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I know this second lapse into cat pictures will substantially harm whatever chances I ever have of cutting-edge indie cool cyberbabeness, but really, cutting-edge indie cool cyberbabeness doesn’t seem very important at all when you have a warm kitten fast asleep on your lap.
After 10 years on the Internet I am finally the stereotypical Web nerd whose site contains pictures of my cat. Oh happy day. :)
Last Exit To Brooklyn can be quite tough going, partly because of the style in which it is written, and partly because its subject matter is extremely harrowing at times. The abiding impression I have of this book is not of obscenity at all (it got banned in England in the 60s for this), but of rather profound sadness. Its characters are larger than life on the outside, and emotional cripples on the inside, though nowhere as cliched as my description makes them sound. It’s like Rent, except without singing or happy endings or seasons of love or la vie Boheme.
The first of the two excerpts below isn’t actually from the book itself, but from the introduction written by its publishers, describing the litigation surrounding the banning of the book in 60s England. The second is from one of the stories in the book. A bunch of drag queens are entertaining some guys they hope to hook up with, and everyone’s high on benzedrine.
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(From the Introduction, September 1968)
The first prosecution witness was Professor Catlin, an elderly sociologist, who was admitted exceptionally between two defence witnesses as he had to return to America. Catlin insisted on talking through Mr Neill, proclaiming among other things that ‘if this book is not obscene then no book is obscene’. While admitting that what happened in the book happened in life, he announced that he did not object to it in life but he did object to it in literature. The other prosecution witnesses were David Holloway (critic), Sir Basil Blackwell (bookseller and publisher), H. Montgomery Hyde (writer), Dr Dennis Leigh (psychiatrist) and the Rev. David Sheppard (priest and social worker). Sir Basil claimed that the book had depraved him, but it transpired that he had only read it because he had been asked to appear as a witness for the prosecution. The most telling of the prosecution witnesses was the last, the Rev. David Sheppard, who emerged as a naive and well-meaning man, sympathetic to the jury. He said he felt the book pandered to all that was worst in him, and had left him ‘not unscathed’. He was not cross-examined as to what he meant by this, but the assumption is that he found the book erotically stimulating.
* * *
(From the story The Queen Is Dead)
Tony kept leaning forward more and more, listening, laughing, making certain that each one was aware that she was listening to their story and enjoying it; trying to think of some little anecdote she could tell, some funny little thing that had happened or she had seen…or even something in a movie…she refilled her glass with gin, smiling at Goldie; nodded, smiled, laughed, still trying to think of something funny, even slightly humorous, thumbing through years of memories and finding nothing - Well how about leslie? - O!!! that filthy thing - she goes through Central Park about 5 in the morning looking for used condums and sucks them. Holy Krist. Well I have a john who makes me throw golfballs - we had a kid upstate who stuck a life magazine up his ass and couldnt get it out. The - O I love the ones who almost cry when they are finished and start telling you about how much they love their wife and kiddies. And when they take out the pic - O I hate those freaks - Hey, how about that guy the Spook met in the Village that night who gaveim 10 bucks for his left shoe. The Spook toldim he could havem both for 10 bucks and his socks too - Goldie kept looking at Malfie and the way his hair waved back into a thick DA; and Georgette leaned closer to Vinnie and everyone seemed so close, as if they belonged to and with each other and everything was wonderful - Did Francene ever tell you about that Arab she met one night? Well honey, he just fucked her until she thought she would turn insideout. O, that must have been divine. - Camille looked nervously at Sal - It is so refreshing to meet a man who will give you a good fucking. Yes honey, but she almost had to have a hysterectomy.
We’d been hearing a kitten crying from the empty house next door for the past two days, so today my mum and I went over to investigate. She came running towards us, mewing loudly, the moment we appeared.
We carried her home and put her in the back bathroom with a box, an old T-shirt and some shredded newspaper for kitty litter. She wouldn’t keep quiet while my mum was trying to tutor a student, but promptly fell asleep purring once put on my mum’s lap and stroked. She’s friendly, not in the least bit scared of us, and spent most of the evening stalking my feet.
I don’t know if we can keep her or not, because I used to have all sorts of allergies when I was a child, and we don’t know if I’ve grown out of them yet. We’re also rather fond of our furniture and would rather not have it scratched to bits by a feisty cat.
But I kind of love her already.
I’d been meaning to go watch a Wild Rice Theatre production for ages, but stuff like Masters exams, extreme stress, lack of money, and not being in the country kept getting in the way. After watching For The Pleasure Of Seeing Her Again last night, I now realize those were all lousy excuses.
In a world full of tributes to mothers, this one still touched me to the core. Neo Swee Lin was made for her role, and is unsurprisingly magnificent in it. To say too much about the ending would ruin it for you, but it is beautiful and hilarious and absolutely perfect for the play.
