Douche

Not bad so far as these things go. If you wanna choose a list of confreres for sharing a Contributors Page you'd go for royalty first of all. Andy Motion fair company. Andy just got back from the Royal Box at Wimbledon; couldn't make Lords for the cricket as the man was burning the midnight oil like the rest of us revising and polishing lines in order to ensure he made the cut at Ambit Magazine. Soho launch day before spitting distance from the British Museum, Carnaby Street &etc. And has taken tea at Windsor, stray Corgi crotch hair difficult to launder. Beaut show. His successor as the Laureate turns out a Scot gay gal, doubling as the poetry editor at—you guessed it—Ambit Magazine. (No accusation of nepotism insinuated.) Good going; one always wonders what kind of company one is entering with these ventures. Reassuring.
         Congratulations to the thin, tired waiter here tonight at Tasvee. The Indian-Malays like himself, the old Chins in the quarter, all the other ragtag ratbags have provided much inspiration to this scribe here before you. Party in London last night (Soho would have gone over his head); Californian publication upcoming at the end of the month. Couldn't have done it without you people. Really.
         Blinking. Knotting that fine smooth brow some. Might have got the essence the man, little kernel. Chap well knows as they all do how they are appreciated, not hard to tell. Never less than a double nandri, terima kasih, thank you at every serving comes naturally, welling up. Almost tears at the undeserved lordly attendance.
         The earlier episode at the Malay provisions store at the base of J. C. Complex was going to be let pass. Nagged away, nag, nag, couldn't be left aside. A little wry fun rising up of itself.  You had to laugh at your predicament, yours and that of the others. A hoot.
         Toiletries, beauty products, soaps, natural remedies. Place was worth a peek every couple of months. Lazy evening cruising with Andy in the pocket, nothing pressing, have a little look-see. From the doorway there was nothing visible, but you never can tell, an Arabian princess, footloose dowager of some kind behind a curtain perchance might be receptive to the suggestion of ginger tea somewhere beneath the rain trees. Short survey.
         Start in the usual corner and working thoroughly through. These native places were always interesting; nothing like the supermarkets. You could not find five percent of this product on the NTUC or Fairprice shelves. As we shall presently see.
         Some of the goods were familiar from down in Jogja, items from Indonesia and the Peninsular. Magnifying glass in the front pocket of the bag for small print. Some of the bahasa was not beyond this now seasoned traveler, Malay specialist/interpreter of Tropical Islam to the wider world.
         Little worth remarking for the most part. Weighting toward the Arabic-Islamic sphere: olive oil soaps, shampoos, dates, skin-care products. Arabian perfumes and whitening creams that might have been popular in the Prophet's day—metres of shelf space. Unguents. The Zam-zam water from the spring in the Holy Land where Abraham's wife.... what was it again?... Seemed to be out. There was fakery on the market to be sure. Various elixirs, pills and potions. Little of interest, little worth remarking, until at the end the opposite corner at the back was reached. It had taken twenty minutes of slow, steady and unhurried looking. 
         Long white paper box tooth-paste sized, pictureless branding.
         MADURA ASLI
         Oh yeah. Madura. Madura Island; the people thereof, here in a little long pack for you to take home. For sale.
         One did not need to google. Madura asli. Twenty white boxes stacked, blue upper case lettering.  Memories of impatiently opening the Kellogg’s pack for the toy within the cardboard. Half a dozen plastic Madura natives in traditional dress for child's play unlikely here.
