I mish my shishter.

She's flown off to do her PhD at Yale, leaving me as the only one in my generation left in the family. Which is just great.

Before she left, our auntie Rose Oh stopped by and delivered these cheongsams she'd made for her (she's a tailor, you see:)

Disgruntlement in white and gold.

Levitation in red and gold.

Levity.

We also went crazy and took some R-rated shots which I'll have to get approval for before I upload. My mum was very intrigued by the visual possibilities of the slits.

Gua eh didi wu chia

My brother's gone back to Virginia. :(

He wrote us this e-mail:

Dear family,

I am now a proud owner of a Chrysler sebring 2002 gun metal blue 4 doored sedan. I'm trying to find a good name for it, but its either "shiok" or "chio bu". I think chio bu is a good name.


It cost a total of about 11,000 USD for the car and for insurance. Insurance was 545 USD for 6 months. Based on mom's directive to go to a respectable car dealer, I went down to Carmax, the auto superstore near my roommate's place. I already planned to buy a Chrevolet Malibu 2003 at 9,998USD, and saw it. Wah, really lor, it looked very "value" and sad. Everything was "value" about it, and it was quite sad to look at. Plus safety wise, the thing was even sadder. Had no ABS brakes (which is quite uncommon for a "newer" car). Forget about power steering too. Then i saw its cousin, a Acura, which was built a few years later than the Malibu, and cost a good 2,000USD cheaper. And wasn't all that different really. So i was quite set on buying that 7,998 USD car.

But while looking at the sad cars, my room mate brendt went walking around, and came back with a very broad grin on his face, and beckoned me to come.

And then i met Chio Bu. Chio Bu was the most attractive car under 10,000USD in the entire lot. And she's still pleasing to the eye without looking at the price tag. But when I opened the car door, FWAH! Got leather xia! And got nice dashboard! And the windows are electrically powered! And the seats are LEATHER! (oops, did I mention that already) PLus the car did not stink, unlike the other 2.

But what mattered the most, were its amenities. Good airbags, and ABS brakes, and powersteering make me a happy man. Then I brought it on a test drive, and wah! The car doesn't like to go slow. Probably a result of its V6 engine. (most pok kai cars have 4 cylinders, this one got 6 man!) Once you drive to 50miles per hour, the "chio bu" don't want to slow down.

Oh yes. So i was quite set on buying chio bu already. Since a) price wise, it was competitive. b) I couldn't believe i could get that good a deal on a car below 10k that looked decent. c) the alternatives were really a bit sad. d) shiok shiok shiok.

So i happily said "lets get it", and was introduced to the "sian'ness" of the american "shopping experience". Took ages to buy the car. Insurance (which is damn exp. since I'm a college guy under 26yrs of age) took a big chunk, and the stupid dealer who listed the car wrongly in terms of category. (which I managed to catch while jet lagged and sick)

But I walked out with chiobu, which was all waxed and washed before I got her. And thereafter chiobu and I had our first adventure. Brendt drives like a crazy man. That is for certain. Trying to keep up with him on the freeway was do'able, since chio bu and I have a very close bond. But a pickup cut brendt off from me, and I ended up following another car which was the same color as brendt's honda to god know's where, and was stuck waiting on a gravel road for brendt to find me. Luckily he did, and chio bu and i continued to follow crazy black man brendt. (he drives like he's in the video game grand theft auto)

It was interesting following him, since I actually drive pretty responsibly. Sagely advise from my US driving instructor to obey the driving rules makes sense, since in the US when u accelerate from one traffic light to another, you'll just end up getting stuck in the next light. But when you have to follow a mad man, you have no choice but to be double'y mad to stick to his tail. The joker basically floors the accelerator once the lights turn green. Amusingly, he remarked that I had "skills" for keeping up with him.

I have resolved to not follow mad men again. Chio bu doesn't like it.

I will be driving down to charlottesville tomorrow. It should be a nice pleasant drive. Of which i will be a "guai" singaporean and follow the road rules.

Oh, and ah pa. Yes the TT went through. Funnily, I owe them 15 USD, of which i will pay via check.

Oh and ah ma and ah pa, don't worry. I will drive safe and responsibly. Must keep chio bu safe and pretty and not give her an "extreme makeover".

Best,
yix

Socratic Dialogue in Progress

Plenty to write about, but no time, so for appearances' sake I'll upload a pic from David Chew and Vince Ong's farewell party. That's David looking philosopher and me looking like an obedient disciple.

z0mg "881" r0xx0rz!!1!1!

Just came back after a family film outing to Royston Tan's new movie "881"... my mum (CEO), father (retired financial consultant) and big sister (forthcoming PhD student with focus in Old English linguistics) were ALL singing along to the Hokkien songs in the getai. And so were a whole bunch of other people in the audience (not too loudly, but audibly enough to make me realise what an impact this show is having just by *recognising* that getai is valuable cultural art form).

There are some films that exoticise Singapore for foreign audiences (cf. Chicken Rice Wars), and our automatic response to that as artists is to push for films that represent Singapore as it really is (cf. Singapore Dreaming).

Royston's picked up on a new route - he doesn't care about the reality of Singapore; he'll glamourise us above and beyond believability to give a Singapore audience what it wants (and never really knew it wanted) - a soul-swinging, heart-wringing, singalong smorgasbord of light and colour and campy costume.

I super<3 Royston now; he can have my ass anytime he wants (unless I have Arabic or capoeira class, in which case I have to reschedule).

ContraDePiction

I've stolen some photos of ContraDiction III from the IndigNation website - probably taken by Alex Au himself. Looking back, I'm gladder than ever about how it went (it may be the first time that I've been put in charge of curating a literary reading too, which makes me feel all grown-up, teehee).

That's Qian Xi and me, opening the evening with our poems (we were sacrificial lambs lah)


Chan Sze-Wei had a brief play-reading by SRT Young Company and read two poems (she said it's her virgin reading some more!)

Next up were Zhuang Yisa and Yak Aik Wee (who did a combination of music and text).

