The United Altered States of Maryam

December Hit List-ens
…………good music to end your year with….according to Maryam. Because this is my blog. And I listen therefore I like. And I like therefore I write.

30 Seconds to Mars – Otherwise known as that band that Jared Leto fronts. Wait a minute, isn’t Jared Leto an actor? Indeed he is. But he’s also out to prove that not all actors slash musicians end up down the Keanu-Dogcrap, I mean, Dogstar road to auditory hell. Historically and generally speaking, from a commercial viewpoint, female actors have a much better track record when making the transition from film to music probably because it’s not so much music that they’re selling but a concept I like to call “aural sex” – buy my album, listen to my songs and you might just one day a) end up having sex with me or b) be the sex goddess that I am (Case in point: J.Lo, Kylie etc…). Too bad Keanu never stuffed himself into gold-hotpants and Russel Crowe never cavorted in a music video with Ben Affleck – who knows what it could’ve done for their bands. Artistically speaking, most actors slash recording artists should just be slashed, preferably with a 16-inch serrated edge knife. Jared Leto or J.Le as I like to call him, however should be spared the torture because he’s not out to sell “aural sex”. What 30 Seconds to Mars offers is music, music that’s really not that bad and it has nothing to do with J.Le being incredibly pretty. Their sound is a powerful, driving combo of alt-metal / progressive rock, reminiscent of A Perfect Circle. Leto’s vocals isn’t shit but it’s neither distinctive or anything to shout about. He sounds like an actor trying to sound like a rocker and doing a decent job of it. The songs lyrics reek of desperate attempts at depth and profundity but ends up burying itself in a shallow grave: Mary was a different girl, had a thing for astronauts, Mary was the type of girl, she always liked to play a lot, Mary was the type of girl, she always had to fall apart…Tell me could you see her face, tell me did you smell her taste ………Get what I mean? My first few listens to 30 Seconds to Mars left me far from impressed but it has been played on repeat in my media player ever since. 30 Seconds to Mars is not so much a band with instant WOW-factor (there have been better bands like it before and there will be other bands like it after). It’s a band that slowly but steadily and surely grows on you. It’s not great but it’s strangely addictive and catchy and despite its obvious shortcomings, somehow ends up being highly likeable. And since when was likeable such a bad thing to be?

Note to self: Tomorrow, I will learn the names of the other members of 30 Seconds to Mars. Hey, even ugly people have names.

The Faint – A bunch of guys from Omaha who sound like they belong in New York City along with The Bravery, minus the “brave” (a.k.a. shameless) hair do and poser attitude. Call it Nu New Wave or lo-fi electronic synth-pop revival or dance music for technofreaky video game-mad white boys who can’t actually dance. Call it whatever you want to call it. For lack of a better phrase, I’m just going to say that The Faint is bloody cool shit. Either that or I just like songs with lots of beeps in them. I have an appreciation for electronic wanking which is probably why I see nothing wrong with Radiohead’s Kid A. The Faint however, is not so much electronic wanking as it is the love child of a synthesizer and a distorted guitar. With song titles like “Your Retro Career Melted”, “Ballad of A Paralysed Citizen” and “Dropkick the Punks”, how can you not give these guys a chance? “Let the Poison Spill from Your Throat” (from the album Danse Macabre) starts off with what sounds like an electronic-ized, grimier version of a riff from 70s disco-era Saturday Night Fever soundtrack but quickly moves into an 80s New Wave cross with a 90s EMF Unbelievable vibe but with an entirely 21^st century attitude. A little warning though: if you’re a bit of a secret dork, listening to The Faint alone, late at night in your room might give you an overwhelming compulsion to get up and do the Robot Dance.

