Killers

TUE 20 | Cambodia and the United Nations finally agreed to a framework to try those most responsible for Khmer Rouge crimes after more than a decade of political negotiations. The first case was as obvious as it was easy: Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, the notorious torturer behind the Tuol Sleng security centre. French author Thierry Cruvellier spent every day of Duch’s trial at the Extraordinary Chambers watching the case unfold. His resulting book, The Master of Confessions: The Making of a Khmer Rouge Torturer, is among the best tombs ever written on the subject. Wayne McCallum, writing in the Advisor, gave this description of Cruvellier’s account: “Eloquently written, artful and insightful – sometimes even amusing – Cruvellier’s volume does a persuasive job of bringing the many threads of Duch’s past, his trial and the tales of countless others (victims, survivors, colleagues, expert witnesses, legal counsels) together, keeping the reader mesmerised. The result is a book that reads like a novel, but never compromises the memories of the people captured between its pages.”

WHO: Thierry Cruvellier, author of The Master of Confessions
WHAT: Book signing and author discussion
WHERE: Meta House, #37 Sothearos
WHEN: January 20, 8pm
WHY: Everything you ever wanted to know about a Khmer Rouge executioner

Kiss, live

WED 21 | Jimmy Kiss, a product of the highly regarded Songkites programme, is among the most popular young artists in a burgeoning class of singers, songwriters and musicians now coming up. He joins efforts with an equally talented female vocalist, Miss Saravan, for a rare public collaboration. Their styles should complement each other well. He is a modern pop crooner, she a retro Khmer rock songstress.

WHO: Jimmy Kiss & Miss Saravan
WHAT: Singer-songwriter rock duo
WHERE: Doors
WHEN: January 21, 8:30pm
WHY: This could be the start of something good

Golden fortunes and magic ink

The size of the compound couldn’t be assessed from outside. The translator and I wondered around the blinding white wall. There was a red marble plaque imposed like a huge blood clot on the whiteness: “Neak Okhna IM BROS” was spelled out in gold letters; either side were etchings of Tevodas – Cambodian angels – scattering metaphorical flowers.

Okhna Im Bros (“Okhna” is an honorific meaning “excellency”) is the most powerful Kru Khmer in Cambodia. “Kru Khmer” is a catch-all term for spirit mediums, herbalists and hocus-pocus merchants that lurk on the outskirts of the Cambodian imagination.

Im Bros is a spirit medium, fortune teller and healer to the Cambodian elite. He counts royalty, governors and army generals among his clients. Even legendary monarch Norodom Sihanouk had his fortune told by this master soothsayer.

20141222_102029Im Bros was striding around an echoing hall, the entire back end of which was taken up by an alter brimming with Buddhas, grinning Angkorian kings and Brahmic deities with swarming arms. On the floor were a number of silver trays containing offerings of fruit, candles and $100 bills.

Im Bros wore a single white waistcloth revealing a web of magical tattoos that covered his chest and arms. He greeted us with a traditional sampeah gesture, pressing his palms together. The translator couldn’t bow low enough; he’d never met someone of such high status before. Indeed, he only agreed to the job after being assured a number of times that we were definitely expected by the shaman.

The walls were covered in dozens of framed photographs hung haphazardly like a drunken man’s stamp collection. Most were of Im Bros meeting dignitaries and officials. It was these photos he turned to first.

He talked in a confident patter. “I paid $100,000 for this school,” he said, pointing to one photo,“ and $1.5 million for this hospital.” The translator was so overcome with humility he could barely render the tycoon’s words in English. “This is why I’m Okhna; this is why I’m respected,” Im Bros repeated throughout the monologue.

After listing his achievements he moved on to a section of the wall where the photos were faded. One showed a fierce teenager wearing a head scarf and brandishing a machete. “This is me when I first became a Kru Khmer,” he said. “I was 14 years old.”

“I joined the army when I was 15,” he continued, pointing to the next photo showing the same young man in combat gear. “I became known as ‘the young trooper Kru Khmer’ because the spirits allowed me to heal injured soldiers with magic water.”

Im Bros was a fighter in the Khmer People’s National Liberation Armed Forces – an anti-communist militia opposed to the Vietnamese-backed government of the ‘80s. They were loyal to Son Sann, a former Prime Minister under Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Im Bros was a skilled army man. “Eventually, I led a task force of 75 soldiers,” he said.

After a Vietnamese offensive in 1985 caused the KPNLAF severe losses, Im Bros scarpered and headed for Phnom Penh. Tales of the “young trooper Kru Khmer” had by then reached the newly appointed Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was recruiting the country’s best young talent to be part of his inner circle.

