Dark Sanctuary

This November post comes earlier because I have some photos to share, but before we get there, let's talk about books first. Finished reading Less by Andrew Sean Greer. So we meet that 5 books a year goal, good job, pat own shoulder. As written before, Less won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner for Fiction. Compared to previous winner, it's very light. No one died :D I wonder if the judges were like tired with tragic stories that they changed direction this year. I enjoyed the book. The character, Less, though older that he is, has a lot of insecurity and awkwardness. To avoid the wedding of an ex-boyfriend and also to welcome being 50 and alone, he accepted different engagements and made plans that would make him travel all around the world. Towards the end of the book and his journey, it seems his restlessness and melancholy just grows and grows and since that's relatable, it's endearing. However as his "best friend" told him, he is very lucky and he has a happy ending though there were some sentences towards the end that made me think if he's gonna fall and die :D While I'm happy for him, somehow I think it's just a storybook ending. I wonder if people like me get lucky too.

So now book 6. I'm not sure if I'll finish it this year. I am currently reading Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. When I started, it's about this girl who's alone, but in her own words is completely fine. The loneliness and isolation is something that I get, but then the girl has a massive crush on a guy and I started to roll my eyes. Really?!?! This is where we're going with this. I have to say there's an enviable pragmatism about the girl because she started planning on how to get the guy. So far from what I've been reading, she's just been stalking him in the internet :D Anyways I'm still early in the book but I have read enough to find out that the girl's history is complex and seems quite tragic. So there's more to her story. I hope she has her happiness at the end of the book.

On movies, I haven't been watching much. I did watch Bohemian Rhapsody and I just admire and adore Rami Malek so much. I enjoyed Bohemian Rhapsody, but it made me wonder how truthful the portrayal of Freddie Mercury is. He seems so out of this world in the movie, like unreal and I don't know how one functions in the real world being that way. It's all okay when you're famous and have the money because you're like in a different plane of existence, but what it's like when he's just common people. I don't know, I guess I don't have a lot of insight on how the person really is outside the performer's facade by movie end. It's still a good watch though. I also managed to watch A Star Is Born. I was on the fence about it and put it off for some time. The gloomy theme wasn't appealing for me, but then the reviews are really good so I relented and watched it. The music was good. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga were great. Lady Gaga is really talented. The movie is not bad, but it is rather gloomy.

This week, I also managed to go to the Future World Exhibition at ArtScience Museum. This exhibition has been around for awhile. It was first brought to my attention when my friend, Dewi, was coming to Singapore with her family, last year I think. I didn't think much of it then thinking it's not that interesting and she didn't end up visiting it either. Somehow it stayed with me and I grew to be interested and off I went. I can only describe the exhibition as a technology based installation art exhibition. Ticket price is S$ 19, but googling led me to Voyagin. Never heard of it before, but I managed to get the ticket for S$ 13 there, which is such a good deal especially because I think since the exhibition is not very big, S$ 19 is kinda steep. So here are pictures from the different sections of the exhibition. First is this wall that shows pretty flowers and such representing Nature.

After that, the room opens up to a bigger area where there's a small slide. As you slide down, if you hit the projected watermelon on the slide, the watermelon will explode so it's kinda fun to watch. Next to the slide section, there are tables which shows cute characters moving around. On the tables are small saucers and cups. After some time, a slice of cake or strawberry will be projected on the saucers and if you move them, the cake or strawberry would kinda explode and the cute characters get more active. There are also touch screens where you can draw lines and tap to make smiley faces rain down. Kids did seem to enjoy this area. There's also a section where you can colour some vehicles and animals and scan these and they will appear on the big screens. I coloured a flower, but I didn't see it appear when I scanned it. On the second big screen, I coloured a bear and it did appear. So there's a lot of these big screens all around and there's some sort of interactivity with them.


One of the big screen show these Japanese characters falling down or it could also be Chinese. My Japanese Kanji knowledge is so bad, I only recognized characters for things like rain, mountain, and earth. Anyways when you touch the character, then what it represents will appear. For example rain will appear when you hit rain, and mountains will appear when you hit mountain. The screen is big and with different people hitting the characters and the different combination, you kinda built your own art collaboratively. I really like how beautiful the imagery that appeared were. I googled it and this art work is called: What a Loving, and Beautiful World.

Before I move to the last section, I want to talk a bit about the Sanctuary section. It's called Sanctuary but when I stepped inside I didn't feel comforted. The imagery is not pretty. There's a lot of black and at one point in one of the walls, a black hole appeared and I started to think that this is like my head with all it's restlessness and anxiety. It's kinda ironic that if your head supposes to be your sanctuary, well you wouldn't want to be in my head too much. It's kinda too disturbing for my comfort but in a way I was appreciative I guess, because though it made me feel my dark corners, my dark corners are just me and what I have.


The last part is a small section called Crystal Universe and it's beautiful. It's basically strings and strings of LED lights and they change colours. It really is beautiful and calming. I can sit there for a long time and just watch them change colours. This or the big screen with Japanese characters would be my idea of sanctuary.


Alright, for pictures from the exhibition, please go here.

:) eKa @ 10:29:00 PM •

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