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Art Walk

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 Two full days on Malecon Beach, the first spent finishing Duras's The Easy Life and drinking too many margaritas. The tripartite structure of the book is interesting. The social trigger on the farm, the psychic unravelling by the sea, and then back to the farm again to re-immerse oneself in social life. Too neat an organization perhaps? Part 1, the longest part, is gripping, but Part 2, the second longest part, is the most experimental of the three parts. Part 3 skirts the danger of feeling like a letdown, with its happy conclusion.  On Wednesday evening, we went on the "art walk" in Puerto Vallarta. Some lovely works, particularly ceramics and photography. On both Wednesday and Thursday nights, we walked by the sea, swallowed by people in the Historico Centro, around the Arches and the Sail, and then spat out into silence and solitude further south. 

Fish Shack

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  The flight from CDMX to Puerto Vallarta took one and a half hours. Our Airbnb is on Pilitas, in Zona Romantica, the gay part of town. Had lunch at Cafe de Angel, walked about in the afternoon, and then a dinner of whole red snapper in Joe Jack's Fish Shack, which was not a shack, but a popular restaurant. The server deboned the snapper expertly in front of me. After dinner, went to a bar called La Noche, recommended by Bench. On the rooftop, talked to a young server who came from Venezuela. On the ground floor, a drag performance dragged out for one and a half hours. We were seeing many older gay men with other older gay men. Guy remarked accurately that PV, with its cheaper rents and drinks, seemed to be a haven for retirees from California.

Speech Bubbles

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When we arrived yesterday, the Pyramid of the Sun was covered in fog. The misty cover disappeared in the course of the morning, by the time we took our photo in front of the Pyramid of the Moon. The whole complex was truly impressive. What we did not expect was the colorful murals in the complex and surrounding residential ruins. In the murals, the liquid-shaped things coming out of mouths are speech bubbles. Can you spot the "football player"? Our guide Rogelio from With Locals was excellent. He was informative and skeptical at the same time, very unusual for a tour guide.   Back in the hotel, started watching The Witcher: Blood Origin , with Michelle Yeoh in it. Then found out on IG that Henry Cavill has been dropped from both Superman and The Witcher. When Guy joined me, we watched Glass Onion , with Daniel Craig as the detective and Edward Norton as the Meta-like CEO. Not brilliant by any means, it was worth watching.

Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Central

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  On Christmas Eve, visited Museo Mural Diego Rivera, and saw "Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Central," his highly personal and political mural. Then walked through the park itself, the oldest public park in Latin America, to Constitution Square, or Zocalo. Lunch at the lovely Cafe de Tacuba. Back in hotel, watched Isi and Ossi , starring a delicious Dennis Mojen and Lisa Vicari who played the innocent rich girl well.  Late start on Christmas Day. Continued reading Duras's The Easy Life Part 2, where the female protagonist goes to the beach and falls apart. Then went to the Museo Nacional de Anthropologia. Very impressive buildings housing an impressive collection of pre-Columbian artefacts. Rainy day. Back in hotel, watched Men in Black: International starring Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Hemsworth in bed with an octopus-like alien, but because it's a family movie, he does not even show his butt. Then repeat-watched Lewis on Youtube with Guy: "W

Flying in Corsets, Dancing in Bars

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  Yesterday, visited a place that I had always wanted to visit since I heard about it: Frida Kahlo's Blue House, or Casa Azul. It was a beautiful compound of house and garden. The great paintings were not there, as they were scattered in the world's museums, but the material remnants of one's life were. The wheelchair in front of the easel in the artist's studio. The mirror above the beds in the day and night bedrooms that enabled the artist to paint while lying down in excruciating pain. The artist's ashes in an urn in the shape of toad, to recall Diego's nickname for himself, the toad-frog. The corsets—medical and decorative—that held the broken body straight. The song written by Patti Smith, painted on the garden wall, inspired by Noguchi's gift of a display case of butterflies to Kahlo. Famously, when Kahlo had to remove her gangrenous foot, she said, "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" After Casa Azul, we walked to the lov

