All Quiet on the Domestic Front... (updated & revalidated)

I write this on the last day of 2010 and all is quiet on the domestic front...

Too quiet, in fact. Without Roger Putra to grace our scenic veranda and to amuse all and sundry with his galloping cute bum whenever he runs ahead (as he must) to the river for his daily dip and photo ops on the rocks.

Roger's wholly unnecessary and meaningless murder at the hands of a demented Orang Asli on 14 December 2010 has soured what has otherwise been an entirely sweet year for me.

For the nation and for the planet as a whole, whether 2010 has been sweet or sour - or a bit of both - depends on what constitutes your sources of information. If you subscribe to the mainstream news media and watch a lot of TV, then it has been a generally chaotic and frustrating year, with rogue regimes stubbornly (often violently) clinging on to power while natural (and unnatural) disasters continue to inflict massive hardship and suffering on the disenfranchised and the destitute.

However, if you've been listening to your heart more than to your head, you might have sensed that humanity is waking up very swiftly and spontaneously.

You might also have noticed that there are vast numbers of amazing children incarnate on the planet right now - some already in their teens, others still toddlers - but all of them represent a new octave of evolution for the human species.

These rainbow starchildren (some might label them Indigo Crystals) arrived fully conscious with minimal karmic or neurotic impediments. Just look into their eyes and you will recognize them as Master Souls - entities from celestial realms who have volunteered to be physically incarnate at this crucial juncture of the planet's evolutionary process.

I met a large number of Indigo Crystals recently at a special gathering in Bali. The youngest, Eilidh (above, right), was only 10 months old. From the moment I laid eyes on her (she was playing in the hotel pool with her mother Elspeth) she focused directly at my energy field and her face broke out in a beatific smile. On the last day of the gathering of healers, shamen, wizards, magicians and starseeds, Eilidh's dad Anthony had her on his shoulder while he walked slowly around the grand ballroom. I noticed that Eilidh made eye contact with every single one of the individuals present - all 115 of them. I felt blessed to be in the same space - indeed, on the same planet - as her.

And then there were Akyuna (16) and Elena (24) who seemed to have arrived on earth riding the same beam of love from beyond the stars. Although Elena got here 8 years ahead of Akyuna, when they gaze lovingly into each other's eyes, they are both completely ageless - just a radiant unified field of divine love. With Akyuna and Elena I never really had to communicate verbally. Every time we bumped into one another, a tender hug was the only currency we traded in - and ear-to-ear grins that spoke volumes about the pure joy bursting from our hearts. Although Akyuna lives in Hawaii and speaks only English and star language - and Elena lives in Moscow and speaks Russian, English and the language of the heart - they communicate regularly via facebook, and all who love these luminous starchildren rejoice in their earthly reunion.


What about Tonatiuh and Taisia? He was born in Mexico, went to Germany for further studies and that's where he met his future bride, the exquisite Russian-born Taisia. The sacred union of North and South, Latin and Slavic royal bloodlines. In Peru at the second part of the 8th Gate Activation in 2009, Tonatiuh and Taisia awakened to the fantastic truth of their earthly incarnations as embodiments of the White Dragons - noble beings of magical and primordial wisdom that have not inhabited these dense realms for aeons.

I returned from Bali to the ecstatic embrace of a starry princess named Nannan (a true Indigo Crystal) who chose to incarnate in China, so she could embody the deep and ancient memories of a hardy and resourceful land that has seen heavenly glory and known the darkest despair, deprivation and sorrow. Her spirit so bold and fearless - yet as merciful as the compassionate goddess Kwanyin and wise as only a rider of dragons can be. Our reunion triggered long-buried echoes of memories from beyond the veil of forgetfulness, stretching across many lifetimes. To recognize and to be recognized is indeed the epitome of true love!

Beyond any doubt, I feel powerfully connected to an ever expanding network of incarnate souls representing all the Primordial Creator lineages - beings that originate from archangelic and angelic realms, volunteers from exotic star systems and wizardly technicians from all points in time and a staggering profusion of probable realities and parallel universes...

They are already here on Earth, in beautiful human embodiment, eating and chatting and laughing and making love with other awakened and awakening humans. Their radiant energy fields are luminescent and vibrant fields of limitless love and unbounded intelligence, transcending the 3-dimensional confines of the Matrix and immune to the primitive, fear-based, scarcity-conditioning and mind-control mechanisms installed in the early versions of Homo sapiens by the Anunnaki and other spiritually immature ET factions.


Each one of us is in the process of integrating our celestial and terrestrial neural circuitry and emerging as authentic masters, like a hundred million Krishnas, Buddhas, Padmasambhavas, Muhammads and Christs that have managed to sneak past the border guards right into the heart of the Occupied Zone. The Revolution we are fomenting is essentially a mental and spiritual one, without recourse to violence.

The Agent Smiths of the New World Order cabal and the evil priesthood of the ancient vampire bloodlines will, as to be expected, lash out in panic, thinking they can quell any large-scale rebellion through the force majeure of the police state at home and their military might abroad.

When physical violence erupts, as it occasionally will, physical bodies get damaged, even destroyed. As far as possible, we shall be extremely cautious when negotiating these dangerous political reefs - but none of us, in the ultimate sense, fears death or incarceration, if only because we have all been through this sort of low-grade scenario time and again. Yes, some of us remember the Inquisition vividly; some of us still bear the emotional scars of a dozen massacres and bloody wars. We have navigated labyrinths and resurrected ourselves from fictitious crucifixions countless times. We're veteran Jedis of numerous Star Wars.

We are fighting this war of enlightenment to liberate the human spirit from the fetters of deadly dogma and dull doctrine; from Neo-Darwinian notions and Malthusian misconceptions that have resulted in grotesquely iniquitous and unbalanced distribution of the planet's majestic abundance. We will not bow or cower before deformities dressed in the robes of earthly power, usurpers of and pretenders to the throne of heaven on earth. All the puffed-up honorifics and titles they bestow upon themselves will not protect them from our scrutiny and our scorn.

