We The Undersigned

Respond to Mr Patrick Teoh

We the Undersigned have read Mr Patrick Teoh’s recent column entitled National Intelligence, in your monthly magazine, with due consideration and much concern.

While we concur that Mr Teoh has the inalienable right to an opinion which he may, or may not, consider to be his own, and technically has the right to espouse his philosophies, and, that Off The Edge (off the edge of what may I enquire) has technically every right to publish these ramblings and lay the very soul of Mr Teoh bare to the reading public, We the Undersigned feel that an official response is in order.

While we should not care to disabuse Mr Teoh of his assertions of stupidity, or feelings of being ‘bodoh’, which he has every right to feel and assert should he feel the need to, these are not the views of We the Undersigned. In fact We the Undersigned believe that Mr Teoh has been a little disingenuous, and maybe even a tad mischievous in his assertions and assumptions.

Taking Mr Teoh’s points as he has raised them….

It was only right and proper for certain sectors, whom We the Undersigned may, or may not support, promote or otherwise liaise with, in these matters, call for a ban and boycott of goods and services from the neo-imperialist USA. Naturally we, being the undersigned, must endeavour to be in a position of monitoring the bad as well as the good from countries such as the USA. Hence it is an onerous and odious task to continue using those very same goods and services mentioned by Mr Teoh.

It is for the good of the country, and therefore of the very people themselves that we determine the crassness and inappropriateness of these goods and services hailing from the USA - by using them.

On this very same note that We the Undersigned monitor, and stoically endure, the blatant pornography entering this country. We the Undersigned are tasked with arduously wading through gruelling hours of the most hardcore pornography, drinking gallons of gaseous caffeinated soft drink and consuming copious amounts of sweetened popped corn in the process. We the Undersigned must endure this for our love of country and to protect its citizens from lewdness.

In reply to Mr Teoh’s assertions that there is selectivity in the process of allowances for protests and demonstrations, we say yes, guilty as charged.

Of course there has to be selectivity, we cannot allow just anyone to protest or demonstrate, that would end in anarchy and total chaos. No, it is better that dissenters be discouraged from flocking to the streets, therefore saving on water bills for the water cannon and saving the tax payer money. It is better therefore only to allow the forces of order permission to demonstrate and protest, and only then in full agreement with We the Undersigned.

Mr Teaoh alludes to the appropriate usage of naming, misnaming, use and abusage of the name, title, moniker or indicator of The One, or many, true, or not so true, God, or gods. On this matter We the Undersigned must take a backseat. This question shall be answered in its fullest by those authorities invested to do so at the appropriate time and therefore will be answered, or not as the case may be, on the day of judgement – or not.

In addressing Mr Teoh’s very concerning issue of fault, We the Undersigned can only re-iterated that it is quite plainly obvious that yes it is YOUR fault. You the rakyat, the people, vote for your representatives on a regular basis and have done so now for over 50 years, therefore who else is to blame? If you didn’t believe in the actions and policies of those you have voted in, why vote for them over and over again.

Mr Teoh is entirely right in his assertion that this is the Chinese year of the Ox, and in recognition of this joyous occasion, and the suspected onslaught of fresh effluence in the coming year, We the Undersigned will give each and every man, woman and child their very own shovel.

These shovels, graciously donated to the general public by your humble servants - We the Undersigned, are totally and absolutely free and will enable each member of the public to clear his or her own path of bovine effluence as it occurs.

Ps Taxes may have to be increased to pay for the free shovels.

Signed by

We the Undersigned.

The Photograph

There is a colour photograph, printed on Kodak paper, taken about thirty-eight years ago, of a tallish, thin man, with a long goatee beard, holding a well wrapped infant in his arms. Although the photograph suffers a little yellowing from age, and one corner of the 6x4 print has become creased, revealing the paper beneath the photographic coating, the image nevertheless remains clear – that of a proud father with his first born child.

In the photograph I am twenty years and hold my first child of a few months. I wear a newly purchased two tone leather jacket, bought as a birthday present from the sales in a local leather store, and hold the young child firmly in my grip, tilting my daughter a little towards the camera so that her mother can take the photograph, and clearly see her puffy cheeked daughter.

