The Hossan Leong Show Episode 2

I was initially not so keen on this from last year's experience. But since a friend asked (and some others were also going on the same day), I agreed...and good thing I went as I enjoyed it more than the last run.

With his witty speech, Hossan opened his talk show with just that, ‘talk’, which surprisingly, packed quite a lot of laughs, with his double meaning phrases and references to current affairs. Haha…there was 1 point he forgot his lines but it soon came back.

Not forgetting the immigrant/PR/citizen issues, the segment on Singapore Got Talent was pretty funny, roping in Judee Tan (a China girl who sells curry), Karen Tan (Malaysian SIA girl) and Chua Enlai (Bangladeshi builder), in addition to Hossan’s portrayal of a Filipino (who aspires to be a Maid Mentor). They had to justify why they should be able to be converted to citizens, which was quite funny (although I forgot most of it though). They all imitated the accents very well. The segment closed with a medley of “revised” National Day songs led by who else but (Filipino) Hossan which was well-executed.

The doctors call-in segment was hilarious, especially Judee Tan who plays a TCM doctor called Teochew Muoi (TCM TCM). Chua Enlai was the proud ang moh accent doctor. People with problems would call in (played by Hossan Leong mostly) and they gave their diagnosis and “cures”. Some problems addressed were fear of floods, casino related health problems, etc. Think this was one of the funniest segments.
Then of course, there’s Bibik Lily Lim, created last year in the 1st run. Cooking again, she prepares rojak for the audience to try and gave away a St Regis package. Wow!

And what’s a Hossan Leong show without him playing the piano? It was back to his teens as he tells of how “he wants to be just like Justin Bieber”.

Well, think the less funny segment was the “Taskforce” segment about finding mascots for Singapore.

Although it got a bit drawn out nearer the end, it was an entertaining venture. Freebies? No goodie bags this time round, but there was giving away of the St Regis package, pearlie white hamper and Hubert the hum (don’t exactly know what that’s about).

Unlike Some People

 Venue: Drama Centre Black Box
Run: 22nd Sept – 26th Sept 2010

The show opened with a rather dysfunctional group of “friends” who were essentially taking cruel digs at each other. The atmosphere is tense, menacing and upsetting. One might attribute it to the bitterness of the terminally ill Jo (Grace Soo) but it seems the characters had always been so, probably hating each other.

It took a rather strange (and supernatural) dramatic turn at midpoint, which I at first recognised as angels of death, or so I thought, but not likely because they asked “are we too late”? Maybe angels of comfort since they closed with a comforting picture to Sam? Truth? Somehow though, I had the impression that maybe it’s making reference to some mythical personalities like from Greek mythology. It could have been due to the reference to Roman legends made earlier. They seem to be set to confuse everyone; their appearance stirred up mess, yet catapulting the play into its climax of “reality”, friendships and the like.

It was all very strange to me and not sure if I was missing something, I went in search for more info on the original play, Lady from Dubuque on wikipedia, which didn’t help much. So here I am, trying to make sense of this whole course of events.

Maybe I should look at the structure. Starting each act, the play addresses the identity question “who am I” or “who are you”. And in the end, the identities of the Lady of Dubuque aka Elizabeth (Yin Mei JJ Lenden-Hitchcock) and Oscar (Faizal Abdullah), her companion, were still vague. And she left the stage with the words “I thought you knew”. Maybe in his heart, Sam (Johannes Hadi) knew, but didn’t want to face the truth. Yet, what started as a game in the first act, turned to a loss in the 2nd. No one believed Sam except Carol, Jo didn’t help dispute Elizabeth (who claimed to be her mother) by running into her arms. Chaos. So was it about identity?

Or is the focus on relationships? Relationships between each couple and between friends. Each couple faced with their choices, but who all seem to really love their spouses (or girlfriend). Between friends, all the pent-up grievances, jealousy, selfishness and hypocrisy were unleashed at the end. Years of grinding each other finally took its toil. The truth behind the facade as “revealed” by the 2 strangers (was a spell cast?). Strangely, the only true friend that arose was someone who proclaimed that she was not a friend, and kinder than most (Carol).

