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The Drool Of Law

2 vignettes from my working life:

1. I detect a slightly sour smell on the lapels of my jacket.

   After some sniffing and recoiling, I come to the conclusion that I must have fallen asleep (at my desk) and drooled on myself at some point earlier in the day. How very embarrassing.

2. I have a little free time while waiting for a colleague to come give me work, so I start reading this perfectly normal, perfectly innocuous, merely wanky, i.e. totally work-safe (or so I think) "Best Triple Bill You've Ever Seen" thread on ILM just to take a break for a few minutes. Then someone posts "Missy Elliot" in reply to the thread title and I choke loudly and messily on my masala tea just as said colleague arrives. How very embarrassing.

Now I have to go to the dry-cleaner's again. KNN.

Non-Cheesy Cheesy Poem

"And you and I, paring away the rind,

do you and I have a patient nose
for the creamy inwardness of things?"

- from The Demise Of Camembert (Ron Slate)

Read the whole poem, the quote doesn't do it justice at all.

Caramon The Copycat

Plagiarism disgusts me. Therefore, caramonyeo disgusts me. If he disgusts you too, please feel to drop by his site and let him know what a loser he is. (Link found via Tomorrow.)

His response to comments which pointed out that he had plagiarised sarongpartygirl?

"I am surprised that its indeed similar, however its not the same.. thanks for pointing it out.. cheers.."

Newsflash, copycat: it doesn't have to be the same to be plagiarism. Google it yourself to find out more. After all, you seem quite good at trawling the Net for content.

I was also amused by his "About Me" description:

"Well, to know more about me is like reading a book."

Yeah, like reading a book...written by someone else!

Addendum: Just in case copycatyeo decides to delete the comment I made on his blog, I shall reproduce it here. In the past I've been quite sad to lose the comments I left on Xiaxue's blog which she decided to delete (and ban me as well), and I'd rather like to keep this one.

Caramon: Your flaccid response disgusts me, as it should any blogger, Singaporean or otherwise, who actually takes the trouble to apply their mind to writing their own posts. It will obviously take years for you to bed a local girl if she fears that the minute she opens her legs you will Ctrl-C her chee bye and Ctrl-V it on your blog.

It's quite easy to give credit to people whose writing you admire, you know? There's this thing people use on the Internet, it's called "linking". Perhaps you've heard of it?

You've been caught good and proper. At least be man enough to admit it and apologize.

Meeting In Meatspace

I must admit I don't actually read the blogs of most of the people who were at Hideout last night, but it was nice to see them all getting along so happily anyway. mrbrown explains how it all happened here, complete with trippy facewarped photos.

Apart from reproaching Daryl for playing Gigantic with insufficiently huge bass (contrary to what he tempted me with previously), congratulating mrbrown on having his third baby on the way, telling Mr Miyagi that rather than appearing sick to his stomach he merely exuded "quiet confidence", chatting briefly with 2 sarongpartyfrens, and being reassured by Little Miss Drinkalot that over the years, one does actually manage to re-adjust to being in Singapore and not London, I mostly sat shyly to one side with Alec and listened to the choons. Which were not as much to my taste as the last time (I prefer my house darker, colder and scarier - "haunted house", if you will), and I had to leave just as he started playing some indie, but I still look forward to future sets by DJ Slapdash. Do a hip-hop one, Daryl!

And to the few people I did manage to chat with, albeit awkwardly and plagued by my old bad habit of not making eye contact, it was a pleasure meeting you.

One, Two, Three, Four...

...I declare Kitten War!

If there's a kitten cuter than Squee in the universe, I fear I may not survive seeing it.

Addendum: a slightly odd conversation I had with Alec last night.

Me: At this Kitten War site there's a kitten that's shooooooo cute! It's called Squee! There's another kitten called Sox that's cute too but there's something special about Squee that I really like.
Alec, eyes half glazed over: So, is Squee a black kitten?
Me, surprised: Yes! How'd you guess that?
Alec: Well, in all these contests, you always like the black one.

