Quiet Delight

The Working Wife

2012-01-19T10:06:00.018-05:00

Everyone's heard of the term the Working Mom, and much has been said to support them and empathize with their gigantic challenges. But no one's really brought up what challenges the working wife has to face, day to day. I'm not a working wife myself, simply a working girl. But I work closely with these creatures who have gained my utmost awe and respect for balancing the already difficult role of wearing the pants at work, and the subtle art of taking them off at home.

Now, I'm not talking about seduction skills. I mean the much harder to pin down ability to simply be the woman to your man. There is another term that everyone's heard of over and over: the Alpha male. What is skipped when discussing the alpha vs. beta males, is that all men are equally insecure. All men live through the(ir) woman's eyes. This is a fact (a newly acquired one for me). How many accounts from my fellow women friends of how their partners turn into stubborn, sullen, shut-down human beings each time these women insist and act on their knowing better? It seems that a wife can't display superiority in much of anything that society deems a man's territory, without her husband's sulking.

How to make your man feel like The Man when you are so good at exercising the proverbial big swinging dick at work? That would be a great book for married women with high-profile jobs. Bloomberg Businessweek covered the world's female CEOs and their happy, stay-at-home husbands. These men though are an anomaly. Most guys ain't into being Mr. Mom and most wives don't want that. But the truth is with more and more women in the work force with demanding, high-paying jobs, an inevitable shift in womanly ways is happening. Gentle, patient, sweet - and not as capable in the things that men believe they should themselves be masters of - this profile of The Woman is getting more challenging for the working wife to fulfill.

My business partner is the most ratatat individual at work, shooting out quick assessments and solving so many different problems in one go. She is beyond capable. She is a master at many things. And yet, that can-do attitude she exudes is toned down a couple notches around her husband, to reach the delicate balance necessary for a man and a woman to fit as yin and yang.

Is the successful woman in the corporate world turning into an Alpha She-male? Yes, she has to if she's running a man's world. Is she going to know how to be a beta to her alpha at home? Yes, she has to make this happen with the same balls she makes everything else happen in the workplace. The working wife has an even bigger task than the working mother; she has to ensure that her husband feels like a big boy.

Happiness Is

2012-01-17T06:52:00.008-05:00

In yoga, and often in life, the more you chase after something the more it eludes you. Somehow, when you can embrace a position with your entire being contained in stillness - not in a thought, as thoughts are pursuits - that Something turns out to be sitting around, there for the taking.

At yoga this past Sunday, in the meditative motions of each position, a sweet epiphany waved into me. A burden I had long been carrying slid away with the enlightenment of its source.

There's no way to seek happiness, as there is no way to seek love. Everything is just is, as it so desires. Making it other to what is upsets the energy of things, inviting sorrow. Sure, there are things I can write a list of in order to scratch out each accomplished task, but knowing the things that can be pursued, and the things that can only be welcomed, is an invitation for wisdom.

Make Your Life Enjoyable

2012-01-14T10:14:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, someone says something so revolutionary that it hits you like a ton of bricks in a really good way. Or, maybe it's not so revolutionary, maybe it's so resonant because what is said has been lying dormant in one's soul, waiting to be switched on.

It's happened to me listening to the sage advice of the Centenarians featured on the NYT http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/10/19/health/20101018-centenarians-voices-photos.html?ref=health

The one line that was the Get Out Of Jail Card was: "Make your life enjoyable". This has been my frustrated modus operandi. Frustrated because I live my life this way but some individuals who mean a lot to me have made me feel bad doing so, as well as were plain in the way (as per previous post).

But, as Trevilla Deming said of her life full of very happiness and joy, and with a wonderful husband who was so much fun (my, we need to hear more of that in order to make us believe that it does happen, and often, and easily; ie. a happy marriage): "Rise above the bad stuff".

Yes, make your life enjoyable.

Tonight, I shall read a delicious book! Tomorrow, I shall go to the zoo! I shall hike a pretty hill! I shall eat a yummy piece of cake! I shall spend a wonderful time with marvellous people! I shall enjoy my life.

Thank you Trevilla, and your wonderful husband.

Though, if Trevilla's story doesn't make you smile, the below image always does it for me:

Six Years

2012-01-09T09:25:00.023-05:00

Six years ago, I returned to Asia.

I wrote the first posting of this blog almost six years ago in Singapore, in my little bedroom in a 3-bedroom apartment that I shared with two other girls, who were kind enough to take a stranger in to live in their surroundings. I had no plan. My vision was quotidian in that I worried only of surviving the next day, and yes, I had no plans for great things on the horizon either. I left a violent relationship in Switzerland, one that took me years to get out of out of shame and fear and the need to gather my strength about me enough to leave in one piece: mind and spirit in place. Stuck those years in Geneva with a man everyone loved but whom I knew and witnessed to be unpredictably violent, I morphed from a sure-footed New Yorker to a woman who couldn't make a decision.

The bullying and harassment that I lived daily -- being threatened with his hand by my face for not boiling the water right, being hit on the thigh in the car for failing to explain something, limping and having to say I 'bumped into the portable heater' and the like to others, losing my mind on the public bus with the disbelief at what I was living, where an acute anxiety attack led a passenger to help me get to my destination, all these things and more -- had broken me. I took awhile to get back the self I knew, and my faraway friends knew, in order to be able to up and go. How to get back to that self when escaping this man was impossible in a small town where he is a rebel prince, and with a network of his friends who mistook his violence for passion? I was in alien territory.

Arrived in Singapore, fearing betraying what I had lived through to my family in Indonesia out of shame, I escaped the necessity to heal by burying myself in work.

It's not clear to me until now what exactly happened and why, those years in Geneva. I was happy to be there in that I absolutely loved being somewhere new, somewhere foreign, and learning so much from other people's lives and how they live it. Yet, I was also increasingly lost, dancing with real danger, not so much with physical injury, but psychically. What in the world was I doing? Why hadn't I reported this man to the police? Because that wasn't the life I was supposed to live. That wasn't me.

And that has been the problem until now. Since I left New York in 2002 for a job in Switzerland, I have not been living the life I thought I would live. I left a perfect life there; one that I envisioned for myself clearly, looking into the mirror. Yet, unable to settle down, I walked away with not a look back, and straight into a reality that worsened with my denial of its truths growing larger, in order to make do with its hellish unfolding.

Can it be, that for the first time in ten entire years, I am actively choosing to be where I am finally? Instead of running away, or wishing to be back in _____ ? I have painfully chosen to be where I am, something I have not done, in ten entire years? Where have all those years gone? It was supposed to be the best years of my life, traveling and learning, living towards the dream. And yet, the risks and falls involved justify why so many parents fear for their daughters' penchant for adventures. Only boys can have them, it is too dangerous a world for lone girls.

So what of me, now, having lived those risks and falls? How far have I come these last ten years of mostly struggle, and immense disillusions? There are so many ways to interpret a story. Could it be that that is one of my weaknesses? That I now have the gift of seeing too many? How to choose just one? How to say this is how one should live, this is how things are, this is what is right and wrong, this is what I can't do without, this is what I cannot bear, without shutting oneself from truths? How many truths are there exactly? Is there really only one? Even now I cannot blame this man for doing what he did, because I understand its source. I am not defending his atrocious behavior towards me; I did not do what so many other women in what was my position do every single day, which is to decide not to leave.

From those years in Geneva, I am able to display various interpretations of what happened and with equal belief.

I was with a man whom everyone loved. When we met, I saw in him the shadow of what eventually transpired. I was new in town and happy on my own, discovering a new country with a loose collection of kind acquaintances. He did not leave me be, so insistent was he with his supposed passion. There was a physical attraction; but I prioritize intellectual compatibility--which was wanting. It was clear to me with my no-nonsense approach to romance that our values and life-trajectory shared no common points. Yet, with the presence of his persistence that was hard to escape, we came together. And we fought. He found endless opportunities to push me beyond my emotional limits, seemingly out of resentment for my detached attitude towards him. I was often accused of having such certainty about things. There seemed to be anger over the embrace and enthusiasm I had of where I was in life, things he grappled with in his own life. Basic things a decent girl would expect from a boyfriend such as respect and sensitivity, he withheld repeatedly so that I had to fight for them. When I simply walked away from a man who in my mind was inarguably dysfunctional, I was unable to; he was inescapable. He showed up at friends' apartments I sought shelter in, breaking doors when I would not open them and fixing them calmly and apologetic after: the cliché madness. I was literally trapped until I was figuratively so. Like those dogs within an invisible electric fence, I could not attempt to leave him without the pain of the conditioning he had successfully exposed me to repeatedly, each time I wanted to run. He would chase me, strike me and drag me back to his apartment, leaving me in a heap of sobs on the floor, until I wouldn't run anymore.

When finally, with the help of an understanding acquaintance, I went to the authorities to report him, I trembled and was so profoundly upset that that was indeed my life, what I had recounted to them -- the details, the repetition of those details, the glaring reality of my life written on that piece of paper -- I took back the report and could not submit it. I couldn't accept that that was my life. Very soon after, I left.

Strength of the human spirit, blah blah blah. I had lived that in me. So many, too many ways to interpret, but one thing I know, I could have been weaker. I might even have been strong.

That's one interpretation. The other is I attracted it all because I needed to punish myself for leaving a wonderful man and a wonderful life in New York. Could I have simply diffused the insanity lying in wait, had I truly believed I didn't deserve it? Or is that notion a fine example of how Westerners fool themselves into believing that we are indeed in control of our destiny? Alternatively, could it be as simple as: Shit happens?

Since that relationship, I have not had any to make up for the pain that it was, all those years. I have not had someone be the balm to the bruises in my mind and heart. It has been a long, lonesome six years where any chance for love and healing I invariably thwarted with the residual conditioning this man left in me. Every man I wanted to love back, I did things to break the love instead.

I want to be witty about this, funny, light, because that's who I am. But how does that person interpret what happened in Geneva and go on living, unscathed?

The shame comes from the knowing that everyone thinks a woman involved with an abusive man is a fool. A stupid woman. A masochistic person. And yet, no one can truly understand what happens unless it's happened to them. The stigma is too deep and is tragically placed on the woman. She is a fool to love him, she is a fool to stay, yet I did neither; but I suffer the same shame.

Six years is a long time to recover oneself, and ten years even more so to start living the life I envision living. What happens now?

2012

2012-01-09T07:59:00.001-05:00

1. Stop maximising, BE.
2. Stop running, STAY.
3. Stop reading, WRITE.
4. Stop planning, DO.
5. Stop assessing, EMBRACE.
6. Stop judging, ACCEPT.
7. Stop wishing, HAVE.
8. Stop digesting, ENJOY.
9. Stop fearing, LOVE.
10. Stop removing oneself, STEP IN.