It is the tail end of winter and we are all a little fresh faced from the cool of the wind. I rest against a wooden gate, a prop for the image, and behind the slightly cloudy sky reveals a pale chilled blue. We are glad that the child is well wrapped, safe from the elements, and, after the photograph is taken, the child is placed back in the buggy, strapped in for safety and comfort, the small canopy rearranged to protect the child from the chilling wind, and the three of us turn and walk back towards our newly rented council house.

Times are a little lean. I have recently accepted an appointment as a carer to eleven elderly men, at a home for the aged, and have bought a cycle to help me travel the two miles to work, twice daily, as the job entails split shifts. I spend most of my week cleaning and caring for the men whose relatives prefer the dirty work done by others, shaving and bathing the ex-husbands, fathers and grandfathers who are tucked away, out of harm’s reach, and out of sight of their children and their children’s children, because growing older is a messy business. Perhaps some of this is evident in the leanness of my face, or the trimness of the cut of the leather jacket I wear, or maybe in the smiling, yet somewhat distant eyes that look towards, and through, the camera holder.

The child’s mother had given up her job in the bakery, selling fresh yeasty bread in the mornings from the home bakery which scented Head Street with its satisfying essence, to look after the child she had borne, but, in time, would have to recommence her working life as a domestic helper, cleaning in a residence sheltering nurses and enabling them to continue to care for the sick and the injured.

It was not an easy time, and the white frame surrounding the photographic image puts a neat boundary around that image of father and daughter, slicing but a fragment from the reality of life beyond the lens, and denying the complexity of our lives lived in the 1970s. The photograph is unable to depict the smallness of the lives we lived then, unless the observant viewer can see from the size of the photograph that we were unable to purchase a larger size, to place upon our mantelpiece, to admire the captured resemblance of father and daughter.

The fact that this photograph never had a frame perhaps indicates choices we had to make, between the decorative and the functional, with the functional, inevitably, and constantly, winning out. We were a couple with a small child, living in the now, not thinking to protect this image from time’s ravages, and the future yellowing of the paper from the sun as it frequently brushed our mantelpiece, glancing through infrequently cleaned windows.

We were a young couple caught up in the living of life, unable to afford a thought for the future, wrapped in the present and struggling to have a future, any kind of future, as long as the future was there.

On days other than that depicted in the photograph I would enjoy the company of my small child, she in her buggy, and I pushing, walking behind, making sounds and noises I expected a small child to recognise or appreciate, the slight feathering of snow giving us both cause for a smile, until, out of fatherly concern, I fix the plastic protection over the front of the buggy sheltering the child from the weather, and also from the connection we had.

Alternatively, the child, now growing beyond her years in the photograph would attempt to catch snow and meld it into a snowball, failing as the loose white frozen water falls apart and onto the ground, but nevertheless laughing and clapping her mitten covered hands as she does so, with small clumps of snow relentlessly clinging onto the wool of the gloves. She slips and falls in the snow, laughing but with a slight quiver to her lip as the surprise of the fall gives her a shock. I rush out of parental concern, to see that she is fine and once again struggling to her feet and tasting snow on her face with her pink tongue, and laughing in that endearing way a very small child has, drawing you into her moment and sharing the joy and innocence of the child.

But it is another time. The photograph is an aide memoir. It brings back the child from thirty eight years in the past and delivers her to my sight, stirring my recollections, memories and emotions in a way that little else can. There is much happiness in the recalling, but a little sadness too that I am unable to reach out and touch that child, take her, once more, in my arms and pose for a photograph.

I can only look and remember, and in remembering consider what is lost from memory and what little still remains of that photograph, of my memory and of the bond we had when she was young.

It's in the Title, Duh!

This is a response to Hari Azizan’s review of the film Changeling, directed by Clint Eastwood, in The Star newspaper today Saturday February 7^th 2009.

It seems that poor Hari was somewhat disappointed by the film, in which Angelina Jolie plays the role of a single mother whose son goes missing.

