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The boy who knew too much: a child prodigy

This is the true story of scientific child prodigy, and former baby genius, Ainan Celeste Cawley, written by his father. It is the true story, too, of his gifted brothers and of all the Cawley family. I write also of child prodigy and genius in general: what it is, and how it is so often neglected in the modern world. As a society, we so often fail those we should most hope to see succeed: our gifted children and the gifted adults they become. Site Copyright: Valentine Cawley, 2006 +

Friday, October 16, 2009

Wendy Ho, Artiste Entertainment, Singapore.

Wendy Ho is the owner of Artiste Entertainment, Singapore, a talent agency. Quite a few years ago, I did a few jobs for her. The thing is, I am still waiting to be paid for one of them.



Now, perhaps I should have learnt my lesson from my first experience with her - but I gave her the chance to prove herself, which was not, perhaps, that wise.

My first encounter with Wendy Ho was for the casting of the War Diary. She cast me in the role of Stanley Warren, a real-life historical figure, who, as a POW, painted the murals in Changi Chapel. It was interesting to get to play a real person, rather than a work of fiction - and, I suppose, a responsibility, too.

Now, when she offered me the role, I thought the pay was rather low, so I negotiated, ON THE PHONE, for a higher rate. She agreed to that rate.

So, I went ahead and did the shoot. Yet, afterwards, things got interesting. When I received my cheque, I noted that it was for the wrong amount - it had been made out for the original, unadjusted rate of pay, not our agreed higher rate. I duly called her up and explained that the cheque was not for the amount we had agreed.

I was then most surprised at her reaction. She scoffed at me, on the phone and said: "Did you get it in writing?", in what sounded like a rather mocking tone. She seemed to be saying: "I have won...and you thought you were being clever at renegotiating your deal!"

She quickly ended the call and that was that, as far as my pay was concerned.

Some years later, I had another encounter with her. This time over what they called a TV commercial. Again, the rate of pay was PHONED to me, not emailed. I am beginning to think this is their modus operandi, since it leaves no trace. A good rate of pay was suggested, for the day's work on the commercial - several times more than TV pays. I thought that was that. However, a few days later, when the same assistant called again, the pay had magically dropped in half. I couldn't get an explanation for the change. However, the pay was still good, so I decided to go ahead.

I did the shoot. All went well and I duly expected to get paid. Yet, half a dozen years later, I am still waiting.

My mistake, this time, was in being patient, in waiting for my cheque to be sent. You see, with Wendy Ho, it seems that there is no guarantee that a cheque will ever be sent. In my case, it wasn't.

Anyway, for entirely random reasons, I thought again, recently, of that TV commercial for which I had never been paid - and decided to email a query about it. I wrote to the main contact addresses of Artiste Entertainment. However, after several weeks, I had received no reply. I duly wrote again to the same addresses. Again, weeks passed without a reply. I then wrote to the addresses of individuals at Artiste Entertainment, including one I had had contact with before. She wrote back to me and said she would look into it. She also asked if I had "emails" regarding it. I thought this an interesting thing to ask, since, in my experience Wendy Ho liked to call or get people to call. Traces like emails were not what they generally left. I waited several weeks and heard nothing more. I then wrote to her again asking her to remind Wendy Ho - and she said she would do so. A couple of further months have passed and I have heard nothing more.

The thing about this is not just that I wasn't paid, but that it is doubly unfair considering the industry in question. The performing arts are precarious ways to earn a living, at best, and its seems really unfair, even evil, not to pay the actors what they are due, when it so difficult for them to find enough jobs in the first place.

Wendy Ho of Artiste Entertainment lives in what, by Singaporean standards, is an expensive house (a landed property). I wonder how many of her performers, on her books, can afford similar houses? How many of them also have problems getting paid what was agreed, or even paid at all?

Certainly, I have had two experiences of difficulty over pay with Wendy Ho and Artiste Entertainment. Now, I cannot know who else might have had such difficulties, but the fact that the same person could experience such problems twice, from the same source - out of relatively few jobs from that source - seems to point to a definite underlying problem.

So, here is my advice if you are a performer or other actor and you receive an offer of work from Wendy Ho of Artiste Entertainment. Firstly, do NOT accept the job over the phone. Do NOT negotiate over the phone. Do everything via email. Insist on a written record of the transaction. Better still, it might be good to insist on getting paid, in cash, upfront. Do not assume that any agreed sum, that is not in writing, will be paid.

The other thing to consider is this: do you like acting enough to do it for free? If not, perhaps you shouldn't be doing the job at all - because, in Singapore at least, you might never get paid.

