Vomitus Grandeur

 

Grandmother threw up this afternoon. She has been throwing up quite often. Today’s puke was green and bubbly. It smelled like a just-opened Campbell soup can – an over thick, over coagulated mess. I held her up lest she choke on her own vomit. Mother cleaned her and the bed out.

Blotchy, splotchy, muddled.

 

I hate mornings after.

 

The kind when you wake up to distended limbs and an achy head – the result of a late night drinking session. First at Orange’s place, then at Thai Disco. Now, I consider myself a seasoned drinker – well-marinated in Chardonnays, XOs, hops and malts – but lately, on the next day, I get splotchy.

 

It used to be just hangovers, furry tongues and muddled heads. Now, a splotchy body?!

 

That, I think, must be a bad sign.

I am Legend

 

It is about… a post apocalyptic world where a virus decimates the world’s population. Only two groups are left: overheated, albino, rabid monsters which only come out at night and Robert Neville – soldier and scientist extraordinaire. The movie focuses on Robert Neville (Will Smith) as he goes through his daily routine: sending out radio distress communications; hunting deer; checking in and out DVDs; testing cures on infected rats and cowering in his bath-tub at night. The movie ends when Neville blows himself up and a horde of invading ravenous monsters to save a woman, her child and the cure to the virus. The movie is very loosely adapted from Richard Matheson’s book of the same name.

 

The Good: Will Smith. The actor, known for his goofy and crowd-pleasing roles, is brillant as Robert Neville. Early in the movie, Smith masks Neville’s night-time fears and near madness with his daily routine and streetwise jocularity. The turning point comes when Sam (his dog and only companion) is infected by the virus and is killed by Neville. From then on, Smith’s portrayal of a man breaking down under the dual stresses of being alone and fighting monsters for too long is heart-wrenching.

Take for example, the scene when he chats up a mannequin at a video store: "Hello. My friend said I should come over and say Hello to you. Hello." At this point in time, we think there’s something wrong with him. He is making a joke. A tasteless, unsmiling joke. As he continues on his monologue, his eyes redden and water. He begs and pleads with the mannequin, "Please say Hello. Please say anything." Then we know that Smith is at the very end of his sanity and is about to do something incredibly stupid in the next scene.

 

Finally, his buff body – during the workout scenes – is certainly something for his adoring fans.

 

The Bad: The ending. It ties up the movie’s loose ends, gives us hope but it is, undeniably, a slap-dash and insipid ending. It feels as if the director / writer has just realised that the movie’s at the 110 minute mark; any longer and production costs will go through the roof! We thought Neville – after his near death and near madness – deserved better than a summer blockbuster Happy Happy Joy Joy cop-out.

 

The Ugly: Story fake-outs. The movie tells us that the monsters are little more than animals. It doesn’t ring true to us. For examples: the male who exposed himself to sunlight after Neville captured the female suggested that a rudimentry society was being formed. Neville getting trapped – via a snare – in the same way as him trapping the female, suggests cunning and not a little intellect on the lead monster’s part. Thus, when the monsters invaded and tore apart Neville’s home, we were expecting a capture and subsequent exposure to a new monster society.

 

The monsters are a close second. They look like Gollums on steroids.

 

Overall: Great characterisation. Disappointing story and premise which were covered in more entertaining ways by other Zombie flicks – Romero’s Day of the Dead, Resident Evil. If a society of ‘smart’ monsters were included, then the movie would have been better. Best watched on a nothing-else-to-do day or if you’re dying for good acting.

 

Links: "I am Legend" Website | Synopsis of Richard Matheson’s "I am Legend"

Orchard Road Lights-up

 

Orchard Road was a tangled snarl of SUVs, sedans, kelisas, BMWs and Hondas. The cars were there to gawp at the Christmas lights-up. Understandably, gawpers want a place untouched by heat, humidity and car exhaust fumes. And they get all these perks and a view to boot from within their cars.

