Full of Grace

More than enough has been said about how the response to Hurricane Katrina exposes the blistering sclerosis that has infected the American fabric of life- the race issue, class tensions, the irony and shame that a first-world country falters in the face of diasaster other dispossessed nations confront on a daily basis. But hopefully the time for healing is upon us as the water recedes and people are moved to safer, drier ground.

Michigan is not only one of the states to which refugees from the Gulf Coast have been transported, the Graduate School here at U of M is also one of the universities accepting students displaced from their own who are now eager to restart their graduate studies. I guess it's gestures like these- mandated or otherwise- that remind us that while catastrophes are ripe circumstances for transgression, they also provide opportunities for revelations of grace.

Speaking of displacement and education, here's an article from today's New York Times which quotes my advisor, Prof. Jeffrey Mirel, on the resettling of children in other school districts for the new term.

If you want to send care packages to the people in the Astrodome, they now have their own address:
"Donated Goods"
Astrodome
Houston TX 77230

Every woman should have ...

1) one old love she can imagine going back to...
2) and one who reminds her how far she has come;
3) enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own even if she never wants to or needs to;
4) something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour;
5) a youth she's content to leave behind...
6) a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to retelling it in her old age;
7) a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra;
8) one friend who always makes her laugh...
9) and one who lets her cry;
10) a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family;
11) eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored;
12) a feeling of control over her destiny.

Every woman should know...
1) how to fall in love without losing herself;
2) how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship;
3) when to try harder...
4) and when to walk away;
5) that she can't change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents;
6) that her childhood may not have been perfect... but its over;
7) what she would and wouldn't do for love or more;
8) how to live alone, even if she doesn't like it;
9) whom she can trust, whom she can't, and why she shouldn't take it personally;
10) where to go- be it to her best friend's kitchen table, or a charming inn in the woods when her soul needs soothing;
11) what she can and can't accomplish in a day... a month...and a year.

Stumbled upon this list my best friend sent me years ago. Maybe it's age, or perhaps it's the coming of Fall (or the fact that it's 1.30 in the morning, Jude's asleep, there's nothing good on TV, and I'm too tired to read but too awake to sleep) which nudges one towards a quiet brand of pensiveness. Taking stock of the twentysomething years of my conscious life (I doubt I should be held accountable for the early years of my existence where even basic ingestion was beyond my own free will), of the twenty-five things, I'm blessed (or so I hope) to admit to fifteen of them. That's not a bad record I suppose- good to know the first twenty-nine years of my life have been rich in its own ways, and even better to know that there's yet more in my life to learn and live.

Our new Death Cab for Cutie poster

The new album isn't as great as their previous efforts, but there are gems:

I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles brusied by a lady in black
And I held my toungue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes
Are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
Cause we'll hold each other soon
The blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

High & Dry

We visited...
1) the south of Florida where hardly anyone spoke English ("Hablar Español?")
2) the north of Florida where hardly anyone spoke English ("Ken aye 'git y'all folks any-thang tuh-daay?")
3) the oldest city in America, St. Augustine. Yes, despite popular belief, the nation's oldest city is not Plymouth Rock or Jamestown, but down South in Florida, established as a Spanish settlement in 1565.

We ate...
1) more shrimp than I dare to admit. There had better not be some health advisory warning about the amount of shrimp intake a day...
2) amazing Cuban food at Puerto Sagua in Miami. I had NO idea pork could taste so good. And the coffee, oh the coffee...

We got...
1) more swimming in a week than we ever had. Between the beaches we visited and the pool on the farm- we were water babies like never before. Which leads me to...
2) more tan than I think my body needs. The last time I got a tan this bad, it was February 2003. I had to hide the tan lines at our wedding in June. That's how bad I tan. I'm now a strange hue between toast and roast, and I swear it's going to stay till Christmas...

We bought...
...surprisingly little for a week-long trip.
1) A T-shirt for Jude from a record store in Miami;
2) An angora hat from the Orlando airport (duly christened my "Dorothy Parker hat");
3) A tiny young lime tree for our neighbor who helped us plant-sit while we were gone. They look better now than they ever did with me. *Darn*
4) Alot of gas, and at an average of $2.69/ gallon, that's not funny. I'm just glad we're not there this week.

We decided...
1) after graduation, we should just move to St. Augustine and teach at one of the most beautiful colleges in the country, Flagler College. Imagine a college which has a building that was once one of the oldest hotels in the country, whose cafeteria is surrounded by priceless Tiffany windows worth millions of dollars, and a location by the river as if you were living in Monaco.
2) we never want to retire in Ocala. Bleed us dry first...

We took...
... too many photos to fit in Flickr. So here are just some.

Storm chasers

We're back in Ocala- safe and dry. What was initially Tropical Storm Katrina became an intense Category One hurricane as of two hours ago and reached landfall eight hours ahead of schedule. We literally escaped the eye of the storm.

A picture we took of Miami Beach when we were there yesterday.


How it looked like a couple of hours ago. Courtesy of weather.com.

Eye of the storm

Talk about being in the heart of things- here I am sitting at the lobby of the Winterhaven Hotel on South Beach, Miami, just meters away from the Atlantic Ocean watching the storm clouds of Tropical Storm Katrina come our way. She should hit landfall by tomorrow, but we'll be back in the safe confines of our aunt's farm by then. We're leaving South Florida by mid-day and should miss the storm by a long shot. No Key West for us though- you try driving through an open-water highway in a storm- and that's a bummer, but we got a great day at the beach yesterday and it was gorgeous.

I'll update once we get back to Ocala- wish us luck escaping the storm!

"Una taza de café por favor."

We'll be off to Florida tomorrow for a week to visit Jude's aunt and uncle in Ocala. I know, no one knows where or what it is. It's a little town two hours north of Orlando known for horse farms and little else. It's kinda of a strange place- not quite rural, but too rural to be suburban, wealthy because of the horse farms, but with pockets of ghetto redneck areas, and a generic EveryAmericanTownCenter with its huge Barnes & Noble (with in-house Starbucks of course) and JC Penny-esque department store (kinda like every Singaporean neighborhood central with a Giordano, U2 and Bread Talk). We never quite do anything when we're there. A day comprises of waking up early to wash the horses, feed them and hitch them on a buggy to ride. Then you sit at home out of the heat and humidity for the rest of the day with an afternoon nap, a book and hopefully cable TV. The day crawls by without you seeing another human being. I like it because it's really quite relaxing, but if I have to stay there for more than a week, I think I'll slit my wrist or asphyxiate myself in horse feed. The Florida where nothing ever happens.

Then there's the other Florida where everything happens, where every other person you see speaks Spanish, where no one is a native Floridan, and the only place in this country where it's mandatory that men are greasy, gleaming and strut around in white shirts with white pants and white shoes. Miami and everything else south. We'll be spending a day in Miami and then driving down Highway One through the Florida Keys all the way to Key West. This is of course the lousiest time in the year to be in Florida when the heat and humidity are at their absolute highest, but as long as there is seafood, beaches and blue water, I don't care. And then there's Cuban coffee.

Goodbye

That's it, I give up. I cannot bake. I wasn't even going for anything complex like a chocolate ganache torte or whatever it is that Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver make with such ease and panache. It was just granola bars for crying out loud... They turned out more like granola chunks. I can't believe I could screw up what has got to be the world's easiest recipe- just heat butter, honey, brown sugar and vanilla in a pot, and mix with granola. Bake for 25 minutes. They looked fine when I took them out of the oven- smelled great even- but then I tried cutting them up into bars and it was all downhill from there. I lost about a third of it to crumbs... Tasty, but ugly as hell.



I'm just going to stop trying altogether.

