In Continuum.

Wishlist

Flipping through the pages of TIME magazine, I came upon a little advertisement at the bottom of the page. Advertisements like that don't usually catch my attention, as they are usually promoting the same old things to promote materialism amongst the readers. Anything from cellphones to airlines, from watches to computers. You know, the usual. But this little advertisement caught my attention, as the man featured in it looked awfully familiar. With a beard now and his hair carefully combed back, my eyes glanced from the pages of the magazine to the posters on my wall. The posters of The Lord of the Rings stuck to my wall stared back at me, and for a moment there was a sudden understanding. Ian McKellen was being featured in the advertisement, and it was for his famous play King Lear. Now, get this. Ian McKellen, playing King Lear, at Esplanade Theaters. Yes, he is coming to Singapore.

I was exasperated, checking and rechecking if the dates are correct and if my skin is feeling the pain in between the thumb and the index finger. I felt the pain, and I was sure as hell not dreaming. There he is, dressed in red and a crown on his head, playing the famous King Lear of the William Shakespeare play. Ian McKellen has been on my must-meet list for the longest time ever, and to have him in Singapore to perform is as good as...well, anything I can ask for right now.

However, like all good things, the excitement did not ask for long. After checking for the availability of seats, everything was sold out by then - save for the $400 dollar seats right at the front. I was dismayed, and really upset throughout the night. April told me later that the tickets started their sales as early as two months ago, and it frustrated me even more than I was oblivious to the publicity. So much for the Esplanade newsletter sent to me fortnightly. To be honest, it must be a curse of some kind, missing King Lear this year and missing Damien Rice in the last. But missing the latter is fine, since I am sure that he will return soon enough. It is King Lear and the Royal Shakespeare Company I am worried about. Because this is one of those one-time deal, you are not going to have them come back ever again. Besides, Ian Mckellen is over eighty years old, what are the chances of him coming back within the next ten years?

Weighing things out, paying four hundred dollars for a three and a half hour play wasn't that worth while. I intended to pay about two hundred for it - max. However, everything was sold out as of last night, and I was stuck in front of the computer table, wondering if a steaming pile of hot cash would fall from the sky. It didn't, but it sure did something else into my room last night: My mom.

Hearing out my problems and the details of the play, there was a pat on my shoulders and those sweet words," I'll pay for you." My mother actually offered to pay the whole four hundred dollars, just for me to go for the play alone. It is meant to be a twenty-first birthday present, and to be honestly I wasn't too happy at that point in time. I stared at my mother in bewilderment, and I wonder if she saw the question in my eyes, asking an invisible third party in the room if my mother is out of her mind. However, she repeated that line again, and I was fully convinced that the woman was serious about her words, and she really is going to pay for the ticket. I am still toying with the idea though, if I want her to get me the ticket or something else more tangible...I don't know. I still don't. So I came up with a list of things that I want for my own birthday, and I might just come up with a decision by the end of this entry, hopefully.




Weighing between the ticket to watch Ian Mckellen live and watching Audrey Hepburn on screen, I started to wonder if his vibe on stage can withstand her beauty through the films. After all, this is Audrey Hepburn we are talking about, the only dead actress that I am head over heels for. The only wish that I have is for God to make another perfect replica of Audrey Hepburn in this world, simply because our world needs more actresses like herself, the kind that brings an angelic touch to anything she is involved in. Audrey Hepburn is the kind of actress that makes you feel comfortable, while you are sitting at home on a boring Saturday afternoon with a cup of coffee, snuggling up in bed and watching her movies. That is the power she has on her audience, and the same applies for me as well. So what can be better than a DVD collection of her famous movies? I have watched Breakfast at Tiffany's(And I own it on DVD too), but I've been wanting to watch her in Roman Holiday as well. It's a shame that the collection does not include My Fair Lady and Funny Faces, or else it'd be perfect.

However, it's not like this DVD collection is going to return to London just because it finished its world tour in this part of the world. I've seen this DVD collection in Singapore, and it's not like it is going to run away anytime soon. Just a little bit of patience and money saved up, I will be able to get it myself. Besides, Ian Mckellen is going to be here for three nights, and three nights only.

So, King Lear it is. Next.





What can I say about this guitar? It is probably one of the sweetest I've seen from Fender, and probably under the pens of John Mayer himself. After all, he has been designing his own guitars for a while now, and the last time he did so, it was for his TRY! tour, and that guitar even had a reversed head stock. But that guitar was given away to an online songwriting contest winner, so that is out of the question now. This time, John Mayer came up with yet another guitar, designed by himself, to be given away - yet again.

I know, I've been telling people that I am not good enough in terms of my skills on the six-string to play an electric. That still holds true, but exceptions can be made in the face of such a beautifully crafted instrument. After all, there is only one of this in the world, and I can own it for free, if only I win the context posted on his main website. However, I am certain that there are about a million other John Mayer fans out there thinking about the same thing, wanting to get their hands on that very guitar. Let's face it, even if you don't play the guitar at all, that one above is still going to look good in your room. Aside from being an instrument you can play, it looks more like an ornament you can put in your house, like an expensive vase or a painting of sorts. Besides, I've always wanted a white guitar.