Lest my post give the impression that Wendy Ho of Artiste Entertainment is the only agent not to pay her actors what was agreed, or at all - I really don't think this is so. I have heard rumours of quite a few performers in Singapore getting cheated of what they were due. So, if you are performing in Singapore, I would advise caution. Protect yourself as best as you can...and don't rely on it as a source of income, because here, that "income" may never come at all.

I decided to write this post, because I am unable to get Wendy Ho to reply to my queries. Perhaps, she might see this post. If she does and she settles the outstanding amount for the TV work done, then I will add a note to the end of this post that she has finally paid up. Until then, this post will remain as a cautionary tale for those who work in Singapore's entertainment industry.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Big Brother and Singaporean "Medicine".

Singapore is generally known as a "police state", to the rest of the world. In one way, this is an odd description, because one rarely sees actual policemen and women in Singapore. However, what people are referring to, when they label Singapore as a "police state" is, partially, the degree of surveillance of the citizens and the very controlled nature of the populace.

Now, nothing that I have written in the first paragraph is in the least controversial. This way of looking at Singapore is basically the common stereotype of the nation itself, in the eyes of the rest of the developed world. However, today I met with a very surprising aspect of this tendency towards surveillance and control.

I was in a Polyclinic with one of my sons, when I noted a weighing machine. Now, not having weighed myself in a good six months (thus, not being particularly interested in it), I thought that I might as well see how I was faring. So, I stepped onto the rather oddly shaped weighing machine. I saw it was odd because it had a column stretching up into the air above me, in addition to the weighing panel below me.

I rather expected to see a digital readout of my weight at that point. Indeed, I thought it would give me my body mass index too (since that was advertised on the machine). However, it gave me something else, something really disturbing, in my view. It asked me to scan my NRIC (national identity) card. That really spooked me. You see this machine, sitting quietly on its own in a Polyclinic, was actually spying for the state of Singapore. This is because anyone who actually weighed themselves with it, would have to identify themselves first. The machine would then weigh them. The tall column above the person, had a sensor at the top which, presumably, measured their height. These two pieces of information would then be used to calculate the BMI - or body mass index. This index is a measure of whether or not someone is "obese" and therefore open to various disease risks.

The machine itself is a good idea - however, the manner in which it had been implemented in Singapore struck me as a very bad one. By requiring all who used to it, to prove their identity, the machine could be used to gather data on individuals in Singapore, which should be private, really. Why would the machine ask for ID? The only possible reason is that the information is being stored against the person's name. If the information were not being stored, it would be a waste of time to ask for ID. It would make no sense. Yet, it seems to me a basic breach of individual privacy, that someone could not measure their BMI, in a Singaporean Polyclinic, without simultaneously having that information recorded for the attention of persons unknown. It should be at the discretion of the individual whether or not that information is made known to the state. They should have the power to decide the limits of knowledge of the state about themselves. After all, the state does not OWN the individual...or does it? The answer to that, for all other countries that I am familiar with is "no" - but with Singapore, one is left to wonder. Why have a machine to determine BMI that takes away from people the right to determine who knows that information about them? Is that reasonable?

Today, is a special day, in a way. It marks the first time, in my life, that I have seen a piece of medical equipment that demands ID from a person before it can be used. It is the first time in my life, that I have seen a piece of medical equipment that seems to automatically gather data about the population at the individual level.

George Orwell, the writer of "1984", would have recognized the weighing machine as the kind of device that would be common in his envisioned world. His was a world of total surveillance, in which even the tv in people's homes was a spying device that looked out into the rooms of every home in the land. A weighing machine that gathers data about the people who use it, is the very same kind of device. The spirit of the machines is akin.

In my title I have enclosed medicine in inverted commas. There is a good reason for this. You see, to my mind, medicine is about serving the patient's needs: the patient is centre of the whole edifice and the doctor, the hospital and all its staff and resources are there to meet his or her medical needs. Yet, that odd weighing machine doesn't fit into such a schema. A weighing machine that gathers data automatically about the people who use it, seems to be serving a different master, than a medical one. It takes control of the medical experience away from the patient. It creates a situation of involuntary submission of personal information. It seems, in fact, to serve the needs of a state to monitor its people - in this case, most invasively. A machine that automatically monitors the BMI of the population that uses it, is a machine that did not get permission from the patient, for a record to be made. It is a machine that takes personal freedom away from the patient. It subverts the innocent quest for a measurement of one's own weight and turns it into an invasion of privacy. It makes of it, yet another instance of the interests of the state, being placed above those of the individual.

Anyway, I didn't weigh myself. I didn't identify myself to this robotic "policeman". I stepped off the machine WITHOUT my BMI. You see, I wasn't about to submit a record of what I regard as private information, into some state electronic archive, by proceeding to weigh myself. As far as I am concerned, my BMI is a private matter for my attention alone.

