Did you ever stop to notice the crying Earth, the weeping shores?*

Was horribly appalled by what I saw at a Cold Storage checkout today. This lady had one of those reusable bags with her, so I thought, wow, finally someone else in this country cares. Yet guess what she did?

She packed her groceries into what must have been at least 5 new plastic bags from the supermarket and then stuffed them into her fancy reusable bag!

What ludicrousness. What the hell did she need the plastic bags for? She didn’t even buy perishables – it was all well-packaged stuff!

Now, given how destructive plastic bags to the environment are, I don’t know what’s stopping the government here from introducing a levy on them. The only campaign it has come up with so far is the measly Bring Your Own Bag Day, which only applies on Wednesdays and is not even compulsory. The only store I know here which charges its customers for plastic bags is IKEA.

I also don’t understand why some people find it a hassle to bring their own bags when they shop for groceries. These bags don’t take much space, do they? Sure, sometimes we forget, but how about the rest of the time?

One thing I admire about my Mum is the fact that she never fails to carry a carrier (neatly folded, of course) in her bag everywhere she goes. I try to follow her example to cut back on my plastic bag use and I hope more people will do the same. Please think twice the next time a cashier asks you whether you need a carrier.

“The good Earth—we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, from the book A Man Without a Country

*from Earth Song. RIP Michael Jackson.

P-p-p-poker face!

A hodgepodge of updates / ramblings ahead. I hope this doesn’t mean that my attention span has been reduced to 140 characters or less, especially since I’m not even into Twitter!

Uh, anyway.

1. Grabbed my Lady Gaga tickets yesterday! Unfortunately the Early Bird tickets flew off the shelves like nobody’s business, so I could only lay my hands on the standard ones :(

Keane and Michael Learns to Rock are coming to town too! I’d watch Keane as part of a festival, but I’m not a huge enough fan to pay for their full-blown concert. I wanna see Michael Learns to Rock, though!

2. I’m three quarter through Ethan Hawke’s second novel, Ash Wednesday, and I can’t stop turning the pages. It’s so easy to romanticise Ethan Hawke as Jimmy, one of the protagonists. Jimmy’s handsome, poetic, brash, often juvenile, yet endearing at the same time. Perhaps the book is to some degree autobiographical?

Page 93:

One thing I’ve noticed in young couples is that the boys often seem to do the majority of the talking, rambling on, wanting everyone to listen to them, to hear them, to acknowledge them; and then in older couples the gentleman often sits silent with a distant look in his eyes as the woman chatters on like rain falling. At what age, I wondered, does the switch take place?

I’d love to read The Hottest State.

3. On the other hand, I’m reading Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina at a dying snail’s pace. E-books don’t really work for me, I guess.

4. Was watching Don’t Forget the Lyrics and the contestant sang along to Toni Basil’s Mickey last night. In my opinion, the song is the greatest one hit wonder of the ’80s (VH1 put it on #6, though), so of course he got it right. It’s like a given.

I love Don’t Forget the Lyrics. Wayne Brady is so awesome.

5. Just watched Maroon 5 on MTV I Love Live. Adam Levine looked so yooouuuuung.

6. Collected my Zertifikat Deutsch certificate on Saturday. Actually fared better this time than I did for my Start Deutsch 2, heh. Next milestone: Goethe-Zertifikat B2.

7. German lessons are getting increasingly serious. The books are no longer as colourful and I’m expecting an avalanche of abstract concepts and vocabs in weeks to come.

8. It’s a pity that Simone, one of my teachers at Goethe-Institut, is returning to Switzerland for good. She draws well (to explain vocabs) and is always so patient.

We went to her farewell BBQ last week. Since turquoise must be her favourite colour (she has everything in it – sweater, bracelet, shawl), we decided on a turquoise scarf as a farewell gift.

She wrote to us:

Vielen lieben Dank, sind Sie am Sonntag zum BBQ gekommen, das hat mich sehr gefreut! Ganz, ganz herzlichen Dank auch für den super türkis Schal! :-) Ich werde ihn in der Schweiz im kalten Winter sehr gut gebrauchen können und er wird mir helfen, dort beim Unterrichten nicht heiser zu werden! ;-)

I’ll miss her.

9. Went to check out the Singapore River Festival last Friday. Had a mini picnic on ACM Green accompanied by a hot Cuban Jazz performance. Will probably take Mum for a river taxi ride when she’s here this weekend.

10. I need to make time for these:

• Van Gogh’s Brush with Genius on iMAX
• Da Vinci the Genius exhibition
• The Unguarded Moment by Steve McCurry
• En kärlekshistoria, part of the World Cinema Series

11. Plus I still haven’t finished watching the DVDs and recorded shows yet.

12. But most pressingly, I need to remove my fuchsia polish, sweep and mop the floor, change the sheets, take a shower and go to bed.

Un après-midi parfait

Impacilla Carpisung

Am fidgety about this year’s SINGfest line-up, but most importantly, whether there’ll be SINGfest at all. Why haven’t there been any credible rumours?

Shall speculate then. I’d be crazy happy if the line-up looks anything remotely like this:

• Lady GaGa
• The Ting Tings (ok, so they’ve come over earlier this year, but the tickets were steep!)
• Katy Perry
• The Killers
• Lily Allen
• The Fray
• The Black Eyed Peas
• The All American Rejects
• Kanye West
• The Script
• Keane

As for the old-school comeback (it was Rick Astley last year), I’m rooting for Pet Shop Boys! Or at least Lionel Richie hahahahhahhh…

Escape the humdrum!