The Dresden Dolls – Punk-Cabaret, what a novel idea – why didn’t I think of that? (Don’t answer that). By punk-cabaret I don’t mean Sid Vicious-type dancing with The Pussycat Dolls (oh, god help us). And by ‘punk’ I don’t mean Blink 182 (repeat after me: Blink 182 is not punk, Blink 182 is not punk, I am not 11 years old. How many times must I tell you that? ) Think The Clash robbed off guitars and being given pianos to hit with a hammer. And the piano is haunted by the spirit of a very-pissed off Tori Amos whose cat has just died from strangulation by a feather boa and foot had just been run over about a dozen times by an ex-boyfriend in fishnet stockings who cheated on her with Fiona Apple. In Missed Me (from The Dresden Dolls self-titled album), the chick sings, serves you right for kissing little girls before yowling with murderous desperation: SAY YOU MISSED ME! MISSED ME! MISSED ME! Now SAY YOU LIKE IT! LIKE IT! LIKE IT!

Honorable mention for artists, albums, songs that would have made previous months’ Hit List-ens if I had made one (in no particular order): INXS – Switch + Definitive INXS, John Butler Trio – Sunrise Over Sea, Arab Strap – Monday at the Hug & Pint + Elephant Shoe + Philophobia, Pink Floyd – Dark Side of the Moon, Radiohead – Hail to the Thief, Twilight Singers as played by the Twilight Singers, The Black Keys – The Big Come Up, Jeff Buckley – Live at Sin-e, Sigur Ros – Agaetis Byrjun, Aerosmith – O Yeah! Greatest Hits, Kinky (both albums), The Bravery, Stephane Pompugnac’s Hotel Costes Compilations, Search’s Isabella (Malay rock song from the tight-jeans, big-hair era that would put Bon Jovi to shame), Eric Clapton, Patti Smith, Jefferson Airplane, The Clash, The Rolling Stones, Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody (because I never, ever get tired of this song)

December S-Hit List-ens: (for songs & artists that you need to flush down the septic tank before the new year): Pussycat Dolls’ Don’t Cha + Stickwitu (Hey PCD, don’t cha want to learn to spell?), Gwen Stefani’s Luxurious, Ricky Martin’s I Don’t Care (the fuck, I don’t either), Lindsay Lohan’s Confession Daughter to Father (stop yelling at me, I’m not your father) Hillary Duff (you can’t sing, you can’t act, you can’t dance – by god, you’re William Hung. At least William Hung has an engineering degree. Haha, this one’s for you Kay-Jay!), Fort Minor (I can’t even remember the song title. Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has one-upped his bad emceeing with Fort Minor), Black Eyed Peas – their whole new album, Frankie J’s grossly overdone cover of Extreme’s More than Words – he sounds like he has an epileptic nightingale stuck in his throat.

Songs that I should flush down the toilet but I won’t: Madonna’s Hung Up (it’s my inner gay-man that just won’t let go. I love you Madge!!!!!!), Ashlee Simpson’s Boyfriend (oh god, I have no decent excuse for liking this one. Let fire and brimstone rain upon me now!).

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In a country where 5 movie tickets or a bag of weed can be bought at a cheaper price than a book, it’s sometimes hard to put your literacy to good use but it’s not impossible.

Book of December

Dance, Dance, Dance by Haruki Murakami – From the acclaimed author of Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami combines an offbeat cast of characters – high class call girls, psychic 13-year old drop out with a passion for 80s pop rock, a hunky matinee idol stereotyped in dentist/teacher roles, a one armed beach bum poet, an uptight hotel clerk and a bemused narrator in what on the surface, seems like a murder mystery. But this isn’t some silly Agatha Christie novel. The butler didn’t do it. There is no butler. Dance, Dance, Dance is so much more than that – what it really is, in my opinion, is a dead-on commentary on modern capitalist society and how disconnected from everything the people living in the midst of it are. The plot build-up is suspenseful enough to make you want to keep turning the page but as you take in more and more of Murakami’s beautifully written prose and witty observations that perfectly encapsulate the troubles of the contemporary heart and head (a.k.a. YOURS and mine), you begin to find that you couldn’t care less about who killed who and simply revel in the comfort that someone out there gets you and is able to describe that nameless, faceless issue that keeps you awake with anxiety at night in comprehensible words. Which is just as well anyway since plot-wise, the ending gives you a sort of “ WTF??! moment”. Don’t read it if you’re into stories with straight-forward, typically structured plots with neat little endings. Otherwise, it’s a pretty damn good read from the writer touted as the successor to Franz Kafka.