[To put things in context, here are some recent reality TV favourites of mine: Fantasia, LaToya, Jennifer, George (LOVED all of them in American Idol 3), Uchenna and Joyce (Amazing Race), first Anwar and then Vonzell after Anwar got boring (American Idol 4).]

Ubin Witch

I took this picture in a Pulau Ubin quarry last Sunday, but only saw the witch's face later when I viewed the photo on my computer screen. It's not just me who sees her, right?

* * *

Later, we tried to take photos of ourselves in another quarry and were less than pleased with the results.

Russ, who had long abandoned his shirt: I look so gay!
Me: Well, I guess the nipple doesn't help.
Russ, noticing his photographed nipple for the first time: Aaagh!
Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Russ: STOP LAUGHING AT MY NIPPLE!

It echoed across the calm waters as the sunset bathed everything in gold.

Are You Ready To Scratchcratchratchatch?

Great news in my email from Jeremy: Kid Koala is coming!

18 June at DXO, the last weekend of my pupillage. ROCK!

Let's just hope I'm not a drunk strumpet by the time he starts doing Drunk Trumpet.

KL Notes

Our long weekend in KL was exceedingly pleasant but not particularly blogworthy. I'm just writing my notes here for future reference, but if you're after more interesting stuff I promise to try and post my Pulau Ubin photo of a scary witch-face rock fairly soon.

Ate well: yummy chicken porridge on Jalan Alor, great pork ball noodles and poh piah on Jalan Imbi, the biggest otak piece I've ever seen in my life at Madam Kwan's (thanks Benny!), sublimely moreish joo hoo char at Old China Cafe, fun at Kim Gary's with Macau pork sandwiches (thanks to umami's review) and boiled Coke with ginger, and last but by no means least, Nando's. I know Nando's isn't particularly Malaysian but as far as I know there aren't any branches in Singapore, and we like it lots.

Sightsaw slightly: Ogled the Petronas towers like everybody else, wandered from mass at St John's cathedral past the Masjid Jamek (beautiful mosque, pity about the overwhelming smell of sewage) and Merdeka Square, then down the Petaling Street market crush where I found it laughable that anyone would actually buy anything.

Shopped badly: like many other intense sensual experiences, this second shopping trip to Sungei Wang just didn't live up to the first. Bought nothing worth mentioning.

Met up with Benny: for dinner and a trip back to his house, during which he illustrated a few of the differences between Malaysia and Singapore. "Eh, 'dilarang masuk' lah!" I said, as he blithely steered his car past a big DILARANG MASUK sign. "This is Malaysia lah!" Benny said, "The sign only means you shouldn't enter, not that you cannot enter."

Generally took things easy: Sleeping in hostels formerly used for housing refugees (Zagreb), backtracking from irrelevant bus stops along Polish highways in search of unpronounceably named salt mines and national parks, exploring the ruins of Ayutthaya on foot in the blazing sun - these things are for other holidays. In KL we take cabs, feel no compulsion to seek out "culturally enriching experiences", and sleep till noon every day. Quite a refreshing way to holiday, once in a while.

And So It Goes

Via J-Walk, and The Huffington Post before that, this is apparently from Kurt Vonnegut:

Dearest Iraq:

Act like me. After 100 years of democracy, let your slaves go. After 150, let your women vote. At the start of democracy, ethnic cleansing is quite OK.

Love you madly!

Uncle Sam

Do you guys like Kurt Vonnegut? This quote makes me feel like rereading Slaughterhouse Five but I'm strangely worried that I won't like it as much now as I did when I was 15.

Wakeboard The Blue Sky

Saturday morning was my third wakeboarding outing. I can now heel, toe, move outwards over the wake, and move back in over the wake.

Saturday morning was Russ's first wakeboarding outing. He can do all of that too. Either I'm a slow learner, or he's fucking annoying.

Also fucking annoying: his sixpack.

