3rd century view: time to stop peacocking

Just hit third century view photo with the albino peacock shot featured in an earlier post.

I suppose I'm now at this point where I have a certain critical mass of photos approaching the 100 mark so there should be a few more century views on the horizon. The novelty/excitement of hitting 3 digits has certainly worn off considerably.

Must think of a new milestone now, which is realistic and achievable but at the same time has some oomph factor. Hitting a thousand views for a single photo would be a bit much.

My 2nd Century View photo - Siew Mai's furry belly!

Siew Mai's furry belly (2 of 5)
Originally uploaded by Taking5

Amazing - within 24 hours of putting up this photo, it hit 125 views. Certainly this is the first time it has ever happened to any of my Flickr photos. I admit it is a really cute photo - that tummy really says "RUB ME" but I didn't expect it to get so popular so fast. The spillover effects are limited as the photos just before and after haven't had a significant increase in views. And I must also admit to some slight disappointment that my two most viewed cat photos are not of my own little sweeties....

Anyway, Siew Mai is one of my colleagues' four cats. We met when I went over to my colleague's place for her housewarming party. Unfortunately, the other three cats were scared of all the nasty visitors and were hiding away. Siew Mai and my colleague's dog, Har Kau, are named after dim sum dishes (dim sum are small little Cantonese snack like dishes which are consumed normally for breakfast or lunch or maybe even brunch. A Siew Mai is a little meat dumpling.) Siew Mai, as can be seen, is a very friendly cat, allowing near strangers to rub her belly. I love the way her little paw waves in the air in this photo and although you can't quite see it she does have a happy look on her face. See more Siew Mai photos here.

The cat I really wanted to see is this heroine who survived a fall down thirteen floors. I had read previously online that cats can survive a fall from incredible heights. They can twist their flexible little bodies in the air such that they are able to make use of the air resistance to slow down the rate of descent but need time to do so. Hence, if the height is less than seven floors they don't have time to adjust. My colleague's tabby managed to wriggle through the protective netting at one window and fell. After a 4-hour search, my colleague found her cat on the ground, alive, but with broken limbs. The cat is still going strong today. Sadly, when I visited, she was hiding behind the washing machine the whole time. So no cat to be seen, and no photo.

Nonetheless, all hail to that marvellous animal, the cat!

Doorkeeper

I went for a little concert last night, by singer-songwriter Dawn Fung. The venue: Pitchblack, a small cafe cum art gallery cum screening room in Haji Lane (parallel to Arab Street). Haji Lane is one of those one-horse lane type roads which must have survived from the early days when this area was first built up. Old shophouses line each side of the road. These days, new boutiques, restaurants bars, and funky cafes like Pitchblack are moving in.

Dawn Fung sings folk music, or rather folk music with a Christian orientation, and that's the kind of music she also writes. She plays the guitarlele which I suppose is some cross between a guitar and a ukelele but in reality looks like a mini guitar. She was accompanied by another guitarist and a violinist.

I enjoyed the performance. Dawn has a sweet clear voice which suited the intimate setting of the small upper room. The songs were pleasant too, with interesting harmonies and rhythms but could do with a little more variation in composition as there was a certain sameness throughout the performance. Dawn takes the Bible as a source of inspiration. Eg one song was based on Isaiah and another the famous verse in Ecclesiastes which has already inspired a number one hit song many many years ago. I must confess also that I was a little surprised that she sang so many hymns, as the poster advertising the performance didn't really mention it - the plug was that the Doorkeeper was a "brief visit to into the world of bedtime stories". All in all, a good performance but the songs need to be a little more memorable. When I left, the song running through my head was "To every thing (turn, turn, turn), there is a season (turn, turn, turn)..."

p.s. Dawn also sang that old favourite, "Blessed Assurance". Now that takes me back to my convent school days :-)

My first century view photo!

Treed
Originally uploaded by Taking5

I've been on Flickr for a little more than 9 months and today, I finally had a photo which reached 100 views! This photo was taken with a camera phone. I did do a little touch up but it started off a nice sharp good quality shot.

I took the photo last December at East Coast Park, when we were doing twice weekly morning walks. We spotted various strays a.k.a community cats about the place, as recorded here. This particular chap we found one morning up a tree. He was too shy to come down from his tree to eat the cat food we brought for him. There was another cat wandering around so I don't think he managed to get anything even after we left.

It has been a while since we went walking at the East Coast Park. Hopefully our feline friends have been faring ok in our absence.

Optical Identity: T'ang Quartet and Theatre Cryptic

I just came back from a Singapore Arts Festival performance by the T'ang Quartet called "Optical Identity". This was a contemporary classical music performance. I'm not really a big fan - in fact I've only attended one other contemporary classical performance (see review here). What is supposed to make this concert different is T'ang's tie up with Theatre Cryptic: this is supposed to be "visual music"; a more multi-media type experience with lights, staging and other effects thrown in. Promising?

Well, I was rather worried that it would be frightfully pretentious. And, when the curtain rose to display the performers sitting with their backs to the audience, I feared (to be honest) the worst. I could not see what they were wearing clearly, but it appeared to be white pyjamas. Later on in the performance they started walking around and we could see that they were wearing what looked like jackets with the sleeves cut out, or rather white sleeveless vests in addition to their white trousers. No shirts. But at that moment, what we saw were four dark thrones arranged in a semi-circle with their backs to the audience. The backs of each throne were shaped such that they looked rather like rocks. There was also a shape cut out of the back so we could get sight of the performers. The effect was of musicians sitting in a cavern whilst we the observers watched them play.

