Unconditional Love: part 2

When my parents visited me in London in 2012, it was their very first trip abroad. They stayed with me; I gave them my bed while I slept on the floor on an inflatable mattress.

At the time, I was renting a house with three other friends. None of us liked the house, so our plan was to find a new place and move as soon as our 6-month lease was over.

The house had four bedrooms, and we split the rent unequally based on size and other factors. I paid the least because I picked the smallest bedroom (featured before on this blog). It also had a lumpy mattress and no attached bathroom. It had nice light though, which counts for a lot.

I was working at a law firm, and could easily have afforded one of the "better" rooms. But I reasoned that since I didn't like the house anyway and planned to move as soon as possible, I may as well save some money.

I was recently going through my stuff and found a letter from my mum, which she left on the last day of their stay.

It says:

Bugai, [my nickname]

We tidied your room as far as possible. We cleaned the microwave oven too. Your phone SIM is under the white cup on your table.

When you shift, please don't choose the most inconvenient room. We want you to have a good life for yourself. It was no problem at all for us, but at the end of a long day, you should sleep in a nice room, on a nice bed. Next time we'll come for a longer holiday.

—Mum

Blog notes:

• Here, in case you missed it, is Unconditional Love: part 1.)
• In 2023 I wrote more posts than any year since 2015. I think 24 posts a year (two per month) is a good number to aim for. Let's see if I can keep it up.

The Mirik Cormorant

When we were in Darjeeling, my friend and I went on a day trip to the nearby hill-town of Mirik to visit another friend, Gaurav. As we walked around Mirik lake, Gaurav pointed out a solitary cormorant.

These birds typically spend the summer months in Mirik, migrating to the plains in winter. Four summers ago, it seems that this particular bird got injured. Gaurav said he can still fly, but not for long distances. Unable to join his fellows in the winter migration, he stayed on at the lake.

Local people tried to catch him, hoping to nurse him back to health. But each time someone got close, he would dive into the lake and evade capture. After a while, they gave up trying.

The cormorant has now spent four years in Mirik, catching fish (of which there are plenty) and apparently not too bothered by the winter temperatures. Once a year, his friends fly back to the lake and he hangs out with them. Then they fly off again, and the Mirik cormorant is on his own.

Perhaps he likes it this way.

Three Species of Annoying Song

There are songs which I almost love, which makes them more frustrating than songs which I don't like at all. I have identified three such categories.

1. Songs which have a small part which I really like, but I don't like the rest of the song.

Example: Dissect the Bird by John Craigie. I love the chorus – "Oh, you're doing it wrong / Dissecting the bird, trying to find the song" – but that's about it.

2. Songs which would be perfect at 3-5 minutes, but stretch out for longer and overstay their welcome.

Example: Taylor Swift's All Too Well (10-minute version). She has recorded shorter versions of the song too, but they don't have my favourite verse ("And you were tossing me the car keys / Fuck the patriarchy key chain on the ground / We were always skipping town / And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now / He's gonna say it's love").

3. Songs where I like the writing and composition, but not so much the rendition.

Example: If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Luckily my friend recorded a really nice version accompanying herself on piano, so I can listen to that instead of the original.

A bonus fourth species – though this is more of an annoying artist (as opposed to annoying song) situation. My friend Rajasi, who is an excellent amateur singer, recorded a version of Aashiyan. Approximately once a quarter, I try to coax, cajole or emotionally blackmail her into recording more songs, but no luck so far. "It's a lot of work" is her usual excuse, or sometimes she just deflects me with "haha".

Caterpillar Rescue on the DHR

Fourteen years ago, I travelled by train from Siliguri (120 metres above sea level) to Darjeeling (2,045 m) – a seven-hour journey on the magnificent Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Last week, I took the DHR from Darjeeling down to Siliguri. (A separate trip. Don't worry, I haven't been stuck in Darjeeling all this while.)

The train, as you can see from this photo, passes alarmingly close to houses and shops.

Much of the route is forested, and the train also passes alarmingly close to trees, frequently brushing against leaves and branches.

One such branch had five caterpillars who were scooped onto the windowpane. We were worried that they would fall onto the road and get crushed by vehicles, so when the train stopped midway as it sometimes does, we decided to try and rescue them.

My friend picked them up with a boarding pass. I got off the train and ferried the caterpillars, one by one, to the trees on the other side of the road that runs alongside the tracks.

