Prancing about town

Had absolutely nothing better to do so decided to head down town to eat dinner and have myself a walkabout.

After dinner, I headed towards Wheelock as I wanted to take a looksee around Borders. Ok, secretly I was trying to look for stuff by Jim O'rourke, Duncan Sheik and M.Ward. No such luck. Only consolation was this old album by M.Ward called Transfiguration of Vincent. Bought it anyway...
(image from Amazon)

They have this sculpture by Salvador Dali newly placed right outside the entrance to Wheelock facing the junction of Orchard and Paterson Road. It's called Alice In Wonderland. It's very easy to recognise cause I saw it in Italy when Yugin and I took a detour and left the main group to see this Dali sculpture exhibition. I think it was in Rome. Can't really remember. It was 6 years ago. Yugin's getting married this Saturday. It's in Brighton. I had plans to go but...sometimes I take too much stuff into consideration, wind up pleasing no one. Including myself.

Anyway, back to Alice In Wonderland.

You see those crutches? The Y-shaped stick? You know what they mean? To Dali, everything that he creates gotta have meaning. Duh. Anyway, those are crutches. This is what he says of them:

"Such being the case, I decided to join forces with the group of invalids whose snobbism propped up a decadent aristocracy which still stuck to its traditional attitude. But I had the original idea of not coming with empty hands, like all the rest. I arrived, in fact, with my arms loaded with crutches! One thing I realized immediately. It would take quantities and quantities of crutches to give a semblance of solidity to all that. And I inaugurated the 'pathetic crutch', the prop of the first crime of my childhood, as the all-powerful and exclusive post-war symbol - crutches to support the monstrous development of certain atmospheric-cephalic skulls, crutches immobilize the ecstasy of certain attitudes of rare elegance, crutches to make architectural and durable the fugitive pose of a choreograpic leap, to pin the ephemeral butterfly of the dancer with pins that would keep her poised for eternity. Crutches, crutches, crutches, crutches."

Ok.....go figure (pun?).

There is another Dali sculpture in Singapore that is on permanent display. Wow! 1 Dali sculpture for every 2 million Singaporeans. We must have the highest per capita publicly displayed Dali sculpture in between the tropics. The other Dali sculpture is placed away from the mall rats. Instead, it is placed in the middle of another pack of rats. Those climbing the corporate ladder. Which yours truly, will one day, perhaps, join in. The sculpture, found at the atrium of UOB Plaza, is Homage To Newton. The one with the open stomach holding onto his ball-like apple. Yup, that's by Dali. It's not the only one in the world...I got the picture below from this American girl who visited Singapore around this time 2 years ago. Kristine, please don't sue.

Anyway, all I want for Christmas is to have original prints from David Roberts and Quentin Blake. I think I would like them for my home when I have one.

This above is from Mick Jackson's new book.
Everybody loves Quentin Blake. Right?

But fuck me, the two of them don't seem to have original prints for sale.
Ok, don't take me literally. I don't wish to be fucked by you just because I can't get them prints. Dipstick.

Singapore Dreaming 第一集

Chinese 陪读妈妈 (PDMM): So what was your dream occupation?

Former Army Guy Failing Insurance Agent (FAGFIA): I wanted to be a musician.

PDMM: So why didn't you become a musician?

FAGFIA: Are you kidding? You won't earn any money as a musician in Singapore!

PDMM: Well....

FAGFIA: So what is yours?

PDMM: I want to be a fashion designer.

FAGFIA: You can pursue your dream.

PDMM: I have no money!

FAGFIA: Hey! That means we're both in the same predicament!

PDMM: No, we're not the same. You gave up your dream and you're now in a job you hate. All for the pursuit of money. I am in a job I hate for the pursuit of money so that I can fulfil my dream. We're different.

Not since 2 is the new 4 and 0 is the new 2. 6, aha! Is the new 14

I probably botched the line from the movie The Devil Wears Prada in the title of this entry.

Cerulean.

