Skip to main content

Readings.

Seems everytime I go in the direction of Bangsar, it rains. And boy, does it rain. Visibly was really bad on the NPE at around 3pm. The rain eased a little when I got near the Bangsar LRT station, but traffic just decided not to move, so I got stuck there for a while. Might have reached this month's Readings at Seksen's 67 Lorong Tempinis on time if it weren't for the jam. But then again, I probably wouldn't have come at all in the first place.

Azman, the Streamyx contractor had called me a couple of weeks earlier to tell me that he and his Gang of Installers would be paying me a visit on the 23rd to get my wireless internet up and running. (Irony paid a visit too when Maxis dropped a leaflet in the mailbox announcing the arrival of their new wired broadband plan this morning. I hate Puchong.) He said they would come at 4pm, right when Readings would be scheduled. Thank goodness he decided to come a little earlier, so that was how I found myself in Bangsar for the Readings.

I came in while Patricia Sykes was reading her poems. I loved Amir Hafizi's story about his father, and he's an absolutely wonderful reader. Joy read an excerpt from her play, which I thought was interesting because of the subject matter but I wished she had read it in prose form (but that's just me, yo).

Faridah Abdul Manaf (author of The Art of Naming) made a surprise appearance and read some of her poems. She only read briefly, because she was on her way out. Xeus read "One If By Land" from Dark City, and Aneeta Sundararaj read "Brought Back to Life" from Snapshots!

I thought this session was quite good, but I'm jealous Sharon got a hardcopy of Amir's story! Also met some lovely (and drunk) people too. Yay!

Comments

  1. see, it's fate that you made it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ted, next time say a little prayer before you come!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lesson: Commemorative Covers are Lame.

Well, I got the first day cover that commemorates the 35th anniversary of the establishment diplomatic relations between China and Malaysia that I mentioned a couple of posts ago. Except that it's not a first day cover, it's a commemorative cover, which is a slightly different beast. I guess I should read the news article properly next time! The difference between the two is that first day covers are specially-designed envelopes stuck on with specially-designed stamps, and marked with a specially-designed postmark. A commemorative cover is a specially-designed envelope... and that's it. All in all, it's an unremarkable affair, especially if you're used to well-designed first day covers (not that Malaysian first day covers are well-designed... but I digress). Oh sure, a commemorative cover has a stamp printed right on to it but that's just like an overglorified aerogramme. Lame. On the whole, what a disappointment. I haven't been collecting first day cover...

REVIEW: Confessions of an Old Boy by Kam Raslan

Kam Raslan's right. In the preface for his new book, Confessions of an Old Boy: The Dato' Hamid Adventures he writes that we've known Dato' Hamid all our lives. Seeing as my own dad is an old boy of MCKK, the people I get to meet when he drags me to an Old Boy function and the people he tells me of, reflect the characters found in Kam's book. It really does feel like I've known Dato' Hamid all my life. Dato' Hamid is a civil servant of the Tunku Abdul Rahman generation. He is the sort of person you rarely see nowadays, a fine example of the anachronistic Malay. This generation, groomed in the ways of the colonial British would be out of place not just in 21st century Malaysia, but in Britain too. And yet, Dato' Hamid, in all his snobbishness and patronising ways, is essentially a Malaysian. Without people like him, our country would probably never exist at all. At least not like we know it now. I'm glad that Kam Raslan decided to capture this ...

An Ipoh Ghost Story.

When I was growing up in Ipoh in the 90s, the only good bookshops around were Mubaruk's, which specialised in textbooks (and still does), and Novelhut, the second-hand bookstore that used to be in Yik Foong (and maybe still is there, but I haven't checked in years since I prefer going to their Ipoh Parade outlet when I'm in town). There was also a pretty good bookstore in the Parkson Grand in Ipoh Parade which could have been a Berita outlet, but I don't remember. This was in the days before they expanded Ipoh Parade into what it is today. (And temporarily causing the Convent school next door to consider moving.) I recall this because I was thinking of when exactly I started reading "serious" fiction, trying to pinpoint the years when I moved from young adult/fantasy/sci-fi books into non-genre fiction. I still can't remember, but it brought back memories of a book I bought from a short-lived bookshop in Old Town. Mum had brought me there, because she must...