monoceros blogsI was invited to two new year parties tonight, but I decided at the last minute not to go to either. After an evening nap, I made a simple dinner of beef broth with acini de pepe and sliced pork with onions and chili. I turned on the TV and witnessed more images of the tsunami's aftermath in South Asia and Southeast Asia. CNN was also showing how various countries heralded the new year - fireworks, candlelight vigils, bells.
This is probably my quietest new year's eve, and I kind of like it this way. Over the past few days, I've cleaned up my living room, did some laundry, finalized my reading list for the class I'm teaching next year (but not the entire syllabus yet), opened a new tub of ice-cream, and most recently, in Singapore, LK has received the keys to our new home.
2005 will be an interesting year - I will determine where I'm going to be after graduation, I have a new home to design and decorate, I will be reunited with LK - no more of this living apart and leading separate lives - and I will have finished my thesis. I hope the coming year brings peace to everyone around the world, particularly those who need it most.
Year's End
Now winter downs the dying of the year,
And night is all a settlement of snow;
From the soft street the rooms of houses show
A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,
Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin
And still allows some stirring down within.
I've known the wind by water banks to shake
The late leaves down, which frozen where they fell
And held in ice as dancers in a spell
Fluttered all winter long into a lake;
Graved on the dark in gestures of descent,
They seemed their own most perfect monument.
There was perfection in the death of ferns
Which laid their fragile cheeks against the stone
A million years. Great mammoths overthrown
Composedly have made their long sojourns,
Like palaces of patience, in the gray
And changeless lands of ice. And at Pompeii
The little dog lay curled and did not rise
But slept the deeper as the ashes rose
And found the people incomplete, and froze
The random hands, the loose unready eyes
Of men expecting yet another sun
To do the shapely thing they had not done.
These sudden ends of time must give us pause.
We fray into the future, rarely wrought
Save in the tapestries of afterthought.
More time, more time. Barrages of applause
Come muffled from a buried radio.
The New-year bells are wrangling with the snow.
~ by Richard Wilbur
Amazingly, the temperature is rising. The coming days will be very warm - it'll be 60F tomorrow. All the snow has melted, and I hope we won't have any for a while, though it seems strange to have a winter without all that white stuff.
December Moon
Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.
Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.
Why did my dog not bark?
Why did I hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?
How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
~ by May Sarton
I've been planning the reading list for my syllabus, which features contemporary short stories and poems. The last syllabus I prepared contained a couple of typos, despite my fanaticism about catching these slip-ups. Today, I made a horrible one, replacing an "i" with an "o." Here is the devastating result:
"The Peace of Wild Thongs" by Wendell Berry
I've been "arrowed" by A L to do this list, not that it was a chore to do. I must confess that these things are rather fun, particularly when I'm trying to avoid doing other things like work.
Three names you go by: v, hengster, meizhen
Three screennames you have: monoceros, vasili, nessa
Three things you like about yourself: that I refuse to be ordinary, the outline of my toes, the single copper-colored strand of hair near my forehead that I first noticed when I was eleven (even after being cut off our pulled out, it never fails to grow back).
Three things you dislike about yourself: lack of confidence, my various compulsions, the way fear and anger make it impossible for me to say what I mean.
Three parts of your heritage: Chinese (Hokkien), Chinese (Hainanese), Malay (very, very small part - my great-grandmother was Peranakan).
Three things that scare you: Fire (I've burnt bits of my fringe before, by accident, of course), going blind, falling asleep at the wheel.
Three of your everyday essentials: water, lipbalm, music or prose.
Three things you are wearing right now: cargo pants, wedding ring, Timex chronograph.
Three of your favorite bands/artists (at the moment): David Tao, Isabelle Boulay, Maroon 5.
Three things you want to try in the next 12 months: work as a cashier, drive to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (and get to Isle Royale National Park), send out work to literary journals.
Three things you want in a relationship (love is a given): to enjoy activities together like walks, bookstore visits, movies; emotional intimacy; empathy.
Two truths and a lie (random order): I studied Akido, I hiked up and down Mount Washington with a wonky knee, I once held the record in secondary school (just in my level) for the longest time on the flex-arm hang.
Three physical things about the opposite (or same) sex that appeal to you: wide shoulders, strong arms, and a tall frame.
Three things you just can't do: parallel park, whistle, stay out the entire night.
Three of your favorite hobbies: collecting things, rearranging the order of my books every now and then, daydreaming.
Three things you want to do really badly right now: get my laundry into the washer (why won't the *%$@ neighbor collect her laundry?!), make amends with the person I'm fighting with, finish my syllabus for next semester.
Three careers you're considering: teaching in a university/UWC, full-time writer, librarian.
Three places you want to go on vacation: Italy, Turkey, New Orleans.
Three kids' names: Dashiell, Samaine, Georgia.
Three things you want to do before you die: Spend a whole season (preferably fall) or a year (if I can afford it) in Italy, attend - in costume - the Carnivale in Venice, hike and camp in various parts of New England.
Three people who have to take this quiz, or not: Dimsumdolly, Overacuppa/Tiggie, Fatgirl (no arm-twisting here, so don't worry!).
Late Hours
On summer nights the world
moves within earshot
on the interstate with its swish
and growl, an occasional siren
that sends chills through us.
Sometimes, on clear, still nights,
voices float into our bedroom,
lunar and fragmented,
as if the sky had let them go
long before our birth.
In winter we close the windows
and read Chekhov,
nearly weeping for his world.
What luxury, to be so happy
that we can grieve
over imaginary lives.
~ by Lisel Mueller
Post-Christmas shopping with coupons - a guilty pleasure. Boon and I were at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and then Marshall's, and I indulged in too many things. Mostly for the bathrooms of my future home, and lots of candles. The little tray for four tealights is a nifty thing.