“I met Hun Sen in 1985,” Im Bros said. “Even then he recognised that I was not only a powerful Kru Khmer but I had a heart for developing Cambodia.”

Im Bros immediately started donating to help fund Hun Sen’s political and developmental efforts. In return, he became friends with the PM and first lady, Bun Rany.

“Hun Sen said I was the best Kru Khmer in Cambodia,” Im Bros said, pointing to a number of pictures of him with the first couple. When probed about the details of his private sessions with the PM, Im Bros declined to comment.

It’s likely, however, that if Hun Sen does seek Im Bros’ advice, it would be to locate auspicious dates on which to hold important meetings or to petition Cambodia’s powerful ancestor spirits for help. “I leave my body and the ancestor spirits take over,” Im Bros explained. “When I return I don’t remember anything; only the client hears their message.”

Im Bros also practices traditional medicine. “I make herbal tinctures to treat chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol,” he said. “Most of my clients see a doctor, but when modern medicine doesn’t suffice they come to me.”

Purveyors of ancient remedies, like Im Bros, have long learned not to tackle scientific medicine head on; instead they occupy conceptual fringes, just beyond the last outposts of quantum theory. There they set up colourful stalls under the banner of “complementary therapy.”

The shaman rustled through some correspondence and produced an x-ray of a fractured shin bone. “When people come and see me with a complaint I often send them to the hospital to get tested,” he said. “This person wouldn’t have known they had a fractured shin-bone if I hadn’t sent them to the hospital.”

“When the doctors made a cast I had them add some of my tincture to the mixture,” he said. He produced a second X-ray showing a restored shinbone. “This was the result one week later,” he said and grinned.

Im Bros was at pains to separate his practice from what he called the “ignorant superstition” of countryside folk. It is a problem in Cambodia that results, on average, with the slaying of four so-called sorcerers every year. Indeed, in April 2014, a mob of 600 people savagely stoned an alleged sorcerer to death.

“This is pure cruelty,” Im Bros said, shaking his head. “People spread rumours of sorcery because of some personal vendetta. If a person really is a sorcerer then arrest him and let him be brought to trial.”

Cambodian law doesn’t recognise sorcery as a crime. “The law should be changed,” Im Bros continued. “This would allow people who have been accused to defend themselves in court and not fall victim to mob rule.”

Sometimes rumours can swell and burst into New Testament-esque scenes like the one I witnessed last year when reporting on a 2-year-old boy who was claimed to have healing powers.

“I can’t comment on the powers of any other Kru Khmer,” said Im Bros when asked about the event, which attracted more than 4,000 people to a nearby village. “However, I know you must train for many years to become a powerful healer.” He became animated, gesticulating left and right. “How rich did that family become charging people to see the magic boy? It’s merely business and not true magic.”

As if to demonstrate his authenticity, Im Bros whirled back to his files and pulled out a bamboo cylinder. Inside was a piece of red cloth covered with faded symbols and Sanskrit incantations. “My grandfather gave me this before the war,” he said. “He was also a Kru Khmer.”

The shaman laid the cloth carefully on the tiled floor in between trays of offerings. “These are spells to bless people with health and good luck,” he said, pointing to the tantric inscriptions. “I have tattooed some of them on my body because these scrolls are too rare to risk taking with me when I travel.”

Looking from the ancient spells to the trays stacked with offerings, it was clear that being Cambodia’s most famous Kru Khmer was a job with many perks. “I don’t charge a flat fee,” he said. “Clients pay what they like. And because Kru Khmer is not listed as an occupation by the state, all the cash is tax-free.”

The next family of well-heeled clientele entered and began bowing. The translator tugged at my arm. “We should go, these are important people,” he said.

Before leaving, I bowed in front of the alter and left a cash donation. If there’s one thing Cambodians love, it’s their religion. Their weird, haunted religion.

Im Bros nodded approvingly. “Thank you for coming, and I entreat you to write only the truth; don’t make things up like some journalists,” he said. I glanced from my scrawled notes to the sycophantic translator – a certain amount of poetic license might be needed to lash all this together. Would an accidental untruth – a mistranslation perhaps – result in horrible misfortune?

The magic man grinned. “Always tell the truth,” he said, “and nothing bad will happen.”

Thai fire

Rehabb Bar & Grill on Street 174 is a connoisseur’s bar, the kind of comfortable, unpretentious place where the staff remember your name and your dogs are welcome. The kind of place where the bar snacks aren’t peanuts or pretzels but turnips. Yes, turnips (which, oddly, are pretty good; you wouldn’t think that of a turnip, though). The menu is broad, with soups, salads, pastas and Thai food. And, oh, the Thai food. One of the owners is Thai, and her mother is the master chef. If you didn’t know, now you know.
Rehabb Public House, #20 Street 174.

