MAKE IT RIGHT THE SERIES - REVIEW

I hadn't planned on being hooked to Make It Right The Series (MIR), because its trailers had promised a formulaic follow-up to the hugely successful (and iconic) Love Sick The Series (LS) which ended last year (also by Thailand's Mcot Station). As predicted, MIR has hewed lazily to the boys' love genre conventions, casting a few extremely pretty boys to enact what is less of a plot than a trail of tropes: Confused Uke (Fuse) ensnaring Passionate Seme (Tee); Nerd (Book) falling for Younger Flirt (Frame); Out&Proud converting Straight-for-Now, and in these combos, throw in some third parties (in Thai, these are called "third wheels"); and then stir in a few disposable girls into a sweetly fluffy meringue of a story (MIR, like LS is adapted from a Thai online novel). 

After watching the first four episodes (subtitled in English by fans), I can assure you that the story is just as twig-thin as any of the cast's scrawny arms. It's hard not to compare MIR with LS, as the two are almost identical - I would go so far as to say that MIR is the production team's attempt at getting LS right, ironing out some of its wrinkles and creases and smoothing out the edges (for instance, they made MIR a lot more racy, with sex in Ep 1, and lots of skin - whereas LS muddled along and it wasn't till towards the end of Season 1 before Noh and Phun actually got down to business). However, because of its similar territory, MIR suffers in comparison, possibly because it comes later, and thus carries the weight of having few/no surprises/ novelties. It's obviously mining a formula (as many are doing - even the recent Chinese webseries Addiction was inspired by LS) that had proven successful - I hope that I will be proven wrong in due course with a compelling twist or two - but I'm not holding my breath.

Of course what's really working, and credit should be given where it's due, is the excellent casting as usual. The four main leads (plus quite a few more in the supporting cast) are spot-on heartbreakers (but then Thailand is like a factory that keeps churning impossibly cute boys out - I need to take out all my savings and move there pronto!) that give MIR its sparkle and life. Again, this is like LS - you don't really watch it for the plot, but for those coyly seductive moments and intense looks of longing that only the really young can carry off - that's the heavy lifting there. The rest is merely working out the various moments/situations where Peak, 16 (as Fuse), Boom, 15 (as Tee), Ohm 15 (as Frame) and Toey, 20 (as Book) these looks can dart those deadly stares into the camera or wrap their nubile limbs fetchingly around each other. For now, Tee has emerged the real star - he's like the new Captain isn't he? Tee represents a new type, very Chinese-looking with the most sculpted of noses and full juicy lips. 

I think fans are watching because MIR fills the void that LS left - it's a pale shadow of LS, but it's a familiar shadow. MIR has to make it on its own merits to matter, and to prevent any more comparisons to LS. 

WEEKEND READING LIST: PICTURE BOOKS OF 2015

I've sworn off buying books for a while now, not for any noble green reasons (although you must consider these), and have been dutifully been borrowing all my reading from our wonderful libraries here. Truth is, I simply have no more shelve- or indeed floor-, space for one more book, and yet... I couldn't resist these. 
These are all picture books, and are about drawing, a talent which I've been neglecting - I havn't picked up a pencil to sketch in ages, and I suppose these purchases are meant to inspire me to draw in the new year (and not act as dust magnets). Fingers and toes crossed, guilt-drenched.

How can you resist Gruau: Portraits of Men (with a come hither cover like this)? 

How to resist anything by David Downton? I squawked when I saw it and flew down to Kinokuniya and bought it in a flash. David Downton: Portraits of the World's Most Stylish Women is not unrelated to Gruau and his work is very much in that tradition, although Downton doesn't acknowledge that debt. I don't agree with Downton's pick of "most stylish" - Coco Rocha? Dita Von Teese? Really? - but still.

Finally, my niece Sharon very kindly ordered the book Harry Bush Hard Boys - and she promptly added one into the cart for herself! I think she said she bought it on Book Depository, but whatever it was, it arrived to make an excellent Christmas present for me!

Helena Bonham Carter Reading A Passage From Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56


 She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother on her ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made.Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth,
``I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your mother.''
Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was.
``And that I suppose is one of your sisters.''
``Yes, madam,'' said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a Lady Catherine. ``She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family.''
``You have a very small park here,'' returned Lady Catherine after a short silence.
``It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's.''
``This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west.''
Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then added,
``May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well.''
``Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.''
Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled.
Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then, rising up, said toElizabeth,
``Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.''
``Go, my dear,'' cried her mother, ``and shew her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.''
Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest down stairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour anddrawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on...

WEEKKEND READING LIST: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant

My new obsession is Stephen Tennant: An artist and writer, he was also a great beauty in early youth (he was the Kate Moss of the Jazz Age!). Mostly he's that very English thing - an eccentric. The Philip Hoare biography of Tennant, Serious Pleasures is one of the best books I've read in ages - a serious, addictive pleasure. 