Thus, it can be seen that the advent of medical machines that automatically record information leads immediately to a sharp reduction in care. Some people will choose NOT to use the machines and not learn more about their health, if that information is going to be archived. They will lose out on personal medical knowledge, because they will be seeking to ensure that no strangers have access to that information.

People should have the choice whether their medical data is recorded in databases. If they don't, some people will just avoid medical "care".

This unorthodox weighing machine is a step in a dangerous direction. The philosophy behind it is one that disregards the wishes of the patient. It doesn't ask the patient how they feel or what they want. It takes freedom and choice away from the individual. Each step in this direction, should be resisted - for the ultimate destination of such steps, is the total loss of personal freedom, choice and liberty. The road on which this machine stands goes to a place in which the state owns the individual - and treats the individual as property to be used as it wishes. Is that a road that Singapore should be travelling upon?

I suggest this. Reprogram the weighing machines. Take out the requirement for personal ID - and let them be what they should be: machines providing a private service, to allow a person to make a private assessment of their own health parameters - without forcing them to divulge it to anyone who cares to know. That is what medical "care" should be about: the patient, not the state.

P.S: For those who doubt my account of the Weighing Machine that Spies...please try this link:

http://www.avamech.com/B1000EC.htm

The machine I saw was by Avamech...and was very like this one. Note that it automatically transmits data to a computer - and that it captures identity for "database integration".

Unsurprisingly, Avalanche Mechtronics (hence Avamech...) is a Singaporean company. Perhaps only a company imbued with a worldview like Singapore's would manufacture a machine that takes a basic right to privacy away from its users.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Cambridge University: should a creative person study there?

No.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

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posted by Valentine Cawley @ 4:55 PM  15 comments

Sunday, October 11, 2009

On delayed gratification and human worth.

There is a tendency to hail those who come to prominence quickly. By this I mean not child prodigies, who obviously are noticed early, for their unusual precocity - but adults who "succeed" quickly. So, the young chief executive, the TV presenter in her early twenties, the "novelist" just out of school, the teenaged film star...these types of people are all thought praiseworthy and somehow more eminent for their rapid rise. Yet, something has been overlooked in this perception: the difficulty of the task.



You see, some people do not rise to early prominence, not because they do not have the ability, but because they set themselves much more difficult tasks than those of the ones who come quickly to our attention and praise. It is much more difficult to write a great 750,000 word opus than it is to write a 70,000 word "novel". Yet the latter accomplishment might take a few weeks or months, be published in a year or two and make a "star" out of a twenty year old writer. Yet, the question must be asked - who truly is more worthy of our esteem: the writer who chooses to work on a book, quietly, for twenty years - or the one who churns out light, quick, easy reads to popular acclaim? I know that only one of them is likely to be remembered by posterity - and for a very good reason - for only one of them will have done something truly difficult. Yet, during their lifetime, the one of lighter, fainter achievement may, actually, be the more "famous".

I observe this because of the way I have seen people of great merit treated and greeted by others, online. Sometimes, I have noted mocking criticism of those whose achievements I know to be great, but not yet widely known. They have been directly and unflatteringly compared to others of much lesser achievement, who happen to be widely known for it. I think what is happening here is that people are making a judgement based on what they know, without realizing that there may be much that they don't know. They are also attaching merit to quick superficial achievement because it is "in their face", rather than slower, deeper, more profound achievement which may, in fact, take decades to mature and perhaps a lifetime or more to be appreciated.

It is a simple fact that no modern TV presenter, for instance, is going to be remembered in 100 years time - not one of them. Yet, there are poets, writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, composers and thinkers at work in the world who may live their lives utterly unknown, yet who will be remembered in millenia for what they do, in fact, achieve, unknown to their contemporaries and unappreciated by them. Instant fame, does not mean lasting renown. Yet, instant fame is what people most appreciate. I find it strange that people make judgements on each other, based on the assumption that what they know is all there is to know. They think that by comparing person A, who is famous for a certain set of achievements, to person B who is not famous for their unknown achievements, that they can conclude that person A is superior to person B and that person B is a "failure". This kind of thinking makes me laugh, for it shows the mental shortcomings of the one who "thinks" - and nothing more. You see person B may, in fact, have achieved something of much greater worth than person A - but their work might not yet have been published. The reason that person B has been quiet for ten or twenty years, may in fact be because they have been at work on something that takes ten or twenty years to accomplish. Just because they are silent, it doesn't mean that they are not productive. Person A, however, may be someone whose "achievements" are shallow and quickly put together, each taking but the effort of weeks or months - and so they may seem more industrious, productive and creative - yet the actual comparative merit of the works in question could put person B way ahead, when the final judgement of posterity is made.

