How To Get the Most Out of Your Jet Lag:

was the title of the first book of poetry I've ever bought, after walking into a shop selling books by artists in Amsterdam. Turned out to be a total gem. Donald Gardner, the poet, couldn't be more spot-on about how I feel right now about myself, about my glum future, and about being uninspired in general.


Daffodils in Picadilly

I wandered lonely as a cloud,
speaking my pointless thoughts out loud,
till all at once I saw a tree.
My God, I thought, that tree is me.

The tree stood lonely in a field
shivering with nausea and cold.
"Trees aren't supposed to reason why,
but if you're me, then who am I?"

"Oh! tree", I said, "I was a fool;
I forgot the things I learned at school.
I wasted my time in stupid play.
If life's a road, I lost my way,

I wish I waved my arms like you
and grew as tall and slow and true
towards the sky; but oh! dear tree,
I seem to have lost my identity."

Politely then the tree replied:
"Your metaphysics is for the birds.
Just piss off with your bellyaching;
If you think I care, you're quite mistaken.

I guess I could squeeze in lunch with you
if you phone me in a week or two.
But I've a caller on the other line,
plus I've a date at 8 to dine

with Oscar Wilde in Piccadilly.
Spending time with you would be too silly
when I can drink hock in the Trocadero
with the wittiest writer of our era.

We modern trees have too much to do
to help sort out the likes of you."
So saying, he briskly turned his back,
straightened his tie and hailed a cab,

then, leaning through the window, said,
"a field's no place to make a date",
and left, not giving me the chance
to spoil his new Armani suit
by hanging myself from his lowest branch.


Pessoa Palimpest

Today I feel totally confused, like someone who has forgotten
everything he knew.
I'm a complete failure,
not a dramatic one, just unimportant.
Instead of the philosopher's barrel, it's the dustbin of history
for me.
I can't remember ever having done anything memorable in my
life; perhaps it was all nothing.
I was taught plenty of things; no one can say I haven't had a
good education; my knowledge might be called
encyclopedic; I threw it all away.
It wouldn't have done me any good anyway, since I don't
know who I am.


Chicken with Madness

(on poets, but just as fitting on artists)

...We make a fetish of decadence.
We think of sex the whole time.
We don't go to bed at normal hours.
Our brains are full of cobwebs.
We are walking examples of the harm done by masturbation.
We can't write without the aid of artificial stimuli - drugs or
alcohol.
We are totally lacking in self-discipline.
We represent a persistent and endemic failure of the will,
typical of our time.
We are incapable of any great works.
The forms of poetry are finished.
Nothing awaits us but insanity and an early grave.

...We have a Peter Pan complex.
We have a Hamlet complex.
We have a Faust complex.
We have an Electra complex.
We have a Medea complex.
We have an Antigone complex.
We have a Cinderella complex.
We have a Don Juan complex.

We have a vitamin B complex.

...We have no respect for tradition.
We are incapable of anything new.
We only know how to destroy.

...We give a new dimension to the word "pervert".
Our trances are self-induced.
we are exhibitionists, narcissists, catatonics.
The whole pschiatric laundry list applies.

...Who says we are damned?
And what is hell?

Booty-shaking at the Ministry of Sound:

To Rui Da Silva and Norman Jay (I think) with me bosom buddy KK [in every sense of the word ;) ] I've been curious about the lengendary club since my days of reading Sugar and Just Seventeen. Thx to Ks I finally got to go to the Mama of London clubs. It took a while for things to warm up, but once it did, it was sweeter than I thought house could ever be.
Older crowd than at Fabric, and plenty of propositioners of brown-skin origin! Too bad the cuties I was eyeing on were busy dancing on the bar table ;P

Confessions of a Design Junkie:

Hi, my name is CY and I have a design addiction.
You realise you have a serious problem when:
a) You pay 2 euros for a teeny weeny bottle of water, just cos the spherical bottle is helplessly adorable.

b) You drool at kitchenware at HEMA. {To justify this, imagine things as good looking as Alessi at IKEA prices}
You wonder how on earth to fit it all in your tiny suitcase. Then you walk away sulking when you realise it can't be done and you must put back all the stuff you have randomly put into your basket.
c) You think all other airports should have signage as clean, bold and as sexy as the ones at Schiphol.

