well, at least the intentions were there and all was well till about 1 when johnson called to report on the little polycom disaster they had over at symantec's spanking new office at singpost. wasnt a big deal, and jon's not exactly well versed in setting up vc. truth be told, i think polycom's diagnostics and utilities are great but their obsession with passwords is majoro irritatingno.
oh well, no biggie. but it woke me up from nuahness and i dragged me over to the office to download the plans and look over the details for the new project i had to think for. monday morning deadline and i am still taking my time about it. hee. i am the king of procrastination.
anyway gave up at about 4ish (i.e. didnt do much) and went over to cy's to nuah. had a filling crab dinner at gillman seafood, which was good and free (sheo's promotion treat, so sweet!) but so wrong (fat! fat! fat!) had to wash it down with peppermint tea. considering the major peranakan feast we had the day before, am so not gonna drop any inch whatsoever in time for damien's wedding. no gain already um-chio (hidden giggle)
hey, who am i kidding? i = fat f-*
gaston went off early which is rare. hmmmm... female suspect.
anyhow, the cysheo machinery and i went over to borders to try see whether anything was worth wasting money on.
when u scan the poetry section, you typically run through everything, mentally cataloguing the interesting and the one you are not interested in. physically it's a sideways thing, so your mind is a little slower than your eye. anyways i was scanning and my mind caught a title called "rhapsody of a singapore muse" right after my eyes registered a bright pink and yellow book. i pulled it out, registered the author, one sim kian kok, and ran my four flip test.
(ok, sidetrack here, four flip test is where i decide whether i like the book by randoming flipping through 4 pages, the first flip is forgivable if the poem wasnt something i like, i start deciding on flip no. 2, flip 3 has be absolutely good, and flip 4 sells me the book. )
boy did this book score on major badness on the first flip. after that, the other flips were for laughs. the blurb behind announces that these poems will "...open the heart and feed the soul" if that sir, is the case, i would rather nail my heart shut, and starve my f-ing soul to death.
much later, after a deliberation on Kunitz's Passing Through, which i love, but have read so many times that if i bought it, it would be just to add it to my collection, i locked my eyes on... "if not, why not?" by vivienne yeo.
hahahahaaahhahhaaahahaha. 1st flip
hahahahahahaahaahhhhhaa, ouch, stomach. 2nd flip
hahahahahaa, you got to see this cyril,
4th flip? please, i am not that crazy.
i wanna ask why. why publish when it is bad? why publish when you don't have an inkling of a midget little idea what good poetry is supposed to be like. self publishing can be so wrong.
why do this?
sigh.
it is the encounter of such books that makes me wonder how one can take the title "poet" for one self, i mean are these poets or poetry.com-ers? or am i too mean?
btw for evil fun, i placed a copy of cy's Below Absence next to the "rapsody of a singapore muse". hahaah.
had to wash my mind off residue badness with the purchase of two books that did pass my four flip test, Interrogation At Noon by Dana Gioia and Lavinia Greenlaw's Minsk (incidentally, minsk makes lavinia greenlaw my 3rd female poet in my collection, looks like i am softening my stance towards buying female poets)
***
reading: minsk by lavinia greenlaw
listeningto: bob dylan and the band - i will be released
***