Episode 343: Writing, But Just Baby Steps

I wrote a haiku tonight and titled it 'After The Bomb Went Off'. Haiku because I'm feeling lazy, the second stanza I wrote lacked impact, and I already wrote Scene 6 of the musical so my brain is on the fritz till tomorrow. Managed to sneak in two snatches of dialogue from the Wilde original, which was pretty good, so if I can keep it up for the next five scenes, more or less, my half of the script is done! Am probably going to try to re-read The Importance Of Being Earnest yet again before writing any more scenes. I went down to make my exchanges at Kinokuniya today instead of tomorrow, since I suspect that if I go down tomorrow, I won't be able to get 20% off on the exchanged books because the promotion will be over. Picked up two Nabokov novels, The Gift and Glory. They're very far down on my reading list though, since I've got stacks of stuff to get through already. The only good thing about e-books is portability, but that benefit only has relevance for me as long as my personal library is forced to straddle two continents and time zones.

Episode 342: Blitzing Through Kinokuniya

Just got back from Yong Long's birthday surprise at Suntec. Tropical humidity at night very unpleasant, as usual. Anyway, today's must have been the quickest trip to Kinokuniya I've ever made. Skipped the last 15 minutes or so of service and went down to Orchard, making it there in under half an hour. I picked up eight books, mostly books I've been looking to buy for more than a couple of months now, so no guilt there about spending. These included the Miramax Books editions of Sergei Lukyanenko's Watch quartet. I've been waiting for ages for Last Watch to be translated into English, and I was going to wait till I got back to the UK to order the Arrow Books editions off Amazon UK, but since the Miramax ones just happened to be on the shelves, and I kind of prefer their grittier cover art anyway, I decided against waiting any longer. Also made the mistake of buying some Jeff Lindsay books that I already have, so I'll have to go back on Tuesday to exchange them for something else. Probably some Nabokov, I reckon. Need to start picking which books to bring back with me to the UK. Really want to bring all my Thomas Hardy novels over and read them in chronological order like Mr Purvis sometimes mentioned. Haha...

Episode 341: High Tea

This afternoon, my dad took me to high tea at the Equinox Restaurant in Swissôtel The Stamford. Great views of the city skyline, except I think it all looks rather drab in the day, sort of like how the pastel shades of Clarke Quay look great at night but just plain ridiculous in the clear light of day. As for the food, it was decent, but not anything to shout about, if you ask me. I did like the sorbets for dessert, but everything else was fairly average fare. Even in a classy establishment like this, Singaporeans do not fail to disappoint with their ugly behaviour, e.g. rushing for the lift when seating is already pre-allocated at the point of reservation, and waiting a while before attacking the food never hurt anybody. Went to my cousin's place in the evening for her baby daughter's first birthday, where various relatives expressed surprise that I was back. Well, you know, it's only been two whole months! On the way back in the car, I discovered that I really, really like the Private Lounge Remix edition of Enigma's A Posteriori. Also listened to Frankmusik's album in the afternoon, and I guess I was a bit too harsh and hasty in judging it. It is reasonably listenable, although the mixing makes all the songs sound like one long sequence of variations on the same electronic theme. Anyway, if it's possible to have a new favourite song after just one listen, I think mine's 'Vacant Heart' at the moment.

Episode 340: Enfin, J'ai Plein Du Fric!

No progress on the script front at my end. Will have to do it over the weekend, I guess, although seeing as how Saturday is already packed and Sunday's always spent in church, I'm guessing I'll procrastinate, get started on Sunday night, and finish on Monday afternoon. Maybe I should right the synopsis for the sponsorship team first, and that'll help me get into the groove of writing. I want to head down to Kinokuniya on Sunday after service! Mustn't let this month of 20% discount go to waste by not getting a single book. Still have to be prudent though. Allowance has just come in, so I need to draw out money to pay my mum back everything that she's lent me since I got back. So I will carry on not buying stuff while I'm in Singapore. Must. Hold. Out. Till. Boxing Day sales! It's the single biggest reason for not coming home for Christmas this year. I might fly back for a couple of weeks, just not the whole month. Still harbour ideas about taking a sprawling, random journey by train across continental Europe. Dad thinks it's too dangerous to do it alone, so any takers?

Episode 339: L'attente, C'est Ennuyeuse Et Fatigante

The script was fleshed out last night, but I haven't got around to writing it because Bella dropped us an e-mail to say that Jerrick was going to give her some 'suggestions for what we could include in the script while writing, to make it more marketable'. So I'm going to wait for those. Not to be snarky, but with the amount of writing and rewriting we've done so far, I figure I'm better off just waiting for everyone to voice their opinion before actually putting fingers to keyboard. There is the slight matter of how to sneak in bits of dialogue from Wilde's play, which should still be possible, but will require some creative thinking on my part. So instead of writing, I've spent the time reading Belle de Jour's latest offering, Playing The Game, a work of fiction every bit as deliciously forthright as her two earlier non-fiction offerings. Also purchased a one-month premium subscription to Megaupload, for the simple reason that it's worth paying a little to avoid having to be glued to your laptop 24/7 just to get some TV shows. Things are also looking up on the part-time work front, as I might be getting some administrative stuff from High Achievers instead of facilitation slots during this lull period. Fingers crossed!

