I choose light

 

The words we say today, we'll say

And we'll see them again, we'll see them again

So I choose my words so carefully

Like the sun, make it glow, or they glare at me

Well, I choose light

Light that won't

Keep me up at night

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I am in love! I want so bad to be at Coachella now. There's a certain quality in their music that speaks of honesty and light and summer; it shines so evidently, even in the depths of a dark Brooklyn apartment. 

It frustrates me sometimes that I live here. I know I should be grateful to; there are so many reasons to be thankful for Singapore. But just by being here, I will never experience the secret pleasure of being at a clandestine underground gig, or feel the surge of thousands of people at a music festival become one, in the space of a song. 

The complete set-list 

hosted by La Blogotheque / The Switch

Saw You First

Atlantic 

Meantime

Up Up Up

Wandering 

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 2

'What inspired you to get into theatre?' 

'My friend pressured me into auditioning for the school play. I was sick and unwilling to fight so I did and I managed to score one of the lead roles. Prior to that I was simply happy being an audience member captivated by what took place onstage.  But when I realized I could be a part of that experience as well and present truthfully to people that which isn't true, I fell in love with it. I know I sound like a sociopathic liar but I'm not, honest. Life is about telling stories, and telling them well.' 

'Was there a particular pivotal moment, or experience?' 

'One life-changing experience was when I went to watch a tiny production of Oliver Twist. Cast of 5 and only 2 major props which doubled as a boat, door, coffin, gallows, Fagin's underground shithole for runaways and other assorted naughty children, etc. Every single one of the songs were sung in 5-part harmony and it was fantastic. I think I was 14 when I watched it. I stayed back to congratulate Fagin and when I saw him up close, my mind was blown to see how a skinny, 6-foot-tall man could have been so many things on that stage. I think I still have that ticket with me.'

Elizabeth Mak, 19

High school thespian 

Quotes from the Lesser-Known: Part 1

'What is your favourite place in the world?' 

'Paris.' 

'Ah...Really?' 

'Oui.' 

'But why?' 

'(laughs) I'm sure the answer you wanted was something tinged with age-old wisdom that's often associated with seasoned travellers, like 'My favourite place is wherever I am'. I would love to tell you that, but then I'd be lying. Truthfully, I am in love with the cliché that is metropolitan Paris. I am in love with the nostalgic images, the smells of crisp baguettes and hot espressos on a Monday morning, I am in love with the beautiful men (yes, men). I am even in love with my noisy, cigarette-smoking French neighbours, and my grumpy landlady. I sometimes dream of kissing a stranger in the middle of a busy street, like that famous photograph... yes, well, that is how much I am enfolded in the Parisian dream. I might be a cliché, but at least I'm happy.'  

'That's beautiful.' 

'Thank you. Of course, ask me this question again when the faucet is leaking, or when I have three classical lit papers to write, or when I only have fourteen Euros to last me till the end of the week, and I'm sure I'd say my favourite place is anywhere but here.' 

Claudia Lee, 23

Literature student, indie snob & Francophile 

Prufrocking

'Let us go then, you and I

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells;

Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent

To lead to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'

Let us go and make our visit.

...

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet

...

For I have known them already, known them all;

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life in coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall,

Beneath the music from a farther room

So how should I presume?

...

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets,

And watch the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of the windows?

...

And I have seen the moments of my greatness flicker

And I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short,

I was afraid.

...

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red & brown,

Till human voices wake us, & we drown.'

Excerpts from 'The Lovesong of J.S. Prufrock' 

T.S. Eliot.

_____________________________________

I love that phrase: 'streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent.' I don't know the exact word to describe the way I feel when I read it, except that it is a pleasant and warm sensation that prickles through me. Strange, the things that poetry can do.

Last week, I was dozing off in a linguistics lecture, and the professor used the word insidious in a statement (which I now forget. It was related to phonetics, or sociolinguistics, or something equally sleep-inducing.) and I immediately snapped to attention. It just reminded me of this very special poem & how it made me feel. I began to smile like a complete goof & my course-mate looked at me like I was completely off my rocker. Like I was mad. 

I continued to smile widely to myself though, because it was all strange and funny and lovely to have this secret connection to a certain word that no one else knew about. Well. Perhaps all aspiring writers are a little mad, inside.   

Mix

I've never dabbled with anything to do with flour before. No cookies, no delicate french pastries, no fluffy cupcakes. I've always seen baking as a delicate art, something which involves precise measurements and the exact following of recipe steps, and then praying & hoping for the best when you put it into the oven. I've never been able to do that, but some days you wake up and you just have to eat pancakes (and not those from the box). It kinda feels like a life-and-death-situation. I'm sure you foodies can relate.

