i was guiltily settling down to do some backlogged work when vaughn popped up on my screen. fresh off the plane not so many hours before, he was in need of someone with whom to traipse around the homeland. i abandon the books for dhoby ghaut but when �this will take me at most fifteen minutes at citibank and then we can go get coffee� turned into forty minutes, i was justifiably aggrieved. �i am,� he texted, �stuck in a little room being talked at nonstop by two people!� a dozen ripostes came to mind, but as i was then ensconced on a comfortable sofa (but of an execrable turquoise shade) and had both my trust law textbook and pleasure reading (rereading earthsea) i only tapped my feet and replied �chop chop chop!� it transpired later that the accounts manager had noticed his shirt — a ratty RJ PE shirt circa 1998 � and the interview nosedived into one-sided school reminiscence, with the banking documents left quite unattended. old rafflesians, i reflected grumpily, are a menace. which is to say while you have the satisfaction of knowing you are effortlessly connected to just about everyone else these everyones frequently decide to emphasise your ancient connection when they most inconvenience you.me: but must you advertise to the world where we went to school?!(later on, this same shirt would cause a sharp-eyed shop assistant along tyrwhitt road to identify v’s school year by the size of the eagle crest alone. (shirts made after 98 have bigger crests, he informed us. i had not known there were cognoscenti of JC PE shirts but let it not be said i have no capacity for being bemused.))
v: i don’t keep any clothes in singapore it was the only thing in the cupboard!
also, about v’s failure to bring an important document to his bank manager:me: i don’t see how someone who claims to be as organised as you could have forgotten to bring [document].
v: look, there are bits of me on four continents! i can’t be expected to keep it all together!
his financial affairs now bearing less resemblace to rojak, we walk to jalan kubor to get coffee at symmetry / artistry. i don’t know why people always criticise my method of navigation which i maintain is perfectly sound because geometrically-minded: you point yourself in the direction where you want to get to, find the road at 45degrees to either side of you, and you tack your way at right angles towards it, taking the next perpendicular road in alternation, and even in a city like singapore that is not really gridded most minor roads being set roughly at right angles to each other you would more or less come out on a major road very near your destination. i mean i wouldn’t do this in boston where roads seem to be laid out on the ball of twine principle and of course you couldn’t do this driving because of one way streets but as a pedestrian in the average modern city this usually gets me where i want to go and reasonably efficiently (i’ll admit it is less efficient than if i knew the road that was, as it were, the hypotenuse, but otherwise is not triangulation is a time-honoured navigational method?!) furthermore, my way he got to 1) admire installations at SOTA and sculpture square 2) buy some strange chinchow azuki brown rice bubble tea drink on the way and 3) got all nostalgic poking his face in at shops of the 1990s variety around the kwan inn temple!) i do think map reading is overrated.
to my dismay symmetry was closed and artistry very crowded, so we trot our way on to chye seng huat at lavender, vaughn explaining to me on the way how the combined vagaries of (i presume) london banking and university bureaucracy prevented him from setting up a uk bank account for his first 9 months.
me, interested: then were you keeping your money under your mattress all that time?it appeared however that when they did pay him the money came not single spies but in battalions.
v: not at first, because at first they didn’t pay me for 1.5 months!
v: yes, they kind of en-cashed me all at once!before chye seng huat of course there was sills pies, von’s first visit. “the architectonics of this pie could be improved. fillings are good, but the pie crust could be better. construction is very important.” also, on my failure to get the wifi password (staff only), v: “why don’t you tell them that i am an eminent food scholar?
me: but if you had no bank account what did they pay your salary into? did you have bags of gold coins around the house or something? did they jingle noisily? do we sing songs about it?
v [sings]: glod glod glod glod!
assorted snippets:me: if you’re going to japan on monday you could show your face to shi-lin. i think she is fascinated with you. and julian.
v: why is this girl fascinated with us?
me: it must be because you are tainted by my fascinating aura of course!
v: why have you got an aura. i mean, i know you are fascinatingly incompetent at some things!
me: oh no no, i’m completely incompetent in everything. except acquiring patrons, and tiny fascinated cults. **** it has since been explained to me by the young historian that she is fascinated in them “as puppets in [my] narrative projections”.
~~me [explaining some background story]: i’m telling you first so that you can begin preparing an appropriate reaction and not hurt anyone’s feelings tomorrow with a disdainful expression!
v: but did you not know i am full of diplomacy and tact? i am of the school that if you can’t say anything nice say nothing at all!
me: you? diplomatic? what about all the things you’ve said to me over the years!
v: that’s different!
me: how is it different?
v: you need being told!
~~v: cool, an LED shop! let’s look at it.
me: what is your interest in LED shops?
v: i want to build a table that is luminous.
me: indeed?
v: when the days are short it’s good to have a table that glows gently
me: ah so.
v: but only gently.
~~me: there! wasn’t that a fruitful day? you walked around and found interesting places and had good coffee!
v: yes
me: and all in the company of your dear, beloved, trusted, long-time friend!
v: i’m not sure i would go as far as that last bit.
me: hey!
~~
Best of the Transparent Hummingbird