Friday, December 31, 2010
By Alastair Reid
Curiositymay have killed the cat; more likely
the cat was just unlucky, or else curious
to see what death was like, having no cause
to go on licking paws, or fathering
litter on litter of kittens, predictably.
Nevertheless, to be curious
is dangerous enough. To distrust
what is always said, what seems
to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,
leave home, smell rats, have hunches
do not endear cats to those doggy circles
where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches
are the order of things, and where prevails
much wagging of incurious heads and tails.
Face it. Curiosity
will not cause us to die--
only lack of it will.
Never to want to see
the other side of the hill
or that improbable country
where living is an idyll
(although a probable hell)
would kill us all.
Only the curious have, if they live, a tale
worth telling at all.
Dogs say cats love too much, are irresponsible,
are changeable, marry too many wives,
desert their children, chill all dinner tables
with tales of their nine lives.
Well, they are lucky. Let them be
nine-lived and contradictory,
curious enough to change, prepared to pay
the cat price, which is to die
and die again and again,
each time with no less pain.
A cat minority of one
is all that can be counted on
to tell the truth. And what cats have to tell
on each return from hell
is this: that dying is what the living do,
that dying is what the loving do,
and that dead dogs are those who do not know
that dying is what, to live, each has to do.
Omnia mutantur
12:32 AM
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
It feels really good to live outside anyone's expectations, and to do the things I've been neglecting for a long time.
2011 is going to be a year of rebirth.
Omnia mutantur
2:45 PM
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Finally, the first of the triumvirate of competitions is over!
Omnia mutantur
9:43 PM
Thursday, November 25, 2010
OH GOD I need to really make sure I sleep at 11pm everyday and not hang around listening to music or doing work until 1am.
Omnia mutantur
12:05 PM
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
And it's out! The collaterals for the National Indian Music Competition 2011!
Omnia mutantur
3:06 PM
Saturday, November 13, 2010
OMG Shaun Choo represented Singapore in the Beijing International Chopin Concerto Competition and won the first prize! I'm not so shocked that he won, afterall Chopin's his element. It's more the fact that he beat all the PRCs in the competition before a PRC-dominated adjudication panel to win it. This would make it his 5th win in an international piano competition for 2010.
Anyway I'm also very happy because I don't have to write more memos justifying the costs (if he lost).
Now we just have to wrap up the whole event by preparing for his prizewinners' concert on 23 November, and also Lim Yan's recital on 28 November in Beijing.
Man, I translated both pianists' biographies into chinese and I've been writing chinese emails to Beijing since August, thank God it's gonna be over soon. Some of the stuff I've had to translate... can you imagine translating "Beethoven's Choral Fantasy" into Chinese? It's 贝多芬合唱幻想曲. Yes.
Anyway to view more of my translating handicraft, try
Lim Yan's biography. I got a lot of help from Qiling in tidying up the intangibles like the chinese grammar and making it sound more formal.
Flying off to Paris this wednesday!
Omnia mutantur
11:44 PM
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Been too busy to update with any concert review or whatever, though there have been many. I have a backlog the size of Ohio.
Anyway, just a brief one to say that I'll be going to Paris next month for this:
Click here to find out more.
Actually it's all in french, so it won't be very much help.
Am also holding my breath for one of our young pianists in Beijing during the same time period in the Chopin-Schumann Piano Competition. -_- Please win it, or I will be screwed over trying to catch up with the administrative nightmare.
Omnia mutantur
10:09 PM
