I want to wear pants and sleeves, I want to put on a toque and a jacket, I want to shiver in the line for Tim Hortons coffee or hocho. The lack of a cool season here is leaving me very confused; I've been here more than three months but it still feels like summer. The weather is still warm, the beach still beckons, and the sole jacket I brought (more of a windbreaker, really) sits unused in my modest closet.
I'm trying to cope, though, to trick myself into believing that it really is fall. I've switched out playlists, swapping the club beats, remixes, mashups, and electropop anthems with more fitting musical offerings of jazz, acoustic, and stripped down vocal performances. It's not Music Monday yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this new list heavily features KT Tunstall, Jamie Cullum, Melody Gardot, and Kings of Convenience. Give 'em all a look, although each will likely make an appearance in the MM posts within the next few months.
Despite my longing for autumn months back home, I'm rather disappointed that I have to leave Singapore so soon. I've only got six more weeks here, three of which will be spent travelling. There's just so much I haven't done yet that I want to fit in: the Singapore Flyer, Marina Barrage, Henderson Wave, East Coast Park, Pulau Ubin. And then there's all the travel I want to do as well. Guess I'll have to come back to Southeast Asia in a few years, eh?
I've recently hit a milestone of 5000 page views. Hurrah for me! To celebrate this momentous occasion I'm taking a look back through my most popular posts.
First, though, some thank-you's are in order. Ana Cristina, thanks for sending almost 500 hits my way! Also deserving is Burndtree, who has boosted my traffic with almost 200 hits from his blog. Combined, you two rival Google in terms of traffic sources! Now for that recap. Making Connections - Molly Millions and Quorra receives tonnes of hits daily from Google image searches, with almost 600 page views to date! In it I looked at the similarities between a character in William Gibson's "Neuromancer" and the recent "Tron: Legacy" film. It was a short post, rather hastily put together, and something I will likely expand on when I get back to Canada. Tattoo three, Round two puzzles me with it's place as the number two most visited post on my blog. According to the stats from Blogger, I can once again thank Google image search for this one, with most search terms looking for phoenix or Russian tattoos. Oddly, though, my follow-up post with actual photos of the finished work has little relative traffic. Huh. Zouk is a post from my early days in Singapore, back when I still had lots of time to spend exploring the popular clubs each weekend (not that I don't now, hah). This post is popular because it was posted on the Zouk Facebook page as a look into the Ang Moh (read: foreign) perspective of the popular Mambo Jambo craze. I should probably go back before I ship out!
My True Colours was the third post on my blog, and a long one. Most of the hits come from people looking for the True Colors personality test (durr). It was something we did as part of our RA experience, and the results have proved to be almost creepily accurate. I'm still as green as ever, with little if any blue. If you haven't taken the test before, I highly recommend it. Share it around, too; it's cool to see how your friends (and family!) compare to you.
Well, those are my four most looked at posts, each with at least 100 views. Of course, the stats can't account for posts viewed as a part of the homepage.
In closing, I'd like to put it out there that I've signed up for Tumblr, a micro-blog. I'm not actually blogging on it, but more-or-less just using it for what most Tumblr do: post random tidbits from the interwebs that they found interesting/comical/cute/rad. So it's not a blogging replacement, but rather a companion to this blog. Or something like that.
second image by deadinsane, third image by unknown, fourth image by @llie's @ttic, all other images created by me.
I've just come back from a weekend vacation to Pulau Tioman, a tropical island off the East Coast of Malaysia. I know that I already live on an island in the tropics, Singapore, but it's just not tropical enough. The beach scene is quite lacking here, y'know? So I set off with two friends to Johor Bahru, just across the strait, to catch a regional coach to Mersing and then a boat to the island. All that travel time was definitely worth it.
Tioman is your stereotypical tropical island. On approach, the first thing you see is the massive mountain covered in jungle descending into the ocean, with waves crashing against the rocks. This gives way to long stretches of sandy beaches, lines with palm trees and hammocks. We spent a lot of time in those hammocks, actually...
We were afraid that the weather would be sour, as the forecast was calling for heavy rain all weekend. Luckily, we were spared. The downpour didn't start until this morning when we were getting ready to leave, and it put even the Singaporean rain storms to shame. There were a few panicky moments where we were afraid that the ferries would be cancelled.
But back to the beach. I have never seen water so blue in my life. It was like a tanker carrying blue food colouring sunk nearby. And the water was incredibly clear, too. We went snorkelling and saw tonnes and tonnes of fish. They are very social. And curious. More than a few decided to offer my cleaning services, or peck at my mask. I was literally part of the school of fish. Also, I came across a reef shark. It made my day much more rad.
So, this is a Music Monday post, and I do have a song, video, and download for you. I'll keep it quick now. The song: "Paradise" by Norwegian Recycling, a mash-up group who offers all their songs for free on their website. The video is below for your listening and viewing convenience. Cheers!
I've recently discovered that, every now and again, Bloggers like to pat each other on the back. "Congrats!" on blogger friend or stranger might say. "You succeeded in not looking like a middle schooler's Geocities page!" I realize I may be dating myself with that comment...
Well, the other day one such bloggy friend saw it fit to throw one such accolade my way, in the form of a Versatile Blogger Award. The catch is that I now have to do stuff.
Task one: thank your awarder. Thanks, Elo! Task one, check.
Task two: share seven random facts about yourself.
After I graduated from high school, my birthday and Christmas wishlists were suddenly full of kitchen appliances. Because I am an adult, or something like that, I guess?
Every day I wear two necklaces, one with a coin from some miscellaneous East Asian country that is probably defunct, and another with a charm carved by an child in Kenya.
One week of Cyrillic cursive made me forget years of English cursive. I now have trouble writing even my own name in cursive.
Regardless of age, I call all dogs "Puppy."
I re-read books a lot. As in there are some book series on my shelf that I've read three or four times.
Task three: pass it along.
Hmm... I don't wanna repeat what Elo has already done, but I would pass it off to Marc and Burndtree. Well, I guess recognition shall go to Ana Cristina and Dru, then! Congrats!
Last night I attended the opening of the Bollywood film "Ra.One," starring Shahrukh Khan and Kareena Kapoor, two big names in India. That's the poster there on the right, and it's definitely not what you would expect from Bollywood. To be honest, I'm reminded of the cover art for classic PC games like Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. That said, "Ra.One" is definitely not like other Bollywood movies.
To date it is the most expensive film out of the Mumbai-based industry, as well as the most widely screened. It's one of a few new superhero-type movies, a genre borrowed from Hollywood and given an Indian twist. You can see clear influences not just from Hollywood, but from Hong Kong as well, with choreographed fight scenes involving superhuman feats of grace and agility.
But how was the film itself? I'd say that I liked it. I wouldn't
recommend it to just anyone, as the genre conventions of Bollywood are
quite different from their Hollywood counterpart, especially in this
newly developed genre and style. For instance, if I were to compare this
film to Hollywood, I would say that visually it's "Tron: Legacy,"
"Fantastic Four," and "Iron Man," but it has the narrative conventions
of a kid's action film such as "Spy Kids." Granted, I watched the entire
film in Hindi without subtitles, so the only humour I got were the
visual gags, usually to do with getting hit in the balls or air humping.
Mature stuff, y'know?
The storyline was really simple, though, so I didn't have much trouble following along. I went with a friend from Delhi (and a huuuge SRK fan), so she explained a few of the cultural references that were made. For instance, the names of the main protagonist and the antagonist are puns, with the name Ra.One (the villain) pronounced Ravan (a Hindu antagonistic figure in legend) and G.One (the hero) pronounced Jeevan (Hindi for "life"). Savvy?
So with a feel much akin to Hollywood superhero movies and a visual style mixed with Hong Kong cinema, the sole thing that makes this film stand out is what makes the heart of Bollywood cinema: song and dance numbers. Despite being an action film, "Ra.One" had two dance numbers in the film itself and another in the credits, and a few more songs as well. These were my absolute favourite moments, I think, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't search down part of the soundtrack.
It has some very modern moments, again something I didn't expect from a Bollywood film. One of the songs is even in the newly popular dubstep style, with lots of wubwubwub instead of unstunstunst (among my friends, that is a perfectly valid way of communicating musical style).
What's really funny, though, is that not all the songs are by Indians: two are sung by Akon. Yes, Akon. In Hindi as well as in English (though he still finds time to throw in a "shawty" or two). I'm not too sure how often an American music star teams up with an Indian production, but based on what I think is a pretty solid assumption I think we can chalk this up as another of "Ra.One"s firsts. And no, I'm not counting that Pussycat Doll remake of "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire."
I think I've written more than enough, so I'll leave you with two videos. Up first is one of the trailers for the film, which I chose because of the variety of action shots and cinematographic techniques it shows. Second is one of the songs by Akon and the official music video, which is comprised of various shots from the film where SRK lip syncs Akons lyrics. It's quite the sight!
all photos by Eros International Ltd. and Red Chillies Entertainment from the film Ra.One (2011)
I want to wear pants and sleeves, I want to put on a toque and a jacket, I want to shiver in the line for Tim Hortons coffee or hocho. The lack of a cool season here is leaving me very confused; I've been here more than three months but it still feels like summer. The weather is still warm, the beach still beckons, and the sole jacket I brought (more of a windbreaker, really) sits unused in my modest closet.
I'm trying to cope, though, to trick myself into believing that it really is fall. I've switched out playlists, swapping the club beats, remixes, mashups, and electropop anthems with more fitting musical offerings of jazz, acoustic, and stripped down vocal performances. It's not Music Monday yet, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that this new list heavily features KT Tunstall, Jamie Cullum, Melody Gardot, and Kings of Convenience. Give 'em all a look, although each will likely make an appearance in the MM posts within the next few months.