I've been reading Jonathan Franzen's essay collection, How to be Alone, which is appropriate since I'm alone most of this break (no, this isn't a cry for help; I'm perfectly happy, thank you). One of the essays is titled "Books in Bed," and although it's really a funny piece on sex books, the title made me think of the books that are literally on my bed.
Since the husband person is 9000 miles away, I fill up the other side of the bed with an extra set of pillows, Bou the baby-mouse (from Spirited Away), a baby Eeyore (gift from my mother), and five books that I'm reading at the same time (I pick a different one for each night - my...hmm...sleeping partners?). They are:
1. The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
2. Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
3. Very Far Away From Anywhere Else by Ursula K. Le Guin
4. Gifts of Unknown Things by Lyall Watson
5. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
No. 1 is a funny sci-fi classic, and it's being made into a movie. If Neil Gaiman endorses a book, I'm pretty sure it's good.
No. 2 is a funny sci-fi exploration of the various planes (as in dimensions) that one can access while waiting in airports for delayed planes (as in flying machines).
No. 3 is actually a book for young adults, but it's got a lovely message about two people who are different from other kids in school and choose to stay on the course they've determined for themselves. The boy discovers he wants to be a scientist; and the girl, who plays both the viola and the violin, is preparing to study music at college, but really wants to be a composer. (The two kids actually remind me of Diane Lane and Thelonius Bernard in A Little Romance, who vow to never be ordinary.)
No. 4 - strange and wonderful things happen in a remote island in Indonesia.
No. 5 - trends and other phenomena in contemporary culture.
I realize I don't really have a point in writing this entry, but I thought it was a nice thing to write about - the books that are my bedtime companions. Oh, and Franzen's book isn't part of the bed collection, it's on my desk - something I read when I tire of looking at the computer.
Earthquake and tsunamis in Asia the day after Christmas. 8.9 on the Richter scale. Thousands - more than 20,000 - dead. I can't seem to put in words the horror of it all. Someone else's words will have to suffice.
I buried him, wrapped in a lettuce leaf,
The vivid eye sunk inward, a dull stone.
So this was it, the universal grief:
Each bears his own end knit up in the bone.
Where are the dead? we ask, as we hurtle
Toward the dark, part of this strange creation,
One with each limpet, leaf, and smallest turtle -
Cry out for life, cry out in desperation!
~ from "Death and the Turtle," by May Sarton
Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events - the movie is a little different from the books, but it retains the terrific Victorian/Gothic feel. Loved the art direction, the sets, the costumes, especially Violet Baudelaire's - fishnet sleeves and that great blue coat. Emily Browning is going to break hearts when she's older. She's probably doing this already, and she's just sixteen (fourteen when she made the movie).
If you liked Before Sunrise, if you're a bit of a romantic, if you admire Diane Lane, if you're easily moved by wonderful music scores (by Georges Delerue), I think this 1979 movie is a must-see. It's Diane Lane's movie debut (she was in Italy even before she made Under A Tuscan Sun) in which she plays an American girl living in Paris. She's bright, well-read, and brave, and when she meets a French boy, Daniel, who's equally precocious and has read the same books she has, they set off on an adventure. The plan is to get to Venice and take a gondola ride to the Bridge of Sighs where they must kiss at sunset when the bells are ringing so that they will love each other forever. Along the way, they get some help from an elderly gentleman played by Lawrence Olivier. Horse-racing, movies, philosophy, the Brownings - these are some of the little details that make an already lovely story more endearing.
It brought back more than just a few memories of the times I was in Paris, Verona, and Venice. There's nothing quite like the buildings, the bridges, and the streets of these cities. History, literature, art, music, tragedy, deception, beauty - I found a little of each even in the smallest of objects I chanced upon during my travels. Snowfall in Piazza di San Marco; autumn light in a quiet Parisian street; tiny cracks in the walls of the Arena in Verona; a night-time recital in a small church in Venice; a shop of handmade masks (the very one that provided props for Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut); Giuletta's balcony; a cart of books along the Seine.
When Diane Lane embraces Lawrence Olivier goodbye, it really is a wrenching farewell. She knows she might never see him again, this aged man who helped her and her beau pursue a legend. What do people do with the realization that they won't see a place or a person ever again? They cry; they wave frantically, as Daniel does, running after a car on a busy Paris road; they promise to remember every little detail of their time together. It's terribly hard to say goodbye to romance, even if it's just a little one.
Plenty of new trailers on Quicktime:
1. Featurette of Weta's work on C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. One more year, one more year. Damn.
2. Bride and Prejudice. Aishwarya Rai. Wow.
3. Kingdom of Heaven (this one is actually on Yahoo Movies). In my opinion, Orlando Bloom looked his best as Legolas, but I do admit he doesn't look too shabby in this movie. Nice trailer music by Jonathan Elias, from "The Prayer Circle." Will this movie be better than the much-hyped-but-disappointing epic flicks, Alexander and Troy?
4. Sin City. Ooh, very dark, very noir. Bruce Willis, Clive Owen, Jessica Alba, Benicio Del Toro, Elijah Wood (as a bad-ass villain who favors human flesh), and other well-known actors. Based on the graphic novels by Frank Miller. I hear they're very violent, very disturbing. Sin City is short for Basin City, which is another moniker for Los Angeles. Trailer music by UK band The Servant, specifically, the instrumental version of their song "Cells."
5. Sahara. Dirk Pitt comes to the big screen. My brother and I used to devour the Dirk Pitt novels. I hope this one will do the novel justice.
It's 1842 hours on Christmas Day, and it's still terribly dark and grey out there. But I keep company with myself, books, music, and candles (specifically, Yankee Candle's Ocean Water).
