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My Heart Bleeds

What sort of a retard comes up with a headline like Tsunamis shatter celebrity holidays?

And Then There Were Nine

The music lists still aren't going well, and it's really not helping that Music Junction at Parkway Parade is having a 3 for $10 sale which actually features decent albums. So I bought 9.

• Bjork: Vespertine
• Daft Punk: Discovery
• Ladytron: Light And Magic
• Mos Def and Talib Kweli: Black Star
• Bubba Sparxxx: Dark Days, Bright Nights
• Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach: Painted From Memory
• Philip Glass: Songs From The Trilogy
• The Essential Sibelius (2 CDs)
• Gabriel Fauré: Requiem / Cantique de Jean Racine / Messe Basse (Arte Nova recording)

2004 List: Five Films

I've been meaning to do year-end lists ever since I started this blog way back in 2000, but never get round to it before because I was busy having, like, fun, at the end of the year. This year, however, I have a job.

First up, my top 5 films, because the music lists are just killing me.

1. Before Sunset:
   It would have been terrifyingly easy to fall short of what a worthy sequel demanded, but nothing in this movie squandered the promise of the first film, or sidestepped any of the questions that they knew people would want answered. In just 80 masterfully-directed minutes of great scripting, acting, editing and direction, they (Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) made good film-making look effortless. On a personal level, it amazed me to realize that in the most romantic movie I've ever seen, there was nothing in its romance that I envied or did not already have.
   [My review] [Metacritic]
2. The Return:
   Although one of my pet peeves in a film is sloppy editing, this doesn't mean I have ADD. I'm perfectly happy to sit through a slow-moving film as long as it makes good use of every moment, and this one really did. Every scene was there for a reason, whether it was starkly beautiful cinematography, or the play of muscles on the face of one of the amazing child actors. I still can't believe this was Andrei Zvyagintsev's first film, because it exudes the assurance and maturity of a grizzled veteran at the peak of his powers.
   [My review] [Metacritic]
3. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind:
   I'm not the biggest Charlie Kaufman fan around but the premise of this film struck a huge chord with me, and Michel Gondry, Ellen Kuras (his cinematographer) and Jon Brion (who always makes lovely music) executed it with some of the most stunningly original film sequences I've ever seen. I can't actually write much more about this film. It's too indescribable.
   [Metacritic]
4. Shaun Of The Dead:
   Not a film for people who don't get British comedy, but it's side-splittingly funny if you do. After the first ten minutes I gave up keeping track of all the great lines, all the little digs at London life and English society, and all the hilarious subversions of the usual zombie movie scenes. Also, best use of "Whassup niggaz?", a repeated fart joke (and bear in mind that I normally hate fart jokes), and a Queen song (all used separately) in a film ever. Why oh why did I not watch more of Spaced when I was still in England?
   [Metacritic]
5. Big Fish:
   I never thought Tim Burton would have made my happy feelgood heartwarming tearjerker of the year, but there you go. Of course, being a Tim Burton film it still had evil trees and grotesquely deformed people in it, and was all the better for that. Wonderful acting from Albert Finney and Jessica Lange (loved the bathtub scene), and an ending so perfect it nearly made me cry, which doesn't usually happen to me in movies unless they remind me of London.
   [Metacritic]

The Black Forest Of Katong

There I was, standing awkwardly outside Katong Mall at 11 pm on Boxing Day, having just been told by the mall security guard and the 7-11 staff that they were absolutely sure there was no Black Forest Bar in the basement, and in fact that the entire building was closed.

At this point I was sorely tempted to go home, since the wisdom of scouring the dodgy bars of Katong (basically, that would be all the bars of Katong, and there are lots of them) in search of a random ang moh I only knew on the Internet seemed debatable to say the least. Also, the ah peks in the coffee shop across the road were giving me curious glances, even though I was dressed quite conservatively because of a party I'd attended earlier. Also, I had a geography teacher in school who we used to call Black Forest for puerile reasons (it wasn't racial), and the words still make me giggle.

So there I was. And then suddenly, I spotted a sheet of paper stuck to a wall, with Black Forest Bar and a down arrow scribbled on it, and a little stick figure turntablist. I followed the arrow into the bowels of the building, and when I heard Dizzee Rascal in the distance I knew I'd finally found the right place.

