These links have been making the rounds on lots of blogs lately, but since I definitely go through long periods of being out of the music loop because I’ve disappeared down some other rabbit hole of obsession (more on this in a future post if I decide I’m not too embarrassed to write it), I figured I’d put them here too in case any of you happen to be like me.
Also, I know my recent posts have been nothing but photos, and although I’m really happy with how my photography’s been going I think I should remind myself that it is also good to write words.
Two friends of mine (with two other people I don’t know) edited GASPP: a Gay Anthology of Singapore Poetry and Prose, so I thought I’d pimp it here. Proceeds from its sale go to the Counselling and Care Centre, a non-governmental, non-profit agency offering psychological counselling services and training for mental health and social services professionals, so that’s nice.
Okay, you got me. I’m all for supporting good causes, but actually the real reason I mentioned this here is to show you the best autograph I have got in a book since Neil Gaiman drew me a rat:
Taken with a phonecam, terrible milk shake pun honestly unintended at the time of the photo but totally intended now.
Due to my blog redesigning efforts I spent a couple weekends in a PHP/CSS fog, but I’m out now and trying to catch up. I am, however, still tinkering with various shiny new WordPress toys, like this way of displaying photos. What do you think? (If you prefer to page-down through bigger versions of the photos the usual way, just follow the “Continue reading” link under the gallery.)
[slickr-flickr type=”gallery” flickr_link=”on” size=”medium” tag=”weekend30oct10″ sort=”date” direction=”ascending” descriptions=”on”]
Last weekend was relatively quiet because I descended into a blog redesign pit on Saturday and didn’t really emerge till about 3 am on Sunday night. Apart from going to church on Sunday, I literally didn’t leave the house during daylight hours the entire weekend, which is why I’m rather grateful the Nex-3 takes excellent (handheld!) low light photos.
* * *
BBQ stingray at Boon Tat Street Seafood, Glutton Bay:
Installation art in the Esplanade foyer:
Giant squids attack Marina Bay! OK no, they’re part of i light marina bay, a sustainable light art festival, which is probably better to explore if (unlike us) you choose a night unblanketed by haze:
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright / In the (skyscraper) forests of the night:
Couple on the Helix Bridge:
Light installations on the casino side of Marina Bay:
In the shopping area of Marina Bay Sands, where it appears I am unlikely to ever buy anything:
Disturbing signage, East Coast Road:
Pre-supper snacking (Nam San Mackerel Otah), Joo Chiat Road:
Actual supper (Long Phung Vietnamese Restaurant), Joo Chiat Road:
Since Candlenut Kitchen doesn’t seem to have garnered many reviews on the Internet so far, I guess it’s a tiny bit more worthwhile giving my two cents on it than, say, agreeing with the vast number of other people who rightly observe that Everything With Fries is deeply mediocre.
We ate there last week on a quiet Thursday night, the meal an unexpected but happy consequence of workday Facebook noodling where Chin Chai Chef mentioned in her status that she was drooling over pictures of the restaurant’s food, and I suggested the next logical step.
Kueh pie tee: Very appealingly presented with the four hot, crisp pie tees nestled in a bed of sesame seeds. I sprinkled a generous amount of the seeds over the top of my pie tee. There was a strong flavour of pork in the filling which I wasn’t used to, though – if you like pork this is fine, but it is a bit of a surprise if you’re just expecting juicy turnip tastiness.
Chap chye: This is where I admit I’m a bad Peranakan – I don’t like chap chye and never have. But since the only other vegetable option on the menu was sayur lodeh, it still made sense to pick such a quintessential Peranakan dish over something we could get at any nasi padang stall. So I can only say that this was fine, no better or worse than any other chap chye I’ve had. But given that vegetable dishes have formed some of the highlights of meals I’ve had at other Peranakan restaurants (bayam pais from True Blue back when it was on East Coast Road and affordable, also jantung pisang kerabu and sambal terung from Peramakan), it would be great if Candlenut Kitchen could add at least one or two more vegetable options to its menu.
Babi pongteh: This is where I admit I’m a bad Peranakan again. I’m not a big fan of pork, so my opinion of this dish would be lukewarm even if Emily of Emerald Hill herself cooked me this dish using pork from the laziest pig in the Straits Settlements and tau cheo fermented in the tears of the Little Nonya. So let me give you Alec’s view instead – despite the colour of his skin and his shocking inability to sew beaded slippers, he’s probably eaten more Peranakan food in the five years he’s been here than many Singaporeans have in their lives, so I think it’s a fair substitution. While he liked the tenderness of the meat, he found the gravy rather one-note, lacking the complexity he’s enjoyed in other versions he’s had of this dish. He would have been happy with the dish if he’d cooked it at home or had it in a food court, but for restaurant prices he was expecting something better.