Unfetttered Joy and Freedom

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Five of my "Ungovernable Bodies" poems have just appeared in Five Dials, a literary magazine published by Hamish Hamilton, together with work by K. Busatto, Helon Habila, Annie Katchinska, Mattie Lubchansky, Ben Miller, Tommi Parrish, and Binyavanga Wainaina. The issue is themed Unfettered Joy and Freedom. You can download the pdf for free here , and read about my shenanigans with Leroy, Carlos, Brian, Antonio, and Antonio again. Yesterday, flew with Guy into Mexico City. Five-and-a-half hour flight.  Checked into Galleria Plaza Hotel at Reforma. Met Tim for dinner at a Japanese restaurant, Wanwan Sakaba, and then got a drink at NeonSoulRave. Cute boys, but we were too tired to wait for the drag show to start at 10 pm. We are here until Tuesday. 

To Betray Or Not To Betray?

 Paid the last SUSPECT contributors for the year and balanced the books for Singapore Unbound. Took me almost the whole day. Then continued watching The Recruit on Netflx. A protagonist who is constantly jumping into the deep end of things in order to live on the edge and to prove himself. The show also shows the human fallout of such a life attitude. Then, with Guy in the evening, we watched the last episode of season 9 of Blacklist . The series keeps throwing up interesting ethical questions. The concluding two-parter poses the question: would you betray your leader if your leader is betraying the organization?  Today I have to pack for our trip to Mexico.

Recruitment

 On Sunday, we had friends over for a holiday brunch. It went on into the evening when our neighbor Judy joined us, and Guy and she immersed themselves in talk about the management of the building.  Yesterday, I read Monica Youn's From From. Still trying to figure out what to say about it in a review for Poetry School. Met Henry for dinner at Pisticci and had a good time as always. Hart Crane as Whitman's heir. The Communist Auden and the Christian Auden. That racism in the US cannot be explained wholly by white supremacy. Our sisters, and their attitudes to our being gay. Came home, and watched another episode of Blacklist , and then finished the first episode of The Recruit , starring a beefy Noah Centineo as a CIA lawyer and a magnetic Laura Haddock as a former CIA asset who is threatening to expose her relationship with the agency.

A Vibrating Aboutness Cluster

 Read A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto by China Miéville last weekend. Passionate and discerning advocacy for the continuing relevance of The Communist Manifest o for our time. Not likely to persuade any conservatives but it gives center-left liberals much to think about. Now I want to read Miéville's fantasy novels, which purportedly makes politics exciting. Yesterday, met Winston and his friend Charles, a historian of Chinatown conservation. Charles is visiting Singapore in January to learn more about the conservation of Chinatown there. Interesting to learn that scholars are leery of the term "intangible" heritage because everything can be intangible and so the term is not very descriptive. Once home. Guy and I watched Steven Soderbbergh's 2020 comedy-drama film Let Them All Talk , starring Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, Candice Bergen, Lucas Hedges, and Gemma Chan. According to Wiki, "Much of the dialogue was improvised by the cast, and Soderbergh

Magazine Work

On Thursday, went back to school one more time before winter break. Took a final look at the school literary magazine The Beaver, put together by the student co-editors. The funny thing is that many of the poems and stories were written for my classes. Perhaps this is because I kept forwarding the call for submissions to my classes, and they responded. I love Twyla's feminist take on Circe and Jasmine's very Marianne Moore-like poem about a cat making itself comfortable in a damaged stone fountain. When home, started watching the Netflix TV series Dirty Lines, about two very different brothers who started a phone sex company together. One of them is a closeted gay.  Yesterday, had a productive Zoom meeting with Kim and Isabel about the SUSPECT anthology. Then a young Singaporean theater producer stayed with us for a night. In the evening Guy and I went to Peter's for his Dressing Up the Christmas Tree party. Had a nice chat with the Chinese Will (there were two Will's a

Antigone and Holiday Party

 Yesterday watched the National Theatre production of Antigone with my XIs. A clever update to WWII (?) setting that packs quite a bit of emotional punch, especially with a very young Haimon. Enjoyed dancing again, with various people, at the school's holiday party. 

