault in particular; it just turned out that way. From people having to pull out at the last minute, to the numbing humidity and dizzying heat, to sheer bad luck--nothing was on our side. What began as a mission to trek through the bazaars ended up as a listless back-and-forth push through the crowds, an abortive attempt to actually have dinner, and the consumption of dodgy food and drinks. It ended with someone giving up and leaving early, and the rest of us heading to Bugis to console ourselves with a proper dinner.

We were so spent by the time we arrived that we too gave up and ate at the Bugis Junction food court. To add insult to injury, the Taiwanese dessert place we intended to redeem the night with was packed to capacity, so we settled on a similar one across the street that was empty.

We found out soon enough why it was empty. The dessert was tasteless, and before long, so was our conversation. I meant to cut my losses and run to Home where RNDM was still in progress, but two of my well-meaning friends--who had no idea how much the scene means to me now--coaxed me into staying a little longer. By the time I arrived at Home, Localbarboy had finished their set (apparently it's their last one for the year!!). It didn't help that the four people who had promised to go with me for RNDM and Poptart had backed out one by one in the course of the evening.

Thank goodness, then, for the Poptart that followed. Billed as a 'greatest hits' special, it didn't disappoint. From the opening salvo of Johnny Boy's "You Are the Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve", Kasabian's "Processed Beats", Suede's "Metal Mickey", Morrissey's "You're the One For Me, Fatty" and The Killers' "Mr Brightside (Thin White Duke Remix)", it went from one high to the next. To those who denounce Poptart by saying they always play the same songs, I say there are the same songs, and then there are the same songs. Last night's music was good enough for me to almost forget that I was essentially there alone, dancing away the anguish of not having anyone to dance with. I flailed my arms and stamped my legs, throwing myself into each song, as if to shake off the curse of having friends that are either not cool enough or too cool to give me time of day in my delayed adolescence.

Then I see the girl dancing with a cigarette in her hand, dancing like this is the only world she understands; she moves her lips like she knows the words to every song. I ask her silently: why do you kiss another? Don't you know I am the one who will write the songs that will save your life?

Getting Into Bands and Gangs

2005-10-08T22:38:00.000+08:00

Considering how shite we were the first time, it's amazing that we decided to give it another go.

This time round, however, the guitar cable is good, the acoustic strings are new and we've got even got a laptop pumping out a drums-and-bass backing track. It's marvellous what such planning can do: we took take after take after take until we were able to lay the entire song down at one go, then decided it was rubbish and went on to record separately, playing and singing along while listening to the backing on headphones.

And then we went on to the next one, an original, but were too exhausted to attempt any serious recording and just whacked out its chords into the microphone. At the end of the session we had over 400 megabytes of wave files, deep indents on the tips of our fingers from sliding and hammering strings, and four hours less in our day.

But we also had a renewed enthusiasm. Later in the night, at Historia, we made a pact to do this regularly, with the modest goal of eventually playing a short set at POW. We even tried to cajole Camra's mild-mannered stand-in bassist into helping us out...and we are still trying.

The influence of alcohol? The brazen folly of youth? Or two people who genuinely believe, at all of 25, that they can still keep the dream alive and party like they're 15, getting into the band they never had the chance to be in?

Again, this is hardly the stuff of legends, but it's definitely looking more legendary than anything else I've had before this. And as if the celestial beings were lending their endorsement to the events of the day, Camra played a much better set than they did at this same venue two weeks ago, and they even offered us whatever feedback or help we might need on our way.

Damn, I've been reading too many rock biographies. But watch this space.

Five Hours

2005-10-01T22:45:00.000+08:00

I can't believe we spoke that long. It's been ages since I did anything like this.

But sitting with you by the window, sensing your rapt attention, I could do no less than share my entire worldview with you. It is a worldview that some of the people closest to me haven't a clue about.

We may have missed the movie, but tonight we travelled across time and space, contemplating civilsations, culture, and the very nature of humanity itself. We grappled with the big and small questions about Life. We connected over mundane quirks like not having the time or aptitude to read, over musical theory, and over deeper issues like what it means to be creative in a world characterised by consumption.

I did most of the talking, but in your calm and assured responses, you told me a lot about yourself, too.

And in doing most of the talking, I was able to articulate--and thereby reaffirm--the private beliefs I've held for years. Of late, these beliefs have been wavering because I've been unable to express them to others, be it because of personality differences or lack of opportunity.

Having finally been able to present my soul to someone who understands, I feel more alive than ever.

With some people, I run out of things to say within five minutes. Tonight, we spoke for five hours, but it was barely enough.

Falling In

2005-09-26T21:06:00.000+08:00

I wish I could be more excited about going for In-Camp Training (ICT).

After all, it's conventional wisdom that Singaporean men look forward to it as a break from the office environment, and a chance to catch up with old army buddies.

I see it a little differently. There are four things about ICT that get on my goat:

That I have to go for it. This is often treated with incredulity by many of my friends who don't have any reservist liability because they were downgraded, or were put on the holding list upon ORD-ing (despite being obscenely fit--too many of my friends fall into this category). They can't believe that I'm already due for my fourth ICT, having gone for three as an undergraduate at NUS.
That it isn't as easy as people think. Yes, my ICTs have been a far cry from the regimented days of my full-time National Service (NS), but it isn't exactly the "book in, read newspaper, go canteen break, go back bunk to sleep" affair that I often hear it described as. I've had to go outfield, and even been subjected to the ignonimity of being sent for a haircut by my RSM...despite having gone for a haircut the day before booking in.
That it isn't really a time for me to 'catch up'. My two and a half years in NS could perhaps be best described as 'complicated'. Even though I'm attending my reservist ICTs with the same people I did NS with, I'm neither familiar with my current function nor platoon mates. As I said, it's complicated...could take me a whole night to explain. The short of it is, I'm somewhat of a liability to my platoon, being the new kid on the block.

So you see, I do wish I could be more excited about going back. I wish I could tell the kind of NS stories that are told whenever Singaporean guys gather round at a table, but I don't. I wish I could reminisce with the people I will be seeing in two hours' time when I return to camp, but I can't.

What about the fourth thing, you ask?

Well, today's my 25th birthday.

Stars in Our Own Car

2005-09-12T02:20:00.000+08:00

Last night, I eschewed a reunion dinner with acquaintances from my job search, a bluegrass listening party in the East, and a big-ass Poptart (at Phuture) in favour of a small, sit-down gathering at a friend's place. He'd organised it to celebrate his 25th birthday as he liked it: in his own room, with a few of his best pals, and the music they love.

Having known him only since April this year, I'm still quite a newcomer to his circles. Some of those who turned up go back with him as far as eight years. It was both interesting and touching to listen to them talk about people they knew, the times back in school, even the gifts they exchanged yonks ago. Though their words were tossed about casually, they dripped with humanity and warmth.

Cramped in the dim corners of his bedroom, feeling the night slip away with the alcohol, watching him and a friend smoke out the window like schoolkids having a furtive puff, listening to indie MP3s and gushing about the bands that made them, gawking at concert videos off the net, drinking and generally having a laff with everyone, I felt strangely moved. It felt no different from a junior college bonding session, except we were twenty-something, working adults.

And I'm glad that, even as working adults, we still hold on to the wide-eyed fascination of our adolescence...because teenagers, in their powerless idealism, always see something beautiful in the world that adults don't.

Six Degrees

2005-09-05T13:24:00.000+08:00

Today I was at an event attended by friends, colleagues, ex-teachers, former mentors, and acquaintances. I did not anticipate seeing them there, though I should have. Apprehending the sight of them all in one place, and for the same reason, I realised how frighteningly small and self-reinforcing social circles can be. In turns, I witnessed awkwardness, politeness, effervesence, and adolescent self-importance. I was also briefly reminded of a person I once was, of how certain things used to matter to me, and of how I've tried to move on as if they never did.

It isn't nearly dramatic as it sounds, though--the afternoon was fine, but I am glad the evening ended in the company of people who understand.

Let's Dance

2005-08-20T14:39:00.000+08:00

My girlfriend and I went to redeem some salsa lesson vouchers at a bar in Chinatown this evening. I'm not normally one for social dance, but I'll try anything that's free.

With about thirty others, we learned four basic patterns (basic step, cross-body lead, simple turn and cross-body lead with turn) that we'd probably forget by next week. The environment was dim; the instruction rushed. I enjoyed it nonetheless, once I got used to the idea that this was no dance clinic, and I wasn't going to receive any specialised attention.

I guess the non-technical nature of the session really sunk in when the instructor called out for us to change partners after trying out the basic step. As my first 'social' dance experience, I felt extremely uncomfortable about placing my right hand on a woman's back as the first gesture upon meeting, especially since I wouldn't normally even want to meet some of the women I danced with.

It didn't help that as a first-timer, I had no idea where I should look when dancing. I figured that looking at my partner's face would make me a flirt; looking away would make me rude; and looking anywhere in between would make me look like I was checking out her boobs. In the end I settled for staring straight down at my feet, and mouthing "1,2,3 ... 5,6,7" repeatedly to emphasise that it was indeed my feet that I was looking at.

The rate at which we switched partners made the evening feel like a speed dating session. Yet in a way, it also felt like commercial sex, since each brief tryst was marked with tacitly accepted physical contact. In half an hour I had apprehended over two dozen intimacies: young, old, seasoned, inexperienced, friendly, distant, bulky, slender, instructional, agreeable, polite, impatient, fresh, craggy. It was a bizarre experience which I still don't really know what to make of.

But I'll definitely head there again. Our vouchers are still good for another one or two classes, and picking up some dance moves--even clumsy ones--is no bad thing.

----------------------

On an unrelated note, later at night I saw an online journal entry that opened up universes of yearning in me. What she wrote reminded me that (i) people like her do exist; (ii) such people are always imperceptibly out of reach. For the umpteenth time this year, I looked at what someone wrote and realised: I could the one. And together, we would be legendary.

Singaporean Man of Mystery

2005-08-15T14:56:00.000+08:00

Remote-controlled death bracelets. Cars with doors that open like wings. Guns that go 'teew' with no smoke or projectiles. It would've been hilarious enough if this was a spoof of '60s spy movies. It is all the more hilarious because it is a '60s spy movie--and was probably taken rather seriously by audiences when it was first screened. And of course, the clincher: it was filmed and set entirely in Singapore.

Welcome to Jefri Zain - Gerak Kilat, the first and only instalment of the adventures of Singapore's own James Bond. Currently on a limited run as part of the ongoing Screen Singapore festival, it's a hidden gem, overshadowed by the hype accorded to Ring of Fury and the Kill Bill-inspiring Cleopatra Wong.

I watched this with my girlfriend at Alliance Francaise this afternoon, and I'm glad I did--it was an absolute riot. I'm normally worried about my explosive laughter at shows because it sometimes irritates other audience members. I was extrememly relieved, therefore, when those around me started guffawing minutes into the movie and persisted in this manner till the end.

Gerak Kilat is pure, endearing kitsch. It revolves around the titular secret agent's attempts to foil the plans of an unnamed evil organisation, led by a sinister unnamed General. He is aided and abetted by two other agents who operate, rather implausibly, out of a laboratory beneath his large house.

