high

Reading essays written by poets makes me ridiculously happy. Especially the ones in which you sense the writer is reaching for something new, deforming or transforming language in the same way matter is deformed or transformed by heat, to say something that has never been said before. Even more exhilarating, when that linguistic alchemy brings together knowledge from different fields -- politics, economics, science, philosophy, art -- and in that juxtaposition, makes us see anew.
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Who needs cannabis when you can get high on reading.

[Edit: 29 Dec 2012.

Epiphany. This tells me that i want to be a poet. (One dares not say, i am a poet. At least, not until one has published a first poetry collection.) It's not essays in themselves that get to me. It's essays written by poets. It's language -- the use of metaphor, juxtaposition and resonance -- that gets to me. And that solves the dilemma of genre and country as far as the hoped-for-future is concerned. So now, to start reading poetry again. To once again immerse myself in it, this time with a sense of purpose that i didn't have before, no thanks to the lack of faith that wrestled with all that intense, irrational love. i need a reading programme.]


[Edit #2: 5 Jan 2013.

Now that the high of that initial epiphany has passed, Real Life is intruding as i always knew it would, and i'm chaffing against the necessity of drawing lines and boundaries so that Serious Real Life Things such as organising workshops and writing programmes can be smoothly facilitated. Yes yes of course i know that genre lines have to be drawn; i'm a teacher too, and i understand. But after D's casual comment over supper about how the literary world is so much more regimented than the art world, and after being given a glimpse of how, over in the art world, things are done so differently...
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Ok. Time to Stop Whining And Get A Move On. So if i want to work at the boundary between two genres, if i want everything at once and cannot just settle for the one usual thing, well, then i should just get on with it, do my own thing and pay whatever price needs to be paid. Either that, or just give up this mostly-untested vision i've been holding on to, buckle down and follow the rules, and pay the price that needs to be paid there too.

When i told D that i wished i could just be a single-genre, one-trick-pony kind of writer; she looked at me and went, "Yeah right. You'd be bored." She's right.]
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quarry

How to take something you know intuitively, and somehow analyse it, break it down into its component bits and name them one by one? But perhaps this quarry that i've been chasing for the last few years is simply not something that will yield itself to such easy articulation. Maybe i should talk to more people, instead of just doing this on my own.
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incarnation (2)

"He is the image of the invisible God..."
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(Colossians 1:15)
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It's Christmas. And i'm back to writing Christmas blogposts - after a 2-year hiatus. Where has all that time gone?
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In the hands of the One who holds all time in His hands, i guess. So anyway, this Christmas, i'm picking up from where i left off in 2009 -- with the Incarnation. All thanks to SJ, and the Chinese homegroup, and the weeks we spent going round and round in circles trying to wrap our minds around Christ's dual nature as both God and man. In Chinese. Honestly, if anyone had told me one year ago that i'd end up in a church with a South African head-pastor and half the congregation from America or Europe, and yet be happily hanging out with a bunch of cheena Singaporeans and Malaysians so different from the rest of my friends, reading the Bible in Chinese, learning to pray in Chinese, and even discussing theology in Chinese (or rather, listening to other people discussing theology in Chinese), i'd have laughed in their faces (and fallen off my chair while doing it). But i guess that just goes to show how weird life can be -- infinitely stranger than fiction.
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So there we were, getting ourselves mired deeper and deeper in philosophical concepts that take even the most learned scholars a lifetime to fully understand; and by the end of those manymany weeks, the Chinese term for 'person' or 'personhood' (位格) had become a bit of an in-joke with all of us in the group. But thanks to this befuddlement, i came away from that entire study series appreciating, for the first time, the mystery of the Incarnation.
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How did Jesus do it? How did the cells in His body not simply explode, implode, disintegrate, be zapped and utterly annihilated by the force of His Godhood? How do infinity and its opposite (what is the opposite of infinity?) coexist in the same ... person?
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At some point during the study series, it suddenly dawned on me with all the surprise of a revelation how utterly incomprehensible Christ is, how incomprehensible God is, and yet, at the same time, how Jesus made God visible, approachable, to even the smallest child. How, by taking on human flesh, God made it possible for us to access the inaccessible -- made it possible for us to partake in a miracle. i think that was the point when, for the first time in my life, i felt awe: i became ready to truly worship.
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And the other thing that has been on my mind lately -- partly thanks to ongoing conversations with XY my missionary-in-Taiwan friend and K my fellow writer-who-is-a-Christian friend, partly thanks to my continuing effort to pin down and articulate the difference that i intuitively sense between the way Catholics and Protestants typically live their faith -- is the question of what the Incarnation means for us on the day-to-day level. What does it look like -- a life that embodies, or incarnates, the love of Christ to the world around us?
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So, given all of this backstory, of course Pastor S would be talking about the incarnation during his Christmas Eve sermon today, and of course he would be quoting the "world-renowned musician Paul Hewson" (aka Bono) on just exactly what incarnation means:

