Betta Under The Radar
A broken on-line papier machine
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Oh Batsy!
Been watching New Adventures of Batman the 2004 animated series in-between bouts of furious writing. My sofa loveth the feel of my rounded (more and more so with each passing day) ass. My heart beats for you, Batman, your classic v-shaped torso, your feral pointy ears, your dry and witty repartee, the hint of your nipples under your lycra suit. Dark, smoldering and… corny as hell. My favorite cheesy lines:
Officer: You better come with us, Mr. Wayne
B.W.: Very well, officer… …. But not right now! *runs off in another direction while officers stand flabbergasted at this flagrant breach of their authority*
Robin, after saving Batman’s ass and all he gets is a grunt for thanks: “Gee thanks for saving my bacon, Robin!”
Robin: “No problem-o Batman!”
Robin: You sure about this extortion ring?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: We’ve been here for four hours! You think they’re gonna show?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: Think they’re gonna be here anytime soon?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: Lucky for me you’re such a good conversationalist.
Batman, feeling her forehead: You’re hot.
Catwoman@Selina Kyle, drugged with something: You finally noticed.
Robin, to villain #11000345 holding a Samurai sword: Hey. Batman’s my pal. Sure he can be a jerk sometimes, but you gotta love him. Nobody’s gonna fillet him while I’m around.
Batman, you make me so happy.
^ A giant floodlight is no substitute for proper self-esteem, Mr. Wayne
^ See we love you just as much without one, although this isn't your good side.
^ There's only room for one jaw built like a brick in this town. Beat it, pussy!
^ You there! Stop licking that poster of me! Why I oughta...
Officer: You better come with us, Mr. Wayne
B.W.: Very well, officer… …. But not right now! *runs off in another direction while officers stand flabbergasted at this flagrant breach of their authority*
Robin, after saving Batman’s ass and all he gets is a grunt for thanks: “Gee thanks for saving my bacon, Robin!”
Robin: “No problem-o Batman!”
Robin: You sure about this extortion ring?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: We’ve been here for four hours! You think they’re gonna show?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: Think they’re gonna be here anytime soon?
Batman: Uh-huh
Robin: Lucky for me you’re such a good conversationalist.
Batman, feeling her forehead: You’re hot.
Catwoman@Selina Kyle, drugged with something: You finally noticed.
Robin, to villain #11000345 holding a Samurai sword: Hey. Batman’s my pal. Sure he can be a jerk sometimes, but you gotta love him. Nobody’s gonna fillet him while I’m around.
Batman, you make me so happy.
^ A giant floodlight is no substitute for proper self-esteem, Mr. Wayne
^ See we love you just as much without one, although this isn't your good side.
^ There's only room for one jaw built like a brick in this town. Beat it, pussy!
^ You there! Stop licking that poster of me! Why I oughta...
Labels: men
¶ 12:10 AM 0 comments
Monday, November 27, 2006
NO2BN Campaign Betta Style
2005:
2006:
Read his speech at the 2006 UMNO General Assembly here.
Closing lines: Hidup UMNO! Hidup Melayu! Allahu Akbar!
'Long-live UMNO! Long-live Malays! God is Great!'
As part of my civic duty I am starting my own mini No 2 BN Campaign. MIC + MCA + UMNO + Gerakan = BN, a vote for any of these parties is a vote for BN to stay in power and for things to be exactly the same for the next 5 years.
This means that once a year you get to see Datuk Kerishamudin get his dick out and wave it in the air. Make the world less ugly - Make Datuk Kerishamudin keep it in his pants. DO NOT VOTE BN in the next General Elections. Tell 5 people. Tell them to tell 5 people. Do it do it do it. We can make things change. ¶ 8:07 PM 0 comments
2006:
Read his speech at the 2006 UMNO General Assembly here.
Closing lines: Hidup UMNO! Hidup Melayu! Allahu Akbar!
'Long-live UMNO! Long-live Malays! God is Great!'
As part of my civic duty I am starting my own mini No 2 BN Campaign. MIC + MCA + UMNO + Gerakan = BN, a vote for any of these parties is a vote for BN to stay in power and for things to be exactly the same for the next 5 years.
