Deus Ex Machina, Save Me 5/25/2026 10:29:00 AM

Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I've felt like anxiety has been one constant factor in my life. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that most of the time, I feel pretty chill actually, fine even, but this uncomfortable, nagging feeling that something wrong is bound to happen sooner or later has always been there under the surface.

The curious thing about the pandemic was that as terrible as it was, it also gave me this weird sense of camaraderie with the human race. The uncertainty of it all was excruciating, sure, but the fact that everyone was in it together gave me the belief that we're going to come through. Everything was going to be okay.

Now, four years on (yes, for all intents and purposes I consider 2020-2022 as one time unit), that belief is gone and what is left is dread without recourse. People are bombing the heck out of each other, the domestic economy is tanking, and it came to a point that whenever I didn't feel particularly bad about anything, my brain would scream, This is a coping mechanism! You should be worried!, which would lead me to start worrying, which in turn would make me feel guilty because objectively speaking, I am fine. I have a roof over my head, I'm debt-free, I have money to live on. What I don't have, or rather, have lost, is the ability to hope for a better future. Even the act of hoping itself seems irresponsible.

And while we're being objective here, I know that there are too many factors outside my control so it's useless to mull over them too much, and that it's better to focus on what I can do. Something along the lines of do your best and let God do the rest, if you're more religiously inclined. But therein lies the problem. I do believe in God, but I don't trust myself. At all. It's downright miraculous how often I got the help that I needed in the eleventh hour, seemingly almost without any active attempt on my part. I don't think I earned or deserved this relatively smooth-sailing life, and I'm afraid that it's only a matter of time before everything falls apart.

Kiat Sukses Hancur Lebur, or WTH Did I Just Read 4/15/2026 09:38:00 PM

"Tidak ada gunanya. Itulah intinya. Tidak ada gunanya. Mari makan rebung, Bapak-Ibu sekalian."

I'm a total philistine when it comes to contemporary Indonesian literature. Or any Indonesian literature, for that matter. As such, I don't have what you might call "taste". I don't know what is good even if it hits me in the face. Once in a blue mooon, though, I'd pick something up, and my only criterion was whether something was interesting. It must've been one of those aimless Internet surfing sessions that brought me to Martin Suryajaya's Kiat Sukses Hancur Lebur, and let me tell you: reading it was one hell of an experience. It alternately fried my brain and made me cackle like some kind of wild parrot imitating human. So yeah, it was interesting. Very interesting, in fact, that I felt like I need to write something up about it, just to make the brain itch go away. So consider this not a review, but random musings of an Internet stranger, inspired somewhat by the "novel".

One thing about me is that I'm easily amused. Lame puns and stupid jokes are my jam. Beruang mengkudu? Kebugaran syahwati? WC Rendra?--I eat that up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And since superficially Kiat Sukses Hancur Lebur is chock full of puns, of course it managed to secure my goodwill right from the start. But it would be wrong to think of it as just a collection of clever, and inane, wordplays. The author mixed up, twisted, stretched phrases, sentences, and even a whole genre of writing into non sequitur, often making it impossible to extract meaning from sentence level. Here's a sample, from Chapter 1:

Struktur buku ini memang dirancang fleksibel. Kalimat-kalimatnya mudah dimasak, sangat praktis dan tidak perlu dibersihkan--cukup ditiup sesekali saja. Kalimat-kalimatnya jenaka seperti khotbah motivator yang ingin gantung diri, tetapi juga menggugah iman seperti suara tetabuhan ondel-ondel. Kalimat-kalimatnya terdengar lugu seperti petuah-petuah anak TK, tetapi juga tampak benar seperti jeritan dosen mata kuliah Desain Bejana sewaktu kukunya terjepit pintu. Seluruh kalimat itu dibungkus dalam struktur sambal goreng labu yang praktis dibawa ke mana-mana. Penulis juga menyediakan banyak jembatan keledai agar Bapak-Ibu sekalian mudah menghapal intisari spare part yang bertebaran di sekujur buku ini.

