Pulp Friction

      Last Tuesday, a number of us received an invitation from the electronica music lab to attend a gig at a place called the velvet underground. Entry free with a password (“flash”) and free drinks until 23h. I arrived accompanying Caroline when the free flow was over, at about 23h30. By that time everybody was trashed. In particular…. Just so everyone knows: Loïc, Andrew, Devon. Mostly Loïc. Never have I seen someone as wasted as Loïc that fateful night. It was fun to pin him down after he’d gone too far and and a real pain to get him up to his room back in BoonLay. The funny part of the story is that he slept with all his clothing and as when he woke up at 11 am, he rushed out of his room in the same state he had entered it, thinking he had a lesson at 12. He did the best he could to arrive on time but that was pointless since his first course was at 14h. His breath smelled like ha had eaten a beaver or something. I know I shouldn’t take the Mickey and point fingers, but he was pretty funny, just standing around waiting for a course with a 2-meter stink radius around him. I don’t blame him for reaching outstaying proportions of alcohol in his blood when absolutely everything was free.

         Saturday night fever, Gods Gods Gods, This week end was one of a kind. I don't know how these things happen, I do not feel I pushed them into happening. It’s either luck, or fate.

        Aikido was really tiring last Friday, and when I took the bus home, it seemed to cruelly stop every hundred meters, making the bus ride take twice as long as usual. By the time I got back the barbecue with the weird Canadian “born again Christian” chucky look-alike freak was over so I just spent some time copying Chinese characters in Wyatt’s living room.
        The plan was to go kite-surfing with Freddy in Indonesia the next day. Fate had decided otherwise. I would be to wake up at 6 am and instead of getting dressed and leaving, turn my alarm clock off and sleep some more. I woke up at 12. As you can certainly imagine I thought Freddy would be pretty mad, since in my sleep I hadn’t answered any of his frantic calls or messages and he had chosen not to go alone. In fact, to my utter surprise he wasn’t mad at all even though he had waited two hours for me. What a compassionate dude. I continued copying characters for about two hours in my usual stubborn and clumsy manner. 小茜 used to say « you write like a child would » or rather 你写字写得跟小孩一样. I then got tired and innocently left for WOMAD (an open air festival with music from around the world). Open a bracket here : WOMAD kicks donkey ass, this year they had Youssou N’Dour and Asian dub Foundation ! to know more follow this link : www.womadsingapore.com/

 
You may now close that bracket.

        Traitors! Camilo and Abdul were supposed to meet me at 18H00 at City Hall, however they traitorously went to Boon Lay to enjoy a nice cool refreshing shower instead. It’s ok though, I have good karma these days, and so does Peter so no wonder I randomly met at City Hall the I learnt of Camilo and Abdul’s devious plot. Peter proposed that I join himself, Wyatt, Clement and Alistair for dinner and a night out in the city. My answer was shy, but I did feel like meeting Clement and Alistair, whom I had heard of through Wyatt. Clement is a cool enjoyable inextinguishable source of useful information about Singapore.  He always knows where to go. Alistair is a British law student who speaks in an unnerving manner, he shares this custom of eloquent but distorted, queer, and witty speech with Peter, so being around both of them at the same time is tough on my poor little sensitive brain cells. We had Mexican food in Holland village, then coffee next door, and finally a little beer. Wyatt and I insisted on us not going home. We wisely followed Clement’s advice and headed for a place called the timbré. The timbré is a part open-air bar built around a British courtyard. The stage for performers is on one side, the bar on the other, trees and tables in the centre. The band was really talented, they played popular American rock songs, and were basically having fun performing, so it was enjoyable to watch. Drinks weren’t expensive so I treated myself to a White Russian, just like the dude, duder, el duderino.

      

        Wyatt was amazing; He got up and danced on the stage to Prince’s “Kiss”. Prior to that he had held up a sign saying “get up, Dance!” with no avail. We got served, he served everyone, his moves were too inventive, too quick, he was having so much fun, nobody could have served him back. That was the coup de grace, it made that night unlike any other. The concert finished with the two guitarists and the bass guitarist getting up on people’s tables to play (wireless guitars). They finished with a song by Ray Charles, to which Peter, Wyatt, Clement and myself danced to.

