The Early Years (2002-2005)

In Singapore, 1 September is Teachers’ Day, a day for remembering the contribution of teachers. So a heartfelt thanks goes out to all those who have taught me in school and in life, whether across the Pacific in America or back here - and deep thanks to my parents, both of who were teachers until their recent retirement and who continue to be my teachers till today.

I’ve got another indie rock DJing gig coming up at Hideout, 31B Circular Road, this Wednesday 31 August - I should materialise around 9.30pm and spin all the way till whenever the night eases out. If you want some idea of the kind of music I’ll be playing, here’s a set list of an earlier gig.

Man, the news about Hurricane Katrina is quite devastating - 80% of New Orleans evacuated. That’s the French Quarter above - deserted. Fingers crossed that its slight weakening wil save one of the world’s most distinctive cities from being destroyed. Quotes like this are quite scary:

Random photo from my Flickr set from Germany: I just thought the way this tree grew on the wall was interesting.

It’s Tests like the current England-Australia one that make me wish one didn’t have to pay extra for cricket on cable. Sounds like a corker of a game. Chasing 129 to win, with Shane Warne and Brett Lee bowling well, England take it by 3 wickets. Excuse any terminology mistakes - I do sometimes let slip (ha) some baseball jargon…

Paul Collins tracks the history of the T-shirt, and of slogans on T-shirts (with particular emphasis on those Happy Bunny tees), and I liked this little nuggets: I was astonished to discover this headline while paging through an old Chicago Tribune from June 10, 1897:

Caught “Betrayal” at the Singapore Repertory Theatre yesterday. Haven’t seen a Pinter play performed in years. Years, I said. And this is one of his best. Too sick to write a full-on proper review right now; that should appear somewhere over the weekend - but suffice it to say I thought the two male leads were really strong, particularly Simon Jones in the Robert role. All in all, a solid outing.

Together with Peter Schoppert (creator of the Public Art in Singapore site, but currently busy running the Singapore Writer’s Festival), I’ve started a group for Singapore Public Art on Flickr. So if you have any photos of works of fine art - sculptures or paintings, for instance - in Singapore that are in the public space (i.e. not in a museum or gallery), do join the group and add your photos. Works featured can be permanent or temporary - so if you have pics of the Botero sculptures that graced this city a while back, that’s fine.

How to tell a fake photograph. For Snopes fans. What a male Pill might mean. Interesting sociological implications. The Thumbsucker movie blog. Reminiscent of Zach Braff and Garden State. The stages of a relationship, as told through Hall & Oates song titles. Why, of all musicians in the world, do I share a first name with half of a particularly naff duo? (he asks as he proudly finishes alphabetising his album collection.)

Yes, I downloaded Google Talk. But since I figured it uses the Jabber protocol anyway, why bother adding yet another messaging client and wondering which one people use? So I’m sticking with Miranda. Here’s instructions on how to use Miranda with Google Talk and here’s instructions for GAIM/Adium/Trillian users.

Finally, I seem to be mostly unpacked and set up. Does anyone want a collection of Mixmag, Muzik, and other DJ magazines from around 1999-2002? Anyway, I found a report I did in secondary school titled, simply enough, “Chicks: A Report”, which cracked me up. (It was about an experiment relating the effect of feeding brewer’s yeast to chicks, naturally.)

No Jargon is a “campaign for web simplicity”. I don’t think this site qualifies - certainly there are moments where I am overly flowery - but plain English has always been a useful goal to strive towards.

The Guardian looks at the death of the blockbuster movie. So the ’event movie’ is dead? Woohoo!

Francis Ng’s sculpture “I Was Here” now stands outside the Esplanade is clearly playing with the idea of memory: how does one leave traces? Clearly sculpture and monuments have been methods of doing so in many societies - anything carved in stone is an attempt to preserve something about one’s life beyond one’s death. So Ng takes that act of memorialising to the logical extreme, creating a monument that states its symbolic meaning, combining signifier (stone monument) and signified (“I was here”).

Song on repeat at the moment: I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles In our eyes are mirror images and when We kiss they’re perfectly aligned And I have to speculate that God himself Did make us into corresponding shapes like Puzzle pieces from the clay

Over the last few years I’ve taken occasional photos of public artwork in Singapore - both permanent pieces and temporary ones. (Pictured here is the excellent First Generation, by Chong Fah Cheong.) So I’ve created a photo set of those photos - haven’t got many in it, admittedly, got to get down to scanning I guess. Any light you can throw on the artworks is welcome.

Sometimes issues of scalability make for fun outcomes in real life - such as the mismatch of bridal gowns on discount to the number of rabid brides-to-be looking for dresses that constitutes the annual Bridal Event at Filene’s Basement in Boston.

A funny photo from the always-excellent Satan’s Laundromat, an NYC photo blog: “Jesus, no smoking, bitch! I love New York.” Now there’s civic spirit for you. Taken from Satan’s Laundromat Canal Street pics.

Watched Dim Sum Dollies yesterday. I guess I didn’t find it as funny as some of the rest of the audience seemed to: a decent enough revue, but not as side-splitting as I was hoping for.

In response to a discussion over at a forum I frequent, here’s a list of the 10 books I would bring with me to a desert island (assuming I don’t need practical books such as the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook to teach me how to make fire without matches):