dsng.net - the daryl sng blog: December 2005

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

There are many Christmas songs, but only very few really great new year's songs, in my opinion... one of my favourites is "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?", of which I'm currently listening to the Rufus Wainwright version. The song's lyrics of hope mixed with longing are a good match for his plaintive voice, I think.

Ooh, but in case I stand one little chance
Here comes the jackpot question in advance:
What are you doing New Year's
New Year's Eve?

So - to everyone I know, and to all readers of dsng.net, here's to a great 2006. And on 2005: for surprise calls, for stunning connections, for restoration - thank you.

Linksfest: Cute Overload

cute puppies

Puppy pic above taken from Cute Overload! ;)
43 is the largest non-McNugget number.
Why Sean Lennon is single. Well, besides that, as noted, any woman dating him would face a crazy mother-in-law.
I love Miffy. Always reminds me of being a little kid in the old National Library at Stamford Road. So nice to see that Miffy - well, the work of Dick Bruna, who created Miffy - is being shown in museums.

Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine

Fiona Apple - Extraordinary Machine

Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine" is a gem of a song, finished two years ago and shelved by Sony but finally seeing the light of day after numerous Internet leaks. The song is the soundtrack to the cracked house of mirrors that is a broken relationship - yeah, the ghost of Apple's breakup with PT Anderson haunts the song, apparently. And Apple's smoky-voiced defiance about criticisms match perfectly the lyrics defending her personality and who she is:

I seem to you to seek a new disaster every day
You deem me due to clean my view and be at piece and lay
I mean to prove I mean to move in my own way, and say
I've been getting along for long before you came into the play

Rhymes and circus chords stalk "Extraordinary Machine", imbuing it with a menacing I'll-show-you lilt. It's a stunning return to recording for the kohl-eyed musician, and an extraordinary machine of a song.

More Christmas music

Because being a media monopolist ain't easy, I just repeat content from my arts blog to here and back. So here's the two little girls of ShiSho, with "Get Behind Me Santa". Check out their cover!

ShiSho

(Thanks to Indie MP3 for pointing it out...)

Or you can always go for a few dozen cover versions of "Last Christmas" over at Copy, Right? Does not include the Jimmy Eat World one. This year, to save me from tears - I'll give it to someone special.

God bless Mother Nature

So yesterday, shopping for books at Borders, someone walked by me talking loudly on his mobile, going "It's raining man! It's raining man!" Very tempted to respond with a "Hallelujah!"

The Earth From Above photo exhibition

Now that I'm back in Singapore, I've finally made it to the Earth From Above outdoor photo exhibition, featuring these glorious photos by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Well, I got to see half of it, anyway, before the rain started Pouring From Above and I had to take shelter - will return for the other half soon. Took some shots to remember the exhbition by (a meta-photo, I suppose, since I was photographing a photo), but the prints really have to be seen in their full size and glory. This is the Folgefonni Glacier in Norway, which sadly, like other glaciers around the world, is melting in part due to climate change.

My Flickr set of the exhibition - the unfortunate bright white circle in all my shots is of course the light used to illuminate the prints.

Technorati Tags: photography, earth, environment

Tech geekery: my PDA gets updated

Just bought a Palm TX, since my Zire 71 kept losing all its data no thanks to its battery running out. Great stuff - on the design side, the huge screen is really clear, I like the feel and response of the stylus, and the steel blue colour is sleek. On the features side, the fact that it had Wi-Fi was the selling point, but now I've come to really appreciate syncing the thing through Bluetooth. Mmm.

Zoe Heller, Notes on a Scandal

Just finished reading Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal, which I picked up because, I admit, the blurb featured some hyperbolic praise comparing the work to that of Amis or McEwan and the first chapter was compelling. Yeah, the blurb wasn't even from a review, just advance praise from Edmund White, but hey, I was looking around in the library for something to read.

The book was, it turns out, nominated for a Booker the year Vernon God Little won, so it's good to know that at least I have a decent publishing-industry eye. (Presumably, the paperback version would have included the lavish praise of reviewers.)

