Some photos from the weekend. These were taken at Labrador Park.
(makcik: Malay lady, usually middle-aged or older.)
I’ve been waiting for weeks for the Somerset House summer series of gigs to be announced, hoping to plan my trip to England around attending one of them. Watching Orbital, Yo La Tengo and Calexico in that beautiful courtyard made for some of the most memorable gigs of my time in London, and that’s saying a lot.
So they’ve finally been announced, and here they are:
Problem 1: The last time most of these acts interested me was when I still read the NME, and I gave that bad habit up long ago after realizing that more cutting-edge commentary could be found in The Sun. Bloc Party aren’t bad but they don’t blow me away either. The Mars Volta, if Deloused In The Crematorium is anything to go by, would be fun for half an hour, then repetitive and tedious. I can tolerate what I used to hear of the Super Furries, but don’t know how good their recent work is. The one act there I do really like is Sigur Ros, but I’ve seen them already and would rather see a band I haven’t seen yet. But all is moot – seeing any of the bands I’ve just mentioned isn’t even an option, because of Problem 2.
Problem 2: I’m spending 8-10 July boogie-ing in the rainforests of Borneo, and I get called to the Bar on 13 July, which basically means that my only realistic option, considering travel times etc., is Beth Orton, who is deathly boring.
Hence: ARSE!!!
Not only are my boyfriend and best friend in the same country as me for the first time in a year, they’re also living together. Given that my house doesn’t have a guest room, and Alec lives alone in my family’s old 3-bedroom apartment, it seemed to make sense.
In the run-up to Russ’s visit, the boys exchanged a number of affectionate emails. Here are some excerpts.
“we’ll be able to spend lots of time together – budddddiiiieeeeee” – Alec
“Oooh, lots of time with you (Alec). I wonder how that will turn out. Will we be best buds by the end of it, or will you suffer a fate of /accidentally/ falling off a balcony, or /accidental/ drowning? Who knows, we will have to wait and see.” – Russ
“I’d enjoy having you as a guest – you’d probably be my first visitor so I can work out all the problem with the guest room by using you as a guinea pig. e.g. ‘Hey Alec, this toilet doesn’t flush’ or ‘Alec, is that a dead rat in the corner?’… By the way, there’s a large pile of pigeon shit on the outside of the guest bedroom windowsill. You’d better bring a brush and sponge.” – Alec
Now in case anyone finds it puzzling that Alec would be mildly hostile towards my best friend (completely apart from the fact that Russ has a toned body, dances well, dresses well, has understood me intuitively almost from the day we met, and is a guy), let me recount a little incident from the past.
(Scene: the day of my graduation; dinner with my parents, Alec and Russ.)
My mum: Russ, I just want to thank you for everything you’ve done for Michelle over the years. Walking her home late at night, picking her up at the airport…
Alec, interrupting facetiously (I think): Ah yes, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, Russ! I mean, you just make me look really bad as a boyfriend! All this picking her up at the airport at 9 in the morning…
Russ, interrupting facetiously (I think): Actually, it was 6 in the morning.
Me: Hahahahahahaha!
My parents: Hahahahahahaha!
Alec, seething quietly: Hahahahahahaha.
I think the flat will be big enough for both of them, don’t you?
I haven’t found time to write about my fantastic weekend yet, but gracet helpfully gave me a meme to fill the silence with:
“Find a song that everybody knows and put the lyrics into the Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/). Translate them from English to German, then German to French, and then French to English. Then post here with 3 clues. See who gets the song right first.”
I deliberately chose a song which had incoherent lyrics to begin with, but I still think this is pretty easy.
Translated lyrics:
Freight on rifles
to take in top your friends,
him it recreation is to lose
and it is a panel itself to pretend
more ensured me
white which I know
has word salts
Hallo (X 16)
the lights him we are here are maintained
maintaining to us less dangerously than I believe
than stupidly and contagious
here we are now maintained has us
Mulatto
Moskito of the Albino
has my Yea
libido
me are more badly above than I make well
and for this gift
that I believe our small whom group
is always been and always the will at the end blessed
Hallo (X 16)
with the lights of him we are here maintained
it believes that stupidly and contagious
here we are now maintained has us
Mulatto
Moskito of the Albino
has my Yea
libido
and that I precisely forget
what that it takes to us,
and but I estimate that it forms me smile
that I find to be hard hard for him, good OH-
found that also always, nevermind
Hallo (X 16)
the lights him we are here are maintained
now less dangerously than I believe
than stupidly and contagious
here we are now maintained has us
Mulatto
Moskito of the Albino
has my Yea
libido
Clues:
While Alec was cooking up a scarily elaborate Chinese feast for my family on Sunday, I decided not to get in his sweating, cursing way, and started cleaning up the guest room for Russ. Since my sister and I used to share the room, a fair amount of our stuff is still in the cupboards so I was going through them to clear space for Russ to hang his clothes.