Now, this all comes down to my title: delayed gratification. Some people - in fact, most - are unable to delay gratification sufficiently to achieve anything of real merit. They need a quick fix, an immediate return and fast results. They need to see that they have "achieved" something overnight. These people - and they are far more common than the other breed - always aim at shallow targets that are easily achieved, for these are the only things that are achieved quickly, without much struggle. Journalists, for instance, can be like this. I knew one who was: he needed an instant response to his writing and so never did what he always promised himself he would: write a real book. The problem with book writing from his point of view was that the response to it could take years in coming. He wasn't constituted to delay gratification to that extent. He would write fast and see his work in print the following day. The praise would then follow for his eloquent phrasing and he would be happy. Yet, this instant mindset prevented him from ever achieving any work of depth or lasting meaning. He is dead now, so his chance of ever doing so has passed. During his lifetime, he was very famous, yet I rather feel that his fame will not endure for the products of his mind were too quickly crafted, too "of the day", to have any permanent interest. Had he, however, been of a mind to wait, to endure the silence between creation and publication, a silence that can stretch for decades, then he might have achieved lasting renown. Certainly, whether he achieved lasting fame or not, his work would have been more worthy if it had been crafted over years, rather than minutes.

So, this explains my division of people into those who succeed quickly, but whose achievement is often shallow and those who take time to come to note, but whose achievements tend to be more profound and of lasting interest. The difference between them, is that the former cannot delay gratification and aim for shallow achievements, easily achieved; the latter are able to delay gratification, sometimes even beyond the scope of their lives (so that they never personally feel the gratification that is rightfully theirs), but who, ultimately, achieve far greater success and enduring fame. The former are like flashbulbs; the latter are like stars that take millions of years of slow accretion, before they finally ignite in atomic flame. Like stars, the latter burn for ages - and the former are forgotten even as their afterimage fades from our eyes.

The next time you find yourself being critical of someone's achievements ask yourself this: do you actually know much about the person? Are they, perhaps, at work on creations unknown to you? Are they stars, one day to ignite, who will far outshine the flashbulbs to which you compare them?

The tinsel of life, as it were, those who are shallow and bright and famous today, will all, largely be forgotten. Even the greatest of film stars will largely fade from memory, in a handful of decades. The ones who will be remembered may now have much lower profiles, but whose names will grow over time, as their contributions are appreciated. We speak now not of the actors of Ancient Greece, but of their thinkers. We know not their "stars", but their creators. So, too, will it be for our times. The people who will be remembered in ages to come are those we do not, perhaps, fully appreciate in their lifetimes. The deeper the work, the longer it takes to create and the longer still it takes to be appreciated. Yet, eventually, those who have created the deeper works, are the ones who make the greatest contributions, and who are thought of, in ages to come. All the others are forgotten, no matter how "famous" they are in their own lifetimes. An example would be Dan Brown. No-one on Earth will know who he is in 150 years time: not one person. Of that I am sure. Yet, there may be a poet, whose works are not yet published, who has been read by just himself, his mum and his girlfriend, who will be on everyone's lips in a 1,000 years. The difference is that one is a flashbulb, the other is a star. One achieved easy prominence, through shallow achievement - the other a lifetime's quiet, accretive work, building a body of work that changes language, thought and literature. Only one of these is worthy of long-term remembrance - even if that very same one is ignored in its own time.

If you wish, therefore, to have a sense of the "worth" of a person, a good clue would be in their ability to sustain delayed gratification. I rather think that the greater the capacity for this delay, the greater the actual achievements are likely to be, of that person. The ones who thrust themselves early to our attentions, as young adults, are likely to be UNABLE to delay gratification - thus these people are ultimately likely to be shallow in their achievements. The ones we should look out for, however, are those who work steadily away, for years and decades at a time, without a word of encouragement from anyone. It is these people who will surprise us by their work and ultimately be respectfully remembered for millenia to come.

Which would you rather be: a flashbulb or a star? If you have said "star" - do you think you have the patience to wait decades to achieve it? Do you know anyone who has that endurance? What are they like? Are they creating something of interest? Any comments or thoughts on the topic would be interesting to read. Thanks.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

We are the founders of Genghis Can, a copywriting, editing and proofreading agency, that handles all kinds of work, including technical and scientific material. If you need such services, or know someone who does, please go to: http://www.genghiscan.com/ Thanks.

IMDB is the Internet Movie Database for film and tv professionals. If you would like to look at my IMDb listing for which another fifteen credits are to be uploaded, (which will probably take several months before they are accepted) please go to: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3438598/ As I write, the listing is new and brief - however, by the time you read this it might have a dozen or a score of credits...so please do take a look. My son, Ainan Celeste Cawley, also has an IMDb listing. His is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3305973/ My wife, Syahidah Osman Cawley, has a listing as well. Hers is found at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication prohibited. Use Only with Permission. Thank you.)

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