On Itunes, John Pizzarelli is singing "Da Vinci's Eyes," and I'm reminded of how I was first introduced to Pizzarelli's guitar-playing and warm, nasal warbling. Years ago, Mogan, my old pal from junior college and emcee at wedding, was telling me about recent purchases he'd made at Tower Records, the old one at Pacific Plaza (yeah, it was that long ago). Of the singers he listed, Pizzarelli's name stayed with me though I'm not sure why. I later found out my father had several albums and I listened to every one. And of all the songs, "Da Vinci's Eyes," was the prettiest. A gentle melody, really sweet lyrics, and tasteful name-dropping - Shakespeare, Mozart, Da Vinci. A modern love song with a whimsical, old-world feel.
You can get a free download from Amazon right here - Da Vinci's Eyes.
It's Christmas Day and it's grey.
Fr. Tom Firestone is leaving St. Mary's Student Parish. The Christmas Eve midnight mass was his last mass with the parish. I can still remember the first mass I attended at St. Mary's in the fall of 1997; I was new, and so was he. Later that year, I made an appointment with him - I was due for confession before Easter. When I told him about my frequent use of profanity, he chuckled ever so briefly and softly. A football fan, he never failed to add something about the Wolverines in his sermon the day after a game. It's a little painful to see him go, knowing I'll never see him again. Soon, he'll be another memory from my undergraduate days.
On that note, it seems inopportune to say this, but Happy Christmas to everyone out there.
It's madness, but I ventured out on the morning of Christmas Eve to shop at Bed, Bath, and Beyond and then at Hiller's. I made it out alive. After taking a dismal look at the White Rabbit's condition, I decided to take him for a carwash. I'd figured I had plenty of time before setting off to visit Christ and Amy in Clarkston, but I also had plenty to do - make lunch, wrap presents, write cards, feed Milou a treat, decide on what to wear, dress up. I finally left my place at 1510 hours.
The weather was just fine - blue skies and strips of cloud to pave the way. The only delay was for five minutes on 696, just before it joins I75. According to AM 950 (thank you, noob, for telling me about the station), there's an accident at that spot every day.
The drive took a bit longer than I thought, about 1 hour 20 minutes, but I arrived int ime for dinner at 1630 hours. A short prayer with Chris, Amy, Amy's parents and sisters, and then it was potato and cheese, honeybaked ham, cherries in sour cream, Hungarian sausage, salad with nuts, and pecan pie (for Jesus's birthday - with a candle). I had two helpings of everything and I was the slowest eater.
Chris's and Amy's place is a small blue house, and it's very cosy. It's also a block from the church, where they work as youth pastors. After dinner, we drove there (it took about a minute, including the time required to start the car) for the Christmas Eve service. Plenty of candlelight, carols, and adorable kids. I could easily pick out the husbands and wives in the service - the pianist and one of the singers, who both wore red turtlenecks and black slacks; the pastor and wife, both a little round and outfitted in patterned sweaters; and of course, I knew Amy and Chris, who, thankfully, weren't dressed to match. I imagined myself and LK volunteering at the Catholic Church's Engaged Encounter in Singapore, and made a mental note that we should never, ever dress alike.
After the service, we returned to a warm house where we exchanged presents. Chris set up his huge telescope and I got to see Saturn and its rings and one of its moons, something I've never seen before. I also gazed at the moon, which looked like a very bright silver fruit with bumps, craters and all. My mind immediately leaped to memories of the sci-fi movies I know well and love - Cocoon, Contact ("No words"... no words at all) - and then the upcoming films, War of the Worlds and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, whose book I need to start on soon.
By the time I set off for the drive home, it was bitingly cold, about -22 degrees celsius. The drive home was fast (only 1 hour) and relatively smooth. It was a lovely drive at night - good music, warm toes, warm backside (the White Rabbit's seat-warmers are great). I was in such a good mood, I even had the energy to get some gas before heading home.
I called my brother, my mom, and then I had a nice MSN/webcam chat with LK, in which I noticed his thinner appearance. His new position at work and re-service have narrowed his face - he's lost weight in a remarkably short time (apparently, even the girl behind the counter at the chocolate shop, Original Sin, is hitting on him - #%*@!).
To end the day - I really like the poem selected for today's The Writer's Almanac.
"Dover Beach"
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
~ by Matthew Arnold
An airport run in the morning. But first, had to dig out the White Rabbit from under a foot of snow. I used my snow brush as a broom.
Afternoon trip with Lim Jia and Jake to Grand Rapids for dim sum. A two-hour trip became two-and-a-half because of traffic. Turns out the restaurant only has dim sum till three, so we ordered some main dishes - roast duck, steamed tilapia and sauteed scallops. Not bad at all. The last of the dim sum dishes - taro buns, which were excellent. The highlight was probably the duck, and we noticed that the duck fellow was chopping them up non-stop. People kept ordering it as take-out dishes. We also conversed with the owner, a Malaysian who arrived in the US in 1997. He was in Indiana for three years before moving to Michigan. Turns out they sell about 30-40 ducks a day and about 2-3 roast pigs too. During the holidays, they sell 13 pigs. When he found out Lim Jia and I are from Singapore, we got some free treats. We later relied on Jake to help us finish the food.
On the way back, we talked about his adventures with his dad who is a vet. Horsey patients are the most volatile - Jake was left with bruises all over his back once. Another interesting patient - a hermaphrodite cat. Jake and his dad love vehicles too, and driving - they have a collection of about 12 motorbikes. I fell asleep after gazing out at the moonlit fields. It was particularly beautiful because of the layer of snow spread across the land.
Back in Ann Arbor, we rushed into Hill Auditorium for their friend Chris's organ recital. This isn't the little electric organs you get in Yamaha music appreciation courses. The organ is linked to a row of huge pipes (124 ranks and 7,599 pipes) and has an amazing number of buttons and stops, two rows of pedals (which require the player to don special shoes) and four keyboards (which require plenty of finger alternation). Organists have plenty of job opporunities, especially in churches. Lim Jia told me jokingly about how there are so many jobs out there that if anyone knows how to find the power switch for the organ, he'd get a job.
