Dear Friends,Completed the first draft in 1998... and it's taken 8 years to find a publisher who thinks the book is "excellent"! I'm very grateful to Raman Krishnan of Silverfish Books who decided to publish TANAH TUJUH ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos, thereby putting closure to Magick River's multimedia project for the Orang Asli initiated in 1999. Yeeehah!!!
Phase One was Guardians of the Forest - a 52-minute documentary produced in 2000 by Mary Maguire and directed by Alan D'Cruz (and generously funded by Andrew Bird of Verado Films, Ltd).
Phase Two was AKAR UMBI ~ Songs of the Dragon - a CD featuring the celebrated ceremonial singer Minah Angong and her funky ethnic fusion band comprising well-known local musicians. This 2002 project was made possible by a timely grant from the Japan Foundation.
Phase Three: the launch of TANAH TUJUH ~ Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos at 2:30PM, 29 March, 2007 @ Alexis Bistro, Jalan Telawi 3, Bangsar. I've edited a special 20-minute documentary for the occasion - hope Raman can arrange projection facilities @ Alexis Bistro!
If you're able, please come and applaud... buy a copy of TANAH TUJUH hot off the press... have a cup of coffee... and celebrate with me!!!
Cheers & Hugs,
Antares
~^@^~
xxxXxxx
P.S. Here's a sneak preview of the backcover blurb:
TANAH TUJUH
… is what a large number of Orang Asli tribes call our planet. The Orang Asli constitute Peninsular Malaysia’s indigenous folk and there are at least 18 distinct tribes. The word tanah means “earth” or “land” and tujuh means “seven.” So Tanah Tujuh literally translates as “Seventh Land” or “Seventh World” or “Planet Seven.”
What does 7 represent in numerology and symbology? There are 7 major keys in the octave, 7 primary colours in the chromatic spectrum, 7 main chakras in the bioenergetic system, 7 days of the week, 7 hills, 7 sisters, 7 dwarfs, 7 wonders…
Front flap:
Antares is a writer, musician, and visionary who moved out of the city in 1992 and found himself living amongst the Temuan (second largest of the peninsular Orang Asli tribes) in the Malaysian rainforest, a few miles from Gunung Raja - a mysterious, mist-enshrouded mountain revered as the birthplace of a postdiluvian humanity.
Tanah Tujuh: Close Encounters with the Temuan Mythos chronicles his initiation into a fast vanishing aboriginal cosmomythology that offers an alternative view of reality.
Copiously illustrated with sketches and photographs, a Temuan Glossary, and a foreword by eminent anthropologist, Robert Knox Dentan.
Publisher: Silverfish Books, Kuala Lumpur
[First posted 23 March 2007]
Hi Kit Lee found you from Otto's site...
ReplyDeletelong time no see..since you left KKB to the woods ..where are you residing now?
Huh??? Who's Otto? Don't know anyone named "Bikerstud"... and if you're still addressing me as "Kit Leee"... we probably haven't met since the early 1990s!! Anyway,
ReplyDeletenice of you to drop by and leave a note. Guess I'll just have to post a comment on your blog now... because you've got me curious :-)
yo antares! we met at your book launch yesterday and you commented that you liked my face shape and i looked wild. hope i didn't misquote you, heh. just dropping by to say i've linked you.
ReplyDeletehttp://nic-wong.blogspot.com
It was good seeing you at the launch, Nic. Pity we didn't get the chance to talk - but I'll check out your blog and begin a virtual chat :-)... let me know if you enjoyed 'Tanah Tujuh' OK?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the visit to the uncharted web space of HC SVNT DRACONES. I enjoyed the fabric space of mysticism; the Cthulhu Mythos is as close to that realm. With Temuan Mythos, I hope to uncover the substantial world of myth and history closer to home.
ReplyDeleteCongrats with the book publishing. Props to the wonderful collection of journals and writings in this blog.
Fez.
Greetings, Fez! Dragons are cool, especially the Ancient-of-Days ones :-) Thanks for the courtesy call. Bling or ping or zing me whenever you post something far-out on your one-of-a-kind blog!
ReplyDeleteFave yours in my technorati. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, is the "The hologram of heaven on earth" emblem in anyway was illustrated by Shahril Nizam of "pelukis melukis" fame.
ReplyDeleteLove the simplicity in its abstract and natural wisdom.
Aha, Chthulu strikes again! Damn sweet of you to Technoratify my blog (first one to do so, I think! :-). I assume you refer to the Magick River logo? That was a doodle I did when I first moved here, inspired by the figure of a wizard wielding a caduceus (wand with infinite '8' and crescent symbolizing the Great Goddess) - the image was actually seen on a rock in the middle of the river, so I adopted it as the MR logo. The Magickman is formed from a union of 5 and 6 pointed stars, representing Female and Male Principles.The other logo is my personal emblem, adapted from the 6-pointed symbol of the Merkaba (commonly called the Star of David, but it existed loooooong before the Jews arrived on Earth!) It deeply gratifies me that you notice these details, Fez. Hope you come out of the closet soon, would love to meet you! :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm all ears for symbology lesson. Art is my passion. A simple emblem like of your design is "entrancing" to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThe merkaba a part of a pentagram within a spiral of nature -- light (fire), river (water), stone (earth), vacuum (void and air).
I'll return from my slumber. Sharon's Bibliobibuli and Dina Zaman's blog is my search light to the local literature world.
I'll say hi if we met at any Lit. gathering with "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" as my password. :)