Skip to main content

What Teddy Did.

The book launch on Saturday went good. Met my fellow writers, Alex, Jolin, Richard, Paul, Agnes and Karen-Ann as well as well-wishers like Farah, Shark, Irene and Allen. T'was good and all is well and I guess I can call myself a true published writer. I'm glad a lot of the writers were so happy that they had stories that were finally published. Their enthusiasm was heartening.

I wasn't as enthusiastic though. Not because I wasn't happy I got published. No, no. That's great. In fact, it's so awesome it's mind-blowingly freakingly coolz0rzx!!!11 and the only reason I wasn't leaping for joy was that well, I made the mistake of going to Tango Mango and Borders first before the launch... and to celebrate the launch I kinda splurged a bit on some stuff so in the end I was happier for the stuff that I got... than the fact that I was published. Huh. Weird. In a way, I guessed I peaked my joy before the launch started. Does that make any sense?

The sources of this outrageous imbalance of happiness was a large Plain Moleskine, to replace my current one (that's almost full), a copy of the Penguin Graphic Classics Edition of Paul Auster's New York Trilogy, and a copy of Max Barry's Jennifer Government which I've wanted to read for some time now.

If you're aware of the cult rep Moleskines have, well maybe you can understand that buying a new M is always a major event. It definitely is for me... ah! that wonderful oilskin-wrapped cover, those smooth and soft, slightly yellowed pages, that wonderful back-pocket of secrets, the allure of being in the same company as Chatwin and Hemingway Henry Jones Sr.! Who wouldn't love a Moleskine?

As for Paul Auster... when I saw the cover for the Penguin Graphics Classics... I had to have it. And the rest of the goddamned series too. They're too beautiful. They look wonderful, they feel wonderful and they read wonderful. Jack Kerouac has never looked sexier!

About Jennifer Government, I think I'll reserve my thoughts about that for another post. I read and finished it on New Year's Day and the book is to capitalism what Nineteen Eighty-Four is to Totalitarianism.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
5 comments
Read more

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...
5 comments
Read more

REVIEW: Pinball, 1973 by Haruki Murakami.

UPDATE: My Wind/Pinball review can be found here . ISBN: n/a Publisher: n/a Paperback: 160 pages In Murakami fan circles, simply owning a copy of Pinball, 1973 is a mark of hardcore-ness. Like Hear the Wind Sing before it, Haruki Murakami does not allow English translations of Pinball, 1973 to be published outside of Japan. Back in the 80s, Alfred Birnbaum translated it into English and Kodansha published it as a novel for Japanese students who wanted to improve their English. While the English edition of Hear the Wind Sing continues to be reprinted and sold in Japan (and available for a moderate sum via eBay, see my review ), Kodansha stopped its reprint runs of the English edition of Pinball, 1973 and has now become a collector's item, fetching vast amounts of money on auction sites and reseller stores. Last time I checked, the cheapest copy went for USD$2500. Of course, Murakami addicts or the curious can always download a less than legal PDF of the book, painst...
18 comments
Read more