In the process of unravelling its non-existent plot, the film pulls out every cliche in the spy movie book: incompetent henchmen, femme fatales, secret passageways, hi-tech gizmos and even a rooftop chase in a part of '60s Singapore which is unrecognisable until Capitol Theatre comes into view. What is particularly charming, however, is its supremely low-budget stylings.

Be Prepared to Give a Little More

2005-08-15T14:52:00.000+08:00

The Bravery 'live' at Stadium Green, Singapore (!!!)

2005-08-07T03:42:00.000+08:00

When I visited New York in May, I passed up on The Bravery because they were playing the night I arrived, and I wanted to save that night for fighting jetlag. I was therefore very pleased when I found out that they were due to play here in August. Yesterday evening, after work, I met up with my girlfriend, passed her all my stuff, changed into a Kasabian t-shirt and got her to apply eyeliner for me. I then dashed into a toilet, smacked on dollops of gel and was all set.

Days before the gig, a friend and I were debating on whether to bring cameras. Despite snapping away at all 7 gigs I attended in NYC, I've never had the balls to bring a camera into a gig here, since local security tends to be pretty anal about everything. Our tickets also proclaimed "strictly no bottles, cameras or recording devices". We were therefore pretty dismayed when a chorus of flashbulbs went off as opening act Electrico took to the stage, and even more gutted when The Bravery came on.

For one, we were very close to the stage--close enough to get excellent shots of the band. For another, their frontman Sam Endicott is a real stage whore...much more than I expected from looking at online photos from the rest of their tour. He has a whole repertoire of camera-friendly moves which I imagine will come to be recognised as "so Sam Endicott". Classic pose 1: torso fully arched forward; left leg hiked up on a monitor; mic stand held parallel to the floor, supported by left thigh; singing with eyes painfully shut. Classic pose 2: leaning heavily on the mic stand, ass sticking out, arms half-extended with both hands clasping the mic, shaking as if being blown by a typhoon, singing with eyes painfully shut. And so on. In between striking these right-angled poses he's just swanning and stumbling all over the stage, dragging the mic stand in both hands in a fashionably shambolic manner. On two occasions he even charged offstage, leaning into the audience, holding his mic out to his adoring fans. It was hugely entertaining.

I should also mention that Endicott lasted a good five or six songs before losing his trademark military-style jacket. Props to him for holding on that long when the standard for lead singers stripping due to the heat is two songs.

The Bravery's 13-song setlist consisted of their entire debut album, a b-side and what appeared to be a song from their early days. All the album tracks were identical to their studio versions with the exception of "Public Service Announcement", which began with a prolonged synth appregio. With their pogo-tastic tempos and rhythms, the crowd was already bouncing from the start. Midway through the set, "An Honest Mistake" got the crowd moshing. (Moshing! In Singa-bleepin'-pore! There is hope for us yet.) Unfortunately, putting their biggest local hit that early in the set meant that the energy never really recovered later on, even if a bunch of people started bodysurfing. Security officers dampened the atmosphere by repeatedly threatening to pull bodysurfers over the barricade, though the offenders never surfed near enough for them to actually do so. The only person whom I saw being hauled over was a girl who had fainted from either the heat or excitement.

In a rather uncharacteristic manner for rockstars, The Bravery came storming back for their encore less than a minute after running offstage at the end of the main set. And just as quickly as they came, they were gone. The whole affair lasted under an hour. It was much better than I expected, and I can only give all the props in the world to Lushington Entertainment for taking a gamble with an up-and-coming indie act. My only regrets were not bringing a camera and narrowly missing getting my hands on the setlist. Two copies went to girls right in front of me, and they were the best kind of setlist one can get, since they were handwritten. Well, I guess I shouldn't complain...

Setlist, with Sam's introductory remarks (as I recall)

Rites of Spring
Out of Line
Swollen Summer ("Hey Singapore, how're ya doing? This one's called Swollen Summer")
Give in ("Last night we went and ate some durians. Now THAT is some fucked up shit! It smells like used diapers, and tastes like...coffee-flavoured toothpaste. You guys are some tough motherfuckers!")
Public Service Announcement
Tyrant ("Let me tell you a story. I was once in love with this girl, and then we broke up... ...I could hear her in the next room with another man. So I wrote this song for her, it's called 'Tyrant'")
An Honest Mistake
No Brakes ("Whoo! You're a fucking amazing audience! Okay, this one's called 'No Brakes'")
Ring Song ("This is a song about living in New York City and not being able to see what's right in front of you. It's called 'Ring Song'")
An Cat Dubh ("Recently we had the honour for opening for a band I really love, that I listened to when growing up...U2. So this is like our thank you to them. I don't really know how to pronounce the title 'cos it's Gaelic, but in English it means 'The Black Cat'")
Unconditional

===encore===

Fearless ("You guys want another one?")
(Some old song of theirs) ("You guys want another one? Okay we got time for one more. Sing along if you recognise this one. You've been an amazing audience. Thank you and good night")

My Preciousss

2005-07-24T14:45:00.000+08:00

A one-minute, scratchy recording of a single guitar and a vocal.

Depending on the way the winds blow, it could be consigned to the rubbish bin of rock 'n' roll dreams, or become a much-sought after recording for indiepop completists.

At the moment, it seems like the former, because the jamming session--my first in years--was a total mess. The reason: two out-of-practice musicians, an acoustic guitar with a broken string, an electric guitar with a faulty cable, and no clear agenda. It's hardly the stuff of legends, but I guess we should always start small. It's early days yet.

Back home at night, I managed to find an online copy of Depeche Mode's forthcoming single, "Precious". Though not due for release till October, an almost-finished version of the track was leaked by insiders a few days ago. It looks set to be a big fan-pleaser. On first listen, it sounds like an out-take of their 1990 smash Enjoy the Silence, and is shamelessly reminiscent of their landmark "Violator" album.

This is quite an achievement for a band who have claimed, with each album release since 1997, that they've made "the logical follow-up to Violator", and strayed further from the truth each time.

"Precious" is an exciting listen for me because it signals a shift back to the early Depeche Mode style I love: economical lyrics; assured melodies that match and elevate the meaning of the lyrics; well-defined synth hooks; and slick, coherent arrangements. All these classic elements were missing in 2001's "Exciter" album, which featured spacey tracks weighed down by miles of redundant lyrics.

If anyone understands this analogy, "Precious" is more Depeche Mode than "Krafty" is New Order. Bring on the new album already!

Great Speech, Shame About the Cap

2005-07-15T03:25:00.000+08:00

Remind me never to arrive back in Singapore on the day of my graduation again.

If I'd returned earlier, I would have attended the rehearsal for my ceremony's proceedings. And I would have realised that bowing too low causes the tassel on one's mortar board to drop to the front, when it should be on the right.

Now, no matter how many people come up to me and say "great speech!" I will only think of the photographs and videos of my tassel dangling over my forehead as I spoke--photos that will persist long after people forget what I said at the podium.

The tragedy is that I was the only speaker in all the ceremonies who did not use notes, which means that I should have been the least likely person to mess up his tassel by looking downwards. But this same point worked against me: because I was too engrossed in remembering my lines, I didn't notice my tassel was waaay out of place.

At the VIP reception after, the Dean came up to me and said "you've raised the bar for valedictorians", by which he could have just as easily referred to big-occasion fashion boo-boos.

Yes, I'm a bitch. But try to see it from my point of view: photo opportunity of a lifetime, foiled forever by the tilt of a head. I should be entitled to some chagrin.

For a Name's Sake

2005-06-25T03:26:00.000+08:00

A friend of mine alerted me to this gaffe in ST Life! today:

The current line-up includes rhythm guitarist Gem Archer, bassist Andy Bell (former frontman of British band Erasure) and drummer Zak Starkey.

The band, of course, is Oasis, but their bassist is NOT Erasure's Andy Bell. Their bassist is the guitarist formerly from Ride.

I told my friend that the idea of Erasure's vocalist playing bass with Oasis is ridiculous.

He said: "Actually, the idea of Ride's guitarist playing bass with Oasis is ALSO ridiculous".

How to Restore Your Internet Connection in 20 Easy Steps

2005-06-24T16:16:00.000+08:00

When your 5-year-old PC gets so overrun by spyware that you can't even connect to the internet, back up all your files.
Reformat your computer using the recovery CD that came with it; the computer should now be as it was the day you received it.
Pop your Ethernet LAN card installation CD into the CD drive and keep clicking "next" when it autoruns.
Realise that you have misplaced your WinPoet 5.0 connection manager installation CD, and contact the local distributor to get a replacement at S$15.
Pop the replacement WinPoet 5.0 CD into the CD drive and keep clicking "next" until it prompts you to insert your Windows98 Second Edition CD.
Realise you do NOT have a Windows98 Second Edition CD because your Win98 SE is archived with other programs in the recovery CD.
Click on "skip file" for all the files that you don't have because you don't have the Win98 SE CD, and try running the WinPoet manager after it finishes installing. Find that it cannot run without those files.
Call the local WinPoet distributor and ask what to do. Feel frustrated when they ask you to borrow a Win98 SE CD, because no-one you know uses Win98 SE anymore.
Using a computer in school, register with driverguide.com and download some missing drivers. Get the remaining drivers in .zip format from another site.
Once you're home, uninstall and re-install WinPoet with the drivers you have downloaded.
Run WinPoet. You'll see an error message saying the secur32.dll is linked to some file that is missing.
Go back to school to look for the correct version of secur32.dll on the net.
Replace the secur32.dll file in your windows/system directory with the correct one.
Run WinPoet. You'll get error message 630: the port was disconnected due to hardware failure.
Run WinPoet help to learn that error 630 occurs when trying to connect when WinPPPoverEthernet.exe is not running or is not fully loaded.
Go to Control Panel and add/remove devices. Notice that the Ethernet adaptor has been identified but is not functioning, even though you ran the installation CD in step 3!!
Click on "update driver" and browse the installation CD till you find the Win98 directory. Get the file from there.
Go through the same rigmarole of missing files, but this time, with the knowledge that most Win98 drivers are stored in windows/system, enter that directory under the "search" field. Many of the "missing" files will now be found.
There will still be missing files; ignore them.
Once the driver has been updated, run WinPoet. Congratulations! You can now connect to the internet from home once again, after one month.

This is Just Wrong

2005-06-24T14:52:00.000+08:00

I just came back from dinner with my girlfriend. We ate at this stall in Scotts Food Court called Udon-Bo, which sells handmade udon. Apparently, handmade udon is not their only in-house specialty, if this menu is to be believed...

NYC Night 17 - Vorsprung Durch Komputermusik!!!

2005-06-06T00:58:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 15 - Road Trip: the NYC Edition

2005-05-31T14:48:00.000+08:00

Monday, 30 May 2005 - It shouldn't have happened, but it did. It shouldn't have lasted all day and night, but it did. And it made all the difference. Today, my Memorial Day weekend plans went out the window when I decided to join my host and his friends on a road trip through the outer boroughs of New York City. This was made possible by a lovely coursemate of his—-a bona fide New Yorker, no less—-who rented a quaint little car and left the destinations entirely up to us.

