monoceros blogsa l's latest hoops and yoyo picture reminded me that I'd taken the two fellows to the US this year and have a few photos of them somewhere in the archives. (All around the world, Hoops and Yoyo perform a similar traveling-gnome-from-Amelie act - they're small and light and very stuffable in pockets.) Unfortunately, I only managed to get two shots of them during the trip and they weren't even taken by me. It was probably during the first few days that the pink cat and green rabbit got restless and my brother kindly let them take over his computer and hog the headphones. We have no idea who they were talking to on Skype, but they sure look happy.
And now Hallmark has released the proportionately-correct version of Hoops and Yoyo (and Piddles too!). Don't they look swell? I bet Hoops must be pleased that he's now larger than Yoyo.
photo from hoopsandyoyo.com
A little over a year ago, my friends Lim Jia and Jake sent me a link to a video of a Japanese-Hawaiian ukulele player named Jake Shimabukuro. The playing, the energy near winded me. I couldn't take my eyes off him, or my ears away from the music, which was at once beautiful and wild; his right hand on that ukulele moved like a circular razor in motion. He didn't just draw out music from the instrument, he whipped the notes into beings, and what spectacular ones they were. I'd never heard "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" played with such sensitivity and gusto before. He plays with such heart, as my friend Jake once said.
I sent the link to noob, who, resourceful fellow that he is, emailed in return a high-res file of the video. It's been over a year since I last watched it; life and other business got my attention, and the file stayed hidden for a time. So it was with much cheer when I spotted a feature on him during my evening visit to the NPR website. His latest album is an acoustic one, and in my opinion, the kind worth getting because previous studio albums had him record with a band, which distracted from his playing and diluted much of the energy that he's known for, the energy he seems to display best in live performances.
So thanks again to my friends for sharing their musical finds with me - Lim Jia and her Jake, the tuba-playing Jake, who can be seen below embracing a large red clock in Iowa.
Photo courtesy of Jake
Postscript: I'd like to think that if I could one day start living my life with say, even just half the energy and passion of Jake's as he plays his ukulele (see above-mentioned video), then it'd be a pretty good life. Dimsdumdolly and I had dinner yesterday and we spoke of how we didn't want to be typical - and this is a sweeping generalization - Singaporeans who are defined only by their work. We didn't want to just work, go home, go to work, go home, work, get home...you get the idea. Life's more than a job, more than fulfilling duties, and existing drearily. There's a world beyond making a living - unabashedly pursuing quirky interests; gushing about a perfect paragraph or a damn fine song; learning about the world and its history; going on adventures, walks, or hugging a red clock; seeking out the unusual; relishing big ideas and gargantuan things, and the little ones too; traveling to places that I've always wanted to see and really seeing them. Sure, having a job and being good at it does matter, but I'd like to be in love with life too. I'd like to think I am, and that I still have a sense of wonder about this world. But then, there are too many people I know who have lost that. And it saddens me.
Perhaps this entry should be titled "The game of improvisation." Gabriela Montero is a Venezuelan pianist who's got the chops not just for classical piano performance but also improvisation. An NPR feature has her listen to the song "Take me out to the ballgame" and then improvise it on the spot. In another broadcast, she improvises the theme for the show "All Things Considered." My favorite is a piece titled "Beyond Bach: Improvisation on a Bach theme."
On iTunes, I downloaded a podcast (this is supposed to be a series of five shows, but there's been only once since May) and I love what she did with "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring." The podcast is mostly an interview (and Ms. Montero has a lovely voice and accent) and ends with the interviewer's request of an improvisation on a theme of childhood. Gabriela doesn't just improvise themes by other composers; give her an idea or an emotion, she interprets it on the piano and then improvises immediately after. Her improvisation on the theme of childhood made me very wistful.
Since I was in a wistful mood all morning and afternoon, I went to her website and put in a request (the interviewer said they were taking them, though I'm sure they're very selective). I asked for an improvisation on the theme of lost futures - the lives we might have led, but didn't.
A new year begins, and I spend it at the bookstore. Today, I got Nick Hornby's The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, which I believe is a UK/International compilation of The Polysyllabic Spree and the newly released Housekeeping vs. the Dirt. Since the 13th book is due out soon, I thought I'd take advantange of the "3 for 2" promotion in the children's book section and pick up the 4th - 9th books by Lemony Snicket. These are probably the only books in Singapore that are cheaper than the same editions sold in the US. And apart from the cheaper price, Borders also has the "3 for 2" promotion going for them. They were too heavy, otherwise I'd have picked up the 10th - 12th ones as well.
