E6n1's Super-scribe

adaptation

2009-09-23T02:17:00.001+08:00

The story about Kafka Cafe was adapted into a ten-minute play...it works better, trust me

Kafka

2009-08-06T04:08:00.000+08:00

As Gavin Sim sat in the new cafe one morning after a night of bad dreams, he found his book mistaken for a giant insect. He was sitting at his table and after reading the first page of Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’, he set his book down, front cover facing up, on the tabletop. Psst! Gavin heard the aerosol nozzle disperse its spray. Sound travels faster than airborne insecticide molecules but he had no time to react.

“Eeee-yer! Cockroach!” exclaimed a shriveled Chinese woman in Hokkien. She doused the cover of Gavin’s paperback copy of Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ on the table with Ridsect. She shook the bright red can from side to side, a chemical warfare veteran clad in a loose-fitting blue samfoo.Choking, Gavin’s espresso shot out of his nostrils onto his shirt. He gagged and pushed his chair back.. The book’s cover absorbed the brunt of the aerosol assault but an oily slick marred the embossed photograph of a cockroach. The old woman peered closely at the book and slapped her liver-spotted palm down on the photograph three times.

“Aiyoh auntie!” screeched a male voice in mortified Hokkien, “What are you doing?”. It would have been Gavin’s voice except that he did not speak Hokkien, although he understood it. The owner of the voice was a wiry Chinese man in his early thirties. He emerged from the pantry at the back of the café, an oddly urbane figure wearing a pinstriped shirt, burgundy tie and black trousers. He dashed over to the old woman and confiscated the can of Ridsect.

“Big cockroach on the table!”, the old woman pointed at the book in triumph.

“No lah! It’s a photograph of a cockroach, on a book-”, the man suddenly held back as if it was futile to explain to the old woman, the concepts of ‘photograph’ and ‘book’.

“Tolong-lah, go and sit down,!”, he ordered, tossing the Ridsect can into a wastepaper basket under the cash-counter.

“So ungrateful!” she muttered to herself and shoved past the man. She hobbled into the pantry and slammed the door shut. Gavin heard a wooden stool squeak in distress as the old lady planted her bottom on it,

Gavin blinked to check that his eyesight -it was intact although his sense of smell was undergoing post-traumatic stress disorder. He took three hesitant deep breaths and reassured himself that he was still fine, albeit stunned.

“So sorry…are you OK sir?”, the man asked Gavin in English and adjusted his burgundy tie. Gavin nodded. At the man’s behest, Gavin shifted to a neighbouring table, and a petite Pilipino woman brought him a fresh coffee.

Gavin looked around and asked himself “Am I still dreaming?”. But he was not because he was still in the café. It had just opened at one end of a row of once swanky shop-houses near Gavin’s Sri Hartamas neighbourhood. Since the late 1990s, a mushrooming of shopping-malls in Kuala Lumpur caused the shop house row to become neglected. It witnessed a succession of assorted tenants such as beauty parlours, vetenarian clinics and Thai restaurants. The shop lot at the end of the row stood vacant for several years, boarded up until Gavin heard hacking and drilling noises coming from behind the boards. The noises continued for four weeks until Gavin walked past and saw the finished result. The décor of the café was sparse until it bordered on incompletion-gun-metal grey tiled floor, orange plastic chairs, plastered white walls, and round plywood tables. This arrangement made Gavin unsure as to whether the cafe was a proper eatery or the set-up of some renovators having an elaborate tea-break, so he passed by it for another two weeks. He recalled the apologetic Chinese man standing at the entrance.

Today, he had ushered Gavin inside while an electronic bell chimed out the first four opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in ominous greeting. Seated on the terracotta tiling of the walkway outside the café, two little boys were zapping away foes composed of myriad pixels on their portable Sony Playstations

The pantry door creaked open and the old woman came out for fresh air. She tilted her head up towards the ceiling-fans to cool her face. Gavin saw that her left eye was milky and glazed over: useless in its socket. The right eye, awaiting the same transformation as its companion, gazed at the rotating fans. No wonder she thought the cockroach on the book cover was real because she possessed only one working peeper. Her unfortunate condition made her action was more misguided than malicious. Anyway, Gavin mused, Auntie Aerosol had inadvertently jazzed up the cover. Now the book cover looked like a primary-school art project, with oily palm prints smudged around the cockroach photo.

The waist-height narrow bookshelf near the cash-counter intrigued Gavin enough to make him walk over and peruse it. The numerous books on the shelf were haphazardly arranged; they jutted out at odd angles. Most of the books’ spines were faded and cracked: several Tom Clancy thrillers, science-fiction anthologies and self-help titles such as ‘How To Win Friends and Influence People’ by Dale Carnegie. Sandwiched between two Tom Clancy books was, ‘Lord of the Flies’ by William Golding. The plain white uppercase lettering on the grimy orange spine made him infer that it was a used literature text. His archaeological instincts stirred, Gavin reached for the book and grasped the top corner that stuck out. The book did not budge so he tugged with more strength. The shelf tottered and fell over with a solid thud like a disturbed tombstone.

Gavin felt like Indiana Jones, after setting off a deadly trap in an ancient crypt Alerted by the noise, the Filipino woman wearily sauntered out of the pantry at the back of the café. She ignored Gavin’s apology, and bent over the fallen bookcase. With astounding strength she hauled the bookcase off the floor. To Gavin’s disbelief, none of the books spilled off the shelf.

“Cannot take,” she informed him, indicating the books with a linen dishcloth wrapped around her hand, “already put gum.”. She returned into the dark of the pantry.