I was a little shy, because it's always weird meeting an Internet person in real life, and I didn't drink enough to really reduce my inhibitions either. This was, however, a good thing when Jacob played The Knife's Heartbeats, because that always makes me imagine thrashing around in suffocating black velvet. Anyway, Jacob and his friends were a lot of fun. I wasn't just impressed by his record-playing choices, but also his karaoke choices, which included Lemon Tree and It's A Small World After All. This is clearly an ang moh who truly understands the joy of karaoke.

I've never sung karaoke in a bar area, just the tacky faux-opulent private rooms in lounges, but I wasn't spared. After telling J my number one song for the year was Toxic, I later found it cued up on the karaoke system and the mike thrust into my hand. I did my best but without the air stewardess uniform I felt like a phony. I followed this by mauling half of An Jing with my speech-defect-quality Chinese, and belting out All Out Of Love with Joe Ng. The thought crossed my mind at some point that I was singing karaoke with a voice that had been played on John Peel. My geekiness deepens by the day.

Oh, and Black Forest Bar is unbelievable. It has a pond with actual fish in it, and fake greenery everywhere, and it's almost completely empty. Alec, the next time you come here I've got another so-shit-it's-lovely bar to take you to!

Exactitude

After the ang moh food overload of Christmas, we headed to Joo Chiat today for belachan chicken, claypot seafood beancurd, sweet potato leaves, and, my favourite, fried lard with a bit of tau chio fish on the side. There's been a lot of talk lately about Geylang spreading its Tentacles of Vice into Joo Chiat, but I didn't really notice any more sleazy KTV bars and massage parlours there than there always have been.

However, the shop across the street from Joo Heng was called "Purplish Trading", which made me happy.

Born This Happy Morning

Apart from when I saw Nick Cave sing The Mercy Seat live, the music that has made me battle tears in public most often has always been sacred music. (Okay, also God Only Knows at the end of Love, Actually, but that's kind of sacred too.) It's the same with weddings - in church weddings I often feel like I'm about to cry when the couple is pronounced man and wife, but in the first secular wedding I attended I was shocked to realize that it didn't touch me anywhere as much, or feel as meaningful. (To me, that is, of course I know it was deeply meaningful to the couple.)

Today in Mass during O Come All Ye Faithful, as the organ arpeggioed up towards "Glory to God! Glory in the highest!" and as the music softened down again for "O come let us adore Him" I had to close my eyes and stop singing. There's no cool way to say this, and I guess some of you would rather I get back to talking about stuff like how I start every day with Satan, or my gay-soaked childhood, but at that moment I felt stunned by His glory, without which I really am nothing. Despite more than a year of feeling almost completely disconnected from Mass in Singapore, I imagined my life if I continued to keep God out of it, and it felt empty.

That's all. Merry Christmas, everyone. We now return you to this site's regularly scheduled blips of indie music blathering, frivolous vulgarity and cat pictures.

Dedication

On one of the first few pages of the latest edition of Street on Torts: This book is dedicated to Lukas, though I hope he never gets the urge to read it.

Pardon My Blasphemy

Some mornings I just don't know what I'd do without Satan.

The Mitre Experience

It takes a special sort of person to appreciate the Mitre Hotel, which is why the only people I've ever taken there have been the Orgers and Alec. Last week a second Orger outing was organized by Don and Yen, who hadn't had the "Mitre experience" yet but were determined to before the place either got a) more popular or b) razed to the ground by order of the public safety powers that be. And of course, as we knew they would, they loved it. (Read Yen's love here.)

We perched on the dusty couches, sipped our sub-$4 beers, and talked about ghosts. (Terry and Don had just seen Shutter and were impressed.) At first we were the only ones there. Later, a couple swam into view, apparitions emerging from the black deeps beyond the porch lights. At some point a dog started howling in the distance.

I forgot to bring my camera this time, so these pictures are from when I took Alec there. They've been left fairly dark and dingy rather than sexed up too much in Photoshop, but still don't even come close to evoking the atmosphere of the place - they lack the creepy walk up the driveway, the smell of musty decay, the feel of the brittle upholstery crunching beneath you as you sit down and crane your neck at the gaping holes in the ceiling.

From the bar, looking towards the door

On the wall next to the bar

A close-up of the door grill, including the pack of stray chairs which lurk outside

Youngest Fag Hag In The World

My two oldest guy friends are Ken and Roy. (Well, I had a good friend called Cavan Wee in kindergarten, but we lost touch once we entered primary school. Email me if you ever read this, Cavan!) We all lived in the same condo. I spent countless hours of my childhood with them.

