the2ndrule Issue 08
The 2ndRule
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Aug 2000 email edition
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Web edition: http://here.is/the2ndrule
Contents
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0. Editorial
1. National Library Haikus [brandon lee]
2. Cybersquatter [Koh Beng Liang]
3. Hello Kitty, Goodbye Cruel World [Alfian Bin Sa'at]
4. Adamsapple [Ng Yi-Sheng]
5. Television Zombies [Tim]
6. The Mother Tree; What You Are Reduced To [Cyril Wong]
7. Tales of Adventure Parts 1 & 2 [Julian Lim]
Fillers - McNuggets of Wisdom [Tan Kai Syng]
Editorial
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So National Day came and went, a momentary blip on the flatliner existence of most of us cosmolanders. Even after the main parade, there were post-celebrations intended to milk every last drop of millennial patriotism from any citizen worth his or her red-and-white face-paint.
There used to be a time when the little boy in me would look forward to the parade, thrilled by the sight of parachutists swerving gracefully onto their targets, the rather amusing tetany of people marching with their heads cocked to one side, and of course the abstract expressionist flamboyance of fireworks. But I don't know when exactly I vaccinated myself from such glittering excesses, those ostentatious never-ending streamers pulled out from the propaganda hat.
In this month also, a report showed that one in four Singaporeans think that the S21 project is a government PR exercise, aimed at making some of us more migratory ones think twice before we vacate our pigeonholes. The 'S' in S21 shouldn't stand for our skepticism, but instead, the government's sincerity, the media exhorts.
Sincerity? The S21 name has been invoked repeatedly, from groups that have appealed for the preservation of our National Library to those who have tried to mount (all puns intended) a forum on sexual minorities. And each time, they have drawn blanks--proving conclusively that the 'S' in S21 is simply the dollar sign without the stripes, and thus carries very little currency, if at all.
It's been a pleasure guest-editing this month's The 2ndRule, and as usual we have an entire selection of solid writing, ranging from an interview, some poems, an article, a few prose pieces and some nifty sloganeering from visual artist Tan Kai Syng.
'The political is also the personal'. How long would it take for us to learn this? In the meantime, the parade has ended. Sweep up the confetti, pocket the souvenirs, and bring in the flags from your windows like curtains that were in fashion--for about, oh, a month.
- Alfian Bin Sa'at
email : the2ndrule@hotmail.com
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2ndRule team : Koh Beng Liang, Shannon Low, Benety Goh, Russell Chan, Alfian Bin Sa'at, Ong Ee-ing, Sim Pern Yiau
Contributors : brandon lee, Ng Yi-Sheng, Tim, Cyril Wong, Julian Lim, Tan Kai Syng
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National Library Haikus
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1/
mother, they're dirty!
why can't we go buy these books?
you read too fast, son.
2/
bare unpainted brick,
uninspiring logo.
improve!, i despair.
3/
white, white pants. blue skirts.
shall we study history?
held hands underneath.
4/
old barcode readers.
I remember older cards
with stamp marks on them.
5/
right down the middle,
despite cries, hopes, pleas, of love-
goes a wrecking ball.
6/
dusty pages of
rusty hardcovered giants
dream of being read.
7/
boogers in pages,
an archival legacy
of singapore's soul.
8/
biology test.
wait! where are all the pictures?
nation of perverts.
9/
long days of research.
meals from the hawker center.
long legs of roaches.
- brandon lee
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Mock-meat that resembles meat in look, texture and taste:
To convert carnivores?
Or to remind vegetarians of what they used to enjoy?
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Cybersquatter
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This week we interview Rouge, a free-lance web designer.
the2ndrule: Hi Rouge.
Rouge: Hello.
t2r: You seem a little tired.
R: You see, dark eye-ring makeup is all the rage these days. Well, okay, I've been a bit over-worked and all, and this month I've not been able to get to sleep because of the noise.
t2r: Noise? oh you mean the seventh month festivities...
R: Yup. Where I sleep is really close to where they set up one of those Chinese opera stages. When I first came to this country I thought it was so cultural, so ethnic. I was fascinated at the ability for superstition and technology to co-exist. Now it's just plain annoying.
t2r: You do know the reason why the front row seats aren't taken right...
R: Yeah. Freaked me out. Doesn't help that I get "visitors" where I stay too.
t2r: Ghosts?
R: Don't call the Ghostbusters just yet, I just hear lots of footsteps in the staircase in the day. Wooden clogs, going up and down and up and down, absolutely annoying when I'm trying to sleep.
t2r: Do your neighbours hear it too?
R: I have no neighbours.
t2r: Eh?
