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Lindy-Hop Ya Don't Stop

The bad news is that I didn't get to dance with Frankie Manning as I'd hoped to. He didn't do the social dancing at night, which is fair enough given that during the day he continually amazed me with the dexterity and exertions he was still capable of. So if the man wanted to take it easy at night, I was happy to let him. Perhaps I still have a tiny chance at the Esplanade library tonight, where he's giving a talk (is there anyone else who can give a talk entitled "91 Years of Lindy-Hop" except this man?), but only if there'll actually be any dancing at the end of it. Anyway, I'm just grateful I got the opportunity to attend his classes - that alone was worth the price of admission.

The good news is that after lindy-hopping on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday (with Saturday and Sunday involving 6 hours of classes during the day, then social dancing on punishing concrete for several hours more), today my body is still mostly none the worse for wear. This is a nice change from post-wakeboarding Mondays when my body is a symphony of pain. Also, in the course of the camp I had the best slow dance and the most exhilarating fast dance I've ever had. Thank God the fast "dance" was only 45 seconds or so (during a class, with our hot Swedish teacher), or I don't think I could have survived the entire thing.

So here's to another fabulous weekend, and hopefully a lifetime more of lindy-hopping to go.

Frankie Goes To Sentosa!

There will be themes for the night parties at SEAjam this weekend. It is worrying that for Saturday night's theme of "LOUD!" I immediately know what I will wear, and for Sunday's theme of "Cooool" I'm clueless.

But sartorial choices are really unimportant in the context of my main goal for this weekend, which is to dance with this 90-year-old man. (To non-swingers: it's the equivalent of taking writing classes from Nabokov.)

I'm so psyched!

'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Galangal

I couldn't believe my ears. Someone I couldn't see in a room nearby had just broken out into what sounded like a line from one of my most-played songs of last year. In almost exactly the same way I'd gabbled the line in countless mad solitary post-midnight subwoofing dances in my room, she was saying "Galang galang galang", and even managing a fairly good approximation of MIA's singsong.

My first excited thought was that there might actually be someone in the office who listened to non-mainstream music. Although over the years I've grown used to having almost no friends who listen to the same sort of music I do, it's still really nice to meet someone who does. My second excited thought was that with my now-pathetic grasp of current music affairs, maybe I was just unaware that by now Galang is mainstream music and it's a hit! Either possibility would be cool.

And then the next line of the conversation burst both my hopeful little bubbles. She walked out of the room, followed by her friend, who was insisting "No lah, the best tau huay is at Selegie Road!" And what, then, did my ostensible fellow MIA-lover say? She repeated what she'd said before, same rhythm, same singsong - "Geylang geylang geylang!"

I'm crushed, but I might as well get something out of this disappointment - if you have a view on where the best tau huay is, please share.

[Note: This post is better understood if you are a) a music geek or b) familiar with places in Singapore, and best understood if you're both.]

Insert Cruiser Joke Here

More shipping lawyer fun - in the Lloyd's Register today, I found a ship called GAYDAR!

[I text-messaged Sue immediately to share this wonderful news. She replied telling me to search Lawnet for an article called The Meaning Of Meaninglessness.]

The little ways we get through the days.

Struggling With The Basics

My weekends are so packed that it takes me the whole week to try and finish writing about them, and even then I don't manage - I haven't begun editing my pictures of Sungei Buloh (last week), or written about the non-touristy joys of the Albert Square/Fu Lou Shou Complex area (Chinese New Year Eve), let alone write about the weekend that's just passed.

Beyond that backlog there are also the various inchoate posts I have about films I've been watching, music I've been listening to, and those infernal 2004 lists! (The top album and top song lists are still owing, and I'm actually still adamant on posting them, hopefully before 2006.) So at the moment, imagine blog entries about this weekend as faint shimmering mirages on the distant sands of a desert, and me the wild-eyed pucker-mouthed wanderer crawling towards them.

However, I can share this encounter with you quite quickly:

When lift doors opened at the Marine Parade library yesterday, a young couple who had been waiting outside barged in. The old lady who had been inside smiled a little bemusedly, holding the lift door open for them as they pushed by her. The guy was holding a large hardcover book - Society: The Basics.

