Vagabond’s Note: Street tango in Athens

(Published in The Malaysian Insider, 15 January 2012)

I realise with great consternation that travel is not about being a gawking tourist at historical destinations of the world.

I have since accepted that travel is less about ticking off the checkbox in my list of destinations than it is about collecting images of sun-kissed faces and pallid lips of locals at the foot of a mountain.

Travel, to me, is always about striking up odd conversations with equally odd strangers.

I have so far learned to accept certain acute situations: for instance, that half an inch is a perfectly comfortable margin between life and a horrific car accident in Istanbul’s traffic.

But reality, of course, is a slap in the face: you certainly are no Marco Polo when you insist on a decent toilet, a GPS device supported by cut-throat international roaming rates, and a hotel room equipped with a UNIFI-speed internet connection. Duh!

I awoke the sleeping traveller in me during one random train ride from Aberystwyth to Birmingham circa 1995. A boy had just broken my tender heart of 20. I couldn’t decide which was colder at the time: the menacing gales from the nearby Irish Sea, or my frozen heart.

The hüzün in my soul matched that of the grey, overcast Welsh sky — I was no longer the Skylar of his heart.

Disillusioned by the injustice of romance, I made a vow to never fall in love again (that has no bearing of truth whatsoever). I also swore off boys till the dawn of Apocalypse (this too is fiction), but I kept travelling whenever time and money were kind to me.

Fast forward to 16 years later: armed with a much healthier state of the heart and overrated guide books, here I was, half away to the top of the Acropolis, cursing the travel bug in me like a mad sailor.

Late autumn sun refuses to simmer the heat, the temperature lingers at 35 degree Celcius. And tackling the limestone steps of the Acropolis in hostile temperature is an affirmative way to premature cardiac arrest — especially to those who avoid exercising.

Still, no possibility of cardiac arrest could deter millions of visitors from ascending the Acropolis in search of, the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the virgin patron of Athens, the goddess Athena.

More than 2,400 years after its construction, the Parthenon still dominates the azure skyline of Athens above all other historical attractions.

This is Herod Atticus Odeon at the foot of the Acropolis. It was built by Herodes in memory of his wife, Regilla, who died in 160 AD.

The structure, originally painted in myriads of red, green and blue had survived until 1687, but it was reduced to ruins when the Venetians who were hiding from the Turkish invasion sparked an explosion.

Until today, the Parthenon is still undergoing massive restoration effort.

Next to the Parthenon, the Erechtheion stands proud with six draped female columns — Caryatid Porch (the porch of the maidens) — but there are only five left.

Lord Elgin of England had stolen the last column to decorate his Scottish mansion and later sold it the British Museum. Legend has it that at night, the five remaining caryatids could still be heard wailing for their lost sister.

And at this very same spot goddess Athena and Poseidon had fought for control of Athens. Poseidon struck his trident into the rock of Acropolis and salt water gushed out from the city of stone, whilst Athena offered olive tree. The Olympian gods had decided that Athena was the winner of the battle.

But no legendary anecdote could rival the view of the Parthenon from Lycabettus Hill at night or the electrifying ambience of Plaka Street.

Packed to the brim with tourists and locals selling all kinds of souvenirs imaginable — from brass Sparta helmets to hand woven fabrics — Plaka serves as the heartbeat of Athens where friendly Athenians can be seen smiling towards the boisterous tour groups. They don’t do the same at city center, Syntagma.

In a lifestyle that parallels to ancient democracy tradition, Athenians often gather at Syntagma Square to protest over austerity measures and the quality of life in Greece.

A quick chat with the book-cart owner down at Piraeus reveals that things are ‘generally hard’ around Athens: money is scarce, the number of tourists has dwindled in the wake of economic downturn and the euro currency crisis threatens to break Athenians asunder.

Apart from the five wailing sisters next to Parthenon and the gleaming edifice of the New Acropolis Museum (estimated to cost 130 million euro), my battered Moleskine has recorded plenty of hastily scribbled notes.

I get to squat at the spot where Socrates addressed his public and where democracy was subsequently born at the Agora. I could sense the palpable desperation of Plaka shop owners urging the visitors to buy something, anything at all.

