Where The Hell Art Thou?

OK, OK, everyone just calm down.  Sheesh!  We stop posting for six months and you'd think the world was coming to an end...which it just might if NATO and ISIS get their ways.

Anyway, yes we haven't lashed our faithful readers with our trademark wry viewpoints since August last year, but we have damn good excuses!  To start with, right about the time we last gurbled on this site, we managed to contract typhus, amoebic dysentery and dengue fever, all in the space of six weeks.  We laid prone in a krankenhaus for 20 days having all sorts of witches' brews pumped directly into our veins, though the nurses were rather cute, so we didn't complain too much.

We managed to survive, though barely.  There were days when we were sure we would never assault our readers again, but much to your chagrin, dear reader, we muddled through.

Laundry lists of tropical diseases notwithstanding, we've also been hard at work completing and commissioning Jakarta's premier arts and entertainment complex - a $22 million exhibition hall, museum and live theater - called The Ciputra Artpreneur.  Projects of this size have a way of sucking up all of one's energy and free time, so we haven't had much left for our usual rants and raves in our little digital safe room here.

Yes, it's easy to sit around slinging bits and bytes telling everyone that they should do this and must do that to change the world, but it's a much bigger proposition to be an actual, real live positive force in the actual, real live world.

Just so the gentle reader knows, we put our actions where our mouth is.  We would never tell someone to do something we weren't willing to do ourselves.

What it all comes down to is this: what can you do to make the world a better place in your little part of the world.  We have explored the fact that the PTB are trying desperately to destroy culture, beauty and individual creativity.  It offends them that us sugar ants on their tables of privilege dare to improve the world, rather than destroy it, as they do oh-so-well.

Art is dangerous to the controlling class.  It is why they try so hard to destroy music, trash the fine arts and turn performace into celebrations of filth and baseness.  They can't stand that we seek to elevate ourselves and celebrate beauty and harmony.  They cringe that we seek rhythm and balance.  They shiek in horror when one of us dares to stand out as a force for good and joy.

Which is why we must do all in our power to achieve these things.

Their moda operandae are gore, hate, destruction, and filth.  They wallow in death and destruction like diseased swine, and must lower everyone else to their level so as not to feel the pain of their lack of humanity.  They dine on our pain and bathe in our suffereing.  Every soul they corrupt is another grotesque trophy on their mantle.  Can you imagine the profound emptiness they feel when just one of us rises above and creates something of beauty?

And so the responsibility falls on us, dear reader.  We do not need weapons.  We do not need harshness or force.  We do not need to fight fire with fire, for then we descend to their pit of Ultimate Evil.

Instead, we counter them with beauty.  We create and celebrate the creations.  We take the rubble of their hate and build new works of great Humanity.  We halt their onslaught with magnificent splashes of color and glorious strokes of sound.  We refuse to buy into their degradation, and instead support and encourage those who dare to greatness.

It is a shame that so many great artists have died in abject poverty, while others make vast fortunes trading on their work.  This is a symptom of greed and hate. 

Instead, we should buy a painting, commission a song, help publish a book.  Imagine if you took all the money and time used for lousy TV programs and crap movies and trash novels, and put it into supporting a local artist, writer or performer.  Suppose you helped send a child to music school, or helped a group of youngsters stage a great play, or offered to pay to publish another's first book?  What kind of ripples would that send through the world?  What great things would happen years from now because of that simple act?

The other day, I was in a meeting with a group of children, aged 11 to 17, who had formed their own quintet.  I listened to one lovely girl, 17, play Mozart on the violin.  I listened to another girl, 13, play Mendelsohn also on the violin.  I listened to a boy, 14, play Beethoven on the viola.  Their fingering and bowing was impeccable.  Their phrasing was interpretive and emotional.  Each told a short story about the composer and the background of their chosen pieces.  And they did it in flawless English, a second language for them.  The youngest member is a boy, aged 11, who plays the cello.  It is bigger than he is.

I'm going to hire them to play at the Ciputra Artpreneur Grand Opening Gala Event on 26 May, when the first Broadway musical ever (Disney's Beauty and the Beast) will open in Jakarta.

They deserve all the encouragement I can give them.

