Some Other Time

A Movie Review: Rainbow

2006-07-23T04:24:00.000+08:00

It serves me right I guess. I was at the store the other day, and one the sales rack, there was a Thai gay movie. At 99 baht, it seems a bargain to see some top Thai starts acting gay for a while in Tang Rak See Rung (Rainbow - tagline "What color... is your love?").

I should have seen that it was a straight to video job, and the screenwriter has his/her name under a psuedonym. While I really have to give credit to the film makers for making a movie with good intentions and with positive portrayal of gay characters, the movie is one of those so bad it makes you laugh out loud kind of films.

I'll list out some cliches, and perhaps you can stitch all this together back into the movie's story line.

Gay hero #1 is an outspoken, but sensitive fashion editor who is pining for love after a bad break-up.
Gay hero #1 is played be Bordin Duke. To signal his out-ness, he wears a man-scarf in every scene.

Gay hero #2 is a not so outspoken, but sensitive up-and-coming model/closet case. In just one scene it's revealed that his father is adamant he gives up modeling soon and enter military service. Oh and he used to dress up in his sister's clothes when he was a kid. Of course, his dad beat him up very severly for it. His nickname is 'Man.'
Gay hero #2 sees gay hero #1 with another guy. In despair, of course, he goes into a dressing room and put on flaming red lipstick. Then cries.
Lesbian heroine #1, host an affairs of the heart talk-radio show with a gay slant. In an early scene, she storms into the station manager's office, screaming "You've move my program because I'm a lesbian!"
Lesbian heroine #2, use to have a 'phase' in highschool where she was in a relationship with lesbian heroine #1. Now she's returned to heterosexuality but her uncaring, philandering boyfriend is really causing her to think twice about men.
Lesbian heroine #2 and gay hero #2 get drunk, fall into a pool and try to make out. It takes three kisses for them to realize, oh yeah, I'm not attracted to the opposite sex that much.
Lesbian heroine #1 and gay hero #1 get drunk, wind up in a dance floor together and try to make out. It took them only one kiss to realize that they were, well, still gay.
Gay hero #1 and gay hero #2 embrace in the rain, but just as they are about to kiss, gay hero #2's mom sees them. She shakes head, he cries.
Gay hero #2 goes home to face the wrath of his father. Some unrealistic beating. He cries. His mom hysterically tries to deflect his father's blows.
Gay hero #2 rebels against his father by wearing woman's clothing. Some more unrealistic beating. Gay hero is bleeding when he says "Even if we beat me to death or even if you make me join the army... you'll never change who I am!" Hysterical mother makes noises in the background.

He he... it was kinda fun though.

The Poets of Singapore: Cyril Wong

2006-07-18T12:46:00.000+08:00

From his collection below: absence

arrival
for G
During our first few dates, we
scribbled our confessions on paper,

sending them like fast-forward
letters back and forth across the table.

Then you relented and taught me sign-
language, demonstrating how "like"

is the drawing forth of an invisible
string from the centre of your chest

like a loosened thread, freed from
the constraining fabric of your body,

while "love" is the crossing of
both arms in an act of self-defence

and a warning, or simply that "X"
which marks the point of arrival

upon the very treasure map of you.

You know you have too much free time on your hand...

2006-07-18T02:49:00.000+08:00

... when you actually do one of those online quizzes and find out you are a 'materialist' (cue Madonna):

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.

Materialist

69%

Postmodernist

63%

Cultural Creative

56%

Existentialist

50%

Romanticist

44%

Modernist

38%

Idealist

19%

Fundamentalist

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

... when you've actually found that quiz through the Xanga of your former college crush's friend, after spending an hour browsing through Hi5.com (btw, they do get cuter when they're older).

... when you spend another hour looking through a suburban mall (Central Ladprao, in case you are wondering) trying in vain to look for a Sufjan Stevens CD.

But hey... it's fun!

Insomnia

2006-07-11T03:30:00.000+08:00

I just finished Bernhard Schlink's The Reader and just could not go back to sleep. It's an amazing book - how can one write a novel so lyrical and sensitive, and at the same time deal with the burden of the entire post-war German generation - the Holocaust?

*************************************

I made another one of those embarassingly late connections in pop culture while browsing at Kinokuniya the other day. On the philosophy shelf, not far from Focault, was a name teasingly waiting to be dug up from my assorted memories...

Marshall McLuhan...

Connections started to light up in my head (the sound effect is one of them sounds when you get awarded points in gameshows). Hadn't Prabda Yoon just name dropped just the other day? The Medium is the Message. The movie line in Annie Hall!

[An excerpt from Woody Allen's Annie Hall] (audio)

MAN: It's the influence of television. Now, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a, a high-- high intensity, you understand? A hot medium--

WOODY ALLEN: What I wouldn't give for a large sock with horse manure in it.

MAN: -- as opposed to the truth which he [sees as the] media or--

WOODY ALLEN: What can you do when you get stuck on a movie line with a guy like this behind you?

MAN: Now, Marshall McLuhan--

WOODY ALLEN: You don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's work--

MAN: Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called TV, Media and Culture, so I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan, well, have a great deal of validity.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, do you?

MAN: Yeah.

WOODY ALLEN: Oh, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. Come over here for a second?

MAN: Oh--

WOODY ALLEN: Tell him.

MARSHALL McLUHAN: -- I heard, I heard what you were saying. You, you know nothing of my work. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

You learn something new everyday.

The Poets of Singapore: Arthur Yap

2006-07-10T00:51:00.000+08:00

there is no future in nostalgia

& certainly no nostalgia in the future of the past.
now, the corner cigarette-seller is gone, is perhaps dead.
no, definitely dead, he would not otherwise have gone.
he is replaced by a stamp-machine,
the old cook by a pressure-cooker,
the old trishaw-rider's stand by a fire hydrant,
the washer-woman by a spin-dryer.

& it goes on
in various variations & permutations.
there is no future in nostalgia.

The Poets of Singapore: Alfian Sa'at

2006-06-25T00:32:00.000+08:00

Plaza Singapura

Two men talk.

Eyes hope for the sign of a gleam
In the other's, like a first star.

Words unravel and hiss like steam.
Speech a civil noise among tongues
Burnt by strange tribal welts of longing.

A nod, a smile, a switch is flicked.
They look at each other, naked light bulbs.
The heart white-hot, filament-thin.

Caresses in the stairwell.

Each sigh echoing, a child tumbling down the steps.
Fear the ecstatic engine of their gropes.
Their kisses so famished it is almost incestuous.

And long, long after the footsteps
Of families ebbing outside,
The grindstone mill of perambulators,
Housing doll-eyed babies shaking their rattles,
After the washing-machine pride of wives,
And the nail-polish vanitiy of girlfriends,
That parade beyond sealed door,

They hold each other, still in fear,
But this time of themselves in,
Or simply losing, their shipwrecked embrace.
Grateful somehow, when pried apart
By what is not shame, not fultility,
That they had avoided the territories
On each other's skin,
That could have singed them with love,
Or even its pale embers.

Singapore, You Are Not My Country

2006-06-17T10:01:00.000+08:00

... but I'll miss you when I'm gone.

Really, I will. Not just the friends and colleagues here... but also:

The food (high-so and lo-so). I need to make a mental note to do a farewell tour of all my favorite places, starting with the Rangoon Road bak kut teh and ps cafe... no

Singlish. At first talking to the uncle driving taxi, it was kinda hard to understand, primarily because of the speed and rhythm. Although you don't have the Singapore Tourist Board promoting it, I think it's something 'Uniquely Singapore'. Lah.

For a good comparative demonstration of English vs Singlish, tune in to this podcast from Mr. Brown (and sidekick Mr Miyagi), a hugely popular Singapore blogger. (Listen carefully for a cameo from Thailand, the land of a thousand smiles.)

And forget about the silly people who stereotype all Singaporeans as apolitical. I don't get that feeling reading the queer activism of Yawning Bread or the amusingly sarcastic commentary from Mr Wang or the slightly out of this world metaphorical wonderings of A Xeno Boy in Sg.

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

I took the title of today's post from a poem by Singapore's multi-talented poet-playwright, Alfian Sa'at. It's a caustic and powerful piece that captures the alienation some Singaporeans feel from their nation. (Very sorry to Mr Sa'at for misappropriating the title in my rosy post).

I like that it's got that rebelious teenager-ish devil-may-care attitude (Singapore, I assert, you are not a country at all. /Do not raise your voice against me, /I am not afraid of your anthem...) all conjured up with some powerful imagery (And how can you call yourself a country, / you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes drive from the MRT?). Just reminds you that poetry is not all about pretty flowers and pastoral scenes and that 'Surprising Singapore' is not just a hollow tourist slogan.

Singapore You Are Not My Country (For Noora)
Alfian Sa'at (via Zuco's Blog)

Singapore you are not my country.
Singapore you are not a country at all.
You are surprising Singapore, statistics-starved Singapore, soulful Singapore of tourist brochures in Japanese and hourglass kebayas.
You protest, but without picketing, without rioting, without Catherine Lim,
but through your loudspeaker media,
through the hypnotic eyeballs of your newscasters,
and that weather woman who I swear is working voodoo on my teevee screen.

Singapore, what are these lawsuits in my mailbox?
There are so many sheaves,
I should have tipped the postman.
Singapore, I assert, you are not a country at all.
Do not raise your voice against me,
I am not afraid of your anthem although the lyrics are still bleeding from the bark of my sapless heart.
Not because I sang them pigtailed pinnafored breakfasted chalkshoed in school
But because I used to watch telly till they ran out of shows.
Do not invite me to the podium and tell me to address you properly.
I am allergic to microphones and men in egosuits and pubicwigs.
And I am not a political martyr,
I am a patriot who has lost his country and virginity.
Do not wave a cane at me for vandalising your propaganda with technicolour harangues,
Red Nadim semen white Mahsuri menses the colourful language of my eloquent generation.
Your words are like walls on which truth is graffiti.
This has become an island of walls.
Asylum walls, factory walls, school walls, the walls of the midnight Istana.
If I am paranoid I have learnt it from you,
O my delicate orchid stalk Singapore,
Always thirsty for water,
spooked by armed archipelagoes,
always gasping for airspace,
always running to keep ahead,
running away from yourself.
Singapore why do you wail that way, demanding my IC?
Singapore stop yelling and calling me names.
How dare you call me a chauvinist,
an opposition party,
a liar,
a traitor,
a mendicant professor,
a Marxist homosexual communist
pornography banned literature chewing gum liberty smuggler? How can you say I do not believe in The Free Press autopsies flogging mudslinging bankruptcy
which are the five pillars of Justice?
And how can you call yourself a country,
you terrible hallucination of highways and cranes and condominiums ten minutes drive from the MRT?

