something to look out for!

oooh!!

a love letter

...your latest photos...I don't know. I don't know you. Of course not. But the world you inhabit, the spaces you move through. You breathe. Looking at your latest pictures makes me fall desperately in love with you, this person I don't know, and never will. What a crazy, stupid thing to say. Don't worry. It's nothing. Perhaps I've had too much wine. Nevertheless. Nevermind.

perhaps the sweetest, and only, love letter (of sorts) that i've ever gotten. i've been a romantic, a cynic, and then a romantic-in-denial. the evolution. the degeneration. but i guess i do believe in Love. especially in that of a stranger's. possibly because the distance makes it so surreal. and thus, easier to believe. the irony of it all. nevertheless. nevermind.

catalog | updated

the disembodied genius

my lovely friend, chand, recently linked me to this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of

Eat, Pray, Love. brilliant discussion.

the disembodied genius. the idea that our creative processes involve an other-ly intervention or contribution. that it is not fully our own. that we do not own it. that it comes from nowhere and everywhere. and would leave when the work is done. to be passed on to another. for another creation to be manifested. across time and space.

i've always believed in the idea of the cosmos and how inspirations, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and messages of the many exist within it. released. let loose. or sometimes lost. and i believe in the presence of the divine who artfully crafts opportune chances for the meeting between these floating specters and their medium, the artist. a collaboration, as Gilbert beautifully puts it. collaborations that can happen anytime. anywhere.

interestingly, i find my meetings with such specters mostly contained within the four walls of the toilet. restroom. bathroom. pee-pee place. whatever it is called. i never linger long in the loo. for good reason. but i would be in the midst of sorting out laundry for the week when, POOF! in the middle of a shower. POOF! in the middle of the blessed* act of shitting. POOF!

*i consider shitting a blessing as i believe the human body would not be able to contain itself had it not been given an outlet for release. as the saying goes, what goes in, must come out. so that more can come in. again. and out. again.*

hence, i consider myself lucky for being chosen for collaborations without having to wait it out for centuries in that one space. waiting to be hit by the apple in the head. or having to travel to the end and back. but then again, i have been told that some of my ideas are crappy. shitty. but i suppose, it's better to be crafted as a vessel than a plastic plateau that simply allows for everything or anything that wants to latch on, be wiped away. the important thing is, to become. to become a vessel for something. anything. and then to act with it. accordingly. poetically.

of fate, freckled pages, & an uncracked spine

i just finished reading Veronika decides to die by Coelho. i've been meaning to read it for a while now but didn't for i believe that my relationship with books, like love, exists and is run by fate. i read a book when i am fated to read it, even if the book is within my possession and i find my hours in the day sauntering away. each time i finally read a particular title is when, at that point in time i find myself searching for an answer, to something. answers that most amazingly grow in the pages of the book. as we are all permitted our idiosyncratic ways of reasoning, pray, leave me with mine as i sway a little into another story about fate.

i believe that i am fated to do 'art'. i took art classes when i was a youngling. an eager girl who spent her afternoons after school tracing pictures of flowers and animals from huge encyclopedias. words didn't interest me. i derived immense pleasure from holding a crayon in my hand. second skin. its somewhat hard clay-like texture felt normal against my rough skin. i also loved it when crayon got under my nails. as i was a nail-biter, i found myself on several occasions swallowing small deposits of crayon buried under my nails. i've since however, stopped.

art class. i won second prize for the school's art competition drawing dinosaurs (long necks). using crayons, i drew three long necks, a mom, a dad, and their child. the typical family unit. mother insisted that i not draw the 'm' birds -those that children would usually draw- as those were 'modern' birds which did not exist in the time of dinosaurs. in her eyes, my drawing would lose its authenticity. she specifically said that if i wanted to draw 'birds', they would have to be those 'dinosaur birds'. the pterodactyl. winged lizards. not birds after all. but i didn't know how to draw those 'dinosaur birds' and my sky in the drawing was looking too empty. and so i drew in the 'm' birds. the fake birds. a lot of them. i won the second prize. there was however a girl in my class who knew how to draw a real bird. she drew a parrot so perfectly shaped and colored for the competition. it was green and had a sharp beak. she won the first prize.

i'm sure it wasn't because i didn't win the first prize, but my parents soon reprimanded me whenever i decided to draw and trace. i should have been studying instead. and so i studied.

i took art for my 'O' levels and did very well in it. i got an A and with encouragement from my art teacher, was determined to head to the local art college. this didn't sit well with my parents, especially my mom. no future in being an artist. and so i headed to college to do my 'A' levels. and then university. and then had thoughts of doing a PhD, until finally, i reach this point in my life where i'm revisited by art yet again. through photography, tea bags, and ink, i've become addicted to art and it is something that i plan to start and finish, even if it means i'll have to learn to draw a 'real bird'. i've since recently purchased, after 14 years, a new box of crayons. pastels!

they're still delicious!

so yes. i believe that i am fated to do art. even though it took me many, many years to actualize and chart its path in my life. i believe it as much as i believe that i was fated to finally read Veronika decides to die, for, having refused to spend $26 on it at BORDERS, i finally got to it at a second-hand bookstore at Bras Basah complex two days ago. it was priced at $5.90. and even though the cover and pages have been freckled by time and the sun, its spine was still uncracked. i fell in love. instantly. and i got some answers.

condoms

it's fun coming up with titles

especially when it's funny

and slightly disturbing to some

some