This means that once a year you get to see Datuk Kerishamudin get his dick out and wave it in the air. Make the world less ugly - Make Datuk Kerishamudin keep it in his pants. DO NOT VOTE BN in the next General Elections. Tell 5 people. Tell them to tell 5 people. Do it do it do it. We can make things change. ¶ 8:07 PM 0 comments
Plug: Kim Ng's Fact or Fiction @ Wei-Ling Gallery
I was asked to write an essay for Kim Ng's show at Wei-Ling Gallery. It opens December 4 oops it's December 15 (8pm), with Christmas Carols and (it is hoped) tee many martoonis. Here's the essay, steamin' fresh off the key-pads along with a coupla images.
Writing is getting harder and harder - only the prospect of a measely writer's fee was able to motivate me enough to get it done. Not that the work sucks, mind you. I always love a printmaker, especially in Malaysia. Just that it's so hard to feel for anything lately - gotta dig really deep. I had to go deep deep for those memories: 'the laughter of a friend, the way sunlight, etc'. Whiskey helped. Ye-eess, I'm drinking at 2 in the afternoon. Go screw y'selves. Got it done, din' I? *Burp*
Kim Ng
Fact or Fiction
4 - 28 Dec 2006
Wei-Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
Kim Ng: Impressions
There’s something intriguing about how bookstores arrange their shelves: fiction and non-fiction. It implies two separate worlds operating along different sets of rules and values – one rational, objective and factual in nature, the other based on make-belief, fantasy and escape. Combined, they make up a catalogue of the infinite ways we understand and experience our world.
This second solo exhibition of Kim Ng’s works brings to mind such a catalogue. On the one hand, it is a catalogue of what we may loosely call ‘facts’ (I prefer ‘non-fictions’) – photographic images of his surroundings, the landscape and his young son; as well as found objects like plants and plastic bags. But other than this, it is also a catalogue of visual treatments, a cornucopia of techniques including collage, woodcut, monoprinting, painting, drawing, silkscreen, photography, ceramics, embossing and etching. Together, a visual vocabulary emerges that is neither fact nor fiction, but something that tries to walk the line between.
Many of the works recall a pop-art aesthetic, particularly ones which feature silk-screened repetitions of images, such as Police.Polis, Scene (Nature and Urban) and Plot IV. But whereas pop-art deals with images as surface signs and commodities, Kim treats his images with a lot more tactility, often juxtaposing them with a print taken directly from a found object such as a plastic bag. The plastic bag, once a tactile thing full of volume, texture and even sound, becomes flattened onto the picture surface. This seems to suggest that images and impressions are more than flickers on the surface of the eye – that they can have odor, shape and depth.
Printmaking is essentially about taking an impression of something and transferring it onto another surface. It is a practice with a long tradition. The lithographic stone, copperplate and woodblock have a history in ink of several centuries. Silk-screening is modern in comparison – probably about 30 to 40 years old. Even the potato block projects you did as a child, or rubber stamps used by government servants to date their documents, these are all in the language of printmaking.
It is interesting that Kim is often associated as a printmaker, although his works clearly demonstrate a vibrant and fluid traveling between many mediums. One is seldom privileged over the other. This then could be because he engages with the language of printmaking, which is that of taking impressions. His Filling The Void series is a case in point. These intimate, delicate works are made by tracing the holes left in dead leaves by insects, then filling the shapes in with pencil and bitumen. The impression he has taken is not so much of the leaf object, but of the action of caterpillars’ jaws slowly munching through foliage. Likewise, the image that results is not a record, but a trace – very much like traces left on the mind by memories.
In the end, memories (like dreams) are a strange cocktail of fact and fiction. What we felt to be so real – like the laughter of a friend, or the way the light fell on a particularly sunny morning, or the smell of blood and sweat during a political rally – might exist only imperfectly and incompletely in our minds. Imagine, that in all the world, these memories are recorded in only one person – you. Does that make them less precious, less potent?
The wonderful thing about Kim’s works is that they are more than representations of his memories. They also talk about the way memory works. The range of his craft and diversity of visual vocabulary indicate that for every fact, there is an accompanying fiction; impressions are not solid or fixed, but fluid agents that need to be engaged with a constantly changing set of interfaces.
