Careless Interpretation : The Diary of A Music-Junkie

Jakarta, 17 October ‘06 04:50 AM

It’s almost 3 months since I left berlin and I havent had the decent courtesy of giving the place the proper acknowledgment it deserves. Not least because it is by its own right a great city but more to its lasting influences on me long after I left it.
Berlin captures imagination. Like Aristoteles’ catharsis, it lifts up soul to higher ground. It feels right to live there, among those cozy streets and enchanting old buildings. There are visible things and invisible things. The visible things you tend to forget. The invisible lasts much much longer. The points below expound both one by one.

Transportation
Let’s start from what I considered to be most logical, most apparent, therefore most crucial to be explained the earliest: transportation.
Transportation is about mobility. Human is a mobile creature. It dislocates itself continually. Transportation, ever since human need no longer move on its own feet, only exists to support this basic character of human mobility. The better it is, the more mobile human becomes. The more mobile human becomes the more unimportant mobility becomes, and reciprocally, the more attention human can exert into work – increasing effectivity.
The thing about transportation is it is by itself only a support function. Like logistic, it doesn’t directly add value to any work we have done. But execution at the highest manner in this department is a competency that could well be a genuine source of income by itself. So to say, transportation is common to everyone. Everyone has the problem of transportation. But due to the increasingly tight competition nowadays that demands most problem to be handled with as much resources as possible, down came also the ability to spare much left resources for transportation. Meaning: time is increasingly very limited to accrue to such an ominous and non-value adding function like transportation. Meaning: people don’t have time to stuck in traffic jam or finding vacant spots for parking as much as they used to. Pressure to focus on work (which as apparent have also experience continually increasing degree of specialization) is vast. This tight demand for “as much resources as possible” for work is to fuel productivity, innovation, and cost-saving act which in larger order oftenly just to keep up with the competition in money making world like nowadays. World is tight, and resources are limited, and only people who could squeeze enough resources for the essential ones are the finish-liners. In this respect, the Germans, in this case the Berliners, have this problem quite figured out.
Prooving their age old winning tradition in transportation systems, Germans have set for themselves a record breaking set of minimum margin for time usages in transporting people from one place to the other. Their trains leave in rotation every several minutes, punctually. The transportation user interface is crystal clear, with a digital led display showing up in almost every train and bus station. The options are abundant, from underground train, trams, busses, overground train, etc and most importantly all are equally comfortable. The ticketing system allows total flexibility with numerous amount of type of tickets, either you want a ticket which is in 2 hours basis, 1 day, 3 days, or a week, or even monthly or yearly. All up to you and your most benefiting combination. Ticket check is a lenient, but inspiring, a combination of Germans societies’ plain ethical behavioral pressure and a multitude of random officer checks who enter the passenger chambers, mostly in busy hours. The punctuality needs to be mentioned again. So much punctuality involved in the process, I have come to think that Germans have already consider it just normal part of everyday life, something they took for granted. Planted by the cold and strict punctuality attitude of their forefathers, enjoyed in result by their subsequent generations. So definitive is their punctuality, Germans are known for exactly it. If punctuality is their motto,then their transportation system is their mascot – a true symbol of what it means to live punctual. In practice, what it means to live punctual discloses much more. It means the ability to target your departure and arrival time with little loss of accuracy. It means the ability to make an appointment and not be tentative about the time. It means the ability to arrange your whole day activity on the chronological basis far far before the actual day. It means increased integrity for being a person true to to his word of the time of appointment. It means increased dependability from others when it comes to the frame of time. And so much more. In short, punctuality and efficient transporting transcends mere departure and arrival of a man. It changes the attitude of society.

PS: phewh..after 3 months, i finally write again.