Later, we climbed onto the stage and fiddled around with the organ. The sound is just incredible - loud, majestic. Chris certainly looked like he was having fun during his recital. And I could see why. Lim Jia played a little Bach and we stood there in awe. For just a couple of seconds, I stood in the spotlight and faced the empty chairs. This is the same stage on which Hilary Hahn and Dave Brubeck and Harry Connick Jr. performed. It was surreal to be standing in the same spot.
Before they sent me home, we had a few donuts in the empty blue parking lot on North Campus. Jake floored the gas, locked the wheel of the Buick, and across the snow-covered lot, we spun and spun and spun. It was fabulous. He actually practices doing these tricks. You have to do it in a controlled situation - know where the poles and pavements are, make sure no cops are watching. Best vehicles for donuts - manual transmission, rear-wheel drive cars, and no ABS brakes.
Sideways is a little movie about two middle-aged men on a road trip in California. It's a gem that's garnering rave reviews and plenty of fans. It doesn't feature special effects, big-name actors, or a car chase (though there are some interesting scenes with a car). The lead actor is short, slightly rounded, and balding; none of the women are nubile young things (although Sandra Oh has the body of one); but the film is wonderfully written and the characters painfully real.
The two guys are miserable characters. Miles is miserable and Jack does miserable things. Jack is a faded actor about to be married and Miles is a failed writer waiting to hear from his agent about his latest manuscript. The road trip is Miles's gift to Jack before he marries. At times, the characters aren't easy to like, but they come through in the end, either displaying genuine human frailty that we recognize in ourselves or the strength to unearth happiness even when the emotion becomes incredibly elusive.
Oh, there's also a terrific background of wine, wine estates, and wine bars. If you know your wines, if you love wines, watch this movie for the great conversations about wine.
Actors - Paul Giamatti (from American Splendor and Duets), Thomas Haden Church (the guy who plays the dour mechanic in that funny sitcom Wings), Virginia Madsen (from Electric Dreams), and Sandra Oh (well-known in her home country, Canada; the brown-nosing principal in Princess Diaries, and wife of Sideways's director, Alexander Payne).
Notes for me:
- Watched Sideways at State Theater on State Street.
- After the movie, Frank, Jake, Lim Jia, and I headed to South University for bubble tea and several rounds of Taboo.
- Teaming with a fellow Singaporean helps when playing Taboo. We can use Hokkien or Mandarin to say things.
- Someone should invent a Singaporean version of Taboo.
- Much to my embarrassment, I found it easier to use rather graphic language to describe words like "blow," "vibrate" etc. instead of using more PC and roundabout sentences.
I got up at around eleven this morning because I went to bed at five today. Five in the morning is not the best time for bed, but when you've turned in final grades, when you're done writing the last comments for a student, when you won't be locking yourself in the office to grade for the rest of the year, you want to stay up and out. At least I did.
I had dinner with Noella, her sister, Stephanie, and Frank - homecooked food and wine and ice-cream and tea (PG Tips tea from the UK; very cool pyrimad-shaped teabags). Conversation - sometimes just one among the four of us, sometimes two. Frank showed off his spiffy new coat from Peiming, and Stephanie and I caught up on the latest Singapore celebrity gossip.
When I listed a few things for her to do in Ann Arbor, Nectos, the little club in Ann Arbor, came up. Stephanie loves to dance and was eager to check out the dance floor in a university town. It was 12:30 and we all decided on impulse to dress up and go. Or rather, Noella and I decided to dress up. I went home and put on a skirt (even though it was about -15 degrees celsius) and my combat boots. Noella opted for zebra-print heels (no socks, of course, and no stockings). At Nectos, we discovered it was Goth night, or rather S&M/fetish night, judging by the amount of leather, chains, black makeup, and black clothing that we witnessed. Of us four, I was probably the most aptly dressed since my boots are rather Gothic. The music was too weird, so we left and went searching for other happening locations. We tried three other places that turned up with zero dancing opportunities. So we wound up at Pinball Pete's where the two sisters were going to dance up a fury on the Dance Revolution machine. But after one brief performance, the lights went off because it was near closing. So we went next door to get some Bubble Tea, but wound up with only takeaway curly fries and awful tea. Then off to Kroger's where we found out that they don't sell alcohol after two in the morning; so Stephanie couldn't have her beer. We returned to Noella's place for our soggy curly fries, hot mushroom soup, and more tea and conversation. At 3:50, I finally couldn't keep my eyes open and decided to go home. It wasn't a success of a night out, but it was fun trying to make it a success.
Wind back the clock - on Sunday night, we had a wine-and-cheese and present exchange at Peiming's. Everyone had brought a little gift and after much discussion, we decided to do a song in order to make the exchanges. We sat in a circle and sang "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer" while passing presents around. When the song ended, lucky fellow Jake, seated on my left wound up with my present - a Timey and a Christmas-themed Whiskie from MSC International.
I got Noella's gift, a very useful One Pot cookbook - everything cooks in one pot!
And this concludes my entry on parties for now. I'll have a couple more soon. Wednesday afternoon and night, I'll be at my friend Michelle's place for gingerbread house decorating and dinner. Christmas Eve, I'll be on my solo mini road trip to Clarkston where Chris and Amy - friends of LK's and mine - live. And then next week, a couple of New Year Eve parties. How will I ever get work done?
According to The Writer's Almanac, today is William Safire's birthday. Yes, the guy who said more than a few not-so-nice things about the first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and the previous prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, of Singapore, especially when Williams College wanted to confer on Mr. Goh an honorary degree. (More on repression and muzzling of the press may be found in this interesting article.)
