once there was a bunch of people scared of a lot of things. they could perceive that their bodies were soft, that it breaks, splits apart, and unknown liquids flow out of them. they were aware that their bodies were in fact, full of fissures. holes, where some things enter, and some things depart.

it did not matter before, when drawing lines were a little less important. and where morphing and moving were part of life. but when it became more urgent to stay in one place and make that work, lines began to take root. they began to have names, rituals, ceremonies, heroes, lores and processes. they became so fat that it was possible to have pockets of anarchy, sarcasm and despair pock-marked within them.

these people lived in such a time. a time of lines, and deferrence to difference. the hallowing of stories and tales was an important way to preserve the sanctity of lines, and contain the messiness that lines create.

the mermaid is one such story. she swims in acknowledgment of untamed female sexuality. her voice - the capacity to legible communication - is woven with seduction at its core, with power to destroy the communal respect for lines. her naked breasts glisten with wanton disregard for the convention of undergarments and metal corsets entombed by lace and needles. she thrives in a mysterious world, unknown to man and his land. the fantastic and phantasmagoric.

and appears when men are most vulnerable, most out of his safe and comfortable universe, where he consciously sail to seek the edges of lines currently known.

but the most fearful of what is female, the biggest monster to the impermeability of lines, is her vagina. it is constantly reproducing mysteries; wetness, blood, womb, human, decay, life, orgasms. in logic as yet unchoked by machinations.

so these people masked it in the form of a fish. instead of legs, she has a fish tail. she cannot walk, or gape her legs and visually demonstrate her puissance. there are some fears so large that you cannot give them a name, or a description. because even to utter would be to empower further.

the mermaid is a nod, begrudging, fearful and in awe, to a might that flows around life as they currently knew it. and how she transforms in time, is how the servants of lines learn how to tame her.


---
do you remember how it feels like
to lose concentration
in a phone conversation
that stretched so long
about nothing and everything?

such careless intimacy
is a great privilege.
---

found quite an interesting resource on pontianak on the web. seems like i have been confusing pontianak with langsuir with penanggalan -- mainly because of the stupid hantu exhibition i went to at the Sarawak museum, or maybe my bad recollection of what i read there.

so for clarification, these are the differance (according to derrida, this means both to differ and to defer, meaning negation of the self in 2 ways, temporally and phenomenologically; or in less desperate language, to say that "i" is both not you or now. meaning what? i have no idea. and this is only at page 5 of the non-preface. maybe the whole book is about non-being. if i am defined through a series of what i am not, then i can only be a puffy potential, malleable and fantastic. bla bla bla):

* pontianak, also known as puntianak or kuntilanak or matianak. is a female apparition, observed through her long hair and white dress (what kind? baju kurung? though think they have existed way before baju kurung was popularised in the region. pontianaks were recorded since at least the 17th century; and when baju kurung replaced the sarong or if it ever did, i can only guess.)

she is also notable for her shriek. if everyone in the vicinity can hear a pontianak shrieking in the dead of the night, and you're the only person who can't, it means the pontianak is near you. she is probably calling out in search of her child.

a pontianak is a woman who died in childbirth and her spirit cannot rest because of this. if you are caught -- or increasingly so, seduced -- by a pontianak, she will drink your blood till you die. i think neck is the location of choice.

in some stories, pontianaks have a hole in their nape which is their only point of weakness. it's covered by their long hair (which came first? the hair or the hole? hmm... :|). if you can stuff the hole with a nail, she'll remain as the gorgeous apparition that first ensnared you. but if it ever comes out... die la. in earlier stories, she flies around in the shape of a bird and kills an expectant mother and her child by driving her long claws into the belly. the motivation is generally cited as jealousy.

so while before, she kills women and their unborn baby (motivation = self & maternal desire), she now she kills perverse men who allow themselves to be seduced by women sitting alone in remote place (motivation =  punishment of the other's/male desire). maybe this is also why some origin stories are blurred, with the pontianak becoming a pontianak from rape & murder, or suicide after being impregnated after rape.

a pontianak is usually caught by being secured in a see-through glass bottle. she's sometimes said to like hanging out under banana trees.

a sultan, Syarif Abdurrahman Al-Qadri, was so disturbed by a pontianak in the 17th century that he eventually named a land after this apparition in west Kalimantan of indonesia.
to chase the pontianak away, a canon was shot, and where it landed, was the heart of this new settlement, Pontianak.

there's also a a town called Pontian in Johor. but i have no idea if it has any relation with the hantu pontianak.

