Let There Be Light

And to His eyes, it was good.

A Week To Live

If you have one week to live, what would you do?

Well, I'm not dying, but I'm losing a life I've plaited for 7 years in a week's time. So in a way, I guess I am dying. Have you ever wondered what would happen if you were dead? I have. I wondered how people would react, whether there would be dear friends reading eulogies of merry memories, and all that jazz.

I have a week left to live. What should I do? I have no freaking clue.

On another note, we are who our closest circle is. This is true. I started my internship two weeks ago or so, and being surrounded by lawyers (and these guys are really the epitomes of success) really takes a boy out of college and whips some reality check on adult life into him. I'm sure for those people who do internships more often than they do online shopping, this whole speak of fruitful internship reeks of cheesey melts on cheese cake. But I only have one, and I am making the most of it.

Anyhoo, these people were effectively a whole different universe that I potentially will be in (well, hopefully) sooner or later. And I actually don't mind it. It is just ironic because I am flying for exchange to have this brand new life stuffed with shenanigans and shit like a turkey on Thanksgiving, and yet I'm having all of this gung-ho carpe-diem attitude at the moment. What inopportunity! What inserendipity!

So today I danced probably for the last time this year. It was good. I think I will miss that feeling. But I'll be fine at the end of the day-- no, at the end of it-- I'm sure. We can't have everything we ever wanted. And while I'm exactly where I want to be at the moment, I know I should be somewhere else.

Hope you are not dealing with the same Gordian knot. (It sucks!)

I have a week to live. I don't want to think about it.

In Pieces

Today was a good day. It was the end of a year of lots and lots of dance-- from Hong Kong, to Evocation, to SDD, to SUAD, to TRDO, to Let Me Fall, to Rumi, to Suntec, to THE Sundays, to Next Wave, to EMCC, to Jess' THE Fridays, to Recital, and to Open Stage today. To dance is a privilege; I am counting my blessings.

Today wasn't a good day-- because I let myself down. Nonetheless, there was something good about a not-so-good day: the bad stuff made it memorable. The days had been passing as if they'd been passing through formulae: predictable and safe. But today, the bad stuff stirred a violent reaction, and in a way made me feel alive.

Today was a good day-- because it spoke of the journey and the progress that had taken place. They were there and then-- the good, the bad, and the ugly-- and no one could ever take them away from me.

Today is a good day.

Dynamite

I took a train that took flight; one that had me once down in fright.

I took a train that took flight; one where the beasts hide and reside.

I took a train that took flight; one so bright, it shone like a dynamite.

I took a train that took flight; I'm very much glad I did.

And Then You Die

When I Am Busy I:

1. Neglect my blog
2. Ditch my phone
3. Eat poorly
4. Overdose on Redbull and coffee
5. Leave messages and emails unanswered
6. Say rude things to my parents
7. Act like douche to self and others
8. Feel guilty for all the above
9. Listen to the same song on repeat for days
10. Fight boredom and drowsiness all the time
11. Read
12. Read
13. Read
14. Print shit
15. Read
16. Read
17. Read
18. Have a momentary existential crisis
19. Get new highlighters
20. Read
21. Read
22. Read
23. Think no one is gonna employ me
24. Accept no one is gonna employ me
25. Drink more coffee
26. Read
27. Combat depression and hopelessness
28. Read
29. Tweet
30. Shit

Pre-exams Woes

1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Calvin Magnus Tedja

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first 3 letters of real name plus izzle.)
Calizzle

3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color and favorite animal.)
Black Bitch

4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (your middle name and street you live on/or neighborhood if it's a number.)
Magnus Crescent

5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name.)
DJACA

6. YOUR SUPERHERO/CRIMINAL NAME: (your 2nd favorite color, and favorite drink.)
Blue Kronenberg 1664

7. YOUR IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last name, 1st letter of your last name, 2nd letter of your mom's maiden name, 3rd letter of your dad's name, 1st letter of a sibling's first name, and last letter of your mom's first name.)
ADTURMA

8. YOUR WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (siblings' middle names.)
Calla Conan

9 . YOUR GOTH NAME: (black, and the name of one of your pets.)
Black Kura

10 . YOUR HOOD NAME: (first 3 letters of your first name and add -iqua.)
Caliqua

Good Morning

It does sound frivolous, but today was one of those mornings where I didn't wake up feeling like a stuffed douche bag or a poop sandwich left overnight. It was one of those feelings where the heavenly bodies aligned themselves like a marching band, such that your zodiac could beam its way uninterrupted. No particular reason. Things just felt right. They are going to be fine. It was a rare feeling.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

I just hope that I can remember this feeling when things fuck up-- in the far future or in the next twelve minutes. Good morning, everyone.

