Moving On: library@orchard in transit

Jillian: Olivia has sent us another guest post, this time on a programme she attended in November. Right now, the programme zone is filled with boxes, cartons, cabinets, and all sorts of barang-barangs, all waiting to go to their new homes in other libraries…

But here’s a snapshot of what it used to be. Enjoy! 

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24 November 2007
Moved by some Moving Images

On the way up to library@orchard…

W: Will the viewing be in a special room?

Me: It wasn’t mentioned. I think it might just be in the area next to the cafe.

W: I can’t imagine how they can do a film viewing session in an open space.

Me: There are usually some performances in that space. I’m not too sure either, it’s my first time.

W and I arrived to find a big crowd at the library on a Saturday afternoon to view 10 short films by 10 local film makers. It was interesting to watch what stories the film makers wanted to tell and how they presented their stories. I’m not a professional movie critic but I definitely enjoy a well-told story anytime.

Here is a pick of three of my favourite short films, in the order they were presented.

I was very amused by the comic sound effects used in Alaric Tay’s film ‘When We Were Bengs’. The film took on the theme of brotherhood in a fresh way. Like all siblings, Heng and Bee had their fair share of childish squabbles but they soon made up. The brothers bonded in touching moments of ice-cream sharing and para-para dancing with great gusto. There’s more information about this comedy here.

The director of  ‘Zo Gang’, Jacen Tan, cleverly used a typical morning of a Singaporean on his way to work to express some of the difficulties faced by film makers in Singapore. The dialogues in the film were peppered with familiar Singaporean lingo. It’s a film most Singaporeans can identify with. I also learnt a few basic things about film making. The trailer is available on here.

I was moved by Elgin Ho’s beautifully filmed and scripted ‘Nineteen Twenties’. He dedicated his film to those nineteen years of age, whom he believed will be stepping into a transition period in their twenties into adulthood. The good use of narration and music gave the film a natural story-telling feel. 

Elgin’s message ’If you listen with your heart, you will see what you hear’ was aptly portrayed in several scenes between the lead and his sister. It’s so true that as we grow older in a hectic city, we tend to neglect and be blind to the little things in life, e.g., birds chirping, leaves rustling in the wind, raindrops falling on rocks, and time spent with loved ones. Elgin’s film is available for viewing on YourFilm.SG.

I read that The Substation has been nurturing local film makers for 10 years. I applaud the film makers for their continued efforts to make good quality local productions. During the discussion at the end of the film presentation, Alaric Tay, Elgin Ho, Fai Rizal and Jacen Tan, shared about their passion for film making and their hopes for the Singapore film industry. 

Suffice to say that we have some talented film makers with unique stories to tell. I’m looking forward to many more local productions.

As mentioned there were some tech glitches wrt to the videos that were screened during last night’s Moving On event… but there’s always YouTube!

You are the One by Angela Jean (and friends):

Thank you Citizen Reporters! by Ivan Chew:

I [heart] library@orchard by Ivan Chew:

Read on for the lyrics to You are the One, the original song by lenniez that was used in the vid.

- Posted by Jillian
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A couple of days ago, we received an email from Imran Ajmain, founder of the local hiphop collective: the Beats Society.

He had heard about our closure from Time Out magazine and was reflecting about his experiences doing gigs at the libraries… We’re really touched that he values the library@orchard (and all the other libraries that hosted the gigs) as “one of the dots” that “unknowingly connect themselves to create a pathway for people”. And we’re really sorry that Rauzan’s gig had those technical problems

Anyway, read his entire post here.

Youtube video of one of the gigs:

Btw I realised there’re quite a few videos of the library@orchard taken during various performances over the years… Check ‘em out with a keyword search “library orchard”

- Posted by Jillian

We’ve updated our Happenings page!

Amongst all of the updates is a film screening this Wednesday night (14 Nov, 7-9pm) on two independent film projects by local journalists - I Love Malaya and The Mitre Spell. You’ll also get a chance to hear how these busy journalists go beyond their regular work and produce independent films in a panel discussion.