Perhaps a few loyal Singaporeans might quibble with me for honoring Mr. Safire with an entry when he didn't think our prime minister deserved his honorary degree. The truth is I'm quite a fan of Mr. Safire's Sunday column, "On Words" in The New York Times Magazine, which has been around since 1979. Mr. Safire is a champion of grammar and writes very wittily about the correct usage of words. He's also very knowledgable about pop culture and provides entertaining pieces on how certain words and phrases become popular.
As usual, after reading some titbit about a writer, I'll have to look up his works, works that I might like to place on my bookshelf (I didn't know that many of Safire's essays are compiled in at least a dozen books). I'm a little concerned that I've already put down at least eight titles on my wishlist, which is growing far too long. In the latest entry, Mr. Safire's also listed several great grammar books for Christmas. After providing my class with a similar list (which I expect will be tossed into the recycling bin), I took note of the new titles and added them to my list of "wordy books." I'm an incorrigible geek and consumer.
Oh, and Mr. Safire turns 75 today.
Wednesday afternoon - MFA program meeting. Jonathan Franzen is coming to Ann Arbor! Maybe Amy Tan too. Ha Jin may teach at U of M the next academic year. A new opportunity to spend a month in Ireland. Thomas Lynch, one of the writing instructors, who's also an undertaker (he owns a funeral home), has generously offered his family's cottage in Ireland to a deserving writer for the month of May. Very popular idea - looks like everyone is applying. Including me.
Wednesday evening - I went to dessert paradise, La Dolce Vita, with Irene, where we had Spanish Coffee (think cinnamon-on-fire, literally), banana bread pudding, caramel cappuccino, and pumpkin tart. Irene said our waiter looked Korean, and he addressed her very politely as Ms. Hahn when he took her credit card. We stayed longer than we expected, discussing marriage, children, dating among Koreans, the Han family line, the three Kim lines, writing, teaching, where she'll go next year, where I'll go next year. We bumped into another MFA fellow who was there with his fiance.
Thursday - attempting to revise a story, failing, and despairing.
So here we are with the extended edition of The Return of the King. And nutty fan that I am, I also have the miniature of Minas Tirith. Still unopened, still wrapped in plastic.
Done with workshop; done with musicology; done with teaching composition.
Finished my third story in time; finishing my revision for Friday.
Grading all through the week. Just grades, no comments.
Dessert at La Dolce Vita with Irene on Wednesday evening. Celebrating a semester of determination and despair. Or the survival of it.
I actually visit Amazon.com every day. Sometimes I admire the impressive length of my wishlist, or I read about new releases in books and music. Most of the time, it's to check the backordered products that I've purchased. McSweeney's Quarterly Concern Issue 13, an anthology of contemporary art comics, something that I ordered in September, is finally shipping soon. And the latest update this morning - the collector's edition of the Return of the King (Extended Edition), is moving out too. Minas Tirith will be on its way - the resin version, that is.
The sad thing is that even if I receive the DVD on December 14th or 15th, or even the 16th, I'll be stuck grading papers and doing some major revisions to a short story of mine. The movie will have to wait - I'll have to hide it somewhere safe from me until I am done, done, done!
I was in the bookstore today picking up my Kawase Hasui calendar when I caught sight of one of my students. In her hand was a copy of David Sedaris' Me talk Pretty One Day. I'd like to believe she's buying it after reading two of his essays in our class. Oh boy, do I actually have some influence over their book selections? Oh, happy day.
Okay, back to writing.
I had two great conversations tonight. Online ones, that is, with Tiggie from overacuppa.com and my good pal Barney from work, or rather, the place where I used to work. Talking to friends who live miles away reminds me of the other places and lives I inhabited, and that I shouldn't be too clouded by the troubles of the present life I've made for myself.
A couple of years ago, I was caught up in the pre-production of books that Barney tells me are now being printed. It's a nice thing to know since I used to believe that it'd be a very long time before those books ever saw the light of day. I suppose that "very long time" has come and gone now. A nicer thing - he may get posted in New York city for some training, and if so, he might get to visit me some time next year! Note to self: will introduce him to a certain friend who might fancy British blokes.
This is celebrity week. I managed to attend the conversation with Audrey Niffenneger at the English department. Strangely, there weren't too many people. The conversation was actually arranged by an instructor here, a friend of Audrey's, who's teaching the novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, in her class. So the conversation was sort of a class event for the two sections she teaches. Guests were allowed, of course, which explained why I was there, as well as my old friend and climbing partner, Jackie, director of the New England Literature Program (NELP) that I joined years ago.
Audrey looks very much like her author photo, except she donned glasses for the event. Her hair, she confessed, is actually a "mousy brown." She had dyed it red as a way of saying goodbye to Clare when she finished the book. (For those who haven't read it, Clare, the title character, is a redhead.)
Most of us had read the novel so Audrey didn't waste time reading and jumped straight to questions. I asked her which section was particularly difficult to write, and it was the bit about Dr. Kendrick, when they got into the whole issue about time travel. Audrey was afraid that it would turn out too scientific and she didn't really want to go into all the nuts and bolts. So to get around it, she just made up the rules and left it at that. Henry, the protagonist, couldn't change any events, and that took away the problem of paradoxes. She said that she'd read as many books with a time-travel theme and had a movie fest as well. The Back to the Future series was helpful, and she read H.G. Wells' The Time Machine too. Because Audrey is a visual artist, the process of writing her book resembled making a movie - she actually created storyboards for her novel before writing it.
Audrey finished the novel in January 2002 (she began work on it in 1997) and sent out query letters to 25 agents. Only one asked to see the whole novel, and that one eventually became her agent. They went to an independent publisher and expected only a small readership. Lucky for her, it went quite the other way.
