"What kind of nose?"

On the morrow Wat and the Dog Boy were the firmest of friends. Their common experiences of being stoned by a mob and then sacrificed by cannibals served as a bond and a topic of reminiscence, as they lay among the dogs at night, for the rest of their lives; and, by the morning, they had both pulled of the noses which Merlyn had so kindly given them. They explained that they had got used to having no noses, now, and anyway they preferred to live with the dogs.

p

The Sword in the Stone, T.H. White

My Grandmother

She kept an antique shop - or it kept her.
Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,
The faded silks, the heavy furniture,
She watched her own reflection in the brass
Salvers and silver bowls, as if to prove
Polish was all, there was no need of love.

And I remember how I once refused
To go out with her, since I was afraid.
It was perhaps a wish not to be used
Like antique objects. Though she never said
That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt
Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.

Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put
All her best things in one narrow room.
The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,
The smell of absences where shadows come
That can't be polished. There was nothing then
To give her own reflection back again.

And when she died I felt no grief at all,
Only the guilt of what I once refused.
I walked into her room among the tall
Sideboards and cupboards - things she never used
But needed; and no finger marks were there,
Only the new dust falling through the air.

Elizabeth Jennings

Pea-Trapping Moustaches

This time as the obsessive clingfilm feeling comes over me, I think of myself as an archaeologist. Very, very slowly unearthing treasures and making progress bit by bit. Using the brush to dust fossils gently. Taking days to restore an underground artefact. It helps in packing my whole room, and not get all dizzy and ganchiong. I even slow down my movements, and remember to breathe deeply (not at dusty areas though). Things I saw today- lynn's note from the end of secondary four on how she will miss her lamb, sushilla's comments for a lit essay, madame butterfly shoved into a box wrongly labelled XJ's Movies, my special pens! (one of them has a radar you can use to eavesdrop on conversations, the other has balls and a hoop for playing miniature basketball), endless paintings the kiddos did on saturday nights, sparkly old jewelly purse i never used, giam3 cai3 fading paper of Starlight that Harris did in class. I was feeling hopeless and wondering why I was keeping everything when I realised why. It's because when I grow old and am a granny I will go back to my childhood and my past and take out all the artefacts and things and put them all around the house, and examine them and look at them everyday. I will be surrounded by all my young things when I get old. Diary pages could line the toilet walls, old purses used, toys displayed, nonsensical paintings that now have no space to be anywhere hung. It would be marvellous, not sad. It wouldn't be to hopelessly nostalgically indulge in old memories, but to...live in another way. Anything can feel different if you change the way you think about it. And now on, I think I can deal with my sentimental habits in a healthy way.

But something my mother said scared me a little. She said that when I get to her age, even a room will not be enough to hold everything that I keep. And that is possibly true. But I think that is ok. I will have a room, all organised, for everything. The walls could all be painted funny colours, and with different areas of the room for different times of my life. It would be like walking into memories. The Room of Memories!

Found

a girl's best friend

It's been a few weeks, but here's me new bicycle. It's from a handsome, long-haired, lean uncle whose quiet son helps him out at his small bicycle shop in Sembawang. Every neighbourhood should have an uncle bicycle shop! (mine moved away. Uncle had two dogs, Mickey and Minnie, the absolute loves of his life) It's the little-known hardworking people like them that make Singapore special. It's things like that I'll miss if I ever move away, that'll drive me mad when I'm alone in wherever it is and i want to drink milo in the kopitiam cup among pajama-wearing people or slurp cheap and good hokkien mee at a kopitiam table with yeos chrysanthemum tea, or bring me bicycle to the corner shop, where uncle will be. Anyway, Uncle gave me a karang guni horn that a few of my little neighbours love to press, but they need both hands to create the sound.

Spartan's March

Suspended Cymbal Girl and Tambourine Girl

Back in the days, in the saliva-floor band room, we were on the other side of the partition, the side crammed with percussion instruments of all sorts. Timpanis, drum set, suspended cymbal, xylophones, huge chimes, a terribly big gong, endless files filled with old scores, all kinds of drumsticks and mallets, and a basket of random small instruments like castanets, maracas & triangles. We always made mistakes and even at the end of it all my percussive ability was rather pathetic. For four years I couldn't read notes (only rhythm but not do-re-mi) but I made it, evading xylophone parts. Once at an outdoor performance at Raffles City, I unconsciously vulgarly chewed gum throughout the performance and was punished by being made to guard the instruments while everyone gallivanted off during breaktime. Every Monday morning, we had to go early, the only morning we had to play the national anthem and school song for the school at the field instead of it coming through the intercom. When it was over and we had to listen to the boring Monday speech, we all sat on the track and picked at the little red-brown rubber bits. Best part was playing marching songs, they were the most glorious pieces! You felt so wonderfully smart in the uniform, shiny snare drum strapped over your body, marching in time, turning sharply, playing the snappy rhythm. (I still wish I were in a little marching band. We'd wear mad homemade costumes and march through streets playing magic songs) And now, my dear little sister is, lo and behold, in the same cca and same section, using my very first pair of drumsticks, playing from some of the same scores.

