Iglu Cilutung, between Volcanos

History, a Charming, Beguiling, Hypnotic History

Less a weblog than an historical position paper, iglu-cilutung has been modified very little over the past year. Now I intend to adding relevant data at the bottom - which necessitates scrolling down, down, down, past all the history.

It's like oh yes Byron, we remember him, he was the one with the Beaulieu and the bald head, wearing those sturdy, ugly blue Mao suits in Vancouver long before it was acceptable, shocking even the faint-hearted artistes.

A caution: we come with baggage attached - one reason to be reluctant to get famous. The more famous, the more baggage, and you end up locked in a box: your dealer, your lover, your press agent and public are dismayed when you perform and create 'out of character'.

This character has taken a powder, applied his vanishing cream, absquatulated with the gate receipts from Vancouver-by-the-Void. Not yet an Indonesian citizen, he has, as the Germans declare cuttingly, 'gone tropo', as the following pictographic narration clearly reveals.

More and more it seems to be the twilight of the great white hope, particularly in those parts of Asia where he and she once strode as lords and ladies of wealth and knowledge. BBlacky has gone with the flow, twisting in the wind, earning a humiliating but easy living as a hack advertising copywriter and kultur instructor, feeling (in classic Asian style) not a whit of shame for having gone over to the world of mammon, as a willing native squeaker expert in extolling modern Southeast Asian kapital adventure.

Please look at the picture from my perspective. Of course that is impossible. But that may indeed be a valid reason for you to spend your precious infinite time cruising my bbblog.

Cloud Formation above Gunung Gede

Gunung Gede ("Big Mountain" is a live volcano in West Java, about an hour's drive from downtown Jakarta. Described in one site as "extinct" (meaning it hasn't blown in the last 30 minutes or 30 years, about the same to a volcano) another, excellent, one [http://www.conservation.or.id/ggnp/] reveals that "Gunung Gede's first recorded eruption took place in 1747; subsequent eruptions occured in 1840, 1852,1886, and most recently in 1947, with a small event in 1957." She's ready to pop at any moment in other words and smothered in monkeys on my early morning run through the government-owned tea plantation at Parakansalak I witness the volcano with a curious elixir of emotions, joy and dread all at once.

Morning Mist over Sunda

The other live volcano, Gunung Salak (the charming name in English being "snakefruit" on account of its scaly skin) is really too close to photograph well. We are right up against it at Parakansalak. Gunung Gede is actually a national park, along with its twin, Gede Pangrango (http://www.geocities.com/gedepangrango/) and one of the few refuges of wildlife and stands of large trees. The Baron climbed Gede in four and a half hours but that was in part because he let the boys hoof it up with all the backpacks. He paid for this error by practically freezing at the summit while waiting for them: all the warm clothing was in the backpacks. It gets near freezing at the summit and the wind is rather vicious. In truth, nothing about these volcanos is cute, but their raw power is unequivocally attractive.

Volcano chain at Dieng Plateau, Central Java

Fish Pond at Sukarame, Parakansalak

The face of Java has been altered beyond belief by human intervention; what you see here would have been impossible even two hundred short years ago, as Sunda was covered in towering meranti, mahogany, teak and other hardwood giants. Today the landscape is leveled, cultivated intensely to feed Java's ninety million souls, and sold off - go to purchase hardwood in Jakarta and you pay by the kilogram - if you can find teak. (Other varieties? Forget it: the author had to travel to Bali to locate ebony from Sulawesi. The locals are absorbed in religion, family, survival, and lately the trinkets and toys of technology, so it's no use moaning to them of the loss. Money is the blood flowing in the brain today. Only the immutable power of the volcano is unchanged - at least until it builds in force and erupts once more, perhaps covering in fire and ash all the handiworks of Javanese civilization.

I normally commute to the volcanic highlands on the train from Pasar Minggu, once my money-grubbing weekday chores are performed. Among the more interesting commercial ventures is the gentleman with scorpion oil for sale - along with live scorpions. I thought of the popular bee-sting therapy for arthritis, in which one allows upset bees to inject their venom in an affected area. This apparently brings relief. Should I offer my painful wrist, result I am informed of thinning cartilage, to be whacked by an ornery scorpion? Or simply get on the train to Bogor with my precious stinging imagery?

