I'm going to Cambodia for Flying Circus Project, 6 to 14 December.

Serving as documenter again - so regular updates will be appearing on the Flying Circus Project Wordpress Blog. As soon as we're back, we'll do a SUPERINTENSE presentation on 16 Jan at 72:13 in Singapore. Here's the publicity:

TheatreWorks / 72-13 presents

Flying Circus Project Platform 03
SUPERINTENSE

Superintense: 16 January 2010

Airan Berg, Ashok Sukumaran, Eszter Salamon, Filiz Sizanli, Gurur Ertem, Hafiz Dhaou, Heman Chong, Hu Fang, Janez Jansa, Janez Jansa, Jecko Siompo, Manuel Pelmus, Mia Haugland Habib, Mustafa Kaplan, Nelisiwe Xaba, Shaina Anand, Tarek Atoui, Tim Etchells, Vlatka Horvat, Zulkifle Mahmod.


Superintense is a marathon of personal strategies of creativity in the urban context, in our worlds. From one morning to the next, all the FCP artists will have an hour each to present their work, their practice to themselves and a public audience. A table, a projector, a microphone, an audience; which can all be reconstructed into an open space – the same conditions are given to each artist. They are invited to share their practice with the audience; past work, present work, future work. It can take the form of a talk, a lecture-demonstration, a performance, slides, a video, a DJ session, a workshop, a discussion. Without a break, all the artists relentlessly articulate their practice, communicating an insight to the myriad ways of inhabiting, dissolving, thinking, making, living, destroying, rejuvenating. An actor, an audience, a shared space. Take a cigarette pause on the run.

Date: 16 January 2010
Time: 11am till late
Venue: 72-13 Mohamed Sultan Road
Admission: Free

Oh, and before I leave tomorrow morning, here's a map of where I've been so far:


visited 40 states (17.7%)
Create your own visited map of The World

So much of the world left to see!!!!

And a farewell to 2009...

It's a mashup of the year's 25 top pop hits, by DJ Earworm. For a better view, go to the HD page on Youtube.

It's a massive development over his already very fine 2008 and 2007 mashups. Personally, though, I feel his finest work is the mashup "No More Gas":




This is what the DJ said when he uploaded the track in '08:

…Lately in pop music there’s been this growing undercurrent of dysfunction and desperation.

Leona Lewis talks about love in terms of flesh wounds, Akon sings of girls being dangerous, Danity Kane complains of being damaged, Ne-Yo is unable to control himself, Rihanna is going crazy.

Meanwhile a burning hunger for more cries out: The Pussycat Dolls, Britney, and Lupe Fiasco all desire fame, attention, recognition, and they encourage the listener to feel the same way. All this, mixed in with Madonna’s pre-apocalyptic pop song plus Estelle and Kanye’s transatlantic lovefest, starts to paint a picture of where our culture is today, overwhelmed by our own raging appetites, even as we run out of what we need.

And you can dance to it!

UPDATE: I've just found out he's a gay man, too. Used to spin for a San Francisco party called Faggot. See here.

Texts Dec 2009

Happy New Year!!! And here's the last of the books I read from 2009... oddly enough, no poetry this time round.

*FICTION*
+Amélie Nothomb’s “Sulphuric Acid”
+Mae West’s “She Done Him Wrong”
+“Body 2 Body: A Malaysian Queer Anthology” ed. Pang Khee Teik and Jerome Kugan
+Susanna Vance’s “Sights”

*DRAMA*
Sim Teow Li’s “Curios”
+Vijay Nair’s “The Gloomy Rabbit and Other Plays”

*NON-FICTION*
+QI, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson’s “QI: The Pocket Book of General Ignorance”
+Mark Ravinder Frost and Yu-mei Balasingamchow “Singapore: A Biography”

*UNCLASSIFIABLE"
+Parvez Devan's "The Book of Hanuman"

*GRAPHIC TEXTS*
+Troy Chin’s “The Resident Tourist”, Parts 2 and 3
+Philip Ardagh’s “The Lawless Sisters”
+Amruta Patil’s “Kari”
+Edward Gorey’s “Amphigorey Again”
+Chester Brown’s “I Never Liked You”

*PERFORMANCES*
+The Finger Players’ “Cat, Lost and Found”
+STAGES’ “Chestnuts Does Christmas Like a Hard Candy Virgin”

*EXHIBITIONS*
+National Gallery of Modern Art, Bengaluru’s ““Signposts of the Times”
Fort St George, Chennai’s permanent exhibiton
National Museum of Singapore’s +“Quest for Immortality – the World of Ancient Egypt”, +“THE BAG: Carrier bags in Singapore from the 1950s to the 1980s” and “Spot & Shoot 2009: Our Landscape”

*FILMS*
+Ron Clements and John Musker’s “The Princess and the Frog”
+James Cameron’s “Avatar”

Three Cheers for ACT3!!!!

With my editor's permission, I reworked an article for my kids' newspaper into a story for The Online Citizen, paying tribute to Singapore's first professional theatre group on their 25th anniversary. (Hint: it's not TheatreWorks.)

Going clockwise from the top, that's Jasmin Sumaat Simon, Ruby Lim-Yang and Rama Chandran, from their first publicity photo in 1981. (Wah lau, they're old.)

Click here.

National Columbarium of Singapore

My short story, "Nostalgia", on Five Foot Way, based on artist Michael Lee Hong Hwee's installation at the National Museum.

I'm not actually happy with the written version yet, so it's best if you listen to it in audio. It's supposed to be a little creepy. :)

(Image by Stephen Black).

@ School in Bengaluru!!!

As promised, here are photos from my workshop at Widia Poorna Pragna School:







And a few from Jnana Vijnana Vidyapeetha:










Sadly, no shots from the last school, whose name escapes me for the time being (though it was terribly posh). Camera breakdown, doncha know. The assistant teacher said she might mail me some, but don't hold your breath.

UPDATE: The last school's name was MES Kishore Kendra Public School. Wrote 'em all down in my notebook.

I'm back in Singapore! Unfortunately I can't chatter and post a lot of pics yet 'cos I have a...

DEADLINE.

Oh yeah, and merry Christmas. :)