the2ndrule Issue 56
the2ndrule
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September-December 2005 email edition
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web edition: http://the2ndrule.com
Contents
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0. Editorial
1. Excerpt from Sydney: 1934 13092k1 - 1811 16032k2 [Michael Aiken]
2. Instant Cafe Radio Episode 33 [Koh Beng Liang]
3. Class by Division: Field Report [Shannon Low]
4. A Love That Is Doomed To Fail, 29 May 05 [Peter Hu]
5. Maybe an impossibility [Rachel Koh]
6. Trexi Series 2 Launch: Field Report [Shannon Low]
7. Cigarettes mixed in the arms of rain [Yisa Zhuang]
8. :: city of the silent :: [bruisedpoppyseed]
Editorial
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You called yourself a Hemingway fan.
This defined you. Obsessed you. Consumed your evenings, still in uniform, pondering whether something was lost in the translation. "No, the stories are already too short", you wrote into your Muji notebook.
On the train, you sneered at the young girls and businessmen, reading comics on their large, bright phones.
You were so proud of minimalism.
Yet one day, right in the middle of brewing silent contempt towards the kids outside Harajuku station, it occurred to you that their form of fanaticism might not be so different from yours.
Please send your comments, suggestions and contributions to: editor@the2ndrule.com
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2ndrule team : Koh Beng Liang, Shannon Low, Benety Goh, Russell Chan, Jason Tong, Adelina Ong
Contributors : Michael Aiken, Peter Hu, Rachel Koh, Yisa Zhuang, bruisedpoppyseed
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Excerpt from Sydney: 1934 13092k1 - 1811 16032k2
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1236 (CNR ABERCROMBIE AND CLEVELAND) 06102k1
Rotting lumps of meat lay
in the gutter,
two men kiss(ing) intimately
on a busy street corner.
It is summer
just before lunch
a Saturday
and Central is full
of beach-clad people.
On the footpath off Abercrombie
- opposite Caroline Lane -
a pizza
delivery bag
breathes in in sunlight.
0339 14092k1
a stray city cat
(city dwelling stray)
thinks
it
knows everything
in this street by name;
stocktakes
as it saunters past:
abandoned cars, beer bottles and light poles,
a plain plastic chair.
2042 2492k1 (still in Federation St)
bats squeak, a great bird
flaps between the trees, lands on a bouncing
wire.
An elderly woman, bent, animated,
calls: "Atlas!"
to her reluctant dog.
Shadows lope across the ground
- wings hawk and swoop
from tree to
tree
right round to
the far side of the park.
A number of people
play on the swings
- it is far too late
at night
for children.
The foxes have gotten
Closer
and voices call across the grass:
"ow, aouw!"
1634 25092k1
A middle aged
Chinese lady
slowly turns
her floral print
bamboo umbrella
under the awning of the Marlborough Hotel
staring through the rain.
**
- Michael Aiken
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http://www.thecoolhunter.net
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Instant Cafe Radio Episode 33
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Iwo Jima this, Clint.
http://the2ndrule.com/issues/issue56/instantcafe.html
Playlist:
National Anthem - Japan
Sunaga T Experience - Main Street Electrical Parade (Influence Du Jazz Mix)
Umekichi - Samisen Boogie Woogie
Misora Hibari - I Can't Tell A Waltz From A Tango
Kim Jong Il (Trey Parker) - I'm So Ronery (Team America: World Police Soundtrack)
Meiko Kaji - Urami Bushi
Teresa Teng - Toki no nagare ni mi wo makase (Wo Zhi Zai Hu Ni Japanese Version)
Frances Yip - Kassai
Love Psychedelico - Happiness
(Shinjuku Station JR Line Chime)
Jazzanova - Fedimes Flight (Kyoto Jazz Massive Mix)
Pizzicato Five - Tout tout pour ma cherie
Shonen Knife - Top of the world
OKI - Afghan Herbal Garden
(excerpt from Kazuo Ishiguro interview)
Shigeru Umebeyashi - Yumeiji's Theme (In The Mood For Love Soundtrack)
Eri Sugai - Iroha Song
Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts - See You Space Cowboy (Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack)
- Selection and mix by Koh Beng Liang
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The hottest DJ in Moscow
http://www.benzi.ru/index.html
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Class by Division: Field Report
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On 9 November 2005, fFurious and Hooked Clothings launched their collaborative label, "Class by Division" with an exhibition of hand-made t-shirts, accessories, customised skateboard decks, photographs and silkscreen paintings at Asylum.
In the words of its creators, "Class" is a product label based on the idea of recognising the lines of division and differentiation in our lives, and yet finding a way to stay united. It is an opportunity to explore a level of depth that most fashion labels do not, as well as a breadth extending beyond t-shirts to other forms of expression.
http://www.the2ndrule.com/issues/issue56/classarticle/class.html
Alex Koh, creator of Hooked Clothings (HC): The t-shirt is the most basic form of garment, and as designers, we all have our roots in the t-shirt, printing our own t-shirts in school and so forth. With "Class", we're producing t-shirts from scratch, but we're also exploring the reasons behind the techniques of production. In our designs, we've cut raw edges, used beads, silkscreened prints, bleached materials, added custom items and details, and even did some re-sewing.