New Second-Hand Polygon Trexia

Blacky used to carve through Jakarta traffic on a Yamaha TZR-250 but today everybody's on a motor so they have gotten as jammed up as cars. The solution: bike it. I can often out-race cars (easy) and motorcycles (when it's all jammed up) on the 20km ride from London School of Public Relations, where I teach a course called "Intercultural Communication", and my riverside perch in Condet, East Jakarta. I saw a Trexia parked at the School and fell in love for it, the Jack Northrop quote ringing in my smooth head: "If something is efficient and beautiful, it is right." Nice Chinese-Indonesian lady at Roxy Mas sold me this number for a million and a half rupiah - about $140. It's called a "hybrid" (skinny tires but standard fittings) and I'm already zooming the city on it.

Ujang drops by for Choco and Change

The neighbors' younger kid, amused, posing for the Casio snapper. I load up on Delfi, van Houten and other chewy choco stuff for the locals on the way to Cilutung, and they predictably flock around for a taste. And of course to wheedle a few thousand rupiah out of the gracious Baron, who knows well how his bread is buttered. Ujang here doesn't have any more of a notion of whose fuzzy mug is on his shirt than those kids who wear Che Guevara or Kurt Cobain, both exceedingly popular subjects for t-shirts here (though you do still hear the clunky strains of Nirvana on the radio once in a while - amateur night par excellence). I have quite a collection of artifacts and images of Osama and the late little-lamented Saddam, most of which are off the market here. While Osama has been able to twist fraidy-cat Uncle Sam around his dirty little finger, he's still a loser.

a black forest cake for my birthday - the locals assemble

better snap it quick before some enterprising spirit in the military-industrial-defense-congressional conglomerate decides they have to come kill some more Muslims to keep the gears oiled. Why indeed would you like to kill these nice folks (even the kid in the foreground - the one seen wearing the Osama t-shirt above), unless of course your arsenal is groaning with constipation and you do really have to go pop some brown folks to relieve your stress. in the meantime the Baron moves to celebrate his 67th, between Cilutung and www.swastikabali.org

Feb. 1, 2007 Floods in South Jakarta

For many years I did not get the eerie sensation of Jakarta as a doomed metropolis, the way I did living in Bangkok, with its filthy canals, violence and determined ugliness. That seems to be changing, as annual floods tear away the city and make earning a living next to impossible. I got through this low point in Kemang on Sudiro's motorcycle but the air cleaner filled with muddy water and that was that for the day's efforts, alas. Hours later the water in this location was two meters deeper, the locals inform me.

Steel suspended pedestrian bridge takend out by wall of garbage, Ciliwung River, Pasar minggu

The real monster floods came on February 3 and 4. The Ciliwung River rose some twelve meters at the most energetic point, people having to run for their lives as the water surged a meter in five minutes. This extermely convenient pedestrian bridge behind Pasar Minggu Station was a robust steel structure suspended from cables. The garbage which the locals so merrily cast into the river backed up and eventually tore it away. I am told that Public Works is responsible for building a new bridge which translates as don't hold your breath. In the meantime the enterprising locals have constructed a tiny pontoon crossing, which I can tote my bicycle across. But the motorcycle must take a lo-o-o-o-ng detour, down to the ring road, to get home these days. Poor Jakarta.

Garbage Bridge at Pasar Minggu

What can you say about a people who fervently love their country and celebrate its independence, yet scalp the forests, pave the mountainsides and fill the rivers with garbage and filth? For a few days after the floods the locals were actually walking across the thick crust of plastic garbage jamming the river. I too crossed it once, picking my way carefully on the hard part. The next day someone informed me that a local had taken a fatal step and sunk through the plastic, then become swept under it and entangled. They never found the body. And what about little old me, I thought to myself. Nobody even peeped when I set out across the sinister crust. All those years of motorcycle racing, to have been killed in such a silly manner, I thought.

