It's been a stormy week, one way and another. Big events, and a few powerful cultural offerings.

But today found us quietly having lunch at Fresca in Avenue K. This place shares premises with Dolly Dim Sum, which we visited a couple of months ago.

We were actually celebrating five years' residence in Southeast Asia.

It might seem illogical to celebrate Southeast Asia with Mexican food... But the experience expressed the cosmopolitanism of the region, and some of our future regional hopes. And the food was very nice -- horchata, enchiladas rojas (complete with guacamole, re-fried beans, and red rice), and chocolate con churros to round off.





A Mexican meal also meshed with the Latin American Film Festival, which hit KL last week. We watched El Abrazo de la Serpiente, a beautiful but sobering movie from Colombia.

Like the central theme of Xingu, the objective of our Festival outing last year, this film deals with the tragic consequences of colonialism, both for the indigenous people and the environment.

Karamakate, the shaman who guides two generations of white people on their quest for knowledge, is a "vision of pride and of tragedy... facing the unstoppable current of history". "An angry, morally complex individual with a heart full of grief", he bids his travellers cast away their baggage. The baggage represents knowledge, the goal of their quest. But like everything Western, it seems, it's material, and it's destined for the good of the homeland, not the good of the place it was garnered.

The river, the shamanic rites, and the air of mystery reminded me of Paul Simon's beautiful Spirit Voices. "Do your best, heart, and have faith in the power of tomorrow..." Even when everything is broken.

Having been prevented by a humongous rainstorm from attending another Latin American movie screening, we stayed at home and watched Inside Llewyn Davis, a movie by the always interesting Coen brothers.

As this reviewer argues, "The Coens have characterized Inside Llewyn Davis as an exercise in futility, 'an odyssey in which the main character doesn't go anywhere.'" But I guess it's also a reminder that we bring failure upon ourselves. If we choose to not only annoy our family and benefactors, but also to pursue "an apparently hopeless career in a dead-end scene", we've got to either have private means, strike it incredibly lucky, or end up selling out in some way (by returning to an "ordinary" job, for example, or agreeing to produce more mainstream stuff). Llewyn is like a failing student, and I just want to invite him along for a meeting, and encourage him to get his act together, plan ahead a bit more, take on a little responsibility. But he'd be the student who forgot to come to the meeting...

And having felt it wiser to stay at home during the fifth Bersih rally, we ended up watching The Departed, a clever movie in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon play cat-and-mouse for a couple of hours.

Our stormy cultural experiences continued with a riveting afternoon's music by Mahler, courtesy of the inimitable MPO. Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Symphony No. 1, subtitled "Titan", with good reason.

What amazing music. The programme is littered with words like haunting, grim, ghostly, cruel, sinister, anguished, bleak, and frightening. But there is also delicacy and consolation. Even fun: St Anthony preaches enthusiastically to the fish, "who listen dutifully but afterwards resume all their bad old habits".

My absolute favourite bit was the third movement of the symphony. Frere Jacques in minor key; then a new, soft melody; then a country fair; then an ethereal passage with "gossamer textures"; and then -- somehow, I'm not sure how -- all of them together.

I also finished The Story of a Brief Marriage, by Anuk Arudpragasam. This is a truly searing book, set in a war zone during Sri Lanka's civil conflict. It describes just one day. From the numbness produced by continual fear and daily sights of suffering, Dinesh awakes to a brief promise of humanity -- a marriage to a young woman whose father, knowing his own days are numbered, hopes this move will offer her some slight protection from rape or murder. The marriage is brief indeed. Just as Dinesh begins to connect with his new wife, and reconnect with himself as a human being, she is killed.

I don't know I'm born. I really don't...

On a lighter note, we also tried out Born and Bread this week, the new incarnation of a nearby cafe that we didn't even know about. The more exotic items seem to have disappeared off the menu, but my philly steak sandwich (thin slices of tender meat, a sensible quantity of non-gluggy cheese, and a couple of little gherkins) was really very tasty (and very filling).



Here's to calmer waters... After all, Christmas is coming...