Dear Imbecile,

I learned today that you intend to screw over the already crap internet by forging ahead with your internet filter program nonsense despite advice from all and sundry that it will not work and will only slow stuff down. I hear lots of criticism about the program as some kind of media control method, wherein the government is allowed to deem whether something is unsavory or not. You choose to hide behind paedophiles as your excuse, saying you’re trying to protect the children. This shit has dragged on for ages, costing shit tons in taxpayer dollars to keep people like you gainfully employed whilst effectively doing not much at all. I personally find this rather disgusting.

Please GTFO.

Thanks,

Ivan

Some of my friends back in Singapore have come together in the name of design, national pride and awesomeness. Singapore Souvenirs is an exhibition held as part of the Singapore Design Festival 2009. It’s going to be held at the Old City Hall from the 20th to 30th of November, with an opening party on the 21st. The exhibition shows off some designs of products that are envisioned as souvenirs from our tiny island nation. The fact that my mates made/created/invented/dreamed them up makes me mad proud of em. So if you’re free and have something to do, you should drop that and go to the exhibition.

A lot of the stuff shows off their sense of humour and thought as well as a uniquely Singaporean perspective on things. There’s not too much Singaporean designed stuff, and much of it tends to ape whatever we can find in the West or Japan, not that that’s intrinsically bad, but just that it’s a pity our own local culture doesn’t see quite as much light. My mates though, do their darndest to shed a little bit and hopefully it’s a spark that will burn brighter in the future.

Hans’ gold plated fruitbowl, Fruitbowl Lah has been around for a while now and certainly deserves more merit than it gets. It subverts the idea of luxury and style by taking a ubiquitous plastic fruit bowl and coating it in gold, taking a pedestrian Singaporean object and turning it into something important. Which is kind of like the thread of the exhibition, taking something commonplace and everyday but giving it light and giving it life, and as a result of which, asking the question of just what Singapore design or Singapore culture should be.

This theme is replicated with Winston’s Coffeeshop Ashtrays. An avid smoker, he probably came up with the idea over 20 packs of menthol lights. In coffeeshops round Singapore, you always see these decrepit looking empty tins that once contained condensed milk. Their labels have been ripped off and sometimes a lid is a made with raffia string on the top and it’s used as a cheapass ashtray instead, containing the ashes of a million stinko fags and some gross and hell brown water, fermented from the juices of leftover char kway teow. This “local design” came about because of the frugality and cleverness of Singaporean coffeshop owners and it took a mad smoker to see it. So he gets it made outta ceramic, taking it to a whole new level, celebrating the small timey-ness of Singapore, a tiny island nation that prides itself on being resourceful.

There’s also plenty other stuff and peeps that deserve mentions as well, from Jieyu & Winston’s Kueh Tutu eraser to John’s Singlish Notebook to Tze’s expectedly more cerebral treatises on stamps and money, or Joe’s kinda political Kenaban chewing gum magnets, Fuxing’s 3D Postcards and Edwin’s SG Wallpaper and a helluva lot more. It’s a little arty, a little designy, a little rebellious and quite a lot of tongue in cheek. Just wish I coulda been in Singapore to see it all in the flesh.

Good stuffs guys! Keeps it up.

Wikus van der Merwe wears a knit vest over a shirt and tie. An identity card hangs from a clip and he’s in his office cubicle giving an awkward interview.  He’s just been appointed head of the new operation to serve eviction notices to the illegal aliens living in District 9, a shantytown just outside Johannesburg. He’s a slightly bumbling nerdish type, soft and uncomfortable with the camera, basically what’d you’d call unassuming. Yet what’s strange is that the aliens, or “prawns”, as the locals call them, are real aliens. Like from another planet.

District 9 is produced by Peter Jackson and helmed by Neill Blomkamp, starring Sharlto Copley in the lead role. It’s a film that manages to mash multiple genres, political thriller, race relations, sci fi action and mockumentary into one absolutely silly yet completely workable idea. It’s funny and takes things out of context so you feel its ok to laugh at it all. The film is shot handheld, war documentary style but there’s also scenes of fake interviews spliced together with archival footage of the real world.