Flood Refugees Camp Out at Pasar Minggu Train Station

Ferry from Gilimanuk (Bali) to Banyuwangi (East Java), 2001

Some personal history, as we return by Honda 250 and car ferry from Bali. I grew up as an Air Force brat, moving with the family every few months or so. We were in Germany in 1946 and 1948, and that was an experience never to forget, seeing Der Vaterland smashed flat and starving. I never lived anywhere more than nine months until 1967, when I was teaching and rebelling at Fresno State College for the Criminally Inane. Ten fun and frustrating years pursuing a doomed art and media career in British Columbia followed, before I realised that I belonged in East Asia, not Norteamerica, and now I've racked up eighteen years in Indonesia: slowing down and settling in. The tropics of Southeast Asia seem to be where I shall perform my climactic display, comfortable if dismayed by a famine of recognition, wealth and success. Well I asked for it, didn't I? he muses... So check out my renegade artwork at saatchi.co.uk.stuart/

Islamic Mosque on the way from Liwa to Danau Ranau, Lampung

In previous eras Hinduism and Buddhism were prevalent belief systems across the archipelago. Both these religions emphasize the impermanent, woozy, diaphanous nature of reality. Nothing is certain, everything is illusion and in a state of flux. When your physical reality is also subject to earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildlife attacks and other dangers you may well find comfort in a human-centred religion, overseen by a single, omnipotent - and normally ornery and bad-tempered, stern patricarchal Deity. Even the earth is uncertain: everybody in West Java builds on tanah merah, the shifting clay that overlays the island. There is no bedrock for hundreds of metres. If you are wealthy you sink piles and float your mansion on the sea of mud; otherwise you just shift, rock, rattle and roll with the earth beneath you.

Dutch Textile Factory becomes rice paddy, on the way to Situ Gunung, Sukabumi, West Java

The Essence of Labour... at a Distance

Indonesians will often complain to foreigners that their countrymen are "lazy" which is puzzling when you consider the huge amount of work required to carve and maintain the terraced fields of Java, not to mention the back-breaking job of planting and harvesting rice and vegetables from them. For which, incidentally, they receive a pittance. Their children demand handphones, motorcycles, and a steady stream of cash with which to pursue "Play Satan", the nickname for Sony's seductive video game. Thus money-obsession comes to infest even the remote farming hamlets of the mountains.

Fields observed from the road to Danau Ranau, Lampung

With a population of only a few million Java and Sumatra must have been a bucolic paradise (if you can forget about the malaria, crocodiles, bandits and cobras, of course). Today nature is pushed aside for more cultivation, more exploitation - the latest struggle is between elephants, highly territorial animals, and poor farmers who squat on and reclaim "unused" lands in elephant territory. The animals invade, trample crops, root up sweet potatoes, eat corn, and the farmers in turn poison the elephants. While the population has more or less stabilised, and few families (even rural ones) want children in profusion, these delightful tropical, volcanic islands already suffer from too many of our kind.

The Ciliwung River in mild flood from Blacky's Image Lounge, 2003

Stone Room under construction, Iglu Cilutung, Parakansalak, Parungkuda, West Java

Oilies Work a Petrocorp Barge, 1994

My own peculiar take on living in Indonesia, and at close quarters with (mostly Muslim) Indonesians is rather distinct from that of the majority of Westerners. Most come here to (a) make the pile of dough that seems to have become ever more elusive in the New World, (b) drink and fuck and play the [rich] bohemian in ways you can't back at home, taking advantage of the tendency of Asians to avoid confrontations with whiteys, or (c) escape them blues, leave them problems behind... (except of course they are really sticky little fellers and tend to tag along nonetheless). These gents you see here make let's say six thousand bucks a week, and they earn it. Question is, is it worth the effort? Smug and snug in his stony igloo the Baron poses these ridiculous rhetorical quests.

High angle from the Petrocorp equipment barge, looking toward the mouth of the Berau River

