Alkupra

Bohong banget sih kalau gue bilang gampang, karena sastra Cina termasuk segitiga bermuda di FIB UI yang banyak makan korban Drop Out.

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Di Sastra Cina bakal belajar Bahasa Mandarin dari awal banget, jadi yang gak punya basic pun gak usah kuatir karena bakal belajar dari basic banget. Kemahiran Bahasa Cina ini bakal dipelajarin selama 3 tahun alias 6 Semester di mana setiap semester terdiri dan empat komponen: Membaca, Menulis, Mendengar, Berbicara. Di samping Bahasa Mandarin juga akan mempelajari sejarah Cina dari jaman dinasti, Mao Zedong, sampai sekarang, beserta politik dan kebudayaannya. Juga Kesusastraan, filsafat, linguistik, penerjemahan dan apapun yang berhubungan dengan Cina. Itu kuliah jurusan, belum ditambah mata kuliah wajib fakultas seperti Dasar-Dasar Filsafat, Pengantar Linguistik Umum, dan sebagainya.

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Jadi kalau ada yang bilang masuk sastra itu gampang, beneran pengen gue gampar mulutnya.

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Tapi kembali lagi ke kitanya sih, apakah mau beneran kuliah apa enggak, karena walaupun mengulang mata kuliah menjadi hal biasa di sastra cina, kita pasti bisa lulus kok. Hal yang sulit, tapi bukan mustahil. Yang pasti siap-siap kehidupan sosial lo bakal berkurang drastis.

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Bosen ah, I'll give you my top 7 favorite songs of Bjork aja:

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1. Hyperballad. Sutradara: Michel Gondry. Dari album Post (1995)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Pv-UkoRC4
Favorit lagu Bjork sepanjang masa. Liriknya gila sih, tentang seseorang yang nyembunyiin destructive tendency dari pasangannya dengan cara ngelempar barang dari atas bukit dan ngebayangin gimana kalau dia yang jatuh. Suicidal yet sentimental. Gue bisa relate banget, gimana kita nutupin sisi destruktif kita dari orang2 yang kita sayang, to appear normal and being happy around them.

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2. Joga, Sutradara: Michel Gondry. Dari album Homogenic (1997)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BSMcVRgloY
Lagu kerinduan Bjork buat kampung halamannya, Islandia, di mana mereka masih sangat dekat dengan alam tapi juga sangat maju secara teknologi. Sebelum bikin album ini, Bjork nyaris kena bomb acid kiriman fans fanatik yang ngerekam pas dia nyiapin bom, obsesinya terhadap Bjork, sebelum akhirnya bunuh diri di depan kamera.

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3. All Is Full Of Love. Sutradara: Chris Cunningham. Dari album Homogenic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjAoBKagWQA
Salah satu video musik terbaik sepanjang masa sih, pencapaian juga buat animasi komputer di tahun 90-an dan jadi koleksi permanen di Museum of Modern Art, New York.

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4. Venus As A Boy. Sutradara: Sophie Muller. Dari album Debut (1993).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z5aPaDwAkU
Tentang cowok yang melihat segalanya dari beauty point of view. Bukan cuma keindahan fisik aja, tapi juga keindahan dari hal-hal sehari, kaya the beauty of brushing your teeth and the beauty of waking up in the morning in the right beat and the beauty of having a conversation with a person. I'm Libra which is under Venus' reign, so this is really speaks to me.

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5. Black Lake. Belum ada video klipnya. Dari album paling baru, Vulnicura (2015).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqzTRYn2hi8
Lagu 10 menit dan lagu paling inti dari album Vulnicura yang basically adalah sebuah breakup album dari perpisahannya dengan Matthew Barney. Diproduksi sama Arca yg juga bikin album FKA twigs, lagu ini luar biasa menyayat dengan strings dramatis, dan best of moment adalah menit keempat, ketika ketukan elektronik yang ganjil makin intens, like an emotional turmoil dari kehidupan percintaan Bjork yang ambyar seambyar-ambyarnya.

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6. I See Who You Are. Gak ada official videonya, Dari album Volta (2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCWQovDD2B0
Suka banget karena dia kolaborasi sama pemain pipa (instrumen petik tradisional Cina) Min Xiao-Fen. Instrumen paling gue suka itu instrumen petik, khususnya pipa, shamisen, dan sitar.

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7. Who Is It? Sutradara: Dawn Shadforth. Dari album Medulla (2004)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_AivhqknZU
Sebenernya kalau di album, lagu ini hampir semuanya pake acapella karena konsep album Medulla sendiri emang human voice as music instrument, tapi di video ini Bjork ngajak Bell Choi dari Iceland dan lebih dikenal sebagai versi Bell Choir mix dari lagu ini. Bajunya dari McQueen.

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I'm just gonna give a you a poem about death by Pablo Neruda.

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There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out
of the skin into the soul.

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And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere,
from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

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Sometimes I see alone coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead,
with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple, moving upstream
with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

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Death arrives among all that sound like a shoe with
no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it,
with no finger in it, comes and shouts with no mouth,
with no tongue, with no throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard and its clothing
makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

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I'm not sure, I understand only a little,
I can hardly see, but it seems to me that
its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

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But death also goes through the world dressed as
a broom, lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom, the broom is the tongue
of death looking for corpses, it is the needle
of death looking for thread.

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Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port where death is
waiting, dressed like an admiral.

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PAP from Didi Budiardjo's Pilgrimage exhibition at Museum Tekstil Jakarta.

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