I am feeling moved to write something on this blog tonight. The thought to do so has crossed my mind once or twice in the last few weeks - more for the sake of tradition than anything, really. I simply didn't want to let the whole year go by without me posting anything here. The one time I did that was back in 2021. I roughly know the reasons why.
Tonight, for the first time, I'm listening to this vinyl record which I'd bought in Kyoto last year. I bought it for no good reason at all - I couldn't read a single word on the sleeve. I just thought it looked nice. But.. I suppose that's as good a reason as any. Now, with the power of Google image search, I've discovered that it's an album called Ryuun First (1978) by a singer named Ryuun Nagai, who's still alive and touring in his later years, it seems. I then found myself stumbling upon his official website, where I read some of his personal writing - blog posts, if you will - from 2021. They're cute and delightful.
In his most recent entry from December 2021, he announced that he intended to stop writing these. He writes:
While I'm sure much of this is innate, or perhaps even acquired, my personality is one that's suited to solitude, as the opening line of "Unadorned Love" suggests. Honestly, I'd rather not let anyone know who I am or how I think. I think that's precisely why I'm able to exert the energy to be extra gentle when I go out and interact with society. This is why this job, which allows me to write songs alone and perform cheerfully on stage, is the perfect fit for me, and I can't think of any other word to describe it other than my calling.
With the advent of the internet and the widespread use of social media, everyone now has a platform for self-expression. We live in an age where we can even develop an obsession that if we don't communicate, we become nothing. I don't think that's a bad thing, but it's different for each individual.
I think we should remember to observe others more quietly and contemplate phenomena more deeply, as we used to.
Fortunately, God has given me the weapon I need to make myself known: my songs. This has been enough to get me through life, and I'll continue to do so until I die.
There's no need to act so serious about this, I'm just lazy. If I could write a good song and move everyone who listens to it, all I'd want to do after that is lie down in the grass and hum along.
The record has just ended, and I'm now listening to the repetitive scratches and bumps of the needle riding its innermost grooves. Let me put it out of its misery.
I'm arriving to the end of this year feeling.. occupied. Alive. In the middle of living.
Also, complete. Enough.
I remember the feeling of ending each day of fishing in Hokkaido; the acceptance of the cool night time air, the loving whisper of dry clothes, the unshakeable patience of drooping eyelids. It all seemed to say: today was perfect as it was. This life has shown you all you have ever needed to know. Tomorrow is an illusion that we have managed to escape. All is gone, and all is as it should be.
I've been having many vivid dreams recently. Sometimes I wake up laughing, like when I dreamt of Tardos doing parkour across a tree-filled marble-lined carpark. Sometimes I wake up panicked, like when I dreamt of Manuel's appendix bursting. Sometimes I wake up confused, like when I dreamt that my name was Claude. Invariably, it takes a while before I can go back to sleep.
There is at once a deep satisfaction I feel with being here, at this moment, as well as a deep sensation that carrying on to tomorrow is wholly unnecessary. I've said to several people how I find myself having no goals these days. I find myself unwilling to look forward to results and outcomes. I just wish to perceive where I am, while I am. It's impossible, of course.
But every once in a while, I do catch a fleeting glimpse out of the corner of my eye. The sunlight against the tombstones against the grass. The stone face of the mountain against the Milky Way. The fingers of the masterful bassist jumping across the neck. The eyes of Mark Williams lining up a shot straight towards my seat. The sudden fall of a penjor leaf onto the Black Box floor. The pink sunset sky after an early pizza dinner. The boy sitting on the log.
Many things are no more, and many things are still here. The dream persists with its strange rules and inconsistencies. I'm still here.
2nd November 2023. The Beatles release their final song, prophetically titled "Now And Then" by John Lennon way back in 1977.
His voice echoes crystal clear around my quite-barren living room. It reminds me, funnily, of the way Bob Dylan grumbled "Murder Most Foul" into this cavernous hollow hall - way back in 2020, at the very beginning of the Changi Village era.
Today, I made a cut on a table saw for the first time since February 2021. The blade was a little dull, I thought. We'll need to sharpen it. Then I spiked a stage with the aid of Vectorworks.
