Time-Piece

You doubt it. And there’s so much questionable news and commentary in all the media. But still. Still, you would not put it past the best creative minds; seasoned, canny and sharpest ad men. (Less so women.) Page 24 item today on the neighbouring politician Novanto and his (known) $10m scam. The story had been running on-off for months. On the page 10 banner prior highlight of the story ahead. Eventually trawling onward there on page 24 the poor drowned rat was pictured, hauled up before the KPK, by the looks of it finally cut loose by his Golkar party and reportedly suffering five days of diarrhea with the anxiety and prison diet. As well as the “at least US$7.3m (SG$10m) in kickbacks” there was also “a Richard Mille watch worth about US$135k for his role in....(the rort).” Well may your jaw have dropped at that point if not at the chief matter itself…. Here these horological items feature in advertising throughout the republic, no pretender to real social standing on this island and the wider region goes without something of the kind on his wrist. One has heard of Rolex of course; Cartier and maybe Heuer. The Rich. Mille was unknown to this former kampung boy at least. However, and here is the present matter: flip back to the full page ad on page 5. Was it got right first glance? Was it?... WOW-WEE! What do you see? Engineering to cream your jeans. Highest top-most precision and styling with encrusted jewels arranged in finest artistry. Mouth-watering truly. A co-incidence? (Never noted previously in the pages of the Straits Times. Not once; not the Rich. Mille. No two ways about it with that ingenious branding. RICH. Mille! Not likely that would have gotten by.)

NB. As for where the pilfered funds had been specifically routed by Novanto — in “some overseas bank accounts in Indonesia and overseas” — anybody’s guess.

Pessoa’s Tobacco Shop

Fernando sends one reeling from line to line, and often within his long single lines too.

         First 3 - 4 readings of the third stanza’s opening failed to grip, just like it did on the 4 - 5th reading:

          “Today I’m defeated, as if I learned the truth.”

         (The Reprobate unexpectedly approaching in the little park beside City Plaza this afternoon, by the stagnant Geylang River where he’d never been encountered before, had that kind of knowledge inscribed on his upturned face when he came up close for Hallo.)

         Pessoa’s street is “Real, impossibly real, certain, unknowingly certain.”

         The reader reeling down those cobblestones with that overpowering sense on that particular day of all days.

         And the familiar street outside his window mounted on wheels like a theatre-set about to be transported to the back-lot asphalt; Signalman’s whistle shrieking in his head like a piercing kettle; like a death knell in the courtyard of a church.

         A reader left gasping at the thinness of the daily scene, some days.

         Living in the tension between the real and the dream-like in the end lines of the first page in this poem.

         Sometimes a single poem can open a door to a new, unfamiliar writer.

         Not often one can read poetry before 6AM.

         (Earlier in the week a competition winning poem at a prominent US lit. journal had begun on the right hand side of the page and progressively angled down leftward like a thunderbolt in a child’s drawing; two French words included in the short lines.)

NB. Fernando Pessoa & Co. transl. by Robert Zenith; “The Tobacco Shop,” p. 173

Crossings With Pessoa (June25)

Easy on the girl serving, nervous with a white guy particularly. Tip-toe smiling & nodding. Those chairs are too hard honey, sorry. Bench seat always the preference at Crossings, pillow behind making a fair perch, especially when there’s no managerial Christian table within earshot. Where in the heck do they source those blue striped shirts in the name of the Lord?! Pearl ear-ring with the bob cut was the fem. counterpart for these soldiers. Don’t show a long or tight face whatever you do. Charitable & kindly. Show ‘em how it’s done, Buster… The archbishop (a pal probably)... the spiritual whatever. Go with the flow, easy does it. Nothing to do with you. Ah, made the dear smile, immediately understood the good sense in declining sugar and replacing it at the counter, no sense wasting. Sores around the mouth from picking. A very good initiative certainly; they did the same with the waiting staff at Hanis at the library, customers often taken unawares needing time to cotton on. Year or two ago they were up the other end near the Art Museum with more dressing up, table-cloths, &etc. Oh shiite! Bloke starting in with social responsibility, Eco. grad initially cutting teeth at City Bank CAL and no doubt finding that soulless, only for the faint-hearted. Giving out grants was more in his line; corporate responsibility... Never occurred to him how that spruiking accent might grate, not in a million years. Do they think in Singapore they’re on safe ground?... In the garden of St. Pete & Paolo’s just now a question for Gabby what the INRI acronym above the marble crucifixion might denote. Rather better that than the filigree trumpet-blowing angels in the gardens of the cathedral a stone’s throw away. Man oh man!... Pessoa certainly was the perfect companion within these walls, a providential choice. Excellent purchase no regrets, almost every page a spurt of energy and insight of some kind. The Gods Grant Nothing More Than Life; Ah, you believers in Christs and Marys; From Here, With No Other Apollo Than Apollo: 

