A being in search of meaning

I like this clip in so many ways I won’t try to write something about it.
So there.

Today’s workout was brought to you by Caleb

In this corner, weighing in at a whopping 9kg and still growing, the one in the stripey (vertical, but it’s not helping) romper with the accentuating baseball bottom, cute as a button especially when he tries to talk gibberish, six months and already breaking his mother’s back (her doctor had to advise her to change his baby carrier), is the bouncing baby Caleb. Some call him “The Michelin Baby”, others “The Pork Knuckle”.

Whatever name he goes by, he is built solid as a planet (that’s an understatement), with his own gravitational field to boot (you should see how females are naturally pulled to him). He’s also a regular in the office every Friday evening, and when he visits, everyone has a serious session in weights training and gurgling and cooing.

Happy ideas

Ideas. It all comes down to an idea. A concept. An original or a fresh one, if possible.

It could be a big idea to reposition a brand; Ponds gained newfound credibility as an expert in women’s skincare with the creation of Ponds Institute, purportedly an idea from the strategic brains of its agency.

It could be an advertising idea, like throwing thousands of multicoloured balls down a slope in San Francisco to create an image (pun not intended) for a brand of TV sets.

It could be a PR idea, like raising awareness for a beach/island destination by running a recruitment ad for the best job in the world. 

It could be an idealistic idea: get New Yorkers to pay $1 for a glass of tap water one day of the year when they eat out, which they do practically every day of the year.

Or it could be an all-in-a-day’s-work idea for a brand or product, for a print campaign, a billboard, a contest on social media, or any of the countless forms of media out there.

Or it could just be…

An idea.

One that’s floating around like a goldfish in a bowl inside your brain. Aimless. But you hope one day you could give it life. And that’s how all these side projects are born.

There’s a design agency here that has its offices in the basement of a shophouse, and a design shop on the first floor selling imported hard-to-find music, avant garde fashion, as well as design items from locals as well as overseas designers.

Some other agencies also support non-work ideas, whether a photography hobby-turned-coffee table-book or a short film or a music project or just design ideas.

For example, Wieden+Kennedy’s “Big Little Ideas”. One I like is the Happy Sack by creative team, Tom Seymour and Dave Bruno.

The team worked closely with the Worldwide Co. and Suck UK to transform the concepts into fully viable commercial products. W+K then licensed the ideas to manufacturers and distributors in return for a percentage royalty.

Happy Sack and other W+K products under this range are on sale at boutique gift stores and chain stores like Paperchase and Urban Outfitters, and even the Museum of Modern Art (New York) gift store.

It’s nice when an idea sees light of day.

Oh, look. Goldfish.

Apocalypse: The Second World War

Last week, I caught the final episode of the excellent series from National Geographic together with France Television Distribution, launched in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the start of the war, Apocalypse: The Second World War. It was the most amazing WWII documentary I’ve ever seen bar none.

It’s not made up of stock, newsreel or propaganda footage from the war that authorities approved and that audiences have been accustomed to seeing, but footage taken by those who witnessed the war first-hand.

Footage that was deemed “unfit” for civilian eyes. Provocative and sometimes disturbing. Footage captured by amateur filmmakers of the exodus of thousands as the French evacuated Paris in June 1940. Footage of the British sifting through rubble left by the Blitz. Even footage of the hardships faced by Nazi soldiers as they slogged through the mud and snow of Soviet Russia on their way to Moscow.

This and other “top secret” footage of the war’s destruction was stashed away and forgotten. But thanks to the efforts of a few, private collectors and archivists, these forgotten films have been rediscovered and restored.

Made up entirely of 35mm, 16mm and 8mm films, now declassified and sometimes colourised, and rendered in HD, the footage has been made into a six-part documentary. About half of the footage has never been seen before.

The story is told from the different sides.

Excerpts from letters or journals feature both Allied and Axis soldiers, as well as civilians from France to Berlin. I didn’t find script loaded, but you could tell who the bad guys were. And of the atrocity and carnage and death, it is shown alongside footage of fierce battles, unedited and unhidden. The film is only marginally censored.

This 10-minute clip shows some of Allied battles, including Normandy. Watch the clip and it tells the views of the victims of war, like the stories of Jews who were herded into the Warsaw Ghetto; observers of war, like Ernest Hemingway, who was a war correspondent in the Normandy attack, and John Houston, who was stationed in Italy. It also mentions the bombardment and shelling that pounds the coast but completely misses the beach codenamed Omaha, resulting in D-Day.