Sharon Chin
Kuala Lumpur, 2006
Writing is getting harder and harder - only the prospect of a measely writer's fee was able to motivate me enough to get it done. Not that the work sucks, mind you. I always love a printmaker, especially in Malaysia. Just that it's so hard to feel for anything lately - gotta dig really deep. I had to go deep deep for those memories: 'the laughter of a friend, the way sunlight, etc'. Whiskey helped. Ye-eess, I'm drinking at 2 in the afternoon. Go screw y'selves. Got it done, din' I? *Burp*
Kim Ng
Fact or Fiction
4 - 28 Dec 2006
Wei-Ling Gallery, Kuala Lumpur
Kim Ng: Impressions
There’s something intriguing about how bookstores arrange their shelves: fiction and non-fiction. It implies two separate worlds operating along different sets of rules and values – one rational, objective and factual in nature, the other based on make-belief, fantasy and escape. Combined, they make up a catalogue of the infinite ways we understand and experience our world.
This second solo exhibition of Kim Ng’s works brings to mind such a catalogue. On the one hand, it is a catalogue of what we may loosely call ‘facts’ (I prefer ‘non-fictions’) – photographic images of his surroundings, the landscape and his young son; as well as found objects like plants and plastic bags. But other than this, it is also a catalogue of visual treatments, a cornucopia of techniques including collage, woodcut, monoprinting, painting, drawing, silkscreen, photography, ceramics, embossing and etching. Together, a visual vocabulary emerges that is neither fact nor fiction, but something that tries to walk the line between.
Many of the works recall a pop-art aesthetic, particularly ones which feature silk-screened repetitions of images, such as Police.Polis, Scene (Nature and Urban) and Plot IV. But whereas pop-art deals with images as surface signs and commodities, Kim treats his images with a lot more tactility, often juxtaposing them with a print taken directly from a found object such as a plastic bag. The plastic bag, once a tactile thing full of volume, texture and even sound, becomes flattened onto the picture surface. This seems to suggest that images and impressions are more than flickers on the surface of the eye – that they can have odor, shape and depth.
Printmaking is essentially about taking an impression of something and transferring it onto another surface. It is a practice with a long tradition. The lithographic stone, copperplate and woodblock have a history in ink of several centuries. Silk-screening is modern in comparison – probably about 30 to 40 years old. Even the potato block projects you did as a child, or rubber stamps used by government servants to date their documents, these are all in the language of printmaking.
It is interesting that Kim is often associated as a printmaker, although his works clearly demonstrate a vibrant and fluid traveling between many mediums. One is seldom privileged over the other. This then could be because he engages with the language of printmaking, which is that of taking impressions. His Filling The Void series is a case in point. These intimate, delicate works are made by tracing the holes left in dead leaves by insects, then filling the shapes in with pencil and bitumen. The impression he has taken is not so much of the leaf object, but of the action of caterpillars’ jaws slowly munching through foliage. Likewise, the image that results is not a record, but a trace – very much like traces left on the mind by memories.
In the end, memories (like dreams) are a strange cocktail of fact and fiction. What we felt to be so real – like the laughter of a friend, or the way the light fell on a particularly sunny morning, or the smell of blood and sweat during a political rally – might exist only imperfectly and incompletely in our minds. Imagine, that in all the world, these memories are recorded in only one person – you. Does that make them less precious, less potent?
The wonderful thing about Kim’s works is that they are more than representations of his memories. They also talk about the way memory works. The range of his craft and diversity of visual vocabulary indicate that for every fact, there is an accompanying fiction; impressions are not solid or fixed, but fluid agents that need to be engaged with a constantly changing set of interfaces.
Sharon Chin
Kuala Lumpur, 2006
Labels: art
¶ 7:30 PM 0 comments
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Eaten by the ghost in the machine
Computer has died. Should bring it for repair, but really is that half as fun as contemplating the hot new ibook - NOW IN BLACK. Anyone got rm4.5k to spare? Le sigh. ¶ 6:10 PM 0 comments
Computer has died. Should bring it for repair, but really is that half as fun as contemplating the hot new ibook - NOW IN BLACK. Anyone got rm4.5k to spare? Le sigh. ¶ 6:10 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 16, 2006
WTF: we were on the Simpsons?!