* langsuir, also known as langsuyar. female, and can appear either also as a beautiful girl|woman or as an owl with the face of a cat. the same dude who wrote the resource hypothesised that owl-sightings are mistaken as pontianak-sightings, but maybe it's just a case of mistaken langsuir sightings?

a woman becomes a langsuir if she and her child dies within the 40 days of her confinement period. sometimes, it is said that her dead child becomes a pontianak. sometimes, it is said that a mother was so shocked to find out that her dead child has become a pontianak, she clapped her hands and flew to a tree, becoming a langsuir. origin stories are sometimes quite circular and self-referential.

the features of both are very similar actually, and can be quite confusing. both have the unearthly shrieks, are often cited as beautiful women, have holes at the back of their necks and similar long black hair, kills by sucking their victim's blood, and have to do with thwarted journeys into motherhood. sometimes it is said that langsuir looks like owls, sometimes it is said that pontianak looks like owls. not sure which is which.

langsuirs hangs out on trees and they can fly. to prevent deceased mothers from turning into langsuirs or their dead child from becoming a pontianak, glass beads are put in the mouth to disable the shrieking, hen's eggs are placed under the armpits to prevent the flapping of arms for flying, and needles are placed at the palms of her hands so that "she may not open or clench them to assist her flight" (1951, The Malay Magician, Richard Windstedt).

both pontianaks and langsuirs have the status of jins. i am not sure if this is because the citations come from a charm that borrows from Islamic texts/culture, or if pontianaks existed after the 14th century after the influential golden age of Islam in the region's history. either way, it's linked to both Malay and Muslim systems of belief.

oh, and apparently, langsuirs like to eat fish, and if they are hanging about in a tree near you, you just have to get naked and they'll fly away.

*penanggalan, also known as hantu tengelong. she is female. in some stories, instead of a victim of tragic circumstances, she becomes a penanggalan through the practice of black magic. these magicians have mastered (mistressed?) the arts so well that they can separate their heads from their bodies.

in other stories, she is a normal woman who was seated in a large wooden tub (used to hold nipah vinegar) while performing a religious penance when a man suddenly surprised her by asking what she's doing. she jumped up and her head literally popped out of her body. the shrieking head flew to a nearby tree.

the detached head with trailing entrails (but i don't understand why the entrails start from the neck instead of the lower part of the torso) continues flying about at night especially to houses of expectant mothers, waiting to feed upon their blood. penanggalan also likes the blood of babies and young children.

their entrails are also their only point of weakness, as it can get caught on tree branches and thorns. the practice is to either plant trees or place thorns around the house to prevent them from getting in. the entrails also need to be soaked in vinegar and its discharge (or drops of blood depending on which story) is poisonous and can cause kudis as well as thorny weeds to grow. kinda a flaw since thorny weeds are the kinda things which can trap it.

anyway, there are much less lore about the penanggalan than the pontianak. probably because not so many movies are made about it. but maybe also because part of the origin stories of the penanggalan contains some element of agency and deliberate intent as opposed to the pontianak. but also maybe because a ghost with no tits in its strategy is less sexy.

so here we have it. the pontianak, langsuir and penanggalan. repeated symbols of long black hair, shrieking voices, birth, blood, dead babies. mixed in with a little seduction and tales of monstrous sexuality.

a fair bit more to deconstruct, but too penat. so later la.

----

protest against dodgy judicial appointments

first there was knowledge, then there was assumptions, then suddenly... you tube! check out the video clip yourself.

march & handover of memorandum on impartiality of judicial appointments, organised by the Malaysian Bar Council:

wed, 26 sep 2007
11am from the steps of the Palace of Justice to the Prime Minister's office
hop on the bus at the bar council at 9am

I started the new year by slipping up and down a hill to see a rafflesia in bloom. Lucky me, it was only the third day, and my plan to start the new year by seeking out the biggest irony of the nation became truer than expected. The flower takes a few months to bloom, and then lasts for about 5 days max. In each of the five days, the bloom exudes a powerful smell of rotting flesh to attract flies that helps it to pollenate. Reproduction through decay.

