if i knew anything about myself

its that im resilient

which probably means that

im about as thick as a brick.

sedan impala merah muda, memadu kasih di kapnya
vespa lambretta lambret segala

kancing copot dari dadamu, boleh kusimpan ?

malammalamjakartabanyakjinnya
gloriajeansdiblokmmalbeneranjualjinsgaya

filled with men half-raising whisky glasses to someone elses’ faces

so bright !

another half at 10
we can no longer afford to risk lulls

in the eternal search for fun

what about the things we look forward to hate :

the inevitable midnite fashion show on top of squeaky clean bar tables
no amount of make-up can wipe out the frightened smiles on the models’
emaciated faces !

their masks of gay abandon !

turn off the bright lights !
put on leif erikson !

‘ i am balan
i have come from chennai
to a magical place where dragons fly
(so ive heard) ‘

i am so sorry to have disappointed you

lets go home and stick our heads in the air-con

yr hands are cold
mine are pins & needles

time for eccy scratch

yr back or mine                                        O GREAT FUN

i’m in ciledug and i have to get to benhil in about 30 minutes. that’s like going from the 20th arrondisement to le premier. except there’s no métro, no taxis when it rains (theoretically there is an express taxi pool in jombang, 10 minutes away from my house, but try it, try dial 57990707, if someone picks up on your first attempt, you can have this blog), and often i see the bright orange transjakarta buses carve through the legendary lapis legit-thick traffic of jalan ciledug raya, but i often have real conversations with my dead grandmother, too. at le versailles. while enjoying the sights of exhausted tourists seeking refuge at the jardin du luxembourg.

not that i mind catching the s69 metro mini to singgalang and then a taxi tarif lama to benhil, or a c01 kopabun over the kebayoran lama fly-over, jumping off the back of the curving suzuki carry at the velbak u-turn, and then try not to get decapitated while crossing the road at pakubuwono by the same s69 going at the speed of light towards blok m—the imminence of death only makes me feel even more alive.

it’s just that when it rains everything is so slow. like you’ve got mud on your shoes. you have got mud on your shoes. the city is prettier, you know, like cole porter said, ‘it sizzles in the dry season, and it drizzles in the wet season.’ i prefer drizzles over sizzles anytime. but when you have to get to places, like me today, like in life, rain is not your best friend. more like a cling-y boyfriend that holds you back.

this city is like a cling-y boyfriend that holds you back.

and i’m the monkey taking a leisurely ride on his back.

not much traffic on ciledug raya. the formula goes (commuting, going home):  5-7, better stay at plaza senayan, gawk at sasak-ed hair the shape and size of giant beehives. or the standard beehives of giant ronnie spectors. 7.30-9, kinda like the ticket line at a megadeth original-member reunion concert, we are so old, but it’s moving. 9-10, it’s when the mbak-mbak plaza senayan kiss the hands that they feed (ie, husbands/boyfriends/random first, second, third cousins waiting on their motorbikes outside) and cruise along the 10 or so kms from hang lekir to pos/lurah/caplin/etc at the speed of light (if light was a snail).

tonight, i went post-10. in an express taxi. with a crazy driver who ranted about female busway drivers who «obviously have poor eyesights and are unfit.» i gave him a 5000 tip. don’t think he’ll spend it on a pre-loved copy of jurnal perempuan.

after the rain, ciledug raya looked beautiful, beatific. where’s the pope? we want canonization now!

and if you wonder about the missing 30 minutes after 7, then obviously you don’t know how much hair product goes on jeremy thomas’ hair. that thing is like a black hole for brisk’s entire product line. you think time can fly over it?

Or, more like L NDE I EVI S.

The sign has been painted over so many times, presumably with the same salted duck-egg colour, it is less a sign than a palimpsest.

Then he would go back to his table, pick at his beef strog, the creamed potato mash on the rim of his compartmentalized metal plate (what jail am I in?), the always al dente cauliflower, the icky bottle of Lea & Perrins worcestershire sauce, and he would feel so tired.

He is so tired all the time.

This city looks so tired all the time.

This city is like an old dilapidated toilet missing its toilet seat.

This city is a palimpsest of the idea of a toilet.

With real flesh and blood people getting flushed down it clutching at their tired paper hearts.

Paper turns to mush in water.

jakarta

kumuh

tercinta

can’t remember which poem, but that’s the whole stanza. he being mr. coy modernist and all. where did you hide pound’s personae, eh? i can see it bulging out of yer shirt pocket!

(it’s ‘beloved / decrepit / jakarta’ for you pasarayaman.)

now that i’m writing about what i think about on a cloudy day like today and not just be in it, i think about this too, and this, but when i only have my mind to think about it is

jakarta

kumuh

tercinta

that i think about.

because this has a tram in it; i’d start thinking of aminah cendrakasih singing and bobbing her way around the other passengers/backup singers in asrama dara and flowers would bloom in my head.

and this is in menteng, where flowers still bloom everywhere.

i have to make do with

beloved

decrepit

jakarta

i think of when i meet new people and the first thing they’d ask me would be, ‘what are ya? batak? chinese?’ and then it hit me, hey, you wanna run away too,

but you’re still here.

and that’s when flowers bloom in my heart.

barefooted common soldiers kicking imaginary tumbleweeds

sweaty accountants in counting houses, bamboo fans, greasy watch chains

a javanese general shooting seven hundred of his own soldiers in the head

(he took off his blangkon before he shot the first one)

the dutch officers looking on with a mixture of disgust and awe

the mardijkers looking on with a mixture of disgust and awe

at petty thieves getting their bodies chariot-broken at the old town square

the javanese looking on

looking bored

at everything

the javanese

true laissez-faire artistes!

*lookout for the indonesian translation of Susan Blackburn’s (née Abeyasekere) Jakarta: A History, forthcoming sometime next year from Komunitas Bambu, publisher of insanely unsaleable but truly invaluable historical tomes on this incomprehensibly lovable city.