I Love Malaya is a short film about the exiled former members of the Malayan Communists Party who want to return home, but can’t. In having to write a post on it, I did a search for the film on youtube (in between searching for Jolin Tsai videos) and watched a newsreel version clip of it. 

Reading the film sypnosis, I thought it would be a film about guerilla soldiers hiding out in the forests waging war over a political idealogy. You know, boring political debates and military figures walking around. Instead, the exiles are all in their 70s and 80s and are definitely not wearing uniforms. Although we grow up in a country where communism is a dirty word, I found myself starting to feel sorry for these elderly people who left their family, home, and loved ones 50 years ago, and have never been able to return.  

In the film, you hear and see many Malaysians who feel that this is just punishment for communists  The magic of the film is that it manages to humanize these ”communists”. It doesn’t touch on whether communism is right or wrong but shows you and makes you feel the plight of exile.

Watch it on youtube first if you want, but there will be a panel discussion with the filmmakers on Wednesday and I’ll love to hear what they have to say about their works. How many of us (ok, me) would love to be able to capture and evoke such emotion, but just don’t have the bloody talent?

Oh hey, found the trailer for The Mitre Spell:

Anyway, the countdown has started (17 more days!) to our last day at Ngee Ann City. We can’t bear to go out without a blast and have been working day, night, and early mornings to offer as many programmes and events as we can in our last 17 days here.

library@orchard is 8 years old, but if you’ve only found out in the last few months that we exist - it’s not too late! I repeat, it’s not too late!

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Yup, it’s finally here, the end of November looms ahead. The winds of change are in the air and before I start spouting yet more tacky lines about time and tide waiting for no man and the inevitability of mortal existence….. Let’s get straight to the point.

WE ARE CLOSING ON NOVEMBER THE 30TH and WE ARE HAVING A PARTY!
and you’re invited.

Please RSVP (asap!) if you are coming. Drop us an email at occl@nlb.gov.sg and don’t forget to let us know the number of peeps you’re coming with!

- Posted by Jillian

Just this Tues, we held our ‘brief’ briefing for folks who were interested in helping to blog about the closing of library@orchard. Honestly, we (the Rambling Librarian and I) were a little afraid that no one would turn up and we would have to eat all the cakes ourselves end up consoling ourselves ;p

After promoting the idea on various sites (Tomorrow.sg, theory.isthereason, The Ridge etc. etc.), we’d hoped that people would rise to our call…

And they did!

Well, 8 people did

They were a fun group who were passionate about the library (it’s nice to feel loved) as well as blogging. Ivan completed his official powerpoint presentation in about 6 mins and the rest of the time was spent on QnA, bouncing off ideas and random chitchat. Oh yah, and eating cakes! For more pics, go forth to Ivan’s Flickr.

In fact, they’re so speedy that they’ve already blogged about the briefing. Wah! Am truly touched.

• Simply Jean: Remininsces of the library@orchard
• Alice in Wonderland: Memories of library@orchard
• Christine Tjia: Citizen Reporters
• D.D. The Citizen Reporter?????
• *Green and Bear It: library@orchard in transit
• music.city.soul: Dream Catch Me

To our valiant citizen reporters: Thank You!

We hope you had fun and will continue enjoying yourselves blogging about the library. I’ve added your sites to our blog roll and we’ll be featuring your posts regularly. And thanks also for mentioning that we librarians are somewhat-not-boring! heehee.

If there’s anyone who’s still interested in being a part of this, do check out the “official powerpoint” at this link.

Next, drop us an email (occl@nlb.gov.sg) with your full name, NRIC No. and blog/website and also any queries you may have. We’ll get back to you with a confirmation email.

- Posted by Jillian

There’s so many things that happened in the last 10 days that even as I’m typing this, I’m not sure where to start!

