A Curried Life

Friends of Alliance Française come together to celebrate the unveiling of “Paris/Penang", a 20-meter mural in oils featuring the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Queen Victoria Memorial Clock Tower, Penang Hill and Penang ferry at the Alliance Française de Penang. Penang-born former architecture student turned artist Elan Hasyim, 37 created this artwork which was painted over a period of over three months as he is based in Kuala Lumpur.  Total time spent on the mural is about 30 days. The mural started with the two famous bridges – the Pont Neuf in Paris and the Penang Bridge which Elan connected to portray the relations between the two cities. “Paris is in a way similar to Penang. The old buildings are conserved and refurbished for adaptive reuse which is great and what I love about the two cities,” he said. The event was launched by Rahime Bouaziz, director of Alliance Française de Penang. – September 28, 2015. This mural can be found on the wall o

I wrote in my sypnosis for Malay Mail Weekend Happenings; “Artist Renny Cheng debuts out of his signature figurative pieces and hits a raw nerve with his contemporary pieces with splashes of bold vibrant colour the creases and folds, peel back as he morphs out of the ordinary.” Renny's has the cutest fringe in Penang. Us chickadees pale in comparison,  Doris Lim is distorted next to badass writer Ruzanna Muhammed, E&O gallery manager Wanida Razali and Hin Bus Depot curator Gabija Grusaite. His metamorphosis is deviation and rightly so. This is not for the collector who says, “Hmmm…. Abstract art, either you loathe it or love it. I’m neither.” Says my friend CTW, “I go for impressionist art.” CTW’s was the first to comment on my FB post! Of course, lots of arty folks heading over from the Ernest Zacharevic x E&O gallery next door. I just love the traffic from one gallery to another! And rightly so, lots of colours and scenery, I get where you’re coming from CTW

Vic and I chillin’ over caffeine, sharing a donut he turned into segments like a Mandarin orange. Picking it up with forks and having the powdered sugar fall over us as we fessed up. He with some bud that turned out to be a louse who took off with Vic’s hard earned bucks. I was wondering how this actually works. Friendship + Family as in those called Cuz. Me: Er… Fam as in Cuz Vic: Those! Me: You know how it goes when folks just stop. Talking. Speaking. Invites. And everything just sort of dies as in D-E-A-D? No dial tone? The boy nods. Been there. Done that. Yeah I feel your pain sista! What did I do? Basically nothing. So Vic pens a list and he crosses that out as he reads it. Man, he starts every single thing imaginable with a To Be a Better… WTH To be a better wife. Oi not married la. Cross… To be a better mother is crossed automatically… To be a better lover (Hahaha who am I kidding? I’m the best! But then again maybe NOT) To be more tolerant (I sm

“It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company; but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon. “ ~ Lord Chesterfield I return again with great narrative strength cull from an afternoon’s encounter with a Buffoon. There’s nothing amusing at all about a fella who is a class clown, and has been for decades. This is a grown man who is totally inept and ludicrous with childish mannerism. He is nothing more than an underachiever with delusion of grandeur. Absolutely boorish. I am sure we have all had these unfortunate encounters before. This is a collective narration of stories I’ve heard or have experienced in the course of my curried life. 1 Where does one find a Buffoon?  Easy. Did I say buffet and a free meal in the same breath? Why Cheapskate Buffoon’s there with his family in tow. He is the artful one who tells his children “Boys, quickly, take two of the big prawns each! Don’t be shy; use your elbows to get right in! Make Papa proud, your plate can hold

Human Flea via Internet  Trap under the weight of pretences, I decide to be the girl that I have set myself out to be. A quick tug form the upper corner and it rips, diagonally. One bare boob, a crooked arm and a bare thigh stare back. She has one good eye and that mass of golden curls tumble ridiculously. I peel off the posters one by one. It gets easier. Really. After that I just sweep the desktop calendars onto the floor. What the heck? I decide to reformat her hard disk instead of just getting furious reading her wedding planner. It feels liberating. I’m thrill to be getting married. Right about now it feels like deranged bride meets outrageous mother-in-law with details of a) how to turn the celebration into an over-the-top extravaganza that stars herself or b) how to threaten the son not to marry me and maybe it’s c) all the above and plus how to bake a saw into a wedding cake escape plan Arrgh…. The rampage is nothing short of a detox for the son, my inten

“I did not feel finished with childhood,” Gemma confesses. “Forty years to this day and the flashbacks have come back to haunt me.” Gemma is living with the toxic legacy of a bad mother, my old childhood neighbour. After she was born, her paternal grandmother took to caring for her as her mother was suffering from post natal depression. Soon the grandmother decided that she was a better mother for the little baby girl than her daughter-in-law who was constantly listless, moody and suffering from insomnia. Grandmother was afraid that the daughter-in-law would be careless and harm baby Gemma. Gemma’s mother was desperate and felt guilty and blamed herself for “losing” her child. She became a weepy woman who would sleep during the day and stay up at nights. She had very poor appetite and became very ill physically. Everyone worried about her. It was years later that Gemma was finally reunited with her mother when Grandmother passed on. Her return to her family home was fraught