ARE EGGS HEALTHY?

Still Life by William Bailey

"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body else—but you need not be afraid—they are very small, you see—one of our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a little bit of tart—a very little bit. Ours are all apple tarts. You need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the custard." - Mr Woodhouse, in Emma by Jane Austen

WEEKEND READING LIST: ALL ROADS LEAD TO THAILAND

The last time I was in Bangkok was literally the eve of the anti-government demonstrations last November; the hotel manager called me that morning soon after breakfast and instructed me to pack my bags and leave just as I can because he had received advance information that demonstrators had begun to move towards the road leading to the hotel and would close it to traffic; he couldn't say if things would get violent but was advising guests to evacuate. Something in his tense voice over the phone made me pack my bags at once, and within an hour, I left in the hotel car. Turning back for one last look, I saw the crowd of demonstrators marching in, flags waving, with something of a festive air, but guards were beginning to bar entrances with barricades, and the streets were noisy with shrill whistles and clappers.

I felt like Sigourney Weaver in A Year of Living Dangerously.

Fast forward to (more or less) six months later and I'm simply longing to visit Bangkok again. As you know, for most Singaporeans, Bangkok is simply an obsession and a habit. I have not heard of any Singaporean who didn't like Bangkok; and according to my luxury brands PRs, the local press are always keenly enthusiastic about Thailand press junkets (as opposed to those to Hong Kong and etc ones, although arguably the press here salivate like a komodo dragon at any mention of a junket, with eyes bulging and ropes of sticky drool, cankerous tail waving). I wonder if it is thus for your country?

This last weeked I was reading 2011's Thoughtful Gardening by Robin Lane Fox, one of my favourite (living) writers and amongst the riveting chapters on cuttings and pests, Mr Fox remembers his visit to Bangkok as a young journalist. In particular he mentions the Phukae Botanic Garden, a gigantic park in Saraburi, some 60 miles outside Bangkok. Within the city, Mr Fox remembers Wang Suan Phakket (Lettuce Farm Palace), the lovingly tended garden of the late Princess Chumbhot. He took the bus number 3, which delivered him to the door of this "tranquil retreat". 

Reading about these gardens made me simply long to visit Bangkok.

I called my Thai sister Ms O. All my visits to Thailand are preceded by calls to my Thai sister.

She was busy making T-shirts.

What for?

Ms O was involved in what promises to be the mother of all demonstrations; she was making T-shirts for the anti-Thaksin army. Ms O said: "Honey please don't come between 5 May and 17 May. Millions of people are going to demonstrate to oust Yingluck. May not be that peaceful. Come after." 

Sure enough, the papers are full of dire reports on the impending demonstrations which will climax with new, and surely contested, elections in July. 

With this wearying warning in mind, it could be months before I see Mr Fox's Thai gardens.  

WEEKEND READING LIST: One Thing Leads to Another

Bla and I were both inspired by PH's improving habit of systematically eating at one new cafe a week, reading one new book a week, going to one exhibition, one performance, watching one movie, every week. He'd been doing this since the new year and he has the notebook as proof of his resolve, on each rather dog-eared page are lists and dates, in his poor scribble, of all the new things he's seen and read and watched and (hopefully) absorbed. 

And so last week, one very hot afternoon, Bla and I, to kickstart our very own effort, visited the Asian Civilisations Museum, Empress Place, to view the rather special Secrets of the Fallen Pagoda: Treasures from Famen Temple and the Tang Court (till 4 May).  It's a rather lively and interesting show (see the tortoise container above? It's so cute and a real luxury item don't you think?) and I urge you all to go look at it if you haven't already.

Anyway, that led me to want to learn more about Chinese history and this led me to randomly pick up a book, without much thought from a shelf about Chinese history. It was a lucky chance find. I'm now swiftly devouring A Brief History of the Dynasties of China by Bamber Gascoigne (2003). I can't put it down. I'm sure it's not as pedantically academic as it can be, but it's exactly what I need at the moment. You see, the focus is oddly personal and Mr Gascoigne just seems to zoom in on all the sometimes odd details and character that does bring out the flavour of each of the periods he's writing about; It's a quick guided tour of over 2,000 years, and Mr Gascoigne's concerns, are thankfully like mine, heavy on the arts and culture (and the odd fact or two), and less about warcraft and politics. I like that it's quite a subjective focus, and it's beautifully, humourously written. This isn't to say that Mr Gascoigne is without erudition, it's just that he uses his learning to convey his own passions for his subject. Of course this is just an entertaining launch pad for more specific reading. 

