Enthrallingly English

An enchanting Sunday afternoon roast at Albion KL

first published in The Star, 15 September 2012


Melody leads a charmed life. She gets to travel to exotic places and eat at fabulous places for work, like this modern English bistro in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

From this establishment, she smuggled a bit of macaroni and cheese home in a microwaveable container, presumably to taunt me – again. The M&C was cold and had congealed into a lumpy mass, but it was glorious. I suspect the added bacon had enough time to infuse the leftovers with its savoury, smoky flavour on the way home.

We agreed we had to go back there. If their mac-and-cheese is this good, what else can they do?

Melody wanted the Sunday roast, so she e-mailed ahead for details. Yes, they had roast beef or lamb on the Sunday we'd planned to drop by. I wanted the lamb, a meat with more character. Her e-mail response was a heart-rending, "But I want beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffffff and it is my birthdayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy."

When she's like this, there's no point arguing. So "beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeffffffffffff" it is, even though her actual birthday had passed a while back.

Tucked inside the Changkat Bukit Bintang area, the red-painted façade of Albion is a beacon for visitors with a poor sense of direction. One is embraced by a palpable kind of Englishness upon entry. On a wall is an arty portrait of Sir Winston Churchill chomping on a cigar. Classical English court music wafted through the air as we pored over the menu, a subtle reminder to always, among other things, mind your P's and Q's and sipping (not gulping) your tea within the premises.

Manager James Grierson guided us through the selections and portion size (typically Malaysian, he suggests). We decided to go with Albion's Greek-style Salad and a serving of roast beef to share, with mini Yorkshire puddings. Dessert remained a question mark for a while.

Several warm buns were brought to our table in a tiny basket, with slices of softened butter and what I assumed was the “spiced tomato jam”, while our orders were seen to. The appetising tomato jam, a mixture that included anchovies and olive oil, was surprisingly delicious when eaten with buttered buns but it left us hungrier than before we walked in the door.

Then the salad came.

We felt the price of the Greek-style salad didn't compensate for the abundance of feta cheese in it. The sharp-tasting tangy and salty cheese, together with the olives, mushrooms and various greens, made for a rich, satisfying appetiser.

Definitely more than six cubes of feta in that lush Greek-style salad

Albion's chef, Colin Yap, explained that they came up with this version after trying another one that had "about six or so tiny cubes" of feta, but Albion's had all the ingredients that made it a winner. The flavours came together really well.

Despite assurances that the portions were manageable, we still gaped at the roast when it arrived. Some slices of medium-done roast beef, greens, roast potatoes and a pair of mini Yorkshire puddings. The Yorkshire pudding was a light, crispy pastry that's best eaten warm and useful for wiping up the leftover gravy, spilled meat juice and fat. It was the first time I'd ever seen or eaten one.

Melody tried to wheedle some secrets about making Yorkshire pudding out of the chef. The whole business is tricky, the chef said, like making soufflé.

"It's a temperamental thing," he added.

No fluffy, light and buttery pastries coming out of my little oven, then.

The Sunday Roast may look standard, but it's lovely

The roast was lovely. We tried slices of beef with the light and subtle horseradish sauce and the assertively pungent, sinus-clearing English mustard.

"Laave-leh," I drawled in an exaggerated Englishman's accent when I could breathe through my nose again. "Simply brilliant."

Some may feel differently – it's just roast beef, they might say – but in this cosy nook in the middle of the city, it's also where you eat it and who made it ... and maybe what they're playing on the sound system.

Still, the meal didn't feel complete, like a story without an ending. After sitting around for a while and sipping the rather good coffee (gasp!), we settled on the English-sounding Trinity Burned Cream with Raspberries to round up a lovely lunch.

The dessert, essentially a crème brûlée, turned out to be a good choice. Under the slightly burnt layer of sugar was a bed of rich (unburned) custard cream covering what looked like raspberry compote. One serving was just right for two waistline-watching Malaysians to share and still come away fully satisfied.

We stayed long enough to wait for teatime, but we didn't want to ruin the experience by taking in too much of this delightful place at one go. Reluctantly, we peeled ourselves off our chairs. We'd be back.

And we are having laaaaaaaaamb the next time around.

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Albion

31 Jalan Berangan
50200 Kuala Lumpur

CLOSED FOR GOOD

Betrayed

One of the first books I've read this year kind of surprised me, even though it wasn't light reading. Great début by Wiley Cash.

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Hope in faith

When those we trust fail us

first published in The Star, 14 September 2012


I remember being aghast at stories of child abuse at the hands of religious figures. So it's no surprise that I found the premise of Wiley Cash's debut novel compelling: what happens when religious figures fail to live up to their ideals?

The novel was inspired by the tragic story of an autistic African American boy who'd been smothered during a healing service in Chicago in the United States. "I was bothered that a group of people, including the boy's mother, could stand by while something like that took place," said Cash in an interview.

A Land More Kind Than Home takes place in a small North Carolinian town populated by generally God-fearing townsfolk. Some of them, however, fear something else, too.

Elderly midwife Adelaide Lyle is haunted by the death and subsequent cover-up of the time a churchgoer dies during a snake-handling ritual presided over by the church's newest pastor, Carson Chambliss. The incident prompts her to take the children out of the church.

Despite her efforts, young Jess Hall's autistic older brother, Christopher, lovingly nicknamed "Stump" by his father, becomes the church's next victim as his mother stands by and does nothing. As the case unravels, this story of family, faith and secrets unfolds through the perspectives of three people.

There's Lyle who, as a young girl, survived what sounds like the 1918-19 global Spanish flu outbreak and helped bury a long-deceased relative. This fortitude helps her bear the secrets she has to hide but the weight would eventually prove too much. Too old to actively resist Chambliss's corruption of the church, she mostly watches from the sidelines.

Jess Hall, meanwhile, has to deal with his brother's death, which he feels somehow responsible for. The return of his grandfather Jimmy doesn't help. Instead, Jess retreats into the safety and comfort of memories of him and his brother, despite the adults' efforts to help him cope.

And we have Sheriff Clem Barefield, a survivor of his own family tragedy who has the unenviable task of battling small-town reticence and the church's code of silence to solve Stump's case. There's also a bit of unfinished business between him and Jimmy Hall.

Cash wanted to write the story of the failed Chicago faith healing, but he wasn't familiar with the city or the community. So the North Carolinian set the story in Madison County in his home state. "Once I did that, the story came alive; it became real."

And it did. Cash has done his research well, judging from how one is deeply immersed in the atmosphere of the town, with the sweet aroma from drying tobacco leaves at the Halls' farm and the "ain'ts" and double negatives in the locals' speech. In this day and age, such a stereotypical portrayal of a small American town may be frowned upon, even as one believes that such places still exist in that country, rotary dial phones and all.

We are shown how the decay of religion in a slice of the American heartland can affect its people. We feel the characters' pain, caused by alcoholism, domestic abuse and betrayal by those they trusted, as well as the plight of the lost searching for meaning or something to fill the void in their hearts.

We seethe at the seemingly aloof wickedness of those who prey upon the insecure and desperate to achieve power and influence. We are crushed, slowly, as we watch a family come apart. Even before the conclusion of this well-written novel, the slimy preacher will leave one more scar upon the lives of the protagonists.

Yet, the novel offers hope. Lyle still believes the church is the town's pivotal institution and that it will again be the beacon and safe haven it's meant to be.

"The living church is made of people," she says, "and it can grow sick and break just like people can, and sometimes churches can die just like people die. ... A church can be healed, and it can be saved like people can be saved."