         Inside it was not toothpaste either, but not far off. A long, irregular and bulbous cylinder sheathed in clear plastic. A blank kind of article, something of the look of a pre-consumerist product. In the Eastern Bloc even in the 80’s there was this kind of simple, utilitarian packaging. Natural colour it seemed; natural form perhaps. Well, almost. Perhaps the shape was smoothed by hand beneath atap-roofed cottages.
         Edible? Soft tube?... No, it only looked soft. If there was a screw or other kind of top it was not apparent. 
         One of the sales staff in the black/green corporate polo was sitting behind a shelf having his dinner. Styrofoam take-out and plastic glove for shoveling produced a momentary wince. Maybe he'd been handling something, the cosmetics and detergents. Not in any case for disturbing.
         Side-kick around a bit under a scarf an older woman, a disappointing face to show the world not to do with ugliness.
         Innocent question, lady could see that readily enough. Briefest blanching.
        — For ladies. Ask the uncle, the most she could answer.
         At first the thought her English was inadequate. Usual chap at the counter was smooth, took his teh under the verandah at Mr. T. T. before his shifts. 
         The regular chap was not in however, still away after the Hari Raya break. Old uncle the replacement couldn't say Aah, as the Montenegrins put it.
         Oh well. It was only a half-hearted enquiry.
         There was a little commotion outdoors, firemen in their kit running along the path. Coming up earlier a couple of Indian chaps had been training a garden hose up at the first storey of the corner shop-house where a crowd of onlookers had gathered. Nothing. A toaster caught fire perhaps, or fan. Now the brigade was looking lively, dozen young lads in nice bright red unused uniforms and boots. Action stations. The crowd had doubled, flashing lights brightening the dark corner. 
         One had gone out for a peek absentmindedly with the non-alcoholic mouthwash and the mystery package in hand. A quick look, see who had gathered.
         After five months in Jogja over three trips a good number of Madurese had been encountered come across from their little isle up above Bali. There were a good number of becak drivers from there, some of the traders; shops along the rail-line carried their specialties, foods and the like that was advertised on the windows. Mahshushah the guide and interpreter had been born on the island of cow racing and some particular kind of weaving or dyeing. Madura was a harsh, tough place, a kind of local Wild West. There were still many in Indonesia. Madura had begun to attract some tourist interest; a visit had been intended for some time now. There would be few backpackers on Madura; to date it was only internal tourism and only beginning. A couple of impressive orang here in Geylang Serai hailed from Madura; one knew the asli of Madura more than a little.
         The diner had finished his meal. Old auntie had told him her difficulty with the foreign customer. Over he strode now to rescue the situation.
         A wood was it the lad said of some kind native to Madura? Or was it crystal, calcified rock? 
         The thought of a dildo had arisen between times. It was unlikely of course, but there were a range of condoms on open display on a couple of shelves in colourful boxes, ribbed and flavoured it might have been. 
         Chap was matter-of-fact and humourless, still wearing his plastic mitt. Late evening after a long shift.
         A natural cleanser, he delivered in best doctor-at-bedside manner. For women below, the hand gestured. Eliminated smells and whatnot.
         Fellow spoke authoritatively, as if he knew precisely what he was talking about. (Helped out his wife with the operation when she had a crick in the neck?)
         There was nothing more to say. This was not a shopping expedition for one's own wife, no need explain. 
         OK. Gotcha then Bud, rightOh. Not to worry.
         It would not have made much of a dildo, even loosely improvised. Hard in an unappealing way, yet light too without body. This was calcification of some kind, early stage transformation of wood to rock? Geologists would have a name for it. Evidently selling.

