It was a bright morning when Janvier woke up one weekend. Not by his own volition, as normally given any weekend he would sleep all the way till late afternoon. And although today he was suppose to be up and ready by noon so that he could head off for a good dim sum brunch before rehearsals, instead of being able to sleep all the way till 11.30am he found himself wide awake at 9.30am.
So what did Janvier decide to do?
A few things probably factor in here. The invites by Junior to come swim at his place that Janvier couldn't attend. Also, the fact that the last time Janvier went swimming and getting some sun was his trip to Phuket.
So Janvier decided that it would be the day where he pays his first visit to the Kelana Jaya Swimming Pool. He tried searching online for some information about the place, like how much is the entry fee, lockers, operating hours, and what he could garner was that the lockers are dirty and old and the advice was to just keep everything with you.
Janvier packs his bags and head off to the pool. It is about 10.45am when he arrives at the KJ Swimming Pool and he parks, pays the RM4 entry fee and...gets lost. He sees stairs heading upstairs and downstairs, and unclear directions as to the men's changing room. After wandering past the surau and all he finds the changing room, and sees the lockers outside.
Those are terrible lockers. Rusty, dusty, musty. We want to keep our belongings safe and clean. The lockers do not give that impression.
In the changing room, there is a wide open space with tiled seats. Janvier decides to scout the area for changing rooms. There was none, so he heads into a shower cubicle to change into his swim trunks.
Heading to the pool Janvier gets slightly daunted at the length of the pool. Olympic sized? He knows that he may have problems swimming the length of the pool, since he never had good stamina. Also, for a weekend the pool was not as crowded as Janvier feared it would be. There were a couple of people lying on the side of the pool working on their tan, and children playing at the corners and a few people doing their laps on some lanes.
Janvier puts his bag and Crocs aside somewhere where he can keep an eye on it, dons on his goggles and jumps into the pool and swims to an empty lane. He then does the breast stroke to the other end of the pool.
Three-quarter-ways down the pool Janvier was hyperventilating already. However ego did not allow him to stop swimming and so he gasped for breath while struggling to the edge of the pool. Sweet bliss was reaching the end of the pool, where all he could do was lay his head at the edge and gasped till his breathing slowed back to normal.
Janvier would have rested for a fair bit, except he got pressured when the swimmer on the next lane arrived, rested a while, then started swimming back. And Janvier noticed that each stroke of that swimmer was equivalent to two or three strokes of his. So Janvier started swimming again.
Only to give up when he had about five more strokes to reach the end, and he walked-paddled that bit.
At that point Janvier saw that there was not much time left for him to do any more laps, and so he decided to just bob in the pool and get some sun. And around the same time, the suntanner near him got up.
Janvier looked at the tanner. And looked away. So did the suntanner.
Janvier took a double take. So did the suntanner.
Janvier and Sinner took a triple take before recognizing each other.
Janvier was not wearing his glasses, of course. Sinner probably did not wear his contacts either, hence it took so long before they id'ed each other. They chatted until 11.30am, and then Janvier took his leave. Especially when Sinner told him that his face was turning red.
Back in the changing room Janvier's senses suddenly became much more aware. It did not require special senses for it. When men walk back and forth between aisles three times without any reason, or keep looking out from their shower cubicle while showering their hair more than once, Janvier could feel a chill that he did not feel coming out from the pool.
Grasping his bag he quickly headed to the nearest shower cubicle. Only to find that there was no place for him to hang his bag. He headed to the next row, and saw that those cubicles had nails hammered outside, so he hung up his bag and began rummaging for his shower gel. It took some time because the nail was quite high up and it was not easy for Janvier to find the shower gel that ended up buried at the bottom.
All the while standing out there with one hand in his bag, Janvier felt eyes on him. He felt as if he was parading for others and that made him rush frantically to get that shower gel and get into a cubicle quick. What really propelled him into the cubicle and lock up was when people started walking past and rather too close for comfort.
Janvier decided that he would take a very quick shower, dress up, head back and then take a proper shower. He also thought he heard a moan from somewhere.
Back home, as he takes a proper shower, he notices that even when spending less than an hour in the pool there was a noticiable difference in skin tone! Delighted, he now wonders if it is worth heading there again just to tan up...
So we've finished Battlestar Galactica and Hercule Poirot for now, and of late instead of watching DVDs of movies we've missed over the past months, we've been watching...the director's commentry for Lord Of The Ring's Fellowship Of The Ring.
And later we'll go back and watch the designer's commentry, the production and post-production team commentry, and the actor's commentry. By the end of it all we'll probably need to buy new DVDs again.