From Hell's Half Acre

Dateline - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: So, here we are in KL taking a little time to work on the cultural life of the world and do all we can to elevate the spirit and increase intellectualism, and you guys let the planet go to hell in a handbasket.  What gives?  Can't we leave you guys alone for 10 minutes without all hell breaking loose?  Sheesh...do we have to do everything around here?

Here we've got Obammie letting slip the dogs of war and *POOF*, we've got ISIS popping up in Iraq withing days, and no one says the obvious that Obammie was in on the whole ISIS thing?  C'mon, this is such an obvious ploy to draw Iran out of its comfort zone and provide grist for the now-30-year campaign to take over and carve up that ancient land.

We're not even going to tread on the whole ISIS name thing and how it refers to an ancient Babylonian goddess names Eshtar (Easter) and how the goddess Isis is the model for the whole Mary Mother of God and Jesus thing.  We have an undying faith in the native intelligence of our readers here to put those pieces together all by themselves.

Then, we have the whole Pope wants new Third Council of Nicaea with his homey the Patriarch of Constantinople (aka Istanbul) on the 1,700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea in AD325.  In case your church history is a bit rusty, the First Council is the one that decided what was and wasn't canon for all of Christianity, and thus created what we call the Bible.  The second council in AD787 was notable for authorizing the worship of graven images, called icons lest you confuse them with the Old Testament ban on such things.  Both of these councils were part of seven ecumenical councils of the day to determine what was 'good' religion, and what was 'bad'.  So, what can we expect in 2025, when the Third Council gets done pontificating?

Not that any of it did much good, because a couple of centuries later, Pope Bonaface VIII declared the Vatican the center of the Universe and everyone ended up getting a divorce, called excommunication in relgion-speak.  By the way, if you're watching such things, it appears that Francis I is re-asserting Bonaface's Unam Sanctum making the Vatican the de facto One World Government and Official One Worl Religion...a papal decree that lies at the heart of our current state slavery issues.

And the worm turns...

Meantime, the US is experiencing an immigrant crisis, not unlike when the Irish, Italians, Russians, and all the other waves of immigrants came over.  The central factor in this problem is that the white folk ain't breeding fast enough to pay for the aging Baby Boom drag on Social Security, so the state needs more taxpayers and will hand out citizenship to anyone stupid enough to take it.  There's a reason that the number of folks giving up US citizenship is skyrocketing.  Why in the hell would a bunch of illiterate, nomadic farmers want citizenship?  Oh, looks like we answered our own question.

In other news, the Indonesian presidential elections are coming to a head on 9 July, with Soeharto II versus a not-so-eloquent JFK type.  It's neck-and-neck, if you believe the bought-and-paid-for polls, with accusations flying that one candidate is a closet christian, while the other is a closet dictator.  It's all rather exciting and a lot of folks are threatening to leave the country is one or the other gets elected, though the consensus seems to be that the JFK type will clean up corruption better than the Fascist.  Folks are banking on the rupiah to tank if the Fascist gets in.  Place you bets accordingly.

In Russia, Putin continues his campaign to be Alpha Male of the Year, and having some success at it.  All we know is that we attended the Russian National Day affair here in Jakarta and it was swank.  Ritz-Carlton ballroom, lots of fine food, free-flow vodka, and a slick multi-media presentation of the national anthems and a not-so-subtle plug for Russian business.  Considering the American ambassador is xenophobic, we hardly expect the US National Day to out-shine, especially since budgets have been tight for such things.

On the hearts-and-minds front, the Russian embassy is working to bring the Bolshoi Ballet to Jakarta, while the US embassy is now strip-searching people entering their compound.

In related news, our little 3-story, 3,000 sqm art and culture project proceeds apace.  The galleries are now open, with the museum and theater coming up fast.  We're working 15-hour days trying to get all the duckies in a row, though it's a bit like herding cats.  Who'da thunk there were so many damn moving parts in art?  We're wearing so many hats that our hair is falling out from the friction of changing them so much, not to mention the stress.  But hey!  No one can say we don't put our money where our big mouth is, right?  We go on and on about culture and art raising society and advancing intelligence, so here we are working our little deer-ee-ear off to make it happen.  So there.