I embrace what is, to invite the best of what will be.

A Manual To Digital

2012-01-04T06:34:00.003-05:00

After multiple, back-to-back interviewing of digital producers and developers, my brain is fried with so much digital terminology that is not my forté. How did someone totally into using her hands to make stuff evolve to someone who hires people to write code to make untouchable stuff?

The steps that has removed me from simply making something, a whole entire thing start to finish--like a sketch, a painting, a sculpture, a dress--all the way to getting folks to make stuff *not* with their hands, and producing stuff that is intangible, are as slippery to confirm as my grasp of web tech and software engineering.

But, and a big but, making virtual interaction to solve a problem and delight, is just as much fun as making something out of clay with one's hands. The difference is that it is not a solo show--which in itself can be such a thorough pleasure--but a collaboration that can be just as exhilarating providing the people involved are fantastic to work with.

Has creativity in our own hands been robbed and replaced with an unnecessarily convoluted method to pleasure and discovery? Will anything be a simple, solo, mono-activity in the corporeal ever again, with all the multi-tasking, crowd-sourcing, virtual solutions we're making and using?

Is anybody happier with all this digital inundation? Like smoking, we are all adults and are free to choose our vices and know our selves well to gravitate to what is our happiness.

So: progress it is.

Give me my hands back, I'll put my thumbs to good use discovering new dimensions; even if it won't be my hands feeling them out.

Welcome to this wonderful world Paulina Marie!

2012-01-03T23:00:00.005-05:00

Paulina Marie was born 12 hours ago to Su.

Susi, so happy for you my sister.

It Takes A Village

2012-01-03T10:00:00.000-05:00

Right now, my best friend Susi is in labour with her much-awaited, dreamed-for beautiful baby girl, and I am 20,000 aching miles away from her.
The global village does not feel like a village at all, right now.

To Do

2011-12-14T06:00:00.007-05:00

What do you do when you pour your heart into something and you have a bad day and there is no one acting as a buoy in your drowning dreams? What do you do when you realize such is life and a stiff upper lip is the best trip out of stormy seas? What do you do if you feel nothing after feeling so much more than something about something after a bad day? What do you do when the little boat you built ain't enough to float just you in it? What do you do when you look around for simple shelter to sail to at the end of a bad day? What do you do when your lifeboat is not a life nor a boat that will float you across all days? What do you do when you need a lighthouse in the blur of the fog above the quiet of the sea in which you see nothing?

Wait for the wind.

Family

2011-12-10T11:26:00.005-05:00

This past week I shot a video of celebrity siblings for a German car brand that is launching 2 different versions of the same series. The idea is to create a collage of the 2 celebrity siblings to spotlight their respective personality differences. I was initially extremely wary of meeting and working with these local celebs, having the impression from my years here as a teen that the Indonesian creative/celebrity scene is full of BS, posing and zero talent. During the selection of these siblings we somehow lucked out in finding those with genuine differences in personalities. To my own surprise, during the process of working with them I fell in love with each of their genuinely wonderful personalities.

What I also didn't expect was to be so moved by their accounts of their own families; their mothers, and their relationships with each other. I had to put together questions to get them to talk about their lives, which inevitably led to intimate details of their families. What I witnessed were a couple of consistent traits the two pairs of siblings shared which are: a true adoration of and appreciation for their supportive mothers, and a genuine bond with their sibling. It moved me to almost-tears, listening to their responses while in the recording studio.

Envy is not the emotion I felt -- though that would be a valid one being an only child of divorced parents -- but I felt instead deep awe to see that this is what family means, what it is. To have a sibling means someone out there thinks they will always be there for you, no matter what, and to have someone there who you can trust unconditionally and loves you unconditionally. Never before did I understand that that is family.

I did think of Su and Al though, and I smiled knowing they're my soul sisters.

Below are some photographs of the campaign, out next week.

Food For Being

2011-12-08T10:29:00.005-05:00

What is living? What is art? No one easy answer, but fodder for a great meal.

Grace

2011-11-16T13:53:00.016-05:00

I stumbled on Gretchen Rubin's blog on her Happiness Project while searching the quote "It's easy to be heavy, hard to be light". In it, she proposed the idea of writing an Oscar's acceptance speech as a way to feel happier, which I took to immediately and will attempt below.

I had read this after an acutely searing moment losing a fight against the very ugly, in-your-face abyss of despair, while dining alone and collecting myself before returning to a long night of work. In the car driven back to the office, a gentle uplift unexpectedly settled around me. Out of the blue, the words of the above quote shone through the black hole, dissipating it in a slow blink.

So, for the great gratitude I feel for my apparently built-in coping mechanism, I will write my Oscar's Acceptance Speech, addressed to my beloveds:

I want to thank my Mother, for being the ballsy woman she is. For choosing her own path and fighting her lone fights far from the reach of earned wisdom. For not giving in to the dark, though it is so willing a constant companion. For her continual grasp to be inspired and upbeat. For living with spunk, not resignation. For being mine.

I want to thank my Father, for being an anchor, even while his own is unanchored. For being the source of whatever steadiness and strength I have. For signing me up to be a member of the National Geographic Society and hanging its certificate with my name hand-written in calligraphy, and the Jacques Cousteau Society, and the Enid Blyton Fan Club. For buying me the countless books of the Mallory Towers series, and later, Sweet Valley High. For containing his melancholy in the rare glass of whisky while sitting in his study. For stealthily correcting my grammar in my attempts at writing fiction - often about Snoopy - that I did after homework in grade school, which I'd mysteriously find the next day. For talking to me at every dinner about the state of the world. For teaching me to swim. For every Christmas present and Easter present that were always thoughtful. For all the reasons that I have been able to travel everywhere on my own, and work, and be independent, anywhere. For raising me.

I want to thank my Aunt, for teaching me how to read. For giving me confidence in my apparently affectionate nature, by pointing it out to me with great affection. For knowing when to step in and when not to intrude in the interesting web of roles shared in raising me. For the love she could not help but bestow on me as if I were her own daughter. For loving me.

I want to thank my Uncle - who has passed away - for being the rock that he was for so many people. For creating the joy of family that I hold in my memories through unforgettable evenings such as that one New Year's in London at The Elephant On The River: everyone laughing, shining and elegant. For loving to dance, and loving life, and loving NY musicals. For his incisive once-overs about everyone crossing his path. For his ability to navigate from introspective to cheeky and always at the appropriate time. For the birthday card he wrote me when he hardly writes them. For his wisdom.

I want to thank my cousins Lisa, Ronnie and Andy - whom are really like my siblings - for making me feel loved, always. To Lisa who never snapped at me for being what I imagine now to be annoyingly sunny as a ten-year-old in London, sharing her room, chirpy as a bird at dawn. For her sensitive nature. To Ronnie, for picking me up from school countless times and letting me help him drive the car by changing the gears, which was so fun. For loving his guitar and his music so single-mindedly. For being a wonderful older brother. To Andy, for being the classic pain in the ass of a brother figure, who kicked me under the dining table to shut me up during family dinners, and for whom I took great pleasure in contaminating his glasses of water out of revenge, with copious amounts of salt. For sweetly hatching a surprise goodbye to my Mother who came to visit me in London, and who was walking into the airport after our farewells, and later joyously taken aback at seeing Andy and me having beaten her to the boarding gate. I still remember it so vividly: sprinting up the escalator, racing through the hallway...For his flair for the sentimental.

I want to thank Ong, for how good and kind he was. For being the catalyst to my going to NY and thus the rest of my life. For being the best boyfriend a 16-year old could wish for: thoughtful, loyal, funny, protective, sensitive, constant. For being the shelter to my heart. For being a soul-mate.

I want to thank Richard, for being my ballast during all those years in NY: the happiest times. I wouldn't be me, without Richard all those pivotal years when I came of age and arrived, fully as the woman I set out to be. For being a rock. For being so unaffected by my swaying, the storms and thunders and clear skies around me. For being resolute and calm in his love for me. For being the best partner I hadn't known to wish for myself.

I want to thank Citra, my best friend from high-school, who in the genius plain speak she is capable of, said to me as only a true friend would: "Elo mau apa lagi Tan?" when we were both standing at the lobby of Richard's office, watching him walk out the elevator to meet us. Truer words of advice could not have been uttered. For making me eat Jakarta street food before we left for college. For telling me with undoubted conviction "You can do anything!". For being my friend.

I want to thank Susi, for knowing me. For attending to all the details that only genuine care could attend to. For the long walks and the nights drinking tea and waking me up in the morning when we were roommates and never getting sick of doing so. For the endless chats before going to bed about everything under the sun. For the baked potatoes. For spotting me with the necessary seemingly fat bank account in order to get all the visas I needed for my whirlwind moving-around-continents. For always providing me with a home complete with my own room - whenever my moving-around-continents left me homeless - and calling it "your room" to me even after I left. For being my sister, who is soon-to-be the mother to an undoubtedly-best-loved-baby-daughter.

I want to thank Allison, for saying it like it is. For writing me that long, sincere letter after seeing me in Geneva. Friends are those who pull you back to who you are. For being like a Mom and Dad to me with her Thomas. For being the fair umpire at the Cafe Lalo through-the-window spat (the only one) Susi and I had. For her jumping on my bed on Saturday mornings when we were living in Astoria, Queens, shouting for me to wake up and that it's a gorgeous day with utmost consistence. For being the only person on earth who was there with me on that Day From Hell moving from Astoria back to the city. For not hesitating to nod her head that same day when faced with the desperate option to rent a Goliath truck. For being such a great mom to beautiful Liam, whom she had so patiently and faithfully waited for. It's not for nothing her middle name is Hope. For being my other sister.

I want to thank Bea, for spending so many Christmases with me at the drop of a hat. For being the only other person I know who is as adaptable and amoeba-like - as well as with an equally large appetite for yummy grub - as myself. For never taking offense at my usually hard-nosed romantic advice. For being my unconditional buddy who shows up anywhere I am in the world.

For Monika, my business partner, who is a daily inspiration. For being so clear-minded and unbiased and damned logical about everything. For juggling being a mom to her three perfect, assertive, clever little girls and running a start-up with equal passion and panache. For knowing when to pick up the ball when I can't carry it. For understanding so much more than she lets on, and acting on it. For being a kick-ass woman.

~

These are the people off the top of my head; yet there are so many others. Writing the details of what I cherish most about each of the beloveds above, truly does work in making me happy, although, if one were always happy, then one wouldn't know one was so. Hence, sadness is not so bad if its function is to define happiness.

Happy Thanksgiving To All.

The Surprise of Wonder, The Wonder in Surprise.