Honorable Mention: This blog. Hahahhahahahah. No. I’m not serious.

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…..And because we all need a little visual stimulation once in a while: The United Altered States of Maryam Current TV Favorites

House Season One (Tue, 10 pm Malaysian Time, Channel 17, AXN ASTRO) – Just when you think medical drama genre is getting way too tired, the good folks in Hollywood come up with House featuring Dr. Gregory House (played to disturbingly sexy effect by Hugh Laurie), a doctor who specializes in diagnosing mind-boggling ailments and diseases which lesser doctors can’t figure out, aided by a team of younger, recalcitrant brats with medical degrees. The ultimate anti-hero, Dr House walks with a cane, is addicted to Vicodin (“I have an addiction, I don’t have a problem”), uses the word ‘parasites’ in place of ‘babies’ (don’t you love this guy already) has absolutely zero bedside manners and more often than not gives basic social skills and niceties a miss. The charm lies in his verbal wit and the fact that he’s just a damn good doctor (dammit!) who does things because they’re right, not because they’re polite.

Prison Break (yet to be available on Malaysian TV, download it off the net!) – Michael Scofield is a yuppie structural engineer who one day decides to rob a bank and lands himself in a high security prison. Lincoln Burrows is a man framed for the murder of the United States Vice President’s brother and is currently serving death row in aforementioned prison. Now here’s the clincher: Scofield and Burrows are brothers and Scofield intentionally gets himself in prison to break his brother out of it. It sounds preposterous, I know, but it works and finally, engineers get the recognition and representation they deserve on TV (this one’s for you, Kay Jay), the kind of recognition that doctors, lawyers and teachers have long received, only this particular engineer has to rob a bank and land in prison for the show to be made interesting. Throw in love interests for everyone involve and a political conspiracy, don’t be surprised if you find yourself glued to your computer screen watching 12 back-to-back episodes of the series till your eyes dry out and shrivel in its socket (or that could just be me). It’s hard to blink while watching this series – one, because you just have to find out what happens (high-minded political conspiracy, gritty prison escape and emotional drama – in one show?! Talk about plots ahoy!) and two, because it’s so damn, ahem, visually stimulating. Wentworth Miller convincingly plays Michael Scofield with much pathos – you might recognize this fantastically beautiful actor from sadly enough, the Mariah Carey videos (It’s Like That and We Belong Together). This guy’s so damn good looking, you won’t mind going to prison if it means you could be his cellmate (I’ll stop right here. Ahem). Plus, prison uniforms have gotten sexier since the old days:

Note: If you’ve got a thing for engineers like my sister KJ does, don’t watch the movie Paycheck. Ben Affleck is as convincing an engineer as J.Lo is an anti-fur activist. Not good.

Honorable Mention for …. LOST Season One. I’m really sore that they killed Boone. They haven’t begun airing the second season here yet but I’m not excited about the prospect of Michelle Rodriguez joining the show. And Kate is annoying. Rock Star: INXS If you’ve been a regular reader of this blog since day one or you know me personally, than you know how CRAAAAAZY I was over this show.

TV Shows that I hate to admit to watching: Bold & The Beautiful I don’t understand why I watch this. I don’t. Malaysia’s Most Beautiful (8TV, Thursday, 9.30 p.m.) There’s some ugly stuff going on here. Watch this reality show search to find Malaysia’s most beautiful woman only if you’re a real sucker for pain and you like to have your intelligence insulted on a weekly basis by a thing they call the Idiot Box. In other words, watch it only if you’re me. Maybe I just like shows with the word “beautiful” in them.