This one features more of the Axis and the Wermacht, including Auschwitz.

National Geographic Channel is showing a rerun of the series right now.

I caught the first episode, The Aggression.

Germany, 1939. Hitler, with USSR as his ally, invades Poland. The first canon shot of the second world war is fired on Danzig, Poland (which had split Germany up after the First World War to give Poland access to the sea).

The British and the French declare war — France is still mostly a rural country and watching them march their troops to the German border by foot and on horseback is tragic — while the US remains neutral, its isolationist voice later heard in America First. The Sitzkrieg, the “sitting war”, begins, also known as the Phoney War in Britain, the drôle de guerre, “the funy war”, in France.

And ghettos for the Jews appear in Poland; the Jews still feel confident, unaware of the starvation and extermination they will later suffer. The war is going well for Hitler and he doesn’t know what to do with them, even considering shipping them to Madagascar. It isn’t until later when the war starts go bad that things take a turn for absolute hatred and cruelty.

For a synopsis of the series, read it here.

I think the Japanese will make their first appearance in the second episode, when Hitler turns his attention to the Eastern Campaign. (So I know what I’ll be doing next Monday night.)

The series is a good overview of the many parties, players and theatres of the Second World War. Sure, there are a lot more facts and details it doesn’t cover, but it’s a start to ignite interest in the budding historians in us. I think it’s a great tool for students. And when the DVD comes out, I would want one.

In the last episode I caught last week, at the end of the series, a tribute was made to the countless, often nameless, cameramen who were lying prostrate on the ground right there besides the soldiers, unarmed save for their cameras.

They captured for posterity the ravages and cruelty of the world war. One wonders if we’ve learnt anything from it.

Monday

Random exchange last Friday, over a small half-hour-and-it’s-out retail event on-ground poster:
AE: “Which is your favourite line?”
Me: “The one the client approves! Yay!”

In contrast was the small but last minute announcement ad on Monday which was supposed to be simple but where we argued with a manager about the difference between chest-thumping and tongue-in-cheek, and my art director offered a fist-in-face. (She was kidding. She’s more likely to stab the manager with a pencil than risk breaking her nails.) (In the end, the manager realised he had misread the brief. Wonderful.)

May the force be with them

Saturday night and it’s All Hallow’s Eve. There was a serious and terrible lightning storm happening. And I had a wedding dinner to attend. But it wasn’t a coincidence (I don’t konw about the storm, but not Halloween and my friend’s nuptials).

You see, my friend and his very understanding bride had a Star Wars wedding. Well, he did in any case. From the welcome reception to the first march in, he was all decked out in formal Jedi Knight complete with lightsaber on the leather belt.

To the anthem of The Throne Room from A New Hope (if I need to explain any of this, you should just skip to the next post, or go read some other blog) and the cheers of hundreds of friends, led by R2D2 and a battalion of stormtroopers, the happy couple marched in.

She was in her wedding dress. She did dress up a bit in the pre-wedding photos though. The shots were quirky, yet romantic. And very much “them”. If I saw the bride and groom in some faux Japanese costume (as some couples here do in their pre-wedding photos, I don’t understand why), it would be very much reason to call the authorities to alert them that the pod people may be among us. (We were a little surprised though, that he did the champagne tower thing, a wedding dinner tradition here. But that was the closest it got to “normal”.) In the second march in, when the bride had changed to her evening gown (ditto wedding dinner tradition), my friend opted for a normal suit, albeit with a fedora.

Anyway, that’s two weddings in a row where you can see the couple did the requisite traditional wedding dinner, but in a style that was very much who they were. Sincere and genuine, and most of all, joyous. It was an evening hanging out with friends that also happens to be one of the biggest evenings of their lives.

I’ve seen couples argue over what photos to select or what guests to invite or some other banal, petty thing. So much unhappiness over such tiny, no, microbic, things.

The other wedding which took place in July, was that of a colleague. Here’s a souvenir song that accompanied the from-childhood-to-school-to-when-they-met-and-their-courtship video (another wedding dinner tradition here and normally the job of the best friends).

Chairlift – Bruises

Another quirky crazy couple who enjoyed themselves as much as we did watching them on their big night. You feel happy. You’re happy for them. Because they are happy.

May the force be with them.

Top of the Charts

Here’s another chart. No, I wasn’t rickrolled. A friend sent me the link. But I think it’s funny. And it fits the song so well. And if I go on some more, I would be showing too much of an appreciation of Rick Astley and thus be dating myself. So I’ll end here.

