On the eve of your birthday

 

May your next five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes be filled with love, joy and all His blessings for your personal fulfillment! All our love and birthday wishes Tita M!! From your family in sunny, hazy, Singapore!  

"You know you're old ...

... when your dentist is younger than you."
- T

Dr. Aidan took the stitches out today - a short procedure that was not without discomfort. I said to him, "You know, I really didn't expect this whole thing to be so painful. The surgery. The recovery. Taking out these stitches..." And you know what he said to me?

"That's why it's ideal to get this surgery done at age 18. Recovery is most painless for the young."

Ouch. Gee, doc. Thanks. It helps to know that.

New displays at the Singapore Zoo

  

Kaylee's First Communion

  

The Scoop

As Woody Allen films go, this is definitely not his best one. But it's funny and engaging and story-wise, still inventive. Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman are both fun to watch, and even the Woodman distinguishes himself in familiar territory.

But it is familiar territory, with plotlines borrowed both from his little novella The Kugelmass Episode as well as his 1995 flic Manhattan Murder Mystery. At least Allen borrows from himself, which is entirely acceptable. It's too easy for him - like nothing more than his own creative training session. That it's done in mostly British accents is refreshing, but it doesn't make it into the top 10 Woody Allen film list, not by a long shot.

What it is is a scoop of ice cream on hot day. Great fun while it lasts, but soon forgotten. And who gave Scarlett Johansson's stylist the day off, please?

Tick Tick Boom!

Also known as Jonathan Larsen's pre-RENT work with a little tweaking.

We went in with lowered expectations, and came out humming. It's more of a mini-musical really, not a full-scale production. But the New York cast was three-man strong - in fact, we were pleasantly surprised to find Jerry Dixon in it. We had seen him previously in two performances of Once On This Island and one ensemble Broadway show right here in Singapore with Judy Kuhn.

Anyway, while Tick Tick Boom's plot isn't exactly the stuff for panorama -- the angst of choices, decisions and turning (Oh my God, really?) 30; at least, musically, the show has some engaging moments. My favourites are as follows:

- The homage to Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park With George in SUNDAY - a satirical comic piece on the quintessential New York thing to do: sunday brunch. Anyone who has hummed SitPwG will recognise its stirring counterpoints in this tune.
- The cute and quirky duet THERAPY, a singable ode to relationship nueroses.
- The haunting REAL LIFE is a little heavy handed but not unaffecting.
- A nice strong melody with a full female vocal COME TO YOUR SENSES
- WHY is not only singable, but musical lovers will recognise the cameo threads of Mary Poppins and West Side Story. It also functions as a beautiful commitment to craft anthem.

Should you see Tick Tick Boom? It's a show that's barely an hour and a half long and has no intermission. Hey, if it's running, I say why on earth not?

What I found along the Seine

  

Project Runway

Am sitting here at home, nursing my post-wisdom tooth surgery ache, which is proving surprisingly bothersome. But I'm cheered up, unexpectedly, by this show on Travel & Living. Watching these novice designers translate their inspirations into garments is genuinely absorbing. Very few things on television are so substantially about the process of creativity. Project Runway is definitely it. Besides, you gotta love all these beautiful, loving gay guys...they're just so sweet. Bitchy perhaps, but sweet nevertheless.

T for Magic

  

What gets me

You have this idea for a short story. But you're always too busy to write it. But it's a good idea. You even have dreams about it. Once, you even dreamed your way to the ending, which is frequently the toughest part. But you're still too busy. There is never that stretch of time in which you can lay down the beginning, develop the complication, and race to the end. Then you think, oh fuck it, just write what you can and if you don't finish, it's there for when you have more time. So that's what you do. You write the beginning. And it's nice and easy. And then the busyness sets in. And life starts happening. And for awhile, you forget about the story. Months pass, maybe even a year or two. Then your mind comes back to it. That story. How did it go again. And you start getting excited. And finally, finally, you have some time coming to you. A real nice chunk. So you look through your stuff for that beginning - those few paragraphs that you wrote that one time. Was it three paragraphs? Wasn't it even a couple of pages. Damn. Where is it. It was pretty good stuff, wasn't it.

