The Giant Pitcher That Became A Bowl

It’s been nearly a year since I made my Beer-Guzzling African-Maori Dude. I can’t believe how much time has passed … and how quickly (cue: weepy violin commonly associated with the passing of seasons, leaves falling off withered branches, people growing old and wrinkly).

I had great Ghost-inspired potter ambitions at one point – specifically May last year – but then something happened along the way. Oh yes, life. Life happened along the way and my great Ghost-inspired potter ambitions were reduced to mulch. 

The other day, I made the feeble attempt to resuscitate my inner potter (not unlike my other feeble attempts to resuscitate my inner artist here and here) by going to the studio and making …

… this. I say ‘feeble’ because it was supposed to look like …

… this. Talk about having your grand plan derailed …

… derailed by starting out wrong

As with everything else in my life, I was overly ambitious, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and started by cutting out a giant base because I wanted to create a giant pitcher.

… derailed by myopia

As I laid the spaghetti strips of clay around the fringe of the base one by one, I was highly focused, which unfortunately meant that I also became increasingly myopic. I was so concerned with how each strip was laid that I forgot to step back and take a good hard look at what the hell I was making.

… derailed by a lack of skill

And once I did take a good hard look at what I was making, I realised it had grown into a monster. I became very upset because I had no clue how to fix it.

… derailed by impatience

After a couple of hours of laying strips of clay one on top of the other, the monotony began to eat away at what was left of my brain. I was still miles away from the pitcher’s spout – thanks to its ridiculously gigantic size.   

… derailed by disillusionment

I looked at my mass of clumsily shaped clay and the drawing of the smooth, shiny pitcher with its beautiful pregnant curves – no doubt the original destiny of the clay – and felt totally disillusioned. This mass of clay had been destined for a better life. Instead, I had battered it down to a lumpy existence of mediocrity – nay, an existence of Epic Fail! (grammatically erroneous, I know, but who cares) – and I was overcome with guilt.

So I decided to end the clay’s suffering (and mine because I was rather tired by then) and shape it into its secondary destiny: a less-than-stellar giant salad bowl. To assuage my guilt, I carved pretty little flowers along its insides.

The universe tells me there are some life lessons to be learned here. Now if I can only figure out what they are …

Meet The Faggot King

Oh come on, guys, this is just too funny. I’ve watched this video half a dozen times (not at one go, of course; what do you think I am – nuts?) and it never fails to make me laugh every time.

“I’ve got the Faggot King here, Richard, to tell me about faggots …”
“You’ve got 30 seconds to explain to me all about faggots …”
“Whack it in the oven, whack it in the oven, dear boy, could you?” 
“Imagine, you come home after a really hard day’s work and find a room smelling of lovely hot faggots …”

Yes, imagine indeed. I mean, look at those yellow suspenders and listen to that pompous English accent – what’s not to love? Keith Floyd is hilarious – may he rest in peace.

10 All-Time Favourite TED Talks

I love TED talks. They make me feel smart. I’ve watched quite a few and these are my all-time favourites hands down. Some of these I’ve even watched several times. They’re so incredibly inspiring and thought-provoking, I figured I’d list my top 10 along with why I like them. If you don’t know what TED talks are, I have two things to say to you:  (1) what??!! (2) go google it or go to www.ted.com la, what do I look like? Your mother?? So anyway, here goes:

1. Do Schools Kill Creativity? Sir Ken Robinson
The answer is a resounding yes but Sir Ken Robinson tells it in so much more eloquent and entertaining a way. Particularly moving is the story about British ballerina and Broadway choreographic legend, Gillian Lynne, who was thought to be dyslexic just because she didn’t fit into the academic mold of what a “good student” was supposed to be. And in case you think this video is nothing more than some stuffy professor in a tweed suit preaching about the degeneration of education, let me just say that Sir Robinson is one funny guy with impeccable comedic timing.

2. Stroke of Insight Jill Bolte Taylor
The first thing that struck me when I heard Jill Bolte Taylor relate her stroke experience was her remarkable eloquence. Her story was, of course, incredible – brain scientist suffers a massive stroke and lives to tell the tale – and her delivery flawless. You will be lulled into a trance as the words roll out of her mouth like a velvet stream, drawing you into her story.