2011-10-17T07:44:00.022-04:00

I gasped. Gliding in the raft, silent, a vision of figures and creatures in undulating lines modestly assert themselves on the rocks bordering the river. A breeze rustles the coconut trees high above on the steep hills. Down on the water, the story of Ramayana reveals itself in as magical and mystical a manner as the wonder that crept in me, as I first laid eyes on the gods and goddesses.

Moss had settled on some of the carvings, blanketing the big-bellied monster and the shapely angel he's chasing in a hush, plush green. At the mercy of the slow current, my mouth hung open as I stretched my neck to see how long this epic on stone canvas was going for. There was no warning of what I was floating across. No one mentioned this sublime piece of art would be part of the rafting trip I was partaking in, as a break to my weekends-in-Bali routine. White water rapids, bumping around, and a whole lot of vocal strength was what I was in for. But this. It took my breath away.

Moments after gathering information from the blasé guide, I learnt that the relief was carved over a period of 3 months, 6 years ago, by a local craftsman. Of course. And yet, this post-knowledge did not do anything to add or subtract from the wonder - and its staying power - of coming upon such an unexpected visual work of story-telling, of love.

My surprise made me feel like a kid. Marveling at the sight of the relief was such a deep pleasure, I pondered if the exquisite delight has to do with my not at all being equipped to see it. What if no one mentioned any requisite information that usually precedes the viewing of works of art, what if one just walked into an unexpected space wherein lies a marvel of human intention for narrative that is seemingly natural to its environment...what if we were simply not informed of the things we have yet to experience? Wonder would definitely be a more common state to be in. And a marvel at that.

There's No Free Lunch

2011-08-16T02:33:00.012-04:00

I had read some of the reviews of this book, before deciding to read it. I was left with a strong negative impression of the main characters--which, in the two days it took me to finish reading the novel, I had trouble pinpointing. I know people like the Moreys, the husband and wife Adam and Cynthia. They are people whose lack of sentimentality and refusal to dwell in uncomfortable memories of disempowerment and loss are not so much a concentrated effort that is a result of deep reflection, but a practical, get-on-with-it attitude to life that is greatly effective in securing the kind of life most wish to have. It is interesting that people would rather forgive adulterous men who do 'good' in public, yet are harsh on Adam Morey, whose sole focus in life is to be the best husband and father he can be to his much-cherished wife and children by providing limitless possibilities for them.

Jonathan Dee's Moreys represent the young, brash, no-looking-back, guilt-free America, whose vision of the future and its secure place in it has no relation to illusions or prayers or fate, but the simple fact of acting on its ideals and making it a reality today. As we should all be able to see by now, that modus operandi no doubt has affected everyone in its dust, but it doesn't reduce the purity of its intention; a particularly American creed.

If Adam Morey is an alcoholic instead of a dedicated athlete, if he is an abusive instead of a devoted husband, if he comes home with no 'bacon' instead of having more than anticipated and acted on his wife's needs and his family's, I wonder if my fellow reviewers would be more forgiving, and write things about him with descriptions like 'human', or 'deep and true' or, 'honest'? Have we become a society that is comfortable in sidling up with unforgivable weaknesses than what can be interpreted as strength of character? What kind of a society throws stones at those minding their own business living autonomous, self-sufficient, successful lives, when that exact society built the particular infrastructure for the realization of that particular life trajectory?

Yes, the Moreys exclude family members outside of their own nucleus -- the reminders of their disempowered past-lives. Dee doesn't venture to describe how both Cynthia and Adam come to this choice, apart from illustrating the alienating gap between their children and the children's grandparents that are jarring for both parties. Again, what kind of compromises is one willing to make for one's dreams? For the Moreys, in order to seize the big living they sought for themselves, they made the innate choice to leave behind all that would not sync with that vision. Adam is not guilty of being a 'sociopath'-- if the USA can be called a sociopath for wanting to spread democracy with such naïveté as, similarly, the Pyle character believed he was doing in Graham Greene's The Quiet American--he just believed in the American Dream. His idea of being a righteous man is to do good by his family and staying loyal to that.

Dee's message is one that is deeply paradoxical and delivered in a deceptively economical manner. Are we guilty of being true to our dreams that does not seemingly hurt anyone and is for the good of the people we have vowed to take care of for the rest of our lives? As Candide had advised: cultivate our own garden; mind our own business and do our best to provide for those closest to us. Adam and Cynthia are devoted to each other their whole married lives, and have the kind of marriage all of us wish for: one that is filled with faith and support, true love and resilience, a lack of doubts and misgivings. Would we rather punish these characters for their tunnel vision, or those whose grasp of the big picture give license to their disloyalties toward those who trust them? How many 'humanitarian' individuals are ruthlessly indifferent to the emotional well-fare of those serving as their support system?

The Moreys represent the naïve, seemingly carefree, beautiful and bold America. Historical baggage is one they've left at the altar; as in the novel, the beginning of the Moreys' lives start at their wedding very early in their lives. At the end of the novel, Dee portrays moments in which Adam and Cynthia respectively experience uncharacteristic self-reflection, triggered by loss and alienation. Both of them chuck their probing thoughts out the window before truly giving any time for such thoughts to take hold in their vigilantly-guarded sentiments. In this rejection of exploring possible (other) meanings of their lives, Dee depicts that the lives of the privileged are not as free from burden as we'd like to project in our need to believe that they are different to 'us', or, 'inhuman'. The burden of the success that the Moreys achieve, is the baggage of deciding not to carry any. Everything demands a compromise, and in America, one is free to make the compromises one chooses to live with.

Deep.

2011-05-27T01:02:00.005-04:00

Only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn’t exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will himself sound the depths of his own being. For if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security.

And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe’s stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience.

How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence something helpless that needs our love.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, 1904

The cold shoulder of come hither

2010-07-30T22:43:00.003-04:00

Why Western designer brands insist on carrying winter clothes in tropical countries would be a pertinent question. If this were Capri in the summer, with its inhabitants and visitors alike donned in well-made garments day in day out, the matter would be inevitable.

Being that this is Jakarta, a capital city (with a population of roughly 25 million, of which at least half are undocumented) of an ultra rapidly developing nation - low standard of living and gross negligence of quality of life an accepted way of being - how do brands like Burberry justify bold statements as the above on the extreme fabulousness of their winter wear in the midst of a teeming tropical town, of people with no opportunity to know the cold, much less own a Burberry coat to stylishly cloak them from it?

Out of context

2010-06-02T10:44:00.003-04:00

Singapore's hotels pulses with multiple corporate junkets implementing quik-learns of stuff that the continent is finally picking up, after the developed world's been there and done that.

In this case how does a multi-national agency train an emerging markets region digital fluency pertinent to, valid in, the local context?

Easy. Get your lead guy from a developed market to come in to monitor various presentations by each country office and additional vendors in an attempt to share and learn...AND pitch...and pepper the gathering with kick-in-the-butt commentaries that leave much to be desired for its out-of-context-ness.

Another question mark. Another day working in Asia feeling...out of context.

Mega extremes in metropolis Jakarta

2009-01-31T00:27:00.006-05:00

20 million plus inhabitants. Harvey Nichols department store, a 'warung sate' sidling up to it (street hawker). Is Sao Paolo, Brazil the only other city that can rival the amount of souls in this one, with the same extremes of lifestyles? Though interestingly, with no comparable crime rate.

The Painter of Modern Life

2008-12-11T21:46:00.003-05:00

For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world–such are a few of the slightest pleasures of those independent, passionate, impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define.

The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito. The lover of life makes the whole world his family, just like the lover of the fair sex who builds up his family from all the beautiful women that he has ever found, or that are–or are not–to be found; or the lover of pictures who lives in a magical society of dreams painted on canvas. Thus the lover of universal life enters into the crowd as though it were an immense reservoir of electrical energy. Or we might liken him to a mirror as vast as the crowd itself; or to a kaleidoscope gifted with consciousness, responding to each one of its movements and reproducing the multiplicity of life and the flickering grace of all the elements of life.

He is an 'I' with an insatiable appetite for the 'non-I', at every instant rendering and explaining it in pictures more living than life itself, which is always unstable and fugitive. 'Any man,' he said one day, in the course of one of those conversations which he illumines with burning glance and evocative gesture, 'any man who is not crushed by one of those griefs whose nature is too real not to monopolize all his capacities, and who can yet be bored in the heart of the multitude, is a blockhead! a blockhead!'

-Charles Baudelaire

The Unmaking of Made In China

2008-11-19T13:14:00.006-05:00

I've been saying this this whole year: being in this part of Asia (Singapore) has made me so turned off trinkets and cheaply-made stuff that I ache for well-crafted anything. It's been an awakening to the integrity of a well-made object: that human creativity and love (=art) combined together make for beautiful, wondrous things.

The general attitude towards creativity here in South East Asia--or countries heavily stocked with Made In China junk--is 'cheap cheap'. Having clients who don't value well thought-out, well-executed ideas and products--folks who pay a pittance in attention and change for what they can't understand cannot be mass-produced--is a soul-killer and the reason for so much trash, literally. Day to day lives are dotted with un-necessities made of bad materials, limping in fulfilling its functions. But most of all, as the editorial in this issue of Monocle prove: the dismissive attitude towards craftsmanship is causing a backlash for Chinese manufacturing. The hype's been great the last couple of years for quickie Chinese factories. But let's now get back to the long-term investment business of Made With Love.

Moon over Batavia

2008-11-18T11:21:00.014-05:00

After one entire month in Jakarta, I returned to Singapore serene. It's funny how a city of more than 20 million, its traffic, pollution and corruption--along with the general sense of life as chaos--could dispense calm at all. What it is, is the people of Jakarta--though maddeningly accepting of the status quo or maybe due to it--are gracious and genuine; and most notably wise. Wise about not getting drowned in the hustle and bustle of life; wise about seeing what is not in our control; wise about helping out--for there's not much of a safety net by way of the government or law and order. One might say--as I always do the first days on a visit there--that this acceptance or supposed wisdom is the result of hopelessness; that this hopelessness is the cause for the chaos, the lack of order. Still, the dance of balance between the forces of nature (and what a mighty one in this part of the world) and living elbow to elbow amidst the intentions and dreams of millions of souls, result in a collective trait within every Jakartan: a combination of having peace with the imperfection in our struggles--the small chance of desired outcomes--with the courage to go on anyway. Throw grace in there and you get a people much happier than the folks I've spent every day with the last couple of years in the Truman Show That Is Singapore: that tightly-ordered, surface-shiny city, with money flying around blinding its citizens from being thankful to be alive.

