Gatsby on his (Inflatable) Deathbed

The circumstances that surround Gatsby’s death create a sense of symmetry between the life in pursuit of the American dream and the inevitability of death, which brings an end to something as limitless as success. Like the meretricious grandeur that dictated Gatsby’s life and the perception that people built up of him, the way in which Gatsby died , the visual spectacle of his dead body floating along his private swimming pool, downplays the emotion usually associated with a death, and competes to overtake the decease of such a characterless individual. It provides a near-perfect mirror image to Gatsby’s life; the extravagance and outlandish parties that became his social image were always there to overshadow him as a character, and the same thing has happened to him in his death.

The death of Gatsby itself, and the literal circumstances of his physical surroundings are a representation of the limitedness that come with materialistic values of pursuing the American Dream. The typical phrase of “you can’t take it with you” is played upon with in the setting of Gatsby’s death, as he was shot in the pool that he never swam in, and now he has literally taken the pool with him to his death; the clarity of the water  - and meretriciousness of its purity when contained in such an extravagant vessel as a swimming pool - has been contaminated with his blood, which is the purest physical embodiment of life and the loss of life itself. The swimming pool provides a representation of Gatsby’s life; a metaphor of how one can take something as simple as plain as water, place it in a vessel of such extravagance as a swimming pool, and watch it become a spectacle that is larger than life.

Of all the imagery and symbolism that Scott Fitzgerald (easily one of my favourite authors) creates in The Great Gatsby, it was the scene of Gatsby's death that I found the most poignant, and haunted me in a most perennial fashion. It seems that I am one of the few to prefer analysis to creation in a lot of areas, English literature being no exception. Here is my interpretation of the death, written almost a year ago I believe. I haven't edited the content of this, but I do disagree with myself on the idea that he was "characterless".

Artless Beauty - II

Arabesques of single-stroke as a fluid stream

Cascades and creases of artless cloth

mottles plain of greater canvas

Wind adorns the looking-glass sea; thrums

of turquoise in monochrome ebbs

Cream-white paper, recumbent 

In a leather-bound embrace

 - sallow with time

Their words, modest as they form

In curlicue spires upon consonant pillars.

Stoic, unornamental, austere

Great complexity in regress

The void of guile, one finds, beguiles

As they exist, chaste in hue,

Without one wish to coalesce.

Concertare

The concerts I have been to - in chronological order

1. Green Day
2. Deep Purple
3. Mika
4. MGMT & The Whitest Boy Alive
5. Iron Maiden
6. Deadmau5
7. Two Door Cinema Club (I met them!)
8. The Vaccines & Kasabian
9. Laneway 2012 (full lineup here)
10. Noel Gallagher

Upcoming concerts:

1. Laneway 2013
2. Big Night Out 2013
3. Bloc Party

Plans for tonight;

1. Pizza,
2. Woody Allen movie (toss-up between Alice and Zelig - I've seen neither),
3. Exercise my pretentiousness in an artist analysis
4. Finish off Oh Comely submission
5. Polish off (the unpublished parts of) my new short story The Old Man Visits Solitude

I'm suddenly starting to feel a lot better. This may be due to my reaching the centre of a humbug.

Drip

There are people like me

Who turn on taps

To hear flaws in the plumbing

Laneway 2013

The past couple of weeks have been a time of great suspense and anticipation for indie music-lovers across this tiny island. Girls (and guys too, of course) who have screamed their lungs out for the likes of Two Door Cinema Club, The Whitest Boy Alive, MGMT, The Vaccines, Bombay Bicycle Club - and, naturally, the entire lineups for the previous two Laneway Festivals - have been speculating, impatiently waiting for and even arguing over the quality of the dozen-or-so names that are to grace the festival's set list, and it goes without saying that people pledged their attendance in the hundreds the moment the date was announced. 