Ah Leaping and I, we had nicknames for everyone and laughed till we ached.

roll over the ocean, roll over the sea, go and do your part to build community

but you never talk to me. you always talk to peter.

Remember when we used to be obsessed with loveactually in jc? The time was sprinkled with the dust of some kind of simple glowing magic, in my mind it is (though 'growing up' was hard).

We would finish each others' sentences with quotes from loveactually, with the accents and timing all right. Desiree was obsessed with Glasgow love theme and Corrie played it endlessly on the piano. And having to watch it every christmas.

I wonder that the movie connected us, though I don't know exactly who us is. But I rewatched it again that day and felt that glow, which conjures images of the garden tables, big shady maroon umbrellas, beige classrooms, the glossy transversion bag I used to carry to school, carol's red and white shoes, cold milo from the canteen, and the wonderful simplicty of a black box with lights.

“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”

Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov

Bob Dylan- Oh Sister

with Scarlet Rivera, the violinist he picked up off the street and who joined the Rolling Thunder Revue.

ROLLING THUNDER SALTY THUNDER

I believe in music

There's something about hearing a song you love on the radio, or in a shopping mall, just when you least expected it. It's just not the same listening to it at home by yourself or plugged in on the train. It makes you want to jump up and float to the ceiling, declaring, 'That song, I love that song' Last friday, at ntuc, they played Beyond the Sea (I felt like waltzing among the cereals and cheeses and purposefully shopping Singaporeans), and just now on gold 90 fm they played Beautiful Boy. And now as I type, Natalie Cole's This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) has just come on! The Parent Trap!

This will be
You and Me
Eternally
Yes Sirree

:-D

Is this strange or what? The Lovin' Spoonful's Do You Believe In Magic has just come on. It's midnight and the world is right again, all because of music.

p.s. Singapore really needs a radio station that plays Bob Dylan, with djs who really DIG oldies, can tell you about Garfunkel's Voices of Old People experiment, and will play the loudest most spirited songs of The Who late at night for whoever's listening.

I wanna play cricket on the green
Ride my bike across the stream
Cut myself and see my blood
I wanna come home all covered in mud

I will be your Ferdinand and you my wayward girl

Last night my little miss sunshine (my primary one cousin) and I painted after dinner. She painted a rainbow coloured limousine with many levels, and later when she was peeing she said, 'Wah, your house so nice leh...photographer a lot of money right?' And I realised she didn't realise that I'm still a student. I tried to explain that the money came from my father's job and when she asked what his job was the simplest way I could explain it was, 'He builds HDB flats' and her jaw dropped as she was pulling up her panties. (Earlier, over dinner, her primary four brother asked what our other auntie's job is, and I said she's an astronaut. And he said, '...You're lying right? She never even go to the moon.')

Later, little miss sunshine lamented on her friendship woes.

'AIYAH they keep saying, you must do this, you must do that, you must this you must that, if not I won't be your BF anymore!'

'Just because I am their BFF, they think they can get anything!'

'It's a bit....childish, you know.'

Elope with me miss private and we'll sail around the world

This morning on the train, standing in the corner near the door, was a rather short chinese guy who at first glance would look like a typical sleepy psp-obsessed guy hunched over completely engrossed in his game. But decidedly not. He had red panda eyes, short hair that ended at the back in a long ponytail, and the slightest paunch. He wore huge rubber orange and grey Sumajin headphones, a big rather old black shirt, with some shapes as the design in front, black wrist-sweatbands, black jeans and smart black shoes. On his left he had a waistpouch for what looked like another psp. On his right was another waistpouch for his handphone, and he had a huge grey and black bag slung on his shoulder. And a big maroon umbrella hanging from his wrist. All in all he looked ready for the games convention. The train was terminating at ang mo kio and we were all advised to take the train on the middle platform, which was already waiting for us when we reached. When the train doors opened, he almost ran out (undoubtedly to get a seat on the middle platform train) and as he turned I saw the back of his shirt and it said in big white letters, Anything Is Possible.