Last night, the following exchange of text messages took place:
Ken (Think I deleted this message, so I'm paraphrasing): Am at Mox now and you'll never guess who I've just run into. Roy! He's gay and out!
Me: My childhood just got a lot weirder.
Ken: He says you've been a fag hag since five.
Me: When we were kids I was totally more manly than you guys.
Ken: We agree.
Me: Our repeated viewings of Ms Universe are easily understood now. Less easy are our SMALL METAL PLANE MODEL BEAUTY PAGEANTS...ask him to explain.

(You can read Ken's account here.)

It is somewhat ironic, in hindsight, that at our condo playground neither of them dared to slide down the pole.

Jimmy Corrigan: The Dullest Kid In The World

Much like my struggles with Life A User's Manual a while back, the only thing that's keeping me reading Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (Chris Ware) is the paroxysms of joy it seems to inspire in its Amazon reviewers.

I remember picking the book up in Borders shortly after it won the Guardian First Book Award, and abandoning it soon after, stupefied, for The Wire. (Which, of course, can be stupefying in its own way eg. "Oh look, a critical re-appraisal of the Appalachian free jazz movement!") I chanced upon it again in the Marine Parade library last week, so I decided to give it another try. So far, so blah. I'm finding the flow of the panels extremely non-intuitive, and I'm not getting the big deal about the quality of the drawing either. I'll keep wading on though - Life A User's Manual did pay off in the end. And at least it's a good way to get me sleepy at night.

Lord Denning Cuts The Crap

Lord Denning begins his judgment in Buttes Gas and Oil Co v Hammer and others [1980] 3 All ER 475 with this:

"Abu Musa is a small island in the Arabian Gulf. Early in 1970 oil was discovered nine miles off its shore. Each of two American oil companies claimed the right to exploit it. They started litigating about it in October 1970. Now ten years later the action is nowhere near trial. It has only reached the stage of discovery of documents. On this interlocutory point the argument before us took nine days, with five leading counsel and as many juniors. We have had excursions into the law of the sea, of territorial waters and the continental shelf, into sovereign immunity and diplomatic immunity, into the rules of court and goodness knows what else. No expense has been spared. No stone left unturned. McNeill J in the court below exploded. Even at that stage, when the application was before him, he said that the length of the proceedings was ‘outrageous and comes perilously near to an abuse of the process of the court’. Even more when it reaches us nearly a year later. Still we must go on with it. It looks like outdoing Jarndyce v Jarndyce (see Dickens, Bleak House) except that these litigants are not likely to run out of money."

And ends with this:

"I return to where I started. This is merely an application for discovery of documents. Yet it has taken the master, the judge and the Court of Appeal many days of argument and many pages of judgments. All the territorial matters under discussion have passed into history. They were settled by international agreement eight years ago. The continental shelf of the Arabian Gulf has been apportioned out. The oil revenues have been divided by agreement. All that is left is this interminable action arising out of a speech by Dr Armand Hammer on 5 October 1970 at the Great Eastern Hotel in London. It is high time to let bygones be bygones. I would not allow any further discovery by either side. Let these two oil companies fight it out as best they can with such materials as they have available or can get hold of. By subpoena or otherwise. There is quite enough of it in all conscience. Take out a summons for directions. Either side can demand that it be tried by a jury. I pity the jury. Set the action down for trial at once. Let it hang about no longer. For goodness sake get rid of it one way or the other."

Lord Denning rOxOrs so hard sometimes.

Marrrrrritime Law

One of the other lawyers was teaching me how to research a ship.

Lawyer X: Okay, so if you can't find it in Lloyd's Register or the online sources, that probably means it's -
Me: PIRATES!
Lawyer X, looking at me strangely: - not a vessel involved in international trade.
Me: Ah, yes.

I think I need to curb my enthusiasm a bit more.

The Incredibles / Look At Me / Shutter

Out of the last four movies I've watched, the one which inspired me to write a long rambling blog post was the most middle-brow one with (by far) the worst reviews. Go figure. But I thought I should just write little snippets about the other three for the record.