Love Hotel

Completely and entirely graceless this fella at the desk. What makes it worse he's difficult to duck. Cheap Love Hotel not surprising perhaps. (A new deal in recent days advertised on the banner outside the rear entry in the lane shows midnight to noon fifty-five a pop, Mon-Fri ONLY.) Three-four times a week water gushing in the pipes at one, two, three AM like a plane coming over for Changi. If it's not through the walls behind the bed-head it’s gurgling down the drain in the floor. 
         Standard is a preliminary wash immediately the room is entered; clean-up not long after and bringing up the rear, Wait for it! the squeaky wheel of the Room-attendant’s cart. 

         On first taking a room there two years before Shithead said the fourth floor was free of hanky-panky, the Turd. 
         With the irregular shifts impossible to escape the man. Neat clean-shaven jumpy Jerk. Coming down the stair up he springs from his chair looking round the corner. Perfect, exemplary patience maintained all the while, still somehow the fella has sniffed out the disgust. This morning like most mornings left hand hovering for the credit card at the machine, right above for the receipt. Tearing off, the first slip retained by the office and only second for the customer, quick-fire flashed across the counter. Minimizing the encounter. 
        - Watch out Buster! You've got it coming.

        On the corner by the river in the little park the Indon lasses use for their Sunday picnics a pair of old Malays had filled five large yellow plastic bags with leaf-litter. One point one meter, nearly a metre diameter. Just collecting the last few newly fallen around one of the boles. Inside the cabin of the truck waiting on the street, the fella who has it good, the driver with something like fifty dollars added per month, sits slumped behind the wheel restrained by his belt in the best imitation of a corpse seen in the last couple of days. The sleeping postures visible on every side over the island call out for serious pictorial treatment in a survey of this broiling mass of concrete, steel and glass athwart the Equator.

Butterflies for Literature

Near half four time-out from the room-hunt. Blasted nuisance, rotten damn waste of time. Library refuge, first visit since the return from Jogja. In the café there was a chance encounter with Ranie after our dinner of last week. (Was the chocolate batik scarf really a welcome gift? enough gold in the intricate beeswax patterning to counteract the perhaps unwelcome choc on brown skin double-up? Late night she had messaged that she liked it; suspiciously adding it was a useful present too.)
         Full-house down in the newspaper/basement, only the single pair of legs with a vacant seat adjacent, reading matter unclear. Mandarin it turned out, in Eurasian hands. Neat young lass in red slip-ons not exactly Fuck-me level, resistant to the Wild Side.
         Pin-drop silence as usual almost welcome after the noisy Kota Yogyakarta Perpustakaan.
         Old men seeking out the aircon, high-heels, one scarf at the other end on the first round. Vlad Nab. on the face of the nearest shelf, yeah, yeah, the Lit and Butterflies quote, what else? The news wouldn't have broken here of his pedophilic pursuits. Colourful butterflies chased by the pith-helmet and net. Vera! Veruska drazenka! Lepidoptery, chocolate cake and literature for Sing' consumption.
         Old crocs. soaking up the aircon outnumbering most others. They would get under their wives feet at home. No-Go zone for uncles in shorts, tees and thongs here. The tough guys lay about in the shade outdoors, escorted out quick-smart did they try to breech the Store-house of Knowledge. Breaking the rules dozing—let's see how long before Sec. do their rounds. 
         Daubed soft-hued landscapes and shop-house frieze around the corner. They gobble this stuff up day after day without OD-ing, hard-core junkies beyond redemption.
         Innocent Erendira & Other Stories beside Franzen and Eugenides next shelf-end. None of the Acquisition staff have read any Garcia M. How could they make head or tail of the material?! Within the competence of 3 - 5 % of the population, no more, of bloody course. The Ascot-voiced MRT announcer could be given a nice little examination on her broader competence using one of the old master’s texts. Knee-length polished boots for the interrogation stamping round her chair a little. I ask you once more Madame, page 43, paragraph two…. Saucy bit where a pair of lovers sky-rocket: ".... her breast like ripest melons fallen from the tree directly upon the unwary Eugenio passing on his way to his father’s jewelry store...." Madame, attend!
         A short-fuse stink bomb in the stacks, no holding back on the sulphur and taking a seat at the exit where the evacuation could be calmly observed, coming to the aid of the most badly afflicted and getting in the papers next day. There's no caning for over fifty year olds now…. Iridescent turquoise for the.... what did they call the shelf-stackers couple of years ago?... EXPERTISE carried on their backs like a load of firewood. The bus "Captains" on the roads here. Spectacular glory and honour for those at the very apex of the pyramid of course. What were the feeble pharaohs to compare!
         Two out to it along the wall, without the snoring in line to get some good catch-up. Aircon savings at home not to be sneezed at, like in the Eastern Bloc heated railway waiting-rooms.
         All Vlad's intricate trickery. Let them join the chase. Poor ol' sods trying to get on the trail, step up to Literature, seize the take-away. Might help them win a contract, beat the other guy, upgrade to the penthouse. Rose of Literature growing from the pile of merde.
         The Lower River, Theroux, who had a run here in the 60's. Downstairs Ranie had been preparing for her English Enrichment class for Pre- and Junior School with grammar and phonetics for pronunciation. (Sounds like bulldust laid on a mite high right?)
         Arthur Conan Doyle, Stendhal (bracketed reminder of his original name), Richard Steele — the sketch in the elaborate wig aiding recall. Richard Steele.
         Not a whisper, occasional page-turn and sandal-slap. Still no Malays or Indians. Faintest susurration of kids' voices from the far corner nook or cave thing. Tomorrow night a launch of a magazine in Soho spitting distance from the British Museum where a piece skewering this place will be among the rest of the literature. The very paving-stones where Rich Steele paced three centuries ago.
         Chap woken from his nap with an exclamation brought up from beyond. Finally an old bellied Indian striding past at the other end of the Nabokov shelf.              
         "Literature and butterflies are the two sweetest passions known to man."
         The old Impaler was hardly going to fess up to any more now was he?