(I felt like he was in a computer game and I was watching the game. Later on the new train he sat with his umbrella behind his back at the very last seat (where two people can sit) and when he bent down to take out his shoes the umbrella slid and hit on the head the sleeping old man next to him, who glared at him till he sat up again and realised it.)

Oh Mama, can this really be the end, to be stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis blues again

I have decided on a petite mission for next year. I have vague ideas of going to the UK after graduating, driving around little towns and b&bs and visiting everyone I know who is studying or living there. But this mission is to see Bob Dylan on his Never Ending Tour when he goes there (I hope he does go there next year). This year he stopped at Cardiff, Wales. That's where Harris is moving back to. And the set list for his 28 April 2009 concert at Cardiff includes Mr. Tambourine Man, and Tangled Up In Blue and the above. Imagine swinging by Cardiff to visit old Harris and then going to watch Bob Dylan in concert. Who cares if he is a croaking crunchy rough old grasshopper, I have decided I can't not go see Robert Zimmerman this lifetime, like how he had to look for Woody Guthrie at his sickly bedside.

john paul george ringo and yoko

The contrasts grew even more stark as the years went on. McCartney increasingly composed everyman narratives and celebratory calls; Lennon was writing from what he saw as a more authentic and troubled viewpoint. (I disagree) "Paul said, 'Come and see the show,'" Lennon said later. "I said, 'I read the news today, oh boy.'"

I never really knew how the beatles broke up but when I saw the Rolling Stones September issue on it, it seemed the right time to read about it. It was sad and nasty, but here's a funny bit:
(p)
There were only two options, "to oppose Yoko and get the Beatles back to four or to put up with her." He opted for the latter, because he didn't want to lose John. In addition, he said, he felt he had no place in telling John to leave Yoko at home. It did, however, always rankle McCartney when Ono would refer to the Beatles without the "the" - as in, "Beatles will do this, Beatles will do that." Paul tried to correct her - "Actually, it's the Beatles, luv" - but to no avail.



"It was all such a long time ago," George Harrison said years later. "Sometimes I ask myself if I was really there or whether it was all a dream."

I know you, I walked with you once upon a dream

This is a post about old memories.

That day, I went with my grandmother into the exact house that she, my grandfather, his mother, my father and his brother and two sisters stayed in from 1973 to 1980. How did we manage that, you might ask. When they moved out of the flat, they sold it to a neighbour who was sharing their own house in the same block with a relative. And that neighbour has lived there for the past 29 years. It is a small 2-room flat in Queenstown, and coincidentally, I was sent to photograph for a crime at the block just next to it a few months ago when I was still working. The flat is tiny, and my grandparents shared one bedroom while my father, 2 aunties, uncle and their grandmother shared the other room, with my great-grandmother sleeping on the lower bunk of the bed, my father on the upper bunk (I guess he got the privilege from being the oldest) and the three other kids on mattresses on the floor. It is somehow a magical thought to me, to imagine this in my head. My grandmother wanted to take me there to take a look and so she could chat with her neighbour, whom she was almost sure would be in, even after all these years of not knowing her old neighbour's schedule. We were lucky that day; if the old neighbour's granddaughter hadn't been sick and had gone to school instead, she would have been out sending her granddaughter to school. When we went in, I tried to visualize my family inside there. My father would have been 13 when they moved in and 20 when they moved out. My aunties and youngest uncle would have been between 12 and 7 when they moved in. The tiles were green and somewhat mosaic patterned, and they were the exact same tiles. I felt...heavenly stepping on the same tiles that they'd stepped on then! And the room tiles were the same too. I tried to rub my feet more on the floor to feel the floor they had stepped on. I imagined my grandmother cooking dinner in the kitchen as the sun set, and the children sleeping in the bedroom, or doing their homework in the living room. One thing I know did happen was that my father watched the historic Borg vs Mcenroe tennis match there till his tv smoked and died and the next day he realised the match was a historic one (head slapping). Also, my grandmother went jogging every morning nearby. She said the lift used to break down so often that sometimes, after she cooked dinner and was wondering where my grandfather was, he would call home, sounding very angry (he is a very impatient man, just like my brother) and say that he'd be home late because the bloody lift broke down again and he was so mad he didn't want to climb the stairs and would wait till it was repaired. Anyway, that day, my grandmother chatted with her old friend, and I resisted the urge to take photos and instead told myself I could only take one, and in the end I got one of her and her friend with as much of the living room as I could squeeze into the shot.

Today is the 9th anniversary of my grandfather's death, and it still feels surreal. National flags everywhere are like little trumpets that sometimes remind me that today is his death anniversary.