Gavin reached out again for ‘Lord of the Flies’ and traced a finger down the book’s spine. He discovered globs of hardened translucent gum at the base of the spine, and more of the same substance was congealed at the bottom of the adjacent books, as if secreted by mutant bookworms. He went back to his table and collected his traumatised copy of ‘Metamorphosis’, wedging it under his arm in a protective gesture. Gavin went to pay at the counter but the man waved aside Gavin’s money, “Sorry about just now- my auntie, you see..”, he pointed to his left eye and winced. Gavin felt drained, “It’s OK, never mind, I-”

“On the house! Don’t say “Never mind”! he smiled and handed a stamped voucher to Gavin. “10 percent discount for you, next time you come.”

“Thanks,” Gavin replied and exited, pushing the glass door open. The bell chimed Beethoven’s Fifth in farewell. Gavin inspected the voucher. Printed in heavy German Bold Italic was the name of the café, ‘Kaf-fa-ka Kafe’. On the terracotta walkway, one of the boys had usurped the other’s Playstation and the other was bawling at the injustice of the deed.

Another Variation on 'The Village Theme'

2009-07-12T00:09:00.001+08:00

The Horrible Village
The village is horrible.
There is a head on the barbed wire fence.
Coming home from school.
kids are murdered by busy housewives.

There is no judiciary
in this lawless village.
The poisoned stream behind the mosque,
chokes itself on hidden secrets.
Spewing out the undead.

2009-07-12T00:07:00.000+08:00

The Constipated Village
The village is constipated.
Behind a corroded iron fence,
In use through out the long day,
Toilets are occupied by the villagers.

There is no toilet paper
in this crowded village.
The small stream behind the toilets,
cannot flow into the drain.
Now clogged up with old newspapers.

Variations On A Theme

2009-07-12T00:05:00.000+08:00

The Haunted Village
The village is haunted
Beyond the lallang fence
are graves full of old bones.
Tombs are looted
by modern-day robbers.

There is a ghostly entity
in this gutless village:
Of a girl
Strangled behind the mosque,
Violated into eternal pain.
Now she howls after every sunset.

2009-05-21T01:55:00.000+08:00

3#
I care not for your flaws, warts, stretch marks and cellulite,
Because when Cupid took aim, he used an Armalite!

#4
Bella saw the fortune-teller about her fella
Who tell'd her, 'Stop hiding your love- dig him up from the cellar!'

Bella frowned- the answer didn't please her:
She preferred that other geezer she'd stashed in the freezer.

#5
Love life affected by the credit crunch?
Pray, desist from buying her a RM5.95 McValue Lunch!

#6
'Love is blind', there's no separation,
An accelerated process of macular degeneration.

2009-04-13T07:37:00.001+08:00

The new Ipod Shuffle talks to you, the listener. I kid you not: "... it tells you what song is playing and who’s performing it. It can even tell you the names of your playlists,..."
If Ipods/ Iphones could really talk, here's what they would say to their owners (in no particular order)

1. "Not another useless accessory!"
2. "Plug me into that novelty Ipod-powered vibrator and I'll malfunction on purpose!"
3. "Hey! If you can afford me, you can afford a better sleeve- this cheap neoprene monstrosity looks and fits like a condom!"
4. "Put me away now, you saddo- your mates already know you're showing off"
5. "Cleaning my touchscreen is not the same as pushing the dirt around with your fingers."
6. "Having me engraved was painful- but not as painful as that dumb message."
7. "Shake me *once* to go to the next song- don't rattle me around like a maraca
8. "I don't care what you call this playlist, *I*'m calling it shit.
9. "No, I still don't know how the 'Shuffle' function works. I usually give each track a number, they put their numbers in a box and I call out the numbers at random..."
10."You can't hear me telling you about each artist and song title when you insist on playing your music AT THIS VOLUME!!"
11. "WAKE UP! This is your alarm!"
12. "It's me or the Blackberry-you can't have both of us!"
13. "How am I supposed to come up with a 'Genius' playlist based on your taste in music?"

25 Things You Don;t Want To Know

2009-03-13T21:52:00.000+08:00

1. Drunken Fortune-Telling: I'm a whizz with palmistry and Tarot cards, but (it has been demonstrated at parties and in pubs), the more pissed I get, the more accurate my predictions and hence the blunter my predictions. I once told a young engaged couple to, 'CALL IT OFF RIGHT NOW!' and they broke up 2 months later. To quote Johnny Rotten, it was, "Nothing to do with me, mate..."

2. Sex: I wish people would stop coming up to me for advice about sex. I'm told that I'm easy to confide in, unshockable and refreshingly honest, which is quite flattering but to be 'refreshingly honest', I've had enough! Talk to a professional instead...

3. Earworms- They sound disgusting, but they're just bits of music that you can't get out of your head. You have your own personal 'earworms'. Mine are particularly stubborn:
a) "Imperial March" from 'The Empire Strikes Back'
b) The theme tune from "Airwolf" (when I was young, I thought my brother was watching his taped 'Airwolf' episodes everyday- he wasn't. It was this tune that kept ringing in my head. I still don't understand how this arrangement of slightly out-of -tune analog synths and bass so brilliantly evokes the sound of whirring helicopter blades)
c) "Hawaii Five-0". Also reminds me of that lame joke, "How does Jack Lord ("Hawaii Five-0's lead actor) address his father? Pa-pa papa paahh-paahh!"

4. Mascara- In a tight spot, it's a very handy self-defense weapon. I choose my mascara according to the shape of the tube- the thicker and more tapered the better. I recommend L'Oreal's Volume Shocking Mascara (by the way, it also gives you wonderfully lush lashes with just one stroke of the wand..)

5. Prayer: Before and after class at Bedford Square, I used to walk into the British Museum and pray to a statue or representation of a different deity every week. Were they listening to me? I'm not sure, but I realized that the ritual and routine of prayer is powerful in itself.

