#79 in praise of: anna moffo

Happy Independence Day, Peninsular Malaysia (because Malaysia didn't achieve total independence until Malaysia Day and I'm bitter like that, heh)!

This is going to be the first in a series of few posts which will be unashamedly about diva-worship. Other opera fans who are claiming to be above such things can go fuck themselves.

The young Anna Moffo circa 1956-59,
before the rhinoplasty and (glorious) weaves

I'd like to start this series with Anna Moffo. Girl was gorgeous. Girl had voice - in spades, literally: she sang Elisabetta on stage. Girl had talent aplenty. So what the fuck happened? According to Herself, it was her first husband who drove her faculties to distraction and extreme fatigue, ultimately destroying one of the most beautiful (soprano) voices to come out of the land of Buffalo wings and french fries.

I first heard Anna Moffo from a YouTube video of her singing Marguerite's Jewel aria in what looked like a fluff-piece cabaret concert. Girl looked fierce, but had no trill to speak off (that impression was wonderfully changed later, of course). I noted though her voice sounded like sex personified. It had throb, it had sensuality, it sounded atrociously *female*. This is the kind of voice you can imagine hearing from her side of the bed after an all-night orgy.

Then I heard her singing a song from Showboat, Bill, as one of the songs from her Italian RAI television show. I don't know then, but I fell in love with her the moment I heard "I don't know" from her lips. I couldn't help it. There's something about the way she phrased this standard that made you believe even though she's probably fucking around this Bill fellow's back, she really did love him, at least when it all first started.

I sound like a crazy fan. I am. I now am the proud owner of several Anna Moffo recordings, including the greatest La rondine ever recorded, a daring take on Luisa Miller, a Madama Butterfly which made a powerful case for the lighter voice (Gheorghiu, I'm looking at you), a perfectly balanced Lucia di Lammermoor with Gorgeous Charlie (passport name: Carlo Bergonzi), even the shitty ones like the duse of crap, the Thaïs recording with the young José Carreras, and the tear jerker of the lot, L'Amore dei tre re.

Her recording which I love most was of course the Rondine. She made Magda sympathetic, which is of course really hard to do. I love the fact that she did not made the dream aria the centerpiece, but gave that place of honor to Ore dolci e divine. Her duets with Daniele Barioni were living gems. The wonderful Act 2 quartet did not turn saccharine, but kept the momentum going: happiness is effervescent, after all.

The second was her L'Amore dei tre re with Domingo and daddy a.k.a. Cesare Siepi. This was unfortunately for a sadder reason: to wonder how the fuck everything come to this. At least the Thaïs was a camp-fest. I couldn't help crying the first time I listened to Moffo's first phrase: "Ritorniamo", intoned in a hoarse middle voice. Return to what? It was a ruin of a voice, but what a magnificent ruin.

Maybe that was the problem. Moffo wasn't exactly a musical genius like Callas was, in the way she never made a phrase her own. Okay, I am probably too harsh; I've heard at least two phrases which had never been bettered by anyone else: "Tu sei con Dio ed io con mio dolor" from Madama Butterfly, and "Per non vederlo più!" from the live 1961 Met Turandot, in which everyone in the cast, even the chorus, was perfect.

But that was not the problem. The problem with Moffo was, once you get through the sheer gorgeousness of her timbre - and that was a great deal of fabulous you have to get over - she was at most an extremely competent singer who happened to have beautiful physical features, and fact is people are shallow like that. I do heard that she was a wonderful affecting actress on stage. I've seen her films: the Sonnambula, Madama Butterfly (which made her one of Italy's most beautiful women) and the Traviata. She indeed looked wonderful and had the operatic naturalism acting style down pat.

But all of this did not deny the amount of artistry she poured for the world. Maybe it's the bitter hag in me, wondering what-if's and what-could-have-been's. In an age where not only beautiful voices were plenty but there were also interesting "artistic" voices (Magda Olivero, anyone?), Moffo certainly held her own. And I'll certainly never forget her heart-aching rendition of Bill.

#72 the dilemma

I'm still alive, duh.

For the past few ages I've been away, first to face one of the most important exams of my life - the fourth year exit exam of medic school. I passed (thank God!), although there were certain things which I could have done better. There was the practical exams (the OSCEs) in which I thoroughly bombed the stations for Orthopaedics and Paediatrics, the former because I was a klutz with no sense of organisation and the latter because it was the first-station jitters. The MCQs being MCQs (I forgot the exact number of questions already but it was certainly more than 120) made me so tired and cold and subsequently sleepy (damn hall air-conds!). The long case was fun, though. I got an easy case, CCF with diabetic complications, the patient was very cool, the examiners were helpful because God knows I was babbling like my life depended on it. Case in point: I couldn't even get the word "BUSE/CREAT" out for five minutes (they were asking for a lab investigation for kidney function), the examiners had to twirl around and around to get it out of me, and they looked intensely relieved the moment it rolled out of my tongue I couldn't help mumbling "I'm sorry".

Then, I went for a LONG-DESERVED HOLIDAY and an awesome elective posting in the Emergency Department of Queen Elizabeth Hospital 1 Kota Kinabalu. The department people was awesome, and our supervisor was one really cool guy who made 'disaster' sounds like an attractive word. I stayed in God-forsaken Petagas, which turned out to be quite a charming suburb area, and went back to Bongawan for the weekends on the NEW TRAIN! NEW TRAIN! NEW TRAIN!