Like, how can you even begin to comprehend that nonsense? But in between confusion and glee, it got me thinking. To recognize that there's something "wrong" with the text in the first place, you need to be familiar, or maybe socialized in is a better way of putting it, with what is considered common sense, what is commonly understood as valid. But for the uninitiated, there might not be any meaningful difference between, say, the book's bonkers avant-garde chart of account and real, legit accounting. On the flip side of the coin, the sensibility you acquire through training and constant exposure can make you lazy; your judgment becomes automatic you never stop to wonder about the building blocks of your thinking. What is common is right is natural.

And I think that's the value of the book. It challenges you to think beyond what is commonplace, to be more critical or at least observant of stuff that is so ordinary it's usually passed without comment. You shouldn't take my word on any of this, though. Go and read it yourself.

Google Play
The publisher's site

What's Up 3/29/2024 09:39:00 PM

It's been more than a decade since my last entry. A lot of things have happened. I got to travel some more, visited a couple of places that were on top of my priority list, so much that I thought I could live in peace and die in peace once I'd gone there. (What a joke. I'm still living, and I'm getting older and become more obsessed with money instead.)

I've gotten new family members. Technology has been changing rapidly, and virtually everyone has the internet in their pocket now. Google search results have gotten progressively worse, though.

And of course, there was a global pandemic. In late 2019, a mysterious, deadly virus started showing up in the city of Wuhan, China. People dropped dead left and right of lower respiratory tract inflammation. In short, they had trouble breathing and they died. The virus quickly spread to every corner of the world, and in an attempt to control the contagion, governments urged (or downright ordered) people to stay at home. Travel--international travel in particular--was almost impossible as borders were closed. And masks became ubiquitous. (I'm still masking every time I leave home, even now, even when the pandemic is technically over. Because COVID-19 doesn't disappear just because you're willing it to stop infecting people.)

I started swimming regularly. My form is terrible, but hey, at least I'm moving my body and not injuring it. And I walk a lot now, even more than when I was younger.

I don't know if I'm going to start writing regularly here again. The medium of choice for self-expression these days is video--via YouTube and TikTok, which didn't exist in 2013. And it's not like I have anything to say. But let's just see how it goes.

I Dreamed of Blur 5/20/2013 08:25:00 PM

Last Wednesday, I went to a "real" music gig for the first time in my life. It was an event called BigSound Festival, with four artists in its line-up, but I must admit, I came specifically for Blur. In that regard, it seemed I wasn't alone, though. Most festival goers were expecting Blur, not Van She, or Tegan and Sara, or The Temper Trap.

In a matter of hours after Blur wrapped up their performance in Jakarta, my whole experience at the gig had already seemed unreal. If it wasn't for my red, swollen hands from all the clapping, and for the ticket stub and concert ID that I still had, I might've concluded that it was, indeed, only a dream.

From the first number, their 1994 hit "Girls & Boys," I had sufficiently been pumped-up, but somewhere between "Country House" and "Parklife," I became completely mental. I was jumping around and screaming on top of my lungs, and when a girl who stood behind me said, "That person is very much carried away, don't you think?" to her friend, which he responded with, "Who?" for which she answered, "The person standing in front of us," do you think I cared? Did I care shit. That, I hasten to add, was out of character of me. I don't like attracting attention to myself, and in normal circumstances, I'd definitely try to keep a low profile in public places. But at that moment, I honestly didn't care what people thought about me. It helped that almost everyone went wild too, I suppose.

And you know what the weirdest thing was? I don't even like Blur that much. Don't get me wrong, I do like them and all, but they're not exactly on top of my favorite-bands-of-all-time list. (Back in the day, I actually preferred Oasis to Blur. These days, I'm saving my love for Radiohead and Manic Street Preachers.) But it didn't stop me from being "carried away" at the gig. It's like I was enchanted or something.

