Cruise photos

Yes, yes, of course I should upload my photos of exotic decadence in Bali, but I never actually got round to uploading the photos of exotic decadence from the Caribbean cruise we took this May to celebrate my brother's graduation.

That's right. The proletariat we are not.

Ship in dock, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Preserves vendor, Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Souvenir vendor, Cozumel, Mexico

Annoying cruise director, open sea

Tour guide, Labadee, Haiti

Tour guide, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Professional photo op, Cozumel, Mexico

Dining room, open sea

Setting sail, Cape Canaveral, Florida

Shared cabin, open sea

Brother eating, Labadee, Haiti

Sister eating, Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Father meditating, Labadee, Haiti

Child meditating, Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Running track/sunbathing deck, open sea

Haitian Flea Market, Labadee, Haiti

ATM, Tulum, Mexico

Deck 5, open sea

Shipwreck, Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Trilingual info panel, Tulum, Mexico

Breakfast buffet, open sea

Jerk platters, Ocho Rios, Jamaica

A la carte dinner, open sea

Me posing, Tulum, Mexico

Sister posing, Georgetown, Cayman Islands

Towel monkey, open sea

Hammocks, Labadee, Haiti

Singing waiters, open sea

Beach, Tulum, Mexico

Farewell party, open sea

Father waiting, Tulum, Mexico

Open sea

Experience Singapore Literature (An All-Night Symposium by the National Library)... deadline for registration is next Tuesday!

Back from Bali! I'm gonna talk about the events I'm doing for the Singapore Literature Festival real soon, but first, here's a special side event that I've been planning with the National Library, happening on the night of Fri Oct 30 to the afternoon of Sat Oct 31. I'm pretty stoked.


Join us for a Symposium on 30-31 October! Forget about sitting and listening to boring discussions. We will be bringing you unique Experiences which are more exciting and on a bigger scale! As the name suggests, we want YOU to Experience literature. Come along and meet the ‘greats’ of the literary circles!

For more details and registration to the different segments of the Symposium, please access our blog at http://blogs.nlb.gov.sg/esl/symposium/.

Supper Club,

Starts 11.30pm Friday 30 October to 6.30am Saturday 31 October
Kick off at Possibility Room, Level 5, National Library Board
*open to those aged 16 years and above

Breakfast Club & Explore Singlit,

Starts 9.30am to 2.00pm on Saturday 31 October 2009
The Pod, Level 16, National Library Building

Admission to the two segments are free and on a first-come-first serve basis as seats are limited. Registration is from now till 20 October 2009. Supper, Breakfast and Lunch arrangements are included accordingly to the different segments.

*Your registration is complete when you receive a confirmation email from us. Seats are limited, so please register only if you can really join us.

Speaking today At the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival!

First time officially. Was corralled into replacing an absent speaker yesterday at the Lands of Chocolate event, where I read poems about mooncakes and vegan ex-boyfriends and shared anecdotes about how my father hates chox after being given flavoured laxatives as a child.

Things are luxurious here, but a little muddled. Will report more later.

Friday 10.45 – 12.15, Neka Museum

Breaking the Taboos
Queer Asian writing

Amir Muhammad
Ernest JK Wen
Ng Yi Sheng
Cok Sawitri
Chair: Dede Oetomo

Saturday, 10.45 – 12.15, Left Bank Lounge

Literary communities

Angelo Lacuesta
M Aan Mansyur
Omar Musa
Ng Yi-Sheng

Chair: Degung Santikarma

Sunday, 4.00 – 5.30, Neka Museum

A New Frontier:

Blogging, Dissent & Solidarity

Doel CP Allisah
Dian Hartati
Antony Loewenstein
Ng Yi-Sheng

Chair: Angela Meyer

Sep 2009 texts

Horribly meagre I know, but then, I was writing.