The granola things were (still are) meant for Jeff who's taking a week-long road trip back to California tomorrow. I was planning on putting the granola bars into a container for him as an easy snack on the road, but now I'm thinking I might have to throw a spoon in for him to scoop the crumbs out instead... So much for easy. Anyways, Jude's also burning him a road-trip CD with some of our favorite driving songs and some artistes we know Jeff likes like Stevie Nicks, just to ease the tedium of Iowa, Wyoming and Utah. Then he hits Vegas, and Jude & Serene's Road Trip CD will be the last thing on the man's mind...

Broken Flowers

So I'm sitting there looking at Bill Murray in Broken Flowers and trying to find traces of the man who once battled the giant Marshmallow Man with a Proton Pack and a Ghost Trap; as he sits there in his now signature position of indifferent resignation (legs slightly apart, fingers entwined and loosely hanging, shoulders slouched in some kind of existential defeat- pioneered in Lost in Translation, now perfected in Broken Flowers), I'm thinking, where is that almost deranged physical comic who drove Richard Dreyfuss (and me) to the brink of madness in What About Bob? He's gone, I swear. We saw a little of the 21st century Bill Murray in Rushmore, but I think with the triptych of Lost in Translation, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and Broken Flowers, Bill Murray the comic has been laid to rest, and Bill Murray the actor has been born.

I can't think of another actor who can do awkwardness, who thrives on awkwardness almost. How do you even act awkward? If you're Bill Murray you don't act, you exude. Everything from how he never seems comfortable anywhere (he sleeps fitfully on his couch, with an ex-lover, in various motel beds, on an airplane, but never soundly), his eyes dance furtively, defensively almost, but with so much emotion, and he just generally seems ill at ease with his surroundings, other people, and even in his own skin. And therein lies the heart of Broken Flowers- one man awkwardly searching for an answer to a question he doesn't want answered.

Jude says the movie's like High Fidelity for the over-55 set. I agree, with a road trip and six pink bouquets thrown in for good measure. I enjoyed it, mostly because of Bill Murray as the perpetually baleful Don (whose one particularly wrenching scene in a cemetery should nab him an Oscar nomination if nothing else...), but also because of the actresses who play all his ex-lovers. Sharon Stone is a hoot for her brassiness, and Jude almost couldn't recognize Frances Conroy as the mum in Six Feet Under. My favorite is the exquisitely belligerent Tilda Swinton whose smouldering anger was such a refreshing change from the almost beatific Angel Gabriel in Constantine and the White Witch in the upcoming Chronicles of Narnia. The audiences' encounters with all of them are lovingly crafted, but so short-lived. It's almost like you want to invite them all to a cup of coffe, sit down, and get to know them a little better, like Don did...

And one can't help but appreciate Jim Jarmusch's nuanced, almost quiet direction (although this does dawn upon you only a while later after the credits roll). There are no obvious emotions or huge confrontations, no earthshattering confessions or revelations. Broken Flowers doesn't answer questions nor ties things up in a neat pretty bow, and for a movie that has a mystery as a premise, that can be uncomfortable. But such is life no? There will be loose ends flapping in the wind and questions echoing unanswered.

But there will also always be flowers to be offered.

Flying Cats!

I know that there are a lot of you cat fans out there. You should see the photos this guy has taken with his 2 cats. A la Matrix!

Flying Cats by Junku

/jude

Sodom and Gomorrah

Just watched Sin City. God it was awesome...

Dwight: She doesn't quite chop his head off. She makes a Pez dispenser out of him.

No, we didn't have fried chicken.

Until two days ago, I'd never gone camping- EVER; I'd never rock-climbed, not even at the gym; and I'd never had salami and chips together for breakfast. Well as of today, been there, done that. Not successfully on all counts of course- the salami and chips in particular didn't go down too well with my digestive system...

Finally let myself be persuaded to go on a rock climbing/ hiking trip to Kentucky (my husband can be VERY persistent...). The thing that's always bugged me about going camping is the shower, or the lack thereof. Ok, so I'm neurotic when it comes to being clean- both myself, and the environment around me. So you can see how sleeping in a tent with little to no access to fresh water in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky was a potentially problematic prospect. But in the end everything worked out. The camp ground we pitched at had a shower facility (5 minutes for a dollar which amazingly is more than enough time), and I slept miraculously well on just a foam mat sans sheets nor pillow. So there was lunch on Saturday when we had to eat on-site with our hands after climbing and I had chalk and balm and goodness knows what else on my hands (bug remains probably), but you give in to the hunger and the sheer exhaustion, and dirty fingers become the last thing on your mind.

On the whole, it was good healthy fun. The experience was kind of exhilirating actually even though I wouldn't recommend plunging headlong into it without having been to the rock-climbing gym first. That part was a little nerve-wrecking for me. But you get over it after a while especially when you know that the people with you are not only seasoned rock-climbers, but your good friends too. A whole ton of trust and faith is involved- in your own strength, as well in the people supporting you, so being with great company really helps. Neither Jude nor I made it completely up the main crag but just being halfway up was kind of awesome. Painful, but in a good way... Rock-climbing takes strength and agility, but also a little courage and psychological tenacity. I kept giving up at this one level and the thing is, once your mind is convinced you can't move beyond that, your body isn't likely to push itself to try either. It's a lot of discipline- physical and psychological, something I sorely need to work on.

Jude and I went hiking while the rest of them climbed on and it was gorgeous. Wildflowers everywhere, plants of every conceivable shade of green, and voracious bugs that teemed with an exuberance so unfettered I was mildy envious. I know little else about Kentucky except for fried chicken and the Derby, so being there and basking in its rugged beauty was an interesting experience. I can't say much about the people except that they listen to music that makes me just that tad uncomfortable ("I lost my girlfriend who ran away with my brother. She took my money, my heart and my guns. She took my guns, she took my guns... Repeat to fade"), and that they look at you funny, probably coz Jude and I were likely to be the only Asians in a fifty-mile radius. Now that's scary...

Our Flickr account is maxed out for the month so the photos are on the Yahoo! site.

My best friend would be so proud of me, aren't you? ;)

For that minty fresh taste...

Nope, this isn't going to be a post about chewing gum- it's about making something from scratch for the first time with things growing literally in our backyard (and I'm not talking about escargots...). We had Jeff and Allison over for dinner yesterday and to accompany the roast lamb (for which I take no credit whatsoever- that goes to our beloved friend Joe, Trader Joe that is...), I made fresh mint sauce from the profusely growing mint plants outside our house.

1. First I pulled a handful of mint stalks to get about 2 cups of mint leaves. Those stalks look like a lot but don't add up to much once you take them apart. You also need a couple teaspoons of sugar, vinegar and lemon juice.


2. You sprinkle the sugar over the washed mint leaves and let that sit for about an hour. That's apparently supposed to counteract the initial bitterness of the mint. I love how the sugar forms a light crystalline crust over the bright green leaves. So pretty...


3. After an hour, you bunch the leaves up and chop them. See what happens after the wash and sugar have had their way with the mint. That's all 2 cups of mint leaves amount to after I chopped them up.


4. You then heat up 2 tablespoons of vinegar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice. I guess you could just use vinegar but we don't have the fancy sorts like wine or apple, and just plain vinegar smells really noxious if you ask me. Lemon and mint go really well together though. Nice and fresh, like how mornings ought to smell. Which is how the kitchen (and my fingers) smelled like for a good 4 hours- lovely (the smell, not my fingers...). It took about two seconds to heat since my pot was disproportionately big for 4 tablespoons of liquid. Pour it over the mint and stir. You end up with a deep emerald mixture that doesn't quite yet taste like anything actually.

I added a wee bit of salt and some olive oil to make it a tad smoother. You have to let it sit for about 2 hours until the mint has infused the vinegar/ lemon, by which time the sauce should turn moss green.

5. This is just before Jeff and Allison arrived. To accentuate the mint theme, I thought it would be nice to put together a little arrangement with the mint flowers from the plant. They're shaped like lavender flowers, but have miniature blossoms within them.


