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Meet Pablo Gentile. A gutsy American artist who moved to Bali in the 80s to breathe art and live within this island’s culture.

You are known as being one of the successful artists based in Bali appearing in collections worldwide. How did you happen to develop as an artist based here?

Well, I was a student at New York School of Visual Arts and after graduating, I travelled extensively throughout Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Orient and Southeast Asia. I had been to Bali briefly in 1973 and never really got over it. I always kept sketchbooks and journals. When I returned in the 80’s from a little grass shack on the beach I began developing these ideas into finished works.

Bali has a tradition of attracting foreign artists for over a century. Aside from the obvious exotic beauty, and mystical aspects of an elaborate culture, from an artist’s standpoint a lot of the attraction was the magical golden light it was bathed in. The morning light was golden and thick, the way it filtered in through the foliage was magical. You can feel it in some of the works of Le Mayeur and others painting here around the 1930’s and 40’s. Most of it was focused around Sanur and Ubud.

What is the major difference in working in Bali now as compared to when you returned here in the early 80’s?

The type of traveller has changed since it developed and made the airport international.  Before that it wasn’t so easy getting here and mass tourism was a long way off. There were a lot of interesting people living here in the 70s and early 80s; adventurers, travellers, celebrities, writers, artists, designers, desperadoes, vagabonds, and surfers. For tourists, it was really about cultural tourism, which is still the island’s major attraction and what sets the place apart from the countless island paradises Indonesia has to offer.

It was impossible to be insulated here, you had to eat the local food, and in most cases with your fingers. There were very few places with electricity, no TV, telephones, or air conditioning. Hot water and mosquito nets were considered luxuries, and it was a long way to go for a decent margarita. To set up a studio in Bali, you needed to be prepared to sacrifice many basic comforts and be cut off from the “real world”. Working at night was difficult under dim lights, sporadic and weak electricity, if any, and buzzing mosquitoes.

Getting books was difficult and they were carried in, treasured, read and passed around. Those of us who lived here created everything we needed; our own entertainment; theatrical events were staged, everyone did their part, we had music jams and concerts, we made our own clothes, houses, and everything that went in them. We were interested in the Balinese culture and it was part of our daily lives. Parties were free and open; not a business. The type of traveller has changed. We actually came here to live within the culture. To us the greatest luxury was the simplicity of our lives here within the complexity of an ancient culture.

How does your relationship with the island affect the commissions and works you are able to achieve internationally?

Basically my paintings are the same methods and subject matter I would be doing anywhere. In my heart I’m still an American artist, and I guess that’s my vantage point. Certain major commissions, for example working with Universal Studios, I was able to turn my large-scale drawings into monumental works of stone-carved reliefs. This could never have been possible without the amazing skills of the Balinese craftsmen who have been carving stone throughout generations. The relationship between artist and craftsman in these works involves the carvers following my hand exactly, by carving through the exact scale contour drawings that I make. So the creative stuff never leaves my hands.

Tell me about your current work. What would you say is the feeling and inspiration behind the pieces?

I guess its return to my old graffiti and comic book roots, not really much to do with Bali specifically. I’ve been exhibiting and spending more time in the States lately, and I’m still interested in the idea of mobility through various cultures and philosophies and see my work as a means of understanding how those conditions interrelate. It’s important to recognize our shared past and our relationship to our ancient ancestors. There are various tribal elements that somehow keep jumping in, but there are no such tribes.

Besides being a visual artist you are a musician and a writer. There is an elemental force, which permeates all your works, a thread of synchronicity, an urban element.

I like keeping things out of balance and edgy and find most symmetry bland and one-dimensional. My roots are urban.

Being based in Bali, do you find it easier to concentrate in this environment?

I was raised one of four kids in an apartment in New York City. In order to do my homework there was a lot to tune out just to concentrate. Even now I like to work with the TV on and the sound turned down, the music playing, my pets wandering around the studio, and various others, what some may call distractions actually provide me with a means of focusing. Chaos presents many dimensions, which reflect in my work. I worked in warehouses in NYC, so I built a loft here using the same proportions but using traditional materials.

I remember you were the first to actually create a NY style loft here. So now tell me about your writing?