Why the commentry and not a movie? 'Cos we've watched LotR before, and so can easily stop any time, while if we watch a movie we'd like to finish it in one seating. Not really feasible when we only come back from rehearsals near midnight.
Also, we've resorted to watching LotR because we've an inkling to watch odd films if we were to go buy DVDs. It started with us remembering a phrase: Clockwork Orange. Never did get a chance to look it up so we wiki'ed it, and that led to Soylent Green later on because we wanted a synopsis of the movie, and then that led to reading synopsis of movies on Wikipedia like Stephen King book-to-movie titles and to other Kubrick films especially 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Clockwork Orange's idea of ultraviolence then is violent, but from the way it's acted out (as watched from YouTube) it doesn't seem so, nowadays movies are rather violent too. It's hard to picture it as violent when Alex sings 'Singing In The Rain' while attacking someone...
From there, since we started on movie synopsis we thought we might as well read up Soylent Green's synopsis. And from this trailer, well, you don't even need to watch the entire film. Just watch the trailer and then, go look up the secret of Soylent Green if you didn't already know and would like to know.
What we do want to catch if possible, is 2001: A Space Odyssey.
But the one question that runs through our mind each time we think of buying the shows to watch: These are old movies. Do we have the patience to sit through them any more?! Nostalgia is one thing where we have already readily accepted the fact that certain elements of a show is old, like the original Star Trek and the fake panels in the background of the Enterprise, but for shows we've not watched or heard before?
We should be preparing for movies like this instead, yes?
Prince of Persia movie! The games were good, but we don't have any feel for Jake Gyllenhaal but hey if the movie's good we can live with it.
Asides from movies, the only DVD telly series we're interested in? Oddly enough Gossip Girl is still sitting on our shelves as we don't find the interest for it much, but we're keen on picking up Monty Phyton's Flying Circus, and The Legend Of The Seeker when and if it comes out over here.
Hmmm should start reading Terry Goodkind's books then regardless of the differences.
Life as a necromancer, as I remember, was always glorious. The power extended to us necromancers, gave us great abilities, allowing us to raise the dead after we slew our enemies in battle. As a necromancer of great strength not only could I raise the dead, my powers allowed me to raise Skeleton Archers instead of mere skeletons to bolster my army strength.
Armies tremble to see my banner and horde of skeletons ready to rain death upon them, and while some desperately flee others readily offer their allegiance to me, in the futile hope that I would let them live. Foolish mortals.
What way is there to join an army of undead, but to be undead?
But if the mere mortals could prove their worth, I allow them to live...for a while. Infernal Succubi Mistresses have seduced me to let them live before, showing me they can shoot fireballs to hit everyone. Sylvan Hunters show their archery skills. Sylvan Druids, Shadow Elven Matriachs, Human Zealots and Inquisitors all show their magical prowess. Dragons, Titans, Cyclops, Angels and Demons are all welcomed.
For the rest, they serve me better as skeleton archers, or vampires lords, or archliches (although I fondly remember the time when they called themselves Power Liches).
Ahhh. The glory days when I stormed my enemies' castles with over two thousand skeleton archers.
I retired sometime when the Tribes Of The East arrived, as I had other duties to perform, staying only long enough to infiltrate a Stronghold, pretend to be a Barbarian and lead an army of Goblins, Orcs, Wyverns and Pao-kais, even Cyclops to march the lands. I find that they make excellent vampires, the way they thrist for their victims' blood. But the way they find their goblins expendable makes me feel that the goblins would be much more useful as skeleton archers.
Now I have come back from retirement, only to find that my necromantic powers have changed! By the tears of Asha, I have been weakened! Where I used to be able to raise skeletons after every battle nonstop, leading to my warmongering and bloodlusty charges, now I find that my necromantic powers limited to this thing called 'Dark Energy'. With this Dark Energy drained before the week ends, I cannot raise any new dead! And now what we raise is dependant on who we kill!
Coming out of retirement it was wise that I decided to visit my neighbour and tentative Sylvan ally, General Bun, or Bunny to his friends. Having impersonated a Sylvan Ranger before, the two of us have slightly different opinions about running the army. I deplore his wanton treatment of pixies, as I prefer their superior sprites. Also, he prefers his Arcane Archers while I would rather the Master Hunters.
Also it is obvious that General Bunny takes care everytime he attacks, strategically splitting and arranging his armies before marching into battle, while I send them en masse, knowing that their Eternal Servitude would bring them back to life should they fall in battle.
It has been two weeks claiming new territories for my Necropolis, and already I deplore this newfound Dark Energy dependancy to which my army growth is now limited.