I also think it fascinating how a rock concert could simultaneously be a communal event and a very personal affair. I owed it to my fellow concert-attendants for being passionate and thus creating an intense, lively atmosphere, but at the same time, I was enjoying myself inside this little bubble where there's nobody but me and the musicians up there on stage. My point is, a concert could be a "blast" for all I know, but when you're not totally immersed in the music and the performance, it wouldn't mean anything.

As far as first concert went, it's not bad! Not bad all! I have Blur to thank to.

Note: Special mention goes to Dyandra Entertainment, for organizing everything smoothly. I'll be looking forward for their projects in the future. And I'd like to apologize to Van She, for being cold and not giving them the appreciation that they duly deserved.

Thank You, Sir Alex! 5/09/2013 05:42:00 PM

Rumors about Sir Alex Ferguson's retirement as Manchester United manager started flying around on Tuesday. I paid no heed to them. But then, came the official announcement, published on the club's website.

Those who are uninterested in football might wonder what the fuss is all about. After all, what's so unusual about a seventy-one year old man stepping down from his job?

Sir Alex's achievement as manager, the titles he won with Manchester United and Aberdeen, has been well documented (I'll let Wikipedia do the talking), a testament to his ability. But United supporters don't love him just because he's been around for twenty-six seasons and has granted us numerous titles over the years. It's more than that: without Sir Alex, it's debatable whether United would enjoy the success they have today. (I guess we also need to thank United directors, past and present, for their business acumen, but that's a story for another day.)

To put things into perspective, when Alex Ferguson took over United from Ron Atkinson in November 1986, the club was second to bottom of the table in the old English First Division. The last time they won the league was in 1967, in the time of legendary manager Sir Matt Busby. It took Ferguson three and a half years to win his first title for United, the 1989-1990 FA Cup (and if rumor is to believed, he was this close to being sacked for failing to deliver.) There's a whole lot of song and dance about how Arsene Wenger single-handedly changed the British football culture, but way before the Frenchman worked his magic at Arsenal (I'm not being facetious here, in case you Arsenal fans take offense), Ferguson had put a stop to the drinking culture at United and worked on improving players' fitness.

For younger United supporters, including me, Sir Alex Ferguson is a permanent fixture to Manchester United. We never knew the time when he's not at the club, when United had to struggle just to get to the upper quarter of the table by the end of the season. Not seeing him on the sideline next season is going to be very hard for me. Uncertain times await, but for now, let us show Sir Alex Ferguson our gratitude, for all the happiness he has brought us, the supporters. Thank you, Sir Alex.

Recommended read:

• Football - Bloody Hell!: The Biography of Alex Ferguson, Patrick Barclay
• Managing My Life: My Biography, Alex Ferguson

New Blog 5/02/2013 10:42:00 AM

I'm making a new blog at BookLikes. From now on, I'll be posting reviews, notes and other book-related stuff there.

I have had nothing but positive experience since joining BookLikes a couple of weeks ago. The staff is very responsive to your requests and inquiries. Since I joined, they have made several improvements to the site--adding new features like multishelving, more online vendors to choose books from--and I'm optimistic that they would continue to do so.

The Dead Shall (Not) Rise Again part 1 4/30/2013 02:28:00 PM

Last year, I witnessed something that shook me to the core.

It was early afternoon, and I was casually strolling down the boulevard of Necropolis in Pamukkale. (Well, I was trying to be casual, but truth to be told, I was still reeling from shock, mingled with relief, after what had transpired some time before. I was this close to being accosted by a police. No kidding! It seemed that he suspected I had entered without a ticket. That incident was unrelated to my aha! moment--to quote Oprah Winfrey--afterwards, but perhaps it could help explain my reaction towards what would happen shortly.) The place was surprisingly quiet; maybe tourists preferred to come and visit in the morning? Anyway, if there were more people, I might not notice this young couple taking pictures.

