tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-364141272011-07-08T07:00:27.258+07:00<strong> The academic gypsy dance: CA, KS, NH, NY, MN, Jakarta, MN...to PA. So we&#39;re Yinzers this year (Pittsburghers), writing &amp; teaching through the spring of 2009, when the music starts up again. Previously, from January-June 2007 </strong> we lived &amp; worked in Indonesia &amp; Australia. You&#39;ll find the travelogue of those voyages below. The CITRADEL is wherever I&#39;m working on my novel, THE LIME TREE.Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.comBlogger1211100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-91372959025392088762009-02-27T10:52:00.004+07:002009-02-27T11:39:02.551+07:00

This weekend the University of Pittsburgh's theatre dept will host a Theatre & Cognitive Science Symposium. E & I--Theatre & Cognitive Science majors, respectively--feel the universe aligning ever so slightly.E will be presenting a paper on facial expressions--a subject of enduring interest & study for Artists, Actors & Cognitive Psychologists. Among other things, this provides an opportunity to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-69225198309419139392009-01-29T01:26:00.002+07:002009-01-29T01:28:15.524+07:00

This is a meme from the Facebook world, asking people to write "25 Random Things" about yourself. Just for fun. Here are mine.___________________________________________________1. I once spent a night alone in an Alcatraz island prison cell. This was a Girl Scout field trip. I slept pretty well, too.2. A few years back, I almost won the Ithaca ChiliFest Mechanical Bull-riding contest. A feat of

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-1395041175084128382008-06-03T07:12:00.005+07:002008-09-07T01:29:14.737+07:00

TODAY JAM calls me in a state of bewilderment, all high & breathless off some emotion. She is 16.5 weeks pregnant. The obstetrician has called her at work about the genetic tests on JAM's blood sample.The doctor, a calm & confident sort, confesses straight off that the lab has attached some wrong paperwork & that the pages are in a funny order. They don’t appear to have the test results quite

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-54290926021257759522008-03-11T04:28:00.007+07:002008-03-12T03:07:57.261+07:00

Glimpses of Minnesota 1. Dessert. It is -5 degrees F. Yet we all decided to go out for ice cream. The ice cream place was open. There was a line.2. 25 February: Go Outside E called me up from the university library to say, "You've GOT to go outside. It's warm. I'm walking around without a hat or gloves!"I ran right out & took a long walk. It was amazing. Sunny! Warm! Suddenly

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-15238705131505473332007-12-04T02:56:00.000+07:002007-12-04T03:00:16.130+07:00

We're reading in bed, Evan and I. He's enjoying Woolf's "The Voyage Out"; I'm enduring Austen's "Persuasion". We've got our heads together, the dog cuddled between us. All by itself, this is pretty wonderful. It's approaching 3:30 AM & we've been like this for a couple hours, frequently trading lines read aloud from our books: one astute, unveiling image after image from Virginia; one minute,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-68339175115392617732007-09-22T03:49:00.001+07:002008-03-11T04:51:21.307+07:00

The Remaining Months ofA Year Without Winter I won't be posting so frequently now that we're home and working toward deadlines. But I WILL continue to post an entry every so often.In fact, I have a long list of stories to tell you.In the meantime, however, I've loaded a huge series of photos from our West Coast voyages, from San Diego to Seattle, then driving back to Minnesota. [Click on More of

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-45391188194593447562007-09-01T00:03:00.001+07:002007-09-01T00:33:19.644+07:00

Not long after returning from Indonesia, I saw a little girl walking to a swimming pool wearing only a bathing suit & flip-flops. An arresting image to me after 6 months in the Islamic world.We were in the California suburbs & it was about 95 degrees (F). She was 7 or 8 eight years old & holding her father’s hand as they strolled. She wore a brightly-colored, one-piece suit; nothing

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-1984819191100031882007-08-28T13:30:00.000+07:002007-09-10T02:55:51.043+07:00

29 JuneDoor to door, it took me 40 hours to get from Sydney to St. Paul. I had to fly back to Indonesia first. Not because it was sane, but to pick up the other half of my original ticket.Near the local midnight I met Evan in the airy aisles of the Jakarta airport, the humid air a gentle déjà vu...back in Indonesia. I was glad for this last glimpse of it. Evan was standing between a public

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-4126338827879447522007-07-29T14:34:00.000+07:002007-07-29T15:12:15.509+07:00

15 & 20 MayJakarta, IndonesiaTwenty-five years ago, with a Masters in Buffoonery, RJ worked as a Ringling Bros clown. Later, he ran away FROM the circus & went to Harvard, where he got a PhD in theatre. I think I'll leave his story at that.We met this wonderful person in Indonesia as a fellow Fulbrighter. He graciously invited us to join him at the live broadcasts of several important

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-51809746733317864572007-07-29T11:42:00.000+07:002007-08-03T13:18:32.818+07:00

(a preview to California)In the high corner above the Home’s front door, exactly where you’d mount a security camera, there’s a swallow who peaks down through its lens-shaped nest hole, quietly surveying everyone who enters & exits. When I stared at it, it stared back, remembering everything. For this sentinel’s vigilance, my grandmother says, she rests easier here.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-25749092585530324082007-07-28T01:15:00.000+07:002007-07-29T15:31:03.604+07:00

Sydney, AustraliaJune 2007Coming out of Indonesia, there's something refreshing to me about the religion (& lack thereof) in Sydney. Even Australia’s colonial history is fairly irreligious, too. To me, some atheism can tail the same coin that fundamentalism heads. Nevertheless, it's awfully nice to see them again. I've so very much missed the Nothings.With few exceptions, I don’t find