Meanwhile, a small micro economy thrives by getting the local orang asli (not sure which group) who are most familiar with the terrain to find where new blooms are, and the trekking groups that cater to tourists arrange for these hikes to happen. So as I said, I was pretty lucky. I went there, I saw it up close and personal, I touched its strange plastic texture, I saw the blackened bud that will soon open up in an orange orgasmic olid efflorescence.

Except it didn't stink. Apparently it was a male flower. They don't exude any olfactory tiltilation.

Fuck.

Anyway, that was that.

The guide, who was a bit friendlier than necessary, told us about a local ghost story. In a place where forests and natives preside, there must be several sacred scary spaces that is revered through words. This one concerned an abandoned kampung.

So I finally wrote something for the reading tonight. I didn't manage to look up from the screen to count how many people fell asleep or had eyes completely glazed over. At least the clinically correct words got some laughs. Hmm..

Here goes:

*******************

A Coming of Age Story for Little Grrls (1st draft)

Did you know that the Little Red Riding Hood’s little red hood has been read as signifying the female clitoris?

Imagine this…

Once upon a time, a little red clitoris is summoned for a walk in the jungle. The jungle is dark, full of unknown paths, creatures and possible dangers. It is a walk that she needs to take, at the cusp of childhood and sexual maturity; from innocence to experience. 

Her mother kisses her crimson cheeks in farewell, warning her of the menace that she knows lay in her path. Crocodiles with plastic tears lie waiting, with permanent grins stretched across their desire to swallow her in whole; tigers with burning eyes that camouflage their fiery potency to consume through bars, black as night; and of course, the wolf.

The trickster that can walk upright, speak in tongues and shift his shape into an unassuming grandmother. Stalking her, two steps behind, his nostrils tremble at her scent that grows stronger with each step into the jungle, and his tongue moistened through beads of saliva that yearns for just one small bite. 

The Little Red Clitoris was walking in a sun beam of guilelessness; noticing nothing but new buds of flowers that blush with pride at the sun’s intimate attentiveness.

The wolf contemplates. The wolf decides. The wolf advances.

“Little red clitoris, where may you be journeying to on this fine morning?”

She startles and turns, and sees before her, a beast that stands gentle. Chilvarous almost.

“I’m going to visit my grandmother. She is old, and she is ailing, and my youthful presence will revive her through reminiscence. Look, I bring her a basket of fruits.”

The wolf looks at the ripeness of the red apples, the taut skin of the cherries that intoxicate through their secret scent, and he shifts his shivering eyes to her hood.

“I see.”

“May I be so forward as to request to keep you company? I know of many charming tales that can wile away a long and lonely walk.”

The Little Red Clitoris suddenly remembers the cautioning voice of her mother, and hesitates. She believes him harmless, since their eyes meet at the same height, and his perfume, though pungent, is not entirely repugnant. But she knows she cannot afford the journey to be coloured through another person’s presence, and his chatter will only corrupt her ability to completely experience the variety of sounds and colours that explode around her.

“If I may, I would rather walk alone. Thank you very much for your kind offer, but I must decline.”

The wolf is not a brutal beast, having lived for many generations at the edge of cunning human civilisation. He bends his knees, exposes to her his bulging twin testicles, and turns back into the shadows after his bow.

He knows her grandmother. She has journeyed the same path before, and his grandfather has willed his tale to his father, who in turned, bestowed it upon him in inheritence. The wolf knows what he must do. Curving his back and coiling his muscles, he lopes towards her house in large strides.

The Grandmother’s house is humble and made of wood, hard and weather worn. He knocks.

“Come in… is it you my Little Red Clitoris?”

The wolf walks in, takes another testicular bow, and snap his jaws around her neck.

He can taste his patrilineal conquests in her wirey veins, sweet with the iron tang of old wine. Every part of her body must be consumed, every trace of flesh swallowed, every drop of blood licked up. This is the tradition. Although her femininity has faded to asexuality in age, its blade may twist in surprising uprise if her body is not completely dematerialised.

