The Durian Apocalypse

Ghost Town

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Eddie

[dc]A[/dc]nd if this isn’t the trippiest, freakiest, weirdest, wackest, most tantalising, most spookiest, most stone-cold compelling spectacle you have every laid eyes, then, truly do I bow down to your dimpled ass in mute admiration, because you are the party animal of all fucking times.

It’s like I been saying: the monthlong Hungry Ghost Festival started off with a bang, but then after a week or so, went into hibernation. I thought they’d wrapped it up and tied the bow, and (truth be told) was a bit disappointed. But then, middle of last week, buncha flags started appearing everywhere, so I figured something must be brewing.

Next thing you know, all the streets are clogged with cherry-pickers crawling around erecting huge tents all over town — into which are being built gigantic shrines loaded with offerings…

…and effigies…

…and castle walls…

… and big, scary demon-dudes where the Buddhas should be.

I think the latter are going to be put to the torch at midnight on the twenty-fourth. We all know the Chinese invented fireworks (which they’ve been blowing off every night this week, even during the middle of soak-ass rainstorms), but it’s not only that – they love to burn anything and everything they can get their hands on.

From incense, to candles, to huge Joss Sticks and massive bonfires…

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…to big mounds of tickertape right out in the middle of the street – POOF! – it’s fucking up in smoke in the blink of your one good eye.

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The night-time Chinese Opera performances have returned, too.

Heh, I surely cannot be the only human person to have immediately, upon seeing that backdrop, begun singing…

It was a cold night
And the snow lay ’round
I pulled my coat tight
Against the falling down
And the sun was all
And the sun was all down
And the sun was all
And the sun was all down

There was some Puppet Theatre as well, but the only one I saw was over on Carnarvon — a pretty noisy motor-traffic street in that area — so I didn’t stick around long. Now, there’s even been a stage set up about forty paces from my hotel. Here we’re being treated to Chinese Pop singers of both the male and female stripe. These performances are all going on nightly at multiple locations throughout the city.

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And as for the purification ritual (or whatever it was) with which I opened this despatch…

I can’t stop thinking about it. Just stumbled upon it, wandering around at night, and not even 1,000% sure it was related to the Hungry Ghosts – though of course I assume it was. Don’t really know what to say about it, apart from: it’s maybe the trippiest, freakiest, weirdest, wackest, most tantalising, most spookiest, most stone-cold compelling spectacle I have every laid eyes.

Jesus, what can you say about the Chinese and their crazy festivals? It’s an overused, worn-out, washed-up turn of phrase – but let me borrow it anyhow: If the Chinese had never existed, we’d have had to goddam invent them. Actually, considering how variegated and sustained this festival, I might even say it’s been more entertaining than the Bangkok Chinese New Year – and there are still about ten days to go. Here’s a clip from last night – dig those groovy dance moves!

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[dc]S[/dc]o far as the GTF is concerned, the photography exhibits have mostly been late getting off the ground, but the other visual arts have been asswhack-crackerjack – although they’re flung out not only all around town, but all over the island. Here follow some of my favourite pieces (will be uploading many more to the Flickr page). But first, a delightful number from the second Konsert Kopitiam (held weekly throughout the fest – in re the spelling, “kopitiam” is Malay for “coffeeshop”, and Malaysian English very frequently replaces Cs and Xs with Ks…) – a band comprised of three Malays and a Chinaman, performing mid-century American Jazz and Country standards.

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From Project 9, a set of nine Basquiat-esque paintings, each inspired by a different poem.

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From Chinese Zodiac, a series combining each of the zodiac’s animals’ heads with human bodies illustrating each person’s sign’s predestinated character traits.

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From the Balik Pulau Art Society’s group exhibition.

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From Boria: A Passage Through Time, a historical display of Penang’s parody theater scene. I’m such a sucker for those old-time photos!

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From Mission Blue, an eye-popping three-artist show dedicated to Indigo.

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From Trading To Extinction, an expose of animal trafficking from photographer Patrick Brown. I don’t quite agree with his analysis, and the show is very depressing — but there are some incredible-looking shots.

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From Tuko Iho, an exhibition of Maori carving and weaving works. My Promise to you: You can always count on Durian Apocalypse to bring you the finest in aboriginal NSFW figurines. (Where’s fuckin’ Jesse Helms when you need him?)

