This weekend I got my first full-length taste of kabuki and, boy, was it delicious.
This form of Japanese theater is fantastic and fascinating to watch — for its dramatic acting, stylized makeup and simple, effectual music — but it’s even better when you have some sense of what people are saying. Lucky for me, the Cathay Cineplex in Singapore was hosting the Cinema-Kabuki Festival. The beauty of theater at the movies is that I could see subtitled, film versions of two plays.
Traveling around Southeast Asia is a joy. The variety of the people, the familiar things that are somehow different, the mixes of cultures — it really makes every turn a surprise. It’s fun also to tell people that I live in Singapore. I can relate to Singapore this way: it’s kind of the odd little sister with her head in the clouds. Her older siblings kind of laugh at her, but (I’m sure) envy her a bit too.
That said, my friend picked up a magazine in the Philippines and found this little set of advertisements.
Read more on this is what they think…
Singapore had one of the loudest thunder and lightning storms I have ever heard in my life today. I recorded the sound, in case I ever miss tropical storms. If you need some background music you can listen too.
Had to rehash the old cliche because:
I’ve been pretty consumed by blogging lately.
I started a blog for my students, to get them more interested in reading. Not sure if it will take off or how invested the other contributers will be, but I thought I’d give it a shot. I spend a lot of time in the library here, and thought I’d make better use of my reading time if I had a platform for discussion. The blog is called npREADS. There’s just one substantial entry so far, but I’m working on building it up. The entry is about Benazir Bhutto’s memoir, which I picked up after she was assassinated.
Read more on Pakistan on my mind…
This is a little bit late in coming, but Singapore had it’s biggest party recently.
It’s called ZoukOut, an all-night beach party on Sentosa island where DJs spun on four stages while party-goers alternatively danced like mad and half-passed out on the sand. It was exhausting, but fun. Some of the acts were very impressive. And the most amazing thing? Even at 5am, you could walk barefoot on the sand without stepping on anything that could cut you. Even at its wildest, Singapore is still pretty tame.
Actually, this entry is all just an excuse to demonstrate that I’ve joined the YouTube world. My next video posts will be much more interesting — promise.
I’ve been thinking a lot about presentations lately. Singaporean students have to give a lot of presentations. They give several in my classes, and many for their other classes as well.
There’s a lot of enthusiasm here for creativity — the prime minister managed to step outside of regular speech-giving in his National Day address in August. (See bloggers’ comments on interesting metaphors, interesting colors, and the all-around “hipper” political leadership.) But my favorite creative endeavor in Singapore (other than my students’ ideas) thus far comes from the Media Development Authority’s annual report. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a display of, well, hippness.
Get connected worldwide rock on.
(Apologies for this post. I had to join the fray of bloggers who are really creatively “inspired” by this video.)
Read more on And now I present to you……
I’m just catching up with the news about the wildfires in Southern California. A friend told me that the Los Angeles Times is really covering the story well — and it’s true. I really like the “Voices from the Field” stories — I was happy to see the coverage not focused on the Malibu elite, including a nice feature about a firefighter’s wife. The Governator is getting some good press out of this whole thing, as well.
Three weeks ago, I moved from Los Angeles to Singapore. After three years editing an online publication about Asia, I decided it was time to be here, in Asia.
I’m going to spend my time teaching writing to students at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and, hopefully, doing some writing myself. It’s a great gig, to be a writer. You get to meet interesting people, like the excellent folks of Dengue Fever, a Cambodian rock band that showed Asia Pacific Art‘s talented multimedia editor and me a great time in their studio.
Read more on Los Angeles to Singapore…