There's nothing out of ordinary about them--Caucasian, early twenties, definitely not Turks. (After a few days in the country, I had learned to discern what Turkish sounded like, at the very least.) The girl posed for a photograph in front of an arch, part of what's left of an ancient tomb, smiling brightly. Seeing her smile like that, an irrational dread came over me. You shouldn't act so cheerfully in a cemetery, even one that's a thousand years old. Show some respect, for God's sake! Or so I thought at that time.

It took time to realize that I wasn't disturbed for the sake of all those people who were buried there. My motive was entirely selfish: I was disturbed simply for my own sake.

----to be continued----

Damn Dog Got Rabies in Its Teeth 11/06/2012 09:54:00 PM

Listening to this song, a snippet of lyrics caught my attention. "My teeth got rabies. I'm gonna give it to you." Wait a second! Rabies virus isn't found in the teeth, is it? When a rabies-infected dog bites a person, wounding him, its saliva enters his body by way of the injured tissue. The virus is in the dog's saliva, not in its teeth. But of course, "My drool got rabies" is hardly rock 'n roll, is it?

Well, at least the rumination above shows that five years I spent in college studying pharmaceutical sciences wasn't a complete waste of time.

The Temple of Dawn (Yukio Mishima) 10/31/2012 04:43:00 PM

----The Sea of Fertility #1: Spring Snow----
----The Sea of Fertility #2: Runaway Horses----

SUMMARY
Honda became a dirty old man. The latest Kiyoaki/Isao incarnation was a Thai princess (who ended up dead, again).

WHAT HAPPENED
After Isao's death, Honda went through a transformation: from the idealistic, righteous judge into the pragmatic lawyer who only took clients that could actually afford his service. A job took him to Thailand, and it was here that he met little Princess Chantrapa (nicknamed Ying Chan), whom her family thought was crazy because she claimed to be a Japanese youth--Isao. (And she recognized Honda, too.)

Next, Honda went to India on a paid trip courtesy of his current employer. Watching a funeral party and a cow by the Ganges, he achieved some sort of clarity about life.

A couple of years after World War II, Honda had developed a habit of secretly watching illicit coupling in public parks. It was also around this time that he met Ying Chan again, now a young woman who remembered nothing about her past life. He became obsessed with her, wanting to see her naked to establish her identity (both Kiyoaki and Isao had three moles in the exact same place).

KEY POINTS (or HOW HONDA SAW THINGS, maybe)
The ultimate personification of beauty = Ying Chan
The ultimate observer = A voyeur
The ultimate, godlike act in life = Sexual act

Quoting Albert Camus' Exile and the Kingdom 8/16/2012 11:39:00 PM

"[T]ell me: has your good Jesus always answered you?"

"Always . . . no, Captain!"

"Well, then?"

The cook burst out with a gay, childlike laugh.

"Well," he said, "he's free, isn't he?"

Albert Camus, "The Growing Stone", Exile and the Kingdom

Back Edition 7/03/2012 12:21:00 PM

Reading my previous posts from a couple of years back in this blog, I wanted to cry. Did I really write those things? God, how pompous! How pretentious! (Not to mention so many typos, grammatical errors and curious choice of words.) Well, I guess I'm still pompous and pretentious, even now. Just a little bit more self-conscious, though. I hope it means I'm acquiring wisdom. Or is it just a sign that I'm getting old?

Runaway Horses (Yukio Mishima) 6/26/2012 11:24:00 AM

----The Sea of Fertility #1: Spring Snow----


SETTING
Japan, early Showa Era (1932-1933)


CAST OF CHARACTERS
Isao Iinuma: A spirited young man seeking to cleanse Japan from degeneration by shedding his own blood and those he perceived as the personification of evil (e.g. financiers, westernized upper class). Isao was highly respected by his peers and elders, thanks to his strength of character and accomplishment in kendo. To fight for the cause, he founded the secret organization the League of the Divine Wind.