6. Zen garden- I made my own Zen garden when I was at my last job- it was made from a spare 'Inbox/ Outbox' tray. The problem with this improvised Zen garden was that people started dumping paper in it whenever I was out. (There's a lesson to be learnt from that, but I haven't figured it out yet...)

7. Stuffed Animals- I used to arrange them on my shelf, according to genus. Teddy bears went under, "ursidae". lions- "panthera", dogs- "canis", I gave up when someone gave me a platypus.

8. French- I translate English song lyrics into French for fun. I've discovered that Joy Division songs sound even more wretched in French (C'est impossible mais vrai!)

9. Funerals- I tend to laugh during funerals. I know it sounds appalling but I was told that I'm the sort of person who releases pent-up emotions differently. So, I try not to get caught releasing 'pent-up emotions' at inappropriate times.

10. MacGuyver- I tried out something I saw on 'MacGuyver', when I was 15. In one episode, MacGuyver had to plug a leak in a huge tank of sulphuric acid in a factory, so he used as many bars of chocolate as he could get from the vending machines. According to him, the sulphuric acid reacts with the sugar/ fat to form a hard impermeable layer. I tried it in chemistry class, with a test-tubeful of sulphuric acid and 2 Kit-Kat fingers. The sulphuric acid was heavily diluted and turned the Kit-Kat into a sticky mush. (If only I'd paid more attention to the science than Richard Dean Anderson...) And I was fined 50 cents for ruining a test-tube.

11. Copper sulphate- I've always loved the vivid azure blue of copper sulphate crystals. At the end of another chemistry class, I had ten minutes to spare, so I decided to make some copper sulphate. I added copper carbonate to sulphuric acid ( this accursed substance!). There was no warning, no fizzing, snap, crackle or pop. Instead the test-tube shattered as if by poltergeist activity (I should have added some hydrochloric acid first...). And I was fined another 50 cents

12. Sade- I always had a strong feeling that a lot of twenty-somethings born in 1986 were conceived with Sade's 'Diamond Life' album playing in the background. There's a basis for an interesting survey...

13. 'Dirty Dancing'- I admit that I didn't see it until 2002. I realized that it's similar to that other event dance-movie, 'Saturday Night Fever', whereby everyone remembers the dancing and soundtrack that glosses over the elements of gritty social commentary but not the actual movie.

14. Medicine- I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up and I still like to read the BMJ when I can get my hands on a copy . My family calls me, "Dr.Lee" because my armchair diagnoses have proven to be more accurate than professional ones ( in Malaysia that's really terrifying...)

15. Appendix- up to a year ago I still kept mine in a jar. Not as a reminder never to take my health for granted after 4 horrendous nights in hospital- I enjoy grossing people out sometimes.

16. Oreos- I unscrew them, scrape off the cream filling, replace the two halves back together and eat the filling and biscuit separately. It tastes better and the packet of Oreos lasts longer

17. Time for Writing- there's no effing short-cut, but no one wants to hear it when I say to them you have to carve out the time if you're serious. For me it's 10pm- 2am (even when holding down a 9-5 job) and 12am- 5am on long weekends and public holidays.

18. Airports- are my personal fascination. Living proof that human beings will never adapt to space-travel, because they can't handle the time-space compression in normal terrestial airports. I remember walking around in circles in Hamburg Airport, at midnight, looking for the inter-terminal train and wondering who's hellish idea it was to blast David Hassellhoff over the PA. I nearly got on the wrong flight to Berlin.

19. Laptop (1)- I have a HP tablet PC, which means that the screen can be swivelled around 180 degrees. This always freaks people out during presentations, 'Can't see from where you're sitting? Well is *this* better?'

20. Laptop (2)- my HP tablet PC also accepts written input from a stylus. I can write directly on the screen, and my handwriting is transcribed into text, so I feel really high-tech and flash until some ignoramus comes along and asks the invariable round of questions: "What are you doing writing on your laptop?", " If it's a laptop, why don't you just type instead?" "Can you use any old pen to write on your laptop?"

21. Nigella Lawson- I do a spot-on, absolutely *wicked* impersonation of her as a party-trick. Especially when it comes to mundane recipes and tasks, such as boiling water and changing light-bulbs.

22. No lpod weekends. I go back to listening to music the old-fashioned way, from CDs and cassettes. Apparently, I'm the only person among my friends who still remembers the arcane art of cassette-to-cassette dubbing.

23. Erotica- I had 4 volumes of the excellent series, 'The Mammoth Book Of Erotic Short Stories'. Strangely, these have disappeared or have been loaned out and never returned. I used to think, 'Mammoth' was a clumsy name for a publishing imprint, but I suppose, 'The Neanderthal/ Sabre-Tooth/ Mastodon/ Stegosaurus Book Of Erotic Short Stories' sounds worse.

24. Natural History- I always go back to the Natural History Museum whenever I'm in London. It's humbling to look at all those remains and think that as human beings, our time will be up

25. As you may have figured out, this list didn't really stick to its title

A.I (Artificial Ingredients)

2009-02-09T19:10:00.002+08:00

I just want a drink of water
Now the choices are, 'Mineral' or 'Distilled'
Don't open that packet of sugar
It will be charged to your bill

E6N1's Tough Guide To Writing: Overcoming Writer's BLLLOOOOCCCKKK

2009-01-20T15:41:00.000+08:00

I have received numerous requests (not including those from the voices in my head...) for the following post. Only because last month, I turned professional- as in writer (and not wrestler). I am happy to share what works best for me.

