22 February 2020 - Selasa

Hari ini saya terima buku puisi baru oleh  Leo. A.W.S "Memetik Deruan".  Terima kasih Leo. 

Maaf, saya belum boleh mengulas isinya sebab baru baca setengah.  Itupun belum difikirkan implikasi maknanya yang tersirat, ritma bahasa, kaitannya dengan hal semasa dan setempat.

Saya percaya, puisi seperti cerpen berfungsi bercerita.  Ada benda yang penting yang hendak dikongsi dengan bakal pembaca, walaupun benda itu hanya deruan angin, atau pemandangan di luar jendela.

Leo memang seorang penyair yang terikat kepada events, specific localities, chanced encounters. Oleh itu, sekali baca terasa senang dan mudah.  Hal yang sebenar adalah sebaliknya.  Sajak mengingati kawan-kawannya yang telah meninggal kerap muncul, sekaligus mengketengahkan isu kehidupan.  Kehidupan besar implikasinya kepada perenung tentang baik dan jahat, betul dan salah, benar dan palsu.  Membawa isu besar secara bersahaja.  Inilah kualiti puisi Leo yang terkesan kepada saya setakat ini.

InsyaAllah dah habis baca, saya renungkan lagi di dalam blog ini. 

Kursus ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual, dan SSL 1042 Estetik

Kursus ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual, dan Kursus SSL 1042 Estetik adalah dua kursus yang sama tetapi berbeza. Maksud saya, kedua-dua kursus ini kongsi rangka yang sama, seperti yang telah saya keluarkan di dalam MyGuru. Perbezaannya ialah pada para pujangga yang kita kaji. Di dalam rangka tersebut ada sepuluh tajuk, yakni:
1. Pengenalan Estetika
2. Falsafah Seni
3. Estetik Budaya
4. Estetik dan ekspresi manusia
5. Keindahan dalam Seni
6. Estetik dan pengalaman
7. Memahami bentuk dan makna
8. Estetik dalam Islam
9. Estetik dan apresiasi
10. Penilaian estetik.

Di bawah tajuk-tajuk ini ada tajuk-tajuk kecil seperti takrif keindahan; keindahan sebagai objek; keindahan sebagai subjek; takrif seni; memahami karya seni; estetik India, China, Yunani Klasik, dan Afrika; concept of the beautiful and the ugly; metafora, analogi, simbiotik; semiotic; modenisme, pasca-modenisme, constructionism; de-constructionism; subjectivism; objectivism; relativism; emotionalism. Juga di dalam senarai itu ada sejumlah pujangga bermula dari Plato, Aristotle, Baumgarten; Hegel; Kant; Tolstoy; Lessing; Santayana; Croce; Dewey; Clive Bell; Freud; Roger Fry; Susanne Langer; Max Dessoir; Tristan Tzara; Wincklemann; Collingwood; Vasari; Wolfflin; Poggioli; Greenberg; McEvilley; al-Ghazali; al-Faruqi; ibn Rushd; al-Farabi; ibn Sina; al-Kandi’ Ali Syariati; S.H. Nasr.

Senarai di atas adalah tanda bahawa bidang Estetik ini amat luas. Untuk keperluan kita sebagai pengkaji Estetik peringkat awal, maka saya memilih topik-topik yang tertentu. Ada topik yang pelajar ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual, dan SSL 1042 Estetik kongsi bersama, dan ada pula topik yang berbeza. Secara tentatifnya persamaan dan perbezaan itu adalah seperti berikut:


SSL 1042 Estetik
ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Berkongsi kuliah mengenai Aristotle dan mengenai Fenomina Persepsi Estetik.