Whoah, watch Malaysia get totally bitch-slapped in this article by Michael Backman who runs a fornightly column on Asian business for Melbourne-based broadsheet The Age.
Not much that urban-elite KL-ites don't already know, but I'm sure even the most level headed of you will get your nationalistic panties in a twist at some fo-rin-ner daring to put us down. I say resist the temptation to get all defensive and self-righteous and try to sift through this article with a sense of criticality.
I'll try to write something about this later in the day.
While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry
By Michael Backman
The Age
November 15, 2006
MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races � the Malays and the Chinese � owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.
It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.
The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that theGovernment uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to otherraces is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.
Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.
"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.
This all happens in the context of Malaysia's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.
Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.
As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur. He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script writers � Kuala Lumpur is inland.
Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia. But in some respects, this is Malaysia's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.
The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point. It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur � there wasn't.
Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies. They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia's Westfield.
Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard a Russian rocket � the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs
of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.
Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather". But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.
So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.
Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city � Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.
Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 � that's just five years away.
So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.
It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.
That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid). ¶ 1:34 PM 6 comments
Not much that urban-elite KL-ites don't already know, but I'm sure even the most level headed of you will get your nationalistic panties in a twist at some fo-rin-ner daring to put us down. I say resist the temptation to get all defensive and self-righteous and try to sift through this article with a sense of criticality.
I'll try to write something about this later in the day.
While Malaysia fiddles, its opportunities are running dry
By Michael Backman
The Age
November 15, 2006
MALAYSIA'S been at it again, arguing about what proportion of the economy each of its two main races � the Malays and the Chinese � owns. It's an argument that's been running for 40 years. That wealth and race are not synonymous is important for national cohesion, but really it's time Malaysia grew up.
It's a tough world out there and there can be little sympathy for a country that prefers to argue about how to divide wealth rather than get on with the job of creating it.
The long-held aim is for 30 per cent of corporate equity to be in Malay hands, but the figure that theGovernment uses to justify handing over huge swathes of public companies to Malays but not to otherraces is absurd. It bases its figure on equity valued, not at market value, but at par value.
Many shares have a par value of say $1 but a market value of $12. And so the Government figure (18.9 per cent is the most recent figure) is a gross underestimate. Last month a paper by a researcher at a local think-tank came up with a figure of 45 per cent based on actual stock prices. All hell broke loose. The paper was withdrawn and the researcher resigned in protest. Part of the problem is that he is Chinese.
"Malaysia boleh!" is Malaysia's national catch cry. It translates to "Malaysia can!" and Malaysia certainly can. Few countries are as good at wasting money. It is richly endowed with natural resources and the national obsession seems to be to extract these, sell them off and then collectively spray the proceeds up against the wall.
This all happens in the context of Malaysia's grossly inflated sense of its place in the world.
Most Malaysians are convinced that the eyes of the world are on their country and that their leaders are world figures. This is thanks to Malaysia's tame media and the bravado of former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. The truth is, few people on the streets of London or New York could point to Malaysia on a map much less name its prime minister or capital city.
As if to make this point, a recent episode of The Simpsons features a newsreader trying to announce that a tidal wave had hit some place called Kuala Lumpur. He couldn't pronounce the city's name and so made up one, as if no-one cared anyway. But the joke was on the script writers � Kuala Lumpur is inland.
Petronas, the national oil company is well run, particularly when compared to the disaster that passes for a national oil company in neighbouring Indonesia. But in some respects, this is Malaysia's problem. The very success of Petronas means that it is used to underwrite all manner of excess.
The KLCC development in central Kuala Lumpur is an example. It includes the Twin Towers, the tallest buildings in the world when they were built, which was their point. It certainly wasn't that there was an office shortage in Kuala Lumpur � there wasn't.
Malaysians are very proud of these towers. Goodness knows why. They had little to do with them. The money for them came out of the ground and the engineering was contracted out to South Korean companies. They don't even run the shopping centre that's beneath them. That's handled by Australia's Westfield.
