The Early Years (2002-2005)

It’s August and the Sox, as always, are good enough to break my heart… I can’t believe we’re almost 3/4 of the way through 2003, but then it does seem like my army stint was a world ago…

Happy National Day to all fellow Singaporeans reading this… spent the earlier part of today listening to the directors’ commentary for About a Boy - man, the Weitz brothers are really cinematically literate! I do like their oeuvre: American Pie is one of the only so-called gross-out comedies that holds up with repeated viewings, probably because it actually features powerful women, and I found Down to Earth a good remake of Heaven Can Wait. But anyway, the commentary is interesting, because it’s a good reminder that directors constantly think of numerous things in crafting their movie even if the ordinary moviegoer can’t be expected to get them: the Weitzes talked about imitating Scorsese’s shots from Casino, and the switching of lenses, and all sorts of interesting technicalities. Question: why is it I can think of lots of pairs of brothers as directors (the Weitzes, the Farellys, the Coens), but not any pairs of sisters? Is it just because there aren’t enough women directors in Hollywood? Pity, really.

Apologies to readers of this blog for the tardy updating. [Tardy: Tardis: Doctor Who: I wish I had a time machine.] I plead the usual excuses: work, work, and work. Or, to be more specific, I’ve dedicated the first three months at work (June, July, August) to adjusting to being part of the workforce, which has consequently meant a reduction in time spent on expositing my thoughts to the world. It is nice having some spending power though, after 2.5 years of receiving a pittance - bought a Canon Powershot S45 digital camera, for my first foray into digital photography. Still, at least in sunlight, I think my Lomo takes much more interesting shots. I don’t even have time to surf for random things like I used to, although Friendster is a lovely procrastination tool (the fake Friendster profiles are the funniest: try searching for FirstName: hotasians Last Name: hotasians and then click through all of her friends). And of course, there’s been love. Ah. Those who know me enough know the details, and those who don’t don’t need to know.

It’s been a ragin’ month, all dizzy in a tizzy everything moving as if on impulse rather than under control everything coming up roses everything fine and dandy like sugar candy… that I’m not in, that I’m all out, that I’m barely coherent - a function of a dazed and confused used and abused July…

Sorry for going incommunicado for a month… came back from America and threw myself straight into work! Um… that’s it really. But if you want a true time-waster, catalogs.google.com is one of those “man, this is brilliant” applications…

Mmm. I knew how much I missed New York, but it’s still good to actually be back. Katz’s and the Second Avenue Deli, I salute thee!

Just watched X2. Brilliant stuff, and I love the bigger improved role for Rogue, my favourite of the X-Men. (X-Women, I suppose.) But the question remains: couldn’t Iceman just use his powers at the ending? Also, it’s interesting that the women all seem to have it together (Jean Grey and Storm fly the plane, Mystique’s a computer whiz), while the men may have powers but they’re all neurotic as hell - the tortured Wolverine, the repressed Cyclops, the uncertain Nightcrawler. Speaking of Nightcrawler, it was interesting to see Alan Cumming in a less campy role for a change. And I liked the way Bryan Singer managed to give moments to a whole panoply of X-Men, not just the big roles but also Siryn, Jubilee, Gambit, Kitty Pryde… apparently there was a Beast sequence too but I missed it. And Ian McKellen as Magneto escaping from the prison - brilliant action sequence, beautifully realised.

10 great episodes of the greatest television show of all time. Plus, my favourite of 300 reasons to love the Simpsons: “Ideally, you should be able to watch each episode anew at five distinct stages in life. As a toddler, marvelling at all the bright colours; as a teenager, enjoying the tilts at authority; as a student, relishing the in-jokes and movie references; as an adult, musing on the truths about life, love and death; and in your dotage, marvelling at all the bright colours.”

Wow - a new piece by Thomas Pynchon. How fitting that it’s an introduction to a new edition of Orwell’s 1984, given that Pynchon’s own works sound simultaneously fascinated and repelled by conspiracy theories (see V or The Crying of Lot 49).

Just spent the last 45 minutes playing David Gray’s “Babylon” and Ryan Adams’ “New York New York”, tributes to London and New York respectively, two of the cities that I really love. Then I viewed the Mike Figgis video for “Babylon” - the moment where the crowd is miked up and comes in the chorus just makes me so happy. Which is the point to say, I’ll be in New York for the next 3 weeks so updates may become slightly sporadic.