The sea view from the train, about fifteen minutes away from my home.

These two are so cute, but they're probably brothers.

Holiday activity: searching for rubber tree seeds! And they pay you, too! (RM 3 for each measly kilo)

This is my wallpaper now.

Holiday activity: DIY crafts. I sucked.

Then I went back. Boo. Ah well, my first posting for the fifth year was Accident and Emergency. It wasn't like my electives though, because the HOD was quite hands-on with our lot. She even asked me a question (an easy anatomy question, but it was awesome that she even noticed me), and told me she looked like one of her employees: which I don't really adore but hey, you suck it up.

Last weekend I went to a CME held by Philips Respironics, apparently they make CPAP devices. It was the first formal symposium thingy I attended, but it was on a Sunday so maybe it didn't count? There was talk from a really nice sleep lab - I guess the word is owner, because he's actually a cardiologist, and another one from a sleep medicine specialist who looked really young. And really tall. Uh.

Anyway the CME was really nice. It was on obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which is the fancy term for snoring, hehe. Now, despite having several risk factors for this condition I amazingly did not have it (confirmed by my mother), and I speculated that this was because my tongue and oral passages have a higher muscle tone from all that wailing Massenet, Puccini, Strauss and Verdi. Which is kind of contradictory because as most vocal pedagogues would tell you muscle tension is a definite booboo in classical singing, at least the Italian school.

Which brings me to another point: during the holidays I've been experimenting with tenor techniques from this wonderful pedagogic website, in particular what he called the 'wail' and the 'cry', and to my amazement I managed to stay on F# and Gs forever! There was no muscle tension, my neck didn't look like I was choking myself, and my tongue stayed clear out of the emission (a real big problem for me, as I flip higher than F I tend to roll my tongue backward and produce this crazy muffled mezzo-sopranoish timbre, which on the plus side can go up to F#5 but probably sounded like a duck's squawk in a hall - you should hear me sing O don fatale sometimes, I camp it up better than La Bumbry - how can you not, when you have the chest of a baritone and the head voice of a contralto!). The notes higher up also sounded clearer, but I still like my D's and Eb's the best. Hence the dilemma: Am I a short tenor alla Domingo in disguise? (Gasp!)

... TO BE CONTINUED

#71 "seroja": views, choices in performance practice and arrangement for wind orchestra

For the last week, I have been contemplating a very famous Malay song, "Seroja" as the theme for my next composition. As pure melodic material, "Seroja" is a strange subject. The title alludes to the flower lotus (teratai), which as you may realise is the symbol of purity for many Eastern cultures. In many images Indian goddesses sit on lotuses perched on top of 'sea of chaos', for example. The allusion to purity perhaps come from the fact that lotuses grow best in swampy areas, so their surroundings may be downright filthy, but their fulsome flowers remain clean and beautiful, in dissonance with its milieu.

The song interests me for many reasons. The song was composed by Hussein Bawafie sometime in the 60's. It has a beautiful coloratura line, it is a test of legato and phrasing, of the management of one's instruments in all its ranges, of creativity and personality in decorating the line. The lyric is pedagogic: the singer is berating a younger sibling for cherishing beauty over substance (rupa yang elok jangan dimanja), for wasting time over love, for not trying to gain wisdom from life experience (memetik bunga) - at least that is how I see it. It is a powerful song, a beautiful song. One may comment that for a song with a stern voice it sure has a lot of coloratura, but I see it as a means of softening the blow, the satin glove of the iron fist, a way to kiss the booboo, if you will.

The original version was sung by S. Effendy. Even in its original version the song was composed with a chorus in mind. The echo effect of the verse is very powerful, reminiscent of religious chants. Mr. Effendy has a beautiful baritone sound, however the extreme of his range (F#, to be exact), is precarious. He handles the transition beautifully though, with a glorious double effect decrescendo-portamento.


Another famous version was sung by Sharifah Aini. She has an easier facility of the coloratura line, and her husky lower reaches contrasted nicely with the power and beauty commanded by her upper reaches (reaching a full-throated F5). You can hear why Miss Sharifah was prized as the most important female Malay singer for at least twenty-five years - the liquid honey one associates with her high-middle voice - the one which granted her the ultimate vocal throne from Saloma - is in strong evidence here.


The most famous version is perhaps Jamal Abdillah's. The verse is throaty in his voice, more to the character of his timbre rather than a choice. He manages the coloratura of the first verse by hollowing his voice, and it is both harrowing and fascinating to listen to. He also made some confusing phrasing choices. No matter, he is a tenor, and he showed his mettle in the third verse, where he opens up a silvery thrusting instrument gloriously to A4 - even the coloratura is better at this range. The wear and tear in his voice show, but it is still a very powerful instrument nonetheless.


I have listened to Mawi's version. It is a strong voice, but at that moment in his career incapable of much delicacy. I do not mean he cannot sing the line, but it is very much the sonic equivalent of bull in a china shop. Contrast for example with Jamal Abdillah (easiest as they are the same voice type) who is still capable of executing the line while maintaining the thrust in his upper voice. Even Mr. Effendy was capable of some vocal effects, but in this department Miss Sharifah wins, hands down.