With U2's How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb pumping on the stereo, we travelled across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn, down to Coney Island and Brighton Beach, across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to Staten Island, to Hoboken and Weehawken in New Jersey, then back up Manhattan, winding from Battery Park through the lower part of the island (Wall Street, Chinatown and Little Italy, Greenwich Village, Chelsea, SoHo, the Meatpacking District) and finally to my host's apartment at Riverside Drive.

This trip provided the perfect closure to my already-amazing two weeks here, during which I covered most of midtown and lower Manhattan on foot (which is many ways is the definitive face of NYC). It allowed me to take in a much larger view, giving me an appreciation of the different characters of the outer boroughs and a neighbouring state, as well as the lay of the land, all with a running commentary to boot.

Our first major stop was at Coney Island, which is essentially the classic American waterfront fairground: boardwalks, hot dog stalls, thrill rides, flea markets and all manner of visitors united only by their slow, easy gaits. Walking out to the pier with the others, there was no doubt that summer had finally begun: if it wasn’t the dry warmth on our skin, then it was small spectacle of a mile of beach packed with sunbathers. And, of course, the hundreds of people with us on the pier doing nothing but staring out into the clear expanse of the sea.

We then drove past Russian (Brighton) and Middle Eastern enclaves before stopping at Park Slope for lunch. In its sparse, low-rise, suburban character, Brooklyn is a far cry from Manhattan, though it shares the island's ineffable American-ness--a quality I recognise from a childhood diet of American television. Maybe it was the ubiquitous brownstones; maybe it was the parking meters; maybe it was the grafitti on the walls where the children played ball; I don't know. But I felt it.

Our next destination, Staten Island, is sometimes referred to in the guidebooks as "the forgotten borough". It's easy to see why: from a car window, the place appears entirely residential. Rows of charming little houses run for miles and there's hardly a soul on the streets. It is, apparently, the whitest and most Republican of the five boroughs, and the residence of most of Manhattan's police officers.

Fascinating as it was, around this time I started getting restless. Nevertheless, the decision was made to push on to New Jersey, and I am glad for it. Driving through, as our guide put it, the state of "highways and strip malls", we circled for yonks before finding the exit into Hoboken, and eventually the county of Weehawken, or as I'd prefer to call it, the small place with a f***ing big view.

Overlooking the Hudson River, Weehawken offers a jaw-dropping panorama of the WHOLE OF MANHATTAN's West Side all the way from Washington Heights to Wall Street. See the photo above? That covers something like 20 streets (the two tallest buildings, one of which is the Empire State, are on 40-something and 34th Street respectively). Imagine a panorama of EIGHT TO NINE TIMES what you see here, in life-sized glory, shimmering in the glow of sunset, and you'll come a little closer to what I experienced. This is, without a doubt, the greatest skyline on earth. No single postcard or conventional photograph can contain this view, and I never knew brick-and-mortar could be this breathtaking.

As I stood there gazing into the concrete fortress that is Manhattan, I imagined myself running through its grid-like streets in the last two weeks, darting between the skyscrapers I now apprehended with a single glance. This, I thought, this is where I've been.

We took our shameless share of photographs against the backdrop and headed back to Manhattan. Again, the heady memories of the last two weeks came swirling back as I recognised all the streets I'd traversed by foot. At this point, it finally occurred to me just how small the island is. As great a city as NYC is, it is all the greater for packing so much into so little.

Around nine, we stopped by a roadside kebab stall for a cheap dinner, where there was an incident with a rather deranged and disshevelled woman. She came up to my host, asking him to buy her a bottle of water. Being a nice guy, he obliged, only to have her begin a tirade against the likes of the kebab vendor for taking away the jobs and money of Americans. She let on that a Pakistani cab driver had made off with her luggage, leaving her stranded and penniless. "I worked my ass off for years putting computers together, earning millions for this nation. What does this guy do?" she asked, gesturing at the vendor as he folded our chicken gyros. "Hey, do the cops get any free food today?" she asked him. "It's a f***ing holiday you know, it's Memorial Day." When the vendor remained politely oblivious, she hollered "he's smiling because he knows I'M RIGHT", and went on insulting foreign labour till our New Yorker friend had to retort.

Friend: "Look, much of what you're saying sounds racist and offends me; I'm not talking to you."
Madwoman: "Hey! you're an American too, aren't you going to stick up for me?"
Friend: "Not if you continue to talk like that."

Eventually, the woman backed off, but not without getting in the last word, or should I say, last 500 words, by which time she was virtually screaming. Downright offensive as it was, I must say the incident was more amusing than it was disturbing. We weren't sure if the woman was truthful about her misfortune, but even if she was, I guess it's just as well that it happened to her since it shows her up for the monster she is. After all, people have gotten up from harder falls without blaming or hating others.

So there you have it: an eye-opening, breath-taking insider spin through the Big Apple in a day, and an encouter with one of its dubious denizens in the night. There hasn't been a better day here; there couldn't be better people to spend it with; and there couldn't have been a better way to finish it off than by heading back to my friend's apartment, logging on to the NUS student intranet and finding out that I've graduated with First Class Honours.

NYC Day 14 - The Colossus of New York

2005-05-30T13:19:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 29 May 2005 - And so, we took power naps, roused just past three in the morning and took the '1' train down to South Ferry. Unfortunately, we narrowly missed the 4:30 ride out to Staten Island, and had to content ourselves with the view from Battery Park while waiting for the next ferry.

Like so many other things on this trip, Staten Island Ferry Terminal had its little surprises. Pigeons flew around indoors; randy sailors embellished their sleeping colleagues with makeshift confetti, and fisticuffs among them were broken up by a stern "I don't want no mo' of this crap!" from their supervisor.

The ride to and fro was lovely. Out on the deck, the chilly morning wind blasted against our faces as gashes of light broke slowly across the sky. We took photographs of each other as the ferry passed the Statue of Liberty. To us, however, the ride wasn't just a tourist activity. For my host, it was a closure of sorts, as he'd made this very trip several times in the past months while covering the Staten Island beat for his journalism course. For me, the sight of the Statue--with all its metaphorical gravitas--was a poignant reminder of far I'd travelled (literally and figuratively) to arrive here.

NYC Day 13 - Take Me Down to Chinatown

2005-05-30T03:49:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 12 - Lost in Manhattan

2005-05-28T18:10:00.000+08:00

NYC Night 11 - The Decemberists 'live' at Warsaw

2005-05-27T18:33:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 11 - No Sleep Till Brooklyn

2005-05-27T17:50:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 10 - The Great American Sex Tour...Perhaps

2005-05-26T17:55:00.000+08:00

Wednesday, 25 May 2005 - Today was the day I started regretting losing my windbreaker, because it got bone-shakingly cold at night. It was also a day that started remarkably late, as I woke in the afternoon and spent a long time thumbing through my Lonely Planet NYC guide. It was the first time I'd seriously used the guide, which is quite a shame really, since there's too much to do in Manhattan to leave things to chance.

The guidebook alerted me to a place I hadn't known about before coming here: the Museum of Sex (MoSex). I headed there without a second thought.

Walking to the museum from the 28th Street Station at 7th Avenue, I passed by the Flatiron Building. It's nowhere as attractive as the Chrysler or Empire State buildings, but it's just as iconic to New Yorkers for its strange wedge shape, and the fact that it was one of the tallest buildings in the world when it was built waaay back in 1902. Iconic as it may be, however, seeing the building was one of the more ho-hum touristy moments I've had in my week here.

The Museum of Sex turned out to be a small-ish, 3-storey establishment. It was running two concurrent exhibitions--one on the evolution of American pinup photography, and one on the history of American pornographic film. Those, alongside a permanent collection featuring an assemblage of sex aids, sex manuals, books used for formal sex education, porno magazines and the like. Amazingly, everything was tastefully presented, as if what was on display was not so much sex per se, but the society that engendered it.

It was a rather eye-opening experience to view pornographic photography and film dating back to the late Victorian era. Looped silent movies, lewd postcards and photographs embodying the style of the times all proved to be terribly amusing, if not enlightening. Consider the still below. I took it off a piece of old animation about a man wooing a woman, banging her then getting his balls knocked off or something...

Among the exhibits in the permanent collection were the very first issue of Hustler, as well as items which clearly warranted the "mount" part of the museum's warning. In all seriousness, though, who actually uses such things??

NYC Day 9: Parks and Avenues

2005-05-25T09:03:00.000+08:00

NYC Night 8 - The Faint and Bright Eyes 'live' at Webster Hall

2005-05-24T15:11:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 8: Freedom of Speech

2005-05-24T13:51:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 7: Harlem Days and Comedy Nights

2005-05-24T07:07:00.000+08:00

Sunday, 22 May 2005 - It's a rarely publicised fact that Columbia University, and many of the apartments it owns, sits on the edge of Harlem. My host took this advantage to bring our mutual friend and I for a walk through the district this morning, traversing almost the entire stretch of 125th Street from Manhattan's West to East Side.

To facilitate this jaunt, I had to stop by a Duane Reade (the rough equivalent of Cold Storage in Singapore) branch to pick up some corn removers. Having put little thought into preparing for this holiday, I brought along a pair of roomy, slip-in shoes which chafe against my feet with each step. It's fine for short distances but hell for the walkathons I've been engaging in over the past week. I was struck by the number of highly customised foot products available: where only one or two brands of corn caps are available in Singapore, Duane Reade's shelves had a range of corn removers, callus removers and bunion removers of assorted shapes, sizes and applications. I got myself two boxes and was all set.

We stopped over at a diner for brunch. As an indication of how huge American portions tend to be, we ended up ordering from the breakfast menu. What you see in the photo above constitutes "breakfast": pork chops, toast (plain or wheat bread), two eggs (scrambled, hard-boiled or sunny side up), grits (a kind of cereal, with home fries as an alternative) and coffee. About ten bucks, including tips.

Harlem is a fascinating area because it demonstrates Manhattan's diversity in spite of its small size. With a predominantly black American population and plenty of low-rise housing, it feels nothing like mid- or downtown New York. My friends and I picked up "Against Racism" badges from a roadside stall and saw, at one point, a huge convoy of bikers roaring down the street. I do not exaggerate when I say there were at least a hundred of them; the convoy was so long that they were broken by traffic lights. We also passed this highly unusual negative of the US flag being flown outside a building. It's the only one of its kind I've ever seen, and would be grateful if anyone could provide any information on this.

The next item on our agenda for the day was shopping at Macy's, whose NYC branch is supposedly the world's largest department store. To do this, we took a train down to Grand Central Terminal, NYC's most iconic train station and the location of a fight sequence in X-Men: the Movie.

On our way down to 34th Street, we also whizzed through the New York Public Library. Grand as it is, our visit was too quick for appreciation, and I was mildly disappointed at the absence of the classic green lampshades from the Reading Room's tables (or maybe we were in the wrong room, or maybe I've just wrong about the green lampshades all this while).

Macy's left me rather nonplussed, though one of the guys made an excited shoe purchase there. I'm not a shoe person myself so I could hardly understand his glee or appreciate how much value he was getting. We then walked through a light drizzle to Jamba Juice in Times Square where we traded personal stories. On our way out, I suggested heading to a comedy club, and both my friends were quick to recommend the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre--if not because of their popularity then because of the fact that their Sunday night shows are free. We had to queue for 45 minutes to get our tickets, then head back an hour later for the show.

