RIGHT NOW

I am so bleeding happy.

SO LONG RETROGRADE

The books! The books! I've come back to the books!

In exceedingly good spirits, as I am surrounded by books and a confusion of stationary around me.

AUSTER CALLED TO ME

Today, I picked up a book by Paul Auster - my first at the bookstore - and it flipped open to page 103, where I instantly saw my name and the sentence read:

"No matter how badly I had offended her, I found it inconceivable that Rachel wouldn't respond to what I had written."

I walked to the checkout with the book, and another by the same author, tucked firmly underneath my arm.

FLAKES

I picked out some lines from the very beautiful song by the Mystery Jets:

They don't teach these things in school...
Cause when you're in pieces and you pick up the bits and nothing fits and the wind blows you away....
Oh the wind blows you away...
Oh the wind blows you away...

But the trouble with dreams is they're not what they seem cause when you're awake they fall through your fingers and flake...
They fall through your fingers and flake...
They fall through your fingers and flake...

---

So very pretty.

SNUBBING ROYALTY, FEELING STRANGE

I won an award from the government for the writings I have done on Malaysian art.

The ceremony is in two days and I've asked my dad - who I knew would be supremely chuffed - to receive it on my behalf, as I am thousands of miles away. It turns out they won't let him receive it from the King.

THE KING?

Ah shucks.

I HEART ART & THE GIGANTIC MOUND OF PAPER

I deleted my last post (about being the biggest moron of dreamers) because I was whinging and I think 'to whine / whinge' will be out of fashion by 2009 - here's to happier times!

And, here's to being a better archivist when it comes to recording links to online copies of my texts:

Sept 21 - Review of Samsudin Wahab's solo-exhibition at Galerie Taksu - MISERABLY sub-edited; Gina Fairley, I know you don't live in KL anymore (that was not my doing), and respected readers and friends, some of those sentences deserve to be binned and I will be the first to burn them in a wastepaper basket. I will post the raw text when I have some time on my hands.

Nov 30 - Review of Lim Kok Yoong's digital-installation, When You Are Not In Your Body, for VWFA's Project Room & the Bombay Sapphire Arts Projects '08 - an excellent exploration of new media practices. (Note to self: I've just recalled the semblance between the soundtracks to Bill Viola's video pieces and the thunderous sonic art provided by Dinesh de Silva & Dean Linguey)

Dec 7 - Review of Puah Chin Kok's photographic installation, art as photography as art at 12(art space) gallery - easily one of the more challenging pieces of art I have seen in KL this year.

Which brings me up to date. As indicated by my previous posts, I've been buried under mounds of work - still am - and gasp for breath at irregular intervals, but in states that are truly not my own. Paper and word documents sure are socially crippling.

Ah what the heck: one more whinge to round off the year...


Somerset House Ice Rink

Boy, do I miss that place. My seminar rooms, lecture hall, and library lies on the other side of this photograph - where you are sitting - and I'd trade my wish list to Santa to be sitting in the dimly lit library in the basement, listening to Christmas carols with my nose buried in books, again.

KEEP YEARNING KIDDO

Marsha has been working non-stop for the last eight months. So, Marsha booked herself a flight to snow-capped mountains to meet the magic polar bear with the pink mohawk, so she can ask him the secrets of life. Marsha took on a job and the eventuality of meeting aforementioned bear does not seem so eventual anymore. Marsha can barely (or should it be bearly) string a sentence together.

Sigh.

Where is my holiday?