This duet version sounds wrong on two counts. I have maintained for a long time that while Siti Nurhaliza manages some glorious feats with her voice, her timbre remains anomalous for Malay literature. Hers is a soubrette voice, a girl's voice, a virginal voice. Contrast this for example with Sharifah Aini, who is capable of knowing coquetry and saturnine sobriety - with the same timbre. The second is the fact that she meanders all over her range in her decorations. She knows her strongest suit is her highest range (as has been shown beautifully in the first verse), and she insists on plumbing for depths that are simply not there. Mawi still sounds like a bull in a china shop, and is already showing strain in his upper register.

With these performance practices in mind, I set to composing the Harmoniepartitur. I have already pictured the song as a Bellini cantilena, so I set out to arrange it in that style. The introduction came easy to me:

An oboe solo was planned to evoke the reed instruments of the nobat. The main thematic material was given to clarinets. In later metamorphoses it was transferred to other instruments: trumpets, trombones, euphoniums; but the thematic re-capitulation was always given to the clarinets. I think the mellow refulgence of a well-played clarinet best represent the Malay ideal of the lenggok or the gemalai, the graceful turns and twirls one can see in Malay dances and silat. 

The second section is a waltz. I wanted the material to go to surprising places, and a transplanted waltz sounded ideal. There was a recapitulation, then progression into Allegro, in which the material travelled via Db major to many places, before re-settling in F minor. There are several tags, or 'codettes' as I call them, comprising of two-measures equivalent of  I-VImaj7. The music closes with another oboe solo before a final codette.

The instrumentation is very basic: flutes (with piccolo), clarinets, the saxophone quartet, French horns, trumpets, the lower brasses and percussion, with glockenspiel and tubular bells in the coda. The tubular bells were in fact inspired by Kitaro's land theme from Heaven and Earth. 

I loved the experience. However the arrangement process itself was quite harrowing. I have left the medium for three years, and it took me a few days to get my sea legs again. But it is quite finished as of today, and I hope for the best for this material, which is near and dear to me.

Seroja (wind orchestra) - © fUGA arts limited 2012

#69 some translation works / borrowed poetry

Tomorrow I start my final posting before my fourth year exam. And in Tuesday I had a major test in ObGyn, a favourite subject - but anything can happen. "Chaotic" does not even begin to describe what I'm feeling.

On the other hand I have translated some of the texts from my lieder cycle (you can see the video, among other things, here) into Italian, specifically lieder #1, #4, #5 and #6. Enjoy:

I
Quanto vento! mormorante
come un bel fior, che chiama
una tempesta.


Vedi con me! la luna,
ondulante, sorridente,
coi stelli innumerevole
in notte brillante.


IV
Ascolta il grido e il furor! La Santissima Stella
coi mille diamante sull'ali rosse ascende il firmamento!
e nata del sue piume: una bellissima,
beata vergine, ben-adorata della Terra!


Beata bellissima della vecchia razza divina.
Quella sembianza! una faccia senza minaccia,
lucente e rilucente! è lucente sempre,
gran'luce infinita!


Ma deh, ahimè! beata bellissima piange della sua peccata
in vedente il taglio della vita.
Ma vedi ancora, la pallida faccia:
la luna, bianchissima, sola sulla seta nera.


V
Ah! vieni a me, infelice cor,
bel giovanotto e bella signorina
chi è perduto, abbandonato,
chi è deserto da tutto, anche del sol.


Tu che di gel sei cinta,
vestiti in buio l'oscurità
coi la luna e un bianca stella
e sette cente strege dannata!


Ascolta di me! il giorno finirà
dopo la millesima ora.
Ascolta ben! tu sai nulla
che tua vita dissiperà.


Vieni a me, infelice cor!
t'affretta allor, in pronto.
Vieni in nudità di peccato tuo e di passato.
Siedi qui con me allora, per l'eternità.


VI
Era già finita la notte ventosa:
arriverà certamente all'alba,
la fiammiera stella:
Vedi in ciel, allora!
gl'occhi del giorno, il re solar!

I have also translated Pablo Neruda's sonnet XCI Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres into Malay. I guess I was pretty inspired by Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's singing of the Neruda Songs. I had the recordings since two years ago, and though it was rarely played in my iPod rotation every time I heard the final song I always teared up. The translation pretty much corresponds to the melody of the song, which you could hear here (please note the performer is NOT Miss Hunt).

Amor mío, si muero y tú no mueres,

no demos al dolor más territorio:

amor mío, si mueres y no muero,

no hay extensión como la que vivimos.

Polvo en el trigo, area en las arenas

el tiempo, el agua errante, el viento vago

nos llevó como grano navegante.

Pudimos no encontrarnos en el tiempo.

Esta pradera en que nos encontramos,

oh pequeño infinito! devolvemos.

Pero este amor, amor, no ha terminado,

y así como no tuvo nacimiento

no tiene muerte, es como un largo río,

sólo cambia de tierras y de labios.

[Credits to Pablo NERUDA]

Oh sayangku, jika ku pergi dulu,

jangan kau tangiskan ketiadaanku:

kasih, jika kau tiada buatku,

hidup tanpamu tiada kan bermakna.

Debuan hama, pasir bertaburan,

tiap saat, titisan embun, hembusan bayu,

dan kita, bagai debunga berterbangan.

Tiada lagi masa kan kita berjumpa.

Di taman tempat pertemuan kita,

oh pulangkanlah! detik-detik kehilangan.

Dan cinta ini, sayang, takkan kesudahan,

tiada hujung ataupun permulaan

kan berkekalan, bagaikan air menderu,

cuma bertukar negeri dan nama.