We got juicy titbits about her new novel, which will be titled Her Fearful Symmetry. The protagonists - twins from Lake Forest, Illinois, who inherit an apartment in London. One evntually works as a guide in the cemetery that's next to the apartment. The novel will be about people coping with what they fear. One of the sisters is obsessive compulsive (I'm not sure if this is the one who works in the cemetery), another fears death and is afraid of drifting away from her twin.
So the movie for The Time Traveler's Wife is in the works. Three production companies, including New Line Cinema and Plan B (that's Brad Pitt's and Jennifer Aniston's company), were competing for the rights when they all decided to join forces to make the movie. It turns out that Brad will play Henry, but Aniston won't play Clare, which Audrey is pleased about because Aniston, she says, looks nothing like Clare. I asked her if she had someone in mind, and she professed a preference for Lauren Ambrose, who plays the youngest daugther (with lovely red hair) in HBO's Six Feet Under. Director? Gus Van Sant! He'll certainly help the movie avoid an overdose of sentimentality. Audrey's happier with Van Sant than Spielberg, who was a potential candidate over the summer, but that didn't work out.
After the conversation, I had to get her to sign my book, of course. Because the line wasn't long, I spoke to her a little about my fear of working on novels and finding time to write. She recommended applying to The Ragdale Foundation, where she was a Fellow nine times, and where she got her inspiration for Clare's home. Lake Forest is also a setting in her new novel.
So now the inside of my book reads: "To V____, good luck with your writing. Audrey N."
Shirley Verrett, a luminous opera singer who's been a professor at Michigan's School of Music since 1996, was the highlight of our musicology class yesterday. She's 73 but doesn't quite look it. Every inch of her is glamor, grace, and confidence.
She was one of the first African-American singers to achieve success in the world of opera. My own professor sought her as special guest for our class so we could learn firsthand about the difficulties of being an "Other" while playing lead roles that aren't ethnic. We began by introducing ourselves; everyone in the class is a music student except me, and I was the last to announce myself. When I said "creative writing," I suppose that made her easier to notice me and my name. I felt a little embarrassed about my non-music field, so I added that I studied in Italy where I got to watch my first few operas. Prof. Verrett brightened immediately and asked wherabouts. She said she'd made her debut in Florence so the city is dear to her as it is to me. Because her role was Queen Elizabeth, I asked her how the makeup process went; they had to put fat layers of foundation on her since Queen E. wasn't just Caucasian, she also wore that ghastly white paste on her face.
Prof. Verrett also spoke of her debut - Carmen - at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She prepared for each role by reading books about the time period and viewing paintings from that time and place. Acting is equally important, she said, which reminded me of a comment my professor once shared - "Park and bark." It refers to the old-style opera singers, who were also pretty large and refused to move around a lot so they would stand in one spot and just sing.
What I liked best was hearing about how she came into singing. She'd been singing since she was a small child, and her parents had always wanted her to be a singer. But she never felt she was ready until she was in her twenties. She went to college, took Law 101, Economics 101, and worked in her businessman father's office, handling the book-keeping and taking notes in shorthand. Later, she sold real estate around California. When she began to tire of making sales pitches, it occured to her that she should be singing instead of selling houses. She found herself a voice instructor and eventually got a place at Julliard, won several competitions, then went on to a wonderful career that saw her working with Placido Domingo, Zubin Mehta, and other great singers and conductors.
Unfortunately, she didn't sing anything for us. She did show us her "limp" for one of her roles and her manly stride that she used when she played Leonora in Fidelio. I truly enjoyed listening to her speak. She's incredibly eloquent and vivacious. When she mentioned how people accused her of singing "white," that she didn't sound black enough, she became a tad indignant at the memory. To this she said, "I don't care. I sing with a voice God gave me. This is a country that's a melting pot, and our voices are influenced by all kinds of people and cultures."
When the class ended and she left the building, the place seemed poorer for it.
I finally read Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree. At Borders yesterday, I confessed to Boon that I'd never read it before and he made me take five minutes to finish it. I must say that I have some silly reasons for not having read it, and I wish I'd read this sooner.
If only we all had a tree like this one.
It all depends upon a fitness test. If LK passes, he'll be here during Chinese New Year. If he doesn't, he'll try really hard to get his ticket changed to late December because he'll have to attend more training in Feburary. I can't decide which result I want. If he passes, I know he'll be visiting for sure since his ticket's already booked for CNY. If he doesn't pass, I'll be really happy to have him here for the holidays. But the chances of changing his flight date are low. Damn, I wish he'd booked his flight for December instead.
We were talking on the phone last night about wedding bands and engagement rings. I left my little rock at home in Singapore since it's too pretty to wear every day; my wedding band is already scratched up rather badly. And LK suggested I have a littler rock to wear all the time. I was excited. Could you blame me? A little bright band of white gold, a tiny stone. I'd like to think that I'm not swayed by such trinkets, but I suppose I'm like most of the female population out there. When the husband wants to buy you a ring, you don't try to pretend to be noble and above the lure of gems.
Now what can I buy him?
After an afternoon nap, I met up with Boon for dinner and then we made a short visit to Borders. I spied a lovely Japanese calendar featuring the woodblock prints of Kawase Hasui. However, I decided not to purchase it until I lay my hands on a 25% Borders coupon. It's pretty expensive for a calendar.
The paintings are rather sublime. I couldn't help but put up a few of my favorites here.
Autumn at Itako
Moon at Magome
Pagoda in the moonlight
A dense fog warning in the morning, and then strong winds for the entire day. Oh, rain too. The wind was impressive, bending the trees and sliding in between branches. It sounded like sand hitting a screen. I was glad to get home in the late afternoon and take a nap on the couch. I had my fair share of the elements today - thoroughly soaked shoes, rain-drenched jeans and a test of body weight against the wind.