3. The Power Of Vulnerability Brene Brown
Researcher Brene Brown gives a very thought-provoking talk about our human need for connection. And what keeps us from connecting is our fear of being unworthy of connection. To connect authentically with others, we must allow ourselves to be seen as we are and not who we think we should be. To do this is to be vulnerable or in her exact words, “Excruciatingly vulnerable.” Sounds painful and very, very hard but, again in her words, “Absolutely necessary.” This is a must-watch – it will make you stop and think.

4. Why Are We Happy? Dan Gilbert
I’d bought and read his book Stumbling On Happiness (and had even blogged about it here), so I was naturally thrilled when I saw his talk on TED. I’m big on happiness – in that I want to be happy and can’t quite figure out why I’m not all the time – and watching this talk got me into a debate with myself (unfortunately, nobody I know is ever interested to yammer about this kind of stuff with me) about happiness, which led me to write this. God help me.

5. Sings Old Poems To Life Natalie Merchant  
This isn’t a talk but a performance by American singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant. She performs songs using lyrics from 19th century poetry from her fifth solo album Leave Your Sleep, which was released last year. The moment I heard her opening number, The Sleepy Giant, I fell in love. And when she sang Janitor’s Boy, there was no turning back. She has the most amazing voice. I have, since watching this video on TED, gotten hold of the album and listened to it over and over again. Among my favourites are the charming Bleezer’s Ice Cream, the hilarious Isabel and Skin – this one made me cry. Still does.

6. Listening To Music With Your Whole Body Evelyn Glennie
You know how you listen to a piece of music and your heart fills and you get a lump in your throat? That was my reaction to this video. World-famous percussionist Evelyn Glennie who totally lost her hearing at 12 years old demonstrates how she “listens” to music, with the whole of her being. Her performance is incredible – you have to watch her. Her talk has been described as ‘soaring’ and I think that’s so apt because I remember feeling like my heart was about to burst when I watched her on the drums – heart-stopping.

7. Celebrating Work Mike Rowe
Okay, I must confess that this particular video is on my list (and always will be) because … Mike Rowe is unbelievably hot. He can empty a garbage bin and look hot doing it. He’s hot even when he’s talking about castrating a lamb with his teeth … which is precisely what he does in this video. Talk about it, I mean, not demonstrate it, for heaven’s sake. But this talk isn’t about biting off lamb testicles (you heard right: BITING OFF LAMB TESTICLES), it’s about the virtues of hard work and the jobs that nobody wants to do, like you know, BITING OFF LAMB TESTICLES. Good lord. My point is this: Mike Rowe is a really inspiring speaker. He can drone for hours about [insert super boring topic here] and I’d still be riveted. And oh yes, did I mention that he’s hot too?

8. Glorious Visions Miwa Matreyek
One of the most original things I’ve ever seen – absolutely stunning, awe-inspiring and very, very moving. Los Angeles-based artist Miwa Matreyek combines animation and video projections against her own moving silhouette to perform a ‘film’ that’s an abridgement of her work entitled Myth and Infrastructure. Watching her performance is like taking a stroll on another planet. After a while, the line between real and unreal is blissfully blurred.

9. A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy Of Success Alain De Botton
Alain De Botton is one of my all-time favourite authors. I first read his book Art Of Travel, which got me totally hooked and spurred me on to buy everything he’s ever written – How Proust Can Change Your Life, Consolations Of Philosophy, Status Anxiety, The Pleasures And Sorrows Of Work … everything. In this talk, he examines and challenges our concept of success and failure – is success always earned? Is failure? Loved this talk, especially his definition of a snob: “A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are, and the dominant kind of snobbery that exists today is job snobbery.” And the opposite of snob? Your mother. Hahahaha.

 

10. Symbiosis Pilobolus
A man, a woman, an empty stage, and I am entranced from start to finish. The two dancers are from the experimental dance theatre company Pilobolus (which is the name of a fungus, btw) in the States. The performance is – in a word – indescribable. You have to watch it. I guarantee you’ll be glued motionless to the screen and wonder why in the world your mother never enrolled you in dance class.

Look Ma, I’m A Cook! Part Deux

When I announced my impending foray into the world of cookery, I had done so with the brilliant idea of doing a series of posts leading up to my cooking class end of this month. You know, to keep readers in mad suspense (“will she or won’t she?” – screw up the tarragon chicken, that is) and on the edge of their frayed, moth-eaten swivel chairs, but now that it’s been a couple of days since my first post – see Part Un – I’m feeling the pressure to follow it up with Part Deux. The problem is, I haven’t actually cooked anything yet and I have no clue what I can possibly talk about, so I’m going to do the next best thing: post loads and loads of pictures of food with minimal text. Heck, I’ve done it before and had gotten away with it too – just look at this beauty.