They believe they can cork the leak by arresting and harassing a cyber-revolutionary like Julian Assange. But can they cope with ten million Assange clones in Guy Fawkes masks?


Sooner rather than later their own children will recoil in horror at the stupid cruelty of what their parents and grandparents have done to the planet and all her lifeforms - and the psychosis they conceal behind their botoxed façades of respectability. And these children will open up the fortesses and palaces from within to let in some desperately needed fresh air and some pure new blood to renew the view from Pisgah and restore the divine blueprint of heaven on earth.

LET'S MAKE 2022 THE YEAR WE HUMANS FINALLY RECLAIM OUR PLANET AND BOOT OUT THE PSYCHIC PARASITES OF FALSE AUTHORITY THAT HAVE GORGED THEMSELVES ON OUR VITALITY FOR FAR TOO LONG!

[First posted 31 December 2010, reposted 1 December 2019]

APOCALYPSE… OR EPIPHANY? (revisited & updated)

Lotus flowers blossom in the Khao Sam Roi Yot national park 

in southern Thailand (AFP/Roberto Schmidt)

 

Musings at the edge of eternity

The World of Appearances moves visibly towards a series of possible Apocalypses. Now as never before, I am doing all I can to maintain a clear focus on my innervision of heaven on earth – which does NOT include the triumph of Big Brotherism in some dystopic New World Order Fourth Reich!

With Galactic Alignment come and gone (refer, if you like, to John Major Jenkins’s Maya Cosmogenesis 2012 for the mind-boggling details), massive shifts in consciousness and spiritual maturity have brought about a rapid meltdown of dysfunctional institutions and societal conventions. All that is mechanical and regimented will swiftly and abruptly run out of political charge. The “princes and principalities” (or Archon-infested golems in suits) won’t surrender without a desperate fight, in the vain hope that they can at least drag everyone else down to “hell” with them.

However, Mother Earth (Gaia-Sophia) herself will no longer support their parasitic and piratic misbehavior as she attains to full awakening. Those governed by fear and greed and trapped in egocentric skepticism will be subject to their own Twilight-of-the-Gods scenario – despite all efforts to help them experience a paradigm shift. The rest of us will bear witness as self-governing sovereign entities to the birth of a New Octave of Consciousness wherein beauty and truth will replace money and military might as focal points of endeavor. (All this is unlikely to happen right after 2012, but the preceding years will prove to be pivotal era in which each incarnate soul will consciously cross a threshold, towards true individual freedom or deeper enslavement in the Matrix.)

But what happens to all the encrusted egos hellbent on keeping the Duality Scam going? The Fear Merchants, trading in terror and scarcity conditioning, clinging tenaciously to ancestral privilege or ruthless ambition - are they a nightmarish mass delusion that’s absolutely no concern of mine?

I can see bits of myself embedded in these primitive programs going by descriptions like "Neo-Darwinism." Survival of the Fittest, indeed. How is “fit” defined? The ones gifted at making money, or the ones with universal empathy? Is it possible to accumulate wealth as measured by consensus – and still feel a tender compassion for all life?

The way I see it: since I already feel oceanic ripples of deep affection for All That Is, I need only gain access to unlimited wealth to be in a position to answer that question truthfully. It’s easy to dismiss money as a spurious concoction of the banking fraternity, but so long as it’s in use, I’d love to have a huge pile fall in my lap. I could get the entire contents of my rusty filing cabinet published, release some sonic dreamscapes I recorded some 30 years ago, fund radical social and artistic projects, visit friends all over the planet, lounge around on a Thai island for weeks, help a few fellow humans who happen to require a reboot, and so on.

How about The Vision? Well, it’s all part of it. My definition of heaven: infinite possibilities (where merely knowing that every desire can be fulfilled is enough). Hell, of course, is utter impossibility (where the woman who excites me most begrudges even a smile).

Do I envisage a Vegetarian Future?

It’s not what we do, it’s how we do it that changes the essential equations. Having lived among hunter-gatherers who generally prefer to get their protein by fishing and snaring wild game, and who are content to subsist on tapioca leaves and dried anchovies the rest of the time, I’d be glad to see an end to commercial exploitation of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. It’s not meat-eating, per se, that constitutes a problem – it’s industrial farming methods that treat other lifeforms as mere commodities to be processed and sold which greatly saddens my soul.

Times when my atoms were oscillating at close to light speed, I have been able to sustain myself for days on prana and photons – which is why I’m sympathetic to breatharians, though I lack the ascetic impulse to wilfully embark on such a course. I eat to live as a matter of habit, and I bless and enjoy whatever’s on my plate. Food is NOT the issue. Famine is invariably the unhappy result of ecocidal human activities driven by scarcity conditioning. The fact that “developed” countries have problems with anorexia AND obesity reflects a deep spiritual imbalance.

Speaking of food, I recently received an internet joke with a timely teaching. It’s called “God’s Test”:

God put the angels and the devils to a test. He set up a huge banquet hall with a wonderful feast. First He invited the devils to the feast. They were delighted until they found out that they couldn't bend their arms at the elbows! How were they to eat all the delicious food when their hands wouldn't go to their mouths? They tried eating off the plate, which was messy and undignified. They tried throwing the food in the air and catching it in their mouths. Nothing worked very well. After 15 minutes of this mayhem, God told them that time was up. They trooped out cursing Him.

Next, He invited the angels into the hall. A fresh feast was laid out, and the same thing happened - they couldn't bend their arms at the elbows. The angels all looked at each other and burst out laughing. "What a great game!" they said as they fed each other.

If you happen to be an atheist - don’t worry, so is God. In 2022 I’ve decided to revert to my original name. From now on, don’t call me Antares – “God” will do nicely. Heh heh, just kidding, folks. I've had enough problems trying to get old friends to call me Antares... or cash cheques (back in the analog days) with three E's in my former surname Leee.

© Antares Maitreya, written in January 2003 (updated October 2005, August 2018 & August 2022). First posted 2 December 2006, reposted 30 August 2018.

