Stir
Slowly, Drink at Leisure
The May edition of the 2012 Ubud Writers and Readers Festival newsletter
made it out with a week to go before it was June – it popped into the Diary’s
in-box on May 26. And since it was leading off with a bit of a blurb about the
Bali Emerging Writers Festival (which had been advertised as scheduled for May
25-27) one assumes deadlines in festival-land are as notional as any on this
island.
But never mind. BEWF is
beaut, even if acronyms are as prevalent as litter. This year’s was the second
and organisers said it presented a more colourful line-up than the inaugural acronym
last year. Said UWRF community development manager Kadek Sri Purnami, and we
quote verbatim (it’s not our grammar): “We are trying to present as diverse and
colourful voices as possible. These young writers, some write with words, some
with lights and images, will take the audience into the kaleidoscopic world of
contemporary Bali.”
We’re sure it was a blast –
and we’re glad about that too. Perhaps the 2012 UWRF Newsletter for June, which
apparently should reach us just before it is July, will give us some idea of how
it actually went.
The festival took place (May
27-29) at Serambi Arts Antida, the hot Denpasar alternative art space.
Meanwhile, festival founder and
fragrant coffee drinker Janet DeNeefe is being as shy as ever about the
international programme for this year’s big show, scheduled for October 3-7. A
little note in the aforementioned newsletter coyly states: “While the list of
international authors for the UWRF 2012 is tightly embargoed, several of the
authors on that list were featured at the Sydney Writers Festival, recently
concluded.”
We do know of one author
invited to participate: Uli Schmetzer, who lives half the year in Venice and
half in Australia and the Philippines. He and his lovely Italian wife Tiziana,
who cooks the most marvellous pasta, lent us their pushbikes in Beijing 20
years ago (we gave them back) as well as their driver, a redoubtable fellow
called Fang who knew but one word of a language other than Mandarin. Unfortunately
this was “nyet,” which did not get us very far. Well, only to the nearest bit
of the Great Wall.
As to other internationals, well,
just for fun, we’ll scribble out a list, blindfold ourselves, and play a
literary version of pin the tail on the donkey.
Help
the Cause: Buzz Off
As noted above, a diarist’s reading must be very wide. Or else you miss
all sorts of things that give you a huge laugh. So we propose to share with you
some other advice recently to hand – we found it online and it would be amusing
to suggest this resulted from a tip-off – that urges women to select a vibrator
that is eco-friendly
It notes – this was a
surprise to the Diary – that there are more makes of vibrators on the market
than there are models of cars on the roads. Gee, that intelligence hits the
spot. It’s a wonder poor old Gaia hasn’t been knocked out of her orbit with all
the under-the-counterpane buzzing that must be going on. And it says that
choosing a brand, let alone a single product, can be daunting; it kindly offers
to help narrow your search.
It suggests you choose a
rechargeable vibrator for maximum sensation with minimum ecological footprint.
Apparently a typical user can deplete up to four batteries a week on a battery
operated vibrator – that’s more than 200 dead batteries a year. (How many
extinct libidos, we wonder?)
Oh yes – and we’re thinking
that would have to be the Big O – it also says that responsible manufacturing
is important for your vibrator (they are sentient as well as sensory?) and
suggests you seek out companies that share your values. Perhaps you should just
look for one that gives you a nice warm buzz.
Or
Otherwise...
A diarist also needs a quick eye, as well a deep appreciation for delicious
double entendres. LinkedIn’s handy People You May Know feature – which as we
noted recently unearthed for us poor Angus McCaskill, who is no longer counted
among our population – popped up another unknown name the other day. We won’t
name the fellow, since he seems to be a Canadian and might therefore respond by
saying “Eh?” or else entirely miss the joke.
But he’s the manager of a mining
industry outfit whose name might cause an involuntary appreciative intake of
breath among any number of distressed gentlewomen hereabouts: Cougar Drilling
Solutions.
