cakap-cakap

Asian Youth ArtsMall

2005-12-17T18:59:00.000+08:00

Where have we been? Where have we we we been?

Here:

Meet everybody! You're looking at young arts practitioners from Asian countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand & Malaysia). In AYA's own words, they are "youths who work with other young people in their community using different art forms".

Learn from here

al fatihah

2005-10-20T10:03:00.000+08:00

The PM's wife, Datin Sri Endon Mahmood, returned to Allah s.w.t. at 7.55am today. Salam takziah to Pak Lah, Jai & family.

Al-fatihah.

Public can pay last respect 11am onwards at their official residence in Putrajaya.

almost To Sir With Love

2005-10-12T13:21:00.000+08:00

I found these while I was cleaning up my room:

(form 1)

(form 4)

This was what I did from July to September. Had to teach 35 13year-olds and 40 16 year-olds. Very susah. Very pening. The form ones were very difficult to control (read: Zoo) but they were very amusing (easy to lie to ha ha!). The form fours were more aloof and I-am-too-cool-for-this-English-lesson thing going on. But I survived lah. With scars to show you hee.. hee..

Read the comments some of my students wrote for me on my last day. The 2nd comment, written by my favorite fella, will tell you how I really faired during my teaching practicum.

And no, I don't miss them. At all.

2005-09-22T08:45:00.000+08:00

this time around i thought i'd put in something i wrote some 2 years ago, when i was still working as a disgruntled r&d guy in a big, multi-national corporation's factory. it kind of reminds me of tengku alias taib's poem, 'rat race'...

tiada tanda ‘EXIT’ (buat warga kerja MEDEM)

pelbagai jenis manusia
beradu di sini
yang mau naik pangkat
yang mau advance gaji
yang mau cari pakwe/makwe
yang mau buat teater
yang mau bunuh bos
yang mau jadi Jepun
yang mau cari kawan
yang mau cari makan
yang mau cari jalan keluar
tapi
di sini
tiada tanda ‘EXIT’

21 oktober 2003

fade to black

2005-09-11T10:05:00.000+08:00

She's dressed in black, her hair scraped back into a sorry excuse for a ponytail, stuffed under a black cap. Small tufts of hair stick out dispite her efforts.

She sits on a crate. She's had enough. She needs to speak.

She grabs a deck of small yellow post-it notes and a pen, and begins to scrawl:

It's like the end of a movie, really, she writes, I've come to a point, a fork. I've hit the wall at the end of a cycle, and I find myself on the ground; bleeding, whimpering, disorientated.

The credits have rolled, my friends, and I find myself staring at a blank screen. I need to leave. I think nothing else, feel nothing else...

Suddenly she hears a noise and she looks up to find a man laughing while talking on the cellphone. It strikes her. A familiar laughter, a familiar sting. Something she left a long time ago that she buried when that part of her died. Remembering it unravels a surge of old emotions.

Her eyes tear up slightly, and she returns to her crate, trying to blink them away. She sits, and scrawls in handwriting that in comparison, seems messy, emotional, alien:

There's nothing left here.

She stares at this for a while, before quickly ripping that small yellow piece of paper from the pad to continue:

There might not be anything left anywhere, but how will I know unless I look?

Everything around me has decayed. What was once beautiful is now rotting, mouldy, repetitive, destructive.

I'm the forgotten block of cheese in the fridge of life.

The girl smirks at this metaphor. Suddenly she doesn't want to think anymore.

She started cleaning. Scrubbing, loses herself in bubbles and water. She pours too much sanitiser and the fumes sting her eyes but she doesn't care.

She loses herself this way.

Everything in the fridge might be mouldy, but at least the fridge is clean.

midweek crisis

2005-08-25T20:21:00.000+08:00

I hate writing. Any kind of writing, really, like writing reports, essays, mini thesis, lesson plans and such. I once wrote a short story and jeng jeng jeng ended up finishing it for me.. hehe..

But jeng jeng jeng and I have this deal going on where I'd have to update the blog then he updates it.. you get the idea. I have nothing interesting/funny/out of the ordinary to share with you (nothing happens in PJ except for weddings) so.. er.. yes.. let's see..

The household is in a mess. The maid we had was sent back to the agent yesterday because we discovered her night activities. She'd sneak out after everyone's gone to sleep, jump over the fence and then meet any tom, dick and harry at the playground. She also had a book where she had written all the names and phone numbers. They fell into two columns: 'kawan Melayu' and ' kawan India'. Believe me, she had many. Some of the names even had the 'kawan istimewa' tag. Anyway, it was two nights ago when I found my mom and my brother spying on her from the tv room. It all started when the house alarm went off at 1.30 am and mom checked the maid's room. Surprise, surprise, she wasn't there. My brother saw the maid jumping over the fence and meet up with an Indian man on a motorbike. The man left after sometime and my maid walked further from the house. To cut the story short, she only came back at 6am. We know.. We purposely left the alarm on.

"Gatal gile..," says my cousin.

I have to get back to my laptop. The hard disk is dying after 3 years of banging, hitting, scratching it (days of completing assignments). I'm transferring all my files to another computer. Manually.

