Books in the Air

Quite Interesting

2010-01-16T23:40:00.164+08:00

Here is an entertaining/educational 10-minute talk about invisible stuffs: gravity, consciousness, genes, atoms, electricity, radio waves, galaxies, etc. John Lloyd, comedy producer and writer, poked fun at this fascinating world we cannot see, and raised some interesting questions. But really, there are only two questions worth asking:

Why are we here?
What should we do about it while we are here?

The answers he offered are funny but illuminating.

John Llyod created Quite Interesting (QI), a BBC television series. I’ve never heard of QI before watching this TEDTalk. After having a good look around the QI website, I like what I found. QI was created to “find undiscovered connections, see hidden patterns, and satisfy human curiosity”. Everything can be QI when you look at it in the right way.

The QI shop features books too, such as The QI Book of the Dead, released recently in November 2009. It is about what we can learn - about life and what we are here for - from the lives of people who lived before us.

Happy New Year

2010-01-01T23:35:00.022+08:00

Last Calvin and Hobbes strip on 31 December 1995

Books Read in 2009

2009-12-31T23:04:00.000+08:00

A Few Good Books for 2010

2009-12-30T23:01:00.004+08:00

Some writers who contributed to What Matters Now have new books coming out in 2010. I am interested in three of them - managing attention (Inbox Zero), finding meaning (Evil Plans), and understanding marriage (Committed). So why do I want to read them?

1. Inbox Zero

This is the first book by Merlin Mann, creator of the popular 43 Folders. He gave a talk of the same title in July 2007, which delved into strategies for managing a high volume of incessant emails. The Inbox Zero talk connected with many folks (including yours truly), going by viewership figures of the online video (57,000+ views on YouTube) and slides (135,000+ views on SlideShare).

The book will dig deeper beneath the how-to tips and tricks - there is a larger metaphor in there that can be mined to deal with whatever internal or external distraction, craving, or whim that we face as we strive to do good work.

2. Evil Plans
(Update on 5 January 2010: The book will only be out in January 2011.)

This is the second book of Hugh MacLeod, a web-savvy cartoonist who blogs at Gapingvoid. He wants to convince readers that the great divide can be bridged. Earning a living and doing what you love can be one and the same thing.

What if what you love doing is drawing or dancing? Frankly, I’m doubtful, as I subscribe to The Sex and Cash Theory Hugh mentioned in his first book, Ignore Everybody (2009). That theory says that creative people need two kinds of jobs - the day job that pays the bills and the sexy, creative kind. But I will read with an open mind.

If you are keen to sample Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity, you can download a free pdf file at ChangeThis to read the first 26 tips.

3. Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Then there is Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, a sequel to her bestselling 2006 memoir Eat, Pray, Love. What got me interested in Committed was her moving talk at TED2009 - nothing to do with marriage though.

She spoke with conviction that it was possible to do creative work without going mad. She shared candidly on how she wrestled with fears of failure and perfectionist expectations in writing the new book - how she found role models in history and among contemporary artists. Catch her TEDTalk here.

What Matters Now

2009-12-20T23:12:00.000+08:00

It is that time of the year to slow down, take stock and plan for a new year. What better way to do this than reading What Matters Now - a free e-book put together by Seth Godin. The e-book is a collection of ideas that matter to 70+ big thinkers. Each of them wrote about a value or concept dear to them. No matter what your interests are, you will find gems in there that resonate with you, things to think about and do. Download the pdf file here.

Restarting

2009-12-19T21:41:00.000+08:00

Image credit: moleitau, via The eBook Test

See those wenches in the crown above? To me, they represent the royal values of discipline and hard work. This popular poster was created by Matt Jones. Read his story here and the larger story about similar well-designed slogans here.

Stepping Stones

2009-02-28T02:19:00.004+08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Stones hold us back, take us forward,
keep us warm, leave us cold,
open our eyes, close them,
stand with us at the beginning of love
and at the end of it - all things that people do.