Episode 338: District 9

Went to Causeway Point to catch District 9 with Eugene Chan and Jared, since I was meeting Sarah and Yee Hung there at 7 pm anyway to discuss the script. I absolutely loved the film, even if Sharlto Copley's character's swearing seemed a shade excessive at times. (Apparently, he improvised all of his dialogue.) It's pretty obvious that the first half of the film, shot in the style of a mockumentary, is inspired by apartheid. As it moves along though, the story narrows down to one man's struggle to preserve his identity, even as he is doomed to lose it with each hour that passes. Possibly more blood and gore than is strictly necessary, but at least the M18 rating will keep out the kids who just want to be entertained by mindless violence. Here's a random factoid for you: the aliens are known as 'prawns' in the film, not because they resemble crunchy seafood, but because they resemble a species of king cricket known in South Africa as the Parktown prawn. Overall, I would say that Neill Blomkamp's directorial debut is a cut above the fare that Hollywood dishes out every summer, and with an ending that leaves open the tantalising possibility of a sequel, this is one film worth paying to see.

Episode 337: Sequel Slump

The ending of Kockroach was good, although the third section of the book felt too hasty in comparison to its predecessors. The message that rang throughout the novel was clear enough though: cockroaches are wired to survive. As much as reading the book filled me with admiration for the tenacity of this insect, I'm still going to spray it to death in future. After all, there's plenty more where that came from! Have gone back to reading G. W. Dahlquist's The Dark Volume, which I've neglected since coming back from the UK. Sadly, I'm finding it difficult to get through the novel, compared with the first novel, The Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters. Now that was a deliciously moreish book. The sequel, after 100 pages, is still plodding along. That and I grow tired of the main female protagonist's insufferable, often self-centred behaviour. An interesting premise alone cannot save a novel from tanking, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with all those Amazon reviews that said the sequel disappointed them. Am alternating between this book and a collection of Clive James's poetry, The Book Of My Enemy. That is proving to be an easier read by far, at least for now.

Episode 336: Don't Squash That Cockroach!

Had a quick listen to Cobra Starship's Hot Mess and Frankmusik's Complete Me, and came away not particularly impressed so far. I guess I'm a bit over the hype behind the latter, while the only track I really like from the former is 'Good Girls Go Bad', featuring Leighton Meester, so I figure I'm better off waiting for her debut album to drop. Started the day by firing off some e-mails, including one to book my ticket back to the UK. Have spent most of the day since reading Tyler Knox's Kockroach, which takes the premise of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, turns it on its head, and relocates the action to Times Square in the 1950s. The novel shifts between three characters' perspectives, recounting the rise of the cockroach-turned-man to the heights of the mob scene. The result has been incredibly readable so far and I would recommend it to anyone who's read the Kafka original, especially my coursemates who've done EN123. I freely admit that I've never read The Metamorphosis, but I have every intention of doing so once I get back to the UK, which is where I've left the Kafka anthology I bought before flying off last year.

Episode 335: New Spectacles!

Dad had a pair of free lenses thanks to some promotion, so I've gone and made myself a new pair of Ted Baker glasses. Am quite pleased with my choice, and it's quite different from the pair I'm currently sporting anyway, so it's just one more thing I can play around with when putting together an outfit. (Yes, I've always wanted to be able to match my glasses to what I'm wearing. Vanity strikes!) Finished reading A*hole, but it still didn't make sense even when I'd got to the end, by which I mean that the whole thing didn't quite add up to something coherent for me. Perhaps it doesn't have to, but it still bothers me that it doesn't. Lunch today was a very drawn-out affair, and we had a bilingual service in a restaurant as part of COGS's 50th anniversary celebration. In my dad's car on the way there, it struck me again that Singapore really does present very different faces, depending on where you are in this city-state. This area of the east that we were in, around Paya Lebar and Geylang, really looks like it was caught in a time warp. Imagine how different ION Orchard looked in comparison! That place is architecturally interesting, but since I can't afford almost everything inside, I'm not too bothered about seeing the rest of it. Was only there so Natalie could buy her iTouch anyway.

Episode 334: Library Books Sale

Went to the library books sale at Expo. Only Mel was with me in the end, since Thong was there really early for some reason and had decided to go home, while Eugene was too tired to bother showing up. When I got there, the queue spilt over into the adjoining hall, which was a bit of a shock. I would say that this reflects a healthy love of reading in Singapore, but I suspect it's more a case of loving the bargain bin prices. $2 for books written in English or Chinese, $1 for those in Malay or Tamil. Really quite a steal! I only got five books though, and they weren't things I was desperately looking for, just the sort of thing I wouldn't mind picking up on the cheap. Traveling The Eurail Express might come in handy though, should I do some sort of tour of continental Europe. Was hoping to find some poetry, but collections were far and few between, and nothing particularly striking, to me anyway. Guess I'm going to have to do some hunting in charity shops when I get back to the UK. Have begun reading Hilton Obenzinger's A*hole, which is the sort of manic experimental fiction that I really like, but find impossible to interpret coherently as I'm reading it, let alone write in that style. I'm beginning to see how the different narrative threads are intersecting/interweaving, but I'm not sure what exactly is the big picture.