Helping a friend plug this.

The Butter Factory is producing a short film titled The Bouncer and we need extras for club scenes.

Filming will be at The Butter Factory itself from 6pm to 11pm on:

• Sun, 15 Jan 2012,
• Mon, 16 Jan 2012, and
• Tue, 17 Jan 2012.

If you’re interested, please e-mail Lynn at pinkstarfishey@laremy.sg or text her at 9683 5120 with:

• Your name,
• Your contact number, and
• The date(s) you can make it for filming.

PLEASE:

• Like partying (all ages welcome)!
• Come dressed to party like it’s NYE!
• Be trustworthy – we’re on a tight schedule; we can’t afford no-shows so we need those who RSVP to turn up.
• Bring an extra set of party clothes as we’ll be doing multiple shots.
• Bring an extra pair of shoes – comfortable ones so you can wear them in between takes
• Have dinner before you come (there’ll be a bar on set).

PLEASE DO NOT:

• DO NOT wear white (all other colours are fine).

Some perks to thank you for your time:

• Each extra will get a ticket for one free entry into Butter Factory at a later date.
• We’re trying our best to provide some free drinks/snacks! This will be confirmed.
• We promise an absolutely fabulously fun time with the cast and crew!

Interested in leading your own art walkabout in Singapore’s hippest neighbourhood?

Then look no further – volunteer to help out with the OH! Open House 2012 walkabouts next year!

What you’ll be doing:

• Bringing people into six real-life homes that’ve been transformed into art spaces and acting as their guide.

What you’ll receive:

• FREE opportunities to meet new and interesting people,
• A FREE special edition OH! 2012 t-shirt,
• FREE training on how to talk about art, among other FREEbies I haven’t mentioned.

Commitment intensity:

1. One training session at Evil Empire on either Sun, 15 Jan 2012 (2pm)  or Mon, 16 Jan 2012 (8pm),
2. One walk-through in said hippest neighbourhood on Sun, 12 Feb 2012 (2pm) or Mon, 13 Feb 2012 (8pm), and
3. One or more volunteer sessions on:
• Sat, 18 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm,
• Sun, 19 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm,
• Sat, 25 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm, and/or
• Sun, 26 Feb 2012 from 4 – 8.30pm.

It’s quite intense, but it’s over a relatively short period of time, so do spare the time to go if you can.

I would do this, but unfortunately, I have a National Service call-up over that period, which means I’m gonna need the weekends to catch up with work (yes, that’s the price of being male in Singapore).

In any case, more info/sign-ups at the OH! Open House 2012 website.

P.S. If you’re a student, you should totally volunteer – besides the learning opportunities, you’ll get CIP hours too!

I was just thinking how awesome an Everything But The Girl vs Maroon 5 mash-up would be like, specifically, one that combined “Missing” and “Moves Like Jagger”.

Well, with the internet being what it is, someone has already beaten me to it!

Presenting to you, ladies and gentlemen, “Missing Jagger” by mashdoctor:

It’s not quite what I had in mind – the focus seems to be on the melancholy of “Missing”, whereas the version I can hear in my head is a bit more upbeat, because it places more emphasis on the whistling of “Moves Like Jagger”.

But I’m starting to like it, especially the intermingling of the “And I miss you” and “Moo-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooves like Jagger” bits.

Go listen!

NOTE: I was contemplating publishing this in the school newsletter, but I decided this was the better platform.

The poem stems from something I’ve been thinking about for a while, because I’ve wanted to find a way to thank my students and wish them well.

I started writing the poem last week in the midst of marking and all that jazz, but I’ve decided that the poem is done and it’s time to put it up.

Last but not least, “piglet” and other porcine-related words are figurative and not literal, and is in no way meant to demean or denigrate – I thought I had better make this clear, just in case, and I apologise if I inadvertently offend anyone.

–

Piglet Race
By Laremy Lee

For all my piglet children.

I see you all bounding toward me
with the innocence of bacon,
the look in your eyes squealing:
in another life, I could’ve been char siew.

Your heads held up in earnest,
your snouts pointed to the sky,
you radiate pink with promise and youth
as you race toward the future, on a path

you’ve often been prodded along.
Remember, though, before I let you go:
life must be as easy as a piglet race
but not as simple as one.