This is a shot from the back of the stage (where the sexually suggestive snacks table was) so you can get an idea of the setup.

Jonathan Lim and Jasmine Seah made an astonishingly good pair - they alternated their pieces, and Jonathan read all these sultry, sexual poems whereas Jasmine read poems of detached sensation and restraint. Camp men and stone women on love - very nice how the gender parity of the evening worked out too.

Could I just show off my rainbow dhoti again? Along with Indu's amazing cheongsam? Indu read from her blog (very powerful rendition; the piece we picked was nice and rhythmic). Maia Lee and Lee Gwo Yinn also did blog entry readings (see below).


And Amannda Teee (I'm misspelling her name to reduce googlabilty, since she's still in JC) was a really good performer - guitarist and songwriter. Hope she doesn't give up music; she wowed the crowd.



And can I just boast that thanks to Stephanie Yap, we were the only IndigNation event to get press coverage without getting banned first? She couldn't mention it was queer, though. It must be tough being a mainstream arts reporter in a Renaissance city - all the artists are queer except Raphael.

Mali kita Yaya

Ich bin ein Media Hur

I'm in the papers again. Tuesday August 14, "Fluid body: envelope stuffing and nude dancing get message across", Life! p10 - June Cheong's dance review of Jochen Roller's "Perform Performing".

Honestly, I didn't volunteer immediately. I looked around, saw that no-one else had the courage to be an entertainer, and then plunged in (despite having very sore muscles). $10 for 3 min of boogie - wouldn't you do it? Why derive a moral about the incestuousness of the arts community because I'm naturally hyperactive? Grump grump grump.

ContraDiction aftermath and Pink Run

Phew! About 100 people turned up for ContraDiction (maybe more; we ran out of seats!). Iris had an inflamed throat so we had a replacement singer, I lost my peanut butter cookies and Tupperware on the bus, our reader for Johann S. Lee's novel extract couldn't make it, and Maia Lee lost her way... but it all turned out extremely well! Great mix of voices! Will upload photos once people send them to me!

In the meantime, here's a photo by Ian Lee of the Pink Run on Saturday morning... I'm fourth fom the right in the back row. 37 people in the photo, not counting the ones who turned up late, and not counting the 10 plainclothes police officers who advised us to cancel the run (we cancelled it, took the group photo, and allowed everyone to run in a non-organised fashion if we chose... and most of us did choose to).

I ran 4km, did my Cold Storage Shopping, watched Ovidia Yu's "Hitting (on) Women", attended my capoeira class and then went to watch Jochen Roller's "Perform Performing", in which I volunteered to go onstage to dance for 3 minutes in exchange for S$10 to demonstrate the economic opportunity cost of art.

So on Sunday morning my ass was very sore indeed. Sex is overrated as a full-body workout.

ContraDiction 3: A Queer Literary Evening

An evening of queer writing - including poetry, drama, blog entries and songs. Readers will include myself, Teng Qian Xi, Chan Sze-Wei, Zhuang Yisa and Maia Lee. Also featured will be original music composed and performed by Iris Judotter and Yak Aik Wee.

Licence from MDA approved. Rated R18.

Date: Sunday, 12 August 2007
Time: 7:30 - 9:30 pm
Venue: 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road

Let's talk about love

The third ContraDiction event will focus on lesser-known poets and musicians.

Ftw! Stephanie Yap actually managed to get ContraDiction 3 advertised in the Sunday Times! 12 August 2007, L25. Sappy headline, but that's ST branding apparently. :P

Love will take centrestage at poetry and music event ContraDiction – including its myriad joys and heartbreaks.

Now in its third year, the annual event celebrating gender and sexuality will be held at arts venue 72-13 this Sunday.

Curating the event this year is poet and playwright Ng Yi-sheng, whose recently staged works include the musical Georgette and the play 251.

Ng, 27, who participated as a reader in previous years, says that this year's event differs from past ones due to its even gender distribution.

While five women and five men will be performing on Sunday, including STOMP star blogger Maia Lee, Ng says the event was testosterone-driven in previous years.

"There are more published writers and poets who are male than female, so I'm glad we've got more women readers this time," says Ng, himself a published writer who will read from his debut poetry collection, Last Boy.

Another change this year is the absence of established writers like Cyril Wong and Alfiaan Sa'at, who both participated in previous readings.

Says Ng: "I want the focus to be on lesser-known artists, as well as people not traditionally considered writers."

Thus, he has rounded up budding poets like Foyle Young Poet Teng Qianxi, musicians like singer-songwriter Iris Judotter, and even bloggers like Maia Lee and Lee Gwo Yinn.

Another participant is civil servant Chan Sze Wei, who works at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Chan, 27, will be reading "two little love poems" – one about falling
in love and the other about breaking up.

An extract from a play she wrote last year with the Singapore Repertory Theatre Young Company, about teenage depression, will also be performed.

She hopes the audience will be touched by the stories they hear: "I hope that for each audience member, there will be something in the stories and ideas that will resonate with them, something that they'll take away with them as a new gift."

ContraDiction is on this Sunday at 7:30pm at TheatreWorks, 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road. Admission is free. Rated R-18.

--

Pink Picnic!!!

I went today. There were over 100 of us there! Not including the plainclothes policemen!

And this is what I wore. (The T-shirt is pale pink... doesn't come out so well in photos).


For more photos by Saltwetfish, click here!

Think our National Day is spectacular?... well, just check out our Communist inspirations

Interestingly enough, Faithless has an alternate video set in Brazil. See here.

I'm 22!

Poodwaddle.com

Your BBQ is illegal.

UPDATE 07/08/07: Turns out these events are not as cancelled as they appear. ;)

The National Parks Board has just told us that the Pink Run (an athletic run around the Botanical Gardens) and the In the Pink picnic on National Day have both been banned. Probably some homophobe wrote in to them to complain.

