Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Blogfest 2006

Event Highlight: NUS Blogfest 2006

Duration: 27th Feb to 27th Mar


Good evening fellows, it seems I have been remiss in my updates again. You must pardon me for I have had the busiest few weeks ever. It would appear that all deadlines have a preference for coming together at the same time. Even now, I am still rushing to meet them. However, let this be a snap update. As you guests have known, someone has kindly encouraged me to participate in this NUS Blogfest. For my foreign guests, NUS simply refers to National University Of Singapore.

It is an event where people vote for their favourite blogs in three categories, namely Best NUS Blog, Most Creative Blog and Funniest Blog.

My weblog has been entered into the Most Creative Blog.


Now this is where you come in my dear guest. You get to vote and decide whether I will win this poll or not. If other blogs in the category rouses your interest more than mine, you have the license to go ahead and vote for them. If not, to me people, to me!

Here comes the tricky part after you have decided who to vote for. Owning to renowned bureaucracy of our esteemed and much lauded University, there are a few procedures that you have to go through. And consider yourself lucky that it is but a FEW only. Imagine the suffering of those who have to encounter the mammoth every day!


Firstly, you have to register at
Livewire. This will create a user account for you where you can vote. You will have to provide a userid and your email address and thereafter they will send the password to your email.

With that password, you can now proceed to login HERE. After logging in, you should be able to see a screen featuring other links. Click on the VOTE HERE link.

If not, clicking
HERE will take you to the same space as well.

Where am I? I see you asking...


Well, there are 3 categories there and I am to be found in the middle, NUS Most Creative Blog. Click there and you will find my weblog address. Be sure to vote for the correct person.


Now now, I see you shaking your head. Fear not, I am not passing myself up as the mortal with the most creative blog in NUS. I do think that there are others out there who are better. No worries on that score.


Before I end, don't forget to vote for me! And there are many more updates to come, for instance spy something new in this weblog. Two in fact!


Till then, gracias.


Postscript: The best thing is, you people can vote DAILY, which means a vote a day!

Friday, February 24, 2006

Event Highlight

Event: Evening of Poetry and Music
Date: 25th Feb, 4pm (this Sat)
Venue: University Cultural Centre Dance Studio
Dress Code: Smart Casual
Miscellany: Photography/video-recording allowed, no food and drinks

What's happening:
This revolves around the NUS Literary Society's annual Creative Writing competition, where the prizes will be given out to the winners on that day. Additionally, there will be poetry readings and performances by Leeson, with an Open Mic session at the end. Cyril Wong our local poet, will also be there.

Sadly, I would not be able to make it to the event. But keep in mind next Tuesday's poetry slam at Velvet Underground. I'll see you then.


Yours sincerely,
Aristocrat


Postscript: If I may suggest something, here is a map of the location to aid you in your travelling.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Poetry Slam

Ahh, finally I have time to sit down and catch a breather. Do pardon me, for it has been a whirlwind of many weeks. Yours truly have entered into a few new enterprises, that's why. One gets bored when nothing happens. With the academic work piling up too, there was hardly any time to write.

These minor details aside my dear reader, do you smell the wind of change? I tasted it. Yes, tasted the wind. Think synaethesia. Somehow, I do believe that the period of darkness is almost over. Aristocrat is dying. And perhaps, there is no need to sustain it any longer, but to let it go.

To face change, that's what we are all afraid of. But I find it to be strangely exhilirating and re-invigorating, in fact. Not to change with the times, but to change, to improve in other words, when one feels that stasis is near.

I am bored. Bored of writing the same things in the same way over and over again. One needs to learn new styles of writing, of presentation. And that is why, I found myself in a poetry slam workshop. To learn more about performing poetry, as opposed to reading or reciting poetry. This poetry performance is more well-known as poetry slam in the States.

Poets go up to the stage to perform his or her own piece of work. It must be within the span of 3 minutes and the judges are usually 3 people chosen from the audience. And when the poet performs, you can feel the intensity, the emotions of the poem, the super-charged air rather than someone standing in the library reciting a poem. I had just done an unofficial slam in the workshop and came out all the better for it.

Learnt new things, made new friends. Still no longer.

Poets performing. Who would have thought of it? I wouldn't. But in case you are interested in Singapore's Poetry Slam, please do drop by:

Event: Poetry Slam
Date: 28th February (held monthly, on the last Tue of every month)
Venue: Zouk
Time: 7.30pm to 10.00pm
Price: SGD$10 (includes one free drink)

See for yourself what Singapore poets have to say besides the usual crap of politics and what-nots. Listen not to a recital, but a high energy performance. However, if the poet chooses to perform a quiet piece, I am not to be held liable for anything.

But I will be there too. And then you can have your chance to sling mud at me.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Poetry du Blanc

Event notice: Poetry du Blanc/open mic sessions

Where: Books Actually/ 125a Telok Ayer Street
Contact: 62211170

When: 11 Feb '06 (Sat), 2pm

Price: Admission is FREE

What: Books Actually and NUS Literary Society are having the 1st Poetry du Blanc open-mic session on the date and time mentioned above.


Recite a prose, a poem, a letter, a page, a paragrap, a sentence, a word (one has no idea how to recite a word!) - anything at all. The only condition is to keep it wordy and of course, no songs. An indoor picnic happens at the same time so patrons are advised to bring along a cushion, a mat, a newspaper. Drinks and tibits may be purchased at the bookstore.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Traffic

He stood there quietly, as if waiting for someone. Or something. A figure cut out from the dark shadows, watching the traffic whizzed by and by. Until it was almost a blur. Until those faces, whom might be his neighbour, his friend's parent or someone remotely related to him, became those vehicles in which they were in.

Something struck him about those faces. Something about a story behind every one of them in fact. Who was to know that the person driving the Beemer wasn't rich, but in fact, belong to the nouveau riche? The Singapore nouveau riche, not those established tycoons. These people were just living on borrowed time. Or who was to know that the young kid (that looked 20 but was actually 27) driving the Toyota Celica was no silver-spoon-in-the-mouth kid but a young entreprenuer who sloughed his way through to get to where he was today. Or that budding artist on the public bus with that exuberant look, who had struggled for years to get his art exhibited and had finally succeeded today.


Who? Who but him to see all that? Those faces hiding behind a facade of vehicles. A facade of traffic.

One car, two cars, three taxis, oh that's four taxis now. Not three. A Harley over there. An uncommon sight. More cars coming now...He gave up counting them. It was a fruitless effort. Fruitless to distinguish Much like what those people in their modes of transport were. Fruitless efforts of creation. Traffic. All heading in one direction. Destruction.

With a deep sigh, he took out a cigarette and lit it. In that brief moment, the flame did its best to drive away the enveloping darkness. But as quickly as it was taken out, it was extinguished. No trace of it remained. And the darkness insidiously reclaimed what was rightfully its.

The cigarette smoke snaked slowly upwards, making more rounds above his folded arm. He took a deep breath and puffed out the remainder of the toxins. No wonder some wanted to save only the animals and not humans. No wonder Atlantis was sunk. But who remembers that now? In this age of science, no one really cared for anything anymore. What advancements are there now? No Leonardo da Vinci, no Chopin, no Shakespeare. Only Dolly, the cloned sheep.

Another sigh. This one much deeper, as though he was attempting to physically force out his depression from the depths of his liver. The cigarette, now almost to its end, dropped to the pavement. And without any attempt to stump it out, he stretched out his hand and flagged a cab.

To fade into the traffic beyond...