The wait is finally over for those who find themselves forever explaining to (the not-so-likeminded) others a reasonable jutification for the inarticulate phrases of excitement and high-pitched hyperventilation when a band that isn't Maroon 5 comes to town.

Of course this isn't the first we have heard for laneway artists this year; a list of all artists doing the rounds at this festival have been common knowledge for some time, whereas the line-up of the Singapore leg of the festival has been a point of speculation.

I have several points to make that should begin with phrases synonymous to the words "Admittedly, I..."

Admittedly, I was initially disappointed - not even skeptical, just disappointed - with the first announcement of the line-up (that is, when the list encompassing all artists in the festival was released). My immediate reaction stemmed purely from the fact that it was clearly not as great (to me) as the line-up last year, I seemed to dwell on that outlook for a while. The myriad of headliners seemed to chiefly be people that I had either heard of or never heard of, though I did know how revered they were by some of my friends. The line-up of 2012 contained a lot of artists that immediately settled with me, or that already resided comfortably on my list of favourite artists. 

Oddly enough, the narrowing down of artists for the Singapore festival made me more appreciative of them, and the fact that it's a saturday this year is an absolute godsend. The venue, however, is a matter of slight skepticism; for all it's simplicity I love going to concerts in Fort Canning, and it really helped amplify the festival vibe last year. 

I must confess that I know very little of the artists that I am genuinely looking forward to seeing. Without sounding like the biggest mindless poser ever, I really do think that it can be enough to know of the acclaim that band have received to want to go to a concert. 

The bottom line is, I can't get my ticket soon enough.

Most looking forward to [in no particular order]; Of Monsters and Men, Kings of Convenience, Gotye, Cloud Nothings, Tame Impala, Bat For Lashes

Most curious about; Alt-J (I find it shameful to admit that I haven't listened to these Mercury Prize winners!), Yeasayer, Kimbra, Divine Fits

"Homeward Bound"

I'm currently drafting this post as I stand on patterned carpet waiting for my mother and sister, and we're grading for our gate about 90 minutes prior to its opening time, in traditional D--- family fashion. Thanks to my sister I'm out of clean jeans to wear, so I'm shivering in minishorts and a jumper. My shoulders are feeling slight strain from the lengthened strap of my "Jimmy Choo" handbag - one of my heftier night market purchases - and I am trying to get used to the jingling beads and tarnished metal that now hang from my earlobes.

Hong Kong has been a blinding array of lights and dim sum and audible sea breezes. Due to the hotel's extortionate in-room internet prices and access to great travel writing, we have been planning our days the old-fashioned way; with Moleskines, a hardback topical photography book, Lonley Planet's hefty China edition, and about 3 different fold-out maps full of biro markings.

When I return to Singapore (hence marking a return to my laptop) I shall be setting up a page that links to my travel writing - soon to be inaugurated by an account of this weeks adventures. Admittedly I am somewhat lacking in the diary entry department, but a sporadic cache of tickets and tattered maps should serve as adequate reference points. Plus the notes made in my Moleskines notebooks provide an interesting account of the day in brief imperative form, which were of course intended for future reference that has now passed - if you catch my drift. I might upload scans of these pages along with the (surprisingly few) photos that I took.

I apologise for the abysmal quality of writing. It appears that my role as guidebook-/magazine-reader/ attentive note taker has deteriorated my literary skills. Oh and this hasn't been proofread.

Seven-day

Monday

Left a callus on my hand

Red,

Humid and frozen

In a curve all day - as it delves

In dots and lines and curlicues

My fingers they left

To fend for themselves

Tuesday

Smelt of coffee and plastic,

Insidious chemicals 

In which I dipped my hopes

With clenched arms,

Dream on my sleeve

On my veins

I took my leave

Wednesday I sat

Shivering in the pews

And prayed to silent reason that

The centre of the universe

Hadn’t shifted onto me.

