Monthly Archive for May, 2007

Goodnight, Singapore

Published
by
Gary
on May 16, 2007
in Thoughts and Travel
. 14 Comments

It’s my last night in Singapore. I had a great time: I met great people, I saw incredible things, I ate and talked and traveled like I’ve never in my entire life. I’ve witnessed and I’ve come to understand. I set out for change, and I don’t regret my choice one bit.

Singapore is a leading business centre and our aim is to be a vibrant global city that is abuzz with high-quality entertainment and events. A world-class event like the F1 race, with more than 500-million viewers worldwide, will take us closer to this objective. (S Iswaran, Trade and Industry Minister, on the coming Grand Prix)

But Singapore is boring. Really, it is, and not for lack of things to do. Singapore has everything you’d expect in a major Western city: stores, clubs, fancy restaurants, art galleries, museums, movie theaters, F1 racing, F1 powerboat racing, an aquarium, concert halls, even a really big Ferris wheel. And that’s the problem: Singapore has a huge, generic crush on the West. It’s clear, with its constant “biggest, tallest, most,” it aches for international approval. It’s obsessed with buying what all the other cool cities have, and that’s about it. Sometimes it feels like the founders threw a bunch of Lonely Planet Best of… guides at the city planners and said “I want to see every single one of those bullet points right here! We’re going to be world class!”

I am often accused of interfering in the private lives of citizens. Yes, if I did not, had I not done that, we wouldn’t be here today. And I say without the slightest remorse, that we wouldn’t be here, we would not have made economic progress, if we had not intervened on very personal matters—who your neighbour is, how you live, the noise you make, how you spit, or what language you use. We decide what is right. Never mind what the people think. (Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Straits Times, 20 April 1987)

Thing is, Singapore is an extremely risk-adverse place. Singapore’s miracle is mostly thanks to its people having done exactly what the People’s Action Party has told them to do for the past half-century. Singaporeans are very, very well trained not to do anything that hasn’t already been done, done successfully, and given thumbs-up by at least 10 international experts on the subject. It worked really well when Singapore was just competing against Malaysia and Indonesia, trying to get everyone housed, promoting the ports, building its roads and rails—but now, it’s trying to compete with Tokyo, with London, with Paris, and it can’t find its je ne sais quoi.

In America itself, after 30 years of experimenting with the Great Society programmes, there is widespread crime and violence, children kill each other with guns, neigbourhoods are insecure, old people feel forgotten, families are falling apart. And the media attacks the integrity and character of your leaders with impunity, drags down all those in authority and blames everyone but itself. (Lee Kuan Yew, Sept 1995)

With that said, let me say I’m glad I came. In every measurable way, Singapore is every bit a miracle, and I saw that first hand. But in the end, there were too many days when I felt like I was being bled dry—starched, ironed, and neatly folded. For anyone “creative,” Singapore is anathema. And that’s why it’s time to move on.

so that they, too, could see the Statue of Liberty

Published
by
Gary
on May 14, 2007
in News
. 0 Comments

There are Americans who hate illegal immigrants, hypocrites who see a zero-sum country where every border jumper gnaws their slice of prosperity pie. They see “the other,” a scapegoat for crime and depravity and social ills of all sorts. And there’s this bizarre reaction, this idea that they’ll disappear if we take away their schooling, their health, their jobs, and now, their homes:

Voters in a Dallas suburb approved a contentious proposal Saturday to ban landlords from renting apartments to most illegal immigrants. Just under 6,000 residents of the suburb, Farmers Branch, cast ballots, with 68 percent in favor of the ban. In January, the city council unanimously approved the measure, Ordinance 2903, after rewriting an earlier version to allow for some families with mixed residency and citizenship status. (NYT)

This ordnance is pure hate and pure fear and nothing more, a privileged group kicking and spitting upon another for the simple crime of wanting something better. Why, why would anyone call this okay? Taking their homes won’t make them disappear and it won’t stop them from coming, it’ll just make them more miserable, more desperate—and if you’re willing to brave life and limb for nothing but a hint of a promise, you’re already pretty damn desperate.

“We will take this all the way to the Supreme Court, if that’s what we have to do,” the city councilman who introduced the resolution, Tim O’Hare, told a local television station, even as opponents vowed to do the same. (NYT)

I just don’t understand the sort of attitude that drives people to nod their heads, “yeah that’s a great idea—that’ll really show ‘em!” Illegal immigrants aren’t some abstract, threatening concept—they’re people, and they clearly want America more than most Americans. There isn’t a finite amount of freedom, liberty, or prosperity, and giving that to others doesn’t take from your own. Meanwhile, dividing them, segregating them, disenfranchising them takes those who could be our best, and pushes them to be our worst.