Just Sayin'

So I hit the big twos not too long ago. I know half the population probably raised their brows when they realised that yours truly here is younger than twenty five.

My birthday this year was definitely much more eventful than last year. It wasn't necessarily for any tangible reasons, just that nervy sensation that you got when you felt that things were about to change. I guess in a sense it was and is true. The semester is ending soon, which means time to switch onto nocturnal mode (bummer!). I'm about to take on my first internship at a surprisingly kick-ass firm (praise Him!). And I'm flying to Canada in less than two months for exchange. Things are a-changing, and they kinda got me feeling something on the night of my birthday.

I was flipping (well, since it's Facebook, so I guess, clicking) through my old photos, those taken when I was in year 1. I could safely say that I wasn't the same person person now. I mean, people say this kind of thing all the time, but I was actually taken aback slightly by my transformation (pardon the melodramatic lingo). I reread old notes people gave me, dating back to when I just joined Blast! performing my first item, all the way to those recent ones. I got sad. I realised that I had won the confidence of a lot of people in past-- not to say that I've lost it now-- but somewhere along the way, things just didn't work out the way those words predicted I would be. Again I'm proud of what I did, not because those were the right things (morally or otherwise) to do at that time, but because I did them out of choice, instead of out of lack of choice.

About a year ago, it got me thinking: this whole thing about being mature. I think maturity is the ability to act on personal convictions-- conscious decisions made out of choice. It requires guts, and it entails calculation. Bad decisions are mature decisions insofar as they are based on reasonable calculation of the pros and cons.

Here's the thing: we, as people, complicate things for our own good. That's supposedly because we have brains. Stripped to our bare essentials, we only need one, food, two roof on top of our heads and of course three, we need to procreate. But our brains complicate things for ourselves. We invented junk food and energy drinks. We created fun. We made porn and other paraphernalia for aberrant private behaviour. We just can't help ourselves. We separate ourselves from beasts with our supposed sophistication. We build standards and expectations which we strive to surpass rather relentlessly-- in an almost masochistic way-- every day. To a certain extent we let ourselves to be pegged by these standards, which is fine because everyone is thrown in the same basket in one way or another, but I think there ought to be a time where we use our brains (the bane of our existence) to reason these standards out.

Whenever we are unhappy about something, as we fail to meet the standard (self-imposed or set by hapless circumstances), we should use our brains to see whether that standard bears enough reasons to warrant the unhappiness. In other words, does the torture of the means justify the joy of the end? If no, then do something about it. We gotta. And this is what I feel being mature is all about. Calculate the pros and cons, and muster (or fake, which comes first I suppose) enough guts to act on the outcome.

On the night of my birthday I again did the same. I just suddenly felt that life could be alright even if I didn't dance anymore. I mean, when you were up at 9am on Monday with a sandwich on one hand, and a cup of coffee on the other, thinking that the day would be a bright day despite the constant downpour, and suddenly you walked in on your classmates flipping their 4000-word research papers which-- by the way-- were due there and then, and you realised that you had totally forgotten about it, that you were worse that word zero, that you were literally at word negative zero because you hadn't even done your research, and that you had just spent ten good hours on Sunday dancing-- child, you've got a problem. Well, I had a problem, and it really went beyond the whole "guys don't multi-task" cliche.

It felt that life could be okay, even when there was no dance, and even there wasn't that one thing that supposedly defined who you were, because you could live life legitimately even without having a tag clipped on your shirt.

Little To Say

I worry too much. Probably the main reason why I age in dog years. Ultimately I just gotta accept things as they are-- not because things are bad as they are, but to do otherwise is ridiculous-- and be thankful. Gotta learn when to say "thank you". Anyhoo it was the first time in a long time that I felt like a nerve ball. I didn't even feel like that when I went on stage anymore. So on the first night I found myself vicariously dancing the piece when the item was running. Weird. It sucked big time that I wasn't there on the second.

It turned out great in the end. Thank you to those who put so much into it. Thank you to those who appreciated it.

Voyeurism

Modern Day Tragedies

Dearphotograph.com

Dear photograph,

I told you there would be better days.

Joel Witte

Regret

If Music Be The Food Of Love, Play On

Sundrenched World - Joshua Radin

- The song struck me when I was taking a quick run through the whole album, which probably has some of the best written songs of our time IMO-- there's something very Grey's Anatomy about it. Apparently Stacie Tookey choreographed a piece to this song on SYTYCD S7 with Kent and Allison. I'm not particularly crazy about the piece, especially when they set the stage awash with orange light-- get it, "Sundrenched" World? There are two versions of this song: the dirty one has the F-word somewhere in the middle which, after having listened to the clean version a billion times, makes that particular segment beyond jarring. Or may be I'm just shy and conservative.