Tell that to the battered housewife who thinks happiness lies at the end of a Toto Queue.
Tell that to the tourist guide whose fillings are pewter whose feelings are iron
whose courtesy is gold whose speech is silver
whose handshake is a lethal yank at the jackpot machine.
Tell that to my imam who thinks we are all going to hell.
Tell that to the chao ah beng who has seven stitches a broken collarbone and three dead comrades
but who will not hesitate from thrusting his tiger ribcage into another fight because the lanterns of his lungs have caught their own fire and there is no turning back.
Tell that to the yuppie who sits in meat-markets disguised as pubs, listening to Kenny G disguised as jazz on handphone disguised as conversation and loneliness disguised as a jukebox.
Tell that to all those exiles whose names are forgotten but who leave behind a bad taste in the thoughtful mouth,
reminding us that the flapping sunned linen shelters a whiff of chloroform.
Tell that to Town Council men who feed pigeons with crumbs of arsenic.
Tell that to Natra Hertogh a.k.a Maria who proved to us that blood spilled was thicker than water shed as she was caught pining under a stone angel in the nunnery for her husband.
Tell that to Ah Meng, who bore six hairy bastards for our nation.
Tell that to Lee Kuan Yew's squint.
Tell that to Josef Ng, who shaves my infant head amidst a shower of one-cent coins, and both of us are pure again.
Tell that to my Warrant Officer who knew I was faking.
Tell that to the unemployed man who drinks cigarettes smokes tattoos watches peanuts unself-conscious of his gut belch debts and wife having an affair with the Salesman of Nervous Breakdowns.
Tell that to our Maya Angelou's who are screeching like witches United Nations-style poems populated by Cheena Babi Bayee Tonchet Melayu Malas Keling Geragok Mat Salleh.
Tell that to the fakirs of civil obedience, whose headphones are pounding the hooving basslines of Damyata Damyata Damyata.
Tell that to the statue of Li Po at Marina Park.
Tell that to the performance artists who need licences like drivers and doctors and dogs when all they really need is just three percent of your love.
Tell that to the innocent faggot looking for kicks on a Sunday evening to end up sucking the bit-hard pistol-muzzle of the CID, ensnared no less by his weakness for pretty boys naked out of uniform.
Tell that to the caretaker of the grave of Radin Mas.
Tell that to Chee Soon Juan's smirk.
Tell that to the pawns of The Upgrading Empire who penetrate their phalluses into heartlands to plant Lego cineplexes Tupperware playgrounds suicidal balconies carnal parks of cardboard and condoms and before we know it we are a colony once again.
Tell that to Malaysia whose Desaru is our spittoon whose TV2 is our amusement whose Bumiputras are our threat whose outrage is our greater outrage whose turtles are weeping blind in the roaring daylight of our cameras.
Tell that to the old poets who have seen this piece of land slip their metaphors each passing year from bumboats to debris to sanitation projects to drowning attempts to barbed neon water weeds on a river with no reflections a long way off from the sea.

O Singapore your fair shores your garlands your GNP.
You are not a country you are a construction from spare parts.
You are not a campaign you are last year's posters.
You are not culture you are poems on the MRT.
You are not a song you are part swear word part lullaby.
You are not Paradise you are an island with pythons.

Singapore I am on trial.
These are the whites of my eyes and the reds of my wrists.
These are the deranged stars of my schizophrenia.
This is the milk latex gummy moon of my sedated smile.
I have lost a country to images, it is as simple as that.
Singapore you have a name on a map but no maps to your name.
This will not do; we must stand aside and let the Lion crash through a madness of cymbals back to that dark jungle heart when eyes were still embers waiting for a crownless Prince of Palembang.

Back in the Kitchen

2006-06-09T23:42:00.000+08:00

After months of being quite lazy and too many McDonald's quickie dinner, I'm back in action. A new colleague had just arrive in Singapore, so I finally had someone to experiment a recipe I had been wanting to make for a long time...

Kylie Kwong's Sweet and Sour Pork

I like the little touches Kylie gives to this classic recipe. The pork itself is coated in a bit of batter and fried til crisp and then dusted with Sichuan pepper and salt. It's the first time I've used the spice, which has a very unique with this wonderful aroma. Kylie uses it a lot in her cooking, at one point her her cookbook using it as part of a 'ritual' performed daily at her restaurant:

Each night we 'smudge' our perfect little dining room by dry-roasting Sichuan peppercorns with sea salt in a hot wok. The aroma and smoke created not only smells divine but also 'cleanses' the air and energy of the space.

The sauce, served on the side, is a wonderfully colorful mix of colors with pineapple, capsicum, tomatoes, ginger and pickled veggies.

We threw together some quick kailan with oyster sauce and there's a nice, Thursday night meal.

Bookish

2006-03-21T23:09:00.000+08:00

Sorry it's been a while since I posted, but honestly I've never cooked anything during the hiatus that was worth taking a picture of. Plus there was the trip to the US last month.

Also I've started a new blog, Bookish. It's mainly got all my boringly serious rants on politics, non-fiction books and news in general. I'll try to continue posting here with 'lighter', more personal updates... expect some pictures tomorrow when my friend and I will try to cook a 3 course meal.

PS: I've booked myself a ticket this Friday to see "Invisible Waves" at the reincarnated Picture House. More on that soon too!

The Kidney-Shaped Stone That Moves Every Day

2006-02-06T01:07:00.000+08:00

I like this short story by Haruki Murakami - I keeps coming back to my mind somehow at my present state of life.

For me the kidney-shaped stone still sneaks up on me once in a while...

Life Seems Out of Tune

2006-01-29T01:44:00.000+08:00

Joni Mitchell talking during a concert [from the album Miles of Aisles]"

There's one thing that always like... uh... been a major difference between the performing arts to me and being a painter, you know. Like a painter does a painting and he does a painting and that's it. He's had the joy of creating it and hangs it on some wall. Somebody buys it - somebody buys it again or maybe nobody ever buys it and it sits up in a loft somewhere til he dies.

But nobody ever says to him - nobody ever says to Van Gogh, "Paint the starry night again, man." You know, he painted it - that was it. Let sing this song together, okay? This song doesn't sound good with one lonely voice. It sounds good with - the more voices on it the better, the more out of tune voices on it the better. It was made for out of tune singing this song.

******************************************************************

Circle of Life by Joni Mitchell

Yesterday a child came out to wonder
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star

Then the child moved ten times round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like when you're older must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town
And they tell him take your time it won't be long now
Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through

And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Random Posts

2005-12-22T00:12:00.000+08:00

Random things today...

1. The Economist came out with it's year-end double issue. The debate nerd in me yells out 'Goodie! I can just crawl in bed with this magazine all weekend'. At least I'm not the only one who's an Economist-addict.

Younghusband of Coming Anarchy has a red Economist t-shirt. He also recommends some Economist related humour from that other venerable publication, the Onion.
Like Joe, I'm a card carrying member. Gosh I'm nerdy!

2. Holiday shopping again today at Orchard Road. Hyper busy, even more than the weekend. I was going to buy some Royce chocolates for back home but...

Went on another splurge at Kinokuniya - this 20% discount thing is really hurting my pocketbook. The queue at the cashier so long it was scary!

Couldn't even see the check out from the back of the line.

3. Books, books, books

- I went on a Jane Austen marathon for the past few weeks. You really do get hooked on her once you start, you just can't get enough of the elegant and witty dialog, plucky heroines and dreamy happy endings.

- Bought three books the in latest Kino splurge:

Istanbul: Memories of a City by Orhan Pamuk... Heard a few good things about this book and I've also begun a little Istanbul obsession after a friend raved about it from a visit (not to mention Tyler Brule).

Lord of Light by Roger Zelany. It's a sci-fi classic about gods walking on earth as mere mortals, with a cast that include Buddha (aka Sam), Brahma, Kali and Krishnan.

This book always reminds me of my best friend in elementary school, Ian. I was then a chubby Asian kid in thick glasses, a bit lost in elementary school in Pacific Palisades, CA. We hit it off when we were grouped together with another girl in sixth grade advance math class... he's the guy who introduced me to Asimov and his Foundation series and science fiction in general.

Ah... my nerdy memories...

The last book is The Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria, as recommended by Fringer. I'm exceeding impressed with this book, so I think it will warrant its own post.

Back to the Kitchen

2005-12-13T23:03:00.000+08:00

Haven't had much inspiration in the kitchen these days... maybe I've reached a point that I have a few sure fire recipes in hand so if I feel lazy (which is most of the time) I can go back to. Hmp...

Been reading this book - Pedant in the Kitchen... and I do feel for the author after I read a few cookbooks myself. He points out, rightly -

Never buy a [cook]book because of its pictures. Never, ever, point to a photo in a cookbook and say, 'I'm going to make that.' You can't. I once knew a commercial photographer who specilized in food and, believe me, the post production work that recently gave us a slimline Kate Winslet is nothing compared to what they do shamelessly to food.

He he... so I present my latest adventures in the kitchen... yawn...

1. 7 Dec - Another lazy boiled rice dinner... I'm gonna try to be a professional menu author this time.

Salad of salted duck eggs, shallots, chili and sweet Chinese sausage with fresh lime dressing. (ยำไข่เค็ม ha ha...)

