I've spent the last hour trying to dispossess the established Malaysian leading kiwifruit journalists with my indepth research into the kiwifruit sector. I did not, however, realize what sort of passionate outbursts that small fuzzy brown fruit could inspire.
Curse you, Italy, for stealing New Zealand's national product. Tasha Beg is not impressed.
In the minimized chat window to the left, the delightful-as-ever Justin André Privé tells me about some punk band during 'the good old days', and somehow that conversation has shifted into the nostalgic joys of preteenage masturbation.
No wonder I never get any work done around here with you folks harassing me like this and providing me with illicit workplace giggles. You fruity folks.
There is a new rabbit.
Rabbit just peed on me. BRB.
I had a blast at the KLue Urbanscapes, and as a result of me having said blast, I will...
POST A LONG BLOG POST, COMPLETE WITH PICTURES.
Good God that felt good, didn't it? It's Kuala Lumpur's annual daylong creative-arts festival! Music! Movies! Indie short films! Street performances! Shopping! Interestingness! Dancing! Lots and lots of dancing! More music! Bumping into people you know but haven't seen in the longest while!
I had a great time. I got Dad to drop me off around 5pm at KLPac, all under the impression that Roslyn and Aween - who had been originally due for me to go with - would be arriving with real soon. They didn't. They arrived three hours later.
Waltzed around the sections. Got around through the shopping marketplaces first having got my tickets (the Xpax counter had that fantastic RM30 reload-and-get-two-free-tickets thing, which made me quite happy) and headed straight for the main building. Stopped by to see the drum circle perform, tiptoeing over the rocky barrier to spot the fun. It did look like fun. Spun around and found myself at the oral performance street stage thingy.
Someone called out my name. It was Danush, he of spontaneous late night Genting trips, he of some pretty epic college fun. He's sporting a new beard now and works not too far from where I'm at (Kelana Jaya; I'm at Tell Media's offices in SS7/10, he's at Kelana Square). He's with Ben Yap, and we spend a while chatting while watching the oral stage street performance thingy. He heads for the marketplace again, tells me about a couple of performances he's looking forward to...
We watch the stage performance. It seems to be a form of Simon Says as played by people in costumes - there's a mechanic fixer man, there's Chun Li with martial wear and double buns, there's a sexy secretary type, and it's being hosted by a dude in a kimono wielding a plastic wakizashi and microphone. Crowd interaction ensues! MC Kimono asks for new poses for the actors to do. Danush shouts - I might be completely wrong here, but it has to be Danush - "PAPA JAHAT!". I real life lol'd.
Hahahaha. Papa Jahat. Hahahaha. Two of the actors did get the joke. ;P
I split from them after a bit, heading towards The Lawn, where the big concert stuff was going on. Didn't stay for long. Took a peek, left for a bit, took a walk, texted Roslyn and Aween if they were planning to come by anytime soon. They were on the way. Next person I met was Alan, Forensics organizer extraordinaire and avid musicgoer, with girlfriend Rachel. Saw him on his way in, and then caught up with him after a couple of txts asking "Where are you?"
Walked up to the Cinescapes stage at Pentas I upstairs in the main building! Yasmin Ahmad's Sepet was playing! Hung about the Photography exhibits.
The wonderful Azalia Suhaimi of @azaliasuhaimi Twitterati fame was selling postcards of her design. I've been meaning to get some, and so I did. I bought a set of three with the following designs:
Azalia and I then took a photo to provide proof that I did indeed buy these original limited editions off of her, and not some knockoff site. ;P
Waltzed into the Cinescapes theatre, watched Sepet. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie, isn't it? Not without its many pretensions, though - anybody recall the ridiculously advanced discussion Orked enlightenedly gives her best friend about the colonial brainwashing of the penjajah and dijajah? Perfect example. Still, loved that movie to bits. Played on a large screen with three hundred or so people around, I could hear sniffling and crying around me as the movie got to its denouement.
Rafiq, photographer at TELL, spots me apparently doing outrageous rave dance moves at the Sunset Disco; he wastes no time in telling me all about it. He's with fiancée Mimie. I bump into them everywhere for the next hour or so. Rafiq seems to enjoy narrating the story of my outrageous rave dance moves. It's the hat. People spot me miles away because of that damn brown trilby.