But like I said, what are the chances of me getting one? Even if I manage to contact the winner of the context, no amount of money is going to convince him to sell it to me. Besides, even if he is somehow moved by the money, it is probably going to be a few times more than the ticket to King Lear I am sure. I know it is tempting to own a guitar designed, held, and played by John Mayer himself. However, this is just not realistic at all, and is better off in the back of my mind as a kind of fantasy.

So, King Lear it is. Once more. Next.




I confess, I have a soft spot for cute things - too. Having that weakness is not something that is exclusive to my female counterparts. That is especially so when the characters of a book look like chewing gums, like the characters of the graphic novel, Bone. As a fan of graphic novel, I have seen and read many of them with violence, and probably story lines dealing with death, revenge, destruction and all that jazz. But Jeff Smith's Bone is a breath of fresh air, taking a twist at the genre of fantasy and changing it into something entire.

Of course, I have yet to read the book myself, but at least the reviews online are looking promising. After all, who can resist little bubble gum like characters battling fantastical monsters? I've been wanting to get my hands on the graphic novel, but never really got my hands down to buying it. The only time when I really wanted to get it, it was sold out at Kinokuniya. There is something about how my wishes and the stocks at bookstores work indirectly, something I don't understand at all. But whatever it is, Bone has been a graphic novel that I've been wanting to own.

But then again, given enough time and money, I am sure it will come into my possession sooner or later. After all, it is just a book and if they run out of it at the bookstore, you can always order it at the counter. It is going to take a few weeks to arrive, but at least it will arrive given enough patience. Besides, there is always Amazon.com if I get really desperate. You can't do the same with King Lear, by ordering them online and have them shipped to your doorstep to put up a play. At least that is the case the last time I checked with my common sense. So there you go, once again the king prevails. Next.




This is a weird entry, but hear me out. I've been wanting to own a quill pen for a very long time, for some reason. I guess it is the mental image of writers from the ancient times, writing next to a burning candle in the deep night, with a quill in his hand and a bottle of ink next to him. The image of that is calming for some reason, especially for a budding writer such as myself. Of course, with the availability of ordinary ball-point pens and fountain pen, I'm not sure if anybody is going to write with a quill pen anytime soon. After all, there is always the problem of running out of ink, and also the bending of the quill if you apply too much strength. I don't image a quill to be too cheap on the market, and it's probably not going to be a feather that belonged to an ordinary chicken from a random farm off the road.

But there is a problem with quills, and that is the speed at which one can write. You can't write very fast with quills, and it usually takes a million dips into the ink bottle before you finish a page of writing. Besides, you have to constantly change the bottle if it runs out, and you risk toppling the bottle of ink onto your paper. It is probably not the best weapon of choice when it comes to writing. Besides, being a writer like myself with too much to say for my own good and too little patience, writing diaries with the quill may very well be an impossible feat. So, no to quill. King Lear it is, once again.




As mentioned a million times before, I am an avid fan of Lego. It is probably the toy that is not going to be worn out by time, like those boxy Transformer toys I had in the past. Lego is the kind of toy that is very much alive, and it evolves with time into something entire. After all, this is the toy with 8,274,075,616,387 combinations with eight 2x4 brick. So you see, the number of possibilities is almost infinite, which makes it the best toy ever made in the history of mankind, no matter how you see it.

In the future, I am going to designate a room in my house for Lego toys. It is going to be a city of sorts, with buildings and people walking in the streets, completed with cars and trucks on a well designed road system. But no model is good enough without trains! So I am going to have a train system intersecting the town as well, with an underground subway system built as well. And if I am really really rich - and bored - I am going to have more rooms designated for different genres of the toy. Anything from Medieval Lego, to Underwater Lego, to Space Battle Lego. I am going to have a Lego world on my own, and even such ambitious dreams start with a single Lego brick.

It'd be nice to have a Lego set for my birthday, sure. But then again, I have to consider if I have the time to build it at all. Patience runs against my personality, and to have a room filled with Lego is probably not financially feasible for a person like me right now. Though it'd be nice to relive those good childhood days, I am sure that in the future, I am going to have to buy a lot of Lego for my own son as well. However, that is going to be an excuse of sorts. I am going to shower my son with a bunch of Lego set, but then secretly build them myself behind his back. I'm sorry, I can share any toy. But not Lego. Because Lego is...well, Lego. Enough said.

King Lear prevails, once more.

So, I guess the conclusion is clear. I will be going to King Lear as a present after all. The timing is not right, being somewhere in between my finals and assignments. However, this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that I just cannot miss. I only get one twenty-first birthday, and I don't see anything wrong with going to the play, since I am not going to throw a party whatsoever. Despite everything, I am still doubtful of that decision, and I am going to play around with that thought for the rest of the day. But a decision will be made by the end of this weekend, and I shall update you guys soon enough. So for now, I am signing off to a little nap in bed on this lovely Sunday afternoon - dateless and bored.