We somehow find comfort in these words, even as we cringe at the on-air antics of today's Carson Chamblisses. And we hope that our religious institutions will eventually become a place more like home where those we trust with our lives – and souls – will never let us down.

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A Land More Kind Than Home

Wiley Cash
Doubleday (2012)
306 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-857-52070-8

Well Done

Though he's left the kitchen, everyone's favourite trash-talking chef is still dishing out food for thought


A bitter and angry chef, resigned to remain rooted behind a stove until he dies, lets it rip in an over-testosteroned rant-fest of a memoir dedicated to his ilk and pokes fun at TV chefs, vegans, and the like. He's confident that the book will never get him on TV, take him to exotic foreign locales, or hook him up with more famous, qualified chefs.

Anthony Bourdain has eaten a lot of things since then, including his own words; check out his other books: A Cook's Tour and The Nasty Bits.

Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook is the book fans have been waiting for since That Book, Kitchen Confidential. Profane and profound, his take on all things close to his heart are a joy to read, especially in countries where freedom of expression also comes with a hefty rulebook to safeguard presumably fragile egos.

Hunter S Thompson may be the father of gonzo journalism, but it's this chef-turned-author and travel show host that many of us with an opinion and a shtick to bandy about want to be one day.

From Medium Raw, we learn a bit more about what happened to Bourdain since That Book came out. Why he became a father at fifty. The new targets of his ire. The Top Chef contestant anonymously featured in That Book. The deal behind David Chang, who could be the next Angry Writing Chef. More tantalising are the latest updates about the prominent personalities featured in That Book, and why Bourdain called that restaurant reviewer a dirty name.


Burning bridges
We also learn, in spite of all he has now, why Bourdain doesn't seem happy. In his jottings one still senses the jitteriness of someone who had lost something good when he least expected it - and constantly looks out for the next such catastrophe. If he's not burning bridges, one suspects he's checking to see if someone else will burn them, or if the bridges spontaneously combust.

Probably explains his apparent gusto for the life he's leading now; if he concentrates on going forward, he can forget about looking over his shoulder.

In the prologue, we get a sense of how different things have been for Bourdain since Kitchen Confidential, published over a decade ago. The clandestine gathering of world-class chefs at a secret dinner capped by a taste of the controversial ortolan dish is worlds apart from his old life. He not sure why he's here, other than being a guest of his best pal, who sounds suspiciously like the Michelin-starred chef of Le Bernadin, Eric Ripert.

UK edition of Medium Raw from Bloomsbury with new
cover (left) and US edition from HarperCollins/Ecco

Sure it's fun, exciting. But he also sounds unsure, lost, out of place. Maybe a little guilty. I shouldn't be having this much fun, he seems to be thinking. This is not my circle, which I left - or rather, abandoned - for a more cushier gig.

Is that why he flagellates himself so ruthlessly in the first few chapters of Medium Raw? "Heretic", "sell-out", he calls himself. He compares himself to a prostitute, drops names of chefs who've taken similar paths and explains why they did it, as if it's something needing justification. The calamitous Caribbean island getaway with a crazy rich chick, after the end of his first marriage, must've been very painful to recall.


Paid his dues
He gets over it, though. He's paid his dues, I think, and his new jet-setting life now is much better suited for his age. "If I go back to the kitchen now, it would break me," he confesses in The Nasty Bits.

Besides being less angry, he's also more neutral, finding silver linings in the same subjects he used to run down. Such performances, however, feel forced, like in the chapter on US chef and food activist Alice Waters, the "Pol Pot in a muumuu". And he's still shining the shoes of British chef and Parkinson's disease sufferer Fergus Henderson. It made sad reading.

Similarly forced is the chapter devoted to food porn. Though formulaic, it still had enough mojo to drive one into night markets, looking for placebos to lush descriptions of chicken butt yakitori.

Foreign audiences outside the US, however, may have problems with his references to obscure pop and food culture. He doesn't explain, in one chapter, why he considers Mario Batali and Eric Ripert heroes. When this book was first published, Ripert chaired a New York-based charity that rescues unused food to feed hungry people, and Batali was active in charities for children.

...Well, it is said that he says a lot – and says it damn well, too – about the things he feels strongly for.

In the ten years between Kitchen Confidential and Medium Raw, he never really left us at all. He's still slinging it, commenting on more than just food: in the news, online, in the airwaves, on TV - seemingly one of the last honest people out there who speaks his mind with little thought of the repercussions, because some things have to be said.

Keep talking, Tony. We're all ears.


Another version of this review was first published in the July - September 2012 issue of MPH Quill. This review was based on the 2010 Bloomsbury (UK) edition of the book.

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Medium Raw

A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

Anthony Bourdain
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (2010)
281 pages
Non-fiction
ISBN: 978-1-4088-0934-1

MPH Quill, July - September 2012 Issue

...is very damn late. I know. But it's out.

I've heard talk about changes in direction for Quill, but no clues about that so far.

Okay, let's see what's inside.

...Luke Clark, editor of Discovery Channel Magazine, on the mag's
relaunch (right)...

...Adam Jacot de Boinod speaks about weird words and his books
about them...

...profile of Dina Zaman and her short story collection, King of the Sea...

...Ellen Whyte spends a night at the Szechwan Opera in Chengdu...

...and more. Of course there's always more.

News: Sockpuppets, Book Raids, and Scalzi's Goat(s)

Criticism ventriloquism
Sock-puppetry: Why do they do it? From these tales of two sock-puppeteers, they might be more the norm than anyone thinks. Well, Sock-puppetry in book reviewing may not be new, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. Scott Adams, however, suggests that (fake) positive reviews can balance out the (fake) negative ones in an ecosystem where 'everybody cheats'.

I might have my own take on this later, but maybe not.


Book raid bulletins
The Federal Territories Religious Affairs Department (JAWI) admitted to raiding the Borders bookstore in The Gardens, Mid Valley City before an edict or ban was declared against the book that prompted the raid. In West Bengal, a publisher was also raided over book critical of the state government. Said book then sold out after news of the raid broke.


Getting Scalzi's goat
After John Scalzi announced a book project, the Internet gave him another after he joked about writing a book called 101 Uses for a Spare Goat on Twitter. So now, we can expect said book to be out in the future, barring any unforeseen circumstances.

A cautionary tale of why it's dangerous to coin absurd phrases online, but that's how the Internet works these days. What would make this even more amazeballs? Paying for the book with goats.


Censorship, China, and coffee
State censorship, conservative publishing choices and lack of good translations appear to be some of the factors narrowing outsiders' views of modern China. But China's bookworms are said to offer hope for traditional publishing. But how can the mood be buoyant without good coffee? Oh, and here's why coffee will never taste as good as it smells.


Other news

• The economics of an indie bookstore ... can be pretty dismal.
• Outside the literary world, bad reviews breed more bad blood. A restaurateur in Canada apparently spent months trying to ruin the reputation of someone who gave her restaurant a bad review. She was found guilty of criminal libel and will soon be sentenced.
• Did this writer see Pakistan's bleak future?
• A book that Scott Pack hates this much? Can't be all bad. For one, Wong Kar Wai gets killed in it.
• Apple, publishers offer pricing concessions to avoid hefty European Commission fine.

MPH Warehouse Sale 2012, Mooncakes, Etc

The MPH Distributors Warehouse Sale will be held from 08 to 17 September (8am to 6pm) at:

The Crest, 3 Two Square
Block F, Ground Floor
No. 2 Jalan 19/1
46300 Petaling Jaya

For inquiries, call 03-7958 1688 or visit www.facebook.com/MPHDistributors

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Yvonne Foong is selling low-sugar mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Some of the proceeds, as I understand it, will be going towards her medical fund. Head over here for more details.

