Garcia Lorca di Granada

Hari hari ini saya ingin sekali menemui Federico Garcia Lorca di Granada, kota dimana—meminjam ujaran Joko Pinurbo—Lorca ditemukan oleh puisi.

Saya menerawang. Menghela nafas sejurus kemudian, sebelum akhirnya menutup kedua buah kelopak mata saya. Aih, harum tanah selepas hujan. Saya coba nikmati dalam diam. Mungkinkah ini suasana yang menyergap Lorca saat ia menulis bait-bait puisinya?

Saya sedang murung. Namun saya tak bisa menjelaskan perasaan ini dengan baik. Tak pula saya mampu menuliskannya dengan baik. Tak sebaik Lorca ketika menulis sakitnya daging ditusuk sinar bintang dan indahnya dimabuk semilir angin. Di Granada. Ya, di Granada.

Granada tampak luar biasa, tulis Lorca suatu kali, dalam surat untuk Fernandez Almagro di akhir Oktober 1926. Musim semi baru saja turun dengan segala pesona dan cahaya yang dikirim oleh Sierra. Segala yang kekuningan bermunculan, dalam dan tak terkatakan, ditingkahi duapuluhan lapis warna biru.

Granada tak terlukiskan, lanjutnya, bahkan tak pula oleh seorang Impresionis. Ia tak tergambarkan sebagaimana air tak berarsitektur.‘Everything runs, plays, and slips away. Poetry and Music. A city of fugues without skeleton. Melancholy with vertebrae’, pungkasnya dengan kata-kata yang membuat saya tak kuasa untuk tidak memejamkan mata. Membayangkan Granada.

Saya yakin Lorca menderita kasmaran pada kotanya, pada gadis gadisnya. Gelora yang selalu muncul dalam puluhan surat-suratnya, dalam rangkaian puisinya. Rasa yang saking luar biasanya, ineffable, membuat persona dalam puisinya tampak sering kali riang, disaat yang lain murung. Kadang merenung.

Saya juga sedang murung. Bulaksumur jadi serupa Andalusia di mata saya. Langit tak melengkung biru seperti biasanya. Namun saya tak bisa menjelaskan perasaan ini dengan baik. Hal yang seharusnya disampaikan puisi. Karenanya saya ingin sekali menemui Lorca di Granada. Saya ingin bertanya apakah saya sedang terbakar asmara, sehangus Lorca dalam buaian tubuh indah Maria del Carmen:

I’d love to lose myself

In your dark country

Maria del Carmen

Lose myself

In your deserted eyes

and play the keyboard

of your ineffable mouth

in your endless embrace

the air would be dark,

the breeze would be downy

as your skin

i would lose myself

in your trembling breast,

in the black depths

of your soft body

I would lose myself

in your dark country,

Maria del Carmen.

Saya sedang menelikung waktu ke masa lalu, dalam lamunan. Menemui sang penyair, mungkin di sebuah beranda hacienda, mendengar ceritanya saat menulis Dark Song diatas, memastikan saya benar benar kasmaran.

Harum tanah selepas hujan. Saya pejamkan mata saya. Biarkan diri tenggelam dalam diam, menunggu datangnya kata-kata. Menanti puisi.

Mungkin seperti ini suasana hati Lorca.

Di Bulaksumur.

Aih, maksud saya, di Granada.

NB:

Ayo Maria del Carmen, main ke kos

Pakai high heels

Dan baju merahmu

Kita cecap panasnya api asmara

Hingga raga menggeliat

Dan nafas memburu

Memburu…

Smart

It is fascinating to see mating human’s mind at work. I once read an article in the NY Times telling how books you read might be a determining factor of your relationship. Your chance to initiate a romance or succeed a break up depends on whether or not you have Ginsberg’s poetry or less obviously, to have Don Delillo’s latest novel piled on your only bookshelf.

Why all this fuss about books? As I understand later, this is all about your being smart. Or precisely, this is about the same level of discourse with your dating partner. Boy, now I wonder no more why those girls are in chase of smart buddies. Being smart guarantee you easier to get into their pants. Though not necessarily guarantee a good intimate chemistry or simply wonderful sex.

I usually never take this smarty-frenzy seriously since I’m usually at the chased end (kidding, of course). But recently, this hokum bugs me beyond tolerance. I just realized that my social circle is filled by this type of girls. They are excited with witty remarks, they stare passionately to guys they considered as ‘brains’. Some even go as far as comparing their current boyfriend with other smart asses. I’m afraid they will just dump their boyfriend in a relentless pursuit of a smarter one. Come on, don’t they realize that being smart doesn’t change the world? Smart people don’t even move an inch of this world progress. Geniuses do. Oh, ok you’re right. Some smart people get nice hooked-ups. But so do underachievers with slowly moving-train-of-thought and bling-bling squeezed from their old man’s filthy money.