So, it's all good.  God is in his heaven and all is right with the world, if you keep your sense of humor about the ridiculous games the so-called Poopers-What-Be keep playing.  These numb-nuts haven't changed their playbook in something like one-and-a-half millennia.  Talk about entrenched thinking.  Makes it easy to run circles around them, though.

In case it's been upper-most on your mind wondering what we've been doing here on the Far Side, now you know: laughing at the PWB, traveling to strange lands and laying waste, going to swank diplomatic parties, and bringing ice to the natives (see Mosquito Coast for this obscure reference).

Stay tuned for some impressions on KL.  To prepare yourself, see our many rants on neo-Fascist Singapore.

Peace, love and chili peppers...

All The World's A Stage

Yes, folks, the roar of concern over our long silence on the Far Side has been heard!  We apologize for yanking the rug out from under everyone, but unfortunately, we have yet to discover circumventions to the Laws of Physics, though we are trying furiously!

As we described the situation in one recent response to a long-time reader, we are busy putting all our rants and raves into action.  On top of that, everything we've examined and fretted over here in this column is now coming into reality, so there seems little point to reiterating what can be found in copious amounts in our archives.

As we have previously mentioned, our latest project has been starting up Indonesia's first international-standard theater, as well as several large galleries, a museum, and all the ancillary things attendant to them.

A theater is an incredibly complex series of interlocking technologies married to highly specialized architecture to deliver a spectacle for the eyes and ears.  Cable trucks as big around as a man carry signals to lighting instruments, communications, sound, and rigging, and any mistake in judgement could kill a person.

Consideration like having the systems isolated from the internet because nasties like StuxNet infect the control systems of theaters that support incredibly large loads over people's heads.  A misfire or miscommunication among any of the myriad parts could end up in disaster, as the experience at the Apollo Theater in London a few months back will attest.

Most people are blissfully unaware of how complex putting on modern stage shows can be, and really, that's the point.  The audience is supposed to be amazed and enthralled, not thinking about how that massive chandelier was hung over their heads.  All of the effort and machinery are supposed to be invisible or the illusion is lost.  Yet, somewhere in all that mix, someone has to worry about the safety and security of that 3-year-old in the 24th row who is staring in wide-eyed amazement at flying Disney characters - not on TeeVee or the movie screen - but in real life.

Among our copious responsibilities is knowing the dizzying intricacies of the theater's innards.  If a single cable ceases to function properly, it is our responsibility to know where that cable originates, where it terminates, and the precise path it takes in between.  We must know precisely how much load and stress can be applied to any given spot on the stage or in the rafters.  We must know the precise measurements of every function of every system in the venue.

Add to that the various social and political concerns of being GM of such a place - it's unique position in Indonesian history - and the desire to inform, educate and entertain large masses of people, and one can begin to appreciate the demands on the time of an individual.

Despite the demands and stresses of managing such an effort - still in construction phase - we would not have it any other way.  We have always maintained that when one does the thing one loves the most, there is no such thing as work.  There is only joy.

Some letter writers to us on the Far Side have asked why we don't have columns on Malaysia Air or the Ukraine situation.  The simple answer is that our answers are contained in the archives.

Malaysia Air is a distraction.  It is an operation planned and executed to do one thing - keep you from looking at the Big Picture.  The Ukraine is little more than the dying crash of Western hegemony and the rise of the New East.  These are topics we have explored at great length within these pages.

The Malaysia Air mystery is designed to soak up headlines and column inches, distract the minds, and hold attention off other - more important - events.  There is something in this story for everyone, conspiracy theorist or not.  If there is in fact a real flight with real people involved, then our heart goes out to them for their suffering.  But we are unconvinced to the extent that we have followed the story at all.  It is not a cause, but a symptom of a much larger story being played out on the world's theater, with its attendant million moving parts.

The Ukraine story is also a symptom and part of the kibuki theater of global politics.  Not to make light of the suffering there, but the people of the Ukraine must at some point see that they are being manipulated in a crass and cynical game of geo-pissing.

The Western oligarchs set into motion back in the 80s a plan to crater the Soviet system, rearrange the Mid-East to their liking, and ensure that none of them could mount a serious challenge to Western hegemony.