But I must say that the Lucinda character (Grace Khoo) really got on my nerves (probably intended since every character didn’t like her), and she seemed the real bimbo as compared to the perceived bimbo of the group, Carol (Elizabeth Loh).

What puzzles me is the show title “Unlike Some People”…with reference to?
~~~~~~~
So maybe in response to the director’s message – “I might not be ready for Albee yet.”

Voyage de la Vie

Having been looking forward to this, I finally caught Voyage de la Vie (Journey of Life) last Friday with my parents.

A theatrical circus spectacular, as what it’s called, the show tells the story of a guy (they call him The Boy) who is led into a magical world of action, magic, love and imagination, guided by the mysterious Lantern Keeper (Victor Kee). There is no dialogue at all, only 3 points where The Boy (Jonathan Leong) sings (start, middle and end). The rest of the show was magic and acrobatics.

Highlights

The contortionist (Alexey Goloborodko):
This boy appeared in the 1st scene as the Game Master, in a container not much bigger than a fruit carton (it looked like one of those portable photo studio that I saw at Popular). Oh my! He was like one without bones, twisting and turning his body and limbs here and there like they were not connected! Like flipping over backwards and putting his head between his legs (which somehow made him look like a spider). You had to see it to believe it. It made me feel a bit squirmish, but he was really good. 

Magician & Pianist (Jarret Parker & Raja Rahman):
The highlight of this scene “The Magician and The Maestro” has got to be the ‘body-sawn-in-half’ segment where Jarret saws Raja in two, who still manages to play the piano, lying on his back.

Hand balancing:
A “rock” part of the show, we saw Melanie Chy (The Diva) do her hand balancing act on a motorcycle. You can just imagine all that muscle in use.

Trapeze (by Aurelia Cats):
This was the part with one of the most beautiful backdrop and fluid movements. It’s when The Boy sings “Perfect Love” (I think that’s the name) and the backdrop has stars and a moon. Also lots of muscle works as she hangs from the trapeze, especially when she hangs upside down, with only her feet holding her to the trapeze.

Aerial rope act (by Liina Aunola):
She came rolling down on a rope. Famous for her rope and cloud swing act, the rope works were pretty head spinning as I felt giddy for her.

Crossbow (Martti Peltonen):
Although the act climaxed at the segment where he was in the middle of a ring of 17 crossbows, each properly timed and calculated to set off the next till it shot the last arrow through the apple on the head of Martti, I liked the 1st part where he shoots his arrow that bounces back, through a veil and into a mask he’s holding. It was so quick and accurate.

Juggler:
Last but not least, we have Viktor Kee, the excellent juggler that is the Lantern Keeper and the master of the voyage. He performed his juggling in a most light-hearted way, using his whole body to juggle, like his chest, feet, etc, and even lying down, on his back and even belly. There was a point that he juggled up to 7 (or 8?) balls. No mistakes at all.
~~~~~~~~
It was an entertaining experience, with pyrotechnics, somersaults and all that graceful acrobatics.

Alive Gallery

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to go see this exhibition. So as a suggestion put up to our staff welfare committee, a trip was organised to go for this exhibition before it ends on 3 Oct. However, it was quite disappointing.

One main reason was the guide they arranged for us, who totally killed our mood. Her English was bad and she didn't know her stuff (yet pretended to know). In attempts to "make us think", she posed questions of which she had no answers, or even any good possible theories (which could easily have been researched upon). Like, why was a fin not painted in? She gave the answer "I think the artist forgot to paint it".
Think the final straw came when she described the stained glass at Notre Dame Cathedral as "it's from a place that I cannot pronounce the name", and when she was asked where Notre Dame was, she gave an answer like "somewhere" or "I can't pronounce" or something of the like (trying to "smoke" her way through), and when a colleague of mine offered the answer "Paris" (which was probably also written somewhere on the displayed write-up), she could only utter "oh". And so we drifted away on our own.
Granted, she probably isn't a dedicated guide (maybe someone from the resort?) and not everything was written on the script. But I think if she could "smoke" convincingly, we would still credit her for it. But unfortunately, no.
It would have been better if we were left to walk on our own from the beginning.

