a light spirit
![gameboy](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1278/537002169_4492b31598_m.jpg)
light spirit - from an old sketch
Walking home after lunch today, we saw 2 boys walking toward us, one holding a can of lemonade. We did not know them, but they were - without doubt - neighbourhood boys.
Y: Hey, did you smell that?
J: Yup.
Y: Those boys just sniffed glue huh?
J: [turns around] He's still sniffing. See.
Y: I wonder why...what on earth can be so compelling about that smell? And the damage to your brain cells!
J: I don't know. It's the same for people who wake up and immediately start to drink beer, or need to have a smoke. Maybe it numbs or relaxes, leaves a good feeling.
Y: I guess, I can understand how having a smoke can be relaxing... but things at the human level - they're strange, aren't they - smoke, glue, alcohol. Whichever government or culture, for all the talk the big time folks do at parliament, it can seem so removed from these smaller realities.
J:...
So this explains the empty tins of tiger brand glue or some other solvent by the large monsoon drain, their contents poured into less conspicuous lemonade cans.
![](http://www.nhb.gov.sg/SAM/popup/selfportraitgeorgette.jpg)
![](http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/singapore/arts/painters/georgettechen/9.jpg)
OK, so it's really rather corny. But I wonder if a part of modernism was this - a belief that the artistic form is of an enduring reality and meaning, even if it cannot hold off a war. And that war itself, not art, was the ephemeral one, its devastation will be powerless and can eventually be overcome.
A can of lemonade, a bowl of fruit - intoxicants all.
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See some of Georgette Chen's works here.
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