         “....far from Christian sensuality
         May the chaste calm of ancient beauty
         Restore to us the ancient
         Feeling of life.”
Fernando! Justly were you celebrated in royal style by the old Swedish choristers. A dozen years ago puzzling finding you in the list of Harold Bloom, wondering what in the heck a complete unknown like that could be doing among the elect. Blue-Striped interviewee gives Pearl & the Blue-Striped co-interviewer topmost sequence: vision first and foremost; unity of purpose; decisiveness... and trala-di-da. Later chap bemoans the common problem of divisions & sects: people wanting to grow the organisation, while others want to tear it down. The trials of doing good and delivering outcomes.

NB. Fernando Pessoa & Co., transl. by Richard Zenith; pp. 102 – 107

More Days Than Life (June25)

Took a numbers of years figuring this. Whenever Babi used the expression she never provided any kind of gloss, leaving it entirely up to you to catch her meaning. And in this case it was not an easy task. Vise dana no zivota—in mild exclamation. Usually of course one needed to get on with it, chop-chop; get a move on. Ne ostavljaj za sutra sto mozes uradit danas—which in later years would be playfully twisted around for prodding, Better leave it for tomorrow and we can do it then…. Latter days the first occurred much more frequently, if not for the first time in fact after the onset of her mellowing. Once Bab had accomplished her life task of saving, protecting and shepherding through she could afford to be more relaxed and sanguine. Vise dana no zivota. More days than life... The life term was short: the days stretched far beyond, as they did behind. It might wait for the morrow; let it be, enough for now. Likely it was her mother’s expression. Nothing that had come down of her father, nothing of his talk or action, nothing suggested from the forbidding photographs, would suggest the man could have uttered anything of the sort. Last night on the bus from the airport after there had been a delay following a thunderstorm and an unnerving holding pattern, looking out at the remarkably, utterly other Singaporean streets around the stops, another of Bab’s sayings had returned. It must have been the sight of some figure plodding along into the night; some everyday sense of hardship and labouring on toward bedtime. Nije bog nikome sve dao, niti sve odnio. Neither did god give any all, nor take all from any… Years it had not been recalled. So long now, with the six years on the equator submerging segments of that past world. Bab used the expression both for cautionary reminder and at other times also to show gifts and talents, where none might have been expected. A few days ago on ABC online in the review of demented Charlie Manson, his early years of utter dysfunction with his hopeless mother. Like all such examples, in the most notorious criminal justice cases there was no room for weighing formative moral squalor and degradation. Looking out the dark Singaporean window the thought firmed one could not remain long in this milieu, not this time. Twenty-five days had been recorded on the immigration declaration. Even that would be a stretch. A few years ago the average stay in SG had been reported three days. The authorities were attempting to devise ways and means of detaining visitors with more attractions, discounts and tie-ins. Not long after emerging from the Changi tunnels a hoarding for a cafe it may have been had teased with prospective uplift of the soul; one of those striking examples of unsophisticated, junior grade Singaporean copywriting. Thereupon, soon after, not 200m on, pasted sheeting anticipating a new gym with a range of activities for the whole family. The tag prompted with the same religious fervour, Rejoice in the Facilities.

