School Assembly in Singapore

Every morning when school is in session, I hear from my bathroom the voice of a man speaking in a microphone. I can see through the window the Anglo Chinese School (Junior). It is about 7-7:30 in the morning, time for school assembly.

Students in uniforms are sitting on the ground in the school yard, in well aligned rows, silent, listening to the amplified teacher's voice. I cannot hear what he says, but it must be some morally uplifting harangue putting these children in the appropriate frame of mind to receive knowledge and wisdom from their teachers during the day, or to salute the flag, hanging flacid on the pole in the absence of a salutory breeze that would distract from the ever present humid heat.

Thus everyday it is drilled in the minds of the children of Singapore that they should respect authority, work hard, keep their heads down and not ask questions.

Moonlight Sonata

When words are impotent ... Music or pictures might do ...

A Turner exhibit at the Met

A couple of weeks ago, on a leisurely but rainy 4th of July weekend in New York, there was nothing better to do than to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

This was an inspiration, for it turns out that there was a huge exhibit of Turner oil and water color paintings on display.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851) was a romantic, inspired by and in search of "The Sublime". He was very advanced for his times and controversial. A contemporary review was posted near a painting, reflecting what some art critics thought of his style, when it turned abstract: "Throwing handfuls of white, and blue, and red, at the canvas, letting what chanced to stick, stick; and then shadowing in some forms to make the appearance of a picture."

For a modern viewer however, his most abstract paintings seem familiar and reveal Turner as a great precursor to the Impressionists. It is forbidden to take pictures at special exhibitions at the Met, but I dodged the guards and managed to catch on my phone camera four of the most impressive abstract works on display.

Willows beside a stream

This charming landscape is rendered in impressionistic touches, suggesting rather than asserting, creating a relaxed and quiet mood. The eye is attracted to the left bottom corner by a few colorful and bright brush strokes, which sketch what perhaps was intended to be a pastoral scene. It is left unfinished, but it creates a welcome counterpoint to the trunks of the willow trees across the stream.

The Lake from Petworth House, Sunset


Calais Sands at Low Water, Poissards Collecting Bait

A powerful painting. In the forefront, against the backdrop of an incandescent sunset, bent-over fishermen wives collect worms in the wet sand. The thin film of water over the flat sand reflects their twisted bodies, the setting sun, the dark clouds and an isolated rock.

Sunset over Como

A late unfinished washed out water color ... an evanescent dream ... but one can distinguish the ruin of a castle, the towers of a town in the distance, the lake surrounded by dark hills under the vibrating light of an Italian sun.

The cockroaches of Singapore

The tropical climate of Singapore must be favorable to cockroaches, which grow here to a respectable size and are often visible at night scurrying at an amazing speed across the sidewalk in front of you.

Sometimes you see an enormous and frightening picture of a giant cockroach floating in front of you on a double-decker bus, as an ad for Combat, an insecticide which must rack a lot of sales in this city-state.

Once in a while, as it happened today, I see one on the kitchen floor as I walk in to make a cup of coffee in the morning. But then it is on its back, moving its legs and antennae slowly in an agonizingly slow death. It can stay like this for hours. I, like most people, find this insect particularly repellent, and I do not have the patience of letting it die while I have to pay particular attention not to inadvertantly squash it with my bare feet. But I am always afraid that, if I try to seize it with a piece of paper towel, it will suddenly come to life and wiggle out from under my hand. The very thought sends shivers down my spine. So, before collecting it to throw it down the garbage chute, I squash it with an old newspaper, putting an end to its agony.


This morning, before going through this unpleasant and macabre routine, I decided to take a picture of this dying cockroach. The camera detected something I had not noticed with the naked eye: a small pool of liquid oozing out, together with life, from the insect's body.

Jazz at the Kitano Hotel, New York

Walt Weiskopf Quartet feat. Walt Weiskopf-tenor sax, Joel Weiskopf-piano, Paul Gill-bass, Kendrick Scott-drums

Scenes from my windows

Dawn over glass and steel ...

Even in modern buildings, the Chinese tradition of hanging clothes to dry at the windows endures ...

A swimmer in the pool of the hotel next door, on a leisurely sunny morning ...

From an office window ... demolition on a grand scale.

Oscar Wilde

The movie "Wilde" is on display in Singapore. It came out in 1997, and one wonders why it is shown here more than 10 years later. Perhaps the censors have finally decided that the Singapore audience is mature enough to be exposed to Oscar Wilde's homosexuality.

It is a beautiful production, which benefits enormously from glorious settings. Wikipedia informs us that "Scenes were filmed at Knebworth House in Hertfordshire; Lincoln's Inn in Holborn; Lulworth Cove, Studland Bay, and Swanage Pier in Dorset; Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire; Magdalen College in Oxford; and Somerset House in The Strand". These settings and the opulence of the late 19th century interiors and costumes make this movie one of the best period pieces that cinema has ever achieved.

The movie owes much to Stephen Fry's performance. Throughout the movie, Oscar Wilde tells a story of a giant to his two sons, and Stephen Fry successfully conveys the notion that Oscar Wilde, below his veneer of socialite and brilliant writer equipped with a sharp wit, was himself a gentle giant. This comes out most movingly when, under questioning during his trial for indecency, he gives a definition of "the love that dares not say its name". His gentleness and humility in front of the prosecutor questioning him make for the most effective eloquence, which wins him the support of the court's audience, to the great chagrin of the judge.

The real hero of the movie is Wilde's flowing prose, magnificently delivered by Stephen Fry. Ultimately, this is what makes this movie successful, together with the brilliant cast around Stephen Fry: Jude Law (eleven years ago, he really looked like a pretty boy in his role of Lord Alfred Douglas), Vanessa Redgrave and others.

The love scenes, I must admit, made me uneasy, and I suspect that many reacted to them in the same way. It still strikes most people as shocking to see sex scenes between two men. The musical score did not help, as its swelling romanticism, annoying enough during heterosexual scenes, felt in this case totally out of place. This is, I think, the one weakness of this movie.