It's staggering to me that they could do that - all we were going to do was turn up in pink and eat food and talk cock and run - it's not a rally or parade at all (if we were that organised, then we'd either have legal recognition or be exiled to Sentosa by now).

The Illegal Assemblies Act has never struck home so hard before. Every meeting of - four, five, what? - people, even to roast chicken wings or study or pray, is against the law without a permit. We are living in a police state - they can arrest us for so many things (and God knows, they don't even need a reason to lawfully detain us).

Very upset. Oh, and the "Tall Tales and Short Stories" reading went fine, thank you.

Lee Low Tar aftermath.

Yay! My banned short story "Lee Low Tar" got Tomorrowed. For better or worse, many people think it's a genuine letter from the MDA... fail English compre already!

This is me at MDA. The posters in the background warn that if you let children watch violent and sexy movies, they'll become axe-wielding serial killer kids who have oral sex in the classroom.

I was at their office today to pick up our completely approved licence for ContraDiction 3, our queer literary reading. I met Veronica Looi, who's a small, very nice-looking woman with a big smile, long hair, and a black scarf. I gave her a print-out copy of "Lee Low Tar", telling her she'd probably be offended by it, but since her name was being used in the censorship of so many things, I thought she should know what it was she was censoring. She smiled, apparently without pretense, and said she'd read it.

It's also of interest that I have a good friend who actually works at MDA - Leon Lim, who's in Strategic Planning (not any censorship board; he likes culture too much for that). We were in French class together back in secondary school. Watched Toy Factory's "Big Fool Lee" with him tonight and we agreed that it was a mediocrely written idol-worshipping paean to a Chinese cultural centrist that was more suited to TV or film than the stage.

I suppose my point is that as fun as it is to joke about MDA - how it seems to use its authority to deprive us of rather than to develop media - no institution is homogenous, and the corporation that kicks you in the knickers will very often contain people who are very nice but uninformed, or who are actually sympathetic to your cause but not yet in positions of influence.

Have plenty to say at the talk I'm giving on Sunday in lieu of the short story reading. Seeya there.

B).

LEE LOW TAR

For the short story that MDA banned, please click here - Alex Au's posted it on Yawning Bread.

I wrote it for the "Tall Tales and Short Stories" event on Sunday. I won't be able to read it at this point, but come anyway - Ovidia Yu will be reading from her story "Pierced Years" and I'll be giving a talk, because indoor talks do not require a licence.

"Tall Tales and Short Stories"
Organised by Sayoni.com
Sunday, 5 August
7:30pm
72-13, Mohamed Sultan Road

Below is the rejection letter we received:

****************************************************************
To: JEAN CHONG
CC: Amy TSANG <Amy_TSANG@mda.gov.sg>, Liane LOO <Liane_LOO@mda.gov.sg>,
Norsabariah TUBI <Norsabariah_TUBI@mda.gov.sg>
Subject: Arts Entertainment licence - "Tall Tales and Short Stories"
From: Veronica Vivien LOOI <Veronica_Vivien_LOOI@mda.gov.sg>
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2007 14:25:02 +0800

Dear Ms Chong

Your application for a story reading session, entitled "Tall Tales and Short Stories", has been approved on condition that the reading of Lee Low Tar is taken out

The content of Lee Low Tar has been disallowed as it had gone beyond good taste and decency in taking a disparaging and disrespectful view of public officers.

Regards,

Veronica
****************************************************************

There's a small parallel case here of Tan Tarn How's play "The Lady of Soul and the Ultimate S-Machine", which was not permitted to be staged for some time because (among various reasons) its main character was a male civil servant who was having an affair with a male Minister-of-State.

But it's a different Singapore now. The arts scene has progressed to an extent where people (including journalists) are interested in the cases of censored work, and the Internet's technologies allow banned texts to be distributed freely (go watch Royston Tan's "Cut" on blip.tv, or Martyn See's "Zahari's 17 Years" on googlevideo, or Tan Pin Pin's "Lurve Me Now" on her university's site).

And while a filmmaker or stage director will suffer large financial setbacks if his/her work is banned for screening/performance - a writer loses very little. Isn't that odd? (Authorities may now try and prove me wrong by making it difficult for me to have future works staged - maybe they'll claim "Georgette" espouses Marxist values?)

This being said, "Lee Low Tar" is an amateur piece of writing - I am not an experienced short story author, after all. And the entire setup is, on a certain level, a wanky artistic gesture, an attention-getting device (compare with the works of Lim Tzay Chuen). And it may hurt the gay movement or the socially-engaged arts community in the long run. I don't know.

But I do like how it works in testing the bureaucratic systems of censorship we have in this country - they are such strange, antiquated, self-sabotaging entities, like warthogs on Pulau Tekong, that it seems to be vital to engage with them before they go extinct (which they will, dear children, they will - someday they'll set up the artist-run system of self-appraisal based on ratings systems rather than muzzling, just like FOCAS suggested).

You see, yes, censorship is violent and stupid.

But it is possible to dance with violent and stupid people.

I gave MDA a test, and they failed it. I'm not the victim. They are.

INDIGNATION 2007!!! (already one event kena banned!) UPDATE: My story kena banned too!

Heya! I'm involved in two events for IndigNation, our Queer Pride Festival- doing a short story reading with Ovidia Yu on Sunday 5th August and organising/curating ContraDiction, a poetry/literary/music performance on Sunday 12 August, both at 7:30pm at 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road.

MDA licences pending. And really, we can't take anything for granted - they just banned Alex Au's Kissing Project photo display, according to the calendar. Not unexpected - the point for us is to keep on pushing the limits, to keep on challenging the unjustified rules until they change.

UPDATE (31/7.07): Jean Chong of Sayoni, who's the organiser, got a call from Veronica Looi at MDA saying that my short story was not approved for licensing. (Poor Veronica, she's only an Admin Assistant but she has to deliver the dirty news with all her boss, Deputy Director Amy Tsang - and she never even gets to read the things she bans.)

July 2007 texts

Oy vey. Can't list the plays or things we watched during World Interplay - too many, and it'd be dangerous to judge my friends.