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-33757011264006894492007-07-24T08:16:00.000+07:002007-07-24T11:10:01.833+07:00

Sydney, Australia18 JuneAs part of researching The Lime Tree, I arranged to sail out through the Port Jackson Heads on a 3-masted sailing ship—just as my characters did this very week, 217 years ago. I would help crew, climb the riggings & everything. Now that's the kind of research I like.Then a powerful storm system causing high troughs, torrential rain & cyclone force winds blew through &

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-80272525956612092382007-07-22T05:49:00.000+07:002007-08-03T08:41:47.542+07:00

Jakarta, IndonesiaLook at this: a crowd of spirited young Muslims—many dressed in Islamic clothing—men in topi hats & dishdashah robes, women in colorful hijab, even a few in burqas—all facing forward with great intensity at a kind of political rally: smiling & laughing.The smiling & laughing crowd of young Muslims is not an image I tend to see reported. Not even here.In April we spent a wild

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-42979552961553387092007-07-12T12:06:00.000+07:002007-07-12T13:06:09.455+07:00

Many days, I vary my route home in the hopes of discovering something interesting. Things I’d never otherwise find.This habit also has the effect of getting me lost sometimes (rather often, really), for long, wandering periods of time, as I have a truly lamentable sense of direction. Resistant to improvement, I’ve adapted to this by cultivating an enthusiasm for exploring new places. And a

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-1865647287218104352007-07-12T11:34:00.000+07:002007-07-12T13:19:41.753+07:00

People have asked me for nittier-grittier details concerning what’s it like where I’m living in Australia.For 5 weeks I've rented a bright studio apartment in the Newtown area of Sydney. Nothing fancy, it’s a perfect landing pad: a place to write, sleep, store my gear & wash up between events. Through the sliding glass door, the balcony has a view of a mellow parking lot, the flag of Scotland (

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-11630512593579036222007-07-11T08:19:00.000+07:002007-07-11T08:51:20.852+07:00

IN 1999 I wrote this sentence for a short story I was thinking about, called The Lime Tree:“On the seventh day out from Portsmouth, in the brig of the prison hulk Wotworth, I began to forge the second coin from the handle of a spoon.”I flat-out loved this sentence. It was a little magisterial, but I thought it had read-aloud rhythm. It had action, tension & the promise of more. It had neat

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-54511969470930557442007-07-11T04:30:00.000+07:002007-07-11T08:19:43.284+07:00

22 JuneON a 5km coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee beaches, I lingered at the Giles Baths rockpool to watch the boys jump.The Giles rockpool is a brilliant natural bowl at the northern tip of Coogee beach. At the base of dark cliffs, the rocks provide a nearly circular wave break & a rough pool the size of a house. A steep set of stairs runs down to it. Adults pause at the rail above to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-82488179797281750932007-07-09T13:39:00.000+07:002007-07-09T13:40:15.602+07:00

A confession: Over the course of this trip I dined on some extraordinary dishes. Some delicious feasts (Jumbo Seafood in Singapore, near Clarke Quay). A few items I don’t ever need to eat again (bad laksa; marmite chicken; frogs; avocado coffee). Some tasty foods I’d never expected to like (durian, frogs, tea eggs). Some fruits I’d like to eat all the time (mangosteen, snakeskin fruit,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-50148048889220648532007-07-09T13:13:00.000+07:002007-07-09T13:54:25.220+07:00

People at home ask me: During our 5 & 6 months in southeast Asia, did we ever get sick?Yes.When we left, there was no recommendation of special shots or pills to take in advance for Indonesia. We washed our hands often. Many public spaces (such as restaurants & temples) have hand-washing sinks right there in the main rooms. I kept hand sanitizer gel in my purse & a big bottle of it on the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-25091251823727257952007-07-08T15:14:00.000+07:002007-07-08T15:57:15.958+07:00

When I think about what I would do, were I a mega-wealthy, gifted statesman in Indonesia, I often think about garbage.With 12 million residents in Jakarta, there’s a lot of it here & no regular or well-regulated system of disposal. I think to garbage not just because it’s right in front of me, but also because unlike the even more complicated & exciting issues at hand today (like mud volcanoes,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-48816613653115282532007-07-07T13:04:00.000+07:002007-07-07T14:12:33.113+07:00

14 June 2007Last night I dreamed of leaving this world for the next.Something about helping to re-join the long-separated shards of Man & moving on to the next evolution in consciousness. Hindu? More likely a lost memory of The Dark Crystal. I was excited about this. I was ready. I wanted to help.With some sense of imminent doom to this world, now seemed the time to go. I made my good-byes,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-81388475679312588392007-07-05T08:32:00.000+07:002007-07-05T13:41:20.785+07:00

With Sydney I returned to a culture altogether familiar. I might not speak Strine (‘Australian’), but I speak Western. Australia may be in Southeast Asia, conscious of China’s looming shadow, but it is ‘the West’.I was sometimes a little lonesome, but I wasn’t culture shocked. Part of what softened that blow was starting the transition in high-tech, English-speaking Singapore. Part of it was

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-73985589673363172132007-06-29T07:44:00.000+07:002007-07-01T11:20:53.965+07:00

In my first week, I thought I'd start off simple. With a sort of writing exercise.I'd just read a book by Australian author Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection, in which she'd spelled out birdsong as the characters heard them. She did it a lot. Too-wee! or Weet! Weet! Weet! Things like this. A simple enough device. It gives some sensory depth to a scene. For the rare birder in the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-59554802954116897172007-06-26T21:50:00.000+07:002007-06-29T07:44:31.988+07:00

