Wednesday, March 7, 2018

1955

I watched an interview of Lin-Manuel Miranda on Oprah, and it was about Lin bringing Hamilton: The Musical to Puerto Rico at the start of 2019, in which he will be reprising his role of Alexander Hamilton (!!!!! if anyone gets me a ticket to this my soul is yours - just the musical ticket is fine, I'll settle airfare HAHAHAHA).

No but anyway, Lin talked about how when he was younger, he was always feeling a little out of place when he would spend one month out of a year back in Puerto Rico because he would always be a little gringo-ish (white man) for them, but back in the US, he was always the Latino/person of colour.

He then said that is what makes a good writer, if you always feel a little out of place, and something in my brain went ding ding ding (!!!!!!!!).

When I was in the US, they wouldn't believe I was Asian, because I spoke English very well, but they knew I wasn't from there, either, because I have an accent (I have been told it sounds closest to Indian, although I don't have Indian blood). And here in Singapore, nobody shares my ummmm, my vehement passion for "I will do what I want". I swear, everyone here cares about someone else's feelings and lives by those things rather than pursuing what they want.

So yeah, perhaps that is why I write.

Today there was a book fair at the mall where I work, and book fairs are the legitimate worst. I will never be able to walk past one without getting something, ergh, I HATE THEM. I judge books by their covers, though, so I took one that immediately caught my eye, by virtue of being neon pink.

It matches my new graphic tote bag. You know, some of my colleagues hate the colour pink, so they tell me not to wear so much pink, and I'm like, wow, way to go, for people who are supposedly supportive of marginalised communities, y'all are waaaaay open-minded and accepting. ;)

The first page of the book rather assures me that this is a read I will enjoy, it's an excerpt that the writer chose:
Was it Laurie Anderson who said that VR would never look real until they learned how to put some dirt in it? Singapore's airport, the Changi Airtropolis, seemed to possess no more resolution than some early VPL world. There was no dirt whatsoever; no muss, no furred fractal edge to things. Outside, the organic, florid as ever in the tropics, had been gardened into brilliant greens, and all-too-perfect examples of itself. Only the clouds were feathered with chaos — weird columnar structures towering above the Strait of China.
The cab driver warned me about littering. He asked where I was from.
He asked if it was clean there. "Singapore very clean city." One of those annoying Japanese-style mechanical bells cut in as he exceeded the speed limit, just to remind us both that he was doing it. There seemed to be golf courses on either side of the freeway....
"You come for golf?"
"No."
"Business?"
"Pleasure."
He sucked his teeth. He had his doubts about that one.

— William Gibson, "Disneyland with the Death Penalty", Wired, 1993