Gaiman's words are pretty effective...

...so I'm using his wishes from last year as well as his new ones for this year -

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

Please Be Kind, by Dave Brubeck
Wise Up, by Aimee Mann

Return to the heart

I'm finally home from my awfully grand adventure in Argentina. Frankly, it's rather modest when compared to the itineraries of travelers I met along the way, but to me, it was more than grand. I spent a little over three weeks in a country - and a continent - I'd never been to before; I hiked, walked, climbed, roamed, and danced; and I spent a lot of time on my own. I'd never had a journey - physical or emotional - like this one before. There were many things I did that I hadn't done very often, if at all. One of them was opening up to people. Traveling alone, I spoke often to strangers - in English, mangled Spanish and very rusty Italian, even a smattering of French. I talked to people in restaurants, art exhibitions, cemeteries, shops, at glaciers and waterfalls, on dance floors and airplanes. I asked questions and answered many. I also observed, because in many situations, I couldn't speak the language, and had little choice but to watch the people around me. And I saw many things I didn't before. Saint Augustine once wrote, "People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering." And it's true, we forget to wonder at ourselves, the people who fill the spaces between oceans and mountains.

So it was hard to leave Argentina and return to Singapore where I need to adjust to old routines. I hardly used the computer during the last five weeks; now I'm back to reading the news, music blogs and book reviews. And recently, Neil Gaiman put up a particularly good one by Michael Dirda, famed book reviewer of The Washington Post. The book itself interested me at first, but then I came across several lines that pulled me away from plot and character and led my thoughts back to the real world -

"Like so many fantasies, Mirrlees's book is at heart an exploration of humankind's pervasive sense of rift, the unshakeable feeling that Things Aren't as They Should Be. The world, our manner of life, or even the fundamental nature of the universe is somehow...wrong. Using both whimsy and mystery, Lud-in-the-Mist looks hard at the human condition and suggests how a sick society might be healed, how our divided selves gradually be made whole. Of course, this isn't to say that afterwards we will be perennially carefree and cheerful, let alone happy. Our all-too-human hearts were never designed for that."

When I decided to visit my brother in San Francisco and then take off to Argentina, I was thinking about how to fill a void that had been created years before. There were things missing in my life, and I needed something wholly different from my ordinary life to fill the void or at least help me figure out what I truly wanted to fill the void with. One half of me has been responsible, sensible, thinking often about other people's desires and happiness; the other - the dreamer in me, the romantic who yearns for adventure and unpredictability - was often hapless and ignored. And I got what I needed on this journey. Epiphanies are what I associate with short fiction - the kind I read and write - and not with my own life. But I had three in five weeks. I experienced plenty of wretched, draining moments, but also discovered much happiness and indulged my curiosity. Just as I observed the hearts of others - hearts that were empty and hearts that yearned to be opened wide and explored - I knew that my own very human heart had returned to me at last, or perhaps it was that I had returned to it. And I'm glad it happened before 2008 ended.

Return to the Heart, by David Lanz
The Heart Asks Pleasure First, by Michael Nyman
Your Heart is an Empty Room, by Death Cab for Cutie

Last Chances

It's never too late for anything, people say. As I told a friend - "a rare connection with another person or exhilarating exploration late in life? Take your pick."

Synopsis -
New Yorker Harvey Shine is on the verge of losing his dead-end job as a jingle writer. Warned by his boss that he has just one more chance to deliver, Harvey goes to London for a weekend to attend his daughter’s wedding but promises to be back on Monday morning to make an important meeting—or else. Harvey arrives in London only to learn his daughter has chosen to have her stepfather walk her down the aisle instead of him. Doing his best to hide his devastation, he leaves the wedding before the reception in hopes of getting to the airport on time, but misses his plane anyway. When he calls his boss to explain, he is fired on the spot. Drowning his sorrows at the airport bar, Harvey strikes up a conversation with Kate, a slightly prickly, 40-something employee of the Office of National Statistics. Kate, whose life is limited to work, the occasional humiliating blind date and endless phone calls from her smothering mother, is touched by Harvey, who finds himself energized by her intelligence and compassion. The growing connection between the pair inspires both as they unexpectedly transform one another’s lives.

"Last Chance Harvey" reminds me of "Before Sunrise" but it's an encounter that takes place for the pair a little later in life. Does it matter? The encounter seems to be just as rare and beautiful.

