Colin Lust

Colin lust has reached a dangerous high after watching Pride And Prejudice (again) over the weekend with my mother and sister, and taking my mother to see Bridget Jones’ Diary on Tuesday.

At this point I can only think of three things that reduce me to gibbering idiocy: fantastic music, Mulder & Scully love, and gorgeous men. I must say this hints at disturbing levels of residual adolescence.

In my defence, I suppose it can be said that other things merely move me differently – intense happiness, cerebral pleasures and the sight of beauty (other than gorgeous men) render me quietly blissful. This doesn’t necessarily translate into more mature behaviour, because it’s often the sort of shining-eyed don’t-speak-either-because-you-haven’t-the-words-
or-because-you’re-scared-you’ll-wake-up-from-the-
wonderful-dream joy that five-year-olds do better than anyone else, but at least it isn’t noisy.

Singapore’s Fault

Damn Singapore and its low CD prices. I’m spiralling out of control.

Tuesday:

  • Mahler’s 5th/Solti/Chicago Symphony Orchestra (S$14.90)
  • Stereo MCs: Connected (S$18.90)
  • Aimee Mann: Bachelor No. 2 (S$17.99)

Wednesday: I had a couple of hours to kill in between lunch and holiday planning with Yan Bin and dinner with Saffry, and think I actually managed remarkable restraint for such circumstances.

  • Brahms’ 4 symphonies, Tragic Overture and Variations/Sanderling/Dresden SO
    (S$21.99 for three CDs!!)
  • REM: Murmur (S$17.99. Just one of many shocking gaps in my CD collection which I’m gradually trying to fill)

Thursday: Thank God I had lindy-hopping at 7, or it might have been worse. Half an hour is all I should ever allow myself.

  • Cocteau Twins: Stars And Topsoil (S$19.90)
  • Adiemus: Best Of (S$13.90)

And it’s not over. Borders has all these at S$17.99, and I am sorely tempted:

  • Sebadoh: Harmacy, Bakesale (which one first?)
  • Red House Painters: it doesn’t have a title but the first track’s called Grace Cathedral Park
  • Fugazi: Red Medicine, End Hits, In On The Kill Taker (I don’t have any Fugazi albums, yes, more shocking gaps, I know.

Smoke And Mirrors (Neil Gaiman)

Urgh of the day, courtesy of Galatea 2.2 (Richard Powers):
“You cut up monkeys?” I whispered to Diana. “Rhesus pieces?”

The other book I finished yesterday was Smoke And Mirrors, and let me just say that if I were Neil Gaiman, no child of mine would ever be allowed to read any of my writing (except the books specifically meant for children) until they were at least 15 and I was satisfied they were emotionally stable.

He has a knack of finding the nightmare elements that lurk in everyday life (and in the wonderings of any imaginative kid lying awake in bed) and fleshing them out from fringe dwellers of reality to full-fledged, card-carrying members of the Scary Things Which Really Exist, Really community.

Perhaps I’m assuming an overly-protective parental persona here, but I still remember 15-year-old me eying clowns and dolls (except if they were Barbies, in which case I’d have fond memories of childhood haircut cum decapitation afternoons) with trepidation, and all this without watching It or Child’s Play, mind you.

But it’s not so much that I think reading Neil Gaiman would terrify a child, because that depends on the child, I guess. I think what bothers me is that the suggestion a child gets from reading Neil Gaiman is that nothing is ever quite what it seems. That there are dark undertones to everything, that bide their time and lie in wait for the unfortunate and unwary. And I think that childhood (and, perhaps, old age) are the rare times in life that you should be allowed to embrace certainties. You can always trust Mummy. Snow White was good, the mean queen was bad. Your jack-in-the-box isn’t evil.

Ironically, one of the reasons Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite writers is precisely this ability he has to subvert the order of things, to cast menacing shadows on familiar objects. And that’s why I thoroughly enjoyed Smoke And Mirrors. But I wouldn’t read those stories to a child.

I wonder what bedtime stories have been told in the Gaiman household.

Behind Scenes

I’m thinking there might have been a conversation something like this behind the scenes from Mariah Carey’s new video:

Director: Okay, Mariah, we think you’re really gonna like this one. We’re thinking this new video should break new ground, ya know, push the envelope, burst outta the box, yadda yadda buzzword.
Mariah: You want me to wear even less clothes than usual, act dumber than ever before, and generally just be the ultimate American white trash whore?
Director: Exactly. There’ll be race cars and lots of booty shakin’.
Mariah: Kewl.