R: Well, they sort of all moved out before I moved in.
t2r: I think it'll make more sense if you tell us where you stay.
R: Don't tell the authorities, I'm squatting on state property. It's one of those condemned low-rise flats, 2 room apartments, sitting at the corner of Dawson Road and Margaret Drive, Alexandra Road, yes? All the rage in the 60's, I've learnt, first generation public housing. Nowadays home to the odd foreign worker or deranged maniac. I guess that'll include me.
t2r: Why aren't you staying somewhere more decent?
R: Well this place is decent enough. I've acquired quite a bit of Scandinavian furniture from IKEA down the road. The place doesn't stink, the roof doesn't leak, and I've got a great view of the new condominium they built to mock us.
t2r: But there's no plumbing...
R: I pee into a large can. And I got friendly with one of the construction workers at the site nearby. I just show up with my towel and toiletries whenever I need a shower. There's no electricity either, but I like the romantic candlelight evenings.
t2r: Don't you earn enough to move to somewhere better?
R: You mean like a cheap hotel?
t2r: No, I mean you should be making enough money with your web design skills...
R: ...which everyone else has these days. The way they bombard us with success stories in the media here is so deceiving, there's no mention of the vast majority who got screwed by the Internet. The reason I came here was to join a start-up, and mind you it was a really revolutionary idea these guys had, I was just the web designer but I truly believed in it. I spent a lot of money moving here, poured even more cash into the business itself to help get things going, and I was creating all these exciting things. Unfortunately we based everything on the wrong software platform, and all these copycat sites overtook us, soon the start-up crashed and we all got burnt. I don't have enough cash to go back now, I still have some debts back home, and anyway I quite like it here. It's so... clean. And safe.
t2r: Only place in the world where the police have the cheek to say "Low crime doesn't mean no crime."
R: Yes. So now I go around doing free-lance work, it pays little but I get a steady stream of projects. I helped a cyber-cafe put together their website and so I get to use their facilities. The nice owner even treats me to coffee. On the side I also repair and upgrade computers, sometimes these machines are decent but they're thrown away by their owners because they've upgraded, I take them and give them a new lease of life.
t2r: So how about doing some design work for us?
R: I'd love to, but you'd have to pay me.
- Koh Beng Liang
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I became a vegan after a close brush of near-death experience with a sumo burger.
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Hello Kitty Purchases Fail To Provide Meaning to Singaporeans' Lives
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Singapore, SG--Eight months after the initial excitement over the pairs of Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel toys offered by McDonald's as part of their Happy Meal promotions, thousands of Singaporeans are gradually awakening to the fact that the purchase of the mouthless, feline dolls, togged up in colourful ethnic costumes, has added very little meaning to their lives, if any at all.
'I started queuing up at the Tiong Bahru McDonald's outlet at 6 p.m., the day before the Hello Kitty Korean Wedding collection was going to be released,' recalls Henry Kow, a polytechnic student. 'The fuss was just so infectious you just had to be one of those lining up or you'd feel like such a loser.'
But it was clear that whatever euphoria the purchase of the collectibles had delivered was painfully short-lived, as Mr Kow removed a piece of lint from the songkok of a Malay Wedding Dear Daniel. 'You know, I've never even liked soft toys. I once went to a friend's house and made fun at his Felix the Cat and Little Bobdog collection. If that friend ever decides to forgive me and pay my room a visit I won't know where to hide my face.'
'Actually, I don't even like cats either,' he continued. 'But at that point of time if you weren't one of those people elbowing grandmas and exchanging swear words and pushing your face onto those glass doors you were just not living life to the fullest.'
Echoing Dr Goh's sentiments, Miss Serene Loy, a telemarketeer, remarked, 'When I first saw those Kitties advertised in the newspapers, I thought, wow, so cute, and so cheap some more, I better rush down soon and get one for myself. It was so difficult to decide whether I should take them out from the plastic. I wanted them to be in good condition, but I also wanted to see how it looked if I could put their hands together, like they showed in the advertisements. It must look really adorable, hor?'
Asked if her life had met with any significant improvement after her triumph at the McDonald's counter, Miss Loy was hard-pressed for an answer. 'I don't know, but I think you can say that at least I have cute things to look at when I look at my desk.' Then, in a softer voice she went on, rearranging the things on her desk: five tubes of pimple cream, a LIME magazine, an Aaron Kwok jigsaw puzzle and slips of paper with dedication notes to be recited once she got through to her favourite radio station, 98.7 FM.