And then there's exploration. Via balloons. Without leaving the comfort of your house. Because if you're 78, why should you give that up? Carl Fredricksen is finally fulfilling the promise he made his wife when they were very young - to travel to South America. But she probably didn't expect him to do it balloon-style.

The Shining, by Badly Drawn Boy (as heard in the trailer)
Tonight We Fly, by The Divine Comedy

Lara's 8th outing

In 1998, my father was in Sim Lim Square and came across what seemed to be a popular game, so he bought a copy and sent it to me in Ann Arbor, and I began playing Tomb Raider. Ten years later, I still get the same thrill watching her enter a flame-lit cavern or encounter a nasty undead creature. Now, my brother is tempting me with the latest version - Tomb Raider Underworld for PS3 - but I'm certain I won't be able to complete it by the end of my visit.

I'll just relish vicarious adventures via the trailer, until I get a PC version of the game, or until I set off on an awfully big adventure of my own, though I'm certain I won't get to wander through jungles or dive into underground lakes or handle Uzis or Desert Eagles.

Gorecki, by Lamb
Main theme for Tomb Raider Underworld, by Troels B. Folmann

"Language is what stops the heart exploding."

That first line certainly stopped my heart because of how true it is. I read it in an article by Jeanette Winterson, whose work - The Passion - I read as a freshman in college. I still remember it well.

DSD turned 30 this past Friday and I gave her a book of poetry not for pleasure but for survival - and hope - for the years to come. I love Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy for down-in-the-doldrums days, but I love even more the hand of poetry that never fails to rise from the page and take my own gently in empathy or grasp and shake me till better sense arrives.

"Art lasts because it gives us a language for our inner reality, and that is not a private hieroglyph; it is a connection across time to all those others who have suffered and failed, found happiness, lost it, faced death, ruin, struggled, survived, known the night-hours of inconsolable pain." ~ Jeanette Winterson

Themes for Obama and McCain

Like many who've already said so or written about it, I thought John McCain's concession speech was extremely gracious, sincere, and moving. In Time magazine, Michael Scherer wrote that McCain ended his campaign as he'd begun it - on his own terms. In between, the brave and decent man Americans drew close to in 2000 was lost. But on the night of November 4th, he returned in full form. How good too, that Barack Obama took time to acknowledge and praise McCain in his victory speech.

Both men ended their speeches with fitting music. I cannot listen to both pieces again without remembering everything I've read and seen in the past day.

And yes - to a friend who asked - those words, and then the music...the combination left me breathless and tearful.

Titans Spirit, by Trevor Rabin, from "Remember the Titans" (heard at the end of Obama's victory speech)
Roll Tide, by Hans Zimmer, from "Crimson Tide" (heard at the end of McCain's concession speech)

A change is gonna come

I completely missed the moment when the networks began calling the election. I missed the victory speech. I missed the concession speech. I missed the roars of triumph, of joy. I missed the tears, the embraces, the music that played as the president-elect took the stage (imaginary, because in fact, there was none). And all because I was teaching a lesson on adjective phrases and when to use the simple present tense instead of the present continuous.

At one in the afternoon, I wished I were thousands of miles away in San Francisco with my brother, who heard the fireworks go off, or in Chicago, one of my favorite cities in the world, on which, at the moment, nearly every eye - and heart - was fixed. Or Ann Arbor, where old friends thronged in election parties held at cafes I used to haunt.

But I had a class to teach, a test to administer, and papers to grade. I took a quick peek at a video of Obama's victory speech, I exchanged a few lines with an ecstatic Tiggie in Twin Cities, I marveled at the electoral map. Though I yearned to call F, who I expect was in tears in Logan, Utah, I didn't. It would have been impossible to keep the call short.

So I missed out and I was a little disappointed. Yes, there are a number of things within my quiet life that I'm disappointed with but I'm glad for so much that's without, and what it could mean. There is cause for hope. There are possibilities. The world seems new again.

People Get Ready, by Eva Cassidy
A Change Is Gonna Come, by Ben Sollee
Beautiful Day, by U2

A good man is hard to find

"Lessons," by Pat Schneider

I have learned
that life goes on,
or doesn't.
That days are measured out
in tiny increments
as a woman in a kitchen
measures teaspoons
of cinnamon, vanilla,
or half a cup of sugar
into a bowl.