Niqab Portrait - published NWW

Niqab woman arriving late for breakfast was one of the teachers of a small group of mid-teens. Four girls sat at an adjacent table and a half dozen others separating themselves down at lower ground. A madrasa excursion perhaps, though these were not of the lower class poor. Traditionally many poor families sent daughters to a madrasa at least in part to relieve the burden at home. These were middle-class girls, well-dressed, albeit modestly and covered. All wore the scarf, though none followed the example of the teacher. The pillar screened the girls at the near table and mostly the niqab teacher; her male colleague sat in direct line of vision. Bringing up the plates there had been pagis, good mornings with the girls in passing, both at lower ground and by the pillar. Late arriving, the niqab teacher had not witnessed that exchange. An experienced woman of course would notice the altered state of her charges, the alertness and tone of the giggles. Shifting in the chair now and again through the course of the meal the black niqab came into view a number of times and once when the woman had lifted her flap for the food. Earlier the eyes and segments of forehead had suggested a woman in her mid-thirties, which was confirmed by the jaw and mouth. Male colleagues and other men would develop a relationship with the niqab woman reading expression from her eyes, her gesture and tone of voice. Smiles would be suggested by the stretch of fabric; annoyance by subtle hints beneath the glossy black cloth. One could not help wondering whether the woman was disturbed by the presence of the bule.

Published in a longer sequence titled Recusant by NWW, April 2020

https://newworldwriting.net/pavle-radonic-recusant/

Woody & Elie

You find yourself in some crazy situations. Your girlfriend has a gig as a set designer for a community theatre compliments of her ex-boyfriend, the one you displaced. Oh, gee! How exciting. Endless prep and brainstorming, rehearsals, alterations, working into the wee hours, supervising the carpenter (you got him for her cheap). Dizzying. Woody Allen—the particular item escapes right now. A Jewish theatre group annual show; a second run after the year before something a little challenging had been met unfavourably by the audience. She's German, intensely professional; Elie like Woody is Jewish, the star of the show. (You smashed a fine reconciliation of hopelessly, disastrously, impossibly contradictory assumptions there.) Elie will do Woody better than Woody does himself; no need faking angst, disabling incertitude and self-doubt. Weeks of nothing else but fretting, hiccups; an illness almost derailing entirely in one fell swoop. Opening night was long looming threateningly. Oh my gosh, can we get everything done on time? the right Op Shop props and authentic furniture? books from everybody’s shelves at home? time for the paint on set to dry? All the work on display for the gathered masses and their easy criticism. Then one morning suddenly the house phone at your mother's where you stayed the night rings. Turn on the television, quick. Something terrible. Catastrophe in New York, plane hit a tall building; then confirmed another, a second plane. New York. In the midst of all their endeavor only a couple of weeks out. Act of war. Horrendous inferno. The flying man. From the kindergarten Bush went down into his bunker. America will respond in due course to this act of cowardice. Sontag wrote what she wrote, pulled it after the pressure and recanted. Whispers of cheering across a range of countries, jubilation — that story was killed rapidly too. But they did hate our way of life, clearly. In Melbourne what to do with the show? It can't go on surely. How can it? What, after this? However you looked at it. Disrespect to the victims wouldn’t it be? For another thing what about the skyline outside Woody/Elie's apartment windows? Long ago it was decided as the obvious no brainer scene-setter. It would not be the same any more. In the midst of the grief to put on this little piece of fun?... A super graphic skyline from an architecture office in Docklands with a GINORMOUS printer had been blown further still somehow, perfect backdrop while Woody/Elie took phone calls from the girl, readied himself for the date, his best friend might have visited for angst-mulling; then, oh my god! the date herself at the door when he wasn’t really ready; legs crossing and re-crossing on the couch, W/El mixing drinks, flipping nervous chat and on his knees no doubt pleading. The details actually cannot be recalled; it was bad enough witnessing once during the performance. What to do now? That skyline could not possibly be used in the aftermath. Come on, you’re not serious? You can’t all pretend the thing never happened, surely. Maybe you can pretend about the whys and wherefores, but not that for crying out loud. You mean to go right ahead and ignore the whole thing, all of you?... Trickling details emerged of the coward pilots — on the contrary Sontag had initially called them heroes to some. In fact they seemed to have enjoyed some of the Western lifestyle and values, drinking, porn, nice tailoring. It wasn't that maybe they wanted to bring down in burning ashes. While prep for the show went on, war prep in the Western capitals. Bush elevated to Christ the Redeemer by the ally in London (the ready Australian Deputy Sherriff turned man of steel; former double-plus whimpy suburban lawyer). Remarkable footage of Bush/Blair meetings; the fawning, the sanctimoniousness. Brilliant performance beating down the carping opposition; Colin at the US General Assembly useful in that black skin, with Condie support. Cover for the crew in Melbourne striving to put on their own show. The show must go on; we could not let the terrorists win. (Yet to be adopted at the time that particular line.) In South Yarra the hall had been booked, tickets sold. Gala opening might have been early October. Evening dresses, heels, possibly there may have been opera glasses. Celebrations followed and thanks to all and sundry, including in the notes to the program the new b-friend of the set designer for something or other, infinite patience perhaps.

