NostradaLeman !

Recently there was, portrayed in the blogsite of one Uncle-Glamour-Seekers, a series of dreams and predictions regarding the fates and happenings surrounding the lives of some artistes and celebrities in Malaysia and, not surprisingly, much to the chagrin of those people whose lives had been duly and irresponsibly been "predicted", some furor was raised concerning the worth and sensitivity that the issue could potentially bring about. Now I said to myself while reading that --- wowee! That sure was one distasteful thing to be doing ... predicting other peoples' lives while both the predictor and predictee are still living and breathing. I mean, how does "I predict and dreamt that Jamal Abdillah will shorten his life being snuffed out by a combination of dope and HIV and that 45 women will now lay claim to the posthumous alimony that will be issued by the would-be deceased entertainer" sound like. Well of course I just made that one up because Jamal Abdillah appears to be as healthy as an apek just fresh from an evening of Bak Kut Teh but then what IF. What if such ... irresponsible ... predictions  are made on the lives of living people. Wouldn't that be terrible?

I was musing along that line of thinking when suddenly I caught myself and said to him---i.e. myself---hey wait a minute. Leman Pulut is some kind of seer-dreamer too: he sometimes dreams and sees into the future some visions not very much unlike what Nostradamus of old had, and thereafter, just like the sage, uses his poetic skills and abilities to write these visions down in some form of quatrains best left to be deciphered by future generations.

Usually Leman’s dreams and visions are ones of calamity and doom, its magnitude and harshness dependent upon whether or not he eats durian the night ere. Well, after the usual kejar-dek-rimau or sloppily-wet dreams, the visions and nightmares would take in the form best described by the following sample quatrains, partially:-

I see flames of Greed burning and engulfing

The household and territory of Nga Kor Ming

For whenever Perakians need some sewing and stitching

The official sewmaster is just a whisper away.

 And I see acoming great trials and injustice

Done onto a PAS member and I do not mean Nik Ajis

And they stone him and they curse him and still he says his piece

In the long run, Hassan Ali is here to stay

 And I see storms and I see thunderbolts

And I see a great multitude who doth rock the boat

And I see DSAI being impervious to what was wrote

For in Sg Buloh he is happy and cheerful and gay

 Next I see a bubbly, baby-faced finch

And Norma the proud wife measuring him by the inch

But some old folks finally caught him up and got him lynched

Aaah… a sad ending for Mat Sabu and his wily ways

And I see them bloggers in dark misty voids too

And 20 years hence BigDog diagnosed as cuckoo

And the Shiites, the Jebats, the Rockys and one Parpoo

To Tanjung Rambutan they're all being hauled away

(Hey don't get angry with me. I am just DREAMING them, not endorsing them, okay?)

Raja Petra, Din Merican, the Nutgraph and TookarTioob

All having fun watching the growth-progress of Milosuam’s boobs

Malaysiakini undergoes a grease job, Unspinners got some Lubes

And everyone’s nostalgic about the online “MalaysiaYesterday”

And Madam Helen Ang in the year 2020

Is now littered with six kids and conveniently drives a Humvee

She doesn't blog anymore --- it's the children, you see.

You think it’s easy to become a trophy wife of one MCA?

And now with a heavy heart I have to say this

My wife, Miss Malaysia, she'd be sleeping besides, in full bliss

For eight years from now everyone will reminisce

The writings and poetry of DATO' Leman Pulut, AMN, PJK. 

The World's Oldest Recorded Song?

I am not sure whether it was Frank Zappa or one Rolling Stone guy (the one who actually gathered some messy moss, not the one who got knighted) who said that in this Universe there is only one Ultimate, Mother of All Songs, and that Adam and Eve sang it, and that it probably had a master 3-chord key. The others, the ones we sing today in whatever tunes or forms, are just variations and permutations of that Mother song.

