Writers are like birds. At one time they are like eagles which prefer to run solo, but at other times they are pigeons who flock around a park while feasting. However, having a better look at it, writers identify themselves more to starlings; they crave for isolation and socialization concurrently. Therefore, to fulfill their craving to socialize, a house for writers is needed, and that’s just what The Murmur House provides. The Murmur House carries the intentions of allowing young contemporary writers to expand their views, broaden their knowledge, and enrich their experiences. With a sense of togetherness, each starling in our home transmits their heat to each other, making them warm while growing together under the same roof.
The Murmur House, founded by Rain Chudori and Syarafina Vidyadhana, has a main project of producing printed literary journal, Murmur. The first issue of Murmur Journal, themed Welcome to Warmth, was published in June 2014. Full of intimate, rich, and hearty proses in various forms, the journal was written in English by new names as well as names who are no stranger to Indonesia’s literary scene. We are glad to announce that our journal has been well received.
It has been 6 months of creative process, so the time has come for us to publish our second. The theme being Love and Other Drugs, we hope to deliver maximum dosage of emotions in all kinds provoked by the actions of loving and being loved. As Dwiputri Pertiwi, our head of editors, says, “As much as we are tempted to cringe at the endurance of love as a part of our collective experience (“Love? Who has time for that these days anyway?”), we secretly yearn for it no matter how battered or whole that love may be.” Not only the yearn and desire of love that are going to be divulged in this issue, but also the pain and pleasure of searching love itself which has become an addictive process to us all, humans.
Accompanying the publication of our second journal, The Murmur House will hold Murmuration #2. For starling birds, murmuration is a process at which they migrate to another place in unison without the potential of leaving any member of the group behind. This notion is later cultivated by The Murmur house to create a readers’ gathering, Murmuration. Following the path of our first Murmuration, Murmuration #2 allows young readers to share and read aloud their most cathartic texts.
Murmuration #2 will be held on May 9th, 2015 at 3 PM to 6 PM in Kedai, Jalan Benda No. 89, Kemang, South Jakarta. We will provide various enjoyments like reading and music performances in exchange of IDR 10,000 donation. The reading performances will involve a list of young readers, such as Ben K. C. Laksana, Dylan Amirio, Rebecca Kezia, Armandio Alif, Rain Chudori, Syarafina Vidyadhana, Talissa Febra, Ayu Meutia, Pangeran Siahaan, Andhyta Firselly Utami, Dea Anugrah, and Dinda Ibrahim. Meanwhile, Amygdala and The Colour Mellow will be happy to play their best tunes.
We hope to grow and consistently create and recreate fresh, limitless works which induce singular sensation of reading experience to our readers. We hope to be the quintessential voice of our generation.
The Murmur House
More info:
Ratnayu Candra Kirana : 081318478786
Twitter : @themurmurhouse
Instagram: @themurmurhouse
Facebook : The Murmur House
A sightseeing must when visiting Solo, Pasar Triwindu is the city's famous antique market. The recently renovated market is a tourist friendly site where one can find relics of the past as well as experience a pleasant, leisurely stroll.
Here is a list of recommended reads for next week’s Fantastic Film Feast discussion:
Southeast Asian Films with Apichatpong Weerasethakul
“For me, story is secondary to feelings, and when you try to explain so much you are losing the beauty and locality. When you travel abroad there will be many things you cannot understand. I don’t need to explain that, it is the beauty of differences, accept it for what it is. Film is not a textbook; it is a different form of expression.
If you really want to reach a wide international audience, then what kind audience? Because there are so many. Do you want to be a textbook and make everything clear? It depends. For me, I prefer to make the film as much as I want to understand.”
Film Craftmanship with Mouly Surya
“In my opinion, even though it won’t apply to everyone, I am not talking about feeding the students with bulky theoretical thoughts but there are conventions in filmmaking that people should understand before they start filmmaking. A degree of knowledge has to be learnt to understand a film within the first five minutes of its inception. Think of it as a language. I see film as a language to communicate. Filmmakers need to understand this visual language.
I don’t believe in an instinctive filmmaker, moreover I don’t believe in talent. There is basic knowledge about filmmaking that people need to acquire if they are truly interested in their craft.”
The Persisting Vision: Reading the Language of Cinema by Martin Scorcese
“Now we take reading and writing for granted but the same kinds of questions are coming up around moving images: Are they harming us? Are they causing us to abandon written language?