"On Christmas Eve I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. …It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story. The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough. That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in straw poverty… a child, I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry. Unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable. There it was. I was sitting there, and …tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. Because that’s exactly what we were talking about earlier: love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered. To me, it makes sense. It’s actually logical. It’s pure logic. Essence has to manifest itself. It’s inevitable. Love has to become an action or something concrete. It would have to happen. There must be an incarnation. Love must be made flesh."
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May Love find all of us this Christmas.
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words to live by

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name;
You are Mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.
For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Saviour...
Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honoured,
And I have loved you.
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(Isaiah 43:1 - 4)
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hobbling Hobbit

Just watched Peter Jackson's latest. It's a beautifully-shot film, with gorgeous special effects, and it presents such a richly-realised Middle Earth that you do have to admit the man's done his homework. i just wish it were about one hour shorter. The whole thing just hobbles from start to finish... for all of almost 3 hours ... If Peter Jackson really wanted to take his time with all those gorgeous-looking set pieces, he should have released an edited version for the cinemas, and saved this one for the director's cut in the special DVD box set.
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Anyway, quotable quote from Gandalf the Grey, as usual:
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"Saruman believes it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I've found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage."
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Hmmm. Something to think about this Advent season.
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infinitely quotable

i'm starting to find Milan Kundera infinitely quotable. Or maybe it's just this particular essay collection, and how my thoughts seem to be trailing in his footsteps these last couple of weeks, clumsily stumbling where he's gone before, trying to keep up.
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"I have always, deeply, violently, detested those who look for a position (political, philosophical, religious, whatever) in a work of art rather than searching it for an effort to know, to understand, to grasp this or that aspect of reality."
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(Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed: An Essay In Nine Parts)
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He goes on to talk about the beauty of the barbaric in Stravinsky's Rite of Spring -- something i'm not so ready to agree with or endorse, in the light of so much that has happened in recent years. But yes -- this aversion to art as propaganda, it's always been there, although i wouldn't go so far as to say that i deeply violently detest the people who wish to see art in such terms. Seems to me a bit too trivial a thing to get deeply violently upset about; and definitely not enough of a reason to detest anyone. (i mean, getalife, seriously. There's so much more to life than Art.)
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But yeah -- an aversion to art being seen as propaganda; together with a deep fear of my writing being harnessed for some purpose external to my own. i think it's for this reason that i find i cannot ally myself with the-group-formerly-known-as-CLV -- lovely though the people are, and much as i can understand what they're trying to do. It feels too determined, like it has an agenda, no matter how well-intentioned. It's funny -- i'm sure there are people there who do understand where i'm coming from, who are artists themselves, in fact, and would claim to feel the same. Yet they are still there. Maybe they're seeing something that i'm not seeing.
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beyond logic

Reading up on the gun culture in the US, the one thing that i'm getting from all the studies and op-eds is this: culture and values are beyond logic. It's impossible for me to understand why America continues to cling to its guns when it seems so clear, to me at least, that the cost in lost human lives far outweighs any benefits that might come with sticking closely to the Constitution, protecting the "rights" of sportsmen and hunters, or even the need for self-defence against those very same firearms that can so easily be bought and used by other people (vicious circle, i know...).
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And i think that blaming politicians, or the NRA gun lobby, or whatever, is really just dodging the issue. It seems like the truth is that Americans just love their guns. And that there are enough Americans who love their guns enough to make it difficult for politicians to effect any changes to gun laws within their democratic electoral system. And that there is no reasonable explanation for that love -- it is fundamentally irrational.
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Culture is irrational, values are irrational -- and i mean that in a neutral, non-pejorative sense -- and that's the glory and the horror of it. i guess i'm thinking now of things like America's gun culture that i find myself not just not sharing, but opposed to. But the same fundamental irrationality applies to beliefs / practices that i'm not opposed to, even if i do not share them; and of course also to my own most deeply-held beliefs and values.
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Which is why it's really pointless to get into conflicts with other people over culture or values. Such conflicts can only end in stalemate, or in an endless cycle of attacks and counter-attacks that just keep on doing more and more damage without ever coming any nearer to any sort of resolution. Which, as a friend pointed out, is where the guns (whether literal or metaphorical) eventually come into the picture.
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Human Nature 101.
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in the aftermath