Well I do not regard anything that comes out from some overstayed, over-doped 70 year old rock stars as anything worthy to be listened to with half an ear, but then this cosmic idea deserves some thoughts: Why do Man sing? How long has he been singing? Did he sing to search for food, or did he do it as some ritual mating call? Did he sing to survive? Or did he, simply put  by M. Nasir, only "menyanyi kerana gembira"?. In fact was he ever happy in the first place, at all?

More questions. What were their songs like? The paleolithics and the neolithics: did their songs resemble any that we sing today? No? How do we know that? Could it be that whatever they sang was more rhythmical than even, say, that Bibir kid in his most soberest moment? Or could it be just that the series of unintelligible grunts and growls Og sang after clubbing Budbud on the head (for sex, obviously) were actually melodious croons in the ears of Budbud that made her just .... open up?

Thoughts, thoughts and more thoughts. Useless thoughts, in fact. But the following is an interesting thought I had in mind recently, and that led me on to a most interesting anthropological adventure (oh you know what we bloggers mean by that. It's an ARMCHAIR anthropological adventure) and its starts from a very simple question: what is the world's oldest recorded song?

Well now for POETRY there is no problem in researching on its chronological beginnings. Primitive people had been writing poems since time immemorial and if you ask me, really, in the history of mankind, I am of the opinion that poetry precedes prose. The Epic of Gilgamesh and some Mesopotamian and Babylonian mythology were written in epic forms and dated as fas as 2000 years BC. Religious and neo-religious scripts like the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Iliad and Odyssey and others were written hunderds of years BC. We know because these were inscribed manually and we can still get to read them till today.

But what about songs? Even if there existed songs tht accompany these poetry, what do they sound like? Nobody knows because recording mechanisms were only invented in the 19th century by Edison and the like, and the earliest forms of musical notations that translated musical tunes into written notations that could be produced elsewhere did not come about until the medieval ages, which gave opportunity for present people to listen to what the Baroque, Medieval and Renaissance tunes sound like.

Of course songs and music, and their notations, appeared much earlier than that. Excavations made by that Tubingen University team found a bone flute ooh... about 40,000 years old. So they were playing music back then, though almost definitely not Bouree or Fly mM to The Moon.But still the question lingers: what did they sound like? Can we get to hear a song, any song, sung by our ancestors?

My hunt for the world's oldest singable, recorded song brought me to this, where it is claimed that some cuneiform figures found in a tablet were actually notes to a music, and the researcher proceeded to reproduce its tunes, complete with MIDI-based transcripts. But I think this is hogwash. Just some burnt-out researchers trying to sell some tunes using synthesizers, complete with a form for your credit card numbers. Who is there to verify? Some of these claims are highly questionable. It's like finding  a small skeletal toe of Bracchiosaurus and concluding from thence its dietary needs, favourite sexual positions and its last Bracchiosauruette mate it was gallivanting with just before that meteor hit.

And then it hit me: an ancient song must be recorded tonally. If not via some media then at least through the memory, through the voice and sung generation after generation. And so it is that I could not help but conclude (and of course, please correct me as soon as possible if it shows otherwise) that the oldest tonally-recorded song would be none other than the famous Tola'al Badru sung by the Medinites 1400 years ago when welcoming the Prophet Muhammad's entry into the city for the first time. It was an impromptu poetry/song written by a resident Medinah poet.

This is how the song sounds like:-

The lyrics are are as follows:-


Tala'al-Badru 'alayna,
min thaniyyatil-Wada'
wajaba al-shukru 'alayna,
ma da'a lillahi da'

Ayyuha al-mab'uthu fina
ji'ta bi-al-amri al-muta'
Ji'ta sharrafta al-Madinah
marhaban ya khayra da'

In English, they mean:-

O the White Moon rose over us
From the Valley of Wada'
And we owe it to show gratefulness
Where the call is to Allah

O you who were raised amongst us
coming with a work to be obeyed
You have brought to this city nobleness
Welcome! best call to God's way

So yes, I believe that when you hear this song, you are actually hearing it just like it was sung 1400 years ago. In the course of time, there had been many variations to the song, some even completely changing the tune to a nicer one while preserving the lyrics as is done by some Indonesians/Malaysians here:-

And what's this Olivia Newton John also singing the Tala'al Badru?