Hmmm. Perhaps we should pick another faction to go to should our time as a Necromancer be over.
After a couple of major incidents, we've come to observe that if we were to suffer from anything that would keep us awake, it would be around 6am before we would be able to drop off from utter exhaustion (regardless of further pain or suffering).
It all started on Monday at rehearsal.
See, for the dikir barat song choreography the lot of us are supposed to sit cross-legged on the floor and clap and sing and whatnot. And on Monday we were sitting cross-legged on the floor for a good hour or more, we had a large blister on the outer side of our right foot. And by the time we noticed the blister it had already burst.
Normally this would only be a mild inconvenience. We'd just need to go get a plaster and problem solved. And this we did.
Come yesterday we see a few others also with plasters on their right foot. Heh.
And last night as we were sleeping, the pain started.
Perhaps a little explaination will be needed. See, we had an operation yonks ago that left our right leg slightly weaker and the foot partly numb although we still do have certain amount of motor control thankfully. And it's 'partly numb' ya, not totally numb. Don't think that we can go around poking a needle into our right foot or putting a naked flame near to it won't hurt us.
At the time we'd left the blister exposed as we were done showering and had to change our plaster. At first we thought that there was some rough residue stuck on the blister wound. A mild brush across the wound and once we were satisfied that there was nothing on it, we slumped back to sleep.
Only to be disturbed by a sharp pain again. A sharp, cold piercing sensation at not only the wound but the skin surrounding the wound area too. And it stung frequently too! Everytime we think we could drop off to sleep, we would get a sting that would get our heart beating faster for a while and us unable to rest.
Think of someone taking an ice-cold needle, and piercing it into your foot. Make that ten needles. And then taking it out, letting the pain subside and for you to recuperate. Only to pierce you again about about 2 minutes later. Continue for the entire night.
We suspected that it was due to the nerves on our foot but there was only so many things we could try to remedy the situation at past 3am at night.
Panadol. Antihistamines to help sleep it through. Cleaning the wound and applying a fresh layer of Fucidin. Oh and plaster it up again.
Nothing worked. Oh we didn't take the stronger painkillers as we didn't think adding possible gastric pain to our current situation would be helpful. Oh and our muscle relaxant was left in the office.
We were even desperate enough to try dabbing our ulcer gel onto the surrounding area of the wound just to see if the lignocaine would help numb it till we fall asleep.
No such luck.
Further desperation led to us applying the gel onto the wound as well.
Still no luck.
Possibly the only thing that worked was whacking our foot to cause more pain, but this kind of pain is the kind expected from a normal wound that would heat up slightly and lead to a mild sustained and dull pain. But eventually the sharp nerve attacks would return.
Somehow we must had knocked out in exhaustion. Throughout the entire night we never did look at the time, because doing so we would not only know what time it was, but we would automatically calculate the number of hours of sleep we would have left and despair. But we do know that by 6am we would be totally exhausted because Wee Wog has already woken up by then and have harrassed our parents to let her out to the porch so that she can do her business.
We've now gotten better painkillers courtesy of our nearby clinic, and tonight we shall see if we can sleep through it!
We think we'll just put up the ad for Young KL Singer's upcoming performance as it is for now..jpg)
presents
The Young KL Singers
in
Rhythmic Roots
celebrating the cultural and musical heritage that is Malaysia.
Last year, we explored the development of jazz. This year, we are exploring our cultural roots.
As in years past, The Young KL Singers (YKLS) will once more be staging another exciting upcoming production entitled “Rhythmic Roots”, from 12th to 15th November 2009, in the Actors Studio, LOT 10.
Our group of 30 passionate, music-loving performers enters its 11th production since its inception in 2002, after achieving outstanding success in previous shows including the sold-out performances of “Simply Andrew Lloyd Webber” and “Breaking It Down!”. Two of our performances, “Through the Barricades” and “Move It!”, have won the Kakiseni Audience Choice Award in the Boh Cameronian Arts Awards in 2003 and 2007 respectively. In all 10 productions, the choir has performed a wide repertoire of music, ranging from Broadway musical pieces by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Rogers and Hammerstein, to the colourful rhythms and rhymes of jazz. After many years of primarily Western repertoire however, The YKLS were inspired to discover our own roots by looking to the music originating within the multiracial cultures of Malaysia and other Asian countries. This became the impetus for this year’s production, aptly entitled “Rhythmic Roots”.