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This show is set on the USM campus, about an hour’s bus ride out of town. Not only was it well worth the trip, but the campus mosque has got a magnificent prayer call. Can’t say that it’s as wrenching as the Kapitan Keling mosque’s, but it’s certainly quite wonderful in its own way.

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From Homecoming, by artist Christine Das (another long-but-worth-it bus-ride required for this show). Born and raised up in Penang, she went away and got famous, and has returned home with this spectacular solo show. These pieces are quite large — you can’t believe how amazing they look in person.

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From a side-wing of Fall Into The Sea, a multi-artist mixed-media meditation upon life on an island. Pretty sure these side-pieces were not part of the show; in fact, I think they may actually have all been done by children…

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So you can see that the island’s got talent in spades. But, as usual, the most jaw-dropping artist of them all turns out to be Mother Nature herself. Have a pleasant tomorrow, y’all!

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Project: Penang

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Eddie

There’s so much crack-a-lack jammed into the GTF schedule – music, theatre, film, visual arts, lectures, dance – it’s making this poor li’l white boy’s head spin attempting to get to as much of it as possible. There’s more coming, too, as the photography festival is set to open to-day. And the Hungry Ghost Festival, which had lain dormant for a week or so, has suddenly leapt vigorously back to life.

Big fat props to the Festival programmers. I’m pretty sure that blogging about it all will be impossible, but I am getting ‘round to dumping lots of photos onto the Flickr page – if interested, see the 2014 GTF and Malaysia 2014 sets. Here’s a little sneak-preview of the Hungry Ghosts action:

Much more, hopefully, to say about that, but it’ll needs must wait for future bloggings. To-day we want instead to discuss about a fun-assed workshop which caused attendees (there were eleven of us, I think) to put the brakes on the consuming side and throttle up the creating side – if only for a day.

Held in conjunction with the Ismail Hashim exhibition — about which I enthused before now – Sunday’s daylong event had us studying and creating photographic typologies, as these were an especial hallmark of Hashim’s work. A typology is a collage work comprised of a multitude of variations upon a type, all presented in similar style. There’s a big one in the post linked just above, and here’s another – probably his most famous — from the George Town daily’s write-up for the exhibit.

We looked at a few from Hashim’s work, and several more from some other cats, and then the instructor – a transplant from KL who’s one of the exhibition’s principals – set us loose upon George Town to pick a topic and fire away.

Had it been a few weeks ago, then I would (natch) have chosen to typologise the King Of Fruit. That door’s having been closed, I next thought to try for peeps with cigarettes dangling from their mouths. George Town has got to be the cigarette mouth-dangling capital of all known universes – but even so, I didn’t think I’d be able to find between twenty and fifty of them in just a few hours’ time. So, I turned to motorcycle helmets.

No, my disgust/revulsion of and blood-curdling enmity for the motorcycle has not abated. But nor has my fascination with these despicable machines’ drivers, whose marvelously inscrutable faces seem to each be hiding one-thousand-and-one stories. So too their headgear, which is worn in every colour of the rainbow, any shape imaginable, and of all materials under the sun. Pretty sure I’ve even seen somebody using an upside-down colander, for fuck’s sake. And of course, they’re everywhere – so I wouldn’t want for material.

It took a little while to figure out the optimum zoom length – trading better resolution in the narrower shots for ease of obtaining focus on objects in motion in the wider. I deleted scads of shots that looked a little something like the following.

The easiest of all, of course, were when the objects were not in motion… I was more less trying to get a front-profile angle which would show both the drivers’ faces and the helmets’ shapes and sizes. Once I got warmed up, the shots started to fall into place more and more easily.

Before I knew it, I’d been shooting motorcycle helmets for a couple hours straight – the camera had never, in all its born days, been remotely so hot to the touch as it was now. We’d been instructed to take lunch on our own recognizances, so I figured I’d grab a bite to eat, pop into my room and crop out the pics I already had, then go out and shoot some more.

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Though the season officially ends on July 31st, there are still a few vendors selling island-grown Durian. Including, there’s one guy who just piles them all into the back seat of his sedan — so hilarious to see — and to stock up his stall goes and grabs them a few at a time between customers. I’d had some disappointing fruits from him earlier in the season, so despite he’s a very nice guy, had shied away from him since. But in the last few weeks or so, I’ve been availing myself of his services again, and have been doubly impressed.