Well anyway that's my conclusion. Please feel free to correct me.


Thank You.

Yo! 2.0

Yo!
All you malayu 'ho!

Wassup Bro?

Belum habis lu punya malah?
Gua sudah bikin Nasi Lemak 2.0

Apasal lu simua bulum tingok Gua punya show?

Syiok Wo!

Itu dalam gua semua bantai

Lu malayu semua macam tapai

Gua punya flend Nazri jugak pandai

Lia menteli - Lu apa? Cibai!

Sikalang gua kawan ramai, bukan satu

Itu facebook punya dalam sudah 600 ribu

Itu Lais Yatim sudah cakap "I am with you"

Dengan itu lesen gua kasi lanchau semua lu

Itu Utusan Malayu 'aaa --- talak sikolah punya olang

Itu Puziah Arop 'aaa --- lia cakap semua temberang

Eyyy ... lu lamai-lamai pigi tengok gua punya wayang

Nah ini sepuluh linggit --- kalau lu tak ada wang

Eyy Leman Pulut --- lu apa lanchau?

Lu tahu wa siapa? Filem punya dilector, Lau Jiao

Wa dapat degree meh --- dari Macau

Wa ada bau bacang meh --- sama itu Chairman Mao

Sikalang itu Shauki punya gimok pun sokong gua

Itu bukti waa ini 1Malaysia

Wa betul Jantan wooo... bukan ah kua

Filem wa Kilajaan punya biaya

Sikalang wa mau bikin filem lagi.

Lu bikin bising laa. Ada belani?

Lu usik wa nanti wa lepot itu Nazri

Hisyamuddin punya olang nanti mali dengan gari

Jadi ini semua 'aaa... lu jangan salah sangka.

Kami punya "Gland Plan" pelahan-pelahan mahu kasi Jaya

Mula-mula itu Negarakuku 'aa... wa kasi lanchau tidak apa-apa

Itu Bukit Kepong kita olang "twist" - bukan penderhaka

Kemudian itu ISA 'aaa ... kami bikin bising sekalang apa jadi?

Itu Mat Indera 'aaa. Bukan Komunis wooo... tapi hero sejati

Itu malayu Penang 'aaa... kita halau slowly slowly

Itu Chin Peng aaa... kita semua mahu sanjung tinggi

Kemudian ini Tun Lazak punya anak 'aaa... kita threat sama dia

Tengok sikolah cina kami? Sudah dapat juta-juta

Dia olang semua 'aaa... tatak fasih Bahasa Malaysia!

Sikalang perlu hapus DEB 'aaa... itu kita olang minta

Tapi waa mau cakap 'aaa... tapi tak mau loudly

Lu olang malayu 'aaa ... bodoh...lu tak mengerti

Ini kami semua sikit acah 'aaa ... kamu olang semua kasi

Kami buat salah 'aa.... lu olang yang apologise profusely

Kalau ini macam 'aaa... malayu... lebih baik wa telus telang

Ini negeli serah kami olang pelintah lagi sinang

Lu punya menteli 'aaa... itu telur tak ada ... semua mahu senang

Nanti waaa cerita semua dalam NS3.0 --- tunggu wa tayang!


The Annoyingly AnonymousLemanPulut

An Announcement

My Cousin, TheCorruptiouslyObnoxiousSumanSumbing, has grown envy of me. Noticing that my popularity grows by leaps and bounds on my website (well, uhh.. about 2 or 3 visitors per posting!) he too would like to set up a website of his own.

And that he did exactly, and you can visit it now. It's called PlatoInParody.

