My god! Why did no-one tell me the President of Madagascar was so sexy?

That's Andry Rajoelina, the transitional President (they've been having some trouble down there recently) with his equally hot wife Mialy Majoelina. He's only 35 years old. Via Madagascar Not the Movie.

Granted, it might be the photo. He doesn't look drop-dead hump-your-sofa gorgeous in every shot:





But he still beats the pants off Barack.

Alright, back to work now...

UPDATE: Er, I suppose I'd be an evil dick-thinking bastard if I didn't also mention that he was installed without elections after a military coup, and there are loads of protests by the populace (not against Mr Hawtness specifically, but more about the lack of due process). He might just be an ambitious ethnic rabble-rouser dictator wannabe who happens to have a pretty face. So er, I'm just giving him his hotornot endorsement, not a mandate to rule. Just sayin'.

What do I do when I have a crazy week with too many deadlines due?

I blog silly videos:



...oh god, I just realised my 10 year-old niece reads this blog. Kimberlyn! The above video is... naughty. If you watch it, don't tell your parents.

I'm gonna be on the radio on Monday at 10am talking about Bird Call, btw.

Excellent short religious-fi film

Civilization by Marco Brambilla from CRUSH on Vimeo.

Want to help the Iranian twitter revolution?

Eli Sanders says (with some references to the New York Times):

In our comments, and in comments on other blogs, a number of people have been asking what they can do from here in the U.S. to help the Iranian protesters. Here's a small, easy thing that's being requested by Iranians who are using Twitter to organize:

Help hide Iranian protesters: change your Twitter location to Tehran, time to +3:30 GMT.

The idea is to confuse the Iranian authorities. If every Twitter user in the world is suddenly based in Tehran, that means a lot more accounts for Iranian security operatives to comb through as they try to figure out who to track down and threaten—or worse.

Via Slog.

Garden Affair 013: Bird Call

Next Thursday and Friday, I'm involved in a contemporary dance performance called Bird Call, produced by ARTS Fission group and choreographed by Elysa Wendi. It's centred around the theme of birds, so I might have to do some dressing up in feathers. :)




Garden Affair 013 - Bird Call
Thursday 25 & Friday 26 June 2009, 8.30 pm
Garden Studio, Cairnhill Arts Center
126 Cairnhill Road #01-07/09
Within (tedious) walking distance from Newton MRT

Someone made me fanart!

Her name's Marylyn and this is what she drew, based on my poem "kami/kaze: a correspondence".

I recently participated in KYTV's POP Station...

... thus yielding one of the most embarrassing videos of myself, ever.



The exhibition's showing at the Esplanade Jendela Studio till 29 June.

Oh, and I made a second one, too:

It is so frickin' hot in Singapore.

Just sayin'.

I'm back in Singapore!

And what a relief. I am not as free a spirit as most people assume: I am quite comfortable defined by work and community.

My last stop in North America this time was New York, which I've been revisiting every year since 2007 to follow up on loose ends - unresolved plotlines and relationships from my student life.

This time, I think the novel's over. Yes, I still have dearly loved friends and compatriots in New York, but the real passion's gone, moved on.



I was staying with George, an amazing and dangerously young Hunter College student I bumped into last year at the Pride Parade. He speaks fluent Korean, Spanish (complete with a madrileño accent), French and Greek (Ancient and modern), and now he's learning Chinese. Here he is, avoiding his summer classwork by watching his favourite multilingual Youtubes.



This one's by a Tunisian-French rapper. Means "I have a complaint". Formidable, visually as well as in text and spirit.



Both George and I are agreed that Wang is one of the finest specimens of the male form on the planet Earth, and that Rain's cuteness is overrated.



I can't remember if George said that the lead singer of this Spanish group is transsexual, or if that was someone else. The title means "More is more".

I guess one reason I'm putting these Youtubes up is to show off the fact that I supposedly speak the languages therein (not Korean, but Mandarin), but the truth is that George groks these so much more deeply and wholly and casually than I do. I mean, I can barely figure out what someone's saying in an American English song.