I guess it is not a literal translation but rather a transliteration, but the gist and the intention of the text are very much replicated, I think. I detest translation works which are devoid of the personalities of the translators themselves - but that's just me.

#68 the birthday post #24

Tomorrow I'll be 23. Such a lovely little number. By that time I would have been away from my family for ALMOST half of my life. Makes one think of many missed things.

I am not a birthday bitch per se, I don't mind anyone not saying "Happy Birthday" to me on the streets or surprising me with a cake and presents. Which is weird because I remember my 8th birthday was a really big thing - my mom arranged for a party, and lots of my friends came over, and we had this huge cake (which made me barf, I hate creamy pastries) and posed for pictures like starlets. My favourite picture was one in which I sat on my mom's lap, possibly the last time I was small enough to do so.

I miss those early years, when you see the world through frosted glasses, when everything was beautiful and warm and friendly, because I tell you the first five years away from my family (namely, high school) was hell. I was really alone and scared that people were going to call me out for being a phony, that I didn't belong with the 'elites', that I didn't deserve my place in MCKK. I showed those bitches, but I got hurt, got scarred plenty in the way.

Front row, second from right. I was such a twink back then.

Then of course after SPM when everything got shaken up, got strewn away. I went to India for two years, and in one of my tours saw the great fortress of Mehrangarh. I saw the Taj, I saw snow for the first time, I saw lonely tombs in the Jaisalmer desert, but no memory was as vivid as seeing a wall at a massive gate at Mehrangarh, a wall of palms which was painted deep scarlet, which bore numerous palm prints of various sizes, the smallest was probably a child of ten years old. It was the wall on which the womenfolk of princes and warriors stamped their palm before going on ritual sacrifice as their men, aware that the kingdom was lost, fought the battlefield to the death.

On to happier things: on occasion of my sweet 24th, I had composed several works. I completed Laguan buat gadis desa, designated Op 34 and Op 35 (orchestral version) respectively. I wrote a French mélodie, which I count as a personal achievement (I wrote both the music and text in one night, I was heavily caffeine-ated). I also wrote a concert aria for baritone in the cantabile-cabaletta style entitled Bagaikan purnama bercahaya... Menarilah, designated Op 39. The range is monstrous: from G2 to Bb4, but the highest notes are intended to be sung in voix-mixte, and personally if I can sing it then it should be okay for a professional baritone. It was originally perceived in March after the verdict on the Tyler Clementi case, but I had waited until now to release it in its full-grown form. The lyrics were painstaking in its composition, but I completed it, and provided an Italian translation.



Doux solitaire

Je reste tout seul au bord de l'eau grise,
le ciel est pâle, le soleil trop froid,
mais je sens un bonheur suprême, 
dans un silence si profond. 

Un silence si profond, 
si bleu, si grave, si sombre, 
qu'il me rend si délirant, 
comme des beaux yeux amoureux. 

Je reste tout seul au bord de l'eau grise, 
le ciel est pâle, le soleil trop froid, 
mais moi, je suis en extase 
en temps si languissant.

Bagaikan purnama bercahaya... Menarilah!
(Come la luna... Ah piedi dolci!)


CANTABILE:
Bagaikan purnama bercahaya
dengan diiring langkah kejora.
Seribu keindahan wajahmu sayang,
sungguh ku rindukan senyumanmu,
kekasih idaman.

Di mana kau yang ku idam?
datang padaku, oh sayang!
Jangan kau hampakan hatiku,
jangan engkau lupakan diriku,
intan.

Dengarlah seruanku, sayang
Memanggil nama-namamu
yang penuh keindahan
Datanglah semula, kan ku setia
ku sumpah! akan setia.

Malam tak bersinar tanpa bulan,
malam kelam, kerawanan.
Oh, kembalilah pujaan!
Sayang, dengarlah seru
memanggil kepulangan!

CABALETTA:
Menarilah! dengan rentak bergaya
menari dengan gembira
menyahut suara pujangga,
sementara menantiku kan tiba
sampaiku di pintu syurga.

Jangan terlupa akan janji
kita berdua bersama
kan ku datang, oh sayang
di hujung dunia, tunggu sahaja.

Menari dengan gembira!
nantiku di pintu syurga!
Berdua! bersama! bersama!

ITALIANO:
Come la luna, bella e bianca,
che riflette il bacio da una stella,
è la bellezza tua sulle tue rosse labbra,
ti manchera ancor, ti manchera,
mio amore, mia vita.

Dov'è quella perduta?
ritorni a me, pietà!
Io che senza di te, non posso
pensare niente di più, 
son senza vergogna.

Ascolta quel'accenti miei
che chiamano i bei nomi, mille tuoi nomi:
Giuro, fedele sarò, si, si, lo giuro, 
col sangue mio! fedele sarò

Notte troppo scura senza luna,
notte stanca, funesta.
Ah! ritorni a me, ritorni ancor!
Amor, ascolta: mia tutta angoscia ti richiama!

Ah piedi dolci! ballate allora
ballate con tutti i grazie e gioventù, senza paura
mentre di me, col mio arrivo colà,
saremo, cara, insieme ancora.

Te ricordi bene la promessa 
che la tua mano in me
coi miei pianto ha scritto che il tutto,
tutto nostro amor vivrà ancor in cielo!

Io con te, vivremo in ciel,
insieme ancor, con te sarò
con te sarò, sarò!