The proverbial writer's block differs for anyone who has had to sit down in front of a blank screen/A4 sheet and string words and sentences together. The block maybe monolithic and impassive like that alien enigma in 2001: A Space Odyssey, or a gauntlet of barriers, uniforms , spot checks and flashing lights like a border police roadblock during the Cold War. Both inspire the same daunting feeling of, "ARGHHH!! HOW DO I GET AROUND THIS?!!!"

To quote Rudy Guiliani, the former mayor of New York, "If the ends don't justify the means, I don't know what does." Do whatever it takes, of course within reasonable limits and consideration for your personal health and sanity. Don't think about other people's health and sanity at the moment, after all, *you* are the one crafting a written work of art, or meeting an important deadline.

I find music works for me, mainly the music I used to listen to when I was 8-16 years old. Only because it recalls a time when I was open to new ideas. Perhaps it could work for you. Don't want alot of cheese on your mp3 player? Well, it's *your* mp3 player, hence the name 'Personal Stereo'. Put on more music that you like, than music that you'd like other people to see when they browse through your playlists.

The other method I use, is baking. It has many parallels to writing: Your first few attempts will be pitiful and laughable. You will cringe, curse and swear never to leave out key ingredients or add them in the wrong order. You will learn the value of aquiring the proper equipment and of not cutting corners. You may vow never to let your creations see the light of day, but when you do, the reception will invariably be, "It's not too bad...". And in the end, your efforts will be rewarded.

Also, unlike written FUBARs, baked FUBARs are never totally indigestible. Unless you have reduced the dough mixture into blackened carcinogenic lumps, and hence back to Carbon (C)

Supplementary History (part 2)