Another rescue-related anecdote, while we're at it. One of our university colleagues in Singapore is part of a food rescue initiative. Except sometimes, the food rescue team can't distribute all the food in time, so they request me and my friend T to help finish or distribute the food before it spoils.

T and I call ourselves: Team Food Rescue Rescue 😎

Unconditional Love

When I was growing up, it was kind of drilled into me that I shouldn't disturb grown-ups when they are doing something important. In particular, my dad didn't like being disturbed when he was in the middle of something. Now that I'm a grown-up myself, I try to be more flexible. But my grandma is on a different level. 

A couple of years ago, she was knitting in our living-room. I walked in, saying something to her – something quite inconsequential – without realising that she was in the middle of counting stitches. I would have at least finished counting the row before replying, but she immediately looked up from her knitting and replied to me. When our brief conversation was over, she calmly started to count again from the beginning.

This is the level of zen that I aspire to.

* * *

A recent phone conversation with my grandma, about my next visit to India:

Grandma:	বাড়ি কবে আসছো? (When are you coming home?)
me:	৬ তারিখ! (6th December!)
Grandma:	হ্যাঁ, তোমার মা বলছিল... (Yes, your mum was telling me...)
me:	তাহলে আবার আমাকে জিজ্ঞেস করছো কেন? নিজের মেয়েকে বিশ্বাস করো না? (Then why are you asking me? You don't believe your own daughter?)

I sometimes tease her like this, and she laughs or teases back. But this time she gave a straight reply, which hit me in the feels.

Grandma:

হ্যাঁ, বিশ্বাস করি। কিন্তু আবার শুনতে ভালো লাগে। (Yes, I believe her. But it's nice to hear it again.)

The Cooling

Three "quotes" about cold from three different works of art (three different art forms, in fact).

* * *

From One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

The signal for the roll call was barely audible through the double-paned, frost-blurred windows. Shukhov heaved a sigh and stood up. He still had that feverish chill but evidently he wouldn't be able to skip work.

Vdovushkin reached for the thermometer and read it.

"H'm, neither one thing nor the other. Ninety-nine point two. If it had been a hundred it would have been clear to anyone. I can't exempt you. Stay behind at your own risk, if you like. The doctor will examine you. If he considers you're ill, he'll exempt you. If he finds you fit, he won't. Then you'll be locked up. You'd better go back to work."

Shukhov said nothing. He didn't even nod. Pulling his hat over his eyes, he walked out.

How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?

I read this book when I was in college, and that last line was one of several that I copied into my notebook. For this post, I was going to quote just that one line, before I realised that without context, it was liable to be misunderstood; 'warm' and 'cold' could also mean warm-hearted and cold-hearted. But here, of course, the 'warm' person is the less sensitive – Vdovushkin in his comfortable office – while Shukhov labours outdoors in the Siberian winter.

* * *

Ice Blocks on the Wazee Lake, a photography by Alessandra Sanguinetti from her Some Say Ice series.

* * *

From The Cooling, a weird and wonderful song by Reina del Cid:

It's the cooling that scares you the most.

Late Night Conversations

If You Are Bored, Draw

Since smartphones became a thing, boredom – in the sense of not having anything to do, as on a long drive or while waiting at the doctor's office – is relatively uncommon. Nevertheless, I sometimes find myself mindlessly scrolling – and that is a kind of boredom too, even if the brain is ostensibly stimulated.

This usually happens when I have free time, but not enough energy for more demanding tasks – chores such as cleaning my flat, or otherwise fun but relatively effortful activities like cooking a new dish or writing photography articles. So what to do at such times, other than mindlessly scrolling?

My friend's daughter Colette (age 7) made the following list for her own reference.

A truly excellent list.

When I'm already lacking motivation, coming up with new things to do is harder than, say, reaching for the phone. So I figure I should have such a list too, for ready reference.

Now what should my list contain? My brother is in a different country, and I'm too old to play erasers. But there are other things which I am generally up for, even when I'm not feeling very motivated or energetic, and which – unlike mindless scrolling – not only stave off boredom but actually make me feel better. "Draw" and "read book", for sure. What else? Take a shower, go for a walk, call my parents, do some Duolingo lessons, or stretching exercises and pushups. But my list is not as cool as Colette's.

Anyway, I've been trying to draw more regularly. It's something I always liked to do, but of late, drawing – and other hobbies for that matter – have yielded too much ground to photography. This is something I am trying to redress.

Here's a pen-and-ink drawing of a horseshoe crab, which we saw on a walk in the intertidal zone (that part of the coast which is underwater at high tide but exposed at low tide).