Next year, a Malaysian astronaut will go into space aboard a Russian rocket � the first Malay in space. And the cost? $RM95 million ($A34.3 million), to be footed by Malaysian taxpayers. The Science and Technology Minister has said that a moon landing in 2020 is the next target, aboard a US flight. There's no indication of what the Americans will charge for this, assuming there's even a chance that they will consider it. But what is Malaysia getting by using the space programs
of others as a taxi service? There are no obvious technical benefits, but no doubt Malaysians will be told once again, that they are "boleh". The trouble is, they're not. It's not their space program.
Back in July, the Government announced that it would spend $RM490 million on a sports complex near the London Olympics site so that Malaysian athletes can train there and "get used to cold weather". But the summer Olympics are held in the summer.
So what is the complex's real purpose? The dozens of goodwill missions by ministers and bureaucrats to London to check on the centre's construction and then on the athletes while they train might provide a clue.
Bank bale outs, a formula one racing track, an entire new capital city � Petronas has paid for them all. It's been an orgy of nonsense that Malaysia can ill afford.
Why? Because Malaysia's oil will run out in about 19 years. As it is, Malaysia will become a net oil importer in 2011 � that's just five years away.
So it's in this context that the latest debate about race and wealth is so sad.
It is time to move on, time to prepare the economy for life after oil. But, like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, the Malaysian Government is more interested in stunts like sending a Malaysian into space when Malaysia's inadequate schools could have done with the cash, and arguing about wealth distribution using transparently ridiculous statistics.
That's not Malaysia "boleh", that's Malaysia "bodoh" (stupid). ¶ 1:34 PM 6 comments
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Get Punched, Naked even
Thanks to Khai for putting the print version in my greasy little mittens for the first time, but here's the link to the online edition of Naked Punch Review, a quarterly publication featuring stropping edge critics, philosophers and artists. Essential, blood strenghtening reading for all you deprived depressed people out there.
http://www.nakedpunch.com
On the right where the links are currently undergoing an orgy of renewal and change, you'll find the link to Naked Punch's blog Song of the Ruined (Yep, the title is a bit Wagner-ian, but what the hey, smart people are allowed to be operatically dramatic too) ¶ 6:21 PM 0 comments
http://www.nakedpunch.com
On the right where the links are currently undergoing an orgy of renewal and change, you'll find the link to Naked Punch's blog Song of the Ruined (Yep, the title is a bit Wagner-ian, but what the hey, smart people are allowed to be operatically dramatic too) ¶ 6:21 PM 0 comments
New Diet
I am thinking of doing a project where I consume nothing but things in Bahasa Malaysia for two months. (I was thinking three months, but I might not hold out that long). Only BM movies, BM books, BM blogs, BM newspapers, BM food products with BM advertising copy, BM radio, BM television, BM comics, BM magazines.
To what end? I'm not sure. Maybe a blog, maybe a documentary.
I might become very hard to be around. But I will send out a general announcement/warning when I decide to embark on this madness. It is only a thought... ¶ 12:31 PM 0 comments
To what end? I'm not sure. Maybe a blog, maybe a documentary.
I might become very hard to be around. But I will send out a general announcement/warning when I decide to embark on this madness. It is only a thought... ¶ 12:31 PM 0 comments
Monday, November 13, 2006
Fever again
I am amazed by bloggers who are able to write so openly about their personal lives. There must be something of sweetness, of freedom, in the little details, the names, the private jokes. And I imagine there must be a certain self-assurance for this to be made public, something I will never achieve.
Should you detect a certain wistful or wishfulness on my part, I leave that to you. You may draw your own conclusions.
Then there are bloggers I totally respect like Edward - who are equal parts personal and professional, whose posts always manage to get me off my big lubberly depressed arse and onto doing things. Does confidence come with age, Edward? Or knowledge? Or both? That one does not need to fear being known, that being known does not equate someone else's power over you.
For me, my little stories, verses, exclaimations are nothing but flimsy walls and filters to keep my own sanity in check. Perhaps this is the bliss of the creative act - drawing people close but never close enough to ever know anything true about oneself. The danger is when one's entire life is lived like this... everyone is an audience and you never truly trust anyone.