Two hundred & seventeen years ago this week the Second Fleet of ships carrying convicted criminals out from England's over-crowded prisons & hulks arrived here, in Sydney Cove.They called it Port Jackson. New South Wales. The Cumberland Plain. The continent of New Holland, terra australis, the antipodes. It was the land of the Laughing Jackass Bird, now called the kookaburra.They did not call

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-20624295569193313152007-06-25T07:39:00.000+07:002007-06-25T08:24:47.957+07:00

We met in Singapore to celebrate!PBH is an old friend & expat writer in Hong Kong, so the Writers’ Bar of the Raffles hotel made a happy middle ground. We’ve both been working on a first novel for years now & that can be isolating work. So it’s not outrageous to me to fly once around the world to meet up with the rare, non-imaginary colleague. Just to talk a little shop & remember that we’

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-88312610319537130482007-06-22T21:17:00.000+07:002007-06-22T22:10:18.287+07:00

The following are short excerpts from letters about FOOD between myself (AC) & my generous hosts, KK & LCT, in advance of my visit to Singapore. In all, I think they wrote to me 15 separate times about food. We had a delicious time together.Eating in Singapore may be the most adventurous thing I've done this year. I enjoyed it very much, but am looking forward to resuming vegetarianism when

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-91701579396148943602007-06-22T20:15:00.000+07:002007-06-22T22:22:28.361+07:00

The Hindu temple in Singapore is cartoonishly bright. Even moreso to me after the strict monotheism & austerity of mosques. Mosques can be rich enough, but all the decoration is functional. You won't find representations of anyone in painting or sculpture anywhere inside.All the more fun to enter the endless & thoroughly represented Hindu pantheon. What you see here is part of the interior

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-68603288228318780212007-06-22T19:48:00.000+07:002007-06-23T09:42:25.519+07:00

Here's a telling anecdote told to me by an American expatriate in Singapore. AD was traveling in rural Cambodia. She's browsing through a market, when a little girl about 6 years old comes up to her. The girl is hawking bracelets for her mother's stand nearby."Where are you from?" the little girl asks & AD tells her.At this answer, the child--who may never have left this 5 block radius of

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-28655447114464862372007-06-22T19:16:00.000+07:002007-06-22T20:54:31.092+07:00

English is the official language here, though Singapore’s primary ethnicities are Chinese, Malay, Tamil, & Eurasian. Nearly a full fifth of the population are expatriates, mostly here for business.As such, Singapore hosts the most densely mixed variety of religions I’ve ever seen. Indian women in parrot-bright saris, Tamil men with flecks of gold leaf at their foreheads, Sikhs in colorful

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-73561634143806119232007-06-22T18:31:00.000+07:002007-06-25T11:09:19.990+07:00

Landing in Singapore, I saw that I’d only now entered the first world for the very first time. By this I only mean that it's super high tech, scrubbed bright, safe at any time of day or night, & highly efficient--from its airport to its medical care to its shopping.Enhancing Singapore’s splendor, of course, is its stark contrast with Jakarta. Suddenly: the sky is so BLUE! The sidewalks: so

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-48181456313191958022007-06-17T17:42:00.000+07:002007-06-17T22:32:14.228+07:00

Before tiny Heavenly Nymph Island became a modest ‘pleasure isle’, host to white weddings & day trippers, it was a leper colony called: Sickness Island.Say what you will, but this makes me like the place more. So does the fact that they lend burly red mountain bikes for touring a completely flat island that I’ll hazard to be less than 200 yards across.The pale ground, just as you'd hope for on a

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-39462222712121812652007-06-17T15:05:00.000+07:002007-06-25T14:16:26.513+07:00

Sexual harassment made for a keen discussion topic amongst the female Fulbrighters & company. Until I got to a 5-star hotel & a population of wealthy men—men closer to my own socio-economic bracket—this issue has happily not come up for me here.Traveling with a husband, & in cosmopolitan areas, cuts down your chances of sexual harassment in any case. The worst I received in Indonesia was mild

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-7039017788568489752007-06-17T13:58:00.000+07:002007-06-17T21:54:03.494+07:00

22 AprilThis will be my last post on the adzan in Indonesia.Click here for a clear, simple explanation of the calls to prayer. _____________________________________“Prayer is better than sleep” is the line concluding the Sunni calls to prayer at dawn. At times deeply under-slept, I’m ready to make a deal: at this point I’d settle for either.Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-4631577150439787002007-06-16T18:57:00.000+07:002007-06-17T08:55:12.547+07:00

AK lives in a bustling household on stilts in remote Kalimantan, with no phone service, electricity, or running water. If things get dicey on the ground—as in the old days of tigers & tribal warfare--you can always pull up the ladder.This is the southern part of the island of Borneo, a place I knew growing up because my mother would call us—a compliment--“the wild women of Borneo”.AK studies

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-76877886461929620952007-06-16T13:22:00.000+07:002007-06-17T16:50:09.371+07:00

There’s only one other istri--“wife”--in the Indonesian program this year & she’s an unhappy camper. Wife in the sense of an adult dependent whose reason for being in Indonesia is wholly about her husband’s research. Camper in the sense that they have no running water for the year in their south Sulawesi village.When we met at breakfast in Jakarta’s 5-star Alila hotel, EJM went on about clean

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-74216141745800792172007-05-25T20:56:00.000+07:002007-05-25T21:08:12.690+07:00

Elizabeth "Grandma Red" Campisi, 1914-200727 seconds.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-80204956461177503672007-05-20T23:00:00.001+07:002007-05-21T15:02:28.421+07:00