We’re face to face with images all the time in a way that we never have been before. And that’s why I believe we need to stress visual literacy in our schools. Young people need to understand that not all images are there to be consumed like fast food and then forgotten – we need to educate them to understand the difference between moving images that engage their humanity and their intelligence, and moving images that are just selling them something.”
Film as Film by Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson
“I do not mean to suggest that the critics above are not thoughtful or knowledgeable enough about film as an art. Yet the aspects of filmmaking these critics are ignoring are hardly peripheral. They are as crucial to the effect of a movie as brushstrokes and pigment are to a painting. And remembering the question we began with – in the digital age what is left for a critic to supply? – it makes their absence all the more relevant.
It doesn’t follow that critics should suddenly ignore narrative and character development and spend 500 words analyzing camera technique; that would be fatally boring, as well as alienating. But reviewing films as if they are stories that merely happen to be told using a camera can often miss the point. Most importantly, the sort of writing we currently lack can, and has, been done successfully before.”
Towards a New Film Criticism by Willie Osterweil
“Entertainment reinforces the narcissistic myth of the consumer as master of his own experience: In the movies, a protagonist always wins by making the right choices or loses by making the wrong ones. The important thing isn’t success or failure, tragedy or comedy, it’s the protagonist’s individual responsibility: If he’s crushed, it’s because he picked a fight with an enemy too powerful to overcome. If he finds love, success, and happiness, it’s because he did the right things starting from a level playing field where anyone can succeed. But the individual’s actions provide cover for the systematic processes of alienation and exploitation.
By focusing on the film-historical context—the aesthetic idiosyncrasies of an individual film or its connections to other films by genre, crew, or cast—film criticism fails to see the intentions and desires of the film industry, the only active subject in major cinema. In doing so, film criticism colludes with the entertainment industry’s massive project of commodifying experience. By treating entertainment products as a mirror of social experience, film criticism legitimates capitalist alienation while cheapening the possibilities of art. The point is not, however, to become silent. A new film criticism must emerge: By evaluating a film’s methods of production, its place in the film current, and its similarities to concurrently released films on top of its individual contents, film criticism can understand the multiplex’s true ideological effects and reveal new avenues of cinematic pleasure.”
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
7–9 pm
Kinokuniya Plaza Senayan
(near the language section)
Jl. Asia Afrika 8 Sogo
Plaza Senayan Lt. 5
Jakarta 10270
Please look out for more #WeDiscuss updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account! If you’d like to share your opinions, or if you have friends who’d like to share theirs, sign up via e-mail with the subject title “We Discuss” at ! If you have comments or questions, tweet us @wjournal.
Why are we so obsessed with the pursuit of authenticity? by Steven Poole
“Modern mass-media gluttony, or foodism, has its own cluster of presumed ‘authentic’ virtues. The idea of ‘real’ food is sometimes parsed, adorably, as food with no chemicals, though all food is made of chemicals. It is widely assumed that food sold as organic is purer and closer to an assumedly benign Nature, although no food is made from inorganic matter and organic farming standards sanction the use of neurotoxic fertilisers.”
Have you ever looked for “original” coffee or restaurants that serve “authentic dishes” from this or that country? The chances are that we all have – at least once. And this preference does not apply to food alone, according to Poole.
A Tweetable Feast
“Food is inherently social, best consumed with friends or family; even eating with strangers is better than eating alone. It is essential to our social life that we invite people to eat with us, even when we’re separated by space and time.”
Keller points out the social values of dining, and why he thinks that the flood of food photos on Instagram and other social media outlets might not be such a bad thing. He continues to say that even though “we laugh at our Instagrammed plates and tweets about lunch,” we realize that “the pixilated dishes on Skype or Google+ might be a viable alternative to the kitchen table.”
The Culinary Triangle by Sara Davis
“Cultural values and fears might manifest through actual cooking and eating practices, as when we bake our most elaborate pastries for milestones such as birthdays or weddings, or when we refuse to eat food that has fallen on the floor because it has strayed into the zone of the rotten.”
This essay is largely based on Claude Levi-Strauss’s three categories of food: raw, cooked, and rotten. Davis emphasizes the different attitudes that different cultures have toward those categories.
Star Wars by Tom Vanderbilt
“In the days before the Internet, eating at an unknown restaurant meant relying on a clutch of quick and dirty heuristics.”
Eating out used to be an adventure, but Vanderbilt notes that nowadays, we are faced with the never-ending supply of reviews and online recommendation. In short, the modern food enthusiast is exposed to many – perhaps even too many – choices. How should we filter out all that information?
