Hey Eat Pray Love Ladies: Call Me!

Photo of Ketut Liyer from Padang Ekspres.  Ketut's advice
for young lady looking for love: "get a haircut that doesn't
make you look like a dude".

Liz, You're Killing Ketut!

Since I've been back in Indonesia I've read a couple of newspaper articles about the "Balinese medicine man" that meant so much to the authress of Eat Love Pray, Elizabeth "Liz" Gilbert.  According to one article that appeared in the Padang Ekspres, the "medicine man", Ketut Liyer, is currently making about US$650 (Rp6,250,000) per day seeing "patients" who come to him with questions about life, the universe, and everything.  Sadly, Ketut had to be hospitalized earlier in the year with a kidney ailment.  According to the aforementioned Padang Ekspres article, his illness was caused from fatigue brought on by entertaining too many foreign visitors.  Of course, it could also be at least in part due to his age; he says he's 98, whereas his family says he's 95.  

I remember hearing about the book and sometime last year while in a theater in Jogja or Jakarta or someplace I saw a trailer for the movie, which starred Julia "Methuselah" Roberts and that Panamanian guy that got to bag both Scarlet Johansen and Penelope Cruz in the SAME MOVIE.  I didn't think too much of it at the time, but during this trip in addition to the newspaper stories, I've heard tales of a whole tourist trade that's grown up around the book.  Being that I'm in Ubud (1), a place that figures prominently in the book, I decided to learn more about this strange phenomenon, because Ketut's got a pretty good racket going.

Liz's website here.

After looking unsuccessfully around Ubud's gutters and coffeeshops for a cast-aside copy of Eat Pray Love, I broke down and forked over US$5 for the book at one of the many used bookstores.  I got pretty bored after reading the copyright page, so I skipped right to the bit on Bali.  I figured I could fill in the gaps about India and Spain or where ever as I went along.  I think I did a pretty good job; evidently a good part of the story is about Liz's quest to find the deity, which  to her is a universal force of sorts that allows you to do whatever you want whenever you want without responsibility to anyone or anything.  In fact, it's holy to adopt a solipsistic attitude towards life, just so long as you do some yoga every now and again.

I got through the last section of the book in about two days.  There are some charming passages; I really thought the part where she had to explain to Ketut what a Xerox machine was cute!  Imagine this "Balinese medicine man" with all this accumulated life experience and priceless wisdom never having experienced the miracle of photocopying!  It's priceless!  I do, however, feel compelled to correct a couple of errors Liz made along the way.  I'm no expert on Bali, but I do know that the "temple ruins" at Borobudur on Java are not Hindu ruins, as Liz mentions on page 298.  I also know that when Indonesians say "where are you going" (mau ke mana), it's not because they have some deeper concern about the cosmic balance, as Liz seems to think.  They're simply saying "Howzit?"  Of course, Liz can be forgiven for these trifling oversights given that she's unlocking the secrets of the universe for all the overpriveledged and underloved women of the top tax brackets of the Western world.

I Had A Dream.... 

Stuff you're gonna need for enlightenment from here.

One of minor themes of the book is dream interpretation.  Liz has big scary nightmares that make her feel bad, and that's sad.  But as it turns out, she'd just been misinterpreting her dreams!  Silly Liz!  Towards the end of the book Liz learns that she's one of the most spiritually powerful people in the universe.  She's like on a really high level.  Her dreams are evidence of this, and once she learns their true meaning, well, she's just that much more spiritual and powerful in an ethereal sort of way.  But this all got me to thinking....I have dreams too!  And sometimes they are scary, but maybe I'm just misinterpreting them.  For instance, here's a short capsule of a dream I had just the other night:

More awesome stuff you need from here.