Horace Tan’s Horrible Skin Condition (& how Mrs Tan cured it) ~ a bizarre short story by Antares

This story began its life in 1967 as a high school creative writing assignment. It was originally titled Herbert von Schenke’s Rare & Disconcerting Problem – And How Dutiful Delilah Solved It. I dusted it off in 1987 and fleshed it out for a short-story writing competition. It was awarded a consolation prize. I subsequently sold it to Men’s Review, a trendy monthly magazine, in 1995, along with a couple of new illustrations. And now, here it is again in its latest incarnation as a blogpost (first uploaded 26 May 2007), which only goes to show that there's a future in recycling one’s past...


HUMMING WITH above-average self-confidence, Mr Horace H.L. Tan would flounce down the street each day, despite his rare and disconcerting Skin Condition.

And an uncommonly horrible problem his was at that: poor Mr Tan was burdened at birth with the distressing misfortune of Loose Skin.

When Horace was but a day old everyone had tried to dismiss the issue with humor, saying how charmingly like a plump little prune he looked. The doctors had conducted a series of expensive tests and, after serious conference, had diagnosed the child’s condition as “a most unusual case of acutely uncoordinated cuticular cellulation.”

“Probably a passing phase,” the doctors had declared in reassuring unison, fondly tickling the gurgling bundle of joyful wrinkles that glistened in its cot.

“Don’t worry, dear, he’ll grow into it,” Horace’s father had said, with sensible optimism.

“’Tis God’s Will,” Horace’s mother had responded, carefully powdering her infant and arranging his skin in neat folds, with stoic affection.

As to be expected, young Horace encountered traumatic difficulties in trying to gain the acceptance of society. At school the other children mercilessly mocked his pleated skin: “Jellyfish, smellyfish,” they chanted, “just go away, that’s all we wish!”

Before long Horace had acquired an aura of grand isolation arising from his dermatological uniqueness. Some called it freakishness, but never to his face, for his features had by now become very much enshrouded in the spotty skin of adolescence. Nobody could think of anything meaningful to say to him, and he remained enveloped within himself. For Horace Tan it was one of life’s poignant ironies that he should suffer a total deprivation of the sense of kinship, while enjoying a superabundance of skin.

But he comforted himself by recalling his father’s last words: “A great man, Horace my boy, must have the courage to be different. The ugliest insults to one’s dignity are, at their worst, only skin-deep.” At one time Horace Tan’s father had been the owner of a famous reptile farm (featured on all the tourist maps).

After her husband’s death, Horace Tan’s mother had sold the business and established a trust fund for her only son. She somehow knew her own days were numbered.

Solace also came to Horace in the sweet, unselfish person of Philomena P’ng, a quiet girl from the local orphanage who had been engaged as his handmaid and cosmetician. Not having really had a proper upbringing she had been spared the normal quota of prejudices that children inevitably absorb from their parents.

Now, Horace’s extraordinary hide had attained new dimensions in horniness ever since puberty – for his prodigious dermal development was accompanied by no significant loss of tactile sensitivity. Perhaps in defiance of his own physical shortcomings, he had perversely cultivated a keen interest in feminine pulchritude (which would later prove valuable in his professional life).

For the present, Horace had to make do with Philomena P’ng’s services. No doubt she struck Horace as a morsel too bland for his exotic taste, but she did seem to care for him above and beyond the call of her domestic and cosmetic duties. In fact, after the death of his parents, Horace’s only companion was Philomena – and hers the only other human skin he had touched.

At nineteen-and-a-half Horace Tan stopped growing. But not his skin. It was now at least three sizes too large for him. (To get a more graphic idea of how Horace looked at this stage, slip an old condom over your index finger and wiggle it.) However, to a sympathetic eye, Horace did not appear at all repulsive – thanks to Philomena’s conscientious and tender ministrations which kept his overall complexion clear and healthy. A ridiculous proportion of their monthly expenses, however, went towards imported skin care products.

Since his strange affliction precluded active participation in sports and other social games, Horace had naturally turned to books. (He rarely watched television, complaining that he found the “superficiality and false glamor of TV-land “ in poor taste.) During this period he chanced upon Frank Herbert’s Dune stories which profoundly altered his self-image: Horace was drawn irresistibly into a quasi-mystical identification with the Hero - whose horrendous transmogrification into a hideous heap of omniscient protoplasm earns him the status of Emperor God. The silent contempt Horace felt towards the human hordes that pride themselves on Normalcy became even more pronounced.


FOR A FEW best-forgotten years, Horace Tan supplemented his dwindling trust fund income by submitting his Skin Condition to public exhibition. He was billed as “The Incredible Human Fungus.” It was disgusting and demeaning, true, but on weekends the takings were appreciable. Philomena set up a tea stall outside. Soon, a multi-cultural element (consisting of two giggly Thai women wrestling in French salad dressing) was incorporated into Horace’s Human Fungus routine. While Philomena diverted curious policemen with her excellent tea and delicious margarine rolls, Horace livened up his act with a series of other ingeniously flamboyant titillations. “Fun on Fungus” evolved into a fantastic money-spinner, and Horace H.L. Tan was well on his way to true-blue entrepreneurship. “They want skin… I sell them SKIN!” became his private credo.

And with that Horace Tan married Philomena P’ng, bought her a gleaming new chain of fast-food outlets, and installed himself as the Invisible Godfather of a proliferous network of adult video agencies. It was the perfect climate for purveyors of preserved prurience: hot, humid and hypocritical.

Working behind the scenes with transcendental vulgarity, Horace swiftly established a vast and venal empire of ‘musical’ coffeehouses, ‘massage’ salons and ‘sex-clusive’ health clubs. Meanwhile, video vice was doing very well, thank you, with the staunch support of the nation’s puritan aunts and uncles: the more they raved, the more they rented (this was before the advent of the internet made rented videos obsolete). When the Official Outcry Over Obscenity and Hedonism (OOOOH) reached a premature climax of impassioned publicity resulting in Nocturnal Omissions by the Blind Forces of Moral Erectitude (ref. Raids & Seizures Act, Amendment V, 1969), Horace gently pulled out of pornography and plunged into other, more personally gratifying pursuits.