...So, yeah.

News: Commercialised Criticism, Book Fights, and Language

Review revelations
A (former) peddler of paid-for book reviews is profiled in the New York Times and kind of lifts the lid on all those 'positive' reviews received by certain blockbusters. Not news, really.

This report raised quite a bit of odour and soon, just about everyone had a take on this, most of it bad. One author felt buying paid-for reviews to ramp up book sales is akin to using drugs in sports. Another voice says 'buying respect' with paid-for reviews is "lazy" and runs "counter to the true indie spirit". "Unethical scumbags", was another author's choice words for paid-for reviewers and those who hire them.

The fake review 'revelation' prompted relook of Amazon review graphs - why "beware" THAT shape? Someone even compiled a list of major best-sellers with over 150 one-star Amazon reviews which kind of suggests that something's not quite right.

Elsewhere, others are wondering if the paid review revelations will eventually kill the critic. Meanwhile, a critic offers his (long) manifesto on being a critic.

While we're on the subject: another reviewer gets brickbats and threats after pissing off fans of Emily Giffin by suggesting, among other things, that the author encourages mob behaviour against critics among her fans. She'd subsequently downgraded her review fron four stars to one and explained why. She got more than a taste of said mob behaviour not long after - which may include practices condemned by a group of authors (crime author Jeremy Duns, who uncovered the instance of sock puppetry that led to the outrage, was also caught up in another literary scandal some time back). Looks like critics and reviewers aren't the only ones who need to search their souls.


Settle down
Publishers Hachette, HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster reached a US$69 million settlement with various US attorney-generals over supposed fixing of e-book prices. Much of the money wil be refunded to bookbuyers, and the US state of Kentucky may get as much as US$700,000. But would this case really mean lower prices for e-books in the future?


SEAL hunt
A former US Navy SEAL who authored a potentially explosive tell-all on the Bin Laden takedown had his identitiy blown by US rightwing "news" outfit Fox News. Since then, some details about the book have been released, and the author had received threats from al-Qaeda. The US military argues that the former SEAL's book had violated protocol and are considering pressing charges. At the time this is written, the book's publisher is going ahead with the release. The co-author defends the book in The Huffington Post.

A bunch of Special Ops veterans hold a different view, and they are releasing an e-book in response, which includes an examination of the author's version of events and the rather prosaic motives for publishing the book:

..."[Owen] was treated very poorly upon his departure ... once he openly shared that he was considering getting out of the Navy to pursue other interests." [Owen] was essentially given a plane ticket back to Virginia and nothing else—not much of a thank-you for his "honesty and 14 years of service."

One wonders if things might have been different for Owen (the author's pen name) if he'd kept his "getting out of the Navy to pursue other interests" under wraps, but given the subject matter and timing of the release, tongues are bound to wag.


Flaming protest
A charity for victims of domestic violence has condemned the "misogynistic crap" that is Fifty Shades of Grey and they're calling for a bonfire of said book. In spite of my own opinions on the books, I can't agree with that. You'd have to harbour an exceptionally towering amount of hatred towards a book to want to light it up.

There are better forms of protest, like this review (more like a roasting) of the audio book ("Bambi [in] de Sade's '120 Days of Sodom'" - SIZZLE, CRACK!) in The Telegraph. Because bad writing in any other language is still bad writing.


Other news

• After what I presume was a long period of sluggish shelf movement, Jeremy Chin's book Fuel may be yanked from local bookstores. I think it's quite a good (albeit syrupy) read. Get a copy online or borrow one from friends. And I think there might be a copy on the shelf at a local café somewhere....
• The release of the latest Godfather novel, The Family Corleone, sparked a fight between Paramount Pictures and the state of Mario Puzo over rights to the franchise. Unable to find a solution, both parties have taken the fight to federal court.
• Chicken Soup for the Soul publishers to 'publish' Chicken Soup for the Stomach. But will it taste as good?
• "Promiscuous reading". Does that phase even make sense?
• This guy endured some great writers' worst books, so that we don't have to.
• Is our dependence on technology making us forgetful,like this book suggests?
• Servers at Jamie Oliver's restaurants were, I read, told to talk like Jamie Oliver when describing the food. "May I rec'mend th' bayked p'tat-uhz wi' th' skins on? Abs'lutely wicked, scrummy, and proper rustic. Throw in s'm crispy baykon bits 'n a duhlup o' s'ouh cream... funtastic!" ...If Jamie-O wunts t'give 'is rest'ronts 'is Mockney flavuh, he c'n do i' 'imself. 'Coz no one else cud'do it bet'er.
• Talking Turkey: the roots of Indo-European languages.
• Parents in China duped by 'special skills programme' for kids. Reading "waves" from books and poker cards? What is this, a Stephen Chow film?
• 'Vanity publishing' and 'legacy publishing': Why must they always be at loggerheads?
• It seems book publishers have to start thinking of themselves as - (SOB!) - "multimedia content producers".

Casting Pearls Before...?

US fantasy magazine Weird Tales published an extract from Victoria Foyt's self-published YA novel Revealing Eden: Save the Pearls Part One, which is set in a sort-of dystopian world where a black-skinned race dubbed the Coals lord over a white race called the Pearls on a sun-scorched Earth. To survive on the surface, the Pearls cover themselves with a substance that makes them look 'black'.

The premise of the novel touched of one of those fires where everyone can look righteous by calling it for what it is: racist. Just how long has it been since another issue about colour in books was raised?

Weird Tales has since removed that excerpt and apologised for publishing it. In that apology, publisher John Harlacher, concluded that "the use of the powerful symbols of white people forced to wear blackface to escape the sun, white women lusting after black 'beast men', the 'pearls' and 'coals', etc., is goddamned ridiculous and offensive. It seems like the work of someone who does not understand the power of what she is playing with."

Foyt denies racism, and says that, on top of the positive reviews it has received, her work aims "to turn racism on its head in order to portray its horrors and its inevitable road to violence. I believe that anyone who reads the novel will understand its strong stance against racism." However, she doesn't boost her case by saying that "if you ask if all these reviewers are white then consider that you have a racist point of view".

From the reviews of the book here, here and here, Foyt's novel looks like the literary equivalent of a collapsed and burnt soufflé. The standfirst for the first review alone says it all, with phrases such as "falls at every hurdle" and "awful prose with negligible plot". The 'heroine', said to combine "the most irritating characteristics of Bella Swan and Anastasia Steele with a predilection for dropping the full Latin names of bird and animal species once every paragraph", could probably be enough of a turn-off.

This reminds me of an author who, at this year's Edinburgh Literary Festival, suggested that political correctness may have weakened the stomachs of readers and maybe writers, making them sensitive - perhaps, more than before - to certain hot-button topics. Has the message in the book (which sounds like the first part of a series) been eclipsed by the portrayal of the characters and seemingly bad world-building?

Highlighting complex and sensitive issues such as race, religion and the origins of dishes - through writings, artworks and film - can be a dicey affair akin to making a soufflé. Most attempts generally fail. The timing of the book's release may not have been a good idea as well, as this commenter points out in his response to Foyt's defence.

Still, could some of the reactions have been more measured? I don't think this "fantasy action romance" intentionally propagates this world view, so why behave like it does? And how much did the outrage against Foyt's book help fight racism which, from incidents such as this and this, still persists?

