Spring

 If there's just one minute left for me

I want my soul to live that minute clean.

- Khet Thi

Earthrise

To see the Earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the Earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold — brothers who know now they are truly brothers.

- Archibald MacLeish

Books read in 2021. 

1. A Bookshop in Algiers by Kaouther Adimi
2. Stories of the Sahara - Sanmao
3. Life Lessons from a Brain Surgeon - Rahul Jandial
4. 恋人 - Jeong Ho-Seung
5. Unnatural Causes - Richard Shepherd
6. Letter to My Mother - Felix Cheong (Editor)
7. The Battle for Home - Memoir of a Syrian Architect - Marwa al-Sabouni
8. The Way We Die Now - Seamus O'Mahony
9. Broken Stars - Ken Liu (editor)
10. The Memory Police - Ogawa Yoko
11. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 - Cho Nam-ju
12. At Dusk - Hwang Sok-yong
13. Diary of a Murderer - Kim Young-ha
14. The Foundations of Chinese Medicine Vol 1 - Giovanni Maciocia
15. Books Do Furnish a Life - Richard Dawkins
16. The Spy and the Traitor - Ben Macintyre
17. The  Poetry of Robert Frost - Robert Frost
18. Katharina and Luthur - Michelle DeRusha
19. The Master Key - Togawa Masako
20. Memoirs of a Polar Bear - Tawada Yoko
21. The Honjin Murders - Yokomizo Seishi
22. How Do You Live? - Yoshino Genzaburo
23. Touring the Land of the Dead - Kashimada Maki
24. Shoko's Smile - Choi Eun-young
25. The Woman in the Purple Skirt - Imamura Natsuko

Thanksgiving

Thanking God for the following:

 

- Super Simple, where I grab my healthy lunch almost daily and order the exact same ingredients day in day out. The staff always smile when they see me. "Non-foodie" alert.

 

- Whatsapp and free WiFi that enabled my elder sister on a holiday abroad to send me pictures of what I had asked her to buy for me and call me to double-check on the exact size etc. She sent all those first before she sent me touristy snaps. 

 

- A message on a most politically involved chat group that I shared with someone else and which eventually led to a Christmas gift of a hotly sought after book. Lord, thank you for the angels in my life. How blessed I am.

 

- A stern-faced neighbour who was exiting the lobby of my block while I was about 20 steps away holding the door for me as I noticed him doing that and quickened my steps. He never broke into a smile but I still thanked him for holding the door for me. 

 

- The Public Garden Christmas fair over the weekend where I was supposed to be looking at gifts for others but ended up with quite a few things for myself.

 

- A most memorable and enjoyable night bidding adieu to a man whom I have worked under for 10 years before my transfer to another deparment. Wrote a letter to him to express my appreciation and thanks, even though he had specifically told me not to and that he would be mortified to receive it. A writer is and will always be a lover of words and handwritten notes always hold a special place in a writer's heart. Every moment is a new beginning. Fare thee well, Mr C. 

 

- Kindred spirits, whom I would have never known were fellow book lovers except for unexpected encounters. Was buying my breakfast at the Yakun outlet and left the current book I was reading on the counter. Suddenly, I heard someone saying, "hey, that looks like a very interesting book!". I turned around and it was a colleague from another department. I told him a bit about the book. Subsequently as I went back to the office, I emailed him some books that I had recommended to another colleague and he emailed me with some of his favourite reads and authors, including John Le Carre. He added that he would read Alice in Wonderland and Wind in the Willows to his kids before bedtime. I replied and said that one of the best things that a father can do is to read to his kids because it inculcates a love of reading and increases his bonding with his kids. I felt so happy after the email exchange.

 

Overheard:

 

"I love pork...it has always been pork."

 

Q: How do you wake Lady Gaga up in the morning? A: You poke poke poke poke poke her face.

Shibuya-kei and then some

17 November:

 

A whatsapp discussion earlier tonight had me reminiscing about the Japanese music I was crazy about in my younger days. It led me to revisit on YouTube some bands that I had liked back then. My faves are mainly Shibuya-kei. 

 

Also brought back days of my travels to Tokyo with always a must-stop at the mega HMV store and buying 20 to 30 CDs at a time. I remembered that after such a purchase, I was given a reward card with many stamp chops and I looked around and saw two schoolgirls and I told them that I was a tourist from Singapore and would like to pass on the card to them. They were so happy that they kept saying “すごい” repeatedly. 

 

Another unforgettable experience was walking along the HMV store at night, where a DJ was spinning songs at a street-level or underground glass booth (if my memory serves me right). I stopped, wrote down a request on paper and pressed it against the window, hoping that he would play the song. He did. I think I requested a Beatles song. 

