BOOKED

martin amis had a new book out. this review puts it very well what the book "the second plane" is all about so i'm not going to say anything about it anymore. i'm not even sure i'm going to read it. not unless i happen to find it in remaindered bins and at a giveaway price of one dollar or less. this is rather a turnabout for me because he's one of the authors i quite like. the way he handles words can be mersmerizing. but post september 11 he's getting more and more tiresome and virulent on his attack on the 'islamists' . he even coined a new word horrorism (which doesn't seem to be taken up by anyone ) to describe his horror and disgust at all these atrocities perpetrated by muslim suicide bombers as though this is particularly unique to 'muslim terrorists' only and conveniently forgetting the kame kazi bombers and tamil tiger suicide bombers to name just two.

and i'm surprised and somewhat saddened at his failure to properly delve into the psyche of these unfortunate idealists and his refusal and inability to understand the other side of the argument. for a writer of his calibre, this is dissapointing. he tried, albeit with a very one sided partisan view in a short story which i could barely managed to read past the second paragraph. this was published in the guardian unlimited online a few months back.

and here's the interesting thing. one would have thought that the average jihadists are fanatics zonked out with religious zeal hell bent on killing themselves in the hope of getting seventy doe eyed virgins in paradise. well, there are some of these, but there are others. and these others can be as hedonistic and irreligious as an average secularist. just like you and me. and given the wrong(or right) circumstances i could easily be one of them. but thank goodness god makes me a coward and a pacifist. in all honesty, i couldn't even kill a fly. i'd make a good jain devotee if i was born in india.

and last night i met one islamic jihadist who peddles pirated porn dvds on the sideline. i was in baclaran pasay city and one thing i love to do when i'm in manila is to visit this night market place where most of the shopkeepers, hawkers are maranao muslims who come from marawi city in mindanao. and just beside this night market is another sector of manila's underbelly. a really seedy place with rows upon rows of cheap bars and ktv lounges and a few crappy hotels with nude shows. the three song & dance routines. first fully clothed , second only with panty and bras and the finale completely naked gyrating and humping to a loud crappy old pop songs.

i ended up buying one glass of beer after another to this singer who happended to "work" in singapore several months back. so we had a lot to talk about.and i learnt a thing or two. and that's me. observing things and life's underbelly is fascinating. and the reason i discovered this crappy place was thanks to the porn peddler jihadist. i was checking out his collection of porn, some of which were very2 disturbing and nasty stuff and some were plain revolting gay stuff and we got to talking. i asked him if he likes abu sayaf. he said no and i asked whyt not? i love abu sayyaf i declared. ah you're jihadi? fisabillillah? he asked me. not really i said but every muslim with balls should support abu sayyaf and osama ben laden i said. forget about these fucking muslim moderates i said. these are bush cock suckers. i said. he laughed. and said his uncle is a commander of MILF. oh congratulation i said. may you have success. and then i said, so, where's a nice good place i can go where there are no fucking white men fondling filipino pussies? and that's how i ended up at that crappy bar with the three song and dance routine.