Summertime by Iris

 Summertime by Iris 1.4MB by imaginiris

Crazy Little Thing Called Poetry -- I Wrote A Poem for Ralph Macchio?

I'm so full of surprises...that I surprise myself!

I was just visiting one of my other blogs called http://80smusictv.blogspot.com, something which I haven't done in a long, long time.

Haha....I was so thrilled with myself.

Continuing with my self-discovery story...I found out that I had written a little poem on the blog (I did this?!!) to Ralph Macchio, my heartthrob...

Here it is:

Oh, Ralph, my macho, macho guy,

You were buried when my teenage sighs
Left me as adulthood came
And so it's adulthood years I blame
For the memory loss of my teenage crush
Crazy over you, I missed you very much.

My Village Playground

My sandaled feet went flip, flop, flip, flop, as I

Crossed the mellow planks to the other side,

Where a two-feet wide ditch divides

The wooden houses from the quiet woods.

My eight-year-old fingers entwined with Uncle’s –

Rough and scrubbed

Of sweaty, rubber-tapping days.

We walked the narrow, red path – dry and hard,

Patterns of soles imprinted on it.

The five-o’clock light squeezed daintily

Through the tiny holes in the dark and dense

Overlapping oval leaves.

They stood tall and thin – those rubber soldiers

While the childlike underbrush peeked

Shyly between their feet.

Once the shadows disappear,

Brightness seems to close my eye with her gentle fingers,

We stand on the stream’s muddy bank and watch

The milky, brown waters slip between my playful toes.

Up above – the hot, bustling Semenyih road forgets

My hidden playground.

© 1991 Iris Chia

My first -- Rain & Stars

The first time I touched the Canon MarkII 5D, an absolute beginner, not knowing how a DSLR works and not familiar with the technical know-how of the basics of videography and photography, I recorded some video in my home. 

Rain. 

Then, later on I went home to my parents'. Rain. 

So I recorded more footages.

Then I decided to try my hand at editing using iMovie on my Macbook -- also my first time. 

After a few hours, I managed something amateurish -- but which I am really proud of, cos I did it on my own!

The song was a random song of a favourite Korean artiste, Yoon Sang Hyun. I thought it suited the mood. In English, the song title was Constellation of Stars. Then I noticed that the video I shot at both locations had star & moon items....

Demo - Young - Humming to Guitar

 Young-Vocal & Guitar Demo by imaginiris

A demo of a song I wrote abt 10 years ago....!!!! As soon as I bought my nice new keyboard 10 years ago, I started to learn arranging different tracks on it. But I wasn't very good.

Then, a friend introduced a young music grad to arrange a demo for me. Even though her arrangement had a nice "ambience" but her tempo was all over the place. So I just gave it up, cos I had already spent money on it and wasn't going to waste more money and time again.

After burying my music dreams for more than 10 years, I dug them up again this year. I enrolled in singing class. I switched on my old keyboard and listened to all my old compositions again.

And I told a musician friend about it. He finally helped me to record a demo in his studio. He played the guitar, I "hummed" to it, cos I can't write Chinese lyrics very well.

Then he said he would find me a lyricist so that we can record a proper demo later & send it to his Publisher friend. So touched and so happy!
I think this song is suitable to be sung in Chinese, what do you think?

When I wrote it, I imagined looking out the window at the cool autumn skies, & seeing the red, brown, yellow leaves float to the ground. Will my life be like those leaves? Floating in the wind with no direction? What is my wish? What is my dream?

Happy Kingdom

Happy Kingdom musical by imaginiris

I composed the music and produced the TV show -- a kids talent competition -- that eventually licensed my music to create a musical that was incorporated into the TV show. Chinese lyrics was written by my friend Lin Huay, and beautiful arrangement by Imee Ooi.

This was eventually recorded onto an accompanying soundtrack for the TV show, and narration was added to tell the story.

In the original TV show, characters from an underwater Happy Kingdom乐乐国 were preparing for their King's wedding to a beautiful Princess, and they had to find performers for the Wedding. And so, the talent search began for little kids ages 6-12.

The Evil Stingray Queen was so jealous that the King did not marry her, and put a curse on the Royal Couple that they would hate each other and separate. The 2 Commanders of the Kingdom manage to find a magic solution to destroy the curse.

However, The Evil Stingray Queen fought back by throwing another curse on the entire ocean of Happy Kingdom so that it will be polluted. Every creature in the Kingdom was dying.

But the little Lion Fish managed to escape into a distant corner. And as she cried there, feeling helpless, she heard the enchanting voices of the Legendary Magic Mermaids. The Mermaid comforted the Lion Fish and gave her the Magical Ocean Star that can release the Kingdom from the Evil Curse.

Happily, the Lion Fish threw the Magical Ocean Star into the polluted ocean and the ocean waters became clear again. The Evil Stingray Queen could not withstand the loving power of the Magical Ocean Star and died.

Singing wise, I was part of the Mermaid chorus and the final Celebration chorus.

The Wall Charmer

 The Wall Charmer by imaginiris

Walls.
They say Walls have ears,
Maybe eyes too.

Wonder Walls.
Walls make up rooms.
Rooms make up homes.

Walls can be built,
And they can be torn down.

They capture our passions,
They hide our tears,
Yes, walls know us – from the inside out,
Our loneliness,
Our happiness,
Yet they accept us and enfold us again.

I am the Wall Charmer,
I conjure up their secrets,
So they can tell your stories,
The stories that are yours to tell.

©2011 Iris Chia

The Wall Charmer is a poem I wrote when I started falling in love with...wall stickers.

Yes, there is something about walls. They can make you feel sick -- or they can make you feel love.

www.thewallcharmer.com

The Expat Who Ruled But Did Not Conquer

The Expat Who Ruled But Did Not Conquer by imaginiris


She types all day in her swiveling chair
The lady with uncombed hair
Countless emails
She sends without fail
But only to those she cares

“To get subscribers, sports is super”
She declares, “entertainment’s a bummer.”
As Mummy stays fat
Her babies are not fed
As she only treats directors to supper

As champion of the games, the company hurrah
Her effort accompanied by pizza
In shatters, our spirit
In crisis, the ringgit
With her paycheck, she waves us ta-ta!.

© 1998 Iris Chia

This poem was written during a disenchanted employees' hour of escapade: a poetry-writing competition we held to release our collective colleagues' frustrations against a visionless department head -- an expatriate's -- style of management.

During the year of retrenchment, as economic woes threaten the world of TV broadcasters, in which I was a producer of entertainment programs, those of us "lucky" enough to keep our jobs spent our aimless days loitering in the company compound, surfing the internet, playing UNO, participating in Mad Hatter's Day competition, and writing poems of disgruntlement against the management, basically criticizing them for paying us for doing nothing.