6. Here's a close-up of the mint flower arrangement.


The final taste of the mint sauce was actually rather mild- all the aroma and freshness of the mint and lemon without the violent acridity. It worked great with the lamb which was darn tasty (it did say "Well-seasoned Bonless Leg of Lamb" on the package)- kind of added that extra layer of taste without being distracting. There was also roasted vegetables pasta and Jeff & Allison brought Spanish Breaded Tomatoes and stir-fried veggies. Jude made a refreshing summery concoction of Ribena (for the unenlightened among you, that's a blackcurrant syrup all Singaporean children- and children from former British colonies I suspect- grew up with), pomegranate soda, and soda water. We wanted to take a photo of the table after everything was put together, but the camera ran out of battery. Cest 'la vie. Give a little more love, I might make the meal again- homemade mint sauce and all...

Flying Spaghetti Monster

Long live the satirist! I don't remember the last time I laughed SOOOO hard! Jude and I were practically on the floor with tears in our eyes. This "open letter" is in response to the decision by the Kansas State Board of Education to allow intelligent design to be taught in science classes alongside evolution (and also particularly pertinent in light of George Bush's recent support for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools).

OPEN LETTER TO KANSAS SCHOOL BOARD

I am writing you with much concern after having read of your hearing to decide whether the alternative theory of Intelligent Design should be taught along with the theory of Evolution. I think we can all agree that it is important for students to hear multiple viewpoints so they can choose for themselves the theory that makes the most sense to them. I am concerned, however, that students will only hear one theory of Intelligent Design.

Let us remember that there are multiple theories of Intelligent Design. I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster. It was He who created all that we see and all that we feel. We feel strongly that the overwhelming scientific evidence pointing towards evolutionary processes is nothing but a coincidence, put in place by Him...

For the full script, click here. And you must spend some time going through all the response letters from real Kansas School Board members and the pages of emails he received, most of which profess contrite conversion to Flying Spaghetti Monsterism... And best of all, this phenomenon has it's own Wikipedia entry, itself worth an invested read! The sites will be a time suck, but I guarantee it will be both a gratifying and nourishing endeavor (both mentally and gastronomically!)



I knew my almost religious affinity to carbohydrates would one day lead me to the meaning of life... I have not noodled in vain.

**Since we're on the topic of carbohydrates, here's a quote from the latest issue of TIME about Atkins Nutritionals- of The Atkins Diet fame- filing for bankruptcy:
"So it's not surprising that when Dr. Robert Atkins' 33-year-long fad diet finally came to a crashing end last week, a whole lot of us were glad. This was a guy who wanted to take away our bread. Even prisoners get bread. Bread is so basic that, unlike water, restaurants don't have the guts to charge for it. Certain foods cannot even be made without bread -- such as French toast and... bread."

Sisyphus

Yes, like the man condemned by the gods to ceaselessly push a rock up the hill, I'm feeling the futility of the search for the perfect blog template. Note to self: by the end of the year, we're not only going to find a reliable server to host all our graphics and blog related files (even if it means having to pay), we're going to learn enough HTML and Flash to design our own website (complete with professional portfolios). Enough of this fiddling around with someone else's design...

Sufjan Stevens- Come On Feel the Illinoise

This is a great follow-up album to his last one on Michigan. His music takes some patience to appreciate though, what with the song titles longer than some people's vocabulary (see "A Conjunction of Drones Simulating the Way in Which Sufjan Stevens Has an Existential Crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze"), and the many allusions to American (more specifically Illinois's) history. There are references to Frank Lloyd Wright, the United Nations, and some Polish revolutionary hero that I'm still deciphering... Still, despite the seemingly staggering scope of the album, it rewards your committment by unveiling something more spiritual and personal beneath. The track "John Wayne Gacy, Jr.", about the Chicago serial killer doesn't so much remember the murderer than to remind ourselves that maybe deep down, we all fall short because we're flawed by sin.

Jude and I enjoy his stuff because he writes like a poet, his words more like narratives than lyrics. Click here for his set on Morning Becomes Eclectic. I recommend The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades is Out To Get Us! where he mourns the death of his best friend, while Jude's track of choice, Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother! is a sublime exercise in awesome rhyming (I never imagined you could write a coherent song with the words "alligator", "aviator", "debater", "emancipator" altogether.)

Another kind of party

It's been six hours and they're still at it. At this moment, there are five laptops and three desktops going at the same time in our house, all connected to our wireless network. Eight grown men who barely know each other have been reduced into intent silence and/or vague incoherence, speaking in male-bonding sub-phrases only geek gamers understand. As far as I'm concerned, it's a whole other language. A whole other dimension of existence. In the games they play, people bleed *purple* blood. I rest my case. It's an aura of sublime techdom I'm not even going to attempt to penetrate. Yes, we're having a LAN party; no, I take that back- Jude's having a LAN party. I could only take the foreign vocabulary and generally rather odd vibe for about 20 minutes before scratching the wall for some female company. ANY female company.

Thank god for Melanie and Iris. And for the laconic charm of a Dr.-Zhivago-watching-dog-loving John Cusack. On any other day, I would have hated spending $7 watching him squander his lovely talent on an otherwise lacklustre excuse of a romantic comedy. But tonight, he was my knight in shining armor, saving me from a fate worse than drinking bad coffee on a frigid winter's day. Diane Lane seemed even more luminous than usual (when I'm in my forties, I want to look just like her, crow's feet and all- talk about aging gracefully), and Christopher Plummer was just smashing reciting Yeats.

Ok, it's close to 2am, and I think people are about ready to go. The three packets of chips are almost gone (extra large Cheesy Cheddar, BBQ, and Vinegar & Onion), and I think the caffeine/ sugar from all that diet Pepsi is finally wearing off. It seems to take very little in terms of food to sustain these guys. Take it from me- sugar and MSG.

Guys, when I find another chick-flick with John Cusack in it to spend $7 on, please do come again. Either that or someone's going to have to teach me how to get that vigilante to spurt purple blood...

Four wheels good, two wheels better.

Just back from a run. The ordeal has been less painful lately, probably because I've been doing it more regularly and my body's sucked it in and given up resisting the pain I put it through. It's still a constant struggle to run harder and farther though. I figured in the long run, I can't keep running at the same pace and for the same distance. Either that or I should find a new sport to occupy myself (my best friend is so going to balk at the notion of me thinking of a SPORT to kill time. All through my school years, I've never passed any fitness test, primarily because I always failed the running segment. Ironic...). Jude and I have toyed with the idea of:
1) Tennis (not enough arm strength nor stamina, although my cousin Jill, a puny girl 16 years younger than I and school champ has offered more than once to coach me...);
2) Swimming (in this region, what are you going to do the other 6 months of the year? And I have my doubts about the sanitary conditions of the indoor pools here...);
3) Rock-climbing (it's indoors so that takes care of the weather, and the prospect of being able to climb like Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2 is rather alluring, so I'm considering...); and most lately,
4) Cycling. No it's not a Lance Armstrong thing; it's more a "taking-advantage-of-the-pretty parks-in-the-area" thing. Besdies, it's also a cheap mode of transportation and you could conceivably ride in Ann Arbor till late-November.

So we've been bike-shopping- comparing prices, specs, suitability, that kind of thing. We kinda like what we saw yesterday but being the bargain-hunter that he is, my husband will stop at nothing to get the best deal, and he always does :)



What I really really want though is a zippy Vespa. They've modernized it a little without losing the retro feel and it'll be fun to have that mobility without the cost. Jude always says that in our ideal household, we ought to have a car, two bikes, and a scooter. That's provided we have stunning incomes, live in a climatically less insane area, and where fellow drivers are courteous rather than homicidal sociopaths.

Defence

All done. This might be the fastest blog recovery in history- less than an hour and everything's pretty much up and going- Tag-Board and Flickr included.

Please, whoever you are, don't do this again. I type fast and I'm not stupid. The coding is tedious but brainless, so getting things back isn't that big a deal. What disgusts me is the callous disregard for someone else's work. I may not have designed the template but someone talented out there did and this is the product of her toil. This is our blog (note POSSESSIVE pronoun)- time, thought and effort has been put into getting it to help us share of ourselves with our friends and family.

