Excerpts: Fugitive Pieces (Anne Michaels)

I finished Fugitive Pieces before the tsunami took over 250000 lives, but I’ve only managed to get round to typing out my bookmarked passages today. Reading some of them again in the wake of a natural disaster that literally changed how our world turns, I haven’t been able to help reading them in a slightly different light, with new victims on my mind rather than the old.

It is facile to liken a tsunami to the Holocaust, but thankfully that won’t be necessary. This book is much less about whys, and more about what nows, and in that sense at least, the agony of the survivor is universal. Michaels explores this beautifully for the first two thirds or so of the book, but doesn’t manage to sustain it once protagonist Jakob Beer dies and a new character abruptly takes over the narrative. Ben feels like an unnecessary coda to what would have been a complete and admirably compact work on its own, and the reader doesn’t really get enough time or incentive to care very much about him.

Despite its acclaim, Anne Michaels’ writing doesn’t always hit the mark for me – I find some of her pseudo-poetic abstractions a little overindulgent and frankly rather meaningless – but when it does, it is profoundly evocative.
Read More “Excerpts: Fugitive Pieces (Anne Michaels)”

Ya Think?

Me: I just don’t get how she keeps raving on and on about her boyfriend, but she never makes fun of him! What’s up with that?
Alec: I don’t know, maybe she loves and respects the guy?

The Tyranny Of Distance

So Alec arrived on Friday, and this is how we spent the weekend.

Friday: Dinner and drinks at the beach (Peperoni, then Beach Hut).

Saturday: Hainanese chicken rice for lunch, siesta, meandering frivolously through Far East Plaza, quick dinner in the fabulous Plaza Singapura food court before watching The Sea Inside.

Sunday: Wakeboarding (attempts) at Punggol, curry lunch at the Banana Leaf place on Ceylon Road, siesta, Mass, Eurasian dinner at Casa Bom Vento, Tiger Cup support (YAY!) over beer/stout/pork scratchings.

Perhaps you wonder – after a year and a half of long distance, they’re finally reunited for the foreseeable future, and that’s how they spend their first weekend together again? Sounds pretty much like how any couple in Singapore would spend any weekend, doesn’t it? Where be the lavish celebrations?

The thing is, the best thing about this weekend was precisely its total normality. The most unnatural thing about long distance relationships – where time differences, telecommunications costs, and fleeting holidays rigidly define your time together – is how difficult it can become sometimes to just enjoy the moment without feeling the pressure to make the most of it.

Normal couples enjoy luxuries, perhaps without even realizing it, that we haven’t really had for one and a half years. Wasting an afternoon away napping. Good night kisses. Being able to do things which are totally devoid of local cultural merit, instead of feeling guilty that Alec’s spending holiday time in the exotic Orient watching a European arthouse film in an air-conditioned mall cinema. Making whatever stupid remark we think of at the time we think of it rather than having to try and remember it for later. After a while of this I’m sure we’ll start missing our trendy London Shoreditch twatness again, but for now we’re just happy being heartlanders together in Katong. (Don’t worry, I won’t lose my edge. To prove it the title of this post is yet another indiegeeky music reference.)

And going back to stupid remarks, here are Alec and Michelle Reunited’s hard-hitting views on the profound issues encountered in our first weekend back together.

On Modesty
Me: I’m a bit doubtful about this bikini, what if it shifts when I fall in and I don’t realize it’s given way?
Alec: You’ll realize pretty soon.

On Acronyms
(Alec is considering volunteering at Riding For The Disabled)
Alec: What’s the web address again? RCA dot com dot sg?
Me: Um, I think that would be RDA. Given that it is called Riding for the Disabled and not Riding for the Cisabled.

On Fiscal Discipline
Me: Okay, so apart from wakeboarding tomorrow and swing camp in February, we’ll have a frugal lifestyle with no other extravagances. Right?
Alec: Except if something really good comes up.
Me: Exactly.

You Know I Got Soul

Mid-week clubbing bad for body. But good for soul.

DJ Krush exactly as expected. Successful evocation of nostalgia for first year uni bedroom. Unsuccessful motivation of ass. Spent most of time drinking alcohol I didn’t pay for. Felt like member of rap star’s entourage. Ghetto!