Maybe Hari expected another Lara Croft character, or Fox from the film Wanted, and found it difficult to realise that Ms Jolie can act as well as leap and point guns, ho hum.

Hari is not convinced by Angelina’s portrayal of devastation and despair over the loss of her son. She alludes to conceited scenes, but never expresses what they are, and accuses the film of needing glamour brought by the addition of Angelina Jolie to head the cast.

On what are these assumptions based, did we see the same film?

Hari seems to think that the film was solely about the Wineville Chicken Coop murders, oh dear, did she miss the beginning of the film entirely - didn’t she read the title? Oh well put it down to cultural misunderstandings then.

The film opens revealing widespread corruption in a police department gone bad (1920s, Los Angeles Police Department). A mother and her son live together, the child’s father having skipped off because he couldn’t handle the responsibility.

The two themes clash head on when the mother (Angelina Jolie) returns home late from work to find her son missing. The police department is unconcerned. During the next few months the mother battles to have the police department acknowledge that her son is alive and missing.

Eventually the police department haul in a boy and produce him as her son. He isn’t - hence the title of the film – Changeling.

The film title is taken from common Western folklore where a ‘fairy’ baby is exchanged for a human baby soon after birth. In some tales ‘changeling’ fairy children bleed the mothers of their life force, whereas the human child may be used as a slave for fairies or as new stock for the fairy line to prevent inbreeding.

Had the film been called The Wineville Chicken Coop murders, Hari may have a point, but sadly for her it wasn’t. Therefore all of Hari’s protestations that “The killings and the police corruption scandal are by far a more gripping and powerful aspect of the whole story” are mute because the focus is on the mother and the child, his disappearance and substitute by the authorities. It’s in the very title of the film itself Hari.

Jolie, as the mother, protests that the new child isn’t hers, but is ignored and eventually thrown into Los Angeles County Hospital’s ‘psychopathic ward’, both to silence her as an embarrassment to the police department and because she is obviously insane as she doesn’t recognised her own son. The film deals with the mother’s disempowerment and abuse by those in authority, from police to psychiatrists and staff at the hospital.

The Wineville Chicken Coop murders is an add-on to this mother’s story, in an attempt to try to explain what may have happened to the mother’s son. By the end of the film there has been an emotional rollercoaster, as the audience is held in suspension over what may have occurred to this woman’s only child, and the blatant abuse of authority.

Obviously Hari and I disagree. She believes that the central character was not compelling, whereas I believe that Angelina Jolie suited the character well as a middle-class working manager, a mother, and a woman who authority tries to manipulate and abuse.

Hantu & Popcorn

While in the West, speculative fictions have developed from writing as wildly diverse as Lord Dunsany’s wondrous stories and Thomas M Disch hard core Science Fiction, the history of Malaysian (English language) speculative fiction stories, remains a comparatively brief one,

Malaysia revels in legends, myths and tales drawn from the country’s multifaceted and multicultural past. Malaysian folklore is steeped in stories gleaned from Hinduism, Islam and ancient animism. Echoes of tales, and stories from indigenous tribes peoples sit, sarong clad, knee to knee with those dropped en passant by Dutch, Portuguese and English settlers - though many tales are only available through the Malay language.

Contemporary Malaysian speculative fiction mostly draws upon those ancient legends and myths to create stories of horror - especially those involving vampires (Pontianak) and wild assortments of the supernatural including a myriad ghost (Hantu) stories. These dark tales drip blood over mini –magazines (‘penny dreadful’ or ‘Pulp’ magazines) in a publishing market largely dominated by Malay language horror fictions.

Aside from Malay horror, fluffy pink Malay romances make up the rest of the popularist publishing market, giving teen and twenty girls insights into romantic worlds they will only encounter in such books and magazines, unless they lounge soaking up the cool air-con in cinemas projecting the latest Hindi or Tamil romantic masala movies.

The ghoulish national obsession for ghosts, spirits and all manner of supernatural flying, crawling and creeping beings permeates throughout Malaysian popular culture, and is easily available in low cost magazines and cheap thrill books. Over the last few decades such fictions have gnawed and clawed their way into a growing Malay comic book industry which, like the ‘pulp’ magazines, feeds extensively from local legend and lore.