Guilty Pleasures

Crab sex goes on a lot longer than you’d think.

I admit I had no choice but to watch, Officer, but there was no tingle in my trunks this sunny A.M. I felt some objective admiration as those little critters went at it hammer and tongs on the plastic bag isthmus that passes for the Sihanoukville shore. It made a change from enjoying them tossed in a fingerlickin’ Kampot pepper sauce.

All the other crabs sat in a circle around les amoureux with their backs to the surprisingly vigorous action for privacy’s sake. I thought that was lovely of them. But I could only stare with purely scientific interest at those green-shelled hump-meisters – either that or burn my retinas to cinders glued to the exquisite buns of a coyly posturing devotchka trawling up and down the foreshore in a lime thong.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate a peachy buttock as robustly as the next human. I myself have bounteous globes – back in my salad days I was a saucy burlesque with a penchant for the pole and my unequivocal rear assets meant a garter belt overflowing by dawn’s rosy crack. But there’s a time and a place for egregious Lycra cleft kecks, and on a public beach chockers with New Year families of every ilk, bending over to beachcomb in a co-polymer stringlet the size of Kaliningrad Oblast was not it.

I don’t want to seem ungrateful for a perfect sunkissed bum, or for nature’s jam packed cornucopia in general. Don’t get jealous, but as we speak I’m writing to you from an over-water cabana down on our patchy old south coast. It’s a breezy overcast morning. There are seafaring butterflies, silver fingerlings skipping away from some inept Korean tourists with half a million dollars worth of fishing equipment, a couple of lolling hornets that I got my one good eye on, and an unfeasibly fit Slavic couple with a rope-and-swing thing hanging from the rafters. I’m assuming it’s some new isometric Pilates workout but it might just be more Russians having sex. It’s always hard to tell. I’m impressed that they brought all their stuff with them though: they probably need to be that pumped to carry it all.

I thought a few days away from CharmingVille’s bustle and grit would help me blow away some life-muffling cobwebs and ponder my Goat Year resolutions with fewer distractions. Being a water rabbit, I love the sea, and Kep was fully booked, so while Hubster just gets on with it with nary a navel gaze, I’m here in this Onassian playground to take a good hard look at myself. I got some serious stuff to work out.

  1. How to be kinder to people. The barking should stop.
  2. Patience. Get me some. Right fucking now.
  3. Perhaps it’s also time to get a proper job – a cube farm with a staff canteen and some kind of health plan that lets me drink the minibar dry in a luxury Bangers condo while I recover from increasingly urgent wattle surgery. Plus one can’t live on the miniscule compensation payout from last Easter’s tragic eyebrow incident forever. I’m down to my last furry 500 riel. Yes. A job might be something to consider.
  4. Also, should I go back to my natural hair colour?

The tropical lullaby whispered by wavelets caressing the giant concrete octopus at the foot of the hotel garden has been most inspirational for these and many other ponderments. But I’ve turned to my internet for some of the answers that can’t be forecast by the intersecting lines of Sergey’s impressive six pack or counting the back hairs of the gold-toothed boozenik lights out and face down on the sand in front.

Apparently, terrariums are going to be super important for me in 2015. I like the look of macramé potholders too. There’ll be plenty of fruits. I’m urged on a couple of sites to curb my control freakery and delegate important tasks, or at least ask for help more often than I do. So instead of googling AskJeeves for a toothpaste recipe that’ll remove unsightly coffee and beetroot stains, I’ve made an appointment with my dental hygienist. I’ve given up on my self-styled exercise regime that counted my trips to the fridge as a “five second fat blaster” and enrolled in rope wars at the local gym. I’ve also enlisted the services of the tuk tuk guy who cleans our gutters. He happens to be a dab hand at wardrobe culling and has promised to do my colours. By June I should have nice white teeth, an even hotter body, and fewer but more important clothes.

The biggest change of the year will be for our pet. Bunster‘s days of squiring the chesterfield are over: he’s scheduled to get his bits done in the first quarter. Hubster’s not too happy about it but we tried a girlfriend and he just ran away. He might be gay, the Rabbit I mean, but I’m over his raiding my wardrobe and chewing the bejesus out of my black t-shirt collection. His hormone-fuelled sofa-rooting shoe-feasting days are so 2014. Like me, he’ll just have to get along without his damn biscuits.

Rockefeller Report

So this is what 2015 feels like.

