I am sitting in Kit's shop in Lancaster on another brilliantly hot day. Kit and Clare have gone off to Biggleswade to celebrate Clare's Grandma's 90th birthday and I am in charge of the shop. Alas no customers are about on a day like this.
Kit doesn't read this blog, so I can tell you I got bored with his playlist and have put on some dangdut. That should bring in the crowds!
On Monday I have the dentist's appointment I told you about and fear the result. But what do i need with teeth, as long as I can spit on my hands.
Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -H. L. Mencken *
Talking about slitting throats....
As the film Act of Killing has had such good reviews and and as it is now being shown in arty cinemas across the country I thought I would repost the link to the Al Jeezeera documentary on the same subject, the 1965 massacre in Indonesia.
If you have seen Act of Killing I would highly recommend you watch this too.
Now I'm playing Bung Iwan (Iwan Fals), and just about to close shop.
There will be more B&B hunting this week end.
I will write more about this on a later date. It seems to be tempting fate to say too much about it now. Besides my friends always remind me of the dangers of hubris.
The next day, Saturday.
Last night I bought a frozen pizza from Sainsburys and watched a dvd from Indonesia. It is strange repeating actions that long ago were part of my everyday routine. Not that I ate pizza every day, but the walk down to the supermarket after the shop had closed was almost as regular as the morning walk to the coffee merchant's.
Several times before I have talked about the terror of anticipation often being greater than the event itself, and now I have to start another new life the fear has returned, mixed with strange ambiguous feelings about the past. That old familiar past that is all around me now. But it is so often the things that most frighten you that turn out to be the most rewarding. I have never been so terrified as I was during the first weeks at SOAS. The feeling of arriving at Russell Square shaking and drenched in cold sweat remains clear, though rather ludicrous now. My paralysing fear of heights when I climbed the first via ferrata, barely able to swim and going overboard in an empty ocean to see the coral reef. Yes, fear can often mean something really good is about to happen.
Even the arrival of Anak laki-laki was frightening, but in retrospect I might have expected that.
The film I watched was Jackie Chan's The Myth on a collection bought in a market somewhere in Java. I believe Jackie Chan to be one of the great comic actors, in the same league as Chaplin and Keaton and using the same mixture of physical comedy and pathos. So even though the film was far from being Jackie's best there were still some good moments. But what made it really good for me was the fact that it was in Chinese with dual sub-titles.
Malay and Indonesian!
And as the film progressed the sub-titles got out of sync.
A certain amount of mental dexterity was needed to follow what was quite a tortuous plot.
I can't think of a better film to watch while eating pizza and drinking cheap lager.
It was one of those wonderfully enjoyable experiences that you can only enjoy on your own, or with the few special friends who share your love of the anarchy that grows out of budaya rojak. (I'm trying to mix Malay and Indo here, but don't have a Malay dictionary with me.I think that's right though.)
Two Scots accordionists came into the shop. They were very interested in the stock and I have given Kit's card. The only trouble was that I could not understand a word they said, apart from hello and goodbye. I tried French, Indonesian, Khmer, Spanish and even English. In the end it came down to mime.
And they make immigrants from the East take a language test!
How unfair.
Let's go back to coffee.
I watched the video below on Al Jazeera** and thought some of you might find it interesting. I am now going to try to buy some fair trade Timorese coffee and I urge you all to do the same. If enough people buy their coffee it will help the poor farmers of East East to get rich and then they can cut down the forests and have really big farms, 4X4s and plasma TVs. Just like us.
Or perhaps we should buy just enough coffee to keep the farmers a little above the poverty line but not rich enough to buy the 4X4.
These ethical problems keep me awake at night.
But it does look damn fine coffee.
Now I shall read my new Indonesian dictionary. George Quinn's Learner's Dictionary of Today's Indonesian. I wish I had found it five years ago. I bet it is standard on Ozzie Indonesian courses. It is very useful because it gives so many colloquial phrases in the definitions.
After that I shall go back to Agus's Freud and dip into Bad Heir Day. Can any Indonesian speakers come up with a good English translation of that title?
Utti Setiawati gave up and used Aku dan Penyair Palsu, as a sub title, so the main title stays in English.
*This reminds me of an interesting story, but I'm afraid it will have to be told posthumously. I'll have to see if I can arrange for some really interesting entries to appear after I've set on on the awfully big adventure.
** There has been some talk of bias within Al Jazeera and several of its journalists have resigned. As it is now one of my main news sites I have had a close look at the reporting and the omissions. I didn't find any kind of imbalance that most other newspapers or channels could not be accused of. It would be very difficult to report Sunni /Shia or Arab/Israel conflicts with complete objectivity. So I continue to recommend it for world news.