Wok-fried organic pea sprouts with garlic

Pork sauteed with lightly salted black olives (หนำเลี๊ยบ)

2. 10 Dec - Gingko Nuts in syrup

You might have known from my last post that I brought some nuts home other day. Let me warn you - if you're not sitting in Singapore bored out of your mind like me - buy gingko nuts that are pre-shelled!

It took me in excess of an hour and some sorry looking pulverised gingko nut paste to get this:

Then I had to boil them, and remove the bitter stem (kinda like the young shoot) of the nut. Then just boil in sugar and pandan for another 45 minutes, just out of the microwave:

3. Salad of Italian Sausage, Baby Spinach and Cherry Tomatoes

This accompanied my carbonara the other day. Carrefour has a surprisingly good deli section with tons of coldcuts and cheeses - which is where I found some chirzo for this salad.

Open Magazine Resurrected

2005-12-07T22:14:00.000+08:00

Good news, Open Magazine is back! There's a preview version of it online here:

http://www.diarii.com/

Doesn't it look great? More on the background of the whole thing here:

http://pinporamet.blogspot.com/2005/12/open-online.html

The old gang is back I think...

Ennui by Mukhom
one ton by Wichai Tan
open screen by Pimpaka Towira

I guess the only one missing is ความน่าจะเป็นบนเส้นขนาน by Prabda and Win... sorry W! Let me digest Mukhom's new article on Arundhati Roy first....

Update: Opps... the column is actually there's... here's the link.

We're not worth... we're not worthy

2005-12-06T22:01:00.000+08:00

Was strolling through the supermarket this evening when made an impulse buy of fresh gingko nuts... I had just treated some guys at the office for birthday lunch and for some reason their yam pudding (oh nee) didn't have any of them nuts. So if I ever get ambitious I might make some this weekend (it would be better if the secret of the whole thing wasn't 2/3 cups of oil per yam), but I'll probably end up boiling them in syrup.

I was back home searching for some recipes, and quite serendipitiously came across this very nice blog, Little Gingko Nut. Of course I'm darn humbled by all the nice food 'Ling' cooked up and also I finally know what a luohan guo looks like.

Thanks to the interconnectedness of the blogosphere, Little Gingko Nut opened a window to a great big community of food blogger. He he... looks like I'm not the only crazy one taking pictures of his food before eating.

Some of the best I've found so far (recipes all included it seems)

English Patis - 'A Filipina living in the UK. Dreams of cooking for a living.' Don't we all? I love that she's so eclectic with her food but also lovingly features that the little known cuisine of her country. I love this dessert - sort of like the Thai kao tom mut best eaten but a topping of butter!
She Who Eats - Photography in this site positively beautiful it borders on food porn territory. She's based in Japan, but seems to have quite a big interest in Western food, ice cream, jams, tarts and all kinds of desserts.

There's a whole lot more, I think I still need to digest. There's the great big Holiday Cookie Swap. Food crazy in Malaysia with masak-masak.

I guess I should leave you with the immortal words of Wayne and Garth... "We're not worthy... we're not worthy!".

Blogger vs Ung-aang Talay and other finds

2005-12-03T01:21:00.000+08:00

Some new findings in the blogosphere to share with you.

1. Sa·ra·son·teh (http://sanpaworn.vissaventure.com/?s=log)

Through the magic of Googling I rediscovered this blog that I came across a long time ago and found quite engaging, in a weird way. Good clean web design, frequent and timely updates, an engaging, articulate prose style in both Thai and English.

But the draw is that Mr. Tom hold political views completely and utterly in opposition to mine!

He despises the Democrats and their demagougery.
He accuses Anand Panyarachun of Kerry-esque flip-flopping. Anand! Doesn't like his speeches much either.
He's not too fond of the Nation. Nor the Post. Nor any media outlet apparently.

Reading him makes me feel a bit annoyed, but if you read pass the venom for his pet hates and his ranting, of course he make some good points. Good exercise for me since I've been afraid that my media consumption is sometimes skewed towards people who hold pretty much the same view as I do.

*****************************************************

This post is a classic - our blogger attempts to take down the New York Times, food writers R.W. Apple and our very own “Ung-aang Talay” at the same time!

So there's the typical opiniated dressing down and nit-picking... which is probably a right given to bloggers everywhere.

Loyal blog-fan 'poststaffer' joins in with the chorus and so it goes. But the absolute twist of the narrative comes with the list of the comments - the Ung-aang himself has the final word. I can imagine Mr. Halliday, the season journalist, sitting at his computer composing half with anger and then with no little joy with vignettes like this:

Mr Vamvanit seems to view humankind from a very lofty perspective, indeed, so lofty in fact that it makes me wonder just how he was raised and educated. There is some consolation in the realization that those motorcycle taxi drivers (who, incidentally, seem to be expert papaya choppers) would probably find Mr
Vamvanit just as distasteful, with his Chez Michel and his Connecticut phat thai and his more-farang-than-the-farangs, dek nawk posturings.

Hehe... you'd never what can happen over in blogosphere. More on Ung-aang-talay later

2. Mr Wang Bakes Good Karma (http://www.commentarysingapore.blogspot.com/)

Maybe he's a bit Singapore specific, but I like Mr Wang's gentle style of commentating on current affairs.

3. The Reader's Eye (http://readerseye.blogspot.com/)

A poetry blog. The decor is littered with Degas, Van Gogh, Matisse - may be a bit too classy for my tastes, but I do like the simple poetry. One of my favorites here - "A Completely Safe, Good Poem".

Maybe after years of trying, I'm more ready now to appreciate poetry. Maybe it comes with age and a bit of patience.

Pizza Dinner

2005-12-01T22:06:00.000+08:00

I'm back cooking again, courtesy of Jamie Oliver. Thanks to some very kind friends, who generously gave me his new book, Jamie's Italy.

It's nice to finally have some company for dinner. The new fellow expat is a big eater, he likes to cook plus finds everything tastely. Just listen to him rave at the food at the local Kopitiam.

We cooked some pizzas with two toppings (salami/ zucchini/ basil and anchovies/ capers/ chili/ parsley). A nice rocket and cherry tomato salad to go along with it. Turned out quite well I should say.

The End Game

2005-11-29T01:50:00.000+08:00

Another timely article from Chang Noi on Thaksin vs Sondhi. 'Two and a half' theories on what's really behind the conflict. Personally I think it's probably a mix of 'Democracy and the Last Straw' and that last half an explanation concerning the old guard.

And surprisingly the Nation website, has suddenly introduced a splash screen purporting to know 'The Truth about Thaksin and Sondhi'.

The article begins with a bold understatement in it's very own paragrah: "It’s not all about media freedom and democracy." After a few weeks of generally lambasting the government on press freedom and, in my feeling, hiding their uneasiness with the tactics and credibility of its main critic, the editors seem to be more open now about it.

Snippets:

The conflict between Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and media owner Sondhi
Limthongkul is driven mainly by business interest as the latter lost his cash cow in the government’s corral before he started firing a series of salvos at his former friend.
....

He has never told the public that business interest was the driving force in his movement against Thaksin.
...
Despite being no good for the nation as a whole, Sondhi’s royalist rhetoric is actually working...

...

Another thought about the whole line of thought comes from optimistic Dr. Chaianant Samudvanija, writing in his column on Sondhi's Manager Daily.

ผมทำนายว่า สนธิจะเพลาการพูดถึงพระเจ้าอยู่หัวลง แต่จะหยิบยกเรื่องการขัดกันด้านผลประโยชน์ของรัฐ และตัวทักษิณมาพูดมากขึ้น เวลานี้เมืองไทยเราโชคดีที่มีสนธิมาทำหน้าที่แทนฝ่ายค้าน เพราะฝ่ายค้านเอง ประชาชนมองว่าเป็นการเมือง ดังนั้น ส.ส.พรรคไทยรักไทยจึงพยายามโยงสนธิกับพรรคประชาธิปัตย์
I predict that Sondhi will gradually cease to bring His Majesty into the debate, but still bring up issues related to Thaksin's conflict of interest. At this say and age, Thailand is lucky that Sondi assume the duty of the parlimentary opposition - the real opposition is viewed by the people as partisan and it's no wonder why TRT MPs would try to link Sondhi to the Democrats.

Hmm... ain't we all lucky to have a non-elected, just out of bankruptcy media tycoon representing our interests? Hehe...

So how will this grand confrontation play itself out? I myself am anxious to see what the King himself will say on his birthday speech. My gut feel his theme will be one of peace and compromise, and he will take us back to the problems in the South.

And couldn't you help but get the feeling that Sondhi has so over reached himself and is trying to remain calm on the back of a runaway tiger? Expect a strategic retreat coming soon.

KL Trip

2005-11-27T01:03:00.000+08:00

I was over in KL for some training and a short weekend break. Hadn't really been looking forward to trip, but it turned out to be surprisingly fun.

It helps that I had good company, some hard partying seniors from my office in Bangkok and some guys on project in Malaysia. Some places we visited:

1. First night after the obligatory dinner pahr-tay and hobnobbing with some partners, we headed to Zouk (see left). The KL outpost is housed in a curvy modernist interpretation of those whitewashed houses you see on Greek islands. Except with the oh-so-hip shifting color lighting effect.

A bit weird for me since I never set foot in the original Zouk in Singapore, but we settled in for some drinks at Velvet Underground. I came back a bit early, but heard that one of the guys had to be carried back to the hotel...

2. Misc. shopping.

- We went up KLCC and it's hugh, posh mall. Embarassing to say I spent a bit too much time at Kinokuniya, and got my first graphic novel. It's probably the most beautifully designed book I ever got.

- Sungei Wang, the MBK of KL. Got DVDs of Six Feet Under season 5 (I loved the series finale by the way).

- IKEA. Okay, they have one in Singapore, but I tagged along with my friends. Of course I didn't want to buy anything and of course I ended up with a two bags of stuff. Got the perfect pitcher mixing my (virgin) bloody marys (left).