Say My Name, Say My Name

This column breezily explores the inverse relationship between the quality of a band's name and their ultimate success, a phenomenon which has always amused me. And of course, I've whiled away many a dull moment by wondering what I'd name my band, though I usually take it for granted that we'd be destined for failure and therefore feel free to be a bit loopy.

• The Meaningless Plurals: No prizes for guessing which sorts of bands we'll be satirizing. But we'll also play the occasional Motown cover, with great tenderness.


• The Google Sex Perverts: Not originally my idea. Jonathan, who was once the only South African reader of this site and is now possibly one of many South African non-readers of this site (because I haven't heard from him for a while) came up with it in a hilarious comment thread on the previous incarnation of this site, and I've never forgotten it.
• I Am Spartacus: Yes, our songs will all only have 3 words and be very repetitive. How'd you guess?
• Boutros-Boutros Kweli: We will be the ultimate "positive hip-hop" supergroup. Common will beg to work with us and we'll say "Phooey, you're boring!" We'll let Hi-Tek produce us, but he'll have to change his name.
• Frau Farbischener: An all-girl Franz Ferdinand tribute band.

Nowhere Mall

They don't make them like Cuppage Plaza any more.

I haven't met many people who share my penchant for forgotten places and faded glory, which is why I'm so glad I have the Orgers to do things like drink in the Mitre Hotel, explore Potong Pasir, and sing KTV in the saddest, dingiest shopping centre in Orchard Road with.

Don's picture captures the listless, boarded-up feel of the place better than mine does, but I fell too much in love with the lifts and wanted to make them look beautiful.

Wakey Wakey

I have been meaning to write about wakeboarding for a while. Wakeboarding is lovely, though I certainly wasn't feeling quite so affectionate towards it while grumpily driving to Punggol for our 8 a.m. start on Sunday morning. But once we were the only boat out, speeding over a vast calm expanse of water in sun which hadn't turned scorching yet, with egrets in the distant shallows and an occasional gull, I realized just how much sense an early start makes.

Over the course of the morning, I was relieved to find that contrary to what my first attempt at wakeboarding indicated, I am not the world's most spastic wakeboarder. After various absurdly comedic falls, I finally managed to get to a standing position and coast along happily behind the boat for a fair distance.

So, two lessons in, here are some things I have learned about wakeboarding:

• Going for longer sessions with fewer people on the boat is worth the extra expense. You will learn faster and fewer people will witness your initial spasticity. But like Baz said, wear sunscreen.
• If you are short-sighted, and decide not to wear your contact lenses for fear of sewage-derived eye infections from the Punggol water, you risk missing everyone else's madly exaggerated instructions from the boat, such as when they jump around like monkeys to tell you to stop squatting and bloody stand up, or when they assume twisted hunchback poses to tell you that you look like a twisted hunchback.
• Falling onto your left boob hurts, even when it's onto water.
• When removing one's lifejacket upon returning to the boat, check first to see that your right boob has not slipped out of your bikini. Thank goodness the only other girl on the boat was the only person who saw.
• Wakeboarding is hazardous to boobs.

Does It Have A Law-minous Nose?

Work is stressful today, but even on bad days the law gives me little gifts. Like discovering that there exists a case called The Dong (citation: [1979] 1 MLJ 152).

(Apologies to any Edward Lear fans reeling in agony at the punniness of this entry's title. I'm too tired to think of anything remotely witty.)

Uncool Like Dat

Cool: After being horrified at the huge crowds outside Zouk on Wednesday night, fleeing to Cocco Latte to find DJ Koflow at the turntables with a damn good set, and a dancefloor with space to actually dance on. As Ida yelled "This is so good!" for the umpteenth time, and even Alec hippety-hopped away happily, I pitied the foo's suffocating at Zouk.

Uncool: Me. Espying Taufik or someone who really looked like him, and trying to pluck up the courage to go talk to him the whole night just to say "hey, really glad you won, voted for you lots, will support you in your career, keep it real, booyakasha" etc. and other embarrassingly inane things. At the end of the night when the lights had come on and everyone was on the way out, I approached him as he was chatting to Koflow and asked "Um, are you Taufik?" "No."

And The Winner Is...