Piers Morgan posted a second and much longer interview with Bassem Youssef. 9,000 dead in Gaza since the night I lay in bed watching the clips of the parachuters on TikTok.
After selling everything that I'd listed on Carousell, there was only one item left to rehome: my kitchen cart, on which I'd made many a coffee. It now sits snugly in a corner of the kitchen in Kav's new place.
Enzo, Omar and Amelia will stay here for another week or so, I suppose, until their real owner has recovered from Covid. Till then, the house will generally smell of cat piss.
A classic Ringo drum fill. Some strings. Some 'ahh-ahh's, of course.
Now and then, I miss you. Now and then, I want you to be there for me. I guess John's lyrics have always been quite simple, really.
I know it's true - it's all because of you. And if I make it through, it's all because of you.
I'm very pleased that I attended this one and got to stand all the way at the front. This is a funny coincidence - some guy posted basically the entire concert (excluding Rocket Queen, because apparently his camera gave him problems) on YouTube, and it looks like he had been standing pretty much directly behind me. So now I have the whole concert available on YouTube to be relived anytime, exactly as I experienced it. You can even see my flopping hair and pumping fists come up here and there at random points in the videos. I love it.
They were great. They're legends. I'm thankful for the joy they've added to my life. I remember being 13 or 14, walking home from Tampines Mall with my earpiece plugged in to my Motorola phone, blasting Paradise City full volume into my eardrums and skip-walking to the beat and twirling in circles on the sidewalk. Early days of discovering what it felt like to love a song as if it were made specifically for you.
The concert was on 12th November 2022. A significant day that added an important colour to the tail end of this year.
One thing I've always liked about Guns N' Roses is how they utilise and execute the 'breakdown' at the end of certain songs. I guess the one that is most well-known is Sweet Child O' Mine, with the 'where do we go now' breakdown that gives the song that little extra vigour that it might not have had otherwise. But my favourite is Rocket Queen, by far. No one needs the sorrow, no one needs the pai-ai-ain. I'd hate to see you walkin' out there, out in the rai-ain.
12th November 2022 has given 2022 its own breakdown. A surprising new movement, in this song which I'd basically already thought of as concluded.
I remember the end of October, having supper at Duku and having a conversation that was already in the spirit of recapping and closing out the year. I guess that was premature after all.
What else does this year have in store? 25 more days. I don't mind being asleep that whole time actually. But I guess I'll come back eventually and report what I see in these waking dreams.
What a boring post. Here. Just take it. It's something, rather than nothing.
There, as I burnt into my mind the image of Axl on the piano, Slash in the back, and Duff on the left, I wept.
37 days to the end of this year.
I'm reminded of a tent on the plains of Arafah. Just outside that tent, before sunset, I buried seven pebbles in the sand. The next night, after hours of walking, I ate an apple and a cup of instant noodles.
Now I'm reminded of an empty downward-sloping trail on Gunung Arong. I dashed, and dashed, bashing my feet against the loose soil, smacking my arms against the branches to stay in control. I stopped and sang Circle of Life.
And now I'm reminded of the king-sized bed that was my raft as I sailed down the demon-infested river with nothing but a rifle in my arms.
I'm reminded of my aunt repeatedly pulling the catheter out of her urinary tract, even after they'd tied her one working hand to the side of the bed. I'm reminded of my cousin being the first to cry the night that she passed away.
Now I'm reminded of the men calling the squirrels outside the Taj Mahal, "tak tak tak tak, luh luh luh luh."
And now I'm reminded of the time my friends and I played around by dropping our songkoks each time we bent down to rukuk, and then being scolded by Ustazah Halimah afterwards and being made to pray again.
Last week, Sungai Landak flooded. I saw two of my sisters together for probably the second time this year. My mother told me, "One day, two day, I don't know which one." I hurt my back pretty badly for the first time. I saw an old friend whose soul I no longer recognised. I gave a lesson on how to apply silicone. Perhaps I'll be reminded of these things, too, some day.
