Run for Cover

Enoch wants to reprint my poetry collection, last boy. Enoch wants a new image for the cover.

Preferably I'd like to use an image by a Singapore artist - the last image was by Brian Gothong Tan, a reworking of this graphic:


I could use one of his works again, but it'd be cooler to find a new image... the themes of the book are youth and a multicultural/homosexual coming of age...

Any suggestions?

A Queer Singapore Literature Talk with Writers Johann S. Lee + Me

PELANGI PRIDE CENTRE PRESENTS

An Afternoon with Johann S Lee
(Author of 'Peculiar Chris' and 'To Know Where I'm Coming From')
& Ng Yi-Sheng
(Poet and playwright, also known for his documentary book, 'SQ21: Singapore Queers in the 21st Century')

Saturday, 29 December 2007
Pelangi Pride Centre @ Bianco (21 Tanjong Pagar Rd, Level 4)
4-6pm
RSVP to pelangipridecentre@yahoo.com

Pelangi Pride Centre is proud to present a special event on the last
Saturday of 2007 - an afternoon with author, Johann S Lee, and
Ng Yi-Sheng, poet and playwright.

Many of us will remember with great nostalgia, the feeling of reading
Singapore's first gay novel, 'Peculiar Chris' when it was released in 1992.
Relive your first furtive glances at Singaporean gay literature in this
afternoon with the author.

Also get a chance to quiz Johann about the motivations in writing his second
novel 'To Know Where I'm Coming From'. Why did he take so long before
penning this second book?

Yi-Sheng (who majored in Comparative Literature & Writing at Columbia
University USA and curated IndigNation), together with Johann, will
facilitate a discussion around the relevance of Singapore gay fiction.

Join us on Saturday, 29 December at Pelangi Pride Centre,
for an informal and interactive afternoon.

About Johann's Latest Book: 'To Know Where I'm Coming From'

"A gripping story of love, caught between the gay worlds of London and
Singapore, unashamedly describing queer life as it is today: sexy and
sordid, romantic and political, frustrated and ecstatic."
- Ng Yi-Sheng, poet and playwright

"Hauntedly captivating and quietly powerful. Set against a diorama of
nostalgia and irresistible change, Lee observantly explores the ache of
falling in love and falling apart. For a Singapore which has evolved since
Peculiar Chris, Lee's assured second novel revisits the notions of choice
and choosing in a manner which, to his readers, has become not just
necessary, but imperative."
- Daren Shiau, author

"Read his novel... for its sheer honesty and at times heart wrenching
moments... Its importance in staking a claim in the territory of the
narrative of the overseas gay Singaporean male as well as the matured
Singaporean gay male experience, is not to be underestimated."
- Trevvy.com

"To read this book is not just to know where the author is coming from, but
to recognise, as gay people in a postmodern Asia, ourselves. How we love,
where we hope to go. Who we are."
- Fridae.com

I Am a Face to Watch

We've all had a good laugh about this article - it describes me as "a writer with a finger in every pie", and god knows that's the truth - and they haven't even documented my theatre review work, my performance poetry, my experimental poetry and my multimedia collaborations with VISTA Lab. (Coincidentally, Torrance Goh, our VISTA set designer, got named as a face to watch in this week's design and fashion segment. Woot, but by the time the papers recognise it, it's already old news.)


It's very good company to be in - choreographer/dancer/artist/interdisciplinarian/JC teacher Daniel K, curators Low Sze Wee, Matthew Ngui and Joselina Cruz, and actress Mindee Ong of 881 - who, incidentally, is described at being best at playing "women who are down but not out". Giggle giggle.

Reading in Kuala Lumpur

I'll be having a reading tomorrow (Sunday 9 December) in KL:

“Wayang Kata V”

Poetry performance at night with Charlie Dark (UK), Chris Mooney-Singh, Pooja Nansi, Ng Yi-Sheng and Bani Haykal (Singapore) and Priya Kulasagaran, Liyana Yusof, Divya Jiwa and Jerome Kugan (Malaysia). Presented by British Council and the Troubagangers.

8:30-11pm,
Sunday 9 December

No Black Tie
17 Jalan Mesui
Off Jalan Nagasari, Tel: 2142 3737).

VISTA LAB 2.0: INTERFERENCE

Presented by TheatreWorks

A Process-Presentation by

Choy Ka Fai

In collaboration with

_Joavien Ng _ Mohd Fared Jainal,

_Patricia Toh _Ling Hock Siang

_Ng Yi-Sheng _Zulkifle Mahmod,

_Khoo Eng Tat _GraceTan/kwodrent,

_Lim Woan Wen _Torrance Goh/FARMWORK.

Date : 14-15 Dec 2007

Time : 8pm

Venue: 72-13

Admission: $5

For Reservations ring 6737 7213 or email : tworks@singnet.com.sg

**There will be a Q & A session after the presentations.

INTERFERENCE is about unwanted signals that disrupt or construct movements of nature. It is about the interventions of patterns in history, time, signal and noise.

INTERFERENCE explores the concept of listening to the noise of history: moments which are insignificant in our collective memory. This presentation researches our techniques of remembering and the recollections of irrelevant episodes of unrecorded history.

INTERFERENCE is a space as well as an organism. This mediated space functions as an interactive installation and a performance environment where moving bodies, electronic sounds, visual documents and light are interwoven into a constantly changing artefact of unhistorical events.

********

If history is signal, then time itself must be recognized as noise: an infinitely complex mess of data that resists interpretation.

Our project is therefore to listen to the noise of history, moments, which yield no discernible signal: the insignificant events.

Herein lies a paradox. As artists, as humans, we have a natural impulse to transmute chaos into art.

Is our goal then to reclaim the forgotten into the field of recorded time?

Or should we resist, in our representations of insignificant events, our instinct to render them significant?

********

Conceived and created by Choy Ka Fai, V.I.S.T.A Lab is a series of presentations

resulting from workshop and experiments with the 10 Singapore-based artist/designer across the wide spectrum of artistic discipline. This project is based on the central theme of re-looking at historical events that escapes our people’s memories, seemingly deemed insignificant in our invention of a vibrant, global city. We are interested in the lapses of our recent histories and the understanding of the past to imagine the future.

INTERFERENCE is the second of three presentations of V.I.S.T.A Lab Cycle 1; the third presentations will be held in February 2008.

**For more informations please visit

www.vistalabbers.blogspot.com

www.theatreworks.org.sg / www.72-13.com

Supported by

National Arts Council, Lee Foundation, Hong Leong Foundation,

72-13, Web-vision and Power98

With additional support by

Mixed Reality Lab, NUS

Launch of OVER THERE: Poems from Singapore and Australia

Yeah, I'm awful. Forgot to tell people about this. Well, might as well blog it so it looks like I'm professional enough to inform my adoring fans.

(Incidentally, why did they have to use they nekkid photo of me in the papers today? I mean, seriously?)

7pm
6 Dec 2007 (TODAY!!!)
The Arts House (Earshot).

Edited by John Kinsella and Alvin Pang, the volume features over 150 pages of poetry from each territory, including new and recent material from some of the most prominent living poets in Singapore and Australia. We are especially pleased to be able to include new work from Lee Tzu Pheng, Madeleine Lee, Ng Yi-Sheng, Enoch Ng Kwang Cheng, Teng QianXi, Kirpal Singh, Edwin Thumboo, Toh Hsien Min, Cyril Wong, Robert Yeo and a host of others.

Australian editor John Kinsella has flown in just for the launch -- and we hope to see all of you there in support of what we believe will be another groundbreaking anthology.