Fighting Words

I picked up this tan belt on sale at Mango recently. I like using belts to cinch my waist and draw attention away from my wide hips and large ass.

I wore it for the first time the other day and asked Alec what he thought.

Me: You didn’t notice my new belt! Do you like it?
Alec: Yeah, it’s a great belt.
Me: *beams happily*
Alec: When you wear it, you can pretend you’re the WWF champion.
Me: *seethes, considers a clothesline followed by jump off the top turnbuckle with sharpshooter to finish*

Unrelated wrestling amusement: Mick Foley reviews The Wrestler for Slate.

Unrelated fashion amusement: Elyse (still my favourite Top Model contestant ever) spots some spectacular fake Coach bag fail (scroll down).

Inglorious Indeed

Joanna Kavenna’s Inglorious is one of the most ludicrous examples I’ve seen yet of the recent propensity (described here) of publishers to slap a chick lit cover on any book written by a woman or about a woman.

I’ll tell you a little more about the book before I unveil the frightful cover. It was a last-gasp addition to my 2008 reading list, picked up in the library because I was vaguely aware that it had won an Orange award and been mentioned in a few best-of-year reading lists.

The basic story is that its protagonist has a bit of an existential crisis one day and quits her well-paid job in journalism, after which things start going a bit pear-shaped for her. Her relationship ends and she stays with a succession of friends while going deeper and deeper into debt as she remains preoccupied with a “search for meaning”. Bit of an eyerolly plot, I know, but it is well-written and often amusing. Fellow GTD wannabes will recoil at her unwieldy to-do-lists (tasks like “Read the complete works of Hegel, Nietzsche and Kant”!) before sheepishly whipping out their own lists to rephrase similar next-action-lacking mistakes. Fellow snarky types will like the self-sabotaging exactitude with which she writes application letters for menial jobs. You can read this extract, which I don’t really think does the book justice, but you will at least gather from it that the writing is not dumbed down for anyone whose favourite author is Sophie Kinsella. I finished the book on Christmas Eve, and would give it three stars.

Now that the stage is set, behold the cover! By the way, poodles don’t feature in the book at all.

Bridging

2009 has started with lots of small happy things for me, though it’s quite possible that a notable feelgoody achievement for me is a non-issue for someone more active and productive. Writing a letter, as in with a pen, on paper, to be sent in the post! Completing my Chiang Mai photobook only 2.5 years after the relevant holiday! Watching girls viciously beat each other up in a muay thai tournament at Golden Mile, while some of the best fried chicken I’ve had in a while (Diandin Leluk’s) was still travelling to my fat ass!

I wanted to add a photo to this entry to break up the text overload here lately, and with apologies to the boys, it’s not going to be the girl-on-girl action. Instead, here’s my favourite picture from another happy thing I started the year with, a night visit to the Southern Ridges aerial walk:

Follow the yellow bridge road
Follow the yellow bridge road

’09 Refine

I had a look at last year’s New Year post, and was glad to see that I didn’t do too badly on following through with the resolutions. I made a fair bit more jewellery than the initial experiments I posted here, redesigned this blog, significantly upgraded my photo post-processing skills, opened a better savings account than my lousy POSB one, made a small low-risk investment and am considering a few more, and improved my insurance coverage. But sadly, I’m not sure whether I succeeded in exercising more, and if I did it was marginal.

The 2008 I was looking forward to also lived up to my expectations. It was a slightly indulgent and inward-looking year, admittedly, because I just loved spending time with Alec in our home and felt a little less motivated to go out. The downside of this is that I probably indulged the lazy introvert in me a bit too much and socialized less than is good for me; the upside is that when I did go out I enjoyed the events and good company to the full without feeling jaded, drained or financially stressed.

In 2009, apart from not totally falling off the wagon for last year’s resolutions, I’d like to:

  1. Get better at this DJ thing: I’ve got the turntables, am waiting for the mixer I want to arrive in January, and once that’s here I will practice practice practice!
  2. Re-establish contact with long-distance friends I’ve been terrible at keeping in touch with: Although my life is blissful, it doesn’t make for interesting email fodder so I put off writing emails because I feel bored stiff by my own writing. And although I would love to know how my friends are doing, it feels lazy to keep asking if I can’t even be bothered to reciprocate with something substantial about myself. My strategy going forward will be to start with shorter, more random, but more numerous emails in the hope that this will at least be an improvement from my previous paralysis.
  3. Take better control of my sleep: I am a night person and can’t change myself into a morning person, but I can certainly stop staying up late surfing aimlessly when I’m not even absorbed in anything I’m seeing, and I can also stop lying in bed till noon on weekends out of sheer inertia rather than real tiredness. I’m really reluctant to adopt this resolution, to be honest, because it feels like growing up – but there it is.