All the same, it's clear I had quite an appetite for drama and non-fic this month.

*POETRY*
Min Lim's “Mining for the Light”
Carol Ann Duffy's “Rapture”
+Christina Rosetti's “Goblin Market and Other Poems”

*FICTION*
Michel Houellebecq's “Lanzarote”
+Monique Truong's “The Book of Salt”

*DRAMA*
Edward Albee's “The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?”
“Contemporary Australian Plays", including +Hannie Rayson's "Hotel Sorrento", David Williamson's "Dead White Males", +Ron Elisha's "Two", +Wesley Enoch and Deborah Mailman's "The 7 Stages of Grieving", and Keith Robinson and Tony Taylor's "The Popular Mechanicals"
+David Hare's “The Permanent Way”
+Jeff Mellemans and Bert Appermont's "Zaad van Satan"
Elangovan's "Talaq"

*NON-FICTION*
+Anne Bogart's “A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art in Theatre”
+Clarissa Oon's “Theatre Life: A History of English-Language Theatre in Singapore Through The Straits Times (1958-2000)"
+Kwok Kian Woon and Teo Han Wue's “Kuo Pao Kun: And Love the Wind and Rain”
+Chuck Palahniuk's “Non-Fiction”
+Iris Chang's “The Rape of Nanking”

*PERFORMANCES*
+Royal Shakespeare Company's "King Lear"
+W!ld Rice's "Happy Endings: Asian Boys Volume 3"
+Dramabox's "Trick or Threat"

*FILMS*
Nicholas Hytner and Alan Bennett's "The History Boys"
Clint Eastwood's "Letters from Iwo Jima"
Steve Anderson's "Meet the Robinsons"
+Satoshi Kon's "Paprika"
+Tan Pin Pin's "Lurve Me Now"
+Wee Li Lin's "Gone Shopping"

*EXHIBITIONS*
Perc Tucker Regional Gallery's "Ailan Currents: Contemporary Printmaking from the Torres Strait", "Soundscapes" and +"Thinkin Quinkan: The Secrets of Cape York"
Tang Mun Kit's "Hibernated Works Re-Engineered +33%"
+National Museums of Singapore and Taiwan's "A Banquet in Stone"
Zainudin bin Samsuri's "Rowing Boat"
Stephanie Cheng, Kenny Lim, Eudora Rusli,Calvin Tan, Tan Seow Wei and Tan Taitien's "Because It's Happy Chaos"
+Singapore Tyler Print Institute's "BMW Young Asian Artists Series: Diversity in Print"
+NUS Museum's "WE" and "Our Way, Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Lockhart River"

Love Slave Slam!

I'm hosting a poetry slam at Zouk tonight! Will be dressed in accordance with the theme.

Please come and join us for The Love-Slam Slam, a celebration of love and eros - poetry that stirs the passions. Who is a slave to love, who is your love-slave? Bring your special friends and meet new one in this special edition of the Singapore Poetry Slam™ this Tues, 7.30pm. Full details below.

Slam Host: Ng Yi Sheng
Features:
Singer-songwriter Anjana Vasan
The Lady and the Vamp,' A short film by Shaun Koh
Share your poems originals and covers
Chris Mooney Singh, Programme Director
Word Forward

The Love-Slave Slam
Tues 31 July 07
Velvet Underground, Zouk
7,30-10pm, Smart Casual
A Non-Smoking Event
$10, drinks 1+1
(Under 18s must register at the Slam Desk)
Slammers and open mic readers must register at the Slam Desk

QLRS Special Screening Series: The Willow Tree (PG)

There's a screening of Majid Majidi's The Willow Tree in aid of QLRS (Quarterly Literary Review of Singapore, an online literary and theatre review magazine) next Friday. If they don't get the money, then they'll never be able to upload their review of "last boy". :(

QLRS Special Screening Series: The Willow Tree (PG)

Catch the Singapore premiere of acclaimed Iranian auteur Majid Majidi's latest masterpiece The Willow Tree* at the inaugural QLRS Special Screening Series, supported by the National Museum of Singapore and Festive Films.

The Willow Tree is about a university professor who regains sight and suddenly realises that what he sees now is different from what he "saw" as a blind man. Majidi, feted for classics like Children Of Heaven and Baran, has made a spiritually redemptive and visually stunning film with scenes that stay with you long after. The film opens in Singapore on August 23.

The Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS) is an independent and volunteer-driven effort which has been covering the Singapore literary scene since 2001 in the areas of poetry, prose, drama and literary criticism.

* In Persian with English subtitles, rating PG

Date: Friday, August 3
Time: 8pm
Venue: National Museum, Stamford Road, Gallery
Theatre, Basement
Admission: Pay as you wish. Seating is on first come,
first serve basis
For more information: Please email hsienmin@qlrs.com

Gone Shopping Meme

What kind of shopper are you?

sales manager - valentine tan (played by adrian pang)www.goneshoppingthemovie.com Take this quiz!

Sorry lah, figured why not, since the director e-mailed me saying thanks for mentioning the movie on my blog (weird right? who the hell reads this site? I'm not Xiaxue or Alfian or Laozhabor lah...)

But seriously, "Gone Shopping" is worth watching. It ain't perfect (the English segments are kinda stilted), but it's visually delicious and imaginative and moving and strangely evocative of Singapore moments.

Peculiar Inspirations

Oh dear... My appearance at the Arts and Life Forum for Asian Boys Volume 3 kena clash with my SDEA play. :( I'll be speaking with a few other guests, including poet Teng Qian Xi...

Sunday 29 July 5.30pm
PECULIAR INSPIRATIONS: The Muse - Of Sirens And Tyrants
Many of our artists have been greatly influenced by other Singaporean artists. From actual mentors to literary forebears, the creative process often involves a dialogue with the past. But how do we engage with traditions without inheriting its baggage? Do we climb on the shoulders of giants, or find our dwarfed selves obscured by their long shadows?