They had not counted on China having its own agenda.  Instead, they were supposed to be infinitely grateful to the banksters for having unloaded tons of toxic debt within their borders.  They had not counted on the Russians experiencing a moral and religious reawakening and cleaning house of the mafia corruption, as Putin has done.  They had not counted on the internet becoming a means of circumventing the official media and mind-numbing distractions of network TeeVee.  In short, they f^cked up.

Once they realized what they had done, the various factions within the bankster class began fighting amongst themselves trying either to salvage the original plan, or scavenge for any amount of power and wealth as could be grabbed in the collapse.  The dominant group, myopically and pathetically wedded to their 40-year-old plan, are moving as fast as they can to complete it, though nearly all the assumptions of their plan - all the million variables - have changed, and it is no longer viable.

Thus, the Ukraine, and Libya, and Syria, and Iran, and Afghanistan, Egypt, et cetera ad nauseum.

The collapse of Empires is a dangerous time, but as the Chinese say, there is opportunity in chaos, or as their Western counterparts would say, Ordo ab chao.

As the audience, we have three choices: 1) we can sit passively and be enthralled like a 3-year-old in the 24th row; 2) we can seek to understand all the miles of cabling and systems integration of the theater we call the world/ or 3) we can ignore the bastards, refuse to buy a ticket and go set up our own show elsewhere.  We here on the Far Side stand firmly in the Option 3 camp.

Now, back to work!

Into The Fray

Maybe you've been under a rock lately and haven't heard of the world's newest art center.  If that's the case, then you'll want to click over to the Ciputra Artpreneur site (after you finish here, of course) and take a look-see.  This is Indonesia's finest art and performance space, and it's set to open in a couple of months.  It will set the bar for the country's commitment to the arts and culture.

Why, you ask yourself, is this guy promoting the Ciputra Artpreneur.  Glad you asked.

If you've been a reader here for any length of time, you know that I promote the fine arts and culture as a way to save the world, and that's not hyperbole.  There are those who would coursen our civic lives in order to diminish the human spirit and have us all wallowing in filth and ugliness, because it serves their purposes.

I espouse the philosophy that fine art raises us above squalor and elevates the mind and spirit into realms that supersede the mundane.  Art is the highest expression of humanity, and there are those who don't want us to go there because it liberates our beings and gets us to see beyond our humble existence into worlds that can be and will be, if we have the desire.

Another reason I'm promoting the center is because, by the Will of Fate and Destiny, the reins have been handed to me and now I must put my money where my mouth has always been.

It is both a unique privilege and chore to be handed such a tool box as this.  In fact, I believe that only a Texan could handle such a wild pony.  There are three large galleries, a museum with two spacious chambers, a massive projection screen (60m x 9m), and a 1,300-seat international-standard theater.  In other words, this is one of the most flexible, diverse and modern art spaces on the planet, and I have the joy and responsibility of making it work.

Suppose you are a carpenter and you have spent most of your life grousing about how you could really do something if someone would just turn you loose with a good set of tools.  Well, I am that carpenter and someone has just handed me a set of state-of-the-art tools.  Now what?

What do you do with this kind of tool box that has never been used, in a country that has never had such tools at its disposal, and a large number of people demanding some of the finest furniture ever produced?  More than that, how can you take these tools and put the center and the nation on the map of global centers for artistic expression?  Furthermore, how long would/should that take?  Most importantly, what steps do you take to fulfill the promise without a misstep and wtih a shop that needs to train up in a hurry?

Talk about your wild ponies.

It's a rather daunting position to be in, to have someone hand you a contract and tell you that by signing it, you will have the ability to achieve most of your life-long ambitions.  How do you proceed?

Let's say you've dreamed all your life of reaching the top of Mount Everest.  Let's say you've clamored and climbed to the point where the peak is in sight.  Do you rush headlong and throw yourself at it?  Or do you proceed with the utmost caution to ensure success?  Do you want to be able to climb down again, or is simply reaching the goal enough?

Ambition screams at you to strike and get yours.  Prudence quietly reminds you that there is a team that got you here - parents, teachers, friends, and colleagues - people who pulled your ropes and whose ropes you pulled.

The most profound line in the whole recent Batman series is when Ra's al Ghul told Bruce Wayne that he had sacrificed sure footing for the kill shot.  But at what point do you balance risk with security?