I learnt a lot from just one swift reading. For instance, did you know that Marco Polo was only 20 years old when he was made a high official in the court of Kublai Khan? He later waxed lyrical of Kublai Khan's appearance:

"He is of good and fair size, neither too small nor too large, but is of middle size. He is covered with flesh in a beautiful manner, not too fat, nor too lean; he is more than well formed in all parts. He has his face white and partly shining red like the colour of a beautiful rose, which makes him look very pleasing; and he has the eyes black and beautiful; and the nose very beautiful, well made and well set on the face."  

Isn't this a marvellous detail to highlight? I was simply entranced that this 20 year old Venetian boy is studying this great Mongolian emperor as if he were some model come for a casting! I would never have thought that the thing that struck one about Kublai Khan (above left) would be his beautiful black eyes. Highly recommended.

The Cod is Everywhere!

Grace Coddington is appearing everywhere and nowhere as charmingly as she does here, on the iD cover. Promoting her new book, Grace: A Memoir, The Cod dishes the dirt on Anna Wintour in a few revealing moments:
Every so often I have lunch with Anna at her request. These days, though, I get worked up beforehand, usually thinking, 'This is finally the time she'll say, "You're getting on a bit. You're looking tired. I think you should take it easy,"' as a prelude to gently asking me to step down. In fact, the last time we went out, I dared to say, 'I thought you were going to tell me to leave.' At which point Anna laughed and said, 'No, as long as I'm here, you will be, too.' 

"I think (the Ben Stiller shot by Annie Leibovitz for a couture story in Paris) was decided upon, really, because Anna had a crush on Ben. She gets these occasional crushes - Ben, Puff Daddy, Roger Federer."

"In the end I think Anna gave up on my styling covers since I'm not good with famous people. We used to use the occasional model, but the sales difference was so marked between them and celebrities that it's now 100 per cent pop and movie stars. Fashion is just a part of what the magazine stands for today, which may be hard on old-timers like myself but is definitely the modern way. I'm grateful to have lived through the 10 years or so I did at American Vogue when fashion was the most important element."

Movies To Watch Out For

Out in November (not that type of 'Out'): Ang Lee's Life of Pi is adapted from Yann Martel's 2001 bestseller, looks like an Aesopian fable with cutting-edge 3D technology. I never got down to reading the book (the premise seemed worryingly sanctimonious), and now I don't have to.

 Baz Luhrmann's 3D adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby is now scheduled to open next May (2013) for a summer season. Starring the always interesting Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carey Mulligan (I'm not sure about the fit),the movie was originally scheduled to open this Christmas 2012 but was pushed back to allow more time for postproduction. I've been looking forward to Ms Luhrmann's version of the story, not only because of the Prada (women) and Brooks Brothers (men) costumes but because this is one of my most loved books, and I liked the Mia Farrow in the 1974 movie. 

Not properly a movie, but still of immense interest to me is HBO’s upcoming TV movie The Girl which stars Sienna Miller as Tippi Hedren. This will purportedly chronicle the making of The Birds, director Alfred Hitchcock's iconic birds gone wild movie that made Ms Hedren, now 82, a star in 1963. Of course I hope that the opening scene where Ms Hedren is in a boat wearing a mink coat when a seagull attacks her, as well as the scene when she is trapped in a phonebooth as angry birds lay siege to a small town, as well as the climax where she is locked in a room full of birds of prey tearing her to shreds as she screams and struggles will be recreated, because one does so want to see Ms Miller shrieking with terror. Of course this spectacle can also be very enjoyable with either Gwyneth Paltrow or Nicole Kidman. Why don't they do it with all three and make it a mini series?

Monday Muse: Phoebe Nichols

Why aren't there more TV shows like this, or acting, or books and films?

Humble Moths and Flies

By artist John Dilnot who uses clipped illustrations of birds and months he to create dioramas within wooden boxes. Dilnot frequently lines the interiors with antique maps and arranges the birds in small flocks, setting them on perpetual cartographic journies.

Weekend Reading List: Mrs Dalloway

"The hall of the house was as cool as a vault. The cook whistled in the kitchen. She heard the click of the typewriter. It was her life and, bending her head over the hall table she bowed beneath the influence, felt blessed and purified, saying to herself how moments like this are buds on the tree of life (as if some lovely rose had blossomed for her eyes only)." - Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