• The Incredibles: Was great fun, but I couldn't think of any new or original ways to describe what was good about it, so I didn't bother writing about it at the time. Most of my enjoyment of it was derived from the geeky thrill of identifying every homage to Watchmen, which is why I reread it just after watching the movie, and realized that any review I wrote of The Incredibles would pretty much end up being a ravefest about how amazing Watchmen is instead. My favourite part of the movie which had nothing to do with Watchmen was probably the name of the supervillain who appeared at the end - The Underminer, which I found hilarious.
• Look At Me (Comme Un Image): Hard to describe the plot, you'd best read the review I linked to. This is definitely not a film for the impatient - you never know where the story's going, and a familiar storyline never emerges e.g. "It's going to be about how Indiana Jones goes on a quest to find the Holy Grail" or "It's going to be about how nerdy girl will blossom and eventually get hot guy to fall for her." Lots of scenes seem pointless early in the film, but later on you realize that they were showing you little things about its characters which build the overall impression of them which you leave with at the end, and I think this was actually its greatest strength. The opinions I formed of the characters at the beginning had evolved very considerably by the end, and yet nothing in the way the film progressed ever seemed forced or unnatural. I wouldn't recommend this film to everyone, and especially not to anyone who doesn't like arthouse films, but I did enjoy it. Watch it if you like Paul Thomas Anderson films, maybe - it does that whole "different lives intertwining through a series of coincidences" thing quite well, although that isn't really its focus.
• Shutter: Asian horror movies since Ringu have all looked really formulaic, sort of like attempts to just jump on the Asian horror bandwagon while it's still a cash cow. While Shutter sticks to a fairly simple plot, and many of its scares are predictable enough, on the strength of the ones that aren't, and its clever ending, I'd say this is definitely a cut above the rest. Frankly, although it isn't as terrifying as Ringu and will probably not take the world by storm quite as much, I think it's much more coherent as a film. If you're not in South East Asia and haven't heard of this Thai horror movie yet, don't worry - I'm sure you'll be able to watch some Hollywood remake starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ashton Kutcher in the near future.

[Speaking of Asian horror, Bedok cinema is apparently screening a film called I Know What You Did Last Raya. Intriguing.]

Whatever Froats Your Boat

Dom sent me the photo of the Waraku menu she took when we were there last week, and I think it's worth sharing.

Next time I'll try Calpis.

The Poet's Occasional Alternative (Grace Paley)

Today's Writer's Almanac poem is so William Carlos Williams:

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
- The Poet's Occasional Alternative (Grace Paley)

Bridget Jones 2: The Edge Of Three Good Reasons

My mum: So when are we watching Bridget Jones 2?
Me: Are you sure you want to watch it? The reviews have been very bad, you know.
My mum: Hmm...but what about Colin Firth?
Me: Oh, I've heard he's as hot as always.
My mum: So when are we watching Bridget Jones 2?

So we did.

The reviewers were right. Unlike the first film, which permitted Bridget to look attractive in many shots, the sequel must have been trying to outdo Cold Mountain in a bizarrely sadistic Just How Ugly Can We Make Renee Zellweger If We Really Really Put Our Minds To It competition. She spends most of the film gurning frantically and waddling around like Grimace. While the Bridget of the first film does seem a fairly good representation of the average-sized English woman, the Bridget of the sequel looks more than a few Jammy Dodgers heavier than a size 14. (Perhaps they used a Marks & Spencer size 14. That would also explain her frumpy outfits.)

What was effortlessly charming and genuinely hilarious about the first film mostly fell flat here. Bridget humiliating herself on national television, this time by sky-diving straight into a pigpen. Shazzer's constant swearing. Bridget's embarrassing mum and henpecked dad. All of these rehashes of the first film had absolutely nothing new added to them to prevent them from seeming tired, mindless and lazy. And the new twist they did try to offer involving Mark Darcy's leggy assistant backfired in a really painfully unfunny scene towards the end.

I do acknowledge that they were working from very weak source material. As sequels go, The Edge Of Reason is to Bridget Jones' Diary as Emma Tennant's Pemberley is to Pride And Prejudice. (If you haven't read Pemberley, do not. Ever. Even if it was the last book on earth.) But seriously, dung beetles make better use of shit than this film did. Unfortunately, due to a rumour I've heard that the DVD release will feature that scene from the book where Bridget interviews Colin Firth (so essentially it'll be Bridget interviewing Colin Firth, played by himself), I might still find myself involuntarily purchasing it. Gah.