I was walking down the street in the submerged quarter of an orientalesque city that often appears in my dreams and I noticed the gate to the evil pirate Barbara Bush's compound was ajar.  I'd heard tales told of all the wondrous riches within the compound, and I figured I'd have a look around and maybe help myself to some of the aforementioned limitless wealth.  I figured that if the wealth truly was limitless, then, from a mathematical perspective, it wouldn't really be stealing if I invoked the five-finger discount.  But then things started to get weird; the Hamburgler walked in just as I was pulling a three-inch wad of hundred dollar bills from the cash register. Since I had gone to high school with the Hamburgler, I was well acquainted with his wily ways. In other words, I knew what he thought before he thought it. I knew I could handle the Hamburgler if it came down to fisticuffs, but the presence of his minions the fryguys tipped the scales in his favor.  So I broke off half the money and handed it to him.  We then proceeded with looting the place.  That day in the real world I'd just finished reading Ryszard Kapuscinski's account of the Angolan civil war, and so I figure that's where the pillaging part of the dream came from.  Then there was a knock on the door.  When we opened it we saw Loretta Lynn standing there decked out in a traditional Balinese dress and wielding some sort of instrument of coercion.  She told us she was a representative of the Grand Ole Opry sent to make sure there were enough deep-fried snacks in the freezer.  Evidently in dream world the Grand Ole Opry is an authority not to be trifled with, because we had a Gestapoesque fear of her and pretty much let her have the run of the place.  After she completed her inspection she left.  At this point me and the Hamburgler knew time was of the essence, so we made haste and then made tracks.  By this time I was starting to feel guilty about the caper, though.  I was just about to turn back to return some of the loot when the volcano erupted and covered the compound in lava.

Surely this dream means something....surely there's some sort of other-worldly significance?  If only I could ask Ketut....If only there wasn't a line down the block of cosmically-confused BMW babies wondering when their prince will come....

You Too Can Be Oprah!

One of the main characters in this part of the book is a thoroughly amoral, deceitful, and depraved charlatan of a "sex therapist" that Liz makes friends with.  The bond between these two ladies is so close and evident from the get go that it is clear they must've had a previous history in previous lives.  I like imagining the conversations between these two.

Liz:  "Ohmygod when I was in Rome for four months I ate Tiaramisu that's just to die for!"

Wayan:  "What's Tiaramisu?  Is it rice?"

Liz:  "Oh it's just so decadent!  It's a heavenly desert with liquor, chocolate, and cake.  I love it almost as much as I love yoga!  You must've had it....how do you say it in Indonesian?"

Wayan: "We don't have that here...."

Liz:  "Poor child [no pun intended]!  What do you eat then?

Wayan:  "Well, we eat rice..."

Liz:  "Yeah but what else?"

Wayan:  "Well...uh....rice....all the time...for like the past 40 years...."

There is a fundamental flaw in the Liz-Wayan axis that prevents Wayan from appreciating just how wonderful Liz is for giving up an apartment in the Village and a house in the Hamptons.  You see, Wayan is poor and Liz is rich, and so the former just has no understanding for the tremendous sacrifices Liz has made on her spiritual journey.  Wayan just doesn't understand how monumental it is for Liz to have eaten spaghetti by the Trevi fountain.  It begins to irk Liz that her new friend lives a hand-to-mouth existence (like probably 85% of the world's population), and so she decides to do something about it.  Liz gets proactive.  She sends out an email to all of her friends asking for donations so that she can buy Wayan a house.  Eventually she raises about US$18,000, which she deposits in Wayan's bank account.  Upon reflection, Liz reaches the following conclusion about how the universe works:

Madame and Lil Ali Babette from here.

"I knew that it was Tutti who had manifested this miracle, through the potency of her prayers, willing that little blue tile of hers to soften and expand around her and to grow--like one of Jack's magic beans--into an actual home that would take care of herself and her mother and a pair of orphans forever" (365).

This is another really cute story.  Tutti is Wayan's daughter, and the tile that is mentioned in the excerpt is something she kyped from a local construction site (before you go bashing the little thief remember that she's being raised by a woman who's stock and trade is the facilitation of adulterous and elicit affairs).  Despite the fact that people from all over the world (in Liz's words) responded to her request for money, Liz gives all the credit to the prayers of a little girl!

But after a while a problem arises.  Wayan seems to be reluctant to spend the money on a house.  This creates a dilemma for Liz, because it's really important for her to have photographs of her "little Indonesian sister" in front of the new house Liz provided for her.  Liz is kind of like the World Bank.  The poverty and other problems of the world offend her because they are inconvenient.  So she decides to throw money at the problem to make it go away  but she wants to do it her way.  It's not part of the plan to let her "poor Indonesian sister" make decisions about the money herself.  In fact, Liz concludes that Wayan is attempting to pull a fast one on her, and so she threatens to take the money back if Wayan doesn't buy a house THIS VERY MINUTE.

It's quite a strange strategy for someone who claims to have transcended materialism in her quest for happiness and true spiritual enlightenment.  In fact, the whole episode begs the question, "So Liz, did you find that it's all about money afterall?"

