Cousins, Jakarta

We shall head to Jakarta in a week or two - not just to escape the haze but to introduce all the cousins to Sophia.

More images from Jakarta can be found here, & other parts of Indonesia here.

The background to one of my stories, A Girl & a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang, set in Jakarta can be found here.

Girl with a Pez Dispenser

“Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know."

"The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that page will teach you to write."

Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

A Girl & a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang

"The café-bar-restaurant on Jalan Kemang Raya rests like an elegant fish tank above the bookstore. It has large windows through which you can look down on lounging tukang parkir as they laugh and suck on their clove cigarettes. If you sit on the retro living room ensemble in the right place at the right time and look beyond the car park, you can watch all of Kemang creep by in one long neverending traffic jam. This is the story of the origin of that traffic jam; at a time in the distant past when the traffic used to roam free and a trip from Blok M to Jalan Kemang Selatan used to take ten minutes at most."

Excerpt from A Girl & a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

Available online with free shipping in Singapore

A Girl & A Guy in a Kijang in Kemang is a story from my book,  We Rose Up Slowly. The story was written in 2012 and published in Eastern Heathens (Ethos Books, 2013, edited by Ng Yi Sheng & Amanda Lee Koe). 

A Girl & A Guy in a Kijang in Kemang:

• is based on the Javanese legend of Sangkuriang
• retells this tale in a contemporary setting based on the cafe above the bookshop, Casa Kemang, in Jakarta that my wife and I try to visit whenever we are in Jakarta
• is about a young man who serves a lady in a cafe in Kemang, they touch, and she flees. A connection is made and they find out a lot about each other in a Kijang in the cafe car park.
• Laramy Lee sees a critique of 'female entrapment in society' and an exploration of sexual taboos in his reading of the story in this wonderful review of Eastern Heathens in QLRS
• is also about suppressed memory, the hidden secret self and the perils of traffic
• includes passing references to tukang parkir, clove cigarettes, an Elektra coffee machine, bengkoang masks, Marjinal, anak punks, Akira, Anthony Burgess, pengamen, Iwan fals singing “Kamu Sudah Gila”, and Pekalongan batik.

A Girl & a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang

"One day when her son was twelve years old, all three of them piled onto the family scooter to visit relatives in Bandung. But her son was difficult, laughing at passing truck drivers, squirming about, distracting her husband who was concentrating on the traffic. In hindsight, she wonders whether she should have asked her husband to stop at the side of the road while she disciplined their son. As they rode up the steep hill to Bandung, her husband suddenly swerved to avoid a bus. They were not travelling very fast but he still lost control and they all toppled from the scooter. The next thing she remembered, she was next to her son at the edge of the road, with passing motorists taking care of them. They had only minor grazes and bruises. Her husband wasn’t beside them. At first, she did not see him. Then she saw him lying on his side in the middle of the road. He was still moving a little, slowly beckoning with a loose arm in her direction. She watched several cars manage to miss him but then a large truck didn’t see him until it was too late."

Excerpt from A Girl & a Guy in a Kijang in Kemang, a story in We Rose Up Slowly

Buy We Rose Up Slowly online here (free shipping in Singapore)

This story was previously published in Eastern Heathens by Ethos Books in 2013. Thanks to Amanda Lee Koe and Ng Yi Sheng for publishing this anthology of subverted Asian folklore.

Jakarta & Philip Larkin

Nearly there. Just a weekend to go. Then everything changes, or so we are told. Best listen to some Larkin then to cool our savage nerves & salve our anticipation.

The Trees 

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new 
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

by Phillip Larkin

Lombok Wedding & Gunter Grass

Lessons from Gunter Grass: Go for broke. Be careful with your characters.

“Today I know that all things are watching, that nothing goes unseen, that even wallpaper has a better memory than human beings.”

He shared his Schnapps with Salman Rushdie and the BBC’s Harriet Gilbert.

It was Salman Rushdie who said:

“This is what Grass's great novel said to me in its drumbeats: Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be ruthless. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping like sand, through our fingers."

In 1991, Gunter Grass told The Paris Review:

"As a child I was a great liar. Fortunately my mother liked my lies. I promised her marvellous things. When I was ten years old she called me Peer Gynt. Peer Gynt, she said, here you are telling me marvelous stories about journeys we will make to Naples and so on . . . I started to write down my lies very early. And I continue to do so! I started a novel when I was twelve years old. It was about the Kashubians, who turned up many years later in The Tin Drum, where Oskar’s grandmother, Anna, (like my own) is Kashubian. But I made a mistake in writing my first novel: all the characters I had introduced were dead at the end of the first chapter. I couldn’t go on! This was my first lesson in writing: be careful with your characters."

Goodbye Gunter Grass who left this earth on 13 April 2015.

Go for broke. Be careful with your characters.

Father & Daughter, Jakarta

Russell Brand nails it on Australia's shameful, racist treatment of asylum seekers.

First Dog On The Moon also highlights how Australia turns it's back on asylum seekers, sends them back from where they fled & many of whom are found to be refugees by UNHCR.

The boats haven't stopped, Australia just turns them back without caring where they end up in breach of its international obligations & human decency.

Australia should end offshore detention & commit to honouring it's commitments under international law.