Stay away.

!!!

Believe it or not, the blog's been hacked! We lost everything except the posts and some of the graphics... As you can see, I'm repairing the damage right now... Geeez... and just when I was so proud of my HTML coding. Figures, hubris... This isn't even a celebrity blog like Xiaxue's or anything... If I find out who and how someone managed to do this, things are not going to be pretty.

I'm pissed.

New Template

So, we finally found a template we like that has a little something of the both of us. I love the the way the frothy blue plays against the assertive brown, and the contrast between the primitivism of the butterflies and the industrialism of the train is wonderfully intriguing- like getting lost in a naturalist's nightmare... Besides, since The Arcade Fire is one of Jude's favorite bands, this is perfect. We were actually toying with the idea of buying an Arcade Fire poster, but they were too expensive, so I guess having a blog that looks like one is the next best thing.

There are still some kinks I'm fiddling with (like finding out what on earth is going on with Tag-Board and how to fit in Jude's Flickr bar), but for the moment, we're happy with how this looks.

What say you?

Guess who?

Guess who's going to be home for Christmas and New Year for the first time in three years? Guess who got his conference paper accepted in Singapore and managed to wrangle the university into paying for his ticket home? Guess who learnt from their mistake and booked December air tickets in July instead of September? Guess who can't wait to do Christmas shopping with her sisters and cousins again? Guess! Guess! Guess!

2046

There was a period in my life where I firmly believed I was born in the wrong era. Had I been a woman in Pre-Raphaelite England where a full figure was revered, I would have had people write poetry about me, sculpt my likeness in alabaster, and kiss the ground I walk on. Ok, there is always the chance that I could have been born a kitchen wench, and I couldn't have voted or gone to the university, but at least I wouldn't have had to diet. So there... Call me shallow.

But now, I want to live in Singapore/ Hong Kong in the '60s. I want to dress in a Shantung cheongsam everyday. I want to paint my nails blood-red, line my eyes dramatically with kohl, and drawl on a cigarette lazily while my lover looks on with melancholic desire. I want to live in a hotel perpetually drenched in the scent of passion- both rapturous and repressed, wear three-inch heels, walking langourously as if it were the easiest thing in the world to do. I want to take a train to a place, a time where things never change and where memories are real. I want to fall in love like I was drugged. And I want Tony Leung to look at me as if I grip the madness of his soul.

Announcement

Finally, KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic is podcasting!

Us Kids Know

Today Serene and I walked into a record store for the first time in a long, long while. I meant to get a turntable last weekend so that I can at least get a couple of albums via vinyl and save a couple of bucks. (Here in Ann Arbor, vinyls are cheaper than CDs. Go figure. Everywhere else in the world it's the other way around) Anyway, we were browsing around in Schoolkids Records in Exile on State Street and the temptation was just too much. There were so many items on my "to-get" list that I literally had to rationalize and prioritize what I wanted. Eversince I sold all my records at home, I have decidedly changed my music shopping ways and have a NEED TO BUY criteria only. And so I decided to get the band that's got my goat ever since I first heard them- The Arcade Fire. I don't know what it is but this band always gets my brain's and body's attention everytime their music comes on. And today I decided to buy their self-titled debut EP. Though a much simpler effort than the towering and raucous 'Funeral', I can certainly see where Arcade Fire's roots lie ... that of youthful rebellion. I don't know, I may be getting old, but the lyrics of 'No cars go' still hit me somewhere between my rounding gut and my last rib ....

No Cars Go

Planes! Ships! Hey!
no Cars Go! Hey!
No Cars Go!
Where We know!
Spaceships! Subs! Hey!
Us Kids Know! Hey!
No Cars Go!
Where We know!
Between the click of the light and the start of the dream!



//jude//

Ch#$b*@ is the new hip

All I ever wanted when I was in primary school was for my name to be called every Monday morning at assembly to go on stage to receive a Speak Good English badge. The Speak Good English campaign was initiated throughout schools in the '80s as part of the government's endeavor to wipe out the use of vernacular dialects and encourage the use of Standard English.

Twenty years later, one blog and one overnight sensation of a blogger comes along and pulls off a coup- not only is the oft-considered crass-and-coarse Hokkien suddenly a celebratory instrument of opinion, he has unwittingly (or not) propelled a Hokkien swear word to celebrity status, making it officially the first curse phrase to appear in our national press.



For an extended guide on the origins and use of this word, click here.

We can't help it- we're devoted readers... Rockson, you rock!

To the ecstasy of love...

[click for book recommendation]

Dance Me to the End of Love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Let me see your beauty when the witnesses are gone
Let me feel you moving like they do in Babylon
Show me slowly what I only know the limits of

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on
Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long
We're both of us beneath our love, we're both of us above

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic till I'm gathered safely in
Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love

-Madeleine Peyroux (lyrics originally by Leonard Cohen)

Finished product

Ta-da! This is how the table looks like re-assembled. You can't really see the sheen from the photo but it does look a lot better than it did 11 hours ago. We still can't put stuff on it, but at least it's in the house and blending in nice with the rest of the furniture.

Home Improvement

To describe it best, today was one extended Tim-Allen-meets-Martha Stewart moment. After sleeping in till noon, indulgently reading every section of the NYT, and a light lunch of gyoza with Chinese veggies, Jude and I jumped straight into the chores we've been putting off for the longest time with every conceivable excuse (mid-terms, friend visiting, 4th of July, bad weather, sloth...).

First I re-potted all my indoor plants which I suspect have been struggling these last couple of months; especially my little roses which bloomed so prettily in spring, but look more like wannabe bonsais these day (a.k.a. bare and dry, and without the elegant postures no less).



We also bought some new plants for the little plot we have in front and at the back of the house. Jude insisted on a yew bush (get it? get it?) so we got a bobbink yew which is supposed to be really hardy in the winter. Flowers like lilies and sunflowers would look really nice but come October, my yard will be the graveyard of flowers- it would have been too depressing. We figure shrubs and bushes are a more sensible choice in the long run and might be more interesting in case we decide to add other plants around them. The yew looks a little puny now but it grows pretty fast so it should look good by the time my birthday comes round when my parents and sisters come visit! :)



For the backyard, we chose two young lavender plants. I love the smell of lavender- so calming. Lavender and wildflower honey are the two smells/ tastes which remind me most of Australia and they bring back really wonderful memories so I'm glad we got them. The lavender plants are a tad small right now but they smell gorgeous already. Can't wait till they get bigger. Imagine the fragrance wafting through the house...



Our biggest project was re-staining a table our friends Dave & Jen gave us. After the couch, this is out favorite piece of furniture. It looks more like a handyman's work table (which is why we love it), and comes with two benches. It's was handmade and the varnish was peeling off. We had to painstakingly strip and then re-stain it. We wanted to make sure the table's really protected so ended up using a resin/ epoxy mix to coat it. Man it was hard work! Thank god the table top was removable from the legs so we could work outside. First the stripping took at least two hours, and then the varnishing another hour. Now we have to wait seven hours before we can move it, and to dry completely, it's another seventy-two hours! In fact, I'm writing this as I'm sitting on my front steps watching the varnish dry (yes, gives new meaning to the term "watching paint dry"...) We're afraid the neighbors' kids might come by and touch it- not so much that they might spoil the stain, but that they might get epoxy on their hands. It's toxic (smells it too...).



It's now 7.57 pm, my clothes are so dirty they would walk to the washer themselves if they could (not my line- adapted from my beloved best friend...), I'm more thirsty than hungry, I'm so pooped I can barely haul myself upstairs to shower, and we have three hours before we can move the table.

No wonder Tim and Martha get paid to do what they do...