I always kept sketchbooks and journals. I used to write lyrics for music or throw them into the mix while jamming. A friend encouraged me to enter a poem to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival Poetry Slam last year and to my surprise I took first prize. This year there were some good participants in the Poetry Slam. The right man won, he was great! This prompted me to start taking it a little more seriously, so I’m still working on my second book, currently titled, “The Revenge of the Chainsaw Buddha”. It’s a collection of short stories and poetry, and drawings made during my over 30 years of travel throughout the world.

Which artists do you most admire?

I admire anyone who has the balls to do this for a living.

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Mark Heyward
Pub. Transit Lounge Publishing 2013
ISBN: 978-1-921924-507

“One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.”
– Henry Miller

My bookshelf has a number of tales written by travellers through Indonesia; from Geoffrey Gorer in the mid ’30s (Bali and Angkor), to Norman Lewis (An Empire of the East – 1995), Redmond O’Hanlon (Into the Heart of Borneo – 1983), and George Monbiot’s Poisoned Arrows – 1989.

However, these were written by folk who came, observed, and then departed for pastures new, and not by someone who is the patriarch of an Indonesian family and has clocked up nigh on two decades here.

With his fellow Tasmanian wife and their two young children, Mark Heyward arrived in East Kalimantan in 1992 to teach at an international school for the children of expatriate miners. He had a certain wanderlust inherited from his family’s folklore and so he was not the first to leave Tasmania, that far-flung corner of the Commonwealth, for the tropical forests of Borneo.

In 1994, seeking “a little adventure in [his] own life” with three companions, he set out to cross Kalimantan from his home base in Sangatta to Pontianak in the southwest. His journal of the seventeen day adventure, recounting travelling by taksi air (water taxis, “the local public transport”), climbing mountain ridges, trekking through forests, wading across streams and exploring cave systems in isolated areas, forms the core of the book.

A year after his “adventure”, he returned to Tasmania, a divorce, and further study. As the subject of his PhD was ‘intercultural literacy’, returning to Kalimantan seemed natural, and it was at his old school that he met his future wife. Although currently based in Jakarta, where Mark works as an educational consultant for an international NGO, their home is in Lombok, where they have a studio, “a comfortable eco lodge”, and have helped set up a school for local children which invokes gotong royong (“community action”).

I’d only had time for a quick dip into the book before Mark and I first met up for a chat over a few Bintangs but, with delighted recognition, I had already realised that we were on the same page of different books.

Mark described his journal to me as “a little bit naive” and in writing a Tasmanian magazine article, which ended up as “half a book”, he realised that his “journey of a lifetime” was just part of a life’s journey.

And that becomes clear when reading Crazy Little Heaven. Although the journey across Kalimantan forms the main structure, it is divided into seven parts which act as pegs. These have allowed Mark to reflect not only on the ‘then’ but also on where it has led him; to the ‘now’.

For example, in Part 5, the trekkers come across an isolated Dayak family whose sole occupation, it seems, is to harvest birds’ nests from caves in limestone outcrops by clambering up precarious bamboo scaffolding. However, “while in the past birds’ nest were obtained exclusively from remote locations like this, more recently enterprising locals have begun farming the birds” for a “burgeoning Chinese market”.

Mark writes movingly about his visits to the orangutan rehabilitation centres founded by Willie Smits, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), and Biruté Galdikas who founded Camp Leakey.

“With our greed and appetite for progress, our cruelty and inability to share the planet with other creatures, we have become a destructive plague. Looking into the eyes of a young orangutan threw this into stark relief. Is his the last generation?”

Perhaps Mark’s journey is not so much myth-making as in placing his own in the context of the many myths westerners cannot grasp here. In order to conform to Indonesia’s marriage laws, Mark converted to Islam. In Part 6, Rapids and Religion, he offers an extensive ‘critique’ of religious ethical codes as practised here.

He witnessed the fatalism – Inshallah (God willing) – of Muslims in Aceh six months after the tsunami, yet I knew two parents who, having lost three of their four children to the waves, subsequently died of heart break.

