Theory Of Love Review (TOL): Episode 4

"It's not what we sell, it's the looks of the seller," so says Kai about the booth they are setting up for the campus fair.
He might as well be talking about the BL genre -- for what are is BL selling but the looks of its actors. The plots are mere excuses for us to stare at the actors; the plots are skeletons on which to hang those melting squeal-worthy moments, dazzling ornaments that make us forget that the tree is bare. In Ep 4, one of those moments must be when Off removes his shirt to take a shower, and briefly we see his dazzling white shoulders and the teeny nips. It's a tease, for you and for Third, who takes up the discarded shirt (still warm) and writes down "I love you" - along with the signatures of one thousand schoolgirls. The teasing continues.

The savage gang sell bangers and kisses, another chance for Third to get all jelly and pouty over Kai flirting with the clamouring girls - yawn. And then, weirdly, Kai starts to flirt with Third, feeding him a sausage on a stick, a kiss on the cheek; they go on two movie dates; Kai can't keep himself off Third, getting increasingly physical - a touch on the lip, a backrub, leaning on Third's shoulder in the cinema. (At which point shouldn't Third just turn around and kiss Kai? Why the reticence? Kai had obviously crossed the line of being a buddy.) Kai even lets Third ride on his bike, a treat reserved for his girls. I like the bike scene - it's romantic in an unexpected way.

The scene is like a dream, and the Ep 4 ends with the rude awakening - Kai is only testing to see if Third is in love with him. In a drunken bout, Third (he's always creeping about, listening at doors - why?) overhears Kai telling Bone that he doesn't think Third is in love with him because Third hadn't responded to his overtures.
Third just happens to be hanging out at the gents, and then he cries.

So, why didn't Third respond to Kai's overtures?
It's just one of the bigger plot holes that make much of the story flat and unlikely.

Theory Of Love Review (TOL): Episode 3

Perversity: There's a lot of dark perversity in Ep 3.

It's pure perversity, but I suppose it's one of those inevitable BL tropes, that Third would move in with Kai. This is a formula for misery, if anything, and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I suppose the whole Snow White idea of setting up house, and playing the married couple, is irresistible to most queens and Ep 3 does its persuasive best to show us how prettily it could all work out. The "domestic bliss" scenes of Third in apron at the sink, or mopping the floor, scream pure "wife" fantasy. And what queen hasn't dreamed of shopping with her man in Ikea?
Unfortunately, it's all so prettily predictable that there's a deja vu effect -- you've seen it all before, and besides, you would have dreamt it up even if you hadn't seen it. How do you feel about this Ikea scene? For me it's too predictable to evoke any squeals -- I'd wish they had shown something more inventive.
And then Kai brings a back a girl (Fahsai) with Diana Ross hair who turns all psycho and gives this episode all its dramatic energy, some real emotion, which I otherwise feel TOL lacks. Like it's all too cutesy and sweet and quite... dull.
Fahsai, looks like yet another sweet-faced girl that Kai seduces, isn't dull: She unleashes a violent jealous rage like some junior demoness, breaking things, eating cake, beats up the hapless Third, hair flying (like she's doing a concert in Central Park) screams bloody murder and generally wreaks the havoc that you wished Third had the guts to do.

What's truly chilling is Kai offering Third cash to leave the apartment so that Kai can do the dirty with Fahsai -- and Third accepting it. It's unreal and impossible that Third, however besotted, would go through with this perversity. Another extra perverse scene, and this one so long-drawn and deliberate that it has a gothic creepiness: Third is feeling his way around the dark apartment and opening Kai's door, witnesses Kai in bed with yet another girl; the girl hears the door creak open and asks Kai what that was; Kai says it's nothing. It's ambiguous whether Kai knows it was Third watching him. This is creepy.

Third locks the door and weeps. (Gun displays two emotional settings so far -- weeping with self-pity and pouting like a wronged wife.)   