*POETRY*
+Mina Loy’s “The Lost Lunar Baedeker”

*FICTION*
=Ralph Modder’s “The Curse of the Pontianak”
=Catherine Lim’s “Teardrop Story Woman”

*DRAMA*
Lim Chor Pee’s “A White Rose At Midnight”

*NON-FICTION*
+Bettany Murphy’s “Helen of Troy”

*PERFORMANCES*
Fly Entertainment’s “The Extraordinary V Conference”
=Singapore Dance Theatre’s “Season of Brilliance”
+Buds Theatre’s “The Shagaround”
LaSalle School of the Arts’ +“The Woman in the Window”, =”You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown” and +“Blood Wedding”
=Singapore Repertory Theatre’s “Defending the Caveman”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+NUS Museum's “I, Polunin”
=Erika Tan's "Persistent Visions"

*FILMS*
+Kiyoshi Kurosawa's “Tokyo Sonata”
=Kevin Tancharoen's “Fame”

So what the hell happened with the CAP Mentorship?

I'll talk about it in due course. But as of now, the most comprehensive place to talk about it is over at Yawning Bread.

Right now, I'm rushing journalism deadlines and running off for the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. I'm doing three panels!

I still miss having a mentee though. Sigh. Probably selfish. Made me feel like a grown-up.

Why I've been silent.

I don't have a CAP mentee anymore. More will be explained in the days to follow.

I'll be doing a presentation on my musical "Georgette" next Saturday, 3 October, 2:30 to 4:45pm

Drop by!

Had a great time writing with the Proletariat Poetry Society today.

Invited emerging/recently returned from abroad and bloody good poets Johann Loh and Lee Yew Leong along as well. We must've generated at least 100 doggerels between us. Yew Leong says he wants to buy a typewriter of his own - better suited to his writing, he says.

Plus we get paid $30 each for our servility! On the downside, left my headphones back there.

And now for some lolz.

UPDATE: Seems that my mentee, [redacted], ordered a poem for me at PPF today:

you were all dying when it began

CLEAR

in taoist philosophy, there is something that is referred to as XUAN
it is a murky, unclear thing, existing somewhat like a cloud of
mystery and undefined certainties
all things pass through it before exi ting
and will do so again after their end
in it, this primordial substance
are the XXXXXXXXX imaginary numbers
and the unspoken words


Woowhee. I wrote my mentors an assload of poems. But did I ever commission any for them? Nosiree!

Kudos: I has it.

Oh yeah! And I'm going to be working with Proletariat Poetry Factory on Saturday (tomorrow) at Raffles City.

It'll be at:

Basement 1, Raffles City Shopping Centre (Outside MPH & Gloria Jeans)
3:00pm - 7:00pm

We'll be using typewriters and headphones to create stream-of-consciousness poetry on order, for $4 or so per piece. Come along and patronise us!

I think we're a run-up event for Singapore Writers' Festival? But I may be mistaken.

Rethinking the Nanyang

There's a public forum happening at 3:15 on Sat 25 September at the National Library on the Nanyang Artists (i.e. folks like Liu Kang, Georgette Chen and Cheong Soo Pieng who established a natively Malayan school of painting here in the '50s). Come if you like.

I'll be speaking the week after on Saturday 3 October, 3pm, same time, about the development of the musical "Georgette". Details forthcoming.

Comparative Literature Fail

The chronic procrastinator strikes again with found lols. Apologies to all.



see more Fail Blog

Speak Truth to Papa

(Scene: Car Interior)

YS: So mum wanted to have dinner on Saturday, and I told her I'd be happy to go if I could bring my boyfriend.

Father: Yuck! No!

YS: Yeah, well, that's more or less what she said.

Father: I've told you before. We are tolerant. But we don't embrace it.

YS: But don't you want to meet him? Aren't you glad I'm finally serious about somebody?

Father: Aiyah, I can't explain my reasons to you.

YS: Um, is that because they're not actually founded on logic?

(Yeah, this actually happened a few hours ago. Of course I love the fact that my dad brought us up to talk back to him)

Singapore MRT Anagram Map!!!

I've been wanting to post this since forever. Click on it. You know you want to.



From Black Coffee (Deprecated). Wonder if he's working on a version that includes the Circle Line?

YAY EIGHTIES!!!

Sorry, showing my age.

Texts August 2009

Yes, it's true. I only watched two movies last month.