Yesterday night and today I have fever again. Things seem very bleak but I cannot speak, save to the inanimate pages of a plain book, with my inanimate pen; or this inanimate computer screen that I fill by touching keys. Imaginary friends that keep me holding on. It is a poor substitute for a listening ear, but at least it is bearable to me. If there was another person beside me I would drive us both mad with my silence. It is always the worst when the person leaves - they come because they love one, and one sounds truly desolate. So they stay, trying trying trying to get it out of one, to find the key made of a single word that will unlock all the other words, that the words can escape and not cause an endless inner torture. This is when words, ever friends before this, fail and betray me utterly. They refuse to be spoken, or expressed, even to be thought. They suffer themselves only to be written, in private. As communicators, words are unreliable at best. It is wise not to trust them completely. But pity the poor person who leaves one at last in exhaustion and frustration! - and I am filled with remorse and guilt, of having failed, of wishing I could have spoken, engaged, trusted. Angry at the words, that will not come.
Some people tell me I should get some help, take some medicine. Or that I something has happened to me that I don't want to talk about or have willingly forgotten - like brainwashed even! I tell you now that that is not the case. If I begin to doubt my own mind then I am truly lost. If it is truly forgotten then there must be a good reason for doing so. Why attempt to remember something that has already passed? Not that there is anythign to remember! I speak only for illustration purposes... or for the sake of speaking, of feeling the rythmic flow of words, like life, like thought - making them friends again.
I will not submit to the fever. I resist and reject it utterly. Fever exists, and it is no one's fault. Not mine, not yours. Let tomorrow bring the breaking of it.
Should you detect a certain wistful or wishfulness on my part, I leave that to you. You may draw your own conclusions.
Then there are bloggers I totally respect like Edward - who are equal parts personal and professional, whose posts always manage to get me off my big lubberly depressed arse and onto doing things. Does confidence come with age, Edward? Or knowledge? Or both? That one does not need to fear being known, that being known does not equate someone else's power over you.
For me, my little stories, verses, exclaimations are nothing but flimsy walls and filters to keep my own sanity in check. Perhaps this is the bliss of the creative act - drawing people close but never close enough to ever know anything true about oneself. The danger is when one's entire life is lived like this... everyone is an audience and you never truly trust anyone.
Yesterday night and today I have fever again. Things seem very bleak but I cannot speak, save to the inanimate pages of a plain book, with my inanimate pen; or this inanimate computer screen that I fill by touching keys. Imaginary friends that keep me holding on. It is a poor substitute for a listening ear, but at least it is bearable to me. If there was another person beside me I would drive us both mad with my silence. It is always the worst when the person leaves - they come because they love one, and one sounds truly desolate. So they stay, trying trying trying to get it out of one, to find the key made of a single word that will unlock all the other words, that the words can escape and not cause an endless inner torture. This is when words, ever friends before this, fail and betray me utterly. They refuse to be spoken, or expressed, even to be thought. They suffer themselves only to be written, in private. As communicators, words are unreliable at best. It is wise not to trust them completely. But pity the poor person who leaves one at last in exhaustion and frustration! - and I am filled with remorse and guilt, of having failed, of wishing I could have spoken, engaged, trusted. Angry at the words, that will not come.
Some people tell me I should get some help, take some medicine. Or that I something has happened to me that I don't want to talk about or have willingly forgotten - like brainwashed even! I tell you now that that is not the case. If I begin to doubt my own mind then I am truly lost. If it is truly forgotten then there must be a good reason for doing so. Why attempt to remember something that has already passed? Not that there is anythign to remember! I speak only for illustration purposes... or for the sake of speaking, of feeling the rythmic flow of words, like life, like thought - making them friends again.
I will not submit to the fever. I resist and reject it utterly. Fever exists, and it is no one's fault. Not mine, not yours. Let tomorrow bring the breaking of it.
Labels: sweet misery
¶ 4:22 PM 2 comments
New link worth its weight in cybergold
Check out the new linkie on the right to Manuscripts Don't Burn:
Bloggers Against Banning Books is a campaign to educate and create awareness for everyone about the state of book bannings particularly in Malaysia. This blog will carry information about book banning news, as well as reviews over the banned books. Read a banned book today!