You now have another 365 days to put off until next year something you really don’t want to do this year. That feels pretty good, right?
Time flies when you’re trying to procrastinate, but let’s not deflect too many things away from our attention so early into the new calendar. Rockefeller Without Borders recommends that we all make like remorseful fugitives and turn ourselves in.

But you haven’t done anything that warrants turning yourself in? Sure you have.

Fugitive denial belongs to all of us. You don’t have to be a criminal to know that (but it helps). Classic fugitive denial signs include the sudden desire to get away quickly; insisting that photo of you isn’t you; making videos of yourself insisting that that photo of you isn’t you; putting pressure on others to help you convince others that it isn’t you; using your hairdresser as an alibi because you never go outside looking like that.

Additionally, we – i.e. all of us – might want to stop using the words wrong and unreasonable because no proud, self-loving human is ever wrong or unreasonable. Those are 20th century words that most advanced cultures have removed from society anyway – along with the unreasonable need to stop at red lights and the criminalization of speaking on your phone while driving a motorcycle.

As many a sage grandfather says: you’re only cheating yourself. This is the fugitive’s dilemma – indeed our global dilemma – and it seems we spend a lot of time negotiating and lobbying for ways to confirm our innocence, argue a point, substantiate a claim… no matter how big or small that might be. People who love statistics certainly know that.

Take the recent argument that only 35% of tourists who come to Cambodia visit the Angkor Wat temple complex. Opposition lawmakers say that their research points to a number closer to 80%. This claim of revenue underreporting will no doubt fester in 2015. Because we are always on the lookout for a controversy to mediate over (in other words, behave like a responsible NGO), Rockefeller Without Borders went to Angkor Wat and did a bit of research of our own using the only consistently accurate tourist statistic: t-shirt sales.

With the aid of proprietary technology, we took total Cambodia tourist numbers and divided that by t-shirts sold at Angkor Wat in 2014 and got the answer we needed. Simple math. Everyone who goes to Angkor Wat buys a t-shirt. Unfortunately, our official statistician is now a fugitive, and thus we cannot publish the results until he turns himself – and the answer – in (he’s demanding “caramel extra whip organic gluten free soy latte” money, which, of course, as an international NGO we are legally bound not to pay).

One of our favourite fugitive stories from last year also involved Angkor Wat. This was the news that the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam is planning to auction off an aircraft owned by the wonderfully named Air Dream, a (now) mysterious carrier that made just one journey in May 2007 – Siem Reap (aka Angkor Wat) to Hanoi – before abandoning the aircraft.

Apparently, the Dream’s owner disappeared – but not his airport parking bill in Hanoi, which is now over $600,000 and rising. All attempts to contact the Dream owner have gone unanswered. The Dream is now officially a fugitive.

Was one flight enough to fulfil the Dream? Surely they can keep the Dream alive, no? Never mind the unpaid 600k, this quitter’s behaviour is both wrong and unreasonable and something we don’t want to expose our children to. Running from your dreams: how many of you became fugitives to your 2014 plans? Exactly! Thereby proving my point: fugitive denial is in us all.

Enough is enough. Stop running. Turn yourself in! It’s a new year: fugitive is out, dreams are in. Retweeting a message of hope from a fugitive Oknha: #BringBacktheDream

Four dumplings and a wedding

Summer of 2014. It is a sweltering evening in June and I am sitting with a group of friends at Sam Doo, a popular Chinese restaurant near Central Market. We have all gathered here to celebrate the return of one of my best buddies following a lengthy trip home. He is running a bit late, and I absentmindedly start skimming the room.

The decor strikes me as flamboyant and incongruent: the walls alternate between colours of salmon and pistachio while laminated posters advertising alcohol serve as art. A shiny Chinese shrine ornamented with Christmas lights looms conspicuously over the door, its lights flickering on and off.

My friend finally enters. Lucio looks a bit fatter and his rosy cheeks denote a lack of sunshine and an indulgent lifestyle. His face beams with an exultant smile, and I can sense that something big has happened. He cannot wait a second longer and spills the news: he just got engaged. To our surprise, his fiancé is in town and will be joining us later.

As we digest the overwhelming news, the table fills with all kinds of dumplings, wonton soups, bottles of Tsingtao beer and cups of tea. All around me, I can hear the unmistakable fast, choppy sound of Mandarin.

The dumpling egg noodle soup with BBQ pork ($3.50) is authentic. The fat wontons are the very definition of juiciness and tenderness. I bring the whole bowl to my lips and enjoy the salty, flavourful, dark broth. Irresistible youmian noodles (thin egg noodles) complete this great dish.

