Being here in Singapore is not merely giving me a chance to explore a new country. It is also allowing me some much required brain space, breathing time, peace and quiet from the regular, tumultuous cataclysms that is my life in toronto.
I keep writing posts and then not publishing them because they are too long-winded, too detailed. And yet, they work; they slowly draw out the emotion into words like pulling at a loose thread in a spool and watching it unravel. The heap of thread is still there...but it is not so tightly wound.
So it is that these words make me feel. Anyhow, something short and sweet; not resolutions but decisions that I have made in my life, about my life that is going to and will change. In no particular order...
I am going to move out. I must. It is essential if I hope to stay alive and not jump off a cliff. This will entail applying for osap, maybe dropping my cellphone service to a monthly top-off, picking up two extra jobs through the summer and applying more rigorously for scholarships, looking for a roomate and starting the house-search now. Buying furnishings and keeping them stocked fro the day I move out. Which will be by May 31st 2010.
I am going to work out, in a strict regime, every single day. Either a workout or cardio or both. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. No more stupid, fat, body. It is so unattractive not because thin is in...but because its just a sign of how much I don't give a shit. No more apathy. I still love food...shall always love it. But...time to get healthy and not be a couch-rhino. Basically, the idea is to stop ignoring me; to take care of me. Not be lazy...be proactive. Sounds so New Age, I know, but I've been driving myself into the ground and quietly sitting in bed. NO More! I'm going to pay attention to my hair and skin.
I am going to be more organized. Because, in order for these things to fall in place, to get those jobs and pay attention to me, I must be organized. And I will be. No more age-old procrastinator...still going to be laidback, not uptight or dragon-lady about things. But just...care more. Not put things off.
Be more passionate. Well...express that passion instead of just merely bottling it up. Goodness knows I've got oodles of moxy; moxy is practically pouring out my ears.
Treat myself with something classy every once in a while. Not worry that it is frovolous and materialistic. The day will come, I am sure, when I completely shun society and go to live in the mountains like a monk (goodness knows I've been contemplating that over the last year).
Save up enough to retake driving lessons and get my G.
Not be so elitist. Somethings, however, like Miley Cyrus and the new 90210, are unforgiveable.
Stop running away. Stop being so angry. Or...being proactively angry...not explosively so.
Smile more.
Leave in peace. Live in peace. Try not to get bogged down by stupid family shit. Because, soon, that will all be gone. Or at least, the DVP will separate us.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Put Your Records On.
Girl put your record on / Tell me your favourite song / You're gonna find yourself somewhere Somehow
(A.D., you're mine. We are already together. Forever. And I'm having the time of my life with you.)
Friday, May 1, 2009
Moving Pictures
I'm very grateful. For music, for art, for pictures, still, moving, for imagination, for creativity, for immportality, for this plane of existence.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
So Its Not Just Me
Recently, I had an idea for a writing project and so, in research, I started to read Zadie Smith's White Teeth. For all hermits and rock dwellers out there, I'll reiterate: White Teeth is Zadie Smith's debut novel, for which the literary aniticipation was SO high (i dont even know how she got it that way but hell, she must have an amazing Ari-Gold SuperAgent for a literary agent, to get a bidding war started over HALF a manuscript) that when the book finally came out, the literary community pounced on it.
And yet...reading this, I could only maintain my quizzical brow. How to describe White Teeth in non-derogatory terms? How to say how bad it is in a helpful manner without moaning about the utter waste of time it was? How to exlain/understand why the fuck it was so loved? Okay, well that's an easy one. This was written around the Bend It Like Beckham time in England. To give it fair credit, BilB was in 2002 so I'm not insinuating that White Teeth is apeing. But the Asian London fad is hard to miss. Think Jay Sean and all.
But, honestly, for the quality of the book and the sheer number of utter stereotypes in the lives of Black and Asian Londoners relative to white Londoners is...appalling to say the least. There is not one redeeming quality to the book. Not even the wry smile it pulled from me at the butchering pigeons/halal meat shop can redeem the 480 pages of the great big NOTHING I just had to put msyelf through.
