Record My Mind

I have very belatedly discovered Gil Scott-Heron through his new album – I’m New Here.

Check out the Guardian Exclusive Preview here, the page where I got this embedded player.

Good stuff.

This is six months late. But I still want to blog about it. Greg Gore, the publisher of Raymond Smullyan’s “Rambles Through My Library” wrote to me in August 2009 for permission to post my blog review excerpt of Smullyan’s book on the Praxis website.

I was of course more than happy to have the privilege of helping to promote Raymond Smullyan’s books. Hence, my short review appeared here.

Other than reading his books, this was the closest encounter I’ve come to being in contact with Raymond Smullyan.

In my excitement, I wrote a long rambling email to Greg:

How wonderful to hear from a publisher of one of my favourite writers! Your email made my day for two reasons. First, I’m always pleased to receive email from people who chance upon my blog and second, I would love to promote Raymond’s works.

So, yes, please post an excerpt of my review with a link back to my blog on your website. I love Raymond’s works and wish they would be more widely read and I would be very happy to promote his writings in any way. In fact, I love his works so much, I try to collect all his books, including his puzzle books, which unfortunately, I can’t read like his normal books since much more time is required. His puzzle books are perpetually on my “to read when I have a lot of time” list.

I’ve already bought “A Spiritual Journey” and am reading parts of it. I’ve been meaning to write to Raymond for many years but I don’t have his email address to tell him how much I enjoy his books and his humour. He mentioned in “A Spiritual Journey” that he felt complimented when his mother told him Bertrand Russell’s writings reminded her of Raymond. One of my close friends said that Raymond’s works remind him of me due to a certain mischievousness in his writings. I was very pleased to hear that although I know full well I’m no where near the brilliance of Raymond.

Could I please trouble you to convey my great enjoyment of Raymond’s works to him? His mischievous humour often makes me laugh out aloud when reading his books.

Could you tell him he has a fan in Singapore, someone who was a former philosophy student. I know that at least one of the National University of Singapore’s former philosopher faculty staff also reads Raymond Smullyan. This same staff also used an article by Arthur Smullyan (not sure if there is any relationship between the two) in a philosophy of language course that I attended many years ago.

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Many thanks again for your email and the privilege to promote Raymond’s books. If and when Raymond publishes another book it would be a great joy for me to be among the first to know (I know he has another book that will be out in Feb next year).

p.s. If you are interested, you can find other entries about Raymond on my blog if you search for “Raymond Smullyan”, however these entries probably refer to works published by other publishers.

This is one of the best videos I’ve seen this year.

Two great jazz guitarists who’ve never met before. Two different approaches to music and learning – Jimmy Bruno is an older self-taught musician who cut his teeth playing in Philadelphia while Andreas Oberg is a much younger musician (born in 1978, a year younger than me and young enough to be Jimmy’s son) formally trained at the Royal Music Academy in Stockholm.

And and it looks there is no one best approach – both approaches seem equally valid.

ArtistWorks Guitar Project Episode 2: Jimmy Bruno and Andreas Oberg

For more good stuff, check out the intro, Episode 1 and Episode 3.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on how we should distract ourselves to compensate for our limited willpower, and in the process achieve our goals.

Very belatedly I spoke to my grandfather yesterday (Sunday, 27 Dec 09) to find out more about his life. It’s been something I’ve been meaning to do for a while now because every now and then I hear interesting stories about my family from my aunts and everyone should know something about their own family history. I was very grateful I still have the chance to learn more about my grandfather’s life. This is a work in progress and will be updated whenever I clarify events and questions with my grandfather.

My grandfather was born in China on 18 February 1918. In 1929, the year the Great Depression started in most countries, his family fled from Anhui to Amoy (also known as Xiamen) to escape from Tan Kok Hui (?) and his bandits who wanted to kidnap and sell grandfather.

From Amoy, his family of 8 (my grandfather, his 3 brothers, a sister-in-law and his parents) travelled by boat to Medan in Sumatra, where his father (my great grandfather used to live). However due to strict immigration laws, the boat was repelled by the Dutch authorities and the family was forced to land in Penang, British Malaya instead. The family stayed in Penang for 2 months before attempting another trip to Medan. This time they landed in Medan but were jailed for 2 weeks before being sent back out into the sea. They eventually landed in Penang again, where they spent another two months.

It was a hard time for my grandfather. The family had run out of money and had no relatives in Penang, so they headed to Singapore, where my great grandfather’s sister lived. My great grandfather borrowed an earring from his sister to pawn for $18 and used the money to build an attap house at 7th mile in Bukit Timah. My grandfather still recalls the unit number “Twenty seven dash B” or “27-B”. Grandfather also recalled that his father was an extremely disciplined man, who drank one bottle of guiness stout every night, no more and no less.