Original plan to leave at 2. But then Laces turns up. Transfer to Phuture. Phuture motivates ass. Take side trip to Zouk to get space and laugh at Mambo kids. Mambo kids disappointingly uncoordinated. Return to Phuture. End up leaving at 3 am.

At work now. Exhausted, but thank God not hungover. Still intent on lindy-hopping tonight.

And Alec arrives tomorrow! Rock!

Thou Shalt Not Say Anything About Anything

The following unspoken rules characterise most of the conversations I have had with the law students who have surrounded me since my return to Singapore. (Though obviously there are exceptions, who should know who they are.)

  • If asked what you did over the weekend (which is rare) it is acceptable to state the title of the movie you watched, or the club you went to. But be so bold as to actually venture an opinion of the activity you participated that goes beyond “Yah, not bad lah, quite fun” and all of a sudden you’re the weird one, because no one actually gives a shit what you think, especially when you do weird things that they’ve never heard of or considered doing.
  • Personal information beyond the most mundane facts eg. “I have a cat” or the most trite statements “It’s important to try and still have a life even though we’re working” is unnecessarily revelatory and must be kept top secret. If someone is asking you about yourself, answer in monosyllables. Perhaps they have an ulterior motive. If they continue to try to draw you out (the flaming cheek!) answer in banalities to bore them into submission.
  • Never give in. These upstarts must learn.

I am getting more socially awkward among these people by the day, because I don’t know how to behave. In England I behaved as confidently and talkatively as I felt like being on a given day. I met my best friend within freshers’ week, and within a month he told me things about himself he had never dared to confide in any other friend. In my public debating debut at the UCL Debating Society, I argued for the legalization of hardcore pornography, accused the other side of wanking under the table instead of listening to my team’s case, and rejected one guy’s incessant points of information by telling him he’d ejaculated quite enough. The club embraced me. In the pub, I let on that I was a practising Catholic. The club still embraced me. Throughout my time there I was an oddity, Chinese and female and Catholic in a club that was predominantly white and male and degenerate, but I never felt it.

But what worked so well for me in England seems to be anathema here, in my “homeland” where I should feel anything but an oddity. Confidence is overconfidence. Chattiness is met by reticence and suspicion. Before I went to England, I knew all this. I dealt with it by acting shyer than I really was, which seemed to make other people more comfortable with me. Since returning to Singapore, I’ve reverted to that old strategy, and I try to follow the rules when I actually know what they are, but it terrifies me. I don’t want to wake up one day and realize that I have become my disguise.

I really want to believe that all these people have great personalities which they just choose to keep hidden. Perhaps they have Personality Parties on the weekend, where they let it all hang out, and then button their stuffed shirts up for the week ahead, and I just haven’t been invited to these parties. Perhaps every dull statement made is actually code for “On the weekend I had a threesome and one of us was a goat.” But if so, why stay locked in this vicious cycle of conversational nothingness, where I say nothing because I think they’re boring and they say nothing because they think I’m boring?

Some days I wish I just had Tourette’s syndrome. That’d be a great excuse to break the fucking ice.

Stashing Pumpkins

Number two in an occasional series of stunning witticisms I make in conversation which I feel the need to share with the world. This is from last night at Hideout with Dom, Ida and David.

Ida: Remember that pumpkin I stole from ____ bar around Halloween? Well, we went to _____ bar after that and the bartender stole it from me.
Me: You were brandishing the pumpkin while ordering a drink?
Ida: I put it on the counter. So anyway, now every time I go back there he keeps saying, “I’ve got your pumpkin” and flirting with me.
Me: I guess you’re his jack-off-lantern.

I kill myself sometimes.

Coming Across Her Naughty Bits

You know you’re stressed when, while preparing a research document on the passing of property and risk in carriage of goods by sea, you start smiling every time you come across references to “ship’s flange”.

(Non-shipping lawyers: The flange is a part of the ship. Property and risk in goods are often agreed to pass from seller to buyer as they are moved across it in the process of loading.)

(Non-Brits see here for double-meaning.)

You know you’re stressed but bored when the next thing you do is a global search-and-replace of “flange” with “minge”.

