Full of Grace

In the past four weeks of September, Stan & I had the pleasure of "picking the brains" of psychologist Dr Grace Lee. We talked about Happiness, Gratitude, Love & Relationships, Self-Esteem ~ topics not new in themselves, but Grace brought a whole new level of insight & perspective to them, I felt.

Psychologist Dr Grace Lee: "Looking forward to working with you again!"

Prior to relocating to Singapore and setting up her own company Glee Thinkworks, Grace was a lecturer at the University of Hawaii. Come Spring 2010, she'll be lecturing on Positive Psychology at the National University of Singapore.

More than sharing research findings & practical tips, Grace touched us with her stories and the simple yet succinct way she explained the complex human condition.

I almost felt like her words hung like a speech bubble over our heads, and we had to pause each time to savour them & let them sink in.

There is a wisdom & grace about Grace, and I personally can't wait to have her back for more insightful & inspiring conversations!

P.S. Grace, I'll contact you when I'm heading to Hawaii for a holiday! Finally, a friend who's a native of Hawaii... *grin*

Spice Appreciation Workshop: Join Us!

The Living Room partners Spice Queen Restaurant

to present

Spice Appreciation Workshop

Celebrity Chef & 'Spice Queen' Devagi Sanmugan shares her knowledge of spices with us this Saturday, and it's going to be a hands-on experience. Not only will we get to see fresh spices in their natural form, we'll also get to touch them & smell them!

Sign up now by calling 6359-7314.

For more information, you can visit the 938LIVE website or Devagi's.

For those who have already signed up, we'll see you there!!!

Laura Fygi Puts Us to Shame!

I love Laura Fygi's voice. Sultry. Soulful. And even though I don't understand French, just listening to her belt out Autumn Leaves leaves me breathless. But more than listening to her, I love watching her.

As Loretta Chen, Artistic Director of Zebra Crossing puts it, Laura is a Storyteller - with her voice, her eyes, everything. See it to believe it:

It's no wonder then that Loretta picked Laura Fygi to play the title role of Victor/Victoria on a hunch. And I've known Loretta to be such - a woman of intuition, who is seldom wrong. When she contacted Laura, she had not breathed a word to anyone at Zebra Crossing...

Laura Fygi had proclaimed once that she would NEVER venture into musicals. But thanks to Loretta, who acted on her intuition, Laura said 'Yes'. And as they say, the rest is history. Victor/Victoria marks Laura Fygi's first-ever theatrical debut!

Well, we had these two awesome women as guests today, and I absolutely enjoyed the casual banter & chemistry that went on between them. It's an ease based on friendship, which was probably established when Loretta spent a month in Holland (a small countryside town outside Amsterdam), rehearsing with Laura.

Victor/Victoria brings Laura Fygi to town! Telling us more was Zebra Crossing's Artistic Director, Loretta Chen.

How can we have Laura Fygi in the house and not have her sing for us 'live'? *grin* So we invited her to sing us a song, and she decided on an old familiar song in Mandarin. Wow!

Midway, she invited Stan & I to join in. And that's when we were completely embarrassed, put to SHAME, on national radio. You must first know that Stan & I failed our Chinese exams, and we are so bad at Mandarin, it's not funny.

Imagine: A Dutch woman belting out a song in perfect Mandarin. And here we are, two Chinese-Singaporeans, stumped. It was a completely embarrassing moment for us! *sheepish* Check out our public shame:

Zebra Crossing presents

VICTOR/VICTORIA

9 to 29 Nov

8pm

Esplanade Theatre

Tickets available through SISTIC.

Man of Steel

So we've had it wrong all this while! Well it's time to set things right. Pam & I are ecstatic to be the first ones to break the news that we've unveiled the true identity of 'The Man of Steel' - Pintor Sirait!

And this super man has no cloak and other embarrassing pieces of wardrobe to display, just sheets and pieces of steel that he's contoured and transformed into stunning looking beauties, the shape of Formula 1 race cars. It's a static steely display that the Indonesian artist has set up at ION Orchard. This is Pintor's first solo exhibition of the cars in Singapore and I have every confidence it will be a pole position finish when the exhibition wraps up later this month.


An exhibition is an exhibition is an exhibition. In The Living Room where we've featured countless exhibitions and the artists behind the work, not much gets me high and talking about it days on end. Not until Pintor's race cars zoomed into the radar. I marvel at how a tangle of steel sheets can be galvanised and transformed into a spectacle of steel. And to complete his pieces, he takes out his Colt .38, M16 and AK 47, takes aim and shoots away at them. Not in rage, but as finishing touches. Don't jump the gun (no pun intended) and mistake him for a brazen artist bent on violence; he is but a philosophical sculptor whose quest to understand life and man is melded into his creations. Now THIS is 'amalgamation'!

(Below: Even his exhibition brochure had a bullet hole through it!)

The inspiration to shoot...
"When I travelled around the United States, like many foreign visitors I was initially shocked by the omnipresence of guns, especially the rifles on gun racks in the pick-up trucks...I try to understand this casual acceptance of violence, or potential violencve, by shooting the art objects with various weapons."

Every car sculpture has a story to tell or a question to raise.

'Democracy' (see photo above) has been an ideal for many nations but has become a tainted word in recent years with people going to war and lives being lost in skirmishes and battles. This first is powerfully portrayed by the scuplture ridden with 1,500 bullet holes.