I have learned
that moments are as precious as nutmeg,
and it has occurred to me
that busy interruptions
are like tiny grain moths,
or mice.
They nibble, pee, and poop,
or make their little worms and webs
until you have to throw out the good stuff
with the bad.

It took two deaths
and coming close myself
for me to learn
that there is not an infinite supply
of good things in the pantry.

No, there isn't an infinite supply of good things in any one person's pantry, but I believe there is such a supply in the collective pantry of a community, of a nation, of the world. There will always be at least one good thing you can find outside of yourself and it won't be impossible to receive it. A person can hope, anyway.

Right now, I feel particularly hopeful about the collective spirit of a nation (even if it isn't mine), and heartened by the givingness of the people who are unflappable in their belief in something larger than themselves. There's been so much energy and excitement for the campaign of a transformational figure, a man with a message of hope and change, an intellectual, a family man, a reader of Emerson, a thoughtful and inspiring orator who uses great metaphors in speeches, a man who loves his grandmother, and who has holes in the soles of his shoes but dances (though not quite as well as his awesome wife) sportingly on The Ellen Degeneres Show.

When I talked to F over the weekend, I spoke of how inspired I was reading about the acts of volunteerism for Barack Obama - the canvassing, the donations, the phonecalls - and the numbers that show up to listen at rallies, the unexpecteds who've cross party lines, who've been canvassing with people so different from themselves but don't mind at all because they share a great hope that they can make a difference and create the change they all yearn for. To have that opportunity is so rare.

Even F was moved by it all, not least by the notable candidate himself, who F confessed had nearly moved him to tears with one of his speeches earlier this year. F was voting early, and he remarked on how important an event it was for him, going to the booth and physically placing his vote.

I'm glad I'm here to witness all of this, even if I'm half a world away. I'll be glued to NPR, Salon.com, and NYT updates all Wednesday between my lessons.

A last note on lessons - this mini essay was one of the top stories on Yahoo yesterday. It's about what Jonathan Curley learned when he canvassed for Barack Obama.

On reading

I read this essay on Sunday and it engaged my deep belief of the importance of reading. Politicians will have their beliefs and their stands, which I may agree or disagree with, but they'll always have my respect if they number reading as one of their great passions. The respect comes not from having someone else share a love of literary pursuits; it comes from recognizing how reading is able to shape a person - we are what we read.

Through reading we open our minds to new ideas; we learn to empathize and discover we are not alone; we come to greater knowledge and understanding of the world, and perhaps even admire cultures other than our own. Inside a book, we can escape, be someone else, know ourselves a little better, and emerge a better version of ourselves. Every book is an emotional and intellectual journey, and if we keep taking those journeys, we keep alive our intellectual curiosity and imagination, and expand our capacity for wonder and inspiration.

Books - of fiction and non-fiction - enlarge our knowledge of the landscape within us and the world without. We would all do well to know ourselves better, and when so much of the world without - from Qatar to Myanmar to Brazil - has links to even a small island nation, when citizens of other countries come to live among us, when we leave for other shores, knowing just a little bit more about the world - wanting to know more about the world and its people - is no small asset. But schools here have cut back on literature classes and I can't remember any local politician who took the time this year to talk about a book he or she loved (I'd love to be corrected on this; I will also say that in an interview with Time magazine in 2005, Lee Kuan Yew enthused about the 17th-century Spanish novel Don Quixote, which is wonderful, but how many Singaporeans read the interview?).

The library has reading campaigns, but if they really want the public to start reading or read more, they should have several notable (beloved or feared, depending on how you see it) politicians talk about the books that have inspired them. This will really get the nation going, seeing as how we too often look to the government for guidance and assistance. Of course, it would be terrific if our politicians didn't just mention Machiavelli or The Art of War but also listed literary titles - fiction, philosophy, memoirs - that show they are capable of understanding the everyman plight or what it means to be human and fragile in this culture and others. If we had politicians who could display even an ounce of passion about reading literature from little and well-known cultures, it might inspire the people of our sheltered city-state to learn about the world beyond our shores and not be trapped within the small worlds we've constructed for ourselves.

Even parents can disappoint. They may harp all they like about their children not reading but if they have no passion for it themselves, they can hardly expect their children to pick up a book. If they don't leave spaces for books around the home, they can't expect their children to make reading a part of their everyday lives. Busy Singaporean parents may not appear to have a lot of time to read, but they're setting a bad example if they don't make the time to read. Or read voraciously.

