Here’s an excerpt from the Prologue of Watermyth:
She inhaled those tales amidst the tumult of bus interchanges, the sound of 1990s grunge-rock and Malay hair metal booming from tiny cassette shops flanking the central bus station, where exhaust fumes met a medley of aromas from smoky woks and great cauldrons of livid chettinad curries from the nearby food stalls.
I bought Crowded House’s Together Alone from one of those tiny cassette shops near the Klang Bus Station. A lot of my memory may not be entirely accurate about the bus station between 1993-1995 but this one I remember quite well. I had been waiting for Together Alone to be released and the moment I found the cassette in that shop, I grabbed it and paid for it with the pocket money I was always saving.
I have fond memories of that shop. I bought Nirvana’s Nevermind there as well. Much of my grunge-rock education owed a lot to those tiny cassette shops as well as the music magazines me and a fellow grunge/indie-inclined classmate would buy and share with each other.
I thought about that today when I woke up with a Crowded House earworm and then later, when listened to Together Alone on my commute to work. I was stressed, tired and still recovering from another bad bout of illness this week but the moment In My Command started playing I was filled with such happiness. It reminded me of the happiness I felt playing this album for the first time and how it connected so deeply to emotions felt by a 19 year old girl who wanted a better life; a “something better than” this life. Somehow, this album tapped into all of those synesthesia pressure points. Together Alone was a profound, baffling and sometimes maddening album with all of its mirrored metaphors of whirling and spinning, of domination and submission, but also of a deeper connection between the inner self and its needs. It is perfect in its imperfections, and this almost delicious menace underscoring melodies that lift, dip and then whirl downwards into the soul’s underbelly.
There are some lyrics in the album that remain unfathomable to me and that mystery to me is delicious. I suppose I could easily do a search that would inform me of certain themes but oddly, in the 32 years since I bought that album and ESPECIALLY after I gained access to the internets, it never occurred to me to do so. I was reflecting earlier today that maybe it’s because I didn’t want the mystery ruined. I wanted that magic intact.
I suppose this is a fitting way to start this blog series because listening to this album made me want to write this down and share other totally random memories, impressions and sometimes mini reviews of other works that have been part of the background and the tapestry of Watermyth and the rest of the books of the Cantata of the Fourfold Realms. I hope to share these things without removing the mystery of the novels themselves. Some things should always be left to the imagination.
But as for the rest, an author is allowed to navel-gaze obscurely on her own blog, is she not?
Be warned, there may be recipes in future editions of this series.
Curious to read my debut novel Watermyth? Here’s the information on how to purchase the ebook (and how to borrow it from the library) and the print edition.