The Triumph of Achilles That Is Not

 Read Louise Gluck's The Triumph of Achilles for the first time yesterday to prepare for Poetry Seminar. Here are the famous short lyrics, "Mock Orange" and "Hawk's Shadow" that capture the Gluckian mythos and tone. I found the poetic sequences less convincing, as if length dilutes the typical intensity of her work. "The End of the World" is the most achieved sequence, I think, but otherwise she had not yet found the way to write long poems.  Watched Enola Holmes 2. Entertaining. Not done with it, as GH switched to another episode of Blacklist. After, we watched another episode of Smiley. Carlos Cuevas is endearing. The sexiness he projects is charmingly innocent and kind, unlike the sexiness of Henry Cavill in Enola.

To Hotel Portolino

 Started reading Gramsci's Prison Notebooks on Sunday. It will be a long reading assignment. It is already giving me ideas. Such as re-start the diary on this blog. Had an interesting discussion with my XIs yesterday that went from incest to family structure to capitalism. China Mieville's book on the Communist Manifesto was still very fresh on my mind so I was able to give crisp answers to the students' questions. In the evening, started watching Edge of Seventeen (1998), starring Chris Stafford, but was whisked away by GH to Italy when we finished watching the TV series Hotel Portolino (2022) with a winsome Oliver Dench as a traumatized survivor of WWI. 

I Woke Up And What Did I Find?

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 Column written for the weekly Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . I dreamt that 377A, Singapore's law against private, consensual sex between men, was repealed. That families of all kinds, LGBTQ+, blended, single-parent, were cherished and supported. Workplace discrimination against one's sexual orientation and gender identity was outlawed. Full housing and medical rights, benefits, and protections were extended to queer people and their loved ones. Schoolchildren were taught to love and respect themselves and others who were different from them. I dreamt that economic benefits were redistributed more evenly and fairly. No one would go hungry, homeless, or without an education. The young learned to look out for those not in their families, those supposed strangers, the poor, and to challenge the winner-take-all, zero-sum-game mentality. Secure and independent in their old age, the elderly did not have to clean tables in the hawker centers or the bathrooms in the gleam

STOP THE KILLINGS

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 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Message “SINGAPORE, STOP THE KILLINGS” projected by  The Illuminator  onto the building  housing Singapore’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations on November 2, 2022.  The NYC-based Singaporean organizer explained, “The goal is to name and shame on the international arena,  to increase awareness outside of Singapore and show our support for those in Singapore fighting for justice."   The  shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs  last Saturday, killing five people and wounding 17 others, was a tragedy. The repercussions of the shooting will live on, not only for the wounded and the families of the dead, but also for the LGBTQ community everywhere, who are reminded, once again, that they are not safe even in what is supposed to be a "safe space." Tragic in a different manner is the Singapore state's judicial murder of prisoners on death row. State-sanctioned execution and a mass shooting appe

Winners of 2022 SU Undergrad Essay Awards

Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here .  Singapore Unbound is pleased to announce three awards for the best undergraduate critical essays on Singapore and other literatures this year. Each winner receives USD250 and publication in our journal  SUSPECT . The awards are generously funded by Professor Koh Tai Ann (Nanyang Technological University) We're grateful to literary scholar Weihsin Gui (University of California, Riverside) for reading the submissions and making the selection. He gives his comments below, first on all the submissions and then on the individual winners.  “The essays submitted for this award are all to be commended for the depth of their textual analyses and the breadth of their engagement with various cultural and literary theories. I can envision all eight essays, after undergoing peer review and varying degrees of revision and expansion, being published in academic journals. I encourage the authors to consider doing so as the