I always liked nature drawing, but I'm trying to expand into architecture. The sketch below is from my bedroom window.

I later tried panting it in watercolours, but the result was so bad I tore off the page and threw it away.

This is something I rarely do; even when I produce a drawing that I'm unhappy with, I tend to keep it as a record. But with this particular drawing, I reflected calmly for a few minutes, and decided I never want to see it again.

Luckily I took photos of the sketch. Maybe someday I'll attempt it again.

Another Dangerous Sheep

After seeing my post about dangerous sheep, Tommy recalled that his friend Kira "used to dress Fred the photogenic dog up as a sheep for Halloween and have him outside the house behind a sign like that."

Naturally I asked if there are photos, and much to my delight, there are.

Photos courtesy of Kira Od; many thanks for letting me share!

Protip: Spotify

Hitherto I had two posts with "Protip" in the title, but three is enough to call it a series (series are listed in my sidebar, right at the end).

As you may know if you're into internet lore, the term "protip" originates from the (sometimes laughably obvious) gameplay suggestions found in 1990s videogame magazines, and the parodies that they spawned ("PROTIP: To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies.")

So yeah, take my protips with a pinch of salt. KnowYourMeme says the term is often used "to preface snarky, obvious, counterintuitive, or sometimes genuine advice for the novice", and I think that's as good a summary as any, of what I'm going for.

But this particular protip, for what it's worth, falls in the "genuine advice" category.

* * *

...or at least, it does if you're a Spotify user. If you're not, feel free to skip to the following sections which have general musings about music. Specifically, the tip is about Discover Weekly – Spotify's weekly mixtape, based on individual listening habits and tastes, which updates every Monday.

The algorimth, of course, is not perfect. My Spotify recommendations have a clear bias – female singer-songwriters in the indie/folk genre. Which is definitely something I listen to, but I also listen to a bunch of other stuff: classic rock, Bengali folk, western and Indian classical, and so on. In fact, I suspect Spotify thinks I'm a girl – possibly a sad girl, who likes other girls. Because it recently recommended this playlist to me:

But no matter. These days I get fewer "organic" recommendations than I did, for example, when I was in college. So I've been actively encouraging people to send me songs they like, and also exploring other ways to discover new music. Spotify Discover Weekly has been good for that.

Accordingly, for the last few months, I've been trying to listen to the playlist – which is usually around 1.5 hours long – about 3-4 times from start to finish. A week is enough time, because I listen on the bus, while doing chores, and so on. Before the week is out, I generally have a sense of which songs I like, and then I add them to a playlist called Spotify discoveries.

On average, I discover maybe one new song per week. This may not sound like a lot, but once I find a song I like, I can look up the artist or band, check out their other songs and albums. And saving them to a dedicated playlist is a nice way to keep track of the songs I found via Discover Weekly. Because come Monday, the old playlist is gone, replaced by a new selection of songs.

Speaking of Spotify features, sleep timer is a nice one too, and one I use from time to time (I set it for 30 minutes).

* * *

One of my favourite discoveries this year was a combination of algorithm and human. I found Rigoberta Bandini's Canciones de Amor a Ti via Discover Weekly (I've been learning Spanish for a couple of years now, so I sometimes listen to Spanish songs, and therefore get Spanish song recommendations).

I told my Spanish friend about my discovery, and she said "Rigoberta is amazing and unhinged. Her lyrics are out of this world." A solid endorsement.

She then recommended In Spain We Call it Soledad (which is good) and Así Bailaba (which is amazing).

Así Bailaba (which roughly translates to That's How She Danced) is a parody of Los Días de La Semana (The Days of the Week). The latter is an old children's song, which goes (my translation):

Monday before lunch
A girl went to play,
But she couldn't play
Because she had to iron.

That's how she ironed, that's how,
That's how she ironed, that's how...

Tuesday before lunch
A girl went to play,
But she couldn't play
Because she had to sew.

That's how she sewed, that's how,
That's how she sewed, that's how...

...and so on for the rest of the week.

Good for learning the days of the week, I guess – and in my case, for learning Spanish verb conjugations. But otherwise, a rather depressing and sexist song.

Rigoberta Bandini subverts the lyrics with mischievous glee:

Monday before lunch
A girl went to clean,
But she couldn’t clean
Because she had to dance.

That's how she danced, that's how,
That's how she danced, that's how...

I love the implication of compulsion: "She had to dance."