His own sense of spirituality has led him to climb many volcanoes throughout the archipelago. On Gunung Inerie on Flores, which is a predominantly Catholic island, he had a sense of awe and wonder.

Standing on that peak, nothing around us but sharp, slender air, a strange stillness, the roaring silence prompted me. Turning to our local guide I asked, “Can you hear it? Can you hear the voice of God?”

“Nope,” he replied, with a puzzled look.

He later “wonders whether we should be looking beyond the Abrahamic religions for a spiritual basis for the environmental ethic we so desperately need.”

At the recent book launch in Kemang, a local journalist asked Mark, “What’s in it for Indonesian readers?” His answer was that he hoped it would help Indonesia-Australia relations.

A worthy aim, but as he told me, “Writing is an act of making meaning, sorting out the chaos, myth-making; and the primary audience is oneself.”

I suggested to Mark that because his journey as a young man had set the context of his life, perhaps the book served as a closure.

After 20 or so years spent travelling around the islands of Indonesia he said that “Indonesia has become me. The more Indonesia becomes comprehensible and ‘normal’, the more I appreciate the beguiling mix of contradictions and ambiguities; a sweet disappearing world.”

“Living and travelling in Indonesia teaches you nothing if not flexibility in thinking.”

How very true.

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An excerpt from Looking for Borneo, images, words and music inspired by the book, Crazy Little Heaven.

Not far from here, at the end of an impossibly potholed jungle track,traditional Bahau Dayak ways are preserved in this rapidly developing region. The isolated village of Eheng sports a fine sprawling lamin or longhouse where families live the old way and continue to enact the rituals which ensure respect is paid to ancestors, and ancient spirits are appeased. On a previous occasion when visiting Eheng with my family, I was greeted with the evocative sounds of a village gamelan orchestra mingling with the beat of mallet and chisel as a Whuge tree trunk was transformed into a heavily carved, symbolic totem pole. I watched for a while. Human figures with grotesquely exaggerated genitals and facial features emerged from the raw timber entwined with snakes, dragons and classic swirling motifs.

I climbed a notched wooden pole to enter the raised longhouse. As my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, I took in a remarkable scene. A small group was huddled around playing the gamelan gongs in the slatted light inside. In one corner of the communal space which ran the length of the structure, a group of old men sat around a Dayak shaman chanting in an unintelligible local language. A large area was separated with hanging dry leaf strips and floored with rattan mats. Beyond this, women squatted beside a pair of large Chinese porcelain jars, busy in the preparation of a range of festive foods. Villagers wandered about, smoking and chatting with a sidelong glance or sometimes an open stare at our intrusion. In the centre of the cordoned area hung a large and brightly painted wooden box, decorated with a profusion of colourful rags and plaited reeds. Looking up to where this arrangement was attached to the ceiling high above, I could see a cluster of cheap china plates and bowls suspended upside down amongst the dust and cobwebs.

“What is all that for?” asked my son, Oliver, then eleven years old and trying to make sense of it all.
By this stage, the economic opportunities that our visit presented were being asserted and a range of carved and woven artefacts was spread out for our inspection. My attention was diverted from speculation on the meaning of it all, and I set about the more pressing business of souvenir shopping.“Beats me,” I replied, my Indonesian language not then good enough for me to find out.

It was not until some time later that the significance of this scene became clear.

On a second visit to Eheng, a few months later, Tim and I met Michael Cope, an Australian anthropologist who for two years had been living on and off in the village and studying the Bahau people’s religion and changing society. Michael looked rather like a tall and bearded version of the scrawny kampung chickens that scrabble about beneath the longhouse, this appearance perhaps being the effect of a prolonged diet of nasi putih and local cigarettes. He was happy to have the opportunity for conversation in his native tongue with visitors interested in his research.

“Eheng,” he explained, “is a typically young lowland Dayak village. It was established around thirty years ago when the villagers migrated from the inland. Since that time only three traditional funeral ceremonies have been held. It just costs too much.”

The elaborate three-week-long rituals are apparently a financial burden few families can bear. To cover the costs of the funeral we had stumbled into on the previous visit, it is likely that the host family would have sold one of the priceless antique ceramic jars that were once traded upstream by Chinese merchants for precious jungle products, and have now become collectors’ items coveted by antique traders from the coast.