2009-01-12T12:54:00.000+08:00

That was how ‘Supplementary History’ dawned on my school. How this subject destructed is unclear. Destruction is not always a sudden catastrophic event like an earthquake or when lightning strikes a tree. Rome was not built in a day but nor did Rome fall overnight. The Roman empire fell on two fronts: the Western empire in 410 A.D and the Eastern Empire succumbed to Turkish invaders 1000 years later in 1453. ‘Supplementary History’ crumbled inside and outside the classroom. Because, like Rome, its rigid structure could not face up to the shock of the new. The class was taught by a new teacher called Mr. Arthur Sutherland. Mr. Sutherland is due to return to the UK by the end of this term. I bumped into him in the corridor, and he told me that in spite of his sacking (forced resignation), he has enjoyed teaching us and we really brightened his short tenure at our school.
The feeling was mutual: Mr. Sutherland’s lessons were different and more interesting than Core History. He taught us that ‘history’ comes from the Greek word, ‘historia’, which means ‘inquiry- asking questions and, investigation- getting answers’, as first used by Herodotus. Mr. Sutherland even compared a historian to a crime scene investigator, reconstructing a sequence of events from all available evidence, and examining their cause and effects.
But inquiry is not a simple matter of asking questions and getting answers. History and forensics do not easily give up their answers, although both subjects share common methods of investigation. For example, in Forensic Facial Reconstruction, the face of a dead victim or criminal is reconstructed from a skull or facial bone fragments. This technique is also used by archaeologists, who have successfully reconstructed the faces of Egyptian mummies, such as King Tutankhamen and Nefertiti.
During class Mr. Sutherland tried his best to put flesh and blood back on to the dry bones of History. He showed us scans of old newspaper headlines; two copies of the Straits Times, one dated 31st August 1957, the other dated 9th August 1965. We watched grainy black and white Second World War newsreels uploaded on Youtube, seated around Mr. Sutherland’s laptop. He gave us the first three chapters from Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (translated into English) to read. After that lesson, Mr. Sutherland was summoned to Mr. Foo’s cramped Head Of History office. During the following lesson, Mr. Sutherland remarked that the school had reminded him to only teach the facts (and nothing but the facts) about Adolf Hitler and other dictators. With typical English sense of irony and a young teacher’s rebellious streak, Mr. Sutherland moved our class to the audio-visual room and treated us to a screening of, ‘The Last King of Scotland’. Angie Wibono grabbed the seat at the back of the room, whereas Shawna Tan and I sat in front, near the DVD player. Shawna yawned and whispered to me that she’d seen ‘The Last King Of Scotland’ already;
‘This film is a historical fiction, just like your Changi prison essay. Very entertaining but not true.’
‘Well, thank you,’ I whispered back.
Shawna Tan looked at me sideways: obviously I was missing her point.
‘It’s all about using history to create a diversion,’ and she directed my attention to the back of the activity room, where Mr. Sutherland sat next to Angie. They seemed to be huddled too close together.
Mr. Sutherland entertained us until June. Mr. Sutherland’s holiday project heralded the downfall of ‘Supplementary History’. The main objective of holiday projects is to enable students to apply skills learnt to situations outside the classroom. For the mid-year break in June, Mr. Sutherland assigned to the class, a project called ‘Your History’ which meant writing about the history closest to us. I took the phrase, ‘flesh and blood’ too literally. Dry bones translated to dead bones, and I inadvertently stumbled on a skeleton lurking at the back of the closet.
My project was on my grandfather. Long before Mr. Sutherland or even Mr. Foo, my first history teacher was my grandfather, on my mother’s side. He could have been a historian if he had gone to school. He could have been a Malaysian Herodotus if he had written down all his stories about his life in post-war London and Malaya. A week before the June holidays, Granddad finally succumbed to stomach cancer. Yet, for History and Forensics, the dead can still speak to us.
In the case of oral history, the living speak for the dead. When I went back to my family in Kuala Lumpur, my mother’s side of the family talked about Granddad after his funeral as if he was still alive. About how he always ate the same breakfast of toast and milky Earl Grey tea every morning, how he retained the odd British expression in his speech, such as ‘Bloody awful’ and ‘dearie.’. Mum found this eccentric, after all these years, However I thought it was charming, for example, “Let Grandfather tell you about his life working on those bloody awful East London dockyards, dearie! And about how those British bastards kicked me out in 1953, for overstaying my welcome!”
Three days after Granddad’s cremation, Mum handed me a battered, rusty orange tin, with the words, ‘Jacob’s Cream Crackers’ on the lid, and a faded stencil of an English drummer boy dancing below the words.
“Granddad wanted you to have this.” Mum told me.
“What’s inside?”
Mum shrugged, “His stuff from England, he insisted that you were the right person to have it, since you loved his stories so much.”
The lid of the tin was loose from repeated openings and closings, so it easily gave way. I was very honoured; Granddad had passed down to me his keepsakes and souvenirs. Stamps bearing the regal profile of King George IV and commemorating the coronation of his daughter, youthful Elizabeth II in 1953, bus ticket stubs, scraps of lace, a frail Cadbury’s chocolate bar wrapper smoothed out like a pressed flower. Excellent material for my project.
I dug deeper into the side of the tin, certain that the ultimate prize lay at the bottom. My fingers hit layers of thick paper, which turned out to be a stack of yellowed envelopes. The topmost envelope contained a letter and a oval black and white photograph the size of a watch face. The image was of a woman but her face had been smudged and faded. The photograph’s oval size and shape that reminded me of a locket. I peeked at the letter- saw the date ‘30th July 1954’, the address was from a street in the Limehouse district of London, and the letter, written in a shaky feminine hand, began with ‘Dearest-‘Our children are well.’ The next line was a question, ‘ When I will see you again?’ Yours M.
The rest of the envelopes contained similar brief letters from ‘M’, dated throughout 1954 and 1955, although the references to, ‘our children’, later change to ‘our boys.’ Correspondence between Granddad and this mystery woman suddenly stops in early 1956. There is an empty envelope, from Granddad, with a Malayan 30 cent stamp and postmarked, dated, ‘24th January 1956’. Over the London address, British Royal mail have stamped the words, ‘Return to sender, address unknown.’
I shoved everything- letters, stamps, and wrappers, back into the tin. But I was too late- Granddad had not honoured me with safeguarding his prized possessions, instead he had burdened me with a secret. The ghost of M had lain sealed within this biscuit tin for over fifty years, away from Mum and the rest of the family, but now Granddad had tricked me into letting M out. My history project was stuck. A direct account of Granddad’s life was impossible now.
At the end of June, I took the tin back to Singapore, for Mr. Sutherland to examine its explosive contents, and to get his expert opinion before the project’s submission date at the start of term. Mr. Sutherland’s desk in the staffroom had been cleared, he was not in school. The notice-board outside the staffroom announced that ‘Supplementary History’ class had been cancelled until further notice. At lunchtime, seated at a long canteen table, Shawna told me that Mr. Sutherland had been sacked and Angie Wibono had been taken out from school.
Angie Wibono’s parents called up the school to complain about Mr. Sutherland. (Suspicious parents are ultimately forced into conducting their own investigations) Angie Wibono had too many history project consultations with Mr. Sutherland throughout the June holidays. During which, according to Shawna, Angie had made full use of his ‘laptop’.
“What about our project?” I protested.
“It’s finished!” Shawna exclaimed, ‘It’s history! Just like Mr. Sutherland’s career. Move on!” and she got up from the canteen table, chuckling at her own joke.
Move on, I despaired. Easy for Shawna to say. She was not carrying around a cream-cracker tin full of secrets. I took the tin out of my bag, and set it on the canteen table. The tin suddenly felt as heavy as an urn. Mr. Foo walked past my table on the way to Core History class, and stopped when he saw the tin.
‘How interesting...my uncle used to collect old biscuit tins...’ Mr. Foo said. I was far from being his favourite student, but Mr. Foo’s curiosity sidestepped that fact for the moment.
‘This tin belonged to my granddad.’ I told him.
Mr. Foo nodded, impressed. ‘May I?’ he asked me, pointing to the lid.
‘Yes,’ I said. After all, Mr. Foo, in his own strait-laced way, was also a fellow historian.
Mr. Foo lifted the lid, and the small oval photograph of M lay on top of the envelopes, where I had last put them.
‘Your grandmother’s photo?’ asked Mr. Foo, picking it up.
‘No,’ I shook my head and told Mr. Foo about it. The photograph could not be explained properly without telling Mr. Foo about Mr. Sutherland’s holiday project, about my Grandfather and his recent death, about how this tin came into my possession and about this woman called ‘M’ that Granddad had left behind in London. No one in my family had known about ‘M’ until I opened the tin.
Desperate for expert advice, I asked Mr. Foo, ‘Should I tell my family about this woman?’
Mr. Foo put the photograph back in the tin and closed the lid.
‘Your grandfather left you with a choice. In the end, it is up to you. Ask yourself if your family can handle this kind of revelation.’
‘I don’t know.’ I said.
‘Hah!’ Mr. Foo exhaled sharply, ‘that is good! Ignorance is sometimes bliss. That’s why you don’t learn everything at once.’
He pointed to the book he held under his arm, but I did not need to look, I knew the title well: A Comprehensive History Of Malaya and Singapore for Upper Secondary
‘No need to shine a light into every dark corner of history- you may not like what you find.’ Mr. Foo said, and he added, ‘See you in class next week.’

Supplementary History

2008-12-14T01:15:00.000+08:00

History was made and unmade within two months at my school. Last term, my school became one of the first schools in Singapore to offer, ‘Supplementary History’ as a special ‘Arts Stream’ Elective subject. ‘Supplementary History’ is an extra subject for Upper Secondary students who have displayed aptitude in the basic ‘Core’ History subject. There are six girls taking ‘Supplementary History’ and our principal, Mrs. Evelyn Ng kept telling me that I should be proud to be the only Malaysian student in this class because, “Only exceptional students are allowed to study, ‘Supplementary History!”.