Fly like the wind. Leap
as high as you can, over
hurdles set out like nets.
Look cute while doing so.

But wait for fellow piglets if
they pause. Help them if they falter.
We are as much competitors
as we are comrades-in-trotters.

Fortunately (or unfortunately),
like Fleance, you will soon flee
leaving me behind as Time flies
to pick my pocket once again,

as it did me when I was a piglet like you;
as it will you when you are a boar like me.
Another set of piglets will round the bend,
bounding toward me with all their might,

even going so far as to – who knows? –
one day, also bound toward you,
till your heart beams and your smile says,
“That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.”

Just a heads up: I’ll be speaking at the upcoming WriteCamp Singapore 2011 on “Singapore Literature: Where we should be going”.

In the talk – which I’m giving in my own personal capacity – I’ll discuss:

• Why Singapore Literature needs to be taught in Singapore schools,
• Why this hasn’t been happening, and
• What Singaporean writers should do to reverse this trend.

–

When is WriteCamp and what’s it about? From the SWF website:

Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2011
Time: 2pm – 6pm
Venue: Seminar Rooms 1 and 2, National Museum of Singapore
Price of Admission: FREE!

WriteCamp is SWF’s take on the “unconference” – a dynamic, user-generated series of workshops and talks where presenters share their knowledge to small, passionate audiences.

Each session is typically 30 minutes, with two or three sessions running concurrently so that audiences have the luxury of choice while speakers have to keep their talks snappy and insightful.

Topics can cover the craft of writing, tips on publishing, or other writing-related subjects.

Apart from fun networking and the buzz of spontaneous creativity, Writecamp promises to shed new light on writers and writing too!

Have an idea for a talk? Send it to writecamp.swf@gmail.com with your topic and contact details and we’ll get in touch with you if it’s selected.

Please join me, either as a listener or as a speaker, if you can. You can sign up for the event here or browse the SWF website for more details.

See you there!

I think my, er, advice worked – I received enough Ferrero Rocher to set up my own distribution centre.

Jokes aside, one present which stood out was the Teachers’ Day video done by 10A04.

Initially, when they bounded up to me to give me the DVD, I was like, “Wow! Mix-tape for me?”

I was genuinely elated; I remember thinking: Wow, these piglets have grown! They put their PW skills to use and realised that a mix-tape would be a great gift for me because:

• I like music,
• Mix-tapes have symbolic value, in that they hearken back to an era that I often romanticise, and
• Mix-tapes have artistic value, in that the choice of songs are not arbitrary but curated in order to achieve a certain effect on/send a certain message to the listener e.g. I’ve chosen these songs that I know you like because I want you to know I care, or I’ve chosen 12 of my favourite songs because I want to share my music with you (a deeply personal gesture, IMO).

Sadly, my happiness lasted for a while, because I soon found out that:

1. It wasn’t a mix-tape, but a video, and
2. ALL THE OTHER TEACHERS THAT TAUGHT 10A04 ALSO RECEIVED THE SAME VIDEO.

Wah lao eh! Felt somewhat cheated lor. LOL… Kidding, ya.

I really like the video; in fact, I like it so much that I want to share it with all of you here:

Click on this link in case you can’t see the embedded video.

Nice right? (BTW if you want to watch more stuff by Ansen Goh and Co., check out “A Measured Distance Away” and ObscuRed.sg .)

I’m so glad they came together to do this, not only because the video shows how much they’ve grown as a class, but also because receiving the gift has made me re-evaluate my ‘preferred present list’ – I’ve just included a section called ‘Digital Art’.

So thanks, kiddos, for all the love. I’m proud of all of you.

My review of Tan Tarn How’s Six Plays – the text which I was busy devouring in June while recuperating from my short stint in the Weapon X Project – is now up on the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore (QLRS).