*POETRY*
=Wole Soyinka’s “Selected Poems”
+Emily Brontë’s “Poems of Solitude”
+Koh Jee Leong’s “Equal to the Earth”
=Jerome Kugan’s “The Loneliest Profession in the World”

*FICTION*
+Mary Hooper's "Newes From the Dead"

+Jack London’s “Before Adam”
+Lloyd Jones’s “The Book of Fame”
+J.M. Coetzee’s “Waiting for the Barbarians”

*DRAMA*
+Rabindranath Tagore’s “Chitra”
+Peter Schaffer’s “Amadeus”

*NON-FICTION*
+Kenneth Paul Tan’s “Renaissance Singapore”
+Jan Morris’s “Conundrum”

*PERFORMANCES*
=Action Theatre’s “Streetwalkers”
+Dream Academy’s “Sing Dollar”
=Talk Sense’s “Ah Kua Show”
+Mux’s “What Day Is It Today?”
+Atlantis Productions Inc’s “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee”
+STAGES’s “H Is For Hantu”
=Play Den Productions’ “Salusuah”
+Cake Theatre’s “The Comedy of the Tragic Goats”
+Toy Factory’s “The Crab Flower Club”
+Checkpoint Theatre’s “Recalling Mother”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+NUS Museum’s “Baba House”
+Chris Yap’s “Of Fingerbowls and Hankies”
=Matthias Heng’s “8-8-88”
+2902 Gallery’s “Paradise Lost”
+8QSAM’s “President’s Young Talents”
National Museum’s =“Story of the Image” and +“Lost In the City”
+Sarkasi Said’s “Batik Fusion Exotica”
+Malay Heritage Centre’s permanent exhibition
+Artspace@Helutrans’s “100 Objects Remixed”
+Valentine Willie’s “The Air-Conditioned Recession”

*FILMS*
Kan Lume’s “Female Games”
+Jack Neo’s “Where Got Ghost”

At the movies

Where Got Ghost? is actually quite watchable!



And The Blue Mansion trailer is hella professionally done... I wanna watch this!



But Female Games stinks. I mean, really, really. All the Sayoni lesbians who watched it felt offended.



So what else is coming this year in Singapore cinema?

I've printed the programme for ContraDiction!

Innit pretty?



Pfah, wait till you see my costume.

CONTRADICTION V this Sunday

Just to let all you guys know again, I'll be hosting our annual queer literary reading this coming Sunday:

ContraDiction V
Sunday, 30 August,
from 7-10pm
72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road, 2nd floor
(Here's how to get there.)
Part of the IndigNation Pride Festival

I've curated and emceed this edition, and I'm very happy with the standard of writing that's being represented, as well as the established and emerging faces who'll be present. It'll be very casual, so even if you're just curious and feel like sticking your head in a while for sh*ts and giggles, feel free. Be warned, though: seats fill up fast. Fortunately, there will be beanbags.

This year, our guests include Robin Loon, Jasmine Seah, Leona Lo, Michael Corbidge, Lee Yew Leong, Irfan Kasban and Iris Judotter, to name just a few!

Hope to see you there!

By the way, I'm attached.

His name's Mohan. He's adorable.

Have announced it on Facebook, but wanted to wait till I had a good picture of us together before I blogged about it.



Unfortunately, when we're together we're always too busy chattering or PDA-ing to remember to ask someone to take our photo. (We're both quite on about queer activism - holding hands in public isn't just pleasure, it's also propaganda.)

I have tried to take a photo today, but he claims he doesn't photograph well, and - to tell the truth, with me being so pallid and him being so dark, we haven't figured out the right exposure yet.

So the above photo (taken with my Mac) really is the best shot we've got of the two of us together. If you wanna see what he really looks like, go to my Facebook page.

Datuk Hitler tries to deal with Malaysian polygamy

Maybe you could call this Madu Hitler.



Anyone can help to translate the Malay subtitles? Saya cuba belajar, tetapi hanya boleh faham beberapa patah perkataan sahaja...

I have two poems in Asian Cha No. 8.

It's a HK-based online journal. Check it out.

Also, if you enter the Singapore national anthem in the original Malay into the English-Japanese-dada translation programme Translation Party, you get the following:

Singapore Rakyat northern Mali,
dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon,
dragon, dragon,
dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon,
dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon.

Dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon,
dragon, dragon, dragon, dragon
menuju, BERUJAYASHINGAPURA
North YANSEFUGADO mulia,
bahagia, to protect the country.

North Marilah berseru,
BAYAN dengan semangat.
Semua North bersatu,
majulah Singapura! Majulah Singapura.

