Category: Notes Catatan
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love in time
notes on heavy raining days “I am a love theorist” is what Lauren Berlant wrote in mid-2012 on Supervalent Thought after the title “The Book of Love is Long and Boring, No One Can Lift the Damn Thing …” Their philosophical I moves through their own feelings of dissociating from all their loves—sometimes. They wrote:…
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*sigh* *smirk*
Dusting the weather; I checked my back, and my damn dear drenching sweating without pocari sweat. I swore to the sky that I wouldn’t write shit about coming back to Jakarta–oh lord here I am vomiting words. My grammar is rusty and my speech bubbles aren’t popping and yada yada yada, I always have reasons…
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phase eight; for now
“What kind of history do I want to write?” is a constant question I’ve asked since day zero of my graduate studies in the US, knowing that I would turn my intellectual gear from policy analysis to history. It’s an inquiry about method and form, about questions I want to answer, all the things about…
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phase seven; a call
Thursday morning in mid-December: a sudden call from a hospital. I was in my office, talking and having a casual discussion with Sofyan and Ridha about politics, dissertations, and everything else in-between. I didn’t pick up the call right away. I quickly sighed. The last time they called me, they moved an appointment (which I…
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phase six; telltale
An artful life sojourned through a cliché: a young kid from an Old Town once tried to make staging theaters out of the world yet failed because their economy was just too cruel. Later, after two decades, a friend asked: “what would you do if you can?” “Maybe theater; a dying art in this country.…
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phase five; come on to
Weeks in-between spring and summer were bright; most times dull. I keep contracting my own deadline. I’m not hard on myself. I know I wanna do more things, but I’m just tired all the time. I already have half of a draft and whatever. Should I celebrate small things? I don’t wanna. I keep refusing…
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phase four; pacing
I kissed her goodbye a thousand times; and yet the gaze still sees her as part of me. It doesn’t matter anymore what I call myself. I can only write. Out of disaffection because what I have right now is responsibility to finish, to think, to answer, to sit with the past always for the…
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under the sky, always new names
Name changing; I constantly do that. I change the way I call myself. I changed my social media’s account names (from @/eunikeglr to @/quotidianemot to @/niksetiadarma to @/tukangmikwir). I changed my blog’s name and title (used to be a cringe “happyloner”); and by this second, I want to throw the name of this blog “quotidian…
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phase three; keep trying history
for they who write history for they who make history for all of us,who are and will be history memory I sat with Mbak Anna. It was in Yogya, last year. I visited some good people there as I tried to find a place of collaboration where I can share my question. I always respect…
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no, for a body that does not
“What Human Emotion Am I? You’re Anger.” A chuckle. Sianne Ngai once wrote a question: “Is there an ‘adequate’ or ‘sufficient’ response to racist expression?” The “I” was shrugging. A performance of idk-yet-somehow-do-know. This is the “I” who feel without rather than within. The “I” asked itself why history is impossible to be written without…
Nik Setiadarma 