In any event, it is now my task to lead a fine team of professionals in starting a new venture - one that will have extensive effects in the civic life and culture of a nation.  It is a task that can change history if done with the greatest of care and empathy for the society in which it is occurring.  It can lead to new understandings, renewing entertainment, profound revelations, and broader horizons for a great many people.

It is a task I don't take lightly.  I can make a very real difference in this corner of the world.  With the support of a great number of visionary and hard-working people, I want to step beyond the limits of commerce and profit, and into the realm of transcendence.

How does one do that?  What shows and exhibits would you choose that could achieve that goal?  If you could introduce the world's art to a people, and their art to the world, what would be your first step?  And the second?  How would you maintain sure footing while taking the necessary risks to achieve such things?

It is a fun position to be in for some, though without a doubt, there must be a very serious side to it.  What great works of art does one bring, how does one educate and inform, and finally, how does one take the same steps to introduce the world to the treasure in one's own backyard?

Stay tuned...this will only get more interesting.  Regardless of the outcome, it is a thrill to be at the front line of the battle between beauty and derangement, to take on the forces that would drag us all down into the slime so that they could sit on our sinking heads for nothing more than their selfish pleasure.

There are those who would reduce humanity to feudal serfs - unenlightened beasts of burden for the select few.  There are those who would lift all humans to great heights of knowledge and understanding.  I place myself in the latter camp and will use those resources at my disposal to achieve that goal.

In any case, I get to see a lot of great shows for free - as long as I don't end up like Father in The Mosquito Coast.

Tricks Of Light And Shadow

You've probably received an email at some time in your life showing a guy doing chalk drawings on the street that, from a certain perspective, look amazingly 3D.  His name is Kurt Wenner and he is currently exhibiting several of his works, along with some Indonesian artists, here at the Ciputra Artpreneur Center.

Preserved on canvas, these pieces lie flat on the floor or form a 90-degree angle with the wall.  When viewed through a wide-angle lens, ghostly three-dimensional images pop out of the canvas, appearing to rise out of the background or apear in front of it.  It's really quite amazing and something photos just don't quite capture.  Makes you wonder how Kurt views the world.

What the art works highlight is the weird world of perception.  How we view the world and what reality is comes down to a matter of perspective.

In the midst of all the excitement, an email pops in from my Canadian bud and long-time ex-pat.  It contained a quote that he found "out there":

“Given the fact that it has been proven that our moon is a very suspiciously perfectly placed artificial satellite that is composed of non-naturally occurring material without which we could not have life on this planet combined with the fact that our Earth is very suspiciously the only place within our solar system and very likely our galaxy that can support life there is absolutely no question in my mind that, at the very least, the entire surface of our planet and all of its life forms are in fact nothing more than elements of a very large and complex software system that is being used to run what I am completely convinced are military experiments by some non-humanoid entity.”

I shot back:

"This is just a take on the ancient concept that we create the Universe through our collective consciousness.  The Hindus and Buddhists place this idea at the center of their beliefs.  The idea of a holographic reality or software simulation is just modern terminology wrapping the same concepts."

Seems this week's theme is 'perception', since everywhere I turn there are hints about reality not being all that real and our minds creating Creation.  It's strange how Life keeps throwing theme weeks at us.  It's like Bogart week on the Million Dollar Movie or something.  Just more proof that we create our reality, or it's created for us on a regular basis.

Related to that, do people really have premonitions, or does the intensity with which they think something create the situation?  My father used to think of people he hadn't talked to in years and out of the blue they would call or contact him within 24 hours.  This was before the internet and you could track most people down fairly easy.  But you have to ask, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

As Wenner's work shows, perception is all a matter of perspective.  One step in any direction and the world we see changes quite radically.  For those who see beyond the 'trick' of light and shadow, the paintings represent a profound look at reality.  Suppose we all exist on a canvas that appears three-dimensional and solid, until you shift to the side just a bit.

Perhaps if we all mentally stepped to the side and looked at the world from a slightly different perspective, we might see something completely unexpected and remarkable.  Of course, it begs the question what would we do if we found out the Universe was just a construct of imagination?

Happy Friday!