2017
Day 3 and Into the Home Strait
28 October 2017
It’s 5am and Day 3 has not yet dawned, but I still have Day 2 to digest. Just to give you the setting - the day begins at 8 am- dropped off by Josh or walk down - first session at 9 so a chance to catch up with friends as they wander in. Sessions last either 1 hour or 1 hour 15 minutes - I find these latter ones a bit hard going! A 15 min break for the dash between venues - there are three parallel sessions. I only managed three sessions yesterday and three evening / night events, with an absolutely necessary rest break back home in the afternoon. I might have to admit soon that I am in fact getting old. I remember the early festivals going back 14 years when I was often at every session from 9 - 5, not even taking a lunch break and out till 10 or 11 at night! Who was that girl?
Cathy caught me writing this email just now - started in the dark and finished over a cuppa on the granny flat verandah by the pool.
Cathy caught me writing this email just now - started in the dark and finished over a cuppa on the granny flat verandah by the pool.
The day began with Michael Vatikiotis whose SEA-based career as a journalist and now “private diplomat” (international mediator) has given him a deep insight into the region and its conflicts. Bought his book “Blood and Silk”. His interviewer was the incisive American, Janet Steele- have heard the two of them analyse the issues of Indonesia over years, often together on the same panels - Vatikiotis and Steele, a formidable team. Michael was trying to find a grain of optimism regarding the end of conflicts in this region but it was hard. In Indonesia it is the gradual undermining of the pluralism and diversity that Soekarno founded the state on. Seeing my career - and my entire adult life - has spanned the decades from Soekarno, through the Soeharto years to Jokowi, I have watched it all! Often with despair. Opposition forces here today, hoping to influence the next elections, are bringing up the communist bogey again, for chrissake!
Janet Steele chaired another session of international journalists on fake news - the challenge of presenting well-researched stories of real news in these days of rapid changes in the media. Anyone can present “the news” on Facebook! And how FB will only stream posts to you on your already formed views. Trump supporters never get to see any of the negative Trump stuff that pours into my FB for example. And I never get to read a single positive thing about him - are there any? (By the way, the news reached us that Barnaby Joyce - our deputy PM, for those non-Aussie readers - has been officially ruled a dual citizen, so has to resign. We now have a hung parliament! Wow- interesting shakeups ahead!) Followed by a panel of book reviewers and critics. One interesting thing I learnt - a reviewer spending the necessary hours to read a book then research and write the review, may only get paid $100 for the review after 15-20 hours work! Not a good economic outcome! And these days anyone can become a reviewer on “Good Reads”. One piece of advice for a reviewer - never review the book of a friend! It was all fascinating - the panel included an Indonesian book critic who worked very effectively with his interpreter, sentence by sentence, which is how it should be.
Back to crowded Bar Luna late afternoon for the second half of a talk by Joanna Saville, food writer on expensive restaurants around the world. $1000 dollars for one meal. Really? Had this person ever heard of Oxfam? Mind you I did not hear much of her talk as I was in the back area of the bar where everyone around me was talking and drinking. Casa Luna has three other levels of restaurants for that. But the next session on her book ”Wellmania” by Australian journalist Bridget Delany, where both she and her interviewer were in costume (yoga gear, headbands and with their mats) discussed extreme wellbeing activities and the ridiculous amounts spent on them. You can pay hundreds of dollars for a yoga mat! Multi trillion dollar industry just to appear well, both inside and out. Bridget has tried them all - torture in most cases - for a book or for herself?- she could not differentiate when I asked her. Journalists never cease talking notes, she said. These days she just does yoga and meditation at home at no charge!
The highlight of the day was the extraordinary film “As Worlds Divide” by an Australian guy, Rob Henry, who lived with tribal people on the Mentawai Islands off Sumatra and is now helping them with their battle to preserve their culture. My builder friend Julian’s wife, Fabiana is a Mentawian - he met her there when he was surfing years ago. She is from a community that was moved into settlements by the government and sent to school - ie ”Indonesianised”. But this is such a rich culture with a vast amount of survival knowledge and it must not be lost. We were entranced by the wonderful characters he lived with and filmed as they taught him to make sago and learn to love eating it - (there was no alternative - yuk!), catch fish, climb coconut trees and they tattooed him in tribal patterns. Great coincidence - Julian’s twin sister Angela is here in Ubud! She came to the Bar Luna interview and saw me there! And I was sure I’d see her at the Mentawai film last night, but could not find her. But she will be at the Spice Islands lunch tomorrow.
A very satisfying day. Phew! The sun is well and truly up now. Breakfast, then off down the hill for Day 3
Back to crowded Bar Luna late afternoon for the second half of a talk by Joanna Saville, food writer on expensive restaurants around the world. $1000 dollars for one meal. Really? Had this person ever heard of Oxfam? Mind you I did not hear much of her talk as I was in the back area of the bar where everyone around me was talking and drinking. Casa Luna has three other levels of restaurants for that. But the next session on her book ”Wellmania” by Australian journalist Bridget Delany, where both she and her interviewer were in costume (yoga gear, headbands and with their mats) discussed extreme wellbeing activities and the ridiculous amounts spent on them. You can pay hundreds of dollars for a yoga mat! Multi trillion dollar industry just to appear well, both inside and out. Bridget has tried them all - torture in most cases - for a book or for herself?- she could not differentiate when I asked her. Journalists never cease talking notes, she said. These days she just does yoga and meditation at home at no charge!
