Purple Land of Golden Oats

Purple Land of Golden Oats is based on this portrait/drawing thing my friend, Beatrice, got for me from India.

It's been a while - Lenny's video

Happy new year. It's been a while. Seems like the posts i put up here has been about how it's been a while.

How's your first week of work? Mine is nicely wrapped up with my first story of 2010. A sadistic whack of a story - Lenny's Video

The hand-drill story was inspired by my recent search for a hand-drill. I remember when I was young, there were the convenient traditional types of hand-drills that worked like an egg-beater. Nowadays, i don't see anyone using that already. They use the powered by electricity one. Borsh has one that's powered by batteries.

The Lenny story was set up so that it seemed like he was filming something for a dating/match-making video. But it has a sadistic twist. He killed himself because he was sorry he raped his beloved, jenny, who could be his elder sister - Jenny and Lenny. Didn't want to be explicit about it, but to leave those in between the lines. Should I be more obvious and leave more clues?

That should be my goal for writing this coming year. I always writer riddles in the stories, but i never leave enough clues. This year, i'd be trying to weave in more clues. I'm also weaving in more details about the Singaporean setting - like in this case, reference to NTU and what not. Still, i suppose my stories are set with a very surreal note in general.

What's in a name - Ernest Beauregard

Ernest Beauregard's story just came to me in an instance... the idea of an angmor sticking a ear pick into his eye was a bit violent and interesting. Ernest's name was chosen with care.

Ernest is also spelt "EARnest" so it's quite apt. According to thinkbabynames.com...

The boy's name Earnest \e(a)-rne-st, ear-nest\ is a variant of Ernest (Old German), and the meaning of Earnest is "serious; battle to the death".

"Beauregard" apparently, according to thinkbabynames.com...

The boy's name Beauregard \be(au)-regard, beaur(e)-ga-rd\ is of French origin, and its meaning is "beautiful gaze".... The name can also mean "easy on the eye".

Catatonia - Mr Bu

Mr Bu began with a sudden urge to name my characters. Most of my characters don't have a name, i find it difficult to name them - perhaps that the stories are so short that they are strangers to me - and i'm, we're just eavesdropping into their lives, so they don't need to have names.

Well, i suppose I need to try harder.

Catatonia is a psychological condition/disorder, described in wikipedia as:

Patients with catatonia may experience an extreme loss of motor skills or even constant hyperactive motor activity. Catatonic patients will sometimes hold rigid poses for hours and will ignore any external stimuli. Patients with catatonic excitement can die of exhaustion if not treated. Patients may also show stereotyped, repetitive movements. They may show specific types of movement such as waxy flexibility, in which they maintain positions after being placed in them by someone else, or gegenhalten (lit. "counterhold"), in which they resist movement in proportion to the force applied by the examiner. They may repeat meaningless phrases or speak only to repeat what the examiner says.

Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro is a really nice show about some catatonic people... (it was adapted from a book). I highly recommend watching it.

A friend on facebook had asked me to try to continue the story. But at this point in time, I don't know how. Though I would really like to try...

Lavender bush - Lavender Remedy

Lavender Remedy - This is how lavender bushes look like.


I think it'd be funny to have 2 of these hanging from your face.

Observation - Traffic Allergic to Rain

Traffic Allergic to Rain was obviously based on my observations that there's always a traffic jam whenever it rains. It's like Singaporeans dunno how to drive in the rain, or something like that.

If it's a heavy downpour, then okay I understand, you know.
but even if it's a light drizzle, there'd also be some hold up.

Maybe soon, they'd jack up the ERP prices on rainy days.

Random updates

Recently I am:

1. Wishing that i have more time/pieces to write for both meekfreak and sneak
2. 27 years old
   
3. Amused by my peperomia which:
   a) is growing tall and upright so that it can reach the sunlight at the window which is about 3 metres away from it.
   b) has almost all its leaves turning to face the window.
   c) now houses a spider (with webs and all) dunno for what, like i don't think there's a lot of traffic on my table... but okay whatever, maybe "Peppy" is just putting him/her up just for tonight.
4. Feeling like growing more plants. Perhaps a tomato plant.
5. Bored.
   

Feet - a story seldom told

A story seldom told... the idea of talking feet has been with me for a long time, i tend to think that if any part of my body were to have its' own mind, surely it'd first begin with my feet. In fact, i had an accident with my little left toe a few years back, and I really believe that it has the mind of its own.

Thought of this story when I was staring at my feet, just after getting home.
I was also looking at yusof ishak on the 2 dollar note and imagined him probably having a conversation with my feet.

I did toy with the idea that the elephant and tortoise fell out of love, but it would be too upsetting for harmony in the body.

And i really did fall asleep halfway writing the story, for about half an hour or so.

It took me... about 3 hours to write. and I nearly gave up. but am glad I didn't.

I think the words look clumsy on the page, but it kinda reads okay when it's read aloud, and the rhythm of reading changes a bit to sorta keep the beat.

pictures - Jie Qi and Peperomia

These are the starting points for the stories Jie Qi and I, its mealy bug. Featured, the clock that cost $5 from ang moh kio central, and the plant that cost $2 - with name peperomia acuminata (which is also called peperomia scandens, in some references). The mealy bugs kinda grew bigger and gross me a little.

The meekfreak banner

Had wanted to write an explanation on the Banner photo at meekfreak for sometime. The significance/symbolism of clouds against the blue sky:

- of imagination: imagining the clouds are of etc etc shapes...
- of surrealism: the blue sky to me - and to some of the surrealists - are representative of the surrealist movement. It's like how the simpsons opens their credits with the white clouds and blue sky.
- of an elephant: I don't know why so coincidental, I think this crop of the clouds shows an elephant at the back. If you don't know, I collect figurines of elephants and adopt it on many occasions as my "emblem" should I need one.
- of a little boy/girl with rabbit/donkey ears: can you see him? in the foreground, in the side profile, with his/her face resting on his little hands and sorta turned to talk to the elephant. So i think it's also representative of my stories with the little meekfreaks characters I write about - the little boy/girl characters with an odd quality or two.
- of jasperware: jasperware's the pottery kinda thing with white patterns against often blue background. The white fonts against that particular blue, reminds me of jasperware that i seen in my childhood and the adults told me not to touch cos it's expensive. I like them cos they are fragile and pretty and delicate. Sometimes, i try to re-create that feeling in my writing. the precision, the delicate elegant depictions.

When I took this picture, it was for the first 2 reasons listed above, but as I was working on it, then the other things came about. so, actually, i like the picture a lot.

Lately, i've been wondering if i should change my meekfreak's name to something less of a mouthful than "chattering matterings of the original meekfreak" and been toying with the idea of "rebranding" - changing my banner etc... but i think that the banner is really quite apt and I wonder if i should change it for the sake of changing.

I also think about writing more things to explain about my book and the deliberation behind some things, but i think it's significantly less important as compared to actually creating new work.