Scenes from Oldboy are still fresh in my mind. Here's some trivia, thanks to IMDB.

• Based on Japanese Manga "Oldboy" by Minegishi Nobuaki and Tsuchiya Garon.
  
• Four live octopuses were eaten for the scene with Dae-su in the sushi bar, a scene which provoked some controversy abroad. When the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes, the director thanked the octopus along with the cast and crew.
  
• Choi Min-sik trained for six weeks and lost twenty pounds to get in shape for the role of Dae-su, and did all of his own stuntwork.
  
• The telephone number (08-6600330) which is supposed to go to Oh Dae-su's daughter's foster parents home in Sweden, actually has been "shut down requested by the owner of the number" (that's what the voice says when you call the number). But you are referred to another number (08-54589400) which goes to "The Embassy of the republic of Korea" in Stockholm, Sweden.
  
• The famous one-take corridor scene was shot in three days.
  

Official Cannes site on Oldboy.

Another review, from Nixflix here.

I can't find the official Korean website, so the Japanese one will have to do.

The Oldboy Ultimate Edition DVD set comes in an all-copper case. Pretty! (but not worth the price tag imho.)

Let's see --

• First Kim Possible (together with Fillmore!, the only Disney animated series I can stomach), then
  
• Gundam SEED Destiny episode 4. Next
  
• the final installment of Gundam SEED (at long last) followed by
  
• Episodes 2 and 3 of the Macross Zero OVA (watched the first in the wee hours of the morning when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep). Breathtaking dogfights and CG. Then
  
• Franz Ferdinand music videos (didn't know the band members were all art students, but you can guess that they're fans of constructivist art), and last but not least
  
• Korean revenge flick Oldboy. Devilishly stylish, wickedly clever. Miss at your own expense.

Yeah, pretty much spent my Saturday watching stuff and sneaking in snatches of JLPT revision.

Depression claims another young, successful writer. R.I.P. Iris Chang.

It's interesting to see how Today and The Straits Time reported Senior Minister of State for Health Dr. Balaji Sidasivan's speech last night. The ST article played down Balaji's comments about gays and omitted his criticism of Fridae.com, which the Today article, which you can read here, picked up.

On the other hand, Today omitted Balaji's rationale for the different suggested approaches towards gays and promiscuous heterosexual males. Not that that rationale makes much sense to begin with:

As for heterosexual men who have casual sex abroad, he felt different measures were necessary. Dr Balaji said many were poorly educated, making it difficult to get the prevention message across.

"If the CDC can screen high-risk Singaporeans at our borders when they return, we may be able to protect Singapore women from catching Aids from these men."

I'd like to know how a "high-risk" person can possibly be identified. Can you pick them out with a MINDEF thermal scanner? Don't people lie on questionnaires? Besides, I suspect his premise -- that the majority of men who have casual sex abroad are poorly-educated -- is wrong.

And why is the gay community being singled out? The ST article states outright:

Overall, heterosexuals account for 80 per cent of HIV patients.

So wouldn't it make sense for the CDC to concentrate its efforts on heterosexual males? Instead of breathing down the neck of Action for Aids?

Not all of the ST is fluff. From time to time, you get lucid commentary like:

Nov 6, 2004
THINKING ALOUD
Women have moved on but society's in time warp
By Zuraidah Ibrahim
Political Editor

EDUCATED women here have been getting the metaphorical black eye or two lately.

How's this for starters: This week, to snag some publicity for a birth control programme, a committee chided tertiary-educated women for going for abortions, citing how the number of abortions among this group had seen a three-fold rise since 1988.

Riding on this statistic, a committee member rued the sorry state of educated women, adding that some who went to his clinic for abortions told him they didn't want babies to block their career paths.

What these statements omitted to mention was the inconvenient fact that the total number of tertiary-educated women had also jumped - four-fold. In other words, the proportion of tertiary-educated women going for abortions has actually declined.

One wonders, too, if the doctor was too quick to suggest that married women were torn between child and ambition, as if these were the only factors at play.

The choice may not be so cut-and-dried. Even if work gets in the way, it is hardly fair to characterise all the women concerned as heartless climbers of the corporate ladder, the way some of these discussions are wont to do.

The woman may be driven more by fear than by ambition - the fear of companies not willing to hire pregnant women, or of juggling the bundle of joy and the burden of work with a husband who is not willing to share the load.

The main point that the committee was trying to make was a valid one: educated Singaporeans who are not ready for children should know better than to resort to abortions; they should avoid conception through birth control.

But, have you noticed how the onus is placed on the woman? The experts could have chosen to highlight the fact that a rising number of tertiary-educated men are making their wives pregnant before they are ready for it.

No, instead, the accusing looks are directed at the women. It is as if Singapore's men share no responsibility for birth control; as if they are innocents seduced into surrendering their seed by the predatory females of the species.

One doctor on the committee acknowledged that part of the problem could be that the gap between marriage registration and traditional ceremonies made it embarrassing for these women if they became pregnant.

This is revealing of the state of morality and men-women relationships here. But more of that later.

Next, witness the letters to the Forum page lamenting the Singapore woman's lack of womanliness, her 'barbed exterior' and her insistence on putting career above everything else.

The onslaught against the Singapore woman comes amid this vexing concern that more men here are marrying foreigners or keeping them as mistresses. The prevailing sentiment - if the letter-writers and these men who marry foreigners are to be believed - is that women here are too difficult and therefore deserve this fate of being passed over for foreign women.

The presumptuousness of these letters in assuming that every woman's desire is to be wedded is exceeded only by their sheer chauvinism.

What about the role men play? How do they contribute to keeping a relationship happy and healthy?

The discussions, while they may be passed off as just idle chatter, reveal much about the mindset that still govern all of our lives here.

Singapore women have made enormous leaps in education and many have become independent, strong-minded, driven people, no different from Singapore men bred on the same ideals.

But here's the rub: The men just have not kept up.

More of them seem to be caught in a time warp. A time when women stayed at home, cooked and took care of their men's needs or, in a slightly updated version, women went to work but still found themselves left with taking care of the house.

In the second version, the men want their women to be their economic equals. But in everything else, they want to be more equal than their women.

This mismatch between what Singapore women have become and what Singapore men still are is really the reason behind the recent letters berating women and why it's so convenient to place the blame on abortions by educated women - on only them.

Society has some catching up to do.

For some reason, a woman's advance is always measured in terms of trade-offs she must make - between career and family - whereas a man's is never that.

In politics too, women politicians are constantly being asked that question. Few of us journalists ever ask male politicians about the trade-offs they make.

This mindset seeps into many other decisions - including whether to have or keep the baby. The responsibility of keeping the baby as implied by the doctor rests with women.

And worse, for those women who have to get rid of their babies because they have not gone through their traditional vows, why the insistence on face? What is being transgressed here? Society's expectations that a couple must not have copulated before marriage? Or, the veil of hypocrisy that it goes on but let's not tell the whole world?