Perhaps parents - and some teachers - see reading only as a tool to construct academic success. But reading shouldn't be an educational commodity; it should be embraced and loved for more than that, for the reasons stated above. If parents and teachers understood this more, they would read more and find it much easier to enlarge the reading appetite of children, as would any politician concerned about the emotional and intellectual well-being of Singapore's citizens.

"The habit of reading is caught, not taught," said Joan Anim-Addo at the Royal Society of Literature Review's discussion of "Literature for Life." The people in positions of authority - politicians, parents, teachers - need to have passion for reading in the first place before they can pass it on to children. And they need to show it. Children are experts at detecting false and insincere behavior, so there's no point in telling them to do something we don't already do or actually appreciate for the right reasons.

The following advice is aimed at children, but I think it's just as applicable to adults in their choice of reading material, be it their umpteenth selection or their very first.

Ben Orki - 10½ Inclinations

1. There is a secret trail of books meant to inspire and enlighten you. Find that trail.
2. Read outside your own nation, color, class, gender.
3. Read the books your parents hate.
4. Read the books your parents love.
5. Have one or two authors that are important, that speak to you; and make their works your secret passion.
6. Read widely, for fun, stimulation, escape.
7. Don't read what everyone else is reading. Check them out later, cautiously.
8. Read what you're not supposed to read.
9. Read for your own liberation and mental freedom.
10. Books are like mirrors. Don't just read the words. Go into the mirror. That is where the real secrets are. Inside. Behind. That's where the gods dream, where our realities are born.
10½. Read the world. It is the most mysterious book of all.

Ximena Sariñana - writer and singer of smart, ironic songs

Getting an interview on NPR is akin to hitting gold. Sales of books or albums usually rise after the author or musician appears on NPR. But in the case of Ximena Sariñana, excitement in the indie world began a little earlier when iTunes offered one of her songs as a freebie. Her debut album is called "Mediocre," but the lyrics - I read a translation, of course - of the title song are anything but so; they pointedly express the tragedy of mediocrity and a lack of individuality.

As an indie singer-songwriter who's on the crossover path, Ximena has a nice mix of influences in her music - jazz, rock, and a little pop (but minimal; it's almost subversive pop). Her voice, sans vibrato, packs a wallop, which may come as a surprise because Ximena is a pretty small person. Perhaps I like her all the more because of it. And I certainly like how she makes this quirky rendition of "Volare" completely hers. She just about eats up the song.

Mediocre, by Ximena Sariñana
Un Error, by Ximena Sariñana

That Obama infomercial

The Republican pundits may say what they will about Obama, but the man knows what he's doing. And what he's doing is thoughtful, smart, effective, and incredibly inspiring.

November 4th can't come soon enough.

Hold On Hope, by Guided By Voices

Between dreaming and waking

"An ordinary day. At seven the chapel bells begin again to punctuate the passage of time, quarter hour by quarter hour. After their night's respite, my congested bronchial tubes once more begin their noisy rattle. My hands, lying curled on the yellow sheets, are hurting although I can't tell if they are burning hot or ice cold. To fight off stiffness, I instinctively stretch, my arms and legs moving only a fraction of an inch. It is often enough to bring relief to a painful limb.

My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court.

You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adults ambitions."

~ by Jean-Dominique Bauby, from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Flights of fancy

Lately, on days with incidents I'd rather forget, I like listening to the haunting strains of the theme from "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Reading chapters from the memoir itself keeps me aloft too, because I imagine what it must have been like for Jean-Do Bauby to struggle with locked-in syndrome, and take heart that I have the ability to move and express myself.

It's a short book and I often listen to the score for the film as I read it, remembering the scenes in which the piano soared, became quiet, and soared again. One of my favorites: Bauby imagining Empress Josephine walking down the corridor, beckoning him to rise and kiss her as she waits behind his wheelchair, resplendent in her 19th century gown of spring green and white and elegant stripes and a hat settled at a jaunty angle.

