on this island

On This Island

Look, stranger, on this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.

Here at a small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-
-ing surf, and a gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands,
And this full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.

- Auden

oh dear

He called from the US to say hi, and my unregenerate heart - which had been so staid and sensible so far - leapt up within me.

I suppose better it happens than not.

odds and ends

I have all these bits and pieces I would like to do something with but can't think what - and can't justify keeping.

1. An ad for a shampoo available only at Watsons.:

Money Back Guarantee
FULL BODY
100%
[insert - what looks rather like arabic characters]
VEGETABLE SHAMPOO (tm)
NON-POISONOUS SHAMPOO
CONTENTS: Vegetables & Table Salt
COLOUR: Chocolate
GOOD FOR: HEALTH, BLOOD CIRCULATION, HAIR & SKIN
BURN OFF EXCESS FAT
DAILY USE: -EXTERNAL ONLY-
Most Sickness Gone

Inventor: Sen. Professor Dr. Sir Zeng Guoyan

[On the back of the ad]
Three pictures each of two men detailing the stages of hair regrowth and two picture of a woman in a blue dress who appears to have lost - weight? After Using: Less 8cm [from the shoulder], Less 9cm [from the bust]; Less 6cm [from the hip].

2. A photocopy of Thurber's letter to E. B. White on 20 January 1938, which begins, "I agree, as usual, with all your sound conclusions about things except the one about not being able to escape from beaten states by merely taking a boat and watching somebody balance a 20-gallon water jar on her head. That is, it seems to me, the only way to escape from such things..."

remembering the tsunami

I like this image: "butchers hung up their knives in a sign of respect for all life..."

Carol Ann Duffy talks to Jeanette Winterson

For the sake of old loves. Though I would like to get hold of Rapture.

Four notes from Melaka

My family drove to Melaka some weekends ago.

1. A little sign at the foot of a hill saying "this way to the Church of Our Lady of Enunciation".

2. Trishaws encrusted with plastic flowers and a Chinese dragon and rusty bells and strings of coloured lights and icons and a yellow waxpaper umbrella.

3. Instructions on how to clean a keris in one of the museums:

1. Materials needed:
- A banana stem about a metre long.
- A few limes.
- A coconut.
- A hollow segment of bamboo the length of the keris.
- An incense burner, some benzoin and some fragrant oil such as attar of roses.

2. Procedure
First step: Stab the keris a few times into the banana stem until it is wetted: the latex from the banana stem will clean the keris blade.
Second step: Cut two limes and rub them on the keris blade to clean off any remaining rust. A young pineapple or tamarind piece can be used in place of limes if need be.
Third step: Cut a coconut and pour the water into the bamboo tube. Immerse the keris in the coconut water for at least 24 hours.
Fourth step: Take the keris out of the bamboo tube and rinse the blade in clean clear water. Rub it again with a cut lime if any rust stains remain. After rinsing, the keris is left to dry and then wiped carefully with a clean cloth.
Fifth step: Treat the keris with the smoke from burning benzoin. Apply wax to the blade while it is hot to prevent it rusting again. It can also be perfumed by wiping it with fragrant oil.

4. From (a fragment of) the tombstone of Sultan Mansur Shah, who reigned from 1458 to 1477:

This has been translated as:

"This is the consecrated the holy grave the brilliant illuminated tomb of the just Sultan, the magnanimous ruler Sultan Mansur Shah. He removed from this mortal abode to hope on wednesday of Rejab in the year 882 after the Hijrah of the Prophet the chosen one."

This has been translated as:

"The world is but transitory: The world has no permanence,
The world is like a house made by a spider..."

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here's to peace and happiness this Christmas and the year to come. (One year at a time, right?)

Christmas eve eve

I was so very sleepy when I went to work - so sleepy that the security guard at my office building saw me walking in (as he was leaving) and said, hey you should be happier! - and it wasn't helped by the three-hour lunch (fish and chips and sausage and breaded mushrooms and fried chicken and beer and) that we had at molly malone's. Seven of us piled into a colleague's car and we drove back to the office and in the lift coming up from the carpark we were all a little silly and giggly and smelling terribly of cigarette smoke and talking loudly about what we'd do if PS were to come in - and he did! He walked into the lift at B1! (That's the top top boss at my place.) We were all stunned into silence - we flattened against the walls of the lifts - he stood awkwardly at the back - I couldn't for the life of me stop laughing, though I tried not to do it out loud - no-one said hello, or merry christmas!, or hasn't it been raining alot lately? - the lift reached the ground floor and everyone just stared as PS walked out as quickly as he could. And then we could move and talk and it was much too late. Good time to start thinking about alternative careers.