Shigekuni Honda: Presently a respectable thirty-eight year old judge, his unshakeable belief in logic and rationality began to crumble when he met Isao, suspecting the possibility that Isao was Kiyoaki Matsugae's reincarnation.

Shigeyuki Iinuma: Isao's father, headmaster of the Academy of Patriotism, former tutor/manservant of Kiyoaki Matsugae's. He's an intense person, but the type who had no trouble in living with himself despite glaring discrepancy between his conviction and action.


NOTABLE QUOTES (according to me anyway)
"Before the sun . . . at the top of a cliff at sunrise, while paying reverence to the sun . . . while looking down upon the sparkling sea, beneath a tall, noble pine . . . to kill myself." --Isao

When Honda reflected upon his own character, he had no choice but to conclude that he was a man possessed of a will. [H]owever, he could not avoid misgivings as to the ability of that will to change anything or to accomplish anything, even in contemporary society, let alone in the course of future history.

"Naturally, having a large number of unemployed is unpleasant. However to equate this immediately with an unsound economy is fallacious. Common sense tells us that the contrary is true. The welfare of Japan is not bound up with there being good cheer in everybody's kitchen." --Kurahara, the capitalist

Not feared nor, much less, hated, only loved, [Isao] found himself in a situation that wounded his pride.

". . . Purity can't be toned down a little . . . . [I]f our ideas can't be watered down, and if they're threat to the nation . . . our ideas are just as dangerous as those of the Reds . . . ." --Isao


FINAL THOUGHTS

• I imagine contemporary suicide bombers are not so different from Isao, in their zealousness and intensity.
• I think I understand why Isao thought it necessary for him to die in order to be of service to the Emperor and his country, and I know it takes great courage to stare death in the face. However, I do wonder if there's an element of cowardice there. I mean, isn't it easier to end your life than to keep on living while staying true to your principles and fighting for them?
• Are fascism and communism two sides of the same coin? (Backdrop: The richer getting richer while the poor getting poorer; cheap imported goods abound, leaving local producers--e.g. farmers--in a pinch; increased activism from the Right and Left, sometimes taken to extremes, e.g. murder, bombings.)

----The Sea of Fertility #3: The Temple of Dawn----

Useless Tool 6/22/2012 07:18:00 PM

Are you serious? I don't need blog traffic statistic thingy to know that nobody visits my blog! Sheesh!

Spring Snow (Yukio Mishima) 6/18/2012 01:51:00 AM

A particular book would conjure certain images. Take Yukio Mishima's Spring Snow (the first book in the Sea of Fertility Tetralogy), for example. It evokes images of tranquil Japanese garden, flowy silk kimono, picturesque view from a summer villa overlooking the sea, palanquin crossing snow-covered roads. Mishima portrayed his setting in great detail that you can see everything vividly in your head. No wonder many Goodreads reviewers use the word "beauty" or "beautiful" in describing the book. The emotional effect it produces, however, is something else.

Maybe it's just me. But not far off through chapter 1, one encounters this: "Kiyoaki was . . . so sensitive, so prone to melancholy. One would have been hard pressed to find, in that rambling house . . . anyone who in any way shared his sensibilities." Reading those sentences, I felt a sense of foreboding. That feeling would stay with me right through the end.

Mishima's chief protagonist is Kiyoaki Matsugae, a young man so beautiful everyone took it for granted that he should have the sensibilities of a courtier despite his samurai extraction. (Yes, the class system had been abolished in the Meiji Era, while the story takes place in the early Taisho Era--1912 AD--but as far as I can tell, even today, Japanese are still referring to one's samurai origin, especially when they're talking about politicians, capitalists, etc.) Capricious and given to brooding, this was a guy whose consideration of the agreeable-distasteful took precedence over that of good-bad or right-wrong.