Jakarta, Jakarta

2008-06-18T13:48:00.015-04:00

An awful place to visit. But apparently great to live in. I say apparently as I haven't done so since 1994-the year I left Jakarta for New York, New York. Some similarities between the two cities would be the following: same raw energy, same air of wild possibility--"You need something done? I know some people.."--same hodge podge that leave folks scrambling for security anyway they can get it. And that's where it ends. The sun doesn't shine in Jakarta, that light you see is the diffused rays of matahari through the Jakarta smog: a haze made up of chains of smoke climbing up the sky from almost every household's (pop. 20+ million) garbage burner. Beside each residential entrance gate one sees upright slabs of cement that form a box with an iron lid. Inside goes the daily disposed items of an entire household which is then set on fire--voom! disappears the toxic plastic, styrofoam, wood, paper, metal, bodily fluids, you name it: the entire spectrum of humanity's trace of daily existence morphing into vapor, blanketing the city.
One can hardly see the land, descending upon good old Batavia.

You'd think everyone living there would have bad skin, bad hair, bad lungs. But here are these chirpy women with sparkling eyes and flawless pores; men whom are sincerely chivalrous; tasty food at restaurants that have that 'it' factor; the glittering nightlife; and-simply put-really cool, soulful people. Go figure? What constitutes good living anyway? A clean, organised, safe environment? Or something more intangible, the way some people just got charisma and some don't. The ones you expect would have them--good genes, good degrees--disappoint; the ones whose coming-into-beings were precarious affairs, enchant. I'd say Jakarta falls into the latter type; it's got a lot of mojo for something so discouraging on the surface.

Mmm.. so good

2008-05-23T06:26:00.003-04:00

and so right:

Edible Education:
Bringing The Delicious Revolution to America's Schools, Universities, and Institutions
by Alice Waters

There is a profound disconnection between the kind of human experience that our society values, and the way we actually live our lives. Most people submit unthinkingly to dehumanizing experiences of food-in workplace cafeterias, food courts, and fast food chains. How can one marvel at the world and then feed oneself in a completely unmarvelous way? I think it's because we don't learn the vital relationship of food to agriculture and of food to culture, and how food affects the quality of our everyday lives.

To me, food is the one central thing about human experience which can open up both our senses and our consciences to our place in the world. Consider this: Eating is something we all have in common. It's something we all have to do every day and it's something we can all share. Food and nourishment are right at the point where human rights and the environment intersect. Everyone should have the right to wholesome, affordable food.

What could be a more delicious revolution than to start committing our best resources to teaching this to children?-by feeding them and giving them pleasure; by teaching them how to grow food responsibly; and by teaching them how to cook it and eat it, together, around the table? When you start to open up a child's senses-when you invite children to engage, physically, with gardening and food-there is a set of values that is instilled effortlessly, that just washes over them, as part of the process of offering good food to other people. Children become so rapt-so enraptured, even-by being engaged in learning in a sensual, kinesthetic way. And food seduces you by its very nature-the smell of baking, for example: It makes you hungry! Who could resist the aroma of fresh bread?

There is nothing else as universal. When you understand where your food comes from, you look at the world in an entirely different way. I think that if you really start caring about the world in this way, you see opportunities everywhere.

In order for there to be a future to the environmental movement, we must teach the children that taking care of the land and learning to feed yourself is just as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic. For the most part, our families and institutions are not doing this. Therefore, I believe that it's up to the public education system to teach our kids these important values. There should be gardens in every school, and school lunch programs that serve the things the children grow themselves, supplemented by local, organically grown products. This Delicious Revolution could transform education and agriculture.

Novel filmmaking

2008-04-30T11:27:00.005-04:00

A six-hour account of two Italian brothers from Rome in the '60s until the present day, juxtaposing their lives with Italian contemporary history, is the story found in this film. I saw it in three nights--and was rewinding parts to watch again days after that. A great film. Everything in this film that makes it so is subtle. From the acting to the story unfolding, it's nothing like we've seen in a 2 hour movie. The pace is different because of the long-story format, there's an unusual but comforting, grounding human rhythm to the story. One gets so involved with the characters it's difficult to let them go when the film ends. Their evolutions, their unpredictable actions, are so familiar in those we know in reality but not what we are used to on screen. There are though, moments of technical cheesiness that can only be attributed to the Italian filmmakers' trust in the viewer's willingness to play along; such as when one can tell that a background scene was added, or when a driving scene is shot without ever having the actor outdoors. But these are minute compromises in a story so well-told it feels as though someone had just let the characters go out and live their lives to return and have each of their trajectories meet in profound, albeit ordinary, moments. Great filmmaking.

Hanoi and Saigon: Asian cities with a French twist

2007-12-30T06:45:00.000-05:00

Not a long enough trip to discover much of Vietnam, but the brief stops in Saigon and Hanoi left a fond impression of both cities' motorbike honking concert and the interesting juxtaposition of French Colonialism and Communism (upright fading French mansions next to streamlined Communist blocks), with the Vietnamese spirit trumping both passing fancies. Capitalism is clearly its current paramour seen from the pastoral and urban meeting in commerce in the dynamism of everyday life.

Hanoi December evenings: sprinkled with Holiday cheer and sophistication; the subtle winter chill make for cosy dining in Colonial mansions turned Vietnamese eateries.

The Metropole Hotel or "Le Grande Metropole" seems to be the only hotel in Hanoi to neatly contain and emit the glamour of Vietnam's French Colonial charm. Many hotels in this town are otherwise products of the less refined sensibility of the 1980s. Tourists at the lobby are heard asking for available rooms to move into from their disappointment with Hanoi's other big hotels that fall short of delivering the romance of Hanoi's past.

Hanoi: a collage of the ancient (temples in the city date back to around 1000), the historic, and the contemporary with a backdrop of traffic noise and sepia winter dust.

You're not crazy if gray walls depress you..

2007-10-05T04:08:00.000-04:00

You're just an Aesthete..says Alain de Botton
http://www.metropolismag.com/cda/story.php?artid=2968

Every September now

2007-09-11T23:54:00.001-04:00

Not enough heat in this heat

2007-06-07T05:56:00.001-04:00

Apparently. People of the tropics like to compound the heat with daily spice.

The beginning of a lifetime's mindset

2007-06-07T05:52:00.000-04:00

Back in Singapore..an obedient line of primary school kids in uniforms.

Bali me anytime

2007-04-11T11:41:00.000-04:00

The island keeps true to its soul even if its face changes.

Tioman Islands, Malaysia

2007-03-13T12:39:00.000-04:00

A short propeller plane flight away, or a more adventurous multiple Malaysian buses away from Singapore (+/- 4 hours to Mersing, the coast town where one catches the 1 hour + speed boat to the four beaches of Tioman Islands), Salang Beach on Tioman is a perfect combination of tourist friendly with fishermen's villages and its locals very much at home. A wonderful place to hop on a boat for diving and snorkelling; a three hour frolick on a deserted beach (after having been dropped off by the diving crew) was the closest thing one can get to being a native fisherman at one with sea and sand. Hiking over the hills is a great way to seek shadow from the pounding equatorial sun, with more white sand to get to on the other side of the island. Dinner on the beach with the full moon and grilled gigantic Mackerels top this Tioman trip. (Third photo courtesy of S. Deschamps)

De Soul Laah

2007-03-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

Singapore's Groove Vibration Festival was proof of a lot of soul in the air--something that begs to differ with many expats here complaining about the lack of 'soul' of Singapore. If it isn't that, it's the other extreme; Singapore's too keen efforts in selling itself to a multitude of popular trends. It's difficult to agree with both views, one would prefer to believe that the people clapping and moving to the beat at this particular festival were neither lacking soul nor selling their soul to any passing Western trend. Like Switzerland--another country with three identities and languages--Singapore teeters between pride over its mutli-culturalism and discomfort over its identity confusion. Who are they? Shopping-obssessed freaks with no nature to run to? State-directed lives, lacking initiative to follow the impulses of the "individual" ? Or, a new generation breaking free from uniformity and neutrality; rebelling by embracing whatever that is Other, New and Shiny? Regardless, judgements made by the not so contemplative visitor reflects more on his/her missing the history of this island-state. From generations of living as part of a community, in a country heavily dictated by its government, young Singaporeans are now juggling the transition between state and family (i am 'we' vs. i am 'me'), to the very exciting present where anything is possible; ie. winning the Singapore Idol.
I would agree with the critical expats on one thing: shopping ain't meant to be expression. Making music, art, or poetry that resonates for those who listen, see or read them is a challenge for locals who are still getting used to freedom of expression. Covers upon covers of local magazines with practically naked girls is not freedom of expression, nor chit chat that constantly pines to be sexually vulgar; but perhaps being shocking is the first resort to revelling in finding one's voice. Shout on and stumble on your soul, Singapura!

Dear Editor, Be My Valentine

2007-02-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

Dear Editor, the Secret of Love Is ...

By DANIEL JONES, NY Times
EACH year, as the day nears when we are expected to celebrate (or at least positively spin) the current state of our romantic lives, people start asking me what I, as the editor of this column, have learned about love. Surely, they assume, I’ve learned something from spending my days immersed in strangers’ relationship stories. But whenever this seeming softball of a question comes hurtling at me, my mind goes blank.

In need of an answer, I sift through hundreds of essays submitted for the column, searching for trends, clues, even a measly tip or two. This year, I relived the oddity of the middle-aged woman who couldn’t decide when best to inform her dates that she’s never had sex, and of the man who faced a similar quandary when it came to disclosing that he has only one testicle. I read cheery stories of those who found love only after giving up, and darker tales of philandering husbands, rebellious children, stalking lovers, flirtatious doctors and baffling breakups.

In these accounts I found exactly one common thread: Wisdom about love is sorely lacking. Over the millennia we Homo sapiens, with our ever-evolving intelligence and sensibilities, have made great strides on many fronts (human rights! space travel!), but when it comes to love, we don’t seem to evolve so much as revolve.

Given this history of futility, maybe we should stop asking each other what we have learned about love. The better question is: In what new and creative ways have we failed to learn? That I can answer. So here, with gratitude to the thousands of writers who every year send me their confessions of doubt and disorder, I offer my thoughts on those areas where we have made no discernable progress in learning about love since last Valentine’s Day.

1. HOW TO AVOID FEELING JEALOUS OVER REALLY DUMB THINGS

This year I heard from several wives who claim to be jealous of the relationship their husbands have with the woman’s voice on the car’s navigation device. Not only is it strangely seductive and somehow more sophisticated than the wife’s voice, it also provides flawless directions, an ability it unfairly flaunts to gain the husband’s admiration and trust. How, these wives wonder, are they supposed to compete with a dashboard dominatrix who has her own built-in Global Positioning System? And how are they to feel when their husbands shush them so they can better hear the advice of their leather-bound mistress of the console?

2. HOW TO REMEMBER THAT WHEREVER YOU GO, THERE YOU ARE

Online communities like SecondLife allow members to create animated versions of themselves called avatars that can go on dates, fly, carouse, even engage in prostitution. Theodora Stites wrote vividly in this space about how she conducts much of her romantic life this way and confessed to enlarging her avatar’s chest and perfecting its features to attract suitable male avatars.

