Martin D15M, i’ll catch you soon.
Bayangkan sebuah pancake, diatasnya stroberi segar dengan rasa yang sedikit manis walaupun asamnya mendominasi, tambahkan eskrim vanilla di atasnya, lalu siram dengan sirup madu, seperti itu rasanya sore hari di ibukota pada sebelas Desember tahun lalu.
Dia bukan seperti yang lain, rasanya beda. Tapi kami baik-baik saja. Belakangan ini, tiap kali bangun tidur, saya berharap ada dia di samping saya. Salah? Bisa jadi.
Di kali yang lain, mimpi sesekali bicara. Dalam kondisi satu dan lainnya, saya berharap tidak ada yang membangunkan. Sebab ini membahagiakan, kecuali kenyataan bahwa tiap kilasan yang muncul hanya bunga tidur. Atau sesederhana itulah bahagia pada manusia; ia begitu fana.
Saya menyadari betapa cepatnya waktu bergerak ketika kita baru saja sadar bahwa ada orang-orang yang kita tinggalkan dan meninggalkan kita. Karenanya, daripada harus kehilangan dia, rasanya lebih baik saya berdoa sebanyak yang tidak pernah kamu bayangkan agar Tuhan mau membuat waktu berhenti hari ini.
Dan dia, pada suatu titik, membuat saya mengerti bahwa tanda dan rasa kadang sia-sia. Kadang yang kita butuhkan cuma rasionalitas. Bahwa kita telah dewasa; Bumi yang kita pijak telah diteorikan dan gravitasi berada padanya. Manusia cukup paham dan patuh.
Harapan terbesar saya hari ini adalah agar ia berbahagia, pada gerak atau diamnya. Dengan siapapun yang saat ini-boleh jadi-sedang menggenggam tangan kirinya.
Yang pasti, saya sedang jatuh cinta.
Tenang, tidak kan dibebankan perkara melebihi kemampuan kita. Mana mungkin Tuhan berbohong.
— (via palawija)
Belakangan ini, saya menulis dan menghapus. Tidak ada artikel yang selesai. Rabb, padaMu hamba kembali.
Mermonte
It was December 20th, 2012, and everyone was waiting for the world to end. Instead of savoring our last moments on earth in the company of family, Hugo and I went West to spend our remaining hours frolicking on the beaches of Bretagne with the ten members of Mermonte, a joyous entourage of melodic geniuses from Rennes. We had the good fortune of spending the entire day with the group, and the anecdotes we came back with evoked the sessions shot during the ‘good old days’ at the Blogothèque, when Vincent Moon would spend a whole day with a band filming not just the music, but the personalities behind it. Here’s what we saw, what we heard, and what we felt.
It’s six in the morning, and I am standing in the Paris métro with my two excessively heavy travel bags. Only four hours later do I find the various members of Mermonte and we orient ourselves towards Saint Malo. We would have planned on filming in Paris, since they were playing with Efterklang, but Mermonte is an unusually large band and their gig was canceled––that’s why we instead find ourselves en route to a big family house, a house so old it witnessed my great grandmother’s childhood. For a few summers now I’ve dreamed of kidnapping a band at the Route du Rock festival and bringing them here to play; Mermonte are my lucky victims. Too bad for those bands from Route du Rock, they’ll be missing out.
At first we considered shooting the band in the dusty nooks of the ancient dwelling, but the weather was too beautiful to ignore. So we turned the group loose outside. We opened the windows wide and Ghislain, the mastermind of the project, decided to settle on the patio facing the jade waters of le Havre de Rothéneuf, situated on the aptly-named Côte d’Émeraude. The Emerald Coast.
While we readied the equipment and mapped out the session the band warmed up inside, screwing around with metal or folk tunes on the tiny amplifiers we’d brought, changing the ambience of the place as they pleased. That’s the thing about Ghislain: he’s able to bring so many talented people together in one place, pulling buddies from other bands to realize his orchestral visions.
