Thursday, September 28, 2006

the greenie patrol



We took this photograph of Sara (left foreground), Mr Max (the white dog with closed eyes) and my mother's golden retriever, Cherry, about a year ago. They were waiting to be given their greenie bones. That's why they are in a group but each has an air of singlemindedness. Greenie bones - for the uninitiated, these are the canine world's equivalent of gummy bears: chewy, vegetable juice bones. It seems crazy, to think that dogs descended from carnivorous ancestors would even care to be near a bone that looks like and probably tastes like coagulated chlorophyll. Apparently not, judging from healthy sales of greenies in pet shops and the maniacal delight of our dogs whenever greenies are brandished. Milo, my mother's other dog, a labrador retriever mix, is unlike the other three; he roundly rejects apples, bananas and carrots.


But even he too is drooly deeply mad over greenie bones. Milo is the oldest and largest in the pack. He is also the alpha-dog. Which means he gets his greenie first.

Dogs are hierarchical creatures, Most of them are highly aware of their status in the pack. Alpha-dogs are confident and self-assured, they know they are at the top and they can usually be identified by their leader-like aura. Sara is the alpha in our home and Mr Max defers to her most of the time. He used to push Cherry around when she was a pup (At two she's the youngest.) He's stopped doing that ever since the big-boned gal began to tower over him.

We suspect that Cherry doesn't realize how big she's grown. In any case she seems happy being No. 4.

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Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Willy Wonka's cousin and tropical oompa loompas

On a recent evening noisy notes (my other half) and I were at an event at the National Museum organized by a European bank, part of the round of parties held for Singapore06. There were cocktails, canapes, live music, acrobats, and an exhibition of photographs by a Japanese artist from the bank's collection. The National Museum has not yet re-opened, and I must say it is quite an experience to take the escalator to its new basement level with a glass of wine in hand and to look up at the night sky through the glass ceiling.

There are two rooms in the basement currently displaying artworks from the Singapore Biennale. They were deserted, save for the two of us and the one or two men in suits who had wandered in from the party upstairs. There was a photograph of the Last Supper, wax figures at Madame Tussaud's taken by Sugimoto Hiroshi. There was a series of oil paintings of a man in varying seated poses and brandishing different disabilities called "The Artist Is A Lonely Heart" by Thai artist Chatchai Puipia.

Back upstairs we walked around looking for things to eat. That was when we met a woman in a chef's uniform who courteously showed us the chocolates and other sweets she had prepared.

"What is the name of your caterer?" we asked after eating a nest-like pastry with a hint of aniseed in its heart, and a half-coat of bitter dark chocolate, the name of which escapes me (Malfunctioning memory, the effect of drink and disturbing paintings on a mainly empty stomach).

"I can't tell you. I signed an agreement not to say," she said, "But I can tell you that I own a chocolate factory. And I have represented Singapore at chocolate competitions." Now I know what it means when in story books they say: "with a twinkle in her eye". Noisy notes suggested that she sign a less constraining contract at future functions. She handed him a tiramisu chocolate. "Here, try this."

The smile on Willy Wonka's Southeast Asian cousin's face widened when I said that the rose pastry she had urged me to try reminded me of the Middle East. One second later I got it: "It's like a Turkish Delight." I can easily eat a plate of those. They give me a magic-carpet high. I had two of the rose pastries. (They're called flanner or something like it though they are not at all like flans. "Flannel," insists noisy notes on the drive home, the effect of drink and too many meetings with suits on a mainly empty stomach.)

I am the size of a hobbit and I could see the top of her chef's headgear (another name to look up). She said it again, thinking we might not have heard it the first time, "I have a chocolate factory. We make chocolates for hotels . . . and some companies who say their chocolates come from other places." I wonder if she is a renegade Oompa Loompa. No - she is too pretty.

Noisy notes said, "You can't tell us the name of your company but surely you can tell us your name?"

Chef Jane Chan, you and the chocolates you made and your fabulous chocolate factory in Woodlands, they will always be part of our memories of our first visit to the new National Museum.

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Sunday, September 10, 2006

the significance of names

Two days ago three assistant professors were waiting for bus number 160 at a bus-stop in Holland Village. Holland V, as it is affectionately partially acronymned by islanders, is a locale that belies its name by being situated nowhere close to the Netherlands and bears no resemblance to the pastoral nostalgic construct of a village in Europe. There are no thatched cottages and cattle here.

Still, the name does fit the job the place has been given in recent years: as a hangout for the workers in a hub of economically lucrative creativity, the kind of globalized synergistic cosmopolitan lifestyle hub that will prove an enticing playground for the mainly non-native IT and biotechnology labour elite who are imagined as playing a vital role in the current mission of making the island creative.

Two years ago it was widely reported when a political master exhorted Holland V for being hip and bohemian. (Digression: it is more accurate to say "the political master" but the charge of authoritarianism that peeks from the definite article is too much for a small blog to bear.) Bohemian only makes one of the assistant professors think of crystal blown in an industrial town of the former Czechoslovakia, another name buried in history, a name with no bearing on the present reality.

The assistant professors were talking about the Singapore Biennale and the campaign to educate non-Italian-speaking islanders in the correct pronunciation of the word ("say bian-nah-ley").

"Biennale means biennial, right?", said one of the assistant professors in his booming voice, towering over the other two like an Ent from Tolkien's epic. "So why not call it that? Biennial is easier to say too."

"Because there is an embedded reference to the Venice Biennale," proffered his colleague who prides herself on being-in-the-know about such things.

"Why Venice? Why Italian? I think it's got something to do with wanting to have our own Renaissance," quipped the third assistant professor, known for combining wit, mathematics, and devilry in his pedagogical philosophy.

There was a moment's silence as all three assistant professors took this in, each in his or her own way. Finally, the assistant professor who takes pride in knowing certain kinds of things says, "Renaissance? Ha! We need the Medici family for that to happen."

"Does it have to be Italian? Would a Chinese surname do?", posed the diabolical pedagogue.

"Biennale means biennial so I don't see why we can't just call it that," said the tall Ent-like assistant professor.

Bus number 160 arrived at the bus-stop. The assistant professors boarded it and were on their way to Orchard Road, a street on a part of the island that used to be covered by sprawling nutmeg and clove orchards.

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