So today, I’m posting pics of some of the food I ate on my trip to Cognac and Champagne, France, last month. Words cannot express how incredible the food on that trip was (read: I spent 90% of the time in a blissful food-induced stupor wonderfully worsened, no doubt, by the endless rounds of champagne), so I’m going to let my pictures, amateur as they are, do all the talking.

LE PEU DISTILLERY, COGNAC

Sea snails, duck pasta, fish salad, slices of buttery salmon, the most delectable oysters ever – no wonder because we were near Marennes-Oleron, the most famous, biggest oyster-cultivating region in all of Europe. It was a seafood-laden buffet lunch at the distillery and I’m not ashamed to announce that I had three (heaped) rounds of mains. I had so much oyster here I nearly died. And went to heaven.

But no matter how stuffed you are, there’s always room for dessert … especially if it’s the chocolate variety

… and the grape variety and oh, while we’re at it, the bread variety … you can never be too thin, too rich or have too much bread.

Dinner in Cognac was at a restaurant just minutes from where we were staying - Chateau de Bagnolet, a quasi-colonial estate, over two centuries old, that used to be the private home of the Hennessy family. While I don’t remember the name of the restaurant, save for the fact that it sounded somewhat English, I do remember the proprietor – a friendly, gangly Frenchman clad in a bright orange shirt with wire-framed glasses and an Einstein mop of hair who scurried over when we arrived, unleashed a flurry of French (explaining the menu, I presume) and then whirled away. Minutes later, our tables are filled with plates of … oysters, oysters and more oysters! Except this time, they were eaten with slightly spicy fried sausage. I still dream of those sausages. And oysters. And later, perfectly cooked venison and creme brulee.

MAISON HENNESSY, COGNAC

Lunch at the Hennessy Maison began with this dish - comfort food at its best, chicken soup for the soul. It’s a bowl of warm noodles with chicken cheeks, truffles and leek …

… then, monk fish with green peas, zucchini and bell peppers … and ended with crème brulee made with Hennessy V.S.O.P with spongy golden Madeleines …

CHATEAU DE BAGNOLET, COGNAC

The perfect start to dinner that night at the Chateau de Bagnolet: oysters, lime and ze best beurre in ze world! We wolfed down oysters (or rather, I wolfed down the oysters; I have no idea what the others were doing) … and then came dainty spoons of amuse bouche. There was so much I can’t remember them all but I do remember the wild boar, salmon and the black truffles. By this time, I was pretty stuffed and dinner hadn’t even started.  

But not stuffed enough to miss dinner. Dinner was served French-style, meaning the waiters come to you with each course, hover beside you, knees bent, arms balancing the heavy silver trays upon which the food sits and remain in this awkward position while you spoon the food onto your plate in as sophisticated and un-clumsy a way as possible (you’re dining in France, not walloping BKT in Klang). We began with  a vegetable soup, or rather, a farmer’s soup made with local vegetables. I prefer farmer’s soup – it’s got a more rustic sound to it …

… then, we had cognac-marinated sea bass sitting in a pool of Hennessy V.S.O.P sauce and topped with candy-sweet ribbons of onion confit …

… and then, chunks of tender, melt-in-your-mouth pork cheeks with ginger, pan-fried shiitake mushrooms and balls of potato. It was challenging to spoon this particular dish onto my plate. How much could I spoon without looking like a greedy pork cheek-obsessed gorb? I have no idea what a gorb is, btw.

And then, a slice of creamy white chocolate cake in red berry sauce. It’s one of those desserts that’s so calorific that you get a mad urge to run up and down the length of the Charente river right outside the chateau. In the middle of winter.

HOSTELLERIE LA BRIQUETERIE, CHAMPAGNE

In Champagne, we stayed at La Briqueterie in Vinay, a town in the Champagne region. Loved, loved, loved the place! It was the most adorable room … but wait, I’m not here to talk accommodation. So anyways, on our first night there, we had dinner … which began with oyster! That’s it. I’m packing my bags and moving here.

… then, sea urchin – rich, creamy, gooey, delicious … and a scallop main. Omg, see, told you I need to pack up and move here!