We round up a group of artists--poets, playwrights and filmmakers, to discuss the book, the play, or the film, that first made then want to embark on their artistic careers.

Body Shots: a photographic series

While I was at World Interplay, I decided to start taking full-body photographs of people and any part of their bodies they chose. Which section of yourself would you give as a souvenir?






All pics at http://web.mac.com/ng.yisheng - click on Body Shots and Body Shots 2 to shuttle between full-body and dismembered view. The .mac link will probably die in 60 days; not sure if I want to pay for it beyond the trial period.

Japanese culture = OMG WTF???

I just read "The Rape of Nanking" and watched "Paprika" on the same day.

It's really the only reaction possible.


P.S. Oddly enough, both texts make reference to violent male sodomy.

"Invisible City" and "Gone Shopping"

Two important local films coming up!

First, there's "Invisible City" by Tan Pin Pin, a documentary on memory and forgetting in Singapore. It's showing at the Arts House from today onwards. In English, Mandarin and Japanese.



Second, and just as importantly, there's Wee Li Lin's "Gone Shopping", a commercial feature-length piece about ennui and shopping culture, starting this Thursday. In English, Mandarin and Tamil.



Reasons I'm excited about both movies:

1) They cover hidden aspects of Singapore - the erasure of the past and shopping. Yes, we talk about shopping a lot in theory (and in commerce), but we never examine it as a cultural phenomenon. Great to do this and market it to a commercial audience.

2) Both filmmakers are women. I know you may think that's trivial, but my feminist approach to art was somewhat influenced by the Guerrilla Girls, and it's a leetle bit disturbing when you consider how few of Singapore's feature-length films are directed by women - "Eating Air" and "Singapore Dreaming" were amazing, but Jasmine Ng and Woo Yen Yen are always overshadowed by Kelvin Tong and Colin Goh in the publicity. Wee Li Lin's probably the first woman to make a solo feature-length film here aimed at commercial release.

3) Both filmmakers have done really good work in the past. You've probably heard of Tan Pin Pin's "Singapore Gaga" and "Moving House", but Wee Li Lin's less well-known, mostly producing shorts and commercials. Check out her later work on her website, especially "Autograph Book".

Invisible City opens at The Arts House on 22 July-12 August 2007. Call 6332 6919 for tickets now. Tickets at $8 (Adults) and $6 (Students with ID). Pin Pin will be present to take Q&A on 22-24 July.

The three screenings are at different venues and open to public. Tickets are free by registration.

The World Premiere: Thurs, 19 July 2007, 8pm, University Cultural Centre Theatre.
To register for tickets for this screening, email your full name and mobile no. to cfaregister@nus.edu.sg or contact 6516 4229.

Friday, 20 July 2007, 8pm, Theatreworks 72-13.
To register for tickets, email tworks@singnet.com.sg or contact 6737 7213 (pay-as-you-wish, proceeds go to 72-13)

Saturday, 21 July 2007, 8pm, The Substation.
To register for tickets, email movingimages@substation.org or contact 6337 7800 (pay-as-you-wish, all proceeds go to Substation)

Thurs, 26 July, 7pm, Theatreworks 72-13.
Pin Pin will be giving a ‘making-of’ Invisible City talk. No registration required.

"Frostbite" to be performed on Sunday 29 July as part of SDEA's "Celebrate Drama"

"Frostbite", the suicidal 10-minute play I wrote in college and submitted for Short and Sweet, is going up at the Arts House next Sunday. It's directed by Andrew Lua, as part of an event organised by Singapore Drama Educators' Association - further details of the lineup here.

Sunday 29 July @ 5pm, Arts House

*ACJC - Bang Bang You're Dead by William Mastrosimone ( Produced with licensed permission from the author)

Bang Bang You're Dead is a thoughtful and provocative examination of the inner world of a young killer in the wake of a horrific school shooting. The motivations are twisted and obfuscated and the intent behind the deed remains shrouded by ego as well as despair. ACSian theatre invites the audience to unravel the mystery of teenage angst and malcontent and why it erupts into murderous rampage and soul destroying alienation. Bang Bang Your'e Dead was written in 1999 in memorial to the various teenage dead of school killings in the United States. It remains a painfully relevant piece of work in the light of the death at Virginia Tech, USA, in 2007.

*Two ten-minuters: Fat and Frostbite

Fat, written by Dew M. Chaiyanara, was first performed at Short & Sweet Festival 2007 in its Top 20 category. The play won the hearts of the audience with its honest yet funny tale of a girl’s struggle with being fat in a “perfectly thin” society. Meanwhile, Frostbite, also shown at the Short & Sweet Festival Top 20 category, takes a dark and ironic look at those seemingly unstoppable voices in our heads. What happens when these voices become too much to endure? Can we turn them off, distract them by conjuring tricks and chastise them with our screams? How do we make them stop? Frostbite is written by Ng Yi-Sheng. His plays Hungry and Serve were staged in Celebrate Drama 2005 and 2006 respectively

Seein' Sir Ian

Omigod. On Wednesday, I met Sir Ian McKellen.

(He's the one in a striped Gap-like shirt with blue jeans and pale blue quasi-Croc shoes that bring out his cornflower eyes).

Most of you will know he's in Singapore on the first leg of the Royal Shakespeare Company's tour of "King Lear" and "The Seagull" (and very lucky we are too to have him; we're the only Asian city graced with his presence and we're meeting him before Melbourne and Wellington and New York and Minneapolis and San Francisco and bloody London). It's thanks to the initiative of Gaurav Kripalani at the Singapore Repertory Theatre, and while I do think their ticket prices are a bit insane, I do believe them when they say they're doing this at a net loss.

Anyway, I get invited to the press conference via Flying Inkpot, because editor Kenneth Kwok (who is a biiiig fan) has a day job, like most people. And I'm rather jetlagged from Australia, since I only touched down from Townsville the day before. And I've been informed via e-mail that Fridae will be doing a story too, they'll just want me to write the introductory blurb, thank you very much; everything else will be handled through a clinical e-mail interview.