Pouring

Splash hit musical

Raining live on stage

Book now at MBS “SINGING IN THE RAIN”

Yellow on the blue of the cab; drops bone white.

In Jogja there had been an hour’s rain in two months; zero locally in ten days. This would provide some refreshment even indoors on the stage, chap with the brolly twirling as he strides through.

Opened a few days ago.

A feast for theatre-goers continuing. As reported previously, The LKY Musical premiered last night. (Strange the absence of the photo-spread in the morning paper.) 

Publication News - Street Shoot

Some publication news: a London lit. mag has just brought out a sequence of my flash-fiction, titled "Street Shoot", set in the neighbourhood of SG where i have been living for four years now. (Near fifty months on the equator, mainly Singapore, with portions on Java and up on the Malaysian Peninsular.) 
         Ambit Magazine gets its cachet from J.G.Ballard's tenure as fiction editor; he also published a good deal in the magazine. At the moment the current poetry editor at Ambit is the reigning poet laureate.
         At the end of the month a second item, "Year of the Goat,” will be published by Big Bridge, an American lit. magazine based in California.
         I'll need to leave a decent interval before posting the relevant pieces on the blog, both of which derive from developed and revised postings of the last 12-18 months.

http://ambitmagazine.co.uk/fiction/street-shoot

The Musical

The return of course presented immediate contrasts. The airport and then the bus chewing up the suburbs in the half hour ride back to Geylang Serai processed slowly through the brain. Strange, a little eerie and ghostly. Stronger than anything in the next day or two was the Mall factor. It seemed the streets simply funneled between the malls. Unlike in Indonesia, there was nothing on the street, no life, nothing of consequence independent of the malls and housing. People moved from one to the other, sucked by the powerful aircon that often spilled onto the footpath enticingly. 
         In Jogja the majority, the vast majority still, lived entirely without the mall, without the supermarket and all the branded chains. Untainted in any way the great majority. They bore the heat. Most of them in fact were denied entry at the malls; muscled Security Guards uniformed and armed saw to that. Contrast Singapore; contrast the humanity. Note the transformation. On each return a more and more sharp contrast.
         Another kind of stab was received from the street on the Monday, day two of the return.