If the marriage is legal, so should the baby-making be.

But no, for the sake of maintaining some myths about female virginity and tradition, abortion is the chosen way out.

The expectations on Singapore women are huge. At the workplace, they are supposed to be equal to men even though they earn less. At home, they contribute to the family income yet bear the larger burden of rearing children.

Yes, I know, there will be men who will say they are doing their fair share, they are as liberated as their women.

I have met these specimens too and some are very dear to me, but I would hazard a guess they are not the overwhelming majority of men.

For all that they have delivered, Singapore women have a right to be demanding and, yes, difficult even.

And if women decide not to have children, don't be quick to blame them. Men, and the rest of society, should also look at themselves in the mirror.

Well said! But is anyone listening?

The newly revamped Straits Times website now requires registration to view anything beyond the present day's issue. An unfortunate result is that all my links to the ST's columnists now require registration. Phooey.

JLPT's a month away. Ugh.

Found an old scrapbook while cleaning my room. The pages reek of teenage angst - did I really write all that?

btw, does anyone know the author of this poem?

The Swimmer

Windhover, gliding
On the blue firmament
Of noonday water
I ride at ease
And see below me
Fathomed in twilight
Primeval mountains
Under seas.

Barnacle-snowcapped,
Their peaks, sliding
Beneath the wing-tip
Which is my hand,
Shadow the gorge
And the dark weed stirring
Its forest fleece in a
Tidal wind.

If God, dividing
The light from the darkness,
Moved on the face of
Earlier seas
And called forth creatures
From every crater,
Where once erupted
Anemones

(The great eel
As long as a valley,
The lunar crab
On a hill's brow
Squid with the cataract
Tentacles tumbling
Waterfall-white to the
Rocks below)

What man dare fathom
This land's mystery
With no lodestar
To bear him light
But a constellation
Of sunstruck fishes
Falling in fragments
Through the night?

The formatting's slightly off. The 4th and 8th lines of each stanza are not supposed to be up against the left margin.

Bride and Prejudice was trite and not very funny. It's amusing to play "spot the Bollywood influence" and the gorgeous Aishwarya Rai is a joy to watch, but otherwise it was pretty much a waste of time.

Fresh trivia from my alumni magazine: Joshua Marston, director of Maria Full of Grace, was from UChicago. AM '94 in Political Science, then went off to NYU for a Master's in filmmaking.

There's still hope for me then :p

Hence, as a token of our appreciation to you for making road safety a priority, we have enclosed a brochure with discount coupons and attractive offers from our participating partners in road safety.

Why are the Traffic Police sending me junk mail?

There's very little religious commentary in Maria Full of Grace, so don't be misled by the clever poster. The merits of the film should be sufficient to reel in an appreciative audience however. Maria is solidly put together, managing to avoid moralising or sentimentality for the most part and fusing gritty reality with sympathetic characters. The film slows down a bit in the second half, but the suspenseful moments are well-crafted. The very emphatic Catalina Sandino Moreno, playing the titular character, truly carries the film.

Mmmm... Routledge Classics. Thought never looked better. And affordable too!

Bush is winning. Crap.

Orwell's cruellest insight is that people have little desire to know the truth. This is an important challenge to a certain kind of optimism in the liberal tradition. The core texts of liberal toleration, such as Milton's Areopagitica and Mill's On Liberty, take for granted that individuals will wish to know the truth. They contend that in the absence of censorship, truth will eventually emerge and be recognised as such. But even in democracies this may not always be true.

Shades of 1984? Definitely.

In the world Orwell describes, it is not socialism that has failed, but rather modernity and mass democracy.

And yet the world doesn't feel smaller. If anything, the erasure of boundaries can make the world feel intimidatingly large, too large to feel at home in. These movies play on our unarticulated sense of that scary bigness, and they posit the feeling of being lost as the unavoidable consequence of a world in which we can go almost anywhere -- instantly, through virtual means, or in a few hours thanks to air travel. Some of these movies ("Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," "Irma Vep," "Lost in Translation") feature characters in foreign ports of call; in others ("Hamlet," "Nadja," "What Time Is It There?") the characters are just as lost in the places they call home. These are not xenophobic films, not movies that preach the virtues of sticking close to safe, familiar surroundings. They are about a world where the safe and familiar are being erased...

It's nice to know I'm not alone, even if the article is slightly overwrought. The author's defense of Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is, well, "unique" I suppose.

Nah, Kaena: The Prophecy wasn't very good. The animation was decent, the camera angles kept changing like an epileptic dragonfly, and for some reason the frame rate obviously slowed at several points throughout the movie. A waste of Anjelica Huston's and the late Richard Harris's voices.

The 2046 OST really grows on you. The music didn't particularly strike me during the movie, except for Connie Francis's extremely seductive Siboney and the Xavier Cugat pieces. After listening to it two or three times though, the soundtrack becomes addictively melancholic.

Blogger's been screwing up more and more often. Pages don't load, and entries are repeated.

I don't know where the sunbeams end
and the starlight begins
it's all a mystery
and I don't know how a man
decides what's right for his own life --
it's all a mystery

And life goes on.

I thought Maggie Cheung was very good in Clean. Acting in three different languages is no mean feat, and on top of that it was a very unusual role for her compared to what she's been cast before. A former drug junkie trying to pick up the pieces of her life after prison and attempting to build bridges with her estranged son.

(Perfect for the Yellow Ribbon Project. That is, if the authorities can stomach a film that references 80's punk rock culture, shows a legal system that lets drugtakers off relatively lightly, illustrates alternative lifestyles with humanity, and manages to convey feelings without sinking into melodrama.)

Possibly the most interesting thing about 5x2 (Cinq Fois Deux) is probably the reverse chronological order. Francois Ozon's latest starts with a divorce and ends with the first meeting of the two protagonists. Suddenly every gesture, word and incident takes on additional weight.

I have no doubt that corporations can and will screw the public if they can get away with it, although I suppose many people will disagree with me. This is not to say that I don't like free markets -- I'm very much in favour of letting market forces determine the allocation of most goods. The problem is that real life hardly functions as smoothly as simplified textbook models (Those are only aids to illustrate a principle. Only aids!). Market failure happens too often and this is where things get interesting.

Anyway, I tend to be be left-leaning when it comes to intellectual property rights. Having written on the 1998 U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act and discovering for myself how industry concerns essentially dominated policymaking debates on copyright and digital media, I found a sympathetic voice in Tan Min-Liang's commentary on the IP provisions of the much-lauded (well, in The Straits Times anyway) U.S. - Singapore Free Trade Agreement signed last year.

Already I'm seeing versions of the DMCA being replicated in the proposed amendments to our copyright laws -- in particular the controversial law that makes communicating a means of infringing illegal, not just the act of infringement. And if anyone thinks Tan's claim that the IP regulations were meant to favour U.S. companies is exaggerated, think again.