Books

The paradox of having been an English major (for me at least), is that one ends up reading a whole lot of books because you have to, and not enough of those you want to. Being a product of the Singapore education system, I read my assigned readings slavishly and thoroughly, forsaking the allure of more attractive alternatives in the name of The Exam. I really don't think my life would have been very different had I not read Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton, Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (God bless the Marlon Brando of American literature, but bull-fighting and ennui just do not figure together in my literary psyche), or Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds. I constantly appall myself (and am sure outrage the literary snobs of the world) that I've not read Ulysees (although I did read Portrait of a Young Man as an Artist), I don't remember enough of Moby Dick to claim to have read it (*gasp*), and no, I haven't read (nor do I want to) Julius Caesar (double *gasp*). I did go through the mandatory Sylvia Plath Ariel/ Bell Jar phase that descends upon all literary-leaning young women who yearn to be the melancholic beauty that was she. I devised a whole theory about the difference between male and female suicide just from reading The Bell Jar. For women, it's all about the beautiful death- nothing must happen to your face. That's why women drown, slit their wrists, and stuff their heads in ovens. Men shoot themselves, jump off buildings, and stand in front of moving vehicles. Not pretty. Women are from Venus, and men from Mars.

Anyways, this wasn't meant to be a post about killing myself. I wanted to talk about books. So ironically, I only managed to start reading for leisure when I started teaching, and now during summer and Christmas breaks. I like it alot better this way actually- less pressure to deconstruct and analyze, and more about enjoying the prose and poetry for itself. Just finished The Time Traveler's Wife (see sidebar) and it was wonderful. I might just have to read the last twenty pages again since things were basically a blur of tears between pg. 517 and pg. 537. The fact that it was 5.07 in the morning when I was done might partially explain the haze I was in (you try putting it down after pg. 452...). At 5.10, I recovered suitably from the post-narrative stupor, washed my face, went downstairs, gave Jude a hug (who was still slaving away for his statistics finals tommorrow) and asked him never to leave me. That's what the book does.

Books like these make me wish I were a writer. I guess that's the measure of a good book for me, books that make me fall in love with reading and writing, and thinking about reading and writing all over again. I've read many books in my lifetime, and I've loved many of them; but only a handful fall in this category. Few of the ones I read in university actually come to mind (largely because I had to analyze them to death, and was completely numb to them afterwards- oh the irony...)- ok, there was Shakespeare's Measure for Measure (my all time favorite Shakespeare play- not a conventional choice I know, but not enough people have read it nor know it for this brilliant little play to be conventionally appreciated see...), The Four Quartets, Rushdie's Shame, Middlemarch maybe. But the first time I was literally floored by a book that wasn't on a reading list was Dec 2000 when I read A.S. Byatt's Possession. I refused to believe it was over after the last page. It left me breathless. It's a hefty book and slow-going for the first couple of hundred pages (I know people who are at the same page they were two years ago...), but it rewards you handsomely and lovingly if you persevere and invest yourself in it. It remains remarkable to me how Byatt juggles the multiple narrative and stylistic voices, the layering of time periods, the loving, hating, yearning, coveting characters of such sublime depth you think they would die from feeling and being so much. This book reached into my guts and touched my soul.

possess, v
a. Of a person or body of persons: To hold, occupy (a place or territory); to reside or be stationed in; to inhabit (with or without ownership)
b. To take up the attention or thoughts of; to occupy, engross.
c. To hold as property; to have belonging to one, as wealth or material objects; to own.
d. To have possession of, as distinct from ownership.
e. With with: To cause to be possessed by (a feeling, idea, or the like; to imbue, inspire, permeate, affect strongly or permanently with; to cause to feel or entertain.

For God's gift...

What does this look like to you?
A mark so fine, you barely see.
You have one just like it, too
A twisting vine,
A mark so fine;
Cause I love you with all I am
And you love me because you are
As fearless as a twisting vine,
A mark so fine
But still a scar

Fear plays dumb then eats the soul
Like a vagabond with a fishing pole
He whistles but he cannot sing,
Its an awful tune
But very soon
I find that I am whistling, too
And your window is like a star
That I sit beneath like a vagabond
Who wears his fear
Just like a scar

The blade of our outrageous fortune
Like a parade, it cuts a path,
Light shows on our foolish way
And darkness on
Our aftermath;
If I love you to save myself
And you love me because we are
So fool to think that our parade
Could leave a path
But not a scar

And I love you with all I am
And you love me with what you are
As pretty as a twisting vine,
A mark so fine

But still a scar

- Joe Henry, "Scar"

A little something about bands

So I'm writing this post partially at the request of my 12-year old sister who feels very resolutely that the world needs to be informed of her latest (and for all intents and purposes, her most) prized possession: a piece of towel. BUT, it is no ordinary piece of towel, it is a fraction of THE towel (which was lovingly cut into two pieces, one for her, one for her friend) used by Good Charlotte when they performed in Singapore last Tuesday. This towel, in other words, contains DNA residue of all the band members (it was used to wipe their profusely exuberant beads of sweat as they performed their little wannabe-post-punk-Green-Day-genuflecting hearts out to a stadium of teenagers whose only conception of pioneering punk music IS Green Day, and who have probably never heard of The Sex Pistols or Iggy Pop...); but more importantly for my sister, it has touched the hands of the boy she is determined to commit her life and soul to- Billy Martin. She:
1) only touches the towel with the tip of her fingers in case her DNA contaminates what has been left on the fabric;
2) will never wash that piece of thing; and
3) is going to seal it in a vacuum sealed bag for all eternity, to be taken out only to remind herself of her undying devotion to the band, and to Billy.

Her euphoria over that piece of cloth was so torrential I could barely contain my laughter (pray tell, how else would one respond to a screaming teenager whose highlight of her year is a disgusting piece of cotton); besides, her utter disregard for the fact that the towel not only contains millions of bateria and germs, but that they have multiplied exponentially since Tuesday, and will only continue to fester in her sealed bag is so extraordinary, it's sweet...

I just hope that bag never breaks...

Speaking of bands, on a related note, Jude and I spent the day in Detroit for The Concert of Colors, a concert/ fair to celebrate diversity and multiculturalism in Detroit. The highlight of the event was Ozomatli, an Afro-Latin hip-hop band from L.A. whose members challenge musical racial steroetypes in the strangest ways: sure they've got two black rappers, but they also have a white DJ, a Chinese bongo player, and a Latino clarinet player. Their music also has Indian and Arabic influences which is both interesting and exciting for a hip-hop band. They were SO good, it's not even funny. The music was awesome, the performacne electrifying, and the best thing is, they had a blast of a time performing. Those guys had fun, and the audience knew it. It was infectious! Jude and I were dancing right through the set (and those closest and dearest to us know this, we don't dance... That's how fabulous they were.) At one point, they got all the children onto the stage to play and groove- dynamite! And they even took the performance into the audience and out into the fair grounds- talk about participatory performance! They really got the crowd moving and jivving, and whipped everyone into a celebratory frenzy- I hadn't had so much musical fun since my momentous karaoke expedition with my girlfriends when I was home.

Good fun, good fun :)

Thank you, David!

Look what one of our former students got for us (who waited in line for a grand total of ten hours no less...) when Neil Gaiman visited Singapore two weeks ago!!





Between the two of us, I think Jude and I have all of Gaiman's Sandman comics. My favorite are his Shakespeare ones where Gaiman imagines that the Bard wrote his plays as part of a bargain with and finally a gift to Dream, starting with A Midsummer Night's Dream, and ending with The Tempest. It's a beautifully conceived narrative arc, making me wish I brought all my Sandman books here with me...

Thank you very very much, David- it was a wonderful surprise! :)

Candy freak

There is nothing not to like about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
1) It's a movie about candy,
2) It's based on a book by Roald Dahl (I much prefer George's Marvellous Medicine though),
3) It stars Johnny Depp (greasy in 21 Jump Street, perfect in Edward Scissorhands, and dreamy in Benny and Joon)
4) There's Freddie Highmore (a boy who makes my uterus skip a beat like it hasn't since the little kid in Stepmom. Imagine a son with a crisp British accent going, "Mommy, could I have a spot of milk please if it's not too much of a bother..."), and
5) It's directed by Tim Burton.
Enough said.