It's singable in three verses!!! Try it!

I has a mentee!

She's a [redacted] girl named [redacted]. This is us at the Creative Arts Programme Mentorship Tea.

[image redacted]

She's my first official mentee! Interesting experimental bent towards prose poems. Hopefully this works out.

UPDATE: Photo from MOE official Ms Lim Siew Yea!

[image redacted]

God, I look cocky. I think I had chicken in mouth or something.

My review for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee...

... kena censor by Straits Times in today's Life!. Sigh.

Don't really want fight, since I'm just doing it for the money. But the bit that got cut is the focal point of my review (and pretty damn scandalous, so I guess ST didn't want to cause a conservative uproar), so I reproduce it here, excised material in bold.

> theatre
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Atlantis Productions, Inc.
Victoria Theatre
Wednesday

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is full of surprises. Sure, you might have expected this Tony Award-winner to be a song and dance extravaganza that inspires children to excel academically. Instead, it turns out to be a wonderfully mischievous drama, charming audiences young and old with its vivid characters.

The show takes a while to warm up. There is an energy missing from the first few scenes, as the cast sings too softly, moving without the exuberance one would expect of an opening. Even a song like “Pandemonium”, in which the contestants leap off their chairs in frustration, comes across as a little too tame.

However, as the players gain momentum, we warm to their roles. Johann Dela Fuente plays the endearing Leaf Coneybear, a child of hippies who feels out of place among all the geniuses, as he relates in his song “I’m Not That Smart”.

Another memorable figure is Nancy Park, an overachieving Korean-American girl played by Shiela Valderrama Martinez. After her solo, “I Speak Six Languages”, she dramatically forces herself to fail, encouraged by a kindly apparition of Jesus.

Extra spice is added through audience participation. Four “guest spellers” are invited on stage at every show, pretending to be students, and made to spell ridiculously obscure or ridiculously simple words – my night, guests got terms as varied as “pilgarlick” and “dog”.

Remarkably, these hapless guests are soon persuaded to join in some of the basic choreography, while the MC improvises commentary on their appearances, noting, for instance, how they were the first in their grade to grow facial hair.

The biggest surprise, however, is the level of adult humour in the show. This ranges from intellectual references to Nietzsche to shocking flashes of sequined panties under checkered skirts.

One character faces pressure from her gay fathers (their relationship is fairly dysfunctional, which is probably why the censors okayed it). Another character, played excellently by Felix Rivera, has a lament about the circumstances which caused him to misspell his word, entitled “My Unfortunate Erection”. Pretty funny stuff – and fortunately, it goes right over the heads of younger children.

Spelling Bee is not your typical big-budget musical, nor, in my opinion, is it brilliantly executed by this cast. Still, the power of the script and its lovable band of quirky characters shines through. Audiences can still expect a satisfying, rib-tickling evening at the theatre. Thankfully, no surprises there.

There was a giant puppet of "Mrs Raffles" in the National Day Parade last night.

Given that:

1) such a character has never appeared before in the parade,

2) my play "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles", staged last year, featured Sophia Raffles as a prominent character,

3) the parade director this year, Ivan Heng, was also the back-up director of my play "The Last Temptation of Stamford Raffles" last year (my original director, Christina Sergeant, had a family emergency)

... did I inadvertently influence this year's NDP?

It could've been someone else's idea, of course. :) Like maybe Loo Zihan's:



That's from his multimedia project Sophia Raffles, staged in '07 at NTU.

I'm performing this afternoon!

Why not mark this occasion with a delightful Youtube?

Things I do when I'm supposed to meet several deadlines in the week, #57

Pluck all the hairs off one side of my moustache.






Actually, I restored the balance, so I'm not freakish now. Well, other than in the everyday psychological way.

THE PATRIARCH ALWAYS PAYS at the Arts House at 4pm Sat 8 August

... is the title of the commedia dell'arte inspired play that I've devised with four other writer/performers as part of the DramaBox Blanc Space collaborative playwriting programme, under the guidance of American playwright Joan Holden.



It's a makeshift presentation using texts we wrote over the weekend, so it won't be stellar, but it'll be fun. It's a comedy set in old Suzhou about organ transplants! I play the faithful servant Ah Lek, based on Arlecchino.