What’s the difference then?

If I have to wish, being smart is not at the top of my wish list. Putting some pop philosophical thought on this, the lebenswelt of those smarty pants might not as colorful as say, a plain simple farmer from suburban Sleman. They eat, they shit, they have sex on non-procreative bases or if thing goes wrong, accidentally procreative. Well they read sometimes, but so does the farmer. Only the farmer reads manual of the fertilizer they just bought. Smart people read pop novel.

Geniuses, at the other hand, dream. They dream of conquering the world, banishing poverty, building new civilization on Mars, cloning Sophia Loren so today’s generation can see how boobs can wow the entire world. They dream of electric sheep sometimes (as android wannabes). Their lebenswelt are somehow unique. They are at some point hanging on blurred boundary of subliminality and nonsense.

Only a poet can challenge geniuses’ lebenswelt. A poet’s vision stretch as far as the firmament goes. It is, some believe, independent of time and space. I wonder what a poet feels about the world surrounding him. Now you smarty pants and smarty oriented girls can drool.

Yes, I am an ordinary poet wannabe plunging deep to the darkest decadence of life. I’m not ashamed of that since ironically our most representative living genius, Stephen Hawking, is a poet wannabe as well.

However, to save me from being accused as an apologetic underachiever, I’ll tell you what. I am surely not a genius. But to be humiliated as smart, rephrasing Sheldon Cooper’s words, I need to loose 10 to 15 of my IQ points*. Now you look surprised. So I don’t have to tell you may current GPA.

*Based on my high school IQ test.

Aku Milikmu

Konon, seorang penyair bisa meramal kematiannya sendiri di baris-baris puisinya. Contoh paling terkenal tentu saja Chairil Anwar yang pernah menulis ‘di Karet (daerahku y. a. d.)’.

Saya ingin sekali dikenang sebagai penyair, kalau begitu. Saya ingin menulis tentang bagaimana rasanya menjemput ajal di dalam tidur. Tentang sang penyair menanti akhir bersama sang kekasih yang tak kuat menahan isak, kusyuk dalam doa.

Lagu pengiring di liang lahat mungkin, ‘You are the best thing that ever happened to me’ dari sebuah kaset sweet memories tua.

Saya tak tahu rupa ajal. Tapi saya tahu bagaimana rasanya meregang dicekam maut. Dalam takut dan asa yang hampir putus, saya beruntung sekali ditemani seseorang di tepi pembaringan. Rumah sakit, dan jerit seram di tengah malam. Ia yang mengulurkan tangan dan kasihnya dalam genggam tangan yang hangat, yang memandikan saya layaknya seorang Ibu saat membasuh anaknya untuk pertama kali, yang menahan marah ketika saya sedang banyak tingkah, yang menemani saya menangis. Ia yang menerima saya dalam papa. Ia yang tabah.

Saat itu pula saya takluk. Saat itu pula saya tahu saya telah berlabuh. Saya ingin sekali berlutut dan mencium telapaknya yang menjanjikan surga. Saya ingin menangis. Sungguh.

Saya tak yakin bagaimana cara maut mengecup saya nanti.

Yang saya tahu pasti, saya ingin ia ada di samping saya. Mengulur asa yang tulus di kedip terakhir mata saya.

Saya tak pasti apa lagu terakhir pemakaman saya nanti. Yang saya tahu, saya ingin ia menyanyikan ‘you are the best thing ever happened to me’ dalam hati.

Untuk senja pacar saya. Tak usah cemburu. Aku milikmu.

Sibuk

Saya sekarang sibuk sekali. Semoga pacar saya ngga marah karena saking sibuknya saya sering lupa untuk kirim sms. Sekedar tanya apa sudah makan. Mau kemana hari ini? Atau mungkin sekedar selamat tidur yang bisa bikin ia lebih lelap.

Ah saya sibuk sekali. Saya lihat hape saya. Sepi. Tak usah punya hape saja mungkin ya

Dawn To The Young Guns

The world has just received some good news. The first is Lewis Hamilton’s 5^th place finish in Brazil ergo his victory over Felipe Massa which records him as the youngest F1 champion. Practically putting Alonso as a has been. And yes, you can say that again, Barack Obama’s long predicted triumph over old grandpa Mc Cain. Practically making him the first ever ‘anak menteng’ to run office in the White House.

Now I don’t want to review again any more news from the media that are already caught by Obama frenzy. I’m just happy to state the manifesto of all the young guns all around the world which reverberates in Chiaki Asami and Akira Hojo’s dream: the time has come for old grannies to step aside and pave us the way.