Have. to. save. music files. and. photos.

Conversations: Tan Chui Mui

2005-08-14T18:50:00.000+08:00

“Tan Chui Mui, what do you know?”

So said the Beautiful Loser (Pete Teo) to his silent adolescent muse as they waited at a bus stop, in the middle of the night, for either day to break or for dream to set in.

For Tan Chui Mui, of course, the dream had set in in quite a big way. Her film ‘A Tree In Tanjung Malim,’ from which that scene was taken, won the Principal Prize at the 51st Oberhausen International Short Film Festival last May. According to the statement given by members of the International Jury, “the film was a simple story told with a strong sense of sculpting time that puts forward a universal condition.” (Mui, though, felt that it was Pete’s strong and grounded performance that helped pull the short together.)

For me, I was first introduced to Mui’s work over a late cup of coffee with some friends. We had just completed a long meeting, and a friend suggested watching a compilation disc of short films.

One of the shorts really made me sit up and pay attention. It was Mui’s ‘Hometown,’ a poignant piece about growing up in a seaside village that was slowly being washed away by the effects of time and urban wanderlust.

Fastforward to the present, I called up Mui, who was finally introduced to me by James Lee only a few months back, to see if she had a bit of time to talk about her work and what the next few frames in her life look like. It turned out that time was something she had plenty to spare right now.

We met at a sparse little apartment that she had moved into only a month ago in bustling Brickfields. I learnt that the space doubles as an office for a number of filmmakers and triples as a gathering place to watch movies and just chill out. The prize money from the Oberhausen outing is helping finance much of this, thankfully.

Hailing from a small fishing village in Kuantan, it was Mui’s second sister who made her think very consciously about making films.

“My sister had an idea to make a film about our family or about our village. We had been talking about that for years, she must have been 17 and I was 14, but we never had a video camera and we never knew how to make films. She could even describe to me how the movie would begin!”

Mui related to me, almost shot-by-shot, how the movie opens with fishermen returning from the sea. They were greeted by a grandmother riding a bullock-cart on a children-flocked beach. After the trade, as she carted the fish away, the grandmother snapped at some children who freeloaded on the cart and were slowing it down as it made its way to the fish drying factory.

To me, it sounded like Mui could easily have been one of those children.

“My sister and I knew that our childhood experiences were very different. We grew up in this fishing village and we were the only chinese family there. We realized that this was something interesting and that we could make it into a movie.”

Upon completing her SPM (9A1s, don’t play-play), Mui whisked herself away to Multimedia University (MMU, then Telekom University) in Melaka to study animation. There, she watched influential and seminal films in the university library (Wong Kar Wai’s ‘Chungking Express’, Francois Truffaut’s ‘The 400 Blows’, and Wim Wender’s ‘Wings of Desire’), found out that her favorite hang-out spot was a gangster haven, and spent many, many hours in the university film studio with her coursemates.

And met Amir Muhammad and James Lee.

“I was always thinking about making films, but I didn’t know how to do it. I met Amir and James at a film screening. At that time, I was tutoring in MMU, so I invited them and others such as and many more to my university. At that time, Amir had just finished making ‘Lips-to-Lips’ and a few other shorts, and James had done a few, so because of that I started a series of weekly indie film screenings and talks.”

This linked up her students with the movers in the indie film scene then, including Hassan Muthalib, Ho Yu Hang, Patrick Lim, and many more.

I wanted to know her thoughts on how the indie film scene developed.

“People say it’s because of the technology, DV, that came in at that time that started the independent film movement in Malaysia, but I think it all started because of Amir and James. Amir proved to us that it can be done, by ‘Lips-to-Lips’ and by ‘6horts.’ I think ‘6horts’ is more inspiring to a lot of people because after they watched it, they thought, ‘I think I can do better than this!’ [laughs] At that time, that was what I really thought, but after I made a few short films, I think Amir is still better.”

A number of shorts later and we’re back at Mui’s ‘A Tree in Tanjung Malim.’ Apparently, this was her first effort at breaking away from her own conventions of working, which up until then was mostly do-it-myself (as with ‘Hometown’ where she shot, narrated, edited, produced… everything lah), a trait that was etched during her years of doing animation.

What did Mui think of the days ahead?

“It’s a very important period for me now, to think about what I want and the other possibilities in my life. It’s like, what type of films do I really want to make? Or do I really need to make films? It’s really thinking, why am I making films?”

So how?

“For now, I like making films and making that a part of my life. I want to live like this, just do nothing, or just write scripts to make films, and meet up with all these funny friends like Yu Hang, (Woo) Ming Jin, and (Liew) Seng Tat. I think I want to live it slowly. And just enjoy the moment.”

Faster, Mui, we want to watch your movies.

Tan Chui Mui was born in 1978 in Sungai Ular, a small fishing village in Kuantan, Pahang. Her father hails from Kinmen, Taiwan, and came to Malaysia with Mui’s grandmother in 1955 when he was 8 years old. One of six children, Mui started writing for chinese magazine in secondary school. Later on she studied Film and Animation in Multimedia University and became a tutor there after her graduation.