The steamed dumplings have that sticky, supple consistency and juicy innards that characterise good dim sum cuisine. The phoenix dumplings ($2.20) are bite-sized packages of dainty shrimp, while the BBQ meat dumplings ($2) come in the form of fat parcels of succulent pork and tasty vegetables. In comparison, the deep-fried wontons ($6.5) seem a little bland. Not only are they lacking flavour, they are also a bit pricey.

We wrap up with fried meat cakes ($2): sesame-covered deep-fried dough enveloping lumps of minced pork; the sweet-savoury dichotomy is very satisfying.

All in all, Sam Doo serves good, honest Cantonese food that will not disappoint connoisseurs of Chinese cuisine. Its extensive menu covers a wide array of dim sum dishes and other Chinese delights. The service is not great, but it does the trick. Taking the quality of the food into consideration, the price is not bad: for a full meal, expect to pay $6 to $8 per person, including beer. Toilets are clean and well stocked. Finding a parking spot for your car might prove impossible, so best to come here by other means.

I come back from the bathroom only to encounter Lucio standing near the table, leaning over the figure of a woman. Her arched back is supported by Lucio’s right arm and their lips are conjoined in a passionate kiss.

She straightens up and I have a clear view of her face. It takes me a second to assimilate what I find, but when I do a shiver runs down my spine. We both try our best to suppress our reactions, but from the petrified look in her eyes I can see that she recognizes me.

“This is Soklang, my future wife,” Lucio announces with a triumphant grin.

To be continued…

Sam Doo, #56 Kampuchea Krom

Mixmaster Mike lights up Phnom Penh

Mixmaster Mike was known, once upon a time, merely by the mild moniker of Michael Schwartz. He was an ordinary mortal, boring and average, just like you or me or Sam Rainsy when he is viewed without Hun Sen looming in the background to provide a lot of gloomy contrast.

Then, one day, Michael Schwartz witnessed his destiny and got a glimpse of the future that he’d claimed for himself. He perchanced to lay eyes upon DJ Grandmixer D.ST on stage with Herbie Hancock, a musician who’s earlier work with Miles Davis had already brought ample fame to his name. I know this to be the case as this very brief tale of two names joining together in musical matrimony is one that is told on nearly every one of Mixmaster Mike’s many bio pages. If it is apocryphal then it is an extremely well-traveled tall-tale.

Perhaps it was their 1983 performance together at the Grammy Awards? With an introduction by none other than John Denver, who was uncharacteristically garbed in a suave tuxedo, his glasses off and hair trimmed neatly. Denver that evening was handsome indeed, but looking slightly lonely without a horde of Henson’s Muppets surrounding him and cackling away like they did for most of Denver’s life (as I remember it) in the prior decade, the NSFW 1970’s.

http://youtu.be/1UjFZiOAZKc

Smutty #7

Smutty #7, the decade that gave birth to such dark delights and dastardly deeds as modern pornography and the war on drugs, did also deliver to us the proto-rumblings of Rap music, which culminated in 1979 with Kurtis Blow’s signing to Mercury records. The first rapper with a major label deal, he was often supported at his gigs by Joseph Simmons of Run DMC, then known as “DJ Run, Son of Kurtis Blow.” Thus did DJ Run, later of DMC, come to realize that “a DJ could be a band, stand on his own feet, get you out your seat.”

The venerated worship of the DJ as a Rock Star in his own right and a one-man all-star band took hold and joined our Necronomicon of pop-culture rituals. It has since held on steadily, through various twists and turns and variations, on up through today.

Denver introduced them most modestly, as if they were a group of children from the neighborhood who wanted to put on a little show for everyone, even though everyone wanted nothing more in the world than for them to not do that. But they were all going to smile politely anyways, when he said: “… with the help of some of his friends, Herbie Hancock!”

Herbie’s friends certainly must have made an impression on the young Michael Schwartz, but how could they not? The spectacle at hand was meant to herald in the very future of music itself, as envisioned by the primitives that were us, human beings, in 1983. I was 6 years old and would have thought this was fantastic as it seemed to indicate that an age of dancing robots was nigh upon us, mechanical dancing automatons a fact of everyday life was the unstated promise. Electronic drum kits that looked like thin rubber pads, all sorts of robot-like mannequins dancing in time to the music, and a man with a white leather jacket, sleeves rolled up, sunglasses on, wearing headphones that were sporting an antenna sticking straight up in a style reminiscent of something Elroy would wear on the Jetson’s, was standing there playing … record players?

Yes indeed, turntables and scratching are everywhere in “Rockit,” probably the most prominent early example of its use in mainstream pop music. The song opens with the sound, so familiar to us today, of a vinyl record being manually halted in its revolutions on the turntable, and the player’s needle being worked forwards and backwards in the record’s grooves to produce literal scratching, as in physical damage to the vinyl, as well as aural scratching, which manifests as a herky-jerky rhythmic bounce with muted hints of the record’s contents, distorted to a smear of ascending or descending tones as they undergo that wear and tear.

