Chinese Valentine's Day/Lighthouse Day/Say 'Cheese' Day/Unity In Diversity Day/Pickle Festival (Indiana)/Carnation Festival (Ohio)/Sweet Corn Festival (Illinois)/Jazz Festival (California)
2008-08-07 @ 11:58 p.m.

I got scouted by some lady from Create Talents today, while walking to the MRT station from Takashimaya. It was really random! I was walking behind Kay Hwee, then someone tapped my shoulder. I turned around and she asked if I spoke Chinese. When I replied in the affirmative, she said she's with a company that's looking for "new faces". I went to check out the website when I got home, and I recognised some of the stuff their models have been featured in. Obviously, there's going to be a catch somewhere, but it is a rather amusing anecedote to recount. Nothing'll come of it, naturally, since MOE would never allow it. Sigh. So much for gracing magazine covers. Haha! Bought only two books today because I was exercising heroic restraint.

Tree/House was quite disappointing, considering what spell#7 and Ho Tzu Nyen did for The King Lear Project. Paul Rae's Tree Duet was an experimental narrative, held together by the tree imagery. The most incredible moment occurred when Kaylene Tan taped a bonsai to his belly and then placed a lamp in front of his supine body, which resulted in an enlarged shadow being cast on the wall behind. Then he got up with the tree still stuck to him, and more disastrously, stayed that way till the end, which sort of ruined everything. The narrative segments were intensely personal, sometimes to the point of excluding rather than engaging the audience. I suppose the problem with Tree Duet was that it wasn't really saying anything new. Yes, we know Singapore's a city that seems to be constantly burying its past. Yes, we know that as Singaporeans that sort of thing can really do a number on your sense of identity. So? Tzu Nyen's House Of Memory was more arresting. It featured snippets of film threaded together into a sort of visual soundtrack for his lecture on the art of memory. I found it thought-provoking, but that might be because I've been reading an anthology on that subject recently. The last couple of minutes felt like a gratuitous series of escalating explosions though. Overall, not a very satisfying way to spend $27. The King Lear Project was way better compared to this. Then again, it also cost me about four times as much!