Revisiting the Ballad of Bukit Brown

Wed, 30 Sep 2020
1 min read
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I’m proud to announce my collaboration together with my good friends from General Lee titled “Revisiting the Ballad of Bukit Brown”.

This is an interdisciplinary piece combining literary arts and music, in which I wrote “Revisiting”, a twin-cinema poem, in response to “The Ballad of Bukit Brown” by General Lee, from their eponymous debut album released in 2016.

We’ve also recorded a music video, which you can stream on Facebook and YouTube (videos embedded below for easy streaming).

From the blurb:

In this cross-disciplinary collaboration, both band and poet tell their stories in a new way and for a new age, brought about by the societal shifts and cultural changes of 2020.

Exploring the tension between conservation and progress in Singapore through the lens of the defunct Bukit Brown cemetery, the video contains images and footage of old and contemporary Singapore, sourced from both private collections as well as Creative Commons.

This includes scenes of Bukit Brown, pictures of historical figures, as well as modern-day Singapore.

This visual juxtaposition illustrates the various facets of the conversation on conservation and progress, and mirror the duality of the twin-cinema format used in the poem.

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource

Mon, 20 Jul 2020
2 min read
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OFF CENTRE: A NECESSARY RESOURCE
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS BY ALVIN TAN, LAREMY LEE AND AKANKSHA RAJA

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource is the much-awaited guide to Off Centre, one of Singapore’s most celebrated plays. This resource guide comprises material that will greatly benefit all educators and students of Off Centre. It features pedagogical notes, insights on the play, as well as a question and answer section with the playwright, Haresh Sharma.

Off Centre made history in 2007 by being the first Singapore play selected by the Ministry of Education to be offered as a GCE O- and N-Level literature text. The play, best remembered for presenting an honest and unflinching look at mental illness and the social prejudices surrounding it, has been back on the syllabus since 2018.

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource also features:

  • Founder and Artistic Director of The Necessary Stage, Alvin Tan shares his insight on directing and staging Off Centre
  • Educator Laremy Lee provides a useful guide on approaching narrative, characters, themes, and theatrical and stylistic devices in the play
  • Journalist Akanksha Raja reflects on her experience studying Off Centre

Off Centre: A Necessary Resource is available at The Necessary Stage and other select bookstores.

Email admin@necessary.org to purchase a copy now.

Retail Price: $16.00
ISBN No. 978-981-11-8956-2

Satire in an age of fake news

Sun, 29 Apr 2018
2 min read
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Trump and the "very, very stupid people" (IMAGE: Tom Toles)
Trump and the “very, very stupid people” (IMAGE: Tom Toles)

As an aside, this Ministry of Chindian Affairs thing is a long-running joke between me and my friends.

The last time I posted about it was in 2014 – and in how things have changed since then.

I thought it was telling – and a bit sad, really – that today, I had to explicitly tag/indicate that this post was #satire.

I had a conversation a while back with a fellow writer about art, where we talked about the tension between accessibility and obscurity when it comes to writing.

We don’t have to be too obvious, she said. The reader should get what it is we want to say, without us trying too hard.

And if they don’t get it, so what? Their loss.

It’s a different age now.

It’s become compulsory to make clear that what is written is satirical, just to prevent keyboard warriors from coming up with trumped-up charges of “fake news”.

Perhaps the writing was on the wall in late 2016, after Trump got elected.

Back then, I noticed how The Borowitz Report’s slogan quietly changed from “The news, reshuffled” to “Not the news”.

Subsequently, the column name itself evolved from “The Borowitz Report” to “Satire from the Borowitz Report” sometime in 2017.

It’s sad when the assumption is that the reader will wilfully misinterpret what it is we are say, so all subtlety has to be forsaken.

And it doesn’t say much about the state of intelligence in society, as well as skills of critical thinking, media literacy and all that jazz.

Then again, maybe it might make for a more compelling reason for why learning literature should be compulsory.

Because if a child can’t even interpret irony, then how is she going to begin to figure out fake news?