But be not deceived by the attitude I'm faking in order to conceal my innate sappiness. Truth be told, the feeling of wakeboarding past kelongs, seagulls in my peripheral vision and two people I love in my sights, was fucking wonderful.

Flea Love #2

My body was the furthest it's ever been from a wonderland after wakeboarding on Saturday morning, but I was determined to make it to Flea Day that afternoon after my steals the previous time. My progress was slower this time due to my near-inability to return to a standing position after squatting to look at a stall's wares, but it also meant I looked at stuff more carefully and spotted things I might otherwise have missed.

1. CD: Curvatia (Spacek), $2

2. Chunky red stone/bead bracelet, $2

3. Red and yellow retro Volkswagon pin, $1
   
   
   
4. Turquoise tee with two robots dancing below the words "No Wave", which pressed my music geek buttons so seductively that I couldn't help but buy it even though it's a little big, $4


5. Black strappy purple stripey top with elasticized waist and buckles at the straps, am still deciding if it looks funkily retro or as if I have no taste, $4
6. Emerald green sleeveless tee with old-school superlady comic graphic, $2
7. Grey Ghostbuster tee! $6

CDs I passed up reluctantly because they were $6 each and I think that's too high for a flea market where I have no guarantee they'll even work and may never see the stallholder again:

• Tri Repetae (Autechre)
• Psychic Hearts (Thurston Moore)
• The Whitey Album (Ciccone Youth)
• Steady Diet Of Nothing (Fugazi)

"There are spots on this one," I said, pointing to the back of the Tri Repetae disc. "Oh, I think that's just mould," the guy said. Fair enough, I understand it's a flea market and stuff isn't new, but I'd like to urge any flea market CD sellers reading this to please provide a CD player for testing! A Discman would do, after all. I'm a discerning customer who's more likely than most to recognize the music you've got to offer, but I still won't pay more than $4 if I can't be sure I'm not just stocking up on coasters.

Haw Par Villa: Hallucinations, Hell And The Hokey Pokey

Spread the word - Haw Par Villa is the best trip you can have in Singapore without risking a criminal record.

[For non-Singaporean readers: Haw Par Villa is a statue park in the west of Singapore, built in the 1930s by two tycoon brothers who made their fortunes in Chinese medicinal ointment, and it's full of garish life-size statues commissioned by the brothers to portray stories from Chinese mythology and traditional Chinese values.]

Haw Par Villa's been terminally uncool ever since that spectacularly failed "Chinksney" themeparkesque revamp in the late 80s, but no one seems to have noticed that they've since reversed many of the ill-advised changes that led to its downfall. It's free to get in again these days (apart from the $5 parking charge and the $1 entry fee to Hell), and they've removed all those ridiculously kitsch additions like the rides and shows. So now, just the ridiculously kitsch original statues are left.

I took first Alec and recently Russ to it, and I think I wouldn't be overstating things to say they both left a little changed by the experience. I don't usually like to post too many photos in an entry, but my words really can't do justice to the lurid reality of Haw Par Villa on their own, so forgive me if you're on a slow connection and this entry takes a while to load. As usual, click on the photos for larger versions, and oh, be warned: CONTAINS WEIRD STATUE NUDITY.

HELL

In an apparent battle of oneupmanship with Dante, there are 10 courts in Chinese hell, where various cruel and decidedly unusual punishments await various kinds of sins. This was always the highlight of my childhood visits, until the revamp made Hell into a boat ride - how do you linger and gawk at a man being disembowelled by a misshapen demon when you're stuck on a freaking boat? The idiocy.

So anyway, Hell has gore galore, trees of knives¹ and very pleasantly, the only air-conditioning in the park. The women on the left are "prostitutes getting drowned in filthy blood".

¹ Very Jake & Dinos Chapman! See Great Deeds Against The Dead on this site (click on the bottom right thumbnail graphic).