Ciki Diki in full regalia, with crisps

Indonesia was for more than three decades under the heavy hand of a military dictatorship, following the zany rule of Sukarno, the first President, and an attempted takeover by domestic Maoists (in the early 1960s the PKI, or Indonesian Communist Party, was the third largest in the world). The country was acutely poor, with runaway inflation and bouts of famine; women customarily bore had 8 to 10 children, just to end up with enough survivors to grow up and work the fields: under-5 mortality was appalling. Today’s Indonesia is considerably healthier, materially more prosperous and immensely information-richer, thanks to keen media attention. With birth rates falling (as they are in much of Asia) a contemporary authoritarian mode is assumed by the Diaper Dictators, of whom Ciki Diki, portrayed here in full police/military regalia, is fortunately exempted. Son of a former male paramour of the lustful Baron, Diki represents the new Indonesia, which doesn’t spare a thought at all about colonial domination or historical oppression. This is, ladies and gents, a nation of go-go consumers, ready to rock and roll. Alas, a groggy economy and the evil stinking shadow of KKN (the Indonesian abbreviation for “corruption, collusion, nepotism”) cripples growth and smothers opportunity for millions, particularly among eager younger people. And this, like most third-world countries, is a Land of Youth. The average age of the Indonesian citizen is probably around 19, and millions today are all educated up with no place to go. Children of farmers carry handphones, rent porn VCDs and stay up all night to watch Valentino Rossi whack the competition on MotoGP. They eat pizza and sushi and are not bloody likely to want to go hoeing any sweet potato fields, thanks anyway.

Sundanese Smoker at Sunday Market, Parakansalak, 2006

Indonesians, particularly Javanese and Sundanese (West Javanese, who do not tolerate being lumped together with their neighbours, even though they may follow the same religion and be of similar stock) do not alas age well. This geezer is probably no more than sixty-five or so, about the same age as the frisky Cock-Asian shooting him at the Parakansalak Pasar Minggu (Sunday Market). The Baron, a fun-loving product of the cut-up-or-shut-up era of the dearly departed Century, notes with dismay that his fellow sixtyish generation does not as a rule fuck, race motorcycles, run up and down hills with mean monkeys on their noggins, pursue unexplored intellectual directions with the unstoppable brain-mania of the Western thinker, read fancy books or try new foods… You see a lot of late-forty-year-olds shuffling along, slump-shouldered – like they are practising how to behave when they are eighty. It is, in a word, creepy. For his part, the Baron will go down fighting, laughing, spurting and tickling. Will anyone be kind enough to furnish the Classical Latin translation of Fuck ‘em if they can't take a joke?

Dreamy-looking locals, Cilutung, Parakansalak, 2005

The only white devil within yodelling distance, Baron Infinity crafts his images and burnishes his reputation amongst local yokels, passing out candy bars, tickling babies, and, above all, snapping pixxies of local folk. Bear in mind that many of these people may never have been photographed in their serene, slow-motion lives. So when this nutty-looking alien with the homicidal primate perched on his gleaming head whips out the Casio digital camera, it's really quite an event. Alas, the Word has Spread. No, not for being a Flaming Hohosexual (this particular bias being a non-issue in society at large here, in spite of what you may have read or seen in heavy-breathing media – remember, at one time and in certain societies you could have been killed for being born a twin, or left-handed, an albino, or simply adjudged to be possessed of the wrong flavour of spirit). Rather, as the old cork-soaker staggers past, sweating profusely from his “running” (more like hobbling these days, the 66-year-old legs starting to give way) they yell “Camera!” “Photos!” and he is obliged to stop and mug and snap a mud-ugly baby or a crumpled-up grandma – or even the whole clan, beaming. Weeks later he shows up with the photos and distributes them, along with candy and smiles. You’d swear the old goof is running for office, the way he acts. But so far so good: the locals look upon this strange guest with favour. “You can take the boy out of Texas but Ta Da Da Da Ta Da…”

Cilutung Victims of the "Japanese Dogbite"

Can't remember his name, but after he was smacked by a bus that was racing another and ran a red light, I went to see the young Thai-Chinese office worker from Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, where I worked from 1986-1988. He was pretty broken up and was clearly on his way out; the doctor in ICU joked grimly “This is how we Thai people practice population control: with motorcycles”. Twenty years later, and the boys at Iglu Cilutung simply won’t listen to the Baron when he pleads with them to wear helmets, gloves, footwear. Not to mention checking tire pressure and not riding on bald rubber. When I start to nag about this, relating tales of competitors ground up and spit out during my Grand Prix racing days (the Indonesian TV commentators call this “Grand Prick” which is suitably charming, considering most of the personalities involved), they clam up and politely ignore me. Speed kills, speed feels so good. The invigorating elixir of pleasure and terror: there’s nothing like it. I cannot imagine life without motorcycles; still, getting a “Japanese dogbite” as the Thais used to kid, is less and less appealing as I get older. Although I still ride very quickly, on TZRs, RG500 and ZXR750R, I am losing my taste for danger. As the old expression goes: “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots”.