On the other hand, Ep 3 gives us morning-after Kai sending off Fahsai in a taxi -- in boxers! What a treat -- the glimpse of Off's unexpectedly sturdy white legs -- totally worth the tedium of Third's misery. (Equally tedious is Too's high school sweetheart making her blandly sweet appearance, and Bone's unlikely romance with the unlikely Pan -- time-wasters.)

The last perversity has to be Kai's version of "friendship" -- in a drunken bout, he says to Third (who puts him to bed): "With girls I use my body, with you I use my heart. You can't compare them." This is neither here nor there, and obviously a red herring -- that it isn't obvious to Third is his own perversity, with no one to blame for his misery but himself.

HE SAID SHE SAID: THE CAT'S MEOW

 “I have often thought that in my next life, I would like to come back as Choupette, (Karla Lagerfeld’s) extremely beautiful and bourgeois cat, who has two maids, a chef, a personal hairdresser and many diamond necklaces.” - Anna Wintour

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...

Singapore Diva Tracy Huang Sings Again

PEACHES AND CREAM
One of Singapore's earliest pop successes, Tracy Huang has survived the vagaries of the industry by shrewdly shifting her act to the right places at the right time. 
Daniel Goh  fathoms the woman and her image.


"Fat, fat," says Tracy, slapping her thighs. "Fat, fat. I've put on weight,. Three pounds. Fat, here," she says, cupping her cheeks. She lifts her arms and flaps them, making the flesh on her alabaster-white upper arms jiggle. "Fat, fat, do you see?"

Tracy's preoccupation with weight, her looks, her age is understandable. After all, her feminine and fashionable image has always been a strong selling point for her albums. As such, these vanity concerns, inherent in most women, must seem even more vital to Tracy. But today, just for the moment, Tracy, relaxed and light-hearted jokes, "I'm 28, two years older than Alan Tam!" Later, she would give me her age as 39.

Tracy Huang is folded neatly onto a black sofa in the photo studio. She's just completed a photography shoot, part of her efforts to promote her new album Traces of Love, but talk is not about the album. There is nothing so crassly commercial about Tracy.

Even relaxing, her legs are elegantly crossed, ending in pointy, stiletto-heeled ankle boots. She's wearing a two-year old Azzedine Alaia: A black stretch one-piece with a white patent leather belt. "It gives me the illusion of height," she says.

Her hair is straggly now, and is loosely tied back; her eye make-up has run a little, there are black smudges; her lipstick has bled into a crooked pout. Plumes of smoke from her cigarette surround her like an aura.

Tired and slightly dishelleved, even while chain-smoking Virginia Slims, Tracy Huang still exudes a glow. Her skin is not only just fine and creamy white, it has a translucent, jade-like glaze, like rare Song china.

As Tracy talks, her small, white hands flutter about her in arabesque, like twin doves. "Hands are important," she says, flipping through the lyric pages for her new album cover until she finds the illustration of her silhouetted hands, reaching for a bird on a branch. "Look at this picture, I like this very much. Hands can express so much. You don't see my face here at all. But it's me."

Her small, flower-like hands. They are not money-grabbing hands, nor dish-washing hands. No, these are the hands of a princess. I tell her so. "Oh, but I'm not a princess!," she says, laughing. "More like a Cinderella. My father was from Guangdong, a military man, a colonel, so he didn't earn much. My mother was from Shanghai. When they came over to Taiwan from the mainland, they had absolutely nothing, not even a roof over their heads. We were very poor.


"When I was young, I had to help my mother do all the chores. I was the oldest, I had to take care of three baby brothers. All I can remember of my mother from those days was that she was always cooking, cleaning. She'd give me some money and I would have to go to the market to buy vegetables. And I had to cook after school.


"I still found time to play, somehow. I ran around barefoot. I have memories of a little barefoot girl, piggy-backing one of my brothers – maybe that's why I'm so short and all my brothers are so tall!