The totem pole or sepunduq I observed being carved was to be erected in the clearing in front of the longhouse, where it would serve as a hitching post for a sacrificial beast at the climax of the ceremony. In earlier times a human sacrifice would have been offered. After the funeral, the carved pole was probably sold to help offset costs. The colourful box hanging inside the longhouse had contained the disinterred and ritually washed bones of those family members whose spirits were to be released for their journey on the ship of the dead to a Dayak heaven.

Glorious Mud 2014 pencil, pen and wash on paper by Khan Wilson

“On the final night of the three weeks of rituals,” Michael went on, “those bones were taken from the box and given a wild party before they were put in their sandung.” As he talked he led us to the village cemetery where the sandung were to be found. A row of five or six carved wooden sarcophagi rested a couple of metres above the weedy ground on carved poles.

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Meet John Marciano, founder of the Republic of Soap – a holistic approach to creating products reminiscent of a bygone era, made by hand in small batches, with love!

You are a child of expatriates. Where are you from originally?
I have mixed heritage and was born in Izmir, Turkey. When I was six months old my family moved to New York. But I started kindergarten in Jakarta, and also attended the Joint Embassy School, which is now known as the Jakarta International School (JIS). In the mid ‘70s, we moved to Singapore and had a household there for 22 years. I remember so many beautiful colonial buildings – that unfortunately don’t exist today. I’ve always loved the Arts, and ended up majoring in Fine Art at a private university in Texas. Once I graduated from University I joined an apprenticeship programme for Art Conservation and was trained in the restoration of 3D decorative fine art objects such as wood, stone, jade, and all types of ceramics. After three years of this, I returned to Singapore to start a company dedicated to the preservation of National Heritage Artworks.

That’s incredible! Tell me more about that!
Well, I adhere to the American Institute for Conservation’s code of ethics, which essentially means that although the art restoration I do is often undetectable to the human eye, all my work is reversible. So in the future when better technologies are available, a future Art Conservator will easily be able to continue the effort to preserve historic works of art by easily removing the work I’ve done without problem. I have restored some great pieces, ranging from modern to prehistoric art. I’ve seen art that is invaluable in private collections. In Singapore I restored a lot of incredible porcelain because the Chinese value works of art in this medium very highly.

What brought you here to Bali to live?
I first came to Bali in 1974…can you believe that?!  Jeez, I feel old!  I was a child and went around on the back of my Dad’s rented motorbike. It was mesmerizing! Even though I was young, I still remember a lot about how Bali was back then. I remember when the road in front of the original Mades Warung on Jalan Pantai Kuta was dirt….with two-way traffic. And I remember when the road from Simpang Siur to Sanur wasn’t yet a bypass and still had unpaved stretches going through thick jungle. Imagine riding through that at night with no street lights whatsoever…creepy!  I continued visiting Bali many times throughout my life and to this day there are still pockets I visit where I feel time has stood still. Sometimes it’s the way the light hits the sand and the trees, the sounds and smells; I get transported back, and it’s always nice to have that frame of reference – knowing what Bali was like before. I feel privileged to be able to know that. When a business opportunity arose in Bali I came here to live. That was 15 years ago.

I buy your soaps all the time. What got you into doing the Republic of Soap?
I originally moved to Bali to make candles. Historically speaking, the village Chandler made candles and soap, so the idea of making soap was intriguing. A chandler typically made candles and soap with rendered animal fat. I was a vegetarian and didn’t want to animal products, so I experimented at home and kept a log of all the batches – testing them by giving the soaps to friends for feedback and adjusted the components to suit a market of people with all skin types. After a few initial challenges, I finally achieved all the characteristics I wanted in soap which was a natural bar of soap that was hard and long lasting. All my bar soap is cold processed (made without external heat). From the natural vegetable soap, it was a gradual transition into manufacturing liquid soap and all the other body care products I manufacture today. Depending on what is being requested, my products typically range between being 97% to 100% natural.