#67 cendol

Why the fuck did I put 'Cendol' as the title of post #67? Well, back in my MCKK (we call her koleq, like the boat) days we have this adorable system, laundry numbers, in which everyone was given a number. It was a useful way to claim back your laundry - mark the tags or the laundry bag with the number et voilà! - but over the years it had developed into something like a nominal shorthand - "A 24! Datang depan!" - which at that tender young age did give me nightmares about being a prisoner with only a fucking number as my whole identity. Thing is, I was - is - A118, which was quite an awesome number (I turned it into a fancy schmancy 'S') and had been incorporated into numerous passwords ever since, and A67 was this great friend of mine, Za'im (with a frigging glottal stop) who's a great public speaker, a great poem declamator, and a great musician. When you're that good, there's not a lot of leeway for bitches like me to bitch about.

But I did find one. Well, not me, like a whole class. As it turned out after one especially cold night, our Mr. Perfect had a terrible case of Pseudomonas spp. rhinitis, and we being terrible mean boys called him cendol forever after. Cendol is this kind of cold drink mixed with lots of stuff but primarily with a gluten-type jelly strings, which looks like green bloated pinworms. As such it had passed down in our lingo to mean 'snot', hence Mr. Perfect's moniker, and the title of this post.

... Barf.

You must not blame me for sheer genius.

In another topic, the koleq orchestra team went to the SBP Wind Orchestra Competition (though I think they don't call them SBP anymore, because they're opening that shit up for practically anyone these days) this weekend and the they had just uploaded the video of their performance. I don't know how's the format these days but in my day they gave us three songs: an obligatory song, which usually emphasizes a musical aspect (like articulation, dynamics etc), a Chosen Song, and a Malay Song (which is usually composed by this fricking man named Suhaimi Yaacob, a director for SAS band, and guess who almost always turned up in the finale? Yeah, fuck that!). Video below:



I will tell you this: I'm so proud that they managed to do this after a major team crisis (that had their FB group buzzing for days) and only three weeks of proper training. The orchestra sound is so much improved - of course they have newer instruments and a larger palette to work with now, with so many sponsors KA-CHUNK!!! - especially the brass! The brass section used to be the byword for 'shithole' in our band, but the trumpets blazed like they're Leontyne Price (and you know that lady would probably live to see twenty more presidents before finally joining the choir upstairs) and the trombones, apart from two or three impolite honks, sound so sizzled up! I was confused why they're putting the tubas smack in the back of the rest of the ensemble but when you have like 4 -5 BBb tubas placement probably doesn't matter.

Apparently they're playing a suite from Die lustige Witwe (I can't help it, I love the original title more than its English counterpart - the FUCKING Merry Widow, so sterile, so sanitized. There's sex in the show, goddamnit!) and an original composition based on an old Malay song Seri Langkat. I can't tell you much because there's too much vibe in the recording to ascertain individual timbres, but I do think that Seri Langkat was better that DLW. I just want to scream "Did you listen to any recordings of Vilja at least?!!!" It's harrowing to hear one of the most beautiful lyric pieces EVER being played like a colour-by-the-numbers, but whatever. That alone is a big enough write-off in my book.

Apart from that, I do think the fast sections suffer from not being fast enough. It is an operetta, hence it must have a lively atmosphere. I do understand though that 3 weeks training is probably not enough. The fermati just before the coda were rather anemic from lack of crecscendo/swell, but there was a nice sexy trombone glissando, so that's a big plus (they do love flamboyant solos at the WOC).

The Seri Langkat is typical of my old director Mr. Rosman's style - I could listen once and label everything: Intro, Theme, Theme 2 (legato for days)+crescendo, Re-intro (mf), big Recap, Coda. His style (we called it RTM band-ryuu, because the director before that was big on symphonic-style arrangement) is tons and tons of syncopations and accents, nice (but not entirely unexpected) harmonic progressions, and lower brass chorale for days. The team actually did miles better in this song, but they have the benefit of having the composer at hand, so there's that. The trumpets especially did an awesome job. It's weird because the rest of the participants usually turn up with better Chosen Song than the Malay Song, but I think it's a good trademark move for the team.

Of course there's some spliced notes, some honks (clarinets and trombones I see YOU) but I don't care, I love the songs, I love the performance, I would have killed a child to be performing on that stage with them, but I'm here and they're there, and I hope they had the time of their lives on that stage, and most importantly GO INTO THE FINALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: They didn't made it. They got silver, which means 'so long, suckers'. 

#66 hiatus hernia

I didn't realise I haven't been blogging for almost 2 months! OMG, there's so much to cover. First in March I went back to Sabah for an awesome two weeks. The first day my parents dragged me at 7 AM to the village pier to catch some fishing boats. The nice thing about these boats is you can get like 1/4 of the price of the price you're getting for fishes and squids at the day market! That's dirt cheap!

^^^The guy with the trucker cap's my Dad!!!

I think this is boat #3

It's a goddamn war. The guy's with the black cap's my uncle^^^.

It was such fun, and everytime I got up early I went with them. My dad looked happier (he retired a year ago), and my mom lost some weight, so all was happy on the home front. The problem was my little brother, the one who got punched by his seniors just before his exam (what fuckers!). He'd been having coughs for a week before and when we got him to a private clinic they had him on suspicion for TB. Fuck! But he got better though, as if he's determined that his cough is going to go away in a week. Which it did! Maybe I should've trademarked his DNA or something.

