Described as a meeting of the minds between North Mississippi hill country blues and Singapore poetry, Long Time Coming x Say It Is Like It Is is one of the earliest collaborations between General Lee and me.
The song by the Singapore-based rock ‘n’ roll band is an observation of the roots of modern poverty and systemic inequality in historical injustice, while my poem responds to these themes through a scathing satire of privilege, addressing anxieties about poverty on different points of the ideological spectrum at the same time.
I will be reprising this work together with DeltaV at our upcoming performance, Singaporeana Blues, this Friday, 28 March 2025 from 7-9.30pm at the Esplanade Outdoor Theatre.
I’ll be performing together with Victor, my good friend and long-time collaborator in the arts, next week at the Esplanade!
Date: Friday, 28 March 2025 Time: 7pm to 9.30pm Venue: Esplanade Outdoor Theatre
Titled Singaporeana Blues, the performance combines music and stagecraft with the literary arts, exploring the universality of the human experience across time and space through themes that include love, longing and loss.
This performance will feature blues classics curated by Victor to a selection of published and unpublished works written over the course of my career. I’ll also debut a new poem written in 2025, entitled “Obituary”.
Victor will be performing as part of DeltaV, the platform through which he presents the blues and its sub-genres in exploratory instrumental line-ups.
This time, his fellow scholar of the blues, Brian Lim, will be playing the harmonica to channel the classic blues duo sound originating from the Mississippi Delta.
Some of the blues musicians DeltaV will cover include Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Mississippi Fred McDowell.
Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible (1996).
In Act 1, Scene 2 of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, there’s an exchange between Elizabeth and John Proctor that goes like this:
PROCTOR: You will not judge me more, Elizabeth. I have good reason to think before I charge fraud on Abigail, and I will think on it. Let you look to your own improvement before you go to judge your husband any more.
ELIZABETH: I do not judge you. The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you. I never thought you but a good man, John, only somewhat bewildered.
(Miller; my emphasis)
That line, to me, has always been both the play right there and the most succinct demonstration of Miller’s craft as a playwright.
In contemporary usage, “bewildered” often means perplexed or puzzled.
In certain instances, the word could also refer to someone being confused as to the direction or situation they are heading or in.
In the case of The Crucible, it’s also instructive to return to the more archaic meaning of the word.
To some extent, Elizabeth is describing Proctor’s dalliance with Abigail as an example of his being led astray by her. It’s also a reference to how he has been “bewitched” by her, hence his seemingly odd behaviour.
Yet, bewilderment goes beyond more than just the transgression of sexual and marital mores.
At its core, The Crucible is about identity, in terms of the individual, society and the individual in relation to society.
While the different characters each have their own struggles with identity, Proctor’s struggle is his search for who he truly is as a person.
His bewilderment, then, is not just about how Abigail’s womanly wiles have lured him into the wild.
Much like how Salem has, ironically, corrupted itself in its attempts to retain some semblance of goodness, John’s bewilderment is a result of how he has has lost his way in the wilderness of this corrupted society and, from which, he has to find his way out, if he is to hang on to his self, and all that is good about it.