When did you expand to private label and other products?
Private label started quickly. All my special order clients walk in with a dream or an idea. I simply act as their hands to make what they want a reality. Clients usually include Hotels, Spas, Resorts, Villas and Boutiques. I do a lot of custom tailoring for clients. I’m not a chemist, but more like a baker. I employ what I call “kitchen chemistry” to create fun and innovative products, which can be challenging when dealing with natural ingredients. The natural order of anything natural is to break down and decompose back into nature. There are natural ingredients which act as preservatives, so I include them whenever possible for longevity of product. I try to make products that are long lasting and organic.

You seem to know a lot about local natural beauty products. What’s beneficial for us in Bali to help keep our skin healthy and beautiful?
To be honest – I would say that awareness is probably more important than having a huge arsenal of beauty products for every type of application imaginable.  Natural beauty comes from within.  It’s quite simple in my mind: Stay clean! Stay out of the sun as much as possible and use Sun Protection when you are in the sun. Smile a lot. Eat well and stay hydrated – and be thankful that you’re in a place where you can easily drink lots of coconut water! Coconut water is amazing stuff!

We are in the sun so much, especially when driving bikes. I hear you have the biggest bike in Bali? Care to comment?
I do have a big cruiser made for American highways. I enjoy the ride. You can cruise comfortably all day on it. But to get around all the traffic I use a smaller bike because it just makes more sense.

So now tell me about your other interests. I see you have a guitar leaning against an old Marshall amp over there.
I love to play guitar. I like blues and rock based music. I just arrived back from playing the Bangkok Blues Festival, which was fun!

John picks up his guitar and plays some riffs. Play on John…

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Although art is essentially useless (you can’t eat or drink it, it provides little shelter and makes bad clothing, and thus serves no utilitarian purpose), questions about intellectual property rights and new laws governing them have shaken the Art World to its core for more than a decade in a series of claims and counter claims involving individuals, institutions and governments.

In more simple times, the old adage “Possession is 90% of the Law” was the rule. If you owned the work of art, you also owned the copyright. While this meant little for the vast majority of art, collectors and institutions that owned Iconic Images like the “Mona Lisa” or van Gogh’s “Starry Night” often reaped enormous sums of money by selling the reproduction rights.

As brilliantly illustrated in the Robert Hughes’ television series “The Mona Lisa Curse”, huge profits made by a new breed of speculator-collectors on works of art they bought for a pittance from struggling artists provoked cries of foul play led by major artists such as Robert Rauschenberg. He demanded that the artist-creator also receive a share of the windfall profits gained from their intellectual property.

While some countries, like Holland, enacted new laws that stipulated that living artists receive a percentage of subsequent sales of their works, for the most part the old ways continued unchanged. There is one exception in regard to intellectual property right as many countries passed laws saying that unless a work of art was sold by the artist with a contract stating that he had sold both the art piece and the copyright, then the copyright remained with the artist. These laws were largely based on those governing the copyrights of authors and their heirs which, unless specifically contractually stated, extended until 50 years after the death of the writer. A similar law exists in Indonesia.

While noble in intention, like many laws, few artists ever benefit from their rightful copyright simply because outside of a handful of better known works by better known artists, there is almost no demand. Ironically artists are often overjoyed to have their work reproduced in the media for absolutely nothing because it is a form of promotion. Further even if they decided to pursue their rights, the legal costs, and time involved, are so prohibitive that it would become a futile exercise.

The pre-World War Two modernist painters and sculptors are a good illustration of this phenomenon. Produced for the foreign market, the vast majority of these remarkably original works of art were exported long ago. While the Pita Maha artists association regulated both the quality of the work and transparently sought to guarantee that they were not only sold for a fair price, but also that the majority of the sum paid ended up in the pockets of the artist, in many cases the artists received little for their art, much less their original ideas. So, too, the prices of these remarkably works of art rose incredibly in the last years and have been the subject of numerous books. Copyright was certainly not paid and it is even doubtful if the heirs even received a copy of the publications.