Fun and Games

Trial now this kiddie hangout on Sabang, only 3kms out from Tanah Ab. The food chase and tolerable net the drivers; further exploration always additionally. The Nat. Gallery opp. the stasiun few days back terribly saddening for the hurry-hurry art catch-up with the first world. The foundation era architect, pal of Soekarto’s—Frederich Silaban, who was exhibited in one of the side rooms—had been commissioned to do the other catch-up for the newly independent city’s landmarks. Well, you can’t get a teh jahe with susu, ginger tea with milk to save yourself anywhere in this city, but the T. T. not damn bad. (Yesterday at the Nacional Perpustakaan—modeled on the Singaporean forerunner no doubt—in the little kiddie corner cafe there they actually produced the former on the spot it seemed, with numerous real ginger pieces afloat. Almost ordered a second. Rp23 here, close to 2.5 dolaro was cheeky. The aircon and low lighting had been the attraction from the street. Then the red velvet bench seat (all occupied) and wooden furniture. Clearly good wifi—the kids with expensive Apples arrayed. Curious passersby wonder to themselves from the other side of the glass whether they fit the bill, whether they are cool enough to be received indoors; precisely as you yourself had done in your own time you kampung boy from the Western suburbs. Before you turned into the koolest Daddy-Oh, hey ho! at least in these parts with such little, uncertain and inadequate competition. Good to see an older scarf join a pretty pixie co-religionist with her boy. Poor sweet and scarfed Anita back in Sing had been stung hearing an oldie say to her husband as we passed, Well, will you look at that. (Words to the effect.) Heavily Chin weighted you might have thought initially. In fact that was only the joined tables in the window with their 4/5 laps. Casual cool such an extent none of the staff could give a damn rat's about serving and it was fun to make the phones jump in their hands behind the counter. MBAK! got the girl’s attention alright, for all that the intonation might not have been spot-on. Shit a brick! Jogging round quick smart almost tripping over herself, while the lads in back re-settled again after the earthquake. Apologies for the lack of jahe, wished she could have made it magically appear on a saucer. As the paramount exemplar now laddie, show ‘em how it’s done with true style, effortlessly and natural pretty much, casting over the walls and out the window pen raised, you've got a strong chin and jaw-bone still, unpurse those lips thatta boy. Let them feast their eyes. Really serious need of the newspaper for the latest Setya episode. The railway station was out; hopefully they would still have one at Gramedia at this late hour. Seems the car accident was indeed faked. Presumably the docs at that particular Emergency department could be relied upon to write up adequate notes for the Korupsi Kommisars on the poor man’s tail. A fave of Trumpet’s no surprise, wanted a cut at Freeport few years back and when he was caught on tape answered it was all a joke. The US interests must not have taken kindly. Still, unlikely they can lay a glove on him here if he spread the dosh around judiciously. Poor ol’ Jokowi like Barack can sing Dixie for all his earnest efforts. Good theatre watching that kinda insect squirming now and then for temporary relief if nothing else, can’t be easy on the ticker. Hopefully Gramedia not sold out.

NB. The recent head of the Corruption Commission here was photographed in Singapore a few days ago where he is receiving eye treatment after an acid attack. Not so funny.