Eight years ago, I was interviewed for the magazine BaliSavvy, “the official American Express® guide to the island”. I found a copy of that 2010 interview recently in an archive of the adversities I have endured since March 2010. I decided to post it here, in several installments, as … Continue reading
Eight years ago, an interview and profile of me appeared in the magazine BaliSavvy, “the official American Express® guide to the island”. This afternoon I happened on a copy of it in my messy archive of the eight plus years in hell I have endured between March 2010 and now. … Continue reading
The Facebook-based web page Bali: How Much Is Too Much? passed a major milestone today, by reaching over 100,000 participants. A defiantly non-commercial page, it began at the end of 2013 to expose the sheer scale and quantity of tourism development engulfing the paradise island of Bali. Since then it … Continue reading
Here’s an update on the very intriguing situation I have been thrown into, and have navigated faithfully for the past two years. A three-page summary of the news to date (and the background of this regrettable situation) can be downloaded by clicking here: Susi Johnston Situation (3.5MB – Be patient.)
Yes!! Bali Creative Economy. Gaya ceramics studio is brilliant, and has been seminal in transferring skills, techniques, and launching the ceramic arts careers of local young people. The Wall Street Journal is writing about it.
Big news. Donovan is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and (Marketing) Museum on April 14th. This pixie troubador out of deepest Glasgow enchanted the world in the sixties with his psychedelic naif persona and almost childlike sing-along songs. He was seminal (if I dare use … Continue reading
Brand-new blog Kitchen InSurgency comes stuffed with witty commentary and epicurean insights. Author and newbie blogger, Karen Waddell puts her moxie where her mouth is, sharing secret recipes, kitchen tips and food lore from Bali. She and her husband Gusky are the pair behind Bali Good Food Co, who brought … Continue reading
I was contacted a few months ago by a niche events organiser asking if I would provide a cultural morning in Ubud for a celebrity wedding in August. I always welcome the opportunity to infect influential people with my incurable passion for all things Balinese, and this particular party was … Continue reading
I’ve just had another massive overdose of masterplans. I have feeds and searches set up to keep tabs on new developments in Bali. It just doesn’t stop. Here are just a handful of the scores of new projects that have drifted across my desktop lately. Read on, to get a … Continue reading
August and September (and now even October) are the high season in Bali and it is always hectic. Parties. Gatherings. Visitors. Vernissages. Launches. Lunches. Dinners. And all manner of special events and festivals. The huge number of visitors, both those we know and those we don’t know, makes it impossible … Continue reading
Last Saturday I presented a program on Indonesian arts and antiquities for a group of young CEOs in Ubud, at Gallery Macan Tidur. Based on these snapshots it looks like I gave an animated performance – – despite the fact I was on crutches, having only just been liberated from … Continue reading
This project has been on the website of architect Mark de Reus for a couple of years. But there’s no indication whether it’s going to be built or not. The master plan (below) shows a spa resort with 60 rooms, which are tree-housey. Sort of. De Reus has been the … Continue reading
Last night we attended the opening of a photography exhibition by a dozen or so emerging Indonesian imagemakers at the Alila Ubud. The show was a pre-event for the Bali Photography Festival 2010, (which seems to be identical with BLIPFest, but I can’t tell for sure). The most impressive works … Continue reading
BLIPfest vernissage Saturday at Alila Ubud
Tonight at 7pm an opera based on Colin McPhee’s book of memoirs, “A House in Bali,” premieres at Zellerbach Hall at the University of California in Berkeley. If you’re in the Bay Area, go. See info in yesterday’s SF Chronicle article. I had the great pleasure and honour to see the … Continue reading
Something very strange is going on up at the Green School in Bali. Strange and wonderful. Every full moon the school hosts the most extraordinary performance evening on the Island of Bali, called Mepantigan. It’s impossible to describe, but I shall try. Imagine a troupe of talented local lads and … Continue reading
Who hung this show? I forgot to ask during the opening last Saturday at Komaneka Gallery. What was extraordinary to me, and what begged the question about who hung this show, was the spontaneous emergence of a narrative, revealed in the sequence of images considered in turn while circulating clockwise … Continue reading
Phew, at least this Ubud development isn’t intensely dense. It’s 30 units on 42,000 square meters. Do the math. That’s 1400 square meters of land per unit. Respectable. Of course it’s respectable, this one’s a Bakrieland development. It’s the Ubud Nirwana wellness residences. Kind of a consciously created community of … Continue reading
From a bali news website written in Indonesian, called Berita Bali, comes this little item about traffic and parking problems in Ubud, Bali’s most famous hill town. (The translation is mine.) Parking Chaos in Ubud: Never a Day Without a Traffic Jam Although it is one of Bali’s most popular destinations … Continue reading
How did we miss this? John Hardy, who is adored for his earnest eccentricity, wacky warm heart, and acute eye for great Indonesian textiles, was featured in Destinasian way back in February in an article entitled “Much Ado About Bamboo”. And we missed it. How? The article delved into some … Continue reading
Vincent Sung, a Korean photographer whose career has ranged across the globe is now offering photography lessons at all levels at his newly-established Visual Sponge Institute in Ubud, Bali. Handsome, charming, fluent in numerous languages including French and English, Vincent has extensive experience teaching photography around the world. He delights … Continue reading
Breaking news. One of Bali’s most beloved hotels plans to close in October for a few months of rehab. The story behind the upgrade sounds like a chapter from the life of a celebrity hostess. The year before she is to celebrate a landmark birthday, she goes off to the surgeon … Continue reading
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, … Continue reading
I’m giving a lecture to the “Jade Circle” of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum on the 15th of July in Ubud. Donors who make significant financial contributions to the museum are granted membership in the “Jade Circle” which comes with a wealth of special privileges and programs. One of them … Continue reading