The TV S-Hit List: Desperate Housewives, The OC – Hey, just because everyone likes it doesn’t mean I have to. There’s no law saying that if I’m female I must be a loyal fan of these shows or I will be cursed with a penis for the rest of my life. If SATC was still showing, it would be in this category too. Together, they form the axis of evil. MTV’s Laguna Bitch…I mean, Beach, MTV My Super Sweet Sixteen – What do I care about a bunch of teenage brats with way too much money in their trust funds to ever amount to anything? Ah, maybe I’m just bitter. But seriously, what the fuck is wrong with MTV? That’s a statement in itself. The News – Depressing, depressing, depressing. And if it’s not depressing, its bullshit propaganda Too Many to Mention There’s a reason why they call television The Idiot Box. 80% of things on it fit the profile. The Forrest Gump of electronic items.

Saddest Ending for a TV Series goes to Angel. Why?!!! Why??!!! Why???!

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Since we’re on the topic of visual stimulation ……I just have to mention……….THE SEXIEST MEN ALIVE 2005 –
according to Maryam, the self-proclaimed doyenne of good taste. Note how I don’t know any of these guys personally. Which is probably why I find them sexy. Familiarity only makes the heart run towards the opposite direction.

JD Fortune, 32, new lead singer of INXS

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blog or have had at least one conversation with me in the past few months, then this man needs no introduction. I’ve written, raved and ranted so much about this ultra-quotable 6’2” package of Canadian rock and roll hotness, this blog might as well be renamed “The United Temple of Obsessive JD worship by someone who’s actually better off putting all this love and energy into forging real relationships but won’t because she’s emotionally-super-challenged”. If you need to be reminded of why this guy is on my list of sexy men, read past entries entitled: ‘Open Letter to INXS’, ‘Every Song in the World for Me’, ‘Does INXS need a Tambourine Player’, ‘So the World Thinks I’m Nuts’ and ‘The Aidilfitri Diaries’. Or just read all of my past entries. 80% (not scientific figure) of the entries here mention my man JD in one way or another.

Wentworth Miller, 33, actor (Prison Break, the young Coleman Silk a.k.a Anthony Hopkins in Human Stain, Dinotopia, Mariah Carey videos)

He plays a prisoner on his TV show and to put it in the cheesiest manner possible, I say, it’s got to be a crime to be this hot. Lock me up and make me his cellmate already. Ahem. Shit, I have to stop saying stuff like that. I have family reading this blog. Here’s a fun fact: he’s Hotness Incarnate with brains – he’s a Princeton graduate with a degree in English. Too bad the fancy education didn’t save him from ending up in two Mariah Carey music videos. Oh well, if I was Mariah, I would not only have him in all my music videos but in my pa-----------………rking spot? Hey, Keanu Reeves was in a Paula Abdul video. It didn’t hurt him. And if The Human Stain is anything to go by, apparently he’ll grow old looking like Anthony Hopkins. Gah! Anthony Hopkins should be so lucky. It’s hard to type when discussing Wentworth Miller, what with all the drool on the keyboard and everything.
"I'm kind of a dork. I don't have much game. I'm not particularly comfortable in bars or clubs. I much prefer being home playing Scrabble, having dinner with a couple friends, going to see a movie, or losing a whole weekend to Season 14 of Law and Order or The Simpsons." - Wentworth Miller

Dude, I lost a whole weekend to your show.

Gael Garcia Bernal, 27, actor (Amores Perros, Y Tu Mama Tambien, El Crimen de Padre Amaro, The Motorcycle Diaries, Bad Education, London stage production of Lorca’s Blood Wedding)

Pint size Mexican actor with HUGE talent and one of the most strangely beautiful, expressive faces to grace movie screens around the world. You just want to put him in your pocket and take him everywhere with you (or I’m crazy. And beautiful, talented famous artists should stay away from me). The fact that he has starred in some of the best films to come out of Latin cinema in recent times, some of which are my all-time favorite movies, just adds to his appeal. With Gael, the admiration I have for him is as much for his work as it is for his looks. Gael was recently spotted in Hong Kong near a World Trade Organization meet looking not so sexy, like he just came out from a year spent living in the Bolivian jungle without a razor blade or bar of soap but it’s all good, since he was there to protest against unfair trade practices. Ah, my hero ……………….