That brings us neatly on to the redeeming moments of this film. If I seemed to be suggesting there weren't any, I lied - there are three. One, Hugh Grant is hot. Two, Colin Firth is superhot. Three, Colin Firth and Hugh Grant trying to beat each other up are bloody hilarious. Let's take them one by one.

1. Hugh Grant: Daniel Cleaver is the only well-scripted character in this film, and Hugh Grant takes that and runs with it yet again. Describing the Sistine Chapel as "the first example of poof interior design gone bonkers" is a moment of glory for both him and the writers. Also, please give the Turner Prize to the bright spark who started giving Hugh Grant decent haircuts. His hair isn't as good in this movie as in About A Boy, which marks a trichological (and career) peak which he will possibly never scale again, but at least his fringe isn't floppy.
2. Colin Firth: Do I even need to explain this? Ceteris paribus, as far as films go anyway, an English accent will always be sexier to me than almost any other (Irish and Scottish accents are up there too, no prizes for guessing which accent is waaaaay down), a broody man sexier than a goofy one, and a human rights barrister sexier than pretty much anyone or anything except possibly Julie Delpy. (See review of Before Sunset.)
3. Colin Firth and Hugh Grant fighting like girly-men: In my view, better in this film than in the first. Location-wise, I like the Serpentine Gallery more than The Real Greek, though that might just be bitterness from my underwhelming and expensive meal there speaking. Soundtracking the fight with I Believe In A Thing Called Love as they flail and flounce around is a stroke of genius. Good lines - "What are you going to do now, drown me in sixteen inches of water?!" - and the ouch, baby, very ouch snipe Daniel Cleaver gets in right at the end of the fight. (I won't spoil it.)

It Took A Lifespan With No Cellmate

One down, a lifetime more of heavy-lidded days to go. I've started work. Many rude shocks were involved with today. Waking up before noon. Being forced to use Internet Explorer, in which this blog looks like ass. (To everyone who views this site through IE, I'm not actually as mentally, structurally and aesthetically challenged as that browser makes this blog look.) Being told by my friend that my recent haircut, which I thought was subdued enough to help me blend into corporate zombiedom, is apparently still noticeably funky.

On the bus ride home I was trying to persuade myself to listen to happy harmonizing Northerners but found I was more in the mood for dark starburst guitars and a voice like a cracked slab of concrete. I know everyone says Antics sounds too much like Turn On The Bright Lights, but discussions on musical evolution and the sophomore album are really quite irrelevant when you're teetering in a crowded bus with your iPod volume too high, heading home on the first day of the rest of your downhill life, because when the chorus hits in Evil, and Paul Banks announces "You're WEIGHTless, you are exOTic, you need something for which to care" - for a moment, you almost forget where you are.

Excerpts: Notes On A Scandal (Zoe Heller)

I don't usually do my whole excerpt thing until I've finished a book, but only 62 pages into Zoe Heller's Notes On A Scandal I've already marked so many passages that I think I'll need to do this one in instalments. The very last sentence quoted, in particular, is one of those lines which is so incredibly, bitingly, spot-on that you wonder why you never realized it before you read it.

* * *

I used to run into Sue Hodge quite a lot. Being smokers, we both tended to nip off at lunchtimes for a fag at La Traviata, the Italian cafe down the road from St George's. We never sat together. There was something of a froideur between us, dating from an occasion a few years earlier, when Sue had caught me sniggering over one of her class worksheets entitled, "Dem Bones: the cultural roots of the negro spiritual". Sue is a frightfully pretentious woman - always making the children do expressive dances to Pink Floyd and singing "American Pie" with them, playing her horrid little banjo. Underneath all that free and easy hippy malarkey she is actually the most awful prig - the sort of woman who wears Lady-Lite panty liners every day of the month, as if there is nothing her body secretes that she doesn't think vile enough to be captured in cotton wool, wrapped in paper bags and thrust far, far down at the bottom of the waste-paper bin. (I've been in the staff toilet after her and I know.)

Alas - and this was what made Sheba's interest in her particularly incomprehensible - Sue is terrifyingly dull. A living anthology of mediocre sentiments. A woman whose idea of an excellent bon mot is to sidle up to someone on a hot summer day and bark, excitedly, "Hot enough for ya?" Many years ago, before the negro spirituals incident, I had the misfortune of spending half an hour waiting with Sue at the bus stop. At some point she actually turned to me and declared, in the halting, exultant manner of a person who was just then minting a delicious epigram, "You wait - when the bus finally comes, there'll be five of them right behind it."