Conjures up images of the Aegean sea. Some princess being chained to a boulder overlooking the ocean. A sacrificial virgin to appease the sea serpent.

When Miranda Priestly (Beastly) goes on about how Andi's (female protagonist) lumpy "blue" (cerulean, actually) pullover was indirectly chosen for her by the people in the room after the derisive tone with which Andi laughed at them for fussing over two seemingly similar belt.

"Stuff? Oh, okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet, and you select, I don't know, that lumpy blue sweater because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves St. Laurent, wasn't it, who showed a selection of cerulean military jackets. And then cerulean quickly showed up in collections of eight different designers. It filtered down through the department stores, and then trickled down into some tragic Casual Corner where you undoubtedly fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs. It's sort of comical how you think you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry, when in fact, you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room... from "a pile of stuff."

I checked for the aforementioned 2002 Oscar de la Renta collection. Don't have cerulean gowns leh....

Anyway, the lesson that left the greatest impression on me was what Nigel (token fashion faggot) said about personal life and career. If one is doing well, the other will surely suffer.
And when you're personal life hits the grave, you're due for a promotion.

Is this true in real life? I mean, the advertising world seems to be so, especially after what Neil French said about women in advertising.

So the movie was about that really. Finding that delicate balance between career, values, ethics, personal life, love life and all these things.....The fashion setting was incidental. But it made the movie a lot more eye-candy-ish.

Just got off the phone

I just called V who is in Hong Kong on work assignment. She didn't reply to my sms since last night so I thought I'd better call just to make sure.

It's obvious that she is ok because I just got off the phone with her.

The thing with V is that she seldom sound enthusiastic when her boyfriend calls her. She's not like some schnauzer or jack russell, prancing around the owner, hankering for attention. She's like a genteel siamese, who offers a mere purr if you can so much as raise her interest. A smile, god forbid, is like asking for water to be squeezed out from stone.

Ok, she'll get angry if she reads this. Anyway, she's not animated over the phone. That's my point. With me at least.

She's back next week!

More on truths and Pluto (not Mickey's pet)

Scientists challenge Pluto's demotion!!

It is very important that we respond. Because "in fact we have some serious decisions to make because we have to decide how far to go, what tone to set. And it's not just all fun and games. I give you an example. You put out a funny podcast definition (see below in quotations), you talk about bak chor mee Pluto not planet. I will say >mee siam mai harm Pluto is a dwarf planet . Then we compete. Then what will I do? I will hire Jack Neo Clyde Tombaugh to be my National Day Rally adviser the Chairman of International Astronomical Union (IAU). It'll be a fun time, we will enjoy thoroughly, go home totally entertained. But is this the way to deal with serious issues? And the problem is, it won't stop with fun and games. You'll go to distortions, you'll go to half-truths, you'll go to untruths, the tone of the debate will go down, eventually, you race to the bottom.

According to the IAU, a body can be considered a planet if it orbits the Sun, is large enough to be made round by its own gravity, and has cleared the area around it of smaller cosmic objects. That definition would exclude Earth and other planets that are pelted with asteroids, Stern said. Others who did not sign the petition also criticized the IAU's decision.

Now we all know people in IAU have so much free time to talk cock. Somebody ought to spend more time thinking what was the right way to fix them. See, things like this won't go on in Singapore.

I would say whatever the risks in this new world solar system, whatever the uncertainties, we have to press on, move ahead, open up. You cannot freeze in the headlights, take fright and just stop in your tracks. You will be run over. We have to keep on moving forward, open up and this basic approach cannot change.

We don't have all the answers. We don't know what all the risks are. We are feeling our way forward step by step.

We have got to keep this government IAU serious and responsible. We can't govern publish science textbooks based on jokes, we can't govern define planets based on sound-bites, or distortions. You have to have debates which will add reason, which will add enlightenment, which will come to a conclusion, and not just end up in angry words and name calling, or, if you take the Taiwanese Parliament a typical Sicilian summer wedding, where they throw things at each other and even the women are part of the battle.