He took up a correspondence course in Amateur Dermatology and soon was acknowledged as the World’s Foremost Authority on the tragic case history of John Merrick (the original Elephant Man). Inspired by one of Alan Sherman’s doggerel ditties (“You gotta have skin/All you ever really need is skin…”), Horace next tried underwriting and producing a musical extravaganza (predictably called Skin). The critics dismissed the whole show as “a flabby and shabby flop” but its lyrical content, though accused of “unrestrained idiosyncrasy and self-vindication,” was occasionally brilliant:

Skin is a most precious commodity
Especially when it stretches to Infinity;
Although a few fools think me an oddity,
My ego-encompassing epidermal packaging
Gives me a great sense of Divinity!

Skin, luxurious skin:
Oo, it’s the nicest stuff to be in!
Come rain or shine it won’t fade with time;
Yes! skin is a substance sublime.

Skin, my glorious skin:
Where do you end, where do I begin?
Who cares! just send up an endless supply
Of skin…

But most of all Horace cherished his regular afternoon jaunts. When the sun warmed him like a chappati and the breeze billowed his cheeks like a Sultan’s birthday banners, he would pause and tuck the freehanging ends of his knobby kneeskin into his superstretched socks (so as not to trip and embarrass himself). And he would think fondly of faithful Philomena: so passionate, so patient, so practical, so resilient and resourceful. And his entire skin would quiver with a peculiar pleasure.

Having thus worked up a voluminous appetite Horace would hurry over (the best he could) to his wife’s nearest outlet, where he would drowse behind the giant microwave ovens and wait for the last patron to leave, before doing hungry justice to the day’s remnants of frankfurters, French fries and fruit pies.

And yet, Horace Tan’s marital, epidermal and gastronomical contentment was clouded by the horrid certainty that the rate of his Gross Dermal Product was obviously and undeniably proportional to his age. In other words, Mr Tan’s horrible Skin Condition was STILL getting worse (notwithstanding his remarkable psychological triumph over the cruel bathos of Fate).

"Each day the dutiful Mrs Tan would scrape off the waxy waste with a scoop and sell it by the tub to an orchid fertilizer factory."



BEFORE HE REACHED 44 the unfortunate Mr Horace Tan had become quite incapable of carrying out the simplest tasks of daily living. His devoted wife soon had to administer liquid food to him through a veterinary hypodermic (it was impossible to locate his mouth); walk him in a heavy-duty motorized wheelbarrow (his feet were hard to find); read, or rather, shout the morning and afternoon papers to him (his eyes had for years been buried beneath pachydermoid lids and he hardly had ears to speak of or into); scratch him whenever he had an itch (and he had more than a few); and hose him down thrice a day (to reduce his profuse transpiration).

Almost all his natural bodily functions had undergone a bizarre mutation. He no longer had to “go to the toilet.” Instead he exuded, at regular intervals, a resinous effluent which, although slightly unpleasant in odor, was wonderfully conducive to plant growth. Each day the dutiful Mrs Tan would scrape off the waxy waste with a scoop and sell it by the tub to an orchid fertilizer factory. Then she would turn on the electric shower system in the ceiling and spray her husband with Dettol, followed by Odorono. At night she had to tape his facial folds to the wall to prevent his suffocating in his sleep as he lay helpless on his foam-rubber floor like a retired Portuguese man-of-war. It was a truly unhappy existence, even for such a positive-thinking pair.

Despite his Herculean struggles with dermal density, heroic Horace never forgot each night to whisper hoarsely, albeit inaudibly, to his wife: “Hey, Sugar-Melon… stick around. I… I’ll show you a good time yet!” (Alas, a rarely fulfilled promise.)

Philomena Tan, with phenomenal determination and without prejudice, divided her time equally between running her fast-food chain and attending to her poor husband’s saprophytic existence. But as each day dragged saggingly by with no miracle in sight, and even the subcutaneous sound of Horace’s voice receded beyond the effective range of the electronic bugs implanted within his remote recesses, Philomena began to admit that things looked grave.

The last time she heard him speak was through a medium. He sounded deeply regretful to have imposed such a massive burden on her, and begged her over and over again to put him out of his monstrous misery. She had replied (through the medium): “But, Horace! After all we’ve been through, how can I get rid of you?” (“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Horace had quipped via the medium. At least he still had his sense of humor.)

What with the bourgeoisie rabidly bourgeoning and its insatiable demand for junk food, Mrs Tan was kept too busy to indulge in self-pity. Not till the weekend did she find time to ponder a possible cure for her husband’s horrible Skin Condition. Every known medical approach had been attempted to no avail: Allopathic, Ayurvedic, Homeopathic, Dianetic, even Acupuncture, Ch’i Qong, Hypnotism, Mind Control, Reiki, Aloe Vera, Aromatherapy, Aurasoma, Past Life Regression, Royal Jelly, Lourdes Water, Mystic Ash, Prayer and Tiger Balm.

Then she remembered having seen, among some ancient books collecting dust in the basement, a frayed edition of Dr J.S. Petit’s quaint classic, 101 Ways To Cure Skin (published in 1903). The book had probably belonged to Horace’s paternal grandfather. In a thrice Philomena was rummaging through the musty accumulations of three generations of Tans until, at last, she retrieved the slim volume. Hands trembling, she began her desperate research, struggling over Dr Petit’s worm-eaten archaisms.

The following week, having secured “a good supply of tannin and gambier,” she mixed the recommended ingredients into a concentrated solution and added this regularly to her spongoid spouse’s nutrient injections. There was no way of knowing if the treatment would work. Now that hope and faith seemed useless, only luck remained.

One evening some weeks later she arrived with her husband’s food syringe to find his discolored and deflated blimp-like bulk even more devoid of human semblance than usual. Missing were the familiar rumbling undulations of inexpressible yearning that preceded every meal. “Horace!” she cried distractedly. “Horace, wake up! Your dinner’s getting cold!”