But you can't find it. Even though you know in your heart you wrote it. And it was good. You realise you're probably remembering it better than what it actually was. But still. It would have been workable anyhow. Not like the pain of starting from complete scratch. But it's gone. You have no idea where it is.

And now you want to write. And you do have the time. Do you start on something new...or do you go back to that old one. The one you remember.

What are you going to do.

What was playing in a theatre in Montmarte!

 

Not surprising as his largest fan base is in Europe. Unfortunately, we had no time to see the play. Will have to content ourselves with catching SCOOP with Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johanssen at GV Great World. Hopefully this weekend. 

Risotto & Reading At Kampa Park, Prague

  

It was goat cheese and mushroom risotto and it was delicious!

Bookhunting While Travelling

It's a habit that my husband has come to accept. I must buy a book in each city I visit, each and every time I visit. The T-shirts I ignore, not relishing the way I look in your average souvenir T-shirt. And, no judgement on my mother-in-law, but I have a peculiar aversion to refrigerator magnets.

A book is decidedly different. As a memento of a specific journey, as someting for my personal bookcase, as a signpost of a different culture, even, it offers abundantly more.But I limit myself to just one, especially in view of T's "pack light!" directive, not to mention my own budgetary concerns. That of course makes the process of choosing all the more difficult, but also all the more pleasurable. It is not a decision to be made lightly, and it cannot be rushed. You want to buy a book that has some sort of significance to the city you are in. Ideally, it would not be available where you live, and critical is that its purchase will not break the bank, at least, not unduly.

In Amsterdam four years ago, I remember I bought Anais Nin's dynamic duo of erotic tales: Little Birds and Delta of Venus. She's not Dutch, yet I felt, rightly or wrongly, my choice was fitting somehow in light of the red light district near the city's old Church. Besides, I argued to T, it's not like you can pick either of these titles up in Singapore. In Florence, I bought Mary McCarthy's exquisite Stones Of Florence as well as her Venice Observed, which are travel but also history, and so magnificently crafted, I swooned over her prose throughout the entire trip, carrying the books around in my tote and reading them out loud at odd moments.

The bookhunt for this recent trip to Paris and Prague, was unexpectedly easy. In Paris, all we had to do was pop into Shakespeare Books on rue la bucherie, parallel to the Siene and almost directly across the Notre Dame. After a few minutes of intent browsing in the travel section, I spotted the "winner" in of all places, the language section. Huh?

What I picked up was an English fiction "reader" designed for French people intent on learning English. New York Stories is a Lire En V.O. Anglais, a Nouvelles Annotees (Short stories?) with a preface de Patricia Highsmith.Its pages offer stories by such great names as Dorothy Parker,John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Carson McCullers, Isaac B. Singer and Roald Dahl, among others. Every page features a list of vocabulary translations in the margins so I know that when Malamud's Sam in THE COST OF LIVING "stumbles into" the store, a French reader would translate the phrase as: "entra en chancelant". A plus for this once-upon-a-time New Yorker is that the stories are all set in that other great city, and I got the lovely little tome for just four euro. Cool.

In Prague, it was even simpler. I knew the title I both needed and wanted almost as soon as I took steps upon the Charles Bridge, my first highschool copy having been lost years ago. And there it was, so easy to locate - Franz Kafka's Metamophosis and Other Stories. The bonus? An insightful introduction by Adam Thirwell, which very intelligently and humourously situates the work in literary history. 320 Czeck Crown which comes to 21$SGD. On the pricey side, but hey, pretty much what I would pay if I got it in Kinokuniya.

I would have wanted to buy a book in Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich respectively, but finding a bookstore within our alloted time proved a major challenge. I did manage to enter a bookstore in Vienna, but their books in English were on the paltry side, with such popular paperback fiction titles as you would find in any airport book kiosk. As the Austrian bookseller herself said dismissively, shaking her head - "I'm afraid we don't have much. Just...novels..." And I liked the way she phrased it - so fitting to hear her perfectly nuanced "I'm afraid"

Never mind T said. Next time.

