Chestnuts # 3

November 28th, 2004 theatre

Is Chestnuts getting, I don’t know, tired? I saw it yesterday and found it full of theatre in-jokes. Last year it was movies in-jokes. The first show I caught was full of tv in-jokes. Would anyone know, I’m thinking? I didn’t mind it but some of the jokes were weak armchair digs. I particularly like the sour grape poke at W!ld Rice. I felt the materials unfocussed – too many short bits. I would prefer it if they were longer and the laughs more closely packed. Some fell rather flat – the CSI bit where achar is found in the stomach of an indian person.

The sets were somewhat elabourate and that Hossan was not a good mimic made all the effort inefficient. For instance, a podium stand, Hossan in a red shirt, coughing vigourously was to be BG Lee but I couldn’t tell. The skit had Jon rushing in to hand in a tube of sweets. Hossan turns to the right and nods gratefully, “Thanks Dad.” Words on the backdrop: Minister Mentos. In another skit, Hossan was trying to be Ivan Heng but only managed Heng’s enormous grin.

On human evolution and intelligence

November 25th, 2004 Uncategorized

Musing aloud: Until I read the above I’ve always imagined human evolution as a straight line. We were first apes crawling about on all fours, then we stood with a stoop and learnt to use tools, then straightened up further, and so on. It didn’t occur to me perhaps it was impossible that evolution is a straight line: that all life forms is really trial and error, that intelligence and innate knowledge is an accumulation of fatal errors. Does it mean persons with more intelligence is a higher life form than those with lesser? Intelligence is a cultivated form of information, isn’t it? So the trading of news is really a trading up towards a higher life form?

I worship intellect. I think it’s a gemini thing. Should one be unfortunately impoverished in this area, curiosity is sufficient to make up for the lack of intelligence, I use to think. But I’m starting to think otherwise. Intelligence is the ability to absorb and process information and pass on this repackaged knowledge, not the mere possession of information – that’s why computers are not intelligent: they merely hold information.

I was at the taxi stand outside Junction 8 when I found myself face to face with a person I had a crush on numerous years ago. It was only six but the silver sky was showing deep blue streaks. He was with a mutual friend. My surprise caught his attention and then it was too late pretend ignorance. I pressed my lips into a straight line and put up my palms as though I signalling a stop sign. I ceased communication with this person some three years ago: he had done something I felt unforgivable: became human in my eyes. We made small talk. I couldn’t bear to meet his eyes and in substitute of eye contact, I focussed on his lips. He had put on some weight and his face plumped out, making his large eyes smaller than I remembered and his lips soft and generous. The loose black polo shirt hid a small pouch. He spoke in a relaxed manner and as though those three years never passed, all my old anger came back.

Feckless spending

November 21st, 2004 Uncategorized

“It’s a hundred and sixty three cents,” said the dark skinned cashier. The cashiers at borders only look Singaporean – their voices betray their Amercian origins, from which part, I don’t know. It was too late to take back the books. I took out my bank card. The cashier snatched it from me, looking at me down her long nose. In that flash of a moment, she wiped her disdain with a false smile. I grimaced and pressed my pin on the rubber keys. Perhaps to comfort me, she gave me a big bag but failed to pull a tic on my face into a smile. I walked out poorer.

Saving the 3 Careys and the Burgess for later, I started with Steve Martin’s The Pleasure Of My Company. I have heard some years ago when Shopgirl came out, that he’s a sweetheart. His characters are sweet but somewhat melancholy but not like Greene’s characters who are mostly dark and is aware of their darkness. The book is not what I usually prefer – high drama or high action; it’s a whole book of internal monologues. The person has a neurosis: he can’t cross curbs and has to organise his life in a certain system he devised for himself. I didn’t mind finishing it: the book was short. I felt it rather ordinary. Even if one did not pick up the book in one’s lifetime, nothing would be missed.

Say Yes Enterprise

November 17th, 2004 screen

I bought the series because Wubai was in it but Nu Cheng Ze surprised me. I caught four of his series of love stories. I’m impressed with his scripting: good dialogue. Plotwise, however, it was not terribly exciting.