3. Alexis Bistro and Wine Bar. Seriously delicious cakes plus live music. Nice to hear some jazzed up version of Christmas classics... is it really another year going by already?

4. Waraku, this Japanese place. We had some pre-drinks nibbles here and the mango/tuna rolls a to die for!

5. Starhill Gallery's basement hi-so food palace. More food at this Tapas Bar. I've gotta learn how to make my own Sangria!

6. Frangipani, the bar for more drinks. Love the music at this place.

October

2005-10-18T03:46:00.000+08:00

A quick weekend back home (again) - last week before W goes back again to US. I feel some how faintly sad and nostalgic, a bit like reaching the last few days of summer vacation when I was a kid.

So except for my Hugo Boss suit procurement fiasco, we had a quiet weekend. If it were a movie, the soundtrack would be something like Scrubb's new album. Mid-tempo, not too rowdy. Something like this song...

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Then came Sunday and I became a bit annoy with another 'those darn kids these days' op-ed pieces...

A survey... revealed that the young people had an utter lack of understanding of the events of October 14, let alone their significance.
That’s understandable. Kids today don’t really read that much of anything. Not only do they not read about history, but very few seem to even partake in general reading of books or newspapers.

Until I realized they were kinda right... did I really know enough about the specifics of this troubling period in recent Thai history? So I set out instinctively to a bookstore in Bangkok, hoping to see some books corner dedicated to it - I mean it's the aniversary after all.

I came back home disappointed, there wasn't a single book on the subject in the whole store (but then I guess I should expect much from Se-ed). I guess kids these days don't have a chance!

************************************************

Some consolation prizes:

Open Books came out with another issue of their October series, collections of essays on current Thai politics/economics/society.
Sarakadee magazine with a special on the 14 October incident in which they choose not to focus the student leaders or the military adversaries, but tracked down the largely anonymous people who were part of the huge wave of protesters involved.

Haven't read the mag yet, but I've mostly gone through October. I was struck with one article, a criticism of the whole Royal Power hoopla by Professor Thongchai Winichakul. A no-nonsense rebuttal and new perspective - as a historian he reminds us how the excuse of royal powers were use to do pretty mean things...

Before going crazy with Pramuan's book, we should study how horribly Pridi Phanomyong had suffered at the hands of the royalists especially during 1946-49. The great irony is that some of the advocates for enhancing the royal power tell the story of Pridi working hand in hand with the royals for the enhanced royal power. Ridiculous" would be my softest comment on these royalist pretenders.

All this got me interested in Prof. Thongchai, so of course I Googled him. I was surprised to learn that he was one of the student leaders during the October events. After the student uprising, he was jailed by the military before being released into self-exile, first in Australia then eventually winding up in the US.

Chang Noi here compares his fate with another prominent student leader, Thirayuth Boonmee:

Thongchai Winichakul was prominent in October 1976 when the army violently suppressed student radicalism. Since then, he has become the most feted modern Thai historian in the international arena. But he has been removed from Thai society - first by jail, and then by self-exile. He functions now as a distant spirit who resides most of the time in the remote chilly regions of north America. He can be summoned up from time to time only by the proper spirit mediums (conference organisers). He is a disorderly spirit who concentrates the chaotic energies from bad events in the past. His role is to stir things up, to spread doubt, to challenge any slide to complacency, to remind the optimistic reformers just how difficult their task truly is.

Also came across this touching account of his trying to come to terms with the past when meeting with a photojournalist who covered the October events.

Twenty-six and a half years later, Thongchai Winichakul runs his fingers across the gloss of a black-and-white photograph that lies on his desk, on the fifth floor of the Humanities Building. A UW-Madison professor of history, he has the furrowed visage of a man who constantly battles the past — one who unearths it, who turns it in his hands, who works to discover its textures and blemishes. He speaks with a seriousness that conveys that history — his history — is not always pretty to behold.
The image on the page beneath Thongchai's finger tips is just visible.
It depicts a young man being dragged across the ground by a piece of cloth around his neck...

That picture is of his friend, Jaruphong, who lost his life in the massacre. Someone whose death Thongchai, as a student leader, could not but feel responsible for.

Like many others who survived the massacre, he wrapped himself in a cocoon of guilt and shame, feeling somehow responsible for it all.
"The massacre was so bitter ... lots of my friends blame themselves," he says. "Me, too. Not in the sense that we made people die. We are rational enough to know that. But still, we are part of it." Fear and indecision kept them from resolving past issues, including telling Jaruphong's parents that their son was dead. "We were cowards," he explains. And even if they had had the courage, they couldn't find the words.

His story reflect maybe the 'tact' with which we as a nation talk about the events. So is it the fault of kids these days for not caring, when the older generation still finds it so hard to talk about all this in a straight forward manner?

Steak, Thai Style

2005-10-17T22:30:00.000+08:00

Easiest thing in the world to cook - steak 'jim jaew'...

Okay okay.. it's not really authentic jaew, but more like fish sauce liven up with lime juice, chili powder and long-leaf coriander. Good enough anyways - it took like 5 minutes to whip up.

Claypot Rice

2005-10-15T11:57:00.000+08:00

Another boring day was salvaged by my colleague, who trooped me to Chinatown to try to find search for his favorite, long-lost claypot rice stall.

Things didn't bode well at first as withing a few seconds of stepping on the bus, heavy rain started pouring down. After some shortcuts and running through the rain, we finally made it to Chinatown Food Complex Food Center, stall #02-102...

The stall had the clean and efficient look of a well run enterprise, and also a sign proudly saying that there may be up to an hour's wait during peak periods. Fortunately we were there during a sleepy weekday lunch, so our claypot rice for two arrive in around 20 minutes.
And there it was, baked to perfection. My friend had advertised that the chicken in this dish was so tender 'it fell off your chopsticks' - and I have to say he's pretty close to the truth. Add a salty tang of salted fish, the slight sweetness of chinese sausage and crunchy kai lan. Yum!

The trick to eating this is to take out all the chicken and accompaniments out of the steaming claypot, then mix some dark soy sauce, shredded spring onions and coriander and a little oil into the rice. Then just spoon the rice into your bowl and enjoy with the chicken, etc.

Next trip will be bah kut teh at Rangoon Road!

"Meanwhile, how do we get out of here? Which way is up?"

2005-10-12T23:56:00.000+08:00

Just a short post today, although I have been quite lazy in updating lately. Let do one of this bullet posts/random links thingies:

Thailand is mutating into a genetically-modified version of Singapore. Having cornered the broadcast media, government related groups launch take overs for two biggish newspaper groups. Here a preview of what to expect:

The paper is run by editors with virtually no background in journalism. For example, my direct editor was Ms Chua Lee Hoong, a woman in her mid 30s. She was an intelligence officer.

Then two libel/criminal defamation suits were brought by our Prime Minister on the press. This is in addition to Shin Corp's pending case with Thai Post and Khun Suphinya. Total damages demanded = 1.4 billion baht.

The outcome is still uncertain, but will it become something like this or this...

Littlemore has also monitored Singapore libel cases for the International Commission of Jurists and notes that members of Singapore's People's Action Party, uninterrupted in power since 1959, have never lost a libel action heard in Singapore.

Like my friend was saying "Thaksin is taking a page out of Lee Kuan Yew's secret manual of "How to stay in power for the next 40years"...for the press

Buy and control what you can...
Intimidate, sue, force out of the country those you cannot...
Wait quietly for and era of Media Enthralled where the cowed media outlet do their own self-censorship

I do agree with Chang Noi here on the questionable motives of Sonthi, but the big picture dictates that I throw my lot with his side for our democracy's sake. I like how he ends the piece...

Most judgements are relative to some extent. We pick the best available. We support one thing [Sonthi] because the alternative [Thaksin crushing press freedom] is worse.

Meanwhile, how do we get out of here? Which way is up?

Kitchen Diary 4 - Noodle-ish

2005-10-06T22:16:00.000+08:00

I had another sadly unsuccessful attempt to lure my colleague to try out my cooking. I should have known it was futile - I'm hoping her condition isn't something like this article.

So I ended up having Kylie Kwong's Mum's Hokkian Mee all by myself. I think I may have to eat the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Oh well... I won't give up yet...

Hot Tofu and Ponzu Soy Sauce

2005-09-21T22:32:00.000+08:00

Hotpot Tofu and Ponzu Sauce

Wanted something light and healthy for today's dinner, so I tried out a recipe for some tofu from Marumi Karihara's cookbook. Turned out quite nice - I really like the sauce (made from lemon juice and soy sauce with red pepper and spring onions on top).

Sunday Lunch at Projectshop cafe

2005-09-21T00:35:00.000+08:00

Wildberry Iced Tea

One of my favorite places to eat in Singapore - they have killer specials! This time I got the "Italian Braised Lamb with tomato, borlotti beans and capsicum, cheesey spinach polenta, broad beans and herbs".

Hope it got that right - the specials also have killer names.

Kitchen Diary... again

2005-09-20T23:59:00.000+08:00

Monday, September 19th

*Canned 'Fried Dice with Fermented Black Bean'
*Spinach with chili
*Boiled Rice

Rainbow [Singapore, 18 Sep]

2005-09-19T23:11:00.000+08:00

I was walking around the Asian Civilizations Museum (killing time before my movie) when, I saw something just looming over the building...

No matter how many times you have seen a rainbow, to have one appear after a rainy day is makes you feel like a kid again. You want to run to see where the rainbow ends and yell to all the strangers who aren't yet staring upon the sky with wonder - look! look! it's a rainbow!

Another Sunday, another sunset... in Singapore.

How I Became a Member of World of Sports

2005-09-18T11:56:00.000+08:00

In an effort to in get myself exercising more, I decided I need a new pair of sneakers. So after that nice lunch at Ma Maison, I got my self down to a 'World of Sports' outlet at Seiyu Bugis.

Here is the pair I chose:

And what do you know I fell for their marketing gimmick, and become a member (it's 15% percent off!). They do entice you with all the freebies:

Not sure what I would need with a basketball (it was either that or a football). He.. he.. don't we all just love free stuff?