I seem to be buying books the way some people buy bagels. But books are my bagels - energy-giving, life-affirming, wholesome goodness. More goodness comes in a tin of choclate pieces from Ethel's in Chicago, courtesy of my brother and S. This I received on Monday - thank you both, if you're reading! I also received a little Smokescreen Titanium Transformer, which will go well with the Jazz figure that my brother sent me last month.
Books in the mail are awesome too, especially the books that arrived yesterday. I'd been waiting a very long time for two boxes to arrive; I'd sent these from Champaign over two months before. Last year, when I sent books by the M-Bag route from Ann Arbor, they took about six weeks to reach Singapore. Since both states are in the Midwest, I rather expected the same of the M-Bag journey from Champaign. The eighth week came and went, there was no sign of the boxes, and I was miserable. Not only did my books cost a small fortune, I also had a few Hopwood items in there that I'd asked Andrea to save for me and that I picked up during my visit to AA. Those I wouldn't have been able to get hold of again easily. I'd been praying to St. Anthony, the patron saint of lost things, and he chose a fine week to have them appear on the doorstep. Some goodies inside - the first Postsecret book, Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us, Paris in 500 photos, Stanley Kunitz's The Collected Poems, The Believer's music issue, the summer issue of Tin House.
Tonight though, I'm bogged down with editing. So no catching up on the Baudelaire children, no opening up Hornby's book on his reading adventures, but well, I might be able to make some steaming hot chocolate for the long night ahead.
For a long time, Miss DSD bugged me to take pictures of my tango shoes. I kept putting it off (and she gave up eventually) till today when I was reminded of the request as we spoke of another pair of shoes I purchased recently. So here they are, my tango shoes, October Fest (I have no idea why they're called so), from Buenos Aires. (I apologize for the inferior lighting in my photos.)
I can't get rid of the large scuff on the front of one shoe. It's sad when you get to wear beautiful shoes to go dancing and someone tramples on them. And in case anyone's wondering, they're 3.8-inch heels. Funnily enough, I can't walk in high heels, but I can dance in them.
Inkwells don't have anything to do with tango shoes, but since I had the camera going I thought I'd put a couple of other subjects before the lens. I do enjoy the fine shape of an elegant inkwell, especially the antique-looking ones. All the better if it also comes with ink that flows smoothly and a hue that stays true. My favorites include Visconti and Campo Marzio inkwells. I also love the range and quality of Private Reserve ink. The bottles aren't as beautiful, but I'm won over by the ink itself, and the names. Names like Sherwood Green and Burgundy Mist.
Campo Marzio and Visconti inkwells. They're too beautiful to be opened, I think. Fun fact: Campo Marzio, a Roman company, has the exclusive rights to produce the writing instruments for the Vatican. I don't think we get the same ones the Pope uses though.
My favorite CM ink - Polvere di Luna. Powder of the moon. Moondust.
One of the few modern inkwells I like is by Caran d'Ache. I'm a little biased towards the brand because I had a set of its color pencils when I was in primary school. They've just released a new line of inkwells called "Colors of the Earth." Two favorite shades are Blue Sky ("Classic and restrained Blue Sky lets the imagination run free") and Blue Night ("Deep and mysterious Blue night colors with fragments of dreams."). There's something about the heavens, the firmament, that I find very alluring. Many things come to mind when I think of the sky - peace, calm, mystery, dreams, the flight of birds, the destinations of airplanes, storms, sunsets, clouds, the galaxies that lie beyond the Milky Way, dying stars, new stars, lost planets, Roman gods, Greek gods, angels, God. Even a small picture of the sky on an inkwell will inspire all this.
~ Photos of Caran d'Ache inkwells from Art Brown and Visconti inkwell from Joon.
I can understand if someone thought Margaret Mason's Mightygoods was a swell idea and wanted to bring home the concept to Singaporean consumers; after all, it's always nice to have a single site or blog to point us in our purchasing directions. But, the Singapore site just looks a little too familiar. Okay, the colors are different but, that font, and that name...
I'm not sure about copyright laws for design, but I know it isn't right to lift any text directly from a source and use it as your own without citing a reference.
This is from Mightygoods -
This is from Mightystuff -
As a writer, I'd feel quite sore if someone copied my work. It's no small thing, especially when I recall that students have been expelled, and writers sued. Even if something initially inspires your creation, vigorously add to it or alter details to make it your own through and through, not a shadow of someone else's. The Singapore site claims a designer was hired to "customize" the blog, so perhaps it was the designer who chose to make it look similar and the writer didn't realize the similarity. Or perhaps both writer and designer were so inspired by Mightygoods that they felt the original design worked best. Or maybe the Singapore site has an agreement with Margaret Mason. Imitation may be a form of flattery, but it'd still be nice to give a shout-out to the party being imitated.