It was probably all a blur to young Michael Schwartz as he sat there stunned, mutely watching the television as Herbie, clad in similar fashion to his DJ, all leather & sunglasses, hoisted his Keytar (a keyboard guitar) that was strapped around his neck, and banged out the opening notes to “Rockit,” the only Herbie Hancock song that any of you reading this are probably familiar with. But then again, as a testament to the song’s strange powers, you’re also probably still very familiar with it even if you’ve never heard of Herbie Hancock, at least past a certain age you must be.

It is a (now) retro-futuristic sounding instrumental classic, both dated and timeless, a moment to save for music history’s scrapbook even if it involved a keytar, which is an aspect of this moment that is best buried under a mountain of denial and never spoken of again. A keyboard-guitar, you say? Sounds made up to me. You mean so that the keyboard player, should he also be the vocalist and ostensible band leader, can get up and march about with it and prance around the stage? Preposterous, no one who suffered through that many years of piano lessons would ever stand the indignity of such a sad display. Never speak of it again.

http://youtu.be/bZlyInYFuHw

 

Hip-Hop Hero

Young Michael Schwartz watched music history being made, and despite the presence of the keytar in a starring role, he didn’t quit listening to music entirely after puncturing his own ear drums with a pencil. The opposite in fact.

He had an epiphany that sent his mind spinning like a vinyl platter at 72 RPM. Perhaps he had a vision of himself up there on stage with Herbie, his face in place of that of Grandmixer D.ST. Up there with them, the Stars, hob-knobbing with John Denver, wearing sunglasses at night (albeit under bright stage lights,) and sporting a pristine white leather jacket inside of a climate controlled theater, and rolling the sleeves up instead of taking it off if it restricted his movements or was too warm for him. He wasn’t gonna take it off. Not when he looked that dope wearing it and you’re a liar if you claim that you would have taken it off either, not if you’ve seen the clip.

Most importantly ¬– for his future and the future of his chosen art and profession – he can see himself up there on stage absorb in adulation of fans near and far, being worthy of that strange worship, music history rewritten to not so much replace Grandmixer D.ST, but to very definitely, one day, include him.

We’ve all dreamed of glory at one time or another. Certainly in our most private unshared thoughts, if nowhere bolder. But very few of us ever achieve the lofty heights we wish to climb to, not by a long shot, because such feats are reserved for heroes and legends, not the likes of the common man, he who is the “best of the lousiest and the lousiest of the best.” It is the fate of so many of us to be resolutely average that it’s better that we not despair of it insensibly and instead celebrate those who are decidedly above the median values for talent and skill.

The seemingly ordinary Michael Schwartz would not be dissuaded and by use of some sorcery or super-science, as yet unknown to mankind at large, he underwent a metamorphosis and transformed himself into Mixmaster Mike, a legend on the turntables and a Hip-Hop Hero. Years ago his dreams of glory became the glorious reality he now inhabits as a globe-trotting icon in his chosen field, as important to the history of his occupation as a person could be short of having founded it themselves. Mixmaster Mike is more of an Abraham Lincoln of the turntables than he is a George Washington; the idea had been developed by others, the format and the stage established already and in place for him to do great things. He was given the opportunity to change music history’s direction irrevocably in this area, and through his talent and clever innovation, he did so.

Indeed, his list of accomplishments is grand in scope. He is a World Champion turntablist several times over and was actually asked to retire and become a judge in order to open up the competition to new talent in order to help grow the art form by giving a shred of hope to his competition, a move which he gracefully agreed to in 1995 after winning the title three years in a row. He has award-winning albums to his sole credit and he has collaborated on all manner of songs and albums with a long list of notable musicians.

The most notable name and the group which he is most famously associated with: The Beastie Boys, NYC rap legends who began their musical journey as a hardcore punk band, in days of yore.

In 1997, Mixmaster Mike became the fourth, current, and likely final DJ for the group, after the death from cancer of Adam Yauch in 2012. Mixmaster Mike was The Beastie Boys DJ longer than any of the other DJ’s who previously held the job (and who are legends in their own right) and he was privileged enough to work with them on all of their albums, tours, and live appearances from 1997 onwards.

Mixmaster Mike hasn’t slowed down much over the years. He’s had a weekly radio show in Los Angeles, worked on video games and appeared in movies – both on screen and on their soundtracks, and played venues of all variety the world over.