Weekend Reading List: On a Plane

I read about La Bella Principessa on the plane in the National Geographic, and it interested me more than anything I've read in a long time. This purported 'lost' drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, in ink and coloured chalks on a sheet of vellum measuring only 330mmx39mm (it was reproduced in actual size in the magazine over a spread, like a centerfold), is a controversial find. Its origins and authenticity continue to be debated over by experts. The drawing is on a sheet of vellum which carbon-14 tests date to between 1440 and 1650, which coincides with the years in which da Vinci was working. The direction of the hatching shows that the artist was left-handed, as was Leonardo. The Renaissance-style garment is said to be accurately rendered, and is purportedly the portrait of Bianca Sforza, the teenage daughter of the Duke of Milan.The Portrait of Isabella d'Este (below), a chalk drawing on paper by Leonardo da Vinci, is the only profile drawn by the master.Reading the story made me think of my painting classes at NAFA. Our teacher Fern made us paint oils of radishes in claypots, which is quite different from sketching a doomed teenage bride in an Italian court I suppose, but still. Rembering those days reminded me of this passage from Brideshead Revisited, one of my favourite scenes:"One day in a cupboard we found a large japanned-tin box of oil-paints still in workable condition.
‘Mummy bought them a year or two ago. Someone told her that you could only appreciate the beauty of the world by trying to paint it. We laughed at her a great deal about it. She couldn’t draw at all, and however bright, the colour were in the tubes, by the time mummy had mixed them up, they came out a kind of khaki. Various dry, muddy smears on the palette confirmed this statement. ‘Cordelia was- always made to wash the brushes. In the end we all protested and made mummy stop.’"
And so Charles Ryder began to paint. I imagined the japanned-tin looked like this.

Weekend Reading List: Fashion

“There’s only one thing in life and that’s the continual renewal of inspiration.” - Diana VreelandI forgot to say before that just before Christmas I recieved a couple of books that I wanted but never got down to buying; I guess I didn't want them badly enough. One was Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel. I spent a very pleasant afternoon looking over every page with BG on his sofa, feeling excited and inspired. After that we went outside and repotted a cactus, and pruned back his passion fruit vine. Reading and gardening: I can't think of a more agreeable way to spend a Sunday afternoon - unless it's to work on a painting or drawing, but that's just me.
Lots of you would rather hit the gym, I'm sure, or trawl a 'sauna', but different strokes for different folks, as they say (I'm quite sure it should be 'folk' not 'folks', by the way).Anyway this book made me look at Carine Roitfeld's Irreverant with a bit more perspective - not that Irreverant isn't a splendid overview of Ms Roitfeld's work so far. It is, and much of it is excellent and definitive, and I'm her fan. Also, I like the personal bits of information, and the archival photos of her family. The thing I object to is the title, as well as the sense the book projects that her work, or her attitude actually pushes the moral or aesthetic envelope in some extreme, innovative fashion. You must be very short-sighted to not see that what she does had already been done half a century ago at least. Her ouevre is but an echo of the truly shocking (and yes, irreverant) path scorched by Helmut Newton, Chris Von Wangenheim (see below), Guy Bourdin and Robert Mapplethorpe. So accomplished, yes, irreverant, hardly.And can someone tell me how someone as immaculately stylish as Ms Roitfeld begot a daughter who looks so common? In Julia Restoin Roitfeld's every slutty outfit, one can see that Carine's style really isn't for everyone.
I'm also struggling with the magazine Industrie (the one with Franca Sozzani, the editor of Vogue Italia, on the cover) and also Love (Kristen Mcmenamy). Poor Ms Sozzani is striving, isn't she, to fill Ms Roitfeld's heels, to be the queen of fashion? The grizzled one wants to be irreverant too! But she succeeds only in being disagreeable and frankly repugnant - the interview amply illustrates the reason why fashion people have such a negative vibe, and why they should remain behind the masthead and not appear on the cover. Plus she looks like Madonna with all the filler vacuumed out of her. Oh, and Industrie has a story on Glen O'Brien.
Does anyone even need to know one thing about Mr O'Brien?
As for Love, the less said the better. A quick flip shows that the magazine has no direction whatsoever. Since I'm way behind in my reading, I'll struggle with Love no longer - into the bin it goes! Ms Mcmenamy's 1992 Vogue Italia cover (Steven Meisel) directly 'inspired' the 2010 Vogue Paris cover.

Eiko Ishioka (1938 - 2012)

The inspiring Eiko Ishioka, art director and costume designer, died on 26 January at 73. Ms Ishioka, a designer who brought an eerie, sensual surrealism to film and theater, album covers, the 2008 Olympics (above) and Cirque du Soleil, in the process earning an Oscar, a Grammy and various other honours, died of pancreatic cancer in Tokyo.Her aesthetics married East and West — she lived Manhattan for many years. An Oscar winner for Bram Stoker's Dracula, Ms Ishioka also costumed The Fall (2006), an adventure fantasy, and Immortals (2011), a tale of ancient Greece.The young Ishioka began her career in the advertising division of the cosmetics giant Shiseido. She opened her own design company in the early 1970s, with clients like Parco, for whom she created her iconic advertising works for more than a decade. For instance, she created a Parco commercial in which, over a minute and a half, Faye Dunaway wordlessly peels and eats an egg. I've posted this commercial before.She also designed costumes for Grace Jones’s 2009 tourin 2009 and directed Bjork’s music video Cocoon. Her books include Eiko by Eiko(1983) and Eiko on Stage(2000