The Kinfolk Table
This recipe book “puts the emphasis back into the relationships that surround eating. Let the people sharing your dinner table be the foreground and superficial details such as fancy recipes and table decorations can fade into the background.”
What do you think about the new aesthetics of food? Presentation is now almost, if not more important than “authenticity” itself. Or perhaps presentation is what makes a certain food authentic.
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
7—9 pm
Kinokuniya Plaza Senayan
(near the language section)
Jl. Asia Afrika 8
Sogo Plaza Senayan Lt. 5
Jakarta 10270
Look out for updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account! If you’d like to share your opinions, or if you have friends who’d like to share theirs, please sign up via e-mail with the subject title “We Discuss” at ! If you have comments or questions, tweet us .
Potato Head is a name associated with lifestyle dining and lounge here in Jakarta. With three establishments in Jakarta and Bali, it has been five years since they started to deliver fine food and drinks.
To commemorate their fifth anniversary, the Potato Head family renovated the first restaurant located in Pacific Place with new rattan interiors and colorful upholstery. And to make the celebration even more memorable, they also created a three-week Potato Head Culinary Journey for all of their supporters.
To start the relaunching event, they will hold an Opening Party that will include a special apperance by their head mixologists; Megan DeMeulenaere and Rhys Wilson, as well as a line-up of Potato Head All Star DJs who will provide entertainment for the night.
As for the beverages served, they are working together with three great bars from New York, Singapore, and London. Each of them comes with a strong identity and of course great drinks to be shared with the people of Jakarta. The three bars working together with Potato Head is:
- Employees Only from New York;
- 28 Hong Kong Street from Singapore; and
- Trailer Hapiness from London.
To add their Culinary Journey agenda, the Potato Head team also brings to you The Ultimate Fried Chicken Feast, Farm to Table Brunch, and a nostalgic 5 course, 5 years of Culinary Journey meal – all made by Potato Head chefs: Hikaru Take and Haruhisa Noguchi.
The last point that was highlighted from the new refurnished Potato Head at Pacific Place was the Wine Bar. Brian Weitzman, their Wine Director, has prepared a wine fair to take you further a journey throughout the world as well as a wine pairing dinner to enjoy.
W_Music’s very first attempt at a live session available for the general public went down last Saturday at the art space in Kemang. While it’s tempting to pick an easy route and select more ‘accessible’ and much less ‘difficult’ music for this first foray, being the music snob as I am, I’m personally glad that it wasn’t the case.
Featuring two disparate yet extremely gifted musicians in their own right, the charismatic and virtuosic keyboardist in the guise of as well as the insanely talented and incomparable drummer as , the evening was a dedication to music purists and nerds of the capital.
Despite a 60-minute delay due to prolonged sound checks, A Fine Tuning Creation kicked off the evening with three stunning compositions presented on his keyboard, assisted by a Korg synthesizer. The first, an ode to his mentor , was a beautiful piece that swivelled and swerved in many directions. Aryo effortlessly utilized strong Javanese sounds, combining it delightfully with the basic jazz and chamber music structures that underlined it. Doing so would normally easily fall under the realm of ‘corny’, yet Aryo avoided such pitfalls. His second and third compositions were no different in its tranquillity, beauty and complexness, with the former evoking strong East-Asian sounds and the latter returning to its Indonesian roots.
After AFTC’s 30 minute set, it was the turn of the Japanese master to enter the fold. And a finer contrast of styles there cannot be. The seasoned virtuoso Japanese drummer –an integral member of a plethora of progressive and avant-garde rock bands and projects- but most notably , , and has over 40 years experience as a drummer, and boy did it show. His half-hour set offered everything from masterful speed drumming, math/prog-rock (and even jazz-rock) style chord riffs, anime references, sequencer madness and far-out vocalisations of something I can’t quite pin point (I doubt he was shouting/singing/scatting in Japanese). In short his outstanding yet sometimes hard to digest set was perhaps avant-garde/noise/prog/math rock’s equivalent to a latter-day Coltrane performance (well to this specific jazz fan’s ears and sensibilities anyway).
After the performances the crowd were left either exhilarated, stunned, happy, or a combination of all three. To sum up, it was a very entertaining and educative evening, set in a stunning backdrop of a garden/art gallery (despite the hoards of mosquitoes feasting on everybody). Here’s waiting for more Setlists from the W_Music posse.
