Singapore: more than mere commerce

SOTA: The School of the Arts, Singapore

I've been walking ten days in the grid Singapore calls its Art & Heritage District.

Just before the start of the district, in the National Museum, they have paintings of nineteenth century masters on loan from Musee D’Orsay, and they will be on show there until February. I went there two days, and during the second visit I joined the guided tour, conducted that day by (I think) a French Lady. An erudite lady. Her manner was to settle on one hip to make one point and to sink into the other hip for the next point, while on her face crinkles shifted most becomingly for smiles and frowns. "I’ll keep van Gogh for the last," she said. Starry Night, with wild stars painted thick on a wild painting, right off the tube. And Cezanne, and Monet, and Rousseau. She told us the simpler things regarding the paintings, to accommodate art-illiterates such as me. But, of course, even one like me wants to know more when they encounter something like The Card Players, for even I could tell that I should search for more in the painting than two eyes can read. The exhibition closes February 2012, and I'm hoping to be back there before then, for another look at that Cezanne.

At the end of the displays, in a makeshift room before the exit, little masters imitated great works using prints of them, under the quiet watch of parents. It was a black room with small, sharp lights over rows of lamp-shades, designed for quiet and concentration, and it all seemed a very good idea, though some parents held out a grim visage while their wards worked.

Across from the Museum, before the corner where Orchard Road ends and Bras Basah Road begins, there stands the high SOTA (The School of the Arts of Singapore) with a vertical garden all round its upper walls, clinging like ivy. (Forgive me, but why does that nice building seem in my memory like a toad set to leap?) Down Bras Basah Road, from Queen Street to Waterloo Street, is the Singapore Art Museum, where this week they had colored elephants in front, in participation with the Elephant Parade, an effort to conserve the Asian Elephant.

Back of these institutions, on Waterloo Street and Queen Street and Victoria Street and also on Bencoolen Street there are other large and small art schools and galleries. Sculpture Square, a small gallery that promotes sculpture on the corner where Waterloo Street hits Middle Road is shaped like a small chapel. The Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts on Bencoolen shows off on its front the pictures of its alumni who are now celebrity. And, in the midst of them all, in the unimpressive Bras Basah complex, you see stacks of easels leaned on every storefront, and you can get there the Copic pen which is said to be “available only in America.” It is an old complex; it has been dealing in arts supplies a long time.

What I didn't see is graffitti like you see on European walls—Singapore will not allow them, of course. Can great art come from a city that allows no graffitti, that unguided, unsponsored, rebellious outpouring?

Is art in Singapore like in Paris and New York? Do Singaporean artists starve and struggle in garrets, driven and mad from seeing visions that none before them have seen? Such people were not discernible on the streets in the Art & Heritage District, where everybody seemed well fed—may God bless them. But I saw that more thrives in Singapore than merely the business of commerce—even the Singapore Management University only just concluded a long SMU Season of Arts (August to November).

I returned to Bangalore Monday and am still lovesick for Singapore, and I've a newspaper in hand that has news that proves I'm not to blame: Mercer have just declared Singapore the best Asian city to live in. They've also declared Bangalore the best Indian city to live in, but that bit doesn't move me at all.

---

See: some more pictures.

This post also appeared on Lonely Planet: Blogs we like

Older posts by me on Singapore

---

Some more New York

The store attendant’s manner roused a suspicion in me that bore itself out ten streets south. It was an inexpensive bag I’d bought from him, to stow some books and papers and the barnacles that travel attracts. The fasteners on it were all male—which liberal spirit is unacceptable in a bag and I walked back the distance ignoring the stoplights and cursing tourists and New Yorkers who walked into me, even with their eyes on me. When I opened the door the attendant wasn’t surprised to see me back, and his smile was again so white and welcoming. The same day, at a camera store on 44th and 8th the attendant tried to sell me a battery and explained without knowledge why his battery in its tacky box was superior to Canon's. When I insisted for the real thing he bid me a very good day but communicated—through tone and inflection—the very opposite wish. I went out like I'd paid a lesser-than-twenty-per-cent tip in a restaurant. I walked into the dented streets and muddled pavements of the neat grid. I went to the Rockefeller Center, to the MoMA store there, and bought an Everyman's edition of New York poems. I'm reading the poems and between poems I'm reading Remnick's anthology of New York stories gathered from the New Yorker magazine. Over coffee and sparkling water at English Todd at The Intercontinental, I opened to Woody Allen’s The Whore of Mensa and laughed and lightened as I read it. Then I read In Greenwich, There Are Many Graveled Walks, and committed myself to reading all the stories in the big book—so I might better understand my fickle emotions for New York City.

