What Might Have Been

My father would have been sixty today.

We had a huge extravaganza planned for him. We were going to book a huge ballroom and invite all of his friends, have a ten-course meal and lots of entertainment. It would've been the social event of the year. He would have loved it.

I went through my papers and took out the notes I had made on the big event. I took them outside and quietly burned them. I watched the flames slowly consume the paper, as it turned black and curled up slowly before evaporating in little specks of carbon and dust, carried away into the wind.

Happy birthday, Dad, where ever you are.

Crossroads of Twilight

The tenth book of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series will be finally released on January 7th, 2003. I'm very excited. I received book 1, The Eye Of The World, for a birthday many years ago. I think it was my twelfth or thirteenth, which either way would mean that I've been reading the books for a decade. Over time the plot has increasingly got larger and larger, the main characters more complex, and the scope has significantly expanded. On the other hand, Jordan has at times struggled to keep track of all the threads as the series threatened to spin out of control, and many of the newer characters have been reduced to caricature. While Jordan initially planned the series for ten books, he has stated that it seems inevitable now that the series will take much longer to complete.

As impatient as I am, I don't mind waiting as long as he does it right. I pray he does it right this time, unlike one or two of his previous books where he seemed to be setting up more and more new plot threads with no sign of a resolution in sight. I was most peeved with book eight, where my favourite character, Matrim Cauthon, did not appear at all- and this despite a cliffhanger at the end of book seven where he was last seen as a brick wall came crashing down on him.

Fingers crossed. Let's have a cracker of a book!

All The World's A Stage

The defining moment of the past week was when, searching for something to do on Wednesday evening, I decided that I would probably head back to my friend's pad (where I was staying) and watch Manchester United vs. Deportivo La Coruna play in the European Cup. Being a huge Manchester United fan, I didn't expect to find anything that could top that and make me skip it.

Then I opened the current copy of Time Out: London, and my eye fell on an entry for the English National Ballet, performing in London for three nights (and one matinee) only: Christopher Hampson's Double Concerto, Mark Morris' Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, and Kenneth MacMillan's choreography of The Rite of Spring.

Four minutes later, I got off the phone with the London Coliseum box office, having secured a seat in the dress circle, row B, seat 28- right in the centre! A fantastic seat, the best I've ever had to a ballet.

I love ballet. There is something so appealling to me about the grace, strength and fluidity of movement that ballet dancers display. I suppose being extremely clumsy myself, it is an ideal of unattainable beauty that fascinates me. There is no wasted movement to the ballet, no careless gestures, no unruly action. Bodies are perfect; limbs are impossibly contorted; dancers take flight. If movies are life with the boring bits cut out, the ballet is life with inelegance excised.

Christopher Hampson's Double Concerto is a triumph of movement. The action takes place nonstop, with dancers constantly flowing on and off the stage, in front of a simple silver set that moves as well. The only way to describe it is, it is a musical. There is a sensibility to the piece that harks back to the great set pieces of the Fred and Ginger movies, with individual expression contained in a larger framework of ensemble dancing. The next piece, Mark Morris' Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes, can be compared to the sound of water washing over rocks- soothing, peaceful, and refreshing. It accomplishes quite the same effect as the minature fountains that people place in their homes, minus the Zen feeling and plus the visual aesthetic appeal. Finally, as you are soothed and relaxed in your seat, The Rite of Spring leaps onto the stage and seizes you by the throat. Stravinsky's music was controversial in its day, breaking the rules with its shrieks, dissonance, and unpredictability, and Diaghilev's original chreography equally so. He had his dancers turn their feet inwards, arch their backs, tilts their heads- defying the laws of the ballet. Kenneth MacMillan's choreography, on the other hand, seems to combine the modern and classical into a furious vision of primieval emotion. It was intense and strong and powerful, roaring off the stage and gripping its audience in a frenzy of emotion. We loved it! We yelled, screamed, cheered, applauded, and called out the company for three bows.

Apart from the stellar night at the ballet, this past week I saw The Compleat History of America (Abridged), which is done by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (which is best known for The Compleat Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)). They are trying to extend the franchise but the new play isn't as good as the flagship. Also, The Play What I Wrote, which was really funny with lots of good old fashioned slapstick, pratfalls, puns and sight gags. As an interesting footnote, it featured Toby Jones, known better to many of you as the voice of Dobby the House Elf in the new Harry Potter movie. Then there was the rugby Varsity Match at Tiwckenham, which regrettably was one by the filthy tabs, 15-13, ending Oxford's three year winning streak.

I also watched Michael Moore on Sunday (the 8th). The man is very intelligent and made lots of great points, not all of which I agreed with, but what did inspire me is his willingess to fight for what he believes in and his belief that anyone can make a difference. It's something that I had lost sight of, living in Singapore. The country sucks the idealism out of you. Walking out of Moore's show, I felt a renewed sense of purpose.

Just in time, too: it's my 23rd birthday tomorrow. The world isn't waiting around, my friends. So much to do and so little time to do it in. Get up, get out, and go make a difference today.