If you're into creative or sporty pursuits, you've probably felt the same way. The light hits an old brick wall at just the right angle, and you have to bring out your sketchbook or camera. A winter morning, fresh dew on a grassy field, and you have to rally your friends and kick around a football.

What a song.

Then again, how funny would it be if this were a girl who actually likes to clean, and her parents are forcibly sending her to dance class. Plot twist!

* * *

Speaking of songs about dance, me and my friend Kwang, who is a dancer, have a collaborative Spotify playlist, unimaginatively titled Dance songs. To be included, a song has to meet two criteria: (a) it has to be about dance, and (b) at least one of us have to like it. (If there are any songs about dance that you like, let me know in the comments; we will consider it for inclusion.)

Kwang, from a photoshoot back in August

Needless to say, Así Bailaba made the list.

This is also a good way to discover new music by the way: collaborative playlists (with or without a theme).

* * *

Speaking of collaboration, I love this lyric from Uncle John's Band by the Grateful Dead:

Think this through with me;
Let me know your mind.

The lines right after are wonderful too:

Whoa, oh, what I want to know
Is are you kind?

I enjoy thinking something through with another person – how to make a wooden rolling-pin (something I discussed with Tommy, although he did the majority of the thinking and all of the woodworking), high-school attempts with my friend Nitin to solve hard maths problems, and more recently, an environmental law article that I'm writing with my boss. We wrote the abstract the day before a conference deadline, in the back of a taxi returning from a funeral wake – both of us talking fast and me taking notes on my phone.

Even if I disagree with someone – on a question of politics or policy, for example – an invitation to think it through together can sometimes lead to a better understanding of where each of us is coming from, and avoid unnecessary animosity or escalation.

* * *

Speaking of escalation, I thought I'd update my list from a few months ago – songs which have "a subtle upping of the emotional stakes" (if you're not sure what the term means, I explained in my earlier post). Anyway, here are three more songs:

• Kris Kristofferson, Casey's Last Ride
Standin' in the corner, Casey drinks his pint of bitter
Never glancing in the mirror at the people passing by
(I've posted about this song before.)

• Bob Dylan, Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts
Rosemary right beside him, steady in her eyes
She was with Big Jim but she was leanin' to the Jack of Hearts

• Taylor Swift, All Too Well (10-minute version)
And you were tossing me the car keys
"Fuck the patriarchy" key chain on the ground
(Though I feel like using "fuck" is a kind of cheat-code when it comes to escalation; maybe it should be disqualified.)

I got a couple of song recommendations on that earlier post too. I guess that's yet another reason to keep blogging, even if sporadically: it's a nice way to discover new music and other things :)

Dangerous Sheep

There's a restaurant on my street which specialises in lamb soup. It's an old-school place – the shop-sign is in Mandarin only, and the staff speak little or no English. Outside, they have these three sheep, like lawn ornaments.

I pass the sheep almost every day, and they never fail to amuse. I honestly didn't think the tableau could be improved upon. But there's some renovation work going on, and the other day, on the bus back, I saw this sign and safety mesh.

Quick grab-shot on my phone from the upper storey of a double-decker bus, but at least we have a record. When I went back with my camera, the sign and netting had been removed. "Shoot it now," says Jay Maisel. "When you come back, it will always be different."

Miquailangelo Eggs

I've been meaning to try making marbled eggs for a while now, and having found a good deal on quail eggs at my local wet market, I asked my friend if she wanted to attempt the experiment together. She was charmed by photos on this recipe site; they look, as she put it, "like they were chiselled out of marble by Michelangelo."

"You mean Miquailangelo," I said.

So now we call them Miquailangelo eggs.

We boiled the eggs, gently cracked them with a teaspoon, then steeped them in black tea for two hours to get the marbled pattern.

 

Here is one such egg, in a salad with roasted sweet potatoes, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese.

Quail eggs – at least the ones I bought – require extreme delicacy in peeling, because the marbling is imprinted on the membrane, not on the albumen itself. And it's hard to peel the shell without damaging the membrane.

My friend could do it, but I couldn't – especially not when hangry. Don't peel eggs in hanger, she said.

I expanded on it (too hangry to peel eggs, but not too hangry to write parodies):

Slip inside

A finger in the shell—

No need to do it well,

Just crack the damn thing wide.

Kafka

While on the subject of Czech novelists, let's talk about Kafka. For much of his life, Kafka struggled with anxiety, depression, loneliness and self-doubt. This, after all, is a man whose friend asked him, "So, outside of this manifestation of the world as we know it, is there hope?" To which Kafka smiled, "Oh, hope enough, endless hope, – just not for us."