Ma Maison

2005-09-17T15:52:00.000+08:00

Woke up surprisingly early today and, for the first time in months, went down for the complimentary serviced apartment breakfast buffet. I guess nothing has changed much - it's still the same old feeble offering of:

Watermelon and Cantaloupe
Hard Boiled Eggs (you know when they are boiled so hard that the yolks turn kind blue-ish grey on the outside?)
Toast, cereal, juice

Oh and also the worse tasting coffee in the world. After I put in some milk, it had the consistency and color of post-Katrina mud. Eww!

**********************

After Skype-ing for a bit with W (he got some 'fear of driving on freeways' issues now), I was peckish again and decided to head out for shopping and lunch at Bugis Junction. The Kinokuniya branch there had a 20% off promotion there, so how could I resist!

Bought a book I had my eye on for some time - iCon Steve Jobs : The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business. And of course my weekend read, the weekend edition of the Financial Times.

Then it was time for a late lunch. Where to go, where to go? Then I saw the sign (below) and remember - why not Ma Maison?

I've always have a soft spot for their style of food... I guess it's Japanese style western food. If you like Sonie's in Bangkok, you'll love this place. Was feeling pretty hungry, so I quickly decided to go for their special - spaghetti with chili fish eggs:

Highly recommended this one - the fish eggs give the pasta a nice creamy sauce and is accomponied by tiny little shrimps. The little kick of chili kept the dish from being too bland and heavy.

I like their 'Pasta Tossing' utensil (see above), although it took me a while to figure out what it was. Below is the close-up... can you see the little fish eggs?

The decor of the place has a kitschy cozy feeling with lots of dark wood and random memorabilia. And since the place is called 'Ma Maison', they do give you a 'key' to their house so to speak (you take it up to the counter to pay for your meal - see the table number?). Cute.

Random Pics from My Phone

2005-09-17T01:40:00.000+08:00

Our dear Prime Minister on the frontpage of Singapore's Straits Times giving reporters the 'X' sign.

Toys Exhibition at playground! in Bangkok:

Re-open Exhibition - pictures and art from Open Magazine (one my favorite magazines, but now sadly on extended hiatus):

Re-Open: Sutthichai and Prabda Yoon

Re-Open: Nong Plub (this happens to be on the cover of the first Open I bought).

Re-Open: Artwork by Thai Vijit

Boxer From Shantung

2005-09-17T00:09:00.000+08:00

Had a fun Friday night today. The wife of a colleague of mine happens to work with the Arts House - which is kinda like an multi-disciplinary arts space setup by the Singapore government. It plays host to quite a few events, and I got invited to the opening for 100 Years of Chinese Films.

So after huffing and puffing from the bus stop to the venue (Singapore's old parliment house, renovated) I got there towards the end of the opening reception. After a bit of white wine, random dim sum and Celestial Movies promo presentation, they introduce the day's guests of honour - Gordon Liu and Chen Kuan Tai.

Hmm.. Gordon Liu.. the name sounds familiar. Then my friend reminded me that he played Pai Mei in Kill Bill Vol. 2! Of course the old master with the white beard who did some kick-ass eye goughing!

He gave us a short speech in Mandarin then professionally posed for us in the martial arts stance (he's on the left below):

I didn't know too much about Chen Kuan Tai, but just that he's the star of the opening film of the festival - Boxer from Shantung. So I went not expecting too much and as a result was blown away by the movie!

I think if you are a kid growing up in Asia, there was probably a few periods in your life when you are really into kungfu martial arts (kum lung pai nai in Thai) serials. I had quite a few fights with toy swords with my brother while making swishing (sword cutting through air) sound effects.

Seeing this movie made me realize how derivative of those serials and the Kill Bill movies are - here I was seeing the source and inspiration of kungfu on the screen! And no wonder Quentin Tarantino supposedly got hooked on this stuff when he was a video store clerk.

The movie is sorta 'The Godfather' meets kungfu. Chen plays Ma Yongzhen, the boxer of the title, to starts of humble beginnings to become gangster boss of Shanghai (think Godfather, Part II - the rise of Vito Corleone - a lot less subtle) and then his fall from grace. The director made the effort to inject some big themes on the corruption of power and sacrifice in between some incredible action sequences.

And the coolest one has to be the finale fight in at a teahouse (rong tiam) at the end. By the end of the fight, our hero has taken down 4 of the rival gangboss's henchmen (the "Four Champions"), fallen down the balcony 3 times and fought about 101 underlings armed with axes and daggers - all while bleeding with a hachet stuck in his side!

And the blood, oh the blood! I reminds me of an espisode of Fear Factor I just saw in which they had to bob for rings in a vat full of cow blood.

Phew... that was fun! I'm thinking of catching more shows soon. They told me there's an open air screening of "The Kingdom and The Beauty" - maybe some classic period drama for a change. My friend told me the star, Linda Lin Dai, was the It-girl of her day or something like that. Hmm... thinking of going with some mooncakes to the screening and having a mini picnic.

This Flight Tonight

2005-09-12T01:05:00.000+08:00

Today I took a flight to Singapore and Wit took his flight to the US... feeling a bit sad and in the mood for Joni Mitchell.

*****************************************

This Flight Tonight
Joni Mitchell from the album "Blue"

You got the touch so gentle and sweet
But you've got that look so critical
Now I can't talk to you baby
I get so weak
Sometimes I think love is just mythical
Up there's a heaven
Down there's a town
Blackness everywhere and little lights shine
Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine

Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn't have got on this flight tonight

Singapore Writers Festival

2005-08-28T21:21:00.000+08:00

Had quite a activity-packed weekend in Singapore this time:
- More chili crab Friday night. That makes it three crab dinner in two weeks!
- Shopping at Sim Lim Sqaure
- Pigged out at the Ritz-Carlton Sunday Champange Brunch - three hours of posh food! (Moet et Chandon + the biggest chesse spread I've ever seen in my life + lobster + oysters + crab claws + foie gras = choresterol shock!)

And last but not least, I went to three events at the Singapore Writers Festival - too tired to write about them now but I have to say that all of them were really thought-provoking for entirely different reasons.

Rewind a bit and tell you a bit more about the fest. Maybe this quote from the website does a good job of conveying the spirit of it all -

"The Singapore Writers Festival celebrates the power of the written word!"

The formula for doing this is not so hard it seems - grab some thought-provoking authors and let them roam around giving readings, signing autographs, put them into panels and other weird situations. Give the wannabe writers workshops on how to write genre bestsellers, biographies, blogs, graphic novels, etc.

Also host them in a great venue like Singapore's new National Library.

And I guess for readers like me it's a chance to connect back to the writers and their thoughts - reading (like writing) is essentially such a solitary activity that one can feel so isolated from the rest of the world. No wonder people say 'You got to read this book!' so much... they just want some company in the reading journey.

I attend three sessions so far (write more about them in later posts):

1. A reading by up-and-coming Thai-American writer, Rattawut Lapcharoensap. He writes in English and just publish his first collection of short stories, "Sightseeing".

2. A talk by cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling.

3. Another talk on Australian food with chef Kylie Kwong and food writer (among other things) R.W. Apple.

Who is Chang Noi? [Part 1]

2005-08-27T04:29:00.000+08:00

If you are a regular reader of the Nation's opinion pages, you may have noticed an regular columnist who goes by the psuedonym 'Chang Noi'.

I'm a big fan of his - to my mind, he's probably the best columnist writing in English about Thailand. Big names from the Nation stable like Sutthichai Yoon, Thepachai Yong or Pana Janviroj do regularly contribute hard-hitting editorials, but I say that none of them do so with the style and panache of Chang Noi.

A big contrast is that Chang Noi actually has a sense of humour. It can be at times playful and irreverent. See this piece he devoted to "The 'un-Thai' nipple crisis" (our version of Janet Jackson's Nipplegate last Superbowl):

The fashion show was meant to be spectacular, and the dress designed to be daring. That one of Methinee Luk-Ket’s breasts slipped out was, well, simple physics. The photographers did their job: they snapped it. The sensationalist press did its job: it sensationalised it. Now the Ministry of Culture wants to send police to fashion shows and tighten up legislation to prevent repetition of such “un-Thai” behaviour.

Or occasionally he lets lose with the big satire. See "The thoughts of Chairman Maew" and its sequals - "The thoughts of Chairman Maew, II" and "Chairman Maew's thoughts for 2005".

Even more, I love it when he gets 'serious' goes for some deep analysis. While the Nation editors I can imagine are knee-deep in the nitty-gritty their newspaper operations, with news stories coming in left and right, Chang Noi takes a step back and give you some perspective that certainly gives you new way of looking at things.

I like this article on Tak Bai, "Explaining Thailand to the world". To illustrate the nuances of how others outside Thailand perceive Tak Bai, Chang Noi sets up the piece with this:

Around New Year, Chang Noi watched one of the video CDs of the Tak Bai incident. The showing took place outside Thailand, with an audience of teachers and students mostly from Asian countries ranging from India to Japan...

At the end of the one-hour showing, there was first a stunned silence, and then a lively discussion. Thai and non-Thai, Muslim and non-Muslim, all had something to say.

The reactions he recounts to us are very understandable and all together though-provoking. At on point in the video showing, some non-Thais in audience was at a lost on what the military officers were intructing the prisoners to do:

What was going on? Thai members of the audience had to explain. The instructor was organizing them to sing a kindergarten song about elephants. “Elephant, elephant, elephant; have you even seen an elephant?” There was another stunned silence. An East Asian member of the audience then began to think aloud. So first we saw the security forces treating people like animals, then treating those who were lucky enough to survive like infants. Do the Thai security forces think that people in their country’s far south are infants and animals? If so, does that explain why the situation has become so bad?

So that was good, ha? You can try some more selected articles here:

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All this leads to back to the title of this post - now that you know who Chang Noi is, who really is Chang Noi? I've wondered for the longest time who's the person behind the psuedonym.