Dear Mama

My mother called me yesterday during her lunch break. She’d come across a cheap CD sale and was wondering whether I wanted anything. I got her to read out CD titles, and stopped her eagerly when she read “Outkast. With a K. Stankonia. I have no idea which is the artist and which is the album.”

Just to make sure, I got her to read out track names, so my fifty-nine-year-old mother was standing in this CD store reading “I’ll Call Before I Come” and “We Luv Deez Hoez” into the phone. I don’t think she quite knew what she was saying, but I hurriedly told her it was the right CD before she got to “Gangsta Shit“.

Hair Dilemma

Okay, frivolous dilemma: I really want a haircut, because it’s grown out from the militant feminist devil worshipper cut I got back in April, and it’s gotten a little shaggy. The problem is that I have to judge the finals of the national debating competition next week, and do sort of want to look appropriately judgely.

I’m already the youngest member of the judging panel, and the only female. I have an annoying feeling that looking like a Japanese punk rocker in addition to all that might just make it a little difficult to exude sophistication and intellect to my fellow judges, most of whom will be considerably older.

Considering all things, I’ll probably get the haircut and rely on my judging competence to maintain my credibility. But I wanted to admit to those niggling doubts, all the same.

Girlish Glee

All right, I confess. I am sometimes girly.

After watching Shakespeare In Love on HBO the other night, and talking to my sister who’d just watched Bridget Jones’ Diary, I was filled to the brim with girlish gleeeeEEEE (I can never resist Gilbert and Sullivan references because they’re always such fun) and decided I just had to see Colin Firth in proper glory (why does he keep playing fat cuckolded loser types in Fiennes brothers movies?), so I watched Pride And Prejudice, fast-forwarding through non-Colin bits, compressing five hours into two and a half, then looking desperately through the bookshelves for Pemberley, literary abomination that it is (please stop writing Jane Austen sequels, Emma Tennant, you’re just not her), just to have new Darcy scenes to imagine Colin in…

Save The Last Lindy Turn For Me

Thursday was a dance day – Save The Last Dance with Pei Ee in the afternoon, and lindy-hopping at night.

Save The Last Dance: some good dancing, pity about the rest of it. Especially cringeworthy bits included the black-guy-teaches-white-girl-how-to-get-wit-de-ghetto sequence that seems obligatory in these kinds of films, and, unfortunately for the scriptwriters, the big Emotional Breakthrough Moment when she finally managed to talk about her dead mother and why she quit ballet. We were greatly amused by the “MY DREAMS KILLED HER!!!” line. (If you haven’t seen the film, you can probably work out most of what happens just from this, with very little imagination needed)

All the same, I am a sucker for these self-discovery and realization of dreams and oh yeah, love, through _________ (fill in relevant dance style eg. disco, ballroom, mambo etc., and if you can name the corresponding film for each of those, then maybe you’re a sucker too) movies. I like climactic triumphal dance extravaganza scenes.

And then there was lindy-hopping, which has once again got me in its irresistably addictive grip. As much as I like clubbing, no clubbing experience I’ve ever had (with the exception of the drum’n’bass room at Fabric) manages to match the couple of hours I lindy-hop each week for pure joy provision.

I know why. It’s in that buoyant moment where push and pull and my fingers hooked on his all work together to give ooomph, that elusive but wonderful connection with a good partner. It’s in the music, never monotonous like club music can often be, full of wonderful sounds; trumpet like the sun singing, Ella’s voice like warm silken honey on your skin. It’s in the quaintly romantic idea of his proferred hand, her smile of acceptance, the communion of eyes during the dance, even though most of us are there to romance the dance rather than each other.

That’s why it ain’t got a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Introspective

Scott at erasing.org wonders: is it more egotistical to think that you’re the only one who thinks the way you do, or that everyone thinks the way you do? And, as much of what Scott writes tends to, it got me thinkin’.

<ramble>
Conversational fragment from dinner on Wednesday with my sister, after being served purple ice cream:
Me: Oh God, is this yam-flavoured?
Sister: I don’t know. It could be.
Me: I guess it yis what it yis.

As I said that, I knew it was something I’d probably have self-censored in other company. I do a lot of self-censorship, which is why in some company I can be very quiet. It isn’t that I don’t have anything to say – that’s never the case – it’s just that I doubt the ability of the people I’m with to “get it”.

There are two major types of thoughts that I tend to withhold from ordinary conversations. They get filed under:
(1) Things I’d Have Said If Everyone’s Brain Worked Like Mine and
(2) Things I’d Have Said If Everyone Knew What I Know.

What I mean by (1) is that the thought process taking place during the ice cream conversation was: yam –> I yam what I yam –> it yis what it yis. The thing is, I don’t even know where “I yam what I yam” came from. It lives somewhere in the vast disorganized phraseplains of my head, and it just popped up. I don’t think it’s a phrase that features in regular conversational parlance, and hence I’d assume that most people aren’t familiar with it.

