Extraordinary Machine

Bicycle - Caroline

2012-01-18T23:31:00.000+08:00

16th Jan 2012
Cycling is glorious. In the back of my head, old codger C.S. Lewis is telling me my appreciative-love for this kind of thing will fade in time; when it becomes less of a novelty. But I am quite the Romantic (even if I sometimes hate the movement so for its over-sentimentalism) when it comes to cycling in the evening.

This is not the type of cycling I used to do in my neighbourhood as a kid. This is traffic cycling! With the sense of purpose populating each cyclist, biker and driver on the road with you.

It’s just a normal as normal ride to the bread-van to get my breakfast for tomorrow morning. On my first venture, I almost got knocked down at the intersection but now I can do it with less tight-fisted handle-gripping.

I love how I will inevitably meet some of my students on the way. That small is the size of this town. And they’ll scream (normally the girls) in their pubescent, Khmer-inclined, high-pitched voices “Teacher Lin!”. And (my voice, sounding very much cotton-balled and adult) I return their hoots with genuinely delighted Hello’s. And then I remind myself that I will learn some Khmer phrase to shout back the next time. For now the evening air is packed with dust and dinnertime busyness and the cycling, the cycling is glorious!

Listen to Bicycle

Lingering Still - She & Him

2012-01-16T23:02:00.001+08:00

Pretty much my sentiments word-for-word. Thank you, Zooey.

I like to learn things slow
I like learning a lot
I like to get it all again and in the end
You know you get what you got
I like to mean what I say
But it don't always come through
Because if I say it all again, again, again
It doesn't make it all true

And the world's like a science
And I'm like a secret
And I saw you lingering still, still
I saw you lingering still

Own Stunts - Breathe Owl Breathe

2012-01-13T22:55:00.000+08:00

13th Jan 2012

I long for the ease of limbs that know they belong
The casualness afforded by being in company of the familiar
The smooth exchange of conversation without the jerk and jam of a
Foreign state of mind.

Ease and Grace always on my wish list.

Listen to Own Stunts

Concrete Wall - Zee Avi

2012-01-12T23:15:00.000+08:00

Illustration by Andrea Baruffi from Norma Farber's Return of The Shadows. Found it while rearranging the children's library last week.

8th Jan 2012
As with any subject worth studying, you take time to learn it, to discover things you never thought could occur, to be open to new discoveries in the field (some that counter previous well-established ‘facts’). As with any person worth knowing, they first appear with all the suggestiveness of a 2-dimensional image, calling you to suss out the next shade that carves out shadows and fleshes out the real thing. Or something closer to it.

To me, a great introduction is not one where an expansive glass display is crammed with all the most impressive bits. The art of letting time teach us more about a person is largely lost, I’m afraid. It's either "impress me" or "move along". I long for it to come back.

Teaching parallels that the most – the essentiality of a gradual unveiling.

For now “crack” means a split in the concrete wall. That’s it. I will not say how its onomatopoeic qualities are probably inspiration for rudimentary words like “cracker”. Or that you can crack everything from a whip to a code to a joke to a nut. Or that tough nut to crack will not be helped along with a larger hammer. Or that on the streets, crack will get you in trouble (if you be consumer or pusher of it).

For now “crack” means a split in the wall. That’s it.

Listen to Concrete Wall

Growing Younger - Alexandre Desplat

2012-01-10T21:59:00.000+08:00

My favourite morning place.

1st Jan 2012
New Year’s goes by without much celebration for SL and I in Takeo. We only realised it late in the evening when we settled down for dinner. She took out a Cornetto from the freezer – my New Year’s treat. Outside a wedding raged on, loud singing blaring out of speakers into the evening air.

This morning I am on my bicycle again, SL leading me in front. We pass a lady feeding her pigs, huge things that come up to her waist. One monstrous grey one chews grass inches away from me as we pedal on. I also pass a pony. Yes, a pony on some dirt road with some mongrel dogs for companions.

We visit one of our students this Sunday morning. His family works on a field and he brings us to see the newly harvested land. His neighbours, a troop of four sisters cling on to me chattering away, knowing full well I understand nothing. All I do is smile and try to keep the giant ants off them and blow lashes out of their eyes. One has taken to imitating my English one-liners. “I don’t understand.” We sit awhile under a ghost tree at the edge of the padi field looking at the immense sky and the world-weary white cow; chewing cud.

My legs ache from an hour's worth of cycling.

Listen to Growing Younger

Settle Down - Kimbra

2012-01-08T21:27:00.002+08:00

Evening view from where I now live.

29th Dec 2011
The closing of the day is worth noting down. Although throughout the day, things hurl themselves at me, asking me to please note this instance down, don’t forget this feeling, please remember this sight.

The closing of day is when all the students stream out and I watch (leaning against the Centre’s glass doors) as they swing on their bicycles into the late evening street. And I wish (with a little adult envy) that I too had a family house I could cycle home to or that I had, at some point in my life, yelled across the road to a friend, all the while deftly peddling like I was king of the streets.

Even when I sing under my breath the songs that tie so tightly to the life I left a few weeks ago to remind me of all that makes up what I am, I feel increasingly the lack of meaning all that bears in this place.Music production? Songwriting? What do you write about again? It doesn’t matter. They fall away like KL fell away the instant the plane touched down on Cambodian soil. They hold no weight or gravitas here; they do not transcend well when taken out of context. The only useful thing my ‘honed craft’ produces is an hour long session of kids singing along to a 3-chord tune I plonked out on an old keyboard.

“My God is so big/ so strong and so mighty/ there’s nothing my God cannot do for you”

Listen to Settle Down

2011-12-26T08:45:00.000+08:00

Hi Aunty Siew Chan, my beloved (and only) aunt that bickers with me. A belated birthday, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Someone Like You - Woodkid

2011-12-12T23:08:00.000+08:00

I wanted to be Jo March when I was little. I had an abridged version of Little Women when I was 8 or 9 and then I read the real thing a few years later. I was awfully upset that she married and didn't want to read about her life after that (in Louisa May Alcott's subsequent books). I wanted her to stay the idealistic, restless Jo with ink stains on her fingers and burns in her party dress.

This is an excerpt from one of my favourite blogs - even*cleveland.

I want to do something splendid ... something heroic, or wonderful—that won’t be forgotten after I’m dead. I don’t know what, but I’m on the watch for it, and mean to astonish you all, some day. I think I shall write books, and get rich and famous; that would suit me ...
Jo March, Little Women

*

I'm shakin' the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I'm gonna see the world. Italy, Greece, the Parthenon, the Colosseum. Then, I'm comin' back here to go to college and see what they know. And then I'm gonna build things. I'm gonna build airfields, I'm gonna build skyscrapers a hundred stories high, I'm gonna build bridges a mile long...
George Bailey, It's A Wonderful Life

*

Little Women is the first book I remember reading on my own. I was eight years old, and it took me the better part of a year to work through it, puzzling through the mysteries of Pickwicks and pilgrims, tarlatans and tin kitchens. As soon as I finished it, I began it again. I read it over and over - at least once a year until I went to college. It pointed me to other books - Pilgrim's Progress, The Vicar of Wakefield, endless volumes of Dickens, and the collected works of Louisa May Alcott. Along the way, it wound through the foundation of my childhood, bending and shaping the way I understood the world and what it means to grow up.

Like many before and since, Jo March was my favorite. Smart and impulsive, funny and flawed. I loved picturing her in the attic, writing furiously and telling her family that 'genius burns', or reading on the sofa, eating apples in the company of a pet rat. (Rats were a theme with my childhood heroines - Jo had Scrabbles, Sara Crewe had Melchisedec.) I never expected her to marry Laurie- he was a brother and a friend, and my eight-year-old self didn't see any reason Jo had to marry anyone - but I was crushed to read about her grown-up life. Amy went off to Europe and became the lady fair, Meg got married and had babies, but Jo's dreams never got a full field of play. Instead of the world bending to her will, she bent herself to the rigid shape the world offered. Daughter, sister. Wife, mother. Teacher, authoress. Her family needed money, so she wrote what sold. Her sister needed a nurse, so she put everything aside and devoted herself to the job. In the end, she marries an older, impoverished professor and starts a family and a school for boys (Alcott got so many letters pleading for Jo to end up with Laurie after the publication of the first volume that she decided against it, creating a 'funny match' for her instead. She later said that Jo should have been a literary spinster. Simone de Beauvoir recalled that Jo's refusal of Laurie made her realize marriage was not the only choice.) Eventually, she gets a measure of literary success, but it is of a humbler, homier flavor than what she (and I) hoped for. Duty rules, but she finds happiness.

I can never decide if this was a good thing or a tragic thing for my eight-year-old self to discover.

*

Around this time of year, I re-watch It's A Wonderful Life. I love the story of George Bailey, irritable and idealistic, stubborn and moral. His successes are the humblest and homiest - a loving wife, happy children, necessary work. Like Jo March, he never gets what he wants - to go to college, travel the world, leave Bedford Falls behind. Instead, he gets little victories and a restless heart - and of course, a visit from an angel to show him it was all worthwhile and teach him to love what he has.

Since we don't all get angels, we have to take it on faith that our sacrifices matter. Little Women and It's A Wonderful Life idealize something that is often hard and sad and lonely - unselfish choices made by imperfect people. They fill a hungry space in the heart - the space that wants meaning and matter equal to the most epic stories.

Most people have lives of ordinary greatness, placed in a small circle of love and importance. Extraordinary greatness requires a degree of selfishness, a certain ruthlessness of purpose in addition to ambition and talent. If we can't have that extra part - that part that makes us put ourselves first, first and always, that part that believes that whatever we want most is worth the cost - why have the heart that wants more? Why can't we fit comfortably to the life we have?

Last month, I posted a quote about the pull of instinct - a description of barnyard ducks called to flight by the migrating patterns of wild birds. It's a romantic idea - that hidden deep in domesticated blood, there is something untamed and essential. That we can feel the call to something more is a mixed gift. Without the ability or opportunity to answer, it is a torment to master. Jo March and George Bailey fight this fight. Their stories are reminders that we have to live the life we have, and all we can do is make the best of what we are even if it is not all we can be.

Listen to Someone Like You

Gymnopédie No.1 - Erik Satie

2011-12-07T23:00:00.000+08:00

Regina's posts are always like timely reminders to fight against the comfort of sinking into your own selfish skin.

"...you die with a head full of fine sayings and a perfectly empty heart."- Julian Green, Diaries.

I know how it's like/ I understand what you're going through/ It's will get better/Everything is okay...

The cruelty in creating a false hope that crumbles with the stark cracks of reality.

We do them kindness, by just being silent and listen...

just listen.

Listen to Gymnopédie No.1

When I Met You - Ta-ku

2011-12-05T23:00:00.000+08:00

When I met you, I wanted to be something like you.

Images from 5 inch and up, Camilla Prytz, International Business Times, Last.fm, Kathryn Bentley, Jak & Jil, Turned Out, LIFE.

Listen to When I Met You

Somebody Kill Me - Adam Sandler

2011-12-04T17:13:00.001+08:00

Attended a friend's wedding in Sandakan this week. Her husband's a doctor so naturally there were a lot of them around for the reception. I was talking to this smiling Egyptian lady while looking at proboscis monkeys hanging in the trees (I'm serious).

Me: Do you live here?

Lady: Yes, my husband works here. He's the groom's boss, actually. Are you a doctor too?

Me: No. I'm the wedding singer.

If she felt awkward after that, she hid it really well. Once, my General Science teacher told me that I had the face of a doctor. And I'm like "well, I shouldn't be in your class then".

Damn, I'm going for the next Grey's Anatomy auditions no matter what!

Anyway, being a wedding singer is kind of corny but it teaches you one thing - humility. And how to pace yourself at the free-flow alcoholic beverage counter (<--this is a joke).

2011-11-27T21:54:00.001+08:00

"Ultimately, I hope you hear me and recognize yourself."