It was an improvised riot, with a cast of 8 or 9 operating as a tag-team, switching and developing topics on the fly and at breakneck speed. From a single word thrown out by an audience member, plotlines grew and encompassed Star Wars, stupid employees, Shakespeare's Hamlet, animal lovers, gerbil fetishists, airlines, the Amish and My Little Pony. There were kinks and blocks at a few points, but the performers recovered very quickly. The two halves of the show were bookended by one of the more senior improvisors who gave impromptu spiels related to each half's trigger word. The venue was an intimate space greatly resembling the Substation's Guinness Theatre, with the audience flanking the performance space on three sides.

After the show, we headed out to Penn station to catch a train to a dinner place. On the way out, however, we spotted a cheap Chinese eatery and hopped in for our meal. In hardly being Chinese, American Chinese food has a charm of its own. I had beef 'chow mein' which I assumed was fried noodles (chao3 mian4), but turned out to be, as the waitress put it, "vegetables" (it was really onion and bean sprouts). Apparently, noodles is 'loh mein', and both 'chow mein' and 'loh mein' are served with rice. Next week, I might try the "Singapore Mei Fun" just for kicks.

NYC Day 6: Private Parties and Reunions

2005-05-23T06:45:00.000+08:00

NYC Night 5: Snow Patrol 'live' at the Roseland Ballroom

2005-05-22T02:19:00.000+08:00

2005-05-21T06:06:00.000+08:00

NYC Night 4 - Fischerspooner 'live' at The Canal Room

2005-05-21T05:43:00.000+08:00

Another night, another gig. Last night's show was at the Canal Room, with Morningwood in support. Despite being the smallest venue thus far (350 capacity), bags above a certain size had to be "checked", which I now realise means "checked in" as in "deposited" and not "checked" as in "searched" (while we're at it, I've learned that "check in" to Americans isn't just the thing you do at a hotel, it's also what people in other countries might call "checking on", or finding out how things are--go figure).

As with Tuesday's Kasabian gig, the will-call was a cinch, and there I was worrying for weeks I wouldn't be getting my ticket because it was bought under my brother's name.

Anyways. I'd never heard of Morningwood prior to tonight, though after hearing them I don't think I've missed much. They play blistering, campy and racuous rock, with the plump female lead hamming up Gwen Stefani-style coy affectations now and then. Nice, but not really my thing. The highlight was when they played a song called "Take Off Your Clothes", to which a good dancer in the crowd was pulled up on stage. He did a semi-striptease, then simulated sex and cunnilingus with the female lead. Never in Singapore, I say.

Oh they also had a song called "New York Girls", placing them in the massive roster of acts who have some song about the city in their respective back catalogues.

Thankfully, the crowd wasn't too hot on Morningwood either, and that allowed me to squeeze up to the front, close enough to grab a picture of the setlist (and grab the setlist itself at the show's end). As you'll notice, Fischerspooner played a very short set, heavily plugging their current Odyssey album with only three songs (the 15th, Sweetness, Emerge) from their debut.

Fischerspooner took a very very long time to come on, partly because of a technical difficulty with one the electronic snare drums. Those in front with me got so bored and tired that after some time we about-faced and sat our asses on the stage. Warren Fischer was nice enough to come onstage to apologise for this and arrange for FS' latest video to be screened during the rest of the wait.

NYC Day 4: Ground Zero, Wall Street and Then Some

2005-05-21T05:14:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 3: Pomp and Circumstance

2005-05-19T17:23:00.000+08:00

NYC Day 2: It's Taken All These Days to Find Ya

2005-05-18T17:34:00.000+08:00

Tonight felt like a rendezvous with a long-lost love. Well, kind of. Like Ishiguro's protagonist in Remains of the Day, I've spent months gazing at documentation pertaining to a meeting of sorts. The documentation in this instance is the Bowery Ballroom's website, and the meeting is with electro-rockers Kasabian. In planning my gigslutfest in NYC, I returned to the site often, getting myself psyched up for the event. "The Bowery Ballroom has the best sound of all the major NYC venues", people on forums say. "The Bowery is the only place they don't pat you down", others elaborate.

Well, tonight I finally made my way down to South Manhattan to attend the gig. After months of building up an image of the Bowery in my mind, going to the place itself felt strange. It wasn't terribly easy to find it, but once I did, there was an overwhelming sense of "so this is it". There was also a tremendous sense of relief, as my typically kancheong self was worried that I wouldn't be able to pick up my will-call ticket since it was purchased under my brother's name. As it turns out, all that was needed to get in was the credit card used for purchase--the management didn't give a damn about the name of the cardholder, the order confirmation number or the photo ID.

They didn't care about cameras being brought in either: despite a sign saying "no cameras allowed", audience members were brazenly snapping away with digital devices small and huge. Because the gig was standing room with no barricade, it was literally possible to shove the said devices into the performers' faces to capture the intensity of the moment. Fortunately, I had the foresight of bringing a disposable camera to the Bowery in case the rules were not enforced. I used up all its 27 exposures on the three acts (Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers, Mad Action and Kasabian). I have no idea how they will turn out, but I have seen very decent disposable camera photos posted on The Tears' official forum, and I was just an arm's length from the stage through the performances.

And how were the performances? Well I'd never heard of Rock 'n' Roll Soldiers or Mad Action prior to this gig. Soldiers were highly entertaining, with a maniacal lead singer who repeatedly abused he microphone and even leapt off the stage with his guitar straight onto the open floor below (the venue hadn't filled yet). Mad Action was less, well, mad, but also had some cracking tunes and rhythms. I worried for a moment, that Kasabian might be upstaged by their opening acts.

But this was not to be. Fact is, everyone was here to watch Kasabian, so they could get away with murder. The murder here is a large amount of pre-sequenced electronic tracks, very basic full-chord riffing and no movement at all on the part of two members. Nevertheless, vocalist Tom Meighan thrilled everyone with his Ian Brown-style spastic monkey pouts and shambolic primate dances, and guitarist Serge Pizzorno sizzled simply with his striking looks and stage presence. While much of their sonic muscle came from pre-sequenced grooves which no-one was playing (they didn't even deign to have someone faking at a synth or laptop), their generous use of "ahhh-ahhh-ahhh" chants in their songs (Club Foot, Processed Beats, Reason is Treason and L.S.F. among many others) translated very well 'live', with the whole venue singing along to those parts. In fact, such a songwriting device is probably a winning formula for rock acts (makes mental note). Kasabian played 13 tracks in all...almost their entire debut album and then some.

NYC Day 1: In the Cold, Cold Night

2005-05-17T19:21:00.000+08:00

It's been a slow second day in NYC, with me deliberately trailing my friend as he moves about Columbia settling his pre-graduation stuff. I'm not adventerous enough to dash into town alone just yet; I want to ease into the place before doing so.

As such, nothing much to report today: just went for some Masters' projects screenings, had a no-frills Mexican dinner and went for the Columbia grad school of journalism's yearbook party. The projects that were screened were admittedly very slick, with all the stylistic set-pieces of American investigative journalism. I'm very impressed that an 8-month Masters course could churn out such quality work: it makes me ponder over why NUS' classes remain so lame despite their Western aspirations. Are our people just inherently not up to it?

Having not seen the big city yet, it's still hard to believe I'm in America. The bars feel like any of those in Singapore which happen to have a lot of ang mors. When walking around the suburbs at night, I catch myself thinking "I'll just hang around here till the last bus home...d'oh!!"

The thing that does let me know I'm here, though, is the weather. This is my first time in a temperate zone during spring, so it's the first time I'm experiencing nightime temperatures of around ten degrees. It's lovely; I can't begin to describe it. It's so different from Singapore where you go indoors to get out of the heat; here it's actually the other way round.

I should be sleeping much earlier than this but I've just had to settle some urgent matters pertaining to my job applications back in Singapore. I didn't come all the way here to have to do this, but life often doesn't wait for individuals...

I Feel, the Deal, it's Real, I'm in New York City

2005-05-17T02:36:00.000+08:00

And so I've made it. Half the world alone by plane and shared cab--hardly an achievement for many, but a personal milestone, having led a sheltered life with well-meaning but protective parents.

The feeling is simply unreal. America, to me, is a country of television images. I can't believe I'm here; it feels more like I'm in a movie. Everything nuance I've internalised from years of American TV--from the figures of speech (even the way they say "thank you" or "alright") to the street signs to the bins on the sidewalk--is playing out before my eyes. The clincher, of course, is the city itself. JFK international airport is in Queens, so it took a fair amount of driving past quaint little suburban houses before the majestic Manhattan skyline rose dramatically into view. At that moment, I couldn't resist listening to U2's "City of Blinding Lights" on my MP3 player. There couldn't have been a better soundtrack to the experience.

Besides being my first timezone-warping experience, it's also my first time in the West, so I'm also getting some of that well-documented feeling of becoming the minority and experiencing one's ethnicity in a different way. A Chinese girl on the Super Shuttle I was on turned to ask me when we were the only two left, "zhong guo de?"

First night in NYC: waiting up for my friend at his apartment, watching the finale of Survivor Palau; eating Chinese takeaway (General Tso's chicken--a charming, if orientalist American invention very close to Kung Pow chicken); heading out for drinks with my friend and his coursemates. On the subway, I got my biggest culture shock yet when beggars started coming on at various stations, delivering polite and rehearsed spiels or simply staggering from passenger to passenger asking for "money" or "change". Everyone just ignored them, but it did make me think: this would never go down in Singapore. If anyone tried that on a MRT train in Singapore they'd get reported to the police in no time; in that way the homeless are treated like a destabilising force in the country's social fabric, even if they aren't. Is the fact that New Yorkers are comfortable with vagrants in their midst the sign of the city's embracing maturity, or is it the highest form of apathy? I can't say for now. All I know is that travel truly broadens one's horizons, and it's something I think I'm going to be doing a lot more of from now on.

Now to head with my friend down a few blocks to Columbia where we'll catch a screening of some of his coursemates' Masters projects, attend a yearbook launch for his class and boogie at the after party.

P.S. The time-stamp for this post, and alll my subsequent posts while I'm here is in Eastern Standard Time.

Inside Gate D44

2005-05-15T20:46:00.000+08:00

My first overseas trip alone has begun, and my adrenaline is right up to my ears. Travelling alone isn't a big deal for many others but right here, right now, it is for me, and I'd like everyone who understands to share in this moment.

Alright, time to board.

Why This Trip Matters

2005-05-15T11:02:00.000+08:00

Somewhere at the bottom of the storage space behind my bed lies a smashed mug which reads: I (HEART) NY.

It was given to me intact four years ago by an old school friend. He'd just returned from his first semester at Columbia. We were in the McDonald's near the junior college we studied at, and he randomly fished my souvenir out of a bag of other assorted mugs.

It was a nice gesture, though I was rather ambivalent about it. On one hand, anything with I (HEART) NY is a quintessential NYC souvenir. On the other hand, much as I appreciated it, it was an ironic reminder of a personal hangup.

I don't come from a very well-to-do family. Because of my academic aptitude, however, I've often found myself in the company of people who are. In my early adolesence, the inevitable social comparisons led to a good deal of confusion and angst. One of these comparisons was about travel.