It has been a very long time since a piece of theatre grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and reminded me that despite the very best that cinema has to offer, despite theatre ticket prices many times more expensive than movie tickets (even including popcorn), there are still some ideas only theatre can convey, and some stories only theatre can tell. This was one of them. If you are in Singapore, you have till Sunday the 29th to see it, and you really really must.
I’ve been meaning to write about music for so long, but my listening has been too scattered and unfocused for the writing of reviews per se. Still, it’s been making me very happy.
I got Sonic Nurse and Aw Cmon/No You Cmon a couple of weeks ago. After spending three years on Django Music’s notify list for President Yo La Tengo/New Wave Hot Dogs, I finally got my bite at the cherry, and the album arrived today, hooray! Of course, I never only buy one album from Django at a time, so Black Heart Procession’s 2, Low’s Long Division and The Frames’ For The Birds are on their way too.
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Sometimes music on record store sound systems can grip me with an unexpected intensity. I think it’s because my experience of music most of the time is so utterly solitary that hearing something in a setting that isn’t my bedroom feels strangely special, like a sudden realization that yes, this music is real, it exists for other people too, it’s not just some beautiful dream of mine that will fade into oblivion even as I struggle to remember everything.
The last time I was in London, I hit Berwick Street like a commando, determined to get through my favourite shops within the short amount of time I had. As I riffled steely-eyed through huge handfuls of CD sleeves, Will Oldham’s Viva Last Blues on the Reckless Records speakers steadily seeped through every chink in my fierce concentration it could find. Finally, I couldn’t continue with my browsing until I’d found out what it was and how much it would cost me. (A little too much, it turns out. But it’s on my Django notify list now, and as usual my patience will probably be rewarded in time.)
On the second floor of HMV the other day, they were playing Adem’s Homesongs (finally available in Singapore! But, as always, at a price I can’t afford). At some point I decided I’d finished looking at what they had on the floor, and wanted to head to the third level to look in the dance section, but then These Are Your Friends started, and I just couldn’t leave. I was slowly going mad with joy and trying my best to keep looking normal, walking around aimlessly, pawing a CD every now and then but I wasn’t seeing or registering anything. All I knew was that cracked, earnest voice, that querulous guitar, the way everything in the song has fragility and conviction at the same time like the tensile strength of spiders’ silk, and as the song’s mantra “Everybody needs some help sometimes” built and built I felt like bursting into a wild run down the aisles like a kid pretending to be an aeroplane.
“Privacy is a destination,” coos the billboard advertising the new condo development next to my house, with bedroom windows which will look straight into mine. Asswipes. Now I have to pull the blinds down if I feel like being nude.
For almost all my blogging life (nearly four years now) my blog has been rather like an ostrich with its head in the sand. Until now, it has refused to acknowledge, at least on its front page, that other sites exist on the Web.
Linking to other sites is the palm grease of the blog world. At best, they notice you in their referrer logs, click on your URL and go whoo, here’s a new blog I haven’t read before, my god! it’s fascinating, I must add it to my sidebar too! At worst, they ignore your attempt at emotional blackmail because they refuse to mislead their public by linking to a site they don’t actually like enough to read much, and you languish in obscurity forever - being enough of an exhibitionist to have started a blog in the first place, this is obviously not what you want.
I, of course, have remained above all this, not out of any nobility of character, but out of sheer laziness. But no more. Tonight, sheer boredom took on sheer laziness and finally won. If your site is there but you’d rather I removed it, please let me know.
In the past two weeks I’ve seen one excellent film, one fairly good film, and one godawful film, and as usual, it’s the godawful film which inspires a blog entry.
Once you accept that House Of Flying Daggers is ridiculous, badly scripted, and incredibly self-indulgent, it’s actually a lot of fun. Perhaps if I’d taken this approach to Crouching Tiger (equally godawful) I’d have gotten more enjoyment from it.
Takeshi Kaneshiro’s character is basically Legolas, except for the black hair and lack of pointy ears. Zhang Zhiyi is Zhang Zhiyi, ’nuff said. Andy Lau is annoying and ugly, but that predates the movie.
Of course, the cinematography’s pretty enough. Lots of panoramic sweeps of landscape to the soundtrack of a gently weeping erhu. People flying, daggers which dodge and swoop like smart missiles, bamboo groves getting hacked to bits - all the usual wuxia suspects. What’s not to like?
Everyone kept bursting into laughter at bits of the movie which were meant to be dramatic, which was a nice change from when I was the only one cringing at Crouching Tiger in the Curzon Soho. An especially hilarious snippet of dialogue was at the climactic showdown between the two male protagonists:
**SPOILER WARNING**
Leo (Andy Lau): It is not I that have killed her! YOU have killed her!
Jin (Takeshi Kaneshiro), looking incredulously at Zhang Zhiyi lying in the snow with the dagger in her chest which was thrown by Leo: Me??!!
Leo: YES! Because she has betrayed me for you, you have FORCED me to kill her! You must die! (Gimlet glare)
Jin: No. Because YOU have killed her, YOU must die! (Gimlet glare)
Both men, simultaneously, while rushing towards each other with swords brandished: AAAAAAAAAAAAARHHHHHH!!!
In contrast, The Return had no screen idols, no famous director (it was Andrei Zvyagintsev’s first film, to which I can only say HOLY SHIT he’s masterful), and no big budget, but it was one of the most exquisite movie experiences I’ve had lately.
In the same way that every scene in The Girl With The Pearl Earring was like a painting, every scene in this movie was like a photograph. I lost count of the number of scenes I wished I could have stills for, the number of times soundtrack and scene combined to stunning effect.
The actors (adult and children alike) took a screenplay that had already breathed depth and subtlety into their characters, and gave it wings. Not understanding Russian, I obviously couldn’t spot dumb dialogue here the way I could for House Of Flying Daggers, but I have a hunch there were no similar transgressions.
No one could call it a fast-moving film, but I was putty in its hands. As the movie progressed, I was alternately intrigued, tense, and ultimately very sad, but I was always riveted. I know next to nothing about Russian cinema, but I’m keeping my eye on this director from now on, and I’ll go to considerable lengths to watch anything he makes in future. You should too.
[I’ve talked about the “godawful” film and the “excellent” film, but I won’t bother with the “fairly good” film because that was Fahrenheit 9/11 and I’m feeling too lazy to bother with the rigour that its subject-matter would deserve in a review.]
“I had just dropped out of the faculty of law after six semesters devoted almost entirely to reading whatever I could get my hands on, and reciting from memory the unrepeatable poetry of the Spanish Golden Age. I already had read, in translation, and in borrowed editions, all the books I would have needed to learn the novelist’s craft, and had published six stories in newspaper supplements, winning the enthusiasm of my friends and the attention of a few critics. The following month I would turn twenty-three, I had passed the age of military service and was a veteran of two bouts of gonorrhea, and every day I smoked, with no foreboding, sixty cigarettes made from the most barbaric tobacco. I divided my leisure between Barranquilla and Cartagena de Indias, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, living like a king on what I was paid for my daily commentaries in the newspaper El Heraldo, which amounted to almost less than nothing, and sleeping in the best company possible wherever I happened to be at night. As if the uncertainty of my aspirations and the chaos of my life were not enough, a group of inseparable friends and I were preparing to publish without funds a bold magazine that Alfonso Fuenmayor had been planning for the past three years. What more could anyone desire?”
* * *
Gabriel Garcia Marquez rOxOrS so much. This already feels like an autobiography and a half, and I’m only 20 pages into one book of an intended trilogy.
After Edu-Dine on Friday I walked from City Hall to Boat Quay to meet Ken and Ida for drinks at Hideout. It was a cool night, and my higher-than-usual heels were surprisingly comfortable, so I walked. Round the back of Parliament House, past The Arts House, light playing on its walls to an actually rather charming version of that “Let’s take a little trip around Singapore town on a Singapore city bus” tune. Across Cavenagh Bridge, dotted with tourists oohing and aahing at the view of the Esplanade, facing one way, and down the quays, facing the other. Two real cats among the Kucinta sculptures.
In Hideout, Colin messaged asking if I wanted to go to Phuture, but I decided my toes were too vulnerable in my dressy shoes. When we parted ways for the night, I meandered through the streets, taking an extra-long route to the not-so-nearest bus stop, simply because I was enjoying the walk. Along South Bridge Road, tourists stopped me and asked for directions. I directed people to Clarke Quay, to the Fullerton Hotel, to the War Memorial Park. I finally reached Hill Street Fire Station, which I’ve always rather liked, and waited just beyond it for the bus home.
There seemed to be a buzz and a euphoria in the air that I don’t usually sense. The tourists seemed genuinely excited by what they were seeing, and where they were, and amazingly, I was too. Singapore is beautiful by night, whether you’re looking at gleaming restored colonial buildings around the Padang, the dark quiet hulk of skyscrapers in Shenton Way, or the fluorescent town centres in the housing estates.
A year on from my return, and I could actually stand to watch the National Day Parade today. I still rolled my eyes at a lot of the commentary eg. “This lively dance truly reflects the passion of our youth for arts and sports!” but I watched the singing of the national songs happily enough.
I’m still not sure I can sing along to Home with all sincerity - if home is defined by “where my dreams wait for me” and “where my senses tell me” then I’m afraid we’re still pretty much stuck in London. I’ve also always found the line “This is where I won’t be alone” particularly meaningless, in that I am addicted to London precisely because I can be completely alone there and still completely blissful.
But progress is being made, albeit in baby steps. My Friday night walk was a taste of what’s possible for me and Singapore, even when we’re all alone.