There was no response. Not a single heave, nor the subtlest quiver. “HORACE??” She began poking all over the unmoving mammoth mound of flaccid cuticle, looking for traces of her erstwhile matrimonial partner, but found absolutely nothing: nothing vaguely suggesting an arm or a leg or a protuberance of any description. Horace H.L. Tan had apparently dissolved into the labyrinthine folds of his own skin.

Perhaps for the first time in her life Philomena P’ng broke down and wept. But not for very long. Within a year, the phenomenal Philomena had gathered her resources and opened a classy boutique in Star Hill Plaza selling a chic selection of designer Belts, Boots, Handbags, Shoes, Wallets, Vests, Cigarette Cases, Pipe Pouches, Money Belts, and so on. The turnover was simply sensational. A massive promotional campaign was launched in Hong Kong, Taipeh, London, Paris, New York and Los Angeles, and exports began in earnest. Soon, the House of Horace could boast the rare distinction of being the “World Leader in Quality Leather.” Well, at least till the supply fizzled out… and, horror of horrors, it eventually did, poor Horace.


© Antares 1967, 1987, 1995, 2001, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2019 [Last reposted 6 November 2013, 20 August 2019 & 23 July 2020]

Return of the Abominable Jungleman (a blast from the past)

Nchan et Christine ont poursuivi en Malaisie leur collecte de sons et de témoignages auprès de musiciens -- joueurs de gamelan traditionnel ou jeunes percussionnistes rencontrés aux franges de la ville. Dans la jungle toujours proche, ils ont suivi Antares, un musicien chinois sage et fou, arpenteur de tous les sentiers et joueur de flûte. Marié à une aborigène, il défend la forêt, les droits de sa tribu auprès du gouvernement tout en écrivant ses articles d'ethnomusicologie dans la hutte qu'il a tressée, au vert, relié au monde par un esprit transculturel -- et par Internet! ~ Christine Rodès


This is hardly an original statement, but it's worth repeating: the internet is arguably the best thing technology has come up with thus far! Some insist nothing can beat the washing machine - but as I have never owned one, I don't have an opinion on that.

Earlier, I was cursorily checking visitor stats on my blog when I was intrigued by a Google search someone located in Muscat, Oman, had done on "magic river antares"... so I followed the link to the search results and found this YouTube video dating back at least 6 years but only recently uploaded.

Sometime in 2005 a colorful bunch of visitors had appeared at my home, wielding video cameras and recording equipment. Even before I could say hello, they were busy shooting video footage of everything that caught their fancy. They told me they were multimedia artists, collecting raw material from around the world and incorporating it in their trance-inducing son et lumière performances, featuring multiple images projected on huge screens to the accompaniment of live electronic music.

The group was called Sisygambis and they were performing at KLPAC. The music consisted of a mix of sampled sounds and synthesized effects played by Christine Coulange and Nchan Manoyan, who both looked like they might have stepped out of a flying saucer parked just down the road. Anyway, we spent some time cavorting at a nearby waterfall and afterwards they asked me to play some of my wind instruments. I got on so well with them they invited me to visit them in Marseille and perhaps collaborate on some art project with them.

Alas, in 2009, I received word that Nchan had died in a car accident - and that put an abrupt end to my cross-cultural conversation with Sisygambis. I liked Nchan a lot, not just because he had the most amazing bird's nest hairstyle and a wizardly goatee, but he struck me as truly an evolved soul and a very warm human being. Viewing the video above brought back a flood of vivid memories and renewed my soul connection with Sisygambis. I'm glad they are continuing their wonderfully stimulating multimedia projects.

[First posted 2 December 2011, reposted 5 January 2019]

THOSE MOIST AND SALTY MOMENTS (revisited)

By Lee Bee Doh

MR H.S. LOH stood in line, hands in his pockets, twiddling his thumbs. He had a habit of playing with himself whenever there was nothing else to do. Fondling his privates in public was particularly appealing, because he had to be careful not to get himself too excited, which usually got him even more aroused.

He smiled secretly thinking about the few occasions he had developed a full-blown hard-on while standing in a queue. One time he managed to conceal his bulge behind a copy of Utusan Malaysia (not that he actually read the rabidly racist rag, but he enjoyed walking around with a copy under his arm or over his crotch just to annoy people). It also came in handy whenever he felt the compulsion to idly swat a few rent-seeking flies.

Another time he happened to be standing behind his plump-rumped girlfriend, Lascivia Lum, and was able to good-humoredly goose her till she had to trot off giggling to the ladies and plug her overflow with tissue paper.

H.S. (as he preferred to be called, because his father had perversely named him Hum Sup, weird sense of humor) was a congenital erotomaniac. In Cantonese, Hum Sup literally means “salty and moist.” In plain English, H.S. was addicted to sex. In other words, he chose to attain Oneness through physical conjugation rather than transcendental meditation. In fact, the only constant in his life was to fuck and wank at every opportunity.

Eating and sleeping served only to recharge his batteries between battering ram episodes when he would attempt to break down the fortified gates of feigned prudery. Indeed, H.S. Loh sometimes saw himself as a crusader for the suppressed libido, tilting at windmills of false piety and genuine hypocrisy.

Those who knew H.S. suspected that he enjoyed shocking erotophobes (making their auras shrink in dismay) even more than indulging his congenital erotomania. His current squeeze, Lascivia, was cute and cuddly enough – but the fact that her father was a Baptist preacher added spice to their love affair.

AS A KID at Sunday school, H.S. had been intrigued by the story of humanity’s “Fall from Grace.” The watered-down official version made it seem like Adam and Eve were tossed out of Heaven for disobeying God and eating the Forbidden Fruit. Why God would plant a “forbidden” fruit in the Garden of Eden was beyond human comprehension. And to then tell these innocent babes in the wood they could do whatever they liked except taste that particular fruit made it clear that God was setting them up big time.

He probably had a stopwatch in hand, waiting to see how long it would take Adam and Eve to discover the exquisite pleasures of fornication and commit their Original Sin. (I bet God had at least four CCTV cameras installed to record the event, just in case He needed to resort to blackmail somewhere down the line. Or maybe He just liked to watch.)