And pancakes... Well, pancakes are a nice in-between cooking and baking. The recipe is adapted from I Am Baker, a wonderful site with excellent recipes & food photography. I like it because unlike many other pancake recipes, it insists on using only egg whites. The recipes using yolks tend to produce more moist and heavier batches, which is fine too, if you like it that way. I like the insides of mine fluffy :) In fact, this recipe is so light that you could use it as a crepe mix.

On toppings and fillings: go crazy on the fruit, icing sugar, chocolate sauce and honey. One thing I love to do is to toss a few blueberries on one side of the pancake and flip it over, patting it down softly so that the berries burst and you can see beautiful irises of juice splattered on one side. Semi-sweet chocolate chips work the same way. It's nice to see the half-melted chips smeared on the top, or burst berries peeking out of one side of the pancake.

Reminiscent of all things sweet and summer. Enjoy!

Peppermint-scented Buttermilk Pancakes 
with Blueberries

The recipe halves nicely, if you're making it for two or three (go ahead and use three eggs for half the amount of batter). Highly recommended with a thick, milky cup of tea. The trick to having that smooth golden-brown hue is using vegetable oil spray instead of butter when it comes to greasing the pan (a lesson I learnt after four terrible pancakes). This video is also especially helpful when it comes to whisking the egg whites by hand. 

Ingredients

3 cups of plain flour

5 tbsp white sugar

2 tsp baking powder

5 egg whites

2 & 1/4 cups of buttermilk

50g softened butter

4 tsp vanilla extract 

Vegetable oil

Peppermint oil

Blueberries

Strawberries (optional)

Maple syrup/honey

Icing sugar

1. Place flour, sugar, baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Fold in the melted butter and mix, forming a well in the centre for the liquid ingredients.
2. Combine two cups of milk, the vanilla essence and 4-5 drops of peppermint oil/extract in another mixing bowl.
3. Whisk the egg whites into soft peaks.
4. Slowly mix the liquid mixture into the base mix, and then fold in the egg whites. By hand, it can take  a good five minutes of mixing till you get the right consistency. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of milk in slowly, to ease the mixing.
5. Grease frying pan with vegetable oil using a brush, or oil spray (anything that will coat the skillet evenly. Put on medium heat.
6. To make smaller pancakes, pour in 1/4 cup of batter at a time and spread them out a little with the back of your ladle.
7. They are ready to flip when tiny bubbles start to appear at the top. Just before flipping to the other side, add blueberries or chocolate chips on the top.
8. Pat the pancakes gently to break the berries. Fry till ready.
9. Garnish with icing sugar, and serve with halved strawberries and honey!

Makes 18 - 20 small pancakes, serves 5

Let us go then, you and I

A wishlist of books 

for the summer & years to come

A Widow for One Year - John Irving

A Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides

Milkweed - Jerry Spinelli

Selected Poems by T.S. Eliot - T.S. Eliot

The Diving Bell & The Butterfly - Jean Dominique Bauby

Schindler's Ark - Thomas Keneally

The History of Love - Nicole Krauss

We Bought a Zoo - Benjamin Mee

Delicacy - David Foenkinos

Bel Ami - Guy De Maupassant

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

The Whores Asylum - Katy Darby

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey

We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver

All is Song - Samantha Harvey

The Paris Wife - Paula McLain

______________________________________

My room is turning into some sort of wreckage site; I've run out of shelves, and floor. 

Clandestine places & little things

Once or twice

I have been tempted

on occasion 

to run away from my love of the sea

A love that could ruin me

Out of salt

and black ink

He was borne

So we waltz with a heavy step

with rosebuds peeking out beneath my dress

Oh the confidence of young lovers

But now 

the light in your eyes is dying

and the day has come

where I no longer yearn, 

skin of skin

The day has come

where the man of steel and wood

has become sparse

and silver doorknobs appear

where his eyes once were

So I sit deep in forest crevices

at the edges of cliffs,

and dream of the days

with kisses of melted butter

and unimportant things

Yet I feel less like myself than ever

The air smells of tang and despair

For it was I, who first loved you

from across the sea

___________________________________________

It's easy to feel insignificant. Sometimes, when I'm sitting at a cafe and having a perfectly amiable conversation with a friend about literature or films, I get this jolt of fear. I suddenly think of all the thoughts and conversations I've ever had, things I had thought were profound and original, and how they have all already happened. Doesn't it scare you tremendously? That your every blossoming epiphany about life and its pinnacle events have already taken place somewhere in time or space, recorded in a book of sorts. Who are we then, if not vessels to hold the recycled thoughts and experiences of greater people? Who are we, if not brilliant? 

