Rain Drops
Keep Fallin’
On
My
Head
Followed by,
What the World —
Needs Now…
Mid-afternoon Orchard Kinokuniya. For the notation the store pen at stationery was deployed.
There had been rain in the morning and showers later, one distinct grenade of refreshing humus rising from the ground somewhere along the way. It may have been the Haig carpark beneath a tree up on one of the islands, when the path at the end was taken in order to avoid another pass of the funeral party of Hadramis at Block 11. Daunting that gathering; almost as bad as if they had been Palestinians.
In the case of the spattering of drops in the store the flesh of the brain seemed more exposed somehow.
Before being able to make an exit at Kino, after a pause in the queue by the cashier, the original, unremastered, What’s New, Pussy Cat? rounded out the musical offering.
(One might actually have guessed it, or something similar in a Singaporean mall.)
Wow…..Wow-Wow…..Wow, wow.
There were hidden, high fidelity speakers near-by.
Stretching credulity one perfectly well understands. Entirely understandable.
Nevertheless, such was the program that afternoon over the lazy heads of perhaps eight or ten dozen book-lovers in that particular quarter of the store, absorbing it all without any noticeable effect. No twitch or shudder visible on any side. Perfect ease.
In the standard rendition of the first the vocalist was unknown. Second was the Burt Bacharach and last the inimitable Tom, shirt unbuttoned to the navel and frilly panties raining down from all sides. Wow Wow Wow.
Nada. Not a flicker. The trio had been absorbed like candy, sweetmeats or chocolate. Nature lovers traipsed through gardens of buttercups in this same fashion. Here along the curved aisles the mounted pastel product was in fact not dissimilar.
And that was not the end of it either at Kino. More was to follow.
A serious snag had developed in the queue, lapsed member’s card at the counter, it seemed. The lady was purchasing a stack of unidentifiable colourful titles, children’s series, or mystery possibly. It would be a hike to the car in the basement.
Cooling the heels only briefly after that lot, there followed a kind of warning or challenge suddenly confronting us shoppers. Quite unexpected again, especially following the concert.
The Way We Die Now. Inexplicable warning from high on a shelf. It may have been fire-engine red cover.
After some of the violent eruptions of late in the shopping precincts of various global cities, one could not help a little start.
Immediately adjacent too in some kinda implicit pairing, another missive added concern.
When Breath Becomes Air.
…Body temperature presumably, rather than hot.
Upper case 60 point face out on the top shelf of the Highlights stand that made a large island in the passage. A seasoned bookman was left flabbergasted.
Bodilo oci, the Serbs say. Pricking the eyeballs.
No doubt there was some better reason between the covers in the case of the books at least.
*
This other afternoon a recess in the ceiling of the reference section at Kino had one firmly rooted to the spot. It had taken a while locating the speaker, as the volume was low and the voice riding the hubbub. At first the sound seemed to be coming from a mounting of luxury signature pens like President Trump used for executive orders. Some glinting light emitted behind the glass too from the gold clips and points. Later, after a short hunt, a second speaker in the same aisle was found, barely audible for some reason. Thought had been after the KV lunch and printing at Peace Centre, a quick reconnoiter for a volume of old TuFu. Sometimes confusingly rendered DuFu, the poor girl at the info desk needed to be informed. There was nothing of David Hinton’s translations; that had been established a couple of weeks ago. Only his Analects and I Ching, both previously purchased. Some hope that the largest bookstore of English holdings, at least in SE Asia, might turn up the Tang star. TuF had been rendered by a couple of previous notables—fair chance you might have thought in Singapore, steady sales ticking over. Kinokuniya had been downsized a few years before, usual victims involved. If you were seeking motivational, entrepreneurial, investment gurus, biz management & strategy, conservative histories, mysteries, colouring-in books, comics, celebrity, cook books, photography, design, more photography & design, you had come to the right place, all cards accepted at the register. The great helmsman LKY’s shelves alone could not have been sent up in smoke with less than three molotovs, not a chance, forget it. Man was hardly dead; only symbolically & figuratively. (The feud between the PM and his younger sister & bro over accusations of political exploitation in the use of the father of the nation’s passing had been hosed down of late, all hush-hush in-family.) They had stocked TuFu once upon a time; sold out now, lass conveyed apologetically. She could not be quizzed on the history—it was not possible to punish innocents for the sins of the elders. No. Too bad. Good selection of gel pens in stationery, including 0.8s at $3.10, comparable to Art Friend & Popular. On the shelves there among all the inferior biros and all the weighty navy tomes at Reference adjacent, in the midst of parents with their children, out of thin air, one was suddenly hallowed by Pavarotti early trailblazers. First, like a flash of sun in deepest jungle, O Sole Mio’s rhythmic swelling started up. Quanno fa notte e 'o sole se ne scenne… It was followed without pause immediately after by Ritorno a Soriento. Shiver. Shiver once more. Gee! Here was a chance to show the locals one’s cultivated, superior taste. Almost word for word with the big man & phrasing to perfection. The little jail-bait schoolgirl’s mum in the aisle might have gotten entirely the wrong idea. Strange in the Asian—more or less—locale, receiving those melodies, those exhalations from the great bellows. The fact the maestro had been dead all these years now perhaps added feeling—gone the way of Caruso, Lanza, Bjorling, &etc. That short stretch of water from the bays of Boka Kotorska over to Bari, down to Brindisi, Sicily and up on the other side to Napoli. Sorrento itself might get a quick squizz, without stopping. Thirty-five years ago there had been no malls in Napoli; in the old town near the water there might still be none, perhaps. Minimum of ornamental trees & shrubs. The mafia there would be a sight better than the entrenched tropical kind that could not be ousted from the political stage for the next hundred years. There was almost as much street prostitution in Napoli as Geylang; no fool would pay for indoor theatre. Fourteen or sixteen hours away for little over a grand. With the usual shuttering for the morning during Ramadan, it had been Starbs for the early cafe & scribble. As the customers piled into the OneKM outlet nearing lunchtime, the volume had gone up on the pitter-patter remastered golden oldies & prairie ballads. That flustering and churning in the guts had something to do with the effect a few hours later of big Lucy standing tall and letting fly.
Kinokuniya, Singapore
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