Everyone on the terrace looks to Ghislain, who leads off “We’re On The Same Way”. Even the waves’ stifling crashing relents a bit as if the ocean itself were pausing to listen, soothed by these guitars and the violin’s long notes. Their voices rise in tandem with the rushing of the waves, and in a moment of gravity, you remain silent and listen. Each musician pulls from his or her throat a precise note to expertly weave with the others in a shimmering textile of sound that hangs above them. Everyone knows what to do; it’s a happy conspiracy that evidences itself in the glances they exchange as mischievous smiles spread across their faces.
Later, after a lunch typical of the Breton region, the congenial atmosphere perseveres despite the rain. In the warmth of the old salon that, in all its years, has never borne witness to a concert quite like this one, we enjoy a moment of rest. The dusk has chased off the storm and we head towards the beach. The waters are gone, all signs of life have disappeared, and in these final moments on Earth Mermonte is present in the middle of the haven, surrounded by beached ships, catching the last shafts of sunlight before the fatal winter solstice to come.
The clock is ticking and in a violent gust of salt air, Mathieu counts the tempo for “Monte”, a shaker clasped tight in his frozen hand. Decidedly, the group sings as a choir before the ground splits open and the earth collapses. But the world is not going to end. And I like to think we owe it to Mermonte, who serenaded this desolate landscape and this old house.
This video will give you an idea of how I pretty much gave up hope on my country, and its present culture.
well, let’s don’t lose hopes. kata Bang Gandhi kan don’t wait for the change, be the change, ja. gue masih percaya dunia bisa lebih baik (y).
let’s play a game called how long can i put off my assignment until i start stress crying
(via spednut)
Noah’s Barn Coffeenery Bandung: A one rare great coffee point!
Sudah lama sebenernya sejak saya nemu eksistensi tempat ini dari blognya The Almighty Kang Toni Wahid, Cikopi, tapi baru hari ini saya sempat kesana. Lokasinya yang jauh (kalo saya periksa dari Google Maps, ya) dan kenggaktahuan saya akan gimana caranya pergi ke sana adalah alasan utama dari hal ini.
Saya nggak punya SIM kendaraan apapun dan karena itu juga saya ngandalin public transport untuk bepergian di Bandung, termasuk ke tempat ini. Cukup sekali naik angkot dari depan kosan dan saya bisa sampai ke Noah’s Barn tanpa perlu ganti kendaraan walaupun jarak tempuhnya cukup jauh.
Itu siang hari, sekitar jam setengah dua. Mataharinya-you bet-terik banget. Jadi sebelum sampai tujuan, waktu itu saya pikir mau ganti pilihan aja, yang semula tujuan utama saya nyobain espresso atau cappuccino-nya (yg notabene the main menu untuk tau kayak apa sih kopi di tempat ini?) menjadi aih panas, tar pesen minuman dingin aja lah!. Eh tapi saya masih belajar loh ya, enak-enggaknya kopi juga tergantung lidah pelanggan *wink.
Tapi begitu sampai saya liat dari luar, tempatnya nggak ketebak akan keren banget. Ya, visual depan tokonya kalem gitu. Dan lagi, dia seolah-olah kok nembak banget tetiba ada kafe diantara toko-toko di sepanjang Jalan Garuda nan gersang ini.
First impression-nya: kayaknya oke nih! Interiornya juga senada sama konsep keseluruhan (grafis, penyediaan kopi, dll). Dan yang paling utama, peletakan barista equipments yang tertata rapi, amazingly clean-looked, dan barista ramah yang menyapa begitu saya masuk.
Saya duduk di meja bar, tepat di depan barista, nggak jadi mesen minuman dingin, saya mesen cappuccino. Karena tempatnya ber-AC, jadi sejuk di dalem dan ini juga membuat saya senang karena tersedianya AC juga jadi jaminan bahwa tempat ini seluruhnya non smoking area. Meja barnya tjakep, cukup nyaman untuk kita ngopi sambil bisa lihat baristanya nyiapin macem-macem.
Gambar diatas diambil dari website resmi Noah’s Barn.