Traveling with Ilham and Johnny Jorok ("Seeing-eye Simian")

Blinded by illness at the age of four, Ilham has been a pal for a decade. I sent him to Islamic School, figuring he could become an imam or other religious figure (one of the few professions open to the blind). Alas, Ilham is too fond of drinking and smoking and screwing loose ladies to be a preacher. We travel to Bandung on the train, along with Johnny Jorok ("Filthy Johnny" in Indonesian), a silver-gray macaque; these two are pleasing travel companions, Johnny stern and threatening (but tiny), Ilham genial, polite, amusing. Hanging around a blind person has been a major learning experience for the Baron. "Take my picture" he yells again. Johnny mounts him, digging for kutu (yes, one of the few words borrowed into English from Indonesian: "cootie").

Nanang chewing his nutsack

Nanang, portrayed here in the treed surroundings of our stony iglu, is one of the four “beruk Sumatra”, or “pig-tailed macaques”, who, (along with four smaller “silver-grey macaques” or “monyet Java”), are recent primate transmigrants to Cilutung from Jakarta; they are immensely pleased to be out of the nasty, polluted, heated city and back in the forest. In this candid portrait, Nanang is chewing on his nut sack, apparently out of nervousness. Camera shy? Doubt it. Other stalwart members of the troop include Marco Melandri, Cyndi Leaper, Johnny Jorok, Jihad, Unyil, Edisonia and Nano O’Nani (of YouTube fame), and the inestimable Gloria Gorilla. They are vicious and wild but keep the Baron smiling. I cannot imagine life not surrounded by pouting monkeys. Gone but not forgotten as well are Warren C. Findings, Dame Edith Shitwell, Betty Crocker and Bambi Hitler.

Monkeys aren’t the only fauna crawling the woods in these parts. Best I can divine this here is a sort of ferret, the “musang” among the more interesting bits of wildlife left in this denuded paradise. The name of the hamlet where I erected my stony igloo, “Cilutung”, literally means “water gibbon” though as ya know traductore traduttore. I have been informed that there were wild gibbons loose in the neighbourhood up to the 1970s. Not just wild, alas, but also tasty. The Baron sees a primate and smiles at his distant cousin, thinking affectionate thoughts. A local person spots one, looks for his machete, and thinks free meat for dinner. Note that this does not imply that Indonesians are necessarily unkind to animals, although most do tend to be rather indifferent (and are mystified as to my undying affection for the monkey tribe). As for this particular ferret, well he is not to be trifled with, is temperamental and snappish – but others of his clan are extremely affectionate. They are allowed run wild in people’s houses, and cling to the shirts of small children.

Baby Graves near Cimanggu

Prenatal health and hygiene are among the notable success stories of the Indonesian government and society. Very large families, of ten or more children, used to be the rule for rural people - assuming that up to half the children might die in infancy. The Soeharto era saw the establishment of the 'puskesmas' and 'posyandu' community health centres, offering basic diagnostic, therapeutic and pharmaceutical services for free. Mothers were urged to weigh babies, as a simple gauge of their health. A rehydration campaign, centred on 'Oralit', saved many young lives. The Baron goes for a walk past a local graveyard - observes the disproportionate number of tiny graves. The occupants thereof have in fact reincarnated as internet addicts in New Zealand and are reading these lines with amusement.

Survival of the Corniest

Very pleasing to see so many of the locals shifting their agriculture away from nutritionally worthless crops like tubers and rice to corn - though the Baron was bemused, as he did not realize maize would thrive in such a cool, wet climate. Much is sold to big city street vendors, who steam or roast it for sidewalk consumption. Here, as in most of the world, corn, like the humble tomato, is generally considered more of a fruit than a vegetable. It is a delicacy, often used in fancy-dancy desserts. Praise and obesiance to Centeotl, the Corn Deity!

I see, said the blind man...