One of my favorite film books is Burton on Burton, part of a Faber and Faber series featuring directors writing about their own films.

[click to read description of book and Foreword by Johnny Depp]

In the book, Burton talks about growing up in Burbank, California, in a suburb much like the one he recreated in Edward Scissorhands, and how his peculiar attraction and inclination toward the morbid and perverse (see one of the best books ever, The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy) was actually the product of growing up in just such an environment. It was a fascinating dive into the man's mind and until today, Burton remains one of my favorite directors (given a few aberrations: Planet of the Apes was incomprehensible, and no matter how hard you try to convince me otherwise, I will never allow my children to watch Pee Wee Herman). I love the way he gives free reign to his subversive imagination, and how he can conceive of art, beauty and wonder in what others think of as dark, bitter and strange. Oh, and of course, he has the most wonderfully wicked sense of humor- anyone watched Mars Attack? OK, I have to admit, that one's an acquired taste...

And I can't wait for Corpse Bride.

THE love story

Looks like the blog's taking on a theme this week- love, heartache, and all the things to do with people coming together, or not. Just watched Before Sunrise and Before Sunset back to back, and it was lovely. Just lovely. They were perfect love stories (or a perfect love story) full of moments of repressed longing, regret and intimacy. I love the fact that the movie only had them and them alone- no one else. At the end of the day, that's it isn't it? Love is about two people and the things they confess and pour out only to each other; those moments you share that nobody else knows about, the presence you inhabit only in the company of the other, and the kind of person you are, only when you're with the one you love.

And these emotions transcend words, it's about how you feel and how these feelings emnate without you even saying anything. My two favorite scenes from the films have Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy just looking at each other, music playing and them just looking. In Before Sunrise, it's the one in the record shop listening booth where they're listening to Kath Bloom's Come Here. They're leaning side by side and trying hard to sneak glances at each other without the other one catching them. It's an 80-second extended shot and it was sublime. Just wacthing them watching each other, the awkwardness, the tension- you could almost feel the electricity of those first blossomings of desire crackling.

Nine years later, in Before Sunset, Julie Delpy plays the waltz for Ethan Hawke. He's sitting on her couch and she's on her bed and they're not even close to touching. But as the lyrics come out of her mouth, and she looks at him, and he looks back at her, it becomes one of the most poignant scenes ever committed to celluloid, especially if you've watched the first film. The song is her love letter to him- the torrent of feelings about this one man on that one night nine years ago finally channeled- simply and sweetly- to the right recepient. It feels wrong for you to be watching the scene because it's like you're intruding on someone's confession. It's an almost sacred moment for them. Excruciatingly brilliant.

"There's wind that blows in from the north.
And it says that loving takes this course.
Come here. Come here.
No I'm not impossible to touch I have never wanted you so much.
Come here. Come here.
Have I never laid down by your side.
Baby, let's forget about this pride.
Come here. Come here.
Well I'm in no hurry. Don't have to run away this time.
I know you're timid.
But it's gonna be all right this time."
- Kath Bloom, "Come Here"

Since we're on the topic of Heartbreak

"If you haven't heard him... man, it's like he boiled down all the melancholy in the world, all the bruises and all the f**ked-up dreams you've let go, and poured the essence into a little tiny bottle and corked it up. And when he starts to play & sing, he takes the cork out, and you can smell it. You're pinned into your seat, as if it's a wall of noise, but it's not- it's still, and quiet, and you don't want to breathe in case you frighten it away."
- JJ from Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down talking about listening to Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left.

[click for album]

Heartbreak

Two of our closest friends are going through a break-up right now and it's been real tough for them both. I guess the worst thing is that it isn't mutual so that really sucks. I remember having a conversation with Jude a long time ago about Love, and about how I've always thought of it akin to the taste of dark chocolate. To enjoy the decadent ambroisa of dark chocolate is to take the bitter with the sweet. Milk chocolate is too easy, and white chocolate, soulless. Dark chocolate on the other hand, is the essence of life, and love. Bitter and sweet, heartbreak and fulfilment.

Which brings me to, in the words of John Cusack in "High Fidelity", my Top 5 Heartbreak songs of all time. For one reason or another, these five songs have creeped to the top of the list amidst many other worthy contenders. Heartbreak songs aren't just about the pain, but also the yearning, the ache, and the poetry.

1) Joni Mitchell's A Case of You: It's all about the intoxication and the addiction here. Obsession maybe? And the concept of the bittersweet is clearly not lost on her either. Favorite line: "I remember that time that you told me, you said/ Love is touching souls/ Surely you touched mine/ Cause part of you pours out of me/ In these lines from time to time."

2) Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat: This song breaks my heart. It's written as a letter from Leonard Cohen to his best friend after he finds out that the friend slept with his wife. There is no rage nor anger, but gratitude almost, and a kind of empathy. It's a letter about a woman who shares her passion with two men, but not her love. Favorite lines: "Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes/ I thought it was there for good so I never tried."

3) The New Radicals' Someday We'll Know: Courtesy of my best friend who shared this in a time of need. The lyrics are especially well-written and the whimsicality of it all belies more than just a tinge of heartache and that incredulous questioning that accompanies all break-ups. All the whys and why nots... Favorite lines: "I bought a ticket to the end of the rainbow/ I watched the stars crash in the sea/ If I could ask God just one question/ Why aren’t you here with me?"

4) Mary Margaret O'Hara's To Cry About: Because it's a little obscure, I can't find the lyrics, but trust me when I say this song will tear you apart. It's all yearning, all ache. She drawls like a cross between Billie Holiday and Rickie Lee Jones which makes everything sound even more plaintive. This will haunt you in your sleep. Favorite lines: "You're in my heart, I'm in your hand/ Drop me off, I miss you and/ You give me something/ To cry about."

5) Bob Dylan's A Simple Twist of Fate: Jude shared this one with me years ago and I've always remembered it as being so very sad. So much in life, and love depends on just that one quirk of destiny. It's all the "what-could-have-been" and "if-only" moments rolled in one. Favorite lines: "People tell me it's a sin/ To know and feel too much within./ I still believe she was my twin, but I lost the ring./ She was born in spring, but I was born too late/ Blame it on a simple twist of fate."

What did you listen to when someone broke your heart?

I Really Like You

i'll buy you mangoes baby
your favorite fruit
i'll shave everything baby
i'll press my suit
i'll find that song by perry como you like to sing
i'll eat your tv dinners
and wear you cigar ring
do you think that I can persuade
don't make me fade because

CHORUS:

i really like you baby
i want to see you baby
i really like you baby
i want to be you baby

i'll gladly make you
my first tatoo
you and me forever
in red and black and blue
i'll let you drive my car
i'll even paint my eyes
forget about all my friends
and tell outrageous lies
do you think I can persuade
don't make me fade because

- Melissa Etheridge

I concede

Ok, so I was wrong- Batman Returns is not the best movie in the franchise. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what movie we just came back from, and it was awesome. Everything a Batman movie ought to be, and then some...

My grouse with the other Batman movies is that they weren't dark enough, nor faithful enough to the spirit of what Batman, as well as Gotham stands for. Batman Returns was great for me because it had all the requisite elements- a brooding Batman, two (well, three if you count Catwoman) deliciously campy villians, enough sexual tension to power a small city, and the whole circus-clown-carnival thing was an inspired touch of perverse tragicomedy. One of the things I remember Joel Schumacher saying when he was interviewed about Batman Forever was that the first two Batman movies were too funereal, and that it was time for Batman to have some fun. Hello? And Batman is called the Dark Knight because he was meant to spread cheer, merriment and a huge doses of Prozac to the citizens of Gotham? That's the job of a deranged purple dinosaur. Besides, would you trust a man who then went on to make the god-awful Batman and Robin?