To tell you the truth, I don't think his website is as good as mine. In fact I dont think it's any good at all.  SumanSumbing is always trying to outdo me in everything, and thank God, I am superior to him in all tenets: in Goodlooks, In bravery and in the size of my ... you know, Intellect.

The following is a picture of Suman my cousin and you can verify yourself that I whatever I tell about him is true.

Anyway, family is family. So you go and visit his website now won't you. And give a little but of support to my irksome, nettlesome, troublesome cousin, Suman Sumbing.


Leman Pulut.

Time for a Riddle

The Bersih rally, in all its failures and exaggerations, have left the Malaysian public dazed and stupefied in its aftermath ---not in its magnanimity, mind you. But in its sheer exuberance: never before had anything been done so much producing so little and even that, for all the wrong reasons. Perhaps Genesis (the rock group, not the biblical book) sums it up so appropriately in their epic opus :-

There’s no one left alive now, it must be a draw

So the black cap barons toss the coin to settle the score

                                                                                -   Battle of Epping Forest

Well I tell you what. It’s time to put back smiles and laughter into our lives once again. And what better way to do that than to do a little bit of cerebral exercise with a riddle put forth by Leman Pulut.

The following poem consists of a hidden phrase. While the solution is political, the problem statements (the stanzas themselves) are most surely not.  Can you solve it? Winners (for surely there can be more than just one) will get an honourable mention in future Leman Pulut’s poems. Just imagine: a thousand years from now when the proto human-martian hybrid were to look back and re-read all our literary giants’ works, your names will be entrenched in the poetry of Leman Pulut, then as a required course in “21^st century Earthly Poetry” taught in the Second Quadrant InterGalactic Polytechnic, Venus.

And come to think of it ... where can we obtain works of literary giants when they are no longer with us? Shakespeare is dead. Byron is no more. Whitman, Coleridge, Keats are long gone. And me, Leman (cough, cough) I am far from being well myself.

So go ahead and try. I have provided a clue on "My Seventh" there:- 

My first is in Sleigh but never in Pray

My second is in Slow but not in Slaw

My third is in Date but not in Rate

And I exist second in the days of Yore 

My fifth is in Mice but never in Lice

My sixth is a sore thumb in the word “Pryce”

And now I tell you, since you don’t know any better---

My seventh’s a symbol: never a letter

My eighth is in Three but never in Tree

My ninth exists twice in all Eternity

My tenth is in race but not in space

My eleventh is in both a He and a She

My twelfth is a frenchman’s pronunciation of Hay

My thirteenth differentiates a Flee from a Free

My fourteenth is in Love but never in Dove

My fifteenth is a ? in its entirety

My sixteenth is really a Dodo in camouflage

My seventeenth is first in Image, second in Mirage

My eighteenth exists abundantly in the past tense

Is not in Heavy, but definitely in Dense

And now that finally, Leman’s Ingenuity

Have glaringly put a toll on his readers’ sanity

Solve the final two letters in this here poetry,

By dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s !

 

 Answer:

           _ _ _ _ _ _  :   _ _   _ _ _ _ _ _   _ _ _   _ _  ! !

Selamat Mencuba!

Leman Pulut

Spy vs Spy, Poet vs Poet, Jobbo vs Jabberwock

 

In the wake of the Bersih rally, all sorts of medium were used to display both supporting and detracting viewpoints. As is the theme of Leman’s blogsite, let us concentrate on that which Leman loves the most: Poetry! I am sure there are lots or poems written about the event, but I have failed to see them, except two most glaring ones, coming from two heavyweights in Malaysian politics: one YB Shafi’e Abu Bakar, Pas’ ADUN for Bangi, and the other from Malaysia’s own writer laureate, Pak Samad Said. I will comment on both poems below.