SL 1042 Estetik
Kuliah mengenai Estetika India


ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Kuliah mengenai Estetika China

SL 1042 Estetik
Kuliah mengenai Hegel

ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Kuliah mengenai Tolstoy

SL 1042 Estetik
Kuliah mengenai Freud

ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Kuliah mengenai Susanne Langer

SL 1042 Estetik
Kuliah mengenai Wincklemann

ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Kuliah mengenai Collingwood

SSL 1042 Estetik
ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Berkongsi kuliah mengenai tema bentuk dan makna


SSL 1042 Estetik
ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Berkongsi kuliah mengenai Estetika dalam Islam

SL 1042 Estetik
Kuliah mengenai tema Modenisme dan Pasca-modenisme

ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Kuliah mengenai tema Constructionism dan de-Constructionism

SSL 1042 Estetik
ASL 3082 Estetika Seni Visual
Berkongsi kuliah mengenai penilaian estetik

Other Ordinary Days

17 October 2008 – Friday

1. At random, before my subuh prayers, opened the Quran to Surah X: 23-26 pondering on “to Us you shall return”, in deep meditative mood.
2. Made the three rounds, until the sun peeped over the crests, hitting at the wall of the factory which turned to burning yellow. In other mornings, that building would recede often lost in the mist.
3. I knew I would have a heavy day today. I had checked on my schedule last night, and again, after breakfast this morning. I also knew there was one meeting that I jotted down on my whiteboard in the sarang but not in my diary. In the shower at 8.30, I got a call, the clerk asking me to get my ass over. The meeting was at 8. 30.
4. I wrote and submitted a memo to the dean listing the names of the 6 students caught copying.
5. No lecture given except picking at students to ask me questions.
6. 3 students, Tan, Rahman, Rahim helped me to sort out 4 years of the NYRB, to be bounded later. I belanja them lunch at the faculty canteen.
7. After the Friday prayers, I got stuck in the mosque because of the heavy rain. I got to talking to the atuk next to me whom I liked due to his Negri turns of tongue. He said he was born in Batang Kali, went to Minangkabau to study religion, which was interrupted by the war. Could not get the volumes of fiqih books because of poverty. He returned home after the war, belonging to the Kaum Muda, whose attitude he still holds, such as refusing to amin the doa of the imam, whose Arabic he did not understand. What if the imam said you fools be damned. Would I amin that? I recite my own doa in Malay. God understands Malay. God understands any language man speaks. You can eat pork if pork would save your life, he insisted. He is now 84; he married a second wife when he was 60; she 20. He eats little, for lunch. In the morning, one biscuit, one cup of sugared coffee. Whenever he stressed on a point, he kept wanting to quote the Quran or the hadith but failed. He said he had no interest in trying to influence people on his beliefs. I beckoned Akmal, my student, to listen as well. Later, Akmal and I walked back to my sarang in the rain, umbrella-ed by a plactic picked up at Abuya.
8. One batch gathered in the sarang for yet another session of Q&A, photos.


18 October 2008 – Saturday

1. Stepped out of the house at 6.40 am. Determined to make five rounds, which I did. Patrick and Yuni joined me at round two. Then have a breakfast of oats, mixed with liberal servings of raisins, powdered milk, and one teaspoon of honey. Realized that the raisins are really sweet; so cut down on the honey, which I added this time, measured. Just pouring it down would be simply too much.
2. In my Terrano, the four of us headed for Shah Alam to attend the wedding of Aziz’s daughter. With the help of Firos on the phone we found our way. Filled the NGV at Rawang – bad gas, low pressure, barely 25 km to a bar, when it should have been 40 to a bar.
3. Then to RA Fine Arts, the grand open house. As always, Engku’s party is lavish, truly royal. With the roasted goat, plus the usual Malay varieties, everybody feasted. We met Wira who was leaving when we arrived. Cunning: she did not want to have to meet people who resented her, and there are hordes. I presented Rozaimah with the portrait of her and her first husband. All the girls were eager to see, wooing, ‘how handsome’. Patrick presented Raja Ahmad with a fairly large oblong painting of his latest waterfall series. He made sure the Berita Harian reporters were there to snap the occasion.
4. I knew I must control: so after one plate of the delicious tender roasted goat, a plate of rojak, and a bowl of nasi himpit, I waved at the water for a bottle of water. I diluted the cholesterol with glasses and glasses of mineral water. At my table, Isle the printmaker, her husband, SAJ, Pakarudin, Fatimah, Sharifah Fatimah, later Dzulhaimy joined us, so did Long Thaih Sheik. We left at 5, refilling at Rawang, in the heavy rains.

