(Originally posted here.)
There are tons of subjects I'm interested in, but only a few manage to grow with me. Here they are.
Archaeology:
It's always been a dream for me, a childhood dream I couldn't manage to realize. It all started with my reading an article of Harry Truman Simanjuntak, an Indonesian archaeologist, and the rest was history. I took awfully good care of every National Geographic I got just for the sake of its pictures, archaeology-related photographs of Inca, Egypt or Stonehenge. My favorite subject was history, and mind you, Indonesia is an important milestone in civilization—just Google up names like Dubois, von Koenigswald or Homo erectus and you'll get what I mean. Also, I read and reread Master Keaton for thousands of thousands time. Fine, I'm a humanities student (read: one that deals with literature and stuff XD) and I could still relate to archaeology, but it's still far cry from said dream. You could say that there's this dream, there's me, and there's reality in between.
Fernando Pessoa:
One, he's one of the most celebrated non-English poets (though he could write in English just fine), and he's topped my list with Neruda on that department. Two, he suffered from MPD—and that's one of the sources of his creativity. Three, I always, always like this poem of his:
I am the escaped one,
After I was born
They locked me up inside me
But I left.
My soul seeks me,
Through hills and valley,
I hope my soul
Never finds me.
(I am the Escaped One)
Hijikata Toshizou:
Come on. IÂ mean, this man? This Shinsengumi fangirl in me? Oh Lord. well, he's a man who chose to be a second man on his own, to be a demon because he didn't want others to be one and to uphold his promise of fidelity to the very end. I'm not talking about his standing on the losing side in history or his being a very conservative warrior (though it's debatable, of course); I'm talking about a man who made Japan's recent history possible to be written with pride and dignity.
Johan Cruijff:
Oh yes, I'm, a classic football geek. Dubbed as Phytagoras in Boots, he's the greatest footballer of all time, period. Not meaning to upstage Pele or Maradona, I'd still choose this Dutchman over them. True, Pele was a three-time World Cup winner and Maradona won one almost on his own, but never, ever a player ran a revolution on the field like Cruijff did (though he had to share the credit with coach Rinus Michels) thus the philosophy total football owes him everything. Ever heard someone saying "Every disadvantage has its advantage?" That'll be one example of his simple yet brilliant Cruijffiaans.
Minashiro Soushi:
Give. Me. Back. My. Tragic Love. Or, should IÂ dub it, A Tragic Love So Full with UST It Makes You Choke. I believe Soushi is a person who believes that action speaks louder than the words. The problem is, however, communication is the main theme of Soukyuu no Fafner. Therefore, you-don't-speak means you-can't-communicate means life-is-so-harsh-to-you. Please, somebody please drag him and lock him up with Kazuki because they have issues. Oh yes, Fafner would forever be my dearest anime right after Evangelion.
Soekarno:
In his autobiography as told to American journalist Cindy Adams, he said that he was "praised like a god and cursed like a scoundrel." This man is the man whom Jack Kennedy thought as Indonesia's Washington and Jefferson. He's a founding father, an ideologist, an unrivaled orator/agitator (he's remembered as the Lion of the Podium), an obsessed anti-colonialism dictator and a demigod to a lot of Indonesian. He's also a man who's afraid of butchering a chicken but could declare a war against the Dutch and British colonial, a president whose breakfast didn't differ much from a peasant's, a Javanese sultan-wannabe who read from Marx to Garibaldi and spoke in six languages. He's considered a legend, a third world hero, a Che-like icon, but above all, he's a man who, with all his flaws, had given his all for his country's freedom and unity.
Vladimir Nabokov:
Lolita, yes; he's that perverted old man, Lolita's father. A friend once asked why I read his stuff and she commented that Nabokov's prose was "all about sex but with style." Yes, Nabokov is very much a stylist—so much he often left storyline or the so-called moral message abandoned, but that's what first picked my interest and not the sex. His use of word play, for example, proved to me how powerful language could be. Or, as it is said, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." If you think that way, Nabokov then is a wordmaster of beauty, beauty, beauty. His novelty is sensuous, lush and rich, filling up other spaces he left unfilled. I have no complaint, so yes, thank you for the Nabokovian.
Warmest,
Cia