-Lykke Li

To Carry Small Things - Mina Tindle

2011-11-24T23:30:00.000+08:00

Image from Stuff No One Told Me

I'm moving again. I downsize my belongings every once a year because of shifting. Throw away, give away, leave behind (oh no landlord, you can have my broken self-assembled penyidai baju, no really, just take it). Sometimes it happens twice annually (like this year).

It's getting a bit tiring but I'm quite proud of it (mah skills iz gettin flyah)! I feel like I can conquer the world just because I can pack and shift my life all in one day.

YES.

No. I hate having to start, though.

Listen to To Carry Small Things.

Zee Avi Homecoming Tour 2011

2011-11-23T12:42:00.000+08:00

Photo by MSN Going Out

Video by the same awesome duo who did our Converse shoot.

A few weeks ago, a friend studying in Missouri told me that he would play OAG’s Satellite Ink when people asked him what Malaysian music sounded like. He then asked me whose album would I slip into a foreigner’s pocket if they asked me the same question. His query went unanswered.

I didn't give him an answer not because I didn't have one. It was because I didn’t like the answer that I was going to give. It was loaded with negativity and it sounded a little jaded. Both things of which never helped much with improving anything.

As if calling with a solution, my phone rang on the 17th of Nov, the voice on the other end telling me I had just won tickets to Zee Avi’s Homecoming Tour. What better way to dart ideas on Malaysian music than Zee Avi – the first to head West, to have a career outside of the tightly-wound automaton of hitz fm and AIM’s, launched into the broad, expansive world of the international music scene.

Zee Avi is a girl who knows the bite of the harshest kind, the kind that you receive from the people whom you expect to be on your side. Labeled a snob and snubbed at events by her own country’s media, she knows that retaliation is natural but ultimately unrewarding.

Hence the careful threading this time around. She kept addressing the crowd as “Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia”, she brings out a sape, sings in Sarawakian dialect, covers an old Mandarin song, and tears up onstage talking about her homecoming. The most cynical would say she went all out to prove her locality; the most optimistic would have clutched their breast and cried along with her.

Her in-between-songs chatter could have been put on mute and she would have still been the most “Malaysian” singer-songwriter I’ve seen live. I was reminded of the magnetism of P. Ramlee as I stood watching her sway in her long blue dress, flower in hair, the bend in her vocals a throwback to Malayan charm of older times even though her lyrics were predominantly in English. Why have I never felt this way ever while watching countless local bands play?

One may argue that even P. Ramlee’s musical stylings were influenced by Western pop of his era. Yes, I am aware of that. But that Malayan aplomb, that affectionate, old-fashioned playfulness was unique to him and Zee Avi has intrinsically latched on to that particular stage presence and made it her own.

What makes Swedish pop different from American? Likewise we can have the same question pointed at Malaysian music. The identity of a nation in its music seldom shows in the content. More often, it comes through in the “aesthetic” – the posture, the attitude, the stance in which the music adopts.

The way musical elements (production style, mixing, arrangement) collate with the non-musical aspects (artist “look”, stage presence, media personality) to create an impression on the listener is what I’d like to call the “aesthetic” that we associate with the sound of an artist.

While the US churn out Lana Del Reys, the Swedes produce stars like Lykke Li. Both do mournful music weighed down with longing but both have a totally different “aesthetic” to their sound.That is why Zee Avi did it for me. Her “aesthetic” was so distinct. She might have struggled during the first album to find it but she’s gained so much footing now.

Maybe it was the time spent away from her homeland, having to stand as a representative of sorts while touring. For when you take a fish out of water, it is during that time that the fish feels most like a fish. That its gills were meant for submersion and its fins were made to pedal water, not air.

Seeming to have reached some form of clarity, Zee Avi closes her set with a declaration that despite the incorporation of local instruments, despite the flower in her hair, it is the warmth and accommodating nature that serves truest as an identifier to our national distinctiveness.

So JC, this is my very late, very long but ultimately less unconstructive answer to your question. As someone who is part of a Malaysian band, I often get hung-up when I question what my music stands for. Is it just a pale echo of what international acts have already done and mastered or is it “Malaysian”?

For the most part, I think the best way to come off as a real musician is when the strive to constantly fight off pretentiousness and inauthenticity is firmly (albeit tiringly) set in place.

Watch snippets from Zee Avi's Homecoming Tour here

Best Soldier (Ion Ray Unicorn Edit) - Halfway Kings

2011-11-20T14:13:00.000+08:00

I can't stop looking at these videos. I can watch them on mute for all I care, I'm not really into the music they make. But the locations! One was filmed in Cuba (I presume) and the other in my very own homeland.

Which brought me back to the night I was telling you about in this post. There's no hiding that I was completely taken with the location for our shoot. Now that the campaign's out, I can finally talk about it. My band's been picked as a Converse ambassador! It was truly a stroke of funny luck (for lack of a better word, I don't really believe in luck).

The story goes: Jo filmed something band-related and he was sharing it with me through YouTube. It was set as a private video because it was still a work in progress. The problem was I couldn't view it (I think it's because we weren't subscribed to each other's channels. So much band love there) so Jo had to make it public. To cut to the chase, the video clocked 4 views. 3 were by me and 1 came from a person working for Converse Malaysia.

So that's the story of how Halfway Kings ended up on a rooftop in Bangsar, shooting a documentary style video with some very humbly capable people and a very accommodating all-round-senior-hipster of a host.

Daphne - Lia Ices

2011-11-17T01:18:00.000+08:00

I look for confidence and they all tell me "you'll be all right", "I'm sure you'll do fine".
I look and I find no shred of confidence that lasts any longer than the second I fail to prove that I am rid of my old, too familiar demons.

But I look to find confidence in the wrong things. Past experiences. Past achievements. Capabilities. My own little List of Reassurances. I tell you here that they give me no lasting comfort whatsoever when I think of the upcoming 2 months away in a country where very few can understand the language I speak, living alone and trying to run a learning centre. My social handicaps stand out clearer than ever.

Moses said to the Lord, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."
The Lord said to him, "Who gave man his mouth? ...Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
Exodus 4:10 - 12

I am learning to let go of my list. And to stop yearning for the crutch of affirmation from the mouths of people. The sort of courage I need cannot be found there, it's found in the presence of my God.

Fly 'cause your truth is in the solid ground.

Belle - Paige O'Hara

2011-11-15T01:16:00.001+08:00

Take Me Somewhere Nice - Mogwai

2011-11-13T16:24:00.001+08:00

Photos from my flickr.

These photographs weren't taken by me. My mother just came back from Turkey and I stole 'em from her camera. Too magical.

Those rocks are called fairy chimneys because when the winds sweep through the land, they make whistling sounds. And people used to live in them; Christians running away from Roman persecution. Now that's not very magical.

Listen to Take Me Somewhere Nice

Survive It - Ghostpoet

2011-11-08T22:30:00.000+08:00

Ok, you know that I watch every video that StyleLikeU posts up. This guy is so delightfully unpremeditated that my self-conscious self just wants to throw BFF punches at him. Yup, we could be BFF's. I know, BFF's a very ineloquent term to use.

Since Larry B. (my could-be BFF) talks about British hip-hop and how different "ghetto life" is there compared to the US, I immediately tried to think of a credible UK counterpart and Ghostpoet came to mind. It's interesting to see how different geographical and political environments give birth to different artists although the genre and language remain essentially the same.

Ghostpoet is one guy that I can always listen to and have my spirits dragged down to the depths of days spent in raggedy oversized flannel shirts (they happen). I'm so into the way he slurs and drawls. And the fact that he's in a bathrobe in the video below walking amongst apartments at night just shows that we are kindred souls. But we couldn't be BFF's, that would be unfair to Larry.

Midnight City - M83

2011-11-05T12:38:00.002+08:00

Old photo of old room I used to live in (not the place I'm talking about below).

Experience scavenging. There's a phrase for it now. Sometimes I feel as if I'm collecting these things for someone, my grandchildren, maybe (or highly unlikely).

But let me tell you about this man I met on a rooftop at night somewhere in Bangsar.

We'll call him Uncle Lim. The place was his. Not only did he own the rooftop apartment unit, he designed the whole damn building. He sits one leg crossed over the other in a singlet, Tiger in hand, kind bushy brows, grey ponytail. We're filming at his place (long story, some other time). Jo and I finish our song. He asks whether I sing professionally and without missing a beat I say no. And then I sort of have to backtrack and correct myself because:

Singing = Part of My Income
∴ Singing = A Sorta Profession

"Actually, I do. That's very strange, isn't it?"

And then he tells us of the building he designed, of underground jazz clubs in New York, and climbs on a stool with a wooden stick to tilt the porch bulbs to give us better lighting (he's old, I watch with muscles all ready to help break a fall, fortunately it doesn't happen), and then he offers us more beer in the most grandfatherly way possible.

Listen to Midnight City

Indian Summer - The Doors

2011-10-30T22:48:00.001+08:00

My favourite girl India Salvor Menuez at it again with her crazy prints and colours and textures.

Although she doesn't seem very nice in person here. But no one's perfect.

This weekend I spent catching up with 3 of my Seremban friends. Things move so differently here in this small town. When I say come over to my place and just chill, it happens. Never in KL. It's almost like vegetating at home with friends is a foreign concept. I mean what I say and invites are exactly what I mean them to be but somehow it flies over the heads of city folk.

P/S Planning a party at a venue worthy of a palm-rub soon. So come by, damnit.

Listen to Indian Summer

Sæglópur - Sigur Ros

2011-10-26T23:46:00.001+08:00

I found this draft saved long ago. Sometimes I retain stuff and then not know what to do with it til months later.

The kind of hope that I often think about…I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us, or we don’t. It is a dimension of the soul. It’s not essentially dependent upon some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation.Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

— Václav Havel

Anyway, I'm pretty sure it came from here. Regina curates quotes and also writes some very articulate below-sea-level observations about everyday happenings.

Dragon - Breathe Owl Breathe

2011-10-22T01:30:00.000+08:00

Isn't this the sweetest tragic love song you've heard that made you laugh out loud?

Love songs are hard to write. I've never written one because it's hard to fall properly in love. And I'm very much convinced that love is a hard thing to pull off. And I'm talking about the real kind; the tough kind that wants to last.

In the words of C.S. Lewis:

But, as I said before, ‘the most dangerous thing you can do is to take any one impulse of our own nature and set it up as the thing you ought to follow at all costs’. Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing. There are many things below it, but there are also things above it. You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling.

Now no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all. Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last but feelings come and go. And in fact, whatever people say, the state called ‘being in love’ usually does not last.

If the old fairy-tale ending ‘They lived happily ever after’ is taken to mean ‘They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,’ then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would be highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years? What would become of your work, your appetite, your sleep, your friendships? But, of course, ceasing to be ‘in love’ need not mean ceasing to love.

Love in this second sense — love as distinct from ‘being in love’ — is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moments when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be ‘in love’ with someone else.

‘Being in love’ first moved them to promise fidelity: this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run: being in love was the explosion that started it.

Forever In Blue Jeans - Neil Diamond

2011-10-17T00:00:00.001+08:00

Can't lie, I'm a visual person, very much so. I love clothes, how the city looks at night, how the sun falls on bedroom walls, how cereal looks in my bowl. I get mad when fonts are used inappropriately.

It's been a tussle when it comes to loving clothes. Trying to mind-battle the strong need to have a distinct personal style and not being sucked into vanity is hard. But getting to the place where dressing becomes more of a manifestation of what's in your head rather than placating self-worth is a conscious decision. For me, at least.

We get bombarded everywhere. I try to limit my 'fashion exposure' to what makes me feel like I'm learning something. That's very different from choosing what makes me swoon or fills me with material desires. And so I recommend this site for whoever is feeling the same way about things: StyleLikeU.

The people behind it love fashion for what it is. Not clothes. But choices; artistic exhibitions of what is really coming from the inside.

When a fashion site has a whole feature dedicated to nuns, you know they're on to something deeper. When they have social experiments where people with opposing ideas of style switch wardrobes, you know they're something different. When people use clothing as a lead-in to discussions about their lives, their loves, their failures, their fears, their work ethic.