19 October 2008 – Sunday

1. Made the five rounds.
2. Jojoi ill, arrived last night. His doctor said, possible dengue, which alarmed us.
3. Patrick went to the market early to get some Janahak fish heads, cooked them at DC, curry.
4. It was a delicious meal, prompting me to nickname him Patrick the Curry-man. Jojoi, poor boy, could not eat. Nor happened to drop by, and the whole thing became a family gathering.
5. We were there till about 10.30, lazing around. I managed to string together 3 essays for Prof. MHS, who has been bugging me for the last 12 months.

20 September 2009 Hari Raya

1. The first to shower at 7, and then woke up my four boys, laying in their blankets, with faces tilted, slanted, mouths open, snoring, in the living room. Last year only Jejen made it to the mosque for the prayers. This year I want to make sure everybody attends.
2. We all walked to the mosque; rightly so. No parking anywhere. Five huge tents set up, to accommodate the ever increasing number of people. Having arrived early, I found a place in the mosque proper. Spotted a few Indonesians and two Caucasian-looking men in Pakistani attire, an intrusion into this once sleepy hollow. How times have changed.
3. Imam Maulud, as he is wont to do every year, instructed the congregation of the manner in which the solat sunat aidilfitri was to be performed. During the first rakaat, however, he failed to perform the takbir. People in the front row reminded him, until her realized his mistake. After the prayers and the tahlil, a few gathered to have slight snacks around the committee members who were wrapping up their counting of the days’ collection, the Imam sneered at himself, “Eden yang nyuruh orang buek boto, eden yang salah,”a rare touch of irony.
4. Family tradition: we all took family pictures. One family at a time, sitting in the couch. All the new dresses worn for this auspicious occasion have this new purpose: photo-op, which is delightful. We competed for the smartest pose.
5. Had a doa tahlil in the house, led by Normi, who now donned a white Cossack, a daily attire. First house to visit, Wan Cik; then Ma Lang’s.
6. Stream of visitors, exhausting. Too hot to follow my family to the graveyard; hidden reason, hate to leave my laptop and other valuables in this room. People have quick hands, when tempted, so.
7. Kak Teh and family came but I was fast asleep, from 4 to 6.
8. But throughout the day, whenever I could, I retreated into my room to translate: finished Borges’ “Mati Yang Satu Lagi”, started on Hatta Khan’s play “Kampung Baru Musical,” and coming close to finish editing my Warmth. Typed a bundle of Jamal’s poems, a strange mixture of religious exhortations, sufi impulses, unbeliever’s beliefs.
9. All text messages of well wishes, often as long as three pages, filled with poems, homilies, and Quranic quotations, received a standard reply from Zakaria Ali: Selamat HR. Maaf Z & B.
10. Ali, Jamal, Firoz are down there in the shed, gambling, joined by other village gamblers. Raya money is changing hands.