Ok, forgetting the guide, although my interest dissipated after the encounter, I shall highlight some interesting parts of the exhibition, even though most of the prints were not very well representatives of the originals.
An interactive and interesting part was the talking Mona Lisa, where you could pose questions to the "painting" and she would respond. It was quite amusing. We suspected that maybe someone was hiding behind the screen. I heard it actually wished a colleague "Selamat Hari Raya"!

There were only 2 spots that you could take photos, so I had to take the construction of a life-size The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum (Cafe Terrace at Night). This was what it looked like.

Overall, it wasn't a very big exhibit and given that the price of the tickets was at $17 (normal adult rate), it could have been better, especially with better guides.

Food diary

Have just started a food blog/diary with a girlfriend called foodsie.two. It's not a review blog, but rather something that documents our many eating escapades. We take quite a lot of photos of our food and I've not actually been sharing much of those on my blog anyway. And since I've been feasting quite a bit this month for valid reasons, thought it'll be a good time to start. We hope it'll be visually appealing, so you'll see lots of pics. We're keeping it light-hearted and not so serious. Food is fun!

Well, I haven't really started posting stuff up yet except some write-ups of ourselves and the blog, but coming soon! Once I've loaded my food pics online. :)

Lang Lang is coming!

I've never actually heard him or watched him play before (well, maybe on TV once), but I've heard so much about him that I'm really excited to catch him in action on 5 Oct. Think this is partly because I just started reading a biography on him titled "Journey of a Thousand Miles : My Story" by Lang Lang and David Ritz.

Actually, I chanced upon the book while browsing the library, hence, I thought why not read it since I was going to attend the concert. So yeah, am looking forward to the performance...I'm in the 2nd row! Hope I can see him play with a clear view as I'm somewhere in the middle and depending on the position of the piano, I might be blocked...but I guess I should still be able to see his facial expressions and animated movements (I hope).

He'll be playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15 at the Esplanade Concert Hall on 5 Oct, with the SSO. Tickets are already sold out (of course).

Forgiven, forgotten

Just this week, as I was chatting with some friends, they were rather surprised that after what one of them called it, 'my "traumatic" experience', I was still in close contact with the people who caused it, and not just that, they are my cell leaders. As I explained, it happened almost 10 years ago (makes me feel really old), so the hard feelings are long gone. I was even her 姐妹 for her wedding. The main issue then was I felt betrayed because she hid the truth while I stupidly confided in her. Yes, it was traumatic in the sense that our relationship was never the same again (but we're still good friends lah) and I learnt to be more careful with my trust in people and sharing.

I'm also quite surprised at how I dealt with it back then (I took time to reflect and then went to "谈判" with her rather calmly), and it was only by God's grace that I got over the whole thing, forgave and forgotten all that pain. Life goes on and God will provide the right things at the right time.

competitive?

I've been thinking...I think there's a streak of competitiveness or "fight" in me. Despite my laid back disposition, when it comes to sports (actually for most things), I prefer games rather than individual sports like running. So I like games like racquet and ball games, fencing. And most times, I prefer duo sports (i.e. 2 people against each other). However, I am usually not aggressive and play these more for recreation, so I'm not too harped up on winning all the time.

However, I don't mind archery (although I'm not a good shot) or maybe i should try out horseback riding one day if I can afford it (just a romantic thought). Hmm...maybe I prefer more interaction or maybe it's about strategy instead to make my mind think (or not) and keep focus on the game, though I'm quite bad with that.

Spelling Bee

How does one actually make a musical out of a spelling bee competition? The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee did it.

