Bits

Keeping a blog can be rather stressful, y'all. Especially when there's a certain someone that bugs you to update it all the time....(Yes, I'm watching you Georgia. That's right) But since the past few days have been full of little bits if news, I thought I'd give you one of those 'quickies'.

Botero, self-proclaimed 'painter of fat people' recently unveiled his new series of work in his studio - paintings of photographs from the Abu Gharib prison scandal. Yes, he painted the figures in his trademark 'fat' style and No, there're not for sale. I just assumed that those were the 2 questions people would ask first, because I did. Ha. I started surfing for images for these new series, but couldn't find any so far. I'm intrigued by his choice of subject matter, simply because Botero is not one to paint from photographs, but also because his past work have remained somewhat a-political. Just picturing the subject matter distorted into Botero's fat figures gives me goosebumps. Whenever I look at a Botero I'm always reminded of overindulgence anyway, I'm curious as to what reactions he will provoke.

On Monday I had a craving for Krispy Kreme doughnuts. If you have not tried a Krispy Kreme doughnut, you have not lived. KASS was selling boxes in the campus center, and of course, when I go up to buy some, they are sold out. Another addition to my beef with KASS. My craving was partially satisfied with a trip to Dunkin Donuts with Ayrab and Joysey for a Boston Kreme and a French Vanilla coolata. It still wasn't no Krispy Kreme, but it had to do.

This Saturday night plays host to the reception for 'Closing Time' - my senior show. Jujubee's friend found us a band to play live jazz, and we'll be making sushi. Sounds very chi-chi huh? Sushi, jazz and art. I'm just glad that the show is up and hopefully, I'll make some money. :)

Anyway, I'm feeling a little run down, and it's showing. Tomorrow will be my last day of classes in an institutionalized tertiery education setting for a while. Am I glad that it's over? Yes. Because everyday brings me closer to a new chapter of my life and the day I get to see *him* again. Am I glad that I'm leaving? No. Because I cannot imagine life without the friends I've made here. I will cry you a river, what can I say?

Passover Seder and Pinworms

Last night saw the last of our gatherings at Jujubee's house for Seder, and probably the last time I will be belting out "Da-da-yenuuu" at the dinner table with my friends, considering the large Jewish community in Malaysia....As the days creep by the inevitability of graduation becomes more of a reality and I find myself choking up over the increasing list of 'last-of' events. Although there is always something humourous about the superflous shedding of tears, I have been feeling rather melancholic. A big part of it is the realization that the next chapter of my life will only be shared in spirit with my friends. Although I know that we will always remain part of each others lives, the thought of not being in their company saddens me very much. The hardest part is not leaving Smith, but leaving the wonderful assbags whose friendships mean the world to me.

I knew I would get all emotional in that post, so, moving on...........ingredients for a minor case of mass hysteria: Take one confirmed report of pinworm, add in a pinch of information that is is contagious and a dash of hyperbolic anecdotes, stir in an all women's college...TAA DA! So here's the rundown. There is a risk of getting pinworm in the dining halls. Apparently someone's got it and it's highly contagious..symptoms include the itching of the rectum after a 2-4 week incubation period. Pinworm is a parasitic worm that sits in your digestive track, and although the bulimics and anorexics are probably all flocking to the dining hall hoping that the pinworm diet is the way to go, the general consensus is no one wants freaking pinworm. I think what disgusts me most is that this confirms that AT LEAST ONE person does not wash their hands after a No. 1 or 2. Can I just say Ew? Clorox Wipes have never looked so sexy.

The Last Few Days

My iMac is making little *wheezing* noises. I hope ET is okay. My life over the past few days have been pretty unremarkable, so let's blog about mediocrity. I don't even know if it's been mediocre...I'm thinking whether 'mediocrity at its best' is a contradiction. So the big highlight of my life is that I've finally finished my paintings. This semester bore witness to 6 new pieces of work. I should be jumping for joy, but to be honest, I remain rather ambivalent about them. Maybe if I get some big fat cheques for them I'd start feeling a little better.

Monday saw the annual pap smear - I really don't like talking during a pap smear. I know that doctors try to put you at ease, but my idea of a conversation or even mininal chit-chat is not peering over the knees of my legs, propped apart, with a speculum in my hee-hoo. My mother once told me that the most undignified position a woman will ever experience in her lifetime is during childbirth. Nature sure is a funny mother fucker. The most beautiful moment of your life and it has to be flat on your back with your legs spread wide open as strangers peer and probe. Nice.

