Notes Found at the National Museum

Ink stand ink stand
Silver Plate Silver miniature of a temple
A miniature of a church 60 17 106 48 East Longitude
Then and Now: Jakarta
An oval table
A stick-on table
Write down what the Holy Spirit does:

Spiritus Sancti

Raumanen Launch

Start:	Jun 21, '06 4:00p
End:	Jun 21, '06 6:00p
Location:	QB Sunda

Your SMP Bahasa Indonesia teacher might've told you about it. Your SMA teacher might've wept over it. Your university lecturer might've asked you to go to PDS HB Jassin to find the only copy of it left and write a paper about it.

And the evil Samudra Buku man at the Jakarta Book Fair tried to charge you 200,000 rupes for a watermarked, mouldy copy of it with the cover missing.

No more!

You can now buy a copy of Raumanen, the classic '70s novel by Marianne Katoppo, at all the QB stores and most Gramedias for only Rp 29,500. Lovingly repackaged and rereleased by metafor publishing.

And on Wednesday (today) at QB Sunda from 4-6 pm you can meet the author, get your copies of the book signed, ask her where has Raumanen gone missing all this time, whatever has been bugging you about this mysterious, hard-to-find (until now!) book.

All for free! (except the books, you have to buy them)

"Praise be to God, and to you too."

I know, you must be sick of me. I'm sorry. I don't want to do this either. Who would? But I need the money to pay for my school fees, my brothers', books for my sister, ribbons for her hair. My parents are not rich, not like yours. But I have hopes too, dreams, plans for the future. So, please.

And of course: praise be to you, and God too.

God

Two Girls & Me

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	S.M. Ardan

I'm just waiting until I get paid
Then I'll ask Girl I out for dinner
We'll eat & drink
Smell the roses in the evening air
If the weather is fine
We'll talk about love

My head feels heavy, & my chest,
& my pockets & my stomach empty
I'll go visit Girl II at her house
We'll talk
& love's all around us, in the air, inside us
& stays on the tips of our toungues
As we sip tea and crunch fried peanuts between our teeth

Once I get paid, believe me,
I will go to Girl I's wedding
We'll shake hands,
My hands will be shaking.
She will say, 'I do.'
The rain will clear.

In the morning I will buy two bags of lollies
I will scatter them over the grave of Girl II
The red soil will be wet
And with the rest of the money in my pocket
I will fly to Menteng and drown myself in my sorrow
Alone.

If someone would give me some money for this poem
I will ask Girl I and her husband to go see a movie
And or out for dinner at a restaurant
Then, with the rest of my money I will buy flowers, I'll scatter them over Girl II's grave
And I will drown myself
In total solitude.

(1952)

Jakarta: Night

Rating:	★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Literature & Fiction
Author:	Sitor Situmorang

At the corner of Kebon Sirih
And Thamrin
I stopped. And looked up
At the neon lights
Blinking on rooftops.
Metropolis!

I freeze under the streetlights
The traffic lights
I think, I am
This is Jakarta
Not Hong Kong
Or Lake Toba

I left that
on a boat
one clear morning
long ago

Now
It's late
Time to go home.

you won't ever see it

blue water like cheap mints. sun hot as a wok. the soft hair on your thighs, wilting, for more protection, from the hand running over them. it's hot hot hot out here. no need for the heat heat heat on your ipod. what are you trying to block out? the peace and quiet you're looking for is down there. under the water rippling like a giant, earth-sized potato chip. just stick your head in. you'll even stop thinking about me. see the life dead corals make. the flowers of. the bare trees of. the pussy folds of. the arrows of fish stopping, darting back, there, towards you, and away, like pasopati before kresna gave arjuna his bhagavadgita lesson. the chapter you always skip over. come back here. stop thinking. nothing's done when you're too busy thinking. put on your floats. the orange is so people can see you. so they don't forget. there are other people in this world. the goggles are for seeing things clearer than you can. the snorkel is so you can breathe when you normally can't. everything's here so you can be here now.

angry management

you can't post when you're angry.

or can you?

sometimes anger is good management.

the things you want to do

become

the things you have to do

become

the things you're doing

now.

anger