Language is supposed to be the basis of my career, but really, compared with someone like him, I fail.

Back to the small pond. Back to work. Build on my strengths, not on my weaknesses. Never stop making stuff. Never despair.

May texts

*POETRY*
+Elizabeth Alexander’s “The Venus Hottentot”
+Mary Oliver’s “Owls and Other Fantasies”
+Ryan Mecum’s “Zombie Haiku”

*FICTION*
+Max Frisch’s “Homo Faber”
+Gaile Parkin's “Baking Cakes in Kigali”
+Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book"
+Chuck Palhniuk's "Pygmy"

*NON-FICTION*
+Jean Baudrillard’s “The Spectre of Terrorism”
+Dan Savage’s “The Commitment”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+ René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo's “Asterix in Switzerland”
+Anne Taintor’s “I Can’t Be Good All the Time”

*ANTHOLOGIES*
=“New Swiss Writing”

*PERFORMANCES*
Entity Theatre Workshop's "Equus"
+A bunch of shows at Walt Disney World
+=A bunch of shows on the Freedom of the Seas, Nassau

*EXHIBITIONS*
Singapore Art Museum's "Threads" and ="An Unbroken Line: The Wu Guanzhong Donation Collection"
+"Thomas Jefferson's Monticello"
+The Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, National Museum of African Art, National Museum of the American Indian
+The Capitol

*FILMS*
=Nick Oceano's ”Pedro”
+P. J. Hogan's ”Confessions of a Shopaholic”
Iain Softley's “Inkheart”
+Yōjirō Takita's “Departures”
+Ron Howard's “Frost/Nixon”
=Chris Williams and Byron Howard's “Bolt”
+A bunch of things in Walt Disney World
=Steven Spielberg's “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull”

Tank Man Tango: June 4, 1989 anniversary commemoration at The Substation

This year is the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. Beginning in April 1989, thousands of people, mostly students and intellectuals, gathered in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing to demonstrate against the government’s authoritarianism and to call for democratic and economic reforms. Then on June 4, the government sent tanks to clear the square, injuring and killing civilians. The official figure is 241 deaths, including soldiers. Chinese student associations and the Chinese Red Cross reported 2000 to 3000 deaths. Among the most powerful images from those days are the ones of the “Goddess of Democracy” statue, which was erected in the Square on May 30, and of the “Tank Man”, who, with nothing but shoppping bags, momentarily stopped a row of tanks from entering Tiananmen Square on June 5.



As a way of commemorating this anniversary, The Substation is participating in a worldwide public art project to be performed in the cities of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Taichung (Taiwan), Seoul, Singapore, Weimar, Leipzig, London, Bristol, Washington DC, and Mexico City.

On June 4, 2009, from 6.30 to 9pm in The Substation theatre, come join us to learn and perform the Tank Man Tango together as an artwork and a vigil; or come for conversation, and share memories and perspectives. The Tank Man Tango is a simple, stylised recreation of the steps of the Tank Man as he defied the tanks. The video can be found on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MziREAZ_WqA&feature=channel_page

Then on June 5, join us at The Substation Gallery between 12 noon and 9pm: we will be erecting replicas of the Goddess of Democracy statue from a D-I-Y kit, filling the gallery space with them.

Everyone is invited.

Documentation from both days will be uploaded onto the memorial website: www.forget2forget.net

Tank Man Tango is an artwork by Deborah Kelly featuring Teik Kim Pok dancing; choreography by Jane McKernan; video by Sumugan Sivanesan. With many thanks to collaborators May Ee Wong, Fiona Winning, Wei Lai, Celia White, Frank Motz, Martin del Amo, Fei Wong, Lachlan Warner, Ann-Kathrin Rudorf, Mandy Unger, Robert Pacitti, Mark Mitchell, Lee Weng Choy, Estee Wah, PVI Collective, Su Goldfish, Bec Dean, Katie Hepworth, Kernow Craig and David Teh.