To correct this situation the Museum Puri Lukisan in Ubud has now instituted a new program of registering the copyright claims of Bali’s pre-World War II artists, and actively managing them to assure that the rights of the artists and heirs are enforced. The first concerns the artwork of Gusti Nyoman Lempad, one of the island’s most acclaimed artists. The decision to take such steps was made after the museum learned that a foreigner who offered to sponsor a planned catalogue for an upcoming grand retrospective exhibition decided to produce his own book after receiving a great deal of information under false pretence. Now in possession of the exclusive copyright agreement any attempt to use a reproduction of any image of a Lempad work of art without first gaining written permission will result in legal challenges. The museum further hopes to extend this program to other artists from Bali’s “Golden Age”.

National Governments, including Indonesia, have also claimed the rights of reproduction of iconic artworks such as Borobudur’s Buddhas and Prajnaparamita, the Buddhist Goddess of Supreme Wisdom, which has appeared on the covers of numerous books. Again, while these ideas are noble and well intentioned the results are often messy and counterproductive because serious publications honouring great art and artists are an important element in keeping their legacy alive.

For example, although I authored a major book on the art and life of the Dutch artist, Willem Hofker, who can be described as one of the most poignant of the expatriate artists who lived and worked on the island before the Second World War, copyright has been used to prevent my publishing a new edition incorporating extensive new information I have gathered in the last decade.

The problem is that the family was not pleased with the information I included, concerning his relationships with his models in an essay published on Hofker in the 2009 catalogue of Bali’s Pasifika Museum. I had learned years ago when I interviewed Gusti Mawar, one of his most beautiful models, of his love of Balinese women, and in this case their torrid affair, which certainly helps explains the heavy current of eroticism in his paintings of her.

As a result, the family decided to exclude me from a forthcoming book on Hofker that will not only be sanitized and censored, but also authored by a self-important newcomer Gianni Orsini, who has never spent much time in Bali or Indonesia and nevertheless presents himself as a major expert on the field. Notably he never met Maria Hofker or any other of the major players of the time. His long-winded digressions recently published in two Christies’ catalogues are predictably full of speculative fluff, effusively romantic odes to Bali and very little content since his knowledge is limited at best. My attempt to produce a book based on more than 20 years of research in Bali and Holland has been prevented by their using control of the copyright to prevent any other publication. I guess it does not matter since few, if any, ever read the texts anyway!

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Paul Spencer Sochaczewski was born in 1947 in Brooklyn and grew up in suburban New Jersey. His earliest memory is climbing on to the kitchen counter, then the stove and then atop the refrigerator, pretending it was Mount Everest. As a child he liked baseball, writing and making his mother worry. Paul spent years developing international campaigns for ad agencies and NGOs like WWF and International Osteoporosis Foundation, while simultaneously pursuing his writing career, publishing Soul of the Tiger (1995), Redheads (2000), Sultan and the Mermaid Queen (2009) and An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles (2012). Paul now runs writing workshops in more than 20 countries.

When did you first know that you had writing talent?
I wrote my first play at age eight about flying bears, aliens and buried treasure. The first book I ever read without pictures was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron. I guess I inherited the science fiction gene from my father, who introduced me to the greats – Frederick Pohl, Theodore Sturgeon, Isaac Asimov and Robert Sheckley.

Did you have an epiphany in your youth that foretold your life as a writer?
I realized I wasn’t good enough to play pro baseball and would need an alternative job, preferably one where I could wear jeans and t-shirts. My early preparation for a life of writing was everything I experienced while living in the suburbs in the 1950s. One formative experience I remember was how in primary school we had drills crouching under our desks in the event of a Russian nuclear attack. It wasn’t until much later that I started to question the value of such an exercise. One of my main motivations spurring me to write in later years was the environmental destruction I was seeing around me.

What are your hobbies/interests?
Collecting unusual Ganesha images, cooking, gardening (especially tomatoes), Italian opera.

What’s your educational background?
I have a PhD in life experiences. I hold a BA in Psychology from George Washington University, whose famous alumni include Alex Baldwin, L. Ron Hubbard, Jackie O.

If you had to name your favourite writers, who would they be?
Tom Wolfe. Carl Hiaasen. Joseph Heller. Simon Schama. Tom Robbins. Bill Bryson. Paul Theroux (fiction only), Graham Greene. John Updike. Malcolm Gladwell. Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities and Heller’s Catch-22 are black and funny and real.