Mui has made 7 shorts till now and has edited Ng Tian Hann's "First Take, Final Cut" and Ho Yu Hang's "Sanctuary," wrote the script of James Lee’s "Hungry Ghost : Waiting for Them" and produced Deepak Kumaran Menon’s “Chemman Chaalai.”

Mui’s blog, in chinese, is at http://www.got1mag.com/blogs/chuimui.php

Mui wants to acknowledge that other than those already mentioned, Amir, James, Yasmin Ahmad, Deepak Kumaran Menon, and Albert Hue are all geng kaki lepak at her Brickfields’ home.

3 things Mui would wish for more of:
i. 3 wishes every month (or at least every year!) – “So from now on will I have three wishes every month? [laughs]”
ii. Some money some time – “Once a month, I’d wish for money.”
iii. “Near the end of my life, I’d like a house by the seaside with a table outside where I can drink coffee, and friends would sometimes come and visit me.”

3 things Mui would wish to have less of:
i. Result- and exam-oriented education system – “When I look at my youngest sister [and her friends], their life now is just homework, exam, homework, exam. I think there is something very wrong with the whole value of our society [on education].”
ii. Bills
iii. Dependence on government and external funding for independent filmmaking – “To be independent, we have to depend less.”

first appeared in 3rd July edition of Starmag Magazine in The Star newspaper

where the devil resides

2005-08-02T23:07:00.000+08:00

temerloh, pahang

=======

The picture was printed in the August 2005 edition of KLUE. Printed with permission from the author.

of poseidon and (car) positions

2005-07-09T20:15:00.000+08:00

there are fewer pleasures i get out of having a small car in a big city like kuala lumpur than that of parking. today, that pleasure almost turned out to be excrutiatingly painful.

i picked up my journalist friend and headed to her office for breakfast and a quick meeting. when we got there, instead of parking in the basement like any docile plebian would, my friend asked me to do what any common body would do on a public holiday saturday: park anywhere you want.

so i did. my small kelisa seemed almost like a dory in a spacious lot that belonged to some great white. since i'm the kind of person whose conscience always runs amok and amuck in times like these ("but this space is marked for a car with plate number XXX 1234!"), i thought, what the hey, it's saturday.

later, after an hour of breakfasting and meeting, as we got up to leave and as i reached for my car keys, i noticed that there was a car parked right next to mine, blocking what otherwise would've been a clean exit. to my chagrin, which quickly frankensteined itself into a "what the $%#XX??!", that car parked right next to mine had a plate number marked XXX 1234.

it looked as though it belonged to poseidon himself.

and already i was sandwiched in the front and back with big boys' toys that would litter valet parking lots...

i remember reading that poseidon usually has quite a temper, and being fresh out of virgin maidens to appease him, i tried to break out of that parking bay without calling upon the trident-wielding god himself to move his great white chariot.

and so we return to the aforementioned statement: there are fewer pleasures yada-yada-yada.

with the help of my friend, my kelisa and i did a tangy little tango number and slipped between the monster machine and a beemer parked in front. this meant some breath-held-just-press-the-accelerator-sikit-aje maneuvering... but 'lo and behold, we got out!

victoriously my dory roared a dory roar, and we swam away quickly, relieved that the old sea-dude never stepped out of his office to yell at us.

my shitty space

2005-06-29T11:11:00.000+08:00

Ok, ok.. so I do have a friendster account. I update my photos every now and then. I will admit I roam through the website everyday but more for updates than looking for new friends. Sometimes it's a great place to make yourself happy because it's THE place to look at ridiculous poses. I know a few people who take their own photos and change their photos everyday. It's always funnier when they take the initiative to apply makeup, wear that slightly revealing top that can't be worn outside the house and pout those lips.

Anyway, this entry's supposed to be short (and supposed to be about Turkey trip but that's another story). By this line, I should have moved on to the part about my Myspace account where unlike the Friendster account, it's filled with people I don't even know. From tattoo artists to Zac Taylor (Hanson). Some of them are desperate for attention, friends, lovers, etc.. which brings me to an message that came in today:

Hello,
How are you doing, and the family in general.I do hope all is going on fine, Thanks to God for His mercy and love. As a matter of fact I have read your profile and find out that you are such a nice lady to have as a friend. No matter the distance for now, I know sooner than you think, we might be together. if only will allow it to be. I believe I have told you a lot about myself in the profile, but all the same,I am Accountant by profession, I am young and good looking guy. I am very romantic, loving, caring and above all Love God. I am a Pgd holder in Financial Manegement and going for forward for my Mba in Accounting this year.

I take honesty as my watch word at all time. I believe and the maxim that say, "HE THAT COME TO EQUITY MUST COME WITH CLEAN HANDS". I am prince Daniel from Nigeria, I came from a royal family. In other words I do to other, what I want others to do to me...... That is my believe.

Here is my email address for easy comunication.
princeadebanjo@hotmail.com or better still if you have yahoo Id so that we can chat more.
and also my cell number +2348037215451. You can reach me any time or send me Sms, I will be glad to hear from you soonest,

I wait to hear from you now,
Have a nice day,
Thanks,

prince Daniel.

****

Hehehehehehehe!!

Have a good day, all of yous!