Jakarta, 17 October ‘06 05:00 PM

Art

As one of first world’s major capitals, berlin is inseparable of art (it seems there is almost a rule that being a major western capital requires itself to be a center for art). Borrowing its earliest architectures from its Roman Catholic-infused culture back in the days when it was part of the Holy Roman empire under Charlemagne, even before Prussia formed, Berlin could not avoid world’s attention as another one of Romans (and therefore Greeks) manifestation of architectural superiority. Buildings with tall pillar, ridiculously high ceilings, and sculptures no less curvaceous than Rome’ or Paris’, let’s just say Berliners have an apt for grandiose Baroque architecture among anything else. Berliners love its building to be a rock solid proove of their taste in architectural art. And that’s only from the point of view of architecture.
Let’s turn into plays. Berlin has staged plays for hundreds of years. Contemporary, classic, you name it, berlin has it. This is where directors, writers flourish. This is where all sorts of genres are accepted. Where all concepts are accepted. Where all books are accepted (except, and this is very exceptional, that of Hitler’s: Mein Kampf). Berlin’s operahouse is abundant, so do its theatre. Their legends provided the first tracks. Surely names of poet like Goethe and Schiller guaranteed to provide creditability. There was a stir quite a few weeks ago, when Deutsche Oper, which was in Berlin, refuse to stage a play that incorporated the picturization of the prophet Muhammad only to omit the possibility of another Muhammad comic-type incident. A simple sign how the performance of this opera house is carefully watched and modeled by so many other fledgling opera house all over the world.
Music, music, music, my favorite subject. Probably not the jazz capital itself, but certainly bloomed all the way from during the 1920s Berlin as the essential location to catch the latest jazz scene. Not to forget a little significant fact that Berlin also is the capital of a nation that is full of ridiculously famous classic musician. Name springs: Beethoven. Bach. Wagner. Enough names to shook the world. Rock establish Berlin as an essential city of European music when U2 recorded Achtung Baby and Zooropa and devote the song Zoostation as a tribute to the name of a very familiar train station in Berlin. There was a sense of sadness here in Berlin, an irony in the air, when musician records amidst a city divided by half into two very different living circumstances. A set for inspiration, a reminder, a silent storm.
Museums, a favorite chapter of myself. The home of plethora of art objects. A home of contemplation. A home for the thinker and feeler. And Berlin has abundant of those. World class. Rotated, renewed, and often borrowed to remain fresh and exciting. A deep huge well of hidden artistic energy for those who seek it. Among the many place I like to visit in Berlin perhaps museums are my most favorite. The fact that for only 8 or so euro you can get a world class soul-shaking experience is just too darn good to pass and too darn stupid to be ignored. I like to go to museum essentially alone. No disturbance. Just me and my thoughts. Searching for the “Significant Form” of Clive Bell, looking at Will and Ideas which Schopenhauer spoke about, making sense of the pure Idea of which art as imitation is built as Plato once described. Dividing the Matter and Form, or the Expression and the Impression or the Means and Ends. There are endless transfigurations of soul that could happened inside a museum. It’s just such a waste when these possibilities are not fully exploited. Just like a catharsis, museum lifts up soul to purer state, closing it to it’s creator, God, if I haven’t sound Platonic enough.
Going from one room to the other, watching Peter Paul Rubens’ paintings in one and Caspar David Friedrich’s in another is such a breathtaking adventure no less adrenaline pumping than going on raft boat on a savage river. When the devil is in the detail, then inside these houses of art live many many hideous monsters of unthinkable stature. You keep wanting to go ahead, you keep wishing there is something more beside that corner, you keep wishing you could never get tired.
Berlin has them all. Simply said, it is now one of the major home and keeper of arts. It contains a lens to the past, a womb for the future. And all are at the fingertips of Berliners. What lucky inhabitants!