Now Batman Begins is a whole other kettle of fish (or bats- choose your own non-mammal); perfectly gothic, sumptuously dark and oh so elemental as Batman was always meant to be. You don't watch Batman movies for the acting (although I love Gary Oldman, and Michael Caine is so deadpan funny. Katie Holmes on the other hand should just stay at home, have Tom Cruise's babies and quite acting...)- it's the storyline, plot and feel. And who better than Christopher Nolan whose Memento and Insomnia are some of the most gripping narratives I've seen committed to film (so what if Insomnia wasn't written by him? He made Al Pacino a real actor again...). Batman Begins is Batman as it should be- a phantasmogoria of madness, fear, and a palpable sense of unsalvageable human brokeness all contained in a dystopic city so foul and sordid, it's almost alluring.

Those of you who were as hooked as I was to Batman: The Animated Series know exactly what I mean. Now that is one cartoon that is not meant for kids, not by a long shot. It dived deep into the psychology of both Batman and the villians at Arkham. I'll never forget one episode about Harley Quinn trying to lead a normal life after being released from the asylum. Things don't work out of course but in that 30 minutes, the show unearthed Harley the human- the girl- and not just an insane jester with the crazy hat. Simply inspired...

Can you imagine if Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan came together to make the next Batman film? Oh man...

Why we love KCRW.org

Because we are poor graduate students on a shoestring budget who cannot afford to pay for tickets to watch live concerts. Nic Harcourt is our savior and Morning Becomes Eclectic is our favorite online radio show because we can watch all our favorite acts without having to give up the comfort of our house or the luxury of free wireless with a cup of coffee. I love the sound of intimate acoustic sets- they're about as good, if not sometimes better than watching them live on stage. And some of the shows have the artistes performing covers of their favorite acts. So cool...

Archived shows:
1) Travis
2) Starsailor
3) Grant-Lee Phillips
4) The Thrills
5) Trash Can Sinatras
6) Damien Rice
7) Rachel Yamagata
8) Sleepy Jackson
9) Air
10) The Cardigans
11) Keane
12) Sonic Youth
13) The Finn Brothers
14) The Polyphonic Spree
15) Badly Drawn Boy
16) Pink Martini
17) Wilco
18) American Music Club
19) Rufus Wainwright
20) Arcade Fire
21) Aqualung
22) Ed Harcourt
23) The Decemberists
24) Josh Rouse
25) Aimee Mann
26) Athlete
27) Feist
28) Ben Lee

And coming up soon are Sufjan Stevens and Stephen Malkmus. Watch out for them!

Game over

Oh well, it was great while it lasted. It's over. Now it's back to their day jobs. Oh wait, they don't have day jobs...

"Hair"rowing

My husband is a dear. I can't believe he still loves me after what I did.

I cut his hair.

One moment we were laughing at the prospect of opening a makeshift barber in our basement, the next, I'm standing there with the $9.99 haircutting kit in my hand and tears streaming down my face. A nick here, a rough cut there, in a matter of minutes, I had totally and irrevocably butchered his hair. The only way out of the avant garde asymmetrical tribute to David Bowie (the '80s him minus the make-up) was to take it ALL off, and so I did. So now Jude looks like a cross between Ed Harris and our friend Nathan.

It isn't that he looks bad- in fact, it's kinda cool- but it was really very stressful thinking I was this close to making my husband look like he had just undergone chemotherapy. Jude's really sweet- he just keeps going on about how little shampoo he needs to use now and how breezy it is in summer.

I would never let Jude cut my hair, but if I ever did, I promise I'll be this nice to him too...

Game 5

I've never been a sports fan. The closest I got to even being in the vicinity of pretending to be interested in sports of any sort was when I was a rugby groupie in junior college (yes, I'm shallow like that. I am the same person who used to watch tennis for Goran Ivanesevic and soccer for Patrick Berger...) And now I'm married to a former rugby player of course.

So it was actually quite exhilirating to watch the closing minutes of Game 5 of the NBA Finals between the Detroit Pistons and the San Antonio Spurs. The last 5.9 seconds were particularly nail-biting. And then we lost. Although it was close one (95-96), the Spurs were clearly a stronger team. Better defense and an all-round tighter game. The Pistons? Too flamboyant. All style, little substance, and a tad complacent about being the defending champions if you ask me.

Today was the last home game for them too, so with the next two games being played on Spurs home-ground, looks like whatever glimmer of hope that had been ignited by our winning of Games 3 & 4 just got whooshed.

*Sigh*... should have stuck to doing the laundry tonight.

Lazy Weekend

Jude called it living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. I just call it sheer summer indulgence: 10-hour sleep till 12.30pm, a leisurely lunch in front of the TV, back to nap at 2pm till 5.30pm, shopping at Target, dinner at the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, coffee and dessert at Zingermans' and a guilty pleasure movie at 11.25 at night. We only got home at 2am last night, and without a tinge of guilt whatsoever. It was absolutely sublime.

And today- ha! Slept in till 11am and then got ready for a BBQ party we were having at our backyard with some of our friends and their kids. It was totally Babies R'Us meets the Big Cook-Out man... What we discovered today:
1) We have a whole patch of mint growing outside our house. Guess who's going to be making vats of mint iced tea right through summer??
2) Adding half a cup of cold water to your ground beef makes the juicest burger patties this side of MacDonaldland...
3) Children are orally-fixated: Marshmallows. Chocolates. Plastic. Dad's trousers.
4) You do not spray vegetable spray onto the grill directly. Ask Jude.
5) Toasted marshmallows and fruit skewers with double chocolate sauce... Heaven.

And now that we have our own grill- Jude can re-live his Aussie fantasies of throwing anything and everything onto the "barbie". All we need is year-round sunshine and a stretch of blue sandy beach and we'll be home.

Thanks for coming guys- it was a blast!

Nick Hornby

Yup, yup, that's us with Nick Hornby!! By a sheer quirk of fate, we were in Chicago the weekend of a kezillion festivals including the Printers Row Book Fair. Nick Horby was going to read from his latest book, "A Long Way Down" and there was also going to be an interview with him. But we got so carried away shopping we missed the reading. Hurried down to Printers Row just in time to buy the book and get in a block-long line for his autograph. I love Nick Hornby- not many people would consider him a serious fiction writer but he's wonderful because he writes with so much heart, and he's funny as *$#%@! "High Fidelity" is my favorite (Jude's too- a crash course in love, life and music) and "A Long Way Down" looks like it's got a lot of potential (I read about a chapter of it while waiting in line. It was a really surreal experience actually- reading a book written by an author whose books you enjoy, and who you're going to meet very soon if only the forty-seven other blokes in front of you would hurry and not have bought five copies of the book each for themselves, their relatives, and one to be auctioned off on eBay one day I suspect...)

Predictably, we didn't get to speak much to him- the poor guy looked tired (he must have hung around for three hours more after his reading just to autograph all those books), but happy. He refused to cut the line at any point and promised to sign as long as there were people waiting. That was really the highlight of my day- well, the shopping was great (finally got the kate spade wallet of my dreams at 50% off!!) and the company was even better, but meeting Nick Hornby was just about as awesome as it gets :) Some other writers I'd love to meet (in no particular order):
1) Jeffrey Eugenides
2) A.S. Byatt
3) Salman Rushdie
4) Kazuo Ishiguro
5) Gabriel García Márquez
There's definitely more, and this is not counting the dozen others who are no longer living. Oh man, and don't get me started on poets...

By the way, we've posted the Chicago photos up. Check them out!

Coming out

I'm a closet geek. At about 11.32am this morning, as I went through the statistics assignment I have to complete by tomorrow, it struck me. Hard. I realized that I was actually excited about getting started with it. It was a kind of faint exhiliration accompanied by a strange perverse rush. I have officially achieved dorky geekdom. It's not so much the course which excites me (if I don't see another Greek notation again, I really wouldn't care, and no, I do not dervie any real pleasure from writing computer codes in Unix) but the whole prospect of research and delving into something I don't know anything about yet but will soon. It's like standing on the precipice of unknown knowledge and tingling my toes, waiting to dive in...