Six of the Best
Compilation revives veteran playwright’s greatest hits

This collection brings together six of Tan Tarn How’s best works thus far, written and produced over a period of 11 years (1992 – 2003). Prior to this, The Lady of Soul and Her Ultimate ‘S’ Machine (“Soul“) was published individually in 1993, and Undercover and Home were published in play collections that featured various local playwrights. The publication of these plays in one volume are, hence, important in providing readers and scholars of Singapore literature with a holistic overview of Tan’s concerns as well as showcasing the diversity of topics he writes on, while demonstrating Tan’s dexterity as a playwright when tackling a range of subjects.

Thematically, most of Tan’s concerns, as with the majority of P65 Singaporean writers, are with the socio-political environment and machinations of the Singapore state – an ostensibly natural reflection of and response towards the environment that P65 Singaporean writers have been bred in.

(continued…)

So I mentioned that day that one of my poems has been published in the latest issue of Ceriph.

Here it is:

Lucky Strikes
By Laremy Lee 

For all the boys from 10A04.

Fumbles one out from the box, strikes
it at a dulled edge: conversation
does not ensue. He tries again – twice,
thrice, before its head snaps off, departing
into the distance of a long, lonely night.
Leaves him standing there, limp
cigarette dangling loosely from his lips,
moisture slowly soaking filter tip.

Lighting up shouldn’t be a dismal match
grovelling wildly at the feet of blunted flints,
looking to catch the song of a spark
in a vain draw on an inflamed hope -
that determination will grow into fire.

Go get your copy of Ceriph if you haven’t already done so.

Six Plays by Tan Tarn How.

Today, I am drinking Complan for the very first time in my life.

Complan is gross. Okay, I’m biased. I’ve never been a very big fan of these… products.

In any case, I just thought I’d mark this occasion with a poem because of how Complan has been immortalised (to me, at least) in Arthur Yap’s “2 mothers in a hdb playground”:

2 mothers in a hdb playground

ah beng is so smart,
already he can watch tv & know the whole story.
your kim cheong is also quite smart,
what boy is he in the exam?

this playground is not too bad, but i’m always
so worried, car here, car there.
at exam time, it’s worse.
because you know why?
kim cheong eats so little.

give him some complan. my ah beng was like that,
now he’s different. if you give him anything
he’s sure to finish it all up.

sure, sure. cheong’s father buys him
vitamins but he keeps it inside his mouth
& later gives it to the cat.
i scold like mad but what for?
if i don’t see it, how can i scold?

on Saturday, tv showed a new type,
special for children. why don’t you call
his father buy some? maybe they are better.

money’s no problem. it’s not that
we want to save. if we buy it
& he doesn’t eat it, throwing money
into the jamban is the same.
ah beng’s father spends so much,
takes out the mosaic floor & wants
to make terazzo or what.

we also got new furniture, bought from diethelm.
the sofa is so soft. i dare not sit. they all
sit like don’t want to get up. so expensive.
nearly two thousand dollars, sure must be good.

that you can’t say. my toa-soh
bought an expensive sewing machine,
after 6 months, it is already spoilt.
she took it back but … beng,
come here, come, don’t play the fool.
your tuition teacher is coming.
wah! kim cheong, now you’re quite big.

come, cheong, quick go home & bathe.
ah pah wants to take you chya-hong in new motor-car.

– Arthur Yap

I can’t remember if the original had any stanzas but I thought I’d delineate the text into stanzas so you can see the conversation between the mothers (a la Peter Tan’s webpage).

In case you are not very intelligent and don’t know why this poem is meaningful, please allow me to highlight a few significant aspects of the poem to you:

• Captures the use of English in Singapore, especially how Chinese Singaporeans speak English (wrongly or otherwise) in modern Singapore’s early years (look at the title: it’s “a hdb” instead of “an hdb”. So you’ve got to be adamantine when you read out the title i.e. “a haitch-dee-bee” instead of “an aitch-dee-bee”).
• Demonstrates changing class aspirations in Singapore, from a Chinese perspective, at least.
• Depicts the urbanisation of the Singapore landscape vis-a-vis economic progress.

DO YOU NOW UNDERSTAND WHY YOU NEED COMPLAN???

Well, I still maintain that Complan is gross but beggars whose mouths have been wired shut cannot be choosers.

BTW, whoever is coming over to my place to visit me – you’re gonna be served Complan.