How did you initially get interested in writing about Indonesia?
It was a natural evolution of interests. Funny thing about writers, lots of them are (at least at the beginning) rather shy and introspective, and writing is a way of going public while still semi-hiding. But it takes courage to put your stuff out there, particularly personal stuff, since it’s very easy for critics (and everyone who buys a newspaper is a critic) to turn the page, or worse, say “that’s rubbish”.

When was your first visit to Indonesia?
In 1971 while living in Singapore and working as Creative Director of an ad agency. They sent me for a short time assignment in Indonesia. Since then I have visited many dozens of the country’s islands, including many obscure eastern Indonesian islands. Ever been to Aru, Bacan, Kei, Misool, Wakatobi and Halmahera?

What inspired you to write Redheads?
I left Washington, D.C., where I went to college to go to Sarawak to work with the U.S. Peace Corps. I lived with tribal communities. I’m perhaps the only international conservationist to have hands-on experience in slashing and burning the rainforest. That’s how I got interested in tribal rights, rainforest destruction, and greedy politicians.

Is there any other book like it?
Catch-22, but in a different context. One reviewer wrote, “Redheads does for the struggle to save the rainforests of Borneo what Catch-22 did for the struggle to stay alive in WWII.”

Is the book only about orangutans?
All the characters have red or reddish (or henna-tinged) hair. It’s about tribal rights. Rainforest destruction. Fraudulent scientists. Big-ego but naïve international conservation efforts. Orangutan’s similarities (and dissimilarities) with humans. Sex. Greed. I hope it’s funny.

What did you go through researching the book?
The usual rainforest experiences – wonder, boredom, lousy food, too much mixed alcohol (rice wine, Guinness, moonshine, brandy), discomfort, athlete’s foot, leeches, snakes, rain, more rain. I learned that some things are so serious and depressing that you have to laugh. Also, that sometimes fiction is a better way of alerting and influencing people to problems than often boring and self-serving non-fiction. Just tell a good story!

What revelations about people did you come away with?
People are people, some good, some evil, most somewhere in between, just trying to get by and hoping for a lucky break when they can find one. There does seem to be a law of inverse generosity. The less people have in life the more willing they are to share it with you.

Is there a thread running through all your books?
That ego and greed are dangerous. They are inevitable. We have to deal with it. Also, there just might be a way to develop, let’s say, a “deep ecology” relationship with nature.

Which field of research do you prefer?
The get-your-hands-dirty kind. Recently I went on a trip in northern Thailand with a bunch of Thai palaeontologists looking for coprolites – fossilized dung of freshwater sharks that lived 200 million years ago.

What are you reading at the moment?
A bunch of adventure novels. I really admire any writer who can just tell a good story. But the best book I’ve read so far this year was Tom Wolfe’s Back to Blood.

What writing project are you working on now?
Ah, another Big Book. Sharing the Journey, a writer’s guide book on how to tell their personal story based on my writing workshops. I’ve also been working for 30 years on a new novel, but won’t jinx it by discussing it publically.

Any words you want to leave us with?
Be very careful of the big international NGOs. They don’t need your cash and will waste much of it. Give money and emotional support instead to the small local NGOs in whatever domain you are interested in: battered women, literacy, the arts, animal welfare, conservation, child labour, peace. The small guys have passion and get things done.

Where can people learn more about your work?
My website: www.sochaczewski.com

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Ever since you walked right in,

The circle’s been complete,

I love you more than ever,

And I haven’t begun yet…

Wedding Song – Bob Dylan

Music represents feelings. No wait, let me start again. Music is feelings; happy, sad, angry, grateful, calm, overjoyed, inspired, excited, free and easy. Sometimes you have that moment that words cannot express but you have a song for that feeling. Certain memories can suddenly come back and run through your head if you hear a certain song. That does explain why nowadays everyone is so picky when choosing their wedding singer for the big day.

Chaplin

Every one of us has our ‘love theme song’ in life and most likely you will want that song to be sung on your wedding day. It sets the mood and you can utter the words, “They’re playing our song!” leaving you both in happy tears.

