ampulets

One of these things is not like the other... A colleague at a meeting termed some of us sitting around the table "the culture people". I hope he means it positively... If you are in doubt whether you are a "cultured people" or somehow still a stewing mess of incoherent DNA, amps give you here a simple "culture, you're no vulture!" test in 2 parts. Part 1:What do you do when you encounter something you don't normally see/hear/experience or understand? Matthew Ngui's "seeing may be believing but not always understanding" Last Thursday I found myself with complimentary tickets for The Architecture of Silence at the Esplanade. Behind me were 2 young women in their office attire who probably also held complimentary tickets. After some 20 minutes into the performance, they started whispering and giggling, mocking the dance and music - or rather the juxtaposition of the two. Another 15 minutes later, one of them exclaimed louder...

it really is - design by J amps It's that time of the year for Read Singapore again - but hey, why wait for some government agency to tell you to read (in caps and with an exclamation, no less) before you do so? This year, amps bring you another poster on why reading is what it is. But I wonder if there can be folks who love books but don't read, bibliographers who judge the book by its cover, weight, smell, texture, size, font, layout...and love everything but its content. Ah, surely it would be a fleeting, superficial love. Or lust. So it was with some skepticism that I read this article in the Design observer about attempts to arrange books by colour. "For one, books he's purchased or received as gifts are books he knows and often loves, and the color of these books is a major part of the experience of interacting with them [...] Another of Luke's reasons is this: organizing his books by color allows him to discover new and unexpected relationships ...

an old illustration With a new nephew joining us on this disastrous world, J and I were faced again with the usual question whether us amps would feel terribly lonely if we get real old or if one of us has to hang around longer. Not to add, kids do say the strangest things. Just this weekend, we I got my answer when 75 year-old Pa J gave us a scare and had to be warded for observation after a marathon bout of vomiting. J : I still can't get the image out of my mind. Y: What? J: My father shitting. Having to stand beside him, making sure he's ok, passing him toilet paper... Y: What kind of son are you? He's your father! How many times do you think he had to see your poop when you were a baby! J: I know - but - Y: Why do you keep repeating this? Why are you so obsessed? J: Well, it's not everyday you have to - it's like not everyday you see 2 flamingos mating! Y: ... J: ... Y: "2 flamingos mating". what the flamingo brought

...I thought like a child - new painting after months! At the beginning of the film Taxidermia by Hungarian Gyorgi Palfi, a narrator drawls on that "it is only towards the end that the beginning becomes important" (or something like this). In a film that is really 3 short short films on 3 generations of men and their accidental fathering of the next, you are invited to witness a grotesque parade of physical (and sexual) deprivation, followed by excess made into sport and ultimately greed, then the slow paring away as skin sheds flesh and all other semblance of life. Of course, running parallel to the men's stories are post-war Hungary (a land-locked state trapped still in its feudal society), Communist Hungary and, I guess, today's republic. Their lives reflective of, yet strangely displaced in these 3 transformations of their society. This is a rather dull summary of a visually rich and entertaining film! I assure you the cinema laughing, cringing, squirming...