Mak, nak 8-Ball

2005-06-19T11:02:00.000+08:00

So recently, while availing ourselves of the air-conditioned nature of one of our suburban malls, Nais and I were pleasantly surprised to chance on... an 8-ball, sitting warmly in its made-in-China package, just asking for someone to pick it up and ask it a question.

Obviously we did lah.

Excitedly I plucked it from the shelf, unceremoniously and rather randomly picking one of the three available units. Nais cajoled me on. Her cajoling of course made her the first 'target' :P

"Is Nais a cool person?"

I stood with bated breath as I tumbled the dark orb over, awaiting for the answer to appear from its internal murky abyss.

"Without a doubt - Yes."

Dammit.

Suffice to say, it was great to see this toy, which has helped to answer many American children's questions, appear on our shelves. Yay, Toys-R-Us. (Do you remember the time when you could buy cool sweets from them?? Like chewing gum stuck in a tooth-paste tube... or something.)

Nais and I had a brief tiff, though, about how the 8-ball can have so many answers. Does it have an 8-sided die inside (so only 8 answers?) or multiple 8-sided dice? Or something even bigger, like a 20-sided die? But with each answer, it's a triangle base that you see the answer on... how how how?

Anyway, after a few more questions to the mighty 8-ball ("Is Jeng Jeng Jeng cooler than Nais?" - "Definitely yes." I'm obviously writing this from memory, and Nais is surely going to hentam me later! hahaha) , we decided to put it in the "jom beli" basket alongside the UNO cards that Nais bought for her trip to Turkey. Yes, she went to Turkey. Me? I had some work to do (was involved in a program, Directors' Workshop, where I studied the craft of directing, woot! It's finally over! Tell you more later, hopefully).

So now the 8ball is sitting quite quietly on my shelf, and I guess now is a good time to try asking it a question:

"Magic 8-ball, is this turning into a bad article?"

"Cannot predict now."

Ha-ha.

Let's hear that Turkey story now! :)

the name's Jhonny, buddy

2005-05-30T20:44:00.000+08:00

Meet Jhonny.

A black and white cat that decided my house was his house too. He used to creep around the house and steal Lulu's (the rightful owner of cat food/leftovers in this house) food. He also used to wear a huge red metal dog tag around his small neck.

We used to chase him away even though Lulu's incapable of producing mini-mes but my mother felt sorry for him. So instead of chasing him away, we started feeding him with dry cat food in his own styrofoam plate. I think he was overwhelmed with our decision to layan him because he couldn't decide whether to eat or to follow his new master around. Nevertheless, he ate his first proper meal to his heart's content.

These days you'd probably see Jhonny sleeping by the front door or getting bullied by Lulu. Sometimes they go cicak hunting together on the porch or climb the rambutan tree. Almost a happy picture, kan? But Jhonny still steals food from the kitchen or dinner table. Out of habit, I suppose. Plus, he's teaching Lulu to do the same things.

A little after dinner today my father wanted to send Jhonny away. I think to some Medan Selera somewhere in PJ. And it wasn't the idea of giving Jhonny away that made me sad but the way my brother and my father wants to transport Jhonny to his new place.

My brother said, "let's go look for a box because we can't let the cat run around in the car".

And what did my father say?

"Go carik if Mummy has an old pillowcase."

.......

(please save Jhonny! It's f.o.c.. Dog tag included)

unfolding memories

2005-05-18T23:18:00.000+08:00

I've been really bad at updating cakap-cakap. I'm terribly lazy to think about something long enough to craft it into an entry. It's not that I don't have the time. I'm just plain... lazy.

April and May have proven to be difficult two months for us. Instead of churning out stories of these events, jeng jeng jeng and I have been trying to keep our heads above water. Krishen's passing was very difficult to deal with. Memories of his final days, the wake, the funeral and scattering his ashes into the sea are still very raw for everybody. I was unable to attend the funeral because I had to leave for Singapore the same day. I paid my tribute by praying on the bus and reading sections of The Prophet the same time they held the funeral.

People have moved on but I still see them getting teary eyed whenever they remember something about the great man. Many great stories have surfaced since his passing. Kathy Rowland says, "everyone has a “Krishen story”, which they wore proudly like battle scars" (read here).

In between grieving and meeting datelines, jeng jeng jeng and I were in Singapore for a short getaway. In four days (we slept at my sister's), we visited the superb Asian Civilization Museum, annoyed each other, shopped for quirky stuff, swam, walked under shady trees, watched jeng jeng jeng eat a Polar curry puff (a tribute to Krishen-it was his favorite) and got lost on buses. It was worthwhile, alright.

Coming back to the valley was dreadful. It's always that sinking feeling you get after returning from a holiday. We very well knew we had to get back to work and datelines were a pain in the arse. I had to help out with a casting for a film project, jeng jeng jeng had a play to worry about, my boss needed more contact points in major companies (I hate making calls), jeng jeng jeng had to submit his articles.. the list goes on and on.

So far, we're doing ok. Work can still be a pain in the arse but we're trying to manoeuvre our way around. Despite all that has been said, we've just completed our first short film and celebrated our 1st year anniversary :)

I think we're going to be ok.

