Part Four

Those Aren’t Tentacles; They’re Gentacles

It takes weeks for me to come to grips with a simple fact: If, from time to time, I need my fix of American-style pizza here, it means setting foot inside a Pizza Hut. After thirty-two days I humble myself enough to attempt it and the small pan-crust pepperoni I receive is exquisite.

Of course, paying an unheard-of 55,000 Rupiah for one meal [just under $6 American] leaves me feeling violated. But as a monthly indulgence, when I’m jonesing hard, it's acceptable. For mental health purposes.

And as a reminder of American portions! Indonesian cuisine has generally agreed with me, but nothing here approaches the good old-fashioned American caloric payload.

Ramadan turns out to be much less inconvenient than I had been led to believe. While most folks abstain from eating food during daylight hours, they have no problem preparing and selling it to us godless foreign devils.

The days following Ramadan, however, get a little hairy. Most businesses close their doors for almost a week. This includes the eateries I’ve come to rely on heavily and all available laundry facilities. [ Naturally this coincides with the end of my laundry cycle.] After exhausting the last of my clean clothes I awkwardly attempt to hand-wash some... these items emerge covered in each other’s dirt and a new, decidedly unappealing odor. So that’s a skill I might need to work on...

The ceremonial parade on October 2^nd looks like this:

File under: “Oh, Asia…!” When I finally seek out some suntan lotion, it takes me a while before I can find UV protection that doesn’t promote its powerful whitening properties.

I acquired it before I came here, but with a week of downtime from school, etc. I finally get a chance to listen closely to the Retribution Gospel Choir album. It’s great!

On a similar note... I re-read Dune for the first time in about a decade during my trip to Chicago last year. My memory of things had become clouded by the Lynch film version* and I was blown away all over again by... well, everything I had forgotten that makes it great, especially forgotten how sad it is. The characters' dour formality and introspection makes the kid-pleasing schlock of another outer-space saga like Star Wars seem hollow and limp in comparison.

I was fortunate enough to find a copy of Dune Messiah in a local Money Changer/book shop here and was similarly impressed. It's an old copy, featuring this hilariously inappropriate jacket illustration:

I never really considered it before, but now Paul’s primary agenda –reconfiguring the ecology of Arrakis- seems like a utter folly based on off-worlder arrogance. Can reshaping the planet to make it less difficult to live on do anything other than ruin it (and the Fremen), by robbing them of vital parts of what they are? This and other shortsighted, selfish plans carried out on an epic sci-fi scale seem all the more tragic now.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it.

While eating dinner one night, I catch part of something called Malaikat Kecil Dari Surga (translation: Little Angels From Heaven) on television. Like most shows I’ve seen here, it's some kind of overwrought soap opera. In this case, though, the action centers on children. The children in the MKDS world hold all the power, either through manipulation, Village Of The Damned-style psychic menacing, or because they are literally angels from heaven as the title suggests. The source of their influence is unclear, but adults seem to obey them and heed their advice. This is what I see:

A woman stares off into the distance, crying. She stands in a sunny garden. Her despondent internal monologue is delivered via voice-over. A pudgy little brat in a backpack stomps into the garden and begins shouting at her. It appears that it is time for her to take him to school? She jumps to attention as soon as the kid starts berating her. He seems to be giving her direct orders. They leave together.

Two little girls in pigtails are having a strangely serious discussion in an elementary school hallway. Adults pass in and out of the background, but the camera angle cuts off their upper torso, like the teacher in Peanuts. With their business concluded, the girls go separate ways. The brat with the backpack enters.

Three boys (including the porker from before) are riding in the back of an SUV, evidently getting a ride home from school. A boy and girl (brother and sister?) are walking home along the side of the road. At the boys’ insistence, their quiet mustachioed chauffeur drives close to the edge of the road through a conveniently placed puddle, splashing water onto the walking kids.

The boys then bid the driver to stop, that they might properly taunt the kids they just soaked. As they do, the girl and the brat from the beginning recognize one another. Their eyes lock. Was she his “girlfriend”? The girl looks betrayed. The boy stammers, realizing his mistake. The boys give the sign to go, but the SUV pulls away too quickly, swerves to miss an oncoming car, and crashes into a tree. The crash is punctuated with a primitive computer-generated flame that flares up once from above the hood of the car.

COMMERCIAL BREAK.

The wet kids stare at the wreck, considering whether to help. They jump into action, pulling each of the passengers –all of whom are now unconscious, but otherwise unhurt- from the car. Except for the brat from the beginning! He’s out cold, trapped under a spare tire. Lines of blood run from his nose and mouth. A beautiful young woman appears and starts helping the wet kids move the crash victims. But they are laying them out in a row, parallel to one another, on the pavement. Were they all killed in the crash?!!

…and then the owner changes the channel. The point is: If there is more bizarre programming like this, I might need to start watching TV.