And then my dad had to choke on some fruit seed (a duku seed, which was as big as a baby's thumb maybe) and we had an entire day's rush to the nearest hospital (which was 20 km away) and mind you the only one who had the license to drive was my dad, the one who had to be anaesthetised (they did a laryngoscopy, shove a tube down his throat), and we (well, I - I was the only one who went with him) had to wait 4 hours for him to get up from his groggy sleep. Which I did not begrudge at all, because I had such a great time talking to the MAs of the Emergency ward, you know, gouging the field and shit like that.

The thing that chafed my ass was the behaviour of some MOs over there. Mind you my dad, like my second brother, had what people in my place call the black rage. I mean we all get angry and shit, but my dad's kinda hands-on with his anger. And he had waited for 3 hours before he got called in, and we hadn't had any lunch, and when he got called in there's this young upshot giving him attitude. "Pakcik, apa masalah?" while typing into his damn phone. I just want to scream bitch, is that how you're taught at med school? I had to flinch while my dad's voice got louder and louder until the MO got him to the Emergency and did a laryngoscopy.

And then while I'm waiting outside the Emergency, eyeing the family members, people filling up prescriptions and what did I see? MOs trailing their fucking stets at the handle of the handbags, like a goddamn ribbon, with the diaphragm part hanging down halfway their thighs. I just want to puke on the stets, just make it unclean and be done with it, at least after then they'd probably put them in some proper place. I mean how expensive is a purse with an MO salary, nothing fancy just a small purse like a lot of HOs I see wearing in the wards all day to put their shit in?

Turns out it was okay, and dad only had a little trauma (self-inflicted, if I may say so, he poked a pencil down his throat a few times) and he was eating normally two days after. But that got me thinking real hard: if anything happened to dad we'd probably in very deep deep deep shit.

After that I fetched my IC (I lost my IC in Manipal, then I got it replaced but I can't claim it because I already went to Melaka - basically for one year I was an illegal bitch - not really, I had my passport and everything) and went to see my grandma. See, my grandma went to Mekah for an umrah in November I think, and she looked amazing! She cut her hair - she looked like Maggie Griffin with black hair and smoother skin, and she looked totally relaxed. And then my - I don't know how you call it - late granddad's brother came (with wife #2) to pass on some invites for his son's marriage thingy, which turned out to be an impromptu family conference, in which I learnt my family (on my mom's side) came from the Kinabatangan river and her ancestor basically destroyed a whole village and cut everyone's ears and strung the whole thing up over a wire stretched across the goddamn river, and mind you, this is our Nile, our Mississipi, our Mekong!

Basically I had a really nice time back home, but holiday's really hard because they last only so long and I had to go back to Melaka. The past I month I've been in Surgery posting, which I will only tell you it's hard as fuck, but I won't bitch and moan because despite my foul mouth and everything I'm committed to this. But we had wonderful lecturers, and I had wonderful, cooperative patients, who couldn't have been more sweet to me despite disturbing their rest and all.

Rant over - last week I had a smashing portfolio challenge ('You have very nice handwriting' YEAHHH!!!) and I rewarded myself by trolling Amazon and buying thousands of stuff, hehehe. I bought Duetti, Anna Moffo's Broadway album, Frederica von Stade's baroque+Mozart album, Mady 'darling' Mesplé's Best of album, and Dima's Rachmaninov Romances. It was heaven! The Duetti album was exquisite, Flicka was working it Baroque-ryuu style, Moffo could've been another Ella Fitzgerald (and you know she could've done the scat like a huge sexy violin - like Battle did), Mady was crazy - a huge F there, an orgasmic Ab there! I tell you people were stopping under my window and calling me up whether I have a vibrating sex bunny in my room.

The only thing I had some reserve for is Dima's latest effort. He sounds amazing and everything, but I don't know, sort of manufactured. You can definitely hear the technique, as opposed to being lulled by its 'absence'. He certainly have the language down pat, but the core of the sound is just not what it used to be. I always say he was never a dramatic Verdi baritone, and what he do best is the lyric-noble roles like Germont, Onegin, Posa. But he went where he went, and a recording is certainly not the best - or only - way to judge an instrument, and I utterly wish him the best.

#65 weekends

This weekend was a mix of ups and downs.

First I finished my Malaysian Studies assignment in super record time (26 pages in three hours), with some snark thrown in er, a lot of things.

Then I had the time to finish a canzonetta for coloratura entitled 'Mana adik jelita?' which basically sounds like a pedo anthem but is actually quite sweet. That's Opus 38.1 and counting.

Then Whitney passed away.

This picture was from DListed, and I chose it because she looked so beautiful. She was so beautiful, and so funny! She had so many demons, and I just hope she finds peace at last.

On a happier note, it's Zeffo's birthday! What a wonderful director, I love his Met Turandot staging and the classic Romeo and Juliet! May he live long and prosper and continue on giving burns to singers, other directors and the Italian government!

#64 the sabahan nature

I am often accused as being a 'Semenanjung celup', despite being pure Sabahan from both sides. I'll tell you why: I have spent my life since eleven years old in the Peninsula, first studying in MCKK (and cooking up a storm in the college - yes, we call her 'college', not 'high school', bitches - orchestra & French department, thank you), then 2 years in A-Levels in Shah Alam, and then now in Melaka after a two-and-a-half years stint in India. And all through these years, very very few people can detect that I'm a Sabahan. Except for my face, which had some Kadazan features from my grandma's side, there's no giving clue. They always say that the easiest way to detect a Sabahan is by his speech: his consonants are harder, the R's more rolled (Italian R's as opposed to English, or even American R's), the vowels rounder - but no sirree, not me. The commonest guess is a Chinese twink from a KL borough who spent his weekends lepak-ing in Times Square or some tanning saloon. Even now during postings some elder Chinese patients would start talking to me in Mandarin before my colleagues had to point out to the poor dears that I am, in fact, a Malay.