To be continued...

P' Pei Writes an Editorial

2005-08-27T02:07:00.000+08:00

I think this will be publish in the Nation this Saturday.

JUST A THOUGHT: Thailand sorely lacks a reading culture

What has happened to our education system? Or are parents to blame for not paying enough attention to their children? Are the media and the Internet to blame for distracting children from reading books?

You go girl!

Birthday Letters

2005-08-24T01:01:00.000+08:00

I've hurt someone dear to me. Deeply hurt.

The more I think about it, the excuses I tried to use to deflect blame become thinner and thinner.

Away from the noise and heat of our argument, I suddenly realized I had no ground to stand on. And that sorry may not be enough.

Not this time.

I think of what Ted Hughes felt when he learn about Sylvia Plath's suicide.

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Birthday Letters is the title of British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes's last collection of poems. With these poems, he perhaps ended his long public silence about his wife, the poet and feminist icon Sylvia Plath and her suicide in 1963.

One can forever analyse the complexity of their relationship and marriage, but few can deny the sequence of events (although one may question the cause and effect).

Hughes walked on Plath and their two children for another woman. Soon after she commited suicide by putting her head in a gas oven.

I had bought this book a while back, swept up with tragic mythology and controversy that built up around the couple and around Plath in particular. As A.O. Scott puts it:

Many of Plath's admirers treat her as a martyr and Hughes as, symbolically if not actually, her murderer. Her short life has become, fairly or not, a parable of the stifling of women's self-expression by a chauvinist literary establishment in the years before feminism. Those more sympathetic to Hughes have preferred to see him as a fellow sufferer, a flawed, talented man married to a gifted woman with a history of mental disturbance, who had first tried to kill herself long before she met him.

At first, I only got around to only digesting the first of the 88 poems, "Fulbright Scholars". Hughes speaks to Plath, as in most of the collection, in the second person - telling her how he may have seen her for the first time in the news clipping about that year's batch of Fulbrighters:

Where was it, in the Strand? A display
Of news items, in photographs.
For some reason, I noticed it.
Picture of that year's intake
Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving -
Or arrived. Or some of them.
Were you among them? I studied it,
Not too minutely, wondering
Which of them I might meet.
... (continues)

These days I read deeper, losing myself in the sad magnificant verses.

*******************************************

I think of Ted Hughes picking up the pieces of his life after learning of the tragedy. How he went on, being villified as someone to drove to suicide the woman he once, and probably still, loved. Shouts of 'murderer' at every poetry reading.

But Hughes maintained his studied silence and lived on. He collected and edited Plath's poetry, earning her a posthumous Pulitzer Prize with Ariel. He also edited her journal, which she had kept up until the weeks leading to her death.

Suddenly I read all this -
Your actual words, as they floated
Out through your throat and tongue and onto your page -
Just as when your daugther, years ago now,
Drifting in, gazing up into my face,
Mystified,
Where I worked alone
In the silent house, asked, suddenly:
'Daddy, where's Mummy?'

So in the poet, I find a fellow sufferer.

Kitchen Diary 2 - Solid

2005-08-20T03:41:00.000+08:00

17 May - Lasagne with Zucchini and Ricotta filling

From Bill Granger's recipe.

18 May - Risotto Primavera

Good vegetarian dish with zucchini, french beans, mushrooms, etc.

10 May - Salmon Teriyaki

Got lovely results from the recipe in Harumi Kurihara's cookbook.

5 July - Veal Cutlet with Anchovy Butter

This literally took me 5 minutes to make. Just sear the seasoned fillet, finish in oven then top with butter. Toss salad and you're done.

Kitchen Diary 1 - Liquid

2005-08-20T03:18:00.000+08:00

Porridge with shredded chicken. Breakfast for my bf's mother when she came to visit.

Soup of Things Leftover in the Fridge. Just so happens I had bacon, eggs and some old veggie left that day.

Minestrone. Italian veggie soup (made from scratch, mind you).

I made so much I ended up eating it for 3 days straight.

I'm Listening

2005-08-18T23:23:00.000+08:00

I did an experiment the other day - come home from work and barred myself from turning on the TV. Just spend the rest of the evening listening to music.

There still quite a few CDs I had bought and listened to maybe once, but never really 'digested'. As with books, I'm a bit of a shopaholic when it comes to CDs. Somehow I want to own a physical CD rather than downloading it off the internet - old fashioned, ain't it?

*****************************************************

On the CD shelf:

1. From the Apres-Midi Selecao shop in Tokyo

We found this little shop is the basement of Parco Shibuya in Tokyo and loved it. You enter the shop and you feel like you're at a beachside bungalow of the cool friend with a kick-ass chill out music collection. (Imagine some soothing music playing in your head...)

They've got a great bossa nova section and the first CD that caught my eye was Joao Gilberto's self-titled album. He's a great songwriter, arranger and guitarist from Brazil among other things - but I would say the thing I love most about him is just his voice. In the spare arrangement on this album (in most songs it's just him on guitar and vocals with the drummer), his soft quietly melodic -- almost melancholy -- voice is the definite highlight.

I was almost out of the door of Parco when I knew I had to run back and get another CD. I'm a sucker for duets and could not resist this album - Domingo by Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso.

Caetano Veloso is another Brazillian great; you may remember him from Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her where he sings this achingly beautiful song (download it here) at the dinner party just in the middle of the movie.

[It's also him again singing at the opening of Wong Kar Wai's Happy Together with a grander orchestration and the image of a thundering Iguazu Falls. ]

This is another lovely work by him I couldn't resist. Gal Costa I hadn't heard of before but I love her dark and rich voice as well.

I just read somewhere that it was Caetano's first album - wow!

Last but not least, the shop also gave us a free compilation - something called '2005 Third Arrival ~ Rainy Night Edition'. I think it's sort of a sample of the series compilations done by this DJ called Toru Hashimoto and I would say every song is great in its own unique way.

2. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young + Tom Waits + vintage Rolling Stones

I'm getting to like some of the classic blues/folk influenced rock and the guys above are now on the playlist. Nothing like a blues guitar riff or the liquid twang of a pedal steel guitar. If you want a change from the plain vanilla voices you get on American Idol, try:

Neil Young, CSN&Y: high pitched, "bordering on whiny" - but perfectly conveying a quiet melancholy mood. You have to listen to him on the song 'Helpless'.
Tom Waits: His voice is "whiskey-harden gravel" - so darn macho. Favorite song: Jersey Girl
Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones: To those Rockstar INXS people - see here how rock and roll is done!

Deja Vu by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Heartattack and Vine by Tom Waits

Let It Bleed by the Rolling Stones

Michiko Kakutani

2005-08-18T01:54:00.000+08:00

I had a strange urge today to google Michiko Kakutani. For the uninitiated, she's the New York Times's influential and 'much-feared lead book reviewer' - according to this Salon.com article.

And she's also turned into a pop culture icon. I remember first hearing her name in an episode of Sex and the City - she was the one reviewing Carrie's book. Michiko just has one of those names that get stuck in your head... there's a certain fun rhytm and rhyme in hearing it. Mi-chi-ko Ka-ku-ta-ni...

Thus began my mild obsession with this woman (cue music from Psycho shower scene). I still have to find a list of her notorious (but entertaining) negative reviews. A fairly recent one is this review of the lastest Tom Wolfe in which she end with the following put-down:

You may never put down a Tom Wolfe novel. But you never reread one, either.

*********************************************************

Let see... what I found on the Google trawl:

1. The biggest catch has to be this hilarious piece from McSweeney's online. Here's a quick quote:

We'd use it [her name], I'm embarrassed to say, as a metaphor for onanism.
"What'd you do last night?"
"Had a big date with Michiko Kakutani."

2. She's reported to be 'famously reclusive', but the Pulitzer Prize website does provide a short bio and picture.

"Ms. Kakutani is single and lives in Manhattan." How Sex and the City! Her hair reminds me of early Carrie in season 1.

3. More than one commentator has weighed in on her use of the word 'limn'.

4. I'm not the only one obsessed with 'DEAR SWEET MISS MICHIKO K.' - see here.

5. And I also had a reunion with one of my favorite humour sites 'Suck.com'. Too bad it's now defunked. They quoted Michiko here.

The Review of Books I'm Too Lazy to Finish

2005-08-13T21:58:00.000+08:00

I have to admit I'm a bit of a shopaholic when it comes to printed material. Books, magazines or newspapers - seems I can't resist buying and accumulating (not to mention committing serial murders of trees) more than I can hope consume at the rate I'm going.

It's funny how even you can be materialistic towards books. Essentially they should be just a medium or vessel that transport the message to the reader; the real physical object, the pages, cover and binding, should not really matter - it's the content that counts.

But I guess publishing is a business not too much different from any other in our captitalist economy. The whole point is to entice people to want own your book (or shampoo or jeans or lipstick). Colors ads, posh packaging, premier shelf placement are need if you want to shift your product in any industry.

*************************************

Gosh, I didn't mean to sound so cynical! I still love, love to read - although a combination of my unstable attention span and the oversupply of books has caused me left me with a whole bunch of books I'd started but not finished.

To give you and idea, here an incomplete list:

1. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
2. Mad Dogs and Co. by Chart Korbjitti
3. Forbidden Colors by Yukio Mishima
4. Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee
5. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
6. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
7. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
8. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
9. The Wings of The Dove by Henry James

(... as you can see I kinda over reach with all the Oprah Book of the Month Club-like selections)

As to why I still haven't finished, I place the blame completely with my lazy self. These books are all wonderfully written with engaging plots - shame to me for not sticking with it.

So as something of an atonement (FYI, Atonement by Ian McEwan is the best book I've read this year) I kick off an occasional series of posts entitled 'The Review of Books I'm Too Lazy to Finish'.

Oh and I will try to finish the darn books.

*************************************

Next post - a review of:

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers.

Boon Tong Kee - Deluxe ข้าวมันไก่

2005-07-11T23:57:00.000+08:00

Had a fairly lazy Monday at the office. I think I'm setting a very low goal about what task to finish before taking vacation later this week.