Pintor's Race Cars Come to ION Orchard
18th - 27th Sept 2009
10am - 10pm
ION Orchard, Level 1

Food Obsession!

I obsess about food. I will travel for food - even across oceans. Food inspires me to write, to go into passionate soliloquies, to upload copious amounts of photos on Facebook! My best friend says that when I talk about food, my eyes light up. So when I first heard about a contemporary art exhibition that focuses on food obsession, I sat up.

I'm pleasantly surprised though that the talented artist behind Food Obsession: A Visual Study of Food Behaviour is not a die-hard foodie herself! She admits that she's the sort who could eat char siew pau for 3 months. *gasps*

For talented young artist Nataliette, what she turned to for inspiration was food idioms.

Here's a collage of what you'd see at her exhibition. Can you see images that depict "In hot soup" or "Fishing for ideas in a teacup"? Clever, isn't it?

Nataliette first sketched these by hand, scanned them into the computer, then coloured & shaded them digitally. These canvas pieces are currently displayed - in her first solo exhibition - at HOUSE @ Dempsey.

I hope this is just the appetiser to bigger things to come. For sure, this 24-year-old artist's works have whet my appetite. Here's a sneak peak of more of her creations...

When Stan asked her why the subjects are all women, after all men have food obsessions too, Nataliette laughed & said there's no particular reason. She just loves drawing the female form. Possibly because she's also a woman. And then she added cheekily, "I love to draw boobs!"

Well, if you'd like to find out more about Nataliette and her works, you can visit her website. Just click here.

Nataliette is just one of 60+ young talents who are under the Singapore Contemporary Young Artists (SCYA) network. It was SCYA who first went out to establish a partnership with HOUSE on this project.

Well, Nataliette's works are currently on sale at HOUSE. Prices range from $50 - $550. I'm definitely gonna see if I can cart some of her artworks home! *grin*

"I was a Hostage of the Abu Sayyaf..."

On Easter Sunday in 2000, 10 tourists, 11 hotel employees & WWF rangers were abducted from the resort island of Sipadan by the extremist group, Abu Sayyaf, and taken hostage to Jolo Island in the Philippines 400km away.

Among them was German school teacher Werner Wallert, his wife Renate & their son Marc who were then on a dive vacation in Sipadan. Little did they (or the other hostages) know that they had become pawns in a tussle between the Philippine government and a small band of Muslim extremist rebels who were fighting for an independent state.

For some background to the Abu Sayyaf's Sipadan kidnapping,

Click here to view the Youtube video.

The sick lady in the video (filmed by journalists who were allowed to visit the hostages) is Renate. While she wasn't comfortable going on-air to share her experience, we did get to chat during the news break. What Renate said really shook me...

She had a dream. In that dream, her son Marc was beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf. In her dream, his head rolled on the ground in front of her. In her dream, it was her that the Abu Sayyaf had wanted to behead, but her then-26 year old son sacrificed himself in her place.

Was the dream a premonition? Renate was so consumed by the possibility that she wanted to die. She wanted to kill herself.

"Why did you want to kill yourself?" I asked her, off-air.

"Because if I died, then the dream is not true," Renate explained. "In my dream, I lived, while my son died. And I would rather it be me who died. He was only 26!"

Such were the intense, maddening circumstances they were under! It was heart-stopping for me to hear the couple's story. Well, if you'd like to read about their first-hand experience, Werner has written a book that's currently out in the bookstores. It's called Hostage Terror: Abducted by Abu Sayyaf (Marshall Cavendish).

They Lived to Tell: German Werner & his wife Renate were abducted from Sipandan in 2000 and held hostage by the Abu Sayyaf.

The writings were taken from his journal, which he was allowed to keep while being held hostage. The photographs included in the book were also taken by Werner himself. This is a rare, first-person insight into the Jolo crisis, so do grab a copy if you're curious.

It's 9 years on. Werner & Renata have since put this terrifying experience behind them. He's now retired and produces documentary films for students. They still travel to Asia, and the couple recently went diving in Indonesia. Talk about triumph of the human spirit!

To catch the repeat broadcast of this interview, tune in to 938LIVE tonight, 10.40pm - midnight.

Time For Thanks!

It's Stan's birthday today!!!

"Happy birthday, buddy!"

Stan was on leave so I helmed the morning show. In the evening, my 938LIVE colleagues & I trooped down for his party at Cream Bistro (Pacific Plaza) for a fun-filled celebration - complete with balloons, colourful masks, birthday cake & games!

With 938LIVE colleagues Christine, Mageline, Gerry & Stan's bro, Hossan (who's also a radio DJ, with Lush 99.5FM).

Hossan was the emcee, and he was jokingly lamenting at dinner that he had to "work for his dinner". "Who ask you be his brother?" I remark nonchalantly, tucking into my fried calamari. "I never! I never!" Hossan exclaims, eyes wide. "I never ask for it what!"

Sometimes I can't believe they're brothers. But then again, sometimes I can! *LOL*

If there's one person who exudes an attitude of gratitude, it's Stan. He threw this party not just because the date 09.09.09 looks nice on the invite, but because he wanted to pause, take stock, and give thanks to the many people who have touched his life.

Such is Stan! He's a patient mentor, a giving friend, and a super fun on-air partner. I've been truly blessed. Happy birthday, buddy!!!

"May all your wishes come true!"