"My hands are high and I'm holding out, holding up because I figure that I just might make it" - Unfold

for jeng jeng jeng

2005-05-15T12:04:00.000+08:00

Dear jeng jeng jeng,

we're 1!

nudges & winks,
nais

in lieu of anything smarter to say...

2005-05-07T12:40:00.000+08:00

nais has to help out with a company that's making a chinese-language film. one of the principle investors is this hongkong superstar (i don't know if you've heard of him... andy lau?). and so they've been having this casting thing yesterday and today. i've never seen more chinese people in a room, ever! hahaha. well, that's not entirely true; i was the only non-chinese in a class of 25 for what, nearly 3 years in highschool.

so, anyway, casting's really cool, especially if your director is doing it himself, and it's especially fun if he's got a weird sense of humor (which he does have). so, while the director takes the profile pics and ask the questions, nais has to do all the slate board writing (name, age, height), and converting cm -> ft and inches... this board is what people have to put in front of them as their picture is taken. you know, like in prison?

so maybe making films is like being in prison, because once you've completed the thing, it becomes an animal that runs off into the night, killing random strangers who watch your film and then you read about it in the news the following day (hate mail). and then the police come round the house and ask you to please step into the nice black truck outside.

well, if i make a film, i hope it'll be a cool-ass animal... like a tapir.

here's to a great man

2005-04-29T08:44:00.000+08:00

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- robert frost

We love you and we'll miss you, krishen. God bless.

-Nais & Jengjengjeng

on air

2005-04-27T01:20:00.000+08:00

A little (but long) trip to Astro has taught me 4 things:

1. Sign boards
They are rather useless in that part of town. The sign to 'Sungai Besi' disappears after the first exit out of the Federal Highway. Truly a 'rusa masuk ke bandar' sort of situation because believe me, from the Istana Negara, I got to places like Kuchai Lama and Pekan Sungai Besi.

2. "Ikut entrance belakang"
I find it funny how a gargantuan company puts A4 sized sign boards to the second entrance. Not only that they were small, but they were also placed in between trees.

3. Attitude! Attitude!
There's something really wrong with the security guards/receptionists in Astro. The Malay security guard in shirt and pants barked "you ada pass? tak boleh masuk! you ada pass??" as I was about to park my car by the side of his stupid small guard house. When we got to the correct place, the receptionist was a pain in the arse because he didn't bother to call Anont (the dj) after no one answered the phone at Mix FM. He then refused to let us take the lift because no one answered the phone. Thus, no one could come down and get us (hello enche, the fella's running a live radio show right now.. you think he'd want to come down ke? Egh). We had a small tiff on the way to the loo because he thought we were going to sneak into one the lifts and go up. Needless to say, he kept a close eye on us.

4. Live radio show
It's so much fun and hilarious and almost spontaneous and good. Anont had taglines (the "we've improved the music from the 80's, 90's and now!", "KFC curry chicken...") and numbers written all over a white board. The dude had at least 4 screens, 10 millions buttons, 4 microphones and 5 phone calls. During songs and commercials, he edited calls while surfing for rims on eBay. Good la that fella..

"dunia, lihatlah aku"

2005-04-16T12:42:00.000+08:00

[pre Cammy@peter hoe]

discover.experience.enjoy.marvel

2005-04-13T22:10:00.000+08:00

I received an email a few days ago that almost made my hotmail inbox tersumbat. In it was an invitation to a celebration for the nominees and sponsors of the Cameronian Arts Awards (yes, there is such thing).

I was delighted.

[If you knew me two years ago, you'd would have gotten tired listening to me talking about the Cameronian Arts Awards. It was their first ceremony and I wanted to go so much. I was a Jit Murad closet fan and I wanted to root for his Spilt Gravy On Rice because it was the first English play I had seen in years. It's true, I was a groupie before I started working in theatre. I even have a picture of us together. But in the end, I didn't go because I didn't have the money, a date and a car. I had nothing but newspaper articles that had the winners, their pictures and such. I remember reading Spilt Gravy's success, Krishen receiving the Lifetime Achievement Awards and Mark Teh's cropped hair]

So when I emailed my attendence to the Peter Hoe people, they ~~kindly~~ reminded me "FYI, we do not welcome gate crashers" (yes, I know.. I've done front of house before and I do have manners). Ish.

The invitation is all nice lah. "An Enchanted Evening" with the customary yellow, blue, green and pink Peter Hoe colors. However, I don't quite fancy the dress code. It says here I should be dressed in 'Pink Mischief'. Wtf? I don't even like pink!

In an sms a dear friend had sent to me, he said, "yes you must wear merah jambu or just wear merah and say ur tetek jambu HAHAHA".

Tak guna betul.

she has a way with words

2005-04-09T23:43:00.000+08:00

this happened a couple of weeks ago, but i forgot about it until just now, so there you go.

my niece y has a fascinating mental capacity for someone so young. the other day, at a family outing/lunch at the club, she quizzed me on a sketch i made:

"uncle j, why did you draw that?" her question went. it was quite honest and what i took to be plain innocence.

being a cheeky fella and what not, i tried to pull a fast one on her.