 

A pity, then, that the view is unreal.

 

Oh, the view, whether seen from within or without a car, is the same. But car windows annoyingly seperate viewers from viewees in the same way things and people in a television screen seem to live on another world. Understand that Christmas (or any festival) should be lived through and not merely viewed from behind a plexi-glass window.

 

Get out there. Thump on the pavement. Breathe in the silver and glitter of this Christmas lights-up. And live Christmas instead of watching it through car windows.

 

ps: This year’s decorations – as with many years before this – are eminently forgettable.

Saturday. Basketball

 

I suck at this evening’s basketball game. Not surprising. I’m out of shape and hobble on a gimpy knee. Having said that, I made a few 3-pointers (2 in 2 games) and had a couple of strong moves (I carry 80kg of fat, gristle and some meat). Still, as I said earlier, there’s very little for me brag about.

 

Today’s game was interesting for two reasons:

1. There were loud and heated arguments on the rightness of each foul call. They’re thinly veiled attempts at browbeating opposing teams into submission.

2. The winning team refused to the leave the court.

 

The later requires explanation.

 

A whole bunch of people (20) turned up to play today. To give everyone a chance, each team could only stay on for 2 wins*. A team won twice. They refused to leave the court. I believed accusations of ‘childishness’ were flung around and the winners pointedly ignored the organisers. The winning team stayed on. They have a right to it. As dictated by tradition.

 

Traditions change.

 

Bear in mind, the organisers are the ones who spend time getting the court. Not petulant players, not the winning team. The organisers try to give everyone a shot at fair playing time. What gives them the right to decide on such ‘policies’? Nothing. Not even a moral right. But perhaps petulant and whiny players should try to organise – Wait, that’s not right – Perhaps they should try to ‘book’ a court for everyone to use.

 

So be nice players. There are people who actually care enough about others to organise such stuff.

And remember – it’s just a game!

 

* Normally, the winning team stays on until they get ousted by better teams.

Time. Saturday.

 

Lovely bright morning. Best suited to drinking tea and coffee, and a spin on the bicycle. Hot now at 1pm. I only know that it’s 1pm because of the computer clock. On this 6 days off, I’m losing track of time. Each day is the same as another. It feels strangely good to have time slip away easily; like some no longer precious commodity.

I’m bursting with all sorts of story ideas. They come easily now. But I still can’t see how they end up though.

9.40pm. Channel U.

 

Oh my god. What a Cha-cha babe!

Nose bleed. Loss of mental capability.

 

Wow.

Thursday. Holiday.

 

20th Dec was a holiday.

 

It rained from dawn to dusk and beyond. The air was suprisingly frigid and there were goosebumps all over my arms. I spent the day reading Raymond Carver. He was simple yet there’s a undercurrent of ‘something complex’ in all his stories. I quite enjoyed this story of his: ‘A Small, Good Thing’. It reminded me of Kafka, Joyce Carol Oates and Ernest Hemingway rolled into one.

 

Went for a movie – ‘National Treasure’ – in the evening at Toa Payoh Eng Wah. The seats and cinema were nice enough. However, we had to sit through 3 re-screenings of the damn movie! It would start and run for a bit then the green screen of death pops up. By the 3rd time, we boo-ed the cinema. One good thing came of this, I managed to wrangle a drink and some nachos out of them. Walked around Toa Payoh for a while. There’s naught much to eat. The bus home was foggy and rainy. It felt good to be in a dry place while it’s wet outside. Like being in a cocoon.

Raymond Carver – A Small, Good Thing

 

10pm, on the way home.

 

The bus jostled to a stop at every traffic light. In between traffic lights, it sped over rain-slick tarmac. Impatient, I guess, to beat the next light. I hardly noticed the start-stop bus. I was reading a short story by Raymond Carver. It was called ‘A Small, Good Thing’.

