Royal Cremation in Ubud
The royal cremation in Ubud yesterday was the biggest ever, and the best publicised. A media centre was set up for the event, marshalled by Edelman PR Indopacific. I think this must be the first cremation in Bali to have its own publicists and press office. And its own blog, too. The wires picked up the story and images, and the New York Times did a big feature, which I feel is the best piece (for mass consumption) yet written about this event.
Image © 2008 Imp Winartho (detail of original)
The Yak Awards 2008
Saturday night we went to the Yak Magazine‘s annual Yak Awards party at KuDeTa. It was fantastic fun with free flowing Moet, and vodka shots sloshing out of an ice sculpture at the oyster bar. Trays and trays of kinky canapes kept the usual Seminyak crazies from drinking on an empty stomach. Among the slew of Ubudians in attendance, I found painter Jason Monet with a plastic cat around his neck and a busted leg. Bruno wore all white with ancient chalcedony round his neck. This sartorial splendour made him a bit of a hag-magnet and he spent most of the evening beating off old new agers and trying to get back to the bar.
Pantai Lima Preview Party
Friday evening we were at a sneak preview party at Pantai Lima, a collection of five luxury villas on the beach in Pererenan. Mary Justice, Bali’s PR whizz kid, pulled off this publicity coup with aplomb despite the unfinished state of the villas. She was looking distinctly piratical on the night, sporting a black eye patch (above, with Sophie Digby of The Yak). It wasn’t a fashion statement, however. She just had urgent eye surgery in Singapore. How MJ managed to do so much with so little is a mystery to me.
Beauty Breakout Behind Bars
Schapelle Corby, the celebrity inmate of Bali’s Kerobokan jail is in trouble again. She’s in for 20 years for smuggling drugs, in case you managed to miss this high profile case. Well, last week when her appeal of the sentence was denied, she came down with a bona fide case of clinical depression and was taken to Sanglah hospital where she’s being treated by seven psychiatric professionals to beat the depression. Yesterday the Bali Post reported she’s in big trouble because she went to the beauty salon inside the hospital without the permission of her doctors. She was accompanied by the prison guard detailed to keep tabs on her in hospital. I would think that’s good enough, but no, the doctors are furious.
Socialist Pays Social Visit to a Crumbling Palace
Sukmawati Soekarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia’s founding president Soekarno, is touring Bali this week. She is the chairman of PNI Marhaenisme, one of the political parties now vying for recognition in anticipation of Indonesia’s April 2009 presidential election. Sukmawati is a strikingly elegant and gracious lady, who during her tour of Bali has charmed people from all walks of life, journalists not excepted. The Bali Post has followed her movements closely, and run flattering photographs of her daily. Yesterday they reported her visit to the palace of the last ruling dynasty of Bali, Puri Dalem Gelgel, along with members of the Dalem Gelgel family and Balinese Hindu high priests.
Rangda Comics?
Western popular culture often depicts Bali in strangely distorted ways. Case in point, the kitschy 1952 film, “Road to Bali” with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Dorothy Lamour. Here’s another popularised version of Bali: the Belgian comic book, “Barelli en Nusa Penida” by early ligne claire master Bob de Moor. De Moor collaborated with Hergé (of Tintin fame), and here he does to Bali what Hergé did to Tibet. It’s a jolly romp with plenty of slinky sarongs and black magic, available from Todo Collection for a mere €7.00.
My Book is Out (Bali Chic)
I spent a chunk of time last year writing the new edition of Bali Chic for Editions Didier Millet. It’s finally out, just in time for the high season in Bali. You can find it at Didier Millet, and also on the sub-site for the whole Chic series, “The Chic Collection“. And of course you can get it from Amazon.com.
Writing it was heavy going, because I love Bali but have ambivalent feelings about the direction that development is taking here. And I had to pander to the participating businesses, which wasn’t always easy. My original text for the book was edgier than what is printed. The editors were nice women from Singapore with an allergy to edginess. The outcome is a bit confusing in some passages, where the editing not only blunted the “edges” but also the logic. Never mind. There is a wealth of inside info here, which I don’t think you can find in other guide books.