So anyway, back to kindergarten retention and how it affects children differently depending on the type of kindergartens they attend. Then we'll be off to Chicago for the weekend with our dear friend Felicia who's visiting from Singapore! Jude got us an obscene steal on Priceline- $150/night at the swanky Westin, right next to the Chicago River. And there's the annual Chicago Blues' Festival, the Art Institute, and Millennium Park.

I'm way ready...

Running Tracks

I can't remember how it was like to exercise without the iPod. How I managed to numb the rising strain and control the raging palpitations before my little friend came along is beyond me. We ran through Nichols Arboretum today- painful on the one hand because of the dastardly sun (I can't imagine that just 6 weeks ago, this place was snowing...) but also strangely cathartic (we who run out of compulsion rather than pleasure find all sorts of words to justify and authenticate the pain we put ourselves through). So, the tracks which soothed my straining body today:
1) Photobooth- Death Cab for Cutie (3:46)
2) I Only Said- My Bloody Valentine (5:34)
3) It's The End of the World- R.E.M (4:04)
4) Gamble Everything for Love- Ben Lee (3:21)
5) You Got the Style- Athlete (3:25)
6) I Missed the Glance- The Sea & Cake (4:03)
7) Women and Men- Josh Rouse (5:06)
8) Yahweh- U2 (4:23)

Hmm... I think I need to create a playlist of songs specifically for these moments of self-flagellation. Maybe a playlist of only Basement Jaxx tracks...

Green Tea

 


 

We would like to extend a warm welcome to the newest addition to our family, Ocha. As you can see from the pictures above, she's all shiny, happy and new :) We were really tired of dealing with second hand car salesmen and decided to go to the Hyundai dealer instead. She's got 4 more years of warranty on all her parts and that'll stop the heamorrhaging of money for repairs and parts. I have only ever driven wrecks in my life. In fact my previous car was lovingly named "Deathtrap" by both friends and family. So Ocha is welcome change and she looks set to be a member of our family for a long time to come.

jude

Car woes

It's sad when people live up to the negative stereotypes of them- one's faith in fellow human beings compel you to want to believe that people can be better than what others think of them. Sadly, with one particular group of people, stereotypes seem to be all there is- the used car salesman.

So we're shopping for a new car. Our Mazda is 11-years old, the air-conditioning doesn't work (this is fine 8 months of the year of course, but come July...), and the gear pops when we shift it into 5th (which is particularly precarious for Jude who commutes on the freeway for an hour three times a week to his internship). The thing is, as students, our budget immediately disqualifies us from getting cars we really really want, i.e. a Subaru Forrester, or a zippy Scion, better still the Toyota Hybrid- Prius (imagine the tax-cut! of course, it's like buying ourselves a conscience), even a simple second-hand Honda Civic is out of our reach. Oh woe is us... And it's not even a want, you *need* a car in this town. Only 3 months of a year do I feel that walking is the best way to get around Ann Arbor. Apart from that, NO. Unlike the bigger cities where public transport is utterly comprehensive and convinient, Ann Arbor's idea of public transportation is buses that come every half-hour, each bus-stop being served by one bus number, and routes only running from 6am to 10pm in many areas. We've been spoiled by what I now think as Singapore's rather inspired public transportation system.

Anyways, about these car-people. My question is, how can they ever talk to anyone honestly anymore? Is there like a knob that they switch off when they go home where they then become real, normal people who speak to their wives and children in neither hyperbole or conspiratorially like they're your new best friend? Where they don't say things like, "To tell you the truth, I don't make money. I just sell cars.", or "Honestly, I'm not here to earn your money, I want to earn a friend"? These guys would sell their mothers' soul to cut a deal. The ones we've encountered this past week have done nothing to redeem the abysmal reputation of used car salesmen- they have been every bit as sleazy, smarmy and shady as people make them out to be.

Which brings me back to the beginning- at what point does one give in to doubt and suspicion and say, "I can no longer give this dude the benefit of the doubt. I think he's trying to scam me."? You want to believe things that people tell you because like Anne Frank, you want to believe that at their core, people are actually good at heart. You want to go on thinking that deceit, avarice and self-servitude are things you only hear of or read about, and that the person standing in front of you is actually sincere, genuine and trustworthy. I don't want to lose that faith in people. It will be a sad, sad day.

If you can find an honest used car saleman, let us know. We need to buy a new car.

PIctures perfect

Finally loaded all 100+ photos we took over 20 days. Towards the end of the trip, Jude got so snap-happy everywhere we went, people on the streets actually thought he was a tourist (few locals would take photos of sugar-cane juice stalls, or of their wives buying illegal DVDs...). So what you'll be seeing amongst the photos:
1) Our family including our niece's first birthday, my grandparents (I really wish I spent more time with my granny) and my sister's gleeful acquisition of a new pink ipod mini. I don't know how but in 3 days, she imported more songs than I have on my 20GB!!
2) My Karaoke expedition: you won't see pictures of me here. I was too busy snapping away at my friends laughing at me, each other and themselves. These photos do not do justice to the sheer hilarity which was that night.
3) Some sights of Singapore: These pictures actually turned out really well. Jude takes good photos. They look like they belong in Lonely Planet or something.
4) Our road-trip to Kulau Lumpur. We literally ate ourselves north-ward toward and through Malaysia's capital.
5) My uncle's seafood restaurant- Don't go here unless you're a) a real foodie (coz there're only photos of food, b) have the self-restraint and discipline to not bolt out the door to your nearest seafood place (which I guarantee will not even come close to how fresh and absolutely yummy his seafood is), or c) don't really like food in which case these photos will have no effect on your whatsoever... and what's wrong with you anyway??!!
6) Photos of our friends, many of whom met us with kid(s) in tow. This phenomenon is otherwise known as the Peer Pressure of Procreation.
7) Abundant pictures of our niece Amelia. The cutie loves anything electronic- imagine, she's happier with a cell-phone than a Winnie-the-Pooh doll.

Knock yourselves out!

As the dust settles again

Have been trying to post for the past four days but just haven't been able to muster up the energy to apply my thoughts to words- too labor-intensive. My mind and body is still painfully trying to shake up from the awful jet-lag this time round. The flight itself was surprisingly forgiving- I basically slept my way through Tokyo to Detroit (something I've never accomplished before); but for some cruel reason, adjusting back to the Eastern Time Zone has just not been fun. We're in bed by 11pm (if not 10pm every night), and all up and perky at 6-ish in the morning. Why do you think I'm blogging at 7am in the morning on a gorgeous spring day?

The trip home was great as always, albeit a little stressful this time round. It was a whirlwind just meeting everyone we wanted to meet in 20 days. Am a little sad about not spending as much time with some people as I wanted to though- my parents and sisters, my grandma too, and a couple of my close friends. More karaoke I say! And the food! Let's not even go there. Once I get all the photos uploaded, you'll see the obscene amount of eating that was involved... Suffice to say that am now in the midst of my annual post-Singapore ritual of contrition and restraint, i.e. The Diet.

Ann Arbor is beautiful this time of year. When we left, things were still a little grey, but Spring is here to stay finally- the weather's at that sweet spot where it's just warm enough to be lounging in the sun without being mucky, and breezy enough to be cool without the nippy chill of early April. Best of all, the undergrads are no where in sight, sanity has been restored, and we're reminded once again why Ann Arbor's one of the best places in this country to live, i.e. gorgeous greenery, clean streets, safe neighborhoods, great bookshops, the vibrantly intellectual environment, and basically, really nice people.

*Sigh* then December will come and I'll eat my words as I try valiantly to fit into my winter boots, jostle with obnoxious undergrads at the library, clear the slush from the front of our house, and dream of a sunny tropical island, 98% humidity and all...