A Movie Review: Rainbow

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

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...

... 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 6% 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

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

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

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

... 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.

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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

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

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

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

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