A Story of O

Why Oscar? From what I learned, there are several versions of naming the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences award statuette Oscar. Officially, it is called the Academy Award of Merit. A bit stuffy for Hollywood, no wonder a nickname was created. One theory gives the Oscar-naming honors to Bette Davis who, in 1935, likened the statuette to her husband. Legend also says that in 1939 an Academy librarian, Margaret Herrick, thought the sketch of the award looked like her Uncle Oscar. A favorite explanation, and the one on most blogs and online sites, is that the name was taken from an old vaudeville joke, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?” I do not know what that means, but up in smoke comes to mind (a reference to a joke or an act bombing?). Up in smoke. To come to nothing.

I wonder if Bette’s husband or Margaret’s uncle were rolling in their graves knowing their name is associated with Hollywood’s biggest night, especially this year’s. The Oscar was stretched thin and the program long. The shift to nominate 10 movies rather than the usual 5 smacked of an industry’s desperation for cash. And speaking of “smack”, nice gum chewing Sarah Jessica Parker and Cameron Diaz! A potentialy sticky situation occurred when a woman in blue hijacked the Short Form Documentary winner’s acceptance speech. The craziness ended when the microphone cut off and the orchestra leader played Thanks for the Memories. I’m sure the dead Oscars of legend were miffed to see that Lauren Bacall was not paid tribute to at the Awards, rather she was cast aside with stand-and-applaud honors. While the program paid tribute to those the industry lost, it didn’t seem so heartfelt because they didn't fully honor the lifetime achievement winners. To those of us still alive, Bacall is Hollywood. It would have been something to hear her entire speech.

This year's Academy Awards only had time for the winners and losers. After all, there were nearly a dozen Best Picture nominations to summarize. With the exception of Kate Winslet, all the presenters said, “and the winner is” rather than the standard, “the Oscar goes to.” I don’t think they have announced “winner” since Bette won her Oscar statuette and said it had a flat bottom like her husband's! So now Meryl Streep is not even a winner for being nominated, she’s just a loser. For fuck sake, what does the Academy want Meryl to do? Hang the moon?

On the other hand, the Awards did present a fabulos win, Katherine Bigelow! Midway through the Academy Awards, I half expected Bob Costas to break in with a statuette-count update between The Hurt Locker and Avatar. How many times were the presenters going to mention that James Cameron’s visionary masterpiece took over a decade to make and is the biggest grossing movie of all time? Looks as if with all the money in the world a Best Picture or Best Director Oscar was “unobtanium” to Cameron. Avaterd added up to zilch.

Not for nothing, the annual Academy Awards are a big deal. It brings people together, presents topics of conversation, and rewards Hollywood with a boost in last minute box office tallies from people going to the cinema to see all the nominees and/or nominated movies. More importantly, it is broadcast worldwide. Since the nominations were announced, my sister, Valerie, and I emailed our predictions and talked about the awards being a battle of the sexes, exes and military might. Two days before the Awards, she watched Inglorious Basterds and I went to see Up in the Air (it finally made it to my part of the world). Then, on Sunday night in Ohio and Monday morning in Singapore, while Valerie sipped champagne and I drank coffee, we Skyped and watched the first half of the broadcast together. Isn’t that something?

Everything's Coming Up Orchids

Orchids, orchids everywhere! The national flower of Singapore is an orchid - the Vanda Miss Joaquim, to be exact. The National Orchid Garden, located at the highest point in the Singapore Botanic Gardens, displays over 600 species and nearly 500 hybrids. “Orchid” can be found in the name of hotels, corporations, restaurants, streets and residential communities. Orchids are the pride of the nation.

I’ve never been a big fan of orchids. It began when I discovered Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon at the tender age of 14. (Bear in mind that my mother would not allow me to read any book by Judy Blume.) I was babysitting every Saturday night for the hippest mother in my neighborhood. When I couldn’t watch another episode of Love Boat and Fantasy Island I hit her bookshelf for a “good” read. Chandler’s first, The Big Sleep, was my first too. The dialogue between the dames and dolls, thugs and two-bit players captivated me. I felt a bit naughty reading the thoughts of men, but also wiser for learning the language of the denizens of the underbelly of the cities. It is my pulp fiction favorite partly because of Howard Hawk’s first-rate movie version staring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. In both the book and the movie there is a brief mention of orchids.

The other night I was watching The Big Sleep on TCM again for the first time. My dislike for orchids stems from the following exchange between Philip Marlowe and General Sternwood:
Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids?
Marlowe: Not particularly.
Sternwood: Nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men, and their perfume has the rotten sweetness of corruption.

Knowing that William Faulkner wrote the screenplay (amazing, right?), I decided to read the same scene from the book. As written by Chandler:
Sternwood: I seem to exist largely on heat, like a newborn spider. The orchids are an excuse for the heat. Do you like orchids?
Marlowe: Not particularly.
Sternwood: They are nasty things! Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.

Corruption and prostitutes. Would it be too obvious to compare the city-state to pulp fiction? Is it base to relate the racket of sand smuggling into Singapore with the underground world of Eddie Mars? Is it rotten of me to point out that Miss Singapore wore an elaborate orchid costume during the 2009 Miss Universe pageant? That wouldn’t capture the essence of Singapore now would it?