Mrs. Ng is right- in my case, she made an exception to shift me to ‘Supplementary History’ class because, according to Mr. Thomas Foo, Head of History, I was a disruptive influence during his ‘Core History’ classes. At the start of this year, Mr. Foo called me ‘insolent’ and labelled my essays ‘irreverent and impertinent’. I was only asking pertinent questions that Mr. Foo could not answer in front of the class, such as:

1. “Mr. Foo! Since our Core History textbook is entitled, ‘A Comprehensive History of Malaya and Singapore for Upper Secondary’, why doesn’t it cover the history of Malaya and Singapore, during the Stone Age and the Iron Age?”

2. “Mr. Foo! Why don’t we learn about the ancient Greek historian Herodotus? After all, modern historians say Herodotus is The Father of History.”

Or, when answering one of Mr. Foo’s generic homework essay questions, ‘What were the main reasons for the fall of Singapore in 1939 to the Japanese?’, I wrote from the point of view of a fictional British prisoner of war interred at Changi Prison during the Japanese Occupation. Mr. Foo called my essay, ‘A work of pointless invention.’, I called it, ‘A bold attempt at historical fiction’, and Mrs. Ng called my parents in Kuala Lumpur after I called Mr. Foo, ‘An old fart.’. After a long (ten minute) discussion between Mr. Foo and Mrs. Ng, they officially decided that a bright and obviously bored student like me would be better off in the new ‘Supplementary History’, due to start the following term.

The feeling was mutual: Mr. Sutherland’s lessons were different and more interesting than Core History. He taught us that ‘history’ comes from the Greek word, ‘historia’, which means ‘inquiry- asking questions and, investigation- getting answers’, as first used by Herodotus. Mr. Sutherland even compared a historian to a crime scene investigator, reconstructing a sequence of events from all available evidence, and examining their cause and effects.

But inquiry is not a simple matter of asking questions and getting answers. History and forensics do not easily give up their answers, although both subjects share common methods of investigation. For example, in Forensic Facial Reconstruction, the face of a dead victim or criminal is reconstructed from a skull or facial bone fragments. This technique is also used by archaeologists, who have successfully reconstructed the faces of Egyptian mummies, such as King Tutankhamen and Nefertiti.

During class Mr. Sutherland tried his best to put flesh and blood back on to the dry bones of History. He showed us scans of old newspaper headlines; two copies of the Straits Times, one dated 31^st August 1957, the other dated 9^th August 1965. We watched grainy black and white Second World War newsreels uploaded on Youtube, seated around Mr. Sutherland’s laptop. He gave us the first three chapters from Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, Mein Kampf (translated into English) to read. After that lesson, Mr. Sutherland was summoned to Mr. Foo’s cramped Head Of History office. During the following lesson, Mr. Sutherland remarked that the school had reminded him to only teach the facts (and nothing but the facts) about Adolf Hitler and other dictators. With typical English sense of irony and a young teacher’s rebellious streak, Mr. Sutherland moved our class to the audio-visual room and treated us to a screening of, ‘The Last King of Scotland’. Angie Wibono grabbed the seat at the back of the room, whereas Shawna Tan and I sat in front, near the DVD player. Shawna yawned and whispered to me that she’d seen ‘The Last King Of Scotland’ already;

‘This film is a historical fiction, just like your Changi prison essay. Very entertaining but not true.’

‘Well, thank you,’ I whispered back.

Shawna Tan looked at me sideways: obviously I was missing her point.

‘It’s all about using history to create a diversion,’ and she directed my attention to the back of the activity room, where Mr. Sutherland sat next to Angie. They seemed to be huddled too close together.

1,2 Crush On wHo?

2008-11-24T23:36:00.002+08:00

I pointed out DarrenDarren to Constance de Souza, she agrees with me that he's hot and that exclaimed so very loudly that she'd love to, 'tap some of that anytime!' (since when did all these awkward Americanisms weasel their way into our Asian lingo?...)

When I asked her to cut it out and not yell so loudly, Constance looked at me funny, as if I was the one making all the noise. But I know that look from her when she rolls her eyes and I can see the whites of her eyes.

'Don't be naive!' she told me, 'acting as if you're sheltered all the time!'

DarrenDarren!

2008-11-07T09:33:00.002+08:00

People say that my obsession with 'Bus- Stop' Darren is unhealthy, I don't see their point- it's better than idolising those J-Pop, K- Pop and HK pop celebrities. It's better to be taken with *real* person than some pin-up boy.

Entries from A Confiscated Notebook

2008-10-19T16:41:00.003+08:00

24th Sept. 17.45- wait outside, at school bus-stop. 'Tiger Eyes' should be there, with friends. They should call him by his name.

25th Sept: SUCCESS! 'Tiger Eyes'' real name is 'Darren'.

28th Sept: *MUST* find out Darren's surname

30th September: Darrendarren! Darren Darren! (isn' that some '80s pop group?). He looked kinda 80ish today, on the bus, his hair is abit too long and the wind and rain messed it up, like he used Vidal 'Typhoon' hair gel. Maybe international schools have more relaxed rules on haircuts...

2nd Oct: Maybe I don't want to know his surname..what if it's something silly or just so mundane that it spoils the sound of his first name?

3rd Oct: Hari Raya, public hols- can't see the highlight of my day... :(

Clippings From A Confiscated Notebook

2008-10-15T14:19:00.004+08:00

Written on the reverse side of a B5 paper, with a picture of the cast members of CSI: Miami printed on the other side)

I can't stand it when Chantelle and Melissa make fun of me liking CSI: Miami ... they think I have a crush on David Caruso, who plays Horatio Caine. Well, he's a good actor, and he carries himself well, but he's like what? 57?He could be my dad ten times over!