Once again, it's on:

Sat 8 August, 4pm
The Hall @ The Arts House (i.e. the small building with the Vietnamese restaurant, next to the Arts House proper)
Price: FREE


The writers/performers are:

Chris Lee
Verena Tay
Peggy Ferroa
Jacklyn Kuah
Ng Yi-Sheng

Every Annie Lennox song remixed

by DJ Earworm, with her blessing. In the future, every a cappella group will be doing remixes like this.

Texts July 2009

Weirdly enough, I've read only a handful of non-graphic books and watched only two films this month. What's wrong with me?

*POETRY*
=Wong Yoon Wah’s “Beyond Silence”

*FICTION*
=Mikhail Kuznin’s “Wings”
+Julia Leigh’s “Disquiet”

*DRAMA*
=Bryan Tan’s “Travelling Light with a Heavy Heart”

*NON-FICTION*
+Robert Schnakenberg’s “Secret Lives of Great Authors”
+Terry Tan’s “Stir-Fried But Not Shaken”
=Margaret Mead’s “Coming of Age in Samoa”
+Stephen Fry’s “Moab Is My Washpot”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Larry Gonick’s “The Cartoon History of America”
+Kurt Busiek’s “Superman: Camelot Falls: The Weight of the World”
=Daphne Gottlieb and Diane DiMassa’s “Jokes and the Unconscious”

*PERFORMANCES*
=World-In-Theatre and Singapore Indian Association’s “Thillana Mohana”
+W!ld Rice’s “Own Time Own Target”
+Short and Sweet Singapore’s “Gala Final”
=The Theatre Practice’s “4:48 Psychosis”
Fran Borgia’s “Film – Faust”
Action Theatre’s “Streetwalkers”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+Woods & Woods’s “Resuscitation”
+Brian Gothong Tan and Zulkifle Mahmod’s “Synaesthesia”
+Peranakan Museum’s “Baba Bling”
+National Museum’s “Night Festival”
+NUS Museum’s “Site, Situation, Spectator”
+Yi Hwan Kwon’s “A World Not Quite Alike”
Jendela’s “The 28th UOB Painting of the Year Competition”
=Your Mother Gallery’s “Seelan Palay: Solo Exhibition”
=Singapore Heritage Festival’s “Corridors of Celebration”

*FILMS*
=Marcel Gisler's "Fögi Is a Bastard"
= Chukiat Sakveerakul’s “The Love of Siam”

Come to IndigNation 2009!

What's IndigNation, I hear you say? Here's from the website:

Indignation is the LGBT Pride season in Singapore, reaffirming our participation in the intellectual and cultural life of this country, reminding all that we are as much a part of Singapore as anyone else. The organisers are motivated by a belief that however difficult, progress is possible. We are not passive victims of ignorance and prejudice in an unchanging landscape. We are active citizens playing our part in making Singapore a better place.

I've been involved in every single IndigNation since 2005. This year, I'm curating and emceeing ContraDiction, a literary reading at 7pm on Sunday 30 August at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. There'll be foretaste of that at this event tomorrow:

Opening Reception, 7.30pm @ 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road

People Like Us’ annual reception is becoming a tradition. Along with finger food and wine, this year the programme for the evening includes: (1) the presentation of the 2009 Dignity Award, (2) the announcement of the winners of the Rascals Prize, (3) the launch of a Coming Out guide by Sayoni, (4) poetry by Koh Jee Leong, as a preview to the much anticipated ContraDiction, Indignation’s premiere writing-and-music event. All are welcome. Come and be emancipated!

Seriously, straight people are welcome too. Just be prepared to get checked out if you're cute.

Orlando pix!!!

A few more photographs from our incredibly consumerist summer family gradu-vacation:


3D ride, Disney's Magical Kingdom.


Lion King musical, Disney's Animal Kingdom.


Ride of Tomorrow, Epcot.


Converted trailer, Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort



Munchkinland, Disney's Hollywood Studios.


Spectromagic show, Main Street USA.


Parents before taking roller coaster, Pioneer Land.



Parents after taking roller coaster, Disney's Animal Kingdom.



Asian-style ice cream stand, Disney's Animal Kingdom


"Chinese" dragon, Epcot.