Preachers call it “illicit sex” because Adam had yet to propose to Eve, and she hadn’t even considered signing a contract agreeing to be physically and emotionally bound to him for life. Anyway, if Adam and Eve were the First Couple and there were no other humans around, then neither could contemplate carnal intimacy with anybody else, could they? Being promiscuous would be a complete waste of time in the Garden of Eden.

Unless Eve was kinky enough to be turned on by the Serpent’s slinky muscularity and allowed it to perform cunnilingus on her with its forked tongue and Barry White voice. You may not know this, but male snakes do have penises – not one, but two. Okay, some biologists say the snake’s hemipenes are in fact a bifurcated penis, rather than two separate organs. So it’s quite possible that the Serpent may have ventured beyond foreplay and penetrated Eve with one, or both, of its reptilian penises.

It’s also entirely possible that when Eve says she was tempted by the Serpent, she was merely waxing lyrical about Adam’s morning erection. I mean, if you’re a newly minted woman and have never seen a fully erect male organ, your first close encounter with one in all its glory might well cause you to spontaneously lubricate and cream yourself.

Whatever actually happened in the Garden of Eden, you can be sure of one thing: it had to do with sex.

And that’s why H.S. Loh was obsessed with the subject. Any activity that can get one evicted from paradise must be well worth investigating. Yet, how could it possibly be “paradise” if sex is forbidden? Are there different categories of paradise, some XXX-rated and others approved for General Audiences?

However, sex wasn’t the only thing on his mind – though one might argue that everything would look sexy to a man named Hum Sup Loh.

As a student of philosophy, H.S. had always preferred Socrates (right) to Plato; Laotzu to Confucius. People often speak of “platonic” love but how come they never boast about their passion being “socratic”? Socrates was officially married to Xanthippe, who gave him three sons. But he was, like most Athenian nobles, also known to enjoy the company of young and handsome male athletes. Umno would most certainly disapprove and attempt to fitnah him left, right and center.

Laotzu was a legendary sage who lived in forested hills far from civilization and successfully avoided being awarded titles and positions by the palace. It is recorded that Confucius, hearing of Laotzu’s great wisdom, found Laotzu after many months of searching, and asked if he would accept Confucius as his humble student. Laotzu simply said: “Why waste your time and mine? Go back to your job as an academic!” To his credit, Confucius never spoke ill of Laotzu; indeed, he described him as a cosmic phenomenon, awesome and unreachable as a dragon flying through the clouds.

But to H.S. Loh the most admirable contemporary philosopher was a fellow named Hugh Marston Hefner (left), better known as the chief editor and publisher of Playboy magazine. Launching the first issue in December 1953 on $8,000 of borrowed capital, Hefner not only became a multi-millionaire entrepreneur – but he also planted the seeds of the sexual revolution that swept across the world in the 1960s (bypassing Malaysia and the Middle East, some will be relieved to know).

Many of Hefner’s monumental accomplishments were unknown to the hordes of salivating appreciators of Playboy’s monthly centerfolds. Hefner was a vigorous crusader for free speech and civil liberties; he stood by stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce when the government was harassing him and later produced recordings and a feature-length film documenting Lenny Bruce’s turbulent career (Lenny, starring Dustin Hoffman, 1974).

Hugh M. Hefner preached what he practiced. He loved beautiful bodies, fast cars, good food, fine clothes, freedom and lofty ideas – and that’s exactly what he promoted in Playboy. At the ripe old age of 86, Hefner married a buxom 26-year-old hottie named Crystal Harris. That’s not half-bad by anybody’s reckoning, especially H.S. Loh’s… so what if the whole affair was doomed to failure from the start? [Harris later revealed, in a candid interview with Howard Stern, that she and Hefner had only had sex once: "He’s had so much sex, he’s kind of over it. It lasted two seconds. It was an out-of-body experience."]

And so what if Hugh M. Hefner was exposed, after his death at 91 in September 2017, as having been part of a CIA honeypot operation aimed at video-recording prominent figures in compromising positions for blackmail purposes? Most famous people have secret lives we know nothing about until after they're dead.

These were some of the random thoughts drifting lazily through H.S. Loh's mind as he waited in line at the KTM Komuter ticket counter. By the time he got to his turn, his willy was more than half-erect. “Kuala Kubu Bharu,” he said, giving his throbbing dickhead a friendly rub while fishing around for some loose change in his left trouser pocket.

H.S. was thrilled to finally be meeting his childhood hero, a man who had made a career out of priapic prose, and who fancied himself a latter-day incarnation of the nature god Pan. As the train pulled out of the station, H.S. sent a text message ahead, alerting the recipient to his estimated time of arrival. Hope he likes the present I got for him, H.S. smiled, fingering the beautifully gift-wrapped box of super-strength tongkat ali capsules in his shoulder bag.

_______
Lee Bee Doh is just another alias of that elusive entity, erstwhile known as Kit Leee (actor, author, cartoonist, arts reviewer and producer), who vanished into the woods, only to reappear in cyberspace as Antares (blogger, musician and jungle chef). [Originally published on LoyarBurok. First posted here 19 May 2011, reposted 4 June 2014, 28 July 2016 & 30 May 2018].

Official Version vs Conspiracy Theory (reprise)

Stumbled on this earlier and found it amusing. I have a feeling it was posted by a cop, as cops these days just wanna be bloggers (and bloggers just wanna be cops). All "official versions" have one thing in common: they are targeted at some fictitious man-in-the-street whose IQ does not exceed 55. Consider the Official Version of the sensational Altantuya murder which says she was probably killed by two off-duty cops at the instigation of a well-connected defence consultant and businessman. Nobody else was involved. If you buy this story, congratulations - you have an IQ that doesn't exceed 55! Well, I don't know who wrote this piece as the author chooses to remain anonymous, but you can read the entire entry here.

9/11: THE MOST RIDICULOUS CONSPIRACY THEORY OF ALL TIME!