 YB Shafi’e’s poem is rather amateurish, as you can read if you click on that link. It has some amusement value but not along the way that we understand amusement to be. Therefore Leman is called to give a “rebuttal” poem below. Well wait. That’s not true. Actually, Leman’s poem is a supplement to YB’s poem: I am sure that the YB not only praises Ambiga, but the other Bersih leaders as well. So you can safely say that Leman’s poem below is actually an extension of YB’s poem to include odes meant for the other leaders as well:-

Ambiga! Ambiga! Ambiga!

Kaulah serikandi hindu sejati

Dari terkasta India kau lari kemari

Wang Clinton Soros bijak kau dapati

Kami yang da’if sila biayai

Jatuhkan UMNO matlamat kami

Tak kira mereka seugama sebangsa kami

Selagi tak sampai ke Matlamat sejati:

Selagi kerusi empuk tak kami duduki

Selagi Putrajaya menidakkan kami

Selagi itulah Ambiga, kau kami sanjungi

GuanEng! GuanEng! GuanENg!

Kaulah khalifah diakhir zaman

Kuhambakan diriku , kaulah Tuan

Dalam khutbahku namamu dimuliakan,

Kesejahteraanmu kami pohonkan

Kg Buah Pala engkau 'maju'kan

Penduduk Balik Pulau engkau ‘bersih’kan

Khalifah Abdul Aziz kau jadikan pedoman

Tapi “Guinness Stout” harap kau kurangkan

Tak cukup Penang, Seberang kami serahkan

Kalau  mahu satu Malaya pun akan kami usahakan

Anwar! Anwar! Anwar!

Namamu harum di mata dunia

Ingin diracun tapi dirimu perkasa

Walau ditembak gas pemedih biasa

Kau rebah bagai dihimpap dunia

Kau liwat, kau siwat, namun kau waja

China Doll, panadol, kau godam semua

Kau tepu, kau tipu, tapi masih kau bersahaja

Disebut Norlaila kau belah:

kaulah wira

Diberi Mior kau terlior:

kaulah permata

Disebut Ummi Seperti Tsunami:

gigil kau semesta

Dengan Datuk T akal kau mati begitu sahaja

Dengan Zul Noordin, Ezam,Nalla tiada rahsia

Orang macam kaulah junjungan kami semua

PAS sentiasa dibelakangmu, wahai wira perkasa!

Haris Ibrahim! Haris Ibrahim! Haris Ibrahim!

Kau lah Wira pejuang bangsa

Kaulah penidak tauhid yang esa

Kaulah pembebas cengkaman ugama

Kaulah pendorong kemurtadan utama

Tanpa kau Azlina hidup terseksa

Berterusan dalam keadaan terpaksa

berTuhankan Allah tidak  di redha

Sujud dan rukuk jangan dipaksa

Bismillah QulhuAllah dibenci semua

Ng, Ngeh! Ngor! Ng, Ngeh! Ngor! Ng, Ngeh! Ngor!

Kegigihan mu menakjubkan kami

Hadis dan Quran engkau hafali

Tersembur dari mulut mu ayat-ayat suci

Walau bibir mu masih basah berbabi

Kaulah wira Dewan Undangan Negeri

Islam Umno kau gagahi, kau calari

Ambillah ini tanah, ambillah ini negeri

Layak lagi kau dari si Umno harbi

Atas fatwa mu kami sanjungi

Tentang kesyahidan Baharud---err Suhardi!

Mat Sabu! Mat Sapu! Mat Labu!

