There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

I missed the whole of August. In the real world though, I spent plenty of time listening to The Smiths, not sleeping, working, walking, and staring out windows.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
~ from "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost

Weekend stuffings

1. Biked with a friend from East Coast to Changi Village. Spent over two hours on the new trail (that I didn't discover till now) gazing at beautiful trees and deserted stretches of coastline. We biked to the end of the trail - Changi Beach, where we talked till the sky went dark. On the way back, I looked up and saw more stars than I'd believed would be visible in this light-polluted city-state.

And then we lazed on the rooftop after a late dinner of risotto con funghi and good wine. We probably ruined our eyes reading Rilke and Emerson under the light of five small lanterns.

2. Let H drag me to see "Eclipse." Remarkably, it was less painful than the previous installment. I tolerated the first one only because of the cinematography of Oregon (I love the Columbia River Gorge) and Muse's "Supermassive Black Hole" playing over the baseball scene; the second for Alexandre Desplat's score. I liked the fight scenes in this third film, and Sia's "My Love" on the soundtrack. I will concede that the soundtracks for the films are pretty good. The first film had Iron & Wine's "Flightless Bird, American Mouth."

3. Wrote a guest entry about a French film and Barbara's "Septembre (Quel Joli Temps)" for a favorite music blog of mine.

4. Danced till late on Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning. Had a thrilling vals tanda with JM, who was dj-ing that night, and a great talk with his wife, R, who talked about her Peranakan beadwork. The pair are very nomadic - she's from HK while JM is French but they've lived in Argentina, Japan, France, Singapore, and now, India.

5. Heard some wonderful stories this weekend. Sometimes, the best ones don't need to come from books. We actually live them.

My Love, by Sia
Flightless Bird, American Mouth, by Iron & Wine
Supermassive Black Hole, by Muse

Good stuff

Last week, a few of my friends left town: some to Istanbul for the city's tango festival, others to Jo'burg for the World Cup. This meant receiving photos of my well-wigged friends (blue and white for Argentina!) at the Argentina/Mexico match on my phone this morning. This also means I'm going to get a vuvuzela in a week or so, which I'm contemplating taking to work to make some noise!

I have to stay put for now but there's much to look forward to next month. H is moving into the neighborhood! We've already made a dramatically long (and probably unrealistic) list of things to do on weekends now that we're going to be just about ten minutes away from each other: brunch at the beach, reading by the pool, late-night movies, playing piano and guitar, shopping for Steve Madden sandals, comparing our favorite songs by Kings of Convenience, and going out for French crepes, Swiss Raclette and Turkish cuisine!

And in August, DSD moves back from Hong Kong!

My cup runneth over.

Sweet Pea, by Amos Lee

"Et la chanson que tu chantais, toujours, toujours je l'entendrai!"

Friday nights are probably the only time I throw work out the window and do all I can to forget about the next day, week, month. I like to remember these Fridays, especially the one I spent at JF's tiny studio where he cooked us dinner and demonstrated how kitchen cabinets in Singapore are poorly designed for tall people doing dishes at the sink (he has to lean his forehead against the doors in order to look down into the sink, or open the doors and have half his head inside the cabinet to avoid hitting it, both of which are hilarious to see).

We shared a baguette, salmon and butter; chilled salmon fillet and a salad; spaghetti vongole; and strawberries and Greek yoghurt. K brought "George" along, who provided us with cappuccinos topped with thick layers of foam, and I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir that I'd saved from a long time ago. We sat on the carpet, resting our elbows on the low glass table; we ate off plastic plates, and drank from mismatched glasses and mugs; and as the evening leaned into the night, we lounged on the floor, the couch, the bed, all the while talking about journeys, songs, and our favorite poetry.

It seemed as if the three of us were at university again (though in reality we went to colleges in three different countries, years apart from each other), staying up late with little thought of the time, introducing to each other new (and old) poems and songs. There's little I can say to make it sound less pretentious but it was anything but so. We laughed a lot, we sang, we did silly things like have JF strike what I like to call the "young Pablo pose," since he resembles a young Pablo Neruda. K even suggested he read a few Neruda poems to us.

JF, who is Italian, is also a whiz at languages; I've never met anyone with his capacity for language acquisition. He grew up speaking Italian and French, so Spanish comes easily to him. And I'm half embarrassed to say that he speaks and reads Chinese better than K and I. If that weren't enough, he's also fluent in Korean. When it comes to karaoke, he leaves K and me in the dust. He's not the greatest singer but he's clearly the multilingual singer among us.

So one evening, when he dragged us to a karaoke lounge and we found ourselves singing a drunken rendition of the Wonder Girls' Nobody, K and I handled the English lines while JF took care of the Korean. Despite my misgivings about my Chinese, JF selected a song for us so I acquiesced to a duet. It was that wonderful classic (perhaps one of the few Chinese songs I know well enough to sing), 月亮代表我的心 ("The Moon Represents My Heart"). I was practically in tears by the end of the song. Too many memories.

