(1) I found Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris and The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down at the second-hand bookshop (San?) in Funan Centre. The Spirit etc. is an account of an epileptic Hmong girl's encounter with the Californian county medical system and is scrupulously fair to both sides. And a touching but unsentimental account of the Hmong people.
(2) I've been reading the three years of the annual Best American Essays that the library has, and it occurs to me that the personal essay has triumphed, in America at least (or perhaps just in the leading publications). And then I read, at last, Eliot Weinberger's Karmic Traces (also courtesy of the Central Lending Library, whose non-fiction selection seems to have improved over the old National Library), which is mostly impersonal and not the less splendid for that. There's a great essay on poetry of witness - when he talks about a selection of "witness" poems edited by Carolyn Forche, the criterion of inclusion in which seemed to be biographical data - all the poets had to have either witnessed whatever they were describing or have been born in the country. (Incidentally, I liked her collection of political poetry, whose title I've now forgotten - and in so many other instances am guilty of reading poets rather than poems. It's just easier to read poets.) Weinberger says that to look at the poet's personal background as a way of judging the poem defeats the imagination - there was a time when it was enough to think, to dream, to write; one didn't have to actually be present at the event. I remember an old conversation - must be some two years old now - when a friend (now doing a phd in English) said that what he looked for and prized most in a poem was the sincerity of the poet. That seemed odd, but I couldn't say why at the time, and I think this is the reason - that my friend seemed to prize the poet and his experience over the poem.
(3) The storytellers are in town! DBS Arts Centre, Saturday night to Tuesday night. Saturday night was full of kids, but Monday and Tuesday nights were not. They are excellent - there was one Indian woman (Jeera? Can't remember her name) who told a story about two thieves trying to burgle the cleverest minister in all India?, and when she was telling the story she became the two thieves, the minister and his shrew of a wife.
(4) I found Diana Athill's novel Don't Look At Me Like That in the library. It's a perfectly constructed novel. Neat, economical, and perfectly composed. I've also since read Stet, her memoir as an editor, and After A Funeral, her account of a friend and writer's collapse and suicide (in the mental health section of the Sengkang library). Stet rather makes me want to be an editor; I think I could be anal-minded enough. Perhaps. None of them touched me the way Instead Of A Letter did - Minz, I still have your copy of that - but they are all beautifully constructed.
(5) The great thing about the US is that while there is George Bush, there are also funny videos about him. Catch anyone doing that about a Singaporean politician.
(6) There was a man in the train plucking hairs from his chin with two coins.
(7) There was just an ad on the radio announcing some new Japanese TV show about doctors. "You think they are saints but not all of them are...Will medical purity be preserved? Tune in to the 'Great White Towel'!" I probably misheard that.
(8) S and cp arranged it, and we took Evans out for dinner at En bar and then sake at Nihon-shu. An unexpectedly lovely evening.
(9) Lunch with J and S at Windows last Tuesday afternoon.
(10) I just read Howl's Moving Castle which is as always cleverly plotted - much more cleverly than (what I remember of) the movie, which was too cute and aimless. And oh! I never thought John Donne would be used in that way.
(11) I have read and re-read Saffy's Angel and Indigo's Star - I think the characters in Indigo's Star are more settled in themselves and less manic, though I don't really like reading the school bully parts because they're too real - and I will have Permanent Rose very, very soon - as soon as the library gets its act together. I want a job in the acquisition department of the library.
(12) We're going to Harry Potter on Thursday!