The callus - vengeful absence!-

Cut through my palm once more,

Lip tainted; raw with nervous zeal

Tongue lay subdued and sore

Thursday, begins

With senseless perusal; ends

(forget not, the silent “e-n-t”)
With sunshine, the aberrant warmth

Of bleakness in its bends

Friday morning perspiring, twisting

Me into some sort of plait, cold vapour seeps

Into the linen, the kind

That night can rid one of  - she weeps

Saturday woke by dusty sunshine, 

Coffee and sleep - (the apothecaries of 

Delirium)

So begins the day

Of dreamless marches, recumbent spines, 

Words' weeping headaches remain thereof

Sunday, Sunday,

Sunday, arid as an overcast 4’o clock

An hour hand will rise and fall

You're cold, and quite inept at showing

That you have ever lived at all.

Nostalgia's record shelf

It is primarily due to my exposure to the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald at the age of fifteen that has lead me to the conclusion that I am a confirmed idealist. My idea of perfection is the alliance of various aspects pieces of imagery that coalesce in one moment. It is in that moment where - with an adequate dose of pretentious melodrama about me - I say, "this is my reason for living with a sense of impetus about me".

Adolescence in filmroll

80's movies

1. Sixteen Candles
2. The Breakfast Club
3. Ferris Bueller's Day Off
4. Can't Buy Me Love
5. Donnie Darko
6. Pretty in Pink
7. Say Anything
8. St Elmo's Fire
9. Dead Poets Society

90's movies

1. Clueless
2. 10 Things I Hate About You
3. The Virgin Suicides

Artsy Movies

1. Submarine
2. An Education
3. Forrest Gump -  (don't worry I'm questioning its placement in this category too)
4. The Graduate
5. The Virgin Suicides
6. The Boat that Rocked (Pirate Radio)

Woody Allen Movies

1. Annie Hall
2. Love and Death
3. Zelig
4. Manhattan
5. Hannah and Her Sisters

I can currently recall what I can only describe as an infuriatingly low number of movies that I have watched, currently reside on my to-watch list, and watched and absolutely loved  (I realise that I am being far too liberal with that label). Once I am blessed with a little more time to spare I shall be adding films to this list in the dozens.

In the shadow of a famous red hunting hat

A letter from J.D. Salinger, addressed to
a Marie Bouman,  who wrote to him
inquiring about other works by the
author.

Three of the books that currently reside on my shelf of absolute favourites are the three books by J.D. Salinger that sadly fall more than a little short of the acclaim or celebrity that The Catcher in the Rye receives. For months after finishing said book, I was genuinely under the impression that the only work ever published by Salinger was in fact the three-day chronicle of Holden Caulfield (an English teacher once spent a good twenty minutes or so talking about his life as a recluse, and how he failed to publish anything after The Catcher in the Rye). A great deal of interest was aroused upon discovering a collection of nine short stories by him in a bookstore, which under British publishing is called For Esme - With Love and Squalor, and American Nine Stories. I devoured it within a matter of days, and felt a sense of adoration for Salinger's knack for telling stories - a knack which I felt to be far from apparent in The Catcher in the Rye.

In my opinion, JD Salinger's books get better and better when they are read in the correct order, that is; The Catcher in the Rye, Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An introduction. So here are quick reviews of the three unsung heroes of Salinger's career as a writer.

One final note: Before starting any of the following books, rid your conscience of either judgements reserved for J.D. Salinger or The Catcher In the Rye. Try to view these books as if they were by a completely different author. Do not get me wrong, there are many aspects of his writing style in the books that are Caulfield-esque, but these really are something else.