SNOW AT 5 PM Won the Singapore Literature Prize

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 A thrill to be read so enthusiastically and preceptively by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, one of the three judges of the Singapore Literature Prize English fiction category. She made her thoughts public on her FB page after the award ceremony was over. She has really good things to say too about my fellow nominees, Cyril Wong and Mallika Naguran. "The Singapore Book Council celebration of the 2022 Prize winners for various genres in different languages was yesterday (Thurday), so I no longer feel bound to discreet silence as one of the three judges for the English Fiction Award. I wrote up my enthusiasm for three of the 33 novels and short story collections mailed to me, and include them here, to share with their readers! "Jee Leong Koh’s Snow at 5 P.M.: Translations of an Insignificant Japanese Poet Jee Leong Koh’s Snow at 5 P.M. may be Singapore first global novel. It is multi-genre, with 107 haiku introducing many of the prose passages. Set chiefly in contemporary Manhattan, with

BOX HILL by Adam Mars-Jones

 I venture that to understand the protagonist Colin, and thus the novel, it takes one to know one, or else someone with a large empathy. As Colin explains it: "Well, Ray's charisma was real, and I wasn't the only one to feel it. But I went along with it. It's only exaggerating a little to say that I knew what I as doing when I fell over those long and insolently extended legs. I was ready. I had no real idea of what I was ready for, but still I was ready. "Even sudden things have a history behind them. Maybe it's the sudden things that have the most history. Sooner or later I was going to have to respond to excitement and danger. It was just a question of when and how I was going to do it. Sooner or later I was going to have to answer the call of the live rail." I give four stars instead of five for what James Wood in his LRB review of the book called "a little Nabokovian velvet," the slight over-deliberateness in the description and placement o

First Review of INSPECTOR INSPECTOR

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  1st review of INSPECTOR INSPECTOR, and it's a positive one. Nice to feel the reviewer Toh Wen Li's genuine enjoyment of the book, not only in the words of praise but also in the generous quotations of the poetry. Nice too to be acknowledged as "openly gay" in the Straits Times, Singapore's main broadsheet, for the first time, I think. I wish there was some mention of the political dimension of the book, but there are insightful descriptions of the different poetic sequences that focus on technique as well as content. Thanks, Toh Wen Li, for this sympathetic review. Oh yes, and thanks for mentioning my hybrid work of fiction SNOW AT 5 PM: TRANSLATIONS OF AN INSIGNIFICANT JAPANESE POET, which is shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize. If you are in NYC, come hear me read from INSPECTOR INSPECTOR on Tuesday, August 9th, 6 pm, at the Bryant Park Reading Room, with three other poets. It's free and open to everyone.

John Clegg's Summer Picks 2022

Thanks, John Clegg , for selecting INSPECTOR INSPECTOR (Carcanet, Aug 2022) as one of your Summer Picks 2022, along with new books by Shane McCrae, Stella Benson, Holly Hopkins, and Don Paterson! "Here are six books I’ve either just read or am looking forward to reading this summer: Don Paterson’s best collection since 2003, Holly Hopkins’ long-awaited debut, the follow-up to Jee Leong Koh’s wonderful Steep Tea, an unclassifiable novel / memoir / load of old nonsense from 1933 (republished by the incomparable Boiler House Press), the latest collection from Shane McCrae (which I was very pleased to see nominated for a Forward Prize), and a 12th-century Arthurian romance in Burton Raffel’s lively-looking translation." Read the picks here . You can purchase the book from the London Review Bookshop or from my publisher .

Two Novels

 The Witch Doctor's Daughter , by Kathrina Mohd Daud. A richly observed coming-of-age tale set in Brunei. If the plot is quite simple and straightforward, I still like the slight twist of having the adoption of a child, and not the choice of a husband, be the trigger for maturation. It's a different take on the age-old marriage plot. Man Tiger , by Eka Kurniawan. I read a story collection by Eka Kurniawan, and enjoyed it very much, and so I was looking forward to reading this novel by him. It's very different. The supernatural element is here too, and so are the richly observed details of life in a small rural town in Indonesia. But the novel forgoes wit and invention in favor of simplicity, and it is all the more affecting for that reason. At the start, we know only that the young protagonist has killed a man, and the novel unfolds slowly to explain why. The revelations are planted smartly along the way to deepen our understanding of that horrific act. A masterly novel.

