Very Grammatic - 'Street' Poets Beating About Nothing?
My throat is quite sore at the moment, having had a complete meltdown (a "top-of-my-lung" meltdown) a few hours ago as I got held up by an idiot in a Kancil crawling to the traffic light while it was still green. It probably is one of that rare moment when even I, the most peaceful of drivers on road, had a case of road rage. So, as I was typing this away in relative silence, other people are sitting in front of their TVs watching the BPL, all soaked in a glorious noise of shouts, groans, and celebratory hurrah.
Last night I had this rare opportunity of driving (albeit aimlessly) around Subang after my friend and I had a wholesome dinner at Bubba Gump's in Sunway. Our only reason to drive all the way from the fringe of the outskirt of the Klang Valley in a little town called Bangi to what is essentially a traffic gridlock, is just for this dish called Bourbon Catch of the Day. So, with dinner safely in our stomach and the time said it's only half an hour shy of midnight, we bravely decided not to go home yet. No, wait sorry - I was driving so I decided that we should drive aimlessly around Subang while giving a guided tour around what used to be my playground (grew up and lived in Subang for more than 10 years) until something hit us and provide something more meaningful that can be done.
To cut the story short, after 'browsing' through random parts of USJ, we drove over to SS15. You see my mate who was with me that night is currently in on a frighteningly expensive fixation called 'fixie', fancy name for what is honestly a technically useless and pointless bicycle. Technically useless, and dangerous I have to add, because the fixed gear bicycle had no brakes so I don't know, going down a very steep hill, you come to a complete halt by crashing into a tree I suppose? Anyway, so the fixie, I take it that it is pretty new here in Malaysia, and the place where these sort of people gather is a tiny, humble shop-cum-cafe called Grafa, lodged right in the middle of somewhere in SS15. So we drove past that place (thankfully it is closed) when my friend said: "Let's go to UYA!".
UYA! distro is best described as a concept shop of some sort; either that or it is a very stylish looking storeroom, because, as how they would promote it, the place sells everything from indie books old and new, music records, t-shirts, and anything in between which is fancy. In one corner they have this army-issue gas mask and magazine cases. The gas mask is for sale, which is about RM200 something (I forgot). If you think Sid from Slipknot looks cool and you dream of looking like him, there you go. The magazine case however I'm not quite sure whether it's there just to complement the army theme in that corner (they were selling camouflages as well) or if it is for sale.
The part that really grabbed my attention however was this small platform, near where they hang some random collection of ladies' dress, where they have two bookshelf with lots of books neatly stacked on it. On those two bookshelves I found lots of, what was promised, indie books; or to be more precise: literary books by budding senimans. These indie books mainly contains poetry and short story, written in the somewhat controversial method called spontaneous writing. I called it controversial because, to agree with what our great seniman A. Samad Said once said (I'm a big fan of him): "There can't be spontaneous writing because the act of the writer preparing him or herself to write is in itself planned, not spontaneous".
The only thing that I can feel for these budding writers and poets, other than some degree of respect, is pity - because I know how literature in Malaysia is like - it's an uphill battle that will never be won. We're talking mainstream literature here that was created to be served to the general masses and even that got unanimously ignored. Malaysians in general just can't give a flying fuck about literature, let alone an experimental one. And to compound on that matter, spontaneous writing is on the fringe of the outskirt of literature. It is a problematic creature because, as how spontaneity should behave, it is spontaneous - it jumps at you, the reader, spontaneously. It is not a coherent collection of thoughts or ideas. It just happened out of nothing, spuriously exist on a short burst of momentum, and then it ceases to exist, both on the paper and on the reader's memory. It ends as spontaneous and how it sta-
P/S: The video? Aw come on, it's spontaneous. What were you exp-
UYA! distro:
No. 26, Tingkat 1,
Jalan SS 15/8B,
47500 Subang Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia
My throat is quite sore at the moment, having had a complete meltdown (a "top-of-my-lung" meltdown) a few hours ago as I got held up by an idiot in a Kancil crawling to the traffic light while it was still green. It probably is one of that rare moment when even I, the most peaceful of drivers on road, had a case of road rage. So, as I was typing this away in relative silence, other people are sitting in front of their TVs watching the BPL, all soaked in a glorious noise of shouts, groans, and celebratory hurrah.