[It really ought to be the PS, but I think he has become his role; it's his name now.]

After work I went to my aunt's place - there was a Christmas party after all - and had food and some fizzy non-alcoholic lemonadey punch and sang carols - or rather, murmured under my breath as the rest sang christmas carols in chinese. It didn't help that by the time I figured out the words - there were song sheets; my aunt is both organised and experienced - I was at least two beats behind. My aunt is my mother's sister - my grandmother had five daughters who are mostly close to one another, though the seventh one wasn't there tonight - seventh in the family, which starts with the children from my grandfather's first marriage. This aunt used to organise Christmas parties every year; I vaguely remember her stopping for a few years, or perhaps I just hadn't been going, but I must be at the time of my life when I'm beginning to appreciate large noisy parties of relatives again. Of course the sisters talked about their kids and then about food. One of the (male) cousins praised my mother's cooking (she brings the meat). Another aunt said she could cook as well - but she prefers to cook healthy food. Only natural ingredients (I think - that's what tian ran is, right?) Someone: but then there's no taste! Aunt: Taste is not the most important thing!

When we got home we marinated the turkey with sesame oil and soya sauce and oyster sauce and cumin and coriander powder and black pepper and wu xiang fen and mustard and ginger powder and this chilli-onion-garlic-ginger paste.

Happy Christmas eve eve everyone!

Remarks on Narnia

1. The children were both ugly and annoying, which is unforgiveable.

2. I thought Aslan was done well - it could have been surpassingly tacky. The creatures were done pretty well.

3. The faun was very sweet, despite the massive nose.

4. Tilda Swinton was magnificence itself.

5. How do I report conversations in my new paranoia? Could I just leave the names out?

: Do you know who I think should have been Aslan?
: Judi Dench?

marriage by any other name

I'm rather touched by the Guardian's stories on gay civil partnerships in the UK.

groaning

I had oh so much to eat over the weekend. Roast chicken courtesy of BL at J's place on Saturday night and then a Penang food buffet lunch at the Orchid Country Club or whatever the NTUC club is called (my dad said, we must each eat at least ten plates of food to make it worth it - and we almost did) and a wonderful spread of chicken and sausage and corn cakes and pork pie and pasta with mushrooms and potato and cupcakes and cookies at S's.

[I'm trying out initials instead of names - googled our names and was horrified to get all the blogs, though no reason not to - I'm getting paranoid in my old age. Not industrious, though; haven't got round to deleting all the names in this blog yet.]

Tomorrow is Narnia!

to say

That I can write to you is a pleasure and a kindness; that you write back is a blessing.

mm

ACSian theatre did an interpretive dance performance of Aaron's poems from his collection. An expanded version of what they did at his book launch. These are rather quiet, contemplative, conversational poems; I'm not sure they lend themselves to all that emoting. But parts of it were well-done and it wasn't unenjoyable. Oh dear, the double negative. I did like the bit where someone (just one) was dancing with gestures much inspired by sign language (or perhaps it was sign language) for the poem about deaf people speaking to each other. Not so much the bit (in the same poem) where people chorus lines.

I diligently brought home my laptop - but cleverly not the battery or the power cable. Sometimes I astound myself.

Sunday at Su-Lin's is still on, right?

(Oh and - I broke up with him. I thought I'd say.)

So the blog's not too neglected

This afternoon was Andrea's wedding - Andrea's wedding! - and Andrea was beautiful and entirely herself. As if she had just absorbed happiness and hadn't let it change her beyond recognition. Everyone's getting married! Or engaged. Or, er, breaking up. It must be winter. Thursday afternoon was lunch with Su-Lin and Julian and Choon, at which I was very rude and ran off early. Friday before was dinner at the hawker centre and then a spell of watching the rain at Bakerzin with the work people and then Balcony with Choon, Ida, Jianyi, Addy and Jianyi's friends. Immensely bad service, and the large white couch things are not as comfortable as they look. Nice drinks, though, when they do eventually serve them. We ran into Terry and his friend there and they nicely let us sit on their couch thing. Then Coco Latte because Choon said we were still young, though we did creep out of the club an hour later, defeated by our youth. Oh and yesterday was dinner with Dom, Mona and Fay as a belated birthday thing for Dom (happy birthday!) and a good deal of chocolate and catching-up.

(Should I not name people? Does that make googling too easy? Should I have initials instead? Or dashes after an initial, as in "I had lunch with S---, J--- and C---"?)

In other news - I think the lure of lips, hands and eyes is wearing out. He's going to the States for over three weeks, and I move from neediness to relief at solitude to some genuine sadness and back again.