I love receiving text messages that share an interesting thought, or a new muse, or a beautiful line, or ask lovingly how a day has been.
But people dont do these things very often anymore, do they? They prefer to message to remind, to make future arrangements, or to condense another source of information.
Felix Cheong taught me to write SMS poetry. He showed me how the constraints of a text message could be turned into the discipline of craft, how words from a text message didn't always have to be so neglectably transparent.
But he didn't tell me who I could send them to.
Thursday 31 July 2008
Tuesday 29 July 2008
It's so easy to love a piece of land.
I've been meaning to take my Singapore Tours for so long, but I've finally realised I've got it all wrong. I don't want to study and photograph the streets of Singapore, I want to live on them, in them.
I fell in love with Still Road and its Changi and Joo Chiat appendages the other night. The eateries, noisy and loud and run in arrogant dialect, sprawled across pavement and road, durians tossed continuously out of trucks like some Broadway parody, people from all walks of life in T-shirts and slippers, holding hands - and I think to myself, what's there not to love? And the cars - little worlds of yellow light buzzing up and down - they tell me that hundreds of other families feel the same way I do. My attachment certainly isn't one of childhood familiarity (my landscaped, avant-garde, globalised childhood). The streets have a charm I cannot fight. I need to be able to put on my crummy made-in-Pattaya flipflops and smell the living world.
Time is a growing consideration, especially when I notice all the hawkers and durian sellers are old and nicotine-rotted. How many of them will die out in the years to come? I made a small speech that roused the MPs and several reporters at a youth forum a couple of weeks ago about heritage and building conservation, but I secretly fear that conservation is a losing battle. The future is inevitable in more ways than one.
I fell in love with Still Road and its Changi and Joo Chiat appendages the other night. The eateries, noisy and loud and run in arrogant dialect, sprawled across pavement and road, durians tossed continuously out of trucks like some Broadway parody, people from all walks of life in T-shirts and slippers, holding hands - and I think to myself, what's there not to love? And the cars - little worlds of yellow light buzzing up and down - they tell me that hundreds of other families feel the same way I do. My attachment certainly isn't one of childhood familiarity (my landscaped, avant-garde, globalised childhood). The streets have a charm I cannot fight. I need to be able to put on my crummy made-in-Pattaya flipflops and smell the living world.
Time is a growing consideration, especially when I notice all the hawkers and durian sellers are old and nicotine-rotted. How many of them will die out in the years to come? I made a small speech that roused the MPs and several reporters at a youth forum a couple of weeks ago about heritage and building conservation, but I secretly fear that conservation is a losing battle. The future is inevitable in more ways than one.
Saturday 26 July 2008
I am trying to live your Tumultous Love
Last night, it hit me that I walked through the Zouk's Beatnik party, a gazillion pubs and the glory of Clarke Quay without ever once feeling a part of it. It didn't help that I was flanked by Seng and Yunsong, who (between them two) define young adulthood.
I can't decide if my life is stuck in the dormancy of a child, or sedateness of an old person. Whatever it is, I am not my age. I feel almost sorry for my friends who have to skip around the clubbing scene and other loud and young-adult championing activities to keep my company.
My life is interesting, and will always be, but my youth is a silence, my prime is a void.
(I have reverted to the bad habit of living for the future.)
I can't decide if my life is stuck in the dormancy of a child, or sedateness of an old person. Whatever it is, I am not my age. I feel almost sorry for my friends who have to skip around the clubbing scene and other loud and young-adult championing activities to keep my company.
My life is interesting, and will always be, but my youth is a silence, my prime is a void.
(I have reverted to the bad habit of living for the future.)
Tuesday 8 July 2008
It's never too late.
Mr T won the MOE graduate scholarship to study film! Grown-up Mr T, married Mr T. He'll be relocating his whole family to London, or to USA, he doesn't know which yet.
His glow of excitement was infectious, all the more precious because it emerged from a pallor of doubt. It means so much for someone so settled in his life to pluck out those roots and chase dreams again. I loved the way he was generous with his lessons, how he always had a ready smile and a patient ear. I love more his indomitable spirit (I've never used that phrase before - "indomitable spirit").
His glow of excitement was infectious, all the more precious because it emerged from a pallor of doubt. It means so much for someone so settled in his life to pluck out those roots and chase dreams again. I loved the way he was generous with his lessons, how he always had a ready smile and a patient ear. I love more his indomitable spirit (I've never used that phrase before - "indomitable spirit").
Tuesday 1 July 2008
Geek Moment.
This is why I hauled my butt down to physics lectures for 6 years, and listen to Colin. Really.
I shall not pretend that I'm not also excited by the frivolous knowledge of how freaking laaaaaarge a machine has to be to check out protons. 2.7358 x 10^4m versus 10^-15m! (I'm allowed to - my miserable, mere mortal mind cannot fully comprehend such fantastic science.)
Oh, and I finally own a copy of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again) from the Whitney Museum! Laughed till I cried. I don't understand why everybody doesn't love Andy. I'm in love.
I shall not pretend that I'm not also excited by the frivolous knowledge of how freaking laaaaaarge a machine has to be to check out protons. 2.7358 x 10^4m versus 10^-15m! (I'm allowed to - my miserable, mere mortal mind cannot fully comprehend such fantastic science.)
Oh, and I finally own a copy of The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again) from the Whitney Museum! Laughed till I cried. I don't understand why everybody doesn't love Andy. I'm in love.
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