Low Carbs? Atkins? You talking to me?

Am happy to report that have been munching and shopping to oblivion here at AMS. The Flemish is v. good at starchy comfort foods, perfect for the chilly weather here (but still, no snow!! =D)

I heart starch!

Memorable Meals:

[Day 1]
- Pear pie, fresh from the oven at Beck's Simply Bites. To top it off, the decor is a super-sleek Gucci flagship silhouettes meets green 70's retro chic.
- Delish lunch at Stout! with pumpkin buttersquash soup *winter bliss*
- Pancake the size of a 12" record with nuts, cointreu liquor, syrup, mandarins and PILES of whipped cream... somewhere between a French crepe and an American pancake.

[Day 2]
- Demitri's: the lunch was so-so, but the waiter is good looking enough to be a Hugo Boss model ;)
- Chocolate + walnut gateau at Pompadour. It's heaven!! The tempting display of truffles, cookies and cakes mean I'll be back... for more, and with company nx time.
- Indonesian fried noodles at Spang-Makandra

[Day 3]
- Mofo-big apple pie with LOTS of whipped cream at the Bijenkorf cafe. [cream = milk = calcium = good for health according to me]
- Indonesian roti at Albert Cuyp: Roti is floppy and pancake-like, unlike the Malaysian fried-doughy ones that I'm used to. The curry is a lot thicker than I expected as well. Anyone care to enlighten me on why that is so?

[Day 4]
- Lunch at De Waag, the ex weighing house / prison / torturing ground for witches. The place was lit with huge Medieval rings of candles hung from the ceiling, and the toilets in the basement looks (and smells) like ex-cells. Spooky.
- Flemish fries!!!! Hmm salty potatoes drenched in oil... with piquant peanut sauce (all over my fingers and coat :p )
- Tea at The Round Blue Tea House in Vondelpark. Late winter afternoon sun + good Functionalist architecture + a hot Chocomel (caramel chocolate milk) with lots of whipped cream = the perfect end to my outting here in AMS.

No Tulips?!

2nd time in AMS, and still no luck with the national flower. The Keukenhof gardens are open the day AFTER I leave.
Bugger bugger bugger.

Merry Go Round at Heathrow:

8.30 - outta Terminal 4 from my transatlantic flight
9.00 - check in at Terminal 1
10.00 - strolled to departure lounge to go to flight scheduled at 10.45
10.15 - board announced that flight was delayed to 11.45
10.30 - board suddenly read (or I misread) that gate is closing
10.31 - ran to gate (what felt like) 0.8 miles away from departure lounge.
10.34 - gate closed. Ground attendant asked me where I'm off to. I tell him Amsterdam. Wrong gate. I was fuct.
10.36 - Ground attendant told me that the flight was scheduled for 12.00.
10.45 - couldn't get back to departure lounge without going thru security. The line for connecting flights went on for miles and miles with enough ppl to fill Noah's ark.
11.00 - walked through customs as arrivals, entering UK territory for the 2nd time in the morning.
11.30 - cleared security the 2nd time.
11.45 - boards Amsterdam-bound flight.

All this time carrying 10kg tote + laptop somewhere between my shoulders, forearm and fingers.
My lower back is aching.

