For Remy Sylado, 23761 are the Magic Notes<\/p>\n
By Tam Notosusanto<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Just what do you talk about with a man of such
\ndiverse talents and interests as Remy Sylado?<\/p>\n
Everything. He speaks intelligently about theater and poetry.
\nHe can give a scholarly analysis about Indonesian music, then he
\nwill switch to a deep discussion on theology. Next, it's film,
\nsociology, history, you name it. Sylado speaks eloquently on a
\nwide range of topics, from Sitti Nurbaya to The Beatles. The man
\nis clearly a walking encyclopedia of arts and humanities.<\/p>\n
And that encyclopedia would record his rich, artistic life's
\nwork: countless poems, dozens of novels, hundreds of paintings,
\nseveral music recordings and numerous stage plays and television
\nfilms he directed and acted in. Sylado is a cultural observer as
\nwell as an artist: he wrote newspaper columns, essays and
\ncriticism on the arts and philosophy, and he has published a
\nnumber of textbooks on theater and music.<\/p>\n
"He is a phenomenon," playwright Putu Wijaya said. "He is
\nextraordinary. I admire him because he can sing, he can write, he
\ncan act and he can even read Greek texts. I wonder how he does
\nthat."<\/p>\n
"People may get the impression Remy is playing around,"
\nrenowned poet Sapardi Djoko Damono said, "but he is really
\nserious in his work, and perhaps he is not satisfied with just
\nexpressing himself in one field of art."<\/p>\n
This phenomenal man has now added to his long list of literary
\nworks: Ca-Bau-Kan, a novel published by Gramedia Popular
\nLiterature. Ca-Bau-Kan tells about the life of the ethnic-Chinese
\nin Indonesia between 1918 and 1951. One prominent aspect of the
\nstory is the active role played by the ethnic-Chinese in
\nIndonesia's movement against colonialism.<\/p>\n
"I am interested in writing about the ethnic Chinese community
\nbecause their story is barely told," Sylado said. He sees
\nIndonesian novels only tell about native-Indonesians, never
\ntaking the time to tell the stories of nonindigenous people.
\nSylado also had an ethnic-Chinese character in his previous
\nnovel, Kembang Jepun, which was published as a series in Surabaya
\nPost but never as a book. He next plans to write about the Dutch
\nin Indonesia during the colonial era.<\/p>\n
"We always see the Dutch as mean, nasty colonialists. As an
\nIndonesian author, I want to write about the Dutch as human
\nbeings, just like Ca-Bau-Kan looks at both the good and the bad
\nsides of the ethnic-Chinese as human beings."<\/p>\n
For his latest novel, Sylado conducted research in Semarang,
\nJakarta and Bandung, interacting with the ethnic-Chinese
\ncommunity and getting close to them. But he has had ethnic-
\nChinese acquaintances before, among them Tjoa Tjie Liang, his
\njournalist mentor, and Bandung musician Tan Deseng. Sylado also
\nbegan a crusade for the cause of ethnic-Chinese: he once wrote a
\nfurious article criticizing the ban on Teater Koma's production
\nof Sam Pek Eng Tay.<\/p>\n
"Our national motto is Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in
\nDiversity). But there's too much unity and not much diversity.
\nAll unity, uniformity, when in fact we have the ethnic-Chinese
\nliving in the Indonesian community. I feel sorry for them for
\nbeing so deprived and lacking courage and living in fear," he
\nsaid, pointing out that he wrote this latest novel during the New
\nOrder era.<\/p>\n
The multidimensional persona known as Remy Sylado has come a
\nlong way since he was born in Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi, on
\nJuly 12, 1945, as Yapi Panda Abdiel Tambayong. The son of
\nMinahasan evangelist Johannes Tambayong, he never dreamed of
\nbecoming an artist, much less a multitalented one. Because of the
\nagricultural environment he was living in, his aspiration was
\nobvious.<\/p>\n
"I wanted to be a farmer," Sylado said, "but that never
\nhappened because I never had land, never had livestock." However,
\nduring his early years, he was always immersed in art,
\nparticularly music. Both his father and grandfather composed
\nmusic, and although Sylado considers himself "just a songwriter,
\nnot a composer like my father and grandfather", he seemed
\ndestined to venture into the arts.<\/p>\n
Yapi spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Catholic
\nschools in Semarang, Central Java. There he further developed his
\ninterest in art, acting in school plays and taking part in and
\nsometimes winning painting competitions. After graduating from
\nhigh school in Solo, he enrolled at both the Art Academy and the
\nIndonesian National Theater Academy in Solo.<\/p>\n
He worked as a journalist for Tempo magazine and Sinar
\nIndonesia in Semarang, and was an editor at several magazines,
\nincluding Aktuil and Vista. He wrote many short stories and
\nessays under several pseudonyms, and one of them -- a
\npronunciation of the musical notes 23761 -- became his official
\nnom de plume.<\/p>\n
"It's the opening notes of a Beatles song," Sylado said about
\nthe name, humming the tune of And I Love Her in musical notes --
\nre-mi-ti-la-do.<\/p>\n
The Fab Four were able to inspire Sylado's moniker because of
\nhis great admiration for the group. "The Beatles were pioneers in
\nrock music, in every aspect, the music, the harmony, the lyrics,"
\nhe said. "They're the rebels who discovered a new model of
\nentertaining music."<\/p>\n
Speaking about music, Sylado describes the nation's musicians
\nas "only being able to demonstrate what has become the fashion in
\nAmerica."<\/p>\n
"Just name anybody in Indonesian pop music," he said, "none of
\nthem are free from the fashion introduced by music from America.