 

Apart from the long-necked demon and the guy's dinky pinkies, I also really like the official doing the hokey pokey in the background.

 

FLESH

Apparently, bad girls in Chinese mythology don't look much different from bad girls in the 21st century. I have a suspicion the brothers rather liked these particular girls, the tableau is quite lovingly elaborate. I guess sometimes Madam White Snake just ain't enough.

 

I realize Singapore used to be a more swinging place than it is now, but really, I was under the impression this was a family park. It isn't so much the nudity of the mermaids that unsettles me a little, it's their...agility.

 

Actually, I was willing enough to grant the brothers those earlier fantasies. After all, which guy doesn't want to fuck a mermaid? This little "accident" on the left does seem a little gratuitous though, and it somewhat detracts from the park's later tableaus on filial piety.

 

FUNK

Man, look at those cool cats. I'd happily go out clubbing tomorrow in that girl's outfit, but I'd be hard-pressed to match the guys' groovy moves.

 

STONED SEALS

Self-explanatory.

 

WTF??!!

I always thought Dadaism was primarily a European movement, but clearly it must have had some influence in Asia. If any of the following pictures actually make sense in Chinese culture, please feel free to educate me.

What would Freud make of this? What do you make of this? I don't know. I only know what No Signboard Seafood would make of this.

 

So this is Russ, standing between the kiwis, taking a picture of the tortoises, which are wearing hats and riding on ostriches. Obviously.

 

Who knew that chickens led such climactic lives? Or required underwired lingerie, for that matter?

 

ACTUAL ATTEMPTS AT "PHOTOGRAPHY" PHOTOGRAPHY

Close-up of one of the figurines in a tableau. I can't remember what story it was illustrating exactly, but no doubt he was lacking in traditional Chinese values and therefore deserved his grisly end.

 

I was quite fond of this tentative gorilla. He looks all shy and self-conscious, uncomfortable with his gorilla-ness. I bet he listens to indie music at night when the park is closed.

 

This gate is tucked away in a corner of the park, a little distance away from a gigantic but otherwise unremarkable statue of Kuan Yin. We loved the gate and spent quite a while taking photographs of it, attracting occasional "Uh, guys? The sights are over here" looks from other visitors.

 

The Singapore press loses no opportunities to trumpet Singapore's latest international rankings in all manner of things, but I bet you didn't know that Haw Par Villa is regarded by some as one of the 7 Kitsch Wonders Of The World! That puts it on the same level as Graceland, man! Why this sort of achievement neber highlight as "Uniquely Singapore" one?²

² Again, for my non-Singaporean readers, that's Singlish for "Why has a laudable achievement such as this not been highlighted as part of the ongoing tourism campaign which is somewhat ungrammatically named "Uniquely Singapore"?

I Hope Brian May Was Wrong

Wakeboarding on Saturday morning - my back's killing me.

Clubbing on Saturday night - my hips are killing me.

Cycling on Pulau Ubin on Sunday - my legs are killing me.

Karaoke screaming on Sunday night - my throat's killing me.

Saw my best friend Russ off at the airport this morning, after a series of wonderful weekends with him, during which my boyfriend Alec and my entire family did their best to make our time together as lovely as it was because they knew how much this visit meant to Russ and me - my heart's killing me.

Too much love for one person to bear, and I've never figured out what I did to deserve any of it.

The Dude Abides In Streatham

The Guardian reports from The Dude Abides, an annual festival for London fans of The Big Lebowski (held in Streatham Megabowl, Matt!):

"Alongside myriad versions of The Dude (lank hair, woolly cardigan, shorts) there was every interpretation of the film's significant scenes you could think of: three men in red Lycra catsuits were wielding giant scissors, re-enacting a nightmare The Dude has about having his testicles chopped off by nihilists; the wheelchair-user Jeffrey Lebowski mentions having his legs blown away by "some Chinaman in Korea" - a Chinaman turned up clutching two severed legs."

I salute the Chinaman. London needs more cool Chinamen.