MOET & CHANDON MAISON, EPERNAY, CHAMPAGNE

After a full morning visiting the cellars of Moet & Chandon, we had lunch in the maison’s gorgeous dining room. I particularly loved this meal. Every dish was paired with a Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage – 1975, 1992, 2002 and the 2002 rosé. You know what they say: you can’t be too thin, too rich, have too much bread or drink too much champagne. First up, scallop and lobster couli with curry sauce …

… popcorn with chestnut soup, accompanied with truffle on crouton. Move aside, chicken soup! This chestnut soup is for the soul!

… then fish with slices of mandarin oranges and mushrooms …

… and the dessert – cake with red berry fruit coulis infused with mint, topped with a little Tagada …

… and an ultra close-up: that bit on the fork is Tagada, a very famous French strawberry candy that everybody is apparently crazy about.

58 TOUR EIFFEL, PARIS

We also dined at the 58 Tour Eiffel which – needless to say but I’m going to say it anyway – is a restaurant at the Eiffel Tower. But ah, here’s the dastardly twist: it’s on the first floor. We started with a prawn salad on avocado cream sauce …

… salmon with a pouf of culinary foam …

… and lemon meringue dessert … at this point in my post, you can tell I’m suffering serious food fatigue – not from eating but from blabbing somewhat incoherently about what I’d eaten. I guess my prologue about letting my pictures do the talking was nothing but major waffling on my part – looks like I did more talking than my pictures

Look Ma, I’m A Cook! Part Un

I’m going for my first-ever cooking class end of this month. You heard right: First. Ever. Normally, I only brag about things I have already done, not something I have yet to do because I might not do it and then, I will have ‘no face’ because I’d bragged about doing it to so many people. In this case, however, I reckon I’m pretty safe because I have registered for the class and to make sure I go through with it, have even convinced a friend to do it with me.

When I tell people I’ve signed up for cooking class, I get all kinds of responses. The range is staggering, from high-pitched mocking laughter to the incredulous “You? Cook???” punctuated with, what else, more high-pitched mocking laughter, all the way to the more perky “That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!” I can’t tell if this last group of people are making fun of me but I do know one thing: they are very brave. Some might even say they have a death wish but that isn’t a point I wish to mull over.

I now have two weeks until my first cooking class (whether it’s also my last will depend totally on how my food turns out. That, and how hot I look in an apron), and I shall spend this time doing two things. One is pondering my impending foray into the world of cookery and the other, formulating snappy retorts to some of your tactless responses:

“You? Cook???”
Yes, I don’t cook. It’s not something I’m proud of but in my defence, it’s all my mother’s fault.  Let’s put it this way: my dear mother, God bless her, will never survive on a show like Masterchef. She’s done all right by my brother and me (by this, I mean we didn’t die from malnutrition, if that means anything) but she was never the doting mother who’d welcome you home after a day of school with cream-laden cakes dripping with chocolate syrup, golden pastries, buttery homemade bread or an enormous plate of delicious char siew. Instead, it was lots of rice, vegetables and always something that bore some sort of resemblance to chicken. But then again, everything resembled chicken.

“Are you sure? You’re not the cooking type.”
What exactly is this cooking ‘type’ I keep hearing about? Just because I’m not joined at the hip to a stove (that’s the thing you cook the food with, right?) or don’t tremble with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, does not mean I’m not the cooking type. It just means that I’m not the type who’s um … joined at the hip to a stove or the sort who trembles with excitement every time I walk past a display of kitchen knives, that’s all.

“But you don’t even eat!”
Contrary to popular belief, I do – on occasion – eat. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here, alive, and writing this blog. I wish you would stop being so dramatic.

“But you’ve never cooked before!”
That’s precisely why I’m taking the class. Duh.

“Do you even know what a kitchen looks like?”
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do know what a kitchen looks like. I have seen plenty in magazines and on TV. It’s the room in the house with the refrigerator.

“Hey, you never know – you might discover you have a real talent for it!”
Damn right!

“That’s great! I will so-o-o-o eat your cooking!” 
I wouldn’t say this if I were you.

My Dorkest Days

They say youth is fleeting. I say, hallelujah.

This was me when I was ten. Well, not exactly. It’s a drawing based on a photograph of me when I was ten. That photograph has, since the completion of this self-portrait, been ripped to shreds and fed to a few very large, very hungry dogs. Well, not exactly. That photograph has actually been scanned and saved in my phone, eagerly flashed to whoever I get into a heated who-was-the-biggest-dork-in-school debate with. The debate usually goes like this:

“Oh my god, I was such a dork.”
“Puh-leeze. Nobody was a bigger dork than I was.”
“I bet you I was a bigger dork than you were.”
“No, you were not!”
“Yes, I was!”
“Were not!”
“Was too!”
“Were not!”
“Was too!”

