One Week Before the Tropics: Sunday

In one week, I will fly back home to the country with thousand suns. Winter, meanwhile, is approaching here in Edinburgh. I already forgot how cold Scotland could be. I had packed my winter jackets and boots aside, but alas, I reached in and took them out. On Sunday, I strolled around my favorite path to Stockbridge. This is a lovely and charming alley with houses, except they feel like a back alley (or is it?). The yellow car and few pastel houses gives a hint that there are the front porches. Near to this alley, there is a street with independent galleries and vintage shops, also a male specialty grooming boutique (thank you capitalism for enlarging your market to bearded metro lumberjack who needs frequent aloe vera treatment, for pressuring them to groom, equal pressure for all genders. Amen). Emerging from this alley, you will emerge to the "main street" where the Stockbridge Sunday market is. However, the small stores, cafes, cheesemongers, bakeries, and arrays of charity shops on the street is also a pleasure for the wanderers.

For now, I wouldn't mind a SUEDE concert, Dent May gig, few feel good movies, or Carl Sagan's Contact

George Kimble in "Geography in the Middle Ages" wrote "The first medieval maps included only the rectilinear marking out of itineraries (performative indications chiefly concerning pilgrimages), along with the stops one was to make (cities which one was to pass through, spend the night in, pray, etc.) and distances calculated in hours or in days, that is, in terms of the time it would take to cover them on foot." Since we will not do what we are told, between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, the map became more autonomous. There is less Twedledee and Twedledum that gives you options how to operate from one place to another, they "simply" describes the places or dots. You are free to connect the dots HOWever you'd like.

But see, we do not like being free, or to ameliorate it, we turn the narration of spatial disposition to "informed choice". That's how TripAdvisor and Lonely Planet win. They separate narration of making space from the map and give you stories of how to appropriate space, JUST IN CASE you need it. 

More on maps: Thongchai Winichakul's "Siam Mapped: A History of the Goe-Body of a Nation", Collin Marshall's podcast: A conversation on ruins, maps, and the struggle for the future form of the city with Geoff Nicholson, author of "The Los Art of Walking", "Bleeding London", "Walking in Ruins", and "The City Under the Skin", and Michel De Certau's "The Practice of Everyday Life".

Me and You (Me)

I interpret this song as I talking to I when I'm down

On the Table

One of my favorite photo series in instagram is photos of food taken with flat angle, parallel to the table, which requires the photographer to stand up, on the floor. Or on a chair, if that should be the case. Asians, of course, used to be mocked for taking quotidian objects, ephemeral arrangement of food that is going to our stomach, and will be excreted anyway. But of course, like selfies, its value increased thanks to de Generes. And people may forget that van Gogh painted fruits. 

Well, if you also like to see photos of food from flat angle, Dinah Fried's new book Fictitious Dishes will elevate this pleasure by tingling your familiarity with classic literature. This is a cute and creative project that makes you think about the significance of food and drink description in toning a novel. 

For example, i just finished Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life". It is opened with German bakery scrumptiousness at almost the end of WWI, then it goes back to the home baked goods in an English countryside, scones with fresh cream, before the war. The next chapters contrast it with impoverished life in London during the war when Ursula (the protagonist) only had alcohol from her auntie's rustic, abandoned wine storage.

Anyone remembers Pramoedya's Minke who gets a package of nasi goreng and hot egg on a train, while he's "kidnapped" to be brought back to his father? Also, how the math genius Ms. Salander doesn't have time to eat but still Stig Larsson gives description of what she eats although it's almost nothing. Alright, but maybe the best description is live in Tarantiono's Inglourious Basterds, when Hans Landa chews that apfelstrudel. "Wait for the cream," he said patiently before eating it. 

Some of my favs:

On the side note, the last meals project is also a project to make food graphic by describing some of the famous death row inmates' last meal (pretty self-explanatory). What does last meals do? Is it to make death sentence more human or to see the inmates as humans? Does the last meal mediate our fear that the decision is irreversible thus making the inmate humans may remind us to carry the sentence humanely? Or the other way around, does giving them humane connection (good food, usually not provided daily in prison) makes us the representatives of better humans (the victims)? 

Let's save ourselves. Jump to the Mendl's cart! - Z to A

Dosen: Jadi, kamu liat itu ya film dokumenter yang namanya Star Wars
Saya:   Oke, Pak

*Pulang dan mencari film Star Wars di Youtube. Kok gak ada.
Ternyata saya salah mendengar. Judulnya Style Wars, sis.