Today my mother and I spent nearly all day packing (once and for all, she said, or she THINKS!) childhood things (of me, my brother and sister). Though we didn't pack every single thing and touch every single box, anyone who has done anything like this can say that it is somewhat like living your life again in a day and seeing it from a funny point of view. One minute you're up, floating in the marvellous clouds of magical memories, the next you're sailing along melancholically in the sea of nostalgia. And all the while there is a feeling of soft delirium. Though our packing was actually noisy, with gasps and shouts. We were quite thorough and organized a whole cupboard-under-the-stairs, mainly sorting old games, toys, art supplies and clothes, HEAPS of them.

I found my old pink knotts berry farm shirt, old winnie the pooh shirt I wore to speech and drama on sunday mornings, the red sailor shirt I wore one national day and have a photograph in outside the house with my brother when we were a few years old, when national day didn't mean anything more than a public holiday and trip to the zoo, my sister's abc pajamas, and a hundred (literally) other items of clothing, each of which trigger some memory and feeling. Needless to say we kept a lot and my mother was at times found to be madder than me, keeping cloth diapers ('of course lah!') and other things I wanted to put in the to-throw-or-donate heaps. Our keeping quite relies on the idea that I will someday have children and then can let them wear some of those clothes and also a brilliant idea I had today called The Quilt, which shall someday be sewn from pieces of these old clothings (those that cannot be worn anymore) and then I shall have a blanket of my old memories.

We found packets of our milk teeth, sorted into three packets for the three of us, each tooth wrapped in a small piece of paper, and upon opening, my mother's drawing indicating which tooth it was and recording of roughly when it dropped and maybe a detail on where it dropped (in class) or how it dropped (removed by grandmother).

We also packed things like my super sticker factory box (yes, just the box, which I can't bear to throw), my first colour pencil set that came in a slim tin holder, my old band uniform (hurrrrrray), flowery dresses I used to wear on special occasions. I wonder how much of one's childhood things influences the growing and adult mind. Do I like flowery clothes now because I used to wear them in childhood? Is it because the colour of the cover of the tin colour pencil set is dark pink (and I used to look at it a lot) that I love that colour now? I really wonder whether our loves and hates and longings now can somehow be traced through microscopic nerve connections in the mad human brain to something far back in childhood that we're trying to get back to. What a sad idea though.

And hoarding is something I just can't help. Sometimes I wish I could part with my things, and be free in that way. But the truth is I sometimes cannot bear to part with even a strand of hair. Ah well, clutter clutters up the mind, says the woman who kept the cloth baby diapers of her children.

punch-drunk

And all at once, I knew at once, I knew he needed me

Until the day I die, I wonder why, I knew he needed me

It could be fantasy oh... or maybe it's because...

He needs me He needs me He needs me He needs me He needs me He needs me!

p

The same song was in the 1980 Popeye movie with Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall.

p

This is the marvellous magical moonlit bit of He Needs Me in Popeye:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEWswHtQUkc

For the part in Punch-Drunk Love, I'll leave you to watch it yourself.

Sunday Sweethearts

Sunday morning at Pasir Ris Park

p

p

What I heard on the train last night-

p

Boy: Mummy, can I watch Michael Jackson tonight please? Please Mummy please.

Mummy: No, you must finish your Chinese homework first.

p

Boy: Mummy, mummy, look, we are so high! We are above the cars! Mummy why are we so high?

Mummy: That's because we are above ground, not under ground.

Boy: Why are we above the ground?

Mummy: Because that's how they built some parts of the mrt.

Boy: Why can't all be under ground?

Mummy: ...Good question. You should write to the LTA to ask them that.

Boy: (pause) What is LTA?

Mummy: Land Transport Authority.

Boy: Transformers...

Mummy: Not transformers. The government cannot make all the train tracks under ground because sometimes there are stones they cannot remove or other reasons. And they cannot make it all above ground because some places are very crowded.

p

Boy: (jumping up and down) Please Mummy please can I watch Michael Jackson later?

Mummy: What did Mummy say just now?

Boy: I just do one more page of Chinese then can already?

Mummy: Maybe you shouldn't have played computer games last night. If you hadn't played you'll be able to watch Michael Jackson tonight.

Boy: (regretfully) Yeah.....

