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!