Singapore arts goers are an unforgiving lot who viciously nitpick on even the slightest element of a play or an exhibition. After which, they neatly fold their imaginary, thoroughly detailed checklist, put it back again into their pockets with a “next please!” Do you agree or not? There have been a number of instances in the course of my job when, after seeing a play or a movie or an exhibition, I get curious as to know what my fellow arts reporters/reviewers/patrons think and find that my views are the complete opposite of what others are saying (i.e. everyone hates it, I’m okay with it). It happens a lot mostly when it comes to movies – case in point being universally-panned The Spirit, which I applauded for basically being more comic book than movie. The others basically said it was Fail. I’ve had people say I’m too kind with my views, too generous, too neutral, too noncommittal. Basically, too nice and good-natured and wide-eyed to be a reviewer. And in a way it’s true. I rarely flare up – mostly due to a certain piece’s ideological stance – And I do it with a grin. Last Saturday I caught one of the nights in A Seed: A Series of Underground Art (after taking a tour of Victoria Theatre – which I strongly recommend – and catching the Q&A portion of Japanese choreographer Kim Itoh). There was a rock band, a hiphop duo, a theatre sketch, a couple of films, a poetry reading, and an exhibition – ranging from the horrible to the not-bad to the promising. I won’t go into the details (except to say that in this sampler, I noticed that film-makers seem to be taking a lot more chances and are more garang then the rest). But I did wonder how my colleague (and other seasoned arts lovers) would take to the works. You see, Abang of the Airwaves prefers to dish out “tough love”. His benchmark for what a good show should be is U2. If you can’t even hit the notes or can’t even be bothered to seem enthusiastic, you’re in trouble with the dude. Another friend of mine also has the tendency to get bored easily – and shows it quite obviously inside the theatre. As someone whose job is partly to publicly voice out opinions on these arts events, I find myself in the middle of a constant tug of war between what you can demand from a piece and cutting it some slack and take it for what it is and what it can offer you. If something is “too long”  maybe that's part of the project? If the actors are horrible maybe that’s part of the charm? If it’s not “perfect” maybe imperfection and flaws have a certain emotional/physical resonance that we so flippantly discard because it doesn’t quite match our expectations and our checklist’s expectations? Maybe, just maybe, there are other things you can take home with you -- despite the bad acting or the bad curation or whatnot.