Bump into him for a bit more. And again. In the end I decide he's probably following me. He shows me some of his pictures. They are rather nice. I get out of dodge and move over to the indie short films section. I can't say I have much of an appreciation for three-minute shorts mostly involving people crossing the road, but it did make a passable time-killer. More shorts play. One involved a woman's relationship breaking up, with her later indulging in wordless segues added on with hard rock Chinese music, I think. I leave the room, pondering on the effectiveness of wordless segues in moviefilm experiences. Then I bump into Rafiq and co. again.
OH! Roslyn's finally arrived. Aween and her had gotten lost, apparently. Surprisingly they didn't have much trouble finding parking. They park right at the side of the road about 10% inside KLPac on the way to the main inner areas. I head off and see them. They shop for a bit. I walk about for a bit more.
The later part seemed like a blur; bumped into a couple more people (Steph of TT Nite fun, with aunt; more, etc, etc). Picked up free postcards and got something to eat: decent kuay teow for only RM4. Then I came over to watch Couple set up at 10.30pm. Joined Azalia and Rafiq and co. who were watching Couple perform at The Lawn too. Rafiq shows me pictures on his camera, then goes off to have a chat with two folks who had rather interestingly set up a tripod and camera and started taking pictures of themselves sitting down and looking straight into the camera. Turns out they did that because they didn't have anybody to take a photo for them. Azalia tweets while watching the performances: Can't believe how heavily im twitterin while at #urbanscapes! Couple is awesome! n @amirulruslan juz joined us. Who else is here? :D
Live tweets are fun.
Up next is Killer Calculateur. Watched them play the first few songs then had to leave. Aween's dad was a-calling soon after. Then Aween drove us (by that: me and Roslyn) back! She's so nice. Nice Aween is nice. I could've driven myself, but Dad was using the car and I'd probably flip out and die if I were to drive outside of my comfort zone.
Roslyn and Aween; but not in that same order (L-R: Aween, Roslyn)
Got back at 1.30am; Facebooked and Twittered until 3am; slept a meager three hours before Sunday's early morning event: the Standard Chartered KL Marathon. But that's a story for another day altogether...
Tasha Beg, master airline-ticket salvager (says she, a Singaporean Air ticket can get her back on Malaysian soil for USD$600), has a Tumblr blog, leaving her old Blogspot site empty. I'm going to check in with her if she likes it. If Tumblr can offer me kewl features, then Vox, you have irritated me far too long.
Came to work today after missing a day for being ill (had an infection in my throat or something - can't swallow for crap) and found this little gem. Someone's clearly out to cheer me up!
Abbey Clancy! Hayden Panettiere! Keeley Hazell! Rachel Stevens! Megan Fox! Olga Kurylenko!
Definitely out to cheer me up.
Favorite album this week. I've been listening to it non-stop. There's more to The Ting Tings than just "THEY CALL ME HELL, THEY CALL ME STACEY, THEY CALL ME HER, THEY CALL ME JANE!" (That's not her name, by the way, guys)
I blame Uncle Asri's iPod for accidentally playing me That's Not My Name to me as I started trying to fix it for him - nothing major, just adding and removing songs using Yamipod - and I gave it an extended listen-through. Bit the bullet and gave We Started Nothing a spin soon enough.
Not enough time to write, but Katie White is raw sexiness with her Mancunian accent and highpitched screaming (see: Fruit Machine). She's also got, amazingly, the voice for ballads like Traffic Light; anthemic tracks like That's Not My Name are great too. Oh, and Jules' background chatter in That's Not My Name is badass.
It's a relatively short album. We're looking at ten tracks total, but they're all hardcore excellence, whether they're high-octane BANGbangBANGBANG loud tracks, or the mellower ballads. The only weak track I found in the entire album was Impacilla Carpisung. It's the silly name. I like this album great.
They called me quiet, but I'm a riot.
Started writing for the first time in bloody ages. Did about 646 words before stopping to listen to Uncle Asri's iPod (left in the care of me while I tinker around with it). Much like everything else in the world I ever take the time to write, I have no idea what this is, letting it just flow out of my fingertips in an exercise in writeriness.