By the time you read this, Samir Nasri has just sent Red Devils squad home with tears.

Congrats! Hail the Young Guns!

PS: Obama’s triumph indicates that Americans are not that self centered earthlings. After voting for an awfully mediocre president two times in a row who dragged the whole nation—and nearly the world—to bankruptcy, they finally learn something. Yes they and we need change!

Pada Senja*

Saya ingat sekali, dulu ada seseorang yang memberitahu saya sesuatu tentang rasa percaya dan kejujuran. Kata-katanya kini mengiang terus, menyapu ingatan saya laksana ombak yang mendebur berulang kali ke pantai sanubari.

Di tengah gelisah yang merundung hati saya kini, saya ingin sekali menatap cakrawala dikala senja atau fajar. Pada sebuah pantai. Saya bayangkan semburat merah langitnya dipangku latar gelap samudra. Saya pejamkan mata saya. Terdengar jerit camar, sayup sayup.

Saya ingin sekali bercakap tentang kejujuran dan rasa percaya pada samudra. Pada cakrawala, pada fajar. Pada camar.

Pada senja.

*Mencari Neruda dalam kata-kata. November 2008, kala hujan.

Pemuda

Saya mencoba memahami mahasiswa generasi saya sekarang yang di duapuluhan umurnya masih menadah tangan pada orang tua, atau sedang bingung memikirkan esok mau kerja apa disaat menguyah bigmac. Lalu saya bayangkan Sutan Sjahrir tujuh puluh sembilan tahun yang lalu di Leiden merajut mimpi tentang sebuah negara bernama Indonesia.

Yang mempertemukan kami cuma usia, Bung Sjahrir berumur dua puluhan tahun saat itu, sisanya terbentang sebuah pertanyaan yang memenuhi kepala saya sekarang; ada apa dengan sang generasi muda?

Saya pesimis. Sementara dahulu Bung Sjahrir menyelam dalam studinya sekalian belajar berpolitik dan membibit kader bersama Hatta di Perhimpunan Indonesia, saya kini sibuk window shopping di mall. Sembari melirik mbak-mbak Giordano.

Tidak ada yang salah dengan window shopping dan mall, yang salah adalah ketika kami mabuk dengan privilege kami sebagai kelas menengah yang secara finansial mampu dan lupa dengan tanggung jawab kami sebagai golongan yang seharusnya membawa perubahan. Kami adalah kelas yang sadar politik, terpelajar dan mempunyai aksesibilitas hampir tak terbatas. Karena itu, kami punya tanggung jawab pada mereka yang terpinggirkan, tak berdaya secara ekonomi, dan dilupakan dalam pengambilan kebijakan.

Saya makin pesimis. Presiden saya baru saja mengucapkan selamat hari sumpah pemuda lewat sms berisikan pesan agar saya tidak terjerat narkoba. Mungkin dia tahu, dengan kemudahan yang kami punyai, kemungkinan kami menjadi generasi hedon-epicurean sangatlah besar.

Skripsi saya belum selesai, saya muak dengan aktivisme mahasiswa yang kampungan sok revolusioner, saya kehilangan kepercayaan dengan rekan mantan aktivis yang berpolitik mau menghamba Prabowo hanya karena ia kini pasang nama petani dan pedagang pasar.

Saya mau makan bigmac di malioboro mall. Ini baru potret pemuda Indonesia.

Mereka yang Bercinta dalam Foto Cartier-Bresson*

Meksiko, 1934

Tubuh kedua orang itu hampir-hampir telanjang. Yang perempuan dengan pinggulnya yang lebar menindih pasangannya. Kasur yang melengkung. Remang kamar yang murung. Kaki-kaki yang saling menyilang. Selimut berkerut. Dan desah. Mungkin jalang. Tangan yang mencari, menyelusup. Dan gerutu yang tak sabar. Dan jerit.

Dan, istirahatlah kata-kata. Kembalilah dalam hasrat.

Rumania, 1975

Di sudut bilik kereta, pulas tetidur sejoli. Dalam dekap mereka hening. Lengan si pria lingkari leher si gadis yang terlelap di bidang dadanya. Ada lelah dalam gurat wajah. Ada hidup yang seakan redup. Di kereta, ya di kereta. Kubayangkan di luar, ia melaju dalam terang lampu-lampu. Kota. Wong Kar Wai.

Di dalam sini, istirahatlah kata-kata. Kembalilah dalam melankolia.

*Untuk Wiji Thukul dan Henri Cartier Bresson

Why Those Guys with No Better Income Than You Have the Latest Gadget?

I was hospitalized for about a week due to that damn tropical fever. It’s not like that I don’t have time to buy any pesticide, it’s just the weather. This ‘musim peralihan’, like our fellow Indonesians would say, brings those diseases into frenzy. The mosquitoes are everywhere. I am not even sure where I get bitten.