The Fear You Won't Fall - Joshua Radin

- Marko from SYTYCD S8 did a solo to this piece in one of the last few episodes, and it was splendid. He really is a beast, and he reminds me that one need not become Mr Fantastics or Miss Elastic Girl to dance contemporary. Just gotta have that beastly core which can sustain a cartwheel for days (which Marko practically did in the Statue item in the top 20 episode). The lyrics are incredible, Radin really is one of the finest musical talent of our time, if he did write all those songs himself.

District Sleep Alone Tonight - The Postal Service

- This song has been stashed in my iTunes for the longest time, and only on one lazy afternoon when I decided to put my iPod on shuffle that I came across this song. There's something in the song that creates a dark atmosphere: something slightly industrial about it, something a tad lyrical, all amounting to a great company in a daydream, while I sat there minding my own business on the bus from Bukit Timah to Kent Ridge.

Nothing Better - The Postal Service

- The beginning of the song makes me want to move-- again it's the atmospheric touch to it that speaks to the body. However, it gets slightly teenybopperish once the person starts singing, but it doesn't make me want to claw my earphones out because of the lyrics: the surgical imagery kinda does it for me, or may be it was because I was doing Grey's Anatomy marathon at that time. May be. No, definitely.

Poison & Wine - The Civil Wars

- Dee Caspary has all the best songs, and his pieces are almost always a success. This song was done on SYTYCD s8 as an ending piece for one of the earlier episodes. I loved the walking in the item: very stylised, very expensive, very Victorian. Jordan and Melanie were a stand-out, but coming back to The Civil Wars: the band comprises two personnels, a girl who looks like Christina Perri and a dude who looks like Johnny Depp. They have some other awesome songs, but this one is definitely a winner.

Sunshine Song - Jason Mraz

- I hate it that I can't get an studio-recorded version of this song: the one I have is the concert version, and for the one good minute and a half all I hear is rabied fans bursting their pulmonary veins out, which is not the most pleasant thing preluding a quiet song, especially when you listen to the track way early in the morning. To me, the lyrics are genius, I can listen to it all day long, anytime. It's one of those pick-me-up songs that makes the world seem slightly more bearable, especially when you have an impending 6-hour session on Monday mornings. Great prescription for psychological health and upkeep.

Arrival Of The Birds - The Cinematic Orchestra

- Koustav introduced me to this song some time ago, and I'm obsessed with it ever since. It's such an incredible piece of music, it makes you feel melancholic, and it makes you wanna move. Then again, the Cinematic Orchestra can do no wrong in my eyes-- great mugging companion for sure. The album "Les Ailes Pourpres: Le Mystere Des Flamants" or "The Crimson Skies: The Mystery Of The Flamingos" is so well done. Check out "Hatching" and "Crimson Skies" ft. Luo Rhodes. Amazing.

What You Are - Jewel

- A piece of country music can never hurt anyone. I chanced upon the song when I saw this Victoria's Secret clip on YouTube. The clip made my day-- Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, call me.

Skin - Rihanna

- Somewhat I like how quiet the song is, very different from her-- urgh-- intelligible rant on sexual aberrance or relentless asking of what her name is. Did she forget or something? I'm not so sure about the red hair still, she looks like she's wearing a wig every time I see her, but with a body like that, who cares right?

I Was Here - Beyonce

- I see this song as B's confession-- she really wants to make the statement, and I feel it's very very sincere. I watched her half-hour-long documentary on the new album, and this song went easily up my chart of favorite songs. She's trying to figure things out, and it's nice to see her journey and the hard work that is happening in the background-- it makes you appreciate more what's eventually in the foreground. After the documentary (I forget the title, I blogged about it not too long ago) I actually could sit through "Run The World (Girls)" music video without wanting to barf at the expressions. Nonetheless, may be B should have saved a couple of more dollars: say, by not having the Tofo Tofo dancers flown all the way from some African dessert, because her subsequent music videos are beyond budget-- and I mean this blog has more budget than those videos. B needs some new inspirations for them music videos, or at least a new accountant for budgeting.

4 Reasons Not To Date A Dancer

By Kyle Butler

At the tender age of 19, I started dating a contemporary ballet dancer. His knowledge of art and culture, I thought, would elevate my aesthetic acumen. We would cry ugly tears at Balanchine’s Swan Lake and convulse with laughter at Les Ballets de Trockadero de Monte Carlo and make out during intermissions in Manhattan’s most pretentious cultural venues.
Friends, family, onlookers, laymen, serfs of our urban kingdom would envy my real-life Adonis like a 3rd grader envies her best friend’s My Size Barbie.
Somehow, I would develop his poise, grace and athleticism, through divine intervention or osmosis or a steady diet of post-coital cigarettes and ballerina tea.
The love? Raw, physical, gritty. The sex? Divine. The pillow talk? So artsy.
In the nearly three-year relationship that followed, I came to appreciate dance in a way that I never had before; I fell deeply in love; much of the former was realized. But there was always a profound disconnect, I think, between us: He was a dancer, and I was not.
So, if you ever find yourself lusting after a man in tights or that quirky, flexible B.F.A you see in the dining hall or even Channing Tatum in Step Up, first consider the following:

Other men and women will touch him in various states of undress. For work. Modern and postmodern techniques like contact improvisation rely heavily on touch to facilitate the choreographic process. Or, in English, prepare to watch your significant other sandwiched between two men clad in thongs, heavy eye makeup and body glitter, only to receive hearty applause from 300 elderly arts patrons.

