Author: perkaraperkara

i speak because i can


Kalau kamu benar-benar panggil diri kamu seorang yang suka mendengar lagu-lagu mengenai kehidupan, dan benar-benar ingin mendengar lirik-lirik bermakna yang sangat distinctive daripada lagu-lagu durjana di luar sana, sukakan suara yang mellow tanpa menjerit dengan excessive dan syahdu, sukakan perempuan bergitar yang cool serta menulis lagu sendiri (bukan jenis Avril Lavigne, tapi dia pun cool juga. Sikit. Dulu.), sukakan benda-benda depressive yang pada akhirnya akan seolah-olah ucapkan “Masih ada harapan!”, maka album ini untuk kamu.

Sayanglah Laura Marling, maka aku akan sayang kamu juga.

beautifully illustrated

Meh, I’m getting bad sleep cycle. It’s shit. I hate the internet. But I suppose it’s normal. Shit I need seven hours of interrupted sleep to fully get immersed in this secret little project I’m taking (we always have little secret projects we don’t tell people about). I suppose it’s not working. I don’t even turn off the computer anymore now that I have broadband that can well, download movies and anything else I want without limit. And because of this, everything else is distruptive. The only time I can even get time to read a book is either when I want to go to sleep or when I’m waiting for something you can’t control to end (classes, trains, pick me ups). It’s shitty, the way things turned out. I haven’t finished Sartre’s Nausea yet. But I couldn’t give a damn. Whatever.

~
Anyway, reading Teddy from Mr. Salinger’s Nine Stories for the well, third time, since a space of two years, really bring a bit of clarity of how these things called meditations and stuff works out. Heck, I even regard Salinger as my secret little undeclared friend, like there’s this sort of mutual understanding between us. But, even I know I’m exaggerating this all. Teddy is like, the classic example of how you’re supposed to be in the first place. Not supposed to be, that’s quite a wrong way to put it, but well, almost a good thing. But well, his part on the whole affinity thing takes a new different meaning.
~
Some dude keeps on asking about what does people think about him and stuff. I suppose you shouldn’t worry about things too much. Even if you want to, you’ve got to make it a personal mission, something like eavesdropping, like an accidental sort of conversational stuff. Not by asking around, to reassure you self-worth. I mean, well, I even asked about this to someone, and what she said was a bit tad… irritating. Well, not surprising, since it’s already obvious to begin with, just this sorta ‘oh rly?’ sort of stuff. I resented the ‘competitive’ adjective though. I ain’t that much of a competitor, am I?
~
On another lighter note, someone said I made frequent use of hand gestures, and always looked up. I said I was thinking. I really was. Really. Kinda validated the point about Keirsey’s NT description. I’m still, and will be obsessed about this thing for the rest of my life.
~
Shit, I’m supposed to write about this in my new journal (yang lama sudah habis di isi in a space of 8 months). Aku baru beli buku journal paling cantik di dunia yang dijual oleh seorang perempuan cun di sebuah tempat. covernya dan isinya ada gambar-gambar the sartorialist yang di modify dengan doodle-doodle perempuan cun itu (katanya pada aku). tapi aku sayang gila nak tulis apa-apa lagi. it’s virginal. tunggu april. holy april.
~
dah dah dah cukup. aku pasti kamu tak memahami separuh daripada benda-benda yang aku katakan. i’m one helluva secretive bastard who doesn’t even have half the guts to try to explain everything in detail. it’s tiresome. i don’t need an audience.

leave them out

Like a demonstrative effort to explain the things behind psychiatry, you fail to do those an in effect, expose those people whom you have sworn to never talk of them anymore. Tales of newspaper cigarettes and electric feels should be confided for those who understand only. Not crowds who do not understand a word you are saying.

Do not exaggerate.

“What are you reading?”
“Kierkegaard”
“But Nietzsche’s more interesting”
“Kierkegaard’s more good-looking than him”
*Googles*
“You’re right”

your heart is an autumn garage

Found it.


“The Heart is an Autumn Wanderer,” she read, mused, aloud. “Unusual title,”

The response from behind the shower curtain was a trifle delayed but delighted. “It’s a what? It’s a what kind of title?”

