BOOKED

i can't see any reason why we malaysians can't create great works of art in whatever medium, literature, films, paintings, whatever. we have everything. beautiful country , a great history and a completely fucked up people. we've been fucked in succession by the portugese, the dutch , the brits and the japs. and now we fuck each other. chinese hate the malays, the malays think the chinese dirty money grubbing bastards and the indians will fuck any chinese and malay women they can lay their hands on and nobody cares very much about indian lives. we even kill them in police lock ups. we are fucked and we hate each other. if that's not the most powerful motivation to spur the creative juice flowing then i don't know what is.

and don't forget the politics. for a flea country we have some of the most egotistical politicians in the world. take dr m for example. the way he carries on he still thinks he's the best politician in the whole fucking world. and to all intents and purposes he thinks his hand picked successor abdullah badawi a retard. and that's not all. the political shenanigans that are going on right here right now is as volatile and crazy as any of those fucked up countries in black africa. this brilliant piece by RPK is a taste of malaysian politic at it's best. . .

an excerpt:-

When Pakatan Rakyat formed the Perak and Selangor state governments soon after 8 March 2008, Umno quickly offered PAS a deal. If PAS was prepared to form a coalition with Umno in Perak and Selangor, they agreed to allow PAS to become the Menteri Besar of these two states. As a sweetener, Umno also agreed that the Islamic law of Hudud be implemented in Perak and Selangor. Umno will give PAS its Hudud that it seeks.

It was a sweet deal. Not only will PAS be running Perak and Selangor and will hold the post of the Chief Operation Officers of these two states, but PAS will also realise its dream of seeing Hudud as the law of the land where it had failed in Kelantan 20 years ago and Terengganu ten years ago.

Sweet deal as it may be, PAS said no. Realising its dream and being in charge is one thing, but they also have to consider their loyalty to their partners, PKR and DAP. They will not betray their partners in Pakatan Rakyat for any amount of money. So PAS said no.

Umno then worked on DAP since PAS was no longer a possibility. The offer was RM10 million for each DAP man who was prepared to cross over. The DAP men and women all declined the extremely attractive offer. RM10 million is a nice figure. That kind of money will go a long way. But there is more to life than money. And no DAP man and woman took the offer.

Okay, buying Perak and Selangor State Assemblymen and women from Pakatan Rakyat is not possible. No one is for sale. So, if you can’t buy them, then kill them. And Umno got a certain MIC man who married his boss’s wife after sleeping with her whenever the boss was out of town to do what he is most good at. They wanted PKR men fixed up.

That was easy. He is an expert at fixing up people. He fixed up his boss. He fixed up his boss’s wife who is now his wife. He can fix up PKR men easily enough. He asked to meet two PKR men. He then arranged for his driver to carry a bagful of money to the appointed meeting place with instructions to drop the bag under the table unseen and unnoticed. He did just as he was told.

No sooner had the bagful of money hit the ground when the Anti-Corruption Agency officers rushed in, picked up the bag, and arrested the two PKR men on allegations of corruption. They did not know what hit them. They did not even notice the bagful of money under the table.

These two PKR men are now missing....

if that's not a seed for a great work of ah...that word again, 'literary fiction' or a crime 'potboiler' then i don't know what is. but all we have are some books about ghosts and about some grandmothers and grand fathers.

sometimes it makes me wonder why we malaysians are still unable to create world class literature or films or any other form of arts. we have an amir, the film maker but despite his great sense of humor and obvious talents he's no emir kusturica. the painful history of yugoslavia gave birth to emir kusturica's underground one of the best and phantasmogarical films i've ever seen.

here's an excerpt of the above slant magazine review of the film:-

There's no need for a movie adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magical realist tome One Hundred Years of Solitude. It's already been made. Emir Kusturica's tragic-farce Underground may be the most important film of the last 25 years, a sweltering, morally inquisitive work of political narrative fiction that laments our propensity for auto-destruction...

it could well be said the same thing for malaysian politics and perhaps one day we ought to have our own 'underground' made. malaysian politics is just as obscene as any and sometimes- just sometimes- it makes me want to switch off and hit to the jungle and live like a savage. but it's just a fleeting feeling. i too have been smeared with so much muck that i feel too weak to raise above it all .

sometimes obscenity can be raised to such a level that it looks like art. i don't know what is what anymore. just like porn, when it's raised to a certain level it is considered art. take this pic for example. this is a great piece of painting by courbet. it hangs in the muse d'orsay so it must be ART.