You can pretty much predict how this debate (and I use the term ‘debate’ loosely here) was going to go. To stop this pointless exercise, I would whip out The Photograph, which would stop everybody in their tracks. They would stare at it in stoned silence, then cower and finally, concede defeat. “You’re right. You were the biggest dork in school.”

So why am I now posting this self-portrait on my blog when all it serves to prove is how much I used to resemble a lab experiment gone horribly wrong? (By this, I’m of course alluding to the fact that I no longer look like a lab experiment gone horribly wrong – a point of obvious contention, some might argue). Well, I did it for a few reasons:

1. I’ve run out of things to draw. I might try ducks next time round.
2. My friends who’ve seen The Photograph made me swear that I would never post it online. So the next best thing is a sketch of The Photograph.
3. It illustrates the fact that youth is over-rated. It also illustrates the fact that not every post has to have a point.

Invictus

Ever read a poem that moved you to tears? Me neither. But this one did. Many times over.

Admittedly, the number of poems I have read in my lifetime is rather … how shall I put this delicately? Right, pathetic. Yes, pathetic is the word. I’ve never exactly experienced that fabled gravitational pull to poetry like so many sensitive, emotionally rankled individuals have. I confess it’s because  I don’t think I have the mental faculty or emotional depth to fully comprehend and appreciate a poem … the way it should be comprehended and appreciated. So I have dutifully steered clear of them … until today, that is.  

I don’t know how auspicious it is to be tearing up on the first day of the new year but this is just too beautiful.

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears,
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years,
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

*Double sniff*

Champagne: Merry Christmas

Ah, feels like Christmas already …  

Pretty nice huh? And I’m not even terribly fond of Christmas. Why? Well, because this year, it falls on a Saturday, all the shopping malls are perpetually jammed (no fun when you’re actually working in one) and they keep playing that damn Bonnie M in the parking lot. I swear if I hear Rivers of Babylon one more time, I’m going to puncture somebody’s tyre.

Besides, I-dun-like-Christmas stories are almost always more interesting than annoyingly happy I-lurve-Christmas stories. That said, I don’t totally dislike Christmas. There is one thing I do like about it – the fact that it’s one week away from the New Year.

2011, here we come! As we coasted farther down the road in Epernay, I could see the sun starting to peek out over the horizon …

I was struck by the explosion of fiery light and in it I saw hope. I saw promise. I also saw how filthy the bus windscreen was, but that’s a story for another post. After staring into the sun for a while, the light began to bug me and I had to put on my sunglasses. Ah, but I digress.  

Once I was no longer blinded by the sun, I saw once again hope, promise, a new beginning, a beautiful calm … 2011 is going to be a good year. I can feel it from the top of my frozen head to the tips of my gloved fingers right down to my thick winter socks. I can’t wait.  

London: Call It Quits

Honestly, guys, tell the truth … look at this …

Newsflash: smoking kills!

It seriously harms you and others around you!

I mean, it seriously does! No kidding. Feel like quitting yet?

I didn’t think so. And I think I know why – no exclamation marks, that’s the problem.

The Art Of Doing Nothing

I’ve never been particularly good at doing nothing. I get nervous, antsy and above all, guilty. But last weekend, I did nothing. Three blissful days of absolutely nothing. And I didn’t feel nervous or antsy or guilty one bit …

… and how could you possibly blame me? Just look at this place.

There’s no room for anxiety in a place like this.

There’s only room for hanging out at your private villa …

… taking a dip in your personal plunge pool, immersing yourself in your own hotsprings jacuzzi, lazing around on your king-sized bed, taking an outdoor shower, being pampered from head to toe at the spa … I could seriously get used to this.

Thankfully, I didn’t though. Because I had to pack up and go home. And of course, once I returned to the city, the nice feelings vanished and the guilt of doing “nothing” for three days hit me like a ton of bricks. Needless to say, I have yet to master the art of doing nothing. However, I have decided that it’s a skill worth developing. It won’t be easy but with lots of practice and many (many, many) days of being massaged into oblivion at a wellness spa retreat, god willing, I will succeed.

Man, I need another holiday.