But in his diaries and letters, Kafka writes about his feelings – including his most hopeless, dismal feelings – so candidly that I for one find them paradoxically hopeful, at times even darkly humorous. These entries from his diary – written in 1915, when Kafka was 31 – remind me of the final stages of writing my PhD thesis.

January 20: The end of writing. When will it take me up again?

January 29: Again tried to write, virtually useless.

January 30: The old incapacity. Interrupted my writing for barely ten days and already cast out. Once again prodigious efforts stand before me. You have to dive down, as it were, and sink more rapidly than that which sinks in advance of you.

February 7: Complete standstill. Unending torments.

* * *

But to balance it out, there's the Twitter account dedicated to The Sunny Side of Franz Kafka. Kafka feeling hopeful; Kafka in love; Kafka content, perhaps even happy. Sunshine breaking through the clouds, more joyful in some ways than an unrelentingly sunny day.

* * *

I thought I had linked to Terrible real estate agent photos on this blog before, but apparently not; that omission is now rectified. The photos are incredible, and some of the captions border on genius. Anyway, I mention them now because one of their posts has a Kafka reference (it's also on Instagram if you prefer).

Laughter and Forgetting

Czech novelist Milan Kundera died in Paris earlier this week.

I started this blog in 2008. My private journal, which is older, is named after a Kundera novel: The Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

When I was trying to decide what to call this blog, I considered The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, but that name/URL was already taken on blogspot. I mentioned this to a friend, who then suggested Laugh and Forget. That name was available, but I didn't like it as much. I checked a few years later, just out of curiosity, and found that Laugh and Forget had also been claimed (trigger warning: suicide, depression, generally harrowing).

I really liked The Book of Laughter and Forgetting when I read it in college, and even gave it as a birthday gift to a girl I had a mild crush on (I don't know if she ever read it). But ironically given its title, I remember very little about the characters or plot. It's like what Anthony Lane says about one of Vladimir Nabokov's short stories:

One of my favorites, “Spring in Fialta” (1936), spins out a full-throated, halfhearted love story through so many offhand flashbacks that, if I were asked to justify my praise, I might not be able to say much more than that it is basically about spring in Fialta.

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting is basically about laughter and forgetting.

* * *

A few months ago, I was trying to remember a quote. All I could remember was, "The ____ of ____ against ____ is the ____ of ____ against ____." I also had an inkling that the first and fourth missing words were probably the same. But I couldn't remember where I had read it, nor who the author might be.

The words that I did remember were so generic that I didn't think a Google search would work, but I tried it anyway (the phrase in quotes, with asterisks for the missing words). Lo and behold, I found the answer. The quote is from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, and it goes, "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

I had forgotten a quote about forgetting!

* * *

Around the same time, there was a tune stuck in my head, but I couldn't remember the name of the song, nor the artist, nor any of the lyrics. Finally, while waiting for a bus, one of the lines popped into my head: "They tell me I'd make more friends if I acted less fight or flight."

This, again, was enough to find the song: Stuck in Your Head by Calista Garcia.

Stuck in Your Head was stuck in my head!

A Subtle Upping of the Emotional Stakes

Among the many songs that I like, there is a niche category where the singer (or band) delivers a line/couplet in a way which infuses it with a sense of heightened emotion or significance. Not an obvious crescendo like the chorus in Europe's The Final Countdown; in fact, the examples I have in mind are not in the chorus at all. They are understated, but in their own way, equally or perhaps even more effective. A subtle upping of the emotional stakes.

Here's a short, off-the-cuff list:

• Taylor Swift, Champagne Problems
"She would've made such a lovely bride
What a shame she's fucked in the head," they said.

• Kimya Dawson, Hadlock Padlock
I wonder if this climbing that you city people do
Ever leads you to a place with such a pretty view
(I've written about this song before.)

• The Beatles, For No One
There will be times when all the things she said will fill your head
You won't forget her
(Is this the greatest breakup song ever written?)

If you can think of other such examples, let me know in the comments :)

On a related note, see Spine Tinglers on Futility Closet, which talks about Salimpoor et al's study, 'The Rewarding Aspects of Music Listening Are Related to Degree of Emotional Arousal'.

Ichi-go Ichi-e

Ichi-go ichi-e (一期一会) is a Japanese idiom which literally means "one time, one meeting." It's the idea that each encounter is unique and fleeting, "of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment" (Wikipedia).