(2) is about not wanting to say “Poh-tweet” in a conversation with someone who hasn’t read Slaughterhouse Five. Dealing with the resultant blank look requires either explanation, which just wrecks the flow of the conversation, or a “Never mind”, and I think both options have the result of making the other person feel a little dumb. And I don’t like doing that, unless they’re large inflatable assholes just asking for deflation.

Most of this is about thinking you’re the only one who thinks the way you do. I agree this can be egotistical, but argue that egotism here may still be well-meaning. I withhold category (1) thoughts because I think it’s presumptuous to suppose that the sequential workings of my mind are always self-evident. (2) all depends on who you’re talking to, ultimately. I talk to lots of people who don’t have my brainpower or knowledge. I don’t think saying this is egotistical. It’s a fact. What’s important is how you choose to conduct such conversations. I choose to scale down and censor, because I don’t like making other people feel stupid, and I’d rather have a conversation everyone can manage.

What I do react badly to is when people seem to be wrapped up in a smug little aura of Oh I’m So Quirkyness. They refer frequently to the strange way their minds work, usually a self-deprecatory remark which isn’t made with self-deprecating intent. They enjoy describing themselves as “wacky”, “insane”, and other similar adjectives. My honest (and admittedly, somewhat cruel) reaction is “Oh, come off it, you’re not that special. Get over yourself.”

Does everyone hate me yet?

And then there’s thinking everyone thinks the way you do. This isn’t much of an issue for me – I know this isn’t true, and damn, I hope it never is. Life would be unspeakably boring if it were.

So what’s my answer to Scott’s question? Thinking everyone thinks like you is, primarily, deluded. This delusion may derive from egotism, or just complete lack of self-awareness. Thinking you’re the only one who thinks like you do, on the other hand, seems far more likely to be egotistical, but sometimes this is well-founded, and sometimes it’s well-meaning.

Phew.

</ramble>

The Sportswriter / Galapagos / Anil’s Ghost

More books, by the way:

Smoke And Mirrors and Angela’s Ashes, both of which I’ve been meaning to buy for the longest time.

A History Of Amnesia (Alfian Sa’at, one of my favourite Singaporean poets)

Ghostwritten (David Mitchell) and Galatea 2.2 (Richard Powers) from the Marine Parade library, which is full of books I can’t find in the UCL library and is an exceedingly pleasant place to lose yourself in for a few hours. Or a week.

Had to zip through Anil’s Ghost and Galapagos in order to finish them by their due dates, after taking far too long to get through The Sportswriter due to the fact that it seemed to induce chronic narcolepsy. It’s not that it’s a bad book – the writing had its moments, and some parts were marginally poignant, but it just moved far too slowly and I never found myself able to like or understand the protagonist very much, such as when he suggested to his ex-wife that they go into a room and make passionate love in the house of his friend who’d just committed suicide. She wasn’t keen, and I don’t blame her. Perhaps it’s a very male book.

Galapagos started off feeling like classic Vonnegut, and I was expecting great things, which might have been why I was a little disappointed by the end of it. There were all these fascinating little tidbits of how life was to be on the Galapagos island of Santa Rosalia for his motley crew of apocalypse survivors, and I kept reading in eager anticipation of finding out more, but was never given it. He wraps the book up hastily, and the reader is left to make imaginatory leaps between years on the island. What was daily life like? Who was the first human with flippers? How long did it all take?

I realize that longing for details like that aren’t always what reading Vonnegut is about – a Vonnegut book almost wouldn’t be a Vonnegut book without fistfuls of misleadingly simply expressed ideas, liberally sprinkled across paper and time, with you as reader expected to hunt, gather, and interpret. Given that I loved Slaughterhouse 5, The Sirens Of Titan and Cat’s Cradle, this disappointment in Galapagos is hard for me to justify, since it doesn’t seem a lesser book than these. I guess at the end of it all, I just wanted something it whetted my appetite for but didn’t give me. I still love Kurt, though. He’s given me enough gems, and is allowed to be less than marvellous every now and then.

I enjoyed Anil’s Ghost, mostly because I’ve always liked Michael Ondaatje’s writing style – the introductory passage alone wouldn’t let me go until I’d read it three times – but also because its content appealed to me. Forensics, archaeology, politics, and the tragedies it can bring about; loss, courage and sacrifice, lives of quiet desperation. It’s not anywhere as lyrical, scenic or romantic as The English Patient, but there’s a subtle, unambitious beauty in this book that I found equally (though differently) moving.