Bacon’s Law

Instead of using words, let me tell you a story in charts. (I sound like a planner. Heh.) Here, the only flowchart you’ll ever need.

I don’t eat much bacon. Yes, I know it’s one of the essential food groups of mankind’s diet, but I just don’t like it, but I like this flowchart. Hilarious. And so true. You cannot imagine how spot on it is and how it applies to so many of my friends. (*CeOaUmGH*) The only inaccuracy in there might be their dogs aren’t named Dante.

The Masked Writer

Between my mum and five people I work with coughing, sniffling and sneezing, it was only a matter of time before I caught the bug from someone.

Don’t worry, I know what to do. I’ve seen the informational pamphlet on the upcoming flu season and the pandemic Influenza A 2009 H1N1 Virus. In fact, I wrote it. Ironic.

News of the H1N1 vaccine is in the papers every day. But one should still remember to practise good personal hygiene and be socially responsible.

• Wash your hands with soap and water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer regularly to prevent the spread of germ.
• Cover your moth and nose with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.
• Stay at home if you are unwell.
• Avoid work, school, hospital visits and crowded places if you have flu-like symptoms.
• See the doctor early if you are feel you are coming down with a flu.

And, of course, wear a surgical mask to avoid spreading the disease back to the colleagues who passed it to you in the first place.

Chocolate and peanut butter milkshaked

Okay. One friend is still on the island.

And he promised we’ll go for ice cream. I figured I deserved it after a week like what I just went through. Plus it would be after training. And training was hard; the sun was out and the tire was heavy and the boat very imbalanced — 5 lefts and 13 rights turned up. (Apparently a lot of the lefts were overseas on holiday.)

Anyhoo, it was lucky that we didn’t go to Ben & Jerry’s over at Dempsey’s like we had originally intended as I saw on the news just now there was an event being held there this afternoon.

Instead, we went to Island Creamery, which he’s never been to. (Gasp!) I used to go there when the store was just one chiller and the Teh Tarik ice cream was to die for. Maybe it’s my imagination, but the Teh Tarik ice cream doesn’t taste as thick as it used to be. Oh well. I’m sure he’s tasted the ice cream there before because more than once, I’ve brought a tub to one of our gatherings. These days, this ice cream shop is perpetually packed during weekends, with young people and families, and the occasional bummed copywriter looking for some joy.

I would have gone for a simple chocolate milkshake — suddenly felt like having a milkshake — but they didn’t have good ol’ chocolate. (Gasp!) So chocolate and peanut butter it was then.

And it didn’t disappoint. The shake was thick and yummy and there was bits of peanut butter and peanut chunks. Just enough and not too much.

Which reminded me of Steeples and the chocolate peanut butter milkshake there. I was going through a crap time of my life when a friend kidnapped me from work one lunchtime and took me there. “You mean you’ve never been to Steeples? (Gasp!)” Then he bought me a milkshake and a cheeseburger. That must have been one of the happiest milkshakes I’ve ever had. I think there may even have been a failed attempt to hold back tears of joy.

Anyway, I’ve sated my milkshake craving.

For now, at least.

Dewashed… derinsed…

K is going diving. Jun is going to Seoul. WH is going to KL. And I am going to bed. Bah, how depressing.

Wednesday

It was a ridiculous week. Busy, most times in a good way, but just ridiculously busy. Work for the upcoming flu season is reaching fever pitch. One commercial is in post. Another was briefed in to the production house. Another campaign was launched. The Christmas retail projects are in full swing. And there are a couple of internal things I also had to work on.

On a lighter note, one of the retail shoots was doing a casting of male models. One of my art directors is on the project and mentioned it to the girls in the department, but I had totally forgot.

Until Wednesday mid-morning when I heard some commotion going on in the office, and peeped out…

Alas, I had no time for an eye candy break. I could hear the giggles all morning though, not least from my art director, who admitted she couldn’t stop giggling. This from a woman who was celebrating her seven-year-itch anniversary that very day. I think it helped whet her appetite for what she had planned that evening, because she was giggling all day too, as she ran her last minute errands in preparation for a big night.

A busy quiet Sunday

I was online at home on Saturday night after the cooking demo and my friend was like: “Why aren’t you out? It’s Saturday night, you should be out.” And he was right. But maybe it was the heat, maybe it was all the food we ate, maybe it was just the weekend after a long, hard week, I was just absolutely drained and more than happy to have a quiet night at home.

