Lot 1699 spent the New Year weekend knocking back mojitos with Grace Chin and Ooi Ying Nee; we swapped stories, played Uno, and discussed a myriad of madcap schemes for 2012.
Then someone looked through our backyard and into the school beyond, echoey-empty and infested with wild dogs, and said: “Remember secondary school?”
“Eiyer,” said we, shivering from metaphorical chill.
We dealt with the spectre of our pasts by thinking up another madcap scheme for 2012:
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PESTA BELAKANG SEKOLAH
A programme of short performances (skits, dance, music, readings, etc) performed in the Lot 1699 backyard, for the benefit of curious SDASA students during their recess break.
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The right- and backside of our home faces Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Datuk Haji Abdul Samad (SDASA). I’ve bitched about it before. It’s a secondary school, large of compound and limited in imagination. Banners with Najib’s face, as well as the faces of local BN lords, are hung around its canteen; Sharon has heard their Rukunegara, and it goes “Kesetiaan kepada raja, negara, dan pemimpin”.
Scary.
Add to that the standard high-school horror we were all subjected to.
With our proximity to such a large void in reality, we’d be remiss to not do something about it.
Students frequently hang around the spaces facing our lot; they peer in on occasion — mostly at our rambutan tree, to see whether it’s fruiting — a captive audience? There is only a decrepit fence between the two worlds, after all.
We could:
- Put out a book-rack and stock it with zines and comics and Perburuan and Islam Melayu Komunis and What Your Teacher Didn’t Tell You;
- Perform, Marina Abramovic-style, in our underwear;
- Read from Wildlife on Coal Island;
- Get cool singer-songwriters to sing stuff like “Lena”;
- Hold a People’s Assembly;
- Guide an arts-and-crafts lesson;
- Do a workshop on health and sexuality (rights);
and so on. Endless possibilities! Logistically, this should be doable, since Sharon and I live here, and there’re guest rooms to spare for visiting performers.
What you think, guise? Is this feasible? Would artist-types be interested to play to a handful of rural teens? How much trouble would we have to prep for? Would young SMK-goers even give a fuck?
More location shots:
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