2008 Music Rundown

I never realized this before, but it’s surprisingly easy to do a year-end music rundown when you haven’t listened to much new music! In no particular order except that the Portishead is HOLY SHIT AWESOME, here’s some 2008-released stuff I especially enjoyed.

Albums:

  • Third (Portishead): I have never had high expectations so comprehensively and delightfully exceeded. It is everything I loved about Portishead, yet nothing like what came before.
  • Rook (Shearwater): Gorgeous, varied collection of songs all tied together by Jonathan Meiburg’s supple, versatile voice.
  • Attack And Release (Black Keys): I really love the Dangermouse production on this, the sound breathes and floats in what feels like a very non-garagerocky space but the band sounds as tight as ever.
  • Carried To Dust (Calexico): I didn’t like Garden Ruin much, so I love that this album is so reminiscent of my favourite parts of Feast Of Wire – which is to say, it’s more songs for that time just after the sun’s dramatic dip below the horizon when what remains in the sky is the most ethereal, subtle light.
  • The Bake Sale EP (Cool Kids): Creative beat making, pretty good ass-shaking.
  • Distortion (Magnetic Fields): Stephin Merritt’s songwriting has usually been strong enough to pull off Magnetic Fields’ various concept albums, and this album’s concept – every song drenched in Psychocandy-inspired distortion – had me from hello.

Songs: [1. From albums which aren’t in my favourites list, either because I didn’t like them enough or haven’t heard them yet.]

  • Serpentine (Chris Bathgate): If we named songs the way classical composers used to, this could be “Serenade for piano, double bass, and pensive, almost reverential, human voice”. The album (A Cork Tale Wake) is decent too, and especially recommended if you like The Frames.
  • My Pillow Is The Threshhold (Silver Jews): The quiet shimmering guitar background which escalates to a final minute of restrained soundwall-y bliss is so lovely. The album (Lookout Mountain Lookout Sea) is also good, but omitted from the above list because I rate it slightly less highly than the band’s others.
  • Seeing Hands (Dengue Fever): I came for the band name and stayed for Chhom Nimol’s exquisite voice. I don’t know if loving this song is an overcompensatory wannabe-cosmopolitan response to its all-Cambodian exoticism, but I do know it makes me sway happily from side to side.
  • Tiger Mountain Peasant Song (Fleet Foxes): How does a song lie on its back looking up at the clouds, and soar through them, all at the same time?
  • Furr (Blitzen Trapper): Drew me instantly into its story and lyrics, which is rare (for me). The last time that happened was many years ago, with The Decemberists’ Leslie Ann Levine.

But yeah, as is probably obvious, there’s lots more I simply haven’t got round to yet from this year – what else should I add to this list to chase down? What did you love?

  • London Zoo (The Bug)
  • The Renaissance (Q-Tip)
  • At War With Walls And Mazes (Son Lux)
  • Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Brian Eno and David Byrne)
  • Los Angeles (Flying Lotus)
  • Furr (Blitzen Trapper)

2008 Reading Rundown

I was horrified at the tiny number of books I read in 2007 (wedding stress plus, okay, the addition of a large amount of X-rated X-Files fanfic to my PDA) so decided to keep a log of the books I read in 2008. I didn’t bother to record any of the cookbooks I read and probably missed out one or two photography books too but am happy enough with the 26 I did record, it seems a decent number for a working adult with a life and various other addictions.

Here’s an executive summary for anyone who might find it useful.

5 stars:

  • On Chesil Beach (Ian McEwan): Perfect distillation of McEwan’s best abilities unmarred by any of his failings. [My entry]
  • Epileptic (David B): Interesting plot, but it’s the complex, surreal drawings which elevate this to extraordinary. [My entry]
  • Stuart: A Life Backwards (Alexander Masters): Funny, illuminating and really sad. The choice of a “backwards” narrative (Stuart’s idea) is spot on. [My entry]
  • Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Ishiguro): Elegantly unfolded plot, wonderfully perceptive writing. [My entry]
  • The Road (Cormac McCarthy): Literary triumph, real life downer – it’s transporting, but be warned that it transports you to a meticulously imagined post-apocalyptic world of almost unremitting bleakness.
  • Nine Parts Of Desire: The Hidden World Of Islamic Women (Geraldine Brooks): Engaging, often surprising, and (came across as) mostly balanced. It made me want to read further into the topic.
  • Understanding Exposure (Bryan Peterson): A really accessible and useful introduction to the topic for this photography noob.

