… the calm before the storm as it were. The Rogue is just around the corner… and just before that… Mardi Gras. Last year was a busy one for me as I was involved in both. In fact, this time last year, I had just gotten back from Seattle and was furiously doing rewrites and clean-up on my new play before it premiered at the fest. Added to that… I was also King of Mardi …
The Manglish flew fast and thick all weekend. Colloquialisms I hadn’t used in ages, turns of phrases, jumbled up with substitutions from Malay, Chinese, Tamil… and a few Kristang words were firing off in a frenzy the moment I stepped into my cousin’s hotel room. There was no transitional period of adjustment… just a straight on dive into a place of origin. It’s a good thing that I’ve always had a good ear for language …
… when I heard, “Ay, Baba…” yesterday during a short video call. It wasn’t just the words… it wasn’t just the voice… it wasn’t just the brief flash of who said it. It was the combination of all three… and more. And the “more” wasn’t just an attachment to fond memories from so long ago. Those two words… ordinarily a toss away line, were wrapped in the embrace of familiarity and affection. With those two …
I am one… in more ways than you can imagine. I was born one and grew up as one in the country of my birth – a minority. Now that I live on the other side of the world that status hasn’t changed. At the age of 4 months, after contracting polio that left a physical defect, my fate as “other” was sealed for life. The fact that I chose a life in the arts …
… and it is a true wonder that I’m even around. Only saying that because of all the close shaves I’ve experienced over time… especially my somewhat sickly childhood. If there was only one thing I’ve learned it would be how delicate our existence really is. But that is NOT the ONLY thing I’ve learned… and that learning continues. My attitude toward learning made a major shift after I left the institutional halls of study. …
The shifts over the last two years have been profound ones and their effects still reverberate and vibrate. This year is a swirl… one of adventure and adjustments – of both darkness and light. The sedentary may feel like they are swimming toward a sink-hole. Embracing the the sea change will actually keep one afloat.
… and no one probably even noticed. Yeah, I finally got this old blog working again. If you must know, the database got jacked up on an update which just produced the dreaded “error cannot connect with database” message. I WAS meaning to fix this earlier but never got to it until today. So, yay me! A lot has transpired over the last couple of months. Life in continual motion… as it were… and a …
On more than one occasion I have been told this. Usually by folk who know me by sight and finally meet me. I used to be confounded by this. I mean… look at the picture above… goofball often in a pith is intimidating? To be fair I’m not screen star pretty. (Not even close.) And if I did have a career on screen I would probably be cast as the baddie. I’ll take that. (The …
(ORIGINAL POST… UPDATE BELOW) If you can call it that… perhaps trolling for reactions would be more accurate. Over the last few days I’ve been on all sites IndyFringe checking out reactions to “Dancing in the Mist“. So far so good. Here is the first straight up review of the show from IndyFringe Talks with the accompanying photo of the fabulous actors. by Amelia Barnes | Aug 16, 2015 What’s it like to …
