Going to a local art exhibition / museum makes me miss The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York very much… and The Louvre in Paris… Over here, art is just art. Terrible presentation in a big, barren white room, totally disconnected from the other pieces. Or chucked in a glass cabinet like an old, forgotten piece. Unloved, under appreciated. Unlike their counterparts in the West, where every piece is treated with utmost respect, under a spotlight with detailed description placed under or next to the piece, for easy reference.

Last Friday, I decided to check out the SGP Biennale 08 at City Hall, a contemporary art exhibition on the theme Wonder. Although I found the entire thing detached and had me scratching my head many times [a short film about bus stop pun boleh jadi artistic] I think I was impressed with a few pieces, namely Blackfield, War Of The Worlds and the photographs of Infinite Islands. Those photographs made me want to go to those islands, only to realize later that they do not really exist - they’ve been digitally manipulated! Just like this one. Heart pain.

One $10 ticket lets you view the City Hall art pieces and the collection at the South Beach venue. I think I wasn’t motivated or I wasn’t too impressed to want to walk 1km to get to the other venue. Instead, I went to Raffles City to buy donuts. Now, that was more exciting! hahahaaa!!!

Coincidentally, Geraldo was also at an art exhibition the same day. Well, he was at an art school open house… He sent me stills and videos. I was so jealous looking at how exciting that exhibition looked. They even had performing arts on location - “primitive” artists, classical musicians, etc, all around the art pieces. How awesome! And the paintings - oh my… if only I could paint like them!!!

But like me, he too was scratching his head at some contemporary art. Sometimes, it takes a bit of imagination to understand what the artist is trying to convey.

Photos from the SGP Biennale 08: click here.

Very busy these days, plus have nothing much to say… Just posting a very post-processed pic of a relative’s relative who was with us at East Coast Park during the last holiday weekend. Original sooc image here.

I also think this kid is cute.

I’m so emo, I can’t think straight. Aaaarrghhh… the entire day, I had to deal with an emo roller-coaster… it’s crazy! On my way home, I listened to Take That’s Rule The World. Lagi emo aku!!!!! *lol* Anyway, this is not so much an entry about politics, but something more personal…

You know what, I never gave a rat’s ass about politics until b*sh came into power and ruined everything. I hate him. I hated the America under him. There was a point when I was even embarrassed to tell new friends that my bf is American. You know, the anti-American sentiments were high, and in all honesty, I wasn’t even proud that he is American…

I think it started to get to me when I found out several friends & contacts are struggling with their businesses, struggling to make ends meet. A friend who earned an MBA from a prestigious school has been out of a job for the past 6+ years. Friends and relatives have lost their jobs and homes. All thanks to b*sh’s jinx. But it hurt even more when my own love had to go thru his own rough patch. Which is why I’ve never felt so poignant about a presidential election. And today, Obama’s victory got me all teary eyed. Hiding my tears of joy at the office while I thank God for the beautiful birthday gift He has given to the love of my life. Yea, he wished for an Obama win for his birthday

Geraldo and I both strongly feel, beautiful positive changes are ahead - on the personal level, that is. I am excited about the future! I’m looking forward to new opportunities, developments, positive outcome… I believe Obama’s win will inspire people to work harder for a better future, invest, take risks. I can already see Geraldo’s enthusiasm - he’s looking all positive and ready to make an impact on his next biz meeting. The journey is going to be interesting. Interesting in so many levels.

Ten years ago [or so] I remember reading the biography of Malcolm X, to understand the African American history. It was a very riveting book, very inspiring but depressing at the same time. The struggles their people had to go thru for hundreds of years, I will never be able to imagine. My [Black] friend Jerome and I exchanged conversations. One of the things he mentioned was, “…there’ll never be an African American president on this soil. The majority White will never let that happen!”

Fast forward 10 years. Who would have thought he’d be so wrong! It’s amazing how the racial divide has narrowed Almost the entire world - Europeans, Africans, Arabs, Asians, etc. - is now inspired by a Black man who will attempt to make things right and erase the anti-American sentiment. Even the Asian stock market pointed up today! It’s incredible!

Yes, lets be realistic - change takes time. And like Obama says, it probably won’t happen in one year or one term. But you know what, I am hopeful however long it’ll take [not too long i hope]. I have faith that positive change is coming.

It’s too early to tell - the stats may change tomorrow, but this is just creepy. I was checking Yahoo and discovered that Obama won by 6 points, just how I dreamt it!!!! :-O You know, the dream about him handing me a slice of chocolate cake and I said he will win I plurked about the points before the counting began, just to make my point about my, erm, psychic ability… hahahhaaaaa!!

Who knows, that dream may come true some day - he will hand me a slice of chocolate cake Hint: mud pie would be nice.

Even bread gets photographed and pp’d

Wish I could toss out the fruit yogurt and, instead, have this rustic Low GI bread [from Carrefour] every day for breakfast. It’s sooo good toasted, slathered with butter and St Dalfour fruit jam, that my mom and I wiped out two loaves and an entire jar of fruit preserves in a little over a week!

More often than not, we struggle to finish a loaf of bread. This time however, I believe our palate just needed a change from the Raya leftovers. Yea, we still have leftovers. Leftovers that I absolutely do not want to see, smell nor eat anymore. But the fresh scent of toasted bread… ahhhh… wakes up my senses A couple slices of toast plus a strong cup of coffee is all it needs to satisfy me till lunch.

As much as I’m loving my toasts, I’m also trying to get back to my pre-fasting routine - it’s not easy when my willpower is at its lowest and my insatiable appetite is at its peak. All the leftover cookies and chocolate bars scattered around the house are not helping me either. I’ve returned to my workouts a couple weeks ago, but I’m not doing enough - only 2 days of cardio/circuit + 2 days of walking on a good week. I need a push! I need inspiration!! I need to toss out that bread, cookies and Kinder Bueno and eat grass!!!

I don’t have stories about food, nor food photos to share today. Just photos taken while I was ‘kidnapped’ on a bumboat tour around the River several weeks ago Yes, I have taken more than enuf pix of this skyline, but never with beautiful blue skies and clumps of puffy clouds floating above our heads. So the day I took these pix, it was picture-perfect weather. The ‘kidnappers’ were a fine bunch too, so it made the sunny day out all the more fun.

I hate the small image above actually… it’s so tiny, it’s giving me an eye migraine from all the squinting. If you’re interested, you can click here for the larger color version [only 407kb] <- link corrected.

I added some grain to the tinted infrared photo above - all done digitally

I used to hate grain, but after some time, I learnt how to appreciate it. Some images look really beautiful with grain on - they look less digital, less smooth and less clean… I think they look best on high-contrast mono or duotone portraits, but some color images look great with grain too, such as the Polaroid-like images, which I simply adore. I wish I could come up with a portrait like that. Some day, when I have the right subject.

On a more personal note, there’s nothing much to report other than me getting back to my busy workload and deadlines in the coming weeks *sigh* As much as I do love this job, I don’t enjoy the deadlines. And I don’t like how I’m always going to bed at 3am.

A couple of things happened - there’s always some thing going on with my boring life… that has made me change my route home. I was stalked again by the same [offline] psycho this past Monday. This time, he was in his car, waiting for me by the road. I regret I didn’t pay enough attention to his car plate number… *sigh* I just know it’s an SF plate, gold paint, Nissan or Toyota Corolla. Not sure why crap like this always happens to me. I’ll try to be more vigilant next time I’m out.

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of the pix.