It reminds me of a late-19th-century poem by AE Housman, From Far, from Eve. I especially love the second stanza:

Now—for a breath I tarry
     Nor yet disperse apart—
Take my hand quick and tell me,
     What have you in your heart.

Satori (or the Lack Thereof)

This weekend I was re-reading Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. The preface by Huston Smith, professor of philosophy at MIT, starts out by contrasting the "two Suzukis": Daisetz Suzuki (1870–1966), who "brought Zen to the West single-handed", and Shunryu Suzuki (1904–1971).

Whereas Daisetz Suzuki's Zen was dramatic, Shunryu Suzuki's is ordinary. Satori [awakening, or understanding] was focal for Daisetz, and it was in large part the fascination of this extraordinary state that made his writings so compelling. In Shunryu Suzuki's book the words satori and kensho, its near-equivalent, never appear.

When, four months before his death, I had the opportunity to ask him why satori didn't figure in his book, his wife leaned toward me and whispered impishly, "It's because he hasn’t had it"; whereupon the Roshi batted his fan at her in mock consternation and with finger to his lips hissed, "Shhhh! Don't tell him!"

The Better-than-Average Effect

A 1981 study by psychologist Ola Svenson (PDF link) asked two groups of participants, Swedish and American, to compare their driving skills to those of their peers. They found that 93% of the US drivers and 69% of the Swedish drivers believed themselves to be more skillful than the median driver in their group.

Now it's theoretically possible for more than 50% of a group to be better than average at something, if average is taken to be the arithmetic mean. But the Svenson study was about the median, so the participants' beliefs can't possibly be true. This phenomenon, known as the better-than-average effect (BATE), has been replicated in multiple studies, and in many areas of life.

But I think this particular form of irrationality isn't limited to believing one is better than average. In my (completely anecdotal) experience, it also extends to some value-neutral domains (where there is no obvious better or worse), and at least one domain where I suspect most people believe they are worse than average.

Procrastination, I think, is an example of the latter. My guess is that most people believe they are worse than the median (i.e. that they procrastinate more than average).

I suppose you could turn it around and argue that this is just another manifestation of BATE (people think they are better than average at procrastinating). But that's just a matter of framing, and if it comes to that, most questions could be similarly flipped. For example, instead of asking drivers if they are more skillful than the median, you could ask if they are more likely than the median to cause an accident. In the second case, my guess is that most drivers would say they are less likely than the median.

BATE typically skews towards positive self-evaluations – in fact the article I linked to earlier defines it as "the tendency for people to perceive their abilities, attributes, and personality traits as superior compared with their average peer" – and procrastination is generally considered a negative trait. So if my hunch is right, procrastination is an exception: an example of a worse-than-average effect.

Now for the two value-neutral examples.

Consider the question of how strongly you feel versus how much you show. We might call this trait emotional demonstrativeness. For example, Chris Evert, in the passage I quoted in this post, was suggesting she was less emotionally demonstrative than Goolagong. If you did a survey, I reckon you'd find that most people think they are less demonstrative than the median.

Of course, how strongly you feel is a subjective state, so it's impossible to empirically compare emotional demonstrativeness. As I wrote in that post, "Presumably Goolagong reacted more vehemently than Evert did when she missed a volley. But perhaps Goolagong really did feel the disappointment more keenly – who can say?"

My other value-neutral example, however, is empirically testable. Variability in human attractiveness to mosquitoes can and has been studied and compared. Nevertheless, if you did a survey, I think most people would say they are more attractive to mosquitoes than the median.

Kolkata, where I grew up, and Singapore, where I live now, both have lots of mosquitoes, and over the years, I've heard many people say they are unusually attractive to them. I recently went hiking with a friend, and she said (unprompted) that she is less attractive to mosquitoes than average. As far as I can remember, it's the first time in my life that I've heard anyone say that.

Don't Call Me Kid

Sometimes people laugh when I say I like Taylor Swift; they assume I'm being ironic. Maybe it doesn't fit with (what they perceive as) my personality. And in fact, from her older catalogue, there are only a couple of songs that I like: Blank Space (2014) and Cornelia Street (2019). And not for want of trying. But I really like her three most recent albums: folklore (2020), Evermore (2020) and Midnights (2022).

As short, punchy refrains go, I think "It's me, hi / I'm the problem it's me" (Anti-Hero) is right up there with "Here we are now / Entertain us" (Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit).

Anyway, illicit affairs, from folklore, has this line: "Don't call me kid / Don't call me baby". It reminds me of a conversation with my friend. Or rather, a proxy conversation with my friend's niece.