"I remember one day, while out in the open fields, an aeroplane flew over. At that moment, I made a promise to myself that I would be on that plane someday. I would fly out into the world. And it was a big wish, for a little country girl like me."


She continues in a rush of words; she is enjoying the reminiscences. "Singapore put me on that aeroplane. I was discovered by a talent scout from Neptune Theatre. Here I was, a Taiwanese singer singing English songs – wow! What a novelty, you know. I was billed as 'Angel from Taiwan' at the Neptune!"


That was in 1969. The Angel from Taiwan took flight. Tracy appeared in countless TV variety shows and eventually recorded her own albums, mainly sentimental ballads and cover versions of Olivia Newton-John hits. Over a 43-album career, Tracy established herself as a major star in Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Now she has set her sights on Japan with her album, consisting of English songs by Dick Lee.

Not only was she a major recording artiste, Tracy was also a style icon of the 70s. The image conscious artiste embraced every 'look' that emerged – from frosty purple eye-shadow to padded sweaters, from tattooed eyebrows to cowboy shirts.

The correct 'look' no doubt contributed to her enduring popularity, but she attributes her success to a determination to better herself. "I want to learn something new everyday – then that day is not wasted." And indeed, there were many occasions during my meetings with her when she whips out a little electronic organiser and enters all sorts of information, with a great urgency: names, numbers, movies to see, authors to read, phrases, ideas.


"When I was in school, I only studied music and Chinese folk dance – these were subjects thought to be more befitting to a girl. I learnt to read only after I left school. When I first came to Singapore, I had no friends or family. There were long spaces of time when all the friends I had were magazines and journals and books. I read so much during this time. And all those English programmes on television here. Education is the world around you. It does not mean that if you go to a university you become educated. A lot of people don't realize that experience is so important – you can learn from the people and the environment. I feel that my education is still going on, never stopping."

But something that Tracy feels she has not learnt enough of is studio production and other technical aspects of recording. So last year, she formed her own production company in Taiwan called Inner Music. "I'm at a turning point now – or rather – I'm in a period of flux. I feel that Tracy, as an artiste, is fading out and Tracy, the producer is fading in."

Her energies, and her accumulated knowledge and contacts in the music industries, are now concentrated in production. "It is not that I don't want to perform anymore. Working behind the scenes on a recording is also like performing. What's on show is what you produce, is how Tracy sees it. Inner Voice is where she put together her last three albums – of which two became award winners and hits. Tracy is also casting about for new talents to groom, record and promote.

Next year, in her role as producer, she will launch a 17-year-old Singapore girl, Gina Tan. There are several uncanny similarities between Tracy and her protégé : Tracy herself started her musical career at about the same age (at 16, Tracy was already singing at the American Club). Gina has the same sort of demure, feminine beauty that has served Tracy well; she sounds remarkably like Tracy. They sing like they look: all peaches and cream. There is tinkling clarity in their singing, there is a breathy languidity.


"Also, I really want to act. I really feel like making a movie, something meaningful. Maybe it's a bit late. But I was really inspired by my experience doing the music video which Wong Kar Wai directed."

The video for her Mandarin number entitled Making You Glad has generated more than the usual attention because it features Tony Leung, the star of The Lover.


"All the reporters keep asking me about it, as if Tony Leung was the main thing. At my press conference a reporter asked me if I felt flattered and thrilled that I had Tony Leung to act with in my video. Just imagine.


"I replied, 'How so?' Tony Leung should be the one to be flattered and thrilled."

First published in 8 DAYS Nov 28 – Dec 5, 1992 edition, as a cover story

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. 

3 ALTERNATIVE CHRISTMAS STORIES

JF's Christmas at the Pool

"It's the eve of Christmas eve, 'round 1pm, one of those very quiet times at the pool, and so I was washing up with the shower door wide open, just so to keep an eye on my stuff which I'd left on the changing station ahead of me. You know me, I'm not shy like that. 