First signs of spring:*

Did you know Russet Potato plants have lilac flowers with orange stigmas?
My potato tree plant has bloomed! *hearts fluttering*

How to grow a potato tree:
Soil + potato + water => 1 month later => 2 feet tree

*Update: Never mind what I said about spring. It just snowed 6 inches today [3/16/2004]

NEW BLOG! >>>> Make it sweeter<<<<

Galpals documented. [Co-authored by me ;P ]

Beijing, the new playground for architects:

Andreu's Egg - the new Beijing Opera House

Herzog and de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Paul Andreu... all the big names now have projects going on in the Capital. It'll be an exciting decade to come in terms of new architecture. But there's always the question of architecture Vs. sustainable urban planning: progress is all good, until you start leaving the People behind. What will happen to all the 四合院 (the courtyard houses), the 胡同 (neighbourhood alleys), the old communities and their old ways of life? As we speak, they are getting bulldozed over to make way for the glossy new buildings and infrastructure. I can't help but feel that the Chinese government is repeating the classic mistakes made in Brasilia and Chandigarh. New architecture + non-human scaled urban spaces does not = urban vitality.

Sheepfilms.co.uk

aaah... them cute films

[via Geisha Asobi]

Sometimes I like to stare, really hard, at my pudgy belly:

Whenever the weather gets gloomy and I feel like wallowing in my day-to-day melodramas, I like to take the most unscenic path to school. For some inexplicable reason, I find walking on that two track railway strangely calming. A thin, desolate strectch of wasteland linking Cambridge to Boston that hardly sees more than 2 trains a week. Normal people don't go near the tracks. I've only seen drunks, homeless people and the occasional New Age couple trailing along. That or train drivers trying to hold a conversation with anyone who happens to be around.

On some mornings, liquid nitrogen will be spilling out of the ginormous gas tanks onto the tracks, making huge rivers of fog. It puts the place right into an espionnage movie. Getting lost in the fog is both terrifying and strangely exciting, specially when you can feel the chill of the liquid nitrogen on your legs.

Sometimes when the weather is clear, the sunset puts an aurora / halo-like glow on the exhaust smoke coming out of the giant chimney next to the track. I've never seen that amazing quality of light anywhere else. God knows how many MIT students have tried to photograph that smoke, that chimney, that intersection. But it never turns out well.

Chicago:

Never have I been so glad to be back in Boston.

The Windy City turned out to be a big let-down, from the architecture-textbook skyscrapers to the Magnificent Mile, from the L to deep pan pizza. Perhaps it would have been better if I visited in the summer or if I saw the Frank Lloyd Wright's, but the city was a die-hard urbanite's (hmm, moi) vision of hell, second only to picket fenced suburbs:

- At $1.75 a pop, can the L move any slower? Boston's T, as shabby and rickety as it is, looks like the Shinkansen by comparison.
- The whole city looks just like Corbu's or FLW's versions of urban utopia - 8 lane streets designed with cars moving at maximal velocity in mind and NOT the average pedestrian taking a Sunday afternoon stroll.... let's see if I can make it to the finishing line on other side of the street before the "WALK" signal changes and a car runs me over.
- The weather forecast said 10'C (50'F). Naturally I forgot about my A Level geography - microclimates anomalous to the forecast, i.e. froze my metaphorical bollocks off, thanks to the influence of skyscraper canyon induced wind tunnels and permanently overshadowed streets.
- Maybe it's winter, but how can a city with such building density be so devoid of life?? Do ppl only mill around Michigan Ave?
- Sears Tower sucked. At $10 I want to feel the full wind-shear and 6 ft sway on the 103rd floor. I seriously considered jumping off, or at least chucking an unwanted book out to see who I can kill, but the Skydeck was sealed with glass, floor to ceiling.
- I've learnt my lesson: architecture-history-textbook department stores does not = place for cute-shoe shopping. Marshall Field's is a Selfridge's / Harvey Nics wannabe, and Carson Pirie Scott doesn't even make it onto my map of memorable department stores.
- The Prairies - dull, non-descript malls that went on for miles and miles. Decentralisation hell. Was FLW on crack when he thought up of Broadacre City?