         Har Yassin had remained unchanged. The cheap, warm and friendly Indian labour; warm and friendly remnant kampung clientele. All very tolerable when the money-hungry Dragon was hidden in his office-lair. Opposite the market at peak busyness in the rundown to Hari Raya, El Eid, Lebaran in Indonesia. Traffic on Changi Road threatened fatalities by the minute: the volume created safety for the elderly raising their hands in plea to the hurrying drivers. (The pedestrian overpass was used by ten percent of shoppers; road engineering totally inadequate.)
         Husbands and sons picking up women over-laden with plastic bags. Delivery trucks. Shiny late-model cars and taxis. All double-parked. Horns blaring. The heat seemed to churn more strongly beneath the aural assault. (A recent commentator in Yogyakarta had made the point: never a horn honked in anger or frustration on the roads of Central Java. Outstanding fact with which to be reckoned.)
         White cab. Virgin driven-snow pure was unusual here. (Was it the colour of mourning for both the Buddhists and Muslims, strictly to be avoided?) Parked directly across the road near the delivery entry-way. There might have been an irrelevant sky-blue on the roof. What was relevant was red., bold blood-red. (Chin colour of fortune and prosperity of course.) Red upper-case lettering fourteen-sixteen inches high on the rear door, tailored to fit.
         LKY
         It may have even been eighteen inches; eight or nine wide. Caught a couple of seconds later below in smaller font — THE MUSICAL.
         A canon-shot across the bows of the traffic the width of the boulevard. Bang! Knockout.

         Took down the three front pillars of Har Yas., leaving the roof and the upper storey tottering. Dust and glass fragments. 
         The former great leader had been lost to the nation in what, April was it? Was it fully three months. (Googling later: last week of March; four months.) A big commemorative song and dance up and going already at one of the big theatres? Was it really possible? Could it truly be? The costuming and all the logistics?

         (One recalled later the recently elected PM's reported visit to HK, where a suit was ordered at a tailor’s and collected same afternoon. Example set.)
         A green and gold silhouette in profile flashed the well-known form from the side of the cab. The old Hakka master manipulator with the great golf game that none of his contemporary national leaders could best; son of a watch-seller outside the Capitol building. In many other countries, certainly of the region, the image of the figure in this graphic transmogrification needed no labeling.
         In the month or so of mourning it might have been following the great man’s passing, the local architects, designers, engineers and the rest here had delivered to the authorities in South India, former Andhra Pradesh State, a fully complete new capital city that could be plonked on a virgin site PLOP! no trouble at all. Delivered before-time in fact. After the initial tender had been accepted under three months it may have been from go to woe. Can-do Sing'. Famously Can-do. (The new Indian PM Modi was a great fan of the transformation wrought in Singapore.) Compared to that what was a musical adaptation of the well-known story familiar to all?
         
NB. Today in the newspaper a sketch of a new city in China somewhere from the same template. Towers, harbour, couple of green patches out front with a couple of trees. This is the global significance of the Little Red Dot, spawning its replicas across the world: China, the Middle East, Africa. The frontier of Northern Australia soon no doubt with the expertise of the Tropics from here. Wednesday 15 July 2015, (Googling: “Raffles City, Chongging”. Chongqing presumably.)

Post-script. In fact “The LKY Musical” opens tonight, Tue. 21 July, at MBS’s Mastercard Theatres. Nineteen songs, 35,000 tickets (70%) pre-sold reported.

Javanese Tectonics

By evening it was the tears that remained as the strongest impression from the morning. Exceedingly rare the outflow of such feeling here. Anger, tears, despondency, grief, the rattiness and aggression of the unhinged were not in evidence in the Malay world. Almost not once on Java. 

         This morning riding in the becak with Paijo the young couple possibly still in their teens standing by the side of one of the narrow roads we took near the Tugu monument, where again innumerable handsome Javanese houses were found. The fine and handsome houses came first, both the monied often and the older more modest and simple. It surprised how quickly open space unfolded behind with nasi fields ranging from young plants under water right the way to desiccated stalks sheared close to the ground. In a couple of fields emprit came in small flocks for the grain that was visibly bending the slender leaves in the breeze.