K sang a wonderful "Cabaret" while I selected "Poker Face" (on a whim!) which had us all dancing a little madly in the middle of the room. And then we had to have a French song - JF's favorite, "Les Feuilles Mortes" ("The Dead Leaves") or the original version of "Autumn Leaves." I thought I knew the song pretty well but as JF translated the meaning of the French lyrics, the song became a rather different one for me.

Les Feuilles Mortes, by Yves Montand

Ana Carolina e Seu Jorge - Ao Vivo

When JF first introduced me to Ana Carolina's music, I wasn't paying attention. We'd talked about so many other singers and writers that her named slipped off the radar. The second time he mentioned her though, I was ready to listen. And listen I did, until I went through nearly all her albums and discovered the splendid concert she did with Seu Jorge. I was already familiar with Seu Jorge from the film "The Life Aquatic," and have loved his Portuguese renditions of David Bowie's songs ever since. Jorge's acoustic version of "Life on Mars" is one of the most beautiful songs on guitar.

So when I heard Ana and Seu Jorge singing "É isso aí" (Damien Rice's "The Blower's Daughter" in Portuguese), I was smitten. Ana Carolina's voice is nothing like I've ever heard before. It's low and resonant and makes me think of a place deep in the ocean.

My favorite - there are a few actually - is "Vestido Estampado," which means "printed dress." It's from Ana's collection and Seu Jorge accompanies her on the clarinet. I was curious enough to look up the lyrics and a translation, and though it was rather sketchy, I believe I understood just about enough to marvel at the analogy. It's a wonderful one.

Vestido Estampado, by Ana Carolina

(Feels Like) Summer Reading 2010

It's been a while since I did one of these.

The list so far:

1. One Day by David Nicholls
2. Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
3. The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
4. Alex's Adventures in Numberland by Alex Bellos
5. Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life by Alex Bellos
6. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
7. The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
8. Hellboy TPB 9 by Mike Mignola
9. Justice League America TPB Volume 1: New World Order by Grant Morrison
10. Locke and Key TPB 1 by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
11. Canti by Giacomo Leopardi
12. The Invisible Gorilla: And Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons
13. Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
14. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
15. Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr.
16. The City & The City by China Melville

"I have no feelings of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me till the end of my days."
~ Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night

"Why do we remember the past, and not the future?"

Home again after a good number of days away. It was a somewhat monastic experience, though I got some reading and writing done. Rather aptly, I read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, a gift from a friend five years ago when I was heartbroken about leaving a place and a life I loved. For numerous and unimportant reasons, I never read it till now and I'm glad I finally did so. I understand why she gave me this particular book then, and I appreciate how it's still relevant. I think it will remain so for many years.

As I maneuver my way through jobs and experiences, as I weigh my options and consider what's good, what's dark, what drains and what fulfills, as I decide whether to stay or go, I will remember these lines, "And again as a youth when (Siddhartha's) continually soaring goal had propelled him in and out of the crowd of similar seekers, when he had striven hard to understand the Brahmins' teachings, when every freshly acquired knowledge only engendered a new thirst, then again, in the midst of his thirst, in the midst of his efforts, he had thought: Onwards, onwards, this is your path."

*The title of this entry is a quote from A Brief History of Time, by Stephen W. Hawking

Lifesize

Season 5 of "How I Met Your Mother" has been a bit of a let-down. There were a few good episodes but nothing to lift the show to the level of awesome-ness that defined it when I first began watching it five years ago. The finale, though, ended with some terrific HIMYM traditions - flashbacks, references to Barney's blog, running jokes, big changes, and Ted-isms that ring so true - reminding me again why I love this show.

One of the running jokes is the group's search for doppelgangers of themselves. The last one - Barney - appeared in the episode, though Barney also paraded as two of his own doppelgangers. The doppelganger thread tied in beautifully with the other storyline in the episode, which had to do with Robin and a choice she made, leading to Ted reminding Robin - and all of us - how much these characters have changed over the past five years.

Ted: And you, five years ago, you never would have chosen love over your career, but today you did.

Ted: Look, we've all been searching for the five doppelgangers, right? Well eventually, over time, we all become our own doppelgangers. These completely different people who just happen to look like us.

It also reminded me how much all of us, the viewers, have changed. A few months ago, I was telling JF about how I feel there are different selves within us, not the various selves that surface in different situations and places but the selves that come and go with time. The person I was a few years ago is different from who I am today, and different too from the future me, whoever she will be.

And if you think of the people you know - especially the ones you refer to as "someone I used to know" - you realize it's true for them too. There are some who you love and will always love - all their multiple selves - and there are others who are too different from their past selves to mean anything to you now. And the ones who once loved you - the selves who did - they aren't there anymore. You see only their doppelgangers now, or perhaps it was their doppelgangers you knew before. And to them, you're one too.

And, yes, there was a good song at the end of the episode - A Fine Frenzy's "Lifesize." Like many songs that accompany good shows, it was splendidly chosen.

"All for love, we become
Larger than lifesize, wondersome
Great in the eyes of someone"
~ from "Lifesize" by A Fine Frenzy

Lifesize, by A Fine Frenzy