On glazed doughnuts

Now I've had a really good weekend and I think it's partly because I didn't spend Saturday morning in Spring Singapore listening to speeches on productivity. Friday night was dinner with Mona, Dom and Fay in Dubliners (of course we're going to meet in an Irish pub in Singapore) and then I tagged along with Dom and Fay (ransacking Dom's wardrobe and patience in the process) to Dom's house for Sex in the City (will never look at glazed doughnuts the same way again, though of course I'll still eat them - Miranda, no man is worth a sacrifice of glazed doughnuts) and then to Phuture to jump around to hip hop and feel alive again. Being in the office is one definition of deadening. Saturday morning I spent sleeping - first Saturday this month, and the first Saturday I can remember - thank god I skipped Productivity Day, though it might have been funny, for a minute or two, to go there straight from Phuture - and then holed up in my room with apples and the White Stripes and the John McPhee reader. Can I exhort everyone to read John McPhee? Picked up the reader in New York last year on the strength of Von's recommendation (thank you! I'll go look for Michael Pollan and Calvin Trillin - though how does one find them in Singapore?) and didn't get around to reading it till now and my new lifetime ambition is to go to Princeton and sit at his feet. John McPhee's, that is. Incredible man. Incredible stories. I'd give so much to write like that. Then it was Saturday night - with a break for driving lessons; I've been taking them forever and still steer like I'm high - and time to accidentally crash Louise's choir party, which was a slightly surreal experience. I'm sorry, darling. Next time we'll bring hard liquor. Wala Wala next for a bit - most schizophrenic bar in Singapore - and I rather liked the band that was on and their fake-country-rock-on-crack version of Colin Raye's Love, Me until they started trying to get parts of the room to sing along with them. Some parts of my night-time entertainment I prefer non-interactive. Then Ida bit cp and we went home.

Who stands on your threshold?

Mm. So. If you were wondering. I've been pretending to work, for a change; I usually don't bother with the pretence. Hanging out with my sister, who's back for the hols and a force of nature unto herself. Mooching around. Checking email incessantly without writing back. Perhaps I should admit it - I do miss having someone lean in my doorway. Can't really perform for myself.
 

Baybeats

Saturday evening me and my sister went down to Baybeats and it was gratifyingly good. Do you remember Force Vomit? Not quite punk rock but funny and wry (and I admit it, I do like catchy tunes). And there was Humpback Oak, now the Observatory; missed part of their performance, which I regret, 'cause what I heard was excellent. And an energetic Hong Kong band called Whence He Came, which endears me to them. And oh there was a really lian band from Thailand, singing Cyndi Lauper - the singing wasn't too bad, in point of fact, but I hated them on first sight. And a bunch of somewhat boring bands from here and around the region. All in all a good night, though - perhaps I should find out what's happening in Singapore before my next bitching binge.
 
Sunday night I met an old friend for dinner and we were talking about Baybeats. He: Yeah at first it sounded quite good, but then I thought, rock music, well, it's time to grow up, isn't it? - Perhaps. But I'll keep my jeans and t-shirts and loud music for a while longer, thanks. Baybeats next year, anyone?
 

The Singer's House

In its entirety -
 
(Thanks, Thomas).
 
The Singer's House

When they said Carrickfergus I could hear
the frosty echo of saltminers’ picks.
I imagined it, chambered and glinting,
a township built of light.

What do we say any more                                            
to conjure the salt of our earth?
So much comes and is gone
that should be crystal and kept,

and amicable weathers
that bring up the grain of things,                                  
their tang of season and store,
are all the packing we’ll get.

So I say to myself Gweebarra
and its music hits off the place
like water hitting off granite.                                        
I see the glittering sound

framed in your window,
knives and forks set on oilcloth,
and the seals’ heads, suddenly outlined,
scanning everything.                                                  

People here used to believe
that drowned souls lived in the seals.
At spring tides they might change shape.
They loved music and swam in for a singer

who might stand at the end of summer                        
in the mouth of a whitewashed turf-shed,
his shoulder to the jamb, his song
a rowboat far out in evening.

When I came here first you were always singing,
a hint of the clip of the pick                                        
in your winnowing climb and attack.
Raise it again, man. We still believe what we hear.
 
- Seamus Heaney

Please don't worry, I'm not a Republican

From Jung, a Columbia friend:
 
"...please don't worry--I'm not a Republican.  I considered it for a bit, but decided against it."
 
I don't remember what this is in response to - she wrote me a while back in reply to an email I sent her many months ago, and I don't think either of us remembers what the other wrote - but isn't it great, anyway?
 
She's also offering me sanctuary should I ever decide to run away from the Singapore government. A safe Democratic house, what more could I need? What am I doing here?
 
 

We still believe what we hear

Seamus Heaney wrote this for David Hammond, his singer/guitarist friend, after a night spent with friends happily singing and talking -

The Singer's House

People here used to believe
that drowned souls lived in seals.
At spring tides they might change shape.
They loved music and swam in for a singer

who might stand at the end of summer
in the mouth of a whitewashed turf-shed,
his shoulder to the jamb, his song
a row-boat far out in evening.

When I came here first you were always singing,
a hint of the clip of the pick
in your winnowing climb and attack.
Raise it again, man. We still believe what we hear.


(- Do you have to take everything so seriously? - Well, yes.)