The highlight of the day was the extraordinary film “As Worlds Divide” by an Australian guy, Rob Henry, who lived with tribal people on the Mentawai Islands off Sumatra and is now helping them with their battle to preserve their culture. My builder friend Julian’s wife, Fabiana is a Mentawian - he met her there when he was surfing years ago. She is from a community that was moved into settlements by the government and sent to school - ie ”Indonesianised”. But this is such a rich culture with a vast amount of survival knowledge and it must not be lost. We were entranced by the wonderful characters he lived with and filmed as they taught him to make sago and learn to love eating it - (there was no alternative - yuk!), catch fish, climb coconut trees and they tattooed him in tribal patterns. Great coincidence - Julian’s twin sister Angela is here in Ubud! She came to the Bar Luna interview and saw me there! And I was sure I’d see her at the Mentawai film last night, but could not find her. But she will be at the Spice Islands lunch tomorrow.
A very satisfying day. Phew! The sun is well and truly up now. Breakfast, then off down the hill for Day 3
Into the Home Strait
It is all so heady here in Ubud, our brains are buzzing with books, ideas, and extraordinary people and we have completely forgotten that there is a volcano about to erupt just 32k from here. I saw Rio Helmi yesterday and was able to shake his hand and congratulate him in person for his fabulous blog posts on FB ”Ubud Now and Then - Under the Volcano”, recording the relief effort and the situation in the danger zone. He is a main interviewer for every festival, and often a speaker on Bali issues.
On the final stretch today, but yesterday still to be recorded. Here goes!
The day began with a conversation with Tim Flannery, Australia’s greatest climate scientist and writer - he reviews books for The NY Times too, I presume on scientific issues. His interviewer was the climate change attaché from the British Embassy in a Jakarta. His toffee accent and private school Englishness contrasted enormously with Tim’s laid-back Aussieness, but they made a great team. Dealt first with the “scary stuff“ of climate change but came to the optimistic stuff - what can be done. Tim’s current book is on seaweed - growing vast hectares of seaweed on platforms in mid ocean. (The first experimental one is being built off Aceh, here in Indonesia - internationally funded). The seaweed will soak up carbon dioxide and can to be used for a multitude of purposes - fuel, fertilizer, food, etc, Amidst the doomsday rhetoric of climate change, Tim even managed to get us laughing at times. He has spoken at Ubud before and we see him often on our TVs - a beloved Aussie icon (though his body on climate change is a target for funding cuts by the government, full of deniers, and he is most unpopular with the profit-hungry fossil fuel big business in Oz.) Tim is here with his wife and toddler son. (It is a fairly recent marriage to author Kate Holden who wrote an extraordinary memoir of her youth as a heroin addict and sex worker which I read years ago. Now a highly respected author and book reviewer. My guess is she and Tim met on the Writers Festival circuit that they both frequent.) She’s a speaker here at the festival too - heard her on the issue of reviewing books yesterday.
Cathy’s photo. Alas, the interviewer seemed to hold Tim’s focus on him instead of allowing Tim to look more directly at the audience.
On the final stretch today, but yesterday still to be recorded. Here goes!
The day began with a conversation with Tim Flannery, Australia’s greatest climate scientist and writer - he reviews books for The NY Times too, I presume on scientific issues. His interviewer was the climate change attaché from the British Embassy in a Jakarta. His toffee accent and private school Englishness contrasted enormously with Tim’s laid-back Aussieness, but they made a great team. Dealt first with the “scary stuff“ of climate change but came to the optimistic stuff - what can be done. Tim’s current book is on seaweed - growing vast hectares of seaweed on platforms in mid ocean. (The first experimental one is being built off Aceh, here in Indonesia - internationally funded). The seaweed will soak up carbon dioxide and can to be used for a multitude of purposes - fuel, fertilizer, food, etc, Amidst the doomsday rhetoric of climate change, Tim even managed to get us laughing at times. He has spoken at Ubud before and we see him often on our TVs - a beloved Aussie icon (though his body on climate change is a target for funding cuts by the government, full of deniers, and he is most unpopular with the profit-hungry fossil fuel big business in Oz.) Tim is here with his wife and toddler son. (It is a fairly recent marriage to author Kate Holden who wrote an extraordinary memoir of her youth as a heroin addict and sex worker which I read years ago. Now a highly respected author and book reviewer. My guess is she and Tim met on the Writers Festival circuit that they both frequent.) She’s a speaker here at the festival too - heard her on the issue of reviewing books yesterday.
Cathy’s photo. Alas, the interviewer seemed to hold Tim’s focus on him instead of allowing Tim to look more directly at the audience.
