Dusun 12

dusun e-journal of Asian Arts and Culture

April/May 2013 Ridiculously Free

12

space gambus experiment jaysen yeoh koh teng huat madhuchhanda karmakar albert ashok

dusun

12

buy this e-book on Amazon

April/May 2013

contents page 6

editorial

page 9

martin bradley new digital work

page 18

space gambus experiment new album

page 24

a new world exhibition

page 36

jaysen yeoh awash with colour

page 46

my day exhibition

page 52

songs for shooting stars poetry book review

page 58

khmer art exhibition

page 78

koh teng huat chinese ink painting

page 88

madhuchhanda karmakar poetry

page 98 albert ashok

illustrations

page 121 pei yeou bradley

in a lijian chinese market (photo essay) page 137

1961 gallery

page 151

toro over carbs exhibition launch

page 171

indonesian comics re mastered

page 180

nazlina spice station

cover editor

dusun martin a bradley

email

martinabradley@gmail.com

Dusun TM

editorial Dear Reader April is no fool. Amidst the bouncing of white rabbits, drizzles of melting chocolate, newly hatched chicks and fluffy little lambs we bring you the April/May issue of your very own Dusun.

Once again, Dusun has scoured the Asian region to bring you the very best in Arts and Culture. This issue’s material simply screams diversity with exhibitions from Malaysia and The Philippines, artists from India and Malaysia, poets from India, comic art from Indonesia and a whole lot more in over 180 pages.

Dusun remains completely independent. Dusun is not aligned to any gallery, organisation, political party or government. This means that Dusun can, and does, bring you Art and artists/poets/writers not featured elsewhere.

Dusun is always on the look out for fresh material, new Artists/poets/writers etc to grace its pages. If you wish to submit, please do send your work to martinabradley@gmail.com.

And now the fun begins.............

M

alaysia...

martin bradley Martin Bradley was born in London, 1951. He is a writer/poet/designer and a graduate in Art History, Exhibition Making, Graphic Design, Philosophy and Social Work. He has travelled most of the known world and lived in Britain, India and Malaysia.

Martin was Guest Writer at India’s Commonwealth Writers Festival in New Delhi (2010) and Guest Writer at Singapore’s Lit Up literature festival (2010); he has read in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2009, 2011), in Cambodia (2012) and The Philippines (2013). Martin writes articles on Art & Culture for magazines and newspapers and designs digital images. He has been the editor of Dusun – a Malaysian Arts and Culture e-magazine and founder/host of Northern Writers – a venue for ‘readings’ in Ipoh, Malaysia.

He has had three books published during 2012 - Remembering Whiteness - a collection of poetry, Buffalo & Breadfruit - autobiography, and A Story of Colors of Cambodia, which he also designed.

space gambus experiment ii by martin bradley

When, in hours of sunset and moments of pensiveness, you cleanse all thoughts of Amethystium from your mind. When as day dawns and kingfishers dart you realise Muse are no longer amusing, and Yes - their magnifications and astral travelling are becoming only perhaps. When all former exponents of Progressive Rock seem antediluvian, anachronistic or simply aged - you might well want to tweak your speakers, adjust your earphones, initiate your itunes and marvel at Malaysia’s most spectacular Space Gambus Experiment,Volume two.

The sound makers who form the nexus of Space Gambus Experiment have not been idle since the last album. On the contrary, those sound creators have mixed and played, spoken and sung their way onto a fresh album which has the refreshing effect of cool clear spring water on the face. Space Gambus Experiment II builds on the first album, but only in the way that adulthood comes after a period of adolescence.

Music which was, initially, quite stunning has now become spectacular, mature (in a nice way) and burrows deep into the subconscious the way all good music should.

The first track – do we still call them tracks (?) off the second album – The Earth Is Not My Home I’m Just Passing (4 minutes 37 seconds), recalls Pink Floyd’s first (and best) two albums – Piper At The Gates of Dawn and Saucerful Of Secrets, but in a non-mimetic way. The ‘build’ into the main refrain is masterful as are the Japanese vocals – reminiscent of the ambience in Ridley Scott’s (1982) Blade Runner film. As with most of Kamal Sabran’s works I am left wanting more.

Tracks the length of Pink Floyd’s title track for Saucerful of Secrets (11minutes 52 seconds) would not go amiss on SGE’s albums. But we are told to always leave them wanting more, and SGE do just that.

