EDITORIAL


Following up on a well-received debut is always a tough business.

Singapore poet Lee Tzu Pheng, for instance, took eight years to publish her second collection, Against the Next Wave (1988).

American novelist Jeffrey Eugenides took slightly longer - nine years to produce his second book, Middlesex (2003).

In pop music parlance, this is called the sophomore jinx: the fear that you can't top your first work.

American film director Orson Welles certainly knew what it was about. He came out of nowhere - his reputation was made largely on stage and radio - and he co-wrote and directed Citizen Kane (1941). It went on to win an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and now regularly tops critics' lists as one of the best movies of all time.

That was the problem: Welles had shone too brilliantly too soon. For the rest of his career, until his death in 1985, Citizen Kane became his albatross. Nothing he did mattered to people because it was always his first film for which he would be fondly remembered.

Well, this is the second edition of art-e and we certainly hope we've beaten the sophomore jinx!

The theme in this issue: festivals and how they can help - or hinder - in creating a vibrant Singapore arts scene.

Which, of course, begs the question: do we have a vibrant arts scene in the first place?

Read on and find out.


Felix Cheong

Chief Editor

June 2005