His current tour of Asia is taking him to the very obvious stops, such as Singapore. And, courtesy of Eddie Newman of Code Red, he is appearing in such far-flung places as, well, right here.

Phnom Penh. D-Club on Wednesday, January 14th, at 9:00PM. In front of an audience of no more than 150 lucky souls who will each pay the very reasonable and modest sum of $15 to see a legend and be entertained by him. You don’t have anything better to do on a Wednesday night in Cambodia. Trust me. You don’t. You just don’t. Believe that.

Besides, what could possibly be better than seeing a legendary performer do his thing anywhere, be the show in PP or NYC? Well, perhaps a legend and his friends? Oh, if only Herbie and the gang were also in town. Maybe they’ll surprise us.*

* Nah, they won’t, and this in no way constitutes any sort of claim that Herbie Hancock will be appearing. If that’s a deal-breaker for you – sorry. Herbie’s 74, he might make it over one of these days. Probably not. But you never know.

 

WHO:  Mixmaster Mike of the Beastie Boys
WHAT:    Hip-hop turntablist
WHERE:  D-club, #3 Street 278
WHEN:   January 14, 9pm
WHY: You don’t have anything better to do on a Wednesday night in Cambodia

Photo By Fabio Venni from London, UK (Cause nobody can do it like Mix Master Mike can) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Keys to the past

Dr.Him Sophy is leading the way up four flights of stairs to his personal concert hall. The room would host 150 people if he had the chairs, but for now, the auditorium remains one of the musicians countless works in progress.

Born in Prey Veng in 1963, Him Sophy represents the country’s lone musical composer. And while his name is still relatively obscure (for now, at least), his music has helped define nearly every notable creative endeavour to originate from the Kingdom over the last several years.

He scored the critically acclaimed Where Elephants Weep, the rock opera by John Burt and Arn Chorn-Pond. Sophiline Cheam Shapiro tapped him for the music to her 2013 dance drama, A Bend in the River. In addition to Shapiro’s dance, Dr. Sophy’s Pamsukula made headlines at Seasons of Cambodia, the 2013 festival in New York celebrating contemporary Cambodian arts. He is currently collaborating with Rithy Panh, the renowned film director, on a new project.

International exposure and critical acclaim, however, do not always bear in their wake local fame or great riches. His modest Phnom Penh music hall straddles a mid-sized duplex in Toul Kok that he shares between his home and music school. “I am only a composer,” he says. “But even if I am not a millionaire or a banker or something, I feel like I do many things for Cambodia.”

Surviving the genocide and witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union, where he obtained his PhD in composition, does not a lazy man make. At 9am on New Year’s day he is at school working. The students and his classes are what keep him afloat, but they are not without cost. His first true love, the piano, is often stranded on the wayside of treble clefs, students and family.

But not today. In a rare break from his churning creativity, Dr. Sophy sits and pours through a dozen or so flawless stanzas of Tchaikovsky and classic French compositions before moving on to Dave Brubeck’s Take Five. The master and his most prized possession reverberate in unison. His eyes rise and fall, his chest heaves as his fingers race across the ivories. His listeners are not exempt from the exercise: guess the chef d’oeuvre.

He stops and laughs. “It’s not easy,” he says.

The composer might be talking about the concerto, a notoriously challenging piece, or the rather obvious logistical question of how one goes about getting a 300-kilogram piano up four flights of narrow stairs. His simple manner is disconcerting, but the sub-current of existential commentary on the Cambodian condition is undeniable.

THE MEMORIES

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Him Sophy was 12 years old when the Khmer Rouge captured Phnom Penh and forced his family to return to their native province of Prey Veng. From the suffering, the hunger, the pain, he has extracted variations and allegros to remember that which has been lost. And in doing so, he may have created his life’s defining work: Memory From Darkness, a 25-minute piece written for the violin, cello and piano.

Him Sophy was a student at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory when he wrote Memory From Darkness in 1990. The wounds were still fresh in those days, barely a decade removed from Pol Pot’s atrocities. His music represents one of the country’s earliest attempts to face its horrific past.

Haunting, intensely personal and profoundly human, the composition has only twice been performed publicly. The first time occurred during a series of concerts in Phnom Penh in July 2013, when the New York New Music Ensemble recorded the piece in collaboration with Cambodia Living Arts, a local non-profit that supports music and art. The last was a recital given by his students in his fourth-floor auditorium the Sunday before Christmas. It was a poignant performance celebrating the long-awaited release of Memory From Darkness on CD, nearly 25 years after its conception.

The Advisor recently sat down with Dr. Sophy to discuss Memory From Darkness, the state of classical music, and the delicate balancing act of honouring tradition while pushing creative boundaries.