I spent an afternoon walking in Greenwich Village. It was a gloomy windy afternoon and there were a couple of mild showers and I carried no umbrella. Mostly, I remember toy-dogs from the walk; even men were walking small dogs which they had dressed in barrel-shaped clothing against the chill. One dog peed on a plaque at the foot of a slender tree, a plaque for a Beverly Hill (1937–2007) who was, the plaque said, a “beloved community activist.” Beverly Hill would have been active when Greenwich Village fought off efforts to take it skyward on a grid-base as they had in the part of Manhattan north of 14th Street. The debate hasn't died, it rages in books as recently released as Glaeser's 2011 work, Triumph of the City. Long live the debate, I say, but, as I see it, it is a relief after a bit to come south in New York and see the sky and some short buildings, and curving roads on which they walk small dogs that pee on plaques for people who made all this possible. I checked now on the Internet regarding Beverly Hill. Her struggle was for the better treatment of dogs and cats.

Man and Boy, American Airlines Theater

I went to a play on Broadway that is set in 1934 in a basement apartment in Greenwich. Man and Boy, is its title, based on Terence Rattigan’s 1963 drama by the same name, and it is directed by Maria Aitken. The entire play happens in that dour apartment. I wondered in the beginning why I wasn’t getting into the play, and shortly Frank Langella came on stage and took hold of me, and the entire audience, and wiped all the other actors clean into his shadows. Large man, rich and powerful and Romanian, a genius and a fine speaker of English who, when he needed it, sifted words out loud and picked one that had the most dramatic effect and gave him total control of the moment. That was Gregor Antonescu , played by Frank Langella. We were in his thrall until the end; even the other performers were all in his sway. The play was only into its fourth day, and in spite of Frank Langella the house was not full. And the billboards in the corners and side-streets of the theater district were nowhere as many as those for Memphis or Billy Eliot or Jersey Boys.

On the next day, Broadway was busy when I crossed it, but it was under a deluge when I returned. The young people of the Occupy Wall Street movement had taken over the Theater District and the police were struggling to make way for indignant traffic. “Get up, get down, there’s a revolution in town,” the kids chanted. I loved them. I’ve joined revolutions in my time; my revolutions always brought me back to the beginning.

Because Indian food in foreign places sits heavy in my belly, and because I can't stomach cheese which is as salt in Italian cuisine, and also being terribly vegetarian, I seek Chinese when I travel, and I came by a modest joint on 40th near Broadway. "No tip", it said on a dozen sheets pinned to the walls and on the front door and all over the glass facade. The food was all right, about as good as an inexpensive dinner can be, but it was a relief regarding the tip. I've been asking why the Americans, in their wisdom, cannot make a flat rate for a tip and make it mandatory across the nation. It seems now that it might happen, I saw it on television in La Guardia. Waiters have organized themselves last week and demanded a mandatory 25% tip to be added to the bill, and they argue that their claim is justified in the slowed economy. Ah, well. America will always challenge me in its restaurants.

---

Some pictures

In the US, suddenly seeking silence

Midweek last week I arrived here in the US, and now after a week I'm tuned in to the many accents of this great, indivisible country, after some initial struggle first in San Diego, then in Houston, and on the first day here in New York City.

In San Diego I attended a symposium in a resort by the ocean, and while we listened to the speeches made before us, we heard also the sounds of men and women playing beach volleyball behind us, down below on the outside. A child could be heard crying while the boss-customer delivered a grave message regarding the short time schedules for new projects to discuss which, we, the suppliers, had been summoned—no excuses were permissible for slippages. We could tell by now that the child on the beach had clearly failed at something in the sand and was blaming all the world for it. I anticipated correctly that the two-day symposium would wind down ahead of schedule: There was a tempting abundance of sunshine outside, and the proceedings were declared closed two hours ahead of the time published on the agenda. It was Friday, moreover. The declaration of that intent was accepted in pleased silence by all.

