Let's Keep It Cold

My dream on Tuesday night takes the form of what dream intuition tells me is a new Tarantino film.

The story centers around a [mostly black] gang in the 60's. They dress colorfully, like 20-something versions of Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids. The gang is forced to take a break from dodging the cops and getting into light criminal mischief when they learn about a series of kidnappings (all infants) in their neighborhood. They suspect a rival gang is behind it and they set about solving the mystery!

The gang splits up to search for clues. We follow each group of kids as they walk around the city and engage in clever banter. The soundtrack is heavy on 60's summertime favorites. Along the way, we also get some tasteful allusions to the broader struggles going on with the civil rights movement, etc. The film's tone is playful, with moments of gritty darkness. It's great.

While investigating, the gang runs afoul of another [slightly preppy, mostly white] gang. The conflict between the two groups is fiercest between two heavyset girls: the Sassy, Relatable, Heavyset Black Girl and the Bitchy, Heavyset White Girl.

Toward the end of the film, SRHBG has a big epiphany and runs through the neighborhood (in one long tracking shot) until she finds the one remaining neighbor with a baby. She snatches the baby away and runs back out through the neighborhood with it (still one long shot) in what we assume is a ruse to flush out the real kidnapper. Of course, the other gang has taken it upon themselves to also guard the neighborhood and BHWG suddenly appears and gives chase.

Both girls exert themselves over the course of a lengthy foot chase, trading verbal barbs between heavy breaths all the way. They end up alone in an abandoned building of some kind. SRHBG puts the baby down somewhere and the two heavy girls square off for their Final Showdown.

The ensuing fight is brutal, but with lots of anime high-jumping. When she seems poised to win, BHWG leaps into the air to deliver a final punch and sneers: "Remember when you said you were going to kick my ass?" [She is referencing a previous scene, in which SRHBG muttered something that sounded a lot like that as she exited a room.]

"No", the , Relatable, Heavyset Black Girl corrects her, "I said I was going to KILL your ass."

SRHBG fast-draws a sawed-off baseball bat out of nowhere and cracks BHWG gruesomely across the skull before she can land another punch. After several more jarringly serious, not-at-all-cinematic blows to the head, BHWG falls back onto a small table, her arms out at her sides. A man's arms snake up and loop around her arms, pinning her into place.

What appeared to be a table is in fact a ritualistic wooden cage with a table top. A nondescript white dude who was hanging out in the background of the [mostly-black] gang scenes is hunched over inside it, facing straight ahead [this means he and BHWG are now back-to-back with their arms intertwined and the tabletop between them]. It becomes clear that a) he is a vampire, and b) he has been taking the babies to feed on them and SRHBG has been helping him. But he's very embarrassed and shows real remorse about having to do this.

He has huge, twisted fangs that curl out of his mouth [like Batman in Batman: Year 100*]. His jaw has opened to an impossible angle and the upper fangs are embedded in a wide piece of wood, like a second, lower level to the table. The camera focuses on his pained expression as he waits for blood to run down onto the lower level of the table, into his open mouth. As SRHBG bludgeons BHWG to death with the bat, it does.

That's the end of the movie.

*Like this:

Part Thirteen

No One Speaks English And Everything’s Broken

On a second trip to Kaliurang with Alex, we enjoy a brisk hike and see more monkeys. [Thankfully, the one with the Ball Trauma is nowhere to be found - one can only hope he got his problem stitched up OR that he found relief in Monkey Suicide.] Alex takes some time to feed the monkeys, tossing them small bits of fruit and –with a little patience- actually coaxes one to snatch a peanut out of his hand.

I originally meant to include a longer comment here about my aversion to feeding “wild” animals, how I feel like an intruder in nature, how mostly-paved “parks” like the one at Kaliurang fill me with guilt, how the idea of “connecting” more deeply with an animal in that context is preposterous, how we’ve ruined these monkeys and are ruining all animals, and so on. That took an ugly turn and concluded with something like “The idea that we can ‘save the planet’ is a joke. It’s too late.” and led into an even longer passage about how Indonesian culture is "crumbling", how "all cultures are crumbling", and so on. Sounds charming, I know! Probably best to keep it to that little synopsis.

Anyway, here’s us at the top of the hill:

It was bright. I’m told my expression here is “curmudgeonly”. To that I say SHUT THE HELL UP and of course GET OFF MY LAWN.

When I first arrived, people easily guessed I was American. With some preliminary beard growth, they began to guess I was from France. Later, it was Germany. Now, after a few months, someone tells me that when I spoke to his English class, everyone there was sure I must be Palestinian.

An annoying clerk at the bootleg DVD shop asks me: “Are you Muslim?”

Already annoyed, I curtly reply “No.”