And now, following the latest ace up his sleeves, my socks have taken a permanent vacation. Funnily enough, he was trying to push upon my dimpled ass a different fruit. This one, though, with its curious and intriguing shape and its mildly intoxicating aroma, was calling my name. Sometimes, a son of a bitch just knows that he’s in the presence of a life-shattering Durian. So I stuck to my guns, and fifteen Ringgit later, I was in possession of one of the finest Durians of my life. Two weeks after the supposed end of the season, too! Fucking god how I love Penang.

Don’t know why I’m weeping the more – because the pictures almost let me taste it again…or because they don’t quite. Its taste can best be described, I think, as “vaguely mapley-syrupy”. That’s a new one for me; perhaps this is what people mean when they speak of caramel-tasting Durian? The seeds are still here in my room; smell so heavenly, I can’t bear to throw them out. Lordy, but I shan’t ever forget this one. Now I just need to try to find out what the fuck variety it was…

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But, anyhow, I was liking what I was seeing from the photos. By the time I’d finished cropping them all, however, it was already 2:00 in the PM – and we were supposed to meet back up at about 2:30 to edit the pics into collage format and then share them with the class.

My first time employing a collage-creation utility, so there was a bit of a learning curve. But, ultimately, it proved the easiest part of the process. Here’s the image I submitted. All of these were taken during that initial two-hour burst — with the exception of the one of the little girl, which was taken a few weeks back, in Little India (I wanted to get at least one shot of a little kid, but was foiled during my few attempts yesterday at bringing one into focus).

We learnt, during the editing time, that all of the finished images will be housed on the exhibition’s website – as well as printed out and included in the exhibition itself (be still our hearts!). Each and all of the other workshop attendees turned in an absolutely thrilling piece of work. I’ve got my favourites among them, of course, but every single one o’ them is totally beautiful — so make sure, after they’ve been uploaded, to go and have a look-see.

The instructor showed me some cool de-saturation effects slapped onto my collage (my knowledge of image-processing software is basically zilch – but I’m becoming more intrigued the more I actually play around with it). These make the image look more like something Hashim would have produced, so I’m probably going to submit a de-saturated copy to show inside the exhibit.

Meanwhile, here’s a third version, the ultra-collage – more helmets that you could shake a stick. My initial “final cut” of images that I quite liked turned out to include ninety-some-odd pics. As we were supposed to use between twenty and fifty images for the final product, I further cut it down to seventy-three, which is a few as I could stand to use. So here are all of those initial favoured images, plus some that I thought weren’t quite the correct angle, and a few that were a bit too blurry, and yet some more that I snapped after the workshop had finished. This is it, the two hundred thirty-six helmet collage – all save the one of the little girl, mentioned earlier, and one right next to her of the lady with the visor only, taken on the same day.

Update: Even more photos taken since the above was written. Check it all out at “City Of Helmets“.

I’ve uploaded full-sized copies of both collages; so make sure to click onto them, zoom in full, and have a gander at the multitude of fascinating faces — for therein lies the true beating heart of the magicus that is Penang.

By the way, though I generally prefer to shoot in black-and-white or sepia, I thought that as there are so many different colours of helmet on display, I should oughta use colour images for this project. Turns out, though, that my favourite of all was the one black-and-white shot I used – thus, I opted to put that one in the collage template’s “feature” slot.

Finally, I note that, looking at the uncropped pictures, a lot of them are very cool – one of the particularly miraculous features of photography, I think: the unnoticed-during-composition details occurring on the margins of the finished image. I’ve uploaded all of the viable uncropped images to the Flickr page (for what it’s worth, I had to shrink ‘em down pretty good ‘cause there are so many of them and my Internet connection is so slow) – including a bunch whose helmets didn’t get included in any of the collages, either owing to blurriness or to them being duplicates of a driver from whom I used a different shot. Lots of the unused ones, also, were taken in the gloaming, so it was impossible to get a clear enough blow-up, even using the camera’s highest resolution setting – too bad, as the subjects in most of these are very interesting indeed. (Some of these I would love to see in black-and-white — but for now, at least, no time to get to that particular project…)

Here are some of my faves. Super-huge thanks to Meng and Pein, the instructor and one of the project’s coordinators respectively, for a great fun and hugely interesting day’s play. And, as always, thanks to Penang for being Penang – one of a kind. (And lest we forget: thanks to my wonderful little pocket camera, which after lo these four years of abuse, mismanagement, and stupid obsessions, still keeps spitting out one beautiful image after t’other!)