For me, they suggested that I try La Jolla, 4 miles away. I thought to walk but they said no, I must go there by car and once there I could walk about the place as much as I could bear. "Go North on Mission Blvd, take La Jolla Blvd at the first fork, get off at Prospect Street." Once there I walked down, drawn by the ocean, walked down to the even lawns of the Coast Boulevard Park, and crossed the grass to the narrow cement promenade, where I leaned on the metal barricade and lost myself watching the restless bobbing waters below, which were peaceful in the distance, and consumed by a haze on the horizon. A pair of birds flew across, their beak the length of their body, flying straight and without apparent purpose, their leisure matching that of folks on ground. The birds were a handsome couple, and flew with the confident airs of good-looking people.

I am remembering La Jolla in my hotel room in NYC, having returned from a long jaunt on 42nd Street. Rain was forecast and it didn't come, and Manhattan was noisy with happy tourists—and locals rushing home. But of course, it is always noisy in midtown and lower Manhattan.

Back there in La Jolla, when darkness fell, the electric lights that came on were subdued, varied lights of various colors, with room also for the plain white light from the moon above. Subdued also was the noise of slow traffic regulating itself in the absence of stoplights. I walked on the streets that led out of and back into Prospect Street, savoring the silence, marveling at how the more affluent a place gets, the quiter it becomes.

Such is how I felt there in La Jolla in San Diego. In New York, I'm searching for the silence and the rarefied air of wealthier people in an even richer city. I've not found them; the tourists are tripping me up on every street.

A Weekend in Puerto Rico

A lapdog belonging to a party lolling on the grass rushed toward another party walking a Great Dane. The lapdog party shot up from the grass to fetch the little fellow, and the walkers struggled to restrain the Great Dane. Another party readied a large red kite for flight in the promising wind. Hurricane Maria wasn’t coming, whereas she had threatened to arrive last night. She merely swished her hems upon Puerto Rico, and upon Puerto Rico's neighbors the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Some rain did come down and it was heavy when it fell, but the whole thing lasted only a few minutes a time, and the sun beamed after each rain like he’d never been gone.

All this expanse has been like this for centuries—deep and wide and open—by design. The field is in this age open for play and blissful rest, but in the past its purpose was deadly defense. After the enemy had breached fire from cannons mounted on this island and another, tiny island right across, after the enemy had scaled the impossible cliff-height from which the fort wall rises, its next task was to brave this field, to charge toward the defenders who had time to consider whom to kill first, and where to train the guns next, and for whom to save the last volley.

All of Old San Juan is as well preserved as the Fort. The cobblestones on the long narrow streets are worn smooth by scores of changing seasons and millions of footfalls. The museums had closed out of respect to hurricane Maria, but I wasn’t disappointed, being happy to just sit in the squares in the middle and in the end of Calle San Francisco, and watch the pigeons crowd and play in the puddles among the cobblestones. The colors on their necks turned off and on and glinted in the sun. The islanders like to visit Old San Juan on the weekend for the sights and the restaurants and to shop in boutiques selling modern brands in old quiet buildings. When the shoppers crossed the square they paused and fed the pigeons and allowed them to alight and beat their wings on their arms. Little girls squealed until they got used to the birds and then they squealed to papa to bring a bird for them to hold.

Later, I walked the three lovely miles of promenade between the fort walls and the ocean. And I came upon an iguana on a clump of black rocks. It was green and long and pointy, and pretty, unlike its cousins that I know at home, and not one bit shy, and it allowed me to take as many pictures as I wished on both its sides. Only later I learnt that all iguanas tend to behave like this one that I saw.

Puerto Rico has its problems: teen marriages abound and they do not last three years; drugs transit the island from producer-nations to the US, leaving behind their trace of vice; a feeling of lost identity prevails, and a sense of being wronged by too many for too long—which weighs a good part of Puerto Rican writing with soggy emotion; alcohol consumption is high and rampant. But the people are quick to sing and quick to kick off worry, and dance—the Latino in them, they say. That, and an acceptance by each of their lot, and an easy adjustment to life, all make Puerto Ricans, some surveys say, the happiest people on the planet.