Source: Stepping stones to life’s mysteries, Janice Tay, The Straits Times, 21 Feb 09, p. A22

Information Anxiety

2009-02-22T22:15:00.003+08:00

Image credit: TomNatt

Recently, I tasted information anxiety (hence no post for the past 3 months), caused by the continuous onslaught of articles, links, and updates from all over internet. This river of news can be personalised by using a RSS reader to harvest gems from blogs, social bookmarking sites, news portals, and other websites (I use Google Reader).

The upside is time saved, as you just need to visit one place for all the latest information from as many sites as you want. The downside is attention crash.

I shared Post-Punk Nerd’s lament at how his online habits caused him to read and reflect less often:

My use of the internet is, it turns out, abuse. I have traded away my brooding study in exchange for an all encompassing buckshot of skim reading, estimation, and chiding. I have not got very much to say anymore, but very many topics on which I feel required to speak. In high school I would spend whatever money I had ordering books, and I would wile away an entire weekend dissecting Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread. Now I struggle to get through an abridged edition of Marx’s Capital, and I spend no more than fifteen minutes on it at a time before I go running for my RSS Reader to see if XKCD updated. In my youth I spent time writing epic (and awful, as most youthful writing is) novels on reams of loose leaf paper. These days I have to force myself to sit down and drag a short story to a conclusion, if I get that far.

Clay Burell, at his Beyond School’s post, offered some insights into the nature of online reading:

Maybe it’s the daily “fast reading”: the Google Reader, the Stumbling Upon, the one-inch “Digging” and consumption of the latest hi-calorie Delicious thing.

But let’s be fair. These “filtered” publishings we daily (hourly, secondly) consume are often of high quality and high value. The problem comes in the fact that, taken together, they are disjointed, fragmentary, somewhat random, and almost always “contemporaneous” and “immediate” - connected to the day or the year, but by no means the longer river of time. And that makes our thoughts more like mayflies flitting on that river than old growths towering beside it.

Elsewhere, online literacy has been criticised to be a lesser form of reading. Anyway, there is only so much my attention can take. The solution is straightforward, but not easy. That is, to get out of the river. After all, the river of news coming at me is self-created.

Beacon of Hope

2009-02-15T11:43:00.003+08:00

Image credit: Sam and boyfriend Bob gallery, Herald Sun

Sam, the koala bear in the photo above, drinking water with the aid of volunteer firefighter, Dave Tree. Sam’s story (esp. this YouTube video) captured worldwide attention, as Australia fought to overcome its deadly bushfires.

Hope grows stronger with love. Sam turns out to be a female koala and has bonded with Bob, another koala victim of the bushfires.

Reuters: Bob puts his paw around new friend and fellow fire survivor Sam as she recovers from her burns.

How Lincoln and Darwin Shaped the Modern World

2009-02-12T00:12:00.008+08:00

Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). Adam Gopnik, author of Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life (2009), had this to say about both men, and why their ideas matter:

With the usual compression of popular history, their reputations have been reduced to single words, mottoes to put beneath a profile on a commemorative coin or medal: “Evolution!” for one and “Emancipation!” for the other. Though, with the usual irony of history, the mottoes betray the men. Lincoln came late... and reluctantly to emancipation, while perhaps the least original thing in Darwin’s amazingly original work was the idea of evolution... We’re not wrong to work these beautiful words onto their coins, though: they were the engineers of the alterations. They found a way to make those words live. Darwin and Lincoln did not make the modern world. But, by becoming "icons" of free human government and slow natural change, they helped to make our moral modernity

The deepest common stuff the two men share, though, is in what they said and wrote—their mastery of a new kind of liberal language. They matter most because they wrote so well. Lincoln got to be president essentially because he made a couple of terrific speeches, and we remember him most of all because he gave a few more as president. Darwin was a writer who published his big ideas in popular books. A commercial publishing house published The Origin of Species in the same year that it published novels and memoirs, and Darwin’s work remains probably the only book that changed science that an amateur can still sit down now and read right through. It’s so well written that we don’t think of it as well written, just as Lincoln’s speeches are so well made that they seem to us as obvious and natural as smooth stones on the beach.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine, February 2009

Darwin’s native land celebrates his bicentenary through Darwin200. Wikipedia provides external links to his seminal book, On the Origin of Species (1859), in the public domain (PublicLiterature.Org has the full text with embedded audio).