Right there in the thickest honk & roar of Jakarta traffic, scalding tailpipe to burnished bumper, smack in the haze of unfiltered engines & tropical heat, pedaling apace with taxis, bajai, SUVs, 2, 3 & 4-person motorcycles that waddle, dart & swarm like beetles is a BICYCLIST.This bule is gnarly. He is not kidding around: this is how he travels in Jakarta & I'll bet he's never slower than the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-44216913891246859852007-05-20T13:14:00.000+07:002007-05-20T22:48:50.162+07:00

This week we attended a conference of Fulbrighters at the sumptuous Alila hotel, where we met a lot of people I wish I’d met many months ago. In particular, we met a handful of American scholars who have been living very different lives than the ones E & I have found in Jakarta.I’ll tell you about some of them in more detail in separate posts. What the 3 who told me the most stories had in

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-22653530629740993362007-05-20T12:21:00.000+07:002007-05-20T12:32:29.653+07:00

Over here, the avocado is a fruit one associates with chocolate.You can order tall fountain-drink glasses filled with green & brown swirled smoothies: avocado, ice cream & chocolate sauce. Sweetened avocado juice is a common item on drink menus. Avocado coffee, too, which is too sickly sweet & creamy for my tastes. Sweet, white, avocado soup is a standard at dessert bars.What do you drizzle on

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-34640049400663577472007-05-20T00:22:00.000+07:002007-05-23T03:40:42.990+07:00

Awhile back, I sat outside with the Arabic words to the five daily calls to prayer in hand & followed along as a single muezzin called the 3:15 PM Asr. It was the first time I’d heard the words clearly. It opened it up to me at little, at last, & this was exciting.All around the globe the calls to prayer are almost always in Arabic. The sermons, Friday khotbat (galvanizing, fiery speeches) &

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-92084402755243473222007-05-18T18:52:00.000+07:002007-05-20T12:41:55.665+07:00

At a table of young Indonesian Fulbrighters, readying themselves for a few years in America, I met 25 year old, German-born RS, a very bright woman bound for 2 years in Queens, who to most appearances is already a New Yorker.Unlike most of her fellow Indonesians, certainly unlike virtually all of her fellow female classmates, RS is fast-paced, loquacious & brashly confident, shoulders-back,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-32515915286386543232007-05-18T18:24:00.000+07:002007-09-26T07:34:02.972+07:00

When I lived in Exeter, NH, in 2001, there were 6 churches within 3 blocks of my apartment on Main Street: Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Catholic, & non-denominational, which was part of Phillips Exeter Academy. A few blocks out from there you’d find a Episcopalian church, too. Probably more.Over the course of my year there I visited services at almost all of them once,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-71297332687014128782007-05-17T11:43:00.001+07:002007-05-18T10:20:50.278+07:00

Here's the 50 second video I'd meant to insert months back, from my trip to the Bogor gongsmiths.Click here for the original post--> The Gong Factory

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-71902942880398137132007-05-12T16:28:00.000+07:002007-05-13T12:26:59.070+07:00

Without tens of thousands of dollars, securing an apartment for a month in Sydney from Jakarta is a challenge. The reasons are unimportant (a walk-through is usually necessary; most require a 6 month commitment...). Suffice it to say, I was lucky to find one.Over a cross-hemispheric phone line, the housing officer speaks with a Australian-Russian accent. Assuming my natural terror of the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-49736450736594185672007-05-11T18:25:00.000+07:002007-06-11T16:52:26.200+07:00

Some numbers, to compare (all figures in US dollars).• 45 minute Taxi ride: about $5• A 3 hour train to Bandung, executive class: $5• Angkutan Kota public van, train station to Safari: $0.34 (+ ukulele boy tip: $0.56)• Taxi back, Safari to train station: $40• The Bogor Express train (1 hour): $2• The Bogor Economy class train (1 hour 15 mins): $0.28• Liter of gasoline:

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-69070776079206289962007-05-06T14:09:00.000+07:002007-05-08T22:33:43.145+07:00

The Timeout cafe at the mall around the corner makes a decent cup of ginger coffee. It's got a huge screen in the back that plays soccer games, & the baristas wouldn't care if you hung out all day.The only striking thing about this cafe is its poster selection. One in particular. Along one wall: sports heroes. Lots of them, mostly Americans. Along the other: heroes of a different sort.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-45173496675842081952007-05-06T13:46:00.000+07:002007-05-08T23:17:08.304+07:00

What with the leper colonies, waria, dockyard swastikas, death-defying Frogger traffic dashes, graveyards, ukulele boys & crippled, blind karaoke singers on the economy class train, I feel we showed cousin MF the best of Jakarta.MF is an intrepid traveler. All this week, even just for the heat & smog, I felt cause to reflect that many people I know would have gotten cranky & fainted long ago,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-81542058363828003362007-05-06T00:55:00.000+07:002007-05-08T22:19:07.104+07:00

Concluding an exhaustive survey of teenage mall baristas, I have finally discovered the truth behind the missing wedding rings here. For the last week, curious at the customs, MF & I have been looking for wedding rings on the hands of married couples, but finding none. Almost none. The ‘almost’ is what threw me, because it’s not just the Christians or just the Muslims, or just the Chinese…who

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-56088174819313290242007-05-06T00:49:00.000+07:002007-05-08T21:37:10.221+07:00

Living here, it can often seem as if Evan knows everything. This is a good thing. Certainly he knows everything relevant to living here as a scholar, though I do not. His knowledge of Indonesia is encyclopedic. He isn’t quite fluent, but he’s more than adequate. He’s got that commanding beard. Much as I’ve liked it here, I’m not in my element & probably never will be. It’s an odd asymmetry