Performed by the LASALLE College of the Arts Musical Theatre Program students, this Broadway musical was set in an American gymnasium, as re-created in the confines of the Creative Cube space at LASALLE, a relatively small venue but with superb lighting set up. It is the annual spelling bee contest at county level, after which the winner will go on to take part in the state/national competition. The winners (or runner ups in some cases) from the districts come together to pit themselves against each other. However, it's not just like that. The story brings out the feelings and insecurities of the participants; those trying to fit into the community, those faced with being looked down upon (by who else but their own family), those who are stressed in "meeting expectations", those with puberty woes, and those who just want to prove something, crying for attention really. But the true message of it all is that it doesn't matter if they won the spelling bee or not, even though it seemed so very important at that point. But they all turned out well eventually as they grew up and were most importantly, happy.

An interesting aspect of the show was the invitation of 4 of the real audience to take part in the competition. My friend and I were wondering if the people were really at random, but I guess maybe some were, or they could be students whom the people knew. (good thing my friend and I were sitting right at the back in a corner) Well, in any case, I think they were prompted when to "fail" in their spelling (e.g. how can a local not know how to spell "makan"?).

Spelling bees are a very American thing, so the choice to do a casting with mainly Caucasians, except one (which was necessary) was a good thing to make it more convincing, although I think the cast was mainly made up of Australians. The 'use it in a sentence' parts were hilarious as the judge gave ridiculous or useless examples of the words to be spelled. There were even Singlish words given, mainly for the audience participants, e.g. "makan" and "lah", although it seemed pretty weird. The songs came in mainly when the "kids" sang about their life. The cast did a good job as they needed to act, sing, dance (split, for one) and also switch roles (for some), not forgetting these are students. Within the confined space, the choreography was very important, which turned out well.

It was a rather entertaining production, with good potential. I feel there is some room for improvement (can't pinpoint), but generally it was well done.

Tearing down boundaries

I attended a Christian songwriters fellowship session yesterday, which was more like a "meeting" of sorts. It was actually the 1st meetup and I didn't know what to expect (thought we would just meet and share songs and fellowship). It was a follow-up from the Bob Fitts workshop I attended some weeks ago. Basically, it was to form a group, similar to Songcraft, where Christian songwriters can come to a "safe" environment to share songs. 1 difference though is that it's a tie-up between CS Music, Integrity Media Asia and Oops! Asia, which means that they are looking to help develop songwriters in their craft and release albums for them, whether as solo artistes or in compilations. The session was held at The Barnyard Cafe, a cozy space in Chinatown (where the old 梦飞船 was, I think).

Anyway, the whole point of this post isn't about that.

During the session, someone mentioned of how we can come together to worship as one without boundaries of the different denominations. Somehow, something went on in my mind. Maybe I've not seen or experienced enough, but is it true that our generation is now moving towards tearing down all such boundaries and barriers? We see a whole group of people who don't really bother about these, but who are hungry for God; there are no boundaries since we're all worshiping the same God. Even in politics you see this generation becoming more vocal, asking for transparency, and interestingly, the government has been more or less opening up to these, as opposed to before. How things have changed with the generations. It's a world without walls. You can see that too by how the world has evolved, especially with the advent of technology.

Yet, a world without walls doesn't mean that it's all good. It also means that besides good stuff, bad things get propagated faster as well. Fortunately, we are also part of this generation, and I think it is even more important for us now to forget preconceived barriers and come together to build a better place, overcoming social ills. Come to think of it, it's really like a "shake-up". Is it all part of a bigger plan?

Blackbird

I can’t decide if this 75-min long play was good or bad. It’s about a woman’s (Una played by Emma Yong) confrontation with the man (Ray/Peter played by Daniel Jenkins) who ‘abused’ her when she was 12. I was actually expecting a psychological thriller from the synopsis (and they made reference to Pillow Man, which unfortunately I missed…twice), but it  wasn’t. So its appeal might have diminished for me in that sense (I was so looking forward to a psychological thriller).

Dialogue heavy, the whole play is set in a messy pantry of a factory that Jay/Peter worked (or some place). The messiness probably set the mood too. The 2 characters recount their lives that led to the incident when they “eloped”, slept together and separated, and the aftermath of that. However, it was pretty heavy and taxing on both the actors and audience (needed to focus on what they were saying since the whole play is really the dialogue between the 2).