Series 2: In which Wubai is a poet from a fishing village and Xu Xi Di is a girl hooligan turned high class pro. Story is told in flashback made the characters feel distant as though hearing a story from a forgetful grandmother. Occasional good lines but they were all Wubai’s. Xu Xi Di made the best out of an uninteresting character. Her bawling scenes impressed me with her feeling but I fail to see how he(Wubai) could have any feeling for her other than pity.

Series 4: In which a young boy Li Wei falls in love with the older Ye Tong. What’s interesting is this: his love is very clearly odepial: we see that his mother left him at a young age and what attracted him was Ye Tong’s scent – it was his mother’s smell. Ye Tong always has always been sultry on screen – it seems to be in her character – hence it is confusing when she shows motherly tenderness for the boy. While it is inspiring and highly noble for a couple in love can feel so secure with each other not to feel jealousy or suffer the pain of separation, it is strange in this setting. It does not seem noble and inspiring : it becomes the story of a child allowing his parent the freedom of not being his parent. The social objection both kept whinging about never existed. The only objection was from Ye Tong’s son who didn’t like it that his friend is hitting on his mother. The openess with which their love is accepted hints at exciting unexplored depths.

Series 5: In which a young woman falls in love with a much older successful man. Plot wise, most exciting in the series. I found the older man Zhang Kuo Zhu has a marvelous face for the role: slack battle weary face and a mouth pulled askew by life’s disappointments. The story is of the younger woman Pan Yi Jun stalking this older guy. Light drama sustained throughout the episodes: is the married wife a pervert? Is the man pyscho? . Finally we realise it’s the younger woman who is the crazed, depraved one. I like the simple visual cues: purity of the heart is portrayed in light colours, evil scheming mind is portrayed in dark clothing. Of the lines, the crazed woman had all the fantastic ones. I thought the ending dull, which had the mad woman downing bottles of sleeping pills to kill herself and the man preaching at her at the hospital bed then finally giving her a job at his company. It’s as though the story teller can’t figure out how to put the lid on this can tried to bang anything on it.

Series 6: In which Niu Cheng Zhe and Lu Min Jun were a divorced couple each having one twin in custody. In this tale, both were in love with each other and it is the twin’s conniving that guilted them back into marraige. The kids were not excellent actors – they sound like machines occassionally – but they had lines to squeeze hearts at aching places. The expected happy ending arrives after an interesting detour of the twins kidnapping a family friend to achieve their ends. If you ever wanted kids, this is what you can watch to cure yourself of it.

Elsewhere and a dream

November 13th, 2004 Uncategorized

Adri humourously compares switching from PC to Mac with picking women over men here. A commentor digs slyly, “the PC goes down more”.

I crossed the great computer divide some months ago after the silly dell collasped on me. I haven’t looked back since and have been afflicted with the embarrassing habit of trying to convert everyone who thinks of buying a computer.

Mr Miyagi refers to the Chestnuts’ new show here. I was on the phone with sistic when the person shouted “What’s nuts?” I burst into giggles because I heard “Whose nuts?” and was mightily embarressed. I love December because it means Chestnuts is here!

Naifal quotes Simon Tay here

If you cannot learn to love
(yes love) this city
you have no other.

– Simon Tay

and adds a PS: “I’d love to believe you, Simon, but you gave up poetry and fiction for life as an NMP.”

I respect Simon Tay for being an NMP. I ernestly believe he was trying to better the life of Singaporeans. I see his act as a form of self-sacrifice for the sake of the nation: he suffers and must resist the seduction of the muse. Perhaps it is very foolish of me. It’s not such a dramatic leap – fiction writer and politician: both lie for a living.

This morning’s dream of an mixed media installation:

One: Home, truly

Friend made a fiberglass figures of local personalities and her family members and friends standing on green garden grass in the shape of singapore. From the projector, pictures of soldiers ran inbetween these figures. Some are standing at attention, the others look striken and are looking about for a chance to flee.