Little Ong, Founder of fFurious (fF): The entire project took six months to plan and three months to produce. In the beginning, it took about two months to produce just three or four designs.
HC: It's been tiring and stressful at times, but it's also been a fun process. It's quite different for us because we spent a lot of time researching the themes, developing the concepts for the t-shirts, sourcing materials and finally producing the t-shirts by hand.
fF: There are ten classes or themes in the collection, one for each design - religion, race, education, sex, anatomy, military, drugs, music, occupation and nature. So each t-shirt design was based on one of these themes. We also created an additional theme - relations - as a collaboration with Chris Lee of Asylum.
HC: For example, for the theme of "race", we chose red indians as our central idea. The research we did into the lives and culture of red indians informed our choice of materials such as feathers and beads in the design. The point was to express the reason beyond the graphics.
fF: "Class" will be part of the Singapore Design Festival and will run at Asylum on Ann Siang Hill from 9 to 15 November. The collection was sponsored by Fabulous Printers, Red Bull, Asahi Beer, Spitfire, Ruby Photo and RJ Paper. We hope for it to be a yearly event.
HC: What we really liked about creating "Class" was that it allowed us t explore things that we don't normally have time for, and play around with materials not normally used for those purposes.
Watching fFurious and Hooked Clothings painstakingly hand-make a single t-shirt over two hours makes us think of labour camps. These days, most t-shirts are printed by machine, so "Class" has a nice man versus machine, back to basics twist about it. It's labour-intensive and time-consuming, but it also gives the designers time to think about it as they're doing it. And there's something about hand-making the product to the extent that they do. After all, Jesus was a carpenter, wasn't he?
So what is "Class" about? Artworks to think about; thought in a t-shirt. If you've missed it, contact Hooked Clothings or fFurious for more information. Or visit http://www.division.sg
- Interview and photos by Shannon Low
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Do it yourself! Rasterbator
http://homokaasu.org/rasterbator
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A Love That Is Doomed To Fail, 29 May 05
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Long before you and I began
before the world sacked and pillaged our virginities
before God predestined my name to feature in the Book of Life
before your free will dictated that you would build the Great Wall around you
before the laws of mathematics dictated that two quarters could not
plausibly have made up a whole
before cracks and splinters were a matter of course
before the gleam in our respective eyes
before your timidity and my temerity
before hell ceded from heaven
before my hopes of acceptance and belonging were overtaken by events
Ours was a love that was doomed to fail.
- Peter Hu
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Etched in Time
http://www.gvetchedintime.com
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Maybe an impossibility
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there is not a word I comprehend -
you belong to the characters
of a literary storyline
I cannot decipher
beyond the context of
misinterpretation.
sieving through the pages,
I map out lines of irrelevance
within the
blueprint
of your mindscape -
random gestures
of goodbyes;
shuffling between
hyperbolic acts of
affection.
coy moves
betray
signs of brief
committment.
the cloth you wring
into a twisted
graphic representation of
your mangled heart -
at once
callous
and
destitute.
and was it the desire for
ordinariness in common placing
that you hide behind
the veil of
novel adoration?
maybe it isn't so -
could I have
disentangled the knots
of the once
ruined puzzle
of this literary storyline?
your intrigue strangeness
subsides
into a known
familiarity.
silence became
our conversation of
many words.
- Rachel Koh
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Auschwitz, the comicbook
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0810948311/qid%3D1119336939/sr%3D8-1/ref%3Dsr%5F8%5Fxs%5Fap%5Fi1%5Fxgl14/102-0365723-8728154?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
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Trexi Series 2 Launch: Field Report
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The good people at Play Imaginative invited superstar designers to customise a car, while the2ndrule custom trexi got some airtime at the Trexi Series 2 launch exhibition.
Check it out!
http://www.the2ndrule.com/issues/issue56/trexishow/trexishow.html
- Photos by Shannon Low
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http://www.playimaginative.com/
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Cigarettes mixed in the arms of rain
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Cigarettes mixed in the arms of rain,
share the same disintegration with it.
We share a storm in our kiss -
it strikes down everything with its small fierce hands.
There is nothing left of us to catch.
- Yisa Zhuang
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Time for Christmas shopping and wrapping paper!
http://www.space-invaders.com/shop
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:: city of the silent ::
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whisper whisper
murmurs of discontent
whisper whisper
be careful of the men
whisper whisper
who spirit you away
whisper whisper
you have no choice, no buts, no say
whisper whisper
- bruisedpoppyseed
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More appropriate Christmas gifts!
http://www.tgclothing.com/main.htm
See you again soon!
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Excerpt from Sydney: 1934 13092k1 - 1811 16032k2 (c) 2005 Michael Aiken
Instant Cafe Radio Episode 33 (c) 2005 Koh Beng Liang
Class by Division: Field Report (c) 2005 Shannon Low
A Love That Is Doomed To Fail, 29 May 05 (c) 2005 Peter Hu
Maybe an impossibility (c) 2005 Rachel Koh
Trexi Series 2 Launch: Field Report (c) 2005 Shannon Low
Cigarettes mixed in the arms of rain (c) 2005 Yisa Zhuang
:: city of the silent :: (c) 2005 bruisedpoppyseed
