Happy Halloween!

Our party is that Katrinka's got a woman's loving kindness meditation going upstairs led by yoga teacher Mallika from India and I'm down here cross-legged on the settee, my usual office, laptop on lap, greeting arrivals, saying bye as they leave.  

Rappin, Snappin, Fun Omar Musa

Virginia and Donny with the Unspoken Poetry Slam group, told me to go hear this guy. So Katrinka and I met up with them. Usually I'd rather hear something local and traditional or jazz, but we had an interesting energetic evening listening to --- (from his Ubud Writer's Festival bio)
Omar Musa is a Malaysian-Australian author, rapper and poet from Queanbeyan, Australia. He has released four hip hop records, three poetry books and a novel, Here Come the Dogs, which was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Award and Miles Franklin Award. In 2018 he created a one-man play, Since Ali Died. Here's his Wikipedia and here's his Facebook.

As we move toward gridlock...

Drivers in Bali are polite, cooperative with others, and watch out for pedestrians. They give way to cars that want to turn in front of them as a matter of course - you can start turning in front of them here where you'd be risking your life in most other places. In five years never saw or even heard of road rage. - copied off a Facebook comment I added to a string of complaints about drivers in CA. I should add that this is not because of  any police presence or laws which people often ignore. They'll block a lane on a two lane street to park while they do some errand, feel free to go to the oncoming traffic side to park, drive on the wrong or wrong way or a one way if it serves a purpose and make U turns anywhere anytime. Family of four or even five on a motorbike is a normal occurrence. More and more they're wearing helmets and seat belts. At the rate of increase of vehicles here though, at some point the vehicles will fill all the roads and will stop moving.

special day for vehicles and weapons in Bali

Yesterday the cars and motorbikes had offerings attached to them. Some parked cars had little holy rugs on their hoods. It's also a day to honor the kris or ceremonial knife and weapons in general. Here's something copied from this page on Bali festival days.

Poetry Slam in Ubud

That's Doni Marmer in the photo, a well-known Indonesian poet who was in charge of last nights event along with  poet Virginia Helzainka, an Indonesian woman.  These super good  Unspoken people - unspoken in that in poetry there's freedom to speak the unspoken (within reason - it is Indonesia with blasphemy laws and people can disappear and so forth.).

Poem for tonight's poetry slam in Ubud

Pesembahan persembahan (Offerings)

While on a Voyage

Had to go to Ubud for a poetry event Thursday and Friday nights at the annual writer's conference. Katrinka had a luncheon near there already with BIWA, Bali International Women's Association so I got a seat on the bus and a nice Buffet at Koko Bambu. Nice place. Some Kardashians were staying here recently and opted for Ithe helicopter tour of the island. It's after lunch and I'm going over tonight's poem which is a preliminary event for tomorrow night's poetry slam as it's called. It's a sort of demonstration slam for the winners of other poetry slams. By some fluke I won one a few months ago that I'd only attended to listen and enjoy an eve out alone while Katrinka was in America. I'm doing a different poem tonight from the one for the competitive event tomorrow. (Poetry competition? How did I get into this?)

Here's the poem for tonight. I wrote it in high school for schoolwork when asked to give an example of Alliteration. Following it is a translation I worked out with help from online and two drivers.

Message on a paper bag

Walking back from a swimming break at the beach, cutting through a field behind some shops, for the first fifty feet there's discarded bottles, plastic trash, other crap amidst the sand and plants. A paper bag lying on the ground next to the sandy footpath had written on it: When Nature meets Technology. Hmm. Was it placed there by an irritated foreigner? Through providence?

Call Them by their True Names: American Crisis

Rebecca Solnit/s book on Rewriting the World’s Broken Stories and the Paradigm-Shifting Power of Calling Things by Their True Names, an article on this book in Brain Pickings.

thanks Britton Pyland

The so-called Talk

I gave that talk at SMKn3 yesterday which was not a talk but meeting here and there with students and faculty and chatting for a couple of hours. Met at the hotel the hospitality high school runs - hospitality is an enormous amount of Bali's cash flow. I prepared for it like I was going to give a two hour talk to an entire auditorium full of students - spent three days cramming, talking  for hours with drivers I know to get the right words down, writing out pages of sentences and vocabulary.

Foto-foto Untuk Kuliah --- Photos for the Talk

Photos for talk to students going into the hospitality field at a high school in Denpasar

Foto foto tempat di sebut oleh David di kuliah singkat 

di SMK3n, Jl. Tirta, Denpasar, Bali - October 19, 2018

There are four departments (jurusan): hotel, restaurant, fashion, salon/spa

I'll talk in Indonesian (with help) about my wife Katrinka McKay and my hospitality work experiences in California. Mine with the San Francisco Zen Center, hers more extensive and from teen years
to right before we left for Asia five years ago. - David Chadwick

World Suicide

How few imagined back in the early eighties that World Suicide would have so much support from threats other than nuclear war. Must update that with new material. But the threat of accidental or even purposeful nuclear war is still a hair trigger away and mainly not a concern for today's citizens of earth. It's just hard to keep this stuff in mind when there are so many other pressing matters. Once again, here's the page on Defuser Music for World Suicide and its feeble twin - Freeze Please.

A Welcoming Poem to the WSC

New WSC page

Kelly Chadwicks' birthdays

Kelly my son's birthday was eight days ago and proper birthday greetings were delivered. Kelly my father's birthday is today and he would have been 114 had he not died when he was 53 in the wee hours of November 1st, 1956 which I've always thought of as Halloween. I'm most grateful to have had both Kellys in my life - both wise, both kind.