Comparatively little in the way of other speculative fictions exists, save for one magazine - Gempak (Shocking). This innovative Malay language magazine styles itself as ‘The Magazine for the New Generation’. As a teen orientated compendium Gempak features local and Manga influenced comic book material serials such as Helios Eclipse by Kaoru, as well as film reviews, the latest TV news, Game reviews, general articles and interviews.

Aside from comics and those compact pulp-like magazines depicting ‘real’ or fictionalised ghost stories there has been one, long running, Malay language, series of horror books.

During the 1980s Tamar Jalis (a pseudonym) produced a number of horror stories for a magazine called Variasari. These spooky and quite graphically gruesome stories were compiled into book form, later called Bercakap Dengan Jin (Talking to Demons). Somewhere in the region of 200 horror-story books (in Malay) were produced over a number of series and years.

Precursors to Malay horror writing, and comics, were the 1950s Malay horror films. These early, black and white, Malay horror films greatly resemble American ‘B’ movies, with their simplicity of sets, paucity of storyline and exaggerated dramatics - all accompanied by darkly rich, sombre music.

In 1957 Cathay Keris Films made Pontianak (Vampire), then came Serangan Orang Minyak (Attack of the Oily Man) by Cathy Keris Films in 1958. Sumpah Orang Minyak (Curse of the Oily Man) by Malay Film Productions ltd followed in 1958, while Cathay Keris Films made Sumpah Pontianak (Curse of the Vampire) also in 1958.

More recent Malay horror films resemble the 1950s/60s British Hammer films, of which there has been a contemporary upsurge with films like Rahsia (The Secret, 1980s) and the infamous Pesona Pictures horror films - Pontianak harum sundal malam ( Restless Vampire, 2004), and its sequel the following year, with Waris jari hantu (The legacy of the Ghost Finger, 2007), Dukun (Witch Doctor) also in 2007 and Histeria (Hysteria) in 2008.

English language Malaysian speculative fictions have proven to be a slow emerging field.

Though living in Tasmania, Tunku Halim (pseudonym), writes mainly for the Malaysian horror market, and has, seemingly, taken the lead in English language horror writing, with novels like ‘Dark Demon Rising’, (1997) and short story collections such as ‘44 Cemetery Road’ short stories (2007). Because of the consistency of his work, and there being no contenders for his crown, Tunku Halim reigns supreme as the Stephen King of Malaysia.

Competition is slow to challenge Tunku Halim, but in recent years the anthology volumes Dark City (2006) and Dark City 2 (2007) edited by Xeus (Lynette Kwan) - published by Midnight Press have intended to do just that.

Dark City: Psychotic and other Twisted Malaysian Tales is a compendium of writing, ranging from terror to horror and suspense. Dark City 2, its sequel, incorporates storylines from a man learning to kill, 15^th century angels, the intense agony of entombment and the bitter sweetness of man’s revenge for the death of his wife and son.

While English language speculative fictions, in Malaysia, may be slow to take off in novel or short story format, their august and illustrative presence may be felt within the Malaysian comic book medium. Well fed on diets of Superman, Spiderman and Batman today’s Malaysian twenty, and thirty somethings, are well versed in reading speculative sequential art.

The Malaysian comic book industry, fledgling in the 1980s is beginning to come of age in the 2000s. As well as re-producing Japanese and Chinese Manga forms in English and Malay, the Malaysian comic book industry is generating stunning new works by Malaysian writers and artists, many of whom are currently also involved in the American comic book industry.

Works by artist/writers like Leong Wan Kok (aka Puyuh – quail) bring fresh dimensions to the Science Fiction and horror genres with images such as Astro Hunter, graphic novels such as Astro Cityzen (2006) and From a Twisted Mind ( 2008).

The new magazine ‘Popcorn’ represents a fresh type of comics magazine for Malaysia, in English. It is modelled on Marvel’s Epic comics magazine and Heavy Metal (French - Metal Hurlant). This young adult comic magazine promises to bring the very best of S.E.Asian and Malaysia comics material to an eagerly waiting, knowledgeable, general public.