Personally, I felt the interesting part was the way the play unfolded. As the story progressed, the audience’s paradigm/perception is made to change as the characters told their stories. Initially, it all seemed like the man’s fault/responsibility, then it shifts focus onto the woman and it becomes blur. Not really sure how to describe it, but I found myself thinking differently of the characters as it went along. It started out as what seemed to be a normal love story of a man leaving a woman, then it turns out that it’s about pedophilia, but then again is it?

There are actually 2 ways to look at the play. “Innocent” and sinister. “Innocent” in that it was really a mis-communication back then and the man is really a changed man. Not that I agree with an older man taking advantage of a minor coz it’s still wrong. But not like what I’m going to say next…Sinister in that he has not changed and all he was telling Una were lies, using what she readily supplied to cook up the stories, and he is a real pedophile, with the next target his girlfriend’s daughter. Personally, I wish to take the “innocent” standpoint (prefer to be hopeful).

Another interesting point my friend raised was how the 2 characters lives unfolded due to the incident at that turning point at the guest house when they separated and never met till now (for 15 years?). What if?

Who?

With the impending addition to my life in numbers, I can't help but think about some things.

All I want is someone who can make me smile, not cry. No more tears, or at least someone to wipe them away. Well, 男人不该让女人流泪 (unless if it's tears of happiness). Of course, there can be disagreements but not to a certain level of emotional hurt.

(ok, I planned to stop here, but...)

Well, that's one of the things I asked myself. What do I really want? What do I look for? Of course, he has to be a godly man (a Christian man of reasonably good faith), and someone who shares some common interests with me, especially appreciating the arts. He doesn't need to share all my interests, but arts (especially performing arts) is a big part of me. Someone whom I can serve God together with. It could be the area of worship or something, I don't know. But where the Lord leads for both of us.
Someone who can accept me as who I am, just like how I would accept who he is, because there is no other me (or him).

I guess all these will contribute to a man that can make me smile. Am I asking for too much?

《郑和的后代》(Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral)

Hrmm...I don't know if I'm "dull" or the production too contemporary (abstract), but I spent the most part of the show wondering why it was called "Descendants of the Eunuch Admiral". To me, it was more of an interpretation of how Zheng He actually felt being a eunuch (or other eunuchs at that) with a description of the various methods of castration. I've not read the text before, but if it was meant to relate to other social issues, or tell some other story, I didn't see it. There were some parts that didn't seem they were portrayed appropriately, somehow casting a negative light on Zheng He, and at some points like a 闹剧, e.g. the part on the years of the 7 times Zheng He 下西洋. It failed to engage. The set was pretty impressive though, simple as it looked, and the opening "sea roar" was anticipatory.
Ah well, I went in not knowing what to expect, and came out feeling it was not what I expected (I know, what I just said doesn't make sense).
I think this is my first KPK production. Wonder if the rest are as "cheem". Think not many can appreciate, judging from the "crowd" we saw tonight.
Catch no ball (no pun intended).

Ok, I shan't spend too much time on this. Now to move on to figuring out my new phone.

Love Cuts 割爱

I try to support local movies when they are screened and Love Cuts was something I caught with my mum recently...Okay, I didn't actually pay for the ticket as she had some GV movie vouchers, so this seemed like a safe choice, as there weren't many choices of movies that were worth watching, and would suit my mum. The poster had originally incited some controversy from the public previously, but given the context, it was passed.

