diary of a stone monkey volume lxx

Dear All,

London.

Gateway to Europe. Same way as Singapore’s supposed to be gateway to Asia: sober government, civilised hygiene, and at least they speak your language.

This is an unusual vacation for me because I’m running less towards a place than away. I’m frankly frightened of the weight of adult responsibility and the duty to win bread. Nor am I encouraged that I haven’t produced any great oeuvres in my four months dallying about the city being a writer: a poem every week, a play in 24 hours, a microbiography; no screenplays, no operas, no bildungsroman.

Odd thing about London is how it lies both inside and outside you. Americans won’t get this, because they weren’t suckled on a diet of Enid Blyton and Conan Doyle the way us Commonwealth kids were. And of course, there’s the dark imprints of the Raj on our architecture and recent history, and the prodigal’s return, the yellowing and browning of London itself, the clash of global union that sounds and gets reimported home all over again. Jamiroquai. Ishiguro. Meera Syal.

I boarded QANTAS on Monday at 10pm. Father’d been being fractious, told me I still didn’t know how to travel because I’d planned to leave the house too late, I’d packed my jacket in check-in luggage instead of carrier. To dispel the tension, Yi-Xian taught me close combat moves in the kopitiam, an odd bodily ballet of slapping the breast, grabbing the offender’s knuckles and locking his thumb and twisting the tender joints with a foot between his to prevent him from kneeing you in the groin. Mum said be careful, don’t let anyone cheat you, and I’m terribly puzzled, of course, because whyever shoul they have such concern over what can happen to me in Europe?

Wild Europe. Virgin Europe. Darkest Eurofrica.

Mum’s been commenting that I keep American time while I’m in Singapore: I write till 6am and I wake at 2 in the afternoon. My contrary sleep habits persist in the plane: I’m asleep for the two hours that the lights are on, then when everyone’s gone to sleep I read “Absalom, Absalom” and “Let’s Go: Europe 2005”. I watch “The Simpson’s Halloween Special IX”, “Beyond Tomorrow: Australia Edition”, a cooking show on tempura oysters and “Faking It”. After twenty-eight days, an insurance salesman is able to fool two out of three movie critics into thinking he’s a professional stuntman, whereas a maestro can point out a 25 year-old punk rocker conducting the Royal Philharmonic because he does it too damn well. It’s heartbreaking when he shaves off his pink and daffodil Mohican fringe and swaddles his tattoo. For the next few days he wears a brunet wig and coat and tails.

The lights come on and they run out of Continental Breakfast. I go to sleep. Heathrow airport is cold. In the line for immigration I put on my jacket, despite my pride against my father for not having needed it through the nightlong flight.

The West Indian woman tells me to step behind the line. She snaps at me when I hesitate on how long I’ll be in London; I haven’t decided, maybe ten days, maybe two. I tell her I’ve graduated and I’m doing the Grand Tour, next maybe Munich for Oktoberfest, then Vienna? She asks to see my Eurail pass, but already she’s looking at me nicer, unjealous, living vicariously in my wanderlust.

It’s 6.30 am. I’m the only man in the street dressed in red. Red windbreaker, red shoes, green army duffel bag of my chattels. It’s daylight, but hardly anyone’s on the Underground yet. Heathrow express to Paddington. Circle Line to Baker Street, Bakerloo to Finchley Road.

The West Indian woman asked me if it was my first time in London. First time in eight years, I say. There’s a bizarre, horrible sense of homecoming to this city. Of course I am glad to be here but there are certain words which already describe it.

London is limbo. The celestial regency of Sheridan and the inferno of Aphra Behn. The court of Marlowe, the boat of Kipling, the oblivion teahouse of Carol Ann Duffy. But empty.

Today there’s been a curious peoplelessness to it, no doubt because it’s Rosh Hashanah, or possibly because I haven’t stepped beyond my borders much today.

Will write more, once my thoughts are collected. Chag sameach, my Hebrew friends.

Sincerely,

B).Yi-Sheng.

Yeah, I'm gonna miss Singapore... 

MRT coming home so late after Saturday night with paolo and Samir that I could ride with the Sunday morning workers. I was in clubbing clothes, they were going to work. The ambient advertising was about a golf course. 

Sometimes I think ambient advertising should be classified as a merit good. Isn't it marvellous how his bellybutton appears to coincide with the latch of the rear compartment? 

Maxwell Hawker Centre with Paolo and Samir 

And this is a picture of my goodie pack at the 24-hour playwriting competition. 

I'm uploading pictures of home before I leave. This is what the interior of my refrigerator looks like. I'm not kidding about the mutton by-product; it's in there. 

Me in a recent stranger's house for New Year's Day, 2005, Buenos Aires 

just me

Just bought my ticket to Europe! Oh joy.

QANTAS AIRWAYS SINGAPORE TERMINAL 1 TO HEATHROW TERMINAL 4

DEP CHANGI 2255 3 OCT2005
ARR HEATHROW 0530 4OCT2005
Duration 13:35 nonstop

QANTAS AIRWAYS SINGAPORE TERMINAL 1 TO HEATHROW TERMINAL 4

DEP HEATHROW 2200 2JAN2006
ARR CHANGI 1835 3JAN2006
Duration 12:35 nonstop

Actually scared stiff. Often am about things I've always wanted.

In other news, have just bought Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends", ostensibly as a gift to my cousin's 6 year-old daughter.