For links to Lincoln-related information, see HyperLincs: Celebrating Abraham Lincoln’s 200th birthday online (great tip to check out iTunes U for its access to free lectures from universities).

New Year Resolutions

2009-02-09T21:00:00.006+08:00

Image credit: ohdearbarb

I should have written this last month. Anyway, I’m dusting away the cobwebs on this blog to usher in some good cheer, despite the economic gloom.

And is it too late for making new year resolutions (NYRs)? Well, I’m no fan of NYRs. But after reading these bold, flossy, funny resolutions (in comments section, all because of a free book), I was inspired to write my own:

1. Join the slow blogging movement, as blogging is like exercise for the brain.

2. Catch up on 17 (to-date) unread books, before buying or borrowing more.

3. Revisit these beautiful places in Europe: Chamonix, Interlaken, Lake District (links to Flickr Search results).

4. Learn falconry at Ireland’s School of Falconry on the grounds of Ashford Castle, or in the Scottish Highlands.

Admittedly, the last two are on my someday/maybe list.

Sidenote: A someday/maybe list is to track things that you want to do, but do not have the resources or bandwidth to work on them in the short term. The idea came from the bestselling Getting Things Done (GTD) book by David Allen. However, this sort of list can morph into a procrastination or fantasy zone. To keep mine in lean shape, I turn to these useful ideas for pruning someday/maybe lists.

Books Read in 2008

2009-02-01T22:47:00.004+08:00

Weekend Links #4

2008-10-25T21:15:00.001+08:00

Jay Walker’s Library of Wonders - I read with awe at the amazing collection of historical artifacts amassed by Jay Walker, founder of Walker Digital. Equally fascinating is the 3,600 square-foot library, specially designed and constructed to be an “engagement space”. He called it “a room, a library, that would be about human imagination”. I could spend days reading/marvelling at, inter alia, the scholar’s rocks, celestial atlas (first non-Earth centric drawings), Nuremberg Chronicle (first illustrated history book), Enigma code machine.

Biblioburro - This inspiring story is about a different kind of library: a one-man operation aided by two donkeys. On weekends, the trio bring books to remote villages in Colombia. And Luis Soriano has been doing this for the past decade, driven by the belief that reading can make a positive difference to childrens’ lives.

30 Simple Ways to Get Your Child Ready to Read - Great list of easy tips.

Weekend Links #3

2008-10-18T23:38:00.003+08:00

Two Guys’ Reading Lists - OMG, such meticulous record-keeping that they can run subject/cost analyses. I maintain my personal library list on excel too but I’d love to look at these guys’ excel sheets.

Sorting Books - Thanks to Sarah Turner’s post, I found this poem in the Canadian Medical Association Journal’s poetry collection, though it has no update since Jun 05.

Cloud Appreciation Society - If you think reading is boring or mentally straining, try staring at clouds. The society will convince you that cloudspotting is a skill worth learning. Anyway, take a break, Look at the Sky, please.

Wordle - I am a fan of words. So this is a cool app. It digests a blog, delicious tags, any chunk of text and spews out “word clouds” that can be transformed into works of art. Me like reading too.

Happily Switched

2008-10-15T23:12:00.002+08:00

Mac OS 10.5.4 on iMac 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

I switched to Mac exactly 6 months ago.

It sure took a while to get used to the interface and different keyboard shortcuts for common tasks, eg. using the Cmd+key combination instead of the familiar Ctrl+C/V (copy/paste) and Alt+Tab/F4 (switch/quit application) key strokes.