Lobby, African Wilderness Lodge.


Sleeping Beauty wigs, Magic Kingdom.



Breakfast, Disney's Fort Wilderness Resort


It's A Small World Ride, Magic Kingdom


German exposition, Epcot.


Haunted Mansion Ride, Magic Kingdom.


Awesome German toys, Epcot.



Euphemistic prostitute restroom, Main Street USA.


Dinner, African Wilderness Lodge.


Before the Parade, Magic Kingdom.


Teacup Ride, Magic Kingdom.



Backdrop, Disney Hollywood Studios.


Toddler bellydance workshop, Epcot

The poetry of Dr Wong Yoon Wah

I discovered this guy's poems in the National Library Singapore writing stacks. He wrote mainly in Mandarin, but one of his volumes, "Beyond Symbols", published 1984 (yeah, that was the clincher), includes original work in English as well as a few translations.

He's often descends into purple prose (check out his absurdly honorific "Fruis of Nanyang") but some of his work's rather good. I'm particularly alarmed at the fact that the eponymous poem sequence, "Beyond the Symbols", is an almost direct precursor of my poem sequence "Translations", published in "last boy" in 2006.

Basically, both of them are textual reinterpretations of the embedded images in Chinese ideograms. The main difference is that he uses ancient jiaguwen whereas I, rebelliously, use simplified jiantizi.

He's born in 1941. That means he's probably still alive out there. Hmmm. Any leads?

from "Beyond the Symbols"

1. Morning

The sun standing on a reed
is drinking wind
and eating dew.
It has vomited out the shadows of night
leaving them hidden under the dry leaves.


2. East

The sun nailed to a sacred tree
is facing the door of mystery
in the spring, summer, autumn and winter.



5. River

The rapid current
with its waves
cut me apart.
My voice is on the right,
While my body is one the left.

The wondering monk on the shore
on hearing my voices
is unable to find me in the river.


13. Man

Are you the man
who is hunch-backed
holding a stone ax in his hand
and crossing the frozen river
in the darkness?

He lives in the darkness of a stone cave.
Sometimes he bursts into laughing,
and stretches his long long arm
to draw out the fire from the heart of rock
like a poisonous snake.

Film director Yasmin Ahmad (1958-2009)

She passed away last night. See here. Yesterday there was already news that she'd collapsed during her press conference from a stroke.

I'd admired her work ever since I watched Sepet. Or maybe before that, when I was doing my internship at Young and Rubicam KL and I found out about her Petronas National Holiday ads. It's Malaysians like her, I thought, that put Singaporeans with all our superficial racial harmony agendas, to shame.



Unfortunately, the only time I met her was at a free screening of Muallaf, which was awkward because I didn't actually like the movie, since it pulled its punches. But of course it was daring enough to actually take on the issue of Islam, and what filmmakers in Singapore have dared to do that? (I know of one, but he was called up for questioning by the ISD and his film was confiscated and he was forbidden to even discuss what happened thereafter.)

She was scheduled to shoot her first film in Singapore next year. It would've been called "Go, Thaddeus!" She'd already proven her worth with two short films advertising the importance of family love.

She quite liked us, although we kept on mispronouncing the titles of her films. We never censored and marginalised her and called her a traitor to her race the way Malaysia did. Of course, if she'd been born in Singapore, she would've been outspoken about the ironies we have here, and we would've destroyed her in our own way just the same.

I'm glad at least that she lived to see the elections of 2008, with the breaking through of a post-racial Malaysian politics. If only I knew there were other film directors like her around.

If you haven't read Loo Zihan's NTU valedictorian speech...

... well, you should. Click here.


The poster for his short film "Threshold" got censored just before his speech, which makes it a little more than the usual sappy go-forth-and-prosper-fest.

Yeah, so I'm feeling productive.

So productive that I decided to add an "Upcoming Appearances" section to my sidebar and completely change my blog template!

Also, advance notification: I'm curating and emceeing this year's ContraDiction V, our annual queer literary reading, on Sunday 30 October at 7pm. It's part of this year's IndigNation Festival, as always. Full calendar here.

And in other news, the Onion lampoon news team has sold itself to the Chinese.


