La La La (Part 2)

Watching a musical in the known-to-be-lousy setting of the KL ConCentre auditorium was probably not a very bright idea to begin with. Watching that musical exactly one week after catching Phantom in the Esplanade Theatre (which is a real theatre), well that was really a downright idiotic idea.

But then again, the timing was such that the tickets for Phantom had already been booked (targetting what was supposed to have been the closing night before they extended it... again!), and the other show was on a severely limited run in KL.

And of course, having not seen any of the divine Ms Hepburn's movies (they were too old, even for me), I thought I should at least have an idea of what My Fair Lady was all about.

Here's what it turned out to be (at least the musical version of it): Arrogant old man picks up rude young woman off the streets and teaches her to speak proper English. As in, the way English is spoken it in England, so long as you are nowhere near either the countryside or the gutter. Apparently.

Thus educated, the young lady-in-the-making gets unleashed among genteel society, to make small talk about the weather (the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, etc.) and one's health (like how me mom died). Eventually she succeeds only to discover herself now too classy and refined for her family and her old friends. So she goes and lives with the arrogant old man.

Please forgive me if I wasn't too inspired by all that snobbery.

So apart from that, there were other things about the musical that didn't quite impress me:

- there was only one set, and it was fixed. Scenes were changed by moving the furniture in and out
- it was shown in auditorium instead of a proper theatre so it wasn't quite suitable. Still, the acoustics were far better than when I watched Grease in the same place
- the songs were very ho-hum

Well, I wasn't expecting all that much to begin with so I wasn't too disappointed. In fact, I thought it had a certain kind of charm, like a high school musical. Except, of course, high school musicals don't charge over a hundred bucks for a show. But I'll just console myself by thinking of the good parts:

- the lead in the role of Eliza Doolittle was pretty good
- the opening tableau really was a tableau. How quaintly old school!
- the dancing was nice
- some of the guys were rather hot

All in all, it wasn't too bad a night out. If I just completely ignored the second act. Sigh, I really need a fix of Les Mis!

La La La (Part 1)

Scream, you two-timing starlet! Screeaaammm!

Hmm. I might have misquoted that one. But really, that's what the guy's sentiment should have been anyway. Like, there was this dancer, right, and she like, wanted to become a singer? No no, I'm not talking about Paula A.

But anyway, right, this dancer who like, wanted to become a singer, right, used her feminine charms on this genius but who has half a rotten ugly face with the rather unfortunate name of OG. And OG, right, he like, taught her to sing soprano and all, and even bullied out the resident diva so that the she could have her break. Killed some people too! And when she got all that, what did she do? The hussy runs off with a young, rich, handsome, probably well-endowed but otherwise totally useless nobleman who once saved her scarf but failed to save her modesty. And how she rubbed OG's half rotten ugly face in it.

Why, if I were her, I would've... would've... done the same. Didn't I say he was young, rich, handsome, and probably well-endowed?

Ah, life in the musicals. The drama's cheesy, but what a show!

Watching The Phantom for the second time (third, if you count the movie but we all know movies don't count) was great. Better still, what with Marc sitting next to me. The show lived up to all my expectations, as it should, and was worth every cent I had spent on it. Again.

Well, I might have remembered a few things differently. Or rather, my deteriorating memory might have embellished certain things. Like the chandelier did not crash down so dramatically (it was slowly and rather awkwardly lowered). But otherwise, oh my, oh my!

Musicals are such that when it's a good one, you should go watch it only after you know all the songs by heart. That way, you can enjoy the music without struggling to understand what they're singing, which leaves you free to pay attention to all the going ons on stage.

I must say my heart was just beating wildly when the lights went down. Of all the musicals, Phantom must have the best opening of all. Starting rather mysteriously (for those who haven't seen it before) with an auction scene, we are tantalised by the tinkling from a monkey music box. Then, the chandelier is revealed and raised, the orchestra kicks off, and we see the stage being transformed back to the glory of the opera house.

Sigh. I'd go again and again just for that one scene.

It was an amazing night. The sets were fantastic, the tricks and illusions were wonderful, and the principals... such great, strong vocals. Perhaps it helped that the last time I watched this it was... shit... 1997. But yes, I was impressed. All over again.

Now if only I could go watch my absolute most favourite musical one more time - Les Mis! But that's kinda wishful thinking for now. Hmm... wonder if catching another musical right now would be overkill. Especially one that most certainly would not stand up to any comparison against Phantom.

Oh, what the heck. A night out's still a night out. And a night out with music would be even better :)

I Want You To Know...

You make me happy. You make me sad.

Release From Bondage (One More Time)

Saying goodbye is never an easy thing
But I never said I'd stay forever

Every now and then, there comes a point in our lives when we have to pack up our things and head on off to whatever comes next. It can be a sad, sentimental thing. And sometimes, we are forced to let go of things we don't want to lose.

Not today.

It felt great to clear my desk. To hand everything back. To walk out that door, and leave those shackles behind. For good.

Haven't felt this light for a long, long time. Feels terrific, being free and unfettered.

Well, bigger shackles await but there's the promise of better rewards too. In any case, I have a little bit of time to myself for the moment and I am so gonna bask in it while I can.