\nWe only take over something already complete from the western
\nworld without going into or at least understanding it by studying
\nthe process of how it happened. We just Indonesianize it, but
\nnever really reinterpret it."<\/p>\n
Sylado takes a matter-of-fact attitude about Indonesian music.
\n"Since the 16th century, our music has always been diatonic," he
\nsaid, referring to the typical scales of western music. He said
\nthat because of Catholic missionaries and western influence in
\nIndonesian musical education, Indonesians know diatonic music
\nbetter than pentatonic music, the indigenous scales which are
\nstrong only in Java and Bali. "We will just have to accept this
\nfact," Sylado said, "instead of trying to seek for our
\n'identity', for an Indonesian national music, which is more of a
\npolitical slogan. We cannot speak of returning to traditional
\nvalues if we never actually left in the first place. Don't make
\nup things that don't exist. Maybe our present tradition is our
\ntradition."<\/p>\n
To this day, Sylado sees that Indonesians have not really
\nmastered music like the Japanese, for example. "We really can if
\nwe are serious," he said, "but when we study music, it shouldn't
\njust be about the do-re-mi, but also the scientific knowledge of
\nmusic."<\/p>\n
Sylado is clearly erudite in the subject of music, with his
\nbook Sociology of Indonesian Music and his stint teaching the
\nhistory of music at Theater and Film College in Jakarta. But he
\nis most remembered as the person who introduced Puisi Mbeling in
\nthe 1970s. Characterized by the cheeky, rebellious nature of the
\npoem structure and wording -- mbeling is the Javanese word for
\nnaughty -- his work indicates he is as much the rebel of
\nIndonesian poetry as The Beatles were of pop music.<\/p>\n
"He is an important figure in Indonesian literature for
\ninitiating the idea of mbeling poetry in 1972 or 1973," Damono
\nsaid. "It greatly influenced the development of Indonesian
\nliterature. Many poets have been inspired by the mbeling idea; it
\nbroke the conventions of poetry that existed then."<\/p>\n
"He has done us a great service," Putu Wijaya said, "by
\nproviding space in Aktuil magazine for the birth of mbeling
\npoetry."<\/p>\n
And what does Sylado have to say about the current state of
\nIndonesian poetry?<\/p>\n
"Some of the young poets, like Afrizal Malna and Sitok
\nSrengenge, deserve praise," he said. "But what's saddening, I
\nhaven't gotten spiritual enrichment from most poems since the
\n1970s."<\/p>\n
But if we are to talk about the development of poetry, we have
\nto talk about the willingness of publishers to publish them,
\nSylado said. "If they don't see them as something that needs to
\nbe published, that's a disgrace to Indonesian culture. When
\npublishers only want to publish what is commercial, that is a
\ndisaster."<\/p>\n
Sylado's poems have been published in the compilations Potret
\nMbeling and Kerygma. He has another anthology coming out this
\nyear, which will include poems from 1969 to 1999. "The mbeling
\npoems will be in this one (anthology)," he said.<\/p>\n
His current projects include some television plays adapted
\nfrom literary works of ASEAN authors for state-television TVRI.
\nAnd the three-time Citra nominee for Best Supporting Actor (at
\nthe now defunct Indonesian Film Festival) is returning to the big
\nscreen, acting in Slamet Rahardjo's yet-to-be-released film,
\nTelegram, based on a Putu Wijaya story.<\/p>\n
"I'm not interested in directing big-screen films," he said,
\n"because there are people more able than I. I can probably do it,
\nbut definitely not better than Slamet or Garin (Nugroho). I have
\nno worries about acting in them, but I'd get queasy about taking
\nthe responsibility of directing a film."<\/p>\n
Sylado lives with his wife of 23 years, Maria Louise, in a
\nhouse decorated with his paintings in East Jakarta. The couple
\nhave no children. At least once a month he travels to Bandung to
\nmeet with a regular group of artists who gather at his home in
\nBandung.<\/p>\n
With all of his accomplishments, is there anything he has not
\ndone?<\/p>\n
"I haven't come up with thoughts that can contribute to the
\nworld," he said. He has written a number of papers on contextual
\ntheology, with local culture playing an important element in the
\ndiscourse. He hopes the papers will be published and will be his
\ncontribution to the world, introducing an Indonesian's thoughts
\non the subject.<\/p>\n
Now middle-aged and gray-haired, Sylado certainly doesn't look
\nas fierce and haggard as he did in his younger, rebellious days.
\nThe long hair and thick, sinister beard have been replaced by a
\nneater coif and a stubble of gray moustache. Certainly that
\nfrequent, friendly chuckle that accompanies his speech doesn't
\njibe with a man who once wrote in a 1975 essay, "let's slaughter
\nall those poet wannabes who are moronic, dumb bastards", and was
\nbrought to trial in 1981 for insulting the vice governor of West
\nJava.<\/p>\n
"Oh, the way I'm offering contextual theology through local
\nculture, that's a kind of rebellion too," he said, smiling that
\ngenerous smile. "I'm still in my mbeling attitude."<\/p>\n
"He is not the type of artist that can immediately become
\npopular because his ideas may be considered strange by people,"
\nDamono said. "But a person like him is important in the realm of
\nart because even though he himself is not rewarded, other people
\nwill benefit from his 'strangeness' and will be able to move
\nforward."<\/p>",
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