the cat, the elephant and the shopper/hero

‘tis the season to be jolly…

it’s that time of the year again to overspend, overeat and if we remember, say a word of thanks to the Lord for what he’d done for us on the holiest of days. meow.

incidentally, the woman just attended a screening at The Other Side of “What Would Jesus Buy?”. goofy, hilarious, crass, inspiring and moving all at once, it chronicles the adventures of a colourful performance activist group who takes christmas shoppers by surprise in the mega malls across the u.s. of a with their message to STOP SHOPPING and start giving. an insanely noble human effort, which after three long years, may just have found traction if only because of the financial collapse.

so let us all act on what we know: mindless spending, bad. hoarding cash, also bad. so how about spending where it counts?

several doors down from The Other Side on rowell road is Post-Museum, an independent arts venue that is hosting “Shopper/Hero”, a bazaar cum exhibition for the charming, beautiful things created and promoted by NGOs and other cause-related organisations in Singapore that channels your hard-earned dollars where they are needed: widowed mothers, aids sufferers and landmine victims in cambodia, transient workers in singapore, antarctic whale defense, to name a few.

my christmas wishlist includes one of these! please, pretty please?


also racing for a piece of the collective consciousness is the very accomplished conservation-themed children’s book “The Elephant and The Tree” by Jin Pyn Lee. this illustrated story is a dark one because it is a real one. it speaks a truth that goes right to the gut of an adult as it does the imagination of a child and invites the kind of conversation a parent and child should have this christmas. to see beauty in reality and reality in beauty. for the thinking child, happily ever after is for them to pen by way of how they think and what they do after reading this story.


for the inspired, come up close with the author and elephant conservationists at the Botanic Garden’s Botany Centre on 13 dec from 10:30 to 16:30. “The Secret Affair of the Asian Elephant” promises to be a day of fun and learning with talks, free film screenings and photo exhibition.

finally, not forgetting our kinsmen are kucingcoast and pawpledge whose calendars and racers raise money for stray kitties. the animal family is on a spreeeeee…

so before you stock that tree this Christmas, i leave you with the catchy refrains of Rev Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping gospel choir:

“pack the malls with folks with money,
‘tis the season to be dummies…”

you figure the rest. merry christmas!