 

This story – 30 pages of it – devoured me. Essentially, it starts off with Ann Weiss ordering a cake for her son (Scotty). Some time later in the day, Scotty was knocked down by a car. He fainted, was sent to hospital and, despite the reassurances of the doctor that he was not in a coma, Scotty refused to wake up. Each time, the doctor reassures them that Scotty ‘will wake up anytime soon’ while sending him for more tests. In the meantime, the baker makes prank calls to the couple. Scotty dies upon waking up. The couple is still harassed by prank telephone calls. Ann figures that it’s the baker and they rush off to confront him. The confrontation escalates. The baker threatens, the couple gets angry. Ann tells the baker that Scotty is dead. The baker is remorseful. They sit together. They eat bread. The baker tells them of his loneliness, the couple supposedly tells him of their sadness. The story ends as the sun comes up and they are still there.  

 

It was written simply and clearly, just like Ernest Hemingway. Carver’s economic use of words made the ‘turns’ so much more startling. Read this. "They were passing a bag of potato chips back and forth and the birthday boy was trying to find out what his friend intended to give him for his birthday that afternoon. Without looking, the birthday boy stepped off the curb at an intersection and was immediately knocked down by a car. He fell on his side with his head in the gutter and his legs out in the road." The sudden change in momentum, from munching potato chips to getting hit by a car (or carefree joy to time in ICUs) was breath-taking. Actions and consequences only; to hell with long-winded babble about inner states, insecurities and joys.

 

It was easy on the ear as well. It sounded like a seasoned drunk speaking over gins and whiskies. Also, the paragraphs and sentences flowed the same way. The story stopped here and there with a teaser, a cliffhanger – the dunk’s gin is almost done. Curiousity grows. Curiousity becomes obsession. Then you buy one more drink for him to finish the story. Each time, he leads you on until, finally, there’s no more left to say.

 

Unlike Hemingway who tend to romanticise events, Carver sympathised the depressing and despairing. His characters were working class stiffs who drank themselves into the ground; were abused and abused; chimmney-smoked; marginalised and forgotten. Most likely modelled after people which popped in and out of his stints in reform houses, full-time alcoholism and menial jobs.

 

Given his prediliction, it was odd that ‘A Small, Good Thing’ started off happily with a birthday celebration in the offing. Two pages into the story, things went according to his tastes, Scotty gets hit by a car. From there, it resembles a Kafka-esque situation: the couple are blown off by people in charge; they fret and worry but can do nothing; midnight prank calls are made to their home. It culminates in Scotty’s death and yet anotehr prank call made to the couple. The story could have stopped there. Carver could have ended it bleakly.

 

He did not.

 

Instead, he gave a sliver of hope. The couple, isolated by Scotty’s death, and the baker, bitter at the lonliness caused by his work, broke bread together and pulled each other through the literal and figurative night into the morning. It was probably the second story of his which had hope at the end.

 

I got off at my bus stop. On the way home, I decided to write about this story. A crittique or a review or something in between. It didn’t matter. ‘A Small, Good Thing’ was brilliant and this is my writing of it.

 

Resources: Raymond Carver Wiki Entry | Online Version 

If you like this one, try his other stories: Cathedral  

 

Book Title: Where I’m Calling From – A compilation of selected short stories

Publisher: Random House Inc.

Published in: June 1989

Call No.: CAR-[SH]

 

A while…

 

…ago, I was caught up with work.

 

I took a break from it. Merely one day. But a break nevertheless.

I spent that day listening to one song (乞食调).

 

The song was sung by Singapore’s blind minstrel – Mr Tan Wei Lian, Kelvin. He won the first god-knows-what Star contest. It wasn’t his singing as much as the song acting as a handle for memories of the movie (881). The song is in Hokkien, long associated with army fatigues, heavily tattooed gangsters and tiger beer guzzling old men.

 

Yet both tune and lyrics were poignant and heartbreaking. Even more so than songs sung in other languages.

 

Go listen.

 

Other songs: 念念不忘
Resources: Kevin Wikipedia Entry