16 things to do before I turn 16

• Submit an article to Oh Comely Magazine

• Successfully play Brahms' sonata in F minor
• Learn shorthand

• Have a sleepover of which any idealist would be jealous

• Collate all my poems and draft them in anthology form

• Drink wine until I feel its velvety effect on my mind

• Finish the dozens of books that I started this year

• Run 1.6k in 6 minutes(ish) - okay this is starting to prove impossible, but oh well

• Check all bridges for signs of smoke (it's a euphemism)

• Get through the first stages of publishing a book of my poems 

• Plan a wondrous party that suits my annoyingly idealistic needs

• Write a short story

• Go to Hong Kong

• Decorate my room

• Spend a day listening to classical music and reading French poetry

• Successfully get into a(nother) school publication

Inventorium

So, if I am to be truthfully honest, as an immediate means of procrastination, I have decided to post the many lists that I keep about my person (or rather - in my hardback Moleskine when they desert the memory of "my person"). The lists will comprise subject matter such as; my bucket list, the (primarily 80's) movies I am in dire need of watching, the numerous works of literature that I am in dire need of doing, and my most recent (currently impalpable) creation: sixteen things to do in the ephemeral space of time left before I turn sixteen.

Now, being even more truthful in my honesty, I made this post chiefly so that I could see such an ostensively scholarly word as Inventorium in the pretty italicised font of my title. Well that confirms my worst fear that my need for style would someday supersede that of substance.

Why I have chosen to replace the generic "brutal honesty" with "truthful honesty" I fail to understand.

(With a lightly-scratched head) Signing off,

R. Louise

"Throw those curtains wide"

Today just feels so genuinely lovely.

It technically started at midnight (don't all days?), when my parents got home and I wished my mum a happy birthday. One dozy, daylight-induced slumber later and we're humbly apologising for "only getting a couple of gifts"and simultaneously preparing a breakfast of coffee, croissants and orange juice. She's insisted on doing nothing productive with her hours of daylight and so we're going out to dinner later.

So I've showered and dressed and for five minutes or so gazed into the clouds past a pair of superimposed tanned knees, with the opening tunes of Neutral Milk Hotel's album faintly playing to my left. Unfortunately my duties as birthday girl's daughter can be postponed no more and it is time to do the dishes.

I now reward myself with the browsing of my only two copies of Oh Comely, and allow myself the time to draft a letter in my head. Occasional visits from my sister - latest watercolour painting in hand - has caused me to decide upon her profession (as an illustrator), and I have mentally commissioned hundreds of works to keep her busy. I can only hope that she takes art next year.

We - my sister and I - have listened to One Day Like This at least - oh, I don't know - seven times in the last half hour. It is a mixture of the melody and lyrics that leave me with the indomitable impulse to think in terms of idealistic nostalgia, and produce a welling of tears in my voice. I can only speculate as to whether or not I shall feel the want to open up my half-empty notebook, and keep it so for a while.

Though it is well past midday, approaching two o' clock in fact, it feels like the sort of day where the afternoon will never come. And I sincerely hope it doesn't.

Couplets

It made terrific sense, of course,
to build a lift to scale my flaws!


With tea and sun that steep alike,
Summer's wistful wounds shall strike.


The epiphany, the revel! of thoughtful synapse
Precedes the fear of permanent lapse.

An open letter to any publication willing to take me

Dear perpetually-changing choice of periodical,

It has been my ambition to become a writer for a long time, or at least long enough for the aspiration to become painfully wistful; ever since I realised that books were in fact worth reading and an English teacher stared over twenty pairs of glazed eyes and told me that literature could be analysed. Coming across your publication brought about the comforting revelation that there was hope for people such as myself; aspiring writers who would love to be published in any way, yet secretly wanted the importance and freedom of an esteemed newspaper columnist.

My innate aversion to self-assurance has mostly taken its toll on my writing, or rather, the way I perceive it. I refuse to believe the idea that I am, well... a good writer, and it is just the genuine enjoyment of writing and the creative process that fuels this want to write. Despite my unwavering diffidence (does calling myself diffident make me sound like a hypocrite? - I think it does...) I really do (try to) live and breathe prose. In casual conversation I try to sound like the most intellectual and articulate person that my narrow vocabulary will allow me to be, and fail to acquiesce in the fact that I sound neither bookish nor worldly enough to be considered well-informed. My dream includes a short-lived life in Paris, quirky days as a reclusive poet in rural Britain, and the acting out of well-rehearsed, idealist images - most of which involve the spires of Oxford, a New Yorker's fire escape staircase and sallow hardback books of modern American literature. But my ultimate hope is that the ability to laugh at my sheer pretentiousness and pseudo-intellectual pursuits will never desert me.