I think the Guardian review was one of the better responses to this book. Racism is too easy to call out, so a critic should delve deeper to see if it accomplishes its purpose and, above all, if it is a good book - which said review suggests otherwise.

Maybe the final verdict should be withheld until the series is released in its entirety.

News: Snark Week in Publishing

Shnark attacks
Online mobs stifle literature, author suggests. One can also extend that to literary criticism, but it doesn't help when you have reviews that sound like the shitstorm-stirring put-down of Alix Ohlin's books. From the looks of it, the reviewer couldn't find much to say about the books (i.e. he didn't like them). Martim Amis's Lionel Asbo also received brickbats, along with the occasional 'balanced' opinions like this.

Somebody at Salon.com makes a case for positive book reviews, and gives some further reading on the subject. But here's how to write a good "bad review" - if you really, really need to. Meanwhile, a reviewer looks back at his "infamous" review of Pretty Woman two decades ago and decides it wasn't really that hot, thanks to its "miffed, hectoring, and righteously unamused" tone. Another case for ditching unrestrained snarkiness.


Controversy? Not here
Glenn Beck, peddler of paranoia, may publish David Barton's controversial book on Thomas Jefferson, said to contain factual inaccuracies. No problem for Beck, who seems totally immune to facts. Meanwhile, Ousted Komen exec Karen Handel will tell her side of Planned Parenthood story in a book whose title says everything. Note also the September 11 launch date - what is she trying to say? Somewhere south of the border, two old Latin American recalcitrants may be working on a book. 2012 is a good year to publish, it seems.


Even authors need agents these days
Getting the right fit: the job of a literary agent. For some authors who think six months is too long a period to get noticed, Michael Bourne writes, "Mainstream publishing is a Rube Goldberg machine of perverse economic incentives, in which large numbers of mostly idiotic self-help guides, diet books, and airport thrillers subsidize an ever-shrinking number of mostly money-losing literary novels and books of poetry.

"But just because publishing operates on a crazy economic model doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense," he adds. "There is a market, however tiny, for good books, and there are a small number of smart, hard-working people who live for the thrill of finding a talented author. If you are one of those talented authors, then it is your job to stop whining and figure out how to make it easy for them to find you."

Unless you're Barton, Beck, or Handel, perhaps. "Talent", you understand.


Other news

• The late Alexander Cockburn more or less accused Orwell of being racist and bigoted. WINCE. And someone else suggests the author of 1984 wasn't quite the truth-teller people thought he was.
• From what Man Booker prize-winner Howard Jacobson says, 'good readers' are getting harder to find, and that political correctness is partly to blame for weakening appetites for the "expression of an ugly point of view" in books.
• Lee Goldberg on book trailers: "Why don't you just take whatever cash you have and flush it down [the] toilet?"
• "We were quoted out of context:" Lonely Planet responds to Foreign Policy's "leftist planet" article.
• Who needs publishers and bookstores? Everybody, it seems. ...Okay. I'm paraphrasing, but that's the impression I got after reading it...
• In India, it's raining publications but the literary landscape is dry.
• Funny, crass non-person Ruth Bourdain is coming up with a "guide to gastronomy". Someone (forgot who) asked the obvious question: Who will they make the royalty cheques out to?

Late News: New Words, Spilled Ink, and Apple for Orange

Despite one additional day, I didn't quite enjoy the long Hari Raya (Eid ul-Fitr) weekend. But I didn't want the whole week off, since next week's a four-day week.

Anyway:

• CNN pundit Fareed Zakaria was the latest to be snared in a plagiarism scandal. The blog Foreign Policy tries to figure out why. Zakaria was eventually reinstated at TIME and CNN after brief suspension, but he has resigned from his position at the board of Yale University.
• Buenos Aires gives pensions to ageing writers, as GOP candidate pledges cuts to US arts.
• Mob justice goes awry as authors shut down legit book lending site.
• Tired of celebs touting quack cures and dubious science? Here are some fictional characters, promoting cures based on established science. What? Darth Vader's a fellow asthmatic? And Sauron uses OPTREX eye wash?
• Some pleasures and pitfalls of online self-publishing. Because you can't have too many of such lists.
• Coffee, cafés and coups: A Naguib Mahfouz novel and a café's role in Egypt's revolution.
• How paperbacks transformed the way Americans (and us) read.
• When writing can kill you: AL Kennedy's hard lesson.
• "Imma sexting in mah man-cave, stuffing mah brains wi' Kanye's newest earworm of a track, y'all." New words in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
• Are these travel guides - "clotted with historical revisionism, factual errors, and a toxic combination of Orientalism and pathological self-loathing" - shilling for dictators? Maybe not.
• "Prestige-free zone": Has the young adult genre become a woman's world?
• Apple may emerge as the new sponsor for Orange Prize for Fiction. Let the fruity puns fly.
• A reader laments the disappearance of great books.
• Follow the travails of a literary débutante - if you really must.
• Blogger/writer doesn't trust online book reviews.

Induced Nostalgia

I'd gotten this book sometime back, but I can't remember if I put it into my reading list.

Was this a good book? Not really. Though it was reminiscent of a previous book, something about this one felt rushed.

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Induced nostalgia

Don't dwell on the past

first published in The Star, 19 August 2012


For some, nostalgia is like a drug. In the United States, for instance, many are longing for the good old days. This nostalgia-as-drug metaphor is expanded and explored in Dan Simmons's novel Flashback, which takes place in what could be the mother-of-all-post-apocalyptic-worlds.

About 20 years from now, global order is topsy-turvy. The United States, European Union and China have collapsed; Japan is run by clannish feudal families and oversees a new South-East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere; large swathes of Israel are uninhabitable nuclear wastelands; and there's a Global Islamic Caliphate.

Also: the United States is several states short, Texas is a republic, and criminal elements comprising Hispanic gangs, Russian mafia and others are wreaking havoc.

Every (middle-class white) American's nightmare has come true, and over 80% of the population is seeking respite through flashback, a drug that lets its users mentally re-live the best moments of their lives. Contributing to the chaos are flash gangs, groups of miscreants who commit crimes and revisit them with the drug.

Disgraced police officer Nick Bottom (great name!) is a flashback addict who finds solace in the memories of his late wife. Embarrassingly, he's caught using the drug on video prior to a meeting with a client. So this client, a Japanese bigwig called Nakamura, sends his top goon with Bottom to make sure he does his job and keep him from going "under the flash". Nakamura wants the truth behind his son's death, a case Bottom investigated years ago.

Back home, Bottom's father-in-law receives an ominous warning to leave home over a flash gang's crime – a gang whose members include Bottom's estranged son, Val. Things get really hot when Val's gang ambushes and fails to kill a top Japanese diplomat. Son and grandfather go on the run, while Bottom learns, to his shock, that his late wife might be involved in the case he's now investigating. Old wounds are opened as Bottom gets to the bottom of the unsolved murder – and the murky beginnings of the American addiction to the past.

In Black Hills, Simmons suggests that that mankind's greed may eventually ruin the world. That happens, in a way, in Flashback. How it happened can be found in the book, but it's so tangled up with the other threads in the story, unravelling each thread for a better look can be tedious. About halfway through, you just don't care anymore.

The novel starts out slowly, exploring the Bottoms' background which nobody will eventually care about. About two-thirds into it, the pace accelerates because the book is running out of pages. Things start "falling into place" like Newton's apples at various points: A cellphone, some video footage, and bits of information from shady power-brokers reminiscent of James Bond villains, all build up to a plotline pile-up of an ending where the whole novel is supposed to – finally! – make sense ... but falls short of that.