You might assume that on SecondLife you are protected from the emotional upheaval of real relationships because the animated couplings tend to be, well, fake. But here’s the catch: They’re not fake. It’s still you behind the screen and you who is being accepted or rejected, with all the attendant joy and pain. As Theodora explained, “I’ve found that I act much as I do in real life, and my SecondLife relationships tend to fail the same way my real-life relationships do.”

3. HOW TO EMBRACE THE NO-FAULT BREAKUP

There surely is plenty of blame to go around in most breakups, but that’s not the way we tend to see it. We tend to believe only one person is at fault. The other person. Especially when that person is a man. Please don’t shoot the messenger on this one; I’m simply telling you what I have observed.

Among the truckloads of divorce and breakup stories I’ve received, the prevailing sentiment is that the man is either at fault or too incommunicative for fault to be properly established. What’s more, even the men blame the men.

“He was a jerk,” the women say. “He didn’t know what he wanted.”

“I was a jerk,” the men say. “I didn’t know what I wanted.”

Can the world actually be this tilted, or is that just how we choose to write about it? Are women apt to publicly seethe while men prefer to seethe in private? Or is it more acceptable for women to complain about men than the reverse? If you know the answer, send it to modernlove@nytimes.com, and together we’ll bust this case wide open.

4. HOW TO HAVE SEX IF YOU’RE A SEX COLUMNIST

This seemed to be the year of hearing from sex columnists who aren’t having sex. In case you didn’t know, it’s really embarrassing to be a sex columnist who isn’t having sex. The anxiety is three-fold: First, what am I supposed to write about if I’m not having sex? Second, how am I supposed to have any credibility? And third, why is this happening to me, anyway?

5. HOW TO FIND A LASTING RELATIONSHIP FOR YOURSELF IF YOU’RE A DATING COACH

Same as above, substituting dating coach for sex columnist and dates for sex.

6. HOW TO GET MARRIED WHILE REMAINING SINGLE

Hardly a week passes when I don’t hear from someone stewing about the anticipated gains and losses of marriage: how to handle the last name, the loss of personal space and identity, the permanent end to sex with others, the problematic vocabulary (“wife,” “husband,” “until death”), the merging of finances and religions, the issue of marrying when gays can’t, the questionable necessity of marriage in the first place.

Amid all this agonizing, I also hear of creative solutions, such as having an open marriage and sleeping with whomever you want, putting a Star of David atop your Christmas tree, and maintaining separate bedrooms or houses. As for the last-name problem, you could always try the technique of one enterprising couple: let your dog make the decision by building a contraption rigged with treats and levers that old Spot nudges with his nose during your actual wedding ceremony to select the name you, your spouse and your future children will have for the rest of your lives.

7. HOW TO BECOME A PARENT WHILE REMAINING CHILDLESS

From what I’ve observed, the real before-and-after divide in life is not getting married but having children (or not). The accounts of hand-wringing pour in: flamed-out friendships when one has a child and the other doesn’t, defensiveness from those who decide against but continue to feel pressure, and crushing ambivalence among couples who, year after year, simply can’t decide.

What are their pros and cons? Wanting a child for the anticipated bond and expansion of love that everyone promises versus the feared curtailing of career opportunities, travel, sleep and leisure, sometimes combined with worries of parental incompetence or of bringing a child into a world that is already overpopulated. But the greatest struggle often involves those couples where one wants a child and the other does not, even when, in some cases, they were in agreement before marrying.

8. HOW TO MAKE LOVE LIKE A PORN STAR

Since I’ve heard from only one person in 30 months who even vaguely seemed to make love like a porn star (in the sense that she films herself), it might be safe to assume this kind of activity is not a nationwide trend. But there’s a book out called “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star,” and it has been a huge best seller. So it’s entirely possible that thousands are making love like porn stars but are simply (understandably) not writing essays about it.

9. HOW TO COMMENT APPROPRIATELY ON YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S APPEARANCE

One would hope men had figured this one out by now. Yet in an account I received not long ago, a guy mused aloud to his girlfriend (who wrote the piece) about how he must have “grown emotionally” lately because she was the most “full-figured” woman he’d ever dated, and while in the past he wouldn’t have been attracted to such a body type, he had, with her, somehow managed to get over that hurdle.

But who am I to judge? They are now — you guessed it — married.

10. HOW TO FINALLY GET OVER THE LINGERING FANTASY OF THAT LONG-LOST LOVE

In one area, however, we are learning, at least according to various versions of this story that have come my way: You fell in love that summer in college. Or while studying in Rome. Or while milking goats in Bhutan. Whatever the case, your time together was magical, it ended prematurely, and you never forgot. And 20 years later, when the routine of your life (children, work, chores, little sex, no romance, not even a Valentine’s Day card for the spouse on your radar screen) starts to get you down, you find yourself wondering, What kind of glamorous life is he/she leading now? What if that had been my life?

At long last we are finding out, and we are doing so en masse, courtesy of Google text and image searches, even Google Earth (aerial shot of his house, anyone?). In time, we stumble upon an e-mail address, compose the perfect note, swallow hard and hit send. And soon we’re reading about the amiable husband/wife, the overscheduled children and the unsurprising career, all in a tone that’s breezy, passionless. “But it’s such fun to reconnect,” he/she blathers on. “And wouldn’t it be a scream if the next time we’re in the same city on business we could meet up for a cappuccino?”

And just like that, for many of us at least, the fantasy evaporates. The grass is not greener. It’s the exact same grass, or maybe even browner. So you log off, stand up, splash water on your face, and stride back into your life with fresh eyes. After all, you love the children you have, not the children you might have had. And the same goes for your spouse, who would never call anything “a scream” and who, for that reason alone, deserves a special card this year, perhaps even chocolates.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love. His latest book, “Modern Love: 50 True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit and Devotion,” a collection of essays from this column, is just out from Three Rivers Press.

In that case, I'll patent my:

2007-01-17T05:17:00.000-05:00

random, imagined, doodled solutions for life.

Click on the image to read

Franco's Pan

2007-01-17T04:14:00.000-05:00

I saw this Spanish film without knowing what I was about to watch...(the result of my movie companion wanting to surprise me plus an unintended skip over the opening credits). Hope if you go see it you'll have the same fantastic daze I got walking out of the cinema: I was completely taken by the story (booklovers out there: prepare to delight in the scenes where the girl opens the magic book..) and found it a thoroughly well-thought out, super imaginatively executed story within a story, each respectively at opposite extremes of what is awful and wonderful in life.

Krabi rhymes with heavenly or even sublimely

2007-01-04T22:53:00.000-05:00

Very hard to choose through the 400 images taken over the six days there..(edited 400 at that). But here goes...

1. Dawn at Noppharatara Beach, an isolated beach next to Ao Nang beach where a cluster of bungalows sit under coconut trees.
2. The longtail boat that takes us to Ao Nang beach (a rather unattractive public beach) where we take another longtail boat to Railei Beach: a beautiful one!
4. Railei Beach is cradled in an arm of limestone cliffs, and shoulder to shoulder with other beaches reachable only by kayak. On a good day the water is deep turquoise and flat, allowing for kayaking around the coast and a great way to look at the limestone cliffs up close; as well as stopping at small beaches all your own.
6. The lagoons are beautiful and calm..snorkelling and general exhaling over the landscape are some optional activities.
7. There are numerous caves reachable by dingy or kayak with fish following your trail.
8. The Beach was filmed here (as many signs and tour guides don't let you forget: Maya Beach, on Phi Phi Don). If you have one of those horse-blinds you can actually imagine being alone in the sublime waters.., ie. don't come here on a speedboat tour from Ao Nang--you'll be sharing the paradise with 20 other boats on the same schedule. Otherwise I easily imagined myself as Brooke Shields in the Blue Lagoon; stranded on a paradise island. I was just missing the tattered clothes à la shipwrecked is all.
10. The main bar and café at Railei Beach is great. Good Thai dishes (and pleasantly: salads, sandwiches, pastries and coffee too..) which for some reason was hard to come by in mainland Krabi; where one eats a lot of what the Thais think tourists would like to eat on a tropical island: bland concoctions of sautéed veggies and insipid fish...? We want YOUR food! You know lemongrass and err green curry and joyously barbecued seafood? Too bad English is not much of a lingua franca either; proof of how fast Krabi's becoming a popular destination as the locals scramble to absorb the (demanding) aliens: a lot of Europeans and a surprising number of Americans; leading one to think if Krabi's the new Positano.
12. Gorgeous sunset on Railei Beach over fresh pineapple crushed with ice and honey...For beautiful bungalows for rent, go to www.raileibeachclub.com. They have about 20+ privately owned bungalows for rent throughout the year at rates as low as USD 80 for a bungalow for 4-8. I poked about an empty one that was perfect with a huge wood deck terrace where you can lie on thai triangular pillows and stare at the cliffs not 100m. behind you, and the sea at your feet. 2007 resolution: measured hedonism.

New Leaf

2007-01-04T22:47:00.000-05:00

Fresh new pages. Yum.

Haji Lane

2006-12-27T06:59:00.001-05:00

You can thank my special person number one for these pics...a lovely Xmas present so that I could continue my snap-happy hobby. And, my, what big pixels! (Haji Lane: an up and coming little street next to Arab Street with a smattering of cutesy/cool shops amidst stalls for the varied needs of the neighbourhood's still un-gentrified-out Malay-Arab community).

Good Eye does Xmas Shopping

2006-12-21T02:57:00.000-05:00

Ok ok I have been busy and thus lazy--so stop by this following site (which I read about in the Sartorialist) and hope it was not for nothing you came to visit ;) [image from designsponge]
http://designsponge.blogspot.com/

Full Moon in Paris

2006-12-14T02:43:00.000-05:00

I've been down and out without my camera--it's been broken when I thought the batts were dead. It's now being repaired...in the meantime, I flipped through my dvd library...and found this little gem I haven't seen. Eric Rohmer you are a genius. Otherwise folks, pick up this film for some authentic slice of 1980s Paree, toques and all.

Sing Fling Market Finds

2006-11-30T01:33:00.000-05:00

Get A Life in Second Life..