Muka montel mu ku rasa nak cubit

Ku geram hidung mu rasa nak gigit

Peminat mu ramai bukannya sedikit

Tak terkira bagai bintang di langit

Kau bijak melepas dari tersepit

Bilik 121 namamu terpalit

Normah penghantar minyak sembelit

Walau tubuhmu besar bukan sedikit

Namun intelek mu sebesar intelek pipit 

 

Now Laureate Samad Said is a bit more interesting. I would like to tell a personal story. Many, many years ago, I had a brush with Pak Samad, at the time when he hadn’t been awarded the Ahli Sasterawan Negara yet. I wrote something in the papers that criticized him. It was published and they were talking about it several days afterwards. Pak Samad blew his top and gave a rebuttal few days later and it was in the front page of Utusan Malaysia or Berita Harian I can’t remember which. He said something like “how dare that writer mention (such and such and such. Honestly, I can’t remember the topic). Who is he? A nobody. I myself have written many, many books and who is he to question me?”

Anyway the funny thing is this. Several days later, I accidentally met him in an escalator --- if I am not mistaken, in PJ. He of course did not know me --- a totally insignificant and unglamorous little guy. So I caught him up and said, “Pak Samad, I read about the issue you wrote in the papers and that anonymous writer who dared to write such a thing against you. He is a loony, isn’t he, Pak Samad?”To which he replied, “No, no, no. It is okay. He is entitled to his own opinion. Now what did you say your name was?”(Diverting the issue).

Hehehe that was funny to me that time, When I departed from him I was sniggering quietly: he had just spoken to the guy who put him to task before!

Anyway, no. I am not in the same league as Pak Samad. He is a class of his own: a copacetic visionary, a hopeless romantic, an adroit writer, a dexterous poet. He is also, lately, an extremely confused alzheimeric dissident who hates the very government that recognizes his contributions. And for that, I wouldn’t want readers to be disadvantaged with what he had to say so I am reposting his poetry in full glory here:

 

Unggun Bersih

Semakin lara kita didera bara—
kita laungkan juga pesan merdeka:
Demokrasi sebenderang mentari
sehasrat hajat semurni harga diri.

Lama resah kita—demokrasi luka;
lama duka kita—demokrasi lara.
Demokrasi yang angkuh, kita cemuhi;
suara bebas yang utuh, kita idami!

Dua abad lalu Sam Adams berseru:
(di Boston dijirus teh ke laut biru):
Tak diperlu gempita sorak yang gebu,
diperlu hanya unggun api yang syahdu.

Kini menyalalah unggun sakti itu;
kini merebaklah nyala unggun itu.

24—25, 6.11. A. SAMAD SAID

Now Leman’s rebuttal poem? Mmmm.... a giant needs a giant to sit on the same level. So instead of creating a poem of my own for him, why not I pull in another giant with a corresponding poem which I think MOST APPROPRIATELY ANSWERS Pak Samad’s poetry. Here it goes: The Jabberwock by Lewis Carroll. It was a poem I first read when I was 9 years old. I didn't know the meaning of  the poem until now, when all this Bersih thingy happened. You guys might find a tough time comprehending what the verses are all about but trust me: National Laureate Pak Samad knows full well the meaning of this poem!

Jabberwocky

Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

 Leman Pulut

Humor Intermission (Epsilon): Not Neccessarily The News (of Bersih)

People have got it all wrong.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

Often a times, some photojournalists publish some pictures in either electronics or printed media, and they NEVER EVER get things right by way of captions. Sometimes I see the captions do not match the photos AT ALL. Where DO these photojournalists get their diplomas from? It's wrong captions like these
that give newspapermen bad names.

As just an example, during the recent Bersih rally with photographs splashed all over the internet, do they get the captions right? Nooooooooooooooooooo.

Leman would like to school some of these photojournalists. In this page, Leman displays his immense skill of dotting the i's, crossing the t's and putting the correct captions onto some photographs that would otherwise be immensely wonderful. Read, and be schooled. And as an exercise, go to the last photo and tell Leman how would you all captionize that photo.

Let it be some kind of competition. The winner with the best captions will get a Rolls Royce (just in case the look-alike contest fail to find a winner).

Second Photo:-

Third Photo:

Fourth:

 

Fifth:-

Sixth:-

Seventh, and this is where you come in. How would captionize these, Lemanese, Lemanettes?: