blackuniverse

In keeping up with the recent travelbug I’ve been having for the past few weeks, today I spiced my work routine by checking out news on this year’s Ubud Writers and Readers Festival. Like all good Googlian in the world, I did not check the Festival’s website (no further news until August 2008) but look for unexpected stuff from Big Brother Google’s pockets.

One of the interesting treasures I unearthed came from Eric Forbes’s blog. I found what I’m looking for in one of the blog’s post:

The underlying theme of 2008’s 5th International Ubud Writers and Readers Festival on October 14-19, 2008 will be “Us and Them.” Together with established writers, emerging writers will confront the issue of cultural collisions. Invited guests include Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka, acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Allende, British-Caribbean author Caryl Phillips, Mexican writer Alberto Ruy-Sanchez, Australian novelist Helen Garner, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Geraldine Brooks, and Vikram Seth.

What’s interesting for me is that those names are unfamiliar to me. Now wait, before you crucify me, I admit that my knowledge in literature is limited, and the reason why I did all this digging up is to ‘broaden my horizon’. Hahaha.

Well, the thing is, back in 2007 when I went to UWRF as a volunteer, I was struck by the fact that most of the authors there were (you guess it) unfamiliar to me. And I’m not even talking about Indonesian literary figures who got only a small portion of spotlights there (We all know that. After all, this is Ubud, one of the most innocently touristy places in our backwater country, where everything has to be extremely local or absolutely global). I’m talking about how little I know about literature, despite the ever-growing collection of books in my room. So many authors out there. A whole universe of words and pictures.

Anyway, if you’re a member of BungaMatahari , you’d love the Festival’s Poetry Slam event. Damn, it reminded me so much of BuMa’s KebunKata.

So, still many months before that fine fine day when I can sit in Casa Luna and pretending to be rich. Eating an overpriced (but dear God in heaven so feckin tasty) cookie, while waiting for the next session (Indus? Three Monkeys Cafe?) to start.

Meanwhile, I’ll try and gather what’s left of my intelligence to find, buy (borrow, if possible), and read all that books by those wonderful authors.

From today’s The Jakarta Post. Totally outrageous. What’s next? The name ‘Indonesia’?

Holland claims trade right over Gayo coffee

JAKARTA (JP): The Gayo tribe in Aceh Nangroe Darussalam may already have lost the right to use their own name in international trade for their own brand of coffee after a Dutch firm officially claimed Gayo coffee as its trademark.

Made from one of the world’s finest varieties of Arabica beans grown only in central Aceh’s highlands, the Gayo trademark coffee can only be used in international trade by Amsterdam-based company Holland Coffee B.V.

“We recently received a letter from Holland Coffee, reminding us not to use the word Gayo on the packages of Gayo coffee exported to the Netherlands,” Rachim Kartabrata, the executive secretary to the Indonesian Coffee Exporter Association (AEKI), told The Jakarta Post recently.

Rachim said Holland Coffee claimed to have registered the word as one of its brands, Gayo Mountain Coffee.

Gayo coffee is produced only in the area of Aceh Tengah and Bener Meriah, known as the country’s second largest coffee bean plantation.

The coffee was named Gayo after the Gayo people who process the beans.

The coffee is a favorite among Europeans and Americans for its strong premium taste and long shelf life.

According to Rachim, CV Arvis Sanada, the Indonesian company Holland Coffee has asked to give up the name, had refused to stop exporting its coffee under the name of Sumatra Arabica Gayo. (lva/****)