...to his deaf daughter, as he picked up his hammer and saw. (from the late very lamented Lt. Col. Byron Black, Sr. USAF (Ret.) Here yana is looking doubtfully at the specialised saw which our colleague and collaborator in architorture Jim Tilley sent from Walnut Creek, California. Yana and I have blundered along, never having built before, and through some smarts, luck and the grace of Centeotl, the Corn God, we have made no great errors in building Iglu Cilutung. Unless you count siting it right on the edge of a little bluff, where it can settle and crack and teeter as the red mud subsides. (Two thousand dollar retaining wall required, sigh).

Modern Realism, Jakarta Commuting

Fond and fine it would be indeed to spend the twilight years gazing at the volcanoes but there is no money to be made in the mountains. The protagonist thus scrambles to stay afloat, earning a princely $2200 a month from his various hack writing and instructional duties (think $6000./month in a Western city). The new campus of STIKOM - The London School of Public Relations - Jakarta is just up the road past Bank BNI '46 and around the corner. The Shangri-La (aka Shang-Gorilla) Hotel rests there, along with a run-down kampung sporting goats nibbling the grass under an old tree. Most of the students are silly rich Chinese-Indonesian girls whose key focus in life is on their handphones, hair styles and fashionable presence. See below.

You forget sometimes that you're living in the tropics...

...in a messy third-world megapolis. Heading to work from iglu-cilutung at 05.05, riding from UKI down the toll road to Benhil, it's all metal, glass and speeding over the asphalt. One is reminded, at even such an hour, of just how amazingly SAFE living in Jakarta is. Polluted, noisy, dirty but fundamentally friendly and casual, the city was christened 'The Big Mango' for a valid reason. With some fifteen million souls struggling to survive in a dismal economy, it is still pretty much a kampung. 'Hello Mister' somebody calls out, waving with a shy smile. It is comforting feel the easy acceptance of the alien resident, something painfully absent in the suspicious, rigid cities of North Asia (lived in Yokohama and Osaka for years, so I know). As for the sensational 'CNN Factor', forget it. As the man says, good news is not news. There is no war on terror. It is a designer event. You live here awhile, you notice how crimes of violence are extremely rare. Crimes of property, sure: you can lose your handphone, your motorcycle or laptop computer. You are prosperous, they are poor, what do you expect. If you have been particularly unpleasant to your servants, your house might get cleaned out, when their punk pals ransack it. But rarely do criminals pack heat (though those that pack computers account for the horrendous level of white-collar crime). Street crime is quite rare, as evidenced by the protagonist of this blog waltzing home, hiking from Monas to Condet (about 25km.) on more than one occasion. Feeling frisky after a day slaving over the curricula, he leaves the campus at 23.00, arriving home weary but easy at 01.45. Disclaimer: if you go looking for trouble, you'll have little problem finding it (name me a city where this does not apply). Living here is quite a relief after the mercurial terror of fun-filled, gun-filled Bangkok.

The Paradox of City & Country Living

To afford the 10mp Casio Exilim to shoot the nice paddies before iglu-cilutung, the cosmic medium of MONEY is demanded of the artist. To buy the computer and weave onto the web more wealth is called for. Such poignant reality is especially galling to one whose artistic talent has never been in doubt (to his own fine, sniveling, feeling-sorry-for-him-self anyhow, >snicker<) but who for the last two decades has not made a nickel out of it. Worse, he is shunned by the art scene, and reveals openly just how mutual the feeling is. He'd like to hang out with Robert Williams and mooch off Mark Tansey and smokus dopus with Kenny Scharf but their league is leagues beyond. At least that's what the world thinks (and you can probably divine what I think of what the world thinks). Now is it such a mystery why I would prefer to spend my remaining aeons gazing upon the waving grains?

Keeping Perspective

The lovely gazebo rest house and pool on the hillside, run by the slatternly Javanese lady and her absent beer-bellied oil worker from Alabama 'husband', afford a splendid view of Gunung Gede (see first pikki in the series), but only if it is not hiding behind a fluffy chador... (It's right behind me in the milky void.) Where possible I travel with monkeys, as they are invaluable allies in the effort to maintain a grounded attitude in the world - and to raise the alert of merriment alarmingly among amazed locals. (Yes I'm a showoff: little Byron refuses to grow up: you can take the boy out of Texas but ta da da da da da). Near swooning in my arms is His Excellency Nano O'Nanny, lately of the coconut trees of Sumatra. He is dazed from motorcycling down through Cigombong through Cihedeung and Pamonayan to Batu Tulis (all names with poetic resonance, once you know the language). Nano and his co-conspirators have been my loyal companion since 1991; he is alas becoming long-in-the-tooth. The balding boy as well is beginning to look elderly, which is, well, annoying. Why not stay the cute youth forever? Upon my grave is chiseled 'Yo soy el aventurero!'