Oh great, I’ve finally recovered from economy-class syndrome caused by watching too many Singapore Film Festival movies, and then I realise I’ll be in New York for the Tribeca Film Festival…

I felt more than a bit of schadenfreude at Creed being sued for giving a piss-poor performance, but really, asking for a refund just because a band copped a rock-and-roll attitude? Don’t be ridiculous. (I wanted to mention the famous Dylan-goes-electric concert, which obviously some people in the audience weren’t expecting and hated, but this excellent Guardian article beat me to it) But I wouldn’t expect anything more from Creed fans - what else would you expect from the kind of people into such ultra-serious (read: sanctimonious) music but tut-tutting over drinking and drug-taking? Rock musicians drink? Heavens to Betsy!

I got the Japanese pressing of the Flaming Lips’ Fight Test EP, with their “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” cover and with a copy of the Fight Test music video. They’re still making really inventive videos, and indeed it seems there are quite a few great videos being made now (that Lego one for the White Stripes’ “Fell in Love With a Girl” even though no one I know just watches videos anymore… Is it function of age? I just don’t remember anyone talking much about videos in music publications whereas 10 years ago it seemed like they were part of the conversation about music, for better or worse. But anyway…. can someone get it in people’s heads that when I buy a CD I don’t just want to watch the enhanced part (in this case, the music video), I want to LISTEN TO IT? It’s very irritating to slip in a CD into my computer and not be able to PLAY SONGS OFF IT, WHICH A NORMAL CD WOULD LET ME DAMNIT DAMNIT DAMNIT.

I had such a case of insomnia last night, I ended up sleeping at 2pm. On the other hand, I did manage to watch loads of episodes of the Sopranos in a row, so the night wasn’t a total wash. In the space of two days, I’ve rewatched season 1 episode 4 to season 2 episode 12 - man, the whole Richie Aprile arc is creepy and great. Richie is like the Laertes to Tony’s Hamlet: he’s the one without self-doubt, with the absolute conviction of his ways - and thus a perfect foil to show that removing introspection isn’t necessarily the solution to Tony’s problems. The only problem with watching the Sopranos, really, is suddenly you feel like swearing like a motherf***ing made man…

So I realised, watching the Singaporean film festival, that I’m still holding on to the idea that if someone shared my taste in movies or music, that if I happened to see the same woman at all the same movies at the film fest or if I saw someone on the train carrying a Sahara Hotnights album, that it will be the marker of an instant deep connection… how very adolescent of me.

To Be Young, Gifted and Black Farewell Nina Simone.

I’ve decided to start blogging about the numerous shows I’m catching at the Singapore Film Festival, but since I just spent the last 8 hours in movie theatres I need to take a breather to collect my thoughts… meanwhile, here’s a Pier Paolo Pasolini poem - I loved the phrase “discouraged harmonicas”.

So we were trying to come up with good names for clubs over drinks tonight. My favourites: Snog; Coup D’etat; Veto. My favourite names of real clubs (regardless of actual quality)? Bed (Sheffield); Bungalow 8 (New York); Cream (Liverpool); Embargo (Singapore); Fabric (London); Pacha (Ibiza); Zouk (Singapore). Not that you need that great a name to be influential - the Paradise Garage is the mother club of lots of dance music, but as a name I would say it’s only above-average. But then, it did give its name to garage music… so what do I know? I think I could open a bar called Pushkin…

Don’t disturb the sexy Random thoughts: Someone should post a spoof personal on one of those sites, answering the standard questions in the style of Ted Bundy or something “Things I can’t live without: the death of others”…. punks jump up to get beat down… Pedestrian advocacy… tomorrow I get to eat a pound of (bovine) flesh… that Japan Herald comment from 1881, “the Japanese are a happy race, and being content with little, are not likely to achieve much” - for all of the Japanese economy’s current problems, who would say that now? How easy it is to assume racial characteristics are somehow fixed in stone… “Am I hot or not?” is the question of my generation, for better or for worse… the Boston closer-by-committee idea is sound, but the people they need to do it aren’t there… I want to be a male guitarist in an otherwise all-female band, kind of like the drummer in the Breeders…

Continuing this blog’s prattling on about all things White Stripe, here’s a “Meg White is a robot” page.