blackout

i admit, slightly shamefully, that i was happily illuminated and playing mahjong during last night's blackout. sympathies are extended to those who were hit. in any case, it could be worse. we could be living in california.

bad movie night

- was a weekly affair with rhythm and blue-ers/brownstonians in duke, and is something i thought i should resurrect in memory of knuth, whose wedding i most unfortunately can't attend. (sorry! anyone have $3000 or so to spare?) response from people i've brought it up to so far has been generally favorable, but i await a time when the house has slightly fewer people in it (i.e. when i can get the big television to myself for a night without the invasion of soccer-watching father or gamecube-playing siblings). notable screenings in the american version included:

- shark attack iii
- manos: hands of fate
and
- jesus christ, vampire hunter

all the ed woods will be done, of course, and the blob, and i have a semi-request for the buffy the vampire slayer movie which i am told is quite execrable. takers?

in woodlands library

with su-lin, after potato chunks and hot tea: found j.d. salinger's nine stories, which i picked up to confirm the answer to a question on an episode of jeopardy i had recently watched (character in the first story thinks it's a perfect day for this creature. what are bananafish? "jeopardy" is a hard word to spell.) out of curiosity, read the story, had rather bemused googly-eyed reaction to it, showed it to su-lin who also read it and was similarly stopped in her tracks. 'very 'o' level-like short story', i commented. 'like something from into the wind'. 'we did malgudi days' admitted su-lin. but i think everyone knows what i mean.

regret

-- rather rashly suggesting meatballs or lasagne for party next week - meat is tricky and people are finicky about it, and an outbreak of salmonella will not do at all. Cookies have been done to death and most other baking just shows up how absolutely hopeless I am with pastry. Apple crumble, perhaps? Or something with similar crust but fruit of choice? Or we could just imbibe enough that it doesn't matter what we eat?

Currently reading:
The Fourteen Sisters of Emilio Montez O'Brien - Oscar Hijuelos

Concurrently reading:
A Sport and A Pastime - James Salter

Erratum

I am told that a schwa is a vowel sound and not /sh/ as I previous believed. So many years of ignorance.

English

- is, as everyone knows, a most counterintuitive language in terms of grammar, spelling and pronunciation, something that could easily be rectified by borrowing some of the tricks of the Internet generation. For instance, ‘tmrw’ is, in my opinion, a far superior spelling of ‘tomorrow’, immediately getting rid of the misspelling ‘tommorow’ while remaining an obvious signifier of the word. No confusion with changing ‘how are you’ to ‘how r u’ either. Where there is ambiguity (e.g ‘hlo’ being either ‘halo’ or ‘hello’), the abbreviation should apply to either the more common word or the word that would more logically abbreviate that way (in this case ‘hello’). Vowels are overrated! Other changes: we need more letters. ‘sh’ is an inadequate replacement for the schwa…we should just have a schwa. Then we could spell words like ‘motion’ /mo?un/ and get rid of all the confusion of how to pronounce things. Same with /?/ and /?/ and the rest of them.

It could work. I don’t approve of things like ROFLMAO and AYBABTU, but honestly, some of this common usage shorthand really could be an improvement to the language if we look past our prejudices and notice the inefficiencies and archaism. Or I could just be completely out of my mind. It is late, and my poor brain is fuddled.

today

oh! says minz when she discovers that i have driven to lunch at queenstown, how exciting! now we can be spontaneous and go to jurong east library and have chicken tenders and potato wedges and see the verging room where teenagers verge. and although i put up the token resistance expected of me, my heart is not in it because i have been most injurious and disappointing in the recent incident involving d______ (that is not supposed to be discussed) and i suppose that i ought somehow to make up for it. so we go, and clementi road misbehaves a little by forcing me to turn right and plonking me rather unceremoniously in upper bukit timah but we make it in the end and are both pleased because neither of us have much spatial sense and yet arrived without too much fuss. and minz will no doubt report this as well in her blog except at far greater length and with wit and humour* so go and read that instead.

* yes, this is intentional. when in rome, etc.

quibble

if in america the show is called 'american idol'
and in canada the show is called 'canadian idol'
et cetera
why is it that in singapore the show is called 'singapore idol'?

(because, the brother suggests, a metonymy of sorts operates with 'singapore' and 'singaporeans'; the country is the people and the people are the country - cf. 'we are singapore/we are singapore/we will stand together/hear the lion roar')
(or, they couldn't fit 'singaporean idol' onto the logo)

food

It’s kind of funny how Singaporeans are so opinionated about their food, how everyone seems so cocksure that they know where to find the “best” chicken rice/ char kway teow/ sambal stingray etc., particularly when half the time they’re dead wrong. Countless times I have been dragged along to obscure food centers in all corners of the island by friends dying to have me try various recommendations, and I am seldom impressed. Surely people realize by now that they don’t so much have “favorites” as “familiars”? I’m going to pick on Shaun here (apologies, but it’s just because this is the most recent example that springs to mind) – he and his mom quite passionately believe that the best chili crab in Singapore is to be had one of the restaurants along the ECP (I’ll leave it unnamed), the reason being that they are on good terms with the owner and get the dish as a special order - sans tomato sauce. No, that doesn’t make it the best chili crab, it just means that you happen to like it that way. Thus, while “best of” discussions have been fun, I have decided to refrain from them henceforth. That should save me a lot of dashed hopes.

but seriously

I have unpacked, my room has been returned to its proper order and things are looking rather more OK with the world. Two major transportation disasters transpired with my belongings: (1) a suitcase that apparently burst in transit and appeared bundled up in tape on the luggage collection belt, clothes and books spewing from it like leaking innards, and (2) my M-Bag, which similarly gave up the ghost and exploded somewhere on its journey over the Atlantic Ocean. The latter was the greater loss because several “keeping” books I had in it are now irredeemably bent and misshapen, including a rather nice hardcover Grapes Of Wrath which is now sitting under a stack of telephone books in the hopes that it may be restored. Other lesser casualties include The Little Prince, my American Sign Language dictionary and Bridge Odds for Practical Players by Kelsey and Glauert. Lesson learned: you get what you pay for.

In other news: (and I promise I will say this only once and no more), it is blastedly hot. Everyone says this upon return, and still, it loses none of its meaning. It’s hot! It’s ridiculously, murderously, impossibly hot!

Currently reading:
Galatea 2.2 – Richard Powers. Poach says that she didn’t really like it, but I suppose that having studied neuroscience I am obliged.

you know you’re back in singapore when…

… you see a sign which reads:

“Shoplifting is dangerous!
The police cannot help you!”

flame

"And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers is proved in the childishness, the madness, drunkenness and despair of those martyrs. Orpheus moved stones and trees. But a poet can't perform a hysterectomy or send a vehicle out of the solar system. Miracle and power no longer belong tp him. So poets are loved, but loved because they just can't make it here. They exist to light up the enormity of the awful tangle and justify the cynicism of those who say, 'If I were not such a corrupt, unfeeling bastard, creep, thief, and vulture, I couldn't get through this either. Look at these good and tender and soft men, the best of us. They succumbed, poor loonies.'"

~ Saul Bellow

Singapore

and yes, i'm back.

i'm not going to post about europe, so i hope no one got their hopes up. as it is, i'm not entirely sure i want to continue writing here at all. i guess i'll give it a trial period and see how things go.

Currently reading:
Timbuktu - Paul Auster

Somewhat surprisingly, this is the only thing I've started reading since the last post besides half of Humboldt's Gift (Saul Bellow) and six pages of A Hat Full of Sky (Pratchett). Slightly ashamed.