Anyway, I've been feeling very cynical in the last few days. I think it's about time I took a little nap.

Currently listening to: Angelique Kidjo - Black Ivory Soul

L-O-V-E

Today Ayrab's fiancé was in town...nothing warms my heart more than seeing two people so in love. I truly wish them a lifetime of happiness.

Currently listening to: No Doubt - Rock Steady.

Spanking New!

I guess it's nice when you're feeling like pond scum that Lucien Freud unveils a new self-portrait. It almost makes me feel a little bit better when the grandson of Sigmund Freud, highest paid living artist (2004 earnings: $92 mil), luminary of 20th century portraiture and artistic brilliance on 2 legs reveals his new 'painting-within-a-painting' in the same week that I desperately needed something to cheer me up. I just wish I could be in London now to see it in the flesh...a reiteration that you can't always get what you want. Have you ever felt that HERE is the last place you ever want to be? Join the fucking club.

Currently listening to: The Mars Volta - De-loused in the Comatorium.
*Fucking brilliant.

Oh, Texas...

I always learn something new when I watch telly. Last night on The Love Lounge, which is the Malaysian equivalent of Pillow Talk, except that it's a little more honest, all about sex without the annoying host..I forget her name..Bernie something. Anyway, FACT (from The Love Lounge) :

In Texas, if you're over 50 or if you only have one eye, you cannot go to jail for 'Peeping Tom' offences.

First of all - the very definition of 'peep' suggests one eye. I mean, when you're looking through a peep hole, they're not really big enough for both eyes now, are they? When someone 'peeps' it always suggests looking through a small opening as to offer discretion and secrecy. So, how does a one eye handicap protect a man from 'peeping tom' punishment. He still can SEE. What, just because he has one eye he gets only half the pleasure, so it doesn't really count? Oh, Texas.

As for men over 50, they are hardly in the frail threshold of senior citizens, maybe men over 90. At 51, I don't think senility has really manifested itself, plus all those psycological theories about the cyclical nature of psycology - your brain almost returns to its infant state as you progressively grow older - also doesn't really manifest itself till you're much older. If that was the norm, we'd all be taking care of our incontinent parents even before we graduate from college. ALL men who sexually harass women at ANY age should be held accountable. Start making exceptions and the next thing you know, well, one-testicaled men are getting off with rape. A little extreme I guess, but I've come to overestimate Texas. Oh, Texas.

Currently listening to: Smithereens - Note to Self. (Go Joysey)

I Will Not Spare Your Ears/Eyes...

I thought I'd spare my friends the whining and bitching about how much work I have in the next few weeks, so I though I'd just hammer it all out on my keyboard to release some pent up frustrations. Who would have thought that the last semester ever of my undergraduate career would see me being such a grump about being a responsible student? I have a 2 research papers, 2 finals, 1 final paper and my senior show coming up in the next 3 weeks. Gah. I'm too old to be pulling late nights..my weary bones are tired.

On a brighter note - my senior show is hanging soon, so if any of you are in the Smith College vicinity it will be hanging in the Janotta Gallery in Hillyer Hall from the 24th - 30th of April, with its official 'opening' on the 30th of April. Drop by to mix, mingle with some sushi, jazz and art.

Currently listening to: De Cara a La Pared by Lhasa de Dela

Shit.

3.10 a.m. Just got back. Extremely pissed off. Shower then bed. Does not bode well for my mood tomorrow.
Out

Be Bop

I'm sitting in my studio, completely uninspired after 1 hour's worth of work and I can't get the sexy sounds of Charlie Parker out of my head. (p/s - I also can't seem to change the font on this computer..) So, grab a seat, put down your palette knife and let's talk jazz.

I'm not one who would call myself a jazz conoisseur - I don't always know when someone's playing a 'fat' solo or whether I'm clapping at the end of it because it was really good or because the one's that look like real 'jazz cats' are nodding and doing so. That being said, I would like to be someone who understands jazz - in its discipline and technicality. However, whenever I find ,myself saying (or thinking) that, I kick myself for being too much of a purist or a victim of instutionalized music.