2006-11-21T10:42:00.000-05:00

..or more like Get A Life Second Lifers.
For those of you who haven't heard or ventured into Second life virtutory (virtual territory) it is basically what you live day to day but with a large emphasis on buying and making things, and beneath an alter ago, from the comfort of your couch potato existence. And if you'd like to meet my reluctant avatar (created for the sake of research) her name is Saraswati May. 'May' being one of the number of last names given for users to choose from. I figured if the the point of having this avatar is to be able to do things (like buy, and oh, buy more..) might as well have May as a name. I May buy, I May sell, I May buy things other avatars made, or bought. (I May also fly, but not without feeling the awkwardness of having corporeal weight). An impressive amount of Linden dollars (Second Life's very real virtual currency is a couple of hundred Linden dollars to the US dollar) is exchanged in a Second Life day. People buy and sell a huge amount of stuff: land, shirts, best of all: ideas manifested in various forms. From my recent experience of designing a site for a tech brand, it's interesting to see a trend of creating 'experiential spaces', ie. 3D experiences within the 2D reality of the internet. So much brainpower is committed to such projects that one has to stop and wonder what are these efforts leading us to? Escapism from the real real, or an opportunity to create a better 'reality', a seamless existence?

The following is an excerpt from a NYT article (of which you have to sign in as a member to read).

A Virtual World but Real Money
By RICHARD SIKLOS
It has a population of a million. The “people” there make friends, build homes and run businesses. They also play sports, watch movies and do a lot of other familiar things. They even have their own currency, convertible into American dollars.
But residents also fly around, walk underwater and make themselves look beautiful, or like furry animals, dragons, or practically anything — or anyone — they wish.
This parallel universe, an online service called Second Life that allows computer users to create a new and improved digital version of themselves, began in 1999 as a kind of online video game. But now, the budding fake world is not only attracting a lot more people, it is taking on a real world twist: big business interests are intruding on digital utopia. The Second Life online service is fast becoming a three-dimensional test bed for corporate marketers, including Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Sun Microsystems, Nissan, Adidas/Reebok, Toyota and Starwood Hotels.
The sudden rush of real companies into so-called virtual worlds mirrors the evolution of the Internet itself, which moved beyond an educational and research network in the 1990’s to become a commercial proposition — but not without complaints from some quarters that the medium’s purity would be lost. Already, the Internet is the fastest-growing advertising medium, as traditional forms of marketing like television commercials and print advertising slow. For businesses, these early forays into virtual worlds could be the next frontier in the blurring of advertising and entertainment.
Unlike other popular online video games like World of Warcraft that are competitive fantasy games, these sites meld elements of the most popular forms of new media: chat rooms, video games, online stores, user-generated content sites like YouTube.com and social networking sites like MySpace.com.

Philip Rosedale, the chief executive of Linden Labs, the San Francisco company that operates Second Life, said that until a few months ago only one or two real world companies had dipped their toes in the synthetic water. Now, more than 30 companies are working on projects there, and dozens more are considering them. “It’s taken off in a way that is kind of surreal,” Mr. Rosedale said, with no trace of irony. Beginning a promotional venture in a virtual world is still a relatively inexpensive proposition compared with the millions spent on other media. In Second Life, a company like Nissan or its advertising agency could buy an “island” for a one-time fee of $1,250 and a monthly rate of $195 a month. For its new campaign built around its Sentra car, the company then needed to hire some computer programmers to create a gigantic driving course and design digital cars that people “in world” could actually drive, as well as some billboards and other promotional spots throughout the virtual world that would encourage people to visit Nissan Island.

Virtual world proponents — including a roster of Linden Labs investors that includes Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com; Mitchell D. Kapor, the software pioneer; and Pierre Omidyar, the eBay founder — say that the entire Internet is moving toward being a three-dimensional experience that will become more realistic as computing technology advances.
Entering Second Life, people’s digital alter-egos — known as avatars — are able to move around and do everything they do in the physical world, but without such bothers as the laws of physics. “When you are at Amazon.com you are actually there with 10,000 concurrent other people, but you cannot see them or talk to them,” Mr. Rosedale said. “At Second Life, everything you experience is inherently experienced with others.”
Second Life is the largest and best known of several virtual worlds created to attract a crowd. The cable TV network MTV, for example, just began Virtual Laguna Beach, where fans of its show, “Laguna Beach: The Real O.C.,” can fashion themselves after the show’s characters and hang out in their faux settings. Unlike Second Life, which emphasizes a hands-off approach and has little say over who sets up shop inside its simulated world, MTV’s approach is to bring in advertisers as partners.
In Second Life, retailers like Reebok, Nike, Amazon and American Apparel have all set up shops to sell digital as well as real world versions of their products. Last week, Sun Microsystems unveiled a new pavilion promoting its products, and I.B.M. alumni held a virtual world reunion.

...to read more go to
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/19/technology/19virtual.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=1f9a45cacfdadc7d&ex=1164258000

Good news now

2006-11-14T02:24:00.000-05:00

http://www.goodnewsnow.com/
Love the absence of irony...is it safe to say the age of cynicism and irony is past? Replaced by...wonder, truth and beauty? Or just plain sincerity.

Hello again Singapore Sling and Mystical Java

2006-11-13T09:26:00.000-05:00

Club Street, Singapore

A Hindu statue at a garden in Jakarta..

Back in Asia and first things first: a shaman was summoned to my family home to 'treat' me and give me the once over. It's interesting to see the wholistic approach to health--mental and physical--versus Western medicine's methods. Pak Pei, or Mr. Pei, insists his continuous smoking of the kretek cigarettes he carries with him is nothing compared to the ten things one consumes which literally kills, ie. glutunous rice, peanuts (cashews and regular), noodles, fried rice, fruits, soda, milk, chocolate, cheese, coconut milk, and the last thing I can't remember. He insists that if humans understood that they should eat according to their blood types all cancers and related afflictions would be rid of. I was treated to a reflexology massage which revealed my imbalanced hormones; an explanation my family was happy to have as reason for my 'romantic independence'. The potion-like liquid given to me meant for daily consumption will cure me of this flightiness in love and stabilize my sentiments. As well as, on a serious note, rid me of whatever almost tumor-like growth I've apparently developed in the last couple of difficult years. Amen.

So long beloved

2006-11-13T08:29:00.000-05:00

So long storage space for the last five years..

So long bus stop and bodega bus...

So long lovely colleagues..

So long better than fiction NYC..

Boo!

2006-10-30T21:23:00.000-05:00

Chapped lips

2006-10-26T20:42:00.000-04:00

Thus I dream of....being barefoot in Bali

A different kind of haute couture

And a lot of serene green..(pics from January this year)

Speaking of chapped lips; the following link is a great article in last Sunday's Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/style/tmagazine/22tgloss.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Edith Wharton's 23rd Street

2006-10-25T23:16:00.000-04:00

And what a charming little experience I had in taking this shot. I saw the dog on the window sill and was waiting for him to sit upright..when his owner saw me, smiled and waved, and picked him up for me to shoot! Complicity with strangers. Lovely!!! All in five seconds and I walked around happy for much longer after that.

Blockbuster Koons

2006-10-25T23:05:00.001-04:00

Is that a billboard for an artist? An auction? At Sotheby's? This doesn't look right.

Auto medication nation

2006-10-25T23:01:00.000-04:00

I really miss my Swiss pharmacists to consult with.

Warm brick walls for corporate America

2006-10-25T00:44:00.000-04:00

work wonders for its supporters. Initiative positively bubbles. Has anyone not thought about the dullness of gray cubicles? Or have the cubicles beat them to it in dulling the mind?

Fall is showing its teeth

2006-10-25T00:37:00.000-04:00

Bloody freezing these days.

mussels and frites

2006-10-25T00:03:00.000-04:00

Lucky Strike on Grand St. My true old haunt. Ten entire years ago I'd come here at 1 am for the same menu. NY's like a pair of new boots; takes some time to break them in but once they are you'd wear them nearly forever, day in day out, almost worn out, visibly torn, perfectly shaped-to-the-convexes-and-concaves-of-your-feet-boots. One day I realised I had to take 'em off and get a different pair of shoes: open-toed heels. These three months here have been like a sneak into the old pair of second-skin leather shoes, my toes fitting in snugly into familiar nooks, my ankles greeting its old compatriots. Autumn's arrived, and with it, a lot of nostalgia.

New York by twilight

2006-10-18T00:04:00.000-04:00

There you see the Empire State with green lights tonight
And over there, the Chrysler in streamlined white
Go past the reservoir, and catch a repertoire
At the Lincoln or the Met, whichever tix you can get
Down Columbus Avenue, strolling through
Barnes & Nobles books to get a better view
Off to downtown to catch a slice of salmon
On the cosy streets where nestled is Blue Ribbon
Huddled in a booth with green tea in hand
Emptied out the platters, no flash in the pan
Walk over splatters of streetlights in puddles
Catching a cab with jazzy cliché to cuddle
Twilight is now evening and turning to night
There you see the Empire State with its green lights
Bidding sleep tight

On the road

2006-10-17T23:43:00.000-04:00

Amtrak: the second best thing to great American road trips.

Hair with a view

2006-10-17T23:00:00.000-04:00

Almost tripped down the stairs descending from the reception to the hair cutting floor blinded by these views..

A commute home unwished for refugees

2006-10-11T23:49:00.000-04:00

With tonight's traffic accident on the 495 highway, the helicopter crash on 72nd and York, plus the torrential, unstopping rain...the following was to be my journey home:
The A from 14th to 42nd = 10 min.
The wait in line for the bus to Weehawken (a usually 2 min. wait for a 10 min. ride across the tunnel) = potentially hours.
Therefore I :
Took a cab that crawled two blocks = 35 min.
Encouraged by a gift of an umbrella from the kindly, coincidentally Indonesian cab driver (first in my years and years in the city) I got out and swam instead across 9th & 10th Avenues and the West Side Highway = 20 min.
To the 38th Street Ferry Terminals to take the ferry across Hudson River = 30 min.
Wait for the 2 min. bus home = 45 min. (not direct turns out, with additional stress over people desperately wanting to get home yelling at my asking the driver what direction he was going).
Wait for another bus going the opposite direction after being dropped off at a random spot = 10 min.
HOME.
SWEET.
HOME.

Manhattan days: work = play

2006-10-11T22:38:00.000-04:00

So what if Americans exaggerate (note: so said I in my last entry) New Yorkers make up for it with their enthusiasm, panache, coherence, lucidity in the workplace. The lack of red tape with continuous communication amongst everyone promotes focus and motivation. Making time for individuals to present what they'd like to share--of their observations and ideas--keeps everyone feeling valued, and validated, and learning! The other day a colleague had presented her impressions of her visit to China..for someone like moi (ie. world citizen), her two week trip and cute passing snap shots of Shanghai etc. were no biggie. But her enthusiasm, her complete embrace of places she saw, people she met, things she learnt, and her utter optimism in what the future can hold for a cultural exchange of sorts between Americans and the Chinese..touched me. Perhaps one would say that Americans in general are cheerful in a plastic way, or optimistic but naive, whatever the criticisms might be, all the positive traits that the critics poo poo are probably what they themselves are lacking. Mutual respect, openness, and confidence must amount to something, as the work getting produced is top notch. Being in an environment full of this bubble makes one float up and up into a rainbow-filled sky, full of happy people. And that is just wonderful. Why can't this be so elsewhere? In Geneva one questions why the expression joie de vivre is in French as the saying might as well have been in Swahili for the depressed and depressing Genevoises. The snow-capped Evian mountains, the crystal lake, the social security, the steal of a deal of a chommage, somehow robbed 'struggling' out of the vocabulary of the locals, and maybe therefore any sense of accomplishment...? As for Singapore, the other extreme is the reality: unfair cut-throat work environments for the locals (vs. the cushy deals the expats get)--and the insecurity that comes with it--cultivates a degree of bitchy competitiveness, so forget about getting together and sharing observations and thoughts. And learning. And learning!