This then may be the future of Malaysian speculative fictions – comics and graphic novels.

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001

Sue Townsend

Published by Penguin/Michael Joseph, November 2008

A book review by Yusuf Martin

Admittedly the last of the Adrian Mole series I had in my sticky little fingers was Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999), having missed out on Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004).

In the move to Malaysia I, somehow, became de-Moled and lost all contact with the multifaceted Adrian Mole. This is, in some way, fortuitous as The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001, chronologically, breech that gap, and I can now happily purchase Townsend’s WoMD and not lose out on the story thread.

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001 follow on neatly, and chronologically, from Sue Townsends highly successful Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years, which has been, subsequently, aired as a popular TV series (in 2001). In the latest book the hapless Adrian is now 33, that is twenty years on from the very first book in the ‘Mole’ series - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾.

In the most recent hardback we find ourselves back in the strange offbeat world of Adrian Mole, his on-going antipathy towards his divorced and be-partnered parents, his struggles with growing children, their schools and multiple idiosyncrasies and the increasingly widening gap between Adrian’s ambitions and the stark reality of his life.

Adrian Arthur Mole is a not so proud father of two – Glen and William, and proud author of two cookery books – Offaly Good and Offaly Good Again. He is a wannabe writer/playwright. He no longer has a TV cookery show and is desperately trying to reside amidst some of the very worse housing estate inhabitants it might be possible to imagine.

Pursued by his ex-girlfriend (mother of Glen), Adrian attempts to hold his head up while engaging in an on/off relationship with his housing officer, one Pamela Pigg and the difficulties this brings into his far from uneventful life.

Meanwhile, for some years, Adrian has been secretly in love with Pandora, who has, since the previous book, been elevated from being a mere Member of Parliament to a Minister in the British Government, but, as ever, the relationship is fraught with all types of difficulties, so Adrian must content himself with living the life of a, not too comfortable, single father.

Adrian’s benignly soft heart, indelible parental responsibility and, at times, acutely burning ambitions lead him into a cornucopia of mixed blessings throughout the book - from the rescuing of a lonely, 95 year old pensioner from the sadness of a life alone, to the constant struggle between Adrian’s rampant creative spirit and his ever present need to earn a living to keep the eternal wolf from the door.

Adrian’s, ever present, dreams of his bizarre serial-killer comedy The White Van being picked up by the BBC remain as elusive as ever, meanwhile Adrian has some minor success with his epic poem The Restless Tadpole, while also engaged upon writing his new pig novel called, appropriately – Sty.

While purporting to be about Adrian, and the vagaries of his life, Sue Townsend injects much social and political satire into these works. The latest volume is no exception, with digs at the, then, British Prime Minister, other cabinet members, as well as the rich and wannabe famous.

I’ll not spoil the ending, so if you want to see how this is all resolved you will have to purchase the novel and see for yourself.

I confess to several (LOL) laugh-out-loud moments, and one almost (ROTFL) rolling-on-the-floor-laughing, it was my wife’s quizzical look which prevented the later. I smiled and just said – it’s this book, she nodded, sagely, bemused.

Gags come aplenty in this hilarious book which follows a grand traditional of English comic novels from G.K.Chesterton, to P.G.Wodehouse, Tom Sharpe and many, many, more. From the irony of being pulled over by the police for sharing a chocolate bar whist driving, to the potential faux pas involved in meeting Ms Pigg’s parents (Porky and Snouty)for the first time, the reader is pushed through the door marked hilarity, bludgeoned by wit/repartee and ejected into Adrian Mole’s practically surreal existence.

This present volume of the exploits of Adrian Mole is in fact the accumulation of the Diary of a Provincial Man, Sue Townsend wrote for the UK newspaper The Guardian in the years 1999 to 2001, hence the title The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole 1999-2001.

While her character, Adrian Mole, has become a well loved humorous social commentator, Sue Townsend, his creator, represents an endearing and resounding success story for our times.

Sue Townsend, born in 1946, is a constant reminder that you don’t have to have come from a ‘good’ family, or to have been to university to become a much loved, successful, intelligent writer of some of the best comic fiction published in the last three decades.