In the nature vs nurture tug of war, I think we overestimate the extent to which parents' nature or behavior shapes who we are and I also think we overestimate the extent to which our parents' genes contribute - though both I believe to be highly significant. I see karma as factored into both and sprouting out alone as well the soul's daemon with no apparent earthly cause.

Disclaimers: I do not have court admissible evidence to back up my point of view but then again I don't depend on it - however things are is hidden from view it seems and whatever is is okay with me. The word soul to me is just a place holder.

Top photo Kelly Chadwick 1946.
Bottom Photo Kelly Chadwick c2018

Diving Meditation

Our friend Sarah is a well-known diving guru who wrote Diving in Indonesia. Here's an article by her: Scuba Diving: Underwater Meditation.

(Katrinka and I aren't divers but we snorkle sometimes)

All's Name

I went to the All-that-is-and-all-that-isn't and I said, "Oh All, can I call you All?" and the All said, Yes, any name will do for that which has no name. But it's up to you to relieve each name of its baggage. 

Ears of the Dogette

Eating a delicious crunchy soy cracker, a couple of crumbs fell to the floor, one the size of the head of a nail and the other maybe a quarter inch square. I picked them up off the clean kitchen floor and,  resisting the urge to follow the three second rule, walked over to doggy Bandita's stainless bowl and dropped them in. She was way away up front in the courtyard. A tiny ding emitted from the larger of the two crumbs striking the metal - not near loud enough for Bandita to hear I thought. I returned to the counter to finish preparing my Sumba Red tea with grated ginger, heard a noise, and turned around to see Bandi lapping up the crumbs. What amazing ears.

A New Job

I applied for a job with the universe saying I was tired of living for myself, I give myself to you for the benefit of all. I got the job. "OK," I said, "What's my assignment? What would you have me do?" I was so excited. And the universe replied, "Nothing."

The Steps of Singapore

Glad to be back in Sanur. A few memories of Singapore.

Mornings we'd get milk tea, half-boiled egg, and toast in an old run down Chinatown shopping building upstairs at a food court stall - that and coffee all they served. Sign on the wall nearby - No Touting. Learned that meant hawking wares. Kat says coffee was good and strong like the tea. Small cups. Had a Michelin plaque of approval - no stars. But the little dim sum place we had lunch yesterday had one Michelin Star - and a drawer. in the table at each seat for utensils, napkins, toothpicks. The food there - all over - is too too good but okay for a few days - before we fall under its spell until we run out of money.

Singapore is like Dharamsala in one way. Walk up and down a lot. After just four days there I had lots more stamina for stairs. Our hotel room on third floor and everywhere we'd go would take us up and there's lots of up or underground - a whole world there of trains and shops. Walk the steps and he steps by the escalators and walk the escalators with no steps. Now back home going to start a new practice. Gonna double and triple use the steps to the 2nd floor and back - up down up or up down up down up and down up etc. Want to keep the strength gained on the myriad Steps of Singapore.

Check out Justin Zhuang's Escalating a Nation

Singapore's Gardens by the Bay

Singapore's Botanical Gardens are to me the number one thing to do here. It's massive, has an orchid garden and a cool house for orchids from cooler climes - can walk around in it for hours. Yesterday we went to the fairly new Gardens by the Bay and were pleasantly surprised to see it was much more than we'd imagined. All the images of it I found online with a quick search emphasized the constructions and glitz but the gardens outside of that are extensive. We enjoyed some of them and, since it was late in the day, we spent the last hour and a half in the giant cloud and flower domes. The domes and the super trees gave me the impression I was walking within James Cameron's Avatar world. The Cloud Dome walk ends with a well-presented series of concise videos on the dire environmental threats we face. That followed by a brief big screen film on the same subject. The super trees I learned are solar collectors that run the place and that all the water, and there's lots of it, comes from rain and is recirculated. The place has a noble and serious educational component. 

Bali Community Choir

The Bali Community Choir has got a concert coming up. Our friend Sylvie Blanchet (from Vermont) is in it. She writes: We're a very diverse collection of people from all over the world who love to sing together.  Our talented and funny choir director. is Brendan O"Donnell from Australia who has led choirs in Australia. The concert is at SMK 3 School, Jl. Tirta Nadi, N Sanur on Saturday Oct 13 at 7 pm. Here's the flier for it.

Crazy Rich Singapore

We're in Singapore for a few days, getting our new residence visas for Indonesia. Walked around town, took the MRT subway (though it's above ground further out), We're staying in Chinatown. Had some great food, cheap there, more on posh Orchard Road, and most by the rockin' river. All food good, very good. The river boat ride at night passes by astounding skylines, architecture, variety, old, new, imaginative, much of it lit like Vegas, and like the vast malls of the city, shouting glamour and glitz. At an Imax saw Crazy Rich Asians which mainly takes place in Singapore - got a lot of good shots of the city too - and focuses not on the obvious and enormous wealth of the exterior, but on that of the super-rich elite and likely in a make-believe way. My favorite line in the film from a parent urging a child to eat all their food with, "Think of the starving children in America!"

Disaster in Sulawesi continued

The Science of Indonesia's Surprise Tsunami

The poor people of Palu had gone to the beach for a ceremony commemorating the city's birthday. Our friend Sarah was here yesterday. She wrote Diving in Indonesia and was at a diving resort on Suluwesi and there was a volcano going off near her triggered by the earthquake and the news made a big deal of that but it's a volcano that goes off once or more every year so it was no factor for the people there - unlike here in Bali 1100 miles away, no one lives under it. And she was far from the earthquake epicenter and tsunami too. This link is on how the tsunami was not expected, unique condition.