Happy people make good employees, I suppose. I spent the work-week in an American plant on the south of the island, in Ponce. A fine plant, with best-practices on full display. The Latinos suffer from machista, a local told me, and listed the attendant weaknesses of the macho, but the men and women that I saw on the shop-floor, in their thirties and forties, had both mastered the skills for their processes and worked as deftly and nimbly as any worker in a disciplined Asian plant. How did they stay focused with the beach two minutes away? The workmen didn’t have the English, and I didn’t have the Spanish. When I brought up the question with the managers they assigned the credit to their inspiring systems. Deservingly so, perhaps. The systems were working.

to weave a tale of three cities

Window-shopping for art in St. Germain, Paris

A battle was waged and lost to save a couple of dozen magnificent trees in Sadashivanagar. A clutch of commoners cannot wrest from the state what the state has grasped. Now those trees have been sold cheap and consigned to memory. The fight to save them was spirited, though: women hugged them and wouldn’t let go until the police found a way to pull them away without causing a sexist outrage; men climbed the trees to prevent the buyers from sawing the trunks below. The media made its pitch even as it gathered the news it needs. But the arm of the lawman proved stronger, and the law weighed with the lawmakers. In the meantime our chief minister—who passed the place daily—has fallen, and his pal has taken his place. The spirit of the ruling class is aging to a convenient changeless script and its growing vintage serves the rulers well; the spirit of the middle-class masses is aging badly and is in fact already quite foul, and frothing. So deep is the rift now that the two sides have ceased to come to battle: each has given up on the other, and there is much to worry regarding this truce brought on by hopelessness.

Several times I’ve thought I must flee this unsavory place, but the money I need for the places I seek, I can best make here. I am smitten by two true cities: Paris and New York. (And a little by London, too.) So, then, I have a city a continent, from two continents. What tale can an Indian weave out of these far cities while domiciled in his exasperating hometown? Those two cities are no strangers to Indians, and in New York City my countrymen have cut for themselves a feast-sized slice of the dangling plantain that is Manhattan. What can I perceive of these cities that would excite that wayward reader who has strayed into my lot in the world-wide web?

Nothing, possibly. I spent some days already this year in Paris and New York City and they were a balm to me after a bad time in Bangalore. So in the last weeks I have begun to design my life so I can divide my time between Bangalore and the two of them. Can such a scheme bring happiness to someone so jaded? Perhaps not. Maybe happiness should not be my quest. It might be better to merely experience (as work) two cities that have been deeply loved and lovingly served by leader and commoner in competing proportions.

I read recently Glaeser's The Triumph of the City: Paris before Baron Haussmann wasn't much of a city. New York City was at times diseased, at times corrupt and for a long time decrepit. New York City has lived in the heights and has been in the dumps; defeat and despair and humiliation was repetitious for Paris. And now, none will challenge the respect Parisians command for their knowhow for good living. And anyone can see the creative energy that is squeezed into the island of Manhattan, and unloosed there.

I fell in love with Paris in June, and, as I was departing the city, I heard of Woody Allen's movie and was saddened that many more will begin to romance Paris along with me. I sense a jealousy, which tells me I didn't fall in love with Paris—I’ve been seduced by it, and I cannot bear that there will be others to whom Paris will reveal its river and its buildings, its cafes and its museums, its streets and its bridges, its gardens and its palaces, its art and its buskers, and its fabulous young who court outdoors in the light that plays in its air. And I am surprised that this beauty has chosen to seduce even me, an unremarkable Indian man without the ample means that a life in it demands if that life should be experienced in full, a man lacking the intellect of other men and women to whom it has played muse for centuries, a man from whom fashion and glamor maintain a snob’s distance, a man who cannot tell the subtleties of its wine, a vegetarian man, a man who can eat (from the over four hundred types that Paris offers) only the hard and spiced Gouda cheese, which cheese is not even French. So I’m telling myself to be grateful, and to learn to be deep and broad and big like this great city.

I am thus warmed these rainy days in Bangalore, full of anticipation of my next visit to Paris, which begins 18-August, and the tramping I’ll do in New York City, commencing 4-October.