Not to be outdone

 
Our own little K, who by the way, receives her first communion this Saturday, was also handpicked as one of the five in her badminton class that could be a school team member in a couple of years.

Such athleticism running in our family...who knew? 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

 

C was one of the grade one boys asked to join special soccer training, in view of possibly joining the school soccer team when he reaches grade three! 

Elisabetha on the Charles Bridge surveys the Vltava River

  

Waiting for the funicular on Petrin Hill in Prague

 

"Hey, at least we didn't walk up Petrin Hill, right?" 

Travelling With Your Spouse 2

A married couple's first trip to a foreign city or or, as is frequently the case, a number of foreign cities over a number of days, can be a close-up photagraph of that couple's marriage. A journey with limits to time and budget will draw the differences between husband and wife quickly and dramatically to the surface. And conflict ensues. I've heard a husband say that he can pretty much count on at least one quarrel with his wife during each and every trip. Our first trip to Paris as husband and wife involved a quarrel literally on the Eiffel Tower.

On the other hand, at a certain point, if a couple has travelled together enough, each spouse knows to sidestep potential areas of conflict, like landmines as it were. There are also some quarrels that have happened so frequently there's no longer an point in going through the charade. A smirk and a grimace functions well enough when conflicts are like well-worn grooves in wood or imprints on the ground. Wife and husband are also able to create their compromises and matter-of-fact strategies that neatly avoid full-on conflict. In travel, as in life, two people can each accomodate the other's needs and wants - in this way, they engender their own unique travel habits - this, of course, makes it a little more difficult to find another couple to travel with, but I digress.

- We pack light and separately - each party being responsible for their own stuff - including their own dirty laundry.
- On the plane over, we recognise the need for rest and sleep - and will limit ourselves to one movie.
- T knows that I require a substantial breakfast if I am to get through the day though previously it was his penchant to not eat anything till starvation set in, and only then would he concede to buy cheap and easy street food.
- I know now not to force the issue of a sit-down lunch, having come to understand that this is frequently a waste of time when there are so many places to go and things to see. The midday meal must be a quick affair - even taken on the go, on the run - a sandwich, street food or a few rolls from a bakery.
- We both understand that while there is daylight, we have to be on the move - seeing as many things as possible, ideally on foot.
- It is understood that I am to ask strangers questions - whether it's a request to take our picture or a plea for directions, for the reason that I am the one who most often believes I am lost.
- If there is a high point to climb to with a view of a city, we will certainly do that. Similarly, if there is a bridge to cross, we will cross it.
- T is now also accustomed to my need to create concept pictures with odd poses that often cause passersby to stare. I consider it quite a triumph now because even he himself will deign to pose in that manner.
- If there is bookstore, we must enter it and time must be allotted for browsing.
- If there is a military centre, monument or museum - it must be visited.
- We have also agreed to disagree once or twice - and no longer have to be joined at the hip. Now apparently, we can separate and agree to meet an appointed place when one wants to do a particular thing that isn't what the other wants to do.
- We also know that while I might want to talk about life and plans say, for the next five years during a trip to a foreign city, T will most definitely not to want to do that - reserving any such conversations for bedtime, if at all.

And once a unique modus operandi has been cobbled together, no matter how imperfectly, travel to foreign cities can indeed be the wonderful experience it is meant to be. Fortunately.

Bankers in Zurich

People who work in creative industries like music, advertising or publishing constantly celebrate the joy of their jobs. How wonderful it is, they will say, that we genuinely enjoy our work. How remarkable is our passion - that we can get up in the morning of each day and sincerely look forward to the hours that lie ahead. To get such a high, such a kick and to get paid for it? What could be better than that?