So I'm working up a treat with my new handmade geranium essential oil soap, I always use bar soap, I don't fancy gel. And I turn around and suddenly this tiny Chinese Hobbit, not very old, probably in his early thirties, was sitting right next to my stuff, so needless to say I had to keep an eye on him. 

The ACS Swimming Pool where so many things happened in my secondary school days.

Consciously nonchalant, acting oblivious, I continued soaping up and down my smooth flanks and sides, but became increasingly irked when I realised that I was putting on a Christmas show for that guy who kept gawking unabashedly. I really just couldn't hold it in any longer so I said very loudly, projecting across the room: "Excuse me, but what the flying fuck are you staring at?" 

"Ohhh... Ahhh, I wanted to ask you if I can borrow your soap?" he replied lamely.

So I said, "My soap isn't between my legs, you fuck!" 

Still relentless, he had the cheek to say, "Why do you shave down there? It's so ugly..." 

At this, I hurled my bar of soap in his face, hitting his right eye, and only then did he scurry off, Arena trunks, rubber sandals and drippy hair. 
I wasn't a marksman in the army for nothing."

Plaza Singapura in 1977

JZD's Christmas AT THE PLAZA MALL

Last night, amidst the plastic and tin foil-y Christmas decor at the Plaza Mall, JZD told me why he’s perpetually depressed. "It's not just Christmas," he said. As I suspected, it was about his family, a broken home and worse. His depression wasn’t about Nelson as I had thought, whom he had just met, and was all excited about; All anxious and nervous that it may all turn out to be naught. JZD isn’t quite as confident as he liked to present himself to be, but just as insecure as his good friend G, who no longer lives with him. They fought over rent, amongst other things, and G moved back to her parents' last Christmas.

KL model Haikal Hazman Hashim 

AY's Christmas Online

"So I met this dude online last Christmas, and he's a Chinese dude. We have been talking for a year now and indeed, he's very entertaining for a chat buddy. We would chat every day without fail, about this and that; However, when I asked him what race he preferred to date, I felt saddened to learn that he preferred to date a Chinese dude. I know it's his preference and what not, but I’m afraid he won't accept me as a potential date, because I'm not Chinese. I have yet to tell him that I’m Malay, so he doesn’t know this, even though we've been chatting for a year. He’s seen my photos though, but he doesn't seem to think that I'm Malay. 

Should tell him my race or just wait? I'm really confused..."

LOUIS KOO, THE BURNT CARAMEL TOFFEE TWIST

Firstly, Louis Koo's bizarre waxen caramel toffee colour has been much commented upon, leading many to speculate that he sleeps on a tanning bed; But that doesn't explain the waxen Madame Tussauds quality that he has, does it? 

Nong Poy and The Burnt Toffee Twist

But the caramel colour and waxen quality didn't put off Thai transsexual actress Nong Poy who had reportedly foamed over Louis Koo while shooting film The White Storm with the caramel-coloured actor. Poy had even apparently dumped her long-time boyfriend for the actor (Hong Kong media reported). Although, bizarrely, Poy had declined to shoot "intimate" scenes with Koo for the movie "for fear of frightening her parents". 

This ambiguous latter bit is really hard to understand, and if you think about it, has no logic whatsoever. It does leave one rather wondering what Poy's parents might have objected to. 

My guess is Koo's unnatural colouring. 

Poy and Koo were rumoured to have developed a romance, and caused Poy to have broken up with her boyfriend of five years. Poy admitted that she and her boyfriend had split, but denied that Louis was the "third party". She said: "He treats me like a younger sister, and I feel that he has never courted me before. I don't want to tarnish his reputation!"

TOM FORD'S GAY MARRIAGE

"We are now married, which is nice. I know that was just made legal in the UK which is great, but we were married in the States." - Tom Ford, who has been in a relationship with Richard Buckley for 27 years. They have a son, Alexander John Buckley Ford, in 2012.