Don't Know About You But I Am Un Chien Andalusia

I enjoyed Daryl's set at Hideout yesterday, but it exposed me to a danger that had never occurred to me before.

When he played Debaser, it was the first time I'd ever heard a Pixies song played out loud in public (in my head doesn't count) and I suddenly realized that my usual private Pixies-listening routine of mad pogoing and fractured screaming should probably be suppressed. So I just bopped a little and hissed "un CHIEN Andalusia!" to Alec pretending it was a sweet nothing, and all the while Black Francis impressions were bubbling up in me like tics in a Tourette's sufferer (yes, I'm reading Motherless Brooklyn at the moment, how'd you guess?), and I'm just really glad Daryl didn't play Caribou because neither Alec nor I are able to sit through that one without swaying from side to side like drunk yogis and singing "cariBOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUU" and I think that might have been quite embarrassing.

2004 List: Six Songs

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, I decided to write about some of the music I'd really enjoyed in 2004. I do realize it is now May 2005, which means that as far as a lot of the indie music press is concerned, The New "The" Band are now where it's at, and The Old "The" Band are, like, so five minutes ago, and my shitty writing about 2004 music is totally off the radar.

But I care not! Behold as I fly in the face of convention - not, mind you, out of feisty sticking-it-to-The-Man rebellion, but sheer inability to follow it. My various song and album lists have been staring me in the face for months, but I've been continually prevented from actually writing about them by serious duties such as smacking the Pingu and other similarly weighty online tasks.

So here it is, my Six Songs I Really Liked In 2004 But Which Weren't On Albums In My Albums List (Forthcoming, Seriously!) For Said Year And Which I Haven't Already¹ Written About list!

• Me Plus One (Annie):
  Everyone keeps going on and on about Chewing Gum, Heartbeat and The Greatest Hit, which are all wonderful, but I seem to be the only one who's craziest over this one. This is the best song S Club 7 never made, slinky bass, spunky beats, Annie sing/speaking her way through verses like "Mrs D, Mrs I, Mrs F F I, Mrs C, Mrs U L T. If ever there's a girl who could rock your world, then that girl sure is me! (Right!)" and then we're into the chorus, O joyous chorus, "feeling good, I'm top of the pops", and for the video in my head we're all tiny bubble-shaped dancers in a glass of Lucozade.

• Get On Dis Motorcycle (Petey Pablo feat. Bubba Sparxxx):
  If you still say you're jaded of Timbaland productions after listening to this one, I will kill you until you are dead. Never on God's sweet earth has there been a more glorious union of manipulated kiddie-singing samples, frenetic bhangra pluckings, and classic crunk growl.

• Greetings In Braille (The Elected):
  This song is a perfect little slice of alt-country lo-fi electronica with wistful nostalgic lyrics that sound great in the context of the song but look bad when quoted as email signatures. In other words, this song is emo as fuck, but don't let that discourage you. It's real purty.

• Paint The Moon (The Czars):
  For the first two minutes or so this sounds like standard-issue Czars material - very pretty, but in a way that blends into the larger prettiness of the album rather than standing out as a song in its own right. Then we hit the bridge, the bass and guitars suddenly assert themselves, the harmonies get really lovely with "Let it go, let it go, let it fall down from the sky and leave this world behind", and after this you don't resent the subsequent return to verse-chorus-verse because when a song's taken you that high you have to come down some time.

• Parliament Square (Stina Nordenstam):
  I love midnight walks in parts of London that are crowded during the day, but deserted at night. This is a song for those walks, where less is not just more but everything, where even the silences contain multitudes and the timelessness of the great city envelops you. Against wintry piano, restrained guitars, and a saxophone like a lonely busker hoping against hope that his day isn't over, Stina sings a photograph: "It may be silent, but I hear bombs fall. I hear sirens down in Whitehall. I see fires around you, Paul, but you stand so still and you look so small."