He’ll talk about dance all the time, and you’ll never quite get it. This may be characteristic of other creative types, too. But no matter how many performances I attended or books I read, my opinion on dance felt uninformed or invalid. The barriers of entry to understanding an art without words are high and nebulous. I was an illiterate child in a world with no Hooked on Phonics.

Effective communication is difficult. Conservatory-bred dancers communicate fundamentally with the physical, or in metaphors of space, movement and the human body. Every argument turns into a series of indecipherable quips about the geometries, anatomies and spatial intentions of your relationship.

You will inevitably feel fat and uncoordinated. Alas, this is self-explanatory. “His ass is amazing” quickly turns into, “His ass is amazing,” followed by a rash of unsuccessful fad dieting and anxiety dreams about anabolic steroids.

Ladies and gentlemen: Sashay at your own risk.

Vulnerability

Yesterday marked a two-month-long worth of a journey with the Harlequinn.

It was, for the lack of a better expression, what it was. I realise I sound like a therapist-- being on the fence about things, being merely descriptive due to the inability to pass a defensible judgment-- but to be really honest, I don't really know what I felt about the whole thing. The one thing I knew was that I was glad that it was over. Not that it was a grueling or a painful experience, people in the past have said that joining Suntec was such a vicious endeavour, but now that I have walked in their footsteps, I think they totally blew things out of proportions. Not to say that it was not tiring either, but I guess I was lucky enough to have never reached an impasse during crunch time in those many weeks. Things worked themselves out, albeit rather slowly in the last weeks since we all were losing steam, and we managed to iron things out just in time.

I am happy with all the performances that I did. Right from the get-go, I knew I would gain nothing from the experience other than the memories of having gone through all that. It was a memory-making exercise. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I did not have the testosterone to want more than what I did. We were different, and that was all there was.

With a face caked monstrosity I stood there on stage feeling absolutely nothing. I cracked a smile here and there just in case the camera caught my face, I didn't want to have a smack-arse face. Nonetheless it really made me question, specifically, why I invested so much time and effort and energy in dance. I danced because I knew how to do it, I knew where to do it, and I didn't mind doing it. A good-enough, solid, matter-of-fact and honest answer. But as to the question of the opportunity cost of the it, I don't think I have such a straight forward answer.

So I chanced upon this talk by Brene Brown on TED, and she spoke about The Power of Vulnerability. Before I clicked on the video, I told my self I would close the window the second she started to speak like Chicken Soup for the Broken Soul. She didn't. She was a researcher, and she spent one good decade of her life delving into different types of persons: those who have a sense of connection and those who haven't, and then she analysed the behaviour of those who do. And she said:

The other thing that they have in common was this: they fully embrace vulnerability. They believed what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. They didn't talk about vulnerability being comfortable, nor did they talk about it being excruciating (like they did in the Shame interviewing). They just talked about it being necessary. They talk about the willingness to say "I love you" first. The willingness to do something where there's no guarantee.

It piqued my interest somewhat because I was once struck by a quote posted on facebook: Sad people are beautiful people. A bizarre statement, and I totally agree with it. So when I heard her say all these things, I wanted to know what her take would be. And after ploughing through the data, she made the observation that:

We numb vulnerability. ... It was funny when I set something out on Twitter and Facebook that said "How would you define vulnerability?", "What makes you feel vulnerable?" Within an hour and a half I got a hundred and fifty responses. Because I wanted to know what's out there: "Having to ask my husband for help when I'm sick and we're newly married", "Initiating sex with my husband", "Initiating sex with my wife", "Being turned down asking someone out", "Waiting for the doctor to call back", "Getting laid off", "Laying off people". This is the world we live in. We live in a vulnerable world. And one of the ways we deal with it is that we numb vulnerability. ...

The problem is, and I learnt this from the research, that we cannot selectively numb emotions. You can't say "Here's the bad stuff!"-- here's vulnerability, here's shame, here's fear, here's disappointment. I don't want to feel these. I'm gonna get a couple of beers and a banana nut muffin. I don't want to feel these. ... You can't numb those hard feelings without numbing the other aspect of emotions. We can't selectively numb emotions. So when we numb those, we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness. And then we are miserable and we are looking for purpose and meaning, and we feel vulnerable, and we take a couple of beers and banana nut muffin. And it becomes a dangerous cycle.