Bottom's not even a protagonist in the true sense of the word. He feels more like a pawn in a very cluttered, ruined chessboard with mostly broken pieces.

It's hard to connect or relate to characters, whom I feel are less important than the world they're set in. The "eerily possible" scenario feels authentic, but the characters don't seem to belong there.

At first blush, and from the inclusion of a reading group guide, it looks as though Simmons is trying to do more than just entertain with this novel, despite his claim that, "hell, no!", Flashback does not state his political views. Why he wrote this book is explained in the guide, more or less, which leaves little room for a reviewer to come to his own conclusions.

But let me try.

Simmons' dystopia is America's nightmare, writ large. He's taken the fears of his fellow Americans, ramped it up to 25, and weaved it into what looks like a dystopian sci-fi thriller with a message: Stop dwelling in the past, face the pain of the present, and move on towards what could be a better future. And there's a lot of pain in the United States right now.

"You can't have life without pain," Simmons writes. "You can't have a future without pain. Being alive means having the strength to face pain and loss and to find something real through it and beyond it."

Great message, albeit one that's about 500 pages too long.

---

Flashback

Dan Simmons
Reagan Arthur (2011)
553 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-316-10198-1

Wildlife Trap

Descending from a shopping mall escalator days ago, I spied an Indian girl with a pen and a board covered in signatures. Seeing me, she called out, "先生, 簽名." One of several promoters for the World Wildlife Fund.

I should've listened to my gut, but I was curious - and she was rather pretty.

As I neared, her superior took over. "Hello sir, do you know who we are bla bla bla this is what we do yadda yadda our programmes bla bla bla deforestation, trees being cut down everywhere this that this that do you know how many tigers we have left?"

Err... 200?

"There are five hundred left," she went, pointing to the figures in red on the pamphlet I was not allowed to take - probably because I haven't ponied up any F for the WW.

"Only 500, because they're being caught just for their fur Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet this is how you can help if you give consectetur adipisicing elit one ringgit a day sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt over 12 ringgit a year ut labore et dolore magna aliqua tax deductible keep the receipt you don't have to do anything Ut enim ad minim veniam fill in these forms what's your name Visa? Mastercard? Amex? Not Amex? Then you definitely must have one of the other two..."

In my fevered panic, I could only catch a few words; everything else sounded garbled. Without laying a hand on me, this wildlife conservation official pinned me down like a butterfly. Maybe she learnt that from tigers.

"...oh not yet what's your concern sir quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris why don't you visit our web site it's right here-" on the pamphlet I was not allowed to take "-have a look and if you're convinced we'll be here until tonight nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequa no problem sir have a nice day."

Sweet, sweet, freedom. I think I got off easy.

WWF certainly got their work cut out for them. Especially with the existence of characters like "a certain Mr Chan", a shark fin seller in Hong Kong, who makes his case for the massacre of sharks, thus: "It's not cruel at all killing sharks. There are so many sharks out there and if you don't kill them, they will kill you."

The web site for World Wildlife Fund (Malaysia) has a main donation page but, at the time of posting, the "Save the Tigers", "Save the Turtles" and "Climate Change" links were bad. Maybe the web site needs a donation campaign, too.

Do not get sucked in by signature collectors. Ever.

News: Matters of Style, A-Words, and Various Stuff

Stylo Coelho
Paulo Coelho says James Joyce's "Ulysses" is all style, no substance. Sure enough, the responses came. One even suggests that Coelho's work is no less... showy? Others wonder why he's doing this. Coelho's sticking to his guns, but denies attacking Joyce.


Jerk jock worship?
Ascent of the A-Word by Geoffrey Nunberg explores the apparent idolatry of assholes like Trump, Jobs and Zuckerberg. Just when this blogger/writer has had enough of snark in book reviews.

Speaking of which...


Books, reviewed - kinda
"The David Barton Lies"? A controversial book on Thomas Jefferson by the equally controversial demagogue was reportedly dropped by publisher for factual errors, spurred by the criticisms of the views presented in this book by some Christian scholars. As if something with a "foreword by Glenn Beck" has any shred of credibility.

For Keith Ridgway, author of Hawthorn & Child (2012), everything in life is fiction - but he seems to have no clue how to write it. Maybe that's why Scott Pack thinks Ridgway's latest says is "not a novel" but a "bloody frustrating", "mildly disappointing" book. These days, that's good PR.


Other news

• The publishing industry is burning bright, thanks to Fifty Shades. Like Nero's Rome, maybe?
• Follow the travails of a literary debutante - if you really must.
• John Steinbeck's son slams Texas's use of dad's fictional character to justify execution.
• New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus takes us into his world.
• Six things to do to get a short story collection published - if anyone out there is still writing short story collections.
• This guy wrote a sequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island?
• E-books may be cheaper to make, but still need effort to sell.
• Will Self: "I don't write for readers." An interview with Will Self.
• Cyndi Lauper lands a book deal with Simon & Schuster, where she used to work at. Talk about "true colours".

Mrs Moorhouse's Longest Day

No idea why the paper thought this would make a better headline, but ... oh well.

Good book. Read it.

---

Make room on the shelf

This is a surprising debut that you’d do well to welcome into your home

first published in The Star, 10 August 2012


Like the TV series 24, which stretches a single day over 24 episodes, much of Anne Korkeakivi’s more-than-200-page novel about a diplomat’s wife with a troubled past chronicles the events of one day. It’s hard to count exactly how many days pass in it, though, with all the flashbacks spliced in between the main narrative.

In An Unexpected Guest, Clare, the Irish-American spouse of Edward Moorhouse, the British Minister in Paris, is making preparations for dinner at their Residence, and she needs to help her husband make a good impression. So she taps her skills as hostess, mediator and procurer of fine ingredients to make the occasion great.

Earlier, she had discovered that Edward may be posted to Dublin next as an ambassador, a place that holds memories for her from 20 years ago – memories she’d rather forget.

Things get worse for her once she starts seeing a face in the crowd as she goes about her errands: Niall, an intense Irish lad who had got under her skin, mixed with a very wrong crowd and ended up dead ... but did he really die?

Struggling to hide her inner turmoil as her worst fears are confirmed, Clare also has to keep the peace between mercurial half-Swiss, half-Scottish chef Mathilde and the local help at the Residence, whom Clare is depending upon to make the dinner a hit. There’s also her son James, who has snuck over to Paris from boarding school in England. Later, Clare learns that a Turkish man she had earlier helped with directions has been arrested as a suspected political assassin.

In this novel, Paris is tense following trouble that ensued when French lawmakers discuss a bill that would criminalise denials of the Armenian massacres (1915-1917) that took place in Ottoman-ruled Turkey. In real life, this happened around 2006. This pegs the novel’s timeline within the post-9/11 era, which has seen incidents the likes of the infamous 7/7 attacks in London and the recent Hat Yai incidents in Thailand. Which is why, a), Clare feels exceptionally haunted by her time in Ireland and fears for the safety of her son; and b), why readers will probably be able to empathise with her.

Steeped as it is in today’s tumultuous and sometimes violent political and ideological realities, the novel doesn’t preach peace or side with anyone, but instead uses the setting to bring into prominence the concerns of a mother who works in the diplomatic service. If it sounds real, it’s probably because Korkeakivi is also a mother and her own husband is with the United Nations.