/sigh

Ah well.

(You didn't recognise Puff. And I know a cafe that only plays The Beatles, albeit from before they started drugs. Am I too late?)

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff, oh

Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.
Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee.

Together they would travel on boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on Puff's gigantic tail
Noble kings and princes would bow whene'er they came
Pirate ships would lower their flags when Puff roared out his name, oh

CHORUS

A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys
Painted wings and giants' rings make way for other toys.
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar.

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.
Without his lifelong friend, Puff could not be brave
So, Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave, oh

CHORUS

A very brief listing, because this format and my words are best suited for this:

UNIFEM Singapore and The Substation organised a charity screening of Lilja 4-Ever on Friday evening. The food was good and the movie was depressing. It hits hard, but in an extremely predictable way that strays a little too close to cheesiness. (Thank you for the ticket Shirley!)

Wild Rice's Visit of the Tai Tai on Saturday was impressive in all aspects.

Luna-id's staging of The Physicists was also excellent, but I felt it was paced too quickly for the gravity of the script to sink in. The set design was especially clever -- halfway through the fake walls of the first set are literally pushed down to create a new set for the changed circumstances of the second and third acts. After the play, we hung out at Cafe Iguana for a bit, partaking of their cheap(er) alcohol.

Good memories. Good memories!

Just then, he heard Yao Surong singing. Yao Surong cried while she sang. When she performed in public, some people paid to hear her sing, but others paid to see her cry. This was an irrational place and many people did irrational things. So, shedding tears became a kind of performance and everybody said she sang well.

-- Liu Yi Chang, Intersection (Dui Dao)

Before we could all sink our teeth into yesterday's SFS offering The Story of the Weeping Camel, there was the small matter of the SFS Annual General Meeting. Kenneth -- SFS President, sci-fi aficionado, die-cast toy collector -- gave an explanation of the budget and expenses. Then he nominated a list of committee members for the 2004/05 year. No-one objected, and voila! Welcome to the new Committee, which isn't very different from the old Committee at all.

To an outsider, this process probably isn't "democratic". However no-one doubts the experience and expertise of the existing members and the fruits of their efforts are very much visible and tangible. Why mess with a winning formula? Moreover, they are all volunteers. Sure, they get free movie tickets and priority invites to events that the SFS co-organises, but for working adults the time committment involved is significant. After all, time outside the office suddenly takes on additional value that wasn't there before becoming a cubicle slave. To spend so much of that time on film (which is a distinctly individual, intangible, even unproductive-in-a-material-sense experience) implies a love for the art enough to dispel any doubts as to the sincerity of the Committee Members.

Now, governance of a city or country bears very little relation to running a film appreciation society built on the backs of volunteers and member contributions. It stands to reason then, that the methods of electing national leaders should not be the same.

But I've digressed. This was initially supposed to be a post about the admiration I have for the SFS Commmittee Members. During the AGM Kenneth reminisced about some of the Committee members, providing us glimpses into the lengths they have gone to for love of film. I want to be able to lose myself in something like those people seem to have, but I don't know why I never could and still can't.

btw, The Story of the Weeping Camel is straightforward and unpretentious. Very interesting in that it provides an intimate glimpse into the life of a Mongolian family in the Gobi Desert.

I'm an uncle twice over now. Isabelle Lim was born today at 10.33 am. :D

Surely some of you out there must remember Transformers. An evil, corrupt version of Optimus Prime -- paragon of all that is good and holy as far as giant shape-changing robots are concerned -- is deliciously profane, somehow.
 

Am fairly annoyed after being told that I wasn't entitled to the 10% discount that Singapore Film Society members get when they buy DVDs at Commercial Press bookstores here. I showed the counter staff my gaudy SFS membership card and the pair consulted another saleswoman but to no avail.

I'm going to pursue the discount anyway because I want to find out where the miscommunication took place. Even if it means that I have to summon the manager every time I want to get the discount there, at least I will know.

The moral of the story? Paying for your items 3 minutes before closing time is a pathetic excuse for: A) not asking to see the manager or B) refusing to purchase the item. The hurried sales staff and the frazzled people behind you in the queue with their sleepy and irritable kids? They can all f*cking wait.

I'm too nice for my own good.

I've waited ages to see Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. 1930s comic book shenanigans with film noir sensibilities and Frank Capra-esque dialogue that Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow infuse with a palpable chemistry. Stunning CGI used not simply for special effects and scenery but also to fully evoke a dreamlike, flim noir environment. Blurry, soft lighting; black, white and grey with hints of colour. In all, great fun.

Ignore the synopses about the "futuristic setting" etc etc, because 2046 really picks up right where Wong Kar Wai's sensuous and evocative In The Mood For Love left off. Chow Mo-wan (reprised by Tony Leung) is still trying to come to grips with his relationship with Su Li-zhen. Emotionally bereft, his personal and professional lives get stuck in a rut. Chow ends up writing smutty pulp fiction and newspaper articles in between constant womanising and carousing.

The film centres on his relationships with a few of these women in his life -- a clear invitation to compare and contrast these relationships with each other (and of course, with the ones in ITMFL and DOBW) -- and on the story he writes, the eponymously-titled "2046" which is a thinly-veiled allegory of Chow's own emotional stagnation.

Most of 2046's weakness derives from the huge emotional and narrative debts it owes to Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love. If you have not seen DOBW, you could probably still get by. But if you have not seen ITMFL, 2046 will probably make little sense and resonate even less. For instance, the sections with Lulu (played by Carina Lau) and Su Li-zhen (played by Gong Li) are too brief to make any real impression on the audience unless you've already seen DOBW and ITMFL. Carina Lau does well, but it's Gong Li who somehow exudes grace and dignity far beyond the confines of her brief role. In fact I feel she overshadows even Tony Leung, who gives an excellent performance here.

Most the screen time is devoted to the relationships Chow has with between Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) and Jingwen (Faye Wong). Zhang pulls off her role well, but it's not very much different from the impetuous, wild child roles she's played in almost all of her previous movies. The woman is in serious danger of being typecast. Faye Wong spends most her time looking cute with those heartbreakingly large eyes -- especially when she's playing an android in Chow's novel. To be fair, she doesn't get a lot of character development. Kimura Takuya who plays Jingwen's lover and Chow's persona in the novel Chow writes, gets even less.

The best parts of the film are the narrative structure and the visuals. 2046 jumps between past and present (and Chow's imagined future), mimicking how people recollect memories. This isn't confusing however, so long as you're paying attention. With cinematography and costuming by the same folks who brought us ITMFL, Wong recreates his sensuous, almost decadent 1960s once again and populates with a host of frustrated, alienated individuals. However, 2046 lacks the emotional resonance and intimacy that ITML, or even DOBW, has.