Last night I had this rare opportunity of driving (albeit aimlessly) around Subang after my friend and I had a wholesome dinner at Bubba Gump's in Sunway. Our only reason to drive all the way from the fringe of the outskirt of the Klang Valley in a little town called Bangi to what is essentially a traffic gridlock, is just for this dish called Bourbon Catch of the Day. So, with dinner safely in our stomach and the time said it's only half an hour shy of midnight, we bravely decided not to go home yet. No, wait sorry - I was driving so I decided that we should drive aimlessly around Subang while giving a guided tour around what used to be my playground (grew up and lived in Subang for more than 10 years) until something hit us and provide something more meaningful that can be done.
To cut the story short, after 'browsing' through random parts of USJ, we drove over to SS15. You see my mate who was with me that night is currently in on a frighteningly expensive fixation called 'fixie', fancy name for what is honestly a technically useless and pointless bicycle. Technically useless, and dangerous I have to add, because the fixed gear bicycle had no brakes so I don't know, going down a very steep hill, you come to a complete halt by crashing into a tree I suppose? Anyway, so the fixie, I take it that it is pretty new here in Malaysia, and the place where these sort of people gather is a tiny, humble shop-cum-cafe called Grafa, lodged right in the middle of somewhere in SS15. So we drove past that place (thankfully it is closed) when my friend said: "Let's go to UYA!".
UYA! distro is best described as a concept shop of some sort; either that or it is a very stylish looking storeroom, because, as how they would promote it, the place sells everything from indie books old and new, music records, t-shirts, and anything in between which is fancy. In one corner they have this army-issue gas mask and magazine cases. The gas mask is for sale, which is about RM200 something (I forgot). If you think Sid from Slipknot looks cool and you dream of looking like him, there you go. The magazine case however I'm not quite sure whether it's there just to complement the army theme in that corner (they were selling camouflages as well) or if it is for sale.
The part that really grabbed my attention however was this small platform, near where they hang some random collection of ladies' dress, where they have two bookshelf with lots of books neatly stacked on it. On those two bookshelves I found lots of, what was promised, indie books; or to be more precise: literary books by budding senimans. These indie books mainly contains poetry and short story, written in the somewhat controversial method called spontaneous writing. I called it controversial because, to agree with what our great seniman A. Samad Said once said (I'm a big fan of him): "There can't be spontaneous writing because the act of the writer preparing him or herself to write is in itself planned, not spontaneous".
The only thing that I can feel for these budding writers and poets, other than some degree of respect, is pity - because I know how literature in Malaysia is like - it's an uphill battle that will never be won. We're talking mainstream literature here that was created to be served to the general masses and even that got unanimously ignored. Malaysians in general just can't give a flying fuck about literature, let alone an experimental one. And to compound on that matter, spontaneous writing is on the fringe of the outskirt of literature. It is a problematic creature because, as how spontaneity should behave, it is spontaneous - it jumps at you, the reader, spontaneously. It is not a coherent collection of thoughts or ideas. It just happened out of nothing, spuriously exist on a short burst of momentum, and then it ceases to exist, both on the paper and on the reader's memory. It ends as spontaneous and how it sta-
P/S: The video? Aw come on, it's spontaneous. What were you exp-
UYA! distro:
No. 26, Tingkat 1,
Jalan SS 15/8B,
47500 Subang Jaya,
Selangor, Malaysia
Labels: malaysia, uya, very grammatic
posted by Hafeez at 7:51 AM
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