Jazz - in its earliest days, had always struck me as music that was in itself free form - a brand of music that was hidden beneath the layers of pop culture, yet not completely separate from it. Jazz was played, sung and performed whenever the spirit moved you, and was not something that was measured in scales, sharps or flats. That type of free form jazz and its casual essence was epitomized when I saw Herbie Hancock play at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston 2 years ago. After waiting, for a while for him to come on..he finally sauntered on stage, sat himself down, looked right in front of him...then muttered "hm..I forgot my music", casually walked off stage, retreived his sheet music, sat down and played a wicked concert. It never really has to be perfect. The thing with Jazz is that it's culture, it's style, it's love, it's personality, it's spirit. It's not something that's learnt - it's felt.

Sin City

Sorry..I couldn't think of a more creative title for this post. It's 1.47 am. So I watched it. Was it good? Yes. Before I go on to what I love about it, let's talk about what I didn't first.

I didn't like the screenplay. It read straight out of the comic, which is fine..when it's read, cheesy when it's said. I understand the creative dilemma of directors adapting a graphic novel. It is imperative that you preserve the visual aesthetics, in other words, the graphics, for it to be a successful adaptation. Otherwise, it would just be like the common movie adaptations of books. What makes a graphic novel so great is exactly what makes it what it is - art. But in translating from book to screen, my opinion is that the narrator in our head sounds very different when it travels to your mouth. This relationship between head-mouth-ears is exactly what I disliked about The Da Vinci Code. Sure it was an intersting read, but all I could think about was Dan Brown sitting in front of his computer, or typewriter, thinking : "movie rights, movie rights...ka-ching!" The entire book was written like a screenplay, not what I sign up for when I buy a novel. I demand intelligent prose that asks for some form of active relationship with the reader's imagination. If I wanted to be told a story, I'd rent a storyteller.

Anyway, back to the movie. So what caught my eye most, aside from the fact that it fed my love for the colour red - it all its saturated glory, was that the only other colours employed where the three primaries - red, blue and yellow....and green, and derivative of the primaries. I haven't really thought about its allusions, although the primaries, along with black and white make up the basic palette for all other colours. Black absorbs, White Reflects and mixed with the primaries - you get every single colour in the world. If you took all the colours in the world, stuck it in a blender, mixed it all up and strained it to get the barest basics, that's what you would get. Any ideas of what it means?

Ok. That was my spiel. I'm tired now. Goodnight.

Augh.

My room is a mess and I need to clean it, but I'm too tired to clean it. My new motto is WWHHD...What Would Hanna Höch Do? Leave it, that's what. ha.

Lisa Gherardini gets a new home!

The portrait of Lisa Gherardini, better known as The Mona Lisa, finally has a new home at the Salle des Etats in the Louvre. About fucking time!Like the crowds weren't bad enough before *shudder* The Da Vinci Code.

I met Mrs. Gherardini in person last year in Paris, and I wasn't disappointed. What I don't understand is how people can trek all the way to and through the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa only to exclaim "Wah! So small one, ar?" when they see it in person. It's so much easier getting to know a little bit about a painting before you appreciate it in person than battling the crowds in the Louvre on a nice spring day. What an injustice. Anyway, when I first saw the Mona Lisa, there so many Japanese tourists with their Nikons and 2000 watt flash clicking away that I swore her smile was turning into a grimace. After patiently waiting quite a while, I finally got to have a brief moment with her before I was jostled away by some loud Greeks and their Olympus' snapping away.

There are so many wonderful things about the Mona Lisa that if I went into detail I would be up for another 2 hours. But my advice to you is this : Look at this portrait with the patience of Mondrian, the eye of Cézanne and your own heart. You will be pleasantly surprised.

As to Ms. Gherardini - congratulations on your new home. Having your own wall was long overdue.

R.I.P

Rest in peace, Saul Bellow. I will always remember the small absurdities in The Actual and Ravelstein, the only work of your illustrious many that I have read, and liked. It was through your books that I learnt about American geography and its cultural idiosyncrasies. I will remember your brilliance and dignity. I hope you and Hunter have a great life wherever you are.

Rest in peace, Prince Ranier of Monaco. Your grandson is hot.

On a lighter note, an appendage to 'Signage? White board-age..'
Written on my neighbour, Georgia's door:

Georgia,
I found the nipple u lost and turned it in to lost and found. If u need it, that's where it is.
(written in what is obviously Marlboro 100s handwriting)

(written reply)
Thanks! I've been looking for it. $500,000 reward.

I wonder what Scott, the guy that comes to empty our trash every morning thinks of us. I should ask him one day.

Of Red Paint and Penises..

I never thought that as an art student I would be clocking 15 hour days...only investment bankers do that. Anyway, I thought I'd share a little dream I had that I think is related to the psycological effects of working with a large planes of Cadmium Red in my work.