Invariably, I have heard one or another of us compare our jobs against what we, rightly or wrongly, percieve to be the dreariest of occupations. The words, "Imagine, working at a ... bank?" have been uttered with pure, unadulterated incredulity, to the point that the last word is said with such palpable dismay that the "k" sound at the end of the word hangs in the air like a resonating "ick ick ick ick."

As someone who only very slightly resisted the conventional English major's path,I understand the issues at stake. The money vs passion argument, which unfortunately, does come into play in the choice of occupation. My first ever job interview was for the position of a research and financial analyst for a securities firm. I am well aware that had I chosen to accept this offer, I would surely be making four or five times my current salary at this point. Instead, I chose to enter advertising, but harbored the actual desire to be in account management as opposed to creative. The position was as an account executive, but fate in the form of the Senior Vice President for Creative, entered and, rightly or wrongly, thwarted my plans as a creative position was instantly created for me.

I did however, marry a banker. T is the proverbial creative stuck wearing a suit - unflinchingly, but not without a measure of discomfort. As colleagues writing for the university paper - he made his position to me quite clear. "It's where the money is," he said with resignation. And he made this decision with wide-open eyes, pushing aside his own creative impulses, his own personal yearnings. Ultimately, we make our decisions and suffer the tradeoffs while we reap the practicalities.

Similarly, the young, sensitive, musing M has made her own choice.

I want to tell her, even as I know my words are ineffectual at best, that the most important thing is to do what makes you happy and not look back. Or at least, not look back too much. I want to tell her that of course, it is impossible to be completely sure what will make you happy in the long run. I want to tell her that there do happen to be happy bankers and accountants who exercise their soul and passion and creativity both in but more frequently outside of their work. R who does tax accounting in New York, for example, finds the time to take cooking classes and publish the occasional story. But there yes, there are those who are not so happy - those like L who leave an industry, say publishing, to work in finance and four months later, wanting to return because the money just wasn't worth it.

The point is no one can have it completely both ways. There will always be the stuff you give up and the stuff you have to live with, whatever decision you make. There will always be little spaces in your heart in which reside tinges of regret, perhaps a tipple of yearning for something else or something more or even, the road not taken. But that, it is likely M is already learning.

Recent travel ended quite fittingly I thought, considering these musings, with a day in Zurich, Switzerland. Zurich, I'd been told, is a bankers' city. So not very imaginatively, I pictured a staid, business-like place - a city of grey pin-stripes, laptops and manila envelopes. Instead T and I were pleasurably surprised by a fresh briskly green little city with glowingly blue-green bodies of water flowing through it. We gasped at the clean breezes flying off the clear wide expanse of Lake Zurich as well as soaked up the verdant meadows and the stunning views of the Felseneg mountain. Everywhere, people were on bicycles, swimming in the lake, playing with their children.

T and I looked at each other. Perhaps it is possible to have it completely both ways. If ever anyone had it all, would it not be these people? Laughing, we acknowledged yet another new yearning - to be a banker in Zurich.

The sidewalks of Prague

From the Meteor Plaza Hotel in Prague

It's all about walking. You need to feel a foreign country with your feet, and you can't do that without a large measure of walking. But thankfully, the city of Prague lends itself well to our footfalls. While we both marvelled at the majesty and the grandeur of the old town square, the stunning Charles bridge, the castle and the great cathedral within, I also found myself hypnotised by the sidewalks.

All the sidewalks are paved mosaic style with squares or parallelograms of coloured stone - white, gray, black, pink. Granite? I promise myself I will look it up once I get the chance. And such a variety of patterns. The white diamonds wrapped in black squares. The large black and white checkerboards. The pink rectangles with the grey borders. The pink crosses lined with white. The white crosses enclosed in black squares. Such simplicity in what seems to be a complex way of paving what will simply be trodden upon. Why? What for? It certainly can't have been easy to lay all those square stones evenly enough, and yet not so evenly - with imperfect perfection.

T says, "Isn't there just one basic pattern?" I insist I've counted more than seven.

And as we walked and walked through the old town and the new, sauntering through Kafka's beautiful city, we felt it pulsing upon the very soles of our feet, with every step we took.