I have been, therefore, accused as posh by my friends. "Why aren't you talking like other Sabahan dudes?" they'd ask me. First, if you're not paying for my Jockey boxers you're not going to tell me how to speak, cunts. Second, so what? It's called 'accommodating other people'. I'm not going to spew out French or Italian to random people just because I can. When you have been talking one way for half your life, and it suits you for all intents and purposes, then why not stick to what works? When I'm with my Peninsular friends, I'll be talking smack in Peninsular Malay, and when I'm with my Sabahan friends, or home for the holidays, I'll be talking smack in Sabahan (strictly, it's Brunei Sabahan, a very er, rigorous dialect) like anything. Either way I'm still going to talk smack about other people, so it works.

Despite all these, I remain a Sabahan to the core. Or maybe not Sabahan, maybe it's more of my Brunei heritage. My History teacher in MCKK (the most elegant lady I've ever known, who never came to class in the same outfit twice) who taught in Sabah, told us Sabahans are probably the most passionate people this side of the globe. I knew what she meant: when we get angry we never forget, and our rages are legendary; we may forget a name but we never forget a face - it's easier, see, to plan where exactly your spit will land the next time you're seeing your enemy.

But I digress. The reason for this post is this Malaysia Today post written by Mr. Daniel John Jambun, a deputy chairman for a Sabahan party. You know, I hate politics more than anyone else but when I see this post, I teared up a little. I may be a self-professed bitch, but when I see things like this I yearn, like Gérard, for 'days when men will become Gods'.

And just because I can I'm reproducing the article in its entirety down here, because this is good work, and good work, like manure, deserves to be spread.

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Daniel John Jambun, Deputy Chairman, STAR Sabah

The Barisan Nasional has said many times that they will “answer the opposition’s lies” (menjawab tohmahan-tohmahan pembangkang) and recently we are told that Sabah BN will have its own body to work on these answers. As a member of the opposition I am naturally challenged about such so-called lies and I am very interested to hear what BN has to say about a few ‘lies’ that we have been repeating over the years. I would therefore like to volunteer my services to this body (to answer our lies) by providing a list of such lies.

I of course expect this body to answer all these lies as clearly and as convincingly as they can as soon as possible:

1.  There are many cases of non-compliance with the 1963 Malaysia Agreement. A close examination of the Malaysia Agreement would show that there are several very important cases of non-compliance to what are promised in the agreement. One of this is that we were promised that Sabah would be an independent nation, one of four (Singapore, Malaya, Sarawak and Sabah), not a unitary state. Hence we were supposed to be autonomous in our governance and not come under the governance of Kuala Lumpur. One of the reasons why Singapore was unhappy with being in Malaysia was that it realized it couldn’t have its own Prime Minister;

2.  There are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Sabah due to some backhanded work by some manipulators in government, and this manipulation is still going on. We want a royal Commission of Inquiry to probe the issue to its roots, but the Federal Government seems worried about carrying out an RCI.

3.  There are many stateless people in Sabah and Sarawak after the creation of Malaysia. The National Registration Department cannot even do its work properly that many people are denied the security of having proper documents. Mistakes are made in the registration process, putting people in a fix for years because they are given the wrong religion in their ICs.

4.  Federal Government is not being shared in equal partnership between Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak. The number of Members of Parliament and the number of the Members of the Federal Cabinet are heavily in favour of Peninsular Malaysia;

5.  Borneonisation was never implemented as promised in the 20 Point Agreement. It was more a case of Malayanization, with people from the Peninsular taking up government posts in Sabah and this is still going on.

6.  There is little freedom of the press in Malaysia with the ruling parties getting access to mainstream newspapers and TV, and none for the opposition parties who then have to rely on ground movement and the alternative media.

7.  The Federal Government is taking almost all the revenues from Sabah and Sarawak and giving a pittance in return, whereas we were promised by the 20 Points the freedom to collect our own taxes and use those taxes at our own discretion. The Federal, if collecting up to RM35 per year in revenues from Sabah (including the earnings by Petronas) but for development under the 10^th Malaysia Plan we got only RM9 billion and that is for Sabah and Sarawak.

8.  Around 50 percent of Federal allocations for Sabah and Sarawak are either not received or delayed, often carried forward to the next National Budget or the next Malaysia Plan. Of funds received, the implementation rate is only about 60 per cent and with habitual delays.

9.  There are very few university graduates are from Sabah and Sarawak as compared to those from the Peninsular, and entrances to government-linked universities and college universities are heavily in favour of the West Malaysians Malays;

10.  The public healthcare system in Sabah and Sarawak in an appalling state. Just go to any district hospital and see how you have to wait half a day to get treated. In most of the Interiors clinics are faraway dreams and the people still have to travel through rivers and jungle tracks to get to a doctor.