This second album seems more polished than the first. The rawness of the initial album added to its overall charm, but SGE have proven that they have lost none of that, but on the contrary are charming in the extreme with superb production values and some deft sound engineering on this second album. Space Gambus Experiment’s characteristic fusion of sound, music and additional tweaks are all there, in abundance, on the new album but are formulated into fantastically fresh futuristic fantasies.

All the familiar references are there, from Led Zepplin to the Beatles and a host of lesser known Prog Rock albums. SGE ultimately make those references their own, with a strain of gambus, a distant sitar and an electro beat sharp enough to tickle anyone’s fancy. Tracks with spiritual or quasi-mystical titles like What You Seek Is Seeking You fairly explode into your eardrums with a solid backbeat and phased vocals. While Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed recalls the Beatles psychedelic hit Strawberry fields Forever, SGE’s track bursts out of a jazz (expresso?) bongo and into gambus and fairly rocks its little socks off with a spaced-out Middle Eastern theme, some cute vocals and a welcome return to feedback - so beloved of the 1960s and 70s.

The track – The Light Traveller, is astral enough to have recalled Cliff Richard amidst the shadows but takes a Kraut Rock twist, not as heavy as Page and Plant’s Yallah but solid enough to bring to mind Gottfried Huppertz’s score for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis but with some nifty strings and a return of the haunting Japanese vocals. Space Gambus Experiment’s second album is another triumph for them – slicker, more melodic and enough surprises to keep you going back for more.

a new world

an exhibition at the kuala lumpur indian cultural centre

This is the new world...a world where the heart and mind have become lovers...a world where people will stop and listen...a world where we will share our happiness with our loved ones and sadness will appear awhile, take us into depression, only to open a new door of hope...

In this world, the bad will not be able to hide their nastiness anymore...the pretender will fail in his acting and the good will be appreciated...and the simpleness of a meaningful life will serenade the moment... ...you no longer have to hide your dreams in fear of failure...that all hard work will pay and doors of possibility will open after all these years locked by the chain of doubt...in the minds of those you hope will listen ...for the mind has finally come to listen and the heart will feel the sincerity within your earnest quest...

Look at the clouds now...it used to rain and the sun pierced our skin when it shined, holding on to a programmed season...we knew which season will rain and when the sun ruled the sky... ...have you noticed how the sun and moon are free without a season now...so free finally to be themselves...though they are still the moon which rules the night and the sun the day, they are no more just doing that, just doing their work...they have now taken a new journey to nurture earth, to heal us... like a ward in a hospital where it is kept cold without too much brightness...we are kept to heal... well that is exactly the atmosphere now...a dullness, a gloomy cloud that is darker than before, yet it doesn’t rain and the few hours of sun scorches us to make sure we don’t walk around freely...

We are now in the hospital bed of earth...she is keeping us under the hazy blanket clouds to heal us...to make us experience our true original self...

In our little garden at home, there are red and white roses...I have seen them bloom before and when they bloomed, we would pluck it and decorate the altar... this time around her bloom was different, I was so sure it was different that I didn’t have the heart to pluck and told myself...it has come to bloom and wither for a cause only

the dam builder - sathi koka

art of blissful pain - jayshree ramasamy known to the flower.

Every morning I will step out to see her and only then it dawned on me that she was not doing what I thought she usually does! As I knew, flowers bloom and then wither by drying off, the tip turning darker and it will became brittle and fall...

I swear upon her, this time after the most beautiful bloom, she graciously faded... and as I watched everyday...the red from the tip was like being pulled in, exposing a white petal...it went on until the red faded altogether leaving behind a pale stained white petal...

In my mind, I thought...a performance had come to an end.

I remember my days in India, the first time I went out with my master and walked the streets in mid noon...I was sweating and stopping at a stall, we had a drink...the modern western mind, that is me, ordered a chilled Campa Cola, the Indian version of Coca Cola! While my master drank his hot tea in that hot burning noon... he looked at me and said “don’t you know, when it is hot outside it is cold inside and when it is cold outside it is warm within”...

Well that is what is exactly happening to Earth! The atmosphere outside is gloomy and the inside of us is finally brighter...the flower that bloomed is the sign of this wonderful change...

Saw how the world responded with one thought against the girl who squares of eternity - shyam darshan was raped and torn and finally died? She must have been the female

futuristic world - sathish natarajan

version of Jesus, to die to invoke the unity of our heart’s compassion!

People have been sexually abused all these years but this event in the new world brought all of us together to voice out and force the constitution to relook its law.