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-29526649255590577572007-05-06T00:42:00.000+07:002007-05-08T22:20:21.807+07:00

Television commercials selling laundry detergent share a kind of Loving-Mother, Happy-Home snuggliness world-wide. Apparently that’s how we like to think of laundry: of Mom taking care of us. And of it. If you’re laundress-Mom yourself—the target audience—we’re looking at that extra-bright laundry as a kind of totalizing maternal success. Clearly, we are meant to understand that children (&

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-67209998215759769072007-05-06T00:35:00.000+07:002007-05-08T21:47:55.215+07:00

11 AprilHere are a few differences in what is otherwise a completely western, familiar hotel in the city of Bandung, 3 hours south of here.• DEMONS, like our friend up there, guard the entrance & lobby. Some people say this is to keep out other Evil Demons—takes one to beat one, I guess. But where is our demon in the hierarchy of demons? How did we get this demon working for us? Why does

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-45694994757477421942007-05-06T00:14:00.000+07:002007-05-08T23:24:51.890+07:00

Monologues performed in languages I do not speak can make me feel like a Peanuts character listening to adults.By now, I have seen a quite lot of plays in languages I do not speak. Often it just doesn’t work for obvious reasons. When it’s a talented troupe, however, & a play that I know (or a play with a clear story) this can be just fine. Knowing the story, I focus on the directing, the set

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-49328112905309209612007-05-03T13:10:00.000+07:002007-05-03T13:37:11.936+07:00

For those following the trip by photograph, I've just loaded 3 more sets onto Flickr from our excellent week with cousin Mark (click More of the Citradel's Photos, right):Thousand Islands (a trip to 4 of the islands of ruins off the coast of Jakarta)Taman Mini (Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature theme park)Taman Safari (the economy class journey to Bogor's safari & zoo), with a bunch more pictures

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-77644371383698581362007-04-28T21:40:00.000+07:002007-04-28T23:43:08.560+07:00

All in a rush to be at the mosque on time, I dashed in & bought this ($2, Italian silk) jilbab at the nearest mall. The woman helping me to pick it out also pinned it on. "My friend," she said to me, indicating another woman behind the counter, her voice poignant, "She says you're so pretty; you're so white. Your skin is just so pretty, because it's so white."White it is. Still, for me

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-45716855032440116802007-04-27T23:30:00.000+07:002007-04-27T23:38:25.682+07:00

Happy Arbor Day, everyoneA quiet celebration here in the unleafy metropolis of Jakarta, but 2 chapters away from a full draft of The Lime Tree. I ordered unsweetened lime juice with dinner tonight. They served it to me HOT. I'm planning the research trip to Sydney with greater earnest now. The annual Sydney Writers' Festival will be going on the week I arrive, starting in Katoomba, in the Blue

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-19794719322911069772007-04-25T01:09:00.000+07:002007-04-25T01:11:52.348+07:00

Opening the Indonesian dictionary, in pursuit of other words, I happened upon this:Sakit Muno: Silent & without willpower due to sorcery.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-81881088346232620952007-04-24T22:46:00.000+07:002007-04-25T01:31:06.334+07:00

In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the son of God. This is a very peculiar statement if you didn’t grow up with it. Frankly, it’s a downright ambiguous statement even if you did. Christians themselves, highly varying by sect, interpret this in many different ways.Taken too literally, however—as is all too easy to do with no Christians around to correct someone’s wrong assumption—it rather makes

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-17543709602284036142007-04-23T12:12:00.000+07:002007-04-23T12:27:49.272+07:00

Over here, your LIVER, not your heart, is the seat of emotion.This has a virtually one-to-one correspondence with the way we use ‘heart’, so far as I can tell. In love, you feel it in your liver. Sincere, you wear your liver on your sleeve. Pop stars sing it from the liver. When we obliged a friend in watching together her favorite Indonesian soap opera—Wulan—the emotionally tormented hero

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-78518730316274999392007-04-21T22:55:00.000+07:002007-04-22T11:18:10.999+07:00

One day, I noticed that I was intentionally avoiding white people.White women, especially. Once I realized that I was doing this—studiously failing to meet their eye on the street, in the gym, in a market—I also noticed that white women, in turn, are studiously avoiding me. Some white men do this too, with other men, especially.There aren’t so many of us white women here, strictly speaking, so

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-36813053234337734052007-04-20T16:46:00.000+07:002007-04-20T16:51:56.019+07:00

Last night on "Indonesian Idol", one of the final 24 contestants—a long-haired, gentle-looking soul—belted out his song wearing an army green T-shirt endeared with a giant, black swastika.Context.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-51322521662041338402007-04-17T16:05:00.000+07:002007-04-17T19:26:01.409+07:00

This photo was taken from a moving train on the way to Bandung, Java. The man with the umbrella is standing in the rain, tending the two gray cows grazing nearby.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-40807394702122052232007-04-17T01:54:00.000+07:002007-04-23T11:31:04.447+07:00

If you’re not prepared for it, the swastikas in Bali can be a little startling. They’re on rooftop eaves (photo) & the foreheads of gods, they’re on children’s necklace pendants & on the stone buttresses there to divert evil spirits at entrances of family compounds.The Nazi swastika is an inversion of this sign (the Nazi swastika is always is knees to the left, feet to the right; the Buddhist /

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-44054027556962977702007-04-17T01:32:00.000+07:002007-04-17T01:37:58.714+07:00