Aside from the bad news, I get souvenir for you from my visit to the hospital. During my stay in there, which was quite traumatizing—lots of screams around, lots of cries around—I met this guy who happened to look after his ill brother. So young, with sturdy appearance and seemingly twisted mind, He smiles and mumbles a lot.

Well, those are not the interesting part at his disposal. What attracts me was his ever singing mobile phone from which today’s Indonesian top forties entertain us. The thing is quite expensive. While it can play music with built in speaker attached, mine can barely survive a call due to its low battery power.

Is his father rich? No. Is his mother rich? Very likely, no. He doesn’t live on his father’s or mother’s salary like me. He works a low-paid job. 

Then, how can he afford such a relatively expensive mobile while he works only as a blue collar worker? Or a better question, why don’t use the money for more important things fit his needs?

 

Resistance and Humanization

I previously read some good articles that hopefully cast light on this phenomenon. The first is by Nico Warouw of GMU’s Antropology Department. The article, published in Jurnal Analisis Sosial, Akatiga, is actually an excerpt from his PhD dissertation he defended at ANU, or rather that is what I think, which discuss how industrial workers in Tangerang assuming modernity or the image of being modern.

There Nico tells us how low-paid workers buy consumptive products normally identified with middle class households—i.e television, VCD/CD, mountain bike—to constitute their identity which by no means middle class. The act of consuming at the same time is the act of transcending identity and embracing a new state of being modern. This is modernism by the industrial workers. They themselves can be poor or financially insecure but the desire to be ‘modern’ like others around them should not be failed to be fulfilled. In short, this is resistance on symbolic realm.

Another good explanation to the same phenomenon might come from an independent scholar named Marcelo Diversi. He writes an article in Cultural Studies-Critical Methodologies journal presenting his ethnographic work on Brazil’s street kids. There he found many street kids know very much about nike shoes or nike products. They know which one is original, and which one is forged. The kids, Marcelo writes, almost like live ads commercials. They mimic all information they get from television perfectly. Ironically, while having all the passion to own a nike they lack the most important thing: the guts to own one. It is ironic when Marcelo gives one of them his nike cap, all of them refuse it. They say they are afraid of being robbed or beaten to death if somebody wants to take the nike away from them.

Here, Marcelo proposes that the nike is a demarcation symbol which draws a clear line between normal people who can have nike without being afraid of being robbed and the street kids who have all the passion but don’t have the guts to have one. Their desire of wearing nike then, is a form of a need of humanization.

The moral story now; don’t feel pity, cynical, or critical. Be proud of them who got better gadgets while not having better income than you. They’re in struggle of something.

Maus

I’m working on my graduating paper now. Discouraged, under-stress, time limited, I have simplified it from its own original questions. As long as i can submit it this month and get the exam next month I have nothing to complain. I’ll finish the real project later on.

I need to graduate in November since being an undergrad too long is no good (That’s what Dad and Mom says, almost an imperative). A scholarship application is waiting in February and I still need time to make a theses proposal. Hopefully the time left between November and February will be enough to make a decent proposal on—I’m not sure, can it off.

To share my grad paper’s discussion a little—so don’t go anywhere yet. You may help me with this—it is actually an analysis on factors that render a movement in a cultural escalator. Cultural escalator, we know, is a term coined by Stuart Hall to address the phenomenon of different reception of works (cultural product like art) in different eras. For instance, Shakespearean drama in the 16th century was a popular work while now it is an esoteric canon. So was Charles Dickens’ works written in 19th century which in the present have the same fate. This is the moving up in a cultural escalator. The moving down is Pavarotti’s on Puccini’s Nessun Dorma and Mondrian’s motives on Converse shoes i think.

But I’m not analysing all them. I got Art Spiegelman’s Maus on my table instead. Maus managed to win the Pulitzer Prize for Special Citation-Letter in 1992. A year previously it entered the Museum of Modern Art with “Project: Art Spiegelman” an exhibition of drawings in the book. Maus phenomenon is quite revolutionary since the fact that it is formally a work with popular charcteristic (read: kitsch) but nevertheless could be accepted in the circle of canonical masterpiece.

When today you find that The New York Review of Books has special reviews on the so called graphic novels, or now you read Marjan Satrapi’s Persepolis with some sense of literary awareness (maybe Joe Sacco’s Palestine as well) and getting more familiar or bothered with the ever-increasing population of non-children comics in the nearest Gramedia bookstore, it all owe Maus success to some degree or another.

But for the time being, since I’m severely discouraged, let me just chill out a little with that Smooth Escape and a few bottles of beer.