ampulets

time project #14. Turtle and machine. Secretary: Boss, do you know your business has just turned three? Praise God! Boss Amps: Has it? Wow! Secretary: Yah... er, still no time to put up the website proper huh ? Boss Amps: Clients' work come first mah. Secretary: Yah, we're man, not machine. Boss Amps: ... Secretary: In the spirit of that, boss, I thought this year's annual report should not be about all that boring stuff. You know, how's work? what are the future plans? what was your favouritest project. Machines are slowly taking over all that. Let's talk about human stuff. Like music. After all, we're made to make music, the sublime stuff. Boss Amps: It would be nice to play a musical instrument. Like after a day's work. Secretary: What musical instrument do you play, boss? Boss Amps: None. Secretary: Ah. But say you could. What would it be? Boss Amps: ... Secretary: The trumpet? Miles Davis style. Boss Amps: Yah, I did think about that yea...

According to this website , turtles in Chinese mythology (or maybe it's Japanaese mythology) get to speak "the language if humans" when they reach a thousand years of age. How is speaking "the language of humans" a reward for 1000 years of peaceful silence? After 1 year of peaceful distance from work, tomorrow I''ll be reporting at my new job for a "visioning exercise." It won't be at least 2 months before I start proper, but reality is starting to s-i-n-k-i-n. So it was with some urgency that I finished this drawing for the turtle/time project.

images by J From our fifteenth floor flat, we can see the top of trees - their varied shades and flowered crowns. In the month of September, or round about the seventh lunar month, the trumpet tree (I think that's what it is) blooms and rains down its flowers. J: It's our cherry blossom! Y: Yah, like cherry blossoms! Pretty ah. Old woman: [in Hokkien] Super pretty. Y: [in a semblance of Hokkien] Very pretty. Old woman: Every year around this time, these trees are like this. Sometimes all the way until the eighth month. Y: Is it? Old woman: This morning, wah, the ground was all full of flowers. They sweep it away already, But this morning, wah. Super pretty. Y: If you look down from the window, the whole tree top is flowers. Old woman: I can't go to the window ah. [gestures at the wheelchair] My legs are no good, afraid I'll fall. Y: Yah, better to be careful... Old woman: [sits watching the flowers while we walk off] Super pretty.

image by J. Nothing to do with this post. It's just a cool picture of the universe in a glass of iced water. In between writing my dissertation, I've been reading the following books online. But being the bibliophile that I am, they have since appeared on our shelves, save for the rarer Annals . If you need reasons to get Facebook off your computer screen, here are three good ones: Troy Chin's Loti is uploaded by its author regularly on his website . It could be that the stories are nostalgic for most readers. Not the sepia-toned variety, but the household kind - familiar experiences of childhood - primary school tests, a classmate's birthday party, corny jokes, haunted houses in the neighbourhood, visits to the "wet" market. It could be the innocence and naivete of the characters. Of course, it could be Troy Chin's comic timing. Whatever it is, this is one addictive comic. [Volume 1 of Loti is available in print in most bookstores, as is his Resident...