According to the ever truth-telling government of the US and the ever accurate US media, the 9/11 attacks were planned by a sickly man hiding in a cave who just so happened to be a "former" CIA employee. The attacks were then carried out by 19 Arab hijackers who, just by chance, lived next door to the Israeli Mossad and magically somehow at least 7 of them remained alive after crashing planes into buildings. This is, of course, because each of the living hijackers had eaten those little green 1-up mushrooms from the Super Mario brothers and upon their death they just came back to life on earth as extra men. Claiming that these men could not possibly have carried out the attacks just because a few of them are alive is absurd. The magical 1-up mushrooms explain everything perfectly.

Next, two concrete and steel buildings which had been hit by airplanes burned near the top for about an hour and then suddenly fell straight down in a matter of seconds. Now we all know that Bin Laden was using a powerful genie to pull this off. You know all those bearded guys in caves in Arabia land have magic lamps and genies. Even though normally fire only burns and cannot break the laws of physics by causing steel beams to be cut at 45-degree angles thereby totally obliterating skyscrapers that were hundreds of stories high in a matter of seconds. Most fires also do not burn hot enough to leave molten steel in the basements weeks after the event... but with a magic genie it can be done IF it happened to be one of the three wishes every genie grants anyone who rubs his lamp. For more information on how this works watch the animated movie "Aladdin." They have the same funny hats and everything, so it's quite obvious.

Now I know what you're thinking: the Genie says he cannot carry out a wish to kill anyone. BUT you see... Bin Laden found a loop-hole. He did not say, "Kill those people in WTC!" He said, "Explode the buildings and make them fall into their own footprints as if they were blown up by controlled demolitions." That way the genie did not actually kill anyone he just made some buildings disintegrate and it just so happened that the COLLAPSING BUILDINGS killed a few thousand people. It was from this loop-hole in the 'wish formula' that Bin Laden could achieve his diabolical plan using his self-reincarnating hijackers with magic mushrooms and super-fire that acts like bombs - including in a building that was not even hit by a plane!

One thing nutty conspiracy theorists always bring up is the fact that the BBC said Building 7 had fallen when it was still standing. So what? Everybody knows that London, England, is 5 hours ahead of New York! As the BBC studio is in London, it had already happened THERE. Sheesh! Do we have to explain EVERYTHING to these conspiracy nuts?


Now in the Pentagon attack they did not need super-fire because the building was already low to the ground so remote control software was not used. No, it was the mushroom-munching, self-regenerating pilots that went out of their way to create a trail of evidence pointing to themselves - including a bag with a list of their names written in a neat hand, a driver's license and even a fire-resistant passport.

Later, anthrax letters linking the attacks to Israel's genocidal attacks against an indigenous Palestinian population in an apartheid state practising legalized torture and open ethnic cleansing, appeared in the press from addresses only 7 miles from Urban Moving Systems - a fake moving company that had been in and out of the WTC towers three weeks prior to September 11th. Were they a front for the Mossad whose agents posed as art students? No way!

This in no way implicates Israel in the attacks. After all, we know the anthrax was stolen by a Zionist Jew former worker (fired for being racist) from a fort in Maryland who was caught on tape entering the lab where the anthrax was scientifically proven to have come from. The fabricated tape of dancing Palestinians and the content of the anthrax letters was pure coincidence. As were the drills of the exact same event as 911 being done the morning of 911 which in no way could act as a cover should things go sour. And the MSM running the unscreened bogus tapes about Palestine on the evening of 9/11 was nothing like their stupid reports on people wearing yellow stars in Iran or the Straits of Hormuz event. Oh wait. Yes it was. (P.S. RFK was also killed by a Palestinian and not the CIA; likewise his brother JFK was shot by a lone gunman with a magic bullet that could change direction in mid-air and even cause the president's brain to go "missing" the way Dov S. Zakheim "disappeared" 2.3 trillion dollars from the Pentagon's bank account. But it's not like Dov S. Zakheim was the investigator for the 1993 WTC attacks... ha ha ha... oh wait a miniute, yes he was!

Dov S. Zakheim, Bush-appointed Pentagon financial comptroller from 2001-2004 under whose watch USD2.3 trillion disappeared. Zakheim also heads a research corporation called SPC International which holds the patent for Raytheon's Global Hawk remote controlled flight system. In 1993 Zakheim's firm Tridata took over management of the WTC security system. Zakheim is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and worked on the Project for the New American Century which advocates the necessity for a Pearl Harbor-type "incident" to mobilize the country into war with its enemies, mostly Middle Eastern Muslim nations. Intriguing, eh?

The Israelis caught dancing on the scene who had 5k stuffed in a sock and drove a van that got a hit from bomb-sniffing dogs, who just so happened to work for the Mossad (and were filming the entire event because their ESP powers had informed them something spectacular was about to happen) were then released by the FBI run by a dual citizen Zionist named Michael Chertoff whose cousin works for Popular Mechanics and was part of the 911 cover-up. But that is all just a big co-winky-dink. Happens all the time you know.

I often drive around downtown New York with a few grand stuffed in a sock in a vehicle with explosive residue and set up my camera to film terrorist attacks I have a hunch are about to happen; and then I dance like it's the greatest moment of my life. This is typical behavior, especially for people in covert intelligence agencies. Nothing fishy about that.

They are innocent. It was not the guys in New York filming the event and celebrating, who just happened to work for an intelligence agency known for false flags. It was the dancing children in Palestine who did the attack. I mean, which is more plausible? Come on. Israel can't do anything wrong plus "it was on Fox News." Plus all the evidence linking the Israelis to the attack is "classified." "Classified" is another powerful magic word. It means do whatever the hell you want and obstruct any attempt to investigate properly.

Later a pre-written 300-plus page bill was introduced by another Israeli dual citizen and got passed without even being read and then a new department called Homeland Security was created and the head honcho turned out to be the same guy who released the busted Mossad agents. Ha ha... pure synchronicity, you know.


