Oh, men!

Couldn't resist sharing some jokes from my Daily Humour Facebook widget today. Now, I love our guys, esp. my man (!) but some times, you just need a good laugh at our differences, eh?

Why are married women heavier than single women?
Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in the bed and go to the fridge.

How do you get a man to do sit-ups?
Put a remote control between his toes.

What did God say after creating man?
I must be able to do better than that.

What did God say after creating Eve?
Practice makes perfect.

Why did Moses wander the desert for 40 years?
Because he wouldn't ask for directions.

And guys? Feel free to give it back! ;)

September 11: When will it end?

2974. Total victims of the US Sept 11 terrorist attacks. (IHT)

3761. US military deaths in Iraq. (Iraq Coalition Casualty Count)

If we never forget yet never forgive, will it ever end?

Next year? Most likely never, if history repeats itself.

Childhood truths that span time and space

While we celebrate Pavarotti's inspirational life this week, I wanted to pay another tribute to a person who may have been less well known internationally, but who personally influenced and shaped my childhood: Madeleine L'Engle, a well known writer of classic children's books, who also passed away on September 6, 2007.

My love for works that stretch the imagination started with a giftset of her books from my brother (who I like to call my "own Doctor Who") when I was very very young. L'Engle believed that storytelling "... does indeed have something to do with faith. Faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically." To her, "a book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe." Such stories fed my school and college years (coincidentally, Madeleine L'Engle was a Smith '41 alumna) and continue to shape my perspective on life today.

In L'Engle's 1963 acceptance speech for Newberry Medal-winning A Wrinkle In Time, she relates children's stories to "real life":

Very few children have any problem with the world of the imagination; it’s their own world, the world of their daily life, and it’s our loss that so many of us grow out of it.... What a child doesn’t realize until he is grown is that in responding to fantasy, fairly tale, and myth he is responding to what Erich Fromm calls the one universal language, the one and only language in the world that cuts across all barriers of time, place, race, and culture.

... almost all of the best children’s books do this, not only an Alice in Wonderland, a Wind in the Willow, a Princess and the Goblin. Even the most straightforward tales say far more than they seem to mean on the surface. Little Women, The Secret Garden, Huckleberry Finn --- how much more there is in them than we realize at a first reading. They partake of the universal language, and this is why we turn to them again and again when we are children, and still again when we have grown up.

L'Engle's influence on me is echoed by Neil Gaiman, another author who I admire, who wrote about the impact that science fiction (namely, Doctor Who) had on his life in The Nature of the Infection, his introduction to Paul McCauley's Eye of the Tyger (excerpts here).

So, in memory of Madeleine L'Engle and her fellow dreamers, I urge us adults to never stifle our imaginations. And to all who nurture our young ones, let's make sure they learn this universal language that transcends the barriers of our world today, spanning time and space.

Be still my beating heart

This week was almost too much fun with its many happy coincidences. After a surprisingly good time at WOMAD 2007 with an old friend and her Senegalese bands, I met Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy and Ali Larter of the hit TV series Heroes in Singapore, and discovered that my favourite Doctor and Star Trek captain will feature together in one of Shakespeare's classic plays!

Thanks to my awesome marketing colleagues who've been managing our sponsorship of the TV series in Asia, I attended a Star World gala for the Heroes World Tour in Singapore. Though mostly star struck, I managed to snap some photos, stammer a few words, and even seized the opportunity to pitch for more (better?!) sci-fi programming on Star World 8). For those interested, there's a little recap of the Singapore Heroes tour over here and in the slideshow below. The Straits Times also published a Heroes feature in Satuday's Life! on Sept 1 - paid registration needed for the online article, but you can check out their vodcast here. Overall, the local fan response for Heroes was mind-boggling though many complained that the cast's public appearance in Vivocity was too short (10 mins!)

Meanwhile, the Royal Shakespeare Company just announced that Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran will lead the second ensemble in 2008 productions of A Midsummers Night's Dream, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost, featuring the return of Patrick Stewart as Claudius (aka Captain Picard and Professor X) and David Tennant as Hamlet and Berowne (currently the Tenth Doctor). On top of that, there's just been fantastic news for Doctor Who fans who've been rather anxious at the prospect of Ten's "departure", myself included! Even still, this won't stop me from planning a "Shakespearean sci-fi" trip to the UK next fall ;)

Lastly, it's not all play and no work! Ovi by Nokia, a brand new mobile internet services business, was launched this week at Go Play! Check out the Singapore Straits Times vodcast on N-Gage and this Business Week article on Nokia Barges into Mobile Services and Times on Nokia to Take Apple at its Own Game.