Oh, no, not another 200-page-long diary entry disguised as a novel, you say? But Korkeakivi manages to pull it off, keeping things exciting enough so that we don’t get too bored. The story is well-crafted, and many little details that seem irrelevant, such as Clare’s poor grasp of numbers, become significant later. Several other loose ends are tied up as well, including the connection between young James’s problem and his mother’s own youth.

One little issue I had with the novel was the apparent rush to establish ties between Niall and Clare when they first met. It was hard to believe that the brusque, thick-skinned Niall could charm the caution out of a younger Clare with his rough manner and bonny blue eyes.

Given Korkeakivi’s impressive writing chops in fiction and non-fiction (she’s been published in such eminent publications as The Atlantic magazine, The Yale Review, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal), such a wonderful debut novel shouldn’t be a surprise. But what a surprise it is. Her “unexpected guest” should be made welcome on bookshelves everywhere.

---

An Unexpected Guest

Anne Korkeakivi
Little, Brown and Company (2012)
277 pages
Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-316-21266-3

News: Courts, Copycats and Come-Lately Jennys

Books in the dock
The High Court rejected Borders's application to stop further action by Jawi over the raid and book seizure at its premises at The Gardens, Mid Valley City. The Appeals Court, however, granted Borders that order. The case will be heard in the Syariah High Court on 19 September. More on the case can be read here.

Elsewhere: Suaram's chief lost the appeal over the banning of a book on the 2001 Kampung Medan riot. And the arrest of political cartoonist Zunar was ruled lawful, but not the seizure of his books. Nope, not sure how this works, either.


Copycat controversy
Alleged self-plagiarist Jonah Lehrer quit The New Yorker for Imagine-ing Bob Dylan quotes. Disgraced New York Times journo Jayson Blair wonders why Lehrer didn't learn from his (Blair's) mistakes. Owie.

Lehrer now joins a list of people who made things up or passed off the work of others as their own. But it seems they left out QR Markham on this list.

On a related note: While plugging his own book, a veteran journalist asks whether the increasing vigilance over journalistic fraud is improving journalism in general.

Meanwhile, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is offering refunds (probably just for the US) for those who bought Lehrer's Imagine: How Creativity Works because, well, I guess copying is not how creativity works. Not sure if it'll be worth it - better to keep the book.


Shady spin-offs
After Fifty Shades, another series about a steamy professor-student relationship rises from the depths of Twilight fanficdom. They'll be doing all kinds of fetishes before the current wave starts losing steam. Can I call the next one - train passenger and groper?

Also coming: an erotica series (ho hum) coming from author of a teen werewolf YA series. Team Jacob finally gets something. Elsewhere, someone asks whether EL James's commercialisation of her fanfic is a betrayal of the Twilight fanficdom.


Earthsea revival
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Simon & Schuster are to reissue the six-book Earthsea series. The joint project where HMH contributed to the editorial process appears to signal better things for the publisher, who has to deal with imminent bankruptcy and the more recent Lehrergate.


Other news

• Flipping the bird at literature: the strange story of Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
• Why readers pirate e-books. Take note, everybody.
• Writer who met his wife at Borders wonders if bookstores will still exist when his kid is old enough to enjoy them.
• "You hear all this whining going on, 'Where are our great writers?' The thing I might feel doleful about is: 'Where are the readers?'" RIP Gore Vidal.
• "I screwed a lot of girls here." That and other untweetables from the graffiti of ancient Pompeii suggests that there was no moral decline in US or, for that matter, the world.
• "Why is my work so upsetting for people?" An interview with former Booker winner James Kelman.
• On Amazon, e-books selling more than print. Will print-buying diehards be discriminated into picking up e-readers?
• A freelance journo shares some money tips.
• New Zealand's publishing sector is banking on gains from the Frankfurt Book Fair.
• Mark Billingham says pint-sized book prices devalues books, harms (self-)publishing industry.
• Are these the ten most difficult books of all time?
• Dr Sleep, sequel to The Shining, coming around January 2013?
• James Gleick, author of The Information, struggles with that "impish god" called Autocorrect.
• The history of "Zzz...". When did we start associating sleep with sawing logs?
• Is social media blunting honest (and edgy) literary criticism?
• Blurbing books with hip-hop lyrics. They picked 50 Cent's for Fifty Shades.
• No desert rose: How to avoid writing flowery profiles of dictators' wives.

Darkened By Fifty Shades

"Romantic, liberating and totally addictive, this is a novel that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever," goes the back copy.

Yes, it will. In a very, very bad way.

A chilling wail wakes him. Christ! He's drenched in sweat and his heart is pounding. What the f—? He sits bolt upright in bed and puts his head in his hands. F—. They're back. The noise was me. He takes a deep steadying breath, trying to rid his mind and nostrils of the smell of cheap bourbon and stale Camel cigarettes.

The quality of writing notwithstanding: Why is his solo scene written in her voice? Does she have eyes in his room or what? And how does she know what he is having nightmares of?

This is buying her a house (in Malaysia) every week or so?

This has outsold the (relatively better-written) Harry Potter series?

The author reportedly said she was embarrassed by the books' success, and admitted that she's not a good writer.

And so a pattern develops: wake, work, cry, sleep. Well, try to sleep. I can't even escape him in my dreams. Gray burning eyes, his lost look, his hair burnished and bright all haunt me. And the music ... so much music—I cannot bear to hear any music. I am careful to avoid it at all costs. Even the jingles in commercials make me shudder.

...I have become my own island state. A ravaged, war-torn land where nothing grows and the horizons are bleak. Yes, that's me. I can interact impersonally at work, but that's it. If I talk to Mom, I know I will break even further—and I have nothing left to break.

...Holy shit. An e-mail from Christian. Oh no, not here ... not at work.

Sugar-coating much?

Still, not too shabby for what was once Twilight fan fiction. Spun off what I consider a catalyst for the deluge of young adult novels and manuscripts of a similar theme in bookstores and editors' in-trays.

I clutch my forehead. Why hasn't Jose phoned? Come to think of it—why hasn't anyone phoned? I've been so absentminded I haven't noticed that my cell phone has been silent.

Shit! I am such an idiot! I still have it set to forward calls to the BlackBerry. Holy hell. Christian's been getting my calls—unless he's just thrown the BlackBerry away. How did he get my e-mail address?

He knows my shoe size; an e-mail address is hardly going to present him with many problems.

I clutched my forehead as I skimmed through the pages of the second book in the trilogy, feeling sad at one point for the people who claimed their sex lives were rejuvenated by the books than I do for the industry, which is scrambling for the next Fifty Shades.

Resorting to retooled fan fiction to reignite the fire in your relationships? How lazy. As if vampires don't need to work on their relationships. Writing and perfecting fiction takes work, too.

Torturous memories flash through my mind—the gliding, holding hands, kissing, the bathtub, his gentleness, his humor, and his dark, brooding, sexy stare. I miss him. It's been five days, five days of agony that has felt like an eternity. I cry myself to sleep at night, wishing I hadn't walked out, wishing that he could be different, wishing that we were together. How long will this hideous overwhelming feeling last? I am in purgatory.

Now, I don't mind that Ms Erika Leonard and her publishers' managed to make bargeloads of cash with this. They have every right to it. I dread the deceptive ease at how this success was accomplished.

Not to disparage fan fiction, the readership or the Jenny-come-latelys hopping onto the bandwagon but ... couldn't they have picked something less cringeworthy to herald this new trend in publishing?

Along with the grey clouds of doom had been gathering over the publishing sector, the tsunami she unleashed darkened my profession by another fifty shades.

Do editors really know what's good anymore? Do editors really know what sells and what doesn't? Do editors really know readers and what they want?