The Wild West

2006-10-03T13:18:00.000-04:00

On our way to our mountain bike ride in Pennsylvania...if only our car was this cool one above..but instead of the humble mid-sized car we reserved, we got the Hummer below.
Depending on what school of thought you live by, the Hummer could be a ridiculous mode of transport when not in a war zone, or a real indulgence (and silly fun!) when driving to a destination only two hours away, and around Brooklyn (that far off, wild frontier) the next day..
Not exactly roughing it was our 'mountain' bike ride...pretty though.

Final thoughts: America likes to exaggerate. The super serious briefing the cyclists were subjected to (before we were allowed out the shuttle that brought us to the top of the hill and beginning of our rides) made most of us frown in concentration to remember the multiple dangerous corners and steep falls we were about to encounter. Anticipating these dangers, I gripped harder, cycled sturdier, and was thus prepared for the worst. Which came in the form of flat bike trails for miles upon miles, (15-25 exactly) by a river which had not much white water for the rafters we saw.. Ah..security in white bread territory, thus the tamed land, yet the dramatics for fear of the wild. In any case, with a Hummer, one is prepared for it.

Lau Pa Sat in the Times, yum.

2006-10-02T22:34:00.000-04:00

Singapore's been talked about a lot in magazines and the paper lately--
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/travel/01next.html
(copy and paste url)

Michel downtown

2006-09-29T21:45:00.000-04:00

Missed this exhibit by two minutes, darn! Tomorrow's the last day but will be mountain biking in Pennsylvania. Damn! Read about Michel Gondry's personal arrangement of things to do with his just released film The Science of Sleep, plus some even more personal stuff to do with his ex, or exes...in excess.

http://deitch.com/projects/project_images.php?slideShowId=292&projId=195

and if you don't mind supporting the annoying pay-to-read Times Select articles, a great one about him is on:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20614FE3E550C748DDDA00894DE404482

Portrait of an Artist

2006-09-29T21:42:00.000-04:00

in a bus.

Bring in da noise bring in da funk

2006-09-25T20:34:00.002-04:00

A MoMA Friday night

2006-09-23T13:22:00.000-04:00

The recently renovated MoMA is a space where one can check out viewers moving around contemporary art, as well as contemporary art. The architecture is a stage not just for art, but humanity moving around it...seen here as silhouettes through a cut-out glass-fitted square wall, and there crossing a ramp on every floor...
The just opened 'New Photography' features 3 photographers' work: Barbara Probst, Jules Spinatsch, and some guy Monk. Jules Spinatsch recorded the World Economic Forums in Genova, Evian and New York in the last years, one of which being a collection of superimposed shots taken by a web-cam in a street corner in Davos, Switzerland. A diligent observation of the security preparations days before the forum, it can be interpreted as dream-like images of people wrapped in winter clothes walking around in slow-mo...not without a lack of purpose. I liked Monk's juxtaposition of phrases uttered by his family members when asked via the telephone about certain old family photos, projected on one wall, and the actual photograph projected on another..though they were not in sync, and I am not convinced if that was intentional. (slide photo machines--the old school types that make a lot of noise--are erratic in rhythm. Put two together and you get a problem if they're meant to fall in step with each other [says me the expert!] ). Barbara Probst's photographs caught subjective perspectives by having different cameras take a shot of a girl simultaneously from different angles..and in which Probst later changed its respective original backgrounds to ones from a particular scene from a classic film. Hm...

Le Lignon! What was Thomas Struth doing taking a photo of an apt. complex outside Geneva..housing layers upon layers of families since the '60's? It's the only 'satellite town' in the outskirts of Geneva that deserves the futuristic associations of the word satellite. Geneva's housing problem was a pain to the me who was newly arrived there and completely naive. I thought I was lucky to get out of NYC and was going to enjoy my big dip in the basket of great apartments to choose from. Non! Companies like Procter & Gamble and Ralph Lauren moved their headquarters there taking with them a sudden influx of 1500 people or so.. Imagine the demand for housing and the supply completely spent. Thus the prices of studio apartments rising to NYC heights. The government legalized squatting properties (there is the 'squat police' one calls to deliberate with) that aren't inhabited by their owners nor rented out, though these are not at all the kind of abodes that one would generally link the word squatting to; beautiful apartments, mansions etc., housing young locals doing the commune thing. Génial!

Tinkering Entrepreneur

2006-09-23T12:36:00.000-04:00

Q at the studio at home. Discipline + creativity = a well-crafted spirit.

Cute as a cupcake is Susi Q!

2006-09-21T01:30:00.000-04:00

Hmm..is this the way it goes?

2006-09-21T01:10:00.000-04:00

1. Self Improvement
2. Relationships
3. Sexuality
4. Addiction / Recovery

Shadeless Sunday Street Fair

2006-09-20T02:16:00.000-04:00

On the upper west side

A recipe for love: blue skies, green water

2006-09-20T02:00:00.000-04:00

Over here Chuck!

2006-09-20T01:43:00.000-04:00

Yep, they're unloading a portrait of yours truly. I am one of those five damn it.

Fashion Week's forecast: gray is the new black

2006-09-20T01:13:00.000-04:00

So it's decided, I will not pluck my random newcomer gray strands. (precocious ones; that goes without saying). If this is how subconscious I adapt to the latest trends, then by all means!

Twirling delight in Pearl River Mart

2006-09-14T20:10:00.000-04:00

Pretty umbrellas in Chinatown's best-shopping-moved-to-Soho-store (they were in a subterranean low-ceilinged tight space in the heart of Canal Street for years..) Pearl River Mart..all the Chinoiserie one can find and some (ie. cheap extension plugs).

Diner royale on Sullivan

2006-09-14T19:47:00.000-04:00

Queen Beatrix would approve of the Dutch postcards covering the bathroom wall in this diner..everything's so clean and minimalist and aluminium--no not chrome--but not without a dash of Heinz ketchup red! Nice. (Sullivan diner betweeen between Houston & Bleeker)

Le prix des legumes ne vont pas baisser cette hiver

2006-09-14T17:13:00.000-04:00

Union Square Farmers' Market = sensory delight + good food...Every wednesday.

ad infinitum

2006-09-14T16:48:00.000-04:00

View from across the Hudson River, the light beams from the World Trade Center site--on for the 9/11 memorial--went beyond the sky..into the stratosphere.

2006-09-09T13:50:00.000-04:00

West 24th St. Market

2006-09-09T13:17:00.000-04:00

Quel frenzy..lovely to see the excitement over new art at the galleries in Chelsea..

...though not so sure if it's not mostly about the viewer and the viewed..

Starrett Lehigh

2006-09-09T12:51:00.000-04:00

Designed in the 1920's by a graduate of the Bauhaus, the Starrett-Lehigh on West 26th St. is a huge multi-tiered warehouse turned office space for mostly new media companies during the dot com boom. I worked at Inside.com (did not boom) the summer of 2000. Going to work meant going up a service elevator (an overstatement) and arriving on a concrete floor with a truck right outside the entrance to your office. The building has elevators for freight trucks. "It was an exciting time in new media". People at work believed that the company was going to IPO big. Talk of stock options flew around like the construction dust in the air resulting in a thick back-slapping self-congratulatory atmosphere. Those guys were smart but couldn't catch a soft ball to save their lives (we played soft ball against a girls team from another company and I was the only girl standing there with mouth agape at how hopeless my male team players were...same guys who back in the office were full of tech bravado). Those were the days..

Friday night at the Metropolitan Museum

2006-09-09T12:45:00.000-04:00

Lunch at home, chez Su

2006-09-09T12:39:00.000-04:00

Su's Thai Chicken Red Curry soup. A sudden inspiration, a quick dash to the grocery, et voila! Lunch at 4 pm..we have too much time in our hands... Summer.

Atlas Not Shrugged

2006-09-09T12:34:00.000-04:00

Atlas at Rockefeller..am waiting to see the mirror ball. Not up yet. There's a lot of art going up this month, damn...

Cubana Cafe on Thompson

2006-09-09T11:57:00.000-04:00

Newly opened--I think..or it's me who's new here--Cubana Cafe is the second best choice for Cuban in the area after Cafe Havana on Elizabeth, which has been the sole Cuban destination under Houston St. for amazingly long and usually demands too long a wait from its patrons, though they (err..we) like it anyway..all that standing around posing, no..it's really because the grilled corn on the cob is just so riiico.

Yey the sun is ooouuuut!!

2006-09-06T17:47:00.000-04:00

Finally...after days and days and days of rain and grey and chill..making me miss dave's pool and lazing in the sun. My indulgent Singapore Saturdays: reading by the blue water in a condo. Museums? Culture? NYC? what?

Raining kisses

2006-09-06T17:41:00.000-04:00

Mac lovers come in all hair types...

2006-09-06T17:40:00.000-04:00

...but there's a particular new wave..

Thoughts at the Roy Roger's on the I-94 South highway

2006-09-04T00:13:00.000-04:00

..are pretty much articulated way better than I ever could in the below article by William Saletan of Slate.com:

You don't have to go hungry anymore; we can fill you with fats and carbs more cheaply than ever. You don't have to chase your food; we can bring it to you. You don't have to cook it; we can deliver it ready-to-eat. You don't have to eat it before it spoils; we can pump it full of preservatives so it lasts forever. You don't even have to stop when you're full. We've got so much food to sell, we want you to keep eating.
What happened in America is happening everywhere, only faster. Fewer farmers' markets, more processed food. Fewer whole grains, more refined ones. More sweeteners, salt, and trans fats. Cheaper meat, more animal fat. Less cooking, more eating out. Bigger portions, more snacks.
Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut are spreading across the planet. Coca-Cola is in more than 200 countries. Half of McDonald's business is overseas. In China, animal-fat intake has tripled in 20 years. By 2020, meat consumption in developing countries will grow by 106 million metric tons, outstripping growth in developed countries by a factor of more than five. Forty years ago, to afford a high-fat diet, your country needed a gross national product per capita of nearly $1,500. Now the price is half that. You no longer have to be rich to die a rich man's death.
Soon, it'll be a poor man's death. The rich have Whole Foods, gyms, and personal trainers. The poor have 7-Eleven, Popeye's, and streets unsafe for walking. When money's tight, you feed your kids at Wendy's and stock up on macaroni and cheese. At a lunch buffet, you do what your ancestors did: store all the fat you can.
That's the punch line: Technology has changed everything but us. We evolved to survive scarcity. We crave fat. We're quick to gain weight and slow to lose it. Double what you serve us, and we'll double what we eat. Thanks to technology, the deprivation that made these traits useful is gone. So is the link between flavors and nutrients. The modern food industry can sell you sweetness without fruit, salt without protein, creaminess without milk. We can fatten you and starve you at the same time.