4 stars:

  • Memoirs Of My Melancholy Whores (Gabriel Garcia Marquez): Much of what is wonderful about Garcia Marquez’s writing, in a shorter and more accessible package. [My entry]
  • In The Bedroom (Andre Dubus): Even if you’re not much of a short story person (neither am I), these are some of the most masterfully written short stories I’ve ever read. I’d never heard of Dubus or this book until Karen pressed it into my hands, and am grateful for the recommendation.
  • What Is The What (Dave Eggers): The story of the Lost Boys of Sudan is worth reading in itself, but Eggers also does a great job of telling it.
  • An Artist Of The Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro): Last read this as a teenager and still find its particular insights into Japanese society interesting.

3.5 stars:

  • Northern Lights (Philip Pullman): Rather too dull to unseat C.S. Lewis’s Narnian chronicles, but its ambition is impressive.
  • Black Swan Green (David Mitchell): Pleasant and well-written, but while I can’t think of any flaws I can’t remember much of the book at all.
  • What The Dead Know (Laura Lippman): I haven’t read many crime novels, but if they’re all this riveting I should read more of them.

3 stars:

  • When You Are Engulfed In Flames (David Sedaris): Fine if you’ve never read him, but disappointing compared to any of his previous books.
  • Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys): Impressive if you think of it as ambitious fanfic, otherwise it’s rather unsatisfying despite the good writing.
  • The Wasp Factory (Iain Banks): Passably diverting account of a disturbed teen and his freaky little universe. Might gross out the squeamish.
  • The Shadow Of The Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon): Enjoyable enough as an escapist romp through a fantasy Barcelona, but a tad overlong and predictable.
  • The Harmony Silk Factory (Tash Aw): Its ambition somewhat exceeds its execution, but am glad a Malaysian-born author got famous with a book steeped in Malaysia and I’ll keep an eye out for what Tash Aw comes up with next.
  • Water For Elephants (Sara Gruen): Unmemorable writing but the story’s great fun, especially if you counted Mr Galliano’s Circus among your favourite childhood books too.
  • Magic For Beginners (Kelly Link): Whimsical, dark short stories. Good while you’re reading them, but forgettable afterwards.
  • The Somnambulist (Jonathan Barnes): A “fantasy London” book. Promising first half, but second half lost steam and went a bit nuts.
  • Learning To See Creatively (Bryan Peterson): Good reminders and examples of things you probably already know.
  • Understanding Shutter Speed (Bryan Peterson): Not as immediately inspiring as Understanding Exposure, but perhaps I’ll think differently when I experiment more with shutter speed.

2 stars:

The Boretress Of Slowitude

Have any of you read this? I’m 67 pages in and still as bored as I was on page 1, which is to say: totally.

I even brought the book on our weekend trip to KL, hoping that an aggregate of 10 coach hours with nothing else to do would force me to keep going until a switch magically flipped and I finally realized why the novel is apparently a “great daredevil ride” (The Times, according to the back cover). Alas, no – every time I tried to make any progress, I’d get bored after a few pages and doze off, snooze for a few minutes and then wake up again due to coach discomfort or noisy kids. Rinse and repeat, 5 hours each way.

I don’t understand how the same author who delighted me with Motherless Brooklyn’s pace, plot and humour could have birthed this tedious turd. The writing is as competent and assured as you can expect from Jonathan Lethem, but he’s taken something that could be so engaging – the ’70s childhood of a white boy in a gradually gentrifying Brooklyn neighbourhood – and sucked all the life out of it, then spat out the flavourless remains into 67 pages (so far) of carefully penned but stupefyingly dull observations. It’s like seeing graffiti in greyscale.

In my younger more pretentious days I might have stuck with this because it is Worthy by many accounts, but I now feel no compunction in giving it up. More good books exist than I will ever be able to finish reading in my lifetime, and thousands of those will reward the intelligent, thoughtful and reasonably patient reader more than this one did. I’m moving on. What have you read and enjoyed recently?

Feed Foulups

If you use Google Reader to keep up with this blog, I’ve noticed that it’s often out of sync with the latest updates, and some (like my recent blip about a Microsoft Paint summary of Watchmen) never get displayed at all. I’ve looked but haven’t managed to find out how to deal with this, so:
– if you’re a Google Reader user and it looks like I haven’t updated in a while, try visiting the page itself
– if you’re not a Google Reader user, please bear with me if you see things republished a few times, I’m just trying to figure out what the hell will make Google Reader figure out that something’s been updated here

Wtchmn

I’m not sure whether or not to bother rereading Watchmen before the movie, because I believe movies are always far more enjoyable if you haven’t read (or can hardly remember) the book. The book is substantially superior 90% of the time, so you might as well spare yourself some impotent huffing in the cinema, appreciate the movie on its own merits, and then savour the additional depth and luxury that lots and lots of words can offer.

I think it was fairly safe to read this Microsoft Paint condensed version though.