“Rhythmic Roots” is a journey through the various ethnicities and cultures of Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, China and India, and our indispensable contributions to our own cultural heritage. Baba and Nyonya folk songs, Malay and Indian traditional pieces, and songs tracing the development of Chinese culture in Malaysia from its mainland China origins are some of the highlights that will definitely be heard in this upcoming production. It will be directed by Joe Hasham, a multi-award winning director, actor and writer and his involvement in “Rhythmic Roots” is something that the YKLS is very excited about!
One thing that makes this production unique amongst all other past YKLS productions is that for the first time, all four co-founders of the choir are working together. “Rhythmic Roots” is truly a very special show which emphasizes the importance of origins – where we come from, who we are, and the many, many influences and cultures which have shaped Malaysia’s musical heritage into what it is today. This is definitely something not to be missed.
Songs that would be sung during the show:
Aeyaya Balano Sakh-Kah-D (Konkani/Indian)
Yuet Kwong Kwong (Chinese Cantonese)
Gai Bintang (Indonesian Madurese)
Pok Pok Alimpako (Philipino Maranao)
Janger (Indonesian)
Modern Youngters (Chinese Hokkien)
Soleram (Indonesian)
Lolo Re Babu (Konkani/Indian)
Loy Kra Tong (Thai)
Wau Bulan (Malaysian)
Kami (Malaysian)
Bua Kaaw (Thai)
Sin Sin Si Batu Manikam (Indonesian Tapanuli)
happening at:
The Actors Studio@Lot 10
12 - 14 Nov@9pm
Charity Matinée: 14 Nov@3pm
15 Nov@3pm
tickets:
rm43 (centre seat) rm 33 (side seat)
call/walk in: TAS@Lot 10 box office - 03 2142 2009 03 22143 2009
walk in only: klpac box office@Sentul Park, Axcess@Head Office(Jln Semangat), 1 Utama, Alamanda Putrajaya
artistic and music director - Susanna Saw San San
choreographer - Lakshman Balakrishnan
assistant music director - Tracy Wong Wei Wen
producer - Denise Kong Hsu-Pei
director - Joe Hasham
LUCKY DRAW:
4 prizes to be won at every show*
(Victoria Station dining vouchers and Nescafé Gold hampers)
*excluding charity matinee
title sponsor
Great Eastern
supported by
Zanders, Creative Clicks, Victoria Station, Nescafé Gold, HSBC in the Arts and The Actors Studio Teater Rakyat.
http://www.theactorsstudio.com.my/
Now last weekend the Actor's Studio opened at Lot 10, with an Opening Gala performance on Saturday night and a Mixed Bill of performances on Sunday afternoon (plus more this whole week actually). Very quickly now, there was a drum circle bit at the start to entertain the folks while they had drinks out on the rooftops before coming inside the Actor's Studio, the Hands Percussion played drums, the Young KL Singers sang a couple of songs, a Butoh dance by the Nyoba Kan dance company, Douglas Lim had everyone laughing, a Short + Sweet Malay play of non-epic proportions, a dance by Michael Voon and other people not from the dance genre, more songs from the KLPac Sinfonietta's String Ensemble and baritone Eddie Chin, and to round it all up an Indian classical dance by Ramli Ibrahim and Guna.
The first thing of note: quite a number of performances (especially when it comes to dance) have people showing off their abs. And they've got great abs. Like the butoh danceer, although even if you click for a close up it's probably not so clear from this pic.
Check below for a vid of the drum circle - members from YKLS and Actor's Studio each took a musical instrument, and played a steady tempo creating an awesome sound! Then when everyone was ready the drum circle procession began - led by a butoh dancer from Nyoba Kan, the drum circle players and some belly dancers whom we cannot credit because we have no idea who they were.
Taking videos played merry hell with our iXus in two ways. Memory space and battery life. Memory space because we've never really fiddled with the different settings when it comes to video taking, thus a 5 minute video like this actually took up 600MB. Thankfully we'd Windows Movie Maker to help shrink it down with little compensation in terms of resolution. Have yet to play about with iMovie...because we still don't own a Mac.
And by the time the butoh dancers were performing our iXus started shutting down and telling us to change the battery pack. Thankfully after a while we could turn it on again and take more photos and videos, and the rest of the time we took photos with our L'Amour instead.
Maybe not buff abs from the members of the Hands Percussion, but their costume got us curious. As the Chief points out to us, normally for drummers they wear sleeveless costumes.
Dato Faridah and Joe. Host and hostess and the people behind the Actor's Studio.
And the man who helped keep the Actor's Studio going after they left Bangsar Shopping Centre - Tan Sri Francis Yeoh.