(to read the whole thing: http://www.slate.com/id/2148756 )

Hence my support for organic farming, but not only that; consuming locally produced food. (The irrational logic behind that is..if local honey can cure allergies from pollen..maybe local vegetables and produce are better too? Somehow? Sharing the same soil and water..that kind of thing). Is there a way to live a bit like how one does in a Kibbutz, but in an urban environment? Urbanization's going nutso, attests my tummy at least. The locals in the Swiss Romande region are generally beautiful. Clear eyes, good hair, nice skin. It's that eggplant--the poster in the grocery store there says--that was farmed 10 minutes away, arrows and all. (Here is eggplant in your hand; here is Troinex farms = close to you! and harvested just yesterday!). In Singapore I did my best to purchase organically and locally farmed produce. I gotta say it was kind of hard standing there in the supermarket with my goosebumps caused by the AC blasted in the veg section trying to make a decision to get the really shitty-almost spoilt-looking bunch of pretty small organic carrots, over the clean, clearly orange and will stay that way for awhile, quite big, non-organically farmed ones. ..Good things sometimes are not the most convenient to choose, I wanted to think. The organic carrots were produced in Malaysia--close enough I guess (Singapore island state's reclaimed lands are not for farming!)--truck over airplane..ponder, ponder.....sold.
It was heartening to see that section of organic produce take more and more space little by little over the seven months I patronized the described supermarket above (fyi. NTUC on Killiney Rd.)

On work days in Singapore, I went religiously to the Yogi Hub on Stanley St. by Boon Tat and Cecil Streets and parallel to (two streets over) Robinson Rd. Quite a number of my colleagues converted to the yummily done organic vegetarian Buddhist cuisine there served by a wonderfully chirpy staff, who tell you things like "Eat the raw vegetables first" or, "Drink your fruit juice half an hour before your meal", all for the good of your belly. Impractical as hell. But better than the fry ups at the food court, and charming having mom-types look after your eating.

Virginia is for lovers--

2006-09-03T21:57:00.000-04:00

--and baby makes four. Citra and her six-month-to-be-first-born-baby-daughter, with Prince Alexander outside their nest on Falls Church's prettiest lane. Tall trees and big gardens make this neighbourhood a calm retreat from the bright lights big city during Labour Day weekend. Spent all afternoon today playing tennis with Citra's other half Greg at his school, and another multiple hours watching Sharapova, Federer et. al. on the télé. Rohit I see you! Ogling Maria but of course!

Bright Lights Big

2006-09-02T02:58:00.000-04:00

View from a dumbo apt. terrace--nice!

DownUndertheManhattan(&brooklyn)BridgeOverpass...

2006-09-02T02:06:00.000-04:00

...is an industrial paradise cum Bobo enclave. Awesome belly views of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges are coupled with the guttural, rumbling noise of trains on the bridge tracks. Old dignified red brick buildings with their high ceilings are turned into apartments/workspaces... Too bad NY doesn't have what Geneva offers its working artists: guaranteed subsidized atelier space in which to play and experiment. Bottom line, bottom line; show me the money you get the space. The view. The inspiration and space to tinker.

Picture this

2006-08-28T01:36:00.000-04:00

The last week has been a whirlwind of meeting friends, revisiting old haunts, and forgetting and losing my phone, camera, etc., due to wine induced after dinner conversations in which I'd stagger into a cab waving noisy goodbyes and realise have left my daily essentials. Thus my camera has been absent from my hands the last few days. Weather has been rainy, chilly, romantic. Wearing a wrap in August has its advantages; it prepares one for Autumn, simply!
The best view of the week has been: the crazy orange to fuschia streaks painted on the twilit sky with the twinkling buildings of the Upper West Side, 59th Street and the Upper East Side framing it--seen at different times during my run around the reservoir at the park at dusk. I had to stop now and then and look at the view. It was distractingly sublime.

The Green Apple

2006-08-21T11:28:00.001-04:00

What to do when you don't have Krabi, Koh Samui, or Bali an hour's flight (ok two) away? And the airport a pleasant taxi drive down the road?('Changi' elicits the only nodding conviction from Sing taxi drivers).
You go to the park, sit in a rowboat, read, and pretend there aren't people taking photos of the seemingly idyllic moment you're living. Summer weekend getaways from the city present the following realities: three hours plus by air to the Carribbean is a bit much, same amount of time to a decent beach on Long Island by car--not including additional Sunday night traffic--a drag, upstate to lakes and mountains would swallow five hours of transit time. One way. So the city weekend is the half-hearted choice. (Don't throw me tomatoes--I love the park et. al. but I'd like to be able to fly out of the city to another diversion just as much). It's why September is awaited, NYC being about work and excellent workers, and hardly about quality of life (ie. in the sense that Manhattan is a great mall for art, music, food, and like most malls is designed to keep you in; friends harldy live within close proximity--unless you're a Brooklynite, and certain areas only--therefore their time is to be booked in advance; free time is treasured for its promise to plan for some more..free time) nor ease of living (ie. no washer in the kitchen; a once-a-week maid is a Sing fact of life but it's not in the collective-single-NY-adult-conscience to have one). If I was 22 all of the above wouldn't be noted. As I did at 22. Alas, I want my creature comforts. Did living by Lac Leman do this? Or the Singapore River? I had been aware of all the above inconveniences to NYC living; there might be those who'll protest and say 24 hour delis are God's gift to man, I won't disagree, just a change of needs [read: perspective] over the years that's all. Do I really need to feel I can buy milk at 3 am if the need arises? How have I come to embrace Sunday as a day of rest, where all commercial establishments should give me a break, as they did in the Calvinist city of Geneva? Age does funny things, habit even more so.

Over brunch yesterday with a good friend newly moved to the city this year, she recounted her job interview experiences and could not differentiate them with the various dates she'd gone on. Apparently in the financial world, speed dating is de rigueur, applied in the truest sense. What you are on paper is apparently who you are. I don't know if it's cultural or a question of personality, but to be so practical and no-nonsense about something that should be savoured in its impracticality and senselessness is well, nonsense. But hey, anything goes here. It's nice when noone cares to look.

Susi party of four

2006-08-21T10:02:00.000-04:00

An hour's wait for a teeny table at Havana later, Su, Ted, Rir and me decided to forget it. We'll pass the corn on the cob with the cheese and lime for some Rice bowls around the corner. Can't believe it's like I never left. Same routine, waiting for too long for the churrasco, starving, giving up and going to Rice. :) Good to be back downtown folks!

Bali days in August

2006-08-18T00:36:00.000-04:00

Dreamland..was a dream.

Georg and Melati and me, all us three on his motorbike zooming to the White Party at Kudeta

The Balinese coconut tree (nuciferaeus balineus) is one of a kind in its flexibility to lean to the sea in the day, and to the beats of techno in the star-studded night.

Somebody up there knows the perfect shade of blue

2006-08-18T00:34:00.000-04:00

Above the straits of Malaka.

Changi

2006-08-17T16:17:00.001-04:00

Can anybody think of a better airline, airport? In transit in the Changi is the opposite of being nowhere. This is the summit of jet-culture hub. That guy who got stuck at JFK lost out on luck 'cause he should have been refused entry to Singapore's streets and found home in Terminal 1. SQ and Changi: a great couple, perfect match. Just don't expect the same excellence when you hail a taxi outside.

The lobby to home

2006-08-17T16:06:00.000-04:00

Condos in Singapore go all out. For example this particular chandelier is too cool for The Regalia, even with that name. It clashes with the bad architecture of the building, and last minute touch ups and after-thought renovations. But it goes in spirit with what the condo serves to be for its inhabitants; a not humble abode with pool, gym, tennis court and by the river as well as the pulse of Singapore: Orchard Rd. See ya later chandelier!

Singapore Girl You're A Great Way to Fly

2006-08-10T13:09:00.000-04:00

Male expat epicenter in Sing would be give me an A, give me a T, give me a ... Well, Attica surely would be the place to go gimme gimme...Gimme a man after midniiiight.. Not very subtle of me to express that but just an observation of the meat market that is Attica on Clark Quay. Why were we there? Great hip hop. And smooching watching. Drama on the dance floor. Lust melting into tears. Vanity holding hands with faux euphoria. Pretty ugly expressions meant to communicate raw sexuality... I guess?
As the SQ slogan goes before the era of PC taglines...(read title) If only Sing cab drivers were as gracious, and charmingly Asian, as well as know their way around as much as your SPG (Sarong Party Girl, or..Singapore Party Gadget, also can).

Having lunch

2006-08-07T13:53:00.000-04:00

Arab Street's a picture perfect tourist spot in Singapore--Busorah Street next to it a pedestrian lane with swaying palm trees. Authentically-local corner cafés serve Teh Tarik (a concoction of condensed sweetened milk and black tea) for patrons not minding the mid-afternoon heat. In the midst of the typically middle eastern style restaurants and charming joints serving Malaysian or 'Nyonya' fare is B Bakery. Colin--its chef, who I chat with every other day on my sojourn there for lunch--prepares great seafood pasta salads and grilled vegetable platters with hummus..but his piéce de résistance is his magic wand over dessert pickings; not slim at all! Thanks for the best chocolate fix in town Colin--the jolt of pleasure to wake me up from drowsy-heavy afternoons at the Darth Vader building.

On the waterfront old = new

2006-08-06T13:39:00.000-04:00

Gorgeous swim, beautiful sky

2006-08-05T10:10:00.000-04:00

The River Place condos are right on the water (ie. Singapore River) and paddling about in its blinding blue pool I could watch people mill about Robertson Walk across the river..that place is turning into something close to a perfect pitch neighbourhood piazza of cafés, sushi joints, bakeries, wine bars, you name it. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls of the brand spanking new condos above gleam, with potential buyers checking out the view from the terraces...and newly-moved-in folk adapting to living in a glass box with their bright coloured sofas and saturated green potted plants.
Gentrification of the not so long ago stinky river area is in full swing..