The first time I read certain passages, somewhere inside me, I wept because I could almost feel what he felt. The sharp yearning, the despair, and then the thrill of the imagination taking flight. He was by turns funny, poetic, solemn. What an imagination he had. And he loved to travel. His words made me recall the places I've been. In the past few years, I haven't traveled as much as I used to, or wish to. So I recall the places I did get to see, the things I purchased, the friends and people I met on long-ago trips. A chatty lady on the Amtrak, a young Japanese man reading intently on the subway. Most of all, I remember the thrill and joy I had of being in a new place or an old one where even older memories flooded my mind as I retraced the routes I once walked. Sometimes, if my mind is quiet enough, I can even remember the emotions I felt years before as I stood in those same places.

Memory of travel
is the stuff of our fairest dreams.
Splendid cities, Plazas, Monuments.
And landscapes thus pass before our eyes.
And we enjoy the charming
and impressive spectacles
that we have formerly experienced.
If we could stop again at those places
where beauty never satiates,
we could bear many dreary hours
with a light heart
and pursue life’s long struggle
with new energies.

~ Camillo Sitte, 1889 (an Austrian art historian, city planning theoretician, and architect. He traveled around the towns of Europe and tried to identify aspects that made towns feel warm and welcoming – now why didn’t I think of getting that kind of job?)

Theme For The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, by Paul Cantelon.

Always, always, I want to see and learn so much. And I want to remember everything, even the things I sometimes say I wish to forget. For when I am old and gray and barely able to walk from one end of the beach to the other, I will have only memories to quicken my spirit. And I hope to have a mind as vivid and alive as Bauby's. He remains an inspiration.

"While my guitar gently weeps"

While working on the Proust Questionnaire (more on this later), I surfed over to The Late Greats, whose latest post was about Jake Shimabukuro. It inspired me to answer the question "What is your idea of perfect happiness?" with this statement - to have Jake Shimabukuro play his ukulele for me in Central Park. I eventually wrote a different answer, but that's another story.

Still, the wild beauty in his playing is no small thing. The video below is a treasure. I watched it dozens of times when a friend first sent it to me. That was about three years ago; today, Jake and his weeping ukulele still leave me reeling.

The Powell Endorsement

Many may find fault with Colin Powell for his decision to appear before the UN in 2003 to convince the Security Council of the urgency to enter a war with Iraq. Yet he remains a very popular figure in the US, and in his seven-minute appearance on Meet The Press, he took pains to rebuke the ugly side of the Republican Party, to express doubt in John McCain's ability to handle pressing economic issues, and to question McCain's judgment because of his selection of Sarah Palin as a running mate, who, Powell says, is not ready to become the president.

Perhaps Powell was following his Commander in Chief's orders when he appeared before the UN Security Council, as a good soldier would, however ill a decision he knew it to be. Today though, retired and removed from the present Bush administration, Powell gave a crossover endorsement and spoke honestly and accurately about his own party and a man he calls a long-time friend and fellow Vietnam War veteran.

Powell also points out a certain religious remark that has often been used by the GOP:

I'm also troubled by, not what Sen. McCain says, but what members of the party say, and it is permitted to be said such things as: "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is: he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian. He's always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is: What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be President?

Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion: he's a Muslim, and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

Republicans have accused Obama of being a Muslim, and the Democrats have constantly corrected the misapprehension - Obama is a Christian. The sole focus - from both parties - on the factual error all but suggests that, in America today, being a Muslim warrants being demonized. That if Obama were Muslim, it would render him unfit to be president; it would be inappropriate, even wrong. Such mistrust of Islam, and Arabs in general (another accusation Obama has had to face), is something Americans should more actively seek to eradicate.

Powell used Sunday's much-anticipated platform to make vital points that the public has neglected or failed to sensibly acknowledge. The GOP is becoming narrower, he says, while Obama's campaign promotes inclusiveness. This means that even if you are Muslim or of Arab descent, you are just as American as Joe Six-pack.

The most moving part of Powell's very coherent and eloquent speech is the story of one American soldier. Powell cites a photo essay on U.S. troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan which included a photograph of a mother in Arlington National Cemetary with her head on the tombstone of her 20-year-old son, who was awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star and was killed in Iraq. The photograph showed the headstone adorned not with the Christian cross or the Star of David, but the "crescent and star of the Islamic faith," and the soldier's name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan. The American soldier was a Muslim.

And they thought it wouldn't be a strong endorsement...

I don't usually comment on politics but I will tonight, because former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama amazed me.

Here's why.

I can't wait for November 4.

A thing with feathers

J's comment in the previous post brings to mind another Dickinson poem -

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

~ by Emily Dickinson