Showing posts with label swing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swing. Show all posts

Sunday, December 05, 2010

sour raindrops

On the bus on the way to work, passing Ang Mo Kio at 8 plus a.m. when golden sunshine is at its most glorious beauty, moving scenes play out as if it is a mini set I watch from the bus window. A long haired dark skinned man smokes on a little hill facing Caltex, his cigarette smoke illuminated against the golden rays. After Caltex, two Chinese men sit on pavement; one looks ahead with his tattered bag in his lap, one opens the day's papers. Moving on at regular speed, a maid pushes a baby on a little pink toy car. Behind is a scene of tall nice HDB flats. Should I think it's perverse or lovely?

At ALB we play with real memories, real people, real feelings. I am reminded of how the real reaches out from all the unreal we seem to be creating, when my father declines to attend the performance. Poor Engineer Mr. Ng is making me feel very emotional these days without realising it himself. Though eldest precious daughter Ng is also always giving dear Papa a lot of grief.

Looking back at looking back

I'm looking back a lot these days. Can't help it. Is this what they call the transition? If I go anywhere I only want it to be a place where I know how to make my dreams come true. Everything is then and now and how I thought life was ___ but it was ___. It's not such a tragedy because it's still wobbly jelly and not a dark hole but it still is a tragedy because now I know that all adults are people who believed in magic and spoke to themselves and played pretend; everyone had that in them, it's just varying degrees of letting go. When I listen to Lovely Rita it's the 17-year-old me in Sgt. Pepper mode, fancy-free at the garden tables. When I listen to Love Minus Zero/No Limit, it's old hot weekday afternoons that no longer are, it's all feelings I can't describe. Maybe that's why synaesthetics are so blessed. THE ONLY MAGIC POWER LEFT? The sages of today, they see things we don't, where are they?

Black-Beetle Bearded Man and Lovely Pirate Olive Oyl

It was the most beautiful dance I ever saw before my eyes.

Today at swing dance, my nervous friend was getting his bearings and consulting his manual of possible moves so I stood there waiting.

Black-Beetle Bearded Man had come from nowhere, an unfamiliar face (but so was I; maybe he is famous to all, unbeknown to me), a tall strong lanky body with a bearded face that somehow had a moustache that curled royally, and twinkling eyes. And she, the founder of the school, in her fifties I reckon, was in her pirate dress- half of it red striped with a qipao collar, the other half deep sea blue. And her red converse shoes as usual. They danced like pure magic. Hopping and swinging and tapping and polkadotting and his legs were like two jumpy grasshoppers and her wrinkles matched her clothes. It was like having googly glowing jelly move through your blood, watching them.

An old pot-bellied caucasian man in a purple shirt and high socks and sport shoes came too- another new face. He spent 15 minutes giving advice to a girl on how to dance, then rested on a chair. Another new face sat quietly on the floor with his backpack and legs wide open, observing everyone seriously. I left early to do office work due tonight and did not get to dance clumsily with any of them.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Rhyming Ode To Swing

i wish i could
oh yes i would
swing everyday
i'd be so gay
in a polkadot skirt
that would happily flirt
with the bowtie of
my charming partner.
And stripey lollipop socks!
(matching clothes are bollocks)
They'd put on some swing
my heart and synapses ring
we would do eight-count:
one two
three and four
five six
seven and eight
sweetheart
catapult
suzie-q
crazy legs
the trouble starts at six
count, i look at our feet
it's like our hearts don't meet
my mary-janes are
half a beat behind
i hope he doesn't mind
i just started learning
my heart is burning
can't square-off right yet
my kick-pumps aren't set
and mama said you must wear a bra
when dancing with men.
i like the orange dim
looking at her and him
twenties charleston flaps
jockey hip-to-hip gaps
grammophone dreams
floral armchair beams
papa said dance-floor love is a deception
a rosy musk-perception
but 2010 doesn't quite matter
-is he the mad hatter?-
on a rainy ol' swing sunday
while waiting for the next song to start.

Sunday, November 07, 2010

You know that other girls have never been my style




Suzie-Q
Catapult
Sweetheart
Crazy legs
Falling-off-a-log
Around-the-world
The Swim
And the bright, all-wonderful Charleston!

Sunday, October 31, 2010