Memory

What can be said about a musical as great as CATS? The answer is not one but many. Praises have been sang endlessly and exceedingly well by great musical reviewers. Truly, CATS shines among the best, right from its jubilant overture that exploded in delightful verve from bar to bar, with synthesized inspirative chords settling deep on the strings of hearts. Majestic should be the rightful word to own at the instant the brasses reached their ultimate wailing, producing an effect almost close to the stray cats meowing in unison. I have never experienced such chilling horripilation at the hearing of those symphonious effects, although the descending helicopter in the opening statement of Miss Saigon still stands at first placing in the category I nicknamed “The Goosebumps Reactions”.

I must then, with utmost respect, praise the casts and of their vocal prowess. One would not leave the theatre, I reckoned, without encasing some notable instances of vibratos and tremolos in the boot of their minds. Pitching purrfectly, every cat shares its life stories with no-nonsense vocal play. Every song is a character study treated in styles, twisting and blending from one section to another like a medley of life, portraying different personalities and traits. All art enthusiasts should give a gratuitous standing ovation, not only to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s and his artistic genius, but also to the brilliant T. S. Eliot, whose whimsical poems about feline psychology and sociology became the very basis for such unforgettable acts.

Skimbleshanks - The Railway Cat has been my favourite character ever since I was presented a copy of CATS Original Broadway Cast Recording about 13 years ago (and it’s a cassette, classic!). The reason for liking might be found in the song, where the intro and chorus are written in an odd 13/8 time signature (who but only Lloyd Webber himself can pull off such feat). The irregularities in the songs are as memorable as the lyrical poems, and no numbers, allegro or adagio, are left unreturned without a thunder of claps. Mr. Mistoffelees stands side by side with Rum Tum Tugger as outstanding performers, and their visual acts are still trailing at random even as I type these. Grizabella’s Memory was spot on (but I was not totally at one with the actress’ deliverance) whilst the father-figured Old Deutronomy’s baritone range easily surpassed one’s expectations. Surely, nobody will doubt that the high-spirited Jellicle Ball dance segment moved faster than a Shinkansen bullet train (ok, maybe that's an exaggeration) but it did transposed the night into a spellbinding visual titillation, as lustrous, I would say, as Phantom’s Masquerade.

I was glued to the seat, and so was my friend. But we were treated to plenty of surprises through out the night. Though our seats were not one of the best, I felt contented as we were still in a cozy (perhaps dislocated) spot that promised some good things. First off, we were mesmerized by the illustration on the stage floor and a modest but pleasant panoramic view, even though it was a little far out. But nothing can compare with such moments as having a character coming out of thin air, singing right in front of your eyes, as close as two metres away. And at intermission, two mischievous cats sprung without notice, their flexible limbs became a comical subject of amazement. Electra (a striped tabby kitten of an adorable but dangerous kind) get up close and personal, who then successfully snatched my bag away and tried to ransack the content of my belongings, only to be shouted by the master crew to back out. The furry garments of a playful tom kitten tickled a friend of mine and the hilarity is one that must be treasured. Everyone else seems at home with these lighthearted interactions, where some cats expressed affection towards their human companions while others are fond of playing monkey-business. Have I not sat where I was seated, it would turned out into some normal shows like some normal nights. Such interactivity makes theatre an enjoyable outing, filling the gaps in between the traditional routines. That’s what every great musical tries to achieve. And CATS certainly lived up to its many names.

So I bow, and take off my hat, ad-dress him in this form: "O' cat!"

Yesternight, the stars were align, sublime and surreal. Were the hearts where they should be? Was my reactions to your reactions simply reactions to be dismissed? I am exhausted and out of lines, and maybe soon, out of mind.

Four That Matters

Solid.