I must say, this is a collective world, where everyone is a judge of everyone else, that everyone appreciates each other, where no wrong can hide itself. Everyone is changing, though wearing the same uniform of a human, we are finally feeling the God within us.

We were once an energy without a form...we were God and being so for a long time, expanded and became two...that God expanded itself and turned into the moon and sun.

These two energies descended down and created three planes of existence and we now call it Earth...the ground below, the land above and the skies. These three forms churned itself and brought about the four seasons of time...morning, afternoon, evening and night!

These four moods of time created the five elements of life...fire, water, air, gravity and ether...the five merging into one brought the first form that stood still like one God, in a superconscious state that we call the sixth sense...the state that we humans reach everytime we become quiet and still...like trees that took noise, turning them into life force...it stood still amongst the elements five, rooted on the ground, branching out on the ground above and drew energies from the sky...

Standing so still, mucus formed around the bark and through heat, the sogginess seeped down into the ground...again God took another form...from there, from heat it brought forth fire, through water it muted itself...by the porous air, it breathed life and by gravity and ether as balance, moved taking the first step... ...soon the seven lights set in and colour was born and with that the balance from the eight directions rose-first as a worm then into an animal and roamed the land aimlessly.

Fire brought forth lust for life, water filled itself in, gravity infused time; the order of life and the skies blended the emotions five...and God finally descended in flesh and blood and sat within the human with nine entry and exit points...with legs two, hand one, with a wisdom intact in mind and walked the land in innocence so pure...

And so the story continued and today we have arrived at a point where the heart and mind have finally met...after years of climbing the evolutionary ladder, we have finally reached home.

The Mayans were right! They stopped their calendar cycle as the period of us becoming human has finally come to an end...we have finally reached home of the Gods..

It is now a choice that we have to make...to live like Gods or to continue being humans..

The Exhibition This exhibition is unlike any that I have initiated before and I should say here that I have never taken part in a show so intense in my whole art career. For the first time I took eleven emerging artists on a journey of self discovery through art. Every piece of work that I brought out in my canvas had been a step closer to

woman of hope angela natashia joseph

ocean within a life mageswary manickam

the new world nirmala Ssomasundram

knowing what I am and accepting that which I am not gracefully... as a teacher I have been only teaching what I am practicing at that moment.

A question will arise in the mind of some whether anyone here is trying to imitate my style of painting. The curator of this show had this same question. Why is everyone using the dabbing technique?

Some paint using oils and others might use acrylics. The same here, I made everyone use dabbing as a style of expression. The uniqueness of dabbing is that it contains the atoms together while when we paint directly using the brush, you will disperse the atoms scattering them.

The theme “A New World� though sounds like a revelation, is actually a peek into the lives of each artist and how art has stepped into their world. How art has brought a new perception, a new perspective in their individual life.

My sincere wish is that, you as the observer would peek into the paintings and poems and share your appreciation and support this artists in their ongoing journey towards discovering themselves.

Jeganathan Ramachandram

the angel is back... manon maney ramadass

shades of green... with a little blue and a bit of yellow rohini indran

Bindi I denote your essence I am your third eye, the spiritual eye .

I am your inner guru I am the sixth chakra I am the seat of wisdom and intellect It is for you to seek me !

I am there in the universe all around you I am your new beginning -your new world.... !

Smitha 2013

bindi - smitha pathak

beyond perceived reality - seema nanoo

....there...within the sky there from somehwere without a beginning between the many unnamed worlds ...a beam like the dream of night descends ...piercing through the noise within the silent wind in blue...some green...some in orange and white serenades the moon first...that seem to be still like a dancer after a dance ...the snake of desire swallows some as it descends further and the eagle of passion bathes in the multitudes... glowing at the very touch ...as the ray of the unseen Gods plummet further...the moment shimmers in might ...it kept moving down and further down and lo’ behold...it finally reached... touching the oceon of life...the bed of eternal union ...it became silent...so still in the darkness of the starless night...a moment’s pause... and before i could know... millions and trillions...i could not count... exploded first in colours nine ...then within that a white light rose om the bed of bliss...that shone so bright and fine! was it in blue in white...or was it white in green or was it just white! it blinded my eyes...and there within the blindness... ...i witnessed...my shakti...my para shakti...my goddess rising within all... ...as i sat slowly closing my eyes...i saw her merging within me ...the stage so silent... a midnight dream returns...