Fame à
un Prix
Those among us who like to follow the risible side of Australian
politics – it’s a broad field of study – have been transfixed of late at the
thought of supersized Queensland mining magnate Clive Palmer running for
parliament, though not for the Whirling Dervish Party, which is such a pity.
He’d like to be a Liberal MP instead, which he’d surely find is absolutely no
fun at all. Apparently he’s serious about it all but the idea went straight
into our Too Silly file, along with some of Palmer’s other titanic ideas.
As well as desiring to pay no
tax on his mines (paying tax is for wimps and non-whirling dervishes) Palmer
wants to build an “unsinkable” modern version of the Titanic that some people –
Céline Dion, Kate Winslett and Leonardo DiCaprio prominently among them, one
imagines – will clearly remember was also unsinkable but which nevertheless
sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 after running full-pelt into an eminently
avoidable iceberg. He also wants to build a Zeppelin, though he promises it
wouldn’t be a Hindenburg exploding one.
It was therefore fun to find
in a recent edition of the fine French satirical newspaper Le Canard enchainé –
it had been donated to The Cage by some kind French visitors – a little item by
Jean-Luc Porquet, who writes a lovely column aptly named “Peouf!” It was
headlined “Trésor national vivant” (“Living National Treasure”).
The piece primarily concerned
the discarded Nicolas Sarkozy who was recently unelected as President of the
Republic. It was Sarkozy’s titanic political misadventures which principally
informed Porquet’s pointed prose. But unfortunately, while Palmer’s Australian
national treasure feat may be recognised in France and be of some peripheral utility
to satirists having a go at poor M. Sarkozy, his living clay is less well
known.
Porquet called him Clive
Barker. Perhaps he was thinking of Ronnie, the Brit comic who was nearly as
round. But he could just have been joking. He seems to share the widely held
view that Clive Palmer is barking mad.
More
Sax Please
The delectable Edwina Blush will soon be back in Bali, which is good
news for Villa Kitty at Ubud – of which she is an ambassador – and people, like
your diarist, who love saxy jazz and the (unfortunately now largely notional)
concept of smoky bars and attractively accommodating company.
She’ll be playing a six-week gig
here with her Balinese sextet at Three Monkeys Sanur after the June 15 launch
in Sydney of her latest album, Sea For Cats. We’ll get along to a session or
two. The album’s available from various download sites including iTunes, the
Diary’s preferred legal provider. Half the proceeds of sales go to Villa Kitty
to provide veterinary care and – as Edwina unblushingly puts it – much needed
population control measures (she adds: “Frisky little darlings”).
Villa Kitty is on Facebook,
by the way. Founder and Chief Meow Elizabeth Grant Suttie would love to hear
from you.
Fiesta
Time
El Kabron, the
cliff-top watering hole at Bingin on the Bukit where host David Iglesias Megias tempts
patrons with all sorts of delights, including Catalan and other Spanish treats,
celebrated its first birthday with a great little party on June 10.
It was a good chance to catch
up with old friends – though none of them are old in the literal sense –
including our Most Favoured Argentine, artist-architect Leticia Balacek, who
has recently been in Shanghai. We buttonholed her at the do and asked if, as a
result of her Sino experiences, her word was still her Bund. Sorry.
No
Kidding
We hear from the delightful Alicia Budihardja, chief spruiker at Conrad
Bali where Frenchman Jean-Sebastien Kling is now general manager that the
property is going after the kids in a big way. It has launched a new family
package that offers free meals and recreational and cultural activities to
youngsters while their parents are enjoying the definitely more relaxing and possibly
more cerebral aspects of the place.
Kling wants to help parents
unwind on an ultimate getaway. That’s a
nice thought. They deserve a break.
Hector's Diary is in the fortnightly print edition of the Bali Advertiser, out every second Wednesday, and on the internet HERE. Hector is on Twitter (@scratchings) and Facebook (Hector McSquawky).
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