Oh, and a big, fat, huge n.b.: If you can make it to George Town by the end of this month to take in this Hashim exhibit, then by all means do so. If not, though, mark your calendars for February, when it will be re-opened, in expanded form, in KL. Hashim was a major talent whose body of work is of inestimable value. Having been exposed to it up close, you’ll forever be haunted by his indelible imagery. To stay in the loop, follow Fergana Art.

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Last Rites

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Eddie

I scooted and slithered one final time to Bao Sheng’s, where to-day we laid the Durian Season mournfully to rest. Well, I was to find out, nobody else is marking the occasion with sorrow.

To begin with, two Malay gentlemen happily bade my dimpled ass a fine morning as they cycled past – me only to find them, up around yon bend, just settling in at a roadside stall. When they heard of my objective for the day, it was off to the races they went, learning me good – as is the sacred charge of all red-blooded Penangites – the One Truth of the Penang Durian (viz., don’t bother looking anywhere else, because you’ve found, here, the best in the world that there is — or words to that effect). The one dude was so enthused, he never even bothered to remove his helmet and goggles; the other kept begging him, “First we eat, then we talk.”

When I remarked of the sadness with which I observe the end of the Season, they looked at me as though they thought I were a little bit retarded. But they nevertheless shared with me some of their Ganja (making the obligatory drug reference along the way), which was quite good.

The walk to the farm was the best yet. Beautifully resplendent were the flora…

…and there was practically zero traffic whatsoever.

I expected to find some Fruit Peeps with whom to share my Last Supper, but they’d all flown the coop. It was only myself and six or seven walk-ins scattered throughout the day. Which, turned out, was almost too many people, such was the ænemity of the Morning Harvest – only half a bin’s worth of the good stuff.

Durian Seng and Durian, Jr. quickly sorted them out, finding no Level 3 Aegis. So I paid for the Level 2 Day Pass, and – surprise!, surprise! – we ended up with two full-on Numb fruits (both Kampungs), and one or two less-pronounced Numb fruits. Not at all a bad pull for such a small sample. Elated, I ponied up some extra Ringgit – don’t ask me how many I’ve added to his fanny-pack this season, ’cause I don’t even want to know — and scarfed them on down.

Durian Seng was loquacious as always; and, of course, his font runneth over with rivulets of Durianical wisdom. But every time I tried to steer the conversation toward the King Of Fruit, he brought the prow back around to bigger-picture items: Organic farming, building a community, and Fruitarianism. Though he is not yet in practice fully on board, he loves the Fruit People – not only ’cause he’s philosophically down, but also because it is we who appreciate his works the most. He says 90% of his customers just want to try some Musang King and then split, while the Fruit People are there to listen, learn, and explore – this, of course, is the very reason his farm exists in its current form.

At last I queried whether the people of Penang, when the Durian are not in season, just mope around in a Durianless stupor all the day long? Durian Seng and two other guests just laughed and laughed, explaining that Penang being the Food Capital of the World, they wouldn’t even notice its absence. I suppose the Thais might have something to say about the assertion, so casually advanced, of World Food Supremacy. But be that as it may, his point stands: There’s much more than Durian to the gustatory life of your average Penanger — who will gladly, for example, wait on line for an hour just to get a plate of noodles from a favoured vendor.

Well, if nobody else gives a rat’s hind quarter, at least let me have a good cry, ain’t it?

Goodbye Capri
Goodbye Kun Poh
Goodbye Ang Bak Kia, Ganja, and Hor Lor
O Green Skin and Red Prawn, I bid you good bye
Please come back next year
And ’til then farewell

Durian Seng says the name is to do with trees: If we treat them right, they will honour us with all of the glories that Mother Nature has to offer. I wanted to bid adieu to Bao Sheng, as well — but when I emerged from the pisser, all the guests had gone, Durian, Jr. and Mrs. Durian were mucking about in town, and Durian Seng…well, after three solid months bringing in the harvest and Preaching dat Gospel, even Durianmasters can find themselves all tuckered out.

Thank you, Mr. Chang, for your creativity and vision; for offering to our woeful world this most treasured of spaces, the Bao Sheng Durian Farm.

As if to prove his point that Penang won’t miss its Durian not a whit, the denizens of Balik Pulau were nothing like their usual reserved selves. Quite the opposite, in fact: Popping wheelies in front me, smiling, honking, waving, saying hello, and offering me rides in they vehicle. And that was just on the walk into town. In Balik Pulau itself, the phenomenon was so well heightened, I was sure that a laugh-gas-powered dirigible must have recently exploded in the general direction.