One of the things that we have to think about is how and why we numb. And it doesn't just have to be about addiction.

As she said, the aim of research is to control and predict-- she predicted right. This is really what I think has happened to me, in dance, and in life in general. The reason why I think I'm losing reason for passion is that I have numbed myself, voluntarily or otherwise. And I can only think of two reasons why I have done so-- one: is that my body is so so fatigued that it shoved me to the point of not caring, and two: is the fear of vulnerability. I have held opinion about others that they loved their passion more than it loved them, and I think I just don't want it to happen to me.

I know what is going to come in the future for me, and perhaps I am desensitising me to prepare my self to bid good bye to dance before it does to me-- slowly climbing out of the hole that I've toiled digging for the past five years. Perhaps there is no reason for such great investing in dance, and the realisation of that absence should mark a turning point. I can dance still, but I could and should do so in moderation (although I'm skeptical whether such thing exists), and "moderation" is definitely not the word to describe what I'm doing at the moment. This is, ironically, true to Merce Cunnigham's words:

You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and may be hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls.

I did, but perhaps I don't have to.

Delicious

I always wanted a trampoline.

The day I first saw a big one, I knew I had to have it. It was the most glorious thing I had ever seen.

The day I first jumped on a big one, I felt that I had met my soulmate, in the form of mesh stretched across a steel frame, attached by springs.


It wasn't until I was around 19 that I finally had this soulmate sitting joyously in my backyard.



It took years, YEEEAAAARRRSSSS, of begging. Pleading. Reasoning. Then more begging.



Finally it's assembled in the yard, only after my Dad makes repeated visits during the build, just to make sure the foam safety padding isn't forgotten. No Dad, I didn't forget.





The first jumps are magical. The next jumps are bordering a religious experience. I can't believe this is real.





Now the jumps come only after a verbal contract with my parents:

NO JUMPING IF WE'RE NOT HOME

NO FRIENDS JUMPING WITHOUT US KNOWING

NO JUMPING IF WE'RE NOT HOME



Fairly straight-forward.



So it's 2 days after we get it, and news of the new purchase travels fast. My friend Ross is one of the first ones to come over for a jump.

We're both doing tricks and jumps and jumps and tricks, all under the watchful eye of my Mom who's at the kitchen sink. Everything is going well until Ross does some spin move and loses his balance. He lands too close to the edge, and his momentum leads him off the trampoline. Instead of being thrown onto the lawn, he rolls onto his side, attempting to grab onto the frame. His side hits the padded bar, and he groans in pain, then flops onto the lawn.




Shit.




He lies there holding his ribs, fighting for breath. A million things are going through my head.

Most of those things are "I CAN'T LOSE THIS TRAMPOLINE!!!"



I run to the kitchen, with a fraudulent air of relaxation and calm. I'm an AC-tor.


I get two large cups full of ice. "They're for frosty beverages, of course - all this jumping has worked up a sweat." I also pocket a plastic bag.



I return to Ross who has regained his ability to speak, but is now feeling a crunch every time he breathes. It's probably the muscle that is knotted up and rubbing against the ribs when you breathe, I explained. My 19 year old brain is grasping for straws.

He puts the bag of ice on his side.




Soon after, the pain is too much to bare and Ross needs to leave. DON'T TELL MY PARENTS, I plead. He doesn't.


He sneaks out of the house so they can't see him limping along with his leaking bag of ice, and drives home. Apparently on the way home the pain gets even worse, and he drives to the hospital instead. It's confirmed: 3 broken ribs.


I don't remember much after this. I think it's my brain trying to protect me from evil. All I remember is Ross saying something about blood in his pee.


That's gross, and I feel bad for Ross.





But I still have my trampoline.

-- "Don't Tell My Parents" by Mike Rosenthal

Confessions

I don't know why I dance anymore. But still I dance. I mean, you don't really have to have any real reason to do something, right, especially something that you know how to do and have avenues to gain access to. I do realise that this is rather unfortunate. There were times where it was the reason why I woke up in the morning. There were times where I did it for external validation. There were times where I did it because I enjoyed the company while I was at it. There were times where I danced because I felt it was my thing-- my precious-- and no one could take it away from me. Now I can't really say all those things with so much conviction anymore. I've built a home around it-- and rather painstakingly at that-- and I'm not sure whether I could fine another home elsewhere without having to lay the bricks from scratch all over again. It's like the reason why people stay in a bad relationship, or settle with a horrible job: it's inertia and fear of change. There were times where I said I would never give it up, and I said it with gusto.