Selama pesanan saya dibikin, saya perhatikan kerjaan baristanya. Apik lho. Apalagi mesinnya Synesso Hydra yang keren banget itu. Kopi selesai dan diletakkan di depan saya. Anda bisa bayangin, good barista + good blend + good machine + good place, tentu saja saya expecting a great cup dong. Nah, saya ambil sendok dan menggeser milk foam di bagian atas kopi, and after doing that, I could make sure of myself that this coffee will be good, and yes, it really is!
Kopi terenak saya bulan ini. Beneran.
Sambil menikmati, saya ngobrol-ngobrol ringan dengan mas baristanya. Jadi blend yang dipakai semuanya arabika (saya lupa detailnya) karena dia memang pengen rasa kuat di body kopinya. Terus, Noah’s Barn lahir karena ownernya yang sangat gila kopi merasa kesulitan untuk nemu kopi enak di Bandung (agreed, high-five, mas owner!), jadi dia iseng bikin tempat ini dan ternyata banyak yang suka. Dalam hati saya, isengnya aja begini, gimana yg seriusnya coba.
Nggak cuma nyediain espresso dan turunannya, tempat ini juga surga buat para pecinta manual brewing! French press, pour over, vietdrip, si eksotis syphon, bahkan aeropress ada disini. Ohiya, buat kalian yang suka pesen kopi dengan sistem take away tapi cinta lingkungan dan mau mengurangi penggunaan paper cup, tempat ini juga jual gelas legendaris KeepCup itu lho!
Gambar diambil dari website resmi Noah’s Barn. Btw, itu kursinya Charles and Ray Eames lho.
Overall, tempat ini buat saya sangat memuaskan. Biarpun cuma sebentar (gara-gara orang yang janjian sama saya ga jadi dateng dan saya harus pergi lagi), rasanya saya seperti nemu one rare good coffee point diantara sekian banyaknya cafe yang tersebar diseantero Bandung. Rasanya saya akan rutin datang ke sini hehe. Mau bareng? Boleh, kontak saya via twitter yap (y).
Buat kalian yang coffeegeek dan berdomisili di Bandung, tempat ini adalah a-must-visit. Other than that, buat ngobrol dan berdiskusi ringan bareng temen, atau buat referensi tempat baru bagi kalian yang bosen karena tempat nongkrong yang punya good coffee menu di Dago dan sekitarnya sudah bosen kalian kunjungi berkali-kali, therefore I really do recommend this place!
Gambar terakhir ini diambil dari sini.
Villagers on Balcony TV!
While every instrument on Villagers’ Mercury Prize nominated debut Becoming a Jackal was performed almost entirely by songwriter Conor J. O’Brien on his own, Awayland is an entirely different beast, with Conor inviting his fellow touring partners to perform his songs as a group, allowing a certain level of collaborative inventiveness to inform the arrangements. The album was engineered, produced and mixed by O’Brien and fellow band member Tommy McLaughlin at Attica Audio in Dongeal, Ireland.
After initially beginning to write material for Awayland on his acoustic guitar, O’Brien felt he needed to take a new and different approach, “flip on its head the idea of what music is for myself,” and began creating musical landscapes, listening to widescreen instrumental music like Lalo Schifrin and David Axelrod. There is a different kind of movement on Awayland, an exploration of what O’Brien felt was most important, yet not immediately obvious. Trees, birds, the sea — all recurring images in O’Brien’s work that provide a kind of metaphor for living and dying, and the sense of soaring otherness. The record is possessed with playful joy as it is with devastation, a filtering of disparate influences — the quiet elegance of Nick Drake, and the sensuality of Curtis Mayfield. It is, as Kurt Vonnegut might have put it “intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd” (Slaughterhouse-Five, Chapter 6)- life, in other words.
Since the release of their debut record in 2010, one that also earned Conor an Ivor Novello songwriting, Villagers have shared stages with artists like Neil Young, Tindersticks, Fleet Foxes and currently with Grizzly Bear. O’Brien performed on “Later… with Jools Holland”, “Last Call with Carson Daly”, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, WXPN’s World Café, WNYC’s Soundcheck and KEXP and was praised by The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Paste and Pitchfork.