I recall conversing in sign language with an elderly gypsy selling gorgeous white tablecloth — suffice to say the transaction did not go through due to a communication breakdown.

I remember sitting next to one Christian orthodox priest in Athens Metro only to snoop at what he was reading — he wasn’t very amused with me.

I laugh reading the scribble on page 45 of my notebook: “husband mad cos the sound of my shutter button awoken the sleeping homeless at National Garden.”

Until today, I still cannot comprehend the barrenness of The Temple of Olympian Zeus, too sterile and forgotten.

Not forgetting the hours I had wasted trying to decipher the graffiti on the walls of Syngtagma buildings.

The impossible fights I had had to endure with the husband trying to translate signboards written either in Greek or Latin to English.

That moment when I had to stifle my laugh looking at the pompom-decorated shoes of the guards in front of the Parliament, or to just stare lustfully at the gorgeous Greek god in an Armani suit, on a Vespa, along the cobblestone path of our hotel.

But above all, it was the street tango dance in Monastiraki Square that stole my heart in Athens. A few nights a week, in between the old mosque and the water fountain, Academia Del Tango held free tango lessons for all and sundry.

The sultry rhythm coupled with sexually inspired movements suffused the air throughout the night. Ah, tango is still the most vocal expression of chemistry between the bodies, espoused in language known only to the dancers.

The next day, I left Athina airport with that tango scene wildly playing in my mind. Till we meet again on my next note, hopefully from Istanbul.

* Elviza Michele Kamal loves the traditional maps but cannot resist the GPS.

Of Thomas Wolfe & Melissinos

Thomas Wolfe on writer’s vocation:

“For sleep was dead forever, the merciful, dark and sweet oblivions of childhood sleep.

The worm had entered at my heart, the worm lay coiled and feeding at my brain, my spirit, and my memory — I knew that finally I had been caught in my own fire, consumed by my own hungers, impaled on the hook of that furious and insensate desire than had absorbed my life for years.

I knew, in short, that one bright cell in the brain or heart or memory would now blaze on forever — by night, by day, through every waking, sleeping moment of my life, the worm would feed and the light be lit, — that no anodyne of food or drink, or friendship, travel, sport or woman could ever quench it, and that never more until death put its total and conclusive darkness upon my life, could I escape.

I knew at last I had become a writer: I knew at last what happens to a man who makes the writer’s life his own.”

But I woke up this morning to looming hearing dates, screaming clients, unanswered affidavits and 30 email messages. I stick to what the poet-sandal maker, Stavros Melissinos, said:

“A writer who does nothing but write is like the moon, which gives off some light, but borrowed from the sun. A writer needs first-hand experience, which only working in another field can give him. Otherwise he is rewriting what he has read in other books.”

Songlap: Penata Konflik Insani

(Published in Sinar Harian,  21 December 2011)

Revolusional, mantap, fenomenal, sarat emosi dan bersifat sebagai agen depresan.

Itu antara kosa kata pilihan saya untuk menggambarkan impak Songlap, filem terbaru arahan pasangan pengarah suami isteri, Effende Mazlan dan Fariza Azlina Isahak, terbitan Grand Brilliance dan Red Films Sdn. Bhd. untuk menutup tirai perfileman negara di tahun 2011.

Dalam genre drama berat, bertiraikan metropolis Kuala Lumpur, Effende dan Fariza telah menghalakan lensa kamera untuk menghuraikan jalan cerita paling kreatif sejak saya menjadi pemerhati industri filem tidak bergaji.

Sedikit sinopsis filem ini sekadar pelengkap ruang pemahaman:  dua adik beradik, Am (Shaheizy Sam) dan Ad (Syafie Naswip) bekerja sebagai budak suruhan dalam sindiket permedagangan bayi, milik Mama (Eliza Ong), yang bertanggungjawab menyediakan rumah sementara untuk ibu-ibu mengandung sehingga bayi mereka lahir dan sedia untuk dijual.