Jakarta Selatan & Montaigne

“I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits.”

Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
 

Kids & Philip Larkin

I am procrastinating by watching Philip Larkin on YouTube. Philip Larkin wasn't just dour and miserable, he was very funny, not just sardonic, he also had a little Viz in him: his correspondence with Kingsley Amis was signed off 'Bum'. Here is one of his funniest, truest poems:

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had 
    And add some extra, just for you. 

But they were fucked up in their turn 
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern 
    And half at one another’s throats. 

Man hands on misery to man. 
    It deepens like a coastal shelf. 
Get out as early as you can, 
    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin

Kid, Jakarta Selatan & Half A Person

Australia. When did we decide it's OK to lock up children?

It's not just locking up children - it's the Australian Government facilitating child abuse through it's policies, contractors and employees. How can children be treated this way? How can we change the policy of both major political parties & the majority of Australians?

1. Australia's policies place children in harm's way: "Four child refugees released to live in the community in Nauru say they were physically assaulted on Sunday night, and threatened with death if they stayed on the island." The Guardian, October 2014
    
2. Australia's policies are State sponsored child abuse: "Australian paediatricians considered mandatory detention a form of child abuse and strongly disagreed with offshore processing." Medical Journal of Australia, August 2014
    

3. Australia's policies are causing children to self harm:
   
   "The inquiry has concluded, on the basis of evidence from inside and outside the system, that children detained for long periods have suffered significant adverse impacts on their health – especially mental health - and their development. It calls for all of them, including those on Nauru, to be released into the community, or into community detention where there are security factors.

   The extensive inquiry found the impact of detention was significantly greater on children than on adults. According to figures given to the inquiry, in a 15 month period, there were 128 instances of self harm by children compared with around 80 by adults.

   The draft report has gone to the Immigration Department and to the Attorney-General’s department." Child Detention report timetable tight for tabling this year, The Conversation, Oct 2014
    

4. Australian Govt contractor's are alleged to engage in violence & sexual misconduct of children - Investigations are delayed, undermined & underfunded:
   
   "Guardian Australia has published extensive evidence of child abuse and instances of self-harm on Nauru, including:

• pictures and video of children with their lips sewn shut in protest
• internal reports from centre managers Transfield detailing allegations of sexual misconduct by staff against children
• detailed descriptions from staff about violence against child detainees by guards employed by Wilson Security. 

Australian federal police confirmed to Guardian Australia it had received a referral from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. It had not started an investigation."

What you can do?

1. Contact your local MP. Let them know these policies are shameful, expensive, illegal & immoral.
2. Tell your friends via Facebook & Twitter that you don't approve of Australia's policy of indefinite detention of asylum seekers & the treatment of children by Australian contractors & the Department of Immigration
3. Learn the facts about refugees & asylum seekers
4. Support the We're Better Than This campaign 
5. Support refugee support groups like Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, Chilout, Asylum Seekers in Nauru etc

Child on a Tricycle, Jakarta & Elton John

The first record I ever bought was Song For Guy (I was very young). I was taken by the ethereal, distance and sadness of the music, the twinkle of stardust, the wind chimes emergent amongst swirling synthesizers, the few words spoken and barely heard in the background.

That was 1978.

Here is a poem to be read while listening to Song for Guy.

Femmes Damnées

The fire is ash: the early morning sun
Outlines the patterns on the curtains, drawn
The night before. The milk's been on the step,
The 'Guardian' in the letter-box, since dawn. 

Upstairs, the beds have not been touched, and thence
Builders' estates, and the main road, are seen,
With labourers, petrol-pumps, a Green Line 'bus,
And plots of cabbages set in between. 

But the living-room is ruby: there upon
Cushions from Harrod's, strewn in tumbled heaps
Around the floor, smelling of smoke and wine,
Rosemary sits. Her hands are clasped. She weeps. 

She stares about her: round the decent walls
(The ribbon lost,her pale gold hair falls down)
Sees books and photos: 'Dance'; 'The Rhythmic Life';
Miss Rachel Wilson in a cap and gown. 

Stretched out before her, Rachel curls and curves,
Eyelids and lips apart, her glances filled
With satisfied ferocity: she smiles,
As beasts smile on the prey they have just killed. 

The marble clock has stopped. The curtained sun
Burns on: the room grows hot. There, it appears,
A vase of flowers has spilt, and soaked away.
The only sound heard is the sound of tears.

Philip Larkin

Kids, Philip Larkin & Rilke via Bly

Two of my favourite poems to think about, contrast & compare:

Story

Tired of a landscape known too well when young:
The deliberate shallow hills, the boring birds
Flying past rocks; tired of remembering
The village children and their naughty words,
He abandoned his small holding and went South,
Recognised at once his wished-for lie
In the inhabitants' attractive mouth,
The church beside the marsh, the hot blue sky.

Settled. And in this mirage lived his dreams,
The friendly bully, saint, or lovely chum
According to his moods. Yet he at times
Would think about his village, and would wonder
If the children and the rocks were still the same.

But he forgot all this as he grew older.

Philip Larkin

Sometimes a man

Sometimes a man stands up during supper

and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Rainer Maria Rilke

translated by Robert Bly