Till I turned twenty, the furthest I'd ever gone from home was to Thailand for a family holiday. My last such holiday was to Genting when I was sixteen. These trips were always on wheels. When we lost our family car in a non-fatal traffic accident some years back, we effectively lost our passports. Subsequently, I've had the fortune of boarding a plane a mere four times (to two destinations and back). Both trips were all-expenses-paid: the first was for military training in Taiwan in 2000; the second was for a student conference in Korea last year.

My classmates, however, always seemed to be getting better deals. From parent-sponsored school expeditions in junior college to holidays with friends, they appeared to live three times the life I'd lived. The clincher came when many of them departed for overseas scholarships. Not only did I feel a vacuum opening in my world, I also felt incredibly alienated whenever they came back and spoke only of their experiences abroad. I always fell silent during such conversations, having nothing to share.

I had a chance of a lifetime to go to California in my first year of study at NUS, when I successfully applied for student exchange to UC Berkeley. However, financial constraints forced me to pull out at the last minute, despite being one of the strongest candidates. I viewed this as the first time that I lost something I deserved through no fault of my own, and was silently bitter about it for a long time.

On the day I received the "I LOVE NY" mug, I went to meet two other friends in town. I'm not sure how far I can actually consider them friends, though, because at that emotional stage in my life I was resentful of their upper-middle class status and popularity in our circles. I obliquely demonstrated this by petulantly throwing my bag over the barricade at which they were seated, then circling round it to join them.

When I arrived home, I realised that I had smashed my mug in the process.

I was disappointed at first, because I valued it as a gift from a friend, and as iconic gift in itself. But I quickly rationalised the broken mug as a symbolic protest against people rich enough to travel to New York on a whim; and as an uncanny reflection of the 9-11 attacks some weeks earlier. Immature as it appears to me now, that is how I felt then.

Four years have passed and much has changed. Due to experiences in the intervening period, I've made peace with many of the people I used to envy due to my insecurities. I've realised that I'm much more than my air mileage and that beating one's chest over one's deprivation is the ultimate show of bad faith. The epiphany is this: it's not that I've been unable to travel all this time; it's just that I've not wanted to, and needed someone to blame for it.

Hence, tonight's trip to New York will be especially meaningful for me. In lugging suitcases to the Big Apple, I will be jettisoning much of the baggage that has weighed me down for years. Not just the baggage of bad faith, but also the baggage of peer pressure to take a far cheaper holiday in Southeast Asia. In choosing to travel to New York, I am in fact saying: this is where I want to go; this is the kind of person I believe I am; these are the people I want to be with. As a small bonus, I will also be able to say that I've been somewhere that many people haven't been, since it's not your typical tourist destination.

Then again, I'm not your typical tourist.

A Series of Unfortunate Dreams

2005-05-10T05:49:00.000+08:00

A few nights ago, I had my most recurrent nightmare: that I lost a whole row of teeth which wrenched themselves out one by one and then all at once.

Two nights ago, I dreamt that a marked copy of my thesis was returned to me. I held it with great trepidation, knowing full well that I need an A- grade or higher for my expected class of honours (this is true). Oddly enough, each chapter was graded, and I was incredibly relieved to find that the first one got an A+, with positive comments in its margins. The second chapter got an A-. The third, however, was a C+, and the fifth (I don't think I saw the fourth) was graded 'F5', with some Simon Cowell-esque disparaging remarks about how rubbish my conclusion was. The overall grade, on the last page of the bibliography, read: 'B'. Needless to say I was horrified and extremely disappointed.

Last night, I had the most bizarre nightmare yet: that I was being hunted down by members of some shady organisation. It began with fleeing from a small eatery at night, running down unfamiliar (but distinctly suburban Singaporean) streets and finally boarding a bus. My girlfriend happened to be seated near the back of that bus, and we spent an indeterminate amount of time darting furtively from one location to another. As dreams go, we inexplicably ended up at the eatery where the dream began, perhaps expecting that to be the last place the organisation's members would expect to find me. No such luck. They were just at the next table, and halfway through our respective meals, one of them stood up and made to throw a molotov cocktail at my girlfriend and I. I grabbed her wrist and we flew through the kitchen, narrowly avoiding the explosion. I then enterprisingly snatched two knives from the knife rack and asked her to take a third for self-defence. We fled into the night again, running as far away from pursuers' shouts as we could. I remember us making superhuman vertiginous leaps down the backs of buildings, sliding down interminably long slopes, all in an effort to gain more ground. The dream ended at some vague point.

Well, there you have it. The content of the dreams per se do not surprise me; what I am alarmed by is the fact that I had these nightmares on consecutive nights. Is there something troubling me that I'm not consciously aware of?

2 + 2 = 3

2005-05-08T13:31:00.000+08:00

Earlier today I went with my girlfriend to watch Selena Tan and Hossan Leong's stand-up comedy routine, It Takes Two. We love Tan's mile-a-minute camp in her annual Dim Sum Dollies shows, and were expecting nothing less from her pairing with Singapore theatre's resident funnyman.

Unfortunately, Tan and Leong proved to be less than the sum of their parts. While their on-stage chemistry made for good comic timing, this chemistry seemed to arise more out of their experience as performers than out of genuine telepathy.

I was primarily disappointed by the quality of the material: the same old potshots at the government; the tired lampooning of filipino accents; unfunny self-deprecating fat and gay jokes (about Selena and Hossan respectively); predictable jibes at Singaporean mannerisms (using tissue packets to reserve tables at food centres etc); many of which I anticipated half a beat before their punchlines. Even Tan's original musical numbers--which shone with her trademark wit and melodic sensibilities--weren't anything we couldn't already expect from her far-superior Dim Sum Dollies shows.

Having said that, one can't fault the two actors for not knowing their audience. If I found most of the material unengaging, it's probably because I'm the kind of person who intellectualises certain experiences beyond the point of humour. Other audience members seemed far more appreciative of Tan and Leong's efforts. I did, however, enjoy the verve with which the comedians hammed their performances. And I know that stand-up comedy is by far the trickiest performance genre to pull off successfully.

The one thing I connected with was a serendipitous sequence about travelling alone, with specific reference being made to New York. In talking about tourist maps, Tan made this quip about how New York City is the only place in the world where you can't be seen not knowing where you're going. I turned to my girlfriend and we exchanged knowing smiles.

Look at Who Just Came to the Neighbourhood

2005-05-03T14:46:00.000+08:00

The main shopping area in my neighbourhood has a ridiculously high turnover rate. Its changes, besides bookmarking my years of growing up here, also tell the story of consumerism in Singapore: the rise of the BreadTalks and Bee Cheng Hiangs; the uncertain fortunes of niche eateries; the ongoing three-cornered fight between markets, coffeshops and food courts and the near-annihilation of Bubble Tea. I've been meaning to record the comings and goings of its tenants for posterity, and this is my first belated attempt.

Yesterday, this QB House outlet opened, taking over a unit vacated by Old Chang Kee. The ticketed 10-minute haircut concept has been around for some time now, but it's seen an explosion only in the last few months with QB House and its copycat rival EC House opening branches all over the island. Their assembly-line efficiency and affordable trendiness is a winning formula that will surely eclipse barbers the way barbers themselves eclipsed their roadside counterparts a generation ago.

This, to me, isn't just the changing face of culture; it's also the changing face of business which, with its current emphasis on value creation and competitiveness, takes no prisoners.

There is great pathos in the account my father gave me of the Malay barber in the adjoining shopping centre stopping people on the day of QB House's opening with amateurish flyers proclaiming "Barber in Town".

And hello, what's this? A sex shop in my neighbourhood?? I'm really, really amused. I've never seen such a store in any heartland mall in Singapore...in fact, the only other sex shop I know of is the one at Bugis Village. I wonder if the proprietor sees a market here. I also wonder if he sells porn.

Getting my Tart Popped

2005-05-03T06:29:00.000+08:00

Last night, I finally attended my first PopTart. For those not in the know, PopTart is a local indie disco event that's been doing the rounds since late last year. What exactly "indie" is, however, is anyone's guess, since the term has been abused beyond recognition by lay persons and music journos alike. In its earliest forms it referred to music released by independent record labels, then later grew to encompass a particular musical ethic and aesthetic, and now is so large that it includes things that are mainstream but just not that mainstream.

But enough about semantics. The night, though marred by what I felt was a rather shitty sound system, was saved by the sheer power of its playlists. I never thought it'd feel so good to listen to the likes of Suede, Blur, Manic Street Preachers, Oasis, Pulp and The Verve again. There's something very different and much nicer about hearing the strains of a much-loved song coming on unexpectedly, as opposed to putting it on yourself. There's also something very exciting about listening to such music at ear-bleeding volumes (even if the sound system sucks): Joy Division's "She's Lost Control" never sounded as good or as menacing. As a friend put it, "after coming to Poptart, listening to music at home not shiok already".

I was also thrilled by The Bravery, who are becoming one of my guilty listening pleasures, and got some practice for the Fischerspooner gig I'll be attending in NYC when "The 15th" was played.

The surprise of the night for me was how Morrissey's "First of the Gang to Die" has become a definitive PopTart anthem, and how his now-defunct band The Smiths have retained a similarly iconic status with a new generation. Many of those present, who were in their 20s, probably didn't grow up listening to The Smiths but reacted to classics like "Ask" and "Panic" as if they did. What elevates a band this far is beyond my comprehension--The Smiths are good and strikingly original, though I can't help wondering if their current popularity is due in part to indie types feeling that they HAVE to love them. In any case, I feel happy for Morrissey: as a chronic malcontent who wanted very much to be famous, and as a lyricist who advanced his cause through melancholia and miserabilia, he would feel extremely vindicated to know how much he is still loved.

New Blocks on the...Block

2005-05-03T05:36:00.000+08:00

(text for this is forthcoming; please withhold any comments till post is complete, thanks!)

Final hours, final showers

2005-04-29T09:09:00.000+08:00

It's the day before my very last exam, and I'm planning to unwind with an evening jog. Not that I have much to unwind--I've been taking it really easy the last few days, knowing full well that my class of honours will be unaffected no matter how poorly I fare for this semester's examinations. I've been enjoying this luxury, flipping through notes in an ad hoc manner, rather than pushing myself to the very end.

As I type, however, storm clouds and low rumbles are congregating outside the window, as if to say: forget your run. You don't have to go out in a blaze of glory, but at least finish what you started four years ago with the same amount of pride.

It may not rain, but suddenly I've a few more hours than I thought I had. And I know what I'm going to do with them.

Music Bulletin #3

2005-04-24T17:42:00.000+08:00

Some updates on what's currently rocking my musical world:

NYC Gigs
As mentioned many times on this blog, I'm heading over to the Big Apple in May where I'll stay with a friend for two weeks. It started out as a purely touristy thing but has since transformed into a gigslutfest with the following dates:

Kasabian (with Mad Action and Rock n' Roll Soldiers) at the Bowery Ballroom, 17th May
Doves (with Mercury Rev) at Webster Hall, 18th May
Fischerspooner at the Canal Room, 19th May
Snow Patrol (with Athlete) at the Roseland Ballroom, 20th May
Bright Eyes and The Faint (with Mars Black) at Webster Hall, (either 23, 24 or 25 May)
The Decemberists at Warsaw @ the Polish National Home, 26th May
Kraftwerk (!!!) at the Hammerstein Ballroom, 1 June

I've bought tickets for all of them except the Bright Eyes / Faint gig, since I can't decide which night I should go. And of course I'm thrilled as f*** to be watching living legends Kraftwerk. I will show the full extent of my love for them in a extended blog entry before I fly off.