Some background: the conversation was over text, but my friend (A) was with her niece, whom we call PoF. PoF – short for "Princess of Friendship" – is one of four sisters. For reasons outside the scope of this post, we use nicknames for the four kids: Camerat, PoF, Ladybug and Y. I've noted their age in [brackets] in the conversation below.

It all started with my friend telling me that she told PoF "I love you kid." And PoF replied, "I'm not a kid, I'm a child." The rest of the story is best told through the chat transcript itself.

Me: hahaha
so what does she think a kid is?
baby goat?

A: I think she thinks it's smaller than a child lol

Me: who made this hierarchy

A: The princess of friendship [5]

Me: Who is older, kid or child? Baby or kid?

A: She said a baby is older than a kid, a child is older than a kid and a baby

Me: did you ask her just now?

A: Yes lol

Me: Aww it's almost like me and PoF having a conversation
But a baby is older than a kid hmm. Not sure I buy that

A: It's her world, we just live in it

Me: Yes we have to accept it.
I can see why she was insulted though. You basically made her even smaller than a baby
So what is Ladybug? [3]
Kid baby or child
And what is Y? [1]

A: Ladybug is a baby
Y is also a baby

Me: 😳😳
even Y?
Then who is a kid? Incredible

A: Scratch it all, she and Camerat [8] are both kids and Y is a child

Me: Omg
It changes by the minute

A: There's no method to this madness

Me: What made her change her mind?

A: This is a mystery beyond my understanding

Bioluminescent Mushroom

I was sad yesterday, more sad than I've been in a long time. I was texting with my friend, and instead of being like "I'm there for you if you need me" or whatever it is that people say, she said, "I finish dance at 8.30 tonight, want to go to MacRitchie and look for luminous mushrooms?"

MacRitchie being a nature reserve here in Singapore.

Now these mushrooms are quite rare, and though they are known to grow in MacRitchie, as far as I know, there's no specific location where you can find them. They sprout randomly after rains, and the glow only lasts for a day or two.

At least it had rained in the morning, so there was that.

Neither of us had seem these mushrooms in the wild; we just knew they exist. So we just wandered around in the dark, without flashlights (our eyes had to be adjusted to the darkness; the glow from the mushrooms is not very bright), hoping not to step on a scorpion or snake (MacRitchie is also home to vipers, cobras and pythons). The mushrooms grow under fallen logs and other places which are hard to see from the trail. So my expectations were low; I mainly just went to spend time with my friend and see the nature reserve at night.

But then...

Against all odds, a gift from the universe to cheer me up. Just a phone pic (I went straight from work so I didn't have my camera) but it was amazing to see.

* * *

There's this part in The Golden Gate by Vikram Seth:

He goes home, seeking consolation
Among old Beatles and Pink Floyd—
But "Girl" elicits mere frustration,
While "Money" leaves him more annoyed.

But for me, ever since I discovered them as a 13-year-old, the music of the Beatles has been a source of happiness and consolation.

What do I do when my love is away?
   Does it worry you to be alone?
How do I feel by the end of the day?
   Are you sad because you're on your own?
No, I get by with a little help from my friends.

The next line goes "Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends." But I don't think it's that kind of mushroom :)

Conversations with Chinese Friends

Years ago I posted about a lawyer friend referring to Kyoto as "the protocol place". It happened again yesterday with my Chinese friend, who is an assistant professor of environmental law. This was just after she told me that she went to Japan on holiday.

Me: Oh, where did you go?

Friend: Tokyo and... what do you call that place? Jīngdū?*

Me: ...

Friend: You know, where we had the protocol!

* Jīngdū (京都), as I found out, is the Chinese name for Kyoto.

* * *

Another conversation with a Chinese friend who speaks very little English (but that's all we have, since I speak no Chinese at all):

Friend: In my province, the main... I can't remember that word. For example, Christmas is an important ___?

Me: Festival?

Friend: Yes, festival! So we can use English to learn English.

It's a form of what programmers call bootstrapping. In Bengali, we have a great phrase for it: মাছের তেলে মাছ ভাজা (literally: frying fish in fish fat). When you lightly heat a piece of fish, the fat starts to melt, and thereafter you can fry it in its own fat. I guess it works for bacon too, but Bengalis eat a lot of fish, so we have several excellent proverbs and idioms about them.

Shunbun no Hi: Bird Poop and Golden Orb

Slightly belated Shunbun no Hi (spring equinox) post this year – two spiders spotted in the Singapore Botanic Gardens. Exhibit A: a giant golden orb weaver (hat tip to my friend Tomoe, who spotted it and alerted me).