* * *

Like so many members of London's haute bourgeoisie, Sheba is deeply attached to a mythology of herself as street-smart. She always howls when I refer to her as upper class. (She's middle, she insists; at the very most, upper-middle.) She loves to come shopping with me in the Queenstown street market or the Shop-A-Lot next to the Chalk Farm council estates. It flatters her image of herself as a denizen of the urban jungle to stand cheek by jowl in checkout queues with teenage mothers buying quick-cook macaroni in the shape of Teletubbies for their children. But you can be quite sure that if any of those prematurely craggy-faced girls were ever to address her directly, she would be frightened out of her wits. Though she cannot say it, or even acknowledge it to herself, she thinks of the working class as a mysterious and homogeneous entity: a tempery, florid-faced people addled by food additives and alcohol.

* * *

At least once a term, Pabblem makes the entire staff attend a special lecture given by some sour-faced young person from the education authority. Because he is a progressive bully, the subjects are always things like Meeting the Challenge of Diversity, or Teaching the Differently Abled. Shortly before Sheba came to the school, he set up a system called Morale-Watch, which requires all staff members to fill out a weekly report card on their mental and spiritual health. (Any admissions of dissatisfaction are rewarded with agonizing follow-up interviews, so naturally everyone always fills in the cards with slavish avowals of personal joy.)

* * *

"Oh, no," Sue broke in. "It's true. Men are such babies. They need to be told how bloody marvellous they are all the time. They're insecure, that's the thing. They need their egos stroking, don't they?"

I waited for her to stop, so that Sheba could finish what she'd been about to say. But she kept talking. "Women are too canny to be taken in by flattery. If Ted says something nice to me, I know he's after a bit of nooky. That's the other thing. Men are such dogs, aren't they? Brains between their legs!"

I have never enjoyed this kind of women's talk - the hopelessness of the other sex and all that. Sooner or later, it always seems to degenerate into tittering critiques of the male member. So silly. So beneath women. And funnily enough, the females who go in for this low-grade misandry are usually the ones who are most in thrall to men.

Rahzel Who?

Ever seen anyone beatboxing and playing latin jazz guitar at the same time? Well, now you can (a scissorkick exclusive). Before this, the most impressive beatboxing I'd seen was Killa Kela doing I'm A Slave 4 U complete with beats and breathy Britney vocals but this guy sure gives Kela a run for his money.

Cover Girl

I don't actually agree with a lot of the Telegraph's 50 best cover versions ever recorded, but it's inspired me to chase some leads down all the same. I have high hopes for Johnny Cash doing One, and don't quite know what to expect for The Bangles doing Hazy Shade Of Winter. While I'm trying to find those, here are my random thoughts about some cover versions I like and some cover versions I don't. I see them as falling into three main categories, namely:

Paying Homage:
Indie bands like covering classic indie songs because it gives both the band and pretentious wankers like me in the audience the opportunity to show how we're, like, totally in touch with Where It All Started by cheering in recognition and conspicuously mouthing all the lyrics. The problem is that unless you're actually able to do something interesting with the song, there is no fucking point. Grandaddy's cover of Pavement's Here is a case in point, as is Death Cab For Cutie's attempt at Bjork's All Is Full Of Love. Neil Young gets covered a lot, but while I like the idea of Emmylou Harris doing Wrecking Ball and the Pixies doing Winterlong, the covers don't sound like much more than people singing very pretty songs very prettily. The most successful one I can think of in this category (although I'd love to be told about anything I've missed) is Nirvana doing Lake Of Fire. There's something about Kurt Cobain's guttural "Where do bad folks go when they DIEEEEEEE" and "Don't see 'em again till the fourth of Ju-LAAAAIIIII" which suits the song better than the pleasant harmonies of the Meat Puppets' original.

Ironic:
This is the cover version where the artist says "I'm totally secure with my existing amount of cred, so I'm gonna sing something incredibly uncool now because I'm subversive that way." I have to admit that I never find it that hard to enjoy ironic cover versions, because quite often I love the original song too. Travis did Hit Me Baby One More Time as a staple in their live shows at some point, but I prefer Richard Thompson's Oops I Did It Again because his voice is so much more authoritative than Fran Healy's and he puts in all these great acoustic guitar solos. My favourite ironic cover of the past year has been Ben Gibbard's cover of Complicated. Ben Gibbard's voice gets on my nerves sometimes, but here its winsome, almost overly-earnest quality sounds absolutely perfect. Also, the idea of him singing "Trying to be cool, you look like a fool to me" to a room full of trucker-capped, thrift-store-T-shirted, vintage-Converse-sneakered indie clones amuses me.