Have the standards with which editors measure the quality of a manuscript gone the way of year-old milk?

Had this reached my desk, it would not have passed muster - as evidenced by the passages above, pulled from only the first one or two chapters. And it doesn't get any better from there.

Christian smiles a wicked grin as he leans over the table and makes short work of the two remaining solids. I am practically panting, watching him, his lithe body stretching over the table. He stands and chalks his cue, his eyes burning into me.

"If I win..."

Oh yes?

"I am going to spank you, then f— you over this billiard table."

Holy shit. Every single muscle south of my navel clenches hard.

"Top right," he murmurs, pointing to the black, and bends to take the shot.

...Putting down his cue, he saunters casually toward me, all tousled hair, jeans, and white T-shirt. He doesn't look like a CEO—he looks like a bad boy from the wrong side of town. Holy cow, he's so f—ing sexy.

My desk? Reject bin. Straight away.

But I don't think I can do that now. Not anymore. Even if it sounds like the right thing to do.

Wayward Boey Comes Home (For a Short While)

first published in The Malaysian Insider, 02 August 2012

Months ago, a "local cartoonist" pitched his book of illustrated childhood stories in an e-mail. Of the samples he'd attached, the one about his grandma's sundry shop and the toys sold there stood out.

Long before the Internet and the smartphone, my childhood highlights included the sundry shop and the toys. The image made me sorry for all the times I pestered my dad for those cheap trinkets.

Though others have compared him to Lat, I'm loathe to draw any comparisons to the venerable cartoonist. However, I don't mind somebody coming close to knocking Dr M off the best-seller lists.

Since its debut in May this year, When I Was A Kid by Boey Cheeming has done well at local bookstores. The Singapore-born Johore artist turned out to be one of those Malaysian talents hidden overseas.

Boey enrolled at the Academy of Art University (AAU) in San Francisco where he took up Advertising but switched to Computer Animation. He eventually landed a job in Blizzard Entertainment, maker of such sleep-robbing and marriage-straining diversions as World of Warcraft, Diablo II, and Diablo III.


The art of cupping
Abroad, Boey's also more known for the more complicated designs on his hand-drawn styrofoam cups. He inks each cup straightaway; if he makes a mistake, he has to start over with a new one. Each design could take him a few hours to a few months to complete, depending on the complexity and the number of tries.

Boey Cheeming, photo by Matt Mitchell

Cups with more complicated designs can cost as much as four figures, but Boey feels they're worth it, considering the time and effort he spends on them. "These are originals; some artist sell prints for hundreds."

And forget about drafting the designs with pencils. "You can't use pencils on foam cups," says Boey. "The soft leads, 6Bs and up will make the surface "waterproof", making it hard for the [Sharpie's ink] to stick. And [soft leads] smudge easy when you try to erase. Erasing also charges up the foam cups (with static), which attracts lint easy, and when lint gets caught on the Sharpies, I have a whole new set of issues. Bleeding is one (the ink, that is). Leads like 2Bs are too hard, and will dig into the cups."

Nevertheless, he seems okay with what he calls his "first-stroke-is-your-last-stroke approach". "It makes things far more challenging," he explains, "and it makes you think and work on composing things in your head. That challenge is somewhat addictive and I think that is one of the draws of the cups that people don't see initially, but are surprised by later on."

He has begun venturing into paper cups, on which he can pencil, but it takes almost just as long to sketch a design. "The good thing with pencils though, is that it is forgiving, but that's about the only pro I know."


Drawing a bright future
Besides promoting his book, Boey's back in town to help promote art in Malaysia. He once wrote to Dr M - who has yet to reply - about promoting an "important", yet "underrated" subject which he believes drives the development of technology. "Everything in Star Wars has become a reality," he wrote, quoting his lecturer, "the lightsabers, lasers ... holograms..."

"I Am The One Who Knocks" by Boey Cheeming

From the stream of creative and technological output from Japan, one is convinced of this view. In fact, Boey also looks east in this regard, like Dr M; Boey's influences include the Japanese artist, ukiyo-e painter and printmaker Hokusai Katsushika (1760–1849).

Will Malaysia be a creative and technological powerhouse like Japan? Some may be sceptical, especially during these trying times, But Boey remain optimistic. "We have completely capable, intelligent individuals in our country," he says, "but we need a vision, and artists [can] provide it."

He speaks a bit more about his art, book and upcoming book tour below, and lets us in on his plans for the immediate future.

Your art was once described as "smacking mundane in the face" (which would make a great title). Is that part of what you set out to do? Even your incredibly simple journal entries, some of which convey lots with so little detail, appear to subscribe to this. Is that also one reason why you decided to make a book out of your childhood stories? Because you felt that something in them would click with readers?
The journal really started off because I went through a breakup after 8.5 years. She said things about me that were harsh, but held truth, and I wanted to document my day to day, so that when I look back many years from now, I would perhaps see if I changed for the better.

I didn't want a wordy blog. I wanted something that was easy to read and had a picture to accompany it. I thought that combo was necessary, because there are things I cannot express with pictures, and feelings I cannot express with words. I also wanted something that, whether read or not, won't change a thing (hence my handle "boyobsolete").

So the blog started off with a humble group of readers, about 20 per day. That number grew to a couple of hundred when my art on styrofoam cups went viral. Readers started to tell me that they were living vicariously through my mundane day to day.

It was insane to think that people cared about some stranger's life. I guess that's why there are so many crappy reality shows still around. So I thought, well if they like this stuff, they will most likely like stories about my childhood.

I notice that you don't Photoshop away the errors in some of your journal entries. How much of this is in line with your principle of "try to get it right the first time" that you also apply to your art?
I leave the cross-outs in, because it made it feel much more personal. I also didn't want to draw frames around each panel, because that would make it a comic, and a lot less "real". It's my journal. I cross things out. It can be messy. I don't want frames because I like to think outside boxes.

Wouldn't it be easier to create a template or a draft using pencil before inking each entry?
It won't be. If it was, I would've done it. I'm not lazy though, don't get me wrong. But there are things I just want done, ASAP. And all this drafting, inking stuff, that takes up way too much time and planning.

"...this book would be an insight to growing up in Asia, a reminder of their own childhood and their relationship with the people and the pets they grew up with." Well, "growing up in Asia" thirty-something years ago is different from what it is today, isn't it? What do you think that meant back then? What about now? How much have things changed?
I can't really compare it to how it's like growing up now, because I guess I'm no longer eight. But from my observation, kids don't run around, chase, play outdoors as much nowadays. I know this because the playground near where I live is now dilapidated, and overgrown with weed. The swings are unkept and rusty.

The last time I saw any kid around that area was maybe eight years ago. It makes me sad. That was where I hung out, and waited on my BMX for my neighbours Dennis and Henry to come out to play. We played there so much it was OUR territory. I didn't have a cellphone till I was 28, and when I was a kid, I had to use coins in a public phone to call my mom, if I wanted to meet her somewhere after school.

"Katsuro" by Boey Cheeming

When I Was a Kid began as a Kickstarter project. How did you go about getting it printed and distributed here in Malaysia?
I did it all myself. I went shopping for distributors forever, but no one gave me a shot. So I said, "Screw it, I'll print this myself." That's when I used Kickstarter.

But even when I was done putting the book together, and I took it around to publishers, they liked it, but not enough to want to publish it. They suggested I do the printing, and they will distribute. Meanwhile, I was also writing to all the book reviewers in Malaysia, and at the same time, I wrote a similar letter to MPH as well. I still had to be the publisher then, and MPH said they would distribute. The reason I went with MPH is because I knew about the reach. I grew up seeing them all over Singapore and Malaysia.