Scowling wilfully towards Autobot City, you're Megatron!

Look in a mirror and feel the evil. Then eat the mirror. You eat mirrors for breakfast. You are a badass death robot. You busted on Optimus Prime. You. Are. Megatron. Go outside and burn some animals, because you're worth it.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

[...] you must be wondering what makes Keroro Gunso so gosh darn funny. Simple, it's a series created with an otaku mindset. The characters could be standing their living room one panel, and in the next they could be reliving a scene from Evangelion... or maybe a character is working on a model kit that just happens to be a Mobile Suit - or better yet, a reference could be as small as a character with a Powerpuff Girls Bubbles keychain on their book bag [...]

A couple of seconds after I tuned in to News Radio 93.8FM last night, the deejay played Kenji Kawai's theme from the Patlabor II movie. Immensely odd; utterly random. For the briefest of moments I thought they might be playing it just for me.

Found a random note today, abandoned at the bus stop, before our army of cleaning staff or the October rains could get to it. Am sending the note to FOUND Magazine. I don't harbour any hopes that it'll actually be published. Even if it were published I'd never see that issue; not from the other side of the planet.

I'm sending the note anyway, because I can.

Derrida is dead. Long live Derrida!

There is no doubt that Innocence is visually stunning, but it lacks the philosophical depth and thematic consistency that helped make its 1995 cinematic predecessor Ghost in the Shell a cult classic.

Fascinating visual touches abound -- kanji everywhere, cars styled as if from the 1950s. An eclectic mix of modern Japanese, Chinese and European influences pervades the work. However, there is no sense of these images having any greater significance within the context of the narrative. The boisterous parade scene in particular, with its riot of colour and mish-mash of Chinese and Japanese images, seems more of a parody rather than a homage to its subdued and meaningful cousin in Ghost in the Shell.

Also expected of Oshii Mamoru, this film is packed with textual references and quotes. However, he goes overboard with these in Innocence. The constant quoting and referencing alienate the audience instead of enhancing a mood or provoking further reflection, and the constant exposition doesn't help.

As a stepping stone for further exploration of burning philosophical issues like what it means to be human, Innocence is an excellent start, as the Midnight Eye review implies. In terms of narrative and structure however, it's not as coherent or engaging as the first. Still worth catching though, for the sheer beauty and fluidity of the animation.

Managed to hunt down (with help from hifiguy!) cheaper copies of the US hardcover edition of the last book in Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Won't need to shell out $50 for The System of the World at Borders after all!

A combination of hunger, a fit of nostalgia, and the fact that there really isn't a good variety of snacks for sale anywhere in the immediate vicinity of Buona Vista MRT all resulted in my buying a pack of Yan Yan. I open it, and on the inside of the cover there's a printed message saying I've won... another free pack of Yan Yan. The odd thing is that there was no sign of a promotion anywhere in the shop. Even the shopkeepers didn't know and had to call up the distributor for confirmation. Talk about random luck.

Toy technology and design has improved by leaps and bounds from when I bought my last Transformer (from the pathetic Action Masters line) and there are some interesting sculpts and figures out there, like the Beast Machines version of Blackarachnia.

In the last couple of years Hasbro executives have gotten smarter too -- they seem to have discovered the monetary benefits of issuing repainted versions of older toys. Let's take our lady Transformer Blackarachnia as an example. There are three versions of that specific figure. The first is from the Beast Machines toy line. The second is from the later Universe toy line. The third is also from the Universe line, but packaged together with another Transformer (also a repaint) as a K Mart exclusive, and renamed Crystal Widow.

Those bootleg VCDs I inadvertently bought have quality akin to that of a movie recording made surreptitiously in a dark cinema hall using a handheld camera. But Last Exile, the anime series produced to commemorate GONZO's 10th anniversary last year still looks beautiful. Watching the version I now have, is like looking at an Old Master painting through layers of grime and dust. Just imagining what the (official) DVD version looks like invokes admiration and awe.

For pi-girl: Only music can save the baby camel.

For everyone: this year's French Film Festival. And will Maggie Cheung be coming to Singapore? Please please please.

More on Imelda:

The editing is deft and Ramona Diaz has the knack for choosing choice bits of stock footage to flesh out the life and times of Imelda Marcos. This never becomes a personal quest for Diaz however (unlike the work of a certain overweight white American filmmaker with huge political axes to grind).

Imelda Romauldez Marcos is given plenty of opportunities to exonerate or damn herself in candid testimonies. If her Ptolemaic rationalisations -- her theories of "beauty" and "order" complete with enneagram-like symbols, her insistence that there has never been any human rights abuses in the Philippines, her explaining away the fact that she and Ferdinand Marcos had separate bedrooms -- collapse under their own implausibility, this is hardly the director's fault.

Imelda Marcos's own self-perception is a combination of a messianic complex, monarchical tendencies and beauty pageant glamour all propped up by a stunning, even child-like, lack of self-awareness. The extent to which her vilification is justified however, is up to the audience to decide.

Diaz also presents her rise to power as a product of Filipino society even as Imelda condoned the abuses and tyranny of her husband's regime (as well as perpetrating a few herself it seems). Imelda, ironically enough, remains popular among the Filipino poor despite her blemished past and the fact that in concrete terms she has not really done much for them at all. The audience is invited to draw their own conclusions about how polities view their politicians, in addition to pondering Imelda's life beyond the confines of that infamous shoe collection.

I'm not a fan of horror movies and I never liked gross-out comedies, so the offerings at last evening's SFS core screening (One Missed Call (even if it is by Miike Takashi) and Sex is Zero) didn't appeal to me. I had to run errands downtown though, so I figured I might as well watch something I've been wanting to catch anyway.

Imelda is an excellent documentary (and not in the Michael Moore sense) about a much misunderstood political figure and her times. I was not disappointed at all.

(To whet your appetites, here's an Indiewire interview with the director, Ramona Diaz.)

Hey, The Necessary Stage is restaging godeatgod. After The Visit of the Tai Tai and The Physicists though, I don't think I'll be going to plays for a while.

Heavens. I'm more blur than a sotong in an inkpot.

Sepet is, of course, enjoying a general release run even as I type this. Excuse me while I kick myself.

Malay girl looks for Wong Kar Wai movie at pirated VCD stall. Meets Chinese boy who runs said stall. They fall in love.

Yes, yes, I know I missed Sepet. What I want to know is: will there be a commercial release?

--------------
Watched at Japanese Film Fest this year:
It's Tough Being a Man (Otoko wa tsurai yo!)
Osaka Story (Osaka Monogatari)
Scoutman

You have to see her dance! She was so wrapped up in it with all her heart and soul, her whole body a harmony, so without care, so spontaneous, as if that were really all, as if she were not thinking, feeling, anything else; and in that moment everything else surely vanished for her.

--- Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

South of the Border, West of the Sun is my least favorite Murakami Haruki work. I found it a little too straightforward -- unsubtle even. Driven more by angst and less by imagination and mood.

It seemed that way to me when I read it a few years ago, and upon rereading it I understand more of what Murakami was trying to convey but it's still my least favorite.

"Sometimes when I look at you, I feel like I'm gazing at a distant star," I said. "It's dazzling, but the light is from tens of thousands of years ago. Maybe the star doesn't even exist anymore. Yet sometimes that light seems more real to me than anything."

Got to catch Thievery Corporation live last night! Awesome set. Great music that just got better and better as distinct tunes and songs segued into a seamless blend of Middle Eastern, Indian, funk, bossa nova and more, backed with an infectious foot-stompin' beat.

Left as much out of work committments as fatigue. I'd be more appreciative if I hadn't been only getting 4+ hours of sleep each night since Monday, and the sardine-tight crowds and smoky air didn't help either. But it's good music and fine company -- personality goes a long way.

Ecotonoha is a project -- to nurture a virtual tree collaboratively, and at the same time contribute to the actual environment to cope with global warming. As you make Ecotonoha's leaves, the virtual tree will grow, and as Ecotonoha grows, real trees will be planted by NEC.

This is one of the most beautiful Flash animations I've ever seen. Stunning simplicity.

I knew The Terminal was going to be fluffy and contrived, which it was. In mitigation, I would never have seen it if not for the "friendly outing" (formerly known as a "date"). On hindsight I'm glad there was the third person, a mutual friend, to keep the moribund conversation chugging along.

Spielberg's cotton candy offering may have been inspired by a real incident, and the truth is far sadder, complex and less palatable to a mass audience. See The Guardian feature: "The Man Who Lost His Past". Also take a look at "Merhan Karimi Nasseri at Charles de Gaulle airport, France, since 1988".

Last Friday morning, just before leaving for work, I suddenly thought of a book (not really a book, but a photocopy of a book). So I went to the cupboard where I knew I'd wedged it more than a year ago when I unpacked my things from Chicago, rummaged a bit, and pulled Dazai Osamu's The Setting Sun (Shayou) out. Somehow that unread novel has been lingering in the back of my mind ever since I failed to complete it for a Japanese Literature class a lifetime ago, but that morning -- just that morning -- felt right for reading it.

I've since finished, but even typing that seems hollow when I don't understand it. Don't understand why the characters behave and think and feel the way they do.

Good stuff from Barcelona, reminescent of Pizzicato Five and blazing a cool trail of their own. Ladies and gents: The Pinker Tones!

What Is Your Battle Cry?

Lo! Who is that, running amidst the mini-mall parking lot! It is Strangeknight, hands clutching a reflective halberd! And with an ominous grunt, his voice cometh: "Brace yourself, oh human speck of dust! I destroy all in my path like a river of pure piranha!!"

Find out! Enter username: Are you a girl, or a guy ?

created by beatings : powered by monkeys

If you've wondered where the smurf came from, it took over the slot on the Medicom website that used to be occupied by the much cooler Kill Bill 2 Bearbrick. I've since replaced it with a new avatar that will not inexplicably morph into something else. But there's a certain novelty to the idea of having my Blogger Profile image change without warning into something wholly unexpected.

btw if you're in the US and you like anime, support Operation Zeta!

David gave an excellent criticism of my last post: that it implies I expect someone with less education to be somehow less morally upright. This link is, of course, a ridiculous assertion anywhere.

My first reaction was to wonder about the logic of the post. Was that what I really meant? The post says "A, yet B", so does that necessarily mean "not A thus B"?

I am uncomfortable using logic as a defense, nor do I like falling back on the easy excuse that it's the indelible result of the Singapore hegemony of ideas about education here. In short, I admit that bigotry tinged my last post to an extent -- what extent I leave to you to judge from the unedited post below.

That's why I need people like David to help me purge myself of these views. Thank you.

Today, a guy in my camp approached me and asked me to write an essay for his friend for admission to the University of Chicago. Naturally, I turned him down with a vengeance.

What disappointed me the most was that this guy hails from one of the top JCs in this country, yet showed utterly no scruples whatsoever in asking me to be dishonest. Halfway through our brief conversation, he burst out: "But who's going to know?"

Words cannot describe my contempt for this boy.

I had simple plans for this weekend, revolving mainly around the free screenings at the Japanese Association. But other things have cropped up in the meantime. Nothing bad of course. Just lots of reshuffling and hastily composed SMSes. What's life without a modicum of excitement?

Q 1) You are meeting someone for the first time, and you're watching a movie together. What do you pick?

A) Safe Spielberg Hollywood flick The Terminal?

B) Independent Malaysian film The Beautiful Washing Machine?

Date or no date, A is the safest choice. The two people I've asked this say so. My head says so. But I'm stuck on The Beautiful Washing Machine, here for the Malaysian Film Fest. Sunday's the last day.

Besides:

Q 2a) If a third party comes along, is it still a date?

Q 2b) If your answer to 2a was "No" or an equivalent expression, would you still be bound by dating conventions e.g. a "safe" movie?

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Seek her! Hunt her down like heat seeking missile! Be relentless!

Started my Sunday with the Terry Fox Run. 8km at a mostly leisurely jogging pace. Easier than I thought. I still have my doubts about where all the money really goes to though.

Went to the Zouk flea market in the afternoon, and walked out with a used copy of the Pulp Fiction OST. Most of the time I spent there was over whether to buy used Cospa Gundam T-shirts, or bootleg Galaxy Express 999 DVDs. Was surprised at the number of toys and anime-related stuff for sale there but Flea 'n Easy's the wrong place to be shopping for these things.

The Turkish Bazaar was a real letdown. Two tiny tentages dwarfed by the ACM Empress Place.

Dropped by The Arts House on the way back to check out the modern Japanese artists' exhibition Painting For Joy.

I don't think either was great, but I preferred the imagery (some of it was overstretched) and shots of Mango Yellow (Amarelo Manga) to the witty one-liners and musical-chair developments of Breaking Up (Separa��es).

 

The Japanese Film Festival is just round the corner! I'll probably be at the Japanese Association all of the 25th :p Want to watch the Tora-san movies as well, but haven't decided if I should watch them back-to-back or separately.

(Free movies = long queues. Ugh.)

btw, Midnight Eye has reviews for Taste of Tea (Cha no Aji) and Scoutman (Pain)

And after that's done, there's Insomnia48 which, as faithful readers of my rambling blog such as yourself will recall without difficulty, I've highlighted before on this blog.

Followed by a Friedrich Durrenmatt festival at the Arts House, Oct 9 - 31. Excellent!

First things first -- I'm heading down to the Grand Bazaar at the Asian Civilisations Museum this weekend. Will check out the exhibits too.