Complete Re-Imagining (but in a good, non-Planet-Of-The-Apes-2001 way):
How can Tricky's Black Steel only be 29 in the Telegraph list? I'm too lousy at writing about music to think up a new way of describing how and why I love this song, but I stand by every word of my past gushing. The Slits' post-punk I Heard It Through The Grapevine kills me every time with its crazy vibrato on the high notes, and every note of The Darkness's Street Spirit is basically a crazily vibrating high note. If you haven't heard Christopher O'Riley's piano adaptations of Radiohead songs, Fake Plastic Trees is a great place to start. (And Jamie Fucking Cullum's attempt at High And Dry, now advertised every five minutes on Singapore TV, makes me want to stuff his grand piano up his arse.) Will Young doing Hey Ya and Nick Cave doing Disco 2000 may seem like they should be in the Ironic category, but I've decided they belong here because both these covers actually make you realize how melancholy the original party classic songs actually are. You haven't heard pathetic pleading until Nick Cave's begging "What do you do on a Sunday, baby? Would you like to come and meet me, maybe? You can even bring your baby..."

How You Gonna Have A Dream Come Truuuue?

And so, on Friday, my life as a student finally ended. As usual, given that I'd had about two hours' sleep the night before, I didn't mark the end of exams with anything even vaguely hedonistic. I had a nice lunch with my mum, went to the library (due to exam stress there was a ONE WEEK period where I didn't have any library books out, and it was terrible. I filled the void by rereading Watchmen, but I always like having something new and sexy along with my old comfy reads) and then to Waraku where I enjoyed ordering my first kaminabe (yes, I still find silly coincidences of language like this funny).

Apart from my fuck-yo-mamma steamboat, I was pleased to find a selection of "froats" in their drinks menu. (Edit: Picture added! Here.) After considering the charms of various froats, I eventually made the mistake of choosing alcohol instead and going with an oolong tea-maccha liqueur mix, which tasted like Pokka green tea I could buy from 7-11 except that it cost about 8 times the price. Ida ordered a dessert called "Pear for the Voluptuous" and I made a cruel joke. At one point the conversation turned to dreams. I said I often dreamt about my teeth falling out, and everyone was certain it meant something, though they weren't sure what. I said I often dreamt about being chased by a shadowy figure, and everyone was certain it meant something, though they weren't sure what. Then Fay said she had dreamt about being chased by the shadow of a penis.

Up Where He Belongs

I didn't vote for Will in Pop Idol 1 because I was running a debating tournament on the day of the finals. I couldn't vote for Fantasia in American Idol 3 because duh, I wasn't in America. I've never voted in an election in Singapore because until recently my MP was the Prime Minister and my constituency was walkoverland. So tonight I took all the votes I'd never cast in my life and threw them all at Taufik.

Taufik Batisah, for the amount of money I spent voting for you tonight I could have bought a brand new Devendra Banhart CD at HMV's usual exorbitant import price BUT IT WAS ALL SO WORTH IT BECAUSE YOU WON, CONGRATULATIONS TAUFIK BATISAH!!!!!

NON-MALAYS FOR TAUFIK, BIG UP YOURSELVES!!!

[The final was actually rather bad. Both of them seemed worn out, and who could blame them. I would be worn out too if you expected me to sing The Reason and All For Love and look as if I was enjoying it. Sylvester was unmitigatedly terrible on It's My Life, Taufik's voice sounded strained for the first time ever on the new song, and oh yes, the new song is really lousy.]

But anyway. In every Idol competition I've watched, my favourite has won, which is nice. It must suck to lose. Then again, I've always thought it must also suck to appear on national television doing incredibly moronic smirks and juvenile rock posturing, but apparently that didn't seem to bother Sylvester much. As much as I cuss and swear along the way about the superficiality of the Idol public, it does usually seem to get it right in the end. Yay for talent!

Meeting People Isn't Easy

I envy people with great stories about meeting people they admire. Benny has his about meeting DJ Shadow in a London newsagent. Jordan at said the gramophone has this lovely two-part tale about his odyssey to see Cat Power at a festival somewhere in Switzerland (he didn't actually know where in Switzerland, though, which is what makes the story even cooler).