Then we have Douglas Lim on stage for laughter. He also points out to the folks that the stage is a Hanamichi thrust stage, which is something like a fashion runway stage. This allows for the audience to be right up close to the performance. Okay, so Douglas Lim doesn't show much skin for his performance.
The short Malay play, Adiwijaya's 'Allah' performed by Abdul Qahar Aqilah and Tuan Faisal Azmy. It was in Malay, using vocab that's even a bit out of our depth (but yes we would understand even a statement like, "Puki hanya tahu terima jantan saja!") but after watching it three times we get the whole picture. The first time watching it, the ending was definitely a shocker!
Okay, so the two of them don't reveal much skin either.
Michael Voon's Diaries '09 had dancers who aren't dancers by profession (we think). First time watching everyone we had the impression that they were all martial artists. Energetic performance. We were impressed that Michael could dance with so much energy that you'd never know he had a motor accident and was limping noticiably just last year when he directed YKLS's Breakin' It Down!
Oh and for the other dancers. Maybe it's because they aren't from a dance background, save gal Joey, who we think does ballet, their abs are more like what you'd see on guys the gym with their 6-pack potato buns.
Sutra Dance Theatre with Ramli Ibrahim and Guna. Their moves were very strong yet graceful. And Ramli Ibrahim was definitely still in shape, and his abs were similar to that of the butoh dancer from the drum circle procession!
And that wraps up the performances for the weekend! There's still some shows going on this week (free!) for those interested in checking the place out!
And it happened on a Sunday. And after the Mixed Bill performances for the opening of the new Actor's Studio @ Lot 10 too!
It all started with a rumble, and we knew our time had come. We had better get ready before the doors open and catch us unprepared!
Sigh. We still don't know if it was lunch. First the Chief had the urge to go then us, but at different times. The Chief went before rehearsals, just as we arrived at Lot 10 and for us as we were done and was about to head to Pavilion for a snack.
Anyways, with Celebrity Fitness (previously California Fitness) just next to the Actor's Studio at the rooftops of Lot 10 (the layout may lead to some humourous moments, where people looking for the Actor's Studio might just wander around and end up looking through the glass into California Fitness' yoga studio) we considered our options.
We could use the toilets in the Actor's Studio. They're still relatively new and clean, the booths in the public-access toilets are quite spacious, or we could use the smaller toilets in the changing room. And there are shower cubicles too, only we did not bring along the necessities like soap and a towel.
Then there is the nice toilet in Starhill, with soft ambient lights, an attendant to pump water for you to wash your hands, and scented candles.
Or if not Starhill, then those in Marriott or Westin. Hotel toilets pass the Janvier Hygiene Standard when it comes to public toilets...well, most hotel toilets.
But we decided on using the gym toilets because: it's an opportunity to have a look inside California/Celebrity Fitness Lot 10 branch, plus we could take a quick shower to cool off after our show.
And so we strode in, got ourself towels and headed into the men's locker room. Our valuables were already with the Chief, as the lockers have no lock and require members to bring their own strong padlock, so all we had to do stuff our clothes and shoes inside a locker, and we would only be in trouble if someone did decide to swipe our clothes.
Interestingly there is no changing room. There is definitely much more lockers than we expected, and it's a large and spacious locker room. It's interesting how the shoe lockers can double up as seats.
Once we've relieved ourself it was time for a shower. And here we get to see the shower stalls with shower curtains as only described to us before. Well well. On the upside, we like that it's spacious and the tiling is nice. There's the familiar plastic soap/shampoo/face wash dispenser, although in the stall we chose the labels were unfortunately missing so we had no idea what we were using.
But the curtains! It definitely only fitted with a hint of a slight peekable gap at either side. And no way to fasten it on either side too! On the side of the stall were only a small hook to hang your towel, and that is outside the stall so we'd to hope no one had the naughty intention to steal that while we were showering.
Or feign innocence and yank the curtains open while we were showering, pretending that the stall was not in use.
Hmmm. Should we wash our hair? Perhaps not. We don't have our hair gel or clay with us.
Done with our shower! Time to dry off and change back into our clothes. We reach for our towel and...yes, it's still there. We dry off, and head back to our locker. Our clothes are still there. Great. We dress up, put on our socks and shoes and...
...drat, we forgot our towel card. Got to take off our shoes and socks, and head back into the shower stalls. Thankfully no one has entered it so we could get our card and head back to our locker. Drying our feet and heading to use the hairdryers we notice the hair gel and hand lotion dispensers and thought, drat, we could have washed our hair after all.
Returning the towels to the towel counter we headed out to find the Chief, get our stuff and head on for yu tiao in soya milk.
And so ends our 30 minutes of Californian Celebrityhood.