Have just watched one of the films shown at the Italian Film Festival, Riprendimi (Good Morning Heartache). It was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. A well thought-out and refreshingly mature plot + Stellar leads = Bravissimo!

Speaking of film reminds me that I’ve bought a pile of DVDs which are yet to be watched:

1. Persepolis
2. Le Scaphandre et le Papillon 
3. Across the Universe
4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
5. Dead Poets Society

Plus a string of movies and series recorded on Hubstation, waiting to be played:

1. Les Misérables 
2. Das Leben der Anderen 
3. In Bruges
4. Flight of the Conchords

Wonder when I could get down to watching them all? Weekends need to be longer!

Fortunately, these couple workweeks seemed to zoom past pretty swiftly. The past weekend was a blast, because:

1. Mum was in town and our fridge is now stocked to the brim with home lovin’ à la rendang, empal and teri kacang. Yummeeeeh.
2. After getting myself the Zertifikat Deutsch, the new German term started on Saturday with Ulf teaching us again. The guy made us recite his favourite Erich Kästner’s poem in class yet again – “Es gibt nichts Gutes, außer man tut es.”
3. Class was followed by watching Anna Karenina at the Esplanade, which boasted an awesome set (the life-sized train car moving on the stage was particularly impressive) and a ballerina with endlessly long limbs.  My only gripe is the naturally roundabout plot, which would be a damper to any ballet performance, really.
4.  The silkscreen printmaking workshop at Singapore Art Museum was plenty of fun!

 

 

And I’m positive that this weekend will be as fabulous because of these!

 

 

Have an awesome weekend, everyone!

Confessions of a Demophobic

It never fails to amaze me how much shopping one can do in this city-state (provided one has the means, obviously). Maybe I’m just getting old, but the mere thought of shoppers thronging the malls on weekends makes me light-headed. Add wailing, howling babies to the picture and I’d lose my sanity in no time. Thank God there’s online shopping.

On the other hand, not many people in this country enjoy going to museums and art galleries.  If anything, despite the tip-top conditions of the museums here, few seem to get excited over the ongoing International Museum Day activities compared to the impending Great Singapore Sale.  Which could only be a good thing for a demophobic like me :)

Apparently, the International Museum Day has been celebrated all over the world every year around 18 May since 1977 (source: the International Council of Museums). While the outreach events in Singapore this year are mainly targeted at children (the theme is Holiday Fun at Home), I hope to actively take part in at least an activity. Let’s see if I could secure a spot in one of the workshops. Will also take this opportunity to explore some of the museums which I’ve never been to.

In the spirit of the International Museum Day, here are my 5 favourite museums and galleries in the world so far:

1. National Portrait Gallery in London
2. Mucha Museum in Prague
3. Belvedere Gallery in Vienna
4. Kunst Haus Wien - Museum Hundertwasser in Vienna
5. Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinée (Belgian Comic Strip Centre) in Brussels

And why is Musée du Louvre not in my Top 5, you ask? Well darling, it’s undeniably pretty and historic, and I still believe that one has to see the real Mona Lisa at least once in one’s life, but Louvre is also constantly swarmed with tourists! So yeah, besides my affinity for art nouveau, crowd size also explains why off-the-beaten-track museums and galleries dominate my list.

I’m aching to visit many, many more! I especially want to gain access to these before I die:

• Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York
• Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (Has the niftiest exterior I’ve ever seen of a museum. Should’ve totally gone inside when I was in Paris.)
• The State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg
• Van Gogh Museum and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (Was too carried away by the Queen’s Day celebrations when I was in the city. And I haven’t even blogged about the trip yet, sighhhh.)

Being some of the world’s most popular museums*, I know their sheer number of visitors will freak me out. That said, I don’t think I have lived life to the fullest till I’ve sampled their exhibitions. Happy International Museum Day!

 

*here’s a list of 16 Top Museums of the World compiled by Virgin Vacations

Art is what you can get away with. -Andy Warhol

It starts tomorrow!

 

And I can’t wait to see this!

Much Ado About Nothing

After missing the first two Shakespeare in the Park productions, I finally caught SRT’s Much Ado About Nothing at Fort Canning Green last night. Awesome stage and props, although the portrayal of Act 4, Scene i kinda raised my eyebrows (a Chinese wedding in Sicily in the 1600s? Surely that’s pushing the envelope a little far?).

 

Favourite lines from the play, from Act 2, Scene i:

 

LEONATO

You may light on a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICE

What should I do with him? dress him in my apparel
and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a
beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no
beard is less than a man: and he that is more than
a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a
man, I am not for him: therefore, I will even take
sixpence in earnest of the bear-ward, and lead his
apes into hell.

 

BEATRICE

The fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be
not wooed in good time: if the prince be too
important, tell him there is measure in every thing
and so dance out the answer. For, hear me, Hero:
wooing, wedding, and repenting, is as a Scotch jig,
a measure, and a cinque pace: the first suit is hot
and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as
fantastical; the wedding, mannerly-modest, as a
measure, full of state and ancientry; and then comes
repentance and, with his bad legs, falls into the
cinque pace faster and faster, till he sink into his grave.