Cheney, who ordered NORAD to stand down, was NOT rewarded by a 3000% increase in the value of Halliburton stock. His wife, the president of Lockheed, did not notice that Lockheed won the largest war contracts in the history of the world. Cheney was not paid off or rewarded in any way, because that would cause unnecessary suspicion. Oh, and there were also no 'put' options on that day or the week prior. And President Bush's brother, Marvin, was not the CEO of the insurance firm that sold a multi-billion-dollar policy to Larry Silverstein, who leased WTC a few months before September 11th. I mean, how would all that look?! Oh wait. If it is not on ABCNNBCBSFOX then it can't possibly exist. In the immortal words of New Age Guru Karl Rove: "We create our own reality."

[First posted 24 June 2008]

NO IMAGE EVER GOES TO WASTE... (expanded)

Nik Aziz loyalists watch in horror as Nasharudin Mat Isa 
returns after a night out with Najib.

Two who never found their way home from the PAS-UMNO unity talks.

The Erdogan Pussycat snug in the bosom of Sisters in Islam...

WARNING TO OWNERS OF CLAMSHELL CELLPHONES...
UNSUPERVISED USE CAN CAUSE IMPOTENCE!

Bottom-sniffers of the world, unite!

Another Kodiak moment.

Age-old question: is there humor in music?

In Michael Leunig We Trust...

Post begins with a pee.

How Vincent lost an ear.

Inspired Godzilla tat

Shooting ourselves in the foot (over and over again)...

Biro Tatanegara (or the National Indoctrination Bureau) was established in 1974 during Tun Razak's tenure. But it took around ten years to evolve into the sinister operation that has been getting a load of negative publicity in recent days.

The fact that BTN is an adjunct of the Prime Minister's Department makes it a convenient mechanism for the systematic dissemination of the official doctrine throughout the rank and file of the civil and diplomatic services. BTN also ensures that the academic bureaucracy adheres to Umno's official doctrine of Ketuanan Melayu and loyalty to the government.

Some who have been processed through the BTN experience and survived with their minds intact and independent report that the BTN's agenda is insidiously racist and deliberately divisive. Unthinking conformity is what the Biro Tatanegara is really all about.

The desire to imprint the rulers' ideology on all subjects is a hallmark of every patriarchal society. After all, the words "pattern" and "paternal" share the same etymology, namely, issuing from the Pater or Father.

And isn't it true that every Father wants his children to be, above all, obedient? The Old Testament - specifically, Genesis - portrays disobedience as the Original Sin.

Fast-forward to the Digital Era where being at the cutting edge requires thinking out of the box, an adventurous and innovative spirit, and a willingness to break the rules.

Where do our BTN graduates stand in the 21st century world of instant communications and nanotech? You can invest billions in an artificial city called Cyberjaya - but, unless you import all the talent, you're not going to find many innovators emerging from local institutes of learning.


In the first place, genuflecting before your social superiors is hardly conducive to nurturing creative genius. Don't forget Tuan is a contraction of Tuhan - and a culture that compels an individual to submit to God will always extend that compulsion to submitting before God's representatives on Earth, namely the Monarchs.

Talented and inspired brainiacs like Elon Musk, Brian Acton and Jan Koum (who developed PayPal and WhatsApp) aren't the type who can handle too much protocol - unless you're referring to computer protocols.

Indeed, a distinguishing feature of cybernetic wizards is their disdain for red-tape and formality. Imagine the fun the pioneers of IT had naming everything from scratch. How did they come up with "mouse" for the device with which you navigate the screen? Or a name like Yahoo! for an all-purpose portal?

Let's say you're the Sultan of Selangor and you're accustomed to being addressed formally as Duli Yang Maha Mulia Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah Al-Haj ibni Almarhum Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Al-Haj (best to leave out the interminable list of honorary titles).


So what happens when the Sultan becomes IT savvy and buys himself a Macbook? He's going to be using email and you can't possibly have such an unwieldy name in your email address. He could shorten it to sultan_idris@istana-selangor.my or perhaps even idris@istana-selangor.my - and in so doing he would be dispensing with cumbersome formality. In all probability, he would write in normal language when sending emails to his buddies, instead of adhering to traditional court language. Indeed, if he were to try his hand at internet chat, he'd probably want to conceal his royal status with a funky nick like "nicerichboy" or "hrh1."

This is what happens when human consciousness shifts from analog to digital mode. Traditionalists may scorn the way kids today have murdered language by coming up with SMS terms like :-) or LOL or 2moro or CU. But you have to admit there's a certain appeal in adopting newfangled computer symbols like @ or signing off with an ASCII heart, thus: <3 - and, as these new memes spread like some species of computer virus, the near-lightspeed movement of binary codes and pixels across the planet's fiber-optic highways swiftly creates a far more egalitarian social template than any theory of human evolution could ever have predicted. That's why I always ROTFLMAO whenever I hear potato-headed politicians like the education and communications ministers urging Malaysians to be "more innovative" and to prepare themselves for the rapid shift to "a knowledge-based economy."

You guys wouldn't recognize a creative genius even if one snuck up and poked you playfully in the butt. I bet you didn't realize a lot of creative geniuses look just like that troublemaker Namewee @ Wee Meng Chee whose citizenship you once wanted to revoke because he "insulted" the national anthem (as though a song could possibly be offended by some 23-year-old rapper doing an off-the-wall cover version of it).

Well, if that's what you really want, you're really gonna regret it when you finally get it, Messrs Muhyiddin and Mail. Do you know why? Because no creative genius will give a fuck how much you paid for your designer silk batik ties nor will they be too impressed by all the guff that issues from your political mouths. Keep the population dumb and conformist with your goddam BTN, if you wish to enjoy your VVIP status and your ridiculous robber baron perks. But don't you dare lament the fact that Malaysia has been left way behind every other country.

Up till now you've had it good siphoning off our collective wealth with all the natural resources the land has produced - and things got even sexier when oil was found off our coast. However, some say the oil reserves will be depleted within a few years - and then how are you going to maintain your extravagant lifestyle? Revert to piracy and slave-trading?

[First published 28 November 2009, reposted 26 May 2012]