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vie you can read posted on june 12 2022 by antares maitreya meet kam raslan college dropout filmmaker and now first time novelist physically kam is an unlikely cross between keanu reeves and woody allen mentally i d suggest fyodor dostoevsky overlaid with a strong hint of john cleese mother welsh fond of classical music a violinist and closet fan of david bowie father malay successful banker passed away when kam was only four educational background kam went to some excellent schools in england and flunked all his exams remembers seeing his mother with her head in her hands after he failed his o levels and all he could say was i m going to the pub after screwing up his a levels kam s friend at a film school asked him to help out on a shoot as sound recordist the very first day of the shoot kam fell in love with filmmaking i suddenly discovered something that i understood and something that i was good at that was 21 years ago he has since worked on films in london kuala lumpur jakarta and even los angeles in the 1990s kam directed a lot of commercials and was making good money until he wrote a magazine article dismissing malaysian adbiz as a load of crap not exactly a smart business move but perhaps it forced kam to concentrate on writing he was kept busy for a period scripting material for the instant café theatre in fact rumor has it that kam wrote the bulk of the skits for their 2nd first annual bolehwood awards which ruffled quite a few bureaucratic feathers and almost got the show shut down by city hall kam paid his penance by scripting and directing several malay tv dramas none of which he seems keen to discuss in any detail more recently kam raslan s byline has graced the pages of the edge as well as off the edge which serialized several chapters from his forthcoming novel when i broached the possibility of an interview and personality profile for the hilt kam was pleased with the prospect of some publicity for his soon to be published book but unsure if he wanted to be identified as the author you see kam s first novel is a personal narrative attributed to a retired civil servant named dato hamid kam wants his readers to believe that dato hamid is a real person not just a fictitious character assembled from components of various personalities he has known or heard about after a brief exchange of smses kam agreed that it was quite pointless to assume the role of ghostwriter and far too complicated to spin a yarn that kam raslan was only the dato s spokesman and facilitator might as well accept all the credit as well as the possible censure from certain quarters who may be acutely discomfited by dato hamid s published confessions kam s approach to writing is distinctly more cinematic than literary in that he prefers to set the scene and then allow his characters to reveal themselves through their words and deeds this makes his book a painless pleasure to read by eschewing verbal embroidery and highfalutin stylistics kam draws the reader straight into his tale just as a well crafted film instantly immerses us in the action and the atmosphere the naturalism that kam has achieved in his story telling grants us a privileged glimpse of a world within a world that of the upper class malay in the context of post colonial malaya s rapid evolution into the multi layered complexity of a multicultural multiracial malaysian nation dato hamid s stories engagingly reveal the foibles and follies of the malay elite and offer a rare insight into the sociopolitical and psychological factors governing malaysia what s the title of your book i asked kam umm still thinking about it he said wondering if i had any suggestions i smsed kam call it hamid in bold 3d font like ben hur with a subhead confessions of a retired civil servant he shot back an sms funny i was thinking along the lines of ben hur myself later i googled the arabic name hamid and found out it means praiseworthy definitely a name that looks good carved in stone note in 2007 a few months after this article appeared kam raslan s debut novel confessions of an old boy was published by marshall cavendish it proved to be a runaway bestseller first published in the hilt december 2006 share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading leave a comment posted in books literature malaysian arts culture and tagged malaysian writers bookmark the permalink sacred ritual as art posted on august 6 2021 by antares maitreya ricardo chavez tovar mexican malaysian the muse is not available december 2009 the elusive art of sacred ritual commercialism and industrialism now threaten alas to turn art into just another economic activity and the artist s ceremonial and magical role into a purely ornamental one no doubt a certain superstitious awe still attends the artist s endeavors but in this consumerist age the artist shaman s contribution to the success of the hunt has been reduced to churning out effective advertising and public relations for the vulgar new gods of materialism or fashionable new trends for the children of the privileged antares maitreya inner technology of art making public the private 2001 it s not often that i get the chance to quote myself so i decided to grab this opportunity i feel the above statement is particularly relevant to what ricardo chavez tovar is all about he is one among a handful of artists with whom i m personally acquainted who has consciously reclaimed his magical lineage as a brujo a practising shaman technically he is as conscientious and competent as any professional artist you will find anywhere in the world it s just that ricardo doesn t give two hoots about public relations and the glossy hype that permeates the art milieu rare photo of the artist with some of his students i don t claim to know the man at all but he apparently knows something about me since he keeps inviting me to officiate at his openings and now he is twisting my arm to write a foreword for his catalog even though he must suspect i no longer feel fired up enough about art to wish to pontificate about it in any case ricardo says i should view it as an honor and not a chore and so i will ricardo chavez tovar will always be an enigma perhaps even to himself i won t attempt to expound upon his equally enigmatic and intriguing art indeed to approach his work on the cerebral level seems sacrilegious it would be as uncouth and ungracious as furtively extracting dead skin cells from the fingers of the muse for laboratory analysis instead of ecstatically surrendering to her tender caresses one thing is certain ricardo chavez tovar is not bothered by the games people tend to play and the elaborate pretenses that surround the rarefied precincts of fashionable and marketable art would he otherwise spend months and years working on exhibits that can t be sold and proudly displayed in the finest suburban homes altar to the muse december 2009 nonetheless having said that i can picture ricardo s evocative installations occupying pride of place in some prestigious contemporary art museum anywhere in the civilized world so i hope he maintains an open mind about the prospect of sudden unexpected global acclaim what drives the man then to such unimaginable intensities of feeling and artistic arousal if the word religious didn t carry such a heavy burden of negative connotations i would apply it to ricardo s art after all he was born mexican a tempestuous genetic and cultural mix of olmec maya