Notes on a Scandal is the tale of Sheba Hart (short for Bathsheba, and that adulterous name will portend something), an English schoolteacher who has an affair with a student, told through the eyes of her friend and fellow teacher Barbara Covett, a sixtysomething-year-old single teacher, the very stereotype of the aging spinster (she even lives with her cat). What Heller does well is absorb you in the world view of Barbara, who moves from what one thinks is an impassive, observant narrator with nothing worse in her than a schoolmarmish tendency to complain about the state of basic comprehensive education, to something altogether more disturbing as the story progresses.

Sheba needs her friend Barbara, of course, as a shield against the media hordes once her scandalous story breaks, but as Notes progresses it becomes clear that Barbara needs Sheba too, and Barbara's loneliness increasingly is revealed as a sort of sinister neediness. It's a story of twin obsessions: Sheba's increasing sexual/romantic obsession with her student, and Barbara's obsession with her friend, the former manifestly obvious, the latter revealed slowly. It's a real page-turner, and Heller's writing is incredibly fine, balancing between Barbara's astute observations of the world and of the things people hide in their own accounts of the world, while simultaneously hiding things from us. On Sheba, Barbara writes near the beginning, that "even now she is inclined to romanticise the relationship and to underestimate the irresponsibility - the wrongness - of her actions", although her factual accounts of the affair can be trusted - yet by the book's end, we wonder just how much the same applies to the narrator we thought we knew, and we wonder just where she gets her confidence that she and Sheba share a "relationship de chaleur", one of "uncommon intimacy and trust". It's a novel stalked by the doubts of relationships - whether of lovers, of friends, or of reader and narrator - and Heller pulls it off wonderfully.

It turns out Judi Dench has the Barbara role in the upcoming film version. Cate Blanchett will play Sheba. Sounds very promising. And very of the times, non, given what seems to be a spate of female teachers in the news for having affairs? And of course, looking the book up on Google for links, who should I find has also borrowed it from the library but my friend Michelle, who beat me to it by a year, and provides excerpts.

Excerpt from Notes on a Scandal.

Technorati Tags: book, reviews

Tom Hunter

I've been quite taken by the works of Tom Hunter being displayed at the National Gallery in London that I'm seeing online. The BBC has an online gallery - I thought "Rat in Bed" looked lovely, and the obvious parallels between "Ye Olde Axe" (2002) and Diego Velazquez's classic sole surviving nude the "Rokeby Venus" (1647-51) are fascinating.

(Come to think of it, Velazquez was under the patronage of Philip IV, although sadly my memories of 17th-century Spanish history, once fortified by A-level history, have faded to the point that I don't really remember much of Philip IV's rain except for his patronage of Velazquez and the fact that Olivares basically ran everything.).

Tsunami memorial

One year ago, the Boxing Day tsunami, one of the worst natural disasters ever, hit this region - to all affected, we remember.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Christmas surprises can be wonderful sometimes.

Fifteen Songs of 2005

Just thinking back on the new songs that moved me in 2005 - which doesn't necessarily correspond to a best-of, since sometimes for whatever reasons you can intellectually recognise the quality of a song and see why it speaks to everyone else and still not have it say anything to you. Keeping the list short at 15 songs, in alphabetical order and with links to legit downloads where available:

Antony & the Johnsons, "Hope There's Someone". There's something about that quiet piano and this former drag queen's falsetto.
The Arcade Fire, "Rebellion (Lies)". It was a 2004 release in the US, I suppose, but man, the more I listen to them the greater they sound. And they were the song of one of my best musical moments of the year. If not for Feist, "sleeping is giving in" would be my favourite lyric of the year. Also, props for "Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)" and "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)" (both of which can be downloaded).
Feist, "Let It Die". "The saddest part of a broken heart / Isn't the ending so much as the start" is my favourite line of the year, and her voice is something else, as I noted before. What is it with these Canadian musicians these days? Incidentally, "The Simple Story", her duet with Jane Birkin, is pretty lovely. But then duets with Jane Birkin tend to be. (Pleasant segue into "Je t'aime moi non plus"...)
Fiona Apple, "Extraordinary Machine". Technically not a 2005 recording, I suppose, but it only really saw the light of day this year, and it's, well, extraordinary. Here's my longer writeup of the song on Delta Sierra Arts.
Kaiser Chiefs, "I Predict a Riot". Frankly, the rhymes are naff, but it coasts by on sheer force of will. And the song always worked when I DJ'd. (Download)
Kanye West, "Diamonds From Sierra Leone". The remix with the ostensibly retired Jay-Z of course, just for the lines "I'm not a businessman, I'm a business, man! / Let me handle my business, damn". And great to see someone making socially conscious rap, since the Black Eyed Peas seem now to be more obsessed with Fergie's lady lumps.
Louis XIV, "Finding Out True Love is Blind". All swagger and no depth, but catchy as hell. I was introduced to this song by, of all things, MVP Baseball 2005 - but that game did have a kickass soundtrack, one which also included the Bravery's "An Honest Mistake" and Hot Hot Heat's "You Owe Me an IOU".
Madonna, "Hung Up". If only because I once spent an hour interviewing Stuart Price, then a performer and now her producer, and vaguely recall ending up playing with toy cars in the trailer. That, and I can't resist ABBA hooks.
The Mountain Goats, "Love Love Love". For some reason I got a kick out the fact that it namechecks Tiger Balm.
The New Pornographers, "Twin Cinema". Love the bite of the guitars on that main riff. (Download)
PINE*am, "Gymnopedie 0.1". A Japanese rock take on the Satie classic. (Download)
Sufjan Stevens, "Casimir Pulaski Day". Sufjan had to grow on me: the first song I listened to off Illinois was "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts", and I must say I didn't really take to the tune - perhaps it was my instinctive contrarian response to the hype. But this is a folk-rock marvel. (Download)
The Sugababes, "Push the Button". I'm kind of surprised by how many indie-music blogs listed Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" as one of their top singles of the year - Said the Gramophone and Work For It for instance - I know there's got to be at least one obligatory pop song, but I'd take the "Push the Button" anyday.
Swearing at Motorists, "Northern Line". It won't be released till early 2006, but you can get the MP3 on their Myspace page (warning, the page plays music automatically, so don't be startled), and I like the crunch of the opening chords.
Weezer, "We Are All On Drugs". As always, Rivers Cuomo does great power-pop hooks.

And then there are a lot of songs that I haven't had time to fully digest yet but that I've had favourable first impressions of, including:

The Boy Least Likely To, "Be Gentle With Me"
Brendan Benson, "Cold Hands Warm Heart"
Gretchen Lieberum, "Key Largo"
Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek"
The National, "Abel"
We Are Scientists, "Cash Cow"

And I know what the cool indie-kid picks that I'm missing should be: *cough* Akron/Family, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, KT Tunstall, Okkervil River, Wolf Parade *cough* but to be honest it's tough keeping up with everything, and stuff that doesn't grab me immediately tends sometimes to get sidelined, unfortunately. That, and I still don't get the adulation for the Wolf Parade - I like them okay, but not at the album-of-the-year levels some seem to be placing them at yet. Q didn't quite go fully ecstatic over them either, so maybe it's just one of those groups that Americans fawn over more. Or maybe it just needs time to grow on me, like the Arcade Fire did.

And after all that, I must say a lot of my best music memories of this year have nothing to do with songs of 2005, or even of this century...

Top tracks of 2005, based on mentions in indie music blogs

Technorati Tags: music, indie, rock

The Christmas Mix

A Christmas playlist, based on a mix I made for someone, but with slight modifications:

Diana Krall, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
Nat 'King' Cole, "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)"
Eartha Kitt, "Santa Baby"
Tom Jones and Cerys, "Baby, It's Cold Outside"
Macy Gray, "Winter Wonderland"
Olivia Olson, "All I Want For Christmas Is You"
Jimmy Eat World, "Last Christmas"
Weezer, "The Christmas Song"
Edward Elgar, "Snow"
Frank Sinatra, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear"
Joni Mitchell, "River"
Harry Connick Jr., "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?"

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, one and all.

Palais des Congres

Speaking of photos, here's one I took from inside the Palais des Congres in Montreal. Thought the colour effects were pretty interesting.