NYC is truly a pop/rock Mecca: I'm amazed as to the number of artists who take their act to the city every year. Just by way of illustration, on the same night that Snow Patrol are playing, New Yorkers will also get to watch the likes of Hoobastank, Velvet Revolver, Thievery Corporation and Porcupine Tree. Woot!

Kylie Comes to Singapore
While New Yorkers are spoiled for choice with five or six major names each night, us poor Singaporeans have to contend with that amount of celebrity in a year. It's hardly suprising then that club-pop princess Kylie Minogue's June 17 show at the nation's biggest concert venue is generating quite a buzz. While I'm not a fan per se, to me, it's (i) an event promising good fun and great atmosphere; (ii) as a full-blown stadium gig, it's a fitting finale to a gigging campaign that sees me earning earning several badges and stripes in NYC; and (iii) a nice way to say goodbye to the Kallang Stadium, a national icon that will be demolished in 2 years' time so it can be rebuilt with a fancy-pants retractable roof.

New Radiohead Songs
Hurrah! New Radiohead material has surfaced. Thom Yorke has a way with melodies, playing them against chords in such a way that they open up cadences of deep passion and grace. "House of Cards" sounds, in its current embryonic form, like something that could have come from Bends-era Radiohead.

A Rush of Blood

Last night I went to Rushed's EP launch at the Prince of Wales.

A few days ago I had no idea who they were, but someone I met on The Tears' official forum mentioned them and I thought I'd check them out. Their 3-track EP of breezy pop, which you can listen to in its entirety here, is not bad at all. Its execution, unfortunately, was disappointing. So disappointing, in fact, that I didn't feel I was missing much when my girlfriend and I left after the fourth song to catch the last trains home.

For one, Rushed's singer doesn't have a terrific voice. Even though that's never stopped people from making it big in rock, his airy vocals only make sense with far more reverb than the venue could afford. Also, the band's playing, while technically competent, was uninspired. I don't know what they were doing with four guitars; I've heard more layered and nuanced outputs from three and two-guitar setups.

Omigosh! It's Pete Doherty! Oh no wait...it's just the guy from Rushed...

Having said that, I should reiterate that their EP is not bad and worth a listen. What saved the evening for me, however, was meeting my Tears-forum friend in the flesh. Not only did we hit it off fairly well; he also had to walk in and notice me at the moment of moments: during the pre-gig DJ session, smack in the middle of She's in Fashion.

En Bloc Party

2005-04-22T14:11:00.000+08:00

The rumours had been going round, but my father refused to believe them. Even when our MP dropped by during a house-to-house visit, my father felt it was nothing more than an exercise in public relations.

Now, he can't believe his luck.

I came home from a long day of job admission tests and exam revision today to find him beaming like a 12-year old with a new toy. It's true; our precinct has been selected for en bloc redevelopment. Come 2010, we will vacate our decades-old 5-room HDB flat for a spanking new 3, 4 or 5-room residence in a 40-storey HDB block just across the street from where we live.

We are getting a very good deal: normally, people affected by en bloc developments are arbitrarily relocated in a different housing estate. Here, we'll not only get to stay put as our new castles rise just outside our windows; our lease will be renewed as well. We'll also receive handsome monetary compensation for our pains, and by the time the project is completed, the neighbourhood will have a new mall and a circle line MRT station to boot.

Such redevelopments aren't a big deal in the scheme of things, but this one is especially meaningful to my parents, who are getting on in their years. Suffice it to say they are simple, long-suffering folk who have no bigger goal in their twilight of their lives than to remain healthy and support their children and prospective grandchildren in whatever little ways they can.

I've long wished I could do something significant for my parents: perhaps that New Zealand holiday they've ill-afforded for the last twenty years; maybe a renovation of our crumbling, leaky, ant-and-centipede-infested apartment...a realisation of dreams they left behind a long, long time ago for a life of quiet regret and resignation.

With our belts tightening and I forgoing my postgraduate aspirations to work and put something back my parents' nest egg, this redevelopment package is a godsend. Not only will it give my father the CPF savings he never had, it will also give him the brand new retirement home he always wanted. More importantly, it will give my parents what I feel is the ultimate gift: the chance to spend the last years of their lives with grace and dignity.

I can picture my father six years from now, all of 70 years of age, closer to heaven both literally and figuratively, looking serenely out his room window and down on the world far below. I see him smiling as he imagines, for a brief moment, that everything around him was planned for; that all he sees is the natural conclusion of a rich, accomplished life.

So That's What They Call it These Days

2005-04-20T14:38:00.000+08:00

..."Integrated Resorts".

Strange that, after debating for a year on whether or not to have a casino in Singapore, the Government announced yesterday that they were indeed going to build...not casinos, but "integrated resorts". These resorts (or IRs for short) would be vibrant shopping, entertainment and business hubs with "casino options" that occupy only 3% to 5% of the total land area allocated for development.

Funny, I don't recall the debate being about IRs. The bone of contention all this while was clearly casinos and casinos per se--if it was IRs with gambling facilities, there wouldn't have been half the public backlash that occurred.

Let's be clear about this. I am neither actively for nor against having casinos or IRs in Singapore, and I have faith in the Government's ability to deal with whatever social issues that arise from such establishments. I am just uncomfortable with the use of rhetoric to disguise the nature of things. Yes, it's politics, but that doesn't make me feel any better about it.

Language is a powerful tool. First there was talk of including other entertainment facilities in a proposed casino complex to make it family-friendly. As of yesterday, it suddenly became talk of building everything-hubs which happen to have, by dint of their sheer everthing-ness, casinos in them.

Real difference, or crowd-appeasing semantic twist? Time will tell.

Last Night My Classmates Saved My Life

2005-04-18T05:48:00.000+08:00

It was just one of those days.

I woke up feeling absolutely wasted, even though I'd done nothing the night before and gotten a good eight hours of sleep. Some doors away, my parents were bickering--not a big deal in itself but a major irritation given the state I was in. Later in the afternoon, something else stole my thunder and made me feel inconsolably disprized. The rest of the day was spent in a haze of self-doubt; mouth ulcers slowly gnawing away at my sanity.

Thank goodness for my sociology honours classmates, then. The poolside potluck party was excellent, as all our gatherings are--a good showing of twenty, with nary a hint of artifice or discomfort. There was an abundance of dessert and booze. We made like our former 18-year-old selves and played dumb drinking games like "big fish-small fish", which through a slip of the tongue became "big shit-small shit", and eventually the rather improbable but extra-challenging "big shit-small fish".

When things wound down we broke into cliques and started talking about our respective job searches and postgraduate endeavours. It wasn't long, however, before one group's discussion veered to sex and everyone else joined in. A revival of a months-old debate about how society is actually predicated upon sex (and not the economy as Marxians claim) somehow led to the very teenage epiphany that, in love, "we very often don't know what we want" (cue ponderous nods and pauses).

It was a perfect JC outing, except we were soon-to-be university graduates. I miss these guys. I shouldn't have allowed the fact that I wasn't taking any sociology modules this semester to distance myself from them. And I shouldn't have allowed the vague promise of running into the night with a free-spirited girl take me away from what I already had. Not especially when the bunch of us almost--upon threats from the condominium security--packed up and headed for a night beneath the stars on a rooftop in NUS; not when we almost left for karaoke on a post-midnight whim, only to be kept where we were because we started talking about sex.

I love my classmates. I hope we'll still be doing this when we're forty.

This is the Last Time

2005-04-16T06:25:00.000+08:00

As a sentimentalist, I tend to be particularly mindful of the significance of everyday events. I find a great deal of meaning in the most trivial meetings and departures; the most banal beginnings and endings. A few days ago, I completed and submitted my very last piece of schoolwork. As I dropped it in my lecturer's mailbox, my mind raced back to that afternoon in 2001 I submitted my first term paper, worrying if it was truly of "university standard".

Despite my attachment to these things, I failed to realise that yesterday was the last day of the last semester of my academic life. It took an email from the director of the campus facility at which I work part-time to remind me of this. And as I sit here during my last official shift at the said facility, I notice that the student who booked an appointment for this slot is not turning up. The last class, the last assignment, the last schoolday and the last shift are behind me. The only thing remaining is the last exam on the 29th. Will it end without ceremony as well?

(An aside: yes, this entry's title is a reference to the Keane song. And yes, I love Keane; unashamedly so).

Suck My Constituency

2005-04-11T11:23:00.000+08:00

There's a quaint volume of articles on Singapore written around 1920 which I like to refer to for the odd history-based term paper. So there I was, browsing through it for a group project on government-level conservation measures since the colonial era. And I found this jolly extract:

I don't know if this is a typographical error, Freudian slip, or the accepted transliteration of the name at that time. Whatever the case, this historical nugget is glossed over in official documents. But it sure has Talkingcock potential: I can already picture a story titled "Tampines Residents Demand Reversion to Original Name"...

View the full page here.

If anyone's interested, the full citation for the book is

Makepeace, Walter E. and Braddell, Roland St. John and Brooke, G. S., eds. One Hundred years of Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1991. 2 vols. Reprint. Originally published in London, 1921.

Thesis the End

2005-04-09T09:39:00.000+08:00

And this is what I've learnt...

You can never start too early.
Writing helps the thought process, so start writing early.
You actually have to read the books you borrow from the library to be able to start writing early.
When you start writing early, you will realise how many more books you have to borrow to substantiate and beef up your arguments.
Yes, you can write the remaining 4,000 words in 3 days. But can you write the remaining 4,000 words and annotate, format, paginate, proofread, edit, double-check citations, photocopy documents for the appendix and print everything within 3 days??
...By the way, did I say you can never start too early??
There is no greater cause of insomnia than sheer desperation.
It is possible to keep going, at full energy, for 60 hours with 3 and a half hours of sleep and 3 meals, if you're desperate enough.
The hangover from going for 60 hours with 3 and a half hours of sleep and 3 meals is unbelievable.
It is rather embarrassing, if you have been placed on the Dean's List seven times and won two book prizes, to be the last person in the department to submit a thesis.
It is even more embarrassing, if you've been avoiding your honours classmates for weeks to focus on your thesis, to be the last to submit and find out that everyone else finished days ahead of you...with 2,000 more words and thrice the number of endnotes and references to boot.
And it will be unbearably awkward to answer to your classmates, your parents, your brother, your girlfriend, your supervisor, and all other faculty members if your tardiness eventually costs you the class of honours they are all expecting you to get.

Having said that, there is a perverse excitement in turning in a sub-standard thesis, because I can't be sure of my class of honours till I actually find out. It's not a shit thesis, no. The argument is fresh and valid, but it's just not well-developed or sufficiently substantiated in some parts.

I guess the best way to sum up my current feelings is like this. When my girlfriend finished her thesis last year (and a good couple of weeks before her deadline at that!!), she said it felt like "giving birth". When a friend heard I'd finished mine, he too commented, "does it feel like giving birth"?