I was planning for a quiet Sunday as well, and it was pleasant albeit somehow packed. Yoga. A museum visit. Some thinking and reading at a café. Church. And an evening outdoor concert in the park.

The exhibition at the Museum was of a Story of the Image: Old & New Masters from Antwerp.

Now, I’m no art critic and I can appreciate something like a Rubens masterpiece. But some of the modern art pieces are a little deep for me.

However, I found Berlinde De Bruyckere’s In Flanders’ Fields (2000) bizarre yet absolutely fascinating.

I’m not sure if it was the awkward poses of the horses in death, or my interest in the world wars including Flanders’ Field, or simply because the sculptures had real horse hides, but were curiously featureless and that reminded me of the banal-but-funny Internet meme, Charlie the Unicorn. (My deepest apologies for comparing the stark suffering of a battlefield to Charlie the Unicorn, but that’s really what went through my mind.)

The outdoor concert at the Botanic Gardens really drew the crowds. Little wonder because it was the New York Philharmonic playing. The Principle Brass to be exact. Which was just five members. Still, it was a good show as they played music from New York, including compositions from Irving Berlin and, inevitably, a medley from The West Side Story.

The Singapore Chinese Orchestra, which opened for them, put up a great performance too. I heard they had to extend their performance due to unexpected delays as the members of the New York Philharmonic were late because their flight had been delayed.

Again, it might be me bringing my own personal experiences into an event, but their highlights of Carmen brought back memories from Prague, when my friends and I caught the opera from the nosebleed standing section of the opera house. (Thankfully, Carmen isn’t just one of the more easy to digest operas, it’s also one of the shorter ones.)

Anyway, in spite of the crowds, I still found both concerts a pleasant end to an unbusy weekend. It had to be the relaxed state of mind I was slipping into. The afternoon of art and nature does wonders, even if briefly until the week begins again.

Lovyn’ the cookyn

Attended a cooking class on Saturday. Well, the programme said “class” though I think it’s more of a demonstration. And with twenty women in an enclosed space, with ample wine at our disposal, at some points it seemed more like the final mark down at a Jimmy Choo sale than a kitchen.

Fortunately, Mervyn — that’s our cooking instructor (he doesn’t call himself a chef, just someone who’s passionate about cooking) — was well prepared for situations like these.

He’ll ring his handbell loudly and sternly, a signal that us over-zealous Nigella wannabes should put our knives/wooden spoons/wine glasses down and listen to his tip of what spices to use on the 60 king prawns we’ve skewered.

(Tip: Soak your wooden skewers in water overnight; this way they are less likely to burn on the grill.)

Anyway, demonstration or class, it was still a great way to spend a sunny Saturday morning. Mervyn took us through 5 recipes, from a starter, a side through to main course and pasta, and dessert.

He described the steps, showed us briefly how it was done before passing the knife/wooden spoon/spatula to us. There was only one kitchen counter and stove, so we all took turns cooking. How hands on you wanted to be was up to you. Mervyn also had a barbecue grill out on the balcony.

(Tip: Press your forefinger to your thumb and touch the fleshy area of your palm under your thumb. That’s about how tender a rare steak could be if you pressed it. Press your middle finger to your thumb; that’s medium rare. Third finger is medium. Pinkie is well done.)

We ate what we helped to prepare.

The tuna carpaccio is the easiest yet looks most impressive. The gnocchi was the most fun (okay, so we had a little bit more of a Play Doh moment than necessary), and we did a bacon version as well as a Chinese sausage version, which means now we have learnt one fusion dish as well. Hah.

The tenderloin was amazing. The mustard he served hails from Pommery, France and is available in a local gourmet mart.

The warm chocolate lava cake the yummiest and the most sinful. One thing I discovered about baking and making desserts is: you never realise how much sugar and butter and cream goes into them. Makes you wonder why we bother to watch our calories on every other part of our meals if we’re only going to have dessert to ruin the best laid plans.

By the end of the session, we were so full we couldn’t move. Slipping into a food coma, for sure, but a happy and contented one.

Highly recommend everyone to try these cookyn parties with Mervyn. Pull some friends together for a session or make a couple thing out of it. The ingredients he uses are quality and the preparation is easy. If twenty of us can cook well enough and not poison ourselves to call in sick for work on Monday, so can you.

www.cookyn-with-mervyn.com

Happy Diwali

It’s Diwali, the Festival of Lights which signifies the victory of good over evil within every one of us.

Planning a slow weekend in search of peace and quiet, I caught a documentary about Varanasi, the City of Lights and their celebrations for Diwali. It is a holy city filled with history and religion, no wonder as it lies along the holy river Ganges. 