When men (gay and straight) talk about how they project masculinity and femininity to the people around them.

It's a treasure amongst countless sites that tell you where to get that £120 sweater you can't afford from ASOS.

Listen to Forever In Blue Jeans

Bookshop Casanova - The Clientele

2011-10-12T23:00:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I think I'm possessed when I write. Because when I look back at previous jottings I am often times left wandering whether I really "verbalised" my thoughts in that fashion.
"Who says that?"
"Woah, snark alert!"
"Wow, why am I so much dumber in real life?"

It's very strange. The strangest are the old pieces of poetry paper I find stuck in notebooks scrawled in my ever-changing handwriting (I promise you I'm not schizo). I can hardly recall anymore, much less fathom how those lines were conceived.

On a less disturbing note: I get a kick outta seeing my name printed on a magazine contents' page's sidebar as a Contributor! Oh man, celebratory field run! Anyway, the piece was about social-categorising clientele at various noteworthy bars/clubs. Here's a taste:

Definitions
Hipster: Counter-culture young adults often in their twenties. Concerned about the environment, politics, the arts, and the tightness of their jeans.
College Student: Carefree individual pursuing tertiary education. Values self-sufficiency but is in no state to provide for self yet. Often mistakes narcissism for individuality.
Trendy Parent: Young and still in the early throes of marriage. Probably has one child and reconsidering plans for another. Oft seen with milk bottle in one hand, mobile in another.
Sports Fan: Rowdy. Highly energised by the sight of green turf, a ball and pairs of muscular legs chasing it.
Loves the game but not enough to actually play it.

To read more, get the ever useful Time Out Malaysia: Restaurants, Bars & Clubs 2011/12 issue at major bookstores/magazine stands in the Klang Valley.

Listen to Bookshop Casanova

Begin The Beguine - Broadway Melody of 1940

2011-10-10T23:00:00.000+08:00

You know the early throes of Romanticizing a certain place before you actually get elbow-deep in planning your trip there? The period of ignorance-hazed dreaming before you are confronted by confusing bus schedules and currency conversion? This is an account of it.

Takeo. Found out 2 days ago that all my conjured snippets of a life in Phnom Penh have to go into the bin. Have been reassigned to Takeo instead, a "quiet, lakeside provincial capital" (according to Lonely Planet). There's not much said about the place; just that all the other areas around it are much more interesting.

So now begins the delicate balancing act of not falling into dread or being overtly pollyanna about things. It's too early, no?

Yes, it'll be awful on some days, yes, I'll be bored out of my skull on some days, yes, I'll be awe-floored on some days and yes, it'll be utterly life-changing on some days. Two months are a lotta days. So let the Beguine begin. Imma fall properly in love with you, Takeo.

The Cinematic Orchestra ft Patrick Watson - That Home

2011-10-04T23:30:00.000+08:00

Dunes of Khara Khoto from Nat Geo mag. Seremban light throwing itself on to my living room wall.

Homeland, foreign land. I am eternally shuttling between these two extreme points in the spectrum in my head.

I found a backdated issue of Nat Geo while waiting for the doc the other day. Was transfixed with Donovan Webster's article on his journey into the Alashan Plateau in China, I almost did not want the nurse to call my name so I could finish reading it.

Deserts are so vast and transient, it's a little scary (things worth experiencing always are) because landscapes change all the time with the wind. There were mild alarm bells going off in my head while I was reading this piece. I even checked the mag's front page to see where their office was located, quite (OK, highly) delusional, thinking "I'll work with them, they'll fund my fantasies".

And then I thud back to reality and realize...I'll do it myself. Just you wait, Khara Khoto. Or any other cheaper desert alternative.

As much as I paw desperately at that, I also will always want things like this:

Where the doors are moaning all day long,
Where the stairs are leaning dusk 'til dawn,

Where the windows are breathing in the light,
Where the rooms are a collection of our lives,

This is a place where I don't feel alone
This is a place that I call my home.

(You have to) Listen to That Home.

What I Say And What I Mean - The Like

2011-10-01T23:49:00.002+08:00

Neptune Pool, Hearst Castle, California.

Image from here.

I love pools at night. I do now.

I used to be afraid to swim in them as a kid when evening came and the underwater lights came on. It felt too much like waddling in an alien womb (sci-fi movie overload). Last week, just to prove to myself that I've gotten over stupidity, I went for a swim when it got dark and the pool was completely deserted. It'll be one of the things I'll be doing more of from now on.

Living in the city gets to me sometimes; the traffic, the smog, the traffic. Spending 30 minutes stuck in a car getting to a place that is only 10 minutes away in reality drives me up the wall. Little pockets of calm like these I take eagerly to heart because despite everything, I don't think I ever want to leave the city. Moving here's given me a sort of canvas to tack my dreams on; almost as if I spent all my life plotting and I'm now standing on execution ground.

The pool was so good looking, I went back to take a few shots. That's my mamas moonbathing there. Images from my flickr.

Rambling Man - Laura Marling

2011-09-28T11:18:00.003+08:00

Image from Tomboy Style

"On the left is an 80-pound perch caught in Lake Albert in British Yganda. In the center, proud, happy and beaming over the catch, is me. On the right is the dame who caught it."

—Humphrey Bogart

Priceless quote.

Listen to Rambling Man

Sleep For You - Nikki Lane

2011-09-24T16:53:00.000+08:00

I may think I'm badass and all, sleeping in airports for the sake of watching Swedish bands in Singapore but my grandma put me in my place! I thought she'd be worried so I didn't tell her anything until I got back.

G: That was a short trip. I thought you weren't coming back this weekend.
A: Oh, (fake nonchalance) I was just there for a day.
G: A day? Why so short?
A: I was just there for a concert.
G: Did you stay at your aunt's place?
A: No, (long pause of contemplation) I slept in the airport.
G: Oh, I did that too.

She is badass. She beat me to doing that whole airport sleepover thing. AND she did it while in her late 50's, waiting for her transit flight from Australia to Malaysia with my grandpa in Singapore AND she doesn't speak a word of English! That's two AND's in capital letters. Bravo, well-played, grandma, well-played.

I'm so proud of my lineage.

Listen to Sleep For You

Youth Knows No Pain - Lykke Li

2011-09-22T23:18:00.001+08:00

Arriving at Changi MRT for Lykke Li - Live.
Waiting for dawn and our plane back to KL in the company of Ronald himself.
All images from my flickr set

I am coasting on the surface of consciousness right now but I told myself that I'd ride the no-sleep wave and write this piece while it's still fresh/blurry (depends how you see it). We've been up with brief naps on planes and buses for 32hours now. 3 frazzled frames shuffling to and fro across the causeway to catch a glimpse of Swedish magic. Car, plane, bus, MRT, taxi, plane, bus, car, car, home. Non-stop with airport benches to rest our heads and Lykke Li's "Youth Knows No Pain" resounding every time I slip into and out of short shut-eyes.

If you really want to get to know a person, go travel with them. It gets even better (or worse) when tanks are low on sleep fuel, mouth filters are down and feet are falling apart. The process is such a privileged one to watch - the rounding out of a character from some part of your existence. I always tell myself not to take these instances for granted.

Hi Diane, Jon. If you're reading this do the shuffle, cos every day I'm shufflin'.

Dear Chan Marshall - We Are Trees

2011-09-11T22:43:00.002+08:00

Totally unrelated image from my flickr

C: Do you ever imagine what you'll be like in 10 years time?
A: No.
A: You?
C: Me neither.

Hushed conversations in a guesthouse dorm after midnight, beers & rain.

I think it's OK. Life has veered so far away from the standard; in ways I wouldn't wish upon myself because of the pain that follows suit but also in ways I wouldn't wish upon myself because I didn't know how to dream as big as He does.

Listen to Dear Chan Marshall

I See Who You Are - Björk

2011-09-08T23:00:00.000+08:00

My mother went back to her hometown for a week and she said that she felt so confident and comfortable back on her own turf. She could speak to anyone on the street in Hokkien and they would have no problem understanding her. And she also weirdly declared that she'd wear shorts all the time there. I have no idea why she can't do it here! Maybe it's because when she moved over, a new bride, 25 years ago, her wardrobe changed to fit that. A wife, a new mother, a daughter-in-law, a young English teacher from up North.

Now that she's passed her 50's, widowed, a postgrad student; it's only natural to go back to where she once started - single, learning, free of in-laws and kids. So the idea of home really morphs with where you are in your life. Whether you're placed on an upward slope, eyes forward striving, or in a plain land emptied of old responsibilities, a strange clean slate, or slipping on shifting landscapes waiting for a solid horizon you can fix your gaze on so you don't get woozy. Home is not physical or bound by geography but the sense of a place giving you space to be the current you.

Most of us go without it for long periods in life. But I hope you find it once in awhile and appreciate the opportunity while it lasts because things take us places and sometimes not being "home", well, it's called an adventure (if you want it to be)!

Listen to I See Who You Are

Rainbow Voice - David Hykes

2011-09-07T23:00:00.000+08:00

Cave readings - still from Dead Poets Society

I'm a word person. I know, blah blah men who are good with words generally cannot be trusted. But I can tell a Lothario from a wordsmith, ok. The ability to express oneself with words is a gift and I don't mean being loud, brash, and overtly-opinionated. Sometimes it's just a turn of phrase, or the angle that you're coming from - always humble. Maybe because it's something I don't have the gift for, therefore I crave it in others.

Saw this quote on Diane's tumblr.

“So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavour, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.”
— John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society

And then this word. So delicate and courtly yet every bit as dismissive.

Listen to Rainbow Voice

I'll Find A Way - Rachael Yamagata

2011-09-06T23:00:00.000+08:00

All pictures from my flickr

My last days in London are made beautiful by the people I've had the privilege to know in Malaysia. They've lived here for more than 3 years now - locals are bringing me around!

They drag me to a piece of horror theatre, feed me scones with clotted cream, cherries and lots of cider (although we're giddy with reunion even before the alcohol hits). Jackie regales me with her tales of hardcore hitchhiking adventures and marriage proposals in Marrakesh (she is one spunky Hongkie) and we fall asleep after laughing too hard trying (without much success) to apply facial masks on each other.

Soraya joins us the next morning for breakfast while it pours and pours outside. We run (yes, again) to catch the bus that'll bring me to my airport-bound bus. We reach in time! Before I get on, Chieh thrusts me a pack of postcards. Read later, she says. She's such a giver! I get up on the bus. Chieh, Sor and Jackie do a farewell dance for me as I wave goodbye. I just know we'll be doing this still when we're 76.

Listen to I'll Find A Way

I'm Beginning To See The Light - Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington

2011-09-04T14:42:00.000+08:00

Umm..something like that. Image sourced from here.

In my last year at college, I shared my room with Nurul - one batch my junior and the shortest girl I've ever met. But one who tried to pick up Latin on her own, who played Nirvana on the piano and had a soft-toy snail she called Snowy (its appearance, ironically, no longer so).

Once we saw a notice posted up announcing that the Music Department was going to start a mini jazz brass band. Nurul and I were so nerd-excited we signed-up immediately. In the bandroom on our first rehearsal, we found out that we were the only ones who did. I think he just didn't want to disappoint us; so the Head of Music gamely handed us our sheet music and proceeded with the session irregardless. Him on keys, Nurul on drums and me singing Duke Ellington's "I'm Beginning To See The Light".

AND NOW SHE'S GONE AND GOTTEN MARRIED! If the wedding slideshow had gone on any longer, I would have bawled. To one who never once utilised her bragging rights on account of her absurd talent and intellect; to one who was game for music misadventures, to my friend and ex-roomate: I love you, make it good and please read your future kids A. A. Milne.

2011-09-04T12:56:00.000+08:00

let me never fail to admire
for admiration can be for potential
that can and will work itself into solid reality in future
nurtured by the strength that encouragement gives.

Holocene - Bon Iver

2011-08-26T11:24:00.002+08:00

BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

Oh God, how do you do it? I'm in your gallery. This world is your gallery.