Note to Reader: While it is true that my birthday was a few days ago, it’s not too late to send me presents if its in the form of the three guys mentioned above, especially if they come wrapped in a big pink bow ………and nothing else.

Honorable mention goes to ……… Colin Farrell If Colin Farrell was a girl, his brand of sex appeal would probably translate into ‘slutty looking chick on a beer ad’. If I was a straight guy, I would probably appreciate beer ad models very much. Some guys are expensive pieces of steak while Colin’s a cheeseburger. Sometimes, you just want a cheeseburger . And fries with that. But I swear if he acts in another dumbass movie, I’m going on a diet. Jared Leto is not on this list. Gavin Rossdale would have been on this list after his ultra-sexy acting debut in Constantine but then I discovered that he had an affair with Boy George in the 80s and no one with such terrible taste in men should be allowed on this list. Dude, if you wanna have some loving with a gay 80s pop star called George, George Michael would have been a better choice. George Michael is not on this list. Eric Bana will probably be on this list once I watch Munich. I still remember him riding his pony in a miniskirt in Troy. Those were good times. Orlando Bloom is not on this list. Neither is Brad Pitt. Joaquin Phoenix will be on this list once I get around to watching Walk the Line and be reminded of the reasons why I fancied him even as a chubby, villainous emperor with daddy issues and the hots for his own sister in Gladiator. And yes, Hugh Laurie is on this list and I don’t know why. Chris Cornell is on this list even if Audioslave is a disappointment for a band made out of the frontman of Soundgarden and members of Rage Against the Machine. Dave Navarro is not on this list for so many reasons, one being that he needs to get that pubic hair-looking life form on his chin removed.

Maryam’s Girly Crush Award goes to actresses, Cate Blanchett & Connie Nielsen – very elegant, basically, the kind of woman I’ll never be thanks to a glitch in my upbringing. Angelina Jolie is over-rated.

Jack Black tops my Least Sexiest Guy list because Jack Black’s success is an insult to women. Now, imagine if Jack Black was female – would he be as successful? The harsh truth is NO. She’ll be locked in a bell tower and made to dust the chimney before being pushed down aforementioned chimney. Name me one fat, pasty actress with greasy hair who’s allowed to show her butt crack and belly onscreen and be adored for it. Can’t name one, can you? The world is a cruel place for physically unattractive women and too nice a place for physically unattractive guys. Jack Black is the walking embodiment of this injustice and that’s why he tops my Least Sexiest Guy list. It’s not personal, it’s societal. But if it’s any consolation, I did find School of Rock a somewhat charming film.

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My Personal but at the same time, General Shit List for December 2005

1. Turning Twenty – Twenty is an awkward age to be. You’re not a teenager but you’re not quite an adult. You’re just there but you’re neither here nor there. It’s like being the undead. Plus, you don’t really get up before sunset and someone out there wants to stab you in the heart with a sharp wooden stick for being such a bloodsucking leech.

2. Badly Sprained Knee – Sprained mine last week in a freak aerobic-dance class (a.k.a Body Jam) accident and have been limping and hobbling ever since. More painkillers. Pretty please?

3. Passports, Visas & Identity Cards (MYKAD) – “So began the monotonous business of chasing visas, certificates and documents, that is to say, of overcoming the many hurdles modern nations erect in the paths of would-be travelers.”- Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries. In other words, the whole business of passports, visas and identity cards is a bitch. Especially when you wait in line for 6 hours only to have the immigration guy behind the passport renewal counter telling you that your face looks bad and puffy in your passport photo. I’m sorry, am I on America’s Next Top Model? No? Then just give me my bleeding passport, asshole. I should have kicked his ass several times over before my knee went bust. And don’t get me started on the business of visas and MYKAD.