Jakarta, 19 October ‘06 01:00 PM

Environment

This one is about logic in city-building. as city residents would firmly agreed, a city is a hard place to live in, it breathes complication, almost in every aspect imaginable. im sure you yourself can give long and winding testimonial to this fact. social, economy, law & order, cultural complication, etc, you name it. so the basic rule is dont make it any more complex.. make it simple, logical, and efficient. when it comes to city planning (or the subject of the study planology as some might refer) the criteria adds also to humanly comfortable, natural, and when possible, aesthetic. its not that much  a problem as these are fair and logical requirements, but look at jakarta and prepare to be apathetic to even the smallest suggestion of anything fair and logical. Berlin is one of the city which i consider follows the previous fair and logical sort of approach in its development: a city organization that is simple (at least from the skin), logical, efficient, comfortable to live in, close to nature, and most of all pretty, if beauty sounds way to flattering. all of this would mean nothing if its only just a way to pinpoint elaborately the pathological situation jakarta’s planology has. there is a more real, urgent, and fundamental impact that a good city planning can deliver. planology affects citizen, both physically and mentally. a course in planology should definitely affirm this. i would argue even as far as city planology could affect the culture of a population. it is a system that thrive by reciprocative interaction back and forth between city’s physical organization and the citizen. a continual dialogue you might say between the created and the creator. city planning is affected by the citizen and in turn city planning affects citizen. it affects the way they live, the way they work, the way they spend their spare time, the way they involve in any activities that involves usages of spatial area (which is in fact almost everything).  its because city planning is a system in which citizen lives. a system of their habitat. an organization of their lair. an order for their home. and if i may boldly suggest, home is where it all started. when home is ordered, then everything would run well. home is the base. and the base needs to be solid for the top to blossom.
the direct impact would not be as easily apparent, if you havent live or don’t live in jakarta. if you have live or perhaps presently living in jakarta or any other developing countries major cities, then things are pretty crystal clear and the following descriptions are unnecessary, since the direct impact of having good city planning is utterly obvious, given jakarta’s wretched city planning. however, for those of you who have not or are not living in jakarta or any third world country cities, then by all means please read on. so to continue, perhaps the only real clue to a city planning success is perhaps you tend to spend less time on searching, for example, an address, or, in other example, you find it easy to study the city’s map since the arrangement in some way looked logical to you. other clues are: perhaps you tend to have a favorite spot in the city which is unlikely, for example it is not in a business district, nor in a government district, nor even in a shopping district, perhaps it is not even inside a building at all, but perhaps simply an external area of the city that you consider pretty, pleasant, or simply comfortable enough to spend time in, like Tiergarten in Berlin or Central Park in New York. more subtle clues (of course still in the perspective of persons who never have to live in third world cities e.g. jakarta) are: you tend to enjoy walking around town, and i mean here walking literallly, by foot. you find walking around sightseeing gratifying. you tend to have a favorite spot somewhere in the city, which is not internal but external, looking out to city scapes, and etc.
in short, the sheer subjective pleasure and enjoyment of living in this city is the most important clue of all, however least measurable this clue might be. it is the true indicator of the success of any city planners’ work.
i find myself often intentionally dropping myself down in Friedrichstrasse station just to make a long walk through Dorotheenstrasse starting at the canal-end part of the station all the way past the Museum Island and ends at Hackescher Markt. just strollin on foot this way, with music on my walkman, looking by as building after building changes beside me, is a recreation on its own. so important and effective and economical this recreation was for me, i do it whenever im feeling not in a good mood, or wanted to refresh from school, or whenever i have a spare time and nowhere to go in fact. its just that feeling nicety thats there to justify all this. just to step on the concrete, smell the damp air coming from the river canal, watch people dining or convening outside at the roadside tables of the 12 apostles restaurant, enjoying the details of the museum buildings as i walked past it, which includes a short but meaningful observation to their spatial composition relative to each other and other city infrastructures, such as the railtracks, the river, and the roads, they all very interesting to me. and what perhaps here might eventually exposed me as a narcissist - and i don’t mind at all - this simple act of strollin’ around the city makes me feel very urban. i feel that i have truly became an urban citizen. a habitator of the city. a proud habitator of a city that is pleased to be a part of it. such a simple activity like this could easily refresh my senses and give inspirations. no wonder i thought so many artists, for example, took hardships to move to a city, Paris for example, as their preferred place to live and dwell inspiration for their works.
when your like how your city looked, youll get instant inspiration without the need to pay anything.. just a mere glance over the buildings to a gold-and-blue late afternoon cityscapes when the citylights started to turn out could be equivalent with watching an expensive play or listening to inspiring music. then who could say inspiration is expensive?..

Jakarta, 28 October ‘06 01:00 PM

Culture

you may recognize a berliner from the disctinct street style he/she is wearing. mixing so many different aspects: colors, motifs, fabrics, lines, images, berliners can do little arguing when they are described by everyone else as extremely unique. the span of mixture knows no regulation too. the bright orange can be easily paired with light green one. the plain can be matched with the stripe. therefore, a feel of avant-garde-ism emerge. more following into tradition than breaking the rules actually. berlin has always breed some radical thoughts over the years through its variety of fascinating citizen.

do you know that the Berlin mayor is gay? a friend of mine sort of cherish him to say the least (ya gak ki?). do you know berlin (and germany) has legalized homosexual marriage? do you know berlin has a special gay parade under the name of Christopher Street Day? yes, when it comes to freedom in the department of human love and relationship, berlin is the flagbearer. the society just seems to absorb that, far far less conventionally than the other cities. there’s a certain "go ahead, make my day" type of attitude in berliners everytime any part of their society experimenting with something new. not too surprising when one realizes that berlin is inherited with so much desire to be free. a occupation and division of their nation for 44 years that centered in this city is one very good explanation why.

freedom in mixmatching different elements, sexuality not only occur in fashion or marriage, but also in music. sad as it is say that majority of germans are still, over the years, loooove 80s music, the fact that numerous minorities of musically sophisticated germans have born and rise cannot be denied. in majority influenced by the general wave of the post-modern, these people mixmatch relentlessly differing elements, differing sounds, differing beats, and even extremely differing tempos, creating in the process almost abstract form of art that allows only oneself to contemplate and understand. little labels sprang up here and there. some are musically very eclectic. some cherish the birth of electronica and its cross over into other classic genres. labels like mole listening pearls, jazzanova compost, spv, stereo deluxe takes jazz combined with groove into unprecedented heights (and widths). there’s a jazz in everything and everything in jazz, with the head tilted toward groove. a sudden and celebrated attack into the world of bedroom djs/producers and computers where a kid with a computer could be a full-fledged artists, where synthesizers and mixers are made more and more affordable by the country’s modern industrial economy. combined with the apt for rulesbreaking of the berliners, berlin becomes the crib of fascinating and killingly creative inhabitants whose corners after corners contain surprises after surprises.