The Root Vegetable Business: I Hate Myself Sometimes

Keeping perspective also means slapping the mind silly when I catch myself whining about not being a prosperous and noted perfromance-photo-artiste remittance man, whereas I am in fact in the lap of luxury, pussy of plenty, vastly more comfortable than these stalwart citizens, about to embark on the odyssey, hauling their humble root harvest down to Pasar Induk in East Jakarta. The proceeds from this truckload will barely cover their fuel and travel expenses. This, after the heavy labour incurred in growing and digging these stubborn tubers. And I am complaining, snapping away with my three million Rupiah digital camera? I should be, and am, ashamed of myself. But only for a few moments, until the feeling wears off.

Wisma Kota BNI '46

Supposedly the tallest building in Indonesia, this novel state bank headquarters is planted only a couple of minutes away from the school that tolerates me. I also wrote the English-language copy for their 170-page annual report this year, and what do I know about banking anyway. I think I'll pause here and divert the topic, as the less said about Indonesian banks, the better. Particularly after the gigantic crash of '97, from which the nation continues to struggle to revive, woozily. The architecture is supposed to remind one of classical Javanese headwear, though smart-alecky foreign residents call it 'the Sheaffer Building'. I have a special emotional attachment to the edifice as the energetic lovely divorcee who engages in the titanic effort of dental restoration is on the Third Floor. Hi, Dr. May.

Local Lout Wants His Portrait Taken

'Potret!' ('Take my picture!') Of course I will, and with a smile. I am doing my morning run, monkeys perched on shoulders, through Pasar Induk, the wholesale market just south of the Image Lounge. I have learnt never to refuse the request of a photographic study, no matter how dopey. Long ago it became crystal-clear (as Tricky Dicky used to put it) that it would be useless (and puzzling to the subject) to protest that I would never see this citizen again, nor could I deliver to the one aiming to be immortalised his or her finished portrait. That's not the point Blacky, goes the cultural subtext. For such a local as you see portrayed here, being able to waylay this bald white simian-festooned fellow, and demand that he focus his energy and time capturing a likeness with his expensive Nipponese instrument, validates the importance, the very modern existence in a modern global civilization, of a prole who spends his days unloading cabbages and corn from trucks arriving from West Java. As for the nutcase portrayed on the sweatshirt (Bush buddy), you are cordially invited to gaze with wonder upon my unspeakably impressive artwork, 'Osama bin Ladskin', sheathed in the Stuart Gallery. Just Klikki-Pikki.

Age before beauty

The epic war that began in 1952, continues onward. Born with good genes (ancestors lived to their 80s ~ 90s) I also had bad teeth. Remember the days before high-speed drills, when those growling diamond bits, driven by an intricate cascade of belts and pulleys, grinding into my jaw. Today it's mostly replacements of replacements, as caps, crowns and bridges crumble, under the weight of grinding time and sugar (unavoidable in Java, let me assure you). The interior crackling and crumbling as the rotted bridge was pulled by the stalwart Dr. Maywati: I was reminded of death. (Not morbid, not in the least: I have just buried the fourth pal in a row, all stricken with the same cooties from the same needle, over a two-year period.) Is the jettisoning of the human shell going to be like this, with such little unpleasantness, the still mortal remains then observed dispassionately, as a pitted, useless bridge? Hey, he's a poet, don't know it, but his feet show it: they're long fellows.

The Issue of Seriousness,

...or, 'Play Time Forever'. Forget which mailartist gave me that one, but it really sank in and took hold. How can life, so ephemeral and aimless an experience, one destined to be short at best (at least in the known scale of events), be performed in any but a fundamentally playful manner? No reason not to be serious there, sirrah! Working with the 'Night Portrait' feature on the Casio 7mp digital camera, reaching for the visual texture of the tangly Boddhisatva-banyan tree across from the Great Park and above the train station. Cars, their headlights insane with purpose like blowtorch eyes, streak past and smear my fragile, hungry CCD (apologies to Bill Burroughs, whose text I've sort of stolen and mutilated, but all in fun, nyaaah).

