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Thanks for reading my "babble" !!
SpacifixGet into Spacifix...the devil is in de tale !! Like a boredom fag , I call this the boredom jot ...
July 02 OBCD ?This kinds sound unreal and pre-posterous...I DO hate using my current blog host spaces.msn, so if this thing works as it says it will then I am like " come home to momma" !!
But I do think this will be way more effective for those who use a lot of graphics, pictures . musinc files when they blog - unlike me who is more of a wordy - writey kind of blogger. I tend to ramble into a conversation with no one in particular. And hey presto I have a blog !
Now, one of the things that has been on my mind and perhaps worthy of a more open ramble is the rapidly growing collection of new books on my table....at last count there were twenty of them - all 'collected' over the past two months. You're probably wondering, so where's he going with this. The thing is , collected here = bought. Bought at Borders, bought at an airport somewhere, at various small book sales...and to top it all about a third of them are in various stages of being read ( by me ) - so net net , I seem to be buying books at a rate infinitely faster than I can consume them.
This is begin to bother me and I wonder whether I am suffering from some new found illness which forcibly turn me into this compulsive book acquirer ! Perhaps, there is something not yet discovered called the Obsessive Book Collector Disorder ? I seem to gain immense satisfaction, almost like a pick-me-up akin to the traditional retail therapy theory, when I make a fresh purchase. And its always 'wow- I have always wanted to read about the Indo-Malayan Archipelago' or 'this book on Wine Tasting is something that will really help me get into the groove with those complex reds'....and so on. In view of that "rainy" day, or the long absent holiday or the very lonf & boring train journey or the inevitable retirement, I rationalise ever single purchase and the pile keeps rising almost directly proportionally to the reduction in the weight of the wallet !
I truly think I need HELP - is there a Group out there that exists for OBCD ? June 30 Happy Bank HolidayWell in the good ol' blighty its a week end to rejuvenate & recuperate and is popularly known as the Bank Holiday week end....The brits did get this one right for sure !
But its quite unbelievable - half the year has literally zipped by in what seems like a few months and not 6 long and arduous ones ! It could only mean oneof few things - either the past 6 months have been so damned excitingly enjoyable that one didnt notice ( in deference to the quaint english expression time does fly when you are having fun ) or that it has been so very packed with events and more, fun or not , that one barely got a chance to catch their breath and before you knew it six months are done - in the bag, so to speak.
For me - its been a mixed bag and most definitely the latter - just way too much going on- globally, locally, personally and any other -ly that you can think of !!
So here we are - 6 months have gone by in a somewhat of a twinkle. And I thought let me sit back and take stock. Is there anything noteworthy that I can think of?
Well there was my boss's departure - worked for the man for 7 years, in three different jobs, two countries- he decides to take a walk down the wild side, smelling the roses and playing quality games and quality time down quality street with his kid - may the force be with him !!
Then we have had the all too compelling continuing debacle of markets- of any kind - be it credit, be it equities, be it commodities ( well oil at 140 is a debacle of sorts), be it interest rates, property, jobs ...you name it ! On a personal note, I did begin albeit small steps towards learning meditation- thanks to a new friend.
So its kind of been a gloom n doom scenario. All in all, the year of the rat has been rather ummm- rodent-esq .
What does have to look forward to in the next six or the back six to use golfing terminology?
Further meltdown in the financial markets, more job losses , opportunities to buy property at lower prices etc . And then there's the all important personal lifestone as I like to call it -come Aug and I shall embark on the personal back nine, and so I will ( I should ) look to plan accordingly.
Insha Allah, it should turn out more balanced and less turbulent. June 29 Unintentionally greenMost of you know my friend Pavan, a.ka. PKS or the green fiend !! And for those who dont, he is a rabid greenie who masquerades as a banker and gets his employer to allow him to go on his environmental crusade all over he globe. Infact now they have allowed him to be released to the EU to spend half his time working with some nerds there on a green accounting project ala Doc Stern. Is he the birkenstock wearing, jhola carrying, beedi smoking type? Nah- he is at most times in pinstripes, brogues, berry & brolly bearing banker. Then there are times he is in his walking shoes, binoculars slung casually around his neck, sola hat or equivalent thereof on his near balding pate, some fancy SLR camera & camera bag on his shoulder seen trampling around Bukit Timah Nature Reserve or Borivili National Park or hugging trees in the grounds of Arcadia ( not a nature reserve but just the name of the condo in Singapore where he lived).
Is this blog about PKS ? Seems so doesnt it ? Not really, no.