Setiap kali bayi yang dilengkapi dengan surat beranak palsu berjaya dijual, Am akan menerima komisyen yang langsung tidak berbaloi dengan risiko yang diambil. Lantaran mendorong Am untuk ‘menyonglap’ RM2,000 secara langsung dari pembeli bayi dalam setiap transaksi jualan – atas nama ikhtiar hidup.

Konflik timbul antara dua beradik apabila Ad tawar hati untuk terus terlibat dengan aktiviti permerdagangan haram; sementara sub-plot pula berkisar tentang Hawa, gadis malang dalam kancah sumbang mahram, yang sedang bertarung untuk bebas dari cengkaman yang sama.

Songlap jadi revolusional kerana pengarah berani bikin filem lain dari yang lain, lalu menjadikan Songlap sesuatu yang menyegarkan dalam industri di mana genre seram atas landasan amalan songsang, masih dominan.

Dan selagi kita masih bercakap tentang ikhtiar hidup, Songlap dengan berani telah memperbutirkan gejala sosial di Kuala Lumpur, menghuraikan apa yang gelap dan menakutkan di kota ini, bukan semata bangunan pencakar langit dan pusat menjana wang ringgit semata. Songlap juga beri peringatan bahawa orang-orang lorong, rata-rata tidak memilih jalan hidup begitu, selalunya mereka terhumban lantas harus belajar menongkah arus untuk terus hidup.

Atas platform sinematografi tahap hampir sempurna dan seni pemilihan scene yang amat deskriptif, Songlap telah menunjukkan satu dunia di mana garis yang membezakan antara hitam dan putih, dosa dan pahala, hak dan batil, jadi kabur dalam desakan hidup seharian. Pendek kata, dalam jalan cerita Songlap, tiada yang hitam atau putih, semuanya kelabu dan subjektif. Terpulang kepada penonton untuk membuat kesimpulan tersendiri.

Dan yang paling istimewa, buat saya sekurang-kurangnya, adalah mesej-mesej subliminal yang tersembunyi dalam setiap scene dan lontaran dialog. Untuk insan-insan tertindas dalam grup subculture seperti filem Songlap, luahan perasaan selalu terbantut, hanya ekspresi wajah yang mampu menzahirkan rasa sebenar.

Bertunjangkan ekspresi wajah pelakon yang mantap, Shaheizy Sam, mendahului aktor-aktor lain apabila beliau cemerlang dalam menghayati watak seorang abang yang sanggup mati untuk adiknya. Walaupun dia tidak sempurna – bertuhankan ringgit, judi dan mencari rezeki secara haram – Ad adalah dunia buat Am. Am rela mengambil risiko dikelar parang samseng sindiket, asalkan ubun-ubun Ad tidak disentuh. Shaheizy Sam, seperti juga Bront Palarae, dilahirkan untuk berlakon dan mencabar tahap keberkesanan seni lakonan untuk pelakon-pelakon kontemporari mereka.

Nama-nama seperti Normah Damanhuri, Fauzi Nawawi dan Omar Abdullah tidak memerlukan pengenalan terdahulu. Mereka itu, walau dihumban dengan watak apa sekalipun, tetap mampu jadi epik lagi tersendiri.

Songlap juga fenomenal sebagai penata konflik insani yang sering dikecam masyarakat. Filem ini menunjukkan apa yang ditermakan sebagai penyakit sosial, celupar menyelar sesetengah kita yang cepat membuat tanggapan negatif. Hati-hati kerikil dalam kancah pelacuran, penagihan dadah, pemerdagangan orang dan judi, juga punya rasa, cinta dan jiwa untuk jadi lebih baik.

Filem pertama arahan Effendi dan Fariza, Kami, sudah lama mencuri hati peminat filem yang dahagakan genre di luar lingkungan. Masih teringat betapa saratnya rasa tatkala menonton adegan dua sahabat yang sedang menahan rakan mereka, Abu, dari berjumpa sakaratul maut dalam kereta. Kini, derita menunggu filem susulan selepas Kami  sudah terubat dengan munculnya Songlap di layar perak.

Cerita ini bukan untuk pencari hiburan picisan; cerita ini juga tidak diselangi elemen-elemen melodrama terlampau; cerita ini untuk mereka yang memahami bahawa hidup bukan pelangi.