"because, y, i'm a drawer."

"you mean an artist?" (delivered in an honest and what i took to be a plainly innocent manner)

oh, y.

notes from an aching body

2005-04-04T19:52:00.000+08:00

Yoga is painful especially when you can't even reach your toes.

I had my first class today at some Balinese yoga studio in Plaza Damas. I was anxious to start attending classes because I bought a week's worth of unlimited passes to yoga classes. Classes there start as early as 7am (this must be the 'salutation to the sun' thing la kot?), but being the ~~morning~~ person that I was, I only got there at 9am.

I'm not sure what kind of yoga I put myself through today because it only says "Beginner Hot Yoga" here on the schedule and not Ashtanga (the one that Madonna's doing) or Jivamukti or some sort. It must have been the beginner's series (Vinyasa is the technical term for it) because we didn't do any cartwheels or snake poses or placing the left leg on the right shoulder sort of poses. Nevertheless, it stretched every muscle in the body.

So "Beginner Hot Yoga" (practicing basic yoga in a slightly heated room) had us doing some stuff like:

The Dog Pose

I rate this 3/10 (this was a walk in the park)

The Downward Facing Dog

Having to pull my heels and placing my palms flat into the floor made the back of my legs hurt like hell. But it's supposed to stretch your back, pen your chest and build upper body strength. This posture stimulates the brain and nervous system, improving concentration, eyesight and hearing. I rate this 6/10

[note to self: men should do this]

The Low Lunge

4/10 if done in the 1st of the class, 6/10 if done in the 2nd half of the class.

The Half Warrior Pose

By this time, I was sweating like nobody's business. This gets 5/10...

... and 6/10 for this one. The instructor kept on saying "focus! remember to breathe".

But my favorites were:

The Easy Pose

and

The Corpse

oh siti..

2005-04-01T11:59:00.000+08:00

Last Wednesday, I found myself gossipping with Miss 33 at the Maxis center in Tmn. Tun. For some reason, both of us got into the mood of changing our accounts from pre-paid to post-paid. In the middle of filling forms, Miss 33 started to talk about her mother.

"My mom dah pergi London. She left just now", she tells me.

"Who did she go with?" I asked knowing that her mother was supposed to go for Siti Nurhaliza's concert in London with the deputy prime minister's wife but the plan fell through.

"With Rosmah", she said without looking up. "My mom gi ngan Rosmah and friends. Six of them are on the flight to London right now".

I laughed a little thinking about this. Six aunties on an exclusive road trip to London just because Siti's performing at the Royal Albert Hall. You won't even find these aunties at one of Siti's BlueHyppo tour or Aidilfitri Bersama Siti thingamajigg.

"You know", she said, "it's an all expensed paid trip to London. Naik first class pulak tu".

Curiously, I asked her who was paying for the trip.

"Kerajaan", was her curt reply to my question. Not interested in talking about the aunties anymore, Miss 33 said, "you know, Siti was making a big hoo-haa over sponsorship. She was asking why can't companies sponsor singers like her to perform abroad, instead of giving athletes so much money to some sporting event abroad".

"You know how many people she's bringing to London?", she asks me.

Having read an article on this concert, I said, "ten winners of some competition she had kan?".

"Itu AND tiga puluh budak ketot menari zapin tu" she said. By this time, she was getting a bit too loud for the small space. Then she adds, "itu tak kira her parents, her sister, her brothers. I don't know lah", she sighs.

Both of us watched the screen for our number to appear, thinking if it's the ugly truth or we're just jealous of the aunties, Siti and the zapin kids.

focus

2005-03-30T20:30:00.000+08:00

[photo from stock//manipulated using PS]

Leaving the writing part to jeng jeng jeng while I pretend to know how to take pictures and say clever things about it

(sheesh)

Almost Famous

2005-03-27T11:19:00.000+08:00

Why do people get involved in the arts?

Now that’s a question my parents have always wondered about, as I myself do sometimes. This arts business is certainly a difficult profession, where saying “I’m in the arts” to Pakcik Daud during Hari Raya ‘Q&A your anak buah sessions’ can still be a tough lemang to chew.

The reality can obviously be difficult: local theatre performances have been steadily losing their audiences (a phenomena experienced the world over); dance has never really acquired sustained popular interest locally (there are obvious exceptions); the Laman Seni, a visual arts bazaar that pops up every 1st Saturday at the National Art Gallery, bizarre-ly has more people selling than people visiting.

But something’s peeked cheekily above the bleak horizon: local independent films. These films have seen a burst of growth, and some have even been recognized overseas. Is something about to ‘happen’ with local art films? What really goes on in the mind of one of these filmmakers?

These were some questions that pushed me to grab hold of theatre and film director, as well as a dear friend, James Lee.

We’ve known each other for a number of years as there have been number of times we've worked together. On top of that, I’ve seen some of his solid films, one of them being the highly acclaimed ‘The Beautiful Washing Machine,’ which won him the Best ASEAN Feature award at the latest Bangkok International Film Festival.

“Hello, James. Can meet ah? I want to ask you some questions for this column I’m writing.”

“Can. What time? Where?”

The following night we got to sitting down at a mamak place in PJ over some good coffee for some good old-fashioned tete-a-tete.

James has an interesting presence: always alert, has a fondness for few words, and always seems like he has to rush off to a shoot somewhere. But he warms up to you easily. I found this warmth very peculiar, especially when he told me his filmic worldview changed after watching Wong Kar Wai’s “Days of Being Wild” (DBW). This fact helped explain some of his charming rebelliousness.

See, DBW was about a rebel, played by Leslie Cheung, who was thrown away as a child by his mother and spends a good part of his life trying to find her, only to later be denied audience by the mother herself.

When James saw this movie a decade or so ago, most of the other handful of people in the Rex in Ipoh just cursed and bitterly left. He, instead, could see that the movie was about struggling to find your past and what happens when that past refuses to talk to you.

From that point on, James always considered himself an anti-establishment figure, battling the celluloidal authority of Hollywood and Hong Kong which, in his eyes, have “brainwashed and taught people to watch and recognize only the films they made.”

This film that wowed James lead him down the road less trodden: into the arms of Joe Hasham’s (of The Actors Studio) acting classes. “I was planning to go to to a film school, overseas, but [I couldn’t] afford lah.”

Instead he brushed up on Konstantin Stanislavski and Method Acting, Lee Strasberg and all the other funkadelic acting stuff here at home, all the while doing random gigs as a karaoke waiter to restaurant cook to bookshop attendant to make ends meet.

I was keen to know what he told those who were eager to make films.

“First of all those people must realize if they want to really do this or not, because theatre and filmmaking is hard business.

I wouldn’t say that if you can’t afford to go for an education, or if you don’t want to go for an education, then you can’t make it, because at the end of the day, when you’re dealing with this sort of activity, it’s not about the papers: diploma, sijil, degree, PhD, all this stuff… unless you want to be a [medical] doctor, then I’m sorry, you really need that to show me that you’ve truthfully become a doctor.

When you’re a filmmaker and a theatre practitioner it’s all about the passion and the love, your experience really grows from there. Because… I learn my stuff, from not only working in the industry, but also from books.”

Which he bought from a bookstore in Singapore. I sadly agreed with him that it’s stupendously difficult to spot good film and theatre books in our local outlets.

More than anything else, James told me that if you want to make films, you have to watch films. A lot of films. The onus was on him to watch and to learn, and this was deftly exemplified when he watched 40 films in two weeks at his first film festival in Singapore many years ago. Wow.

So how can I, nay, we, the Malaysian masses, legally watch more when all we see in our local cineplexes are just Hollywood and Hong Kong flicks that make us B-grade, film-watching zombies?

“I think with internet today you can source it out yourself if you are a person who really wants to watch. Because when I was giving a talk in UiTM… they said, ‘We’ve heard about all these indie films… [Amir Muhammad’s] Big Durian, Lips to Lips, [Ho Yu Hang’s] Sanctuary… but how can we watch it? We don’t know where to watch it.’

I told them, due to the fact that we’re [independent filmmakers] and most of the time we don’t have budget for promotions and advertisements, I think it’s time that the audience becomes more proactive and look for us at the same time.”

Being a relative newbie in the local arts scene, and having my own fears and trepidations, I asked him the jackpot, one-million ringgit, super-bonanza question: Why continue?

“I love it. Passion. That is all I can say. It’s not for the money, for God’s sake. If I spent these past 6 years selling handphones or computers, right, I’d be rich by now… But I think it was clear that it was never my intention to be [FINAS won’t approve these expletives] rich, or to own a house, or to own a Satria GTI, with a few hot babes.”

As my fears and trepidations slinked back into their cinema seats with cups of strong coffee, I thanked James for his thoughts.

Then, behold! James rode off into the humid PJ night on his rebelliously loud motorbike. Sounds like a line from a bad movie, doesn’t it?

=======
The article was printed in the 20th March 2005 edition of Starmag in the Sunday Star daily. Printed with permission from the author.

I was not a force of nature

2005-03-25T21:32:00.000+08:00

I was on my blog rounds today when I noticed that out of five to six blogs I've been to today, four of them (random-girl, muddy, captain karat, nutty) joined 15,000 people at the seven-hour tsunami concert last Friday.

I'm convinced they're all making fun of me.

The first review of the concert that I read was from captain karat's blog. It was a lengthy entry with approximately 1500 words. Now, if the bugger had a column in the papers, his entry would have filled a page in The Star. But of course, his entry had everything.. right from staring at the empty red carpet before the show to what Wyclef had said to Lauryn Hill on stage. So by the time I finished reading captain karat's entry, I knew what had happened at the concert.. Sheila Majid's orange number, Backstreetboys minus JT, Russell Simmon's wife claiming she's the first lady of hiphop, Boyz II Men making you people call your mothers, Wyclef using his teeth to goreng his guitar.. you should know the rest lah. You were there, I wasn't.

Other reviews of the concert said pretty much the same stuff. Some have included events that captain karat had left out. It was good to know that everything went well and everybody had seven hours of fun.