To Darkness - Mumford & Sons and Dharohar Project

2011-08-22T22:46:00.004+08:00

Our plane from Munich to London is delayed by an hour. Everyone impatiently stands in line for the gate to open. We are the only ones plopped on the floor in exhaustion, our mouths auto-talking in Texan accents while our brains lag behind.

We land in Gatwick around 1am, take a train to Victoria and wait for an extremely late bus in the freezing weather (we are clad in khaki shorts and tie-dye dress respectively, how absolutely ideal for summer, except summer in London this year is a bit like autumn). A frustrated man in a suit who just missed his bus starts to talk to us. He used to work for the embassy and lived on Jalan Ampang!

In the strange, early morning air, he recommends me to eat at Suzi’s Corner (“they have the best steak”) and a Chinese restaurant near Ampang Point. Our bus arrives, Chieh and I dash off with a quick goodbye. I am a stranger in my own land.

Listen to To Darkness

Munich - Editors

2011-08-19T22:54:00.001+08:00

I feel like an Asian yo-yo being ordered into the nurses’ office and then out again and in again and out again. Between a cranky doorman and a cold, skinny, Anna Wintour nurse, I suddenly prefer the pain of my throbbing eye. They can’t really speak English so they repeat their sentences doubling up force and volume (when will we learn that this helps NOT ONE BIT).

Finally I get help from a patient. She guides me through a form I have to fill in, which is entirely in German. When we hand it in, Chieh, hoping for solidarity asks a Filipino nurse how things work here and gets a curt reply. “I’m off duty”.

“How long’s the wait?” Chieh presses on with her questions and I’m filled with dread as Filipino nurse swivels around in her chair to ask German Anna instead. She passes us a withering glance and says about an hour. We get ourselves out of that emergency room and duck into the nearest restaurant in sight – which just happens to be an Italian one!

The place is packed, woody and ablaze with candlelight. Italian waiters shout “Buonasera” and we get priority placing as Chieh explains my condition. Our waiter seems concerned and jovial at the same time, asking me whether I was in a boxing match. I say “yes, with a door” and he tuts sympathetically and pats me on my cheek in a manner only an Italian can pull off without coming off as sleazy. We literally feel the German cold thaw in the warmth of this Italian trattoria.

When we get back, German Anna sarcastically asks whether we’re done with dinner. Thankfully, my doctor is the opposite of evil. He greets me with the nicest handshake and I recognise that his voice was the one that so patiently explained what to do and how much to expect to be paying earlier on the phone. Dr. Pinter (bless his soul) drips colour into my eye to survey the damage. On my chart he ticks “Erosion” and proceeds to shade the eroded area on my eye graph. He’s gentle and calming and makes small talk. He even whips out his phone to show us directions to the nearest Apotheke to get my medication.

Then we learn that we have to come back tomorrow to make payment (finance department is closed) and when we reached the Apotheke, we find that it's closed too so we head back home attaining nothing except the warm feeling of reassurance that I will not go blind and that there are good men out there, after all.

Listen to Munich

Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me) - Disney

2011-08-15T23:11:00.001+08:00

Images from my flickr set.

1st Morning in Munich, Pension Hostel
We are greeted by two huge dogs at breakfast; one a beautifully nervous creature, the other a slobbering brute. After some map consulting, we head out the door. And it is the door that causes the whole Munich trip to take an unexpected turn.

Chieh accidentally slams the door latch into my left eyeball. The pain is searing (now I know how that word feels). I wash my eye out, and in the bathroom light can see that my eyeball’s once smooth surface is now slightly crumpled. It tears non-stop and my left nostril leaks in accompaniment.

The hostel owner gives me an icepack wrapped in a kitchen towel and her little son comes and gives my hand a tentative pat and stands in the doorway staring sympathetically at me. I must look like shit.

Optimism, they say, wires the brain to think that matters are not as bad as they seem, so we head on out anyway to explore the city. People on the U-Bahn stare at my swollen face and kitchen towel. We go to an Apotheke to get bandages and are recommended an eye patch instead. The pharmacist worriedly hands us a doctor’s number but I am thrilled by the prospect of walking the streets of Munich in pirate swagger so I ignore her.

The eye patch draws much interest but does little to relieve. The pain comes in sharp bursts and cracks through my forehead, convoyed by profuse tearing. I finally give up and tell Chieh to go on ahead. I stumble back to the hostel and fall into an instant sleep.

When I wake in the evening, my eye is no better. I start to worry and finally let the owner call the doctor. I speak on the phone to an emphatic male voice from the emergency eye clinic. After being told that it would cost anything from 30 – 100 euros, Chieh and I tread with trepidation to the clinic.

Listen to Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life For Me)

2011-08-13T18:31:00.001+08:00

I just signed away 2 months of my life in a foreign land with a need for a translator. OK, crap.

This is so exciting.

World, please don't end before I go.

Big Sur - The Thrills

2011-08-12T22:05:00.001+08:00

Was talking over dinner with a friend the other day and I told her that I don't have a dream job. But I do have a dream life. Depicted in the pictures above from Hobo Magazine. But I suspect I'll be bored out of my brains in a second and come tearing out of the woods and back to city life. City life, I hate you then I love you.

I grew up in a small, sleepy town then I moved to KL and I grew up there too. So take half of me.

Listen to Big Sur

Fascination - Hindi Zahra

2011-08-11T00:10:00.000+08:00

Image from my flickr.

View from my window seat, Berlin - Munich train ride.

It’s a long, 6.5 hour train ride and I’m fortunate enough to have a fascinating person sitting in the opposite aisle for me to watch. Slightly metal, he has on a black long-sleeved shirt with dark boots and leather pants. And not just any leather pants, they’re leather pants that lace-up at the sides! Blonde ponytail and a beard the length of his neck. Despite all that he speaks with a careful, gentle clip. I first hear him when he advices us on the whereabouts of our power socket (Chieh was looking for it).

The next surprise: out of his Jack Wolfskin he draws out 3 heavy volumes of academic books. Throughout the journey he is an intent student, typing diligently on his laptop and referring to them at intervals.

Around tea-time I wolf-down my McD’s Chicken Wrap while this man eats his packed snack – apple and banana. He looks up at me and mid-bite I feel the urge to ask him what he’s studying. He tells me it’s Linguistics and I desperately try to clean my teeth and form my next question. What languages? He can’t hear so he leans forth, bringing himself closer to the view of chicken wrap between my teeth. He finally tells me “French and Spanish” and I want to ask him why but that seems highly inappropriate for a 3rd question. Instead, I ask where and he tells me names I can’t pronounce much less remember.

When I tell him I’m from “Malaysia”, he looks back with no sense of recognition, as if the word could not conjure up any image in his head. There’s a small pause and then I ask him whether he knows where that is. Stupid. What a condescending question to ask. He smiles a forgiving “yes”. We talk for a bit til Chieh comes back from her toilet break and we each settle back into silence.

He’s reserved the biggest surprise yet for dinner. Out of his bag he pulls out – an avocado. Really? For dinner? This is the most interesting train ride I’ve been on so far. I am literally sitting in front of a Metallica band member lookalike watching him slice avocado for his wholegrain sandwich. I am enamoured with this whole idea.

“Have a good time in Munich,” he says to me as he zips things up in his bag and hops off the train a few stops later, a phrase which drops with the dead weight of irony when I think of it a mere few hours later arriving in Munich.

Stay tuned to see why.

Oh and my colleagues were watching this. Such a perfectly exaggerated caricature of him. The Vegan Black Metal Chef.

Listen to Fascination

Think About That - EGOLESS

2011-08-09T23:19:00.000+08:00

This song cradles you. Irregardless of the fact that Bob Marley is probably singing about having a "Nice Time" with his lady with raised, stoned brows. Stoned, but nonetheless raised.

Only with earphones on, please.

Amsterdam - Peter Bjorn and John

2011-08-08T23:51:00.001+08:00

Images taken form Google Maps archived here. It keeps scrolling, you might get sucked into it.

And the 3rd pic of the Roman soldier: If you're ever in Rome, Stay Away From Them. They manhandled my friend into a throne, took my camera, posed next to her, took a photo and demanded money afterwards.

Listen to Amsterdam

2011-08-05T18:30:00.003+08:00

A: Are you at work? What're you doing?

B: What else? Bangin' balls.

My girlfriends.

Bangin' balls definition.

Smells Like Teen Spirit - Patti Smith

2011-07-31T22:35:00.000+08:00

The Beez @ BASSY, image from my flickr set.

We give up on a snagging a live gig on a Monday night and resign to a park swing to see who swings higher. Just 5 minutes before we reach our hostel, Chieh sneers at a window display of 3 cobras strangling a rat. And naturally, everything Chieh sneers at, I wanna have a closer look at so I take one and whadayaknow there’s a poster right next to it stating: 13.06.11//The Great Country Swindle//22:00. Oh yes, we have found ourselves a gig!

The bar – BASSY, is a rockabilly one with wild boar’s head, motorbike hung in mid air and a pin-up bartender. We look extremely out of place amongst the crowd, who are a tad older, more tattooed and dressed like Dita Von Teese.

The band – The Beez (also in full 50’s-influenced garb) get on stage with harpsichord, banjo, acoustic bass and guitar to open with Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit rockabilly style. I think Kurt Cobain would’ve turned in his grave.

Listen to Patti's (better) cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit

Drive - Incubus

2011-07-29T16:24:00.000+08:00

My baby is back. It’s sitting in the porch right now outside my office, fresh out of the workshop. It was my dad’s car, handed down to me and I smashed it in an accident. Yes. Things like that happen sometimes.

Lessons I learned from not having a car for 2 weeks:
1. Friends are important. Especially those with cars.
2. Public transport sucks but don’t get angry, it won’t make the loitering bus driver get on any faster with his 20 mins leisure break.
3. *Rabbits can eat anything.

*I was inspecting my car amidst other automobilic carcasses at the workshop and out of nowhere, a white rabbit hopped out. For a moment, I felt like I was Alice about to head down to Wonderland. But unfortunately, the rabbit didn’t talk or have a stopwatch. The mechanic nonchalantly said that it’s been here for the longest time and that it comes out in the mornings to “people-watch” and that it “eats anything” (he was speaking in Cantonese).

But if I could choose a car of my dreams and had the money to pay for it too, I’d pick one of these. The pictures are from Tomboy Style, one of blogs that I continually go back to for inspiring yet simple clothes, stories and interviews.

My current favourite post is THE GRID, their take on the different archetypes of Tomboy style - The Standard, The Edge, The American and The Import. Indulgent? Most definitely.

Listen to Drive

...Baby One More Time - Britney Spears

2011-07-27T21:28:00.001+08:00

All images from my flickr set.

I climb some stairs into a dim area where I meet a man and his kid. I ask him what this place is and he tells me there’s a gallery and artist residency upstairs. I walk up the stairs and smell more urine. I see a stick-thin, bedraggled man with a wet patch on the front of his shirt come out of a door and disappear into another. I get the hell out.

Few doors down is another similar building sans the smell of piss. We go in and I walk up to a dreadlocked man and buy an exquisitely handmade ring from him. I somehow find it easier to talk to this roughed-up man than anyone on this trip so far. He tells me his name is Alexis and he’s from Argentina, now living temporarily in Berlin at Arthouse Tacheles (Yiddish for “cut the crap, get to the truth”). He shows us the building’s backyard. It's filled with other artists' metal sculptures. And then I hear “…Baby One More Time” on the PA and I smile the broadest self-smile since arriving in Berlin.

Listen to ...Baby One More Time (you know you want to)

Across The Universe - The Beatles

2011-07-26T21:18:00.000+08:00

Drum Circle, Kreuzberg. Franz Biberkopf busking, hippie van on Bernauer Straße. U-Bahn station, Kreuzberg. All images from my flickr set.

Schönhauser Allee is dead quiet. We ask a pub manager why it’s so and he explains that the whole town is probably partying at Kreuzberg, where there’s a cultural carnival (Karneval der Kulturen) going on.

