the2ndrule Issue 45
the2ndrule
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December 2003/January 2004 email edition
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web edition: http://the2ndrule.com
Contents
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0. Edit
1. Pulp Festival 2003 Highlights [The Pulp Team]
2. Digital Compassion Documentary (Part 1) [Koh Beng Liang]
3. Instant Cafe Radio Episode 22 [Koh Beng Liang]
4. Chronos [Holman Chin]
5. *war [Sheryl Chew]
6. Pulp: Street x Art Exhibition [Pulp Team x the2ndrule]
7. Old Man [Ma Huaqi]
8. Leaving [Edlyn Ang]
Edit
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Old school vs new school
Well, she was just seventeen. Some things were legal, other things barely. The rules are changing, she thought, sucking air through the wet gaps between her teeth and her braces. Breasts are so soft, they all must be, she thought. When was sucking on anything ever a crime?
Nakamura combed back his greying hair, eyes blazing behind the convex glasses, one thumb twitching and fluttering as if a butterfly over the twelve symbolic flowers. This is how Japanese schoolgirls send their wireless love, he thought, forcefully hitting "send", his thumb suddenly certain and still, his lenses fogging up.
We're always looking for new work to publish. If you've got any writing, graphics, music, animation or video you'd like to get featured in the2ndrule, do get in touch with us. Please send your comments, suggestions and contributions to: editor@the2ndrule.com
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the2ndrule team : Koh Beng Liang, Shannon Low, Benety Goh, Russell Chan, Jason Tong, Alfian Bin Sa'at
Contributors : Edlyn Ang, Holman Chin, Sheryl Chew, Ma Huaqi
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Pulp Festival 2003 Highlights
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On 28-30 November 2003, 30 international and local artists from Canada, Thailand and Singapore stormed the Substation with their take on "Street vs Art". Defying conventional definitions of art, they proved that Street Art is Art to be reckoned with, and that Art sure ain't Old News.
Click to view highlights of the festival:
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue45/pulphighlights.mov
- Produced by the Pulp team [Adelina Ong, Shannon Low, Koh Beng Liang, Jason Tong, Kim Teo and Nadia Daeng]
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More Japanese illustrators than you can shake a stick at:
http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA011839/link/illust/abc.html
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Digital Compassion Documentary (Part 1)
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First part of a multi-part series.
Click to play:
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue45/jasonear.mov
- Koh Beng Liang
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Crazy Visuals: Yamato Rodeo
http://www1.ttcn.ne.jp/~rodeo
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Instant Cafe Radio Episode 22
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Leggo-my-arse - Mt. Cook's got the hook.
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue45/instantcafe.html
Playlist:
National Anthem - New Zealand
Fat Freddy's Drop - Midnight Marauders
Shinehead - Billy Jean
Tori Amos - Angie
Lisa Ono - Salade De Fruits
Robert Mitchum - From A Logical Point Of View
Ella Fitzgerald - Johnny One Note
Oscar Brown, Jr. - Brother Where Are You? (Matthew Herbert Mix)
Dillinger - Cocaine in My Brain (Groove Corporation Remix)
Gotan Project - Epoca
Bollywood Funk - Hum Kisise Theme
The Emotions - Best of My Love
Foo Fighters - Everlong (KROQ Acoustic)
The Evolution Control Committee - Rocked By Rape
The Beatles - Get Back
- Selection and mix by Koh Beng Liang
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"When I was young," he sighs, "I would sit in the bath and ideas would come to me. But I'm not young any more, so now I just sit in the bath."
-Aki Kaurismaki, Finnish director of The Man Without A Past
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Chronos
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i have no enemies
but time is no friend of mine
it has the cynicism of an old man deprived of his youth
it would snicker and sneer at my dreams
dance a rumplestilskin jig to celebrate my every failure
it is my roadrunner and i its coyote
we perform our cartoon antics daily for the world to see
me, armed with ridiculously destructive devices by ACME
always a moment too slow
just a hair out of reach
but I bear no malice towards time
it has left me with powerful memories
both happy and sad - my history
from receiving my first Christmas present
a box full of legos with colorful lights and perfect pine trees
to the moment I left my ex-wife and
closed the door behind me
forever
find my Tyler Durden she said
i wax nostalgic wondering what
tomorrow
will bring
knowing all too well that I am
destined to live
in
the
present
but one day
when time is lulled into a daze
I will catch it
cupped with both hands
quickly
stuff it into my mouth
and swallow
then
then
at last...
time will stand
still
if only
for me
.
- Holman Chin
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The Onion
18 January 2001
http://www.theonion.com/onion3701/bush_nightmare.html
Our Long National Nightmare of Peach and Prosperity is Finally Over.
...During the 40-minute speech, Bush also promised to bring an end to the severe war drought that plagued the nation under Clinton, assuring citizens that the U.S. will engage in at least one Gulf War-level armed conflict in the next four years.
"You better believe we're going to mix it up with somebody at some point during my administration," said Bush, who plans a 250 percent boost in military spending. "Unlike my predecessor, I am fully committed to putting soldiers in battle situations. Otherwise, what is the point of even having a military?" ...