        “Oh, Funny shtory”, coincidence, we took a night bus back, and at Boat quay Akram got in, he had just been playing a gig at the Homeclub. Akram is a member of the electronica lab at NUS, and he knows every band on earth. It’s actually quite impressive.

        I don’t regret not going to WOMAD. There are other festivals, but Wyatt being applauded for dancing to Prince and the band asking him to dance some more, that only happens once in a lifetime. Once only, twice'd be one two many, you'd become blasé and bored by everything, life would become tasteless.

    Melanie Clerc arrived Sunday morning; she had previously spent two months internshipping in a Luxembourgian motor valve company in Shanghai. For those who don’t know, Melanie was in ASINSA with me, so we’ve known each other for three years now. She’s more Camilo’s friend though, so she’ll be sleeping in his room for the next 8 nights.
        Since this was her first day we took her out, we started with Arab Street. It reminded me of morocco, all those signs, shops, decoration, with one notable difference: it was calm and not oppressive. We casually drifted in the streets and shops around the mosque, and for the first time in two weeks, I took pictures of my own. We ate at a Turkish place that gave my belly-ache. Whatever we did after that is of little importance. We saw a fat bird sculpture by Botero and Camilo got all excited because he’d finally spotted something of Colombian origin. Excited like… humm… like Martin when he’s about to eat the pizza.

      

        On Monday Melanie and I met up in Chinatown because I was free for the day. At some point I ordered a 红毛榴莲 juice at a stall (that’s red haired durian, I think it’s also called soursop). The waitress got really excited because I was speaking Chinese so she invited me to sit down and have dinner with her and her colleagues. I called Melanie over, who also speaks Chinese so they were doubly impressed. Then... the boss came over to chat with us, telling us how cool academic exchanges are, and that his daughter is going to Finland for one semester... And since I’d been to Finland a couple of times we started a conversation about that which he got all frantic over. During all this period we were served free drinks and food, the boss then said he was going to present us someone. The guy he brought over was a Chinese businessman in oil and water-treatment. They gave us a visit of Chinatown , and lead us to the main Chinese Buddhist temple. The temple was modern and it’s decoration incredibly impressive, there was also a procession going on inside, the sort of thing we see in "7 years in Tibet", "Kundun", "little Buddha" and the likes. pretty cool...

       

        We decided on going to a getai that night, after all, this is the peak of the ghost month so this should be the most festive time. We inquired and found out through one of the waitresses that there was one where she lives, and she invited us to join it.
        We arrived at the place (near redhill) at about ten... And witnessed a drunken crowd. Boy was it fun, people dancing, cheering, singers just like in the movies, free drinks and food ! they were extremely welcoming and surprised to see foreigners. All this kept a strongly present religious backdrop with decorations, burning prayers in a bonfire, altars, incense, so on so forth.

       

        When it ended at 23h a guy I befriended invited us to go up watch something, we didn't quite understand what but didn't feel in danger so went anyway. We entered an apartment totally redecorated with Taoist offerings to the ghosts. In the centre was a man smoking opium in front of an altar, he was to become an avatar to the ghosts. People around were casual and telling us to take photos if we could, but in the red gloom of the room a flashless photo made no sense. After being inhabited by different ghosts for approximately an hour the avatar predicted good fortune, and lottery numbers... Some of the ghosts were really violent, others sad, it was all very unpredictable.

 

         I met a man there whose business is passing people illegally into the US. He'd been all over the world, it was interesting talking to him.
We gave fond goodbyes and made promises of coming back. What a day.

It is at these times when I look back and regret none of you are with me. I truly miss you,

Thomas.

They're not that interesting, but you might feel like checking out the poor singing of getai performers on these videos :

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Uploaded by erselius

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Uploaded by erselius

Comments

[tom]

yup ! we'll be going back to the timbré this saturday for the band's anniversary. It's too bad you're not here, the finale with the the musicians playing all around the place with their wireless guitars was amazing. I'll upload the videos Peter took as soon as I get them.

[Florence]

You danced ?!? :p

[caro]

mdr l'histoire de Loic!!