Police Still Searching For Missing Productive, Obedient Woman


China’s Andy Rooney Has Some Funny Opinions About How Great The Chinese Government Is

Oh Onion. You're so delightfully offensive. And too frickin' big for my blogger. What's up with that?

I've got two poems in "Writing Singapore", the first truly comprehensive anthology of English lit in Singapore, launched just tonight.

Unfortunately I neglected to bring a camera, and my mum's absconded with the volume in question, so I can't really advertise it photographically.

Still, it's really interesting! About a quarter devoted to pre-1965 writing, and another quarter to the 1965-1990 period (both of which contain many writers I've never heard of).

Unfortunately, it's expensive: $75 a copy. But maybe you can get a discount somehow. The two poems, by the way, are "Crystal Pear" and "Equidistance", both of which are extremely gay.

Blast From the Past: Straits Times, August 30, 1959

Came across this during my research. It'd make a great movie, doncha think?

“A new all-woman gang has made its appearance in the Singapore underworld. Known as the Red Butterfly Gang, it offers protection to prostitutes and bar girls.



Most of the “Red Butterflies” are themselves former prostitutes. They impose their “protection” services for a monthly fee. Those who refuse their services are usually beaten up. Their identification mark is a red butterfly tattooed on the upper part of the thigh.

They operate in the Sungei Road area and, like their male counterparts, they use acid bombs, sticks and knives. The “Red Butterflies” also offer their sercies to housewives whose husbands have gone astray. For a fee they will beat up the woman who enticed the man.”

"Destino" by Dali and Disney

Lo and behold, the 6-min short film that Salvador Dali and Walt Disney began in 1945 and didn't get finished till 2003.



It's WICKED. Incidentally, anyone else wanna watch Sumpah Orang Minyak at the National Museum's Night Festival?

I'm at the Marathon!

Weirdly enough, we're part of the NAC team. One of the Literary Arts civil servants read too (not sure if I should state her name).

Alvin's reading now. First he did a bit of his autobiography, now he's doing Wena Poon.

Earlier on we had the guy who wrote "American Gangster".

I'm up in a while. Alvin's warning me he's gonna eat into my time. Pictures in a bit.

Singapore Writers Festival Reading Marathon - I'm on from 3am to 3:30am!

Insomniacs: Do you feel frustrated every time you stay awake beyond the witching hour while the rest of your friends are soundly under the covers?

Clubbers: Don’t you always feel that the night ends too early?

So, on the morning of Sunday 5 July, from 1am to 7am at the Central National Library foyer, do something different, take a break from your routine: support literary arts!


Show your support for this one-of-a-kind Singapore Writers Festival (SWF) pre-festival event. The SWF team and some of Singapore’s more well-known writers will be reading a selection of homegrown works in public. Readers include Felix Cheong (The Call from Crying House), O Thiam Chin (Free Falling Man), Aaron Lee (Five Right Angles), Ng Yi-Sheng (Last Boy), Alvin Pang (City of Rain), Heng Siok Tian (Crossing the Chopsticks) and Jeffrey Lim (The Coffin That Wouldn't Bury).

Coffee, tea and biscuits to keep us awake are welcome, but just stopping by to listen to our readings are fine too!

Organised as part of READ! Singapore 2009 by the NAC.

UPDATE: It's actually happening already! Schoolkids were reading when I went Friday afternoon.



Seeya there!

Watch these videos and go crazy.

God, I love the Internet.




Should We Be Doing More To Reduce The Graphic Violence In Our Dreams?

texts june 2009

Just finished Gilbert Koh's "Two Baby Hands" last night. Some really really great poems at the beginning, insightful resonant ones throughout, but a worrying number of pieces that end without really accomplishing anything. Still worth reading.

In other news, WHOA! Surfeit of graphic novels.

*POETRY*
+Maya Angelou’s “Poems” (reread)
+Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge’s “Nest”
=Gilbert Koh’s “Two Baby Hands”

*FICTION*
=Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith’s “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”
+Yukio Mishima’s “The Decay of the Angel”
+Eva Ibbotson’s “Which Witch?”