I sincerely hope that my attached submission, as well as a prolific chain of other works to come, will be deemed good enough for your publication, and that it will be the beginning of success as a published author, which I intend to pursue.

Finitely yours,

R. Louise

Made-in-Chinatown

You ascend the stairs of a station underground and find a roof of panels of glass and mis-matched paper lanterns over your head before even reaching the top. Take two steps more and a myriad of bulbous red lanterns emerges and rippling satin sheets fly from roof to roof; an infinite meander of bloody gashes against the pure and cloudless sky. You see immediate, fiery blazes of festive red and gold as your ears try to make sense of the noise, all of which is under a pulsating, incandescent sun. The upbeat female voice of a Chinese pop song fades with every step you take and soon becomes the typically oriental sound of hammered string instruments and cymbal crashes, every gong in perfect syncopation. A miscellany of dialects and tones create a distortion that makes everything undefined. You find yourself at the end of a road you once thought ceaseless and, turning the corner, your eyes meet with a most welcome serenity. 

The street is practically desolate, where birdsong overpowers an accompaniment of modestly quiet conversation and anonymous footsteps. Sunshine crashes down on the brickpaved street, yet falls from the sky like the smooth cascade of a waterfall, uninterrupted by lanterns and table umbrellas like it was mere seconds ago. To the right of you are the wrought iron gates of the Sri Mariamman temple, and to the left are several shophouses and small venders. But this paradisal avenue soon bashfully diminishes to nothing, and a reluctant pair of feet are dragged into a half-turn and find themselves going back the way they came. 

Tranquility, as it seems, has done something in the act of clearing your mind, and when viewing what was once a perturbing chaos around you with a fresh pair of eyes, it begins to make visual sense. Decorative tassels of red and gold, purple and green hang in uniform decorum on the walls of a shop display, stubborn and strong in their will to stay inanimate, yet a few of the threads give way to the breeze once in a while, in a dance of spontaneous whimsy. Hours and hours worth of queuing shrouds from the onlooker the source of the pungent, smoky smell of meat cooking in honey glazes. An antique rickshaw stands before an homage to its heritage. Silenced by time's unforgiving wave of impairment, the tarnished paintwork and shallow scratches on the now-motionless wheels are the only things that speak for its past, and the lives of the people that were once carried by it. Above your head are rows of umbrellas lining the streets, most of them with the burden of a company’s branding trademark. The once-crimson hue of the sturdy fabric has sacrificed itself to sunlight's fading properties, so that the sweaty, panting tourist is granted a moment of shade. 

The backstreets of Chinatown, the dark, tiled paths that live in the constant shadow of arched alleyways, have a completely different ambience. Hardware stores and shop displays dedicated to faux-Ming-Dynasty ceramics replace the mass-produced souvenirs and three-for-ten-dollar artifacts. Occasional puffs of cigarette smoke thicken the atmosphere from time to time, but other than that the air is clear and bleak.

The hours of scorching midday sun are nearing to an end as you tread the last of your footsteps that will contribute towards the teeming, syncopated rhythm of Chinatown. There comes a point where the steps you take propel you down as well as forwards, as you find yourself descending into the hole in the ground that started your journey.

Blighty

My first week in England for the first time in a year is closing to an end. I'm lounging about the sofa bed in my grandma's guest room all day because of stomach cramps and what-have-you, which I have mostly managed to sleep off in a painless bout of hourly naps. And after convincing my ever-fretful grandma that I can in fact sleep with mild, explicable pains without dying, and can in fact construct a cheese sandwich without the serrated edges grating at my (currently intact) cuticles, I am in fact home alone for an hour or so. A hundred minutes of solitude, I think to my slow-witted self.