Exhibit B: a type of crab spider, namely a bird dung spider – so called because when it curls up, it looks like bird poop. Here, however, it is displaying its cute little pincer-like front legs.

The Seven Precepts for Drinking Tea

Sen no Rikyū was a Japanese poet, philosopher and ikebana artist. He is most famous, however, as a tea master – perhaps the most influential figure in the history of chanoyu, the Japanese way of tea.

Recently, in a book about Zen Buddhism, I came across his seven precepts for drinking tea:

•	Make a satisfying bowl of tea.
•	Lay the charcoal so that the water boils efficiently.
•	Evoke a sense of coolness in the summer and warmth in the winter.
•	Arrange the flowers as though they were in the field.
•	Be ready ahead of time.
•	Be prepared in case it should rain.
•	Act with utmost consideration toward your guests.

I like the sentiments, and of course the economy of expression. "Be prepared in case it should rain," for example, is not just about rain, but unexpected events in general.

A tea ceremony I attended at Hama-Rikyū Gardens in Tokyo

Rikyū is associated with wabi-cha, a school of chanoyu which emphasises simplicity. Evidently, he walked the talk. In Kyoto, he designed one of the smallest tea rooms ever built – a mere 2 jō (3.6 square metres) in size. The unit jō is based on the area of a tatami mat – one for the host, and one for the guest.

Rikyū also said, "All you need to know about chanoyu is this: boil the water, make the tea and drink it."

* * *

Speaking of small architecture, last week I met a Japanese environmental law professor. When I heard that she's from Sapporo, I brought up the clock tower, specifically, its status as one of Japan's sandai gakkari (top 3 disappointments). This was news to her. "Why?" she asked, "Because it's small?"

I said yes, apparently that's one major reason.

She said "Nooooo. It's pretty because it's small."

Book Recommendation

One of the things I liked most about London is the libraries. I was a regular visitor (and borrower) at the Barbican Library and the amazing Idea Stores chain, both of which, as a resident, I could use for free. Then there were the libraries at LSE and other academic institutions, but these I used mainly for work.

Idea Stores – at least my local branch at Canary Wharf – had a shelf of reader-recommended books. Anyone could – hopefully still can – recommend a book. You had to send them a little blurb, which they would print on a card and place on a shelf, along with the book in question.

I recommended a book once, A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr – one of my favourite books of all time. I found the blurb in my old emails today, so it can have a second debut on my blog:

Summer 1920. Tom Birkin, back from the trenches, ‘nerves shot to pieces, wife gone, dead broke,’ arrives in Oxgodby, hired to uncover a 14th-century painting on the wall of the village church. Thus unfolds a story about friendship, love, missed opportunities, a way of life, and the awareness and acceptance of the transience of all things – a perfect novel which, like that perfect summer, is over all too soon. ‘We can ask and ask but we can’t have again what once seemed ours for ever.’

I was also introduced to the book via a recommendation (sort of) – in an interview with British novelist Sarah Perry. And I borrowed it from Idea Store, though I eventually bought a copy for myself.

There's a city-wide network of Idea Stores, and you could – hopefully still can – request a book from another branch for free. My friend Rohini also frequented the same library. Sometimes on the Requests Shelf I'd see her name on a label, and text her to let her know her book arrived. It was like running into a friend, but without meeting her in person, just the book she was reading.

Singapore has an excellent network of public libraries too. Unlike the London libraries, membership is not free, but SGD 42.80 per year is a small price to pay for what I get out of it.

Aren't libraries the best?

Reptilian Encounters

An oriental whip snake, spotted in Pasir Ris Park, Singapore. It was hanging motionless among the bushes, waiting for a lizard to venture within striking distance.

Its camouflage is excellent. I would probably have missed it, had it not been for another photographer who was already stalking it when I arrived on the scene. Sadly we did not see it hunt; it retreated into denser vegetation soon afterwards.

The common Bengali name for vine snakes is লাউডগা (laudoga, meaning "bottle-gourd vine"), and indeed, it looks very similar. The genus name, Ahaetulla, comes from Sinhalese, and means "eye-plucker". According to the Wikipedia article, one of its alternative names is "judgmental shoelace", which appears to stem from this meme.

And now for some Asian water monitor anatomy. I encountered this fine fellow in the Botanic Gardens.

Exhibit A: tongue.

Exhibit B: nictitating membrane.