*NON-FICTION*
+Lauren Slater’s “Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century”
+David A. Price’s “The Pixar Story”
+Maggie Koerth-Baker’s “Be Amazing”

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Milo Manara and Jaradowsky’s “Borgia: Blood For the Pope” and “Borgia: Power and Incest”
+Rob Ryan’s “This Is For You”
+Kehinde Wiley’s “Black Light”
+Miss Lasko-Gross’s “A Mess of Everything”
+Alan Moore’s “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century: 1910”
=David Mack’s “Kabuki: The Alchemy”

*PERFORMANCES*
+some weird meta skits at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade
+New York Theatre Workshop’s "Things of Dry Hours"
+Joavien Ng and daniel k’s “Forward Moves”
+The Observatory’s “Invisible Room”
The Suzuki Company of Toga’s “Electra”
+Rotozaza’s “Etiquette”
Spell #7 and Bodies in Flight’s =“Dream/Work” and +“Dream/Home”
+Lin Zhao Hua Theatre Studio’s “The Cherry Orchard”
ECNAD’s “Songs for Gaia”
Arts Fission’s “Bird Call” [I was in it so I can’t really rate it can I?]
+Singapore International Piano Festival's "Young Virtuoso Recital: Yao Xiao Yun and Nicholas Loh"

*EXHIBITIONS*
Museum of the City of New York’s =“Mannhatta/Manhattan”, “Amsterdam/New Amsterdam”, +“Stoops of New York”, =“New York Interiors”, +“New York Toy Stories”, +“Protect” and +“Perform: A History of New York Theater and Broadway”
+The Met’s “Permanent Collection”, “The Model As Muse” and “Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective”
+KYTV’s “Pop Station: Singapore 2009”

*FILMS*
+Henry Selick‘s “Coraline”
=Peyton Reed’s “Yes Man”
+Sam Raimi’s “Drag Me to Hell”
+Shawn Levy’s ”Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”
Sinema@OldSchool’s “Sinema Showoff”
=Conrad Vernon and Rob Letterman’s “Monsters vs Aliens”

The latest about HERE

aka Tzu Nyen's film, which I keep on blogging about despite not actually having seen it.

After a resounding opening last weekend, HERE continues its run at the Picturehouse this week

To those who have seen the film, thank you and do help to spread the word!

For those who have not yet experienced HERE - don't miss out on Singapore's unique feature film entry to the Directors' Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 2009, by filmmaker and visual artist Ho Tzu Nyen! Come experience this singular cinematographic adventure!

Screening times (tickets available from Wednesday evening, 1 July)

Thursday 2/7 - 9.30pm
Friday 3/7 - 7pm
Saturday 4/7 - 4.30pm
Sunday 5/7 - 4.30pm
Monday 6/7 - 7.30pm
Tuesday 7/7 - 7.30pm
Wednesday 8/7 - 9.30pm

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What reviewers around the world have to say about HERE

"HERE... relentlessly forms, destroys and reforms, a different species among local films"
***1/2
- Eista Lee, zbNOW (translation)

"one of the most memorable features to have appeared recently on the local movie scene"
***1/2
- Yong Shu Hoong, my paper

"ranks among the best and most expressive films yet to come out of Singapore"
- Mathias Ortmann, sinema.sg

" a breath of fresh air"
- Tan Heng Hau, moviexclusive.com

"HERE is unlike any Singapore film we have ever seen"
- fridae.com

"there's a method to the madness here"
- Stefan S, A Nutshell Review

"Ho's interplay of camera and sound achieves hypnotic serenity, even, eventually, dreamy melancholy."
***1/2
- Whang Yee Ling, 8Days

"a deep reflection on cinema and on human nature"
- Bruno Carmelo, Nisimazine.

"A triumph for a first-time director"
- Amanda de Guzman, The Business Times

"a beautiful aesthetic"
- l'Humanité

"a strange sensorial experience"
- DVDRAMA

"a highly sophisticated visual language and inventive montage, the story intrigues, captivates"
- les Fiches du Cinéma

"an entry point into the singular artistic universe of the filmmaker"
- www.evene.fr

"Acquiring a ticket for this film, is accepting to immerse oneself in a cinematographic adventure."
- Tadah! Blog


TICKETING DETAILS

I. Tickets available at
- The Cathay box office, 2 Handy Road, level 5
- www.cathay.com.sg (from 1 July 2009)

2. Discounts:
- 12% discount on tickets purchased at box-office only with UOB Visa card.

3. About the film
www.herethefilm.com