I, on the other hand, am unable to interact with people I admire without appearing like a complete idiot. I chickened out of saying hello to Zadie Smith the time I saw her on Torrington Place on my way home from the supermarket. I stammered something excruciatingly inane to Malcolm McLaren when he came to speak at a UCL Debating Society event the time he was considering running for London Mayor. In front of Neil Gaiman my mind went blank, and it didn't help that he was drawing me a rat because then all I could think was NEIL GAIMAN IS DRAWING ME A RAT OH MY GOD.

Even my brushes with almost unknown indie musicians descend into humiliation the moment I try to tell them (sincerely) that I like what they do. I am aided along this expressway to embarrassment by Alec, who either makes things worse or laughs at me.

Take, for example, the time we went to the Arts Cafe for a Ladybug Transistor gig, and were extremely impressed by the (unadvertised) opening act, Bart Davenport. Emboldened by alcohol, we approached him later to buy his CD. Alec, whose memory for names leaves much to be desired, had forgotten the guy's name but inexplicably decided to try and address him as something anyway.

Glancing quickly at the CDs on the merchandise table as he extended his hand in greeting, my favourite Alzheimer's patient saw "BART DAVENPORT" but only the first four letters of the surname registered. Hence - "Dave!" said Alec enthusiastically to Bart Davenport, "Great performance Dave, I really enjoyed it!" etc. and with every "Dave!" more and more bits of my composure crumbled into a little mortified pile on the floor. Luckily, "Dave" was so sloshed that I'm not even sure he noticed he was talking to a pair of nimrods, and thank God for that.

I accomplished the next indignity all by myself, and this still smarts so much I'm not even going to name the band. It was the first time we went to the Water Rats, and I was really impressed by one of the opening bands. They looked really young - they were wearing the sort of clothes I associate with teens who desperately want to scream their indieness to the world - but they had catchy songs, strong vocals and lots of energy. Sadly, only about 15 people were watching them, and most of the people who weren't us looked like their friends from school. This upset me a bit, as it always does when people don't get the appreciation I think they deserve, or the credit they're due. I thought they had real promise, and I was hoping they weren't discouraged by the tiny audience. I wanted to tell them I thought they were great. I didn't want them to give up on music.

So later on, when I was on the way to the bar to get my third Snakebite (you see the problem already) and saw the band hanging around, of course I went up to them and started a conversation.

Me: Hey, I really enjoyed your set.
Band (different members each time, we'll just call them Band): Thanks very much!
Me: You sound great, how long has your band been around?
Band: About three or four years.
Me: Cool, no wonder you sound so good. If you don't mind me asking, how old are you guys?
Band, giving me the first of many strange looks: Late twenties, mostly.

(This is where it all started to go pear-shaped for me. Late twenties??! Their dressing screamed 17!)

Me, thrown off now, clearly gobsmacked: Oh, right, right.
Band: You look surprised.
Me: Oh, er, no, I, uh, thought you looked a bit younger than that.
Band: Oh, really?
Me, gabbling stupidly while I tried and failed to move on: Oh, er, it's nothing, I must have been mistaken. I was, uh, just noticing the people watching just now looked really young, I thought maybe they might have been your mates. (Inner monologue: What the fuck are you saying, Michelle? WALK AWAY NOW.)
Band, giving me the second of many strange looks: No, we don't know them.
Me: Oh, right. Heh. Hmm. But anyway, you guys sounded really great!
Band, smiling tentatively: Thanks, we're glad you enjoyed it.
Me, clearly possessed by some demon of dorkness: Do you have a good sound guy, or is the venue sound system just really good? (Inner monologue: WHAT THE FUCK??! WHAT THE FUCK?! Ground, swallow me up now, I mean motherfucking NOW!)
Band, giving me the fuckteenth strange look: Well, the venue system's pretty good.
Me, now completely in bits: Right, right. Okay, gotta go deliver the drinks. Best of luck and all! (Walking away rapidly, not daring to look back.)

So I walked back into the other room, plonked the drinks down, grabbed Alec and started banging my head repeatedly on his chest.

Every day I thank every deity that could possibly exist in this world and the next that I haven't met Sonic Youth or Salman Rushdie yet, and I hope I never do.