But a curious hunger began to flutter inside the wolf. He is unexpectedly compelled with the urge of performing Woman. Disgust at his own coarse body, the hair that until then did him nothing but profit through shielding from cold or warmth, started to prick his skin. He sniffs the air and the scent from his loins seems vulgar and invasive.

Grandmother is taking over the Wolf from within. Her bones mix with his blood, her anger contaminates his simple lust.

The wolf feels a sudden desire to put on a dress.

He rifles through her wardrobe and finds a willowing gown with floral prints. Quickly, he robes himself and paws frantically for something to hide his claws. Finding a pair of white rubber gloves, he sheathes himself against an unknown fear. There is a bottle of perfume on her night stand. He clutches it clumsily with white prosthetic hands and douses himself with the smell of powdery lavender.

Hide, the wolf must hide who he is. For what purpose? The wolf feels an unfamiliar shard of panic climb from his stomach. He looks at the covers on her bed and clambers underneath it. Something is coming. Someone is coming.

Knock knock knock.

“Who is it?” The wolf askes in a trembling voice.

“It is me grandmother. Little Red Clitoris.”

Almost forgotten, the wolf contemplates. The wolf decides. The wolf calls out,

“Come in.”

Little Red Clitoris walks in and shuts the door behind her. The wolf is almost blind with terror.

“Why grandmother, are you ill? Your voice sounds so weak.”

“I..I..yes.. I am not feeling myself today. Please, sit down.”

Little Red Clitoris walks towards the bed. She notices the wolf’s ears, protruding straight and brown, and wonders aloud,

“Why grandmother, your ears are very large. And hairy. I have never noticed that before.”

The wolf’s ears instinctively flattens. He cannot hear anything but an echoing cackle that bounces in his skull. It doesn’t sound like his own private, languish laughter. The wolf is horrified.

“Why…. It’s all the better to hear you with..uhm..my dear”

Little Red Clitoris tosses her head back and chuckles. She reaches out a hand, already slightly burned by the sun, to tickle the wolf behind his ears.

“It feels lovely. Soft, like a bunny rabbit.”

The wolf trembles at her touch. Her youthfulness was mocking him. He feels the passing generations weighing down every sinew and fibre of him. His tongue, caked with murder, was drying up. The wolf begins to tear.

“Why grandmother, your eyes are glistening and they seem to magnify. They are so large! They are so beautiful…”

The wolf bites his tongue to stem the watery lump that has so long been forgotten and thought illusory. Should wetness transfer from mouth to eyes, he knows that all is lost. He feels the urge to speak and distract the attention from his distorting form.

“Why… It’s all the better to see you with my dear”

And the wolf looks. He focusses his eyes upon the Little Red Clitoris before him, and stares. Already she has lost the softness around her cheeks. Her hands appear to have steel under the skin. Her lips neither curl up nor down, telling him nothing of her intentions. Her legs stand slightly apart. She seems to be filling up the entire house with her presence. Her redness is frightening. The wolf is afraid.

“Why grandmother, your teeth are very healthy and sharp. They look so much better than before. Are they new dentures?”

She reaches out her hands to touch them. Snarling to contain his terror, the wolf leaps up from the bed to escape. The Little Red Clitoris will destroy him by her persistent acknowledgement of his existence. But he find that his joints have stiffened, his muscles refuses to spring into movement. He feels himself decaying and athrophying from within. The wolf tumbles from the bed to the floor. He whimpers.

“I know who you are,” said the Little Red Clitoris.

“You are the Wolf who met me at the forest. I see you now, by my feet, though your testicles have shrunk and your penis is no longer straight and standing, I know who you are.”

“You have consumed my grandmother, and so you must. I know this tale you see. Foolishly you failed to learn and wonder how your forefathers come by death. You should have taken the time to speak with me, and listened to what seed of knowledge that I possessed, curled up inside me. Instead, you saw nothing but vermillion, heard nothing but the rush of wind. So now you must live your fate, and wither in your own ignorant existence.”

Then the Little Red Clitoris removed her hood with her hands, neither fragile nor violent. She opened the door of her Grandmother’s house, and walked away.

The wolf meanwhile, lies there, slowly being petrified through a death that does not hurry. He finally disappears.