THE BLACK JACOBINS: Toussaint L'Overture and the San Domingo Revolution, by C.L.R. James

 A rousing historical narrative, impassioned, clear-sighted, and deeply knowledgeable. About the British effort at the abolition of slavery in the latter half of the 1780's: "It was the miraculous growth of San Domingo that was decisive. Pitt found that some 50 per cent of the slaves imported into the British islands were sold to the French colonies. It was the British slave-trade, therefore, which was increasing French colonial produce and putting the European market into French hands.... By 1786 Pitt, a disciple of Adam Smith, had seen the light clearly. He asked Wilberforce to undertake the campaign. Wilberforce represented the important division of Yorkshire, he had a great reputation, all the humanity, justice, stain national character, etc., etc., would sound well coming from him. Pitt was in a hurry—it was important to bring the trade to a complete stop quickly and suddenly. The French had neither the capital nor the organization to make good the deficiency at once and

On the Ropes

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . Guest editorial column by Burmese poet and activist Ko Ko Thett. The following poem responds to the  announcement  by Myanmar's military junta on June 3, 2022, that "it would execute four people whose appeals were rejected following grossly unjust closed-door trials." Among the four are activist Kyaw Min Yu, known as “Ko Jimmy,” and opposition lawmaker Phyo Zeya. They were sentenced to death on January 21 under Myanmar’s overbroad Counterterrorism Law of 2014. On the Ropes By Ko Ko Thett In all manners of capital punishment  hanging is  the most hideous. To ancient Greeks the rope takes away more than life.  It takes away decency even in death.  Had the Romans hanged Jesus —instead of nailing him on a crucifix— the Christian church wouldn’t  have had much impact. Would you hang around  your neck an icon of a broken-neck Jesus,  hanging by the neck  on a noose? Be it short drop, pole method,  stand

"Inspector Inspector" in The Lincoln Review

Thanks, Daniele Pantano and your editorial team, for publishing "Inspector Inspector." I'm honored to appear in such good company: Charlie Baylis, Satya Dash, Maria Castro Dominguez, SJ Fowler, Christine E. Hamm, Tom Pickard, Abhijit Singh, Ian Seed, Gregory Vance Smith, Helen Tookey, and Laura Wetherington. And that's just the poets. "Inspector Inspector" is the title sequence of my new Carcanet book, which will be released in August this year.

Squeaky Wheel

 Weekly column written for the Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . The drug-pushers have reappeared at certain street corners of Harlem, the neighbors have complained, and the cops flex their presence with mobile posts. But the policing is lackadaisical because the cops know it's a cat-and-mouse game. More, they know there is an international network of producers, suppliers, and middlemen behind the street-corner pushers, and it is the network that must be dismantled, and not the pushers, who are often addicts and victims themselves.  Some problems appear so vast and complicated that we content ourselves by tackling their most immediate manifestations, instead of aiming at their sources. Our "solutions" fall hard on the little people, and not the powers-that-be. Worse, the problem is then blamed on the little people, thus obscuring the source of the problem and the lack of effective action on the part of the authorities. This is true of Harlem, but also of Singap

Put Cruelty First

 Column written for the weekly Singapore Unbound newsletter. Sign up here . To oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the patriotic motive is foolish, because the same motive may heed the drumbeat of our invasion of others. To oppose the death penalty out of pity for the victim is insufficient, because the soft person is unstable and easily becomes a bully in a mob of bullies. War and legal execution of criminals are acts of violence on different orders, but they share the same element of cruelty, and so must be hated by the genuine liberal. This is just one lesson I took away from reading Judith N. Shklar's 1984 book  Ordinary Vices , recommended to me by a dear friend. Born in Riga, Latvia, of Jewish parents, she fled persecution during World War II with her family to Canada. Later, she became the first woman to receive tenure in Harvard's Government Department.  Ordinary Vices  is written with an eye not on fellow academics but on the ordinary reader. To our current pre