Ayam buah keluak: Obviously, no review of a Peranakan restaurant is complete without such an appraisal. I liked this, the chicken was very tender and the gravy and the paste in the nuts robust yet not overpowering. The serving comes with three nuts but you can add extra nuts for $2 each. Go ahead, you’re worth it.
Chendol cream: A coconut milk panna cotta topped with the “green worms” and a generous drizzling of gula melaka syrup. I thought this was a creative twist on the traditional dessert, and a very pleasant closer to the meal.
Apparently, Candlenut Kitchen is the fledgling effort of a young, talented chef eager to use the skills he learned in culinary school to streamline the production of Peranakan food, which is traditionally labour-intensive. While I still favour Peramakan for its consistency, variety and value for money, I wish Candlenut Kitchen the best and hope that the restaurant will be successful enough to survive and grow into its strengths. With useless Peranakans like me around who can’t be bothered to learn how to cook these dishes at home, we need all the passionate restauranteurs we can get to keep this glorious cuisine alive.
Hasty phonecam photo before messy bak kut teh gobbling at Sin Heng Claypot Bak Kut Teh, Joo Chiat:
Wandering through the Botanic Gardens after brunch at Halia:
Hasty over-the-counter shot before messy yakitori gobbling at Kushigin, Cuppage Plaza:
Karaoke song cycle:
Tokimonsta being awesome at Home Club:
Dinky being adorable on my family’s living room floor:
This is the first in what will hopefully become a regular series. It’s not an original idea, but I’ve decided to give it a try for a number of reasons. One thing that’s been making me sad about this blog for the past few years is that apart from sporadic travel updates, I stopped using it as a record of events in my life. It is a wonderful repository of memories from my university years, a small collection of selected events from the first few years I was back in Singapore, and a gaping void of nothingy nothingness from, probably, the time I got engaged and onwards.
Of course, some say that if you’re out there living life too fully to have time to write about it, you’re doing things right. But no person as addicted to my laptop as I am deserves to use that as an excuse, so I won’t. Instead, I’m just going to try and repurpose some of the time I already know I can’t help but spend in front of my computer towards doing something that will make me happier in the long run, rather than suddenly realizing that my greatest accomplishment over the past 5 hours of mindless surfing has been clearing my Google Reader backlog.
So yeah, weekend snapshots. They’ll give me a built-in timeline for updating this (again, I would much rather do this here than Facebook) and opportunities to give my cameras regular airings. Most importantly, due to the strange little thing that is the human mind, it’s been my experience that recording the fun things I do can be a great impetus to keep finding fun things to do, and that having a camera with me opens my eyes to beauty that would otherwise pass me by unnoticed.
* * *
All photos except the last were taken by my new baby, the Sony Nex-3, which I’m intending to write more about some time soon. Since I’ve only ever used compact digital cameras with built-in zooms, I wasn’t sure how best to use the 16mm wide angle lens that came with the camera, so I forced myself to use only that lens for the whole day on Saturday. I’m still getting to know it and as always, comments on the photos are welcome, especially if I’m doing something wrong!
Outside wall of dbl 0, Queen Street:
Sashimi platter at Standing Sushi Bar, Queen Street:
Ridiculously large Vietnamese water pipe owned by husband:
Window shopping for a personal Jesus, Queen Street:
Entrance lobby, Singapore Art Museum (Queen Street branch):
View from a basket of durians, Queen Street:
WTF, Peninsula Shopping Centre:
Chefs at work in Chef Daniel’s Kitchen, Iluma:
Light fixture, Iluma:
Giant stoned Doraemon in Mushroom video arcade, Iluma:
Down escalator, Iluma:
Happy Cities exhibition (part of Archifest ’10), Iluma:
Blue cheese gelato from Coccogelo, East Coast Road (taken with my still-beloved Fuji Finepix f31fd):
A while back I highlighted some podcasts I’d quite enjoyed, and I’d like to continue that because it helps me keep track of them too. So here’s NPR All Songs Considered’s Odd Musical Pairings podcast, which I liked because I’ve always had an interest in musical collaborations, and why some work while others don’t.
