So Bill was a bit of a dill alright. I'll try another 3 pages of McEwe standing up at Kinokuniya when I get back. (Arrived in Jogja today.) No offense to Ian Mc.—company policy: No chairs of anywhere in KK SG. If you really wanna seat there's the tight little SHSHSH_t-hole cafe attached where they jump at you the second you enter. Sir, have you purchased that book?... No Sampling Allowed of unpurchased, prominent all sides. Might be cos of soup stains; might be cos a proper survey would reveal the utter crud within the pages. Might be a whole lotta things. NO, absolutely No Such thing as a free lunch in the island republic, get that straight. Not to worry, my dear. I'll be buying it when I leave. Shirt, collar, and of course the panama unfrayed back then, what could the poor love do? Rile a customer who was about to spend $5 plus for a cafe AND promised to buy a book on the way out into the bargain? Risking that would be more than her life was worth. Manager scream his head off, next she knows she's collecting plates like the old toothless ahmas at the kopi shops. Needless to say discarded. Enormously difficult to buy anything in a bookshop nowadays. Bought the occas. 2nd-hand item here, Greene's Quiet American. Took the region to finally get around to it. First rank, some wonderful pages. Met a French-Algerian bank fella last year who credited Quiet Am for setting him on the road to Asia, in fact, where, incidentally, he has found his local Phuong—gal who believes in him more than he believes in himself, he suggested. (Sabbatical from the grind to pursue photography and maybe writing.) Fantastic unruly procession here tonight. They love their costuming the orang Jogja, brilliant get-up. Pike-men, powdered 18th C. wigs, caked lime it must be on young women, signifying god knows what. Lustrous batik every side. Drums—kettle and other—pipes & gongs. A long, LONG Chin dragon carried aloft by boys wildly rambunctious. Ten o'clock at night in an unlit street by the rail-line, they were their own choreographers, the head suddenly doubling back without notice and the lads in the body forced to follow just like a real dragon might have done after something had caught its eye. A pretty trannie walked in the midst of one troupe perfectly fitting. Countless numbers were fagged out sitting in the gutter having a ciggie, one provided a massage of her toes by a compassionate colleague. (Arbus & other photographers of down-time performers recalled.) The disorder revealed bucket-loads of captivating, multifarious life. (Now Breughel.) It does do one's heart a power of good passing through this people every day. Fourth time in Jogja; this will bring up six months in this city alone. (Informed reportage.) Struck some fine chaps at Semesta cafe after dinner and before the second round through the carnival. Initially, young Sulawesi lad caught the attention with his FUCK YOU IF YOU CANT DANCE tote. Black item belonging to his girlfriend. The girl, a native of his hometown, he managed to convince to come across to Jogja with him to pursue her passion. For his part—a reggae fella—lad was respecting his father's wishes with Internat. Rel. at the Muhammadiya University. (Jogja is a university town, a great number sited.) When his group later came to take up the adjoining table a comment on the bag surprised; after some giggle an apology made for the indecent language. (Common courtesy here, even from wannabe hipsters.) Chap listened keenly to the news of the current Booker contender, whose novel centered on the assassination attempt on Bob Marley in Jamaica, back in the ‘60s, was it? Later when the group was asked about its take on the Syrian disaster, intelligent responses were given. Minimal English, and the bahasa this side more minimal still, somehow we managed. Difficult to imagine a similar group of ours being able to give such measured, thoughtful and insightful response on say the South China Sea standoff. The reggae man too was told of the old Arizonan convert Faris's comments on the striking Javanese female gait. Earlier in the evening a scarved girl in nondescript jeans & top—plain dark brown head-cover—had lifted herself some distance from the mean with her passes before the table. A stream of water finding its path; sinuous snake in a kind of glide-slide by the tables. Could have been the shoulders moving with the hips creating the effect. One saw the same everywhere here, Faris putting it down to the traditional dance classes in childhood that participants retained in later years. In Singapore the Javanese maids could sometimes carry themselves so. One exponent in Sing had shown those movements within the walls of the Carpmael domicile on a number of occasions last year, but that is another long story.
NB. A friend began an online exchange with comments on an Ian McEwan book praised over-much in a review by Bill Bryson.
Yogyakarta, 2015
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