Jeganathan 2013

jaysen yeoh awash with colour

international women’s day exhibition kuala lumpur

my day

pei yeou bradley in front of one of her artworks

christine dass with one of her works

en secret - pei yeou bradley

liberte de choix - pei yeou bradley

last refuge - motaram parandin

book review

songs for shooting stars by ghlam-sarwar yousof a review

by martin bradley

Dr Ghulan-SarwarYousof has had a long and distinguished career within the arts. He has long contributed to literature in general and,specifically,has contributed to the annals of Malaysian poetry.

Among many other things, Dr Ghulan-Sarwar is renowned for his contributions to drama, and is considered to be one of the leading specialists of traditional Southeast Asian theatre.

In a remarkable and notable career, Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof has produced many stunning original works of poetry, drama, and short stories. He has studied and written papers on Malaysian-Singapore Literature and in his latest volume of poems - Songs for Shooting Stars – Mystical verse, the esteemed Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof presents his readers with mystical, metaphorical, and metaphysically sublime poetry. Within the glamour of his spell-binding words, Dr Ghulan-Sarwar imbues his creations with all the charm and delicately nuanced philosophical insights of a classical Sufi poet, not to mention the conscientiousness of a truth-seeking transcendent guru.

I read the slim volume - Songs for Shooting Stars, in one

sitting, paused and upon a second, more considered reading and, admittedly, with a well placed grin I conjured intimations, in my mischievousness, of Baudelaire’s symbolic eloquence.

Within that light, but as the very same time – weighty volume - Songs for Shooting Stars there would seem to be a colourful richness in Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s verse, one that brings to mind the fullness of phrase of the French poet Charles Baudelaire.

It is, perhaps, the aromatic headiness of Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof’s perfumed words, maybe - a fragrant, heard, bouquet (In a Garden Barely Awake, p10) of the most exotic kind which gives more that a slight incline of the head to Baudelaire - his more colourful phrases and dreamily evocative words.

That slight incline towards Baudelaire may seen to be tempered, perhaps, by symbolic signposts of the way of the Sufi – journeying fragrantly from bodies of clay (Choice, p19, Epitaph II, p22), towards a more spiritual and intangible sagacity.

In Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof’s poetry volume, there is also the seemingly limitless and timeless concern with “Being”.That very same philosophical concern - of “Being”, seems to be woven into the very fabric of Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s verses. “Being”, its nature, its form and its weight has long been an unease, a disquiet niggling even the most erudite phenomenological and existentialist philosophers. It is no surprise then that it might continue to be a concern of Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof’s.

In the whirling, frequently wandering images conjured by Dr Ghulan-Sarwar Yousof , “Being” seems to be that which you may surrender unto (Answer, p6), and to “Be” is the cry of the newly born as well as the last breath of the departing in the ever-changing world of renewal (Renewal, p12). It is there - in that space, where the strings of a poet’s “Being” become sounded in some mystical musical refrain (Melody,

p16), and amidst the music of the spheres perhaps or in the tones of Orpheus’ lyre, where the mystery truly lies. It is amidst concerns with “Being” and those most delicately perfumed gardens that symbolic roses ooze crimson passions (Garden of the Heart, p13), they become enwrapped in their “Being” and bird souls sing in “Being’s” garden (Bird Soul, p40).

There is little doubt that the forty poems in Dr GhulanSarwar Yousof’s Songs for Shooting Stars – Mystical verse hail from further East, yet remind us of the Persian or Turkish traditions and recall poets such as Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj and, perhaps more relevantly, the delectable and oft quoted Rumi (Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi). Another mischievous, and perhaps even oblique, thought leapt unbidden into my mind bringing forth imaginings of the poet Rumi ‘s beard peering from the galleys and gutters, alighting alongside margins, peeking at the good Dr’s paragraphs and smiling at Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s synonyms. Perhaps Rumi might even be there - sitting on Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s right shoulder - gazing in awe at his numinous writings of divine love and the weighty tangibility of the body that surrounds the soul. That was a cosy vision - Dr Ghulan-Sarwar - a modern mystical poet overseen by Rumi - an ancient mystical poet, and a vision which (Ouroboros –like) seals the scene for continuity and the never ending quest for becoming and the mirage-like truth of Being.