You get introduced to Wikus in bits and bobs. For the first half hour, you’re not really sure what’s going to happen. You’re even quizzical at the mention of the aliens and the mothership hovering over Johannesburg. It sounds absurdist and surreal. Cos the aliens haven’t come to invade. They’ve somehow lost control of their craft and were discovered severly malnourished within. The South African government builds a slum to house them. It’s not running like a typical sci-fi, more like a satirical racial thriller instead with aliens and humans standing in for some pseudo apartheid. Mix in alien weapons and a Nigerian warlord controlling the slum for good measure and heighten the intrigue.

The action starts going for real when Wikus gets exposed to an alien substance, extracted over 20 years by Christopher Johnson, the ridiculously named alien. Wikus starts vomiting violently and appears to be bleeding black. Soon, we learn he’s turning into an alien, a prawn. He’s now the only person in the world who can use the powerful alien weaponry, which starts to entice human greed when he gets discovered. From there he goes from medical experiment to fugitive and finally, hero.

It’s such a wonderful little film that lives right on the edge of a surrealist plot. The mockumentary style really makes it so strange yet compelling. Also, there’s the awesome South African accent that gives the film a certain newness. Definitely a must watch and I hope they make a sequel. Another interesting thing is that the film is based on a short by Blomkamp and only came into being after the Halo movie was scrapped. Which, to me, was a blessing in disguise.

Waltz With Bashir is an Isreali animated documentary that has been nominated and awarded to the high heavens. A drastically stylish take on the events leading up to the Sabra & Shatila massacre in 1982, the viewer follows director Ari Folman as he tries to rediscover his memories as a soldier for the Isreali Defence Force during that time. He is visited by a friend haunted by dreams caused by the war, some 20 odd years ago, which triggers his own hallucinations. His friend advises him to investigate and find out just what happened, so he goes off to talk to various people involved. Piece by piece, the details of that tragic event are revealed, woven into an incredibly sad tale about the horrors of war.

The title for the film comes a scene within the film itself, when one interviewee, Frenkel, bursts out onto a street in the middle of heavy shooting, and breaks into an absurd waltz, with posters of Bashir Gemayel. Bashir had just been elected president of Lebanon but was then murdered. The massacre the film looks into was revenge for that killing. It’s probably the most dramatic, unbelieveable shot in the film. The pic below shows Frenkel’s feet dancing as the shells fall out of his MAG machinegun.

Waltz is gripping and engaging, tainted by the trauma of war. As an outsider, I cannot begin to understand the true events or the complexities that would lead people to commit crimes like the one portrayed in the film. I can only sit in my cosy albeit ergonomically shitty little chair and postulate on a world far removed from my own and remain comforted that it is so. Beautiful as the Max Richter enabled soundtrack is, I feel guilty that someone feels the need to color over a tragedy to make it easier to swallow.

Another scene I remember well, is when one of the soldiers reminisces how he was on a boat and Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s Enola Gay played like it was a party until everything gets blown to bits. The song, references the B-29 bomber that dropped that jawn on Hiroshima in WWII. Call it hippie, peace loving crap if you want, but civilians and innocents do not deserve getting the shit. Ever.

The DVD cover art for Luis Bunuel’s The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie has got a giant pair of lips with some feet and a big hat. Its kinda cute and says a good bit about what the film involves. Instead of a face, we get enlarged, fetishized elements of a person, presumably someone who puts on airs. A big black hat, glossy painted lips and high heeled shoes.

Its a satire in the strongest sense of the word, not just poking fun, more outright denouncing the subject matter entirely. I wouldn’t say its funny though. Its really cynical and pokerfaced. You may be puzzled by the odd sequencing and bewildered by the situations but I never had a laugh out loud moment, that’s for sure. I don’t even think I snickered.