I mark it down to the conclusion of Ramadan – unlike George Town, whose demographic pie is more less equally shared by Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and others, Balik Pulau is decidedly Muslim-orientated (though there is one Hindu temple in town). However you figure to slice it, the good people of Balik Pulau are, of this Tuesday eve, gay as a lark at wing.

By the way, I seen two traffic incidents to-day. Well, I didn’t actually see either one, but bore witness first, on the bus to Teluk Bahang, to a man who’d spilt his motorcycle. Lying on the ground, being attended to by a friend or passerby, he seemed rather agitated, gesticulating to and fro’.

Secondly, walking toward Balik Pulau, a rooster emerged from its yard, let out a mighty cock-a-doodle, walked behind me and, yes, crossed the road. A few seconds later, hearing a loud, hollow thump, I turned expecting to see that a motor-car had struck a cardboard box, or something — instead, the rooster was there struggling in the middle of the road. A second car managed to avoid squishing it, and it then got up and ran/flew back across the road, very narrowly avoiding being hit by another motor coming fast the other direction, and, running with a noticeable limp, made it safely back home.

No idea how it survived, nor even whether it survived. And as for the proverbial question: Why the Hell did that chicken cross the road? Had a fucking deathwish, is the only thing I can figure. Let’s be careful out there friends and feathered folk — looks like the roads are going to be a bugger this week.

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The Gopher Hole And The Damage Done

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Eddie

And if you think that “Hot Puthu” sounds more like a medical condition than it does an Indian delicacy…well, shows to go you, you can’t win ‘em all.

See, if Penang’s Upper Crust had its wits about it, it’d hire my dimpled ass, tout de fuckin’ suite, to head up the Welcome Wagon Dept.. Nobody loves this place more than I do. Every day, every hour, it astounds me anew. Let’s take a stroll around town, shall we, and see what we may see…

Hotelier: Every day, I put it [pens in a drawer] properly, and then they [the staff] come and throw it like that!

Me: [Laughing.]

Hotelier: Every day the same way!

Me: [Laughing.]

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The streets around the Kapitan Keling were very quiet on the night of the holiday – much like Christmas morning. This, coupled with the twinkling Star Lanterns hung for the occasion…

…and the ionic charge lingering in the atmosphere following the earlier thunderstorms – the first significant precipitation in many, many a day – made that evening’s prayer call even more remarkably affecting than usual. Cannot recall whether, two years ago, I passed along a clip of the Muslim prayer calls? Even if so, it’s worth showing again. If listening this doesn’t simultaneously rip your heart out and leave you gasping for air…

Moreover, the Kapitan Keling Mosque’s calls end a half-minute or so earlier than other mosques’ in the general vicinity; hearing the echoes from the latter, hanging faintly in the air like a lingering mist, deepens the effect even the more. Five times a day, every day; it’s like as though all the drama in Shakespeare’s entire oeuvre were distilled into three minutes of pure, haunted emotion. Incroyable.

As much as religion is such transparent bullshit, the undeniable artistry which religious faith evokes does make one wonder… Guess you could say it instills into the mind a kind of macabre dilemma: Given that the only two means by which to reach the pinnacle of human artistic/creative endeavour are to get religion or to get a smack habit, which would you choose? Personally, I think I’d go with the Heroin; I figure a chemical addiction would probably be easier to shake than religious indoctrination. But, I suppose there is no right answer here (except, of course, to not become an artist – but that’s the easy way out).

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Kind of have it in the back of my mind that it would be fun to make some interviews with island residents. My first three choices for subjects would be: Durian Seng (natch), the dude who does Kapitan Keling’s prayer call, and the family that runs that beautiful and compelling Pork store over on Jalan Penang. In case you’ve forgotten the one I mean, here are a few whistle-wetting shots from the most terrifying place on the island…Penang’s true Heart Of Darkness.

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But, yeah, you think you know a place; you think you’ve walked by it a thousand times without seeing anything amiss. And then, one day, blammo!, it hits you…

Actually, though, this would make a great album-cover, would it not? The “typo” on the British Pound merely serves to make it more awesome. Only thing is, it’s the wrong aspect ratio, so the record’d need to be sold in a Longbox – hopefully there are still some blank ones laying around somewhere. Now all we need is a band to name itself “The Spicemen” and to record and release an album called Money Changer — which is what the Chinese characters on top denote. Can’t lose, because even if the record is shite, it’s automatically in the great album covers of all time. (I’d say top fifty on merits – but then the Longbox gimmick pegs it up into the top twenty-five, easy.)