So I have dosed the pain off into the midday hours, and I now attempt to keep bread/crisp crumbs off the bed as I single-handedly hold open my copy of The Help, which I am about halfway through. The speed at which I am suddenly getting through this book is a genuine surprise to me. I'll try to string together a draft of a review while I'm at it.

By the late afternoon They're back from shopping and I have on me a frumpy grey jumper, my indian floral trousers and my hair's in a bun that says "I don't care what amount of time has passed since I last looked presentable, but at least I've been reading more than you." (Yes I have suddenly begun to personify hairstyles - and become complacently condescending). I've made an attempt to write that review. But I've gone off on a worthless tangent before I have even got to drawing the curve of my critique. I can't think how to analyse and articulate like I once considered with stupid complacency that I once thought I had the capacity to do. With bigoted arrogance I'm showing complete disregard for the nagging voice of my intellectual honesty. I suddenly feel like I know very little about the world, or indeed the area of expertise that I would love to pride myself in having estimable talent in.

Sabbath

Folded, covered arms across my chest. I huddle in a slight shiver as we cross the road. Just a two-hour service. Two hours where I have to pretend to listen with attentive ears and a graceful smile, while my atheist mind can wonder. I can ponder over how to write my review of The Help, now that I'm finished with it. 

Wrinkly hands and cheeks regularly pass my own in a pre-service gathering, all of which I meet with obligation and feigned attentiveness. Politeness, if you will. Words pass over me in the form of monotonous voices, words of praise, words that speak of a lifetime of dedication, for something that does not even exist. It makes me want to scream. The minutes pass by in a fumble of fleeting eyes and hands that clumsily search for the right page of the hymn book, a dormant brain that improvises with the organists playing and melismatic words that I am ill-informed about. 

A lady in clerical robes walks towards a book sermons and begins what I think was a half-hour session of preaching. From what I actually took in it appeared that she was talking about the gospel; how it is not eternal damnation that we should be focusing on, but the do-gooding that will guarantee us a place in heaven (no idea why I use the first person plural here). But most importantly, she talked of the need to convince others to become christians such as themselves. This was the point where I was truly screaming "bullshit" in my own head. I wonder if the lady ever considered that a non-believer sat amongst her congregation, doing whatever the mental equivalent is of shaking one's head as she spoke. I couldn't bear to look her in the eye, so instead I stared meekly at the bottom of the pew in front of me. A tiny shred of sallow paper lay dusty on the wooden floor, and I thought to myself, "I am going to learn so much more about the world, so much more truth in that single piece of paper that lies unacknowledged on the floor than the lady I am listening to. Unlike the lady, the paper is not tainted by the ink of man-made doctrine and dogma. Why should I listen to someone who has assumed the truth in what she heard as a girl from other ladies who have believed in the same thing since they were girls because they were taught so? Why should I, when before me stand millions of atoms that show so much more integrity and intelligence in order and form than we can ever assimilate with our own minds? When I see rows of folded hands that are so clearly the product of eons of evolution, the greatest design of all? When invisible - proven - waves of light travel millions of miles from the sun and adorn the dark rings of wooden floorboards and cast shadows from the legs of chairs? All of these have been proven to us-  an absolute explanation of what is there and where it comes from is there for all of us to see and understand - and yet we still listen to the lady at the altar who tells us that it all came about six days of intelligent design by a higher power of mercy that our world is so void of. 

On Human Irrationality and Poems

We're crippled by banalities,

Quotation makes us lame,

We forge a rhyme,

Add sense of time,

"It's artistry," we claim.

Aestival Lethargy

I'm recumbent on my cluttered double bed, licking sticky, crusted dollops of ketchup from my ring finger and enjoying the sunlight that is cast on all my things from my opened windows. I've finally got some Belle and Sebastian songs up on autoplay and I am convincing my reluctant self that I do in fact want to finish The Stranger, maybe even re-read it in French.