When I was in pre-school, one of my favorite foods in the world was Hagelslag. That’s the Dutch brand name for chocolate sprinkles (jimmies), which good friends of our family, having grown up in Holland, ate on soft buttered bread for breakfast & snacks. I loved eating it at their house. So when I discovered rows of Hagelslag in grocery stores here, in the former Dutch colony of Indonesia, I

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-30475845746467443192007-04-13T12:30:00.000+07:002007-04-17T01:32:03.115+07:00

Bali's economy is based on tourism, both of its natural beauties & its culture. But this is not a one-way system in which the locals serve up some unadulterated “Culture” for outsider consumption; Culture is the explicit product here, & so as in any good market, the supply is heavily determined by demand.I first visited Ubud with E 10 years ago. In 1997 we came to pick up some painted wooden

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-33292188562697799612007-04-13T10:53:00.000+07:002007-04-13T10:54:53.929+07:00

Another “safe landing” today on Garuda Airlines, screeching into a Sulawesi airstrip with a burst tire. Passengers didn’t panic until they exited to see the welcoming parade of fire trucks & ambulances. No harm done.Garuda is the name of a giant mythological bird, which in Hindu / Buddhist lore is the god Vishnu’s mount. The airline’s recent series albatross aperies—burst tires, ‘hard landings

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-74416862313808997942007-04-12T23:25:00.000+07:002007-04-12T23:33:44.544+07:00

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-40861351359069187032007-04-12T10:56:00.000+07:002007-04-13T12:18:00.850+07:00

Learning the (mixed & conflicting) stories of this stone panel, found on a tower in Bali’s Besakih temple complex, I began to hear it as a junior high school vengeance play. A sort of ‘He said, She totally said’ voice. Without pretending to authenticity, I’m going to tell you what I’ve gleaned of this story in the naturally-caffeinated, wandering narrative voice of my junior high school days:__

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-24720486268202474312007-04-07T22:38:00.000+07:002007-04-13T12:05:16.208+07:00

The spectrum of reincarnationgoes from human to bamboo.So our Bali bicycle guide informs me.That is to say: being a very good human is the last incarnation before a soul moves on to be one with the Gods & experience the next journey. If you exhibit poor karma in each successive life, your soul is demoted down through the line of incarnations, passing through large, long-lived animals, down to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-48651953436220576732007-04-07T22:06:00.000+07:002007-04-09T14:37:24.901+07:00

No calls to prayer in Bali; instead the air is filled with spirits. Unique in mostly-Muslim Indonesia, the population here is virtually all Bali-Hindu, heavily influenced by its animist history.To be simplest about animism: spirits are everywhere, some of them rooted in beings (people, animals, certain trees), some of them roaming. If you build them a good house—say, a mask, a statue, a temple,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-82430119552228442062007-04-07T16:06:00.000+07:002007-04-07T23:33:21.907+07:00

or: Where do your ideas come from? One midnight in Ubud, I lay awake in fear.Why? It didn’t make any sense. Just suddenly, after a pleasant day, now at rest in a lovely resort, I couldn’t sleep for a subtle buzz of indefinite fear. This happens to everyone occasionally, I like to think: we lie awake stewing in some metaphysical terror. But this felt different. This had the mundane feel of

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-43064866441744427562007-04-07T15:30:00.000+07:002007-04-07T15:37:24.699+07:00

By any casual poll of passers-by, the very most resplendent & astonishing sight to be had in all of Bali is Evan’s beard.Ah, the beard! An elusive beast on the chins of Bali, where even the most virile men manage only a mustache.It’s more than that, though. In the iconography of Bali, a beard denotes the visage of KINGS (...& ogres). Wherever we go in Bali, men stop E on the street to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-15207618810954600432007-04-07T14:57:00.000+07:002007-04-07T15:08:32.479+07:00

A correction: EXTRA JOSS is an energy drink, not the mojo of cigarettes. It's a nuclear yellow-green, Red-Bull type beverage, advertised with a power fist & the clear but illogical: "Who needs rest when you can keep moving?"Click here to see a ridiculous YouTube TV ad for Extra Joss featuring a soccer player & Balinese Kecak dance, which is a famous local performance form designed by foreigners

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-11399179099467121522007-04-01T00:02:00.000+07:002007-04-01T00:06:57.577+07:00

Tonight we ate a school of minnows.Fried crisp in chili. Served with tiny peanuts.I drank melon juice, which was bright green.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-90732447902834641872007-03-31T18:34:00.000+07:002007-04-01T00:11:04.894+07:00

Every day I look down at two graveyards,one Dutch, one Javanese;one frozen in time, one always in-progress.At long last, we wandered through the Javanese side.The RectangleThe Dutch cemetery is geometric & constantly manicured. The dead are foreign soldiers from old wars, visited by virtually no one. Being a cemetery, it doesn’t feel empty exactly, but its ghosts would seem to be keeping a

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-51128188447399073072007-03-30T19:00:00.000+07:002007-03-31T23:35:07.484+07:00

“Hello Mister!” is the thing a bule—a gringo—hears everyday on the streets. Guidebooks actually refer to it as a noun: how many Hello Misters you’ll hear down a given route. Many Hello Misters on the way to the graveyard.At the end of the graveyard road, a teenage girl required no translation as she stared at us with flat amazement & addressed someone through the wall of a one-room tin & scrap

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-46605903319308872742007-03-29T02:20:00.000+07:002007-04-09T14:54:24.221+07:00