I don't really know what happened. One plausible explanation is that I've chewed the taste away from it-- dance overdose. Perhaps. Or may be I realise that it's time to move on with other things in life. Like comic books, video games and peanuts, dance has had its special time in my 21 years of living, and that time has run out. Perhaps I have ceased to be inspired by others-- in videos, live, or otherwise-- for too long and the fuel has not been replenished to keep the fire going. Everything is just a blur. At the end of the day, there can be millions of good, great and excellent dancers and dancing out for grab, but there has to be that one moment of inspiration, which can't be forced. So may be the problem lies in my self: I've thrown myself to a state of nonchalance, which really perfectly fine by me.

At times I wonder why others can be so hungry about dance-- so insatiable, so tireless, such voracious appetite. We all know it's an endless pursuit: always not good enough, always something new to learn. If there is no end to it, why keep chasing it? Merce Cunningham said once that the reward is "that single fleeting moment when you feel alive". Truth be told, I do feel alive dancing, I do, but I don't feel un-alive otherwise. Others oft cry that they want to be the baddest ass around. Why? If that is the ultimate reward, which I genuinely think there's nothing objectively wrong about it, I can live my life without it, and I am really saying this stripped of any form of condescension. Gold is one precious metal, but not everybody wants gold, so mutatis mutandis vis such reward. It's just not my thing anymore. To me the best part of dance was the journey: the race to the top, and on hindsight, that journey was the ultimate reward: the means is the end. Now that I feel relatively detached from it, I cherish the memories-- the bad, the good and of course the ugly-- of having gone through all that, more than I appreciate my own dancing. Perhaps it follows that, inter alia, I dance to create more memories.

By no means that I think I have reached the top because that top is, as the cliche goes, illusory. However, it has now reached a point where I've found a plateau and I'm okay with it-- "okay" because "okay" is a neutral word"-- for some unapparent reason. Should it rise, blessed it be, should it not, there's no real loss either. Nonetheless, it does feel terrifying thinking of rolling down the hill altogether and starting to climb another hill all the way from ground zero. Is this feeling permanent? I don't know. And do I want it to not be permanent? I don't know either. I was asked before: "What do you want from dance other than time-filling?" I didn't know. What does, could, and should, a person want from dance?

I don't know why I dance anymore. But still I dance. I don't really have to have any real reason to do something. I do that everyday.

Hometown Glory

I love coming back home. Coming back home means an inevitable checkpoint where I can genuinely take a breather, and just stop to reflect on things. Coming back home means bookmarking a chapter in my journal of life, and comparing it with preceding others. Coming back home means food galore and shopping spree. Coming back home means seeing my family and hearing the exact same stories over and over again, though somehow they never get old. Coming back home means, well, a lot. Did I mention how much I love coming back home?

The Deathly Hollow

Yes, I know it's "Hallows", there's no typo there. In the latest and final stretch of the world-wide sensation septology, Harry, Ron and Hermione embarked on their epic journey to destroy the Horcruxes, and defeat the no-nose Dark Lord. The movie was, well, alright.

So I stopped following the books after dreading and ultimately failing in ploughing through the fifth one, where Harry turned into this angsty, whiny teenager lashing out to the magic universe. Basically, he turned into another us: an ordinary (well, may not exactly) blame-the-world ball of resentment, and no one wants to read that kind of stuff when they pick up a book about spells, Patronuses and wizards, especially not hundreds and hundreds of pages of it. Nonetheless, I came across tonnes of posts about the movie before I watched it, and what a sobfest they were. I guess I can't really judge those who are devastated by the closing of the series because I unfortunately fell out of love with the trio after the fourth book, but come on, how could you turn into an emotional wreck after watching the end of the movie? The end was ridiculous, almost farcical even. The 19-years-later versions of the characters look hideous: the make-up artists should really be shot. I'm fine with not replacing the characters with older actors, but the drag wig, the beer belly, the ghastly make-up that made them look like they hadn't slept since they came to Hogwards (and they probably hadn't with the amount of drama that went on), and the faux wrinkles did not work. They look cartoonish, and it robbed all seriousness and any opportunity for the audience to be awed by the ending. They should have hired look-alike actors to sub in.

However, I do like the beginning of the movie, first of all, the quality of video is fantastic. To compare it the first movie, there really has been an increase in the dollars (or pounds) spent and an improvement in the tech side. The acting for me was com si, com sa: I can't really judge their acting because the British accent kind of get in the way. To my Asian ears, they fall almost inevitably into their parts because they simply sound right, not really sure whether they act brilliantly, and as for the earlier movies, their kiddish charm sort of made up for everything else that was lacking. So the story went on, and I could follow what was going on even though I didn't read the novel beforehand, and then came the middle parts where Harry was sucked into this whitewashed, bad and budget-looking digital-effect train station of a dream and met Dumbledore. It went slightly too Chicken-Soup-for-the-Teenage-Soul for me, with the whole "Of course this is in your head, but what makes you think that this is not real?", and where Longbottom came forward to give his Captain America speech in front of you-know-who and his army. It felt like a middle-school after-school play to me. JK Rowling might have had the multibillion-pound imagination, but I hope I don't write they way she does.

