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celebrate good times part two
Can anybody believe it’s been a year?
Happy birthday to Farah Adibah. You’re not mine, but you’re my flesh and blood all the same and I’ll love you no matter what. I know you’re already a clever little girl, and God willing you’ll big and strong and kind as well. I know you like the presents Nenek and Datuk and uncle Zhak got for you.
Love,
Uncle Zhak
celebrate good times
The weirdest thing happened on Eid. Just before we were about to leave for my grandmother’s place, a mirror which we’d had for years and was sitting on top of my mum’s dresser fell down and broke. What was weird was that despite the myriad of cosmetics and what not on the dresser, the only thing that it brought down with it was a few combs and brushes, with everything else intact.
Oh, and my brother and I saw an accident where a car was left standing on its side on Saturday coming back from the mosque. That was quite a sight too.
I wonder if it means anything.
Photos!
I can see clearly now, the haze is gone
There are many reasons I love the rain, but right now, this is the main one.
haze be gone
PSI: 11. Alhamdulillah? Indeed.
night owl + eid
The last time I was in Choa Chu Kang early on a Sunday morning I was wearing a no. 4, carrying an M16 and sitting in the back of a 5 tonner.
On Sunday morning I was in my brother’s Mazda to go visit the graves of the recently departed, my grandfather and a couple of my aunts.
I’ve been going for Qiyyam ul-Layl for the last two days with my brother. Being a night owl I was quite alright with staying up in the wee hours of the morning for prayers, but I didn’t expect to be as awake as I was. Prayer being better than sleep and all that,which doesn’t mean I don’t love to sleep. All praise due to Allah, I suppose. It was quite cool to see kids there with their ten year series and PSPs just staying in the masjid overnight, although a few of them didn’t partake of the prayers. Sometimes I’m still amazed by the depth of religious knowledge my brother’s acquired in the past few years alone. I don’t expect that I’ll always agree with him or reach his standards anytime soon, but it’s always best to have the easy counsel of someone more learned in such things.
I can’t say with all honesty that I can feel that my iman is significantly strengthened over this Ramadhan, but I’d like to think I tried a little. Epiphanies don’t come cheap, and you’d have to be crazy to expect sunshine to part the haze and choirs of angels coming down to bring you revelatory knowledge just because you didn’t eat or drink for a few hours out of a day. Maybe it is naive, but I’d like to think that faith, like anything that requires a certain amount of conviction, is a work in progress.
Things I will be looking forward to though are a return to my fitness regimen (although even that is iffy given the haze) and copious amounts of caffeine and sugar. Okay, I don’t really drink that much coffee, but I’m trying to find something to reset my bodyclock to proper standards. This is a time of great upheavals.
Selamat Hari Raya, Maaf Zahir dan Batin.
Peace.
ill advised attempts at small talk
Don’t try this at home, kids.
Q: Bila nak kahwin?
A: Bila nak mampus? Kan dah tua bangka ni, belum nak mati ke?
Translated:
Q:When are you getting married?
A: When are you getting dead? You’re so old and you still aren’t thinking about dying yet?
It would be amusing, admittedly. Plus this way you can cross a few invites off your list if you eventually do get married.
Please excuse me. I have a mean streak that I have to excise once in awhile with bouts of completely inappropriate humour.
The Roots - Live and Rare
I used to have an MP3 of this freestyle before my computer crashed earlier this year, and Black Thought actually goes on for awhile more after this video gets cut off. According to some of the comments left on YouTube the footage is from a video magazine called “On The Go” (apparently from the days when video magazines weren’t the domain of skateboarding and pornography companies).
The video for Pass the Popcorn, from Organix. Notable if only for the fact that it features ?uestlove rapping, not something you see a lot of these days. He comes off a lot better than Hi-Tek did on “The Blast” at least, in my opinion.
there are no white terrorists
These are the people in whose hands rests the security of the free world, by the way.
Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?
A few weeks ago, I took the F.B.I.’s temperature again. At the end of a long interview, I asked Willie Hulon, chief of the bureau’s new national security branch, whether he thought that it was important for a man in his position to know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites. “Yes, sure, it’s right to know the difference,” he said. “It’s important to know who your targets are.”
That was a big advance over 2005. So next I asked him if he could tell me the difference. He was flummoxed. “The basics goes back to their beliefs and who they were following,” he said. “And the conflicts between the Sunnis and the Shia and the difference between who they were following.”
O.K., I asked, trying to help, what about today? Which one is Iran — Sunni or Shiite? He thought for a second. “Iran and Hezbollah,” I prompted. “Which are they?”
He took a stab: “Sunni.”
Wrong.
Al Qaeda? “Sunni.”
Right.
Ghufran Graff
I finally bought a Bluetooth device for my PC so that I could have some level of connectivity with my mobile phone. In the spirit of Ramadan I thought I’d post this little pic I took a year back at Masjid Darul Ghufran. The swimming complex next door was being rebuilt so they had to partition the area where the two buildings met. They’ve since removed the partitions, but before they did there were some nice murals put up there. I’d really liked this piece in particular.
***
And on another note completely you can also find this gem in the washroom at Darul Ghufran.
Yes it says “kotek”.
Peace.
Technorati Tags: ramadan, graffiti, street art, murals
The Roots - Game Theory
Frustrated by their lack of commercial success, the Roots decide to recruit a white girl Black Eyed Peas styled in order to boost sales. In other news, Jessica Simpson to release new single “Benjamin Sheares Bridge” next week
Breakdown FM interview with ?uestlove (conducted by Davey D) Part One
powered by ODEO
?uestlove interview Part Two
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Download MP3s of the Podcasts here and here. This is an excellent interview by the way, Quest is the public face for the Roots for good reason and he always gives good interviews.
Diamonds, Henry Rollins and American Hardcore
Conflict diamonds may be entering the U.S.: GAO
Over the last decade, sales of diamonds have bankrolled violent factions in countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. These unpolished and uncut stones became known as “conflict diamonds.”
“Although many of these conflicts have now ended and the international community has taken steps to gain control of the rough diamond trade, the United Nations and other sources report that illicit trading of rough diamonds still exists and could potentially finance civil conflicts as well as criminal and terrorist activities,” said the GAO.
I was watching the Henry Rollins Show, which is a talk show of sorts hosted by that stalwart of hardcore Henry Rollins himself. It seems to be a fairly low budget affair, with no studio audience and very little in the way of scripting (the interviews seem off the cuff and with swearing left in, although I had the fortune of watching an episode where Rollins was actually interested in the subject. I’ve read reviews that there were shows where basically Rollins was nodding and going “uh-huh” ) although it is well made (you know, by Singaporea’s Tonight with Gurmit standards). It was the episode featuring Johnny Knoxville and a musical performance by Slayer. Anyway, during the shoe Rollins does his usual spoken word thing and he was talking about diamonds, including the facts that diamonds are hardly rare and while they sell for inflated prices, they have virtually no resale value. I think he probably tends to go for the easy targets during these things, but it doesn’t mean he’s wrong though.
On another note, I’d also like to be able to catch the upcoming documentary American Hardcore about, you guessed it, American hardcore. For me, I think notions of punk rock ethos and integrity really came about with the American punk and hardcore scenes of the 1980s. Maybe there is too great a divide between then and now and between the US and Singapore for the culture to truly have any effect on me, but the music still moves me. I’ll try to pick up the book as well once I’m done with all my other reading.
Henry Rollins Show Portable Rants (scroll down to Episode #18 for the monologue about diamonds)
PopMatters review of the Henry Rollins Show
Technorati Tags: henry rollins, diamonds, american hardcore
