Yo La Tengo Rocks!!

Yo La Tengo's gig at the Esplanade was totally awesome!! All those beautiful songs, guitar feedback and rock-star posturing(see thurston moore in my title banner), not to mention the superb sound quality in the concert hall made it a night to remember. Ya lah, there're not too many American indie-rock acts here in Singapore, and I missed Mogwai last year. soundscrobbler tells me it's a rowdy night, which was I wished the YLT gig to be like that too. To be sure, the band was great but I just feel something's missing: the punk counter-culture ethos and crazed, beer-guzzling fans, for example. (wx: it's like the delicious but small-portioned, expensive wanton noodles!) The crowd was so dead, just sitting there; and some actually left after the second song. "A lot of oddballs and corporate kids," soundscrob reckons. I agree, it's kinda surreal. But Lulu told me I should stop bitching about the uncles and aunties because kids will say the same thing about me in future.

Nah, I'm pretty sure I'll mellow and settle for Teresa Teng or Wilco in a few years. :p

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Opium and the minority Miao

I am so drained reviewing Geddes' book Migrants of the Mountain that I want to give up and ask thengz out for Carl's Jr. Anyway, the book's on the Miao minority group in Thailand, a subject I wouldn't normally want to explore if not for the module requirement. The only redeeming factor is that it gives me the lowdown on the my recent favourite movie--The Protege--as the are one of the mountain peoples cultivating the opium poppy. I'm quite surprised at how pretty the poppy flowers are. I don't think the general public will find the book a fun read except that there are two interesting anecdotes that relate to the movie. First, the 'cooking' of the raw opium shown in the movie adheres to the process described in the book. The second is a drug economics trivia (btw anyone remember that shareware druggie trading game): dealings in opium tend to reverse the conventional supply-demand formula whereby lesser quantities fetch higher prices; high premium were paid for large quantities to offset the risks and considerable organization to conduct the trading trip. (This will make sense if you've seen the movie.)

Source: Geddes, Migrants of the Mountain, p. 225-6.
Image Courtesy of: Clipart ETC

Ok.. back to work..