The movie was essentially a war movie, and war movies always give me this sort of unsettling feeling, like things are in shambles and messy, which I don't particularly enjoy. And somehow the chemistry amongst the trio is lost in the movie, or may be it's because now there is now the supposed romance between Hermione and Ron, which felt so feigned and the kiss was awkward and uncomfortable, somewhat misplaced. I think I just don't really care much about the teen-drama side of the series, I would rather focus more on the magic side of it, which is the reason why I adore the first movie the most.

Anyway, I don't really mean to complain about the movie or the series, because insofar as the production aspect and the quality of it, it hasn't been anything less than amazing. But amazing does not necessarily mean likable. Guess this is just a perspective of a viewer who didn't grow up alongside Harry, Ron and Hermione, but outgrew them before vice versa.

Life Wonders

It's 3 am, some country song is playing in the background (it's The Once and Future Carpenter by The Avett Brothers), and my proudly-bought 20-dollar Ikea night light just sets the mood for musings.

I wonder what would have happened if I had

been born the eldest son.

sucked so badly in school.

been good at sports.

picked up the guitar in junior high.

not gotten the scholarship.

stayed on and gone to senior high.

sucked so badly that I was sent home.

actually made it to the drama auditions.

failed the dance auditions.

not moved to another junior college.

hated dance.

failed my law school dream.

been the badass kid in the family.

said yes.

stayed religious.

been simply mediocre.

Legal Fiction

I'm not sure whether I like Boston Legal. I still remember in my first year, right at the beginning of law school where everyone was a stranger and we had to do some introduction and say a thing or two about ourselves, someone said that he wanted to be the next Alan Shore. And the class broke into a laughter. The tutor then made some witty comeback, and another laughter ensued. Of course, I cracked a smile and laughed along, and lordly lord, I really thought that Alan Shore was some bigwig in the legal fora: a Chief Justice, a stellar judge, a minister, or someone of that stature. It does sound ludicrous but it may be surprising for you to know that right from the get-go some people did already have their legal chip plucked into them, which made me think there for a moment how come I didn't get the memo. Sometimes-- if not most of the times-- it did feel like I was in a secret club with a secret handshake. Only last week then I finally met this legal myth Alan Shore-- just in case you are like me then, he's the main character of the show-- and he was, well, okay. James Spader is definitely the best actor on the show (or poised to appear that way), and perhaps together with William Shatner and Candice Bergen they make the holy Boston Legal trinity. The rest just appear as pretty faces, accessory to these characters' larger-than-life (to say the least) closings and caricatural quirks. I think the biggest problem with the show is that it is very clear even after having watched just a few episodes how formulaic the plot is. Every episode will end with one or two closing statements (i.e. heroic lawyer attempting to convince the nodding-at-strategic-moments jury that their client deserves what they sue for), which more-often-than-not begin with a rendition of some statistics (which would have been dismissed in real court setting for want of relevance), followed by an argument (delivered with such a bravado, it borders on a melodramatic recitation), and end with a sound bite that necessarily triggers a couple of nods from the jury. Always. To be fair, the show tries to present an array of interesting (read: make-believe) cases to spice things up, and the same formulaic pattern is also noticeable in other cop shows or doctor shows, but something about it just does not connect. Perhaps it's the set (they simply jump from the lawyers' office, which is not exactly the happiest place on earth, to the court room, which is definitely not the happiest place on earth), or William Shatner's character Denny Crane, whose behaviour is harder to understand than is algebra. It's sad though because I really want to like the show, but I can't bring myself to do so. And bummer, there aren't that many lawyer shows out there anymore. Then again, I only watched half of the second season, hopefully it would get better in the following seasons.

Watching So You Think You Can Dance Top 20 Showcase Performances

Finally Season 8 is out! It's been a while since I was really into any TV shows these days. Season 7 was slightly wonky because of the change in format, and the stage was somewhat too big for TV, so I didn't really have a lot of good things to remember about it, except that Elastic Girl Lauren Froderman won, and Freakshow Kent Boyd came in second. Anyway, Season 8 for me has been exciting thus far. Early stand-outs like Jordan and Melanie, who are now in the top 20, blew me away. Right from the get-go I found the girls more beastly than the guys. The top 10 boys routine didn't really do it for me, especially after the whoop-ass intro video, I thought the routine would be as so. It looked slightly under-rehearsed, probably because it was a mixer of numerous different styles, and not all the boys were trained to dance a la LXD, they didn't really look like they danced together. Then again, who can blame them? It was the first time that they danced together ever.