Grandfather was known as Lee Kong Boo when he attended Chinese High School in the 1930s. He spent 4 years in Chinese High; 3 years in junior middle high school and 1 year in senior middle high school. He told me that despite the costly school fees at Chinese High, he had received a free education at Chinese High by skipping recess to help his teachers sell stationary. At that time, his mother, a vegetable seller, was too poor to pay the school fees.

After Chinese High, my grandfather attended Pittman’s (?) College in 1939 (?), where he was known as Lee Hung Cheng. He had paid to take the Junior Cambridge exam but was not given an index number. After a quarrel with the principal, he was chased out of Pitman’s College in 1929 and on 2 May in the same year, he enrolled in the Singapore English School, located behind what is now HSBC bank at Claymore Hill. Everyone had told him that it would be difficult for him to get into the school because he was a communist and was educated in Chinese, not English. He managed to get into Singapore English School and even graduated with a Senior Cambridge certification in (?) despite not having taken the Junior Cambridge exam. No mean feat in those days.

The Japanese occupied Singapore from 1942 to 1945. Grandfather was arrested by the Japanese in April 1942. He would not have survived the arrest if not for the astuteness of his mother. My grandfather told me he literally owed his life to his mother, a woman with bound feet but a sharp mind. He was “indebted” as he put it. This was how my great grandmother had saved my grandfather.

After grandfather’s arrest, the Japanese had searched his house. Thankfully, before the search, Great grandmother had dug a toilet hole and dumped all his Chinese communist books into that hole when Grandfather was arrested. Grandfather said that had the Japanese discovered communist books in the house, he would surely have been executed.

After being tortured and beaten, Grandfather was eventually released two weeks later with some help from his girlfriend, who was very fond of grandfather. I understand Grandfather’s girlfriend was was a Formosan lady who spoke Japanese and was the concubine of an important person in the Philippines Chinese Chamber of Commerce. She was a “very good girlfriend”, older than him and helped him a lot.

Grandfather also told me a story about his girlfriend. She had wanted to give him a bag of jewellery for safekeeping during the occupation. Grandfather refused because he could not afford to compensate her if he lost the jewellery and because she had helped him so much, he was afraid that she would curse him if he were to lose the jewellery. Grandfather was an honest man. Unfortunately, his girlfriend died in Penang.

These events took place during Marchimoto’s (?) tenure as a Member of Parliament. The HQ was at the YMCA at Stamford Road. According to grandfather, Marchimoto had killed many people during the occupation and was the first Japanese to be hanged in Singapore.

See other accounts of the Japanese occupation of Singapore below:

In an email to me, Rob shared that he took special satisfaction in the videos below as “Passing Clouds” would never see the light of day unless Rob played the music himself. “Passing Clouds” is an original work composed in 1997 and revised in 2009 for the presentation below. It consists of guitar characterizations of five haiku poems by Miyako Kimura, a former student of Rob. A photo of Miyako, the author of “Passing Clouds” appears at the end of the second video.

Fortunately, we have some record of the composer playing his own music and how he approaches the mood of the piece. Check out the fingering, tone colour and harmonics in this remarkable piece. If any future intrepid guitarist attempts this piece, he or she would be consoled and perhaps encouraged by the fact that the composer himself had a difficult time learning how to play this piece, and an even harder time attempting to commit it to memory! “Passing Clouds” was in Rob’s words “truly a monster” despite the simplicity of the haiku poems being characterised.

A few words about Rob. Rob has always been intrigued by why classical guitar pedagogy had lagged so far behind the pedagogy for other classical instruments e.g. the violin or even instruments with a shorter history than the guitar e.g. the saxophone. He has spent the greater part of his life developing a classical guitar method that he could continually refine and teach for a life time.

A significant part of Rob’s method has to do with the right hand. In Rob’s view, the right hand is very much “the stuff out of which technique is made.” Rob observed that amongst primates, we Homo Sapiens have evolved the best hands for playing the guitar. “Thank Heavens for opposable thumbs!”, as Rob is fond of saying. But possessing hands best-suited for the guitar is not the same as having hands purpose-built for the classical guitar.

Rob’s method is designed to free our right-hand thumb, fingers and wrist from the constraints of our evolutionary heritage e.g. the natural tendency of the right hand wrist to straighten itself and consequently prevent the thumb from generating the most efficient force upon the strings and hampering its ability to “lead” the other fingers. In Rob’s words, “Sufficient – and sufficiently flexible – tone production by the right hand requires a determined slog against the overwhelming evolutionary tendency to do hand work with a stiff wrist.” Click here for an illustration more information on Rob’s guitar method. [Edit made for accuracy on 17 Dec 09]

Rob is also driven by a desire to not let the beauty and exciting possibilities of the classical guitar be eclipsed by the guitar as found in contemporary pop and rock music. With “Passing Clouds”, Rob demonstrates that classical guitar music and the images found therein can be as exciting as anything in contemporary pop music.

Luse plays Luse: Passing Clouds (Part 1)

Luse plays Luse: Passing Clouds (Part 2)

Because I have too many interests and no place to put them, they go on this blog.