Iglu Cilutung, between Volcanos

SCROLL DOWN, KEEP MOVING

History, a Charming, Beguiling, Hypnotic History

ZeroyBB, sentenced to Life in Ragunan Prison for biting Our Hero

Safei, Byron, BuGil - Condet 2006

Forever, the Year of the Monkey!

About Me

Gunung Gede, August 2006

Cloud Formation above Gunung Gede

Morning Mist over Sunda

Volcano chain at Dieng Plateau, Central Java

Fish Pond at Sukarame, Parakansalak

Itinerant Scorpion Seller, Pasar Minggu Station platform, East Jakarta

A Variety of Scorpion Products on Display

White Rock, Bogor to Cigombong

New Second-Hand Polygon Trexia

Eleven Girl at Cigombong Intersection, below Salak Volcano

Ujang drops by for Choco and Change

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Sniper

66th birthday party in cilutung

a black forest cake for my birthday - the locals assemble

Feb. 1, 2007 Floods in South Jakarta

Steel suspended pedestrian bridge takend out by wall of garbage, Ciliwung River, Pasar minggu

Garbage Bridge at Pasar Minggu

Flood Refugees Camp Out at Pasar Minggu Train Station

Ferry from Gilimanuk (Bali) to Banyuwangi (East Java), 2001

Islamic Mosque on the way from Liwa to Danau Ranau, Lampung

Dutch Textile Factory becomes rice paddy, on the way to Situ Gunung, Sukabumi, West Java

The Essence of Labour... at a Distance

Wedge-shaped rice paddy, Cilitung

BB and Marco Melandri make a high-speed downhill run from Cipaku, near Parakansalak

Tootling past Bangbayang

Fields observed from the road to Danau Ranau, Lampung

Riddles of History

The Ciliwung River in mild flood from Blacky's Image Lounge, 2003

Train tracks near Manggarai, East Jakarta

Bamboo Bridge over the Ciliwung, from Tanjung Barat to Rindam Jaya

Active Fireplace in the Stone Room at Iglu Cilutung

Iglu Cilutung in 2005, around 80% completed: the traditional wing

Stone Room under construction, Iglu Cilutung, Parakansalak, Parungkuda, West Java

Stoned Victory, Iglu Cilutung

Oilies Work a Petrocorp Barge, 1994

High angle from the Petrocorp equipment barge, looking toward the mouth of the Berau River

Ciki Diki in full regalia, with crisps

Autoportrait: Ciki Diki and Baron Infinity - May 2005

Sundanese Smoker at Sunday Market, Parakansalak, 2006

Dreamy-looking locals, Cilutung, Parakansalak, 2005

Local Folk encountered on a bike ride through Tangkil, on the way to Lebak Nangka

Two Citiis Water Buffaloes Discuss Contemporary Affairs

Cilutung Victims of the "Japanese Dogbite"

Traveling with Ilham and Johnny Jorok ("Seeing-eye Simian")

Marco Melandri, the very picture of arrogance

Nanang chewing his nutsack

Ferreting Out the Truth

Baby Graves near Cimanggu

Grave Phallacies

Survival of the Corniest

Centeotl, the God of Maize, Maisie

Ucok Tries Out Swastikabali T-Shirt

I see, said the blind man...

Modern Realism, Jakarta Commuting

You forget sometimes that you're living in the tropics...

The Paradox of City & Country Living

Keeping Perspective

The Root Vegetable Business: I Hate Myself Sometimes

Wisma Kota BNI '46

Five Thirty at Bogor Botanical Park

Local Lout Wants His Portrait Taken

Age before beauty

Gazing the Glass Blocks, Stone Room 2007

Hindu Mandala: galaxies, fingerprint whorls, sunflowers, whirlpools, all spirals

Toronto Police Supply Spiral

Air Whirlpool

Niagara Whirlpool, by Mr. Charlie Lentz

The Issue of Seriousness,

LSPR Graduation Day 2006, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Jakarta

Quotation from Burroughs (possibly purloined)