4. Christmas Movies I’m not obliged to celebrate Christmas so I don’t really have anything personal against it like I do with Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Still, Christmas movies just get on my nerves. Almost every film of this genre seems to crucify decently ambitious, career-oriented people in accordance to their motto of “It’s charity and family that matters they most!” Oh yeah? How much money did you not give to the poor to make this crap? And where were your families when you were filming this piece of cinematic garbage? Bah! Humbug.

5. New Year’s Eve – Celebrations & Resolution Why make an impossible list of resolutions and celebrate the onset of yet another year of disappointing yourself. Yes, I’m in a grouchy mood.

6. Accidentally Lighting Your Last Cigarette on the Wrong End Happened to me 5 minutes ago. Not the first and the last time. I’m an idiot. What’s worse, I’m an idiot who can’t go out to buy herself another pack of cigarettes because her sprained right knee is being a bitch. What’s worse, I’m an idiot and a bitch that can’t quit smoking. With a limp.

7. The Controversial Islamic Family Law (Federal Territories) (Amendment) Bill 2005 - With provisions that may be detrimental towards women, this issue gets me so worked up, I need a whole new post to discuss this. Later. When I've calmed down and able to organize my thoughts. All I'm going to say for now is that it seems more and more that the country has gone to the dogs. Polygamous dogs with dibs on their first wives' property and assets. I might be wrong but in my opinion, this Bill couldn't be more un-Islamic.

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December is a time to reflect on the year that has passed and the year ahead. Reflect on this:

“Our most daily movements are like the passage of a ship on an unknown sea, and the sailors at the masthead ask, pointing their glasses to the horizon: Is there land or is there none? To which if we are prophets, we make answer “Yes”, if we are truthful we say “No”…….”

- The famously “cheerful” Virginia Woolf wrote in Orlando.

Have a Merry Happy Christmas New Year. Really.

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Posted by Maryam at 6:00 PM | Permalink |

The Absence

Excuse my temporary absence from cyberspace. I ate something bad and spent an entire weekend with my head hovering above a toilet bowl having my intestines do the Riverdance up my throat.

Someone sat me in front of the television. Or I crawled out of the bathroom and managed to only get as far as the living room before I flopped in sickness and in dehydration in front of the television, which is a good enough place at home to flop before. Miss World was on. Miss World is cultural vomit. The female host was semi cross-eyed and spoke in a tone of unnatural excitement mixed with grating pain – like she had a pair of balls that were being squeezed too hard. The male host had a face that looked like it was about to collapse from the weight of his own eyebrows. Miss Russia kept trying to grab his microphone; he kept swatting her hand away. Perhaps that’s foreplay in Russia, who knows. I stopped watching. I puked.

Monday came and I was fully recovered. I spent the week getting lots of fresh air. What usually happens when you get a lot of fresh air is that you stop blogging. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a shame to waste good health on cyberspace.

The Birthday
I've been losing track of time like an alien abductee. I thought I had 12 whole months of being 19 and all of a sudden I'm 20. One day, you wake up and realize you're no longer, by all numerical accounts, a teenager. And you realize, you are no better than you were yesterday.
Happy Birthday to my fellow December birthday girls.
Thank you to everyone that made my birthday yesterday better than I expected it to be.
For pics and a report (by the alia) of my low-key birthday dinner ( because I'm too old to have a repeat of the riotous birthday celebration I had last year) go HERE
Excuse the way I look in photos. I'm no Miss World and genetic's a bitch.

Posted by Maryam at 2:09 PM | Permalink |

I’ve been delivering bananas.

No, really, I have. And it’s not a metaphor.