Anyways I was taking bus 65 home, when I looked up from my book to see an old favorite - this little chicken rice place called Boon Tong Kee on River Valley Road.

So before you know it, I'm jaywalking across the street to have a little supper. First thing I notice is that well... this place now has got table cloths - black and purple (สีบานชื่น).
And no more bowl and chopsticks to eat out of - now the rice comes on plates in little pyramids (the pic is courtesy of Mr. Miyagi - somewhat of a celeb in the Singapore blogosphere. He captures the new dining experience at Boon Tong Kee perfectly in this post).

Thank goodness that the food is stil good like I remembered it. Chicken here is always tender and moist and they the rice has a little kick of ginger.

What I also love the kai-lan with oyster sauce - just quickly cooked so that it's still has crunchy stalks but no hint of unpleasant 'greenness'. A nice meal although on the expensive side (12 SGD = almost 300 baht for one). But well, this is 'upscale' chicken rice :-)

Dish of the Day

2005-07-10T23:01:00.000+08:00

From Bill Granger's recipe:

I was cleaning up the fridge today and found a punnet of blueberries hidden under the mess. So had 6 big pancakes for dinner... still full now...

How to make a bad sandwich; Breakfast Top 4

2005-07-09T14:52:00.000+08:00

With my legs still madly aching from the jog I took yesterday (more on that later)... I decided not to travel to far for my lunch - hmm... the corner coffee place looks good for a cappucino and a sandwich.

The 'chicken-mustard' sandwich caught my eye. I imagine a piece of tender chicken breast with crisp hot mustard encased in what Philippa Davenport would call 'bread of good character'. But alas, dear friends, I got this:

How to make a bad sandwich:

Take the chicken breast and microwave until dry. Absolutely no flavouring should be added - in additon to having that dry and stringry texture, the chicken should be also tasteless.
Flake the dried out chicken and combine with a bland, fatty mayonnaise. Put in some whole grain mustard for decoration, but make sure the unique taste of the mustard is completely over powered by the mayo.
Take some dried bread (perferably of 'bad character') and toast until all moisture has been evaporated. It should be dried enough that, when bitten, tiny crumbs should vaporize, causing you to have coughing fits and minor throat irritation. (If to be served in restuarant, make sure the waiter ignores the customer flagging him down for a glass of water.)
Spread the chicken mixture on bread, making sure to put lots of mayo to 'flavour' the chicken. Add anonymous salad leaf and serve.

*************

Even though breakfast is one of my favorite meals, I rarely have a chance to partake of it on weekdays. When I'm in Singapore, one of my favorite things to do is to have a lazy Sunday lunch with a pile of newspapers. Some of my favorite places:

1. River Cafe

An Aussie-style cafe, very laid back with good simple chic food best eaten on the veranda overlooking the Singapore River. I had the ricotta hotcakes with banana and honey comb last time... so good.

It's in the same building as the Tyler Print Institute, which puts on some very cool exhibitions. I've always like prints and textiles.. there's just this right mixture of having that practical craftsmanship and artistic inspiration.

2. Nosh Cafe - Three words: All day breakfast!

3. Whitebait and Kale

Tucked away in a posh private hospital is probably the my favorite of the bunch. The homely off-white/brownish/bluish interior is very inviting with and open kitchen - reminds me of a nice beach side place somewhere in Australia.

The menu looked so inviting I think I had way too much to eat. Started with a healthy virgin mary then a not so healthy helping of eggs florentine (poached eggs on a bed of toast and spinach) and this yummy chocolate waffle.. *drool*

A nice latte ended the meal... hehe.

4. Marmalade Pantry

This cool earth-toned bistro is located in the basement of the Singapore equivalent of snooty Gaysorn Plaza. Their Sunday brunch is a place to be seen drinking your lychee bellini. Or some other drinks for their nice bar:

Lovely food here as well, although the presentation can get irritatingly complex. Their chicken pot pie, if I can remember, was a tall tower shape thingy that needed to attacked with a knife rather than just simply eaten.

Random Links

2005-07-08T00:40:00.000+08:00

It's been a surprising tough week this week - though I should have seen it coming. Errands to run for the Tokyo trip (visa, tickets, etc.) and things at work are picking up. Anyways here are some random snippets and thoughts...

1. Have a secret? Here's an anonymous say to let it all out: http://postsecret.blogspot.com (scroll to the bottom to see instructions).

2. There's quite a surprising variety of advice columns in the world. Some of my favorites:

Dear Economist: The tagline is 'Resolving reader's dilemmas with the tools of Adam Smith'. I read it from the weekend edition of the Financial Times. You'd have to say it's not particular useful (low utilility) although it's kinda funny in a nerdy way how hard the guy tries to answer everyday problem in terms of the dismal science.
Savage Love: Sex advice (mostly) for straights from a gay man. He's not called 'Savage' for nothing - notorious for the one-liner put down. The people who write him and his advice are both hilarious. I do think beneath it all he gives pretty ok advice though.
Word Court: From the Atlantic Monthly, this column tackles nit-pickingly obscure questions about the English Language. Is there really no difference between being a postgraduate or graduate student, etc?

3. Dish of the week - Linguine with pesto.

I somehow felt the urge to do it the traditional pestle-and-mortar way, as urged by Neil Perry in his XXX food porn of a book:

[Pesto] is usually made in a blender, ends up tasting more of roasted nuts and garlic than it does of basil and comes out dark green. It should be made in a mortar and with a pestle so that the basil leaves are creamed and their oils are released, rather than chopped and heated. It sounds hard, but it is really simple.

Yeah right! Trouble was that I didn't have a pestle or mortar handy in Singapore... so I improvised to use the bottom of a tea cup. Housekeeping must be pissed at the mess I'm making these days. This is after a good 20 minutes of pulping...

End resulting turned out to be quite worth the labour... with fresh basil aroma + kick of garlic/pepper + creaminess from olive oil and parmesean + a sweet nuttiness from the pine nuts. Definitely will make this again.

Any of you out there thing it's weird if I go out and buy a ครก (mortar)? Comments please... I could get a designer ครก:

Well-known architect Duangrit Bunnag has expanded his creativity to design a collection of furniture and household items for Anyroom. For this show, he presents a low wooden table, Alone, in a natural brown colour in minimalist style, and Krog, a granite mortar that retains its normal function but assumes contemporary form. [Nation, Sunday June 19]

Adventures in the kitchen - Part 2

2005-07-02T13:25:00.000+08:00

Someone (:-P) has been calling me "my pooh-like, easy-go-lucky, consultant-turn-chef, always on the luck, boyfriend"... and while I object to being called pooh-like, but I do like the sound of 'consultant-turned-chef'.

I've had something of a positive-feedback loop in the kitchen for a while. You make a soufle and it rises, bake a cake it the roommate likes it... Who doesn't enjoy being praised with 'You should open a restaurant, man' - just for making some nice little friend rice.

Cheese Souffle in the oven and out!

The Incident of the Orange-Almond Cake

I saw the recipe in the cookbook and I knew I had to make it. I'm a sucker for oranges/mandarins, you see, and I would get to use my new handblender.

So first simmer oranges in barely boiling water, then leave to cool:

Then with the handy handmixer, puree:

Then bake:

So far so good. Sit down and thinking about that first bite out of the cake after it's piping hot out of the oven... my favorite rewarding moment.

Then amid the daydream, disaster strikes... the cake was happily baking when I realized that 'no sugar was used in this production of the cake batter'... panic hits.

Should i take it out? Mix in the sugar now? My roomie sees me peering into the oven with sweat on my brow muttering (he's thinking: leave the guy alone).

I concoct a seemingly brilliant solution. Make a light syrup and poor it over the cooking cake - the sweetness will be absorbed into the cake and the sugar will turn caramel on top.

Two minutes pass by. I shake the cake pan and the water is slushing around... okay, be patient, let's wait a bit more. Ten minutes and I can't see the cake cos the whole oven is steaming!

At this point I'm pissed. I spent two hours boiling these oranges, perhaps another to scrape off the skin and cut them into nice matchsticks to make the candied zest. So I decide to take the whole thing out and mash everthing back together with a fork... work out my agression :P

Another hour later (it's about midnight now), I find that it didn't turn out to bad after all.. hehe

Tada... at least with no sugar it's low calorie

Lesson learned: In cooking as in life, it pays to keep a bright outlook.

Singapore - The Air-conditioned Nation

2005-06-27T21:32:00.000+08:00

I just began reading this book which inspired the title of this post. It begin with an anecdote about Singapore's founding father, Lee Kuan Yew:

True to form, when the Wall Street Journal asked several 2oth century luminaries to pick the most influential invention of the millenium, Lee named the air-conditioner.

'Air-conditioned' seems to be the perfect metaphor for Singapore: everthing is so convenient, so organized and economically vibrant, 'the perfect temperature'. On the other hand everyone has to cede a whole chunk of their individual will and freedom to the government, submit to 'central control'.

Let's see... what can't one so in Singpore without a permit:

Protest or conducting any public assembly of 5 or more people. Being at the forefront of 'e-government', at least it's easy to apply electronically from the police. For artistic permits the minstry vets the script/synopsis for the performance - sometimes decision can be a bit arbitrary.
Form a society. Look at the trouble this GLBT group went though.

I guess despite this, life here is food enough. Kinda like living with your strict parents - every comfort is provided for, but they insist on you doing things their way, with their own rules. Any of course, they thing they know what's best for you - and a lot of times you don't.

Only you're not a teenager anymore and it's not your parent's house you live in but your own country/homeland.

PS: Call them autocratic if you like [and I kinda do], but I do feel the people who run this country sincerely (whatever their methods or silly ways) care about its future. Which is more than what you can say for Thailand - don't get me started about Thaksin and Suriya.