So while I keep myself occupied with the incredulity of how I've managed to clip my hair up in a most perplexing fashion, and the neglect of a small number of chores to do; boxes to unpack and flight bags to pack, I shall wistfully anticipate the sensation of finally drifting amongst the clouds, as the passing of each one takes me further away from an academic year of absolute stress and exhaustion. And of course all of this is done whilst tapping my rested feet to The Boy With the Arab Strap.

Here's to the forthcoming summer of 2012; 56 glorious days of lovingly abrading the pages of paperback classics, 9 o' clock daylight, day-trips to quirky English towns, country pubs, cosy nights watching topical comedians, prolific bouts of writing and what will hopefully be the most expedient mixed-tape soundtrack to accompany it all.

Bus-stop Socialite

Today on the evening bus there stood a lady in a black dress, with hints of lace around her waistline. She poised herself as close as possible to the window, her gait slightly elevated by straw wedge heels and a messy yet volumous updo that had been worn away with hours and showed strands or disobedient baby hairs. It almost made her endearing. With the burden of department-store shopping bags and large beige handbag on the bus floor and just a sequin clutch in her hand she stared out to the window's vista of pretty lights and luminous socialite wealth, and allowed her arms to graciously float as if they were affectionately touching the arms of guests at her debutante party. Her right thumb and forefinger graced the pole as if she were pinching the skinny bulb of a champagne glass, the other three splayed and curled slightly. She then lightly adjusted the neckline of her dress, as If about to float down the staircase with an organic guilded banister before hundreds. Then the out of tune melancholic dissonance of a two tuneless bell tones sounded and the doors steamed open. She fled the the bus in a silent fluster of self-consciousness.

Thursday Retrospective

I sit here, sprawled out across my recently-acquired double bed which, I may add, is still a major novelty, and whose boundless creases of a cream-white bedspread still enthralls my minimalistic aesthetics. I oscillate with slight discomfort; crossed-legged to legs outstretched, and my toes caress the rusting keys of my cheap old lacquer saxophone, which lies in a languid poise much similar to my own, following the contours with the grace of adoration.

The fact that I am currently musing myself on an instrument that not four hours ago was causing me so much grief. The keys that my sweating fingertips once slid off in a desperate attempt to play the right notes now lie at my feet like a pet dog, subjected to my child-like, yet somehow condescending, strokes.

It turns out that I had reason to be stressed earlier. The recording was a disaster, and not even my prolific statements of apology aimed at my duet partner could amend my cringing performance. But I tried my best to keep a smile on my face and my "sorry"'s sincere.

And now I'm home alone, enjoying the fact that I can say my own name, or rather, hear my own name without the need to get up and fulfil the chorish demands that follow. (Not only am I a narcissist but a lazy narcissist!) All that comes to mind when that fiasco of a recording is recalled is the utterance of a mirthless laugh and retrospective sighs of exasperation.

Dusk

You resolve lethargically in a deep-set, off-white couch in a deep-set, off-white room. The hasty golden hour casts itself down with unpromising itineracy, redecorates the walls, exposing a vacant , vulnerable canvas to whichever pigment was to to make its way there. And the walls would drown in the added dimension that the light forced upon them, leaving them to wallow in a deeply euphoric beauty and calm that only fleeting nostalgia could bring. 

And only when the evening's colours are completely woven in to the atmosphere, the insidious entwinement that sunlight always silences by a façade of beauty, do you take notice to the direction from which the wall's new tint originates.

The clouds are hazy with an anomalous tropical drought, creating a thin mask of misprision that makes the origin of this incandescence indistinguishable. Burning are the dying flames of a celestial fire as time wears on in its fickle pace. Through bands of orange and embers of rose is a flowering bud of fire, that lends itself to the combustion of an evening thick with nebulous tension; igniting the heavens in one last blaze that is near-becoming a vista of evanescence. 

