Saturday, July 15, 2006

Nella Fantasia

I meet Foost today. He plays the oboe. I really liked him. We talked a lot about a whole bunch of stuff.

Julie was there. She knew Foost. She introduced me.

We had just come from the KL Sing Song at KL-Pac. It was kinda nice. Indie musicians playing their own songs. Some were really interesting. Most were fun. They all had a patter and great rapport with the audience. Some of them spoke in Malay.

One of them was stoned. He said he hadn't slept in 48 hours. I couldn't understand most of what he sang, except for the bit about not having credit on his phone to call his Mamma. I so related. So I laughed at that bit.

One of them played the keyboard and sang Broadway-type tunes he had composed. One of the songs, about inter-religious relationships, was seriously good. The other, sung by a Chinese hooker to this Malay married man who impregnated her, was sort of funny because, well we had to imagine him as a Chinese hooker. And the third was about a planet for romantic failures.

Princess Leia's got donuts instead of hair
and yet she found a man who cares,
the bitch!


One girl was so pretty that I let it distract me from her songs. (Grey, I think you would like her but since she's like a minor star she may already have a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. You know how artists are!)

One of the guys was pretty hot. Apparently he knows it and he sings to get girls. He grunts at the end of every line. Supposed to be sexual or something. I just thought he was cute. And that he played the guitar very well. I could relate to his song, Smoky City, about KL, and how difficult it is to readjust after being away. Everyone else was busy being unimpressed.

And then we had teh tarek with Foost at this stall outside of KL-Pac which is a very good place if you want to have teh tarek at 11 after a show at the KL-Pac. Which is, like, in Sentul (think Indians, lots of 'em).

We got into a discussion about farmers and development and I came off the Luddite. I ALWAYS come off the Luddite. But I don't care. (OK seriously, do you NEED to attach computers to cows to monitor the nutrient content of their milk and automatically adjust their feed accordingly? What are we, like, machines?)

Foost said he liked Kinokuniya the best and I said, yes, that was my favourite bookshop, although Borders at the Curve was pretty good. And the MPH in Megamall was kinda catching up as well.

I bought Infinite Jest at MPH Megamall and am still reading it.

I am up to page 691, but suspect I will breach the 700-page mark soon.

I may make a chocolate raspberry streusel bar tomorrow.

It is something I have wanted to do for a long time.

It's nice to have a purpose in life.

12 comments:

Nessa said...

I love listening to live music. When I still hung out at bars, I'd only go to the ones with bands.

When we go to fairs and festivals, I'll always stop and listen to the live music. Others of my acquaintance are not as keen.

I have taken to making one desert each weekend, from scratch, to last for the week. Last Sunday I made banana pudding (Nilla Wafers, cooked vanilla pudding and sliced bananas.) It was a hit. I think I might make something lemony this weekend.

Jenn said...

When you come over we can go hang out at places with live music like No Black Tie and listen to these people and bob our heads in time with the music and if you're into it, we can go do the groupie thing after. It would be fun.

Yum. I think deserts cover a multitude of sins. Or maybe it's love. Who knows, I keep mistaking one for the other.

Nessa said...

Jenn: I'd love it all. I love doing the groupie thing. Plus, staying out late and hangin' with the cool people, talkin' about the universe and deserts. Yum.

Charlene Amsden said...

Dessert, love and music -- somehow they do all go together, but I doubt they are interchangable.

I, too, love live music and almost always find myself moving in tune to the beat. We have a lot of street bands downtown in the summer and as I move from one sound wave to the next the cadence of my walk changes with the music.

furyouhin said...

oof, teh tarek. yum. You kill me with your offhand mentions of foods I crave. The only Malay restaurant I'm aware of in this area has the word "Hut" in its name, which never bodes well. Now if only I could find an inexpensive source of roti prata.

Jenn said...

Nessa: Wow. OK. You're on. It's a date! (in fact, a whole series of dates as far as I'm concerned) I really want to do the KL pub hopping thing!

Quilly: Yeah, I can imagine. In Perth there were buskers along Hay Street Mall and Murray Street Mall all the time who played really really well. Also my uni had an academy of performing arts, which meant that students would break into impromptu performances which was always fun.

Re: Music, love, dessert being interchangeable - OK, I admit, probably not...but in certain circs, they each give out the same feeling.
Streusel bar, anyone?

Quasar: Thanks. And by thanks I mean thanks.

Fury: Gosh, I didn't realise that any of you would even know what I was talking about when it came to Malaysian food. If you ever made it all the way over here to our humble little corner of the world, I would give you all the prata you could handle. In Aus, I found this sort of pastry variety that you had to put on a hotplate to heat up and my dinner guests always liked it a whole lot. Like, a WHOLE lot. I don't know if you can get it in Philly, however.

lemontree said...

hey jenn
nice to know someone is enjoying the small things
also wanted to tell you, i come in late, but i have been reading you and enjoying it much

Jenn said...

Hey Lemon! Good to see you here. You haven't been around for a while. Hope everything is going OK with you. And thanks.

Quasar: I didn't end up making the CRSB (how's that for an acronym). Instead I went for the second day of the KL Sing Song with a friend and enjoyed myself thoroughly and hung out with a bunch of people after (many of them I had never met before) and generally had a really good time.

If music be the food of love play on...

Grey Shades said...

Sigh! alas they all do right? :) And chocolate raspberry streusal bar? Yum!

Jenn said...

Grey: Haven't made it late. Am remarkably lazy about it. Spend a lot of time thinking about making the streusel bar, and doing nothing in particular about it.

Grey Shades said...

You should read this book called Freakonomics which talks about how humans respond to incentives. Now what would be an incentive for you to make you bake that bar! *the finger tapping pondering look*

Jenn said...

Nothing at the moment. Empty hollow feeling plus I think I am getting a sore throat. So not in the mood to be motivated.