JUST ME, JUST ME

Sweet Marie, she loves just me
(She also loves Maurice McGhee).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves Louise Dupree).
No she don't, she loves just me
(She also loves the willow tree).
No she don't, she loves just me!
(Poor, poor fool, why can't you see
She can love others and still love thee.)

awright!!!

In fact, my semipublishable corpus includes a sonnet, a villanelle, a sapphic ode, a sestina, and a halfhearted attempt at a ghazal. Plus I'm reading Blake independently.


You are 'regularly metric verse'. This can take
many forms, including heroic couplets, blank
verse, and other iambic pentameters, for
example. It has not been used much since the
nineteenth century; modern poets tend to prefer
rhyme without meter, or even poetry with
neither rhyme nor meter.
You appreciate the beautiful things in life--the
joy of music, the color of leaves falling, the
rhythm of a heartbeat. You see life itself as
a series of little poems. The result (or is it
the cause?) is that you are pensive and often
melancholy. You enjoy the company of other
people, but they find you unexcitable and
depressing. Your problem is that regularly
metric verse has been obsolete for a long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by

this is happy

On the plus side, today I discovered how make male orgasms last for fifteen minutes. A professional Tarot card reader in Yio Chu Kang demonstrated. Twice.

this is sad

YS: I just got a rejection letter from Monsoon Books. A very nice rejection letter, but I'm peeved anyway, cos no-one else seems to be interested in publishing my 20something college memoirs.

Dear Yi -Sheng

Thank you for submitting diary of a stone monkey to Monsoon Books and sorry for the slow response, we've been flooded with manuscripts these last few months. I though your manuscript was a breath of fresh air compared to the usual offerings and I found myself reading it on my own time, which is always a good sign. Unfortunately I just don't feel I can take it on for publication. Although we did publish a similar (in terms of style, not content) title recently, I just don't know how receptive the local market is to diary/email/blog-style books. Your writing reminds of Christos Tsiolkas in his gay coming-of-age book Loaded. I would love to see a hard-hitting coming-of-age book from Singapore and diary of a stone monkey is part way they although it was probably not intended to be so.

Have you had any luck with other publishers? I'll KIV this manuscript and take another look early next year but I don't think we will be able to publish it. Are you working on anything else at the moment?

Thanks and regards
Phil Tatham
Publisher, Monsoon Books

YS: The similar style book he refers to is "My Kiasu Teenage Life in Singapore", an epistolary account of a Malaysian Chinese girl's ASEAN student life. Haven't read it, but I'm certain my memoirs are cooler. I bet she doesn't end up losing her virginity in the back of an East Village Club.

after photography class

I seem to be going to the old national library area every day. see show lah, see museum lah, towel club lah, library@esplanade lah...

Thursdays it's always my photography class. can't say i'm crazy about my teacher, but at least i'm taking photos.

and i like the place. it's where my old primary school was u know? ACPS. And all those fun days reading alphabet book at the library and getting cutouts of little boy dolls at MPH and then getting ice kacang at the hawker centre before it became S-11 (I actually hated ice kacang. who the hell would put beans in a dessert? peanuts don't count).

Raffles City used to be major cruise central, anyway, so it's important to my culture. Back in the day there were also a bunch of transsexuals who bummed around SJI, so the statue of the friar guiding the way for the little boy with outstretched finger (still visible at SAM) is reputedly saying: See? If you don't study, that's what you'll become.

Back then, kids couldn't major in queer theory. Heheh.

Lucky me to be born when I was.

after photography class

I seem to be going to the old national library area every day. see show lah, see museum lah, towel club lah, library@esplanade lah...

Thursdays it's always my photography class. can't say i'm crazy about my teacher, but at least i'm taking photos.

and i like the place. it's where my old primary school was u know? ACPS. And all those fun days reading alphabet book at the library and getting cutouts of little boy dolls at MPH and then getting ice kacang at the hawker centre before it became S-11 (I actually hated ice kacang. who the hell would put beans in a dessert? peanuts don't count).

Raffles City used to be major cruise central, anyway, so it's important to my culture. Back in the day there were also a bunch of transsexuals who bummed around SJI, so the statue of the friar guiding the way for the little boy with outstretched finger (still visible at SAM) is reputedly saying: See? If you don't study, that's what you'll become.

Back then, kids couldn't major in queer theory. Heheh.

Lucky me to be born when I was.

yay

Finally uploaded my pics!

Let's get to know the family:

Little brother Yi-Xian, big sister E-Ching, mother and father, all looking suitably disgruntled.

Huangdi the dog, and Ruyi the cat!

Okay, still trying to figure out how pics work on this. Seeya

hello there

Dear All,

How wonderful. I'm finally part of the blogging generation. Also, my Decameron paly is going quite well.

Alibech: Oh mercy me, what is that lump
Of flesh on the opposite of your rump?
Rustico: He’s the devil! Grasp him by the stump
He torments me so! But please don’t pump.

Alibech: I am blessed to be free of the devil’s curse
Rustico: But alas my dear, you’ve something worse!
See between your legs like a velvet purse?
That’s the hell that Dante set to verse!

Now we’ll put the devil back into hell
It will please God in heaven and me very well
Now before we allow his sin to swell
We’d better put the devil back into hell!

Quite cheesy lah, but fun. I'm glad Choon told me to use meters. I'm rhyming all over the place and it's so calming.

Writing some poetry too. Whoop-de-doo.

 

Pictures of me for press