But I knew the switch was complete when I reached for Alt+Q instead of Alt+F4 to quit an application on my Windows laptop.

Much has been written about the practical side of switching. These three guides gave me confidence to make the conversion after my PC crashed then:

1. How to Switch to the Mac | The Tao of Mac

2. Guide for Switching to a Mac | Lifehacker

3. Switch 101 | Apple Support

As I looked back, I realised that the deciding factor was not knowing how to switch.

I had been seduced by the form, the cool factor, the culture that Mac represents.

I wanted to try something new, have a different experience, and be a happier person. Yes, design can make you happy.

Image credit: Crouching Donkey

Weekend Links

2008-10-11T22:00:00.004+08:00

Why Everyone Should Blog - Shawn Blanc wrote, “You may not be witty or savvy or funny or cute. You are you. And you have something to give. Somewhere there is something that you find interesting, wonderful and beautiful. So please please tell us why so we can discover it too.”

Emerson on Regrets - “We postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to write, and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful effervescence which we have now lost.” (Replace “literary work” with any hobby that you want to pursue.)

People Reading - Interesting blog that profiles readers in San Francisco. It inspired Noses in Books (Los Angeles) and we also read (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).

Discover Your Inner Economist

2008-10-11T21:04:00.009+08:00

Discover Your Inner Economist (DYIE) is not a typical self-help book. After all, it was written by an economics professor. Tyler Cowen blogs at the popular Marginal Revolution.

In the book, Cowen offered practical how-to tips and advice, grounded in economic logic and insights about human nature. Take the reward/punishment idea, for example. It may backfire if it causes people to feel they are not in the driver’s seat. This innate need to be in control trumps the carrot-and-stick principle (which may explain my tendency to avoid working on tasks that come with treats or threats - procrastination is a way to exert control).

Cowen applied economic reasoning to everday activities - how to enjoy books/movies/paintings, get better treatment from your doctor, give to the needy, cultivate self-control, and so on. To profit from leisure reading, we should follow our interests and not feel guilty about not liking popular works. Skip passages, follow one character first, give up a book if its not worth finishing. To quote from Samuel Johnson, “A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

I was surprised to read about Singapore in DYIE. In the chapter on how to find cheap and good food, Cowen wrote:

Food in Singapore is so good because the city has harnessed the magic of food stalls... A contemporary hawker center... might contain fifty or more food stalls, usually of Chinese, Malay, and Indian cuisines... Customers buy their fried oyster egg from one expert and their laksa (noodle soup, in coconut milk) from another expert. This specialization... is another reason why Singaporean food is so delicious... For many of the most popular dishes, the wait can take over half an hour. (p. 154-156)

I read the book too quickly the first round. I will read it again, more slowly the next time, with the aim to be a cultural billionaire.

Weekend Links (Debut)

2008-10-04T12:47:00.016+08:00

Portriat of the Blogger As A Young Man - I like the analogy in the article. Web logs are like wunderkammers. Wunderkammer means cabinet/room of wonders/curiosities, precursor to modern-day musuems. Blogs make sense of the immensely huge and fascinating web. Bloggers serve as digital curators. They are collectors, driven by personal interests/viewpoints.

Reading Beauty - Yes, definitely a poster girl for libraries.

20-Year Timeline of Milestone Usenet Articles - This reminded me of my undergraduate days in the mid-90s when we used text-based Pine to read emails and Usenet newsgroups. Out of curiousity, I looked for some of my favourite Usenet groups back then. Eg. alt.ascii-art and soc.culture.singapore are still around.

Dipity - Speaking of timelines, you can create your own at Dipity, another tool to organise information, books read, navigate the web, etc.

Do You Read Like This?

2008-09-21T12:25:00.005+08:00

Image credit: Luis Fabres

Here are two interesting quotes from a recent post at if:book. The first is on why books remain a viable media.