On our birthday weekend (20/21 st Oct), many people contributed to our Dreamwall by painting, sticking, printing, splashing their art onto our glass panels. I particularly liked the statement that said: “If I exhibit flashes of brilliance, would you find it fascinating?”… Used it for our previous Call for Citizen Reporters post!

Check out our flickr set for pics that I took using a camera phone, will upload some better ones that a colleague took, later.

Some folks blogged about their encounters with our artistic experiment:
John Yeo
Joel  (btw, I still can’t find his Mandy Moore “piece”!)

Then on the 21st, we had our cooking experts, Mdm Koh-Heng and Aishah demo Jeput Jeput and Ondeh Ondeh. And the chio trio of foodbloggers (Cheryl, Denise and Julia) entertained the audience with cooking adventures and amusing food anecdotes.

Check out Julia’s pics and post about the event! We even had a member of the audience give us a tip about how to avoid introducing transfat into our food: Do not heat the oil past the smoking point!

Someone also brought up an interesting point on how the food bloggers would react if someone said that they’d followed some instructions on their blog and a disaster occurred. I think the consensus was that, the bloggers have personally tried out the recipes/techniques/restaurants and they post their experiences on their blogs. Readers make the choice of taking that information and interpreting it for themselves. The bloggers also mentioned that they do get requests for help about the stuff they post and usually they’ll try their best to help the readers ”troubleshoot”.  

Anyway, we then ended the day with food (what else right?) and a Birthday Cake! For some strange reason, the cake had the text: “Graduation” on its side… Maybe it’s the model number? ;p But we took it to mean that the library is “graduating to better things”!

- Posted by Jillian

[Update: Powerpoint slides for the briefing on 30 Oct 2007]

Be involved in the closure of the library@orchard!
From now until Nov 30, we’re looking for bloggers who are willing to act as Citizen Reporters.

Read on for more details!
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Lovely goodies to be given out this weekend. It’s the last weekend of October, our birthday month is coming to a close. And the D-date of 30 Nov seems to be looming closer.

Halloween’s coming! And don’t you think the library@orchard colours are very much in the Halloween mood? I love our colours and I do hope they are retained for the new libraries in Orchard.

Hullabaloo is back at the library as well on 26th Oct (Sat), with local bands rocking it out (and scaring our neighbours) from 5-7pm.

I could scare you further by telling you some things about how the meat you eat lands on your plate (or you can read it yourself here). Instead though, learn how you can make a healthy vegetarian dish that serves to reduce global warming as well! Very versatile dish it is. Join the Vegetarian Society in a demonstration of their famous Global Cooling Pie on 27th Oct (Sun), 3-4.30pm.

As always, more details can be found under our Happenings listings, and we hope to see you at the library@orchard!

- Posted by Lynn

Yup, Lynn has covered them in this post, but here’re more details.

Tomorrow (Sat 20th Oct), in addition to the concert by Genie and friends, we also have Chris Yap (he’s the guy that did circa2007) and friends coming down to the library@orchard. They’ll be “remaking” the library space by painting/writing/<insert artistic endeavor here> on some of our glass panels. The thing is, YOU (yes YOU!) can join in too! Pop by anytime from 12pm onwards to leave your mark on us. Materials will be provided.

On Sunday (21st Oct, birthday day!), we’ll be having our staff demos. The lovely Mrs Koh-Heng will be demo-ing Jemput Jemput or Banana Fritters from 2-2.3opm and Supreme Instructor Aishah will unleash her Ondeh Ondeh at abt 4.45 - 5.15pm. Between these, ie from 3-4.30pm, we have an up close and personal session with Cheryl (thebakerwhocooks), Julia (AromaCookery), and Denise (Hungry Hostelite). Get fanatical about food with these 3 fantastic floggers ie food bloggers. There’ll be munchies during the session and also a birthday cake at the end!

And we’re still having our weekend promos, with double the no. of movie vouchers to be given away on Sunday! See you there this weekend!

- Posted by Jillian