Saturday, February 28, 2009

The merlion got struck by lightning this afternoon.

No kidding. See here.

(UPDATE: got video coverage orready!!!)



Sigh. Was going to blog today about the book launch for "Thoughts Are Free", the new anthology of poetry by Singapore political detainees. Launch was supposed to be at Geylang East Library, but we were kicked out at the last minute. Lightning is a powerful force.

Friday, February 27, 2009

Netbook capoeira!



I'll gnash my teeth about Judge Judith Prakash's statement on the kangaroo T-shirts another time, I promise.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Obligatory Oscars Post

I know I should be mad at Mediacorp for censoring both the best screenplay and best actor award speeches on their replay of the Oscars yesterday. (Both were won for "Milk" and involved pro-gay rights speeches, in case you're living in a different universe. Check out the people complaining in the comments section of Fridae.)

But I'm mostly entranced by how handsome 34 year-old openly gay "Milk" screenwriter Dustin Lance Black is.




Are all lapsed Mormon boys this hot? I thought they grew out of it after their missions.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Stephen Fry talks about Singlish on QI.

I'm not kidding. I'll save the OMGs for later. See here, at 5:05.



Also check out the straight-boy gay kissing scene!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Evil Foreign Talent!

It's not just Indonesian zillionaires and Myanmarese warlords, y'know! It's also Nigerian 419 scammers who can earn US$27 million by impersonating the nation of Ethiopia.

To carry out the elaborate scheme, prosecutors in New York said on Friday, the man, identified as Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world.

Actually I love the fact that we've become a more international city. Back to the old pirate days.

See here.

Friday, February 20, 2009

At the symposium

Elizabeth de Roza: So what have you been doing?

YS: I'm writing a book about the year 1984 in Singapore. What were you doing in the year 1984?

Elizabeth de Roza: I was 14 years old.

YS: What were you doing?

Elizabeth de Roza: I can’t remember.

YS: Yes you can.

Elizabeth de Roza: I can’t remember.

YS: Yes you can. You were Sec 2. Come on.

Elizabeth de Roza: Oh yah! I lost my father.

YS: Oh.

(Pause)

YS: You win.

Public Notice

If you're a good-looking young gay man and I offer you free tickets to a play or movie, there's a good chance I want to sleep with you. So if you already have a boyfriend, it'd be good form to let me know before you accept the tickets.

Hum?

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Life Styles: Theatre and Biography Across Cultures

I'm speaking at this Symposium at the National Museum on Friday afternoon!

Turns out we're getting a bigger space, so space won't be as limited as I thought. Thus I can advertise this with impunity.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Random thought

Kids of the future will look back at our times and laugh that we had action figures and dolls that couldn't stand up on their own.

Assuming a more technologically advanced future happens rather than environmental holocaust, of course.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

BUY MY T-SHIRTS.

I've made a few, available on order at Ministry of Press. Here's one!



MOP itself is a little shop at #04-31, Far East Plaza, and the owner, Arnold Wee, has commissioned local poets to create 14-word T-shirt slogans for Valentine's Day. The shirts themselves are American Apparel, so they're very comfy. Regular shirts cost $39; the poets series is $69.

Google has disabled my Gmail account.

This sucks. And is very odd. I can kinda get in, but I can't send anything. Ooh, okay, I managed to send something. But it's all still very slow. If you need to contact me, better SMS or facebook me.

Incidentally, I was pretty cruel to another person today. And I'm not exactly sure if I'm sorry, because what else should I have done under the circumstances?

Talking to the air. Don't mind me.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Ye Olde ROTLMAO.

Check this out:

Wm. Shakespeare's Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me

19 I work ovt my calues thrice weekly, usvally three pyramid sets of Calf-Rises whilst holding a flagon of Meade. I knowe I should stretch afterwards, but it Bores me so I do it not.

20 As a boy in my Bed, I would shriek i’the night that Witches wovld come to eat me. My Mother (bless her) wovld smooth my Hair and whispr ~ Be not afear’d, the Witches onlie eat the Jews.

21 Whitsuntide has become so commercial.

From Mike McPhaden's Myspace.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Zak and Sarah's wedding (niqah and bersanding ceremonies)

I've realised I've been posting very little about actual (non-official) events from my life.

Well, here's some shots from a recent wedding I took:








Dinner party shots may be included at a later date.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Look Around You!



Surrealist comedy is alive in Britain. :) Some bits from Series 2 are also on Youtube.

Monday, February 02, 2009

BAA Pte Ltd

Just got a call from them. They claimed they were going to give me a $1,000 voucher prize if I went down for a talk at the Rolex Building.

While we were talking on the phone, I googled them.

http://forum.channelnewsasia.com/viewtopic.php?p=2448055&sid=73ff159412fc25987caf4f1261a58294

Watch out guys. It's a time-share scam. They keep changing their name.

(Thanks for that short story in "Corridors", Alfian. It taught me about these buggers.)

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Texts January 2009

Very few books this month! Not sure why... But have definitely overcompensated for December's film famine.

*POETRY*
+Elizabeth Bishop’s “Geography III”
Ravi Shankar’s “Instrumentality”

*FICTION*
+Johann S. Lee’s “Quiet Time”
+Vyvyane Loh’s “Breaking the Tongue”
+Paul Auster’s “Travels in the Scriptorium”

*DRAMA*
+Ariel Dorfman’s “Death and the Maiden”
+Friedrich Schiller’s “Don Carlos”

*NON-FICTION*
+Pamelia Lee’s “Singapore, Tourism and Me”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Dim Javis’s “Barfield Loses His Lunch”
Chow Chee Yong’s “30th February”

*PERFORMANCES*
+Mediacorp VizPro Pte Ltd's “Wild Wild Rose”
+The Necessary Stage’s “Frozen Angels”
Chong Li Chuan’s “Musica Familia” and
+Irfan Kasban’s “We Live in a Box”
+Panggung Arts’s “Betrayed Babies”
brand nu dance’s “Question “Mama””

*EXHIBITIONS*
Tay Kay Nguan and the Passionate Artists’ “A Bowl of Rice”
Soobin Art Int’l’s “Realistic of Desire: A Joint Exhibition of 11 Artists from Guiyang” and “Begins ‘09”
+Olinka Vistica and Drazen Grubisic's “The Museum of Broken Relationships”
+Philip Toledano’s “Days with My Father”
+Utopia Studio's "The Singapore Tattoo Show '09"
+Luis Cantillo’s “Looking for Melquiades”
+Nataraj Sharma’s “Airshow”
+Wilson Shieh’s “Music Families”
National Museum of Singapore’s “Come-in: Interior Design as a Contemporary Art Medium in Germany”

*FILMS*
+Gus van Sant’s “Milk”
John Woo’s “Red Cliff II”
+ Fatih Akın’s “Im Juli”
+Hayao Miyazaki’s “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea”
+Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia”
+Stephen Daldry’s “The Reader”
Sun Koh's "Dirty Bitch"
+Vincent Kok’s “All's Well, Ends Well 2009”