My answer: no, a much more fitting analogy in my case is that I was RAPED, couldn't decide whether or not to ABORT the baby, eventually decided to KEEP it but fell down a flight of stairs and MISCARRIED. That bloody mess I extricated from myself with a pair of forceps? Yep, that's my thesis. I hope you like it, dear markers.

Help, the Man-Machines are Coming

2005-04-03T15:26:00.000+08:00

It's 11pm. I'm in a student area in my university. I'm into the final third of my thesis which is due on Friday. I'm cutting it very close and every hour counts; I should have spent the last one typing.

I'm going to New York for 2 weeks in May. I shouldn't change my flight dates, because that can only be a hassle. I shouldn't stay beyond the 31st, because the friend I'm staying with while I'm there will be leaving on that day. I'll have to find extra accommodation and pay for it.

I'm just a starving final-year student. I haven't landed that dream job yet. I don't have much money.

But it's just been announced:

KRAFTWERK PLAY AT THE HAMMERSTEIN BALLROOM ON 1st JUNE.

And suddenly, all the rules in my world have changed.

(more in a later post.
meanwhile, a review of Kraftwerk's last Hammerstein show. More here.)

Re-introducing The Band

2005-04-01T02:54:00.000+08:00

I was meaning to post on a bunch of other things. And also to work on the remaining 8,000 words of my thesis. But this is too nice not to share...presenting The Tears, coming on like the Suede Mk III that never was (oh, please pardon my fanboyishness). Don't expect them to launch into the "Beautiful Ones" video from here, though...

In unrelated news: as of yesterday I've fallen foul to a highly addictive online game which allows you to inflict massive violence on members of The Faint. It's pure dumb-ass fun.

Civil Society 1, Government 0

2005-03-31T10:05:00.000+08:00

Yesterday, this turned up in my NUSmail inbox:

Towards a Caring, Dignified and Professional Working Environment: Foreign
Domestic Workers in Singapore

Panelists:
- Dr Noorashikin Abdul Rahman, Fellow at Institute of Southeast Asian Studies
(ISEAS)
- Mr Ho Siong Hin, Divisional Director of Ministry of Manpower
- Miss Braema Mathi, Chairman of Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2)
- Mrs Bridget Lew, Director of Humanitarian Organisation for Migration Economics
(HOME)
- Mr Chew Kim Whatt, author of Foreign Maids: the complete handbook for
employers and maid agencies

Why are Foreign Domestic Workers excluded from the Employment Act?

What are the legislation in place to regulate their wages?

What are the organizations that Foreign Domestic workers can seek help from?

As Singapore plugs herself into the capitalistic node of global forces, foreign talents remain an important resource in our economic persuasions. What is usually ignored or forgotten by society, is the 150, 000 foreign domestic workers (FDWs) that work silently in the domestic household. Indeed, for every sensationalized report of abuse in the media, there are many more "quiet indignities" behind the closed doors of our households.

Why it should concern you?

In conjunction with USP and Transient Workers Count Too (TWC2), a group of students is organizing a forum to raise awareness amongst the NUS community in the political, economic and social climate of Singapore that surround the wage issues of the FDW.

If you want to know more about the legislation, policies and institutions that are in place to protect migrant workers in Singapore, and have a better understanding of civil society at large, we hope to see you at our forum.

And today, I receive this:

Dear students, faculty and staff

Please kindly note the
following updates with regards to the forum on foreign domestic workers in
Singapore:

(1) The venue will now be the xxxxxx.
(2) The panelist from Ministry of Manpower has withdrawn from the forum.
(3) If you wish to attend this forum, please do confirm your attendance with xxxxxx.

Thank you very much.

Music Bulletin #2

2005-03-29T12:34:00.000+08:00

Just a little update on the bands I'll be catching when I hop over to the Big Apple for two weeks in May:

1. Kasabian (with Mad Action and Rock n' Roll Soldiers) at the Bowery Ballroom, 17th May
2. Doves (with Mercury Rev) at Webster Hall, 18th May
3. Fischerspooner at the Canal Room, 19th May
4. Snow Patrol (with Athlete) at the Roseland Ballroom, 20th May
5. The Decemberists at Warsaw @ the Polish National Home, 26th May

I've bought tickets for all except (5). A friend in NYC who's going to the show with me is buying them direct from the venue to save handling costs (in America, handling fees are around 30% of the ticket price). The Decemberists are a real grower; I wasn't too impressed with their sound at first but once I checked out their lyrics, I got hooked. I am particularly and inexplicably moved by "The Soldiering Life". I really am.

One other artist I've gotten into is Feist. Her debut album, Let it Die, betrays the dourness of its title by being one of simplest, loveliest listening experiences in recent months. It has just enough variety so that it surprises at many turns, yet doesn't come across as loose or eclectic. Her cover of Ron Sexsmith's "Secret Heart" brings a smile to my face everytime I listen to it. And even though I have no idea what "Tout Doucement" means, its tune is one of sheer delight. Small wonder then that she, of all people, was invited to guest on the Kings of Convenience's second album.

...And They Will Live Happily Ever After

2005-03-27T15:12:00.000+08:00

It's finally begun. I got this email just a while ago:

Dear friends in A01D,

I'm sorry to surprise so many of you this way, but I will be getting married on 25 June this year. The wedding will be from 2pm to 5pm on a Saturday. If you would like to attend, please e-mail us at xxxxxx@gmail.com and give your mailing address, so that we can send you an invitation card.

Thanks, and best regards :)

It comes from a junior college classmate who graduates in July. He's the second last guy of our class to get attached, and many of our classmates don't even know he's got a girlfriend. This announcement will be especially unreal to them, I'm sure. What next? Will the floodgates will open, as they did with my girlfriend's own friends? It's funny people are reminded of how old they are only when their friends (i) get married, and (ii) die. Welcome to my life Mk II, then...

The End of the Affair

2005-03-25T09:46:00.000+08:00

And so I find closure at last: I will never meet the girl who inspired three of my latest songs; the girl who gave new impetus to my life; the girl who reminded me of who I really am.

We will never share the 3am suppers I can only dream she would spontaneously call me out for, as she does with her friends; nor will we colonise abandoned buildings with our reckless laughter. We will not even meet up for lunch in school.

(No it's not romantic; it never was for either of us.)

It's not that she's distancing herself from me. She still feels the same connection we felt months ago, and she still thinks it would be nice if we could meet...sometime. Meanwhile, she's too busy to think as she pours herself across more activities than she can handle. And besides, she now tells me that meeting up and hanging out is too narrow and conventional a view of friendship.

I don't know if it's a problem with me, in that I keep meeting girls like that; or whether it's a problem with short, intense, intensely chic, attractive, atheistic literature-theatre type girls who fall hopelessly in love with everything that makes them feel larger than they really are, even if it pulls them to pieces.

Is she a tragic figure? Does she do this because she thinks there's no one thing that can satisfy her existential emptiness, even if there is? Is that why she's had at least four boyfriends in the last 2 years? Is the fact that she's comfortable with leaving it at faceless, soundless communication--just like the girl before her--something she genuinely feels, or is it an excuse borne of contingency, that's grown to become a self-fulfilled reality?

I'll never know. I'm just glad that I don't have to waste time waiting for her anymore.

Shake it Around in the Underground

2005-03-21T04:29:00.000+08:00

Astreal at RNDM: Insert your own "blue balls, big phallus" joke here.

Last night, I attended a non-stop local indie music gig at The Attic at Mox. When I told a friend of mine that I'd never heard of the place prior to this, she suggested I was 'straight' by which I assume she means I should get out more often. And she's right.

Much as I like a whole range of alternative genres, my knowledge of the scene (local and global) has always been at best vicarious--I read much more than I actually listen or attend. Reasons aside, the upshot of this is that I often romanticise the indie ethic while forgetting what it means to actually live the life and walk the talk.

It was only natural then that I felt extremely vulnerable despite thoroughly digging the music and atmosphere. Everywhere I looked, I imagined scenesters bearing down on me, faulting me for only having been to two full-blown concerts and going clubbing less than 10 times in my life. My inner child wanted to scream out "but nobody ever asks me to!!"...but I know that's just an excuse.

Tiramisu at RNDM: they're really as fun as they look.

Attending the gig also made me realise that the scene--in terms of both bands and groupies--is now beginning to fill up with people my age. I was surprised at the number of audience members I knew from my time in junior college. I saw people who recognised me, people who didn't, and people who probably recognised me but pretended they didn't because they either (i) felt awkward like I did or (ii) felt they'd moved so far ahead of me in coolness and were disgusted that I was now sharing the same indie air as them.

And it makes sense too. It's people of the early twenties age group that have the energy, resources and experience to realise their teenage rock dreams at a decent level of professionalism. It's also this group that has the pre-marital mobility and post-adolescent legitimacy to immerse themselves as audiences in the nightly scene. The musical influences are telling of this fact: two local bands I read about separately in Aging Youth and The Ridge claim influences from a number of Britpop bands including Suede. Of course, I cursed the fact that they beat me to it, but nevertheless it reflects the truism that people are most affected by the music of their formative years: Suede themselves were heavily influenced by the 70s-era glam-rock of David Bowie.

Goodness, all these bugbears coming out of just watching part of a gig? I must still have serious issues.

On a more cheerful note, RNDM unearthed my musical find of the week: The Analog Girl. Even though she only came on after I left with my girlfriend, I bought her EP (as well as every other CD that was on sale) on good faith, as part of my personal policy of supporting local musicians.

The Bluest Screen of Death

2005-03-19T13:32:00.000+08:00

It had to happen sooner or later, but still it was sudden.

My computer has malfunctioned. I don't know what the problem is yet, and I'm hoping some of you can help me.

So there I was, working on a Wordpad document at home last night, when I left my room for a glass of water. When I came back, the entire screen was a bizarre electric blue. Nothing I pressed short of Ctrl-Alt-Del caused even the slightest flicker. When I turned it off, the blue collapsed into a blinding vertical blue line in the middle of the screen before disappearing.

I'd show you all the photo I took of it, except WHOOPS, I can't post it because I need Hello to do that, and that's on my computer (I'm posting this from a computer in school).

Thank goodness I've the sense not to keep any of my schoolwork on my hard disk. But all my songs-in-progress are there. I generally only back up a song once it's complete, so I still have many unfinished works--including pieces for my student club's musical--in there.

I really hope it's only the monitor.

Know thy Minister

2005-03-18T12:42:00.000+08:00

This will be funny only for Singaporeans.

A management module project mate just got back to me with the transcript of an interview I and another project mate did with a director in a local company. The interview was recorded with the director's permission.

Somewhere in her transcription was the line "We got the VIvian Ganna chrisnan of MOM to officiate the exihibition."

I was tickled red by this. Even if the recording wasn't clear, there's no way any literate Singaporean can or should fluff Vivian Balakrishnan's name, what with his high profile these days. If you don't know your MP(s), then at least know your Cabinet Ministers yeah?

Spot the Difference

2005-03-16T17:10:00.000+08:00

Forget that one of them is silver; that one also comes in black. Look the same? I thought so too.

The one on the right is my first MP3/WMA player. I bought it at a university bazaar in February last year for the princely sum of SGD $220. It has a capacity of 256MB and has inbuilt voice recording (8 kpbs ACT format) and flash disk functions. Within 8 months, the flash disk function was the only feature that still worked.