Born into the British working classes, Sue Townsend once lived in one of the poorer sections of Leister, England, failed her 11+ exam and went to a humble secondary modern school. As if that wasn’t enough, at the early age of eighteen she married to a sheet-metal-worker, had three children, later divorced, re-married and had another child with the man who was to promote her writing.

She worked in many menial jobs and secretly wrote, hiding the work from her first husband. In her second marriage her husband, a canoe-maker, encouraged her writing and eventually, for which we are all eternally grateful, she, and Adrian Mole were published.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ¾, her first novel was based upon her experiences at school. It became a best seller in the 1980s, as did her subsequent novels. Together the volume of her work has been translated into at least thirty-four languages, perhaps more as I write - the Adrian Mole diaries alone have sold over eight million copies worldwide.

Sue Townsend is an honorary doctor of Letters from Loughborough University, and holds an honorary doctorate from Leister University. In 2001 she was registered legally blind, due to diabetes.

It is mentioned that Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004) might be the final volume to the life and stories of Adrian Mole esquire.

Correspondences: HBO We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration

Correspondences: HBO We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration

HBO We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration

Having fed the cat, watered the plants, fed myself - and in that order, I was ready to have a couple of hours being brain dead in front of the goggle box.

I turned to HBO, for no other reason than it was there, and there it was – the American Presidential inauguration show – We Are One. At first I thought I would watch a minute or two of quite boring speeches then turn off the TV, and read - there is a Terry Pratchett paperback waiting to be finished.

We Are One, wasn’t that a song from The Lion King performed by Cam Clarke, Charity Sanoy and Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Chorus? Is that a, not so, subtle message referring to President –elect Barack (Hussein) Obama’s Kenyan roots?

I was captured, caught in the razzamatazz of TV, celebrities, singers, music and heart rendering speeches on liberty, oneness and freedom. Mesmerised like some moth flying to the light I could barely break away from the celebration. Every few minutes, after being uplifted by the music, my heart was panged by yet another meaningful speech. I was the proverbial putty in their hands.

And of course the whole show was designed to leave people like me in that condition.

Guests varied from Jack Black, Steve Carell, Tom Hanks, Martin Luther King junior to Denzel Washington and Tiger Woods. Performers and artists ranged from Beyonce, Mary J.Blige and Sheryl Crow to ageing protestors like Pete Segar and The Boss (Bruce Springsteen). A goodly mix of Herbie Handcock, Shakira, Stevie Wonder and Garth Brooks were enough to entice all but the most hard core audiences.

A celebration it was - a celebration of achievement, a celebration of history, of nationhood, of man’s humanity to man, of accomplishment. Thousands gathered to celebrate their Americaness and to wallow in their togetherness, at that one moment in time.

Many didn’t notice the shaky theatrical scenery, the jerkiness of Tiger Woods speech, or the obvious nervousness of Vice President Joe Biden as he hurried through his speech and rushed back to the comfort of his chair.

It was a smooth operation. Smoother in fact than clockwork, and bar the human errors mentioned the show went well.

After the all singing, all dancing, show the final act was the President-elect himself, planned no doubt to be the climax of the show - the big finish. Having winced through Joe Biden’s remarks on the intrinsic value of work, and the honour and pride to be found therein I for one was a tad disappointed at Barack Obama’s speech. I felt that he had delivered more stirring speeches during his campaign to become president, and that what should have been his greatest speech – the one to be measured against Martin Luther King’s famous speech, or that of Kennedy, was lacklustre.

Maybe his writers had given all the good stuff, and they, like he, were tired and just wanted to get the President-elect into the Oval Office.

It was a cold day at the Lincoln memorial. Overcoats and speechifying were there to keep America, and the idea of America warm. The crowds lapped it all up, but then, many had travelled thousands of miles to get there and they would have been foolish not to.

But overall the show went well and spread its message of class togetherness, racial harmony, unity against adversity, all Americans working together and succeeding against all odds, tough times ahead but with fortitude and concord American will strive for a better future together because as the man said WE ARE ONE.

Oh sorry, They Are One.