Back on land!

Being on a well-run cruise ship is so ridiculously decadent that it frightens you when you consider the class dynamics and environmental ethics of it. It's like being on a floating Dubai. (On the other hand, Americans are probably nicer to their service staff, and a lot of the staff come from countries that really do need the money.) Photos to come.

Btw, reason why I haven't been updating was because they charged cut-throat rates for Internet use.

Now on to New York.

This Bacardi commercial keeps playing on TV.

It's really cool!



The song is by a Brooklyn duo called Matt and Kim, who are actually really weird and not all that pre-packagedly perfect:



I'm in DC btw. Flying to Orlando tomorrow.

Charlottesville!

Statue of Homer and youth, UVA.


Little brother before graduation.


Little brother after graduation.



Stuffed deer, Bamboo Palace Korean Restaurant.


Mother's leg, graduation ceremony.


Brother's ex's parents, graduation ceremony.


French toast, apartment.


Frolicking parents, Monticello.



Intense sister, graduation ceremony.



Hunted sister, apartment.


Cautionary signage, UVA lawn.


Graduates, UVA lawn.



Giant lettuce, Monticello.



Bagel shop (infamous among Singaporean community).


Live crabs, Asian food market.


Recreational mother, Birdwood Golf Green.


Focussed mother, graduation ceremony.



Ramen, apartment.


Ramen eaters, apartment.


Detritus, UVA lawn.

Bugger. Now I feel homesick.

'Cos I wasn't able to be at the Pink Dot gathering, Singapore's first queer pride sorta parade:



Thank gods that TOC reports on these things. More photos here.

Dream 150509

I was a witch, one of a sisterhood of witches. We lived in a city in Europe populated by tramlines, not unlike Zurich, and it was always night. There was also a sisterhood of vampires who were seducing and eating children. The head witch had too been murdered as revenge. My final memory is my confrontation with the last vampire (I was the heroine this time, and had destroyed the other seven). I remember first my jaws against her fangs, and then, as dream-logic shifted, my jaws against her throat, breaking skin and vessel, her weight in my arms, her chalk white eyes, her red salt blood.

(I've been sleeping on my brother's couch in Charlottesville, Virginia, by the way.)

Zürich pichs!

I'm flying off again tonight, this time for my brother's graduation ceremony from UVA. But I'll be durned if I let my Switzerland photos disappear into oblivion.


Gal in dirndl, Felsenegg.



Tram interior.



Birnmüsli, Abisriederplatz.



Peruvian souvenir hawker, near Niederdorf.



Sakura blossom, Park Rietburg.


Bratenschweinefleisch, Felsenegg.


Labour Day demonstration, Schmiede-Wiedikon.



More sakura blossoms, Schmiede-Wiedikon.


River, off Limmatquai.


Chüchli with tomatoes, Hauptbahnhof Sprüngli.

Irwan's shoes, Albisriederplatz.


Really bad nasi goreng, Albisriederplatz.


City view, Linderhof.


Dog swimming, Bellevue.


Beach volleyball promo, Hauptbahnhof.


Sakura blossoms up the wazoo, Schmiede-Wiedikon.


Dandelion clock, Park Rietburg.


Dandelion clocks take over the world, Park Rietburg.


Installation, Kunsthalle.


Demonstration, Bahnhofstraße.


Schoggifrüchte, Burkliplatz.


Bust, Cafe Dada.

Another backdated video for your viewing pleasure

Because it really bugs me in an OCD way to have two posts on the same day (or else if there's more than one post most days, it bugs me when there are no posts on any one day).

Anyway, here's to '80s cartoons once again:



Seriously, it's not an unthinkable concept.

I'm HOOOOOME!!!

But will be leaving again on the evening of 13 May. So call me quick if you wanna organise something.

Actually, on a more serious note

Irwan says he's met a guy on Gayromeo who's doing a similar project to mine. WTF? He didn't even note down his username (though he chatted a bit, and both sides wished each other well, etc).