Hellava lot of information, including a book-banning process 101, and links to the COMPLETE LIST OF OFFICIALLY BANNED BOOKS 2000 -2006 from the Ministry of Internal Security's website. Also explains the difference between officially banned texts and 'restricted books' which is really enlightening. Not an overwhelming ammount of posturing or hyperbole - seems like the blog is interested in getting down to nitty-gritty facts, which makes them totally rock, in my book. Plus! They quote Ursula Le Guin. *Heart*
Clicky today. It's worth it. ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments
Bloggers Against Banning Books is a campaign to educate and create awareness for everyone about the state of book bannings particularly in Malaysia. This blog will carry information about book banning news, as well as reviews over the banned books. Read a banned book today!
Hellava lot of information, including a book-banning process 101, and links to the COMPLETE LIST OF OFFICIALLY BANNED BOOKS 2000 -2006 from the Ministry of Internal Security's website. Also explains the difference between officially banned texts and 'restricted books' which is really enlightening. Not an overwhelming ammount of posturing or hyperbole - seems like the blog is interested in getting down to nitty-gritty facts, which makes them totally rock, in my book. Plus! They quote Ursula Le Guin. *Heart*
Clicky today. It's worth it. ¶ 3:23 PM 0 comments
The Right Spell (or The Curse of A Hundred Miles)
Once upon a time
A man was cursed
That his heart should burst
If he walked beyond a hundred miles
And as he walked the next hundred
It should grow again within him
Only lasting another hundred
Before it failed again
Thus was distance made into agony
As he travelled in search of the right spell
To break this curse
One day he drew a circle about him
One hundred miles in diameter
Within which he could walk, live, grow old
And die
It seemed to work
He had defeated the curse
By his head and not his heart
He rejoiced but not without bitterness
For he never knew
All the long days of his life
If it had been the
Right spell
A man was cursed
That his heart should burst
If he walked beyond a hundred miles
And as he walked the next hundred
It should grow again within him
Only lasting another hundred
Before it failed again
Thus was distance made into agony
As he travelled in search of the right spell
To break this curse
One day he drew a circle about him
One hundred miles in diameter
Within which he could walk, live, grow old
And die
It seemed to work
He had defeated the curse
By his head and not his heart
He rejoiced but not without bitterness
For he never knew
All the long days of his life
If it had been the
Right spell
Labels: B.A.P.
¶ 2:13 PM 0 comments
Who gives a...
down down down
very quietly it stole
down down down
very far down the rabbit hole
down down down
far away the distant notion
down down down
far away the golden ocean
very quietly it stole
down down down
very far down the rabbit hole
down down down
far away the distant notion
down down down
far away the golden ocean
Labels: B.A.P., sweet misery
¶ 1:54 PM 0 comments
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Hope
Washington: Democrats have won the House of Representatives. First Thailand, currently and (I believe) soon-to-be Taiwan, now even that great big hulk the USA - is there the smell of change in the air? Time for Malaysia to catch up. This is a rallying cry to Bangsa Malaysia - don't leave, stay. Fight. We grew up here dammit, it's our responsibility.
¶ 12:03 PM 0 comments
Captain Gone
On a whim I am going to Singapore tomorrow to look at the Biennale before it shuts on Sunday.
Surely I spend time and money I do not have because I need desperately to look at some art, but between you and me I'm longing to sink into the anonymity of a strange city - to walk for hours devoid of history, purged of sentiment. I am very happy to stay with K. again at his house near the sea, indeed I am bringing a whole load of rusty burdens to cast into the ocean. Let the salt pickle them dry as worm corpses I care not. Well for two days anyway.
Where the hell is my ship, if those idiots down at the harbour have burnt it there'll be the devil to pay. You are charged henceforth with its safety and well-being until my return. ¶ 11:29 AM 0 comments
Surely I spend time and money I do not have because I need desperately to look at some art, but between you and me I'm longing to sink into the anonymity of a strange city - to walk for hours devoid of history, purged of sentiment. I am very happy to stay with K. again at his house near the sea, indeed I am bringing a whole load of rusty burdens to cast into the ocean. Let the salt pickle them dry as worm corpses I care not. Well for two days anyway.