Not that I haven't written much lately. I have: mostly it goes into a digital sink that sucks everything up and rarely ever gives me any product for my work; other times it goes into constant IMs and tweets that typically, despite the ridiculous reduced length of this body of work, takes up practically all of my working hours.
Rarely, very rarely...
I blog.
Or at least I try to blog.
I think I easily write up to ten thousand words a day, all put together. How come I have no published novel yet?
Published article, though, well... let's just say we might see one soon. ;D
"If fun becomes a chore, it's time to put your toys back in the box."
ON MUSIC AND THE INSPIRED FEELING OF HUMAN GOODWILL AND MUTUAL ADORATION:
I am currently listening to melancholic indietronic music and rereading my favorite new games journalism pieces, so I might have the tendency to love everybody a little too much for the next few hours.
On this melancholic indietronic music: whilst watching a beautiful video about a sea biscuit's life, I discovered My First Trumpet, the indietronically awesome performer behind the hauntingly beautiful song in the above-linked video. Little bits of looking-up courtesy of Google got me the address of Aerotone, the wondrous netlabel that covers these wondrous indie electronica performers. The quirky covers got my attention real quick, but I wanted My First Trumpet's album right now, thanks to that video.
Aerotone offers seventeen different albums for free download at their site. These albums are by eleven different groups/musicians, with the odd compilation album tossed in too. Not knowing what to get, I chose My First Trumpet's Frerk first.
Frerk is a beautiful release that across twelve tracks shifts from vaguely happy and positive to hints of melancholic atrabiliousness to jitters of shy, forlorn sadness. Continuously played it segues from track to track cleanly, leaving me to realize that from the time I started writing this article to now I have actually listened to the album in repeat three times with nary a notice.
The song I was looking for from Frerk was track 11: "Autonarkose". It's beautiful, haunting, pensive. It reminds me of lost loves whose memory I recall while taking midnight long cold walks towards the train station, hoping to not miss the last train. It's a real random thought, but this is what I interpret Aerotone's philosophy and design (also beautifully, beautifully transcribed from emotional mindform into heartaching text:)
About 6am. - we have reached the airport, because you have to leave. Not for a couple of days, but for a period of time that will be painful for both of us. You have to go the distance, as it is part of your masterplan. And I have to stay here because here is my life. We don't talk much. We don't find words to express our feelings right now.
This night we promised to each other that the miles between us won't harm us, that this circumstance will tie us up even stronger. But I know you can see the fear and sadness in my eyes like I can feel it when I look in yours.
I can hear the planes taking off, people whispering. I listen to the announcements which intend to separate peolpe from each other. I wait until our call echos through the terminal to tell: time to say good bye to my love.
Again and again I look at you, while you try to fix my eyes. Both we feel desperation and melancholy which can't be put into words. So we just sit here, watch the planes heading to other places. I hold your hand that feels cold and sad. Just as if you were already gone.
Daylight is crawling up form behind the horizon. This is our call. One last fearful glance from your face before we hug and kiss. You promise me to be mine forever, I nod and wave good bye. Then you are gone. I watch your plane leaving the building, blow you a kiss which vanishes into the terminal air.
Back home I feel empty and tired, but determined to store this state of feelings. I sit down and start to make music... sounds like some aerotone.
It tells you absolutely nothing at a glance, letting that gorgeous narrative settle in your thoughts first. Sounds like some aerotone. I visualize everything: the airport, the fleeting smell of a transit milieu, dimmed lights and bleary eyes all around.
For all your quirky indietronica musical needs, choose and support Aerotone. If 'love' has an associated melodic pattern, it would be chronicled definitively by the music Aerotone pushes. It's almost completely idiosyncratically quirky and European in nature: a German site peddling lonely French vox+acoustic music beside pianists named after Norwegian towns. Don't give this site a miss. Expand your tastes now.
So is Canis Majoris. (via Burgeoning Ego at http://gril.blogspot.com)
EDIT: Uh... Vox is retarded. Click on the post to see this in its full glory.
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