When I met AG—a 29 year old literature professor from Manila, via Kyoto, now in Jakarta, in the company of an Alabama Fulbrighter—he was wearing a kelly green “Irishmen” t-shirt, so that he wouldn’t be pinched.One can’t be too careful around St. Patrick’s day, never mind the scarcity of leprechauns here.The world is full of equal opportunity poltergeists & jinxes. Take my apartment building—the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-51842258896565792392007-03-28T02:14:00.000+07:002007-03-29T15:06:59.070+07:00

A Filipino scholar, AG is here on an Asian Public Intellectuals grant. Similar to a Fulbright. To my unending delight, he is spending 6 months here looking at (or: for) Indonesian science fiction. Other things, too, but specifically that: .......the science fiction of the developing world.He comes here directly from Japan, where he & his wife spent the last six months, investigating sci-fi

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-31282494720602122972007-03-20T21:56:00.000+07:002007-03-21T17:21:54.514+07:00

19 March, 6 PMIt’s almost impossible to write of perfect moments without becoming precious, especially when it involves nature. The photo’s not enough, though; I’ll try this one deadpan & curt.After a clear, hot day: a bold rainbow over the city. That much you can see. It stays as storm clouds stack in anvils. It stays through sunset & the evening salat. The light is extraordinary; we leave

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-88601407109602374582007-03-20T00:20:00.000+07:002007-03-20T01:00:48.541+07:00

How Hamlet sailed to Java, & Batavia got its name.Jayakerta became Batavia became Jakarta. The city was known as Batavia for more than 300 years. The DRAGONON a sailing ship off Sierra Leone, the crew of Captain Keeling’s English East India Company vessel—The Dragon—performed Hamlet. Let’s imagine they did it right there on the open deck, the coast of Africa in high relief. Amateurs all, they

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-78061195717822301392007-03-19T21:43:00.000+07:002007-04-07T23:42:13.657+07:00

Now THAT's what I'm talking about. With a little person in a toga to ring it, too.[a still from Asrul Sani's shamelessly sedate "The Court"]

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-84985092335044094372007-03-14T13:10:00.000+07:002007-03-16T01:18:47.388+07:00

Good news: On the hotly competitive Table of Asian Corruption (Jakarta Post), Indonesia has slipped from Asia's #1 Most Corrupt Nation to #2, tied with Thailand. Today's ranking champion: the Philippines. This, according to the Hong Kong (#12)-based Political & Economic Risk Consultancy. Indonesia's (actual) "Corruption Eradication Commission" has certainly been busy.Counting lay-overs, we

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-4896238783512513932007-03-13T12:12:00.000+07:002007-03-14T15:33:45.218+07:00

You’d think it would be very easy to find a gong factory. Just cock an ear, right? Head for the bonging.I'd imagined a sort of cacophonous quality control room in which discerning monks sat hunched on stools, experimentally ringing newly-forged gongs while sooty blacksmiths stood by with looks of concern, disappointed when a monk shook his bald head & sent them back to the fires to try

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-75366297709563630922007-03-09T22:01:00.000+07:002007-04-09T15:01:22.203+07:00

One green hour south of Jakarta lies Bogor, a city fabled for its gong factory & botanical gardens. For its rain, too, & there was plenty of that.Evan is out of town this week, attending the world’s least convenient job interview, back in the States. Meanwhile, I am minding our teak-&-tile garret, poised at the start of Chapter Next, but reluctant to hang a character that I’ve rather come to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-12219828010017845012007-03-09T01:18:00.000+07:002007-03-10T10:26:37.619+07:00

In simultaneous head-on collisionThe woman next to me on the Jakarta-Bogor express train wanted to practice her English. Sleepily, I agreed to view all the photographs of her kids stored on her phone. “Maybe you have sons, too, soon, yes?” she urged.“Too soon, yes,” I agreed.“Then you can be busy, too, like your husband.”I myself felt close to fainting at that particular moment, what with the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-67197253028433762682007-03-09T00:54:00.000+07:002007-03-10T11:58:45.193+07:00

Bogor’s Zoological Museum costs eleven cents to visit.Aside from the blue whale skeleton assembled in the back shed, the entire museum is essentially a wilted taxidermy exhibit set up in scenes behind poorly lit glass cases. Because Indonesia has such tremendous biodiversity, the collection of bizarre / poisonous / flamboyant birds, insects, fish, reptiles & mammals is impressive anyway. The

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-45175768483250567092007-03-06T15:27:00.000+07:002007-03-08T17:58:26.749+07:00

The Java Jazz Festival3 March3 AM: I've just returned from the gigantic Java Jazz Festival. Ten hours of music! My ears are ringing. Twanky funkmeisters & blind divas in sparkles, insipid Javanese heart-throbs, Chilean prodigies, Italian bezerkers, international bongos for world peace. Tortured Soul had the gall to cancel.Many of these performers were far from home & feeling it.

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-49634186536267598642007-03-04T16:43:00.000+07:002007-03-04T17:24:59.397+07:00

Going down: a family of 6 enters the elevator, all their faces & clothing splashed over with bright paint—red, yellow, blue. They’ve clearly just been flinging paint at one another & are trying to tone it down, barely suppressing giggles now that they are technically in public. I’d forgotten this was coming up & can’t remember what to say to people on Holi—that most wonderful of Spring

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-9469995639498185922007-03-04T15:58:00.000+07:002007-03-06T13:13:17.632+07:00

Suddenly, the whole apartment smells of durian.A sneak attack! This is definitely not all right. This is unacceptable. Someone on the 30th floor has brought home DURIAN, that beloved reeking custard of rotten egg & bad feet. That fruit is a public menace! So I'm a flaming bule: my gorge is rising. There should be laws. More laws than there already are. No one should be allowed to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-53007473645706420472007-03-01T00:11:00.000+07:002007-03-01T00:47:54.390+07:00