If those 2 weren't so dumb they should know that I like the character, not the actor that is playing the part....it's two totally different things, like the moon is not moonlight, but moonlight comes from the moon. Horatio Caine is a great character, like a world-weary Poirot or Holmes. I love his attitude, his sense of black and white, even when things get hairy on the show.

But nooo, Uncle Aloysius says no policeman or investigator can act like Horatio Caine in real life and get away with it, and Uncle Aloysius says he ought to know, because he's been with Harbour Police for 15 years.

I'm using Horatio Caine's attitude to inspire my own investigations into the Totally Gorgeous Bus-Stop Guy, I see him everyday after netball at the bus-stop opposite. He's tall and looks mixed...got these gorgeous amber eyes and eyelashes that are wasted on a guy. Ooh wish I had a picture of him. It's weird to see someone everyday and not know anything about him. I don't even know his name. I should start with his name.

Weird School Stuff (...from a Confiscated Notebook)

2008-10-08T18:16:00.003+08:00

Audrey Teo from 4B said she saw Charmaine Fong jumping into the empty swimming-pool, 2 hours before Charmaine actually jumped in and split her skull open.

It goes like this:

Audrey had been looking out of Computer Lab A's window during first period, at 10.30am. She saw Charmaine jumping off the deep end. Audrey was just about to get the attention of Mr. Wilkinson, when, 5 seconds later, she saw Charmaine walk past Computer Lab A.

I don't think the fall killed Charmaine, since the so-called 'deep end' of our school pool is only 1.5 metres deep. Charmaine must have dashed her head against the broken tiles on the bottom, and bled to death under the hot noon sun. I watch all 3 series of 'CSI', one thing I've learnt from that show is that head wounds bleed alot....

The broken tiles were the reason why the pool was drained and earmarked for repair. So we stopped having swimming during P.E, due to 'safety concerns'. I'm not sure if Charmaine's family will appreciate the word, " irony"- she once said to me that they don't speak much English at home.

Then they sure as hell wouldn't like my explanation; Audrey now avoids me because I tried to explain to her that she saw Charmaine's 'doppelganger' at 10.30am

Homework notes (from a confiscated notebook)

2008-10-01T23:05:00.003+08:00

Tueday: Physics

Levers and Pulleys (f*cking bitch, I hate Miss Goh....and she has NEVER heard of Stephen Hawkings! What kind of Physics teacher is SHE?!)

Wednesday: English - Creative Composition: what a joke! Can I help it if I see the world in a different way from everyone else?!

Thurday: Literature:

Hamlet: Act IV, Scene II

( Mr. Selvaraj kills the subject- DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!)

Another Fragment From A Confiscated Notebook

2008-09-23T02:17:00.000+08:00

Acherontia Lachesis
Death’s Head Moth
‘The Bee Robber’
One specimen was on the wall of the second-floor toilet. Despite a gentle current created by the extractor fan near the sealed windows, the moth remained motionless, its black-winged shape in sharp contrast to the worn whitewash. It seemed to have been mounted on the wall. Natasha was reminded of ‘The Silence of The Lambs’ film poster, with the moth covering Jodie Foster’s mouth. Upon her sighting of the moth, the thick fog of ennui that hangs over rainy secondary school afternoons instantly dissipated.

In the early 1990s demarcation was clear between the various groups and sub-groups. Allegiances were communicated by an intricate system of signs and symbols so there was little need to draw up physical boundaries. All groups, placed together in the same room for the semblance of unity, however remained pluralised , interacting but never intermixing. Natasha and I occupied the demilitarized zone.
Our teacher on duty was oblivious to the subtle politics of the classroom of thirty-five uniformed girls. When the recess bell gave off its shrill sound, she retreated to the air-conditioned, student-free zone of the staff room.

The same stimulus was provided but I always noted the differing responses; the surly girls who were into grunge, the ones with band names like ‘Nirvana’ , ‘Soundgarden’ or, ‘Pearl Jam’ stencilled in black marker on the covers of their ring files and on the insides of their wrists, immediately pushed back their chairs and sulked out off the classroom towards the canteen. It is safe to surmise at this point in their lives, for some of them, that their petulance was an act.

In contrast to the grunge group, the Canto-Pop afficianados remained at their desks, memorising lyrics from magazines and trading phone-cards with the face of the latest idol embossed on them. These girls represented a quieter sort of demographic, who wished to evade the recess time rush hour. However , my subsequent observations have revealed that they only wanted to avoid queuing up with the grunge group, who specialized in the obnoxious tactic of shouting through someone in the queue, in order to communicate to a fellow fan two or three persons away, how much better the ‘Unplugged’ version of ‘Come As You Are’ is than the original album one. Loudly extolling the artistic merits of Kurt Cobain and company was just as effective as sneering at the latest floaty ballad by Jackie Cheung or Aaron Kwok.

The next group to leave the classroom headed for the toilet for a chance to gossip. This was one diversion from the daily slog of school, homework, parents and siblings, before the brief respite offered by the weekend. Such practices were also abhorred by the grunge crowd

Celluloid Rehab

2008-09-18T16:10:00.007+08:00

Famed, lie low
that's the best choice for us
Seeking escape at the movies.
For a little more
take a hike, or a cruise
Until you get stuck in the popcorn pit of deja-vu.
A well worn shoe
that has stepped on many a bollock.

Entertainment prices become
Fines; penalties paid for your observance of the law.
You want more
Than your wallets can grant.