But I really need to know:

Did Lauryn Hill really perform her best? (only those who attended the concert and own The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill + Lauryn Hill MTV Unplugged cds are allowed to give input).

explain to me this

2005-03-23T21:45:00.000+08:00

jeng jeng jeng and I stumbled upon this at a playground somewhere in kelana jaya.

it translates:

no lovey dovey couples, no uncles with dogs, no pink cyclists, no kids, no mat rempits.

so what *can* we do at a playground?

... are you a question mark?

2005-03-23T01:25:00.000+08:00

I think children scare me.

It's not so much their capacity for being mayors of Mayhemcity (wherein you are always a problematic and unwittingly willing citizen) that scares me, no, I think that goes without saying. I think what really scares me is the efficiency with which they execute their term in office.

Let's just say that it's the efficaciousness of their actions, albeit with a remarkably limited mastery of vocabulary of actions/words and no baggages for syntax, that never fails to startle (and thereafter scare) me.

Take my niece, for example. Come December this year she'll be 6. Today, I had to drive her from her home in TTDI to the pre-school in Bangsar. This being KL on a bustling Tuesday morning, I decided to make a quick detour via the Penchala Link tunnel.

What follows is as approximate an account of what transpired during the course of that short, 15-minute car ride (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

"Y, do you remember how to get to your school from here?" I asked coyly.

"I don't remember lah, Uncle M," was her curt reply.

I decided to test the waters again.

"That's ok. Y, is this the road that abbah usually takes to send you to school?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything lah, Uncle M," she was obviously flustered. "Uncle M, why do you like to ask so many questions? Is it because you are a question mark?"

And that's why I'm scared of children.

They eat people with their smarts and their smiles.

Shortcuts

2005-03-18T10:32:00.000+08:00

Shortcuts is a bilingual TV programme that shows and highlights independent short films/videos and features made by Malaysians. These movies include drama, comedy, animation and horror and are made by some exciting new talents. Aside from the makers of these shorts, there are also interviews with industry professionals and technical tips, presented in an easy-to-digest manner. Shortcuts also has contests for budding filmmakers and members of the public.

Every
Sunday 10pm
on Astro Prima

a (true) story of a Malaysian 'celeb'

2005-03-13T20:47:00.000+08:00

Over the weekend, I was accused of spreading ~~false~~ rumours about a Malaysian 'celeb'.

Konon-kononnya, I've been telling people that this Malaysian 'celeb' has been chasing skirts and boinking them.

You know, if this was part of a short story.. this would be my plot of the story:

Characters - Mr I'mAnArse and Nais
Setting - The Klang Valley

Exposition
Mr I'mAnArse's gf (who is studying abroad) has heard rumours of her bf chasing skirts and boinking them. MrI'mAnArse is in deep shit.

Conflict 1
Mr I'mAnArse tries to defend himself by denying the ~~false~~ rumours. So he begins to call everybody in his phone book.. this is because he has no idea who's been spreading the rumours but he pretends to know anyway because he's not so bright. He first accuses a cousin of Nais. He calls her up and says "why you spreading rumours about me? kalau I buat takpe, masalahnya I tak buat." (this is, of course, bullshit). Mr I'mAnArse comes to a dead end because Nais' cousin denies spreading the rumours. Being the not so pandai one, he accuses Nais pulak.

Conflict 2
He thinks "since Nais' cousin isn't the culprit.. maybe it's Nais who has been spreading the rumours!". He calls Nais 4 times at 3am on Friday but fails to reach her. He calls again on Saturday afternoon.

(Nais has stopped answering his calls because he had once called her asking if he could come and sit on her bed while Nais gets ready to go somewhere. When Nais said "no", he asked if there was anything wrong with being naughty)

Climax
Nais finally answers Mr I'mAnArse's call.

Mr I'mAnArse: Nais
Nais: Who's this?
Mr I'mAnArse: Your worst nightmare
Nais: Ouh, ouh.. I'm *so* scared.
Mr I'mAnArse: Why you spreading rumours about me?
Nais: Ha? I've not seen you for over a year. Plus I've got better things to do. Why do you think it's me?
MrI'mAnArse: I just wanna know why. Why you spreading rumours?
Nais: Look, I've not seen you over a year. I don't know you. I don't even know your gf. Why don't you ask your source to reveal the person who's been spreading the rumours?
MrI'mAnArse: Nak tanya la ni.. Once I know I'll let you know ok?
Nais: Don't bother. I don't care.

Nais hangs up.

Post Climax
Nais tells everybody about it.

~*~

Hi and welcome to Cakap-cakap, by the way :)

united republic of satay

2005-03-13T19:14:00.000+08:00

by jengjengjeng

god it's good to be malaysian.

it just rained in suburbia. me and the mam just stopped by the taman tun pasar malam to stock up on good ol' fashioned food. satay, keropok lekor, air kelapa, apam balik, the list goes on. obviously we didn't buy everything (i was tempted to), and i'm no fan of these fitness first places... so there ya go.

this being the maiden entry and what not, i won't ramble so much lah. just wanted to dip my toes first aja, instead of doing the full throttle thing.

later we'll see how.

the birth of another blog

2005-03-03T19:16:00.000+08:00

Oh boy, what do we have here?