It makes me wonder... How does one cope with the feeling of insignificance? We bake cupcakes & take long walks & write long, sad poems & read old novels who have become friends & drink mug after mug after mug of tea. We do extraordinarily, ordinary things. We do ordinary things, because often, it is the ordinary things that make us happy. And I've come to realise that in the end, one's happiness is truly the only thing that matters. 

Lent: Day 18

It's been a tough eighteen days, ya'll. It's not easy to give up two meals a day, especially on sixteen-hour school days that is full of commuting, essay-writing and the like. But this fast has been wonderful; somehow I've managed to keep the intense hunger at bay and use the extra hours for QT, which has been rewarding for the soul.

Food-wise: I've found that stuffing your face with carbs and protein during that singular meal will leave one nauseated and sickly for the rest of the night. I've not a fan of vegetables or salads, but I've been eating a lot of this dish lately for that very reason. 

It was 'created' a couple of months ago, from a box of almost-stale swiss mushrooms and a box of pea sprouts. The tomato pipérade used in this dish involves a whole lot of simmering and reducing, so pasta sauce does just fine! This warm salad tastes better if left to stand for a couple of hours.The salad is best served with toasted slices of rustic bread with a dry crumb, to eat with the leftover olive oil and vinaigrette. 

Pea Sprout & Zucchini Salad

Ingredients

1 medium/large zucchini

20 red cherry tomatoes

25 medium swiss brown mushrooms

75g of fresh pea sprouts

2 cloves of garlic

Extra Virgin olive oil

White wine vinegar 

Tomato pipérade / pasta sauce (Prego)

Fresh & dried basil

1 bay leaf

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Salt & Pepper

1. Prep: Slice the zucchini into half-inch thick crescents. Then, halve the cherry tomatoes (do not throw them in whole. Cutting them into half means that the dish will be more flavourful from the pulp inside). Chop the cloves of garlic finely.Take the stalks off the mushrooms and slice them thinly. Do not be surprised by the quantity of the mushrooms; the entire mound will reduce in size by at least half after sauteing and reducing.

2. First, heat a good lug of olive oil in a large skillet (at least 12 inches in diameter) at medium heat. Add in the zucchini and sauté for about 4 - 5 minutes, stirring and flipping the slices constantly. 

3. When the zucchini is just about to turn tender, throw in majority of the pea sprouts. Stir-fry for about 2 - 3 minutes

4. Add in the tomatoes, basil, thyme, bay leaf and a heaped tablespoonful of tomato pipérade / good-quality pasta sauce (Prego or Dei Fratelli). Stir to mix everything. Reduce heat to low and cover with lid, allowing the flavours to meld for a few more minutes. Put the vegetables aside.

5. Add more olive oil and the chopped garlic on the skillet on medium heat, adding a tablespoon of olive oil if necessary. Sauté mushrooms for about 5 - 7 minutes. Sprinkle with sea salt and freshly grated black pepper. Cover with lid, and let the mushrooms cook under low heat for another 3 minutes.

6. Take off lid and combine mushrooms with the vegetables. Add a good splash of white wine vinegar and more olive oil for dressing.

7. Add a generous dash of salt (1/3 table spoon) and more pepper. Adjust according to taste. Give the remaining pea sprouts a quick fry in the pan (not till limp) and place on top of the entire salad for garnish. Remove bay leaf. 

Serve with toasted focaccia or ciabatta slices 

Boy Lilikoi

And then I heard youYou made me long forTo be a part ofSomething that I can't seeA life that is beyondSomething that I can't fearTo be a part ofThe story - It belongs to you

Something you said wasAbout the pen and the paperYou can always write itIt is something you'll have to doGathering stories

____________________________________________

A beautifully-adapted novel, Cameron Crowe, and Jonsi as a composer. And all in one movie! It's a film buff's dream.

I have found that the best kinds of films do not depend on the talent of actors or directors, but on the musical score that it is set to. How lovely it is, when music is so aptly woven into the script and scenes that it becomes a character of its own. This is music that makes your soul soar, the kind of music that leaves you breathless.    

Untouched

'There's a whole commotion going on inside us.' 

'That's bad?'

'It's bad if we want to know what's going on outside ourselves.' 

'Don't we have eyes & ears for that?' 

'They're okay most of the time. But sometimes they get in the way. The earth is speaking to us, but we can't hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then - maybe - the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.'

Stargirl

Jerry Spinelli