we who were fluent find life is a foreign language

great writers are artists par excellence. and through the lineage of time and tradition, ancestor worship and inspiration, the ethereal pens of littérateurs, winged by the magical mastery of language, conjure for us mortals invisible cities spiraled like a dream.
___

the man who is traveling and does not yet know the city awaiting him along his route wonders what the palace will be like, the barracks, the mill, the theatre, the bazaar. in every city of the empire every building is different and set in a different order: but as soon as the stranger arrives at the unknown city and and his eye penetrates the pine cone of pagodas and garrets and haymows, following the scrawl of canals, gardens, rubbish heaps, he immediately distinguishes which are the princes' palaces, the high priests' temples, the tavern, the prison, the slum. this - some say - confirms the hypothesis that each man bears in his mind a city made only of differences, a city without figures and without form, and the individual cities fill it up.
-- italo calvino

how is it that one day life is orderly and you are content, a little cynical perhaps but on the whole just so, and then without warning you find the solid floor is a trapdoor and you are now in another place whose geography is uncertain and whose customs are strange? travellers at least have a choice. those who set sail know that things will not be the same as at home. explorers are prepared. but for us, who travel along the blood vessels, who come to the cities of the interior by chance, there is no preparation. we who were fluent find life is a foreign language.
-- jeanette winterson
___

sylvian love

alf and his sylvian love. strangers striking up conversations, wondering if we were really that old enough to vote; people cheering from across the roads; students requesting photographs; the silver mercedes slowing down to thumbs up; the cab drivers offering discounts. it felt foreign; it felt surreal.

to the boy standing in front of me, clutching a copy of dostoevsky (the brothers karamazov), to the scores of jc students and their excited chatters long after, to all those idealistic young ones who went and gave the air resounding applause and rousing plumes of hope, they re-captured for me, an imagination that i, and perhaps this entire nation, had thought long eviscerated.

for the local media, i only have sheer disgust and contempt at the astounding level of prejudice, unprofessionalism, and mediocrity of coverage and scatological drivel masquerading as 'analysis'. only this time, sparred against a formidable blogosphere, its snivelling, repugnant political motives were ripped bare for all to see. some of those blogs' field reportage, commentaries, insights, *photography*, put theirs to utter shame (and would easily put them out of jobs). this contrast could never be starker. my belief of the mass media now rests on democratic, citizen, journalism, that has exhibited an admirable level of quality and credibility. the abysmal propaganda machine pretending to be newspapers and broadcasts should never, ever, be believed.

bring me to your king

it's an image the national press would do its utmost to obscure (let's all wonder why), where the internet would defiantly grace. it's an image that will be emblematic of a new WP, if not of the general state of opposition in singapore, in the years to come. even if the WP loses hougang, loses in aljunied and elsewhere, loses, this time; this amazing oppositional momentum will likely continue to reverberate long after.

i was there that night with alf and sam, and somehow we'd managed to mouse our way to the front. we were a good hour late, and yet there were still endless throngs of people streaming toward the bright lights. there was a massive jam along the roads because all the vehicles had slowed to a crawl, one side of their windows wound down for a breath of that rare, impassioned air.

that night obliterated my perception of singaporean apathy. the passion and desire - be they deriving from supplicant gratitude or fiery disillusionment - to take charge of, to be interested in, one's country's political trajectories, exist - you create it; you search it out; you keep shoulders with the people, whoever they may be, whichever party they are, who have offered to lay your convictions upon their rightful kingdoms. but you cannot be apathetic, apolitical - because you cannot afford it. because a nation of sheep begets a government of wolves. that night was heartening, it was galvanising, i got my pristine-white, red-and-blue-striped converse shoes muddied, and i had never felt more singaporean in my entire life.