"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.