Meanwhile, on the Huffington Post the 64-year-old Jeremy Irons started out saying that he didn’t “have a strong feeling either way” on the subject of gay marriages, but speculated: “Could a father not marry his son? It's not incest between men. Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don't breed." 

Of course the sisters are up in arms.

He Said She Said: Beaute

"All I need is twenty minutes on the bathroom floor with witch-hazel pads on my eyes, and I can conquer the world.” - Diana Vreeland

The leaves and bark of the witch-hazel hamamelis virginiana is used to produce an astringent, which is used medicinally. This plant extract was widely used for medicinal purposes by American Indians and is a component of various commercial healthcare products.

It's mainly used externally on sores, bruises, and swelling. Witch hazel is also used in skin care. It is a strong anti-oxidant and astringent often used as a natural remedy for psoriasis, eczema, aftershave accidents and ingrown nails, to prevent swelling, cracked or blistered skin, for treating insect bites, poison ivy stings, and as a treatment for varicose veins and hemorrhoids. 

THE LAST EMPRESS

This should make you titter in giddy delight: it has been announced that Gong Li will star in a China-American co-production The Last Empress, as the empress dowager Cixi. This project has 'unlikely' written all over it, and I can't wait to see how ridiculously campy this will turn out to be. The plot will purportedly chronicle Cixi’s life and her complex relationships with Emperor Guang Xu (played by Datoh Michelle Yeoh, fingers crossed). I can already forsee problems because I don't think the Manchurian court dress will allow for many scenes where Gong Li can run around the vast and forbidding corridors of the Forbidden City with heaving breasts spilling from a corset and chin thrust determinedly out whilst throwing hot tea at Zhang Zi Yi in a fit of rage! Pant, pant!

Please, Seven Stars Film Studios, please also cast Ms Zhang in this movie? Let her be some hapless palace maiden or even a ninja assasin? She should be slapped with energy and violence in every scene she appears by Cixi! It will be rivetting! Remember the big-budget film Memoirs of a Geisha? This promises to be its sequel in terms of histrionics and comedy. Can't wait!

But for now, The Last Empress is still seeking a director. This means that we can be holding our breaths forever although the film's producers are eager to get things going, hoping to shoot in October. 

Queens, Big Heads and Humour

If I could speak like Helena Bonham Carter, you won't be able to keep my mouth shut! I'd talk and talk and talk just to hear my own wonderfully posh, cut-glass accent. I want to take elocution classes!!!

Wallis

Wallis Simpson by Cecil Beaton

Rupaul Is That You?

Naomi looking like she's the comedy number a Tiffany drag show. I'm sure Anna Dello Russo has something to do with this.

Just Another Manic Monday

"I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile and ofttimes disagreeable. I suppose I'm larger than life." - Bette Davis Just another crazy day at the office when I have to repeat myself over and over again. Sigh.

Sister Sean

Ms O'Pry giving it her all - heart and soul into modelling them hideous junk.

All About Hair

"That German actress wanted to wash my hair. She came into my dressing room and made the offer. I had to turn her down - I was afraid she didn't mean the hair on my head." - Mae West on Marlene Dietrich"Don't think I don't know who's been spreading gossip about me. After all the nice things I've said about that hag! When I get hold of her, I'll tear out every hair of her mustache!" - Tallulah Bankhead on Bette Davis

Spencer or Pelisse

This would be a Jane Austen's wardrobe crisis: What will she wear this spring? A spencer, a short military style jacket (top), or pelisse, which was longer (bottom)? What would you wear?

He Said She Said

"In came Marlene, with a great, big record - great, BIG record! -- and she said, 'Oh, dahwings, would you like to hear my wehcord?' And she put the record on, and it was just applause! And Marlene would lift needle and say, 'Und dot's Fwankfuht.' 'Dot's Berlin.' But not one note of music...just applause! And Noel [Coward] turned to me and said, 'I hope there's not another side!'" - Judy Garland