Anyone wanna join me? :)

You know, I would love to do a movie where every single time the lovers are together, it's raining. When they meet, when they go out together, when they make love, no matter what. Whenever they're together, it's raining [...] I think also that rain forces people together. In September when it rains, suddenly the people have to stay inside the house, they have to be together, and it becomes more intimate. It gives an atmosphere for more intimate things to happen, whether it's falling in love or in other ways sharing a togetherness. It affects their mood in some way. In the same way, I guess, if you're in a bedroom with a woman to make love and all the bright lights are on, that's one atmosphere. But if you turn it way down, and it's very soft lighting, the atmosphere becomes much more romantic and gentler. The same thing with the sunshine. If you take the sunshine away, it becomes more moody, more confessional. You tend to want to confess more and express your deeper feelings more.

-- Woody Allen, Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation with Stig Bjorkman

Toki no namida wa yusareta ka?
 

Saturday night: I like the music, but it's the company that matters the most. Hanging out at odd hours with all of you, talking and chatting over milo beng, teh alia and other kopitiam staples -- those are the best moments of all.

Sunday's just a DJ set away:


The loot today:

Captain Harlock gashapon set, pictured above. The sculpts are excellent, as is the quality. Seams are visible but that's always a problem with gashapon. You'll notice Captain Harlock's laser sabre is missing -- I'm in the process of straightening the darn PVC thing.

Ibuki figure. Another gashapon to keep Taki company (Did I mention I have a thing for female ninja? ^_^; )

Bootleg Gundam shirt -- in the wash now. The back has one of Akitaka Mika's famous MS Girls. A Kampfer, in fact ^_^

Soseki's I Am a Cat and a guide for job interviews. Both picked up from the bargain corner at Kinokuniya Liang Court.

Also picked up a budget reissued volume of Matsumoto Leiji's Queen Emeraldas. That was the best purchase for me, 'cos I missed out on the previous volume. 

I know that other people have social lives of their own (and that those lives are probably far, far more interesting than mine), but I'm still not used to the concept that I have to plan my weekends a week or two in advance so I can "book" people. It feels to me like I'm asking my doctor or my dentist out.

In order to explain why I find this figure and this one from Chara Hobby 2004 (oh, only the biggest anime/gashapon/action figure/garage kit/model kit convention in Japan) especially funny, I would have to explain Gundam and Azumanga Daioh to you.

I love both series, and I think I know how the connection was made from one to the other. It all has an otaku coolness about it that I love.

Where are you on The Political Compass?

Just playing some Astrud Gilberto, on a rainy day.

Am down with food poisoning. Can't go out today. Would be a good time to watch that In The Mood For Love DVD -- except that I returned it to the library yesterday :(

Along the way, the people of the interior seem to have adopted the attitude that whatever the foreigners can screw up they usually will, so you might as well focus on the few acres of rock and lichen you can control.

It's similar to the conclusion that came out of a big US study earlier this year discounting the role of positive emotions on cancer survival. A relentlessly upbeat attitude has probably been overrated in society.

If you really want arteries that will let you live to 100, you'd do better to follow the example of a Sardinian peasant and respond to everything, good and bad, with the same sort of droll fatalism. As Demurtas put it to me: "A girl once asked me, 'How can I live to be your age?' I told her, 'Don't die too early.'"

--- John Hodgman, Men Who Defy Death

Faithless's new music video for their track I Want More is made up of documentary footage that captures the preparation for and performance of a North Korean mass concert. Children and adults, men and women all leap, run, twist and twirl with robot-like precision, making these mass displays breathtaking and eerie at the same time. See for yourself -- click here.

I'd understand Jay Chou (Zhou Jie Lun) better if he didn't slur so much, but he is a very good Chinese R&B singer/songwriter -- the best thing to happen to the moribund Chinese pop scene in a long while. Can't get enough of his evocative Qi Li Xiang. For the lyrics and a translation (with an explanation of the title that shows how horribly mundane English is compared to logographic languages) click here
.

Managed to pull entry for two into a media screening of Saved! last night. A typical high school comedy with the usual stereotypes:

• Inept adult figures, especially the parents.


• A super-popular, pretty, vain but stupid and mean-spirited young blonde who is, of course, the main antagonist. Mandy Moore hams it up in this undemanding role.


• Stupider sycophants for the antagonist. Usually two.


• The school outcasts. Usually a duo.


• A protagonist who gains acceptance into the antagonist's group but later comes to realise that her real friends are the outcasts.


• Cute guy who becomes an object of contention between the protagonist and antagonist.


• A feel-good ending. The protagonist gets the cute guy. The social outcasts are vindicated. The antagonist realises she's wrong and is redeemed. The inept adults have their resolution. No-one dies or is grieviously hurt. Everyone lives happily ever after.

Saved! tries to rise above this hackneyed formula by spoofing fundamentalist Christian attitudes and practices throughout, transposing the relevant memes onto the secular American high school environment most moviegoers would be (for better or for worse) familiar with. Classrooms with colourful "Creationism" displays on the noticeboard, a large Jesus Christ billboard as youth project, Christian rock school concerts etc. By exaggerating fundamentalist Christian influences, the movie does take a dig at the tendency in some groups to see Christianity as some quintessence of being American. More importantly, the movie skewers human arrogance and hypocrisy. Religion here is a vehicle, not the target.

But with two-dimensional characters, a cliched narrative and passable dialogue Saved! is really another thin serving of American high school comedy, even if the protagonist is an unwed mother. Of particular note is Macaulay Culkin -- an absolute riot as Mandy Moore's sardonic wheelchair-bound brother and probably the best thing in the movie.

The first film I worked with Tony Leung Chiu-Wai was Days of Being Wild. He is a quiet man who likes to smoke a lot. Somehow, we get along well and have worked on four subsequent films. We communicate in rather peculiar ways. Most of the time, we don't have a complete script. Often, I give Tony a song or some music as reference.

I don't know whether my working style fits Tony, but throughout these years, he seldom complains. Most of the time, when I ask him to listen to a piece of music, he would do so sitting in a corner, holding a cigarette and peeking at me with a devilish smile.

Osamu Dazai once wrote a short story entitled "A Handsome Devil with a Cigarette." I had always thought it was a great title for a film. I like Dazai a lot. Tony reminds me of him.

--- Wong Kar Wai

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

I bought a portable MP3 player today. Setting it up wasn't a problem at all. What really irritates me to no end now is that I can't determine the order in which my MP3s play. The bundled software doesn't allow me to directly move files around within the memory of the player. I thought the player might be arranging them alphabetically. that's mostly right. Numbers before alphabets, A before B etc. But when it comes to filenames that begin with the same letter the order just goes to hell in a handbasket.

Well, that's what you get when you buy an Aigo. I keep telling myself it's a stopgap measure until I start working :/

I remember now why I never liked earphones -- I can't wear them properly. The left one will fit just fine, but the right one will never fit properly. So I have to keep shoving it in or else it'll come loose eventually. The result is an aching right ear, raw around the canal opening.

