Friday

Been a busy day today. It started with the finishing of On Chesil Beach. Then, after lunch, went downtown to run some errands. The nature of life as it is now is that I have the luxury of time to take the scenic route if I want to, take the time to appreciate the sights and sounds on the way. So I took a leisurely bus ride downtown starting from Bedok, on the way passing Siglap, Joo Chiat, Geylang, Kallang and Bugis. This stately progression through the streets strikes me like slow food; it is somehow deeply satisfying and heartening. It inspires an inexplicable happiness in me. And if I can find the time, I will try to capture this feeling on film if I can.

Once in town, it was down to the National Museum for the Neues Bauen (New Building) exhibit, an architectural affair replicating an exhibit of the same name that took place in Stuttgart in 1927. It caught my eye when we were looking to watch some stuff in the German Film Fest last month, and when we went to watch A Touch of Zen in the museum, we just happened to chance upon the opening ceremony for the exhibit. And it was stunning. It's amazing how modern the concepts were, even though they were articulated in the 1920s. The concrete slabs, glass curtain walls and horizontal plane windows that typify the architecture of the modern city all had roots in this movement at the turn of the century, and what we consider stylish and sleek in architecture today owes much to the boldness and innovativeness of these architects trying to test the limits of technological improvements in construction and quantum leaps in demographics.

Beyond the building styles, though, there was also mention of architectural dabbling in urban design. It's understandable, and architects should rightly consider the social and economic impact of their buildings on the urban fabric. And there were some amazing ideas, like arcologies, or massive city-buildings, different transport means separated on different street levels, vaulted terraces skyscrapers, and this amalgam of an airstrip atop a central railway station. But from this one can also discern the roots of utopianism, the separate zoning of residential, commercial, cultural and industrial spaces that has typified modern urban planning, the search for ideals such as the Garden City or the Monument City that has spawned, unintentionally perhaps, monstrosities such as Parisian banlieues, sprawling American suburbs and dust belts.

It's times like these when I think of being an architect. But I tell myself that I can't be an architect because what I design would only be castles in the clouds, unbuildable art pieces. Much better to appreciate the beauty that others manage to squeeze into functional buildings, others that make beauty in the physical surrounding into something integral with normal life, rather than leaving it as a pleasing peripheral property of daily business.

Then it was off to the Esplanade library, to pick up some films for tomorrow's binge with Kats and Joel. The latter suggested some interesting films; definitely he is more of a buff that I would probably ever be. To come across such gems as 8 1/2 by Fellini requires some serious research, it seems to me, research that I am just not motivated to do. Of course, a part of me recognises the desirability of being a film buff; this is the same part that wants to look cultured for the sake of its social value, the part who wants to be seen reading books that have suitably attractive and intellectual covers, who wants to be able to name-drop revered works in art. But among all the art forms, books still come first, and film is a relatively new hobby, having only comparatively recently been taken seriously enough to discuss at a sustained and critical level.

And, considering that it's been well nigh six months since I last went to the Esplanade (imagine that - even with all the people back in the summer, it didn't occur to me to revisit my old haunt) I took the time to try my luck again. There was the usual pretentious and perversely obvious critical commentary on the ills of modern society at the tickleart show-window at the entrance to the Esplanade underpass from CityLink. But the tunnel is now a suitably festive installation of apparently kid art. I'll be sure to take a closer look when I go there again, but compared with the more sombre and far more abstract installations that have occupied the tunnel before, this leaning towards the childish is positively refreshing.

There was an Indian dance item at the foyer, but I was drawn to the waterfront instead. The old outdoor theatre had been demolished to make way for a larger facility that would accommodate the growing crowds (in itself a good starting sign), but when construction costs spiralled up in the wake of the granite shortages, the construction company pulled out, and what was once a cherished venue full of good memories is now a boarded-up grassy patch. But there was a band performing at the PowerHouse stage downriver, and they were not bad.

It's a welcome feeling to be amidst all this energy and enjoyment again. The lights of the Friday night skyline speak something to me. The shadows of buildings rising into the night sky, cranes a-twinkle with spotlights, they speak something to me too. These energetic performers and revellers on the verge of the weekend speak to me. And they all say, Welcome back, it's been too long.

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This week has been really artsy. Beyond the pretensions and desire to reclaim the zeitgeist of two years ago, or at least the veneer of it, there is a real sense of coming back to something precious. My reading, my writing, the arts and performances, the discussions afterwards, the nourishment and sharpening of the mind; these had been put on hold for too long, the breaks in the long wait for it to finish notwithstanding. Tomorrow has the first of hopefully regular movie binges, and in the evening, off to watch The Pillowman and say hello again to another long-lost friend: the stage.

Also started to read my new Winterson. At first glance, The Stone Gods is depressingly funny. It's a dark reflection of our future, a world in which freedom and science has driven men to extremes of possibility, to create a world of superlatives, a delightfully depraved world where everyone is beautiful but illiterate, Aryan-perfect but emotional blanks. And into this evolutionary dead-end comes a brand new world. A promise of Eden returned, that most precious of commodities - a second chance.

The question, though, is whether humanity can be trusted with a second chance. In McEwan's work, you get the sense of humanity as an earnest child, well-intentioned but bungling in a world that is complicated beyond all reckoning. People screw up because they are out of their league. But in the new Winterson, as in Gut Symmetries, humanity is the scourge of creation; the problems are all humanity's fault, and the peripheral characters that I have met so far are devoid of ambition, of higher aspirations beyond sex and glamour. She says taht brains are shrinking, and humanity is degenerating. But there is, I think, one saving grace; she herself can still love, though she cannot find a human worthy of loving and instead has to invest this emotion in a robot that is more human than anyone else. The question is thus elaborated - does humanity, despite all its degeneration and depravities, deserve a second chance because one person can still love? It's a test of forgiveness; in the Bible, one good man saved a city from God's wrath, but is it possible for one good man to redeem an entire species?

I have a feeling that my writing style will evolve over the next few days, though; Winterson's writing is always so powerful for me that I find myself inexorably emulating her style.