The book had no sooner arrived in my apartment than I began unravelling the outer packaging and, opening the book, began reading at page five – I had wanted to read the poems before I encountered the “Foreword”. I found that the first poem set the scene for that volume of poetry – the rest followed in what could only be described as a logical sequence. That first poem coloured the perspective for Songs for Shooting

Stars. It was aptly named – Journey, and reminded me of the imaginings and false perceptions which frequently delay us on our route to a greater spiritual understanding. Within that poem Dr Ghulan-Sarwar writes of “tricky mirages on the heart’s wavering sands…” – deceptions of the self perhaps, projections of yearning, desires masking a truer reality, some universal, and certainly mystical, truth perhaps. “Being” - itself so simple that it only has to “Be” - becomes confused and gone is Milan Kundera’s ‘Lightness’ and instead is replaced by ‘Blindness’, but not the blindness of Samson as he wept eyeless in Gaza, yet a sightlessness where the inner truth/ eternal reality remains hidden to non-transcendental sight.

It quickly became evident that the poems in Songs for Shooting Stars resemble the traditional Sufi ‘teaching poems’.

There are similar concerns with awakening sleeping spirits and signposting paths along ‘The Way’ to a higher or spiritual plane - and perhaps ultimately to some kind of divinity itself. Poems in Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s volume ‘talk’ of the ephemeral, of transience, the impermanency of everything – especially the colouration of skies (Ode to Transience, p4, Evening, p7 et al). Everything changes as the I-Ching sagely indicates. Impermanence invades everything that is not related to a higher value/inner or universal/sought truth.

Within Dr Ghulan-Sarwar’s petite book the reader encounters shadows of reality (Evening, p7). There are hints of a distant, available yet unattainable truth echoing through those forty poems in Songs for Shooting Stars, leaving ephemeral traces as it passes. Readers are swept into the romance of “Becoming”, encouraged in our quest for an ultimate understanding of “Being” – teased by metaphor and simile until even the dullest of us imagines a far-off light

shining somewhere beyond our tangible plane of existence.

From the far of caves of Plato, the shadows, the wall, Plato’s semblance and reality; from the ‘Being’ quest of Husserl, Heidegger and Sartre we sense that multi-layered meaning is there, awaiting, within the rich pages of Dr GhulanSarwar’s work. That meaning awaits the intrepid traveller, not as a journey’s end but as a way station upon the path amidst the swirling and whirling of daily life. Inside the hazy rainbow covers of the book there are glimpses of a reality beyond, snatched from us as we slip from page to page, turn the cover and gaze once more at the title which, on each new reading, seems to shine a little brighter.

an exhibition of art for and by the children o was held in kuala lumpur fro

an exhibition hosted by

of cambodia, including art by their teachers, om January to February 2013

khmer art exhibition

many of the exhibition’s image send email to martinabradley@

es can be found in this book about the charity colors of cambodia - USD20, please @gmail.com for further information.

cocthebook@gmail.com https://www.facebook.com/ groups/138402846288849/ http://colorsofcambodia.org/

Every so often a book appears that reveals and illuminates a project that might otherwise remain largely unknown by the outside world: ‘Colors of Cambodia’ is such a book. This is a highly personal and passionate account written by Martin Bradley and illustrated by Pei Yeou Bradley of her encounter with a remarkable art-based project in and around Siem Reap in Cambodia, and how she was drawn into practical involvement with the children for whom the project exists.

Richard Noyce, Artist, Wales 2012

koh teng huat Koh Teng Huat is a self taught Malaysian artist. He has studied the styles and methods of painting by many of Penangs famous artists and has developed his own style from those studies.

Koh Teng Huat has been responsible for a series of art exhibitions in his home town of Balik Pulau, on the island of Penang, and looks forward to continuing.

I

ndia...

poetry

Madhuchhanda Karmakar Madhuchhanda Karmakar born in1979, Kolkata India. She loves to play with words, and is influenced by surrealistic style of unstructured writings. Her writings come from a personal trajectory, rather than following any prescribed canonical structure. They have a range of viewpoints, mainly from a point of view of a female protagonist, within the realm of fantasy genre.

Her literary journey started in Kolkata in 2012 with her first publication of the poem "Cleopatra" in the Arfican anthology “ Muse for Woman” ( Maiden Edition) ISBN-10: 1477548955 , ISBN-13: 978-1477548950June 2012 .

Her next publication was her poem “ Platonic Love” , Published by Napalam and Novoclain http://napalmandnovocain.blogspot.in/ , in July 2012.

One of her poem “ Remembering the end” was published by Indian Ruminations , a journal of english writers , ISSN 2249-2062 , http:// www.indianruminations.com/contents/poems/remembering-the-endmadhuchhanda-karmakar-west-bengal/, July 2012.