Before you become an old man,
Gone is the first bloom of youth
When you are stuck in the same gear and pushing your pen.
Railing against stone deadlines.
You want to forget about
Bringing home the bacon.

Cast off your leg-irons!

Become a free man!
Stop living in your Ikea-furnished cage and
Bail out! Out of your depth
Life doesn't stop when it becomes stiller.

Drive your Ford to the woods
(Using diesel, of course)
The jolly robins are skipping in the green and black.
A crow perches on your sun roof.
Isn't a real panaroma better than widescreen?

(There are 30 actors' and actresses' surnames in this poem, including one full name anagram comprising of 3 words. Can you spot them?)

3 Fragments From A Confiscated Notebook

2008-09-17T01:53:00.008+08:00

1) The Supermarket

The twin automatic doors slide open in a mechanised greeting. Monochrome lighting flickers above, wisps of muzak waft around as you roll your trolley along the aisle. Take your time, there are ten aisles in this place and you have to explore the remaining nine. The selection process has now begun. You won't find what you want right now, but you'll find something that will satiate a non-urgent need for now.

2) The Chinese Take-Away

The two women who don stained aprons are manning the counter- one young and one old. Spring and Winter. You can't see their waists from your side, perhaps they have none. You state your order for sweet and sour pork with fried rice. The gnarled old woman,Winter, stabs at the cash register and repeats your order to Spring, who in turn, speaks to the service window of the take-away's kitchen. You smell oil and onions sizzling from the kitchen, thrown together under strict orders in a clanging wok. Your choice of dish is appropriate for a Friday evening at the end of another working week- as in Chinese cuisine and in life: there is the sweet and sour, everything in between and much more waiting to be savoured.

3)Morning Assembly

In single file, the students assemble themselves in the quadrangle, filling it up like styrofoam chips in a cardboard box. Flags are hoisted, and they hang at the top of their poles like roosting bats. A voice commands all and sundry to stand to attention. The opening notes of the national anthem crackle through the PA speakers, like an archive recording. The piece comes to an end with a rousing flourish of the recording's long-dead brass section and the same voice commands the assembly to be at ease....

(The remaining pages were torn out)

21st-century-power-animals

2008-09-15T21:30:00.003+08:00

Before anyone issues a legal injunction against me: let me insist that I *have not* come up with an idea for a Saturday morning childrens’ programme. Saturday morning kids’ programmes are fecked up enough
I dreamt of a racoon 3 weeks ago and I’ve never dreamt of racoons before . Intrigued, I referred to a New Age reference book on Native American power animals, and the text stated that racoons symbolize adaptibiilty and adroitness.I am fond of the hardy critters, regarded as vermin but are more like SAS chipmunks, making a strike against urbanization.
Just like the racoons, power animals have adapted to current climes. Let these new breeds of power animals into your lives! Your inner urbanised warrior will thank you later, after he/she breaks out of the office cage and eschews public transport for running with the pack:

1. Culture Vulture
The ancients did not revile the vulture, because it is an emissary between life and death.The vulture subsists on carrion, thus clearing dead matter and making way for new life. Call upon the Culture Vulture to clear your path of deadweight plebians when a lack of culture (artistic, historical, literary, musical/high/low/popular) kills social interaction and conversation. Eliminate the monolithic carcasses of banality from your functions and lunch hours with the help of the Culture Vulture!

For special cases, the Bearded Culture Vulture is available. It will rip out the stale innards of those who: a) Mistake Al Pacino for a Starbucks Special Brew, b) Have never seen Stars Wars-AT ALL, c) Would rather undergo a triple root-canal than watch a film with subtitles, d)Only heard about Leonardo da Vinci because of Dan Brown, e)After perusing my Ipod playlist, ask me why the band called, ‘Roddy Frame’, named themselves after a household item sold at Ikea.

2. Medicinal Leech
Friends, students and errrr… those taking time out from their studies! Are your peers and loved ones badgering you into pursuing medicine? During dinners and festive occasions, do relatives and parents’ friends compare you to other people’s children who are studying at various overseas institutions? Are you made to feel like an ungrateful parasite for considering alternative professions, apart from medicine? The power of the Medicinal Leech will silence these voices! Attach a few of these squirmies to your friends and families’ limbs, state that leeches are now part of standard medical practice, and leeches need constant practice on live hosts. I guarantee absolute peace during your next Chinese New Year dinner.

3a. Legal Eagle
The Legal Eagle performs the same silencer function as the Medicinal Leech, but with respect to Law. Visualize your dissenters chained to a huge rock, a la Prometheus, and the Legal Eagle ripping their livers out- for an extortionate fee.

3b. Legal Beagle
The faithful Legal Beagle will sniff out and shit on those individuals at functions and dinner parties, before they can begin their conversations with, "When I was studying Law…". Be empowered to bark back at those who believe that possessing a law degree is a license to be an all-round pugnacious windbag.

4. Nap Cat
Has the boss caught you napping in your cubicle (again) and told you off? Have you stated that a daily afternoon snooze increases short-term productivity? When scientifically proven explanations don’t work, call upon Nap Cat! She will gouge unsightly scratches on your boss’s new BMW X5 , the same car that your boss drives, to ‘cat nap’ at his mistress’s apartment. Mention Nap Cat in your police statement and the fuzz will let you off (on grounds of insanity…)

5. Tiger X.O
Never fear another night out with the lads/ ladettes again! You are in safe hands..erm paws, with the Tiger X.O. Whether your tipple of choice is beer, whisky or cocktails, Tiger X.O will safeguard your person and your dignity, and bestow you with powers of discretion, i.e knowing when to keep your mouth shut (because you are going to be sick and the queue outside the toilets is too long...). With Tiger X.O’s charisma, triple your chances of getting laid!(Not in the context of, "out-on-a-stretcher")