zapotec toltec aztec and conquistador his blood is infused with the otherworldly song of stars and with the colors flavors and textures that inspire vivid murals his cellular memories encompass galaxies and constellations the mystery of death fascinates and obsesses him as powerfully as the secret of life his imagination is fired equally by the divine and the diabolical you could call him a regenerate pagan a renegade human what inspired him to embark on the current series in a recent email ricardo discloses that he got struck by a shining light of creative madness while listening to the residents one of his favorite avant garde bands whose allusions to an imaginary guru named n senada and his theory of obscurity were probably based on the mutant musings of don van vliet aka captain beefheart a 1970 s dada rock icon who retired from the music scene in 1982 to focus on painting morning stretching of a golden fool on the awakening balcony ricardo s series of installations dedicated to the muse conspicuously absent yet ubiquitously present now exist only in photographic form lovingly documented by ung chirt min having been exhibited to no more than a tiny number of hardcore aficionados in effect ricardo chavez tovar is one of those rare artists who can operate quite happily without an audience since his art is his personal form of worship his own sacred ceremony ricardo spent three years in china learning the language and absorbing the culture then he relocated to penang where he has taught for nearly twenty years his best buddy and artistic accomplice in penang is askandar unglehrt a german married to a kelantanese princess who shares ricardo s eye and taste for the surreal the epiphanic and the ephemeral and also the luminous numinous humorous ludicrous and conceptually intoxicating i mention askandar because his contribution to ricardo s evolution as an artist magician cannot be discounted every artist shaman sorcerer or wizard derives inspiration nourishment and nurturing from those who recognize acknowledge and believe in him well ricardo let me state here for the record that i too recognize acknowledge and believe in you live long prosper if at all possible and influence the course of human destiny if you so desire october s full moon party at the tropical gardens of lady luna 2012 antares maitreya magick river 6 august 2009 a note of apology from antares ricardo emailed me in january 2007 asking if i would say a few words at the opening of his installation the muse is not available i agreed of course since everybody says it s an honor to be invited to officiate at such events my dear friend askandar unglehrt in his program notes to this event describes ricardo s work as a visual poem about presence and absence or more precisely about the presence of the absence i know ricardo as an artist who lives his art and we know that life imitates art as often as art imitates life i was looking forward to being present at his opening in kuala lumpur and yet my absence is proclaimed by this note i was compelled by unavoidable circumstances to deliver this message by proxy one of my daughters celebrates her 10th wedding anniversary today on langkawi island and she insisted that her daddy be present without consulting the calendar i immediately agreed knowing her she would not be amused if i didn t show up for her grand party ricardo i know has already forgiven me indeed he wants me to officiate at his next opening i promise i will make myself available on that happy occasion for now i can only trust that my absence will add to rather than detract from the magical presence of ricardo s uniquely imaginative and evocative work thank you dear friends may you enjoy and be enriched by the work of this extremely talented and passionate artist antares 1 june 2007 share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook like loading leave a comment posted in visual arts and tagged installation mexican in malaysia penang artist ricardo chavez tovar sacred ritual bookmark the permalink hot heavenly hornbills posted on july 11 2020 by antares maitreya minah angong became an overnight sensation after performing in sarawak photo courtesy of rafique rashid antares reports from the 1998 rainforest world music festival in sarawak mak minah strolled along the white sands her hunter gatherer eyes scanning the beach for little sea crabs and edible molluscs she glanced up at the luminous clouds clinging to the evocative peak of mount santubong so this was the land of hornbills beautiful postcard views but not a single hornbill in sight a few hours earlier the 68 year old temuan ceremonial singer had boarded a boeing 737 jet at the cyclopean klia for the brief bumpy flight to kuching her first ever airborne experience as usual mak minah was amazingly cool about it no big deal was her verdict however she had prepared herself for the big gig overseas at sarawak s first annual rainforest world music festival by getting her hair permed a whole fortnight before the event when dr wan zawawi songwriter anthropologist who s now dean of the faculty of applied and creative arts at unimas invited akar umbi to join his anak dayung group for this two day world music festival august 29 30 1998 i didn t have a clue what he was talking about back me up on a couple of numbers and you get to perform one of mak minah s songs the affable academician had said well i d never been to sarawak and this promised to be an idyllic musical junket now we only needed to check if rafique was game for this gig miraculously he was even though the monetary stipend was modest as it turned out we were rewarded with four memorable nights in a musician s heaven joey ayala with hegalong rafique rashid i didn t know who else was on the festival bill until we received our souvenir programmes the only name familiar to me was joey ayala whom i d met 13 years ago at the first kuala lumpur arts festival it was a blast to see joey ayala again accompanied by his immensely lovable and vivacious band when i finally saw them in action joey and his dazzling group simply blew me away o mighty eagle my true king i want to fly in the sky like you joey ayala intoned lamenting the plight of latter day eagles who not finding any more tall trees to build their nests were in captivity or in hiding wings folded and flightless may there always be tall trees in the forest for us to build our nests so that like the mighty eagle we too can fly eagles hornbills emblems of freedom and nobility for an instant a small frown furrowed joey s brow then he called out to the sound booth no sound i want to play my guitar yes there were lots of problems with the sound mainly due to the understandable confusion of a technical crew who had never experienced a concert of this scale and variety and there was sound what a monstrously beautiful powerful towering ecstatically transcendental sound earthy as a filipino folk tune funky and spunky as celestial angel come no one embodied the spirit of the rainforest world music festival more musically more poetically more sincerely than joey ayala and when his band let rip everyone just soared like an eagle or a hornbill riding the joyful musical airstreams joey s line up cynthia alexander joey s baby sister on electrifying bass guitar an impish science fiction elf princess flying sorceress and a highly gifted award winning musician to boot malou matute wholesome piano teacher turned d...
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