21 September 2009 – Monday, 2nd Hari Raya

1. My day to visit my brothers and sisters.
2. First, visited my father’s grave. Then to Bang Ngah’s house, but the gate and the doors locked. He and his clan had left early, to make their rounds of visits.
3. To Sungai Layang, Bang Sahak’s house. While there, Dol KP arrived with his family.
4. We caravanned to Hamdan’s, which I had never been before, in Kendong, Malacca side. The elegant bungalows there are built on one acre piece of land each, with a clear view of Gunung Datuk. But Hamdan was out, visiting. We headed for Port Dickson, to Kak Teh, who is not feeling well; extremely tired, frail.
5. In Seremban, visited my mother’s grave, where I read the Yassin, a miniature copy of which I remembered I kept in my wallet. I wished I did the same at my father’s, earlier; I forgot.
6. At Kak Lang’s I spotted two things. One, my sister’s recall is fast deteriorating. Two, her stepson, from her husband’s Aziz’s second wife, made a rude, illegal, cut on the way to the house. I gave him a contemptuous side glance. He parked his car in front of my sister’s house, entered the house. We were never introduced, or told, who this person was; he is probably no older than Zikri. He walked in out of the living room; everybody ignored him. There is already signs of that gangsterism in this kid, borne of being sidelined, the son of a mother who is never part of the family, outside the pale of recognition. Very early he is already damaged.
7. Then to Loma-Hisham’s, with Dol leading the way, in this complicated Paroi’s suburbs.
8. We arrived back at Kg. Rendah, just in time for the bar-b-q to get started, with Jamal and Ali, doing the fire and setting up the karaoke. Hot-dogs, chicken, and lamb chops, French fries. The party went on until 3 am, everybody except me, trying their talents at the mike. Jamal and Pajidin have good voices, able to pitch, and drawl. Pajidon’s daughter, too, is talented. The heavy rain did nothing to dam the spirit of the party. By one am I was ready to retire, which I did. Jojoi followed me.
9. Note: at breakfast this morning I prodded Padir to do something about those die-hard gamblers, still at it, from 10 last night, and now 10 in the morning. Padir told them straight: “Ini Hari Raya. Judi, berdosa. Dah, berambus!” They packed their cards, and pocketed their cash, and split, shamed.

Ordinary Days

6 March 2009 – Friday

1. Arrived at the Auditorium early, 5 minutes before 8, bringing my laptop with which to show the slides. Jamil set up the computer for the power point. To my disgust, I did not have the slides of modern 20th century western art, or 20th century Malaysian art, in the laptop or in the thumb drive. I used to have them. Must have deleted them, to recover space for something else. So I ended up lecturing on those two things right off the bet, without notes.
2. Took three girls to breakfast after class at the mamak place next door from the BHL computer shop where I dropped my CPU, which refused to start. The problem started when I inserted the connection wire of the printer to the CPU, while it was on. I was a little rough in doing so. I must have knocked something off.
3. At the mosque, after Friday prayers, I probed Atuk Zain as to why he detested one imam, “Menyapah ese”. He is upset because the imam is of the habit after his al-Fatihah, followed by one surah, then silent. And he keeps silent for the longest of time. What for? There is no hadis which says he must, Atuk Zain insists. Just then the imam in his white robe passed by. Atuk Zain hissed, “Tengguk tu, jalan pijak somut pun tak mati. Tapi bila seliseh dengan ese, dia buek tak nampak. Menyampah.”
4. It seems there is no end to filing memos. I spend hours filing them. I want to organize my life, make sure I jot down the dates of meetings and things. This university churns more memos than all the universities combined, I swear.
5. Because my wife took her mother, Shakur, and Nadia to IKEA to window shop, I made sure I got home before dark. Arrived at 6.30. Immediately set up my lap top, determined that tonight I do nothing but the novel. And in six hours I wrote 2 precious pages. Would they be as precious tomorrow?
6. Jojoi came back from work bring me 2 pieces of KFC. Out of diffidence, I ate because my son brought home the food. I really don’t care for junk foods.

7 March 2009 – Saturday

1. My walk was wonderful because I did the five rounds in one hour.
2. My mother-in-law fried kueh kodok and made sambal tumis. I ate one plateful, my favorite.
3. Spent the whole day in front of this lap top, finishing another 4 pages. On re-reading they seem stale. Damn!
4. Dr. Fauzi, Jamilah, Roskand came bringing along Prof. Jonathan Holmes, who was duly impressed with the house, the books, the paintings. He flies back to Tasmania tonight.
5. Then Baha and his family arrived, showing me his dissertation, the corrections he made, the pictures he replaced, just like what the examiners had suggested.
6. Tonight I paint, adding another layer of glaze of Hooker's Green and Turquoise Blue that might create the depths that have eluded me thus far.