Where the hell is my ship, if those idiots down at the harbour have burnt it there'll be the devil to pay. You are charged henceforth with its safety and well-being until my return. ¶ 11:29 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Time for Caking
As you cannot fail to notice, Betta blog is newly turned one year old. Now I have been bursting with a secret like cream from a cream-puff about the tacky bakery down the road that I buy bread from. They have informed me that they can make any cake my genius brain is able to conceive of. Imagine, if you will, ten different varieties of fruit cake, limited only by imagination. No longer will I need to get my fix from the greasy excuse of a slice from Starbucks, or wait till Christmas when I am invited to B.'s xmas party where I hover anxiously next to the properly made fruitcake (Now THAT is cake - I dream of it occasionally). Here is my list of dream cakes:
1. Boiled fruitcake with sultanas, currants, cherries and nuts drowned in alchoholic goodness, topped with heavy lemon cream icing and garnished with mint leaves, IN THE SHAPE OF A TOPHAT
2. Pumpkin bread cake with crunchy biscuit base and cinnamon buttercream and warm toffee sauce
3. Green tea chiffon sponge with sweet redbean topping and a heart of homemade greentea icecream
4. Fresh fruit tart with orange-water flavored merringe topping whipped to resemble the surface of a choppy mediterraean sea
5. Two islands of su-gee cake swimming a sea of blackcurrent jelly
6. An unadorned moist chocolate cake with just the right ammount of salty-ness, almost no sweetness, intricately iced with text from Derrida's 'PostCard'
7. Licorice ice-cream cake in the shape of Gandalf's hat, or perhaps resembling the misty mountains, with a red dragon fashioned out of red metallic sugar pearls
Oh I cannot continue - have worked self into a state of unimaginable cake rapture.
As the year draws to a close, these are the things that I desire, and so write them down in hopes they will come true:
The desires of Betta's briny heart:
1. To live in a good clean house with a garden of happy plants and a new bed, sans dog fur and roach colony
2. To know clearly the structural mechanism of local and state government
3. To be involved in Not That Balai festival and ensure interesting visual art element
4. To make performance videos and short films on my mobile phone
5. To write and compile my stories
6. To behold a fire-bellied newt
7. To make at least two major works
8. To write more critically on art and other subjects
9. To beg, borrow or steal a tophat and wear it out at night with a tight black dress and too much eye-liner
10. To prevail with good sense, good will, patience and steely determination; and to eat at least one slice of genuine home-made fruitcake.
That is all I want. ¶ 3:18 PM 0 comments
1. Boiled fruitcake with sultanas, currants, cherries and nuts drowned in alchoholic goodness, topped with heavy lemon cream icing and garnished with mint leaves, IN THE SHAPE OF A TOPHAT
2. Pumpkin bread cake with crunchy biscuit base and cinnamon buttercream and warm toffee sauce
3. Green tea chiffon sponge with sweet redbean topping and a heart of homemade greentea icecream
4. Fresh fruit tart with orange-water flavored merringe topping whipped to resemble the surface of a choppy mediterraean sea
5. Two islands of su-gee cake swimming a sea of blackcurrent jelly
6. An unadorned moist chocolate cake with just the right ammount of salty-ness, almost no sweetness, intricately iced with text from Derrida's 'PostCard'
7. Licorice ice-cream cake in the shape of Gandalf's hat, or perhaps resembling the misty mountains, with a red dragon fashioned out of red metallic sugar pearls
Oh I cannot continue - have worked self into a state of unimaginable cake rapture.
As the year draws to a close, these are the things that I desire, and so write them down in hopes they will come true:
The desires of Betta's briny heart:
1. To live in a good clean house with a garden of happy plants and a new bed, sans dog fur and roach colony
2. To know clearly the structural mechanism of local and state government
3. To be involved in Not That Balai festival and ensure interesting visual art element
4. To make performance videos and short films on my mobile phone
5. To write and compile my stories
6. To behold a fire-bellied newt
7. To make at least two major works
8. To write more critically on art and other subjects
9. To beg, borrow or steal a tophat and wear it out at night with a tight black dress and too much eye-liner
10. To prevail with good sense, good will, patience and steely determination; and to eat at least one slice of genuine home-made fruitcake.
That is all I want. ¶ 3:18 PM 0 comments