The movie stars our very own Zoe Tay (郑惠玉) and Hong Kong actor Kenny Ho (何家劲). The story is of how Sissy (Zoe Tay), a seamstress, and her family deal with 4th-stage breast cancer. She never gives up hope and tries the various treatments available like chemo and radiation, whatever that gives her a glimpse of hope. Something Sissy says is very true. This is the gist as I can't remember the exact words - “生病的人要比别人（家人）更坚强因为他们也（更）需要安慰。因为他们不知道该怎么做也不知道能做什么，他们也不能够做什么”。

She meets a young model, Kristy, who comes by her shop and who happens to be in the early stages of breast cancer. She tries to convince the model to go for mastectomy (who doesn't know Sissy also has breast cancer). It is only later that Kristy visits Sissy again that she finds out Sissy's condition, and it suddenly dawns on her the need to make the decision, I believe, when she asks if Sissy went for mastectomy. The only reply that Sissy could give was that "没得割了。癌细胞已经扩散到别的地方了。" because she discovered it too late.

It's not your regular movie with all the glitz and drama, just a simple portrayal of what goes on in real life (pretty mundane actually), but it was touching nonetheless, testament with the sniffing going on (including myself) during the show.

Monologues

What does it take for someone to play a monologue? A recent review by a friend prompted me to think about this.

Depending on the book, it seems like a display of schizophrenia on stage. How do you appear convincing switching between roles? It's difficult to get into character for each since you have to be mindful about switching roles during the act. So the actor will need a certain amount of tenacity.

I can't help but think of Emily of Emerald Hill, a rather well-known local monologue play. Margaret Chan did a pretty good job (I've not seen others, but will catch the Ivan Heng's portrayal that's showing next year). I realised that it was essentially playing the same character, except at different stages of Emily's life. The audience needs to "transport" themselves along with the character. So does this makes it easier? A single character portrayal?

I believe the book plays a part too. You need a defining characteristic of each persona, which will need to be drawn from the book. So the actor will need to pick out that defining characteristic to emphasize, and use it to his/her advantage so that the audience can tell when the actor switches.

Threading

This is a frivolous post.

I've been (trying to) "pamper" myself these days, buying a new phone, feasting (this might not be a good thing though), and doing some girly stuff.

While waiting for a space at Wild Honey at Mandarin Gallery today, I decided to try out Browhaus (for the first time) next door and tried threading for the first time ever. It's actually the traditional way of eyebrow shaping, by using (you've guessed it) thread. Well, I must say it takes skill and the "pain" is about the same as if I did "modern tweezing", which they offered too. Wasn't too bad an experience.

Loewen Gardens Farmers' Market

I recently discovered that there's a farmers' market in Singapore! Interesting. Something like what we see overseas where people come to display their own produce, and in Singapore? Things like food and stuff.

It's held twice monthly and organised by The Pantry Cookery School, near Dempsey. Here's more info.

I should pop by one day to see what they have.

Capriccio Plays Tango

As I was saying earlier, I happened to be at the Esplanade when my friend, Tze, with one of his affiliations, Capriccio, was performing at the concourse.
So I made a recording on my FlipVideo device of one of the pieces they played called "Oblivion".

The piano is played by Tze, accordion by MoMo and violin by Jensen.

Tze is an acquaintance whom I met at Songcraft and one of the few people I personally know who's really talented at the piano (and has worked professionally as a musician, e.g. film scoring), especially when he doesn't have formal training, and is a self-taught pianist. He does improvisation-style stuff but compose on his own too, which I've heard before when he did a solo performance at the The Arts House, and on other occasions (honestly, I prefer his solos). Besides Capriccio, he has a few other affiliations.

I'm always amazed at people who can pursue their music when they have had no formal training, especially with instruments like piano, violin, etc. They usually go by ear and would have started off without knowing how to read the "bean sprout" notes.
*envious*

Oh, during the last piece they performed for the set, 2 couples actually started dancing!

Poop

How do you deal with death? That's what Poop attempted to address, or rather, how people deal with it. It was a rather moving play (I cried, and many others too), thanks to the good cast and rather 'close-to-heart' story...not that I've experienced the same plot, but it's such a reality we deal with - death. I think that's one of the reason why it drew people's hearts, this whole relation with the "common" or "down-to-earth" (for want of a better phrase). Even the slight humour style is something so "local" (although some issues have been over-used by various productions).
Technically, the 'special effects' were pretty good, using black as a cover for the many "floating" objects here and there, and the play of props and lighting and positioning to create the 'spaces' as well as the "adult-child" ratio even though the cast were adults.
The shadow play portion was quite interesting to be included and it was like Emily's battle with cancer.