It's been more than a year since Utøya -- and the media has of course moved on to other tragedies, other disasters. Always more than enough current suffering to fill the pages; no time, no space, no need to revisit old pain. And after all, healing and rebuilding is slow and unspectacular work -- not the kind of thing to make the headlines. And i don't think anyone wants it to, either.
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i wonder what's become of the families who lost their loved ones on that fateful summer day. And i wonder what's going on in Norway as far as the politics is concerned -- all those freedoms that they felt were being threatened as a result of the shootings and bombing. i wonder if the place has changed, as people said it would.
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bored of beethoven

You know you really need to go find some new music when, upon hearing a fragment of Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, a piece you used to love and listen to over and over again, all you can think is: Man, those chords are so boring.
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Actually, it's not just Beethoven. It's anything with conventional harmonies and melodies -- which basically means, most of the music i usually listen to.
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Maybe some acid jazz? House music? Middle Eastern hip-hop? Ambient music? African tribal dances?
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Thank God for YouTube.
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bittersweet symphony

Ok, so tea is not music, but it's a cool song, so i'm stealing the title; and it reminds me of London, and i'm also loving the bittersweet snow tea from China that i'm drinking right now -- found, according to the internet, growing at higher altitudes in Yunnan. i love the initial bitterness, and the sweet lingering aftertaste once the tea has washed down one's throat. It lingers for hours. And even if i did not like the bitterness, i'd still go through with it for the sweetness that comes after.
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rach / bach

The difference between listening to a Rachmaninov concerto and a Bach fugue.
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'As if, behind the art of melody, there hid two possibile intentionalities, contrary to one another: as if a Bach fugue, by bringing us to contemplate a beauty of being that is outside the subjective, aimed to make us forget our moods, our passions and pains, ourselves; and as if on the other hand Romantic melody aimed to make us plunge into ourselves, feel the self with a terrible intensity, and forget everything outside.'
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(from Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts)
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i think it's going to rain today

Just discovered this song, covered by Nina Simone. Love the way she plays the opening (sounds almost like Bach in its elegance) and the quasi-Debussy-sounding chords at the end.
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And here's Randy Newman, performing his own song. The orchestral accompaniment on top of the piano makes it sound so different from Nina Simone's more austere version.
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laudate

Thank God, thank God, thank God a thousand times over for not giving me what i thought i wanted.
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..........................*..................................*..................................*
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Another blazing hot morning followed by a wet, cold monsoon afternoon, and an Aladdin's cave of a day: cookies-and-cream ice-cream, ducks, pigeons, swan, and catfish at the Botanic Gardens, Zadok Ben-David's quietly-haunting rust-coloured sculptures, Sofia Coppola, Radiohead, Jamie Callum, Audubon, Milan Kundera, Borges, Jack Gilbert, chicken rice and jasmine tea, Microsoft Word invoice templates, industrial-strength magnets, a ukelele, bitter snow tea with its sweet lingering aftertaste, the company of artists, and the quiet easiness of an old friendship where anything can be said and therefore nothing needs to be said.
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away from all camps

Was just reminded of this today.
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"Though this is a large country, so large that you would think there would be space for everyone, what I have learned of life tells me that it is hard to keep out of the camps. Yet I am convinced there are areas that lie between the camps and belong to no camp... I am looking for such a place in order to settle there..."
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(from J.M. Coetzee, Life & Times of Michael K)
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trouble in paradise

Singapore was recently ranked 6th in a quality-of-life survey by the Economist -- just below Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and Switzerland. I wonder how we would have fared if the study had included stuff like human rights in its list of variables.
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In other news. Another study, this one very interesting, especially in light of the fallout from the recent bus strikes. i wonder what conditions are like for migrant workers from countries other than China.
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Hired On Sufferance: China's Migrant Workers In Singapore
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some untidy spot

Another long conversation at the prata place -- this time accompanied by chicken murtabak, teh-C-ice, teh-O-ice-limau, iced Horlicks and sirup limau -- and i am reminded of this wonderful poem that for some strange reason has never been posted on this blog.
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Musée des Beaux Arts
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About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
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In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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(W.H. Auden)
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ornithology

Kay Ryan. First heard of her about 4 years ago, but it took a journey of more than 20,000km, there and back, to make me see her genius. Well. Better late than never.
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i think i'd better take her advice and go check out some ornithology. Or maybe just stamp collecting. Just in case.
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When Fishing Fails
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"Your husband is very lucky," observed Smithers, "to have ornithology to fall back upon when fishing fails."
...............................Cyril Hare, Death Is No Sportsman
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When fishing fails, when no bait avails,
and nothing speaks in liquid hints
of where the fishes went for weeks,
and dimpled ponds and silver creeks
go flat and tarnish, it's nice if
you can finish up your sandwich,
pack your thermos, and ford
this small hiatus toward
a second mild and absorbing purpose.
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