And for what? To read some mixed, divorced, over-privileged, 20 something, child's take on what culture is? I agree wholeheartedly that writing about culture - especially one that isn't your own - takes a huge amount of courage. Because you're always going to run into people who say well THIS is not the correct representation of me or my culture, this is not our people's general attitude, don't generalize, blahblahblah. And I get that, truly I do. Because, culture in itself is sort of a generalization too, isn't it? Any culture for that matter - the mere meaning of the word groupds together a mass of people. So, yes, there are going to be generalizations.
But my gosh! At least make it the right KIND of generalization! At least get it right. I'm not indignant because I'm Asian or I was a Londoner or anything. I'm indignant because the author seems to have taken NO pains whatsoever to research! To immerse herself, meet with people who are different, to truly go out there and capture the soul of a peoples. And for crying out loud, she had a 6 figure paycheck as an incentive! What was she doing sitting on her ass, screwing about with pre-Nick Laird-boyfriend??!
There are tons of people who swear by the book, tons of people (Salman Rushdie included) that would gamble their literary reputations (as the endorsements littered on the jacket of the book can only lead me to believe) on what they think is the utter bible penned by a 20 year old with amazing insight into cultural communities and immigrants of London.
Let me tell you: it is not. Here's what White Teeth is: it is a mish mash of stereotypes - horny brown man, disgruntled white man, radical youth, absolutely 1 dimensional wives...the list is endless. And the reason it is so revered is because White Teeth...is for white people.
Seriously. The ones who put this book up on a pedestal are either naive people who tend to like their cultures oversimplified, commoditized and packaged, the people who have NO insight into multi-cultural lives or have lived around immigrants and are delusional enough to think that they are "in the know".
Yeah. Okay. LOL, is what I gotta say to that. It is utterly insulting, I think, that the author thought that she would sit in her apartment (and the apartments of others) and pen characters that are empty, hollow, and complete caricatures of just about every South Asian stereotypes you might have come across. The book lacks focus - what is she talking about? Love? Friendship? War? The Immigrant status? What? And more importantly...why do I care?
I'm an immigrant, technically speaking. Born in India, never lived there, move to Bahrain, then to London, then to New York back and forth and Toronto. I couldn't say I fully understand culture but I love to steep myself in it. I couldn't define it (at least not in such flat, dry terms as Zadie Smith) but I feel it all around me. Smith, on the other hand, is trying to package a Bollywood Crossover, an cheap imitation of Nair (in terms of pull of different cultures) and Rushdie in literary style, trying to write on the lives of people she clearly has no knowledge of...and doesn't seem to want to take the effort of getting to know!
While her use of colloquial dialogue is accurate, at best, the rest of the novel completely falls short. I don't know how she expected us to eat this garbage up; honestly speaking, i'm quite surprised. Her mother is Jamaican and her father is English and you'd think that she might have some empathy and understanding for stereotypes and the way they ensconce. But no...I have read English authors with more authority and panache with a similar topic, who excute a story in a much more unassuming, less brash, not as pretentious manner than what White Teeth has done with its poor, lifeless characters.
My thoughts, after reading such a massively POINTLESS novel are as follows: how dare she waste trees for this? How could they pay her so much money to spew out crap that she has clearly taken from silly crossover movies and the new "south asian author" fad that is going on? It is like she sat home and watched television, possibly re-runs of Skins and wrote this. Unbelieveably insulting that she clearly did NO research.
Not only is it slightly incoherent, what with the pastiche of timelines but its characters are unbearable. On more than one occassion I wanted to smack Samad and the lot (maybe not Clara though) because they were SO. RIDICULOUSLY. PREDICTABLE. This should have been marketed as a satire, seriously, because that is the only way I can take it seriously. If I knew that the book was aware of the caricature it was drawing up and thus mocking books that take this pretentious tone on the subject of immigrant-fare then I would've understood, maybe even clapped.
And to think: the painting of such a ridiculous, farsical image of immigrants from the country that gave us John Berger and the Ways of Seeing. For shame.
The book is serious. It is not a satire. It is not a farce. And it has been nominated for awards and the like. THAT is the satire, that is the comic tragedy, I think!
Which means two things: people are easy to amuse; everyone is looking for an easy packaged image or representation and nobody wants to question; everyone is happy getting fed utter bullshit.
And those literary awards are published by idiotic people who consider themselves scholars but eat up Deepak Chopra and Yoga like its going out of style and love Indian culture for its "bright colours" and "beautiful rituals" and "diverse people" and all that other people-commoditizing-a-culture speak.
Culture is a lot of things. I wouldn't presume to be the expert on its definition. But I know one thing for sure: culture sure as hell isn't White Teeth. If I didn't have any backbone, I would say I wish I had capitalized on this, thought of doing this first; I wish I had though to throw in stereotypical, idiotic, careless, farsical caricatures of several characters and show how their lives are all connected like a twisted version of Love, Actually.
Major Fails. Actually.
And yet...reading this, I could only maintain my quizzical brow. How to describe White Teeth in non-derogatory terms? How to say how bad it is in a helpful manner without moaning about the utter waste of time it was? How to exlain/understand why the fuck it was so loved? Okay, well that's an easy one. This was written around the Bend It Like Beckham time in England. To give it fair credit, BilB was in 2002 so I'm not insinuating that White Teeth is apeing. But the Asian London fad is hard to miss. Think Jay Sean and all.
But, honestly, for the quality of the book and the sheer number of utter stereotypes in the lives of Black and Asian Londoners relative to white Londoners is...appalling to say the least. There is not one redeeming quality to the book. Not even the wry smile it pulled from me at the butchering pigeons/halal meat shop can redeem the 480 pages of the great big NOTHING I just had to put msyelf through.
And for what? To read some mixed, divorced, over-privileged, 20 something, child's take on what culture is? I agree wholeheartedly that writing about culture - especially one that isn't your own - takes a huge amount of courage. Because you're always going to run into people who say well THIS is not the correct representation of me or my culture, this is not our people's general attitude, don't generalize, blahblahblah. And I get that, truly I do. Because, culture in itself is sort of a generalization too, isn't it? Any culture for that matter - the mere meaning of the word groupds together a mass of people. So, yes, there are going to be generalizations.
But my gosh! At least make it the right KIND of generalization! At least get it right. I'm not indignant because I'm Asian or I was a Londoner or anything. I'm indignant because the author seems to have taken NO pains whatsoever to research! To immerse herself, meet with people who are different, to truly go out there and capture the soul of a peoples. And for crying out loud, she had a 6 figure paycheck as an incentive! What was she doing sitting on her ass, screwing about with pre-Nick Laird-boyfriend??!
There are tons of people who swear by the book, tons of people (Salman Rushdie included) that would gamble their literary reputations (as the endorsements littered on the jacket of the book can only lead me to believe) on what they think is the utter bible penned by a 20 year old with amazing insight into cultural communities and immigrants of London.
Let me tell you: it is not. Here's what White Teeth is: it is a mish mash of stereotypes - horny brown man, disgruntled white man, radical youth, absolutely 1 dimensional wives...the list is endless. And the reason it is so revered is because White Teeth...is for white people.
Seriously. The ones who put this book up on a pedestal are either naive people who tend to like their cultures oversimplified, commoditized and packaged, the people who have NO insight into multi-cultural lives or have lived around immigrants and are delusional enough to think that they are "in the know".
Yeah. Okay. LOL, is what I gotta say to that. It is utterly insulting, I think, that the author thought that she would sit in her apartment (and the apartments of others) and pen characters that are empty, hollow, and complete caricatures of just about every South Asian stereotypes you might have come across. The book lacks focus - what is she talking about? Love? Friendship? War? The Immigrant status? What? And more importantly...why do I care?
I'm an immigrant, technically speaking. Born in India, never lived there, move to Bahrain, then to London, then to New York back and forth and Toronto. I couldn't say I fully understand culture but I love to steep myself in it. I couldn't define it (at least not in such flat, dry terms as Zadie Smith) but I feel it all around me. Smith, on the other hand, is trying to package a Bollywood Crossover, an cheap imitation of Nair (in terms of pull of different cultures) and Rushdie in literary style, trying to write on the lives of people she clearly has no knowledge of...and doesn't seem to want to take the effort of getting to know!
While her use of colloquial dialogue is accurate, at best, the rest of the novel completely falls short. I don't know how she expected us to eat this garbage up; honestly speaking, i'm quite surprised. Her mother is Jamaican and her father is English and you'd think that she might have some empathy and understanding for stereotypes and the way they ensconce. But no...I have read English authors with more authority and panache with a similar topic, who excute a story in a much more unassuming, less brash, not as pretentious manner than what White Teeth has done with its poor, lifeless characters.
My thoughts, after reading such a massively POINTLESS novel are as follows: how dare she waste trees for this? How could they pay her so much money to spew out crap that she has clearly taken from silly crossover movies and the new "south asian author" fad that is going on? It is like she sat home and watched television, possibly re-runs of Skins and wrote this. Unbelieveably insulting that she clearly did NO research.
Not only is it slightly incoherent, what with the pastiche of timelines but its characters are unbearable. On more than one occassion I wanted to smack Samad and the lot (maybe not Clara though) because they were SO. RIDICULOUSLY. PREDICTABLE. This should have been marketed as a satire, seriously, because that is the only way I can take it seriously. If I knew that the book was aware of the caricature it was drawing up and thus mocking books that take this pretentious tone on the subject of immigrant-fare then I would've understood, maybe even clapped.
And to think: the painting of such a ridiculous, farsical image of immigrants from the country that gave us John Berger and the Ways of Seeing. For shame.
The book is serious. It is not a satire. It is not a farce. And it has been nominated for awards and the like. THAT is the satire, that is the comic tragedy, I think!
Which means two things: people are easy to amuse; everyone is looking for an easy packaged image or representation and nobody wants to question; everyone is happy getting fed utter bullshit.
And those literary awards are published by idiotic people who consider themselves scholars but eat up Deepak Chopra and Yoga like its going out of style and love Indian culture for its "bright colours" and "beautiful rituals" and "diverse people" and all that other people-commoditizing-a-culture speak.
Culture is a lot of things. I wouldn't presume to be the expert on its definition. But I know one thing for sure: culture sure as hell isn't White Teeth. If I didn't have any backbone, I would say I wish I had capitalized on this, thought of doing this first; I wish I had though to throw in stereotypical, idiotic, careless, farsical caricatures of several characters and show how their lives are all connected like a twisted version of Love, Actually.
Major Fails. Actually.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
North South East West
An old girl am I
Wear my grandmother's pearls girl, am I
Been all over the world kind of girl
Looked in every nook and cranny,
been down the winding streets only
lonely
In the South,
was a Mexican mistress
she awaited my return
to hear my stories of gold
through the gulleys, children roared
while machines played ring-around-the-rosey.
Not a pocket full of posies, had I
Only a handful of sorrows
and now it was all told.
So I hitched my sack and bid farewell,
kissed my mistress to make it last.
Turned my eyes against the sun
I heard, overhead
the call of
The North -
what more to be said?
Such a varied landscape,
The North:
from East to West
or East, West?
or West. East.
all of nature seems the same to me
and for some silence in mind,
I forsake society.
Travel the road,
the craggly rocks,
kindly now, like an old man's smile,
plenty of tooth, but
no life and I whisper,
grateful, grateful even...
to be alive.
- Remnants of the essence and wisps of a poem I dreamt
Wear my grandmother's pearls girl, am I
Been all over the world kind of girl
Looked in every nook and cranny,
been down the winding streets only
lonely
In the South,
was a Mexican mistress
she awaited my return
to hear my stories of gold
through the gulleys, children roared
while machines played ring-around-the-rosey.
Not a pocket full of posies, had I
Only a handful of sorrows
and now it was all told.
So I hitched my sack and bid farewell,
kissed my mistress to make it last.
Turned my eyes against the sun
I heard, overhead
the call of
The North -
what more to be said?
Such a varied landscape,
The North:
from East to West
or East, West?
or West. East.
all of nature seems the same to me
and for some silence in mind,
I forsake society.
Travel the road,
the craggly rocks,
kindly now, like an old man's smile,
plenty of tooth, but
no life and I whisper,
grateful, grateful even...
to be alive.
- Remnants of the essence and wisps of a poem I dreamt
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