The girls routine was fantastic. Probably the best one of the night? It was a style that almost all of them (except may be Iveta) were trained in, and Sonya is really a nut-job with a lot of flavours to bring to the table. The eleven of them together translated into one combustible reaction, and burn the stage they did. The world champion (and this season's only) Russian ballroom bombshell Iveta was a beast dancing with Pasha that night. The whole routine was entertaining from start to finish, kudos to Ausi-born Jason Gilkinson who made use of the cape splendidly. I would say he was the best ballroom choreographer they'd had on the show, or perhaps he would be neck-to-neck with Jean Marc and his wife, France. Alex da Silva was brilliant, but he was then indicted for some sexual assault, so there goes his career on the show. The same happened to Shane Sparks. Sigh. Anyway, it was refreshing to hear Nigel thanking Iveta for, in his words, humbling herself to join SYTYCD. I think he did that because effectively she would end up giving free crash-course ballroom lessons to whomever she would partner on the show. Can you imagine the first time you get those leather shoes on and you have to partner a world champion? And she held the title for all ten genres. Gotta be hard to wear the pants in that partnership.

The hiphop number was a snooze for me, not necessarily because of bad dancing or bad choreography, but again it felt like the guys didn't dance together as a group. There were these sporadic energies on stage that didn't synergise to elevate the routine to the next level. OMG I sounded like Lil' C. Another bugger, he should stop talking. He ruined it for me big time. I literally had to skip his comments because it was too painful to hear. Someone please get him an English dictionary, not a thesaurus.

My favorite routine of the night was Stacie Tookey's routine to In This Shirt by The Irrepressibles. Melanie was a stand-out. This girl was something special. Watching her during the auditions, I really thought she would be one of those vanilla dancers-- technicians with little performance quality, kind of like the dancers in Season 6 and may be 7? But in this routine she was some-heavenly-infant creature that was just stunning. She definitely ticked all the boxes on the list, my list. Speaking of good dancing and good technique, the choreographers needed to find another freak-show stunts for their routines, anything other than the ponche thing that the girls had been doing the entire night. Jordan did it once in the Sonya's Jazz routine (assisted by Marko), some did it in the Geisha routine, Miranda in Stacie Tookey's, and some others in the Little Bird routine. That's a whole lot of ponches in one night, and the same one at that.

Anyhoo like I said, this season has been exciting, and I've got the feeling that this season will give birth to more Katie-and-Joshuas or Twitchingtons. One thought that keeps bugging me: Ryan was a ham-- don't know why, just gotta say it. Congrats to Mary for the successful surgery she had had before the show kicked off (it was her throat I think), and for now not being the one with the highest Botox-content on the judging panel. Anyway, cheers to a start of a great two months of a lot of beastly dancing!

Denpasar Moon

Les Contes Des Fées

Of Places, Memories And Musings

Wonder what would have happened if I had never left.

Joye Sanz Fyn

After much drama over me missing my flight and the aggravating altercation with the rude airline staff-- may your Allah punish you well-- I finally managed to rest my feet on this long-forgotten motherland of mine, and sink my teeth into the much-missed gustatory goodness galore.

Really, my family might not have been blessed with the brightest of all minds, the most statuesque of all physiques, or the most bad-ass of all talents, but we know good food and we know how to find it. To actually witness with my own eyes the lengths to which we would go (and had gone), coupled with the timely display of agility of mind, in hunting those obscure havens where they store the country's royal secret to obesity, is really mind-blowing. It is so stupendous, it really borders on predatorial. The only one thing that is greater than these uncanny gustatory instincts is our cumulative waistline. This inane acuity transcends cultural, racial and taxonomical classifications: the only reason good enough--and I am guessing here-- to cage the beasts is the sometimes-unreasonable pricing. Thankfully, having lived in a third world country for almost the entire span of our lifetimes, we are now equipped with the "blink" a la Malcolm Gladwell to sieve through the cornucopia of gustatory teasers, and to winnow out pleasantries from pleasures.

We be going to Bali on Sunday, and oft you hear normal people giving their pedestrian gushing about the Garuda Wisnu Kencana, the sightseeing, the water sports adventures, blah blah blah, but not so much with my folks. All I hear is ribs, pork and seafood treats by the beach-- which is always a reason to smile. Long time ago I was told that "Nothing tastes better than skinny!", but whoever said that obviously never had a foot-long strip of unagi-tempura sushi shoved to his mouth at dinner after having binged on a plate of honey glazed pork ribs for lunch, and of course there were other things too. It's kind of hard to translate this taste-buds titillation into prose, but rest assured the food here is one of those stuff that makes one's mouth water and armpits juicy. Joye sanz fyn.