Mummy: If you had woken up earlier today to do your Chinese homework, you would be able to watch Michael Jackson tonight.

p

Later they got off at the same stop and as they walked off through a sheltered walkway, the boy jumped to hit something and it scattered over the ground. Mummy was very angry and stood there scolding him and made him pick up the litter he created. I don't know, there was just something about her that made her seem a special good mummy despite the sternness and talks of homework.

i'd like to be, under the sea, in an octupus' garden with you

On September 9 2009 (090909) a box set of all the Beatles cds, remastered (though I'm not sure really what the word means) will be released, each with a mini documentary on the making of each album. That's the only part I am really interested in but the Beatles Anthology might be a better watch! 090909 is also the release date of Beatles Rock Band- yikes! just creepy.

p

Today I tried altering purple penang pants and I did it most badly and illogically and my grandmother came and told me to have patience. 'I don't like to do things anyhow,' she said. 'I want to do them properly and neatly.' In the end I did it in her neater way; I hope I will remember her words when I am old and still lacking patience (i will be unpicking my grandchildren's homemade pajamas and sewing on messy stitches and saying to myself, Ah, this will just make their pajamas look more special!) Oh, this makes me think of her now nearly weekly agitated spurts on finding a boyfriend and how she said that night not to be too fussy and to settle for one ('Aiyoh, don't make me worry! I worry everyday!'). So, patience, my friends, when it comes to mending your clothes, but when it comes to waiting for true love, make haste and arrete the fret of the grandmothers of the world.

13 July

Our magic 3 hour forest walk <*:-)

wah lau eh

A part of the photo department- the man in the middle is a legend to me, and the guy behind got his foot sprained while chasing a famous actor on one of those mad squeezing assignments, and there's Judith, the photo technician and spyer on all goings-on. With this job, I understood for real for the first time what it really meant- the joy and pain of work. It really is an incredible job, making art of real life and meeting all kinds of people and going to all sorts of places and situations. I can't quite grasp how to explain it, but it will always be to me in some way and in some reality the best job in the world.

and now, Pulau Pinang. We stayed on Lorong Love the first night in a backpacker's hostel (Old Penang Guesthouse, an old shophouse), our roommates were a taiwanese mother and daughter who rented a motorbike and went around to kampungs and fishing villages themselves! She (the former) wore a skimpy red silk nightie to sleep and walked very loudly on the wooden floor in the corridor, i think it's because she couldn't read english and there were Walk Silently signs.


Famous Keng Swee/Keng Kwee Street chendol, or what Carol calls Violent Chendol, because of the psychotic violent way the auntie scoops and mixes the ingredients while apparently giving her competitor directly across the narrow street an evil glare.

A beautiful temple where we prayed and spent the lovely evening sitting and watching the people go by. Some would go by on their motorbikes or cars, slow down near the temple and then raise their hands in prayer before continuing on. A few slowed down just to gawk at us japanese schoolgirls.


Caretaker of the temple, good friends of the economic analyst we met there who kept asking us what we think of LKY.

Ho Auction room (on the left)

On our last day we decided to look for the famous nyonya kueh (that Carol's mother might have seen on a pck show that went there) and so we dilligently read the map and made it, but nearly missed it because the road sign of Jalan Mesjid was so old and invisible.

Hardworking sweating uncle cutting up hundreds of kuehs for a large order.

His wife, father and auntie inside hard at work rolling dough for the curry puffs. They were wonderfully nice and gave it to us for free in the end.

HAHAHA. Spotted at the heritage walk where there were many old shophouses. They screamed and shielded their faces while holding on to their sandwiches and lunchboxes. The uncle said he sends them to and from school everyday.

Johnny reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while we gallivant outside.

The women in the sea are arabic women clothed from top to toe. They got soaked and all seemed to be having a super fun time.

Alan, the taxi driver we found on the first day and with whom we went to quite a few places! His dream is to backpack in Europe with his friend who can speak English (he can't), but he is saving up first.

Air Itam village, a wonderful place to be.

The super famous Asam Laksa stall in Air Itam that Carol ate from when she was little, and we found it. Hello Uncle!

Her Asam Laksa. What a legend.

My best-ever penang hokkien mee from across the road, and I persuaded the Uncle to let me carry it over (to the Asam Laksa on the opposite side) and he agreed and cleaned his Jacob tray for the deed.

A girl who was wandering around the Penang Hill railway.

The strenuous walk (for older people) down from Kek Lok Si Temple. I tried to say that the walk is quite taxing, but I think she couldn't hear me well and said, 'oh thank you!'

On the 15-hour rickety train ride home. The food is cooked in the dining car, and we had sandwiches, fried rice, beehoon and I had milo four times that day. The cook was bored and showed us magic tricks before a hairdresser from Ipoh joined in.

I love Pulau Pinang.