Two: Inconsideration

Same friend had an oil painting that has a iron wrough garden bench in the center and a squashed worm under the bench. The picture is in fiery colours: red for the ground and yellow for sky. Over the picture, fiberglass waved like melted plastic so that the picture looks as though seen through water. She was especially pleased with it.

Asian Under-Valuing at work?

November 11th, 2004 atwork

I have heard many times an individual praising himself or herself for demanding high standards of customer service in others. What are you to expect princely behaviour when you are a curlish boor, is my attitude towards these persons. While I find these behaviours intolerable I tend to keep my mouth shut: it is none of my business how a person prefers to conduct himself or herself in public. At a meeting yesterday, however, I became uncharacteristically heated. The group was to rate a conversation between 1-10 based on various characteristics that define good customer service. Usual to satisfaction survey, 1 rating means Very dissatisfied and a 10 rating being Very Satisfied. In instances where I feel the agent has done what is required of him or her and so inclined to give 10 out of 10 for a particular section. I became annoyed when more than a few managers told me they were not inclined to give a ten out of ten even though the agent has done well. One remarked, “The agent has to be flawless in the delivery before I consider giving him or her a ten.”

I whacked her without great thought – which is foolish because the person is my boss. “What is the point then of having a ten point scale if all you ever give is 9? 10 means very satisfied, doesn’t mean flawless.” Another person pressed to ask what would make the conversation a tenner, her reply was vague: choice of words. At that I realised that whatever changes I had hope to make to change this process to a more objective than subjective problem is just one of my numerous fantasies. I’m am only a cog.

Peter Carey: True History of the Kelly Gang

November 10th, 2004 books

Has anyone found this gem of a writer yet? On reading I’m not terribly adventurous. I frequently depend on the media to feed me names that I might wish to read. Upon seeing a new name on the shelves, I would put both the writer through a test run. If I could to finish a quarter or half of of his book and obtained a good impression of it, that book would be bought and eventually the other novels by the same person.

I came upon Jack Maggs at a university bookshop years ago but did not buy the book: at that time, I was enamoured of Graham Greene. Wringing hands in Kinokuniya, because I am fast running out of Atwoods to read, I found Carey’s new paperback ‘My Life As A Fake’ displayed prominantly on the shelves. I was actually looking for a hardback he has written on his travels in Sydney of which I read half of it standing up in the bookshop. As it was expensive – forty for a really slim volume – I thought twice before I decided on buying. I couldn’t find it and picked up My Life As A Fake. A week later, Oscar and Lucinda, then I found a three book special that I bought. Of the three, I just finished True History of the Kelly Gang.

I love this book most of the three I’ve read. It was Sunday and I had planned to get some office work done. When I opened the page to the first chapter, I shivered and goosebumped all over. It was adjectival good and I knew I would get no work done at all that day.

By dawn at least half of the members of the Kelly gang were badly wounded and it was then that the creature appeared from behind police lines. It was nothing human, that much was evident. It had no head but a very long thick neck and an immense chest and it walked with a slow ungainly gait directly into the hail of bullets. Shot after shot was fired without effect and the figure continued to advance on the police, stopping every now and then to move its headless neck slowly and mechanically around.

Undated, unsigned, handwritten account in the collection of the Melbourne Public Library. (V.L. 10453)

Resilience

November 6th, 2004 Treats

My mother has never liked my orchids because they don’t flower. It isn’t their fault they don’t flower frequently: it’s that I have put them in an environment that doesn’t allow them to flower. While the orchid flower is gorgeous I have come to love the plants because of their focus on living: sprouting roots to catch water, leaning out of the railings to their leaves in the sun. I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of failure when I watched the dens reduceds into dried up little sticks under my mother’s ‘care’. I have failed to protect what I love and I thought never to buy another pot until I have my own place.

The orchids are made of tougher things than her. Even though the surface roots have all browned and died, they went on secretly growing new ones under the charcoal and in one glorious morning, the canes birthed little bumps, shooting up new keikis. Gorgeous!