But lo and behold, when I raise my arm to ask a simple question ("What's your proudest achievement in gay activism?") McKellen's so intrigued and insistent on making his case known about gay rights that he says he'll see me in an unscheduled one-on-one interview after the conference.

The resulting interview (which is much less thorough than an e-mail interview would have been, because I was on a tight deadline and had no recording devices) is posted here on Fridae.

And of course I had to wait about an hour for Reuters and everyone important to get through him, and then I had to hurry up or else I'd exhaust him before his tech, and there was some unhappiness because I'd wanted my friend Julianne from AFP to be able to sit in but SRT felt it might be best to keep the gay news exclusive to the gay rags and keep their image clean in front of the mainstream media. (It must be very trying for them to have as big a star as McKellen with them; he goes on live interviews on CNA and 95 FM and he does not stick to the script... see below:)



But my greatest joy was probably getting to tell Ian (lemme pretend we're on first name basis) that "King Lear" has a history of interpretation here: he was terribly interested in my description of Theatreworks's "Lear" in 1999 while a little confused by my hurried attempt to encapsulate Ho Tzu Nyen and Fran Borgia's "King Lear: The Avoidance of Love" in two sentences. I also let him know that "Happy Endings: Asian Boys Volume 3" was playing, in case he has any time to take in other shows.

Gaurav was very, very charitable in allowing me to keep him back and talk cock about other theatre companies like that - he even let Ian know about my musical "Georgette", though he gracefully forebore from mentioning whether it was any good. Ian was also wonderfully tickled by the fact that when great British actor John Gielgud came here in 1945 to play Hamlet for the Brits, ingaporeans were only allowed to watch if they were ushers.

Anyhow, I've promised him a copy of "SQ21" to be left at reception. (Ian said he'd try and get me comps, but I doubt it's possible - those are pretty damn expensive tickets - and anyway, with my persistent cough, I'd ruin the whole performance.)

And whaddayaknow; I'm not the only fagtivist jumping on him in these parts:



I could have asked for a photograph together with him, but it felt like that would have been too, too unprofessional. After all, I'll always have the journalistic document as proof of contact.

P.S. Kudos to Hong Xinyi of The Straits Times Life! for being the first to ask him about 377A.

P.P.S. My Indonesian maid Yuli saw him in the papers yesterday, in the costume and make-up of Sorin from "The Seagull". She laughed and said he looked like Saddam Hussein. WTF???

UPDATE: Ohmigod. He actually got me those comps. Two tickets. Good ones. For King Lear on Saturday night. The bad news was that I waited at the wrong exit for him and couldn't take him to Alfian's birthday party afterwards.

Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and Weird Al Yankovic's "Bob"

It's so great to finally discover the classic sources of today's pomo pop.

For a truly psychedelic experience, try playing both simultaneously. :) (P.S. That's Allen Ginsberg as a rabbi in the background of the original!)

La Delegation Singapourienne

As prompted by Laremy, here's a shot of the Singapore playwrights at World Interplay: Cheryl Lee, Laremy Lee and myself at Changi Airport prior to arrival.


Both kids are definitely worth looking out for: Cheryl writes rhythmic stream-of-consciousness poetic drama (cf. her play "Size00") while Laremy leans toward the absurdist comedy of bureaucracy (cf. his play "Radio Silence").

More tidbits forthcoming. :) And what the hell; here's another group shot:

Exquisite Corpse

Deep within the earth's crust, half-way between Honduras and Hades, riding in a hot-rod made of leather, on a tank of gusto, eating a tangerine is a speed racing Micheal Jackson impersonator. His skin torn and melting. His ice-skates in the trunk. His copy of Boethius' “Consolation of Philosophy” in his lap. He is chewing on the thread of time. Ready to tackle the thought-provokers (movers and shakers) of the Intelligenstia underworld.

The bricklayer Sartre and baseball champion Baudrillard wait at the nearby gas station “Ixion”. A black car pulls up, belching thick clouds of smog in its wake. Sartre runs his tongue along the inside of his mouth, spitting the taste of grease onto the dirty floor. “Is that him?” Sartre asks.
Baudrillard doesn't answer, just turns around and walks towards the diner. “Is that him?” Sartre repeats. The car door opens just a crack, and a figure dressed all in black spreads out of and separates from the car, his coat the exact same shade of dark. Sartre starts, turns around, but Baudrillard has already reached the door of the diner and is disappearing inside, seemingly heedless of what is going on behind him.

Sartre feels the old rage building in his temples, and feels for the semiautomatic hidden inside his coat. He gropes the gun with lust and unbridled pleasure.

He aims the machine gun at Baudrillard.

“This is for what you did to Simone de Beauvoir!” he bellows.

The bullets spurt out out of the muzzle like sperm from a firehose.

“This is for the gentrification of Montparnasse! And the failure of the 1968 Student Riots! And the future rise of Lepenistes! This is for the divorce of Segolene fucking Royale!”

Baudrillard clutches his heart and staggers to the ground.

“But it was only a simulation...” he meekly mumbles.

“It was a simulacra, salaud. There was no original. You oughta know. You wrote the mere-foutrant book!”

And as Baudrillard breathes his last gasp, he speaks the cursed words...

“Jean-Paul... I am your father...”

-written by Ng Yi-Sheng, Sime Knezevic and Jerome Chua in a workshop by Olivia Allen.

Interplay Interstice

We're roughly halfway through the Interplay festival, and so far I've learnt a number of vital lessons:

1. I am too nice for my own good.
2. I am also, strangely, an angry young man.
3. I have an eccentric sense of the epic that is unusual in young writing.
4. I should not attempt to climb stone walls by leaping at their corners, chin-first.
5. A lot of world drama does not translate effectively into English.
6. A lot of Australia, especially Queensland, is still amazingly racist.
7. I am extremely privileged to live in a country where the theatre scene is multicultural, commercial and experimental, yet which still offers opportunities for young people.
8. I am extremely privileged to live in a country where I do not grow up with a nonchalant hatred for merchant races, such as Jews or Indians.
9. It is very easy, if you are proud of your achievements or your culture, to stop listening, to stop learning.
10. I look good in long sleeves and stubble.


