Daily originality, new from old.
Poetry, wisdom, originals, singing.
The final month of the year is upon us! Given the diversity (geographical and otherwise) of all of you getting this, this could mean bright sunshine, lashing rain, cool breeze, biting cold and everything in between. It also means some mandatory shock at how quickly the year has passed, a peek at new starts of various shapes & forms… maybe time with people we like, or time with ourselves, possibly undue amounts of food & drink, and hopefully some well-deserved breaks of any kind. Enjoy them, we deserve them more than we might know.
Talking of which, C&C will take a pause or three in the coming weeks too, but hopefully with some look-backy goodness thrown in. So onto this week, an assortment spanning poetry, pop star insight, cursive vocals, freewriting, and more.
Poems On The Train: daily doses of expression.
Friday Find: The Prince speaketh.
Originality: Takes on being truly original.
Cursive Singing: Mumble mumble.
With: freewriting, 3Body, AI creativity.
1. Poems On The Train
I love seeing creative expression in public places- murals in alleyways, photography in public walkways, children’s art in parks. So it was refreshing to see a campaign aimed at elevating our travel time with some creative art.
Our daily commutes can be tedious. Mundane. Relaxing. Often, our heads are bowed, our necks stiff, our eyes glazed as we are peppered with micro doses of entertainment or information. Or maybe we are consuming less violently, listening to a podcast, or better still, music. If we raise our eyes and look around, we will see- besides similarly disposed humans- messages urging us to buy, or eat, or find a career, or see a doctor. I live in Singapore, but these are settings many of us see and hear. They wash over us like soapy water from a drain.
Of course, I am being unduly cynical- commutes are often good, I often enjoy mine as a time to disconnect, reconnect, destress, or dream.
‘Poems on the MRT’ brings over a 100 poems by Singapore poets, in multiple languages, to 20 trains and approximately 3m daily commuters. This is an initiative by the National Arts Council, produced by Sing Lit Station, a literary non-profit organisation.
I spotted one just a few days ago.
With poetry, there is sometimes a sense of inaccessibility. Yet as the chair of Sing Lit says, “poetry is not something esoteric. It’s something you can engage with on a daily basis. It lifts your mood”. There will be poems in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil, and also videos created by local artists in stations and on trains. This is one such by by animator Jawn Chan.
A local MP had a wider Singaporean take.
Our Singapore body is fine. Our mind is also pretty good. While we have achieved tremendous economic growth and in the area of nation-building, there is so much we need to do in the area of the Singapore soul.
More here.
2. Friday Find: The Prince Speaketh
Some things don't age well. Some things do. Other don't age at all.
This Friday Find is not really a creative selection, but a bit of a find nonetheless. Here is Prince at the Yahoo Internet Life Awards, 1999. A mere 25 years ago.
The words (not including a charmingly long pause in the video):
"Don't be fooled by the internet.
It's cool. It's cool to get on the computer,
but don't let the computer get on you.
It’s cool to use the computer.
Don't let the computer use you.
You all saw the Matrix.
There's a war going on
the battlefield is the mind
And the prize is the soul.
So, be careful, be very careful."
3. Originality: new from old & copying nothing.
A. ‘The quest for originality’ is often a constant in many of our lives, (depending on where exactly you play at work). There is much to be said about nothing being original, everything being a remix, and how obsessively chasing original ideas can be a poor path to take. Making something that has an emotional connect, or cultural resonance is a far worthier effort, it often seems, than obsessively looking to create something never seen before. In Who Owns An Idea, a piece about plagiarism and originality, there is this little nugget.
Whether AI can achieve true imagination is an open question, but for now, what separates humans from machines is not the ability to invent out of whole cloth—it’s the skill required to create something new out of something old.
Cases of loose inspiration or coincidental convergences in art can be fascinating, because they force us to rethink what originality really means.
B. Talking of originality, I must pick up on last week’s Jaguar piece, for which I received some curious and generally balanced responses. The car maker followed its hugely debated, even controversial rebrand with a reveal at the Miami Design week. They presented a concept car, Type 00, calling it “Unmistakable. Unexpected. Dramatic.” Difficult to argue with those.
This is a ‘concept car’ that is meant to preview future models- “a sleek, low-slung, two-door coupe, but the production model range will include more rational vehicles with four doors.” The colours are called Miami Pink and London Blue; production-ready version is set to be revealed late in 2025.
Jaguar will launch three new electric cars in 2026, having taken new cars off sale more than a year ago to focus on its rebrand. Watch the Miami reveal video here.
4. Cursive Singing?
Some time ago, I stumbled upon the trend of “cursive singing,” a term users coined to describe a unique vocal style characterised by exaggerated vowels, slurred consonants, and a whimsical, almost caricatured delivery. An article from Vice explores this trend that has sparked discussions about vocal authenticity and generational aesthetics in music.
Cursive singing gained traction on TikTok, where creators parody or critique singers who use this vocal technique. The style has a polarising effect: some appreciate it as a creative choice, while others view it as overly artificial. There’s a broader cultural trend, in which stylized vocals become emblematic of certain eras or genres, drawing comparisons to earlier trends like the “indie girl voice” or 2000s pop punk’s nasal tone. But it also highlights the platform’s knack for reviving niche subgenres, often fuelling debates whether these are artistic or contrived.
Read it here.
Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting; this week from a city that serves some of the best masala peanuts!)
Read: ‘Three Body’ from Liu Cixin was an unexpected success in Chinese science fiction, back in 2008. (It has since been adapted into a Chinese series by Tencent and a successful-ish Netflix show this year). In this absorbing piece by the author himself, we get a fascinating look into the book’s success, with the broader evolution of Chinese science fiction, and its cultural and historical context.
Think: A study from the University of Exeter has found that AI Generation tools have the potential to “boost individual creativity”, but with a “loss of collective novelty.” I find this to be a fascinating trajectory to be looked at 50-100 years from now.
And lets end with this cute illustration from Cloie Floirat, on freewriting. May the last few weeks of the year flow free and easy and true.
Off for some early holiday gluttony… and a dose of nature.