 

Posting videos of the songs I used to listen to, rather than their more recent ones. Among them, Pizzicato 5 is my no. 1 because they are wonderfully irreverent. Enjoy. 

 

Bonnie Pink – You Are Blue, So Am I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IE0uB6o3sA

The Brilliant Green - There will be love there -愛のある場所 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4SyplrrQcU

 

Buffalo Daughter – New Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MeIA-Pte6I

 

Chara「Swallowtail Butterfly～あいのうた～ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZdys-IOoQc

 

Cibo Matto - Full Performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_TbZa0e-Dk

 

Cornelius - Star Fruits Surf Rider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roN_oxg8hJc

 

Cornelius - Chapter 8 ~Seashore and Horizon~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaMKaoSv3fQ

 

Do As Infinity / 陽のあたる坂道 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpDK-gN_85c

 

Dreams Come True -　たくさんの応援と優しさを力に変えて前へ　熊本!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgHT9kc_uO0&list=PLhxWY4Tz3bOX8CUFmpDjMh6MIm0RFzork

 

Fantastic Plastic Machine - Fantastic Plastic World https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHBsn17CI-0

Flipper's Guitar - 恋とマシンガン (Young, Alive, In love) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49FIk8nPybw

 

GACKT「Last Song」 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewYLd1Q3ra8

 

L'Arc~en~Ciel - Driver's High ROCK ODYSSEY 2004 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws7bMCcoZqM

 

Love Psychedelico – Your Song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcsH0Ug52Tw

 

Mr.Children「抱きしめたい https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BeGx1hiEWo

 

Pizzicato Five - It's a Beautiful Day https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saHMRnVgEhM&list=RDEMRNz9CvtmyarcpWPZNEf_xQ

 

Pizzicato 5 - Twiggy Twiggy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z22nzBVLCto

 

Pizzicato Five-Baby Love Child https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFV1JNgJA7s

 

Shonen Knife - Daydream believer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqWgcQZd8HI

 

Sunny Day Service (サニーデイ)・サービス - サマーソルジャー https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUIyBtgEugg

 

The Yellow Monkey - 人生の終わり(For Grandmother) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFkfwX19M-A

 

The Yellow Monkey - Tengoku Ryokou 「天国旅行」歌詞ページ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJkRAuHRX4g

 

thee michelle gun elephant – 世界の終わり https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZC...

 

宇多田ヒカル - First Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1sUaVJUeB0 This was the first ever Japanese song that made me very determined to sing it in Japanese.

John Maynard Keynes

“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?” 

 

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.” 

 

“Only with absolute fearlessness can we slay the dragons of mediocrity that invade our gardens.” 

 

“Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking.” 

 

“The day is not far off when the economic problem will take the back seat where it belongs, and the arena of the heart and the head will be occupied or reoccupied, by our real problems -- the problems of life and of human relations, of creation and behavior and religion.”

 

“It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong.” 

 

“Ideas shape the course of history.” 

 

“Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” 

 

“When somebody persuades me I am wrong, I change my mind.”

 

“The commonest virtues of the individual are often lacking in the spokesmen of nations; a statesman representing not himself but his country may prove, without incurring excessive blame—­as history often records—­vindictive, perfidious, and egotistic.”

In remembrance - 7/7/2017

When Great Trees Fall  

Maya Angelou

 

When great trees fall, 

rocks on distant hills shudder, 

lions hunker down 

in tall grasses, 

and even elephants 

lumber after safety.

 

When great trees fall 

 in forests, 

small things recoil into silence, 

their senses 

eroded beyond fear.

 

When great souls die, 

the air around us 

becomes light, rare, sterile. 

We breathe, briefly. 

Our eyes, briefly, 

see with a hurtful clarity. 

Our memory, suddenly sharpened, 

examines, 

gnaws on kind words 

unsaid, 

promised walks 

never taken.

 

Great souls die and 

our reality, bound to 

them, takes leave of us. 

Our souls, 

dependent upon their nurture, 

now shrink, wizened. 

Our minds, formed 

 and informed by their 

radiance, 

fall away. 

We are not so much maddened 

as reduced to the unutterable ignorance 

of dark, cold 

caves.

 

And when great souls die, 

after a period peace blooms, 

slowly and always 

irregularly. Spaces fill 

 with a kind of 

soothing electric vibration. 

Our senses, restored, never 

to be the same, whisper to us. 

They existed. They existed. 

We can be. Be and be 

better. For they existed.