I’ve driven to 4 States in 2 days delivering boxes and boxes of solar-dried a.k.a soft, dehydrated bananas and mangoes. My dad, currently dubbed by his friends as the Banana King, recently ventured into the food processing business, specializing in solar-dried local fruits, mostly bananas. Here, I will act the Banana Pimp and give you my sales pitch on why solar dried bananas are superior to the traditional local specialty of smoked bananas or banana chips: it’s healthier – no added sugar, no oil, no smokey, carcinogenic flavor and retains more nutrients than conventional processing methods. And the company’s also socially responsible. One of its mission statements is to better the income of the country’s rural community. For example, the Selandar Banana used is usually sold at 40 cents but the company buys it at 80 cents from small, local farmers as to encourage growth and support small-time farmers in the local agricultural industry which is currently struggling to compete with err…whatyoumccallit …..big, plantation companies. Single mothers with no professional training who have difficulty attaining decent jobs to support themselves and their children are hired, paid handsomely and given flexible hours. It’s all very noble indeed, which is why I decided to be a part of it.

Did I mention that I was also getting paid? Not as much as I would like to but more than I would by sitting at home in my pajamas watching Brooke get pregnant for the 632nd time on Bold & the Beautiful. Of course, I mentioned to my dad that it’s very socially un-responsible of him to use child labor. He looks at me and goes, “But you’re 20!” Yes, but I’m still someone’s child for god’s sake!

And my sister says, “Think about it, Maryam, if you help out dad in becoming the Banana King, we’ll be the Banana Heiresses.” Oh yeah, the Malaysian Paris & Nikki Hilton, only without the fancy hotels. Just bananas. That’s Hot.

And I say, yes, Good Girls Go to Heaven, Dried Bananas Go Everywhere.

Now excuse me, I’ve got some bananas to deliver.

Posted by Maryam at 4:15 PM | Permalink |

Calling You - Jeff Buckley
Blogger’s General Warning: I’m in a humorless and corny mood today. Reading this entry might result in various choking and gagging sounds that will undoubtedly attract attention from YOUR BOSS who has long suspected that you’re not doing much work at work. Plus, your co-workers would be greatly disappointed to discover that you’re reading a blog instead of downloading porn.

Late evening in Bangsar. The sun was sagging away down into that horizon blocked by high rise buildings full of anonymous little cubbyholes playing tic-tac-toe with itself. A power outage on Telawi Street Number God Knows What meant that a row of usually brightly illuminated mamaks, cafes and bars were reduced to candlelit caves bustling with moving, talking shadows. The crows came out in full – flocks and flocks, of black feathers perched on matching electric wires, sang the unwelcome song of an apocalyptical choir like a scene plucked right out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Across the street, a tiny little shopping mall by the name of Bangsar Village seemed to be an entirely different world – an anti-thesis to the world let down by our national energy corporation, TNB. The little building of nondescript yet utterly decent architecture buzzed and glowed with colored neon and white halogen lights like a promised wonderland. Cheesy Christmas jingles drifted out from its doors, fully and harshly illuminated faces and figures – in flesh and in color, each one distinguishable from the next walked in, out and around.

Standing between the darkened side of Telawi and the brightly lit Bangsar Village, in the middle of the road, with a large Mercedes honking at me to get out of the way, I couldn’t help but think about how all this seemed like a lousy metaphor for the nature of time in one’s life. The darkened side of Telawi, a representation of the past – all the finer details, and some less fine ones – pimples, warts, hairy moles, tacky signs, dirty footprints, faded from memory; all that’s left are romantically illuminated outlines of the ‘good, old days’ as they call it. And the crows, the crows were there to feed on the carcass of the remaining past, the collective sound of their grating voices serve as a warning for those who dare entertain thoughts of staying in the shadows of days gone by. Across the street, the brightly lit Bangsar Village with its little power generator was the future present – clear, harsh, dizzying, repulsively enticing and alive. Where I stood, in the middle of the road, must have been the present - a short yet significant transitory stage where one has glaring headlights shining directly into one’s eyes and is given the blind choice to either move along or risk being run over by an irritatingly sturdy European car.

Some things, take that walk with you across the street. Others remain in the dark, shrinking with your each and every step. You can only ever really choose to move yourself. A lack of movement doesn’t ensure the absence of change.

Posted by Maryam at 4:10 PM | Permalink |