The ability to re-read a paragraph until its understood, to flip back and forth almost instantly between passages, to stop and write in the margins, or just think — this affordance of reflection (in a relatively inexpensive portable package) was the key to understanding why books have been such a powerful vehicle for moving ideas across space and time.

The second describes reading as more than just spending time with the printed page, which is how I read some books too.

A mother in London recently described her ten-year old boy’s reading behavior: “He’ll be reading a (printed) book. He’ll put the book down and go to the book’s website. Then, he’ll check what other readers are writing in the forums, and maybe leave a message himself, then return to the book. He’ll put the book down again and google a query that’s occurred to him.”

The Fire

2008-09-20T12:57:00.004+08:00

Before Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, there was The Eight. The figure eight refers to the infinity symbol, an arcane formula hidden in the scattered chess pieces of the Montglane Service, an ancient artifact owned by Charlemagne. The race to decipher the secret is played out as an epic chess game across time (1790s and 1970s) and space (three continents).

I am looking forward to read The Fire (to be released on 14 October 2008), Katherine Neville’s sequel to The Eight. The Game resumes thirty years after the events in the first book. This time, the origin of the mystical chess set will be revealed.

Crossfire

2008-09-20T11:54:00.005+08:00

Crossfire
By Miyuki Miyabe
Tokyo/New York: Kodansha International, 2007
(English Translation by Deborah Stuhr Iwabuchi and Anna Husson Isozaki)

This was the first Japanese mystery, supernatural thriller I read. I came across it by chance on a library display table for recommended books. On the dust jacket was written: “...When the police and law courts fail, Junko mobilizes her talent to bring violent criminals to justice.” Intrigued by its superficial similarity to Death Note and the mention of a secret order, I decided to plunge into the story.

Young and attractive Junko Aoki had the ability of pyrokinesis. Makihara, one of the two detectives hunting her had a haunted past. Set in contemporary Tokyo, the Junko/Makihara story arc began and ended with fiery deaths that propelled both on opposing, parabolic paths to seek justice and truth.

Sgt Chikako Ishizu could not be more different than Junko. As a middle-aged detective investigating arson crimes in a male-dominated police force, she had to rely on her wits and experience to crack cases.

As the story unfolds, Miyabe explored the dark side of Japanese society: how the ennui of teenage youth, unconditional parental love, and media attention can go awry. Layer by layer, she peeled away conventional notions of evil and revenge.

Overall, it was an entertaining read. The ending was not a typical good-defeat-evil triumph. My only grouse is that the omnipotent group, known as The Guardians, remained an enigma - its machinations appeared to serve as plot devices that held the story together.

Found two positive reviews on Crossfire by Hanna Kite and Zack Davisson.

The Fourth Screen

2008-09-12T23:38:00.009+08:00

This 2-minute Nokia ad envisioned a compelling future created by mobile devices. But not everything has changed. I still prefer to read online and browse the web on a computer screen. Maybe the next generation of smartphones running on Android OS may deliver the promise of ubiquitous internet.

Anyway, I was sufficiently inspired to type out the ad transcript:

In the beginning, was a screen. Millions of us came together in a public place to understand the present, to see visions of the future, sharing emotions, sharing experiences that shaped our lives.

Then there was a second screen. It connected us to our world, and even to other worlds. It gave us amazing new games to play, it made us think, and got us talking. But although this is a world we could all share, the experience itself was becoming private.

Then came a third screen. It changed the way we work and play. It became part of something much bigger, the internet, and a revolution happened. We could play new games in new ways, find new music in new places. New communities, new kinds of communities emerged but the experience had become individual, even solitary. The sense of community felt real but it was virtual.

And then, everything changed. And it changed forever. Everything came into this device that fit into our pocket. We went back out into the world. We listened to what we loved when we liked; we played when we wanted where we chose; we shared what inspired us with everyone we cared about; we carried our sense of purpose with us; we discovered new people, places and experiences. And our sense of purpose kept growing. It was the end of something, it was the beginning of everything.