A few U-Bahn misses later, we finally hit the area. A few stages and DJ booths are scattered amongst food/drink and product stalls. I order a Caipirinha which tastes gawdawful. But spirits of the non-beverage type are better. We join some drum circle party and midway through someone breaks in and absolutely loses it (in a good way, in a dance-like-no-one’s-watching-way). There are a lot of old people here strangely. Even the drum circle players are senior citizens. It’s such a rare sight in Malaysia to see people above 45 at festivals. It’s different here.

We hop on the U-Bahn home and hope to God the officials patrolling do not check our non-validated tickets. Although we suspect they’re there more for crowd control if ever commuter beer guzzlers get outta hand.

Listen to Across The Universe

Heavy Pop - Wu Lyf

2011-07-25T20:50:00.000+08:00

Those that have been privy to my weird ambitions will know that I normally go on about how I'd ideally be a truck driver when I grow up (despite my inability to drive a stick or recall directions to save my life).

So here is my dream manifest! Everyone, meet Lisa Kelly, Ice Road Trucker.

All images from her official site.

She stars in History Channel's reality series Ice Road Truckers and was the first female long-hauler on the show. The latest installment sees them drive on ancient Himalayan slopes sleeked with ice and cloaked in snow. It's awesome. She sure has (figuratively) some very big cojones.

You have to watch this interview. Letterman at his worst as an interviewer and Kelly totally shining through despite being a bit uncomfortable in that couch. You can see how excited she gets when she talks about her work, almost schoolgirl-like, only that she's talking about a 36-wheeler instead of lipgloss.

I wanna be like Lisa Kelly.

Listen to Heavy Pop

I'm New Here - Gil Scott-Heron

2011-07-23T15:37:00.002+08:00

That day at the office. They screened an old ad at a meeting. It was one of the earliest ones I sang on and it won an award for sound. It's been 3 years since. And back then I thought I would be somewhere else rather than here in an office, being a less-than-stellar intern.

This song to go with what I wrote.

and then this is for you

i am so proud of you

because i have left much behind

and done less than i've liked

said words that made me feel important

but that didn't mean much

and i stopped trying

when things got trying

i took the easy way out

by dreaming

and writing

and not moving

you on the other hand, have not

and so this is for you

i am so proud of you.

What A Day For A Daydream - Vanessa Paradis

2011-07-22T19:53:00.002+08:00

Ben Gibbard & Zooey Deschanel, Fabrizio Moretti & Binki Shapiro, Sean Lennon & Charlotte Kemp Muhl, Jack White & Karen Elson.

Let's just take a break from all that journaling, I'm getting sick of myself. Here's my pop culture vulture going crazy. If Disney didn't ruin your outlook on romance with fantastical visions of unrealistic bliss, then these editorials surely will (with the exception of the chillest celeb couple without a couple fashion spread yet - Mr & Mrs Ben Gibbard).

Oh and who can deny the magnetism of the Depp and Paradis pairing.

Listen to What A Day For A Daydream

Street Joy - White Denim

2011-07-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

Streets of Trastevere, Ombre Rosse Cafe. All images from my flickr set.

Vatican City
More of an obligatory drop-by than anything; as if the pope was an important relative to namecheck. It was raining and we lost each other wandering through St. Peter’s Basilica.

Trastevere
Trastevere, my heart. The old, crammed but artful neighbourhood was worth the walk from the Vatican. Leaving padres and nuns behind, Trastevere was sunny and filled with little shops and eateries with lots of character. While walking in circles trying to find lunch place Da Augusto, we defeatedly plonked down at Ombre Rosse because it seemed to be the nearest place with food. Our brusque waiter (complete with all-black outfit and piercings) turns polite the moment I notice his bass clef tattoo on his inner forearm and ask him whether he played the bass. He tells us all about the sights in Trastevere and how to get back once we’re done. We remember none of it except the colour of his eyes, haha!

….

Driven by hunger and hindered by our lacking sense of direction, we finally settle at a bustling Da Augusto. The waitress is fiery-haired with blue-green eyes, tattoos and buckle boots. She dashes in and out of the kitchen, taking orders, cleaning out the fridge and transporting cartons of Coke bottles, moving with dexterity only a woman on a mission can have. The meal is hearty and simple. Good, tender veal in olive oil seasoned with salt and garnished with rosemary. Everything is gorged down and the bill is counted right in front of us; scribbled on our paper tablecloth in black ballpoint.

….

We hurry to catch the metro back to our hostel. It’s 10pm when we get off and walk back to the building in a very deserted street, the type you get mugged on with no one to realise, much less help you. Thankfully we reach back safely, climb the marble stairway (complete with stank of roaches) and into a creaking bed which sinks right in at the middle. 5:30am alarm set.

Listen to Street Joy

2011-07-17T12:38:00.003+08:00

After months of frustrating meandering, I can say that I am Proud. And getting there, having pride in the work I produce, is a very, very hard place to get for me. I've been making writing my trade for a while now (how strange to say that), be it articles, songs, or short fiction. Some works I don't even mention to people because I'm not proud about what I've produced. But now is a good place in life where I rest on my little mole hill for a nano second...

And then plunge into self-doubt about the quality of my work again and start the tiring climb up another unconquered mound. Some climbs are longer, some learning curves are steeper. I thought this last one would never end. But it sort of has now, and I'm going to ride this surge of high for a bit, if you'd excuse me.

I'm gonna go write a song now.

Roman Blue - Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi

2011-07-14T22:45:00.001+08:00

Images from my flickr set

Rome

We walk to San Lorenzo. The atmosphere instantly turns dodgy and I start to feel like an adventurer! I like this caution and the feeling that the neighbourhood is not putting on a face for me to see.

We walk through the train tracks, poster plastered walls and graffiti-stained underpass to get into San Lorenzo. We stop at a children’s playground and watch them play while Italians mix with Middle Eastern immigrants. We look up places to have dinner and single out Pommidoro Trattoria. We ask the nice old lady sitting next to us how to get there. She earnestly replies in Italian and then rallies other old ladies from other benches to show us the way. We understand nothing.

Heading off in the general direction in which they were pointing, we ask a few more people til we’re almost there. As we near the place, lo! Our waitress from our lunch place earlier today steps out of a corner. She’s off duty and seems genuinely surprised to see us Asian girls in the non-tourist area she lives in.

Finally we locate the restaurant and it’s closed! Til 8pm at least. We can’t wait. It’s only 6:50pm and we really do not fancy being in San Lorenzo after the sun goes down. Pity, the shop is run by some old men (the type that look like they know what they’re doing) and the door is plastered with famous faces (who might or mighn’t have been there). We meander deeper and deeper into the streets and feel more and more nervous. Almost every wall is graffitied and the streets a little too lonely.

We decide it's enough and head on back to our side of the tracks. Two dorm-mates are asleep when we get back to the hostel at 9pm but the square below is noisy with hollering men and singing girls.

Listen to Roman Blue

Ghost Train - Gorillaz

2011-07-13T22:56:00.000+08:00

Florence – Siena Commute
Drying damp laundry in the train (we were rushing to catch our train so we couldn’t wait for the dryer to finish properly). Windows down, sun up. Poke our heads out to try and catch some wind and a good picture. We look like bedraggled gypsies. Some actual ones come up to us to beg for money.

Florence still
Walking back to our hostel leads us through a sleazy stretch. It’s probably the only time I feel I’m in danger zone. Today we walk past a police car arresting some people. A guy bumps into me, turns back and smiles “grazie”. I immediately turn to Chieh and dash my hand into my bag to check for my wallet. It’s still there.

Listen to Ghost Train

La Dolce Vita - Nino Rota

2011-07-12T22:00:00.000+08:00

Images from my flickr set.

Florence
Trekked out to see the Duomo et al. It pours. We eat lunch at Mangiafoco (literally “eat fire”, named after the villain in Pinocchio) because of a dog - a Golden Retriever pup with the prettiest eyes named Rupert. His owner John recommends us to try out the restaurant he was sitting in front of. I largely leave dogs to Chieh (it’s more of her thing) but Rupert came over to my table and nuzzled his head on my hand and he won me over with that doggone stare. I felt something akin to honour when John asked me to watch him while he paid for the take away.

We come across a hole-in-the-wall restaurant with a charming waiter.
“What desserts do you have?”
“We have tiramisu, panna cotta…”
“What’s panna cotta?”
“Panna cotta is panna cotta!”, he says with much Italian flair.
And then he arranges dessert spoons with such aplomb and a twinkle in his eye that I whisper to Chieh “we have to eat here, we’re in too deep.”

The desserts weren't very good.

Listen to La Dolce Vita

Lovely Day - Bill Withers

2011-07-11T20:54:00.001+08:00

Mouth-watering tumblr dreamland BKST

Oh. My absolute favourite meal of the day. And mostly because it can be really healthy and yet scrumptious simultaneously. I love the ritual of preparing it, especially coming up with cereal combinations. Love the crunch of honey-clustered-granola, citrusy fruit clashing with the tartness of yogurt, almond flakes, sunflower seeds, banana chunks, sprinkling of milo powder, homey oats, fresh, cold milk.

The comfort of a good breakfast is unbeatable.

Listen to Lovely Day

Postcards Fron Italy - Beirut

2011-07-09T21:45:00.000+08:00

Pisa

The buildings are sienna-hued with green shutters, flanking narrow cobbled streets. Grocery stores are sublime; our first gelato nearly is already. We saw a pack of patrolling soldiers at a piazza and were completely enamoured by the Romanticism of berets, smart khaki shirts, sharp green trousers and regal posture framed by buildings with fuchsia flowers spilling out of their balconies.

Just to show us some contrast, we realise how dodgy our hostel looks as we walk back. It has a half-torched car parked right in front of it. With a silent garden gnome overlooking a deserted side porch dotted with pink children’s furniture. Two clay lions stand guard next door, with mouths agape. I love this place already.

Listen to Postcards From Italy

Missed The Boat - Modest Mouse

2011-07-08T22:08:00.002+08:00

Started off today with a jerk. The type you experience lunging out of bed as you realise you overslept and you’ll miss the bus taking you to the airport.

Mad dash with heavy bag all the way to the tube station and then to the bus stop to see that we’ve truly missed our ride. Wait for the next one to come.

Get to airport. Immigration queue is deathly long and their thorough Brit nature makes things that much slower. Belts, jackets, boots removed. Metal detector. Shit. We’ve missed the gate closing time by a good 10 minutes already.

As soon as we pass bag check, we have another mad dash that ends with a desperate clamber up the plane (we are indeed the last ones on). Thank God we didn’t miss it! And now I stink of sweat and airport smells.

Listen to Missed The Boat

The Park - Bon Iver (Feist Cover)

2011-07-06T19:13:00.001+08:00

Images from my flickr set

Les Mis was surreal. I couldn't believe I was there watching the same actors I watched on DVD perform live. I tried to make the moment last but my grappling only hurried it on faster. And then I told myself (as I always find that I have to do) to just let it be and enjoy it for what it is.

After the musical, I take the tube and walk back to Porchester Square. As per usual I get lost. But everyone I ask is pretty helpful and out of all of them (and there were many), only one was a true Londoner. Goes to show how diverse the population is. The Indian at Tesco Express, the European at the tube station, the Chinese girl who kindly GPSed and walked me halfway through my route at 11:30 at night in a nearly deserted street.

Listen to The Park (and spot the London reference)

A Horse With No Name - America

2011-07-05T22:49:00.000+08:00

All images by Derek Henderson

Stillness, narrative, sense of place. That's what I like about Henderson's work. His photos make me want to step inside those bare-faced buildings, breathe in the campfire air and listen to the sounds (or the silence) around those places.

Listen to A Horse With No Name

Lived In Bars - Cat Power

2011-07-04T18:08:00.001+08:00

Image from my flickr set.

