From The Unusual Life of Tristian Smith by Peter Carey

January 31st, 2005 books

“My life has been filled with sexual yearning, but yearning is not the same as hope. That is what Wally did not know when he saaw me hold the Flower in Zeelung. I was someone driven by impossible desire, someone whose very soul is shaped by the sure knowledge that his dreams will not come true. My mother could not have accepted this but it was so: I had learned to equate the pain of unrequited desire with pleasure. I had crawled into the same pigeonhole as those who get their satisfaction from sniffing women’s shoes or underwear, or learn to achieve secret bliss from having their hair cut or their back washed. She would have hated to think of me like this. She would have had me focus on the startling qaulity of my gold-flecked eyes, the baby softness of my skin. She would have believed that I could make myself attractive with sheer will, with breathing exercises, and such was my dear maman’s enduring power that I continued to hide certain thoughts from her.”

Singaporeans and Political Apathy III

January 25th, 2005 Uncategorized

Perverse. Perverse. Perverse.

From discussion, political apathy has its origins in the control of information (text book scrubbing) and the hard grip of the law to achieve the ends of social control – so that the agents obey the government. (The ruling party, after all, is self serving and wants to be in power forever.) Peel away this layer and you would find yourself wandering in a strange territory: our national psyche.

Other than getting themselves into legal and financial ruin for being vocal, Vernon Chan reveals that the

The happy, ordinary and commonplace

January 22nd, 2005 Uncategorized

Having returned wounded and weary from the realm of emotions, I surrounded myself with friends. (Heart break, as it turns out, doesn’t require the participation of another.) Over the round dining table, the listening waiters put down and pick up crockery and cutlery at irregular intervals and we, oblivious, laid our lives bare: unattractive diseases, hoarded injustices, insecurities, a curious ache (rightside of the left breast), travel plans, television (did you watch this week

Of The Princess And The Pea

January 22nd, 2005 Uncategorized

What of the princess? Did she see her destiny coming, as she paced up and down the halls of the great castle saying, “Anytime now” and her birthday passed from 18 to 29?

Where was her fairy Godparent then, not doing the job of matching princes and princesses? Surely a network of eligible princes and princesses would be checked and matched by the blueness of blood, the wealth, the acres of land, all the way to the nitty gritty details of number of counts, knights, dragons and lost maidens? In the vast numbers of small kingdoms, surely one perfect match could be found?

And what kind of prince without a fairy Godparent and to have to resort to put out an advertisment like a National Enquirer?

Certainly, he had one: he was royalty. But even a fairy need a direction. Was she blond, brunette, brown haired? Was she tall and gangly, or short and elegant? A bosom large enough to fill his hands? Or extremely small feet? He could not say. “A true princess,” the prince would repeat. His fairy Godparent, at first patient, now flung a white envelope at his patron, screaming: “Go @#$%^%*(~! your @#$*^$! princess yourself!”

So he did, as the story went. Princesses streamed into his castle from all kingdoms. It was all over the kingdom that the prince would be marrying a true princess. Princess of ___:a true princess of all kingdoms.

Twenty-nine, passing her buy date and without a match in sight, our real princess was beginning to look slightly unkempt. Sitting cross legged, she reads a leather bound book, chicken wing in one oily hand. It would not be surprising to see her golden flowing tresses in need of a little brushing, the clear blue eyes to lift from the book, looking back at her dear fairy Godfather – traditionally females were more successful in these matters – from behind a pair of glass spectacles. After all, she is the type capable of travelling across plains without a horse or a sheltered cart to arrive at the castle looking like a wet hen in the dead of the night.

Her fairy godfather had doubts: “Do you want to try?” To convince her into a right decision, made her look into a magic mirror: “See, so many others. Long queue. Forgeddabowdit!”

In the mirror was the prince. You could tell he is popular with the girls. They didn’t expect him to be charming and goodlooking. Just another pretty boy, she thought. She made to push the mirror away when she touched it, the mirror stuck to her hand.

“O,” said her fairy Godfather.

But there was nothing interesting in the mirror. It was an ordinary scene of a person picking up a wine glass.

“Klaustruck!” said the princess and the glass broke. The wine spilled over his hand, the colour of warm blood. The prince glanced around startled. The mirror cracked, shattering all over. Our princess began to bleed all over the cut glass.

“O,” said her fairy Godfather again, staring at her. With a carriage made from pumpkins and horses from rats, he put her firmly into the seat and slapped the horse