You know you’re stressed, bored and playing with fire when the third thing you do is a Google search for “minge” in order to provide another definition for non-Brits, and then break into giggles at the results. I present:

2004 List: 9 Songs To Thank MP3 Blogs For

9 great songs I’d never have heard and wouldn’t currently be trying to purchase, if some of my favourite mp3 blogs hadn’t committed copyright violations for the love of music: (Links are to corresponding entries at the relevant hosting blog where possible. The songs probably can’t be downloaded there any more, but I’m sure you can find them elsewhere if you’re resourceful enough.)

  • The Bug Speaks (The Song Corporation) (from said the gramophone)
    The best pop song about totalitarianism, ever. “The nobility of suffering was foremost in my mind / When I said that I feel that sacrifice has been too much maligned / I have a great respect for those who suffered for their race / And my policy will be that lots of suffering take place.”
  • lugu lugu kan-ibi (Bunun Tribe / David Darling) (from said the gramophone)
    A beautiful Taiwanese tribal song, accompanied by cello.
  • Freaks (Lil Vicious featuring Doug E.Fresh) (from gabba/POD)
    Human beatboxing as dancehall riddim!
  • What You Waiting For (Jacques Lu Cont remix) (from Laces)
    I barely noticed the original despite its media saturation, but Lu Cont’s divinely exuberant synthy version totally brings out the fag hag in me.
  • Rok One’s Crazy (Rok One) (from Laces)
    I bet you thought Vanilla Ice spoiled that Under Pressure sample for all rappers forevermore, but Rok One does a new tongue-in-cheek take on things.
  • Ghost White Flowers (The Tease) (from Fluxblog)
    It’s like Idioteque, except it isn’t like it at all.
  • The Trumpet (George Atkins and Hank Levine) (from Fluxblog)
    If you haven’t already heard this, I guarantee you’ve never heard a song like it. JFK giving a speech about tyranny and poverty becomes the leader of a pop band on helium.
  • In The Belly (Other Passengers) (from Music For Robots)
    I’m a sucker for drama and distortion. Think Mogwai with vocals by Interpol.
  • Avminnast (Nils Økland) (from Music For Robots)
    Austere Norwegian fiddle music, a soundtrack to movies of ice and snow that don’t exist except in my imagination.

2004 List: Top 5 Singles Of Shamelessness

Top 5 mainstream pop singles which should only have been guilty pleasures for a snob like me but which I actually shamelessly adore:

  1. She Will Be Loved (Maroon 5): It’s just sho shweet! My pop ballad of the year, because there always is one which I love despite my hopes of better judgment. (If I’d made a list last year, you can bet Daniel Bedingfield’s If You’re Not The One would have been on it.)

  2. Somebody Told Me (The Killers): I’m sure this band is the new big thing among people who think they’re hip but really aren’t, and the album has received lukewarm reviews from sources I trust, but this single reached out and grabbed me when the more highly regarded efforts of Franz Ferdinand, Scissor Sisters etc. did not. There is a mythical status attached to the Album As Art Form, but sometimes all you need to make someone’s day is a catchy song.

  3. Fuck It (Eamon): When I first heard this song on the Internet several months before it was released as a single, I never thought it would ever get played on the radio. I also find the radio version bizarrely amusing; what with all the censorship it almost sounds like it’s been remixed by Aphex Twin. Despite the obvious novelty value of the song, it does appeal to me beyond the “Dude, he’s saying fuck a lot! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh” sense. I really like the melody, and when Eamon’s voice quavers upwards on the last “ba-a-ack” of the chorus? Little heart flutter.

  4. Numb (Linkin Park): Unlike Limp Bizkit and all the other nu-metal whatevers, there are actually no Linkin Park singles I actively dislike. I’m fairly indifferent to most of them, but at least I never feel the need to change the channel in disgust when they come on. There’s a chimey, dramatic bombast to this one which I really enjoy when it kicks in at the beginning of the song. The lyrics are same-old same-old, of course, as is the accompanying video – there’s this girl! She has dark hair and wears black and draws! The cool kids shun her ‘cos she’s different! But all she wants is to be “more like [her] and less like [them]!” So she runs into a church inexplicably! – but that’s all part of the fun.

  5. Toxic (Britney): So far, my top pop single of the 21st century. Britney has very little to do with what is great about this song, although she is central to the greatness of the video. Mad props go to producers Bloodshy and Avant for this masterpiece, which is, amazingly, only one among many other sublime pop joys which Scandinavia has given the world this year. (The others will feature in another list if I get around to making it.) Maybe it’s something in their water.