Warning—Illegal Immigrants

*Photo by “kalavinka“. Title paraphrased from Edward Corsi, “Passengers all about us were crowding against the rail, jabbered conversation, sharp cries, laughs and cheers—a steadily rising din filled the air. Mothers and fathers lifted up the babies so that they too could see, off to the left, the Statue of Liberty.” If only all Americans could see her as clearly.

In any real city, you walk, you know?

Published
by
Gary
on May 14, 2007
in News and Travel
. 5 Comments

It’s been brought to my attention that gasoline’s glancing four bucks back in the States. At $70 a tank, owning a car goes from “expensive” to “batshit loco.” Say you’re thirty miles from your job, go to work five times a week, and drive a 22-mpg Honda Accord—that’s $245 a month, not including the cost of insurance, depreciation, or actually having a life. Compared to $52 for a LA Metro or $45 for a SF Muni Monthly Pass, and catching a bus starts to look pretty good.

On a personal level it’s a pain, but I think expensive gas could be great for America. It was the combo of cars, cheap gas, cheap land, and the Federal Highway Act of 1956 that lead to the rise of suburbs, the rise of commuter culture, the rise of apathy and modern conservatism, the rise of the “new” Republican Party, smog-soaked skies, ailing civic society, and the blanding of America. Isolated, bored, chained to routine, Americans forgot what it meant to care about anything besides themselves and their TVs.

Discouraging driving, encouraging public transit, building real cities—putting people into daily contact with each other, diversifying daily life, raising the empathy essential to a healthy society—it can all start with cars being too damn expensive to drive.

I know it sounds like a bit much, we are how we live.

Irvine v. Paris

*Take a look my Irvine v. Paris comparison. Irvine’s made up of super-low-density, one-storey houses around cul-de-sacs, which is incredibly inefficient: cul-de-sacs force you to drive, and drive a lot, because you have to navigate a maze of streets before you can go anywhere. Paris, in comparison, is a smushed grid of 4-to-8 storey flats, which is good because you have comfortably high density—high density means that first floor shops and restaurants have enough customers to stay in business, meaning your daily needs are right there, and mass transit has enough riders to be practical, meaning you don’t need a car. And gee, you might actually know your neighbors.

My First Project

Published
by
Gary
on May 13, 2007
in Declaration
. 1 Comment

The day before my last I visited the site of my first project.

Panel frames

The WW Gallery.

wwg panel frames pers

I took a generic loft unit and made a private gallery.

wwg main floor looking back pers

The main feature is a series of four-meter-wide sliding panels for his overflowing art collection, four in a 3.2-meter-tall cabinet and another four in a floor-to-ceiling partition. The panels subdivide the shoebox-shaped loft into square “stages,” with the last section serving as an office space.

Main floor, looking towards the back

I was surprised at how thick the frames had to be—the “panels” are really walls suspended along a ceiling track.

Corner of mezzanine level

This is the first project I’ve taken from start to almost-finish, and nothing’s like seeing my delirious lines made real. It’s the kind of hard fix architects need regularly to stay [relatively] sane.

Bunch of construction crap

But, the project still has a ways to go.

Good-bye wallet

Published
by
Gary
on May 11, 2007
in Travel
. 13 Comments

My wallet was just stolen. I was with a friend, eleven at night, leaving a showing of 28 Weeks; before the elevator I had my wallet, and at the bus stop I didn’t. I lost S$350, US$10, all my credit cards, my bank cards, my driver’s license, my school ID, my gym card, my office pass, my transit card, and most importantly, my work permit.

See, tomorrow’s my last day at work, and they were going to cancel my work permit at 9:30 AM. Now I’m not sure what they’ll do. Really, I made it nearly nine months without being jacked; five more days and I would have been out of the country.

I’d hope that at least the money’s feeding some starving family, Aladdin-style, but it’s probably just going to some jerkwad’s iPod. How can anyone take that kind of guilt? You fucked over some poor sap just for 4,000 songs in your pocket? I only hope the wretched cries of the damned fill your ill-begotten earbuds!

Thank deity my friend was with me: she went with me to theater management, she went with me to the police station, she went with me to the office to cancel all my cards, she paid for all the cabs and let me use her calling card. She basically saved my ass. Folks, there’s nearly nothing more important than having good friends!

(And for the record, Bank of America’s automated system was pathetic, CitiCard was decent, and American Express was phenomenal. Thing is, I’m about to visit three different countries, and I’d have a hard time without a credit card. After getting to real people I got all three cards canceled, but only AMEX is getting me a replacement in only 13 hours. That’s fucking service.)