On my end, I knew I had something good (in the time of writing, less so after four years), because I went around Singapore and Malaysia, and I read a lot of local comics out there, and nothing really struck me as, "this is going to be hard to beat".

But what I feared was my choice of language in it. Having worked and lived in US for so long, I've adapted myself to the humour there and the freedom of speech attitude. I chose not to censor myself too much though, because I think I wanted it to be honest. Really really honest.

From your journal, I take it that your family is cool about the book, even though your mom didn't like you "talking rubbish" about her. Now that it's a best-seller, how do they feel?
My mom never meant it in a bad way. Throughout the entire book writing, I kept her in the loop of what's going in. She loved it. She would call me all the time, and it would be 15 seconds of just giggling on the phone, before even saying hello.

When can we expect a second volume of When I Was a Kid? Are there any plans to turn your journals into a book?
I've been working on Book Two, and I have been better at it, now that I've got experience from working on Book One. It should be less painful a process. If Book One was plate of excellent nasi lemak, Book 2 is straight-up sex. But, of course, that's completely subjective.

Journal-wise, it's been a plan to turn them into books since four years ago. I just never got around to it. I've been busy handling everything myself so far: the daily blogs, the cups, the book, setting up gallery shows and marketing my art, all while I was working a full-time job as a lead animator at Blizzard.

I think I read somewhere that you quit your day job (as an animator) to focus on your art and book. Isn't that kind of risky? Do you have a backup plan?
I don't. When you think about it, the only thing [risk] does is hold you back. With everything, there is a risk. You can get coffee on your way to work, spill it on your lap while driving and get into a tragic car accident.

It can be argued that people like simpler things, these days: short blog entries and articles, etc. You said you don't like reading long blog entries - kind of ironic, given the time you typically spend on a single cup art.
I see the cup and the blog as two different things. The cups, until now, are what brings me traffic and money. The blog is free. With the blog, I focus on storytelling, and I want to get the message across as efficiently as I can. The cups showcase my actual drawing ability. Plus, reading bores me. ...That's not to say I don't read. I love reading stuff, like National Geographic; just not stories, like Twilight.

Do you think this attention deficit affects artists/writers, especially those who prefer to craft detailed pieces? Do audiences have to know about what goes on behind the scenes at an artist's studio to better appreciate the final results?
Yes, with the cups especially. People look at the cups and think two things: "It's disposable, why do I want it?" and "It's how much again?"

Given the time I spend on [each cup], some up to three months because there is no initial sketching involved and what you see is the first and final stroke, US$1,400 for a cup suddenly seems too little, if you put yourself in my shoes.

I shoot videos to help people understand that when something seems easy, most of the time, it isn't. I've seen circus acts where people fly through the air, spin, and land on an elephant that's tip-toeing over molten lava, without breaking a sweat. Seems easy too. But there's a reason they say, "Please don't try this at home."

Any idea what we can expect from your book tour?
There will be talks about how I got to where I am, and the importance of following your dreams. I followed mine, knowing that there would be a chance I won't make much. But when you're passionate about something, you will work on it, and it will never seem like a chore. And when you are passionate about it, you will be good at it, and someone will take notice.

Will there be workshops, demos, motivational speeches, etc?
Yep, yep and yep.

What's the story behind the horse head? Will it be making a show here?
For my 34th birthday, I wanted something that I always wanted, but is completely useless.

Since I was born in the Year of the Horse, I thought, "why not?" Also, when I was a kid, I played a lot of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, and my character's name was also "Pegasus".

"Pegasus" should be a big hit at the Popular Bookfest (18-26 August 2012). I hear it is very noisy there, so I plan to get attention visually.

What's next after your tour, besides the book(s) you'll be working on?
I have a secret project I am working on that requires me to go back to the US. I'm designing a bicycle, and it will be super badass. I am looking for investors and partners now. If the bike project doesn't take off, I WILL have the coolest bicycle, in California.


Meet Boey Cheeming at the following venues: MPH, 1 Utama Shopping Centre (Saturday 11 August, 2.00 - 3.00pm); Popular BookFest, KL Convention Centre (Saturday 18 August, 6.00 - 6.45pm and Tuesday 21 August, 5.00 - 5.45pm); Kinokuniya, KLCC (Sunday 26 August, 3.00 - 4.00pm); Borders, The Curve (Saturday 08 September, 3.00 - 4.00pm); Popular, IPC Shopping Centre (Sunday 09 September, 2.00 - 3.00pm); and MPH, Johor Bahru City Square (Saturday 15 September, 3.00 - 4.00pm).

Information on his book can be found here and here.

News: Bosses, Comrades, Outliers And A Boey

Boey Cheeming, author of the best-selling When I Was A Kid, will be appearing at the following Malaysian venues on his book tour.

He might also be in Singapore for the Singapore Toy, Game and Comic Convention on 01 – 02 September, though I can’t confirm that.

When I Was A Kid, more or less, charts Boey’s childhood, growing up in Malaysia, with simple yet (often) funny sketches and handwritten notes. Readers of his generation, including myself, can easily relate to some of the things that happened to him way back when.

Will update the schedule if necessary.


In other news:

• Crowdfunded publishing in the Netherlands, where one out of 16 reportedly writes as a hobby.
• Why it's better to improve your writing before getting published.
• Malcolm Gladwell, author of Blink, responds to assertions that his book caused in the recession.
• Why the hate - and fear - of Amazon? E-mails by bookstore owners, authors, etc convey angst over threat to a way of life.
• Bruce Springsteen, profiled. Read why he's The Boss.
• The immortal lives of polymaths Isaiah Berlin and Hugh Trevor-Roper.
• "Semi-colons; so tricky." More of an ode than a guide to the punctuation mark.
• Authors in the UK are entitled to royalties for books borrowed from libraries, but not from 'volunteer-run' ones.
• Chinese dictionary refuses to (also) define "comrades" (同志) as "gay".

Me, Eventually

I rarely say anything of a personal nature on this platform because it's meant mostly about books. But...

I know I'm blogging less frequently now, as in, non-listicle-type fillers. I know. I read lots in the day job, so it's the last thing I'd want to do after leaving the office. But I have other book-related commitments, some of which may be of use to the company.

I recently turned 37. When? That I don't plan on sharing. On some days I feel older than 37, though.

Then there's also this:

Attempt #2 at baked salmon, sans salt, plus some
very oven-killed French beans

Attempt #3 at baked salmon, prepared conventionally with
dried herbs. Think I'll do it this way from now on.

I've been going to the gym two or three times a week for several months. After complaining about aches and pains, I'd been advised to take a protein supplement by Nitro-Tech. But for the meantime, I've turned to other sources: soy milk, yoghurt-based smoothies and fish, which I've begun cooking on occasion.

Several experiments with the oven yielded mixed results. After several attempts, grilling fish without salt doesn't sound like a good idea. But I've been a sucker for salmon for a very long time. There's a certain satisfaction with cooking your own stuff.

Of course, there'll be some less healthier experiments in between

Next on the list is a basic electric rice cooker, with which I intend to experiment with various one-pot wonders (dear l*rd, the man can write). Eventually. So, can I write about food now, M?

Pile the occasional kitchen experiment on top of my chores and after-work time-wasting stuff, I barely have time for things I used to do. Books. Long-winded pieces. Hanging out at watering holes.

But I'll find the time to do all that - and more.

Eventually.