When I entered my apartment, I could feel how my nose had tightened and nearly shrivelled up. It seemed as if all the skin was drawing towards the tip of my nose. The warm air made everything better after a few minutes.
Rain Travel
I wake in the dark and remember
it is the morning when I must start
by myself on the journey
I lie listening to the black hour
before dawn and you are
still asleep beside me while
around us the trees full of night lean
hushed in their dream that bears
us up asleep and awake then I hear
drops falling one by one into
the sightless leaves and I
do not know when they began but
all at once there is no sound but rain
and the stream below us roaring
away into the rushing darkness
~ by W.S. Merwin
Story is done. Finished at 8:15 a.m. I rose at 4:00 a.m. after about four hours of sleep. I wrote 13 pages in that time. Amazing.
It's rainy out there today. And I'm feeling a little itchy. On Saturday night, I went to Kay's place for a tree-trimming party. I was sharing a chair with Lim Jia and noticed that the insides of her elbows looked familiar. "Eczema?" I asked. Turns out she suffers from it pretty badly. I was just telling her how I began the semester with a pretty bad case but that the rest of the term has been fine. Sunday morning, I get up and the first red patches appeared. I couldn't believe my luck. Eczema is not contagious, so I suppose it's psychological. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, and I suppose being aware of it and the horrible lack of sleep I'm experiencing have made it reasonably plausible for the eczema to surface.
This morning - I'm definitely getting patches of red, flaking skin on the insides of most of my joints. Perfect. The color will go really well with the season's shades.
I suspect tonight will be another long one. Or a very early morning tomorrow. Tuesday night - I've promised myself I'll have a full night's rest.
It's 10:15 p.m. I am not finished with my story. Long night again, I suppose. And another long night tomorrow because I'll have to prepare for class on Tuesday. Tomorrow afternoon - read about 40 pages of fiction and write 2 critiques; rush to a friend's office to make copies of my story and handouts for my students; somewhere in between the mad day, I'll find time to eat and maybe catch 40 winks.
By Tuesday, I'll have written 45 pages of prose in four days. By Friday, I hope to complete another 15-20 pages. Over the coming weekend, I have to revise the short story I wrote at the beginning of the semester. This term has been bookended with marathon sessions of writing. In September, I was furiously writing 50 extra pages for my play. Now that December is here, I'm not just writing 60 pages, but I'll be reading and grading about 150 pages of student papers.
The good thing is that once I'm done with my own writing, classes will be over and I'll be only left with grading. I'll probably pop down to a nice cafe on Main Street and spend the afternoon with my Ipod and a pencil and my stack of papers. And then I'll give out final grades, and then I'll be officially done with fall term. And then I'll start planning for next term's class. And then I'll start working on my thesis - I aim to write two new stories this break, and revise several pieces. Oh, and I'd love to read all the novels I've been stacking by my bedside; rent several DVDs from my growing list of movies to watch because I had no time to see them in the theater; go to the movies at last; and get to the mall for my Christmas-decor enjoyment. I guess I should also get the car oil changed, clean the house, buy Milou some different hamster treats for a change, and, of course, catch up on sleep.
It's 10:23 p.m. My story is still not done. I need a miracle.
This is happy and well-groomed Hammie at home in Singapore. Check out the old Hammie here . My parents really dote on the little guy.
As for Milou, she's a rather grubby housemate. I don't mind since she's a terrific friend. Of course, she doesn't give me the time of day when I want to complain to her about something. She'll ignore me, preferring to exercise on her wheel instead. Wise decision, I suppose. I tend to waffle on and on.
I love getting up to a poem every morning. Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac is a wonderful program - a new poem every day, and a little titbit of information too. Which author's birthday is it, why are we celebrating this holiday?
Garrison Keillor has impeccable taste and it's the main reason why I'm assigning his book Good Poems to my students next year. When I have the time, I'll have to check out some of his audio cds. He's quite the humorist, I hear.
Back to the poem. Today's selection is so perfect for me that I had to put it on the blog. Here it is:
The Mind is a Hawk
The mind is like a hawk, trying to survive
on hardscrabble. Hunting, you wheel
sometimes for hours on thermals
rising from sand so dry
no trees
grow native. Some days, you circle
only bones and snakeskin, the same old
cactus and mesquite. The secret
is not to give up on shadows, but glide
until nothing expects it, staring
to make a desert give up dead-still
ideas like rabbits with round eyes
and rapidly beating hearts.
~ by Walter McDonald from Night Landing
And whose birthday is it today? It's the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke's. Born in Prague, 1875. Here is a quotation that Keillor featured:
"It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it. To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."
~ Rainer Maria Rilke
And now, it's back to writing my story. Maybe groceries later. I've run out of garlic, rocket salad, and scotch-tape; I need to pick up some vitamin E cream for my mom; and I want to enjoy the Christmas decor and music in the mall! Since I can't afford to spend the day roaming Briarwood, I'll have to settle for Kroger's or Target. The only Christmas ornaments I have here? A stuffed snowman my mom got me, a penguin with a muff (now dangling from my halogen lamp), and a tiny hot pink bear with headband and striped scarf resting in a sleigh. No tree, no Christmas album (unless I play the soundtrack of Love Actually, which has some holiday tunes), no Christmas treats (this one I can fix, once I get to grocery shopping).
Happy weekend to all. It's going to be late nights and my heart rate going up, up, up as I churn out too slowly my story and then start to wonder why I never seem to stop procrastinating.
Oh, something extra - a dream from last night. A girl I knew in school in Singapore appeared. She wasn't someone I liked a whole lot, and in the dream, she was actually quite nice, so that was fine. Another girl from seconday school was with us too. This one I like less than the first one (note the present tense; I don't usually dislike people, but this girl is an exception). And she didn't say a word to me, and that was fine too. Third girl from secondary school (I wonder why I'm dreaming up all these girls from the past) was someone I was quite terrified of. She was a bit of a bully, very domineering, very intrusive. She was still the same in the dream, but I actually fought back. I didn't hit her (though I felt rather inclined to), but I said a few things to her, and they were good, though I can't remember the lines now. I remember feeling victorious though. Let's hope I feel victorious this weekend too. I need to finish that darn story.