 As for the woodcutter, he was never really part of the story.

The End

*****************

Any thoughts?

11:00am: Walk into elevator. Press Button.
                 "Ding Dong Dang Ding!"
                 "Doors opening."
                 "Doors closing."
                 "Going down"
                 "Ding Dong Dang Ding!"
                 "B2"
                 "Doors opening."
                 "Doors closing."
                 "Have a nice day"

11:05am: Drive car up to barrier. Touch card to barrier machine.
                 "Deet Deet"

11:20am: Car stops at traffic lights. Green man flashing.
                "Beep beep beep beep beep beepbeepbeepbeepbeepbeeeeep"

11:30am: Drive car up to a parking barrier.
                 "Welcome."
                 "Please take a ticket"

11:32am: Take ticket from machine.
                "Zzhzzt."
                "Chkhng chng"

11:45am: Walk towards another another elevator. Press button.
                "Ding!"
                "Doors opening."
                "Doors closing."
                "Going up."
                "Ding!"             
                "Level 3"
                "Doors opening."

12:20pm: Paying at cashier.
                "Zzhzzt zzt."
                "Please Pay: RM56.78"
                "Thank you. Have a nice day."

12:28pm: In front of autopay machine.
                "Please insert your ticket."
                "Please pay the amount shown on the display"
                "Please pay the amount shown on the display"
                "Please pay the amount shown on the display"
                "Please pay the amount..."

12:29pm: Successfully unfolded crumpled 1 ringgit note into machine.
               "Please retrieve your exit ticket."
                "Thank you. Have a nice day."

12:35pm: Drive car next to parking barrier.
                "Please insert ticket."
                "Thank you. Have a nice day."

12:43pm: White BMW undercuts car from left lane to swerve to extreme right lane.
                "BEEEEEEEP! BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEEEEEEP!"
                "Lin peh CHOW LAM PHA!"

12:50pm: Car right behind white BMW at traffic lights.
                "59"
                "58"
                "57"
                "56"
                "55"

12:50pm: Get down from car with red brick in hand. Smash into driver side window of white BMW.
               "CKKRAAKK KK K K k k.."
                "What the f-"
                "You fucking ASSHOLE!"

12:51pm: Get back into car. Driver of white BMW comes down from car and walks to driver side window, white shirt stained dark at armpits and hexagonal bits of glass glinting in creases.
                "Tap taptaptapTAP!"
                "You fucking crazy sonofabitch! What the FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING???!!"
                "Get our of the fucking car NOW!"
                "Phon phon phon phooon!"
                "Beep BEEP!"
                "Whahruuumbuallashtingaiaseowahitcrazgila"

12:52pm: Wind down windscreen. Car on first gear.
                "Thank you."
                "Have a nice day."                         

I did intend to spend half an hour every day in meditation this year. It's been more than a week and hasn't started. Perhaps a useful way would be to blog, since when I am writing, there is an inexorable absorption that is only broken when I try to be clever and link to other sites for sources and references. Which again, only happens when there is a mimicry of 'dissident blogging' that requires some form of credibility as alternative mediastreams, perhaps.

But I am digressing. There is something about following thoughts and pinning them down with text that focusses the chaotic chatter inside into coherence. Or something that resembles coherence. One tarot card mentions that if I were to sit in a room and record everything that is going through my mind for half an hour, all I would attain is rubbish and nonsense.

"thoughts dont get formed without words. is that some snot on my knee?  that photo is a damn cool one. what was her name again? how could i forget! i love that painting of hers. broken columns for broken spine. frida. of course. sia can sometimes get repetitive and boring. i think i need to poo."

The wisdom in those cards surprises me sometimes. But in the midst of day dreaming, I have stumbled upon an idea. Stories. Meditating and blogging through the form of stories. Perhaps in fiction, barriers can break down, and a cheeky eye can cast a more unflinching look at experiences. In stories, truth is solidified. Isn't it? Or was that Gaiman talking through my mouth?

It was during a grey monsoon downpour that he found the time-machine. He was trying to walk in between the raindrops, like Granny Weatherwax in Discworld stories, and imagined that his skin was marginally less drenched than it would have been if he did not weave his body to flit between dry gaps. It was then that his foot kicked into a soft object. Worried that it might have been a cat or some other small housing area animal fleeing wetness, he looked around him.