I dreamt that I chopped my penis off. Well, sliced it in half to be exact. I went to hospital only to be informed that they would need the top half of my penis to re-attach it. So I sent my friends to look for it and they come back with the top half of my penis. After scrutinising it for 3 seconds, the nurse informs me that it's frostbitten and cannot be salvaged. I tell her that it's okay because I don't use it much, anyway. My only request was that she fix my now stump to resmble a penis a little more. I wake up staring at my crotch. Whew. No penis.

The boyfriend thinks that I am suffering from penis envy. I think it's the bright red paint that has been staring at me from my canvases. Sigmund Freud, go nuts. I now want to do some kind of psychological study on colour and how it affects our subconcious. Volunteers welcome, penis or no penis.

Bah Humbug

It's 1.39 a.m. I just walked home past the pond and saw a monster. I'm covered in paint. I have to wake up at 7.00 a.m. Make up your own story. Goodnight.

Sunday Night = Grey's Anatomy and Wonder Showzen..

After a 12 hour Sunday work day, I was more than happy to curl up in bed with the Sunday night staple of Grey's Anatomy and a newly discovered addiction to Wonder Showzen on MTV2. And, as of yesterday, Christina (played by the lovely newly famous, and hence divorced, Sandra Oh) of Grey's Anatomy joins Charlotte York of Sex and The City as an on-screen Smith alum. So I guess the next time my parent's friends give me a blank look because Smith is such an alien word within their vocabulary of Harvard and MIT, I can quip "Well, Charlotte and Christina went to Smith.."

The context of how it unfolds on screen:

Season 1: Sex and The City.
Carrie, Miranda and Samantha are discussing anal sex in the back of the cab as Charlotte blushes and exclaims:
" I don't know these things..I went to Smith!"

Season 1: Grey's Anatomy
Christina, a surgical intern is stuck with ward duty. She exclaims:
"I have a BA from Smith, an MD from Stanford, and I'm stuck shuffling papers."

Wonder Showzen, a wonderfully inappropriate kid show for adults was hilariously entertaining. Among the highlights , a cartoon super-hero team called finger four that use their index fingers as a secret weapon to self-induce vomitting so they can morph into beautiful, svelte women that can get anything they want. Merchandise includes : a toy finger and a baby bulimia doll. Precious. Toy finger : $20 dollars. Baby bulimia doll : $50 dollars. A politically inappropriate cartoon parody of society: Priceless.

Get Your .... Off My ......

HANDS/FRIEND. Gardiner house party night and a near altercation with a big black man. I don't care if you're 10 times my size, but if you disrecpect my friends, I will be all up in your face. When a girl says she's not interested, it means you let go of her wrist and take your boner somewhere else. If you refuse, then I am going to push you. Tough.

I have stopped mourning the death of chilvary, I now mourn the death of common decency. It's about time boys started using their head - the OTHER head, the one with a neck, not shaft, attached to it.

Currently listening to: Mudvayne - L.D. 50

Happy Punk'd Day

Happy April Fools - have you punk'd today?

Now that I'm 23, fooling people on April Fools day have become increasingly more difficult. Considering that most of my friends subscribe to the generation of the twenty-somethings, everyone's too street smart to be fooled. Anyway, in celebration of Jujubee's completion of her Government honours thesis, herself, Joysey, Ayrab, Marlboro 100 and I went for brunch and mimosas (I had orange juice..) at Sylvesters. Brunch consisted of the Sylvester's Special ( eggs, toast, home fries and bacon), the usual brief round of 80s trivial pursuit, tit-bits of conversation that ranged from sex to P. Diddy's White Party in the Hamptons....not quite a range, but close enough, and Harvard president's rhetorical boo-boo.

I have to say that I will miss my friends come graduation. I will miss their company, wit and intelligence. But I think most of all, I will miss their unabashed grotesque sense of humour. Tonight we are having a house party to the theme of Gardiner Does Dallas......................I promise I will resist rolling my eyes at the truckloads of Debbies and enjoy my champagne with my non-Debbie friends. In tune to Jujubee's thesis, we're having a Yay I Don't Have Aids party. Peace out.

Currently listening to: Jimi Hendrix - Jimi Blues

The Naming of the Shrew(s)

On this first day in the forth month of two thousand and five, I dub thee, Spicy Toad -Jujubee and thee, Mayushi - Ayrab. Dismissed.

Currently listening to: Jimi Hendrix - Jimi Blues