So stupid, that my right ear is shaped ever so slightly differently from my left.

I knew I should've bought headphones. Maybe one of those big ones that you see at the listening stations at HMV or Tower. Dammit.

Michael Frayn's Headlong was definitely fun to read, even as my enjoyment mingled uneasily with disgust at the protagonist's self-delusion and slide into moral ambiguity. Ambition, greed and scholarly discourses on Bruegel. If anyone wants to read about conspiracies and paintings, this is far better constructed than that literary tripe The Da Vinci Code.

Destiny?!? Boo... ;P


Destiny, you are the oldest of The Endless, you are
eternally chained to a book that holds the
secrets of the universe. You are all business,
never have time to even crack a smile, and
always make sure you do not draw too much
attention. You do not want people hunting after
you!


Which Endless are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Kill Bill Vol. 2 Japanese Limited Edition DVD box set, like its predecessor, is full of goodies. Since DVDTimes won't let me post pictures of the blood-red t-shirt with silhouettes of The Bride training with Pai Mei and the Chinese characters for "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", the Pai Mei keychain, and the "Love Bride" Bearbrick with special coffin housing, you'll just have to click here or on the link above.

To whet your appetite, I pulled this off the Medicom site:



Ain't she pretty? 8th October! But I won't be in Japan :(

Insomnia48 looks like great fun.

a non-stop 48 hour event of performance, clubbing, music, happenings, videos, installations, ateliers, workshops and social interactions. The audience is invited to join the completely free event (there are no catches!) from friday 8 pm to sunday 8 pm

Anyone wanna go with me? :D

Imagine, if you will, a t-shaped stage with white gauzy material draped all around such that it looked like a corridor -- probably meant to evoke the cramped alleys in between the "death houses" that once stood in that open, ill-tended field where we sat on plastic chairs, watching Ma: Moment.

I have no real complaints about it, even the unintentionally funny scene where one of the actors plays a hungry ghost in melodramatic agony. Amanda and Justin thought it was all very depressing. Which it was, but somehow I didn't feel for the characters very much and so the pathos never reached me.

I did like the technical and conceptual aspects of the production, particularly the coherent integration of scenes from the '60s film Mother's Grief (Ke Lian De Ma Ma), projected onto the gauzy white draperies for ethereal effect, into the fractured narratives of the production. One moment it's a film in the now demolished-Metropole Cinema, the next a proxy for memories and when silent, a pliable medium ripe for interpretation by actors' voices.

I've noticed that whenever Singaporeans meet, the questions that follow those about name, occupation and workplace invariably have to do with educational background. Where you studied, what you studied.

This probably has to do with Singapore's tiny size relative to other countries and the tendency for certain schools to assume reputations, even auras, beyond their geographical size. Throw in our general anxieties with education as a whole, and the result is that people have come to expect one another to exhibit certain traits based solely on where they studied. For instance, if you come from a St. Joseph's Institution or either Anglo-Chinese School, be prepared for jokes about poor Mandarin results for the rest of your life regardless of how well (or poorly) you did. We've even gone to the extent of saying that certain people have a "look" about them that indicates a certain school.

I myself have been a victim of this kind of stereotyping, and I like it even less now. Being pigeonholed by educational institutions and subjects shows a horrid lack of imagination. Shouldn't people be interesting enough on their own?

Finished watching Godard's Contempt (Le Mepris) last night. Ah well, nothing to report other than I still need sleep. But who doesn't?

Got up early yesterday to catch the sublime Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring before it leaves cinemas here for good. Then watched Dogville in the afternoon. Two vastly different, excellent reflections on human nature.

Going by their performance last night at the Esplanade Waterfront, I think The Observatory's ok. They're not bad. I especially like Leslie Low's mellow vocals and how they use electronic noise to unnerve audiences and give an ironic twist to their music. Maybe their album sounds better?

Speaking of local bands to support, Electrico just released their debut album. Sounds good.

Rejection came quickly. Nope, didn't get into AS or MAP. Now I'd wish I'd come out of that interview with a sick feeling in my stomach like everyone else instead of an adrenaline rush.

Friends have encouraged me not to take this too hard, and I've been preparing myself for this letter far before the interview occurred. So I'm not ripping myself up inside over this bit of bad news.

Well, not much. Not for long.

I very nearly couldn't get the copy of Rolling Stone with the Gary Trudeau interview and the Tom Wolfe excerpt.

Well, the terrible truth about writers is, they create characters and then they put them in harm's way. That's what drama is about. As a writer, I don't have an emotional link to the characters. I have to summon them up -- I have to pull them out of the toolbox and put 'em to work. They don't live in my head. --- Gary Trudeau

Yes, I should spend more time pulling things out of my head instead of just cramming it with... stuff.

Has anyone noticed that the satirical website Talkingcock.com has been down since National Day? Or that Colin Goh's fortnightly column failed to appear as scheduled in last Sunday's newspaper?

Hmm.

How I wish I, wish I'd done a little bit more
Now "Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" means I'm out of time
'Cos "Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" can't change your mind
And I wonder, wonder what I'm gonna do
"Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda" are the last words of a fool.

The SGFilm forums now have a blog -- http://www.sgfilm.com/blog/

Want your China and HK movie fix? MonkeyPeaches !

The photos don't look too promising, but who knows what this giant book sale might throw up?

I'm supposed to treat it like a conversation. A chance for them to get to know me better.

I'm just a boy whose intentions are good /
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood!

Doesn't seem fair to talk about Jarmusch and not Ho Yuhang's Min which I also watched last week. So let's give it a go. Before that, here's a synopsis:

Min (2003) by Ho Yuhang
Running time: 78 min
Country: Malaysia
Language: Malay with English subtitles

Min (2003)This film is about a young teacher named Yasmin ("Min"), a young Chinese girl, adopted by a Malay family, who goes to look after her biological mother.

Min, a 20-year-old Chinese girl, discovers that she was adopted as a little child. Her old school friend is charged with finding out that her biological parents are. Min informs her adoptive parents about her plans and sets out on a long journey for her roots. All she has got is the address of the factory where her mother is employed.

Ho Yuhang's style is reminiscent of Taiwanese directors like Tsai Ming-Liang and Hou Hsiao-Hsien. With calculated modesty and nearly perfect visual expression, this Malaysian independent director has made the purest art cinema.

Ho refuses to play up the melodramatic potential of the plot (a Chinese woman adopted by Malay parents goes to look for her natural mother) and gives us a far more significant take on the loneliness of urban life. Music is kept to a minimum. Instead the mundane events of the film, depicted through long takes and long shots, play out against an unceasing soundtrack of harsh, grating urban noise. This incessant din extends into the extended full blackouts that throw audiences from scene to scene. Min is not a comfortable movie.

Wanna watch one of Tsai Ming Liang's films even more.