'It's cute, isn't it? And it's good that they sell them in pairs, it's so romantic.' When questioned on her own love life, Miss Loy replied that she has been chatting with a guy from IRC with the nickname 'bengsian' who always greets her with a smile, typed with a colon and a bracket. 'He's very sweet, but my father keeps screaming about my Internet bills.'
Suddenly betraying a crack in her self-satisfied veneer, Miss Loy then confides, fingering the paws of her Hello Kitty and Dear Daniel, which she had sewn together with white thread, 'Even Hello Kitty has a boyfriend. Sometimes life is just so unfair.'
Gerald Ho, a freelance contributor to health magazines and the author of the book, 'Hello Kitty, Goodbye Common Sense,' communicated the profound sense of dismay he felt after realising that the ownership of the much-sought-after toys did not bring any added joy to his life: 'One week after I bought those damned things, I found myself staring at them. And then it struck me. They're just some cheap felt with some stuffing, and whoever made them couldn't even be bothered to sew on mouths.'
So what Mr Ho did was to march down to the nearby McDonald's at Ang Mo Kio Interchange, where he had bought the toys, to demand a full refund. 'I told them how let down I was, to have spent so much time queuing up, sandwiched between an Ah Beng who had programmed that Dah-Ba-Dee tune in his handphone and a Mat Rock listening to Bob Marley at full volume on his headphone, losing sleep and taking leave from work, only to be rewarded with these frivolous dolls that offer no spiritual nourishment and emotional comfort whatsoever. And you know what the old lady at the counter said? She asked me whether I wanted an upsize.'
'That was the final straw,' Mr Ho seethed, struggling with his disillusionment. 'I decided to write a book about the traps of living in a consumer society, about why we don't need that new vacuum cleaner or that tooth-whitening cream. What we need is more graciousness, more kindness.' Asked how the book was selling, Mr Ho remarked wryly, 'I'd be happy if people were hankering after it the way they were mindlessly clamouring for those spastic soft toys.'
A McDonald's spokesman, who declined to be named, had this to say about the Hello Kitty phenomenon: 'We at McDonald's would like to apologise if the purchase of the Hello Kitty toys has failed to meet the expectations of our customers. To those who realised that the Hello Kitty toys has not in any way resulted in positive and life-affirming personal transformations, we at McDonald's promise that we will work harder to create more long-lasting distractions from your small, pathetic and meaningless lives. Do watch out for our Hello Kitty World Series that will hit our outlets in December, featuring your favourite dolls in all-new costumes, including S&M bondage leather, drag-queen sequin extravaganza and white shirt and pants.'
- Alfian Bin Sa'at
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I'm so fashionable I wear Onion Rings on my Fish Fingers and grow Curly Fries in my hair.
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Adamsapple
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Like any child of Eden, I am fascinated
with things that protrude; give me
the knob of your throat for a juiceful
crisping mouthmark of Washington crunch;
Epiglottis; inflamed in man, between oesophagus
and windpipe, who granted you
the right to separate spoken breath
from eaten lump?
I'll lick you Draculawise as you shudder between
the scales of breaking voice;
Let me unSnowWhite you, sliding
it up your sauropod neck like a bullet, swallowed
at birth; then we'll take it together
in our tongues and suck it, lip against tongue
on the tastebuds, and realise, as if
for the very first time,
that we're still as naked as ever.
- Ng Yi-Sheng
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Having a bite of the Apple Pie was a grave mistake--ever since then I have been banished to hell.
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Television Zombies
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My sixth boyfriend was a porn-peddler, to put it in simple terms. He ran a business on the Internet that distributed pornographic gay VCD's to the local populace, ranging from East European uncut studs to steroid-inflamed Americans who always go 'you like that doncha' in heavy Southern drawls to Japanese twinks whose ivory-smooth bodies were often drastically disrupted by a sea-urchin-like profusion of shockingly black pubic hair at their nether regions. One of our favourite bonding activities was watching gay porn and betting which one of the two (three, four) beefcakes was actually going to spread his glutes and play bottom (No fair! He looked so aggressively top!). One night he had the lights on while we were making out and then he told me that he was going to videotape the session. I was all for it but the sex was a bit awkward because he had this birthmark on his left butt cheek which he kept pointing away from the camera and I was convinced my right profile was a lot more telegenic so it severely limited our range of bonking positions. When we sat down to watch our home-made porno, he was cringing and I had my finger on the fast forward button; there was just no choreography to it, we were just two scaffoldings of flesh colliding against each other. From then on whenever we had sex we would ask each other, "so who are you imagining you are doing this to?" and a few replies would hover in the air like the eyes of voyeurs: "that blond Russian guy in 'Soviet Studs'", "that guy in that MRT train who looked like he just got back from swimming", "this boy I had a crush on in secondary school, I used to do his Art exercises for him because he was so condemned". The more we made love the more I understood that sex is always an unfulfilled fantasy and love, the eternal fantasy of fulfilment. We were characters to a screenplay that never made it to the big screen, the drafts to what never became a romance novel. We were always having threesomes, the third party being what we kept conjuring in our heads, with shinier teeth, bigger shoulders, the better to dazzle us and turn us into silhouettes, the better to push us further and further apart like ice floes in an unreal sea.