Having known the man for over two decades and spent many kiddy ( his two girls) birthday parties at Borivili on nature walks ( talk about depraved childhoods !!) I think the green thing has kind of rubbed off - much to my consternation !! And to top it - he whizzes by Singapore and decides over a coffee that I am the quintessential "unintentional environmentalist" -
You're prolly wondering whaaa? .... the man wanted a quick ride to his hotel in air conditioned comfort without having to wait for a taxi (Singapore & its taxis - another story) and asks me where my car is parked - Car ? What car , says your truly - dont own one mate, this is Singapore - dont need one ( and prolly cant afford it either! ). In any case with oil at $140 why would I want to compund the world's problems ???
So here I am - the unintentional environmentalist !!!
PS - in cas you want to see who Doc PKS is - the man in the pics on my blog titled Wiz in Oz are taken at PKS's eco friendly, biodiverse property portfolio in the rain forests of Queensland, Aus. March 09 Jazz in SingaporeJazz, like wine, is picking up a following in Singapore with an increasing momentum and for that I am glad...not because I am either a connoiseur or an aficionado, but because I have liking, with varying degrees of intensity, for both. And I am equally conscious of how I feed this growing liking with my wallet. So, affordability of all things nice, is the ultimate criteria for me, and I believe it is also referred to as the 'vfm' or value-for-money factor by most !
The other nice thing about being on a steadily rising likeability curve is that till the tipping point is reached and it becomes such a raging fad, there is generally a 'dont know dont care' zone when availabilty far outstrips screaming demand.
It is as a result of these factors, yesterday, whilst idling on the net after a post-lunch siesta, I decided almost on impulse to go and try my luck for the Lee Ritenour gig at the Esplanade....
And was I happy I did !
The Esplanade has the annual Mosaic festival running for the next ten days or so and they get artistes from all over every year ( remember watching Dave Sandborn live here as well ). Well, as mentioned in the preceding paragraph, i walked up to the box office at 6 pm for a 7.30 pm show, and happily secured a ticket for S$90 - and a darned good seat at that .
Lee Ritenour, for those of you who are familiar with his work (and those who are not will find this link instructive), will no doubt remember him from his days with Steely Dan days ( aaah Aja - a song and band which my friend Gyan of Skinny Alley fame claims changed the way he looked at music) and then later from recordings with Dave Grusin and a founder member of the legendary band Fourplay.
He was accompanied yesterday by Patrice Rushen (keyboards), Melvin Davis (bass) and Yellowjackets drummer Will Kennedy. Tight, fluid, funky, fusion, soul-latin-LA, foot stompin stuff all the way. The icing on the cake was a guest appearance for two songs by seven time Grammy award nominee and one of the foremost jazz vocalists with his inimitable scat technique - Kurt Elling.
Some real foot stomping funk and a few of Lee's all time favourites Early Morning Attitude and Rio Funk had the crowd on their feet.
A night to remember- the concert hall at the Esplanade with its amazingly great accoustics, though, I do wish they would allow the audience to take photographs of the performance....kind of allows for the ability to store the experience for posterity.
Hopefully we shall get there - sooner rather than later as good old Singas mkes its cultural journey in the right direction. Why buy CD's ?When did you last buy a CD - a music cd that is ? If I was to answer that question, it was probably around Christmas last year, when I was hanging about a mall (as is the done thing in Singapore) and the thumpingly loud riffs of some funky bass work caught my ears. Strolled in , asked what was playing (Jaco Pastorius of Weather Report fame) and purely on impulse bought the CD. Other than that impulsive purchase a few months ago, I cannot remember the last time I consciously stepped into a music store to buy a CD.
And bloody good reason too.
No ...I dont mean the pirated stuff, or the peer to peer mp3 file sharing that my teenager would possibly resort to rather than pay to acquire music. I am talking about the various options available now to listen to your favourite music and fine tune your playlists to suit your own listening pleasure.
If you are one of the zillions who owns an iPod ( my son says who does'nt !) and therefore the iTunes downloading feature at 99 cents a song is as bespoke as you can get, albeit with some amount of circuitious workarounds for folks in Asia. However, if you are like me, a member of the minority who dont own an iPod, there are many sites on the internet that now allow you to create playlists, share or hear playlists of others etc ....I have over the past year been hooked to Last.fm, a wonderful service that uses a technique called 'scrobbling'.
And this week-end I have come upon two other sites that are in many ways equally interesting and definitely offer me many hours of pleasurable listening. Those of you who are interested in music, as i am , and spend innumerable hours slouched in front of a pc/laptop, as I do , then I would recommend this for jazz enthusiasts and this intriguing service called deezer. The only drawback I currently forsee is one, finding a way of encuring suitable amplification of these live feeds and the other is to do with suitably high bandwidth and internet speeds to ensure no glitches due to buffering etcetc.
I can almost visualise that going into a store to buy a CD will very quickly become something of an anachronism...pretty much like using a land line (phone )or a phone booth ....
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