After reading Fables, which deserves a whole other post of its own, I really got into the art of James Jean, a young and very successful illustrator for Vertigo, DC's adult line of comics. He also does cover work and illustrations for magazines and various ads. As a Taiwanese-American (I'm not sure how the "Jean" surname works out), he even explores some Asian motifs in his paintings, although I find a few of them rather frightening.
Here are his website and his blog, where you can view the many styles he employs (and he certainly appears to excel in all of them). If you're a fan of Fables, take a look at the cover he's just completed for the upcoming 8th trade paperback, Wolves.
These are just a few paintings I liked:
I like the hair that ends in blooms, and the act of cutting them off. Also, there's almost no trace of her body except a shaft of light to suggest a presence.
Here's an illustration of the band, Sigur Ros, whose music is otherworldly, as is this picture.
The frog prince and his princess, from an upcoming Fables issue.
Snow White, who runs Fabletown in Fables.
~All artwork by James Jean
I scored a few Borders vouchers and went on a spree yesterday. I picked up Dara Horn's The World to Come, Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones, Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale.
Setterfield's debut novel was unknown to me - I hadn't read about it in reviews or in the upcoming-book-release blogs I frequent - but the cover caught my eye. A stack of heavy, worn books with yellow, red, and blue mottled pages; a red grosgrain ribbon pagefinder with a slanted edge; the title in an antique-looking font. Pictures of books - old books - always appeal to me so I turned the novel over to read its blurb. Set in England, the story centers on two characters, an aging, reclusive author ready to have her biography written, and the young biographer she invites to write her story. Apart from the lack of accurate information about Vida Winter's life, there is also the mystery of the missing thirteenth tale from her collection of stories about desperation and change. Maraget Lea leads a dreamy life that I've always wanted - she grew up in her father's antique bookstore, learned how to care for and restore books and manuscripts, and now lives in a small flat above the shop itself, which has three levels and rooms bulging with books. She has her own painful past to reckon with, and little does she expect her encounters with Vida Winter to make her face that past.
I've read a fair number of pages, and so far, the ideas and plot have kept me going. I like the huge presence of books and reading, and the ruminations on stories and truth. "Tell me the truth" is an important phrase at the beginning of the novel. And it makes you wonder, where is the truth among the stories we tell? Why do we tell certain stories and not others? The way we tell a story, and the choice of that story reveal much of ourselves - "Nothing is more telling than a story," as Vida Winter sharply observes. I'd like to think that despite our innate fear of revealing too much of ourselves, of becoming vulnerable to truths we may not often like, we still need to keep telling stories.
"Silence is not a natural environment for stories...They need words. Without them, they grow pale, sicken and die. And then they haunt you." ~ Vida Winter
I'm finally done with a rather nasty project, which took up many of my waking (and sleeping) hours. Not too many brain cells left to write interesting posts now, so while the cells regenerate, here are some pictures of my Ann Arbor trip.
I didn't quite manage to do all I wished, or see all the old friends I wanted to. Some may not have even known I was in town; for my own reasons, I didn't want to be overwhelmed by questions, I didn't want to explain many things which I'm still evading myself. I regret my stealthy visit though, for I miss many of the friends I didn't get to see. And now, I even miss those I did get to see.
This is the closest I could get to Shawn Mullins (he of the famed "All In My Head" song from Scrubs) who performed at the Top of the Park festival this summer.
I'll never forget how cool the Huron River felt on a wam afternoon, or how I nearly lost a slipper that day.
A fairy door at Sweetwaters Cafe. Notice the miniscule framed fairy door poster by the side. I'm going to have the same poster in my office one day. Just a lot larger.
Peeking through the window at Peacable Kingdom's fairy store. Lots of goodies.
The store even has a little staircase down to a basement where no human's allowed to go. Ever.
Riding again in Jake's old Isuzu brings back memories of last summer when I drove the truck around like a maniac ferrying my belongings from one place to another, desperate to get everything packed and ready for the final trip home. It seems a lifetime ago.
"Kansas, 1973"
by Floyd Skloot from The End of Dreams
My daughter nestled in a plastic seat
is nodding beside me as though in full
agreement with the logic of her dream.
I am glad for her sake the road is straight.
But the dark shimmer of a summer road
where hope and disappointment repeat
themselves all across Kansas like a dull
chorus makes the westward journey seem
itself a dream. She breathes in one great
gulp, taking deep the blazing air, and stops
my heart until she sighs the breath away.
The sun is stuck directly overhead.
I thought it would never end. The drive,
the heat, my child beside me, the bright day
itself, that fathering time in my life.
We were going nowhere and never would,
as in a dream, or in the space between
time and memory. I saw nothing but sky
beyond the horizon of still treetops
and nothing changing down the road ahead.