I just want to remember People, Places, and Things

Everyone knows a famous featured artist on a less than average track can make or break a song (see: Halsey literally breathing life to The Chainsmokers’ music career), but few stop to think about how this idea of “collab”-ing can also change mindsets when applied to other entities and things. When we think about collaborations in this new light, we can have Instant Noodles feat. Cheese, or My Face feat. Mei Tu Xiu Xiu, or even POTUS feat. Donald Trump. The possibilities are endless, and almost always glorious (or at least incredible, as in the latter example).

But to make things more fun, what if collabs are created because it sounds good? As in, entirely de-pun-dent on wordplay or just hey-these-two-words-link-because-they-share-the-same-word-or-phonemes good. I mean, I’ve already been doing this with my friends’ names, so I guess this is the obvious next step. 

We could have Times New Roman Holiday, where they change every ostensible typography in the Audrey Hepburn classic to this classic font.

Green Days of Our Lives, an early 2000s emo-punk rock take on that drama that has been going on since Singapore gained her independence - how is it still going on!!? I expect the Green Day influence to be seen not just in their clothing and aesthetic, but also in the storyline.

Mathemagician, because we all know that some form of sorcery is always involved when finding x.

Taxi-dermy - taxis should be preserved even after their useful life.

Or even tank topless, inspired by that Hans Christian Andersen fable about a sartorial Emperor.

Alternative title: the time I missed my flight and had to camp outside the Cannes train station for a night in the frigid cold

This festival made me realise how insignificant I am and how desperate people really are in life. There were throngs of people lining up even before the movie started (and ended) all vying for a piece of entertainment royalty, and on the other side of the commoner spectrum there were people dressed to the nines holding scruffy pieces of paper often with “INVITATIONS? PLEASE” written on it. They were referring, of course, to unwanted invitations to the festival screenings. Some signs said “PERSONAL SHOPPER,” which was really misleading because I thought they were selling their time and fashion expertise in exchange for money or to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, but it turns out “Personal Shopper” was actually the title of a movie (the Kristen Stewart one that got booed). That explained a lot because their own styles weren’t really persuasive - there was a girl of probably 20 or younger who was wearing a (tacky) dress that she probably wore two years back in her junior high prom - do her parents even know that she’s here?

And the next day was no different, with placards and “INVITATIONS SVP” written on them, but of course at this hour, and also being the morning after a very talked about film (the Kristen Stewart one that got booed), there weren’t many “celebrities” to impress; I saw a boy in his late teens wearing a striped polo tee and white berms holding a piece of paper on one hand, scrolling through his phone on the other. How enthusiastic.

And then there are the press, who seem to take these screenings very seriously - well some do anyway. This made waking up at 5am more interesting: you not only see the sunrise, but also the early go-getters - I saw a lady dressed very nicely heading towards the centre of town at about 6am, like she had a breakfast date with her just-married husband with whom she was on honeymoon with. Turns out she was just a press member who was really early for the 830am movie.