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*war
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digging-scratch
malign the skin
'you will, can, mustneverwin
but
in raw war, et brute:
stab me back, please
will you?
war raw, pain peeling flesh
the core of which:
we are one.
not that i love you less,
but i loved war more.
for the love of pain
for raw thorn flesh,
i loved,
i hated
- Sheryl Chew
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China Daily
20 March 2003
http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Mar/58824.htm
Bush Declares War on Iraq
US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he had launched war against Iraq, promising a "broad and concerted campaign" to disarm Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein.
"My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger," he said in a televised address.
"On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking selected targets of military importance to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war," he said in the hurriedly announced speech. ...
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Pulp: Street x Art Exhibition
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Pulp Festival 2003... Seven graffiti artists "versus" five contemporary painters collaborated in live painting demos on nine massive 8 ft x 8 ft panels. "Pulp: Street x Art" is an exhibition of the incredible collaborations, and the first ever graffiti versus painting exhibition.
Featuring masters at work:
Cider (Thailand) Alex Koh (Singapore)
Dice (Singapore) Hazel Lim (Singapore)
Scope (Singapore) x Joy Lee (Singapore)
Shine (Singapore) Khiew Huey Chian (Singapore)
Sketch (Singapore) Vincent Twardzik Ching (Singapore)
Tom Painter (UK)
Trase (Singapore)
Click to view the artworks:
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue45/streetxart.mov
All artworks are for sale. Buy a Pulp original for the New Year!
Log on to http://www.pulpfest.com
For all enquiries and sales, please contact sales@pulpfest.com
- Produced by the Pulp Team x the2ndrule
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Click here for hours of in-office mayhem, distraction and network congestion:
http://www.microsoft.com/games/halo/downloads.asp
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Old Man
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(For Nicholas Liu)
[Old Man, Still Reposing]
I used to have something
To say about life. Olive doors
Hide kaleidoscope dreams,
And the wind will take me home.
[Old Man, and Rigor Mortis]
Loose skin hangs from
Muscles hard (but not of youth)
And I wait as a stranger
For weeks. The fifth sense will tell.
- Ma Huaqi
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Definitely Old School
http://www.lomographyasia.com
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Leaving
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No more the salt air meshed into our hair
or bodies; familiar smells of the east coast
as we run barefoot down crumbling breakwaters
where we spent many old New Year's Eves,
washed in melting light, vodka and sparklers -
finding out who's
broken up with whom,
and who else's
finally gone straight -
as ships throw their flares, high,
staining the black starred sky a Pollock red
and low resonant horns
blaring in the new twins of day and year.
Waiting for the 6.45 dawn. Facing the outward sea
as childhood haunts
irrevocably break, one by one
turned obsessively modern,
anonymous
over the threaded course of conversations.
So you understand when I talk
of cities and countries, of space and time
the need for wider contours
hours to breathe,
that growth's a natural state of things,
as is outgrowing, outliving;
and part of grace is knowing when to leave.
But call me anytime over the phone,
and I'll play my signature song for you.
This is the value of all our new years.
- Edlyn Ang
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This is War
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/thisiswar
"In front of us a curious figure was standing a little crouched, legs straddled, arms held out from his sides. He had no eyes, and the whole of his body, nearly all of which was visible through the tatters of burned rags, was covered with a hard black crust speckled with yellow pus.... He had to stand because he was no longer covered with skin, but with a crust-like crackling which broke easily."
- BBC correspondent Rene Cutforth, describing the Korean War for the Manchester Guardian (1952). Quoted in A History of Bombing.
"Sergeant Michael McCuster recalled one time when his Marine platoon went into a village [in Vietnam] and gang-raped a woman (the last man to rape her, shot her). He recalled that their sergeant 'took no part in the raid. It was against his morals. So instead of telling his squad not to do it, because they wouldn't listen to him anyway, the sergeant went into another side of the village and just sat and stared bleakly at the ground.'"
- from An Intimate History of Killing, p 200. McCuster's quote is from Vietnam Veterans Against the War, The Winter Soldier Investigation (1972), p 29.
"By the time Calley and men sat down to lunch, they had rounded up and slaughtered around 500 unarmed civilians. Within those few hours, members of Charlie Company had 'fooled around' and laughed as they sodomized and raped women, ripped vaginas open with knives, bayoneted civilians, scalped corpses, and carved "C Company" or the ace of spades onto their chests, slaughtered animals, and torched hooches. Other soldiers had wept openly as they fired on crowds of unresisting old men, women, children, and babies."
- description of the My Lai massacre (16 March 1968). From An Intimate History of Killing, p 160.
"A jeep pulled up to the dump and a Marine jumped out carrying a bunched-up fatigue jacket held out away from him. He looked very serious and scared. Some guy in his company, some guy he didn't even know, had been blown away right next to him,all over him. He held the fatigues up and I believed him."
- reporter Michael Herr in Vietnam. Dispatches, p 118.
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* 2ndrule t-shirts *
Non-uniform of the guerilla army. Now available at S$20 each.
Sizes: Girls (28,30), Boys (40,42)
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue24/2rtshirt.html
Please send your orders to editor@the2ndrule.com
Pulp Festival 2003 Highlights (c) 2003 The Pulp Team
Digital Compassion Documentary (Part 1) (c) 2003 Koh Beng Liang
Chronos (c) 2003 Holman Chin
*war (c) 2003 Sheryl Chew
Pulp: Street x Art Exhibition (c) 2003 The Pulp Team x the2ndrule
Old Man (c) 2003 Ma Huaqi
Leaving (c) 2003 Edlyn Ang
