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the2ndrule Issue 21

Published in

· 4 years ago

The 2ndRule
=================================================
Oct 2001 email edition
=================================================
web edition: http://the2ndrule.com

Contents
--------
0. Editorial
1. Nowhere [sygnin]
2. At the SAVH [Teng Qian Xi]
3. Blindness [Koh Beng Liang]
4. Tijuana [Shannon Low & sygnin]
5. Four Absences [Alvin Pang]
6. george [Koh Beng Liang]
7. S., while in therapy [Alvin Pang]
8. chronicling [edlyn]

Editorial
---------
Welcome to 2am.
The timezone of insomniacs.
The edge of consciousness.
The beauty of the night.

2am stands for 2ndRule Alternative Media. 2am is our breakout effort into non-text content. This is our launch issue.

Graphic design. Music. Animation. Short film. Comics. Interactive. We want to extend our embrace of creative effort, whatever the form it takes. To encourage cross-fertilization and collaboration across the genres. Always honouring guerrilla edge and DIY ethic, hand delivered to you.

We invite you to send us your films, graphics, audio and flash. And of course your writing as well. Contact us via email at editor@the2ndrule.com

visit our new look website: http://the2ndrule.com
send comments, suggestions, contributions to: editor@the2ndrule.com

------------------------------------------------------------
2ndRule team : Koh Beng Liang, Shannon Low, Benety Goh, Russell Chan, Alfian Bin Sa'at, Ong Ee-ing, Judith H
Contributors : sygnin, Teng Qian Xi, Alvin Pang, edlyn
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Nowhere
-------
Don't we express our emotions in the strangest of ways? Funny, how we can't seem to say 'I love you' nowadays without adding a 'Fuck You' or 'Bastard' to the sentence.

Sex. Sex is a hobby for lovers. Feels good, doesn't it?

http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue21_nowhereTOC.html

- sygnin

------------------------------------------------------------
First mover advantage.
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At the SAVH*
------------
* Singapore Association of the Visually Handicapped

I was given this:
a piece of rectangular card
printed with the Braille alphabet.
The dots are dark blue; in the same colour
and on one side
under a flat curving cane,
letters provide the association's address
(there is a sign on the road
showing motorists a black faceless figure
with a black rod sprouting from invisible fingers)
and assure me that *You too can help*.

And I did, I contributed three hours to the community,
I proofread the examination script
of a blind university student
choosing to study linguistics,
analysing words he will never see the shape of.

- Teng Qian Xi

------------------------------------------------------------
Irony = Rush Limbaugh going deaf.
------------------------------------------------------------

Blindness
---------
The child citizens were infected
with myopia, some gained blindness.
Those still seeing couldn't flush
the glassflakes and dustcakes,
rubbing with their tiny paws.
Watching too much violence
has detached their retinas.

They gathered on streetcorners
howling for their synonymous mothers.
Storewindow reflections
joined in chorus.

A generation later they will return
to radios in evenings to muse
over the shape of Chinese ideograms.

- Koh Beng Liang

------------------------------------------------------------
Acting is Believing.
------------------------------------------------------------

Tijuana
-------
She dances like fire, body licking the sky. Feet kicking up water gently washing upshore. Sending fine spray of sea from her toes. An arch of a watery dew-drop rainbow.

Naked flame dancing in the sea. Has no shadow. Only shades of light.

http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue21_tijuana.html

- Shannon Low & sygnin

------------------------------------------------------------
curly dark, dark hair
eyes wide and clear like the truth.
bad haiku, cute girl.

- brandon lee
------------------------------------------------------------

Four Absences
-------------

Taman Serasi

Cluny to widen:
An eating place is eaten
by road, of all things.

Yew Court

It is when I ponder these faux facades
that I know our city is corrupt
in meaning, that its intent
is revision, not remembrance.

Hong Lim

There are more eyes in this island of park
than will look upon your failures
and you call that prosperity.

Merlion

But you are not going
to be removed after all, merely
have your view restricted for a while,
until they finally put you
where you can be watched
at all times.

- Alvin Pang

------------------------------------------------------------
Bose-Einstein Condensation in Alkali Gases.
- www.nobel.se
------------------------------------------------------------

george
------
monkey's gone and knocked himself out. the playful smile is bliss. deadbeats smoke their weed by the pound. the playful smile is bliss. bottle of ether, bottle of glue. the playful smile is bliss. monkey see and monkey do. the playful smile is bliss.

http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue21_george.html

- Koh Beng Liang

------------------------------------------------------------
Soap-free washing machine.
------------------------------------------------------------

S., while in therapy
--------------------
Leapt another tall building today.
Never seem to tire of that stunt, only
the buildings get higher every time. The police
hauled me in for questioning, but since I didn't
break anything they let me off with a warning.
Didn't tell them about the dented train,
that near-miss with the 747. These days
I keep my habits private. I try.

Actually I've not stopped a real bullet
for some time now, not in this city. Since we
all went public. My rivals got day jobs.
Hear Braniac's new start-up is climbing
the Fortune 500. Darkseid's advising the
boys from Defence. And Lex has turned up
on the cover of Time. Again. Last week
they cut staff at the paper. My section.

You'd think a man who could do
anything, at least could keep
his woman. Two nights ago she left.
Said I couldn't open up, let anyone into
my weakness. Said she wanted children.
Used the word 'Freak'. I don't think
she's coming back this time.

I don't sleep anymore. I don't dream
I'm an alien. I remember less and less
of my childhood, the cornfields in Iowa
(or was it Kansas?) Sometimes I lie there
wondering why I was sent here of all places
instead of a war zone, a revolution,
another city that still needs a hero.

I've thought about moving. Of course
I've taken vacations. Tibet, my Arctic hideout,
the outer planets. I went to Mars once,
but there was nothing. Nothing there at all.

- Alvin Pang

------------------------------------------------------------
Scramjet.
------------------------------------------------------------

chronicling
-----------
9 days without a word
from you, and I'm left to wonder
ponder clichés:
was it something I said, did; or is it
like everything else
a transience, a passing,
the inevitable

slipping of sand, frictionless.
Is it so easy for a friendship to die.

9 days gone there's something
missing in my voice.
A bell, perhaps, some absent tinkling

of you
in a sine wave of goodbyes.

Maybe we never really were friends.

Why then this psychic loss
beneath cerebo-cortex of pain.

- edlyn

------------------------------------------------------------
Effortless superiority.
------------------------------------------------------------