First, the obvious: Everyone here is thrilled about the election. When they learn I am American, people now smile big and exclaim "Obama!" Cautious hope abounds.
The feeling that every aspect of “real life” that could conceivably get worse IS getting worse and we have only dim hopes of slowing this (but no hope of reversing it) is something I've taken for granted for a long time. This cautious ‘hope for the future’ business is such an alien feeling... I guess we'll see how things go.
On Friday, fellow Darmasiswa-ers Carla From Australia and Carla From Mexico (and some others) put on a Day Of The Dead-themed puppet show, combining wayang and bunraku(?) styles. It’s entertaining and it reaffirms everything I know about Mexican culture. [The debauched skeleton’s dialogue is limited to: “Tequila!! Tortilla?!! Senorita!!”]
Before the show I learn that the aforementioned Two Carlas and Jeannie from Seattle need a fourth roommate for the mansion they’re moving into. By popular demand, the fourth roommate will be yours truly. We move in later this week! New video tour coming soon.
The next day, a group of us rides to Krakal Beach. It’s about 2 hours’ drive from Jogja, over hills and through villages. While the terrain is nothing like Oregon, the rainy beach drive under gray skies through lush greenery is delightfully familiar. It rains too hard to get any footage of the coolest part of the drive (passing through hills with huge expanses of steppe farms on both sides), but this video should give you a rough idea of how it went.
When we arrive at Krakal, I swim in the ocean for the first time. Gray skies and warm, inviting water… delicious nasi goreng at a beachside warung… one big, affordable room near the beach for the nine of us... Even though Krakal is supposed to be pretty lame as Indonesian beaches go, it is one of the most pleasing places I’ve ever been. Regarding the appeal of tropical beaches: now I get it!
We swim again the next morning before heading home. We all get big, annoying sunburns.
I’ve been slowly working my way through H.P. Lovecraft’s The Thing On The Doorstep And Other Weird Stories for the better part of a year. Most of it is solid, but the unfortunate lack of Cthulhu mythos has kept me from really sinking my teeth into it. Until now, when I discover The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward, The Dunwich Horror, and At The Mountains Of Madness back to back at the end of the collection, all superb entries in the Cthulhu canon.
Much of my time reading these stories is spent at a streetside sate ayam (chicken sate) cart. As a result, I've come to automatically associate them with bowlfuls of delicious brown glop and the combined smells of fire, chicken cooking, peanut-y sauce, and exhaust from passing motorcycles. In general these tropical surroundings have been wholly inappropriate for reading HLP, but that blend of odors is right on the money.
Speaking of inappropriate for the climate, I've been listening to Crime And The City Solution’s Room Of Lights a lot. Mick Harvey’s presence accounts for a lot of the mood (mid-to-late-Eighties Bad Seeds, AKA my favorite Bad Seeds era) but drearier, more thuggish and blunt. Strongly Recommended!
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