11.  There is still no piped water in many areas, including those near the towns, even after half a century of Malaysia.

12.   Security in the state’s borders is still poor with illegal immigrants still getting easy entry into Sabah;

13.  Too many villages in Sabah still cannot be accessed by roads. In Kiulu 60 villages can only be accessed by walking or by river transport. Because of this, too many school children in Sabah and Sarawak still have to walk barefoot for miles on hungry stomachs through jungles to go to schools which in many cases are in such poor and decrepit states that they are look like nothing more than animal sheds.

14.  There is a longstanding discrimination against Sabahans and Sarawakians in the areas of recruitments into the teaching service and the security forces, and employment in these areas are heavily in favour of Peninsular Malays.

15.  The great and depressing mystery behind the Double Six Tragedy of the 1976 air crash in Sembulan which took the lives of so many of Sabah  senior leaders is still  unresolved. A book which tries to unravel the story, Golden Son of Kadazan, is still banned by the Federal Government.

16.  Among the biggest source of our dissatisfaction is in how our natural resources are being taken from us. Imagine if the oil royalty for Sabah and Sarawak is reviewed to 70 percent backdated to 1976 and with 8 per cent interest for arrears compounded yearly! The amount would be so much it would take care of all of Sabah’s development needs for decades to come. This kind of oil royalty rate is nothing fantastic because it is already practiced by other countries such as Timor Leste, South Sudan, Darfur, Acheh, and under the nationalist movement in Scotland.

17.  Loss of the huge oil-rich areas called Blocks L and M to Brunei happened under mysterious circumstances, and without any approval from the State or Federal Cabinet.

18.  If only we had freedom to manage our own resources we would now be richer than Brunei and Singapore.

10.  Poverty and abject poverty are still rampant in Sabah and Sarawak with people living in decrepit houses and children malnourished. Often houses in villages hardly have any money in them.

11.  Article 153 of the Federal Constitution which guarantees special position for the natives of Sabah and Sarawak, and the New Economic Policy are not being applied in Sabah and Sarawak;

12.  The Sabah Chief Minister is chosen by Putrajaya, denying Sabahans its democratic right to choose its CEO. Meanwhile, KL’s invisible hands are interfering in many political and administrative matters in Sabah to favour the Peninsular.

13.  There has been blatant gerrymandering of the electoral boundaries to favour Umno who wants to maximise its advantages with the immigrants who had been legalised through the back door, at the expense of disenfranchised bona fide  Sabahans;

14.  Umno and pro-Umno Malay supremacist NGOs like Perkasa are causing even more disunity among the people of Sabah and Sarawak by fanning racial and religious issues and therefore worsening the problem of racial and religious polarisation. And the BN is not lifting a finger to shut up extremists like Ibrahim Ali;

15.  The presence of Peninsular political parties in the Sabah, Sarawak State Legislative Assemblies, or with these parties representing the two states in Parliament, is contrary to the originally intended political autonomies of the two states.

16.  Based on the comparison of the sizes of Sabah, Sarawak and the Peninsular (Sarawak alone is bigger than the Peninsular), the Peninsular should have less than two thirds of the seats in Parliament;

17.  The cruel, repressive and obsolete National Cabotage Policy has long been functioning to increase prices of commodities in Sabah and Sarawak to a lot more than those in the Peninsular Malaysia, while local wages are comparatively much lower and employment opportunities are significantly less than they are in the Peninsular. While the policy is causing inflation and other economic pressures for  Sabah and Sarawak it has also been seriously impeding industrialisation of the two states because foreign companies avoid setting up operations here due to the higher operation costs compared to those in the Peninsular. The Federal Government doesn’t believe in giving equal economic opportunities for the Borneo states. Is the Cabotage Policy so difficult to dismantle because certain political leaders and business cronies are reaping countless millions from the policy?

18.  Air connectivity and internet penetration in Sabah and Sarawak are still very poor, even after a lot of appeals and arguments by local BN leaders and after years of promises by Federal ministers.

19.  The infrastructures in Sabah and Sarawak are still very poor compared with those in Singapore, Brunei and Peninsular Malaysia. After half a century, Sabah and Sarawak is still begging for development of basic infrastructures like roads.

20.  The RMR should be removed from Sabah and Sarawak because they are an occupying force and not meant for protection or security;

21.  The influx of illegal immigrants has resulted in the explosive population growth of Sabah, and is depressing local wages, increasing crime rates, padding electoral rolls, disenfranchising Natives and other Sabahans, resulting in the loss of Native land and depriving local Muslims in particular of opportunities under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and the New Economic Policy;

22.  Sabah is experiencing countless cases of Peninsular Malaysian companies grabbing Native Customary Rights lands and the government is not consistent in handling them, and in many cases appear to be siding the companies.

These are only 22 ‘lies’ which the opposition parties have been repeating over the years in order to educate the public about what is going on in Sabah. There are a lot more ‘lies’ which, if we were to collect and elaborate on them, would fill up a thick book. What is interesting is that the government never seems to be unable to answer all these ‘lies’ at the time they are mentioned or raised by the opposition in the media. The government’s usual response is to avoid the issue or to pretend they haven’t heard them, because how on earth do you argue with the truth? So in order to give it a certain appearance and dignity of being right, the government keeps repeating that it “will answer the opposition lies” but without mentioning which lies they are talking about. And then they never ever give those answers they promise! After sometime some leaders will again say the BN will answer the opposition’s lies, but when?

Another approach they use is to try to belittle or demonise the opposition by saying the opposition leaders are liars who gloat about empty things, can only make empty promises. It is a very easy way to avoid answering the real issues.

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