The thing about cleaning my old flat is that no matter how much I remember about my childhood, there’s always something I’ve completely forgotten, until it resurfaces, that brings me some delight amidst the dust. Sunday’s treasure trove was a box of old card games, some well-known like Old Maid and Go Fish, and others I couldn’t remember for the life of me.
I have no idea what card game these were from, but they’re amusing throwbacks to a time when Mind Your Language was my favourite comedy and I’d never heard of the word “stereotype”.
After my family had left and we’d finished cleaning up, we sat out on the balcony for a well-deserved rest. I drank my coffee, and Alec smoked his pipe. We were the very picture of yuppie sophistication – apart from the Top Trumps. My sailing ships totally kicked his sailing ships’ asses. Next time we’re playing combat aircraft, and after that, racing bikes.
Each pack came with some teaser cards for other Exciting! packs you could own in the Top Trumps series. This is where I realized that my childhood, and indeed my life so far, has been woefully incomplete.
The countdown to London starts on Friday.
On Friday, my best friend Russ arrives in Singapore on a 3 week vacation.¹ As if that level of Michelle bliss isn’t enough, the Scratch Perverts play at Zouk the night he arrives! So in one fell swoop, I’m getting two of the things I’ve longed for most since returning to Singapore – the company of my best friend, and the chance to see some of my long-running favourite DJs again.
The same week that Russ leaves here in May, Nav arrives on her visit.
A few weeks after Nav leaves, my pupillage ends.
A few weeks after my pupillage ends, I make what I hope will become an annual trip to England, and see these two people, other people I love, and the city I love, again.
¹ Obviously he’s also exploring other bits of South East Asia during his holiday, would I be so cruel as to force the poor guy to stay in Singapore for 3 weeks, just for me? (Don’t answer that.)
An update on the Sonic Youth/Cat Power saga at U Penn I ranted about previously – the gig went ahead, apparently with an audience of about 300-400 people in a venue which could have housed 2000.
What a bunch of dorks. And by that, I mean the other 1700 who could have been there but were probably too busy RAWKING OUT to the Dave Matthews Band cuz they, like, RULE. Of course I hate the people who were there too, but that’s just envy.
Now I’ve vented some spleen, I hasten to add that I’m not entirely humourless about this whole thing. This column in the college newspaper was actually pretty funny: RIAA sues 4 students for bad taste in music.
“The Recording Industry Association of America filed lawsuits yesterday against four Penn students who were found to have downloaded Sonic Youth songs onto their computers.
Citing “bad taste,” officials said the individuals will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. If convicted, the students face a minimum sentence of 10 months in an alternative music rehabilitation center.
Treatment could also include intensive listening sessions featuring musicians of the 21st century, or trips to spring concerts at other universities that plan to feature contemporary artists.”
Later in the column:
“Lawsuits such as the ones aimed at the four students are part of the RIAA’s strategy of suing individual users for their personal music preferences. The trend began in September 2003, when the group sued two Princeton students for downloading entire Ace of Base albums.
“I just liked ‘I Saw the Sign’ and it got out of control,” recovering bad-music addict Bridget Takacs said. Though her police record will forever be branded “stuck in the 1990s,” Takacs was grateful for the intervention.”
It’s extremely flattering when someone as cool as ci’en refers to you as her “indie lawyer ou xiang” (Mandarin for “idol”), but these past few days the reality has been rather un-idyllic. I tried to write a rant about it, but confidentiality obligations and the law of defamation kept getting in the way.
In marked contrast to my usual activity-filled weekends, today brought some very welcome quiet time, at least for me. I woke up at noon, had a lazy lunch and caught up with my Internet surfing, occasionally sparing a compassionate thought for Alec, who spent the afternoon at Fort Canning lifting kids on and off horses (fundraising for Riding For The Disabled).
Dinner at Werner’s Oven, which wasn’t particularly notable except for the very fair price of their Erdinger. Then back home for lounging and American Splendor, which was delightful.
Tomorrow we have no plans apart from cooking dinner for my family.
Breathing is so nice.
Won’t have time to post much until the weekend because I am involved in the tenth circle of legal work hell also known as due diligence. Essentially, I have to spend hours (as in, 14+ hours at a stretch) looking through reams of contracts and summarizing them, with only an iPod to keep me sane. Ellen Allien and Neutral Milk Hotel were good music to work to yesterday. Soundmurderer wasn’t.
This is a fucking far cry from The Practice, man.
StorTroopers are back! I’ve lost the original StorTrooper I posted on this blog in 2001, but recreated one for old time’s sake. And then I made a couple more. (Sorry to any Walt Whitman fans out there for that terrible title, I just couldn’t think of anything else.)
Girly Michelle, 2005, with cat