I’ve started a new category on martial arts and this will be my first post. It’s about Taichi, in particular Chen Style Taichi.

Most people will laugh if they hear that Taichi is a martial art. Unlike boxing or mixed martial arts, the image of Taichi is that of an exercise done slowly by elderly people. While there is no doubt that Taichi is excellent for health and is a suitable exercise for the elderly, it can also be done by the young. What most people don’t realise (including myself) is that the slow forms encode lethal and brutal applications that include jabs to the throat , punches to the groin, qinna, counter-qinna techniques, throws and the like. The focus of Taichi is on optimal bio-mechanical movements of the body resulting in optimal balance, which is essential to all standing martial arts that do not focus on ground fighting, for example Brazilian Jiu-jitsu. Sadly, knowledge of the the applications of the Taichi forms became diluted due to its growing popularity as an exercise to improve health. What resulted was an abstract form practised by people who no longer know the meaning of each of the moves in the form.

I think Lou Reed sums it well, for me at least, when he talks about the attraction of Chen Taichi in this interview :

M: So the martial quality in Chen style was also more appealing?

LR: Well all tai chi has the martial aspect to it, a lot of people don’t know, a lot of the teachers won’t show it, or they do show it but you don’t really learn it, what the application is. I started studying with Larry because I wanted to have street fighting. Not applications that you throw a punch and if you stand there for fifteen minutes I do the application. And you’re in your pose. I’m in NY, that’s not what’s going to happen. So I was interested in some of the more serious applications of it. And then again, I thought that Master Ren’s form and the way he taught it gave you access to all these things. From the minute I saw Master Ren do fajing, I thought I will study this forever. To try and get some of what he can do. And he’s a truly great teacher. He likes showing you.

M: Do you find the practice helps with going on tour?

LR: I practice when I’m on tour. In the hotel find out is there a conference room, a board room, and at some point there’s bound to be one that’s empty. In you go, and you just lock it.

M: Is there a relationship between being a musician and doing tai chi?

LR: Well, everybody does something, some people race cars, others collect stamps, I find tai chi to be philosophically, aesthetically, physically and spiritually fascinating. I was told in my fast form there are four emotions you express. I found that a fascinating concept to have.

At what point are you a martial artist as opposed to someone interested in the martial arts? And if you’re looking at it that way, you’ve got a layman, you’ve got a dilettante, you’ve got this and that, at what point would you say martial artist? Well, that’s a martial artist (points at Ren). I mean, look at painters. OK, Van Gogh, there’s a painter. Lots of people paint, lots of people teach painting, are they artists? No. That’s an artist (points again at Ren.) A martial artist. That’s a goal. I don’t think I’m in any position to call myself a martial artist. I’m a student of the martial arts. He’s a martial artist, that’s a whole other level.

M: Do you find that after having a life of rock n roll, very intense, do you find the intensity of Chen, the fajing, the power behind it, is similar?

LR: Suits me to a tee. That’s the kind of tai chi that was made for me, and if I’d seen it I would have gone there. It combines everything. I’d never seen it before, though. Not what Ren does. If I had, then there I would have been. I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it’s going to happen. Chen is made for someone like me. The attraction is, that’s it, my temperament.

Here is a video of Ren Guan Yi, Lou Reed’s teacher, who was himself taught by one of the four great exponents of Chen Taichi: Chen Xiao Wang, the 19th generation lineage holder of Chen Taichi.

Chen Taiji Master Ren Guang Yi – Compact Cannon Fist ll

Three months ago, I spent a lot of time reading Martial Development in the past two days. The guy is funny. His humour reminds me of the martial arts equivalent of Stratoblogster, whom as you know I’m very fond of. This blog – Chiron – is also interesting. The author is Rory Miller, who wrote “Meditations on Violence” which sounds interesting enough for me to try to grab a copy of.

Robert Luse, the best classical guitar teacher in Singapore posts on youtube the first video “in a new category of original solo works for classic guitar” composed and performed by him. This performance is meant to “demonstrate that contemporary music offers distinct and compelling images, equal to anything in the classics”.

Because of modern technology, it is now possible to leave a record for posterity and see how the composer plays his composition. Or how Luse plays Luse.

It is always a treat to see a former teacher play. And ironically, I’ve never seen Rob play so much guitar when I was a student. But I’m not complaining, just looking forward to him posting more of his performances on youtube. I hope you enjoy this video performance too.

Luse plays Luse: Isadora (just is)

I last blogged about the Sweet Hollywaiians 2 years ago in this post. I’ve just received an email 11 days ago that they have released a new album “Ticklin’ The Strings” available at CDbaby.com.

The Sweet Hollywaiians are an amazing Japanese hot string band playing 1920’s, 30’s, 40’s style hawaiian, swing, calypso, blues, italian music and originals,featuring
vintage instruments. It’s very happy music that is guaranteed to make you smile. Check out the promotional video below.

Sweet Hollywaiians / My Girl From The South Sea Isles