The object was furry, and tinged with blueish green hue. He prodded it with his left foot, but it didn't move. Instead, a whirring and clicking sound was emitted. Curiosity overtook his immediate desire to master practical witchcraft, and he squatted down to have a closer look. The object was shaped like a boiled sweet potato; an elongated and rotund peninsula. Carefully, he picked it up in his hands. It felt dry, and weighed more or less as much as his tuition bag.

The clockwork sounds continued to rumble in his wet hands. He shook it softly. The object changed colour and an angry welt of deep red spread from one narrow end to the other, ballooning into fat pink in the middle. Not sure what to expect, he held the object at an arms distance. It was then that the world turned orange.

The sun was just setting into the horizon. Instead of the neat row of terrace houses raising the horizon to a crammed mosaic of neck tilting red hues, he faced what appeared to be a small lake. Reflected in the lake was the sun, pushing orange against orange.  He stood there for a moment, unsure of how to proceed. When he clutched the object closer for comfort, he was surprised to find it warm. It had in fact, turned into a bright orange cat. Purring instead of whirring, the cat had a funny smashed up face that gazed at up him with gentle mockery. He took it to be a challenge, and walked up to the lake.

"Uhm.. hello?" he asked uncertainly. His voice sounded mellow in the light. He liked how it mushed into the surroundings, and tried again. "Hello? I'm not sure if I am in the right place. Is anyone there who can tell me where this is?"

The short, messy grass surrounding the lake stood still and did not share a whisper. The sun seemed to grin lazily at him as it continued to set; giving way to indigo shadows. It was quite beautiful, and it did not occur to him to be anxious or frightened. His t-shirt was unsticking from his skin as it dried. As he stood in the middle of the sunset, he absent-mindedly stroke the cat with his left hand.

"You might want to try the lake guardian."
"Oh, you can speak, can you?"
"Well..yes, obviously, since you heard me."
"Sorry. I just wanted to confirm. Uhm.. so the lake guardian. Who is that?"
"That's the tortoise in the middle of the lake. You can't really see it now since it likes reflecting the last glows. But wait for a moment or two, until it gets completely dark."
"Oh. Okay."

When the sky squeezed out the last drop of yellow, he saw that there was indeed a tiny glistening hump in the middle of the lake. Once again, he tried to make conversation, but this time more out of obedience rather than intent.

"Hello guardian of the lake? I was just wondering..." and there he trailed off. He wasn't sure what question to ask, or what he wanted to know truly. Where he was? What time it is? How can he get home? Home was somewhere he generally tried to avoid anyway, being a place full of loud adults hiding sadness in anger. To be perfectly frank, he was happy where he was. The lake, the sky, the cat, and now a tortoise. He could just make out the first of stars twinkling in the sky. It made him feel like he was definitely a piece of the universe.

The hump grew larger and four legs stuck of out it slowly as it pulled itself to the shore. The tortoise blinked at him with watery eyes and said in a low, moany tone, "Yes? What was it that you were wondering about?" The tortoise pulled the sound of vowels as it spoke, so to him, the tortoise sounded like this, "Yiieeees? Whaaat waaas eet thaaat yeeouuu weeeere woooondering abaaaaout?"

He thought hard about a question he wanted an answer to, and in his pause, the cat stretched his blue, pink and orange body with an huge yawn.

"I was wondering, is everything in the world circular if you stand far enough?"
"Circular? That is a question that has been asked 348920 times so far, and something that I have only been able to answer 348919 times. It took me sometime to ponder upon it the first time."

He thought that the tortoise really did have a deliciously wonderful voice.

"And?"
"Yes."
"Yes?"
"Yes. If you stand as far as the distance between your ankles to your heart, and thrice of that in metaphorical metres."
"Oh. Uhm.. what is a metaphorical metre?"
"Well.. I can only answer that with a tale. Would you like to listen?"
"Yes please."

With that, he sat down cross legged on the dishevelled grass and the cat leaped off his arms to rest its head on his knee. The tortoise settled down once more into a hump, with just a wrinkly head sighing onto his other knee. He felt quite content and expectant; as though a great secret was about to be revealed.