Fascinating. India is one of the places I’ve not been to yet. For sure it’s on my list. I would imagine that it’s another world altogether. No number of visits to Little India, by far the most exotic district of our tiny island, will come close to preparing one for the real thing. Even to Indians born here, visiting India is an eye opener. Jun and I want to go backpacking there. Eventually. Hopefully not alone — it’s doable for women to travel in India but it’s a well known fact that at some point, they’ll get groped by the locals. (Maybe if we bring K along, we’ll be safe only because no one will want to grope us. Hee.) Seriously, I wonder when I’ll finally get to visit.

So many places. So little time (and money).

Grounded

I haven’t been writing because I’ve been antsy. (Well, there was the stomach flu last week, too, but that’s another story.) I’ve been antsy because my mind’s all over the place. My mind’s all over the place because everyone is all over the world, but me. I’m feeling grounded. No, not grounded like I did something wrong and have been confined to my home. Though it sure feels like it. But grounded in that I am here, suffering wanderlust, but unable to satiate the craving. London. Shanghai. Phuket. Sydney. Taipei. India. Iceland. New Zealand. Quebec. Seoul. Tokyo. The South China Sea. For work or for vacation, practically everyone is on the road. Even my mother is going to Hong Kong and Macau for a long weekend. Oh, bother.

Chilling beauty

I’ve seen pictures of icebergs before. But few as breathtaking as these, by David Burdeny (Canada). Imagine if you were there and these majestic structures were right before your eyes. One of the reasons why explorers to the Antarctic bring oxygen tanks along.

There are more spectacular shots as well as the photographer’s bio at the Young Gallery. Take a look. Stunning icebergs. And penguins.

I’m writer, copy writer.

It was a dreary start to the week. Bad news and fighting fires.

The highlight (and saving grace) was when I was roped in to help out in a wild goose chase mobile treasure hunt. I had to tweet clues and players had to solve them and locate me to win.

Exciting, but a little bit stressful at the start because you want the game to play for a while and not have it finish at the second clue.

What was that movie with Brad Pitt as the spy? What was the logic of that? I thought the point of these spies was to blend in and not stick out like the world’s sexiest man… (Ditto with those debonair men on Her Majesty’s Service…)

Anyway, I can’t say I didn’t relish the thrill.

Of having to stand at the designated checkpoint for long enough. Of furtively tweeting secret messages and trying to not be conspicuous, especially when I’ve already identified some of the players searching for me. Of moving from one location to the next, melding into the sea of faceless office workers out on their lunch hour.

At one point, I was sitting on the bench at one of the locations when a player approached one of the decoys a metre away from me, thinking she was The One. Just like a spy movie, I perfunctorily got up and left the scene, swiftly but not too immediately, casually and not to deliberately.

Gotta stay two steps ahead of them. Gotta blend in with the lunch crowd. (Actually, quite easily done, if you know me;  I’m no Bond, and no Bond girl either). Gotta keep moving and keep the game going…

Finally, after enough excitement had passed, it was time to be discovered and give the prize away.

Being a secret agent might be quite an exciting career. But as far as “interesting” jobs go, advertising’s not too far off (even if it’s a lot of deadlines and fighting fires).

No two days need be the same. And the game’s still changing.

“Wow, stomach flu diet. You’re amazing!”

Stomach flu on Tuesday. Gastric on Thursday. I think it’s gastric. It could have been an alien virus invading my intestines and wreaking havoc on my digestive system. Between hunching over and emitting strange low frequency noises, I have no idea what hit me.

In any case, I lost almost 1.5kg in less than two days. Wow, stomach flu diet, you’re amazing!

The power of Stefan Sagmeister

Here’s a post not really about doing nothing, but the opposite — taking time off to do even more things than you could do if you had a day (ha!) job and deadlines to meet.

The Power of Time Off, by Stefan Sagmeister filmed in July 2009 at the Ted Conference in Oxford, England.

Not everyone has the luxury of being in a line that affords a practice like this. (Will our clients kindly not advertise their shampoo for a year?) Not everyone has the wealth and means to do something like this. (“Yeah, you see, on that rent cheque/mortgage payment/…”) And I wouldn’t even go near how one would broach a topic like this with one’s spouse…

Then again, not everyone is Stefan Sagmeister.

Still, one dreams. And buys a lottery ticket.

(That said, if anyone would like to contribute to my sabbatical fund, please feel free to drop me a line below. Thanks.)