Ten of her poems have been selected for publication by the Indian Sahitya Academy , in their journal “ Indian Literature” in September 2012.

Her poem titled “ For an old friend” has been accepted for publication at Marco Polo Arts Magazine, Georgia, USA, in November 2012.

Three of her Poems “ Early morning blues..” , “ Of rains..” “ The thirteenth night..”have been selected for publication in the anthology “ Poetic Bliss” at the International Poetry Festival , to be held at Guntur Hyderabad , December 2012.

Tickets to rain....

It was nine minutes to ten Two tickets for “ Finding neverland” Was getting wet in the rain.

Autumn shower, humming the strain Could not recollect the lyrics Yet etched the notes down the pane Drops of rain sliced the ground Fluttering the cold flames of morning fog As sky was lost before it could be found It remembered an almost forgotten song A crushed cloud , few wrappers of empty stars The list of antiquities was really quite long The Sun is all that it suddenly could not miss Rose suddenly, stopped , almost there Suddenly felt just like a kiss…

For an Old Friend…

Its not about love, its all about love It’s all about some mountains and rest of the rains About four springs and rest of winters Expiry of relations at the right place And also at the right time It not where to reach It’s all about how to reach It’s about the famous of saying Everything’s fair in love and theatre It’s about the long wish for wings That would take flight one day To a place called here...

It’s all about Mondays And all the seven days of the week Based on true stories And almost a clear sky...

Traveller...

The moon is bitter Yet so sweet I embark on a journey With a retreat Two twinkling stars As my guide And a fistful of dreams By my side A strand of hair Frets to sway Just out of braid It lost its way Drops of sweat Of lost April Sun Dried up as a long spell of Winter has just begun A lone traveller Goes whistling by As a confused Oriole Just learns to fly Fallen maple leaves crushes The stillness of the air Addiction to the freedom was Too much to bear A gush of wind Sang the lullaby Of strains of laughter And an almost forgotten sigh I breathed a prayer As I opened the gate A date with life Is Awaiting to be met...

A little of I‌..

Faith whispered into a tear Fear no more For I will hold you dear Regrets lock without a key Pretending to linger away Before the moments could flee Quiet screams too unsteady to yell Stumbled upon a lane where Pickled tickets were for sale Celebration drifts by a twisted mile Gazing into a lazy midpoint of Merged lanes of smile Carefree rain bleeds the winters dry Another spring rehearses to walk the aisle All because of Me and a little of I‌..

Almost...

I had almost forgotten how to smile You tickled me so hard That I laughed till my eyes Spilled tears till they cried You taught me to how to Believe and pray Face the world Keep faith and never run away That night I was alone and Just too weak to stand Till you gave me the strength as You held my hand I almost given up hope When you taught me Faith is a thing of feather So just let it be I tried telling you “I wish you were mine” Each time you hold my hands And said “Everything will be fine” Every time I thought I have Reached a dead end You told me to “Hold on for its just another bend”

I gave you a word never to cry Even if none of my prayers are Answered and all the nights Forever remains grey I will be on my own from now And promised never to lie again Even if the stakes are very high And the truth is bitter with pain In the cold December night As we walked the lane strewn with fern A gentle push by the virgin Moon And the lane took a sudden U turn You left me all alone Wondering how to smile once again When I had almost forgotten What was pain‌..

Oriole's Cry....

Nails dipped in moon Dug into the right of flesh Discovered the demon inside Lashes of the tongue Whipped the lost stories of night Hatched by the last migratory bird Called eyes The boats quivered Rocked by the debris of the broken nails Nails made brittle By the rains drained dry Tainted transformed The oriole cry Waiting to taken by the sky‌‌

Bitter Night……

Insomniac stairs Climbs to hell Dreams slip on pillow Covering shame Fake night gambles for The bed to remain insane Frivolous moon Flirts the sky Raging clouds Learn to row Abused Mojito Finally learns to say no Abridged poems Little less than full Struggles for rhymes As ink turns black For the logic of voice Refutes to end silence Of this endless noise…..

albert ashok Albert Ashok, is a renowned Indian artist, poet and an editor of an English literary Magazine.

From 1982 he has worked as a full time artist and writer. He has written a hundred Books concerning drawing and paintings, 7 of poems. Most of his books on drawing and paintings are used by schools colleges and advance students of Art. His books are most popular in West Bengal, neighbouring states of India and Bangladesh. Albert writes essays in periodicals/ magazines on art and literature, and reviews painting exhibitions in galleries.