Camden is the grittier side of London. I’m glad I called Ray and got to see him play. I feel a sense of induction as I step into The Blues Kitchen. The stage is tiny, set way into the back of the pub and drenched in red light. Ray talks excitedly about his new life as a musician here. I can sense his awe for the commitment people put in just for the sake of their craft because frankly, there is no money and frankly, there is no fame. They play because it just spills out of them.

After his set, Ray shifts us all to his next gig – The Camden Head. When I finally work up the courage to tell the organiser (Simba, with a waterfall of dreadlocks pouring over when I lean in to shout-talk) that I would like to perform, I find out that they’ve already signed me up. I scribble down the chords for Ray and then dash them. Switch song. Switch again. Would it be unfashionable to sing about God? I hate it when I’m concerned about things like that. But there you go: “I am human but you are God”.

Am Em Am Em. We play that in the end.

Listen to Lived In Bars

Big Jet Plane - Angus & Julia Stone

2011-06-29T21:48:00.002+08:00

And I pledge not to end up like that. Cross my heart.

The immigration officer asks me who paid for my passage here. I proudly say “I did”. She sternly asks how I afforded it since I’m a student.

“I work freelance,” I tell her.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a composer.” Hardly.

Only 15% of my funds came from composing, the rest came from singing but I suppose I get to be whatever I tell them I am here. But it is a little daunting to note, as I sit here staring out at a wild English garden that my voice paid for most of what it took to make this long, long journey here. And I’ve no one to give credit to for that voice except to God. Thank you, Lord. You somehow present me with gifts I’ve never dared to demand for.

Take Me Back To Piauí (Dubben Mix) - Juca Chaves

2011-06-28T22:13:00.001+08:00

Right, jet lag is no more an excuse now. Instead of showing you photos and summarising my 2-week long trip to the Europe, here are a few excerpts from my travel journal in chronological order. Bear with me for the next 13 posts!

On the way to the airport. It’s early morning and there are strange bellows of mist veiling the otherwise ordinary highway so everything seems like light through bedroom windows – sleepy and muted. Mother says there’s no need to go to London, “it’s beautiful enough here” and I have to agree, to some extent, that we never explore our own backyard enough before deeming it inferior to the gleaming, white picket fence 5 streets away in some other neighbourhood.

It’s a 13-hour flight and only two and a half have passed. Most commutes of mine are soundtracked. It makes beauty less transient, ugliness more profound and people less irritating. Therefore it makes sense that for the mother of all long commutes, I forget my MP3 player.

You Are A Tourist - Death Cab For Cutie

2011-06-24T10:42:00.002+08:00

Not really my sentiments but it's a good one for this post.

I have two lines of hardened skin across each of my palms, left there from my luggage with its plastic handle (I had refused backpacks and trolley bags). It carried ten day’s worth of everything I needed and I walked with it from buses to trains; from airports to hostels. Sometimes my friend and I ran because it was pouring or it was late and we were in a dodgy area. But most of the time it was because we were trying not to miss our ride.

I have feet that don’t fit into my shoes now because they are swollen. They hurt when I slip them into the ones that I left at home. They walked all day (and most of the night) in wet weather and bad shoes. On rainy days, I only realised they were numb from cold when I peeled my wet socks off and they touched a warm wooden floor. On sunny days, I looked down and surprised myself at how scorched brown they were in their flip flops and how much dirt had collected in their nails and the cuff of my folded jeans.

I hold on tight to these things. They are the only physical reminders left that I carry with me to my air-conditioned office. The rest dangle like a swarm above every other thought during the course of my day and I try to pin them down as words, as pictures, as tappings on a keyboard, afraid that I will lose them because I don’t know when I’ll have the luxury of taking off just like that again.

Let Her Dance - Bobby Fuller Four

2011-06-03T23:00:00.001+08:00

I may be ripping off Sufjan Stevens a little. But I think it's a good exercise in songwriting. So here's a song for Saigon (which I visited earlier this year):

The Morning Suit

Like the first day
Of a newly pressed suit
Laid out in waiting
For the newness of you

Nothing’s begun yet
Though all’s set to change
You are clear and sweet
Like running lightning feet

Hot glaring wonderful

Sun burning
Every turn of the corner
A decision in the making

Steam off the iron
Buttons slipped in
Lapel smoothed down with
The weight of reassurance
Air sucked in tastes like beginning
Every limb stretched out
Heading, reaching
To the newness of you.

I've got a trip coming up in a few days time. Think I'll do the same for it. See you in 2 weeks time.

Listen to Let Her Dance

Break Your Heart - Natalie Merchant

2011-06-02T20:00:00.001+08:00

If HTC didn't already use it, I would call this one by Natalie Merchant (directed by Sophie Muller) "quietly brilliant", just like her brand of music. It has such subtle, beautiful acting. And the choreography is so deceivingly well structured that it looks (like all great choreographing does) effortlessly natural. The actors are sublimely lit in contrast to the dark, rich interiors and the angles used add so much depth to the stairway.

And a message in a music video? That's almost unheard of nowadays! Unfashionable, even. I love how at the end, Natalie is knocked over and her groceries scatter on the floor and that frees her hands to help a mother carry her baby's pram; making the journey easier for the both of them.

Sometimes you lose something and that allows you to share another's burden.

The Simple Story - Feist ft. Jane Birkin

2011-06-02T12:01:00.000+08:00

Jane Birkin and Leslie Feist. Queens of deceptive simplicity. Feist almost looks like a younger Birkin in some pictures. They did a song together.

The simple story unfurling slowly
Is if you lay down with a dream
You'll wake up lonely

Mad Season - Matchbox Twenty

2011-05-24T20:36:00.000+08:00

You know how Ally McBeal had a theme song? I remember a scene where her shrink tells her to sing it in her head and she does and predictably everyone on the street starts tapping their feet to it.

I forgot, but ages ago I claimed this song as mine. It's a weird one cos it seems like Rob Thomas is singing it to another person and theme songs should always be about ME, ME, ME, no? But then I heard this song on my old mix(CD)tape driving to work this morning and that lead me to watch a live version of it on YouTube. And lo, Rob tells the audience that this song was more of a song to himself! And there and then I got my sweet vindication.

I love this band. And Kyle Cook is still smokin hot to me after all these years.

What's your theme song?

魏如萱 - 問號

2011-05-20T01:25:00.006+08:00

Favourite Things is back with another interesting life for you to scrutinize!

Tenn Sen (not real name but real enough to call him by) and I met in uni. I don't really remember how but I was (and still am) a fan of his photography. And he kindly shot Halfway Kings' band pics in our infant days.

One thing that we can all learn from him is to be weird. Weird-ass weird because life is too boring living with inhibitions. I've witnessed his rad acting skills on some of our Film & TV students' work. He usually plays characters that have a screw loose to a delicious, chilling effect (I'm not talking corny, template crazy antics but REAL weird catharsis).

Here are his favourite things (in his own words).

1. BEDROOM - I spend a lot of my time in my room. I’m not a fan of PSP or online games so the ukulele keeps me company most of the time. But still, my ukulele-playing skills are lame :(

2. BAG - As you can see, there’s medicine, it’s for my migraine. Water bottle and wallet are a must. Jacket to keep me warm inside a cold classroom. Lomo camera that’s always with me. I like to take it out, snap whatever I like. Fragrance from Origins – Ginger flavour! Don’t laugh! It’s damn nice, ok!

3. WARDROBE - I like to wear whatever I want, as long as I feel comfortable.
I like DIY-ing my old stuff. The shirt in my ukulele picture was cut and made into a new one. Appearance is important to me as I like fashion a lot. But not to a point where I’m addicted to fashion blogs, I only surf them once in a while.

4. BOOKSHELF - I don't have a reading habit, I’ll admit that. But this book (pic, right) by Jimmy Liao is my favourite so far. You know why? Because it has more pictures than words. Haha! The book on the left is by San Mao.

5. PICTURE FOLDER - This is the latest lomo pic I took in Michigan, US last year.

This one was taken in NYC using double exposure. There’s a guy playing a wooden piano in winter. How impressive! And a typical yellow taxi!

The people are the best representative of the busy streets of NYC. I’m really happy that I managed to capture that movement.

This is my grandma. She was using my phone to call her daughter in Johor. I shot this from the hip and it turned out nice when I got it back from the photo lab. This will be one of my more memorable shots.

*Editor's note: Tenn Sen's all-time favourite set of photo's are the ones he uses as his blog's header. I told him they were disgustingly weird-ass and he took it as a diss rather than a compliment. You be the judge.

6. PLAYLIST - She is WaaWei (魏如萱); one of my favorite singers with a very sexy voice. I listen to her all the time when I’m on the bus from KL to my hometown – Penang.

For English songs, I like Joni Mitchell a lot. My friend in his late 30’s introduced me to this album – Blue. Very easy-listening album; she never disappoints me.

Check out his gorgeous photo's at his blog.

Listen to 問號

Pavlov's Bell - Aimee Mann

2011-05-16T22:25:00.006+08:00

Hi Kelvin, sorry I chose this picture.

It was just too annoying to pass up on. Photo by Sammi Yong.

The 3rd and final installment to the smashing hit series - BS My Book Shelf. If you missed the previous posts, click here and here. This week Kelvin Kuan and I explore titles worthy of a head scratch (or two).

1. Pygmalion – George Bernard Shaw
Yes, finally something I know. Loved this piece and read it. It’s about this lady who’s poor and uneducated. She then met a linguist and starts learning English and etiquette from this man. She turned from an ignorant woman to a ladylike woman that can actually go to balls and parties without people knowing who she was. They later fell in love with one another.

Phew, I don't have to recount the whole thing! Bravo, Kelvin Kuan. The play's title comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which a man named Pygmalion sculpted a statue so beautifully that he fell in love with it. Taking pity on him, the goddess of love brings the statue to life.

2. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
This is easy. I’m sure the materials are the tools used by him to murder people. In this case, I’m envisioning axe, chainsaw, and hammer. I think he will be constantly sharpening these tools in the morning and he will take action at night. Something like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (which I read). This must be some kind of sickness that he got due to lack of love from his parents when he was young. Oh oh, he only kills people who have a warm family relationship. I think this book would be good for parents to read so that they can love their children more.

OK, I've to admit I was pulling a trick on this one. His Dark Materials is actually the title for Pullman's trilogy which consists of (what do you know) 3 books! It's not really a title per se. One of them has been adapted into a film - The Golden Compass. The story is set in an alternate universe and aims to be as complicated as Harry Potter's world. The hero is a heroine in this case and she's on some terribly adventurous mission to save something. As with all fantasy books.

3. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Who names a book Catch-22? You think it’s like 007? Honestly, I can’t even imagine a synopsis for this.

Yes, it is a hard nut to crack. Catch-22 revolves around main character Yossarian and the horrors of WWII. Throughout the novel, the law of Catch-22 is defined through many instances. What is Catch-22 actually? To quote SparkNotes:

"Catch-22 is any paradoxical, circular reasoning that catches its victim in its illogic and serves those who have made the law. "

Confused?

4. What is the What – Dave Eggers
Sounds like Keng Cheng*. No, I don’t know what is the what.

The title comes from a Sudanese story that extols the virtues of choosing what is known over the unknown. Eggers tells a story that is exactly the opposite; of Valentino Achak Deng, one of Sudan's Lost Boys who fled the country and gained entry into the US. After surviving bombs, starvation and even crocodiles, the boys are confronted with an unknown future in the Western world that has its own evils.

*A pseudo moralist with a sense of humour that sometimes proves too much too soon. Surname Leong.

5. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
Clockwork orange? Is this an alarm clock in the form of an orange?

It's interesting actually, let me quote Burgess directly on this:

I saw that this title would be appropriate for a story about the application of Pavlovian, or mechanical, laws to an organism which, like a fruit, was capable of colour and sweetness. But I had also served in Malaya, where the word for a human being is orang.

Who would've known the Malaysian connection? The book tells of how the fictional government used the Pavlov theory to cure criminals of their violent tendencies. It explores the rightness of such actions that take away problems by eliminating free will.

Listen to Pavlov's Bell

God Loves You, Michael Chang - Dent May

2011-05-14T21:26:00.005+08:00

Someone said this blog was amusing. I tell you what's amusing - my brother.