Carmen is finished. My paper on the opera, at least. I was writing to the last second as usual. Made it to Lane Hall at 4:43 p.m., two minutes before the office closed.
Now, I've got to get started on my 20-page story. I've got a page or so already, but my scattered ideas are still playing catch among themselves.
Some exciting news: Audrey Niffenegger, author of
Here's some information about Audrey:
Audrey Niffenegger's novel "The Time Traveler's Wife" garnered universal
acclaim when it appeared in 2003, with the Washington Post describing it as
"A love story without softness or flinching," the Chicago Tribune calling
it a "soaring celebration of the victory of love over time" and People
saying it was "A powerfully orignial love story." It was named as #2 in
Amazon's 50 Best Books of the Year, and generated an extra level of hype
when the movie rights were acquired by Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston with
the stars talking of it being their first movie together.
Audrey Niffenegger is a writer and visual artist who lives in Chicago. She
is a full-time professor in the Interdisciplinary Book Arts MFA Program at
the Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts, where she teaches
writing, letterpress printing, and fine edition book production. She makes
visual novels, paintings, prints and photographs, which are shown at the
Printworks Gallery in Chicago, and is working on her second novel.
I'm a compulsive daydreamer. When I meet someone of my own age, particularly someone born in the same year as me, I love to know what they're doing, what they've done, and then I picture myself in their position, tinker around with details and make the stage my own.
Case in point - I often read a weblog of a girl who lives in Australia. She's my age, married to an Australian, and has a little 1 1/2 year old baby. She's also expecting her second child. I certainly don't want to be a mother right now, something that I get rather sensitive about because too many people ask me that question. But it's her absolute bliss at being a mother, partcularly a stay-at-home-mother that I admire and certainly envy.
So I get green every once in a while and then start daydreaming. Years from now - would I be working a 9-6 job? Would I be depositing my children at daycare or my parents' and only seeing them for a few hours each day? My ultimate dream scenario - I'm staying at home with the kids, but I'm still earning some meagre dollars from freelancing and teaching privately. The only full-time job I wouldn't mind taking - teaching writing classes at the liberal arts college that Linda Lim recently proposed Singapore establish.
Other scenario to be relished - my short fiction gets published every now and then in literary journals and I have an advance from a nice publisher in New York so I get to work daily in my office at home in Singapore. If I get writer's block, I leave the room and check on my children. If they're bored or stuck with a differential equation or chemistry formula, I'll see if I can't solve it myself. And if I can't, I'll suggest we wait for Dad to get home, and why don't we go to the beach and read some Hemingway or Hammett? Maybe a little Frost or Szymborska? (In case it isn't known to all, I have this uncontainable excitement about introducing my children to all the wonderful books and paintings and music that I grew up with.)
Working mothers and stay-at-home mothers. Working moms get to earn respectable money and stay-at-home moms don't seem to earn enough respect. They've made a noble decision to devote their energy to the children, but few people recognize that sort of sacrifice. When my mom tells me that she wasn't smart enough to get a high-flying job, I tell her that she is far more special to me because she stayed home than if she were some dragon-lady boss at a company with a big name. Perhaps she didn't have the opportunity to earn her own income in her thirties and forties, but she earns a great deal of love from my brother and me, and the respect of her friends who see how much she's loved.
Many mothers who work are forced to because of financial burdens and that's more than valid a reason. It's the mothers who knowingly choose a fulfilling career over fulfilling their children's lives whom I regard with suspicion. If they have the means to choose between their jobs or their children, but still prefer the material achievements of their careers, they have very little right to be parents.
A student of mine recently wrote an excellent paper on making sure people are fit to be parents, and it made me wonder about how we move (or don't move) from being centered-thinking individuals to selfless parents. How do we accomplish this? It's not too different from getting married. It's about making changes in certain areas of our lives to make the rest work. Recently, LK has been very down and stressed at work, and he wondered if he should take a different job, one that would pay considerably less, but that would not be killing him prematurely. And I actually felt happy that he said this, because I don't think we should be chasing that sort of income if the other parts - and more importantly - people, in our lives will suffer. I'd be happy to see him come home for dinner and not at some God-forsaken hour. Happier still if he comes home smiling than dead-tired and demoralized. He would be able to read to the children when they're small and eager to have a story before bed, he would have enough energy to go for a walk by the beach, play some video games with me, and also take out the garbage.
I feel lucky that the vocation I wish for myself - writing - would allow me to be at home with my family. I'm only wondering if I will have the opportunity to pursue that vocation. We'll see. And that's the end of my meandering train of thought for today. Who knows what I'll be thinking about tomorrow? Perhaps I'll walk into a store and catch sight of a great cash register and start thinking about working as a cashier. (In case it isn't known to all, I have a strange fascination with cash registers and their large buttons that make clicky sounds. Once, I nearly took a job at Cold Storage because the cash registers there have the best sound effects.)
I should be writing about lines in Carmen but I got up this morning (late, I might add, with less time to work now) and listened to The Writer's Alamanac, and today's poem moved me in very many ways. Sometimes I get so tired of using the word "beautiful." Sometimes I think too many things are beautiful in this world, and that I'm terribly cheesy. I let myself get swept up in a good melody and never seem to stop gushing when I'm excited about something that could be as small as a leaf. And I tell myself I need to stop being so dreamy. But I ignore my own censure every now and then; beauty always makes the day better and here it is in the form of a poem.
In the Middle
of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.
~ by Barbara Crooker from Yellow