Albert Ashok has served two decades as a freelance artist in the publication industry in college Street, Kolkata, as well as producing tantalising work for exhibition.

C

hina

photo essay

in a lijian chinese market by pei yeou bradley

remembering whiteness & other poems by martin bradley

downloadable as a free pdf from http://correspondences-martin.blogspot.com/2012/04/open-publication-free-publishing-more.html

C

ambodia...

gallery

siem reap

T he Philippines

toro

exhibition launch

....the party

Portraits of Wonder and Transience

By Martin Bradley Celebrity is transient, but that doesn’t stop people from craving the limelight and the ephemeral power many believe it brings.

Celebrity is a social construct bringing attention, fascination and temporary influence in a society addicted to materialism and consumerism.

William Kempe (England, 1600) produced a travelling show which he hailed as the ‘Nine Days O’ Wonder” – nine days of Morris dancing, cheering crowds and, ultimately, fame and celebrity.

From that the idiom – “Nine days Wonder” slipped into the English language. In 1968 the Pop artist Andy Warhol predicted that ‘In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes’. Like Andy Warhol, the artist known as Toro has produced a series of celebrity portraits, in ArtistSpace, at the Ayala Museum, Makati City called ‘Over Carbs’.

Toro displays a number of painted, grinning, celebrity portraits – from Charlie Chaplin to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Marilyn Monroe to Angelina Jolie.

They appear replete with Toro’s characteristic splash painting in the background, linking them to his previous exhibition at the Yuchenco Museum in Mekati City.

There is madness and temerity in the enigmatic artist known as Toro. Toro takes the painterly plastic and renders it concrete within our eager consciousness, teasing us – his audience, challenging us to unravel the tender puzzles he sets in his latest exhibition.

Amidst the portraits of celebrity there are “portraits” of the artist

....the party

....the party known as Toro in a tie.

The tie is red bespattered with gold, and a link to the splash paintings of Toro’s Temerity, shown in February at the Yuchenco Museum, Water Dragon Gallery.

Like Superman’s yellow sun or Green Lantern’s ring, the tie gives Toro instant sex appeal, and the power of a hero – it also brings celebrity. Moustachioed like a villain in a Tamil film, Toro is seen surrounded with appealing women. They seemingly adore Toro’s emanations of power, while together they pose as if in a scene from a James Bond or Charlie’s Angels movie.Videos of the newly created hero/celebrity (aka Toro) are also shown in the exhibit, revealing the legend of celebrity Toro.

The painted screen and pop idols smile, they hold high carbohydrate donuts or low carbohydrate bananas. Is this ‘natural’ (banana) versus the ‘processed’ (donut), or indigenous (banana) vs foreign (donut), or perhaps this enigma speaks of democracy (yellow) and tyranny?

Although the metaphors are mixed, the studious visitor were able to tease poignant meanings from each of those “portraits”.

of bananas and donuts by martin bradley bananas are so yellow that andy warhol stripped his to pink made undergrounds of velvet quickly coyly covered for inquisitive to gawp bananas are so yellow that the sun is shy but doesn’t burn them out of jealousy or create banana cue bananas are so yellow that canaries take flight kandinsky cancels play coldplay become hot and democracy is saved but bananas are not donuts not even for cops in cars drunks in bars not for dunkin bananas r us donuts are them we sprinkle and tinkle high carb low carb celebrities crunch munch so sure that bananas are not donuts but in some crazy mixed up world banana cream banana essence banana icing hidden banana beneath the smile they fool the unwary into believing that they are

....the party

....the party

....the party

when is a banana not a banana? by martin bradley If there is an enigma to the artist Toro, it is in the enigma itself. Toro is a mystery mirror. Toro continues to reflect us back to ourselves, replete with all our taboos, our anxieties and our neuroses. In his less than serious handling of his latest exhibition – ‘Over Carbs’, in Manila, in March, Toro concerns himself with reflecting society’s predilection for celebrity, its beliefs about celebrity libido and its changing perceptions of those celebrities, based upon revealed sexual innuendo and cultural taboo.

In Toro’s exhibition ‘Over Carbs’, his audience is presented with a number of canvases depicting celebrity portraits. In each painting a smiling celebrity holds up either a banana or a donut. The message, one would think, is straightforward - we are lead to believe that there are ‘good’ carbohydrates (carbs) and ‘bad’ carbs. A number of health and fitness books (and websites) are concerned with health education. They reflect that carbohydrates ingested via vegetables and fruits, such as bananas, are ‘good’ carbohydrates. They are healthy and acceptable. Carbohydrates (carbs) gained via processed foods – chips, alcohol and pastries, like donuts, are ‘bad’ carbohydrates, are to be frowned upon and to be rejected.