Bro: I always thought Nine Inch Nails was a Christian band. [Gestures nails piercing through hands]. Until I heard Closer.

Listen to God Loves You, Michael Chang

Will There Be Enough Water? - The Dead Weather

2011-05-11T23:43:00.005+08:00

I'm being put in my place. I am being humbled. Not in a nice, humbling way but in a hard-hitting, cause-for-re-evaluation-way. And these are the times, man. These are the times.

Image by Thomas Ordoyno

That you dread but you wait for.

Listen to Will There Be Enough Water?

2011-05-08T13:57:00.008+08:00

Top 10 Reasons Why My Mom Is Cooler Than Yours

1. She killed two snakes by herself.

2. She quit her job and went back to school.

3. She let me be weird. Even through a phase where I pleated my hair like Holly Hunter from The Piano.

4. She ate a giant spider (said it tasted like a prawn).

5. She's learning Hebrew online.

6. She lived by the beach when she was young. In the evenings, she'd join her sisters on the balcony taking turns playing the guitar and the boys would pass by and shout their adoration.

7. She cooks without recipes.

8. She almost took me to a tattoo parlour when I was 16 (because I asked) but was stopped in time by my dad.

9. She read me Ernest Hemingway's Old Man and The Sea as a bedtime story.

10. She travels like an adventurer.

No song today, I can't think of any that suits her. Maybe I'll write one someday.

Time is Running Out (Acoustic) - Muse

2011-05-01T20:23:00.005+08:00

Image from 365q (thanks Diane for the intro).

Quote by Pablo Picasso.

People think I speak my mind, but really, they have not felt the full brunt of it yet. Thoughts always come at the wrong time and not getting to voice them when needed leaves a feeling in my stomach not unlike that of missing a bus by mere seconds.

Since I missed the opportunity, I'll air my opinions here.

I'm a believer of efficiency (I try to anyway), I detest waiting (which is quite selfish sometimes) and I respect a strong work ethic (my friends call it "diva attitude", I prefer the term "hustler approach").

When it comes to producing creative works, time is a tricky matter. All too familiar with charming episodes of writer's block, this criticism applies as much to me as to anyone else trying to make art. It is crucial to be working when you're waiting on inspiration to hit. Minds have to be receptive, doing things to encourage it, reading, observing, analyzing, listening.

And always, deadlines need to be set in order for the mind to be put on alert for such inspirations. I dread them but I can't deny they're good for the process. I have wasted too much time in believing that things can be done without the use of it.

Listen to Time is Running Out.

On the Sunny Side of the Street - Billie Holiday

2011-05-01T01:49:00.005+08:00

Although I have been traveling quite a bit and most of my life has been about relocating, readapting; I firmly believe that greener pastures is a damn myth.

I don't deny the beauty of traveling and seeing other places and experiencing their cultures but let not the inability to travel physically deny you the capability to journey mentally.

Places, there are a few I long to go to; tread the ground, feel the layered history that makes up the air, the people, their idiosyncrasies. At the same time, my here and now never fails to offer me new notes to take, tugs at my backbone, snap! I'm alert sitting up straight in my chair.

I've seen so many, many sides of what I readily call "the familiar" that I'm convinced it has even more to show me. Mohawked men, skinny as rails, clad in studded leather cheering with extreme fullheartedness for a Ramones tribute band. An old couple manning their exclusive dying trade - Telegu vinyls and cassettes. A young dancer, so confident of what he loves that he readily shows it off while waiting for the KTM, the internal beat in his head muting all stares, all judgement. A stranger offering to pay an RM8 parking fee because you have no change for the autopay machine. A girl, offering a plaster to a hawker who's cut his finger and wrapped it in makeshift bandage made out of tissue paper.

Use this. Instead.

1 Thing - Amerie

2011-04-28T16:16:00.005+08:00

Image from SO MUCH TO TELL YOU

Surprisingly I'm handling post-uni days quite well. Except for that momentary lapse where I looked around in panic for something to do.

Me: Jo, help me, I'm so bored, I need to do something. I need something to do.
Joachim: Practice songs? Work on melodies? Try men? They take time.

Fortunately, that was just one day (and I picked songs over men). Semester break has been filled with worthy pursuits after that. Work swooped in to the rescue. How can you not a love a job where they tell you to "watch your saliva, it's making sounds". Before you get any inappropriate ideas, I'm a voice talent, for those who are visiting this blog for the first time.

AND. Halfway Kings has started recording. And we're heading in quite an unexpected direction in the studio but still managing to keep our minimal set-up. It's something else! And you heard the news here first.

Here's a midday mix for you that I found linked on my producer's page. It starts with water droplets and has Amerie somewhere in the middle.

Listen to 1 Thing

Ginger - Twin Sister

2011-04-22T12:59:00.007+08:00

India Salvor Menuez. A girl with such a name is raised for a life exactly like this.

I first saw her on Backyard Bill, one of my favourite legit snooping sites and was taken aback by her yellow plaid leggings and whack knack for colour pairings. Some links later, I came across her artwork and I've been following it ever since.

I especially like this one. On second glance you see that the last two lines are an exact copy of the first strip, just switched around. Says so much about how the need to be needed drives the way we behave when it comes to needing someone else.

They're very pared down but I like her recent series where she manipulates existing text to form sayings of her own. I remember doing it once for a script we had to write. The assignment required that we only use text from Arthur Miller's The Crucible to write an entirely different play. It turned out to be one of the most creative ones we ever produced.

So the idea of limitations is incredible appealing to me. The more restraints you have, the more creative you get in plotting ways to get around them. How can I take what's yours and make it mine? People have the inherent need to do that; cover songs, remixes, caption contests, book-movie adaptations, wearing someone else's clothes. Inherent re-interpretors.

Listen to Ginger.

Flower Child - U2

2011-04-21T17:55:00.001+08:00

New Series! I started this long ago, just that I got caught up with finals and held it hostage for way too long. It’s a photo series where I get people to share with me their favourite things because I'm a nosey parker and this is legit snooping.

Today we have with us Yvonne Lw.

As a student she wanted to be a writer for lifestyle magazines but after graduating, a career in Fashion PR beckoned practically. After about 5 months of work, Yvonne decided that she wanted more; in her own words, “to be fully immersed in fashion”. So she upped and left, hoping that she would land herself in fashion.

And she did! Yvonne tells me that after much prayer, she finally scored a job as an Events person for a high-profile fashion company that imports luxury brands. We could all learn to want things badly enough to put practicality on the line from her.

Here are her favourite things (in her own words).

1. BEROOM - There was a time when I became so intrigued in accessories and bought a whole lot of bracelets and rings but nowadays I pretty much just wear a watch, rings and my favourite bracelet with the Tiffany & Co heart charm.

2. BAG - My favourite thing in my bag has got to be my foldable wayfarers. I love the feeling like I’m hiding half my face under the shades! Plus, it can be folded so new friends are often amazed by it.

3. WARDROBE - I love heels and maxi dresses, piling jackets on my basic tops, sling bags (the one in the photo was mailed to me by my boyfriend who’s studying in Sydney) and colours like beige, black, and white.

4. BOOKSHELF - My last book was The Time’s Traveller’s Wife, which was amazingly complicated but a little too sad. Nowadays I bury myself in magazines because I adore visuals and fashion, and also because of the nature of my job. My favourite magazines are Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle.

5. PICTURE FOLDER - My favourite blogs are those by streetstyle photographers. This photo is from STOCKHOLM STREETSTYLE. I aspire to take such photographs, but of course photography doesn’t come magically with a DSLR. There are so much technicality involved that I’m not ready to learn them all yet. Also because a DSLR is darn heavy. You should check out Garance Dore and StreetTONIC.

6. PLAYLIST - One of my all time favourite song is probably Yellow by Coldplay, because of its simple yet beautiful lyrics.

Yvonne blogs at prettydaffodils

Listen to Flower Child

Hey Little World - The Hives

2011-04-18T23:18:00.005+08:00

Dear readers,

The kind and beautiful Diane did a short interview with me on her blog (pic above) about writing and music and what both mean to me. I was so very honoured to be answering her insightful questions.

A certain boy I met on a plane once said that it's good to have people like that around because when you answer their questions, you are accountable for your answers and it makes you crystallize your thoughts which then shape your principles. Wise one, that boy. Good night.

Listen to Hey Little World

2011-04-13T09:34:00.003+08:00

365q

It's time to go. I never think of it as leaving.

I haven't found my song yet. What do you listen to when you journey?

Lady Divine - Alela Diane

2011-04-12T15:32:00.005+08:00

I love the mermaids from Peter Pan. They're utter bitches, but still. I recall wanting to be one when I was a kid. It was sort of my ambition. Not a bitch. A mermaid.

But, yeah. You gotta settle for the more practical one.

Listen to Lady Divine

Bang On The Drum - Todd Rundgren

2011-04-09T00:26:00.005+08:00

Eileen: Where's your brother?

Me: He's not here today, he's sick.

Eileen: See, working life is stressful.

Me: But he's an art student, they don't even sleep when they're studying.

Eileen: It's working under a boss, then. It's still a foreign concept.

Me: He grew up with me. How can that be a foreign concept?

But she didn't hear the last bit. Eileen, you missed out on an opportunity to call me an idiot.

Blue Skies - Noah and The Whale

2011-04-07T18:18:00.003+08:00

Limau-Limau Cafe, Malacca

Bear with this one. I thought it was awfully pretentious the first time I saw it. I only really read the whole thing to the end when I was looking through my photos recently (camera withdrawal symptoms, y'know).

The sky is blue
The grass is green

The sky never said it is blue
Neither did the grass say it is green

So is the sky blue, and the grass green?
Neither did the sky say it is sky, nor the grass say it is grass

So what is the sky or grass really?
The sky and grass just IS
Is-ness

The moment you define it, you are wrong --
that is conceptualisation
Reality is to be experienced -- not conceptualised.

Run fast fall down and break some bones.

Listen to Blue Skies

It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing) - Duke Ellington

2011-04-02T22:33:00.002+08:00

I have such a longing I don't know what to do with

Give me a hammer and at its handle I'll grip it by

Bring it swinging down

Like dance shoes slamming on wood ply

It don't mean a thing

If it ain't got that swing.

Yes, I stole the last 2 lines off this. I call it paying tribute. Watch it. It's glorious.

I've been reading Toni Morrison's Jazz. And I found the first few lines above lying around without a continuation. Stray lines. Somehow things have a way of finding each other. They just need to stew a little.

Here's a quote from Jazz:

"...yet Alice Manfred swore she heard a complicated anger in it; something hostile disguised itself as flourish and roaring seduction."

She's talking about jazz in the 20's. Bad and foreign, ballsy and seductive. And also the deep, hidden aggression behind it. It's so true. I never understood it til Morrison said it in words. Violently passionate. Let's all be that.

For Free - Joni Mitchell & James Taylor

2011-03-29T22:23:00.001+08:00

El Sanctuary, Malacca.

I'm missing having a camera so much, it's as if I lost a limb. I want to take photos! But first, money issues need to be settled.

Anyway, I can always trust some things to be free: words to savour.

Google Translate went into overdrive and churned out these precious sentences from one of the blogs I follow, Lady Moriarty, it's normally in French.

"...the bad guys are...bewildering and demonic"

"The most dark of all his novels, the most terrifying and most unhealthy."

I like reading these direct translations, it breathes new breath into words we get used to, showing us possibilities, new combinations that unlock a jaded mind.

Listen to For Free

2011-03-25T17:28:00.002+08:00

My mother is a writer

Though not the sort that I am now

No published works and bylines to prove it

But this afternoon I reread her heart and soul

Journaled, sent to me two years ago

How she fought cancer

One that was not in her body

But in her husband's

And lost.

Isn't faith strange that you can stand on both sides of the cross

One side in bowed humility

And the other full of challenge, "show me you are King"

I am two thieves

And it is stranger that He chose to love me.