do you know berlin hold almost regularly parades, festivals and fairgrounds all over the year? remember love parades, world culture festivals, shows held in public places? these events took the spirit of berlin into the clearest message: that they like to party. party in the wide sense: a celebration of communal gathering. people claimed they are an individual society but the truth is they have strong social genes. individuality but also communality. to come in full circle on the support, not only are these events highly favored by the citizens but also fully endorsed by berlin city government (of course when the head of the government is gay and the stereotypes of gay are highly sociable person, then who could disapprove).

berlin is a metropolitan city with an attitude, a style, and a way of living. its style is not for comparison since its so distinct, but for me they are truly something to learn and to reflect on. the bottom line word is freedom. specifically freedom to create, experiment and socialize. as the pressure to be competent in a competitive environment is getting harder and harder, the need to relax and experiment and to individually find the most suited things in life grow stronger and stronger. in this respect, the city is expected to accomodate that. and berlin does, effortfully and almost naturally.

Jakarta, 8 November ‘06 08:00 AM

So, What’s Missing?..

A time ago in berlin, after a long exhaustive discussion over why berlin is a good place to live in, a friend summed it up and attacked with a question finale: "so.., why don’t you live here instead?.."
even though just the prospect of living here is entirely delicious to imagine, one flaw (or two) still hover around Berlin. one is the lack of what so called "your food". second is the lack of "your people".

Whether i like it, or approve of it or not, i was born a Padangnese. Inherited with so many ethnical stereotypes that people sometimes so violently address to me, i found none of them is so factfully right compared with this: Padangnese love padang food. and that means i love padang food. none of this fact would inhibit me in living in Berlin of course, if only Berlin have the restaurants, the price, and most importantly, the scent and aroma of the original padang food which i was brought up about.

The indonesian restaurants in berlin were somewhat trying to fill a hole in the diversity of map of restaurant types in berlin. unfortunately it’s just that. quality, authenticity?? later. important is, it seems, to exist first. perhaps when more and more indo restaurants appear (preferably padangnese of course) - which is pretty unlikely recalling the width of the market (there are just not enough indonesians to justify for it) - the competition raises up the platform from just mere existence to quality and authenticity of the original copied dish.

Price is quite a hard subject to pin down. some say it’s appropriate. but i say not. ive seen a restaurant charging like 15 euro for a plate of kangkung! i mean, okay if its exotic, but that doesn’t mean putting on price tags like a mad bull.

The second factor of what’s missing in the city is the people. not just people, but "The" people, or specifically "your" people. so, which people am i talking about? it’s damn obvious: your family and friends! that’s the people. this is "the" people who you grew up with, whom most most probably you owe a great deal of your life to. these people, they cultivate you, they influence and support you. "these" people are your life.. now, the question is:how important is these people to stay in your life? unfortunately, the answer to that question is a subject to your subjectivity. as for me, they are the UTMOST important. "i can’T live without them", if i can’t say brief enough. to put it in a more philosophical way: if these people aren’t with me, then my chance to achieve what i consider most important in my life diminish greatly..

There are many criterias of human achievement. which one you pick or what composition you construct is entirely up to you and your subconscious level. some may refer to wealth as THE sole criterion. some may refer to power. some just plain, well, both. some other would refer to acknowledgement from others. and then there’s another part refer to love and respect. etc. for my self, i don’t know. it’s apparently a mixture of many things above. i’m not quite sure about the composition of the mixture but what i do know is what don’t come out as the main element.. Wealth no. Power not really. Acknowledgement? yeah close but not the most important one. Love and Respect?? yeah..i think that’s the one. but not enough, appropriate is the "love and respect" that sources from what i did that contribute to people’s lifes. to be loved and respected from deeds of helping people (though can’t i really be specific why or how) that’s my idea of human achievement. as an old saying of my religion says, in the end, what matters are Hablumminannas and Hablumminallah. That is the connection to mankind (the horizontal one) and the connection to God (the vertical one). Since the vertical one is a matter of personal, what’s left is the horizontal. Love the people around you, God said, and you have done ALL that matters.

Since berlin would not possibly be able to bring all of those things (at least not anytime soon), it is safe to say that i will be living in my home country for indefinitely. the experience of living in berlin taught me how to live properly in city that is built properly. and such an experience it was. in the end, berlin is a smashing city. there’s a difference though between admiring and wanting to live there. from the start i know it was just going to be a stepping stone to return back to indonesia as a better and more informed kind of person. and there i have it. i’m back and better. thank you berlin. you are going to be remembered for the rest of my life. your endless pulse have remained inside and influence me till a time unknown. salute to the Germans, may our cities (and our country) could similate the qualities and values you have been so long endorse. may the reader of this blog finds and be inspired on what, since my Berlin days, have made me feel always so buoyant wheneverytime i hear the word "Berlin". For our better life.. Cheers.