Liz, You're Beautiful on the Inside...

Finally at long last Liz finds someone that's so desperate to get into her old and neglected cookie jar that he will put up with all her horseshit and make her feel like she's the center of the universe.  This is probably my favorite part of the book because we learn so much about the profound depth of Liz's character.  There's a passage here that I think speaks for itself, so please indulge me while I quote at length:

"The dinner with the expatriates was great fun, and I felt myself revisiting all these long-dormant aspects of my personality.  I even got a little bit drunk, which was notable after all the purity of my last few months of praying at the Ashram and sipping tea in my Balinese flower garden.  And I was flirting!  I hadn't flirted in ages.  I'd only been hanging around with monks and medicine men lately, but suddenly I was dusting off the old sexuality again.  Though I couldn't really tell who I was flirting with, I was kind of spreading it around everywhere.  Was I attracted to the witty Australian former journalist sitting next to me? ('We're all drunks here,' he quipped.  'We write references for other drunks')  Or was it the quiet intellectual German down the table?  (He promised to lend me novels from his personal library)(2).  Or was it the handsome older Brazilian man who had cooked this giant feast for all of us in the first place?  (I liked his kind brown eyes and his accent.  And his cooking, of course.  I said something very provocative to him, out of nowhere.  He was making a joke at his own expense, saying 'I'm a full catastrophe of a Brazilian man--I can't dance, I can't play soccer and I can't play any musical instruments.'  For some reason I replied, 'Maybe so.  But I have a feeling you could play a very good Casanova'. (3)  Time stopped solid for a long, long moment then as we looked at each other frankly, like, That was an interesting idea to lay on this table.  The boldness of my statement hovered in the air around us like a fragrance.  He didn't deny it.  I looked away first, feeling myself blush)." (354)

As you can see from the quote, Liz is a real catch.  But, like all timeless epics, before she finally finds her man, there are tests and trials along the way.  The short quotation below, my favorite from the book, describes one such encounter with a dashing young man who briefly takes Liz's fancy:

"He was the first man I'd met in a long while who I really like in that way, as they say.  He was a few years older than me, had led a most interesting life with all the good resume points (liked The Simpsons, traveled all over the world, lived in an Ashram once, mentioned Tolstoy, seemed to be employed, etc)...." (356)

I was so intrigued by this that I decided to perform a little experiment.  I made myself a t-shirt bearing the words "I [heart] refugees" and sewed conspicuously to my cargo pants a Patagonia tag that I had earlier cut off the unwashed fleece of an Australian passed out in a doorway in Kuta.  Then I made my way to a couple of Ubud's many bars.  After scoping the scene I ambled up to a lonely-looking young lady.  The conversation went something like this:

"I think it was Tolstoy who wrote, in his epic chronicle The Tartar Tart, 'Nice canskis, babushka..."

"[Gasp] Take me!  I'm yours!  I'll follow you anywhere! [Swoon]".

Finally Liz gets her man and concludes that the key to happiness is having someone slavishly devote themselves to you.  You also need to throw in an intercontinental jet-setting lifestyle.  Very important lessons for those of us that just aren't quite content with being the most privileged people in the whole history of the planet.

Anyway, after I finished the book I realized that I'm a pretty well-balanced and grounded kind of guy.  I've got most things figured out and am pretty well contented with where I am.  I mean, I'm so far along in this life thing that I probably ought to have a following and some disciples.  So I'm going to go ahead and make this standing offer to the Eat Pray Love Ladies (EPLL): Whatever that Ketut guy is doing for you or to you, I'll do it for half price.  You just need to find your way down to Kerinci Valley.  Remember to bring beer and tacos.

Notes

(1)  No offense Liz and the expat community that spends their time drinking coffee luak lattes and eating overpriced french food, but Ubud's kinda like Disneyland for adults.

(2)  He has a personal library?  Of novels (a,b)?

(3)  Later Liz makes the point that she refused Brazilian guy's advances in the car on TWO separate occasions after so flagrantly offering up the goods at his party.  Two words can be used to describe Liz, and they rhyme with rock and sneeze, respectively.

Notes on notes

(a)  I'll bet you've never seen anyone footnote their footnotes, have you?

(b)  It's often said that sarcasm is the device of the weak.  My sarcasm here masks my admiration that the German scholar's personal library is filled with novels.  My own personal library is filled not with novels, but rather pornography.  To my credit, though, it is a pretty cosmopolitan collection.