causticjuice

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

I have lingered here long enough.

These words, these crypts are slack on my shoulders.

It is time to fly,

Or to move.

Goodbye.

9:19 am | 0 Comment

Saturday, September 26, 2009

It's strange. Even as I attempted to un-suture my attachment to this unique form of web-presencing, I could never draw far away for too long. There is something enchanting about personal space dictated by physical process: a computer, a murky mind, a sense of relief purging these inward demons into a vast universe of binary codes, lodged as insignificant as a fragmenting meteorite. The celebratory furor of return has faded, stamped out by ever-encroaching insecurities regarding student visas, future work opportunities, and migratory limitations by virtue of a few pallid pieces of paper. I seek renewal.

4:42 am | 0 Comment

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Looking back on the lovers, those that soiled your soul, those that disappeared outside the glimpse of early lamplight, those that stumbled unknowlingly onto the road you were cobbling upon, those that preferred to hold hands behind the vague secrecies of a locked door rather than kiss, those that couldn't remember your name, those that knew the rhythms of discourse instead of its undoings, those that gave their lives in the nestled solace of midnight arms. I salute you all, past and future, so let me be undone again.

8:25 am | 0 Comment

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Apologies for the lack of updates, but we've moved!

http://hanseltan.wordpress.com

10:37 pm | 0 Comment

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Bonnie is riding on a tangent towards westend, appearing in "Zanna Don't".

Ed is treading the boards as the razor-slashing murderer in an Abingdon production of "Sweeney Todd".

Hansel returns to Singapore and does ASM / assorted crew work to recover his UK losses.

I know this is stupid, senseless ranting, but despite my upturned-lip demeanour, I feel shitty inside.

12:15 am | 0 Comment

One of the reasons I kept this blogsite was to cultivate a safe soundproof space for screaming. Demonstration alpha:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRGGHHHHHH!"

12:09 am | 0 Comment

Friday, July 10, 2009

Sobering up, finally. The assorted credits along the lines of Koey, Celine and Andrew. Thank you for always being there, for listening, never judging, but never rescinding your precious opinions either. I am indebted to you in ways beyond my capacity to grasp at this moment.

Sobering up means giving way to the tensions unresolved, to the brackets and the sidelined.

1:21 pm | 0 Comment

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

I'd be the first to admit to myself - this hasn't been the easiest of two weeks. In the straining hours of a disappearing Oxford experience, I watched the weighing scale clock up to 60 kilograms of books in weight. This came up to about over 300 pounds, and I tiptoed along the kerb to withdraw cash stright from my POSB lifeline. Earlier, a few night's worth of online activity mushed into a fluid bit of memory, I watched my cash liquidate itself, wrapped in a self-glorified European holiday. In retrospect, I need a holiday from my holiday. More precisely, I need a holiday away from myself. Away from the fictional edifice chained to the great machines of production, of discourse, of coffee and cigarettes, of dissenting voices, of insatiable overachieving. But watching this ossified (yet strangely immutable, strangely immaterial) strata of ethereal worth they call "money" leach into exchangeable experience, once again I begin pondering the impossible strife, us hewing away at thick blocks of... of what? There really isn't a satisfactory answer.

Prescript in the wrong position: why couldn't I have been a successfully constituted normative subject? What strange geometry of this cultural fold pressed the origami the wrong way? Which iron was left on the board several minutes too long, steaming a bronze-shaped impression over the crest of my heart?

I have about six years of life transcribed into this peculiar medium we have come to appreciate as a "blogsite", an meeting between bot and being, a danse macbare churning curious, new lexicographical gears. It is a history of a love-story with a digital mirror I have (mis)interpreted as a partial self, just as illusory and indispensible as facebook or a bedside diary. Momentuous occasions call for momentuous activities to mark the trace of its history with its own tools: chug air into air, fight fire with fire, streak time with time. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is time to clock this screech in the wheels with a consummation of this writing project that had been part secretive, part closeted and part narcissistic. That is, it may be time to let these words flutter out into the heavens of cyber-blabble.

I leave my third continent of residence tomorrow evening. Each farewell has taught me to release a less of myself along the way, conserving a battery with a limited shelf-life, even as we struggle to elucidate its exact composition. I falter, fuss and fuck up. Hey: it's living. It's a nightmare. I've not come to accept that yet, but time, persistent intelligence, and a few more scars should numb future concussions. For now, I am here. Yes. I am afraid. Yes. I am insufficiently prepared. Oh yes. But so far, playing cartography by the geographies of others have never proved decisive or intimate enough. Lovers pass, their mark indelible as it is tactile. Roads cross, the sun still rises. At least the astronomers claim with enlightened certainty. Like an urn of ash, I've spent time covering my tracks (but not with such visible success), true to the name of the boy pulled from German folklore who set out to map his journey and ended up feeding the birds.

Nine months more of gestation, the educational journey - where this blog birthed itself - the great institutional quest will be over. "Caustic Juice" bears a history damningly alien from that first port-of-call, where a racked, overweight 17-year old boy decided to play by the maddening rules of literature. I'm 24 now. Not much wiser, just more adept at quoting. Just more savvy at citational authority. And closing this system, maybe, I end this circle of self-quotation as quickly and easily as I shut my eyelids. This could be a goodbye. This won't be a goodbye. In the brink of a day refusing conclusion, I will decide. But here, I move the cursor over to the "publish post" option and fall away from this matrix. Catch me if you can.

6:17 am | 0 Comment