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Finally visited this one big-deal Thai temple – it’s got the third-biggest Reclining Buddha in all of Asia – a ways outside of town. It’s a major tourist draw, but somehow I had never been. It’s kind of too far to walk when it’s as hot as it’s been, but also too near to take the bus without feeling like a schmuck for not having walked.

Anyhow, the Buddha was very stupid. Yeah, it’s big…

…but I hate those Buddhas that look like they were drawn by some Saturday Morning cartoon-ist.

Oh, well. Some of the artwork around the temple was cool, though.

But best of all was the signage, including these two Hellerian (is that a word?) notices placed right next to each other:

And the Notice and Invitation are worth a chortle or three – maybe even four or five.

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Aaaand the GTF is off and running. Gonna try to make it to all of the exhibitions and installations, but there’s a lot packed in to its monthlong schedule. Here’s the first, over at Fort Cornwallis, of all places.

Yep, that’s the whole thing. Hey, nobody said they were gonna all be world-beaters. The second – featuring among its pieces the work of a couple of Chinese Exchange students — was more substantial, making use of painting, photography, muralism, and 3-D action.

Gonna be a good month, even if it’s rather gnawing to be unable to afford to attend more than one or two of the ticketed events.

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Here’re a few more clips from the Hungry Ghost performances. This dude’s one-legged walk is fucking impressive. Guess I was wrong about the performances lasting all month, however. Though a lot of the shrines remain, all the stages have been taken back down again. How shall now be accomplished the appeasing of the ghosts? Don’t know!

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It’s A George Town Throw Down, Y’all!

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Eddie

[dc]T[/dc]hough the GTF doesn’t officially get underway ’til Friday, the city is already exploding with activity. Almost literally so, in fact: the Muslims have for several days been lighting off fireworks ’round-the-clock in advance of the end of Ramadan (I believe that to-day was the last day of fasting); and in the Chinese areas, the streets are ablaze…

…in observance of the just-begun Hungry Ghost Festival. Here’s a amusing explanation of the latter:

Well, the gates of Hell are about to break open and hordes of demons will need to be appeased with song, dance, and food for the seventh month of the Chinese Lunar calendar. Yes, it is the Hungry Ghost Festival, widely observed (celebrated) here in Penang, Malaysia. This year (2014) the festival starts on the 27^th of July and will run for a whole lunar month, ’til the next full moon on the 24^th of August. […]

The story is that the gates of hell open up for the souls of Chinese ancestors to come to earth to wander, to bother, and to eat. The living honor the dead — and appease them — by burning joss-paper and papier-mâché material goods, like houses and clothes.

Chinese opera stages are set up and loud performances run through the night for the hungry ghosts. For many a foreigner trying to sleep near these monstrosities, this highlights the Hell-on-earth aspect of the festival.

Don’t know how often the two holidays collide like this – about every quarter-century, at a guess. But, man, being in a town when it does – there’s so much co-commotion, it’s like your team just won the goddam Superbowl, or something. (Wait, my team did just win the goddam Superbowl, or something…)

As always seems to be the case with these big Chinese parties, they’re balls-to-the-wall over this thing. I mean, see how extravagant these “makeshift” structures – and I’ve lost count of how many of them are popping up all over town – are:

The performances are, to my way of thinking, unbelievably elaborate — there’s also a live band in the wings, and there are hammocks strung up beneath the stages for the performers to hang out in during the day — considering that they play to about a dozen people at any given time. If I understand correctly, they run continuously from dusk until dawn every day for the entire month!

The costumes and staging are deuce impressive…

…though you’d think they’d realise that placing a loud ‘n’ stinky generator ten paces away from the stage detracts from the ambiance (to say the least). But, actually, maybe not.

Recently, I have learnt a new terminology (though the concept is basic enough): “Ceaseless Immersion”. The premise is that when one lives all one’s life in conditions which an outsider would find unbearable, one does not even notice it. But also: after about six months’ time, the outsider too becomes “ceaselessly inured” (to, I think, coin a phrase), and fails to notice the offending conditions any more either.