The central element of the film is the attempts of a group of upper class donks to get together for a meal. They try their best, but a combination of unfortunate events and their animalistic impulses deny them this. Towards the end, they even sit down and get to the main course, but Bunuel denies them the finish. These dogs aren’t even allowed  a simple meal.

The subversion is obvious. Its purposeful but not spiteful. These crusty, fako folks are pathetic, sad creatures. You almost feel sorry for them. They gather and shoot shit, mostly shitting on a fictitious country and the ambassador, or talking about how their poncey food is so good. They do the same thing 500 times over. It’s sad. Plus, they can’t even finish what they wanted to do. From a simple misunderstanding to the death of a restaurant manager to an army invading the room, we get a whole spread of crazy interruptions. Which saves us from the boring episodes of inane behaviour amongst the preening actors.

Every facet of the Bourgeois is given a grilling here, even the church. A Bishop with a green finger fetish joins the group, buffoon like in one interchange where he reveals the depth of his lack of knowledge. He appears at first in his robes, greeted with a kiss by a maid but returns in gardening gear and gets ushered out by the owners of a house. Yet, in Clark Kent swiftness, he rings the bell again and is greeted with apologies when he’s back in the robes. Clothes maketh the man. If he were wearing papal robes, they’d probably take him for the pope too.

Then there’s the dream sequences. The characters get into nighmarish situations, where they variously end up in jail only to be saved by a dead policeman or they end up as actors on a stage when they thought they were going for dinner, even forgetting their lines. There’s dreams within dreams and these get stitched together by the 6 main characters walking down a lonely road in a huge field with no destination in sight. Rather peasant status for some rich folk.

It’s one big slap in the face for anyone who thinks they’re anything more than the apes we really are. There are those who will feel aghast at the thought of themselves as pretentious twats. Then there are those who think it’s a massive insult. Then there may be those who might dismiss it as mere entertainment. And yet others might actually trump the film as some sort of masterpiece, like the Academy For Motion Picture Arts And Sciences handing out the Oscar Discreet Charm won for best foreign language film back in ‘73.

I wan 2 eat blak maan prezdent 1zt of U,S & A.

The iht is right. Research In Motion has a lot to be happy about, what with their unofficial spokesperson going into office today. One wonders if anything will change for the better. Then again, if you’re starting at the bottom and you presume you can’t go any lower…

The U.S has just gone from a guy who choked on pretzels and fell off segways (probably the worst advertising ever for either product) to a guy that said this about a phone, “I’m still clinging to my Blackberry, they’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

Cha-ching!

Bit of a late pass but here’s to the Singapore table tennis team, Wang Yuegu, Feng Tianwei and Li Jiawei. They battled long and hard to get to the final and record the nation’s second ever Olympic medal. A lot has been made about their being born in China and not really being Singaporean but I think they are. Afterall, we’re a nation of immigrants, what’s adding another 3 more? We’ve always been able to adapt and extend beyond our pathetic physical size by looking outwards anyway. This victory might be a touch hollow for some but nevertheless, it remains a victory that reminds us that we need to keep looking outside the miniscule island that is Singapore. That’s if we want to continue on the way we’re heading of course.

Bravo ladies. Bravo.

The next step now involves stem cells and host mothers. Clone dem legends.

8/8/8 was a big day for China, as it shrugged aside criticisms about its human rights records and the recent Tibetan crisis and the Szechuan earthquake. That was the day that everyone put aside their misgivings and concentrated on the sporting spectacle that is the Olympics. China, on their part, played up to expectations, with their ambitious building projects, matched by an elaborate opening ceremony.

The following pictures are testament to that.

Sydneysider Adam Pretty with a pretty shot for gettyimages.

Joe Klamar for AFP.

Mike Hewitt for gettyimages.

Streeter Lecka for gettyimages.

Ceremony pics robbed off The Big Picture.

This is a rant, this is a rant about some ants in my pants!

