Hello from Team Mynah! It’s been eight years since we began life as a print magazine for untold Singapore stories. We’re back from our hiatus and genuinely really excited to work on more stories about Singapore. Rest assured, we have absolutely no plans to become a digital publication. Instead, we’re expanding beyond print with two new offerings for the Mynahheads looking for more than our (bi-)annual magazine issues.
This newsletter is where we’ll share updates about our magazine and other cool things happening around or about Singapore. It’s also where you’ll find the first of our two new projects: the Mynah Trivia League!
The Mynah editors are, perhaps unsurprisingly, all massive nerds and we love trivia. We’ve also picked up a ton of miscellaneous facts about Singapore in the course of working on the magazine.
So how does this work? We’ll send you three questions with every issue of the newsletter. You’ll get the answers in the subsequent one. If you’d like to join the league, submit your answers by replying the email or through the Google form before the next issue. The leaderboard will reset every five rounds so newcomers can join the fun too. Looking up the answers is frowned upon for league players and may cause you to lose the only prize available in this game (our respect). If you’d prefer to just follow along, go ahead! We’d love if you discovered something fun about Singapore in the process.
In the spirit of our return from the dead, the inaugural quiz is all about rebirth.
Which national campaign mascot resigned in 2013 with an open letter that began “Dear Singapore, I quit. I need a long break and you could probably use a break from me too.”
In the 2000s, the Urban Redevelopment Authority hired the consultancy firm Interbrand to formally name the Marina Bay district to entice property developers to the waterfront. After a $400,000 process that surfaced 400 different options, what name did Interbrand finally recommend?
The Botanic Gardens are home to a wide variety of plant species, including a non-native plant whose flowers bloom only once every few years. It has also been spotted in a Sembawang HDB estate where it was unceremoniously chopped down the last time it bloomed. What is this plant called?
(or just reply to this email with your answers!)
Our editor-in-chief will be speaking at this year’s Singapore Art Book Fair on a panel titled The Politics of Print in Singapore's Independent Media Scene. Ruby will be in conversation with Ginette Chittick (CherryBombe Press), Charmaine Poh (Jom) and Alysha Chandra (NIMBUS). Come down if you’d like to hear about how to run an independent magazine and leave with some new books! The panel is on from 4.30 to 5.30 p.m on Saturday, 26 Oct at the Singapore Art Museum’s Engine Room.
You’ll be able to pick up a copy of Mynah 4 (released 2023) too. The lovely people from Now&Again will be selling Mynah at their booth, A94. Now&Again is a collaborative art magazine started in 2017 with contributors from all over the world. They'll also be doing pre-orders for their soon-to-be launched 5th issue, Cinema, and selling previous issues, posters, and merch from their contributors (art prints, zines, posters, apparel etc!!!).
Visit the fair’s site for more information. And see you there!