He strokes an imaginary beard. “You look like… Hussein!”

I correct him: “Saddam Hussein had a mustache.”

Only later does it occur to me, “Oh yeah! When they finally pulled him out of that hole, Saddam Hussein did have a big beard!”

This is a hillside leading down to a stream in Bantul. These kinds of cascading mountains of garbage are everywhere. Most of the time they aren’t on fire. OK, maybe about half the time.

On that trip to Kaliurang, Alex and I stumble onto an unexpected show. After the hike but before the monkeys, we stumble onto a performance near the restaurants and shops at the foot of the hills. A band (a few gamelan players with a drumset and two gifted singers) is playing a frantic disco beat. Ogres dance around between opposing armies on “horseback”:

The ogres move off and warriors from either side spring forward to dance/battle in time with the music:

After the fourth duel, the dragon/horse thing charges wildly back into the performance area. Everyone “onstage” dances.


Suddenly everyone collapses. The men watching from the edges move in quickly and remove their costume armor and weapons. The ogres remove their masks and watch from the sidelines. The dragon/horse costume is removed, leaving the dudes inside sprawled on the ground like everyone else. They lay motionless, like corpses strewn across a battlefield:

The music picks up new intensity and the dancers slowly awaken and rise, stretching and testing out moves.

Soon they are all up and dancing wildly. All appear “out of it” but the guys who were inside the dragon/horse are clearly FUCKED UP. Someone puts neon green jackets on them - to make them easier to spot in the crowd? They flail about with their eyes closed or rolled back in their heads. One keeps falling down, rolling around, kicking and punching blindly. The sideline observers get him back on his feet, feed him a quick drink from one of the mysterious vials they're carrying, then shove him back into the fray. In time everyone is given a swig of the unknown substance.

The homoerotic dance party [or what would be a homoerotic dance party if Indonesians weren't so asexual] continues:

My camera’s battery dies just when things start to get weird. The sideline observers lay out a woven mat on the sand in font of the band. One of them makes intense eye contact with a dancer and assumes a sort of martial arts stance. He lures the dancer in by dancing a little with him, mirroring his movements. When the dancer is within a few paces of the mat, the observer yanks him forward using Powers. The dancer flips forward, lands on his back on the mat. Three men hold him down. Another man places his hand on the dancer’s stomach and brings it up to the dancer’s face, seemingly forcing the spirit from his body. The boy goes limp and must be carried offstage. This procedure is repeated on all the performers. When the last one has been cleansed [or emptied, or whatever] the shows ends and people disperse.

It's been over a month since the semester ended and I am still waiting to hear when Second Semester begins. I expect either a text message that says "Justin! Come to class tomorrow!" or one that says "Justin! Why didn't you come to class today?"

With dwindling funds and a lot of free time, a person in my position might strongly consider taking a job teaching Conversational English at a private school like Jogja English Dormitory. This would more than triple my income and would offer lots of fun stories. But since the terms of my Darmasiswa Scholarship preclude working while I'm here, it would be really silly to post such stories on the internet. So, you know, it's a good thing that I totally DON'T have a job now that has kept me really busy and will be interesting to juggle along with classes at ISI whenever those start. Yeah, that's the ticket...

Once again, my habit of lengthy edits and procrastination keeps me from giving real-time updates of new developments, specifically Dad's recent visit. The Indonesian leg of The Old Man's world tour [his delightful account is here, with regular updates] brings him to Jogja on Monday and he ends up staying with us the whole week before jetting off to Bali on Friday night.

I am extremely busy [you know, with stuff that's TOTALLY NOT a new job that I'm not really qualified for], but we manage to share some meals and take in a little of the "local flavor" (fried foods, exhaust fumes). And he cooks for us throughout the week, which is always welcome. I will attempt a more timely update when he passes back through in a few weeks.

Finally, as I noted elsewhere, I will be posting mixes of recent musical favorites here from time to time. This is the first one. Listen to it! It will roughly approximate an hour-long car ride with yours truly. More coming soon.

1

Fucked Up “No Epiphany” (Daytrotter)

John Zorn “Almadel”

Crime & The City Solution “All Must Be Love”

Miss Murgatroid & Petra Haden “Fade Away”

Björk “Naturra”

Kristin Hersh “Juno” (Daytrotter)

Caribou “Desiree”

The Microphones “The Pull + Ice” (April 27, 2003)

Tripping Daisy “Mechanical Breakdown”

Einstürzende Neubauten “Weil Weil Weil (Kurt Sweil Remix by Jochen Arbeit)”

The Qemists & Mike Patton “Lost Weekend”

Dälek “2012 (The Pillage)”

School Of Seven Bells “Conjjur”

Dragging An Ox Through Water “Not Harping On Powers”