Fulbright Scholars

2005-06-23T03:20:00.000+08:00

Fulbright Scholars by Ted Hughes

Where was it, in the Strand? A display
Of news items, in photographs.
For some reason, I noticed it.
Picture of that year's intake
Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving -
Or arrived. Or some of them.
Were you among them? I studied it,
Not too minutely, wondering
Which of them I might meet.
I remember that thought. Not
Your face. No doubt I scanned particularly
The girls. Maybe I noticed you.
Maybe I weighted you up, feeling unlikely.
Noted your long hair, lose waves -
Your Veronica Lake bang. And your grin.
Your exaggerated American
Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners.
Then I forgot. Yet I remember
The picture: the Fulbright Scholars.
With their luggage? It seems unlikely.
Could they have come as a team? I was walking
Sure-footed, under the hot sun, hot pavements.
Was it then I bought a peach? That's as I remember.
From a stall near Charing Cross Station.
It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
By my ignorange of the simples things.

Adventures in the kitchen

2005-06-18T23:26:00.000+08:00

I got a bit ambitous (and not to mention hungry) today and decided to do a three course meal for dinner. So looking at my bookshelf of celebrity cookbooks, I picked out:

From bills food, the main is parmesan-crusted blue-eye and braised potatoes with peas.
And from Donna Hay's Modern Classic, this great recipe for caesar salad dressing.

Did I mention I finally got a new toy? It's this hand blender...yes I dream at night about the pureed soups I can make out of this...

Braun Multiquick

Here's the end result (tada!). Had to pop the fish into microwave for a bit to finish it off (inside still sashimi :P)

Fish with Parmesan crust and caesar salad with homemade dressing

Oh and this is the mess I made (making the crust stick to the fish is harder then you'd think)...

Aftermath I

Aftermath II

Tomorrow will test drive Neil Perry's The Food I Love and try to re-create Greyhound Cafe's bacon fried rice.

Random things in my head

2005-06-18T03:15:00.000+08:00

Too lazy for proper post today... I'll just give u some random thoughts:

Cool name of the day - Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain. Really, it's a medical periodical.
Embarassment of the day - Recognized by waiting staff at fave restaurant (so I thought) as "that pathetic guy who always dines alone."
Highlight of the day - Got stuck briefly in the apartment lift with cute guy (yeah!) and two of his friends (boo!)... *swoon*
Dish of the Day - Beef braised in red wine and rosemary, olives, tomatoes and french bean - topped with crush potato and bacon. Yummy!

Steak Dinner

2005-06-15T00:44:00.000+08:00

Today's dinner - as you can see, I was darn hungry after last night vegetarian dinner. Steak (rare - can u see the blood) with roasted tomatoes, mash potatoes and mustard cream

Seinfeld - The Fix-up

2005-06-14T22:53:00.000+08:00

... funny scene from the Seinfeld DVD I saw yesterday. Courtesy of www.seinfeldscripts.com.

Jerry and George are in Jerry's apartment. . [George doesn't like the idea of fixing Jerry fixing him up with Elaine's friend Cynthia]

George: Out of the question. Out of the question!
Jerry: Why?
George: No! I'm not gonna do that! That's one step away from personal ads! And prostitutes! No! No, I am not going down that road! What does she looklike?
Jerry: She's good looking.
George: How good looking?
Jerry: Very good looking.
George: Really good looking?
Jerry: Really very good looking.
George: Would you take her out?
Jerry: Yes, I would take her out.
George: Oh, you hesitated.
Jerry: What hesitate? I didn't hesitate!
George: No, something's off here, you hesitated.
Jerry: I'm telling you, she's good looking.
George: What about the body, what kind of body?
Jerry: Good body, nice body.
George: How nice?
Jerry: Nice.
George: Just nice?
Jerry: Pretty nice.
George: Really good?
Jerry: Really very nice and good.
George: What about personality?
Jerry: Good personality. Funny. Bright.
George: Smarter than me? I don't want anyone smarter than me.
Jerry: How could she be smarter than you?
George: Alright, let's see, let's see. What else. What else. Oh yeah, what does she do?

New scene. Elaine and Cynthia are having a similar discussion.

Cynthia: First of all, what does he do?
Elaine: He was in real estate, um, now, he's not working right now-
Cynthia: He's not working?! How come he's not working?
Elaine: Well, um, he, he got fired.
Cynthia: Why did he get fired?
Elaine: Uh. Why? Oh, right. Um, well, he tried to poison his boss.
Cynthia: Excuse me?
Elaine: Such a long story, Cynthia, seriously, I mean he just had some problems at work.
Cynthia: Is he nuts?
Elaine: No, no, no, he's a really really funny guy.
Cynthia: What does he look like?
Elaine [pretends not to hear, George ain't exactly good looking]: Pardon?
Cynthia: What does he look like?
Elaine: Um, well, he's got a lot of character in his face. Um, he's short. Um, he's stocky.
Cynthia: Fat. Is that what you're saying, that he's fat?
Elaine: Powerful. He is so powerful, he can lift a hundred pounds right upover his head. And um, what else. What else. Oh, right. Um, well, he's kindof, just kind of losing his hair.
Cynthia: He's bald?
Elaine: No! No, no, no, he's not bald. He's balding.
Cynthia: So he will be bald.
Elaine: Yup.

Cut back to Jerry and George.

George: What kind of hair?
Jerry: You know, long dark hair.
George: Flowing?
Jerry: Flowing?
George: Is it flowing? I like flowing, cascading hair. Thick lustrous hair is very important to me.
Jerry: 'Thick lustrous hair is very important to me,' is that what you said?
George: Yeah, that's right.
Jerry: Just clarifying.
George: Let me ask you this. If you stick your hand in the hair is it easy to get it out?
Jerry: Do you want to be able to get it out or do you want to not be able to get it out?
George: I'd like to be able to get it out.
Jerry: I think you'll get it out.
George: What about the skin? I need a good cheek, I like a good cheek.
Jerry: She's got a fine cheek.
George: Is there a pinkish hue?
Jerry: A pinkish hue?
George: Yes, a rosy glow.
Jerry: There's a hue. She's got great eyebrows, women kill to have hereyebrows.
George: Who cares about eyebrows?
Is she sweet? I like sweet. But not toosweet, you could throw up from that.
Jerry: I don't think you'll throw up. *She* likes to throw up.

Cut back to Elaine and Cynthia.

Cynthia: Has he ever been married?
Elaine: No.
Cynthia: Has he been close?
Elaine [a little desperately]: He once spent a weekend with a woman.
Cynthia: He didn't really try to poison his boss?
Elaine: Yeah, he did.

Food Porn

2005-06-13T22:37:00.000+08:00

I've got another confession to make - I think I'm addicted to Food Porn.

At last count, I have 11 seductively phographed, full-color cookbooks in my bookshelf. This isn't even my house, it's a serviced apt in expat Singapore!

According to this article here, I have serveral 'gastro-porn' equivalents of the Joy of Sex:

Now it cannot escape attention that there are curious parallels between manuals on sexual techniques and manuals on the preparation of food; the same studious emphasis on leisurely technique, the same apostrophes to the ultimate, heavenly delights. True gastro-porn heightens the excitement and also the sense of the unattainable by proffering colored photographs of various completed recipes. The gastro-pornhound can … moisten his lips over a color plate of fresh water crayfish au gratin à la Fernand Point. True, you cannot get fresh crayfish in the United States or indeed black truffles, three tablespoons of which, cut into julienne, are recommended by [one chef]. No matter. The delights offered in sexual pornography are equally unattainable.

It got me thinking...

I did take a cookbook to read in bed and picture myself trying a few cooking techniques.
I've given serious thought to buying some cooking toys... erm I mean tools. Like this suggestively-shaped handblender. Am I SATC's Samantha shopping for a vibrator?

Well truth is I do enjoy cooking more and more now - what started out of plain Singapore-induced boredom is getting to be quite a good hobby, provided that I put myself on a cookbook buying embargo.

Tried very hard to rope in my Thai colleague to be my guinea pig today. It's not as easy as you'd think - from what pieces of information I can gather, this is what she usually takes in daily.

Breakfast - Soya Milk, mixed with green tea and strawberry Nesvita cereal.

Lunch (all-day buffet actually) - Sunflower Seeds. Soya Milk.

Dinner - Fruits.

Alas, my menu of potato salad and corn and ginger soup could not entice her.

Apple and Cinnamon Pudding - from earlier

Some Other Time - First Post

2005-06-12T22:49:00.000+08:00

Well, finally started a blog about a zillion internet years after it's the 'in' thing. I think the hardest part was choosing the blog title, then it came to me browsing through some CDs... I picked up a Bill Evans album.

Some Other Time.

It wasn't the lyrics or the context of the song (more on this below), just the title kinda captures my mood now (not that I especially like myself for this). Apply for grad school? Some Other Time. Be a good boss and reply to that pesky, older-than-his-team-lead former team member's email 'Re: Give Me Some Non-bullsh*t carreer advice? Some Other Time.

The list goes on but I don't want to bore you guys.

Okay, got that confession out of the way. But I have to tell u that I really like the song... always reminds me of missed encounters, empty smokey bars late at night, aching loneliness, hopeless romantics. The lyrics are a lot like what i feel after flying back to Singpore from home:

Where has the time all gone to?
Haven't done half the things we want to.
Oh, well, we'll catch up
Some other time

This day was just a token,
Too many words are still unspoken.
Oh, well, we'll catch up
Some other time.

When Tony Benett sings 'Oh, well' it's with this sad resignation.... hurr

At least tonight I got some new trivia about the song though: when Googling the the lyrics just learned that the song, like a lot of jazz standards, was taken from a musical. This one is On the Town with music by Leonard Bernstein. It's about Two sailors finding romance on 24-hour leave in New York City and (new info again); later to be made into a film starring Frank Sinatra.

Anyways I gotta sign-off now, but 'Some Other Time' I'll tell you guys more about some things I like:

Bill Evans, jazz pianist
New eats in Singapore
my successful reproductions of celebrity cookbook recipes
Anarres

and probably quite a few things I hate too. Oh and more about shy old me.