Technorati Tags: montreal, photography

Linksfest: Photo Ops

Punk photographer Andy Rosen puts up his pics on Flickr. Album covers from the Jam, a whole Clash set - frankly, the collection is pretty amazing.
Heidi Klum and Seal's baby is frankly quite ugly.
The best one can say about Paolo Di Canio's "I am not a racist, I am a fascist" defence of his one-armed salute gesture is that it's original, I suppose.
I love cryptic crosswords - got hooked on them back in the day when the New Yorker carried them. The Guardian one is really quite fun, and now the editor Hugh Stephenson has a little article on how to solve them.
Online art photography magazine AK47.tv's 9th issue is out, and I do like the "Twos and Threes" set by Jesse Chehak.

Technorati Tags: photography, football, crosswords

Hunger

Back from a sojourn into the wilderness of Singapore aka standard army reserve commitments. Because lately poems have been running through my head, here's another favourite one of mine, from Neruda, all intensity and passion.

Love Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

(Link)

Happy holidays to one and all. I wish for everyone that hunger.

Just in time

And to cap off 2005, a song:

Just in time you've found me just in time
Before you came my time was running low
I was lost the losing dice were tossed
My bridges all were crossed nowhere to go
Now you hear now I know just where I'm going
No more doubt of fear I've found my way
For love came just in time you've found me just in time
And changed my lonely nights that lucky day

- Nina Simone, "Just in Time"

Musee des Beaux Arts, Montreal

"About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position" - W.H. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts"

It was a cold, bitter Sunday; December in Montreal, wind biting with snap as I wended my way through the city, stopping at Eggspectation for breakfast (oeufs, avec viande - or something, my French is rudimentary), picking up DVDs at HMV, letting the wind whip me as I wandered through the McGill campus, then finally heading to the Musee des Beaux Arts when it opened. Impossible not to think of the Auden poem when I hear that name, I suppose - and something about the diminuition of the extraordinary in that poem - the sense that suffering happens, but life proceeds apace - matched that day's heavy heart.

***

The Musee des Beaux Arts is a good museum - spotted some fine works by Rembrandt and Pieter Bruegel the Younger (which, come to think about it, is a fact that ties in nicely with the Auden poem, which is about the elder Brueghel's "Fall of Icarus"). But given my predilection for more contemporary pieces, I was particularly taken by an exhibition of Tracey Moffatt's works, especially her "Scarred for Life" series, a fine portrayal of suburban despair.

***

Being in a sombre mood, and with Auden on my mind, I walked further on after this, quoting "Funeral Blues" to myself. Something about speaking in verse into the open. Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone. Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone.

For nothing now can come to any good.

My Montreal photoset on Flickr

6 months on

"Last night. Okay. Six months from last night. December sixteenth, six o'clock in the evening, track eleven. It's a train ride for you, but I got to fly over. But hey, I'll be here." - Jesse, in Before Sunrise

So, it's December 16 - which is the date the lovers were supposed to have met, 6 months later, by the end of Before Sunrise. And, totally unplanned, I spent part of today reading my newly-acquired screenplays for Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, which I suspect is one of the wisest films on relationships ever made. Before Sunset is optimistic in the best of all ways: knowing about the ravages of time, knowing about constraints, knowing about all the flaws in each other and still the lovers continue their conversations, this time knowing what a precious thing they had years ago, and then come the extraordinary, intense scenes at the end where Celine and Jesse discuss their respective troubled relationships...

While I thought Before Sunrise was a great film, Before Sunset truly took my breath away - one of those films where I just sat at the end, watching the credits roll, trying to take it all in.

Because it is bitter, and because it is my heart

Because sometimes news items make me think of poetry: here's a news story on a forlorn lover leaving a ring for someone else.

In the desert I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter - bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart." - Stephen Crane, from "The Black Riders"

And because I like juxtaposition: above is a photo of Jim Dine's "Twin 6' Hearts", a work in bronze from the Montreal Musee des Beaux Arts (of which I'll say more another day).