Thanks to a friend with a spare preview ticket, I got to watch Jim Jarmusch's Coffee and Cigarettes. The movie's a collection of black and white clips, with a fairly star-studded cast that includes Bill Murray, RZA (wearing a Ghost Dog hat I wish I had), GZA, Alfred Molina, Steve Coogan, Cate Blanchett, and for the indy music fans -- Iggy Pop, Tom Waits, Jack and Meg White (a.k.a. The White Stripes). Even Roberto Benigni makes an appearance.

As you might expect, not all the clips are equally interesting or funny. The only things that tie all of them together are coffee (well, tea in one case), cigarettes, and the idea that speech is the worst form of communication between two people.

The dialogue is often funny and quirky but the things left unsaid are more crucial and this is where it falls to the actors to really differentiate the scenes from one another. For instance, put character actor Alfred Molina and established British comedian Steve Coogan together and you have a segment that shines with the contrast between Molina's effusive enthusiasm and Coogan's dry, understated wit. This makes the reversal at the segment's end much more satisfying. Also kudos to Cate Blanchett for talking on double roles in her episode and filling both -- a rich, well-heeled celebrity and her poor punk-rocker cousin -- admirably. In contrast, the musicians' episodes fall flat when there's no obvious visual quirk, like Jack White's Tesla coil.

I admit I'm not familiar with Jarmusch's work. I've only watched Ghost Dog and that was more accessible than Coffee and Cigarettes. So arm yourself with more patience if you're going to see the latter. Caffeine may help.

My ability to write essays in an exam setting is in severe disrepair. And just when I thought I'd left those dog days behind.

The itinerant booksellers have returned to my neighbourhood. Guess what I found today? Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman.

Mostly done with A Defining Moment: How Singapore Beat SARS. I went through the main text first, leaving the little side panels and appendixed stories for later. Chua Mui Hoong treats this book as a blow-by-blow account of healthcare and governmental reactions to the unfolding crisis. Even as she carefully avoids any explicit bias towards the Government, our Ministers and top civil servants end up looking really good.

Chua asserts that the main factor behind our relatively successful control of SARS is a certain collective mentality shared by the rulers and the ruled that have led us to be labelled as a "nanny state".

Like a trusted nanny, the state was successful in getting its messages across because it had a deep reservoir of trust with its citizens, built up over the years, to bank on.
----- p. 139

To this effect, Chua gives adequate space to the errors and mistakes made, but takes care to emphasise that these occurred because of time pressures and the need to err on the side of caution. Throughout the book she takes as given that the decision-making structures put into place (or already planned for, as the case may be) were the best possible ones to contain the SARS outbreak. Moreover, she paints a largely rosy picture of all levels of society humming in tune with Government measures. Any resistance is either glossed over or rendered incredulous -- like the story about the Cat Welfare Society planning to send stray cats to a Johor pet shelter in protest at increased cat culling by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority here. In all, the book isn't so much an account of a society coming to grips with a deadly disease as it is a story about a well-oiled machine going through its paces. But no-one's perfect, and you can't argue with results.

The photographs are nice, but paper quality was selected with affordability in mind -- and rightfully so. There is little doubt that this is a feel-good book, meant to appeal to the masses and inspire Singaporeans everywhere. There is truly much that rank-and-file Singaporeans (especially our healthcare professionals) can be proud of. Just don't expect any deep analyses behind decision-making processes or public policy implementation and so on. If you're into that kind of meatier, more critical stuff, you will want The New Global Threat, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and Its Impacts. And hey, it's conveniently available at Select Books (hint! hint!).

I'm looking for the lyrics to The Hives' infectious Walk Idiot Walk, but it's clear that the vast majority of lyrics sites just copied the same wrong lyrics from one another. Annoying as heck.

Oh, and I haven't found an accurate version of said lyrics. Would someone like to help?

Singapore celebrates 39 years of nationhood today. If you're not from Singapore and reading this, go out and have a drink (non-alcoholic counts too) and be happy just like the 4.2 million people here.

The classic The Hitchiker's Guide To The Galaxy has been with us for almost 25 years now. Be happy for that too (drink optional) and think that Douglas Adams is laughing as well, somewhere out there.

Kinokuniya here launched their Privilege Card this weekend. At $21 a year for a 10% discount on all purchases, I see no reason to get it since I spend less than $210 a year at Kino. In any case, I can always wait for the 20% storewide discounts that they offer three times a year.

Speaking of which, if you're thinking of picking up a copy of A Defining Moment: How Singapore Beat SARS at the sale, don't bother 'cos the discount doesn't apply to "government publications", and this is one of them. Go get your copy from Select Books -- support local independent bookstores (assuming they have copies in stock)!

I am looking for a system to organise my life by. I want to be able to see all that I need to do, in all their categories with as few transitions or glances as possible. I would prefer not to have to cross-reference because I know I will forget to cross-reference in the first place. In other words the problem isn't remembering what the string on my finger does, but remembering to put the string there in the first place. And then you have to remember what it does...

The ideal might be my own personal internet, with the ability to creat hyperlinks on the fly. As I type this I'm imagining a holographic construct -- a cube, say -- with a glove of some sort like the one Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report to interface with it.

I don't know how saner folk like Justin can manage with pen and paper. I tried that too, but the inability to rearrange and reorder my notes on the fly is infuriating. And then there's the problem of quick access to what I wrote before. No search engines for notepads.

Perhaps I should look into investing in a PDA. That gives me the added advantage of being able to carry and read long documents (like theses) on the bus or MRT without having to expend ink, pulp and time.

As for my room, I'd love a large whiteboard with markers.

Breaking his long silence, Trudeau sat down with Rolling Stone in the modest studio in Manhattan where he creates "Doonesbury." Despite the flecks of gray in his hair, at fifty-six he has the easygoing, curious manner of a grad student still fascinated by the world around him. It's no exaggeration to say that Trudeau revolutionized the funny pages, creating a space where reactionaries and radicals alike squabble over the issues of the day. His style is part Charles Schulz, part Charles Dickens. Over the years his characters have grappled with everything from AIDS and abortion to Alzheimer's. But with the election of George W. Bush, who attended Yale with Trudeau back in the Sixties, "Doonesbury" has taken on an urgency and relevance reminiscent of its early, gleeful assaults on Nixon.

Spent all Sunday helping my bro sell toys from his personal collection at the weekly Clarke Quay flea/toy market. He's unloading all his Be@rbricks, and has a very comprehensive collection up to Series 7. So if you read this and you're interested in procuring some of these figures, just drop me an email or leave a note in the tagboard or a comment or something. ;)

So the week's begun, and it's gonna be a busy one for me. The wheels began turning a while ago, but it's only now that they're picking up speed. Gotta do my bit to see what kind of a ride I'll be getting for the next, oh, 6 years or so. Fun fun fun. :p