As you stand among the crowd / Defrag your memories
And shines a torch / On one particular summer
When bushes sang of regrets / And the wind was the choir
But do not stir the stillness of moon / While the night blackened
To the wasted cup of coffee / Served in cheap foams
With dry ice and cellophane / Among hypocrites
And liars who strayed beneath / Half-buttoned
Their faces masking their masks / In between lights
While the decorum of muted trumpets / Wah-wah in dissonance
Blowing their horns / On dusky future and tainted destiny
As they struggled to quickly digest / The cymbalist’s perception on rhythm
Where it was blindly stated / On poorly Xeroxed scores
That a crotchet should be performed / Parallel to the speed
Of a duo-coloured kite / Fleeting from sky to sky
Mocking the breeze / Making friends with plagued clouds
Whose talents are crying / About the tales of the thunder
Hating the brightness of pain / Or the darkness of joy
For earth could dissipate / They said
Like million verses of stars / In the upcoming episodes
Of your serialised fates / Once produced with incantations
And mixed cereals / Which doesn’t remind you of Sunday
But the simple pleasures / Of watching them caress
In a ceramic bowl /With the low-fat milk.

Liquid.

Optimize your sight and inspect the blueprints.
Nobody is matchless.
In prospect, you are mistaken for a nightmare.
When you sleep, its okay to be a ceratoid.
Make sure you bring your heart.
Murmur loudly. Adjacently.
Do not leave any sharp objects.
Keep them, if you might, in hard to reach places.
Like Jupiter. Or Isla Negra.
Stoned two birds with one look.
And don’t be bias to your own fairness.
Build a warehouse so you can stay sheltered.
Remember to loiter around.
And expect to meet the murderer of your desires.
Stay very close. You know I have ideas.
The maracas are calling the timpani black.
Oh, by the way, the equator is invisible.
You want to cross the line?

Gas.

Whatever you might think, you are not some supreme being's failed experiment.
Move on.

Plasma.

You could be talking about this and that and these and those and what’s not and what’s hot and what’s in and what’s out and where and why and how and who or when and with what and with who; and when it’s not you can brag about which one, him or her or him and her or he or she who are actually not who they are and why they are and where they were or when they were or what or how they were, but why?

So you wait and you weight:

920 bars of depressing music
260 joules of dead opportunities
500 watts of silly qualms
120 coulombs of sinister shocks
1873 feet of untraceable journeys
24 carats of pure goals
50 grains of summarized miseries
80 barrels of recycled tears
140 decibels of excess noises
380 inches of retention lost
1250 grams of withered leaves
98 hours trapped in the abode of aches

Do you not realize of your growing tendency to make your ordeal felt?
Do you need to succeed in the task of self-composing the recipe of your failures?
Do your ingredients at times propose the will to exercise deviation?

You stood agog with questions that deny any form of answers.
You think that Exhibit A will evaporate indirectly to produce Exhibit X:

A ............................. X
Loneliness ...................... Companions
Expectations .................. Achievements
Ethics .............................. Systems
Texts ............................... Stories
Status .............................. News
Glyphs ............................. Art
Jazz .................................. Sex
Fashions ......................... Slaves
Contingencies ................ Committees
Influences ....................... Ideologies
Sympathy ....................... Void

Do you feel completely safe in the comfort of your own personal space?
Do you complain when your emotions betray your aesthetics?
Do you lean towards recovering when you lost your centrifugal force?

It's true that (over and over again) you want to play games. You try to spot the difference. You want to connect the dots in exchange for a response. You find clues. You colourized opinions. Scrabbled your thoughts. Made bingo and lotto out of everything.

Do you ever learn?
• That a clementine can be both acrid and sugary?
• That you can’t cleanse your heart with iodine?
• That money is an anchor?
• That your epilogue is an affidavit?
• That the intention of molesting your own thoughts is against the law?
• That you can go 12 days without velocity?
• That your muscle protein can shape-shift?

Of course, these don’t matter. For what you want are answers that are floating aimlessly in wavelike manner, inside your brain, buzzing like bees thinking they are butterflies, and your stomach is the hive, and your hair - the garden.

Do you resort to neutralizing when the facts became a threat to your taste buds?
Do you have the stamina to undergo an extreme makeover for your pride?
Do you know how to calibrate the colours of your dreams for accurate results?

No, you don’t.

So you wait and you weight.
All the while ignorant of the answers listed in ten columns at the end of the book.

(i) Shitload of works. (ii) 7 books to read & 11 movies to watch. (iii) Reclusive mode 3.0. (iv) Knackered.