Now to the story.

Written by Chong Tze Chien, staged by The Finger Players, what seemed like a family dealt with many tragedies, Poop tells of how the mother, the wife and daughter (Emily) deals with the suicide of a man. As if fate has no sympathy, the daughter is struck with cancer, which makes the family having to deal with death again. Can one really ever know how to deal with it?

To me, there seems to be a contrast between a sudden death, i.e. the suicide, and a slow death, where the family could "prepare" for death. The reactions are different as in the former; there is the lingering "ghost" with all the questions and feelings of sudden loss and 'lost' with no real closure. The latter however, is like a journey, no uncertainties, all you can do is move forward and decide the next course. And notice how it ends when Emily dies and the grandma says she can't sense her.

Then there's the part about facing the truth. The grandma, thinking it'll make the family happy, tells Emily that her father wasn't really gone, but was residing in the various objects around. Emily, as young as she was, believes her and starts imagining all the objects around her as her father. This whole "pretense" actually makes the whole family more miserable as they become trapped by the memories, the attempts to keep it alive, but never really moving on. It had to take Emily to finally raise the question of why the father committed suicide to have both the grandma and mother face/tell the truth (finally some consensus). The eventual outcome was that they all came to terms with the man's death, and I believe some closure in a way. I guess it's like poop? "Constipation" is bad for health.

Although my friend commented on the humour seeming a bit "out-of-place" in this 'serious' drama, I think it was actually quite appropriate if the mood was not intended to be "dead serious" as
1) it's meant to be in the perspective of a child (or so the synopsis says), and
2) I think it actually gives one a sense of "relief" and brings the audience to something more hopeful after death.

There are probably a lot more things to discuss, but I shall stop here.

Afternoon at the Esplanade

What was intended to be an impromptu stop to watch a play, turned into an almost full afternoon of arts experience.

Intending to catch Poop by The Finger Players after hearing good reviews from friends, I headed down to Esplanade to buy a ticket to watch the 3pm matinee show. As I was on my way up to the Theatre Studio, I heard someone playing the Chinese flute at the Esplanade library, and recalling a news feed I read on FB, I popped by to take a look since I was still early. And indeed, there was my friend playing the Chinese flute at the 'Open Stage' area. He played quite well and I liked the sound of the flute. I only had time to listen to 1 piece, and went off for my show.

After the play, I was craving for a waffle and decided to pop by Haagan Daaz for one with ice-cream. On my way, it so happened that I saw a friend doing his sound check at the Concourse and recalled that he was performing with his band, Cappricio, there. So I had my waffle and went to the concourse to wait for the performance at 5.15pm and enjoyed the rhythmic tango pieces they were playing.

Nice afternoon just going with the flow. I should do this more often.

Fruit Paradise Cafe

I've been meaning to try this place for quite a while since it opened at Raffles City but never got down to it.
So as I was hanging around Vivocity as usual looking for a place to eat before dinner, I discovered it had 1 outlet. So this was what I got, the orange & grapefruit tart. Looks pretty hor?

This is basically a dessert place serving fruit tarts (more like pies though). Nice selection of tea too. I had the yuzu pear blossom green tea. The tart wasn't too bad, and not too heavy. Next time I want to try the caramel banana.

Hey, Soul Sister by Train

Not too long ago, I happened to "discover" this band while watching CSI:NY, and the tune was pretty catchy. Train did a cameo in the show (as a band), and Patrick Monahan (the lead vocalist) played one of the victims who very nearly got killed.

I actually went to get the CD called 'Save Me, San Francisco'. There are a couple of other songs that I think aren't too bad too, like "Parachute".

Interestingly, I've discovered a few songs I liked on CSI (Vegas and NY). There are pages that lists the songs for each episode of CSI:NY here and for CSI here.