Enough with the posturing. Some photos:

Me and my roommate, Richard Stratton, the only playwright from Brisbane and also the only other out gay man (as far as we know) among the delegates. No nooky though; roomcest (i.e. room-incest) is risky. But look! We're both wearing DJ-monkey T-shirts!

This is my base-group: a group of six young playwrights and three tutors. Pictured are Suzanne Heathcote of London, Ola Animashawn of London (tutor), Adam Mitchell of Perth (tutor), Martin Kordic of Hildesheim and Anna Barnes of Melbourne. Not pictured is the handsome Ivor Martinic of Splitz, Croatia. We can only see the brim of San Francisco/New Yorker Krista Knight.

Our third tutor, Assoc Prof Dr Hassan Erkek of Ankara, is also a hottie. He's met the Finger Players via videoconferencing!

James Cook canteen food leaves something to be desired.

Cultural exchange: here's Hamidah from Lambung talking to Ajtony of Budapest.

There's a volleyball court outside the canteen/dorm area though. It's also plenty warm in the afternoon so we play matches at times.

One more group shot.

Writing in Different Genres

I. Write a Naturalistic Scene.

(Y is a middle-aged woman. Z is a middle-aged man)

Y: Too much.
Z: It's worth it.
Y: How many more times?
Z: You're a very, very bad -
Y: Shut the fuck up. You don't live with her. You don't have to listen to her insult your children and your -
Z: You don't love your own mother.
Y: I feed her. I wash her.
Z: You've never loved her.
Y: I carry her body when she wants to use the toilet.
Z: You've always resented her love for me.
Y: I wipe her backside when she shits.
Z: Because I'm the son. I never asked for this love. I'll pay what I can for the operation -
Y: You couldn't pay half of the bill last month. I paid for the hospital, the wheelchair, the physiotherapy -
(Enter Doctor)
D: Family of Madam Oh Guan Chin?
Y and Z: Yes?
D: We're very sorry.
Z: What happened? Is she dead? Is she -
Y: Choi!
D: No no no no, she's still conscious. But for how long -
Y: We came too late.
D: For how long we don't know. We need to know. Will you sign these papers approving -
Z: Yes.
Y: How much?
D: Organ donation is becoming more and more important as a means of saving people's lives -
Z: Fuck no!
Y: Ziqiang! Give me the papers.
Z: Give me the papers!
Y: Our mother is dying. You don't even have the money to keep her in your own home. Now you want to keep even her organs?
Z: She wouldn't want it that way.
Y: I lived with her all these years.
Z: She wouldn't want it that way.
Y: I think I know what she would and wouldn't -
Z: Give me the papers.
D: She's still conscious.
Z: Let me see her.
Y: Let me see her. Of course. (laughs) You only visit her when she's in pain. You're her guardian angel. Her little god. You come along when she needs her son to rescue her.
D: Madam Oh has asked to see her son.
Y: Okay! You take over from here. (backing away) You tell her she's dying. You tell her she has to keep her organs.
Z: Yiling –
D: Sign here and here.
Z: My last payment hasn't come in.
Y: Ziqiang. You are too much!

II. Rewrite the Scene in a Non-Naturalistic Genre.

(Y is a middle-aged woman. Z is a middle-aged man)

Y: Fie, 'tis overmuch!
Z: Nay, but 'tis worth it.
Y: Worth what? To live another petty year,
To feel the cutlass of a different surgeon
And die a second death?
Z: I had not thought.
Thou art an evil daughter then, Ysolde.
A venom-hearted devil, spawned of Eve.
Y: You say this sir, who hath not housed this woman.
This daft besom, who crieth the abuse
Of my own lord and kin -
Z: I had not thought
That child might walk that loveth not her mother.
Y: I feed her, Zechariah, bathe her limbs,
I aid her bowels in yon garderobe -
Z: Thou hateth her but for her blessed love,
That love dispens'd on I, her son alone.
Y: What son art thou who canst not guard thy mother?
Who oft doth rob the banks to feed thy debtors,
Who oft doth make excuses for they loans?
I paid for all her ointments, pills and tinctures.
I paid my life for hers, for want of love.
(Enter Chirurgeon)
Y: What news?
Z: Quick, hence! The sum.
C: My lord and lady -
Z: Not death! Fie, sound the alarum and knell!
C: She breathes, sir, but be warn'd: death waits in distance;
She lingers on but for a last farewell.
I have a contract.
Z: Still a bill! I'll sign.
Y: How much? We are not keepers of a fortune.
C: I have a contract that will share her vitals,
Her liver, heart and spleen for ailing folk.
Z: Fie, nay!
Y: Good sir, the papers.
Z: Hand them hence,
I'll rip these rags to shreds to greet the winds!
Y: Thou miserable dog. She meets her end,
Thou wouldst begrudge the poor of their desserts?
Z: She would not wish it so. I am her son.
Y: With me she long hath dwelt!
Z: I am her son.
Y: Then see her. Tell her heaven doth approach.
You are her only son. Pay for her death.

Internet famine!!!

We've been able to access the Internet for maybe a total of one night since we started on Tuesday night - the Townsville University firewall has systematically locked us out and rejected our password.

I'm at an Internet cafe in the city with Ajtony, a beautiful Hungarian 19 year-old Buddhist in rastas. (Probably straight, but we make beautiful conversation.) Will upload photos and stories when possible.

B).

June texts

Well, I'm now at a more human 27 books a month (and really, one of those was a website archive, another was a long essay that formed a section of a book, one was a pamphlet and one was a picture book really, so that's 23 real books only).

Next month may be even fewer, since I'll be busy with World Interplay. :) Illiteracy, here I come.