Emotionally withdrawn is how I tend to view myself, culpable to the odd outburst where apparently, I express my glee/grievances in the most awkward way according to the people who know me.

It was a birthday of one of my pals here in Sydney so we went down to the 3 Monkeys on George Street for some drinks. Whereupon, I decided we needed a photo to mark the occasion. I whipped out my trusty old Sony DSC-N1, a gift from an ex-girlfriend. This baby has travelled with me for close to 3 years and I got it as a complete surprise. In a previous blog, I trumped it up because at the time, it was quite the novelty, given its 3-inch touchscreen and dimunitive yet stylish form factor. A couple weeks later, I had it in my hands to my great satisfaction and surprise.

So I took a coupla shots and handed the camera over to a friend. He fiddled with it for a bit and then, fumbled it before I found it on the floor. No biggie, its fallen before. I drop shit all the time, phone, iPod, camera… they always come back to life even if there’s scarring. Not this time though. The screen flashed a “turn it on and off” message. The lens assembly was stuck and stuttering. I did what it asked. Several times to no avail which really sucked. I guess I got rather sullen after that, even if it felt somewhat inexplicable at the time because I wasn’t too fussed about the camera dying on me. I sort of kept thinking that, it’d come back. Complacency maybe or just blind optimism.

I am fussed now though. I went to get it booked it for a repair. It’s not too far from where I stay but it takes a good amount of time and costs some cash as well. I also had to plonk down a decent sum of money to book the evaluation. At which point, they then check it out and tell me, much to my chagrin, that it would cost close to AUD$400 to fix it. Originally, when it first came out, it was like SGD$800 or maybe AUD$570 or so. Which is almost the full price of the camera. That sucked, knowing also that my money to book it in would evaporate as well. I’m not too upset about that given I knew full well that I was taking a risk. Still, I hoped, I clung on to some thin little crevice, probably because of nostalgia and memory. The camera being the perfect representation of such things. I suppose I always manage to find some poignancy in the most mundane of things.

So ok, I have to then get a new camera. Which sucks. A month prior, I’d also gotten a new 2Gb card for my Sony. Browsing round on dpreview, I decided to opt for the Sony DSC-W150, not that the name matters. I always wonder why people assign random numerals to products, like how they’re unimportant, destined to fade away until the next upgrade. I suppose that’s sort of honest at least… “Hey, we’re not jacking you y’know, this bitch is onna die in a year, s’why we put dem numbas in dem jawns.” Yea they have other products that they erect pedestals for and I suppose in the world of tech goods, a numeral system also has certain attachments and benefits. A certain geeky je ne sai quoi. Too many funky names also tend to clutter shit up. So ok, W150 it is then.

I found one for a decent sum, AUD$320 online, so I decide to purchase it. Problem is, they like to confirm shit before they let it drop. So they send me an email telling me to confirm it with my bank. Australians are more kiasu than Singaporeans for sure I thought. Then I remember my bank has this stupid system for internet banking, which involves the use of a second PIN, derived from a physical device that I’d left at home. Damn. Stupid extra security measures. Damn 9-11 bullshit. Can’t we all just go back to the way things were? Or do I have to take my shoes off everywhere and put 3 PINs in before I can get to my bank account?

So ok, I await the arrival of news from my brother that he has found the stupid device for me before I can confirm this stupid transaction. Which has now become some sort of absurd piece of serendipitous karmic lightbulb being turned on in my head.

One camera dies, and with it the memories it once framed. In comes a new one but what photos will I take with it? Will I love the new one more? Or less? Will its 5x optical zoom, 8+ megapixels, up to ISO3200 sensitivity, compact size and decent styling be enough? Its actually an upgrade now that I think of it, but that’s simply down to order & progress I suppose. It could have been any camera, why this one? Probably because the others available at the moment look like shit. Is that enough reason to like this one?

Maybe I should just stop comparing my luck with cameras with my life and just make dinner.