I. Am. Emancipated.

Release From Bondage

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
– and done a hundred things
John Gillespie Magee : High Flight

It is done. No more being tied to one spot. Freedom to move has been awarded. My notebook is finally mobile.

Yep, I went and got myself a wireless router, and my apartment is now WiFi-ed. Actually I'm probably creating a WiFi zone beyond my property walls, but of course, I'm keeping the network secure. I hope.

For the last half year or so that I've had my notebook, it's mobility was only made use of on the few occasions I wanted to have my computer while being away from my place. At home, it would only sit near the modem, or as far as the network cable would allow. In short, it was practically rooted to one spot.

No more. With this lovely little gadget, my notebook can now go places, without leaving home. Did I say the gadget's lovely? Ah, it's lovely...



Now I can view recipes in the kitchen, do my banking at the dining table, watch anime while lounging on the sofa, blog on the balcony, read comics in bed, even play Scrabble while sitting on the throne. Anything I want, wherever I want!

Well, admittedly, in the last few weeks since I installed the router, my notebook got moved from next to the modem to my sofa's armrest. And it has stayed there since. But hey, at least I have the option of moving it anywhere at anytime. If I wanted to lah.

Just like walking around naked, being unwired in my own home is pretty liberating. No more a slave under the yoke of the modem!

Now excuse me while I go plug in the power cable before the notebook runs out of batt.

A Pandemonium Of Paper

Fuck.

That was the notion that first hit me the moment I stepped out of the lift and into the hall. Rows and rows of tables. Books on every one of them. So many books! It should have been a haven of the ohmigawdbooksomanybookseveryfuchokingwhere! variety. Except that the only thing I could think of was: where do I fucking start?!

Bargain book hunters know the perils of book clearance sales. It's pretty inevitable that you'd have to sift through a whole lot of junk before finding those gems, especially gems at prices that are seriously marked down. But at least you'd usually have an idea where to look.

Not at the Times clearance sales. To my perhaps-untrained eye, it looked like there was no discernible order to the place. After browsing for just a few minutes, it became obvious that I was mistaken. No discernible order? Make that absolutely no order. Period. The books where strewn from table to table with no organisation at all, whether by genre or author or whatsoever. Kid's books lay side-by-side with romance novels with some self-help books somewhere in the middle. Heck, lying on top of one pile was a book called Adult Origami, not because of the complicated, highly-challenging techniques of paper-folding involved, but rather because of the *ahem* adult nature of the subjects involved. I can imagine a kid picking up one of these and goes to ask daddy, "Why are these bunnies called 'randy rabbits'? And what's this funny looking thing called 'schlong'?"

Anyway, I was already there so I did what I could and just glided past row after row, scanning for whatever caught my eye. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised to see that there were some pretty interesting stuff there (besides Adult Origami).

Among my better finds there was Kylie: La La La. Yes, that showgirl book (aka the pseudo-intellectual, coffee-table-adorning must-have-collectible for aspiring gay princesses). At a very affordable RM15, it was a steal! I so wanted to get my grubby hands on it. Unfortunately, it seemed that a lot of other grubbier hands got to it first because the copy I found was all scruffy and crumpled. Not something you would want to put on your coffee table for your sisters to see. Darn.

In the end, I didn't really bother to do a thorough search of the place. I didn't even look at every single table much less flip through every book. There were some usual ones that kept popping up everywhere, but they were usually the ones I wouldn't bother with anyway. Still, it turned out that there was a pretty good selection, particularly for fiction of the various genres, and if you weren't too picky.

I eventually walked out with three books:


WarCraft Archive - to slake my thirst for epic fantasy. It was a book I had considered buying only a month ago. I think it was RM50+ or maybe RM60+ when I saw it. This was going for $45, and with FOUR(!) books compiled in there, I figured it was an already good buy made even better. Way better.


number9dream - to build up my contemporary fiction collection, which is lagging far behind my fantasy pile. I already have the first book from David Mitchell, called Ghostwritten. That first book impressed me enough. His third book, Cloud Atlas, had such a beautiful cover I wanted to buy it just for that. But a quick look at the contents told me it wasn't something I'd get very far in reading. This one, the second, seems more promising, with one critic blurbing:

Eiji Miyake, 20, naive and wholly loveable, encounters a frantic, exotic world when he comes to Tokyo from his small island home to find the father he has never met.

I think I was convinced by the time I reached "20, naive and wholly loveable...".


Basket Case - for some laughs (hopefully). Never read his books before but this one's supposed to be a comedic crime fiction. I suppose I could use a little light reading.

All in all, the sale was not too bad an affair. My only complaint was that it was way difficult to find any specific genre or author in the mess. Finding a specific book would be like finding a needle in a haystack (unless you happen to want something they have a lot of). The prices were fair enough - RM20+ for most regular books, which is about 20% to 30% off normal prices. Some titles were marked at between RM5 and RM20 (some of these included hard covers), which is a pretty good deal in my eyes.

In the end, I was actually thankful for the haphazardness of the whole place. If it was easy to find what I wanted, I would have spent at least three times what I actually did. Or more.

For those in the Valley who haven't been there and would like to brave the madness, the sales has been extended till 6th May. As for me, I'm wondering if my wallet will allow me a trip to Borders for their 2nd anniversary sale, then onwards to the Kuala Lumpur International Book Fair.