Since then, I've been meaning to get a new MP3 player, the music junkie that I am. For the longest time I considered going back to the dealer and getting an identical one since I *thought* $220 was a reasonable price.

For once, my procrastination powers saved the day.

On Monday, I noticed a new bazaar stall in my university selling the player on the left. It also has a capacity of 256MB, flash disk and voice recording (WAV and ACT) functions. But on top of that it boasts an inbuilt FM tuner with excellent reception, the capability to record direct from the said tuner and a much louder volume. Not to mention weird extras like the ability to vary the tempo of your MP3s without altering their pitch, and multicoloured backlighting. Oh, and it's much lighter, too.

This baby cost me all of $89.

The only thing that could make it a worse deal is if all its non-flash disk functions ceased after a month. But that's not going to happen, is it?

Dressed for Success

2005-03-16T15:47:00.000+08:00

(text for this is forthcoming)

2005-03-14T12:05:00.000+08:00

(text for this is forthcoming)

Music Bulletin #1

2005-03-11T18:12:00.000+08:00

I realise I'm making more and more fanboy-ish blog entries on music, so from now on I'll just set them all apart by calling them Music Bulletins. For starters, I've now got tickets for two shows when I travel to NYC in May:

1. Kasabian (with Mad Action) at the Bowery Ballroom, 17th May
2. Snow Patrol (with Athlete) at the Roseland Ballroom, 20th May

I was considering adding (3) Nine Inch Nails (with Dresden Dolls) at the Hammerstein Ballroom 16th May to the list, but passed on it for a number of reasons. I've also discovered, to my dismay, that I will miss New Order's gig in NYC by a good 10 days.

On another note, I'm getting excited about The Tears' forthcoming debut, "Here Come the Tears". I've posted about them a number of times--they're the new band formed from the ashes of Britpop giants Suede. That was a band that pushed my musical, lyrical and aesthetic buttons, and just about everything I like about them seem to be surfacing in The Tears. Listen to their debut single recorded off internet radio here and check out their album artwork.

Incidentally, I was elated to find a webpage with photos and videos of the Suede concert (Fort Canning Park, Singapore) I attended in January 2003. Apart from holding a special meaning for my girlfriend and I, it also achieved some notoreity among fans for being the only stop in that tour in which Brett Anderson bared his torso. He was actually fined for it!

The Ego Has Landed...Twice

2005-03-09T15:42:00.000+08:00

I had the privilege of coming face-to-face with two Singaporean celebrities today.

Make that self-made celebrities, with sizeable egos to boot.

I saw the first during a casual trek through a bazaar held at my university. Bazaars like this occur back-to-back throughout every semester and are run by various student clubs. They serve up such similar fare that you often don't know when one's ended and the next one's started. So there I was, taking in more of the same when I walked past...XIAXUE!!

The best Asian blogger of 2005 (in lilac and white).

For those not in the know, Xiaxue (Wendy Cheng) is Singapore's most famous female blogger. Known for her irreverent, vulgar rants as well as her vain photo-documentation of her own existence, she gets a gazillion hits a day on her blog and recently bagged a Best Asian Blog award. She was peddling t-shirts in her capacity as the product ambassador for Local Brand. Believe the hype: small crowds formed around the stall as people actually chatted with Wendy, asking for autographs and photos.

The next celebrity I shared air with was Singapore's self-styled motivation guru Adam Khoo. Being a skeptic, I've always wondered how people in his profession can use speech alone to get audiences of thousands on their feet, chant self-empowerment slogans and shed tears of epiphany. All the more so when Khoo constantly markets himself with the brash, annoying credentials of "top 1% at the NUS business school, serial entrepreneur, millionare at the age of 26". I therefore jumped at the chance to witness his powers when an email was circulated among NUS students promoting a free seminar by the man.

If it's possible for others to spell "it's", it's possible for you too, Adam.

Attending the 3-hour session confirmed a suspicion I had all along: motivational speakers are convincing because everything they say is patently true. Yes, "success doesn't happen by chance". Yes, "a good certificate is only a ticket to your first job, nothing more". Yes, "if you don't plan your life, others will plan your life for you, and they won't have good plans". And yes, "while most people want / prefer / like / hope to succeed, only a few feel they MUST succeed and that makes the difference".

The trick is that these truths are arrived at in such a way that they don't seem obvious (thereby giving the speakers plenty of credit for being able to figure them out). They are also delivered with great flair and vigour: Adam spoke non-stop, using powerful gestures and occasional cutesy acting. What we should be skeptical of, therefore, is not whether or not their self-improvement strategies work--I'm sure they do--but whether or not they are worth paying $2,800 to learn.

The answer isn't a flat no. Some people genuinely need people like Khoo to help them see the light, and his full 8-day course may be the best thing that can happen to them. But many literate, intelligent and self-reflexive others, I think, would do just as well with a $28 self-help book. I myself felt rather out of place when Khoo kept alluding to difficult goals such as "getting on the Dean's List", since I've been awarded seven consecutive Dean's List placings in my time at NUS so far.

Yet, I won't deny that the session was motivating. I found myself nodding and laughing out loud at several points. I also honestly felt, for a while after it was over, that I had a blueprint to solve some other nagging issues in my life (such as the chronic procrastination in my job hunt). But it didn't last long. Khoo would say that I'm allowing my old patterns of negative representation to dominate my present actions. Maybe he's right. Maybe I'm just too proud to say that I need his help. Or maybe I really don't. Who knows?

The Games We Used to Play

2005-03-05T18:00:00.000+08:00

Dinner tonight was at Holland Village's TCC outlet, with people involved in YouthInk. Conversation was polite at first but really picked up when gaming was mentioned. I declared my distaste for the 3-D realism of today's offerings, and before I knew it, the five of us (girls and guys alike) were reminiscing about old-school computer games such as Sword of the Samurai , Karateka and Alley Cat.

We also spoke about old DOS-based programs such as Wordstar and WordPerfect, text adventure games, and how kids these days wouldn't be able to navigate through DOS to save their lives. Those were the days of CGA (4-colour) and EGA (16-colour) graphics, PC speaker sounds and filenames that HAD to be eight characters in length. 640KB of RAM, anyone?

Gamebooks--a sadly extinct game form--were also mentioned, with not a little gushing about the cult classic Be An Interplanetary Spy series. To round off the nostalgia, we tossed around a few 80's TV series names: Manimal, Magnum P.I., TJ Hooker, Miami Vice, Fall Guy and the A-Team.

It was a lovely little evening, especially since I'm recovering well from my cold. I meant to blog about the Buddhist sharing session I attended before dinner, but the feel-good vibes of tonight's gathering seem more compelling and immediate. I saw and had, for the first time in my life (though I pretended it wasn't), a cup of alcoholic coffee with flambéd sugar. I also got some tips about getting a job at Singapore Press Holdings. And of course, a desire to go straight home and download some of those good old games of yesteryear.

I leave you, dear reader, with this little souvenir. It'll be a treat if you're around my age, and a history lesson if you're younger. It's the real deal; remember, it can only be run from the MS-DOS prompt.

All Dressed Up and Nowhere to Go

2005-03-04T10:58:00.000+08:00

It came to that, yes. I'd changed up and packed my things, ready to head off.

But I felt exhausted, and finally yielded to my disruptive jackhammer coughs, mouth-immobilising ulcers and leaky-nosedness. My classmates will be very disappointed that I'm not joining them yet again, but in my current state I'd rather stay overnight at home, where going through tissue boxes doesn't inconvenience anyone.

If nothing else, illnesses are frustrating because they make me blog in self-pity, when I'd much rather write on the issues of the day. I really don't think anyone's interested in entries that go on about one's ailments, but I can't help it much when the foremost sensations I experience throughout the day are precisely those ailments.

In any case, here's a rumination on health, and how it's treated in modern urban societies.

Health is like a mobile phone. We (Singaporeans, at least--not sure if it's the same in other countries) always expect the mobile phones of our friends and colleagues to be on 24/7. When we ring and get a recorded message saying that the phone is off, we get all jittery: is he / she avoiding me, we ask ourselves. The truth, usually, is less sinister: the phone battery may have gone flat; the owner may be watching a movie, bathing or having sex...things that often happen in the course of daily life.

Now why do we expect people to be on call all the time? I suppose it has to do with how technology has sped up the pace of life. Emails and mobile phones were devised to make hitherto difficult tasks easier, and they've done the job so admirably that we've gone about making tasks even more difficult to capitalise on our technological advantage.

Similarly, the fast pace of modern life--coupled with the irresistable profit motive of private businesses--makes us plan our work (or makes others plan work for us) with no provisions for people falling sick, even though that too happens in the course of life. I've seen too many tight deadlines and important events scheduled with the assumption that the key players would be in fine health till they were done. I've also heard of people refusing to take sick leave because of the inability of their colleagues to cover for them.

In short, the working world isn't very kind towards poor health.

I'm not advocating that every job we have to do should have a buffer period in the event of an illness. That simply wouldn't be practical. My observation here is simply of a much larger problem (if you could call it one): a particular work ethic; a certain way of life that has been shaped by social and technological forces.

Caught a Lite Sneeze

2005-03-03T17:09:00.000+08:00

I can't believe it. I've fallen ill again.

The symptoms are a running and blocked nose, mouth ulcers, a sore throat and a cough. This wouldn't be half as frustrating if I didn't just recover from another bout a few days ago. It was a cold that started in January but worked itself into a dry cough that hung around for weeks.

It wouldn't be half as frustrating if I hadn't resolved, upon the cessation of that cough, to finally get off my ass and work off my love handles and moobs in the coming months.

It wouldn't be half as frustrating if my parents weren't so quick to lament how their son "still doesn't know how to take care of himself", as they always do when I fall sick.

And it wouldn't be half as frustrating if a group project mate didn't just induct a highly annoying person into the group--a prissy person who glared at me in class when I snorted from hacking and coughing too much. This person is going to wonder why I'm so sickly, and the sad thing is, I wonder too.

My sociology honours mates are staying over at a chalet tomorrow, and I hoped to join them in good health. I've been skiving from their gatherings of late, and was really looking forward to this one. I'll still go, because I want and feel obliged to, but it'll be really awkward exhibiting my symptoms and being a potential wet blanket. Also, my Dad's probably going to raise a ruckus over how I still don't know how to take care of myself, heading for parties when I should be recovering at home.

Sigh.

On a more cheerful note, more acts are announcing May tour dates in New York. Of particular interest to me is industrial music stalwart Nine Inch Nails, who appears at the Hammerstein Ballroom on the 15th and 16th. Tickets go on sale to the general public in less than 72 hours, so I have to decide and act fast.

Another act swinging by the Big Apple is Hoobastank. They're playing on the same night as Snow Patrol. Music geeks, doesn't the fact that I'm watching Snow Patrol that night suddenly seem a lot cooler?

Oh and look at this, it's on in NYC in May too. Rather hilarious, especially if you're a guitar player.

As for myself, what can I say...true to my distractable nature, I've put "Living History" on hold, having been hit with renewed inspiration for an old song idea, "Time to Kill". The way it's shaping up now, it's a stomper and it will probably be my album opener...if I ever finish the album(!)