It would be simple enough to believe the blatant ‘health’ message of those images and leave it at that. Toro takes the proverbial libidinous bull by the Freudian horns and makes us look closer into those charmingly painted canvases. Strip away the gloss and the glitter of celebrity and you have people, ordinary people with ordinary hopes, dreams, and of course - desires. Society revels in the ‘normalcy’ of celebrity desires - it encourages them with gawping and gaping. It is titillated by excess and over indulgence. Society appears sham shocked by revelations of celebrities whose personal reality does not match their ‘portraits’ in the press, and by screen idols whose sexuality conflicts with media projections.

Look at Toro’s paintings. You will notice that most of the male portraits hold aloft a donut and the female portraits a banana, innocent enough you might imagine, considering the health message. But look even closer.

Think for a moment. Look again and you will see that we are in the nudge, nudge, wink, wink realm of double entendre. Bananas and donuts take on a not so innocent meaning. So look again, for there are men holding bananas and women with donuts, some with both. What can all that mean?

I

ndonesia

indonesian comics re-mastered

djampang

Erwin Prima Arya is an Animator and illustrator who has headed various company’s computer graphics departments. He takes his time and effort to digitally re-master old Indonesian comics, to preserve them.

tuan tanah kedawung - ganes th 1969

by nazlina hussin

Slow Fish You know what makes me drool most? Salted fish! Yes, that humble dried out fish cured with salt. In Malay cooking, gulai ikan masin (salted fish curry, normally cooked with pineapple), or even a simple deep fried crunchy ikan bilis will whet the appetite of even the most seasoned globe-trotting food savvy critique. I kid you not!

I have to admit, the most delicious salted fish I had was the one I tried in Torino, Italy last year during Terra Madre and Salone del Gusto 2012.This one came from Norway, processed traditionally, with pure sea salt from the North Sea. Oh my heavens, I could have picked and eaten the raw salted fish non-stop if it was not given out small sample portions! They actually ran a contest if anyone could guess the weight of a whole dried salted cod.

Hmm..! I could only wish it would be mine, it was about the same weight as my daughter’s school bag, but I did not gamble ten Euros to try win it.

Talking about fish, we know it is one of the best sources of healthy protein for humankind. However, it now has become an elitist menu, due to the high prices it commands, especially for imported fish. I am a member of the Slow Food movement (check out www.slowfood.com), and we are trying to create awareness and one of the things that we care about is, Slow Fish.

Now, what is Slow Fish? Does it mean they swim very slowly? Well, basically, it is about sustainability fishing, traditional ways of preserving and processing fish, and the method of cooking that pays tribute to the old ways.

Basically, we want to encourage the masses to start asking where the fish that lands on their plates come from. Is it locally caught? Is it cultured fish or wild fish? Is the fish mature enough when it’s captured? Is the fish one of the top predators in the marine world? Do we decline fish roe and shark’s fins when offered?

Locally, I believe everyone here can relate to ikan bilis (anchovies). Ikan bilis, is a wonderful example of a type of Slow Fish.They are natural, they

dried salted fish

dried fish

grow very fast, they swim in big schools, can be processed traditionally using methods passed down through generations and if those aspects are not enough, they are also full of flavour. They come in many sizes and can be cooked in several ways; in sambal, as seasoning and even as a snack, when deep fried and seasoned with spices!

On the contrary, we should educate everyone to stop eating and buying anything that is made from sharks. Sharks’ fins soup is notorious being one of the major reasons why our world shark population is declining.You see, most sharks are the top predators in their respective habitats. Once they are killed, the marine life under their food chain will start to multiply unchecked. In most cases, the broken chain will affect human in the end too.

One good example: once sharks in an area started to decline in numbers, abalones also started to disappear, because the sharks’ natural prey grow unchecked and ate the abalones. Fishermen, who depend on abalones to supplement their livelihood, suffer as a result, as their abalone catch dwindles.

So, say no to sharks, and yes to anchovies. Long live Slow Fish seafood!

ikan bilis

Nazlina’s food website: http:// www.pickles-and-spices.com Nazlina also holds cooking classes four days a week in George Town, Penang. Check out http://www.penang-cooking-class. com