Montreal memories: Canadian Content

My best Canadian music experience: sitting in the computer room of the Palais des Congres convention centre, the girl opposite me suddenly started playing local band the Arcade Fire's "Rebellion (Lies)" on her laptop. Which I started nodding my head along to ("sleeping is giving in" is such a good line). So she goes - "oh do you like that song?"And I said yeah - I had the song with me. And then the guy next to me went, "oh I have that song on my computer too". And then the other girl opposite me was like "oh yeah so do I". So we tried playing the same song on 4 machines at the same time. As an effort in coordination it was a failure - seriously ugly phasing effects - but as a shared musical moment it was great. Four people, three countries (Canada, America, Singapore), one song.

People try and hide the light / Underneath the covers.
Come on hide your lovers / Underneath the covers...

Montreal memories: the worst advertising ever

You know, one could wax lyrical about walking down Rue St Denis and crate-digging in used-record stores (picked up a copy of Supremes A' Go-Go, which, naturally, is out of print on vinyl) and eating crepes and the temptations of music and DVDs at Archambault. But that's easy enough. So over the next few days I'll run through my top Montreal memories, starting with this one:

Was walking down Rue St Catherine late at night, trying to grab a late dinner (ate at Reuben's in the end), when, walking by one of Montreal's numerous strip clubs, this guy hands me a flyer. I go "no thank you", and the guy goes "it's really good - my sister works there". Now, I can't say I've heard many advertisements for strip clubs in my life, but that has to be among the worst pitches possible.

Carbon offsets

I don't often talk about work (for the same reasons most bloggers don't ever talk about work), but I suppose it's no secret that I handle climate change issues. So, as a purely personal decision, I decided to purchase some carbon dioxide offsets from Climate Care to make up for the carbon dioxide emissions from my taking a Singapore-London-Montreal flight. Which means some of my money has gone towards sustainable energy and reforestation projects.

That's my little bit of save-the-planet encouragement for you all. And probably one of the few references I'll make to work. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Technorati Tags: climate change, environment, global warming

Linksfest: Drink Canada Dry

Back in Singapore, and will be off to reservist training tomorrow. So, some quick links to keep all entertained:

Winter focus

The bitter cold has a funny way of focusing the mind - for four years I griped through winters in Boston, but here in Montreal I've come to realise I may hate the cold, I may get depressed by it, but it creates a clarity of mind in me. Today I walked through the hustle of Quartier Chinois, down the cobblestoned streets of Vieux Montreal, trudged along till snow snuck swimming into my shoes and my face felt about to be sloughed off, sheared by the wind. But what one learns about oneself sometimes is pretty priceless.

Then a nip and tuck into Aix, where I treated myself to foie gras and pecan. Because I know a good restaurant when I see one, and life's too short not to do right by yourself.

Dream deferred

Was speaking to some colleagues here in Montreal yesterday, and one of them remarked about me, "you're the kind of guy who won't do something to wrong yourself" (okay, I'm translating from the Mandarin) - which was in line with questions on Paths in Life that have been playing in my head the last couple of days. Questions which revolve on what, for me, is a central concern: how does one live a life without regret?

***

Regarding those Big Questions, I shared with the Girlfriend the following, one of my favourite Langston Hughes poems:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

***

And now, a sample of lyrics of songs I've been singing to myself, because, what the hell, I'll be 18 again and write out lyrics for the sake of writing out lyrics:

still there's not a show on my back
holes or a friendly intervention
i'm just a little bit heiress, a little bit irish
a little bit tower of pisa whenever i see you
so please be kind if i'm a mess [rufus wainwright, cigarettes and chocolate milk]

i heard there was a secret chord
that david played and it pleased the lord
but you don't really care for music, do you?
well it goes like this the fourth, the fifth
the minor fall and the major lift
the baffled king composing hallelujah [jeff buckley, hallelujah]

***

So the past few months have thought me many things. I know who I am, and I know a self in me that will always be my core. And I am at peace, and I have clarity, and I have a song in my heart. (I have a song on my lips too; but that is Reserved Territory.)

Good night, and good luck.

Rest in peace

I hear from Mr Brown that La Idler, fellow blogger and a collaborator on Tomorrow and the Bloggercon, has passed away. Incredibly sad news - it's quite gut-wrenching to read her posts on moving overseas and her future plans. Rest in peace, Sondra.