• Atmosphere (Technova):
  I don't know when this was made, but I only heard it for the first time when Andrew Weatherall put it at the end of his Fabric mix, thereby making it the only dance mix that has ever made me want to cry. The beautiful synths in the Joy Division classic become the heart and soul of this remix, which I now wish I could have had as the secret soundtrack for the end of all my great clubbing nights in London. For me, it perfectly captures it all, the lights coming on in the club as you realize you finally have to leave, the tiredness beginning to set in as you wind down from your sensory overload, but also the quiet joy that keeps you walking to the tube station - and if it's winter, and still dark after 6 a.m., those synths light your way like sparklers in slow-motion.

¹ Stuff I've mentioned before: Galang (MIA), Evil (Interpol), You Make Me Like Charity (The Knife), Baby Boom (The Crimea), and These Are Your Friends (Adem).

Pissing The Night Away

I'd been looking forward the whole of last week to my firm's Pupils Bash on Friday, because lawyers are such great party people!

Gotcha.

The real reason was that free flow of drinks at Cocco Latte = FREE FLOW OF HOEGAARDEN ON TAP, YAAAAAAAY! to me. Sadly, upon arriving and bounding merrily to the bar, I was informed that the club's arrangement with my firm didn't include Hoegaarden as part of the free flow. Crushed, I therefore drowned my sorrows with 10 assorted shots of tequila and vodka, 2 beers, 1 vodka and lemonade, 1 JD & Coke, and finally a session in the obligatory firm Dentist's Chair during which tequila was poured down my gullet. By the way, the only other two pupils I saw who weren't afraid to drink and weren't embarrassingly drunk by the end of the night were both guys, and all three of us studied in England. Go figure.

By the time Alec joined me at 11.30, many people had left, been brought home, or were stumbling around drunkenly outside, and no one seemed interested in staying to dance. Since I wasn't in my comfy dancing shoes and was feeling a bit peckish, we left too and went to Newton for a sotong, stingray and Tsingtao supper with Jacob, Ian and Chiho.

A random mention of pool during supper got our hearts set on a pool game at 4 AM, and an Indian stall uncle (or it might have been the bengs at the next table, I forget) said to try Selegie Road, so off we went, to a roadside bar which looked as if it had been expecting 100 rally-car enthusiasts to show up but which was starkly empty. "In the absence of booze, I've ordered us 3 cheesecakes," Jacob said, and they were good. I think we played 3 games, during which Alec beat Jacob, Jacob beat Alec, and I fell asleep halfway during my game so I don't know who won but I certainly lost.

KNÖBGÅÅGS

Far funnier jokes about IKEA product names have been made by people far funnier than me, but what the hell. Surfing the IKEA website in search of a frame which would fit the fantastic poster Russ brought me from London, I was very impressed by the following products:

• KOLON floor protector "protects flooring and flat-woven rugs against wear and dirt." Cost: $69.
• KONJUGAT curtain rod is made of powder-coated steel, "can be extended with enclosed connector", and "cut to desired length with a hacksaw."
• Finally, VÄGIS key cabinet. Consists of 3 compartments for mobile phone, small items, "etc".

I didn't find what I was looking for though, boo. Does anyone know where in Singapore I can find an affordably priced frame big enough for a 85 cm by 120 cm poster?

Skycatcher

One more photo from the weekend. This was taken at Gilman Village, but the building itself is on Alexandra Road. I was just experimenting with some tips Russ gave me last weekend on using the spot meter, and am quite happy with the results here.

Things Fall Apart

I realized on the bus home yesterday that, completely unintentionally, I was reading a book set in a leper colony and listening to Disintegration.

And because I clicked "Preview" and this post looked a little short the way it was, I shall end with a terribly tasteless joke. You know what prostitutes like about lepers, don't you? Yeah, they always leave a tip.

Labrador Park

Some photos from the weekend. These were taken at Labrador Park. (Click for larger versions.)

(makcik: Malay lady, usually middle-aged or older.)