They played their first piece, White Man Sleeps by Kevin Volans, in this position. I enjoyed the piece - in fact it was my favourite of the evening. The first dance started off with a rather rhythmic sound, continued in the second dance with the cello setting the pace for the movement. The lighting effects were not particularly interesting in this session. This changed somewhat during the third dance, where a green shaft of light hit the back of one of the thrones. Instead of a cavern, the musicians sat in a forest glade and the pizzicato of the strings brought to mind falling drops of water. I had to admit that the multi-media elements certainly added to the musical experience.

But the second piece was somewhat less impressive. I much preferred the third piece, whereby the musicians on the stage were joined by their images projected on a huge screen behind them. It was quite interesting to see huge images of the bow moving across the violin strings behind the performers. It got even more interesting when the image expanded to show the musician as well... and revealed that the vest was off! Camera started showing (at all angles) the movement of the brawny arms and muscular backs as the violinist played. But this was a major distraction. I put it to you : four musicians on stage, clad in white vests and trousers, vs images of bare breasted musicians at work in the background - where do you think everyone's eyes will be? And as for the music... frankly that just didn't register.

Far less distracting was the next segment, when this man in black starts walking around the stage with a video camera capturing the musicians as they performed and projecting this on the screen "live". I actually quite enjoyed this, as the musicians entered into a sort of musical face-off, two against two. Unfortunately the music was somewhat discordant so I was reminded of two sets of cats snarling and hissing at each other. (No doubt, due to the many such episodes taking place in my house every day).

In brief: a very different classical performance, which I would certainly say is more memorable than most. But I am a little afraid that the effects outshone the music at times, rather than enhanced it.

The complete programme for Optical Identity:

• String Quartet No. 1: White Man Sleeps, by Kevin Volans
• Phonotype I (Parts I-IV), by Rolf Wallin
• Mugam Sayagi, by Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
• Phonotype I (Part V), by Rolf Wallin
• Manual Override, by Joby Talbot

Proud as an Albino Peacock

Albino Peacocks
Originally uploaded by Taking5

Today, I received the following message in my Flickr mail:

Dear Sir/Madam

My name is Olivia and I am writing on behalf of Atlantic Books. We are in the process of putting together a hardback book entitled "Cooler Faster More Expensive, The Return of the Sloane Ranger", which Atlantic Books will be publishing in October of this year. You may remember "The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook", which sold over one million copies in the 1980s and was written by Peter York and Anne Barr, well "The Return of the Sloane Ranger" is also by Peter York, and is co-written by Olivia Stewart-Liberty. It is a witty and cutting-edge guide to Britain’s largest, most powerful, most invisible tribe: the new upper classes.

In "Cooler, Faster, More Expensive", Peter York ('The Nancy Mitford of our time') and Olivia Stewart Liberty give the
essential account of the current Sloane renaissance and reveal emerging breeds of a subtle and powerful social network. From Chav Sloanes and Party Sloanes to Eco Sloanes and Turbo Sloanes, English society will never look quite the same again.

The book is made up of text, illustrations, tables and photographs which reflect this powerful social group. We are currently collecting images and wondered if you might supply us with some, free of charge, for inclusion in this trend-setting book and you would of course be credited and sent a copy of the book, should we use your picture of an albino peacock, numbered 302764907. Permission for usage would include the right to use the image in the promotion of the book (e.g. if a newspaper decides to review the book and asks to run your image in conjunction with the review then your image would be reproduced in that newspaper in conjunction with the review).

We greatly appreciate any help you could give us.

Best wishes

Olivia

Olivia Hunt
Editorial Assistant
Atlantic Books

To which I replied, in essence, "but of course". Being a rather cautious person, I did wonder what the catch is. And why this particular photo has been selected. Surely it is not the most perfect peacock photo on Flickr. But then I googled the Sloane Rangers handbook and find out that yes, it is indeed being updated - as this report from the Daily Mail indicates. So yes, let's go for it, no such thing as bad publicity and why do I care if mine is not the best albino peacock photo ever, its the one selected!

Am flattered, excited and (let me admit it) more than a little chuffed. Am I on my way to a new, second career?

Writer's Block

I admit I have not been posting too much on this blog in recent days. But my writer's block refers not to the lack of posts. Rather, it refers to my sheer inability to get out the first paragraph of the chapter I'm writing for a book. So picture me, sitting here, next to my window with its pleasant view of a green quadrangle surrounded by white colonial buildings. A tall, lofty old tree casts its cool shadow over one corner of the quadrangle. Its branches sway in the breeze. Every now and then a bird calls. It is very pleasant, yes, but unfortunately it does not provide sufficient inspiration for me to break the block.

So, I thought I would turn to this blog because the only way to cure writer's block is to write.... anything! Is it working? Perhaps if I continue a little more...

I met a former colleague yesterday and she disclosed that she too has started a blog! Of course, she is still filled with the enthusiasm of a new blogger and is posting regularly (unlike yours truly). But it was pleasant to swap anecdotes of our blogging experience and stories of other people we know who blog. I think we were both startled to find out about the other's guilty little secret... but why should it be a guilty secret? Alas, in our case it is probably because of the prevailing work culture in our organisation. Time should be spent working and not reflecting, on "productive pursuits" instead of sitting, watching the world go by and writing about it.

Sigh. With that, it is probably about time to return to my chapter. Am not sure whether the block will re-emerge once again, but one must make the attempt....