Happily, The Lime Tree has just been awarded a $25,000 McKnight Fellowship. This couldn't have come at a better time.In selecting the manuscript (the book's first few chapters), the judge--Jane Hamilton, of The Book of Ruth--wrote:"Historical fiction requires perhaps greater authority on the part of the writer, a greater hoax--and perhaps an implicit entreaty to the reader, to be generous, to

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-41786502487823904222007-02-23T23:43:00.000+07:002007-02-24T00:07:37.147+07:00

Paeans to our beloved state of motionless repose.What follows here are descriptions of Batavian social depravity from the perspective of a British officer, John Stockdale, as written in his majestically-titled: “Sketches, civil and military, of the island of Java and its immediate dependencies : comprising interesting details of Batavia, and authentic particulars of the celebrated poison-tree” (

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-33967056132881592632007-02-23T14:53:00.000+07:002007-02-23T17:17:37.246+07:00

Elsewhere in the Citradel...So I’ve been re-working this one scene for a few days now. It’s the final scene of a section, a climax & cliff-hanger, & it may be a while before I really nail it. Working its rough draft is a real cringe-fest most of the time. Just one bad sentence after another until I figure it out. But that’s how it goes. What I really need to do it is put it aside now &

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-16648132800445255032007-02-22T23:48:00.000+07:002007-02-23T00:00:45.630+07:00

The governing ambition for any worthy acronym is first: that it be mellifluous, & second: that it form a clever word in and of itself. Here this is a national sport. Consider these 3, in order of complexity:Bule Gila, a 'crazy gringo', elegantly shortens to BUGIL, which in general means naked or stripped bare, but specifically means:“a plucked chicken”.KAKILIMA. A kakilima is a kind of

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-69732697551128713682007-02-22T23:21:00.000+07:002007-02-26T19:45:12.739+07:00

Returning with books & groceries today we passed an enormous, abandoned mall. A mall like you know it: lavish & huge, taking up an entire city block, 8 or 10 stories high. We had just come from one of these, in fact. But this one, the whole thing—brand new!—was closed & rotting.Consider the sheer quantity of riches contained within an upscale mall & what it means to be able to construct one:

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-62172365925664733372007-02-19T01:46:00.000+07:002007-02-26T21:37:59.727+07:00

On Valentine’s Day Jakarta filled with hearts. Extracted from its infidel origins, a celebration of Love just fills a universal niche. In a Muslim country sending Valentines presents a paradox, but only truly troubles a few.The day’s top story photo: women in black burkas, faces covered, buying Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards! Buried on page 5: women in black burkas protesting the same!

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-51197420044343121722007-02-18T01:33:00.000+07:002007-03-04T21:08:39.814+07:00

Tonight we saw a goofy Indonesian sit-com in which the “Bad Guys” were signified by one of them wearing an Osama bin Laden t-shirt.Odds are, this teenager here is mostly excited just to have the word FUCK writ in block letters on his back. I’m not saying it’s all innocence: there’s plenty of bad stuff brewing here. But what do you do when you really are just a kid playing guitar on the street &

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-61849474032027274522007-02-13T22:37:00.000+07:002007-02-22T21:19:55.896+07:00

Sixteen kites have fallen over the Dutch graveyard below, lost forever. Most are white. Some red or green. They’ve appeared on the ground like twirling seed pods or some fallen seasonal fruit.Don't they allow the kampung boys through the gate (where the groundskeeper solemnly asked if we had family buried here) or do the boys from the less-hallowed graveyard just not bother to retrieve their

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-29851503597901853072007-02-13T22:16:00.000+07:002007-02-14T02:05:43.648+07:00

Before the flood became everyone’s primary concern, I asked our guides which national issues most concerned Indonesians these days. The most common answer: the plane crash.Over New Years, an Adam Air flight went down somewhere in the ocean with 102 people lost. The plane broke apart, however, & Indonesian authorities did not have the technology to recover the pieces. They couldn’t find the

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-61522127317296948102007-02-09T21:41:00.000+07:002007-02-10T19:59:26.058+07:00

Wintering here in the flooded tropics, tapping toes to “Ya Hussein”, dining on noodles & mangosteen, we’ve just caught a glimpse of our frozen home. The contrast is delicious. Take a look at our friend Theo Theobald on TV, dog-sledding through the Minnesota Boundary Waters. She’s an instructor, so this is her commute. One year ago, I was right there with her & the sleds myself, calling "Let's

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-64218469777533694742007-02-07T22:20:00.000+07:002007-02-12T01:39:00.877+07:00

...speaking of Barack Obama...“Evan?” I knocked again on the bathroom door. He'd been in there awhile.“Are you all right? Can I bring you some Pepto Bismol or something?” “No,” he called through the door. He sounded weak. “No, that’s okay. I’m just going to..arrg..uhll…pray.” “I’m sorry, you’re going to what?” “If it’s God’s will, this, too, shall pass.” “Hmm. I wonder if some

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36414127.post-26791383693276359622007-02-07T22:07:00.000+07:002007-02-07T22:33:57.857+07:00

NP, who works in the Fulbright office, told an anecdote today about living through Jakarta floods.She grew up on Ambon, one of the Spice Islands on the Banda Sea. Later she lived in mountainous Bandung, here on Java, where landslides, not floods, are the seasonal threat. Experiencing her first Jakarta flood, years ago, she was horrified. She couldn’t believe what was happening. Panicking,

Anne E. Campisinoreply@blogger.com0