THE ARTSY SABADO ESCAPADE

the company is having an event launch this may, and the boss wanted to look for a nice venue for it. previously, they did the launch at the art house on old parliament lane, but it wasn't as effective since the launch was done at a nook that was near a resto, ergo, not a lot of people gave it much notice since it was noisy at that part of the old parliament building.

the boss was still keen to do the event at the art house, after i persuaded her to do a bigger event to culminate the launch (which i felt was merited for a national writing competition). in past years, they merely gave out forms and made the media blitz only towards the shortlisting and finale. i felt that the awards had to gain consistency from launch to finale, so i told the boss a bigger launch might help catapult the event. she agreed, since i was going to the art house anyway. she said it would give me a feel of the place, if we decide to launch the writing awards there.

anywho, i got to the art house, after getting lost for a bit. i had a lent camera which i borrowed from friends, and i started the walk. i took the jaunt as a chance to get some pictures (i miss taking photo walks), and so i convinced myself i had to take a few shots.

along the way, i had a chance to see the old supreme court building and its massive columns, the new fortress-like house of parliament, and the singapore river. and then there was the st. andrew's cathedral. apprently, it is one of the oldest churches in singapore (although it didn't look as old as they said; the church was well-mantained). i went in and found myself walking towards the front of the structure, moving towards the altar. it was a quaint, chair-packed church. there were individual pads for kneeling, and the church was getting a facelift from the inside. but what struck me the most, though, was the giant brass eagle that stood in front of the altar. i didn't bother to ask what was it for, but it was kewl seeing a giant metallic eagle for the first time inside a catholic church.



THE ART HOUSE
when i got to the art house, i lingered for a moment, wondering why a bunch of people were painting the metal wall barrier of the adjunct construction for the victoria theatre which was in front of the art house. i started walking into the halls and found a tour group. i joined in, and listened to the guides.

apparently in the olden days, singapore was divided into zones. one side of the river was allotted for business, and the side where the house stood, was for government offices. the guy who bought the property, built a house instead (imagine having been surrounded by government offices). eventually though, the house became the first seat of parliament.

we (a couple of tourists- one teacher, a couple from a village south of manchester, and me) went around together with three freelance guides who had quirky stories and jokes. they showed us the souvenir shop which used to be a prison cell (its walls were made of bricks that were plastered using a mixture of cocnut water, egg whites and lime). the walls were so hard, they still can't drive nails through them (and the original prison bars were there as well).

they showed us a sculture from queen elizabeth (a gift to the singaporean people); pull-out exhibit drawers; and the brass elephant from the king of siam, which was flanked by two trees that were taken care of because they were personally planted by MM lee kuan yeu (the elephant faced the old supreme court building, placed atop a pedestal that had inscriptions in 4 languages - thai, malay, chinese and hindi).



upstairs, there was a caricature exhibit by an artist named heng kim song. one of the cartoon strips had cory aquino and Pnoy (one of the guides kept mentioning stuff she liked about the philippines; she also said the philippines was better off than indonesia, that she had a 30-year-old rattan sofa set, and that she loved pinakbet and crispy pata). the troupe was shown around the old parliament's court room, where the first singaporean house did their meetings. the tour guides were quick to mention that although there was clear separation of opposition and majority, singapore has had only one ruling party ever since. it was just recently that more constituents were represented, has it had opposition leaders - two of them (yup, two out of 120).

we got free button pins - i took HUNGRY, WACKY and SLEEPY - then went out for lunch, then went back to watch a film that featured Y Tu Mama Tambien star gael garcia bernal, as lead antagonist in BAD EDUCATION. the lady who was handing out the ticket at the queue looked at me and then asked, "are you above 21?" i said i was 32. she let me in.

the movie was about a guy (ignacio/juan played by bernal) who comes into the life of a film director/producer (enrique), having a script at hand and a pretentious story that he was the director's ex-boyfriend. the two men were both schooled in a local boy's school under priests. apparently, the head master/parish priest (padre manolo) had a crush on ignacio, and hated that he was having a relationship with someone else, ie enrique. padre manolo threatened ignacio that he would expel enrique, only to be saved by ignacio who sold himself to the priest so enrique could stay. but knowing antagonists in robes, he did not keep his promise and booted enrique out of school. ignacio left the seminary after high school and never came back.

fast track, so enrique finds ignacio (or the other way around), but then director guy decides to visit ignacio's mother, and finds out he had been dead for 3years, and juan (ignacio's younger brother, whom in a flaskback, became padre manolo's new love interest - having had left the church many years after, and started working for a publisher). enrique was infuriated, but continued to shoot the film. flashback shows that padre manolo and juan planned ignacio's death, giving him pure coccaine (since he was a drug addict). anywho, the film ended with enrique throwing out juan from the house (after he fcked him a couple of times previously during the film shoot), and in return, juan gave him the last letter ignacio wrote for him before he overdosed himself in coke, and fell dead on the typewriter he used to write his script, "la visita."

THE ASIAN CIVILISATION MUSEUM
on the way out of the art house, i heard drums and shouting and clapping and singing. lo and behold, the asian civilisation museum was having an open house of their exhibit of congo and central africa. free ice cream, free starbucks, free exhibit experience. i was more than elated (the museum entrance fee was usually S$11 on regular days; getting it for free was kewl).



taking the lift to the second floor, i was overwhelmed by all the exhibits. there were three big halls, and two small ones which had artifacts from most of the asian countries - golden manuscripts from burma, ancient garbs from china, wooden mastheads from malaysia, a gigantic footprint of buddha, a lot of gold jewelry from indonesia, and other stuff. these then led to the actually congo exhibit (which was appended by storytelling, art craft activities for children, and songs and dances at the museum grounds. a concessionnaire was also selling african food at the lobby, which was guarded by massive stone scupltures from the ming dynasty. yes, the ming dynasty).

the congo exhibit was dominated by the wooden/ivory-made heartshaped masks painted in a variety of ways, symbolizing tribes in congo, serving spiritual and ritualistic purposes.

what caught my attention though were two things that i saw for the first time: an interactive table, which lit up and gave trivia about the masks that were placed on them. the masks had an integrated circuit at the back, which prompted the table to flash the information about the mask; and an interactive wall that showed a scene from an african plain. whenever a person's shadow touched certain elements on the wall, they would move. i was amazed.

i took a couple of pictures, and juiced all the volts from the batteries i bought earlier in the day (a sacrifice i made, since buying batteries meant i wouldn't eat breakfast, but it was SO worth it). my camera shut down, and so i had no other reason to stay. but i did vow to come back the following day, with a fresh pair of batteries. i want to take more pictures. and show them to you.

still here. hey.