Curios, curated

Curious and curiouser

[curioscurated]

View this post on Instagram

I've been obsessed with this packaging for a hot minute.

[curioscurated]

Uniqlo : C Drawstring Bag

Meant to buy the beige version as a birthday gift for my sister (who loves lighter shades), the beige is truly the nicest-looking of the bunch, with the inner lining matching the outer compared to previous Uniqlo C drawstring type bags. Then I fell in love with the green one on sight and also had to have it for myself...

Luckily with a membership coupon and an online clearance sale coinciding, equals one very happy shopper here.

EDIT: Just learnt the Uniqlo C series falls under the designer Clare Waight Keller, and this is explaining so much about my sudden affinity for Uniqlo bags, which seem to be re-designing for a more upscale but on-the-go stream of folks. Like this bag can take me from work to a gallery opening to a night out, it's the right size between the super big shoulder bags launched lately and the viral Moon bags (which are so cute for travel).

[curioscurated]

Enredado (Entangled), from the series 'Lluvia Con Sol', Andrea Santos 101.6 cm x 72 cm x 2 Acrylic paint, canvas Commissioned by Taichung Museum of Fine Arts, artist's collection 2026

-- Saw this work on display at Taichung Art Museum, and felt the humidity leak out. Can't seem to find official photos of this piece yet, which means it must be newly commissioned, will replace later with a better shot, if any.

[curioscurated]

Day at the Taichung Museum of Natural Sciences, shot on Kodak Charmera

[curioscurated]

Medium Gather Bag Set - Navy (Contrast Tone)

Since it's dyed twice, I keep thinking how at some point parts of the bag's leather surface will fade like denim, but possibly to a warmer blue tone, like a summer sky.

[curioscurated]

Sa Ni Dha Pa by Colonial Cousins

Rewatching the video feels like a dream I should have had.

[curioscurated]

Émile-Antoine Bayard’s Illustrations for Around the Moon by Jules Verne (1870)

[curioscurated]

Script comparison of the Palimony scene, from The Birdcage

[curioscurated]

on dreaming

The other day someone close to my heart sent me a meme about how dreams can be prophetic, and then there's theirs which are the weirdest, most surreal montages or visual situations ever.

The meme reminded me of my dream journal on my Notes app. I'd started it a few years ago, because I often experience deja-vu, and wanted to see if these events or interactions could be predicted in my dreams. At first I tried the old-fashioned way of journalling, but searching for any kind of writing instrument, while waking... stumbling in the dark...

This whole thing would take too long, and by then the dream would be forgotten. So when my phone alarm went off next to me, and if the dream was still somewhere floating, I'd unlock, type in the keywords and that's how the dreams would be recorded.

There's something to be said about keeping a digital dream journal–I sometimes find myself editing the dream based on resurfacing moments of "Aha!" as I go about my day. Sometimes I dream the dream again, and can then add on to the original entry. I've heard some people can continue a dream from where they ended it, that's aspirational, and I'd love that level of control in my life.

When I started studying Chinese, I learnt of the adage for all language studies, that if one dreams in a different language, their brain is comfortable enough to comprehend the reality of that language. Now I write about my dreams in the languages I want to remember. Presently it's a mix of French and British English as these are two languages I'm rebalancing exposure towards. Being in Taiwan means I don't get to hear or see enough of those two linguistically, but also when I do hear English, there's an American English twang and refreshing honesty to the tones of migrant travellers and tourists, that I don't hate being exposed to...

I don't get to hear Hindi or Arabic a lot, but luckily having those two languages since childhood means there's plenty of nostalgia-based archives to dig through, and friends and family to talk to about it.

Here's an excerpt of one dream in French, talking about Co-Star:

30 Marche 

J’ai rêvé d’ app « Co-star », il me dit:

Faire

mystère 

c’est pas l’amour

(j’ai oublié, peut être un objet)

Pas faire

Initialement du moment 

Bougies

Masque de époques 

[curioscurated]

"Evening Moon on Yodo River" by Asano Takeji

I like how the light is illustrated here, with lighter blue-green tones, that hint of a future sunrise across the waters.

[curioscurated]

In the presence of ghosts

Ghost stories abound in communities that bear collective suffering. In India, the ghosts of many conquests show up in folklore: a ghost stealing land, a ghost arriving as an archetype of guilt. Sometimes they are amorphous blobs, sometimes they arrive as animals with wings or fins or tails, teaching us to listen with intention and breathe with our skin. They appear, they protect us or haunt us, remind us, help us make a choice, maybe even clean the house, quietly do their work and leave, phantom. They are often only detected by the most vulnerable character, the character who is grieving, and thus most present and open to any form of intervention.

The ghost is a protean, diaphanous being. It speaks to the deep present moment, always filtered through history while trying to fit into or reconfigure an untenable future. It is also in-between and atemporal. The apparition is a state of mind, in which the lens of time has a soft focus, a peripheral vision that allows you to see the microscopic and the grand scale of things at once. The imprecision of the blur and what happens there. To be partially absorbent while still protecting your inner world. To be ghost is to be generous with boundaries. The ghost story allows us to construct a language of translucency: both “is” and “can be.” Would be, try to be, maybe. Language aspiring to be in-between, to be almost, to be not fake, but speculative, inquisitive, simulative. Aspiring to believe stories as if they were real. To rely more on the if and the how than on the is and the what. To think of the word whether (or not) like the weather itself—unpredictable, witty—and not try and alter it, but make an altar for it, worship it. Language (and the weather) can protect you if you don’t try and control it. This resignation to randomness and this ritual of imagination is translucency.

Excerpt from "On Translucency", Himali Singh Soin

[curioscurated]

Terrazzo Floor II Jacquard Knit Top by 8bit.t.d

I first saw this sweater shirt at an exhibition on the second-floor of a print store. Incredibly soft, with a muted colour scheme, this piece from the collection cuts a more East-Asian silhouette for t-shirts, with sleeves that almost reach one's elbows while cinching in gently at the waist, reminiscent of the Hong Kong T-shirt style made popular in the 70s-80's. I think about this shirt more than I would like to admit.

[curioscurated]

Serendipity