Teringat kata-kata Leo Tolstoy semasa membuka kata dalam novel Anna Karenina: “All happy families resemble each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

In Louboutin I trust

When in foreign places – in this case, a shop in KLCC – it is best to be adaptable. For instance, right now during Ferragamo’s year-end sale, I have come to accept that women move in amoeba-like pattern, in absolute ignorance of any queue system ever invented.

The moment the shoes of choice have graced the south of one young lady’s feet, sheer orgasm miraculously erupts on her face.

True to form, she now proceeds to the checkout counter with confidence level that rivaled of Sir Lancelot of Camelot, lashes out wads of cash to the grinning face of the cashier, then walks away happy.

In this capitalist world, it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to spend thousands of ringgit on two pairs of shoes. I perhaps would do the same, but for a pair of Christian Louboutin, not Ferragamo mind you.

Until the day I can afford a pair of Louboutin arrives, I remain a lowly dreamer.

Shoes or handbags – the price and label notwithstanding – have a bizarre if not cult effect on women.

I recall the day when I first got my heart broken, a boy had decided to replace me with a curly-haired girl with saucer-size eyes (curly hair? What the hell was he expecting? A Carrie Bradshaw look-alike on bad hair day?).

I was no longer the Skylar of his heart.  Boy, that was hard to swallow, my self-esteem took a plunge deeper than the Dead Sea.

But lo and behold, a quick visit to Warehouse boutique in London, gave me the much-needed respite from the torture my heart was suffering from. I grabbed five pairs of sky-high stilettos in hues of colors – simmering black, British royal green, blanched almond, light slate gray and pale turquoise – just for the heck of it.

Then I sat alone over three shots of espresso, sashaying my heels for all and sundry to see, at a coffee shop in downtown Bayswater. I didn’t get a new boyfriend that day, but the happiness I felt, though ephemeral in nature, was priceless.

I don’t blame the writer of Tea & Scones for not getting the equilibrium between women and shoes, but he best not mess with it. Writing a 700-word blog post on it, though in the name of setting the record straight, is a colossal waste of time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I shall head to another dangerous place for my money, called Kinokuniya. No, Louboutin has yet to open their signatures store in KL, for that I thank God.

p/s: Yan, what is the camera you think I should get to replace the Canon again? The name completely escaped me. Duh, I am old.

Letter to Phantom II

Dear Frank,

When I was a child, I had no inkling about life’s treacherous network of dark, foreboding tunnels, careless miscalculation and a hesitant pause. Even now at 36, a slip of tongue or wrong twist in a sentence could bead cold sweats on my forehead.

But the hesitation you feel in Coming Home is ridiculous, you were born with a pencil in your mouth, a piece of paper in your hand. A year of leaving your ardent fans in the cold is hardly polite, don’t you think?

I would recognise your sentences with my eyes shut, mind asleep.

Neighbourhood changes, Frank. People change too. But in pursuit of writing, you have always been my candle in the night.

This is the hardest letter I have to write, years without practice have killed the confidence. The typing labored, my hesitance apparent. I miss the day when I write for no one. No editors, no deadline, no one telling me what to do.

I would sit with you on a bench in a park without you asking me to, but what I want most is for us to write again just like our old days. Like Helene and Frank in 84 Charing Cross Road. Sadly we are not corresponding from London to New York, but I love KL and Umbai all the same.

What shall we talk about this evening, Frank?

Helene

Letter to Phantom

Dear Frank,

I miss your writing. It has been a year since you ditched the craft in favor of this new woman called ‘photography’.

Fine, you are rather good at the latter too, but who gives a shit? You are not going to make millions out of your sheer obsession with it (in writing you can have a glimmer of hope, I hope so).

You are wasting the talent away, Frank. What irks me most is the fact that this blog decided to die along with yours.

You took away all my passion to write – in English especially. Yeah, its lame but I don’t care.

This blog can die for all I care, but yours must live on. Tea & Scones needs to be resuscitated back to life: its casual tone, the spring breeze you blow every time you write. Winter has been here too long, Frank.

Do write again, I need the spring breeze.

Yours,

Helene Hanff