Stagefright

I find myself in far too many situations like this, where fate and music (who are, I might add, in sadistic cahoots with one another) have dealt me the sheer adversity of a project that calls upon my skills as a musician and my dedication to the practice and preparation of music for a certain deadline. How ridiculous! Could it be that I, an unassuming music student, am in fact called upon to show the traits of a musician? Like so many scenarios that have repeated themselves in my (music-related) life, I have had time to prepare for something, and of course I have acknowledged my sheer inability and the voice of past ambition and future shame screaming melodramatic cries for improvement without doing anything about it.

It's something that gets me every time; for once I feel like I am being genuinely challenged, completely out of my depth. I know what I need to do but apathy acts as a shroud of misprision when the time really calls for the want/questionably surprising motivation to practice my instrument. 

So, once again, I have coasted through in a style that is oh-so idiosyncratically me. I have not converted the value of time into the value of practice, and let anxiety's grip become firmer on everything without eradicating the inertia that has rendered me anxious, not to mention emotionally stressed beyond words. 

The usual trend for a musician is as follows:

• prepare piece weeks, even months in advance; 
• practice regularly and in accordance to the difficulty of the piece; 
• allow for several smooth run-throughs before the actual day of performance; 
• feel pre-performance nerves; 
• play piece soundly without mistakes of hesitation, thus proving the nervousness to be, in retrospect, irrational;
• get a pat on the back from general audience and make pseudo-grimacing along with the words "omg," "no," and "I messed up."

And here is how I go about such an endeavour, because I'm clearly far too good for the whole practice-with-diligence-and-save-yourself-from-breakdown procedure:

• Reluctantly decide on piece, but make the decision mostly due to the surge of delusion that makes me think I will be able to play it within the next 4-6 weeks;
• Have rehearsal with teacher/duet partner. Fail to play adequately. Make false and empty promise about vigourous practice sessions, all of which will miraculously take place between now and the next rehearsal;
• Repeat aforementioned step as many times as necessary;
• Acknowledge lack of ability and the chance to practice for hours. Allow self to remain in state of inertia, and feel surprisingly carefree about it all, even though the emotional stress of it all is blatantly insidious;
• Cry;
• On day of performance/recording, do what is known in layman's terms as "bomb". The entire thing was a fiasco. Apologise profusely to duet partner and make apologetic faces at audience. 

As I type these last words, the bell is ringing and  my stomach is churning like it's full of lepidoptera. One more quick inhale of breath and I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

Artless Beauty

Glory be to Mother Earth for simplistic things, 

For arabesques of single-stroke as a fluid stream

For cascades and creases of artless cloth, that variegates a plain of greater canvas

Wind that adorns the looking-glass sea; thrums of turquoise in monochrome ebbs

Cream-white paper recumbent in a leather-bound embrace - sallow with time

And their words, modest curlicue spires upon consonant pillars.

All things stoic, unornamental, austere

Whatever is void of guile, beguiles

With plain, pure; chaste, clear; comely, modest;

She fathers-forth without wish to coalesce her hues

Praise her.

This was a poem written for English class, as an "homage" to Hopkins' Pied Beauty. Like most of my poems, it makes me cringe, and I think very little of it. But, hey, when a blog is this empty, style's supersession of substance is indomitable.

Debutante

If my current streak/rich history of reluctance to see projects through does in fact desert me, then this will be the beginning of a long-lasting and prolific documentation of my amateur writing.

Creating a blog -a real blog, not just a tumblr with posts that feeds off the carcass of adolescent originality- has been an intention of mine for far too long. The sheer gluttony that has possessed me to scroll for hours through all the self-published essays, poems, and columns of others has left me feeling inadequate in both my ambition and ability as a writer. I suppose it was finally time to at least pay heed to this unfulfilled want.

So here is my debut as a columnist; a writer of a blog that will never have an audience.

R. Louise