         — Look. Emprit, called Paijo.

         A few weeks earlier Paijo had been unable to find huda—the horse-flesh for which he had a hankering — at the usual stall and settled instead for emprit. The bird resembled a sparrow of the smaller size, with a dash of white plume in this case and possibly more rapid flight. On the skewer at the pushcart the soft cloudy pearls of meat suggested innards of some kind.

         There were fish ponds with darting ribbons of exotic colours, canals, water channels and drains. In the older, more tightly packed kampung housing metre length hollowed logs hung on ropes in little clearings and rang out at the lightest finger-taps. Cows hid in their paddocks; chooks, roosters and ducks roamed widely. Around the fields the hanging cages of songbirds were less in evidence.

         For the narrowest passages within the tight housing settlements Paijo needed assistance threading his path past motor-cycle handles and mirrors, water-pipes and fencing. An old granddad at one place was showing the way with a young heavily feathered and droop-eyed owl chick for a gathering of keen children. With the Ramadan holidays children peered from every corner. Small little cupboard shop-stalls of the usual kind. Easy, warm greetings throughout and no sense of intrusion. Mari, mari, welcome, welcome.

         Happening upon the young teens standing beside a wall in one of the narrow roadways the trouble was apparent from a distance. A clearly sounded whimper that might have produced the first tears of an outburst. With it the girl had stamped her feet; she may have stormed off without the restraining hand of the lad. One clasp was enough and the entry of the becak possibly worked in the boy’s favour.

         Both were helmeted, the lad straddling a motorcycle and girl in the tight space against the wall.

         Paijo must have averted his eyes too, pedaling on in the same rhythm and no word passed.

         Almost six months on Java altogether; almost the very first such example of the kind.

         The abstinence from alcohol was one significant factor; Islam and faith more generally another. A traditional culture inculcating deference and authority perhaps. A newcomer continues to revolve the added matter of life beneath the volcanoes.

Perch

Greeted unexpectedly by the other Deaf up at Tasvee with an invitation to a free table beside the pillar.
         — Yours: wide-arm gallant flourish.
        Smiles and nodding Thanks, showing two-handed the measure of a small square. Tight narrow table difficult, thanks all the same. Nodding.
         — But the swivel fan hanging from the pillar? Pointing.
         Ah, thanks again indeed. Much obliged. This here large, commodious round for the papers.
         Near ten sticky as all hell of course and the fan always welcome.
         Man knows the Scribe favors the small outer smoking tables directly against the gutter where the foot-slog of the Mainland and Indian laborers—the new coolie class—can be closely observed. Possibly he has noticed there was no more fagging, nor the long sitting of earlier years: the street’s powerful magnetism had passed. (The crowd had thinned after the government took heed of community dissent at the flooding foreigners; construction industry bosses feeling the strain.)
         It was only recalled a few days ago that in fact the chap was a karung guni, cardboard and aluminum fossicker. A kind of shabby, insufficiently honored knight of the environmental movement for indulgent eyes. Back up the road the other night loading his trolley.
         Short, impish, late forties, the balding adding years. Eyes the pretties going by with sometimes a squeaky call that never fails to surprise. Rejection leaves the man quite undaunted and occasionally one of the China lasses in the Chiang Kai Shek-era flouncy dresses will accept a seat, possibly even bestow a special favour.             

         Usually middle outer table preferred as it offers a prospect down Lorong 27 where girls work the first alley and gleam briefly in the swing of car-lights. A little vicarious pleasure etched on the face, chin up-tilted and jolting as the sign of his interest.
         Once more too the belated recognition of Eurasian heritage, in this case the immediate preceding generation. Almost fully four years it had taken to discern.

NB. After some recent focus on the karung guni and others at the bottom of the broad pyramid in Singapore a Government Minister made it his business to investigate particular cases. The man reported back that some aluminum and cardboard fossickers undertook their occupation out of a desire for physical recreation and in order to get out of the house.