Welcome to The Fourth Screen.

Spiderweb

2008-09-11T23:55:00.007+08:00

Spiderweb, by Penelope Lively, is a short 218-page book (Penguin Books, 1999). I enjoyed the author’s astute observations/ruminations about life, gender and human nature, though some readers may find the writing style too introspective.

The protagonist is 65-year-old Stella Brentwood who had settled down in rural England, after a lifetime of globetrotting. She was a social anthropologist, specialising in kinship and lineage patterns of indigenous communities. Although she had her fair share of romantic encounters, she remained single, a free spirit at heart. She knew she belonged to the minority of individuals not afraid of solitude.

Most of them spend much of their time in one place, contemplating the same view, locked in communion with those they see every day. For some, this is a stranglehold; others are more fortunate. It all depends on perspective. (p.6)

Most people require a support base - family, community. Everyone does, perhaps. The extension of oneself that allows ‘me’ to dissolve into ‘us’, that supplies common cause and provides opportunity for altruism and reciprocal favours and also for prejudice, insularity, racialism, xenophobia and a great deal else. Most people are either born into this situation or achieve it, by hook or by crook. (p. 184)

Most people need tethers of one kind or another. They need a support base - spouses or offspring or property. They need an organization to wrap around themselves, or they need power over others, or they need adulation and approval. (p. 213)

And certainly the opposite of her best friend in university who after graduation, embraced the domestic life wholeheartedly, as wife, mother and good citizen.

‘The thing about life is to have a strategy,’ says Nadine. ‘Ultimate aim, fall-back position . . . And here are you in the fifth week of term with no strategy at all. Do you want David if I don’t need him? I could probably fix it.’

‘No, thanks,’ says Stella. ‘... And in any case I entirely disagree. The thing about life is to act expediently and creatively. Seize the day. See what comes up and act accordingly.’

‘Fatal. Drift theory. That way you get stuck doing things you never meant to do and you end up married by accident to the wrong person or not married at all when you're thirty.’

‘Or,’ says Stella, ‘you proceed from one glittering opportunity to the next and are mercifully still available for grand passion when the moment strikes.’ (p. 178-9)

Stella kept in touch with the husband of her belated best friend and a former colleague. They courted her for different reasons. But their approaches were covert, even subtle. As if they sensed that Stella would flee at the first hint of any proposal to live together.

Her retirement in peaceful Somerset was short-lived because of neighbours she did not know (how ironic given her profession). Not that she offended Karen Hiscox and her husband, or their two teenage sons, in any way. Stella never realised the source of the boys’ malice, nor how messed-up the Hiscox family was. In the end, the teenagers destroyed her sole attempt at introducing a steady companion into her life. They killed her dog.

A more detached attitude is a luxury of greater affluence and independence. If you are likely to need the help, guidance, support or co-operation of those around you, then you cannot afford such a cavalier approach. Neighbourliness thrives at subsistence level. The pioneer legacy is to be seen in the American tradition of hospitality and mutual obligation. You can afford to disregard the people next door only if certain that all your requirements will be supplied by neutral agencies. The doctor will come running if you are taken ill. The plumber and the electrician are at your beck and call. The garage mechanic will get your car to start. The money in your bank will cover all contingencies. (p. 122)

And only if your need for companionship and the occasional kind word are otherwise supplied, thought Stella. If you can pick up the phone to talk to a friend. If your personal community is far-flung, but easily accessible. As is mine. The self-contained capsule is a reasonable option, with the technology now available. Whether or not it is a desirable one is another matter. (p. 123)

The Last Lecture

2008-08-23T20:27:00.008+08:00

The late Carnegie Mellon Professor, Randy Pausch (1960-2008), gave the talk, Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, aka Last Lecture, on 18 September 2007, about a year after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

One of the life lessons he shared was indirect learning (what he called “head fake”) as a powerful teaching tool (eg. using storytelling to teach programming). The talk has two head fakes: 1) it is not about achieving dreams but how to lead your life, 2) it is not for the audience/viewers, but for his 3 kids. In April 2008, the book version of The Last Lecture was published.