When we first met Kiyoaki, we found someone who languidly led an innocuous existence: going to school, moping around like your typical teenager and talking about life in general with his schoolmate, the sober Shigekuni Honda (the Nick Carraway of this story, sort of). But it is through his interaction with childhood friend (and later, lover) Satoko Ayakura that we got to understand Kiyoaki's "true self". It's obvious he was attracted to Satoko, but he seemed to be ignorant of (or chose to ignore) the fact, too busy nursing his wounded pride, because he suspected that she secretly laughed at his immaturity. Not until their situation became impossible--for Satoko was betrothed to another, an imperial prince to boot--that Kiyoaki sought to pursue a relationship with her. This, despite previous subtle prodding from multiple fronts--his parents, Satoko herself--to admit his feelings for her.

There's more to it than just the desire to hurt a person who loved him dearly, though. (And yes, he was being deliberately cruel.) Rather, it is Kiyoaki's fascination with the aesthetic aspect of things that drove him into action. Put it this way: when there's no impediment to his being together with Satoko, he did nothing; and yet, the prospect of engaging in a secret affair--which would be difficult to maintain--didn't deter him whatsoever. Why is that? Because for him, there's nothing more beautiful than forbidden romance between two young people who loved each other.

In the end, my apprehension--the oh-shit-something-bad-is-surely-going-to-happen feeling--was vindicated. But heck, Mishima wasn't aiming for it to be good or happy; it's supposed to be beautiful instead. And it is. Beautiful, but disturbing.

----The Sea of Fertility #2: Runaway Horses----
----The Sea of Fertility #3: The Temple of Dawn----

hollow 6/14/2012 11:53:00 PM

trivialities that drown
signal-to-noise lower than one

big words, lofty ideals
dispense at leisure, 'cause you never suffer

trudging through life
waiting to die

clinging to meaning
where there is nothing

Recipe for a Contented Life 4/04/2012 08:03:00 AM

1. Be grateful for everything
2. Do not watch TV news report
3. Stop feeling as if you need to justify yourself and your actions to others

Consuming Life (Zygmunt Bauman) 3/22/2012 07:50:00 AM

Not a summary or a review, but my personal note, having read Consuming Life. A couple of aspects of postmodern/post-industrial/consuming life according to Bauman, as I understand them:

We're all commodities
Preoccupation with images, because if you're not white enough (it's an Asian thing), thin enough, hip enough (the Nikes, the Jimmy Choos, etc), you're out of the game. (What game? Social relationship, I think.) You are your image.

Pointilist nature of time
Emphasize on the here and now. Past and future hardly matter. (Modern people buy precious metals and houses, postmodern people buy designer stuff and refurbish their kitchen with stainless steel countertops even when they never cook.) Boredom is a vice. (Imagine office types who'd gladly get stuck in a traffic jam in order to go to some vacation spot, rather than spending time with their family to just talk and enjoy each other's company.) You consume to alleviate your boredom.

Quoting A Wild Sheep Chase 3/16/2012 03:37:00 PM

"I was twenty-nine years old. In six months my twenties would be over... One big blank. Not one thing of value had I gotten out of it, not one meaningful thing had I done. Boredom was all there was."

- Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase -

George Orwell Said . . . 3/04/2012 01:05:00 AM

. . . this, about how to write (in his essay Politics and the English Language):

• Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything barbarous.

Sound, simple rules. I think I need to follow them.

The Manics Made Me Manic 3/01/2012 03:56:00 PM

I listened to this song in heavy rotation the other day:



Come the time to sleep, I just couldn't, because the song kept repeating itself over and over and over again inside my head. God knows Judge Yr'self is hardly the perfect lullaby.

Maybe I should listen to this song instead. Problem is, as much as I like Manic Street Preachers and love James Dean Bradfield('s voice), the idea of him singing a Wham! song simply reduces me to giggles. Thus, same effect as the above.

A word to the wise. Playing a single song on a loop for hours on end isn't a very good idea, no matter how much you enjoy that particular song. Now, where is that MP3 player . . . .

Note: Before you ask, no, I don't have "4REAL" tattooed on my arm and Karl Marx posters in my room.