Imagine having a wonderful party with your closest friends and family, with songs to remember. Your first walk hand-in-hand as a couple, have your first dance as husband and wife. Of course, you should have a perfect wedding singer to complete your wonderful day.Back in the 1850s, the tune Here Comes the Bride was the most popular song ever. It’s traditionally played when the bride enters to walk down the aisle. But far before that, Mozart composed the Serenata Ascanio for wedding festivities of Archduke Ferdinand, the Royal Prince of Hungary. Also Schubert made Kupelwieser Waltz as a wedding gift for Leopold Kupelwieser, the famous Austrian Painter.

Different cultures have different ceremony songs and dances to celebrate. Through the changes of time, tradition has also changed. More singers or bands singing love songs have created new wedding songs. Here Comes the Bride is rarely played.

Wedding singer culture has also grown fast in Indonesia. It all started as background music during dinnertime, but it is now one of the main entertainments of every wedding; a single keyboard player with a singer, a guitarist with a singer, to a full orchestra colouring wedding parties all over Indonesia.

Pop

For the pop genre, Elfa’s Singers is one of the most popular singers that perform in weddings in Indonesia. Agus Wisman, Yana Julio, Lita Zein and Ucie Nurul are formed by the late Elfa Secoria, a famous Indonesian music producer back in 1986. They perform a large number of wedding parties.

Motown

Inspired by motown kind of music, Laid This Nite brings R&B and soul to the stage. Being a regular performer in some bars in Jakarta, Laid This Nite is a great alternative for an uplifting, soulful wedding band. They don’t only perform at weddings in Jakarta, but also other cities including Bali. Taufan, one of Laid This Nite’s personnel explains that they don’t really have issues of songs requests, because the couples that book them already know what kind of music that they are playing.

“Lately, the most requested song to play is Happy from Pharrel, but sometimes we also get song requests from Michael Buble or Frank Sinatra. That is not a big deal. What challenges us is how to keep in mind that we are playing for a wedding, not our own event. We don’t want to steal the thunder of the happiest couple of the night,” Taufan added. With the average fee of USD $2,000 – $3,500, Laid This Nite, who were previously named Ladies Nite, can be your choice if you have a larger budget and want all your guests dancing to upbeat songs. These guys can turn up the heat sexy, sensual, and made-for-moving grooves.

Teza Sumendra

Soul & Jazz

Another singer that spends his time flying between Bali and Jakarta for weddings is Teza Sumendra. Not winning Indonesian Idol was actually an advantage for Teza. Performing on Ali Topan the Musical and working with big names like Indra Lesmana and Dhira Sugandi have brought him to where he is now. He’s not merely a wedding singer; he also has his own project as a solo artist. Teza performs regularly at bars like Poste and Umbra, and started on the wedding circuit when some of his close friends asked him to sing at their weddings.

“We hope his job as a wedding singer is not influencing his image that we are trying to develop,” stated Aria Baja, the Director of Lockermedia, Teza’s talent management. “With his kind of voice, Teza is still a strong image that is constantly growing,” Baja added. Teza’s voice ranges from the style of Babyface, Justin Timberlake to Brian McKnight. You can easily book him with the band for around USD $3,000 to $5,000.

Whatever style of music you choose for your wedding, whichever dancing style you prefer, you want to leave your guests wanting more, not less, as you want your wedding to be enjoyed and remembered by every guest in attendance.

TOP 10 SONGS MOST HEARD AT WEDDINGS:

1. All of Me – John Legend
2. Home – Michael Bublé
3. Lucky – Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait
4. All My Life – Kci and Jojo
5. I Finally Found Someone – Barbra Streisand & Bryan Adams
6. You Make Me Feel Brand New – Simply Red
7. From This Moment On – Shania Twain
8. Can’t Help Falling In Love – Elvis Presley
9. A Thousand Years – Christina Perry
10. Make You Feel My Love – Adele

OTHER RECOMMENDED WEDDING SINGERS & BANDS

1. Chaplin Band – Top 40 hits
2. Jamaica Café – Acapella
3. Bona Pascal – Jazz
4. Terrence and Friends – Oriental
5. HannyNCo – Pop, jazz, orchestra

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