On 25 July 2008, Randy Pausch passed away, leaving behind an enduring legacy.

If you want to watch the 75-minute talk (highly recommended), you may wish to block some quiet time for the experience.

Ideas I hope to imbibe from the lecture:

1. Be good at something by working hard.

2. Most of what we learn, we learn indirectly (“head fake”).

3. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

4. Find the best in everybody; no matter how long you have to wait for them to show it.

5. Brick walls are there for a reason: they let us prove how badly we want things. Brick walls let us show our dedication.

Bedok Jetty

2008-08-16T14:24:00.007+08:00

Last Saturday, Singapore celebrated her 43rd birthday. The weekend papers carried readers’ reflections and writers’ hopes for this country we call home. One article and one poem touched my heart. I summarised the article in the previous post.

The poem reproduced below, written by Jinat Rehana Begum, won the second prize among the readers’ contributions in Where We Call Home, The Straits Times National Day Supplement.

Image credit: ShyamSasidharan

Bedok Jetty

At five, I crossed the sea on a dare,
they pestered and pushed, till finally
the youngest of the tribe,
I wobbled on to the long grey finger,
sea to the left of me, sea to the right of me, sea beneath me
crashing, gnashing,
against pillars under the concrete plank,
hungry for young flesh.
Turning green, swaying sick, I turned back.
Don’t look down, Bodoh! Look straight!
Cheered by brotherly support,
I edged forward,
taking comfort in tall lampposts and the long
solid metal railings that followed me,
right to the edge of the world,
right to journey’s end, till finally
I stuck a hand victoriously
between the bars of the last metal railing.
Five fat fingers feeling
sea spray and mist.
Holding in my fist
a strange new smell
Of salt and fish.

At ten, I whizzed past old men
meditating on fish and courting couples,
rushing on wheels,
right to journey’s end
right to the last bars,
to spot new ships hiding the horizon,
cargo, tanker, carrier, cruise,
all waiting under sea and sky
spread so low, so close,
I’d stick out my tongue
to taste the clouds.
Wet, salty,
stinging the eyes,
sweat streaming down my face.

At fifteen, I gave up cycling and ran
up Lucky Heights, round Sennett estate,
under pedestrian tunnels, across the ECP,
through tangled bird sanctuaries,
dancing round cyclists, skaters and babies in prams,
dodging discarded silver tambans and knotted fishing lines,
right to the edge of the world
right to journey’s end
right to the final bars,
to breathe in great gulps
the old smell
Of salt and fish,
To watch planes fly in and out of Changi,
To laugh
as snapper, grouper, stingray, eel
Played peek-a-boo with fresh young anglers.

At eighteen, I came with noisy friends,
to crouch on prime spots of concrete
beside benches packed with early-bird kiasus
to watch the sun slide behind tall buildings,
to giggle above the babble
at fireworks on National Day,
at trails of pink, red, white, blue, yellow, green,
lighting the ships silhouetted in the dark,
at the smoky odour of sweaty bodies, gunpowder
and barbeque chicken. And still,
to breathe the old smell
of salt and fish.

At twenty, I came
when even the ships were dark with sleep,
when only the organge glow from lampposts
and the bright white moonlight lit the night.
When only an old man cik tuning her portable radio
and her old man fighting with the knots of their filmsy tarp
Disturbed the quiet.
Crossing the sea on moonlit white concrete,
I walked right to the edge of the world
Right to journey’s end
to breathe the old friendly smell of salt and fish
To say goodbye
against static croons of Sayang Sayang.

And then I searched everywhere,
Crossing different seas on different piers,
for ships that hide horizons,
For silver fish skimming the waves,
for cheering friends,
for the scent of first victories,
that old smell of salt and fish,
The smell of home.