- Tim
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Enjoying a Happy Meal, it suddenly dawns on me how gay I am.
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The Mother Tree
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I think about how skinny
we are: bodies pulled
taut, having been pushed
out from the narrow
trunk of mother, inner walls
of the canal we slid along and out of
tight as two palms slammed together.
My body could
give in or not give in
on the cool living room floor,
clenching and unclenching
like her hands on the delivery table
or the inside of her body at our birth.
Whereas sister stands
by the window, her back
to the hardening; already
decided, she only looks away.
But mother watches us both,
once porcelain, I was told, now
bark, thousand year old tree, her roots
run everywhere beneath this house,
her branches dangle over her children
like her own shadow
shaking with pride
or terror - pride
is terror - she would
draw us back into her body.
What You Are Reduced To
(for my father)
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The images on television
bore you, they bore
right through you,
and it isn't even on.
You are unreachable, still
in your favourite couch
that is neither a throne
nor the earth that will swallow you.
Having taken yourself
prisoner, you carry
your life
like a cangue around your neck.
We are your children
who gnaw
at your periphery, waves
pulling at your shore,
then pulling away.
Once I caught you staring
at the ceiling; if it didn't
open for us,
it will not open for you.
- Cyril Wong
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Fruit jew? Eye or no eye?
(Fruit juice? Ice or no ice?)
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Tales of Adventure Part 1 : The Singapore Bus Service
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"Cut my hair", he'd say, simply, and I would. As the smooth locks fell away and turned to a mess of hair sticking to his shoulders and sweaty earlobes, he'd regale me with hearty tales of adventure and boyish dreams. I remember little save one unusual habit of his : riding on the tops of buses. On long aimless bus trips between Clementi and midnight, he would climb out of a window of a double decker bus, and take hold. He told me about the wind, speeding down Bukit Timah past empty bus stops through green light after green light, he told of the steady whizzing by of the yellow street lamps like flashbulbs in his eyes, and in between, the dumb tree branches, and the uncertain stars, blinking but not moving. He told me of the dirt on the bus roof, thick and tarry like too much cigarette ash, of the tenuous but tight grip of his fingers on the edge of the bus, but most of all I remember the wind, blowing exhaust fumes clean through his lungs, smarting his eyes with dusted tears, suddenly chilly and breathtaking, blowing through his bunched up fingers, blowing through his flapping hair and roaring through his ears. I think about him now sprawled out on the top of the deserted vehicle, prostrating before the wind, hanging on for dear life as he plummets sideways to earthly bus terminals.
Tales of Adventure Part 2 : Meteorology
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Amazing, her outraged insomnia at the late afternoons. When all around her (her household numbered five) had succumbed to the entropy of the boiled air -- yolkless eggs she called them -- she would roam furiously through the abandoned streets of their four room flat, climb whole storeys in the misshelved cupboards, and wait for the heat to wave surrender. The lethargy of her so-called family members sparked only a righteous rage the size of which mounted as the days got hotter. And in the still of the late afternoon traffic she sang to herself, sewed buttons on her nephew's favourite teddy bear, unfolded the matte green origami of the refrigerator's lettuce heads, watched as the ceaseless hard sell of the exercise machines toiled the hours past.
But when all the chocolate liqueurs had been sucked dry, and all the alloyed toilet doors unhinged and hinged back, and the vacuum filled with shredded newspapers, there was nothing left to do but stand in the queue with the other numb blind four and think of rain.
- Julian Lim
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Guilt-laden after a pig-out session of fast food?
Hop on to one of the exercise bikes chained at void decks.
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National Library Haikus, (c) 2000 brandon lee
Cybersquatter, (c) 2000 Koh Beng Liang
Hello Kitty, Goodbye Cruel World (c) Alfian Bin Sa'at
Adamsapple (c) 2000 Ng Yi-Sheng
Television Zombies, (c) 2000 Tim
The Mother Tree; What You Are Reduced To, (c) 2000 Cyril Wong
Tales of Adventure Parts 1 & 2, (c) 2000 Julian Lim
McNuggets of Wisdom, (c) 2000 Tan Kai Syng