Next for me was a brief interlude, a contrast to all the politics and media sessions, involving a dash down the hill to the festival hub at Taman Baca. (I know it is extraordinary, but Ubud has chosen THIS WEEK to repair the footpath between the venue at Neka Gallery and Taman Baca, after leaving it in disrepair for years! Impassable, forcing hundreds of us every hour onto the busy road! Why this very week and not last week in time for us to have a footpath without gaping holes would have been very welcome!) I heard a panel of young ASEAN Writers from the countries in this region, some of them writing “from English”, not “in English” - English is not their own language but that of the former colonial power. All about identity and family - except for the Filipina writer, the first to proudly publish a book of entirely lesbian stories.
A dash up the hill again this time on a motor cycle. The uniformed security guard outside, guarding the venue from terrorist attack, asked me if I needed transport and kindly went off briefly to find someone to take me - but came back with his own bike. No question that he should perhaps not leave his post because he was keen to collect my $2 payment!
Another treat to equal Tim Flannery - Simon Winchester, British author of Krakatoa, Surgeon of Crowthorne and many more, but these are the two I have read. He was marvellous - an hour of great story telling. (Afterwards I bumped into Tim coming out of the session and said “He was almost as good as you” and got a grin in response!) Winchester’s mentor was James Morris, English travel writer - I have the book on Spain- who encouraged Winchester to leave the field of geology after he’d written to Morris saying “I want to be you”. After years of correspondence and the start to his writing career, Winchester was in Wales on a walking tour and decided to call in on Morris and meet him. Phoned in advance but was welcomed at the door by a woman - it was the week before James Morris went to Morocco to become Jan Morris, Britain’s first sex change. He was invited into tea with Morris’s wife and children. Of course the telling of this story to us was hilarious. Winchester and Morris, now in her 90s, are still good friends and have written a book together. Morris and her wife had to remarry after equal marriage was legal in UK.
A dash up the hill again this time on a motor cycle. The uniformed security guard outside, guarding the venue from terrorist attack, asked me if I needed transport and kindly went off briefly to find someone to take me - but came back with his own bike. No question that he should perhaps not leave his post because he was keen to collect my $2 payment!
Another treat to equal Tim Flannery - Simon Winchester, British author of Krakatoa, Surgeon of Crowthorne and many more, but these are the two I have read. He was marvellous - an hour of great story telling. (Afterwards I bumped into Tim coming out of the session and said “He was almost as good as you” and got a grin in response!) Winchester’s mentor was James Morris, English travel writer - I have the book on Spain- who encouraged Winchester to leave the field of geology after he’d written to Morris saying “I want to be you”. After years of correspondence and the start to his writing career, Winchester was in Wales on a walking tour and decided to call in on Morris and meet him. Phoned in advance but was welcomed at the door by a woman - it was the week before James Morris went to Morocco to become Jan Morris, Britain’s first sex change. He was invited into tea with Morris’s wife and children. Of course the telling of this story to us was hilarious. Winchester and Morris, now in her 90s, are still good friends and have written a book together. Morris and her wife had to remarry after equal marriage was legal in UK.
Had a brief lunch break and then to Rio’s interview with Andreas Harsono, Indonesia’s leading human rights journalist whom I have heard speak before both in Ubud and Sydney. Wonderful man, speaking out loud and clear on all the issues that still need addressing in Indonesia. He clarified for us the politics behind the jailing of Jakarta’s former Chinese Christian governor Ahok, for blasphemy. It is a well-known case but the implications for the next presidential elections are frightening.
Got the close up before the session began.
Got the close up before the session began.
I had to leave this session early to get to downtown Ubud for the launch of the anthology of Emerging Writers. It was held at Bar Luna, which was too cramped a venue for this type of event. Neither of us translators present was asked to speak this year, which was fine by me. I got to meet the two young men whose stories I had translated. One of the stores was so literary and full of abstruse metaphors that I was really worried I might have made a hash of it in places. (I did ask to have someone on the committee here check it but got no response to three emails!) Yesterday I was chatting to Debra Yatim, the bilingual Indonesian writer who translates the poetry in the anthology (the rest of us won’t touch it!). I was saying how I was concerned that I may not have done justice to the story and her response was that she had read both versions and the English version made a lot more sense to her than the original!
It was home for me after that at 5 pm. Cathy had come back for a rest in the afternoon and gone out again for the evening refreshed and ready for more. But not me. I sat in the dark on the verandah and ate crackers and cheese with a can of beer left behind by Barbara and Kate, and smoked one of my kretek ciggies, my little indulgence when I am in Indonesia. Bliss! Now to gear up for Day 4.
It was home for me after that at 5 pm. Cathy had come back for a rest in the afternoon and gone out again for the evening refreshed and ready for more. But not me. I sat in the dark on the verandah and ate crackers and cheese with a can of beer left behind by Barbara and Kate, and smoked one of my kretek ciggies, my little indulgence when I am in Indonesia. Bliss! Now to gear up for Day 4.