Hilm > Recent Status Updates

Four POV is kinda a lot and they’re all heading to different places, too. Will probably easier to follow once they disperse from Ohio to DC, Boston, Paris, and Florida. It’s been very sweet so far.

Powerful and dense. I’m a third of the way in (chapter 5) and the flurry of new names makes it very dense. Ch5: USA. Ch4: Britain. Ch3: Ireland. Ch2: Peter Tatchell and Simon Hughes, UK. Ch1: NZ and Australia.

The second chapter (essay?) with James Baldwin opening is interesting and I see how it suffused into other things: his advice to go where your heart beat. There’s also a contrast about what the liberals want are a few good gays, not the whole infantry.

Quite interesting and coincidentally made a fitting answer to my partner’s hypothetical question: what would you do if you want to get out of Indonesia and live abroad?

Compared to things I’ve read recently, reads like Linda Sarsour’s We’re in This Together.

Man, the love and affection in this book is all very violent.

Its earnestness is showing strongly (which I like), if a little rough, and meandering with lots of affectations. Overly reliant on lots of cultural references which feels a bit all over the place.

Lookism for Ny. Talis? “Tembong makin besar, makin tebal, makin lekat. Ketika gadis yang kelak bernama Ny. Talis mencapai umur sebelas tahun, tembong mulai ditumbuhi buku. Setiap kali dicabut atau dicukur, bulu makin lebat, makin kaku, makin kokkh. Sampai pada tahun tertentu, perkembangan tembong berhenti. Tapi tembong sudah terlanjur besar, benar benar menjijikkan.”

Ini absurd dan saya tidak paham.

I skipped a chapter on I think Superman, but the next chapter on Ricky Martin (remember Livin’ La Vida Loca?) grabbed my attention enough. It started out as a musing on his Instagram thirst trap, with recollections of his career trajectory.

I’m four chapters in… but I may choose to not finish this. It’s kind of hard to read if you don’t already have a mental image of the TV shows/media he talks about. Ch1: Disney animated movies. Ch2: American teen shows. Ch3: Hombres, a telenovela. Ch4: Saint Seiya/Ranma/Dragon Balls anime.

The first three short stories have this folklore whimsy quality that I’m sure would have worked excellently as a plot for a Donal Bebek story. The buah naga story is fit to be a Donal Bebek vs Untung Angsa story.

Hilanglah kesan akan katanya yang dingin dan tajam seperti belati, karena kata-kata itu keluar dari bibit yang bagai mekarnya bunga katirah.

— teaching its ok to be horrible when you’re pretty.

Ludicrous battle scenes are of course par for the course. Troops as a Garuda vs an elephant; padma vs mountains-ocean.

Wtf Prabu Arjunasastrabahu?! Ga bisa nemu permaisuri so you’re fine with your folks’ crops dying and water drying out???!!?

Everyone is annoying and deserves the ill fates that befall them. Sukrosono the ugly twin: take me take me take me with you. Sumantri the good looking one: I am ashamed of likely being seen with my ugly twin, no. Sukrosono: take me take me take me. Sumantri: I’ll never leave you again. *leaves before the chapter is up*

Just past halfway point. Honestly I almost DNF’d this at 15% mark or so… but being in a day long flight to the other side of the world and having just finished three other books, I thought I might as well continue. Thank goodness it got interesting again.

3.5 ⭐️

Chapter title is very intriguing: “Don’t Use Your Data as a Pillow.”

Quote on this page:
I asked Waropen for an interview, explaining that I would keep his name anonymous. He recoiled. “What kind of research are you conducting where the identity of your sources doesn’t matter? Wouldn’t your data be stronger if you quoted credible sources?”

1. TIL: there’s a Papua myth that Yesus originally came from Papua, immaculate conception and all. After he was rejected by his kin (because initially he was under the guise of Itchy Old Man, with scabies and sores all over his body), he sailed west—-all the way to the west to Palestine.

2. The audience for this book is really other academic anthropologists. Very dense in theoretical/methodological approaches.

From the interlude at the end of book five:

These then are twelve virtues of rationality: Curiosity, relinquishment, lightness, evenness, argument, empiricism, simplicity, humility, perfectionism, precision, scholarship, and the void.

This has been just okay so far. Some action, some romantic interest, some political intrigue, but I have a feeling it’s quite forgettable. Actually I’m not even sure I’d finish this?