Also, despite having read books from Italy, India, Ireland, Singapore, Nigeria, Japan, Egypt, Colombia and France/Cote D'Ivoire this month, it still feels like I've had an unhealthy focus on books from the USA. Have also realised I never read any books from Australia. Well, that will change.

*POETRY*
Tiruvalluvar's "The Kural"
+Mary Oliver's "The Leaf and the Cloud"
+“Selected Poems of William Carlos Williams” (ed. Robert Pinsky)
+Allen Ginsberg’s ”Kaddish and Other Poems”
Denise Levertov’s “Evening Train”

*FICTION*
Soseki Natsumi's "The 210th Day"
+Nancy Kress's "Beggars in Spain”
+Rabindranath Tagore’s “Two Sisters”
+Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Changing Planes”
+Don Delillo’s “Cosmopolis”
+Woody Allen’s “Complete Prose”

*DRAMA*
+Lenin El-Ramly's "In Plain Arabic"
Stella Kon's "Butterflies Don't Cry"
Wole Soyinka’s “The Jero Plays”
+J.M. Synge’s “The Playboy of the Western World”
+Martin Sherman's “Bent”

*NON-FICTION*
+Stanley Cavell's "The Avoidance of Love"
+Malcolm Gladwell's "The Tipping Point"
+Gabriel García Márquez's “The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor”
+Stewart Home's ”Mind Invaders: A Reader in Psychic Warfare, Cultural Sabotage and Semiotic Terrorism”

*GRAPHIC NOVELS*
Neill Strauss and Bernard Chang's "How to Make Money Like a Porn Star!"
+Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie’s “Aya”
+The online archives of the “New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest”
Inc. Cosmic Debris Etc's “Emily the Strange: Seeing is Deceiving”
Neil Gaiman and Michael Zulli's “Creatures of the the Night”
+Igort's “5 Is the Perfect Number”

*UNCLASSIFIABLE PROSE*
+Theatreworks's “The Book of Longing”

*PERFORMANCES*
+Mark Chan's "Dreaming of Kuan Yin, Meeting Madonna"
+Shaun Parker's "Blue Love"
+Tang Fu Kuen's "Forward Moves"
+Checkpoint Theatre's "Cogito"
+Sylvie Guillem and the Akram Khan Company's "Sacred Monsters"
+Musical Theatre Ltd's "Georgette"
Raffles Junior College Theatre Studies Department's "Toys R Us", +"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" and "Behind the Curtain"
The Finger Players's "Wong Kar Wai Dreams"
Cake Theatrical Productions’s “A Thousand Little Things”
Peter Sau and +Li Xie’s “Full Frontal”
Mabou Mines’s “DollHouse”
+People’s Association’s “Gentarasa 2007: Titisan Cacamerba”
Cho-In Theatre’s “The Train”

*FILMS*
Auraeus Solito's "The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros"
Kelvin Tong's "Men in White"
David Fincher's "Zodiac"
+George Sidney's "Annie Get Your Gun"
+“Experimental Films by Maya Deren”
Matthew Barney’s +”Cremaster 3”, “Cremaster 4”, “Cremaster 5” and “Drawing Restraint 9”
+Andrew Fleming's ”Nancy Drew”
+Mamoru Hosoda’s “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”
+Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s “Hot Fuzz”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+Donna Ong's "Project Eden"
Genevieve Chua's "As Brutal As"
+Craig Walsh and Shaun Gladwell's "Streetworks: Inside Outside
Yokohama"
Venice Architecture Biennale Singapore Pavilion's "Singapore: Built and Unbuilt"
Lee Sik Khoon's "Bodies and Relationships"
+Simryn Gill and Tino Djumini's "Picturing Relations"
+NUS Museum's "Highlights of Southeast Asian Collection"
+Erica Lai, Genevieve Chua and Jennifer Koh’s “extra ordinary”
PKW’s “The 9th Emerging Artists’ Show”
+John Clang's "A White Book"

Coded Language - DJ Krust feat Saul Williams

Like I was saying, Singapore needs poetry like this.

Incidentally, most music video directors will film a star lip-syncing lyrics at double-speed and then slow down the tape to create an ethereally beautiful figure moves with subtle slowness and grace, like a spacewalker, his/her charisma evading gravity itself.

Saul has been filmed at half-speed then quickened up in post-production: his body jerks and twitches preternaturally while delivering his song. I feel like that ALL THE FUCKING TIME.

World Interplay!

Just so people don't call my phone: from 3 to 17 July, I'll be at World Interplay, the world's biggest international festival /workshop for young playwrights.

I was picked by Ivan Heng as a delegate (yes they seriously call us that) to represent Singapore, together with Cheryl Lee of Buds Youth Theatre and Laremy Lee. (I got review Cheryl's play "Size00" for Straits Times before, as part of the triplebill "From Scratch"! I hope she has the clipping!)

More info about the event here. It's reserved for playwrights aged 18-26, so I *just* qualify as young enough to go.

It's also a biannual event, so hopefully there's an opportunity in the future for other young deserving writers in their early 20's to go. I mean, how come I got picked but not Zizi Abdul Majid or Jocelyn Chua, both of whom are far more immersed in the theatre world than I am? (And who've written plays *far* more polished than 251, may I add.)

I'll be workshopping "The Final Temptation of Stamford Raffles". My workshop tutors are from the UK, Australia and Turkey. Hopefully, I'll have time to blog.

New Horizons in Portraiture

...using my MacBook camera!

Dance dramaturg Tang Fu Kuen, myself and composer Yak Aik Wee.

My grumpy grandmother and her maid Yuli.

Business Times theatre reviewer Parvathi Nayar and I, at the Akram Khan concert.

"Georgette" lead actress Seong Hui Xuan and the Finger of Death.

Jabir et moi.

T. Sasi and Lee Breuer from a weird angle in the Drama Centre.

Me and Suzanne Pemberton, Canada-born poet, English teacher and soon-to-be Swedish expatriate.
And my Mestre Ousado in capoeira class. :)