Black & White and Red All Over

The official language of Singapore is English. Other languages spoken are Malay, Tamil and a host of Chinese dialects. After that, there’s Singlish, a Pidgin of sorts formed from Singapore’s shanty past of immigrants and uneducated peasants. One word rising up through all tongues is ang mo, slang for Caucasians/Westerners.

Ang mo = red hair. It is Hokkein, an ancient and local Chinese language. Sometimes it is spelled "ang moh," but no matter the spelling the derogatory meaning is the same. The word refers to the fair-haired Western settlers of Singapore. Not that the settlers were all redheads, rather, they were all evil. At a recent party a few expats were debating whether "ang mo" is racist. No one could agree because it is commonly used by whites, locals - everyone. Ang mo is not censored in the media or from social conversation, unlike the Japanese term, gaijin.

Gaijin = ghost person or foreigner. It is broadly used in the country for anyone not Japanese. I lived in Tokyo for a few years and do not remember seeing the word in print, but I do remember hearing it spat out at me in the subway once when I exited before the locals. The origin of gaijin has a little color in it. The Portuguese were the 1st to visit Japan. They were referred to as nanbanjin, “southern barbarians.” Oddly enough, when the British and Dutch arrived they were referred to as komojin, “red-haired people.” All these red words for white people make me think of a common pejorative I grew up hearing in the 1970s, honky.

Honky = white person. It was used by blacks to disparage whites. I laugh now because it sounds as dated as the Richard Pryor - Gene Wilder bathroom scene from Silver Streak. However, it was never meant to be funny, especially when delivered by Shaft. John Shaft. I can find no resource which delineates the true origin of honky (also spelled with an “ey” or an “ie”), but from the Urban Dictionary to Wikipedia two theories are constant: "honky" is a term for a person who frequented honky-tonks, or a white man honking his car horns for prostitutes in the African America red-light districts. In one reference, I read that honky stems from a West African word, honk nopp, “red-eared person.”

Red = evil. That would be the Philosophy 101 conclusion, but it isn’t that simple. The devil is often depicted as wearing red, but so is Santa Claus. Red M+Ms are toxic, yet red tomatoes are healthy. The Red Army signifies blood shed, yet the Red Cross is a sign of aid. Red is actually black-and-white.

Merry New Year!

Bright Lights, Big City-State

The holiday season centers on pleasing the eye and touching the heart. It’s about continuing with tradition, keeping in touch with family and friends, and preventing mosquitoes from breeding. In Singapore, dengue fever is always in season! Most live Christmas trees sold come with a powder to mix in the treestand water to keep mosquitoes from breeding. Posted signs in garden centers where trees are sold warn: If They Breed You Will Bleed. Ho! Ho! Hum...

Christmas fever is hot in the city-state. Each year a corporation decorates Orchard Road, the main shopping drag. The sponsor adorns, garlands, and lights the sidewalks, trees and everything in between. The shopping malls and buildings along the stretch decorate and light their facades from top to bottom. As if it were not bright enough, there is the “Orchard Road Christmas Light-Up.” For one day only, on December 25th, a portion of the road closes and fills with even more brightly lit displays.

We woke on Christmas morning to a solid, steady rain. It lasted all day, but ended at dusk in time for us to “Light-Up.” The road was so bright that night the birds were chirping. Thousands of people were shuffling, pushing, spitting, and posing in the streets and on the sidewalks. Singapore’s Christmas mass.

Baste Not, Want Not

Benjamin Franklin said, "I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the representative of our country...The turkey is much more a respectable character and, withal, a true original native of America."

Preparing a traditional Thanksgiving dinner in Singapore had me running around like a chicken with its head cutoff. I went from grocery store to market place not in search of a farm fresh or free range turkey. Only Butterball and Norbest were available. My quest wasn’t for pumpkin puree – not a single can to be found. Bell’s seasoning? Nope, I didn’t even hope for that. The missing ingredient I was in hot pursuit of was a baster.

After nearly a week I finally found a baster at the Japanese department store, Takashimaya. What’s the retail cost of a basic plastic syringe with rubber suction cap found at Kroger’s, Fairway and every corner bodega? 40 Singapore dollars! When I asked the stockperson, an old Chinese woman who stood as tall as my waist, where I might find a cheaper brand, she replied with a laugh, “There is no Wal-Mart here.” What a turkey.

Pictured above are the turkeys on my property/road in Garrison, NY

Raemarkable India

A few weeks ago I tagged along with James on a business trip to Mumbai. The city formally known as Bombay is home to the Gateway of India, a monument built as a triumphant arc to celebrate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary. When the Raj ended in 1947, the last British ships set sail from the Gateway. When the Taj Mahal hotel was under siege in 2008, the boats carrying the terrorists anchored at the Gateway.

Mark Twain wrote, "India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only." I’ll leave the prose and poetry to the masters and spare you my observations and reflections.

We have a better understanding of the essence of India by reading Rudyard Kipling’s stories, watching Sir Ben Kingsley play Gandhi, and surviving every Slumdog Millionaire metaphor. They’re non-violent people, yet have a nuclear bomb.