I can flat guarantee you that no amount of time would ever suffice to inure me to the horrific din and stank that is the tyranny of the Asian cult of the motorcycle. But to the Asians themselves, it’s clearly not even in their book. Well, I guess in the interests of Science and all, I should go ’round asking people in the audiences if they notice the fumes and/or the roar emanating from the generator.

Anyhow, here’s a brief clip.

Dude on the left here was painting Chinese characters all across the top of this very lengthy and painstakingly stitched banner whilst his partner gave ’em the old quick-dry. Gotta love Chinese festival-times.

By the way, would you wait in a long line like this — during the baking-hot middle of the day, when the sun is in absolute Beast Mode, as it’s usually been of late – to get your picture taken with this mural?

This is one of those murals I told you about before, which were commissioned for the 2012 GTF. It’s not only the most popular, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it’s become the single most popular photo-op destination in all of Asia. The line’s longer than usual because of the holiday, but there’s always at least somebody getting their photo-op on, and almost always a waiting period. In case you’re wondering, most of the murals are in this style: the 2-D characters “interacting” with the 3-D object which has been permanently fixed into place.

Speaking of long lines, remember that Ice Kacang stall I put a clip of when I first got here? This one here…

Turns out, which I didn’t realise at the time, that Ice Kacang is one of the more sought-after of delicacies on the island; and when I walked by yesterday – the first day of the Festival – the line was incredibly long. Like, okay, not as long as for a big film premiere (or what), but long enough that some goofnut had taken it upon himself to go out and entertain the people there waiting. If you would wait on line to get your picture with the bicycle mural, would you wait forty-five minutes, in the same baking sun, for a bowl of ice cream?

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[dc]O[/dc]kay, meanwhile, the Japanese community were treated to an enormous fireworks display to call their own in conclusion of last weekend’s Bon Odori Festival.

Hang on, Penang has a Japanese community? First I’d heard tell. But I read or heard somewhere that it’s the biggest Bon Odori celebration outside of Japan – and the announced attendance was 50,000 souls! Who knew?

I swear, Seventeenth-/Eighteenth-Century Penang was just a right straight big/huge, enormously powerful magnet, sucking in all comers from throughout the Indian and South Pacific basins. Having put down roots, here they all now commingle, in this rather small space, as happily and heartily as a giant Banyan grove. It’s a beautiful thing.

I kept wondering how it is that more less every person on the island speaks at least a little bit of English? But just recently it struck me: Of course, it’s because there are so many different ethnicities all living together here that they need a mutually intelligible language to keep everything on the straight and narrow. Lucky for us tourists Penang’s dirty, nasty Colonial Overlords happened to have been of British persuasion…

They brought a troupe in from Japan to entertain the good people.

The performances were very good…

…but this group of Malaysian Japanese-language students nearly stole the show with their routines.

That’s some kind of intense language programme, if you gotta learn the dance grooves as well!

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[dc]S[/dc]o GTF has a little year-round weekly mini-fest, Occupy Beach Street, where a bunch of city blocks are closed off to traffic, and the people show up to do culture.

Yesterday’s had a pretty good band, whose songs are exclusively about life on this island.

Even better, though, some festival programming has already begun – including a fantastic career-spanning exhibition of one of Penang island’s most famous, photographer/graphic designer/illustrator/painter Ismail Hashim, who passed away last year.

His signature technique was hand-tinting his black-and-white photos with coloured inks.

The results were pretty great, I found out…

…and because the prints are unique, they fetch large sums. Even more stunning, for me, is a series of portraits all taken from behind and doctored-up with liquid paper (or something similar). Looks really incredible in person!

A few of many favourite images from the show are as follows. Need to get my dimpled ass back there to check out the reading materials and the coffee table book of his work…

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[dc]S[/dc]o you see, Penang is more than just Durian. Indeed, the King Of Fruit’s availability has taken a precipitous nosedive just in the last two or three days, and it’s kind of freaking me out. The season is ending right when they said it would, it appears – but I’ve never been here when Durian weren’t in season, and can’t imagine how people get by day-to-day when they’re not. I’d been hoping above hope that somehow the season could magically extend itself, but I can now see that my hopes/dreams were a fool’s paradise: the Durian season is going to end on shed-ule, and I’m going to be left here holding the bag.

But no! There is life after Durian. George Town right now is a massive heartbeat…

…aflutter with enough gloriously beauty-full mystery and wonder for a city ten times its size. It’ll always have my back, and by christ-child I’ll always have its — Durian season or no. GTF set to commence in four, three, two, one…

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