未央歌说唱会

黄舒骏的歌, 是大学时代, 去chalet 和BBQ的时候, 如果有人带了吉他就一定会弹唱到的. 喜欢他歌词的幽默, 有时很啰唆, 有时又很有墨水, 很有深度. 去年的3场说唱会都爆满, 我昨天看的那场也坐有九成以上, 可见欣赏他的大有人在.

现场的伴奏, 唱唱谈谈, 虽然说的话可能跟唱的歌一样多, 虽然我和Albert都坐在speakers的前面, 虽然半途有点尿急, 还好, 夜晚还过得挺'enjoy'的.

But what made me wanted to blog about the event was the ending Q&A session with the audience.

Someone asked 黄舒骏 if he (the audience who asked) could work with 黄舒骏 to make some music. This guy, in his words, is a '音乐人' and '玩音乐有4,5年了'.

So 黄舒骏 asked him immediately, '有带你的作品来吗?'

音乐人 replied, '电脑当机了...', which meant to say his works were lost after his computer crashed.

黄舒骏 humorously said that in his time, music was made using pen and paper. To which, 音乐人 claimed he's got about 60 or so works on paper. So 黄舒骏 asked if he's got that with him. Well, the bummer, 音乐人didn't bring it. Dud...

As the saying goes, the best has yet to come.

黄舒骏 says he's still around the next day, hinting that they can still meet up to look at 音乐人's works and discuss about it -- to which 音乐人replied, "噢, 我明天飞台北了..."

*face palm*

I don't know who is this 音乐人, he never introduced his name. However, I didn't think too much of his sincerity in wanting to partner with 黄舒骏.

What went through my mind was : 朋友, 你的诚意在那里? You wanted to partner with another artist, and an accomplished one like 黄舒骏. Good for you. You think his concert might be an opportunity to ask, but yet you couldnt't even prepare yourself properly for it? Stored all your works on computer? Tech geek eh? Apparently you have never heard of back-ups, or you would have come a back-up plan - with your works on paper, CD or mp3 player. Or maybe you expected 黄舒骏 to believe you were a worthy partner with just your words?

And did someone say on national TV that the PAP "was arrogant"?

Of course, 黄舒骏 was much more eloquent and polite in his reply. He didn't say all that above. He just chuckled and said, '噢, 我好忙啊!'

Sweet.

Handphone = Hand "Chicken"????

Saw this sign off a mama shop along Selegie Road that made my head turn, literally. Couldn't believe my eyes for a moment - had to dig out my camera phone to capture the scene.

To the dear sir or madam who wrote the signage, I assume you translated "handphone" in Chinese as "手提电话机", abbreviated to "手机". But even if you were using prounciation mode on a Chinese input software and the hanyu pinyin of 机 (if loosely translated means 'machine') and 鸡 (chicken) are the same - ji (first intonation), there are no forgivable reasons for a person proficient fluent who understands Chinese to mix the 2 words up like this. Not even if you have been getting F9s in your CL2 since kindergarden. And if you are really that rotten in Chinese, what the heck are you doing in the business of making signages in Chinese?

Human. Nature.

On checking one of my many email accounts today, I read a mail from Evelyn, who shared one of her recent encounters at her office:

On my office patio, a pair of sunbirds built a nest on a potted plant sometime mid Feb. It was such a lovely sight, watching them flitting around... with whatever materials (including pealed-off paint) they could find to build the nest. As they built the nest for a week, we watched them from behind the glass partition.

After completing the nest, they stopped coming for about a month.

Yesterday evening, I saw a colleague at the plant with a plastic bag. I rushed out to the patio…………..but it was all too late. She has cut the nest and put it in the plastic bag, intending to bring it home! She thought the nest has been abandoned.

So typical of us, right? (Ahem, I wanted to say 'Singaporeans' but I wasn't sure of the nationality of the culprit in question, so I shall generalise). But did the culprit think for a sec what would she want with a Sunbird's nest at home? Make a lamp shade maybe?

Isn't it human nature to always want to interfere in some way or another with Mother Nature? How often have you wanted to grab, hold, fondle, cuddle or caress any objects, animate or in-animate, that you think is "nice"? We have to pick flowers in bloom, feed monkeys in the wild, throw rocks into an otherwise calm pond, profess our undying love for our lust/infatuation on million-year old rock faces. About rock faces, rock climbers just can't leave them alone huh? We just have to scale them and leave our chalk all over...


Evelyn, being the ardent animal-lover that I know her as, was heart-broken over this episode. Her email went out to her group of friends and to which Kee Seng, who empathises with her, consoled her with this photo taken from an ecogarden that he built for a school.

All well, there's some destruction, and there's some construction. The equilibrum of the Universe is still in balance.

And I can go back to sleep tonight.