Mrs. Glass’s guard was already up. She backed up and reseated herself, a lighted cigarette in her hand. “Unusual, I said. I didn’t say it was beautiful or anything, so just-“

“Ahh- by George. You have to get pretty early in the morning to get anything classy past by you, Bessie girl. You know what your heart is, Bessie? Would you like to know what your heart is? Your heart, Bessie, is an autumn garage. How’s that for a catchy title, eh? By God, many people – many uninformed people – think Seymour and Buddy are the only goddam men of letters in this family. When I think, when I sit down for a minute and think of the sensitive prose, and garages, I throw every day of my-“

“All right, all right, young man,”Mrs. Glass said. Whatever her taste in television-play titles, or her aesthetics in general, a flicker came into her eyes- no more than a flicker, but a flicker- of connoisseurlike, if perverse, relish, for her youngest, and only handsome, son’s style of bullying. For a split second, it displaced the look of all round wear, and plainly, specific worry that had been on her face since she first entered the bathroom. However, she was almost immediately back on the defensive : “What’s the matter with the title? It is very unusual. You! You don’t think anything’s unusual or beautiful! I’ve never once heard you-“

“What? Who doesn’t? Exactly what I don’t think isn’t beautiful?” A minor groundswell sounded behind the shower curtain, as though a delinquent porpoise were suddenly at play. “Listen. I don’t care what you say about my race, creed, or religion, Fatty, but don’t tell me I’m not sensitive to beauty. That’s m Achilles’ heel, and don’t you forget it. To me, everything is beautiful. Show me a pink sunset, and I’m limp, by God. Anything. ‘Peter Pan’. Even before the curtain goes up at ‘Peter Pan’, I’m a goddam puddle of tears. And you have the gall to tell me I’m-“

“Oh shut up” Mrs. Glass said, absently.

leave it as it is or

nouns they float around the ever so elusive realms of the mind, each demanding its storyline, it’s role, it’s time, yet they only can wait, or more like, hope, as things at it were and always are, ever the same. stagnant and unable to break free, they remain in their resting place, eventually rooted and cannot either be given away or be taken. a constant reminder that torments the soul. so we say, make haste, make haste, before it’s too late!

fucking late night discussions

I don’t get these people. Seriously, why the fuck the need to laugh and talk and shout and scream so fucking loud in the middle of the night so you can fucking have a conversation? And what’s more, talk about love and relationship and all that bull (dump him, dump him not). It’s not that it pains me to hear about it; in fact I’d be pleased to be listening secretly if you people did not accompany it with shrieks. It’s all interesting when you talk about psychology, or (more like astrology + numerology), but for crying out loud, I’m fucking trying to sleep, assholes.

Okay I’m done.

perkara random

Di tempat aku ada seorang mamat muka macam Quentin Tarantino! Setiap kali ternampak dia aku akan ada urge untuk katakan “Did anyone ever told you you look like Quentin Tarantino?”. Tapi disebabkan aku ragu-ragu dia kenal akan orang itu, aku biarkan sahaja. Hasrat untuk memanggil dia QT sebagai short form pun terbantut sebab akan disalah faham sebagai Cutie.

empangan

After weeks of having this in my possession, I started to read it; but with suspicion. Just went through the prologue though. And some twelve pages after that. Some things I’ve noticed.

  • He was sponsored by some rich gramps who owns Kampung Paya to do not one, not two, but three degrees in United States. What’s more, the last one is in Philosophy. How neat.
  • He has a five-storey bookcase. He loves Dostoevsky and Miller. Why is it that all authors insist to put some of their darling faves in their own novels. And the fact that he terribly loves to write. *sigh* you see this everywhere. paradise lost in frankenstein. anna karenina in the unbearable lightness of being. the great gatsby in the catcher in the rye.
  • He plans on writing a philosophical book. How neat. Clap clap.
  • He has this history of abandoning god for the last twelve years of his life. And has a terrible affliction surrounding the word ‘rahmat’. Geez, no wonder you gave me this book.
  • His descriptions of harvard graduates and train shuttles sounds highly reminiscent of someone.
  • He shits on a green carpet. “The Green Pasture”.
  • negro grandma ghost/delusion. bad move.
  • i see the word “borjuis”… or bourgeois. wow.
Okay I better stop. For all I know, I could’ve written something that revolves exactly around these themes, with a different scene, a different country (oh?), and throw in all my favorite authors and ideas and what you have in the there. Not that I “could’ve written” a great novel, more like I could imagine myself trying to write it (and fail miserably along the way). And this is why we should never publish our first novel. it shall, in all probability, remind us of ourselves.
Criticisms aside, I will like reading this. In fact, it is the most singular interesting lengthy bahasa melayu writing i’ve read in the past six years, the first one being this book title “Iko” about some kuih-selling kid and some grad student in some housing area. At least it didn’t start out with some gushy dialogue with some too many detailed introduction. But a god-seeking novel without the most usual religious preachy stuff would probably interest me. Let us hope he doesn’t don’t introduce some preachy hijab wearing girl along the way and he starts to fall in love and they both guide their way toward god.
okay stop stop stop.
Empangan, Zakaria Ali, 1991.
p/s; he’s an awesome guy by the way (this said after googling him).