Most of what they featured was already known to me, but The Face Of Love (Eddie Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan!) was a much-welcome discovery. They followed this up with Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash doing Girl From The North Country, making for a one-two punch of awesomeness which made me hate myself for not having listened to Nashville Skyline in about nine years.
As for the collaborations that didn’t work, it’s a pity the podcast page already tells you the full playlist, because knowing what’s coming somewhat spoils the unfolding tragedy of Bono’s verses in his I’ve Got You Under My Skin duet with Sinatra. Still, if you’re the sort that enjoys watching horror movies with unlikable characters in them just so that you can savour watching them die, check that massacre out.
I tried to come up with picks of my own to make this post less parasitic, but found it harder than expected. I have one clunker which everyone else seems to love, and some favourites which aren’t really that “odd” once you go a little past the initial incongruity of the pairing. But what the hell, I’ll list them anyway.
Let’s get the clunker out of the way first. I know the Alison Krauss and Robert Plant album got shitloads of acclaim but I found it very lacklustre. There are a few pretty songs (I like Your Long Journey), and kudos to Robert Plant for not being all Led Zeppy, but when you pair a leading light of bluegrass with an icon of blues-rock, you do expect to hear a bit of both in the end result. Instead, Alison Krauss sounds beautiful as usual but the songs she’s singing lack the verve and personality of her work with Union Station, and Robert Plant just sounds like a good backup singer. I could play the particular examples I’m thinking of, I suppose, but life is too short to listen to boring music. So here’s one of the better results of the collaboration: Gone Gone Gone.
And now for some favourites:
Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield: What Have I Done To Deserve This – Dusting off (sorry!) retro divas for modern collaborations has been done before (cf. Take That featuring Lulu on Relight My Fire, KLF featuring Tammy Wynette on Justified And Ancient) but I like this one best, for the inimitable elegance of the song and how Dusty blends in so perfectly without any of the vocal scenery-chewing that tends to result in these situations.
Loretta Lynn and Jack White: Portland, Oregon – Only odd if you don’t already know about Jack White’s passion for American roots music. He’d been persona non grata in my iPod for a while because of how violently I dislike Seven Nation Army, but his contributions to the Cold Mountain soundtrack and the amazing production he did for Loretta Lynn’s majestic Van Lear Rose album soon got him back in there again. This ode to the joys of a sloe gin fizz-fuelled hookup is an inspired match – both are in fine voice, his ebullient guitar work underlines the chutzpah of her singing, and I adore the chemistry they have in the video.
Mariah Carey with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony: Breakdown – Such collaborations are routine in the late 2000s pop landscape, but were nowhere as common when this came out in 1998. I recall Mariah being one of the first big stars to start the trend, and this is one of the best of those pioneering efforts. Bone Thugs’ distinctive sound makes this more memorable to me than many of the other pop/R&B tracks that have been done since, and I especially like how Mariah’s own phrasing seems to echo theirs.
Hercules and Love Affair with Antony Hegarty: Blind – This wasn’t a pairing I expected to like, since I’m not a great appreciator of disco revivalism or Antony Hegarty’s singing style. But once taken out of the dreary atmosphere of I Am A Bird Now (sorry, it’s the only Antony and the Johnsons album I’ve listened to and I was bored stiff) and recontextualised in the upbeat, infectious melody lines of Blind, Antony sounds robust and vital rather than precious. I still remember the first time I heard this – one of the other girl DJs played it at Hacienda the same night I popped my DJ cherry, and I immediately realized that every single song I’d lovingly picked out and sequenced for my set had just been effortlessly eclipsed.
I don’t know how many other people out there also love pro wrestling AND Tori Amos, but since Mick Foley’s[1. I know him best as Mankind, so others my age may find that a familiar touchstone as well.] article about how Tori Amos changed his life was pretty much tailor-made for someone like me to enjoy on a lazy Saturday, I thought I’d share. I kinda love that it was also another wrestler (Maxx Payne) who introduced her music to him, and it is my firm view that lines like “my aim that night was to have the best barbed-wire match ever” improve any article they appear in. I don’t want to spoil the ending here, but you’ll find out how Foley’s repaid Tori for the inspiration she’s been to him, and it’s really rather heart-warming.
Wikipedia’s Mick Foley entry is, by the way, rather good reading, because the detached Wikipedia writing style only makes the ridiculous pro wrestling storylines it describes even more hilarious. Samples: