Kinsey

I seem to have enjoyed this film less than many other people have. Set-pieces depicting the dogmatic preacher father, sex-researcher garden parties where they all talked about sex, and the closeminded colleague determined to hinder Kinsey felt very contrived. I also found the graphic montages of maps and faces they used to evoke the researchers’ interviews conducted across America rather pedestrian, though if they were (for some reason I am unaware of) trying to recreate the feel of a 70s documentary then I guess they succeeded.

Nevertheless, it was a good film in other respects – I thought Laura Linney was great, there was one seriously laugh-out-loud moment (I won’t spoil it for you, you’ll know it when it comes), and while it gave due recognition to the importance of Kinsey’s work, it also didn’t shy away from acknowledging that untrammelled sexual liberation can sometimes really fuck things up.

Shall We Not Review Shall We Dance?

(An entry I half-wrote a while back and have now completed.)

I like to think that I possess enough maturity, intellect and aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate films that other people find challenging. I’m able to sit through films with slow-moving or even barely-existent plots, I’m not put off by films with content that may offend or anger, and I’m usually ready to let good acting from just one member of the cast save an otherwise unredeemable film experience.

But even by these standards, Shall We Dance was a real struggle.

I’m not actually going to talk about Shall We Dance, though; unlike other movies which have failed to impress me, it’s too forgettable even to bother excoriating. It’s just that Pei Ee and I had a long tradition of watching dance movies together to maintain, and we wanted to ogle Richard Gere. I just hope Alec will some day find it in himself to forgive Pei Ee’s husband for suggesting that we make it into a couples outing.

But anyway, the following entries will be scattered notes (not reviews per se, those require actual focus and knowledge) on some slightly better films I’ve watched in the last month or so, mostly just so I can remember I’ve watched them.

Ugliest T-Shirt In The Free World

Shao’s comment to the last chicken pox post amused me because of the T-shirt I’m wearing at the moment in yet another attempt at chicken-related humour. I’ve tried to find a picture on the Web but it’s so hideous that I guess no one sells it any more. Therefore, for posterity’s sake I suddenly feel the need to capture its fugliness here.

Ugly tee front
Front fug
Ugly tee back
Back fug

No, I don’t know what I was thinking either. It was one of my first dates with Alec, so I pretty much started our romantic life by horrifying him with my sense of style. All I can say in my defence is that we’d shared a bottle of wine for dinner and had had to drink it fairly quickly because the gig was starting soon. So, in a rush and high on the heady mix of alcohol and crush hormones, I made my biggest (I’ve made other mistakes, but at least they didn’t involve paying £15 for a butt-ugly T-shirt) fashion faux pas ever.

I challenge any of you to beat that.

Review + Excerpts: Vernon God Little (DBC Pierre)

Vernon God Little isn’t a bad read at all, but I’d personally classify it as a borrow-don’t-buy. I was extremely impressed by it, but as someone who reads purely for leisure (okay, and perhaps an occasional intellectual brownie point), I haven’t the faintest desire to ever read it again. It would probably make a fairly good movie, but only if Tarantino directs.

DBC Pierre’s prose is stingingly funny, but the plot is ultimately frustrating for the rational reader, which makes the suspense in the ending fall flat. The entire story is dependent on accepting that the protagonist, who sees the world through glasses so bitingly perceptive that they would best be described as gunmetal-tinted, is more inept at proving his innocence (of a schoolyard mass-murder) than an eight-year-old child would be. At times I was reminded of my exasperation while watching The Blair Witch Project, after which I seem to remember proclaiming “People that fucking stupid really just deserve to die!” a little too loud on the streets of London.

However, if you’re going on holiday, or are sick in bed and need something rollicking(ish) and entertaining(ish) and which pokes merciless fun at fat small-town Americans, you could do much worse than Vernon God Little. Here are two vulgar passages from it to help you decide. If you don’t like them, don’t read the book.

* * *

“Man, remember the Great Thinker we heard about in class last week?” he asks.

“The one that sounded like ‘Manual Cunt’?”

“Yeah, who said nothing really happens unless you see it happen.”

“All I remember is asking Naylor if he ever heard of a Manual Cunt, and him going, ‘I only drive automatics’.”

* * *

“You never heard of the paradigm shift? Example: you see a man with his hand up your granny’s ass. What do you think?”

“Bastard.”

“Right. Then you learn a deadly bug crawled up there, and the man has in fact put aside his disgust to save Granny. What do you think now?”

“Hero.” You can tell he ain’t met my nana.

“There you go, a paradigm shift. The action doesn’t change – the information you use to judge it does. You were ready to crucify the guy because you didn’t have the facts. Now you want to shake his hand.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I meant figuratively, asshole.”

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.

‘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.]

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.

What would you name your 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.

Cuppage Plaza lifts, Singapore

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.”