Churning Strides - Thee, Stranded Horse

2011-03-22T15:30:00.005+08:00

I know beauty when I see it. And this is definitely it.

Lauren Treece will put you in a trance and suck you into her world where dreams are what you wake up to. And while you're at it, please listen to this mix engineered by Steve Morgan for Auntie Peggy Has Departed (an art installation). For those who sleep to dream.

And maybe just a little bit more of a reverie with this sublime playlist the good people at museradio have put together. They're my doorway to discovering genuinely startling, fairly obscure acts. I go there (like it's a mart or something) for Polish gypsy chamber groups and Hawaiian ukulele bands.

Listen to Churning Strides

Sunny Afternoon - The Kinks

2011-03-20T16:51:00.006+08:00

This movie has a dirty little secret. But all the best people have em. Just let me tell you how much I enjoyed boarding The Boat That Rocked (or Pirate Radio) first, then I'll let you in on it.

One, Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Two, Bill Nighy (and his incredible suits. And his incredible accent). Lastly, the set.

What can I say, Hoffman has got all the eye-acting right. Watching him is like having charisma for dinner. He can make all the scripted speeches he wants and the only ever so slightly negative thing that can come out of it is surfeit.

Bill Nighy's suits have a life of their own. Actually no, Bill Nighy turns into a different person in those suits. A bit dandy, a bit rock & roll but still every bit a gentleman. Phwoar.

Wrap that all up in a glorious 60's colour palette and they've got me. Just like that. The ensemble is just right. They hit off each other like Zing! Lightning. The music aims to please - Jimi Hendrix, The Who, The Kinks. Nothing cutting edge but just right. And a lot of just rights make a damn good movie.

Quentin: So... expelled?
Young Carl: That's right.
Quentin: What for?
Young Carl: I suppose smoking was the clincher.
Quentin: Drugs or cigarettes?
Young Carl: Well, both.
Quentin: Well done! Proud of you. So your mum sent you here in the hope that a little bracing sea air would sort you out?
Young Carl: Something like that.
Quentin: Spectacular mistake.

And then a little googling brought me to this. The real life radio pirates seem so much more (can you believe it) fun. Watch the later part when they interview a true blue old-school sea radio pirate. His recollections are probably marred by nostalgia. But still. It's stuff of fantasies.

Oh and as indie as the film sounds on paper, it was directed by Richard Curtis; man who gave us monstrosities like Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral. Secret's out.

Listen to Sunny Afternoon

She's In Fashion - Suede

2011-03-16T07:45:00.003+08:00

When I grow old, I want to have the same type of up-yours attitude Ilona Royce Smithkin has. Imma do what I want, damnit. It's really comforting to watch this bunch of ladies talk about their sense of style. It somehow seems like it's rid of all the trappings fashion tows along - materialism, vanity, consumerism.

Listen to She's In Fashion

The Fight - Sia

2011-03-14T19:38:00.005+08:00

I've just got back from a church camp. The thing about times like these is that instead of a high people usually talk about, I suddenly feel incredibly unworthy. Isn't that all wrong?

But I promised myself never to make my faith something ideal, it is unhemmed; a raw, jagged little thing. I will probably always struggle with You, Lord so that after each event You reveal Yourself a little more to me.

We are born
Without a care
As we grow old
Become aware
As we grow tall
Begin to falter
We want to know ourselves
Spread love to all
But we falter cause we are human

- "The Fight" by Sia

Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush

2011-03-08T16:51:00.005+08:00

Photo by Leong Keng Cheng

Here is the 2nd installment of the well-received "BS My Book Shelf", with my guest interviewee - Kelvin Kuan, the boy who never finished a book.

Today we are covering love stories:

1. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

What does wuthering even mean? Is that a word? Let me imagine. Emily sounds like someone who will write on nature. There must be this couple who went up the hills trying to go for an escapade and then they start fighting over issues and end up separating to go for their own adventure. Then the nature gave them this revelation that they need to love one another more. I think normally literature books have this kind of theme. Love, anger leads to separation etc. And you still haven’t told me what wuthering means.

Wuthering Heights is the name of the manor in which the main character, Heathcliff lives in. It's an all-out, epic, Dynasty-style saga where no one marries their true love and a lot of alcohol and dying are involved. There are so many characters and twists in the plot that I'm not going to write about it here. You can knock yourselves out here, though. And wuthering means "blowing strongly: describes a wind that blows strongly and makes a loud roaring sound". The Romantics loved setting like these.

2. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
Adeline, I know you’re trying to trick me. Though I don’t know for sure whether Anna Karenina or Leo Tolstoy is the title.

How can you not know LEO TOLSTOY?? The book's title is Anna Karenina (perhaps you would've noticed that the whole list starts with the title followed by author's name?). Anna goes to solve her adulterous brother's marriage problems and ends up with an affair of her own with military man Vronsky. Tadah! Lots of fights and depression ensue. The divorce with her husband takes forever and she resents the fact that she bears the shame while Vronsky gets let off scot-free. Their relationship messes with everyone else life (as you would have it in novels like these) but thank god it does not spill over generations i.e. with Wuthering. Phew.

3. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
This must be one of those really boring stories where people cry cry cry, hug hug hug, love love love and then die due to cholera. It speaks of love in time of sickness and pain. People stand by one another to support each other as their loved ones die.

Florentino and Fermina are pen-pal lovers, until they get found out and Fermina's father takes her off on a long trip. When she comes back all grown up, she can't believe she fell for Florentino and instantly rejects him. Meanwhile, her father forces her to marry Dr Urbino and she does. Florentino pines for Fermina and in order to ease the heartache, he has sex. Lots of it, with lots of other women. Fermina and Dr Urbino's marriage is an unhappy one but they stay together. The elderly couple's marriage ends when the doctor dies in an accident. At his wake, Florentino declares his love for Fermina (how tactful). She writes a him an angry letter and from there their correspondence resumes. They are rekindled and on a river cruise, Florentino and Fermina finally make love. Fermina frets about what others will think so Florentino demands that the captain raise the yellow flag of cholera so that no passengers will board the cruise.

4. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
I have a confession to make. My friend bought this book for me for Christmas, like 2 years ago. Till now, it’s still nicely wrapped in my shelf. Nobody knows when it will be read. Maybe I can give it to my son or daughter. But I read the synopsis behind. It’s about someone growing up in a family with great expectations as to his behavior, personality and other aspects. He grew up facing other people’s expectations and had a hard time finding his real self. I think.

"Great expectations" here refers to the money Pip, an orphan teen inherits from a secret benefactor. He thinks it's from Ms. Havisham, an old lady he used to work for so that he can "be a gentleman" and be married to her haughty adopted daughter, Estella (whom he is inexplicably drawn to). But it turns out that Pip's benefactor is actually Magwitch, a convict he showed kindness too when he was little. The drama kicks in when Pip feels indebted to plan an escape for Magwitch and the police are tipped off by Compeyson (Mag's ex-partner in crime). Gasp. And Compeyson was the one who dumped Ms. Havisham at the altar, leaving her crazy and still dressed up in her wedding gown til now. Gasp. And Magwitch is Estella's biological father. Gasp. And Estella is a man-eating robot trained by Ms. Havisham to break men's hearts. Gasp. Seriously, we have some high-octane drama here. Dickens wrote a sad ending but upon advice changed it so that Pip and a tamed Estella hold hands in a garden, never to be parted again.

5. Sophie’s Choice - William Styron
Sophie grows up in an upper class family where she is so controlled by the culture and parent’s expectations. I think her parents must have arranged her marriage for her. She had no choice but to succumb to it. Then, she found the love of her life. She decides to go against everyone to be with this man. Why are all the themes of literature books revolve around love?

Hardly. Sophie is Polish and survivor of a WWII's concentration camp. When they wanted to send her two children to the gas chamber, they made her choose which one would survive. Fast forward to the future and she is lover to a schizophrenic but brilliant Nathan. Stingo, a writer friend of theirs witnesses as Nathan's condition worsens and Sophie fall into depression and alcoholism. Smitten, he takes her away hoping to rescue her but she is clearly too willing to self-destruct with Nathan. She leaves Stingo and later he discovers that both Nathan and Sophie committed suicide.

For more BS, read the 1st installment of this series.

Listen to Wuthering Heights.

Warpaint - Composure

2011-03-05T20:33:00.006+08:00

The Tempest: Ariel in a Tree by Edmund Dulac

The big man speaks of opinions that

Have your mind wagging its tail

Your mind, your mind

Is swayed by his swagger

Bravado gets you high

When you've no knowledge to ground you sober

Ariel, Ariel, what was it he said to you?

All the arms that linked

The chatter over tea and cream

Bending your world with embraces

Words you want to hear

Feelings you need to feel

Well intentions pave the path

To you losing way on the easy road

Ariel, Ariel, what was it she said to you?

"Why, that's my dainty Ariel! I shall miss thee; but yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so."

- Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest

Listen to Composure (I wrote the poem after hearing it).

Wanderlust - Björk

2011-03-02T21:04:00.005+08:00

Plays, translations and poetry are probably the 3 things that I don't really spend money on. But when it only costs RM12, it's a no-brainer. Bibliophiles, there's a Times book sale going on at fahrenheit 88. Things are not arranged, so be prepared to spend time digging.

I saw books on New Orleans French quarter gangs, "a story for Paris" and a guide to London's underground music venues but I didn't get those. They would just have killed me because I've got a serious case of wanderlust after Vietnam. You have no idea. My weakness is that I can't take feeling I want something out of reach.

So I sit cross-legged and study Carol Ann Duffy's anthology of poems, taking down thoughts and putting question marks over the pages. One day, one day.

Listen to (no, watch!) Wanderlust

Sunny's Tune - Ry Cooder

2011-03-01T08:27:00.001+08:00

Where I'm writing this from today

I am up trying to catch ideas by their tails. 6:54am. Cars like miniature lights on the highway. The canteen people are up even before me, preparing food for kids stuck in primary cog education.

I found the above paragraph in a heap of unpublished blog drafts. A quick date check reveals that it was written around a month ago. Still, this past week has been pretty much the same. Sleep is like any other activity, shifted around to accommodate work.

So one after another, I await approval/rejection (appreciation/criticism) of the fruits of my labour. But it feels good. Thank you for giving me work and thank you for the beautiful early morning sounds and sights I catch in unlonely solitude.

Listen to Sunny's Tune

Eastover Wives - Dent May

2011-02-21T01:59:00.006+08:00

Dent May is exactly my type of sleazy. I feel like I'm awash in evening disco lights when I listen to his music.

And then he sings about Mississippi and Southern belle Caroline taking a smoke under the oak. And it all just meshes into this completely heady mix of swampy psychedelia. I think I'd love to go there. Bring me to the south where they have irresistible drawls and moonshine and old French quarters and New Orleans and jazz. And people like Dent May.

I Left The Light On - Madeline Adams

2011-02-19T17:22:00.004+08:00

So this is ACTUALLY how it feels like to be writing a commissioned song. My thought process:

1. Right, I've done this before. Happy songs are easy. All you need is 4 chords. And I only know 4 chords. Easy.

2. I read the brief and go "damnit", they want me to do WHAT?

3. And then I say "OK, you're a creative person. Find a cool way to give them what they want."

4. Solution found. Get to work on lyrics.

5. No, get to work on TUNE first. Melody is vital in happy songs.

6. No, crap. Lyrics first. I'm a writer for goodness sake! This is going to be OK. Think fun, inspirational, without being cheesy.

7. Cringe. Cringe. Paralyzed by own inability to even get a grip on a good opening line.

8. OK, Imma go out and have some fun with friends. They always say that's the best way to get inspired.

9. Get back at ungodly hour. I'm so sleepy. Maybe tomorrow will bring a better song.

10. It's morning. One day closer to the deadline. No way closer to a finished song.

11. Try tunes on piano. Try tunes on guitar. Try humming tunes. Try listening to other well-written happy songs.

12. I think my songwriting tank is depleted. There you have it, I was a one-trick-pony all along.

End of thought process.