Hopefully he's only investigating the rentboys of Zurich as an academic exercise rather than as a commercial one (because this is a commercial venture: I think this is a book that would sell).

But who knows? Am troubled.

I wish Singapore had HIV awareness photos like this.

From the Decider, Chicago.

You should watch the Ramen Girl.

I watched it on the plane from Bangkok. I know it can't be good as Tampopo (on which it's based, and which I've never watched), but it's still fun and a good deal less numb-nutted about the process of foreign adaptation than Sofia Coppola movie. Lost In Translation. God, that was awful.



Also, the hot blonde girl fucks a hot Korean-Japanese dude! Not on screen, but the relationship happens! I want the webcam version!

AWARE is secular again!!!

Just got the news when I logged on. At the EGM 2/3 of the women voted against the new committee.

Of course, there's still the matter of the $80,000 that the new guard spent on lawyers and organising the EGM...

Texts April 2009

Introducing a new category, = for works that weren't bad but I was expecting much better of. By the way, Elizabeth Pisani’s “The Wisdom of Whores” is an in-fucking-credible exposé of the politics of HIV work - seriously, I consider myself fairly well-educated on HIV precautions, but there was at least one major revelation for me every chapter.

There's also one totally awesome webcomic I found out about on Slog or Boingboing but I totally can't remember the name of. Will update eventually.

Am coming back to Singapore in a week's time. For about two days, but it'll be great to be in touch with everyone even briefly. I'll have to return to Zürich to finish this book - so far I've got about three incredible interviews and two iffy ones. Not enough for a book, but enough to get a publisher interested, probably.

*POETRY*
+Marilyn Hacker’s “Desesperanto”
+Carol Ann Duffy’s “The World’s Wife”

*FICTION*
=Cory Doctorow’s “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom”
+Richard Mason’s “The World of Suzie Wong”

*NON-FICTION*
+Kendall Maycock’s “Switzerland - Culture Smart!”
=Gerrie Lim’s “Invisible Trade II”
+Susan Aldous and Pornchai Sereemongkonpol’s “Ladyboys: The Secret World of Thailand’s Third Gender”
+Elizabeth Pisani’s “The Wisdom of Whores”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
=Mike Carey and Siddharth Kotian’s “The Stranded”
=Guy Delisle’s “The Burma Chronicles”
+“The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Book”
+Zep’s “Titeuf: petites poesies saisons”
+Hans Jürgen Press’s “Der kleine Herr Jakob”
+Jim Butcher and Ardian Syaf’s “The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle”
+Ari Folman and David Polonsky’s “Waltz with Bashir: A Lebanon War Story”
+Harold Feinstein and Robert H. Hesse’s “Orchidelirium”

*PERFORMANCES*
DramaBox’s “IgnorLAND of its Name”
Cake Theatre’s “Destinies of Flowers in the Mirror”
LaSalle Acting Programme’s “Invisibility” and +”Three Fat Virgins Unassembled”

*EXHIBITIONS*
=National Museum of Singapore's "Christian Lacroix: the Costumier"
Schweizerisches Landesmuseum’s permanent exhibition and +”Witzerland”
Museum Rietburg’s +permanent exhibition and =”Luo Ping – Eccentric Visions”
Kunsthalle Zürich’s “Annette Kelm”
+Migros Museum’s “Josephine Meckseper”
+Kunsthaus Zürich’s permanent exhibition, “Giacometti, der Ägypter” “Albert von Keller: Salons, Séancen, Secession”, “Tino Sehgal”, “The Absence of Mark Manders”
+Liechtenstein Landesmuseum’s permanent exhibition
Kunsmuseum Liechtenstein’s =“Der Blick” and “Das Glück dieser Erde”

*FILMS*
+Yeo Joon Han’s “Sell Out!”
+Robert Allan Ackerman's "The Ramen Girl"
+most of Warren Ellis’s “GI Joe: Resolute”