Kit doesn't read this blog, so I can tell you I got bored with his playlist and have put on some dangdut. That should bring in the crowds!
On Monday I have the dentist's appointment I told you about and fear the result. But what do i need with teeth, as long as I can spit on my hands.
Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -H. L. Mencken *
Talking about slitting throats....
As the film Act of Killing has had such good reviews and and as it is now being shown in arty cinemas across the country I thought I would repost the link to the Al Jeezeera documentary on the same subject, the 1965 massacre in Indonesia.
If you have seen Act of Killing I would highly recommend you watch this too.
Now I'm playing Bung Iwan (Iwan Fals), and just about to close shop.
There will be more B&B hunting this week end.
I will write more about this on a later date. It seems to be tempting fate to say too much about it now. Besides my friends always remind me of the dangers of hubris.
The next day, Saturday.
Last night I bought a frozen pizza from Sainsburys and watched a dvd from Indonesia. It is strange repeating actions that long ago were part of my everyday routine. Not that I ate pizza every day, but the walk down to the supermarket after the shop had closed was almost as regular as the morning walk to the coffee merchant's.
Several times before I have talked about the terror of anticipation often being greater than the event itself, and now I have to start another new life the fear has returned, mixed with strange ambiguous feelings about the past. That old familiar past that is all around me now. But it is so often the things that most frighten you that turn out to be the most rewarding. I have never been so terrified as I was during the first weeks at SOAS. The feeling of arriving at Russell Square shaking and drenched in cold sweat remains clear, though rather ludicrous now. My paralysing fear of heights when I climbed the first via ferrata, barely able to swim and going overboard in an empty ocean to see the coral reef. Yes, fear can often mean something really good is about to happen.
Even the arrival of Anak laki-laki was frightening, but in retrospect I might have expected that.
The film I watched was Jackie Chan's The Myth on a collection bought in a market somewhere in Java. I believe Jackie Chan to be one of the great comic actors, in the same league as Chaplin and Keaton and using the same mixture of physical comedy and pathos. So even though the film was far from being Jackie's best there were still some good moments. But what made it really good for me was the fact that it was in Chinese with dual sub-titles.
Malay and Indonesian!
And as the film progressed the sub-titles got out of sync.
A certain amount of mental dexterity was needed to follow what was quite a tortuous plot.
I can't think of a better film to watch while eating pizza and drinking cheap lager.
It was one of those wonderfully enjoyable experiences that you can only enjoy on your own, or with the few special friends who share your love of the anarchy that grows out of budaya rojak. (I'm trying to mix Malay and Indo here, but don't have a Malay dictionary with me.I think that's right though.)
Two Scots accordionists came into the shop. They were very interested in the stock and I have given Kit's card. The only trouble was that I could not understand a word they said, apart from hello and goodbye. I tried French, Indonesian, Khmer, Spanish and even English. In the end it came down to mime.
And they make immigrants from the East take a language test!
How unfair.
Let's go back to coffee.
I watched the video below on Al Jazeera** and thought some of you might find it interesting. I am now going to try to buy some fair trade Timorese coffee and I urge you all to do the same. If enough people buy their coffee it will help the poor farmers of East East to get rich and then they can cut down the forests and have really big farms, 4X4s and plasma TVs. Just like us.
Or perhaps we should buy just enough coffee to keep the farmers a little above the poverty line but not rich enough to buy the 4X4.
These ethical problems keep me awake at night.
But it does look damn fine coffee.
Now I shall read my new Indonesian dictionary. George Quinn's Learner's Dictionary of Today's Indonesian. I wish I had found it five years ago. I bet it is standard on Ozzie Indonesian courses. It is very useful because it gives so many colloquial phrases in the definitions.
After that I shall go back to Agus's Freud and dip into Bad Heir Day. Can any Indonesian speakers come up with a good English translation of that title?
Utti Setiawati gave up and used Aku dan Penyair Palsu, as a sub title, so the main title stays in English.
*This reminds me of an interesting story, but I'm afraid it will have to be told posthumously. I'll have to see if I can arrange for some really interesting entries to appear after I've set on on the awfully big adventure.
** There has been some talk of bias within Al Jazeera and several of its journalists have resigned. As it is now one of my main news sites I have had a close look at the reporting and the omissions. I didn't find any kind of imbalance that most other newspapers or channels could not be accused of. It would be very difficult to report Sunni /Shia or Arab/Israel conflicts with complete objectivity. So I continue to recommend it for world news.