You composed Memory From Darkness in 1990, when you were a student. It was first played publicly in 2013 by the New York New Music Ensemble. Why did it take so long for it to come to the public?

Memory From Darkness was composed for my exam at the Conservatory. There was one recording, but it was not good. There was lots of noise, but I still kept it and brought it to Cambodia. In the beginning, it was not easy to know who would play my music. Nobody played these instruments well. Even now, I tried to test Cambodian violinists and cellists for the launch on December 21st, but they could not play it. Their technique is still very limited.

Memory From Darkness is a really difficult piece, and it’s from the heart. The technique is very high. That’s why nobody ever performed it here. It was only through the support of Cambodian-American composer Chinary Ung, who is actually coming next month, that it could happen. He came to Cambodia with his ensemble and then had the idea, “Oh, I want to support Him Sophy because his pieces, many pieces, were only performed a long time ago.” That’s why the New York New Music Ensemble came with him in 2013.

Why do you stay in Cambodia if you cannot find musicians who can play your music?

Many people go outside. I went to the United States. I finished my PhD in Moscow and came back to Cambodia. I wanted to express my feelings. That is why I chose to stay in Cambodia. I feel like the world is round for me. I don’t feel nationality. I don’t feel different. I can live anywhere. I can stay anywhere. In Cambodia, if I want to play Western music, I can. When Sophiline Shapiro commissioned me to compose music for A Bend in the River, I composed music from the Angkorian period. From Angkor until now, no one composed this music. But I am composing new pieces of this ancient culture. It’s like a battle between a human and a crocodile. I had to find a balance: not too different, but not too easy, either, otherwise they never learn.

It’s a Russian professor who told you to come back to your roots as part of your composition. Had he not pushed you back toward your origins, would your music be more European?

Maybe. Maybe not. Sometimes it depends on the student. If the student doesn’t want to continue from their own roots, it’s okay. Nobody is forced. Of course, I learned a lot of Western techniques. I learned them all. But Khmer culture is brave. I think we continue to learn and improve. Our music is not bad. But techniques like polyphony and harmony in orchestration come from the West. We can say that without Western culture, it would be hard to develop our own root culture. That’s true. But that’s globalisation and cultural diversity.

So you composed a Cambodian rock opera?

A rock opera, yes! No one believed I could do it, not even the American musicologists. From the beginning, they said it would never come out. They did, yeah, because I used traditional Cambodian instruments to accompany an opera, and there are a lot of traditional Cambodian instruments. Thirty-seven traditional instruments combined with a rock band — electric guitar, electric bass, piano, synthesizer — it took me eight years to complete it. I think many people around me ran away because they couldn’t survive from the small money. It was big, huge work, but little money.

And there is a lot to say about that opera. There are still many dissertations you could write about that opera, because there are a lot of secrets inside. But in Cambodia, no one knows that much about opera because the knowledge is still limited. Now, the younger generation, they are trying, they are starting to understand. That’s why in my opera I used a lot of traditional Cambodian instruments and a rock band, because I could not find the right cellist here. It was a new musical genre, something nobody ever did before. That’s why it took such a long time.

How would you assess Cambodian creativity in 2015?

We have good contemporary dance. First, I think of Amrita Performing Arts and the Sophiline Arts Ensemble. Cambodia Living Arts also gives very big support to traditional music and dance. But it seems like it’s the private sector where things are growing and developing the fastest. In the aspect of music and composing, I think it’s only me, and maybe also my students, but they are still not ready to compose symphonies just yet.

What do you have planned next?

There are a lot of opportunities, but how to choose? Right now, they are waiting for my music for Requiem For Cambodia. That’s a huge project. We are collaborating with a very famous Oscar-nominated Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh. He has joined me on the Requiem project. He will make the film for my music.
Also, well, it’s sort of a secret, but I’ll tell you: I am working on a new musical combining traditional Cambodian styles and modern dance. Sometimes, when I think about how to survive as an artist, I think maybe I need to come back and create a musical that is less complicated, that can serve the people more.

Beet Red

The Japanese are coming and they are bringing their quirky sake bars and eccentric eateries with them. The latest is Krahom, a small noodle bar in BKK I that specialises in beetroot. The menu is short, with only three dishes: soup, fried noodles and fried rice. The house specialty is red egg noodle made with beetroot juice. The seafood version ($3.50) comes topped with eggs and vegetables and accompanied with a side dish of sweet, hot chilli sauce. Beet flavour is undetectable. The dishes are not huge, but they are healthy. According to the menu, beetroot promotes many health benefits such as reduced risk of stroke, lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels. The internet lists even more – wink, wink.

Krahom Noodle Bar, #204 Street 322.