...Rene, who wrote a really sweet sincere email about what this blog has given her over the years. I loved all the jokes everyone contributed, really I did, but in the end, being told that my blog actually meant something to somebody, and had done for several years, was what gave me the biggest and happiest smile. Sappy but true.

[Original post and competition rules]

So congratulations Rene, and thank you so much to everyone else who gave it a shot. I'm pretty happy with how this competition turned out, so I might try it again in the future if an appropriate giveaway object presents itself.

Till next time, let me leave you with a story:

This guy walks into a pub and half his head is a big orange. He asks for a pint of lager. The bartender says "Excuse me, I couldn't help noticing, but half your head appears to be a big orange."

"Yeah, had that for a while now," the guy says.

So the bartender says "How did that happen, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I was in this old junk shop," the guy explains, "and I found a lamp. I gave it a rub, and this genie appeared! He offered me the standard three wishes, so for my first wish, I asked for every woman I'd ever meet to fall madly in love with me. The genie waved his genie hands around and suddenly every woman was looking at me with sparkling eyes. For my second wish, I asked for a wallet with a million quid in it, which would never be lost or destroyed, and which would replenish itself whenever I spent any money. And my wish was granted."

"And the third?" the bartender prompted, leaning forward eagerly.

"And for my third wish," the guy said, "I said I wanted half my head to be a big orange."

Art Of The Mix

On Alec's previous visits here, failing to take him to a performance at the Esplanade was my most glaring omission out of many, but I finally remedied that on Friday. The SSO was doing Beethoven's 6th, Schubert's 2nd, and Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave from The Hebrides, and for the princely sum of $21.75 (that's total, not each), we enjoyed sound so divine from the third circle that even a sub-par SSO sounded great.

[I don't mean the SSO is generally a sub-par orchestra, I just mean they weren't really on fire on Friday. There were little timing hiccups here and there; perhaps they didn't gel with the guest conductor as well as they normally do with Lan Shui. Some harshness in the violins, and I think there was one clarinet screwup. Also the Allegro ma non troppo which starts the Beethoven felt a little too non troppo for my liking, but perhaps I was just too impatient to get to the rollicking third movement.]

My Esplanade bliss is nothing new, but being able to share the place that makes me happiest in Singapore with the person who makes me happiest in Singapore was rather lovely.

* * *

Chinese New Year reunion dinner on Sunday at Chef Kang's Canton Wok confirmed the fact that not only my mother but my entire extended family seems determined to make my boyfriend fat by forcing multiple servings of everything on him.

I'm not convinced that Canton Wok is "the best cze char in Singapore" as the newspaper articles claim, because I don't think I saw it at its best on Sunday night. I didn't have a problem with the ambience - eating on a cramped walkway in the depths of a Hougang HDB estate (a public housing estate) is fine by me - but the service was pretty poor. We waited for more than half an hour to be seated despite having made a reservation far in advance. When the first dish arrived we had plates but no chopsticks or spoons to eat with, cue exaggerated pawing motions at red wine chicken until the staff got the hint. Neither moist towelettes nor lemon water accompanied the crab, so anyone who wanted the rest of their meal to be non-sticky had to venture inside in search of a rather grotty basin.

Food-wise, some dishes were great (red wine chicken, crab with glutinous rice, coffee pork ribs, abalone and spinach), and others were pleasant but forgettable (steamed motherfucking big cod, those brown noodles which I think are called yu fu noodles). I'd like to go back there again to try dishes which were featured in the food reviews and looked really interesting, but weren't on the festive set menu. But anyway, Alec wasn't complaining. His mouth was too full.

* * *

And now Saturday. Toxic Jungle Saturday.

The party started off quite normal. True, the birthday boy had chosen to interpret the theme (The Beast Within) by wearing a snake in his crotch, but apart from that everything was fairly civilized.

Jacob's trouser snake

I hadn't bothered to tell people other than East-dwellers about the party, but was pleasantly surprised when Kelly and Patrick decided it sounded like an interesting change from Zouk and came along. Karen, who I'd never met, turned up too, en route to Thumper with Ken. Then Ida and David. Then Mayee and Shao and Hwee Yee and Evan.

Since I've never been much of a "Circulate, darling!" type, this would have been more than enough people to keep me happily and drunkenly and uneventfully chatting the night away. But Jacob had other plans. Soon after twelve he unveiled karaoke hour, as well as the girls he'd hired to be back-up dancers for the karaokers.

I think the plan had been for karaokers to stand on the small stage in the middle of the bar while singing their songs, and for the girls to then do their thang around the singer. Unfortunately, a problem soon emerged - people were singing soppy ballads instead of songs conducive to girls shaking boo-tay in knee-high stiletto boots. I was equally complicit in this bloody waste, having put my name down earlier for Nothing Compares To You. The girls managed some lesbian slow-dance action to this, but it still wasn't playing to their real strengths, and I felt guilty.

So when Jacob came round again saying they needed more songs to finish up the karaoke hour, I decided to revisit Toxic. I had expected to sing the song comfortably from my seat, while watching the girls shake boo-tay on stage. But the girls had other plans, and I didn't feel like forcefully resisting two girls wearing little more than knee-high stiletto boots and little strips of cloth covering their naughty bits. Who knows what may have given way in the course of a struggle.

Forgive me, Britney, for I have sinned

I certainly don't think of myself as an exhibitionist (at least insofar as anyone who keeps a blog can be said to not be an exhibitionist), but I like to be a good sport. Frankly I'd do it again. The girls were great.

The party went on for a couple of hours more after that. I had fun comparing childhood objects of lust with Mayee and Shao. Got beaten at pool by Alec, fuck! Continued on to Jacob's place after the bar closed for a prata and champagne supper. Then finally staggered home.

I like weekends.

Psychophant

It is not a good idea to find yourself crying with laughter at work as your pupil-master (for non-lawyers, that's basically your Big Boss Man) walks towards you.

It is even less of a good idea, when you see your pupil-master walking towards you, to switch hurriedly in panic from the cause of your tears to the Merchant Shipping Act, the end result being that you have to think of some way of explaining to your bewildered pupil-master why you are crying with laughter at the Merchant Shipping Act.

My First Meme

I've taken a while to grasp Mayee's baton, but never let it be said that I would turn down a rod when extended.

1. What’s the total size of music files on your computer?
11.75 GB. I try to keep things under control through a tedious and unbelievably anal routine of tagging, compiling, burning, tracklist printing, and finally cramming (into grievously overcrowded CD shelves). Please don't ask me for the number of songs, the files are already kept in three different places on the hard drive and I had to do some mental arithmetic just to get that first figure.

2. What is the last cd you bought?
Minesweeper Suite (DJ /Rupture), but it hasn't arrived in the mail yet.

3. What is the last song you listened to before you read this post?
Whaddit I Done (Animal Collective), which ended conveniently in time for Alec to get to sleep. I don't think it's very easy to sleep to Animal Collective, unless of course you're one of the people I saw them with in April 2004 (they were opening for Múm), who whispered "This is awful!" within the first five minutes of their set and promptly fell asleep. His loss.

4. Name four songs that you listen to a lot or that mean a lot to you.
I only get four? You might as well ask Mozart to pick four notes, the Pope to pick four Amens, and Bai Ling to pick four fucks. This is oppressive. But here's a list, if you insist. (I write my own rhymes, yo.) It'll probably be completely different if you ask me tomorrow, except for the first song.

• 'Cross The Breeze (Sonic Youth): Daydream Nation, and this song in particular, rewired my fourteen-year-old brain. I never listened to music the same way again.
• Twice The First Time (Saul Williams): I was eighteen or thereabouts. Music downloading was just beginning to take off, but obscure stuff was still hard to find (online, let alone in Singapore). Out of almost everything I was looking for, this was the only song I actually managed to find and download, and for a while it was one of a very few mp3s on my computer. I listened to it obsessively, freaked out when I lost it in a hard disk crash, and was eventually joyfully reunited with it when Jeremy gave me Xen Cuts. (A recentish post where I show it some love.)
• Complicated (Ben Gibbard's cover): Because it's hilarious.
• Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger (Daft Punk): Because it's perfect.

• Benny: Because it'll force him to update his frickin' blog.
• Don: Because he's just started a blog, and I'd like you all to go read it. And because he not only makes music but is brave enough to play it to a bitch snob like me.
• Laces: Because his answers would probably involve music I'm clueless about. Hurray!